There were a number of things that Dean expected to find when he and Cas returned to the bunker, their fingers entwined between them on the Impala bench seat. He expected to find Sam reading or eating dinner, maybe even out getting stuff to restock the kitchen or the liquor cabinet. Hell, knowing his brother, he wouldn't even have been surprised if Sam met them at the door with a knowing smile and a suggestive wink, somehow aware of what had just occurred between him and the former angel.

Naturally, none of these things were waiting for them when they stepped through the front door (hands no longer touching – that was a conversation for another day). Dean knew something was off as soon as he pushed it open; the warmth from the night's activities left his chest and was replaced with a tense shiver that he knew all too well from years of hunting and unexpected danger.

A quick call announcing their arrival was met with silence, confirming the danger that Dean already suspected. It was unlike Sam to leave without a call, text, or note on the inside of the door.

Considering all of these things, Dean shouldn't have been surprised when they walked into the main room, Dean's gun drawn; to find Sam dead and slumped over the table. The image of his lifeless brother, still in his chair, slightly off-kilter as if he had been in the process of getting up when it happened, it all knocked the breath out of him.

Dean realized (too late) that they had grown a little too comfortable in their new home, a little too dependent on it keeping them safe.

Dean tensed his shoulders, taking in the rest of the room with a defensive stance, suddenly very aware of the silent, breathing body beside him. He glanced at Cas, signaling with a finger to his lips for him to stay quiet. He grabbed Cas' elbow with his left hand, handing him his gun and arming himself with Sam's. He led them through the rooms of the bunker, searching for the intruder responsible.

When the last room had been cleared, he practically ran back to the front room, all calmness gone. He refused to let Sam lie there motionless for another moment. The knowledge that Dean could heal him was the only thing that had allowed him to think so logically in the first place. With any immediate threats gone, Dean bent over his brother; Cas stood behind him and was still speechless from the unexpected situation, no doubt trying to work out what exactly happened.

Dean had laid his hands out over Sam's chest, trying to remember what he'd done to heal Cas before, when Cas cried out his name with his voice full of panic.

Dean turned to see an auburn-haired woman in a sickly, grey pantsuit had a hand tightly gripping Castiel's arm. Cas was writhing under her grip, unable to break free. Red ribbons of blood began to streak his skin where her nails cut him.

"Naomi, just leave him, it's me you want," Cas proclaimed, his voice resonant and unwavering despite the fear Dean could detect in his eyes.

The light bulb went on and suddenly everything made sense, "Wait, this bitch is Naomi? 'Controlled-your-mind,' 'tried-to-kill-me' Naomi?" The woman in question glared at him and Dean's anger mounted; a surge of power cycling through him, threatening to unleash itself.

Dean took a step towards the pair; his eyes searching for some solidity, some reason in Cas'. Castiel's eyes grew wide and his still tinged-pink lips opened in a gasp right before Dean felt something hard and sharp pierce his back, below his left shoulder blade.

After all of his complaining due to his lack of physical feeling since becoming an angel, he wanted to take it all back as he had no trouble feeling what he figured to be an angel blade slicing open not only his skin and flesh but his very spirit and form as well.

He could almost feel the power draining from him, escaping from the wound. He no longer had to focus on staying in his body, now it felt more like his bones were imprisoning him.

Cas held his gaze, refusing to release it. He frowned as Dean reached back to grasp his open wound with his hands, trying to staunch the flow or somehow make the pain subside. He collapsed to land on his knees.

The pain didn't ebb with time or pressure; intense waves of it continued to crash into him. It was like someone had heated sharp metal until it glowed orange and then pierced his body with it, leaving it in his back while the heat cauterized the wound, preventing any blood flow.

Cas reached his free hand out towards him, his face reflecting deep sympathy as the tears began to overflow onto his cheeks. He wriggled helplessly under Naomi's hand.

The cowardly bitch disappeared then with a smile, taking Castiel with her. The angel responsible for the hole in Dean's back walked around to face Dean, his dark eyes menacing as he pocketed the angel blade and followed in Naomi's wake.

Dean was alone; his former angel gone and his brother dead.

Sam.

While the surging pain made it nearly impossible to think about anything except for how much it hurt, he could still remember Sammy. He would always remember Sammy. He crawled the foot that separated him from his brother and gripped the back of Sam's chair – sending Sam back to land in it on the floor beside Dean.

He grabbed the arm nearest him, concentrating on Sam's broken neck to repair it, trying to visualize the tendons and bones all as they should be. After ten minutes of no results and a lot of frustrated tears and swearing, Dean slumped to the floor in exhaustion. His powers would no longer obey him, at least not in this state. The pain was too distracting to concentrate.

Dean let his head rest on the cold ground for a moment (imagine that, it felt cold) to consider his options. Panic threatened to bubble up in his throat but he knew he couldn't afford to lose hope, to accept that Sam was dead and that Cas was beyond saving.

He scoffed at the hopelessness of it all before he rolled over to fish the phone out of Sam's pocket, dialing the fourth number on the contact list, the first on he saw that would have any chance of providing help.

"Meg? Dean. Where are you?"

…

It had taken Meg about an hour and a half to get to the bunker from wherever the hell she was holed up at. An hour and a half of moaning on the floor and waiting to die.

He was doubtful Meg would be able to do anything to help but he didn't have any other choice. He wasn't thrilled at the prospect of dying in the presence of her evil ass after everything but everyone else he knew was either incapacitated, dead, or a demon.

The waiting had been agony, with nothing to do but bide his time there waiting for a demon he wasn't sure would show up.

There were moments when he let the pain overtake him and he thought surely he was on his way out. He was pushed to the point where he'd begun considering ridiculous things; like calling 9-1-1 or zapping to heaven. Or even calling for the help of another angel that would, with the day he'd been having, surely turn out to be under Naomi's thumb. That's when he'd heard the deliberate footsteps of the demon in the hallway and she showed her face at last.

Meg took in the room and stepped back in fear when she let her eyes fall on Dean's face, no doubt seeing the angelic force underneath. He could relate, his stomach rolled when he looked at her rotting, evil one.

"Relax, Crowley's Angel. I'm kind of out of action at the moment." He shifted to take some of the pressure off of his back. "That's kind of why I called." His teeth seemed to be permanently gritted and it took some effort to push all the words out through them.

She laughed, she actually laughed, before she spoke: "Really? I thought it woulda been Stretch, over there, being dead and all," she gestured to the lanky figure now sprawled on the floor.

Dean searched for some patience, "I'll be able to handle that in a while. I hope. Just tell me, is there anything you can do about this?" He gritted his teeth tighter and rolled over to show her.

After Dean had recounted the night's events, she poked and prodded, smiling as Dean winced and writhed underneath her hands.

"You remember that handy-dandy, little demon knife you Winchesters are so fond of?"

Dean flipped over to glare at her, "If you think for one minute that I'd hand it over-"

"Holy hell, I'm not an idiot. Though there's not a whole lot keeping me from finding it and leaving you here to die, now is there?" She smiled at the thought. "Sadly, I was going to mention a certain salve we demon's concocted in order to help heal those of us you were nice enough to leave alive. Who knows, it might work for this too." She shrugged, looking wearily at the grimace on Dean's face. She stood without another sentence and left him there.

"Back in a few, angel-boy," she shouted from the front door.

So, again, he was left in pain on the floor. He passed the time reimagining the many ways he could kill Meg, if he ever paid back this debt. Somehow, he ended up repeating the exorcism incantation in his head to keep his mind off of it all, afraid he might kill his only chance of survival upon her return.

While the hands on the clock sure took their time moving even the smallest increment, eventually three hours had passed and a car door slamming interrupted the Latin in his head. He kind of, deep down, hoped it would be the angels back to finish him off. Everything would be a lot simpler and at least he and Sam would be together. Then again, angels probably wouldn't choose to arrive by car and there was always the chance that the Winchesters would pull through again like they always seemed to, and that thought helped still the approach of death. He found it helped not to think of Cas at all, or what they could be doing to him upstairs.

Figures that he would lose him just after he finally got him. "Doesn't that just describe my life?" he groaned aloud.

"What does?" Meg asked him, entering the room and dumping the contents of the bag on the long table. He was wary of the contents that he couldn't see from the floor.

"You got a bowl, don't ya?" She called out as she opened the kitchen door, not waiting for an answer.

"Duh," he muttered under his breath.

She returned with the bowl and a few other things. Dean watched her hands flit across the table, cutting things up and stirring.

"What's in it for you?" Dean couldn't help asking. Her attention remained on her concoction.

"I'm guessing you mean the whole 'trying to keep one of the people I'd like to see dead most, alive' thing." She neared him with a knife and Dean stiffened, glowering at her. "Suck it up, the recipe calls for your blood, you Neanderthal." She sliced his hand open, moving the bowl to catch the drops. "But I guess the answer to your question is 'nostalgia'. I'll admit that keeping an eye on Clarence while he slept may have seated me with a tiny crush on the kid. Can't say I'm too thrilled about his current situation."

She left the room to boil her mixture and he heard her mutter some kind of spell or incantation. Dean's anger pricked up again in the way only Meg seemed capable of stirring in him. He smothered the heat in his head with the memory of his latest drive in the Impala. He was more than hoping the foul-smelling mix would offer some relief so he could send her home and do his best to ignore and forget about her completely. When she traipsed back into the room, she cut open his shirt to spread it on. As soon as it touched his skin he sighed in relief, he actually sighed, letting his eyes roll back into his head.

He could finally think straight, again. "It won't really help heal it, mind you. Think of it as a major strength painkiller while it heals itself." Meg's voice was bored and she yawned into her hand.

He could kiss her! But thought better of it considering her gnarled, demonic face. He stood to test it out. The pain wasn't gone by any means, but it had dulled to nothing worse than an ache as he stretched the muscle.

He quickly turned to Sam and concentrated with his hands on his chest, this time finding it much easier to focus on his broken neck. It wasn't more than a moment before Sam gasped as his eyes opened and his chest started to rise and fall again.

"Heya, Sammy!" Dean said cheerfully, "welcome back!" He smiled widely at his brother, the relief overtaking him.

"Uh, what?" Sam asked, his head whipping back and forth and lingering on Meg. "What's she doing here? Did she find something about Cas? 'Cuz at this point there's not a whole lot left to know."

Dean shared a glance with Meg, who shrugged. "Yeah, about all that…"

It hadn't taken long to fill Sam in on the night's events, barring those that occurred before Cas and Dean returned to the bunker. They all sat in silence for a moment at the table, letting the situation settle in.

Sam spoke first: "Well, it's obvious what we have to do."

"And what's that?" Dean wondered.

"We're sieging heaven."

Author's Note

I know, I'm a horrible person. But in my defense the only reason it took me so long is because I've been working an inordinate amount of time recently and I barely even have time to sleep. Anyways, we're nearing the end of the story, folks. Let me know your thoughts! I also wanted to thank you guys for being so great in your reviews. This is my first fanfic and it's comforting that you guys were so supportive in your responses. So THANK YOU! :)