"I can't do this, Cas."

Castiel was sitting on a bench outside the motel room where Sam had decided to call it a night. Dean paced back and forth in front of him. The older angel wore the human form Sam and Dean had become familiar with many years earlier, looking like a rumpled police detective in his natty trench coat and crooked tie – Peter Falk's Columbo. All he needed was a pencil and a notebook and he'd look more like Columbo than Columbo.

"It's your assignment, Dean," Castiel replied succinctly.

"Well it's bogus!" Dean stopped pacing and faced his superior. "This is killing me."

"Technically speaking..."

"Oh, shut up. I don't need any smart ass commentary on the state of my existence, you know what I meant." Raising his arms, Dean ran his hands through his hair, not bothering to hide the pain he felt. "God…Sammy. I don't know what to do..."

"I was going to say," Castiel interjected quietly, as if his underling had not just told him to shut up. "That technically speaking, you've done this to yourself. You were advised not to involve Sam and yet chose to go against that advice. Now, I'm afraid, you must live with the consequences."

"You sent me after Ruby!"

"And?"

"I can't leave Sam out of it! The bitch stabbed me in the back!"

Castiel studied him carefully with a look that made Dean want to just choke the life out of him – if he could have done such a thing. "Dean. Are you more worried about Sam's need for vengeance, or your own?" He stood up. "Ruby killed you, yes, but in doing so she gave Sam the strength he needed to defeat Lucifer. Her error has put her further out of favor with Hell. Her threat level is low and Sam knows this. Hunting her has not been a priority."

"Until now, and now it's become Heaven's priority too? What the fuck, Cas!" Dean took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. "Why are we going after her? If it's not revenge, if it's not justice, or even just to mop up a rogue demon, what is it?" He followed closely as Castiel abruptly turned away from him. "Don't hedge, damn you. If you didn't know before, you sure as hell know now."

Raising his face to the horizon, Castiel studied the broad field of stars scattered across the dark sky above them. "Find Ruby, find the abomination," he replied finally. "Find the abomination and destroy it, lest all that you and Sam accomplished five years ago be undone."

With a snort, Dean took the seat Castiel had vacated on the bench. He hated it when the older angelic set went all Shakespearian. "What abomination? With you it could be anything – a zit on her ass..."

"It's a creature that by all accounts should not be. It is abhorrent to all realms of existence." Castiel turned to pin Dean with his eyes. "Not just Heaven and Earth, but also Hell. Ruby hasn't just been hiding from us, but from her own kind. That she sent Medea to you is a bad sign. To do this has put the one she shelters at great risk, and I do not know why she would do such a thing. It's…troubling."

"The one she shelters – the abomination?"

"Yes."

Castiel paused, glancing up toward the heavens again for a moment, as if seeking permission to speak. Apparently he got it, because when he returned his attention to Dean he said:

"Ruby is protecting her child."

Dean blinked stupidly, fully realizing the concept of being "struck dumb." He fumbled for a reply even as his mind fumbled to understand what Castiel was saying. "Her what? Ruby has a kid? Did she steal it or something? What…"

"It is a child of her body," Castiel said, and Dean heard a definite tone of disgust in his voice. "This much we now know."

"But…she's a demon, Cas!"

Castiel nodded slightly. "You should know this, Dean, being what you are, what you are at this moment. Possession is all encompassing. Angel or demon, our essence becomes interfused with that of our hosts. The blood Azazel fed to your brother as a baby was not that of his human vessel, but his own. If I were to cut myself it would be my blood that is spilled, not Jimmy Novak's."

Dean shook his head. "I've never heard of a baby demon."

"That's because there are none. Demon seed is tainted, sterile in the womb of a woman – or a female demon – this was Lucifer's doing, another way for him to keep them firmly under his control. It was no demon who impregnated Ruby, nor was it a human male."

"Then it couldn't have been Sam," Dean said, letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Thank God."

Castiel met his eye. "I wouldn't," he said. "Thank God."

"What?" Dean felt a chill run down his spine. "Cas, are you saying this…abomination, it is Sam's?"

"We don't know for sure," the angel murmured. "But we know that no demon, and no human, could have broken down the barriers Lucifer set in place to keep his creations from reproducing on their own."

"How very Jurassic Park of him," Dean grunted. He regarded Castiel solemnly. "No demon, no human, but one of Azazel's super-kids could have knocked her up?"

Castiel rolled a shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. "It's possible. No, it's likely." He looked slightly sheepish, as if reluctant to say what he revealed next, not because it would go against his orders, but because it would upset his friend. "Dean, you must realize that Sam himself is an abomination. He ceased being human a long time ago, and as powerful as he's become, think of how potentially dangerous this child could be."

"Jesus…." Dean moaned.

"No," Castiel remarked softly, "just the opposite."

Dean remembered dying. He knew some angels that didn't, preferring to distance themselves as far as possible from the fact they had once been human. Some of them actually believed it, and even those that didn't, often retained no memory of who they had been before. Dean was an exception, primarily because he desperately wanted to remember where he'd come from. He refused to be a cold, arrogant, always subservient angel. He needed to retain his link to humanity. Had his vanity manifested in anything other than his love for the human race, God would have considered him one of the Fallen and chucked him out. There were those who put him in this category anyway. Dean wasn't particularly popular among the angelic ranks.

He remembered dying – twice – and he remembered Hell too, even after he'd been resurrected, even after he'd died a second time. All of this made him rather unique. He wasn't sure being unique was a good thing necessarily. Sam would probably agree.

"Why us?" he asked softly.

Sam didn't answer. After a long day on the road they had been forced to stop again to let Sam rest. They'd no sooner crossed the threshold of their motel room when a seizure took hold and he'd collapsed. It another bad one. Convulsions wracked his body, throwing his pulse into an erratic rhythm and stopping his breath. Dean was breaking some sort of protocol by keeping his brother alive and knew he'd have to pay for it in some way or another, but for now he didn't care. Once again he tapped into what few healing gifts he had and saw Sam through this latest attack.

I'm just patching up what I can, sticking my fingers into holes, but eventually I'm gonna run out of fingers, and the dam is gonna break. But you're not going to Hell, Sammy, not now, and not ever if I can help it.

When it was over Dean left him sleeping quietly in probably what was the most comfortable, restful sleep Sam had experienced in years. Dean stood by the window, watching him sleep, smiling wryly at the thought of being a "guardian" angel.

"I remember that day. The fight with Lucifer," he whispered softly. "I don't know how many demons I killed to get to you, but I knew I had to. I couldn't leave you, Sammy. How could I?"

Then, arriving at Sam's side, he'd realized his brother was in trouble. As he looked on he could tell Sam was beginning to falter, losing power, losing his life. He seemed to age right before Dean's eyes, shrinking in upon himself, his eyes rolled back so far in his head only the whites could be seen. To Dean's horror he saw that a circle of dead grass had formed around Sam's feet, and he realized something had to be done.

He'd thought at the time it was a futile gesture. All he'd done was place his hand on Sam's shoulder.

"I'm here, Sammy. I'm here now. Everything is going to be all right."

It had been like being struck by lightning – at first. Dean felt every nerve ending in his body screaming in agonizing pain, yet he himself felt oddly distant from it. He could comprehend the pain, but not really experience it. What he did feel was an odd sort of "pulling" sensation in his gut, an odd sort of tension that rose up from his groin into his chest, and the only thing he could find to compare it to was the earliest stages of sexual arousal.

The magic fingers gone haywire.

He'd realized what he'd done would kill him. At the time he hadn't known why, but that answer came upon being inducted into the angel corps and gaining a few "abilities" of his own. He'd inadvertently provided Sam with a living battery, and Sam's use of it had gone beyond his ability to control. His mind and body had been fighting for survival, and pulling energy from any source available – hence the dead grass. The same fate awaited Dean unless he let go and left Sam on his own.

No. I'm here, Sammy. I'm here, and I'm not going to leave you.

There were two others who knew what was happening – one friend, one enemy. Dean remembered seeing Bobby struggling up the hill to where Sam and Dean stood. The old Hunter fought off a trio of demons to reach them, screaming words of warning Dean could not hear above the wild beat of his own heart.

Then suddenly, the sound stopped, and he heard Bobby's scream of anguish as clear as a bell.

"NOOOOO!"

Dean closed his eyes. The Hell hound had been much, much worse. The second time he died he remembered thinking, "Oh, it's only a knife."

It had been Ruby, fearing Sam's success. She'd come up behind them and stabbed Dean in the back, severing his spine. He held on to Sam as long as he could, but his knees had buckled almost immediately and he fell from legs gone numb. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ruby race back down the other side of the hill. He heard the rapport of a gun as Bobby took a shot at her, and in his head he heard Sam call out his name.

Prayer was an alien concept to Dean Winchester, but that day he found himself repeating a single line from the Lord's Prayer over and over again.

Deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil…from evil…deliver us from evil….deliver…us…

After that, things got fuzzy. The next thing he remembered clearly was looking up to see Castiel standing over him with a horrified look on his face. Dean expected maybe a "hello," but the first thing the angel said was:

"You have got to be kidding me."

The room was dark. All color had faded to varying shades of gray from near black, to the pale color of a morning mist. Sam woke and had no idea what time it was, and at first, wasn't quite sure where he was nor what he was doing there. It took him a while to remember, longer than usual. His head was throbbing. Gradually he recalled their arrival at the motel, and getting bitch slapped by a seizure not two steps into the room. The last thing he remembered was a rag being stuffed into his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue when the convulsions started.

That was all he remembered, besides the dreams that seemed more memory than fantasy. In this latest round of dreams he was back in the hospital during those long, lonely days of his recovery when he had nothing more to do than watch television and wait for the nurses to come torture him. He had been a John Doe, to them anyway, because that had been easiest. They'd shuttled him off to the cheap seats because he had no insurance, no money and no family. The "good Samaritan" who had "found" him visited as often as he could. It was during one of these visits, not long after Sam came out of his coma, that Bobby told him Dean was dead.

Sam felt grief wash over him. Time, they said, heals all wounds, but Sam didn't believe it. His pain was barely diluted. All the loved ones he had lost, the mistakes he'd made, Ruby's betrayal, his illness – it all came together in a knot of guilt and grief and remorse at the very heart of him. It would never go away and it was all just as sharp and painful as it had ever been and maybe more. Then something else had crept in to underscore it all, and that thing was dread. He'd known he was dying since the day he woke up in the hospital.

Lying on a sagging mattress in a dingy motel just outside of Chicago, Sam knew the end was just around the corner. He could feel the patches Evan had put into place. They were the only things now keeping him alive. The inhuman power he'd been given, that he'd used despite every warning not to, was devouring him from the inside out. His brain was Swiss cheese, all his neurons completely fried. If it weren't for Evan he would either be a drooling vegetable right now, or dead.

I won't survive the confrontation with Ruby, and even if I do, I will be dead by Christmas. Evan can't hold me together forever.

Outside the motel a train went by on a distant track. Sam heard the low call of its horn, and the faintest sound of its wheels clacking over the rails. He turned his head toward the window and saw that the curtain was open just slightly, and framed between the long fall of those drapes, stood the angel, Evan.

He was standing there looking out the window, staring out across the parking lot and into a neighboring field. There was just the barest blush of color along the horizon, and the way the light fell upon the angel gave the impression of folded wings at his back, their tops rising high above his head. He was standing in three quarters view. Just the slightest shift of position would render the wings invisible again, like a hologram. And so it was when Evan turned to look at Sam. He turned, and the wings vanished, leaving behind only a young human, not some mystical Heavenly being.

That angels really had wings, if only in a virtual sense, had come as a surprise. Dean had brought home that revelation after his first encounter with Castiel, but it hadn't really sunk in until much later. At the time they had been much more interested in the revelation that a) angels actually existed and b) one had hauled Dean's ass out of Hell. The wings weren't wings in the truest sense – angels didn't really fly – but were used to fold space and time, transporting the creatures quickly from one place to another. Sam learned this fact from Bobby, who, always thirsty for knowledge, had pinned Castiel down on the subject.

"Feel better?" Evan asked quietly, shaking Sam from his reverie.

"Feel like crap," Sam returned. He swung his legs off the edge of the bed, sitting up and instantly regretting it as his head started to throb. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. "What time is it?"

"Six thirty. It's Tuesday."

Raising his head, Sam stared at his companion. "Tuesday? I've been asleep..."

"You've been sleeping for over twenty-four hours, yes."

"Why didn't you..."

"Wake you?" Evan shrugged. "I figured you needed the rest."

Sam scowled. "And meantime Ruby has a head start toward her next hiding place." He sighed deeply and slowly rose to his feet. "Is there a coffee maker in this dump?"

"Dresser."

While Sam made a pot of strong coffee and downed his meds with a cup of tap water, Evan remained standing by the window, only now with his back to the sunrise. The angel seemed preoccupied, more subdued than he had been. Sam didn't ask why. He didn't really care – at least for the moment. He needed drugs to ease his pain, and coffee to chase away the remnants of his dreams. If he hadn't known better he would have thought his brother had come back to haunt him.

As the coffee brewed, Sam sat down on the bed. The dreams were starting to bother him. Evan shouldn't have started him thinking about Dean, although he was relieved to hear his worst nightmare hadn't come true. Dean had escaped sentence in Hell. It made him wonder, however, just where Dean had gone. Angels existed. Sam still had his doubts about God, and Heaven.

"Is there really a Heaven," he asked quietly, and wasn't sure if it was the question itself, or that he had spoken, that startled his angelic companion.

Evan's eyes came back into focus. "Yes," he said promptly.

"And?"

"And what?"

"Is it everything it's said to be?"

Evan quietly pulled the drapes fully closed again and crossed the room. Sam watched as he flipped off the coffee maker and pulled the small glass pot from the warmer. He poured into one of the Styrofoam cups provided, but instead of drinking the beverage himself, he handed the cup to Sam. Gratefully, Sam accepted it. He drank, but the coffee left a sour taste in his mouth so he set it aside.

"I don't know any more than you do, Sam." The angel leaned idly against the dresser. "I'm out of the loop."

"What do you mean? You're out of the loop? You're a freakin' angel."

"Exactly," Evan replied. "We're soldiers. We don't lounge around by the pool, we guard the gates." His eyes grew distant once more. "It's the sacrifice we make to become what we are. There've only been a few angels who have gotten the big promotion, and I don't know any."

Sam snorted softly. "So you don't really know Dean isn't in Hell."

"He isn't." Evan refocused, and his brows dipped. "Is that what this is about?"

Reluctantly, Sam nodded. "I can't get him out of my head lately, which is your damn fault." A lump caught in his throat. He swallowed heavily. "I've spent the last five years wondering what torment he's been going through, if they turned him, and then you show up and tell me we were wrong, that Lilith's death did break the contract for good." He caught the angel's eye. "I have to know for sure."

"I'm sure. Dean's not in Hell."

"So he's in Heaven."

The angel looked squirmy. "No," he admitted.

Sam stared at him. "No? What the fuck - no? Where is he then?"

"Sam...look, while you were sleeping I had a chat with Cas..."

"Don't change the damn subject! Where is my brother? Is he a spirit, is he trapped…"

"No," Evan said hastily. "He's fine, okay. He's…content. Can't that be enough?"

For a moment Sam didn't say anything. Wasn't it good enough that Dean was content? It was true that he didn't fully trust Evan, but he saw no reason for the angel to lie about this subject at least. Whatever else the angel was keeping from Sam was one thing, but Dean….

"I'm sorry," the angel suddenly blurted. "I'm so sorry, Sam." Tears glittered in the luminous green eyes. It took Sam off guard.

"For what?"

"They told me not to involve you in this, and now I understand why. I never meant to cause you pain, but I have, and…"

"And what?" Sam prompted.

"It's shortened your life. I've killed you, Sammy."

Sam ignored the use of his pet-name. He gave the angel a frank stare, feeling oddly calm in the face of Evan's grief. "No," he said. "Lucifer killed me." With a deep sigh, he ran his hands through his hair. In the past five years it had started to go grey, particularly at each temple where silver strands wove their way liberally through the brown. "I'm not even forty," he added softly. "I haven't even met a Hunter's average life span."

"If I hadn't come…"

"I still wouldn't make it to forty," Sam said bluntly. "It doesn't matter, Evan. I know I've been living on borrowed time. A few months, a year, it's not going to make much of a difference to me." He sighed again, thinking of the year Dean had spent living under a contract for his soul and the desperation both of them had felt toward the end. "You know don't you?"

Evan tipped his head, his brows knitting. "Know what?"

"You know what's going to happen to me when I die."

The angel flinched as if Sam had slapped him. "It's God's call. Nobody knows what their fate will be until the very last minute."

"But there are odds. What do the angels think? What does Castiel say?"

"You make us sound like Vegas bookies."

"What's your opinion?" Sam asked quietly.

Evan pushed himself off the dresser and walked away, returning to the window. He peered out between the pulled drapes, letting in a sliver of bright sunlight as he moved them aside. Holding out one hand he let the stream of light fall onto his palm. Whether it was an illusion, a hallucination, or some angelic power, it appeared as if the light became liquid, pouring over the angel's hand and between his fingers like molten gold.

"There are places," he said. "Out West, on the prairie, where trees have grown up around barbed wire fences that have been there for decades, so it looks like the wire goes right through the tree trunk." He withdrew his hand from the light. "You can cut the wire on either side of the trunk, but there's still a piece of it hidden inside the tree."

"Yeah," Sam replied. "I've seen trees like that."

The angel turned back around to face him. "Azazel's blood didn't just change you physically. It polluted your soul, and like a tree, you grew up around it. Your body will die, but your soul will still be tainted." With a deep breath, Evan looked him in the eye. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "You won't be allowed in Heaven, Sam, not as long as you carry that taint." After a minute pause he concluded. "Your odds suck. Place your bets with Hell."

"Terrific," Sam muttered. Not what he wanted to hear for sure, but nothing he hadn't already suspected.

"So, knowing it probably won't get you anywhere, do you still want to go after Ruby?"

Sam took a deep breath. He felt like crap even after the rest he'd gotten, and the healing Evan had done to him. It would be so easy just to turn around and go back to Bobby's. He could hang up his holsters, crawl into bed, and try to get some peace before his death and the torment that would follow.

But, he thought, that wasn't going to happen.

"It would be the right thing to do," he replied, smiling ever-so-slightly. "Wouldn't it?"