Camp Chitaqua

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's note: Since I'm enjoying reading the comments/questions/guesses from my reviewers, I'm gonna go ahead and keep up my quick posting schedule. As for the questions about this storyline, I don't want to give anything away so I'll just go with the old "you have to wait & see" comment and hope you enjoy what I have in store.

SN2014SN2014SN2014SN

Chapter 3: Fealty

SN2014SN2014SN2014SN

Cas was about to enter an open quarantine zone, had already directed his other team of three to scout north and his own team of three was about to head south. Leaning against a ramshackle house, he waved his team forward, was about to bring up the rear when he sensed a presence behind him, an angelic one.

Spinning around even as he pulled the angel sword from his waist, Cas found not Zachariah or any of his blind followers but the archangel Gabriel casually leaning against the house, wearing a baseball cap, jeans, and his trademark smirk. Cas lowered the sword, knew that Gabriel had bailed on his heavenly host family, wasn't one of their henchmen ready to do their bidding so the world ended.

"Well, fancy meeting you here. Come here often?" Gabriel drawled.

"I don't have time for your pranks," Cas bluntly replied, had come to realize who the Trickster was that had reenacted Dean's death over and over again to torment Sam. That the MIA archangel was running around earth, donning another disguise.

"Whoa ho, pranks. You know what pranks are." Gabriel whistled. "You really have changed." But before Cas could determine whether that was meant as a compliment or an insult, Gabriel's mirth was replaced with a deadly intensity not usually found in the good-time archangel's personality. "He's not worth it."

Cas didn't bother guessing who Gabriel was referring to: Their Father or Dean Winchester.

"He's just a man."

Cas' eyes narrowed in defiance now that it was clear Gabriel was talking about Dean.

"How do you think this is going to end?!" Gabriel's tone critical and cynical. "Some ink on a peace treaty? That they will call the game for rain?"

"Why are you here?" Cas demanded, gruff like Gabriel's presence was an intrusion and his predictions wholly unwelcome.

"No, little brother, the question is why are you here? You had a great front seat to the battle and you….you traded them for this?!" Gabriel threw his arms out, indicating the world, the city that was hollowed out and abandoned by all but croats.

Cas stepped closer to Gabriel, dared to get in the archangel's face and challenged, "Is it so different than your choice?"

Gabriel's face screwed up with denial and frustration. "I didn't defy heaven as much as…skip out on her. You…you turned traitor, stole away with the Quarterback's lucky and ONLY uniform." Then he released his anger, laughed instead, "Man, Zachariah is pissed."

Though that wasn't news to Cas, it troubled him. "Yes, ….Zachariah is….furious with me."

"You were a true blue solider, Castiel. Why did you choose to be loyal to a man, to Dean Winchester?" Gabriel inquired but there wasn't so much condemnation as true wonder in his tone now.

Looking at Gabriel head on, Cas gave his answer. "Because he lets love guide him, because he would willingly sacrifice his life to save others, because he gave up his soul, not out of a betrayal of goodness but out of love. "

But Gabriel scoffed at his words. "Come on! We have known wondrous men, hearts on fire for God. Men of faith. Dean Winchester has no allegiance to our Father or our faith. Why fall from grace for him? Why stay chained to this doomed world for him?"

Castiel knew his answer, had figured it out after asking himself the same questions, day after day. Found now, he wasn't ashamed to tell Gabriel his reasons, knew he wouldn't change his decision even if he could. "I came to care about him when he rose up against Alistair, someone he feared most, to save me. I came to trust him because he trusted me, no matter that I once threatened to throw him back into Hell. I sought to help him because he needed me when all Zachariah wanted to do was use me. And I defied heaven for him because he chose to fight for the world's survival, for his brother's soul rather than secure peace in heaven for himself. He chose others over himself. He chose me over his own well-being. I will not abandon him like all the others have." 'Like even his brother has.'

"So you admire his chutzpa, and he's saved your bacon. I get that, I do." Reaching forward, Gabriel companionably clamped a hand on Castiel's shoulder. "But you've paid tribute, you can leave him. I can even make it like he doesn't even know you're gone…that you ever existed, if you want."

"I don't stay out of obligation…I stay out of friendship, brotherhood," Cas frostily returned, affronted that Gabriel thought he would abandon Dean, was looking for a way to slip away, rejoin heaven's ranks.

"You have brothers…thousands of them," Gabriel reminded.

Cas' response was instantaneous and unwaveringly earnest. "None are Dean."

"Man, you're past the point of no return," Gabriel sighed, wondered if it was an illness everyone got when they spent too much time in Dean's vicinity. First Sam, now Castiel with the foolish loyalty shtick.

"You see in him what I do. You see the good in Sam too. If you didn't, you wouldn't have even bothered with them," Cas wisely judged the errant archangel's actions.

Shrugging, Gabriel dismissed Cas' insight with a "They're fun to mess with, Castiel. They ain't worth dying over."

"I disagree. I have died once for Dean and I will do it again if it saves him," his conviction to uphold that vow unquestionable, even to the trickster archangel.

Shaking his head like a child under his care made a ridiculous decision, Gabriel released Cas. "Can't say I didn't give you a chance. And it is probably one of the last, to make amends with Zachariah, to get a welcome home party instead of an execution. You get that right?"

Cas nodded. "I'm not going to change my mind."

"You might not change your mind…but you'll play this conversation over and over in your head as time goes on, as this world dies…and the man you have given up everything for becomes a heartless stranger who will trade your life away for an egotistical and very doomed attempt for victory," Gabriel pessimistically foretold.

But none of that had the power to plant seeds of doubt in Cas. "That's the thing I've learned about trust, Gabriel. You can't turn it on and off, have to trust…or not trust. And trusting unconditionally for a good cause, a good man, even when it almost certainly will end badly, it's a better road to travel than any I've been on before."

"Have it your way," Gabriel conceded with that smirk of his before he snapped his fingers, disappeared, let Cas to the fate he had chosen.

And when Cas and his teams returned to camp Chitaqua, when Dean debriefed him, Cas didn't mention his encounter with Gabriel. Because as much as he was content with his choices, he was afraid Dean wasn't, that his best friend would tell him he made the wrong decision, would order him to change his mind, to save himself, to go with Gabriel. That Dean would heap more blame on his own head for choices that were never Dean's to make.

'They are my choices and I've made them.' And he knew the consequences, knew the fight was most likely doomed, but true loyalty, it didn't crumble at the notion of things like pain or defeat. True loyalty stayed unerringly on course, and for him, that meant never leaving Dean to fight his battles on his own.

SN2014SN2014SN2014

TBC

SN2014SN2014SN2014

Thanks for reading!

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.