Tyler kneaded the muscles in her neck as she slowly straightened, suppressing a yawn. One month. One month since she met the Winchesters. One month since she lost her family. Again, her mind whispered. She frowned. Again? She didn't remember her parents or her early childhood. In fact, everything prior to her seventh birthday was one big blank. And even those memories were blurry. She remembered being crushed by a collapsed pillar, flames all around her. She remembered waking from ghastly and macabre nightmares not of her own. She remembered shying away from the General's comforting arms.

She sighed. It had taken her two full years to trust the General and the other kids. Two years where she'd maintained a stony silence and avoided any kind of bond. Tyler could only imagine how hard that must have been for him. For all of them. To have saved a girl who didn't seem to want to get saved. A girl who had decided to forgo sleep, to avoid the nightmares that haunted her. Even now, years later, she could still feel their steady pull in her mind. She shook her head. Now was not the time for reflection. She turned off the laptop and looked over at the sleeping forms of Sam and Dean.

It was the dead of night and those two had fallen asleep hours ago. Sleep. The one thing that eluded her. The one thing she denied herself. How great it must be to be able to sleep, Tyler mused. Although neither of the brothers slept soundly. Sam was coping with the breaking of the wall in his head, which has separated all that had happened in the Cage with Lucifer, Michael and Adam – their half brother. Last week he'd woken up screaming more often than not. She'd seen the worry in Dean's eyes and the fear that his little brother may never be alright.

She longed to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. To whisper the same white lie she'd used whenever Dante would crawl into her bed and cry through the night because he hated how other people's thoughts would invade his mind. When Jet had finally opened up to her about the slaughter of his father and older sister and how certain smells or turns of phrase reminded him of them. Or when she'd come home that one horrible night, drenched in rain, sweat, mud and blood, bringing the devastating news of the General's death. "It will be alright. Give it time." But Dean would see it for the lie it was.

It would never be alright. Hell wasn't something to suppress, to block or to simple scrub off with a hot shower. Hell stayed with you, forever. She knew that and Dean did too. He too woke from nightmares in the middle of the night. Even though he'd make no sound, she always saw the sweat on his brow and heard the swiftness of his breath. Their eyes would meet for a fleeting second, then she'd avert her eyes, leaving him his privacy. It wasn't just Hell and the things he did there that plagued Dean - though he had never explicitly told her what it was he'd done that he thought he didn't deserve to be saved – it was Castiel too.

Castiel. The angel who wanted to be God. Tyler had never met him, but she felt for him. Unlike Sam and Dean, who were still baffled by his betrayal, she understood somewhat. The angel had felt cornered and desperate and no one seemed to take this civil war in Heaven seriously. Dean felt Castiel should've asked for their help. But how could he? He was an angel. An absolute being, higher up the food chain than humans. How could such a being ask for help? How could he admit he wasn't strong enough? They'd had heard enough of the recent news to know Castiel was devoted to his newly and self-appointed role.

Rain falling where there was drought. Tyrants and dictators dying in their beds. Racist groups struck by lightning. They couldn't really find fault in those things. But the news changed about two weeks ago. Now there was talk about massacres, people disappearing and even other angels dying. That last tidbit they'd received from Bobby, a mutual friend. Something had turned justice into retribution, vengeance even. Bobby had sounded gruff as usual – but there had been something else in his voice. Anger? Fear? Tyler didn't know. Whatever it was, it had made the brothers (Dean especially) even more determined and frantic in their search for Castiel.

And – unknown to them – Tyler had been scouring the web as well. And she had possibly found a pattern. She hadn't mentioned it to them yet, because she wasn't sure. She looked at her watch. Almost morning. Time to take a shower and get ready for a new day. She thought about taking one of her pills, but changed her mind. No need to get dependant on those things again. She could do without them. She grabbed her bag and disappeared into the bathroom.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Dean floated in the space between dreams and full consciousness, his breath ragged. The screams of Hell tugged at him, pulling him back into the nightmare, the memory, as the sound of naked feet padding past him reached his ears. Padding? His eyes shot open. Tyler was moving through the house they were squatting in, wrapped in a towel, her wet feet marking her otherwise soundless passage. He stilled himself as he continued to watch her. He started to notice things about her, things that he'd never noticed before because she'd always have her guard up. The grace with which she moved. The way she was almost inhumanly light on her feet. Her tendency to bite her lower lip while lost in thought. How her long wet hair framed her face and clung to her neck and back.

It was quite refreshing to see Tyler like this – the relaxation of her body, the unguarded side of her. And then it was gone. Her shoulders stiffened ever so slightly and she cocked her head a little as if listening. "In some cultures it's considered rude to stare," she said as she turned toward him, her arms crossed. A closed stance. Dean sat up and rolled his shoulders. He looked over at Sam for a few seconds and then back to Tyler. "I didn't want to cause any awkward situations," he said lamely.

"And staring at me from under the blankets isn't awkward?" she asked as she made her way back to the bathroom. Dean opened his mouth to answer, then thought better of it. He shrugged. "Almost finished in there?" he asked as she opened the door. She swung back, glanced at him and at Sam, then looked inside the bathroom. "Yeah…though I doubt there will be any warm water left." Dean groaned. Not a cold shower again! Tyler smirked before entering the bathroom. He made the bed, his concentration wavering. "Bow down before me. I am God." Oh Cas… He didn't want to think about this, about his friend. But it was better than thinking about his nightmare.

He'd dreamed of Alistair, that torturous son of a bitch. Of all the things he'd done to Dean and all the things he'd made Dean do. Dean shuddered, feeling the sudden need to empty his stomach. But he swallowed his bile and turned his mind to the present. To Sammy. He'd no idea how his little brother was. He'd seemed fine in the aftermath of the fight with the Magura-Schendel. And then, out of the blue, he started screaming in his sleep. Twisting and turning. Seizing. What the hell happened to you in the Cage Sammy? He sat down on his brother's bed, watching him sleep. At least he was calm now.

His phone started to vibrate, catching his attention. Dean moved towards the table, still moving carefully as if his ribs hadn't healed already. He saw the caller ID and frowned before he picked up. "Bobby, whatcha got?"