Episode 24: Redemption (Part III Continued)

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Dean finds him in the Impala.

He doesn't knock on the metal to signal his arrival, or open the door - the only working door his baby still has - but stands outside and watches Castiel where he reclines on the back seat, apparently in a futile attempt to steal some comfort for himself.

Dean was half-hoping that in the time that passed, Castiel might have fixed his foot but is seems he got no further than expending whatever is left of his magic on flight, and the extremity is resting on the center console between the two front seats, bare, its sock cast off who knows where. Dean winces as he studies the injury; the top bones look caved in, the skin is mashed to a bloody pulp, and the whole foot is badly swollen.

He sighs and leans down on the sill. Jagged edges of the blown-out back windshield refract light against Castiel's face and paint a rainbow. When the car's struts - or what remains of them - sag under Dean's weight, Castiel opens his eyes, but he doesn't look up.

"Where did you go?" Dean asks.

"Here," his friend mutters. "I was hiding. And sulking."

"I'm sorry," Dean returns, because he needs to get it out there right now.

The silence remains. It's far thicker now, the tension greater than before, and Dean can't place what it is, what dynamic has changed. There has been far too much shit for them to devolve into this, and he scrubs a hand across his chin, where his stubble itches, and wonders if this is how it happens; if it's one too many fights in a stormy relationship and it falls apart like stale bread, whole and then crumbling, and that's when 2014 comes riding down on them. He saw it in the complicated way that Dean and that Castiel looked at each other, a hardness in their eyes that bordered on hatred but softened when each thought the other couldn't see. It comes with the loss and disintegration of love, and Dean can barely hold his breath when he thinks of it like that; that love is the key, and to lose it is to change the course of everything, for the worse.

"I'll be back, okay?" he says, and he turns and walks away, boots scuffing through the dirt slowly, and it's another trip up the front steps, to the old hallway closet where the smell of mothballs permeates. He finds the cold steel frame of Bobby's wheelchair by touch, drags it out and shakes it, and the arms expand as it unfolds. He studies the empty form and shape of it, remembers when Bobby used to roll back and forth across the floor and it would make a steady rapping noise. Things were different then. His angel was different then, and so was he, and so was Sam. And they can never go back now.

He takes the wheelchair by the handles, steering it across the floor, through the doorway and down the steps, scouring a path through the gravel before he comes to a stop at the car. Castiel watches him and shivers in the cold.

"Did you use all of your mojo up when you took off?" Dean asks, gentle.

"No," Castiel whispers. "But it will take time to recover. It feels better here in the car, where some traces of it remain."

They do not speak of grace, like it was someone who passed away suddenly and without warning, and it hurts to say their name.

"Mira's getting some stuff set up inside so she can take a look at your foot," Dean diverts, and he spends a moment considering how to extricate Castiel from the car, until Castiel breaks into his thoughts.

"Prove you're really here…"

His expression is oddly wistful, the echo of Dean's own plea in the night is yearning, and Dean doesn't hesitate. He opens the door and crowds in to wedge himself onto the bench seat beside Castiel, and he threads his arms under his friend, pulling him close, fitting them tight together, so tight Dean can feel the expansion and contraction of Castiel's chest as he breathes, feel the radiant heat that creeps out of his skin.

"Tell me, love," Dean says softly. "Tell me everything."

Castiel sighs. "It's sharp, this humanity. The host was smooth, with no end and no real beginning, and it just was. It was effortless. But this…this humanity is messy and ill-fitting, it is hunger, it is exhaustion, it is apathy, misery, guilt."

He's just an inch away from Dean, his breath warm on Dean's lips as he goes on, and his eyes are suddenly steady and knowing. "We are the same, Dean, you and I. This humanity is like broken glass to us, so many shattered pieces, and we feel as if we are trying to fit them all back together to form a whole so that we can exist in this world. But this world turns like a knife in our wounds. And sometimes…sometimes…"

"It terrifies us." Dean picks up what he knows his friend is going to say, whispers it out. "Sometimes it terrifies us."

"Sometimes it terrifies us," Castiel echoes him faintly.

They stare at each other then, for a long time, until Castiel runs a thumb over Dean's lower lip. "Humanity is also this," he breathes. "And I would not be without it."



Dean reaches his hand up to brush back Castiel's hair, grown long and tousled, and here inside the Impala with his angel he feels safe and protected, feels like all of eternity could unfold here between them and this, this is good enough, because they are the same. "I'm going to make it right, all of it," he pledges, and words spill out, words Castiel wouldn't let him say in the other place where he felt the same sense of sanctuary. "Cas, there's times I've taken you for granted, and I-"

"Dean, stop-"

"No," Dean cuts his friend off. "You had your say back on Tu'ugamau." He locks their eyes together, smiles a little. "Don't put me on a pedestal, Cas. Fuck-ups are a two-way street, and I fucked us up too. Blah-blah Raphael, remember? I let you own yours, now you let me own mine, okay? And I love you. Always."

Castiel returns his gaze steadily. "I know," he replies.

There is no hint of sentiment in their voices. There is a vein of controlled hurt and overlapping experience that wends through them, around them, binds them tight to each other. They can't be unknotted with words alone.

"I have to try to save what's left of it, you know," Castiel murmurs.

It takes Dean a moment to realize he's talking about his grace again. "You mentioned it."

"You never asked me why. I mean - specifically why."

Dean arches an eyebrow. "Specifically why?"

Castiel's eyes grow fond. "I'm saving it for you, Dean. For 2014. You said-"

"No," Dean jumps in decisively. "No. It's not happening. Period."

"Maybe not," Castiel concedes. "But I'm going to keep my grace like a loaded gun in my back pocket until I know we're safe. Maybe that other Castiel, the one Zachariah showed you, took shit from you and walked into the meat grinder on your say so, but this Castiel? Isn't going to take your shit. So you suck it up, and realize that I'm going to shoot down the first thing that comes for you. I won't be sticking my dick in everything with a pulse and toking up while you take the hits for the rest of us."

"I didn't-"

"What you're going to do is learn to take orders, Dean. Now, shut the hell up."

"What? I didn't-"

Castiel doesn't let him finish before he catches Dean's mouth with the hot press of his own and gyrates his hips into Dean's, pressing himself there and stealing Dean's breath from his lungs with an artful flick of his tongue in Dean's mouth. He retreats long enough to watch Dean splutter for breath, his eyes just a rim of blue as his pupils expand in onyx concentrics.

When Castiel lets out a hiss as he shifts, Dean opens his mouth to say something and Castiel holds up a finger in warning.

"Ah-ah…what did I say?"

And before Dean can speak again, Castiel closes his mouth with another kiss.

In the end, the pain is too much, and Dean withdraws and lift-hauls Castiel from the car into the wheelchair, all one hundred seventy-five pounds of stubborn, angry angel.

As Castiel stares tiredly at him, Dean isn't really sure if he's any less worried about any of it. But he can fake it with the best of them. "I'd like very much to take some orders from you later, actually," he leers. "But first, let's get you inside, get you patched up."



After some figuring, Dean decides that carrying Castiel into the house is more effective than trying to lug him up the porch steps in the wheelchair, and Mira comes out to help while Dean hauls the angel back into his arms. There is a moment when the wind plays with Castiel's hair gone long and Dean likes him there, seated in his arms. It's stupid and maybe a little girlish, but holding Castiel in his arms gives him the sense that he can hold him forever, defend him, ensure that nothing comes to hurt him. Castiel says nothing but Dean thinks he knows it; that this might have been the pose Castiel once took when he dragged him out of Hell.

Inside the house, Dean smells the astringent taint of antiseptic on the air, and sure enough Sam is in the kitchenette off of Bobby's study, standing guard over a pot of water bubbling on the stove. A spread of towels is on the table behind him, along with a cluster of military grade sterile bandages, and bottles of iodine and hydrogen peroxide.

"You're cooking my favorite meal, Sammy," Dean says and it earns him an amused sound from his brother as Sam ambles over.

Dean lays Castiel out on the broken-in couch and Sam rubs the side of his temple in deep thought as he surveys the damage and whistles. "Shit," he comments. "Can't you just tap into the mojo, Cas?"

"What? It's not that bad," Dean fences, even if he thinks it is, even if he thinks Castiel might not walk right again if he doesn't magic finger the bones back together. "He's saving the mojo for a real emergency."

Castiel says nothing but seems content to palm pain-sweat from his brow and then recline with one arm behind his head as he glances from Dean to Sam and back again. "You know, if it wasn't for the pain all this attention would be quite enjoyable," he observes, as Mira kneels beside the couch and carefully eases the hem of his jeans up and away from the swollen foot and ankle.

Hands gentle, she moves the foot, and Castiel bites back a groan. "Oh come on," she mocks mildly. "Don't be so wet. You've fought off God knows what in Hell twice now, taken on Lucifer even."

Her tone is sympathetic, but Dean still finds himself rocketing from zero to alpha-dog protectiveness at the speed of light. "He says human pain is different," he butts in, defensive. "He's trying to save his grace, and he isn't used to going cold turkey with something as bad as this."

Sam makes a barely discernible noise that might be amusement, but Mira snorts.

"I've seen women squat down to give birth in the dirt without making a sound, then lift up their newborn and start picking crops again," she says, as she twists the foot slightly, along to another stifled whimper.

Dean bristles. "Bobby told me you packed Sam off to bed for a simple headache."

His brother smirks at him. "I'm special, Dean. I get the full bedside manner."

Rolling her eyes, Mira says, "Can you wiggle your toes?"

Gritting his teeth, Castiel squints down at the end of his leg, seems to be willing the digits to move, but nothing happens and his head falls back onto the arm of the couch on a long drawn out gasp.

Mira sits back on her heels. "I can't confirm how extensive the damage is without an x-ray, but if the battery is as heavy as you say then the foot is broken. It's closed fractures, at least, but it'll compromise his mobility. The wheelchair's all right, but I'd hate to think what would happen if we needed to be on the move, and fast."

"That's the least of it," Sam points out. "What about infection? Without the power on twenty four-seven, we don't have the best hygiene now. Simple infections have killed more people than the plague. Get an infection in your foot…" He shakes his head. "Dad used to talk about it."

Dean can remember it, a distant memory, tell us about the war, dad, and John's voice a comforting rumble in the night, when they couldn't sleep because the car was freezing cold or too hot for breath. "He said that in 'Nam they used to get fungus on their feet," he recalls slowly, as it comes back to him. "He called it jungle rot, said it was vicious."

"If gangrene sets in and he doesn't have enough juice left to fix himself, we're talking amputation," Sam warns.

It might have crossed Dean's mind already, but hearing it stated so baldly still throws him off, and he flounders until Castiel takes pity on him.

"Don't everybody write me off all at once," the angel says dryly. "I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to chisel my tombstone and save you the trouble."

"That's the point, though," Mira informs him tartly. "This may not be a big problem now, but small problems become big problems fast. We've got antibiotics, but if you're doing this the hard way, we're going to need more just in case. And plaster of Paris or fiberglass for a cast, too." She frowns, adds, "fiberglass would be better, it's waterproof and more durable."

It's something to focus on that isn't the mental image of Castiel biting on a stick while they saw off his foot, and Dean seizes on it. "How about that medical supply drugstore just outside of town? Has that been looted?"

Sam jumps in. "From what Bobby's told me everywhere has been looted, but it's worth a shot. Maybe we can stock up. Painkillers, antibiotics, dressings. They might have crutches too. Could mean the difference between losing the foot and keeping it."

"That's a good idea," Castiel agrees. "I like feet."

Sam raises an eyebrow. "Kinky."

It's forced, because all of them are forcing it, Dean knows, but he plays along anyway and barfs quietly to the side. "Dude, I will put a lot of things in my mouth, but-"

He's cut off mid-flow by Bobby's bootsteps as they clump up the hall from the back of the house, and Sam is adroit at using the diversion. "Have to be going now," he announces, catching at Mira's sleeve and tugging her along with him. "How about you work out your feelings for Cas's feet while you tell Bobby what's up, Dean. We'll meet you at the truck."

Bobby is already glowering as Dean turns, and he stabs a finger towards Castiel as he carries his bucket of milk around them and into the kitchen. "What the hell happened?" he barks, his gruffness not quite disguising his dismay.

"I broke my foot," Castiel tells him glumly.

"He dropped one of your goddamn batteries on it," Dean adds. "I hope your cappuccino is worth it."

The old man fixes him with an unimpressed stare. "I'm sure he can fix it, boy."

"Except that he won't," Dean snaps. "He says he's saving his mojo for an emergency."

Bobby huffs, walks back around the couch to examine the injury, and turns a flat look on the angel. "Well who knows, maybe one will come up," he says acidly.

Castiel flicks his eyes to Dean, and Dean sees his friend's throat flex as he swallows, but then his jaw sets firm and as obstinate as before, out in the lot. His mind is clearly made up, and Dean sighs. "We're headed out to that medical supply store on the strip outside of town, hoping it hasn't been looted too badly."

As Dean turns to go, Castiel catches his hand. "Be careful," he murmurs.

Dean nods mutely, slants his eyes over to Bobby, and the old man rolls his eyes.

"He'll be fine."

And maybe he will, maybe it's nothing, not really. But Dean has a roiling in his gut he finds hard to shake off; a deep and persistent worry that nothing is going to be right ever again and that most of all, neither will he, and he won't be able to control the moment he turns from Castiel's everything, his all, into Alistair's most beloved student.

He heads out for the truck, glances back just once over his shoulder to stare into blue and notice abstractedly that Bobby has his hand resting on Castiel's shoulder, his fingers kneading the muscles there.

As Mira's truck, an old GMC with a grille like chromium teeth and mud splatters caked up its sides, jounces up through the lot, under the sign and onto the main road, Dean feels sick but he isn't sure why. Without being able to come up with a concrete reason, he doesn't say anything at all as he looks back at the mountain-mirage of the glamour, even if he wants to tell his brother he'd like a pass on this run. He imagines himself bleating it out, the fact he wants to stay with Castiel because he loves him and doesn't want to leave his side. Fuckin' idiot, he scoffs at himself inwardly for his vulnerability. Now is not the time to back down. No, he has to man-up for this. There might be another time when he has to leave Castiel behind for the good of the group, and love just won't be enough.



Even the outlying areas of the town look eerily dead and empty in the moonlight. Faded signs swing lethargically in the breeze, broken windows and kicked-in doors form jagged eyes and mouths in the storefronts, and abandoned cars dumped at crazy angles block the side streets and parking lots.

Mira steers them through the desolation with her hands sharp-knuckled on the wheel, and Sam points out the slew of parking tickets one last police officer left behind beneath the wipers, as though he were insistent on doing his job even at the final hour, when it was clear no one left to prosecute. "Probably thought he was keeping some semblance of order," he says. "Or maybe just went plain nuts at the end."

The roll slow and cautious down the main drag. There are shapes and silhouettes that might be bodies in the shadow of the store awnings, and a couple of definites beside a cluster of wrecked vehicles. What looks like a child's Barbie doll is lying in the gutter, and Dean fixates on it as Mira navigates around a gaping hole in the middle of the road, its manhole cover conspicuously absent.

"There's the drugstore," Sam points out, and Mira nods once, curt, as she pulls around to the back of the building. They are all on high-alert, eyes darting through brush, around the hulks of rusting cars, trying to see through walls and predict what might be lurking behind every shadow and broken piece of detritus that litters the street.

"I got a bad feeling about this," Sam says as the engine dies and they sit together in the front, contemplating the looming shadow of the local Chet's Emporium.

"You can buy me a postcard and write all about it," Dean retorts. "Let's make it quick, huh?"



Inside, Sam catches a mouthful of spiderweb and spends a minute spitting out bits of dead firefly as his eyes adjust to the dim surroundings. He hears Mira close behind him and then both she and Dean fan out to his sides, flashlights aimed down at the floor as they pick their way through the debris of generic merchandise, junk food and hygiene products, cast aside and kicked around for no other purpose than destruction. Did fish-mutants do this? Or locals? Sam pauses to wonder just how different people are from monsters when they get desperate. Not very, as it turns out.

"Hey," his brother calls out as Mira forges ahead of him into the darkness. "Let's make it quick, right? And no prescription painkillers."

"No prescription painkillers?" Sam asks, sliding his duffel off his back as they duck down the pharmacy aisle. He grabs large bottles of peroxide and rubbing alcohol as he goes, band-aids, medical tape and gauze dressings too, tossing them into his pack. Surgical scissors, always handy; and then, since Dean hasn't answered him, Sam prods. "Why not?"

Before he can register a reply from his brother, his eye is briefly caught by the feminine hygiene shelf, and with a quick look at Mira, Sam shuffles over there, grabs a couple of jumbo boxes of tampons to go with it, ignoring the raised getting pretty close, huh? eyebrow Dean sends his way. He's just squatting down to investigate the lower shelves when he hears the muffled shatter of glass, and he turns to see Dean extricating the handle of his Maglite from a display case and using it to knock the remaining shards of glass out of the frame.

"You can't just grab and go. He needs the right size for his height."

Sam looks over to his left to see that Mira is pinning Dean in place with a hard eye as he tugs the nearest set of crutches out of the display.

"They'll do," Dean mutters back, and he sounds distracted because he has been drifting off since they pulled out of the lot. He's worried about more than Castiel's broken foot; Sam can see it in the way his brother's jaw clenches and the muscles in his cheeks twitch, and there's a vertical furrow between Dean's eyebrows that hasn't really let up since he hauled Castiel inside and hollered frantically for Mira.

Mira growls out something under her breath and stands her ground. "Dean, they won't. He's becoming more human every day isn't he? If they're too long, they could damage the nerves under his arms; too short and he'll hurt his back. Either pick the right size, or find some that adjust." She directs her flashlight along the length of the aluminum. "Those don't adjust."

Sam can see that Dean is barely holding it together, his fingers strumming the air, and he thinks he better cut the imminent explosion off at the pass. "Mira, why don't you go get the meds?" he suggests. "I got this."

She looks at him pointedly, and he shrugs. "Broke my ankle first year at Stanford, had to use a pair of crutches to keep the weight off of it."

She nods, runs her hand through his hair as she walks past him. "Stay sharp," she says, jerking her head towards the windows. "Looks deserted out there, but Bobby and I ran into trouble here a couple of months back."

Sam is pushing up when Dean calls out, low and strained.

"No oxy. I mean it. No perc either."

Mira pauses a moment. "We need to stock up on everything, especially if we're hitting the road soon," she responds neutrally, before she disappears back into the pharmacy.

Dean looks away from Sam as he steps up closer, busies himself rummaging through the display, but his shoulders are rigid.

"Okay," Sam broaches as he sets his flashlight on one of the lower shelves and reaches past his brother to poke through the crutches himself. "Far as I remember, the pad is supposed to fall about an inch and half to two inches below your armpits, and the handgrips need to be even with the top of your hips, with your arms a little bent. He's what…an inch or two shorter than you?"

Dean grunts noncommittally, but he twists around, raises his arm, and lets Sam prop the crutch up against him. "I think these should do," Sam decides, as he gauges the height. "You want to tell me what this is all about?" he adds quietly. "I mean - I know you're worried about him and all, but-"

"Nothing he could get hooked on," Dean grates out. "I can't watch him all the time. So I don't want anything in the house that he could get hooked on."

And it dawns on Sam, and he knows his mouth drops open a little and his eyes widen. "This is about that future vision of Zachariah's…"

Words come tumbling out of his brother in a nervous, high-pitched torrent. "That Cas told me he broke his foot, said it laid him up for months. He didn't say it, but what if that was why he turned into a stoner? What if he started taking the hard stuff then, and that other me just let him? What if-"

"Wait," Sam chips in, hand coming down to grip Dean's shoulder and still the flow. "Just - calm down. Calm down, Dean. Okay?"

His brother stares at him, intense, finally blinks his eyes closed for a long moment.

"That other Cas, did he…" Sam trails off, not really sure of how to ask the question that springs to mind. But, what the hell, just go for it; it's not as if he doesn't know the deal between his brother and his friend, and Dean knows he knows. "Were he and the other you, were they - you know. Like you two are? Together?"

Dean's eyes snap open, a little haunted. "Jesus, I hope not." His hand comes up to rub at his brow. "Other-me sent other-Cas walking right into a trap." He sucks in his bottom lip, then shakes his head. "No. No, I don't think they were."

Sam cocks his head. "See?" he reassures gently. "You and our Cas being together, it's a difference, and that means something. We changed it all, Dean, we even changed you and Cas. That was just one possible future Zachariah showed you, and it's never going to happen because everything is different now. You and Cas - me too. Detroit…" Sam has to stop and swallow thickly past that memory, and the automatic recall of what followed it. "Me saying yes," he finally manages. "We're out the other side of all of that. It's done, over, and none of the stuff you saw in that future is even possible."

Dean loosens up, blows out long and slow, and Sam holds his brother's gaze for another moment. "Alright?"

After a weak grin, Dean nods. "Alright. I'm alright, Sammy."

Sam follows up with a light slap to his brother's cheek, turns to scan the shelves again. "Mira said we should pick up one of those cast boots for him. Same size feet as you, right? Or is he a size sm-"

Mira's low whistle from the back of the drugstore has them both dropping to their knees. She stabs a finger at the front of the store, mouths, company, and Sam cranes his neck to peer cautiously up front. Dean is already on the move, crabbing his way along the aisle, and Sam crouches down to follow him.

"Demons," Dean mutters, motioning to Sam's left.

Sam squints out into the moonlit street, and he can barely see them there, a small group lounging against a car, three or four bulky guys and one smaller figure. He frowns. "How can you tell?"

Dean grimaces. "I can smell their stink. Sulfur. Fuck knows, I had enough time to get used to it down there." He jerks his head back in the direction they came. "Let's clear out, we don't want trouble…" He trails off then, shuffles right back up to the glass. "Jesus."

Sam presses his face up to the glass, scopes the street for whatever has caught Dean's attention. "Jesus," he echoes his brother, as he sees Meg marching up to the shadowy group.

She stops about ten feet away, hands on her hips, waits until the smaller demon peels away from the huddle and approaches her. The moon conveniently beams down a silvery ray of light as the two converge, the unknown demon wearing a dark haired young woman, and they circle each other slowly.

"What the hell is she doing?" Sam breathes.

He doesn't get an answer from his brother as such, just a sucked in breath of alarm. "Meg knows where we're hiding out," Dean says harshly. "We have to get back. Now."

Almost as he finishes speaking Dean is already up and running back through the store, knocking display stands flying, twisting mid-sprint to snatch up the crutches and his pack. Sam doesn't hesitate, sets off in pursuit, heaving his own bulging duffel up with him. Outside Mira is already in the truck, poised to crank the engine, and Sam spares a second to throw up a prayer of thanks for Bobby's vigilance in spray-painting the sigils that should protect them on the vehicle's hood and doors.

He piles in as the engine revs, slamming the door as they start moving. Mira guns it, crashes them down the street, and then all is pain, a blinding white-out of piercing agony, and his brother's shouts are drowned out by Sam's own strangled whine as he suffers, and-

-The dogs are barking up a storm, eyes glowing like lanterns as the moon reflects off them, and the door is crashing open.

Castiel is right there, sitting in Bobby's wheelchair, and he looks up with that bird-like tilt of his head and a puzzled frown, and the black-eyed woman in the doorway smirks, strides over the sigils painted at the threshold as if they aren't even there, and kneels in front of him.

Something like recognition crosses Castiel's face, and, "You," he whispers. He reaches out as if to fend her off, lowers his brows as he concentrates, and then she's laughing, waving her hand, sending Castiel airborne so that he crashes head-first into Bobby's glass-fronted bookcase.

As the demon pushes up and turns, there is the blat of a gun, once, twice, three times in quick succession at point-blank range, and the impact knocks her back into the wheelchair. She casts her eyes down to where blood blossoms scarlet across her chest, looks up again and smiles. "Ouch," she says, and she clenches her fist as she lounges there comfortably.

The movement sends furniture flying and splintering, turning the room into a tornado of its own contents that catches Bobby up in its crazed whirl, spinning him around and around like a rag doll until the demon tires of the sport and flicks her wrist, bouncing Bobby solidly into the wall. His knees buckle as he collapses down onto his butt and flops sideways onto the floor.

And now Castiel again, and the demon springs out of the chair grinning, prowls up to him, fists a handful of his hair and hauls him upright. Her other hand plays through the air until a vicious shard of glass from the shattered bookcase leaps up into her fingers, and she holds it up to the skin of Castiel's neck as he blinks dazedly at her, presses in until he is choking on his own blood, ribbons of it spilling out of his mouth, and-

"Sam? Fuck, Sammy."

Dean sounds faraway and desperate, he's slapping Sam's cheek lightly, and they are jostling madly because they're in the truck and on the way back to Bobby's. Sam snakes his hand up, grips his brother's wrist. "Hurry," he gasps. "We have to hurry."

Dean nods. "Are you back? Come on, kiddo, not a good time to flash back. Count with me, twenty, nineteen, eight-"

"Not," Sam grinds out between the pains that lance right through his prefrontal lobe. "Not a flashback." His head must be splitting open, feels like it's about to explode, and he thuds it hard into the window next to him, vaguely hears Mira's cry of alarm at the impact. "Vision," he sobs out through his horror, and he is vaguely aware of his brother's eyes and mouth going comically round with astonishment and disappointment. "Dean…vision," he stutters again. "Bobby…Cas. Demon. And…no…oh no, no, no."



Vision.

That can't be, because his brother's visions died with Azazel, but Dean can't dwell on it now because the truck is finally screaming in through the gate, listing onto two wheels, and he can see that Bobby's front door is wide open, the dim light of the oil lamp shining out onto the porch.

"Pull up," he snaps to the woman at his side, and he's tumbling out of the passenger door before the truck stops, knife in his hand, the knife, because it was a vision, even though it can't have been, and his brother's visions were always right. And forget surveillance, forget stealth, forget his own safety; he's doing this quick and dirty because his family is in there, being hurt.

Dean pounds up the porch steps and through the gaping doorway into chaos, upturned furniture, paper, books, as if a hurricane blew through the house. Dead center is the wheelchair he settled Castiel into, lying on its side in the debris, and the familiarity of the image knocks the wind from him in a painful gasp of, "No."

He freezes, captivated for a fraction for a second by the holes torn through its back panel, the blood smeared wetly down the vinyl, before he hears the crunch of boots on gritted glass and he skids himself around so fast he almost loses his feet from under him.

The demon is vaguely recognizable but Dean's eyes range past her and down, to the floor, where Castiel is shifting, groaning and bringing a hand up to his head.

"Oh, don't worry, Dean, he's fine," the woman says dismissively. "I only just got started."

Dean tenses as he pulls his gaze back up to stare at her. "Who the fuck are you?" he growls through the same vague sense of deja vu he felt when he first looked at her, as she starts to back away, and he raises the knife. "How did you get in here?"

She smiles, her teeth flashing white between glossy red lips, and her eyes dance insolently. "Trade secret," she teases, and she's opening her mouth to continue when a melée at the doorway announces Sam, gray-faced but upright and alert. He careens in much as Dean did, eyes darting about frantically, and he almost mows the demon down. She sidesteps gracefully as Sam gasps out names.

"Bobby? Cas?"

"Cas looks okay, I can't see Bobby," Dean says tersely, and Sam detours around him, makes a low sound in his throat. Dean spares a swift glance behind him, sees that his brother is on his knees beside the crumpled form of the old man.

"Is he alright?" Dean snaps. "Sam?"

"He's alright," Sam assures him finally, and Dean switches his attention back to the front, to where the woman is still standing.

Her grin doesn't undercut the contempt in her eyes. "What can I say, I got a soft spot for the old guy," she offers. "I got a soft spot for all of you, actually."

Dean is partway through, "What the fuck does that mean?" when he pulls up, looking at thin air. He doesn't hesitate, turns and flings himself to his knees beside Castiel, who is flat to the boards again and seems out cold, his hairline clotted with blood.

Mira appears behind him from the back of the house, squats and thumbs open the angel's eyes, before gently pushing his hair up and away from the gash. "He's lucky he has such thick hair," she says. "It cushioned the glass. The cut isn't deep, but he'll have a hell of a headache to go with his broken foot."

As she stands and steps around Dean, her boots crunch on broken glass that tells some of the story, and Sam confirms it faintly from his spot beside Bobby.

"She threw him head-first into the bookcase."

Dean's hand is shaking as he lays it on Castiel's cheek, before fixing his eyes on where Mira is checking Bobby's pupils. "We'll have to keep an eye on both of them for concussion," she decides, before exhaling. "That was too close. How did it even get in here? The place is warded."

Sam coughs then, and Dean looks across to see his brother crawling away on his hands and knees to the trashcan, where he retches for a moment before flopping onto his ass and wiping his mouth, his jaw slack. "Fuck. Dean. She killed them both, I saw it all. Cas…she cut his throat and-"

"What the fuck was that?" Dean jumps in hoarsely before his brother can continue, because he doesn't ever want to think of what might have happened if they hadn't made it back here in time. "A vision? You're having visions again? How the fuck is that even possible?"

Sam stares at him for a minute before his eyes drop and his frame seems to slump. He scrubs a nervous hand through his hair, and Dean knows the damn signs well enough to grate out, "You have anything you need to tell me?"

His brother sighs, his gaze darting to points north, south, east and west before he pulls his huge feet back under himself and pushes to a stand. "There's something I need to show you," he says.

"Now?" Dean hears his voice catch a little in his throat, because he can already tell he isn't going to like this any more than the revelation about the vision. "In case you missed it, that demon had a bunch of co-stars with her back in town, and-"

"Please." Sam finally looks at Dean then, with something like desolation on his face. "It's important. It'll just take a minute."

There's a moment when they're all still, and there's a strange buzz of anticipation hanging in the air. Mira glances from Dean to Sam and back again. "I've got this if you're going to be quick," she says. "Let me just get the first-aid kit."

As she maneuvers past Dean, he reaches to the couch, snags a cushion and slides it under Castiel's head. He leans in close to brush his lips across the skin at Castiel's temple, before turning back to his brother. "This better be good," he gravels out wearily.



Dean hasn't been to his grave, even though he has seen it from a distance, loose earth standing slightly proud of the surface under the tree Castiel ripped up for him so long ago. He could tell it had been filled in, assumes Bobby probably did it so his damn fool pack of dogs wouldn't all fall in there, but he has noticed large, solid objects strewn about it carelessly, even if he has shivered and turned away with no desire to look closer.

Now he is looking closer; in fact he's right up in his own grave's personal space, his brother standing opposite, wordless. Sam is slouching dejectedly, toeing one of the unidentified objects; wood, a short strip of lumber, and there are several other similar pieces flung over under the tree.

"What is this?" Dean asks guardedly, because even if they're within sprinting distance of the house he doesn't want to be here, wants to be locked inside, safe behind every ward he can think up, lying under blankets with his lover sleeping in his arms. "What's going on?"

Sam speaks haltingly. "When I figured out what Cas had done, I raced right out here and I dug, like a crazy man." He laughs, and it sounds a little shocked at the recollection. "You know that already. And Bobby wasn't having any of it, but I kept at it, and I dug down as far as this wood."

Dean's trepidation only swells as Sam taps his boot on one of the planks, and he casts his eyes back towards the house, wants to walk way from this. "Look," he starts, "do we have to-"

"Bobby used it to cover you up, and all these small pieces…"

Sam looks down, and Dean can't help but track his gaze even if he is reluctant and unwilling, and his sense of foreboding is growing exponentially.

"All these small pieces add up to the top three feet of strips that were about seven feet long, I guess," Sam continues. "Because I dug down as fast as I could, but it was just me and a shovel, and when I hit the wood, I couldn't lift it up. There was all this earth still, weighing it down. But there wasn't time to dig out all the soil, and I was desperate. So I grabbed it and I pulled. With my bare hands. And I focused real hard. Real, real hard, Dean…and I felt this - surge. Inside me."

Dean's throat goes dry as he slides his eyes down again, notices how all the short lengths of wood are ragged and torn at one end. "Oh…Sammy, no."

His brother goes on, doggedly. "Anger, power. Like before. And I snapped the wood. It wasn't even that hard to do."

Sam pauses then, waiting for Dean's reaction, his eyes dark and watchful as if he's expecting Dean to explode, to tackle him and sink his fist into his face and maybe beat it out of him, like he tried to do before.

All Dean really feels is a dull lack of surprise and a hollow feeling in his belly. "You should have told me," he chokes out.

"I wasn't really sure," Sam tells him softly through the blanket of silence, and he's telling the truth, Dean can hear it in his voice. "I didn't want to think that it was this. I wanted it to just be faith, like Cas said it was. I wanted that so much. But maybe…" He puts his hands out, palm up. "Maybe this is just what I am."

She'll revert. It's what she is.

Mira's words stand out sharp and cutting in Dean's memory as Sam waits for a response.

Dean considers him; sees the boy Sam used to be, earnest and hopeful for better, sees the man who is walking as wounded as Dean is. He's well aware of how Sam's feet fidget and scuff the earth uneasily, how his expression goes even more wary and doubtful, the questions in his eyes more anxious and tentative the longer he waits for a reaction.

He'll revert. It's what he is.

No.

No.

They are both still here because of each other. There isn't time for rage and rejection, there never has been, not really, and Dean buries the whisper of suspicion that curls around his brain. Sam is a man, a man Dean is proud of; and the moment of reflection cuts through his despair and regret, leaving an incongruous sort of calm and acceptance in its wake. "What you are is my brother," he clarifies, quietly but emphatically. "And it'll be alright."

Sam's face falls from lines of strain into relief, and Dean motions him to follow, starts walking back towards the house, eyes alert for movement that might suggest any kind of attack. Sam falls in beside him, not talking. Dean nudges his shoulder against his brother's, clears his throat, asks, "How's the head?"

"Better. A little better anyway. I'll take something."

"Mira know about all that vision crap?"

After a disconsolate huff, Sam says, "Not in any detail. It was so long ago. She knows most of the other stuff."

Dean nods, speeding up now as they reach the porch steps, and his heartbeat quickens as his mind jumps ahead to the scene inside. "We need to talk about this, how to handle it. Figure out why it's happening again."

"I know."

Sam still sounds a little subdued, but Dean skips on. "But first we need to deal with this mess, work out how the hell that thing got past the wards. Any clues about that in the vision?"

Sam hums, reaches up to scrub a hand through his hair. "No, all I saw was…" He trails off, slows down a little, and Dean glances to his left to see his brother is chewing his lip thoughtfully.

"What?" he prods.

"Cas, he - in the vision, he looked at the demon, and he said, you." Sam frowns. "He knew her. I'm sure of it."

It makes no sense but it rings alarm bells inside Dean as he strides in through the door, because the demon had looked at him like she knew him. Bobby is conscious and sitting up on the couch, an icepack pressed to his head and he grimaces at the question in Dean's eyes.

"Head feels like a mule kicked it, but I'll live."

"Did you see how she got in?" Dean asks as he drops to his knees on the floor. "Did Cas let her in?" He slips his hand under Castiel's head, lifting it off the cushion so that it rests on his thigh instead, brushing Castiel's hair away from the patch of gauze taped to the cut on his brow.

Bobby throws him a quizzical look. "Why would he let her in?"

Dean casts his eyes over at his brother before taking the leap. "Sam says that in the vision it seemed like Cas knew her."

The reaction is as aghast as he expected; a high-pitched, squawked out, "Vision?"

Dean lifts a weary hand up, placating the old man as best he can, says, "Look, not now, okay? Did he let her in?" while he tries to ignore Mira's sharp gaze from him to Sam and back again as she roots through her bag of medical supplies.

Bobby's face creases in bewilderment. "I got no idea…she was already in here when I showed up." He tugs at his beard, and his face goes thoughtful. "Could he know her from when he was in cahoots with Crowley?"

That's a memory Dean can well do without, but he supposes it's a possibility, and maybe the demon knows him from the courtesy call they made to Crowley's mansion to try to force the bastard to hand over his brother's soul. He's pondering it when a small bottle slides across the floor towards him.

"Only one way to find out for sure," Mira tells him. "We need to wake him anyway, in case of concussion."

Dean can smell the pungent odor of the smelling salts as soon as he unscrews the lid, and Castiel's nose twitches with the first sniff. A second pass back under his nostrils has his eyelids fluttering frantically and he jolts to consciousness with a low cry of alarm. "Dean," he slurs as he blinks confusedly, and then his eyebrows tent. "That's…uh. Ammonia. And eucalyptus."

"Easy, tiger." Dean lets the bottle fall to the floor and strokes a calming hand across his friend's cheek. "You need to snap out of it, Cas. Okay? Everything's fine…but the demon, Sam says-"

"Ruby," Castiel croaks out dryly. "It was Ruby."

The name hits Dean like the concussive blast from an A-bomb. He feels himself tremble, feels cold wash through him, feels freezing sweat suddenly pearl on his spine and start trickling down the hollow at the small of his back, feels a weakness start up at his center and seep out and through his limbs.

He slants his eyes over to see that his brother's face has fallen into a sort of bleak stupor, and he doesn't even know how he speaks while he's trying to swallow his stomach back down his throat, but he knows the words come out, a little winded because he hasn't taken a decent-sized lungful of oxygen in a full minute. "How. How…how is that possible?"

When he looks back down, Castiel's eyes are wider and cautious, fixed unerringly on him, and Dean realizes he has wound his fingers tight in Castiel's hair at the side, that he's pulling on it, furious, that his rage is charging the air around him as if it's building up to streak out of him like a bolt of lightning, and his lover in the line of fire. He looses his fingers, swallows, lick his lips, and tamps down the desire to holler out obscenities. "How is that possible?" he asks again, softer.

Castiel shifts himself uncomfortably upright in Dean's embrace, his eyes far away and distracted again. "Osmosis," he murmurs. "Osmosis, it's osmosis." He closes his eyes for moment, groans as his breathing speeds up, and Dean has to bite back the sudden horror of what might have been as it hits again.

He pulls Castiel into himself, wraps his arm around him tighter, his hand splayed out where he knows his mark is on Castiel's chest, and he dips his head so he can rub his chin across the top of his friend's head to ground himself. He exhales to steady his voice, glances over again to their audience, three sets of transfixed eyes. "Bobby, do you think it's even possible?" he asks, even though he knows in his gut that it must be because every instinct had screamed at him that the demon was familiar.

The old man throws up his hands. "I don't even-"

"It shouldn't be possible," Castiel cuts in. "But in Hell, Vassago and Gabriel told me that Cthulhu had torn holes between the dimensions, that Purgatory and Hell were seeping into each other, and into the World."

Dean laughs, bitter and humorless. "So what, we're living on the planet Hellgatory? And you're only telling us this now?"

"I didn't remember it until I saw her," Castiel replies, a little testily. "You know things are coming back to both of us slowly."

The angel is squinting a little, as if Dean isn't really in focus, as if he's stoned. Head injury, Dean reminds himself. Not stoned, and never that if he has anything to do with it. He takes another deep breath, tries to calm himself. "Okay. Okay. But how does this link to Ruby?"

"When monsters like her die, they go to Purgatory," Castiel tells him, a little distractedly because he's floating a hand up to pat at his temple and he's blinking even more slowly than before, like it's an effort to keep his eyes open. "And now Purgatory is leaking into Hell. And we know there are ways out of Hell."

Bobby makes a frustrated sound. "So not only did Cthulhu turbo-charge the bad guys that were here already, but now every single one of the sonsofbitches we've ganked could be on the loose?"

And this time it's personal, Dean thinks, and dread anticipation is curdling his gut again as he meets the old man's frank gaze and then darts his eyes to his brother. "They're coming back, Sammy," he says breathlessly. "All of them. Gordon, Crowley. Fuck…Alastair."

The chill of deep, instinctive terror he feels at the possibility makes Dean gasp, and Castiel brings a hand up to grip onto his arm where it crosses his body. But Dean is already joining his line of thought to the next dot, and his senses are prickling with foreboding. "The vision," he says. "When you were having visions before, they went away after we killed-"

"Yellow Eyes." Sam's expression is dark and intense, his tone incredulous. "And now they're back. Jesus."

There is a moment of silence filled with repressed horror, where Dean feels as adrift and confused as he ever has, where he doesn't know what to say or do. He can feel his breathing go irregular and his heartbeat turn staccato, he can hear the blood pulse in his ears. He can see his brother's eyes set on him, Bobby's and Mira's too, and they're waiting for something, waiting for a decision. Time slows down to a crawl, and he can almost see himself, a deer in the headlights, as if he's outside his body.

And then there is Castiel's hand on his arm, pulling him back inside himself with a snap, the squeeze of his fingers dependable and loyal. And trusting, Dean realizes. They're all looking at him with expectation, with the belief that he will think of something, get them out of this, lead them.

And lead them he will.

His faked calm is so steely it surprises even him. "We're out of here," he announces bluntly. "The RV's well-stocked already, just grab what you need and load it up. We'll take the truck too. Sam, you got weapons duty, bedding too. Bobby, if there's any books you don't want to leave behind, get them packed up now."

Bobby is already pushing up, but he pauses, rueful. "We'll be sitting ducks out there."

"We're sitting ducks in here." Dean jerks his head towards the window. "She's out there right now, rounding up Team Free Ruby. And there could be worse than her headed here." Even the thought of worse gets his gut roiling again, and he stops, forces the fear that bleeds through his bravado back into its dark space before it starts spewing like a slashed artery, puts himself back together again. "Just make sure the RV and the truck are properly warded."

There is a tug at his sleeve then, and, "She was a witch, wasn't she?" Castiel murmurs exhaustedly from where he reclines.

"It must be how she got through the wards," Mira offers with a frown. "Spell work."

Castiel pulls on Dean's arm again, stares up through half-lidded eyes, slurs, "Hexbags…to hide us."

Sam thumps the table lightly with his fist at the reminder, suddenly enervated. "She showed me how to make them."

And she did, but even so Dean is skeptical. "You think they're Ruby-proof? They could be her version of catnip."

Sam huffs. "Well…she always needed to call to find out where I was. So maybe they're worth a try."



"Lavender, hemp, chicken bones, and goofer dust." Dean examines the small glass jars spread out on the table, huffs at the sudden memory of Balthazar, his pale blue eyes avid as they scoured Bobby's refrigerator, and echoes the angel's words wryly. "Bobby sure keeps a beautiful pantry."

Opposite him, Sam picks up a small bottle of tiny, pearl-colored pellets and squints at them. "Spider eggs too. Unbroken."

Dean shudders as he spreads the small fabric squares out across the kitchen table. "They won't hatch while we're wearing these, will they?"

Sam smiles wanly. "They didn't when she made them."

Eyeing his brother for a moment, Dean looks for signs, for that chewing on the insides of his cheeks thing Sam does when he's worried, looks for his eyes going distant, but Sam works on steadily, dividing up the ingredients into equal piles on the cloth scraps. "I'm alright," he mutters after a moment of Dean's regard, though he doesn't look up.

"You need to tell me any time you're not," Dean says softly, and Sam does look up then.

"Anything. Headaches, cravings…" Dean trails off and doesn't clarify what he means by that, but the muscle jumping in his brother's cheek signals the message went through loud and clear. "You're already shining at us," Dean goes on neutrally. "You think you might have powered up when you were digging me out of my grave. If what we think is going down is going down, there's no telling what effect it could have."

After a beat, Sam clears his throat. "I'm afraid."

Out in Bobby's lot, standing beside his grave, Dean looked at Sam and saw a man. Now he sees a scared kid, the same scared kid he has tried to look out for and take care of since he stumbled out of their home carrying his infant brother as their mother burned. "Yellow Eyes got mom and dad," Dean whispers. "He isn't having you. Do you hear me? And neither is Ruby."

Sam stares at him for a moment before he sighs. "What about you?"

"Me?" Dean covers, but he knows what Sam is after and sure enough his brother persists.

"Alastair could be out there, Dean. And what he did to you…" Sam breaks off, passes a hand through his hair and Dean can see it's shaking. "He isn't having you." Sam's voice is a curious flat calm as he returns to filling the hexbags. "Do you hear me? If I have to take the bastard out the same way I did before, he isn't having you."

If the chill Dean has been feeling wasn't bone deep before it is now, and Bobby creaking past, his arms laden with books and scrolls, is a welcome distraction.

"We're about packed up," the old man declares, with a regretful glance at what's left on his bookshelves as he deposits his pile into a cardboard box on the floor. He looks back at Dean then, points a finger behind him, at nothing in particular. "Got something to show you. Sam knows about this already. It's just in case."

Dean knows what it is the minute Bobby detours around the couch, where Castiel is lying dead to the world, his foot encased in a lurid hot-pink fiberglass cast that makes Dean wince every time he looks at it. Bobby heads for the fireplace, but it isn't his journal the old man pulls out of the hidden compartment this time, so there's that at least, Dean muses. It's a small lockbox, and Bobby flips open the top to reveal a thick roll of banknotes, several passports, and a neat stack of business cards secured by a rubber band. "Like I said," he tells Dean earnestly. "Just in case you ever need them and I'm not around, they'll be here. There's no telling what could happen in the future."

"No," Dean says flatly, while his mind's eye flips through vivid snapshots of exactly that. "There's no telling."

He turns as Bobby starts maneuvering the box back into the hollow space, steps over to the couch and squats down beside it, trails his fingertips across Castiel's cheek, and the angel blinks awake gradually. "Up and at it, soldier," Dean says. "Practice riding your crutches before we head out."

Castiel groans and flinches as he pushes himself up, and Dean sighs through the moment it takes for him to get to a point where he knows he can trust his voice to come out steady. "You need something for the pain?"

Castiel considers Dean for a moment before he replies. "I'll manage. It's just a broken foot. Not the end of the world."

The words are simple enough but they're an iceberg, nine-tenths of their importance, their subtext hidden below the surface, and Castiel's eyes are tired, shadowed with nightmare visions.

Dean manages a tight smile. "No," he says softly. "It's not the end of the world." He leans in to brush his lips across Castiel's. "There's oatmeal keeping hot on the stove. You need to eat."

"And you?" Castiel prods, frowning. "Have you eaten? Rested?"

He is hungry, Dean realizes, even a little light-headed with it; thirsty too. "I'll get a bowl," he says. "I just have to go see something first."



Episode 24: Redemption (Part III Continued)