*~~ One Year Later, Hell Creek, Montana ~~*

The sun was directly overhead by eleven o'clock that morning. It was the kind of dry heat that seemed to suck everything out of you, the kind that had Dean doing the rounds with a plastic bag full of bottled water, making sure everyone was drinking twice as much as they thought they needed. Because inevitably, they were always wrong.

Luckily, his seniority had suddenly gotten a whole lot more valuable on dig sites once word got out that he was that Dean Winchester, the one that was on the island when the dinosaurs escaped. While at first he'd been loathe to bring it up, he'd adjusted to the strange kind of celebrity that he and Sam dealt with now.

It was irritating, though, to have to put up signs in every lecture and every appearance that he was not going to take any unsolicited questions about the events on Isla Sorna. Otherwise, he'd never actually get any teaching done.

It was the end of the digging season, so the newbies on this dig had long gotten over their initial star struck attitudes and buckled down to work. And true to form, they'd had a big break near the end of the season- one of the new interns, Jess, had literally stumbled over a vertebrae the size of a car battery.

Now Dean was just waiting on Sam to get back with the GPR images, and making sure none of his team passed out from the heat in the meantime.

"What do you think it is?" Jess asked him, her hair pulled back in a messy, low ponytail, tendrils of curls escaping here and there. Dean paused for a moment, because he thought he knew, thought he had an idea, but…he didn't want to jump to conclusions. Especially not about this.

"Don't know. According to you, it's a speed bump," he pointed out, and she grinned and gave him a shove.

"Asshole."

"You know it. Hey, Jo warned you."

"Well, Jo also said that if I can put up with you, I'd get to pick your brain about all the exciting stuff."

"I feel used, Jess. Used and abused."

Jess rolled her eyes just as Sam came out of the GPR tent, a paper held tightly in his hands and a frown on his face. He made his way over to Dean and hesitated before holding out the photo, a printout of the top-down view of the GPR.

"Jess, can we have a minute?" Sam asked, and Jess smiled.

"Sure. Are we still on for tonight?"

Sam blushed, looking a little sheepish. "Yeah. Seven o'clock, right?"

"Right," Jess said before winking at him and heading back over to one of the roped off areas, getting ready to set back into work. Dean raised an eyebrow at Sam, who just sighed.

"Shut up."

"I didn't say anything," Dean said with a smirk, finally looking down at the photo. His heart seemed to stutter a bit in his chest, and the smirk fell off his face as he realized that he'd been right in his guess; the skeleton below their feet was very obviously a decently well-preserved T-Rex. He would recognize that skull anywhere; he'd had more than a few nightmares with this dinosaur starring front and center.

"It's your call, Dean," Sam said, giving Dean a meaningful look. Sam hadn't had nearly the close encounter with the T-Rex that Dean and Castiel had; they had a deal about raptors, that any raptor digs would get handed off to another team, something that Sam greatly appreciated. They hadn't had the same deal about the T-Rex or the Spinosaurus, because really; how often do you run into those digs, anyway?

Evidently fate was sitting back with some popcorn and laughing right about now. Of all the times to dig up a T-Rex, it had to be now.

"Business as usual unless I call it off, okay?" he said, taking a deep breath, determined to not let those nightmares get the better of him. Sam nodded and headed over to the group working on some bone fragments nearby, the stuff they'd actually been working on when Jess discovered the vertebrae.

But Dean wasn't the only one who needed to make this decision.

As if on cue, he heard the distinct footsteps behind him, that halting rhythm that he'd come to recognize anywhere. He turned and smiled when he saw Castiel headed his way from the mobile homes parked nearby, his hand curved over the top of a wooden cane that he leaned on with each step, and a canvas bad slung over his shoulder. He was obsessive about keeping his notes and in-progress works on him all the time like that.

And every day, there was a little less pain on his face with every step. A year ago they weren't sure he'd ever be able to use his leg at all, even minimally; and here he was, walking around with little more than a cane for support and the occasional painkillers when he had a rough day.

"Hey babe," Dean said, tugging Castiel into a kiss and ignoring the catcall from somewhere behind them. "I was just about to come find you."

Castiel arched an eyebrow at him. "Oh?"

"Yeah," Dean said, licking his lips nervously before he held out the picture. "We, uh…found out what Jess stumbled on out here. If you're not comfortable with this, you know, you and I could head out early. Let Sam handle things here."

Castiel looked down at the photo, and Dean held his breath until Castiel let out a chuckle. "My favorite," he muttered, holding the photo back out to Dean. "I'll be fine, Dean. Promise," he added with a smile. "This is a big deal for you, right? Not like there's a T-Rex under every backyard in Montana."

Dean laughed. "I guess not. But you're more important to me than a dig, you know that."

"Mmhmm. The engagement ring kind of tipped me off to that," Castiel pointed out, and then he dug into the bag slung over his shoulder, taking out a thick paperback. "The final covers are in from the publisher. Wanted your opinion before we sent it to print."

Dean took the book from him, the cover black and sleek, and a very familiar skull and torso of a skeleton outlined in red behind the title. The T-Rex skull and claws loomed over the words, a rough font in white spelling out the words "Jurassic Park".

It was their story, his and Sam's and Jo's and Charlie's, all compiled into what had to be the most fiction-esque non-fiction book in a long while. It was every actual event written out, with only the names changed- not that it mattered much. Even with Castiel writing under a penname, anyone who cared to do a Google search could find out the real names of everyone involved. The whole thing had blown open; Dean had spent a third of his time the past year at his dig sites and the museum, and another third in courtrooms and depositions, going over every little detail of what had happened over and over. For some reason no lawyer was satisfied just reading his written account of the events.

The rest of his time had been spent getting Castiel moved in with him in Chicago, and making him attend his physical therapy, do his exercises, and take his medications. It was rather like trying to convince a cat to jump in a bubble bath.

Gabriel had disappeared entirely. Just up and vanished. The only clue they had that he was still out and about was the fact that Castiel's bank account gained four million dollars overnight about two weeks after getting home, and another 2 million anonymously got donated to Dean's department at the museum.

Evidently, he thought that dumping money on a problem would make himself feel better without actually having to face the consequences of his actions.

"It's good. It looks good," Dean said, breaking out of his train of thought and running his thumb over the raised letters on the front of the book cover. Castiel's smile brightened a little.

"Open it up, Dean."

Dean glanced at Castiel for a moment before opening the book, and on one of the first pages was the dedication: "For my fiancé, the man who carried me through hell and helped me learn to walk again, in more ways than one."

"I know, it's girly and cheesy and all those things you hate," Castiel said with a half-hearted shrug, but Dean let the book fall closed and pulled Castiel in close, kissing him on the forehead.

"I think I can tolerate it this time," he teased. "It's about time for my break. How about we head back to the RV?"

"You say it's time for your break every time I come out here."

"I'm the boss, it's one of the job perks. Are you complaining?"

"Your employees will. Especially if we don't keep it down like last time."

"Entirely your fault. You're loud."

"Not that loud."

Dean grinned. "That a challenge?" he asked, and then Castiel yelped in surprise as Dean scooped him off the ground, carrying him back toward the mobile homes.

"This is why I have a cane, you know. So I can walk. And beat you with it when you don't let me walk," Castiel complained, but Dean obviously had his mind on other things.

Not that Castiel was complaining.

After all, Dean more than made up for it once they got inside.