A/N: I'm working late today, so we're gonna get an early upload to kick off this story. *g* For anyone just joining, this is the sequel to the fic I recently finished posting, From the Ashes, and picks up right where it left off. Also, thank you guests Pony, Guest, and Loreley for your reviews of the last chapter of FtA. Loreley, I think Crowley is a coward at heart. Even if the Winchesters failed to stop Cain, I doubt Crowley would try himself. He probably went off to hide and as long as he wasn't dead, assumed the boys succeeded. He won't be making a reappearance in this fic.

Disclaimer: Supernatural still isn't mine. Thanks to 29Pieces for beta reading!

Chapter 1

Castiel looked over the spell ingredients on the table for the fifth time. Nervous anticipation was putting him on edge, though he didn't fully understand why. With his stolen grace beginning to burn out, there was risk to his physical well-being by casting this, but that hardly registered as a concern for him.

No, what he was about to attempt—recovering the memories Naomi had wiped from his head—was a long-shot at best. The thing that confounded Castiel, though, was that the thought of failing, of never getting those memories back, frightened him just as much as the notion that he may succeed. What if he didn't like what he found? There were some memories he was desperate to uncover, to understand not only himself but the woman who had given everything for him after only knowing each other for a few days.

But that was the point of this—Castiel had met Ryn before, ages ago. Before Naomi had carved out his mind and taken all his knowledge of that time. Ryn had told him they'd been friends, but Castiel sensed there was more to it. If only he'd gotten the chance to ask her, but she had died removing the Mark of Cain from Dean. For days they had waited with her ashes set just outside the bunker on the off-chance the Alpha phoenix would rise again. She hadn't.

Which meant if Castiel wanted answers—and he did—he would have to go about getting them this way. He sucked in a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves.

"You okay?" Sam asked, standing across the table from him. "Cas, if you're not up for this…"

He shook his head. "No, it's not that, it's just…" Castiel's stomach churned. "I already know some pieces. Ryn said we met in Ancient Egypt."

Sam furrowed his brow. "But I thought you didn't come down to earth until…uh, right, never mind." He gave Castiel a sheepish look.

Castiel gripped the edges of the table, his knuckles whitening. "Naomi…she told me I was there." He ducked his gaze. "You know of the Ten Plagues, Sam?"

"Uh, yeah. Nile turned to blood, frogs, boils, and…oh." His voice dropped an octave. "Oh."

"I've done many horrible things," Castiel said, shame making his face hot. He let out a shuddering breath. "You and Ryn insisted that I'm…good. But the truth is…far more muddied than that." Castiel finally lifted his head, but he didn't find the expected disgust and revulsion on Sam's face, only pain and grief. "I want to remember her," he added. "But I know I probably won't like what I find."

Sam's gaze turned inwardly thoughtful. "Yeah, yeah the truth isn't so clean, is it? You know, I felt the same when I found out I'd been running around soulless for a year. I wanted to know what I'd done, even though it terrified me."

"That's not the same. You can't be blamed for what you did then," Castiel argued.

"Like you can be blamed for what you did after being brainwashed?" Sam shook his head. "Look, Cas, we've all done bad things thinking they were right. And we've both done things under the influence of forces much stronger than us. It doesn't change who we are, deep down." He stepped around the table to clap Castiel on the shoulder. "Maybe the truth will be hard, but maybe it's not even what you think." Sam sighed heavily. "Whatever happened, man, you're still family. That won't change. And maybe…maybe you'll find some peace in all this."

Peace before he died. That was all Castiel could hope for. Dean may have stubbornly refused to give up looking for a way to fix his grace, but Castiel knew there was no solution to that problem.

Speaking of said Winchester, Dean emerged from the back hallway then. "Ready?" he asked.

"Yes." Castiel gathered up what ingredients he could and Sam got the rest.

Dean's jaw looked tight; he was still unhappy about this arrangement. But he nevertheless turned to lead the way down the corridor. "Got your room all situated."

Castiel canted his head. "My room?" He'd requested the use of a bedroom…

Dean paused to half turn and face him, tone softening with a hint of remorse. "Yeah, Cas, your room."

Speechless, Castiel followed Dean into one of the Men of Letters bedrooms set between Dean's and Sam's own quarters. Like the others, the furniture was sparse, simple, and functional: a bed in the middle of the room, a writing desk to the left, and a dresser on the right next to a small closet.

Dean ran a hand over his hair, suddenly appearing uncomfortable. "It could use a personal touch. I, uh, guess I just didn't know what you'd like."

Castiel truly didn't know what to make of this. He'd never had his own space before. Even when he'd called Heaven home, he'd found tranquility in someone else's personal heaven. This…was oddly touching.

"I don't really have anything," he said. The clothes on his back, which he was wearing. His angel blade, which he was wearing.

Dean's mouth tightened at that, but then he shrugged. "Maybe a picture of Claire or something. We can talk about it after we get your grace squared away."

Castiel felt a pang in his chest. It was a nice gesture, but a promise that would never be fulfilled, like so many others before it. That was okay, though. Castiel had spent the past several years of his existence searching for…something. Home, a place to belong. He'd take the small measure he found here with the Winchesters.

Castiel went and deposited his armful of supplies on the desk. Sam added what he'd been carrying, and then Castiel began to mix the ingredients in a bowl. Once done, he took a deep breath and cast one last look at the Winchesters, who stood tensely near the dresser.

Castiel forced his hands flat upon the desk, and started the incantation. The components in the bowl began to fizzle and glow. Castiel recited the last line, and watched as two tendrils of light rose up to swirl in concentric circles around his head. He held his breath, not sure what to expect. Would everything slam into him like when Metatron downloaded pop culture into his mind? Or would the lights continue to spin with no affect?

As the seconds ticked by, Castiel felt a pressure building behind his eyes, as though something was trying to break through. He let out a sharp gasp, but otherwise steeled himself to see this to the end. His head was throbbing now, all of his senses whittled down to a high-pitched whirring in his ears and a blinding haze filling his vision. The compression was becoming too much.

Castiel staggered back a step, the back of his legs hitting the foot of the bed. He distantly heard what sounded like Sam and Dean calling his name, but it was drowned out by the excruciating pulsing in his skull. He managed to look up at the swirling lights, only for the two spirals to suddenly plunge straight into his eyes with fiery fury, and everything Castiel knew exploded in a blazing supernova.

Dean threw his arm up to shield his face as the plasma roiling in the air erupted and speared down through Cas's eyes like forks of lightning. The energy winked out an instant later, and Dean heard the dull thud of a body hitting the floor.

"Cas!" He surged forward and dropped down to grip the angel's shoulders and roll him over. Cas's head lolled limply. Though his eyes were closed, Dean's heart stuttered at the rivulet of blood trickling from one eye.

"What the hell!" he snapped as Sam crouched down on the other side. His brother looked just as wide-eyed and freaked, but Dean's fear was getting the better of him in an explosive wave of anger. "What the hell, Sam?"

"I- I don't know." Sam put two fingers under Cas's jawline, and a second later his shoulders visibly sagged. "He's alive, Dean."

Well, that was something. A very small consolation, though, because Cas was unconscious and bleeding from his eye just like when Naomi had been messing around in his head and controlling him. Dean's throat constricted at those memories, but he forced them down where they wouldn't distract him.

"Cas?" He lightly patted the angel's cheek. "Cas, come on."

They waited, but Cas didn't show any signs of waking.

"Let's get him on the bed," Sam suggested.

Right, this was why they'd decided to do the spell in a bedroom. Well, this wasn't why, but they had anticipated Cas maybe needing to rest, or meditate or something.

Dean looped his arms under Cas's while Sam got his legs, and together they hefted him up and onto the mattress. Sam adjusted the pillow under his head, and then they just stood there, not knowing what to do. The blood was making Dean's stomach churn, so he drew out a bandana from his pocket and gently wiped the crimson tear tracks from Cas's face. Now Cas just looked like he was sleeping. Except it wasn't normal for angels to sleep in the first place.

"Maybe Cas was right," Sam said. "Those memories were just unreachable."

Dean clenched his fist. "So Cas just cast that draining spell for nothing." They never should have agreed to let him do this. Not that they'd really had a say in it, though. Cas was one stubborn son-of-a-bitch, and if he'd decided to do this stupid spell, he was gonna do it. At least he was safely here in the bunker now that it'd gone to shit, and not alone in some motel or backwoods area. The thought of that was enough to twist Dean's guts even more.

"It wasn't for nothing, Dean," Sam said quietly, and with that soft tone, managed to deflate a good chunk of Dean's anger.

He knew he couldn't argue with that. Hell, if he'd been in Cas's position, he probably would have done the same.

"Wait, is there more to your history with Cas than you're letting on?"

"Sometimes we keep things to ourselves to protect those we care about."

Cas had a right to know—about his own past, about Ryn. But she had died before any of them could get those answers from her. All because of Dean.

He glanced down at his forearm, now blemish free. The raised scar of the Mark may have been gone, but the horror of its power still wrapped around Dean's chest like a vice. He'd felt remorse before, even while bearing the Mark, but without the broiling whispers of violence soothing those aches of conscience, Dean now felt nothing but a drowning cascade of guilt. So many were dead because of him, and not just by his hand, but by the consequences of this path he'd chosen.

"The only reason I'm here is because Castiel asked. Even if he doesn't remember me from back then, I do remember."

Dean knew what it meant to sacrifice yourself for someone you loved. He and Sam had done it for each other countless times—more than was healthy, really. But they were brothers, it was what they did. Ryn had risked herself for Cas. A phoenix for an angel. Dean had seen a lot in his life, but that…that left him with a humbled sense of awe.

His gaze shifted to his unconscious friend, Ryn's last words echoing in his mind.

"Take care of Castiel."

Yeah, Dean always did a bang-up job of that, didn't he? If Ryn knew half of their history, she probably would've refused to cure Dean at all. Maybe she would have just killed him. And maybe everyone would've been better off that way after all.

Sam cleared his throat, jolting Dean out of his morose black hole. "We should let him rest."

Dean managed a nod. "Yeah. And we need to start scouring this place for something to fix his grace."

They reluctantly left their friend to recoup and headed back out to the library where they started flipping through the catalog and pulling books off the shelves. But as the hours wore on, Dean was beginning to feel as hopeless as when they hadn't been able to find anything on curing him of the Mark. There wasn't a single mention or hint of an angel stealing another's grace. Cas seemed to have done something completely unprecedented with that, which actually shouldn't have surprised Dean. Cas had a knack for doing that kind of shit.

There were countless books still to go through, and it would take them weeks, maybe months to search everything. The thing that scared Dean, though, was he didn't know how much time they actually had. Cas wasn't exactly forthcoming and honest about his own condition on the best of days. Plus, the stupid bastard had accepted that he was going to die and wasn't even interested in fighting it. It reminded Dean of Sam after the Trials all over again.

"Anything?" Sam spoke up.

"Nothin'." Dean roughly turned a page, crinkling the old, thin paper. Sam gave him a bitch-face for that, but didn't actually say anything. Dean's gaze drifted to his smooth forearm again, as it'd done periodically ever since the Mark had been removed. There were no more susurrations of murder and malice, but he remembered the whispers.

"Uhh…" he started, pausing to clear his throat. "Cas is down for the count. If that spell took more out of his grace…" Dean shifted in his chair. "We could go out, find an angel—"

Sam's brows shot up. "Dean."

"He's dying, Sam!" Dean bit back his frustration, surprised that he was actually able to. With the Mark gone, he had control again. Or, as much control as he normally had when the people he cared about were on the line. Dean shook his head and dropped his head into his hands. This was just like with Sam, he knew that. And look at how that turned out.

But Sam's alive.

His brother didn't say anything for a prolonged moment, and then when he finally did, it was with gentle but firm pointedness. "Cas would be able to tell."

Dean's heart sank. Yeah, and the angel would be pissed beyond measure. He might never forgive Dean, which Dean thought maybe he could live with if it meant Cas survived, but Cas would probably refuse any fix they found in the future, just to spite Dean.

"I know," he said in defeat. "It was a stupid idea, I just…"

"I know, Dean," Sam said softly. "I want to save him, too. We just…we gotta do it the right way, or it won't really be saving him." Sam hesitated. "How are you feeling, by the way?"

"Peachy."

"I meant with the Mark gone. Are you still feeling like a residual thing, or—"

"No, Sam, it's not that." Dean sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "The Mark's completely gone. There's no lingering side effects. It's…kinda like when I came down from being a demon. I still remember how everything felt." He took small comfort in the knowledge that such memories would gradually fade, at least when he was awake. Nightmares were a whole other story, but he'd dealt with those forever, so nothing to cry over there.

Sam nodded, and turned his attention back to the book in front of him. Dean did the same, and they worked in silence save for the rustle of turning pages and clack of keyboards. Dean's stomach eventually growled, signaling it was getting late and past time for dinner.

He got up and rolled out the crick in his neck. "I'm gonna check on Cas." He'd been hoping the angel would wake up and come join them, but that obviously wasn't happening.

Sure enough, Cas was right where they'd left him. He hadn't even shifted on the bedcovers or rolled over. Dean went to the side of the bed and felt for a pulse. It was still there, but very slow. He frowned, and leaned over to pat the angel's cheek.

"Cas, buddy, you need to wake up now."

No response.

Dean's heart started thudding against his rib cage, and he smacked Cas a little harder. The angel's head lolled a fraction from the impact, but otherwise Cas didn't stir.

"Sam!" Dean dragged one of Cas's eyelids up to check his pupils. They were blown wide, but unresponsive to changes in light. At least there weren't any signs of blood pooling.

Sam came scrambling in a moment later. "What? Is he awake?"

Dean shook his head. "His pulse seems really slow."

Sam hurried over and checked for himself. He held Cas's wrist far longer than Dean had, probably counting over and over again, just to be sure. "Yeah, really slow. I mean, it's steady." He cast a nervous glance at the angel's face. "Is he responsive to anything?"

"No." Dean didn't want to say out loud that he'd hit Cas pretty hard—though not that hard for an angel. He watched Sam pinch the back of Cas's hand, twice, also to no effect.

Sam reached up to rub the back of his neck, expression giving him away. Dean's chest constricted. Cas wasn't waking up.

A/N: Well, everything's off to a real bang-up start, isn't it? *g*