Author's Note: Alright, here it is, the chapter containing the missing chapter flashback. A large chunk of this chapter is a verbatim flashback to what is now Chapter Eleven, the original upload of which got skipped or deleted somehow. After this chapter and Chapter Eleven have been up for a while, I will replace this version of this chapter with a version where the flashback is condensed and not a copy/paste. But for now, the full text of those scenes exists in both places.

-SQ

Disclaimer: See previous eighteen chapters (and prologue)

Chapter Nineteen: You Win Some, You Lose More

"Cas? Helloooooo? Cas, are you there?"

The angel quickly stashed his angel blade back away in the pocket of his coat and pulled the tan sleeves down over his arms. Sam and Dean bore their many scars like badges of honor, a living testament to the years of hardship and hunting. Castiel's skin, other the other hand, was as new and smooth as a baby's. A baby in a trenchcoat. No matter what happened to him, to his vessel, his body, sooner or later he always came out looking as good as new.

"Castie-el? Can I come in?"

"Yes, I am here, Claire. Come in." The teen pushed open the door. "What can I do for you?"

"I need you to help me convince Sam and Dean to let me go back out on my own."

"What?" said Cas, caught off guard. "No. Absolutely not."

"Come on Cas, please." Her wide blue eyes were earnest and determined behind their thick eyeliner. "I don't belong here. I'm a fifth wheel. You guys were right—this Amara thing, it's not my gig. But hunting is. That's what I should be doing. Especially since you guys are caught up saving the world. The monsters aren't gonna gank themselves just because the Winchesters have bigger fish to fry."

Cas opened his mouth to tell Claire no again. She was too young, too inexperienced, too…too important to him. But then he stopped. Who was he to tell her what she could and couldn't do? Just because he didn't want her to do it. And was she really too young? She was legally an adult, and Sam and Dean had been hunting from a much younger age. Of course, they had been raised as hunters, practically born and bred in the life. It was in their blood. Their destiny, if you believed in that kind of thing (Cas wasn't sure whether he did or not anymore. How was that for blasphemy? Well, add it to the list). But they had trained Claire; the girl couldn't have asked for better teachers. And she was asking for Castiel's permission—or at least his approval—and his help. If he said no, she would likely do it anyway, angry and resentful and without support. Castiel didn't want her to go, but he also didn't want to make her feel that way again, and he didn't want to lose her trust and friendship either.

"This is what you really want?" asked the Seraph.

"It is," said Claire with a hundred percent conviction that the angel envied.

"Ok."

*****Icarus*****

"I'm not a kid anymore, Dean, and I'm not dumb. I know how to hunt." Claire looked at the brothers defiantly out of her steely blue eyes. They were the exact same color as Castiel's, but that was here the resemblance ended. Dean had rarely seen the girl look more vulnerable. Or stronger.

"I already found a case," she ploughed ahead. She had rehearsed this with Cas, practiced making her argument while keeping her emotions in check. "A weird murder in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. Jody's friend Donna thinks it might be our kind of thing. It's not any more dangerous than going after the literal Darkness," she added pointedly.

"She has a point, Dean," said Sam softly.

"She's gonna go whether you let her or not," pointed out Gabriel, punctuating his input with a wet smack as he sucked on his lollipop. It was cherry, his favorite. "So you might as well let her."

"Why is it everyone always gangs up on me?" said Dean in a pained voice. "And always assumes I'm going to say no."

"So, you're not going to say no?" said Claire hopefully.

Dean made a face at her. "Would it make a difference?"

"Not really," said the girl cheerfully.

"Then be safe out there. And you had better check in. With us and with Jody."

"I will," promised the young hunter. "Thanks, Dean," she added, surprising him with a quick, tight hug, a gesture she repeated first with Sam and then Castiel. "And I'll keep my eyes and ears open for any news of Amara. Just in case."

*****Icarus*****

He could make out every detail of her form perfectly, not through any source of light that he could determine, but rather because next to Amara, everything else seemed light in comparison. Her cascade of dark hair shrouded her face in shadow, and yet Dean could see the sharp angles of her nose and cheekbones with stark clarity beneath her sparkling, fathomless eyes.

Dean. Come and find me.

The hunter jolted awake, his hand making it halfway to his gun before he registered that he was in his own bed, with no Amara in sight. He felt a confusing combination of disappointment and relief. Come and find me, she had said; half challenge, half invitation. Last time he hadn't been prepared; she had bewitched him, caught him off guard. Next time would be different, next time he would be ready.

A laugh, as deep and old as the world itself. Older. And cold, so cold it burned like fire. Come and find me, then, Dean Winchester.

Tell me where you are!

There was no response.

"Dean?"

Dean started again and looked guiltily at the man blinking sleepily at him from the other side of the bed. He was glad, not for the first time, that Castiel was not able to read his mind.

"Dean, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Cas," said Dean, shrugging off the angel's concern and his touch (just in case) and sliding out of bed. The floor was cold on his bare feet. "I just need to pee."

He shuffled to the bathroom, where he spent several minutes splashing cold water on his face, trying to clear his head. It wasn't working. He needed a shower. A cold one. Or burning hot, to purge the memory of the last time he had come face to face with Amara.

*****Icarus*****

"You're telling me that Amara-that the Darkness, is God's sister?"

"That's what Metatron said."

"Jesus." Sam ran a hand through his hair. "Every time we think it can't get any worse. You're sure he wasn't lying?"

"I don't see how that would benefit him," said Cas.

The angel was exhausted, physically and emotionally. It was all he could do to follow the brothers' conversation. They had, in true Winchester style, tacked every piece of information they had pertaining to Amara up on the wall, and the four of them-Sam, Dean, Cas, and Claire-were now doing their best to come up with a plan to find, catch, and kill God's friggin' sister.

"I think I have an idea who might be cleaning up Amara's messes," said Claire. The other three looked at her. "While you three were chasing down Metatron, I made a few phone calls. Seems the police officer who responded to the scene of the most recent murder found it smelled overwhelmingly of sulfur. At first he wondered if her death had been the result of a natural gas leak, until he realized her neck at been broken."

"Demons," said Cas.

"Crowley," growled Dean. "I be he's trying to use her power. It would be just like him. This just got personal."

"So we're really going to do this?" said Sam. "Now?"

"Yeah." Dean amended himself, "Hell yeah. I've been looking for a chance to get back at Crowley ever since that crap he pulled in Cedar Rapids, especially now that I know he tricked me and made off with the Darkness."

"No," Sam turned away from the map on the wall. "That's not what I meant. We're going in to kill Amara. Are you ready for that?"

Dean wasn't entirely successful at hiding his reaction to Amara's name. "Why wouldn't I be?" he asked defensively.

Castiel's eyes darted between the two brothers as though asking the same question.

"Because, according to Metatron, she's God's sister. We don't even know if she can be killed."

Cas and Claire exchanged a look. Sam kind of had a point, but...

Claire spoke up. "You said she's still like a teenager, right?"

Sam nodded. "At least she was the last time we saw her."

"Well, if she can be killed, our best bet is to do it before she reaches full strength."

"Exactly," said Dean. "Thank you, Claire. And no," he added, "you still can't come."

"Well, it was worth a shot," muttered the girl.

"So," said Cas after another long moment. "How do we find her?"

"We know Amara was here, here, and here," said Sam, turning pack to point at three points on the map, marked with thumb tacks and connected with red string. "And we also know all three of her victims became someone else's-Crowley's-victims not long after. What I don't understand is why Crowley would have Amara here on Earth in the first place. Wouldn't it be smarter to keep her in Hell?"

"Yeah," said Dean, "but then he'd have to spend more time there, and he hates that place."

"Right," said Sam. "I keep forgetting about you and Crowley's Summer of Love."

"Excuse me?" said Cas.

"Like you're one to talk," Dean back at him.

"Anyway," said Claire loudly, "if he is keeping her on Earth, we can assume it's likely somewhere in here." She pointed at the triangle outlined by the lengths of red string.

"I'm not seeing much inside this radius," said Dean. "Farms, swamps..."

"This POI," said Claire, pointing, "what's that?"

"Point of interest," said Sam.

Claire rolled her eyes. "I know what a POI is. What is it? What's there?"

"Let's find out," said Sam.

*****Icarus*****

The POI turned out the be the Needham Assylum, decommissioned in 1956. Just the kind of place Crowley would hang out. Dean was in favor of setting out immediately, no time to lose. Sam, however, insisted that taking on God's sister wasn't something you just rushed into, not if you wanted to come out alive on the other side. And besides, they still had to figure out what to do about Metatron.

"He's of no more use to us," said Cas, "and he's hardly a threat anymore. He's a more pathetic human than I am."

"You're not a human, Cas," said Dean. "And you're not pathetic. Metatron is though, as much as I hate to let him go."

"He's not going anywhere," said Cas. "If he makes a move, if he draws the slightest attention, the full force of Angel Kind will snuff him out."

"That might be kind of fun to watch," said Claire.

The men looked at her and shrugged. It was hard to argue with that.

*****Icarus*****

Dean awoke the next morning with his head pillowed on soft, black feathers. He sat up quickly, checking to see if he had damaged the still recovering wings. Thankfully, it didn't seem like it. His angel slept peacefully on, dark brown hair tousled across the pillow, chest rising and falling gently with the rhythm of the breaths he technically didn't have to take. It was hard to believe he had brought a man back to life yesterday, even if it had made him violently ill later that evening; he seemed so human. Apart from the giant feathered wings sprouting from his shoulders, of course. Dean put a hand on one of those shoulders and gently shook the angel awake.

"Cas. Castiel. Come on, Cas, up and at 'em. Another day, another monster."

"That was a play on words," Cas murmured groggily, his eyes still closed. "The original phrase is, 'another day, another dollar.' Although people in this country in this day and age generally make more than a dollar in a day."

"That's right," said Dean, in mild surprise. "You're learning. How are you feeling?"

Cas sat up, stretched his wings experimentally, and grimaced. "Sore."

"They're healing well, from what I can tell," said Dean, running a hand over the black feathers. Cas shivered. "I think you overdid it yesterday."

"Maybe," said Cas grudgingly, leaning into the hunter's touch as Dean began to massage Jody's homemade muscle ache remedy into his back and shoulders.

"Dude, you puked. Twice."

"And least I didn't do it in the car this time."

Dean shuddered at the memory. "Thank God." He made to get up, but found his way blocked by an inky wing. "Cas, I need to-" the rest of his sentence was cut off by the angel's lips one his, hesitant but filled with clear intent. Dean, caught off guard, froze for a second before he let himself relax into the other man's soft, slightly chapped mouth, making a small, involuntary sound of protest when the angel broke the kiss.

"Good morning, Dean."

Dean felt that tightening in his stomach that was uniquely Cas, the one he had become so adept at ignoring over the years that he had nearly stopped noticing it, had almost been able to convince himself that it wasn't real.

"Good morning, Cas." Embarrassingly, it came out sounding just a bit breathless. He cleared his throat and said, rather more gruffly, "We'd, uh, better get up before Sam decides to come check up on us.

"Is that likely?"

"Well, no," Dean admitted. "But we should get up anyway. And I have to pee."

Cas watched Dean walk toward the bathroom. He had the vague feeling that he had done something wrong, but he couldn't figure out what it was. Had Dean not enjoyed the kiss? He had certainly seemed to enjoy it. Maybe he just really had to pee? It was an exceedingly uncomfortable feeling, one of Cas' greatest annoyances when he was human. If only he was better at reading and understanding humans. Though from what he had gathered, Dean wasn't the easiest human to read or understand in the first place.

Dean came out of the bathroom ten minutes later to find Cas still sitting on the bed where he had left him.

"Are you going to stay in bed all day?" he asked, hitching the towel up more securely on his hips and grabbing another to use on his wet hair.

"What?" said Cas. "Oh, I uh, guess not." He slid gingerly out of the bed, rolling his shoulders and stretching out his wings.

"Watch where you put those things!" said Dean, who had to jump hastily out of the way to avoid being knocked over.

"Sorry, Dean," said Cas, quickly folding the offending appendages against his back and out of the way. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," grumbled Dean, ditching the towel around his waist in favor of a pair of maroon boxers. "I didn't know angels were so clumsy."

"We're not. Usually," said Castiel, as he knocked over the bedside lamp.

"Cas!"

"Everything alright in there?" asked Sam's voice from outside the bedroom door.

"Shit, ouch, fine!" called Dean, nearly tipping over into Cas' arms in his hurry to pull on his jeans.

Outside the bedroom door, Sam and Claire exchanged an I don't want to know look.

"Okay…well, breakfast is ready. Hurry up or it'll get cold."

*****Icarus*****

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Cas asked dubiously. "The warding is exceedingly shoddy."

The angel was right. Not only was the warding on the abandoned asylum less than adequate, but there was not so much as a single guard demon of Hellhound in sight, and the lock on the door wouldn't have kept out a determined highschooler.

"Why ward it at all if it wasn't? said Dean, easily picking the lock so that the door swung open. "Cocky son of a bitch," he muttered.

Sam put out a hand to stop his brother. "External security may be lax, but we still don't know what we're gonna find inside."

"Well," said Dean, brushing past Sam with Castiel on his heels, "we're not gonna find anything standing around here."

It didn't take them long to run across the first demon, and even less to dispatch the sorry son-of-a-bitch.

"There's bound to be more where that one came from," said Sam, relieving the unconscious demon of his keys and tossing them to Dean. "I'll take care of them, you go find Amara."

Dean didn't have to be told twice; he could feel Amara's presence pulling him to her like a moth to a flame.

"Stay with Sam," he snapped at a rather taken aback Cas, before striding off down the dimly lit hallway. He was at the door to what could only be Amara's room when he realized that the angel was still behind him.

"I told you to stay with Sam."

"Sam does not need my help."

"Neither do I."

A hurt look passed across the angel's face. "You have found a way to kill the Sister of God?"

Dean flinched involuntarily. "Have you?" he challenged.

The tense silence could have been cut with a knife. Or a voice.

"Dean. Come in. I've been expecting you."

Dean swallowed hard, his heart suddenly racing, and found himself turning the doorknob with a sweaty palm.

The girl had grown. Not yet the woman Dean had met in the mist, she was no longer a child either. And the look she was giving him was anything but childish.

In spite of the voice in his head telling him in no uncertain terms that Amara was simultaneously too young and too old for him, Dean could feel his body react to her presence. His voice, when he found it, came out low and husky.

"I'm sorry, Amara."

Amara's voice, in contrast, was high pitched and smooth like a caress. "For what?"

Her eyes were hypnotic, somehow no color and every color at once. Dean desperately wanted to look away from her gaze, but found he could not. He decided to pass it off as staring her down.

"For what I'm about to do." He wasn't entirely sure he had succeeded.

Amara's gaze flickered down to the knife in Dean's shaking hand, then back up to something over the hunter's shoulder.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean whirled around in time to see Crowley (and where the hell had he come from?) slam the door in Cas' face.

The next moment, Dean found himself flying backwards into a free standing mirror on the other side of the room, which shattered upon the impact.

"Dean? !" came Castiel's voice from the other side of the door, accompanied by the sound of his fists banging uselessly against the reinforced wood. "DEAN!"

"Thought we might want some privacy," said the King of Hell conversationally. "My girl's grown up," he added, picking his way gingerly through the debris on the floor. "Should have known it wouldn't be long before the boys came sniffing around." He watched Dean get to his feet, the look on his face caught between annoyance and amusement. "Your boyfriend's looking better."

Dean aimed a punch at Crowley's head, earning him a second flight into the wall. Or it would have, if Amara (presumably) hadn't halted his progress mid-trajectory. The result was the disconcerting feeling of crashing into solid nothing.

"What do you want with her, Crowley?" Dean spit out. Was he feeling protective of Amara...? Or merely...possessive? "What? Do you think you can use her? Control her? You're an idiot." Takes one to know one.

"I'm not trying to control her," said Crowley, banding down to pick up Dean's demon knife off the floor. "I'm helping her. To realize her fullest potential."

Great, thought Dean. Just what they needed.

Dean didn't realize his attention had stayed back to Amara until the King of Hell spoke once more.

"Do you realize how disturbing it was to realize that I couldn't bring myself to kill you?"

"Huh?" said Dean intelligently.

"Tons of chances over the years," the demon continued musingly, "some you don't even know about, but still..." Dean shifted; was Crowley going to get to the point? "I made my peace with it," the King of Hell continued at length, "embraced my softer side. Learned to accept there was just too much going on between you and I."

"That-that didn't count," Dean spluttered. "I wasn't me. I was a demon!"

"You know what? You're right," said Crowley, with a small smile, still toying with Dean's knife. "So you won't hold it against me that I've decided I am going to kill you today. I feel...different somehow. Ready. What can I say? Fatherhood changes a man."

Following that little speech, three things happened in quick succession: Crowley lifted the knife to stab Dean in the throat, Amara hit the demon soundly across the back of the head with a wooden piece of the mirror base, and the door to the room burst open, emitting a Castiel-shaped whirlwind of angelic intent.

With an almost bored flick of her wrist, Amara froze Cas in place in the same way she had frozen Dean, and surveyed her self-proclaimed adoptive father.

"Ow," the demon complained, glaring up at the girl. "That hurt." He stood, only to find himself frozen in place like the others. Slowly, Amara forced the knife from his hand, bending the appendage back onto itself until there was an audible crack. Crowley's resulting lapse in concentration then allowed her to fling the King of Hell against the stone wall.

"Why, Amara?" panted the demon. "I thought we had an...understanding."

Castiel took in the scene, struggling all the while to free himself from his invisible bonds. It was only when Amara had finished with Crowley and turned her attention back to Dean, that he realized the hunter had been free to move the entire time. He just...hadn't.

Dean seemed to realize this as well, and took a step toward Cas, only to be frozen by Amara once more. "I'll spare your life," she said to Crowley, her eyes still locked on Dean, "on one condition. Safe passage for Dean out of here."

Even if Castiel had been able to speak, he wouldn't have known what to say to that, though the phrase "What the fuck?" came to mind.

Amara tightened her grip on Crowley's throat.

"Yes!" he squeaked.

The girl-or rather, the powerful dark entity in girl form-stepped back, releasing both the demon and the hunter and leaving Cas feeling left out in more ways than one.

"Good," she said sweetly. Then, a good deal less sweetly, "Now, get out of my room."

As Crowley limped from the room like a hellhound with its tail between its legs, Amara turned and caught sight of Castiel.

"Are you still here?" she asked in mild surprise.

I can't move, thought the angel in annoyance. So, yes.

Behind Amara, the hunter bent to retrieve his knife.

Now, Dean! thought Cas, willing Amara's attention to remain fixed on him. Kill her now, while she's distracted. Do it!

"He won't," said Amara, without bothering to turn around. "He can't. Isn't that right, Dean?" She did turn then, and advanced on Dean in a way that majorly invaded the hunter's prized personal space. To Cas' surprise and dismay, Dean once again remained rooted to the spot. The angel was uncomfortably aware that the look she was giving his hunter right now would have been deemed by Sam as "Sex Eyes." And, even more disturbingly, Dean was giving it right back.

"Tell me," she said, softly, "what is happening here?" I'd like to know the same thing, thought Cas, struggling futilely against his invisible bonds. "Between us? You save me, and I save you."

Amara was close enough to Dean to touch him, and then she was touching him, caressing his face in a way that sent shivers down the hunter's spine and raised goosebumps of pleasure on his skin.

"Why?" Her voice...had he ever heard anything more beautiful? Or more deadly?

"You were the first thing I saw when I was freed," Amara continued, barely speaking above a whisper. "And it had been so...long..."

Dean shivered, yearning for her to touch him again, needing what she was offering him, even if he wasn't completely sure what it was.

"Maybe that's it." She leaned in even closer; Dean could feel her breath warm against his skin. "My first experience of His creation. You can't help but represent that for me."

That hit home for Castiel. It was almost exactly how he felt about Dean.

The hunter's brain felt like it was short-circuiting. He wasn't even sure what Amara was saying, only that he liked it very much. Her gaze flicked downward and both the hunter and the angel became aware of just how much.

"There's no fighting it," said Amara. She reached out a hand to caress Dean through the front of his jeans, and he almost came right there. "I'm fascinated."

Castiel, meanwhile, was horrified. Things were crashing together in his mind. Dots he had been unable, or unwilling, to connect before now.

Idiot, he berated himself, while simultaneously seething at Dean and Amara and Crowley and everyone else who had put him in this predicament. Worthless idiot.

"It's been great seeing you again, Dean, but it's time for me to go. There's a whole world out there for me to explore, and I can practically taste it."

Cas had been played. Again. He didn't know why he bothered to be surprised anymore. "Manipulated by the angels, by your enemies, by your friends..."

Despite having said her goodbyes, neither Amara nor Dean appeared to be in any hurry to terminate their encounter. What would have happened next is anyone's guess-as it was, the scene was interrupted by Sam finally succeeding in breaking through the door. And just as quickly being ejected again.

This seemed to snap Dean out of his trance. He started toward Amara, knife raised and a snarl on his lips, only to find himself thrown backwards for the third time in a handful of minutes. And just like that, the Darkness was gone. Not with a poof or a bang, but simply striding past the two hunters and the angel, releasing Castiel into an undignified heap of feathers as she did so.

*****Icarus*****

"Dean, what the hell happened back there?"

The three of them were back in the Bunker with Claire, who was watching them as though they were a particularly intense three-way tennis match.

"She...got away."

"Yeah, I got that much," said Sam. "How?"

"She's God's freakin' sister, she overpowered me. End of story."

"That isn't true Dean, and you know it." This was Cas.

"I'm sorry? What do you know?"

"You let her get away," said the angel, his wings flaring. "You were practically-" the angel struggled to find the appropriate words-"making love to her!"

"Ew," said Claire.

Sam turned to his brother. "Is that true?"

"What? No! Of course not!

Castiel turned away in disgust, unable to look at the hunter. "At least I admit my fuck-ups, Dean. And I know there have been many. I wish you had never rescued me from my brethren back in Seattle." He turned on his heel and left the room, wishing dearly for the proper use of his wings.

The three hunters stared after him in shock.

"Shit, Dean," said Claire, turning her stunned gaze on the elder Winchester. "What did you do?"

*****Icarus*****

The scene played over and over again inside his head.

Needham Assylum

Crowley. Bastard.

Amara

Amara

Cas. Oh fuck, Cas

Amara

Her lips. Her eyes. Her hands. Her voice. Her everything. Her.

"She cast a freakin' spell on me! I couldn't move!"

Cas. Cas, wait! Cas, I can explain…

"Shit, Dean. What did you do?"

Dammit, Cas!

I can explain

I can't explain

What did you do?

Dean didn't know how long he'd stood there under the water, reliving the memory, trying to see what he could have done differently, trying to convince himself that the answer was nothing.

When he finally left the bathroom, Cas was gone.

AN: This will most likely be the last update before the new year, so consider it an early Holiday gift. No need to get me one in return, but if you insist, I like reviews ;)

-SQ