I could hear voices calling me from the other side of the clearing, but Dean's lips were turning blue as I traced them with my fingertips. It had been a month, and my vessel was close to dying. I couldn't do anything else but watch him, couldn't even speak or sleep or force myself to nourish Jeffrey's body. I needed to know his body was safe, felt it like the ache of a tooth being pulled. Or well, what I imagined it would feel like.

I saw Sam approaching in the distance with Ruby at his side, their hands clasped as they ran. My eyes focused on the pale purple of Dean's closed eyelids. I pushed myself closer to him and tightened my hand over the mark I had left.

I felt a small, warm hand touch my arm and I turned to face Ruby. Her face was lit up, her perfectly white teeth showing as she grinned. Her eyes were a soft yellowish brown, and it took me a moment to register the change. She was like Sam now, human with slight demonic powers. She was pretty this way, when I couldn't see and feel the sins that had once been printed onto her skin.

Sam was standing behind her with a grin to rival her own. His lips were stretched impossibly wide, his teeth glinting in the sunlight. His face wasn't tense with pain and fear, but relaxed with an undeniable happiness lining his features. I could suddenly see how he resembled Dean, from the soft green eyes to the way they walked. They were close, and closer than that because they were Dean and Sam, Sam and Dean, and that would never change.

"Cas, can you hear us? Are you doing okay?" I gave a weak nod of my head at Ruby's worried words, feeling every single hair on my head moving as I did.

"Oh, Cas! We have great news! They found him, they found Dean! It too-"

I drowned out Ruby's words as it started to sink in. Dean. They found him. Dean, Dean, Dean. Where did they find him, who found him, Dean Dean Dean. I couldn't believe it, but Sam was happy and smiling and Ruby was still babbling about it and I still couldn't believe it because it seemed too good to be true. Oh but I hoped it was true, with everything I had.

"-rance, Kansas. Michael felt a weird burst of power around there, and when he zapped us there we saw Dean's soul laying in the grass. As soon as Michael touched him he lost consciousness. He had to take him wherever, I can't remember, for some of the other Angels to check up on him. But they found him, they really did!"

I turned my attention back to Dean's body and found myself wondering what he would do when he was finally put back together. He would surely need to eat, and he would try and avoid talking to anyone about what he had done, and he would probably ask Sam where their latest hunt was. And I figured that I shouldn't be here, because he wouldn't want to see me because he'd think I didn't love him even though I did, so much more than an Angel was allowed to love anything.

It felt like a volcano had erupted inside of me. All my nerves where on fire, my body shaking, and I felt the tears come again. I had been crying almost constantly since the battle, since only moments after Dean sacrificed himself, and it still surprised me every second that my vessel's tear ducts hadn't yet dried up for the rest of eternity.

The portion of earth below Dean and I started buzzing, the flowers growing to an almost obnoxious size and brightening so much that it would seem blinding to normal humans. She was rejoicing, because she would have her Dean back, and so would I. She would no longer weep, and she would be able to take care of herself more than just around the two of us. She would stop looking for his soul, because it would be coming back to his body.

The sound of fluttering wings came from all around, and suddenly the clearing was filled with my brothers and sisters. The air I was breathing in was stuffy from all the happy voices, exclaiming loudly in my silence ridden ears. I felt sharp pains in my ears that traveled to my head, making the blood pound harshly in my veins.

My body felt sluggish and heavy as I struggled to untangle myself from the spider webbing plants that covered me. As soon as I was free, I sat up and scooted over so that I was leaning slightly over Dean. His eyelids were a darker purple now, his lips blue and white along the edges. Hi cheeks looked sunken and his hair was messy and greasy. I loved him so much.

When I felt the hands on my arms, I started struggling fiercely because I knew what they were doing. They didn't want me to be around Dean, didn't want me to taint him further. They didn't want be to be there when his soul was put back inside of him, they didn't want me to be in love with him.

And then Michael was standing in front of me. His eyes were hard but there was an underlining softness that made me cease my rabid jerks in seconds. He lifted a hand and touched his fingers to my forehead, and immediately I felt a subtle calmness invading my senses. I felt like cursing him, lashing out, but I took it as the gift he wished it to be.

"Castiel, my brother, you know I don't want to take you away right now. But we, none of us, can be here when his body regains his soul. He could destroy us all, even Sam and Ruby. We must all go to safety, and when his powers calm we shall come back. Do you understand me, fratello?" his voice was soft in my abused ears, and I nodded. He pulled me into his arms and I leaned against him lightly.

I saw Jazzy, one of the younger Angels, move towards Dean's body. She nodded at the rest of us and my vision went white as the scenery changed abruptly. In my head I could see her releasing Dean's soul and then she was next to us, smiling at me softly. I looked away.

We were surrounded by crosses and candles and colourfully tinted windows and I could only guess that we were in a church. It wasn't a holly church by any means, but it seemed to put the others more at ease than if we were simply gathered out in the open. People would've thought it suspicious to see so many Angelic looking people standing and sitting together, one of them shaking and crying violently.

Michael's shirt was soaked with my tears, and I brought my sleeve up to wipe at my cheeks. Most of my company were watching me with soft smiles, speaking to each other in low, happy voices. I forced myself to remember that I wasn't the only one who had been hit hard by the four week long loss of Dean.

But I had been there since the beginning, even longer than Sam, so I guess I felt some sort of right to be this depressed, this withdrawn. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn't help it. I loved Dean Winchester. I suddenly realized that I loved him more than my Father.

There was no other moment than now during the past month, four weeks, thirty two days, seven hundred and sixty eight hours, forty six thousand and eighty minutes, two million seven hundred and sixty four thousand eight hundred seconds that I had felt so desperate to have Dean back, to hold him in my arms, to tell him how much I love him, to just be there and make him feel loved and force him to realize that I care.

During the time spent near him in the clearing, the earth had taught me the many languages spoken on her plains. I was fluent in a lot of them, and now all I could do was repeat phrase over phrase in my head like a mantra until I ran out of words in one language and skipped into the next.

Because I was about to have Dean back. Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean. Dean Winchester, the boy (man) I had been watching since his birth. The man that had saved me, and later on saved the whole planet and the Heavenly plains above from demons. The being I fell in love with so early on, only truly realizing it after fifteen years of his life.

And I couldn't help but feel like the biggest cradle robber in the history of the Human race.

But I loved him.