EDIT (4/20): Well shit. So I just found the piece of paper I wrote a really important scene on that will be the base for a little vital plot thing Imma have going on later. So if you're a lovely reader reading in real-time, would you be a sweetie and help correct my blunder by peeking at the last paragraph of the previous chapter 6 (Near, far, Wherever You Are)? I swear it's important for later. I might have been able to insert it in a later chapter, but you know how this story gets away from me... I didn't really want to take the chance, so there. Thanks a bunch ^.^ (ugh I'm so dumb! Don't look at me!)

A/N: The title is from the song 'Te he echado de menos' (I Have Missed You) by Pablo Alboran and it means "I want your soul to remain like this, stuck to me." Well, it roughly means that anyway. Sorry I couldn't find a better chapter title :/ it seemed symbolic at the time. Either way it's a great song and it'll totally apply to Dean and Cas' relationship sooner or later.
I screwed myself over when I said this next chapter was already mostly written. Because as soon as I sat down to review it a final time on Saturday, I immediately decided some things had to go, many things had to be added in, and everything had to be changed entirely. I'm having a lot of issues with my creativity because lately it's been like: It's the middle of second period. Write this short idea down for later. Just kidding, now it's sixth period and you've filled six pages front and back. OR it's 1 AM. Write. And what you write isn't even going to be in the next chapter. Nope, this is for ten chapters from now. Mwahahaha I own you, puny writer. So yeah, that's what's been going on for me. What about you guys? Did you have a good Easter (if you celebrate it) or weekend (if you don't)? Enjoyyy!


Cas stood in front of the abandoned structure for several minutes, debating whether to even go in at all. If he went in there were two options he could choose from. The first was simple: remain invisible, and help if absolutely necessary. Option two was more risky: pretend to be who Dean thought he was, Castiel the hunter. He would be walking the razor's edge by continuing to make this ridiculous contact and relationship with the human. It was unreasonable, and it went against Heavenly conduct. Gabriel had warned him to stop messing around because while that archangel didn't care as much for with whom Castiel dallied, the others did care a lot and he wouldn't be able to hold them back when they found out. When.

He could not decide and rapidly switched from one plan to another, reconsidering, and re-reconsidering. He didn't particularly want to experience whatever punishment his superiors had planned for him, but counter to that, Dean was a magnet for him. He was the one constant in Castiel's universe, and he didn't want to give up the one familiar thing he'd ever had. From another point of view, he made an odd figure standing in front of the house, flickering in and of sight, looking like the gray static of old televisions. Of course though, there was no one else to see.

It was a lovely evening in early 2013, so of course Sam and Dean decided to spend it checking out a rickety old house on the edge of town. All previous owners were driven away fairly soon after purchasing it, claiming there was a violent spirit in the house that tried to kill them (and apparently it had succeeded with a few). When they arrived there, they left the Impala parked in front of the old-school style wraparound porch and began doing EMF readings.

After going through the whole perimeter and interior, they met up in the foyer again and nodded to each other. Yup, ghosts. Yup, plural. So to sum it up: nice warm evening, beer waiting in the car, and a house filled to the brim with violent ghosts. De-lightful.

The brothers were casing the first floor, iron fireplace pokers in hand, when Dean signaled for Sam to stop for a sec. "Do you hear anything?" he murmured, clutching the poker.

Sam glanced around warily. "I don't think so. Did you?"

Just then Dean jerked around and swung the poker viciously, narrowly missing Sam—who noticed that Dean was jabbing at thin air.

"There, there I felt it! A breath down the side of my face!" Dean prowled around the room, his green eyes glinting predatorily in the dimming light. He swung the poker around him again. "I feel like something's watching me, but I don't know where from." His jaw clenched, clearly uncomfortable with having the bottom hand against anything supernatural.

Sam looked at his brother as if he were crazy. "I don't see anything, Dean. You sure about this?" He glanced around again, slightly more nervous.

"I'm sure," the other hunter growled, and he stalked out of the room and began slowly climbing the rickety staircase while Sam followed hesitantly.

Cas held his breath, trying to stand silent and still. He had not meant to startle Dean, but the floorboards in the old house were very creaky. All he wanted was to scope out the house without Dean or Sam seeing him, just in case his secret angelic assistance was needed. Plus, he was having a hard time shaking off the breathing, a habit he picked up from Dean. Gabriel had mentioned it on one of his brief check-ins. Come to think of it, Cas had picked up a lot of bad habits from Dean; the least of which were: breathing, talking to oneself, smiling—oh, and swearing. The first time Castiel had uttered a mild profanity in front of his superior, they nearly had a coronary, or an angel's version of one, so like a grace attack. That had gotten him reprimanded severely. Heavenly avenging angels weren't supposed to say "asshat" when referring to assignments.

Cas snapped out of his thoughts when a heavy thud resounded through the ceiling above him. He rushed upstairs in a flurry of wings, appearing in time to see the older Winchester be flung through a wall. Castiel's vision bled red momentarily as he searched the room for the ghost. He found it immediately; an angel's senses were much more sensitive to detecting spiritual anomalies than a human's.

…Take It Back Now Y'all (Rewind)…

Dean didn't mention it to his brother, but he didn't feel the stare leave his back until he went upstairs, though he swore the presence was still lingering in the house. He tried to shake off the strange and creeped-out feeling that settled in his gut. He couldn't tell if the presence seemed malicious or benign or what; all he knew was that an unknown something—one?—was watching him. He tried to focus on searching the rooms rather than the uneasiness, hoisting the poker over his shoulder like a baseball bat.

Then Sam's string of curses caused him to whirl around just as his brother was hurled across the room and the floor with a solid thud. Dean winced in sympathy, feeling the empathic burn of getting the breath knocked out of his lungs. He couldn't wait to see if Sam was getting up while he hit around blinding with the poker, trying to track the vague distortion that was the ghost, like looking through a glass bottle.

"Goddammit," Dean swore. Okay, it was totally unfair that ghosts could be invisible and psychopathic killers from beyond the grave. One superpower at a time! Suddenly, for a brief moment, he felt weightless—until pain radiated throughout his chest and he crashed through a sheet of drywall. It took him a moment to get his bearings while plaster dust settled around him, getting in his eyes and lungs, causing him to cough and tear up at the eyes.

…Fast Forward…

Castiel kept an eye trained on Dean's form trying to extricate himself from the wall. The other eye he kept on the spiritual distortion before him. He reached out to it with a cold fury and gripped its ectoplasm, channeling all his righteousness into the grace. The distortion before him began to glow brighter and brighter until it disappeared in a burst of blinding white light. His anger went with it as he worriedly turned back to observe Dean—and Sam too of course.

Dean braced his hands on his knees as he bent over coughing. "What the hell was that?" he rasped. "I'm seeing stars."

Sam blinked rapidly, trying to coax his pupils out of their painful constriction. "I have no idea. You think it just burned itself out?"
"No ghost we've encountered before has ever done that. This is weird, even for us." Dean shook his head, dismissing Sam's hypothesis and immediately regretted it when the room spun again. He groaned and bent down to grab the poker from among the wall debris.

While Sam and Dean discussed what had just happened, Castiel tried to edge his way past Dean through the door way. Perhaps he could make himself visible downstairs and then make contact with Dean—and Sam—when they returned outside. It would be simple enough to pretend he was hunting in the area as well, a part he was well-versed in playing. It was just too tempting to talk to Dean, albeit as more of a stranger rather than a friend, considering the year they were in. He was too wrapped up in his plan to remember the most dreadfully unfortunate aspect of the house: its creaking floorboards.

He was just past the threshold of the door when the board underneath his foot creaked loudly, the unmistakable sound of the floor being stepped on.

Dean whirled around with a roar, aiming directly at Cas' chest with the iron weapon. "I know you're here, and I know you're behind me, you son of a bitch!"

Cas panicked. With his concentration lost and without thinking, he made himself visible. Dean didn't shirk from the sudden appearance of a threat he'd been anticipating for so long. Now with a target, he shifted his aim to the vessel's heart. Cas instinctively put his hand up to block the blade, like he had done so many times before when fighting against a particularly difficult and precocious evildoer. "Dean, no!" His voice rang throughout the house, making the window panes explode and shatter.

The hunter's face had less than a split second of surprise as Castiel's naked palm touched the strip of wrist that had appeared from under his coat sleeve. Then Dean disappeared.

Castiel stood there frozen, his arm still outstretched before him, in the same spot Dean had been in barely a moment ago. What had he done? He began shaking convulsively, trying to reign in the sudden abundance of emotion: terror, distress, the pain of loss. A new future snapped itself into place, and while he could remember everything, since it was his own past, he realized that every single being on the earth had no idea of what should have been. Dean especially would have no clue of anything that had happened and changed between him and Cas over the course of their friendship in the years that should have followed.

"What the fuck did you do to Dean?" a voice demanded. Castiel couldn't remember who. Who had been in the room as well? He slowly came to grasps with reality again, bringing him face to face with the Colt. He stared unblinkingly at the gun, faintly recognizing it from lore.

His shoulders slumped. He'd have to explain it all now, wouldn't he? Sam would not believe him, nor side with him, considering his attitude in the past. "That gun will not harm me, Sam. You might as well put it away, since I am not going to attack you."

The hammer of the gun clicked back. "You attacked Dean."

Castiel exhaled a drained sigh. "I did not mean to. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen, this was never supposed to happen." He passed a hand roughly over his face, unconsciously mimicking Dean's habit, feeling much older than his millennia. "Come. I will try to explain." It crossed his mind as an order, but came out as a plea. "First we should leave the house; it is not safe with all the ghosts." He stepped to the side and waited as Sam slowly crossed in front of him, keeping the barrel of the Colt firmly aimed at his forehead. He trudged down the stairs, letting the younger Winchester follow at his own speed, allowing him the comfort of the pretense of control with the gun pressed to the back of his head.

He stood stone-still on the porch while Sam demanded the truth for a third time. "That is the truth, Sam," he replied calmly. "You can choose whether or not you want to believe me, but you cannot choose what is and what isn't. And this is."

"Okay, no. Stop lying to me." Sam shook the demon knife at Castiel, having opted to switch it for the gun now he was close to this strange thing. "There is no such thing as angels! I should know! I've prayed every night since I can remember. I've prayed from God to every saint to every angel I can think of, and not a single thing I've ever begged for has ever been answered. How can you account for that, huh?" he demanded.

Castiel stared him down with his blank blue eyes. "Prayers are rarely directed to me. As I informed you thusly, I am an avenging angel. Your prayers would never have been under my jurisdiction unless you were summoning me for revenge. Most likely they went through a process of appeal with the others, and they ended up not feeling the need to intervene."

Sam glared at him and stretched tall over the "angel," trying to compensate for the very small and vulnerable feeling next to the soft-spoken man who claimed to be a goddamn angel. His jaw flexed furiously. "You killed Dean," Sam growled. "Look, I tried to do what Dean told me to do. I tried not to be too hard on you, I tried to trust you, you son of a bitch. Look where it got me. I knew some bad shit would happen because of you. Fuck."

Castiel narrowed his eyes. "You are calling for vengeance upon me. You ask for retaliation upon the one who took your brother from you. Do you understand what your request entails?" Cas, of course, understood what it meant were a human to ask an avenging angel to wreak vengeance upon itself.

The human's eyes widened almost comically. "How the hell did you know that?"

"You channeled your thoughts to me. Your mind is crying out for anyone to listen, and I am the one who is." Castiel straightened, his vessel's heart oddly constricting in his chest. "I will attempt penance for my actions, and I will do anything you ask of me to my best ability."

"I want you to bring Dean back from the dead—"

"I cannot—" Castiel interrupted.

"Then I want you to kill yourself," Sam replied instantly, coldly.

The angel froze. Then extended his angel blade, the only real weapon capable of killing him. He looked at it, considering his reflection, before bringing the point to his throat. "If you would desist in interrupting me, I feel it only prudent to warn you that my death—"

"Do it."

"If you force me to go through with this you will never see you brother again I can find him I am the only one who can find him and I will if you would just allow me the chance," Cas said in a burst of words, not even pausing. Sam said nothing. He took a very unnecessary, very human deep breath and began pressing the blade deeper. He was bound by Heavenly oath to do as he had sworn.

"Wait."

Castiel immediately stopped, wishing to gasp in overwhelming relief. Not particularly for his own life, but for the renewed chance he might have to save Dean.

"Explain what you mean."

He resheathed the blade, hoping it would no longer have use. "I do not think you understood what I meant. I did not kill your brother. In fact, he should be very much alive. I merely sent him back in time."

"Oh yeah," Sam replied sarcastically. "You just sent him back in time. Remind me to send you a thank you card for not doing something horrible."

The angel's blue eyes flared with anger. "I am trying to help," he bit out. "Now can you please let me explain?" He paused, waiting for another argument or bitter reply. "I can find Dean; it might take time, but I have an unlimited amount of time. I was not focusing on any specific time period when I made physical contact with Dean, so I do not know exactly where I sent him. But he is alive, I swear to you, for now. I would search the entire life and expanse of the universe to find him."

Finally, after a long heartbeat, Sam dropped the knife. "Find him," he demanded coldly. "I don't care how long it takes; you find him and you bring him back to me. Then you get the hell out of our lives, and I never want to see you again."

Castiel nodded once, bowing his head in acquiescence. "As you command, so shall I do."

Blink.

Dean spun around, freaked out, disbelieving. This was some kind of hallucination. He grasped several different poor passersby and shook them all, asking them the same round of questions. "Where am I?"

"London, England?"

"What day is it?" he shook them with increasing fervor.

"Tuesday?"

"What year?" He finally asked the golden question, having avoided it ever since he saw the abundance of things that should be antique or vintage, not running around on the street: cars, buildings, clothes…

"1959," they stammered, yanking themselves out of his limp hands and hurried away. They had to be lying. Dean searched around and his eyes landed on a stack of newspapers by a shop door. He ran over and picked one up, violently shaking as he scanned the page. The air felt like it had been punched from his lungs. September 18, 1959. "Hoshit."


A/N: and…BAM. How was that? How did I do? Was that everything you hoped for? Was it surprising, or was it too predictable? Tell me. Seriously, tell me. Because I know there are a lot of you guys reading this, but you're not reviewing! Pleaaase don't read and run on me! What am I supposed to feed upon? I need your reviews and encouragement and feels for nourishment; help a starving writer out. On another note: I might start revising earlier chapters in order to reduce their utter horrendousness that I now recognize, having taken an objective step back. I don't know how soon I'll start, or if I'll even get to it before summer if I continue writing you guys these insanely long (for me personally) (bi)weekly chapters. Seriously, I punch these things out during the week at school or work on it for five, six hours straight on the weekend. That's way more effort than I put into any Lit essay.

But anyway, I'll let you guys know when and if I get to revisions before June (wow, seems so far and yet so short away). Don't worry though, I won't be changing anything major so you won't have to reread it if you don't want to. Also if you notice any discrepancies in the timelines or something that should cause a paradox and literally doesn't make any sense, you can suspend your disbelief and ignore it, or you can tell me and I'll try to fix it as best I can. :) Frankly though, just trying to figure the logistics of this story out and how Cas works makes me want to beat my head against a wall. But oh my gosh I have literally had this planned out since the very beginning and I finally got to write it! Argh I am so thrilled, the real fun can begin now! Also, I figured out a solution to my "I need to include more Destiel before all hell breaks loose" problem. You'll see in the next chapter, or the one after that. I literally have three pages handwritten on a specific scene. Oh my, this is glorious. I am deliriously happy.