The next week or so goes smoothly. Things are pretty calm, and with no new murders to look into, Castiel and Charlie continue looking at old leads. They actually think they solve a case from a year ago, and now they're just looking for more evidence before they act on it. Overall, it's a pretty productive week, and Castiel is feeling a lot better in every sense of the word.

Usually Castiel likes when things are exciting. His favorite moments on the field tend to be the dangerous ones, and he's always been less fond of desk work. Right now, though, he kind of likes the desk work. It's calm and quiet, something he hasn't had too much of lately and for once, he feels really productive doing it.

That doesn't make him any less excited when he and Charlie get a call from Jody half an hour before their shift ends about a murder at the local Target.

"Fuck yeah," Charlie whispers. "I love when people die!"

Castiel elbows her in the ribs. "Don't say that!"

"What?" she says defensively. "It's not like he didn't deserve it. Jody said the dead dude's the one that tried to rob the store, right? Fuck that bitch."

Castiel rolls his eyes. "Yeah, but you shouldn't say it."

They head to Target, and Jody is waiting for them outside. She's talking with an employee -- at least he looks like an employee, but maybe it's just a customer who happened to wear jeans and a red shirt to Target -- but when she sees Castiel and Charlie walking towards her, her attention shifts to them and she waves them over.

"This is gonna be fun," Charlie whispers eagerly.

"You are such a fucked-up human being," Castiel whispers back.

They reach Jody and her witness, whom she introduces as Nathan, one of the "Executive Team Leaders," which he's pretty sure is just a fancy word for "manager."

"Were you here when it happened?" Charlie asks him.

"I was," he says. "I was watching the self checkout at the time, so I was right there."

"Do you mind telling us what happened?" Castiel asks.

"Of course," Nathan says. "I'd been watching self-checkout for about 20 minutes, covering one of the other team members' breaks. The only two cashiers at the time were minors, so I kept looking back to make sure no one needed help ringing up alcohol. I just happened to look back when some guy was at register one, no cart, no nothing, and he pulled a gun.

"He fired off a couple shots at the ceiling and threatened to shoot everyone there if the cashier didn't give him all the money in the register. The cashier -- Sarah -- she'd only been here a couple weeks and she was absolutely terrified, so I started to run over there. I was just gonna give him the money. What a thousand dollars to a multi-billion dollar corporation, right? As long as no one got hurt, it would be worth it. And then some guy at one of the self-checkouts pulled out a gun and just freakin' shot him."

Castiel's jaw drops. That's it? He knew it was the shooter that was dead -- that's about all Jody was able to tell him over the phone -- but he figured it was more complicated than this. So some random guy just happened to have a gun on him while the store was being robbed, and he was sane enough to use it? Wow. He knows weapons aren't allowed on Target property, but god damn, that guy deserves a pat on the back for that.

"What happened to the guy?" Charlie asks. "Uh, the second guy, not the dead guy."

"He just left," Nathan says. "He put his gun away, grabbed a box of chocolate bars -- you know, the ones at the self-checkout that you can buy the bars individually -- and his bag, voided his transaction, and left. Didn't pay or anything."

"Did he say anything?" Charlie asks.

"It was pretty loud so I'm not entirely sure," Nathan says. "I asked him to stay 'til the cops showed up, told him that he probably wouldn't get in trouble and that I'd even pay for his stuff for him as a thank you. It was the least I could do, you know? And I think his response was something like, 'No, but I will accept this chocolate as a thank you,' and then he just walked away." He adds, more apologetically, "I didn't think to follow him. I was too worried about Sarah to think straight. I have no idea where he went."

"That's fine," Castiel assures him. "Target has the best security of any store I have ever seen." He's acutely aware of this not because he has much experience with Target but because Dean always told the Hunters never to shoplift from there. They have cameras everywhere and there's always at least one member of the security team on the clock. "I'm sure we can catch him on a camera."

"The self-checkout has a camera, doesn't it?" Charlie asks. "Is that recorded?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, it is," Nathan says. "Do you want to see the video? I'm sure Cheryl can pull that up for you." After a pause, he adds, "Cheryl works with security. She's really nice."

"Can you show us where we'd watch this video?" Jody asks.

"Yeah, c'mon, the security room is right inside."

As it turns out, Nathan really isn't kidding when he says it's right inside. It's behind a one-way mirror right next to the door, and the self-checkout is right in view from inside. Well, that's convenient. It's already taped off with crime scene tape, and Castiel catches a glimpse of the dead body as he walks by. A single shot straight to the head. Impressive.

Cheryl is already inside, working with one of the computers. Nathan introduces them, and they all shake her hand because unfortunately, as interested as Castiel is in watching this video (he's always found things like this fascinating; it's part of the reason he loves this job so much), chivalry is more important.

"Do you have a video of the shooting?" Charlie asks.

"I do," Cheryl says. "The guy shot the self-checkout machine he'd been using before he left so I can't pull anything from that, but the one next to it shows the whole thing. Just give me a minute..."

She pulls up the footage and skims through until she finds the right time stamp. From this angle, it's impossible to see who's at the other self-checkout registers, but register one is in plain sight, as is Nathan, who walks in and out of the frame as he paces back and forth. The first minute or so is just the cashier -- Sarah, apparently -- ringing up a mother with her two kids running in and out of the frame. Sarah gives them each a row of stickers, and they seem overjoyed.

When that transaction is over, Sarah moves on to the next customer. Just as Nathan had said, this customer doesn't bring anything to purchase, and with no warning that Castiel can see, he pulls out his gun and fires a few shots off at the ceiling. There's no sound, but when Sarah opens her mouth, he knows it's a scream.

He aims his gun at the girl, only a few inches from her head. Just as Nathan had said, he runs back into the frame and straight for the register, which is definitely for the best: Sarah is crying much too hard to do anything about this on her own. Castiel has to feel sorry for the girl. All she wanted to do was make some money.

And then a dot appears on his head, doubtlessly a bullet wound, though it's difficult to see it too well with this shitty camera quality. He calls to the ground, and once again, Sarah screams. This poor girl is going to need all the therapy after this.

A few seconds later, our mysterious out-of-frame gunman appears, recognizable as such only because he's shoving a box of chocolate bars in his bag. He looks up at the self-checkout camera, pauses, then reaches for the gun, probably to shoot that one the same way he shot the first one. He seems to think better of it -- likely because there are so many camera in this goddamn store that one of them would catch him anyway -- because he leaves his gun alone. Instead, he just winks at it before walking past.

"And that's all we got on this camera," Cheryl says. "I can check the cameras outside the store and see if we caught something else."

"Okay--" Jody begins, but Castiel cuts her off.

"Hey, can we have a minute?"

Cheryl nods. "Sure. If you need me, I'll be around."

Jody raises an eyebrow, but it's not until Cheryl closes the door behind herself that she speaks. "What is it?"

"I can't take this case," Castiel tells her.

If Jody hadn't been confused before, she's sure as hell confused now. "What are you talking about? You --"

"This is gang-related and I can't take this case," Castiel interrupts, keeping his voice as level as possible. She doesn't have to know anything else. If she tells him this man is a Hunter, she'll take him off the case, and that's that.

"It's just a guy shooting a robber," Jody says, her eyebrows furrowed. "How is this gang-related?"

"That guy is a Hunter," Castiel says. That's all she has to know. That is all she has to --

"I'm pretty sure that was Dean Winchester," Charlie says.

Castiel clenches his teeth. That's what he was trying not to say. The cops never knew what Dean looked like. Even at the bank robbery, Dean was smart enough to kill the camera before it caught sight of him. With all the shit Dean's pulled, it's not fair that it's his decision to fucking help someone that exposes him.

"The dead one?" Jody asks.

Charlie shakes her head. "The one that shot him."

Jody looks to Castiel for confirmation. "Was it?"

Castiel, in a fit of stupidity, makes a split-second decision. "No."

"What?" Charlie gapes at him. "That was totally Dean Winchester."

Well, there's no turning back now. He might as well own it. "That definitely was not Dean Winchester. I can kind of see the resemblance, but it wasn't him." Is this gaslighting? He's pretty sure he's gaslighting them right now. Whoops.

"Are you sure?" Charlie asks warily. "I could've sworn..."

"It wasn't him," Castiel repeats.

"Who was it?" Jody asks.

"It was..." Fuck, he's already admit he knows them. If it's "not Dean," who the hell is he supposed to say it is? "It's..."

Shit, shit, shit...

Oh, wait, there's an easy way out of this.

"His name is on the tip of my tongue," Castiel says. "It's... What the fuck was his name?"

Jody raises an eyebrow. "You know he's a Hunter but you don't know his name?"

Castiel scoffs. "It's been 13 years since I've seen these people, and it's not like I was best friends with every single person I met. No, I don't remember his name. Sue me."

Jody puts her hands up in a mock surrender. "Fine, but if you remember it, tell me. 'Til then, the fact that he's a Hunter is a good lead. I'll put Ryan and Esposito on instead. I have a feeling he'll get off for the murder if he claims self-defense, but we'll get him on a weapons charge and the robbery at the very least."

"Are you sure?" Castiel asks. "I mean, all he did was shoot an armed robber and take a few candy bars. He might've actually saved some people here. Is it really worth pursuing?" He'd like to think they wouldn't find Dean anyway, but he's still not too fond of the idea of them looking.

"Yes, I'm sure," Jody says. "I mean, if he's really a goddamn Hunter, we have to find him. He could help us take them down once and for all."

Castiel forces a smile. "Right. You're right. That's a great idea."

Shit.