Song Remains the Same Chapter 111: Missing Persons, a supernatural fanfic

Song Remains the Same

Chapter 111 / Missing Persons

"She is the sunlight… and the sun is gone."
- Trading Yesterday

Rain poured loudly outside the motel room where three men stood. Two stared at the third in speechless, horrified shock. Sam and Dean had just been told news that they couldn't even begin to understand.

Dean found his voice first, but just barely so. "What do you mean dead?" he asked, his trembling tone indicating that he didn't—couldn't—wouldn't believe it. Like the thought of that being anything less than a sick joke or a misunderstanding would make him throw up. There was no reply and Dean asked again, a little firmer and steadier this time. "What do you mean our sister is dead?" When Cas said nothing and his face only continued to show utter heartwrenching pain that confirmed the worst, Dean's voice cracked and he leapt headfirst into the first stage of grief: denial. "She can't die, you made it where she can't die!" he protested.

Quiet and guilty and appearing shell-shocked himself, Cas didn't look at his friend. "I know that," he said faintly, and the mildest confusion showed on his face. "And… I can't explain it." He looked at Dean finally, his blue eyes grim and filled with emotional agony. "But she's dead, Dean." His voice wavered and caught, sounded like it might give out completely from the difficulty in speaking those words aloud. "S-she died in Purgatory." It all seemed too much for the angel: he began to turn around to hide his face again.

Abrupt angry panic flared at Cas's resigned words. "Well bring her back!" Dean shouted, but his fury was tempered by deeply abiding and panicked fear. In fact, that fear drove him to grab the angel by the front of his filthy trench coat with both hands and shake hard, preventing him from turning his back on the brothers. "Bring her back Cas!"

"Dean I can't!" The angel shouted his reply with a jarring loss of composure, shocking both brothers with the desperation and alarm that made the angel look so haggard and nearly unrecognizable. "She's gone!"

That word—gone—was a word neither Sam or Dean knew how to take. And maybe Cas didn't either. The angel stood there pathetically as Dean hung onto the lapels and stared at him in total horror. Cas was breathing hard like he was having trouble doing so at all; so hard that his shoulders shuddered—and his face had an expression on it like he was near tears. It was terrifying to see him so emotional. Terrifying and convincing that he was telling the truth.

The angel's face twisted up and crumpled all at once; he began to speak in a voice thick with tears as the brothers listened on, aghast. "And she's not just dead but… I can't sense her soul anymore, it's—it's like before when I accidentally—" he let out a noisy sobbing sound and looked around in dismayed confusion. He looked similar to a shock victim, one who was questioning his own sanity and who was having problems with functioning at any level at all. "It's… it's all garbled, I can't remember parts—" he murmured through a tight voice, then shook his head and raised his teary eyes to look at Dean, who'd let go and was standing there with a body that didn't remember how to breathe. "She's gone. Completely and irrevocably gone." The silence was utterly painful as it stretched onward, and Castiel feebly tried to fill it with explanations. "S-she came back to Purgatory for me but… something was wrong and I knew it right away. She was sick. Very sick." Sick? Dean hung on to Cas's every word in a horrified trance and he imagined his baby sister who had pretty much always been healthy as a horse and strong and a fighter… he imagined her sick like the time after she'd been possessed by Lucifer and it broke his fucking heart. Cas looked similar to how Dean felt as he finished telling a story that really told nothing at all. "And I tried to get us out but she just… faded away in front of me." His voice was as hollow as his eyes were.

It was impossible to understand. "Sick?" Dean echoed faintly, feeling like he could be sick himself. "Y-you can't get sick in Purgatory!" he protested.

"I know that," Cas whispered, and that fact seemed to torment him completely. "But I know what I saw. What happened to her." His choked, failing voice caught again as his eyes stared off into the distance, scanning over memories. "She withered away into nothing." The pain grew more and more pronounced on his face. "She died as I held her in my arms…" he abruptly trailed off and collapsed to sit on the edge of the bed he stood near. He bowed his face into his hand, sobbing weakly.

The brothers stared at the defeated angel with expressions of mutual grief, heartbreak, and shock. Winded and gutted with eyes full of gathering tears, Sam began to breathe heavily. Like he did when he was trying not to cry but it was already too late. "T-this is my fault," he managed in a cracking, thick voice that barely worked at all. "All my fault."

Cas's shoulders shook as he smothered down choked sobs. Sam sat slowly in a daze at the kitchenette table. And Dean stood still in place, his face showing the extent of his destroyed emotions. "T-this isn't right," he murmured unevenly, still too shocked to break down or lose it. "H-how can she just be dead?" He was unable to swallow this pill. It didn't make sense; he couldn't accept it. He looked at Cas, who had gotten some momentary hold of himself—but shining ribbons made by tears had stained his face and run down into his scraggly beard. "And h-how the hell did you get out?" Dean asked him falteringly, voice a little high from the emotions he was currently channeling. "T-the portal?"

Exhausted and emotionally bereft, Cas's reply was flat and lifeless. "I… have no idea how I got out."

…What? Dean gaped dumbly.

Cas's face flickered as he stared into nothing. "I remember endlessly running and hiding from Leviathan, and… trying t-to keep her body safe." His voice dropped in volume as he fought himself. "I suppose I needed to protect her in some way even though… it was too late." Words that made both of the brothers fight harder to keep composed. Especially Sam, whose youthful face was screwed up and whose hazel eyes were overflowing with tears. "And then it was all torn away and I was on the side of the road in Kansas. And... that was it." Dean waited. That couldn't be it. Cas seemed to feel the same: he was slumped and devoid of anything that resembled life or internal fire. He looked like a walking ghost. A ruined man. He came only slightly out of his grief to turn his heavy gaze onto Dean. "I've been trying to reach out, but for whatever reason, I wasn't at full power until just a moment ago." He grew quieter. "When I realized I was on earth again, I just had to tell you. I had to find you boys and let you know."

Dean was out of answers, out of everything. His sister, dead. Dead. Dead? The world and everything in it no longer interested him at all. He couldn't fathom facing another day and knowing that he was alive and his sister wasn't. How was it fair? How was it right? How could he have spent so long working to keep her safe and then lose her like this? She'd been fine. Fine! And now she had passed away and he hadn't even known…? It was like he had just had an epiphany of the worst and darkest kind. "What's the point of this?" he asked aloud suddenly, speaking from the place of grief that had so quickly been sliced open. "Any of it?" He looked around for someone to agree with him, someone to explain. "Why are we doing this?" he asked, not even sure what he was asking about. He got louder and louder, more volatile. He wasn't sure if he was going to cry or if he was going to punch something. "I could have stopped this from happening!" he shouted at no one and nothing in particular. "I could have stopped it!" The downpour of rain outside felt so appropriate in that moment. That torrential mass pummeling the earth was so very like the grief raining down over Dean.

Castiel barely reacted at all. He only stared blankly at the area ahead of himself as he slouched over his knees. "I don't think so, Dean." His deep voice was only a sad whisper. "I tried to save her. I tried to get us out. I tried so hard." His face crumpled anew and he hung his head, covering his features with a hand again. "It didn't work. And now I… I don't think I want to live anymore."

Startled and even more plagued than before when his friend said that, Dean shook his head, hardening his voice through his pain. "Cas, man… don't say that."

Cas looked up at Dean in agonized questioning, like a child who was truly clueless on how to deal with the feelings he was facing. Tears flooded his tired, worldweary face. "How am I supposed to go on without her in the world?" he asked softly, and the question and the way he asked it—were both heartbreaking. Dean didn't know an answer. Sam's quiet weeping sounds he was trying so hard to muffle provided the backdrop for Cas's final, broken sentiment. "She was everything, Dean. Now there's nothing." Without warning the angel began to weep in a way Dean had never heard before. It was awful in every way imaginable.

After a stunned moment in which he realized he couldn't feel his legs, Dean slowly and gingerly sat down on the end of the other bed and he wanted to be sick, to fall over, to pass out. He heard Cas crying somewhere beyond the sound of the blood in his own ears and he stared at the ground with an expression of absolutely confounded heartache and loss. So this was it. But he still fought to understand. She was gone? Dead? He didn't comprehend it even for a second and as it rolled over him—as it really sank in—he began to suddenly cry. He tried so hard to hide it, to stop his tears, to not weep like he wanted to. Because he thought somewhere deep down if he didn't grieve her, she wasn't really dead. Not her. She should be here above ground, not me. He fought to get a hold of himself and find something to do about the boat they were in. "There… there has to be something we can do," he managed between sharp, uneven breaths and he looked at his angel friend despairingly. This was Cas—the angel who had pulled Dean out of Hell and became a god to save his sister. 'Impossible' wasn't in this guy's vocabulary when it came to Alex Winchester, right?

Cas opened his mouth as if he were going to reply with something to give Dean hope. Then he hesitated a second and the look on his face changed. He went wooden, somber, and flatline again. "There isn't. Believe me. I've already considered everything."

The worst news Dean had ever heard. Lost and dazed by this news and the denial he felt, he stared at nothing as tears ran out of his stinging eyes. The helplessness he felt was the heaviest weight in the universe, and nothing would ever relieve that. At the kitchenette table, Sam opened up his laptop and pulled out his notepad, cleared his throat and sniffed and set his face doggedly after dashing at a cheek with a hard, brusque hand. Dean looked at him, a glare beginning to form. What the hell was he doing? Immediately angry and incredibly so, he stared in disbelief. "Sam, what the fuck?" he asked in a condemning, furious tone. "…Are you seriously doing research right now?"

A muscle in Sam's jaw jerked as he stared hard at the pen in his hand and not at his brother. "I just need something to focus on, and these missing people still need our help," he said. "We can still do something to save them so I'm—"

Dean stood up to his feet, completely pissed and seeing red. "Okay so why the hell do you even care about saving strangers when you didn't give a shit either way about your own family?!"

There was a chill that overcame Sam in every facet when Dean said that. Sam still stared at the pen in his hand. He spoke low and measured, with incredible amounts of self-restraint, but it was easy to hear that he was angry. "Dean, I did. I do. No one can say I don't love my family."

"I can!" Dean shouted in retort at full blast. "I can say it because you abandoned us!" Sam literally flinched at the accusations; at the things his brother was holding against him. "Pick a time; 'cause it wasn't just once! You don't care and you never did!" Dean thrust his arms out at Sam in an angry, jerky gesture to demonstrate his point. "You just found out Alex died and you're trying to find leads!?"

Sam lost it and shot to his feet, knocking the chair he'd been sitting in over and dropping the pen as he abruptly stood at his full hulking height; seething and crying at the same time. "I care, Dean!" he shouted. "I care so fucking much that if I don't find a way to get out of my own mind I will break in half!" He stood there heaving breaths, his face showing nothing but raw misery, his eyes full of tears. His voice began to waver as he lost ability to regulate himself—anger gave away to a broken grief. "I just found out my little sister died—the one I have been with since before I was even in this godforsaken world; the one I shared everything with… are you really gonna say I don't care!?" Spittle flew as Sam's vehemence turned to righteous, wounded anger again. "This is my fault! I know that! If I hadn't sat around being a selfish bastard all last year she'd probably be here right now! And I'll never forgive myself for that! Ever!" He was shaking and the tears in his eyes were now all over his face, making it shine wetly. "Dean, you're not the only one in pain here!" Sam yelled, pain marring his expression as he both begged for his brother to understand and berated him for not doing so. "But you can't see past all your own shit enough to even see me as a human being anymore! She's not just your sister, she's mine too! And if you ever imply I loved her less than you did I'll break your damn nose!" With that final thundering threat, Sam turned and fled the motel, going into the rain with nothing—no jacket, no shoes. Just his t-shirt, gym shorts, his socks.

Suddenly contrite, Dean went to the door and gave a halfhearted, "Sam… Sam!" But Sam had disappeared into the pouring, rainy darkness. Slowly, Dean shut the door, unsure and quiet. The motel room was dark and silent. A tomb of mourning.

After a moment of Dean standing at the closed door and staring as he tried to breathe past the knife in his chest, Cas spoke up in the quietest voice. "…Where is Jamie Ward?"

Dean scoffed, keeping his emotions bottled up inside. "Who knows, man," he muttered harshly, putting on the gruff voice. "Right now I just need you to leave me alone."

Cas looked incredibly sad at those words—he didn't seem to want to be alone—but he nodded once. "Whatever you wish, Dean."

There was the soft sound of angel's wings and when Dean looked back, Cas was gone. And when he knew he was alone, Dean sagged against the wall and he let it all out. He began to cry in earnest like he needed to, hitting the doorframe with his fist a few times as he let himself feel everything, accept the news, and realize that his sister was never coming back.

Later on when he got himself together a little and wearily drifted back into the room, he would glance out of the window and realize Cas hadn't gone far at all—that the angel was sitting leaned on the hood of the Impala in the rain, letting it pour over him and soak him to the bone as he stared at the ground unmovingly for most of the night.

The Next Morning

In the waning light, Sam hunched over his laptop with a zombie-like gaze as he stared with an exhausted expression at the screen. Nearby, Cas watched TV—well, Sam had turned it on and Cas idly glanced at the set now and again from where he sat slumped on the bed. Cartoons played, the animated chatter and goofy sound effects a strange contrast to the dark and somber mood. Dean was not there.

When the rain stopped around four in the morning Sam had returned to the motel room and in his characteristic kindness and thoughtfulness, he invited Cas inside after insisting wearily that the angel should not just sit out there soaking wet alone. Dean was gruff and short with them both but said Sam was right and they needed to save the missing people and then deal with their 'personal stuff' afterward. Apparently, the topic of Alex was now off the table and not to be discussed. Sam understood that much and to be quite honest, he couldn't bear to talk about it either. So he had gone along with Dean's silent command and said nothing of their sister. Dean then insisted Cas clean himself up, paced around for a little while, then said he was going to get them some breakfast. Sam wasn't sure how he could think of food at a time like this, but he didn't argue or protest. In fact, he could barely look at or talk to his brother. Half out of guilt (his brother's words about how he abandoned his family felt true), and half out of hurt. He knew his brother and how he dealt with pain, but it still injured him to be at the receiving end of the verbal lashes. Deserved or not, Sam would have been so grateful for a night's mercy as far as that was concerned. But apparently that was too much to ask…

Sam glanced over at Cas, who was still watching the TV screen sadly. At least he looked like himself again, Sam mused halfheartedly. After Dean said to get cleaned up, Cas had disappeared for a moment into the bathroom then re-emerged looking like he always had before. The beard, the film of dirt, even the hospital pajamas were gone. Castiel wore the suit, the backwards tie, the trench coat. His hair was combed and neat; his skin looked a healthier shade. But even though he'd made himself presentable again and even looked younger, nothing could erase the heaviness in his demeanor. As Cas watched the cartoon like it were funeral coverage, Sam realized why he looked so sad about the animated show playing on channel eight. "This one was one of her favorites, right, Sam?" he asked faintly, then looked at Sam plaintively.

A ache unlike anything else squeezed at the heart in Sam's chest as he realized that Cas was watching that cartoon and only thinking of its connection to Alex. "Y-yeah," he confirmed, taken aback at how hard it was to talk about. He glanced at the screen where a cat and a mouse were up to their regular shenanigans. "Tom and Jerry." Of all things, the saddest and most bittersweet smile came over Sam's face. "I still think she liked it so much because her nickname was Mouse," he said softly, reflecting sadly on Alex and remembering her as a silent, big-eyed, knock-kneed little girl who was always climbing trees and breaking things and wanting to do whatever he and Dean were doing. His smile wavered and fell and died out completely. Mouse. His throat closed up a little more as he thought about it again. She's dead. Gone.

Cas's eyes fell fractionally to the space below the TV. His stern, plain features were gaunt and beyond sad. "I like that nickname," he said softly, watching the mouse run across the screen gleefully as the cat yowled, his foot stuck in the floor. Whimsical, goofy music played on the cheap television speakers.

Sam wasn't sure how, but those four words Cas had just spoken held more love and loss in them than anything else he'd ever heard before in his life and it made the lump in his throat even bigger and more difficult to speak through. "I do too," he managed, thinking of the sister who went by that nickname, of the girl who had the best smile and knew all of his secrets and who pretty much defined the word 'loyal.' She knew how to hold a grudge but was always willing to give a second chance to the ones she cared about—even him, even after everything. She was a deep thinker and a quick study and a good person to have on your side. He thought of her curious nature and the intrepid spirit of survival she had grown into, the way she had been his best friend in childhood and again in recent years, too. And now she was gone and she had probably died thinking he didn't care. And that couldn't be further from the truth. Tears pricked his eyes again and Sam tried not to let them gather. He had cried until he was physically sick last night and he was exhausted and bereaved. He couldn't let himself cry more. He had to focus on the job at hand. But still… he wondered. He had to know. He looked at Cas and swallowed thickly. He was almost scared of the answer to his question. "Cas, d-did she say anything about me? Before…"

Cas returned Sam's barren gaze with one of his own. "No." He paused, then frowned slightly like he was giving deeper consideration to the question. "I don't think so."

That statement struck Sam as immediately strange—internally, he did a double-take. "…You don't think so?" he asked, wondering if he were missing something.

Cas thought for a moment, like he was trying to figure it out, too. "My memories are very garbled," he finally supplied, dodging Sam's gaze. "I think I've blocked most of it out."

Sam relented and sat back slightly in the creaking motel chair he sat in. He understood. "Yeah," he murmured, thinking of Amelia and that whole jumbled ten months he barely remembered. "I get that." Sam's gaze slid to the whiskey beside his laptop. He contemplated that object for a long moment before he reached for it again and drank straight out of the bottle. The burning liquid he didn't often drink seared his throat and made his tense veins relax a little. Hunter's helper, he thought wryly. Usually he tried to make himself do something healthy and productive to deal with hard situations. But going for a run or trying meditation wasn't going to give him a quick fix this time. Neither was the booze, but it was better at dulling the pain than anything else at the moment.

The watchful angel hesitated then chanced a concerned, tentative question. "Isn't it a little early for that, Sam?"

It wasn't even eight o'clock in the morning. But Sam set the whiskey down grimly and meant it: "Not today." Cas said nothing else, and neither did Sam.

A couple minutes later, Dean walked in with an unreadable expression and a fast food bag bearing a cartoon laughing omelet. "Hey," Sam greeted cautiously, glancing at his watch inconspicuously out of habit. It was then that he realized Dean had been gone over an hour to get this one bag of food. "Took you long enough."

Just as short and bland as Sam was, Dean threw the bag down at his brother and shrugged his jacket off. "Yeah well they were short-staffed and I walked there. So you do the math." The smell of hash browns and greasy fast food sausage wafted out of the bag of food, and the smell turned Sam's stomach. He wasn't hungry. Dean apparently wasn't either—the bag of food proceeded to go completely untouched.

The brothers didn't acknowledge the heaviness between them. It was business as usual and no discussion of reality. Their current mission trumped everything: Save these missing people and then deal with 'personal stuff.' Sam tried to turn his heart and brain off. Dean gestured at the laptop and studiously avoided meeting Sam's flickering, sidelong gaze. "So. What's the latest with all this?"

Sam gave a tired shrug and threw his hands up briefly because he was at a dead end. "Well… nothing. It's like it all stopped. No more freak disappearances linked to any freak natural events."

Dean reached over Sam's shoulder from behind and took the whiskey bottle, helped himself to a good long swig. "So how many missing people we got, like seven?" he asked after he'd hissed a reaction to the burn of the booze.

"Yeah," Sam said, looking down at the notes he'd jotted. Absently, he began to read off their first names. "Luigi, Justin, Aaron, Maria—"

"—Maria, Dennis, Krista, Sven," Castiel monotoned nearby, staring at the TV screen with dead eyes as he finished the list for Sam without being asked.

The brothers looked at the angel in surprise and confusion. "…How did you know those are the names?" Sam questioned slowly.

Cas stood up and shut the television off. "Those names are all names of the prophets." He was now sadly touching the fake rose in the cheap vase on top of the TV.

"Prophets?" Dean asked incredulously.

"Yes," Cas said, his focus on the silk flower and not on the boys. "Angels instinctively know the names of every prophet—past, present, and future." His fingertips stroked the fake plant sorrowfully.

"So… this list is the name of every prophet that exists?" Dean asked, picking up Sam's notepad and waggling it.

"Yes, until the next generation is born," Cas said, distracted and looking at the floor now in tired sorrow. "Well, and Kevin Tran, of course. The other seven are possible future prophets since only one can exist at a time."

Mind working quickly to piece together what he knew with the addition of this new information, Sam realized that presented an inconsistency. "Then how is Kevin a prophet if Chuck is a prophet?"

That question made the angel's expression flicker. "I'm not sure what happened to Chuck, but…" Cas looked even sadder. "He must be dead." Glum, Cas stared at the floor. He sounded winded. "I liked Chuck."

Dean's expression showed that he felt for Cas, and Sam felt a twinge of something he hadn't expected: jealousy.

"Me too, except the publishing our lives for profit thing," Dean said, commiserating with the angel in a way that almost seemed comforting. Sam looked at his brother in disbelief—Dean was gonna treat Cas better than him in this situation? What kind of sense did that make? Dean looked back at the list of prophets, missing his brother's injured expression. "So, the next prophet comes off the bench if Kevin goes down?"

"Exactly," Cas confirmed weightily. "And they have no idea who they are, of course."

Dean nodded through a hard frown as Sam tried to continually ignore his personal feelings and focus on the mystery at hand. "So… Crowley kidnaps the whole bunch," Sam said stiffly, wishing Dean would do something—anything—to show he wasn't going to hate him forever. "As what, insurance?"

"Dunno, but, he's getting desperate," Dean commented wryly, still refusing to look Sam in the eye.

"Explains all the weird phenomena, though," Sam admitted ruefully, feeling worse and worse every passing minute. "Lower-level demons nabbing heavy-duty cargo."

Castiel visibly mulled something over in his mind. "How did Crowley get the names of the prophets? He would have had to gotten that information from an angel." He looked at Sam and Dean as the beginnings of deep worry created a squint.

"So, what… a double agent halo?" Dean asked uncertainly, like he could think of no other explanation.

Cas didn't seem to consider that option for very long. "Or the names were forcibly dragged out of an angel," he said lowly, then shook his head, clenched his jaw, voice descending into an angry growl. "I would very much like to kill Crowley right now."

"Story of my life," Dean said, maybe trying to lighten the mood. Which, of course, wasn't going to happen.

Sam's phone suddenly began to ring and he gave a sigh and picked it up—the number wasn't recognized. "Hello?" he asked tiredly, then sat up a little straighter as his eyes shot open wide. "Mrs. Tran? Where the hell have you—" there was a long pause as he listened. "What?" He listened hard for a minute then stood up and looked at Dean and Cas with an urgent, worried gaze. "Crowley's got Kevin."

Two Hours Later
Mile Marker 96, Nebraska

The boys double-timed to a halfway meeting point with Linda Tran. They were currently waiting for her arrival, pulled off to the side of a rural highway beside some thickly overgrown weeds.

Tapping his fingers impatiently on the windowsill of his car, Dean looked around restlessly. "Where the hell is she?"

"She'll be here," Sam insisted, deeply distracted.

Something about his tone made Dean look at Sam sharply. Maybe it was the look on Sam's face, maybe it was just the urge to pick a fight. Either way, Dean got rude. "What, Sam?"

Sam fumbled around, unsure how to broach the subject or if he should try at all. In the back seat, Cas was silent and stony, but it was easy to tell how torn up he was inside. Sam felt the same way and knew Dean felt like that too. So, he tried to start a dialogue about it, because he was slowly dying inside. "Shouldn't we… talk about this?" he asked hesitantly. "About what happened?"

"No," Dean replied roughly, his glare aimed out ahead of himself. "Like I said, job first, then personal stuff."

Feeling belittled and rejected, Sam let his forlorn gaze drift to his window. He didn't know how to compartmentalize like that. Not about this. "I just don't think it works like that," he said softly, brokenly.

Dean's jaw tightened. "It has to, Sam."

And they said nothing more.

A few minutes later, a white Lexus sedan pulled up next to them, parking carelessly and crookedly in the weeds. No sooner had the car jerked to a stop than out came the driver: a short, petite Asian woman with neatly bobbed hair. Even as the boys were getting out of the car to greet her, she was getting in Sam's face without meaning to, motherly concern making her a little animated. "You can do this, can't you? You can get him back?" she demanded frantically, seeming to have forgotten about personal space or saying hello or anything else like that.

"Whoa, whoa, Mrs. Tran, calm down," Sam counseled, holding her back a little bit. "We'll do our best."

"How did Crowley find you?" Dean asked from across the top of the Impala. He was rounding the car slowly as Cas stood on the other side of the car and said nothing.

Mrs. Tran abruptly gave an impetuous shrug and an eye roll. "Oh, I hired a witch, and she ratted us out."

"…A witch?" Sam asked, astonished. "Why'd you hire a witch?"

Mrs. Tran was put-out. "To make demon bombs, of course!"

Sam suppressed a rude remark and a flat out eye roll. "Well you hired the wrong one," he said thinly. The only decent witch he'd ever met was Jamie Ward.

"Who's this guy?" Mrs. Tran asked, indicating Cas with a dubious thrust of her chin.

"It's Cas," Sam explained.

Mrs. Tran's face changed into something near reverence. "Oh." She eyed Cas in interest, curiosity, and slight nervousness. "Heard of you."

Cas looked like even the mildest show of attention given to him was uncomfortable.. Dean stayed on point, drawing Mrs. Tran's gaze to him instead. "You have any idea where Crowley took Kevin?"

A slightly naughty smile suddenly appeared on Mrs. Tran's face. "No. But…" she sauntered back around her vehicle and unlocked the trunk of her car with a sassy little push of a button. "...this guy might." She lifted the trunk open to show a bound and gagged demon—on the inside of the trunk lid there was a devil's trap.

Impressed at her resourcefulness, Sam couldn't hold back a surprised smile. "Wow, way to go Mrs. Tran!"

She looked pleased with herself. "Told you boys," she replied. "Just 'cause I'm old doesn't mean I can't screw some shit up—especially if you mess with my son."

Looking all too eager to do someone some bodily harm, Dean withdrew the demon blade from his jacket as he stared down the demon in the trunk. "Buddy, it's your unlucky day," he declared. "Let's talk."

As Dean tortured a screaming demon in the trunk of Mrs. Tran's car and Mrs. Tran kept lookout to the west, Sam and Cas kept lookout to the east. The angel said nothing—just frowned off into the distance in pained sadness. When he couldn't keep from asking any longer, Sam finally spoke up. "You okay, Cas?"

"No," Cas replied in that low, flat voice of his. He glanced sidelong at Sam. "And you're not either." Somewhere nearby, Dean's rumbling voice shouted something at the demon. "And neither is he," Cas said.

Sam nodded stiffly, not sure what to say or how to begin even talking about how he was feeling at the moment. His entire painful life spun through his mind and he wondered why it only got worse. When were they gonna get a break? Maybe never. "I sometimes wonder how we're even still functional at this point," he mused quietly after a long pause. If functional was what you could call it. Dean was a bloodthirsty and closed-off headcase. Sam was… well, he didn't even know where to start with his own crap. And all because of this hunting life and the high price you paid to live it. "First my mom," he murmured. "Then Jess. Then my dad a-and Adam. Then Bobby and a hundred others." His throat tightened as he thought of the freshest loss, the most painful one. "Now my sister." And they didn't even have a body to have a funeral for.

His vision began to swim, his voice began to fail. "I'm so tired of this life taking the people I love, Cas." He stared off at the empty rural highway in disconsolate emotion. "Maybe that's why I walked away all the times I have before… because I couldn't take reality." Cas was giving him a confused expression and Sam realized… Cas didn't seem to know. "Dean didn't tell you?" he asked, embarrassed about it but not about to try and avoid the subject. Cas deserved to hear the truth. "Thought you knew. I—I left again." It was incredibly difficult to admit that. Having Dean hate him was bad enough. Now Cas would, too. "I just… went off and did my own thing and left my sister to save you guys alone this past year." Saying it out loud felt so wrong. The guilt was unimaginable.

Cas looked mystified at the information, but he didn't just listen to Sam's words. He also listened to Sam's hurt tone of voice. "Why, Sam?" His confusion and touch of disappointment were even worse than Dean's shouted condemnations.

Sam tried to give a wretched laugh because otherwise he'd cry. He didn't deserve the olive branch. "I don't know. A girl? A dog? A break from living a waking nightmare every day?" He shook his head and stared off into middle distance unseeingly. "It's kind of like I can't even remember my own reasons for what I did."

Cas gave a long, tensely thoughtful silence. "It's strange. But I understand what you mean." And he said nothing more of the matter. Didn't berate or judge Sam or lecture him on how bad and hopeless he was. Just stood there with him in their mutual pain for a long moment. The demon's screams kept echoing in between Dean's shouts and demands and threats. Cas looked more and more sickened as the moment dragged on. But when he spoke, Sam realized it was for another reason. "I keep expecting her to be here," he said in a soft, rough whisper. "Standing near you or Dean or sitting in the back of the car. And she never is."

Cas had this heartbreaking childlike way about him, but never had it ever been more heartbreaking than this moment. The angel—the ancient being who had seen so much more than any human ever had or would—looked at Sam in grief-stricken appeal. "Will it always be like this, Sam?"

The urge to lie—to give Cas some words to soothe his agony was really overwhelming. But Sam had to be honest. "In time, yeah, the sharper pain fades away," he said, speaking from his own experience. "But… you always feel the void." He thought of Mom, Dad, Jess, the others. And now Alex. He felt a huge hole in him, a hole that burned and ached and made him want to give up on everything. His jaw tightened and his eyebrows tensed harder. "And some voids just eat away at you until there's nothing left."

Cas seemed to have anticipated that much and nodded, accepting his fate of everlasting grief with quiet, broken dignity. "I think this will be one of those voids," he murmured quietly. And Sam shut his eyes briefly because he couldn't bear what had happened. Couldn't bear it at all.

Later
Atlantic, Iowa

Dean got the Crowley's location out of the demon in Mrs. Tran's trunk in a matter of an hour and Castiel ported them, cars and all, to a back road in Iowa. After Sam regretfully handcuffed Kevin's mom to the steering wheel of her car (she would only be a liability after all), the boys and Cas proceeded into the abandoned-looking factory that Crowley was inside of. After getting inside of the compound they split up—Sam went on his own to try and find the kidnapped prophets and Dean and Cas stuck together. It was quiet inside the warehouse. Too quiet.

It was a maze of dark hallways and catwalks, old rusted structures and machinery. For awhile, neither Dean nor Cas said anything. Then as they passed through dilapidated a loading dock, Cas got a certain glint in his eyes. "We're very near Kevin," he said lowly, suddenly taking the lead from Dean. "I can sense him." He gestured to Dean, pointing ahead to where a huge metal door was chained shut from the outside. Cas strode ahead, making for the door.

But Dean paused and did not follow. His eyes slid to the side because the back of his neck was prickling, alerting him to a presence. Ah, crap. The hunter turned quickly, finding himself face to face with a demon. Well, here goes nothing. Dean reared back, demon blade already in hand, but the demon yanked him forward telepathically, sidestepped him, and sent him flying overhead to crash into a bunch of hanging chains on the far wall.

The demon stretched out a hand toward Castiel, sending him skidding back a little bit as if he were being blown back by a strong wind. Looking labored, Cas powered through the telekinetic shove with a good deal of effort before he clapped a hand onto the demon's head, smiting him. The second the demon fell over, so did Cas—barely managing to catch himself sideways on the wall next to himself where he sagged and panted.

Hurrying over and holding his own side where he'd sustained a pretty good bruise, Dean steadied Cas with a hand against the angel's shoulder. "What the hell's going on?" he asked, taken aback at Cas's weakened state appearance. "You're not all the way back, are you?"

Cas looked at Dean, breathing heavily through an open mouth. "No. I'm not." He seemed to be angered by it, abruptly standing then brushing past Dean's hand to unevenly resume walking toward the door. "I'll be fine."

"You sure?" Dean asked, following closely.

"Be quiet, Dean," Cas snapped, startling Dean. The angel indicated the door they stood in front of. "Kevin's in here. Can you get in?"

Letting go of his misgivings, Dean fumbled around in his pocket for the lockpick he had with him and with shaky hands in the dark he tried to pick the lock. Unfortunately, this had never been his specialty. "It's not working," he complained, getting frustrated in a matter of ten seconds when he couldn't get the delicate work done. "Shit, this is what the twins are good at, dammit," he muttered, then remembered that one of them was no longer there in the world at all. He stopped trying to pick the lock and stared at it, suddenly the owner of a heart that was burning like acid in his chest.

"Dean, I'm going in," Cas said in a severe, final tone.

Turning around in a mild panic, Dean protested. "Cas, no, don't be stupid, you're not strong enough."

Castiel was unmoved and grave. "I won't let Kevin die." And without anything further, he disappeared from in front of Dean's eyes.

In a dark room that was locked from the outside to prevent Kevin from escaping, the King of Hell had finally succeeding in making the prophet do what he wanted: Kevin had just finished reading most of the tablet to Crowley. In it, some very interesting revelations indeed.

"So. There are more tablets," Crowley murmured to himself, a thoughtful finger on his cheek. "More than Leviathan and Demon." He grinned cheekily. "Curiouser and curiouser… whaddya say, Kev? Gotta catch 'em all."

Exhausted and injured—Crowley had cut off his pinky during the torture—Kevin was slightly delirious from blood loss. "Is that… a Pokémon reference?"

There was a sound of fluttering wings and Kevin looked up, startled by the sight of Castiel, the angel. Alex's boyfriend or husband, depending on who you asked. Hope suddenly surged up in Kevin. I'm being rescued! Alex is back! Kevin's heart raced as Crowley, always seeming totally at ease, acknowledged the stormy angel lightly. "Castiel!" he exclaimed. "Fresh from Purgatory I take it. Wish you'd called first."

The angel said his name with a dark tone that was full of clear hatred. "Crowley."

"And which Castiel is it this time?" Crowley asked, sounding genuinely curious and amused at the same time. "I'm never sure. Madman or megalomaniac?" He suddenly held up a single finger as if he was thinking of something. "By the by, I need to touch base with your darling little wife, any idea where that little minx has gotten off to?"

Cas snapped, abruptly disappearing and reappearing to the place that was right in Crowley's face—and he immediately seized the demon and threw him brutally. The metal wall nearby groaned and dented as the King made impact.

Holding a hand to his head and stumbling as if drunk when he stood up, Crowley was enraged. "Good god, mate, you trying to bring this whole place down?!" he shouted.

The angel was seething quietly. "Speak of her again and I will end you," he warned, then began to make his way toward Kevin, who stood up, almost in tears from relief. "Kevin is coming with me."

"Blimey, the manners on you," Crowley muttered, straightening his suit and then abruptly porting over to stand between Cas and Kevin. "Also: I think not." The angel came up short when his path to Kevin was blocked. "The prophet's playing on my team now." Smirking a little even though it was obvious that he was royally pissed off, Crowley pretended to be polite—at least at first. "Now I'm sorry for any inconvenience to your bipolarity, Fluffers, but your wife, aka employee of the month owes me and I plan to collect, so tell me where she is!" The shout echoed as Castiel proceeded to look utterly clueless.

"What do you mean, employee of the month?"

Crowley was sultry and triumphant. "You'll have to ask her about that one, mate."

Cas's expression wavered. "And how exactly am I supposed to ask her, Crowley, if she is dead?"

Kevin gaped at the angel, his heart sinking in his chest. Dead? Crowley blinked once, a confused frown creasing his face. "…Dead?" he asked delicately. He looked as if someone were joking with him. "Oh no, there must be some mistake."

Never had there been a day when Kevin thought he would feel the same as Crowley. He gaped at the angel with a dumbstruck expression.

"Enough of your cruel jokes," Cas snapped, his hard voice covering up truly pained emotions. "I'm taking the boy with me. And I'm in no mood for your opposition." Castiel's blade dropped into his hand from up his sleeve and he lifted the gleaming object upward, holding it at the ready.

Crowley's eyebrow quivered in amusement as he held up an empty hand and an angel blade of his own materialized. "Well that's too bad, buddy," Crowley murmured in a tone laced with sardonic pleasure. Kevin stood up and backed up a few paces—it was about to get bad. He could tell.

The demon eyed the angel without much interest as Cas slowly approached and then circled at a safe distance, letting the glass table with the tablet on it stand between him and Crowley. "You look like hell, and I should know," Crowley taunted, obviously doubting that the angel could take him in a fight. "You're not up for this." Apparently, he was. Castiel lowered his chin and let his grace consume him and burn out of him in rage. His eyes became blue and lit from within, burning bright—so bright that Kevin had to squint, so bright that the dim room became more blinding than noon at a beach. At the show of power, Crowley's voice got louder. "Maybe you can get it up, but you can't keep it up!" The high hum of grace intensified as shadows of Castiel's enormous unfurling wings appeared on the wall behind him and grew larger, larger, larger. Kevin cowered on the ground in amazement and fear alike at the sight. Crowley's confidence was shaken. "You're bluffing!" he shouted, but he didn't sound so sure anymore.

Voice low and dark as midnight, Cas was deadly and quiet in comparison to how frightening his physical appearance was. "Do you really want to take that chance?" Castiel growled. Light blazed out from him and Kevin swore his skin was beginning to burn like he was standing too close to a fire. The angel's piercing and glowing blue eyes drilled into the King of Hell and promised wrath of the most severe kind. "I have nothing left to lose, Crowley. And if the saying is correct, that makes me dangerous." He stretched out his hand toward Crowley, intent on killing. In the same moment, Crowley reached out for the tablet—anticipating the movement, Cas's hand suddenly smashed downward and shattered the tablet and glass surface alike. Kevin had to shut his eyes as he fell backwards—he felt a surge of insane power and heat then suddenly the room was plunged back into darkness.

Kevin opened his confused eyes and as they readjusted to the dimness, he heard Dean bursting in somewhere nearby—he saw Cas laying in the floor and groaning in pain—he saw that one half of the tablet was gone—and Crowley was, too.

Dean helped a very weakened Cas limp out of the warehouse, then he and Sam got all the prophets out and called the police. After, they circled back to where Mrs. Tran was still handcuffed to the car, and Dean let Sam handle the Trans. He pulled Cas along with him angrily to the Impala then he pointed at the distant warehouse with a stiff, shaking finger. "That was a bonehead move back there," he accused. "You could have gotten yourself killed! Why didn't you wait for me?" When Cas said nothing and just looked mildly vexed, Dean realized maybe that's what Cas had hoped would happen and his eyes widened. "...Did you want to get killed?"

Cas merely glanced at him like he felt scolded. "To be frank, I see very little reason to go on living, Dean."

Those words had to weigh at least a thousand pounds. There was no feel-sorry-for-me element to the statement. Only Cas being a man who had truly lost what he held as everything. A surge of sadness and understanding and pain came over Dean. He totally got that feeling. But he also didn't approve of Cas doing that shit. "What do you think she would say about that?" he asked, knowing the effect that question would have.

The angel looked startled and then deeply guilty. He turned and sagged to sit back-first against the trunk of the Impala. "I… doubt she would be happy to hear it," he admitted.

"Exactly," Dean retorted, like he'd won a contest or something. Cas only looked further depressed and Dean gave a frustrated sigh—he wasn't doing well himself. His feelings were just all over the damn place. He knew he wasn't really helping much or being a good support to either Sam or Cas, but he didn't know how to be in his own pain and also help others through theirs. "Look man—I… I lost my sister. Don't make me lose you too." Cas looked at Dean in confused questioning, like he couldn't believe Dean would say that and wasn't sure why he would, either. Uncomfortable, Dean gritted his teeth and tried to stay tough and factual. "What we went through back there in monsterland… I trust you, man. More than I trust Sam at this point. My own goddamn brother." And that was the sad truth of the matter. The entire past day, ever since learning that Alex was dead and gone, Dean had been thinking one thing—that if he threw in the towel, that would be a slap in the face to his sister's memory. She would want them to use the time she'd bought them for something worthwhile. So he was gonna do that and hang onto that as his motivation for continuing onward. "Let's make something right," he urged, trying to get Cas to feel the same way. "Let's do something that matters. Get the other half of this freakin' tablet and close the Hellgates before we call it a day and take ourselves out, right?"

Cas considered Dean's earnest appeal for a long, grim moment. "Only if you promise you'll try to forgive Sam," he said, and at Dean's stunned say what? expression, Cas explained himself in a way that made perfect, damning sense. "You lost one sibling, Dean. Can you afford to let your bitterness destroy what little is left?"

There was one word that Dean could use to describe how he felt in that moment: convicted. Also, speechless. He sighed ruefully, looking down for a minute as he shook his head hollowly. He then joined Cas in leaning back-first against the trunk of the Impala. This weird, awkward, surprisingly philosophical angel. "You drive me crazy sometimes, Cas," he said, looking off at Sam as he interacted with the Trans. "What with all your sense-making and rational thinking and good points." Next to the shorter two, Sam looked even more freakishly tall than usual. Dean looked at his brother long and hard and the bitterness he felt inside toward Sam wasn't something he could just erase or brush away. Dean's tone darkened. "But I don't know if I can forgive him. He failed me. He failed her. He betrayed everything I thought he would stand for."

For a moment, Cas contemplated Dean's reply. "Perhaps so, but… if Alex taught me anything, it's that second chances aren't always given because the person deserves them. In fact, sometimes the most meaningful second chances are given to people who should never be forgiven at all." Dean stared at the angel sidelong. Cas was talking about himself and it was stilling. Cas wasn't done being reflective and somber. "If she could see the two of you at odds like you are… I think it would break her heart," he said softly. "She loved you two very much. I'd go so far as to say you were her world."

His chest tightened. A flash of emotion-driven sounds, images, and sensations filled Dean's mind: long brown hair whipping back at him when he pushed a gleeful Alex on swings as a kid—the sun got in his eyes as she flew higher and higher, grinning the entire time, her laughter a silent jubilation. He could smell her fruity-scented colored marker set filling the car during long drives. He could taste cheap dollar-store cake frosting—she'd bought a tub of icing for him for his fourteenth birthday and stuck a used candle (a stolen candle from another kid's birthday party) into it because she couldn't pay for an entire cake. He felt cold nipping at him as he remembered making snow angels in one inch of pathetic snow with the twins—he remembered how Alex got sick from being out in the cold. Dean's throat was tight and his voice was hoarse as he thought of how he and Sam had tried to make chicken noodle soup from scratch and failed miserably but she'd still given them the thumbs up and then stuck her feet up, grinning and red-faced with a fever while trying to give thumbs up with her toes, too. Goofball. Dean had freaked out at the time when her bare feet snuck out from under the blanket. 'Why aren't you wearing socks?!' And now his eyes filled with tears all the faster. They were her world?

"Well, she was definitely ours." A simple statement that said it all. And now there was just Sam and Dean left. They only had each other now. What kind of bizarre reality was this? Dean sniffed and blinked, trying to get control of himself. He realized he needed to do what Cas said. He needed to give his brother a chance and try to overcome what was between them. He didn't know if he could, but he'd at least make an attempt, and right then, that was the best he could do. "I'll try and work things out with Sam," he managed tightly, knowing that if he said it out loud he would have to stick with it more.

"Good," Cas said quietly, then fell into deep thought. "It mystifies me," he murmured presently. "What force pulled me out of there and why." The angel stared miserably at his shoes. "I would have stayed there. I should have stayed, too. It was a fitting punishment for me… being cursed to wander alone in the land of monsters in penance for what I've done, the things I let happen…" he trailed off and was silent for a very long moment. "Dean, if not for me, she never would have gone back there. She wouldn't have become ill. She would still be alive."

Dean shook his head and clenched his teeth against the torn up emotions he felt inside. "Cas… just stop," he said. "Stop. Blaming yourself won't do a damn thing. Trust me, I've spent most of my life blaming myself for all kinds of shit. And it never changed a thing." He briefly thought of Jamie and more pain cracked his bleeding heart.

"I will always blame myself, Dean," Cas said plainly. "Until the end of everything." His eyebrows furrowed together in a confused, pained expression. "I was her guardian angel. And in the end… she saved me instead of me saving her. How does that make logical sense?"

It was pretty damn ironic when Cas put it that way. "I don't know. But… don't let it go to waste." Dean shrugged slightly, blank inside. "That's the only thing getting me through this right now. Knowing that I gotta do right by her, not just lay down and give up. She fought hard to get us out, so… I'm gonna do something that counts with what she did for us." He looked sidelong at Cas. "I owe her that much. And so do you."

Cas said nothing, only nodded every so slightly even though his expression showed internal battles. Sam approached finally, leaving the Trans to themselves aways off. Cas remained quiet and emotional, but Dean toughened his features at his brother's approach.

"Hey guys," Sam greeted.

Dean stood up and Cas echoed his actions. "Hey."

"Well, I made some calls and Garth is gonna lay low with the Trans while we try and track down the other piece of the tablet." Sam paused and then looked at Cas, who had a strange, faraway look in his eyes—he wasn't paying attention it didn't look like. "You're with us on this one, right, Cas? Could use your help, transporting the Trans for one." The angel said nothing, staring off into space as if he were hearing something else entirely. Sam waited a second, then waved a hand in front of the angel's face. "Uh, Cas? you okay?"

Snapping back to the conversation, appearing a little jolted, Cas's eyes jumped back and forth between Dean and then Sam. "I'm—I'm fine," he said uncertainly, his eyes deep with grief and confusion. "And, yes, I'm with you—if that's all right."

Sam offered the angel a sad, empathetic smile. "Of course it is, Cas."

Touched, Cas's face softened. "Thank you, Sam. You have a very kind heart. It reminds me of…" he caught himself and the gentle, whisper-quiet smile he'd had on his face fell away. He glanced over at the Trans. "I'm going to give you two a minute and see about fixing Kevin's severed finger and taking him and his mother to Garth."

Dean looked at Cas in slight surprise. "Wait, you know Garth?"

"Yes," Cas said, his eyes going faraway and into a memory that must have been painful from the look on his face. "He worked his way through college spinning discs," he said gravely, then looked down as his face contorted. He then got a hold of himself and walked off, heading for the Trans.

Sam was confused at the 'spinning discs' comment. "Uh… okay."

Gathering himself and using all of the inner strength he had, Dean braced himself and forced the words out of him. "Look, Sam… I'm sorry."

Sam's face fell—he looked both hopeful and scared shitless to talk about it. "I—I know," he said softly, abruptly incredibly vulnerable. "Me too." For what, he didn't say. He just looked off and around for a second, his face showing his inner struggle of not knowing what exactly to say. "I—I just wish to god she could have skipped the Winchester curse, you know? I would give anything for that. Anything." He hesitated and became a little anxious—his eyes showed that he was grudging to say what he was about to say. "In fact, I uh… I tried to fix it."

Dean's eyebrows slowly drifted inwards in dread. "Sam…" he cautioned.

But it was worse than he thought. "Last night I went out and found a crossroad."

Dean's heart slammed into the top of his throat in alarm. "Sam…!" he exclaimed in a breathless, scared voice.

Sam shook his head ruefully, brushing off his brother's panicked reaction. "Don't get worried, Dean. The red-eyed bitch gave me a look like I was from Planet Zorlon and told me to get lost."

Dean was only a little relieved, then rubbed his forehead with his hand before he cleared his throat and came clean too. "Well… I did the same thing."

It was Sam's turn to be shocked. "What?! Dean!"

With a shrug, Dean put his hands up briefly. "This morning when I got breakfast and said they were short-staffed. I did the same damn thing you did." Sam gaped and Dean shook his head repeatedly, his face a mask of regret. "I would have sold it in a flat Texas second. But that two-bit crossroads asshole laughed in my damn face." He looked off blankly, searching the distance for something he couldn't find. His voice softened and became more raw. "She really is gone. No re-dos. No take-backs. No loopholes." He paused long and hard. "Guess this is how normal people feel when they lose someone."

Sam hesitated to reply. "Did we though?"

Dean was immediately suspicious. "What do you mean?"

"Something just feels... weird here," Sam said, shaking his head and lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Cas. How did he get out? And if people don't get sick and die in Purgatory, why did Alex? And why would the demons refuse us both? You I get since you already sold it the once, but me…? Perfectly good soul, unless maybe the cage did something to it, I dunno… I just…"

"You think… you think Cas is lying about her being dead?" Dean questioned, trying to understand what Sam was getting at.

"No," Sam said immediately. "Not lying. I just… something's off, right? Maybe he got confused or tricked, maybe he has angel amnesia, maybe she's still in Purgatory and she pushed him out and the portal did something to his brain and she couldn't come through for some reason?"

Dean looked at his little brother sadly. Sam was really reaching. "I'd like to believe that, Sam," he said honestly. "But… if he says he can't sense her anymore, I really think that means… that she's…" he choked a little on his own voice. "He always could sense her before. Even when we were in Purgatory, he said he could feel her soul or some sappy creep-show stuff like that. And do you see how torn up he is?" Dean knew why Sam didn't want to accept it. For the same reason he didn't. But there really seemed to be no way around it this time. "Look, I wanna believe we could go to Purgatory and find her there and it all be some huge mix-up too, but… it's not. I can feel it." Sam looked like his world had been crushed all over again and Dean got that. "But we still got one mystery to solve. Fact of the matter is, someone or something got him out of there unless, I dunno, angel grief causes inter dimensional teleportation."

Sam was silent for a long moment, thinking it all over for a good long minute. He finally gave a sad little air laugh. "Maybe I'm just in denial, huh?" he asked, and that's when Dean saw how his eyes were shining. "Dean… I know I made some choices that you think are unforgivable. Hell, I think what I did was unforgivable. But… but I need another chance. I'm not like that. You know I'm not. All I ever wanted was for you and Alex to be safe and happy. I never wanted to let either of you down. I never want you to say I wouldn't give anything for this family. For you. For her. Because I'd give everything. I know I'm a failure. I know I'm not half the man you expected me to be. I'm not half the man I expected me to be. And I'm not asking you to forgive me right now. Maybe someday you can. Maybe someday I can forgive me, too. I just want… I wanna be brothers again. I want us to make this work."

Cas's statement about second chances floated around in Dean's mind as he looked at his brother with a new compassion. "Me too," he said softly. He felt a tug of remorse and pain in his chest. "I know I'm hard on you Sam. I try not to be."

Sam was teary-eyed and in pain but gave a brave, teasing smile. "Try harder."

It was supposed to be a half-joke but really, it was how Sam felt and they both knew it. "I know," Dean said, nodding and hating himself for always pushing away the ones he loved. "I know. I will."

Sam sniffed and tried to stay composed. "I'll try too," he said. And Dean looked at his brother and didn't understand how in any universe this Sam—his Sam—could have ever walked away like he had. But Dean was going to try to forgive him. He was gonna try.

Dean gave his brother a hesitant, sad smile. "Sounds like a plan, Sammy," he said softly, using the nickname that came from a very tenderhearted place. Sam noticed and nodded, fighting himself harder. It was funny. Sam was thirty. But he looked like a damn kid who needed to be told it was gonna be okay. And for that moment, his walls were torn down and Dean impulsively did what he should have done a long time ago. Pulled Sammy into a big bear hug. "C'mere," he said, and locked his arms around Sam. The brothers hugged for the first time since Dean had come back from Purgatory. And Sam—taller, heavier, bigger than Dean—cried into his brother's shoulder as Dean promised that it was gonna be okay.