Author's Note: The last part of this chapter and the next were a pain in the ass to write, lol. Because they cover events from an actual episode, so I had to painstakingly go through the episode to piece them together. The first part I got a huge kick out of writing, because it's the culmination of a special cameo.

Enjoy!

-SQ

Chapter Ten: Reunions

Dean and Cas cruised down the Seattle street in the stolen Mustang, her engine purring as though she knew she was almost home. Dean drummed his hands against the steering wheel as they waited for the light to change, keeping time fittingly with Def Leppard's Rock of Ages. Castiel was taking in the city with interest, not really having gotten the opportunity for sightseeing on his previous visit.

The light turned green and Dean turned the car onto the street where her owner lived. In his exploration of the car, Dean had found an automatic garage door opener tucked between the ceiling and the sun visor, which he now used to let them into the building's parking garage.

"Welcome home, girl," said Dean, pulling into an open spot and killing the engine.

He got out the the car and moved around to open the passenger door, whose interior handle and locking mechanism were a bit tricky, for Cas.

The angel climbed out, thanking the hunter with a nod, and stepped aside so that Dean could close the door again.

"Give me a minute to fix up the wires, and then we'll go find this guy with the good taste in cars."

Ten minutes later, Dean and Cas were stepping out of the elevator on the third floor, Dean having easily picked the building lock from inside the parking garage.

Dean paused to check himself out on the hallway mirror, adjusted Cas' tie, which was crooked as usual, and then knocked on the apartment door.

The muffled sounds of a videogame stopped, and thirty seconds later, the door was opened by a confused looking redhead wearing pajama pants and a Star Wars shirt.

"Uh, hello?"

Dean cleared his throat. "Benjamin?"

"Yeah, that's me."

Dean peeked over the guy's shoulder into his apartment and Star Wars Guy moved to block his view.

"Can I help you?" he asked pointedly.

"Yeah, sorry," said Dean, "just admiring your posters. Def Leppard, nice."

Star Wars/Def Leppard Guy relaxed marginally. "Thanks, they're my favorite band."

"Rock on," said Dean appreciatively.

"I assume you're not here just to complement my taste in music," said Benjamin.

"No, you're right," said Dean. "We have your car."

"What! ? Really? ? Holy shit! Where! ?" The words tumbled out of his mouth so fast they were nearly unintelligible.

"Whoa, slow down there, tiger," said Dean, putting a hand out to stay the frantic man. "She's down in the garage, waiting for you."

Benjamin the Mustang Guy shook his head in disbelief. "How did you get her?"

"Yeah, well, about that."

"My, ve-I mean, my daughter stole her," said Cas. "I am sorry for the inconvenience."

"She's none the worse for wear," added Dean. "I made sure of that."

"I'll be the judge of that, thanks," said the Mustang's owner, grabbing a set of keys off a hook on

the wall.

The three men took the elevator down to the parking garage, the redhead jangling his keys anxiously against his thigh. When the doors slid open, he practically ran through them toward the blue car parked near the garage entrance.

"Holy shit," he said again, running his hands over the hood and then down to inspect the body of the car. Misty, where have you been?"

"Just about every state between here and South Dakota," said Dean, rocking back on his heels, hands in the front packets of his jeans.

"She's in good shape," said Benjamin, his tone somewhere between grudging and grateful as he straightened up from his preliminary inspection.

"She is a beauty," said Dean. "I'm a car guy myself. '67 Impala."

The other man whistled appreciatively. "Damn. Do you have her here?"

Dean shook his head. "My brother has her. They had to take a bit of a detour, but we're due to meet back up soon."

"Ah, to bad, I would've liked to see her. Sorry, I never got your names."

"Dean," said Dean, offering his hand. He wasn't quite sure why he was giving this man his real name, but there didn't seem to be any particular reason not to. "And this is my, uh, partner, Cas," he added, faltering a bit on the title, which took on a rather different meaning outside their usual cover as FBI agents.

A quizzical look passed momentarily across the Mustang's owner's face as he accepted Dean's handshake.

"BJ. Nice to meet you. I think."

Dean chuckled. "Likewise. Sorry about your car."

"Dean," said Cas, who hadn't missed the flash of half-recognition on BJ's face at the mention of their names. "We should get going."

"I guess you're right," said Dean. "BJ. Misty," he added, nodding to the Mustang.

The hunter and the angel strode out of the parking garage and back into Seattle's cloud filtered sunlight. Away from the confines of walls and cars, Cas rolled his shoulders and stretched his invisible but still very corporeal wings. The feathers were starting to grow back over the scars, but their continued exposure to the mortal plane of existence was making them ache.

Though Cas had tried to make it subtle, Dean caught the movement. "Are you feeling alright, Cas? Are your wings bothering you again?"

"It's nothing," said the angel, brushing off the other man's concern. "They just get cramped when confined to finite spaces." Like this plane of existence.

Dean checked his phone and saw that he had a text from Sam.

There were vamps. Claire and I took care of them. We should be in Seattle sometime this evening. Let us know where we should meet you.

*****Icarus*****

"You hungry, Cas? There's a burger joint somewhere around here with a name you'll get a kick out of. Once I explain it to you."

"I'm looking forward to it," said Castiel, with an earnestness that bordered on sarcasm.

*****Icarus*****

Sam and Claire made good time and pulled into the motel parking lot just after dark.

"There's my Baby," said Dean, patting the Impala's hood before lifting it up to check the fluids.

"Dean," complained Sam, "I know how to take care of the car."

"Just making sure, Sammy," said Dean, straightening up again. "Heya, Claire. Doin' alright?" The girl nodded. "Heard you held your own with the vamps down in Wyoming."

She nodded again. "It was the rest of the nest that Alex was part of."

Dean looked to Sam for confirmation; his brother nodded.

"Yep. They were on their way to Sioux Falls."

"Huh," said Dean. "Remind me to call Jody and tell her she owes us a favor."

"More like we owe her one less favor," Sam corrected.

"Good point," Dean conceded.

Sam and Claire got a second motel room across the hall from Cas and Dean's. Out of habit, Dean had asked for two beds. Well, habit and not wanting to explain himself to Sam and Claire. It wasn't any of their business how he and Cas slept anyway. Which, tonight, would have to be in separate beds; Dean's days of sharing a twin bed with anybody else when the purpose was actually sleeping

had ended when Sammy was six-years old and Dean had woken up on the floor.

*****Icarus*****

"Here we are," said Sam, pushing open the door to the Bunker. "Home sweet home."

Claire stepped in behind him and looked around, her eyes going wide in appreciation. "This is sweet! In a 'turn of the century mad scientist' kind of way. It's like the Brothers Grimm meet Frankenstein."

"You have no idea," said Sam with a grimace. "Add in Oz and you've got a pretty accurate description."

"So, what is this place, anyway?" asked Claire, going over to inspect the telescope at the far end of the room.

"The Men of Letters Bunker," said Dean, coming out of the kitchen and tossing Sam a beer. "Family inheritance, in a manner of speaking."

"A very loose manner," said Sam, setting his beer down on the table. "Follow me, we'll get you set up in your room."

Claire followed Sam up the stairs to the second floor and a short way down one of several branching hallways. The room was large and comfortable for an underground safehouse. It was obvious that the Men of Letters had cared a bit more about creature comforts than the hunters had. Or did, for that matter.

Claire threw her rucksack down on the bed and gave the mattress a test bounce. Nice. She hadn't been in a bed this comfortable in ages. Maybe ever. As she kicked off her shoes, something carved into the headboard caught her eye. It was a name, one she had already heard once recently.

"Who's Charlie?"

Oof. That one hurt. And it must have shown on Sam's face, because Claire continued, "Uh-oh. What happened to him?"

"Her," said Sam heavily. "And she's dead. She was a hunter. Well, a hacker, really. And a friend, who got involved in the life because of me and Dean. She tried to get out, but..." Sam shrugged helplessly. "That's easier said than done. She was killed protecting the Book of the Damned. I think you would have liked her," he added.

"I hope you don't make a habit out of getting your pretty, young sidekicks killed," said Claire with an exaggerated toss of her blonde hair. Sam was silent. "Relax, Sam, I know what I'm getting myself into. Anyway, I'm definitely not a sidekick."

Sam rolled his eyes. "We'll see about that. Goodnight, Claire."

"Goodnight, Sam, don't let the werewolves bite."

The kitchen was empty when Sam returned-it appeared both Dean and Cas had gone to bed as well. Feeling too restless to sleep, Sam grabbed his beer and his jacket and slipped outside for a nighttime stroll. It took several minutes for Sam to put his finger on what he was feeling, and when he did, he mentally berated himself for it. What right or reason did he have to feel lonely? Missing those who were gone wouldn't bring them back. He still had Dean. And Cas. And now Claire. They were his family. Tossing his empty beer can into a trash bin, he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, and was surprised to find them not completely empty.

Withdrawing his hand, Sam squinted at its contents. The dim light of the streetlamp glinted off the golden edges of a creamy white feather, the one he had completely forgotten about finding on the floor of the bunker weeks ago. It still looked like no feather Sam had ever seen before. It was soft and surprisingly heavy for its size, at least heavier than one would expect a feather to be. Sam rubbed it back and forth between his thumb and index finger, finding the sensation strangely comforting and compelling at the same time.

"Where did you come from?" he muttered aloud, turning back toward the bunker.

*****Icarus*****

"Wake up, sleepyhead," said Dean loudly, smacking the back of his brother's sleeping head. "Have you been here all night?"

"Huh?" said Sam, jolting up and reaching instinctively for his gun. "Don't do that. I could have shot you."

"Yeah, right," Dean scoffed. "My reflexes aren't that old yet. What are you doing?"

"Research," said Sam, working a kink out of his neck. "I must have dozed off."

"Amara?" said Dean, opening the fridge and pulling out a package of bacon and a beer. "You find anything?"

"What? No. I mean, yes, I was looking for stuff on Amara," said Sam, hastily closing the copy of The Once Living Arcane: Artifacts from Supernatural Creatures he had been using as a pillow. "No, I didn't find anything."

"Because you were sleeping on the job, said Dean.

"What are you talking about?" asked Cas, who had been lured out of bed and into the kitchen by the smell of frying bacon.

"Nothing," said Dean in exactly the same tone Sam had used moments before.

Sam gave his brother a weird look. "Amara. We still don't have any leads on her whereabouts. You could be helping me look, you know, Dean. Not too long ago she was your main interest. You were practically obsessed."

"Yeah, well, obsession isn't healthy," said Dean, taking a swig of his beer.

"Neither is beer for breakfast," said Cas disapprovingly, trying to take the bottle away from the hunter.

"Mind your own damn business, Cas," Dean grumbled. "Who do you think you are, my mother?"

"No, your guardian angel," said Cas, without missing a beat.

"Damn, why don't I get a guardian angel?" said Dam, trying to break the obvious tension.

"I may switch guardees, since mine doesn't seem to appreciate my services."

"Sam doesn't wan your 'services'," mumbled Dean in a voice meant for the angel's keen ears only, then, more audibly, "Bacon's ready."

*****Icarus*****

"Hey Dean, remember our friend Len?"

Dean looked up from the gun he had been cleaning. "Uh, weird as hell, soulless, took the rap for all those murders Len?"

"Yeah," said Sam. "He's dead."

"What?"

"Yeah. I decided to retrace our steps back to where the trail went cold on Amara, see if there was anything we might have missed. Turned out he's not the only one to have died suspiciously in Fall River since we left."

"I'm listening," aid Dean.

"A teenage girl turned up dead about a week after Len. No apparent connection between the victims, but the killers had the same MO. Clean. Professional. Almost like an assassination."

"But who would want to assassinate a teenage girl?" said Dean.

"Maybe she knew something someone wanted to keep quiet," said Claire.

The men both jumped; they hadn't heard her come into the room.

"The police report says that the girl, Goldie, was also killed while in jail," said Sam. "For trying to kill her mother with a frying pan."

"A frying pan?" said Dean incredulously. "What do you reckon? Demon possession?"

"Or Amara's soul-sucking at work again," said Sam. "That could be the connection between our victims."

"But who would want to kill off Amara's leftovers?" wondered Dean aloud. "Last I checked, she didn't seem overly concerned with cleaning up after herself."

"Maybe she's working with someone," said Claire.

"Okay," said Dean, "but who?"

"Just then, Castiel appeared in the doorway from the living room. "I don't know, but I think I just found someone who might."

*****Icarus*****

"Cas, you can't be serious."

"I am very serious," insisted the angel, stubbornly. "I am telling you, I saw him."

"We don't doubt that," said Sam, "but hasn't Metatron caused us enough problems already?"

"Yes," agreed Castiel, "but he's human now, and so no threat to us. He may have valuable information, however."

"That he'd be willing to share with us?" said Dean dubiously.

"I can be very persuasive," said the angel, his eyes flashing momentarily with power.

"Cas, you didn't tell us you got your mojo back."

Castiel shrugged, rippling the feathers on his wings. "Not completely, but it should be enough to put on a convincing show for Metatron." Dean looked far from convinced. "Anyway, we won't know until we try, right?"

"He has a point," said Sam. "What more do we have going for us right now? We've got an angel in our back pocket, we should use him. And if anyone can tell us about the Darkness, I'm betting it's Metatron."

"Cas isn't a tool for us to use," Dean snapped.

"Dean," said Cas, laying a placating hand on the hunter's arm. "I want to do it. Sam's right, we're out of other options."

"Fine," grumbled Dean. "Looks like I'm overruled. We'll try and track down Metatron, but I'm not happy about it."

*****Icarus*****

Metatron would no longer have shown up on Angel Radio even if Cas had been able to tune into it, so he, Claire, and the Winchesters had to rely on the same method the former Scribe of God had been using to find his stories-listening to police scanners. It took them a few false starts and fruitless stakeouts, but finally they hit the jackpot.

"I'm sorry, buddy, you live, there's no story.

"Jeez," whispered Claier, making a face. "What a sleeze."

"You're telling me," Dean whispered back.

"Shhh," hissed Sam.

"I'm not that guy anymore," Metatron continued, pocketing the dying man's cash. "I can't save you."

"I can."

Dean had to admit that it was an impressive sight: Castiel appearing suddenly, as though from thin air, his un-beglamoured wings extending above and behind him like twin tangible shadows on either side of the angel.

Metatron startled and whirled around to face him. "How did you find me?" His eyes scanned Cas' form and went fractionally wider. "And what's with the wings?"

"Same way you found him," said Cas, ignoring the second question and striding past Metatron and nearly knocking him to the ground with his wings. "Scoured the police scanners. Got ahead of the authorities."

Praying to anyone who care to listen that he had enough juice to do it without passing out, Castiel knelt beside the bleeding human, held his hand out, and healed.

"Cas?!" growled Dean. "Dammit, stop showing off!"

"Shhh!" said Sam again.

Cas rose again to his feet, barely; the world spun sickeningly before his eyes, but he managed to stay upright. He blinked, dragging Metatron and his video camera into semi-focus, and reached out to strike the camcorder out of the former angel's hands.

"Hey! Do you have any idea how much stuff I had to steal, and then pawn, to pay for that?"

Cas didn't know. Nor did he care. He felt dizzy and nauseous and the police were coming; he could hear their sirens over the ringing in his ears. He grabbed Metatron's arm and dragged him toward the Impala.

"Why'd you have to bring the chuckleheads along?" Metatron whined, as Sam grabbed him by the jacket and bundled him into the backseat. Cas, meanwhile, practically fell into the passenger seat beside Dean.

"You okay, buddy?" said Dean, ignoring the facefull of wing and laying a hand on the angel's arm.

Castiel nodded. He would be, as soon as the world stopped spinning.

By the time they got back to the bunker, Cas had recovered enough to at least hide how awful he felt. Doing so didn't exactly improve his mood, however.

"Okay, Marv," he snapped, in reference to the name emblazoned on Metatron's baseball cap. "Picking pockets, leaving a man to die... I don't know what I expected, but this is disappointing."

They were in the Bunker's dungeon. Sam and Dean had carried Metatron in, none too gently, and deposited him on the chair that had formerly been occupied by Crowley. They hadn't bothered to cuff him-any one of the three of them could have taken him easily if he had tried to escape. The former Scribe of God looked so pathetic Castiel almost pitied him. How the mighty had fallen. Apparently not too low to run his mouth however.

"You're one to talk. I mean, look at you," Metatron gestured to Castiel's arching wingspan. "Not exactly the picture of angelic health, unless manifesting your wings on this plane is a new fashion trend. Not to mention you chose the life of a wage slave, slinging slurpies for what, a month?"

Justifying his pathetic, miserable behavior as simply the new way of the world, Matatron actually seemed proud of what he was doing. Or maybe that was just what he had to tell himself in order to sleep at night.

"Save your story," Cas cut him off. "It's not what we came for."

"Oh," said Metatron, seeming rather crestfallen at being deprived of the opportunity to narrate his new life as "Reality's Author."

Castiel was more than happy to take him down a peg when he started going on about how he had hidden the Demon Tablet where they would never find it.

"You hid it under your mattress," he deadpanned. "Do you realize you have bedbugs? What do you know," Cas continued, ignoring Metatron's self-righteous protests about having broken into his apartment, "about the Darkness?"

Cas knew immediately that Metatron had the information they were looking for. Getting it out of him, however, was another matter. Whether he could tell that the angel was not at full power, or he truly believed him to be unwilling to hurt him, or whether he was simply masochistically goading him into a rise, the former angel hadn't lost his ability to know exactly what to say to get under someone else's skin.

"You are broken, Castiel..."

...worthless, pathetic, can't do anything right...

"Just look at you. Just look at your wings..."

...a failure as an angel, a bigger failure as a human...

"You are so paralyzed by trauma, by fear..."

...you've made so many mistakes, it would take 1,000 lifetimes to make up for them all...

"You can't even hurt me."

The sound of his fist hitting the side of Metatron's face made Cas want to throw up.

"It's not fear," he growled.

And it wasn't. But what did Metatron know of shame? Of guilt? The kind that ate you up inside until you could hardly bear to look at anyone. It was much easier to just be angry. And that emotion Metatron understood.

"I get it. I mean, it must suck, being everyone's tool."

"We have an angel in our back pocket, we should use him..." / "Cas isn't a tool for us to use..."

"Manipulated and used by the angels, by your enemies, by your friends-"

"That's enough." Dean stood in the doorway, glaring daggers at Metatron. "If you want to play games, you can play them with me. After you tell us about the Darkness."

"Letting your boyfriend come to your rescue?" said Metatron, glancing up at Dean. "How very damsel in distress of you." He laughed through the blood in his mouth. "Who do you have to thank for how angry you are? How lost?"

"You, for one," said Dean, stepping in front of Cas and shoving Metatron against the wall. "And the rest of you feathered dicks. We're Cas' family now. And yeah, we might have our issues, but we don't owe you an explanation of them. Cas doesn't owe you anything."

Cas was panting, his damaged wings extended out behind him for support. Part of him was annoyed at Dean for stepping in like that. Another part couldn't help but note how undeniably attractive the hunter was when he took charge of a situation.

"Are you going to kill me?" Metatron asked Dean, his voice half mocking, half pleading.

"No," said Dean. "But I'm happy to pick up where Cas left off until you cooperate with us." He gave the ex-angel a shake to show he meant business.

"You want the truth?" said Metatron. "Most people don't. The truth would make the Bible Thumpers' heads explode. They want their God to be a finger-snapping, all-powerful Creator. They want magic. Mary Poppins." Dean threw an I'll explain it to you later look over his shoulder at Cas. "But what He did. Creation? That took work. It took sacrifice. In order to Create the World, God had to give up the only thing he'd ever known."

Dean and Cas exchanged another look: Now they were getting somewhere.

"He had to betray and sacrifice his only kin. The Darkness. His sister."

AN: Dun dun DUN! Ok, so you already know that, lol. I hope I was able to rework those scenes decently. It's challenging but fun. Also, not to delve too deeply into my personal life, but with this chapter you have simultaneously met and bid farewell to the real life Mustang's real life owner, aka the former Sap Police. That being said, if at any point you find my story veering to far into sappy territory, or my characters getting OOC, please let me know. It is my goal to make this story read as much as possible as though it could really have taken place within the world of the show. As always, I definitely appreciate all your reviews, and thank you for reading!

-SQ