A/N: Quick note to let you know that, from this point on, I will be significantly changing the events of the show to better fit the fanfic. Many things will be cut entirely, others will happen at a different point than they did on the show. I only plan on changing things insofar as Castiel remains human. Once he gets his/any Grace back, I plan on sticking to the show's timeline again.

Seventeen

Two hours of speeding through traffic and nearly crashing numerous times on the way, Brooke finally arrived at the address Castiel had given her. He was sitting outside, wearing strange clothes, with an empty water bottle and a crumpled up candy wrapper beside him. He looked utterly defeated and exhausted.

Brooke walked up to him, slowly, searching for any glimmer of angelic light or a whisper of thought from his mind. But there was nothing. He truly was human, but for the lack of a soul. He was holding his head in his hands, his shoulders hunched. She was only about a foot away when he finally looked up. He didn't smile, but there was clear relief on his face.

Without saying anything, he pulled her into a hug. A tight one.

Brooke had thought… maybe then, she'd feel something angelic from him, like a long time ago, when touching him used to shatter the mental barrier between them. But there was still nothing. He felt strangely small in her arms, like a child. And in a way, she supposed he was. He was an angel with no Grace, who had never had to experience humanity in this way before. Once, years ago, he had been human for a little while, when he had carved an anti-angel sigil into his own chest and activated it. That had nearly killed him, and worn out so much of his Grace that he was nearly human. But even then, when he touched her, she had been able to hear his thoughts.

Now… there was nothing. Her head was empty, aside from her own scrambled thoughts. And she hated it. But she tried to think on the bright side. And right that moment, her husband was back in her arms, holding her, perhaps, more tightly than he ever had, as if afraid that if he let go, she would disappear.

"You're warm," Castiel said.

She laughed a little. "I am?"

"Yes," he said. "It feels good."

"That must mean you're cold," she explained. "Do you feel cold?"

"Is that what that is?" he asked. "Cold? I suppose that makes sense. I don't have my coat on."

Brooke finally pulled away from him, though kept herself close to his body. "Where are your clothes?" she asked. "What are you wearing?" She glanced at him, noting the jacket and collared shit and jeans and shoes… None of it was his.

"My clothes…" He hesitated, looking at the ground, as if ashamed of himself. "They were covered in blood, and I couldn't… I couldn't fix them, like I normally do." He did not say it, but it was clear that he was not taking his Gracelessness very well.

She didn't blame him; she wasn't taking it very well, either.

"I can feel it, in you," he said, softly, and touched her face.

"What?" she asked.

"My Grace." He looked into her eyes, then studied the rest of her face, then his eyes ran up and down her body, as if he had never seen her before. "I can feel my Grace inside you."

Brooke looked at him, sadly. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "It must be awful… feeling what you lost, so close. If there was a way to give it to you—

"I wouldn't take it," he said, cupping her face in both of his hands. "I have told you before. I will not take it back. It may kill you to do so, and it wouldn't matter, anyways. It's such a small amount."

For lack of anything to say, and without the ability to simply think her emotions at her husband, she resorted to hugging him. He did not protest, and seemed to relish it again, crushing her to him as tightly as before.

"I'm not going to disappear," she teased. "You could let me breathe a little."

"Oh, I—I'm sorry," he stuttered, and loosened his grip immediately.

She smiled against his chest and said, "I was joking," but pulled away. "Your clothes. Are they being washed?"

"No, I…" Once again, Castiel looked as if he were ashamed of himself. "I didn't have enough money to wash them and to eat… so I chose food."

Brooke lifted his chin with a finger. "Wise choice," she said. "I'll go get your clothes. I'm taking you back to the bunker and we can wash them there." She stepped around him, toward the laundromat, and felt Castiel take her hand, to follow her. His wedding band was cold against her fingers, and she smiled, glad that, amidst all of this, he was still wearing it.

###

They went to a CVS first, which gave Castiel a chance to go to the men's room to pee and to wash the blood off of his face and neck and hands. While he did that, Brooke kept an eye out for any angels, but the store was devoid of them, thankfully. She went down the aisles, picking up things like Tylenol and bandages and bottles of cleaning alcohol. No ibuprofen, in case the whack to Castiel's head had given him a concussion (ibuprofen could cause more bleeding if there was any, internally). Castiel didn't seem to be suffering from the after-effects of a concussion, but there was no way to know for sure unless they went to a doctor.

She also picked up some more food and water, for the road. From where they were, it would be a six-hour drive back to Lebanon, Kansas, where the bunker was. And right before they left, she went back and got him a toothbrush. She'd been racking her brain for things he would need now, as a human, and the word toothbrush had popped into her head at the last minute.

He followed her when she went to get it. Smiling, she grabbed a green one and a blue one and held them up. "Which color?" she asked. "You can get whatever you want, but I have a feeling it'll either be green or blue…"

Slowly, hesitantly, Castiel reached out and took the green one.

She nodded, with a smile, and put the blue one back. "Green it is, then."

He was staring at the toothbrush as if he had never seen one before, then he looked up at her. "Why blue?"

"It's the color of your tie," she said. He made a face, and she laughed. "I should've known you'd never go for that. You hate ties."

"I just don't understand the point of them," he said, as he followed her to the cash register.

"The point is to make you look hot. Well put-together."

Brooke paid for their stuff and then they went out to the car and she had him sit in the backseat for a few minutes, faced away from her, so that she could dab water, and then alcohol, onto the wound on the back of his head. He wasn't actively bleeding anymore, but dried blood came off on the rags. He hissed when she put the alcohol on, but didn't otherwise protest.

"Sorry," she murmured. "Shoulda warned you." In some ways, she seemed to have adapted quickly to Castiel being human, but in other ways, there things she would never think of. As an angel, he would not have even flinched at having alcohol applied to a wound, but… as an angel, he wouldn't have a would like this. "You have any concussion symptoms?" she asked. "Confusion, headache… nausea?"

"No," he said.

She chuckled mirthlessly. "So, Hael hits you hard enough to knock you out, but you don't have a concussion. Man, Jimmy was stronger than he ever knew." Jimmy being Jimmy Novak, of course, the man whose body had been Castiel's body for years, now.

When she was done, he turned in the seat and showed her his hand, all scabbed up. "I washed my hands in the bathroom, so you don't need to clean this."

She shook her head, looking at it in the overhead light. "What did you do, here?"

"I, uh… dived out of the way of an oncoming truck, after Metatron sent me back to Earth. I… I don't think I realized I was human, yet."

She tutted, turning his hand to see the wound better in the light. All things considered, it looked fine, like it was healing well enough. She glanced up at Cass, about to say that she was done tending to his wounds like a mother hen, but she saw the look on his face and stopped.

He looked close to tears, his head bowed, eyes downcast.

"Hey," she said, gently, lifting his head and holding his face in her hands.

"I don't… know what to do now," he said. "I don't have any powers. And my brothers and sisters are wandering around, confused and angry… And it's my fault." He swallowed. His voice had gone thick with emotion.

"Hey, I trusted Metatron, too," Brooke said, pressing her forehead to his. "It's not your fault he turned out to be an asshole." She wanted nothing more than to comfort him with a thought, an emotion, a small mental touch, but once again, the only person in her head was… her. "I hate this," she whispered.

He looked up, wondering what she was referring to.

She placed a finger against his temple, then brought it to her own. "My head is empty. I hate it."

Castiel inclined his head, nodding. "I hate it, too," he murmured. "We're so close, but…"

"It doesn't feel close enough, does it?" she asked.

"No."

###

Castiel fell asleep in the car. He had immediately put his seatbelt on when they'd gotten in, and told her that she should put hers on, too. She'd been amused at his safety-consciousness, until he had told her about Hael, and the car accident he'd had to cause in order to get away from her. Of course, she always put her seatbelt on if there was one in the car she was driving, but now it seemed particularly prudent to do so.

She drove for about three hours, but by that point, it was the middle of the night and she was too tired to keep going. She pulled off to the side of the road, and wished she had bought some markers, or something to draw sigils with to protect against the prying eyes of angels. She sighed and pulled her angel blade out. There was nothing else to use, so she might as well use blood. She glanced at Castiel, who was still out like a baby, and then got out the car and closed the door as gently as possible.

She cut part of her arm (faster to heal than the hand, which would constantly reopen the wound every time she had to use it for anything) and began to draw sigils on each of the windows. She drew quietly, trying not to make the windows squeak, but Castiel woke up when she got to his window. She continued, drawing, but watched as he awoke, and raised his head slowly. When he saw her outside, he started, but calmed immediately.

She got back in the car, saying quietly, "I was trying not to wake you. I'm sorry."

He shook his head, and then he turned in the seat and reached back behind him, grabbing alcohol and rags and a bandage. She thought he was going to hand them to her, but he did not. He took her hand, gently, and pulled her arm across to him, laying it against the console. She smiled, saying nothing, but watching him. Carefully, he unscrewed the lid of bottle of alcohol, pressed a rag against the opening and quickly tipped the bottle upside-down. He inspected the wetness of the rag, tipped the bottle onto it again, and then screwed the lid back on.

Brooke just kept smiling, watching him, realizing that he had been paying attention, earlier. He had watched everything she had done, and now he was repeating her steps. He dabbed her cut with the alcohol. She held in her pain, only turning her head slightly away, but he noticed her movement, and murmured, "Sorry." He folded the rag over on itself and tossed it into the backseat, then placed a bandage over the wound. Slowly, carefully, he ran his fingers along the edges of the bandage, pressing the adhesive against her skin. His fingers were warm.

She closed her eyes at the feeling of his lingering touch, suddenly exhausted. It had been a long, long day, and they still had three more hours of driving to do whenever she was done with her nap. "You know you're supposed to kiss it," she murmured, half-asleep, "to make it feel better."

He sounded confused. "What?"

She smiled, amused. "The boo-boo." She laughed at the word. "When you're a little kid and you, I dunno, scrape your knee… Mom's supposed to come over and bandage it up… and then she kisses it, to make it feel better."

Her eyes were still closed, but she felt the warmth of his lips, for a moment, against her arm. She smiled again, and was out like a light.

###

Brooke awoke to bright sunlight in her face. She yawned, stretched in the driver's seat, and turned to see Castiel staring at her. "Well," she said, with am amused smile, "that hasn't changed, at least. You still like to stare at me creepily while I sleep."

"I… I have to use the bathroom," Castiel replied, sounding embarrassed about it.

Brooke pulled her cellphone out of the empty cup-holder in the console. "You can go around to my side of the car to hide yourself from the road and pee into the bushes, if you want."

There was a text message from Dean: Where r u?

She typed out a quick reply: With C. Going to B.

She knew angels were after her husband, so using acronyms might help avoid undue attention if Dean's phone was swiped.

Castiel spoke up, a little hesitantly, from the passenger seat. "I have to… do more than pee."

Brooke looked up at him to see him looking pointedly away. A blush crept into his cheeks.

Brooke was, admittedly, a little grossed out by Castiel's… humanness, but it was only because, up until now, she had never had to deal with it. He hadn't been a human, except once, very briefly, after he'd nearly killed himself by carving an anti-angel sigil into his own chest and activating it to save his friends' lives. But she saw the look on his face, how uncomfortable he felt about it, and shoved down her own mild discomfort. "You mean you gotta take a shit?" she asked, grinning. Humor usually helped in these kinds of situations, even if Cass didn't usually find things funny.

He glanced at her, and looked away immediately.

"Put on your seatbelt, then," she said. "I'll find us the nearest open store."

###

Castiel went off to the back of the store to use the restroom, which gave Brooke a chance to get some markers, so she wouldn't have to keep using blood to ward the car with, if it became necessary. They had protein bars and trail mix in the car, along with water, but she went and got a couple pre-made sandwiches for the road. She was walking up to a cash register to pay for them when she felt an angel enter the store.

Trying not to draw attention to herself, she paid for her stuff, grabbed the bag off the counter, and meandered her way slowly down the aisles, back toward the bathroom. She could not tell if the angel was following her or not, but they seemed to also be making their way toward the back of the store. Brooke sped up, just a little, and found Castiel pushing his way out of the men's room. She grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to the left, into the ladies' room, locking the door behind her. Luckily, no one else was in here, since it was still fairly early in the morning. There weren't many people in the store, yet.

Castiel looked alarmed. "What—

"There's an angel here," Brooke breathed, closely, into his ear. Angels had very good hearing. She rummaged around in the bag and pulled out the package of markers she had just bought, tore it open, and began to draw sigils on the door of the ladies' room. When she was done she stepped back, angel blade in hand, and waited.

Castiel stood beside her, holding his own blade.

The seconds dragged by. Brooke felt the angel drawing nearer and nearer to the door. It stopped, directly on the other side.

"Fuck," she said. "What the hell are we gonna do now? They could just wait us out."

"Maybe they don't want to fight," Castiel said, hopefully.

"Cass, they are looking for you. They want you dead. They think you caused the fall. They all hate you. Even the ones who don't are nuts—in case you forgot what happened with Hael."

He glanced at her, his jaw set, then stared at the door.

Brooke suddenly had an idea. What do you want? she asked, thinking it through the for and at the angel on the other side. She had never opened herself mentally to another angel like this before, that she could recall, and she knew it was risky. But the Grace inside her was still active, and she had to believe that it would still be a barrier between herself and the worst of another angel's mind.

Come out, come out, said the angel.

A chill went down her spine. "He's not friendly," she told her husband.

"Then we let him in," he replied.

Brooke glanced confusedly at him.

"You're right, we can't stay in here all day," Castiel explained, gripping his angel blade tighter. "So we let him in, and fight him."

I'll kill you both, said the angel, on the other side of the door. But which one of you goes first, and who gets to watch?

Brooke stepped forward, marker in one hand and blade in the other, to draw a line through the sigil on the door so that the angel could come in.

"Let me," Castiel said.

"No. He's going to slam the door open the second I'm done and I've got more protection than you, from your Grace."

What are you talking about, whore? the angel asked.

Brooke unlocked the door, and then quickly drew a line through the sigil, and leapt backwards, expecting the door to come flying at her to slam into her face. Instead, it opened slowly, and the angel entered, and closed the door behind him. He turned to stare at them, but his eyes landed on Castiel, and he squinted. "You're… human?" he asked, shocked.

Brooke moved, lightning-quick, and attempted to plunge her blade into the angel. He twisted his body out of the way, and shoved her back so hard that she went flying and slammed into the wall on the opposite side of the room. The Grace in her blood flared to protect her, encasing the back of her skull to prevent damage.

Castiel was already moving forward, but the enemy slashed at the air in front of him and cut Castiel's arm, who cried out in shock and pain.

"You are human," said the angel, staring at Castiel in utter surprise.

Brooke was up again and saw that the enemy was distracted. She moved, slightly, to the right, to get her husband out of harm's way. Without hesitation, she threw the blade in her hand, expertly, and it landed, point-first, in the angel's chest, to the hilt, her strength shored up by the Grace in her blood.

The angel threw his head back and screamed, light pouring from his face, and then he fell over, dead. The only thing missing was the outline of wings that usually appeared when an angel died. Now, flightless, no such shadow appeared.

Castiel was clutching at the cut on his arm. It was deeper than Brooke had originally thought, and bleeding heavily.

"Let's go," she said, picking up the plastic bag full of supplies and quickly leaving the bathroom. She still held her angel blade in one hand, but did not try to hide it. There was no point; a security guard, probably alerted to the commotion in the bathroom (the screaming and exploding burst of light from a dying angel) tried to stop her and Cass as they left the store, but she flipped the man over her shoulder and he landed heavily on his back.

They sprinted the rest of the way to the car and peeled out.