Dropping into the center of the Las Vegas hotel room that Castiel took the three hunters from just a few days ago, Sam and Dean do what they can to keep Lizzy on her feet while standing to either side of her, her body weight fully on them through her dazed state.

"Chair," Dean directs to Sam as they each link an arm under one of Lizzy's and pulls her to the furniture backwards, her heels dragging on the carpet as they do. Her body is ridged but still unmoving. Carefully depositing her into a seated position, Dean drops down to his knees in front of her. He holds her face in his hands and tries so hard to find her somewhere in the daze she's caught in.

"When's she gonna come to?" Sam asks Castiel as he stands behind Dean, frightened by the look in Lizzy's eyes… or lack thereof. She's always so expressive that seeing the blank stare from her is unnerving and wrong in every way possible.

"I cannot be sure," Castiel tells them. "A human with such a link to angels has never existed before."

"She better come out of this," Dean darkly warns without taking his eyes off of her. She sits with a stiff back, arms dropped to her sides, and feet planted on the floor. It's exactly how Sam and Dean put her in the chair.

Sam then notices the red spot on the carpet under Lizzy's right arm. Small red drops fall from her fingertips every few seconds and make the stain grow in size rapidly.

"Oh no," Sam complains, crouching to the floor and taking up Lizzy's arm, zeroing in on the slice on her inner forearm just under her rolled up jacket sleeve. "Shit, she cut in deep."

"I told her to take it easy," Dean says to Sammy while still holding Lizzy's face and peering at her. "She said we needed to work fast, needed a lot of blood. For the sigil."

"She's insane," Sam angrily says. "She coulda seriously hurt herself."

"She did," Dean explains while awaiting Lizzy's return to him. "But she wanted to save us."

"Cas," Sam looks over to the angel, eyes pleading silently for his help. Castiel walks quickly to Lizzy's side, placing a hand on her shoulder. Sam watches and waits, but nothing happens. Her cut is still wide open and bleeding fast.

"What the hell, Cas?" Sam asks up with worry.

"I don't know," Castiel returns, looking at his hand. "I think I'm weak from moving through time."

"Fuck," Sam complains and he's on his feet in an instant. "Good time for low batteries." He dashes out the door of Lizzy's hotel room and goes into his own, grabbing his medical supplies from his duffel and running back.

"This is taking too long. Why is this talking so long?" Dean just short of panics, his face wrinkling in pain as he impatiently waits. "Something's wrong."

Sam runs to the bathroom, grabs a towel, and returns to sit by Lizzy's side.

"Give her more time," Castiel strongly suggests.

"We've given her time, Cas!" Dean yells out, his panic finding him and gripping him tight. "Heal her! Now!"

"I can't. And she is not hurt, Dean. There is nothing to heal," Castiel explains.

"Then do something!" Dean loses it, the silence he gets from Lizzy taking over his better judgment.

"Dean, take it easy," Sam says to his brother in an equally panicked but lower tone as he takes up Lizzy's arm again and puts pressure on her wound to hopefully make it stop bleeding. "Yelling isn't helping anything. Just wait. She'll come out of it, right?" Sam turns to Castiel for an answer to make both of their anxiety addled brains calm.

"There is no guarantee," Castiel truthfully tells him before realizing his mistake when Dean's eyes meet his. "But I believe she will."

Dean sets his jaw and closes his eyes briefly to reign in his fury. Once under control he breathes out heavily before looking at her again. The feeling he gets from the sight of her makes him want to cry. She's right there, right in front of him, but no one's home.

"Come on, L," Dean quietly talks to her, hands still cupping her face, hoping she can somehow hear him. "Come back to me. I need you to come back to me."

Sam quietly cleans the copious amount of blood off of Lizzy's arm and listens to the pleas coming from Dean. It hurt. With all they know now it doesn't change a thing for Dean. She may have been made for him in every way and that should make him not want to be near her based on that alone, but he needs her. Nothing can change that.

"Lizzy, please don't do this," Dean continues to beg of her, tears threatening his eyes as he looks at her. "Please."

As Sam continues to press the towel over her wound he catches the slight couple of twitches in her index finger.

"Dean!" Sam calls out, grasping her hand in his. "Look!" He holds her hand out for Dean to see the movement. Dean's eyes blow wide with hope.

"Lizzy!" he shouts out her name as he looks back to her eyes. "I'm right here, come on back." He watches her eye lids flutter slightly, and then fully blink once. "There you go! Talk to me!"

Her lips move slightly as her face slowly comes alive again.

"Try, L! You can do it!"

"D…" she struggles out slowly with the sound of his voice. "De… Dean."

"Right here, baby," Dean tells her, taking her left hand and dropping it on his cheek. "Keep talking. Come on."

"Wh... wha… wha…" she keeps trying, eyes wildly looking around the room. She finds Dean's green eyes and locks on hard. Her hand still against his cheek she brushes her thumb against his five o'clock shadow. It's familiar, it's comforting, and it's what makes her come back fully. "Hi," she lets out with a slight smile once she can talk again. "What the fuck was that?"

Dean launches up on his knees and grabs her, hugging her in and locking his arms around her tightly. His heart races with relief. She's back. She came back.

Sam keeps a hard hold on Lizzy's injured arm as he watches her wrap her free one around Dean's neck. Sam sighs in relief. That was a close call, and even if they should be used to close calls by now, they're not. Not when it comes to the people they care about most.

Dean lets her go and returns his hands to her face, pulling her into him and kissing her. He always did this when he's been afraid for her. He needed to cement that she was still there and she wasn't gone from him.

Ending their kiss, Dean backs away but not by much. Looking into her eyes, he searches for the one thing he needs to see to be absolutely certain she's completely with them.

"What?" Lizzy asks him when he just looks at her without speaking.

"I don't know," Dean answer honestly, still looking.

"I'm good, Dean. Don't worry," she tells him with a smile.

"I'll never stop worrying," he rebuts, knowing how true it is.

"I'm here," Lizzy soothes. "Relax because you're scaring me."

There it was. The spark in her eyes. It showed up when she told him she loved him. She really is ok. The relief is almost too much to manage.

"Hey," Lizzy quietly coos as she watches a tear roll down Dean's cheek with his certainty that she's fine. "Stop. Please. You'll make me cry and then Sam will start in and Cas will start sobbing like a baby… it'll be a whole big mess of a chick flick in here in no time." She warmly runs the pad of her thumb over his cheek, erasing the sadness from his face and Dean hugs her in again with her attempt at tension breaking humor, a trick he now knows she picked up from her mom. He decides in the moment he's never letting her go. Wherever she goes, he goes. He's never letting anything get to her again, ever.

"Ok, so no more angel sigils," Lizzy whispers to him in their embrace.

"Never," Dean promises.

"Whoa," Lizzy startles as she looks around the room. Sam is sitting to her right at the table in the hotel room, working at stitching her back together again, while Dean is sitting on the bed nearest the table. "Déjà vu."

"What do you mean?" Sam asks as he grabs the cheap whiskey bottle and twists off the cap.

"Dude, like four days ago we were sitting at a table in a motel room just like this," Lizzy explains. "You were patching me back up while Dean sat on a bed and we talked about my messed up life. It's the same damn thing all over again."

"Yeah, that's pretty fucked up," Sam responds truthfully after looking around. It did feel the same.

"Maybe this time we'll get some answers huh?" Dean comments as he looks to Castiel. "Alright Cassie, start talking."

Castiel looks at Dean oddly with the use of Lizzy's childhood nickname for him.

"First I have to ensure you won't be in Uriel's sights," Castiel explains as he walks to Dean and without warning drops the palm of his hand on his head. Dean's eyes roll back for a second and he groans in pain. As soon as it started, it was over and Castiel is backing away from him.

"The fuck, Cas!?" Dean loudly asks while cradling his head.

"The knowledge you gained over the past few days is now locked into your brain," Castiel explains. "Not even Uriel can erase that. He has no reason to come after you now."

"You just tagged my brain with a sharpie?" Dean questions incredulously.

"In so many words," Castiel concurs as he stands behind Lizzy and Sam, dropping a hand on their heads without prepping them also.

"Ow!" Lizzy complains once Castiel is walking away from them, deed done.

"Ah! So violated," Sam complains as he shakes off the sensation. After a few seconds he looks over at Lizzy again with the whiskey bottle once more in hand. "Ready?"

"Shoot," Lizzy tells him and Sam douses the knife cut. "Fuck," she hisses quietly while her wound is disinfected. She flinches but it's a much smaller flinch than a few days ago. She's getting more and more used to this kind of pain these days. She wonders if one day she just won't really even feel it anymore.

"What about dad and us in the past?" Dean wonders with serious concern over to Castiel. "Are they safe?"

"They don't remember our interactions with them so they are indeed safe," Castiel quickly says.

"What?" Lizzy worries immediately. "Why the hell not?"

"Because it would change too much about your present," Castiel explains. "I already broke every rule in the book by bringing you there in the first place. If I allowed them to remember… Uriel and the other angels would not have been pleased with that." Cryptic as his answer is, the hunters understand. "Also, you may not see me around for some time after all this. I may be out of… reach." Castiel surely had quite the retribution coming his way for what he did for the hunters, particularly Lizzy, and he's well aware of that.

"Well, thank you for risking you hide for me," Lizzy says to him with all sincerity. "You didn't have to do that."

Ignoring her thanks, Castiel takes a seat on the far bed facing the three hunters. Looking them over, his brow lowers as he feels a pang of regret.

"I needed to show you that I am trustworthy," Castiel tells them. "I hope I did that. Now I feel I have so much to explain. I'm not sure what to address first."

"Start at the beginning then," Lizzy sweetly tells him, sensing how absolutely difficult this is for him. Castiel still pauses. "Cas, it's ok. I already told you, you did the right thing here. I deserved to know. Now you just have to fill in the blank spaces, no matter how much they suck."

"The beginning," Castiel sighs, trying to recall everything clearly and ready for the storm he's about to certainly create. "It started centuries ago. God ordered that certain bloodlines needed to come together, bloodlines that were highly connected to the Nephelim. Years and years later, the results from such work came down to Catherine Smith and Brian Becker. They were meant to be together."

"So my parents being together, Cathy and Paul I mean, was never part of the plan?" Lizzy wonders aloud.

"No it was not," Castiel confirms. "It was my duty to make sure that Brian and Catherine were to fall in love and produce children. However, I was called away from my post on this planet at a point in time that was crucial for this to happen. When I returned to my watch over the Earth, I was too late. Brian had found Jane and Catherine had found Paul. They were each married to people that their destinies had not had planned for."

"So why not let it be then?" Dean wonders. "You guys fucked up. Call it what it is."

"It isn't that easy, Dean," Castiel rebuts quickly. "Centuries of hard work would have been, as I believe you would say, flushed down the sink."

"Toilet," Sam looks up from his work and corrects.

"Yes…. My father wouldn't allow that so it was put upon me to fix the issue."

"How did you do that?" Lizzy wonders, wincing as Sam slides the needle through her skin and starts to stitch her up.

"Alcohol. Lots of it."

"Don't I know that story," Dean quietly quips with a huff.

"So what, adultery isn't really a sin?" Lizzy questions as she doesn't understand how God, the one who supposedly put these rules in place, breaks his own word.

"It is a sin according to man," Castiel answers her. "There is a lot that humans have mixed up about what my father commands. Many have altered my father's will to suit their own personal beliefs. It isn't smiled upon, nor is it frowned on in certain circumstances. There are always exceptions to every rule."

Castiel looks at Lizzy and the emotional confusion he has over her, his adoration of her despite his need to stay neutral, makes this whole confession that much more difficult.

"I was forced to interfere," Castiel continues. "Once the affair was done, Lizzy was created. Paul had previously been told he was unable to have children and he and Catherine had been looking into adoption. You were considered a miracle by Paul. In a way, you were."

"So mom lied?" Lizzy painfully asks.

"She neglected to be honest," Castiel corrects her gently. "She never told your father of her unexpected indiscretion. She never had any intentions of ever cheating on him as she was a good, honest woman. The lapse surprised her more than anyone. Also, it would devastate Paul. She refused to do that to him."

"And that's why we moved next door to the Becker's," Lizzy fills in. "So Brian could be a part of my life."

"Yes," Castiel confirms. "It was also so that you and Lou could live like the sisters that you are. Elizabeth, I wanted you both to know so badly…" The angel sighs loudly while shaking his head. "You should have known before she passed. You both should have been informed."

Lizzy can feel just how upset and regretful he is over not letting her discover her and Lou's true relationship.

"She was always my sister in everything but blood already," Lizzy explains with pain in her voice in order to alleviate some of Castiel's self-blame. "Now I know it's official. We loved each other like sisters, maybe more than the average sisters do. Knowing this changes absolutely nothing."

"But I…"

"Cas, stop," Lizzy asks gently of him. "You told me all of this because you thought I deserved to know. You were right. If no one ever told me, sure I'd be ignorant to it all and live just fine, but I'd be living a lie. I've earned the right to know everything and you're the only one who would grab their balls and actually tell me."

"I also wanted you to know how lucky you are through everything, even if it does not appear that way," he continues. "From my perspective, Elizabeth, in the end you have been shown more love and compassion in your young life than most ever get. You're parents loved you fiercely, so did Lou's, just like they were your own. Shirley was you're biggest fan, Lou was you're closest confidant, Bobby is your surrogate father, and now you have Sam and you certainly have Dean. All said, you are a very blessed individual."

Lizzy makes a thoughtful face, letting his rationalization settle in. She did feel loved by so many during her time. They many not all be with her now, but they showed her the adulation that fills her heart to this day. She does feel lucky to have had that, and to still have that.

"That explains Lizzy's family, but what about us?" Dean asks. "Why were Sam and I there?"

"That is a bit difficult to explain," Castiel answers.

"Try," Sam adds in, looking seriously up from his stitching at the angel.

"It has to do with compatibility," Castiel starts in with a wrinkled expression. "We needed to test the waters."

"With what?" Lizzy pries suspiciously.

"We created a hunt nearby so that John would come into your town," Castiel begins.

"There was never a werewolf, was there?" Sam asks, knowing that his suspicions with John were correct.

"No there was not."

"So you just ripped some poor bastard's heart out to trap us?" Dean loudly questions, horrified that the angels would do such a thing.

"Yes," Castiel confirms for him. "But he was not exactly a moral man. I doubt that humanity missed him very much. We needed to get you to Lizzy's town in order to see if we were on the right track with her," Castiel tells her. "We needed to know if you two were what you were meant to be."

"Don't you mean you needed to see if I was what I was meant to be?" Lizzy sadly asks, realizing now that Uriel didn't lie about who she was and her purpose in life.

"Unfortunately yes," Castiel confirms. "And you were right on target. Even with the age difference we knew you two had a connection."

Lizzy looks down at her boots while biting the side of her cheek, the harsh reality hitting her like a slap in the face. "That's all I am, isn't it? A pawn in this war of yours? A piece to play in the Apocalypse?"

"No," Castiel sternly rebuts.

"Everything I like, you made me like it," she adds in a down trodden voice. "Dad loved classic rock because I had to. My mother was overly understanding and abnormally strong so that I would be too. Everything around me and everything I experienced was to create the perfect being for Dean."

"I regret it all," Castiel admits to her. "After knowing you for so long, I feel highly remorseful for my actions, whether commanded by my father to do them or not."

"You can feel remorse?" Sam wonders.

"Yes. I was not meant to ever feel any human emotion but I learned over time," Castiel tells them before turning to Lizzy. "From Elizabeth."

"Well, I'm glad I could help make you better, Cas," Lizzy tells him with a little bite through her depressed tone. "And you too Sam, and especially Dean. Glad I could do the job I was forced into so fucking well." She sits with closed eyes and slumped shoulders.

"But you have," Dean tries to make an upside. "Without you we wouldn't…"

"There was never a without me, Dean," Lizzy sadly interrupts. "That's the point. I've never made a single decision, met a single person, done one fucking thing in my life that was fully under my control. Everything has been set up for me. Everything that's ever happened… Oh my God…" Lizzy sharply looks up at Castiel. "My parents! Did you kill my parents!?"

"No!" Castiel quickly answer. "That was indeed Laraje. She was the one who killed them."

"But you knew it was going to happen!" Lizzy stands up, needle hanging from the threads in her forearm as Sam had to let go when she left her spot in order to not inflict more damage. She marches over to the angel and stands just inches from his face. "You knew all along that my parents were going to die, didn't you!? They had to die, they had to, because that's what made me a hunter. That's why I can relate to Dean so well about his past and his life!" Her tears start forming as the ire threatens to topple her.

Castiel doesn't answer, just peers with narrowed eyes at her.

"How did you do it, huh?" Lizzy asks heatedly. "I know you bitches had something to do with it! Tell me! How!?"

"I refused," Castiel blurts out. "I had my orders to make sure Laraje went after them, to make sure the Hand of the Etruscan's was in your mother's possession, and I refused. I was punished for that. I was punished for you."

"So who did it then?" Lizzy asks in a fiery tone with evil in her eyes.

"I do not know," Castiel darkly informs her.

"Who!?" Lizzy demands as she pushes him hard. After backing a step, Castiel's expression goes dark.

"I don't know!" he repeats louder this time as he charges forward towards her in anger. Dean jumps up from his place and stands between the two.

"Bullshit!" Lizzy shouts over Dean's height.

"Stop!" Dean shouts to them both, holding a hand out to each. "Knock it off."

Both stand with feet rooted in place and glare at each other. The deafening silence that takes over is torturous for the four in the room. So much information, so much to process, so much deceit.

"Cas," Dean starts, looking over to the angel angrily. "Your job sucks ass and as much as you don't like it, a lot of what's upsetting Lizzy is your fault. You can't change that." He then looks to Lizzy. "L, he didn't want to do any of what he's been ordered to do, you have to understand that. Cas is trying to right his wrongs here and you just said he did the right thing. He's told you everything and he tried to protect you when he could. He's still on your side."

"Tell that to my dead parents," Lizzy grits out while looking over Dean's shoulder and glaring at Castiel.

"Alright, I think Lizzy needs a breather," Dean tells Castiel as calmly as he can. "Can we get a little time off here, Cas?"

Castiel looks at Lizzy with an odd expression. It's a mix of his guilt, his sadness, his anger with her reaction, and his affection for her. Without answering he disappears, leaving the three hunters alone in the hotel room. Lizzy huffs a few breaths to bring herself down after the highly tense conversation.

"Shit," she whispers to herself as she looks over her forearm now that the pain begins to settle in. She already popped the few stitches Sam had managed to complete and she was bleeding all over again. Dean sees it too and grabs the already bloodstained towel off of the table and presses it to her arm. Lizzy takes one look at him, her heart still filled with love for him but now so much pain too, and gives in. She starts crying, completely overwhelmed by everything. As her shoulders shake, Dean runs a hand over the back of her head and pulls her in. He looks over to Sam and they both silently share a moment of total sadness as Dean's arm's hold her tight. They never imagined that this is what would come of the girl that helped them so much over the past years. It was unfair and honestly more than they've ever had to deal with themselves.

"I'm sorry," Dean whispers into Lizzy's hair at the top of her head. "Lizzy, I'm sorry."

She continues to cry in Dean's arms. When he pulls her away from him, he walks her back to her chair at the table. He sits first and then pulls her into his lap. She curls up against him, letting him take her arm and lay it back on the table for Sam to work on again. She's still bleeding and they needed to stop it.

"You've been so good to us," Dean tells her, bringing his arms back around her body to blanket her in safety. "You've helped us and stood by us… now it's our turn to do that for you."

Sam subconsciously nods his agreement as he sets to work once more on her injury.

Dean tilts her head up to look at him. "I mean it. We owe you so much and now we're stepping up. Whatever you need, no matter how big, we're there. You're not alone."

"That's just what they want," she cries up to him, the sad tears spilling over continually as her voice hitches erratically. "They want us together. That was the whole master plan."

"Then fuck 'em," Dean tells her. "We haven't listened to those assholes once yet. We're not about to start now. We do things our way."

"I can't do this anymore," Lizzy sobs, grabbing Dean's shirt in her fist through her misery, desperate to cling to something she knows and believes in but with her wavering faith in who this man is to her, the comfort she seeks isn't what it should be.

"Yes you can," Dean rebuts strongly, trying to give her his strength and faith in her.

"I don't want to," Lizzy adds, her eyes tiredly looking to him. "I don't want this anymore."

No knowing how to respond, Dean presses a hand to the side of her head and pulls her in again, resting her cheek against his chest and then combing through her hair. The three exhausted hunters sit around the small hotel table, not talking as Lizzy cries over her life and Sam tries to physically put her back together. Emotionally, that was another story. There were no words to fix this, no magic phrase to erase the pain. Only silent support.