-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

-A/Ns: Oh. My. Chuck. Guys, I can't even. I'm like...type-stuttering. The amount of crazy support for last chapter was (not to be redundant, but) crazy. The excitement that this story was back, the joy of Cas's first appearance, the suspicions at his weirdness, and the many guesses as to what would come next had me fighting tooth and nail against posting this chapter every day last week. Every day! I wanted to hand it over to you all so badly. You beautiful, beautiful people. So thank you, truly, from the very bottom of my Muse's heart :)

-Chapter Warnings: We continue with the dramatic angst and the heartstring pulling. Dean's (re)learning lessons on being a ghost, John's dodging the results of ghost-lessons, and Sam's just about running all over the place.

-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 2

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

"It's not going to move if you just keep punching it."

Dean huffed out a frustrated breath, straightening up from his last attempt at taking on the empty coffee cup. His opponent just sat there on his dad's bedside table, mocking him in all its papery not-moved-ness.

The hunter threw an arm out at the thing in frustration, and it sunk right through. He whipped his head around at the angel with a glare, daring him to say anything more. Cas was sitting on his dad's bed, heedless of the man's legs going straight through his incorporeal butt and thighs. The angel looked bored, of all things, as he stared at the hunter, unimpressed.

John Winchester was oblivious to their presence. He was reading through a mindless magazine a nurse had left him after he'd flirted his way into getting his cell phone and clothes back. He'd really had to work it, too, since the items were in police custody. Dean stopped watching the sickeningly sappy scene rather quickly, growing increasingly uncomfortable and feeling like a right down voyeur. It was particularly off-putting as it was his father doing the flirting.

John was a widower; he wasn't dead (yet) (Shut up, Inner Dean). Dean knew that, as a man, he had needs. He'd always been discrete around his kids though, particularly sensitive to the fact that he had two young boys who lost their mother very early. Maybe he'd been a little too discrete, given he had a third child that neither Sam nor Dean had ever suspected existed, let alone heard about.

Dean wondered if he should reach out to Adam earlier this time, or try to keep him out of the whole mess entirely. He really didn't have a clue which one would result in the bigger catastrophe, but, given how things had turned out so far, one of them certainly would. Still, he'd make sure when those ghouls rolled around that either the Milligans weren't in town or the Winchesters were.

Secret siblings aside, the nurse had come back, pep in her step, fifteen minutes later with his phone, clothes, car keys, and a magazine tucked right on top. Men's Health of all things. Dean had snorted so hard he was sure his dad heard it.

But back to the damn coffee cup.

"By all means, show me how it's done then!" The hunter took a step back, haughty words hanging in the air between the human and angel. Dean turned his back on the innocent paper cup and regarded his friend with a challenge in his eyes.

Castiel raised a single brow, but the spark in his own blue gaze suggested Dean's tactic to get the angel to just do the work for him had been spotted easily. Cas shook his head. If Dean didn't know any better, he'd say the bastard was amused. "You're trying to attack it physically, but you don't have a body."

Dean huffed again, but continued to stare at the angel, ignoring his lesson just like Cas had ignored his challenge. "You telling me you can't move one tiny little cup?"

The angel's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Dean knew he won, and the next second Cas flicked his hand and the paper cup tumbled off the small table. It landed on the floor, rolling in a lazy, slanted circle due to the lid before eventually settling on one side.

John Winchester's head snapped to follow the movement and silence reigned in the room.

"Hell yeah!" Dean cried out, raising his arms in a mock 'field goal' cry. He turned back to the angel, ignoring the hunter in the bed regarding the room with tense suspicion now. "Why do I even need to learn this; you can just catch Sammy's attention for me!"

Cas did not seem to share in his friend's victory or amusement.

"Dean?" John's voice was tight, sharp eyes casting about the room slowly. His hand twitched atop the blankets, itching for a weapon of any sort. No hunter was stupid enough to blindly assume a ghost – or any supernatural creature making objects fly about a room – was a friendly, even if they could put two and two together and assume it was their own kin.

Dean glanced at his father, then back to Castiel. The angel stared at him with blatant expectation, glancing between the elder and younger Winchester with a pointed look.

The hunter sagged, casting his friend an annoyed glare of his own before he cast about for something else in the room he could try and move. He zoned in on the magazine in his father's lap, still held loosely but mostly resting against his thighs. Dean narrowed his eyes on a single, glossy page. His brow furled in concentration, jaw clenched and pulse point in his temple flaring.

The corner fluttered, but nothing else happened.

John relaxed slightly, a little bit of the tension in his form fading out as nothing else in the room moved.

"Argh!" Dean turned away from the magazine in frustration. He couldn't even move a friggin' flimsy piece of paper. Cas was back to looking amused.

"I told you. You're attacking it physically."

"Well how the hell else am I supposed to hit it!" The hunter gave up, settling in the plastic visitor's chair his brother had occupied earlier that afternoon.

"You don't have fists to hit things with. You're a spirit, Dean. You're nothing but a soul right now." Castiel turned his gaze to the older hunter, and he reached out his hand. With palm up, he slowly turned his hand over, and the top page of the magazine lifted and turned.

John stiffened once more, staring down at the paper as it flipped again and again. He breathed out his son's name shakily.

The angel turned back to Dean. "You're not a being, you're an essence. Your power is not in force, but in presence."

"Alright, Gandhi," the man from the future groused, crossing his arms. "Give it to me again, in layman's terms."

The angel huffed a little sigh of his own, but the look he bestowed on the frustrated human was almost fond. "Think, don't act."

Dean frowned. That was hardly any better. But he remembered the ghost kid, Cole, telling him to get angry, right before he'd goaded him and his brother into a twelve-year-old fight club (which had been, he could now admit, downright hilarious). He turned back to the magazine. John was alternating between it, the coffee cup, and the rest of the room, clearly indecisive about how to proceed when the possible hunt staring him in the face was his own son.

His own son who was doing a terrible job at getting a message across. Not that that's what Dean was doing – this was just practice. But if Dean had been the one sitting in a hospital bed with a dying Sammy next door and crap flying through the room, he'd be expecting a friggin' translatable message, damn it.

So he tried not to act. He tried not to move his body at all in response to the very physical action he was trying to perpetrate. Instead, he focused on the single page he was trying to turn, and kept at it until he was able to picture it moving up and folding over again and again and again.

The page fluttered, struggled, and then flipped over.

His back straightened, delighted shock clear on his face as he looked back at Cas. The angel chuckled at his success and mockingly clapped his hands slowly at his friend's achievement. Dean could even ignore the uncharacteristic sarcasm in the move, since John had finally made up his mind as to what to do next. In a flurry of movement, he reached for the phone sitting atop his pile of clothes on the table beside him. It was dialing and pressed to his ear in seconds.

"Sammy?" John sounded almost desperate, slightly watery eyes still staring down at the open magazine. If anyone else walked in, it would be damn near laughable to see the staunch, hard-ass marine almost in tears over a full spread of Usher discussing his fitness and nutrition secrets. Dean was feeling pretty damn giddy himself. "I need you to pick up one more thing for me."

-o-o-o-

Sam raced back to the hospital in his dad's pickup in the early hours of the morning. The cops had turned the vehicle over to him shortly after he'd been cleared by hospital staff earlier that day. The young man had given his report about the cabin and the 'kidnapping' only an hour after the chopper had landed on the roof of McLaren Flint trauma center. Sam walked away without even getting checked in, cleared with only minor injuries from the crash. The eighteen wheeler had hit the passenger side of the car, damaging his dad a lot more than him, and he hadn't been injured beforehand or unbuckled in the backseat like his brother.

Local law enforcement found the cabin almost immediately after he'd given them a rundown of events. It wasn't hard to backtrack the road they'd been on to the abandoned building once they knew to look for it. They'd found additional bodies – two young girls and a boy – out in the wood shed. Both girls had bled to death, and the young man's neck had been broken. Given what the police had told him, the bastard had killed those kids while Dean and Sam were less than a hundred feet away, tied up and bleeding to death in the cabin.

Sam tried not to let guilt eat away at him over the fact that Yellow Eyes had added more bodies to the death count in his pursuit of them, but his fingers ached around the steering wheel just thinking about it. God, that blood had probably been one of the girl's. Why else would a demon bleed a human to death? All Yellow Eyes would have had to do was possess one of the girls as he'd bled her dry, all to force it down Sam's throat in the end.

His trip back to the hospital, hurried as it was, was interrupted for the three and a half minutes it took the boy to pull off the road and empty his stomach into the bushes.

Although the cabin wasn't cleared yet, the cops hadn't found much reason to consider any of the Winchesters involved negatively. They were clearly victims, and with the testimony of the truck driver – who the cops concluded was, at best, drugged – they were pretty much scott-free. The biggest thing they'd have to do was clear the guns, and John and Dean both had licenses to carry and registration for their respective firearms. At worst, they might be slapped with a permit fine for the Colt, but Sam knew his dad could talk his way out of that easy.

Which made breaking into the Denton Police Department to retrieve the gun even more frustrating. The little township where they had been held – Backus, Michigan – was pretty shaken up over the horrific scene. The nearest police force, one town over in Denton, didn't see torture and triple body counts all that often (or likely ever). Except for a lack of suspect in custody, the case was open and shut in terms of the three survivors lucky to alive. If his dad could just wait another twenty-four hours, they'd get everything back from the cops, no further questions asked, and Sam wouldn't have had to break into an evidence locker in the middle of the night.

But John had a fair point about Yellow Eyes grabbing it before the police released it. Given that Sam had forced the demon's hand twice now with that gun, he was somewhat surprised it was still in the evidence box once he got into the storage locker.

Sam parked the truck hastily at the hospital, wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and shoved the evidence box with Dean's .45 and clothes under the passenger seat. It wouldn't be long before the police realized it was missing, and he needed to be sure they didn't suspect him or his family of taking it. He tucked the Colt into the bag of supplies Bobby had given him – anger sparking at what the gruff hunter had told him those ingredients were really for – and grabbed the last item his dad has asked for.

Tucking the large Ouija board box under his arm as inconspicuously as possible, he shouldered the small duffle and headed into the hospital, hopefully to talk to his brother. After he had words with his father.

-o-o-o-

When Sam entered the room at the start of visiting hours, laden with a duffle and a thin board game box, Dean stood from his father's bed, having pretty much spent the night camped out atop it alongside Castiel like they were sixth graders at a freaking summer camp sleepover. They hadn't quite gotten to braiding each other's hair yet, but boredom had driven Dean pretty damn close.

"Sammy, tell me you brought the Ouija board!" he called loudly in greeting. Sam crossed right in front of him and set the duffle bag on the bed where his brother had been seconds ago. He didn't say anything, placing a large, thin box beside it. Dean let out a whoop at the bold, white text and picture of a wooden board with a swirly set of letters. "Atta boy! Come on, let's crack this thing open and get talking."

Castiel slid off the bed, tilting his head to the same angle as the Ouija box, observing the photo across its front.

"You're quiet." John hadn't said anything when his youngest came in, but the silence combined with the tension in his son's tight shoulders were setting off alarm bells.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" Sam couldn't quite look at his father, worried he'd lose the calm he was barely holding onto; a calm that was maintained only by the possibility that his brother was around, waiting on them. Counting on them.

"What are you talking about?"

"The stuff, Dad." Sammy gestured emphatically to the duffel bag resting on John's legs, finally locking eyes on his father and unable to hold back the anger there. "You don't use it to ward off a demon; you use it to summon one."

Both Dean's and Cas's eyes drifted to the zipped up bag and Dean sucked in a slow breath, trying to keep his pulse even. Okay, so Dad had the means to summon Azazel. Didn't mean anything. They could still stop it. He just had to tell Sam what was happening and his kid brother would take care of it. Easy-Peasy.

"Come on, Sam. Don't do this right now. Just pick up the board and talk to me."

John went quiet, not quite able to meet his son's accusatory stare either, but Sam wasn't done. "You're planning on bringing the demon here, aren't you? Having some stupid, macho showdown!"

"No, he isn't, Sammy!" Dean stood in front of his brother, completely unseen, and begged the younger man to hear him. "Don't do this right now, man. You gotta talk to me! We can stop it."

"I have a plan, Sam."

John's words sent a spike of ice through Dean's chest and he clenched his fists against his sides.

"That's exactly my point! Dean is dying, and you have a plan!"

Dean tucked his chin against his chest as he struggled to control the panic flaring through his body. They didn't have time for this, and the more Sam argued with their dad, the more surely he drove the final nail into John's coffin.

Not that this was Sam's fault, nor had it been the first time. John was a stubborn bastard, and he had always intended to throw himself on that yellow-eyed grenade. But right now they had a chance to stop it, and that chance revolved entirely around Sam dropping this argument and picking up that Ouija board.

"Sammy, please. Please."

The youngest Winchester tossed his head in disbelief, anger breaking down into disappointment. "You know what? You care more about killing this demon than you do saving your own son!"

"Stop it."

"Do not tell me how I feel!" John bellowed back, grip on the bedcovers tightening. "I'm doing this for Dean!"

"I said STOP IT!" Dean slammed his hands down on the small, attached bed table. The whole bed shook with John on it, and the table and its contents rattled dangerously, metal protesting the abuse. An empty cup of Jell-O jittered right off the side, falling harmlessly onto the hospital blankets. The living hunters in the room froze as the metal arm sung out the last of the vibrations before settling into silence.

Dean stared in surprise at the table, drawing his fists off the pseudo-wooden surface. He glanced at Cas, who stood at the foot of the bed with something between surprise and approval in his blue eyes.

"You see that?" Dean asked with a weak chuckle. "I full on Swayze'd that mother."

Sam and John stared at the table, then each other, both knowing exactly who else was in the room with them. Sam's hand shook slightly as it reached out for the Ouija board. He stared down at the thing hopefully before glancing around the empty space.

John cleared his throat. He seemed both embarrassed and exhausted, and Sam fought back the twinge of guilt at seeing his dad so worn down.

"You, uh… You go see if you can get anything off that. They wanna do another round of X-rays on me in a minute anyway." He lifted a shoulder, indicating his busted arm with a half shrug. "Doc wants to make sure there's no nerve damage."

Sam's shoulders fell a bit but he nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. If Dean's really around I'll…uh, I'll get us all on the same page. Maybe he'll have some ideas or something. A hoodoo priest to lay some mojo on him." He let out a weak chuckle. "Or another faith healer."

"That was one in a million, Sammy," his father returned, not unkindly. The words might have been crushing, but the regret in his expression softened them. "We may not find another."

Sam sniffed, refusing to look up from the board in his hands. "I know. But I'm not gonna stop looking."

"Me either, son. We'll turn over every stone. I'm not giving up on him." His youngest nodded and headed for the door, likely back upstairs to Dean's room in the ICU. "And Sam? I promise. I won't hunt the demon until we know Dean's okay."

Sam nodded, trying for a smile but it felt weak. He left the room, leaving behind the unseen ghost of his older brother to stare, cautiously, at their father. Did he mean it? Was John going to wait, give Sam time to find another way – give Dean time to get back in his body himself – or was he just saying it to keep his youngest at bay? Again, Dean wished he could remember how this went down last time. Had they had this exact conversation before John Winchester sold his soul?

Not that it mattered either way; he had to speak with his brother. That was the first step. Since his dad had more appointments with the doctors, Dean couldn't do that and keep an eye on John Winchester. So he started for the door. Sam would be in his room trying to talk to him, and he didn't want to see how long his brother would hold out before deciding the Ouija board was a stupid idea.

Still, Dean hesitated again at the threshold to the hallway, turning to look back at his father once more. John sank into the pillows, closing his eyes with a deep, world-weary sigh he never would have allowed his sons to hear.

"Cas?" Dean turned his gaze to the angel, who was still standing at the foot of the bed, staring at John Winchester with a curious expression. Blue eyes met his. "We gotta go."

The angel nodded and crossed the room, passing him in the doorway to follow Sam up the couple of floors. Dean paused again, eyes lingering on his dad, who didn't look like he was planning on getting up or sneaking away anytime soon. He looked more likely to take a nap than summon a demon.

"Just wait, okay? Please, Dad. I'll figure something out and come back on my own. Just give me time." It was a whispered plea he knew his father couldn't hear, but maybe someone else – something else – would. Dean turned and headed back to his comatose body, trailing just behind Cas.

-o-o-o-

When they got to his room, Sam was talking quietly with a doctor who must have been in for a checkup when the younger Winchester arrived. The conversation was quiet in that nothing-good-is-being-said sort of way, and Dean didn't bother listening. He was dying, no hope, all they could do, yada yada yada. Instead, he settled cross-legged on the floor, waiting for his brother to inevitably shake off the doctor and join him.

God, why hadn't he just told Sam everything days ago? Then they wouldn't be in this mess, with the only one who knew anything lying useless in a coma, and their main form of communication a friggin hoodoo board set that was as likely to end them in a horror movie as it was to actually convey anything useful.

"Why do you think your father is going to make a deal to save your life?"

Dean looked up to the angel who had settled, rather relaxed, against the edge of the bed. It was weird to see his friend so…not-stiff. Even after years spent on Earth, Castiel carried himself like he didn't feel comfortable in his own body. Which, considering it didn't start out his, Dean had always written off as normal Cas.

The hunter wondered if being nothing but a shadow of what he was – like a memory somehow housed in his chest – had finally freed Cas of that physical limitation. Huh. Maybe Chrysler-Building-Tall, Real-Cas was, of all things, laid back in his true form.

Dean almost snorted at the thought of Castiel, Warrior of God and Savior of the Righteous Man, ever being anything close to laid back.

"Because he did it last time," the man from the future answered, eyes drifting over to his brother. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the tile floor.

"Last time?"

Dean focused back on the angel, a light frown pulling at his forehead as his friend continued to be sporadically confused and cynical. Cas definitely didn't remember the time jump, but what he did remember was inconsistent and the muddy mix of memory issues and skepticism was a foreign sight on the usually tolerant angel. Unfortunately, unpredictability was really inconvenient right now, and just about the last thing Dean needed in addition to kind of dying, being incorporeal, and having no way – at least no quick way – to warn his brother or stop what was coming.

He didn't exactly have time to address any of it accept the last one, though, so Dean shoved the rest aside for now. They could dig into it later. As long as Cas didn't start acting like Lucifer-Possessed-Cas had acted, Dean would forgive him some changes until they had time to talk about this whole shadow-memory-chest-taxi-bomb thing.

"Yeah, Cas. The last time this happened." Dean gestured to the hospital room around him. "Which is why we need to stop it."

The angel was silent for a moment more, eyes drifting to the far wall and down to the floor in deep thought. When he spoke, his gravelly voice was soft, but leading. "You're ready for death, then?"

Annoyance flared at the question and Dean snorted. The look his friend sent him was a serious one, and he remembered the terrible expression in those blue eyes when Cas said it was his time to move on. The acceptance and lack of fight. Like they were talking about the weather. The hunter swallowed forcefully, suddenly realizing that Castiel wasn't joking here. He glanced at the floor, picking at the hem of his blue scrubs as he considered the question.

"Am I ready to die?" he echoed, actually giving the question his attention. If he stopped his dad's deal, he might not make it back. Honestly, he hadn't gotten that far. Current planning extended to 'save Dad' and no further.

Dean supposed he was okay with it. He probably had been for a while. Honestly, he was tired; he'd been tired for years. And while that didn't qualify him for calling it quits in his book, he supposed he'd been ready for his time to be up for a while now. If nothing saved him or stopped him, that is. If the cosmos finally decided it was time for Dean Winchester to rest.

"You mean if it sticks?" he asked sarcastically in Cas's direction. The angel didn't seem to get the joke, or wasn't laughing about it. Dean sobered, trying not to be annoyed by his friend's increasingly depressing behavior, and gave a sharp nod. "Yeah. I'm ready."

Not that he thought it would actually happen, of course. Heaven and Hell couldn't afford for him to die right now without a deal stamped on his soul to send him straight to Hell. But sure, in theory, if God or Fate or any of that other destiny crap he utterly didn't believe in came down and decided it was his time, then yeah, sure. He could deal. He could let go.

Castiel didn't say anything, and his expression was closer to that stoic angel Dean met eight years ago. He wasn't sure if it was disappointment he saw in those eyes, but the hunter couldn't imagine anything else from his admission. Not his steadfast, loyal angel, anyway. Cas never gave up on anything, Dean worst of all.

He looked away. The guilt that had been conspicuously absent as he considered the decision, having been replaced with an exhausted sort of calm he so rarely felt and usually associated with failure, was suddenly present in full. Dean thought about what his death would mean in this timeline, in this moment. Leaving Sam alone to face the Apocalypse. Leaving his Dad to feel like he should have made that deal. Bobby to think he should have been there.

All those people he wouldn't be there to save or help or meet going forward. Charlie, Jo and Ellen, Claire and Alex and Jody. He briefly wondered what would happen to Castiel: the Cas that existed in this timeline and not the one standing in front of him now. Would the angel ever leave Heaven? He certainly wouldn't rebel without Dean pushing him to give up everything he knew for what was right.

Maybe that was better, he thought bitterly, for only a moment before sweeping the thought aside. He was dramatic and childish for thinking it; Cas had professed several times that he did not regret his decision, nor his friendship with the brothers. Only the choices that had come after.

"If I go down," he suddenly spoke to the room, staring at the wall and not his best friend, "do I take you with me?"

Dean couldn't stop himself from glancing at Castiel, suddenly terrified of the answer. He shouldn't be, he thought. It was not like either of them were afraid of Death. They were all old friends at this point.

Still, facing death and being the cause of it in another were two very different things.

The angel's piercing gaze stared at him for some time, and then slid, slowly, just over his shoulder. Dean resisted the urge to glance behind him. There was nothing there (there never was with Cas). Blue eyes slid back.

"I'm not really here, Dean."

"Right. Shadow," he answered automatically, offering a bitter smile. He swallowed thickly and looked away again.

Silence reigned for another moment, Sam and the doctor still talking. Dean wanted to roll his eyes, but didn't bother. He'd stood in his brother's shoes a month ago in Wyoming and he'd hounded the doctors then too, trying to find an angle – any angle – to save his brother, no matter how slim the chances were.

"You may not be all here right now," Dean said out loud again, not quite looking at the only one in the room who could hear him, "but I'm glad you're here."

It was quiet, but serious. His cheeks may have flushed because, come on, teenage girl moment much? Of course, the last time he'd seen the angel, Cas had been confessing his need to be useful, so Dean didn't give himself too much crap for admitting it out loud. It was nice – desperately needed, actually – not to be alone in this, and Cas deserved to hear it.

The angel watched the hunter carefully, indecision beginning to show in the cracks of his stoic mask. Eventually, he turned to look at Sam, wrapping up his useless discussion with the doctor. Cas ducked his head for a moment, took a deep, resolute breath, and turned back to Dean.

"It's strange," he started, impassiveness back in place and at odds with the clearly forced flatness of his voice. Like he was trying to be pre-Apocalypse Cas and failing pretty terribly at it. Dean cast him an odd look, but the angel ignored it and, honestly, the hunter was starting to settle more on annoyance than worry over this mish-mashed version of his friend. "Your father didn't have any appointments scheduled for this afternoon. At least, not on his chart."

The annoyance died like a candle flame in a friggin' hurricane, and Dean sat straight up on the floor with a breathless, "What?"

Cas just regarded him with that pointed look.

Panic struck the human, sending every nerve into a fit of shit shit shit! His dad had lied. His dad had lied, and they'd lefthim alone with a bag full of stuff to summon a demon. How stupid could they possibly be?

Son of a bitch!

Without thinking, Dean pulled his knee to his chest and struck his leg out as hard as he could against the bedframe. His bare foot connected with a solid hit. Only, the thing didn't just rattle like Dean expected, hoping to get his brother's attention right fucking now. It screeched and jutted six and a half feet across the room, careening at an angle and taking the mattress, his body, EKG machine, and IV stand with it.

Okay, overkill maybe, but it did the damn trick as the two living humans in the room went dead silent and stared incredulously at the bed and its solo occupant. The IV line was still swinging back and forth with an obnoxious squeak.

It also did the trick of sending a shearing pain through his chest, straight to his heart. Dean gasped out, falling back on one arm, the other grabbing across his tight, cramping torso. Cold flooded him and he suddenly couldn't breathe. He watched in terror as his legs, torso, hands, all flickered out of existence and back again. Then the multiple machines in the room started screaming.

-o-o-o-

"Look, I know it isn't easy to hear," the doctor was saying, "but your brother is fighting. You just have to have faith in whatever comes next."

Sam nodded, trying to accept what was supposed to be reassuring words, but mostly failing. Platitudes, and nothing more. He'd heard them before, from doctors on cases concerning injured civilians. From cops on hunts where they hadn't made it on time, or someone had been caught in the crossfire. Empty words meant to bring some sort of closure, but were ultimately meaningless in the end.

The young Winchester wasn't ready for closure anyhow.

"Thanks, Doctor," he said with a nod, trying to get the man out of the room now that he'd once more exhausted every possible scenario where the medical world got his brother out of this. Sam had already known it wouldn't happen; he was going to have to turn to the supernatural remedy if he wanted to save Dean.

"I'm not just saying it, you now." The doctor was a middle-aged man of Indian descent with kind brown eyes and a smile that suggested a halfway decent sense of humor when he wasn't breaking terrible news to people. Sam had to remind himself not to take out his frustration – or impatience – on the man just doing his job, and a decent one at that. "A patient in a coma with his injuries and those stats? I would have called it the minute he came in."

He turned back to Sam, a sympathetic but not entirely unhopeful turn to his lips. "He's held on way longer than I – or any of us – thought he would. Something's keeping him here, so have faith and give it some time."

Sam stared at his brother, eyes tracing down to his gauze-wrapped chest and the burn marks from an inhuman blast he knew lay just underneath. The kid swallowed heavily but nodded to the doctor with a weak smile.

"I'll check back in before my shift ends. I'm not promising anything. His odds are still not good. But the fact that he's fighting…"

"I get it," Sammy mumbled with a nod. "Thanks. For everything."

The doctor hesitated for a moment more, then nodded and patted Sam on the shoulder. The hunter consciously slid the Ouija board deeper under his arm. Boy, had the man given him one hell of a pitying look when he'd seen it. The doc moved to pass him and exit the room when a stilted screech of metal on linoleum ruptured the air and fast, brutal movement drew both their attentions to the center of the room.

The hospital bed his brother was lying on flew towards the far wall, scraping across the floor a good half dozen feet. Machines tumbled to the side in its wake. Tubes pulled tight. Dean's body settled from the jerk with a light rock and Sam could only stand there, blinking.

"What in God's name-"

He turned to the doctor, who was staring at the scene with wide, disbelieving brown eyes. Sam tried for a light laugh, grabbing the man's arm and hauling him towards the door, excuses flying from his mouth about how he'd really just like some time alone with his brother, maybe say goodbye or try that faith thing. Grieving process, you know.

The doc was stuttering out half-formed responses, hand catching himself on the doorframe into the hallway, sort of arguing against the man – but also not really because what the hell had just happened – when his patient's heart monitor started beeping dangerously fast. All confusion and disbelief (and any shot Sam had at getting him out of that room) vanished, replaced by a terrifying level of professionalism. The man pushed past the hunter, coat flapping as he rounded the bed, pressing buttons across the multitude of machines now cramped in the corner by the angle of the bedframe.

"He's going to crash." The doctor turned towards Sam. Before the young man could ask him what the hell he meant, he yelled d at the top of his lungs, "CODE BLUE!"

The sounds of people scattering in the hall signaled that nurses at the station a dozen feet away heard the cry and were already on the move. The doctor began chest compressions on Dean's unmoving body just as alarms started blaring from his brother's bed. It was at least a dozen terribly long seconds before three nurses and another doctor rushed into the room, hauling a defibrillator machine behind them. They pushed Sam out of the way, and the young hunter huddled along the side of the doorway as the medical team surrounded his brother and prepped the AED.

One of the nurses silenced the heart monitor, killing the shrill alarm that had been crying out ever since Dean's EKG flatlined. A second nurse handed over the paddles to another doctor, and the attending physician pulled back, ending the chest compressions. One of the nurses yelled 'Clear!', and Sam bit back a sob and the water gathering in his eyes as his brother's body jolted with the electricity they sent straight to his heart.

"No," he barely whispered, fingers gripping the edges of the Ouija board hard enough to put nail marks in the cardboard.

The doctors hit his brother again. Sam released one hand from the box, transferring his death grip to the doorframe because his legs were not going to keep him upright much longer. They hit him a third time, and beeps started up again, intermittently, from the machines. The room bled tension out like a system flush. Nurses quieted, Dean's lead doctor called adjustments in fluids and medication as they got him stable once more, and the room settled.

Sam turned and fled.

-o-o-o-

Dean lay gasping on the floor, staring up at the ceiling as his chest heaved up and down with the sudden flood of not being in pain. That Sucked. Capital 'S'. It was crippling, even. Cold gripped at his chest like an ice claw of absolute terror and nothingness. Worse yet was the fear that came with it, because he'd only felt that specific, freezing, gripping pain before in the times he had died.

The hellhounds, the doc who'd put him to sleep so he could chat with Death, Metatron, even that shotgun to the chest before he'd wound up in Heaven. They had each come with pain of their own, but the unifying quality between all of them had been that gripping cold that came just before the end.

Every time the docs hit his body with a jolt, he'd felt the electricity arc through him. Like a tuning fork bringing him back in sync with his body, he'd felt each zap spring across his chest as if he were once more corporeal. The connection allowed all the other aches and pains of a broken body to come through too, though at least those were blissfully numbed by a cocktail of morphine and god knows what else. He didn't know if he could have handled the full thing in addition to that death grip around his chest.

Movement at the door caught his attention, and Dean sat upright in time to see his brother tear out of the room like a bat out of hell.

"Sam!" He knew the man couldn't hear him, but he called after his distraught younger brother all the same. Damn it. The poor kid had just watched him flatline and the docs fight to bring him back. Dean struggled to his feet, but his ghost body, or whatever it was, felt as weak as a kitten.

Cas extended a hand in front of him. Dean glanced up at the angel, almost having forgotten he was in the room. Castiel regarded him with a pitying look where Dean expected to see concern and that wide-eyed fear the angel never was capable of hiding in the face of one of the Winchester brothers' pain.

Oh, right. This Cas was ready to throw in the towel and thought Dean wasn't far behind in options. Just another thing on the long list of shit to deal with.

Dean grabbed his friend's hand and hauled himself up. The angel followed after him as he tore out of the room in search for Sam. His brother hadn't gotten far; the kid was collapsed against the hallway wall a couple feet down from Dean's door. He'd ended up back against the supportive surface, long cricket legs drawn up to his chest, Ouija box across them and forehead pressed to the cardboard as he fought, valiantly, not to have a complete breakdown in public.

He was mostly losing.

Dean crouched in front of him, an ache settling deep in his chest at the sight of his brother this way. He curled his fingers around Sam's tightly fisted hand, even if they went right through. "It's okay, Sammy. I'm right here. I'm okay."

"Dean." Castiel's voice was soft, but held none of the comfort he desperately needed from his best friend right then. "It's time."

Anger flashed through every non-existent fiber of his incorporeal body. But he refused to leave his brother's side just to take it out on the angel who, frankly, could have picked a better time for this little mid-life crisis. He gritted his teeth and counted to ten, then counted to ten again, as he focused solely on his little brother who he couldn't help right now either.

"Dean."

"No," he finally snapped, channeling more anger in the angel's direction than Castiel probably deserved, for lack of a better target elsewise. "Damn it, Cas. Help me! We still have time; we can still stop dad. We just have to get Sam talking to us."

The angel's eyes dragged to the side, back to the hospital room he stood in front of, where doctors were still settling their patient. Dean's body lay unmoving, tubes repositioned and fluids checked, though every human in that room knew it was only postponing the inevitable. Cas turned back to the spirit that body belonged to.

"It's not your fight anymore."

Feet away, hand still wrapped around his brother's, Dean frowned sharply. He almost couldn't believe the words coming out of his best friend's mouth. What the hell was going on with him? Dean had never seen him just give up like this before.

"How can you say that, Cas? You?"

The angel only held out his hand, ignoring his words. "Come with me, Dean."

Slowly, the hunter stood, releasing his brother's hand though he towered over him protectively, even if the kid couldn't see or sense him. As he stared at his angel, disbelief began to fight on an even playing field with the anger that had so easily overwhelmed his intelligence and his gut. The cogs in his brain started turning.

"You know," he began almost conversationally, belied only by the tight fists at his side, "I've seen a lot as a hunter. Lifetime's worth of things most people can't even imagine. But you know what I've never seen, in all that time? I've never seen you throw in the towel, Cas."

Castiel's expression didn't change. He regarded the hunter with the same pity and resolve, hand held out to him. Dean's green eyes hardened and darkened into something dangerous as his suspicion cemented into certainty.

"Not even in the face of Lucifer, man. You didn't give up. Not like this."

"We're both on borrowed time already," the angel supplied with a slight one-shouldered shrug. Like it didn't matter. Cas was many, many things, but uncaring was not one of them.

"Maybe." Dean shook his head, regarding the creature standing in front of with the same lethal expression he gave anything that threatened his family. "But you and me are real good at screwing with time. You'd know that, if you were the real Castiel."

Silence hung heavy in the hallway as the sharp words rang between them like a physical thing.

The image of his best friend frowned, staring at him with something between disappointment and resignation. Then Cas was shifting. The lights overhead flickered as his dark, wind-blown hair grew out around his face, framing the softening jawline with a cut that was straight and short and severe. The trench coat and suit melted away to reveal jeans and a black top fitting a slim, petite, and definitely female body. Those piercing blue eyes shifted color, lightening like sea-foam on a stormy day at the beach. That gaze was just as cold and unmoving and sad as he remembered.

"Tessa."