Happy weekend, we're back! Some important plot points in this chapter, and the train's leaving the station, hope you're all staying aboard! Thanks to everyone for reading, and to ThornsHaveRoses, BaldiDaughterChevy, and VegasGranny for your reviews. Comments are always, always appreciated!

On a side note, I would've spent more time writing, but I've gotten sucked into Peaky Blinders after some people mentioned Dean's season 14 outfit could fit in that show. I have to say, I agree, and damn it, I'm hooked into a summer binge watch ;)

Still don't own the show.

Dean should have expected Sam to come find him, but the thought hadn't been on his mind about how to deal with his little brother if (when) he decided to show up. He didn't want to talk it through, and although it probably would have been helpful, he couldn't, not when it was still so fresh in his mind. He had been shooting, as if every bullet coming out of the gun was killing another monster he hadn't stopped while he'd been benched. In some strange world, it was therapeutic, and in another one, it was maddening.

He wasn't surprised to find himself reverting back to his old habits, keeping his nightmares under lock and key for both his and Sam's sakes. If it got bad, he'd tell Sam, he knew better, but for the time being that particular dream was his and his alone.

Dean stopped into his room to deposit the weapon, grab his laptop, and nothing more. It was almost four by the time he made his way into the library with his computer in hand, finding Cas sitting at one of the tables as he had suspected. The angel was combing through one of the many lore books and only turned his head up when Dean climbed up the few stairs into the library itself.

"Dean," Cas greeted, but it quickly turned into a puzzled question. "I thought I heard voices, you and Sam, it's very early, is everything alright?"

Dean waved it off, which his friend apparently didn't appreciate. "Nothing we haven't dealt with before, Cas." When that didn't seem to do the trick, he added, "I promised Sam if it gets bad we'll have a kleenex moment over it, but it's all good."

He sat at the same table across from Cas and put his laptop down on it, not yet opening it.

"So good that you are unable to sleep? From my knowledge, that does not fit the general definition of good."

"Cas-"

"I could," Cas motioned in the air with two fingers pressed together, a gesture Dean recognized well as being one that an angel used to knock some poor sap (more often than not, he and Sam) unconscious. While it was appealing for about a split second, he shook his head. Being able to wake up from a nightmare was one thing, if Cas knocked him out, he didn't want to get stuck in one and have it repeat and not let him go.

"Save your mojo, Cas, seriously, I'm fine."

Cas was still looking at him though, not buying it by the unimpressed look on his face.

"Hey, I uh, never asked, how'd things go with Claire?" he brought up for a change in subject. It was true, they'd never talked it through after the drive, but things seemed to have gone well.

Cas looked at him for a moment longer but eventually the angel nodded. "I believe things are going well, or, as well as can be expected for the relationship between a teenage girl and a celestial being inhabiting her father."

"Well when you put it like that," Dean muttered.

"Things are going in, as you say, in the right direction," Cas restated. There was a on expression on his face that Dean wasn't used to seeing. If he had to put a name to it, it would be something along the lines of fondness or content. "She got me a tie for Christmas, which I believe to be a good sign."

So that was what had been in the box. Dean smiled a bit and nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like as good a sign as any," he said. "It's good things have started working out. Happy to hear it." And he meant it. He wasn't sure how much work had gone into getting their relationship to this point, but he imagined it must have taken a few serious events and more talking on the side at least.

"As am I," Cas replied, his face not losing the fond look. Their little conversation faded back into silence and Cas eventually turned back to the book, which allowed Dean to open up the laptop. He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for, but after some random web searching, he found himself on one of the local news websites for a town nearby.

And of course, the article with the weird headline and picture of a house that had been burned to ash caught his attention. He clicked on the article without a second thought and read it through once, then twice. That was all it took for him to decide that it was one of their things. And it was close by…maybe, maybe it could work.

Dean checked the time again, just past five, and Cas hadn't moved save for flipping a few pages. Sam hadn't made a reappearance since their talk earlier either. Dean figured it was as good a time as any to get some background on what could become a case, or at least one they could send to another hunter with all the information intact for easy access.

Before long, he found himself reading various reports on multiple arson cases, a woman's burned remains, and some cops that had all received their share of third degree burns from seemingly mundane tasks. Not all of them had survived either. It wasn't hard to line up the dots, even after what felt like a long time for Dean, it had felt like months after all, and pretty soon he had all the information they'd need. It would probably be easier to convince Sam and Cas with all this in his back pocket anyways.

He checked the time again on the laptop, finding it to be almost seven. He then minimized all the windows and shut the computer before he got up and began making his way into the kitchen, intent on getting himself a cup of coffee.

Sam was already inside, which wouldn't be awkward at all, sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal. He stopped Dean from moving over to the coffee maker before he got any closer. "Ran out right before we left for Jody and Donna's, didn't have time to pick up more," he explained shortly, which made Dean grumble in response.

No sleep, no coffee, and some convincing to do later? Oh yeah, that would go great. "I'll go on a quick run. You want any fancy muffins or anything?" Dean offered as an olive branch, but Sam just shook his head.

"You sure you're fine to drive?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Sam, I've driven further on less sleep, let it go."

Sam let out a sigh and jerked his hand back towards the counter. Apparently a few foodstuff necessities were more important than getting into another argument with his brother. "Got a list of stuff to pick up for whenever we went." Dean grabbed it, scanned it over once, and checked their stores for whatever else they may need.

He nodded to himself and tapped the piece of paper on the table. "I'll be back." Sam didn't give much of a reply, and Dean found himself on his way back to his room to change. Yeah, this wasn't going to be strange at all. Hopefully sooner or later Sam would get where Dean was coming from. He stopped that train of thought before it could get much further and tried to think of something decent he could try to cook up.

Cas refused his offer for fancy muffins as well, but not before asking what a 'fancy' muffin would entail, and then Dean was off. They'd driven past the store numerous times on their way to and from the bunker, so he was perfectly capable of getting there by himself, and was just a bit happy that Sam hadn't put up more of an argument to his doing so. Finding the stuff in the store in a timely fashion would probably take longer than usual, but hey, you had to start somewhere.

Shopping wasn't exactly awful, per say, it just took freaking forever. He picked up stuff for burgers and then had to go down literally every single aisle looking for other things. It was almost like the store was set up that way. Dean made what he thought was efficient work of the trip, and after all, it was nice to have some space to clear his head by himself for just a bit.

He declined the cashier's numerous offers to sign up for a membership card (he was pretty sure he and Sam didn't have one, nor did they probably want them) and just over an hour later he was stuffing grocery bags into the Impala's trunk on top of the fake floor above the guns, knives, and monster killing devices. He was just an average joe grabbing groceries in his awesome car, nothing to see here.

The drive back to the bunker took a solid ten minutes, and he wasn't rushing anything. Hell, Dean even turned on the radio. They'd listened to a ton of tapes on the way to and from Sioux Falls, and he fiddled with the nobs for a moment before he found an actual news station. For ten minutes, he could not listen to rock music. Maybe he'd even learn a neat fact he could quiz Sam on later. Or maybe there would be a report on what he'd been reading about on the computer…

The station he settled on was in the middle of a story, and as Dean slowed the Impala to a stop at the red light, he turned the volume up.

"-coming up from the water, which again, has been the reason why this endeavor has taken almost a month to come to fruition. With sea temperatures only being around forty-five degrees Fahrenheit in December off the coast of New York, the Coast Guard has had a hard time getting teams to survey the area for the wreckage, which we can confirm, has been found and some pieces are being lifted up as of this morning."

Dean's focus on the road ahead of him blurred. Surely it was just some cruel twist of fate that this one station was running that specific story, right? He hurriedly changed it over to another news station, hopefully one that would be blabbing about some celebrity nonsense.

"The flight 523 crash, the largest in recent memory, it having its story draw to a close. The legacy it leaves behind is sure to-"

"The horrific event that captured the nation as households waited to hear for news of survivors from numerous countries-"

"-has been attributed to bad weather on that fateful November night."

It was everywhere. Each local news station Dean had gotten familiar with was running the same story as the wreckage of the plane, his plane, was being surveyed for the first time since it had gone down. No doubt it was a big story, but he didn't know if he wanted to be hearing it.

Dean didn't know if it was curiosity or an inability to move aside from his fingers gripping the steering wheel and his feet working the pedals that kept him from changing the station.

"The flight, which made headlines after crashing off the coast of New York just half an hour into its journey while carrying four hundred and two passengers, is across the news again. In the latest reports, there were two hundred and twenty-seven survivors, some of which are still receiving emergency care, one hundred and thirty-nine victims, and still thirty-six passengers that have remained unaccounted for. Efforts are being made with teams and cameras to secure the wreckage, and we'll keep you updated as this is a developing story."

The station then launched into its section of ads, which was when Dean realized that he had, in fact, driven back to the bunker and parked the car in the garage while listening. He slowly turned down the volume and shut off the Impala, but didn't make a move as to getting out. Not yet.

How many had they said? A hundred and thirty-nine people dead? And it was by some slim margin that Dean himself hadn't been one of them. Why? It all came around again to the great big why and what he was going to do with it. So far, it hadn't been much.

Lisa's fake, vicious words came back into his head for the tenth time that day, joined up with the tallies of the survivors, the dead, and the missing. Dean had survived. Screw the fact that he wasn't back to 110% just yet, he needed to do something with the fact that he was alive after the whole ordeal. He was fine to do research, drive a car, grab groceries, and all of that. Taking down a ghost, or hell even being backup if needed, he could do that. Making sure other people stayed alive was definitely something he could swing, he just had to get Sam and Cas on board.

He took another moment to himself to process, as if that would really help, before he got out and grabbed all the bags to take down with him to the kitchen. Apparently his processing skills were quite evident on his face because as soon as he walked in, both Cas and Sam looked at him, their expressions morphing from light amusement in whatever they'd been talking about to apparent worry.

"How…how'd shopping go?" Sam asked, almost carefully as Dean set the bags down on the counter and started to go through them. Things were always easier to go over when he had something to do with his hands, and putting away groceries was a perfect mindless task to do so with.

"Almost got run over by like five old ladies in the cereal section, they didn't put on their blinkers," Dean replied with a deadpan sense of humor that was lacking in most of the humor.

"Shopping carts don't have…" Cas cut himself off, puzzled. "Dean, what happened?"

Dean paused for a second and sighed, taking an extreme amount of interest in a package of mixed greens he'd picked up for Sam and Sam only before he went to put them away. "They found the wreckage," he said quite simply. There was no use for Cas or Sam to ask what he was talking about, it was all understood without further explanation and it was silent until Dean spoke again. "It's all over the stations, weather or something stopped them from getting to it this long. Over a hundred and fifty people are dead or missing, but they said they'd keep people posted." The last sentence was annunciated more harshly and the fridge door was closed just hard enough to make a few of the contents rattle.

"Dean, that's not-there's nothing you could've done," Sam tried, his eyebrows coming together a bit as he broke the silence.

"I know that, not saying there was anything I could've," Dean replied, not looking up from the items in his grasp before he put them away.

"Then…it sucks and it's awful…" Sam started, seemingly trying to find the right way to phrase it. "Why, aside from the obvious, has it got you wound so tight?" There was nothing in his voice but genuine desire to find the problem, squash it, and help Dean move on. There was no judging for Dean worrying over the deaths of many people he had been on the same plane with. Sam got it, as much as he was able to, Dean could tell, but he didn't want his older brother worrying about a past event when he didn't have to, especially one that had changed all of their lives so, so much. He just wanted to understand, he didn't have to put it into words for Dean to get, and judging by Cas' expression, the angel was thinking much of the same thing.

"I survived," Dean pointed to himself and looked at both of them, "haven't done much with it, have I?"

Cas tilted his head and gave Dean a questioning look. "Dean, you were in a coma and diagnosed with a serious neurological condition that you are lucky to have survived. Living past it all is 'doing much' in many people's books," he said, not seeing the point Dean was trying to make.

Sam on the other hand, which Dean had suspected, saw through it to the meaning beneath his brother's words. "In terms of surviving or…in terms of hunting?" Dean's lack of an answer gave Sam the one he needed and he shook his head. "Dean, we can't keep coming around to this, you know how Cas and I stand on it, this isn't up for a debate, even the doctors agree."

"What, so I'm supposed to do nothing with the rest of my life that I get to live because I was lucky and got rescued in time?"

"Dean, that's not-it's not a permanent thing, you know that."

"Do we? What if this," Dean pointed to his head, "never gets any better? I'm supposed to sideline the two of us forever because I can't help save lives without risking my own? The job's the same, risking our lives to save others, that hasn't changed."

"The circumstances, and the risks that go along with them, are greater," Cas brought up, which Sam nodded in agreement with.

"So? I've got another shot here to help save people, the one thing I'm good at, and the only thing I've been doing is watching Netflix and working on the car. It ain't exactly a fulfilling second shot."

"And the amnesia? The headaches, the memories, the nightmares?" Sam narrowed his eyes at his brother. "If you were to go on a hunt, if, you'd already be going in knowing you weren't a hundred percent, and you know how dangerous that could be, Dean, for everyone."

Dean opened his mouth to argue back, but Sam held his hand up. "This, lying low, working through things, getting better, yeah it takes time and it's boring and it sucks, but it keeps us safe. And when you're ready to go back in, you're ready to go all the way back in and do the job right."

"There's people out there that need help that aren't getting it because my head isn't totally screwed on right. It's not fair to them."

"You're right, it's not, but people die every day, Dean, we can't save everyone, no matter how hard we try. Cas and I, we look up cases and send them around, whatever ones come our way, we try to get them dealt with. We do what we can. With everything we've done, the world will keep spinning if we take a month or two to catch our breaths for the first time in over a decade."

"All the cases?"

"All the…?" Sam looked at him, confused.

"Do you guys catch all the cases floating around?"

"The majority of them we try to, but it's impossible to catch every single article," Cas chimed in.

"So I'm guessing you saw the one then about the people spontaneously getting set on fire by mundane, supposedly harmless accidents, right? The one that's happening half an hour from us at this very moment?"

"Dean-"

"It's a milk run, Sam, it's all in the article. Literally everything. It's a ghost, tied to something, killing the people that made it a ghost in the first place."

"Milk runs, as you and Sam define them, historically have a tendency to not be as easy as you hope," Cas brought up, and Dean shot him a glare.

"Half an hour, Sam. We find what it's tied to, burn it, done, lives saved and we're home in time to watch the game." Dean continued, not phased by the angel's decent point. So even in later years, 'milk runs' hadn't gotten any easier, good to know. They really needed another term for that.

"We'll put someone else on it," Sam said, still not about to budge.

"No one's as close to us, and you know it. Some of these soon to be victims, from what I can tell at least, Sam, some of them have families. Kids. And this spirit's a nasty one, it's not waiting on a hunter from another state to show up before it stops its spree for vengeance. Hell, we don't even need fed suits and interviews, everything's in the articles, cut and dry."

Sam visibly clenched his jaw, not happy with where this was headed. Both sides made sense, it just depended which side they were standing on. But someone needed to take care of the spirit, that was something all parties agreed on. "Fine, Cas and I will go check it out," he shot back, figuring that maybe that would be enough, but Dean shook his head. "No, no, you aren't coming."

"Sam, come on. No field work, huh? Research, that's it, let me at least think I'm helping? Make sure you guys get the right house and remember the salt and all that. On the off chance anything happens, I need to be close by," Dean pitched with a tilt of his head.

Sam didn't say anything for a minute, and when he did, it was quiet and almost pleading. "Right, and you're going to stay in the car while Cas and I dispatch this thing?"

Dean took a second to reply. "Fine, if that's what gets us moving, then fine. Sideline me from the physical stuff, but we need to get a move on," he tapped the kitchen counter, ready to go before either one of them changed their minds about him coming along in the first place.

Sam, however, stepped in front of him before he could move any further and put a hand up. "I'm serious here, man, no barging in to save the day, you know the risks. I'm sick of hospitals." It wasn't said lightly, and based on Sam's gaze, it wasn't meant to be taken lightly either.

I'm sick of hospitals and watching you almost die, of course, was understood by both parties involved.

"I've had more hunting experience than you remember, Dean, Sam and I can handle it, I would advise you to listen to him and take his request seriously." So Cas wasn't messing around either then. The unspoken thing went for both of them.

"Research, hang back, got it. Get your feet wet first before you cannonball, right?" While Cas didn't seem to totally get the analogy, Sam eventually nodded, though he didn't seem happy about the whole thing.

"Cas, you mind getting the laptops?" he asked, to which the angel acquiesced and exited the kitchen, leaving the brothers alone.

"Sam, I know you don't like this, but more eyes are always better, and it's a matter of time."

"You're right, I don't like this," Sam said seriously, his face bordering on a frown. "And I get it, you want to get back out there and help people, but you're playing wounded, man." He held up a hand as Dean opened his mouth to argue back. "Just…stay in the car, no matter what happens, I mean it, alright? If this thing goes well, maybe we'll head out more, maybe."

The frown had faded from his face, instead replaced with one of slight worry, one that Dean didn't necessarily like seeing, but he had to get back on the horse some time.

"And…whatever happens, if this turns out to be another milk run," Sam actually sighed at the name, "be careful, alright?"

"I will, Sammy," Dean assured, as if he had any control over the matter. After a beat of silence, he too nodded. "We're burning daylight, let's get a move on, I'll fill you in on the way."

So, this chapter. Lots of building up points, hopefully they came to a head alright. I can't tell you how many times I rewrote the ending talk, and in all honesty, I'm still not completely satisfied with it, but I wanted to keep the story moving. If anyone's got any thoughts, compliments, constructive criticism, speculation, etc, it is always appreciated!