Title: That Old Illusion of Free Will

Chapter: Eight

~~~~~~~~~~

“Jo was here last night.”

Bobby about choked on his eggs and peered at Ellen. She didn’t look delusional, stirring her coffee and reading the morning paper. He took a drink of his own coffee and asked, “So how is she? Looking good?”

Ellen shrugged and turned a page. “Don’t know. I was asleep.”

“You were asleep.” He stared at her. A dream maybe? “Uh-huh. You feelin’ okay? A little feverish?”

She glanced up with a frown. “I’m not sick.”

“You know that punch Rufus makes is kind of potent and you were hitting it pretty hard there after dinner --”

“Oh, for --” Ellen held up the small object she’d brought downstairs with her. “This is a charm off that bracelet I gave Jo. It was with my watch this morning. Geez, Bobby.”

There was a disgusted turn to her lips and he shrugged. “So maybe Castiel left it.”

“Did he start wearing her perfume, too? Because I woke a little after two-thirty and Jo’s perfume was all over my room.”

“Let me see it.” He held out his hand and she passed it to him. It was a set of initials. JBH. “You’re sure it was on her bracelet?”

“Had it specially made for her along with the rest of the charms.”

“Okay.” He returned it to her. “If she was here, why didn’t she wake you up?”

“Cas probably wouldn’t let her, part of that whole ‘can’t see her’ thing.” She held up the charm. “This is important, Bobby. It means Jo knows I’m alive, too.” Excitement danced in her eyes. “Hell, it means more than that. She didn’t have to leave anything. It means she wanted me to know she was here, to know that she’s aware I’m looking for her.”

He couldn’t argue with Jo wanting Ellen to know she was there. The other he could argue with. “How would her leaving that charm mean she knows you’re looking for her?”

She touched the charm with her free hand. “She knows how I am, Bobby. I’m alive and she’s not with me? Of course I’m gonna look for her, but in the meantime, I get worried, I fret, I get pissy and then I just get impossible. Did I ever tell you what she did that time she ran off?”

“You mean aside from shave years off your life from the worry?”

“Aside from.” She licked her lips. “She sent me postcards. It’s amazing how a simple postcard with maybe three or four words in her handwriting calmed me down. It was a connection to her, something to reassure me, an encouragement. That’s what this charm is. It’s a connection to her, an encouragement.”

“We’re still no closer to finding her,” he pointed out.

Ellen palmed the charm, held it to her chest, and smiled. “No, but it gives me hope that maybe she’s closer than we think.”

He could have told her that Jo could still be anywhere -- angel travel meant Castiel could move her to and from anywhere in the world in seconds. For all they knew, she was halfway across the world. He didn’t tell her that. Let her have the peace before the reality of their search reared up again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Castiel kept a watch on Ellen from above, stealing Jimmy away on several occasions for quick personal glimpses of her.

The first visit, he’d observed her walking and was pleased that she’d left the wheelchair.

On the second, he stood inside the doorway of Bobby’s living room, watching her jot down notes while perusing a large book. He thought he’d been perfectly still, but she’d looked up and seen him, her expression changing to annoyance.

She’d pointed the pen at him. “I’ve got a few things to say to you.”

He’d left before she could add anything, not wanting to hear what she thought of his actions.

The next visits were while Ellen and Bobby were out on jobs. It pleased him as well that they were actively hunting and that Ellen was obviously enjoying the process. She and Bobby were a good team. Practical. Methodical. Yet they had enough spontaneity that they could vary their plans.

Ellen was doing well and he was glad for it.

He’d continued his search for Dean, finally discovering that phone he’d had with Jimmy’s belongings. Actually, it was Jo who found it, emptying out a drawer in the dresser that had odds and ends in it and handing him the phone before going back to painting one of the empty bedrooms. She and Jimmy had begun decorating the smallest of those extra bedrooms as a nursery, telling him when he asked that though Gabriel had offered his services, they’d insisted they wanted to do it themselves. She was distracted, barely glancing at him.

He charged the phone, powered it up and listened to the few messages, sad to find that none were from Dean or Sam. Nor were any from Bobby or Ellen. They appeared to be political advertisements and one nervous woman asking if she remembered him. He’d been with two other guys and if he was back in the area would he like to get together for a drink? Castiel frowned at the phone. He didn’t remember giving any woman his phone number, though he wouldn’t put it past Dean to have done it.

Deleting all messages, he let a small sigh escape before trying Dean’s number. It was disheartening to hear an out-of-service message. When’d he checked back at Lisa’s house, there was no longer any sign of Dean’s presence there. All of his belongings had been picked up and the only picture of Dean displayed anywhere was in the boy’s room, -- a framed photo of Dean and Ben at some gathering with a woman wearing a metal bikini between them.

Castiel then tried Sam’s number, surprised when it actually went through. Sam had kept his old number. He sat up very straight as it rang.

“Hey, Cas. What, uh, what’s up?” Sam’s voice was cautious and Castiel didn’t bother with saying anything, he simply took himself to Sam’s location and hung up as he appeared.

For someone who was supposed to be in prison with Lucifer, Sam looked well, sitting at a table in a motel room, a laptop open in front of him. “Has Dean been in contact with you?”

Sam hung up and slid the phone into his pocket, looking up at Castiel. “Good to see you too, Cas.” His brows raised before he glanced away. “More like I was in contact with him.” He crossed his arms on the tabletop. “I waited as long as I could.” He shrugged. “But have you seen what’s running around out there now? Lucifer set a lot of things free. It was bad before, but it’s worse now. It’s all chaos. I only went to see him for a single job. I knew he could help me with it and we’d be done. He could go back to his new life.”

“One job became two and so on.”

“Yeah. We meet up, do some work, he heads back home to Lisa.” He closed the lid of the laptop. “Every time we meet up I hope I don’t have to end up taking back bad news to her, but he still meets me. He insists on it.”

Dean wasn’t being straight with Sam. Why was he hiding the fact that Lisa wasn’t a part of his life anymore? She hadn’t been for quite awhile. Where was Dean going when he wasn’t with Sam? “You call him with jobs?”

“He gave me his new cell number so the calls wouldn’t bother Lisa.”

He got the number from Sam, programmed it in. “Was he surprised to see you?”

Sam laughed. “Understatement. He almost shot me. Did all of the various tests on me while Lisa and Ben watched. I think I freaked both of them out pretty good. Didn’t mean to.”

“He’s with you, then?”

He shook his head. “No, well, yes, but not right now. He went back to Lisa’s to spend Thanksgiving and a few more days with them. You’ll find him there if you’re looking for him.”

Cas sat in the chair across from Sam and copied his pose. He wouldn’t find Dean there, but there had to be some reason Dean wasn’t telling Sam any of that. He decided not to mention what he knew, instead asking, “How were you resurrected?”

“You tell me. One minute I was falling into that prison and the next I was miles away. I made my way to Lisa’s, saw Dean was there, and tried to keep him from being pulled back in to the life. I successfully headed off a few things that ran his way, too.”

He glanced at the laptop. “Finding anything interesting?” When Sam had his laptop out and open, he was usually doing research. When Dean had had it out, it meant he was looking at pornography. Castiel remembered that.

“Actually, yeah.” Sam reopened the laptop, tapped and typed on the keyboard, and turned it. “I had a run-in with a demon who said that the angelic vessels were destroyed and that it had a list to prove it.”

Castiel studied at the screen, reading the email that had been sent to Sam. “Did it?”

“It said Lucifer ordered the execution of all regular angelic vessel lines along with the mates and children of those vessels. Can you verify any of that? He did send me a document attached, but it’s all gibberish, corrupted, and I’m having trouble restoring it. Every time I think I’ve got it, I run across something that proves me wrong.”

“Show me the document.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Sam opened a document. The page that appeared had what would look to any human like the gibberish Sam thought it to be. What it really was was a demonic script that hadn’t been used in centuries. An enterprising demon had translated the original squiggles using characters available on a keyboard into something that could be sent through a computer. It was still recognizable to Castiel. “The demon who sent this was old, high level, smart. It’s not gibberish, Sam. This is a coded version of an ancient demonic script.”

“There’s a demonic script?”

“Yes. Only the most pompous of demons choose to use it, however.”

“So it’s like the professors on a college campus who like to talk in Latin?” When Castiel didn’t answer, Sam continued. “Why send it to me like this? I can’t read it.”

“Perhaps the demon assumed you had Lucifer’s ability to read it remaining inside you.” He scrolled down the page, pausing for the briefest of seconds on a few names that only he could make out. Jo Harvelle. Amelia, Claire, and Jimmy Novak. There were more names throughout the document that Castiel recognized. The demon was right. It looked a full list, the number of names about right. “I’ll look into the claim.”

“Well, let me know what you find out, because if all these vessels and so forth are gone, correct me if I’m wrong here, but doesn’t that mean you angels are all screwed?”

“It’s a troubling idea, yes.”

“I mean, you need vessels to actually be on earth, right? To interact with us?”

“We do need vessels. They’re not an option. I’ll look into it,” he said again.

“Thanks.” Sam sat back in his chair, gesturing at him with a perplexed frown. “I gotta ask. Cas, what’s up with your clothes?”

He looked down at himself. He’d asked Jimmy to please put on a suit as a favor and while he had, it wasn’t quite what Castiel had had in mind. Jimmy’s sense of humor was becoming almost mischievous of late -- too much time hanging out with Gabriel most likely. He’d called the suit ‘snazzy’, which Cas supposed should have been a red flag right there. The suit was dark blue, so dark it was nearly black. While the shirt was a vivid turquoise blue, it had a white stripe in it and Jimmy had buttoned a vest over it. The tie was white, with sets of angel wings all over it. Castiel frowned. He hadn’t actually noticed the wings until now. The combination of all put together was rather garish.

“I’m…trying a different look,” he said in a halting tone that ended as a question.

A grin split Sam’s features. “It is different all right. Did you pick out the tie?”

“No.”

“Honestly? You should smite whoever did. That’s hideous, Cas. You should stick with what works.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied in a dry tone and quickly took Jimmy back to his house.

Jo took one look at him and started laughing She laughed until she was gasping for breath and had tears in her eyes. “You actually went out like that?” Raising a hand, she wiped her eyes. He noticed she had a streak of paint on her forehead and splatters on her loose t-shirt. “Oh…. I should have taken a closer look at you earlier. I wouldn’t have let you leave like that.”

Castiel pulled off the tan coat and tossed it over a chair. “Jimmy’s sense of humor can be trying at times.” He tugged at the offending tie until it was off and dropped it beside the coat. “Where did he find that tie?”

“He ordered it online from a place he found.”

He rolled his eyes. “Would you…hide it from him? Please, Jo.”

“Well,” she crossed her arms, “at least he didn’t use an old wings pin as a tie tack. He bought up several of those old pins from the antique mall across town.”

“Wings pin?”

“Yeah, they were pins airlines used to give out to kids as souvenirs. Looked like wings connected by the airline logo.”

“I see.” He sighed. “Perhaps I should let Jimmy wear whatever he wants.”

“Might be a good idea. You sticking around, or will Jimmy be back for dinner?”

“He’ll be back for dinner.”

Jo picked up the tie, chuckled as she studied it, and headed off down the hallway towards the master bedroom.

Castiel drew the phone from the coat pocket and sat staring at Dean’s number for long minutes. He wanted to call, but what would he say besides queries as to why Dean was lying to Sam as to his whereabouts? Several times, he almost called and each time he stopped. Dean should still have his number despite changing his own number. Castiel did know that much about switching phones. If Dean wished to talk, he’d call, right? Dean had to be well, otherwise Sam would have mentioned it. There was no reason to worry. Sam was well. Dean was well.

Before he could second-guess his decision, Castiel turned it off, returned it to the pocket, and left Jimmy.

~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t that Dean didn’t trust Sam enough to tell him that he’d split with Lisa. The problem was that he wanted Sam to think he had that life still. He was hesitant to admit that the apple pie life hadn’t worked out, since Sam had been so adamant that Dean have that life.

So he took off occasionally, telling Sam he was going home. Really, he’d drive a couple towns over from where they were and park at a motel to wait it out, sitting by himself and wondering if he’d ever have true happiness.

Only twice had he gone back to Lisa’s. The first time he’d gone to try to mend the fence with her after their argument about his returning to hunting. She’d accused him of losing all sense of reason where Sam was concerned and he couldn’t argue with that. The attempt had ended with him saying he’d be back and retreating to push the hurt behind a cheerful mask so Sam wouldn’t see the truth.

His next visit had been to gather the last of his things.

Lisa had chosen not to be home that time. In the small box she’d packed for him, he’d found an envelope with a letter from Ben. The kid had left him a goodbye letter. It twisted what felt like a knife in his gut even further and he’d scrawled a note of his own in return, putting it under Ben’s pillow where he knew Lisa wouldn’t look until she went in to change the sheets on Saturday afternoon. Ben would find the note and hopefully know it wasn’t his fault that Dean was leaving.

His returning to hunting had been the last straw with her. While she’d accepted him with open arms, he hadn’t been the man she’d remembered, and her disappointment in that showed the longer they tried to make it work. She’d expected his clean break to mean it was all in the past, but how could he explain that once hunting was in you, it was part of you.

Not to say that she wasn’t a good woman, because she was. She just wanted the man he’d been, not the man he was. Truth be told, he wanted the woman she used to be as well.

So far, Sam hadn’t called him on his lie, though he expected that window to run out soon. After all, Christmas was coming up fast and if he was with Lisa, he’d be wanting to go home for that, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He was staying here and spending it with Sam.

He waited several days after Thanksgiving before heading back to the motel. He pulled into the lot, leaned his head back on the seat a moment and took a long slow breath before forcing a smile and getting out of the car. Dean let himself in to the room. Sam was typing fast, hard at work on something.

“Hey, Sammy.”

“Just a sec….” He finished typing, tapped a button and closed the lid. “How’s Lisa?”

“Good, she’s good. Says hi.”

“Sure she does,” was the cynical reply.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He set his bag down and took off his coat.

Sam shrugged, crossed his arms. “It’s just that she wasn’t too thrilled to see me and have you leave with me for any length of time. I don’t think Lisa likes me very much, Dean.”

“She likes you fine.” Which was a lie. Sam had it right. She’d told him exactly what she’d thought of Sam letting Dean think he was dead for any length of time, not understanding the circumstances surrounding any of it. So, yeah, she didn’t like Sam.

With a snort, Sam leaned back in the chair. “Guess who popped down for a visit?”

“Elvis?”

“Cas.”

Dean froze. “Cas. Cas came to see you?”

“Sure did.”

“He surprised to see you?”

Sam laughed. “He asked the same about you. I think he was really looking for you. I told him to go to Lisa’s. Didn’t he make it there?”

“No, he didn’t. Strange.” Cas had to know he wasn’t at Lisa’s. He hadn’t told Sam, though.

“He didn’t call? I gave him your new number.”

“No, he didn’t call.”

“Maybe he was distracted. I asked him about something.” He stared at Dean a moment, then picked up a quarter of a thick stack of papers and held them out. “I got this from a demon.”

Dean took the stack, began scanning through the pages. He couldn’t make heads or tails of anything on the pages “What’s this? Demonic honey-do list?”

“Something like that. Supposedly, it’s a list of vessels.”

“Supposedly?” He glanced at Sam, then back at the pages.

“I asked Cas to confirm it and he hasn’t gotten back to me yet. He said that the gibberish isn’t gibberish, but an ancient demonic script that only the most pompous of demons would use.” He bowed his head in a slow nod. “Which seems about right given the tone of the email the demon sent me.”

“They’re sending emails now? Time to change it again, Sam.” He flipped through the rest of the pages Sam had given him, then dropped them back on the table. “Huh. Demonic script.” Dean took a beer from the cooler at the end of one bed and popped it open, taking a long swallow. “What’s with the list?”

“The demon said Lucifer had a kill order out on all of the people on it.”

Dean thought a moment. “So the angels are screwed if that list turns out to be a long list of dead people.”

“Pretty much. A bunch of dead vessels can’t be good for them.”

“Made any headway on translating?”

Sam laughed. “Uh…no. I don’t have the resources for actual translating. The only person I can think of who might have an idea where to begin….”

“Is Bobby,” Dean finished for him. “In other words, we need to head over to Bobby’s and make use of his resources.”

They’d been putting off contacting Bobby. Dean had his reasons and knew had Sam had his own, the main one being that Sam was supposed to be locked away with Lucifer. Going to Bobby’s would mean they’d have a ton of explaining to do when neither had anything but general guesses.

“If we’re heading that way next, I’ve found a couple jobs we can do on the way that look relatively easy and might actually pay something.”

“Actual pay? Do tell. Give it to me, Sammy.”

In minutes, they were discussing possible jobs.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ellen and Bobby were in the middle of a friendly argument about which file would be a better use of their time when they heard a car approaching.

She peered towards the front of the house. “We expecting company?”

“Not today. Get hidden,” Bobby hissed, motioning towards the back of the house.

It was his usual response to someone showing up without calling first. Ellen did as he asked, reaching for a gun as she went -- just in case. She waited and when Dean appeared, she wasn’t sure what to really say to him. Ellen met him, tears stinging her eyes. It was good to see him again and when Bobby returned with Sam, she had to fight to keep the tears from falling freely, hugging both of them as tightly as she could.

She didn’t mention Jo to either of them, though she dearly wanted to. By quick mutual consent in mouthed words and shakes of their heads, she and Bobby decided not to. Maybe if Dean had arrived by himself they would have said something about her, but he had Sam in tow. While Dean trusted that Sam was Sam, Ellen and Bobby chose caution -- at least for a little while.

Together, she and Bobby recounted her story for them, Ellen giving her side and Bobby filling in what he knew.

~~~~~~~~~~

Castiel wasn’t answering his phone. Dean had left several messages and still Cas hadn’t returned his calls. Normally, Dean would think Cas was busy with angel stuff, but he was starting to feel like his angelic friend was avoiding him. He thought about that on the meandering drive to Bobby’s, unable to think of a reason why Cas would avoid him. He knew it was going to bother him until he did hear from Castiel again.

He took the turn-off to Bobby’s. “We ready for this,” Dean asked Sam as he parked in front of the house.

“As we’ll ever be, I guess.”

“All right. I’ll go up first.” He looked at the house. Bobby would have heard their arrival by now and would be waiting inside the door. With a long sigh, he got out of the car and went to the front door. It opened before he could knock.

“Dean.” Bobby looked him over, then stepped out. “You look terrible.”

He had to chuckle. “Nice warm welcome. You look a little like death warmed over yourself. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

“I hear you.” He gestured at the car, eyes narrowing, suspicion in his voice. “Who’s with you?”

Dean took a step to the left, half obliterating Bobby’s view of Sam in the passenger seat. “It’s Sam, Bobby. Sam’s in the car.”

Fear glinted in Bobby’s eyes. “Tell me you didn’t. Not again.”

He rested his hands on his hips and sighed. “You think I’m stupid enough to try making a deal twice?”

Bobby stared at him a beat, then answered with an emphatic, “Yes.”

He blinked, rolled his eyes. “You do know I’m not as stupid as everyone seems to think I am? Being a hellhound’s chew toy once was more than enough for me, thank you.”

“No, I know you’re not stupid, but you’re more than a little nutty on family.”

It was a good point, he had to admit that. “He came to me, Bobby and I did all of the tests. He’s really Sam.”

“You’re sure.”

“Positive. He showed up, scared the crap out of Lisa. She thought we had a burglar.”

“Speaking of Lisa…. She okay with you leaving with Sam?”

He looked down at the porch floor, recalling the heated argument they’d had over it. She hadn’t understood why he’d even stick a toe back into hunting when he’d gotten out of it and he couldn’t seem to explain it to her no matter how many times he’d tried. “Yeah, she was fine with it.”

“Liar.”

“Look, Sam doesn’t know how he got free, he just knows it happened and he’s been doing jobs.”

“Why’d he find you?”

“Said he needed my help.”

“He gonna sit in the car all day?”

“No. We thought you might shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Reasonable assumption.” Bobby started towards the car.

Dean was going to follow, but he heard a noise from inside the house. Who was here? And why hadn’t whoever it was come outside as well? He went into the house rather than follow Bobby, moving quietly. He hadn’t gone far, when a person stepped into view.

Ellen Harvelle.

He stopped and stared, hardly breathing as he looked her up and down. She looked good, if a little thinner than he remembered her being. “Ellen? Are you…. You’re alive.”

“Hey Dean.”

He continued to stare at her, trying to understand her presence, alive and well in Bobby’s house, blurting out the next thing that came to mind. “You couldn’t put me on speed dial?”

“You changed the number on me and didn’t give Bobby your new one.”

“Um…” He blinked. She was right. He’d opted for a clean slate, buying a new phone and leaving the contacts blank save for those he met with Lisa and Ben. “Yeah…I did…change it.” He’d kept the old phone, buried it in the bottom of a box and when he’d left Lisa’s that last time, he’d brought that old one with him, fully intending to transfer all the contact numbers one of these days.

Her hug was fierce and warm and when she pulled back, her hands cupped his face a long moment. “I’m damn glad to see you, Dean.”

“You look well,” he tried, but she released him with a smile and a chuckle.

“Liar. I look old.”

Sam and Bobby joined them and he watched her greet Sam with the same hug, the same long touch. He didn’t remember Ellen as being a touchy-feely person before. Had she always been this way and he just didn’t remember it?

It was on the tip of Dean’s tongue to ask about Jo, but he refrained. Ellen looked fairly happy and at ease, better than she had in as long as he’d known her. There was a peace in her eyes he hadn’t noticed before, as though she’d found a place in life where she was perfectly comfortable and didn’t mind staying awhile. He found he didn’t want to see that peace fade.

That Jo wasn’t here indicated to Dean that she hadn’t returned and that Ellen didn’t mention her confirmed it. He held his tongue.

Over coffee, Ellen told them how she’d woken up months earlier in Sioux City, Iowa. She told them of the man who’d visited her and Dean made a mental note to ask Castiel about him when he eventually made contact with him again. Then Bobby took up the story, giving his version, telling how he’d tested Ellen and how he’d continued to do so, a thing that made Ellen’s brows raise.

“Thanks, Bobby. Where’s the trust?”

“Like you don’t do it to me,” he retorted.

Her lips curved up in a fond smile. “Par for the course. So, what brings you boys this way?” And just like that, Ellen was all business.

Sam glanced at him. “Well…. Demons are talking. There’s a rumor that Lucifer had a list of angelic vessels and a kill order out on them.”

Dean held up a hand. “Not archangel vessels. This is regular grade vessels we’re talking about, like Castiel’s vessel.”

“He didn’t mention that when he was here,” Bobby said.

“Cas was here? When? Why?”

Ellen shrugged. “He came to see me. It wasn’t too long back, maybe a couple months or so. I don’t know. Haven’t exactly been keeping track of the days. He’s shown up a few times since then, but never says anything, just looks and leaves.”

“Yeah? How….” Dean cleared his throat. “How’d he look? He okay?” Everyone else in the freakin’ world had talked to Cas, except Dean. He hadn’t heard one peep since that day in the car months earlier, but Castiel had stopped to chat with Sam and now he’d chatted with Ellen and Bobby as well.

“Looked fine to me. Good.” Ellen sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. “He was rockin’ quite a casual look instead of that suit he used to wear.”

He exchanged a look with Sam and raised his brows in speculation. “Casual?” Castiel didn’t change clothes. He saw no need to change clothes, a thing Dean had argued with him on several times. The fact that he’d worn a different suit when he’d seen Sam was strange.

“Very much so. Jeans, button-down, jogging shoes.”

Sam shrugged his brows. “Could be Jimmy changing clothes.”

“No. Well…maybe.” Dean frowned. “Cas wouldn’t just ditch out of him unless….”

“Boys?” Ellen’s voice was curious. “What’s going on?”

“Well,” now Sam leaned forward, “if the number of vessels is low enough, it’s not out of the realm of possibility the angels might let Jimmy go back to his family, maybe even ask Jimmy and Amelia, that’s his wife, to consider having more kids. The angels need vessels. If they’re desperate enough --”

“They might create a whole new identity for Jimmy,” Bobby finished for him. “And for any other vessels to hide them.”

“Yeah. Maybe even make an agreement with Jimmy that he’d only be a vessel half the time or something.”

“They’d be cut off from their previous life -- family and friends -- for safety.” Ellen looked thoughtful, exchanging a long, weighted look with Bobby and appeared to having a long conversation via grimaces, smirks, rolled eyes, and nods.

“What’s going on,” Sam asked, shooting a puzzled glance at Dean, who responded with an equally baffled glance of his own.

Bobby cleared his throat. “Never you mind. What brings you here besides the late-breaking news?”

Sam cleared his throat. “What do you know about demonic script?”

Bobby’s lips pursed and his expression shifted to one that indicated a long, involved lecture was at hand.

~~~~~~~~~~

Surely Jo wasn’t a vessel.

Ellen was quiet as Bobby launched into a lecture about demonic script, pondering the idea. It fit the facts at present, though wouldn’t Castiel have said something at some point before Jo had died? She would have thought that she would have known it if Jo was a vessel. Maybe she was and it had been kept a secret?

She listened to Bobby’s lecture with half an ear, getting the feeling that the explanation wasn’t quite right. They were missing some tidbit of information that would bring it all together for her.

After awhile, Ellen got up and went into the kitchen to make something for dinner, unsurprised when Bobby began pulling books out and adding to the lecture. Dean’s eyes had begun to glaze over by the time Ellen had dinner ready. He complimented her cooking with lavish praise, avoided any and all questions on the woman Lisa, and looked very much like he was trying not to ask Ellen something. Though she waited, he never did ask her whatever he wanted to, leaving with Sam the next morning on a search for the man named Jimmy Novak.

They said they didn’t expect him to have all the answers they needed. They just hoped he had one or two.

She and Bobby wished them well on their search and spent the next four days arguing over whether or not Jo was an angelic vessel.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sam began the search for Jimmy, quickly discovering an article on Amelia and Claire. He winced at the date. It was right after Carthage. He looked at Dean. “Jimmy’s family is dead, Dean.”

Dean muted the tv and sat up. “When? What happened?”

“They were reported as missing by Amelia’s family and their bodies were discovered right after Carthage. Their corpses were mutilated and the article says they were tortured before they died.”

“Damn. Do you think they were brought back?”

Sam sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know. I guess we’ll see when we find Jimmy. That is, if he’s still got the same name.”

He abandoned the computer in favor of watching tv with Dean, just glad to be spending time with him. When he’d gone to see him, he hadn’t expected Dean to jump back in to hunting. In fact, he’d done everything in his power to dissuade him from coming back as fully as he had. Sam suspected the decision had ruined Dean’s happy life with Lisa.

Though had it been happy?

Sometimes he got the impression that all had not been well with Lisa and Dean even before his arrival, but he didn’t pry. He let Dean keep that close to his chest until he wanted to talk.

He knew Dean was lying to him, he just wasn’t sure about what exactly. It was something with Lisa, that much was certain. Whenever Dean returned from spending time with Lisa and Ben, his smile was too cheerful, his relaxed air forced. He was a man making a very good show that would have fooled anyone else in the world. All except Sam.

Dean was hurting and Sam decided to wait a little while longer before probing into the cause of that hurt.

~~~~~~~~~~

Meg remembered the order Lucifer had given to kill vessels and the families of vessels, yet by then she’d been planning her disappearance and hadn’t paid too close attention to names or details, merely concerned with saving herself. She should have. If she’d paid attention then, maybe she wouldn’t have lost that particular prized list of vessels to Sam Winchester. Of all the people to show up and bite her on the ass!

How had Sam survived being a vessel? It wasn’t like Lucifer would have willingly jumped from him back into the prison and left Sam standing. So what had happened and did she care to find out?

Yes, she cared. It pissed her off that Sam Winchester, hell any Winchester at this point, seemed to have more lives than a cat. She wanted to come up against him and Dean both one more time, strip the flesh from their bodies and drink in the sounds of their agony. She wanted to kill them and make their deaths linger.

The smarmy little demon that had taken her place in Lucifer’s entourage had given the document to Sam without even a blink of his host’s watery eyes. He’d tried to ingratiate himself to Sam, no doubt remembering that Sam was still Lucifer’s vessel despite the Apocalypse having been thwarted and Lucifer being thrown back into prison. Or maybe he was simply trying to survive.

She’d had to torture him before he’d given her the names of the empty vessels running around. Aside from the archangel vessels, there was one vessel who’d escaped the purge: a man named Jimmy Novak. She’d have to settle for Jimmy to begin with.

She did her research, searching for his name. The first thing she found was an article. It detailed the investigation surrounding the deaths of two females, Amelia and Claire Novak, describing in cool terms how they’d been tortured and mentioning that Amelia’s husband Jimmy had gone missing long before they’d gone missing themselves. By the description of what had been done to them, Meg had a pretty good idea which demon had had a go at the two. He was a master at his work, not as accomplished as Alistair, of course, but one to make certain maximum suffering was obtained before death was granted. Meg’s glance passed over the pictures of Amelia and Claire, settling on the picture of Jimmy.

She licked her lips and smiled, her hunch as to who he was confirmed. She’d been right. “Well hello there Castiel’s pretty little vessel.” Meg blew a kiss at the picture. “We’re going to have some good times baby, just you wait and see.”

Castiel had left his vessel out in the open for the plucking and Meg intended to make him pay for Castiel’s actions. The holy fire had been excruciating. Well…. He’d pay after she’d had a bit of other fun with him.

In minutes, the article was printed and Meg carefully folded it so that the picture of Jimmy Novak was on the outside. She slipped it into her pocket and shut down the computer. Her boots made no noise on the carpeted floor as she crossed to the bodies of the two librarians she’d killed earlier that night. Blood had pooled around them and she carefully avoided stepping in it. Crouching, she took the ring of keys from one.

Meg locked up the library, tossed the keys in a dumpster on her way out of town and moved on to the next location. Now that she had a name, it’d take no time at all to locate the very desirable Jimmy Novak.