Chapter 4

Sam stands next to the gas pump, talking on the phone, watching the numbers climb. He has a bandage on his neck and a bruise over his eye.

...I was in the Impala, sitting in the passenger seat, and we were driving down the highway, but no one was in the driver's seat. So I was reaching over, trying to steer, but I didn't have control of the gas or the brakes, and I couldn't move my body... No man, it was freaky. Yeah. In the end, I swerved and crashed the car. That broke the hallucination.

The pump CLICKS. Sam, listening to the other person, takes the pump out and shuts the gas cap.

Person on the phone says SOMETHING INAUDIBLE. Sam cranes his neck to see if Dean is coming back from the convenience store.

Sam turns. Dean is back, with a bag of snacks. He has an identical bandage on his neck.

Not really. They're still looking for a way to kill an archangel. The lore mentions a blade, but there's nothing about what it's made of, where it comes from, or whether it's even real.

Dean tosses the snacks in the back seat and rests his elbows on the roof as Sam continues.

She's on a hunt. Alone. I think. I'm not really sure what she's doing. But I got a text from her yesterday, so she's...

Okay. Well, if we don't find another case in the next day or so, I'll probably head home. Help with the research.

MUSIC begins. Sam and Dean both climb into the car. The engine RUMBLES and they pull out of the gas station, and back onto the road.

On Sunday, Dean woke up angry.

His eyes half-opened at 6:15 and he clocked the cloudy day, the loud birds nesting in the tree outside his motel room window; he buried his face in the pillow and closed his eyes, for just a few more minutes. When he did, he dreamed of checking his phone, and discovering that it had a second texting app that he’d never noticed. When he opened it, it contained five unread texts from Cas. He opened the thread, but then was too afraid to read the messages—they were long paragraphs, so long he could only see the last two. He shut off the phone, and the surge of fear woke him halfway up, leaving him hovering in a semi-aware state where he knew it was morning and he was dreaming, but he dreaded waking up and dealing with the texts. When he finally floated the rest of the way to consciousness, he realized with receding anxiety that it had all been a dream.

So he got up and brushed his teeth, and left the room without showering or shaving. He didn’t check his phone. He just had to get out.

It was a damp, cool morning. Dean walked away from the motel, down the state highway with his hands in his pockets. The clouds from earlier had dissolved, but the sun hadn’t cleared the treeline yet. Foggy beams of light pushed out between the trunks on the opposite side of the road as he walked on the shoulder. Every couple minutes, a pickup truck whooshed past him.

He’d been killing time all week, waiting for a case, but everything had been dead quiet and Dean was ready to go crazy from sitting still for so long, alone.

But he wasn’t alone—he was something else, something worse. The idea of Cas was there, in his head. Cas was a suffocating mental presence, suddenly, where normally, he wasn’t. Normally, Dean didn't think about him unless he was worrying about him. But now, the idea of Cas was inescapable, like a swarm of paparazzi, like the dead end around every corner, waiting like a brick wall of shame for Dean to drive himself into. The same thoughts, cycling on repeat, ramming into the wall, over and over, and none of them could break it down or get around it.

He turned into the Biggerson’s parking lot, kicking a paper coffee cup out of his way.

It had been a long time since Dean lived alone. The novelty wore off soon enough, and within a week of Sam's departure, Dean was making desperate small talk with cashiers and waitresses and the motel manager (Chris, 64, two grandkids), valiantly trying to extend each conversation past weather and pleasantries, failing almost every time. The lakeside town was just large enough for a Biggerson’s, on the corner of Main Street and the state highway, and Dean camped out there every morning, using the wifi to comb the local news in the surrounding states. He’d hang around til his coffee went cold, just to be near the sound of human voices. His searches would come up with nothing. By lunch time, he was disillusioned with it all, and he’d buy a sandwich and leave to angrily walk through the town of Asscrack Nowhere, Minnesota.

The lake was nearby; close enough that he heard the loons calling every night. He considered renting some gear and fishing, to kill time til the next case, but that was too much a vacation pastime, a ritual for good days with good company or peaceful solitude, and that was not what this was. So he wouldn’t walk by the lake, he’d just walk through town, past fishing supply shops and mobile homes and boats under tarps, and by sundown he’d be back in his little motel room with the evergreen carpet and the cathode-ray tube TV.

Dean kept the TV on at all times when he was home, to cover any sounds he made, because he was weirdly paranoid about the person next door hearing him in this state. It wasn't that he ever behaved oddly, or said anything unusual out loud, but the idea of this stranger hearing his creaking bed frame or his mugs clinking or any of the sounds of bachelor Dean shuffling around alone in his long-term hotel room, was repellent to him. And yet, at the same time, whenever he heard a cabinet closing or the shower running next door, he was comforted by the company.

Cooking meals in a motel kitchenette was routine to him, but without anyone else to impress, his recipes got lazy, and he ate more grilled cheese than he should have. He made himself wait until after dinner to start drinking, following some undefined, left-over set of rules, rules that he had the sense would be the last thing to go. If they went, he went. So he got drunk as silently as possible in front of the TV, and passed out before midnight.

One night, his neighbor, up to this point considerately anonymous, interrupted Dean's routine by getting into a long argument on the phone, so Dean, offended, walked to the local pub. It turned out to be a nice place. The bartender (and owner, he later learned) was a nice guy, and the first person in town to respond to Dean's desperate attempts at small talk. Naturally, Dean invented a backstory to tell him, but it was better than silence.

“More of the same?” Darren said. It was Friday night.

Dean nodded, still swallowing the last swig of beer. He tapped the rim of his pint glass, and the bartender took it from him, his wedding ring clacking against the glass, which had a little loon on it.

“How are you tonight, Darren?” Dean asked, a little hoarsely, as the bartender turned to the tap.

“Well, it’s been a quiet one, ‘cause of this rain,” Darren said. “But you know I like it that way.” His broad shoulders shifted under his shirt as he closed the tap.

Dean nodded again as his pint glass was returned to him. Darren leaned on the bar and took a drink of his Coke.

“You catch anything today?” Darren asked.

Dean shook his head. “Nah, nothing today.”

Morgan’s was a nice little place, with a hunting lodge-type atmosphere—knotty pine, low warm lights, and more than one Bigmouth Billy Bass on the wall. In one corner there was an artificial Christmas tree, apparently a year-round fixture, festooned with neon bobbers. The bar attracted both locals and tourists, but this was a rainy night at the beginning of the off-season, and the pub was mostly empty.

Darren, the owner, was a little older than Dean. He was a nice guy—slow to smile, a people-watcher, handsome in a rugged kind of way. He had a short beard with a touch of gray in it. Dean liked giving him a hard time about the kind of music he played. Darren lived above the bar, Dean was pretty sure—there was a red mailbox with his last name on it by the front door.

“Tell me, how long you had this place?” Dean asked Darren.

“Inherited it,” Darren said, sliding Dean’s damp coaster out from under his perspiring drink and replacing it with a fresh one. “My dad bought it back in the ‘70s.”

“Ah,” said Dean. “Would that be the titular Morgan?”

“The very same,” said Darren. “He slept upstairs every day, and stood behind this bar every night til the day he died. Heart attack.”

Dean nodded with an appreciative smile, eyes on his beer. “Sounds like my kind of man.”

Darren nodded too, setting down his Coke. “He was a tough guy. Good dad, though. Some days.”

A huff of laughter did escape Dean at that. “Some days,” he echoed, to his glass. He took a drink.

Now Darren was the one who slept up there. Dean was about to ask him about the operating costs of a place like this, but when he looked up he found himself being studied by a pair of dark brown eyes.

He cocked an eyebrow at Darren. “You got kids?” the bartender asked.

Dean shook his head. “No.”

Darren seemed surprised by that. “Hm,” he said.

“What?” said Dean.

“Nothing,” said Darren, unconsciously fiddling with his wedding ring. “Just that I pride myself on bein’ able to read people.”

“And now I’ve wounded your pride,” said Dean, with a crooked grin. “That it?”

Darren’s face did the closest thing it did to a smile. “No matter,” he said, as the front door bell jingled and a woman walked in. A gust of cool air and traffic sounds followed her.

“Mimi,” Darren said, leaning over the bar to kiss her cheek hello.

“Evening, Darren,” Mimi said. She was a high school friend of Darren’s—he’d introduced them the other night. She had dark hair and a throaty smoker’s voice. “Dean,” Mimi said, smiling at him. “Good to see you again.”

Dean raised his glass to her.

“So how long you stickin' around our neck of the woods?”

“I’m not sure yet,” said Dean. “Depends on what I catch.”

Life without Sam was a mixture of resentment and relief. He didn't like being alone, solo instead of half of a pair, and he resented Sam for his absence. But with every day they’d spent together, the gap under what Dean didn't say grew larger and larger, until talking to him became a journey over a perilously high, narrow bridge. So it was better to be separated, for now. Dean didn't even consider trying to talk to him about it. Sam wouldn't understand, and anyway, he didn't need to be burdened by their issues. Probably, he hadn't even noticed. Dean called him every few days for a meaningless check-in.

Mary texted, and Dean considered calling her, but he was still hesitant about touching her fresh wounds. If she wanted to compartmentalize, he wouldn't prevent her.

Jack still sent him Candy Crush power-ups, like he had ever since Dean showed him the game, but otherwise, they didn't communicate. He figured between Sam and Cas, the kid got all the positive paternal attention he needed.

And Cas...

Cas didn't call.

Dean started going to Morgan's Pub most nights. That alone saved him from the increasing sense that nothing he did, to himself or in the world, mattered—the way that he haunted the margins of grocery stores and back roads, unnoticed, how if he disappeared from this town, no one in it would remember him. It was a feeling from his early 20s—it was shocking how quickly it set in again. And the way that, alone and unsupervised, he was starting to take small, decreasingly unimportant risks: letting his diet fall into disrepair, leaving the stove unattended, starting to cross the street before the cars stopped. There had been no consequences yet. He expected them to come due eventually. He wasn't one to sit around waiting passively when he could prod.

Thursday morning. Dean was walking back from Biggerson’s, alone with his to-go cup of coffee, when Sam called. He fumbled with the room key as he picked up, squinting against the early morning sun glancing off the window.

“Morning.”

“Hey,” said Sam. Dean could hear running water in the background. “Morning. How’s it going?”

“Awesome,” said Dean. “I caught a 20-inch bass yesterday.”

“Wow, really?”

“No,” said Dean. He got his door open. “You find us a case?”

“Jack, can you pass me the—thanks.” Dean heard the familiar kitchen sounds of cutlery clinking. “Yeah,” said Sam, back to the phone. “I just texted you the article.”

Dean put him on speaker and looked.

RITUALISTIC KILLING? SCRUTINY ON LOCAL CULT FOLLOWING APPARENT MURDER.

“Aberdeen Herald?” said Dean, sitting on the end of his bed. “Where is this? South Dakota?”

“Idaho. Not far from Idaho City,” Sam said as Dean scanned the article. “This guy is the second person I’ve come across this week who died in a ‘ritualistic’ way. The other one was in New Mexico.”

“What’s the connection?”

“Well, both articles said they were ‘branded,’ but they were vague on the details, so I did a little digging in their local police databases, and...”

Ping. One (1) new text from Sam. Click to download attachment.

It began to load. Slowly.

“The service in this motel sucks ass,” Dean said.

Sam wasn’t listening. “The other thing that’s weird about this guy in particular is that he went missing for a while. Back in ‘09. Presumed dead. Then, one day, he walked back into town. Like nothing happened. Said he had no memory of where he went.”

“That is weird.”

“Yeah.”

“You think he was—what, possessed?”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Sam. “Pretty rare for anyone to survive that.”

“Any other signs of demons?” Dean asked, watching the little loading bar fill up. Finally, the photo came through.

The thing on the guy’s chest wasn’t a brand, like the articles had said—it was a circular symbol, carved right into his flesh. It caught Dean’s attention before he knew quite why. With his thumb, he touched his own sternum in sympathy.

“I don’t think it was demonic possession. I think it was angelic,” Sam said. He was audibly excited by his theory. “I think he was a vessel. I mean, think about the timeline. 2009 to 2010, some angel needs a human vessel to walk the Earth, deal with Apocalypse stuff. Apocalypse ends, they go back to Heaven and send him home. It fits, right?”

Still, Dean stared at the sigil. With a sinking feeling, his recognition finally found its object.

“I just don’t know who would be hunting former vessels or why,” said Sam’s tinny voice. “...Dean?”

“Yeah. I think you’re right,” said Dean grimly. “‘Cause I’ve seen this sigil before.”

“Wait, really?” He sounded surprised. “Where?”

“On Cas,” said Dean. “When we got back from Apocalypse World.”

INT.- BUNKER. LIBRARY. Sam opens a wooden box. Inside sits an ornamental amulet.

There is an amulet powerful enough to open a rift between our worlds... But it can only be used by an archangel.

What he needs is a little boost... some archangel blood from his father, now that would do nicely.

INT.- WAR ROOM. Jack drinks from a metal bowl. He lowers the bowl. His eyes flare white-gold.

Cas, Dean, and Sam are gathered around the map table, with the seal lying on top. Jack reaches out to touch it...

EXT.- FIELD - UNKNOWN. Jack lies in the middle of a crater of yellow grass in a field.

Jack stands alone in the crater. In the distance, there are a few dead trees at the edge of the field.

Jack STARTS awake. He was asleep at the library table, head in his arms. He’s still wearing his hoodie, and there are dark circles under his eyes.

Okay. If you want to talk to anybody about it anyway, you know you can talk to me, right?

A dark-haired WOMAN is huddled with her phone to her ear in a pantry, shelves of jars and herbs around her.

She turns, and we recognize... HANNAH? But not Hannah. Her former vessel, CAROLINE JOHNSON.

She told me if I got into any trouble, I could call you. Well, I think I’m in trouble. Someone is following me. Or... some thing.

It's morning. The Impala is parked across the street from a crystal shop with an overgrown garden. Many WIND CHIMES JINGLE at different pitches. Numerous hanging plants and metallic wind spinners sway in the breeze. A hippie store.

Dean leans on the driver's side, arms folded, staring at the front door. After a moment, it opens, and we see a beaded curtain and somebody's back. Sam. He's talking to someone we can't see.

As he descends the stairs, the person inside opens the curtain again, to watch them.

Caroline Johnson wears a loose-fitting shirt and patterned pants, and several necklaces, including a large crystal. Though she’s dressed differently, she's Hannah's old vessel all right. From across the street, Dean surveys her distrustfully.

Not since we got back from Apocalypse World, I don’t think. You don’t think he’s working for Asmodeus, do you?

I'm just saying. We could solve a lot of our problems. She wouldn't even get hurt.

It's weird. She's not some fundamentalist whack-job. She's like a... new-agey hippie. Why did she get drafted for Heaven duty?

Well, it makes sense if you think about it. There's a lot of different kinds of worship.

The front curtain OPENS again, and Caroline emerges, now wearing an oversize Baja hoodie and carrying a duffel bag. She flips over the “CLOSED” sign.

That's right. We're taking you to our friend's safehouse. Uh. It's actually a boat.

CREAK. Dean opens the trunk, and Sam puts Caroline's bag inside. Then Sam rifles around for a moment.

Sure. Kind of. Anyway, Hannah told me I could trust Castiel. And Castiel told me I could trust you.

Caroline, the demons hunting you have ways of detecting any angel grace left over in a vessel. Our friend Garth's safehouse... boat, it has warding that will, hopefully, hide you from being detected.

As he speaks, he unwraps the bundle--it's the GRACE COMPASS, taken from the demons in 13x12.

It's an instrument that detects angel grace. Former vessels register on it. Asmodeus's demons used it to find us once...

They're all looking down at the arrow, which is trembling as it points at Caroline.

She steps away to get in the car. Dean SLAMS the trunk shut. Sam, still standing next to him, is looking down at the compass.

Dean looks at the compass too. The little glowing needle is pointing towards him.

Great. Awesome. This is just great. Because of Cas. That's what's showing up on here? Cas's--whatever is still in me? Leftover grace?

Cas did that grace extraction spell on me so we could track Gadreel, remember? I’m clean.

Dean is driving; Caroline is in the back. Sam is on the phone in the passenger seat.

Cas stands in the doorway on the phone, back to Jack. Jack is sitting at the table in his hoodie, eating a sandwich.

We called Jody. She said Claire's hunting a werewolf in Wyoming, south of Yellowstone. But she heard from her yesterday...

...So she should be okay. We're heading there now. We should get to her in a few hours.

Yeah. Claire texted Dean back. She says reception's not great but she's fine. Werewolf's dead.

Yeah--you're right. We don't. But we'll be there in a few hours. We'll text you as soon as we know for sure, okay?

No, Dean, I don't! I’m sick of playing telephone. I can't read your mind! I don't know what's wrong if you don't tell me!

Sam drops his hands in his lap, too aggravated to know what to say. He looks out the window instead.

If Sam thought that the presence of a stranger in the car would make Dean think twice about lashing out, he was mistaken.

SCREECH. The Impala pulls off onto the shoulder and comes to a halt, sending up a cloud of dust.

They’ve stopped before a rusted two-lane metal bridge over a river. SLAM. Dean exits the driver's side door and turns away, rubbing a hand through his hair. SLAM. A second later, Sam gets out the passenger side. The wind whips his hair.

Did you stop to think about HOW I ended up in this situation? Being chased across the country by this suit-wearing psycho from Hell?

Right. That's what I thought. So yeah. Excuse me if HE’S not the guy I feel like talking to about this.

If you needed someone to talk to about this, you could have talked to me. I was a vessel too, Dean.

Sam stands out in the wind for another moment, wind whipping his hair. He lets out a LONG EXHALE, then closes his eyes. Sick of it.

The Impala drives down a winding, two-lane highway in the hills, forest on either side.

A little red hatchback is parked at an angle on the shoulder, visible through the windshield.

CLAIRE NOVAK, sitting on the ground against her front passenger wheel, hugging her knees. Hearing them approach, she looks up. Her face is red from crying.

“It’s still not starting.”

Dean gestured to Claire to get out. She disembarked with an angry sigh. He handed her the gas can they’d just emptied into her tank, sat in the driver’s seat, and turned the key. There was a grinding noise, an attempt, and then, with a wheeze, the engine gave up.

“I thought it was just out of gas,” said Dean. He looked at Claire, who was standing next to the door with her arms folded. “Has it been giving you trouble lately?”

“Yeah,” she said defensively. “It’s a crappy car.”

Dean popped the hood and got out. “You got that right,” he said. “Sam. Grab my tool bag from the trunk, would you?”

Dean circled around front, lifted the hood, and stared down into the engine, assessing.

A rustle came from the underbrush by the side of the road. “I got—oh wait. Never mind.” Caroline looked up from the underbrush at the edge of the woods, where she was searching the leaves for Claire’s phone. “Just a rock.”

Claire sighed, tightening her arms around herself.

Sam returned, holding the tool bag, and looking down at the road. “Uh, Claire?” he said. “...What is this?” He tapped the asphalt with his foot.

On the road, there was a big circle of spraypaint, so large it encompassed the car and almost touched the white lane marker. It was black spraypaint, so it wasn’t immediately noticeable. It looked like a complicated sigil, but it wasn’t a devil’s trap.

“...Did you spraypaint this here?”

“Yes,” Claire snapped. “It’s an angel trap. You told me the angels were coming after me. I was stuck. If the Wyoming DPW has a problem with it, they’re welcome to fine me.”

“Claire, Asmodeus isn’t an angel. He’s a demon,” said Sam. “He’s a Prince of Hell.”

Claire threw her arms out. “Oh! Okay!” she cried. “And how exactly am I supposed to know that—if nobody ever tells me anything?”

Her voice rose to a yell. She whipped around and stormed off up the shoulder, gravel crunching beneath her hiking boots.

Sam blinked after her, then looked at Dean, who looked up from the engine. “Whoa,” Sam said.

Dean looked at Claire, still stalking away from them. “Hm,” he offered.

He returned to the engine, fishing his flashlight out of the toolbag.

“How long you think this is gonna take?” Sam said.

“I don’t even know what’s wrong yet,” Dean said, gesturing at the engine. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for yet, but the problem was intriguingly contained and pleasantly non-lethal.

Sam glanced over at the Impala. “We need to get going. And who knows how close Asmodeus and his goons are. Cas is heading to the houseboat tomorrow. He’s going to need our help with the setup.”

“Yeah.”

“Look, Dean, maybe I better go on ahead,” Sam said. “Help set up the protections in the houseboat.”

“‘Protections’?” Dean repeated.

Sam gave him a look.

In the woods close by, Caroline rustled.

“Sam, it’s the best play we got, and you know it.”

“It’s—it’s not a play, Dean, these are people we’re talking about. People we know. And you wanna use them—as what, as bait?”

“They’ll be fine,” Dean said. “We’ll be there.”

Sam sighed and ran his hand through his hair, looking out into the woods.

“Fine,” he said finally. “Give me the keys.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, surprised.

“You wanna go without me? While I stay here and play mechanic?”

Sam dropped his arms, annoyed. “Do you want me and Cas to set the trap, or not?”

Dean reached into his pants pocket, hesitant even though he’d made up his mind. Letting Sam go was the best of two bad options. Just like every choice in his godforsaken life. “Here.”

Sam took the car keys. He nodded, and threw another glance at Claire.

“Go. I’ll talk to her,” Dean said. “Don’t worry.”

Sam looked like he was going to worry anyway. But he just nodded again. “Call when you get on the road,” he said, clapped Dean gently on the shoulder, and left.

At the edge of the woods, Caroline was still slowly stepping through the undergrowth, moving in a methodical zig-zag search pattern, her hands in the front pocket of her drug rug. At the sound of the car departing, she straightened up like an alert deer and watched it go.

As the taillights got smaller and then disappeared around a bend, an unfamiliar sense of relief came over Dean, like he was shrugging off a heavy jacket on a hot day. Sam, sitting in the driver’s seat of the car, felt a similar sensation.

“Where’s he going?” Caroline called to Dean from the other side of the barrier.

“He’s going ahead without us, to prep,” Dean replied, the lie coming out just as easy as always. “We’ll catch up in this.” He patted the chassis of Claire’s little hatchback.

Caroline’s face registered doubt.

“If he drives slow enough,” Dean amended.

She snorted, and went back to her search. Dean wasn’t sure about her yet, but she wasn’t Hannah, so that was something. And she was taking it all in stride, which he was grateful for. Especially since Claire was not.

Dean bent back over the car. He had told Sam that he didn’t know the problem yet, but he did. The problem was that it was a hunk of junk, and should have been consigned to the salvage yard one presidential administration ago. He got Claire to come back and tell him more.

She listed the symptoms off, counting on her fingers: “Sometimes it misfires when I’m starting or slowing down. Sometimes, when I’m at a traffic light or in park, it makes a grrr-tka-tka sound. And sometimes it slows down randomly.”

Dean nodded, eyes roving over the inside of the engine. In his head, he mapped out the potential diagnoses, and the ways to eliminate each one. It would probably take the rest of the afternoon. He found that didn’t bother him.

“All right, there’s a couple things that could be,” he said. “I’m thinking ignition coil, maybe spark plug.”

“Can you fix those?”

“Depends,” said Dean. “Diagnosing’s the hard part. Depending on the problem, I might be able to fix it, or we might have to call a tow truck. If we’re looking at an ignition coil, that’s a specialized part for your car, they won’t be able to fix that down at the shop. They’d have to order it from the manufacturer. And we don’t have that kind of time.”

Claire rubbed her eyes, exhaling. “Jody gave me this car. I don’t want to ditch it,” she said, hands still on her face. Her voice came out small and tired.

Dean hesitated. “Then we won’t,” he said. “Now tell me, you got an EMF reader back there?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Why?”

“I need to use it. Modify it,” he amended. “Homemade spark tester. Come on. If I bust it, I’ll buy you a new one.”

Claire grumbled but opened the back door and started digging around her various bags and boxes.

“Get that spray paint too,” Dean called.

She emerged with a handheld meter and her can of black spray paint. “I bet this kind of thing never happens to you,” she said, handing the meter over.

“No, it doesn't,” said Dean, taking it. “Because I take care of my car.”

Claire rolled her eyes.

“Claire, this car is a hunk of junk,” Dean said, unplugging the headphones from the meter and returning them to her. He set his tool bag on the roof of the car and started searching through it. “I’m surprised it got you ten miles out of Sioux Falls, nevermind over state lines.”

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll just stop in at the next classic car show I see and hotwire the sturdiest-looking one I see.”

“You do that,” Dean said. “Now be a good girl and put a devil’s trap around this car.”

“Found it!” Caroline yelled. They both looked over into the woods. She was holding up Claire’s phone.

As the sun passed its peak and began to set, in the canyon between the trees the air stayed perfectly still and temperate. Few cars came by, and the woods around them were quiet. No birds singing, no leaves rustling—only the distant creak of tall pine trunks swaying. It was one of those deceptively warm fall days in the mountains: you were comfortable in the sun, but as soon as the shadows touched you, you’d freeze.

Dean sat cross-legged on the pavement in front of the car, frankensteining a couple components together to make a multimeter that could test the fuel injectors. Caroline came over to sit on the barrier above him, hands tucked into her armpits.

“Any progress?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Dean. “But not forward progress.” He held up the multimeter and waggled it. “It wasn’t the spark plug. Ignition coil is fine. Then Claire mentioned it’s been getting bad mileage. So I’m thinking maybe one of the fuel injectors is busted or clogged.”

“Can you fix that?” Caroline asked.

“No,” Dean answered. “We might just have to cut our losses and call a tow truck. Somehow I doubt punk-rock Britney Spears here has AAA.”

“I have AAA,” Caroline offered.

Dean raised his eyebrows and returned to the multimeter. “Sweet.” He finished wrapping electrical tape around the metal probe, and gave it a test prod. Sturdy enough. “So what did you tell your husband when you left town?”

Caroline pulled her legs up to squat like a frog on the barrier, arms tucked in like a bird. “Just the truth,” she said.

Dean looked up at her.

Caroline smiled wryly. “What? Does that surprise you?” she said.

“Guess not,” said Dean, wrapping electrical tape around the second probe. “I guess you’d have a hard time finding a non-supernatural explanation for walking out and disappearing for... what, a year?”

“Almost two,” she said. “Yeah. When I came back, I told Joe what happened to me. It took us a long time to build that trust back up. So, no. I wouldn’t lie about this.” After a pause, she added, “He thought I was dead.”

Dean swallowed. He looked down at the fusebox diagram, not really seeing it. “And when you came back, he just... believed your story?” he said.

“He believed my story,” Caroline said, looking across the road into the woods. “That wasn’t really the issue.”

“What was it, then?”

Caroline shrugged. “Trust.”

Dean set the diagram down. “But if he believed you...”

“He believed me,” Caroline said, “When I told him that I ran off to be an angel. So why should he believe that I wouldn’t run off and do it again?”

“Ah,” said Dean. “Right.”

Caroline sighed. She shifted to pull the hoodie over her knees, bundling herself up.

“You’re gonna fall,” he said.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“Okay,” said Dean, standing up. “Well don’t ask me for help when you’re stuck on your back like a turtle.”

“I won’t,” she said, hiding a smile in the collar of her hoodie.

Dean returned to the engine, pushing the hood back up. He was going to try this last theory, then he was going to tap out. The sun would set soon, and the temperature would drop, and he didn’t want to be sitting ducks on the side of the road in the dark.

“So you said you remember us?” Dean asked, leaning in to put the lid back on the fusebox.

“Sure,” said Caroline. “Not like normal memories, like conversations we had. Nothing like that. But when I see you, I know we’ve met before, and I know things about you.”

“Such as?” Dean prompted. “D’you remember trying to kill me?”

Caroline cocked her head at him, and the movement was so... angel-like that Dean looked away, back at the fusebox. “I didn’t try to kill you,” she said. “Did I?”

“Hannah tried to have me killed,” Dean said gruffly to the engine.

“She wasn’t a big fan,” Caroline confirmed.

“Yeah?”

"Yeah... She didn't like the way you distracted Castiel from his grand cause," she said, with a little faux haughtiness.

Dean raised his eyebrows at the multimeter. “She probably wasn’t wrong about that. I wasn’t having a great year.”

"She liked Castiel a lot."

"I gathered."

"But he was much more focused on you."

"He tends to do that, focus on—well, yeah. Focus on one thing." Dean cleared his throat. He wished for the conversation to move elsewhere. "She's the jealous type, then."

"I guess," said Caroline, smiling a little.

She stared out into the woods. Dean was relieved by the silence. In the pause, he found the fuel rail and followed it to where the fuel injectors were hiding. He set his flashlight on top of the exposed wiring, pointing down, then got his pliers and started unplugging the connectors.

“It was strange,” Caroline said.

“Being possessed?” said Dean, pinching a connector and detaching it.

“Yeah,” she said distantly. “It was like...”

Dean bent down to get a better view of the next one, practically laying inside the hood. He offered: “Like a year-long acid trip?”

“No,” she said. “Not really. Like a... like a... Like a dream that wasn’t a dream. Because it was a dream, but it was happening to me.” Caroline sighed. “It wasn’t like anything else. I guess that’s the thing, right?”

Dean rolled his shoulder back to abort a chill gathering at the top of his spine, one that had nothing to do with the drop in temperature. “Yeah,” he said.

Caroline shrugged. “I’ve had worse years,” she said.

“Really,” said Dean, skeptical.

“2011,” she said, shaking her head. “I remember even less of that year than I do of the Hannah year.” He disconnected the last fuel injector. “Pretty much a ten-month bender,” she said, “if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” Dean said bluntly.

“I got cleaned up after that,” she said. “Got my five-year chip last month.”

“Good for you.”

“I miss her sometimes,” Caroline said. It seemed like whatever Dean said to her just rolled right off.

“Who, Hannah?” he said.

“Yeah,” said Caroline. She smiled wryly. “Don’t tell Joe.”

Dean snorted.

He had disconnected the last injector, and now he needed an extra pair of hands to test the resistance. He glanced at Caroline, perched inside her drug rug, space cadet eyes floating up the treetops.

But before he could ask, she continued: “She wasn’t, like, my friend. She was much more powerful than me. But she needed me. Me, of all people,” she added. “A sellout who quit the good life for a 9-to-5.”

Dean leaned against the fender, arms folded. “The ‘good life’?”

“Oh, well,” she said. “I used to be a musician. I lived on the road with my folk band. We drove around the country doing little festival shows, crashing on couches. We were the real deal. Totally independent. Wouldn’t sign with any corporate label.”

“That how you met your husband?”

She shook her head. “No. I met him after I quit.”

Dean pursed his lips.

“Yeah,” she said. “Gave up on chasing my dreams. Got a job at a crystal shop. Met Joe. Then an angel crashed to Earth and asked if she could borrow me for a mission. And here we are.”

Caroline leaned forward, gesturing.

“And it’s not like she cared about me. Or rather—me, me,” said Caroline. “She cared about us being safe and healthy. But she didn’t care about who I was. Like, she cared about me because of who I was, because I could—you know—be her, but she didn’t care about who I was. Like on the inside. You get what I mean?”

Dean just frowned at her, gently opening and closing the pliers in his hand. “No.”

“Like—when she was me. She didn’t ask about my likes and dislikes, my hobbies, fears, whatever. Whether I was a good person, a bad person, a nobody, didn’t matter to her. She didn’t care.”

“And you miss that,” Dean said.

“Yes!” said Caroline. “Yes, it was—it was so freeing. In a way. For a while. After a while, it was lonely. But for a while, I just didn’t have to be anybody.”

“But you were conscious,” Dean said. “For what she was doing, to you?”

“When I was her? I was conscious, mostly, yeah,” she said. “But I had no control. I could see. I was riding shotgun.” It didn’t escape Dean’s notice that Caroline made no distinction between Hannah and herself, when she talked about the possession. “It was like—you know Being John Malkovich?” said Caroline.

“Yeah,” said Dean.

She snapped her fingers and pointed. “Yes. It was like that. The end of that.”

“The—it was like the ending of that movie? When he's trapped inside the other person? And you liked that?”

Caroline nodded, looking at him like that was obvious. “Yeah. No control. Total freedom. It was so peaceful, man.”

Dean squinted at her, mouth slightly open. She popped her legs out of her hoodie and planted her feet on the gravel.

“For a while. Like I said. In the end, I got lonely.”

He was still squinting.

“But I admired her. I liked being her, instead of me.” Caroline shrugged. “It was an escape.”

“Right.” Dean worked his jaw, still considering the ex-vessel. “Right. And when you—” He broke off.

She looked up at him. “When I?” she prompted.

“When you... when she possessed you,” Dean said, swallowing. “You could tell she didn’t care about you. And that she didn’t like me. Could you... Did you feel everything she was feeling? Like, her emotions?”

“Good question,” Caroline said, like he was a talk show host and she was his guest. She frowned, looking up at the sky for an answer. “...No. I could tell from the way she acted. But if you’re asking whether her emotions were, like, contagious to me, I don’t think they were.” She raised her eyebrows at him and tapped the side of her head. “I don’t think I’d be all here, if I’d caught them. Angel emotions would burn a human brain out, I bet.”

Dean grunted. “Probably.” He clicked the pliers together again.

Caroline sighed. “It’s good to finally talk about this with someone who actually gets it.”

“You mean someone who knows about angels and all that crap?” he said.

“No, like, you know what it’s like.”

Dean looked back up at her. “’Scuse me?” he said warningly.

Caroline raised her eyebrows, prompting: “To be possessed by an angel.”

Dean stared at her, incredulous. Yes, she was really saying what he thought she was saying.

“I was never—”

“I heard you and your brother arguing about it,” she said, like it was no big deal at all. Dean could feel his face flushing. God dammit. Embarrassment mounted inside him.

“Well you heard wrong,” he snapped.

Caroline looked surprised—finally noticing he was upset by this line of questioning.

“I thought that was why you were asking,” she said. “Because you—”

“No.” Dean turned back to duck under the hood, bracing his hands on the lip. “It’s complicated.”

“...Did you have a bad experience?” she asked, still not taking the hint.

“Listen! It’s not open for discussion, all right?” he barked. “Maybe you like talkin’ about it. I don’t. Yeah. It happened. I want to move on. But imagine you can’t—because some freak super-demon is after your ass about it. So no, I don’t need the third-degree, Dr. Melfi—and definitely not from you, no offense.”

Caroline shrunk back. Dean already regretted the outburst, and guilt mixed with the anger and embarrassment oozing through him.

He turned back to the engine, panting, waiting out the urge to throw the pliers onto the pavement.

“Sorry,” said Caroline, helplessly. “I didn’t mean to...”

“It’s fine,” Dean said, a little loudly. “Sorry.”

He looked up and saw Claire, standing next to the hood with her arms folded.

“Hey,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything's fine,” Dean said, pulling himself together with a massive effort. He controlled his voice, he controlled his hands, he dredged up a quip from the sludge of his brain: “Come hold this, Speed Racer. I gotta show you something.”

“What?” she said.

“I need an extra pair of hands,” he said, handing her the multimeter, “And you need to understand how your car works. So you don’t get ripped off at the mechanic. Hold this.” He took the two leads and bent over the row of fuel injectors. Caroline was still sitting there, but he pretended she wasn’t. “Tell me what the numbers say. We’re looking for one or two that are way off from the rest.”

“What number should they say?”

“Doesn’t really matter,” said Dean, touching the two leads inside the injector. “As long as they’re all the same. What’s it say?”

“15.7,” she said. “15.7 what?”

“Ohms,” said Dean, moving to the next one. “It’s the resistance. If you’ve got a busted injector, that means the solenoid...”

He glanced over at her. She was frowning hardcore.

“Let's back up. Do you know what a fuel injector is?”

Claire shook her head.

He moved on to the next one, explaining the basics of an engine, and the difference between a modern fuel injector (her car) and an old-fashioned carburetor (his car). As he explained, they measured the resistance on each one. In the end, all the fuel injectors read 15.7 except for two, much lower than the rest. This, he explained to Claire, was why her gas mileage had deteriorated and eventually, why her engine crapped out. She listened, with an intent, over-focused look that matched the way Sam used to look at him when he explained mechanical stuff like this—like she really, really wanted to be interested, but knew she wasn’t going to retain any of it.

“So, I need new ones,” she said. “You can’t fix that.”

He shook his head.

“Reefer Madness over here is gonna call AAA,” said Dean. “They’ll tow us into town.”

Caroline took her cue and walked off to make the call. Above her, the trees were growing dark, casting long, cold shadows.

“What were you guys talking about?” Claire asked.

“Her failed music career,” Dean said, bending back over the engine and reconnecting the fuel injectors. “You understand this now?”

“No,” she said. “Are they hard to replace?”

“No,” said Dean. “The shop will probably have some in stock. As long as they don’t close early on Fridays.”

“It’s Thursday,” Claire said.

Dean stilled, hunched over the engine. He squinted down at the connectors in his hands.

“No, it’s Friday. Yesterday was Thursday.” He looked at Claire. “Are you messing with me?”

“It’s Thursday,” she says, serious. “You’re losing it. And then we’ll get back on the road to the safehouse?”

Dean looked back down at the connectors. “Yeah,” he said. “The safehouse.”

He plugged in the last pair, collected his tools, and shut the hood. In the blue sky on the windshield, he could see Claire watching him. There’s something you’re not telling me, he could see her thinking. But I’m not going to ask.

She’d probably already worked it all out already.

Later that night, and hundreds of miles southwest, Jack and Castiel were playing cards in the bunker’s kitchen. Jack had been asleep most of the afternoon, and he was still in a subdued mood. He still gave no sign of wanting to talk about Apocalypse World, despite Castiel’s clumsy allusions to the subject.

“Got any kings?” Jack said.

“Go fish,” Cas said.

“Do you have any aces?”

Jack shook his head. “Go fish.”

Jack was having a hard time, lately, and Castiel could see it. Not the same as his troubled mood in the first short weeks of their acquaintance, after he’d resurrected Castiel and before he’d vanished into thin air. That mood had been more—well, it had reminded Castiel of Claire Novak, in some ways. Her anger in that group home and her lost, helpless aspect. In fact, Castiel had half-formed a plan to take Jack up to Sioux Falls to introduce them, but then Jack had gone missing before he’d gotten a chance.

It had been years since he’d last seen Claire. She called every few months, always tense. Castiel was glad when he could offer help, or advice, but she never seemed happy to receive it; he could tell it wasn’t what she wanted from him, but he had nothing else to offer. Whenever Dean saw her, Castiel asked him for a full report; Castiel himself kept his distance.

The Jack whom Castiel met for the first time after waking up in that blackberry field—he was uncertain, fearful of himself, uneasy at home. Sometimes it manifested as anger, but never towards others, always towards himself. Jack was like Sam in that way.

But the Jack who had come back from Apocalypse World, he had a larger fear, shaped more like shame. It didn’t burst out—it hemmed him in, dimming his happy moods, and draining the color from his interests. Sam found zombie movies for them to watch together, and they even tried The Walking Dead. Jack insisted that he liked it, but he was distracted while they watched together. Though Castiel didn't read his mind, he could sense it drifting. He couldn’t divine what he was fearful of—Was it the memories of what happened there, or was it the prospect of going back? Perhaps both. Jack didn’t talk about it. Another thing that Sam and Dean had taught him before Castiel had a chance to prevent it.

Doggedly, he kept on trying.

“Sevens?”

Wordlessly, Castiel handed over his seven of spades. Jack took it with a small smile of triumph. Jack’s problems were a good distraction from thinking about his own.

They both heard the garage door open down the hall, and a jingle of keys. A moment later, Sam walked in, bag over his shoulder. Cas saw, with relief—mostly—that he was alone.

“Hey guys,” he said.

“Hi Sam,” said Jack.

“Everything okay?” Sam asked, looking between them.

“Yes,” said Jack. “Cas made me peanut butter and jelly for dinner.”

Sam looked at Cas, who just shrugged in reply. He knew quite well that that was the extent of Castiel’s kitchen capabilities.

“Where’s Dean and Caroline and Claire?” Jack asked.

“Claire’s car broke down,” said Sam. “Dean stayed with them. He sent me ahead to help you guys out.”

“So we’re doing the trap?” Jack said.

“Yeah,” said Sam, with a glance at Cas. “We are. You can stay home, Jack.”

“I can help. Asmodeus wants me too.”

“Yes, he does—and that’s exactly why you should stay here, where it’s safe,” Cas said.

Jack frowned. “Dean wouldn’t hide from a fight.”

Cas and Sam exchanged another look. “Smart strategists know when to play their cards, and when to hold on to them,” Cas said. He waved his hand of cards demonstratively. “Sometimes hiding from a fight is the smart thing to do.”

Dean’s whole body jerked so violently that he shook himself awake. He was lying in the dark in an unfamiliar hotel room. Noises and light were coming from the TV that he couldn’t parse. His neck and back were slick and cold with sweat. His hand was clenched around the corner of the mattress; he had almost yanked the contour sheet off. Slowly, he let go, trying to relax his body and let his heart rate fall back down.

He sat up, fixed the corner of the sheet, then climbed out of bed. The carpet was a rough, grounding texture under his callused feet, and the cold hotel room air chilled the sweat on his skin. The TV flashed eerily, left on low, an X-Files rerun. He shut it off. Silence fell. It was pitch-dark; there was nothing outside the window of the two-story Holiday Inn, nothing but empty black sky.

Dean pulled on a flannel and pushed open the door between the two rooms. Caroline was asleep, snoring in her bed. As for Claire’s bed, the sheets were bunched up, but it was empty. In front of the sliding glass balcony door, the gauzy inner curtain fluttered gently. Dean crept to the doors, pausing briefly at the minibar.

He found Claire outside, sitting on the floor of the balcony with her legs pulled to her chest, hood up. When she heard him, she hastily hid her vape in her pocket. It was cool outside, and the stars were bright overhead.

He held up the tiny Jameson bottle.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?” said Claire.

“5 a.m. somewhere,” Dean said, sliding the glass door shut and coming out to lean against the railing.

Claire watched Dean open the tiny bottle and drink half of it.

“Nightmare?” she asked bluntly.

Dean swallowed and glanced down at the kid. “Yeah,” he said. “You?”

“No,” she said. “I just couldn’t sleep. Worried about my car.” She picked at the seam of her sleeve and cuff. “Plus, Sweet Caroline in there snores like a chainsaw.”

Dean snorted.

An owl hooted, close by in the trees. Claire stared into the distance. A light wind swept through the bars of the balcony, freezing cold on Dean’s bare legs. He thought about Claire, allergic to asking for help but desperate for it. Something, he reflected in the cool night air, that she had that in common with the guy who’d hijacked her dad’s body.

He held up the tiny Jameson again. “Sure you don’t want any?”

She shook her head. Dean downed the rest.

Sam put Jack to bed. Cas stayed seated at the table with a can of soda, where he still sat, staring at the opposite wall with unseeing eyes, when Sam circled back to the kitchen. He had boxed the cards back up.

The bunker had been quieter lately, and they’d had more one-on-one time than usual. Sam went to the fridge and got himself a drink Dean wouldn’t approve of, and sat down kitty-corner from Cas.

“How are you, Sam?” Cas asked, after Sam twisted the cap off his drink.

“Good. Fine. It was an easy drive.” He sipped. “What were you and Jack talking about?”

Cas sighed and shook his head. “I keep trying to get him to talk about Apocalypse World, but it never works. He’s just keeping it pent up inside. It’s not healthy”

“He’ll talk about it when he’s ready,” Sam said, taking a drink.

Cas raised his eyebrows. “Maybe. None of the parenting books I read had any advice about any of this.”

“About what?” said Sam. “Nocturnal toddler-teens who accidentally spend a month of their first year in a war zone?”

“Yes,” said Cas, sighing again. “Completely useless books.”

“Maybe we should get some teen parenting books,” Sam said, taking another drink. “Maybe there’s a ‘Chicken Soup for the Nephilim’s Soul.’” Cas frowned slightly at him. “Anyway.” Sam set his bottle down. “Something else is bothering you, Cas. Has been all week.”

Cas opened his mouth, then looked down at the cards, and sighed.

“What’s up?” said Sam.

“What was it about?” Claire asked.

“What?” said Dean, swallowing.

“Your nightmare.”

Dean worked his jaw, capping the tiny bottle even though it was empty. A reflexive deflection came to his lips, and for anyone else, he would have used it; but he felt that he ought to set a good example for Claire. And if he told her about his nightmare, it might get her to talk about her own.

“How much you know about what we’ve been up to the last few months?” he asked.

Claire leaned forward to hold onto the bars of the railing. “Not much,” she said. “Jody told me you all went through some kind of portal. But she didn’t really explain.”

Dean nodded, still looking down. He realized he was picking the label off the little bottle with his thumbnail, and stopped. He put it in his shirt pocket and held the railing instead.

“I’ll give you the short version,” he said. “When Jack was born, it opened up a portal to a parallel universe. A universe where the Apocalypse happened as scheduled. Heaven, Hell, Lucifer outta the Cage, the whole nine.”

“Like what was supposed to happen here.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah. In that world... In that world, it all happened. ‘Cause Sam and I said yes.”

“Sam said yes to Lucifer?” said Claire, raising her eyebrows. Dean nodded again. “And you said yes to Michael.”

“Yep,” said Dean. “Years ago, now. They’ve been fighting a war ever since.”

“Lucifer and Michael?”

“Heaven and Hell,” Dean said. “That Lucifer died. And Sam. I guess that me died too. ‘Cause when I met Michael, he was riding some other bastard.”

Claire tapped her ring against the metal of the railing. She looked both alarmed and intrigued by the story.

“Pretty bleak over there,” Dean said.

“I bet,” said Claire. “So your nightmare was about...”

“Michael,” said Dean.

She looked up, hearing his tone.

He glanced down at her, then away. He squeezed the railing, feeling the cold metal against his palms. “When we were over there, he tried to—you know. Take me over,” Dean said. “I didn’t say yes, but... Been having nightmares about it ever since.”

“Nightmares where you say yes?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah.”

Claire tapped her ring.

“Yeah,” said Dean. “In the dreams, I’m a puppet. He’s in charge, and I watch him use me to—you know. Kill and maim and destroy.” He made himself look back at Claire again, going for grim lightness. “The usual.”

Claire nodded.

There was a pause.

“Mine was about turning into a werewolf,” she said to the railing.

Dean nodded, silent.

“So what was it like? Possessing Dean?” Sam asked finally, after Cas seemed to run out of things to say. His tone was businesslike, like an interviewer. He was probably going to note his answer down in a notebook for future reference. “I remember what it was like, being possessed—but from the other side, I don’t know what that’s like. You’ve done both. How do they compare?”

Cas remembered how it had felt: the moment of contact, when their minds slotted together. Right before he wrapped up Dean’s consciousness and stowed it away for safety. In that moment, everything in Castiel had rushed out towards him, to touch him. He hadn’t been able to stop it. Then, quickly, he’d herded Dean up and penned him into his hastily constructed idea of the bunker.

That moment of contact, brief as it had been—

Castiel glanced at Sam. He couldn’t tell him any of that.

“I created a mental space for Dean to occupy,” Cas said. “A version of the bunker. I didn’t have time to formulate anything intentional, or secure. I was busy with Michael. What I created was a simulation, but it was just—instinct. Based on my subconscious, pulling some from his. So Dean was... free to wander. There's no real way for me to know what it was like, for him, in there."

Castiel paused again, trying to figure out how best to explain this.

“Is that what Lucifer did when he possessed you?” Sam asked.

“It’s different between angels,” Cas said. “I’m not this body, I only use it.” Sam nodded. He understood that. “So I can, so to speak, ‘make myself scarce’ without any loss.” Cas searched for the words for a moment. “The consciousness of angels—as distinct from our ‘bodies,’ our forms, there isn’t exactly a human word for it, but our—incorporeal selves.”

Cas slid his soda can across the table and tapped it against Sam’s bottle of cider. Cheers.

“When Lucifer and I shared this body, we were two alike substances. We made contact, but we didn’t mix. Because we’re both contained.” He tapped the two drinks together again, illustratively. Sam, frowning, nodded. “You understand?”

“Sure.”

But Cas still wasn’t satisfied with the simile. “We were like... like two train cars hitched together. Or, two cars crashing. We could do damage to each other. But we would still be two separate vehicles.”

Sam nodded again. “I got you.”

Now Cas nodded, face grim. “An angel and a human, that’s different.”

“Different how?”

In lieu of an answer, Cas picked up Sam’s cider.

“Uh—”

He poured some of it into his soda can.

“There,” said Cas, sliding his can towards Sam. “Can you make this a pure soda again?”

“...No.” Sam frowned.

“If two angels are like two cars, then an angel and a human are like a car and a passenger. When they get into a crash, the blood and guts are much harder to get out of the upholstery.”

Sam grimaced at the simile.

“The structure I built was not sufficient to contain Dean. He broke out, and went wandering through his own subconscious. I had to go retrieve him, and...” Cas took Sam’s bottle again, and shook it, sloshing the mixture. "Contact."

Cas’s unwieldy metaphors were out of Sam’s depth. “So you and Dean crashed. And Dean got his... human guts on you.”

“Yes,” Cas said hoarsely. He cleared his throat. “And vise versa. Dean made contact with things he shouldn't have."

“As in your guts?” Sam said, then winced.

“So you let him possess you because otherwise Michael would've killed him,” said Claire, when Dean had finished explaining. Dean nodded. “Yeah. When I... did that, I... Well. I get it. That’s all.”

Dean considered her. “How much of that do you remember?”

Claire shook her head. “I don’t remember it almost at all. Like... I know it happened. Like it’s one of those important things that happened when you were a kid, that your parents tell you about. Except.”

“Except,” said Dean, thinking of Lawrence. He remembered the fire, but not from his own perspective. He knew the memory was constructed, because he could see himself in it, holding baby Sam. The memory was made up of his dad’s retellings, filled out by his own imagination.

“I know you don’t remember,” Dean said after a moment. “But I’m having... I’m having like... Have you seen Star Trek?”

Claire squinted up at him. “Uh. The new ones, or the originals?”

He narrowed his eyes. “It so happens that I’m talking about the new movies,” he said, “this time. So you’re off the hook, for now.”

“Then yes,” she said.

“You remember when new Kirk meets old Leonard Nimoy Spock, and they—” Dean tapped his temple. “Mind meld? So Old Spock can tell him who he is and what’s happening, all that?”

“Yeah?” said Claire.

“It’s intense, right? And when they’re done, Kirk is crying. And Old Spock says something like, ‘Sorry, emotional transference is a side effect.’” He directed his question to Claire’s shoulder. “D’you remember anything like that?”

“Like 'emotional transference’?” she said. She considered it. “I don’t think so. When I think about it, I just... remember being scared.”

Dean was silent. The matter-of-fact way she said it reminded him of Jack. The way he carefully considered his answer to every question, unimportant or deadly serious. Jack. He hadn’t seen the kid in more than a month. He felt a familiar pang of guilt for leaving him behind.

“So what emotion did you feel?” Claire asked.

After a pause, he said, “I don’t know.”

“Well look, Cas. I know it’s hard. But you’re right. You did what you had to do.” Sam fiddled with his bottle of cider. It was long empty.

“I know it was the right thing to do. But I don't think he'll forgive me," said Cas. “I tried to apologize, but he just got angry.”

Sam seemed surprised by that question. “Forgive you? Forgive you for what? For possessing him?"

“No, not for that. He doesn’t trust me anymore. Because I... I’m...”

“You’re his friend,” Sam said firmly.

Cas looked at Sam and had the realization, routine in his life on Earth but always abrupt, that they weren’t having the conversation Cas thought they were having. Or, to borrow a phrase: Sam didn’t get it.

“...And he’s yours. He won’t ice you out forever. He wants you around, Cas. You didn’t see him when you were gone—when you were dead, in the spring. He missed you a lot,” Sam was saying. "I've honestly never seen him like that before. He wouldn't even talk about you, but I used to see him standing by the door to your room, and I think he probably went to your grave every week..." He drummed his fingers on his empty cider bottle, looking like he was really thinking about how to put this. Cas was barely listening. “Here’s the thing about Dean,” Sam said. “He has a really hard time with change. Sure, he’s stubborn about certain things, and maybe sometimes his pride gets hurt. And in the moment, he’ll blow it out of proportion. But it’s never gonna outweigh the way he... wants things to be. He wants things back the way they were. That’s always going to be more important to him than any argument. So yeah, maybe he needs some time to swallow his pride, or whatever. But he’ll make things right with you, so they can go back to normal. Trust me.”

Cas just nodded robotically.

"He was dead before this?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah. For about two months."

Claire said, "Do you think you're mad at him for that?"

Dean made a face at the suggestion. "Mad at him for dying? Why would I be mad?" he said. "I was glad he came back—really glad. But. No."

Claire shrugged. "Just an idea."

There was a pause.

"So what happened next?" she prompted.

“So... then we leave Cas’s bunker, and we’re in this other place. It’s like... it’s like, a waiting room, but it’s also my car. You know?”

Claire said flatly, “Yes. I’ve had dreams before.”

“Yeah. Well... The other angels, or whatever, they’re doing their Mind Flayer thing, trying to rip Cas out. So Cas tells me I gotta go down deeper and hide from them. So I do it. But the place I ended up...”

Dean had been feeling relatively calm up to this point, eased by the dark nowhereness of the conversation and steadied by the whiskey. But as he got close to describing this—the place he’d gone next, under the trapdoor—a wave of nausea washed over him.

“...it was dark,” he finished, even though that wasn’t really the word for it. “A dark place inside of me.”

Claire looked up at him, gauging. “And Castiel was there too,” she said, trying to work it out.

“Yeah,” said Dean. He was picking at the Jameson label again.

“So he saw it.”

Dean didn't answer for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts without actually thinking them. "Here's... here's the thing," he said. "Here's how I—see it. In this life, I've got a part to play. A 'Dean' to be. Different Deans for different people—for our enemies, our allies, for you, for Jody. Or Jack. Even for my mom, or Sam. I'm not saying it's a trial—that's just life," Dean said. Claire nodded. "But Cas... Cas, he doesn't get that stuff, not really. He doesn't really—respond to my different—personas. Not the serious ones, not the jokey ones. He doesn't even do that well with our, like, FBI agent cover names. It's part of his alien thing.

"Now, of course, I still keep the act up around the guy, even when he gives me a weird look." This was getting harder to explain as he went. "There's... something the guy responds to, even if it's not—that. The persona. It's like he—like he's listening to what I'm trying to say. Or not say. Whichever. And because he's an alien, he's never gonna judge me for being, I dunno, weird, or weak, or embarrassing, or for flubbing my line. So I feel..."

"...Safe," Claire supplied, when Dean didn't finish the sentence.

"Yeah. That's right." He looked back at her. "But that's still not the real me. Right? He can't see that. Nobody can know the 'real' you," he said. "That's impossible, unless they're psychic. Well, lucky me, the one guy that—I don't know, the one nice guy in my life—just happens to be a species that can give me a holy X-ray, all the way down into my deep subconscious. So now—no more nice imaginary Dean. Only the real thing. Naked as the day I was born."

Claire stared at him with her big, doleful eyes, the whites bright in the dark. He waited for her to say something—to agree, or maybe disagree, tell him off—but she said nothing. Maybe she wasn't old enough to understand this yet. Maybe the holy X-ray didn't scare her, because she'd gotten it so young. In her eyes, Dean saw pity, and he felt huge and distant, like a grizzly bear in the zoo, in one of those big enclosures with a moat around the perimeter to keep him from hurting the kids who came to see him. And even though the rehabilitation had been a success, he would never be released back into the wild, never have any bear cubs, never catch another deer or salmon for himself or do whatever it was that grizzly bears did. He would wander around that enclosure in circles for the rest of his days, and Claire and Jack and Sam would come to stare at him through the 6-inch plexiglass.

“Now...” Dean said, and paused to let out a breathless little laugh—“Now I can hardly look at the guy.”

“Now you know how I feel,” Claire said darkly.

Dean snorted before he could stop himself. Claire seemed to think it was kind of funny too. The tension eased. He looked out at the dark trees in the distance.

He had thought that when he finally gave in and let it all spill out in the dark, it would be outside of him, and he’d be clean.

But it wasn’t that easy.

Or maybe he hadn't found the problem. Maybe what he thought he was angry about wasn't really what he was angry about.

“Hey,” he said to Claire. Dean cleared his throat. “Come check this out.”

He jerked his head sideways, and she stood, popping her spine. She joined him at the railing.

“What?”

Dean held up the little empty Jameson bottle. “You think I can get this into there from here?”

He pointed down into the parking lot, where a dumpster sat with its lid half open.

She looked at him with an expression that said, Definitely not.

“Bet you a dollar,” Dean said.

“Make it $5,” said Claire. “There’s no way.”

“Ye of little faith,” Dean said, and tossed the bottle.

It arced downward, flashing orange when the streetlight hit it, and then with a distant, melodic tinkle, it hit the lip of the metal dumpster and shattered.

“Damn,” said Dean. “Guess I owe you. Close, though.”

“Buy me a Coke tomorrow,” she said, leaning on the railing yesterday. “Preferably before you use us as bait.”

“’Scuse me?” said Dean, taken aback.

She looked over at him. “That’s what Sam went ahead for, right?” she said, voice flat. “To set up the trap for Asmodeus.”

He stared at her, searching for a good answer.

“No. It’s good,” she said. “You should do it. I can help.”

“That’s messed up,” Dean said.

“What is?”

Dean shook his head. “We’re not usin’ you as bait, Claire.”

She set her jaw, searching his face for the lie.

“Come on,” he said, gently elbowing her arm. “Time for bed.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “I want to help trap him.”

“You can help by not falling asleep at the wheel tomorrow,” said Dean, shepherding her towards the door. She went. “The car’ll be ready early in the morning. We should both try and get a few more hours.”

When he was back in his room, he unlocked his phone and sent Sam a text. Then he crawled back into bed and lay on his back with his eyes open, staring at the stubbled blue-gray ceiling. He didn’t expect to sleep, but eventually he drifted off.

He’s pointing at something on the floor. Dean glances down, then back up at him.

Dean doesn’t like that he acknowledged that. In fact, he feels a little betrayed that he would.

In the dream, Dean is back in the Impala that is also a waiting room. The same unremarkable motel visible out the windows, same green doors and slate roof. Rain from dark clouds is pounding on the roof and sluicing off across the windshield. He'd hear a tornado warning if he could turn on the radio. Lightning forks the sky with a simultaneous crack of thunder. It rumbles deep in the earth, shaking the frame of the car.

Dean rubs a hand through his hair, then over his face, rubbing his eye. He’s alone. He can do this. It’s just him. He rubs both eyes, then exhales and drops to his knees.

The trapdoor is unassuming, slate gray, and the handle is nearly rusted shut. It makes a hair-prickling chalkboard squeak when he pulls on it—he winces. An extra shove and it unfolds. He yanks the trapdoor up and open. Without further ado, Dean climbs in, carefully closing it behind him.

It’s completely dark. He slowly steps down the ladder, one rung at a time. Each time he reaches down with his foot, he dreads finding emptiness, no next rung to step on—but each time, another appears.

Finally, he’s at the bottom. He’s looking into a motel room from outside it, like the room is a terrarium and he’s peering into the open lid. It’s a cheap little room. Two beds. Both made up. Cramped together. No window. Big old TV. Black screen. The wallpaper is patchy. The carpet is faded in some places, stained in others. The bathroom door is shut. Someone sits at the foot of one bed with both feet on the carpet, TV remote in one hand and a beer in the other. A collection of empty bottles is clustered on the carpet by his feet.

He looks dog-tired. At the foot of the other bed sits an open duffel bag. His dad’s.

The guy clicks through the channels, dead-eyed. The screen stays black, but he doesn’t seem to notice. A feeling of disgust is growing inside him, as he watches this person press the remote. Channel after channel, nothing’s on. He doesn’t know this guy, but he recognizes him, like he's a D-list actor in a movie he’d seen—mobster’s henchman who tortured the hero, shithead boyfriend who dumped the heroine. It’s no surprise to him that he looks this way down here, no surprise at all. He recognizes himself, all right.

Watching him, he feels an indescribable humiliation. It builds up. Gut-churning revulsion, lining-burning acid, fast-acting poison in his veins. His body won’t move or else his eyes are just eyes now, and his body is gone. If he doesn’t have a body then the disgust is living somewhere else, because he feels it more keenly than ever.

Is this what people see, when he waltzes into a police precinct, when he sits down at the end of the bar? No girl is ever going to get within five feet of him with that—that—what? What is it? It’s something about him, he can see it, and surely they can too.

When the feeling overcomes him, he finds himself inside the motel room. He is both sitting on the bed and watching himself, and from where he sits on the bed, he can see his dim reflection in the old, dead-eyed TV screen. All the memories of danger, fleeing from the malicious outside forces, they’re gone. He’s lost in the hellish moment. There is only this shabby little room with its stains and its empties and its broken TV and the closed bathroom door.

A beam of light slices in between the curtains. With a quiet huff of static the cathode ray comes to life, and the TV turns on. Static.

Dean looks at the motel room's door. It’s open. On the threshold stands Castiel: backlit in his trench coat, hands loose at his sides, face clean-shaven and eyes sharp.

His eyes lock onto Dean. Dean is already striding across the room to shut the door on him.

“Get out,” he says. “You’re not supposed to be in here, get the hell out—”

Cas looks quickly inside, then back at Dean, now standing right in front of him in the doorway. Blood rushes in Dean’s ears, his heart pounds. He’s about to shove Cas out with his own two hands if he wavers for another second.

“It’s time to go,” says Cas’s voice. He’s nowhere suddenly—all Dean can see outside the door is light, a bright nothingness.

And Cas is gone. Dean hesitates in the doorway. He’s still breathing heavily, hands white-knuckle gripping the doorway, and for a second he hesitates. It’s repulsive to stay here, but some unknown inertia holds him. He turns to look back at the TV, to see if it stayed on. But it didn’t. He glances at the bathroom door; still closed.

The person sitting at the foot of the bed stares at his dull reflection in the glass.

White red yellow blue split cyan sapphire indigo white yellow red split scarlet burgundy fuchsia split splitting splintering cleaving in half and peeling away black oh god black oh god, oh god, oh—black black black

A wrought-iron railing. Dead grass. Arms supporting him from either side. Wind screams in his ears. The air sears cold on his face. Clothing strangles his skin. He’s back in his body.

Cas left, and on his way out, Dean felt all of it. All of it.

The gold rift dances in the air in front of them.

The bowl sits on a table. View from behind Sam, behind the table. He looks up at Castiel, standing at the other end of the room. There's a sigil on the wall next to him. Castiel nods.

Asmodeus, Prince of Hell. We summon you for a trade. We have something to offer.

SHH. Asmodeus materializes in the doorway. He takes in Sam, Castiel, and whatever is on the floor.

Well isn't this a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a couple of empty vessels...

We swing around from behind the table. Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor is Jack.

Save it. Jack's not going anywhere with you. We want to offer you the other two in exchange. They're not here, but they're somewhere safe.

He takes a step towards Jack. Castiel stiffens, hand flexing towards the sigil on the wall.

Asmodeus takes another step towards Jack, who watches. One more. Then Jack scrambles to his feet, and hurries to Castiel’s corner. Castiel grips his arm.

Another crypt? Why, surely you can do better than that. Come on. Ask me for what you really want.

Sam's expression doesn't change, but he pauses. Uncertain but not wanting to show it.

In the woods around the bunker entrance, they watch as Claire parks in front of the entrance. From a distance, they watch the car doors open, then the trunk. Claire, Caroline, and Dean start unloading the luggage.

Dean, holding two duffel bags, pauses, frowning, and looks around, as if he hears something.

MARY stands over them with a pistol in hand. She lowers it to point the barrel at them.

He sweeps a leg under Mary, KNOCKING her over with a YELP. He scrambles up and tears off, CRASHING through branches--

We caught your "operative." You probably shouldn't have sent somebody whose tricks we already know.

We won't let you go until you agree: You will not harm Claire Novak or Caroline Johnson.

Fellas, it's been a pleasure, really, but I have other business to attend to. That's my offer. Take it or leave it.

He closes his eyes, tensing his hands, and then--CRACK. The ceiling cracks down the middle, breaking the devil's trap. Dust trickles down. He throws a wink at Castiel, his other eye flaring SILVER, then vanishes.

I guess, I mean, I don't see what else there is to do with him. He won't talk to us and we can't just let him go back to doing Asmodeus's dirty work.

Sam is on the phone. At the other end of the table, Castiel is preparing a spell.

Yeah, well, Claire and Caroline are getting ready for the grace extraction spell. We'll take 'em home after that. They should be safe.

They've been at every gas station I've stopped at lately. Playin' stupid little commercials.

Sam looks down at his phone, troubled. He looks over at Castiel, who is diligently checking the spell ingredients against the list in a big book.

View from the hallway, in the direction where Cas was just looking. We turn around to see who was listening--JESSICA the reaper. Hiding out of sight behind the doorway, she frowns, and taps her chin.

Dean, relieved to be alone again, drove all the way back to his motel in Minnesota that night. Lately, he felt lonely even when he was with Sam. It was a long drive, but it was better than finding some new spot to crash. He wasn’t good at moving around so much anymore, not the way he used to be. He was a creature of habit.

Chapter 4: "Touched By an Angel"