A/N: Hi everyone. Here is the promised epilogue for this story. It is set at the beginning of season seven. I know that this has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but please bear with me. There will be a longer note at the end.

Epilogue

Dean Winchester stared down at the soaking wet and stained coat in his hands, doing his best to hold back tears. He would not cry for Cas. He could not, because if he started, he would never stop.

He had lost a lot of people in his lifetime, more than anyone should ever have to. But there was something about that damned angel, with his endearing awkwardness and astonishing courage and beautiful eyes and reckless stupidity and inexplicable draw that left Dean feeling impossibly empty with loss.

His hands clenched, tightening around the wet fabric that he had pulled out of the reservoir after watching helplessly as his best friend dissolved into black goo, releasing god only knew what into the local water supply.

Why did you have to be so stupid, Cas? Dean wondered, wiping angrily at the moisture that had started to leak from the corners of his traitorous eyes. Why didn't you just listen to me?

I feel regret, the angel had said, just a few minutes before his death. He wasn't the only one.

Dean could have helped Cas, could have saved him. He would have done whatever it took.

He gazed down at the tan material of Castiel's trench coat, lost in the memories of his friend. They had been through a lot of crap together, but there had been spots of brightness too. Dean smiled slightly when he remembered seeing this coat hanging off of Castiel's shoulders, a look of utter confusion on his face while a hooker called Chastity screamed abuse at him. Dean remembered how hard he had laughed as he and the angel ran from the bouncers.

His smile faded as reality set back in. There would be no more moments of adorable awkwardness, no more trying not to laugh as his friend floundered in any kind of social situation. There would be no more silent conversations held only through loaded gazes, no more small smiles that made Dean's heart turn over.

The hunter closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, working harder than ever to keep himself together. His arms tightened around the trench coat he was holding, ignoring the dampness that seeped into his own clothes. He pulled in a deep breath and was frustrated with himself for being disappointed that Cas's scent did not linger in the fabric.

Dean held his breath, his body utterly still as he wrestled all of his emotions about Cas into a box at the back of his mind, tucked away and harmless. It was a skill that he had mastered over the years, but it was not working very well this time. Still, when Dean finally took another breath, his overpowering grief had faded into a dull ache that he suspected would linger for a very long time.

Sighing heavily, Dean opened his eyes and squared his shoulders. Cas was gone, but he had left a whole slew of problems in his wake, and now it was time to deal with them. As his gaze fell on Sam, who was standing with Bobby a discreet distance away as they waited for Dean to get his emotions under control, he felt a surge of anger for what the angel had done. Sam's wall was broken, and there was no telling how much damage that would do.

Dean thought that he could have forgiven Cas for that, for all of it, but he didn't. He held onto the anger because it was better than grief, better than the devastating emptiness. Of course, he still felt those too. Dean sighed again and shook his head before striding over to join his family.

ooooooooooooo

As much as he hated seeing his brother's mind crumble, a small part of Dean was bizarrely grateful for Sam's mental breakdown. It gave him something to worry about that he still had a chance of fixing. Dean poured all of his energy into taking care of his brother, so that he had nothing left with which to mourn Cas. And when Sam's issues were still not enough, he turned to the impressive supply of liquor in Bobby's house.

He could tell that his family was concerned about him, especially Bobby. The old man rarely said much, but he had a knack for observing, and he knew that both of his boys were in bad shape, despite how much Dean tried to pretend that Sam was the only one who was messed up. But as Dean told Bobby, he kept his marbles in a lead box, and he could not afford to open that box. Only one Winchester could fall apart at a time, and Sam currently had the corner on that market.

Despite everything that he was going through, Sam still managed to worry about Dean too. He always had been the sensitive one, and apparently even hallucinating the devil could not get in the way of that. Every once in a while, he would bring up Cas, but Dean shut him down so quickly and completely each time that he stopped mentioning the angel. Still, Dean frequently felt his brother's gaze studying him, saying nothing but seeing way too much.

When an entire high school swim team got eaten by leviathans, Sam and Bobby practically threw Dean out of the house to investigate, despite his reluctance. As much as he trusted Bobby to look out for Sam, Dean still hated the idea of being too far away to help if something else went wrong. He knew how many hits he could take, and he had reached his limit. Still, he knew how important it was to handle the leviathan issue, so he started packing his duffel for a trip to Kansas.

As he got his bag packed and ready, he somehow found himself holding the trench coat that he had stashed in one of Bobby's closets. He had not bothered to wash it after scooping it from the reservoir, so it was still stained and smelled faintly of blood and water tainted with the foul muck of the leviathans. Dean had not even looked at the damn thing since…everything, but his heart revolted at the idea of leaving it behind. So he did his best not to look at it as he carried it out of Bobby's house to the impala. He opened the trunk and then just stood there, thinking while trying not to think, which only resulted in a headache.

There was no reason for him to put the coat in the trunk, to bring it with him. It would be safe at Bobby's house, and there Dean would not have to see it every day. But maybe he needed to see it every day. Maybe every time he went to get a weapon, he should be reminded of the friend who had pushed his limits too far, who had cared too much without knowing how to care. Maybe he needed the reminder that his flawed, frustrating, beautiful, irreplaceable angel had not been just a dream.

Decision made, Dean set the coat beside his duffel bag in the familiar trunk, smoothing the fabric into place. He frowned when he heard a strange crackling sound. He pressed down on the coat again, and the sound repeated. It almost sounded like…paper crumpling. Cas must have had something in his pocket.

Curious, Dean unfolded the coat and began fishing through the inner pockets. His eyes widened as his fingers met a familiar object. He pulled out the FBI badge, staring at the picture of Castiel inside.

"I can't believe you kept this," Dean muttered, grinning as he remembered the day he gave it to the angel.

The day he had taught him how to lie.

Dean shook his head. Maybe one day he would be able to remember what Cas had done without feeling like he had been sucker-punched, but today was not that day.

The badge was not what he had heard crinkling earlier, so he tucked it back into its pocket and resumed his search. It did not take him long to find the slip of what felt like laminated paper, tucked deep inside one of the larger pockets. He pulled it out, realizing that it was an old Polaroid photo, spotted with age and water damage, but still intact. Dean raised an eyebrow, wondering what Cas could possibly have a picture of.

Halloween, 1988, was scrawled on the back. Maybe it was one of Jimmy Novak's photos.

He flipped it over, freezing as he recognized the faces in the blotchy photo. No, this was definitely not Novak's picture. Someone else might have mistaken the man in the photo for the mild-mannered radio ad-time salesman, but Dean knew better. The curious light in those borrowed blue eyes, accompanied with the slightly tilted head and deadpan expression were instantly recognizable. So was the boy standing with his arm around the angel, wearing a trench coat of his own and smiling like all was right with the world.

Dean's brain sputtered to a stop, then jolted into overdrive, racing to understand how he was looking at a picture of his nine-year-old self standing next to a man that he should not even have met for another twenty years. He stared at the photo, blinking rapidly as if that would change what he was seeing. It didn't.

Dean did not realize that he was shaking until the image before him started to blur with the speed of his tremors. He forced himself to pull in a deep breath, his grip steadying and bringing the figures back into better focus. Dean could not tear his eyes away from Castiel's face, that steady gaze holding him captive even through a photograph.

"You're supposed to smile in pictures, Cas." The words flashed through Dean's brain as if blown in on a breeze, bringing with them the barest spark of a memory.

"Oh. Why?"

"I don't know. It's just what you do. I guess so that it's a happy memory when you look at it later."

"I don't need a picture of myself smiling for this to be a happy memory, Dean."

"Me neither."

Dean gasped and his fingers snapped open, sending the photo fluttering down into the trunk of the impala. It landed facedown on the trench coat from whence it came, and Dean was grateful. He was not sure that he could handle looking at it for another moment.

The hunter closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, not even knowing where to begin trying to process all of this. Where had the picture come from, and why did Dean have a fragment of a memory to go with it? He was fairly certain that he would not have forgotten meeting someone like Cas as a kid.

Dean was not sure how long he just stood there like an idiot, waiting for more of the memory to trickle back, for any of this to start making some kind of sense. When he realized that he was wasting valuable time with nothing to show for it, he shook himself out of the daze that he had fallen into. He did his best to stuff the memory and the questions that it had raised into the Castiel box in his mind, knowing that this was not something he could handle right now.

He scooped up the picture, holding it carefully by the corners even though there was not much more damage that he could possibly do to it. He slid into the familiar driver's seat and started the car, feeling a small measure of comfort from the soothing rumble of the engine. He glanced at the picture one more time, before reaching over to deposit it safely in the glove compartment, a mystery to be confronted another day.

A/N: First of all, I want to thank you all for being so wonderful to me throughout this story. I know that many of you were heartbroken by the ending, so I wanted to offer an explanation, as well as some hope. I love season five, and the beautiful story arc that Kripke gave us, and I knew that I could not do a better job than that. I wanted my story to tie into the incredible canon that already existed, while also developing the relationship that I see so much potential for. Dean and Cas have never had it easy, and I wanted this story to reflect that. But despite all of the crap that gets thrown their way and all of the challenges that they face, they always manage to find each other again, and trust me when I say that the sequel will reflect that aspect of their relationship. I do not care for season seven the way I do for season five, so the sequel will not be limited by canon. I am a sucker for a happy ending, and I would ask you all to stick with me while we get there. In the meantime, the first chapter of Moments in Time is up, so you have something to tide you over.

Thanks again for all of the support. I would love to hear your thoughts.