Days passed in rapid succession. He was taken off of so many of the drips and machines. He was eating meals and drinking, mostly water. His time at the hospital was going to come to an end. His father was sitting by the window staring out at the city. They were comfortable with each other like that. They didn't have to talk. Usually, it was enough to just occupy the same space. They did talk a little at first. Cas glanced at the tray by his bed and noted that the coin stacks were getting way too tall. The books behind them needed to be dealt with too. He had tried to convince his father of the need to take them upon his departure. "Really, just take the top one," he practically pleaded.

"Why don't you just tell Michael what you think of it?" His dad smirked as he said it.

"You know damn well why. He's dating the author. I mean that is totally what's happening. And you totally published his girlfriend. You should have said no." Cas picked up the book and looked at the picture of the author in the back. She was good looking, he'd give Michael that, but come on.

"Well, I did think about a flat out refusal, but sometimes it is just best to let your kids make their own mistakes without much interference." Cas watched his father smiling away as he looked out the window. He knew that his father was talking about more than just Michael. "Your mom will be here soon. She's been working on your room. Try not to upset her."

"Do I usually upset her?" If his father had an answer for him, it was waylaid by the appearance of his mother in the doorway.

"Hey fellas." She came in carrying a soda in one hand and seventy-five cents worth of quarters to toss onto the tray. She settled into the chair at the foot of Cas' bed and cracked open the soda can with a loud pop. "Did you want a soda, Chuck?" She leaned her blonde head back over the chair and asked.

Cas' father got up and settled a kiss on her head and said, "Nope, but I do think that I'll stretch my legs for a bit." He strolled out the door and Cas was left alone with his mom. She was a pleasant type of personality. She never seemed able to walk into a room without leaving with more friends than she had upon first entering. He often wondered how he managed to get passed over for such a thing. He reached over to the tray and scooped up her three coins, adding them to the piles.

"So, I have been hard at work getting your room all ready for you. Your dad and I are going to head home early today to get it all finished up." She smiled at him, resting the soda on her jean clad knee.

"I hope you aren't doing too much, mom. I told you that it was just temporary." He tried not to sound ungrateful. He loved them, he really did. He just wanted to finally feel like he could be more than just their sick son.

"Well, I don't know how temporary it can be, Cas. I mean you still have plenty of recovery that you need to do, and I am looking forward to helping you through it." She would too, he thought. She would wind herself around him with so much affection that he would likely suffocate. He loved her, he really did, he thought again.

"Did you bring the apartment magazines I asked for?" It was maybe cruel to ask her now, but he was having trouble lately with his self-control where his parents were concerned. He thought that maybe it was coming from too much time together. She looked disappointed, so Cas looked out the door, like he was hoping someone would show up in that space and save him.

"No, I forgot." He knew she would. "You expecting company?" She drew his attention back from the door.

"No, I just thought that I saw Dr. Freeman. I was going to ask about going outside later. He's been encouraging it."

"Oh, I could get a wheelchair and take you out." She got up before he could even reply.

She was already out the door, and he was just stumped with how to escape her plans. He had hoped to just do it on his own, but this would have to do. He watched the door for her return and when she showed up, he sucked in a big lungful of air and proceeded to adjust his position so that he could go with her. It took a fair amount of effort to get into a wheelchair without revealing his naked backside to the world. The hospital gown was not the most attractive piece of clothing ever invented. He had his mom get his sweatpants out of the cabinet, and, with a little help, he managed to get them on. She stepped back from him and smiled at the accomplishment. "Guess I'm ready."

She took a hold of the handles and pushed him swiftly out the door. She walked almost like she wanted to rush from the building and never come back. She twisted his chair around in the elevator and he faced the doors as they closed. The face that looked back at him in in the metal doors was starting to look better. He had run a comb through his hair that morning, so it was not too wild. His face was starting to fill back out, now that he was eating again. They got outside and the rush of semi-warm air was a welcome addition to the joy that he felt just seeing something that wasn't his room. He reached back a hand and settled it on his mom's. She squeezed his back and leaned down to kiss his head. "I love you, Cas."

"Love you too, mom." She pushed him over to a bench that was off to the side of the entrance. A man was smoking there, so she turned around and headed in the other direction. That was when Cas saw a familiar face. Dean was on the other side near another bench. He was pacing. Cas hadn't seen him since the one and only visit that was now nearly two weeks into his past. At first he had thought that he would come by to visit again, but as the days passed he decided that Dean had likely found the situation too awkward. He couldn't blame him, and despite his disappointment, he didn't think any less of him. "Dean?" He gave the name a hint of a question and tapped his mom's hand. "Wheel me over there."

"Oh, hey Cas. I was just going to head up for a visit." Dean wrung his hands in front of him.

"Looked like you were wearing a hole into the ground with all of your pacing." He grinned at him, hoping to settle the mood. He nodded back over his shoulder. "Dean Winchester, this is my mom, Becky Shurley." His mom reached past him and Dean shook her hand.

"You're the brother," she said. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you Mrs. Shurley." Dean released her hand and took a seat on the bench. His mom sat beside him. It became rather quiet and Cas thought, maybe awkward.

"So, have you been pacing long?" Cas smiled at him while moving back and forth with his wheelchair in front of him.

"Maybe." Dean looked off at the parking lot and fell silent for a moment. The morning air had a crisp bite to it. Dean wore a heavy black leather jacket over a plaid blue, black, and white shirt, beneath which was a third layer, a black tee-shirt. He'd be roasting by mid-afternoon, Cas thought. He also wondered if Dean would remove the layers slowly and with malice aforethought. Dean interrupted his thoughts with a question. "So, you getting out of this place soon?"

His mom jumped in to answer. "His father and I will be springing him in a couple of days. Been getting his old room all ready for him too." She was still giddy with the prospect of having him home, despite the many ways that he had managed to crush her hopes.

"Mom's pretty happy about the situation. Michael moved out ages ago, and she has been left with only my dad to dote on. I will provide sufficient doting opportunities for her if I'm not careful." He was playing with the wheels on his chair now, trying to suss out just how to pop a tiny wheelie and maybe hold it.

"Well, congratulations on your fast approaching freedom." He looked from Becky to Cas and added, "So, I thought that you were maybe looking for a place in the city. I think that you mentioned moving here the last time that we talked. You changed your mind?"

Cas could see his mother's features flicker a little with the topic. "I'm still hoping to move. I'm in my mid-twenties and probably should not keep living with my parents." He reached over and gave his mom a pat on her knee. "You know I love you, mom."

"I know." She rested her hand on top of his for a moment, then he removed it and went back to his wheelie efforts. It was a challenge now. Clearly been cooped up in that room for too long if this passes for entertainment.

Dean reached back into his back pocket then, shifting oddly in the seat. He pulled out a rolled up housing magazine, the type you find in the grocery store near the exits. "Here. I picked this up the other day for you. Thought that it might be helpful. Figured you wouldn't be able to get one too easy in here." He waved back at the hospital.

Cas took the magazine and flipped through it. There were a few dog eared pages in the center. He turned to those pages and noted the highlighted portions. "Did you do the highlighting?"

Dean was watching his hands and not his face. "I may have taken the liberty of noting some of the better options within the magazine." Dean cast a glance at Becky who just smiled back. He finally looked up at Cas' face and added, "The one on page ten is in my building. It's also near Ellen's diner. It's a good place, the apartment. Not super expensive either. It also has the added benefit of being close to a lot of things. Might be worth checking out."

Cas wasn't sure if he was just reading into it, but he thought that there was an interesting tone to Dean's voice, hopeful maybe. His mother reached out and plucked the magazine from Cas' hands. She flipped through the pages and glanced down at what he assumed was page ten. She smiled over at Dean, and Cas knew that smile, the one that twitched into existence. "Well, that was really nice of you, Dean. I'll just tuck that away for Cas to read once we get him home." She patted the wheelchair and added with a glance at Cas, "You don't have any place to stow this on that thing. Don't worry, I'll keep it safe."

Cas knew what was happening, and he was sure that she understood too. She rolled the magazine up and tucked it into her purse. It was too big though to fit all the way and stuck out at the top. "Well, uh, Mrs. Shurley, Cas, I guess I should be going." Dean started to get up. Clearly, his life was doomed to be lived one awkward moment to the next. So, he decided to, for lack of a better term, roll with it. He reached out as swiftly as possible, and had his mother expected it, it would not have been swift enough. He grabbed the magazine out of her purse, tucked it into the seat with him, and gripping the wheels shot himself away down the sidewalk.

It would have been an immensely proud moment if he had not felt the need to turn around. Part of him had hoped that Dean was a telepath picking up on his subtle, silent cry of run like the wind. Alas, he did turn around at the end of the sidewalk. His mom and Dean were just sitting on the bench watching him as he gulped in big lungfuls of air. It hurt a little and he was sure that he was not supposed to exert himself so much yet. He raised his hands in exasperation. He wasn't sure if he would be able to get enough volume in his voice to reasonably get Dean to come to him, but he damn well was going to try. "Dean Winchester, come!"

Dean got up and seemed to give his mom a shrug as he left her alone on the bench. He walked. Correction, he sauntered, or better yet, walked so slowly that it was maddening. His legs even seemed to bow out as if they too wanted to relax into a crawl. Dean got to him and said, "So, you gonna teach me to fetch next?" He smirked.

"Sorry. It took a lot of effort to get this far. Talking was the final straw." Cas looked up at him with the sun at his back and thought that he looked like something unreal, like maybe an angel or something with the way that the light seemed to frame his hair in a golden halo.

Dean crouched down, looking concerned. "You okay? I could wheel you back."

"Don't you dare. I was running away or wheeling away. Then you just kept sitting there. You were supposed to follow me. Instead you seemed content to just sit with my mom. You are literally one minute from her opening up about all of life."

"Sorry, that I didn't get the memo on following you." Dean cast a glance back at Cas' mom and gave her a little wave as if to say, 'all is well.'

"So, here's the memo. I'm running away. Are you in or out, Dean?" He smiled at Dean and hoped that the look he was fashioning for him was convincing.

"This hardly seems like the adult response to a disagreement." Dean looked back at Becky again and then turned back to Cas. "Where do you plan to go?"

Cas felt like his face was going to crack from all of his smiling. He was feeling pretty confident that he had just won. "Anywhere." He waved his hand out at the world around him. "I am not going back to those four walls until I have grown good and tired outside. I might even find a diner and get a burger. I don't know. I am just not going back until I absolutely must."

Dean said, "Well, you can count me in. Wait here." Dean turned and took a couple of steps away from Cas.

"Where are you going?"

Dean turned back, but kept walking backwards toward Cas' mom. "You're too old to run away from home, so I'm going to go tell your mom the plan. I'll be right back."

He did his best to dial down the irritation which likely covered every square inch of his face. He knew it was immature, but he had been spending too much time under their watchful eyes. He had spent too much time feeling like he was not his own person, and now he felt like he was about to snap. Dean got to the bench and although he couldn't hear their conversation, he could see the results of it in his mom's posture. She stood up and propped her hand on her hip as she looked past Dean to him. He watched her shift from one foot to the other, hips swaying with the movement in a kind of exasperated dance. Dean took her hand at the end and she rested a second on top of his. She seemed to soften in that moment. He let her go and walked back to Cas. Becky turned from them and walked back to the hospital.

When Dean stood in front of him, Cas did his best to give him his most irritated squint. "So, ya have fun talking with my mom?"

"She's a nice, protective lady. I ladled on the charm and got you an hour of freedom."

"You should have been more charming. I could have more than an hour just by rolling on out of here with only my will power to guide me." He turned the chair to the sidewalk ramp and rolled toward it. He felt Dean take over, and he brought his hands up to his lap.

"An hour will be plenty. I'm not sure that you are pleasant enough to get any more of my time." Cas tipped his head back and looked at Dean, grinning away.

"I am plenty pleasant." Dean walked with him at a nice clip out of the parking lot and down the road. There was a small building on the corner that boasted the best burgers in town via a red and gold sign.

Dean angled him toward the door and Then reached past him to hold it open while Cas wheeled himself in. Dean leaned down to his ear. "Just so you know, this won't be a better burger than Ellen's. It'll likely be good enough though after the hospital food you've been getting."

"I'll make sure to get one from her place too in order to make the comparison." They worked their way over to the counter seating. Cas got up out of the wheelchair, and Dean pushed it out of the way into a corner.

The time passed, and Cas found himself counting out seconds with the steady drip of the condensation on his shiny metal milkshake cup. He felt it passing too quickly and wanted to slow it down like he could when he was on the drip back at the hospital. With the press of a button the drugs would drop into his system and suddenly time was his. This was a different kind of drug, talking with Dean. It was the kind that sped things up and made him speak in nonsensical phrases. He worried that he sounded like a fool. He was out of practice with the whole talking thing.

It had been too long, he thought as he chewed on the second bite of his burger. He had spent all of his time in books, and had forgotten what real people were like. True he had maintained something like a social life with his parents and siblings, but that hardly was the same as making strangers like you. Family sort of had a moral obligation to put up with nonsensical phrases and bullshit like that.

He thought about the way that it had been before, when he would sit at the long lunch tables in grade school, how easy it had been. He thought that if he just channeled some of that, maybe it would all be okay. Then he thought about the later years, the little bite sized bits of communication that had failed so utterly.

When he was in high school, he had a note from the doctor excusing him from all forms of physical activity. For a time, the powers that be did not think that it was going to be permanent, perhaps because his family had so much hope. Who knows now. Regardless, they kept him enrolled in the P.E. class, but he wasn't allowed to participate in the activities. It bugged the teacher to no end. Inevitably he assigned Cas a few essays in which he was supposed to espouse the various wonders of some form of physical activity.

Having been relegated to the bleachers while everyone else engaged, he would write epic paragraphs on the many joys of running. He described the rush of adrenaline one felt after the first lap, the bite of pain that pinched his lungs with each breath, the way that the pounding feet on the track were a type of music. It was likely that the teacher never read a word of it. It was beyond his credential anyway, and in the end, Cas didn't mind so much. It was a type of therapy, a way of dealing with wanting something back that he didn't appreciate enough when he had it.

While he sat in the stands he also watched the steady rise and fall of the bodies in a type of unison as they looped around the track. It was a great sadness to him that at some point late in the year he was removed from P.E. and placed in a woodshop class. It felt like maybe the rest of the world was giving up as much as he had.

On his first day in woodshop, one of his classmates had told him that he was so lucky to get out of running the mile. He would usually nod and go along with the sentiment thinking to himself, Yeah, real lucky to get this life threatening defect. So glad it is saving me from running the mile. And when he was feeling less sarcastic he would think, I wish I could run so far away from here. I'd run for miles and I would never look back.

There were no great tragedies to make him feel this way, no great enemies to escape, just the general apathy of his peers. They all seemed so superficial. Maybe it was just him, though. A life lived under the constant shadow of death can make a person have a very unique perspective.

And if the attitudes of his peers were not enough, he also has the other extreme at home. His mother was always questioning his health, his emotional well being. His father eventually pretended indifference to make things easier, but that too was just a means of lessening his deep, deep worry. Cas knew that his existence was causing them a great deal of pain and worry.

He had thought of giving up several times, but he worried that that too could be too much for them. So he kept on living as much as he could. His shallow breaths carried him through college and even a degree. When college ended, he worked for his family, and waited for the end to come.

Dean tapped his arm. "Penny for your thoughts."

Cas had set the burger down. "I don't think that I'll be able to finish this." Dean reached over and plucked up the plate and swapped his now empty plate into the space.

"More for me then." He was so calm. Cas wondered how he could be this way.

"Are you always this easy to be around?" Cas leaned back a little into the seat and let it swivel just a little.

Dean was in the midst of biting off a big chunk of the burger. Cas watched him chew his way through it methodically. When he finally swallowed, he set it down and said, "I'm not. Actually, I'm a mess. You've caught me in a rare sober moment."

Cas just looked at him and tried to find a less messy conversational path. Finding none, he said, "Because of Sam?"

"Yes." Dean stared down at the half eaten burger before pushing it a little away. Cas didn't stare at him directly, instead he just kept toying with his milkshake cup. Dean continued, "Sorry. I mostly don't talk about him. It isn't something that I can fix, so I avoid it."

"I'm sorry. I guess me forcing you to spend this much time with me hasn't helped much either."

He looked over at Cas then, rolling his lip into a 'what the hell' smirk. "Uh, no. If it weren't for you, I'd be at home spending time with Jack Daniels. This is a much healthier alternative." He drummed on the counter and said, "Tell me a story, something distracting from all this depressing crap so I can finish this burger. Hate seeing good food go to waste."

Cas looked at him funny and said, "You're seriously asking me to tell you a not depressing story. Not sure if you got the memo, but I have spent the last fifteen years slowly dying. I'm the poster child for the depressing."

Dean looked at him, and they both laughed, "Look, I have every bit of faith that you can pull something out of your ass."

"You have faith far too easily then." He laughed again and then tried thinking of something from his past that wasn't horrible. He went back to the running, one of the things that made him feel alive. "Well, I used to run. That was a kinda fun time."

"Sammy was a runner too." Dean's face fell a little.

Cas scoured his mind looking for a way to jump the tracks from the current depressing connection. "Well, as you can probably guess, I haven't done the running thing since I was a kid, but it didn't stop me from watching the runners with every bit of envy I had in me. Well, one of the best runners was this kid named Kevin. He was the best. I mean lithe and graceful and fast. To top it off he was a genius. He was literally everything that I wanted to be. He had friends, a kick ass hobby, and a hell of a future."

"So, this is not a depressing story?" Dean looked at him with a raised eyebrow and took a bite of the burger.

"Well, I didn't take a hit out on him or anything and he's still doing well, the last I heard."

"Okay then, continue."

"Well, I didn't know it, but Kevin secretly hated me. Once I was out of P.E. on account of my bad ticker, I just threw myself at all things academic. I took every A.P. course that I could. I aced all of my classes. Don't even get me started on my SAT and ACT scores. I kicked ass. I had nothing else going to distract me, no friends, or hobbies, just not dying. So, I guess it was easy. For Kevin it was harder. He had so much on his plate. He did it all though. In the end, he just wanted to be the Valedictorian. He wanted that little title that would tell him that he made it, that he was king of the world."

"I think I see where this is going." Dean was nearly through his burger, and Cas felt like he was doing at least one thing right.

"So the last month of my senior year rolls around, and my counselor calls me in. I got the Valedictorian spot. Kevin was the Salutatorian."

"Is that fancy talk for second place?" Dean had finished up the burger and was picking at the fries now.

"Yeah. He was the calmest guy I ever saw on most days, but when he found out about the final ranking, he punched a locker and broke a finger. I felt bad. I didn't even know it had been a competition. If he had only known just how much I would have loved to have traded the title for one of his victories on the track team. I would have taken any of those in trade, even a piddly local win."

Cas fell quiet for a moment and Dean said, "So, did you have to make a speech?"

"Funny thing, I don't do that sort of thing. In fact, I don't talk much." Dean gave him a funny look at that. "You probably don't believe me, but it's true. You seem to bring out my inner chatty kathy."

Dean laughed. "Yeah, I tend to do that with people."

"Well, it's nice. I think that I forgot how to be around people that weren't family. You know, sometimes it is nice to remember how to talk to people that don't have a moral obligation to talk back."

"Pretty sure it wasn't that bad. You seem to be fine."

"Well, funny thing, I wasn't. I learned about the speech, and I freaked out. I was not talking to anybody outside of my family, and now I was expected to make a coherent speech in front of a few thousand people. How was I going to do that?"

"Yeah, that sounds like hell. So what did you do?"

"I went a little crazy, had a panic attack or seven, and landed in the hospital." Cas tried to laugh about it but it came out weak. "Anyway, everyone just figured that my heart was just having trouble, not that I was having massive amounts of anxiety about the speaking thing. In the end, I wasn't well enough to go back to school for the graduation. Kevin made the speech. It was epic. I was glad it was him up there, and maybe in the end he didn't hate me too much anymore."

"You ever talk to him after?"

"I sent him a message after I saw his speech. Told him it was awesome. He wrote back. He was funny and all that. I think that things change once you graduate. Stuff just matters differently afterwards." The waitress came over then with their check and Cas realized that he did not have a wallet. He was, in fact, just wearing sweats and a hospital shirt, so he was not prepared to do his part. "Uh, I can pay you back at the hospital if you can float me 'til then."

"Don't worry 'bout it. I practically ate all of your food anyway." Dean tossed down a twenty and then got up to retrieve his wheelchair. Pushing it over he said, "Come on down. Your chariot awaits." They left the diner and headed back to the hospital. It had been a little more than an hour, and Cas felt like it went by too fast. Dean whistled a tune with each step and Cas tried to place it.

"What's the song?" He tipped his head back and looked at Dean.

"Highway to Hell. I like stuff from the seventies and the eighties." Dean smiled and then continued whistling. They got back to the hospital entrance and Cas took the wheels.

"I'll be fine from here." He wheeled around to face Dean. "Thanks, for everything. It's been a long time since I felt normal."

"Anytime." Dean pressed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels a little.

"So, if I get back to the city, would it be weird if I asked you to lunch?" Cas worried that Dean would say no, or that he'd say yes out of pity. He also worried that he would say yes, and that it would be weird. He didn't know why he took the chance. Making friends was not his specialty, but he wanted this. Maybe it was Sam's heart that made him bold. He hadn't been bold before.

"Will you actually eat next time?" And somehow, that answer was perfect.

"Maybe, although I think that you certainly benefit from my lack of effort." Cas smiled. "So, if I were to call you…" He looked off at the distant line of trees that surrounded the parking lot.

"My number's in the apartment magazine, inside of the front cover." Dean pointed down at the magazine that Cas had wedged into the side of the seat next to his leg. "Shoot me a text or something when you come to town."

"Will do." Cas was angling for nonchalant as he rolled back a little with the words. He spun around and started back to the hospital. He whistled a tune as he went. He thought that it was a close approximation of what Dean had been whistling before. He made his way back to his room, warm and smiling even as he passed through the cold spot that was always present at the foot of his bed.