Hi, hope you all enjoy this chapter :) A big thanks to everyone who's left a review and a favourite or story alert, I'm really glad you liked the first chapter. I just hope I can keep it up through the rest of the story! :) Anyway, hope you enjoy :)

Miriana bought a room at the first motel they came to, booking in under a false name. She had a nagging worry that Reuben and his new companion Selene would follow her, and she didn't want to make it easy for them.

She tended to the cut on Nate's forehead, cleaning the deep gash with antiseptic lotion and covering it with a bandage. He squirmed and protested until Miriana gave him a shot of vodka from her hip flask to try and take the edge of the pain and stop him whining. It worked; he shut up almost instantly. When she finished, he looked down at his wrinkled dusty clothes with a disgusted expression and announced that he needed a shower. As soon as she heard the clanking of the hot water pipes and the rushing noise of the water, she rummaged through her bag until she found her mobile. She dialled Dean's number, raising her mobile to her ear with shaking hands. She hadn't seen him since he had disappeared from Bobby's, and she was worried for him. What would he do when he learnt what Sam had done? What stupid decisions would he make when he learned his little brother was dead?

She waited until the phone rang to answer phone, then hung up and dialled his number again, telling herself that he had just missed her first call. But the second call went unanswered too. On the verge of tears she tried again, but this time she left a tearful message, hoping that Dean would eventually hear it, wherever he was.

She threw her phone onto the bed, frustrated, then sank onto the mattress, fighting tears. She fumbled for her hip flask and took a long swig, wincing as the alcohol burned down her throat. Sam was dead, Dean wasn't answering his mobile, and Cas was...well she didn't know where Cas was or what kind of state he was in. She needed information from someone, but she couldn't think of anyone who would know more than she did. She expected Bobby would be more in the dark than she was and Embriel hadn't seemed to know anything either, so that was the two most reliable sources out. AJ was dead, and she didn't know any other psychics. But, she thought, with a sudden bolt of realization, she did know a prophet.

At that moment, the door slammed back and Nate sauntered into the room, wearing a pair of boxer shorts and a baggy t-shirt, scrubbing his dark hair with a towel.

"Right, we're off, Nate," she said, picking up her bag, which she hadn't bothered to unpack, "Get a move on."

"What?" he said indignantly, "But I'm knackered!"

"Well that's alright you can sleep in the car," she said, grabbing her car keys, "Move. I have to talk to Chuck, that prophet."

"No," Nate said firmly, "I'm not sleeping in the car, it gives me neck ache."

"Nate for G-"

"And you," he said loudly, cutting across her, "Are exhausted. If you drive now, you'll crash. You look like the living dead, Miriana."

"Honesty is the best policy, thanks Nate," Miriana grumbled.

"The prophet dude can wait until morning," Nate said in a much gentler tone, "There's nothing you can do right now except get some sleep."

"But-" Miriana protested.

"Bed," Nate said in a firm voice.

Feeling completely frustrated about being bossed around by a teenager, she kicked off her boots and shrugged off her leather jacket, sliding herself up the mattress and resting her head against the pillow. She didn't want to change out of her shirt and jeans in case she got an emergency phone call in the middle of the night; she didn't want to be caught out in a tiny pair of sleep shorts and a threadbare t-shirt. She heard the creak of rusty bedsprings across the room as Nate sank onto the bed opposite her. A second later, there was a sharp click and the soft lamps in the room were extinguished, so the only light in the room was a vivid orange strip across the ceiling from the streetlamp outside.

"Night Miriana," Nate said, his voice slurred with tiredness.

"Night," she said softly.

She tried to close her eyes and relax, but she found her mind was buzzing with worry and it refused to let her sleep. She didn't feel like she had got any closure over Sam; she was still so unsure what had happened. She reached across and fumbled along the bedside table until she found her phone; she flipped it open and checked if she had any missed calls. It was a pointless exercise, as she already knew no one had rung her, otherwise she would have heard it ringing, but it made her feel better to check. She stared up at the dark ceiling, wondering where Lucifer was, what he was doing. She kept waiting for some kind of explosion or fire to come raining from the sky, but the world around her seemed eerily quiet. She would almost feel better is something did happen; anything was better than waiting around for what was surely inevitable.

Her mind wandered to Cas then, and she felt the ache of guilt surge up in her. She remembered every word she had said to them during their argument, and she regretted most of them. She always told herself she would treat him better, treat him with understanding, but every time it came to a situation that required her to be gentle with him, she never was. She didn't know what made her so cruel, but it was like she couldn't stop herself. It was so frustrating, being so close to someone she wanted so badly it hurt, and not having them. She knew realistically she couldn't have him, not whilst he was still an angel and under heaven's orders and she couldn't see that changing any time soon. She knew it wasn't his fault that he carried out heaven's often cruel plans; he didn't know how to do anything else. Two thousand years of indoctrination was not easy to undo, and she knew his loyalty to heaven left him torn between his duty and her. But she couldn't help but be selfish; she wanted him all to herself, away from the watchful eyes of his superiors.

The thoughts and worries chasing around her head exhausted her. She fought her heavy eyelids, but eventually she succumbed to a dreamless, restless sleep.

Miriana was up at five in the morning, hauling Nate out of bed and shoving him into the shower to wake him up and cut off the stream of swear words that he directed at her. Unsurprisingly, as soon as they were in the car, he fell straight back to sleep, his head resting against the window. She turned the radio down so as not to wake him and so she didn't have to listen to all the news reports of hurricanes, floods and freak accidents across the state. The coil of fear and anxiety returned in the pit of her stomach.

She reached Chuck's ramshackle house just before midday, parking her car opposite his house and shaking Nate roughly awake. There was an unfamiliar silver car parked on the dry grass next to Chuck's house, and no sign of movement within the house. She crossed the road carefully, pulling her gun out of her pocket and holding it by her hip. They crept up the steps as quietly as they could manage; Miriana keeping her eyes trained on the door as Nate quickly picked the lock so the door swung open into the cluttered hallway. He followed Miriana inside the hushed house.

One look inside the sitting room showed her that there had definitely been some sort of struggle. Furniture was overturned and fragments of glass and splintered wood crunched underneath her feet, and the walls were spattered with a dark, viscous liquid that looked horribly like blood. She took a few tentative steps forward into the kitchen when something closed across her chest, constricting her breathing.

Nate gave a shout behind her and she instantly drove her elbows into her attacker's stomach, which she instantly found was hard with muscle. She struggled for a few more seconds against the muscular arms against her chest, when a familiar voice rang out through the kitchen.

"Dean stop, it's Miriana," Sam said, panicked, "Dude, it's just Miriana and Nate."

The arms around her chest instantly relinquished their hold and she stumbled forwards. She stopped dead in front of Sam, her brain struggling to catch up with her eyes. She reached out with one hand and tentatively patted Sam's broad shoulder, just to test he wasn't some sort of illusion.

"I know you're glad to see me, Miriana, but you don't have to feel me up," Sam said, watching her carefully. Without a second's hesitation, she lifted her hand and slapped him around the side of the face, satisfied when her open palm slammed against his cheek, instantly reddening it.

"OW!" he yelled, clutching the side of his face, "Why do you always do that?"

"That is for starting the apocalypse," she snapped, "And this," she slapped him again, as hard as she could manage, "Is for not listening to me!"

Dean burst out laughing behind them, and Miriana rounded on him next, "And you!" she shouted angrily, drawing her arm back and slapping him too, "That is for not answering my phone calls!"

He clutched his face, looking shocked as she turned back to Sam.

"I thought...I thought you were dead," she said in a much gentler tone, "The explosion...it...it," she tailed off, throwing her arms around Sam's neck, forced to stand on her tiptoes to reach his neck. She had never been so happy to see the big stupid idiot in her whole life.

"I'm sorry, Miriana," he said, his voice muffled by her shoulder, "It's all my fault."

She stepped back, breaking his hold, "Look, let's not get into that okay? You're alive and in one piece and that's all that matters."

He frowned, "You really mean that?"

She paused for a second, scrutinizing him. Of course she was blisteringly angry; if he had listened to Dean and her, this would no doubt not have happened. Sam always thought he knew best, always thought the advice Miriana and Dean gave him was their attempt to control him. She did think he was weak for allowing himself to be manipulated by Ruby, for she was certain the demon had something to do with the beginning of the apocalypse. But after spending twenty four hours thinking the man she saw as her little brother was dead had changed her opinion on a lot of things.

"Of course I do," she said, thumping his shoulder. She turned back to Dean, only just noticing that Chuck was leaning against the kitchen cupboards, looking pale and a little bit battered.

"Oh, hey Chuck," she said. He gave her a little wave in response, although he didn't smile. He reached behind him and took a long swig of whisky, his hands shaking.

"What the hell happened here?" Nate asked suddenly, "And what the hell is that?"

Miriana followed Nate's finger to an elaborate sigil painted on the wall. She remembered Anna drawing one of them on the wall of that run down shack, the night the angels had come for her.

"We ran into a little trouble with Zachariah," Dean explained, his expression dark. Miriana felt her stomach flip over at the sound of his name. She had never met Castiel's heartless superior before, and she had a feeling she wouldn't ever want to.

"And they did this?" she asked, gesturing around at the devastation that was once Chuck's kitchen.

She saw Dean exchange a fleeting glance with Sam, "Not quite."

"What did then?"

Dean paused for a long second, as if he was deciding what to say, "It was an archangel."

Miriana frowned, "An archangel? Why?"

A heavy silence followed her questions, and Chuck took another long swig of whisky.

"Dean, what's going on?" she demanded.

"It's Cas, Miriana," he said gently, with the air of someone talking to a woman dying on her deathbed, "He's dead. The archangel killed him."

She looked around the kitchen, the spatters of blood on the walls and floor, and felt her stomach turn over, "What?"

"He brought me here," Dean said, standing in front of Miriana and placing both his hands on her shoulders, "To help me find Sam and try and stop him. But the archangel tethered to Chuck came."

She shifted her foot and felt something sticky beneath the sole of her boots; glancing down, she saw she was stood in a puddle of congealed blood. Her stomach flipped again.

"He was trying to help us Miriana," Dean said, patting her shoulder lightly, "But he couldn't fight off the archangel."

The tears hadn't started yet, but she could feel them bubbling behind her eyes. As soon she accepted the truth, they'd spill out like a dam had been broken inside of her.

"How...how did he...?" she tailed off, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"Well, he sort of...he...erm..." Sam stumbled over his words, shuffling his huge frame awkwardly.

"He exploded," Chuck said in a deadpan voice.

Dean turned to Chuck, a bewildered expression on his face, his arms raised in a what-the-hell gesture.

"Dude, seriously!" he said in a furious voice.

She was very aware that Nate was hovering close behind her, as if he expected her to faint.

She raised quaking hands to gesture at the gory walls, "So this is..."

Dean just nodded, his eyes wary, as if like Nate he expected her to collapse. A hand flew to her mouth to stop the little sob that escaped, and she felt her eyes stinging. Her stomach was rolling over and over, and the bile was rising up her throat.

"Miriana-" Dean began, but she threw up her hands to cut him off.

"I just need a minute," she gasped, racing for the door.

She flung herself out of the front door and sprinted down the steps, barely making outside before she emptied the contents of her stomach onto the parched grass outside Chuck's house. She retched uncontrollably, clutching her stomach, her head throbbing. She turned her shaking hands over and saw there was a streak of thick, sticky blood across her palm, and she scrubbed her hand against the bricks of Chuck's house, the tears flowing down her face thick and fast. She slumped down onto the grass, coughing around the awful taste in her mouth. She crushed a hand over her mouth to muffle her sobbing, not wanting Sam or Dean to hear her crying.

She heard the sound of footsteps thudding down the steps outside Chuck's house and she instantly leapt to her feet, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Dean stopped a few paces away from her, his eyebrows furrowed with concern.

"Miriana?" he asked tentatively.

She swallowed hard before she could trust herself to speak, "I'm fine."

"No you're not," Dean said softly, "You're not fine. I'm not into all this chick flick crap like Sam, but I know you well enough to see when your heart is breaking."

She shook her head, "I'm fine."

She moved past him, heading for the door, but he caught her arm in a tight grip, "You are not fine, and you can't just run away from this. He's dead and you're hurting but you just won't admit it."

"I don't...I can't..." she couldn't find the words for the pain. The ache in her chest was so intense she felt certain her heart was about to burst right out. She started to cry, although she tried so hard to stop the flow of tears.

"I know, I know," Dean soothed, pulling her into the protective circle of her arms, "It's gonna be alright."

"No," she said thickly through her tears, "No it's not. He's dead, Dean, and nothing feels like it's going to be alright again."

"It'll work out," he said haltingly.

"You should have heard what I said to him the last time I saw him, Dean. I was a bitch. I was so cruel to him, and all he was trying to do was help me. All her ever did was try to help me, and I just pushed him away. I just...just..." she couldn't carry on around the hitch in her chest.

"He...he...told me he loved me," she choked out, "And I never said it back. I never said it back and now I'm never going to get the chance."

She sobbed against his chest, soaking his shirt with salty tears. She heard the sound of footsteps, and then Dean softly said, "She needs a few minutes," and the footsteps retreated.

She stayed clutching Dean for a long minute, trying to stop the uncontrollable shaking of her body and trying to stem the flow of tears. After a little while, Dean stepped back.

"You need to get some rest," he said softly, "Go and book yourself into a motel room and give yourself some time alone. Nate can come with me and Sam if you want."

She shook her head, scrubbing the tears away from her eyes, "No, it's alright. He can get his own room next to mine. What about you and Sam? Don't you need some help with...you know...something?"

"We're just trying to keep our heads down for now," Dean replied, "There's nothing you can do except have some time to deal with this."

Miriana sniffed, giving him a weak smile, "You're being very good about this. I thought you'd be jumping for joy now he's gone. No self righteous dick in a trench coat, no more swooning Miriana."

Dean looked slightly shocked, "I wouldn't think that. Yeah, he could be a dick, but his heart was in the right place. And as for you swooning, it's better than you being completely alone. I suppose he wouldn't have been that bad for you."

All the guilt and grief rose up inside her again, and she had to hold her breath to stop herself from bursting into tears again.

"Tell Nate to come out, will you?" she asked, "I think I'll take your advice and get some time alone."

He nodded, then stopped forwards and hugged her tightly, squeezing the breath from her lungs.

"Look after yourself," he mumbled into her shoulder, "We'll see you soon."

He stepped back, patting her shoulder, then turned and disappeared back into the house. She crossed the road and slid back into her car, resting her head against the cool steering wheel, forcing herself to breathe deeply. She would be glad to get into a hotel room and cry until the tears ran dry.

She started when the door opened, instantly sitting up straight and calming herself when Nate eased himself into the passenger seat. She was aware he was watching her very closely, and she could see from the corner of his eye that his posture was incredibly tense.

"Are you okay?" he asked tentatively.

"Not really," she replied truthfully, "But I'll get there."

He reached across and squeezed the hand that was resting on the steering wheel, giving her a small smile. She tried to return it, but found she felt the burn of tears once again.

She drove as quickly as possible to the nearest motel, and bought separate rooms for her and Nate. When she reached her room, she closed the curtains to block out the early afternoon light. She looked hopelessly around the dark room, feeling completely empty. She didn't even have anything of his to remember him by; at least when Cristian died she had had all of his shirts and CD's and books to give her some comfort in her pain, but Castiel didn't even have any possessions. All she had to remember him by was a few memories of heated, stolen kisses and a few, all too brief conversations. The tears began to flow silently as she changed into a pair of old jeans and a tattered t-shirt, crawling into bed and pulling the covers over her head, allowing the grief to overwhelm her.

Castiel couldn't remember anything; just a burst of furious white light, a terrible, rending agony, then oblivion. Nothing but darkness and the sensation of nothing, just numbness.

But now he could slowly feel awareness coming back to him, along with his senses. He could feel cold, heard earth underneath him, hear the sound of leaves rustling in the wind and the noise of birds singing somewhere above his head. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking rapidly. There was a thick canopy of trees above him, and between the gaps in the leaves he could see snatches of sky, slowly fading from a powdery blue to a deep midnight colour, the first silvery stars beginning to emerge. The cold air bit at his exposed skin, but he felt warm beneath his vessels' clothing.

He sat up slowly, wincing when his abdomen ached in protest. He looked down at his vessel, surprised that the body was still in one piece. His clothes were clean too, no blood on his white shirt and no dirt on his suit pants. He stretched his muscles tentatively, checking that everything was still in working order. He put one hand over his chest, feeling the steady thump of his borrowed heart. He was definitely alive, and still in Jimmy's body.

Jimmy. He had completely forgotten about the soul of his vessel. He searched inside his head for the familiar weak flare of Jimmy's presence, but he felt nothing. Panicked, he concentrated even harder, thinking that Jimmy might have retreated far inside his own mind, stunned from the pain of his body being torn apart by the archangel. But not matter how hard he looked he found there was no-one else inside his head. He felt oddly isolated without the presence of his vessel, and the feeling was incredibly disconcerting. He had often relied upon Jimmy's human memories to help him through many awkward social situations, used the instincts of his vessel to talk to Miriana. The first time he had kissed her he had relied entirely on the memories buried in the flesh of his vessel to know where to hold her and how to move his lips against hers. Now he was entirely alone inside this borrowed body that had now become his, and he felt trapped, confined. At least there was a good possibility that Jimmy was in heaven, finally at peace.

He stood up slowly, testing out his stiff muscles. He stretched his wings behind him, rolling his shoulders, focusing on the feeling of tendons and muscles pulling tight over the bones. He was thankful his wings were still in one piece; he had felt them burst into agonizing streaks of pain when he faced off against the archangel, and he had been convinced they would be permanently damaged, even destroyed. But they were still intact, and as far as he could tell, still in working order.

He decided to contact heaven, as briefly as possible, to see if he could find out what had happened to Sam and Dean, although he already knew that Lucifer was free; his presence saturated everything around him. But he when he tried to contact his brothers and sisters, he was met with a wall of silence, so heavy and so absolute it felt almost like a physical force. He tried again, waiting for the familiar and comforting whispers of Enochian, but again there was nothing. Feeling incredibly frustrated, he gave up, focusing his attention instead on the whereabouts of Miriana. He cast his mind out, grateful that this particular power still worked, and instantly found Miriana's familiar coil of consciousness in amongst all the millions of people. He let out a long sigh of relief. She was still alive and completely safe as far as he could tell.

He cast his eyes around his surroundings; he had absolutely no idea where he was. The tall, dark tress looked completely alien, and his sharp ears couldn't pick up the sound of a road or any other sign of human habitation. He was literally in the middle of nowhere. He couldn't even begin to understand how he had returned from death, or who had returned him, or why. He had so many questions, and no answers, not even an inkling. And he had knowledge of the apocalypse that he could remember ever having before, as if when he had been resurrected someone had planted a seed of knowledge in his brain. He knew the true roles that Sam and Dean had to play; he knew protection sigils and charms that it would have taken him many years to learn. He wanted to talk to Miriana, hoping that she could make him feel better, ease the confusion and pain he felt. Her very presence was enough to soothe him.

Just as he was about to spread his wings to find Miriana, he instantly felt a surge of panic from someone, somewhere. He instantly followed the trace of emotion, right back to Dean Winchester. Sam was with him, in tremendous pain, and someone else, another angel whose presence he couldn't ignore. Zachariah. Feeling sick with fury, he instantly spread his wings, easily locating the lock up that once belonged to John Winchester. Miriana would have to wait, just for a little while.