Prologue
It was with a quiet curiosity that Castiel stared down at the crumpled form of what had once been the most recent human vessel of the demon, Meg. For a second he could not quite believe it was her, for she looked so tiny against the pavement; he could scarcely remember how such a small thing had held such a large personality.
As he looked closer he saw the swelling and the blood and he felt his chest tighten. Her arm was bent at a funny angle and her nose was obviously broken.
In silence he bent down and stroked her blonde hair which was washed pink with rain and blood. It was stiff now, but he remembered how soft it had felt between his fingers when he had kissed her in Crowley's lair.
It had been a moment that had surprised him as much as it had her. As she had pressed her lips against his, he felt a pang of desire, and it had been without thinking that he recalled the pizza man and mimicked what he had seen him do to the woman in the porn film.
He was still thinking about her hair when he caught sight of her wrist, the one he had bandaged not twelve hours before, after they had rescued her from Crowley's torture. Gently he picked it up off the ground and held it in his palm. The bandage was torn, but it had held. He wrapped his thumb and forefinger around the wrist, the two fingers meeting easily in the middle where her pulse should have been.
As he knelt there, his eyes clouded over and the tightening knot within him finally snapped and broke. He suddenly felt exhausted. Hauling himself to his feet he looked up into the night sky.
"Why must you take away everything I care about?"
His words fell on deaf ears as he knew they would.
He didn't love her—he doubted he was capable of that—but he cared for her as he cared for Dean and Sam. At least he thought he did.
Kneeling down again, he gathered Meg's battered body into his arms and held it close to his chest. It was then that he knew what he needed to do.
"I'm coming, Meg," he whispered into her torn ear. "I'll find you and bring you back."
The trees above stirred in the windless sky, and then he was gone, leaving one less missing person for the police to find.