A/N: Things might make more sense in this chapter. Enjoy! Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.

Castiel couldn't describe the feeling of incredible emptiness he felt as he opened his eyes. Even his grace felt dull and lifeless. While his vision adjusted to the dimly lit room, Cas rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Angels were not meant to sleep but that did not mean that they couldn't rest their vessels.

But such things did not pertain to Cas in the same sense anymore; Jimmy Novak's body was now Castiel's body. He had grown fond and attached to this form and it had become a part of him. The brothers knew the angel in this form and that was just the way Cas liked it. Or...he had once thought so. He wasn't so sure anymore.

During his "sleep", Castiel had been battered by a series of emotions and sensations that were not his own, yet they felt as though they were. Cas frowned; it still made no sense to him, even in the waking world. He had felt an overwhelming amount of agony and his limbs were heavy stones at his sides. The ground was terribly hard and made his bones ache.

Cas felt as though he were trespassing on someone's consciousness, but there was no means of moving; he had been trapped. Two sensations still lingered like hovering electric particles over his skin: the cruel, harsh, nearly maddening cold and the breaking of his heart within his chest. Suddenly, the air felt too thick and Cas gasped for air.

"Cas?"

"Sam?"

The angel turned his head as the taller of the Winchester brothers paused on his way down the hallway, craning his head to peered into the doorway. A relieved smile twitched up Sam's lips as he came into the room with a book in his hands- a book that had become all too familiar to Cas. The mattress shifted under Sam's weight as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Hey, how are you feeling?"

"I feel like an ice cube being crushed from a freezer into a cup. I am the ice cube in this analogy,"

The corner of Sam's mouth quirked up for a moment then he cleared his throat. He held out a cup of steaming coffee and Cas looked from the mug to Sam then back again. "Where did you get coffee?" he asked incredulously. He hadn't seen the cup in Sam's hand when he had walked in. He frowned; then again, he hadn't really been paying much attention either.

Sam shrugged and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "The kitchen. I thought you might like some coffee. You do drink coffee, don't you?" he said. There was something about Sam's choice of words that made a strange sense of deja vu come over the angel. 'Strange,' he thought, taking the cup from Sam's grasp. The heat emanating from the mug warmed his finger and he wrapped both hands around it, grateful for the warmth.

This action, too, caused a similar sensation to spread throughout his gut. There was also a nagging feeling in his heart that was beginning to make Cas twitch out of frustration. Sam noticed the distracted look on the angel's face and put the book on his lap. When Cas looked down at it with a frown, Sam tapped at the page with his index finger. "Everything we have been searching for, everything that we need to save Dean is all right here," he said excitedly.

Castiel carefully set the untouched coffee down on the nightstand and picked up the book in both hands. He quirked up an eyebrow and looked back up at Sam. "Are you joking?" he asked. Sam, too, frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. Castiel looked back down at the book and felt almost embarrassed. "I don't understand why you're showing me angel lore. I am an angel, Sam," he said.

Sam shook his head and pointed at a specific section of the page. "It says here that angels can walk in other people's dreams so long as they know the person. You know Dean, so you can contact him through his dreams, right?" he said excitedly. Understanding dawned on Castiel and he rubbed at his wrists in thought. He very well could go into Dean's dreams; why hadn't he thought of it before? He shifted into a more comfortable sitting position, staring down at the book, and tucked his legs underneath him. He rubbed at his wrists again without thinking.

Sam noticed and looked at the angel in concern. "Cas, are you okay? You keep messing with your wrists," he said. Castiel glanced at Sam with a mildly confused look then down at where his fingers were massaging the sides of his wrist. He stopped and noticed for the first time a terrible burning sensation. "I don't know why, but they feel like they're being burnt," he muttered. He did not like the feeling and glowered at his hands as though they were at fault for his discomfort.

Sam took Castiel's hands in his and examined them thoroughly. When he found no sign of injury, a wave of confused worry washed over him. He let Cas pull away and he took the book from the angel's lap to see if he could find an explanation. Sam scanned over the page, reading carefully. "Sam," Castiel hesitantly began, "There is something I need to tell you." Before Sam could respond, a loud howling could be heard from the bunker's library. Sharing alarmed glances, Sam and Cas hurriedly rushed from the room towards the sound.

Sam nearly crashed into the angel as Cas skidded to a halt. One look at Cas' expression made any rude comments from Sam fade. The black-haired man was staring intently at the center of the library, his eyes wide with horror. "Dean!" he shouted suddenly, rushing forward. Bewildered, Sam quickly followed and grabbed Cas by the back of his trench coat. "Whoa, hold it, Cas!" he said. Cas strained against Sam's hold, nearly panting. His eyes were staring straight ahead at something Sam could not see. The howling noise was steadily increasing in volume and made Sam want to cover his ears.

"He's hurt. Sam, release me so I can heal him!" Cas cried. The other Dean wanted to tell him to stop, that it was the rift playing tricks on the angel, but his voice was silenced. He could only stand helplessly as Sam restrained Castiel, who was getting increasingly more desperate. "Stop, Cas! Something isn't right!" Sam said, raising his voice to be heard above the wind. Dean perked up and tried to nod in agreement, but the rift halted him before he could. It must have created one hell of an image to show Cas for the angel had tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

Anger, hot and bubbling, seared through Dean like molten lava; there was no way that he would allow the rift to eat his Cas! Using what energy he had left, the other Dean forced himself to his feet. "Don't...believe...lies...try..eat..you," was all he managed to say. It sounded like a static glitching message one would hear from a broken device. Dean could feel the roar of annoyance from the rift at his disobedience and the energy was sucked from his body, leaving him crumpled on the floor. Cas had stopped straining and was watching the rippling image with a new perspective.

Sam sighed in relief as the angel's shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry, Sam. It seems I've been tricked," he said. There was an edge to his tone that Sam had heard before. A shudder ran down Sam's spine; Castiel was pissed. Extracting himself calmly from Sam's grip, he turned and fixed the hunter a hard stare. Sam could have sworn his blood had turned to ice. "I believe we should try your idea. We need to get Dean and," he growled, looking over his shoulder at something Sam could not see, "the other seven humans that that mirror has taken."

He clenched his hands into fists and stomped away back towards the bedrooms, his trench coat trailing out behind him. Sam, completely befuddled over what had just occurred, glanced over at where Cas had been staring before. "I don't know what he saw, but I heard you. Thanks," he said, hurrying after the angel. The other Dean, who was barely conscious, smiled.

In the other dimension, Dean and Sam had been sitting at the dining room table, struggling to pick apart the riddle. So far, the two had managed to figure out what the ominous kidnapper had meant by 'The time Gemini is seen in the sky is all you have.' Dean scratched at his hair, his lips turned down in a tiny frown. "So, what, we have until the half moon to save him?" he asked as a confirmation. Sam nodded, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear. He had pulled his long hair into a ponytail, much to Dean's annoyance. If it hadn't been for the beard, Dean was certain that Sam would look like a chick.

Though, if looked at a certain way, one might think that this Sam looked sort of like a Viking, with the scars and the bushy beard. The mental image made Dean snort and Sam sent him a mildly curious look. "Something funny?" he asked, quirking up an eyebrow. Dean feigned innocence, which made Sam roll his eyes and turn his attention back down to the piece of paper smoothed out in front of him. "'Back to the place where it began, your angel will fall again.' What do you think that means?" he asked.

Dean shook his head and pulled the note towards him. "I have an angel, but he's back in my dimension and, whoever this sick bastard is, I know that they would have no idea who he is," he said. Sam frowned and leaned in closer, his interest piqued. Much to Dean's embarrassment, Sam had a mischievous glint in his eyes that made Dean's ears heat up. "You have an angel? Is he your personal aid or something?" Sam asked, raising his brows a little.

Dean almost choked on his own spit. "Wh-what the hell are you talking about? He's family!" he retorted. Sam leaned back to Dean's great relief. Though, he still had that shit-eating grin on his face that made Dean want to reach over and smack him. He realized that, if he did so, it would end badly for him; this Sam was not his real brother. Dean had to keep reminding himself that, although this Sam was similar, he would never be his Sammy. A wave of longing suddenly tugged at his heart.

"Would your angel have any reason to come here?" Sam asked. Dean looked up in confusion. Dean couldn't think of any reason why Castiel would come to this dimension. '...not here. You see, he has his weakness; he likes you.' Dean sat back, bewildered as Uriel's words echoed in his memory. Why the hell did he remember that of all things? Sure, he felt strongly towards the angel, but not in the way that Uriel had implied. Wasn't it because of their so-called "profound bond"? In his moment of puzzlement, Dean's memory replayed every moment it remembered of Castiel.

By the time Dean had completed reminiscing, his heart had all but broken. Cas did love Dean and had shown it quite obviously in several occasions. Dean had been too oblivious to see it and simply thought that it was because they were friends. He realized now that Cas would take any form of love from Dean, be it friendly, brotherly, or romantically. All the angel wanted was to make sure that Dean- and Sam, of course- was safe and that he could protect him if he needed it.

While Dean was fighting his mental implosion of realization, Sam had figured out another part of the riddle. 'The warehouse...where that huntress broke the vial. That must be what the kidnapper meant by 'where it all began.' But why there?' he thought. A pounding headache was beginning to form within his temples and Sam had to fight back an urge to grit his teeth in frustration; he still had no clues as to Cas' kidnapper's identity.

But the kidnapper knew Sam. Oh yes, she knew him quite well. Thanks to her sturdy vessel, she knew everything about the Winchester brothers. "It is such a pity, though. I wish I didn't have to find out in such a default way. Wouldn't you agree, Cas?" she purred, kneeling down to stroke her hand through the un-moving man's hair. Cas groaned in pain and glared up at her with glazed eyes. His struggling breaths, heaved from his chest, sent white puffs into the frigid air.

"You're...going to...pay for...this...you bitch," he gasped out in a growling voice. His kidnapper giggled and shook her head at him, sending red hair spilling over her shoulders. She gleefully lifted her hair in both hands and rubbed it between her fingers, relishing its softness. "I must say, Cas, your friend had beautiful hair," she said, getting to her feet. She tossed her head back and laughed at the flash of rage in the feeble man's eyes. As Cas' kidnapper sashayed from the room, Cas felt his body slump. His tears had stopped coming, but the sadness in his heart increased.

"I'm so sorry that you were the one she chose. I didn't know that the vial would enable her to do that. Forgive me, I wish I had known. I would have warned you, as you warned me. I'm so sorry...Charlie."

A/N: So? :D Is it good? Yes? No?