Raethaniel went back to the hotel room and rematerialized on Sam's plane of existence soundlessly. Sam was sleeping on his side, facing the door. In spite of her noiseless emergence into his realm she heard the slight change in his breathing that signaled a rise out of a deep sleep. Hunter instincts drove him even in his dreams it seemed. She knew he wouldn't move, wouldn't as much as twitch to give himself away. He'd wait and do a threat assessment before he was even fully awake. By the time he came awake he'd know exactly what he was dealing with and how to react.

She crossed over to him quickly and touched his cheek with the back of her hand. She didn't speak. There was no reason to rouse him. Sensing her, Sam grumbled something unintelligible and settled down. A moment later his breathing told her he was back to whatever dream she had disturbed.

Carefully she sat down on the bed beside him and simply watched for a while. There was too much going on in a short space of time and she herself was uncertain how to proceed. For the first time in her seemingly endless existence she was afraid to seek any kind of enlightenment or revelation. For the first time she was content to sit beside the man she was charged with guarding, alone, cut off.

Her conversation with Castiel was weighing heavily on her. Heaven's angels remembered the last uprising, the rebellion led by Lucifer, the upheaval and pain it had caused; the incredible loss of her brothers and sisters and for no good reason that anyone had ever explained to her.

Then demons had come into the world of men and she had been dispatched to deal with them.

Now it felt like it was happening all over again.

She had not known Castiel very well before this, but she was coming to respect him as a good soldier, a righteous angel, devoted to the Lord. His sense of confusion and loss had affected her deeply.

She had asked Castiel a question she had never asked any of her brothers or sisters and when he answered her, she didn't believe him.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes."

Seven – no eight – members of his garrison were gone and they had all been betrayed from within. The last Being they had seen was someone they had trusted who was now their executioner. They had no way of knowing if everyone left in the garrison was still loyal to Heaven. Raethaniel realized that she had not really wanted the truth when she had asked him that question. There were no words in any language they knew that would help them understand this.

"He was one of the first; one of the archangels," Castiel began, nostalgically speaking of Uriel; and he paused and then recited the invocation of the Seventh Heaven, the prayer of all the angels, "In the name of the Lord God our Father, may Michael be at my right hand; Gabriel at my left; Uriel before me; Raphael behind me…"

"And the dwelling place of God be above me always," Raeth finished when Castiel faltered.

"Yes," Castiel sighed, "Now Lucifer is caged, Gabriel has vanished and no one knows where he is. Uriel is dead; Raphael and Michael are as powerful and unapproachable as ever."

"And Lucifer," Raethaniel reminded him quietly. "He was one of them, second only to Michael. He is still causing chaos, even locked in the depths of Hell."

"Yes," Castiel agreed sadly. "Uriel asked me if I remembered him, if I remembered Lucifer. I didn't answer but I wondered how anyone could forget him." He seemed lost in his own thoughts for a long moment. There was a distant emotion in his eyes that Raethaniel could not quite grasp, as if the angel was drowning in his own unshed tears.

But then Castiel asked, "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Raethaniel forced her thoughts from the memory of the beautiful and long lost Lucifer, the brother she, like so many of them, had not understood but wanted to help. It had been an instinct perhaps, ancient and ultimately futile. She had been in the army that had risen to oppose him and fresh blood seemed to fall from the memory. The idea of that much war and death once more marching across space and time left her feeling ill. "I spoke to Lamechiel," she said.

"About?"

"The deception in your garrison and how it has gone so long undetected."

This caught Castiel's interest. He looked at her with renewed intent. "Can he help?"

"He is willing to try," she answered. "He is a seraph of the Third Heaven. That should count for something even in a garrison of the Seventh Heaven."

"We should have all come under greater scrutiny when Anna fell," Castiel said. "I am not sure that even the angel of deception can find its roots."

"He will need you if he is to enter the Seventh Heaven. Will you go and take him there? I will watch over both Winchesters."

Castiel made a frustrated grunt and shook his head. "The Winchesters: two thorns from the same rose," he said with a sigh, "There is more going on here than I can understand and they are at the heart of it. Yet I feel that they are being manipulated against their will. None of this is of their doing, starting with the 'special' treatment Dean was given in Hell."

"Then are you and I being manipulated right along with them?" Raeth asked, wincing at the question because not so long ago it would never have occurred to her to ask.

Their eyes met. Under normal circumstances they would never have worked together like this. They had known only of each other, with no personal experience on which to base a relationship. Now they had no choice but to trust each other.

"Sister," Castiel said, not as a question but as a declaration, a statement of fact.

"My brother," she acknowledged, inclining her head.

They didn't get any further. At that moment, they both heard Dean Winchester calling her. She looked at him, startled.

"What does he want?"

"I am only sure that it will have something to do with Sam," Castiel replied. "I will go to Lamechiel now."

"I will answer Dean."

They had separated and she had not heard from Castiel since them…..

Sam stirred once again, rolling over onto his back. One arm fell across his chest, the other beside him as his hand searched for her in the dark. Raeth slid down the mattress until she was stretched out alongside of him, lying on her side with her hand on his chest. She was learning to enjoy this odd human ritual of sleeping and waking, under covers, in private darkness. She was surprised by how satisfying it was to be near the large solid presence of Sam Winchester, to feel his strength and power, his innocent frailty, comfort, companionship, the assurance that her charge was for the moment safe.

She linked her hand with his, over his beating heart and silently waited for the dawn.

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