Chapter 21.

Cas was lying on his bed in the dark. He had split his time between missing Jules, worrying about Dean and hating Michael with so much force that he worried it may have the effect of a prayer and draw Michael's attention. Then he rejected that thought with a rueful smile. Michael would never lower himself to notice the anger of one, irrelevant, corrupted angel.

The worrying about Dean part of the evening was less distressing than on previous nights. He knew Dean was with Jules and that reduced the risk of bad things happening considerably. True, if Michael came back for him, she had no chance of fighting him, but she was not helpless against the more likely dangers, like that Dean might sink into despair and try to leave them all. Jules also had a gift for making people feel they could say anything.

It had been useful in their early days as a couple. He had known so little of how it all worked and he gathered from others that asking was inappropriate, but she said it wasn't. She had told him to ask about anything that confused him and he had done so. He could tell her things, too, things he could not have said to anyone else, except Sarah. The two women were different in many ways, but both had so much compassion and empathy for a wayward angel who needed to confess his sins and his fears. If anyone could get Dean to talk, it was her. She would make it easy for him and would never think less of him, whatever he whispered to her of doubt or shame.

He heard her footsteps in the corridor from some distance away and an ache in his chest he had not been aware of suddenly went away. She knocked and then opened the door and he turned the bedside light on. She looked tired, but lovely.

"Have you been lying here in the dark?" she said.

"It's not that dark to me." he said, "How was your night?"

"It was so good to talk to Dean." she said, "Until I got to talk to him properly, I was doubtful, but he is himself, battered and bruised to the soul, but himself."

"Good." said Cas.

"But the distrust of you, the loathing ... that's not him. You need to remember that. It comes from the trauma and from Michael's infestation. Even your name kicks off all kinds of tension and troubles, but even so, when he talked about you, it was not as an enemy or as a former friend. It was with love and concern and fear that all this can only hurt you."

He looked away as she began to change for bed.

She laughed. "Cas, you are allowed to see this. You've seen it all already."

"Oh." he said, "I wasn't sure. Didn't want to assume."

"Angels really struggle with issues around consent, don't they?" she said, with no trace of anger.

"That's why I need to be careful. I never want to assume consent that you haven't given."

She stripped to her underwear and got onto the bed beside him. "You never have, Castiel." She stroked his lapel. "Now, how do we feel about ditching the coat for the night."

"I was intending to." he said, "I was only still wearing it because ... " he stopped talking. It felt foolish to say he was wearing it for comfort when she and Dean were out. He was a celestial being, not a Labrador with separation anxiety. He took off the coat and threw it onto the chair nearest the bed.

"No need to explain." she said, slipping naturally into his embrace, "I know how bad things are for you."

"No, they're not." he said, "Dean's alive and free."

"It's fine to be happy about that and sad about the rest." she said, "It's hard for me to see the two of you like this because of that ratsucking gutter angel and his performing flying monkeys."

"You mean Michael?" he said, he had not heard even Lucifer dare such disrespect. Just the demotion to mere angel was reason enough to fear Michael's anger.

"Yes, I mean Michael. He's got Dean all tangled up in regrets and self-blame and whatever he does in this world, Dean will think it's his fault."

"Which it's not." said Cas.

"Of course it's not." said Jules.

"It's mine." he said.

She stroked his cheek and said, "No, my love, it's not and he doesn't blame you either and that's saying a lot when his instinct is to blame you for anything."

He looked into her eyes and was about to reply, when he noticed traces of tears around her eyes. "You've been crying." he said.

"Yeah. Stuff came up. With hunters talking about anything real, stuff always does."

He tried not to show his disappointment. He failed.

"What is it?" she said.

"You can't tell me?"

She kissed his lips. "Don't you have enough pain of your own to deal with?" She watched his face for a while and then smiled. "And you say you have no empathy. I should have washed my face."

"You've been around the Winchesters too long." he said. The last thing he wanted was for her to conceal the fact that she was in pain. "I can't help Dean and now I can't help you either."

"You are helping Dean. He knows how difficult this is for you. He asked if he should go away ... "

"No!" said Cas, sitting up, "Jules, he can't! I'll leave if he needs me to, but he needs to be here."

"I know. I told him not to. I told him you need him to stay."

"Thankyou."

She gently pushed him back onto the pillows. "I know it doesn't seem like it, but he needs you. I need you too and there are things I can say to you I could never say to him or anyone else, but there are things I don't think about if I can help it and what Dean and I talked about tonight ... razor blades to the soul."

He took her hand and held it to his chest. He wished he could make her understand how much he needed to be there for her no matter what the problem was.

She moved closer. In a whisper, she said, "My brother." The two words seemed heavy with loss. Suddenly, he was very grateful to Dean. If she couldn't tell him, she could at least talk to Dean and Dean, for all his contempt for emotion, could be a very good listener.

"There are things I ... It's about prayer and grief and guilt and I don't want to offload old pain onto you when you have so much already and I don't ever want you to see the darkest parts of my soul."

"I see your soul when we kiss and there is no darkness in it." he said.

"When things are right between you and Dean, tell him I said he could tell you what I said about my brother's death."

"Why not just tell me now?"

"Trust my judgement. Besides, Dean can put it better."

"Do you blame yourself for his death?" said Cas, detecting hints of guilt.

"No. No. Not really. Can we forget this for now?"

"It's hard to forget that you're unhappy."

"Old pain, old grief, old sorrow. This is something you can't heal and it's something I've been living with a long time."

"Did talking to Dean help?" he said.

"That's really all you care about, isn't it?" she said.

"You're what I care about." he said.

"It helped." she said, "It helped a lot more than I expected. I'm okay, Cas."

"Yes, we're all okay." said Cas sadly.

"When it's over, when we've helped Dean and destroyed Michael, things will be quieter. We can deal with all my ancient baggage then."

"The people I love are all very difficult to take care of." he said.

"But you still love us, right?" she said.

"Oh, yes!"

"Waggle those magic fingers. I need a dreamless sleep tonight."