Eventually, after what feels like an eternity of nail biting anxiety and uncertainty from the doctors, Kate and her baby girl are finally given the all clear and are allowed to come home. It was a Thursday, overcast and cold, but I've never seen John smile like he did that day, and I expect it will be a long time until it resurfaces again. To surprise her, Sam, Adam, Cas and I spend the night before her return making cards out of paper borrowed from Adam's arts and crafts box. We spend hours scribbling pink hearts and chubby faced babies with ocean blue eyes crafted from glitter and glue onto the flimsy paper.
The next morning, Dad goes to collect them both from the hospital. Kate and my new baby sister. Emma. She's a delicate little thing; all wrinkly hands and feet with these enormous blue eyes, centred in her drooling pink face. Ugly, yet loveable the same. They name her after Kate's mother, who passed away after a brief battle with cancer before Adam was born. And of course my previous fears of no longer being wanted were foolish, I'm as much her big brother as Sam and Adam are and Kate ensures I'm treated as such.
The months that follow are easily the happiest of my life. I continue my mechanic training under my dad at the garage, where the majority of my week is spent accumulating a healthy number of oil stains on my ratty old jeans. Things are far from perfect, we still fight and slam doors in each other's faces from time to time, and there are days we both feel the past clamping down on our chests. But we aren't giving up this time. I refuse to let the anger consume my heart and become that empty shell ever again. I still can't find it in my heart to fully forgive him, but the anger has faded into a jagged scar now that only stings if you disturb it. I can live with that, it's an improvement on the fury and the rage.
Following Kate's orders, Cas becomes a frequent dinner guest, gracing us with his loving presence every Friday and Monday night. I doubt he and John will ever be particularly close, but they can speak to each other now like civil human beings, minus all of the previous snarling. I accept this, relieved to know that this part of my life no longer had to be concealed from my family. Not that I would ever dream of complaining, but sometimes it feels as though Cas spends more time at the house than I do.
The first time I found him, draped in blankets, his head buried in my pillows, I thought I was dreaming. But there he was, pulling to his side and capturing my lips with his own. I quickly lose count of the times I discover him, curled up under the covers and wearing that heart fluttering smile of his, waiting for me to collapse in bed after a hard shift. John and Kate thankfully remain blissfully unaware of these treasured moments spent wrapped together of an evening. We never do much beside kiss and sleep and then kiss some more, and by the time my alarm goes off the next morning, the only reminder that he had been there at all is a single dark father on my pillow. Silken to the touch, I save them in an old wooden box and hide them where no one, not even my nosy little brothers will snoop.
Suddenly, the iciness of the winter gives way to the spring. Practically overnight the world begins to awaken once more. The garden is encased in a covering of dew, the air filled with the screeches of baby seagulls, with their fluffy wings and hungry bellies. Baby Emma keeps gurgling away and kicking her chubby little feet whenever we try to strap her into her pushchair. She's growing like a weed and incidentally, I was wrong about John's smile. He can't stop himself these days, the upturned curve to his lips seema to be a permanent fixture on his face. I'm glad. I wonder if he was this cheerful when I was a baby, when I was racing through the same first milestones. I force that line of thought to the back of my mind and secure it behind iron bars. He was trying now, and while it certainly didn't alter the past, it lessened the pain slightly, just to know he was trying to absolve himself of his previous sins.
The freshness of spring is sorely missed once the summer returns, bringing with it endless days of sunshine and sand. Lazy summer days stretch out ahead of us, filled with long walks along the shore, where the ocean met reality, and watching as the smallest Winchester begin to attempt her first, shaky steps. She tumbles more often than not, but refuses to call it quits. She just grabs onto the nearest available hold (often the leg of someone jeans) and tries again. Secretly, I think she's already wiser than all of us, apart from Sam or Cas, maybe. Certainly wiser than I am. It took me how many years to realise that life went on no matter how many times I fell, that it was never too late to start again? And here she was, a tiny little thing with that crucial concept already mastered. I envied her. It was wrong for me to do so, but still I did. The same way I envied Sam and Adam when I first met them. She knew nothing of the world's cruelty, had never had her hopes dashed or tasted the bitterness of disappointment at the hands of a loved one. I was determined to make sure it stayed that way.
I'm lazing on a striped beach towel with Cas, our legs tangling together on the golden sand. Come September, free time like this would be rationed, as I planned to enrol in a few evening classes to add a new string my bow. But that was weeks away, and for now, with my boyfriend's lips pressed against my sand encrusted skin, his hand in mine and the sun beating down on us, it may as well have been a lifetime away. A few metres away, Sam is with Jess and their friends, playing in the sea.
"Dean, come on!" Adam screams, appearing from nowhere. He tugs on the leg of my swimming trunks eagerly and attempts to drag me over to the water, but I'm staying put next to Cas.
"Go play with Sammy."
He pouts, bottom lip quivering. I almost feel myself give in. "He's too busy making kissy faces with his girlfriend." He pulls a grossed out face and points. "See? Its gross. When did he turn into you two? I never wanna grow up if it means I've got to make kissy faces with anyone, girls or boys." He turns his finger towards Cas, who chuckles good naturedly and promises to make sand castles with him and go swimming after lunch. Adam scuttles off happily to eat some of the sandwiches Kate had prepared earlier. I think it is safe to say that his days of mooning over anyone are a long way off.
"Your family are very sweet, Dean. You're very lucky."
I sigh contentedly, letting my eyes slip closed as I lean back against his bare chest. The skin to skin contact still sends a pleasant electric jolt through my body, and from the look of it, Cas registers it too. He wraps his arms around me tightly and pulls me closer, resting his head atop of mine, raining down gentle kisses at random moments. Warmth that had nothing to do with the summer heat spreads through my chest, happiness bubbling under my skin.
"I love you, Dean."
I turn around in his grasp, pressing my lips to the base of his neck as I whisper, "I know."
He frowns, but when he speaks, his tone has a teasing lilt to it I have come to know well. "You know? Oh, well I'm flattered."
"Shut up, you feathered idiot," I tease back, nudging him in the side for emphasis. "I love you too, you'd have to be an idiot if you didn't know that by now. Anyone can see it," I mumble, ignoring the heat fanning across my cheeks and hoping he will as well.
"I love you," he repeats, pulling my face towards his, capturing my lips with his own and kissing me hungrily. Somewhere in the background, Sam makes gagging sounds of disgust. His childish teasing didn't matter, right now it didn't even register. I was happy. I was loved. I was wanted. I consider calling Mary several times over the summer, desperate for her to share the happiness I felt. I don't. I wasn't ready for that yet.
My happiness couldn't last.
I was a fool to think I could keep him, to kid myself into believing things could stay as they were. After all, he was an angel, and I was just a man.
Screaming, crying, the slamming of doors. The feeling of abandonment I knew all too well. The situation may be different, but it burned just the same.
"What do you mean you're leaving?!"
It was as though the sky knew the truth before I did. The final day of summer and the world had been thrown into the middle of a violent storm. Lighting flashes across the horizon like bombs, the thunder deafening, but not enough to drown out my cries, I find, when Sam discovers me hours later, curled up on my bedroom floor in the dark.
" Dean, please try to understand, I have to fix things. My family, they-"
"Tried to kill me," I remind him. "Would have killed you."
His face is distant, clouded over like the afternoon sky, and for the first time in a long time, I can't tell what he's thinking.
"Not all of them, the other angels, they need me. And I need them. I have to do this, I have to reconcile with them." He takes a deep breath. "And my father, I have to find him. I have to know why he left, surely you of all people can understand that?"
"Aiming below the belt on that one just a tad, aren't we, Cas?"
"Dean." He reaches out to take my hand but I pull away. I'd grown good at that over the years, but I'd never imagined wanting to pull away from him. "No, I get it. Really, I do. I just don't," I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose out of frustration.
"Don't expect me to come back," he supplies the end of my unspoken fear. He leans closer, slowly but determinedly reaching out for my hand once more. "I understand your concerns, but please believe me," he pleads, squeezing my hand. "I'm not him, I'll never be like him."
I don't believe him, that much is evident by my face. Or maybe I do, I'm just scared. My eyes sting, my vision grows blurred as he talks some more, but his promises are just static to my ears. He leaves sometime after the sun has set, the door closing behind him, closing on us. The beautiful boy leaves me in the shadows of my grief, a stranger to me once more. I finally allow the tears to fall.
Sam finds me hours later. I'm hunched over myself on the bed, eyes red and puffy, but the tears are still falling. I feel like Alice, I could drown in my tears.
He was gone. He was gone. He was gone.
"I don't understand." Sam's voice is full of sorrow, lower than it had been when I first came here. A solid reminder that people are constantly changing, whether you notice them or not. "You were so happy."
"I don't understand either. He said he had to fix things."
"He'll come back though, right? When he has?"
"He promised." And that was on him to keep, and on me to keep alive.
Days pass in shades of grey, slowly blurring into weeks. Everyone tiptoes around me, John tells me to take all of the time off that I needed, but I throw myself into my work at the garage like it will be the saving of me. When the time comes to start my evening classes at the local college, I throw myself into them as well, desperate for the distraction. As I had done weeks before, I consider calling Mary, but decide against it. I still wasn't ready for that conversation, and I had Kate. If my dad's absence had been a knife to the heart, then Cas' was open heart surgery without aesthesia. And instead of repairing my damaged heart, he had ripped it out and taken it with him. The ruined cavern that he had left behind was useless, gaping and hollow.
I force myself to get on with life, unlike before when I was adamant I never would. I don't scream, or fight or dig my heels in this time. I quietly and sorrowful accept it, because truthfully I never understood gow I was deserving of such an angelic creature in the first place. "You promised me, you asshole." I curse at the sky at night. You promised me you would never leave. Sometimes I pray instead. At first it's for his return, and maybe he would one day, but now I bargain for his happiness.
Gradually, his presence fades from my life. I no longer return from work or class and expect to see him sat at the dining table chattering away with my family. I no longer find myself burying my face in my pillows, or in my clothes, because after so many washes they no longer smell like him. Sometimes my breath will still catch whenever I see a dark, scruffy haired boy on the beach. Our beach. But then he turns round and the spell is broken. It's not him, it's never him. And I feel foolish for believing it was. Not because I didn't believe he meant the words he promised, but because no mere human boy could ever be my Cas. My angel. So I stop looking for him in strangers on the streets, on the beach, in college. I just have to have patience, believe in him like he believed in me.
After passing my classes I come to a crossroads. Stay or go? I'm pondering the choices that lie ahead of me, sat on the edge of the rock pools one afternoon in early summer. We had sat here so many times, especially in the early days before we were really anything at all. Often we did nothing but sit here and talk for hours, subtlety edging around something that was yet to begin. It was warm, sticky and unpleasant. Yet I couldn't bring myself to go home. The rock next to me was disappointingly empty. I leave my bag, still filled without enough food and drink for two out of habit, and dive into the sea. The waves are chilling against my skin, washing away the sand and the sweat and the loss. When I collect my bag minutes or maybe hours later, a single dark father is nestled between the two large rocks where we used to sit. I instantly turn on my heels, half expecting to see him emerging from the waves. Nothing. Of course not. I pocket the feather and head home, my step a little lighter than it had been.
I break the news to my family over dinner. John's about to tuck into his plate of chicken and vegetables, his loaded fork frozen half way between his mouth and the table.
"What do you mean you're leaving?" I flinch at the very same words I had yelled at Cas almost a year ago now. He notices and his tones softens. Reaching across to pat my shoulder he tries for a confused smile. It misses, he just looks constipated.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the airline ticket. "It's time I faced her." I leave it at that.
No one is angry at me per se, but I can tell that my decision pains them. Sam pulls away in the days before my flight, he smiles less. It's like someone kicked his puppy. Adam throws a hissy fit whenever I leave the room and while Kate makes every effort to act normal, the hurt in her eyes is plain to see. The only one who didn't have a reaction was Emma, and that's only because she's too young to understand what it means when her mother picks her up and tells her to wave "Bye, bye, Dean!"
The night before my flight dad corners me as I finish packing. Kate hasn't stopped hugging me all day, reminding me that I would always have a home with them, that I was one of her own, just as Sammy, Adam and Emma were. This was different though. In a way, John's grudging acceptance of my upcoming departure hurt more.
"I thought you were happy here?"
I nod frantically, not trusting my voice not to crack if I opened my mouth.
His face is drawn, lips straining to uphold their faux smile. "I know things aren't perfect, I know I still have a lot to make up for, but I didn't know you were so miserable or here."
I stop him by raising my hand. "I am happy here, and we are fine. I've accepted the past is the past and I know you truly regret it. This isn't about you."
"Then it's about Cas then. That bastard, if I ever see his fucking face again, so help me god!"
My eyes narrow. "If and when you see him again, you will shake his hand with a smile on your face. You have no room to judge. This isn't about him, or you or any of you." I take a deep breath and let it go, as I reach into my pocket, grasping the soft feather between my fingertips. "This is about me. I need to see her, talk it out, have the chance to work everything through. Failing that, I deserve to know that I tried. I deserve closure."
He nods, slowly coming to see where I was coming from. I watch as the confusion slowly fades from his face, replaced by a silent acceptance. He ruffles my hair, as if I was a little a little snot nosed kid again with scraped up knees instead of a bruised heart. "Don't be gone too long, son."
"I won't," I promise, even though I despise the word. "I don't give up on my family, that's why I have to do this."
I realise then that he hadn't been silently accepting of my decision to leave, in fact, he didn't want me to go at all.
To say Mary was surprised when she received my email asking to visit would be the understatement of the millennium. She welcomes me with somewhat open arms anyway, but I can tell she is confused by my presence in her home. It used to be our home, my home, but that was a lifetime ago now. I stay in my old room, the one I hadn't wanted to leave, the one she found me and Lisa tangled up in, and where she had found me and Luke the morning of the incident. I shake my head sadly and allow myself a brief moment to wonder where they might be now and open the bedroom door. I hope they're doing well now, but I doubt they'll ever hear from me again.
The room hasn't changed in my absence. The bedsheets are the same, the posters all faded from age. I rip them down and throw them in the bin. It's therapeutic. When I take my jacket off and go to hang it up, dozens of feathers fall from the pockets, tumbling down to the floor like black snowflakes. I smile and gather them up and place them atop my suitcase. There is a lot more for me to unpack this time, but I find myself living out of my luggage for the duration of my stay. It feels wrong to pretend that this is my home , that I could just waltz back into this old life as though nothing had changed. Because everything had. I had changed so much I hardly recognised myself as that angry, rebellious child these days. I was proud of that.
"So, tell me what I've missed," she asks me over dinner one night.
I don't know where to start. I have to try though, because I came all this way, because I paid all this money to face my past again, because I promised Cas all that time ago that I would be the better person and let go of the anger. No, not because I made that promise to him, but because I made it to myself.
"Well, I hear you've been doing well?"
Slowly, I nod and begin to tell her. About college, and my family, about Cas, about my future plans. It all spills out before I can stop it.
"It sounds like you've really been turning things around. My decision was for-"
"Don't," I interrupt, throwing my fork down. "Don't say that it was for the best. I could have been just fine here if you had taken the time to just listen to me."
She purses her lips, wanting to say something, but staying silent.
"I didn't come here to fight. I came here to try and build up a relationship with my mother again. Tell me now, if you don't think you can do that and I'll walk straight back out that door. And I won't bother you again." I pause to catch my breath, to gather my thoughts. "But if that's something you want too, then I'll stay. And I'll try to forgive the way you made me feel, because whether you thought it was for the best or not, it hurt me. I felt as though you didn't love me, and no kid should ever feel that way."
You could hear a pin drop in the dining room. Her face is pained, mouth quivering as tears well up in her eyes and drip down, staining her face with mascara laced tears.
"I missed you, Dean."
I hold my breath, waiting for the words but doubting they will come.
"And I'm sorry."
I can't believe it.
We spend the few months I have there getting to know the new versions of ourselves. More feathers keep turning up everywhere I look, and I find that sorry or not, I'm just finding it harder to care these days about what Mary did or didn't do. It almost seems irrelevant in my new life and I'm starting to see that the only person whose poor decisions that should matter to me are My own. I have to live with the person in the mirror and so does she, so does John, and Cas. I understand fully now, why he had to go home. He needed to fix things, or needed to realise that maybe they couldn't be fixed, and that it wasn't on him, before he could do that. Sometimes, after finding a feather, or in the groggy moments between sleep and waking, I think I can feel him lying next to me. One time, when the house is empty, I swear I can hear his voice , whispering softly against my skin. Every single night I talk to the empty room and pretend it's him. Something inside tells me he can hear me. That he misses me too.
My return flight is booked for the week before the start of the new academic year jn order to allow myself time with Sam and Adam before we all hit the books again. Before I left I had enrolled on a counselling course at the local college. Finding myself again had made me realise something. I didn't want to fix cars anymore, beautiful, unfeeling lumps of metal. I wanted to work on people, help them, in the same way that beautiful boy had helped me. How many kids out there were like me, lost and angry and confused? They needed someone and maybe I could be that person.
Saying farewell to Mary was a strange thing, so different to our last parting. There was no anger this time, but no sorrow either. It was calm and polite, but nothing like the way Kate had kissed me and held me close when I left England. I think I finally had my closure. Now I just couldn't wait to go home and be with my family. All I had to do was get through this damned flight. Sitting there at the window I hum to myself.
"Nervous flier?" The man on my right asks sarcastically.
I shrug and mumble out a barely decipherable response. The second man next to him smiles. "Don't mind him, he's an asshole. Thinks just because he's used to flying everywhere means everybody's a wimp if they get scared. Nothing wrong with a bit of fear. Here," he offers, breaking off a square of chocolate from the candy bar he had been eating. "Eases the nerves."
"I'm not scared," I said indigently, accepting the chocolate.
"I never said you were, Deano."
"Though it's obvious he is. Really, Gabe, you don't have to be nice to the little ape just because you know who has taken a shine to him," the first man mock whispers.
"I'm sorry, do I know you, asshat?" I was really beginning to dislike this guy. "What the hell are you on about?"
"Oh, nothing. Now, if you will excuse me." He gets up and strides proudly down the aisle , a smug look on his face that I assumed was a permanent fixture.
"Ignore him, Balthazar is nothing but a great big bag of dicks. Doesn't know what he's talking about." He takes another bite of chocolate. It almost seems as though he has an endless supply. "So let's talk about you."
I cough. "I'm sorry?"
He waggles a finger in my direction. "You miss him, don't you?" Seeing my perplexed face he continues, "You got that look about you, you're missing someone special."
I smile sadly, a million memories flashing through my mind. How did this strange guy know that?
"You still think he'll come back to you?"
Always. I'll ways be waiting for him to return.
"I'm sure he will, just gotta have faith. Between you and me, he misses you too."
The asshole doesn't return and the second strange man vanishes an hour or so in to the flight. Odd as they were, there was something about them. I just couldn't quite put my finger on it. The flight lands safely, despite my visions of crashing in a ball of flames into the sea below. I can hear Sam yelling my name before I can see him raving towards me. He throws himself at me, latching on like a limpet. Dad pulls me in next, and I'm struck by just how much I missed him. Missed all of them.
"Let's go home."
I nod. "In a minute, I just want..." I trail off. It made no sense for him to be here. And yet. Those strange men on the plane. I hadn't seem them get off. A flash of blue catches my eyes, partially obscured by a crowd of travellers. It could have been anyone, but I knew.
I take off running, screaming like a madman as I tear across the airport. "Cas!" I scream till my throat burns, run till my feet ache and the crowds have no choice but to let me through. Stood waiting behind luggage collection, dressed in a blue hoodie with angel wings, stood a boy with dark, windswept hair. My heart skips a beat. The world slows to a stop as he turns around. I can't breathe. Can't think. My dad is calling after me frantically. I couldn't move even if I wanted to, which I didn't. Because he was here. Cas. My Cas, my angel.
"Dean." I can't believe I had almost forgotten how it felt to hear him say my name. "I'm sorry."
"You're here." I pull him to me and I make the decision then and there to never let go again.
"I found him, I found him, Dean. He wanted me to stay, be an angel again, stay in Heaven."
I'm hardly able to comprehend what he's saying, all my brain is registering is the warm body in my arms. He's back. "He wanted to promote me, make me an archangel."
I pull back slightly, just enough so that we are face to face. How I missed that face, those eyes, those lips, the warmth behind his smile. "What are you saying?" Was he going to leave me again? Had he only returned to say a proper goodbye?
His smile is luminous. "I told him to go to hell. He can't just show up after all this time and try to buy my forgiveness. And he can't expect me to choose him over you." His voice turns tender as he slides a trembling finger down my cheek. "I gave it up, I gave it all up for you, Dean. The stars, the heavens, the sky. I kept my promise, I returned to you."
I smile softly, only noticing the dampness as he brushes the tears from my cheek. "I think part of me always knew you would. I never stopped hoping you'd come home to me. "
"I love you."
"I know," I breathe. I can feel it in my veins.
Life settles back down to normal, or as normal as I had came to expect with an angel for a boyfriend and family as screwed in the head as mine. Cas had to earn Kate and Sam's trust over again, but he soon has them eating out of the palm of his hand once more. Adam was just happy to have him back, same as I was. As for dad, well, I don't think he is ever going to be Cas' biggest fan, but I caught them singing along to an old Bon Jovi song in the car once, so I think they'll be alright eventually. As for me, I ace my counselling course and eventually quit my job at the garage. It just wasn't for me anymore. To tell the truth, I think I was more upset about it than dad was. Despite being prepared to move on, it was still the end of an era, the closing of a chapter in my life. I think dad has more in common with Cas than he'd like to admit, because neither of them can stop talking about what is next for me, how proud they are. I can only hope dad is as happy when I break the news that I'm planning on moving in with Cas once I've found a steady counselling job. I keep in semi frequent contact with Mary, but I don't picture us becoming besties any time soon. Still, we were talking and that was a start. Like most things in my life, it was a work in progress.
Life was good. I had a family who I loved, and who loved me back, an amazing boyfriend who was literally an angel and a promising future ahead of me. All things I never could have imagined a few years ago, because I was too scared to take a chance. My world was no longer in ruins and I had this beautiful boy next to me to thank for that. And myself, as Cas was always quick to remind me.
Smiling, I close my eyes on another day, Cas curled up at my side, already snoring gently in my ear. I ruffle his permanently messy hair and kiss his cheek. He begins to stir. "Thank you, angel."
He rolls over and groggily sits up, resting his chin atop of my head. "Mmmhhm," he mumbles sleepily. "For what?"
"Everything."
