We were in West Virginia en route to Sioux Falls when Dean pulled in to a café parking lot. "Remember the extra onions this time," he said brightly as Sam unfolded himself from the passenger seat.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Dude, Cas and I are gonna have to ride in the car with you and your extra onions."

Dean grinned at him, unrepentant, and said, "And see if they have pie." Sam flipped him off and swung the car door shut; Dean laughed. "He's grumpy. Better check for pie anyway, I loves me some pie."

"I will try to distract you from your disappointment if they don't have any," I said. Dean caught my eyes in the rearview mirror and I smiled.

A second later the radio, which was softly playing the local news station, frizzed out into static. Dean frowned down at it and leaned over to tap the cover. I was still sitting up and caught a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye.

I turned to look at the café; for a moment I didn't realize what was wrong. And then it dawned on me.

"Dean," I said. The tone of my voice brought his head up fast. The radio sputtered once more and died.

We were out of the car in seconds. Dean hit the café door at a half-run, and it was immediately obvious that things had already gone very wrong; there was a customer in one of the booths, face down in a puddle of blood on the table before him.

"Sam?" Dean said. He drew his gun.

I didn't bother.

The waitress had dropped behind the counter; the cook in the back was crumpled in the angle of the refrigerator door. Dean went over to the back door and looked out, still calling Sam's name; there was no answer. From where I stood in the kitchen entrance, I saw him rub his finger over the edge of the door, and when he turned his face was set.

"Sulfur," he said. "They took him, didn't they?"

I nodded, and Dean closed his eyes, just for a second. "We need to get to Bobby," he said.

Bobby answered promptly, but calling the Roadhouse did no good, and Dean cursed for a solid thirty seconds before he snarled, "This is too early, Cas. You told us we had almost two weeks."

"We should have," I said. "Dean, you need to slow down. We don't have time to deal with getting pulled over." He set his jaw but the speedometer began to creep down. "Something must have happened to tip Azazel off. I don't know what, but something." It almost didn't matter; it could have been anything. The timeline doesn't like to be changed, and I should have remembered that the relative ease of saving people like Madison would have little to do with the bigger events. Sam's death was required to set the Apocalypse in motion.

Dean's hands flexed on the steering wheel.

I knew how it had happened; I'd seen it in Dean's dreams more than once. So when we caught sight of Sam, clutching his right arm to his chest as if it hurt, I felt a terrible sense of déjà vu. "Sam!" Dean called, and Sam sounded immensely relieved as he returned the hail. Even as he did, though, I caught movement behind him that resolved itself into a tall young man in an Army uniform. Jake Talley.

"Sam get down!" I shouted, over Dean's "Look out!", but Sam didn't have enough time to react before Jake swung at him with something that glinted in his hand, driving it into Sam's back hard. No, no, no, I thought miserably, as Jake stepped back, taking the knife with him—not that it would have mattered if he'd left it, that wasn't a wound that would benefit from the weapon being left to slow the bleeding—while Sam swayed to his knees, his head thrown back against the pain. I swung my shotgun to my shoulder and pulled the trigger, though I knew it was hopeless; I was much too far from Jake for the shot to do more than sting, if it hit him at all.

Still, Jake turned and ran, moving faster than he should have. Bobby went after him, muttering a stream of curses I didn't pay any attention to. And Dean covered the scant feet to his brother and dropped to his knees in the mud, seizing Sam by the lapels of his jacket. "Sam!" he said. "Sam? Sam, hey, come here, let me look at you." I stared at them mutely as Dean pulled Sam forward to lean on his chest as he touched a hand to the wound. Sam didn't so much as twitch; he hadn't felt it. Dean pulled his hand away again and studied the blood that stained it; too much blood, coming too fast, and I saw him close his eyes as he realized.

But he pushed Sam back up, trying to help him hold his head straight, and said, "Hey, look at me, it's not that bad. It's not even that bad, all right?" Sam's eyes drifted away and Dean snapped, "Sammy? Sam! Hey, listen to me, we're gonna patch you up, OK? You're gonna be good as new." I didn't know if Sam believed it, or for that matter understood what Dean was saying, but if I hadn't known better I might have been convinced; Dean sounded utterly sincere.

"I got you," Dean said, his hands on Sam's neck now, holding him up. "I got you, I'm gonna take care of you. That's my job, right? Watch out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother?"

Sam tried to smile.

The expression slid from his face.

"Sam? Sam!" Dean said. "Sam. Sammy!" He paused for a long, awful second, staring into Sam's slack face as if he'd be able to find a miracle there. "No," Dean said. I turned away to give them as much privacy as I could as Dean let his brother's body fall forward into him again, supporting the weight with his arms around its shoulders. "No no no no, Sam, no," he muttered. I hunched my shoulders, swallowing panic.

Dean shouted his brother's name one more time, and then was silent.

A few minutes later there was movement in the corner of my vision and I turned to see Bobby approaching. He caught my eye and shook his head, and then dismissed me from his attention entirely, going down on one knee next to where Dean was still cradling Sam's body. I made no effort to overhear their low-voiced conversation, which ended with Bobby calling me over to help. We carried the limp weight up the sagging porch steps and into the rickety old house with reasonable ease, and discovered that there was a bare mattress on the ancient bedframe in a side room on the ground floor.

Dean dragged a chair from the main room and sat down in it, his face in his hands. Bobby and I withdrew quietly and went to fetch our bags. Once that was done we settled in to wait.

I managed to catch the occasional hour's sleep. Bobby did too. As far as either of us could tell, Dean didn't. He refused food when we brought it, though I managed to get him to drink half a bottle of water once. Bobby and I sat in the main room and had increasingly anxious discussions that pretended to be about plans to short-circuit Azazel's opening of the Devil's Gate. Finally, a day and a half after Sam was stabbed, Bobby climbed to his feet and said, "We can't wait any longer. I'm gonna go talk to him."

I could have told Bobby he wasn't going to get any result he liked, but it didn't seem like my place to dissuade him; instead I wandered out onto the porch while he went to dash himself on the rocks of Dean's grief. I could hear their voices, but no words until the very end, Dean snapping, "Go!" and then dropping his voice again. A few seconds later Bobby stepped out of the house, his bag over his shoulder. He stood next to me, both of us looking out over the cars and the empty countryside beyond.

"He ain't listening to me," he said. He was calm enough on the surface, but there was worry and grief of his own under it. "I dunno how long it's gonna be before he snaps out of it."

"Not anytime soon," I said, hearing the bleak fear in my own voice. I thought Bobby could hear it too, from the way he glanced at me.

"Sam…" he said. His voice cracked. I pretended not to notice. "Sam had some info he put together. About you."

I tilted my head in question.

"That scar you got. Sam gave me a sketch, said Dean said you told him it banished something, and when I went lookin', eventually I found out what." He paused. I waited. "These boys…where you come from, they really get mixed up with angels?"

"Yes," I said.

Bobby mulled that over for a second and then said, "What's Cas short for, anyway?"

"Look under Thursday," I said. "You'll figure it out." The fact that he was asking the question in the first place meant he had his suspicions already. Bobby turned to look at me and I glanced back. After a second he shook his head.

"You know I was a little iffy when you first showed up," he said. I nodded. "But I think you care about them—about Dean especially. So I'm gonna go. Someone's gotta deal with this gate. Dean knows where to find me when he's ready, but right now he ain't. You haven't pissed him off, so you…you help him do what he needs to do, you got me?"

"I will," I said. It felt like a vow.

Bobby sighed and nodded. "He loves that kid so much."

"I know."

"All right, then, I'm goin'."

He didn't offer to shake my hand, but it wasn't really necessary; that he was leaving me with Dean was evidence enough that Bobby had decided I was worth having around. When the noise of his old station wagon had faded, I went back into the house.

Dean was still in the room where we'd laid Sam out. I've seen a few corpses that really did look as if they were sleeping; Sam's wasn't one of them. Even on its back, so the wound wasn't visible, it was obvious that this was a dead body. Dean was staring at his brother's slack features, rubbing one hand over his lips as if he'd forgotten he was doing it.

"What did I screw up, Cas?" Dean asked when he heard me stop in the doorway.

"Nothing," I said, trying to make my tone gentle. Not that it had ever helped with my Dean, but this one, so much less broken, might still respond to tone of voice.

"We knew. We knew, and we still didn't save him." He wiped the back of his hand over his face, still staring at Sam's slack features. "Jesus Christ, what am I gonna do?"

I wanted to ask myself the same question, but I already knew the answer.

Dean didn't question me when I brought him a cup of coffee, and his preference for taking it black (You put stuff in the coffee, you end up with more coffee. I just drink it 'cause it helps me stay awake.) was on my side; the bitterness of the coffee itself neatly covered the taste of the pill I'd crushed into it.

It didn't take long. It had been two and a half days since Dean had had anything like food or sleep; the caffeine in the cup had no real chance of overcoming the drugs. Within fifteen minutes his head was drooping; when he started to slide in his chair I went over and heaved him to his feet. At the movement he roused enough to mutter a protest.

"I'll watch for a while," I said softly. "You need to rest. Don't worry, Dean, I've got it." He shook his head. "Everything's OK," I said, and to my mild surprise he relaxed a little. It must have been the drugs. I got him over to the sleeping bag he'd been ignoring before he went totally limp, and laid him down.

It only took a few minutes to assemble everything I needed. As I dropped my CDC badge into the box I wondered absently if either of them had even realized they were carrying everything they needed for a crossroads deal. Had it been on purpose, or subconscious, or mere coincidence? It certainly made my job easier, however it had happened.

I knew Dean had taken the Impala to his crossroads. I walked. It was a long walk, but I had time, and I wanted Dean to get a little sleep and let the downers work out of his system, so he'd be able to wake up when Sam did. I didn't think. You can meditate while walking, once you know the trick, and…well, I was afraid that if I thought about what I was doing I wouldn't be able to go through with it, even to save Dean.

I remember Hell.

The roads were both dirt. There was a struggling streetlight, hardly brighter than the full moon. I scooped out the hole and put the box in it and covered it over again. I straightened, and waited. I refused to look around for the demon, as if bravado was going to help me, but strange though it seems I do still have enough pride for that.

"I have to tell you, you're not exactly who we were expecting." The voice was female, and amused. I turned to face the demon. It had taken an attractive young woman. She smiled at me and her eyes washed over red, then back to normal. "You're that guy who's been helping the Winchesters make so much trouble the last few months," she said. "What's up, Dean wimped out?"

"I drugged him," I said. The demon actually showed a flicker of surprise at that, though she hid it quickly and let her smile widen.

"This is so sweet. What does that boy do that makes people so willing to go to Hell for him?" she asked. "I mean, with you I can guess, but I happen to know that his daddy wasn't into that, so sickeningly obsessed with his Mary." Her voice held loathing, and a thread of longing; that's why I can pity the demons, even as they make my stomach turn. They can remember when they could feel love, and they know they can't anymore. It's just one more part of the torment, in the end. Ruby even used it; when she told Sam she remembered being human, she wasn't lying. They all do. Most of them just try not to.

"I don't think I could explain it to you," I said. "But it's not important. I'm here to deal, and that's all that matters."

"Mmmm, yes," the demon said. "But explain to me why I should want your soul, when all I have to do is wait for Dean to wake up and I can have his instead?" She moved in close to me and leaned in as if to kiss me, murmuring the last few words into my ear.

"For one thing, I'm not asking for ten years," I said, matching her tone. The demon pulled back to look into my face, once more trying to bury her surprise. I tried not to show that I'd noticed; better to let her think she had the upper hand.

"Now that's new," she said. "Why would you even do that?"

I shrugged, but didn't smile; I was sure if I tried it would come out all wrong. "I know I'm not really the one you want," I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. "I'm willing to negotiate on that basis." And all I could do was hope—or pray, Father, please—that this particular demon didn't know why it was so important that Dean Winchester condemn himself to Hell.

"That's true," the demon said thoughtfully. She looked me up and down, scorn plain on her face. "You're not the one I'm supposed to be dealing with, and talking to you could get me into a lot of trouble. So...convince me." She stepped away from me and crossed her arms over her chest. If I hadn't been able to see the smoke under her skin, the sight would have been enticing; the young woman's body was clothed in a dress with a very low neckline.

I met the demon's eyes and said simply, "I'm an angel."

There was a long, long moment of silence.

"If you're going to spout crap I think this negotiation is over," the demon said at last.

"Look at me," I said, and I could feel my voice changing. "Really look, demon, and you'll see it. My Grace is gone, but you can see where it used to be, if you look. This is what remains of me."

The demon's face was a mask of disbelief, but her eyes narrowed. Like angels, demons have access to senses humans don't; unlike angels, they have to consciously use many of them.

I could see it when the demon found what she was looking for; the young woman's brown eyes went wide and the demon actually took a step back. The smoke of its true form roiled, perturbed.

I said, "Relax, I couldn't smite you if I wanted to." Oh, and I wanted to. "I'm too far gone for that."

"Your name," the demon demanded tightly, all hints of her lazy amusement gone.

I drew a deep breath. "Castiel. I was Castiel."

"I need to—"

"No!" I cut in. "We make this deal now, or not at all. Think of it." I made my voice low and coaxing, a seducer's voice; the incongruity of it almost choked me. "Think of it, when you return with a contract on an angel—your boss will love it. Dean, Sam, they live hunters' lives; odds are you'll have another shot at them. But this? Is a one-time offer." I let my voice shake on that, trying to imply that I was too afraid—that if we didn't do it now, I'd lose my nerve, and I saw the demon buy it. It wasn't even a bluff, not really.

"One month," she said, and again I pretended I didn't hear how unsteady her voice was. "One month, thirty days only, and if you try to welch or weasel your way out, Sam drops dead. He's back to rotten meat in no time and we'll go talk to Dean after all." Her whole posture was a challenge. I could see that she expected me to refuse.

I took one long step forward and grabbed her by the biceps. For a moment we stood there frozen, and then I bent and pressed my lips to the demon's.

She tasted like blood and ash.

He was standing on the porch when I got within sight of the old house. I could see the tension in his posture from yards away, even in what little light trickled through the windows from the camping lanterns inside. He didn't hail me, but I could feel the weight of his eyes on me. I mounted the sagging steps carefully and went to stand before him. This was too familiar, going to Dean to account for my failings.

"What did you do, Cas?" he asked, and I almost rocked back, away from the fury in his voice. That at least was different, not cold but burning and barely contained.

"You know what I did," I said.

He nodded, sharp and quick. "And you dosed me."

"Yes."

He turned away. I took a step after him. "Dean—" I began, and at the sound of my voice he whirled. I saw the punch coming but it didn't occur to me to try to block it until it was too late; he caught me square in the jaw and I went down hard amid the sound of the floorboards creaking under the impact.

"You stupid son of a bitch," Dean bellowed. He stood over me, panting, for a long moment before turning on his heel and stalking the thirty feet or so to his car. I expected him to throw himself into the driver's seat and leave, but instead he just bent over the hood, back to me, his head hanging.

Eventually I sat up. "Well, that wasn't what I expected," I muttered, and prodded at my jaw, wincing. It was going to be a hell of a bruise, I could feel it already.

"If you expected him to be happy, you don't know him as well as you think you do," Sam said from the door. I hadn't heard him coming, but I was too worn out to jump.

"Sam," I said. I smiled, even though it hurt. "I'm so glad to see you."

Sam shrugged and came out onto the porch, offering me a hand up. When I was standing he said, "You made a crossroads deal for me." I nodded, and he closed his eyes and sighed. "Why?" he asked simply.

"Because you can't stop a determined suicide," I said, which was incongruous enough that he couldn't come up with a response. "Dean was going to make a deal, Sam, and I couldn't keep him knocked out for the rest of his life. And Dean cannot be allowed to make a deal. If he does, it's literally the end of the world."

Sam looked me over carefully for several seconds before he said, "OK. Now I think you have to tell me."

I sighed in my turn and shrugged agreement.

We went into the house and made ourselves as comfortable as we could get. There were only two reasonably sound chairs in the place—I fetched the one Dean had been using from the room we'd had Sam laid out in, as Sam pretty clearly didn't want to go in there, not that I could blame him.

"The first thing is where demons come from," I said when we were both settled, leaning on the one table that would take the weight. "They aren't born that way, they don't come into existence ex nihilo; they're made. The souls in Hell are tortured, and they're given an offer: if they take up the knife, become torturers themselves, they're spared. In Hell, you're receiving pain or you're inflicting it, and there's no other option. And once you do it for long enough, you change. Demons all used to be human." It was a small consolation, that I wouldn't become a demon; I wasn't human enough for that. Angels don't have souls, not in the way humans do, and falling hadn't granted me one. The part of me that would survive the death of my body couldn't be twisted that way. They could make me insane, no doubt, but they couldn't make me a demon.

I drummed my fingers on the table. Sam didn't press me, perhaps understanding that I needed to order my thoughts. "I told you time in Hell moves faster." Sam nodded. "Dean—in my timeline—Dean was in Hell for forty years. He told them no for thirty."

Sam sucked in a shocked breath. I let him think about it. "You're telling me Dean tortured people in Hell," he said at last. "Dean turned into a demon?"

"No. No, it didn't get that far." I reached him before it could, though only barely; his soul was riddled with rot when my light fell on him, and he had cringed away from me. He'd been fighting the change, but there's only so much even the strongest will can do. "He was rescued." Sam was just looking at me, and he looked hurt. "Sam, don't...everyone breaks, everyone breaks, it's only because it was Hell that he lasted as long as he did. There's no shame in coming to the end of your strength."

Sam let all his air out in one long shudder and said evenly, "OK. OK, fine. How is that relevant to the end of the world?"

"It's relevant because Dean was something special. He wasn't in Hell to pay for the sins of his life, and he wasn't there because he made a selfish deal. He was there to save someone, and that made him different. He was righteous. So when he took the knife, a prophecy was fulfilled." I cleared my throat and quoted, "And it is written that the first seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell."

"The first seal?" Sam said. "Seal on what?"

"Lucifer's Cage," I said. "Lucifer...when he was cast down, he wasn't just barred from Heaven; he was imprisoned in Hell."

"Lucifer," Dean said from behind me. "You mean the Devil. Satan, Old Nick, pleased to meet you hope you guess my name: that Lucifer." I hadn't heard him coming, which said something about how tired I was, and had no idea how much he'd heard.

"Yes," I said, ignoring the skepticism in his voice. "There are hundreds of seals, but only sixty-six of them have to be broken, and only the first and the last are fixed. And if they break, and Lucifer gets out, it's the beginning of the Apocalypse."

"And the first is me cuttin' on people in Hell, because I'm so awesome." The sarcasm was so thick it was all but visible. He walked over to stand next to the table, leaning on it to form the third corner of the triangle with me and Sam. His gaze on me was flat and opaque.

"Righteous," I said. "Dean, you two save people, put your own lives on the line to do good. Why is that so hard to understand? You never got it, never, no matter how many times—" I cut myself off, realizing that I'd gotten a little too loud, and sighed again. "It doesn't matter. Just...accept that it's bad if Lucifer gets out, OK? And you going to Hell will start that process."

"The night we met, you said you watched the world end because you waited too long to do the right thing," Sam said thoughtfully. "The first time, you let Dean make the deal?"

Of course Sam would remember that. I said, "No, you two met me after Dean was out of Hell." He didn't really remember his rescue, which had always seemed terribly unfair to me. (I had a weird dream last night. A long pause. It started out a nightmare, but then there was a light. And then I woke up. He pushed the remnants of pancakes around his plate. I think the light was you.) I slouched in my chair and let my head fall back. "I couldn't let you make the deal, not knowing what would happen. It's the end of the world, Dean, and I'm only one person." And perhaps things could have been different, knowing from the beginning that Lilith's life was the final seal—but it was not written that Sam had to be the one to kill her, and this way Dean would be safe.

"You could have told me," Dean said tightly.

I dragged my gaze up to meet his furious eyes and snapped, "Would it have mattered?" He tried to glare, but after a second he looked away and I felt an angry smile stretch my lips. "You'd have sold yourself for Sam, convinced yourself you weren't really the Righteous Man, Dean, I know you would, and it would be the end of the world because you don't think you deserve to be saved!" My voice rose as I spoke and by the last few words I was shouting, lunging to my feet. Sam drew back a little, startled, but Dean just closed his eyes for a moment. I took a deep breath and let it out. "People do crazy things when they're grieving," I said, in something closer to a normal tone. "I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk trying to keep you contained until you calmed down enough to listen. You're good at getting out of things, and I have to sleep sometime." I looked straight into Dean's eyes and lied. "It was me or the Apocalypse. So it was me."

Into the silence that followed, Sam said cautiously, "Cas, aren't you...you said Dean was special because he made his deal to save someone. You're saving the world here, man, I think you qualify."

"I don't," I said. Sam looked extremely dubious, a perfectly sensible reaction. "I'm not...I wouldn't have done it if there was any chance that I could be the Righteous Man."

"How can you be sure of that?" Sam asked.

I leaned on the table with one hand and rubbed my eyes with the other. "Ask Bobby about the research he's doing on me." Sam looked a little sheepish. "It's OK, Sam, I don't mind."

We were all silent for a second. "Guess we all gotta do some research," Dean said, sounding like he was forcing himself to be brisk and businesslike. "We have ten years to get you outta this, I guess, but sooner's better than later."

I bit my lip.

"Wait—how long did you get, Cas?" I looked down at my hands and Dean barked, "How long?"

"A month," I said. I looked up. Sam looked dismayed; Dean's face was perfectly blank but as I watched his hands tightened on the edge of the table till his knuckles went white. "Jesus Christ," he said.

"She didn't want to deal with me," I said. "She knew she was supposed to talk to you even though she didn't know exactly why."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Dean repeated.

"He has nothing to do with it," I said.

Neither of them laughed.

We spent the rest of the night in the house; Dean claimed he didn't need the sleep but Sam and I collectively overruled him. For my own part, I fell into sleep like dark water closing over my head, sudden and total. My endurance is good but I was wrung out with fear and adrenaline. I didn't dream, at least.

In the morning we packed the car in strained silence and headed for Sioux Falls. Dean put a tape in as soon as we were on the road, turning the volume up to nearly painful levels. Apparently he'd decided he didn't feel like talking; I wasn't in the mood to argue the point and it seemed Sam wasn't either.

We pulled up to the house in the early afternoon. The quiet when Dean turned the car off and the music died was strange. By the time we climbed out of the car Bobby had come to stand on his porch, no doubt drawn by the sound of the Impala's engine. When he realized there were three of us, his face danced through a series of emotions, surprise and joy and then thin-lipped suspicion; he'd have been glaring at me, I was sure, if he hadn't been busy glaring at Dean. After a second he shook himself and said slowly, "Sam, it's…good to see you up and around."

Sam shrugged and said, "You can thank Cas."

Bobby's eyes went wide again. For a second no one spoke.

"All right, I think I need a drink while you tell me exactly how all this happened."

I didn't miss the fact that Bobby kept an eye on whether Sam winced crossing the threshold.

Once inside, I tried to let Dean and Sam do the explaining, but they were having none of it—to the extent that Dean pointedly took a sip of his beer every time I tried to get him to contribute. Bobby, having gotten over his initial shock, was at least an interested audience. He accepted everything with his usual irritable calm, though I did think he was startled by how short my time was. When the explanation was over, he nodded and sat back in his chair. "Well," he said. "I can't say I'm pleased about how it happened, but I'm glad Sam's OK. Now that you're here we can go over what I've got about this Devil's Gate. Because I'm pretty sure I got a rough idea where it is."

Bobby's map of southern Wyoming was too large-scale to show the features that we needed to spot in order to pinpoint the location of Samuel Colt's trap. Dean kept declaring that we should just head for the center of the clear area, because that was where it would be; Bobby and Sam insisted we needed to have a better idea of what we were looking for before we went "ridin' off half-cocked." In the interims Sam told us what had happened at Cold Oak, or at least most of it; I got the feeling he wasn't telling us everything, but Dean didn't push him so I didn't either.

We were well into the fourth iteration of the argument when there was a knock on the door.

"You expecting anyone?" Dean asked, and Bobby shook his head.

The three of us took backup positions as Bobby went to answer the door. "What?" I heard him bark as he yanked the door open, and then there was a long silence.

"Well, ain't you gonna invite me in?"

Ellen Harvelle.

"Let's see if you can come in without bein' invited," Bobby said, clearly recovered from his surprise and over the edge into suspicion.

"Is there anything that can't?" Ellen asked. A moment later she came into my view, looking tired and sad and rigidly controlled.

"Better safe than sorry,"

"Ellen," Dean said. He still had a hand on his gun, but it didn't seem like he planned to use it.

"Dean," Ellen replied, with a grimace that didn't make it to a smile.

"Are you all right? What happened?" As Sam spoke Bobby stalked into the kitchen, emerging a second later with a shot glass full of a clear liquid.

"I wasn't there when it burned," Ellen said, and looked down at the glass Bobby held out to her. "Is this really necessary?"

"Just a belt of holy water, shouldn't hurt," Bobby said implacably. Ellen flicked her eyes to the ceiling but took the glass and downed it like a shot.

"Whiskey now, if you don't mind," she said. Bobby nodded and we all followed him to the kitchen. "I was supposed to be there with everyone else, but...we ran out of pretzels, of all things." Dean kicked out one of the kitchen chairs for her and she dropped into it as Bobby refilled her glass with alcohol. "It was just dumb luck. I was about to head back when Ash called, panicking." Bobby gave her the shot and she drank it with the same efficiency as the water. "He told me to look in the safe, and then the call cut out." She paused, staring at her fingers on the glass. "By the time I got back the flames were sky-high. And everybody was dead...I couldn't have been gone more than fifteen minutes." Her voice had gone low and rough and we all gave her a second to collect herself.

"Ellen, I'm sorry," Sam said quietly.

She swiped at her eyes. "A lot of good people died in there, and I got to live. Lucky me, right?"

Bobby, in a clear attempt to distract her, said, "Now you mentioned a safe?"

"Yeah," she said, and visibly pulled herself together. "A hidden safe we keep...kept in the basement."

"They get what was in it?"

"No," Ellen said, and pulled a map from her pocket. She spread it out on the table.

"Wyoming," Dean said. "Shit. Is this what I think it is?"

It wasn't really familiar to me; an angel's sense of place doesn't match up very well to human maps. But I knew what it had to be. "If you think it's a map of Samuel Colt's trap, then yes," I said. "Ash worked this out?"

"Yes," Ellen said, with weary pride.

"I need to check something," Bobby said, and hurried into the living room. He returned quickly with a large book and opened it. Dean lasted for longer than I would have expected as Bobby looked back and forth between the map and his book before he said, "Come on, what've you got?"

"Each of these is a church, a frontier church," Bobby said. "And Colt built private railway lines connecting them."

"Five points on a circle," Sam said, like he was realizing.

Bobby nodded and fished a pencil out of his pocket; he glanced at Ellen for permission and when she nodded he sketched the lines out lightly. When he was done, the pentagram was obvious.

"Iron lines, demons can't cross it," Sam said. "They're circling, waiting for something to break the trap so they can get in."

"Or get out," I said. "Azazel doesn't technically have to go in himself; he could just send Jake in with the Colt to open the Gate. But then the demons would be trapped there—on Earth, yes, but not able to wreak havoc in the wider world."

"We're sure the trap's still intact?" Dean asked. "That's a lot of line to keep in good shape."

"They ain't gone in yet," Bobby said. "Good enough for me."

"OK, who the hell is Jake? And Azazel?" Ellen asked.

Dean and Sam exchanged looks. "Jake is...another guy my age. Azazel is a demon. He's the demon."

Ellen drew a surprised breath. "You mean the one that killed your ma," she said after a second.

"Yeah," Dean said. "And Jake is the bastard who—tried to kill Sam a couple days ago." If Ellen noticed the pause in the sentence she didn't say anything. "He's working with Yellow Eyes."

"If we stop Jake from breaking any of the lines, nothing else matters," Bobby said. "We can just leave it alone."

"No!" Dean and Sam exclaimed in unison, and looked at each other again. By silent agreement Dean went on, "One: Cas says that Yellow Eyes shows up and gets his ass shot."

"Don't think it was his ass, actually," I murmured. Everyone ignored me.

"Two: When that Gate opens, Bobby...Dad gets out."

Silence fell.

"What do you mean, Cas says?" Ellen said at last.

I was helping Dean and Sam load the cars when Bobby tapped me on the shoulder. "Got a second?" he asked. "I could use some help down in the cellar." I glanced at Dean, who jerked his head at the house, and said, "Sure."

When we were down the steps, Bobby turned to me with his arms crossed over his chest and said, "When I told you to help Dean, this wasn't what I meant."

Damn it, I thought, and my hands curled into fists at my sides. "It was the only thing I could do," I said. I maybe sounded a little defensive.

"I get that," Bobby said, and sighed. "Or at least I get that you thought that, and you weren't necessarily thinkin' as clear as you could've been."

"He'd have done it, and it would have been—"

"Yeah, the Apocalypse, I get that too. It's just..." He sighed again, and uncrossed his arms, and his whole body slumped. "You know his daddy did the same thing last year—made a deal for him."

"I made a deal for Sam." Since it didn't seem like we were actually doing anything, I sat on the steps.

"You made a deal for Sam so Dean wouldn't, and don't get me wrong; if he'd come back here telling me he did that I'd've throttled him myself. But Dean didn't handle it well, last year. Boy doesn't think his life is worth much, I don't think."

"He's wrong."

"I know that," Bobby said, "but that don't mean he does." He looked me over for a second. "How's he gonna feel when you go to Hell for him, boy?"

"It's not for him," I said, and Bobby made a sour face.

"It is my strong recommendation that you keep saying that whenever Dean can hear you, but don't think you're foolin' me," he said. "I know what it looks like when someone's got it bad."

"What do you want me to say, Bobby?"

"Well I won't do it again is probably pointless," Bobby said dryly, after a pause that lasted longer than I really understood. "So say 'you're welcome'."

I tilted my head.

"Because that's what you say when someone says thank you," Bobby prompted.

"Ah." I watched him until he raised his eyebrows at me. "You're welcome."

Bobby nodded and pushed past me to go up the stairs. "Don't do it again," he said.

We found the first rail line well before dark, but by the time the tiny cemetery came into view dusk was approaching; there didn't seem to be much in the way of actual roads inside the huge trap. The Impala's suspension squeaked and groaned over the dirt surface of the track we were following.

We didn't know which direction Jake would approach from, so we parked the vehicles a fair distance from the ancient fence that defined the cemetery proper. It was incongruous; the fence was falling down in places, little more than a symbol, and most of the headstones were barely legible, leaning, or both. But the mausoleum at the center was in perfect repair; its elaborate lock gleamed softly in the slanting sunset light, looking almost polished. We didn't take long to look though.

By the time we heard him approaching it was full dark, though the night was clear and the full moon cast enough light to see by, once our eyes adjusted. Jake didn't walk like a man going to his triumph; he moved like he was desperate, and I wondered what Azazel had threatened him with. Like Ava, like Sam, Jake was not inherently a bad person—but like Ava he had been pushed to his limits, and like Sam he had convinced himself he was doing the right thing. Sam waited till Jake was most of the way to his goal before he stepped out of his concealment and said, "Howdy, Jake."

Jake stopped cold. "Wait," he said, disbelief ringing in his voice. "You were dead. I killed you."

"Yeah," Sam said. "It didn't take." We all moved so Jake could see us, ringing him in, but he only had eyes for Sam.

"I put a knife through your spine—you can't be alive."

"Looks like you're wrong there," Dean said. "Gonna kill you for hurting my brother, by the way."

Suddenly Jake grinned. "Sam tried that," he said. "He couldn't do it. You more of a tough guy than him?"

"Nah," Dean said easily.

"Hey, lady, do me a favor," Jake said. "Put that gun to your head." I could hear the thread of power in his voice, but there was nothing I could do to shield Ellen from it. "You too, buddy," he said to me.

He didn't seem to notice that I hesitated for a moment before pressing the barrel of the Beretta to my temple.

"See, that Ava girl was right. Once you give in to it, there's all sorts of Jedi mind tricks you can learn."

Dean's eyes darted between me and Ellen, and I dropped the barest hint of a wink. Sam demanded, "Let them go." Jake just smiled as Ellen forced out, "Shoot him."

"You'll be mopping up skull before you get a shot off. So everyone but my buddies put your guns down." Sam and Dean and Bobby hesitated, then did as he said. "OK, thank you," Jake said. For a long second nobody moved.

I was on the far side of the half-circle from Ellen, so when Jake turned and darted for the door I couldn't help; Dean and Bobby dove for her and Dean knocked her hand out of line just as her finger tightened on the trigger of her gun. Sam crouched and scooped his Taurus from the ground. And I leveled my gun at Jake's back; my shot and Sam's were simultaneous.

The mechanism in the door began to rattle and Sam and I both shot again. Jake fell to his knees and collapsed onto his side, his breathing already labored and rough. Ellen stopped fighting Bobby and Dean and the three of them turned to watch as Sam stepped over to Jake, his gun held ready. Jake rolled onto his back, fighting for breath.

I thought about shooting him.

Instead I flicked the safety on and tucked my gun away as Sam shot Jake neatly in the forehead, his face a mask. The hand Jake had extended, to ward or to plead, dropped to his side.

Bobby gave Sam a look as he passed on the way to the door of the mausoleum; Ellen did too, but hers was far more understanding. Women, I've noticed, tend to be far more pragmatic about such things.

We watched the mechanism of the lock spin, the inner circle clockwise and the outer ring the opposite—widdershins, the direction of ill omen. "This is what we want to be happening?" Ellen said doubtfully, and Bobby made a helpless movement of his head.

"I just hope we got everything right," he said. The lock ground to a halt. "Well, we're committed now." Dean pulled the Colt from the door and Bobby barked, "Take cover!"

The doors shuddered and shook as we backed off, putting tombstones between us and the crypt. Just as Dean crouched next to his brother, the doors burst open and the demons rushed out.

I had never seen so many in one place on Earth before. In Hell, the hordes had had more definition, making use of the fabric of their plane to give themselves approximations of bodies—hideous, yes, but comprehensible. This mass was hundreds of demons, twisting around each other in their horrible exuberance to escape. But around them, appearing to walk on the ground, I could see the others, the shades. The denizens of Hell who had not yet completed their transformations. They flickered in and out of visibility as they went. The demons vanished into the night beyond the cemetery's wall, and from there we just had to hope.

"Guys," Ellen said. She and Bobby scrambled out from behind their stones and I followed with Sam at my heels. Ellen and I took one door, Bobby and Sam leaned on the other. I avoided looking through the opening.

Over my shoulder I could see Dean, checking the Colt, and I saw it when Azazel blinked into existence at his shoulder. Dean caught the flicker and turned, aiming even as he moved, but Azazel was faster; he yanked the Colt from Dean's hand to his own and spun it theatrically as he said, "Boys shouldn't play with Daddy's guns." He gestured and Dean went flying. He came down half-on a tombstone and I winced but there was nothing I could do; I had no part in this fight. The door shifted under my shoulder.

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed, and ran for his brother. Bobby staggered as the force of the door knocked against him. "Help him," I hissed to Ellen, and she nodded, darting across the gap.

Sam charged at Azazel's back, but the demon waved again and Sam flew back into a tree as Azazel called, "I'll get to you in a minute, champ, but I'm proud of you. Knew you had it in ya." He strolled over to Dean, who was trying to roll to his feet, and pinned him to the tombstone.

I couldn't hear Azazel's words as he crouched in front of Dean, but I knew what he was saying. Asking Dean if he was sure his brother had been brought back whole and uncorrupted. It was pure cruelty, meant to drive the first wedge between them to prepare them for their enmity as the vessels.

I had warned him, but even from my position at the crypt doors I could see the way it hurt Dean to hear it.

Azazel stopped talking and stood, stepping back a little. Everything about the way he moved spoke of satisfaction. Sam struggled against his tree, but he couldn't get any closer as Azazel leveled the Colt at Dean—and then John Winchester's shade coalesced into being and grabbed, wrenching the demon-form from the human body. Azazel's unfortunate host collapsed to the ground, its eyes open, as John grappled with the demon. The fight didn't last long—John was only a shade, and fresh from a hundred years of torment at that—but it didn't have to. By the time Azazel had thrown John off and poured itself back into the body, Dean had retrieved the fallen Colt from where the demon had dropped it. Azazel staggered to his feet just as Dean thumbed back the hammer.

The sound of the shot seemed too loud.

I might have expected the cinematically perfect headshot, one neat bullet hole in the center of the forehead, but instead Dean's shot hit Azazel in the shoulder. The demon didn't cry out, but his incredulity was obvious.

Perhaps Azazel had expected to live to see his master's return.

He shuddered as he lit up from within, the demon's essence showing through the skin as it was consumed by the magic of Colt's gun.

I tore my attention away and dropped to one knee, pulling my knife out as I did to slash across my palm. My door swung wide again, but that was all right. I grabbed the edge of the tarp we'd laid over the ground and pulled it back, revealing the sigils that lined the threshold.

The incantation was short; it had been created for use in battle. For an angel, Grace would have been sufficient, but I had to use blood. As I finished the last word I pressed my bloody palm to the center sigil and it flared, blue-white light too bright to look at. And from all around us the demons screamed as they were drawn back.

Bobby had been skeptical about the whole thing, asking why no one knew about this spell. I'd had to explain to him several times that it only worked under very specific circumstances—when the threshold between Hell and Earth was directly breached, as it had been here. Finally he'd rolled his eyes and told me I had better be sure about this, and since I knew it was the best concession I was going to get I'd just nodded.

Bobby and Ellen and I cleared the path to the mausoleum again as the demons rushed past us in reverse. I hoped none of the escaping shades were caught in the tow; the spell itself only drew the demonic, but in their panic to fight the pull some of the demons might drag shades back with them. In the end the doors slammed shut of their own accord, the locking mechanism whirring at our backs as we turned.

Turned in time to see John putting one hand on Dean's shoulder, smiling. Turning to smile at Sam as well. They both stared at him. I saw Dean try to return the smile, and Sam's tiny nod, and then John stepped back and light grew around him and he flickered and vanished.

I stayed with Ellen and Bobby as Sam and Dean stood over the body of Azazel's host, speaking in quiet voices.

"Looks like that spell of yours worked," Bobby said.

"Yeah," I replied absently.

"All those sigils were Enochian," he said. Ellen turned an incredulous look on him.

"Yeah," I said again, and sagged against the door. I fumbled in my pocket for the bandages I'd prepped, pressing gauze over the wound. It was shallow, but it stung like mad.

Bobby nodded and said, "The incantation too."

"Yes," I snapped. "Was there something you were getting at?"

Sam and Dean turned, their attention drawn by the tone of my voice, and made their way over to us just in time to hear Bobby say, "You told me to look under Thursday, and you know what I found? The ruler of that day, his name is Cassiel. You want to fill us in on what exactly that means, Cas?"

"It means your text had a transcription error. The correct form is Castiel."

"Bobby, we just killed the demon," Dean said. "Can we celebrate for a minute before you give Cas the third degree?"

"I dunno," Bobby said, glaring at me. "I'd kinda like to know if I've been consortin' with an angel, wouldn't you?" And there it was.

They all looked at me. Bobby and Sam looked like they had figured something out; Ellen clearly didn't believe a word of it. But the one I cared about was Dean, who waited a second before he said, "OK, you know the longer you wait to laugh the worse it gets."

"Who's laughing?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. I managed to make myself meet his eyes, at least, and that was right; only once had I backed down from Dean's gaze.

Dean's eyes widened. "Come on! An angel?" I shrugged. Dean announced to the world in general, "This is crap." He fixed Bobby with a glare. "You're saying that Cas is an angel."

"I got a lot of research that says so, and you'll notice he ain't exactly denying it," Bobby said.

"Yeah, well, a lot of people have delusions of grandeur," Dean said. "Cas, come on. You said...you said I took you to a whorehouse, for God's sake."

"You thought I shouldn't die a virgin. Wanted to know why I hadn't done any 'cloud-seeding'," I said.

Dean blinked.

"We are going back to your place," he said to Bobby, "and you are going to show me all this research of yours."

"So that Jimmy guy," Dean said slowly. "He's...I mean, you're not him. You didn't used to be him."

"No," I said, from where I sat on Bobby's couch. "No, Jimmy was my vessel. I went to see him to tell him not to listen when I...well, the present-day version of me...I told him not to say yes."

Sam, who was behind the desk, narrowed his eyes at me. "I thought you were trying not to change things that might get noticed," he said, calm but pointed. I shrugged.

"If it had come to that it would've been too late anyway. I didn't take Jimmy as a vessel until after we'd rescued Dean from Hell."

Dean suppressed a flinch and said, "I just...seriously, what's so special about me? I'm just a guy."

"We were told that we needed to rescue you before you broke the first seal," I said. "But that wasn't really it. They wanted the seal to break—Heaven did. They wanted to start the Apocalypse. They were tired of the world in God's absence."

Everyone took that in. Dean looked horrified, shading quickly into anger; Sam and Bobby seemed mostly surprised. Ellen still didn't buy it, but she also didn't seem to have any interest in expressing her incredulity; she sat in the armchair in the corner silently, and I suspected she was dozing.

"The angels wanted the world to end?" Sam said finally. He sounded shocked.

"Yes," I said. He frowned.

"OK, but, then why bother rescuing me at all?" Dean asked.

I sighed. "Dean, angels besides me need vessels too."

He stared at me. After a second Bobby said, "Think you're gonna have to explain, Cas."

A few sentences in, Dean's shouting woke Ellen up.

By the time we all went to bed, it was so late it almost wasn't worth the trouble. Bobby ceded his bedroom to Ellen; he and Sam took the twin beds in the tiny guest room. Dean and I slogged down the stairs to the panic room. I sat on the edge of the cot to take my boots off. I had one unlaced before I glanced up and realized Dean was still standing in the door, leaning on the jamb.

"You know how to break one of these deals, don't you?" he said.

"Technically? Yes," I said.

"As soon as we wake up—" he began.

"We can't," I said.

"What are you talkin' about, Cas? You wanna let it go till the last minute?"

"If we break the deal, Sam will die," I said, flatly. I really, really didn't want to talk about it. I just wanted to forget what was going to happen until my time was up.

"But there has to be a way," Dean protested. "There has to be a way around it."

"First time around, you and Sam tried for a year," I said. Sam had tried, anyway, and Sam was good at that kind of thing. "If there had been a way, you'd have found it."

"But you're...you used to be an angel!"

"And if I still was, I still couldn't break the deal without Sam dying," I snapped. "I go to Hell or Sam dies. That's the deal. It's not over until I go to Hell. We could rescue you because by then the deal was complete. It doesn't say I have to stay in Hell, but I do have to go there."

"Damn it," Dean said, pushing off the wall. "You sound like you want to die."

I sat up straight and toed off my boots. "Dean...I've been to Hell. I know what it's like. So no, I don't want to. But if I have to go back to save the world...well, it's better than the alternative."

Dean drew himself up and took a deep breath, and I braced myself for the explosion. But after a second his shoulders slumped and he came over to drop onto the cot next to me. "What do you want to do?"

I blinked and turned my head to be able to see him better. "What do you mean?"

"For the next month. What do you want to do?"

"Right now I want to sleep," I said. "We can make plans in the morning."

Dean sighed and stood up again, shrugging out of his flannel shirt as he went. "Have you been to the Grand Canyon?"

We didn't hunt anything that month.

The hotel was a lot nicer than the usual. We'd been there for a week. I don't know what Sam was doing with his time, because he had his own room.

Dean and I, meanwhile, were only getting out of bed occasionally.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I mean, we could get a nice dinner or something. We don't have to stay in here."

"This is fine," I said. "This is better than fine. This is what I want to do until it's time to leave."

Dean rolled onto his back, the sheets winding around his legs. "And you really don't want me to come with you?"

"It's not safe, Dean," I said. "The hellhounds will be there for me, but they won't hesitate to attack anyone else who's nearby." I didn't quite manage to suppress the shudder, and of course Dean could feel it; he turned onto his side again to face me. "I'll take my phone so you can...you don't have to burn the body, there won't be anything left to make a ghost, but I'd rather no one track down Jimmy over this."

Dean's lips tightened and he lowered his eyes briefly. I waited. Finally he asked, "What do you want right now, Cas?"

I took a second to get control of my voice. "I just don't want to think about it," I said. "Can you—"

"Whatever you want," he said, and leaned in to kiss me.

I was well out into the woods when I heard the first howl. I kept walking. They wouldn't have the fun of chasing me; I could deny them that.

My phone beeped at two minutes to midnight. I stopped and took my coat off and tucked the phone into one pocket and folded the cloth as well as I could. There was no convenient rock to lay it on, so I set it on the ground instead and moved perhaps twenty feet away—far enough that the hounds wouldn't care, close enough that Sam and Dean would be able to see the body. I sat in lotus and tried to calm my breathing. My hands on my knees shook; my whole body shook.

The howls were closer.

I caught the first hint of movement and my eyes slammed shut without my permission, and I couldn't make myself open them; I had imagined facing them with dignity, but it was all I could manage not to leap up and run. They circled me, taunting.

I felt the first hot breath on my face.

When the sensation of movement faded, the first thing I was aware of was pain.

It radiated from the hollow my Grace left behind, burning, the remnants of my nature rebelling against my surroundings. I choked and my knees buckled and I only just caught myself before going face-first into the ground. Shards of bone dug into my palms and my legs.

"You're here," a voice said, full of sickening glee. I knew that voice, for all it had been filtered through a human throat the last time I heard it. I looked up. Alastair smiled down at me, his ragged teeth bared. "When they told me, I almost couldn't believe it," he said conversationally. "But I see it's true." He gestured, the low red light glinting on his claws, and I realized why my balance was so completely off.

It had been so long since I'd been able to feel my wings that I'd almost forgotten—hadn't really realized that such a human conception would still be part of my self-image. I bowed my head.

"Castiel," Alastair purred. He put one hand under my chin, a parody of tenderness with the tips of the claws prickling, and tilted my face up again. "Castiel, my angel, you and I are going to be spending some quality time getting to know each other. Is there anything you'd like to say before we get started?"

"I'm not yours," I said. I was proud of myself; it came out perfectly firm.

Alastair laughed, and the sound of it made me feel sick.

I decided early on that there was no point in trying not to scream. It would have saved nothing but my pride, and set me up for a harder fall when my resolve failed. It wasn't as if Alastair would have taken less satisfaction in his work if I'd been silent. But I did manage to keep my screams and gasps and sobs mostly wordless; there was no one in Heaven who would have helped me even if they could hear, and I refused to draw Alastair's attention to Dean by speaking his name. It didn't take Alastair long to make me beg him to stop, of course, but I did not scream for help.

He never offered me the knife; he took care to mention that human souls were offered that bargain, but that I didn't qualify. I think he expected me to be surprised, because when I wasn't...that day was particularly difficult.

Alastair would not let me lose track of time, much as I would have liked to. So I knew it had been one hundred and seventy-eight days when I blinked my eyes open to find a demon I didn't recognize standing in front of me. I twitched back against the cold metal; the motion wrenched at my shackles and I smothered a whimper. I would scream for Alastair, but this random demon didn't need to hear me.

It studied me for a long time, its eyes red rather than common black or Alastair's white. I didn't mind. It could look all it wanted; looking didn't hurt.

At last it said, "I have to tell you, mate, I was expecting someone taller. Or...shinier, maybe." I mustered the energy to roll my eyes. With Alastair I wouldn't have dared. The demon looked faintly impressed. "When one of my girls came back and told me she had a contract on an angel, well, I didn't know what to think. But the evidence is convincing." My wings were pinned out like an anatomical model, irregularly enough that there was no position I could take that didn't put pressure on at least one of the spikes. It was, at least, an improvement over choking on the blood of a cut throat, which was what I'd been doing before I passed out the last time. He—the voice suggested this demon had been a man, before his transformation—seemed to take my lack of response as encouragement. "I'm Crowley, by the way. I run the crossroads." He paused expectantly. I leaned my head back in a vain attempt to find a way to hold it that didn't ache. "Didn't anyone teach you it's polite to introduce yourself?" Crowley asked mildly.

"You know my name," I said. My voice was nearly normal; the restoration of my body always included my throat, even if I'd screamed myself to muteness. It irked me, distantly, that I didn't sound as beaten as I felt.

"I'm a stickler for etiquette," the demon said.

I studied him in turn, wondering at my own calm. "Cas," I said.

The demon looked intrigued. "Really," he said, drawing the word out. "Just Cas, is it?"

"Ever since I fell," I said. Alastair always said Castiel; I didn't know if he was reminding me or himself.

"What's interesting is that I've asked around," Crowley mused. "The angel Castiel is still up there, playing the harp or whatever it is you feathery types do. And that means you, my friend, are something extraordinary."

"Not anymore," I said.

Crowley appeared to be about to dispute that, but then his head turned as if he'd heard something. "I must be going," he said jovially. "Have fun." He vanished.

A moment later Alastair took his place. "Castiel, you're awake," he said, and smiled. "Did you miss me?"

I closed my eyes and tried to picture Dean.

After that, it seemed like Alastair was called away more often. None of the other demons were allowed to touch me, though on occasion one would come to gawk. Crowley, however, became a frequent visitor. He didn't come every time Alastair left me alone, nor was there any pattern to his visits that I could detect. He usually didn't even stay long. At first I wondered if he'd been recruited somehow—to worm his way into my trust so that he could betray me later, or an elaborate version of the strategy Dean called Good Cop/Bad Cop—but after a while I decided that I didn't care. The first time I slipped and mentioned something I didn't want Alastair to know I was nervous for weeks, but Alastair never showed any sign of knowing; if Crowley was planning to report to him, they were playing a long game. Crowley was someone who wasn't Alastair, who spoke to me about things that weren't pain, and that was something to hang my sanity on for as long as it lasted.

No one sleeps in Hell; sleep is a respite. There's unconsciousness, sometimes, if only for the horror of what might be happening when you wake up, but not sleep. But sometimes when Alastair left me alone I could drift. It helped.

I was drifting, ignoring the numbness in my hands, when I felt the subtle shift in the air that meant a demon and my breathing sped up in reflexive fear. I pried my eyes open, and relaxed a little when I saw it was only Crowley.

He came over to me, much closer than he usually got. Something about him was off; I hadn't yet worked out what when he said, "So tell me, Cas." He was trying to sound casual and not quite making it. "Do the words righteous man mean anything to you?"

I jerked in surprise and Crowley nodded as if I'd spoken. "Your human pet was supposed to be the Righteous Man," he continued. "You took his place. Made sure the first seal didn't break."

I didn't answer, couldn't think of anything to say. If Crowley knew...surely Dean wouldn't make a deal of his free will again, but there were ways, I knew that as well as any other soul in Hell.

"I told you you were something special, angel," Crowley said, and vanished.

Terror settled in my guts like ice.

I tried to prepare myself. I was sure they wouldn't hide it from me—that Alastair would want me to know that all of it had been for nothing. Not that Alastair had much interest in opening Lucifer's cage, but he enjoyed his work; he would want to show me Dean because it would hurt me. He'd make me watch as he hurt Dean, make Dean watch as he hurt me. Once Dean was broken, he'd be put to work on me. So I tried.

Days went by, but Alastair didn't say anything. I decided he was waiting to spring it on me once he had Dean. Crowley didn't come to see me again, so I couldn't even plead with him.

Time passed, and more time. I began to wonder if perhaps Dean was being stubborn. I tried not to let myself hope; they would think of something if they had to, and Dean's stubbornness had a few reliable weak spots.

Then I remembered that, for all my time in Hell, for Dean it had been less than three weeks.

I wasn't sure if Alastair was still there. Sometimes he did that, tied me blinded into place and left, leaving me to plead with an empty room when the pain overwhelmed me. He thought it was funny.

This time I still had my eyes, but they were covered. My whole head was covered, actually, with a rough cloth sack that reeked of rotten blood. It kept making me gag and choke, though I'd managed not to vomit so far. I wasn't sure how much longer that was going to last.

When I heard footsteps I didn't speak. Alastair generally preferred that I wait to be spoken to. I knew it was nonsensical to turn my blind face in the direction of the noise, but I did it anyway; I couldn't entirely help myself.

"Oh, kiddo," someone said, with a weight of sadness that shocked me. The voice wasn't Alastair's, wasn't Crowley's, wasn't any that I recognized immediately, though it sounded very faintly familiar. I tensed.

New things, surprising things, are very rarely good in Hell.

The steps crossed the floor as the voice went on, "I would've been here sooner if I'd known. Didn't realize till I dropped in to check up and found ol' Deano looking like someone ran over his dog. Seriously, kid, you really suck at keeping yourself out of trouble, you know that?" The sack was dragged off my head and I found myself looking at the Trickster.

I gaped. For a few seconds I was so astonished that all my various pains faded into insignificance. "What..." I sputtered. "What...How?"

"I'm like a transformer," the Trickster said easily. "More than meets the eye."

Suddenly I was blindsided by wild hope. "Kill me," I blurted before he could go on. "Please. Please kill me. Please."

The Trickster's mouth clicked shut as I babbled. "What? No," he said, and I moaned.

"If you can get here, you can kill me, kill me for good, please, you don't understand, I would rather be nothing. Please. I will beg you if that's what you want, just—"

"Castiel," he said sharply. There was a firm command in the word that cut me off instantly, and some small, distant part of my mind registered that as odd. "I'm here to get you out."

Oh.

"I didn't know you could do that," I said dully, and closed my eyes.

"Do...what?"

"Look like that," I said.

There was a pause. "I don't think we're having the same conversation here, kiddo."

"I know it's you, Alastair. You can drop it."

He didn't reply for long enough that I opened my eyes again. When I did he was staring, the Trickster's face set in an expression of terrible pity that I wouldn't have thought Alastair could manufacture. "I understand why you think that," he said gently. I shook my head and said nothing else; I'd given too much away already.

He studied me for a second longer and then nodded. "He's got you trussed up good, but I can handle it. Just don't move," he said briskly. He snapped his fingers, and suddenly I couldn't have moved if I'd wanted to; I was tied down with wire that was looped tight enough to dig into the flesh, but there'd been enough play in it that I could shift a little. Now I just...couldn't move, as if I were encased in sand. He put a hand to the wire around my right wrist, and light flared out from under his fingers, and I gasped; it was pure and clear and bright, brighter than anything I had ever seen here. The wire melted away under it like snow in running water. "Oh, sneaky," he said. "Those were some nasty sigils. Too bad for him, I've seen every trick in the book." He freed my other hand the same way, then bent to my feet. When they were loose he stood up straight and snapped his fingers again, and the feeling of restraint winked out, and I was standing on my own feet, clothed and clean and completely uninjured. I couldn't even feel the gnawing ache of my Grace, and the relief of it was so overwhelming that I swayed.

"Now we're leaving," he said. A grin spread over his face. "Don't worry, though, I'm not gonna leave a mark."

I didn't know what else to do, so when he caught me by the wrist I didn't fight. And then...

It was flight.

It wasn't quite the same; I had never flown when purely mortal. But it was unmistakable. When my feet touched solid ground again I staggered and fell to my knees. Gasped in a breath of air that didn't smell of death and burning. Turned my face up to a clear sky, to the sun that hung in it.

"Welcome back to earth, little bro," the Trickster said.

I could feel my control wavering, but I clamped down hard on it. "Tell me who you are," I said, and the Trickster smiled.

"Sorry, kiddo, but I want to do all the explaining at once. Wait till I've got you back in your body, then we'll talk."

Two fingers reached for my forehead and everything flickered out.

I woke up flat on my back, spread out like the Vitruvian Man on a soft surface that felt like cloth. I blinked my eyes open and saw a plain white ceiling. Nothing hurt. For a second I didn't remember why that was unusual.

Then memory returned and I bolted upright.

"Chill, kiddo," the Trickster drawled. I turned my head to stare at him, and he grinned around the lollipop in his mouth. "You should see your face," he said, a little indistinct. I glanced around the room. It was small and kind of dingy and decorated in the style Sam referred to as deer hunter chic.

Dean's duffel bag sat on the other bed.

Sam's laptop was serenely charging on the table next to the chair the Trickster was leaning back in.

I looked back at him. He raised his eyebrows expectantly. "Are they here?" I asked. My voice wasn't steady. Instead of answering the Trickster held up a hand, fingers spread. After a second he tucked his thumb into his palm, then his small finger. "What are you doing?" He smirked at me rather than answering, and as he folded down his index finger I heard a key in the lock.

The door swung open and Sam stepped into the room, looking over his shoulder. He was all the way inside before he turned his head and saw me and stopped cold. Dean, close on his heels, ran into his back and protested, "Sam, what the hell?"

Slowly, I raised my hands. Sam stepped to the side. Dean's next sentence cut off half a syllable in as his brother cleared his line of sight. For a second, no one moved.

"Cas," Dean said. He sounded like he'd been punched.

"Right!" the Trickster exclaimed, and bounced to his feet. Sam and Dean both turned to look at him, with identical stunned expressions. Neither of them was even going for a weapon. The Trickster gestured grandly with his lollipop. "No, no, don't thank me all at once."

No one said anything. The Trickster rolled his eyes. "Seriously? Not even waving any guns at me? I'm insulted."

Dean reached into his pocket without taking his eyes off me and withdrew a flask. "Drink this," he ordered, tossing it across the space between us. I almost fumbled the catch because I couldn't look away from him.

"Come on! Like I'd bring him back all demony," the Trickster said as I screwed the cap off.

"Shutup," Dean said, so sharp and fast it was all one word. "Sam, get the shifter knife."

"It's in my bag," Sam said. His voice was calm, but I could see the tension in his posture; the shock had worn off enough that both of them were poised to fight. "My bag's right next to...him."

"Fine. You, off the bed," Dean said. "Slow, understand?"

I nodded and went, carefully not getting too close to his duffel as I did. Once I was as far from the beds as I could manage in the limited space, I raised the flask to my lips and drank. It was water, with the touch of energy in it that meant it had been blessed. To make sure, I poured a little of the water into my palm so that the brothers could see it didn't fizzle on my skin. The Trickster watched the proceedings with mildly condescending interest, but said nothing.

Sam pulled his bag up onto the bed, one eye warily on the Trickster as he did, and rummaged for a second before coming out with a short knife. Dean held out his hand and Sam passed him the sheath.

Dean approached me cautiously, drawing the knife. The blade was bright, silver rather than steel. "Roll up your sleeve," he said.

I threw the flask onto the nearer bed and did as he said, holding the arm out when he gestured for it. He drew the knife carefully across, just below the elbow, and I hissed at the thin pain.

Blood welled out of the shallow cut, bright red and perfectly normal, and it occurred to me that the sight of it should have bothered me far more than it did. I didn't have time to think that over, though, because Dean looked from the cut into my face, and belief began to dawn. He shoved the knife carelessly back into its sheath, not looking away to do it, and tossed it in the direction of the bed.

"Cas," he said again.

"Yes," I said, barely more than a whisper. Dean waited for half a second more and then lunged. I realized just in time that he was throwing his arms around me, not attacking.

"Jesus Christ, Cas," he muttered.

I didn't laugh; I was afraid if I started I wouldn't be able to stop. Instead I hugged him in return, solid and warm under my hands.

We didn't stay that way for long; after a few seconds Dean let me go and stepped back, putting his hands on my shoulders. "You son of a bitch," he said, wondering. I was drawing breath to answer when the Trickster said, "This is all very touching, but I've got a very busy schedule, so can we get to the explaining?"

Dean started as if he'd forgotten the Trickster was there—I certainly had—and we turned to face the pagan god. "Aren't you dead?" Dean asked.

The Trickster smirked at him. "Do I look dead to you, Deano? You staked one of my mini-mes." He snapped his fingers, and suddenly there was an exact duplicate standing next to him. He held up a palm and his double slapped it, then vanished again.

"We tried to kill you," Sam said. "Why would you save Cas?"

"Well, a couple of reasons," the Trickster said. "First one is, it's kind of my fault he was in Hell in the first place."

"What?" Dean growled. The Trickster spread his hands out and said, "Yeah. My bad, OK? In my defense, I didn't know he was going to sell his soul. I just wanted him to keep you two muttonheads out of trouble."

I blinked, and the pieces fell into place. "You brought me back from the future," I said.

"Yep," the Trickster said, popping the P on the end of the word. I realized his lollipop was gone. "I didn't like that future. It sucked, there were zombies and you couldn't get good chocolate. Lucky for me, Zachariah decided to screw with it."

"Now who the hell is Zachariah?" Dean demanded.

"He was, and currently still is, and sadly will probably continue to be, an angel. Cas told you about the angels, right?" Dean and Sam both nodded, Sam looking utterly fascinated. "In the future, he wanted something from you, Dean, and you were spitting in his eye. So he sent you to the future your boy here is from to show you what happened if you didn't do it. Not that that worked out the way he wanted."

"He made that future, my future, invalid," I said. "He changed it, and that made me and everyone else...variables."

"Give that boy a prize," the Trickster said cheerfully. He snapped his fingers. Something large and colorful fell out of the air in front of me and I caught it on pure instinct. It was a plush toy, bright pink, in the shape of a rabbit. I stared at it for a second and then looked back up at the Trickster, who huffed, "Fine," and made it disappear.

He went on, "So at first I thought, hey, Zach did my job for me! He changed how the timeline went, all I had to do was roll with the new one, right? Except that one didn't work out any better." He paused and made a contemplative face. "Well, OK. The world didn't end, and there weren't any zombies, and the Devil didn't take over, which was teeechnically better. But also? I wasn't around to enjoy it. I ended up really most sincerely dead, and that was not on my list of things to do. So! Normally the thing about time travel is, you can't change stuff. But there I was, with this whole invalid timeline full of, as Cas so eloquently put it, variables." He looked at me and shrugged. "I had to wait till Zachariah pulled Dean back out, kiddo, or I'd've yanked you sooner. Considering the shape you were in, it's a good thing Zach didn't take much longer. But you know, I'm awesome."

"Yeah," I said. "More awesome than you should be. A trickster shouldn't be able to do half the things you did. You pulled me out of Hell."

"I know some back doors," the Trickster said, the very picture of straight-faced innocence.

"That's fine for getting in," I retorted. "You got us back out. Casually. It took a full-on siege to rescue Dean, the first time around. Hundreds of—angels." I had almost said hundreds of us. The Trickster raised an eyebrow at me; I ignored it. "You're not a minor pagan god." The conclusion was staring me in the face, now, absurd as it was. "You did it alone. There are maybe a dozen beings with that kind of power, and only four that would call me brother. Only four who could command certainly wouldn't stop the first seal breaking even if he could, and neither would Michael or Raphael. That leaves one."

The Trickster smiled at me. It was startlingly sincere.

"Wait," Sam said, sounding winded. "You're saying he's an archangel?" I nodded, and Sam transferred his wide-eyed gaze to the Trickster, who sketched a bow.

"Gabriel," he said calmly. "They call me Gabriel."

Beside me, Dean muttered a curse. We all stared for a second; Gabriel didn't seem to mind. I was trying, and failing, to see a hint of the glory I remembered under his skin. Finally Dean said, "How the hell does an archangel become a trickster?"

"My own private witness protection," Gabriel said, full of satisfaction. He threw himself back into his chair and put his feet up on the bed. "I skipped out of Heaven, had a face transplant, and carved out my own little corner of the world." He sighed, and made a sour face. "Plus, I gotta be honest with you: I didn't want to watch the fight, you know? I love my brothers—all of them. Watching them turn on each other, tear at each other's throats? I couldn't bear it. So I left. And then, the first time around, they managed to get the Apocalypse going. Which, so not my thing. I mean, yes, Lucy's in the cage and Michael's sitting up in Heaven pretending he knows what Daddy wants, but that's better than them trying to kill each other. Anyway, I like it down here and the fight would've torched half the planet. You guys might be monkeys but you don't deserve that."

"So you pulled me out of my own timeline and put me here to stop it," I said.

"Yeah," Gabriel said. "The plan was, you'd stop Sammy from getting ganked. Guess that one didn't go so well." Dean drew an angry breath and Gabriel held up one hand. "Not a criticism, OK? Time doesn't like being changed even when you've got a variable to throw at it. I should've kept a better eye on you."

"You were keeping an eye on us?" Sam asked, his voice full of skepticism.

"On Cas, anyway," Gabriel said, waggling his eyebrows. Sam and Dean looked at me questioningly, and I shrugged at them. "Come on, seriously? You didn't notice? I did the names and everything!"

"Names," I repeated, feeling extremely slow, and only more so when Gabriel gave an elaborate roll of his eyes.

"What's Angie short for?" he asked me with exaggerated patience.

"Angela," I said. "But what—oh. Oh."

Angie, in the bar the second night, when Dean and I hustled pool. Malika in Springfield. Mr. Nunzio, in that diner.

Gabriel watched me work it out with a smirk on his lips. "I knew about the muttonheads," he said. "But then I was rocking the trickster gig in Ohio and they showed up with you in tow. Freaked me out. I actually checked on you, present-day you, and there he was, all halo-enabled, and doing that without getting back on the Heavenly radar was non-trivial, lemme tell you. But I got enough of a read off this you to check out where you came from, and that's what got this whole thing started." He tossed a brightly colored candy into the air and caught it in his mouth as it came down.

"Cas is really an angel?" Dean asked.

Gabriel eyed him for a second before replying, "Cas is really an angel."

"Jesus," Dean said. Sam looked smug for a second and Dean glared at him.

"No, not Jesus," Gabriel said, grinning. "Angel. Not the same thing." He paused, looking thoughtful, and then said, "Well, OK, he used to be an angel. Not so much anymore." He made an apologetic face at me and I waved a hand in dismissal. "Anyway. I don't have all day, so unless you boys have any other questions...?"

"The...the vessel thing," Sam said. Gabriel looked at him and his face softened, just a little.

"Look, kiddo, you can't tell me you don't see the parallels," he said. "Michael, the older brother, loyal to an absent father; Lucifer the younger brother, rebelling against Daddy's plan. It was you two, it was always you, ever since Dad flipped on the lights." He shrugged. "Well, I say that sucks, and I didn't wanna do it. So I went and got Cas, and if Dad doesn't like it he can come back and smite me for it." He waited, looking expectant, for a second or two, and then nodded and made a show of dusting off his hands. "OK, I gotta get back to my job."

"What, announcing things?" I asked dryly.

"Archangel of Judgement here," Gabriel said, cheerful. "I make sure the assholes of the world get what's coming to them." He stood and put his hands on his hips. "Right! Been nice hangin' with you boys, but you know how it is. Places to go, douchebags to kill. See you around!" He raised one hand to snap and I yelped, "Wait!"

Amazingly, he did, his head cocked curiously.

"Thank you," I said, and Gabriel grinned.

"Anytime, bro," he said, and vanished.

A week and a half later, I set the little metal bowl down on a rock. The problem with the crossroads spell is that you have no control over which demon you get; fortunately I knew several other options.

I held the lit match over my impromptu brazier—I'd found it in a junk shop, and managed to buy it without Dean noticing, which was something of a feat since he got twitchy if I so much as went to the restroom alone; I was not looking forward to his reaction when I got back to the motel—and dropped it. As the flame hit the reagents, I muttered, "Dioman, Crowley." I summon thee. Simple, but the best spells usually are. This one got most of its oomph from the burning contents of the bowl. Smoke billowed out, far more than the fire should have produced; when it cleared, there was a demon standing on the other side of my rock. The human host was middle-aged, a few inches shorter than me, with features that were pleasant in a forgettable way. He wore a neat suit that looked expensive to my untutored eye and an expression of mild surprise that quickly changed into a smirk. "Well, well," he said. "If it isn't the little angel that could. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

I didn't think he was quite as easy as he made out; he glanced at the ground as he spoke and then to both sides, checking for traps and ambushes.

"I wanted to thank you," I said, holding up my empty hands.

Crowley frowned and said, "Someone's been telling tales out of school."

"What? No," I said.

"Then you're going to have to fill me in, mate, because aside from leaving the back door unlatched for our mutual friend I haven't done anything."

"You let the Trickster in?"

Crowley made an annoyed sound through his teeth. "I did that," he said, like he was admitting something. "Known him for years, I toss him some business sometimes."

"He...didn't mention that part."

"He wouldn't," Crowley said, rolling his eyes. "Looks much better if he did it all himself, doesn't it?" He tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket and rocked in place. "So what're we thanking me for?"

"For not telling Alastair," I said. Crowley's eyebrows went up.

"Why would I?" he asked, though it sounded like a rhetorical question.

"I did notice you're a demon," I said.

"I am in sales, thank you so very much," Crowley said. "Why would I want all the meatbags dead? Once that happens, no more job for me. Plus, don't know if you've noticed this part, but Lucifer isn't a demon. He's an angel, kitten, and if he hates mankind, imagine what he feels about us."

"He created you," I said, and Crowley rolled his eyes. "We're just servants," he replied. "If Lucifer manages to exterminate the humans, we're next. So I reckoned it was in my best interest to make sure he never gets the chance. The halo brigade'd never manage to keep all the seals safe and you, my feathered friend, kept the Righteous Man out of the Pit. Figured I owed you that one, and I pay my debts."

"You didn't have to talk to me," I said softly.

Crowley said nothing for a moment too long. "I said I owed you one," he said at last.

"Letting the Trickster in paid for that."

"As may be," Crowley said. "You went to Hell to stop the Apocalypse, mate. Showing up and chatting was the least I could do."

"Thank you anyway."

Crowley waved one hand and said, "You're welcome. Now it's not that this hasn't been a nice little talk, but I can only leave my people alone for so long before they start eating each other, so...?"

"If we meet again, we're not allies," I said.

Crowley grinned. "Trust me, I'm not going near your pets; I like living," he said. "Don't make any more deals, angel."

"I'm not planning to," I said, and a moment later Crowley was gone. I sighed. So much for the easy portion of my evening plans.

I didn't need anything fancy for the second summoning; it wasn't, strictly speaking, even casting a spell. I sat, and closed my eyes, and called. I could feel it almost immediately: confusion, mostly, but under it a thread of curiosity, and then the light began to build, and I opened my eyes again because I needed to see it.

Who are you? Castiel asked me. It wasn't words, not really, but I couldn't understand it without that filter any longer; nonetheless the voice was as beautiful as I remembered.

"You need to get under cover, take a vessel," I said. "There shouldn't be anyone out here, but if there is you'll burn their eyes out. Just so we can talk."

Even more confusion, even more curiosity; May I take you, that we may converse? It was hard to remember ever being that formal.

"For the duration of this conversation, yes," I said, and braced myself.

It didn't help.

I was expecting it to hurt, but it didn't; in fact as soon as Castiel touched me I felt my chest ease. It really didn't hurt, instead of the pain being masked, and at first all I noticed was the relief of that. But the pressure of Castiel built under my skin, too strong to bear and brilliant; I remembered the description Dean had quoted to me once, like being chained to a comet, and wondered if it had been better or worse for Jimmy. I couldn't scream, though, because Castiel had control by then, and he glanced down at my hand and clenched it as I had done. It was almost enough to make me laugh. Jimmy had not been able to tell much of what I was doing; for me it was a little different, because once I had been the one behind the wheel. Castiel took his attention from the body after a moment and we stared at each other in the vast white space that vessels occupy. I wondered what I looked like to him; to me he was shifting light in ragged-edged planes that suggested wings more than really representing them.

You are not James Edward Novak, Castiel said. This is his body. Who are you? There was anger there now; Castiel would not like it if someone else possessed Jimmy.

I'm you, I told him. Here, look. I showed him—showed him the siege, and the rescue, and the barn inscribed with every protective sigil Bobby and Dean could muster. Showed him the seals breaking, and Uriel's betrayal (and felt his shock when Anna rescued me), and how I had helped Dean but too late, and Lucifer rising, and how I had searched for God, searched but never found him until I couldn't search any more, and the wrenching pain of my Grace when the Host deserted me—

Stop! Castiel cried. His voice was huge and overwhelming.

I stopped. There was a moment of silence. Dean Winchester is not the Righteous Man, Castiel said at last. He did not fulfill his destiny.

No, I replied, unable to prevent a thread of humor from winding its way through my mental voice. I fulfilled it for him.

Castiel pulsed shock, but not disbelief; I could not lie to him, any more than he could to me. You…condemned yourself to Hell, for this mortal man? The image of Dean he presented me was, to his view, so flawed as to make the concept ludicrous.

Yes, I said. I would do it again, if I had to. But that isn't why I called you, Castiel.

You are Castiel as well, he said. I smiled.

Now I'm Cas, and that's enough. He was so dubious it was funny, but let the comment pass.

Why did you call me?

I never did grasp small talk.

You needed to know about Uriel, I said. He may be all right, now that there's no risk of breaking the first seal, but you have to make sure. It's possible that he hasn't turned yet, but you needed to know.

I am…he will realize, Castiel said, unease coloring the words.

Not if you're careful. Just watch him. And if you find he's lost, don't confront him alone. I was accounted a good fighter, but Uriel was better.

Yes, Castiel replied. He settled himself, determination in every line of him. I will leave you. I…thank you.

You're welcome, I said, a little surprised. I had never been one for social graces, but perhaps Castiel was making allowances for my mortality. I felt him gathering his intent to leave and tried, again, to brace myself—this time for the return of the emptiness—but he paused, and said, You fell. I fell.

He changed me, I said. Mortals can be dangerous that way.

Thoughtfully, He could change me too.

You don't want to be changed, I replied, and Castiel's agreement was all but visible. Then stay away. It shouldn't be hard, you aren't supposed to be down here anyway.

I will.

The separation was almost as harrowing as the joining had been, and when it was over I sat where I was for a long time before I felt I could stand up.

"Did you even know Dad had this lockup?" Sam asked, sliding his laptop into its bag. I listened to the conversation with half an ear, trying to finish my book before I had to stand up; it was my turn to drive.

"No clue, but you gotta admit it's something he would do. Cas, get a move on," Dean said. He picked up his duffel and slung it over his shoulder. I read faster.

Sam went out first. Dean followed him and I heard them putting their bags in the car. Then Dean leaned around the doorframe and said, "Sam's dropping off the key, Cas, are you coming?"

I paused and closed the book, and looked up at Dean, feeling the smile spread over my face. As I got to my feet I said, "Of course."