Chapter Summary: The boys meet up with Sam and find out that someone else is missing, too.

Heaven is Boring

PenPatronus

Chapter #2

The Homeless Man

Dean and Cass changed out of their wet clothes (there was, miraculously, a full change of clothes for Cass in Dean's closet) hopped into the Impala and rushed to Sam and Eileen's house. Sam was waiting for them on the porch of the blue two-story, in a Lawrence-esque town on the other side of the lake, and jumped up the moment he heard the familiar rumble of the car. Dean parked in the drive and ran to his brother. "Hey—!" Before Dean could get a sentence out, Sam embraced him tight, clinging. When Sam pulled back, he didn't let go – instead he kept both hands on Dean's upper arms. His face was pale, and Dean felt his body trembling. The brothers nodded at each other.

Cass, walking a bit slower, joined the pair. "Good to see you," Sam said, and he pulled Cass into a hug. "Thanks for coming." The angel returned the hug, but grunted in pain when Sam pulled him too tight. Dean hurried to Cass' side when he swayed a bit, and both he and Sam looked down to see fresh blood seeping through the bandages across the angel's stomach. "Cass! You're hurt?"

"I'm fine," Cass grumbled.

Dean grasped Cass' elbow and wrapped his other arm around his waist. "He got stabbed by a baby angel," said Dean. Cass glared at him. "Come here." Dean walked Cass backwards so that he could half-sit, half lean against the front of the Impala's hood. "Sammy, tell us what's going on."

"Ok, all right…" Sam combed his fingers through his long hair. "Eileen and I were having dinner. I went into the kitchen to get some wine and when I came back, she wasn't at the table. I looked around the whole house and she was – Dean, she was gone. She IS gone."

"You're sure? Did you talk to Kevin? What about Becky? Donatello?"

"Everybody, Dean! Like, everybody!" Sam turned and walked in a circle, hands against his head.

Cass, talking mostly to himself, mourned and muttered, "This isn't supposed to happen. You're supposed to be at peace." He looked up at his friends and frowned. "I want – so very much – I want you two to be at PEACE."

Dean hung his head.

"Then find my wife." Sam approached Cass and pushed his forefinger against the angel's chest. "Send angels out – send all of them, all over Heaven."

Sam's finger was still against Castiel. Cass reached up and gripped his friend's hand. "I already did, Sam. I got on angel radio the second Dean told me."

Sam's lower lip trembled. His throat worked, Adam's apple bounding. He nodded twice. "Thanks, Cass."

Dean's pocket vibrated. He took his phone out but before he answered it he held it up and chuckled, "Cells in Heaven. Who knew?"

"Yeah," said Sam, "I just thought to myself that I wanted to call you and a phone appeared."

"Awesome." Dean answered the call. "Ellen! What's the word?" As Dean listened, his face slowly slid into a frown. Sam and Cass exchanged worried looks. "No," Dean eventually sighed. "No, we haven't seen Jo…"

A fluttering of wings. The three Winchesters turned to see the three female angels wearing pantsuits. Cass quickly wrapped his trench coat around his stomach, hiding his bleeding wound. "Hannah," he greeted, addressing the angel in the center. "Do you have news?"

Hannah cleared her throat and folded her hands in front. "Perhaps we could talk somewhere else," she said to Cass. "Privately," she said pointedly, looking at Sam and Dean.

Cass stood up. "Whatever you have to say to me can be said in front of them," he said. "Anything. Ever."

Dean smiled and winked at the three angels.

Hannah sighed. "There was an…incident. At the courthouse. Two angels on trial for treason escaped."

"Who?" Cass, Dean, and Sam asked at the same time.

"Uriel," said Hannah, "and Raphael. They worked together – got loose, killed the guards. Castiel, we need to get you out of here – get you somewhere safe."

"Why?" asked Cass.

"Because the witnesses heard Uriel and Raphael swear to come after you. They want you dead, Castiel. Come with us so we can protect you."

"No… No, I'm staying here."

"What? Out in the open on the outskirts of Heaven?"

Cass raised his chin. "Have you located Eileen yet?"

Hannah gave Cass an are-you-kidding-me look. "When the traitors escaped I called every angel back to headquarters. We need to regroup! Come up with a plan to find them!"

Sam and Dean had never seen Cass' face turn so red. "Send them back out NOW," Cass commanded. "Eileen Winchester must be found. That's our number one priority, do you understand?" When Hannah folded her arms against her chest, defiantly, Cass lowered his voice to a dangerous level and repeated, "Do you understand, lieutenant?"

Hannah shot passing glares at Sam and Dean, then surrendered. "Yes, sir."

"Triple the guards at the gate. For now, don't let anyone into or out of Heaven. We'll find Eileen, then we'll worry about Raphael and Uriel."

"Understood." The three angels disappeared with a flutter.

Cass swayed. His trench coat fell open again, revealing more blood across his abdomen. Dean dashed forward and took Cass by the elbow again. "Easy. Come on, let's just get in the car." Mute, Cass allowed his friend to guide him into the back seat where he sat still while Dean pulled the safety belt across his body.

Sam was already buckled in the passenger seat when Dean dropped into the driver's. "What are we going to do?" Sam asked.

"What would we do if someone went missing in a town?"

Sam cocked an eyebrow.

"A normal town," Dean specified, "where we don't suspect that the victim is missing because of vampires or werewolves."

Sam winced at the word "victim." "We'd get the community together. Start a grid search. Stay out all night if we had to…"

"And that's exactly what we're going to do," said Dean. "We're going to get everybody we know, and everybody – everybody – they know to Harvelle's." Dean patted Sam's chest twice. "We'll find her, man."

In the back seat, Cass groaned in pain.

The elderly homeless man, wearing the scraggily remains of jeans and a gray suit jacket, limped into the old, abandoned warehouse and dropped a heavy backpack on the floor. "Took me forever to track down a unicorn horn," the old man said. He took the horn out of his pack and held it up high for his audience to see. "Do you know how rare these are? There are five left in the entire world… And this is the only one not broken." The man laughed, turning in a circle as he did. Then he took out a knife. "I need to borrow something from you."

The two women tied to chairs in one dusty corner of the warehouse looked at each other. One was deaf, and could barely read the old man's lips amongst his scraggily beard and hair, but the knife spoke volumes. Their eyes widened, and they both doubled their efforts to get out of the ropes and chains that bound them. The old man approached slowly. "40 years," he said. "40 years I've been waiting to do this spell. I can do spells, you know. I may not have my powers anymore, but I do have my memories…"

The old man dragged the knife down the outside of the deaf woman's upper arm. Eileen screamed.

"Stop it! Leave her alone!" Jo tried to say around the duct tape keeping her mouth shut.

The man let Eileen's blood cover the pointed unicorn horn, then he set the horn aside and bandaged up her arm. "There, now. That wasn't so bad, was it?" Eileen's hands were tied behind her back, so the man didn't see her sign the phrase "fuck you."

Unicorn back in his hand, the man moved to Jo and used her blood to soak the horn, too. "Let's hope this works," he said after he bandaged her, too. "It'll work," he said, mostly to himself. "My spells snatched you two out of Heaven. No reason why this spell shouldn't work, too. Now… Who'd like to do the honors?" The man held the horn to the two women, broad side out. "No takers? You get to stab me, you know." Jo and Eileen squirmed in their bonds, but they weren't going anywhere. "Fine, I'll do it."

Without another moment's hesitation, the man stabbed the bloody unicorn horn into his own heart. He gasp-yelped, and teetered on his feet. His own blood mixed with Jo and Eileen's. And then the redness disappeared as he was bathed in silver light. The horn seemed to meld with his body and, before the girls' eyes, the old man became young. 40-ish, they guessed. Not that tall, beard, curly hair, new suit that was all black with a blood-red tie. "Nice touch," the now young man said, admiring his new outfit. He stretched his arms over his head, then turned in place, stretching and flexing his core. "WOW! 40 years of weight on my shoulders – literally and figuratively – gone! How about that?"

It was then that a door behind the young man opened. He turned, and Jo and Eileen looked up to see a pair of black men, maybe ten years older than the man, enter the warehouse. "Well, it's about damn time," said the young man. He folded his arms against his chest. "Figured an angel would come looking for me. Of course, I figured that would happen four decades ago but, eh, what can you do?"

The two new men kneeled. "We came to find you as soon as we could," said the man on the left. "There are many more angels who want to find you, our true creator, the true ruler of Heaven, our… Father."

Chuck cocked his head to the side and stared at his sons. "Well then," he said, "sounds like it's time for a family reunion."

To Be Continued