Chapter 50

My Father's Eyes

"How did I get here? What have I done? When will all my hopes arise? How will I know him? When I look in my father's eyes."

Eric Clapton, My Father's Eyes

"Are they all gone?" asked a painfully familiar voice that Castiel couldn't quite place. He found himself unable to move his body, not even enough to open his eyes yet, but he could hear. His mind felt a little sluggish, but despite that, he was almost positive that he knew that voice. He just couldn't quite put his finger on where he knew it from.

"They're all gone," another voice, female, British, dry, said... Azrael. "Though that really shouldn't have been such a difficult task. You easily could have handled it."

"It was funnier to watch you try. It gives you a little taste of what I've been dealing with for the last two years," the male voice said.

"What you've been dealing with?" Azrael sounded incredulous at the idea. "You put the Apocalypse into motion. I think two years of a never-ending Supernatural convention is minor in comparison."

"You've never had to put up with fangirls," the man said.

"Fangirls? You have absolutely no right to complain. As far as I am concerned, you should bend over, take your punishment and say, 'Please Sir, may I have another?'" Azrael paused for a moment, but Castiel could hear her footsteps as though she was pacing. "I do not know why I agreed to participate in your ridiculous, ritualistic suicide, but no more."

"I understand, and I am sorry," the man's voice said, sounding remorseful. "I wasn't thinking. I was too far removed, and by the time I realized what I'd done, I had set things into motion."

"Which you still could have stopped."

"Which I wasn't sure I wanted stopped. I know you tend to see them all as filth dirtying up the nothingness that I know you prefer—" Azrael tried to interrupt, but had only barely made a noise before the man was stopping her. "Don't argue with me. You've humored me for eons, but I know you wish things had stayed the way they were, in the quiet, when I was little more than a child, terrified by all the endless dark, even if you were the one to encourage me to make them. But they are special to me. Some of them, just for their normal, eventless lives. Some because they get to do such remarkable things, things that surprise even me."

Castiel could feel the man's arms move him slowly.

"You should be careful playing favorites like that," Azrael chided. "Your track history would show that you should have learned your lesson by now."

"As though you're any better."

"I'm allowed to have favorites. They're not my children."

A warmth flooded through Castiel's body unlike anything he'd experienced, even when he was the most closely tied with the Host. It was comforting and gentle. "I am sorry, really," the man said to Azrael one more time. "About everything." He paused for a moment. "How many times do I have to say that before you accept it?"

"A few more before I even consider it," Azrael said. "Bastard." The word held no bite, though. Castiel could feel her getting nearer, the movement of her body as she approached. "How is he?"

"He should be waking up any time now. How many of the sigils did you say that he passed through?" Castiel again felt that comforting hand at his head, another around his shoulders. He was fairly certain this person, whoever he was, was cradling him at this point.

"Far more than I had time or interest to count before I erased them from that building." The arm wrapped around Castiel's shoulder tightened. "Speaking of those sigils, I thought we had an understanding that I wasn't to be bound any longer. The infinity symbol was used in the building and prevented me from entering. Castiel need not have suffered."

Something undefinable changed in the air and Azrael merely said "Thank you" in response.

"Castiel," the voice said, "open your eyes, Cas."

Castiel was understandably confused when his eyes did finally obey and open. "Chuck?" He shifted out of the prophet's arms. "Chuck?" He shifted off of the prophet and began looking around the room. "We are in hotel bar? In heaven?"

Everything began to flood back at once. "I need to return. I need to get back to Dean and Johnny." Johnny... he hadn't closed his eyes when Castiel had been forced from his body. His son was almost certainly blinded.

"Johnny's fine. He's a special little boy, the only little boy deserving of you and Dean Winchester as his parents," Chuck said with a smile.

"What do you know of him? You are often aware of things the Winchesters are not." A niggling feeling at the back of his mind was telling him to question that warm feeling that still hadn't left, to wonder why he was able to fit inside a human bar when his true form was so much larger, to ask something about the conversation he had heard between Azrael and Chuck that had seemed so odd. But he was stuck on his son's well being.

Azrael answered, rather than Chuck. "When it came time to give Meri Lucas's baby a soul, I requested—"

"Demanded," Chuck corrected with a roll of his eyes.

"Shut your bloody mouth," Azrael said, but with no anger behind it; a bit of frustration perhaps. "I requested that he be given a soul that would match Dean Winchester's and have the same sort of resilience."

"What sort of resilience? The last time I was told a soul has resillience, it was tossed into Hell to become a torturer." Castiel had not felt strongly about Dean, in particular, but he had felt very sorry for the still-unknown man he would one day save.

"The sort that won't make him any different from any other child in any noticeable way, but it is special in that it could call out to you and to Dean, make you both happy. His biological mother and father were each a potential vessel for Balthazar and Metatron, respectively. That union made for a child with the ability to see and hear an angel without pain." Azrael had somehow managed to find some kind of deep fried cheese and was eating it with absurd glee.

"Dean is her pet project," Chuck explained. "Or science experiment. I'm not sure which."

Azrael only smirked at the comment. "Sometimes, neither am I, but I haven't started dissecting him, yet, so that bodes well in his favor." She dunked one of the sticks into the red marinara sauce. "This might be the time to start asking your other questions. I'm curious to see how 'Chuck' answers them." She used air quotes with her free hand, and Castiel wondered if somehow he had been using them wrong in the past. He didn't see anything about Chuck that made him special enough for the gesture.

Until he did.

It was in that moment that Castiel proved that he had been spending far too much time around Dean Winchester. Normally not quick to physical aggression, and a history of loyalty and faith, Castiel found himself acting before he thought. He found himself punching Chuck squarely in the nose and then being forced to turn away to cradle his hand in pain. Remembering that time years before when Dean had attempted the same, Castiel found himself sympathizing with his lover.

It didn't abate his anger. "You were there all along," Castiel said. He didn't raise his voice, though he wanted to. His hurt, physical and emotional kept his voice low, though not necessarily even. "All that time, you watched. You saw Dean and Sam's suffering, you caused it. You watched me, knowing I was losing my faith in everything, in you. Not once did you step in to stop all of this. Thousands of people died."

"And are in Heaven now," Chuck—no, his Father—said.

"If you think that is just compensation, you did not spend nearly enough time down on earth," Castiel hissed. "Humans get one chance at a life, happy or miserable as it may be, and you cut it short."

"I had to fix things with Lucifer and Michael," his Father said. "Your brothers need a … time out." He actually looked sad at that.

"Fix," Azrael scoffed as she perched at the bar, eating the last of her cheese sticks. "Put a plaster on it, more like." It earned her a glare.

"Once I realized I might have been wrong, I knew I had to set a revolution into motion here in Heaven, and that was only going to happen if we went off script. The Apocalypse had been a long-standing deal—"

"Very longstanding," Azrael said before disappearing into the kitchen area momentarily.

"Long-standing deal to end the universe in a given way."

Castiel stared at the man before him. "'The universe?'" He chose to forgo the air quotes. "Heaven has always operated under the belief that it was just Earth."

His Father shook his head, looking far more serious than he ever had while acting as Chuck. "Not just Earth. Earth was my special project. It was where I had the most vested interest. People were losing faith, and I suppose I was feeling forgotten. I initiated the Apocalypse hastily, perhaps, but I was still ready to welcome Death when he finally would come to reap me."

The kitchen doors opened back up and Azrael was carrying the most disturbing pile of tater tots Castiel had ever seen in his life. They were covered in a number of thick and unnaturally colored sauces, cheeses and condiments, as well as a large helping of bacon and scallions. She picked up one of the uncovered tots and hurled the dry piece of food at Chuck's head so that it hit him in the ear. "With no regard for how this would affect anyone, I might add. Selfish little twit."

Castiel would have reprimanded her for being so informal with their Father, but Castiel had tried to strike him just moments before.

"So, what other questions did you have, Cas?" his Father asked. The seraph looked at him, confused. "Azrael said you had questions, and she's usually right about those things."

Several had been answered already, but the oddity at the moment was the fact that Castiel was relatively sure, despite the feeling of his wings at his back, he was still sharing Jimmy Novak's visage. "What has happened to my true form?"

The smile that spread across Chuck's face was almost proud, and Castiel hated himself a little for being so pleased he had made his Father feel that way. "Angels decide their true form. You're light and energy, you don't have need for a body, but you have all chosen one that suited your needs."

"Picking one the size of a Chrysler building, that might make some say you were compensating for something," Azrael said before popping one of the tater tots in her mouth and smiling in contentment.

"Zachariah was far worse, all those heads and nearly a dozen wings..." His Father shook his head. "But it is always about how you perceive yourself. And how you see yourself has changed, Castiel."

The angel felt hands at his shoulders, pushing him gently toward a mirror at the far end of the room. "Have a look," he said. Staring back at Castiel was the face with which he had become familiar. His hair was dark, his eyes a deep blue, his lips looked deceptively chapped. His lean body was wearing a suit and a tan trench coat, and behind him were two blackened—though not black—wings.

He unfurled the wings to inspect them for any damage, but he found none. It was strange, looking at them, now. The last time they had looked this charred, they actually had been. The downy, small feathers on his upper covert had been the first to give, burning to little more than ash. Many of those wings were now entirely whole, but an ashen gray. The plumage at the bottom was a matte black, and the color slowly faded to a near white at the top, save for the occasional dark ash-colored covert.

"You see yourself as marked by your first introduction to Dean Winchester, as we both know he is," Chuck said. "And you see yourself as an angel, but now very human."

"That was what you wanted, isn't it?" Castiel asked, suddenly realizing the reason for his Father's pride. "You wanted us to be more human all along. It's why you never pursued Gabriel or Zadkiel. It's why you brought Metatron into our ranks."

"It is," he confirmed. "It's why Metatron and Gabriel are on the council."

Castiel could hear Dean's voice, praying, but not in his usual manner. This one was silent, solemn. For once, it held no joke, no profanity, just a desperate plea to "Please get back." It interlaced with the words of the song the angel suspected Dean was singing to their son. Don't you know that it's you, hey Jude, you'll do. The movement you need is on your shoulder.

"How do I keep them safe?" Castiel asked his Father. "Bela discovered how to summon me. It is inevitable that another will as well."

"For once, Castiel, let me worry about that." And he felt Chuck's hand upon his forehead.

#

Dean wondered how long it would be before the image faded from his mind. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw Johnny, his forehead pressed to Castiel's, his hand curled in the angel's hair as he let out heartbroken cries. Johnny was still sniffling involuntarily and keeping his face buried at Dean's neck, but he seemed to have calmed down a little as Sam and Gabriel droned on and did everything they could, with Balthazar's surprisingly silent help, to keep Cas's body ready and waiting for him to come back home.

The hunter was somewhere in the middle of the Na-nas in Hey Jude when Johnny let out a squeal. It was the same noise the baby had made when he spotted Dean coming into the building. The little boy was now fidgeting in Dean's arms, trying to get a good look as the room began to quake and light up like someone had set off a nuclear blast. It took everything the hunter had in him to fight his instincts to cover Johnny's eyes. Johnny could see this, could see Cas coming back, and he didn't want to take that away from him, especially when Dean wished he could do the same.

The lights faded, and Dean's boot-clad feet moved quickly across the concrete floor. Johnny had already begun to giggle uncontrollably. The boy was too young to notice Cas was wobbling as he half-leaned against Azrael, or see that his skin had taken an ashen tone. All Johnny could see was his Tad standing there.

For the moment, that's what Dean tried to focus on. He was standing in front of Cas in seconds, and immediately, his arm wrapped around the angel's waist and he braced himself to take on some of Cas's weight as he half-collapsed on him. Johnny couldn't seem to stop laughing, and as Cas buried his nose at Dean's neck, the little boy rubbed over the angel's stubbled cheeks with his left arm. Cas turned his head and gave Johnny's little arm a kiss. Dean felt the angel's arms loosely wrap around the hunter's waist.

"You had me scared."

"Me too," Cas breathed against the skin of Dean's neck.

Johnny was wriggling in Dean's arms, and he didn't seem to be satisfied until his forehead was against Cas's and their noses were mashed together.

"Hello, Johnny," Cas said, sounding bemused through his exhaustion. From his position, the hunter couldn't really see, but he assumed there was an amused smirk spreading across the angel's face.

"Tata!" the baby yelled loudly, though his voice was beginning to sound nearly as gravelly as Cas's from all of the yelling.

"So what happened?" Dean asked, though it was directed at both his partner and at Azrael.

"I saw God," Cas said, and after everything that happened a few years ago, Dean would have thought the angel should have sounded more excited about that. "The memory of it is... fuzzy, but I know I spoke with him. He said something about making sure I could not be summoned again."

Something about that made Dean feel as though his veins had been filled with ice water. "How did he do that?"

"Castiel is no longer a seraph," Azrael said.

Dean immediately shifted Cas back enough so that he could look the angel in the eyes. Johnny lurched forward a little in his arms, as he'd been leaning against Cas's head at the time. "He can't have done that. It isn't fair to strip you and make you human."

Cas, still looking exhausted, met Dean's eyes with characteristic seriousness. "If that had been the only solution available that would allow me to stay here with you and Johnny I would have accepted it gladly. It would have been an interesting experience staying on Earth and growing old alongside you." And, yeah, there was a thought that did things in Dean's gut he would never admit aloud to anyone. "However, God had another plan."

"Which was?"

"To make him an archangel," Azrael answered for him.

"No one knows how to summon the archangel Castiel, because the incantation doesn't exist. It might be invented, but it'd take a lot of trial and error," Gabriel said as he pulled a chocolate bar out of the front pocket in his jacket. "And even then, making an appearance is optional."

And Dean didn't care that their families were standing there—because Bobby and Jody had walked in the door at that moment. Dean surged forward and kissed the angel. He didn't get a lot of response back, but he felt Cas smile against his lips, which was good enough for Dean.

"Enough of the kissy-kissy," Balthazar said, clearing the room of the last of the bodies. Dean didn't know where he was sending them, but aside from Padma Sengupta, Dean didn't really care where the bodies went. She deserved something a little better.

"It was always part of the plan anyway," Gabriel said. "Cas, here is the fifth member of the council."

"What?" Both Dean and Cas asked in unison.

"Why do you think I kept coming here and asking you about Heaven's politics, Cassie?" Balthazar asked. "You've been issuing your votes by proxy. Me."

"Does it change anything?" Dean asked as Cas seemed stunned into silence.

"Other than the fact that I don't have to come up with inane conversations to get Cassie's opinion on the operations of Heaven when I come to visit instead of just asking for his vote? No, not really."

"Having one council member voting in absentia is fine," Gabriel added.

"What about you? I recall something about a goddess... Kali?" Cas asked, though he seemed to be trying to focus on the smaller details because his brain was having trouble processing the fact that he was part of Heaven's new leadership and had been for a year at least. The impact of that would probably come later. And for now Dean had been wondering the same thing. What if one of the other council members wanted to leave Heaven, too?

"Over. At least, for now," Gabriel said, taking a huge bite of the chocolate, but despite the sweets, he did look sad at that. Dean had to admit feeling a little bad for the guy, even if he could be an annoying bastard sometimes. "Though, she's forgiven me in the past. I'll just give her more time to cool down."

The hunter pulled Cas to his side again and held him there.

"The whole ordeal will be trying for him, between his new status and the sigils," Azrael warned. "And he will be off balance for a while."

"New wings," Castiel supplied from his place beneath Dean's chin

Dean moved his hand between Cas's shoulderblades, though he knew he wouldn't feel anything. Hearing that the angel had new wings, it made Dean curious, even if he knew they weren't on this plane, or whatever. Cas shivered at the touch.

"Did that hurt?"

"Felt nice." The poor guy was practically falling asleep standing up. "Can we go home now?"

"You bet we can."