A/N - Got one more chapter done over the holiday weekend (due to an intense rainstorm that kept me inside... hmm...) Kind of an interlude as Cas and the boys adjust to the situation.

Sarah called a little meeting that evening, pulling Dean and Sam aside after dinner while Cas went to lie down in his room again.

She said to them in a hushed voice, "You have got to rig up some way for him to get out of his room more often. It's not good for him to be lying in there all the time. He's gonna go stir crazy."

Dean couldn't help giving a sad little huff of a laugh, and he said, "Wasn't that long ago that he told me this was where he wanted to be." Sarah looked at him curiously, and Dean added, "This bunker was sort of his idea of Heaven, actually. It was where he most wanted to be."

"Where he wants to be is with you," Sarah said sharply to Dean. She added, to Sam, "With both of you. That's very clear. It's not the building that he wants, Dean, it's you guys. And right now he's stuck in his little room and though I know you're both really trying to spend time with him, it's obvoius that he just can't hang out with you guys like he used to. He's mentioned that you used to take him along sometimes on your, on your, magical hero-quests or 'hunts' or whatever you call it?"

Dean and Sam both had to laugh at the "magical hero-quests," but they nodded, and Sarah went on,"And he used to go driving with you? And you'd watch movies with him, sit around the table and eat with him?" They nodded again, and Sarah said, "Well, you've got to find some way for at least some of that to happen. Or I think he's going to end up a pretty sad angel. He's kind of getting there already."

"I know. We know. We're working on it," Dean said again, and Sam added, "We'll come up with something. We will, Sarah, I promise."

Dean and Sam discussed it further late that night.

And they got some ideas.

Clearly one thing was to go retrieve Meg the cat. Cas had told them where she was being boarded, but Dean hadn't fetched her yet since he'd been a little worried about whether Meg might try to curl up on top of the broken wing. And the second, and third, order of business— well, as Dean started planning the day's itinerary with Sam, they realized they were going to have so much shopping to do that Sam actually went off to ask Sarah if they could borrow the Forester. Just for the cargo space. Shopping first; then pick up Meg; then back to the bunker.

Later that day, Dean, Sam and Sarah all paraded into Cas's room, Sarah holding Meg's little cat carrier and Dean holding...

A barstool. A tall kitchen barstool with a comfy padded seat.

"Check it out, Cas!" Dean announced, plunking it down by Cas's mattress. "No back, no sides! And it's high enough up off the floor, I think. What do you think?"

Cas had been lying on his stomach with his head hanging over the edge of the mattress, trying rather awkwardly to read a book, but he took one look at the barstool, said just "Oh," and instantly scrambled to his feet. Without a word to any of them, he picked the stool up and examined it carefully from all angles, and then set it down, looked back over his left shoulder at the bandaged wing, and inched himself up onto the stool. Very slowly, with exaggerated caution, watching his wing carefully the whole time.

He got up on the stool, holding himself very tensely at first, and gradually relaxed, looking back at the left wing.

The wing was fine. It didn't even brush the side of the stool.

And the wingtips were a good foot off the floor.

"Is this for me?" Cas asked, looking over at Dean.

Dean said, "Well, Cas, I bought it for me actually, I kinda suddenly wanted a couple barstools," Of course Dean meant it as a joke but of course poor Cas's face froze, Sarah growled, "Dean," and Sam punched Dean in the shoulder (pretty hard, actually), saying, "My idiot brother is joking, Cas, in case it isn't obvious." Dean backtracked as quick as he could, saying, "OF COURSE they're for you, Cas, I'm just joking, YES they're for you! Actually I went all the way to Hastings to get them for you. I swear they're for you. Anyway I got four of them. And wait'll you see what Sam's working on; he's got this idea for a movie-watching chair for you. Which is going to require some carpentry so it might take him a few hundred years. Anyway, do you like the stool?"

"I love it," said Cas simply. "And, I can wait a few hundred years, Sam. Where are the other stools?" He was already bouncing off the first stool as if he couldn't wait to go and try the other three (totally identical) stools. Even his right wing looked sort of eager, somehow— Cas suddenly seemed to be holding it a little bit higher than usual, a little bit flared out, with the feathers along the top edge sort of fluffed up a bit.

"One's in the library," said Sam, "one in the kitchen, one in the tv room. For now. But— before you go running out sitting on stools all night— we got one other thing, too." And Sarah held up Meg's little cat carrier.

Then they all had to give Meg a solid half an hour just for her to sniff Cas's wings furiously, nonstop. Cas finally lay down for her, on his stomach, just to let Meg inspect every feather individually from close up. She sniffed each feather from root to tip with riveted attention, her mouth slightly open and her lip curled up. She looked rather as if she'd just caught a whiff of something that was bafflingly in-between a tasty little songbird, an enormous-but-friendly lion, and maybe an entire field of catnip. To everyone's relief she didn't actually start gnawing on the feathers, and she didn't do anything with the bandaged wing. Instead, she wormed her way directly under the right wing, as if she were wanting a sort of feather-cave, and there she curled up and started purring madly.

Castiel clearly was feeling obliged to stay there for a while to provide the feather-cave for Meg ("I can't move my wing," he said to Dean, "Meg's purring"). So Sam and Sarah went off to make some dinner. But once Meg had finally settled down to a regular volume of purring, Cas picked her up and brought her into the kitchen. He sat up on his stool, put Meg in his lap, and Sam handed him a plate of food. And for the first time in weeks Cas ate dinner with them.

It wasn't a perfect solution— Cas still had to hold his plate on his lap a little awkwardly. Whether or not Meg was hogging Cas's lap, clearly they were going to have to get a higher table, and maybe a high desk.

And of course the big problems still weren't solved. Cas still couldn't go outside; he still couldn't be seen in public, he still didn't fit in the Impala...

It wasn't a total solution. But it was a start. And for now, Cas seemed content to just sit on the barstool in the kitchen, Meg purring in his lap. Just chatting with Sam, and Dean, and Sarah, as they all ate dinner together.

Suddenly it was Sarah's last day. December 13th. It had somehow been two weeks already, and she was planning to start her long drive back to Wyoming at dawn the next day. Happily, she'd already said she was going to try to come back in mid-January, when Dr. Mac was planning to come visit to check Cas's progress and maybe take out the pins. (Sarah had been talking with Mac regularly, and emailing him pictures of Cas's healing incisions, and Mac had actually decided to fly out for an in-person checkup.)

But this would be Sarah's last day for a few weeks.

Cas seemed almost despondent to hear she was leaving; he hadn't fully realized that it had already been two weeks since his surgery. And all of a sudden, that afternoon, Cas swung full force back into his long-postponed baking hobby— which, Dean realized, was something Cas could do while standing. Cas announced just that he was "making some cookies for Sarah," and he disappeared into the kitchen for most of the afternoon.

Dean strolled into the kitchen a few hours later to find that Cas had turned out piles and piles of cookies, of three different kinds, and was loading the cookies carefully into a series of little ziploc bags.

Dean had to smile at the sight. There was just something... well, adorable about it. There stood Castiel, soldier of God, the impressive six-foot-tall angel, who Dean had seen storming through life-or-death battles everywhere from Heaven to Hell to Purgatory; there Cas stood, with his massive wings, one bandaged dramatically and the other half-flared-out even more dramatically... and he was just carefully putting little cookies into little ziploc bags. Frowning in concentration. There was a little dusting of flour on his black wingtips, and a few feet away was fluffy little Meg, curled up on the padded stool, watching him.

Dean found himself just leaning against the far wall, his arms crossed, for a minute, smiling to himself. Just watching Cas working away.

Dean eventually noticed that Cas was putting exactly six cookies into each ziploc bag. Two chocolate-chip cookies, two oatmeal-raisin, and two snickerdoodles, in each and every bag. And Cas was making bag after bag after bag, lining up all the bags in a neat row in the counter.

"Jeez, Cas, how many cookies did you make?" asked Dean at last.

"A hundred and four," Cas replied, without looking up. He inspected the last batch of snickerdoodles and started popping them into the last set of ziploc bags. He added, "Some are for you and Sam, but I've set aside seventy-eight for Sarah's drive back to Wyoming."

"Seventy-eight cookies?" said Dean, eyebrows raised. "For Sarah? For one drive?"

"It's a thirteen-hour drive, Dean," said Castiel calmly, sealing up the last bag. He counted them off: "... eleven, twelve, thirteen. There."

Ah. Thirteen bags, with six cookies each, for a thirteen-hour drive.

"So... um... you're thinking she'll need one cookie every ten minutes?" Dean asked, trying to hide a grin. "For thirteen hours solid?"

Cas nodded, still looking at the bags. He said, "I was originally estimating one cookie every fifteen minutes, but I wanted to add a safety margin. People have different metabolic rates, I've noticed, and I'm not sure what her metabolic rate might be." He looked back over his shoulder at Dean and must have noticed Dean's slightly strained expression (Dean was just trying not to laugh), for Cas's right wing suddenly folded up a bit, and Cas asked, sounding a bit worried, "Do you think that isn't enough cookies? Should I make another batch?"

"Um," said Dean. "I bet seventy-eight cookies is enough to get Sarah through one day, Cas."

"Are you sure?" Cas looked more worried now, and his right wing folded further, tucking up narrowly behind his back. "I could easily make another batch. I think there's still enough butter and eggs." He was already opening the fridge to check.

"I'm really pretty sure that seventy-eight cookies is enough, Cas," said Dean, biting his lip now to keep from laughing outright. "And Sam was going to make her a few sandwiches also."

"Oh, that's good," said Cas, looking relieved. He closed the fridge. "I never used to pay much attention to how much people ate, you know, so I wasn't sure. I just wanted to be sure she doesn't go hungry just because of coming here to help me." He looked over at the pile of cookie-bags, adding, "Because, it can be so terribly uncomfortable when you're really hungry. It can get painful, actually. I just wanted to be sure she doesn't have to go through that."

Oh. Right. Cas had been going hungry himself, pretty regularly, not all that long ago. Actually... he'd been broke and homeless for most of the past year.

And he was so thin when we found him, Dean remembered. And even when we got him back here he was still practically starving, all last month, no matter how much he ate, because of that damn thirty-year spell.

Probably Cas truly didn't know how many cookies Sarah would need to keep from feeling hungry.

"That's really nice of you, Cas," Dean said gently. "She'll be thrilled. And she definitely won't go hungry. Here, how about I go get a box that'll hold them all?"

Cas actually flashed him one of his rare smiles, Dean smiled back at him, and then Dean went off to look for a good box. It took a little time of poking around in the garage, but eventually Dean found the perfect-size box, to hold Sarah's seventy-eight cookies, in thirteen bags of six cookies each.

That night Sam announced that his "movie chair" was finally ready for Cas to try out. "Here, it's not perfect but I think it's sturdy enough to try out tonight," Sam said, dragging over a very strange-looking contraption. It looked rather like a very oddly shaped animal with four stiff, splayed wooden legs, a padded seat, and a sort of a strange padded flat "neck" that slanted up on one end.

"You've made a drunk donkey, Sam," said Dean, tipping his head a little skeptically as he assessed the slightly crooked wooden legs.

Sam said, "It's actually one of those shoulder-massage chairs, like they have at airports. Cas— Dean and I bought one the other day and I've been modifying it for you."

"Wounding it, you mean?" said Dean.

Sam shot him a scowl. He turned back to Cas and said, "See, you straddle this seat thing and then you lean forward against this padded part. There's no back or sides to hit your wings, but I think you'll be able to relax way more than on the stools. You can kind of just slouch forward and practically doze off if you wanted. It's basically like sitting cowboy-style on a regular chair, but designed better, and padded, and I re-did the head part and put the wooden legs on to get it higher up off the ground. So that your feather tips won't hit the floor. You wanna try it out?"

Cas walked over, and swung one leg slowly over the seat. He was moving very cautiously, just as he had with the barstool. And everybody, including Cas, was looking at his broken wing.

The wing didn't brush anything. The wing was fine. Cas sat all the way down, and then, slowly, leaned forward on the padded part and relaxed.

And relaxed more.

"I can change it if it's not right," Sam said. "I could make it all different if you want something else. And, I made some extra things." He began dragging some more weird-looking little wooden pieces over, and Dean said, "Wow. You made extra little mutants to keep it company!"

Another scowl from Sam. He said, "Well, you know, Dean I made something instead of just buying stools at Target. So there's that. Anyway, Cas, these other things are just rough mock-ups, we can firm them up later, but the idea is, they attach to the front. This one's sort of a tray or desk, so you can read a book or whatever, this thing's a chinrest in case you want to just put your head down, and this one's a cup holder for coffee, —"

"Or beer," put in Dean. "Sam, we have gotto work on your woodshop skills. You know, there's this thing called a 'level'—"

"It's perfect," interrupted Cas. "Sam. It's so comfortable." He closed his eyes for a moment, and just sat there, eyes closed, propped up on the chair, his feet loose underneath him. He folded his hands on the little chin rest and let his chin sink down on his hands. "I can just relax," he said, opening his eyes again. "I can just relax and my wings don't hit anything. Sam... thank you."

He closed his eyes again, with a relaxed-sounding sigh.

Dean caught Sam's eye and mouthed "Good job."

Actually Sam had done an awesome job. Actually it was totally awesome to see Castiel so damn relaxed, for a change.

Hell if Dean was going to say that out loud, though.

Sam just grinned. He added, "I thought it was high time we got the movie nights going again. So... Sarah, what do you say to a movie, for your last night?"

"Sounds perfect," said Sarah.

Cas's eyes opened. "Maybe the one about the lost animals?"

Dean and Sam both laughed, glancing at each other, and Dean said, "Oh, this one, you mean?" — waving a dvd copy of "Homeward Bound" at Cas, adding to Sam, "You might remember I picked it up at Target, Sam, so there."

It was the movie Cas had seemed so obsessed with — the kids' movie about lost animals. A kids' movie... it was bound to be boring as hell. But Cas wanted to see it, so suddenly it was everybody's favorite movie. ("I've been dying to see that one, Cas, actually," Sarah insisted. "Me too," said Sam. "Been on my list for ages," said Dean.)

They started to get all arranged, dragging Cas's new "movie chair" closer to the tv.

"One more thing," Sam said suddenly, and he dragged over one last "mutant" piece of furniture, a weird little wooden padded chair that looked like it was "designed" (if you could use that word) to fit right next to Cas's chair.

Sam said, "It can go on either side. Cas, it's for, say, if somone needs to sit right next to you while they're redo-ing your bandages or taking care of your wing. Or also I thought Meg could sit there."

"You made a spot for Meg?" said Cas, his eyes widening. "Sam. Thank you."

"Meg or... whoever, yeah," said Sam nonchalantly. "Okay, folks, take your seats!"

Dean was never quite sure what happened next. It had seemed really obvious that Sarah should take the little seat next to Cas tonight. Because, well, it seemed like Sarah and Cas had developed such a nice rapport, and it was also Sarah's last night, and maybe Cas might need some medical attention during the movie or something. But suddenly Sam had plunked Meg into Dean's arms and was sort of shoving Dean down into the rickety little seat next to Cas.

Then Sam and Sarah went off to make the popcorn and Dean was stuck there holding Meg. Who promptly curled up and started purring.

It turned out it was kind of hard to stand up and disrupt a purring cat. It just seemed like it would be uncivil, or rude, or something. So Dean just tentatively perched there on the little seat, holding Meg in his lap, thinking it was temporary and that he'd trade places with Sarah once the popcorn was done. But then the movie had started and Sam and Sarah somehow ended up on the sofa together, for it turned out that Sam had only made two bowls of popcorn for some stupid reason, so Sam and Sarah had to share one bowl and Dean and Cas had to share the other bowl.

"Sam," Dean complained, "There's not enough bowls."

"Sorry," said Sam, "I forgot. Guess I'm used to just making two bowls." He popped a handful of popcorn in his mouth and hit Play.

Then Cas had to stretch out his wing or some damn thing, and next thing Dean knew he was sitting there in the little chair with Cas's right wing draped comfortably over his shoulders, and Dean was still holding little purring Meg in his lap, while Cas's right hand alternated between petting Meg and taking all of Dean's popcorn.

And it was actually... pretty damn nice. (Except for Cas eating all the popcorn.)

The movie, anyway, finally got underway. And as soon as it started playing Dean realized why Castiel had been so interested in this movie. It was about three lost animals, and it was a dumb kid's movie, yes, but...

It was about three animals of different species.

Two dogs and a cat.

Two dogs and a cat. Two animals of the same species, and one of another species. And they were all friends.

And they were lost, and they were trying to find their way home.

The two dogs and the cat all stuck together. Sure, they got separated briefly now and then— the damn stupid cat went over a waterfall at one point, the dogs barking frantically, one even jumping in to try to save her; the dopey old golden retriever fell in a hole near the end and things were looking pretty grim there for a moment. But they kept re-finding each other, and trying to help each other. They stuck together, through thick and thin, the whole way home.

Dean's eyes developed some kind of damn vision problem several times during that stupid kids' movie. And each time, he felt Cas's little winglet-things tighten on his shoulder, while Cas just kept on eating all of Dean's popcorn.

At dawn the next morning, Cas presented Sarah with the box of cookie-bags. They were all standing together out in the frigid air, Cas shivering in one of his toga-blankets, as Sarah was packing the last things into her Subaru.

Sarah peeked into the box, puzzled, and Dean explained quickly, "Cas was worried you might go hungry, so he thought you might need a cookie every ten minutes." Sarah almost started to laugh, as she looked into the box and realized how many cookies there were— and then she almost cried.

She thanked Castiel profusely, setting the cookie-box hurriedly in the Subaru's passenger seat and turning to to give Cas a hug (a very careful hug— staying on his right side and just hugging his neck, so as not to hurt the broken wing).

She even gave him a peck on the cheek. Cas hugged her back with both arms and one wing, wrapping the wing tightly around her. He reluctantly released her a moment later, saying, "I owe you so much, Sarah. More than just cookies."

"You don't owe me anything," she told him, patting his wing. "I'm so glad I could help."

Sam spoke up with, "Here's some sandwiches, too. Just in case you run out of cookies." He held out a stack of neatly-wrapped sandwiches that seemed almost as excessive as the cookies.

"Guys, this'll feed me for weeks," said Sarah, setting the sandwiches into the cookie-box and wrapping Sam in a tight hug too. "Thanks, Sam. Thanks everybody. Thanks so much."

"Uh, all I got is gas money," said Dean, tossing several twenties into Sarah's Subaru. (He knew she'd try to refuse the twenties if he handed them to her the normal way, so he threw them into the car instead.) "Do I get a hug too?"

Dean did get a hug too. A perfectly respectable hug.

Though he was pretty sure it wasn't quite as long or as tight a hug as the one she'd just given to Sam.

(The popcorn thing was maybe starting to make a little sense.)

"Call me," Sarah said to Sam as she climbed into the driver's seat. She started the engine, and put the window down to say, "Call me every day, Sam. I mean, about Cas's wing. If you have any questions about the bandaging or, you know, if anything comes up. Just, um, keep in touch, okay?"

"Uh," said Sam. "Okay. I'll call. I mean, about the wing. And the bandages."

"And, Cas," Sarah said, out of her window, "You know I'll be back, right? Mid-January, with Mac, like I promised, and you will get those pins out, Cas, and the bandages will come off, and you'll be moving that wing again sooner than you think. You wait and see."

Last of all she added, "Dean, you bundle up that angel. He looks cold."

"Yes, ma'am," said Dean. A minute later she was driving away, and the two hunters and the angel stood there together in the chilly wind, watching her go.

Dean bundled up the angel as ordered, rearranging Cas's toga-blanket as best he could. Cas didn't even seem to notice; he was just watching the Subaru drive away. In fact they all seemed to feel compelled to just stand there and watch the Subaru, as it went all the way down the long driveway, and turned the corner, and disappeared onto the main road.

A /N - Awwww, bye Sarah!

But she'll be back. :)

Re Sam/Sarah, I really was NOT planning anything but it just started sliding in that direction. I am letting the characters just do what they seem to want to do. Hope you're okay with it.

Next chapter on Friday. The bigger plot will start picking up soon, but I wanted to give the boys, and Cas, just a few moments of peace first - as much peace as they can find. Please let me know what you think! I so love hearing your thoughts.