Sensing the danger, Dean begins to take charge. "Sam! Take Cas and Holly with you and run! Keep them safe," Sam nods curtly and takes off for the other end of the alley, but not before snatching Holly by the wrist and looking back every so often to make sure Cas is following as well. The threatening angel looked confused as she watched the trio turn the corner at the other end of the alley.
Dean looked back to make sure Sam, Cas, and Holly are long gone before facing the angel once more and pulling out the specialized blade that he had stowed in his jacket. Charlie follows suit, pulling out her angel blade as well, and taking a steady fighting stance.
Dean, Charlie, and the mysterious angel are all waiting for someone to make a move. Finally, the angel decided to speak up. "So… the girl. She's not from here. She's from very far away, in fact… possibly outside our own universe. How did you get her here?"
There's a long awkward pause, while everyone keeps their eyes on each other and keeps a good fighting stance. "Uh… what makes you say that?" Dean finally asked, still baffled by how their opponent correctly guessed Holly's origin.
Charlie clenched her jaw. "What do you want with us?" she asked sternly.
"All I want is Castiel," the angel stated.
Something in Dean tensed. "Sorry, lady, but he ain't up for grabs," Dean almost shouted, before catching himself and forcing himself to cool down a little.
"Do you know what he did to us? Castiel worked with Metatron to kick all of the angels out of Heaven! All of our brothers and sisters fell, screaming and crying in pain, to land on this godforsaken rock!" Tears were now brimming her eyes as she sped through her exclamation, and her voice cracked once or twice, but Dean's face did not falter in the slightest. "Surely you can understand why so many of us want him dead?!" Dean and Charlie continue to glare at her, saying nothing. The angel just sighs and shakes her head before changing the subject. "So if Castiel is here, why is his grace a few states over?"
Dean's eyes widened. "Are you able to sense it?" he asked hastily.
Noting the distress in Dean's tone, the angel decided not to answer. Instead, she changes the topic of conversation yet again.
Dean and the mysterious angel, who they learn is named Ariel, continue their banter and keep their volume in check. Charlie slowly slinks around behind Ariel, who is still in an argument with Dean. Finally reaching her, Charlie catches Ariel off-guard and snags her angel blade from her. Ariel tried to take it back, but Charlie was swift, and moved just out of Ariel's reach. She then tossed the blade to Dean, followed by dodging a punch and a kick. Eventually she lands a right-hook on Charlie's jaw bone. Preoccupied with her victory, Ariel accidentally leaves an opening and Dean lunges in, stabbing Ariel in the back. The tip of the blade goes all the way through, piercing through Ariel's stomach, and Charlie stares at it wide-eyed and cross-eyed. She was about to fall forward, but Charlie manhandled her shoulders to shove her off to the side, to keep from getting impaled herself.
"Are you alright? She knocked your jaw pretty good…" Dean asked worriedly, wincing at the sight of the large bruise already starting to form.
Charlie noted his tone without looking up at him. If Dean sounded worried, it must have looked pretty bad. "Yeah, I'm fine," she answered, inhaling sharply at the surprising pain of speaking. Her right hand crossed over to the left side of her jaw to check for a knot. Unfortunately, it was already swelling a good amount…
Charlie stepped closer to Dean, and they both looked down at Ariel's body on the ground. Her dark hair would have blended in with the asphalt beneath her head, had her hair not been so curly, and her hazel green eyes were closed lightly, as if she were asleep. Her arms were spread wide across the ground, and Dean and Charlie watched as her wings became visible, going up in hot embers and transforming into flaky ash. It was a beautiful, yet awful sight. Dean bent down to wipe Ariel's blood off of the angel's blade and stowing it in the other side of his jacket.
Dean and Charlie left the scene, walking to the end of the alley and turning the corner into the direction that the other three had gone.
They meet up at the edge of the nature trail, and then the five of them continue on back to the impala together. "So…" Cas started, as he turned towards Holly. "Who are you? I do not believe we have met,"
"Oh! Yeah, sorry about that! Heheh… My name's Holly. Nice to meet you," she smiles at him.
Cas smiles in return, but when he reaches out to shake her hand, he's met with a hug instead. The smile never leaves Holly's face as Cas hugs her back. "My name is Castiel, but you can call-"
"It's okay, Cas! I already know who you are!" Holly interrupts him, beaming.
"But… I don't understand, did Dean or Sam tell you about me?" Cas questions.
Sam sighs. "Don't worry about it, Cas, it's a long story…"
Holly turns to Charlie, and excitedly chirps out the question "So where's Isabelle? Did she go home?" Holly waited a second or two before her voice snapped to immense worry. "Where is she? Is she okay?" she tried not to shout, so her voice came out as a loud and greatly troubled whisper. Charlie stays unusually quiet, so Holly turned to Dean. "Dean, what happened?"
"Don't worry about it," Dean told her, trying to calm her down. Holly frowned at him.
Charlie pulled Holly back around and put an arm around her shoulders and not another word was spoken as they walked back to the impala.
The group reached the shiny black chevy, and Dean began fishing for his car keys in his pocket. "So, Cas, how is your grace not burnt out after getting used in Meta-douche's spell?" Dean asked out of pure curiosity.
"I don't know," Cas answers truthfully. He climbed into the back-left seat. Holly climbed in through the other door and plopped in the middle seat, followed by Charlie, who closed the door after her. Sam and Dean slammed their doors simultaneously, shotgun and driver's side respectively. As they started making their way back to Kansas, Cas piped up again. "I did learn something from that enemy angel back there, before I banished her with the sigil,"
Instead of asking about what the angel told Cas, Dean focused on the last bit of the sentence. "Speaking of which, how are you doing? You had to use your own blood for that thing, didn't you?" Dean aimed the rearview mirror at Castiel's eyes. "Any cuts we gotta fix up?"
Cas shakes his head. "No, nothing major. It can wait," he answered. He then continued on with what he learned from the angel. "According to what I have heard, my grace is located somewhere in the mid-west. I don't know how it got there after Metatron used it, but it's there," Cas finished.
Dean nodded and fixed the mirror back on the road behind him.
About half an hour of silent driving past by before Cas decided to strike up a small conversation with Holly. "So," he started, and Holly turned to look up at him. "I apologize for asking again, but how do you know me?"
Holly smiled and began the story from the beginning as Sam and Dean rolled their eyes, recalling the adventure from their points of view. "Right! So, my name is Holly North, and I'm from a parallel universe. Do you remember back when you and Balthazar sent Sam and Dean to another universe along with the angel Virgil to distract Raphael while you looked for the weapons of heaven?"
Cas's eyes grew wider and wider as Holly spoke. When she asked the question, he only nodded.
"Yeah, I'm from that universe! There's no powers, no monsters or anything, just people. I watched the show, 'Supernatural' on the TV. It's all about the lives of Sam and Dean, starting from when Dean breaks into Sam and Jess's apartment, all the way up to the season eight finale, where all of the angels fall from Heaven because of freakin' Metatron," Holly clenched her jaw when she spoke Metatron's name. "God, I can't believe him," she growled, nearly inaudibly. "Anyway… back to my story. Me and my best friend, Isabelle, are really big fans of the show. I was going to have a sleepover at her house, and we were going to watch a bunch of episodes because she wasn't caught up. We were planning on binge-watching it, starting from season seven, wherever she left off…" Holly huffed a quiet chuckle. "So I had my bag packed, and I was walking over to her place, and I almost got hit by a car… but this guy, he pulled me back… I should've thanked him, I know I should've, but I just got a little scared… a little anxious… so I ran. I took a different route to Isabelle's, and I was just toying with this watch- Oh, wait! The watch! I found this watch on the sidewalk, and it went from black and white to white and black when I hopped universes. Do you think that has anything to do with my universe-hopping?" Holly questioned him, and Cas gazed into nothing as he thought, but Holly brushed off her own question with "Eh, I'm sure we'll figure it out soon,"
After waiting a little while, Sam had a question. "Hey, so the guy who plays Cas, Misha, he died… and so did Bob Singer, and several other important people who make the show run. Dean and I were there during season six, so how did the show make it to season eight?"
Holly replied "Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier… In my universe, none of them are dead. Misha and the others were there for the rest of season six, along with seasons seven and eight…"
Cas finally answered with "Balthazar told me he went to the other universe after he left to fix things. He brought back people, and wiped the memories of those influenced by Sam, Dean, and Virgil. They got the idea to film the episode with themselves dying as such from the traces of the memory wipe,"
Holly continued her story, up until the point of meeting Sam in the parking lot. Cas listened closely to every bit of the story, and when Holly finished speaking, Cas continued to stare forward, quizzically. "Holly, may I see your wristwatch?"
"Oh, it's a pocketwatch, actually," she corrected him.
"Your pocketwatch, then? May I see it?" Cas asked again as he turned to face her.
"Um, well, I don't really have it on me… See, I kind of accidentally left it on the kitchen counter back at the bunker, and Kevin found it and told Sam when they were talking on the phone,"
"... Oh," Cas stated bluntly. He turned back and faced forward once more.
The atmosphere in the vehicle stayed relatively silent, before Charlie spoke up and asked the same question that everyone was thinking. "So, do you think your grace and that watch have anything to do with each other?" She turned her head toward Cas.
Another few minutes pass before Cas finally replies with "It's possible,"
Dean began to drive faster.