Neal and Peter were just marching Justin Case off the elevator when all the commotion started. Peter had the thief handcuffed and was walking him to the interrogation room with a hand on his arm. They could see the psychiatrist handing Jimmy Novak over to the violent crimes unit, and the agent in charge of escorting Novak looking away, distracted by the psychiatrist. Novak moved with a sudden speed before Neal even had a chance to shout a warning to the agent, and then the agent was on the ground and Novak had his gun. All the agents on the floor were out of their seats and aiming guns at him, but he took no notice, darting towards Neal and Peter and the door. A rookie agent fired and Neal threw himself to the side, the bullet thudding into the air conditioning unit immediately behind where he'd been standing. When he rolled to his feet, Novak was gone, pursued by a crowd of agents. Peter, who'd thrown himself in the opposite direction, had lost his grip on the prisoner.

Neal inwardly cursed the FBI for refusing to teach him how to fight as he dashed to his partner's aid. Case was on top of Peter, struggling to get the chain of his handcuffs around the agent's neck. Peter was holding his own reasonably well considering he was face down on the floor. For all Peter gave off the nice guy image, he could pull out the moves when he needed them. Neal grabbed the guy's arms to try to haul him off, but it was hard going. Neal was stronger than he looked and Case was a small man, but he'd lost his cool completely and was fighting with surprising strength. Neal had always heard that crazy people had the strength of ten men, but he hadn't thought it could actually be true.

"Freeze or I'll shoot, Case," Neal heard an agent say from above him.

Case paid no attention. Maybe it was because he knew they wouldn't shoot him while he was on Peter – there was too much chance of missing and killing their colleague – but Neal thought it was probably just that he was too far gone, too lost in his rage to notice anything else.

"You killed her!" Case screamed, the words almost unintelligible through the crazed tone. He struggled to get the chain around Peter's neck. Neal hauled him backwards again, and was thrown aside by his flailing leg as he surged back towards Peter.

Neal picked himself up, running his ribs where he'd hit a desk, and prepared to wade in again, but now Jones and two other agents had Case in their grasp, and were just succeeding in holding him back while Peter rolled over. Case partially slipped from the control of the agents, throwing himself at Peter once more, his eyes wide, mouth snarling, screaming wordlessly in that horrific voice. Peter was ready for him this time, though, bringing his knee up hard into the man's groin. Case barely even seemed to notice, so determined was he to cause Peter pain, but it gave Peter a second to roll him over and get him on the ground. Four agents rushed in to hold him down, one on each limb, and he still struggled until an agent finally arrived with the sedative the violent crimes unit kept for emergencies and jabbed the needle into his arm.

There was quiet as the agents recovered their breath. Neal became faintly aware of gunfire in another part of the building.

"Are you alright?" He asked Peter once the prisoner was securely cuffed in the interrogation room, the sedative keeping him docile.

"I'm fine," Peter reassured him, but Neal could see his hand moving to rub his neck.

"Why did he freak out like that? I don't understand."

"He kept yelling that I'd killed someone. I think he blames me for his wife's death."

"But you didn't kill her! And he just went crazy at you!" Neal exclaimed. Now that the adrenalin was leaving, he could feel his hands shaking again, just a little. He'd been really scared for Peter.

"Grief makes people do crazy things, Neal. I shouldn't have to remind you that."

Neal nodded. He didn't like remembering all the things his grief over Kate had driven him to. But he still felt Peter was being altogether too calm about the whole thing.

They didn't have time to discuss it further, because Diana ran in at that point to talk to Peter. "We've got a problem," she said, "Novak's barricaded himself in the evidence lock-up. Won't even consider giving himself up until he talks to Agent Burke."

XXX

Cas piled boxes in front of the door, ignoring the yells from the other side. The agents had been quick in pursuit of him, and several shots had been fired and gone wide, but he'd found that people were reluctant to shoot when there was a possibility of hitting someone other than him, and had weaved his way through the agents, throwing off the few that laid hands on him. Even human, he could still make use of the moves that had served him well in the angelic wars, although now they had a lot less strength behind them. He'd run with a single-minded determination to reach the evidence lock-up he'd seen on the way in. Finally, he'd made it there. The guard on the door had hesitated before firing, and Cas had used that moment to knock him out. Now he was inside, and the door was barricaded well enough to give him time to find and destroy the painting. That was all he needed.

Outside, a woman's voice, husky even when shouting demanded he give himself up. "There's no way out," she told him. But that was okay. He didn't need a way out.

"I want to speak to Agent Burke," he said, just to slow down the battering of the door.

There was a vast array of items covering the shelves of the room, from gold watches to weapons to foodstuffs. In a surprising display of good fortune, several bags of salt sat in a back corner, numbered and catalogued. Cas could not imagine what crime they could have been seized as evidence in, but was very relieved as he had realised, upon locking himself in the room, that he had neglected to formulate a plan for the actual destruction of the painting.

The battering on the door was growing more insistent. The agents had obviously found something heavy to ram against the door. It was rattling on its hinges, the pile of boxes behind it trembling slightly. Cas threw more stuff on the pile.

The painting was hanging on the wall, presumably to prevent damage. It was in a dark corner alongside a number of other canvases, none of which appeared familiar to Cas. The really valuable artwork was probably kept in another room. He took Rivers in Flood down, placing it in the most open space he could find within the crowded room. He dragged the bags of salt over to it. He felt the hairs on his arms stand on end, and pulled his coat tighter around himself in the sudden chill. Leaving them there, he went in search of a lighter and some kind of accelerant.

Something was happening outside. He could hear confusion, and a sudden ceasing of the efforts to force the door open. The air in the evidence room was frigid, his breath freezing as it left him. There was a strange knocking from above him. He ignored it, redoubling his efforts to find what he needed.

At last, he found a gold-plated lighter that worked and a several bottles of whisky that would have to do for an accelerant. As he rushed across the room to use them, two things happened. The first was that the knocking in the wall culminated in a loud crash and an avalanche as someone fell out of the emergency fire exit in the ceiling. The second was that the door opened.

XXX

When he saw the fed marching the witch off to the FBI building, Dean knew they had no time to waste. They had to get in there now.

"What did you do with those hex bags? We'll go in with those, get Cas, then two of us can hold the feds off while the other one burns the paintings," he said.

"Dude, you know the hex bags don't actually make us invisible, right? Do you know how many feds are in that building?"

Okay, so it wasn't a great plan, but they were on a time limit here. "Tell you what," he said, "If you think of a better plan by the time we get to the federal building, I'm all ears."

Sam frowned; apparently too busy trying to come up with a better plan to answer him.

"Besides," Dean added optimistically, "I'm sure Cas will have found a way to help us out by now. He's probably already burned it."

Sam snorted, but had the good grace not to say anything. By the time they got to the federal building he'd thought of a few improvements to Dean's plan. It was still not what you might call 'foolproof' though.

The two largest factors in their favour were the hex bags and the sudden confusion in the building that began just as they walked past the guard in the lobby. The hex bags might not make them invisible, but they did encourage people to look away or forget they had seen them. As long as they didn't move too fast or set off any metal detectors, they could probably get in okay. They'd left their guns outside, along with knives and any other metal that could set off an alarm. Dean felt naked and vulnerable, and his heart continued to beat in double-time even after he'd successfully swiped someone's ID card from their waist without attracting attention. He swiped it to give himself and Sam access to the elevator, pressing the button to take them to the floor where Peter Burke's White Collar Crimes division was located.

It was chaos when they got off the elevator. Just around the corner, a group of agents was swinging a heavy black battering ram against a thick metal door, while a young man did some kind of first aid on some kind of guard who was lying unconscious on the floor. Another group of agents stood behind those with the battering ram, wearing bulletproof vests. They had their guns out and were shouting for Mr Novak to give himself up.

Dean grinned and nudged his brother as they sidled past along the wall. That was his Cas, alright. The old one, from before all the crap.

In the main office section of the floor, the majority of the occupants were occupied in restraining and sedating an extremely violent man. Agent Burke and the man who wasn't a witch were among them. Burke had obviously just been attacked. Not-a-witch seemed surprisingly concerned. There was a young woman who was obviously not a field agent lurking off to the side, quietly freaking out. Dean hated to do it, he really did. The poor girl had probably joined the White Collar division to avoid the violence of the other units. But it was Cas, and there were lives at stake, and it wasn't like he would actually hurt her, so he did it anyway. Stepping quietly up behind her, he grabbed a pen and held it to her throat, point pressing against her jugular.

"I need to get into the evidence room," he said.

She elbowed him in the stomach, following it up with a hard kick to the inside of the knee.

She told him in the end, though, because while he was hopping around clutching his knee Sam had come up with a gun from somewhere.

"You go," Sam said, "I'll distract them."

Dean mumbled an apology as he ran from the room, but the woman had already forgotten him. Sam was lurking against the wall, watching. Dean passed the woman who'd followed him and Cas from the cafe in the hallway. He ran up the stairs to the next floor, which was set out very similarly to the floor beneath it. It had a storage room full of files instead of an evidence lock-up, and the emergency exit for the lock-up underneath was a trapdoor in the floor in the back left corner. He could hear Cas throwing things in the room below. He banged on the door, which was surprisingly difficult to open considering it was a fire exit. Cas didn't respond.

Finally, Dean wrenched the handle open and shoved the door down with all his might. It gave without warning and his momentum sent him tumbling through, bringing shelves down with him in an enormous heap. He groaned as he hit the floor, winded. He forced himself up on his elbows. Across the room, Cas was frozen in the middle of pouring salt on the painting, staring at him.

"Hey Cas," he said.

The pile of boxes acting as a barricade toppled over as the door opened.

XXX