I searched for Him for centuries. I may have searched for Him for centuries before that, centuries I cannot remember after my reprogramming and Naomi's powers. Perhaps my whole existence has been searching for Him.
And yet I did not recognize him when I met Him years ago.
Even knowing now that he is the Lord for whom I have been an angel, I am not certain that I recognize Him in these first moments after he snapped our bedraggled army to the Men of Letters bunker. My God cannot be this human-guise in sneakers and a hoodie. I wore a red hoodie when I was human, homeless and hungry. My God cannot be equal to me in any way. He has to be bigger, more powerful, more unimaginable than I could dream.
Dean drifts away from me, and Sam follows him. Crowley and Rowena move to one another, and though I could hear their hushed tones if I wished, I choose to ignore them. I am looking instead at the man who is my God.
"You can say what you're thinking, Castiel." His voice surprises me with its strength. I watched Sam carry his slumped weight and put him in this chair. Yet this voice comes from some other place, some other power, and not from the materialized human form he is wearing. My mind forms thoughts of Him and him differently as if it cannot yet accept yet that he might be He.
I do not answer. I cannot answer. Whatever I am thinking is made of more than words.
Like Sam, I have academic questions: Why do dogs pant? Why is the Mariana Trench so much deeper than other parts of the ocean? Why are angels made as servants of Heaven when humans are free?
Like Dean, I have life questions: How could you leave everything behind when all of creation needed you? Why do you ignore suffering in your name?
For myself, I have questions about my purpose: Why did you bring me back? Did I do the right thing? Why am I not like the other angels?
And under it all, I fear most that I am afraid that God will let me down in his answers. I am afraid he will not be able to answer the questions and solve the problems, and if he cannot, then no one can.
"You've waited many years to meet me. Surely you have something you want to say."
My mind tumbles around in circles, but I say nothing. He snaps his fingers, and I am moved, dropping into the chair across from him. Rowena and Crowley look up at the sudden disturbance but return to a hushed conversation. I turn my attention away.
Unlike humans, angels are very comfortable with silence. I am learning in these long seconds that God is even more comfortable with silence than angels. Perhaps the eons of nothingness before he created life prepared him for moments like this. I break first.
"No." My first deliberate word to my Father is a lie.
When he speaks again, he sounds more human. "Well, I'm the writer, huh? I'd kick us off, but introductions are hard. I don't know where to start. I don't want to embarrass you with the story of your creation."
"You remember my creation?"
"I remember all creations. I crafted you myself." He shifts in his chair, drags a tired hand over his pale face.
A few years ago, I would have been honored by this statement. It would have bolstered me and fulfilled my sense of purpose, but now I am different. I have changed more in these recent years on Earth than in all the time before them. I hear the word "crafted" and think of how resentful Dean and Sam would be. They would not want a Maker, an almighty hand who did not recognize the autonomy of what it created. I have learned more from them than I always realize.
"What did you want me to do?" The question sounds ridiculous even as I ask it. He looks me right in the eyes, and there I suddenly see the power that shaped the universe. I have grace; He has Glory.
"Archangels were to protect creation, to follow the plan, to serve at my side. Angels were to maintain Heaven and Earth."
"I know that." I repeat my base line of programming in Enochian as if it proves somehow that I am what He intended. For a moment, he looks pleased, nodding.
"Yeah. But there are flaws in every creation. It's not easy to plan for everything," He seems to be talking to himself rather than to me. I put my hands on my lap, palms down on my thighs. Again the silence is long, but this time, I wait him out. "You've made some mistakes."
Leviathans unleashed upon the Earth, humans turned into meat, angel-smitings staining the earth of Heaven, fallen angels making a broken heaven of Earth... I feel my mistakes like long, striped scars on my being. Under the Almighty's eyes, I wonder if perhaps they are visible. Perhaps God can actually see the marks these sins place on my body.
I have betrayed the loyalty of every being who ever put trust in me. My head bows in shame.
"You've also tried. When you decided to stop the Apocalypse, you told me..." He pauses, and I remember standing in the dirty, dark living room where Chuck the human prophet had done his writing.
"Well, let me rephrase. I told you that you were not in this story, and you told me... and I quote," he continues while making quotation marks in the air in front of him, "'We're making it up as we go.'"
He chuckles. God chuckles at the memory of my rebellion. I remember too how he reached up to touch my shoulder that day as I prepared myself to face down my brothers. Everything rode on the ability to keep Lucifer in the cage – so I had believed then – and I had been willing to die to make it happen. I had been breaking the rules, rebelling against Heaven, and he, no, He had patted me on the shoulder.
He had put me back together after that. And again. And again. He did not forget me.
"You died for me when I was just a lowly human, Castiel. I'm proud of you. Even at your worst, I have always been proud of you."
"Of course you have," Dean Winchester speaks as he strolls by on the way to the kitchen. I do not know if he was eavesdropping or only responding to the last statement. His voice is not sarcastic but matter-of-fact. "Want a beer, Cas?"
The broken, ripped, popped, threadbare strands of my being still feel loose, too damaged to repair, but I nod. Dean nods back and heads into the other room. His shoulders are rolled over again, bowed by the weight of another insurmountable obstacle.
"To answer your question..." The sick, tired voice follows me from the chair. "Yes, I sure wish that I had a God to bring me back from my impending demise."
I almost smile in spite of myself at the ridiculousness of the statement. "I'd help if I could."
He waves a hand, and I appear in the kitchen opposite Sam and Dean. I accept a proffered beer and wondered if the Lord's plan ever truly existed or if we were all just stumbling along a journey with no itinerary all along. No matter the intention, today, it seems, we have arrived at the end.
I am glad I got to meet Him before we all say our goodbyes.
Author's Note: Though I actually enjoyed the finale for myriad reasons, I refuse to accept that Chuck and Cas did not have a conversation. So I had to turn to fanfiction to explore what that conversation might have looked like.
There's a little Destiel implication in my tone in this piece because I see Destiel in everything.