CHAPTER 4

They got back to the hospital a little after one o'clock.

It was easier to reach Cas' room now that it was actually visiting hours, and they didn't have to sneak around. Instead, they could walk right into the room without having to worry about anyone seeing them. This time, Dean didn't even hesitate outside the door, though he did brace himself for having to talk to the wife again.

He didn't need to worry about that. When he opened the door, Amelia and her daughter were nowhere to be seen.

The room also looked like it was crawling with monsters.

Dean stiffened. "Sam," he said, voice tight.

"Yeah?" Sam asked, and he sounded worried, but not like he was freaking out, the way that he would've if the room was filled with things that were waiting to rip their heads off. It was more like the normal, what's-wrong-with-Dean-this-time worry that he'd been using all the time the past few days.

Not real, then. Just hallucinations.

"Nothing," Dean said stiffly, then stepped into the room, trying not to shudder as he moved closer to the things that were writhing on the walls. They might not actually be real, but that didn't make them any less convincing.

He dropped into the chair nearest Cas, reaching forward to grab his hand again, since the wife wasn't around to make him feel like he couldn't. Then he squeezed his eyes closed, and opened them slowly.

And... It worked, actually. First try, too. That was unexpected.

Of course, it probably wasn't going to last, and the hallucinations were going to hit him again as soon as he blinked, or something like that. But whatever. He'd enjoy it while he could.

Sam cleared his throat, and Dean expected yet another question about how he was. Instead, Sam asked, "Want me to give you some time alone?"

Again, unexpected, and Dean wasn't entirely sure what to say. Actually, he should probably say yes, since who knew when the wife would be back, and whether they'd get this chance again? Better take advantage of it while he could.

Instead, he shrugged. "Nah," he said, forced-casual. "You can stick around if you want."

Sam looked over at Dean for a moment, long enough that Dean started to squirm, then nodded once. "Okay," he said, and grabbed a chair from the side of the room, yanking it forward so that it was right next to Dean's.

They were quiet for a minute. Dean carefully studied Cas' face, his body, every part of him that he could see. He was lying in a different position than he had been that morning, like he wasn't propped quite as high on the pillows as he had been before, and that was enough to make Dean feel stupidly hopeful for a split second. But didn't you move people around when they were unconscious and not waking up? To keep them from lying in the same position for too long? Or, Amelia had mentioned something about taking him for more tests. That could be what had happened.

Odds were, Cas still hadn't woken up yet.

Dean swallowed, and tried not to let the disappointment get to him. It hadn't been long. He'd wake up, or else Sam would find some lead for them to track down, and find a way to fix whatever had been done to him.

"You know, I talked to you all the time when you were the one in a coma," Sam suddenly said, abruptly enough that it made Dean turn and frown at him.

"Thanks for sharing," Dean said after a moment. "That story got a point?"

Sam shrugged and spread his hands – which, in Sammy speak, that meant that he did have a point, but that he knew that it was one that Dean wouldn't want him to make. "I'm just saying, it's not weird or anything. If you want to talk to him, I mean."

Dean scowled and turned away. "Thanks," he said, "but I'm fine. I think that you've been watching too many soap operas if you think that I'm going to do some mushy, emotional bedside confession shit."

"Dean, you're the only one who likes those shows," Sam said. "And I'm not saying that you need to do anything like that. I'm just talking about… talking to him. Say whatever you want."

"No thanks," Dean said simply, and leaned back in his chair, still keeping his hold on Cas' hand. "What we should be talking about is where we're going to go from here."

Sam nodded, and patted the side of his laptop bag. "I want to find somewhere to go sit, to see if I can find any more info on what could cause this type of memory loss," he said, then quickly added, "Doesn't have to be done right now, though, I can stick around the room for a bit longer. Then after that, I guess our best bet is to find out whatever we can about his disappearance, and how he'd ended up on the side of the road. I can call Ash and see if I can get him looking, too."

Dean thought it over, then nodded. "Okay," he said. "Okay, sounds good." It didn't, really. Or, specifically, it didn't sound like even close to being enough. But it also sounded like it was the best that they could do, so no point in pointing that out. "You want to go get to work now?"

"I can-" Sam began, but Dean cut him off.

"Dude, I'm not completely breakable," he snapped. "You can head down the hall to do research, I'm not going to freak."

Sam nodded slowly. "Okay," he said, and stood. He hesitated another moment, then pulled Dean's cell phone from his pocket and handed it back to him. "In case you need to find me."

Dean nodded, glancing down at him. He'd gotten another call since the last time he'd checked.

He took a deep breath, then shoved the phone deep into his own pocket. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

"I'll let you know if I find anything," Sam promised, then grabbed his bag and left.

Then Dean and Cas were alone in the room.

Dean tightened his fingers around Cas' hand, which was completely limp in his grip. "Hey, Cas," Dean said after a moment, then hesitated but made himself add, "Or Jimmy. You know, whichever you're gonna want to be called once you wake up." He paused, and couldn't think of anything else to add, except, "Just, make sure you do wake up, okay?"

Jesus Christ, this was turning into a soap opera moment.

"You'll be fine," Dean said stiffly, with more confidence than he felt, and then he decided that it was time for him to just shut up now, before this turned into something really pathetic. Instead, he just slumped lower in the seat, keeping his eyes locked on Cas, and not looking away for a moment.

"You'll be fine, buddy," Dean repeated in a lower voice. "Just wait and see."

He'd been sitting like that for maybe fifteen minutes when he heard footsteps approaching the room, and then the door started to open.

Dean sat up quickly, reluctantly letting go of Cas' hand. He felt strangely like a little kid stuck with his hand in the cookie jar. Which was stupid, because Cas wouldn't complain about Dean holding his hand. Hell, Cas would've frickin' been happy if he had woken up then, and Dean had been hanging onto him, instead of some woman that he wouldn't even be able to remember.

And now he really was acting like a petty little bitch, goddamn it. He was just glad that nobody else could read his thoughts.

"Oh, you're back," Amelia said, looking a little surprised, but not like she was going to kick him out again, at least.

Dean just nodded once, and decided not to ask whether this was okay or not. Mainly because it really didn't matter if he was going to be allowed to stay here or not, because he wasn't going to let her make him leave. Instead, he just asked, "Where were you two?"

"Cafeteria," Amelia said, and Claire made a face, clearly showing what she thought of that place. Amelia glanced at her daughter, then nodded in agreement. "Honestly, it's not very good. We'll probably try to get something delivered for dinner."

Dean debated for a moment, then said, "I'll probably send Sam to get us dinner. I can have him grab something for you two, if you want." Not because he wanted to be chummy with the wife, but Sam was already going, so he might as well offer. And if Cas cared about these people – and he kinda had to – then Dean would play nice.

Didn't mean that he had to like them.

"Thanks you," Amelia said, sounding vaguely surprised, but also grateful. "That'd be wonderful, thank you."

Dean just shrugged and didn't respond.

Amelia and Claire both circled around the bed again, taking their seats in the same places that they had sat earlier. Amelia pretty much assumed her exact same position, sitting stiffly in her seat, reaching forward to hold Cas' hand. Claire pulled one of those handheld video game things out of her bag and curled up in the chair, her knees practically under her chin in a way that looked like it had to be uncomfortable, holding the game up in front of her so she could play.

And for some reason, Dean was having a hard time looking away, because he'd noticed something. Claire looked so much like her mom, it was easy to see the resemblance the moment that they walked into a room. But now, he realized that she had the exact same eye color as Cas. And there were other things, too, like her face shape. It wasn't obvious, but still, he could tell. Not that he hadn't believed it before, but-

He scowled and quickly looked away, though he couldn't think of anywhere else to look that would be any better.

"Are you okay?" Amelia asked, making Dean look over at her. She was frowning in his direction, and added, "If I can be honest? You don't look so good."

"So I've been told," Dean grumbled, and immediately shook his head. "I'm good." Though honestly, he would've been a lot better if she hadn't been asking him questions and actually looking like she was concerned, because that was making it a lot harder to be pissed and jealous about her being married to Cas. Just, holy shit, he was the guy who'd been dating her husband during the past couple months while she had probably thought that Cas was dead. Admittedly, she didn't know about the dating part, but still, she wasn't supposed to be nice to him.

She nodded slowly, then bit her lip for a second before asking, "Would you mind telling me more about what you and Jimmy have been doing the past couple months, then?" She didn't sound accusatory – not the crazy you-stole-my-husband rage that Dean would probably deserve – but she definitely sounded upset. Not that he could blame her.

Dean swallowed, and tried to come up with something to tell her. "Just... driving around, picking up whatever odd jobs we can find along the way, hustling pool to make up the rest. Crappy motel rooms, greasy diners, that sort of thing. Really isn't anything special."

"That's..." Amelia began, but then her voice trailed off, like she didn't have a clue how she was supposed to respond.

Dean shrugged. "It's a life," he said.

She was silent for a long time, long enough that Dean started to hope that the conversation would be dropped. Of course he wouldn't get that lucky.

"And, do you know why he did it?" Amelia asked slowly. "Why he was driving around with you instead of coming back to us."

Well, shit.

Dean had said that he was going to tell her that afternoon, let her know everything, right? But come on, it's not like anyone was going to hold him to that, right?

"Dean?" Amelia prompted after a moment.

Shit.

"No," Dean said, and had to swallow against the guilt that was rising in his throat. "No, I don't have a clue why he wouldn't go back to you. He never even mentioned the two of you to me." Well, the last part was true, at least.

Amelia nodded, and for a minute, she didn't say anything else. Then she sighed, lowering her head, using her free hand to push her hair out of her eyes. "Sorry," she said after a moment. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to say right now. Part of me wants to demand to know everything that's happened to him these past two months. But honestly? There's a part of me that doesn't even want to think of that right now."

"Yeah," Dean said. "I know what you mean." Although, he was pretty sure that a lot of Cas' backstory was going to involve him falling in love with someone else and marrying her, and there was no way that Dean wanted to hear the details of how that had come about. Granted, Amelia was going to have the same problem if she ever found out the truth about what Cas had been up to. But she didn't know that.

"You should stick around," Amelia suddenly said, making Dean frown at her. She hadn't seemed all that eager to have them around earlier that day. Not that he could exactly blame her, but still. The change of heart was weird.

She must've caught onto his confusion, because she clarified, "The police are coming by this afternoon to ask some follow-up questions about Jimmy. They're going to need to talk to you and your brother, too, since you're the ones who know where he's been all this time."

"Oh," Dean said, and nodded. "Right." Meaning that he and Sam were going to have to find a way to slip out before then, since there was no way that they'd be able to pass as FBI agents after the police had already interviewed them on the case. "Any idea when they're coming?"

She shrugged. "They said they'd send officers when they had time. I didn't really ask. I mean, it's not like I'm going anywhere."

Okay, so, no definite time. Meaning that Dean should probably slip out soon, to make absolutely certain that he wasn't seen.

Then he glanced over at Cas, and his hands clenched.

Odds were that they wouldn't be here for a while. Dean had time. He could stay here for a little longer.

And anyway, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if the police accidentally saw him. Sam could always head over to the station by himself if they needed him to.

"So," Amelia said slowly, like she was testing her words as she spoke. "How exactly did you meet Jimmy, then?"

Dean took a deep breath, leaning back in his chair. He was not in the mood to have to make up a bullshit story right then. Mostly, he'd rather not have to talk to the wife at all, maybe just sit here in silence. But he guessed that it'd been good practice in case he did end up needing to talk to the police. He didn't want to bother coming up with some elaborate lie, so he just said, "A park in Montana. My brother got himself hurt, so Ca- Jimmy offered to help me get him to the car so he could be taken to get patched up. 'Cause, you know, Sam's kinda way to big for him to just be leaning on me."

Amelia nodded, a small frown on her face, and Dean swore that he saw her glance at his leg. Dean could imagine why – Dean was limping, Cas was frickin' unconscious, and now apparently Sam had been hurt the first time the three of them had met. He could imagine that that'd be enough to get her suspicious, or to at least make her wonder about why they apparently got injured so much.

And those questions were definitely not the ones that he wanted to answer, so Dean quickly added, "Sam and I were going to do something for him, to thank him and all that. He didn't look like he had a place to work or anywhere to go, so I offered to drive him to this bar my friend owns, get him a job there. He said sure, but it took a while before we could get down there. Then, I don't know, he just ended up staying."

There. That part was actually the truth. Made him feel at least a little better about all the shit he wasn't saying.

"So he was just traveling around?" Amelia asked. "I mean, was there anything else that he was trying to do? Any reason why he left?"

Besides killing Azazel and figuring out why his memories were missing? "Nope," Dean said. "Sorry."

Amelia took a deep breath. "It's okay," she said. "I just-" Then she broke off, glancing over at Claire. Whatever she had been about to say, she apparently decided that she didn't want the kid to overhear it, because she just shook her head and repeated, "It's okay. I'm sure Jimmy will be able to explain it as soon as he wakes up."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. Or, more like, Cas would have to find some way to explain it, whether he wanted to or not. And Dean should probably be trying to help him out while he could, to come up with some story that he could find a way to whisper to Cas, give him something to just repeat. Dean didn't know what kind of story that would be. This was Cas' family – Dean still couldn't even think it without cringing, but it was true. So Dean figured that Cas was the one who had to make the call there, about whether to lie to them and what to say. Dean didn't want to interfere.

He told himself that that was why he didn't say anything about the weird memory loss. It was almost convincing enough to make him stop feeling like shit.

"Can I talk to you?" Amelia suddenly asked.

Dean frowned, but nodded. "Sure."

She nodded back, and stood. Claire immediately sat upright, looking like she wanted to jump to her feet and follow after, but Amelia placed her hand on the kid's shoulder, stopping her from moving. "Can you stay with Daddy for a bit?" Amelia asked, smiling at her daughter. And Dean was pretty sure that the smile had to be completely faked, but it looked genuine enough that Claire seemed comforted, at least. "Maybe show him how much better you've started reading in the past couple months?"

"Okay," Claire said, and immediately tossed aside her video game to start digging through her bag, pulling out a book that was slightly thicker than the one she'd been looking at that morning. She opened it up to the first page and started reading out loud, stumbling a bit over a few of the words, and Dean pushed himself to his feet to follow Amelia out the door.

They didn't go far, just down the hall a little, far enough that Claire wouldn't be able to overhear. Then Amelia stopped walking and turned to face Dean, her shoulders hunched forward, suddenly looking about twice as tired as she had only a minute ago. "I'm trying not to worry Claire about this," she said after a moment. "She's smart, very advanced for her age, but she's still only seven years old. She shouldn't have to deal with any of this."

"Okay," Dean said slowly. Because he agreed – hell, he had tried to do the same thing with Sammy, protect him from all the shitty stuff in the world until he was way older than seven – but he wasn't sure exactly what she was getting at here.

And she seemed to get that he didn't understand, because she said, "I guess what I'm trying to say is... If there's anything that you're not telling us about Jimmy, anything that you've been holding back, then thank you for not saying it in front of Claire at least. But if you can tell me anything about why my husband disappeared, even if it's not much, then I want to hear about it."

Dean took a deep breath, and honestly, even as he opened his mouth he wasn't sure what he was going to say.

Amelia was staring hard at him, her eyes not leaving his face, waiting for an answer.

Another deep breath, then Dean let it out slowly and said, "No, nothing."

For Cas' sake, he reminded himself. Let Cas be the one who decided what he wanted to tell these people. Dean wasn't going to interfere with that, or make the decision for him. All of this had to be completely up to Cas.

The cool thing was, if he repeated that often enough, he could almost make himself believe it.

She nodded, not looking surprised. More like resigned. "Okay, thank you," she said, and opened her mouth to say something else, then abruptly closed it and shook her head. "I was going to ask you for more about what Jimmy was doing while he was gone, but you know what, I'm way too tired for this. The police will cover it." She turned like she was going to return to the room, but then she stopped, looking back at him. "You should give me your cell phone number," she said. "I can call you when Jimmy wakes up, if you're not here for it."

Dean opened his mouth, then closed it, and wasn't sure what he was supposed to do in response to that. "Thanks," he finally grunted.

She just shook her head slightly. "It's okay," she said, then took a breath before adding, "I don't know what happened with Jimmy, or even what's happening now. But I can tell that you and your brother care about him. So, well, I think that you deserve to know."

"Thanks," Dean repeated, since he couldn't think of anything else to say. She just pulled out her phone and looked at him expectantly. Dean thought back, trying to remember which phone it was that he had in his pocket. He was pretty sure that it was his third cell phone, the one that people didn't know about so much. That was the one designed so that John and Sam could get in touch with him, the one that he carried with him everywhere. He had two more cells, numbers that he could give out on his business cards, or the numbers that people could call when they had a case for him to take, but last he'd known, those had been shoved into the glove compartment of the Impala, and he couldn't even remember the last time that he'd touched either of them.

So he rambled off the number of the one he had with him – no way did he want to risk missing this call – and she nodded, tucking her phone back into the pocket of her jeans. "Are you coming back to the room?" she asked, gesturing behind her. "You could wait for the police with us."

Dean nodded, then stopped and shook his head instead. "I, uh, I think I'm going to go grab something to eat first," he said. "I'll be back later."

She nodded, and turned and walked back to the room. Dean waited until she was back in the room, then turned and leaned back against the wall, eyes closed.

This was definitely not how it was supposed to work. According to every frickin' soap opera he would never admit to watching, he was pretty sure that he and Amelia were supposed to hate each other, just like the wife and the secret lover always did. And okay, maybe it was lame, trying to use apply those stupid drama shows to actual real life, but really, Dean was pretty sure that you weren't supposed to like your boyfriend's wife. And honestly, like was still way too strong a word for it. Because he definitely didn't like Amelia.

But she was nice. And he felt sorry for her, goddamn it, and that was not something that he had expected going into this, and it left him feeling completely off guard, like he didn't have the slightest idea where to go from here.

Well, he did have one idea, at least.

He fumbled for his phone, punching in the number from memory. It only rang once before Sam answered. "Everything okay?" he asked immediately.

"Yeah, yeah, it's cool," Dean said. "You find anything?"

"Nothing yet on what could have caused the memory loss," Sam said. "And Bobby's still got nothing on Azazel, either."

Well, that was shitty, but honestly, it was also the last thing that Dean could think about right then. "We'll worry about that later, when it's time to start hunting the bastard again," Dean said. "For now, come on, let's head down to the police station and see what we can find out about Cas."

"You sure?" Sam asked. "We can wait a little longer, if you want. Or I could go on my own-"

"Of course I'm sure," Dean snapped, then took a deep breath to calm himself down before adding, "We don't have time to wait around on this, okay? We need to figure out what's going on as soon as possible."

Sam was silent for a long minute, then asked, "Dean? Did anything happen."

"'Course not," Dean said. "I just want to find a way to save Cas now, before anything bad happens." And if he also wanted to avoid going back to the room – at least while Amelia was still in it – well, that was completely incidental, and there was no point in bringing it up right now.

"Right," Sam said, and based on the suspicion in his voice, it was obvious that he didn't believe Dean. At least he didn't press the issue. Instead, he just said, "Okay, I'll meet you back at the Impala."

"Sounds good," Dean said, and hung up before Sam got the chance to say another word.

"So, the FBI is already on the case, huh?" the officer asked. "Not surprising, considering that he went missing all those months ago."

Sam just nodded and gave the officer a smile, which was obviously faked, but it seemed to work well enough to fool her, because she just smiled back as she slid Sam the case file. "Here you go," she said. "I made a copy for you."

"Thank you," Sam said, handing the file over to Dean. Dean flipped it over and glanced down, just long enough to page through the first couple pages, then shut it again. They'd have to go through it in more detail later. He didn't know if it was going to hold any info that they didn't already know from Amelia, but he could hope. At the very least, it'd name all of the different witnesses, so they'd know who to go question next.

"Anything else I can help you with?" the officer asked, giving them another giant smile that showed off all of her teeth. She seemed almost too young to be working as a police officer, and definitely eager to please, or to prove that she was doing her job correctly.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, then Dean turned back to her, nodding. "Yeah, you can, actually," he said. "Can you show us to the evidence locker?"

She nodded at once, then stopped and frowned. Dean ignored that, just as he ignored the way that Sam was giving him the exact same look. "Why do you need to see it?" she asked.

"The victim had items on him that could be crucial for the investigation," Dean said smoothly, not even tripping over the fact that he had to refer to Cas as the "victim". "We'd like to take a look at them, if you'll lead the way?"

She frowned for another moment, then nodded, and turned and walked off down the hallway. Dean followed behind, doing his best to keep his limp from being too obvious. Which wasn't exactly easy, since his leg was completely killing him, but the last thing he needed was to deal with questions about why he was at work with a bunch of half-healed bite marks in his leg.

"Here you go," the officer said, stopping outside a thick door. Dean flashed her a smile. It was stiff, and not nearly as nice as what he could have usually managed, but it seemed to do the trick, at least. She held out the sign in sheet beside the door, and Dean grabbed it and scribbled down some illegible name, since he couldn't actually remember what badge he had grabbed before coming here.

Sam did the same, then hung the sheet up, saying, "Thank you, but that should be good. We'll find you if we need any more help."

Dean didn't take the time to bother with glancing at her again. Instead, he yanked open the door and hurried inside, with Sam pulling it firmly closed behind them.

"Okay, I give it a few minutes before someone comes here to check on us," Sam said.

Dean nodded. "Work fast," he said, and immediately turned to start going through the evidence.

It only took them a minute to find something. "Got it," Sam said, holding up the plastic bag that was marked with NOVAK, JAMES in large letters across the front. He tossed it over to Dean, then asked, "So, what exactly did you want with it?"

"Well, it's Cas' stuff, right?" Dean said. "I figured I'd get it back for him." Then he looked up, meeting Sam's eyes and raising his eyebrows. "What, you scared of stealing from a police station?"

"Of course not," Sam said, like the idea was ridiculous – which, well, for them it was. "But you do realize that if we steal from the evidence locker, there's no way that we'll be able to come back here and pretend to be agents again?"

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, well," he said, and ripped open the seal on the bag without another word. "I guess that's just the price we pay," he added after a moment.

The first bag contained the shirt that Cas had been wearing on the day that he'd gone missing. Dean pulled it out of the bag, holding it up in front of him so he could look it over. And it looked completely fine. No tears or bloodstains, absolutely nothing wrong with it except for some dirt stains along the front, probably from when he'd been lying on the side of the road.

"That's gotta be a good sign, right?" Dean asked, looking over at Sam. "That the clothes are in good shape like this. That's gotta mean that nothing too bad happened to him?"

"I hope so," Sam said, which wasn't as reassuring as Dean would have wanted, but at least it was still positive. So Dean nodded and just stuffed the shirt back into the bag. Cas had a couple button downs in the back of the Impala. He wasn't going to miss this one.

Dean stuck the bag back onto the shelf, then reached for the next package. This one contained his shoes. Which Cas was definitely going to need – he only had the one pair – but Dean couldn't think of a good way to sneak them out. Just buying the guy a new pair would definitely be easier. Dean shoved them back into the bag and set it next to the shirt.

"Dean," Sam suddenly said, and Dean turned toward him, just in time to see Sam pull his leather jacket out of the bag. Sam looked at it for a moment, then held it out to Dean. "Here."

"Thanks," Dean said as he reached out and took it, turning it over in his hands. Just like the shirt, Dean couldn't find any signs of damage anywhere on it. Yeah, that definitely had to be a good sign.

It was going to be difficult to sneak a whole coat out of the evidence locker, but there was no way that Dean was going to leave it behind. If he were being honest, then he'd say that the jacket was half of the reason why he wanted to come get Cas' stuff in the first place. So he carefully folded it up and stuck it under his arm, hidden by his suit coat, carefully arranged so that the bulge wouldn't be noticeable. "Okay," he said. "What else is there?"

Not a whole lot, as it turned out. Cas' wallet and his hex bag were slipped into Sam's pockets, and other than that, there didn't seem to be anything important. They didn't need his pants or his underwear, or the crumpled-up piece of paper where Dean had written out an exorcism for him to keep, just in case.

Then, though, Sam frowned. "Any idea what this is?" he asked, holding out the final envelope. Dean shrugged, and Sam ripped it open, pulling out the cardboard box that was inside. Sam looked at Dean and raised his eyebrows, but Dean didn't have a clue what could be – in their experience, cardboard boxes were usually used with weapons and things like that, stuff that could break through the paper bags they were kept in if it wasn't secured first.

"Maybe the iron knife we gave him?" Dean suggested. He hadn't gotten the chance to see what had happened to it, if Cas had dropped it back at the motel or if he had taken it with him when he'd been taken. It'd make sense that he'd still have it on him when he was left on the road.

Sam nodded, and opened the box. Dean wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Instead, he headed over toward the door and glanced at his watch, trying to calculate how much more time he and Sam would have before an officer came looking for them, and how long after that they would have before people realized that the evidence was gone and came looking for the two of them. He didn't think it would be very long. Meaning that they were going to have to get out of here fast.

"Dean," Sam suddenly said from behind him. "Have you ever seen this before?"

Dean frowned, turning back around and walking over to his brother. "What?"

Sam didn't answer, just wordlessly held the cardboard box out for Dean to take. Dean's frown deepened and he lifted the lid to glance inside.

"No," he said after a minute. "No, I've never seen this before." He squinted at it for a moment, then said, "Shit, I don't even know what that thing's made of."

Inside the box was a long, thin blade, but like he'd said, it didn't look like anything that he recognized. It was a shining silvery color, except it didn't look like pure silver – it was too bright for that. Even if you polished silver or metal as well as you could, there was no way that you could get it to shine like that, like it had a light coming from inside it.

"Where do you think Cas got his hands on something like that?" Sam asked.

Dean didn't have an answer. "Stole it off his kidnappers?"

"Yeah, maybe," Sam agreed, though he was still frowning.

Well, whatever it was, Dean sure knew that he wasn't going to leave it here. He pulled it out of the box, then grabbed a plastic bag to wrap around the blade before he tucked it into his inside jacket pocket. It wasn't exactly the same as a sheath, and probably wouldn't do a whole lot of good. But still, it seemed like it'd have to at least be a little safer than carrying a blade right against his chest, especially when he didn't have a clue where it had come from or what it could do.

"Okay, we've got everything?" Dean asked, and when Sam nodded, Dean turned, leading the way out of the police station.

They didn't have any trouble getting out. Sam and Dean both made a point of smiling at the officer as they walked past, earning themselves a smile in return, and made it easy for them to slip past without her noticing the way that Dean had to walk with his arm stiff against his side in order to keep the leather jacket in place.

The moment they were out in the Impala again, Dean relaxed slightly, and pulled out his leather jacket. "Okay, that went pretty well," he said, tugging off the stupid fancy jacket he was wearing and pulling on the leather one, then transferring all of his stuff out of the pockets of his suit coat so that he could toss it randomly into the back seat. Ordinarily, he'd take the time to make sure that it got hung up nicely and zipped into his garment bag to keep it from getting messed up, but today, he couldn't be bothered.

"So, we head back to the hospital?" Dean asked, glancing over at Sam for confirmation. Not that he wanted to go back and sit with Amelia again, but then, he was getting antsy, already dying to get back and make sure that nothing had changed with Cas. It had only been about an hour since they'd left, so it wasn't like Dena should really expect anything to have happened, but still. He had to make sure, even if it meant spending time with the wife again.

Sam just raised his eyebrows. "Go sit in Cas' hospital room, waiting for the police to show up to ask us questions when we happen to look exactly like the FBI agents who had stolen evidence about this case not that long ago? Especially since as soon as they see the missing evidence, they're going to do an investigation and figure out that we're not actually agents?"

Okay, Dean had to admit that was a fair point, even if he wasn't exactly happy about it. "Fine, then," he grumbled, turning away. "What did you plan on doing, then?"

Dean never got his answer, because right then, his phone rang.

"Dad again?" Sam asked, in a voice that made it clear that he expected to be right.

Dean frowned and shook his head. "Or, I don't know," he amended. "It's not a number I recognize." Which meant that it easily could be Dad, trying a new tactic to reach them.

Either way, Dean decided to answer. Partly because he wanted to make sure it wasn't important, and partly because if it was Dad- Well, Sam obviously didn't feel bad about not answering, but Dean sure as hell did. And he was doing a pretty good job of burying that, shoving it down since he didn't have time to deal with the guilt over not being the good son anymore. But if Dad wanted to reach him this badly, then, well, Dean had to pick up, didn't he?

"Hello?" he answered.

"Dean," a distinctly feminine, not-Dad voice said from the other end, and after a second, Dean recognized it as Amelia.

Instantly, he stiffened. "What happened?" he demanded. Because it was hard to tell from just one word, but he was pretty sure that her voice was shaking. That usually didn't mean anything good. If something had happened to Cas-

Dean wasn't going to finish that sentence, not even in his head.

"He woke up," Amelia whispered.

Dean froze. And out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam looking at him, gesturing for him to say something, to explain what was going on. Dean couldn't, though. Out of all of the things that he'd expected when he'd first heard Amelia's voice, this hadn't even crossed his mind. It seemed way too good. Good stuff like this didn't happen to them.

"He's awake?" Dean repeated, because he still wasn't quite able to believe it. "Is he okay? What exactly happened?"

"He woke up about twenty minutes ago," Amelia said, "and he's okay. Really confused – I don't think he realized what was happening at first – but okay." And yeah, her voice was definitely shaking. That had to be because she was so happy, right? Or she was one of those people who waited to freak out until after the problem was over, because this was a good thing, and Dean didn't know how she could sound so panicked.

"Okay, I'll be up there as soon as I can be," Dean said, not giving her any room for debate. Because yeah, she probably wanted some family bonding time or something like that, but honestly, Dean really didn't care. Cas was awake, and there was absolutely no way that he was going to let anything get in the way of seeing him, screw the police and Amelia and anything that tried to stop him.

"There's something else, though," Amelia said, and just like that, Dean's excitement dropped away.

Something else. Of course there was. Since when did they ever get to have something happy happen without something else screwing it up?

"What?" Dean asked, his voice tight, already mentally running down the list of what could be wrong. Cas had lost his memories of the past couple months, on top of the ones that were already gone. Cas was still injured somehow. Cas had only woken for a couple minutes and had already fallen unconscious again. There were way too many possibilities, and if Amelia didn't stop leaving him in suspense and actually tell him what was going on, then Dean was going to snap.

Finally, after way too many seconds of waiting, Amelia finally did.

"He's gone," she said, her voice low, and Dean could definitely hear the shaking even more now. "Jimmy disappeared again."

It took ten minutes to get back to the hospital, and Dean was swearing the entire way, cussing about Sam's shitty driving and the fact that they definitely could have cut at least two minutes off the drive if Dean had been the one behind the wheel. Sam just rolled his eyes and didn't respond, but Dean could see that he was freaked out, too – enough so that Dean almost felt bad for taking it out on him. Almost.

They'd been hoping that they could beat the police back to the hospital, but they were disappointed, because when they got there, Amelia was already speaking to an officer. It was a different officer than the one that they'd talked to at the police station, so that was one lucky thing, at least. With any luck, this guy wouldn't even know that the evidence had been stolen yet. And with even more luck, he wouldn't realize that Dean was wearing a jacket that he had stolen from the evidence locker less than twenty minutes ago.

Sam and Dean hung back, waiting for the officer to finish speaking to Amelia. Then the man turned and walked over to the nurse's station, presumably to question someone else, and Dean rushed forward, with Sam following just a step behind. "What exactly happened?" he demanded, as soon as he was close enough.

Amelia turned toward them, and looked surprised by the change of clothes, with Sam in his suit and Dean wearing a nice button down and dress pants instead of the polo and jeans he'd thrown on yesterday, before they'd driven down here. She didn't comment on it, though. Instead, she just took a deep breath. "He woke up, just like I told you. Then we left him alone for three minutes – it really couldn't be more than that. He said something about needing a minute alone, to think, so I took Claire down to the waiting room down the hall. I- If something went wrong, or if our conversation didn't go well, then I didn't want her there to see it. And when I came back, his room was empty."

"So, you think he just walked out?" Sam asked.

Amelia shook her head, then nodded, then shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted. "I don't know what else could have happened, but the nurse's station is right outside his room, and the nurse on duty said that she'd keep an eye on him. Not to mention that there's only one hallway leading out of the ward, he would've had to walk right past me." She looked like she wanted to say something else, but in the end, she just broke off and shrugged, crossing her arms tight across her chest like she was hugging herself.

And despite how terrified Dean was, he couldn't help but smirk slightly. Damn, Cas was good.

Unless he hadn't actually sneaked out on his own, and the demons had found him again somehow. Then that would explain how he could have just vanished from a guarded room, the same way that he'd disappeared from right in front of Dean's eyes during the hellhound attack.

The smirk fell from Dean's face. Suddenly, he didn't feel so proud anymore.

"What can you tell us about how Jimmy was acting right after he woke up?" Sam asked, sounding like he was instinctively falling into agent mode. That was more than fine with Dean. If he wanted to be the one to handle the questioning, then more power to him. Right then, Dean was too busy trying not to imagine the demons getting their hands on Cas again.

Another shrug from Amelia. "He was confused," she said. After a long pause, she added, "He said that he wasn't my husband."

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. Well, that answered the question of whether Cas had gotten his memories back, then.

"What else?" Sam asked. "Can you be more specific?"

Amelia frowned. "Why-?"

"Please," Sam cut in. "We're really worried about him. We want to know anything that we can."

She still looked suspicious, but she nodded slowly. "He woke up out of nowhere. Like, he was unconscious one moment, and then I looked over and he was sitting up, gasping for breath. So I ran over to him- I don't think that he recognized me at first. He kept touching his eyes, or reaching around to feel his back." She paused, then looked up to meet Dean's eyes. "He said your name. That was the first thing he said. Not my name, or Claire's. Yours." Her mouth twitched a little, like she was trying to hold back a scowl, and Dean could hear something in her voice that was almost accusatory. And Dean felt a rush of guilt at that, but he also couldn't help it – part of him was happy that he was the first person that Cas thought of.

"What else?" he said, instead of saying anything more on that subject. The last thing they needed was for Amelia to get pissed and not want to tell them anything.

She took a deep breath, and continued, "He wanted to know if you and your brother were okay. I said that you were fine, you'd been here visiting him. I think that that's when he realized that he was in a hospital. And I kept talking to him, trying to get him to tell me how he was. And he turned, and he kept staring straight at me, but it was like his face was completely blank, like he didn't recognize me at all." Dean grimaced. Okay, that was rough. He was definitely feeling sorry for her now.

"Did he say anything to you?" Sam asked. "After this point, I mean?"

"Not right then," Amelia said. "It was more like- He just kept staring at me, and looking more and more panicked. And I could tell something was wrong, so I started talking, trying to remind him who I was- who Claire and I were. And he just looked at me and shook his head, and said that no, he wasn't my husband." She broke off for a moment, shaking her head, and this time it looked like she was definitely blinking back tears. "Like I said, I didn't want Claire around for this. So I took her to the waiting room to play – there's another nurses' station right by it, so I figured she'd be fine. And I came back, and he was gone."

Dean and Sam exchanged another look. Okay, so, as far as Dean could tell, it had definitely been Cas who had woken up, not Jimmy Novak. Even though they were the same, Dean couldn't help but think of them as separate people, somehow. Which meant that Cas was out there somewhere, missing again. Dean's hands balled into fists, and he honestly would have started throwing punches at the wall if he thought that he could get away with it without getting thrown out of the hospital. But seriously, what was going on? And when the fuck was it going to end? Were they going to wait a couple more days and then find another report of Cas waking up on the street somewhere else, get caught in some stupid cycle of Cas disappearing and then turning up unconscious? Jesus fuck.

"Thank you so much, Amelia," Sam said, in that genuine voice that always won people over and made them leave the interview feeling all special inside. Then he and Dean turned away, heading toward Cas' room. They had to go check the room for sulfur, and then probably go beat themselves up over the fact that they hadn't thought to demon proof the room before something like this had happened. At least, that was definitely Dean's plan.

They didn't make it more than a step before Amelia grabbed both of their arms, pulling them to a stop. "You know something about this, don't you?" she demanded.

Sam turned back, and shook his head. "No," he said, sounding like the exact right mixture of sad and regretful that Dean was pretty sure Amelia was going to buy it. "Believe me, I wish that we did, but I don't have a clue where he is." The last part was actually true, and Dean clenched his jaw, looking away.

"You know something, though," Amelia insisted, taking a step toward them. "Something that you haven't told me, or anyone else."

"No, there really isn't," Dean said flatly. He didn't think he could focus enough to make his voice as convincing as Sam's, but whatever. "I pretty much summed it up for you this morning. Nothing really left to say."

She just shook her head. "Come on, we both know that there has to be something else," she insisted. "I've told you everything that happened when Jimmy woke up. You could at least do the same for me." She paused, and when she realized that Dean wasn't about to budge, she added, "Please, I just want to know what's happening to my husband. If you could tell me anything."

"Well, I can't," Dean said roughly, and pulled away, taking off down the hall before she got the chance to stop him. Okay, forget about checking the room for sulfur. They could go back and do that later, hopefully when Amelia and the police weren't around, and he wasn't going to have to deal with them.

It only took Sam a minute to catch up to him, and to fall into step beside him, easily matching Dean's strides. "You know," he began slowly, and whatever it was he was about to say, it was already making him grimace. Even so, he continued, "Maybe we should tell her what's going on?"

"How?" Dean demanded. "You want us to just march over to her and talk about how Cas has been helping us to hunt a demon, and now he's probably ended up kidnapped by them. And, oh yeah, Cas is what we've been calling her husband, because he doesn't have any memories and thinks that Jimmy Novak is an alias. Anything else that we should add there, Sammy? Maybe just come right out and tell her all about the sex, so that we can get that bitch fight out of the way right now instead of saving it for later."

"Okay, maybe that wouldn't work," Sam admitted after a moment. "But we could at least tell her something, couldn't we?"

"You come up with something to say, then I'm all ears," Dean said, which made Sam frown, looking off into the distance like he really was trying to come up with some story that they could tell Amelia that would make her feel better without also convincing her that the two of them were completely delusional.

A minute passed without either of them saying anything, and then Dean's phone rang again. Just like that morning, Dean figured that it was going to be Dad, but he still decided to at least pull it out to check the caller ID. And just like that morning, it was an unknown number. He didn't think it was Amelia's number, though. The digits were completely different. Even so, he didn't exactly want to answer it.

"Watch," he said, shaking the phone at Sam. "This is going to be more bad news. God knows we haven't gotten enough of that lately." Even so, he sighed and flipped the phone open, then held it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Dean," the voice said.

It was Cas.