We practiced like hell once I could prove I could control it. That was the difficult part. I couldn't do it on command well. Jack tested his reactionary theory again, which proved much more successful the second time around. Doing it as just an action, though?

That took more effort than it should. I could see it in Jack's eyes. I could move myself out of the way of an attack and push an attack away, but attacking in turn?

I could throw a rock.

That wasn't much good against angels.

It was a form of progress, but it was slow progress. I felt that Jack expected me to suddenly just remember everything once I could do magic.

But that wasn't the case.

Instead after a few hours my blocks and evades became less and less reactionary, and I started taking more and more hits. I was, in all honesty, tired. I could feel my head start to hurt and nausea begin to surface. "Jack, I have to stop."

"What?"

"I have to stop." I repeated. "I can't keep up. I feel drained." For an example, I held up my hand. A rock limply floated about a foot off the ground in front of me before it fell back down to the ground. I slumped forwards with the fall of the rock, bracing my arms on my knees. "I can't keep going." I repeated. I was starting to breath hard. My mouth was watering like I was about to be sick. My head still hurt, and on impulse I put a hand to it. "I can't, Jack."

I heard him pause, thinking. "It's almost sunset." He said decisively. "We'll take a break, go over what we've learned with Mary and Bobby. They'll want to stay in the know."

"OK." I agreed, nodding. I still felt sick. I couldn't quite get up, instead the sickness rising within me until –

Well, you really don't need to know what I ate that morning. All you need to know is that it surfaced on the ground in front of me in a momentarily uncontrollable manner.

Jack, for his credit, reacted quickly and held my hair back until I was done. "Thanks." I muttered, using the bottom of my shirt to wipe off my mouth. "Does that normally happen?"

"Not to me." He said. "And usually not to you."

"Great." I muttered, taking a deep breath. I took a moment to look around myself. "You're right. It's getting darker. Let's head back."

"Should we tell Bobby and Mary that you got sick?" He asked. I shook my head.

"No. That'll just worry them." I said. "I… I did good, right?" I asked. "I did it. I actually did the magic stuff?"

"You did good." Jack assured me, helping me right myself to standing again. "It was… better, actually seeing you do magic."

"Oh yeah." I muttered. "You never saw me do it."

"Mary has." Jack explained. "I'm pretty certain Bobby has. You taught me, but I never got to see you do it. You just explained it to me, and Castiel explained about what you could do. He showed me little things, like a rock you'd have."

"A rock?" I asked. Jack nodded. "Like the one you threw at me?"

"No, a different one." He laughed. "One that you'd enchanted. You both had one."

"Why would I enchant a rock?"

"It was all you had in your pockets at the time." Jack said. "That's what Castiel told me."

"OK. I enchanted a rock because I didn't have anything else." I said. "What did it do?"

"You and Castiel had spent a lot of time apart, and were afraid of hearing one of you had died without being a way to prove it." Jack explained. "So you enchanted two rocks so that you'd always know."

"Oh." I muttered. "I… I don't recall having a rock on me."

"You left yours in the Bunker." Jack explained. "I… I found it. I was passed out, but I could still kind of hear you talking about it, and later on when you weren't at the Bunker, I found Castiel's room and found the rock."

"Oh." I repeated. I wasn't quite certain what else to say for a moment. "You didn't bring this up in front of Mary and Bobby."

"I know." He admitted. "I didn't want to."

"Why?"

"Because," I could watch him thinking for a moment. "Because when Castiel came back, I went and took it to make sure that it was real and that he was alive." I watched him reach into his pockets, and pull out a small rock. "Because I took it, and I kept it. I'm sorry." He held the rock between two fingers, holding it out for me to see as the both of us thought.

"I talked about it," I repeated, feeling something tugging in the back of my mind.

I was rooting around my pockets, like Jack had just done. After a few moments of rooting around I felt a hard rock that felt icy to touch.

It was going to stay that way. I was certain of it.

I looked up and saw someone with shaggy brown hair staring back at me. They were asking me a question. I couldn't remember my answer, just that I sat against metal and stared at the rock in my hand.

If it was warm, he'd be alive. But it was cold. Nothing I did warmed the rock back up.

I felt myself place it somewhere else, not where I was then, in a different memory. I couldn't cry. I was tired of crying.

It was never supposed to be him. It was always supposed to be me.

I blinked, and the rock was in my hand. Jack closed my fingers over it. He was talking. "Kylie? Kylie?" he asked.

"They weren't for me." I remembered. "They were for him more than me."

"What was?"

"The rocks." I said, grasping the one in my hand tightly. It was warm and comforting. "They were so that he'd know I was alive. They were because he was worried because I kept being called dead. It…"

It was supposed to be me.

"He wasn't supposed to die." I said quietly. I didn't know exactly what I was talking about, but I knew that whatever I was saying was correct. "I… It was supposed to be me. I was supposed to be the one that died."

"What? Who are you talking about? Do you mean Kevin?" Hearing Kevin's name made me wince, but I shook my head.

"No. Well, yes," I pursed my lips. "But not when I made these. Not when… When I remember." I couldn't grasp it enough to make more sense. "I… Who's the man with the hair?"

"Sam?" Jack responded instinctively. I paused for just a moment, glancing over at Jack.

"I literally described him just as 'the guy with the hair' and you already have a name in mind?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Messy brown hair, goes down to about here?" Jack asked, motioning to his shoulders for the 'here'.

"Yeah." I was shocked at how accurate he was. "And he looked very tall."

"Yeah." Jack nodded, offering a smile and a shrug. "Sam. Why?"

"I remembered him." I said. Those words made Jack smile more. "I… I saw him. He was sitting on a weird cot, attached to a wall. I pulled out the rock and was talking about it, but I… I can't remember what I said. I just," I felt the words trail off away from me. I didn't quite know what I should say. "I think you should keep this." I said quickly, pushing the rock back into Jack's hand. His face fell. "He's your father." I explained. "You remember him more than I do. So, keep track of it for me." I saw a bit of confusion in his eyes. "Until I can remember enough to take it back." I offered.

That made him smile again.

"Alright." He agreed. He placed it back in his pocket, still wearing a small smile.

Telling Mary and Bobby what we accomplished made the two of them smile as well.

Trying to tell them three days later that continuing to try was making me sick just made them worried. None of us could peg why it was getting increasingly more difficult to accomplish on my end. Jack was afraid to throw more things at me on the react theory, but the react theory was still the best option we had.

So when three days later, Charlie approached me asking for help in a rescue mission, I accepted without a second's thought. Charlie still thought I was just a normal human. She wouldn't expect magic out of me.

Neither of us told Mary that Ketch was coming with us. Ketch thought I was just the Kylie from this universe as well, and even though he wasn't a fan of my joining Charlie stood firm. Apparently the other me had been a staunch advocate of rescuing those captured, and Charlie wanted to bring me out on one. It was a small one. Low priority targets in the angels eyes, but still targets.

Jack and Mary were nervous about my leaving, but I did my best to assure them. "I just need a break." I promised. "Doing all the magic stuff nonstop is probably making it harder, like trying to run a mile every day when you haven't done it before. I just need a break before I get back to trying to run it again."

Jack understood more than Mary did. That was how he'd felt when he was first learning. Once you've got a handle on the magic, it was great, but until then...

It was a mile, and sometimes you needed a break from the mile.

"It's your hot chocolate." He told me with a smile. "When I needed a break, you'd get me hot chocolate and we'd sit and talk and work on something else."

"I still don't know what hot chocolate is." I reminded him.

"We'll be back soon, and then you'll know." He promised.

The night before we left, I dreamt I was in that hole in the sand again, with char marks all around me. Rivulets of gold rose up from the ground, surrounding me until I saw a new scene through the gold begin to form.

"Koth Munto Nuntox!" Someone shouted, and the vision of gold cleared. I was looking through it in a thin sheen, and I saw something odd. A building, large and filled with… books. Bobby had them too, but the ones here easily outnumbered his.

"…Use you not to just crack the door open, but to keep it open." Someone said. As they walked into sight of the gold, I could see the person I'd seen last time. Shaggy brown hair. Really tall. Sam. He looked into the rift, and I felt as though he was looking directly at me. "So we're gonna drain you. We're gonna keep on draining you." Those words chilled me.

"Like a stuck pig." Someone else added. I'd heard that voice before. It was gruff and determined.

"Grace on tap." Someone else appeared into frame behind Sam. They were much shorter, with light blonde hair and a more angular face. "Sorry, bro."

"And then, when we get back," Sam looked off over to the side, out of where I could see. "Then we'll kill you."

"Cool." This voice was a new one, but it felt unnervingly familiar at the same time. They sounded apathetic to Sam's threat. That scared me just a little bit more.

"You gonna be okay back here?" Sam asked, shifting his gaze to someone else out of view.

"Aye." The voice was female, the same one that had spoken first. The way she spoke was much different, though. It sounded like she was from somewhere completely new. "Someone needs to keep an eye on the Devil. Go. Save your mum. Save the boy. Save your wife."

Sam and Gabriel both looked over at a different person, watching as they came into view. It… It was the same one I'd seen when I'd blocked Kevin's power. His eyes were hardened and determined, but his face still showed signs of kindness.

The blonde one turned back to Sam. "You ready?" Sam turned back towards where I was, a new look of determination in his eyes.

"Ready." He said.

Sam walked towards me first, disappearing before I could touch him. Next came the blonde one, followed by someone else that walked into view. He was taller than the blonde but shorter than Sam, and looked like the person to match the gruff voice I'd heard.

The blue-eyed one stayed still, looking at me, pensive, thinking. "Castiel?" The woman's voice asked off to the side. The name made me want to jump. This… This was Castiel? "Are you going or are you just going to stand there staring?" He stood still, something moving and thinking behind his eyes. "Castiel, you can't go be the dashing rescuer for your wife if you're just standing here." He pulled something out of his pocket, a small rock, and examined it. The rock glowed from the inside with a warm, reassuring light.

"I'm coming." He muttered, putting the rock back in his pocket. "I'm coming for you, Kylie."

I don't quite know what possessed me, but I reached out to touch him for some reason. "I'm here." I promised.

In an instant I felt like I was… I was me. I could remember everything, as though I'd never forgotten a moment. I remembered I loved him. I remembered he loved me. I remembered promises made to each other over and over again.

Right when he reached my hand, I felt him pause under my fingertips. I could just almost physically touch him, but it was like there was a weird thickness to the space between us. "I'm waiting for you." I promised. I could feel more memories surging in, memories of happiness and love and assuredness and a promise to last until the end of time. "You just need to come find me." I felt as though he was actually looking at me, and out of habit I smiled at him. It was Cas, my Cas. I remembered him.

He stepped past me, disappearing from view. I felt a bit of gold creep up through my arm as the scene in front of me began to fade. Somewhere behind me, people started talking.

"Yeah. Thought we'd get spit out in the same spot, but this isn't it." The gruffer voice. "Charlie - the other Charlie - said that Mary and Jack have an outpost in Dayton."

"Okay. Let's get our bearings and head that way. Cas," there was a pause, followed by some footsteps. "Cas, there you are. Where are we?"

"Uh, Kentucky. Northeast Kentucky. Or what used to be Kentucky." He answered. As Cas spoke, the charred hole in front of me began to fade.

"Which means that's north. Okay, so Dayton's that way. Roughly. Two days by foot but...that way." Their voices were getting quieter, fading away to the distance.

"Alright." Sam said.

I woke up sweating, searching back through the dream for those memories. I'd felt them. They'd been so real. I could recall them in the dream with perfect ease.

Now I could barely even recall the dream, much less whether or not it was real.

All I knew for certain was that I was back to seeing flecks of gold in the corners of my vision.