Chapter Text
*** Answered Prayers ***
Jimmy or Castiel or whoever he was when they were both asleep was breathing evenly. Dean listened to him and envied his ability to drift back to sleep so easily. Normally Dean was the master of the power nap. A hunter prone to insomnia was a hunter who never slept. You grabbed shut-eye where you could get it. Tonight, it wasn't happening. He was angry and frustrated and frightened by his own helplessness and, if all of that weren't bad enough, he was also a little horny--which particularly annoyed him, because Cas wasn't that cute either. This was not the sort of thing that normally kept him up at night.
He was thus already awake when the doorbell rang. Castiel sat up and, without a hint of groggy fumbling, grabbed his flannel pajama shirt from the bedpost and slipped it on. Castiel was already heading for the door while Dean was still trying to find his bathrobe.
Dean wrapped the robe modestly around himself and glanced at the kids' closed door as he passed. No sound at all to indicate they'd been disturbed. Perfect fake children.
Castiel opened the door and then turned back to Dean. He tilted his head in the direction of the open door without comment. Dean hurried to see who it was, somehow half-expecting to see Sam had turned up in the middle of the night. He certainly couldn't think who else would be ringing the doorbell at--quick glance at the clock--three freakin'o'clock in the morning.
It was Mary-Jane Jones. She smiled at them nervously. "Hi."
"Hi," they both answered.
"What are you doing here?" Dean asked.
And then she said the words that would normally make a slightly horny guy swoon to hear a beautiful woman say. They made Dean a little queasy.
"I'm here to answer your prayers."
"Excuse me?"
"Can I come in?"
Dean and Castiel stared at each other dumbly.
She sighed. "I'm not a vampire. I don't actually have to have your permission. I'm just being polite."
Dean shrugged and waved her in.
"So, what exactly--"
"Oh, cut the crap. You're not like the other humans. Let's not be coy about it. Okay?"
"Okay."
"So, what is he?" she whispered to Dean nodding at Castiel.
"He's a cartoonist."
"No, really. What is he? His aura almost sparkles."
Castiel frowned at her.
"Whatever you do," Dean said, "don't tell Heather Harrison that."
"Oh, get out! He's an angel? For real? Did you screw her? Heather will explode with glee if she's pregnant with an angel baby."
"I did not have sex with Mrs. Harrison," Castiel said.
"Oh, poor thing, so close. We never tell her. Agreed. Okay, so you're an angel and you're a what?" She examined Dean up and down and he tugged his bathrobe closer around himself although his reason for modesty was fading quickly now. "Because you read almost normal, but not really. Y'know?"
"I," Dean said with as much dignity as he could muster in his robe and slippers, "am a demon hunter."
"Is that like a demon who hunts?" she asked suspiciously.
"It's a human who hunts demons," Castiel said.
"Oh, good," she said brightening back up again. "I don't like demons. I have gates to keep those sons of bitches out."
"We noticed that, yeah. Is that what's messing with Cas?"
She nodded. "I suppose. Angels. Demons. Practically the same thing, right? Just a different uniform."
"It's more complicated than--"
"Yeah," Dean agreed. "That's it exactly. So, how's it work? Does Cas have to be outside the gates to restore his powers or can we just open the gates?"
"I'll admit I'm surprised he made it in at all. As soon as the gates closed behind you, you should have been shut down, helpless as a mortal."
"I was," Castiel agreed. "I am."
She tilted her head to one side and stared at him intently. "But your vessel should have been able to cast you out with barely a struggle."
Castiel nodded, but turned to Dean to answer. "Jimmy knows we have to succeed. To save the world. To save his daughter. He's in this voluntarily."
"Okay, so Castiel is an angel. I'm a hunter. What are you? A dryad?"
"I suppose you could say that. For the last two or three thousand years, I've been pretty much a dryad. Even before I got stuck here all bristley." She stuck her fingers out in all directions. "And, really, the thorn look is so two thousand years ago. I'm really more of a creeping vine kind of girl. Shallow roots. On the go. You know what I think would be fun?"
Dean shook his head. This conversation might have made more sense if he'd had a full night's sleep to back it up, but he doubted it.
"I think it would be neat to be a tumbleweed. Just for a little while. Like a vacation. Do you have any idea how long I've been stuck here?"
"Thorncraft is very pretty," Dean said, somewhat unclear on why he was trying to cheer the dryad up. "I love what you've done with the place."
"You know what's wrong with it though."
"The children are all puppets who burst into flames when they try to leave."
"It's in Illinois. Have you ever been to Greece? Ocean views that would make you cry. And I've been rooted in Illinois for over a hundred years."
"Also, flaming puppet children. Just saying."
"That was not me," she insisted. "At least not me-on-purpose me. I don't even understand how that happened. Uncontrolled energy discharge or something. I don't know. Physicists have never really been my area. Poets and writers mainly. The occasional sculptor. No physicists. Okay, one chemist once, but that didn't end well. It turns out creative inspiration and reactive chemicals are not always a good mix." She added in a whisper to Castiel, "He was missing a lot more than an eyebrow after that. And I had no idea what the Jeffersons were planning. I was literally in the dark on that one. And the truck, I never saw that truck. Paulie was just riding a bicycle minding his business and whamo. It was just there. And I know what you're going to say. Please, spare me the lecture. I've been listening to Robert go on and on about this since it happened. Paulie Baxter ran the stop sign, but seriously no one pays attention to the stop signs except Robert and he's the one who put them up. Anyway, HAT is going to start fining people for running stop signs, including bicyclists, oh, and also people who jaywalk while texting. Annie Muller saw what almost happened to you and she's a snitch."
Dean had been waiting for her to come up for air and when it was finally obvious that she never would, he just dove in. "What's your name? Because obviously we're not talking to Mary-Jane right now."
"Well, you kind of are. She's been here the longest, not counting Robert who is so boring." She rolled her eyes. "She doesn't have much of anyone to talk to and so we've sort of become besties. I can get inside her head easier than anyone else's."
"If you don't like Robert, why are you marrying Robert? I mean, why is she marrying Robert?"
She shrugged. "Not a lot of options. The younger kids, they'll have options, but Robert and Mary-Jane are kind of it for the first batch. And the vibrator just isn't doing the trick any more."
"Thank you for sharing. What's your name?"
"Thalia. Pleased to meet you." She held out her hand and Dean shook it limply.
"Thalia, the Muse of Comedy?" Castiel asked.
"Of course you are!" Dean spluttered, jerking out of the handshake.
"Not ha-ha comedy," she explained. "Boy-gets-girl comedy, opposite of tragedy. Or boy-gets-boy, that's not new either. Girl-gets-girl, lots of options."
"Muses aren't dryads," Dean protested.
"Although the earliest legends often equated the muses with nymphs," Castiel said.
"That's water not trees," Dean said.
"And who makes it rain on Tuesdays and Thursdays?" Thalia said brightly. "Water. Plants. On a spiritual level, there's not that much difference and a dryad is technically a nymph in a tree, so there's a lot of overlap in the terminology."
"So, what's with the kids?"
"What's with what kids?" she asked.
"What is with you and the kids? I don't recall anything about nymphs or dryads or muses requiring child sacrifices."
"What sacrifice? I told you, the fire thing, totally not my fault. I think that's a side effect of the binding spell since it's only ever happened at the edge of my range."
"But you insist on people having kids for you."
"I insist nothing. Ever. I'm a muse. Muses suggest. We don't insist. And I never even suggested. That's just Robert. Robert writes all the rules around here. He's the director of the academy. Not a teacher or a principal, mind you. That would involve having actual contact with the students. And children, despite my very best efforts, are still sticky. Robert is not having with the sticky. No, he's just the director. He writes the academic objectives and the memos and the alphabetical seating charts. And before you blame that on me, let me tell you, I have mellowed that boy out a lot since he got here. You have no idea. So, Robert put in the bit about kids. Me, I could not care less. The kids and I, yeah, we're in synch. Like we vibrate in resonance. The ones who were born here anyway. So the kids are cool. You can't imagine how boring it was when I was alone here. But mainly the kids are just a byproduct. A side effect."
"A side effect?"
"A side effect. Yeah. You know. Boy meets girl. Girl breaks out in babies. I never meant to trap any of the kids here. We just connect somehow. Young creative minds? I don't know. I think whatever is trapping me is trapping them. It's like--"
"Okay, but what's with the human lie detectors?" Dean interrupted before she went off on another tangent.
"Art is truth. It just is. Don't ask me why. It's just a muse thing."
"Okay, but how do you--" Dean fumbled for the words. "--do everything?"
"Excuse me?"
"The electricity without a power station. The successful money-making careers with no skills required. The kids who matched the description I made up on the fly. How?"
Thalia shrugged. "How do you blink? How do you walk? How do you toss something in the air and catch it?" She picked up a snow globe off the mantel and tossed it into the air. Before Dean knew it, two bunny mugs joined it. He didn't even remember that yesterday was delivery day. She spun them all effortlessly in the air.
"A juggling act," Castiel said with a nod.
"I believe the puppet metaphor was still more apt considering."
"I'm just pointing out--"
"We're going to argue about this now, too?"
She stopped juggling and sighed. "Boys, let's start over. I'm here to answer your prayers." She curtsied, smiled, waited. "Ta-da?" she added.
"How?" Dean asked.
She shuffled her feet. "I was kind of hoping that you'd know that part. I mean, would I still be in central Illinois if I knew how to get out, right? I had Robert burn out a chain saw and two welders on that trap they've got me in and it just won't budge. But you're special. You're the angel and his hunter sidekick, right?"
"Hunter and his angel sidekick," Dean said.
"Whatever. You want to end this. Believe me, I want to end this. So, you have an idea how, right? Right?"
"How did you get trapped here?"
She rolled her eyes. "Never trust a playwright. Seriously. They're like the movie producers of the pre-industrialized world. And, would you believe this, he was already married. So, I told him--"
"Short version!"
"And the next thing I know, I'm wrapped up in binding spells with a frigging thorn bush growing out of my head."
Dean picked up his cell phone and dialed Sam. He hadn't expected to get him at this hour, but at least figured he could leave another colorful voicemail message. Instead he got a recording. "'Not in service at this time due to weather-related outages,'" he quoted. "Does anyone know what the weather is doing in Minneapolis?"
Castiel walked over to the computer but before he could even pull up the weather site, Thalia tilted her head to one side and said, "Sixty percent chance of frogs tapering off to light tadpoles by dawn." Even she seemed a bit dubious about this.
"Okay, so obviously Sammy's a bit busy right now. We are on our own. But that's okay. We can do this."
"Dean, we should probably--"
"No, no. We can do this. I have an idea. This is basic magic. Thalia, question. Robert is a neurotic rule follower, yes? And he's the only guy here even close to Mary-Jane's age as you pointed out. So...you're a virgin?"
"Oh, honey, that armada sailed millennia--oh! You mean Mary-Jane? Yeah, totally."
"Dean, you know that doesn't--" Dean shushed Castiel before he could finish.
"We need to gather up a few things, holy water, incense, um, clothing. Clothing is important. It's hard to do really big magic in flannel."
"Why?" Castiel asked.
"Because flannel has a well-known dampening effect. Shut up."
"Should I change, too?" she asked. "Are there special magic clothes? Should I wear black or--"
"No, no. Just the opposite. A white dress. You should put on a long white dress. Something silky or lacy. You don't happen to have something like that lying around, do you?"
"Duh."
"Exactly. You go and get your white dress, a spool of red thread, and a potted plant."
"Red thread?"
Dean walked over to the sewing machine and picked up a nearby spool of thread. "Here. Red thread."
"Okay, white dress, red thread, and a potted plant. Any special kind of plant?" she asked.
"Just a living plant rooted in a pot that's mobile."
"Right!" She smiled broadly. "White dress, red thread, potted plant. Anything else?"
"Blood of a virgin. But you'll have that with you. So, just don't screw anyone on your way to the park and we'll meet you there."
"I think I can manage that," she said. "The blood part, that won't hurt will it?"
"Just a little pin prick. No worries. One more thing. When we give the word, can you open the gates? All four of them? All the way?"
"Sure. No sweat."
"All right. Go. Hurry. We have to be ready before sunrise."
She nodded and rushed out the door. Dean closed it behind her and turned to find Castiel glaring at him with his arms folded. He would have been an imposing figure if it weren't for the pajamas.
"You made all that up," Castiel said.
"Yes. Every word. But seriously, you need to get dressed, because we are not pulling this off with you in your jam-jams."
Castiel followed Dean into the bedroom. "Dean, you cannot just make up rituals like this."
"Yes. Yes, you can." Dean decided that for full magical power, he should have on non-sweaty underwear. He slipped on a fresh pair fully aware that Castiel was staring at him while he got dressed.
Of course, Castiel chose that moment to, well, be Castiel. "We should probably talk about the lingering sexual attraction between us. Now that Jimmy's orientation is no longer a secret, I believe it opens new options. Despite your insistence on adhering to heteronormative language and behavior patterns, you've been surprisingly responsive to physical intimacy."
Dean ignored him. "Remember what you said before about sex and virginity, about how the most important thing was human belief? Well, you're full of crap. Human belief means next to diddly squat. Humans believe all manner of bull without making it real. And there is no human more superstitious than a gambler and most of them still walk out of the casino considerably poorer for the experience. No, it's not human belief that makes magic. It's the belief of magical creatures. It's what the angels believe, what the demons believe, what the muses and dryads and fairy godmothers believe. She believes this will work. It will work."
"Lingering sexual attraction?" Castiel repeated, but he didn't even sound hopeful, just resigned.
"A little busy saving the day at the moment. Maybe we can talk about it later."
"Unlikely. We never do."
"Get dressed. No flannel. No plaid."
Castiel nodded and walked to the closet.
"And don't wear that stupid orange shirt. It makes you look like a popsicle."
*** Ending This ***
Dean expected to find her waiting for them by the time they'd changed and gathered up the random bits of things that seemed poetic enough to fit. Holy water. Silver dagger. Incense. Zippo.
Castiel was back in uniform. Suit. Tie. Overcoat.
She wasn't there yet. He should have realized you couldn't send a woman off with instructions to get into her wedding dress and expect her to be timely about it. He had horrible visions of her spending the next two hours curling her hair.
But, in fairness, she arrived not that much longer than they did and she was carrying a large potted plant.
"Thalia, really? Really? 'Mary-Jane?' I said potted plant."
She smiled at the marijuana plant in her arms. "Poetic symbolism," she said. "I thought poetry would be important for this. I stole it off of Bob and Debbie's back porch. Mum's the word, by the way. Robert doesn't know. He thinks it's a rare non-flowering geranium. And I was thinking about the tumbleweed idea and, y'know, maybe later, but right now I'm thinking I've done water. I've done earth. I've done fire, unintentionally mind, you, but done that. So I was thinking air."
"The Muse of Comedy," Dean whispered to himself. "Definitely the Muse of Comedy."
She set the plant down and turned her back to them. "I need someone to do my buttons."
"Castiel, you are officially in charge of buttons." Dean frowned at her dress. It was--indescribable. It was almost beautiful if you liked that sort of thing, but it raised your blood sugar a little just looking at it. It was not what Dean had had in mind when he'd conjured up images of virginal blood for ritual magic. It was white, in the places it wasn't bedecked in gauzy iridescent mesh that shifted colors in the lamplight from pink to purple with hints of blue and green. The skirt was massive and round. She must be full of crinolines or did she even have hoops under there? And on top of all the froth there were tiny multi-colored sprinkles. And they were sprinkles. Beads yes, but they looked exactly like the sugar bits that you roll a donut in for an extra dose of sugar.
She caught Dean's horrified expression. "Not one word out of you! I look like a giant cupcake. I know. Okay. There are only two dressmakers in town and I'm a muse, not a miracle worker. You suck."
Dean nodded. Anything he'd done would have been much, much uglier. And this wasn't ugly at all. It was just festive.
"And Rev JoJo likes it. She cries every time Mary-Jane tries it on. At least, I think in a good way. Anyway, if this works, this is the last time it'll be worn. Mary-Jane won't be sticking around, I don't think."
"Thread."
She handed him the spool of thread and he gave one end to Castiel to hold and handed the spool back to her. "Wind it around the iron work. All the way around the circle."
"What does this do?" she asked.
"It's better if you don't ask questions," Dean said. But he could see the doubt on her face so he had to come up with an answer for the question that had already been asked. "Cotton thread. Cotton is a plant. Which is stronger over time? A plant or iron?"
"A plant!" she said. Thalia swaggered a little. "Over time iron rusts. Plants keep growing."
"Right."
She returned back around the circle, twining the thread around the rail as she went, and then handed it back to Dean. He pulled out the silver dagger and cut the thread with a flourish and handed the other end to Castiel. "Now our angel has both ends," he added, in case she'd missed any symbolism. "And if you could open the gates now."
"All four?"
"All four. All the way."
Dean couldn't tell that anything had happened, but in a moment Castiel nodded. "They're open." Castiel's voice reclaimed that forceful gravel timbre that Dean always found a tiny bit comical.
"Okay, a dose of your own medicine. Prick your finger and make your wish."
Thalia did so with no noticeable hesitation and only a slight wince.
"Now, you, stand here," he motioned for her to stand with her back to the circle. "Facing the rising sun."
"The sun comes up over there," she said pointing some degrees to her left.
"Okay, fine, stand there. Face to the sun, back to the thorns. And, this--" He almost had her hold the marijuana plant again, but at the last minute decided that a triangle made for a better symbol. He took the spool of thread and tied one end around the potted plant, looped it loosely around one thorn on the shrub, looped it around her ring finger and then completed the triangle by tying it off around the potted plant. Once more he flourished the silver dagger, making sure she noted how mystical it looked, and cut the end of the thread. He sprinkled her and both plants with holy water--only a little since he didn't want to waste his supply.
"Is this like a marriage ceremony?" she asked looking at the thread around her finger.
"More like a divorce," he said.
She nodded. "Now what?"
"Now we wait." Dean glanced at his watch. He hoped he hadn't misjudged sunrise. The first rays should be rising before too much longer. "A little Latin for ambiance maybe," he suggested to Castiel.
"I could have done this in pajamas," Castiel said under his breath. But he continued to hold his ends of the thread and began chanting in Latin.
After a few minutes, she said, "I know this one. I think I dated the guy who wrote this. He was a drag."
"Different chant maybe," Dean suggested and Castiel veered off into another toneless drone.
And the sun began to rise. She stared at the horizon expectantly as the first rays filtered through the hedgerow. Dean decided that one more huzzah was called for.
"Now!" he said and flicked on his Zippo. He lit all three sides of the thread tying her to the plants and she watched over her shoulder as the thread quickly burned away. Dean nodded at Castiel who sent shimmering lines down his threads, engulfing the circle, the iron of which actually appeared to be melting. The small thicket of thorn trees wilted slightly. Even when in the best of health, the plants already looked nearly dead to Dean, so he had no idea if the slight sagging was significant.
"And you're free," Dean said.
She cocked her head to one side for a long time as if listening for something. And then suddenly she turned and ran. Out of the garden, out of the park, across the street, and then right down the center of Mulberry Street, she ran.
Dean started after her, but Castiel called after him. "Dean, we have to check on the children."
"They can wait. They'll still be asleep."
"You don't know that. If this worked, if they're no longer under Thalia's control, then there's no telling what they could get into."
"Oh, come on, they're tiny. How much trouble could they possibly get into?"
"How much trouble did your brother get into when he was a baby?"
"Well, yeah, but Sammy was special kinds of stupid."
"Dean, all children are that stupid."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"All right, I can go after her in the van. She can't run much faster than the minivan."
They went back to the house, where the girl was screaming and the boy was cheerfully smearing poop all over his crib. "So, you just handle the kids and I'll go track down Mary-Jane," Dean said, grabbing the car keys and running quickly back out the door.
He caught up to Mary-Jane less than a mile down the road. She'd stopped running and was walking along the shoulder of the road outside Thorncraft.
"You look like you could use a lift," Dean said when he pulled up alongside her.
She nodded wearily. "These boots were not made for walkin'."
"Hop in."
"I don't think I'll fit," she said, but she climbed in and eventually got most of her ruffles and whatnot stuffed inside the vehicle. A few bits flapped outside the door in the breeze, but she didn't look like she cared.
"So, breakfast?"
She nodded. "I could go for breakfast."
"Denny's Grand Slam?"
"I was thinking maybe I could try an Egg McMuffin," she said.
Dean nodded, but bit his lip. "Um."
"Maybe we should park at the Denny's," she agreed. "And walk that last little bit."
"Good plan."
He wondered what people made of the bride walking along the highway junction to get to the McDonald's. When they got to that spot where Haylee had once turned back, she stopped, took a deep breath, and slowly shuffled forward. And then she took a slow full stride. And then another. And then she laughed and was running again.
The kids behind the counter at the McDonald's stared at her and one of them finally asked, "Getting married?" but she just smiled and said, "Nope." Then she turned to Dean and said, "You're paying, right? I don't have pockets in this thing."
Dean bought her a McMuffin and a coffee and hashbrowns and they sat and ate at the tables out front by the Playland which held no children this early in the morning.
"She was really an ancient goddess or something?" Mary-Jane asked.
"Something like that. You didn't know?"
"Until last night, I didn't even know she existed. Not really existed. There were times over the years when I'd watch myself doing something without really knowing why. Or I'd want to do something and I just couldn't. That was really frustrating. But, I never realized there was someone else actually controlling me. I thought, I guess I thought I was just a little crazy. But this Thalia was trapped--" Her eyes widened and she put down her coffee abruptly. "Oh, God, did we just leave her inside a marijuana plant in the center of town?" she whispered.
"Castiel has the plant. I don't think she's trapped anymore anyway, but we promise to roll her up and hand her out to as many traveling hippies as we can just in case."
Mary-Jane laughed. She toasted him with her coffee cup, "To air!"
"To air!"
*** Epilogue ***
"Leia, you have to get dressed," Castiel said.
"My name is Leah!" she shrieked. "Lee-Uh."
"You still have to get dressed."
Dean closed the door on them and walked back to the living room. "Are you sure she'll be okay? It's not like raising, well--"
Debbie Jones laughed. "Oh, honey, Robbie was a holy terror before we moved here. This little girl is a princess. She just wants to make sure everyone knows how that princess's name is pronounced. That's her right."
Dean nodded guiltily.
"Bob and I are looking forward to the foster parent gig. It will be a nice change of pace." Debbie's smile faded slightly from bright sunshine to merely wistful. "I don't know exactly what happened here, but when it happened, it was a godsend. And now that it's stopped happening, well, there's some folks who'll be a bit cranky, especially until we get the power connected out here, but they'll all get over it. Or else they'll move away. That's the way the world is."
"I'm afraid we may have ruined a few careers. Not a lot of professional poetry jobs out there." Dean didn't exactly feel guilty about that, defensive maybe, but not guilty. He'd already had to resist snapping at a harried father at the corner store that morning. The man couldn't understand what had gotten into his kids all of a sudden. Dean wanted to yell at the jerk, "I do: they're kids!" But very few people had connected the power outage and the no-longer-perfectly-behaved children with the new neighbors and Dean thought it would be best to get out of Dodge without attracting any extra attention.
"We've had our first casualty already, the cupcake shop."
"Ouch. The cupcake shop?"
Debbie nodded. "They took out a pretty hefty start-up loan with no tangible collateral since the storefront itself is a rental. The man from the bank was initially quite charmed by their business plan."
"Charmed in the literal sense of the word," Dean added.
"But when he came out to discuss a requested extension..."
"The spell had worn off."
"Exactly. And I got the call from my agent. Thorncraft Publishing's contract with the national distributor won't be renewed. Apparently it's no longer cost-effective to market limited-interest books on such a wide scale."
"Sorry about that."
"No worries. Seth's taking it the hardest. He really thought that bunny book was his ticket to fame."
Dean tried to look sympathetic, but he was pretty sure he was failing. "God, those were stupid-looking bunnies," he muttered.
"John Metzger, meanwhile, wasn't even phased. He's got a two-hundred- thousand-word manuscript on lamp posts that he just shipped off to a vanity publisher. He doesn't even seem to care that this one's going to lose money. Mind you, Sandra is ready to bean him with it."
"The Great Thorncraft Recession begins."
"It might not be that bad. This was a place of ideas. Our muse has gone away, so the ideas are drying up, but it may take a while for it all to wind down. Anne VanderWeyden borrowed your idea and sent free dresses to a couple of young starlets. Now she has orders. I guess Ms. Appleton was right. Anything is fashion if the right people wear it."
"Ms. Appleton took Luke back this morning," Dean said. "She was amazed at how healthy and happy he is. Says they'll have no trouble finding a family to adopt him now. You don't think Leia, I mean Leah, will miss him?"
"She calls him Poop-Face," Debbie said. "I don't think they exactly had time to bond."
"How's Rob holding up?"
"Poor thing. I tore up the damned contract and told him, married or not, he had to move out to his own place. He was driving me batty. He's at a complete loss without her."
"He never had much of a Plan B for life without Mary-Jane, did he?"
"Oh, not her. I mean, you know, her. He was our little dictator, I suppose. No one knew why, just like no one really knows why they don't pay him any attention now, but he senses it and he's beside himself. He's written more memos in the last thirty-six hours than in the last year."
"Yeah, I tagged his name in my spam filter," Dean said.
"Me too," Debbie admitted. She held the door for him as he carried his bags out the front door. "So where are you boys off to now?"
Dean loaded the last of his belongings, his real belongings that he planned to keep, into the minivan. "We are off to save Minneapolis."
"What's wrong with Minneapolis?"
"I'm not sure, but I think my brother broke it. Cas! Are you coming?"
Castiel walked out of the house and handed the struggling and still only half-dressed child to Debbie. Leah stuck her tongue out and blew them a raspberry as they pulled out of the drive. Debbie laughed and waved.
They drove out of Thorncraft's permanently open gates and chugged down the road in second gear. "Cas, I try not to take advantage of the angel powers for frivolous stuff, but Minneapolis is a hell of a long way away in second gear. Can you do anything about this transmission."
Castiel held out one hand indifferently and in a moment, the engine revved and the ride smoothed out. Dean shifted it into drive and felt the automatic transmission take them up the extra gears.
"Now can you do something about the color?" he asked.
There was silence and he turned and looked at the empty passenger seat.
"I hate it when he does that."
Dean turned north on the highway and aimed the minivan in the general direction of Minneapolis.
THE END
