Chapter Thirteen

It was a regular dream. Well, it started out as a regular dream.

He dreamed of the old days.

Every day started out the same; he'd get up, make Lisa and Ben breakfast, and work. And at the end of the day, he'd eat dinner, put Ben to bed, and climb into bed with Lisa.

And he'd dream of the old days.

He'd dream of the days when he was fighting the Apocalypse. Because really, those days weren't that bad. His brother was still with him, and Cas was there. He missed them both. And despite Lisa and Ben, he felt completely and utterly alone. He could still pray to Cas, of course, but it was different. It wasn't them hanging out, trying to catch an archangel, or staking out Famine. Because despite what they were fighting, they had each other. It was the three of them against the world.

And now it was all gone.

...

It was a simple dream. It was the four of them - Dean, Sam, Bobby, and Cas - all sitting in a booth in a restaurant. It was simple, just them talking. But it felt real.

Dean used to think that Cas had found a way for Sam to communicate from Hell, and that they were both spending time with him in his dreams.

But then he saw them for what they truly were: dreams.

It started like any other. Dean sat at a table with Bobby at his side, and Cas was sitting opposite him, staring out the window, Sam sitting next to Cas, laughing at something Cas said.

"May I take your order?" A voice said. Dean immediately turned to see who had said it.

Something like this had never happened in his dream before. It was always just the four of them laughing and talking. The rest of the people in the restaurant were faceless ghosts. None of them talked, none of them moved, (other than the waitresses, but they barely moved, and they never came up and talked to them). The rest of the restaurant was a blur. The only thing solid, and in color, was their group of four.

"You," Dean breathed, looking up at Rissa in wonder. "What are you doing here?"

She gave him a sad smile. "Talking to you." She looked a bit awkward, a tiny girl in a waitress apron that was too big for her. But she also looked like the same, brunette, fifteen-year-old girl as she was the last time he saw her.

"Where have you been?" Dean asked sadly.

"Busy," she said, before her face softened with sadness. "And I'm sorry."

"For what?" Dean asked.

"Your losses."

Dean closed his eyes in pain, and said bitterly, "Well, you know, losing people hasn't exactly been a new thing. But your astral projection thingy – does it also work on dreams?"

"Of course!" she said. "But that's the same thing someone in a dream would say."

"Anyway, that's not the main reason I'm sorry," she continued.

"Then why are you sorry?" Dean asked, a crease in his brow.

She looked away, sadly, and guilty (probably about the fact that she already knew what was going to happen), and said, "Because your story isn't over yet."

...

Dean sat straight up in bed, gasping for breath. Lisa rolled over and sat up next to him. "What's wrong?" she asked, alert in case it was some…evil creature they had to fight.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head, still breathing hard. "It's nothing. Just a dream. Go back to bed. I'm gonna go check some things."

He went downstairs to the garage, taking off the tarp that covered the Impala and sliding into the familiar driver's seat. He opened the glove compartment, ready to take out Rissa's note and find proof that she was real.

But the note was gone.

...

Dean tossed and turned, never really getting sleep for the rest of the night. He was happy when the day started, and he helped out with the barbecue at the block party.

But then he started hallucinating things. Seeing scratches on lampposts, hearing odd scratching sounds.

And then he met Sam.

And he knew what Rissa meant.