Sydney woke to an unfamiliar ceiling. She stood, eyeing the room, hands outstretched in a protective circle. The setting sun beamed in through the yawning windows and their golden rays glared over her face. Feverish, sweltering heat crashed down and sweat trickled off her forehead. It was the occasional, rickety hotel room with thin, decorative curtains and typical furniture. Yet a threat lingered in the air.
Her apparent amnesia heightened her fear. However, with the lack of visible threats, she allowed her rigid shoulders to drop an inch. Nothing was off, per se, besides the apparent fact that she hadn't recalled purchasing a hotel room; and for reasons unknown, her senses were warning her that she wasn't alone: like a hidden, buzzing alarm somewhere in her conscience.
On cue, a gentle, cool draft blew in through the doorway, and there a man stood at the foot of the doorway. He entered the room, his stare stoic and concentrated with a calm expression shaping his intense features. The khaki-colored trench coat embracing his shoulders fluttered with the breeze while his stark-blue tie politely waved.
Her eyes betrayed her. She dug her nails into the sweat of her palms, forming anxious fists that would dubiously protect her from whatever evil lay before her. An ocean of questions flooded her brain in a panicked moment, and she cowered fearfully. Her elbows tucked into her ribs, palms out in surrender like a frightened animal.
The man blinked benignly. Curiously, he took a step onto the lip of the carpet. He spoke honestly: "My name is Castiel."
With a set jaw and a wary mind, she regarded the man. He appeared harmless: his ruffled dark hair and clear blue eyes dampened her nerves significantly. Continuing to gape like a fish, she struggled to form intelligible sentences. She finally demanded, "Where am I?"
Castiel neared cautiously to avoid alarming her. "A place you do not belong." He extended his arm toward her face, two fingers caressing her temple in a gentle profession.
A wave of bliss shot through her, blessing her muscles into a restful state. The darkest corners of her mind eased and folded under the grace's fluid power, and she folded into unconsciousness as her eyes fluttered shut. She went limp and steady hands caught her before she descended onto the tile floor.
Castiel supported her deadweight and unfurled his wings. Then, with a confident rush of wind, the humid prison of a deserted hotel was behind them. The angel observed his new surroundings, while he gingerly assured the girl's safety within his arms. Castiel pushed past a startled Bobby and grunted as he set her on the couch.
Bobby's face wrinkled his brow in confusion and then raised them again, ready for a thorough explanation. "So, who's the girl?"
Castiel narrowed his eyes, although his expression remained passive. He revealed three gleaming angel blades hidden in his trench coat and displayed them on the table. "Angels had locked her within an abandoned hotel not far from here." His tone was soft and concerned. Regretful.
Dean and Sam both looked exhausted: the bruised raccoon eyes from lack of sleep and the slouched mannerisms proved their late-night research and hunting.
They had chosen their stance throughout Bobby's country home: Castiel stood with his hands in his trench coat pockets while watching over the girl, Sam and Dean were both inclined up against the antique table, and Bobby had situated himself in a wooden seat.
Dean raised an eyebrow at the girl splayed on the couch. Her auburn locks fell onto her shoulders in chocolate waves. A snugly fit jean jacket enveloped her, the sleeves' ends frayed and torn with age and worriment, while a plain black tank top fit her middle. Black leggings clung to her knees in wrinkles, but, oddly enough, no shoes were present. Dean immediately remarked, "Can she even drive yet?" For someone associated with angels, she was awfully young.
Castiel paused, considering it literally, and before he could embarrass himself by answering, and Dean stopped the angel. The hunter chuckled and rephrased his question, "Cas, what I mean is: Why do the angels care so much about a teenager? Is she human?"
Castiel looked regretful when he replied, "Yes. She has a human soul. Whatever the angels are searching for, it is foolish." The angel blades along the table clattered as he nudged their handles, recalling their owners apologetically. The angel huffed, reluctant to tell as they waited patiently for him to explain. He owed them one, however. After all the favors the Winchesters had given, they at least deserved answers. "They stole her from a… variance of our dimension."
Dean pouted a lip. "So, what? They went all, Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe on her? Yanked her out of the professor's magic wardrobe?"
The angel watched, lost as Dean made references, so he merely continued explaining without acknowledging them. "No, Dean. She doesn't exist here. That's what makes this extremely dangerous."
"Like… Aslan kind of dangerous?" Dean smirked.
"Aslan? The Turkish word for... lion?" he said, looking bewildered until he had decoded Dean's phrase as a casual joke. He huffed, "No- no, Dean. This level of interference could cause catastrophic damage to our universe. This could disrupt time itself if we don't prevent it. This could alter fate." Castiel sought to prove how world-altering this could become.
Dean shrugged. "Another chance that our world may be royally screwed. Why am I not surprised? You know, sometimes I feel like the world is just begging for attention." He took a calm sip of his half-empty glass. "So how do we get her... back?"
Castiel shook his head. "I don't know if we can. There are infinite realities out there, Dean. Finding the correct universe would be like searching for a specific atom in an entire galaxy. It's... unrealistic. Even to our standards, " he said.
The hunter sent a silent impressed look. It wasn't like they were defying the laws of nature on a daily basis or anything, but he couldn't argue.
Sam froze. "Hey, wait. Is this related to that alternate reality we were thrown into by Balthazar? The one with our lives as a television show with no mojo? I remember now. Our names were, eh, Jared and Jensen?" He remembered that day. A world where supernatural, demons, and angels didn't exist. Nothing of the sort had ever walked among anyone. It was a blessing, really. Plus, Sam and Dean had been ridiculously rich. He didn't have a bad memory of the place, besides the angel Virgil pouncing on their tails.
He remembered how Cas had been. Or mostly, how he hadn't been. Misha Collins, he recalled vaguely, the sweater-wearing variant of their angel friend. His voice had been higher-pitched, too: less gravelly and low. Misha had been rather vulnerable as a human. From the homeless man's descriptive details, Sam had pieced together that Misha had blubbered and squealed blatantly as the blade of Virgil's knife had pinched threateningly at his neck. Nobody could blame the guy: he had been an innocent, inexperienced variant of their mid-war Castiel. Although, now that the angel was here in the flesh while Sam speculated, he couldn't help contrast Castiel's and Misha's polarity.
Castiel nodded. "Yes. A similar one."
Sam made an abundance of facial expressions when he was thinking. His eyebrows would draw crinkles along his forehead and his teeth would grind together in thought. His eyes remained steady and sure. "Then couldn't we use that symbol we used the last time? The one that glowed red on the window we jumped through?"
"No." The angel answered sadly. "Not that simple. We knew about your location."
Sam leaned back further against the table at Cas's response. It never was that easy, was it? "So that's it? We... let her stay?"
Without hesitance, the angel replied, "No. That could altogether upset the natural order. I suggest we find the angel responsible."
All three hunters eyed the angel in anticipation. When he didn't respond, Bobby spoke up, "Who, then?"
Cas fidgeted. "I don't know yet."
It was quiet after that. A whistle of hot wind trickling in from a loose window and danced throughout the house, filling in the silence the group left. In all seasons, nature's sounds were talkative at this end of the country. The cicadas chirped enthusiastically when the stars blinked above, and the mosquitoes nipped when summer sweat pooled in their shoes. It differed completely from the city. There was no whining of engines besides their own, and the air smelled of sweet ponderosa pine: a soft, blended aroma of vanilla and butterscotch. The Singer Salvage Yard was a rusty home for the hunters, but it was home.
Dean couldn't shake the instinct within him that told him to question the scenario, so he spoke up, headstrong. "Okay, but is this even a bad thing?"
"Of course, it's a bad thing-!" Bobby barked incredulously.
"Yeah, yeah, but Cas said it could alter fate. So what if this could improve things around here? I mean, if we recruited her, think of the hunter she would-"
"That was not meant to encourage you, Dean." Castiel disagreed. "You know too well how this turns out. Becoming vain over 'good intentions' backfire. They always do. Of all people, you should have learned this lesson by now." He pivoted to take a glance at the comatose teenager on the couch cushions. She seemed at peace now, but once she woke, it would be worse than at the hotel. "She was petrified when I retrieved her. Imagine if she learned what lurked in the darkness. It could break her, Dean."
Castiel had a point.
Dean shifted uncomfortably, recollecting old memories that started with the phrase: 'good intentions'. Sam's par against demon blood and had spiraled into the upbringing of the devil himself and the apocalypse along with him. The time Castiel had been juiced up on souls and transformed into 'God' was also an example of 'good intentions' gone wrong.
Dean could additionally add the constant sacrifice of his life for Sam's as another example of where he could officially state he had literally been forming deals with death. Wearing Death's ring and impersonating him for an entire day just to bring Sam's soul back from Lucifer's cage was a rather personal issue of his. Protective was a light term.
Cas sensed the hunter's change of attitude and figured it best to drop the topic while they were still civil and level-headed. "I suggest you all sleep. I'll take watch." The angel shuffled into a comfortable position, preparing to stand silently for the rest of the night as the chirrups and warbles of birds outside hushed.
So, the idle room roused, itching for its inhabitants to sleep as the stars sat above them.
Bobby was first to act, and he migrated from his seat to settle for the night. The stairs gave a distinct thwap thwap of socks against the wood to indicate he was heading off to bed and leaving the boys to their own business.
Sam rose from his corner of the table, stretching and lumbering off to the car to rest like a defeated moose. The couch was occupied, so he was making do.
Dean raised an eyebrow, trotting off to grab another drink. Nobody bothered to protest against his habits because, unfortunately, this was Dean's way of coping with the obstacles life threw at him. Eventually, Dean would settle; however, the rattle of a fridge shutting proved it would not be for a while. He returned to the living room, glass now refilled with alcohol. He sat at the desk chair Bobby had abandoned and swayed pleasantly to the hum of crickets sounding through crevices in the walls.
Dean flashed an amused look towards Castiel. "You know, you don't need to stand over her like a hawk. You carved the sigils into her ribs, right?"
Castiel was, indeed, hovering over the teenager. He blinked, realizing his mind had gone blank with fatigue. Faltering, he swapped his attention to the hunter. "Yes... I suppose I did," he said, giving a weary, brief look to the couch once more before sitting on the floor with his hands rested on his knees.
"Then she should be fine." Dean expressed his interest with an inquisitorial gaze. "What's got you worried, Cas?"
His friend was unusually uptight. "If angels deliberately brought her here from another dimension, she must be valuable to them. If we lose her once..." he trailed off.
"We won't," Dean stated with confidence.
Castiel frowned pensively. "I know." He looked to the floor, pulling at the sleeves of his trench coat. "I'm draining, Dean. My grace is fading, and by the day humanity is prodding at the floodgates for cracks and fissures. I fear one day I'll wake up as a human."
Dean paused at the words 'wake up as a human' and carefully said, "But... you don't sleep."
"Exactly," Castiel muttered. He rested his forehead along his palm, finding it heavy. "I'm finding it difficult to avoid the temptation of sleep." The angel exhaled, closing his eyes and succumbing to his exhaustion.
Dean ceased to stir his drink and instead planted it on the desk. He threw a blanket over Castiel's resting form with a soft smile. Resting his elbows on his thighs, he absorbed the night. He browsed Sam's laptop for data on dimensional travel, but results proved frustrating. In periods of boredom, he would rise from his seat and amble around, occasionally refilling his glass. This was what Dean accomplished when he was restless. It was just another night of nothing.
Eventually, after hours of repeating this process, the hunter drifted away as dawn illuminated the house with a tame gold. He sunk into the chair, his head lolling until it sagged against the wall.
Fortunately, it was a dreamless slumber.