He had tried to dive back into work, but Dean couldn't focus. He found himself stealing glances at Paul who seemed content to just work meticulously on his one little sigil. Dean wondered how much Paul had heard crashing around in his head. After all, dude's a mind reader. In the midst of one of his glances, he let his eyes linger on the warehouse. The sunlight made the whole place gleam too brightly at hot, high noon, but now that it was approaching evening it was just bright, and Dean was too sweaty to keep plugging away. He got up and roamed over to Sam.

"Sam." He was leaned over a large rock, painting the last lines of a sigil there.

"Yeah." Sam shielded his eyes as he looked up at Dean.

"Walk with me." Dean moved a little to block the sun as Sam was looking up at him.

"Sure." He set the brush back into the chalice of blood and got up. "Something wrong?"

"I don't know, but we should talk." Dean motioned off toward the far field.

Sam stood next to him. "We could call it a day, head back to the motel."

Dean directed him with a hand to his lower back, and they walked. "Had a conversation with Paul."

"Saw that. Is that what this feelings talk is gonna be about?"

"Yeah, and not what you're thinking." Dean cast a glance back at the others. Paul was painting a sigil, and Chuck and Charlotte were talking. Alex and Claire were working opposite ends of the field. They'd all be done soon. Dean moved his gaze up to the warehouse and felt the pull that looking at it always supplied.

"You okay?" Sam gave his arm a squeeze.

Dean shook his head and turned back to him. "Yeah, yeah." They walked onward. Dean looked back again and the others were small now in their wake. "Have you ever questioned who we were helping in all of this?"

"I did. Is that what this is about?" You still worried about that?" They stopped walking and just stood in the high grass that was waving about around them.

"Paul's face changed while we were talking. I think being here, making the sigils, preparing, is drawing out what lies beneath the surface of him, and maybe it's happening to Chuck and Charlotte too."

"What do you mean?"

"He said we could ride off into the sunset together. He was giving me an out, because he knew how much all of this was messing with my head."

"Did you consider it?"

"Leaving?" Sam nodded at Dean's question. "I'm always considering leaving, but I won't. The people I care about are here. I need to make sure that they're still here when all is said and done. Also, not the point."

"So what is the point?"

Dean looked back at them again and then at Sam. "I think that Paul is carrying Amara."

Sam seemed to sputter a bit and asked, "Why?"

"He looked at me, and he just kinda changed. It was like when Charlotte wasn't Charlotte. It was subtle, but it was there. I saw Amara." Now Sam was looking off toward the others, a thinly veiled look of worry on his face.

"You said that in the end God didn't really want to kill her."

"I did, but he and Cas went into the fray, so to speak. What if she has figured out how to come back?"

"I feel like it's not her, but I don't know."

"What do you mean by the whole, I feel like it's not her bit?" Dean's tone was a little surly. He got it from years of hearing it from Bobby and then years of feeling like he was becoming Bobby, a loner with a grumpy desire to help.

"Paul just seems too, I don't know, timid to be some all powerful being. He can't be Amara."

"Well, we know that Charlotte is carrying around Billie. She certainly doesn't seem like an all powerful being. Stands to reason that the human part of them, when in the driver's seat is what we're seeing. Paul is carrying around Amara. Which makes me wonder if Chuck is just doing the obvious thing and carrying around God?"

Sam shuffled about a little and kept looking off toward the rest of the group that seemed to be finishing up and putting everything away. "I don't get why though. I mean seven years ago, we came here to lock away the darkness. Seven years ago, God told us that the only way to do this was by using their collective energy and tying it all to Cas. This was a death sentence for all of them. It was like having your grace burned out in an instant. That was how he put it."

"Yeah, but you're forgetting something."

"What?" Sam focused on him again.

"We never talked about that day. It's weird. I mean, arguably this was one of the most important days in either of our lives, and you and I have never spoken of it in any great detail. We just seem to focus on me falling apart afterwards." Dean ran a hand up through his hair which was a little sweaty. "We also never talked about Lucifer either. When he was expelled from Cas, we barely questioned what happened to him. He was just gone, and we went on with the ritual. You and I were frozen, unable to do or say much. Cas and Chuck joined Billie to face Amara. They were far off, and I couldn't hear them over the storm."

"What does rehashing this change? This is not the same thing we're doing here now." Sam seemed uncomfortable.

"I didn't pay attention to you. I should have. I'm sorry Sam." Dean was really looking at him now. "Maybe then I would've seen it all when it happened."

"What are you talking about?" Sam's appearance seemed to shake a little. His lips were a tight line of irritation.

"You said yes." Dean's words were barely above a whisper. He didn't even want to believe it. Sam had been just as devoted, just as much Sam as he had always been. He was good. He was kind. He was always pouring himself fully into one nobel task or another. So Dean expected an argument or an outright denial. He'd accept them if they happened. He didn't want to believe what seemed all too real to him now. He wasn't even sure why he had suddenly thought it, but there was something now in the way that Sam looked. It was not unlike when Paul changed or when Charlotte changed. The slight wavering happened, and Dean just knew.

"I did." Sam's reply was equally quiet. "Chuck said that we needed him and that he was burning out Cas' body. I didn't say yes right away. I needed to think about it, but then, when Amara attacked us, I had to do something. She was going to destroy him, and Chuck was down for the count. I said yes, and he buried himself in me. He's there, but he's quiet. He has not taken control, not even once. Oddly enough, he seems content to just watch me live for the both of us." Sam breathed in a deep lungful of air and added, "I had to do it to save the world, but I was already going to do it to save Cas."

Dean's brows pulled together as he leveled a glare at him. "And yet again you've kept a giant ass secret. I've got nothing to say to you right now, Sam or Satan, or whoever the hell you are. No wonder you're all for this." He waved his hand back at the field behind him and all that they were doing. "So much for this whole concept of Lucifer and God buring out to save the world. Looks to me like he just got the grand prize, your vessel."

"I'm Sam, just Sam, your brother. You've never spoken with him in here. Plus I don't even have all of him in here, just most of him. He got fragmented in the attack. He's not as all powerful as he once was." Sam smoothed his hands down his sides to wipe away the sweat. "Dean, I promise you. I'm me. Have I ever seemed like anything but me?"

Dean couldn't speak anymore. He stalked off back to the others and passed right by them. He could hear Sam yelling for him to stop as he grabbed his bag and got into his car. Claire was at the passenger door before he could pull away from them all. She yanked the door open and got in. Alex was standing off in the field. "Where're you going?"

Dean rolled down the window. Sam was stopped in the center of the field with the others. Dean yelled over to them, "Alex, get in the car. Leave the truck keys with one of them." He couldn't even say with Sam. Alex turned to Sam and handed him the keys.

Sam was striding over with Alex at his side. "Come on Dean. Let's talk about this."

"Stop right there. I don't have anything to say to you. Alex get in the car." Alex picked up the pace and got into the back seat. Sam was frozen in place just staring at them like he could will them to stay with the intensity of his glare. Dean whipped the car out of the space that he was parked in with a spray of gravel in his wake as he barreled down the road and away from them all.

"Dean!" Claire finally raised her voice. They'd been driving for over an hour, straight away from the site. Dean had been silent even when they prodded at him about what had happened.

Dean slammed the brakes and jerked the car to the shoulder. "Just don't tell me that you have some fucking supernatural being riding shotgun with you. Just don't tell me that right now. I won't be able to handle it." He was shaking and his head was pressed against the steering wheel.

Claire's hand was on his back now, and she was rubbing at the tension in his muscles there. "What happened, Dean? Just tell us."

"Sam said yes to Lucifer. He's been carrying Lucifer around for nearly seven years. Every confession, every time I fell apart, every sad sack thing I've said to him over the years has been said to him." Dean couldn't look up, couldn't deal.

Alex said, "But nothing about him seemed even remotely off. Does Lucifer usually seem like Sam?"

He lifted his head and looked at her. "I didn't even know he had taken over Cas when he did that. He's quite capable of putting on a show when he wants something."

Alex tipped her head to the side and seemed to contemplate the situation. The sky was rosy with the diminishing sunlight. It gave them all a magical glow. Claire said, "Dean, there has to be more to it. Sam wouldn't have just handed over the reins. Tell us the rest."

Dean sucked in a breath and said, "He said that Lucifer has not been in the driver's seat. He said that he's just tucked away in there and lets Sam run the show. Doesn't make sense though. Why would he be content to just chill in the back seat for several years?"

"So it's Sam that we've all been talking to?" Alex said.

He whipped his head around, and said rather roughly, "Have you not heard a goddamn word I've said?"

Claire's hand was on him, and she seemed to loom over him in an instant. "Simmer down. Alex and I both heard you, and questioning your story is the only way we get to the dealing with it all part. So I'll kindly ask you to not go yelling at my fiance."

Dean took all of that in and came back to the last sentence. "Uh, when did that happen?"

"After the bar. Apologize. You were rude." Claire nodded at him as she said it.

Dean turned to Alex and said, "Sorry. Uh, and congratulations."

"I got me a badass, huh?" Alex winked and then gave Dean's shoulder a slug. "No big, by the way."

"I get to give you away." It was almost a question.

"Ain't nobody giving me away. I'm my own person." She leaned across the seat though and kissed Dean's cheek. "But you can walk me down the aisle and stand off to the side looking pretty with Jody."

"Jody already knows?" Dean looked back and forth between Alex and Claire.

"Well, yeah, she's walking Alex," Claire laughed.

Alex interjected a serious tone again, "So we need to wrap up this business without dying and such so I can marry this one." She made the hitchhiker thumb at Claire and added, "So what do we do about all of this weirdness with Lucifer?"

"It's more than that. Apparently, Paul is hauling around Amara."

"Holy shit, Dean. Haven't you two been like all kissy-face and stuff?" Claire said.

"Huh?"

Alex said, "Claire and I saw you back at the hotel after our bar night."

"Yeah, that happened." Dean huffed out a frustrated breath and redirected them to the problem of Amara. "Paul might not even know really what he's got hanging out inside of him. He might not understand what she is, what she does. Although, I'm not so sure that she was interested in the utter destruction of the world. In the end I thought that she was trying to understand the world, humanity. But Chuck took her out. They couldn't have survived that. She couldn't have survived what he was going to do to her."

"What was he going to do." Claire pulled her leg up onto the seat and Dean glared at it a little since her shoe was brushing the upper edge of the seat and they weren't exactly clean. She lowered her foot back to the floor.

"He said that he'd have to tie her to him, using energy that he was gonna draw from Lucifer and Billie."

"But Lucifer was gone. Or so you thought." Alex leaned over the middle of the seat a bit more.

"Yeah, well clearly I was a little mislead about that. Chuck said that Billie was holding his energy or something like that. I took it as gospel. I'm guessing now, that he was using my brother as a conduit for the energy and that it failed a little. I don't really know. Regardless, he said that he needed Lucifer and Billie to bind Amara to him."

"And Cas?"

"No, Cas was the tether that would hold them all together. Think of it like a sack." Dean saw that they both seemed to find the start of his analogy lacking. "Hear me out. It's how Chuck explained it. He said, the combined energy of Lucifer, Billie and himself would be like a sack that would secure Amara, keeping her from hurting anyone. They were like a cage. And Cas he was like the tie that kept the sack closed. In some ways he is like the Mark of Cain, except he didn't get to walk the earth and become a psycho killer. So there's that."

"But if Cas is that, then he can't be dead right?" Claire reached out to him and really looked at him.

"But he is dead. I held him. I know."

"No, you held his body, the same body that is laid out in that goddamn warehouse. He's not decomposing. He's not breathing or moving or bleeding. But he's an angel. When did he ever really need to do those things anyway?" Claire looked back at Alex and then let out a little whoop of noise that sounded something like joy. "Goddamn it Dean, don't you get it? He's not fucking dead. He's not fucking dead!"

"But…" Dean started and then seemed to freak out a little.

"Get the damn car on the road, you idiot," Alex said.

Dean complied. He whipped the car off the shoulder and onto the road. They were racing back now, away from the setting sun and home to Cas and the others. His heart was pounding hard in his chest. Claire quickly slapped her hands on the dashboard in a happy drumming motion, smiling away like all their problems just got solved, despite the fact that they hadn't. Dean said, "He told me he was always right there. He kept telling me he never left. Goddamn it all." Dean thought, with any luck, I'll shave off some time, be back before full dark. He sent out a prayer that he hoped Cas could hear. He thought of all the prayers he had sent out before. I'm coming, Cas. I'm coming to get you.