-Summary: It's the end of the world and they've got one last card to play. Castiel sends Dean back: back before everything. Now he has time to stop what's coming, but no friggin' clue how to do it. Time travel should really come with a manual. TIMELINE AU

-Reviews: Thank you so much for the support and wonderful, amazing, encouraging comments you sent my way, especially in response to my discouragement. I needed them, and though they didn't kick me out of my stupid writer's rut of darkness and misery, they kept me chugging at the story, even when I was so weighed down worrying about posting schedules and keeping you all waiting. You all pulled for me, and I'm going to keep pulling for you. I will spend some time this week trying to catch up with all the amazing comments you beautiful, beautiful people sent my way. Thank you so much for the support and encouragement.

-Chapter Warnings: Uh...I'm gonna mess with your heartstrings for the next... let's say three chapters. At least. #sorryNotSorry?

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (This Time Around)

Season 2: Chapter 1

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Dean sat up slowly. His shoulders slumped in a manner as foggy and slow as his brain. He surveyed the space around him just as slowly, taking extra time to translate the white walls and beeping machines into recognizable information. Hospital. His mouth was a land of cotton, and he wet the roof repeatedly to get some saliva going. The room he was in was empty of other people. A private room, which didn't bode well, but Dean felt oddly uninjured, which was weird.

The only times he'd ever woken up in the hospital were the ones where he wasn't usually conscious upon arrival or damn near bleeding out if he was. Hunters didn't mess with government-funded medical aide unless they had no other choice.

Dean rolled his shoulders, wincing at the tightness of heavy muscles. He took in a deep breath, rubbing absently at his chest and the funny feeling there. It was like he couldn't get enough air in for how big his lungs felt, how empty his torso seemed. He added it to the list of weird he was making in his head.

"Sam?"

The hunter grimaced as he swung his legs off the side of the hospital bed. Dean catalogued the rest of his body. He felt banged up and heavy in a groggy sort of way, but overall nothing seriously hurt. He rose to his feet cautiously, but they held him with no complaints and he frowned at the white walls around him.

Why the hell was he here if he wasn't hurt?

Dean glanced around for his clothes, his bare feet abnormally cold on the hospital tile. All of him was abnormally cold. What, did nurses here not believe in heat? He was clad only in blue scrub pants and a white t-shirt, which really didn't seem enough for the chill in the air. But his civvies weren't anywhere in the room, and the hunter really hoped that didn't bode ill for the condition of his clothes, especially his dad's jacket.

Although if he was up and at 'em, he couldn't have come in too bad.

Dean made it to the door, which was open to the corridor beyond. There wasn't anyone immediately in the hallway as he stuck his head out, checking either direction. Not unheard of, but still kinda weird. He added it to the list as flashes of zombie movies stuck in his brain; opening and closing scenes of flicks like Resident Evil and 28 Days Later running through his head. The rational part of his brain chuckled. He watched way too much television. The hunting part of his brain knew how crappy his luck could be and was busy thinking, 'it's 2006, dumbass; demons are still developing the Croatoan virus and a Zombie Apocalypse isn't off the table yet.'

Dean swallowed a little more heavily than he'd intended and turned back into his room. Maybe the hallways could wait until he saw some normal, living, non-decomposing humans wandering around. A hot nurse, even.

He froze, now facing into the room, and he blinked at the unconscious body lying on the bed he'd just climbed out of. His unconscious body, intubated and covered in wires connected to a dozen beeping machines. There were casts around multiple limbs, and what wasn't wrapped in plaster was covered in thick layers of gauze. Chest, leg, shoulder, free arm. Patches of a bruised and swollen face were covered too.

Holy shit, that poor SOB looked dead.

One of the machines beeped, drawing his stunned attention to it. An EKG readout was beeping faster, numbers flashing higher on the monitor just over his body's head. Blood pressure and brain activity relayed blips and graphs on other machines on either side of the bed. The brain activity display was as smooth as the horizon in the middle of the Utah salt flats.

Dean was staring at his unconscious, unresponsive, dying body lying in a hospital bed ten feet away from his current self.

That made him a ghost – or a soon to be ghost.

"Son of a bitch!"

-o-o-o-

It took him another floor and several room searches later to find his brother. Sam was walking down the hallway in the same street clothes he'd worn when Azazel had taken them. Dean felt immediate relief at the sight of him upright and mostly uninjured.

"Sammy! Thank God, man-"

His kid brother walked right through him, causing Dean to shudder and ripple with sweeping cold. He stumbled backwards into the wall and had to physically shake the terrible sensation out of his not-body.

Right. Ghost.

Dean chased after his brother, catching up so he could circle him for a once over and assess whether he was actually okay or not. Sure, the kid was upright, but it wouldn't be the first time Sammy had neglected medical treatment when his family was hurting far worse. Martyrdom ran thick in the Winchester blood.

He was a bit more banged up than Dean last remembered him, though to be honest, the hunter was a bit hazy on everything after the demon decided to get personally acquainted with his soul. The kid had a cut above his left eye which was stitched closed, a couple scrapes on his face, neck, and the backs of his hands. There was some bruising spread across his left temple and cheek, and Dean surmised that he'd taken a bash to the head from a wide object.

Or maybe a wide object had taken a bash from his brother's head. Dread pooled in Dean's stomach. A car crash. Those injuries looked like the kind you got in a car crash. There had been an accident, with Sam driving in the front seat and…

"Dad."

He followed his brother down the hall, urging him to move his giant body faster and frantically hoping the cup of coffee in his hand was for their missing father.

"Tell me Dad's alright, Sammy," he begged his brother, already knowing the kid couldn't hear him but talking anyway. "Tell me he got us away from that yellow eyed bastard."

Sure enough, the sasquatch turned into a room a couple doors down, and Dean let out a hearty breath of relief at the sight of John Winchester sitting upright in the room's only bed. His right arm was done up in a sling and he had similar cuts and bruising as Sammy along the opposite side of his body.

Car crash for sure then. Dad had been sitting passenger side. It was hazy, but Dean remembered needing to warn them.

Right. Warn them, because he'd known the semi was going to plow into his Baby. Because it had happened before. Because he was from the future, it was 2006, and a demon had run them off the road. Dean looked around the room, then down at himself. Which meant this had happened before too.

Crap, he didn't remember being a ghost. He vaguely remembered waking up in the hospital after the crash, Sam telling him he'd totally been a spirit and they used a Ouija board of all things to communicate. Dean snapped his gaze back to his brother. Crap, he needed a Ouija board and he needed it right fucking now.

The next thing that was going to happen was their dad selling his soul to bring Dean back.

"No," Dean sputtered, fists tightening as he stood in the doorway. Dread filled his stomach and panic flooded his chest, because the last time John had been lying in a hospital bed with his son dying a floor away, Dean had woken up and his Dad never did again. "No, not now. Not now! What the hell, we should have months!"

It was May. John Winchester died in July – July nineteenth, ten-forty-one a.m., two thousand and fucking six – and it was May.

"What else did the doctors say about Dean?" John pried the lid off the coffee cup, blowing gently against the rising steam and wincing as the expansion of his lungs jostled his bruised torso and broken collar bone.

"Sam, man, tell me you can hear me!" Dean moved right up to his brother, standing across their father's bed from him and waving his arms uselessly. "You gotta stop him. Sammy!"

He yelled at the top of his lungs, but he already knew it wouldn't make any difference.

Sam was quiet, staring down at the edge of the sheets. There was anger on his face, along with fear. "Nothing. Just that there's not… He's in a coma."

There was a tense pause to the room as Sam shuffled on his feet and John stared at him expectantly. The young hunter stood awkwardly for a moment before he sunk, slowly, into the plastic chair beside John's bed. "The, uh, damage to his chest coupled with the blood loss… They don't think he'll wake up."

Their dad looked away, emotions of his own warring across his face. Dean wished he could remember the last time he'd landed himself in this position so he could skip out on watching his family fall apart again, knowing he was the cause. If he could remember that nothing in the conversation was vital, or if he knew whatever they might say that was, he could just leave. He could focus on getting back in his body so his father didn't sell his soul to do it for him.

But he didn't know, because he couldn't remember it. And there was no way in hell was letting John Winchester out of his sight for the next forty-eight hours. Nevermind that he should have had months before this happened. Nevermind that Time seemed determined to screw him at every turn. Dean clenched his teeth and fought back the overwhelming wave of it's not fair that screamed from every muscle.

Whining about it wouldn't do him any good now. He had to save his dad, and to do that he had to get a Quija board.

"Okay. Okay, think, Winchester, think. How do I get you to hear me?" Dean paced along his brother's bed for a moment before the lightbulb hit. He didn't need to make Sam hear him, he just needed to get his attention. And doing that, as a ghost, shouldn't be that hard at all.

Dean might not remember being a spirit the last time this happened, but it wasn't the only time he'd been one.

The hunter focused on the cup of coffee his dad had just set down on the little bed table. Dean didn't hesitate, pulling back his arm and swinging his fist right through it. He spun with the force of the punch he'd fully expected to land. Nothing. Dean stared back at the unmoved coffee cup, then the hand that had gone right through it.

"What the hell?" He let out an exasperated noise and tried again. And again. "Son of a bitch, I forgot how hard this was."

He hadn't spent time as a spirit in years. He resumed his earlier pacing, staring at the coffee cup and ignoring the conversation his father and brother were having. He tried to remember what that kid – Cole – had taught them back when death had decided to take a holiday for a couple weeks. That kid had been as Amityville-badass as ghost kids got.

Dean stopped moving as memory turned into realization. He and Sam had turned themselves into ghosts so they could talk to the kid whose spirit was left behind. Their only lead in the case, actually. Cole had been haunting his childhood home and driving his poor mom to the brink of emotional sanity all because Death wasn't around yet and the town reaper had been nabbed by demons. One of the seals. Dean remembered being with the kid when a second reaper had come to town to rectify death's little holiday.

Tessa.

The hunter spun around, scanning the room. He may not remember much of their first meeting outside of what she had shown him that day in Cole's bedroom, but Dean could put the pieces together. He was damn sure this was their first meeting.

So where was she?

Dean popped his head out of his dad's room, looking up and down the hallway. When no petite little thing with black hair and a cold smile showed up, Dean turned back to his family and put the MIA reaper on the backburner – for now. She'd show eventually and he'd tell her to shove off whenever she did. He had more important things to worry about than Death's messenger.

John was handing his youngest a list of supplies to have Bobby wrangle up and Sam was staring down at the piece of paper with a frown. Dean read over his shoulder even as his brother listed a couple of the things aloud.

That dread immediately came back as he recognized the ingredients, clear as day.

"Protection," John answered with a small, weary smile.

"Like hell," Dean growled back, glaring at his dad and then looking up at his brother, anger shifting to panic. "It's not for protection, Sammy! That's stuff's for summoning a demon. Don't you bring him any of it!"

But Sam was already moving for the door.

"No, Sam, don't listen to him! He's gonna make a deal, damn it!"

Sam left the room, completely deaf to Dean's warnings. The spirit followed after his brother, panic rising as he tried to catch his attention, swiping left and right at anything in the hallway he could knock into. His fist went through every time and his desperation mounted.

He needed more time.

Sam stepped into the elevator and Dean raised his arm to punch his brother straight in the face, uncaring if the damn move didn't do a thing to touch him. At least it would be cathartic to the building frustration.

A flash of tan caught his attention and the hunter froze, staring down the hall to his left. The doors of the elevator closed with a ding, Dean still standing there with his fist raised.

"Cas."

The angel stood at the end of the hall, staring straight at him. He was wearing that damn beautiful, familiar trench coat, his dress shirt askew and blue tie still missing. Dean lowered his arm, a weird mixture of relief and sorrow filling him so quickly he was soon overwhelmed, feeling like he couldn't handle any more surprises without just about losing it.

The angel turned and walked around the corner.

Shit.

Dean shook himself, stowing his emotional crap, and headed after him, calling the angel's name.

-o-o-o-

"What else did the doctors say about Dean?"

Sam stared at the edges of the thin hospital blanket draped over his father's legs as he mumbled something. He wasn't even sure what; his mouth was working while his brain lagged eons behind.

Dean was in a coma. Dean was in a coma.

Had this happened last time? Sam closed his eyes against the swell of terror and damn near insurmountable loss. He hoped it had. He prayed to God it had, because that meant Dean pulled through.

A hand landed on his forearm, the weight of the cast heavy against his skin. Sam looked up at his father, leaning forward painfully on the bed, a clear wince in his features, as he tried to comfort his youngest son.

"He'll pull through, Sammy. Your brother's tough."

The youngest Winchester cleared his throat, looking up and away to clear the water from his eyes. John didn't mention it, just settled back into the pillows with a grimace. He reached forward with his unbroken arm, swiping his wallet off the small table attached to the bed.

The coffee cup rattled slightly on the table, and Sam frowned at it before his father held out a card for him and drew his attention back.

"Here, give them my insurance."

Sam took the card, looking down at it with a disbelieving smirk, feeling a momentary bit of laughter in the dark. "Ellroy McGillicutty?"

John returned the same silver-lining, world-weary smile. "And his two loving sons. Are they asking questions?"

Sam blew a humorless breath of air out his nostrils. "The cops asked a few. They wanted to know why you had a gun with an empty clip and a recently fired antique."

The EMTs that had pulled them from the crushed car found John with both Dean's .45 and the Colt. Sam hadn't realized his father had retrieved Dean's gun from the cabin, but he wasn't all that surprised. John had given each of them an ivory-gripped gun when they'd been old enough. When they'd become true hunters. It was Dean's favorite weapon and one of his most cherished possessions he never went on a hunt without it. The fact that John had taken time to retrieve it caused a swell of emotion and a surprising amount of forgiveness in the youngest Winchester.

"Where's the Colt?"

And there went those happy feelings. Sam tried to ignore the flare of hurt and anger that sprung up as his father inevitably asked about that damn gun. At least he had asked about Dean first.

"Cops have it in evidence. I told them about the cabin." He looked away from John at that, burying down the memories he didn't feel like dealing with at the moment. The cops had needed answers and the best lie Sam could think of was the truth. "I told them me and my brother were kidnapped. That you were a former marine and came after us once you got the ransom demand."

His father chuckled, a wry smile on his face as he leaned back against the pillows. "Dean would like that. Sounds just like a movie."

Sam smiled back, having had similar thoughts when he was spinning the tale for the local law enforcement. "It helped explain his injuries, too. Doctors tend to have questions when you come in looking like you went a dozen rounds with a serial killer."

Silence settled on the room again like a shroud, the roller coaster of emotions between both men a sad reminder of the state of all three of them. Sam chewed on his lip the moment he realized it was trembling. John was silent as he watches at his youngest son, feeling his pain but never showing it.

"I need you to get that gun."

Sam closed his eyes and pretended he hadn't heard his father say that.

"Sammy."

Brown eyes flashed back open. "Your son is dying and you're worried about the Colt?"

John's jaw clenched against the insolent tone, but he fought through the anger that surged at his youngest's flagrant but oh-so-common insubordination. "That demon is hunting us as surely as we're hunting it. The gun may be our only card."

Sam ground his teeth and spoke through a clenched jaw. "They'll release it back to us as soon as they clear the cabin. A day or two, tops."

"You wanna give that bastard two days to catch up to us? Or time to steal it from the cops? You and I both know a demon could waltz right into a police station without breaking a sweat." John skewered him with a pointed look. Sam held firm for stubbornness alone, at least until his dad started pulling back the covers. "Fine, I'll get it myself."

The youngest Winchester had half a mind to let his stubborn, suicidal father do just that, but reality and the fact that he didn't want his dad dead (or arrested) any more than he did his brother, made him finally relent. He agreed to break into the police evidence locker after nightfall. Luckily, it was a small town and the local LEOs seemed pretty friendly as far as cops went. Security would most likely be lax, and the station less manned while officers were out looking for a kidnapper and torturer.

Thanks to Dean, it wouldn't even be his first time breaking into one.

"You gotta clean out the trunk of the Impala before some junk man sees what's inside, too," his dad added, picking up his wallet and pulling out a piece of notepaper, the type you write grocery lists on.

"I called Bobby already," Sam replied with a bitter smirk. When Dean saw the state of his car, he was going to kill every demon in a three state radius. Sam would gladly be there to see it. "He's going to tow the car back to his place."

John raised surprised eyebrows. "From Michigan?"

Sam shrugged with a huff of breath. "Dean would kill us if we left it here. Doesn't matter how bad a shape she's in."

His dad nodded with a knowing smile. "Alright, well, you go meet up with Bobby. Get that Colt, and bring it back to me. And watch out for hospital security."

Sam almost rolled his eyes as he stood and made his way around the bed. After stealing a gun from a police station, smuggling it into a hospital would be the easy part. "I think I've got it covered."

"Hey, here." The younger hunter paused as his father held out that piece of paper for him. He grabbed it with a curious frown. "I made a list of things I need. Have Bobby pick 'em up for me."

Sam read through the list, some of them aloud. He looked at his dad with a raised brow. "What's this stuff for?"

"Protection," John answered with a smile that only made Sam more suspicious. He glanced down at the list again before turning on his heel and exiting his father's hospital room. Mentally, he was going through the things on the list, trying to recall what spells some of them were for. But John had never let the boys mix with that stuff. If the hunting family needed spell work done, John had been the one to do it, or find someone else who could. Sam cursed not ever digging more into magic, especially now that Dean was dying and some hoodoo priest or witch may be their only option at recovery. He resolved to ask Bobby for a book or two. He'd certainly have the downtime for research with both brother and father out of commission.

As he got in the elevator, a chill racked through his body briefly, and his brow furled at the familiar, ghost like cold that surrounding him for only a second.

The doors closed and it was gone.

Sam stood frozen within the elevator, a crazy thought occurring to him. And once he'd thought it, he couldn't seem to let it go.

"Dean?" Brown eyes scanned the space almost nervously, as if expecting his brother to flicker into existence like the many ghosts he'd seen in his life. He checked behind him, spinning a quick circle in the elevator. "Dean, are you here?"

The elevator pinged and the doors opened to several expectant people. They stared at him, half turned around in the small space and talking to no one. Sam cleared his throat, smiled at them weakly, ignored the pull to his split lip and numerous cuts and bruises, and pushed through into the lobby of the hospital.

He turned and watched the elevator fill up with nurses and visitors, none of whom seemed cold in the slightest. Disappointment tugged at his chest. The doors closed and Sam was left with nothing he could do but go meet Bobby and break into a police station.

-o-o-o-

Cas made it six doors down the new hall before Dean caught up, curling his hand around the angel's bicep to pull him to a stop. It was a crazy relief when his hand didn't sink right through him, and Dean rejoiced for a second of feeling real again. Castiel turned with a stoic look, as though he hadn't heard Dean call his name several times in his chase to catch up. For a moment, Dean struggled against that piercing gaze. It was easy to forget how ridiculously, over the top blue those eyes were when you hadn't seen them in a while.

"Hello, Dean."

The hunter was still trying to get his brain to function with his tongue beyond "holy crap, it's really Cas," when the familiar, gravel-gargled voice beat him to it. It was all Dean could do not to grin like an idiot. He totally failed and his face splint in an ear-to-ear smile. Man, the angel probably had no clue how good it was to hear that stupid, simple greeting that had become something of a catchphrase between them.

He pulled Cas into a tight hug, gripping the back of that damn trench coat with all that he had. It was rare for Winchester men to really hug. It usually took one of them almost dying. Or, more commonly, actually dying and coming back. The angel returned the gesture slowly, stiff arms coming up to wrap around Dean's back in an awkward pat that only made the hunter laugh.

Dean pulled away, keeping the angel at arm length, but still in contact. There was an irrational hunch in the back of his brain that said the guy might run again if he didn't keep a tight grip.

"Man, Cas, is it good to see you." The hunter did a quick once over of his friend, making sure he wasn't injured. The angel seemed fine – solid and whole as he ever was. Not a hint of an explosion in sight. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Dean's brow pinched in thought before he'd gotten the question fully out. He glanced around. The hallway wasn't a particularly busy one, but there was still the odd visitor or nurse passing through, none of which paid any attention to the two of them. "Are you…Are you a ghost, too? Can angels even be ghosts?"

"No. I'm a…" the angel paused, looking for the right word that the English language clearly didn't have, "…shadow. I'm not here, Dean. Not really. And it's almost time for me to go."

Blue eyes shifted down the hall, and Dean followed the gaze on instinct. There was nothing there, though Cas seemed to be intently staring at something. The hunter shook his head, confusion and fear weighing with one another. He had about a thousand questions, and no time for the angel's frequent disappearing acts.

He settled his hand on Cas's other arm, firmly locking him in place without realizing that's what he was doing. The angel turned back to him. "Go where? What the hell are you talking about, man?"

"To move on, of course."

Dean blinked at the straight up response. Then he blinked again, and pulled a bitchface that would have made Sam proud. "What?"

"It's my time, Dean."

"Like hell it is." The refusal wasn't just adamant, it was downright fact, as only a Winchester could say in the face of…what, death? Is that what Cas was talking about? Honestly, the hunter didn't even know. The angel certainly wasn't making much sense. "Look, we can deal with whatever…this is, after we stop Dad."

The angel tilted his head, brow finally pinching in some expression beyond that wide-eyed, vacant look he had once been famous for. "Your father?"

"Yeah, Cas," Dean answered, somewhat exasperated. But he reigned it in, taking a deep breath, counting to ten, and using the time to remind himself that maybe Cas was about as confused as he was. They needed to get a baseline going – get them both on the same page. The angel knew who Dean was, so it wasn't present-day-Cas. Which meant maybe the angel didn't realize he'd hitched a ride back with him to 2006.

Speaking of.

"Cas, do you know where you are?"

The angel tilted his head to the side. "McLaren Flint Hospital, fifth floor."

Dean blinked. Wait, they were in Flint? He hadn't actually bothered checking where they were – ironic, considering what he'd just asked the angel – because anything beyond the general 'hospital' conclusion he'd come to had seemed unnecessary at the time. Hospital was all he needed to know.

Flint wasn't that far from Saginaw, he reasoned. But Azazel had had them in the middle of nowhere. He was sure of it. Even concussed, Dean figured that cabin they were held in was north of Saginaw. It had been colder, for one. Not by much, but the hunter had plenty of experience picking up the subtleties of an unfamiliar environment. He'd figured they were closer to one of the lakes, given that crisp humidity in the air that always seemed present around bodies of water – miniscule ponds to vast oceanic expanses – and the way the cabin screamed eerie-haunted-lake-with-guaranteed-monster-legend nearby.

Of course, Michigan was riddled with a hell of a lot smaller lakes than the Great ones. They really could have been anywhere. He just figured north because it made the most sense, and it was where he would have carted off a prisoner for some loud, messy forms of questioning.

Not that being in a hospital in Flint meant he was wrong about where they were being held. Only that they'd been helicoptered to the nearest trauma center, rather than an ambulance ride away to a local hospital. Given his body was lying in a coma, more plaster than man at this point, he really shouldn't be surprised that they may have been air-lifted from wherever that truck had slammed into his Baby.

Suddenly he was glad to have been out cold for that bit. As Bruce Willis as an emergency helicopter flight would have been, Dean had enough issues with planes. He really didn't need to experience an even less recoverable form of flight.

The hunter focused back in on Cas, who was still staring at him with a little frown, unmoving beneath his grip. "No, I mean what year."

The brows on Jimmy Novak's face went up almost to his hairline in a moment of expressive emotion that Dean was far more used to from his best friend nowadays (or, uh, ten years in the future?) than that vacant stare that reminded him, creepily, of Naomi's control.

"The year?"

"Yeah, buddy, the year." Dean was trying to ignore the worry eating at his stomach now. He had thought, given that bomb in his chest that he didn't fully understand and Cas standing here now, visible to him but unseen by everyone else, that maybe the angel had caught a ride after all. Maybe Bobby had been right and not all of him had made it.

Dean couldn't fathom any other reason he would be seeing Cas, like a ghost, while he himself was a spirit and his body lay dying after the Yellow Eyed Demon had definitely mentioned angels and been blasted away from him in an explosion of light not unlike a smiting.

God, he had so many questions his head hurt.

The least of which was are you possessing me/am I a vessel/why have you ignored me for six months/are you really here/what the hell Cas? Okay, that was more than one question, but they were all equally vying for attention that he'd rather just group them together and get one solid response for all of it. Because he was kind of drowning, and it only got worse every time he let himself think about that explosion or the warmth in his chest. A warmth that, for the last six months, he'd figured was the absence of friggin' Hell weighing on his soul. Now he was starting to think it might have been a chunk of his best friend lodged in his sternum the entire time.

Only angels didn't hitch rides in human chest cavities. Not without permission. And the world may have been ending, but he liked to think he'd remember something like that. Cas hadn't asked, and he hadn't given anything. Not that he wouldn't have. Maybe. Probably. If it meant bringing Cas with him to the past, then yes. Or saving his life. Yeah, okay, maybe he somehow had given him permission without saying it aloud.

Was that a thing? Could he have even done that?

A small flash of panic flared at the thought. Crap. He was a vessel. Was he a vessel? Shit. He didn't even know, nor did he know how to feel about it, either way. It had been a while since the Winchester boys had dealt with angels trying to get all up inside either of them, but the thought of 'hell no' and 'that's bad' and 'over my dead body' were still pretty permanently ingrained in his being after that last year of the apocalypse. Not to mention the whole Gadreel incident and that last year with Lucifer back.

But it was Cas, so it couldn't be that bad, right?

Dean gave himself another mental shake. None of this mattered right now! Cas wasn't using him as a vessel. Yes, maybe the hunter would have let him ride around in Taxi a la Dean if it was the only way he could have made the trip back, but he hadn't and the angel wasn't. Dean had clearly been in charge of his own actions for the last six months, and it's not like he could be housing a halo without realizing it.

Except…this wasn't the first time an angel had gone subterfuge on the possession thing before. Sammy went months without knowing he was hosting a co-pilot. Distress flared throughout Dean's mind. Sam had been pissed when he'd found out. And this wasn't the first time Castiel had played the game of staying out of Dean's life for Dean's sake.

Had Cas been with him the entire time and said nothing?

"It's 2006, Dean."

The hunter blinked as the angel brought him back to the present. Er…past. Whatever. Point was, the angel knew the year, but was clearly in no hurry to go stop John Winchester from selling his soul to save his son. Nor did he seem to even know that was a thing that was going to happen, and lead to much, much worse things in the long run.

What the hell is going on?

Dean shook the question – all of the questions – off for the time being. It didn't matter; he could sort where the angel stood – where he and Cas stood together – after they saved his Dad.

"Look, I don't know what's going on with you," Dean started, giving his best friend a light shake through his tight grip on the angel's arms, "but I need you right now, buddy."

The angel seemed torn for a moment, eyes drifting back down the hallway to stare at nothing before he refocused his piercing gaze on Dean. That gaze that had never been able to deny Dean Winchester anything, and now was no exception. Slowly, he nodded. "I will help you."

Dean let out a breath and nodded in relief. He released the angel, taking a step back. "Great. Awesome. Okay."

The two then stood in the hallway as nurses passed by – sometimes through – them. Seconds ticked away as they stood in awkward silence, each waiting on the other. Finally, Cas shifted, uneasy, from one foot to the other.

"Where do we start?"

The hunter blew out another breath of air at the angel's question. Great. So Cas didn't have any ideas, either. "I have no friggin' clue. We gotta get Sam up to speed, but he's gone to meet with Bobby. So…until he gets back, we make sure Dad doesn't summon any demons, and we keep an eye out for Azazel."

"Demons?" The look Cas gave was shrewd and suspicious; it caught Dean by surprise. The angel stared up at him like he was the one not making any sense.

The hunter regarded his friend with a frown. Okay, Cas's brain must have been more scrambled then he'd thought. Another thing to shove aside and deal with later. "Yeah. Dad's gonna summon him and make a deal to save me. We have to stop him."

Intense blue eyes regarded him severely, and Dean kept right on frowning. "If you stop him from saving you…you'll die."

Yeah, okay, there was that. Honestly, Dean hadn't gotten that far. Dying was second to stopping Dad from sacrificing himself. He'd figure out what to do about his own not-dying problem after they'd solved John's.

"We'll figure it out, alright?" Dean offered his friend a weak smile. "We always do, don't we?"

Cas tilted his head to the side, and the hunter found the familiar gesture comforting, if not amusing. The angel held his arm out in an 'after you' gesture, and Dean took a deep breath, then plowed on ahead, down the hospital hallway, back towards his father's room.

They were on Winchester Guard Duty until Sam got back. And in the meantime, Cas could probably teach him how to move stuff in ghost-form.