Thank you so much Jenjoremy for beta'ing this. Thank you also SandraEngstrom2 and Gredelina1 for supporting and encouraging.

Chapter Eight

When Castiel received the call from Charlie Bradbury telling him he needed to get to the Bunker as quickly as possible because there was an emergency, he knew he must leave at once. He felt some guilt about abandoning Nora at the Gas-N-Sip without notice, but when someone said emergency and Winchesters in the same breath, you looked to the sky for the signs of impending disaster. Besides, they were his friends. Whatever they were facing, he wanted to be there for them.

He felt no guilt stealing a car whose owner had foolishly left they keys in the ignition. Their loss was for the greater good.

The drive was a tense one. He spent it worrying about what might be waiting for him at the end of his journey and what he could do to help. He was not an angel anymore. He was a human now, practically useless to them. It was only when he drove into sight of the Bunker's entrance that he felt a little better. He was at least there in person now. He would do what he could.

He climbed out of the car and made for the door, taking a deep breath before knocking firmly. There was no sound of approach on the other side until he heard the bolts being disengaging and the creak as it was opened. A young woman was revealed on the threshold. She had fiery red hair that was pulled back from her face in a messy ponytail and her skin was wan. He recognized the differences in the woman in front of him to the snapshot he had seen on Sam's phone—the girl tucked under Sam's arm, both smiling widely at the camera. The changes were not for the better. She looked like she needed a long sleep and fortifying meal.

"Cas?" Dean was coming up the stairs behind her, gripping the handrail hard to counter what Castiel suspected was a large amount of alcohol running through his bloodstream. He looked even worse than Charlie did. He looked a lot like the man Castiel had seen driving away from Stull Cemetery, demanding to know where his paradise was when all he had was disaster. Castiel knew then that what had happened was serious, and he suspected he knew who it had happened to.

"Hello, Dean," he said gently.

Dean sighed out a deep breath. "Thank God you're here." As if the words were the trigger, he slumped over the banister and pressed his forehead against the wooden rail. "Oh, thank God."

Charlie and Castiel exchanged a glance and then they both hurried to Dean's side. Castiel dragged Dean upright and pulled his arm over his shoulders. Charlie braced him from the other side and they carefully helped Dean down the stairs to a chair. When he was sitting, albeit listing to the side, Castiel knelt so he was eye to eye with his friend. "Where is Sam?" he asked urgently.

"Gone…" Dean groaned.

Castiel's wide, scared eyes found Charlie's and she shook her head quickly. "He's not dead," she said, and Castiel felt his heart restart with a jolt. "He's just… missing."

"What happened?" Castiel asked.

At that moment, there were footsteps and Sam came into the room. "I thought I heard the… Castiel!" There was no pleasure in his voice. There was also something very wrong with him. He didn't sound like himself. He didn't look like himself. Castiel knew Sam. He knew his quirks, his voice, his laugh, sighs and shouts. He knew how Sam held himself—always slightly slumped as if trying to hide his unusual height—and he knew how he spoke. This Sam was holding himself straight and tall, and his voice was wrong. It was modulated carefully, the words falling almost formally from his lips. Castiel had seen this before.

He straightened quickly and spread his arms in front of Charlie and Dean protectively. "Lucifer!" he growled, pulling his angel blade from where he had stowed it in his coat, registering even as he did that it would be useless against the archangel.

"It's not him," Dean said in a dull voice.

Castiel relaxed infinitesimally and addressed the stranger. "And yet you are not Sam Winchester either. Who are you?"

"It's me, Castiel. Ezekiel."

"Ezekiel?"

"Yes," the angel said. "Hello, Castiel."

"How… I don't understand." He lowered his blade and asked, "What happened?"

Dean turned bleary eyes on Ezekiel. "You want to tell him how you screwed up?"

"I do not because I did not," Ezekiel said. "I have done only what you have asked since I met you in that hospital room. I have saved your brother."

Dean lurched to unsteady feet and shouted, "Then where is he now?"

Ezekiel closed his eyes and a look of impatience that was so like Sam spread over his features. "I am not going to explain anything. This situation is of your making, and I am tired of being your excuse for your failings."

Castiel expected Dean's anger to surge in the face of the accusation, but it didn't. He slumped, defeated, and Castiel laid a hand on shoulder to support him.

"My fault," Dean said in a hoarse voice. "All mine."

"Yes," Ezekiel said. "Yours." He turned away and made for the door he had entered through. Dean stared after him as if he was fighting the urge to attack him, or perhaps drag him back.

Castiel waited until the footsteps had faded along the hall and then he said, "What happened to Sam?"

Dean pulled away from Castiel's support and walked through the room and up the steps into the library. Castiel and Charlie and followed. Dean went straight to the table and picked up a glass of amber liquid. He slugged it back and grimaced.

"I think maybe that's enough now," Charlie said tentatively.

Again, Dean surprised Castiel. He expected Dean to argue, to pour another glass to goad her, but he didn't. He nodded and set the empty glass down on the polished table. He fell into a chair and covered his face with his hands. "I screwed up, Cas," he said, his voice muffled.

Castiel glanced at Charlie and saw that her mouth was pressed into a thin line; she didn't argue his words, though. Perhaps she had heard them enough times to know it would do no good. Perhaps she agreed.

"What happened?" he asked, repeating his earlier question.

Dean looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and said, "Sam was dying from the trials, remember?"

Castiel nodded. When he had still been an angel, he had been able to see the damage the trials were doing to Sam, and he'd known death was a very real possibility. Sam had been damaged in ways he could not heal because no human body was supposed to be able to take that level of damage and survive as long as Sam had, let alone be upright and fighting. That had given him hope that Sam would make it through. But then when he had finally managed to speak to Dean after his Fall, he knew what was happening despite Sam's strength. Ezekiel had been there, though, and Dean had said he was helping. Then, after, when he had seen Sam and the vitality of him, and he'd assumed Ezekiel had succeeded where Castiel could not. Sam had been saved. Now he saw the truth.

"Ezekiel is saving Sam from inside," he said.

"Yes. At least he was. Now… everything is so messed up that I'm not sure what's happening inside," Dean said.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Castiel asked, making sure to keep his tone neutral.

Dean closed his eyes, as if he didn't want to see Castiel's reaction. "Because Sam didn't know, and I couldn't risk him finding out."

Castiel fought back a groan of frustration. The Winchesters were the most incredible men he had ever met. They fought to save other lives every day of their own. They saved the world. And they made the worst mistakes. Almost as bad as the ones he himself made.

Dean went on, his eyes still closed. "Zeke said if Sammy knew, he might cast him out, and then he'd die for sure. I had no choice."

Castiel could see why Dean would have thought that, but Sam wasn't stupid; surely if he'd known the stakes, he would have allowed the angel to stay. There was something he didn't understand though.

"How can Sam not know Ezekiel is in him? He must have given consent?"

Dean's eyes opened and Castiel saw the guilt roiling in them. "I tricked him. Zeke mind-melded us and I got a yes out of him. Zeke slipped in."

"Dammit, Dean," he whispered before he could stop himself.

Dean stared back at him defiantly. "What would you have done? Sam was dying! It was trick him or lose him completely. He was about to go with Death, Cas. He was done."

Then it should have been his choice to go, Castiel thought but didn't vocalize. Dean would never understand that. The bond between the Winchesters made it impossible for him to understand.

He redirected. "Is that why I couldn't stay? Because you thought I would tell Sam what you had done?"

"No," Dean said quickly. "I knew I could rely on you to keep that to yourself. It was Zeke. He said you would draw other angels to us—Bartholomew. He said if you stayed he would have to leave. I had no choice, Cas. If he'd left, Sam would have died, and I knew you could handle yourself out there."

"I understand," Castiel said reassuringly. "Had I all the facts I would have opted to leave myself. I would never have risked Sam. And I never would have told him."

"I'm sorry, man. I should have been level with you. It's just I was so…"

"Scared," Castiel supplied. "Of course." He drew a breath and said. "So what is happening now? Ezekiel is obviously in command of Sam's body, yet Sam was before, so why has he come to the fore?"

Dean glanced at Charlie, a look of pleading in his eyes. She nodded and said, "We faced off with the Wicked Witch of Oz. She did something to Sam and Dean—possessed them. When she was killed, Dean came back to himself but Sam didn't. He hasn't come back since—and it's been over a week now."

A week! A week in which Castiel sold slushies to rude children and microwaved burritos to truckers, Dean and Charlie had been dealing with this—Sam had been missing. He hated that he hadn't been there for them.

"When you say he didn't come back…" he started.

"Zeke says he's a corpse," Dean said in a broken voice. "Sam's not in there at all."

"Dean tried dream root," Charlie said, "and we thought that worked kinda, but it turned out it was just crap Zeke was showing him. We thought maybe he'd died, but Missouri says he's not in the veil. He's still here, somewhere. Dean's keeping him here with their bond."

"Oh," Castiel said. So they knew about that now.

"You knew?" Dean asked, noticing Castiel's lack of surprise. "You knew we were a 'special case'."

Castiel nodded. "I knew from the moment I met you both. The bond was clear to me."

"So why didn't you tell us?"

The truthful answer was that Castiel had been indifferent at the time. He had cared only for Dean as the Righteous Man. Then later, in the year of the apocalypse, when he knew them and cared for them, he didn't tell them because he didn't know how they would react to the news—Dean especially. They already had a complicated relationship, and they each took on so much of the other, he didn't know whether the information would be of assistance or detriment.

"Because I did not see how it would help," he said.

Dean nodded thoughtfully. "I guess not. It's supposed to help now though. It isn't."

"It is," Charlie argued. "Missouri said by just being, your soul is saving Sam's from destruction."

Dean lurched to his feet and picked up the glass from the table, suddenly furious. "It's not enough!" He lobbed the glass at the wall and it smashed, falling to the floor with tinkling sounds. "He's still not here, is he? That damn angel is, walking and talking, and acting like he has a right to be here, when it's Sam's body! Sam's life! And I am useless!" He braced his hands on the edge of the table and panted. "I can't see him. I can't feel him. I can't do a thing."

Castiel rose to his feet and laid a hand on Dean's back. "You can, Dean. You just need help, and I am here now. I may not have grace, but I have knowledge. I can help you find him."

Dean looked at him hopefully. "You think?"

"I know everything there is to know about souls—I spent a year using them to fuel my war machine, after all."

"Great," Charlie said enthusiastically. "Ezekiel said he didn't know much about them so we've been kinda grappling in the dark."

"Ezekiel knew nothing about the bond?" Castiel asked, confusion coloring his tone.

"Yeah," Charlie said. "He said something about it not being his job in Heaven."

Castiel frowned. Once, it wasn't Ezekiel's job—he had been a warrior in the very beginning, but he had been raised through the echelons of Heaven over the centuries to a guardian of the gate. His life for the past thousand years had been immersed in souls.

Ezekiel had lied. Why?

Leaving Dean to Charlie's care and coffee, Castiel went in search of Ezekiel. He searched the communal rooms, discovering a garage he hadn't known existed, and eventually finding him in Sam's bedroom. More unexpected than his location was what he was doing—sitting on the bed with a battered wooden box open beside him. Castiel cleared his throat at the door, and even though Ezekiel would have heard him coming and had time to hide what he was doing, he quickly dropped the photograph of Sam and Dean back in the box and snapped the lid shut.

"Castiel," he said formally.

"Hello, Ezekiel. What are you doing?"

Ezekiel was silent a moment before answering. "I was searching for some way to connect with Sam. I thought perhaps if I had a better understanding of him, I could help more; I might be able to find him wherever he is now."

That made no sense to Castiel. Ezekiel had shared Sam's whole mind of memories and knowledge. There was everything there he would need to forge a connection. He had no need of these photographs and mementoes. Castiel felt a prickle of foreboding on the back of his neck.

"Has it helped?" he asked neutrally.

"No," Ezekiel said a little sadly. "I cannot seem to forge a bond."

Again, Ezekiel was lying. There was an automatic bond between a vessel and an angel. Jimmy had been a prime example. It hadn't haunted him at the time because he had been an angel in the purest sense, but he'd had a strong connection with Jimmy before his destruction at the hands of Raphael in the moments before the commencement of the apocalypse. He had known details of his wife and child that had strengthened Jimmy. Ezekiel should know the same details of Sam.

"That is a shame," Castiel said.

"How is Dean?"

"Overwrought. Desperate. Charlie is tending to him at the moment."

"I cannot seem to help him. I only upset him when I am there."

"It's hard for him," Castiel said. "You are Sam, but not, and that makes it hard for all of us that care for him to be around you."

Ezekiel nodded slowly. "I understand."

Castiel didn't think he did though. His tone was grudging, not like himself or Sam. Ezekiel was chosen for the gates because he was an empathetic angel. He could guide the souls to their paradise when they were often scared and overwhelmed in the face of their deaths. He should have been able to empathize with Dean more than he apparently was.

Castiel felt another flicker of unease. With a sense of trepidation, he pulled a thread. "This is perhaps the most upsetting situation I have been in."

"I feel the same," Ezekiel said.

"Even more than our great losses at the battle of Elysia. Do you remember the horror of that day, Ezekiel?"

"I remember well. It was a bloody day."

"It was indeed," Castiel said, his tone saddened by his realization. "I should go see how Dean is. I will try to persuade him to sleep. I think we all need rest."

"Yes," Ezekiel agreed. "You all do."

Castiel turned and walked from the room, his heart heavy and his nerves taut. There was no battle of Elysia. There was no bloody day. Which meant Ezekiel was a liar. What else was he lying about? Castiel needed to know.

Gadreel knew he needed to leave. Castiel was there now, which meant trouble was going to come. He took nothing with him but Sam's stash of emergency cash. He didn't need a phone, which would enable Dean to track him anyway. All he needed was his wits.

He hesitated in the hall and listened carefully. There were no voices. He thought Castiel, Charlie and Dean were sleeping now. He walked into the library and made his way across the room. He was halfway across the room when he heard someone speak his name.

He turned and saw Castiel coming toward him from the living quarters. He looked tired and careworn.

"Castiel," he greeted.

"Are you going somewhere?" Castiel asked mildly, coming toward him.

"Just outside for a while. I sometimes like to look at the stars. They make me think of home." The lie slipped from his lips easily, one of many he'd spoken recently.

"I will come with you," Castiel said. "I feel the same… absence."

Gadreel felt some pity for the man in front of him. How must it feel to have lost the very thing that made an angel what it was—grace. That didn't mean he was going to allow Castiel to hinder his escape though. He needed to leave before more occupants of the bunker arrived to complicate things.

"Of course," he said easily.

Castiel stepped back and Gadreel walked towards the door. Castiel walked at his side, until, inexplicably, he stopped. Gadreel turned to look at him, a question on his lips, just in time to see Castiel strike the matchbook. He dropped it down onto the floor and fire roared up in a circle around Gadreel.

"Castiel! What are you doing?"

Castiel looked severe. "We need to talk."

So… It's all happening now. Gadreel got rumbled on the way out of the door and his sojourn as Zeke is about to come crashing down. About time, right?

Things are really going to move in the next couple chapters, so before we get there any last theories about where Sam is and what happened?

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx