Twenty-one
Before they got out of the car, Brooke made Castiel take off his vest. "Much as I love it," she said, "I don't think you need to wear it for the baby."
He looked down at himself, mumbling, "Right," and then took it off and threw it into the backseat.
Nora opened the door immediately when they arrived, and she seemed to be in a frenzy—an excited one. "He's taking me bowling," she said. "Would you believe it?"
Brooke gave Cass' boss a once-over when her back was turned. She was wearing a fancy black dress and heels. To go bowling.
"Damned if I'm not dressing fancy, even for bowling," Nora said, as if she had read Brooke's mind. "Haven't had an excuse to doll up since Tanya was born." She went over to the crib, looking down at her infant daughter. "And there she is, my little angel."
Brooke smiled at her shoes, amused anytime anyone called someone an angel as a term of endearment. It would be like Castiel calling her "my adorable human," or something.
Nora looked up from the child, whispering, "Now, she's already been fed. She'll probably sleep the whole time, and I'll only be gone a couple of hours. I just couldn't get my usual sitter, and…" She looked at Brooke, then. "Thank you for letting Steve do this, and for coming, too. I'm so grateful."
Brooke smiled at the woman. "It's no problem," she said.
Nora was out the door, quickly, clearly excited to go on this date.
Brooke turned to Castiel. "Just so you know, it's not normal for a boss to ask an employee to babysit. Your boss is weird."
Cass glanced at her, nodding a little. "Weird or not, I'm… grateful that she hired me. Babysitting is the least I can do."
Brooke laughed. "Doing your job is sufficient enough repayment, but I know how you are. Always gotta help. No matter what, no matter who it is."
Cass opened his mouth to reply, but baby Tanya started to cry… and it wasn't a small whine, either. She was screaming.
Brooke screwed her face up and said, "I knew this would happen. Nora jinxed it the second she said that Tanya would probably sleep the whole time."
Castiel was suddenly looking terrified, and regretful that he had ever agreed to babysit. "What do we do?" he asked.
Brooke, who had never even held a baby before, was just as helpless as he was. But suddenly, through the baby's screams, she got an idea. "Pretend the baby is me when I was sick," she said. "Or me, when I have a nightmare. Or me, when I'm, you know, crying about—whatever." She smirked. "What would you do?"
Castiel's face suddenly cleared. "Oh," he breathed, and turned toward the crib with purpose.
And Brooke stepped back, against the wall, and melted into the background, to watch.
He reached down into the crib and picked up the screaming, crying, squirming baby, and held her in his arms. And then… he started to sing. He sang very badly, very off-key, his gruff voice not really suited for such a task. Were he still an angel, it might have been different, but, stuck in a human body with no powers, his voice was certainly not very good. Yet, to Brooke, he sounded… divine. Because it was him, and he was trying his very best, and that was all that mattered.
And Tanya, the baby, seemed to pick up on how hard he was trying. And as he continued to sing, and rock her back and forth, and bounced her, she settled. She stopped crying. She stared up into this strange man's face with that look that only a baby can give you, like, Mom, who the fuck is this guy?
Brooke put her hands up to her mouth, staring at her husband, an angel-turned-human, a being who had once been one of Heaven's soldiers, who had killed countless angels and demons and humans… And here he was, staring down into the face of this fragile, human baby, singing to it.
And for the first time in seven years, Brooke thought, I want that. That's what I want. I want a child, with this man. And she closed her eyes, and cried as quietly as she could, because she knew that she could never have it.
The baby started to cry again, and Brooke opened her eyes to see Castiel leaning over the crib. He quickly pulled the babe up into his arms again, murmuring to it, "I know… I know." He walked about the room, bouncing, looking down at the baby in his arms, speaking to it like it could understand him. "Nobody told you," he said. "Nobody explained." He sat down in a chair. "You're just… shoved out, kicking and screaming into this human life, without any idea why any of it feels the way it feels."
He sat up a little in the chair, and pressed the baby's back against his back, to support her, so that she could sit up and look around herself.
Brooke still watched, silently, from a dark corner, trying to be invisible, so that for just a little while, she could pretend that this baby was hers, was theirs. She was terrified that if she moved, she would break whatever spell was taking place. Silent tears tricked from her eyes.
"… Or why this confusion just feels like it's… a hair's breadth from terror… or pain." His voice had shifted. Now he was speaking to the room, to himself, to God… "You know, just when you think you do understand, it'll turn out you're wrong." He shook his head. "You didn't understand anything at all. Guess that's just how it is when you're new at this." Castiel glanced down at Tanya. "You know, it wasn't that long ago that all I needed to do to ease your pain was just… touch you." He placed two fingers, lightly, against her forehead.
Brooke smiled, watching, remembering every time he had touched her like that, to heal a wound, to make her sleep.
"You're very warm," Castiel murmured, pressing his hand gently against Tanya's forehead. "Is that normal?" Suddenly he looked up, searching the room for Brooke, his eyes full of worry.
Brooke stepped forward for the first time in many minutes. "What do you need?" she asked.
Castiel stood up. "Will you hold her so I can call Nora?"
"Of course," Brooke said, and took the child from her husband's arms.
He noticed, then, that she had been crying until a moment ago. Most of his focus was diverted to Tanya—as it should have been—but he hovered near Brooke for a moment. "What's wrong?"
She shook her head. "We can talk about it later. Call Nora."
He hesitated, for just a second, then turned away and took his cellphone from his pocket.
Brooke rocked the baby in her arms, who was staring up at her as if wondering where the hell the guy who had just been holding her had gone, and who was this woman? Brooke smiled down at her and pressed a hand to her forehead. She did feel warm, but when it came to babies, Brooke was just as clueless as Cass. She didn't know whether to be worried or not, but her husband clearly was, and that was reason enough. She heard him, a little aways from her, on the phone.
"Nora, it's Steve. Please pick up your phone. I'm worried about Tanya, she's—she feels quite warm. I'm not sure if that's normal, but… Please just call me back."
He called again, a few minutes later, but was left with a voicemail again. "Nora, she's hot," Cass said, his voice gaining a modicum of desperation. "She's really hot. Um, please just call—call me. Call—call back. If I don't hear back, I'm taking her to the hospital."
He turned back to Brooke and Tanya, placing his hand atop the girl's head, feeling her temperature again, and shared a worried glance with his wife. About ten seconds later, he seemed to have made up his mind that Nora was not going to call him back. "Okay, we're going," he said. "I'll drive, you just… you hold her."
Brooke nodded silently and began to follow him toward the door. But when he opened it, someone was standing there. "Hello, Castiel," he said, stepping forward.
"Angel," Brooke spat, seeing the creature's tattered, broken wings fanned out behind him. If she hadn't been so busy worrying about the fevered child, she would have noticed his approach much sooner.
"And Brooke," said the angel, looking directly at her. "Actually, you're the reason I'm here."
Brooke's nostrils flared, her pupils dilating in fear and shock. "What?" No angel, no demon, no enemy of Castiel, or of the Winchesters, was ever here for her.
"Oh, yes," said the angel. "You see, I was here for Castiel. But you… your pain is so much more… exquisite. Sharper."
Brooke's mouth had gone dry. "All right," she said. "But don't hurt the child. Let me put her down."
"Give her to Castiel, and he can put her down," the angel countered.
Brooke nodded silently and turned to give baby Tanya to her husband. Castiel was staring at her in terror, clearly wanting to protect her—to do something—but he took the babe in his arms and walked, slowly, to her crib.
Brooke began to back away the moment her arms were free. She was wearing a coat, despite the warmth, and inside the coat was her angel blade. She carried it with her everywhere, now, for most of her recent nightmares had centered on Castiel being murdered by one of his own kind. The constant fear of being sniffed out haunted her, and she supposed that fear was not unfounded, considering what was happening right now.
"Ephraim," said Castiel, from behind her. "Leave Brooke alone. You said you came for me, originally. Leave her out of this."
Ephraim continued to move toward Brooke. "Oh, but her pain is much fresher. It calls more keenly."
How the hell was she gonna get her angel blade out of her coat? Slowly, she began to take it off, hoping to pass it to Castiel, who knew that she always carried her blade in the inside pocket.
Ephraim was still moving toward her, slowly, and he was smiling.
"What pain?" she asked, without thinking, hoping only to distract him. She managed to get her coat off, but when she went to pass it to her husband, the angel snatched her wrist. Sharp tendrils penetrated her mind, combing her memories, leaving the inside of her head feeling like it'd been scrubbed with sandpaper. She cried out, and suddenly, the Grace that had lain dormant for months, sprang to life, and seemed to encapsulate her mind, blocking Ephraim's attempts to gain more memories from her.
The angel released her wrist, staring at her in wonder, still smiling.
Taking a deep breath, Brooke, her arm shaking, handed the coat to Castiel. She did not look at him in any way, afraid that an exchange of glances would tip Ephraim off.
"Well," said the angel. "I felt only one pain when I arrived. Now there are many. You want Castiel to give you a child."
Brooke closed her eyes, still backing away, but felt her back hit the wall.
"But you know you can't ever have his child, can you?" the angel continued, with that smile still plastered to his face.
Brooke wanted to punch him, hard, in the lip—to shatter that confident expression.
"No," Ephraim answered his own question. "It would be born a Nephilim. It would be destroyed. But still, you pine. You think that Castiel would make a…" His voice changed suddenly, into a facade of deep emotion. "… a great father."
Brooke kept her eyes on him, but out of her peripheral vision, she could see Castiel walking, slowly, up to the angel from behind, blade in hand. He was only human now, and if Ephraim caught him out, it would be hell.
Gritting her teeth, Brooke said, "What other pain?"
The angel's eyes lit up, his face twisted into another sick smile. "It's more than I thought. You fell in love with an angel, yes, but… that got you thinking. Somewhere, deep down, you'd like to be an angel." Ephraim laughed. "A human? Turning into an angel? What a ridiculous idea. And since you can never be an angel, since you can never have a child by the angel-turned-human that you love, would it not be better to die?"
Ephraim spun, suddenly, and back-handed Castiel so hard across the face that he went flying across the room and slammed into the opposite wall.
"NO!" Brooke screamed, ever-aware that her husband was human now, and without the protection of even the small amount of Grace that she had. She tried to get around the angel and go to her husband, thinking of concussions and broken bones and snapped necks—
"Ahh, yes!" Ephraim cried, grabbing her by the shirt and slamming her into the wall. "There's another pain. You long for Castiel, but not this pathetic little human he's become. You want your old husband back, the one who was so strong, and powerful, and made you feel all tingly between your legs. Now he's just a sad little man, with a sad little job at a gas station, and you can't stand it."
"Cass?" Brooke called, praying to God that he was alive, and conscious. She needed that knife.
Ephraim began to lower his hand down onto her forehead, and a pink light suffused her eyes.
"Castiel!" she screamed.
The pink light blinding her was replaced by a pure, white light. Ephraim screamed, wordlessly, as he was killed, and then slumped to the ground at her feet. Castiel stood before her, a little woozily. There was a bruise forming on his face, and his lip was split and bleeding.
Brooke stumbled forward, tripping over the dead body, and into her husband's arms. "Castiel," she whispered, shaking horribly. "Please don't… don't think less of me, for what he said… for what I… sometimes miss about you. I don't think you're pathetic."
"Shh." He silenced her, and pulled back from her embrace to look at her. He put a finger under her chin, tilting her head up, then side-to-side, checking for wounds. He felt the back of her head, fingers prodding beneath her hair. After a moment, he sighed and said, "You don't seem wounded. Thank God." And he pulled her back into a hug.
She pushed away from him. "Castiel," she said, breathing shakily, "tell me you understand me. I—
He took her face in his hands and pressed his forehead against hers. "If I weren't bleeding, I would kiss you," he said, his voice rough, and low. "Do not, for a second, think that my feelings for you would be swayed by the likes of Ephraim. You are my wife. I may not be able to read your thoughts, now, but I know your heart, your mind, your soul." He took a breath. "I know that my transition into humanity has been hard on both of us, and the fact that you miss what I once was does not surprise me, nor does it hurt me."
Brooke closed her eyes for a moment, trying to collect herself. "Okay," she said, her voice hoarse.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, suddenly.
She opened her eyes and looked up into his face, and he seemed to be on the edge of tears. "What for?" she asked, lightly brushing his cheek with her fingers, afraid to touch him too roughly for the dark bruise slowly forming there.
"I cannot…" His breath hitched. "I cannot give you… a child."
Pain seemed to stab through, but she shook her head, avoiding his eyes. "Some part of me knew, from the very beginning, that whatever our relationship was going to be, it would never be normal. And up until I saw you, with Tanya, I had never even wanted that. It's just a passing thing." She glanced up at Castiel, and by the look on his face, he didn't seem very convinced that her wish for a child was, in any way, fleeting.
But he did not push her. "We need to get rid of the body," he said, his voice oddly gentle for such a statement.
"Right," she agreed.
Together, they dragged the body out the door and into the trunk of the car.
Huffing, Brooke stood up straight and stretched, closing the trunk. "We can't just leave him in there. He'll rot." She took her cell out of her pocket and called Dean. The second he picked up, she said, "Cass and I need you to get rid of a body. We killed the angel who's been killing all those people."
"What?" Dean cried. There was a pause. "All right, where are you? I'll… come take the body off your hands."
Feeling like an actual criminal for the first time ever, thinking about having to hand over a corpse to Dean so that he could expose of it, Brooke gave him the address to Nora's house.
###
Dean had come and gone, and Nora had called Castiel back, finally. She was coming home, then. Brooke, while waiting for her to return, had suddenly had a stroke of genius and went rooting around in the kitchen cupboards for baby Tylenol. "I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner," she muttered, while administering the tiny dose to Tanya.
By the time Nora came home, the child's fever was gone.
"Steve!" Nora cried, when she saw Cass' face.
Thinking fast, Brooke spoke up. "He was so worried about Tanya that he turned around, tripped over himself, and smacked into the wall," she said, pointing at the archway separating Nora's entryway from her living room.
Castiel, who was holding a bag of ice wrapped in paper towels to his face, nodded, blushing.
"Don't worry," Brooke added. "I was holding Tanya, at the time."
Nora chuckled, looking at Castiel with a little bit of pity. "I'm so sorry you ran into the wall," she said. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," he said. "I'm—I'll be fine."
Brooke could not believe that Nora had fallen for the lie she'd made up on the spot, but she tried not to let her surprise show. Nora thanked them again for looking out for baby Tanya, and sent them on their way with a fresh bag of ice for Castiel to hold to his face.
As they drove away, Castiel spoke up, quietly, from the passenger seat. "Ephraim also said that you… wanted to be an angel?"
Brooke blushed, and was glad that it was dark. "Yeah, well… I dunno about that one."
He was silent for a moment, and then said, "He wouldn't have lied about your pain."
Brooke said nothing.
Castiel shook his head. "I just don't see why you would want that, after everything you've seen, everything you've experienced, when it comes to angels. They haven't been kind to you, or to me."
"You've been kind to me," Brooke said.
He bowed his head, conceding the point. "I'm the only one," he murmured.
"You're the only one that matters," she replied.
He turned and looked at her for a moment, then looked away again. "What is it?" he asked. "What is it about… angels?"
"You mean why would I wanna be one?" She sighed. "Mostly? It's the wings."
"Ah," Castiel said. "You want to fly." He smiled. "Yes, you've always wanted to fly, haven't you?"
"Yeah, and, as I recall, you said flying was boring."
"Yes. But I'm… I've been alive for a very, very long time. I've had—well, I don't have them now, but—I had my wings for millions of years. I can see why you might have an interest in them. Wings, I mean. For as long as man has existed, he has wished to fly."
Brooke took her eyes off the road for a few seconds, just to look at her husband. Silently, she turned her attention back to driving. They did not speak anymore on the drive to the motel room.