Pete is growing a little desperate.
Okay, he passed "desperate" two hours ago. Now he's full on frantic.
The social worker has the boys lined up to go into care the following day. Without them, his case against John Winchester falls apart. And without John Winchester to take the blame, there's a scaringly good chance people will start looking in other places for an explanation. The right places.
Pete can't let that happen.
Karen needs to be taken care of. But before he can do that, he needs a fall-guy. So John Winchester must escape.
Pete takes it upon himself to transfer John Winchester to a neighboring state that's demanding extradition. He pulls him out of his cell in the middle of the night and stuffs him in the back of the truck. Halfway there, Winchester will "escape."
And with two bullets in the back of his head, buried six feet underground in the middle of nowhere, he'll pull off the greatest disappearing act the world has ever seen. Reemerging just long enough to murder Karen Giles, before vanishing into thin air. Forever.
With his DNA at Karen's murder scene, no one will ever again question the guilt of John Winchester. He is the man they've all been looking for.
Castiel arrives at the sheriff's station a little after one am and meets up with Anna and the woman, Detective Ballard. Pete Sheridan is nowhere to be seen.
"I don't know," says the detective, "I haven't heard from him all night. He won't answer my calls."
"Do you think he's alright?" Cas asks.
"Priorities," Anna reminds them, "We've got a maniac on the loose."
"Right," says Ballard. They put out the APB and then speak to one of the night officers, the last person to see John. He tells them he checked in on Winchester at a quarter to ten, when he came back half an hour later, the man was gone. The cell door appears undamaged, so they check the security tapes.
The tape starts out normal enough. John Winchester sitting in his cell, staring at the wall, half-asleep. The officer comes through, making rounds, then leaves. Just like he said.
Then it gets weird.
Sheridan, of all people, enters the frame. The tape has no audio, but the two exchange a few words, then Sheridan opens the cell door and leads Winchester out in cuffs.
They all stand in total shock for a few minutes, staring at the loop.
"I've gotta call Pete," says Ballard.
"Yeah, you do that," says Anna, "While I get a warrant for his arrest."
"Hold on," says Ballard, "Don't you think that's a little hasty? We have no idea what happened. There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation."
"Like what, exactly?"
"I don't know, " Ballard admits, "But he's my partner. He deserves the benefit of the doubt."
Castiel is not sure what to make of what he saw, but he has a strong feeling, the special kind, it's not at all what it looks like. There's something else going on here, something bigger.
"Fine," Anna relents, shooting Ballard an evil eye, "We'll hold off until we find Winchester. But this is on you."
Ballard swallows hard and nods.
"Guys!" An officer sticks his head into the security room, "You're gunna wanna hear this."
Pete wakes up dead.
Well, not dead dead. But it sure as hell feels that way.
His head is pounding and it feels like he's swallowed a mouthful of dirt in addition to the one he's currently coughing and spitting out.
He's lying half-buried in the mud, shackled, wrists and ankles, with his own cuffs, with half a dozen body parts throbbing like the bass speakers at a rave. His arms, his head, his chest. That John Winchester packs a punch. And it bothers him more than a little to realize that he really could have woken up dead dead if such a notion had tickled Winchester's fancy. He'd been completely at the man's mercy. For some reason, god only knows, the criminal has chosen to spare him. Something about which Pete isn't sure whether to feel grateful or irritated. Maybe John hadn't killed him because he felt he didn't need to. Maybe he didn't see Pete as any kind of threat at all. And if that's not a blow to his ego, he doesn't know what would be.
All the pain he's in can't throw a stick at the shame he feels, or at the dread of the even greater shame coming his way when someone finally does find him here.
Pete rolls over onto his back, tries to sit up, but his cuffed arms throw off his balance and he winds up toppling back onto his side. He rolls again and pulls his legs under him, lifting up onto his knees instead.
It's not a complete loss, really. The fact that Winchester actually did escape mid-transit still plays well into his plan. He can still murder Giles and blame it on John. Can still recapture the criminal, eventually. Can still get back everything he's lost.
Except his pride.
When the call comes in reporting Pete's situation-some trucker found him beaten on the side of the road alongside an empty police transport vehicle-Diana can't help but feel a little relieved. She scolds herself for it, for having allowed herself to believe even for a moment that Pete might be guilty. And for feeling relief when what she should be feeling is worry and anger on behalf of her partner.
The next day Pete is still too shaken to do much in the way of dealing with the fallout, so it falls to Diana and the social worker, Karen, to deliver the news.
The boys do not take the announcement of their father's escape very well at all.
The little one doesn't seem to understand. He keeps asking where he went and when he'll be coming back. At Diana and Karen's "We don't knows," the boy just gets more and more upset until he basically sobbing, stamping his feet, and demanding to see him.
The older boy goes quiet at the news. His face darkens and he just sits there, stewing in betrayal and anger, and whatever else he must be feeling at a time like this.
Diana feels horrible about it. Even more horrible than she already did for dropping the ball on the man.
These poor boys. What else can life throw at them?
Maybe this could be a positive thing, though, for them. At least in the long run. Perhaps now they will realize what kind of man their father truly is. Perhaps it will make the separation easier if they think their father doesn't want them. As miserable as that might seem.
The younger boy, Sam, begs to see his father and Karen kneels down to comfort him.
"You're wrong!" Sam insists, "He'll come back for us. He always comes back."
"Shut up, Sammy!" Dean snaps suddenly, "Just shut up. He's gone. Don't you get that? He left us."
"No! He wouldn't"
"He did!"
Diana watches the scene and feels something stir in her gut besides pity and general discomfort at being privy to such a private moment. Something not quite right.
It all looks so...normal. These boys are behaving exactly like any other children of any other disappeared parent might be expected to. Not like the sons of a paranoid madman and possible murderer who believed in superpowers and the occult. Not like children who are used to having their father abandon them to go off and do god knows what. Not like children who've lived their entire lives on the run.
It raises questions in Diana's mind. Questions about the true nature of John's beliefs and parenting. Questions about the real reason behind his escape.
The day after John escapes, Castiel gets a call. The man's children have gone silent again and Detective Ballard has reason to believe they may know more about their father's intents and whereabouts than they are letting on. Since Cas was able to get Dean to open up before, she is hoping he might come talk to him again.
Cas can't pretend a part of him isn't a little eager for it. He's feels awful, of course, about John's escape, about how Dean and his brother must be feeling in the wake of it, about being used to manipulate Dean into possibly turning on his father. But there's a small piece of him that's anxious to see Dean again. And not only to find out what he knows about John, but perhaps to talk to him more about...other things. Like the night of the fire and what he remembers.
If he remembers what Cas can do.
Or why.
Soon he's back in interrogation, with just Dean this time, as Sammy is still far too upset to talk to anyone.
"Are you okay," Cas opens with. He's pretty sure he can guess the answer, but it seems only polite to ask.
"I'm just awesome," says Dean, staring hard at the tabletop. He suddenly peers up at Cas from beneath his long eyelashes and Cas notices for the first time the light smattering of freckles across the boy's cheeks.
"Why are you here?"
"I'm investigating your father's escape."
"You're here because you think I know something. They think you can get me to talk."
Well, Dean's certainly hit the nail on the head.
"Yes," Cas says, deciding as long as he's emotionally manipulating a little boy, he at least owes him the basic respect of honesty.
Dean huffs a little laugh, "Well, I don't know anything."
Cas stares at the young man for a long time, watching his small movements, waiting for the tingling in his skull that buzzes into existence whenever something isn't right. It doesn't come.
"I believe you."
Dean frowns, surprised, "You do?"
Cas nods. "Why would you lie?"
Dean looks back at the table and shrugs, "I dunno. To protect him or something."
"I get the feeling you're not a protective mood at the moment. Not of him, at any rate."
Dean quiet for a long minute.
"I hate him," he mutters eventually, so quiet Cas has to lean in to hear it.
"Then help us catch him."
"I thought you said I didn't know anything."
"I'm guessing he doesn't' tell you much about anything he does."
Dean shakes his head.
"But that doesn't mean you don't know things that could help us. You might know more than you think you do."
"Like what?" Asks Dean, brightening at the idea.
They spend the next thirty minutes talking about everything Cas can think of to narrow down the search for John Winchester. He asks Dean about favorite places, driving habits, allies, preferred aliases, fears, and indulgences. He asks where they've traveling in the past three months. He asks about anything at all his dad might have said to him to indicate where he was planning on going next.
Dean answers as best he can, only resorting to quiet shrugs when Cas broaches the subject of the man's attitude toward his sons. Dean seems reluctant to speak about the abuse, which, as far as Cas understands, is not unusual. Cas has no desire to make Dean any more uncomfortable than he already is, so he takes the boy's cues and steers away from the issue whenever he gets too close. There are other people whose job it is to deal with that particular can. Dean is safe for now. Cas's job is to find John.
"Thank you, Dean," Cas says sincerely, when they've finished.
"You really think you'll catch him?" The boy sounds doubtful.
Cas doesn't want to make a promise he's not sure can keep. Not to Dean.
"We're sure as hell going to try."
"You'll catch him," says Dean suddenly, "You can do anything."
Castiel stares at him, startled and more than a little intrigued. He feels excited butterflies stirring in his gut at what Dean may be implying. How much does he remember about their first meeting?
"Why do you say that?" He asks.
The kid stares right back at him, a fierce confidence in his eyes. A trust so intense, like he's daring Castiel to even try to let him down, like he knows Cas better than he knows himself.
"Well can't you?"
Apparently, trying to hold onto a Winchester is like trying to hold onto the rain.
The next day, the day the boys are scheduled to be moved to a nearby group home-the date was postponed after John's escape, Karen's partner shows up alone to escort the Winchesters.
And finds them gone.
Pete is furious. Can nothing go his way? Even with Giles out of the way, every one of the Winchesters has managed to slip through his tightly-gripping fingers. And now he has nothing. People are starting to question why Pete took it upon himself to extradite John, when their own investigation was still so far from over. He'd actually made contact with the Wisconsin police forces to arrange John's extradition but it's only a matter of days before someone realizes that state's particular hunger for Winchester was no more urgent than any other's.
And on the very top of this ever-growing pile of shit, he now has to worry about the fallout from the now-obsolete killing of Karen Giles. Karen was not like John. She won't just disappear. He has maybe a day at most before she's discovered missing and then... and then. And then he doesn't know. He'd taken special care in disposing of her body, it's unlikely to be found in the course of the investigation but still. Any hope he'd had of pinning the murder on John had shriveled in light of his children's vanishing act.
He has to find those kids. And he has to find them before John is recaptured.
He needs to get them to flip on their father. He needs people to believe John Winchester is capable of having committed all those murders. He needs people to believe he was capable of killing Karen. He needs to win and twist the hearts of those boys. And to do that he needs someone on the inside.
He needs to win and twist the heart of Castiel Novak.
Failing that, if Novak refuses to cooperate, then things might just get a whole lot messier than they already are.