Song Remains the Same

Chapter 114 / In Plain Sight

"Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something;
forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on."
- Criss Jami

It was late at night and the brothers were in a dim motel room. They sat on the ends of separate double beds and were mostly silent. Both had their own bottle of hunter's helper—it was cheaper than therapy, Sam thought wryly.

Cas was gone for now—the loony job they'd worked with the angel was wrapped up—and that was just about all the thought Sam could manage to give to the past day or two. Partially because he was tipsy, but mostly because his brain circuits were so overloaded and frazzled with more important things. The booze was taking the edge off and helping him feel more numb to the pain he had inside, but he was still too hyper vigilant to relax. That's why the job Cas had found them had been nice while it lasted (in a sort of morbid way, Sam guessed)—at the very least, it had distracted from all the thoughts clamoring so loudly in his head. But now with the hunt finished… it left two brothers and one very loudly empty space in the motel room. And as he felt the void her absence made, Sam took another sip from his bottle of whiskey to try and deal. But truthfully, he didn't want to forget or become numb or even accept it. And he was getting more and more unhappy with sitting here uselessly and mourning a sister he wasn't sure was dead at all…

Dean raised his bottle Sam's way, acknowledging him for the first time in about ten minutes. "To all the sons of bitches we've saved," he offered in jaded salute. He hesitated before drinking. "And all the ones we didn't." He put the bottle to his lips and tipped it way back, taking more than a swig—basically chugging. Two or three huge gulps at a time. Jesus, Dean. The oldest Winchester wasn't saying much and was putting up a tough guy front, but Sam could tell his brother was just as deep in grief as he was.

Sam eyed him sidelong hesitantly, noticing the way Dean swayed a little even while sitting. "Did you… start drinking before I did?" he asked skeptically and cautiously.

Suspicious, Dean's face darkened. "Why?"

Sam was careful not to set his brother off. "Because you seem sorta… drunk." And that didn't happen too often.

The hilariously grumpy old-man face that Dean pulled caused a sudden and ill-timed grin to split Sam's face. "Shut up, Princess, I can hold my liquor and we all know it," Dean muttered, and he suddenly got very annoyed when he saw his brother's face. "And stop smiling, dammit!" He looked away from Sam in foul temper. "Hate your face right now," he muttered, and by all appearances, he really did hate it.

Sam was only amused at Dean's comments—what brother didn't enjoy irritating their sibling on occasion? "Why?" he prompted, expecting a funny reply that they could joke about when Dean was sober again—some kind of dig on Sam's dimples or maybe how 'lame-o' he looked when he smiled.

But he got a very different, much darker reply than he expected. "'Cause you look like her when you do that."

Dean's flat answer took all the air out of the room and snatched the smile right off of Sam's face. He swallowed deeply, feeling sudden hollowness down to his veins and further past that, too. He had caught sight of himself in the mirror a couple times recently and stopped, noticing the things about his face that were so like his sister's. Same jaw—same nose—same lip shape—same exact eye color. And when they smiled wide—same dimples, same crinkly eyes. "Dean—" Sam began, his voice full of pain and hesitance.

He was met with a proverbial solid brick wall. "Don't even start with the bleeding heart crap, Sam." Dean said forcefully, then stood up and unevenly walked to where he had a couple extra bottles of booze waiting—his bottle appeared to be drained. "I don't wanna hear it. Just lemme drink my brains out."

Sam didn't want to get wasted to the point of no return like his brother did. He wanted to do something and stop acting like it was all over. He was tired of Dean shutting him down. "Just hear me out on this, will you?" Sam asked, broaching the subject he'd tried to a couple times already. "I'm serious, Dean," he said, speaking to his brother's turned back. He couldn't totally explain it, but… "I—I think she might still be alive."

Dean, brand new full bottle of whiskey in hand, turned and smiled coldly and cynically. "Spidey senses tingling?" he asked mockingly.

The irreverent tone bothered Sam of course but he tried to ignore it. Dean was drunk and Dean was also Dean. Rude sarcasm was to be expected when he was grieving. "I dunno, yeah—call it twin sense, call it intuition, but I know how I feel and I really think we should—"

"What?" Dean challenged in a tone that dripped with hostility and mocking. "Drop everything and go find our missing family member?" He scoffed openly. "Yeah, because that sounds like something you'd do. Really in character, Sam."

Sam was immediately and deeply stung. He faltered and lost the fire he'd been speaking with. After a wounded silence, Sam could only summon a hurt, "That's low, Dean."

"Oh, is it?" Dean didn't seem to care that he'd upset Sam. "So's leaving your own brother in Purgatory alone for ten fuckin' months and not even lifting a goddamn finger to help your sister get to him." He gestured angrily with his whiskey bottle. Amber liquid sloshed out wildly onto the floor. "That's low, Sammy, okay?"

He hadn't picked a good time to broach the topic. But Sam didn't do the smart thing and end the conversation. He was desperate for his brother to listen—enough that he shouldered the hurt and managed to keep going. "Look, if, if we can just put that behind us, just long enough for us to be sure about this, then I'm fine with you holding that against me forever, okay? But I can't stand by anymore when I know she might be out there and—"

In a flash of uncontrollable rage, Dean threw the whiskey at the wall and there was a startlingly loud shattering splash. "She's not!" he shouted, his face a mask of drunken fury and absolutely undiluted anger. "She's dead, Sam! Dead! Get it through your fucking brain!"

Appalled and confused, Sam stood his ground. "No!" he replied in a loud, earnest voice. He wasn't going to let his brother intimidate him and he didn't think Dean was even acting logically anymore. He pointed out the facts. "I didn't see it, neither did you, and I don't believe it! I won't believe it, and I don't know why I'm the only one here who feels that way!"

Dean looked totally disgusted. "Because you're a goddamn fuckin' idiot, that's why!"

Aghast, Sam threw his hands wide. "Since when do we just lay down and accept it when someone dies?" he asked, lost at his brother's uncharacteristic behavior

Dean gave Sam an insolent look. "Oh gosh, lemme think… Mom, Dad, Bobby, Ellen, Jo, Adam? And like a billion others?" he asked icily. "They're all dead and we can't change it. So go ahead and add Alex to the list, buddy, 'cause she ain't coming back either." He turned around and stalked unevenly along the bedside in an attempt to channel his fury. Sam stood back and watched him without knowing how to react. It was almost like Dean was trying to prove a point—he wasn't truly engaging with Sam or listening to what Sam was saying, and the things Dean was saying didn't make sense. So, Sam tried harder.

"But what if Cas is wrong?" he pressed, desperate for Dean to listen. But Dean just looked… annoyed. Sam wondered if maybe there'd been some kind of brainwashing in Purgatory at this point and if Dean was even in his right mind anymore. "Where's my brother, the one who sold his soul and would do literally anything for his own?!" he demanded, trying to button-push Dean into responding.

Dean's cold anger showed and he looked Sam square in the eye and stopped pacing. "Oh, I'm right here. Where were you?" All of the resentment and boxed-up anger Dean had been holding inside was showing in his eyes and on his face and it suddenly made sense. This was all about Dean's anger at Sam. "Sure woulda been nice if you'd cared like this before when we actually needed you, Sam." Dean's face twisted again and his voice rose to full volume. "Then maybe we wouldn't even be having this stupid fucking conversation!"

"Dean—"

"It's your fault she died!" Dean roared, red-faced and at full volume. Sam was struck silent and still as those words drove a knife into his heart. Once he said it, Dean looked a little startled with himself, then quickly and pridefully covered over that emotion with a hard face. "If you'd been with us, Cas could've gotten out and she wouldn't have even had a reason to go back in there like she did."

Sam shook his head faintly. He couldn't take it if that was true. "Y-you don't know that for sure," he protested feebly, beginning to question everything his instincts kept telling him.

"That how you sleep at night?" Dean asked coldly, sauntering around the edge of the bed with a pissed expression on his face. "That what you tell yourself when the guilt starts whispering in your ear?" He came closer to Sam, who was now in a place of utter vulnerability. His big brother used that against him and hit him with everything he had. "I'll tell you what I do know. You didn't help her. You didn't do a damn thing. And I'll never forgive you for leaving her alone when she needed you! I forgave that shit once but not again! First Ruby, then some chick named Amelia? You're a real piece of work aren't you, Sam? I disappear and you turn tail then go chase some useless piece of ass and forget you even have a family. And now your sister is dead because you couldn't keep it in your pants!"

His brother's words seemed true and damning and Sam felt like he had no defenses left at all. "It—it wasn't like that," he said weakly, feeling a painful swelling lump in his throat.

"Oh, so what was it like, Saint Sam?"

It took everything Sam had not to punch Dean right in the face. Composing himself and trying to be the bigger person, Sam spoke in a tight voice that came off as defensive. "Yes. It was selfish. It was irresponsible." And as he thought about this next part, he began to lose his edge and started to doubt himself again. "I should have helped Alex find you," he managed as guilt crashed over him for the millionth time. "I should have stayed with her. I… I know that." And he still couldn't fathom for the life of him why he'd left her side at all.

Dean was still cold as ice. "Well good for you, I'm so glad you know that."

Losing his temper, Sam tried to go back to his original point. "Just listen to me for one goddamn second Dean and stop being such a child! This crap between us can wait—right now we should be getting our asses into Purgatory and finding out for ourselves what the hell actually happened to her! She might still be there! Why won't you listen to me? Cas could be mistaken, or, or confused!"

Dean was unaffected and looked like he even pitied Sam a little, which was all the more infuriating. "You are in so much denial right now, aren't you?" he asked softly. "Can't even see past your own BS to the facts." He sounded one hundred percent sure of himself when he spoke next. "That's the one thing Cas would never get 'confused' about. Her. And you know what? I trust Cas. After ten friggin' months in monsterland... I know who I can trust! And it sure as hell ain't you!"

That was the final comment that confirmed everything Sam was thinking privately. Dean didn't trust him anymore. And why should he? Completely defeated with eyes that stung from emotional pain, Sam shook his head once, out of words. Dean was right, sort of. Cas had been there for him and Sam had been… with Amelia. And now she was gone and didn't want him, either. No one wanted him. Sam felt run over, defeated, and burned. "Why am I even here with you right now if that's how you feel?" he asked in heartbroken quietness. "Why are we even doing this at all, huh?" A long, weighted pause. "Y-you'd rather be with Cas or with Jamie or, or Kevin—with pretty much anyone but me, right?" The look on Dean's face said everything and it broke Sam's fucking heart. The tears came and his shoulders fell. "I know I messed up," he managed in a voice that was barely there at all. "But I'm trying and you won't give me a chance!"

Dean looked angry still but he couldn't hide that Sam's reaction was making him sad, too. There was a long pause. "Do you deserve a chance?"

Sam swallowed. No, he wouldn't give himself one if the roles were reversed he didn't think, but… he was left despairing for his big brother to come through and tell him it was okay and they'd work it out like they always did. "Maybe not, but I mean…" Sam couldn't find the words. The way Dean was looking at him killed him. And he thought maybe this time he'd screwed up too much to be forgiven, ever. And that was terrifying. "Is it really like that?" he asked, so beyond hurt. When Dean said nothing, Sam began to beg. "Come on, man. I'm your brother. We've been through so much together, Dean—don't let my stupid mistake destroy that!"

Dean shook his head and almost rolled his eyes—he looked offended or something. "Oh so it's all on me now, huh? Ball's in my court? I just have to swallow down what you did and be fine with it and come to terms with it in my own little heart, right, 'cause you feel sad about it now? I'm supposed to forgive you and stick a band-aid on it and sing kumbaya and act like the choice you made didn't destroy our family?" Dean's jaw tightened and the final judgment was visible in his eyes. "Get over yourself." He brushed past Sam roughly, hitting his shoulder against his brother's. "Sam, I love you and you're my brother but I'm done acting like I can even stand being in the same room with you."

Sam turned, his eyes full of tears. "I wouldn't choose it again, Dean, please believe me," he said, struggling to speak at all. "I learned my lesson. That it's too late for me and I'll never have anyone like that and I need to stop thinking I can be normal. I can't. I get it now. Dean. I'm nothing but a failure and a screw-up and I wish to God I could take it all back. But I can't. All I can do is accept it and keep trying and make it up to you somehow." He took in a deep, shaky breath and waited for Dean to turn around and relent and stop beating him up for what he couldn't change. "But only if you say you're not giving up on me."

But Dean didn't turn around. He was cold, final, and done. "Too late for that," he said darkly. "I gave up on you a long time ago, Sammy." And without another word, Dean grabbed his keys and his duffel bag.

When a very emotional Sam moved into the way to stop him from leaving and driving drunk, Dean threatened to hit him. When Sam refused, Dean made good on his threat and knocked him out cold. When Sam woke up on the motel room floor, his brother was gone, the Impala too, and Dean wouldn't answer his phone. Not knowing if Dean were alive or dead, Sam swallowed all the misery and bitterness and hurt and he did what he needed to do: he began to look for Zip, who he knew had the way into Purgatory. With or without Dean, he was going to follow the feeling he had inside. He'd find out for himself what had happened to his sister. Or he'd die trying.

Three Days Later
Whitefish, Montana

His eyeballs were on fire in his skull—his head pounded like someone was hitting him in the temple repeatedly with a wrought-iron mallet—his throat was parched, his eyelids felt crusted shut, and his muscles were all lazy bastards who protested his slightest movement. He never wanted to move ever again and he didn't know if he could, either. But for some reason, Dean made himself stir and slowly force open up his aching eyes.

And then he jumped and yelled in surprise and the action sent several beer and liquor bottles flying off the couch that he was reclined on. "Damn it, Cas!" Dean swore, glaring up at the blank-faced angel who was standing there silently and watching him sleep. "How many times I gotta tell you—it's just creepy!" A dirty and drunken mess, Dean sat up too fast and the world tilted even as his monster-sized headache intensified by the power of a million horrible suns. "Ugh…" he groaned, putting a hand on his head and another on his churning stomach. He felt awful.

Cas looked constipated and slightly confused, as per usual. "…Have you been drinking?" he asked, that stupid-low voice of his getting under Dean's skin immediately.

"When haven't I been drinking?" was the churlish retort. "Public service announcement: my life sucks!" That's why Rufus's cabin—Dean's choice of location to crash and get smashed—was littered in way too many empty bottles and cans. That's why Dean's phone was dead and forgotten and probably still in the car. That's why he hadn't moved from the couch in like three days now. Just booze, bad TV, and frozen burritos. No wonder he felt like a walking trash can. Fully aware of how pathetic he was and how bad he must look, Dean was a little beyond caring. Rubbing his forehead and trying to willpower away the splitting headache, Dean looked up at Cas, who was doubled until the hunter blinked multiple times. "Okay now why are you here watching me sleep?" he asked grumpily. "Your name Edward Cullen or something?"

The angel's eyes squinted up. "No… it's… Castiel." Jesus Christ, Cas. Pop culture much? Cas appeared to write Dean's comment off as something he didn't need to worry about and he let it go. "Dean, I need your help. The angel Samandriel… he's been taken."

Great. You need help. And I wanna stay here and rot and forget my entire freaking life. Still, Dean wracked his brain tiredly, wincing against the pulsing pain in his eardrums. "Sam-and-ruh—" he paused, suddenly remembering the angel in the goofy fast food uniform who had approached him at that weird-ass auction last week. "Wait you mean Alfie, the wiener-on-a-stick kid?"

Again, Cas looked unsure about Dean's choice of words. "I… suppose you could call him that. But uh—yes. I, uh—I heard his distress call this morning."

"On what, angel radio?" Dean rubbed the side of his head and groaned out a sound of complaint—it was too early for all of this. "I thought you shut that crap down." He caught sight of his wristwatch then and realized it was four in the afternoon. "God, my head…"

Dean was too busy dealing with his hangover to notice how shifty Cas's eyes were at the question about angel radio. "Well, my penance… it's, uh, going well, and I thought it was time to turn it back on," Cas hedged. "I've, uh... been helping people for the last few days, Dean."

"Well, good for you," Dean replied sarcastically, because he had not been doing anything of the sort. "I have been drinking. You got a magic angel cure for a hangover?" At the look on Cas's face, Dean huffed and stood up with a lurch, casting around for his duffel bag—his throbbing headache got even worse. "I'll take that as a no." He suppressed a sound of discomfort as his stiff muscles protested his hobbling movement. "All right. So, who snatched Heaven's most adorable angel?" he asked, trying to sound a lot tougher than he was currently feeling. He kicked aside a couple empty beer cans as he found his bag.

"Crowley."

That name alone pissed him off. "Of course," Dean muttered darkly, bending ungracefully and digging around in his bag to find a bottle of painkillers. "Any idea why?" He found the aspirin and straightened with all the virility and spryness of a ninety-year-old man.

"None," Castiel intoned artlessly. "But it's safe to say it's a sinister reason and we need to get him away from Crowley. I have a bad feeling about all of this."

Dean paused as he painstakingly counted out pills into his hand—vision was doubled again. He began to look at Cas closely, or as closely as he could manage in his sorry state. He was just realizing how the angel was acting a lot like he used to act way back in the day. Unemotional, cardboard-esque. And that didn't seem totally right. Dean had spent almost a year with this guy in monsterland and Cas had been emotional—sometimes to the point of being annoying. And now he was what, Robo-Cas again? A little wary as his muddled senses warned him that something was off, Dean hesitated. "Hey… you okay Cas?" he asked, peering at the angel.

Cas didn't even bat an eye. "Yes, of course, why wouldn't I be?"

Well, he could think of a few reasons why. But maybe Cas was taking a page from the book of Dean Winchester and burying everything under work and missions and the 'I'm fine' lie. Either way, Dean gave him the benefit of the doubt—his raging headache was making everything less fun and he was probably overthinking it. "Never mind," he said, deciding it wasn't anything. "What else you got on wiener boy?"

Cas's face showed confused disapproval at the nickname but he didn't comment on it. "Samandriel is being held in the general vicinity of Hastings, Nebraska."

"General vicinity?" Dean repeated, getting preemptively annoyed—he didn't feel like tracking someone down, ughhh. "That's all you got?"

"Yes, which is why I need your help." Cas looked severely reluctant. "It seems this is gonna involve... talking to people."

Dean didn't know whether to laugh or to scoff. "Come on, Cas, I thought you were a hunter now."

With downcast eyes that made him look mildly ashamed, Cas nodded slightly. "Well... I thought so, too, but... It seems I—I lack a certain—" he suddenly looked very far away and sad—his voice changed a little, too. "It was easier when she was here," he said softly, and the way his voice had gotten all thick it almost sounded like he could have been in tears.

The sudden mention of Alex was startling and uncomfortable. Dean felt how his teeth automatically clenched tight and how his entire nervous system got stressed at the offhand mention of his sister. He'd been drinking all this booze to stop thinking about her and Sam and Jamie and all the shit he couldn't control or change. "Yeah. Well." He spoke stiffly and tried to brush past it all. It was so painful that he literally couldn't go there. So he focused on Cas and decided to throw himself into this job and rescuing Sam-han—Alfie. "I got your back," Dean told Cas. "I mean I owe you one. More like owe you a hundred, but yeah. Let's start small." Dean downed the pills he'd been holding that whole time and he swallowed them without water, making noises of discomfort as they crammed down his esophagus.

Cas took those couple of seconds to look around the cabin. "Where's Sam?"

Not something he wanted to talk about. "Gone," Dean said flatly. "We'll find Alfie ourselves."

"…Gone where?" Cas pressed, becoming concerned.

He was defensive even though Cas's question was innocent enough. "We fought, okay? Think you being around was keeping us civil, but once you peaced out we… I dunno, couldn't hang in. Or I couldn't, anyway. So we went separate ways." Dean turned around, signaling that he was done talking about that.

But Cas's slightly-disappointed tone made guilt wash all over him. "Dean."

Dean turned around sharply. "Look, I know, Cas." That he'd promised to try and work things out with Sam, that he'd said he'd try. "I know. But right now, I can't deal with him or with anything. Obviously." Dean motioned around the cabin and all the evidence of self-pitying squalor he'd been living in. Then he turned around again and fished for his laptop. "That poor sap still thinks his sister's alive," he muttered, shaking his head grimly and wishing he could believe that, too. "I tried to tell him but he wouldn't listen."

If he'd been where he could see Cas's face, he would have seen a slight panic flare up in the angel's eyes as a moment of clarity and urgency broke through the angel's robotic state. "Dean, she is."

Heart lodging in his throat, Dean turned around fast, his pulse going like a jackhammer. "What?" he asked, wide-eyed and breathless.

But Cas was standing there with a dead look on his face and blank eyes. "I'm sorry, what I meant to say she is…. very dearly missed." Dean's face worked oddly—that was a hell of a mistake to make and for a second, it had sounded like… like…

"I'm tired Dean," Cas said heavily, excusing himself and what he'd just said and confusing Dean further. Cas didn't look sorry about it. Just… factual. "And I'm grieving. Sometimes I say things and don't finish them. I apologize. I didn't mean for my verbal gaffe to upset you." And just like that, cold and without emotion, Cas gestured to the laptop, indicating they carry on with what they were doing. "Samandriel."

Totally shaken up and suddenly having to fight tears, Dean swallowed hard and refused to let himself cry. "Right," he said gruffly, kicking himself for being so ready to get hopeful again. Hope hurt. "O-okay." He put the laptop down onto the table gingerly, his mind a thousand places all at once. "Uh, you make us some java so I can kick this hangover to the curb, will you?"

"Of course," Cas monotoned. He made his way for the small cabin kitchen. And that was when Dean started really keeping an eye on Cas and wondering if maybe—maybe—Sam had been right. Because for a minute, Dean could have sworn Cas was saying Alex was still alive.

The next few hours progressed quickly—using the internet, Dean found some signs of angelic disturbances around Hastings (a bush caught fire and exploded among other things) and then Cas beamed them to the city, Impala and all, and without further ado, the two men started looking around for signs of Crowley while using the burning bush as the epicenter of their search. Dean insisted on driving for this part—but he was starting to get tired of it two hours later as he pulled the car up to a chain link fence and stared at the dilapidated building beyond it.

"Wow, will you look at that?" he asked cynically. "Our ninth abandoned factory. Ain't that America?" Some homeless guys were clustered at a graffiti-covered wall around a fire in a metal trash can and Dean's restless, sobering mind was getting a little too much for him. He threw a glance at his passenger seat companion. "Hey, what do you say this doesn't pan out, we head back to that beer-and-bacon happy hour about a mile back, huh? You ever tried bacon, Cas? That stuff is like crack."

Cas looked stricken and his eyes fell away from the warehouse. "Yes, Alex gave me some a few years ago," he said, the first mention of her since he'd first shown up. "We had bacon. And waffles. And coffee." No one had ever sounded sadder about breakfast than Cas did right then.

Dean reached for the gear shift, once again jolted by reality and made all the more outwardly harsh for it. "So maybe no happy hour," he muttered, because if bacon was some kind of trigger for Cas… no thank you.

Cas's hand shot out to grip Dean's wrist as he stared at the warehouse hard. "Dean, wait—those derelicts, they're demons. I can see their true faces."

Dean grabbed the beat up binoculars from between the seats and took a gander for himself. Four, no—five guys at least. Shaking his head and lowering the binoculars, Dean set his jaw hard. "Crowley's got that many hell monkeys outside, he's got to have at least double inside."

"And angel warding," Cas said grimly. "I can feel it."

"Well, you, me, and a demon knife probably ain't gonna cut it," Dean began doubtfully.

Cas nodded somberly. "Okay," he said. "I'll go get Sam."

"No," Dean said, shoving the binoculars back where he'd gotten them. That was not what he meant. "We don't need Sam."

"But you just said—"

Dean gave Cas a warning look that said very clearly how much he did not want to go that route. Sam only made Dean feel worse about everything right now and to be honest, the things he'd said to Sam (the things he remembered saying, anyway) were the kind of things you couldn't take back or make better. Currently in the mindset of avoiding reality at all cost, Dean kept his tough-guy act up. "Look, if Sam wanted in, he'd be here, okay? I got a better idea."

The Fizzles' Folly
Warsaw, Missouri

Dean and Castiel appeared together in a small and dingy space—a dilapidated houseboat that was cluttered and dank and small. Pages full of symbols and notes and scratched out text with question marks were stuck to almost every square inch of space near the hunched-over figure at the small table nearby. The surface of that table was messy with open reference books and notepads. With his dark head bowed over a broken tablet half, Kevin Tran looked tired even before they could see his face.

When they appeared behind him, Kevin's head raised as if he'd heard their appearance. "Slow read?" Dean asked, hoping they wouldn't give the kid a heart attack.

Kevin turned in his seat, not appearing startled at their appearance in the least. His face was exhausted and he was obviously sleep deprived and maybe even a little sick. "The slowest," he replied, deadpan. Dean's eyebrows rose a little. Kid was a totally different person than the Kevin Tran he'd first met.

Noticing that the houseboat was incredibly quiet—no goofy Garth loping around anywhere to be seen or heard—Dean narrowed his eyes slightly. "Where's Garth?"

Kevin had turned back around and bent back over the tablet, apparently not interested in Cas and Dean's unexplained appearance. "Supply run?" he asked artlessly. "I don't know. Sort of lost track of when he comes and goes."

"And your mom?" Dean prompted.

Kevin turned around with an impatient flare of anger in his expression. "You guys need help with something?" he asked defensively. "I'm working here."

Surprised at the brush off, Dean was momentarily rendered speechless. "You look horrible," Cas observed flatly—his first words to Kevin.

"Yeah." Kevin looked pretty done with the world. "Thanks."

"He's right," Dean said, eyeing the prophet and wondering if something was wrong. "You okay, Kevin?"

"Fine," the young man said tiredly, then gestured around at all the evidence of his tablet work. "I'm just... in the middle of this."

Dean nodded, eyes traveling the numerous pages stuck to everything. "And? Any luck?"

"Interpreting half a demon tablet?" Kevin asked like he thought the question was ridiculous. "No. I got nothing. Give me some time though, geez."

Dean moved forward and patted him on the shoulder bracingly. "All right, well, buck up, 'cause we need some more of that demon T-N-T stuff you made before like ASAP."

Kevin's mouth dropped open a little. "You used it all?" he asked in disbelief.

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, so let's whip up another batch."

"Whip up another batch? Yeah, sure," Kevin retorted in rising anger. "All we need is West Bank witch hazel, skull of Egyptian calf, the tail of some random-ass newt that may or may not be extinct—"

"All right, all right, I get it—" Dean said, holding his hands up in mock-surrender. "Ingredients are hard to come by, huh?"

Moody and short-tempered, Kevin looked ready to kick something. "That's just the first three ingredients."

Dean looked at Cas, who he was pretty sure could take care of it. Just like he'd thought, Cas nodded. "Give me the list," he said to Kevin. "I'll get what we need."

Kevin didn't look enthusiastic, but he did what Cas said. After jotting down the list and handing it to Cas with a cynical 'good luck,' Kevin returned to bending over the tablet. Cas disappeared to get the items for demon bombs and Dean was left in the silent houseboat with a cranky prophet. After poking around Garth's weird little home for a couple minutes, he approached Kevin again. "Hey," he said. "Where is your mom? For real."

Kevin glanced up fleetingly at Dean. "Somewhere safe."

He put two and two together. "…You kicked your mom to the curb?" Dean asked in slight disbelief. The Trans were tight like braids… why would they separate after just reuniting?

Kevin was somber. "She was too distracting. I couldn't focus. The angels said I had to go to the desert to learn the word of God, all right? So…" he spread his hands and he was the picture of unhappiness as he stared at all the chaos he was surrounded by. "This is my desert."

"Yeah, but… your mom's your mom," Dean said. He would have given anything to have had his around.

Kevin was glum. "I can't enjoy a world I need to save, Dean," he said heavily. "I can enjoy it when this is all over with. For right now... there's nothing more important than this."

Dean watched Kevin with a growing sense of sadness. "Spoken like a true hunter," he replied, trying to disguise his sadder feelings. Poor kid used to have dreams of college and becoming president. And now he looked like he'd given up on everything. Kevin obviously knew that his life as he'd imagined it before was over before it had even started. It was kind of like Sam and Alex all over again. Sam wanting to be a lawyer—that dream had been snatched away. Alex wanting a normal life with Cas (she'd never said it, but Dean had known)—that would never happen. Because of this. Hunting. Saving people. It came with the highest price tag Dean knew of. And without the people he loved near him, Dean didn't really know what reasons he had left to continue on this path at all.

Nearby, Kevin was silent and his face was clouded for a long moment, but he'd stopped reading the tablet. He stared blankly at the tabletop. "I don't want my mom to get hurt because of me," he said finally. "Because of who I am." His dark eyes looked up at Dean and there was a deep, profound pain and fear there. A shadowed quality that would never go away. "You were right when you first told me not to even go back and see her," Kevin said, becoming more and more quietly upset. "You were right."

"Maybe not," Dean said, trying to boost some morale and lessen the overall depression in the room. "Maybe keeping family close is what's best, huh?"

"Yeah?" Kevin challenged knowingly, sitting back in his seat almost defiantly. "So where's Sam?"

Busted. Dean was wan at the reminder. "Not here," he said stiffly, then turned and walked off a couple steps. He wondered where Sammy was and if he was okay. He guessed he'd always wonder that. He still couldn't understand why Sam would ever abandon and betray the family like he had. I thought I knew him. Was it temporary insanity? Did Sam deserve another chance? He was sure acting like he wanted one…

In the dead of the silence, Kevin suddenly spoke up, his voice soft and sad. "Just so you know, I tried to talk Alex into letting me go with her into Purgatory and help get you guys." Dean turned around, his throat tight and his face taut with a pained expression. He hadn't forgotten what his sister had told him about helping this kid out while he and Cas were gone. Kevin looked rueful and regretful and a little ashamed. "But she wouldn't let me. Said I was too young and not a good enough fighter and she wasn't gonna be responsible for me getting hurt. That my job was word keeper, not front lines." His face darkened bitterly. "And now... she's dead." He looked around with a hard expression sketched onto his face. "It just gets under your skin. People you maybe could have saved." He looked at Dean finally. "That's why I have to do this and do it without distraction. I wanna make this world a safer place and I can't rest until I do. More people aren't gonna die because I didn't do my job."

Dean was confused. Did Kevin think it was his fault, somehow? Or was that just hunter's guilt? Honestly, he was too messed up himself to try and ask about it. If he took a chance and let himself be real, he would crack apart. So he cleared his throat, nodded that he'd heard, then looked around and changed the subject. "Got any eats?"

Appearing a little disappointed that his confession was getting no response, Kevin shrugged apathetically and gestured with a lazy, uncaring hand in the general direction of the kitchen area. "I dunno, look in there."

Dean tipped the bag of chips up and let the rest of the greasy crumbs in the bottom slide into his mouth and he tossed the wrapped haphazardly in the general direction of the trashcan as he chewed loudly and smacked his hands against each other to try and dust off the oily residue left on his palms. God he loved junk food. If he didn't spend so much time running and fighting and forgetting meals, he'd probably be the four-hundred-pound guy forever parked on the couch with a barrel of Cheetos.

As Dean amused himself with stupid thoughts that cost him no feeling except faint amusement, there was the sound of angel's wings behind him and Cas's familiar low voice. "I got what we need."

Dean turned around, eager to get on with the weapon making and demon killing. "About…" his face fell when he saw who the angel had brought, "…time." Sam was standing next to Cas and he had a look on his face like he was just bracing himself for Dean's reaction. Which was to immediately get mad and brusque. "What's he doing here?"

Sam had a reply prepared. "Don't worry, Dean," he said flatly, his expression guarded. "Once we save Alfie, I'm out."

Dean's eyebrows rose. "Oh, once 'we' save Alfie," he repeated. "Don't hurt yourself, Sam. Cas and I can handle it like we always have."

A muscle in Sam's jaw jerked. "Not according to Cas."

Dean looked at the angel with hard eyes. "I told you we didn't need him."

Cas looked like he'd expected as much and it was annoying the ever living fuck out of him. "We need everything, Dean," he replied forcefully. "And I need both of you, as you say… to stow your crap. Can you do that?" He looked at them both in turn, obviously very unhappy with the rift. Then in vastly grouchy annoyance, he set his mouth in a thin line. "Wait here. I'm going to get one more person."

"Who?" Dean asked, but the angel had already vanished. "Dammit, Cas…" he muttered, then shot his brother an unfriendly glance.

Kevin leaned forward and looked through the bag of ingredients Cas had set down onto the table. "Wow," the prophet said, pawing through the items inside the burlap sack. "He actually got everything. And so quick, too."

Dean folded his arms and glared at Kevin. "So you can build those bombs now, right?" he asked, in a pushy mood because he was so pissed that Cas had brought Sam into this.

He got a petulant look. "No…" Kevin said like the question was idiotic. "A witch needs to put them together."

Dean's face fell. He hadn't known that part. "Maybe Cas can do it," he said, then eyed Sam sidelong. Uncomfortable and stiff, Sam was already looking at Dean. "Where you been for the last three days?" Dean asked in a gruff voice. He tried to sound like he didn't care, but of course hd did.

Sam's reply was even and quiet. "Hunting down Zip."

Dean, who hadn't spent enough time worrying about his brother or what he would have been doing all this time, did a double take. "Sam—whoa—what for?"

Sam was severe and unfriendly. "You know what for," he replied, and he was cold and distant to a point that Dean guessed was deserved. "I told you," his brother said firmly. "I'm not letting this rest until I know for sure." He paused and softened then offered something that surprised Dean. "And if you wanna come along with me… you're more than welcome." A long look passed between the brothers. "Otherwise, after this, you never have to see me again. Up to you." Not knowing what to say because he was so guilty of hurting his brother, Dean said nothing at all. He'd told Sam to get over himself when they fought. But maybe Sam wasn't the one who needed to get over himself.

And then Kevin spoke up, distracting the brothers. "Did you say… Zip?" he asked. He had stopped what he was doing and was staring up at them oddly, his pencil frozen in mid-word.

"Yeah, why?" Sam asked, making a quick intuitive jump. "You seen him?"

Sure enough, Kevin nodded slowly and awkwardly. "Uh… yeah. He shows up wherever I am. Ever since I got away from Crowley. Brings food I like and stuff, weapons and stuff sometimes too." Kevin definitely looked sheepish.

Dean's eyebrows were sky high. "You got to be kidding me. First that little punk stalks—" he stopped short of saying her name. "And now Kevin?"

Sam looked mildly murderous. "Maybe I can help you with your stalker problem, Kevin."

Kevin actually didn't look too comforted by that offer. "Are you guys gonna kill him?" he asked, nervous eyes going between Sam and Dean both.

"That depends," Sam said darkly.

Kevin said nothing else—went back to translating the tablet. But he looked a lot less at ease than he'd been before. Sam and Dean took up opposite ends of the room. Sam standing and leaning with crossed arms against a wall, Dean sitting in a chair and twiddling his thumbs and picking at a scab on his wrist. About five minutes later, the sound of angel's wings alerted them to Cas's return. And with him…

"James!" Dean managed as he stood up so fast he knocked his chair over.

Jamie was beside Cas and she looked… pretty bad. She wore jeans and sneakers, a wrinkled black hoodie, and her hair didn't look like it had been washed in a few days. Maybe she'd lost weight, too—she didn't look as strong as before. She wore no makeup to speak of, had chipped and bitten fingernail polish and tired eyes. Dean was immediately worried and already drifting closer to her. She looked at him with a nearly wary expression before her eyes darted around and avoided really looking into his.

"Cas said you guys needed a witch," she explained woodenly, apparently not wanting to say hello like Dean did.

Kevin shot up to his feet with wide eyes and he backed away. "She's a witch?!" Apparently he'd had a bad experience with them.

Jamie eyed him doubtfully, the smallest smile alighting. "Relax, kid, it's not contagious."

Dean gestured at Kevin and then at James. "Kevin Tran, Jamie Ward. My—uh..." he stopped short of saying girlfriend and looked at her questioningly with narrowed eyes, realizing maybe that wasn't the case anymore. The look on her face was too unclear for him to know what she was anymore. Then she looked away and left him hanging and Dean was suddenly very self conscious.

"I'm sorry, but time is of the essence," Cas said, cutting short the awkward moment.

"Just show me where the stuff is and the instructions, if you have them," Jamie said, and she was obviously glad to have something to do that didn't involve talking to Dean. A little hurt, he watched as she proceeded to set up the stuff and asked for bowls and a pestle and a hammer and a few other things. Kevin got what he had as Dean hovered close to James. She studiously ignored him and Dean waited for her to say something or look at him, but neither of those things happened. He cleared his throat, trying to get her attention. Nothing. "Hey, so—" he began. She stopped what she was doing and her eyes slid toward him. "…We good?" he asked, not sure why she was acting like this. She'd been weird ever since he got back from Purgatory, yeah—and she was kind of a hot-or-cold kind of person either way—but his senses just kept telling him something was going on with her that he didn't know about.

Her eyes finally looked into his and she was completely unreadable to him. "I'm here, aren't I?" she asked, her tone neutral.

Well, that answered nothing. Dean searched her eyes for truth, but her walls were up and he couldn't see into her like he sometimes could. When he compared this moment against others they'd had, he was confused and disillusioned and frustrated. He had been in moments with this girl where there had been nothing between them emotionally. He didn't get it. "Still mad at me?" he asked, not sure how else to get at what was wrong with her. Last time they'd been in the same room she'd been crazy upset, so maybe she was. It hadn't been that long since that little tiff they'd had...

But she didn't seem upset anymore. Today, she was reserved, demure, and playing her cards close to her chest which kinda stung. At his question, a little pained smile flashed across her face and she looked back down at her tableful of ingredients. "Always," she said. It was a joke and it was a way of avoiding really engaging in conversation with him. But Dean heard one thing in her voice. She was sad.

He watched her as she worked and knew why she was sad. He looked at Kevin, praying that the kid could get something off that demon tablet that could help him save this girl. Even if she didn't want to be saved or even if she didn't believe she could be saved, he needed to save her. Needed to save someone. Lost in his thoughts, he totally missed the way Jamie looked at him sidelong, just once, with the guiltiest look on her face. And then she wiped it away, pinched her face up into an expression of concentration, and focused on the task at hand. He couldn't have known how the truth about their secret daughter was eating her alive inside.

Under the cover of night, the Impala crept to a halt outside of the warehouse perimeter, far enough away that they wouldn't draw attention. Out of the car, four hunters came—Dean, Sam, Jamie, and Castiel. In the darkness ahead, the warehouse where Crowley held Samandriel loomed behind a chain-link fence. "So, there will probably be four main points of warding," Castiel told them as they studied the quiet looking building. "North, south, east, and west—and four Enochian symbols, like this…" he produced a sharpie marker from nowhere and took Sam's wrist then drew a star-like symbol onto his hand, "…that you need to destroy before I can enter."

Dean nodded, face terse. "Okay, so we go in, take care of the hell mooks, and you extract the angel?"

Cas nodded confirmation. "Yes." His guilty, sad eyes slid to Dean's. "After killing so many… I need to save at least this one." A heavy statement that made Dean look away.

"Sounds like a plan," Sam said softly and grimly—he was sensitive to Cas's emotional turmoil.

Cas looked at Sam and then reached into his trench coat and produced his angel blade then handed it toward him, hilt-first. "Here, Sam. This kills demons as well as angels. Take it."

Hesitant to do so but awed at the gesture, Sam nodded and took it after a beat of contemplation. "Thanks, Cas."

Dean nodded his readiness, pulling out the demon blade. "Okay," he said. "Let's do this thing." He turned to Jamie, who was silent and pensive, frowning at the warehouse with sharp eyes. "Ready for those demon bombs, Sabrina."

At the witch joke, she shot him a sidelong look. "I'm not staying out here, dumbass. You and Sam need all the backup you can get." She brushed past him with a royal attitude that, no lie… kinda turned him on.

His voice was a notch deeper and huskier as he followed after her. "Well then, after you, bosslady."

Sam looked vaguely disapproving but said nothing, just gave Cas a parting nod as he followed after Dean and Jamie. "Dean, be careful," Cas said in an urgent, low voice, following them by a few footsteps and then hanging back. "Call me the second you've destroyed the fourth symbol."

And then Cas waited. After a moment, he looked at the Impala and thought about the girl who used to ride in the back seat.

Focus, Castiel. Stop that.

The inner voice he did not recognize, realize, or even remember commanded it and he turned his head away in obedience without fully realizing. Left feeling strange and slightly ill, Castiel stood in darkness and felt once again that something was wrong.

Sam and Dean knew each other like the backs of their own hands when it came to this kind of situation. They moved through the warehouse from shadow to shadow, Dean leading and giving hand signals that sometimes weren't even necessary—Sam already knew what to do and where to go and vice versa with Dean. They anticipated each others' movements like they always had. With Jamie right on their heels, they covered all four corners of the warehouse, taking about three minutes in total to void the sigils blocking Castiel from entering. Jamie gave them a very interesting benefit—she cast a silence spell on their footsteps, earning approval and pleasant surprise from both the brothers. As they traversed the huge warehouse, they could hear screams. Samandriel was here, and Crowley was torturing him. They moved all the faster for that fact.

It had looked like the hunters were going to get the jump on the demons and not even alert them to their presence, but at the last moment, some demons found the destroyed angel sigils as the hunters were destroying the fourth and final one. When about ten demons rushed the group of three, those demon bombs came in plenty handy but they did have a pretty hard kick. Unfortunately, in the scuffle after throwing two bombs out, Jamie didn't duck fast enough and Dean wasn't quick enough to get her—she flew back hard against a wall and hit her head then fell to the ground in a heap and went still.

The heat was still sizzling through the air acridly as Dean hurried over to her and turned her over to check her. "Dammit, James," he muttered, a little worried and a little mad, too. That was a rookie mistake she'd just made. Her mind just wasn't here. "She's out cold." But would be okay from what he could tell. He looked up and his voice took on a cagey edge. "All right, anytime now, Cas," he said, alerting the angel that he was free to come in now and get Samandriel the hell out of here.

Cas appeared, but he was breathing laboriously. "Cas! Hey!" Sam gripped him by the arm. "You okay?"

Obviously not okay, Cas shook his head clumsily. "It… must be the sigils," he managed unevenly. "I'm not… at full power." The angel looked horrible and shaky, like even standing up was hard for him. How was he supposed to get Alfie out of here if he was in such bad shape?

Dean looked around—various sigils were scattered across the warehouse interior and he knew there were more down the hallway to the left. "Sam, help me muss this crud," he said.

Cas apparently didn't want to go that route. "No! There's no time. Samandriel won't last much longer!" As if to prove that point, the screams coming from close by intensified.

Dean jiggled the nearby door handle—if he was right, Samandriel was in the room that was behind the solid old wood door. "Door's bolted shut from the inside!" he said, snatching up a fallen slim pipe from nearby and wedging it into the crack between the door and the frame. He gritted his teeth and shouted a groan as he used all of his strength to accomplish… pretty much nothing.

Sam handed Cas his blade back fast and rushed over to help his brother, who had started launching the full weight of his body against the solid wood door repeatedly.

Cas staggered backwards and covered his ears with his hands abruptly, like something was hurting him or something was too loud. "Cas! Come on, man!" Dean yelled as he and Sam continued to try and break down the door.

But Cas did not assist them. Samandriel's screams continued to rise in pitch and agony and Castiel only backed further away from Sam and Dean. He didn't seem to hear or see anything that was happening in front of him—and then he shrank down and cowered against the opposite wall, his face a mask of shock and fear and horror as he clutched his blade and stared into nothing with terrified eyes. "No," he protested in a scared voice that didn't seem characteristic of him at all, "What—are you doing—to her?!" He shrank further and further into a little pathetic heap. "Stop—stop—"

Sam stopped and looked back at the angel with wide, worried eyes. He'd heard the word 'her.' "Cas?"

Dean, continuously throwing himself at the door, was getting nowhere. "Sam!" he shouted. "Help me!"

And then there was a soft, low female's voice. "Dirumpe." A single word said with dangerous amounts of power that crackled through the air and caused immediate effect. A gust of wind came from nowhere and the shut door shattered apart completely in an explosion of splinters and wood chunks. Dean and Sam gaped at the source of the magic. Standing there with a hand outstretched and a slack face, Jamie managed to stay on two feet for only one second before she wobbled and then fell over onto the floor, completely sapped from the spell she'd just cast.

Dean hesitated and it was clear he was about to go to her. Sam grabbed him by the arm, dragging him forward. "Dean, Alfie!" And the brothers hurried into the room together.

Crowley was not there. Samandriel's screams had stopped. But they saw him—sitting nearby and slumped over, bloody, bound like an animal. Near to the angel, a demon in a white lab coat snatched up a knife from his table of torture tools and attacked Dean even as a second demon in a dark jacket jumped on Sam from where he'd been crouched and hidden. Castiel staggered in, making a beeline for Samandriel in the chaos.

Dean flew into a glass pane even as Sam ran backwards into a nearby brick wall, stunning the demon who was choking him from behind long enough that he got free and could sucker punch his assailant in the face.

Cas got to Samandriel, who was barely conscious and strapped to a chair, bound in place with a strange metal torture device that was screwed into his head with multiple small metal parts. With shaking fingers, Cas loosened the screws on Samandriel's head as nearby, Dean kneed the lab-coat wearing demon repeatedly in the stomach and then shoved him away. Castiel continued to pull out screws and prongs as fast as he could. There was blood everywhere. But Samandriel was still alive. Maybe just barely so. But he was still alive. Cas looked down at the prong he had just extracted and stopped for a moment. Why did it look so familiar? He didn't know. He pulled the rest out with increased urgency as nearby, Dean knocked down then jumped on top of the demon he was fighting and raised his knife for the kill—leaving his own throat exposed. The demon grabbed him by the neck and they struggled.

Sam kicked the demon in the dark jacket into the table littered in torture implements—the demon swiped one and rushed him. Castiel got the last metal piece out and removed the circlet of metal from Samandriel's head. The younger angel opened his eyes and stared dumbly at Castiel—he looked relieved, hurt, shocked all at once.

Dean hit the demon he was grappling with hard in the forearm, breaking the choke hold even as Sam, not doing so well and without a demon killing weapon, got hit in the face hard enough to get a busted lip. "Sammy!" Dean shouted, and that one word told Sam what to do. Even as Dean scrambled up to his feet, Sam managed one last good lunge and grabbed the demon he was fighting and turned him then flung the demon at his brother—who was waiting with his blade. With a sick thunk of flesh being impaled, the demon collided with the blade and screamed as his skeleton flickered. Yanking the knife out and shoving the body away, Dean shoved a knee down into the lab coat demon's chest and held his knife at the ready.

"Wait, wait!" the demon begged.

"Yeah right," Dean snapped, and plunged the knife down into the demon's chest. Even as his skeleton flickered and he screamed, Dean glared over at the angels. What were they waiting for? "Cas! Go!"

Castiel ported himself and Samandriel out of that place and to the Impala. There, he held the smaller angel up—the younger angel was bleeding profusely and didn't seem able to stand on his own.

Samandriel looked up at his older brother in a daze of confusion. Castiel could only imagine what had been done to him in there. "It's okay," Cas assured, bursting with relief and something like happiness. He'd done it. He'd saved one. "You're safe now," he said comfortingly. "I'm taking you home."

Instead of relief, Samandriel looked frightened. "Home?" Inexplicably, the panic in his eyes returned. "No, you can't take me back there, Castiel!"

Was Samandriel confused? Disoriented? "Why not?" Cas asked, completely confused.

"You don't understand," Samandriel said, breathing heavily and speaking fast in a voice that was deadly and severe. "I told Crowley things—things he shouldn't have known. He got to our coding, our secrets—secrets I didn't even know we had!"

Castiel was more and more blindsided by the second. "What secrets?"

"Heaven's tablet!" Samandriel said, his panic only getting more and more pronounced. Again, Castiel had no idea what his brother was speaking about. "Things Naomi will kill me for allowing out into the open!"

Castiel's face scrunched into a deep frown. Truly, he was beginning to think Samandriel was delirious and spouting nonsense. "Who's Naomi?" he asked.

Samandriel's face showed utter shock. "Who's—?" he began incredulously, then began to speak in utter urgency as his bloody hands gripped Castiel on either forearm like vices. "Listen to me, listen to me closely. I've been there. I know! They're controlling us!" Further confused, Cas could only stare. Who? What did Samandriel mean? And then Cas's heart seemed to stop altogether at Samandriel's next impassioned declaration: "Castiel, they have your wife!" At the look of sheer terror and cluelessness that overcame Castiel's face, Samandriel became dazed and quietly shocked. "Y-you don't know, do you?" he asked, transfixed in horror. His voice lost the forceful quality it had possessed before. "You don't remember. Any of it. S-she made you forget." Eyes falling away from Castiel's, Samandriel's face betrayed his deep fear. "It's so much worse than I thought," he breathed, almost speaking to himself at that point.

Cas was overcome by a certain sense of sick panic—he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't comprehend anything. "What do you mean?" he asked in rising alarm, grabbing and shaking Samandriel. "Who made me forg—who has Alex?!"

And then, the voice in his head gave him a new command.

Kill him!

No, I can't!

This is a direct order, Castiel! Kill him or I kill her!

And without warning, without even knowing what he was doing or why, Cas let his blade come out of his sleeve and he plunged the glinting tip into Samandriel's chest deeply. Light and Grace burned out as Samandriel gasped a horrible airless sound in pain, too raw from torture to summon a scream. Shocked and betrayed, the younger angel's eyes slowly lifted to stare up at Cas in utter dismay… the innocent eyes full of tears. And then he collapsed, dead. Castiel stared down at Samandriel, who he held up against the car, and he could not breathe.

What have I done?!

And then, Castiel was not on earth at all anymore. He was in a clinically clean office space that was full of artificial lighting and sleek silver embellishments. He was clean, seated, and not sure what was happening. Momentarily forgetting everything, too confused to know what was happening, Castiel stared at the other person in the room. She was a tall Caucasian woman in her forties dressed in a tailored business suit. Her brown hair was clipped up elegantly and a fringe of bangs swept across her forehead at an angle. She had a pleasant face—but immediately, Castiel did not like her.

He looked around, gauging the immediate area for danger as his fingers dug into the armrests of the chair he sat in. He noticed that his fingers did not feel texture very well and that he still smelled blood in his nose. "W-where am I?" he asked, remembering Samandriel with increasing distress. "W-what did I just do?" He felt dizzy, sluggish, wrong.

The woman said nothing, just looked at him with an expression that could be called cold and displeased. And then he remembered, at least one thing. "Naomi," he breathed. He had been here before, hadn't he? He knew this woman, or at least he thought he did. He knew her name somehow… his mind felt so jumbled and he realized there was a physical sensation of pain behind one of his eyes. Why, he didn't know. "What did I just do?" he repeated, voice trembling. He'd murdered an innocent, helpless angel in cold blood and for no reason whatsoever! I'm still crazy. The Leviathan damaged me forever. I'm broken!

"You killed a traitor," Naomi said in a brisk, firm voice. "And as to your question about where you are… you're in Heaven. Well. Your mind is, anyway."

Confused and disjointed, Castiel tried to figure out what was happening by speaking aloud. "Samandriel... I… I was trying to save him," he said, broken inside over what his hands had just done. "I killed him, why?"

Naomi's face showed contempt. "Samandriel was broken," she said sharply. "He revealed the existence of what I would die to protect—what any of us would die to protect. The angel tablet, Castiel. And now Crowley knows."

Castiel stared at her in total disbelief. "I just murdered one of my brother angels because… you told me to?" He remembered hearing her voice compel him to do so now, but it made no sense. He had no allegiance to this angel. His days of mindless obedience were gone. In denial, he shook his head and pushed himself up to stand. "No, I don't blindly serve Heaven anymore, especially if Heaven is killing its own." He made for the doorway of the room.

Naomi studied him icily. "Weren't you the one who wiped out thousands of our kind not even two years ago, Castiel?" she asked softly, freezing him in his steps. "You're lucky I'm giving you this opportunity at all."

Castiel turned around slowly, filled with dread although he couldn't quite remember why. "What… opportunity?"

She let out a soft sigh of inconvenienced impatience, as if she were tired of this exchange. Castiel didn't remember how many times it had happened in the past week or so, but Naomi did. "Have you forgotten what I have of yours?" she asked softly, then produced something out of her suit jacket pocket that made Castiel's heart catch. A penny on a silver chain.

Immediately bristling and shrinking all at once, Castiel went toward her, his heart hammering so hard he thought his chest cavity might break. "Where did you get that?!"

"Where do you think?" she returned evenly.

Oh no. In a moment of madness, Castiel rushed at Naomi, intending to attack and subdue her and then demand answers—but when he rushed into her space, he stopped short and his hands did nothing. His body refused to obey what he wanted to do, and she smiled at him in veiled amusement. Castiel was left to grasp at straws in his mind. How is she controlling me like this?!

"Castiel," she said in false fondness. "Must we really do this every time?" she asked. "Remember. What you've agreed to. What our arrangement is." And as he looked into her haunting blue eyes, he did remember. He remembered it all.

About a week and a half ago, he'd been in Purgatory. Alone. Barely surviving. But content to know that Alex had escaped this place safely. And then without warning, he was snatched out of that gray land of endless trees and fangs and claws. He was abruptly in a pristine office area, and a female angel he did not know was seated in front of him at a glass desk. She smiled welcomingly at him even though he was filthy from Purgatory and sitting in a white chair across from her that would no longer be white once he stood.

"Hello, Castiel."

He'd been confused by the sudden jarring change he'd endured. "Where am I?" he'd asked, worried.

The woman looked mildly sympathetic and surprised. "You don't know? You're home, Castiel," she'd told him in a soothing voice. But he didn't miss the element of haughtiness her tone carried. The slightly patronizing way her eyes glinted at him. "A place many would say you don't deserve to be. But, I think you can provide great use to me which is why I elected to bring you here." Confused, Castiel listened as she explained. "My name is Naomi. We rescued you. An incursion of angels, which cost us many lives."

His initial reaction had been to feel touched. And then, he was afraid. "But why?" Perhaps the angels wanted revenge. "After what I did...?"

However, Naomi didn't seem to want him dead. She leaned forward over her hands and smiled calmly at him, never showing teeth. "Because of your unique position. Your… connections. I have a task for you."

Understanding now that she wanted something from him, Castiel immediately began to refuse and very firmly so. He had someone waiting for him on earth. "No, I don't think so." He stood up.

Pleasant as a spring day, Naomi merely watched, a serene smile on her face as her hands remained clasped on her polished glass desk. "You haven't even heard what I'm proposing."

Trying to be polite because he did appreciate what they had done, he explained himself—he was in such a hurry to go to Alex. "I apologize, but it doesn't matter what the task is. I need to get back to Alex Winchester, my w—" he stopped short, remembering how many angels looked down on him for that.

Naomi nodded obligingly and he saw her swallow down some distaste behind the appearance of hospitality. "Your wife. Yes, I know." She breathed in through her nose, but the way she did it showed Castiel that she was becoming angry with him. "I thought you might say that. Refuse to do what I asked. Based on your past behaviors and actions, I've gathered that you are quite the strong-willed one. Very interested in your own gain, and not the gain of Heaven." She stood up in a slow measured way and then rounded the desk at a gait that showed how in charge she was. How superior. "Castiel. Allow me to give you this final chance to work for me of your own free will," she said, leaning against the front of her desk and continuing to look at him with eyes that were falsely kind. "All I want is for you to monitor the prophet, the Winchesters, and report back to me with your findings."

Castiel hesitated. "Why?"

Naomi's smile held. "It's not your concern."

He shook his head. He was incredibly wary. His danger sense was blaring. But he remained firm. "No. I won't be a spy for an angel I've never heard of who exists in a part of Heaven I've never even seen before." Castiel was beginning to feel that this was a trap of some kind. A sinister undertone he couldn't completely quash was eating at him inside.

Naomi's eye twitched—the only giveaway of her annoyance with him. "Very well," she said, and then gestured at the doorway and then walked toward it. "Come with me."

She led Castiel to another room where two other angels waited—both silent and male with sharp, watchful eyes. In the center of the room, there was an empty chair that seemed to be medical in style. Beside it, some sort of tool of torture rested on a small, sleek table. "What's going on here?" Castiel asked, realizing that Naomi was going to attempt to do something to him. And in that moment, he realized that he was unable to port away. Naomi somehow had him stuck here.

"Sit in the chair, Castiel," Naomi said pleasantly, sauntering up to him and smiling even though she already seemed to know his answer.

"No," he said, eyeing either other angel in the room. He wasn't sure if he could fight three at once, especially since he felt substantially weakened currently.

Naomi looked at him for a long moment. "Very well." She turned her head and looked at the door on the opposite end of the room. "Hagar!" she called.

The door opened, and into the room came another angel. This one female and small with delicate features and a serious face. She was leading someone with her by a hand and Castiel's heart absolutely dropped out of him. "Alex!" he cried, immediately making to go to her. The two male angels moved in and stopped him, held him back.

Castiel struggled, but to no avail. And then he realized that Alex was not herself. She let Hagar lead her into the room by the hand like a small child might. She walked with a strange, clumsy gait as her feet shuffled, her usually keen expressive face had no expression on it whatsoever. And then she just stood there at Hagar's side with a vacant look on her face—in fact, upon closer examination, she seemed drugged. In some kind of stupor. Cas stared at her in rising horror as her dulled eyes met his. There was no recognition in those hazel depths whatsoever and he reached out with his angelic senses to test and see if it were really her—he recognized the faint, dulled feeling of her soul which he always had been able to sense since the first time he'd ever touched it—it was her—but she was utterly nonreactive. She just stood there and she didn't know him and Cas's heart broke, his veins surged with an incredible need to get to her and protect her, get her away from these angels.

"What have you done to her?!" he asked, fully aghast.

Naomi was looking at Alex in vague interest, like someone might look at a museum display—only because it was there and you were supposed to look at it. "She doesn't remember you," she said softly, dangerously, "and she won't until this is all over." Mouth falling open as he realized how trapped he was, Castiel stared at Naomi who was now looking at him in both interest and distaste. "The day when an angel values a mortal over Heaven," she commented softly. "I'm sad to see it come to this but I am reasonable, Castiel. In the face of your choices which many would consider blasphemies, I'm giving you another chance to be who you were created to be. You will get her back—if you want her—when you've finished the work I have for you. And if you refuse…" Naomi's gaze slid to Alex. "Well. She means nothing to me whatsoever."

Castiel struggled to breathe and looked at the human being he loved most in the world. "Alex," he pleaded. She didn't even seem to know her name. "Are you all right? Have they hurt you?"

Alex looked at him without recognition. Then she opened her mouth and nothing came out. Confused, she looked down and touched fingers to her throat. Cas stared in complete panic and dismay—it was like his body was falling away from his insides, like his heart was turning to acid in his chest.

"What have you done to her?" he breathed. He didn't believe this could be happening. It was too unthinkable. And yet it was. His voice began to tremble with anger. "Why doesn't she speak?"

Naomi looked at him in a way that warned him to be careful in how he addressed her. "She was very… belligerent when she realized what was happening here and what my plans for you were. She attacked me and others and caused problems. I conduct a peaceful operation here. So, I took measures she forced me to take. I refuse to have the atmosphere that I've so painstakingly created here ruined." With warning, Naomi made sure Castiel knew how serious she was. "And now you've forced my hand as well. Remember, I offered you a choice. I know how fond you are of those." A cruel joke about his past and what had led him here. Naomi's heels clicked closer. "I have taken her memories, her ability to speak. I will not hesitate to take her life if you do not do as I ask you. But first, before I do that, I will cause her great physical torment as you stand by and watch."

Castiel looked into this angel's eyes and he believed her immediately. He saw that she was someone he should not cross or betray. He knew it immediately and he wondered why he had never heard of her before. Despairing because he didn't know how he could get himself and Alex out of this, he was stuck listening to Naomi, who was still speaking and promising terrible things. "Don't let it come to that, Castiel. I leave this decision in your hands. And just so that you can rest assured that I am not bluffing…" Naomi walked over and grabbed Alex's hand and shoved her jacket up her arm as she took out her angel blade. Alex just watched dumbly and peacefully as Castiel struggled against the hold the angels had on him as he shouted things that changed nothing about what happened next. Naomi took her blade and carved a deep gash into Alex's arm—and the human girl who had been so compliant and nonreactive up until then suddenly seized and tried to pull away as her mouth opened in a silent scream of pain.

"Stop, no, stop!" Castiel begged, his voice high pitched from panic and desperation. Naomi paused her work and looked at him expectantly. Shaking as he watched Alex cry and clutch her arm to herself in childlike confusion and fear, he swallowed. "I'll do whatever you ask, just don't hurt her."

Naomi looked at the seat in the room, indicating it with a nod. "Sit in the chair."

Castiel sat in the chair.

After he sat in that chair, Naomi had implanted what she called an inhibitor into the back of his eye. That was how she was maintaining her connection with him like this between Heaven and Earth. That's why he kept forgetting everything. He thought Naomi must have put one into Alex, too, for her to have forgotten everything. That or she had wiped the memories completely… a thought that made his heart sink. Even if he saved her and pulled her from captivity, if the memories had been erased, he didn't know a way to put them back. Not fully. His anger was beginning to win out—how dare someone do that to Alex and hold her here in stasis of the mind and body? It was violation and he wouldn't stand for it.

"Give her back to me," he growled, and his voice carried the promise of death if obedience wasn't given. He stood up from the chair he was seated in, and he was ready to kill her with his bare hands.

Naomi didn't appear bothered. "This is only a psychic link, Castiel," she explained offhandedly, strolling a few steps off and leaning against the desk with folded arms. Cool and triumphant but also clearly unhappy with Castiel, Naomi waited for him to respond. He didn't because he was so furious and helpless. "You can't hurt me, even though I see you want to," Naomi said, but she was grim, not taunting. "Now listen. What just happened on earth just now was necessary. If the demon tablet can seal demons into Hell, what do you think the angel tablet could do to us? Your mission is to find and protect this tablet at all costs. Now that Crowley knows, we must find it before the demons do. I cannot emphasize enough the weight of this and the importance of what I am telling you to do."

But Castiel could only think of one thing. One precious, important, irreplaceable thing. "My wife has nothing to do with this," he said, emotions suddenly getting the best of him. "Please, her brothers are mourning her, I'm mourning her—this isn't right!" He could have wept for the hopelessness he felt. He didn't know if Naomi would ever let her go—after all, for Alex, Castiel would do anything. And Naomi knew that. Still, Cas pleaded on the slightest chance that the other angel would show mercy. "Let her go. Please, let her go. I'll do whatever you ask if you just let her go."

Naomi's mouth twitched in annoyance. "Enough about the girl, Castiel. You're deluding yourself. It's pathetic." She made herself speak patiently, even though she clearly wasn't feeling that way at all. "As I said before. I'll give her back to you at the end of all this if you cooperate and keep doing what I need you to do. And honestly, it shouldn't be like this. You're an angel. Act like it."

A certain degree of coldness struck Castiel at those words. He didn't take kindly to being told who he was. He knew who he was, and it wasn't indentured servant to Heaven. His voice carried a dark and dangerous edge to it. "Yes. I am an angel. But I'm also her protector and her friend," he said in a voice that got stormier and stormier. "Her husband, and if you think I place Heaven over her… you're sorely mistaken."

Naomi's anger was easy to see—his defiance and rebellion had her face gone cold. "Enough of this blasphemy."

And just like that, Castiel found himself on earth again and cradling Samandriel's body. Tears leaked out of his eyes. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. And he had forgotten everything that just happened. Everything.

Close by, Castiel could hear the sound of the Winchesters returning. Sam was in the lead, his long legs carrying him at a jog as Dean, supporting a weakened Jamie, followed as fast as he could. "Cas!" Sam skidded to a half a few feet off, taking in the blood-soaked angels and the way Cas huddled over a clearly-dead Samandriel beside the Impala. "What the hell happened?"

You tell the Winchesters that Samandriel had been compromised.

Cas lifted his hanging head slowly, staring at nothing. "He was compromised."

He came at you, and you acted in self-defense.

Slowly standing, Cas still stared into nothing. "He came at me. I killed him in self-defense."

Say you must return his body to Heaven, and then bring him to me.

Cas opened his mouth to say those words even as Jamie, leaning hard against Dean, narrowed her eyes in concern. "Your eye…" she said, staring in slight dread at Castiel's right-hand eye. "It's… bleeding." Sam and Dean were staring in the same way. My eye? There was a warm trickle beneath his right eye and the angel brushed fingers against it. What came away was not tears—it was blood.

Even as he wondered idly what was happening to him, Castiel spoke the words he was fed from Naomi, even though he didn't even know he was being given lines at all. "My vessel must have been damaged in the melee," he said in a voice that was dead and lifeless. "I have to go. Samandriel's remains belong in Heaven."

Dean's face showed utter confusion. "Heaven? I thought you said you couldn't go back th—"

And then in a flash of impulsivity, in a brief moment of panic, Cas was able to break free from the control that was over him. "I lied!" he exclaimed, suddenly and jarringly emotional and alarmed. "Dean, listen, you have to—"

Castiel found himself in Heaven again and Naomi was in his face, seething. She held him by his lapels. "Attempt to tell the Winchesters about what's happening again and I will destroy her as you watch, Castiel!" she shouted, and he believed her and was horrified at himself for risking it at all. "Do you doubt me?!" She let go with a shove. "Now bring Samandriel here! I need to see just how far Crowley dug into him. Do you understand?"

Overcome with how dire this situation was and how possibly inescapable it was, too, Cas nodded a yes. "I understand," he replied in a faint, sickened voice even as he strained to sense Alex and get even the vaguest idea of how close or far she was from that very room. But then he was back on earth and avoiding looking at anyone, bending and scooping up Samandriel and he did not remember that Alex was still alive.

"Cas, wait!" Dean shouted. But Castiel did not. He left without a word, blank-faced and apathetic, taking Samandriel with him with no further explanation. "Cas!" Dean shouted into the night air, beside himself. "What the hell?!" he asked in an aghast tone and then looked at Sam, who was grim and somehow much less shocked about this than Dean was.

In fact, Sam looked like he'd only had the worst confirmed. "You believe me now?" he asked intently, pointing to the place where Cas had just been standing. His young face was gaunt, severe, and sure. "Something's wrong with him," Sam insisted intensely. "Really wrong. Someone's messing with him or maybe he's still crazy like he was before; maybe he's still got Leviathan inside of him, I dunno." Blindsided, Dean was left to watch Sam be the man with the plan. "We gotta find Zip. We gotta get into Purgatory. Something happened there, I know it. Trust me on this, Dean. For all we know, Alex could still be alive."

That was the worst thought of all. What if she was? What if Sam was right? What if Dean's pride and refusal to hear his brother had consequences neither of them could control? Cas had been back for about a week now—a week—and what if Alex was still out there? Still in Purgatory like Sam theorized? Dean wanted to die of the regret and panic that was crashing over him as everything Sam had fought him about and insisted on charged through his mind again. This entire time Dean had been discounting Sam's intuition because of his own hurt feelings and grudges—it had been petty, it had been prideful, and now Dean was left to realize Sam had a point and Cas wasn't solid like Dean had thought. Today had proved it several times over, but with the Samandriel thing being the most damning. Something was very wrong with the angel.

"Yeah, Sam," Dean breathed, horrified at himself and this development. "M-maybe you're right." He stared at the place where Cas had been and he was worried. Worried about Cas, who he knew very well after all that time in Purgatory. This wasn't Cas and Dean should have realized that straight away. Did someone have him on a leash? Is that why Cas had gotten out of Purgatory? Some big-bad yank him out in exchange for favors? What was happening here? He didn't know, but he'd sure as hell find out. Starting now.

Leaning on him heavily, Jamie shifted a little. "I'll come with you," she said, drawing a surprised look from him. "If that's okay," she added quickly. "I can help you find this Zip guy." A soft, veiled smile showed on tight lips. "Witch, remember? Got a few tricks up my sleeve." Poor girl looked exhausted—she'd just done some major casting, which always made her feel bad.

"We gotta get you some chicken noodle soup first," Dean joked fondly. His arm still looped under her arm for support, Dean squeezed gently and then impulsively kissed the side of her head. She closed her eyes tight at the affection, and when they made eye contact, Jamie gave Dean a little sad smile.

One Week Later

Dean kicked his foot into the motel room trash can in frustration.

"I just can't believe he got away like that," Sam complained, sighing and sitting on the end of the motel room bed as he tossed his duffel bag down.

"I can," Dean muttered, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. "Clever bastard, morphing into a scrawny little kid to slip out of those damn ropes. I turn my back for one second and all that painstaking work—poof—out the window." He checked his watch irritably. James said she needed five minutes to run across the street to the gas station. He was constantly thinking she would disappear when he least expected it. Made a guy paranoid.

Sam nodded for a minute, his face showing how tired and disappointed he was. "We'll find him again, Dean."

"What, so he can just tell us the same thing?" Dean asked in bad temper. He hated that stupid Leviathan for being so oily and douchy and hated him for being another dead end. "We can't force him to tell us the spell. Even James' truth spell thing didn't work on him. Sure, we can steal some of Ziploc's… plasma… stuff, but without the spell, it's useless. So unless you got another Dick Roman laying around you can ride into Purgatory…"

Sam knew that, of course. But stubborn and determined, he set his jaw. "I'm not giving up on this until we're sure," he said lowly. At the look Dean was giving him, he frowned. "What?"

Dean hesitated. "Just… Dad spent years and years doing what we're doing now." Chasing a ghost that could never return. He couldn't believe he was saying it, but… "Isn't it time to stop?"

Sam's face tightened slightly. "Mom was dead. Alex might not be."

Dean shook his head a few times, sobering and saddening all at once. "I dunno why you're so convinced. Sam, Purgatory's nothing but fangs and teeth and claws. With backup, maybe you got a chance. But just her, alone in there?" His jaw tightened and his heart clenched. He couldn't stand to think of her dying in there. "Even if Cas was wrong and she got left behind somehow and she wasn't dead… she is now."

Sam looked up at Dean in heartbroken pain.

And then the closet door of the motel room burst open and a slender, lithe dark-haired man in a navy suit tumbled out of the small space like he'd just run full speed and jumped. He landed in a graceful crouch and stared at them like they stared at him: in completely baffled shock. And then, he asked a question neither saw coming: "Which one of you is John Winchester?"

That was how they met their grandfather, Henry Winchester.

And only a couple days later, this was how they said goodbye.

In a graveyard in the dead of night, in a forgotten plot of land not far from Lawrence Kansas.

Sam hammered a cross grave marker down into the ground as Dean stood back and watched with an unreadable look on his face—further back, giving the brothers some space, Jamie waited and watched too. Sam gave a couple more strong blows and stood back, observing his work.

H. Winchester was carved crudely into the simple wooden cross which stuck into bare, unremarkable earth. A quiet, understated tomb for the man who Dad had always been so angry at and never really spoken about. And this was perhaps the greatest tragedy there was: that John Winchester had spent his life believing his father, the man who was now buried beneath this ground, had left him. When the fact of the matter was, Henry had time-traveled into the future to protect what he called 'everything.' A small box holding a key to a place he said the demons and 'the villains of this world' could never, ever be allowed to find.

Henry had traveled fifty-eight years into his future, overshooting in the heat of the moment as he tried to escape the demon who pursued him. When he'd burst into the motel room to find a very surprised Sam and Dean, he had been trying to reach his son John. Instead, he'd found his grandsons. And after the demon Abaddon followed him through the closet door and revealed herself to be a much more dangerous breed of demon than what was normal (she was immune to the demon blade), Sam and Dean and Jamie too were dragged into the mess.

To make a long story short, Henry claimed to be part of a secret society called the Men of Letters—scholars and scientists and brilliant minds all dedicated to cultivating an extensive knowledge store on everything supernatural and arcane and paranormal in nature. Henry was shocked to learn that his grandsons were hunters and that his granddaughter had been one, too. He expressed anger at the brothers for 'allowing' their sister to ever be part of the 'brutish' life of hunting. When he saw a picture of Alex, he'd been momentarily beside himself and said that he was stunned—she looked so much like his wife Millie. Among other things, Henry had been repeatedly flabbergasted by Jamie's tattooed appearance and her 'uncouth' demeanor—and when he realized she was a witch he'd nearly killed her on the spot which Dean of course had been very unhappy about. They'd come to an understanding afterward, though, and Henry had even said perhaps his opinions on witches was not fully formed yet. He had a strange, prim way with words.

Sam and Dean were still in shock about the Men of Letters thing. It seemed the more they learned of their past, the greater indications there were that this was, in fact, their destiny. In their attempts to help Henry, they found themselves continuously pursued by Abaddon. In the vessel of a very striking red-head with cherry lips, she was your typical demon fare when it came to personality: too cocky for her own good. But it turned out as they delved deeper in that she wasn't 'just' a demon or even a super-powered demon. She was one of the first—a Knight of Hell. Ancient and thought to be killed by the archangels, these Knights of Hell were the most dangerous demons there were and she was, apparently, the lone survivor. When things came to a head and Sam got captured by her to be used as a bargaining chip (she wanted the key Henry had to this supposed bunker that was located in Kansas), Henry devised a clever plan and he etched a devil's trap onto a bullet which Dean shot Abaddon with. Even though the plan was brilliant and executed almost seamlessly, Henry was killed by Abaddon at the last moment and he died in Sam and Dean's arms. This meant he could never return to 1958 or the four-year-old son he'd left behind. John Winchester would grow up thinking his dad hadn't cared and had 'run off.' When that couldn't be further from the truth.

Dean looked at that cross Sam had just hammered into the ground with blank eyes. Dad would never know. And Henry was yet another Winchester taken away before their time. When would it stop? Sam joined Dean finally and the brothers were silent for a moment, side by side. Tall inky shadows in the chilly night air. The moon wasn't very bright that night.

If nothing else, these past few days with Henry had brought the two of them closer and forced them to really remember what they were: brothers. Two young men who were descendants of greatness, whose lineage wasn't just hit-and-miss randomness.

An owl hooted nearby, a sound that seemed distinctly forlorn.

"I get it now," Sam reflected softly, his voice thick.

Dean turned toward him slightly. "Hm?"

"What Cupid said about Heaven busting ass to get Mom and Dad together," Sam said, taking Dean back by several years. "The Winchesters and the Campbells—the brains and the brawn." Yeah. The Men of Letters—Henry wasn't the only Winchester who'd been in the society or hunters. Mary and her family had been in that game for who knows how long. Put those two together—Men of Letters plus hunters—and you got Dean, Sam, and Alex Winchester. Well… you used to, anyway.

Dean's chest hurt. "Well, I'm glad you see it," he said quietly, staring at that cross as his heart burned darkly inside. "All I see in our family tree is a whole lot of dead." He vaguely remembered Mom's screams, the sick heat of fire, the way his arms had barely been able to carry the twins out of that burning house. He remembered Dad, dead on the floor and eyes glazed over. He remembered Adam and Bobby and Alex and they were all dead. He didn't know how to understand it, but understand it or not, they weren't here anymore. And there wasn't a way to change that.

Sam said nothing for a long couple of beats. Then he tried to see the good in the situation. "'Least we still got each other, right?"

The brothers shared a cryptic sidelong glance. Yeah, for now, Dean thought grimly. "Right," he said aloud, thinking that his cynicism would only serve to make Sam sadder. He hesitated, then pulled out the photograph he'd been holding onto. "Hey, I, uh... found this in Henry's wallet." He handed over a little old yellowed photograph of Henry with a young boy. He had his arm around the boy, and the boy was smiling widely and holding a baseball bat.

Sam took the picture and looked at it with a bittersweet expression on his face. "Dad looks happy." He handed the picture back, growing a shade more somber as he looked at the grave-marker again.

Dean studied the photograph and he felt a soft, sad smile on his face. Dad as a kid. He'd never get over how weird that was. "Kind of makes you wish he knew the truth, huh?" he mused aloud. "I mean, all those years thinking his old man ditched when the poor son of a bitch really came here and saved our bacon." Dean put the photo back in his pocket, shaking his head the entire time. "Freaking time-travel, man."

Sam was staring ahead unseeingly, obviously thinking hard about something. "You think it would have made a difference?"

When he gave no indication of what he meant, Dean turned his head toward his brother slightly. "What?"

"Dad," Sam said. "If he'd had his own father around."

Immediately getting a little defensive, Dean frowned. "What, in how he raised us? Sammy, he did the best he could." This wasn't easy. And they could have had it a lot worse.

"I know that. I—I do," Sam quickly supplied, then hesitated. "I just meant… maybe everything would be different if that one thing changed."

Dean fell silent. He had to wonder. If in some alternate universe his family was all alive and well and clueless about how bad it ended here in this one. "Well, it didn't," he said, not in the mood for whats ifs and coulda beens. "And this is what we got." Two brothers left standing. Everyone else gone.

Sam was quiet. He'd been very depressed since the Zip thing hadn't panned out. "Yeah," he said softly, then took out of his pocket the small wooden box with the Aquarian star etched on it. Dean looked at it sidelong. There was something for them to actually have hope in. Maybe. But he was reluctant to get too excited about the idea.

"What're the chances that place is still standing?" he asked, knowing Sam was thinking what he was. About finding this bunker place. This supposed largest collection of supernatural knowledge in the world. That sure as hell would come in handy right now.

Sam shrugged very shallowly, his eyes on the box. "A chance we've gotta take, I guess. I mean, we are legacies, right?" He looked at Dean. Henry had said that about them and Dean had rolled his eyes.

He still felt that way about this secret society mumbo jumbo. "Forget the legacy crap," he said, scoffing mildly. "He said this bunker place has serious info stores. Maybe we find something there to give us an edge up with all the crap we got going on right now." Like the demon tablet. Like how to get into Purgatory. Like how to save someone from a soul deal. He turned slightly and cast a glance over his shoulder. In the misty shadows, Jamie was silent and watchful, somber.

Sam didn't look so enthused. "Yeah. Maybe."

Dean sighed and looked over the land with veiled eyes as a sudden feeling hit him as he thought about books and research and lore. "I miss Bobby, man."

He was a little surprised at the sudden mention—Sam smiled tightly at the ground. "Yeah. Yeah. Same here."

Dean thought of puffy 80s vests and a whiskey stained beard and constant bellyaching about anything and everything. Stern no-nonsense advice that was never really asked for. A brilliant mind you'd never expect him to have if you passed him on the street. Bobby Singer was one of the most loyal people on the face of the planet. And one of the most resourceful, too. "Dude had a book for everything," Dean reflected fondly. And in the midst of that fondness, he felt pain, too. Son of a bitch really had a good life all in all. It had meant something. But it could have been a little longer if you asked Dean.

The brothers were quiet for a moment, remembering Bobby together with their hands in their pockets and their eyes on the silent cross nearby. And then Sam looked sidelong at his brother. "Dean?" He sounded really worried. "We gonna be okay?"

Dean took a moment to reply. Things were rocky between them right now. Better than they had been before, but still not too good. "We gotta be," Dean finally said, his voice stiff and forced.

Sam gave a soft little laugh. "No we don't," he said earnestly. "Families go their separate ways all the time. For a million reasons."

Maybe they did. Maybe in the recent past he'd even wanted that. But after Henry, after Cas's disappearance and the letdown there, Dean knew one thing. He looked Sam dead in the eye. "Well, I don't wanna go separate ways." He took his hand out of his pocket and clapped Sam on the shoulder wordlessly, unable and unwilling to say much more on the matter.

Sam nodded, his eyes glinting in the dark with emotion. He picked up the hammer from where he'd set it. "I'll… I'll go put this back in the car." He glanced at Jamie, then back at Dean, like he knew they had things to say to each other. Then he grasped Dean's shoulder firmly with a strong hand for silent support and then he left, passing James on the way.

Sam's heavy footsteps faded, crashing through the underbrush and back through the woods to where the Impala waited. Dean stood there alone graveside, his hands still in his jacket pockets. A long moment passed and nothing changed. A soft wind stirred the overgrown grasses that tufted the clearing. Owls hooted sleepily. And then finally, he heard her coming up behind him. He turned his head just slightly as she stopped beside him. She mirrored him: hands in her jacket pockets. Her profile was sorrowful as she looked out at the graveyard.

"Hey," she said, then sort of hesitantly turned her head and looked at him. "I'd ask if you were okay but…"

Yeah. They both knew he wasn't. None of them were. But… "You can still ask," he said quietly.

She considered him a second with those unpredictable ice-blue eyes of hers. He didn't know where they stood entirely or what was going on in her mind about him. She was withdrawn and moody, preoccupied. When Dean tried to hug or kiss her; half of the time she ducked the attempts. But just last week, on their way to rendezvous with Sam as they'd hunted down Zip, she'd turned to him out of nowhere and told him to pull the car over then climbed on top of him and proceeded to fuck him senseless on the side of the road. Dean knew it wasn't exactly normal, this thing they had going. That she might win runner up for most emotional issues (he won first place, he knew that much). But he couldn't help it. He loved this girl. Best he knew how to, anyway.

"You okay?" she finally asked in a soft, worried voice as her gaze studied his. He melted a little.

"Not really," he said truthfully, then gave her a tiny smile. "But at least you're here." A small barrage of emotions passed across her face: Rueful touched fondness, sadness, empathy. And then her hand came out and gently touched the back of his arm and stayed there. Dean watched her face and saw how she was fighting a lot of things inside. And being here in a graveyard with her had him thinking about dark things. His eyes scanned this final resting ground and his heart twisted in his chest. "So much death, James," he said, choked up a little because he was really starting to get scared. "Don't want you to be next."

Her hand fell away from his arm and her jaw clenched, her walls went up. "Stop it, Dean." And just like that, the moment was ruined.

"Why?" he challenged, offended by her reaction. "This tablet I'm trying to find, the stuff Kevin's working on—we could board up Hell. You could stay above ground. Keep this party going a few more years. Don't you want that?"

What a strange, pained look there was on her face right then. She wanted to believe there was hope, but was too scared to trust. "You're dreaming, Dean."

"I'm not though," he insisted. "It's a possibility. Like, legit. And I'm not giving up yet. You shouldn't either, dammit." He studied the side of her face long and hard. "You ever gonna tell me how long you got left?"

She turned on the I'm-fine persona that he so hated, giving him a little smile that said she wasn't gonna say a damn thing. "Where would the fun be in that?"

Dean wanted to groan in frustration. "You drive me fucking nuts, James," he complained, wanting to kick something over or shake her to make her listen to him and stop being that way. "This bunker place, it's supposed to have resources no one else has. You heard Henry. Maybe there's something there that can change the direction of the ship!" She shook her head no, but he saw how she was fighting with herself. Considering. "Come with us," he said, sensing that she would get cold feet and disappear again soon if he didn't convince her to stay with him somehow. She was always so cagey now, like she wanted to be somewhere else. But he didn't know where the hell else she would wanna be. "You don't have to stay once we're there if you don't want to," he promised, a little desperate. Almost embarrassingly so. "But… it'd be nice having you around for awhile." He turned to her, bending his head a little to try and catch her gaze as his hand gently took hold of her upper arm. "Lemme help you."

He saw it then: she was weakening emotionally at his gentle pleas. She tried to keep up the charade, but her smile was marred by pain and her eyes looked like they would cry soon. "Can we just… stop trying to act like we can change what's gonna happen?" she asked, trying to laugh softly through her deep fear. "Can we just… drink and smoke and have meaningless sex and watch shitty TV and not think about it?"

Dean grinned despite himself. "Meaningless, huh?" he asked softly, calling her bluff with the look on his face and the way he asked that. She smiled too with a slight sheepish eyeroll. They both knew it wasn't meaningless. In his entire life, there had never been such insane, soul-shattering sex. Ever. If she was a drug, he was addicted. But, this was about more than sex. "You can do whatever you want," he said, meaning that completely. "But I'm trying to save my girl. So I'm not gonna lay around anymore and feel sorry for myself or feel sorry for you. I'm gonna get things done." And that had to be the way it went. He was Dean Winchester. And he had to do what he did best as long as he was in the land of the living. And what he did best was hunting. Saving people. Or trying to, anyway.

Jamie was silent, contemplating his offer. Her eyes looked very far away, he wondered if she'd even heard him. And then she shocked him with the quiet, trembling question she asked next: "Would you ever want kids, Dean?"

It was such an out-of-the-blue question he hadn't been prepared for that he said the first thing that came to mind: "God no." At the look on her face, he tried to rephrase himself. "I—I mean, just—this life ain't for kids. Exhibit A, my childhood." He paused, realizing she maybe needed closure about the… the miscarriage. It was hard to talk about this and he was honestly shocked she had opened the subject—she had told him very severely that it was off limits. And now, she wanted to know if he'd ever want kids. In an ideal world, yes. But this wasn't an ideal world. "But I mean, if—if you'd had the baby, if you wanted me to be, uh, involved, we'd figure it out."

Cautious, wary, her face tense, Jamie swallowed. "How?"

He had thought about it so much in Purgatory that he could have told her his twenty-point plan. But he tried to sound much more casual about it. He tried to convey himself as offhand because if she knew exactly how emotionally attached he'd gotten to the idea of being a dad and of her being his badass baby mama… he thought she might not like it. "Guess I'd have to figure out how to bow outta this gig, for starters."

Listening with hawk-like attention, Jamie was totally focused and yet also worried. "And we'd do what?"

Dean laughed nervously to cover over his more truly hurt feelings. He'd dreamed about this and then the dream had been shattered. So it was hard to say without getting upset. He tried to sound amused and jokey. "Get a house, boring jobs? Argue over which way the toilet paper goes?" He moved his hands like he was miming a sign or a banner. "Live the American dream: staying together for the kids."

Jamie had a sad, wounded smile on her face and a pain in her eyes he thought he understood. Maybe she'd dreamed the same things he had. She looked down at his hands and reached out, holding one in both of hers, then looked at her thumbs stroking over his calloused skin for a quiet moment. "Maybe we wouldn't stay together just for them."

When she said stuff like that, he couldn't breathe. He knew he wasn't alone in feeling how he felt. And with a lump in his throat, with the fear that if he moved he'd mess up this moment, Dean swallowed and knew he had to point out the obvious. "Yeah, well, there's no kid so… where's that leave us?"

Her eyes looked up into his. "In a seriously fucked up relationship."

Dean felt himself smiling crookedly, one half of his lips pulling up to the side. "I don't think we're so bad." He couldn't help himself: he touched the side of her face, rubbing his thumb against her soft cheek.

For a moment, she leaned into the touch, visibly craving it and taking comfort from it. Dean wanted to kiss her... and just as he had that thought, she became harder and turned away from his hand. "I wish I deserved the way you feel about me," she said, immediately gutting Dean.

Mystified, he shook his head. "What do you mean?"

She shook her head and looked down at her feet. "I'm just... a piece of shit," she said, smiling to keep from crumpling through teary eyes. "A failure in like every last way."

Dean was at his wit's end. "A piece of shit?" he repeated, so simultaneously frustrated and in love with her that he could have screamed. His affection and care won out and he tried to make her understand, but he was also angry, so his voice was kind of hard. "James… sweetheart, you are looking at one of the most fucked up people in the universe. I know how you feel. Trust me I do." Her guilty eyes looked up into his and he set her with his most intensely meaningful stare. "I know you look in the mirror and hate what you see, blame yourself for all the unthinkable shit that's happened in your life, hold it all inside and have for years. I know it's too much for one damn person to handle, I know. And I know how you feel like it's too late to let it all out… that if you do, you'll just break apart. I know you pretend you're just this cold hard bitch that no one can touch but in reality? You're just this scared kid who has no clue what to do with everything you feel and think."

Jamie looked every bit as called out as she truly was. But Dean wasn't done. "I know you feel alone every goddamn minute of every goddamn day even if there's a million people around. You're too proud to admit how fucking terrified you are, but what scares you the most isn't being dead." He set his jaw, and saying this next part was hard because this was what scared him the most too: "It's being as bad as you think you are and then alone when everyone figures you out."

Her features contorted and her hands came to cover her face to try to hide the way she crumbled apart. Readily, Dean pulled her into his arms, heart broken for her. For a minute, nothing was said. Jamie just cried. And then she surprised him when she admitted to it all. "You're right—" she managed. "I am terrified." She was sobbing like he'd never heard before, and it kinda scared him. "Of everything." Her arms tightened around him hard. "And I don't wanna be alone, but I don't know how not to be, either."

He stroked a hand down the back of her head before he bowed his head and spoke into her hair. "Well how about let's be bad at this shit together then," he murmured, caring about her so much he could have cried, too. He understood where she was coming from a thousand percent. "Baby, lemme take care of you," he whispered fiercely, hoping that she would stay and give him something to make his days less of a fucking wasteland. "For once in your life let someone look out for you. And let that person be me."

Jamie pulled back just enough to look at him, her face streaked wetly, her expression without any guard at all. She was studying his face and eyes in earnest, trying to decide to take the leap. Dean nodded yes, letting every feeling he felt be written clearly on his face. You can trust me, he hoped was what she saw conveyed. And great conviction and feeling rested on the face he looked upon. "If these are my last days..." she murmured through an uneven, brave voice, "I do want to spend them with you." Dean's heart rocketed to the moon, even as Jamie wet her lips and concern grew. "But I need you to promise me if you can't save me before time's up... you'll let me go Dean."

She didn't want him to destroy his life over her or obsess over bringing her back. Honestly, Dean didn't know if he could theoretically promise that. But for the moment, he decided he didn't need to be honest about his doubts. "Deal." He just wanted her to stay.

That seemed to alleviate some of her anxiety and the tears began to abate in favor of softer things. Nostalgia, reflection. Disbelief that this was where the journey had taken them. "You know, when you found out what I was... I would have thought you'd be first in line to end my life, not save it." She was marveling at the fact, and Dean had to smile however ruefully at the reminder of his initial hatred.

In any case, he hadn't predicted this outcome either. "Funny how that goes." Given over to tenderness, he wiped at her face with the backs of his fingers as icy eyes looked deeply into emerald ones. Like magnets, the two of them drifted into a deeply sensual and earnest kiss that felt long overdue. This was where Jamie said the most. This was where Dean knew she loved him, too. So he said it back in the same unspoken language while holding her in protective gentleness, a hand gripped softly into her face.

Afterward, their foreheads rested together as they caught their quickened breath. They held each other for a minute as the owls chorused softly overhead... a brief reprieve from the ever-building darkness that howled after them day and night. Then Dean led the way with a murmured "c'mon," to follow after where Sam had gone, holding Jamie's hand in his.

When they returned to the Impala, Sam had to quash the jealous feeling he got whenever he saw affection displayed between the two. He felt guilty, but he also couldn't help it: he wished he could have something like that—some sort of light in the darkness, some kind of love, something special. But he knew that just wasn't in the cards for him. He would have to live on memories and what ifs. He thought he should pine after Amelia, but strangely enough, his thoughts went immediately elsewhere, drifting back to Vegas and Annaliese. For a second, he grew wistful and soft. But then that feeling fell away when he told himself that he was never gonna see her again, so why bother wondering or daydreaming?

He got into the car silently, telling himself to please, please accept the idea of being alone.

Author's Note: the next 3 chapters are Sam-centric chapters — important to the overall plot of SRS and a nice little break from all the angst (maybe). So breathe deep, consign yourself to wait on Alex's return (which of course is coming!), and enjoy!