When Charlie finally pulls away, moving back to her side of the booth, Dean smiles at her gratefully. He remembers, back when he and Sam had first met her, saying she was like the little sister he never wanted.

Lucky for him, she'd shown up in their lives again anyway.

He wonders if this will become a thing, now; pancakes with Charlie, catching up over coffee. Just hanging out.

A proper, normal friendship. He figures he's probably overdue for one of those.

"So, I've got an idea," she says, before he gets much of a chance to think about what that might be like, "eat your pancakes."

Dean narrows his eyes.

"That's your idea?"

Charlie's fork is raised halfway to her mouth, and she stops to point it at him.

"Eat. Your. Damn. Pancakes."

"Yeesh, bossy."

He pulls his plate forward anyway, and she doesn't stop pointing her fork at him until he's chewing. Once she's satisfied that he's eating, she sits back in her seat and takes a bite.

"Okay," she says through a mouthful, "I was thinking, what if we track down Carver Edlund? I mean, if he's a prophet, maybe he's seen where Castiel is. It's worth a shot, right?"

She grins, and she looks so proud of the idea, so hopeful that Dean almost doesn't have the heart to tell her; but it's unavoidable.

"Chuck's dead," he says, "I'm pretty sure, anyway. Cas said there's only one prophet at a time, and Kevin got tapped in last year."

"And he's missing, too, right?"

Picking up his mug, Dean huffs.

"Wouldn't be my luck if he wasn't."

Charlie's face falls. For a few minutes, they eat in silence, just the sound of cutlery on china and the idle chatter of the other patrons in the background. She's halfway through a sip of coffee when her brow furrows.

"Wait," she lowers her mug slowly, "so you think Chuck died a year ago?"

Dean nods, thinking back, and scratches his lower lip.

"Probably getting closer to two, now, come to think of it."

She shakes her head, leaning forward.

"But there was a new book released last month."

"What was it about? Which year?"

"I don't know... I'm not caught up yet, there's like a million of those books. Last one I read was about you asking Death to free Sam and Adam's souls from the cage. When did that happen?"

"Two... three years ago. There's more after that?"

"Yeah. There's like eight I haven't read. Do you think his publisher might have more?"

"Maybe."

"Okay, well lets head back to the Batcave and I can see if I can break into their servers. There might be something we can use."

"You've got your laptop, can't you do it from here?"

"The Internet here sucks."

"Your place, then?"

"I kind of... abandoned it."

"Since yesterday? Why?"

Charlie shrugs, as if trying to write it off as unimportant, but Dean stares her down and she caves.

"It's crawling with gross Nightmare McPantsuit vibes," she says, "I felt like I was being watched as soon as I got home, so I packed up and checked into a motel down town. A crappy motel with crappy wifi. What's wrong with your place?"

Turning his now-empty mug around in his hands, Dean refuses to look up.

"Nothing. It's just... Sam's home," Dean says, "And he's not, I mean... he doesn't know about—"

He waves his hand vaguely in the air, and Charlie bites down on the inside of her cheek.

"Um..."

Dean looks up, then, brow furrowed.

"Um? Um what?" he asks, "What um?"

"He, um..." Charlie grimaces, her shoulders lifting as her voice becomes more like a squeak than anything else, "He knows?"

There's a rising panic in Dean's chest.

"What do you mean he knows? He knows what?"

Instead of answering, Charlie digs her cell phone out of her pocket and opens her recent messages. There's a conversation with Sam that ended around the same time that Dean arrived, and she shoves it across the table into his hands.

"Here," she says, "read."

Dean drags his eyes away from Charlie's nervous face, and looks at the bright screen.

FROM: Sam
RECIEVED: 11:06am
Hey Charlie. Is Dean
with you?

FROM: Charlie
SENT: 11:07am
I'm meeting him for lunch
in an hour. Why?

FROM: Sam
RECIEVED: 11:13am
He read the Carver Edlund
books. I think he's having a
Cas related meltdown.

Dean looks up at Charlie, wide eyed.

"Wait," he says, "He's talking like he... like..."

"Uhuh," she replies.

He looks back at the phone.

FROM: Charlie
SENT: 11:31am
Did you talk to him about it?

FROM: Sam
RECIEVED: 11:38am
No. I've tried a couple of
times but I think he's still
in denial.

Glancing up, stares at Charlie.

"In denial? He thinks I'm in denial? When has he even tried to- he never even-"

"Breathe, Dean."

He puts the phone down and covers his face. His voice comes out muffled.

"Has he known this whole time?"

"Pretty much ever since Castiel got out of Purgatory."

Dean's fingers split apart, and he looks through them at Charlie.

"Wait," he drops his hands to the table, "how do you know that?"

Her face pales, and she grimaces again, wishing she had a slightly better filter.

"Crap," she mutters.

"Is this... is this like... a thing you two have been discussing behind my back?"

Charlie chews uncomfortably on one purple thumbnail.

"No, not really. He just... he may have mentioned something while you were in the bathroom the other day. Before we went shopping for my FBI outfit."

"What did he say?"

"He asked if you'd ever mentioned Castiel to me, and wanted me to try to get you to talk about him."

"What did he say, exactly?"

Charlie's thumbnail is wearing down at one edge, and she pulls it away from her mouth, tucking both arms around her chest defensively.

"Is this what it feels like to be on your bad side? Because I don't like it."

"Charlie."

"Ugh, okay. He said that he thought there might have been something going on between you and Cas, and that he'd tried to subtly hint that he was cool with it, but you didn't get it."

Dean blanched.

"I'm that transparent?"

Charlie shook her head.

"Are you kidding me? If you were playing this any closer to the chest it'd be behind you. But who knows you better than Sam?"

"Yeah... I guess."

"Anyway, he said you were basically torturing yourself over Cas being gone again, and he was worried that you were bottling it all up because you didn't think you could talk to him about it," she says, pressing her finger into the spilled sugar on the table top, "I guess he thought you might be more comfortable talking to me, since I'm y'know... not your brother."

"So you manipulated me."

Charlie frowned.

"You make it sound so skeevy."

"That's because it is."

Charlie looks down guiltily.

"Sorry," she says, "I honestly didn't expect you to tell me any of this. Not yet, anyway. Neither did Sam. We thought... we thought you'd just vent a little. I didn't... the last thing I wanted to do was force you out, Dean. I-"

"You didn't," Dean says, holding up his hands, "but calling him dreamy wasn't exactly subtle."

"Are you going to try and tell me he's not?" she raises her eyebrows at him, and he figures she has a point, "he seems like a sweetheart. Also a total badass."

Dean glares, though his heart isn't in it.

"You do know saying nice things about him isn't going to help you right now, right?"

"Oh, and that Dean character!" Charlie fake-swoons, clutching at her chest, "what a hunky manly... man."

"Nice try."

Charlie grins at him and gets up, throwing a few bills onto the table.

"Come on," she says, "just... let's see if I can track down more books."

Slipping her arms through the straps of her backpack, she looks down at him seriously.

"We'll find him, Dean."

With a sigh, Dean nods and pushes away his plate.

"Fine," he says, standing, "but I'm still pissed."

She shrugs and walks ahead of him toward the door.

"I don't blame you."