The Lies We Tell

Chapter Four: The Secrets We Keep

Written by RippleInThePond

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Sam looked at the woman who had opened the door. She had blond hair and blue eyes and was a bit on the shorter side, but she looked completely normal. Then again, a lot of monsters do. "May we come in?" She nodded.

"Yes, you could Sam. And so could your brother Dean. But, Castiel... I'm afraid he couldn't even get through the door." She waved her hand and angel sigyls appeared on the walls. Sam froze and Dean put his hand on his gun as he glared at her.

"How do you know our names?! How did you do that?!" She laughed, her head tilted back. "Sweet heart, I may be in hiding but I'm not out of the loop. I know everything that Heaven knows about the two of you. You can put your toys away. They wouldn't even make a dent. It would be like attacking a stereotypical vampire with a toothpick. And I simply just wanted them to appear, and voila!" They looked at each other and Dean took his hand off of the gun.

She stepped outside and looked at the three of them. She walked over to the couch on the porch and sat down before snapping her fingers and willing some rose tea and sugar cookies to appear. With a small pop, they appeared on the coffee table.

She leaned forward and grabbed a cookie and then waved a hand in front of her creating a white couch. "Have a seat." They walked over and cautiously sat down, cautiously watching her as they got comfortable.

"Honestly, I don't bite. You don't need to act like I'm going to tear your throat out. I'm not going to hurt you." Dean snorted and looked at the cookies and tea with caution. "They aren't poisoned, you know."

They still didn't move and they kept their eyes on her as she groaned. "We really aren't going to get anywhere with you tiptoeing around me. You really need to relax." They still watched her and then deciding that she wouldn't attack, relaxed a little.

Sam picked up a cookie, took a small bite, and looked at her. "Who are you?" She gave a sad smile and looked at Castiel. "Once upon a time, every angel in heaven could have answered that question. Especially you, Castiel." She gave an empty, bitter laugh and looked down at her lap.

"Then my brothers betrayed me and I lost everything and everyone that I loved." She looked up at them and her body shimmered as her hair faded to a shiny black and her eyes became the color of opals. "My name is Lyriel, and I am an archangel."

Castiel started. "That is not possible. There only four archangels!" She smiled softly at him. "My name means lyrics of God. Who do you think wrote the songs for the heavenly host?" Castiel got a blank look in his eye as he tried to think about it. "Metatron?"

Lyriel shook her head. "Metatron merely wrote what was dictated for him by our father. The words on his pages are not his own. They are never his own." Castiel looked at her. "If you are an archangel, why can I not feel your grace?"

She smirked at him before he closed her eyes and a wave of power slammed into Castiel. It encompassed his body and he shivered at its presence. Even Dean and Sam were slightly affected. After a moment, the wave of power receded until it was nothing.

"I lock my grace behind a wall because of how strong and overpowering it is, even for humans. That is why you couldn't sense it." She glared at Sam. "Then someone decided to let Lucifer out of his and start the apocalypse. Him being out is pulling at my grace, telling me to fight and it is making it harder to contain my grace within myself. I have had to do those little bouts of miracles to keep it from exploding, and even then it still leaks through." Castiel looked at her, completely befuddled. "How can you be an archangel? I would know you!"

Her face dropped as tears welled in her eyes. "It is because of how I was betrayed. The other archangels betrayed me. When Father decided to create the humans, I was the only one of the five of us to actively support the idea of humans. They saw them as disgusting and imperfect. I saw them as a work of art, full of potential. I thought that they would be beautiful. Also, as a song writer I had free will mastered, and they were afraid of that." She leaned forward and picked up a teacup, and poured herself a cup before leaning back.

"We were all rather young back then, and they thought that me thinking differently was turning against them, so they did something we had vowed to never do to each other." She took a sip of her tea and looked up at them.

"They erased me. I had been on a mission and when I returned, I learned of what they had done. They had taken all memory of me and gotten rid of it, replacing it with new ones in people's minds. My name was eradicated from all texts," she turned and looked at Castiel. "And my loved ones forgot me." Castiel looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time.

"Castiel, when you first formed, none of the garrisons would take you. None of them wanted you because of your wings." Sam cut in. "Wait, his wings? You can see them?" Lyriel turned to Sam. "Yes, his wings. You can't see them for reasons that you already know. I am an angel, so I can see them. They are like that of a raven. A blue so dark it is almost black and when they catch the light they shine." She turned back to Cas.

" I took you in and raised you. I was the only archangel at that time to take in a newly-formed angel. After they erased me, your memory of me was erased and you were placed into a garrison. We weren't like a mother and a son. Our relationship was like Sam and Dean's here. The older sibling raised the younger sibling and they were close."

Dean raised his hands. "Hold up. Let me get this straight. You're an archangel, but everyone forgot about you and all knowledge of you was erased because of the other archangels? Not to mention you practically raised Cas!"

"Yes."

Castiel looked at her, his face full of disbelief and shock. "Is there any way for me to regain my memories?" She shook her head and groaned. "Yes, but no. You can get your memories back, but the only person who can give them back is the one who took them in the first place and we have no way of knowing which archangel that was."

She closed her eyes and leaned back, creating an uncomfortable silence. "Dean, whatever you have to say, spit it out. I can feel you staring at me and it is making me extremely uncomfortable." The silence lasted a little longer before Dean spoke up.

"Will you come with us and help us on cases? Having an archangel on our side in a fight would be really helpful." She lifted her head back up and glared at him.

"Let me get this straight. You want me to drop my life here and follow you around like a little puppy dog who you sic on monsters." She shook her head. "No thanks." Dean laughed with a bitter smile. "From what we can tell, you don't have a life here. Besides, we are getting our butts kicked out here!"

Sam hit his brother. "You should try to be nicer to the person who can obliterate you!" She laughed. "Nice to know at least one of you is polite." Sam looked at Lyriel. "Maria told me to tell you thank you." Lyriel smiled at him and walked inside and came back out after a moment carrying two duffel bags and a medium sized backpack. Sam looked at her, completely confused. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, and I was planning on joining from the minute I saw you standing on my porch. I can't keep hiding. Besides, it would be nice to use my grace more freely and get back in the game. But if you think for one second that I am your lapdog and you can walk all over me, you are in for a big surprise."

She turned and walked down the steps. "You boys coming or not?" Both Winchesters and Castiel were completely astounded. They hadn't actually expected her to willingly help. Especially after Dean was a complete and utter jerk. They all stood up and looked at each other before running down to the car.

Lyriel tossed her stuff in the trunk and then slid into the backseat, Castiel right next to her. Dean and Sam up front per usual.

"Hey, can you play Led Zeppelin?" Dean laughed and turned toward her. "Hon, you and I are gonna get along just fine." He laughed as Sam groaned, grabbing a casette and putting it in.

There was one thought racing through all of the boys' heads. 'Looks like we have an archangel on our side."

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"Lyriel?" Lyriel looked up and Castiel was looking at her from the couch of the three-full room that they were in at a hotel. "Yes?" He looked at her apprehensively, as if unsure that he should continue. "... can you tell me about it? You raising me, those things that I don't remember?"

She smiled and nodded before walking over and sitting down next to Castiel. "What do you want to know about?" Castiel lit up as if he were a child again and not angel who was over 1,000 years old. "Everything. I want to know everything."

"Well, one of the biggest stepping-stones was your first step. Most angels are taught to fly, but I taught you how to walk first so that if you fell down, you could get back up. Of course, that meant crawling first. I remember setting you down, maybe two feet from me. Your wings just rested on your back." She laughed, lost in the memory.

"You looked at me, completely befuddled on why I put you down. You glared at me before trying to crawl. You just laid flat. It was a week until you actually got on your hands and knees. It was three more weeks before you even moved towards me. Oh, you were so annoyed. I could feel it in your grace." Her face softened into a small small.

"When you took your first step, it had been about 2 months from when we began. Your look of complete joy and pride. It was incredible." She got very quiet, tears slowly making their way down her face. "Not long after that, I began to teach you to fly. Before we really got anywhere, I was assigned a mission. When I came back, you didn't remember me."

She curled up into a ball. "It hurt. A lot." She got up and went to go lay down on a bed but Castiel hugged her from behind. "I'm sorry." She began to cry softly. "I know." She softly removed his arms and then laid down on the bed.

"Good night, Castiel."

A/N Please review!