When Castiel turns his face to the glaring white light of his brother's Grace, he believes it will be the last thing he ever sees. He doesn't yet have the capacity to really regret that, or wonder what comes after for an angel, if anything. Perhaps the Winchesters have had more influence on him than he realizes, though, because after the unspeakably painful sensation of his atoms burning into nothing fades, he does have the capacity to be surprised that he still has thoughts.
He's in an unfamiliar place, all pale colors and soft light, so different from the blinding death he just walked through. Looking down, he discovers he still wears the guise of Jimmy Novak, though there is a conspicuous emptiness within him that says Jimmy is gone. Nevertheless, Castiel doesn't feel alone.
"I sent him home," says a soft, familiar voice in his ear. Castiel spins around, heart alight with fear and joy, but sees no one.
"Father!" He half cries it into the white emptiness around him. It doesn't matter that he's never heard his father's voice before. It resonates to his very core, he knows it. He would know that voice anywhere.
"Castiel, my son," it speaks again. "You have been disobedient."
It's a terrible thing, and he knows it. He should tremble to stand before God and be called disobedient, but somehow he can't find it in himself to feel anything other than a quiet, glowing contentment. The certainty he has sought for so long fills him, and he answers with a calm assurance that everything is as it should be.
"Yes, Father. I have been disobedient."
"But not to me." The voice is kind, perhaps a bit amused, and it confuses Castiel a little.
"Sir?"
"You disobeyed your elder brothers when they asked you to do something that you knew was contrary to my will and my ways. You alone, of all your brothers, hold the truth in your heart, and it guides you on a path more straight and narrow than that found by blindly following any number of orders. It is a commendable trait, Castiel."
He cocks his head to the side, trying to feel the breath of that voice and failing, trying to understand what he is being told, and reconcile it with what his brothers have told him.
"My brothers think it makes me an abomination." The voice sighs, and Castiel hears weariness, the kind that comes with millennia of dealing with wayward children.
"As with so many other things, your brothers are wrong. Now…what would you like to do?"
"Do?" Castiel wishes—perhaps blasphemously, he isn't sure—that he could see his father's face. He wishes he didn't feel so much like an unschooled child.
"Yes, Castiel," the voice returns, infinitely patient. "What would you like to do now?"
"Sir…I don't understand."
"Would you like to go back? Would you like to move on? The choice is yours and yours alone, Castiel."
Castiel thinks of the earth and all its wonders. He thinks of Jimmy Novak and his family, of Bobby Singer and his gruff affection. He thinks of Sam, so eager to meet an angel even as they damn him in their thoughts. He thinks of Dean, Dean, always Dean, forever Dean, Dean who he knows from freckles to marrow. He looks at his father's face.
"I would like to go back."
The entire time he was on Earth, he remembered nothing of his talk with God. The moment he finds himself back in that soft, white light, however, it's as if the scales fall from his eyes and he remembers everything. It only takes a fraction of a second, and then he's on his knees, face lifted into the emptiness and voice cracking as he pleads with the air.
"I have to go back! Please Father, you have to send me back!"
"Shhh," the voice is there in his ear once more, as gentle and calming as it was the last time, but Castiel can feel none of its soothing calm now. He's in a panic, everything in him screaming to get back to Dean, to save Dean from being torn apart by Lucifer in his brother's skin. Tears prick his eyes, and he doesn't even stop to wonder when he became human enough to cry.
"Shhh, Castiel. It's alright. Sam Winchester chose his brother, in the end. Lucifer and Michael have been sealed away, where they can harm no one but themselves with their pointless feud."
"But...Sam. Dean. Adam, they—"
"Adam's soul will not be left to rot in Hell, Castiel. He was innocent in all this, and has already been restored to his place in Heaven. As for Sam...he will be rescued, Castiel. I promise you, you will find a way."
"And the state of Heaven? The wrath of the angels? Dean...I can't leave him alone."
"You won't, Castiel. Not unless you choose to do so."
"That is something I would never choose." Castiel says it like a fact, and he swears he can feel God smiling at him.
"I know, my son. Shall I send you back now?"
"Please," Castiel says. "There is one more thing I don't understand. All that time I spent looking for you...and after Joshua...I thought you didn't care."
"I care for all my children, Castiel."
There is no calm when he arrives, and no immediate contrition, either. Castiel feels angry, more than anything, frustrated and thwarted like he's been for the last two years, and it makes him recklessly, dangerously honest.
"Castiel," the voice says, sounding shocked and sorrowful. "Castiel. What have you done?"
"Only what you lacked the courage to do, Father."
"Swallow the souls of Purgatory? Do business with the King of Hell? Murder thousands of your own brothers? You tried to become God, Castiel!"
"Someone had to do your job! You think this is what I wanted? You think this is how I hoped things would turn out? You left! You filled our heads with dreams and plans and left us, alone and confused and ill-equipped to make our own choices! You left your most beloved creations at the mercy of a bunch of angry, wounded children! And meanwhile you just hide away somewhere, sit on your ass and watch it all go to Hell, then pretend it's not your mess to clean up just because you don't think it ought to be anymore? What kind of father does that? What kind of God does that make you?"
"You forget yourself, son." The voice is as gentle as ever, but there's an undercurrent of warning there. Castiel ignores it, jerks away from the voice and wishes he knew which direction he should be turned to give the damn thing a well-deserved cold shoulder.
"Don't call me son. Don't ever call me that. If there's one thing I truly do want to forget about myself, it's the faith I used to place in you."
"Have you come so far and still learned nothing? Shall I send you back again?"
That cuts through Castiel's anger, and for the first time a note of panic creeps into his mind at the thought of being sent back to Earth…back to all that he hurt and betrayed.
"No," he chokes. "Please. Not again, please not again. Just let me die. Let me rest!"
"And the humans? Would you leave them to their fates, leave them to deal with your mess as you accuse me of so thoughtlessly doing?"
"I am not their creator."
"You created one." Should condemnation sound so kind? Castiel doesn't think so. He suddenly understands, with stinging clarity, the passage of the humans' Bible that speaks of heaping burning coals on your enemies' heads with kindness.
He closes his eyes in defeat. When he speaks his voice is a shattered rasp of a whisper, broken but still full of the nameless thing that has made his father so determined not to give up on him, not even after this.
"Yes. I created one, and no, I will not leave him alone. Send me back."
Every time Castiel dies, God gives him a choice. It's unorthodox—he's always been a one chance, one life kind of guy—but he does it anyway. He doesn't make it easy; after all, what kind of parent would he be if he let his children go around destroying the world with no consequences? But even with all his mistakes, Castiel impresses him like no other. Each time he chooses to go back, and always for the same reason. It's like nothing else in the universe, not in past, present, or future. And he would know, wouldn't he? After all, he is God.
Author's Note: This is something I've been bouncing around in my head for a while. It started with thinking of how a conversation with God would go if Cas were ever given the opportunity, and how that conversation might change over time. And then I got the intriguing idea of what happens between each of Cas's deaths and resurrections (I don't for a second believe it's really a punishment the way Cas seems to think it is), and this happened.