Another chapter has sprung forth! Yay! And chapter five is well under construction. But maybe I'll save a few up for next weekend? I'm not sure... The kids are on holiday this week, but I'm still a bit limited and not able to drive after my surgery, so maybe it'll just be a messing about writing and drawing week, bribing the kids to do all the housey stuff that needs doing. They'll go for that. Anyway, here are Dean and Cas, bumbling their way through their healing process...

Chapter 4

Sometimes Cas was himself again.

He'd be right there, alongside Dean, and he'd lend a hand with whatever scrubbing, sanding, crack-filling, or even sweeping-out-of-bird-shit Dean had going on.

And he'd speak, occasionally, surprising Dean with a few easy, natural phrases, or as easy and natural as small talk had ever come to Cas.

But sometimes - often - he'd just be gone, either in body or mind or both.

He'd look at Dean with wide, scared, unrecognising eyes. His lips would open soundlessly or clamp tight shut. And then either he'd curl himself into his sleeping bag in a dark corner of the downstairs room Dean had set up as their temporary camp, or, more often, he'd disappear outside, to flit like a shadow around the orchard, or ramble restlessly about the wilderness between the house and the pine forest.

Dean, figuring being outside was at least better than hiding under his bed in the bunker, left his friend to it. But he was worried.

Sammy phoned pretty often. "How's it going?"

Dean put down his nearly empty tube of 'No More Big Gaps' and sat down on a broad window seat of one of the upstairs rooms. They really needed some chairs. "Oh, you know - it's going. There's a hell of a lot to do. Gonna need a whole lot of stuff."

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that. But I mean - how are you? How's Cas?"

Dean rubbed the back of his neck with a dirty, sticky hand. "I'm okay. Cas is… he's getting plenty of fresh air, anyway. Other than that… I don't know."

"Okay. Well, keep me posted, won't you?"

"Yeah. Will do." The plaster on the outer wall of this bedroom was crumbling away completely. He'd tear it down and replace it with drywall.

"So, Dean, I've got the electricity people coming to check out the spur running to you from the highway - see if it's okay to switch on."

"Huh. I'd better make sure it's all switched off from my end then, or you'll be hearing about a great big fire."

"That bad?"

"Oh, yeah. But if I can get the main junction safe and we can have power to just one room - even with a cable through the window - that'd be something." A flicker of dark outside caught Dean's eye, moving in fits and starts behind one of the apple trees - no, actually climbing the tree. Cas was joining the birds. "So, uh, how are we paying for all this, Sammy?"

"Oh, yeah - that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I've been chasing down some financial records - it seems like the Men of Letters left a few accounts behind. I've been able to access them - investments and so on."

"Really? Way to go, Sammy! How much?"

"Enough," said Sam. "Enough not to have to worry about the fraud squad hammering on your newly-sanded and painted front door. So lay off the credit cards, yeah?"

"Uh, yeah, okay. But I think it'll be a while before I'm working on the finishing touches," said Dean. He was a long way off choosing paint colours. "But that's good to know. So I can go ahead and buy stuff? Drywall? Timber? Plumbing pipes? One of those cool floor sanders?"

"Yeah," Sam huffed a soft laugh. "Knock yourself out."

"Probably will," said Dean, recalling the low beams in the crawl space beneath the roof. "But thanks, Sammy."

"You're welcome."

Dean slipped his phone back in his pocket and by the time he looked out of the window again, the figure in the tree had gone.

He slumped against the crumbling edge of the window embrasure, and another slew of plaster fragments skittered to the floor. Exhaustion suddenly rolled across him like a wave and he let his face fall into his hands, screwed his eyes tight shut and blinked into the darkness.

There was so much to do. But that wasn't the problem, really. He wasn't tired from working. Dean liked work. He liked fixing things, using the skills that he'd picked up over his childhood and teenage years - fixing the wiring to the TV in a crappy motel room, unblocking the plumbing sometimes. And then, the times they'd squatted in some derelict place and Dad'd gone off hunting for a while - the things he'd had to do to make those places liveable had prepared him for just such a project as this old house.

No, the work wasn't the problem. It was his dream, even. To have a place to call his own, and to put something of himself into it.

But last night - and if he was being honest with himself, every night really - Dean had dreamt again that Cas was gone and that he was alone in the dark. All alone, down in the low, cramped foundations of the house, with just the uneven dirt beneath his crawling, groping hands and no way out - no window, no door, no tunnel to escape through - just solid brick and one tiny crack that let in an eerie green light. He was trapped. Trapped forever with no way out - not for him. Not for Dean. He could see light, but he could never get to it. The light was for other people but never for him.

And he had yelled and screamed for someone to please help him - but no one had come. No one would come to rescue him. It had been so real. So very, very, horrifyingly real.

He knew, though, why he had them, night after night. He knew that the nightmares came because a part of him was broken.

Because of course Sam cared, of course other people cared - they would help him. But the years of fucked-up shit, the times - so many times - when no one had come and Dean had cried out in agony, either literally or deep within the confines of his own mind - those times had left their mark. And he wondered if that hurt, frightened, scarred corner of his soul would ever be able to trust again.

Dean had woken from his nightmare, gasping and sweating, and sat bolt upright, forcing the confining sleeping bag down over his body so that he could move and breathe. Pale moonlight shone through the window and the door was open and he'd thought about getting up and going outside just to reassure himself that he could. But then he'd noticed the moonlight falling on Cas's sleeping bag.

For a moment he'd thought Cas was gone, leaving his bed in a small, round heap. Then he'd realised the heap was Cas, curled right down into the bag, his head not even visible. The grey-blue light and dark shadows of the crumpled, twisted fabric were shimmering and blurring. Cas was trembling.

Dean had thrust aside his own fear and pushed his bag the rest of the way off. He'd grabbed the little gas lantern and turned it on, the switch clicking a few times before bright, white light shone out with a steady hiss. He turned it down a little and crawled across the bare boards toward Cas.

And he'd whispered to his friend, not daring to touch him to begin with. But the trembling hadn't stopped and the bag twitched with fast, terrified breaths. So he'd placed one hand on the shivering ball and eased the zipper down with the other, slowly, slowly and kept up a soothing flow of nothing-in-particular words.

Cas hadn't woken, even when Dean uncovered his face, red and wet with sweat and tears, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. But he'd breathed easier once the cool night air had got to him, and his limbs had gradually slackened and uncurled a little.

So Dean had grabbed his own sleeping bag and moved it nearer and slept the rest of the night with one hand stretched out ready, and some part of his mind alert to bring his friend back from wherever he went, or whatever had happened to him in the Empty, or maybe from a nightmare of aloneness and abandonment, a twin to Dean's own.

In the grey morning Cas was gone, and Dean, looking out of an upstairs window, had seen him at the far end of the orchard, just standing, watching the land wake up.

Dean ordered some stuff to be delivered - a whole lot of stuff. It was fun, but by the time he'd finished, the battery of his laptop was nearly run down and there was no sign of the electricity guys arriving to hook him up to the land of the powered.

And Cas was still missing. Dean hadn't seen him since that call with Sammy. Had Cas even eaten today? Dean had cooked up some oatmeal over the camping stove - good stuff when you'd been lying on a cold, hard floor all night. He'd left some for Cas, but the ex-angel hadn't come and got it when he'd yelled out the front door.

He'd be outside somewhere, wouldn't he? But Dean checked upstairs first, including the little attic rooms, just to be sure. Then the rest of the ground floor - living and dining rooms, kitchen, utility. Then the basement, where it was just possible Cas would want to hide out in the dark. Nothing - and Dean stepped in just the wrong place on a rotted stair on his way back up, scraped his ankle as the wood suddenly fell away beneath him and dropped his flashlight beyond hope of finding. He crawled up the rest of the way, his ankle throbbing, but his mind throbbing more with worry for his friend.

Cas would be fine - he'd be outside and Dean would find him quickly and then everything would be okay.

His heartrate didn't agree with this prediction. And as Dean stepped out onto the verandah and scanned the orchard and the rough wilderness on the other side of the driveway, the thundering in his ears grew worse. He stumbled down the steps and limped toward Baby, for reassurance and so he could get a better view of the orchard. He squinted against the sunlight, wincing at the lancing brightness. Nothing - no sign of Cas.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. His ears hissed and sparks appeared at the edge of his vision. He ran, stumbling, out into the rough grass and tangled briars of the wild area before the pine trees.

"Cas!"

He careened around the back of the house and down the slope a little way to a cluster of outbuildings - a little, tumbledown barn, a woodshed with a pile of wood seasoned for so many years it was crumbling away, a tool shed with a couple of rusted implements hanging from sagging hooks.

Nothing.

"Cas!"

Dean bent over, winded far beyond the exertion of the short run.

He was hot and cold and breathing too fast but he couldn't breathe - couldn't get air into his body. He fell to his knees, the dry grass crackling and prickling beneath him.

Cas wasn't there. He wasn't in the house or the orchard or the rest of the scrubby, untamed land, or any of the outbuildings. He'd gone.

He's gone-he's gone-he's gone-he's gone.

Where? Where was he?

"Cas." Dean's croaking voice dropped between his knees and into the dry, cracked ground below the rough stalks of weeds. "Cas."

The Empty had taken him. Taken him again - those rippling, curling tendrils had drawn him back in, sucked him away from the light and the life they could have had here. Cas was gone, gone, gone into the blackness and Dean would rather go with him into the horror or the nothingness than stay here all alone - so, so, alone.

He shuddered and shook and sobbed, rocked with panic and despair.

Then there was a loud, harsh cry from the pine forest. Not a human cry, but a bird - one of those big, black crows that look at you like they could murder you with one gimlet glance if they felt like it. The cry came again, further away, echoing amongst the close-packed trees.

Dean sat up. He wiped his blurring eyes on the back of his shaking hand and sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

His heart still fluttered unevenly in his chest and his vision spun and danced and fuzzed at the edges. He forced his breath all the way out and then made his lungs wait to fill up slowly and deeply, and then repeated the long out and in, out and in, until he felt like his legs would hold him if he stood.

He wavered when he got to his feet, the burning, stabbing pain in his ankle reminding him of that stair that would need to be fixed. But he was back in some kind of control. And there was no need to panic, surely no need to panic, because Cas was in the pine forest, making friends with the evil-looking crows. That's where he'd be. He would.

Dean hadn't explored the forest. He'd thought it would be a boundary, with a fence placed just inside or just outside to mark off their plot. But there was no fence and once inside the trees, he realised it wasn't really a pine forest at all. There was a narrow band of pines and then they gave way to broad-leaved trees - beech and oak and ash, and there was a path of sorts, leading down and down, between the trees, twisting around rocks and roots and summer tangles of ferns that had grown up tall where the light reached down through the tall branches.

The air was hot and heavy and soothing, full of the warmth of mature vegetation, its summer's work nearly done. Insects buzzed and flitted, crickets chirped, and the woodland was lime green, emerald green, deep dark British racing green, named for an Ireland with no speed limits.

And then Dean could hear trickling water - rippling, burbling, rushing - the sound of a fast-flowing stream. And he came out into the light and the stream was bordered by moss-covered rocks - and there was Cas, squatting at the water's edge, his hands playing back and forth over the surface of a little pool.

"Cas."

Dean was in Purgatory again and he'd finally found his angel, down by the river - filthy and bearded and tattered from months of fighting and Dean was in just the same condition. But he didn't care, because he'd found Cas.

He staggered forward now, pebbles grating together beneath his boots.

"Cas."

The ex-angel turned away from his scrutiny of the little pool and looked up. "Dean?" He frowned. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Dean rasped. "I just… I couldn't find you. I thought…" His throat closed up.

Cas pushed himself halfway up and sat down on a rock, patting another moss-damp rock beside him.

Dean sat down and sagged with weariness and relief. He could feel Cas's warmth right next to him and his breathing eased back to normal when he hadn't even realised it was still tight and quick and shallower than it should have been.

"I'm here," said Cas.

"I know."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Dean swallowed. "Okay." He didn't believe it. Maybe he would, one day. But not yet. "Okay," he said again.

The stream burbled and chuckled. A breeze lifted the branches far above with a gentle hissing swish.

"There are fish," said Cas. "Tiny, tiny fish."

"Yeah?" Dean cleared his throat. "Good eating, you think?"

"Tiny," said Cas again, holding his thumb and forefinger an inch or so apart.

"Huh," said Dean. "You'd need a few of those to make a decent fish taco."

They sat in silence, but the stream kept up its constant burbling, which was soothing, as running water tended to be, unless you really needed the bathroom, in which case-

"Hey, Cas?" Dean shifted on his rock. The scrape on his ankle stung. "Uh, so Sammy called. And we've got free rein to order stuff we need. He found some bank accounts the Men of Letters left behind."

Cas was silent, but the silence was attentive.

"So, uh, you can go online. Get some stuff delivered. Hey, you could even get one of those ride-on mowers - like a little tractor? That'd be cool."

"A scythe," said Cas.

"A what-now?" Uncomfortable visions of his old friend the Grim Reaper rose in Dean's mind.

"The growth is very rough. I'll cut it first with a scythe and then mow it short. And then dig and plant," said Cas.

Encouraged by this long speech, Dean smiled. "Can you plant stuff right now? It'll be getting cold soon."

Cas was staring down at the pebbles. But then he looked up at the trees on the opposite bank and Dean watched him - watched his eyes as they seemed to penetrate way, way further in distance and time than the little hidden world of the stream and the river bank and the woodland.

"I know this world," he said softly. "I've watched and waited so, so long. And I've learned the secrets of the green things - the things that bury their roots down into the earth and throw their shoots to the sky. I know all about small growing things."

"Yeah? What kind of things can you grow here - now?"

Cas turned his head toward Dean and his lips twitched. "Wait and see," he said.

Ah, poor Dean and Cas! But they're there for each other. They'll help each other heal, with lots of messing up along the way.