AN: Thanks reviewers for the thoughts on the last installment. Taytay127 and Mummabro, I am glad that you have enjoyed the M and Cas interactions. I have enjoyed writing them despite being way more invested in Dean and Cas. Legsinger, I'm sorry about the torture. I have to edit the other chapters though. If I put them all up now, they will be too messy for my crazy head to accept. Sorry. YoungHopeful, I have been planning to use MCR since almost the beginning. They are pretty great. Well, now, on with the drama...

Three days. Three days since he had heard his voice. Three days since he had thought things could be fine. Three days since he had known how to hope.

His days now seemed to be filled with menial tasks. Well, not so menial, but they felt that way to Cas. He considered going over to Sam's office. He had been avoiding him. The conversation would not be pleasant. He had plowed through Tuesday after the pleasant evening spent with M and Lil. He had pushed aside all thoughts of the evening. He knew that Dean would not be waiting for him when he got home. And he wasn't. Cas had hoped and not hoped. He had even checked his phone several times, thinking that maybe a brief message exchange might make the situation bearable. He resisted though. He was after all the one that put up the barrier. He was the one that stopped their forward momentum.

So, here he was staring down the barrel of day three. There were things that he needed to deal with, but he was determined to keep pushing that all aside. This morning was not going to be as easy as the last, though. It had already been a strange sort of morning. Gabe was back and he made sure that everyone knew it. Cas' email box was overflowing with baby animal subject lines. He had opened two or three of them before determining that they were all porn. Well, hello to you too. Cas had wanted to get Gabe up to speed, but he wasn't certain that he could get him to focus if this was where his brain was residing. He decided instead to finally make his way down to Sam's office. Time to bite the bullet.

He knocked at the door and heard Sam's welcoming call from the other side. He opened the door and said, "Hey, Sam. Got a minute?"

Sam beckoned him in. Cas stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Take a seat."

"Seen Gabe yet?" Cas asked.

"Just for a sec. Why, has he finally come down from the clouds?"

"Nah, I just thought that maybe you got to pass your work off or talk to him a bit."

"So, this is business. You are just worried that I am going to try to stay in this." Sam gave Cas a look that felt accusatory.

"I did you a solid favor removing you from this case. Don't you dare look at me like I'm some kind of jerk. You don't even know what the consequences of staying on this job will be." Cas huffed out. He was feeling irritated again.

"So, are you staying on with them? You aren't handing off the work?"

"I don't get a choice right now. Consider yourself lucky." Cas leveled his gaze at him.

"Why would they even need you? I heard that the case is done. What else is there?" Sam cocked his head to the side with his question.

"You know that we can't talk about this anymore. Sorry." Cas pressed his hands into the chair's armrests to get up and go, but Sam's next words stopped him.

"So, are you ditching my brother in favor of Niveus?" Sam seemed irritated now.

"I haven't done anything with regards to my relationship with Dean."

"Well, he seems to think that you have. He was a bit of a mess last night."

Cas was fighting two paths of emotions. He was irritated with Sam's tone and line of questioning, and he was concerned for Dean. "What do you mean by a mess?" Cas finally asked.

"After work he came by to see me at my house. He was pretty drunk within the hour. I think that he believes that you have given up. What did you say to him? He was blaming me, by the way."

"I didn't say much. I just told him that I needed to figure things out and that we were maybe too complicated to work right now." Cas didn't know why but he felt guilty as he said it. Perhaps it was the look that he was getting from Sam, or the fact that he didn't want to give up on Dean.

"Well, I can't imagine worse timing. He was just starting to be okay with himself." Sam looked down at his hands and let out a sigh.

"You act like I did this. I haven't done anything yet. Also, I didn't want to do anything that would end things with Dean. I just have to deal with the Niveus situation, and I can't do that with Dean as an active boyfriend."

"I'm sorry. I just don't want Dean to suffer like this. He didn't know that it was going to be complicated like this. I didn't know that it would be complicated like this." The irritation that they were both spewing in their tones had dissipated by now and they both just seemed to be dejected.

"This isn't forever. Tell Dean when you talk with him. Tell him that it isn't forever," Cas said.

"I think that it would mean more if you told him yourself. He is pretty angry with me right now. I think that he feels like I ruined this for him." Sam gestured at Cas as if to signify the entirety of the relationship with that one movement. "I know that I messed up. I messed up more than I thought possible. I should have waited until Dean had solved this to get you all linked up in his life. I just worried about him. I worried that he was too alone. Bobby and I had talked about what was going to happen to Dean when he stopped having this case as a focal point. It has been his life for so long. We both came to the same conclusion. It was all that he was living for. That conversation sent me down the path that lead to setting you up with Dean. Dean is so busy trying to save the world that I thought maybe someone needed to save him. It never occurred to me that things would go so horribly. I should have known, but I didn't."

"I don't want to stop seeing him. Part of me had hoped that he would show up yesterday, despite everything. Does he still want to see me this week?"

"I don't know. I think that he wants to see things settled. I think that he is worried about what this is doing to you. He blames himself for that a lot more than he blames me, which is unfortunate."

"Well, I would like to see him. Hopefully, he shows. I believe that I can get out of this eventually, but it is going to take some doing. M seemed to think that I might be able to hand off my work to someone else, but that it would be difficult. I will take the first opportunity afforded to me." Cas stood to go again. This time Sam did not stop him. He made his way out the door and back to his office.

When he approached his door, he noticed that his secretary wasn't at her station. Odd. He looked down at her desk and saw her calendar. She had some notes about a meeting downtown, and Cas had to assume that she was off taking care of something outside of the office. He went into his office with the thought that maybe he could cut out early. His head just wasn't in this place today. His eyes fell, though, on something unexpected.

The man at his conference table sat with his hands folded up under his chin while he stared out at Cas. His hair was pulled back into a small tight ponytail. His eyes were cold. Cas was reminded with that stare just how dead inside he thought this man was the first time that he had seen him. Cas did not break the silence as he closed the door behind him. He walked to the table with pseudo-confidence. "Hello, Mr. Novak. Have a seat." He gestured to a chair at the table. "We have some things to discuss." A's lips quirked up into a half grin that left Cas with a chill. He pushed that aside though, and took his seat.

Review, Fav., Follow. Hope you liked this one. The next chapter is a conversation with A, sort of...'Till then.