Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dean knows he’s shaking, his hands trembling, as he touches Cas’ face. “I don’t know how much longer I can last.”

“Don’t say that,” Cas replies fiercely. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“You can’t make that promise,” Dean replies. “We go together or not at all.”

“I can get you through, and you can figure out how to get me out later,” Cas argues, and it’s a lie.

It’s a lie, because Dean will never risk opening a gateway into Purgatory, no matter how much he might want to, not even for Cas.

And it’s a lie because as far as Dean knows, he can’t die here, no matter what seems to happen to him.

But not being able to die doesn’t preclude going crazy, and Dean thinks he might be getting close to losing it, to just giving up.

He now has some inkling of why Cas had gone completely bonkers.

“Let me try,” Cas begs.

“Give it a little longer.” Dean grasps Cas’ shoulder. “Just a little longer.”

They’ve found a cave, just big enough for the two of them if they press together chest to chest. Dean would have preferred to face the entrance, but there’s not enough room to turn around, so they’ll have to rely on kicking anything that tries to enter.

It’s better than some of the places they’ve stayed during their interminable time here.

Cas presses his face into the crook of Dean’s neck, and he says, “I’m sorry,” just as he has every night.

At least, it might be every night if the light ever changed here. Cas says it a lot, though.

“It’s okay,” Dean insists, even though it’s not, not remotely, but he’s long since forgiven Cas, his anger purged away in this barren place.

Cas is all Dean has here. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to hold on to his anger, too.

He shifts slightly, putting an arm around Cas’ shoulders, holding on as best he can. “We’re going to be okay,” Dean insists.

If he keeps saying it, he might just believe it.

~~~~~

Sam goes down the list of assignments slowly, one by one. The reports about the Leviathans are tapering off—finally. He’s lost track of how many they’ve killed at this point, and maybe it’s been too many to count.

And that’s in between demons—Crowley has been busy, trying to consolidate his position—and other monsters.

He fields a call from someone checking up on Lee’s credentials, staring at the cracked blue paint on the walls of his current residence, following the lines of the molding that might once have been white. When he gets another call from Jerry, out of Indiana, wanting to know the best way to deal with a Djinn, Sam passes along what information he has and tells Jerry to be careful, grabbing a cold bottle of water from the fridge.

Sam reiterates his instructions to be careful before he hangs up, because he can’t afford to lose any of his hunters, not if he wants to keep searching for a way to get Dean out of Purgatory without freeing anything else.

Jody calls after that, and Sam smiles and puts his feet up on the dilapidated table when she asks, “How’s it going, cowboy?”

“Fine,” he says. “What’s up?”

“Just thought I’d check in on you,” she replies. “Make sure you’re eating, sleeping—you know, the kinds of things that humans need to do.”

Sam shakes his head. “You’re not my mother. You realize that, right?”

“Hey, someone needs to remind you that you’re a real person with real needs,” Jody jokes. “Say it with me, Sam.”

“I need to eat a real meal and sleep a full eight hours every once in a while,” he says in unison with her. “And if I don’t, I won’t be any good to anybody.”

Sam adds that last bit himself, since Jody has said it often enough.

Jody laughs. “I see you have been listening.”

“I try. I just don’t always follow your advice,” Sam teases, and then there’s movement out of the corner of his eye, and he says, “I have to call you back.”

He ends the call and pulls out his 9 mil, pointing it at the portal that’s opening in the corner of the room. Sam thinks he’s prepared for anything, but he’s not ready for the lean form that comes tumbling into the room—dirt-encrusted and battered, but obviously human.

Later, Sam will tell himself that it’s only because he hasn’t seen Dean for years—almost three, at that point—that he doesn’t recognize his brother immediately. He’ll tell himself that it’s not that he’s given up on ever seeing Dean again.

He’ll remind himself that opening up a door to Purgatory had released the Leviathans, and he hadn’t found a way to keep them from coming through.

Sam will tell himself that it’s not a failure for Cas to have figured it out first.

But that’s later. Right now, his heart is in his throat as he stares at Dean’s tattered, bloodstained clothing, at his familiar, sprawled form. He blinks up at the ceiling, apparently stunned, unmoving, other than his chest expanding as he breathed. Other than the clothes, though, Dean looks the same as he had the night they took on Dick Roman.

Exactly the same.

“Dean?” Sam asks softly.

Dean pushes himself up on one elbow and looks around. “That son of a bitch.”

“Dean?” Sam says more insistently, keeping his gun trained on him.

“Where’s Cas?” Dean asks.

Sam shakes his head. “I haven’t seen him since—since the last time I saw you.”

“That jerk,” Dean fumes, getting to his feet. “He promised he wasn’t going to try to get me through without coming with me.”

Sam is still struggling to catch up. “Wait, what?”

Dean grins, his teeth very white against his dirty skin. “Man, I’m starving.” His eyes go to Sam’s weapon, but his grin doesn’t falter. “Better get the holy water,” he says easily. “Let’s get this over with so I can eat.”

Dean splashes holy water on his face, and pours more over his arm before he draws a silver blade across his skin without flinching. He bleeds red, but there’s no sign he feels any pain, and Sam is looking for it.

He’s looking for some sign that this is still his brother.

“Hey, look at that,” Dean says, watching the blood drip onto the table, with apparent fascination.

“Dean?” Sam prods, a little disturbed, although he can’t quite put his finger on why.

Dean glances up. “Hey, you got something I can wrap this with?”

“Yeah, sure.” Sam rummages for gauze. “Was Cas with you this whole time?”

“For the most part,” Dean replies. “How long has it been?”

Sam hands him the bandages and medical tape. “Two years, ten months, one week, and three days.”

Dean looks at the scarred, hardwood floor at that, his face softening. “I’m sorry. I came back as soon as I could.”

“How long was it for you?” Sam asks, his throat dry. He still hasn’t touched Dean yet, because he’s not entirely sure this is real.

Dean shrugs, wrapping the cut clumsily, as though out of practice. “Time doesn’t mean much in Purgatory,” he explains. “I have no idea how much time passed.” He pauses, and says, “I think it was longer.”

Sam takes the medical tape from Dean’s hand and tapes the gauze in place, ignoring the fact that Dean’s going to have to get cleaned up soon, and then it all has to come off. “How much longer?”

Dean shakes his head, watching Sam’s hands. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Dean,” Sam says helplessly. “I tried.”

Dean meets his eyes for the first time, and he smiles, his expression gentle. “I know you did, Sammy. It’s okay.”

He hasn’t aged a day, Sam thinks. Under the layers of dirt, he’s just the same, if Sam can look past Dean’s eyes, which are clear and calm, almost serene—not an expression he would have guessed Dean could ever wear comfortably.

“What happened to Cas?” Sam asks.

Dean’s eyes darken. “I don’t know,” he says. “He promised to wait until both of us could get clear.”

“I’ll have my people keep an ear out for him, just in case,” Sam promises.

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Your people?”

Sam smiles. “I have a lot to catch you up on.”

And then he does what he’s wanted to do since Dean tumbled into the room, and pulls him into a hug.

~~~~~

Dean has almost forgotten what hot water feels like against his skin; he’s almost forgotten the sensation of soap-slick skin, and sudsy hair, steamy air in his face.

He keeps his shower shorter than he’d like because his stomach is growling, and Sam has promised him a bacon cheeseburger and fries and a beer.

He’s pretty sure he’s going to embarrass both of them when he eats real food again, for the first time in—

Well, almost three years, by Earth’s reckoning; a lifetime or two by Purgatory’s.

Dean dries off, reveling in the feel of the thin, threadbare towel against his skin, and pauses to look at himself in the mirror.

Nothing has changed.

Dean touches his cheek—just as smooth as it had been when he’d been sucked into Purgatory, touches his stomach—no sign of where that creature had gutted him the first time he’d been killed.

He touches his tattoo, his neck, and it’s all smooth skin, no sign of wear and tear.

Dean half-expects Cas to pop up out of nowhere, the way he had before they’d killed Dick, back when Cas had been crazy.

Cas had shown up on the hood of Dean’s car, naked and covered in bees; he hadn’t appreciated it at the time, but he thinks he would now.

A couple of lifetimes spent with someone saving your life over and over bred a certain familiarity.

Dean rubs his eyes, worrying for Cas. Since he hasn’t popped in, even if just to be sure that Dean is in one piece, Dean has to assume that he’s still stuck in Purgatory, and he wonders if Cas stayed on purpose, to purge away the last of his guilt.

“Dean?” Sam calls. “You okay?”

“Fine!” he shouts, and hastily pulls on his clothing—his own, he thinks, stuff that Sam has apparently held onto all these years. He meets Sam in the same room he’d appeared. “Sorry. It’s been a long time since I was clean.”

It’s true, both literally and metaphorically, although Dean’s guilt doesn’t weigh on him quite so heavily these days.

The common wisdom is that Purgatory is the place where souls go to be purged. Dean has no idea if it actually works like that, but after getting ripped to pieces a few dozen times, only to be in one piece again, Dean had begun to feel as though he’d done his penance.

Sam nods. “No problem. There’s a good burger joint close.”

Dean looks around at the faded wallpaper, the cracked ceiling, the scarred floors, and sees a place that looks lived-in. “How long have you been here?”

“About nine months,” Sam replies. “I finally gave in and got a few extra phone lines when I got this place.”

Dean smiles. “Like Bobby.”

Sam takes a deep, audible breath. “Yeah, someone had to fill that void.”

Dean wonders if he might have filled that role if he’d been around. “It’s good that you are,” he replies. “Bobby would be proud.”

“I hope so,” Sam says quietly.

Dean decides to change the subject. “So, food?”

Sam laughs. “I guess some things haven’t changed.

“Hey, man, I haven’t had anything to eat since before we went up against Dick,” Dean protests.

Sam frowns. “You didn’t eat in all that time?”

“Nothing to eat,” Dean says easily. “And technically, I didn’t need to,” he says, pulling on his boots.

“What do you mean, you didn’t need to?” Sam asks with his familiar curiosity.

Dean shrugs. “Nothing changes in Purgatory. Doesn’t matter what happens to you, or how long you go without food or drink.”

Horror slowly dawns on Sam’s face. “What happened?”

Dean shakes his head. “Not now, Sam. I—” Emotion chokes him for a minute. “Can we get something to eat?”

“Come on,” Sam replies. “There’s someone else who missed you.”

Dean grins when he sees his baby again, running his hand over the hood. “She looks just the same.”

“She is just the same,” Sam says, tossing Dean the keys. “I had to get her repaired, but Jody recommended a reputable body shop.”

Dean winces. “Where’s Meg?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Sam replies. “Crowley grabbed her, and I haven’t seen her since.”

Dean cares about as much as Sam does, although Cas will probably be upset; he’d somehow formed an attachment to the demon.

Although maybe he’d be over it by now. Assuming, of course, that Cas isn’t stuck in Purgatory.

The burger joint is upscale, with track lighting and nice upholstery and a gleaming wooden bar. They’ve got excellent burgers, though, and really good microbrews on tap, and the fries are just the right mixture of crispy outside and starchy inside.

Dean groans as he takes the first bite of his bacon cheeseburger. “Oh, God.”

Sam grins around a bite of his chicken sandwich. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

“Some things don’t change,” Dean says with his mouth full. “You were right. This place is awesome.”

“I thought you might like it.” Sam’s expression turns a little wistful. “You know, I think I’ve had a burger at just about every restaurant in town. I thought—I thought when you got back, I could tell you where the best place to go was.”

“Your sacrifice is appreciated,” Dean replies, touched at the demonstration of faith.

Sam grimaces. “You should be. It’s harder to find a good bacon cheeseburger than you might think.”

“Why do you think I keep ordering them?” Dean asks, and takes another bite.

He wishes Cas were here, though. That would make it just about perfect.

~~~~~

He wakes slowly, painfully, his head pounding. Slowly, his headache subsides enough to take in his surroundings—lumpy mattress under him, thin blanket over him, bright sunlight streaming in from the window just behind his right shoulder.

He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, and sees a woman in pink scrubs standing next to his bed, beaming down at him. “Hi!” she says cheerfully. “How are you feeling?”

He has no idea where he is, or even who he is, but he tries cataloging his physical problems. “My head hurts,” he finally says. “And my leg hurts.”

“You were hit by a car,” she says helpfully.

He doesn’t remember that. “What?”

“You showed up in the middle of the street,” she replies. He reads her nametag, which says ‘Holly.’ “You were lucky the car only clipped you.”

“Lucky,” he echoes, having no idea what that actually means.

“Can you tell us your name?” she asks gently.

He realizes that he has no idea what his name is. “No,” he says, sounding faintly surprised even to his own ears. “I don’t remember my name.”

“What do you remember?” Her voice is pitched low and sympathetic, as though she understands. He knows instinctively that she doesn’t.

He searches for something, some memory, and comes up with a name. “Dean Winchester.”

“Is that your name?” Holly asks.

He shakes his head, certain of that much at least. “No. I need to call Dean Winchester. That’s the only thing I remember.”

“Do you remember his number?” Holly asks.

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Let me see if there was a phone in your belongings when they brought you in,” Holly replies.

He leans back in the bed, and turns his head enough to watch the dust motes float through the sunbeams coming through the window. He feels as though he ought to remember who he is, why he’s here, but his past is a blank. The only thing in his mind is a name, Dean Winchester, but he’s not sure why Dean Winchester is important to him.

Holly comes back into the room a few minutes later with a cell phone. “It looks like Dean is one of the entries,” she says. “Do you want to try?”

He’s suddenly certain that he doesn’t want to, but he knows he’ll never forgive himself if he refuses to try. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll try.”

He selects the number from his speed dial and punches the “call” button. “Hello?”

“Cas?” The voice on the other end is achingly familiar, and yet not, all at the same time. He’s not sure he could have recognized Dean Winchester’s voice before he heard it—he knows he couldn’t have picked Dean Winchester’s face out of a line-up—but right now, he feels as though he’s come home. “Where are you?”

“I’m not sure,” he says. “I’ll let you talk to the nurse.”

He hands the phone to Holly before Dean Winchester can object and hopes for the best.

“This is Holly,” she says. “To whom am I speaking?”

Listening desultorily to her end of the conversation, he doesn’t know how he should feel. Numb is the word that comes immediately to mind, but even that doesn’t completely suffice. Incomplete is better, because he feels like a huge chunk of himself is missing—not surprising, considering that he can’t remember anything other than “Dean Winchester.”

He hears her say, “He was admitted for observation after being struck by a car,” as he stares at the pale gray wall. “But he’ll recover. You know him?”

Focusing on a crack in the textured ceiling, he waits until Holly says, “Just a moment,” and hands the phone back to Cas.

“Cas? Hello?”

He has no idea what to say in response, so he settles on, “Hello.”

“What do you remember?” the man asks.

“Just your name,” he admits. “Dean Winchester. Your name was in my phone.”

“You did exactly the right thing, calling me,” the man says. “Just sit tight for me, okay? I’m going to come get you. Put me back on with the nurse.”

He doesn’t pay much attention to Holly’s side of the conversation, mostly because it’s half of the story. When Holly hangs up, she says, “Your friend will be here in tomorrow. It’s going to be fine.”

He rather doubts that, but he’s willing to take it on faith.

What else can he do?

~~~~~

Sam doesn’t know what to think about Dean’s insistence that he has to immediately drive to Oklahoma City to pick Cas up. In one sense, he gets it; however long Dean had been in Purgatory, Cas had been with him.

And Dean had been tangled up in Cas for a long time before that, too; it only makes sense that he’d want to pick Cas up from the hospital.

Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that Cas has amnesia. After all, when they’d run across him as Emmanuel, he hadn’t remembered anything from before.

Still, Sam is a little surprised by how quickly Dean agrees to go. He doesn’t even pause; he just says, “Okay, yeah, I’m coming to get him,” and that’s the end of it.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Dean says, as he picks up the few clothes he has and shoves them into the same duffel bag they’d been in for the last three years.

“I’m not letting you go by yourself,” Sam objects. “Not when I just got you back.”

A look of surprise crosses Dean’s face. “How long has it been?”

Sam feels a flicker of uneasiness. “Three days, Dean. It’s only been three days.”

“Oh.” Dean shrugs. “Time feels different.”

“I guess it would,” Sam replies, beginning to wonder if he’s gotten his brother back after all. “Is it okay? Me coming with you?”

Dean smiles easily. “Of course.”

Sam doesn’t expect Dean to let him drive, and he’s not disappointed. He’s hardly been able to peel Dean out from behind the wheel of the Impala, even if he’s not actually driving anywhere.

Maybe the Impala feels more like home, Sam thinks. Hell, the Impala is as close to a home as they’ve ever had, so it makes sense Dean would go there to reconnect with the world. Sam has learned to join him there if he wants to have a conversation.

It’s almost like the old days, if not for the silence in the car.

Sam clears his throat. “Do you want to put some music on?”

“Huh?”

Sam swallows his sarcastic remark. “Music?”

Dean frowns, almost as though he’s forgotten the meaning of the word. “Yeah, pick something, would you?”

Sam blinks and decides that his best option is to go with the classics. He hasn’t changed the tape deck, not in three years—not like when Dean was in Hell and he’d put in an iPod jack. He picks up Back in Black, because it seems appropriate to the situation.

Dean grins when he hears the opening chords. “Hey, I remember this.”

Sam breathes a sigh of relief. “I would hope so.”

He plays all of Dean’s favorites on the drive to Oklahoma City, wanting his brother back, more than anything else, hoping that the familiar tunes will remind Dean of who and what he had been.

Dean’s singing along by the time they hit the halfway mark on the drive, to “Eye of the Tiger,” no less, in his familiar, off-key voice.

Sam begins to relax a bit at that. Dean might have changed, but he’s still fundamentally the same guy.

“So, you and Cas,” Sam begins after the song is over.

Dean shrugs. “Yeah.”

“You’re together?”

Dean shakes his head. “Not the way you mean. It’s a bad idea to get caught with your pants down around your ankles when something could rip your balls off.”

Sam lets out a chuckle. “Yeah, I guess.”

“It’s not like that in Purgatory, anyway,” Dean says offhandedly.

This is the most Dean has talked about actual conditions in Purgatory since he’d shown up in Sam’s living room. Sam decides to tread carefully. “Yeah?”

“There’s no night, no day,” Dean says reflectively. “No sun.”

Sam’s fists clench on his thighs, hearing the implications of Dean’s words easily enough. He knows that time had passed differently in hell, and that Dean had broken—by his own admission.

Now, Dean can’t tell Sam how long he’d spent in Purgatory, but that it had been longer than three years. Sam keeps looking for a sign that Dean had broken there, too.

Maybe it had been different, since Cas had been with him, but Sam isn’t so sure about that.

“There’s nothing to eat, unless you like raw monster meat, but Cas seemed to think I might not stay human if I did that,” Dean continues.

“Probably best to avoid that if you can,” Sam allows.

Dean shrugs. “I got through it, didn’t I?”

Sam wants to question how well he got through it, but it’s too soon for that. Sam hasn’t completed his own evaluation yet. “I guess you did. Cas got you out.”

Dean looks disgruntled. “Yeah, but he promised he would come with me.”

“Maybe he couldn’t.”

“Obviously,” Dean shoots back. “He wound up in a hospital in OK City without his memories.”

“He remembered you,” Sam points out. “So that’s something.”

“He remembered my name,” Dean counters. “That doesn’t mean he remembers…”

Dean trails off, and Sam’s not sure if he’s lost his train of thought, or if he just doesn’t want to go into details about what Cas ought to remember.

“Dean?” Sam prompts.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dean grumbles.

Sam frowns. “Looks like it does.”

“Maybe it’s better this way,” Dean murmurs. “That he doesn’t remember.”

“Was it really so bad?” Sam asks.

“It wasn’t a bed of roses.”

“That’s about the least descriptive way of putting things I’ve ever heard,” Sam complains.

Dean laughs, and it’s a genuine laugh. “You’d have to be there to understand.”

Sam has a feeling he’s going to be hearing that a lot. “If you used more words, I might get closer.”

Dean smirks. “I may have changed, Sammy, but I haven’t changed that much.”

Sam has to laugh at that, and he can’t argue, because Dean’s never been terribly forthcoming about his feelings.

And that’s definitely an understatement.

“What are you expecting out of Cas?” Sam asks.

“He doesn’t remember anything other than my name,” Dean snaps. “I don’t expect much.”

Sore spot, Sam thinks, and resolves not to bring that subject up again. “I’m sure it’s going to be fine,” he manages. “He did remember your name, even if he doesn’t remember anything else.”

“I guess there’s that.”

Sam suspects that there’s more that happened in Purgatory than Dean will ever tell him. That’s nothing new, but he’d half-hoped that Dean would be a little more forthcoming, at least about Purgatory.

It’s a false hope; Sam gets that. He just can’t help it.

They stop along the highway just outside of Wichita to catch a few hours of sleep, putting them in Oklahoma City mid-morning the next day.  Sam trails along in Dean’s wake, content to let Dean take the lead in this.

After all, Cas is Dean’s boyfriend, not his.

Dean doesn’t even bother stopping by reception; the nurse had given him Cas’ floor and room number when Cas had called the day before.

In all honestly, Sam’s kind of looking forward to seeing the guy, amnesia or no, because he’s the one who’s been with Dean all this time, watching his back, and he’s the one who got Dean out.

Sam owes Cas, and he pays his debts.

He stops just inside the doorway, though, wanting to give Dean some time.

Cas looks the same, mostly. The stubble on his face is thick, and his skin is pale above his hospital gown. “Hello?” he says cautiously.

“It’s me, Dean.” Dean’s tone is so hopeful that Sam’s stomach twists. “How are you feeling, Cas?”

“A little blank,” he admits. “I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you.”

Dean glances over his shoulder at Sam, and his newfound serenity has cracked a bit—his mouth is twisted in an unhappy grimace, and his expression is a bit lost. “It’s okay,” Dean says, turning back to Cas. “We go way back. I remember enough for the both of us. Do you remember my brother, Sam?”

Cas’ eyes go to Sam, and there’s no recognition at all on his face. He gives Sam the polite smile he might have offered a stranger. “No, I’m sorry. Hello.”

“Hey, Cas,” Sam says easily. He’s faced stranger situations in the last few years. “You feeling okay?”

“A little sore,” Cas replies earnestly. “They tell me I was hit by a car.”

“Bad?” Sam asks.

Cas shakes his head. “The nurse said I was lucky nothing was broken. It’s just bruises.”

“They got you on the good drugs?” Dean asks, leaning against the hospital bed.

Cas frowns. “I’m not sure what that means.”

“It means you’re feeling no pain,” Dean says.

Cas’ brow furrows in confusion. “But I just said I was sore.”

Dean laughs. “Yeah, you did. Sorry. You want to get out of here?”

“Where are we going?” he asks, sounding so trusting for someone who’s putting his life in the hands of a couple of strangers.

“Sam has a place,” Dean replies. “I brought you some of my clothes. We didn’t have any of yours handy.”

“That’s okay,” Cas assures them. “I’d just really like to get out of this thing.”

Dean grins. “That’s what everybody says about hospital gowns.”

Sam knows they have a game plan; he’s going to take them back to his place, and then they’re going to continue with the business of hunting.

He suspects it’s not going to be that easy.

~~~~~

Castiel hasn’t told Dean that he could leave Purgatory at any time—not easily, and not without consequences, but he could leave Dean behind, and go back to Earth, or back to heaven.

He might have tried if Dean had needed food or drink, but it soon becomes obvious that Dean’s physical body is in something of a stasis while in Purgatory. He’s hungry, but he does not starve; Dean is thirsty, but not dehydrated.

Dean is ripped to shreds in front of Castiel.

The first time, Castiel sits next to Dean’s cooling body and wonders if he’ll be able to bear Dean back to Earth, so at least Sam will know what happened, or if he’ll have to leave Dean here, atop soil that he’s not sure he can break.

Castiel pulls Dean’s body into his lap and wishes he still believed that his father might answer his prayers.

Once, he’d believed that God had been the one to resurrect him as a sign of Castiel’s faithfulness. Now, he thinks it’s more likely a punishment, although from whom or for what, he cannot say.

Castiel had believed that Dean would be his salvation. If he could save Dean; if he could redeem himself in Dean’s eyes, that would be enough.

And now Dean is dead, torn apart by some creature in Purgatory that not even Castiel recognized, before Castiel could save him.

And he knows that if he cannot take Dean out with him, Castiel will stay. He has nothing left other than Dean.

Castiel’s father is gone, his purpose his gone, his garrison is gone.

His sanity is gone, although his mind has been clearer here, in Purgatory, with one overriding goal: to keep Dean safe.

He has failed at that.

Castiel clutches Dean close to him, uncaring about the blood that gets on his coat and on the white scrubs he still wears.

And then Dean takes a deep breath, his eyes opening, and he sits up, breaking Castiel’s grip.

“What—” Dean begins, and then collapses back onto Cas. “What the fuck?”

Castiel pushes Dean’s jacket aside and runs his hands over the Dean’s abdomen, where his mortal wounds had been. “I don’t know,” Castiel replies, although he knows better than that.

If hunger and thirst can’t kill Dean here, nothing else can either.

It looks like Dean is going to learn what it means to have multiple resurrections be a punishment.

“Fuck,” Dean says. “That sucked.” He runs a hand down his chest. “This is just going to get worse, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel confesses. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault, not this time.” Dean gives him a rueful smile. “It’s going to be okay,” he promises. “We’re going to get out of here.”

Castiel wishes he could believe that.

~~~~~

Dean has no idea what to do with this version of Cas. It’s not the first time he’s had to adjust where Cas is concerned—from the dispassionate angel of the Lord, to the almost-human friend, to the pretend God, to the amnesiac, to the crazy angel who had saved his brother’s life and sanity.

To the angel who had been with him every step of the way in Purgatory, who had stood between Dean and the monsters time after time. Who had been there every time Dean had woken up after being torn to pieces.

But all of those versions had remembered Dean—at least eventually—had remembered the history they shared, what little of it, or as much of it, as there had been. This version of Cas remembers nothing but Dean’s name.

Dean doesn’t know what to do with that.

“You going to be okay?” Dean asks. “It’s going to be a long drive.”

“I’m okay,” Cas insists. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

That much is true, and Dean decides not to argue with him. “Let us know if you need anything,” Dean says.

They hadn’t always said much while they were in Purgatory. Silence had become comfortable, and Dean isn’t sure what to say to Sam now, not with Cas there in the backseat.

So, he drives, finding a sense of peace behind the wheel of the Impala with CCR blasting in the background. He knows what Sam is trying to do; he knows Sam is trying to remind Dean of who he had been.

“What is this music?” Cas asks when the album restarts.

“Creedance Clearwater Revival,” Dean replies. “It’s classic rock. Do you like it?”

There’s a long pause and Dean glances into the rearview to see Cas’ expression. Cas seems to be considering his answer, but he’s still there, which is all Dean really cares about at the moment.

Cas will get his memories back eventually; he had before. Dean just has to wait it out.

“I do like it,” Cas says after due consideration.

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t,” Dean says, and doesn’t add that he wouldn’t want to know them. That goes without saying.

Of course, he and Cas have never talked about musical preferences, so he’s glad that Cas can at least appreciate some classic rock.

“You want to listen to something else?” Dean asks.

“I don’t care,” Cas says. “Whatever you want.”

Dean frowns and wonders whether it means something that Cas doesn’t have an opinion—other than Cas doesn’t know much about music.

He decides to view Cas as a blank slate and take the opportunity to indoctrinate him into the art of classic rock. “Sam? We got any AC/DC?”

Sam gives him a strange look but says, “Sure we do.”

The opening chords of “Hells Bells” fill the car, and Dean grins, glancing once again into the rearview mirror. Cas stares out the window, but he has a faint smile on his face, and Dean takes that as a good sign.

He wishes there’s something he can say that has nothing to do with the Purgatory or what has happened between them in the past, but the only thing they’ve got is a shared history.

Hell, Dean has no idea how to tell Cas that he is—had been—an angel of the freaking Lord.

They stop for dinner in Wichita, at a roadside diner, and Cas studies the menu a long time. When the waitress comes by a third time, Dean asks, “Aren’t you hungry?”

“I have no idea what I like,” Cas replies, sounding bewildered.

Dean glances up at the waitress. “Bacon cheeseburger and fries,” he orders, and points at Cas. “He’ll have what I’m having.”

“I’ll do the club sandwich,” Sam says. “Side salad instead of fries, though.”

Dean rolls his eyes, but Sam getting a salad is so familiar, it makes him feel a little more connected.

“Why a salad?” Cas asks.

“Because I don’t want to die of a heart attack at 50,” Sam says with a look at Dean.

Dean shrugs. “I doubt I’ll live that long.”

He doesn’t miss the look of alarm that crosses Sam’s face, but Dean doesn’t know what to do with it. As far as he’s concerned, he’s just speaking the truth. Dean’s beat the odds again and again, most recently by getting out of Purgatory, and his luck is going to run out eventually.

Dean is never going to be an old hunter. He’s okay with that. He’s died often enough now, the idea doesn’t faze him anymore.

Sam checks his phone, answering emails that have come in, and Dean watches Cas, who’s staring out the window with characteristic wide-eyed wonder. Dean studies him, looking for differences, but he can’t see them.

Cas’ hair is messy, uncombed, and Dean’s old t-shirt hangs a little loosely on him. The trench coat is bundled away in the trunk again, and that feels right, too. If Cas isn’t wearing it, then it belongs in the trunk of the Impala.

“How did we meet?” Cas asks suddenly, and Dean is surprised that it’s taken him this long to ask.

Although maybe it makes sense, since Cas had probably been looking for any port in the storm, anything familiar, and hadn’t wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Dean has no idea how to respond, what to tell him, but he decides to go with the most basic version of the truth. “You saved my life.”

Cas’ eyes go wide. “Me?”

“You pulled me out of a—really bad situation,” Dean says, ignoring Sam’s raised eyebrow.

Cas frowns. “What kind of a situation?”

“That’s a little harder,” Dean admits. “It’s—weird. We’ve been involved in some weird stuff.”

“Somehow, I don’t doubt that,” Cas replies wryly. “I did wake up without any other memory but your name.”

Dean grins. “But what a great memory it is.”

Cas’ answering smile turns a little shy, and he glances away, his blue eyes dark.

When the waitress brings their meals, Cas falls on his burger as though he hasn’t eaten in days, and given the quality of most hospital food, Dean wouldn’t be surprised if that weren’t the case.

“This is good,” Cas says around a mouthful of food. “Thank you, Dean.”

Dean smiles, and thinks they have a place to start.

~~~~~

Sam knows that Purgatory changed Dean, but he hadn’t realized how much until after they picked Cas up from the hospital in Oklahoma City. Dean has seemed disconnected since he got back, not entirely himself, but when he sees Cas, it’s like the rest of the world no longer exists.

If he didn’t know better, he would have said Dean was in love, but that doesn’t quite cover it either.

In a way, it’s like the way Sam and Dean were at the best of times, or worst of times, depending on the point of view. When they could communicate with a look and half a phrase, and know everything the other was thinking; when they had been in sync, bound together so closely that nothing could come between them.

And then Dean had spent three years—Earth time—in Purgatory, and Sam had built up a network of hunters by necessity, and Dean had relied on Cas, and now they’re here.

Now they’re here, in Des Moines, in Sam’s small, rented house, and Dean is sitting out on the back porch with Cas, and Sam’s in here, fielding calls and answering questions that come in from other hunters, just as he’s done for the last three years.

And Sam is beginning to think that he doesn’t know his brother at all anymore.

“Yo, Sam,” Krissy says, calling two days after their return from Oklahoma. “We need your help.”

“I thought you were in school,” Sam says.

“I graduated early, and I don’t start college for months, pay attention,” Krissy says. “We need some help with a succubus.”

“Hit me,” Sam says, grateful to have something else to focus on. “Give me the details.”

Krissy runs down their present hunt, and finally Sam asks, “Why isn’t your dad making this call?”

“He’s staking out a local strip joint,” she replies, and Sam can hear her eye roll over the phone. “He says I’m too young, or maybe too old. I’m not sure which.”

Sam chuckles. “Yeah, well, I happen to think he’s right.” He gives her the rundown on how to kill it and says, “Be careful, huh?”

“Yeah, sure,” Krissy replies. “Always. How are you?”

She’s one of the few who still asks, maybe because she’d formed some kind of nascent connection with Dean before he’d disappeared, which means she’s one of the few he’ll be honest with. “Dean’s back.”

There’s a long pause, and she says, “Seriously?”

“Our friend, Cas, got him out.”

“Is he okay?”

“Okay might be a stretch,” San admits. “But he’s in one piece, and I think he’ll be okay eventually.”

That’s probably overly optimistic. Sam’s pretty sure that he and Dean don’t fit anybody’s definition of “okay,” but maybe they’re close enough. Dean isn’t in Purgatory anymore, and that’s really the important thing.

“You need us, just call,” Krissy replies. “You know we’ll come running.”

“I appreciate it,” Sam says, and he does. He wouldn’t call his network “family,” but they’d been the closest thing to it he’d had for the last couple of years. “Call me if you need anything.”

He hangs up to find Dean standing just inside the doorway, and he asks, “Who was that?”

“Krissy,” Sam replies. “Do you remember her?”

Dean frowns, and Sam wonders once again how long it had been for him. He knows—he knows—that Dean had spent far longer in hell than the three months that had passed on Earth, but this feels different. Maybe Dean had been a little more broken, maybe he’d drunk a little more, but he hadn’t been all that different.

Right now, Sam feels as though he’s looking at a stranger, and watching Dean try to summon up the memory of Krissy, someone who had made a serious impression on him at the time, it’s just another reminder that Dean has changed drastically.

“She was a kid,” Dean says slowly. “Her dad got captured. We helped her.”

“That’s right,” Sam encourages. “You liked her.”

Dean shakes his head, like a dog shaking off water. “That was a long time ago.”

“It was three years,” Sam says, some of his impatience evident in his voice. “Not that long.”

“It was a lot longer for me,” Dean says vaguely, staring at some point just beyond Sam’s shoulder, and Sam wants to shake him.

He wants to shake Dean until Dean punches him, and Sam will take the blow willingly, because it would mean that he has his brother back.

It would mean that Dean hasn’t changed all that much.

“Dean,” Sam says insistently. “Are you okay?”

“I thought I’d get a couple more beers,” Dean replies. “If that’s okay.”

He doesn’t say it sarcastically, is the thing. He says it like he means it, like anything Sam says would make a difference in what he does. Sam has to ask, “And if I said no?”

A strange expression crosses Dean’s face. “It’s your beer, isn’t it?”

He says it like he’s not sure of the answer.

“I bought it for us—for you,” Sam corrects him, feeling helpless in the face of the changes wrought upon Dean. “So it’s our beer.”

Dean takes half a step into the room, and then glances over his shoulder, out the screen door that faces the backyard, and Sam knows Dean is looking for Cas. “Is this real?”

Sam swallows. “Yeah, Dean. It’s real. You’re okay. You’re back.”

Dean nods. “Okay, thanks.”

Sam watches as he grabs a couple of bottles from the fridge and then drifts out the backdoor, and Sam follows, just far enough to see them. As far as he can tell, Dean hasn’t told Cas much about the past, and Cas hasn’t asked much. They’ve just sat around.

He thinks it would have been easier if they’d been sleeping in the same bed; he would have understood that kind of connection. Instead…

Instead, they sit on the couch, or on the back porch, and say very little, while Sam goes about his business—the life he’s built in Dean’s absence.

“Cas?” he hears Dean say, and the tone of Dean’s voice sends an alarm through Sam. He rushes through the back door. “Cas?”

“Dean.” And there’s something about the resonance of his tone that tells Sam that Cas is Castiel again. “Dean, you got out.”

Sam stops just outside the door, watching events unfold, feeling a sense of alarm that he can’t put a name to.

“You got me out,” Dean counters. “What do you remember?”

“Everything,” Cas says simply, and puts a finger up to trace the line of Dean’s jaw, and then down his throat. “I remember everything. I think I need to study the bees again. It’s been so long.”

“No,” Dean says abruptly. “Stay. For a while.”

“I can’t,” Cas replies, and then he’s gone, the space next to Dean empty on the stairs, and Sam hovers there, with no idea how to comfort his brother.

“Dean,” Sam says quietly.

Dean turns, and in his expression is naked longing. “Sammy, I don’t—” There’s a moment where Sam can see him fighting for control, and Dean’s eyes shutter, no feeling in them at all. “He’s gone.”

“I know,” Sam says, and sits down next to him. In all honesty, he’s been afraid of this very thing since Dean got the call from the hospital. “He’ll come back.”

“What if he can’t?” Dean asks. “What if—I don’t know.”

“He remembered you once before,” Sam says. “He has his phone, doesn’t he?”

Sam’s sorry he asked, because Dean begins a methodical search of the house, and it’s only when Dean can’t find Cas’ phone that he allows that Cas probably has it with him.

Sam doesn’t say anything when Dean pulls Cas’ trench coat out of the trunk of the Impala, just like he doesn’t say anything that night, when he peeks his head into the guest room to see the coat balled up in Dean’s arms like a teddy bear.

But he files it away, and he thinks that this is only the beginning: things are about to get a lot worse.

~~~~~

Dean’s out on the back stoop with Cas when it happens. One minute, they’re each drinking a beer, and Dean’s still trying to come up with a way to explain the last few years, and the next minute, Cas is looking at him, a wealth of feeling in his eyes.

And Dean knows, he fucking knows that this is the Cas who had raised him from perdition and rebelled and searched for God, and stayed with him in Purgatory even though he probably could have gotten out on his own.

Just like he knows that Cas isn’t going to stick around now.

A few charged minutes later, and Cas disappears, and Sam sits down next to him. Dean can tell that Sam is trying to be supportive and helpful, but it’s clear that he doesn’t understand.

Dean’s not blind and he’s not stupid; Sam has been watching them the last few days with a puzzled air, as though he’s trying to get a handle on what Cas is to Dean. Dean doesn’t even bother trying to explain.

He can’t explain it to Cas, who doesn’t remember, and he can’t explain it to Sam, because Sam wasn’t there.

And yeah, the thing with the coat is stupid, and he feels like an idiot, but Cas’ trench coat is something to hang onto, something tangible, something real.

The second morning after Cas disappears, Sam says, “I’ve got a line on a job if you’re up to it.”

The fact that Sam is even asking if Dean’s up for it tells Dean that he’s pretty far gone, or maybe that Sam thinks he’s that far gone—and Sam probably isn’t wrong. But if Cas is going to continue to be crazy and watch bees or some shit like that, Dean’s just going to have to get used to it.

Purgatory taught him that he can get used to just about anything, even getting ripped to shreds. It might always hurt, but eventually you lost all fear.

“Sure,” Dean says. “What is it?”

Sam hesitates, then says, “Vampires. We’ve been having some trouble with nests lately. Every time we destroy one, another seems to pop up.”

“You keep saying ‘we,’” Dean observes. “And yet I haven’t seen anybody around here but you.”

Sam shrugs. “It’s pretty sporadic. Jody’s still sheriff, so she’s pretty busy, although she helps me with phone duty. Krissy’s starting college soon, but she helps Lee out when she can. And Garth has actually turned out to be a pretty decent hunter.”

“Are there more?” Dean asks, but more because he knows it’s expected than because he wants to know.

Sam nods, his smile holding more than a hint of relief, and Dean figures he’s made the right noises. “A few. I’m sure you’ll meet all of them eventually. Right now, though, we’re the only ones in the area who are free.”

Dean smiles. “Then I guess we kill a few vampires.”

The trip to Cedar Rapids only takes a couple of hours, and Dean cranks the music up so he doesn’t have to talk to Sam.

Sam lets him get away with it for about an hour before he turns the volume down and says, “We need to talk about this.”

“About what?”

“About this hunt,” Sam replies. “I’m assuming you didn’t do much of that in Purgatory.”

Dean frowns. “No, I was a little too busy trying to stay alive.” He turns the volume back up.

Sam turns it down. “Staying alive usually involves killing monsters.”

“And did you kill many demons while you were in hell?” Dean asks, knowing it’s a low blow even as the words leave his mouth.

Sam clenches his fists on his thighs but doesn’t respond otherwise. “I have no idea what Purgatory was like, Dean,” he replies, his tone impressively even. “Maybe if you told me about it, I’d understand.”

“It’s not a place that’s meant for humans,” Dean finally says. “At least, that’s how Cas explained it.”

He turns the volume back up, and this time Sam lets it go.

Dean wishes the silence felt comfortable between them. It had, once, before Purgatory; they’d been so in tune then that they’d done most of their communicating without words.

It’s like he’s forgotten how to talk to anybody who isn’t Cas, and the thought should cause more discomfort than it does.

Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Dean turns the volume down to manageable levels 20 miles outside of Cedar Rapids. “Look, nothing dies in Purgatory, okay? There was no point in trying to kill anything.”

“Okay,” Sam says slowly. “So, that explains why you didn’t hunt while you were there. What about now?”

“I’m out of Purgatory,” Dean replies. “I don’t mind sending a few monsters back there.”

~~~~~

They have to make a stop for dead man’s blood, because Sam’s not about to walk into a nest of vampires without it, not with Dean the way he is.

Granted, Sam’s seriously questioning the wisdom of bringing Dean along on this hunt, but he’s not sure that leaving him at home is a good idea either. Sam would prefer to keep an eye on Dean at this point.

And no matter how big of a jerk Dean might be—and he can be a real asshole—Sam had missed Dean like he’d miss an arm, like he’d miss half of his soul.

And while he might not feel as though he’s gotten Dean back completely, Sam doesn’t want to let Dean out of his sight for fear that he’ll disappear, or that having Dean back will turn out to be just a dream.

“I’ll go in and get the blood,” Sam says when they stop outside the hospital. “Just—stay here, okay?”

“Can I at least roll down the window?” Dean asks sarcastically, sounding more like his old self than he had since reappearing.

“By all means,” Sam replies, using just as much sarcasm.

Dean rolls down the window and tips his head back. “Take your time, dude.”

Sam smiles and heads inside the hospital, taking the elevator down to the morgue and greeting the attendant. “Hi, um, I think my uncle is here?” He makes sure his voice shakes just a bit, like he’s had a huge shock, and the attendant, a pretty woman in her mid-twenties and wearing pink scrubs, immediately offers a sympathetic smile.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she immediately replies. “Let me just check the records. What’s his name?”

Sam had made use of his time in the passenger seat while Dean was giving him the silent treatment by looking for records of those who had died in Cedar Rapids, who were likely to require an autopsy before the body was released. “Jim Donaldson.”

“Let me just find out where he is,” she replies.

Sam checks her nametag. “Thank you, Cindy.”

She smiles a little brighter at that, and Sam leans against the desk, wishing momentarily that he trusted Dean enough to bring him along. This is the kind of job that Dean had excelled at—charming watchdogs while Sam looked at a file for necessary information, or picked a lock or obtained blood from a corpse.

But Dean’s off his game, and Sam’s not sure he’d do even a half-decent job at charming the morgue attendant.

That’s a strange thought for sure, but Sam’s something of an expert on how badly a person can break, if enough of the right pressure is applied, and he gets the feeling that something about Purgatory had put Dean over the edge.

It’s not a place that’s meant for humans, Dean had said, and Sam had wanted to ask, “Like hell had been?” but he’d known better. Heaven and hell are the places where human souls go, but Purgatory is for monsters.

Sam’s not sure what that means in practice, but he can see the effect it had on Dean.

“Okay, right over here,” Cindy says, and leads him to a drawer that she pulls out. “Do you want me to stay?”

Sam shakes his head. “No, thanks. I’ll be fine.”

He pulls the sheet back and stares down at the man whose blood will kill a few vampires, at least with a little luck.

“Thanks,” Sam murmurs, and then he bends down over the body, as though grieving, and he pulls a couple of large syringes filled with blood from the corpse. When he’s done, he puts the sheet back over Jim Donaldson’s face and whispers, “Rest in peace. Please.”

He rubs his eyes for the effect, as though he’s been crying, and says, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Cindy replies. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Sam leaves quickly, and manages to get out of the hospital without anybody raising an alarm.

Not that anyone would expect someone to be extracting blood from corpses in the morgue.

“What happened to going to funeral homes?” Dean asks as he starts the car.

Sam shrugs. “If there hadn’t been an appropriate corpse, that would have been my next stop, but they drain most of the fluids from a body during the embalming process, and funeral homes usually have alarms. Morgues have attendants.”

“Female attendants?” Dean asks slyly.

Sam grins. “This time, anyway.”

Dean doesn’t ask if she was cute, which throws Sam off. His brother’s pretty reliable when it comes to that sort of thing—he asks if she’s pretty, and then he asks if Sam got her number—and he’s almost as happy when Sam’s getting laid as when he is.

Instead, Dean nods thoughtfully. “That probably made it easier.”

He says it like it’s an academic exercise, and Sam nearly demands that Dean pull the car over right then. He wants to tell Dean that he’s not invited, and he’ll deal with the nest on his own, but Sam knows better than that.

Right after Dean had disappeared, when Sam had still been disoriented and aimless, he’d been a little more careless. He’d taken stupid chances, and one time he’d close enough to Sioux Falls to wind up on Jody Mills’ doorstep after he’d been injured and hadn’t wanted to risk the hospital.

Jody had read Sam the riot act while she stitched up the slice in his thigh, and then she’d said, “And what happens when your brother shows up again, huh? Are you going to be six feet under and beyond his reach? It’s your job to stay alive for Dean, Sam, just like it’s his job to stay alive for you.”

That had changed everything, and Sam had been more careful after that. He’d started cultivating more contacts within the hunting world, until he’d rebuilt Bobby’s network and then some, all the while looking for some way to find Dean.

And now Sam has Dean back, and he’s just a little bit resentful of the fact that Dean clearly hadn’t stayed alive for Sam—he’d stayed alive for Cas.

It’s still daylight when they pull up in front of the abandoned warehouse where the vampires have been reported to be holing up. Sam looks up at the four floors of broken windows and graffiti-covered walls, and he’s not surprised that it’s become a nest.

Sam can’t see anybody around, so it makes sense that this would be a good hideout, with the empty buildings on either side and no sign of security.

Unless, of course, the vampires ate the security, which is possible.

They’ve coated their bullets in dead man’s blood, and Dean carries a crossbow with the bolts subjected to the same treatment. They’re each carrying a machete, and Sam hope that will be enough.

At first, it seems as though it might be. Daylight catches the vampires sleeping, and they each decapitate one vampire before someone raises the alarm. From there, it’s a bloody fight, with Sam shooting as many as he can before he takes their heads, with the bullets incapacitating them enough to make killing them a little easier.

Dean does the same with the crossbow before beheading two, and Sam feels relieved when Dean seems to be in the groove, capable of taking out any and all who threaten him.

And then Sam finishes one off and feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up, a sixth sense telling him that Dean is in trouble. He takes the head of his last vampire and half-turns, just in time to see the vampire grappling with Dean manage to take control of the machete, turning it on Dean, and Sam knows he can’t move fast enough.

He’s going to be too late, because Dean is frozen, staring at the blade slicing towards his midsection, and even though he could—should—twist away, he stays where he is.

Sam’s pretty sure that would have been the end of his brother, but in the next second, Dean has disappeared, and his lost machete is slicing through air.

From behind him, Sam hears Dean ask, “What the hell?” but he doesn’t care. He’s already moving, slicing off the vampire’s head in one smooth motion.

And that’s the last of them, and adrenalin is surging through Sam, and he’s pissed off. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he demands, catching sight of Cas standing just behind Dean.

Dean doesn’t even seem to recognize Sam, because he turns to look at Cas. “What the fuck was that?”

“You needed help,” Cas replies, as though that much should be obvious. “I came.”

“You disappeared on me!” Dean shouts. “You left!”

“I told you, it had been too long since I had watched the bees.” Cas sounds hurt, almost bewildered, and Sam feels a moment’s worth of sympathy for Dean before he finds his anger again. “I couldn’t stay.”

“Why?” Dean asks, almost anguished, and that allows Sam to tamp down his anger and listen. “You said you would.”

“I stayed with you in Purgatory,” Cas replies. “I kept my promise.”

There’s this charged moment between them, and Sam can feel the electricity in the room. Dean’s confusion and hurt is clear on his face, and Cas is obviously still completely batshit, and Sam—for a moment—catches a glimpse of how they must have been in Purgatory.

“Stay,” Dean urges. “There are bees in Sam’s backyard.”

“I can’t,” Cas replies, and then he’s gone again, and Dean sags like a puppet with his strings cut.

Sam wants to yell at Dean, but he can’t in the face of Dean’s obvious dejection.

“Dean,” he says softly. “What happened?”

Dean just shakes his head. “I forgot where I was for a minute.”

And that’s all he’ll say, even when he passes the keys to the Impala over to Sam, and Sam wonders if that’s as close to the truth as he’ll ever get.

~~~~~

Dean looks around him, feeling a mounting sense of alarm. He has no idea where he is, or where Cas has gone, but he knows he’s surrounded.

He hadn’t thought Cas would leave him, not like this.

Dean slowly turns, looking for any gap that might allow him to run—even though he has no place to run to.

There’s a yowl, and Dean puts his arm up to ward off whatever leaps at him, and then he’s somewhere else, with Cas’ hand gripping his arm, right over where Cas’ handprint had once been.

“Where were you?” Dean hisses, not wanting to risk drawing attention to them, just in case.

Cas shakes his head, his blue eyes still wide with fright. “I had to see if there was a way out. I don’t know how long I can keep you alive here.”

“Where are we?” he demands.

“Purgatory.” Cas looks around. “We need to find a hiding place.”

“Don’t look at me!” Dean protests. “I have no idea what to do in Purgatory.”

Cas shoots him a wry look. “Try not to die.”

“I think that goes without saying,” Dean says, but he grins, because right now things feel good between them, things feel like they used to.

“Come on,” Cas says, tugging at Dean’s arm.

Dean lets himself be pulled along, and he says, “I thought you’d left.”

Cas turns to face him, his expression serious and intent—and for the first time in awhile, completely sane. “I won’t leave you, not until I get you out. I will be with you every step of the way. I will protect you.”

Dean stares at him, shaken by Cas’ sincerity. “Okay,” he finally says. “I believe you.”

~~~~~

Castiel watches the bees with fascination, wearing the same jeans and t-shirt he had when he’d remembered everything, sitting on Sam’s back porch next to Dean. He’s not sure why, but it comforts him to think that he’s wearing Dean’s clothing; it’s a way to keep Dean close.

Things had been easier in Purgatory, where Dean had been the only thing—the only person—who mattered. Castiel had been able to focus there.

Here, he can’t help but remember what he’d done, all the harm he’d caused.

It’s easier to watch the bees, now that Dean is safe and doesn’t need him anymore.

Castiel leans in closer, paying particular attention to a fat bumblebee crawling over a cornflower, feeling the sun hot on the back of his neck.

It’s a warm spring day in Austin, Texas, and while Castiel is not particularly bothered by either heat or cold, he enjoys the feeling of the sun.

There had been no sun in Purgatory, no flowers, and no bees.

Castiel had missed them, but he thinks he might miss Dean more.

He’s reaching out to touch the petals of the flower, and then—

—the flower petals are soft under his fingers, and the sun is hot on the back of his neck.

He has no idea how he got here, or where he is, but he knows that he’s supposed to CALL Dean.

After a moment, he realizes that he doesn’t know who he is, and he stands and looks around. There are couples and families meandering through what looks like a garden, and it’s peaceful, even though he feels the immediate urge to hide.

He checks his pockets and finds something he recognizes as a phone, and after a moment of fumbling, he finds the contacts, and Dean Winchester’s name is there.

Somehow, this all feels very familiar.

With a feeling of trepidation, he hits the “call” button and waits with bated breath, his stomach twisting with anxiety.

Someone picks up on the second ring, and says, “Cas? Is that you?”

“I don’t know,” he replies. “I don’t remember.”

He thinks he hears the man mumble, “Shit, not again,” but he quickly says, “This is Dean, and it’s going to be okay. Where are you?”

“I don’t know,” he replies. “I just woke up here.” He’s starting to feel a little panicky now.

“Okay, okay,” Dean soothes. “I can track you as long as your phone is turned on, so keep it on, and I’ll come find you.”

“You will?” he asks.

He can hear the smile in Dean’s voice. “I’ll always come find you. Do you have a wallet on you with a credit card?”

Searching his pockets, he finds a wallet. “There’s a plastic card here.”

“Perfect,” Dean says. “Find a motel with a cheap room and hole up there. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you,” he replies, even though that seems inadequate. “Where will I find a motel?”

Dean sighs. “Look, are you in a safe place?”

“I’m in a garden.”

“Of course you are,” Dean mutters. “Just stay there, and I’ll call you back with directions to the nearest motel, okay?”

He does as he’s asked, because he sees no other choice. To seem less conspicuous, he wanders through the garden, looking at flowers, waiting for his phone to ring. When it does, he jumps and fumbles for it.

“Hello?”

“Seriously, man? You’re in the botanical garden?”

“I’m not sure what that means,” he admits.

Dean sighs. “Of course you don’t. Look, just find the entrance, okay? Let me know when you do, and I’ll direct you from there.”

“How do I know you?” he asks, walking in a likely direction.

“We go way back,” Dean replies with a sigh. “You saved my life—a lot.”

“Then we’re close.”

“Yeah, you can say that.”

He’s not sure what to ask, so he doesn’t say anything. He follows a group that all seem to be heading in the same direction.

“I’m at the exit,” he informs Dean as he walks through the gate.

“Great,” Dean says. “Trust me, I’ll get you to the motel.”

Oddly enough, even though he doesn’t remember what Dean looks like, he does trust him. “I trust you,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean replies. “Just follow my instructions.”

~~~~~

“I have to go,” Dean says. “Cas is in Austin, and he has no memory.”

Sam glances up from the stack of paperwork he’s been sorting through. “Again?” His tone is a little sly, which isn’t new. Sam’s been pissy for the last week, ever since the vampire nest, and while Dean can’t exactly blame him, he’s not inclined to explain either.

“You have no idea what it was like,” Dean says. “So, yeah, again. A hundred times, if necessary. I’m always going to find him, just like I’d always go after you.”

Sam makes a complicated face, and Dean’s out of the habit of reading his brother, but he can sense Sam’s discomfort. “Cas kept me alive, and he kept me going,” Dean insists.

“Yeah, you keep saying that,” Sam replies. “But you haven’t given me a lot of information as to what that means.”

Dean shrugs. “If you don’t want to come with me, I’ll go myself, and I’ll take the Impala.”

For a moment, Sam appears torn, glancing at the stack of paper in front of him, and then at Dean. “I’d love to go with you, but I’ve got this to deal with.”

“Your loss,” Dean replies. “I’ll be back once I’ve picked Cas up.”

“No loss on my end,” Sam mumbles, and doesn’t look up when Dean leaves.

Dean tells himself that he doesn’t care, but that’s not exactly true. He does care, but he’s not going to let that stop him.

Cas has promised to be with Dean until he got him out of Purgatory, and he’d kept that promise. Dean had promised to stick with Cas, even if he keeps losing his memory.

Dean doesn’t mind driving to Austin from Des Moines. It’s a chance to let the silence hang, to not feel as though he has to make conversation, which is a good thing. Sam’s not happy with him right now, and he’s been shooting constant worried looks Dean’s way, as though he thinks Dean is going to fall apart at any moment.

It would probably be less annoying if Sam’s fears were unfounded. In truth, Dean suspects that he might just fly apart if the right pressure is applied.

He feels as though he’s riddled with stress fractures, and the right blow in the right place will make him crack.

Dean can’t quite get back into the rhythm of the life he’d left behind; he can’t connect with Sam, and he can’t remember the language that had been theirs alone.

Sam has moved on, but in a different way than when Dean had been in hell. This Sam has his shit together—he has multiple phone lines, and a network of hunters, like Dean’s disappearance hadn’t touched him.

His hands tighten around the wheel, and he begins to think that this drive hadn’t been such a good idea after all. If Sam were with him, Dean could focus on ignoring him, but he probably shouldn’t be alone with his own thoughts right now.

Dean cranks the music up, letting the strains of Led Zeppelin remind him that he’s here, on Earth, and not in Purgatory anymore.

There had been no music in Purgatory. Dean has to remember that.

He pushes hard, arriving in Austin early the following morning, heading straight for the motel where he’d directed Cas. He’d gotten Cas’ room number right after Cas had checked in, so he knows which door to knock on, wondering what his reception will be.

After a moment, Cas opens the door, still dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing when Dean had seen him last.

There’s no recognition in Cas’ blue eyes, but he says, “Dean Winchester?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replies, and has to ask, “Do you remember me?”

Cas shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry.”

Dean manages a smile. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“Do—should we leave now?”

Dean hesitates, then says, “Actually, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get some sleep before we head back.”

Cas nods. “You didn’t say how we’d met, not really.”

Dean has to look away, blinking away the moisture in his eyes. It hurts that Cas doesn’t remember him, or the time they’d spent together, but Dean would rather have Cas with him. “It’s hard to explain if you weren’t there,” he replies. “You were—you saved my life. You were—are—my friend.”

“Then we were close.”

Dean swallows. He’s never had to explain what he and Cas are to anyone—he’s never tried. “Yeah, we were close.” He glances at the bed, and thinks of the night in the cave in Purgatory, just before Cas had gotten them out, when they had lain chest to chest, their noses almost touching. “I know there’s just one bed, and you don’t know me, but—”

“It’s strange, but it feels like I do,” Cas objects. “You’re the first familiar thing I’ve seen, even though I don’t recognize you.”

Dean nods. He can work with this. “Okay. Are you tired?”

“I wasn’t sure I should sleep,” Cas admits. “I don’t mind sharing.” He sits on the edge of the mattress. “Why do I think of a dark place when I think of you?”

“We’ve been in a lot of dark places,” Dean replies, sitting next to Cas, running a hand over the avocado green and orange bedspread. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Cas nods seriously, staring down at his open hands where they rest on his knees. “Did—do you love me?”

Dean can’t say. Instead, he curls his hand around the back of Cas’ neck and pulls him in close, resting his forehead against Cas’.

“I need you,” he finally admits in a low voice. “I’m not sure if it’s the same thing or not.”

“I’m not sure I’d know the difference.” Cas rests a hand on Dean’s knee. “You said something about sleep.”

Dean remembers to send a text to Sam, letting him know that he’s safe and he’s staying in Austin for a bit, and then they end up lying down on the bed facing each other. Cas is so close Dean can feel his breath on his face, and he doesn’t mind. It’s familiar in its own way.

He sleeps and wakes again to find they’ve moved; Cas is sleeping on his back, his mouth slightly open, snoring just a bit. Dean is mostly lying on his stomach, one arm slung across Cas’ waist. The late afternoon sunlight slants across the bed, highlighting Cas’ jaw and the three days’ worth of stubble there, his Adam’s apple, and the rise and fall of his chest.

They had both remained clothed, staying on top of the bedspread; it hadn’t felt right to suggest they do anything else. Cas doesn’t really know him, not right now.

And Dean is beginning to think that he’ll never have Cas back, not like he was.

Right now, though, it’s late afternoon in a crappy motel room, and Cas is next to him, and Dean is more comfortable than he ever had been in Purgatory.

He’d slept better than he had in Sam’s house. Dean refuses to think what that might mean.

Cas snorts in his sleep, and Dean smiles, then reaches over to the bedside table for his phone, checking for messages. He’s got a text from Sam that says, “Have fun. Let me know when you’re coming back.”

Dean wonders what it would be like if he just took Cas and drove, letting the road lead them along. Maybe that would anchor him the way nothing else had.

Not taking jobs, because he’s willing to admit—if only to himself—that he’s not ready for hunting right now, but just driving, as far as the Impala will take them.

He might have, except that he can’t leave Sam.

Cas’ breath catches, and he rolls towards Dean, opens his eyes, and smiles. “Hello.”

“Hey,” Dean says, and leaves his arm where it is, as though anchoring Cas to him. “Sleep okay?”

Cas frowns. “I think I dreamed, but I don’t remember.”

“That seems to be going around,” Dean jokes, pleased when Cas responds with a smile. “I’m going to get cleaned up. I brought you more clothes.”

Cas frowns. “Are we sleeping together?”

“Only when we have to.” As a joke, it falls flat, and Dean takes a deep breath. “Look, we were trapped somewhere for a while, and it was just you and me. We didn’t always have a choice about where we slept.”

“Where were we?”

Dean rolls away, sitting up, his back to Cas. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He’s had this conversation before with other people—he’s had some version of it with Cas, although he’d called himself Emmanuel at the time. But at least Emmanuel had been able to heal people, and so had some belief in the supernatural. This man—who is entirely human, from what Dean can tell—has nothing. He remembers nothing.

And Dean has no idea how many times he’s going to have to do this—explain to Cas who he is and what they are together.

There’s a long, tense silence, and then Cas says, “I’d prefer if you’d try, rather than shutting me out.” Dean’s still trying to figure out how to start when Cas adds, “I woke up in a garden with no memory other than your name, and from your reaction, this has happened before. I think there’s a good chance I’ll believe whatever you tell me.”

Cas has a point, and Dean sighs. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning,” Cas suggests. “How did we meet?”

Dean looks over his shoulder. “You were, or maybe are, an angel, and you pulled me out of hell.”

Cas blinks at him. “I was what?”

“You heard me.”

“Did I fall?”

Dean rises and then turns to look at Cas, still lying on the bed. “What do you know about falling?”

“Well, I don’t seem to be an angel anymore,” Cas points out.

“I don’t know what you are,” Dean says, the words harsher than he’d intended. “I don’t know, Cas! This isn’t the first time you’ve lost your memories, but you were definitely still an angel the first time it happened, maybe not the second. I don’t know!”

And this might be the thing that makes him crack, Dean thinks. His relationship with Castiel has always been complicated and messy—Dean recognizes him as family, but not blood. They’re friends, but Cas has betrayed him.

And Cas has saved him. He had, in fact, become Dean’s whole world in Purgatory. Dean doesn’t know what to do without him.

Cas rolls off the bed and approaches Dean. “It’s going to be all right.”

Dean barks out a bitter laugh. “How do you figure?”

“We’re here, aren’t we? Whatever else we are, we’re alive, and we’re together.” There’s a smile playing around the corners of Cas’ mouth. “I trust you.”

Dean shakes his head. “That’s probably a mistake.”

“I doubt it,” Cas replies. “Tell me more about the first time we met.”

~~~~~

Although Sam hadn’t let on, he hated watching Dean leave, and he’s not entirely convinced that Dean should be alone right now. On the other hand, Sam knows his worry over Dean is driving both of them crazy, and he has a life that he’s built for himself, and other people relying on him to provide credentials and backup.

He’d needed this network when Dean had been gone, but Sam hadn’t thought about what it would mean when Dean returned.

Things had been easier when it had been just the two of them, but that life is lost to both of them now.

His phone chimes, notifying him of an incoming text message, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief when he reads it. Heading back now with Cas. See you soon.

Sam goes back to his emails, reading the various alerts that have come in, and sorting through what might be a case and what’s not worth looking into further. It’s easier to find cases this way, and driving across the country in the Impala hadn’t held the same appeal without Dean sitting beside him.

Plus, if he’s staying in one place, Sam can find legitimate work on occasion, enough to get by without relying too heavily on credit card fraud.

Right now, though, he’s between jobs—hunting and otherwise—for which he’s grateful. He’s not sure how he would have explained to a boss that he needed time off to make sure his brother hadn’t gone crazy after spending three years in Purgatory.

Sam would make up a better story than that, of course; he can lie with the best of them, but he’s not sorry he doesn’t have to.

The cell phone rings, and he picks up immediately when he sees Jody’s number. “What’s up?”

“Tell me you’re not entertaining someone,” she replies, her voice full of good humor.

Sam smiles, because Jody has been an anchor to his old life—to Bobby and Dean—when he’d had nothing left but the Impala and a sense of desperation. “I’m alone.”

“Where’s your brother?” she asks immediately.

“He went to pick Cas up,” Sam admits. “He was in Austin, without his memory.”

“Again?” she asks. “No, never mind. Let me in and you can tell me then.”

Sam hangs up and goes to the door, and sure enough, there she is, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. “Hey,” he says, genuinely glad to see her.

She hugs him the way she always does—hard, and with a couple of pats on his back—and then says briskly, “I had to come through this way, and I thought I’d take a little detour and poke my head in. How are you?”

“Okay,” Sam replies, mostly honest.

“And Dean?” she asks as she follows him inside the house.

Sam shakes his head. “Not so okay.”

“Do you have any coffee?” she asks. “Or is this something that’s going to require a beer?”

“Probably better make it a beer,” Sam says, and pulls two long necks out of the fridge, prying off the caps and handing her one.

Jody makes herself comfortable at the kitchen table. “All right. Fill me in, and in more detail than I’ve been getting from your emails.”

Sam starts at the beginning, sticking with the facts, just like he’s giving a police report, and Jody listens, keeping silent for the most part. When Sam is done, when he’s told her about the vampire nest and Cas saving Dean, and Dean going after him in Austin, Jody nods. “It sounds to me as though you’re both doing the best you can.”

“Maybe,” Sam allows after a minute. “He’s just—he’s different. He was different after hell, too, but not in the same way.”

Jody shakes her head. “I wish I knew what to tell you, but it sounds like you’re just going to have to give him time.”

“Time, I can give him,” Sam replies ruefully. “I’m just not sure I can keep him alive for it.”

“It sounds like Cas is helping with that,” she points out.

Sam shrugs. “Cas isn’t exactly reliable either these days. He used to be, but—” He stops, feeling a little bit guilty, because Cas had gone nuts taking Sam’s burden.

Of course, Cas had been the one to tear down the wall in Sam’s mind, so he’d been at least partially responsible, too.

Really, they were all so tangled up in bad choices and bargains and betrayals, they’re not going to get untangled any time soon.

“You feel responsible for him,” Jody observes.

“Dean does,” Sam replies. “But I feel like I owe him, both for what he did for me, and for what he did for Dean. Dean says Cas kept him going in Purgatory.”

Jody nods. “So, you owe him.”

“And Dean’s going to keep going after him, no matter how many times Cas loses his memories and winds up stranded somewhere,” Sam says glumly. He takes a long drink of his beer. “Are you staying?”

“Thought I might,” Jody replies. “I’d like to see Dean again, and I’m curious about this Cas fellow.”

Sam smiles. “Still looking out for me, huh?”

“Someone has to,” Jody replies in a familiar refrain. “Tell me what you’re working on now.”

~~~~~

He asks questions during the drive, not believing Dean’s story entirely, but not disbelieving either. Dean obviously believes what he’s saying, but that could just mean that he’s crazy. On the other hand, Cas had woken up in the botanical gardens of Austin, Texas, with no memory but Dean’s name.

So, Cas is rather inclined to believe him, if only because Dean is the only familiar thing in the world, and Cas thinks he would rather be mad with Dean than alone and sane.

Assuming he is sane, which Cas rather doubts.

Dean answers him willingly enough, although there are some explanations he stumbles over. He says that they’ve been together, and in Purgatory, but he won’t describe it further than saying Cas had saved him.

“Don’t ask me, please,” Dean had said after Cas pressed too far.

So, Cas had stopped asking, and Dean had started telling stories about his childhood, and hunting monsters, and he’d filled the hours easily enough.

They pull up in front of a slightly rundown house with an overgrown lawn and blue paint that’s beginning to peel on the trim. There’s a Jeep parked in front, and Dean frowns. “I don’t— Oh, hell.”

“What’s wrong?” Cas asks, alarmed.

“I think that’s Sheriff Mills,” Dean replies. “Come on.”

Cas follows him inside, and through to the kitchen, where an alarmingly large man and a trim, middle-aged woman are drinking whiskey. The woman smiles. “Dean. It’s good to see you in one piece.”

Dean looks uncomfortable. “Sheriff Mills.”

“Oh, I think you can call me Jody,” she replies. “I’m off duty.”

“What brings you to town?” Dean asks.

“I wanted to see Sam, and you,” she replies, and looks past him to Cas. “And this must be the famous Castiel.”

Cas has no idea how to respond to that. “It’s just Cas.”

“Cas, then,” she says. “Sit down, have a drink.”

Cas accepts the tumbler of whiskey and sips it, managing not to cough, or make a face.

“Sam’s been telling me about the vampire nest you guys cleaned out,” Jody begins.

Oddly enough, everyone around the table looks at Cas. “I wasn’t there.”

“Well, one version of you was,” Sam replies.

Cas stares down at the whiskey in his glass.

“Leave him alone,” Dean insists. “He doesn’t remember anything. You know that, Sam. They might as well be different people.”

“Sorry,” Sam mumbles.

Cas shrugs. “It’s okay.”

It’s not okay, though. Cas had felt comfortable with Dean, but not with Sam and Jody Mills. He feels like an interloper on Dean’s life, inconveniencing him by asking Dean to drive out and pick him up, even if that hadn’t been Cas’ intention.

He drinks the whiskey in one gulp, wondering if that will help.

He’s not sure anything will.

When Dean refills his glass, Cas sips it, already feeling the alcohol buzz in his system, and he wonders what it will feel like to get drunk. He can’t remember, if he ever knew. He’s not sure he wants to find out right now, though, not when he feels so out of place and uncertain.

His eyes are sliding shut when Sam says, “I gave Jody the spare bedroom, but I’ve got a couch and an air mattress.”

“Cas can take the couch,” Dean replies, amusement warming his voice. “I don’t think he’s going to be awake long enough to get the air mattress ready.”

Cas tries to look a little more alert. “Sorry. I don’t want to put you out.”

“I’m not really used to sleeping on something soft anyway,” Dean says. “I don’t need a mattress.”

Cas is aware enough to see Sam’s wince, and Jody’s sharp look in Dean’s direction, and he wonders at it.

“Are you sure?” Sam asks. “It’s no trouble to get the air mattress out.”

“I was having trouble sleeping on the bed,” Dean says off-handedly. “The floor works.”

Cas doesn’t understand why Sam and Jody look so unhappy at that pronouncement, although he suspects it has something to do with Dean’s time in Purgatory. He wonders if they know more than he does, if Dean’s told them more than he’s told Cas.

“Come on,” Dean says, putting a hand on Cas’ shoulder. “Sam? You got a toothbrush Cas can use?”

“Check under the sink,” Sam replies. “I think there might be a spare.”

Cas wakes long enough to brush his teeth and strip down to his boxers and t-shirt, and then he collapses onto the couch and is asleep immediately.

When he wakes, the room is dark and silent, except for the sound of Dean breathing next to him. Something about the sound doesn’t sit right, and Cas whispers, “Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Just can’t sleep.”

Cas hesitates, remembering the previous night, and he rolls off the couch, dragging the pillow and blanket with him. The carpeted floor is hard and uncomfortable, but he shifts closer to Dean and puts a hand on his chest, feeling the rise and fall as Dean breathes.

His memory is blank, but there’s something about this that feels familiar, even right. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” Dean’s voice is hoarse. “We’re good.”

Cas falls asleep in spite of the uncomfortable floor, comforted enough by Dean’s proximity that the discomfort doesn’t matter.

And that should probably be strange, how good it feels to be with someone he doesn’t really know, but he goes with it. He doesn’t have much choice.

~~~~~

Castiel crawls out of the cave where they’d been hiding, careful not to disturb Dean. He sits on the hillside, looking up at the formless sky. It gets lighter or darker, although not by any rules that Castiel has been able to determine, and there are no stars, no moon, no sun. There is light and there is dark, but most of the time it’s a strange twilight.

He remembers being on Earth, and he remembers a time when there were other things that caught his attention—other than Dean. He remembers watching the birds and bees, the flowers moving in accordance with the direction of the wind.

Castiel remembers beauty, but he’s nearly forgotten what that looks like, unless it’s Dean.

Dean is all the beauty he has here, and it’s enough. The only thing Castiel cares about is getting Dean out of Purgatory in one piece.

And it’s going to take every ounce of strength he has.

Dean had made him promise that he wouldn’t get Dean out if he couldn’t go himself, but Castiel thinks it might be time to break that promise.

Castiel breathes deeply, knowing that he won’t be able to get them both out without serious repercussions. In Purgatory, he’s cut off from the host, from heaven, from everything that gives him strength.

He will return Dean to Sam, and then, if he has enough strength, Castiel will fly out of Purgatory, and he will watch the bees again, and remember a beauty outside of Dean.

~~~~~

Sam tiptoes out to the living room and sees Dean still asleep on the floor, curled up, one hand outstretched, like he’s reaching for something.

Cas sits on the couch, completely dressed, elbows resting on his knees, studying Dean. When he glances up, Sam knows that it’s Castiel looking at him, not Cas, and he jerks his chin towards the kitchen.

Sam starts the coffee, and then sits down at the table, waiting until Cas joins him. “You taking off again?” he asks.

“What else can I do?” Cas asks quietly. “I’m not a part of his life. It’s my fault he was in that position to begin with.”

Sam frowns. “I hate to say it, but he’s better with you here, Cas. He needs you.”

Cas shakes his head. “He needs you. He missed you.”

“Yeah, and now he misses you,” Sam counters. “It’s a little hard to miss somebody when they’re right there next to you.”

Cas shakes his head. “This isn’t the place for me.”

Sam has no idea what to say that will convince Cas to stay, that this is the right place, that Dean needs him. He only knows that Dean is saner when Cas is around. Sam knows that Dean needs Cas, and therefore he’ll do what he can to keep Cas here.

“Please,” Sam says, and when Cas shakes his head, he adds, “Then tell me what it was like. Dean won’t say.”

Cas gives him a deeply pitying look and says, “Purgatory is not meant for humans.”

“I know that!” Sam exclaims. “Tell me something I don’t know!”

“Dean could not die, for any reason,” Cas replies after a pause. “No matter how many times he was torn to pieces, or appeared to die, he was whole. He hungered, but did not starve. He thirsted, but did not dehydrate. He was exactly the same when I got him out, and yet irreparably altered.”

Sam began to put the pieces together—Dean’s fascination with his own blood, his carelessness when it came to his own life—and he thought that his original assessment, that Dean’s sanity relied upon Cas’ presence might be more accurate than he’d thought.

“You kept him alive,” Sam replies. “So, stay.”

“I was the one who tore down the walls in your mind,” Cas counters. “How could you want me here?”

“Because it’s for Dean,” Sam insists. “Cas, please.”

“I can’t.” And then Cas is gone, leaving behind an empty chair, and Sam pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Dean wanders into the kitchen a few minutes later, idly scratching at his chest. “Where’s Cas?”

“He left,” Sam has to tell him, and he watches the light go out of Dean’s eyes, the grim set of Dean’s mouth. “I’m sorry. I tried to get him to stay.”

“Cas doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to,” Dean replies quietly. “It’s okay.”

It’s not, Sam thinks. It’s so far from okay as to be in a completely different state, and he has no idea what they’ll do next. He can’t take Dean out on a job like this, that’s for sure, but he’s not sure he feels comfortable leaving Dean on his own either.

“Maybe he’ll come back,” Sam offers.

Dean shakes his head, his expression uncertain, and he says, “He said he’d stay with me until he got me out. It’s okay that he’s gone.”

And Sam wants to shout, he wants to rail at Cas for leaving Dean like this—alone and vulnerable, and he has no idea what to say.

“I’m going to shower,” Dean says absently, and wanders out again.

Sam gets a cup of coffee and sips it slowly, staring down at the fake wood grain of his table until Jody joins him.

“Where are Dean and Cas?” she asks.

“Dean’s in the shower,” Sam replies. “Cas took off. His memories came back, and he’s an angel again.”

Jody shakes her head. “You know, my life is seriously fucked up.”

That makes Sam smile, and then he chuckles, before admitting, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Now, that’s easy,” she replies gently. “You keep being there for Dean, and Cas when he’s around, and you look after your brother while he’s having a hard time looking after himself.”

Sam sighs. “I’m used to him being the older brother.”

He figures she knows what that means when she says, “Oh, honey. That changes with time. Parents take care of their children, until children take care of their parents. Siblings take care of each other as long as they can. In the end, you’re lucky if you’ve got someone to watch your back.”

Sam knows she’s thinking of her lost son, and her lonely house, and he reaches across the table to grab her hand, because Jody’s been more of a mother to him these last few years than anybody ever has been.

And maybe it’s been easier to accept Jody’s interference because Sam can’t remember his mother, and he has no comparison, but a lot of the time, she reminds him of Bobby—gruff and no nonsense, but with a deep well of compassion.

“Listen to me,” she says urgently. “You take care of that brother of yours. You got him back, and that’s more than most people get. It might take him time to find his footing again, but he’ll get there.”

Sam swallows. “And if he doesn’t?”

“Do you think that would stop me from welcoming my boy home with open arms?” Jody asks. “I wouldn’t care what shape he was in, just as long as I had him.”

Sam nods slowly. “I think he needs Cas.”

Jody smiles. “Then I think you need to figure out a way to keep him here.”

She stays through lunch, managing to chivvy a little more of a response out of Dean, although when pressed, he still won’t talk about Purgatory. In fact, he just shuts down; he doesn’t even try to deflect their questions with humor or defensiveness, and Sam wonders how much Dean and Cas had talked.

He’s willing to bet that it wasn’t all that much.

But after lunch, Jody takes off, giving Dean a quick hug and telling him that she’s glad he’s back, and then doing the same for Sam. “Be patient,” she advises.

And Sam knows she’s right, but he’s also afraid that he’ll never get Dean back the way he was, and he can’t quite reconcile himself to that.

~~~~~

As soon as Sam tells him that Cas has gone, Dean feels as though he’s come unmoored, like Cas is the anchor that had been keeping him in place.

He feels like he’s slowly going insane, like he’s losing what little bits of himself he had left after Purgatory. Without Cas here, Dean has no reference point.

The best way he can explain it, even to himself, is that his entire life had revolved around Cas for so long, he’s not sure how to map the boundaries of his life.

“I need to work,” Dean says, sitting down at the table across from Sam. He’s been waiting for Cas’ call for two days now, and he’s heard nothing.

Sam gives him a sharp look. “I can’t take you on a job, Dean.”

“Why not?” he demands. “I’m just as good a hunter now as I was before.”

“You’re careless,” Sam counters. “You still think of yourself as someone who can’t be killed.”

Dean scowls. “I got killed plenty of times.”

“Then you’re not thinking of it as a permanent possibility,” Sam replies. “And until you do, I can’t take you out.”

Dean rises, pushing his chair back with more force than necessary. “I don’t need your permission! I can find my own job.”

Sam leans back, looking at Dean steadily. “Yeah, I guess you could, but you wouldn’t have any backup.”

“I don’t need backup,” Dean shoots back. “I’m fine on my own, obviously. And if I get into trouble, Cas will probably show up.”

Sam sighs and rubs his eyes. “He might, and then again, he might be too busy watching the bees to notice you’re in trouble.”

Dean flinches. “Okay, maybe.”

“Tell me something about Purgatory, and I’ll think about it,” Sam replies.

“The will to stay alive is mostly about being afraid to die.” Dean feels as though the words are pulled from him, but at the same time, it’s a relief to tell Sam at least a little bit of the truth, like when he’d told Sam what he’d done in hell. “And after you’ve died a few hundred times, you’re not afraid anymore. Dying would be a relief, because it means an end.”

Sam nods slowly. “That’s kind of what I thought after what Cas said.”

“I just need to get back on the horse,” Dean insists. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Before you get yourself killed?” Sam asks. “I can’t—I won’t lose you again.”

“I’ll be careful,” Dean promises.

Sam sighs. “All right. I’ve got a line on what looks like a haunting. I was going to pass it off to Lee, but it’s just as easy for us to take it.”

“Lee?” Dean asks, and then remembers, “Krissy’s dad. She had a lot of potential.”

“She’s living up to it,” Sam insists. “She graduated from high school, and she’s been accepted into college.”

“Is she still hunting?”

“Sometimes, when she’s got the time,” Sam replies with a smile. “She graduated near the top of her class, and she’s going to Northwestern in the fall, so I think she’s got things handled.”

Dean smiles. “Good. That’s really good. I’m glad to hear it.”

“She asks about you every time I talk to her,” Sam replies. “You made quite the impression on her.”

Dean smiles wryly. “Winning the hearts of teenage girls everywhere, right?”

“Nothing wrong with that. She’s going to college because of what you said to her. You said she could have another life. Maybe you could have the same.”

Dean shakes his head. “I can barely hang on to the life I have now. This is all I’ve got.”

Sam’s gaze is steady as he stares at Dean, and then he says, “Fine, but I’m in charge until I know you can be trusted on your own. That’s non-negotiable.”

Dean tries not to think about how easy it is to abdicate responsibility, to let Sam take charge. In a way, Cas had been in change in Purgatory. Cas had known about the creatures they’d find, and how to avoid them. He’d been able to find hiding places, and he’d decreed when they moved. At first, Dean had allowed it because he had been in over his head. Later, Dean had grown used to following Cas, and there hadn’t been any better options.

“Okay,” he says readily. When Sam looks surprised, Dean adds. “I want to get back out there.”

That seems to suffice for an explanation for his ready acquiescence, and Sam nods. “Okay. We’ll do it.”

Dean breathes a sigh of relief, grateful for anything that will distract him from Cas’ absence. “Great. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” Sam responds, sounding grim. “Because if you wind up getting killed, I will make a deal to get you back. Remember that, Dean. If you get killed, you’ll take me with you.”

Dean feels a pang, remembering that he hadn’t needed to worry about Cas dying; he’d never needed to worry about Cas.

“Okay,” he agrees, and hopes that it’s enough. He hopes he can remember that it’s not just his life on the line. He doesn’t fear death for himself, but he doesn’t want anything to happen to Sam either.

Sam sighs. “I’m probably going to regret this.”

“I really hope not,” Dean says sincerely. “I’m trying, Sam.”

Sam smiles, although his expression is pained. “I know you are. It’s cool. You gave me time when I was going crazy. I’m doing the same for you.”

“Thanks,” Dean replies. “I really appreciate that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam insists. “I’m going to get you through this.”

Dean looks at Sam’s earnest face, and thinks of the years that separate them. Dean spent forty years in hell, and who knows how long in Purgatory. He might be four years older than Sam, and Sam might have spent time in the Cage, but right now Dean feels terribly ancient.

“I know you’re going to try,” Dean replies softly.

“I think you need to talk to Cas about staying,” Sam suggested.

Dean shrugs. “I’ll think about it.”

Sam nods. “Good. Let’s go over this case.”

Dean decides that he’s not even going to tease Sam over his obsessive-compulsive need to relay every detail. Details are a distraction right now, like hunting is a distraction, and Dean has to hope that it’s enough.

He’s not sure that anything will be enough.

~~~~~

Cas feels a tug towards Dean anytime he undertakes something dangerous, and he appears, although he’s not always visible. He watches Dean take on a vengeful spirit, and come out on top, then he and Sam face a ghoul a few days later and do just fine. The next week, they take on a kitsune in Wyoming, with no need for Cas’ rescue.

He thinks Dean might be okay, that Sam was wrong, and Dean doesn’t need him like he did in Purgatory.

Cas is beginning to realize that he’s never going to be what he was. His grace flickers uncertainly, and he’s aware that his sanity is questionable at best. He’d hoped that his time on earth would restore him, that his strength would be restored, even if he remained insane.

And Cas might be crazy, but he isn’t stupid; he knows he can’t keep this up forever. The day is coming when Cas will be forced to fall, to give up what’s left of his grace and remain human, because he’s not getting better.

He can’t keep forgetting, losing his identity and asking Dean to take care of him. He can’t continue to be a burden on Dean. Cas can’t keep hurting Dean, not when all he wants is to save him.

And then he comes to himself, standing on a sidewalk next to a particularly vivid garden, and he blinks. He bends close to look at a rose, as pink and orange as a sunset.

He knows the name of the flower, and what a sunset looks like, but he can’t remember his own name or how he came to be where he is.

Some impulse has him searching his pockets, and when he finds a cell phone, he scrolls through the contacts. There’s only one name he recognizes, and he hits the call button, feeling a strange mixture of certainty and fear.

“Cas? Is that you?”

He doesn’t recognize the name, but the voice strikes a faint chord. “Yes. Dean?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” There’s a sigh of resignation. “Do you know where you are?”

He looks around for anything that might give him a location and says, “I see a sign for the Cheyenne Credit Union.”

“Lucky for you, we’re only a couple of towns over,” Dean replies. “Stay where you are. We’re a couple of hours out.” There’s the sound of another voice in the background, and Dean says, “You’ll probably want to find some shade if you don’t want to get burned.”

“I will,” he promises.

There’s a bench about a block away, set under a bus stop shelter, and he sits down, hands resting on his knees.

He’s not afraid, nor is he worried, even though he probably ought to be both. He feels—light, as though a weight has been lifted from him. He can’t explain it, but he thinks he ought to enjoy it, because he has no faith that it will last.

A bus pulls up in front of the stop, and Cas waves it on, not moving from his position. He watches the people pass by—a young mother with a toddler stumbling along beside her, a group of young teens in tight jeans and t-shirts, their hair dyed in varying shades of green and blue and purple, a couple of young men in cowboy hats and boots. He’s fascinated by the variety, but feels removed from them somehow.

The black car that pulls up in front of the bus stop is just another vehicle, but the man who gets out has a rolling, bowlegged gait that he finds oddly familiar. “I’m Dean,” he says. His green eyes are tired, and there are deep lines etched on his face, but his smile is genuine, and maybe a little relieved. “You ready to go, Cas?”

He nods. “Yes, I think so.”

There’s a sense of déjà vu as he climbs into the backseat, a sense that this is right, and that he’s safe.

As he settles into the backseat, he can sense tension between Dean and the man in the front passenger seat. “This is my brother Sam,” Dean says. “I don’t suppose you remember him.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Cas replies. “It’s nice to meet you, Sam.”

Sam waves, brushing long, brown hair out of his face, his expression just a little distant. “Same here.”

The silence that falls isn’t entirely comfortable, and Cas notices Dean glancing at Sam, who’s staring determinedly out the window. Cas leans against the door, watching the passage of scrub grass and the occasional tree.

“You okay?” Dean asks after a few miles have passed. “You hungry or anything?”

“Yes to both,” he replies after a pause.

“We’ll stop at the next place we see,” Dean promises, and then hands back a half-full bottle of water. “If you don’t mind my germs, and don’t want to wait, you can have this.”

Cas doesn’t mind, and he drinks deeply, not realizing how thirsty he had been until the water fills his mouth. “Thank you,” he says belatedly.

“No problem.” Dean beats a rhythm with his fingers on the steering wheel, and then cranks up the music.

Cas doesn’t try to talk after that; he has very little to say. His past is a blank, and his life is in the hands of these strangers. He feels as though he should be asking questions, but he’s too tired, and his stomach is growling too loudly for him to come up with any questions.

He zones out, and then dozes off, waking to a hand clasping his knee. “Cas. Cas!”

For a moment, he can’t remember where he is, and that blankness frightens him, particularly when he realizes that he can’t remember anything.

“Hey, you’re okay.” The voice is soothing, and Cas meets green eyes warm with concern. “Remember? We just stopped for food.”

A flash of memory hits him—You spineless, soulless son of a bitch. What do you care about dying? You're already dead. We're done. Dean’s voice, his fierce expression, an abject sense of loss, the knowledge of his end.

Was this what had come after? Had he betrayed Dean, and had his memory loss been the result?

“Dean?” he asks uncertainly. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Dean asks, frowning, “What—did you remember something?”

“You said we were done,” Cas replies uncertainly.

Dean glances at Sam, some strange mixture of emotions flickering across his face that Cas can’t begin to parse. “Water under the bridge,” Dean insists. “That was a long time ago.”

“Why can’t I remember?” Cas asks plaintively.

Dean shakes his head. “We’re not sure. Come on, let’s get something to eat. We still have a drive ahead of us.”

Cas decides not to press the issue. The memory feels too raw, too real, but Dean’s hand is still on his knee, warm and comforting. “Okay.”

Dean squeezes his leg, and says, “It’s going to be okay, Cas. I promise.”

And that feels like a memory, too, and Cas holds on to it.

~~~~~

They’ve found a sheltered area at the bottom of a ravine, in a depression in the hillside, and they’re as safe as they ever are, sitting back to back.

Safe isn’t a word Dean uses in Purgatory, however. They’re never truly safe, but they’ve at least won a moment or two to rest.

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“Did you know anything about Purgatory before we got here?”

“I knew it was a place for monsters,” Cas replies. “And it turns out I was right.”

Dean lets out a rusty chuckle. “Go you.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I never really thought about it,” Dean admits. “I didn’t think about hell or heaven much before I got there either.”

Cas huffs, a sound that might almost be amusement. “I think you might be the only human to ever have personal experience with all three.”

“Lucky me.”

There’s a long pause, and Cas leans back a little harder against Dean. “I’m not sure why Purgatory got the reputation it did,” he says thoughtfully. “I think they wanted to assure those who had obeyed all the rules that they had an instant entry into heaven, and everyone else had to atone.”

Cas pauses, and then adds, “I can understand why now.”

Dean sighs. “We’re okay.”

“But I can understand,” Cas insists.

Dean can understand, too. “I think we’ve both paid twice over.”

“You’re the one who keeps getting ripped to pieces.”

“Angels can’t die here,” Dean counters. “And neither can I. It could be worse.”

“I’m not sure how,” Cas replies glumly.

Dean smiles. “I could have died the first time I got ripped to pieces.”

“That would have been worse,” Cas agrees.

“I thought so.”

“Dean, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Dean replies, as he always does. He’d lied the first few times, but he means it now. He has no idea how long they’ve been here, but it’s long enough for Dean’s anger to have burned out.

Long enough for his grief and fear and everything else to have burned out, too. Dean’s pretty sure he would have given up by now if Cas hadn’t been there.

And then, because it seems to be something Cas needs to hear, he adds, “I forgive you. We’re together. That’s all that matters.”

“We’ll stick together,” Cas promises. “I’m not leaving you.”

Dean swallows. “Promise me.”

“I won’t leave you,” Cas says again, and it’s enough.

~~~~~

“You have to talk to him,” Sam insists, knowing that Cas is asleep upstairs in the guest room. “You have to tell him, Dean.”

“Tell him what?” Dean’s chin is tilted up pugnaciously, like he’s daring Sam to hit him, and Sam suspects that Dean would love that.

Sam rubs his eyes and prays for patience, reminding himself that he really did want Dean back. “Tell him to stay, at least. Beg him to stay, for fuck’s sake. I don’t care, but you can’t keep going back and forth like this, and he can’t either. What happens if he loses his memory while we’re on a job, and we can’t get to him? The first time he got hit by a car. Next time, he could be killed.”

Sam knows it’s a low blow, but he feels the need to light a fire under Dean. He’d tried to get through to Cas, but had no luck. Dean is going to have to talk to him.

All the fight seems to go out of Dean at that. “I already asked. He said he couldn’t.” And then Dean’s eyes lose focus, and he adds, “He promised he’d stay in Purgatory, but I guess that didn’t extend to when we got out.”

“He promised he’d stay with you in Purgatory?” Sam presses, beginning to see a ray of hope.

Dean had been almost normal during the last few hunts. Sam had been careful with him, paying close attention to Dean’s location and his well being at all times.

Maybe something had changed, but Dean hadn’t taken any stupid chances, and he’d seemed to be on the top of his game.

Still, Sam had noticed how depressed Dean had seemed—more than his typical depression. He hadn’t been drinking, although he’d taken the beers Sam offered at various times. Sam assumes that Dean has gotten out of the habit of drowning his sorrows, and he can’t be sorry for that, but it’s also throwing him off.

He’d gotten used to gauging Dean’s frame of mind by the amount he drank, but he doesn’t have that shortcut now. It’s unsettling him off more than he’d like to admit.

“Yeah, he did,” Dean replies eventually.

“So, get him to promise he’ll stay with you here,” Sam insists. “He promised in Purgatory, and he managed it then. So, he’ll manage it now. Make him promise.”

“I’m not going to make him do something he’s not willing to do,” Dean protests.

Sam valiantly resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Maybe he needs the reason. Maybe hanging onto you, being with you, is going to help him stay sane.”

Dean snorts. “You don’t believe that.”

“Oddly enough, I do.”

Sam watches as Dean considers that information. “You think Cas’ sanity depends on sticking with me?”

“Maybe,” Sam replies. “It’s worth a shot, and it’s a hell of a lot better than running all over the country looking for him. And you know you’re lucky that Cas didn’t wind up in Africa or Australia or something.”

Dean looks stricken. “Shit, that would be bad.”

“My point exactly,” Sam presses. “What if he loses his memory in fucking Antarctica?”

“I’ll talk to him,” Dean promises. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Okay, good,” Sam replies with a sigh of relief. “You hungry? I’ll make breakfast.”

Dean smiles. “You’ve turned into quite the cook.”

“Self defense,” Sam explains briefly. “Jody taught me quite a bit when she could. It made sense to cook when I wasn’t on the road.”

Dean toys with his coffee cup. “I was surprised you settled down at all.”

“It seemed like the thing to do if I was going to hunt down Leviathans,” Sam replies, thinking of those first long, terrible days without Dean. Killing Leviathans had given him purpose while he looked for a way to find Dean and get him back.

Dean rubs the wood grain of the table. “I haven’t asked you much about that.”

“Not much to tell. I tried to get to you, and I failed,” Sam replies, and that still burns.

“It took just about all of Cas’ angel juice to get us out, and not release anything in his wake,” Dean points out. “And you saw what it did to him.”

“What did it do?”

Sam turns to see Cas standing in the doorway, his brow furrowed, his mouth twisted into an unhappy grimace. “Cas.”

“What did it do to me?” Cas demands.

“You got hurt saving me,” Dean replies gently. “That’s all that matters.”

“Is that why you forgave me?” Cas asks.

Dean shakes his head. “I forgave you for a lot of reasons. You hungry?”

Judging by Cas’ expression, he knows that Dean is changing the subject.

“I am,” Cas admits, sitting down next to Dean.

“You want coffee?” Dean offers.

Cas nods, and Dean rises to get it for him, brushing Cas’ shoulder as he does so.

Dean has been tangled up in Cas since Cas got him out of Hell, and being in Purgatory together only made it worse. Dean might be able to function on a hunt, but it doesn’t come naturally to him anymore; he doesn’t take any pleasure in it. He’s careful only because he knows Sam needs him to be.

And that’s something, it might even be enough, but Sam sees the way Dean lights up every time Cas calls, and he knows that Dean isn’t going to be happy if Cas isn’t around.

Sam flips pancakes and sets the first stack on the table, looking over his shoulder as Dean divvied it up between them.

“So, we’re friends?” Cas asks after he’s finished his first couple of pancakes.

“Yeah,” Dean replies. Then adds, “Other than Sam, you’re the only family I have.”

“Do I have family?” Cas asks.

Sam puts a plate with the rest of the pancakes on the table, and snags a couple from the top. “You have us,” he says, because he knows this is part of looking after Dean. He’ll have to look after both of them until Dean is steadier on his feet. “We’ll take care of you.”

Dean shoots him a look that’s so grateful, Sam feels a pang. He wants Dean to know—to believe—that Sam will look out for him. Sam never wanted Dean to think that he couldn’t have Cas and have his life back, too.

“Thank you,” Cas replies sincerely.

Sam smiles. “Hey, you saved my life, too.”

Cas frowns. “So, was I a superhero or something?”

Sam laughs, and Dean joins him, and for a moment, all is right with the world.

~~~~~

Dean knows that Sam is right, and that he needs to convince Cas to stay. Even if he hadn’t wanted to keep Cas around—which he does—Sam had been right about the inherent problems with having to pick Cas up wherever and whenever he loses his memory.

Next time, it could happen while they’re on a job and can’t get away, or in another country, or in a dangerous place. If Cas stays with them, Dean can make sure he’s safe; he can look after Cas the way Cas had looked after him in Purgatory.

But he can’t do that if Cas leaves.

“We got any jobs?” Dean asks casually once they’d finished eating.

Sam shakes his head. “Not right away, but I’ve got a shift today.”

Dean nods. “Great. We’ll just stay here, then. Or maybe go grocery shopping, if you’ve got a list.”

Sam raises his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

“I think I can handle a trip to the store,” Dean counters.

“I’m sure you can,” Sam replies mildly. “But yeah, that would be a huge help.” He refills his coffee. “I should answer some emails. I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

Dean stays where he’s at, and Cas does the same.

“I have to ask you something,” Dean says. “And I want you to make me a promise.”

Cas cocks his head, looking a little uncertain. “Okay. What is it?”

“When you get your memory back—if you get it back—I need you to promise to stay here, with me,” Dean says. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and you might feel differently later, but it’s important.”

Cas hesitates. “Will I want to stay?”

“I don’t know,” Dean replies honestly. “But you promised to stay with me once before. You stuck with me then.”

“You want me to stay with you,” Cas says.

“Yeah, I do. It’s important.”

“Why?”

“Because every time you leave, you wind up somewhere, and I have to come get you,” Dean replies. “And I will. I’ll come whenever you call me, wherever you are, but what if I can’t? What if something happens to you? You about got run over by a car the first time this happened.”

“How many times has this happened?” Cas asks.

Dean shrugs. “A few.”

“And it’s going to keep happening.”

“We haven’t figured out how to stop it,” Dean admits. “So, yeah, probably.”

“And I call you every time.”

Dean stares down into his coffee, and then looks up to meet Cas’ blue eyes. “I seem to be the constant.”

Cas’ lips twitched up into a smile. “I feel safe with you,” he admits. “And I feel as though I know you, even though I don’t remember you.” He grimaces. “That probably doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it does,” Dean insists. “It’s okay. I get it.”

“I think I would be completely adrift without you,” Cas admits. “But I’m not sure what that says about me.”

Dean has no idea what to tell him, not when he’s gone through this several times. He’s tired of finding a way to explain what they had been to each other, and he’s tired of finding a way to encapsulate their shared past.

He wants his Cas back, the angel who had stuck by him all that time in Purgatory, who had held Dean every time he’d been ripped to shreds, while his body had knit together. He’d kept Dean warm, and he’d watched Dean’s back, and he might have been a little crazy, but Dean hadn’t minded.

But Dean will take Cas any way he can get him, and a Cas without those memories is still Cas in some form.

“I’m sorry I’m not him,” Cas says, as though reading Dean’s mind.

Dean shakes his head. “Don’t be. Maybe—maybe it’s better if you don’t remember. God knows I’d give just about anything to forget.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Dean knows it’s a lie. There are things he would prefer not to have gone through, and things he wishes hadn’t happened, but those memories are his, as so very little else is.

And if Cas can’t remember, then Dean will do it for the both of them.

“Memories are what make us who we are,” Cas counters, again as though he’s reading Dean’s mind. Maybe there’s something of the angel left in him, after all. “And if I remember nothing, I am nothing.”

Dean shakes his head. “You remember more than you realize. You remember me, right?”

Cas laughs, and his expression is open and warm, and Dean knows that he can’t forget, but maybe it would be better if Cas did.

If Cas could be happy, not remembering anything about heaven or hell or Purgatory, then Dean thinks he’d be okay giving up what they’d had together.

“I promise,” Cas says.

Dean blinks. “What?”

“I promise. I’ll stay with you even if I get my memories back.” Cas reaches across the table hesitantly, putting a hand over Dean’s.

Dean turns his hand and laces their fingers together. “Thank you.”

“I have no idea what I’m going to do,” Cas admits.

“You and me both,” Dean replies. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get it figured out.”

But Dean can’t help wondering what they’ll do if Cas stays with him, or even if Cas will be able to hunt with them. Dean isn’t sure he wants to hunt. He will, because he has a duty to Sam, but this isn’t what he wants to do anymore.

Maybe he’ll want to hunt again someday, but right now hunting doesn’t hold the same pull it had.

Sam seems to have found some ground in between; maybe Dean can as well, and he can pull Cas along with him.

Dean squeezes Cas’ hand hard, and they sit in comfortable silence.

~~~~~

Cas wakes slowly in a sun-warmed room, the light reflecting off the white walls of the room. The full mattress is comfortable, the sheet and blanket are tangled around Cas’ waist, a heavy, muscular arm thrown over his abdomen.

Dean, he thinks, and remembers how natural it had felt when Dean had poked his head inside the room late the previous night, asking if Cas wanted company. When Dean had crawled into bed next to Cas, still fully dressed, he’d gone right to sleep, profoundly comforted by Dean’s proximity.

And now, he puts his hand over Dean’s, and rolls back ever so slightly, so that they’re pressed closer together.

“Cas,” Dean says, and pushes his nose against the back of Cas’ neck.

That’s all he says, but Cas feels himself respond, aroused and warmed by Dean’s response. He knows that nothing will come of this. Dean will not do anything while Cas does not remember, and Cas will not initiate contact because it will put Dean in the position of having to refuse him.

They have enough between them for now. Cas has enough; he’s strangely content.

Dean mumbles something sleepily, not yet awake, and pulls Cas closer. He can feel Dean’s erection through his boxers, and it’s comforting and yet makes him nervous.

He’s full of emotions around Dean—attraction, desire, gratitude, and a strange sense of foreboding, maybe because Cas knows that eventually his memories will return, and who he is in this moment will be subsumed in the person he becomes.

His bladder urges him to rise, and he rolls out of bed. When Dean murmurs a protest, Cas murmurs, “It’s fine. I’ll be back.”

Cas uses the toilet and washes his hands, staring at his reflection in the mirror, not quite recognizing himself. He touches his cheeks, the laugh lines around his eyes, and runs a hand through thick, dark hair, disheveling it further.

He feels no sense of recognition; Dean’s face is more familiar to him than his own.

Cas shakes off his melancholy thoughts and pads downstairs to the kitchen, where Sam is drinking coffee and working on his laptop.

“There’s plenty,” Sam says, not looking up.

Cas fills his mug and stares out the window into the small backyard. The grass is long in places and patchy in others, and Cas figures the yard is pretty low on Sam’s list of priorities.

“Are you going to stay?” Sam asks.

Cas nods. “I’m going to try. I don’t really know him, or what his motivations are. I don’t know why he would leave.”

Sam grimaces. “I’m not sure you—he—knows why.”

There’s the sound of pounding feet, and Dean’s slightly panicked, “Cas!”

“In here!” Sam calls, looking resigned but unfazed.

Dean skids to a halt in the doorway of the kitchen, staring at Cas as though he half-expects him to disappear. “You’re still here.”

“I said I’d stay,” Cas replies.

Dean’s expression turns sheepish. “Yeah, I know. I just—you weren’t there when I woke up.”

Cas glances at Sam, who’s shaking his head, and there’s something in his expression that tells Cas this isn’t normal behavior for Dean.

He wonders what Sam thinks of their relationship, of the fact that Dean slept with him, and panicked when Cas wasn’t there.

“I’m sorry,” Cas offers.

Dean shakes his head, flushing slightly. “Don’t be. It’s just—I’ll get over it. No big deal.”

Sam snorts but doesn’t say anything, and Cas feels a renewed tension in the room, the same tension he’d felt when he’d climbed into the backseat of the car.

“You have something to say, Sammy?” Dean challenges.

Sam opens his mouth, anger tightening the skin around his eyes, and then he closes his eyes and mouth, and sighs. “Dean. Don’t.”

Dean deflates at that, and turns on his heel. “I’m going to take a shower.” The tone of his voice makes it clear Cas is not invited—although Cas isn’t sure at this point whether that’s something they’d ever done.

When he hears the water start, Cas clears his throat and asks, “What’s that all about?”

Sam shakes his head. “It’s not my story to tell.”

“Dean won’t tell me,” Cas argues. “How am I supposed to know what’s going on?”

Sam gets up to refill his mug, and Cas recognizes it for a stalling tactic. “Look, every time you lose your memory, Dean has to cover the same ground again, and it’s getting old. It hurts him.”

“That’s not my fault!” Cas protests.

Sam shakes his head. “No, maybe not, but that doesn’t change anything. Getting you back, losing you—it’s like death by a thousand cuts, and it’s just going to keep getting worse.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Cas asks plaintively.

“Next time you have your memories, focus on fixing the problem instead of staring at bees or flowers or whatever the hell has caught your attention,” Sam replies, and the heat in his voice has Cas leaning away from him.

Sam is large and angry, and Cas is suddenly afraid.

Maybe Sam sees that, because he takes a step back, moving away from Cas. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not your fault. I just hate seeing Dean like this.”

Like what? he wants to ask, because he doesn’t know Dean any other way.

He can’t help but feel that this is somehow his fault, and—I wish it hadn't come to this. Well rest assured, when this is all over, I will save Sam, but only if you stand down.

He is in an alley, touching Sam’s head, and it’s bad, he knows it’s wrong, but he’s doing it anyway, and—

“Cas!”

Sam’s hands are on his shoulders, and Cas stares into worried hazel eyes. “What did I do to you?” he asks faintly.

Sam winces, and then he gives Cas a little shake. “You fixed it. You made it up to me. It’s okay.”

“No, I—”

“You fixed it,” Sam insists, his voice low and intense. “We’ve all done things we regret, so don’t worry about it.”

Cas swallows. “Maybe it would be better if I didn’t stay. If I don’t call Dean next time—”

“If you leave, you’ll hurt him,” Sam says bluntly, interrupting him. “If you leave, it’s the coward’s way out.”

Cas shakes his head. “I’m not brave.”

Sam smiles then, and pats Cas on the shoulder. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

~~~~~

Sam hopes it’s a good sign that Cas is beginning to remember pieces of his past, mostly because he thinks it will be easier on Dean if Cas gets his memories back. The best outcome Sam can see is if Cas stays human, keeps his memories, and stays with Dean.

Of course, that means Sam’s going to have to look after the both of them. He’s none too sure about Dean’s ability to hold onto a job, although it’s probably a safer bet than hunting, and Cas—

Well, without his memories, Cas is definitely in better shape. He might be able to do—something, but Sam’s drawing a blank as to what.

But there’s time, Sam thinks, more time than they had before. If Cas just sticks around long enough for Dean to find his footing again—long enough for Dean to begin to forget what Purgatory had been like and to unlearn bad habits, like getting himself killed because he’ll come back to life—Dean might be okay.

Right now, though, Dean’s still hiding out upstairs, and Cas is drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, his expression intent, while Sam checks the newsfeeds on his laptop.

Sam isn’t sure why he kept up with his subscription; it’s easier and less wasteful to use the electronic version, but Dean had always preferred print.

He supposes it’s another example of something he’d hung onto, hoping that he’d get his brother back. And now that Dean is here—and isn’t here, all at the same time—Sam keeps looking for a way to recover the Dean he knew.

There’s a sharp rustle of newspaper, and Sam glances up and can see the memories flood Cas in the way his posture goes straight and still, the fleeting horror crossing his face, the weight of millennia pressing down on him.

Sam is reminded of their first meeting, when Cas had seemed ageless and implacable, and he is neither of those things now, weighed down as he is by guilt and regret, just like any other human.

“Sam,” Cas says, and his eyes go to the window above the sink.

“Don’t you dare,” Sam hisses. “You promised.” He wonders, fleetingly, if there’s any other way to trap an angel, because he doesn’t have any holy oil, and there’s no time or place to use it even if he did.

Cas blinks, his expression troubled, and he says, “I won’t leave, but I need to see Dean.”

And then he’s gone.

Sam lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and picks up the phone to call Lee, who had wanted Sam’s help looking into a vengeful spirit.

There’s nothing more he can do for Dean or for Cas right now.

~~~~~

Castiel does not tell Dean what he’s planning, nor does he talk about what it will likely cost him. He holds off as long as he does only because he had promised Dean that they would leave Purgatory together, and because he is none too sure of his success. It’s possible that this will destroy him, and leave Dean unprotected, but their time here has taken its toll on Dean, as it has on Castiel. Unlike Dean, however, he still has something left to give.

He will pour himself out on Dean’s behalf, and even if there is nothing left of him in the end, he will be left with no regrets as long as Dean is saved.

Castiel waits until Dean is asleep, and then he takes hold of Dean’s upper arm, just as he had when he’d raised Dean from Hell, and he flies.

He’s found a place where the wall between Purgatory and earth is thinner, and it represents his best chance to get Dean out.

With a burst of power, Castiel gathers up what remains of his power and pushes. He can feel his grace stretch and begin to unravel, and his grip on Dean loosens.

Castiel clutches Dean, focusing on getting him to Sam, and as soon as he’s through, he sends Dean to Sam and tumbles into nothingness.

~~~~~

Dean expects the worst when Cas appears in the bedroom with the sound like the rustle of wings. “You leaving?”

He’s still embarrassed by his earlier panic. He’s not some kid who needs a security blanket.

“I told you I’d stay,” Cas replies, sitting down on the bed next to Dean. “I meant it. Besides, I think Sam would find a way to keep me here.”

“He’s just worried about me,” Dean replies. “He thinks I’m better with you around.”

“Is he right?”

“Probably.” Dean glances at him. “But I don’t think I can keep doing this.”

Cas puts a hand on Dean’s knee. “I thought it would destroy me.”

“I know.” Dean closes his eyes and puts his hand over Cas’, interlacing their fingers. “That’s why you waited.”

“I waited because I didn’t want to fail and leave you alone,” Cas counters. “And the only solution I can see is to fall, and that means breaking my promise, too.”

Dean shakes his head. “You’re still you, just without the memories. And you started to remember things this last time.”

It’s not that easy, of course. Dean doesn’t want to lose Cas—not this Cas, the one who had been with him for so long, who remembers everything.

But he can’t keep explaining who they are over and over again, starting anew every time Cas loses his memories.

Sam’s right: Dean needs Cas—and maybe he needed Cas as an angel in Purgatory, but right now, Dean thinks he might need him human.

Cas stays silent, and Dean asks, “Is it going to get better?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Cas admits. “I know I’m not sane, Dean. And there is little left of my grace.”

“You can’t recharge your batteries?” Dean tries to joke, but it falls flat.

Cas shakes his head. “No. Not this time. I was cut off for too long, and I’m—injured, I think.”

“Injured?”

“Like before, when I was losing my grace, becoming more human,” Cas explains.

Dean leans into him. “Is it so bad?”

“It’s not the worst thing that could happen,” Cas admits. “Will you be here?”

“I won’t leave you,” Dean promises. “Can you fall without—you know, being reborn? Because that would kind of suck.”

Cas nods. “Anna didn’t have a vessel. I do.”

Dean takes a breath. “Okay. How are we going to do this?”

“I just fall,” Cas replies. “Dean. Look at me.”

Dean does, seeing Cas’ dark blue eyes, his chin with a couple of day’s worth of stubble, lips that are dry and cracked. Dean cups the back of Cas’ neck, and Cas leans his forehead against Dean’s, and then Dean turns his head, pressing his lips to Cas’.

Their kiss is warm and chaste, as full of sorrow as it is promise, and it’s hello, and it’s goodbye, and Dean’s heart is close to breaking.

Cas pulls back, his expression serious, and he says, “I’ll see you later.”

“You’d better,” Dean threatens, and kisses him once more, just a brief, hard press of lips.

Cas touches his cheek. “I’d like to watch the bees one last time.”

Dean frowns. “You’ll see them again.”

“It will be different.” Cas rises. “I need to be alone for a while.” Dean doesn’t want to let him go, and maybe Cas sees that, because he says, “Trust me.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, okay.”

Then he lets Cas go. It’s one of the hardest things he’s ever done, and he sits on the bed and breathes deeply, clutching at the blue comforter, staring at the white wall, and then he goes downstairs.

Sam is in the kitchen, and he looks up as Dean enters, his expression worried. “Hey. Everything okay?”

Dean nods, unable to find his voice immediately, and he goes to stare out the window at the backyard, seeing the shaggy grass, and the big maple in one corner, with Cas sitting down, leaning against the trunk.

“You want to tell me what happened?” Sam asks gently.

“Cas said he’d fall,” Dean replies, his voice hoarse.

Sam rises to join him. “Is that a bad thing?”

“I don’t know.” Dean deliberately turns around, putting his back to the window, wanting to give Cas the privacy he’d asked for. “He’s not the same guy when—” He crosses to the fridge to get a beer. “He might not want to stay.”

Sam shakes his head. “Dean, you’re all he ever remembers. You two are so wrapped up in each other, it’s like nobody else exists when he’s around.”

Dean flinches. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not angry,” Sam insists. “I want you to be happy, and you’re happier with him than without.”

Dean stares down at the floor. “I don’t think I can hunt for a while, Sammy. I thought I could, but with Cas…”

“We’ll play it by ear.” Sam clasps his shoulder. “How long is Cas supposed to be out there?”

Dean shrugs. “He wanted some time.” He looks past Sam, out the window and sees Cas slumped on the ground. “Shit.”

He runs out the back door, nearly trips going down the steps, and scrambles back upright, running towards Cas’ still form. Dean fumbles for a pulse and finds one, and puts a hand close to Cas’ mouth to feel for breath.

“Okay,” Dean says as Sam kneels next to him. “He’s okay.”

Sam puts a hand on Cas’ chest, and Dean sees Cas’ chest move. “He’s definitely out.”

Dean pats Cas’ cheek. “Hey, Cas. Wake up. Come on.”

There’s no response, and Sam sends a worried look Dean’s way. “Did he say this was going to happen?”

“He didn’t say much of anything,” Dean replies. “Not about this.” He shakes Cas again but doesn’t get a response. “I guess we should move him inside. There’s no telling when he’ll wake up.”

Sam nods. “Grab his feet.”

With some effort, they carry Cas inside, depositing him on the couch. Dean stares at him, realizing that he has no idea what to do.

Sam clears his throat. “Look, Dean, I hate to do this, but I have a shift, and I’m going to be late if I don’t leave now.”

“No, go,” Dean says absently. “I’ll be okay here.”

“Call me if you need me,” Sam insists.

Dean nods. “I promise. And Sam—thanks.”

Sam pats him on the shoulder. “Anytime, man. You know that. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“See you,” Dean replies, and then he pulls up a chair next to the couch and settles down to wait.

~~~~~

He wakes slowly, sun warming his face, his mind a pleasant, drowsy blank. When he shifts, he can feel the stiffness of his neck, the weight of his limbs, exhaustion still pulling at him.

Opening his eyes, he sees a man slumped in a chair not more than a foot away, thick stubble on his face, his mouth pulled into a tense, worried line, his eyes closed.

A memory breaks free of the fog in his mind, and he says, “Dean.”

The man’s eyes fly open, and he sits up straight. Clearing his throat, Dean says, “Hey, Cas. How are you feeling?”

He considers the question for a moment. “Tired, I think, but good.”

An uncertain smile blossoms on Dean’s face. “Yeah? What do you remember?”

And Cas reaches for Dean’s hand, clasping it tightly, filled with the certainty that he’s safe, and he’s home, and the rest will come in time.

“Enough,” he replies, and pulls Dean toward him for a kiss.