Dean sees Cas in a crowd on a sidewalk. There's a flash of a tan trench coat, and Dean nearly calls out to him before he remembers Cas is gone.

There's a girl with blue eyes and no sense of personal space at a diner in North Dakota, and Dean's heart leaps. It's Cas, he thinks. Cas has come back in a new vessel. Then her friend calls to her and she steps around him. He looks after her, sees her laughing freely with her friends. She's not Cas.

A guy with windswept dark hair is standing on the roadside, staring at his cellphone like it's deliberately confusing him, just to piss him off. Dean helps him get into his voicemail, but it's not Cas.

They go past a park with two benches angled slightly towards each other, with a view of the playground. Dean almost goes and sits down, but he doesn't.

Sam stops the car at a glass-smooth lake, and goes to sit at the end of the jetty to eat lunch. Dean lies in the back of the Impala. He's not hungry.

A bird hops along after him as he walks. He doesn't know what it is, but it's small and brown and it sits on his boot and cocks its head to the side, looking at him. Dean watches it. Then it flies off to peck at the crumbs of someone's lunch, and he knows it wasn't Cas.

He sees a reflection of Cas in a store window, catches a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't turn fast enough and Cas is gone before he can grab hold of him.

Dean sees Cas in his rumpled suit, ill-fitting and strange without his coat. He grabs his arm and drags him into the alleyway. Shoves him up against the wall, ready to yell at him for leaving (beg him never to do it again). The guy looks at him, terrified, and says he's calling the cops. Now that Dean can see him properly, he's nothing like Cas at all.

Dean's laughing. He throws his arm across Cas's shoulders, and Cas smiles the little smile he does when he doesn't get the joke but he's happy to see Dean smile. Then he twists out from under Dean's arm and walks out into the lake.

Sam tosses him dinner. "You okay man?"

Dean nods. Clenches his jaw. "I'm fine."

He doesn't eat the burger. He's okay. Really. He's just not that hungry tonight.