After The Fall
Chapter 7
"Well, shit." Dean's voice sounds like sandpaper over the crackling telephone line of Castiel's motel room. There's a short silence between them before Dean speaks again, his tone incredulous. "It all seems a little over the top for one little ex-demon, don't 'cha think?"
Castiel exhales harshly, elbows resting on his knees and one hand pushing his hair back from his eyes tiredly. "Yes. I do. But it's all I have to go on for the time being." His voice feels coarse and rough after painstakingly explaining his situation to Dean, after finally reaching him on his fourth cell phone number forty minutes ago.
"If you ask me, this 'Knowledge' guy or whatever you want to call him sounds shady. Never heard of anything like him."
"That doesn't necessarily make his information invalid."
"I guess not, Cas, but how d'you know he's not some kinda demon? Or that this isn't some sort of trap for you?"
Castiel frowns. "For what purpose? There is no war anymore," he replies, and he hopes Dean doesn't hear the way the resentment catches in his throat when he says, "I'm of no value anymore."
"So why this big fanfare over an ex-demon who's lost her memories?" Dean asks, his voice betraying his impatience. "At least if they were after you there'd be some sense in it. You're still an angel, Cas – the next Big Bad could just come after you and try to use you. What would they do with Meg? Ask her to pour vodkas at their next end-of-the-world party?"
"I understand what you're saying," Castiel replies tiredly, "But she saw the hellhound, Dean. Only the hellhound's intended target should be able to see it - and I couldn't. That means it wasn't there for me. I was not the mark. I was just something it came across when it was following it's real target."
"Meg? You think it was looking for her all along?"
"I think it was her hellhound. It would explain why she could see it and why she was able to prevent it from attacking me."
"Or maybe someone remembers a little more than she's letting on." The suspicion that creeps into his Dean's voice feels like a personal betrayal and Castiel tries not to feel indignant. "How do you know she hasn't regained her demon mojo and isn't running around painting the town red right under your nose?"
Castiel involuntarily rolls his eyes, and idly notes to himself what a human gesture it is. "I'm not a fool, Dean. Although it's crossed my mind that she may be able to access a limited amount of her old power, it's very unlikely. And if she were slaughtering people, I would surely know."
"Don't get touchy, Cas. I'm trying to help you here." Dean's voice sounds tired, and with a sudden jolt of dread, Castiel remembers that Dean is growing old. He hadn't noticed it too much over the last decades they had spent hunting together, but now, with Dean thousands of miles away, he can hear it in his voice. His best friend is aging, growing old alone, while he will probably stay in this timeless vessel for eternity. It suddenly seems so unjust, so terribly unfair, that Castiel is momentarily left speechless. It dawns on him that Dean will not live forever, nor Sam, and the weight settles in his chest and refuses to lessen.
"Cas? You there?" Dean asks impatiently, and Castiel tries to push back all thoughts of the inevitable for the moment.
"I'm here," he says, and his voice feels so heavy suddenly. "I know. You're always trying to help me. I'm sorry, Dean."
There's a pause before Dean replies. "It's fine. I just want you to look at this properly, okay? I just want you to watch your back."
"I understand, Dean. But Meg is not the threat, she's the victim. She has lost her memories and she is helpless, in a town full of demons who most likely want something from her."
He hears Dean exhale harshly over the phone, and imagines Dean massaging his temples the way he always did when he concentrated on a problem. "You've got to be missing something. Why would angels care about pushing her back on the naughty step? I know you angels are dicks sometimes, but surely if her slate's been wiped clean, they can't interfere? Why would they go to all this trouble to punish this one soul anyway? Meg never really did much to them; there's no real motivation for vengeance there."
"I agree," Castiel replies, pushing himself to his feet and pacing the mottled orange carpet of his motel room. "If angels are involved, it must be for some other purpose."
"So what about these demons? Why would they want to push her into doing bad shit? It's not like they even know about this 'Knowledge' guy or the place with the doors, right?"
"My understanding is that only a select few know of its existence. Not a general demographic. It was strongly inferred that only some higher level angels know of it, and that even then their knowledge of it is very limited. The being implied that it doesn't let anyone remember their visits. I was an exception because it needs me to help Meg – another reason I don't believe it would allow demons the advantage of knowing about the doors."
"Okay. So, if angels are involved, it's for some other big bad reason. Great. The demons don't know about the doors, so that means they're probably not after Meg for revenge, or the eternal torture of her soul, or anything like that. They must want something else from her."
"I think," Castiel says slowly, "that they may be trying to return her to her demon form. Though at this point, I don't know why."
"Maybe they miss her gentle smile and pleasant way of dealing with people," Dean says seriously, and Castiel almost laughs. The weight of the situation still feels heavy on his shoulders, but hearing Dean's voice and his reliable sarcasm makes the whole thing feel somehow more bearable. He feels lighter already; felt lighter the instant Dean's voice answered him on the other end of the line.
"How are you, Dean?" he asks, because he needs to know. It's only been four days, but Dean sounds tired in a way Castiel has never heard before.
"I'm good, Cas," Dean replies, sounding slightly puzzled by the abrupt change in conversation. "What, do you miss me already?"
"Yes," he tells Dean honestly. "I do miss you. You usually make me feel less alone in impossible situations."
Dean chuckles on the other end of the line. "You're not so alone, Cas. It sounds like you and Meg 3.0 are on pretty good terms already. You'll be settling down soon, white picket fence and everything."
"I don't think so, Dean. But yes, we're on good terms, all things considered. It will make protecting her much easier."
Dean lets out a short bark of laughter. "Don't pretend this is all about a job, Cas. You're doing this for you." Castiel doesn't really know how to respond to that, and he's grateful when Dean speaks again. "Y'know I'm just a car ride and a full tank of gas away at any given time. If things start getting scary, give me a call, okay?"
"I will," he promises, and somehow even this impossible, insurmountable situation feels easier to deal with, all because Dean is still his best friend and is still there to help him when he needs him. "Thank you," he says, and as they say their goodbyes and end the call, he hopes Dean understands just how grateful he really is.
"Can we watch this one?" Jill asks, and Megan turns from the stove to see her sister curled on the lone couch in the middle of the room, legs folded beneath her skinny frame, holding up an old blu-ray case.
"We watch that one all the time, Jill. Pick something else. See what's on TV."
"Yeah, okay." She picks up the remote control and flicks through the channels instead, and Megan turns back to the pot of chilli simmering on the stove. She had tried to catch an hour of sleep after she and Castiel had picked Megan up from school, and Cas had gone off to do... whatever it is Castiel does when she's not around. Her shift at the store earlier had tired her out, but she had been unable to really sleep. Instead she'd lain in bed, tossed and turned, and had fallen into some state between sleeping and waking. Flashes of that dream she so often has are gradually returning to her, and not for the first time, she wonders what those orange eyes and those black bars mean.
She had mentioned it once, to Jill, that she often had dreams of a man in a cage, asking her to let him out. Jill had looked at her, expression indiscernible, and softly suggested, 'Maybe it's dad.' Megan knows better. Their father could never be that thing that speaks so gently and offers her such unending comfort. Their father could never be sad in the way those orange eyes are. He didn't have the capacity for anything but anger.
She dishes the chilli into two bowls and grabs a bag of nachos, and heads towards the couch to sit beside her sister. Jill is still flicking through channels as she takes one of the bowls from Megan and rests it on her knee.
"Is Castiel your boyfriend?" Jill asks suddenly, and Megan nearly chokes on her food.
"What?"
"Is Castiel your boyfriend?" Jill repeats, eyes still fixed on the television as she clicks the buttons on the remote control.
"No," Megan replies firmly, eyebrow quirked in amusement. "No. I don't do boyfriends."
"I think he is," Jill says firmly, and turns to look at Megan pointedly. "And you should have a boyfriend. Chloe's mom has a boyfriend, and Castiel is much better than him."
"That so?" Megan asks, smirk widening. "Maybe you just like Castiel and you're the one who wants him around."
Jill's pale skin flushes scarlet and she looks back towards the TV, avoiding Megan's glittering eyes. "No I don't," she says indignantly, and Megan is reminded that Jill really is just a kid, no matter how mature and grown up she seems most of the time. "I just think he should be your boyfriend."
"And why's that, Jilly-bean? Go on. Enlighten me."
Jill pauses, her embarrassment forgotten, and she looks thoughtful. "Because he's good," she says finally, "the way my teacher Mrs Milton is good."
"Oh?" Megan asks, her interest piqued. "What do you mean 'good'?"
"He just is," Jill replies casually, as if it's the most obvious thing. "He's just good; he's not like other people. You can tell."
"What am I then?" Megan asks. "Aren't I good as well?"
Jill smiles fondly, her eyes still cast to the flickering channels in front of her. "No, you're not good. Not really. But you're not like other people, either. And you're mine, so it doesn't matter anyway."
Megan is thoroughly amused. "You're a really weird kid, y'know?"
"So you always say." They eat their food in silence for a while, until Megan speaks again.
"You're going all the way through the old ager channels. Is that how bad it's getting?"
"There's really nothing on," Jill replies, and just as Megan's eyes focus on an old black and white movie – '-rence! Help me Cla-' – Jill has flicked through the channel and moved on to another.
"Go back!" Megan says suddenly, surprising even herself with the urgency in her voice. Jill gives her a strange look, but returns to the previous channel anyway.
A man in a coat stands leaning over a bridge, the railings thick with snow, his hands clenched together, praying.
"Get me back! Get me back, I don't care what happens to me! Get me back to my wife and kids! Help me Clarence, please!"
There's a sharp ache in her chest, and it's so debilitating that suddenly it hurts to breathe.
Why are you so sweet on me Clarence? She hears, in a voice too soft, too happy, to be the shouts of the man on the screen.
"Please! I wanna live again. I wanna live again-"
-I don't know, comes the reply, in a voice so achingly familiar and yet not, and she's holding cool glass in one hand and her wrist hurts and there's someone sitting across from her and And I still don't know who Clarence is-
"-Please, God, let me live again," the television sobs, and an inexplicable sense of grief rips through her. This sense of loss is paralysing. There is a hole in the world and she can't see it, but she knows suddenly that she's been walking perilously on the precipice of it her entire life, oblivious. Something is wrong, so wrong that she can't understand why she's never seen it before, and yet she still doesn't know what it is.
"Megan?" Over the roaring in her ears, she hears Jill's voice, and turns to look at her. Jill's deep brown eyes are wide in her young face, her light eyebrows furrowed, and her eyes are shining with unshed tears. "Megan, what is it?" Megan blinks, and realises her eyes are hot and stinging, and she can taste salt on her tongue and the corners of her mouth. Her cheeks are wet with tears. "Megan, what's wrong?"
Jill can't see her cry. Jill has never seen her cry. So she laughs, short and sharp, and wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.
"I saw this years ago," she says, "before you were born. My mom used to like it." It felt somehow easier to lie, than to try to explain to her ten-year-old sister that she was having some sort of emotional breakdown for no apparent reason.
Jill looks at her, and opens her mouth to speak. The words don't come out, but the expression on her sister's face is so profoundly sad that Megan feels like she might begin crying again. She pushes back the sobs before they can form in her throat.
"What is it, Jilly-bean?"
Jill's face is hesitant, and her voice is small. "Do you miss your mom?"
They've never really had this conversation before. Megan explained the basics to Jill when she was younger – that they shared the same father, but had different mothers – but they've never done this before. They've never talked about mothers before. It's a subject Megan has always hoped would never rear its head, but one she knows Jill has a right to talk about. One day Jill will need to talk about it, and Megan decides in this moment that it might as well be today. The issue is staring them in the face now and they can't look away.
"Yes," Megan breathes, "I miss her. I miss her every day."
"What was she like?" Jill asks. Her voice has lost it's hesitance, and now she just looks like any normal, curious little kid.
"She was warm," Megan says, and she's surprised by how much better it feels to be talking about her, rather than leaving her behind in the back of her head. "And bright. She had the biggest smile, and her hair was dark, like mine. She was always making up little songs." She feels the corners of her mouth twitch upwards, and it feels so good to be able to smile. Jill smiles in response, listening. "She used to pick me up from school, and if it was raining, we'd go on long walks and jump in all the puddles – like you and I do, sometimes. She loved the rain. She loved it so much, and it made her so happy-" so happy she cried. Megan stops.
"What happened?" Jill asks slowly, her smile diminished. Megan doesn't know how to go on.
"She was always so happy," she replies. "And I loved her so much. She was the centre of the world, and you felt so happy just being near her. She was like the sun. I see a lot of her in you, y'know, even though you never knew each other." Her eyes begin to sting and she pushes the tears back through sheer force of will. "But I think, now, maybe she felt like she didn't belong. She wanted to go away."
"Why?" Jill whispers, and Megan shakes her head.
"I don't know, Jill," she answers, "but I think she's in a happier place now."
Jill nods, and Megan wonders if she really understands, before she speaks again and Megan is astounded, as usual, by the level of intelligence and empathy her sister possesses for her age.
Jill smiles at her softly. "I don't think she would have left you unless she knew you were going to be okay here." It's said with such conviction that Megan almost believes it.
"Do you ever miss your mom, Jill?" she asks. "You can tell me. It's okay to miss her."
"No," Jill says, and Megan knows she means it. "I don't remember her. I can't miss her." Something about that breaks Megan's heart.
"Don't you feel... sad about her? It's okay if you do," Megan says, but Jill looks at her with such honesty that Megan is left speechless.
"I don't feel anything about her. She's just some woman who popped me out, then ran away," Jill says, with the sort of honesty that only a child can deliver. There is no bitterness, no resentment in her voice when she says, "I've never missed her, because I never wanted her either. The only person I ever needed was you." And then, like the gentle sort of child she's always been, she reaches over, kisses Megan on the forehead, and settles back in her space to watch the movie.
Megan sits, stunned, and feels a sudden rush of gratitude for the little girl on the other side of the couch. There really is more of her own mother in this child than there could ever be their father, she thinks, and she could cry all over again from the knowledge that she's doing at least something right. Her sister is happy, truly happy, and it's all been worth it. Working behind that bar, letting drunken men breathe down her neck and leer at her; standing behind the store counter and letting her boss yell at her; running away from that house with a tiny, blonde girl in her arms, feeling lost and terrified and with nowhere to go – it has all lead to this moment. That fear she's always secretly harboured, that she would never be enough for Jill, dissipates all at once.
"Let's rewind it," Jill says, oblivious to the tears streaming down Megan's cheeks, "and we can watch it from the start."
"Okay," Megan replies, and the grief that had hit her so suddenly earlier lessens. She knows something is still wrong, and that that invisible hole in the world still exists, but it doesn't matter. She's sitting beside her little sister, and they're both here, together, safe, alive, and it feels so strangely fleeting that she wants to cling to it until it's all she has left.
Castiel doesn't see Meg again until the next day. After thoroughly searching the town again for any demons he hadn't detected yet, and satisfied that there appeared to be no immediate danger, he finds himself seated on a bar stool in Annie's Bar. He rests his elbows on the scarred oak surface and asks Meg for a bottle of beer, if only to give the impression that he really is here for a drink, and isn't just following her around like some sort of predator. She places it in front of him and gives him her best eyebrow quirk.
"I'm bored," she drawls, and the familiar sound of it makes him smile involuntarily. The bar is near empty at four in the afternoon, and she's busied herself with all the menial jobs she can possibly think of. She grabs herself a bottle of beer and walks around the bar to pull up a seat beside him. "Tell me a story."
He turns his head to his left to look at her. She looks tired. The skin beneath her slate grey eyes is only slightly purple, but set against her pale skin, it looks as though she hasn't slept in days. Megan leans forward to rest her upper body on the surface of the bar, resting her head in her folded arms, and looks back up at him. She works herself ragged, he knows, between the bar and the general store, and if she can sit here beside him and take some time to rest, he'll feel better for it.
He doesn't really know many stories. There's only one he remembers well; one that Sam used to read to his daughter when she was a child. Her copper eyes would light up as Sam read to her, squealing in delight when he imitated silly voices, and pulling her blanket over her face at the scarier parts. Whenever he felt particularly lost, he would watch them from the corner, invisible to them both, and marvel at the way they interacted with each other. It seemed so strange, that this boy who had started and stopped the apocalypse, who had singlehandedly locked the devil in a cage, and had fought the battle of free will versus destiny and actually won, now had a child of his own, and that she would never know of everything her father, her uncle, and himself had done in the world. It occurs to him suddenly that she must be Megan's age by now, and that he had never had the chance to watch her grow up as her father and uncle have. He feels somewhat saddened by it.
But Meg's looking up at him expectantly, and he clears his throat.
"Once upon a time," he begins, intent on retelling the story word for word as Sam had, "There once lived a girl, whom everyone called 'Little Red Ri-"
" 'Little Red Riding Hood'?" Megan interrupts, her eyes glittering with sardonic amusement. "I don't like fairytales, sugar. Tell me something new."
"I don't really know any other stories," he replies, feeling somewhat put out.
"Make something up," she orders, and stares at him defiantly until an idea comes to him and he clears his throat.
"Fine. Once upon a time – don't look at me like that," he says sternly, "it's not a fairytale." She raises her eyebrow and her smirk lessens into something like a genuine smile, and he carries on. "Once upon a time, there was..." he hesitates, before finding a suitable word, "...a soldier. He was raised in the army, with the rest of his family, and it was all he had ever known. One day, when he was still young, his father – the commander – ordered that they were to go to war with another army on the other side of the world. Because he was young, and naive, he did as he was told, and fought alongside his brothers and sisters against the enemy army. They were all told that, if they didn't, then the other army would take over the world, and life as they knew it would be no more."
Meg's staring up at him, listening intently, and he wonders just how far he can push this.
"He killed many enemy soldiers in the following days, all in the name of his father. But on the fourth and last day, he found himself face to face with another soldier, both with their weapons raised, and locked in a stalemate. She was his enemy, but he realised suddenly that he was her enemy too. Just as he had been conditioned by his family to save the world, she had been conditioned by hers to destroy it. Simply by existing, she planted a tiny seed of doubt in his mind. In the end, he didn't kill her. Nobody won that war. The world didn't end, but it was damaged irrevocably."
He stops, unsure how to continue, but Meg urges him on. "Then what?" she asks, her voice devoid of snark and her expression indiscernible. She almost reminds him of Sam's daughter, waiting for the next part of her bedtime story.
"Years later, he met her on the battlefield again. Her previous commander – her father – had been defeated, and a new one had risen to take his place. But she wasn't loyal to the new commander. He wasn't her family, and he was only using her army for his own ends. She rebelled, alone, and soon after that, the soldier rebelled from his own army. It turns out that his army had only been using him, too. She had reached him, somehow, and he realised that the world wasn't as black and white as he had been taught it was."
The thorns and smoke are writhing beneath Meg's skin, and those violet eyes stare at him through Megan's own slate grey. "I think I've heard this story, before," she says, her expression far away, as though trying to catch up with some long forgotten dream. "What happens next?"
He mirrors her, leaning his head on his own arms on the surface of the bar, left cheek upturned to look at her. "They made their own army. In the end, it wasn't so much about saving or ending the world. It was about choice. It was about free will versus destiny. The other armies were defeated, and the world was left alone, to be whatever humanity wanted it to be."
Meg's looking at him intently, and he sees something shift beneath her human face. The demon writhing beneath her skin looks torn and unsure. Its violet eyes are set wide and glittering against the black smoke and thorns of its body, and it begins to claw wildly beneath Megan's skin.
"Do they die?" she asks. The word catches in her throat and Castiel doesn't want to do this anymore. He's being selfish in wanting her to remember. He's so desperate in wanting her, all of her, to come back whole that he has let himself continue, rambling on with the story of their lives, without allowing himself to truly consider the consequences. If she remembers, it could cost everything. She could go insane. She could put herself in danger. She could die because of him, all over again.
"Castiel?" she prompts, and that selfish part of him wins. He tells himself it's because it's different now, because he can save her this time. He pretends that nothing bad will happen if she remembers, because he's here now, and that if she goes insane then he'll take her insanity away. If she puts herself in danger, he'll pull her out of it, and if she dies then he'll find some way to bring her back. If he were honest, though, he knows he's telling her all of this because he misses the way she used to call him Clarence.
"She died," he says. He almost can't say it. It's still hard, even after all this time, to say it aloud. She's right in front of him, so close that their elbows touch, and he still misses her. "She saved him, over and over again, and died so that he could keep fighting. And because of her, he won. She won, too. It was all for free will, and in the end, she found her own cause to fight and die for."
Meg looks at him, her grey eyes locked on his own ocean blue, and asks, "Did he love her?"
The question takes him aback, and all he can do is stare at her. The expression on her face is so profound, and her eyes so inexplicably sad, that he's momentarily left speechless. "He probably did," he says finally.
She smiles at that; not her smirk, or her sardonic smile, or that crooked, playful grin she often wears. It's small, barely noticeable, but it's there and real. She moves to sit up straight, stretches her arms above her head and lets out a sigh.
"I'm going out for a smoke, sugar," she says, pulling her pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the back pocket of her jeans. He nods at her, and she moves towards the door. Stops. Half turns to look back at him, and he wonders what she's thinking when she says, half seriously, "She probably loved him too. Dying for him, and all."
By seven in the evening, the bar has grown busier. Between Meg serving customers and shooting leering drunks dirty looks, they amuse themselves by playing twenty questions. So far, Castiel has learned that Megan's favourite colour is currently green, that she is exactly twenty four years, five months and two days old, and that if she could go anywhere in the world, she'd go to Amsterdam.
"Amsterdam is a nice place," he replies. "You'd like it. Incredible architecture."
"It's not the architecture I'm interested in, sweetie," she smiles crookedly, eyebrow raised as if daring him to understand her. A middle-aged man approaches the bar and asks for a whiskey, and Megan turns to reach for a tumbler and pour his drink. She deposits his cash in the till and turns her attention back to Castiel.
"When did you go Amsterdam?" she asks. Castiel doesn't think this is how twenty questions is actually played, but she probably knows better than him, so he follows her lead.
"I've been on and off throughout the years," he replies. "I used to travel a lot."
"Alone?" she asks, eyebrow raised. "Never took the wife?"
"I've never had a wife," he replies, and tells himself Emmanuel's wife doesn't count. "Yes, mostly alone. There's something oddly liberating about surrounding yourself with strangers.
She scrutinises him as she pours someone a vodka. "You're a little anti-social, aren't you?"
"Aren't you?" he deflects, and she grins.
"Me? Nah. Fuckin' love people," she says. A moment later, a middle-aged man gestures at her breasts from his booth at the other side of the room, and she happily sends him a one finger salute. She turns her attention back to Castiel, and tries not to register the angry expression on his face as he glares at the man from across the room.
"Do you miss travelling?" she asks, and Castiel turns back to look at her, a trace of annoyance still etched in the corners of his mouth and downturned eyebrows. His frown lessens when he looks at her.
"No," he answers, "I'm happy here." He realises that, surprisingly, he means it. "Besides, the world will still be out there if I ever want to travel again."
"You're crazy if this place makes you happy," she scoffs, taking a bottle of beer from the fridge beneath the counter and handing it to a young blonde woman. The woman stands next to Castiel, openly staring at him in interest, and Megan takes malicious enjoyment from the fact that his eyes are focussed solely on her.
"It's not really the place," he says, and Megan feels a sudden jolt of warmth in her abdomen when she turns and sees the look on his face. She distracts herself with running the woman's cash through the till and handing her back the correct change.
"You still haven't told me what you're doing in this place-" she begins, but she's interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing. She pulls it from her pocket and answers.
"Jason? What's up?" Before he has time to wonder who Jason is, Meg's expression becomes thunderous. "What the hell are you talking about? I've been working since ten this morning. I'm doing a ten hour shift for you and-" she goes quiet for a few seconds, before angrily cutting in. "I don't care what she says! I don't care if she feels sick. I don't care if her fuckin' legs fall off! I'm supposed to be picking up my ten-year-old kid sister from her friend's house. I have to finish at eight. I'm not doing another six hours-" she's cut off again, her mouth pursed in a thin line, and she glares at Castiel while her boss thoroughly chews her out over the phone. Castiel doesn't take it personally. He focuses on the voice on the other end of the line, and hears the conversation as though Meg's boss were right beside him.
He's yelling at her now. Nobody else can take Jackie's shift, and since Megan is already at the bar, she has to take it for her. She can take the shift, or she'll be fired. Castiel briefly entertains the idea of smiting Jason, but ultimately decides against it.
Megan's staring at him intently. She bites her lower lip thoughtfully, and Castiel tries to ignore the sudden jolt of warmth that snakes through him. He's instantly reminded of the way she once felt against him, trapped between the wall and his chest, and the way her lips had moved against his own.
"Cas," she says, and he's unpleasantly jolted back to the present. Her hand is covering the speaker on her phone, but Castiel can still hear Jason roaring at the other end of the line. Her face is almost apologetic, or at least, Castiel thinks, as apologetic as Meg could possibly be. "I need you do to me a massive favour."
"Yes?" he asks. He'd like to object, but knows he doesn't have much choice. She looks desperate, and if he can save her from her angry boss, he'll most likely do it anyway.
"Can you pick Jill up from her friend's house at eight, take her home, and babysit for a few hours? She'll be going to bed around ten anyway, and I'll be back as soon as I can."
He's entirely uncomfortable with this new situation, but she looks desperate. "Please. There's nobody else. Chloe's mom's kind of a bitch, and I can't see her happy to have Jill stay overnight after looking after her all day."
Castiel nods, and ignores the voice in his head that tells him he has enough trouble looking after potted plants, let alone a human child. "Yes. Okay." It's almost worth it for the grin that spreads across Megan's face and the way her eyes light up with relief. She uncovers her phone speaker and places it to her ear again.
"Shut up, Jason, would you? Fine. I'll do it. But I am not working tomorrow. Agreed? You're welcome, by the way." She hangs up abruptly and groans loudly, before looking back at him. "You're a lifesaver."
"I don't mind," he says, "But are you sure your sister won't mind me looking after her?"
"Oh, trust me," Meg drawls, smirk in place and eyes glittering, "She won't mind at all. She thinks you're an angel."
He almost chokes on his beer. "What?"
"Seriously," Meg replies, unaware of Castiel's alarm, "She thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread."
"Oh," he replies, understanding the context.
"I'll phone ahead in a while and tell Chloe's mom you're getting her instead of me," Meg says. "I'd rather deal with her than Jason anyway."
"Your boss sounds like an ass-butt," Castiel empathises. She looks at him, stunned, before a corner of her mouth quirks upwards and she laughs, long and hard.
A/N: One day, I'm going to write a story where all the place names aren't shamelessly lifted from Silent Hill trivia.
I agonised for ages over this chapter, and somehow battered it all out in one day. If you don't like all these heart-to-heart scenes involving Jill, then, get over it. Not everything in this story revolves around Megstiel, and that scene is important. Jill is a central character, and you're going to see why pretty soon.
There was so much more I wanted to add in here, but at just under 6000 words, I'm cutting it pretty fine. Sorry if it seemed like this chapter was all dialogue and no actual substance, as a result. The story will be significantly moved along in the next chapter (in fact, there's only really two or three chapters left to go).
Moving on, I'm using this space to shamelessly advertise a future story I'm planning on uploading. I hope you all like X Files. Or, rather, FBI government conspiracy stories with Team Free Will as the main characters. I've always thought Castiel would make a good Scully. Keep an eye out for that one, if you like.
Thanks for reading! Reviews are lovely. You're lovely. If you leave one. Fankssss bye.
