A/N: This story is dedicated to my Aunt Cam, a gift from my heart to her for Christmas. Supernatural and Castiel are not mine, as much as I wish they were. Cas in particular. :D

Christmas Eve Angel

The weak rays of the setting sun filtered through the heavily overcast sky, and the cold from the chill winds outside bled through the giant plate glass windows as Christmas Eve arrived to greet the weary passengers filling the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta. Shoulders sagging as they slumped tiredly in the rows of seats filling the concourse waiting areas down the long row of gates, standing and fidgeting with their phones or electronic gadgets, crowding around the various gate check-in desks as they sought information about delayed and cancelled flights…and there were a lot of those. So many that the crowds had only marginally thinned as the holiday evening drew closer, people that long ago should have been off and on their way to their destinations, meeting family and friends and enjoying Christmas Eve somewhere far from this place and certainly more hospitable than a cold and sterile airport.

…Please God, let me get home in time to watch Ethan open his Christmas Eve gift…

…Lord, I need a break right now, just give me a break…

One figure stood a bit apart from the rest of the scattered crowd, or at least as apart as one could be in an airport concourse full of people. He was standing against a column, positioned in such a way as to see both directions up and down the long hallway…an observer of all that was going on but yet not really a part of it. The angel Castiel watched, and listened, and stood so still that he practically became part of the terminal, his presence unnoticed by his fellow travelers.

…God, I need a drink right now, I can't believe my flight was delayed again...

Cas was on his own, having followed a lead on the Horseman Pestilence. It concerned a possible threat that the Croatoan virus was intended to be unleashed in one of the busiest airports in the country...and fortunately the rumor proved not to be true. Now he found himself without any crisis, tragedy, or demonic activity to occupy himself with…a rare moment of calm in a world with a rapidly diminishing reservoir of those. Dean and Sam were still grieving the loss of their friends, throwing themselves into a current issue with a were up in Denver, and planning an infiltration of a hospital where one of their hunter friends had a possible spook problem. So Castiel decided to leave them to resolve some of that grief through action and not interfere unless something happened that would directly require an angel's presence.

…Please help me Jesus, I can't miss Christmas with my family again, I need to be there this time…

…All I want is for my brother to be home, God…please let him be well enough to come home from the hospital and spend one last Christmas with us…

The angel looked around him, letting his eyes focus on nothing in particular as he listened to all the prayers whispering through his mind. So many people, so many problems…trivial things and great gaping holes of grief, petty irritations and personal sadness. Very few thoughts were full of contemplative and positive energies in this evening that should have been about remembering the birth of Christ. Instead their thoughts were filled with a bone-deep weariness and the frustrations from not being able to be on their way to their various destinations.

He himself felt the drain on his own energies, being cut off from the Host was slowly weakening his Grace, not that he had yet confessed that to the Winchesters. They had enough problems to deal with and he didn't want to add worries over his diminishing "angel mojo" to the pile, as Dean would describe it. So without finding a trace of Pestilence or a Croatoan threat anywhere in the vast expanse of the airport, he found himself debating buying a seat on a flight back to Sioux Falls with one of Dean's credit cards that he had tucked in his coat pocket. Not that he really wanted the experience of confining himself in such a small space for several hours with a hundred other people, but it would be novel, and help conserve a precious bit of energy that he might need to call upon later in a fight. Demons wouldn't take pity on him for having spent some of his reserves flying himself about. He let his eyes fall closed, feeling the loss of what he once could do without even a thought…and too the loss of connection to his own brothers and sisters in Heaven.

Castiel mused that he might be able to relate to some of the troubles of his commuting neighbors after all.

He pushed away from the column, and threaded his way through the clumps of people standing around and staring at the overhead arrival/departure boards to the gate he had identified a few hours before. A gentle push of his mind and he was able to secure a seat on the next flight to Sioux Falls, no bags to check, just one adult, thank you. Dean's credit card not necessary after all, a good thing as Cas wasn't exactly sure how it was supposed to work anyway. Paper boarding slip in hand, he decided to try to blend with the other passengers and stand with them as they gathered to the side of the gate area, waiting for the announcement to start lining up at the exit that would connect the terminal with the plane.

…God, please…I don't want to be alone for Christmas. I don't have anyone anymore, my mom is gone, and I just…I just don't want to be alone…

After a half hour of waiting – and one thing Castiel was good at was waiting, an angel with well over a millennia's worth of experience with patience – and then another 25 minutes on top of that as the arriving passengers from the flight disembarked and the plane was made ready for the departing ones, the announcement finally came and it was time to get in the line to board.

But Cas held back for a minute, scanning the crowd until he found the face he was seeking: a woman huddled in a seat in the waiting area near the windows. Her head was down, one hand fisted tightly around the straps of her purse and the other around the handle of a small overnight bag on the seat next to her.

He slipped around various standing groups of other waiting travelers as he made his way to the end of the line, angling his path to allow him to pass by the woman. She didn't look up, didn't seem to notice the man standing next to her, too caught up in her own sadness to be much aware of the people around her.

So it caught her off guard when Castiel leaned down and whispered in her ear: "You are never alone. We do hear your prayers, and are always with you in spirit."

And he walked away in a swirl of tan trench coat, heading for the gate exit, and was gone…leaving behind a stunned young woman who knew instinctively and beyond a doubt that she had just been visited by an angel on Christmas Eve, and for the first time in months, her heart no longer felt quite so empty.