Notes: Wooo! Only one final left for this semester! Then I have a whole month to do nothing!...except write more chapters XD Oh! There might be a "side fluffy holiday episode" in the near future. It will be part of this universe, but doesn't have to be read to keep up, it's just some fluff for those of you who like fluff =)

Disclaimer: Ain't mine.

CHAPTER 4

Zachariah leads Anna into the richly decorated foyer of the capitol building where the party was being held. He was wearing an expensive, but plain looking suit, nothing that truly drew any attention but still was respectable. But Anna's presence makes him look all the more appealing with her stunning and elegant green dress that fanned out behind her as she moved.

Approaching the arch he turns to her, "After you, my dear." He says politely, but somehow it sounds condescending to Anna. But she thanks him graciously nonetheless.

A grand ballroom is before them through some ornate archway decorated with flowers. At the archway a colorfully dressed porter stands, announcing the names of each guest as they hand their invitations to him. Anna has been to many parties such as this, but they never lost their splendor. She loved how everything was beautiful and sparkling with social energy. She practically glowed in this environment with contentment.

"Zachariah Green and Anna Milton." The porter announced clearly. And the two walked into the party.

They were greeted with the sight of elegant party-goers, carefully circulating waiters with shining trays of champagne, live musicians, and a wonderful spread on a buffet table. He eyes are drawn to the floating chandelier up above the twirling dancers and she smiles softly. This truly was a lovely ball. It was even lovely enough for her to ignore who her date was.

As she is ushered along by Zachariah's pull on her arm, she sees familiar faces. She waves kindly to a fellow companion and blows a tender kiss to an old client. She mildly thinks of her conversation with Dean earlier that day. She had told him that she preferred the warmth of the Impala, but she hadn't told him that she did miss a few things from her previous life. She was a social creature, and she did miss events like this.

She greeted and old friend while walking past, "Roberta, it's been too long."

Anna spots an older man that was once a client of hers once upon a time, "Lao pung yo, nee can chi lai hun yo jing shen." (you're looking wonderful, old friend.)

Zachariah doesn't seem to mind her socializing. In fact he seems to be basking in it, enjoying the status that seems to come with being with a successful companion. He whispers in her ear and she suppresses a shudder, "Half of the men in this room wish you were on their arm tonight."

"Only half? I must be losing my touch." She joked privately.

He smiled back, a disturbing picture, "Not at all, my dear. All of them wish you were in their bed." He whispered to her.

Of course Anna finds that in bad taste and she looks away quickly, trying to compose herself like her training had taught her.

Her date notices and smiles unpleasantly, "Oh, she blushes. How sweet. Not many in your line of work do that." He informed her knowingly. Anna only partially notices and reaches for a glass of champagne from a tray that is passing by, and she might have taken a bigger sip than was considered polite. Zachariah then begins to parade her around the room, with Anna following dutifully.

Along the way she continues to greet other acquaintances, soaking up as much of her old friends as she can.

"I've noticed how much your face lights up here, being among the upper class. I know that you live on a ship with a…motley crew, unique I should say. I looked up your own profile, I hope you don't mind." Zachariah drew her attention. She usually was fine with people looking at her profile, but him doing it…it felt a bit off, and invasive.

He continued as if he didn't notice her discomfort. "You belong here, Anna. Not on that flying, smelly piece of gos se. You see that, don't you?" (Crap)

Her smile falters, "Mr. Green, language, please." She looks around to see if anyone heard. But he doesn't stop.

"What? But it is a piece of gos se." He seems insistent that she understand this, but how could someone like him understand her reasons for loving the Impala as much as she did.

But something else drew Anna's attention. The porter was announcing a new set of names.

"Captain Dean Winchester and his date Cas Winchester." Anna turns her head rudely away from her date startled to see if her ears where playing tricks on her.

But she had heard right. There stood Dean, looking incredibly uncomfortable in his suit, and Castiel, looking around the room in open wonder.

"Oh, gos se." Whispers Anna.

A few moments before Dean decided to give his "date" a pep talk before they moved up to the porter. "Okay buddy, here's the deal. I know we went over this before back home, but let's re-hash, just to be sure. Dongma?"

Castiel nods happily, still looking all around them at the dancing flowers.

"Can you tell me why we're here?"Dean asked, trying to catch Cas' wondering gaze.

"We are looking for your contact," Cas said loudly, too loudly. Dean shushed him.

"Dude lower your voice! Okay, and what will you tell people if they ask who you are?"

"I…I answer that I am Cas Winchester, your cousin who works for you?" He answered a bit hesitantly.

Dean smiled, "Good, and I want you to stay by me and let me know if you're feeling…iffy. But you have to remember, you are safest with me. So don't go wandering too far. Also…" Cas cut him off, "Why are we not telling them the truth? Wouldn't it be more efficient to simply inform them who we are looking for? I'm sure these wonderful people could even point him out to us."

Dean sighed heavily. He noticed that the tie he had put on Cas earlier for the party was backwards and had come loose. Fixing it for him he answered, "We are not telling them the truth Cas."

"Why not?" He asked, tilting his head to the side, making it harder for Dean to get the tie straight.

"Because we're human." Dean pulls Cas' invitation from Crowley out of his pocket and stuffs it into Cas' coat pocket adjusting the lapels as he does so. "And when humans want something really, really bad, we lie."

Cas looked more confused than ever, "Why?"

With a final tug of Cas' jacket to get rid of all the wrinkles, Dean responded.

"Because that's how you gain status."

And the two of them finally moved up to the porter. Dean pulls out his invitation smoothly and hands it to the man to read aloud. The porter reaches out his hand for Cas' invitation and waits patiently as Cas is transfixed with the sights ahead of them. Dean bumps his shoulder to get his attention back where it belongs. Cas looks at him oddly, and then remembers to pull out his own invitation. He holds it up proudly for the porter to see….upside down with a big smile on his face. Dean rolls his eyes, grabs the invite out of his hands and shoves it at the porter, already regretting his choice to let Cas out.

They make their way into the party. Dean glances at Cas. His eyes are wide and glowing while he tries to take it all in. No sign of distress. Yet. Moving around the edges of the room, Dean looks around for easy escapes, where guards are, familiar and unfriendly faces, and anything else that he may need should things turn sour.

Tugging at his collar, Dean turns back to Cas. "Does this get-up…does it look a little tight to you?"

Cas didn't even look at him, too busy staring at everything else, but answers anyway, "Shows off your backside." He said his voice sounding very sure of his answer. "Did you see the cluster of stars? I've never seen them indoors before. I wonder how they coaxed them out of the sky?"

Dean turned his sight to where Cas was looking, hoping to figure out what the hell he was talking about, and he saw the floating chandelier. Not bad, Dean thought.

"Ooh!" Cas' exclamation brought Dean's gaze back to see him now straining to see a very large bouquet of flowers on the other side of the room. The thing was the size of Dean's room back on the Impala.

"I almost feel like one of the flowers right now. Soaking in the glow and freshness. Except that I'm mobile. And I like red meat. And living in dirt doesn't really sound like fun. I wonder what kind of dirt these people live in?" Cas' ponderings were drawing some strange looks, especially once he started talking about dirt. Dean tried to change the topic.

"Yeah, you look great. Like a flower. But be careful with that suit. We cheated Crowley out of some good money to but that monkey suit you've got on. It's supposed to make you look like one of these stiffs."

"Yes sir, captain Tightpants." Cas said casually.

That finally got Dean to crack a smile. It was times like these that he could totally believe someone like Cas had grown up with Gabriel in the same house. And Cas did look good, he couldn't deny. The dark, almost black suit they had given him might have made him look like some fancy tax accountant, but it was just so…Cas. It looked right, except it needed the trench coat. He shook the thoughts from his head.

Getting down to business, "Okay, we're looking for our guy now. Name is Harrow."

"Yes, we should also find Anna." Cas answered seriously.

"Yeah, sure. If we see her. I think she's wearing green."

Cas caught sight of the dancers. They women were like flowers blossoming on the dance floor as they spun around and dipped. The men were like bees, trailing between the women leaving behind smiles and touches. The choreography of it all was so wonderful. Cas loved watching the flowers and bees.

Fingers snapped in his face, "Hey, Cas. Stay focused here. Help me find our man. He's supposed to be older, kinda stocky, wearing a red sash crossways."

"Why?" Cas asked, tilting his head again. Dean absently noticed that the tie had gotten turned around again.

"I don't know. Maybe he won the Miss Lawrence pageant. Help me look." He said shortly.

Cas idly glanced around. His eyes went back to the large bouquet of flowers. "I shall interrogate the flowers." And he walked off quickly to the other side of the room before Dean could stop him.

"Cas that's a….flower…pot. Damn. Whatever, I'll find him myself." Dean mumbled to himself when Cas had already moved out of earshot. He watches for a minute to make sure that Cas was okay…talking to the flowers. The blue eyed man was inspecting and touching each and every flower, smiling softly. He looked content enough to be left alone for a few minutes, so Dean moved off to find their perspective client. But he kept Cas in his peripheral the whole time.

Ha ha! This was written before the episode where Cas "interrogate" the cat. But I didn't change it simply because I don't see how a cat could have got an invite to the party XD