Notes: I do hope that this chapter wasn't too fluffy for you guys =P But I felt the need to wrap up some emotions for some of the crew. And please enjoy the last chapter of the Devil In You! =D

Disclaimer: Nope nope nope, ain't mine.

CHAPTER 13

The Impala breaks off from the Garrison ship not even an hour later, all of its crew let go with a promise by Hendrickson that he would handle everything else. Dean had no idea how the commander would come up with a way to explain eleven dead soldiers and dead civilian and how he let a ship with supposed connections to fugitives go, but Hendrickson said he would handle it and that was all that Dean could ask for.

The captain now stood in the bridge, watching out the window as the Garrison ship disappeared from view. Sam and Gabriel came in behind him.

"I can't believe you saved his sorry life and he still keeps the cargo, Hwoon dahn," (Jerk) Gabriel said sounding amused and a little annoyed as well. He had been looking forward to his share of the cash to buy more chocolate for him and Sam next time they were planet side.

Sam sighed next to him, "He had to Gabe. No way could he also explain letting us keep stolen cargo. Poor guy is going to have a rough time with his next report." Dean snorted at this.

"Dude, you really think with all the other shit he has to explain that they will really care about some boxes? Nah, he wouldn't let us keep it because it wouldn't be civilized," Dean says bitterly.

Out of the corner of the window they see three torpedoes shot out of the Garrison ship at the house of horrors. The derelict ship explodes into embers silently. And finally burned into nothing.

"No ghosts. Job done,"mumbled Dean.

"No ghosts," Sam repeated softly and rested a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. Fed up with the dark atmosphere Dean abruptly turned to the comm. system to address the crew.

"Hello friendly campers. I'm sure you all noticed the spectacular mess left behind in a few of the rooms on the ship, so it's clean-up time for all available crew! Let's go before all that blood stains the upholstery."

A resounding groan was heard all through the ship from the crew.

Sam, Bobby, Anna, Gabriel and Balthazar were tackling the infirmary. The Novak brothers were arguing at one end of the room over how the surgical equipment should be organized in the drawer. At the other end of the room Anna was picking up fallen machinery and fixing the sheets on the medical bed. Near the door Sam and Bobby were scrubbing at the blood on the floor. Sam could tell that Bobby was still shocked at the events of the day.

"Hey, Bobby. Are you okay. I mean, I know this whole…thing came as kind of a shock…" Sam trailed off when he realized that he really had no idea what to say, but Bobby seemed to pick up the meaning just fine.

"Don't worry about me, boy. My faith may have been shaken a bit. But that was because I had always thought that souls could be saved, that no one was too lost to be found again….I'm a Sheppard. I was trained to believe that even black sheep could still be part of my flock. But don't you worry. I'm no softy and I ain't apposed to growing and learning, even at my old age. I'm not going to be caught off guard again!" Bobby huffed out a laugh at the end of his answer and pulled out two flasks from his back pocket and handed them to Sam. Sam just looked at the two flasks and raised both eyebrows at the Sheppard.

"So what is this, holy water?" Sam asked.

Bobby snorted, "The first one is. The other one is whiskey." Sam just raised his eyebrows at the preacher before responding, "This is how you are going to handle everything?"

"Yeah well, what can I say? Life just has that effect on people." Bobby just took back his flasks and continued to scrub at the floor, looking determined and not scared like most people would be. Dean was right. This guy had spunk.

Sam thought harder about the Preacher's approach as he too went back to scrubbing away. He had been worried that the Sheppard would lose his faith when he learned of what had happened with the man turned demon, but he was handling it really well. He had holy water, so he still had faith in his God. However, he also had whiskey, an alternative remedy for a human in pain, and a sign that even a preacher of God was still as human as the rest of the world. Sam might have been worried if it was anyone else besides the man next to him. But that was because even though Sam didn't have as much faith in God as Bobby did, he did have faith in humanity, and that was okay.

Meg and Chuck were working in silence in the hold of the Impala, re-organizing the crates that the Garrison soldiers had strewn around the room while looking for fugitives. Chuck was lifting a box of small gears, when is spilled out in front of him. His hands had been shaking ever since they told him what had happened to the man from the ship. The idea that a normal man could be turned into…that. He just couldn't absorb that at the moment and now he was dropping boxes.

He bent down with a whimpering sigh to pick up the spilled gears. Reaching out his hand to grab the first one, he was startled to see another hand reach for a gear next to him. He looked up to see Meg helping him pick up the pieces. She had dark circles under her eyes and wasn't saying anything or even looking to meet his eye.

She was scared too, he realized. He didn't know if it was because she was as startled at the idea of being turned into a mindless monster, or if it was her normal self preservation tactic causing the normally unseen emotion to come out.

"Umm…thanks Meg." He stuttered out.

She sneered and continued to pick up the gears, "Oh Chuck, please. Mind your blood pressure."

Then finished cleaning up quickly and parted from the room without saying another word to each other.

Dean and Cas were the only ones cleaning up in the kitchen. Cas was righting the overturned furniture and Dean was trying to clean out the blood from the floor. It was a companionable silence, except for Cas' humming, but Dean found that soothing. It had been a very long and stressful day after all with an emotional rollercoaster ride thrown in for kicks and giggles.

Dean was having trouble with one spot on the floor. He had been scrubbing at it for a while now, but he had hardly noticed that he had started to rub so hard that his hands were turning red. He didn't even notice when his eyes started to develop tears in the corners. He rubbed harder and harder at the spot of blood on his ship, trying to make it clean once again, but the stain seemed like it would be a blemish upon the tiles forever.

He startled when a hand closed over his, stopping his frantic scrubbing. He turned to see Cas' concerned face an inch away from his. It looked like he was trying to see past Dean's skin like he did with the demon when he was first brought on the ship and Dean could only feel dirty. Like Cas had said before, seeing nothing, being dirty, being empty inside. What kind of shadows where in Dean? Would he be stained by the blood he drew, forever? Would he become a monster too…

His train of thought was cut off by Cas squeezing the hand that held the bloodied rag for a second. He then released his grip and Dean lifted his hand and the rag to see that the blood had been removed from the floor. Cas then moved his hand to Dean's chest, where he had been slashed by the demon from before, healing the long scratch, removing the congealed blood and leaving only a torn shirt behind.

Their eyes met as Cas pulled back.

"Don't forget what I said, Dean Winchester. You are a good man." Dean could have sworn he heard Cas put emphasis on the word "man".

Cas stood up and started to wipe down the counter while continuing casually, "You know I had a dream last night? I dreamt that I was a frog and when I woke up, I wasn't sure if I was a man dreaming he was a frog, or a frog dreaming he was a man. Truthfully, I'm still not entirely sure. I may never be sure what I am. But I think that while I'm dreaming I'm human, I'll just continue to act human because it feels right. I'll worry about being an amphibian if I wake up to find that I have a taste for bugs and develop a magnificently long tongue."

Whatever Cas had meant by that, Dean found himself somewhat comforted by it. He felt human, that was for sure. Only a human could feel this kind of emotional turmoil and guilt. And if he woke up some day feeling like a monster….well, worrying about it would solve nothing. Might as well just clean up what he could, set his ship right, and move on to the next job.

Dean spotted another stain next to him, and started scrubbing once again.

He snorted to himself, "Cas, did you catch a glimpse of that guy by any chance? Dude was fugly…"

A ship drifts closer to the Garrison vessel. Upon reaching a certain distance, the ship releases large grappling hooks that latch onto the Garrison transport, stopping it from escaping.

Hendrickson watches out of the large window of his vessel as the croat ship draws itself closer. He could do nothing to stop the missiles that came at his ship. He could do nothing to save his crew.

The demons had found them and there was no escape.

Not two minutes later the Garrison ship was blown apart. Leaving nothing behind but space debris that drifted off into the black.

I'm so sorry I had to kill Hendrickson again! D'X But anyway! I really hoped you guys enjoyed my supernatural take on Bushwacked! Be sure to check out the next part! It's already posted! The Impala Series Part IV: Honor Bound!