There was so much Caleb wanted to do with the boys, and so little time. The first order of business was to find something suitable for dinner. It would be nice to devour something other than what the jail passed for food. In an effort to make sure the boys got some precious time to reconnect with Caleb, Bobby offered to go pick up dinner for all of them. Walking in their kitchen to get the silverware and plates ready, it was almost surreal to be able to move beyond the length of his cell without the chains around his ankles and body. He still had to be sentenced, but that was almost two months from then. Wanting to avoid thinking about it for as long as he could, he was determined to soak up as much time with the boys as he could.

"So what do you want to do while we wait for Bobby?" Caleb asked, as Dean helped him get some of their plates and silverware out for dinner.

Neither of the boys had left his side since he surprised them. Sam was more obvious about it, being vocal about wanting to keep an eye on him. Dean, on the other hand, was more discreet, such as making sure he was in the same room as Caleb when he could. The hunter did not blame them in the slightest. They were soaking up this unexpected miracle as much as they could.

"Well," Dean said, pretending to consider the question. "I would like to beat both," he said, glancing over at Sam, who was watching them interestedly. "Of your asses at air hockey."

Dean was extremely competitive in most areas of his life, but especially at his favorite game of air hockey. They had a playing table down in the basement, and besides going down there to train, he loved competing with Caleb or Sam.

And even though none of them liked to admit it, Dean was usually the undisputed champion whenever they played one or ten rounds, and it was a game that all of them had missed while Caleb had been away, even though Sam had tried to goad Dean into playing with him once.

"I beat you once!" Sam argued.

"Yeah, once," Dean shot back with a roll of his eyes.

"And," Caleb said, faking a cough. "You obviously block out traumatic memories because I beat you...twice," he said, holding up two fingers.

"Uh-uh," Dean said, grinning, as he moved down the basement steps. "You're the one with the block. Obviously," he added. "Come on, let's see who's still the champion."

Besides the main room that the basement housed, the one where Dean and Caleb most often trained and watched movies with Sam, there was another adjacent room that belonged to the numerous gaming machines they had managed to accumulate over the years.

The air hockey table was one of those games the boys kept going back to no matter how many times they gravitated toward it, and it had provided them with hours upon hours of laughs and good times.

"You're getting a little cocky," Caleb remarked with amusement, as he ripped the sheet off that had been under the game. "Alright, who wants to go head-to-head with me first?"

"Me!" Sam said, jumping up and down at the same time that Dean raised his hand.

"Alright," Caleb said, grinning, feeling a complete peace wash over him. He had missed this, even the boys bantering back and forth with each other, with Caleb stuck in the role of mediator between them. "How do we settle this?"

"Rock paper scissors," Sam said, throwing a victorious grin over in his brother's direction.

Even though Sam was a master at settling disputes between he and his brother with playing a solid game of rock paper scissors, Dean wasn't usually so lucky, and would almost always end up losing against his little brother.

"No fair," Dean said with a groan. "I always lose."

It was true: whatever move he threw to combat what his brother was doing, he normally always ended up making the move that was below Sam's. It was something that Sam greatly enjoyed, especially when they were trying to solve an argument like now.

"Just do the exact opposite of what you would normally do," Caleb suggested.

"Alright, fine."

Facing off against his brother, he screwed up his face in concentration. Sam, sensing his determination, smirked as they prepared to show the moves they had thought up in their minds. Sam, clearly expecting to win again, while Dean was mentally trying to follow Caleb's advice and not follow the same moves that he did every single time they played the game.

"Ha!" Dean said, when they had finally showed off their moves.

"No fair!" Sam said incredulously.

"Paper covers rock," Dean said smugly. "Right, Caleb?" he asked, turning to Caleb for his final say on the matter.

"Yeah, it does," Caleb said, "good job. You have to admit, Sammy," he added, turning to the stupefied kid. "That was pretty good."

"Yeah," Sam admitted, deciding not to make a big deal out of the matter, especially when they were trying to enjoy such an unexpected and happy reunion with Caleb. "For a beginner," he added with a slow grin.

"You wish," Dean said, shaking his head. "So you and I go first, Caleb?"

"Yeah, and then when I, inevitably, score my winning shot, Sam and I are going to go."

"You're going to be waiting a long time," Dean remarked under his breath, as he and Caleb moved into position. "I'll try to go easy on you," he added, as he grasped the hand-held mallet and prepared to shoot the puck.

"No need," Caleb said, as he fired off a surprise shot. "We got five rounds, okay?"

"Kay," Dean said, as he narrowed his eyes at the puck in front of him. "I can do this-" he whispered to himself, as he held the mallet tightly in his hand and aimed a shot in Caleb's goal. "Ha!"

"Lucky strike."

"Nope. It's because of my amazing skills."

"How do you explain this, then?" Caleb asked, as he moved around the block that Dean had attempted, and moved the puck into his goal.

"That was a lucky strike," Dean said. "Obviously."

"Alright," Caleb said, looking down at the built-in electronic score sheet. "We went four already. One more."

"You better make it count," Dean said teasingly.

"Oh, I will."

For several seconds they batted the puck around the table, while Sam watched eagerly. Finally, it came down to the final shot of Caleb and Dean's round with each other, and when Dean scored the winning goal, he traded a triumphant look with Sam.

"I know you're crying inside," Dean said jokingly, "but try not to let it effect you too much."

"I think I'll be okay," Caleb said, shaking his head in bemusement. "Okay, Sammy, you ready?"

"Duh," Sam said, rolling his eyes, as though the assumption that he wasn't, was ridiculous. "Let's do it."

"Okay," Caleb said, "remember what I taught you?"

"With the wrist?"

Caleb nodded. "If you control the wrist movement a little bit, you can have more power in your shot."

"You realize," Dean said, as he watched from the comfort of the big recliner in the room, "that you're helping him win?"

"Yeah," Caleb said, shrugging one shoulder, "but he hasn't done this in awhile."

"Yeah," Sam said, turning back to Dean and sticking his tongue out at him.

"Hey," Caleb warned gently, "be a good sport."

"But that's too boring."

"You're impossible sometimes," Caleb said, as he playfully ran his hand through Sam's hair. "You ready?"

"Ready to be the champion? Yes!"

"Okay," Caleb said with a laugh. "You're on."


They continued playing downstairs until Bobby arrived back with their dinner. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was the kind of food that Caleb had dreamed about since he had been forced to endure the slop that the jail thought passed for actual food.

After that, and after Sam finally lost his battle with his tiredness and had gone to bed for the night, Dean and Caleb stayed up later, both wanting to have the chance to reconnect with each other, and talk about the kind of things that they couldn't freely talk about, not when Sam would interrupt with a thousand different questions, and even though that wasn't a huge deal, it would still be nice for Dean to have that time with Caleb that he sorely missed.

"So what the hell happened this morning?" Dean asked, as he and Caleb settled themselves on the comfortable sofa downstairs. "How did you get out?"

"I got a new hearing," Caleb explained.

"Yeah, I know," Dean said, recalling Caleb's words to him when they had first reunited. "But what kind of hearing was it?"

The last he had been told, Caleb would be stuck in jail for another two months while awaiting sentencing on a charge that should never have been brought to fruition in the first place.

"An appeals hearing. Dawn filed it right after the conviction, and a new judge that took it on, agreed to hear it and see if the first judge erred when he denied me bail."

"So obviously it worked," Dean surmised with a shaky laugh, "because here you are."

"Yeah," Caleb said. "Here I am. And with any luck, I won't have to go anywhere again."

He and Bobby had long ago agreed on a contingency plan in case the worst possible scenario happened, and he ended up having to go to prison, but he was hoping it wouldn't come to that. He was hoping that Dawn would be able to get the charge reduced to a contempt charge.

"So when is your sentencing?" Dean asked, trying to think consciously through the very real fear that he had at having to say goodbye to Caleb again.

"Not until the new year," Caleb said reassuringly, as he squeezed Dean's shoulder comfortingly. "We still have a little bit of time before we have to face the music on that."

"What's going to happen?" Dean asked, "if you end up having to serve time?"

The idea of that happening again, of Caleb having to leave them to serve out a bonus prison sentence, was horrifying to Dean, especially since they just been lucky enough to be reunited again.

"Bobby and I talked about that, that's why I couldn't really talk about it to you over the phone because of the CO's that were there, but if I have to end up going to prison for the charge, we're probably going to book."

"You mean leave?" Dean asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, if it comes to those extremes. Bobby has a friend that can break me out and we can leave then."

Caleb knew the risks they would be taking if they successfully staged a prison break: FBI and police would be constantly on their tails, making it impossible for them to stay in one place too long, and that was exactly the kind of existence that he never wanted for the boys.

"Will you actually do it?" Dean asked, raising one eyebrow in question, as though he honestly doubted whether or not Caleb would actually do it or not, especially with what had happened recently when he had tried to make a run for it.

"Yeah," Caleb nodded. "If I have to. If I've learned anything from these last few months, it's that it's too dangerous to be apart now."

Dean nodded quietly, biting down on his thumbnail. "Yeah. Especially with Sam and the Yellow-Eyed Demon."

"Exactly, we can't be separated again."

"I couldn't agree more, but are we prepared to run?"

"If we have to."