Chapter 76.

At times, Dean could feel Cas coming close to waking. His mind was finding it hard to keep his body dormant and he could feel the thoughts that Cas was holding back, trying to sneak back in.

Each time, Dean managed to strengthen the walls and draw Cas back into the sparse, simple dream in the bright colours of his four year old mind. In that calm space, Cas seemed to be able to refocus on his physical state and bring his breathing and heart rate down.

After a few such interventions, Cas said quietly, "This is not very restful for you, is it? I can feel you working hard to keep me here."

"You've guarded my door, often enough." said Dean, "Don't worry. I can do this all night."

"Images are coming into my mind." said Cas.

"Good or bad?"

"Both."

"Probably dreams." said Dean, "Maybe you should have stopped yourself from having bad ones."

"I don't know how. Angels don't dream."

"Try now. Do it as if you were stopping my bad dreams." said Dean.

"I don't think I can." said Cas.

"Okay, then let them in here and I'll gank anything terrible."

Light filled the room and suddenly the room was gone. A vast sky, golden and glorious, was reflected in a flawless sea. Dean looked down at the sand at his feet and saw the sunlight sparkling off it. "What is this place?" he said to Cas, who stood beside him.

"The first time I fell in love." said Cas, "Listen!"

There was a sound that Dean could only call music, though no notes he recognised lay within it. It was the sound of the sunlight touching the sea, the sound of the grains of sand, moving over each other, the humming of a mother who would never give up on her children, or leave them, the joy of a father in the life he had created.

"It's home." said Cas.

"Heaven?" said Dean.

Cas smiled. "Better. It's Earth. It's your Earth."

"How can I hear what I'm hearing?" said Dean, feeling as if such powerful music should be melting his feeble human soul.

"Through me. Alone, you would be unable to access that music."

Dean listened to the insane beauty of it. The sea touched the shore and retreated, whispering adoration. Clouds chased across the sky and he heard their song too, rejoicing in the gift of life they bestowed with every rain.

Home was the only word that made sense; a place where he would always belong, a family from which he could never be exiled. He knew that tears were running down his face and then, Dean Winchester, who had no time for awe and associated fawning, fell to his knees in the sand, ready to worship the flawless creation of a creator he knew to be flawed.

After a long, beautiful time of watching and listening to the infant Earth and the joy of the nascent life in the seas, Dean looked up at Castiel. "How can you not hate us?"

"Hate you?" said Cas.

"You saw this and loved it and we broke it, over and over."

"You never saw this, never even imagined it," said Cas, "And yet you have fought for it over and over. You have died for it. You, whether you see it or not, are a part of this perfection, a part of the unbroken beauty of the world as it was supposed to be." He reached down and gripped Dean's arm, lifting him easily to his feet. "I fell in love here, with all of it, with all of you."

"We didn't exist." said Dean.

"Your ancestors are in the water. I didn't know what your final form would be, but I knew something incredible would arise here."

Still that word, "Home." lingered in his mind and he heard his mother's voice, singing in the distance. He heard Sammy chuckle. He heard his father say, "I love you, Dean." The angelic hand on his arm seemed still to be holding him upright, giving him the strength not to fall to the ground and sob for the things he had lost.

He felt Cas starting to wake again. Immediately, he left the body on the shore and found the walls he needed to hold against the world outside. He found himself speaking an incantation he didn't know, the rough sounds of Enochian speaking themselves from his throat and Cas was speaking them too.

"What was that?" he said, as they returned to the beach.

"I don't know." said Cas, "It came from you."

"I don't do Enochian magic."

"You're not a psychic, yet here we are." said Cas. He smiled. Jules was walking down the beach towards them and Dean was pleased to see only joy on Cas's face.

"Humanity is beautiful." said Cas.

"Yes, she is." said Dean, "Go and tell her so."

Behind her, he suddenly saw a body, laid out for burial. The corpse wore an archaic military uniform, so new and clean it didn't seem to have any wear and tear at all. When he saw the face, he couldn't speak. He looked at Cas and knew that he was seeing it too.

Jules was gone. Cas walked over to Jack's body. He knelt beside the bier and bowed his head.

Dean hurried over. "This isn't real!" he said, "Jack's in the bunker. He's fine."

Suddenly, the sky was full of voices screaming and they were all screaming at Cas, "Destroy the nephilim! Protect the humans! Serve Heaven! Defend the Earth! Don't feel! Don't question! Doubt is damnation! Fear is failure! Love is betrayal!"

"Come down here and say that!" said Dean. He realised he was holding a sword. "One at a time or all at once, makes no odds to me."

"Dean, what are you doing?" said Cas, slowly getting up.

"Guarding the door." said Dean, "First thing through it gets skewered."

"You're trying to fight a metaphor." said Cas.

"Won't be my first." said Dean, "What's the sword? Is that metaphorical too? Because if it exists, I want it."

"I believe you have it." said Cas.

"Come away from that corpse." said Dean, "That's metaphorical too."

"The son I'll sacrifice?" said Cas.

"You know we won't let that happen." said Dean.

"I was never supposed to feel these things."

"You were supposed to kill Jack before he could be born. So was I. Life is better when we don't do what we are supposed to."

"What if everything that ever went wrong is my fault, because I loved this world and its life too much?"

"Wow, that's quite a god complex for such a humble sky jockey."

"For what?" said Cas.

"You didn't break this world. Love is never evil."

"I had no right to love."

"I had no right to kill Death. Nobody gives you the right. You have to take it." said Dean.

Jack's corpse and all the funeral trimmings faded away. The beach was peaceful again.

"Thankyou." said Cas.

"Any time." said Dean. His sword was gone. "I'm unarmed."

"You're holding back an ocean of sorrows and you're keeping me in a state that should not exist for me. You're far from unarmed." said Cas.

"I am pretty badass in here, aren't I?" said Dean.