12 (After the Darkness)
Time was going by and Dean still hadn't called. Cassidy was getting equally pissed off and worried. They didn't get to see each other as much as they liked but they had talked every day they could and never, ever let the other worry. Afriel had gone back to heaven with a teary good bye and the usual call if you need anything so now she was totally alone again. She knew the boys were in trouble, they were always in trouble, but Dean had still been sure to call and let her know he was alive. The last call was five days ago and Cas was getting desperate. The only thing she knew was that Amara was bad trouble, Dean wasn't talking about what exactly that meant and that in their last conversation Dean had sounded like he was saying goodbye. And who could she turn to? Bobby as dead, Afriel was gone, Castiel wasn't answering her prayers and both boys were ignoring their phones.
"Fuck!" Cas screamed again and kicked at the tires of Cherry. The car rocked on its frame but remained as silent as ever.
"Cassidy Kidd I presume?" came an unfamiliar voice to her left. Quickly turning around Cas saw a stranger looking at her. He was short, only a little taller then herself but he had a happy smirk on his face. His hair and eyes were golden and he wore a beat up green jacket over jeans.
"Who are you?" she asked reaching for a blade in her jacket.
"Ah ah, don't be like that." he smirked and snapped his fingers. Immediately she was frozen, unable to move anything but her eyelids.
"You don't know me, but maybe one of the boys may have mentioned me in passing. The archangel Gabriel, at your service." he smirked and bowed to her. When he rose again she saw humour glittering in his golden stare.
"Now I know what you're going to say, oh Gabriel, how heavenly thy image and what not. But please, I'm just an archangel standing in front of a girl asking her to shut up and listen." he continued on. Another snap of his fingers and Cas stumbled as she could move again.
"I've heard of you." she said. He smiled at the recognition until she stepped up and rocked him back with a punch. Her hand throbbed but it did wipe the smirk off of his face.
"I also heard what you did to Dean and Sam." she said holding her probably broken hand.
"Oh my father, can't any of you get over that?" Gabriel sighed rubbing at his jaw.
"I'm over it." she shrugged in reply. "I just felt I should do something."
"I like you girl." Gabriel's smirk came back full force. He snapped his fingers and they both had lollipops in their mouths. Cas choked at the sweet sugar filling her mouth.
"I've been told you're the girl to see about the Winchesters." Gabe droned on.
"I don't know about that." she replied honestly taking the sickly sweet treat out of her mouth.
"The word on angel radio is that Dean-o has got a thing for you. And that ain't no small feat with a Winchester."
"I like him too." she shrugged but the goofy grin on her face made Gabe roll his eyes.
"Come with me girl, lets go see if the boys are ok." Gabriel offered her his arm and with apprehension she took it.
"Do you know where they're to? What they're doing?" she asked filled with concern over them.
"Last I heard was that they're laying low in the bunker, trying to recover from the fight with Auntie Amara. Oh, and catching mommy dearest up on all the stuff she missed." he said snapping his fingers. Cassidy looked around and saw they were outside the bunker in Kansas.
"Mommy dearest?" she asked confused even more. What the hell was this angel on?
"Oh you'll see. Now lets get you inside so you can report back on a certain moose man I have my eye on." Gabe pushed her towards the door of the bunker. Cas rubbed the spot between her eyes as she felt a headache coming on. She had no idea what Gabriel was talking about but she was glad enough to be this close to seeing Dean again. Time to see why he had been ignoring her.
She used her key to unlock the bunker, realizing she should have just came back here days ago when she started to worry about them. But she wasn't used to having people to worry about and hadn't been thinking clearly. As she closed the door behind her she turned around to see a strange blonde woman pointing a gun at her.
"Uh…" she said holding up her hands in peace.
"Who the hell are you?" the woman asked with a no nonsense voice.
"I'm Cassidy, who the hell are you?" Cas asked. Behind the woman she heard heavy footsteps running up the stairs. Both Dean and Sam came into view.
"Cassidy?" Dean asked surprised to see her there.
"Who is this Dean?" the blonde asked the boys.
"Its ok Mom, this is Cassidy, she's safe." Sam said and Cas's jaw almost hit the floor. Mom?
"If you say so boys." Mary Winchester said lowering her gun and stepping back.
"Cas what are you doing here?" Sam asked but Cassidy was striding past him to Dean. He was watching her with apprehension and when she swung her fist and connected with his jaw he didn't seem entirely surprised. Unfortunately for her it was the same hand she had hit Gabriel with and it hurt like a son of a bitch!
"Mother fuc…" she said and hissed as she held her hurting hand. Both Sam and Mary were staring at her wide eyed.
"You son of a bitch! You couldn't pick up a phone? Answer a text? Send an angel? I thought you were dead!" she raged at Dean who was looking both guilty and afraid.
"Cas, I'm sorry. I had a lot going on." Dean said holding his jaw.
"I don't give a crap what you had going on Dean, you left me to think the worse!" she said and she knew tears were going to start flowing soon.
"I didn't mean to worry you baby, I just…" he said and hesitated when he saw his mother and Sam looking between the two of them.
"Uh, Mom this is Cassidy. My…" Dean began trying to ease some of the tension by placing his hand on Cas's shoulder but she shrugged him off before storming down the stairs.
"And what the hell is with that? You didn't think I was important enough to call when your freaking MOTHER came back from the dead?!" she raged some more. Everyone followed her down the stairs and Dean was looking apologetically between his family members. "I mean I know coming back from the dead is kind of a Winchester thing but come on!"
"I can explain Cassidy." Dean tried to silence her.
"I don't care what kind of excuses you have Dean. I'm getting my things and then I'm out of here. I have more cases I can be working." she said before she broke down and cried in front of everyone. She stalked off to their room to gather her things. Dean actually cringed when he heard the slam of the door.
"Dean?" his mother asked looking at her son in total confusion. He looked back at her while scrubbing his hand down his face.
"Mom, that's my girlfriend Cassidy. She's a hunter like us." Dean said torn between explaining things to his mom and going after Cas. He couldn't let her just leave.
"You have a girlfriend?" Mary asked with a small smile on her face. Her big baby boy had a girlfriend.
"That's a stupid word." Dean said looking towards the hall.
"You should go after her, don't let her leave." Sam said to his brother. Mary nodded and that was all it took to send Dean from the room practically running down the hall.
"How long?" Mary asked Sam watching him go.
"Uh, a couple of years now. She's actually the only thing that kept him going these past few years." Sam told her as he led his mother to the kitchen where he made her a cup of tea. They sat at the table and Sam explained how they had met Cassidy and how her and Dean had gotten together. Mary listened intently.
"I'm glad he's found someone." Mary smiled warmly. "She seems strong."
"Oh she is. Dean can't pull any of his 'I'm not good enough' crap with her. She'll pull him up short and then kiss him into submission. I've seen it." Sam scrunched his nose.
"That's cute." she laughed at him. "I hope I didn't scare her."
"She's not easy to scare Mom, don't worry. I just hope Dean didn't screw it up." he looked at the door of the kitchen where they heard Dean knocking on his bedroom door pleading to be let in.
"Come on Cas, let me in, let me explain." Dean pleaded while she was throwing things into a spare bag she had. Tears were flowling freely now that she didn't have an audience, her heart aching at the pain Dean had caused her…again. How the hell did it think it was ok to go days without calling her? Especially when things had been so bad the last time they spoke? And with his freaking Mom back? Maybe she didn't mean as much to him as he meant to her. Her throat went dry at the thought. That had to be the only reason though didn't it. He just didn't think about her.
"Cassidy! I'm going to kick this door down!" Dean said yelling from the door now. She grabbed her last blade off the wall and slid it into her bag. There, she was packed. There was no trace of her left in the room and it hurt just to stand here.
"No need, I'm leaving." she said throwing open the door and striding past Dean. Or at least she tried to, he grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him.
"Cas, don't leave, let me talk." he pleaded with her. She saw pain in his eyes but tried to build up her resistance to it.
"Whats to talk about Dean? You had more important things to do. I was mistaken to think I would be one of those important things." she hissed at him. She glanced past I'm to see Sam and Mary quickly duck back into the kitchen but it was enough to settle some of her anger.
"Dean, don't make this harder then it has to be." she said lowering her voice and letting her shoulders slump some.
"Hard? No, I'll make it damn impossible. There's no way in hell I'm loosing you, not now." he said to her. He pulled her against him before she could stop him and kissed her hard. He knew he had fucked up, majorly but there wasn't any scenario in which he was letting her go without a fight.
"Dean, don't." she said the anger going out of her and leaving behind the pain. She looked up into his eyes and he saw how red they were from crying.
"Just let me talk Cas, please?" he begged. She nodded her head slowly and he pulled her into his room.
"Uh, Sammy, there's an angel waiting outside for you. I think he said his name is Gabriel." Cas called down the hall and Sam immediately stuck his head out of the door.
"Gabe?" was all she heard before Dean was shutting the door and closing them into the room together.
"Ok, just let me talk, let me get this all out please Cassidy." Dean said and she nodded again. She sat on the bed with her bag between her feet like she was ready to bolt any second. It hurt Dean but he knew it was his own fault.
"She made me feel Cassidy, she made me forget everything I cared about. I was fighting my own sense of loyalty to her the entire time she was here. That was why I was so distant for the last few months. There was something about her, some connection with her and the mark that made me feel for her. And every time I thought about you it tore me in two. I didn't know what to do, how to explain that." he said.
"It wasn't your choice Dean. That part wasn't your choice." she accepted it. The mark had made him a demon and the mark had tied him to the Darkness.
"There's more." he sighed. "To defeat Amara we needed to overpower her with souls. And I was the bomb. I was going to die Cas, I was going to sacrifice myself to stop Amara." he said. Her eyes turned hard and he knew she was on the verge of screaming at him over his stupidity.
"I know, it was a shitty thing to do. But in the end it worked out and she gave my mom back. She brought her back Cas." he said.
"That's why you were saying good bye? You couldn't tell me?" she asked hurt.
"No, I knew if I told you I'd change my mind. This was bigger then you and me Cassidy, I had to make that choice." he said pacing in front of her.
"And then it was over. You lived." she said.
"I did." he nodded.
"Why Dean? Was I that much of a low priority to you that you did all this without talking to me? And then left me to wonder what had happened?" she squeaked out.
"No baby, no." he said pulling her into his chest. She let him but stood woodenly against him.
"Every time I felt something for her I remembered the pain on your face when you found out about the other women when I was a demon. I…I couldn't face you like that again." he tried to explain.
"Not good enough Dean." she said pushing him away. She looked at him, unable to even put into words the hurt she was feeling. More then she had ever felt in her life.
"I'm done Dean. I'm done forgiving you for your mistakes. I'm done hurting because you don't know how to act. I'm just done." she said and her shoulders slumped. She stepped past him and grabbed her bag. Without so much as a glance behind her she fled from the bunker to find Sam and Grabiel talking in the parking lot.
"Come on sweet tooth, get me back to my car." she demanded of the archangel.