A bank of windows overlooked one of the courtyards of the hospital, beads of rain racing down the glass as the clouds let loose what they had been threatening all day. Dean pressed his forehead against one of the windows, closing his eyes to focus on the cool smoothness, trying and failing to calm himself.

"You all right?"

Dean didn't look around at Kevin. "I'm about as far from all right as I can be and still be vertical."

"Here."

Glancing over his shoulder, his first instinct was to wave off the proffered coffee cup. Kevin thrust it forward again. "This is the good stuff. From the cart in the atrium. You look like you need it."

"Yeah, well, you don't look so hot either." Dean ran a hand wearily across his face as he accepted the cup. Caffeine would only get him so far; he'd need more than a catnap soon. "How much of what he knows did you tell him?"

Suddenly intent, Kevin leaned closer. "Not that much. I didn't say anything about demons or Hunters; he came up with that on his own." He bit his lip. "He mostly wanted to talk about you. Keeps saying that you're the only thing that comes in clear."

"I noticed that." Dean took a long sip of the coffee to avoid expounding upon that line of conversation. "And he's talky. Don't think I've ever heard him say that many words together before."

"Part of that is the pain meds," Kevin said. "The nurses all said they'd make him talkative. But..." His brow furrowed, as though he were trying to puzzle out the best way to say something. "I never knew Cas very well," he said finally, "but I don't think that's Cas in there. Or, well, not Castiel."

Something fell into place with Kevin's words, something that had been nagging at the back of Dean's mind from the second Castiel had woken up. "Keep going."

"I'm - just listen to him. It's like he's coming up with what his life should have been. Rewriting himself into who he wants to be." A thoroughly troubled look settled into Kevin's features.

"Based on a true story," Dean mused softly. "With all the parts that make him feel like shit cut out." He looked up at the dreary gray clouds above them. "It's guilt. Plain and simple. Heaven literally falling down around his ears was the last straw. He couldn't stand himself for another minute." He shook his head. "God, I know what that feels like."

A gust of wind spattered rain against the windows in a burst of muted percussion. "So do we tell him?" Kevin ventured.

"Do we even have the right?" Dean studied the rivulets of water as they made their way down the glass. "He's in pain, he's upset, and he's confused, and this is still the happiest I think I've ever seen him." He sighed heavily. "But yeah. We tell him. Of course we tell him."

Kevin nodded slowly. "Okay. When?"

Delaying for another moment as he sipped at the coffee, Dean stared out the window again. "Haven't worked that out yet. Sooner rather than later." He let out a tiny frustrated sigh. "How soon, though...no idea."

"What about Sam?" Kevin asked hesitantly when it was clear Dean wasn't going to say anything else.

"Right. I should call him back." Dean pulled his phone from his jacket pocket.

Sam blinked. It had to be the fatigue numbing the edges of his mind. He had to have heard incorrectly.

"He can't be a donor?" he asked dully. "But...but he's my brother."

Sympathy traced lines into Dr. Harper's forehead. "Siblings are a tissue match about seventy percent of the time. The odds were very good, but in this case..."

Sam shook his head. "Fine. Okay. So what now?" Best to not dwell on it. Dean would likely do enough dwelling for the both of them. "I just sit here and wait around for someone else to match me?"

"Actually, I can give you some good news on that front." Dr. Harper nodded at one of the monitors. "Your oxygen saturation levels are holding steady. Still a little lower than the norm, but enough to make me happy. The transfusions are doing the job. Assuming you continue to be stable, I think I'll be able to discharge you to outpatient status this evening."

"Outpatient?" Sam repeated.

"Until we find you a donor, you're still going to need several units of blood every few weeks," Dr. Harper explained, "to replace the transfusions you've already gotten as those cells die. But you don't need to do that here. I can transfer your care to a hospital closer to home, and you can check yourself in every other week or so, similar to a dialysis patient. In the meantime, you can be at home."

Shaking his head to try and quiet the thousand thoughts clamoring for attention, Sam held up a hand. "Wait. So I'm dying, but I'm not sick enough to stay in the hospital?"

Dr. Harper cocked her head. "Do you want to stay in the hospital?"

"No. Hell no. I just -" It was useless to try and make sense of the jumble that was his overtired thought processes right now. Sam brought one hand up to rub his eyes. "How long will I have to wait?"

"It's difficult to say." Dr. Harper rapped one knuckle on the clipboard that held Sam's chart. "It all comes down to tissue types, who is currently in the registry, how far away they live - though bone marrow can be safely outside the body for lot longer than, say, a lung." Her eyes tightened slightly, the only outward indication that she was not as pleased about what she was saying as she was pretending to be. "The average wait for a bone marrow donor is about seven months to a year."

"A year?" Sam let his hand drop. "A year of sitting around at home, waiting, going to the hospital every two weeks to get an oil change?" A horrible thought occurred to him, and it leapt into words before he could consider whether it was a good thing to ask. "How long can I even live doing the transfusions?"

There it was again, the tightening around the eyes, although the rest of Dr. Harper's face fell slightly, as well. "About a year. Maybe a year and a half," she said, attempting to keep eye contact with Sam but letting her eyes fall to his chart at the last word.

The tempest of conflicting thoughts in Sam's head ceased, replaced by a high-pitched whine that was even less conducive to logic. "So...so I'm just going to wait around until I die."

"A match could show up next week, or next month. There's no pattern of predictability to this system," Dr. Harper said firmly.

"Or one might not. I'm a dead man walking." Sam shook his head, a bitter laugh of disbelief threatening to burst from him. "Not even walking. I don't even think I'm up to that."

"Sam." Dr. Harper laid a hand on his arm. "I need you to calm down. You've leapt to the absolutely worst-case scenario. You're young, and relatively healthy. The speed with which you've bounced back is remarkable. You might be able to continue with transfusions for years. And we might find you a donor within weeks. I'm not saying this to make you feel better," she added seriously as Sam shook his head. "I'm saying it because it's true. There are a lot of factors here that don't lend themselves to any precedent. I think - I truly do - that you are going to come out of this healthy and happy."

The room phone rang, its jangling warble enough to make Sam jump. He could feel the blood drain from his face. "That's my brother." He looked over to Dr. Harper. "What do I tell him?"

Dr. Harper stood. "Whatever you think you should tell him. I'll give you some privacy." She turned, then paused. "I might start with the news that you're going home tonight."

The phone conversation did not look like it was going well, and it didn't look like it was going to end anytime soon. Not enjoying pretending he couldn't hear or see what was happening, Kevin finally wandered back down the corridor and found himself back in Castiel's room.

"He's on the phone," he said in explanation as Castiel looked over at the door hopefully, only for his face to fall when it wasn't Dean who walked through. "With Sam."

"Ah." Castiel looked back down at his hands, inspecting the clip on one of his fingers that glowed with a red light. "Do you have any brothers? Or sisters?" he asked suddenly.

Taken aback, Kevin hesitated for a moment. "Only child," he replied belatedly.

"What about Sam and Dean? Aren't they...?" Castiel trailed off, gesturing incoherently at the door.

Kevin blinked. "I...I mean, I guess, kind of. I get along with them. They've gone to bat for me, that's for sure." He shrugged, unsatisfied with the answer. "I don't know if I'd call them family. Not yet."

"But I did. Do." Castiel shook his head. "Whatever."

They were coming very close to dangerous territory. Kevin desperately wished Dean would walk in and either dispel the conversation or give Kevin some sort of indication as to what he was supposed to divulge. "You were like family," he said after too long a pause. "Stronger than family, in some ways, I think. I don't know. I spent most of my time doing research. I didn't get to see them a lot, and I only met you a couple times until this week."

Research. The word tugged at something in the primal depths of his brain, fuel for the spark of addiction he'd been quelling for two days now. It was baser than hunger or fatigue, this need to be near the tablet. Either tablet - now that he'd touched the Angel tablet it was as much a part of him as the Demon tablet had ever been; more than a limb. More like an eye. Yes. Being away from it, leaving it untranslated, was as distracting as if he'd just gone half-blind.

He shook his head. It was bearable, for now. "Do you remember anything about your family?" he prompted.

Castiel's eyebrows knit together as he considered. "Disfunctional," he said finally. "And - more or less happier when I wasn't around." He gave the tiniest shrug, eyes distant. "Nothing more specific than that. Just a general sense of fighting and feeling excluded."

Nodding out of a lack of anything better to say, Kevin cast about for another conversation topic - anything to fill the oppressive silence - and almost wept in gratitude when the door swung open.

"Hey," Dean said, pulling the door shut behind him.

The hairs at the back of Kevin's neck prickled. Something was wrong. Dean's neutral, exhausted expression looked crystalline, brittle, as though the slightest tap would shatter it to pieces. He moved like it pained him and he was trying not to show it as he settled himself into the chair by Castiel's side. Kevin caught his eye, and the unasked question floated tangibly between them.

"Sam's being discharged tonight," Dean said gruffly, voice oddly expressionless. "I can't give him bone marrow. He'll live off transfusions for a few months until they can find a donor." He let out a forceful sigh that could have been a single sardonic laugh. "That's assuming that whatever the Trials did to him doesn't ramp it up over time. And that a bone marrow transplant even works." He looked around the hospital room with hollow eyes. "This isn't how we're supposed to die. Supposed to be quick and bloody and..."

Slowly, Castiel reached out and laid a hand on Dean's shoulder. Dean flinched, but didn't pull away; he in fact visibly leaned into the touch, almost sagging against it, eyes closing as he lifted a hand to cover them. Castiel glanced at Kevin and the concern written so plainly across his face struck Kevin to his core.

He wasn't supposed to be seeing this - not the cracks in Dean's armor nor Dean accepting comfort from someone. Kevin was sure of it, and he felt like the most brazen kind of interloper as he looked down at his knees, because he was almost positive he wasn't supposed to see the hopeless affection that fueled the worry in Castiel's eyes, either.

The eternal moment flowed like cold honey, so slowly that Kevin started to feel the slightest bit of anxiety, until Dean heaved a huge sigh and lifted his face. He hadn't been crying - Kevin didn't know what he'd have done if that had been the case - but his expression was oddly blank, as though he were trying to remember what it looked like to be calm.

"I think we all need sleep," he said simply. "Then I'll go get Sam. Bring him home, then come back here. Cas, when did they say you'd be out?"

"Two days. Depends on how well I start healing." Castiel glanced down at his ribs and winced. "They did kind of cut me completely open."

"Right." Dean shifted in the chair, slumping down and crossing his arms.

"You're sleeping here?" Castiel asked in surprise.

Dean looked over, the blank expression on his face softening. "I said I wasn't going anywhere this time." His eyes flicked over to Kevin, as though just remembering that they were not alone in the room. "You staying here?"

"Nah." The yearning to be near the tablet had blossomed into a dull ache at the base of Kevin's skull; it provided an excellent excuse to get somewhere he couldn't see the way Castiel stole glances at Dean when Dean wasn't looking. "I, uh, want to get back to the tablet. I can take a cab as far as the highway and walk the rest."

It was a mark of how exhausted Dean really was that he didn't argue, but simply waved a hand in vague acquiesence. "See you tonight, then."

Hitching his backpack onto one shoulder, Kevin nodded. "Tonight."

Sam was asleep almost as soon as he'd reclined in the back seat.

It wasn't true sleep, not at first; more the fitful doze somewhere between waking and sleeping, aware of disconnected snatches of muted conversation from the front seat and the snap of the plastic over the broken window as Dean drove, but interwoven with long moments of the nonsensical continuity of dreams.

"...haven't told him yet?" Crowley was saying. He sounded amused.

"One shock at a time," Dean retorted defensively.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist. I'd do the same thing."

Sam couldn't see it, but he could imagine Dean's reaction to that; he'd grip the steering wheel more tightly, knuckles turning white, brows turning downward as he stared intently at the road. He wanted to speak up, wanted to tell Dean that it was what Sam would have done, too - not to let Crowley get to him - but talking felt so far away and it was so much easier to just drift...

"Hello, Sam."

Suddenly, startlingly awake - more awake than he'd been in days - Sam's eyes flew open and he scrambled to sit up, only to find he was already standing. The bright light did not hurt his eyes like it should have after the darkness of the back seat, and the featureless plane on which he stood had no color his eyes could discern - but it was not precisely white. It was simply nothing.

"Dreaming," he said aloud, and his voice seemed to stop at his mouth, pressing against him, dampened. It didn't echo. It didn't project.

"Yes," a voice behind him agreed - Sam didn't know how he knew it was behind him, as the sound did not seem as though it had traveled, but he spun.

And his stomach turned to ice.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No. Not again."

"Again?" Lucifer looked puzzledly amused.

"You're not real," Sam insisted, unconsciously taking a step back. "You're still in the Cage. You're not really here."

"Mmm. One out of three, I'm afraid." Lucifer slid his hands into his pockets and took a casual step forward. "This is a dream - or something enough like it - so of course I'm not actually here." He stopped in front of Sam, who swallowed against the bile rising at the back of his throat and fought to hold eye contact. "But real? Very. And as for the Cage..." He chuckled. "That's the beauty of spells written before the Cage was ever conceived. They tend to supercede just about everything."

Lucifer paused, as though waiting for Sam to say something. Sam licked his lips. "Spells?" he asked obligingly, faking a bravado he couldn't even begin to feel.

"'And the Angels shall be brought low to walk upon the Earth, the Gates of Heaven barred to their Return,'" Lucifer said with the air of a man quoting something, slowly circling Sam. He raised a critical eyebrow. "Bit sloppy, really. It probably should have specified that it only applied to angels currently in Heaven." He grinned lazily over his shoulder at Sam. "They could have avoided all sorts of problems."

"No." Sam shook his head again, shutting his eyes tightly. No. This was just - he was exhausted. This had happened last time he'd been this tired. That was all. "Go away."

"You know I can't do that, Sam," Lucifer said in a pitying tone. "You see, you've said 'yes' to me once before - it's how I can hang around here so cozily. But I do need another formal invitation if I want to set up shop again."

Sam stared in sick disbelief. "And what makes you think I would ever - ever - do that again?"

"Oh, several reasons," Lucifer said earnestly, leaning casually against a wall that wasn't there. "The most important being I can protect your brother."

The question was almost on Sam's lips before he bit his tongue, refusing to give Lucifer the satisfaction. Lucifer shot him a condescending half-smile.

"Heaven knows that your brother is - shall we say, intimately tied - to one Castiel. The one responsible for this little fiasco." Lucifer gestured vaguely around him. "He's good at hiding, Castiel is, and no doubt he knows already that our brothers and sisters are...displeased. Displeasure tends to be fatal in our family. I don't blame him for hiding. But if they can't find him...I assure you, you and Dean are much, much simpler to locate."

He doesn't know. He doesn't know that Cas - Sam threw the thought from his mind forcefully. Lucifer was in his head - possibly - and even if Sam wasn't positive his mind could be read like an open book... "We've hidden from angels before. Angels at full power. I think we can stay one step ahead of Fallen angels."

"Fallen?" Lucifer asked innocently. "And what makes you think a Fallen angel is powerless?" He laughed softly at Sam's face as Sam felt his blood run cold. "I'm Fallen, remember? Just because an angel can't draw on the might of Heaven doesn't mean they're a force to be trifled with."

Sam set his jaw. "You're barking up the wrong tree. No. Never. I don't care what you say you can do -"

"I could heal you."

Mouth snapping shut in surprise, Sam could do nothing but stare.

"All that energy boiling around in your bones, Sam? You can still feel it, can't you? The force required to bind every demon permanently within Hell." Lucifer looked almost sympathetic. "No human body's built to contain that kind of energy. And it'll just burn hotter, feeding on itself like a supernova until..." He made a very illustrative hand gesture, accompanied by an explosive sound effect.

Sam swallowed hard against the flux of terrified nausea that rose in his middle.

"I've never lied to you. Not once. And I'm not lying now. Get whatever blood transfusions or transplants or surgeries that you want. It won't change a thing. Without my help, you won't live to see the snow fly - and how long do you honestly think your brother will hold on without you?"

The world was shaking, wavering - Lucifer's features became more indistinct as darkness rushed in -

Gasping, Sam opened his eyes and sat up fast enough to make his head spin. For a sickening moment he didn't know where he was, until the musty smell of old leather and road dust anchored his senses back into reality.

"You okay?" Dean asked, twisting back to place both hands on the wheel. He'd shaken Sam awake, Sam realized dimly. "You were muttering. And you're sweaty."

"Bad dream," Sam admitted, rubbing his face with unsteady hands. "Nothing I can't handle." Indeed, the details of it were starting to slip away like water through his fingers, and he welcomed it.

"Well, I hope you didn't run out of sleep," Dean said as he turned onto a dirt road with no streetlights. "We're home."

Crowley argued against the necessity of being hooded - he knew exactly where the Bunker was, could pick out where the Winchesters slept right this very second - but either he was tired or he was just losing his patience with arguing. Both explanations seemed equally unlikely, but Dean wasn't going to complain about whatever force had made Crowley shut up and consent to being led into the bunker hooded and chained.

The minute Dean set foot in the main room, he could feel the hairs on the back of his next stand up on end. There was a difference between a room that was empty and a room where someone was waiting quietly. He let his hand fall from its grip on Crowley's shoulder and go to the gun at his hip as Sam flicked on the light switch.

He didn't even have to think about it - he had already aimed and squeezed off two shots before he really registered the tall man in a charcoal grey suit in the very center of the room, the report of the gun echoing deafeningly off the walls. Aside from jumping at the impact, the man didn't seem to react to the bullets at all.

"Don't know why I even carry a gun," Dean muttered as he shoved it back in the waistband of his jeans, going for one of his knives. The man - obviously not a man - the creature was nearly halfway to Dean now, moving quickly with a deadly grace Dean could have sworn he'd seen somewhere before. Silver knife would be the best bet; Dean would cover the most bases with it -

The creature knocked it from his hand as though Dean had brandished it like a child; his wrist stung belatedly at the strike, but he didn't really notice as the creature pushed him against the wall, forearm pressing alarmingly against his windpipe -

Bright white light flooded the room, accompanied by a soundless roar that was more felt than heard. Dean could hear Crowley growl "bloody fuck!" and then the pressure at his throat was gone, and he stumbled away from the wall as the spots slowly began to dissolve from before his eyes.

Sam stood at the other side of the room, chest heaving, hand pressed against a bloody smear in the middle of a sigil on the wall. The angel-banishing sigil they'd drawn a month ago, just in case. It took Dean's fatigue-addled mind a moment to add up all the figures in the scene, but then...

"Sam?" he asked slowly, deliberately. "How did you know that was an angel?"

Sam licked his lips, hopelessness pinching the corners of his eyes. "Dean. I think we might have a problem."