The Holy or the Broken

"I tried my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but 'Hallelujah…'"
—Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"

I once heard a human—not Sam or Dean; I don't remember who, but it doesn't matter—ask, "What is an angel without wings?"

I didn't have the opportunity to answer at the time, but if I had, I would have said, "An angel. Crippled, but still an angel." Until recent years, few knew that better than I.

My own question is far more pressing: what is an angel without faith?

It's not that I don't believe You exist, of course. You're my Father, You made me. I've spoken to You personally. You asked me to call You Chuck, which I have to admit is going to take a lot of getting used to.

I just don't know if I believe in You anymore.

You abandoned me. You abandoned all of us. You left Your entire Creation to fall to wrack and ruin. You sat by and watched Your children fight and kill and struggle and die, and You vanished from our sight just when we needed You most. You heard us praying, begging, screaming for Your guidance, and You did nothing!

In my darkest, most desperate hour, I prayed. I laid out my whole story for You. I told You what I meant to do, and why. I bared all my doubts and my convictions, my logic and my fears, and I begged You for Your wisdom. You had to know what would happen! I trusted You. All You had to say was "Castiel, no," and I would have stopped. I would have found another way. But You let me tear open Purgatory. You let me try to usurp Your Throne. Innocent people died because of me! And when my utter foolishness finally cost me my life, You brought me back.

Why did You bring me back? For this? To kill another innocent to ensure her Nephilim child is never born?

Is that really what You would have me do? Is this to be my fate always? Even after the catastrophe I caused, I'm still convinced that You wanted the angels to have free will. I think that You wanted us to learn that we can make mistakes, that for all our power, we're not perfect. It's a difficult and a frightening lesson, and one some of us have learned better than others.

But then of course there was Naomi. What she did to me… the things she made me do… I murdered Samandriel. I lied to Sam and Dean. I almost killed Dean. And I thought I had to, thought I wanted to. I was completely under her control. It makes me sick to think about it—even more so knowing that she's wiped other atrocities from my memory before. Has my whole existence been a lie? Has my will ever been my own? Naomi is dead, but who's to say someone else isn't pulling my strings?

But if not her, then who? You? No, I don't think You're that involved. I have to wonder if Naomi's puppeteering was even Your will in the first place. Or if You even knew about it.

If I sound bitter, well, I am. I'm sick of being manipulated, sick of getting jerked around. Either give me free will or don't, but please, be straight with me about it. To have the illusion of freedom shattered, again, is more than I can bear.

But if I do have freedom, then I have a decision to make, don't I? A decision upon which rests the fate of Your entire Creation.

I have in my charge an innocent woman who is going to die, either by my hand as I drag her to Heaven, or in giving birth to the creature she carries. She seems to have made peace with her fate. But like any mother would, she wants her son to live. And though I've spent these past months hunting her down with the certainty that the child has to die… well, I'm starting to wonder.

She wants me to raisehim. She thinks I can keep him on the righteous path, shield him from corruption, and keep him from using his awesome power for evil. But this isn't just any Nephilim, Father; this is the son of an archangel, of Lucifer! If I do this, and I fail, he will destroy me. This child, this… this abomination could be the destruction of everything You've created. Don't You even care?

Kelly's faith in me is… humbling, to say the least, if not entirely misplaced. Dare I think myself capable of this? Pride has been my sin in the past; my pride has been my downfall, and the consequences have been nothing short of disastrous. I cannot, I will not, allow my pride to cause more suffering. If I am to bring this child into the world, then I need to know, without doubt and without illusion, that I am equal to this task.

I need a sign, Father. I've begged for revelation before to no avail, but this time I am truly lost. I need a sign. A word. Something, anything, to point me in the right direction.

Please.

Anything…?

I don't know why I bother doing this anymore. If I'm truly honest with myself, I don't really expect You to answer. You hear me—that, I believe—I'm just not so sure You care. But I guess thousands of years of singing before the Throne is a hard habit to break. So if my song has become a dark and sarcastic hallelujah… well, You know who to blame.

Amen.