I looked down at Sam, "He's freaked."

"Yeah, he gave us the souls and the tribe as "parting gifts"? Bullshit."

"I wouldn't want to be in Hell when he gets back, the ass reamings will be epic."

Sam's lips curled, "No, just clouds of black smoke as he walks down the hall disintegrating demons left, right and center."

"Yeah, not feeling too torn up about that. You?"

"Not one bit."

"You shifting back or staying like that?" I turned and saw his clothes, or what was left of them, "Need me to get you some new pants? Those are trashed."

He looked over his shoulder and his ears drooped down a little, "Damn it, I liked those jeans too."

"Maybe we should invest in a bunch of cheap sweats or workout pants. They come off easier."

"I am not walking around in sweats for the rest of my life. That's just stupid."

The amount of heat he said that with was kind of surprising, "When did you become a fashion critic? Oh wait, let me guess. Thea?"

He grumbled, "Shut up. I'll go grab some new clothes and shift. Pour me some of the bourbon, I need to get the taste of Crowley out of my mouth."

I made sure not to laugh out loud as he bundled the clothes into a pile with his paws, wrapped his jaws around them and carried them out towards the bookshelves, which were shut. The look on his face when he eyed me over his shoulder with a ball of clothes in his mouth was so worth it. "Dude, you seriously going to make me ask? I can feel you laughing you know, jerk."

I walked over and pulled the shelves apart, trying hard not to fall over and laugh in his face, "Has nothing to do with you, I swear."

His eyes narrowed, but he held his head up high as he walked through the gap I'd made, used his paw to open the door and turned down the hall to his room. That tore it for me, I barely made it into the chair before laughing so hard it hurt. Cas came in while tears were still streaming down my face.

"Is this an appropriate time for laughter? The children are still rather upset."

I wiped my face dry and tried to put the image of Sam's furry exasperation out of my head for now. "Sorry, it was something Sam said. You're right, not exactly the best moment to be cracking up. Sam and I will start getting flights for them and get them home. There's not a lot more we can do for them though. When they show back up there's going to be a ton of questions they won't have answers for, or at least answers anyone will believe." I had an idea, I didn't really like it but it may be easier than what they'd have to deal with as it stood now. "We could give them new memories."

Cas' face went still, he never liked doing that, "There's no we involved with that Dean."

"I know, but what options do we have here? If we send them back like this they won't be able to make it through all the questions without cracking. I know someone who helps kids that go through shit like this but those kids have no one else, they're hunter kids or kids who've lost their parents to monsters. These kids all do, they have homes, families, lives that they should get back to living. Just think about it. That's all I'm saying."

"What false memories would we implant?"

"Kidnapping, runaway, either would work. Come up with a generic looking face for a kidnapper to implant in their heads and go with that, or come up with a reason they would have runaway. We find out about their lives and make it fit. They're going to be traumatized no matter how we do this. It's been too long, we can't just wipe them clean."

He looked away and over my shoulder, staring at the dungeon with this odd super intent yet blank stare. "If I still had my wings..." he whispered.

In all the years since The Fall, he'd never really mentioned his wings specifically. It was something that happened, he adapted and learned how to drive, use phones all that. I couldn't really imagine what it would feel like to lose something like that, it's so far beyond anything I'd ever been subjected to. I just kept my mouth shut because nothing I would, or could say wouldn't sound completely worthless and dumb. He stood there, not moving, barely breathing, staring off into the distance, remembering things that he'd never be able to do again and knowing that he was the one who'd caused it.

"Yes, you're right," he finally said, "It would be much worse for them to remember this than to think they'd been abducted. I will take care of it. I will put them to sleep until we get them to the airport, implant the new memories, wake them up and send them on their way. You and Sam will be the FBI agents that found them. We will need to notify their families somehow so the stories make sense."

It was almost right, I had to add in a few touches though, "Change that to you being a hiker/deer hunter type that helped them escape. If they describe you to anyone, your face won't be in any police databases, Sam's and mine are. Let's do bus tickets too, they won't need ID. We can load them up in your car, they'll all fit. We'll get them some new clothes they can change into at the bus stop. Have them call their parents from there."

"Yes, that could work I guess." He barely nodded, "Cecilia's mother, there was a time I could have helped her so easily. I saw the deals when I made them sleep Dean. Such lies, such manipulation," More than a touch of old, righteous retribution Castiel was in his voice, "When did we angels lose our way?"

"I'd imagine it started when God chose to leave his angels instead of lead them. You've done the best..."

"No, I haven't." The gaze he turned on me at that point scared me, not because he was pissed or embodying that angelic power, but because it was the exact opposite. It was empty, exhausted and hopeless. I had to do something to help him and fast. "I will see to their memories," he continued, "They'll be ready when the time comes." Then he left without another word.

I was surrounded by silence, which hadn't really happened since this whole thing with Jacob had started. One thing I'd learned since moving in with Coyote was how to really step back and take stock of things, I never did that much living the hunter life. Never really wanted to, but Sam's comment about riding shotgun making you see things differently really hit me. Taking that approach to things, not taking charge, not bullying my way through a situation, it really lowered the stress level on me and kept me a lot more clear headed.

The five of us were pretty much unkillable now, Cas was more than depressed, Sam still had a gaping hole in his heart, and at some point Coyote and I would have to decide if we were going to try to live normal still. The people on the Reservation were bound to notice at some point or other that we weren't aging. Oliver and Roy would have some complicated choices as well.

The weirdest part of it all, which everyone seemed to keep noticing, was that the whole being a wolf thing wasn't bugging me in the least. My usual reaction to shit like this is to tear the world apart trying to fix it, but I didn't feel that driving need to. I actually felt more at peace and safer, nothing could take Coyote from me or hurt Sam, at least without doing something pretty insane. When or if I died, I wasn't going to end up in Hell either roasting over a fire or being subjected to an eternity of Crowley trying to make me his pet demon, wasn't sure which one of those would be worse. I wouldn't be going to Heaven with a bunch of pissed off angels that hated my guts either. All in all, it wasn't that bad of a break. I knew Oliver and Roy wouldn't see it the same way, and I'd still try to find a way out for them but if someone, right now, told me they could fix this, I wasn't too sure I'd take that offer, unless Sam and Coyote wanted out too.

I put all that out of my head and focused on the main issue to deal with after the kids were out of the picture. Cas and Sam needed help. I grabbed my phone and texted Coyote to call, they should be there by now but I didn't know what she was in the middle of. My phone rang a few seconds later. "Hi darlin'."

"Hey Babe. What's up?"

I caught her up on what we'd been up to. It took a second or two for her to process it all when I finished.

"You've been busy," she finally said.

"Yeah, but we managed to stay in this dimension and not trigger any further destruction, I guess we're getting better at this."

"Interesting that Death stepped up."

"Not gonna say anything to jinx it, just happy he did. So how are things on your end?"

"Oliver's taking to it pretty well, I'm letting Roy run point, it's been a few years since I've done this after all. I see a lot of Sam's style in Roy though. If you didn't know he was pretty new to this, you'd think he'd been born into hunting. He's that good."

For some reason that made me happy, maybe it was the fact that Sam was passing on the family business, even if Roy wasn't blood. Not that blood ever made that much difference to us. "Nice to hear. Any lead on the cursed object or what's got the spirit hooked there?"

"Yeah, turns out some old paintings and such were recently unearthed from a wall that they knocked out. We're working on getting the history on them. Shouldn't be too complicated after that."

"Nice. Other than our freakout that you felt, how's the wolf side?"

"Calm so far. The three of us talked a lot on the way here. I think Oliver's more and more willing to work with it rather than fight it. Roy's still trying to make sense of it intellectually but he's not rejecting it either."

I'd been more worried about Oliver, if he was going with it he'd be a lot better off, we all would. "Good." I shut the door to the room, went back into the dungeon and slid the bookshelves back together. I didn't want Sam or Cas to overhear. "About the cruise, I have a huge favor to ask. If you don't want to go for it, totally understand since it was supposed to be an us thing."

"Okay."

I'd never really asked for a lot of favors since we'd been together, didn't feel I had the right to with all the baggage I'd come with. Sam's birthday thing was the biggest one so far so she knew it had to be something important if I was asking. "Cas needs help, and I think Sam does too. Listen," I went into as much detail as I could about what I'd noticed with Cas and felt from Sam. Then launched into the favor, "I want to get both of them away from reality for awhile. Would you be okay with them coming? They can have rooms on the other side of the ship, that's fine. I just..."

"Yes. Of course."

I caught a twinge of something from the bond between her and I, it was faint though. "You're sure." I knew before she said it what the answer would be.

"Cas brought you back from Hell, saved you, kept you alive, and I would never tell you no when it comes to something like this with Sam. I've seen how this year off has helped you, if you think a week long cruise with us would help them, do it."

"I love you." Thank you didn't really cover it. This time the twinge was a lot more pronounced, guess we really didn't need to say how we felt anymore, we still would though. I loved saying it and hearing it.

"Love you too. We should be back in a day or two. This shouldn't take long. Call me after the kids are taken care of."

"Sure. Talk to you later."

We hung up and an image of something hit me, something for her. I knew just who to call to make it too. The hard part would be keeping her from picking up on it. Guess it was time to figure out just how this bond thing worked between us. I'd worry about that later. Right now I had some bourbon to pour for Sam and kids to get home, then I'd deal with the rest.