Catching Up
Chapter 6 – Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

"May I?" Rowena offered.

"By all means." Sam gave her the case and remote.

"So our next chapter in this long sensational tale of our heroes is entitled 'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things'."

"Funny that is the exact opposite of what you taught me mother," Crowley commented.

"And you rose to become the King of Hell whereas other mothers have tax accountants for sons," the witch said primly.

"You actually complimented me?" Crowley made a face. "I don't like it."

"Anyway," Rowena continued. "Dean and Sam investigate the murder of a college student who has come back from the dead seeking revenge on those who mistreated her. See Fergus, why couldn't bring a lovely girl like that home?

"What is this, an episode of the Addams family?" Dean scoffed. "Just press start Rowena."

The witch played the episode but with a groan, fast-forwarded through the recap. "Enough melodrama." Only for the show to open on an upset young woman apparently nursing broken heart. "This isn't the Addams family, it's the Gilmore Girls."

Nothing wrong with that show, Sam thought mutinously. Team Dean? "It's the only correct answer." Atta boy He couldn't help but smirk. Meanwhile, the girl took off in her car where she got into an argument with her boyfriend on the phone, leading to her crashing and dying.

The show jumped to TV!Sam and TV!Dean heading to Mary's grave. TV!Dean thinks it's ridiculous since there was no body but goes along anyway despite TV!Sam saying he would go alone. "My brother Marcus," Mary sniffed. "He must have been the one, I tried looking him up but he died not long after I did." Sam and Dean had a feeling they knew what happened but stayed silent.

"You all need a really good therapist," Crowley sipped his drink.

"You're working this out now?" Cas raised a brow.

"Whose side are you on?" Dean narrowed his eyes.

"I'm sorry Dean. My understanding of humanity is far from perfect but there have been several occasions where I felt it necessary to have you seek a professional in human problems."

"I could always go to one of those motivational seminars – oh wait…"

"That was cruel Dean," Sam chastised as his TV!self buried their father's dog tags near Mary's grave.

"Thank you for that Sam," Mary said gratefully. "I just hate that all that was left of us was rock and some tags." Meanwhile, TV!Dean spotted a dead tree in the graveyard near a perfectly circular patch of dead grass. It's the girl's grave and he believes he's found a case in spite of Sam's misgivings.

The brothers go to see the girl, Angela's, father who was a professor at the university. They try to interview him but there is tension between the TV!Winchesters which begins to rear its head at the motel. TV!Sam think his brother is only pursuing this case to avoid his feelings and TV!Dean storms out. "Good lord, is there an off switch to your melodrama?" Rowena rubbed her temple.

At the same time, Angela's boyfriend is watching a tape of her, unnoticing of a plant that withers on spot. He does catch a reflection that looks like Angela in the television and turns around but the scene cuts, showing only a blood spatter across the TV screen before going black. "Good on you lass," Rowena smirked.

When the show came on again, TV!Dean was breaking into Angela's dorm when he runs into her roommate. He managed to convince her that he's Angela's cousin and she tells him that Angela was a great person with no enemies and that her boyfriend Matt 'committed suicide' the night before out of grief. She also mentioned that Matt claimed to keep seeing Angela everywhere. "I hate it when he's right," Sam groused. "Bigger pain in the ass than usual."

"And apparently a cock blocker too," Crowley nodded to the show where TV!Sam gets interrupted watching Casa Erotica.

I didn't know you were a fan. "I don't have to tell you everything." But you will.

In the show, the TV!Winchesters pose as grief counsellors and speak to Angela's best friend Neil who tells the boys that Matt probably killed himself out of guilt not grief, for cheating on Angela and being the reason she was so distraught in the car. TV!Dean decides to burn the bones even though these ones would have more than a little flesh still left on them. "It troubles me as your mother that you had to stop and think about the question of being high," Mary said mildly.

"I'm not the son you need to worry about in that regard," Dean chuckled.

"Oh for Chuck sake, it was one time! In college!" Oh the stories you shall tell me. Nevertheless, the TV!Winchesters dig up the grave and open the casket only to find it empty.

At the same time, Neil goes to his basement where he is keeping Angela who greets him with a deep kiss. "He's not just playing with a dead thing," Crowley shook his head. "He's making the dead thing play with him."

"I'd really prefer not to consider it," Mary made a face. "Although I am curious how he resurrected her." The TV!Winchester spot symbols in carved into the casket that make them suspect Angela's father.

"Reanimated darling, not resurrected," Rowena corrected over TV!Dean confrontation with the professor. "A common misconception but once a soul is truly claimed by Death, very few forces can reverse it. However as long as the brain and all those science-y bits are still functional you can still make the body work again but with the soul missing. It would be a poor facsimile of the person at best, downright demonic at worst. Of course nothing is more hellish than listening to this belly-aching." she grumbled as once again the TV!Winchesters argued over their grief.

Elsewhere, Neil is beginning to have suspicions about Angela but she assures him that she did nothing wrong. Unfortunately for the TV!Winchesters, the lore is very confused about how to kill the undead with only the use of silver as a common thread. Still they go to Neil's house but the place is empty. We've come to hug? "Dean's opening lines have needed a bit of work." Not even MacGyver can fix that shit. Sam coughed to hid his laugh.

The TV!Winchesters discovers Angela's basement and her escape route. They determine that she would likely go after whoever Matt cheated on her with and TV!Dean had a feeling it was her roommate. True enough, Angela attacked her but she is saved by TV!Sam and TV!Dean although the bullets prove ultimately ineffectual. The brothers decide nailing Angela back into her grave was their best optionand for that, they need Neil. They confront him at his office and TV!Dean says -

When someone's gone, they should stay gone

Every single person in the room squirms uneasily. "Dean please tell me you're done with these cases of last words." Sam groaned.

"You know I'm not," Dean scoffed.

Sure enough, TV!Dean notices dead plants and deduces Angela is in the room but Neil refuses to come with them. The elder Winchester concocts a fake ritual that would supposedly kill Angela and quietly warns Neil not to anger her. When the brothers are gone, Angela comes out of her hiding spot and pleads with Neil for them to go to the cemetery to stop the ritual. However, when Neil goes to get the car, Angela suspects him of trying to leave her and snaps his neck. "I could have used a few like her in Hell," Crowley approved. "Ruthless, quick, and efficient, good demonic help is so hard to come by."

"All subordinates are reflections of their leader," Cas said.

"I wonder what that should say about Michael," the demon shot back.

"I don't follow Michael, haven't in years, the moment I chose to rebel I was no longer his subordinate or anyone's," Cas growled.

He wasn't supposed to be a subordinate in the first place, they're brothers. "You're family though, I mean I guess I've never thought about it but why is Heaven so militarized when you call each other brother and sister? You call God father."

Cas frowned, "I do not recall much but Heaven under Michael was vastly different from that of our Father's."

Understatement. "I'm sorry." With nothing else to say, they continued to watch the show. Angela went after TV!Sam who lured her to the grave and TV!Dean pinned her down with a silver stake. Once they left, TV!Dean finally came clean to his brother. He felt that it was no coincidence that John died right after his miraculous recovery. Confused, he was certain that it was his fault that John was dead. More than that, he regretted coming back, feeling he should have stayed dead. The show ended softly and the room remained silent.

"It was not your fault," Mary said firmly. "John would never blame you and neither do I."

"Hey," Sam bravely tried lightening the mood. "At least you got over the whole unnatural part of coming back."

"Yeah," Dean said hollowly. "I'll be right back." He got up and left, all but running to the hall where a voice from behind stopped him.

"Dean."