A/N: Forgot to say this last update, but please feel free to continue reviewing, Breedean! 3 And anyone else who wants to review! I love reviews!

Eleven

With Castiel angry and MIA, and with nowhere better to go, Brooke had followed Sam and Dean to Bobby's house. But nobody had filled her in beforehand about what was really going to happen once they got there. Sam had been thrown unceremoniously into the panic room to purge the demon blood, and she'd been interrogated about Castiel. It had taken an hour to convince Dean that she had no idea why he'd stormed off like that.

"He felt different," she explained, for the hundredth time. "He was… angry. Cold. Distant. He felt the way he felt the first time I met him. Like an angel. I mean, really like an angel. Unfriendly. Terrifying."

Dean dragged his fingers through his hair.

She knew this really wasn't about her. She was just as upset as he was. This was about Castiel—and whatever was wrong with him.

"I think they hurt him," she said, quietly. "Tortured him, maybe. He said he… learned his lesson while he was away." She sat down on the couch in Bobby's living room. "I think they broke him. Brainwashed him, maybe. It's the only explanation that makes sense."

Dean shook his head, but didn't speak. After a moment, he left the house.

From the basement, Brooke could hear Sam screaming, banging on the door, begging to be let out of the panic room.

###

A day passed. Two. In that time, Sam's screams had worsened, and Brooke had spent most of her time out of the house to avoid the noise. She practiced, she drilled, she took runs. Over and over again, until she was exhausted enough to sleep through the sounds of Sam's pain. Bobby and her spoke, sometimes, of small things. She had missed him since leaving him and the boys all those months back.

She awoke in the early hours on the second night, gasping. Castiel was here, and his presence had forced her awake, like being drenched with ice water. Except it felt more like fire in her veins. She knew exactly where he was, outside in the scrapyard. She got up off the couch and pulled her shoes on as quickly as possible, nearly tripping on her way out the door in her desperation to reach him.

No, his voice sounded in her mind. I'm here to speak to Dean, alone. You will stay in the house.

She shook her head, taking off toward his location at a dead run. Like hell, she spat back.

STAY! he commanded, and that feeling like the lash of a whip cracked across her mind. It was so strong that she couldn't fight through it. She cried out and fell to her knees, holding her head in her hands. Her thoughts scattered, her vision, inside her closed eyelids, going white. A ringing, roaring sound filled her ears.

She didn't know how long she'd been like that, on the ground. Minutes? Hours? Suddenly she was back to normal, as if none of it had ever happened. She could see again, and she could see Castiel's shoes on the ground in front of her. He yanked her, painfully, to her feet, grasping her arm so tightly that she cried out.

"Listen to me," he growled, putting his face so close to hers that she couldn't see his features clearly. Power surged from him, and it was so strong, and he was so full of rage, that she nearly passed out.

"You have been a thorn in my side long enough." He held her chin in his other hand, forcing her head to keep facing him. She grabbed at his hand automatically, trying to pull it away from her face, but it was no use. His grip was like iron. Her jaw began to ache from how hard he was squeezing her.

"If you get in my way, I will kill you." He pushed her back a little, so that she could look at him without her eyes crossing. She stared at him, breathing hard. "Do you understand me?" he demanded, shaking her a little.

Some part of him broke. For just a second, a trickle of despair and terror filtered into her mind from his. The feeling was gone in a heartbeat.

"If you get in my way," he repeated, more slowly this time. "I…" His eyes looked up for a second, at the night sky above their heads. He kept his gaze there for a fraction longer than what seemed necessary. He lowered his gaze back down to her. "… will kill you."

The angels. His superiors. She understood.

"Tell me you understand!" he shouted.

"I understand," she ground out, though speaking was difficult, since his fingers were digging into her cheeks.

"Do you, girl?" he asked, his voice full of malice. "Do you really understand?" He stared at her, and though all the rest of him screamed anger and wrath, his eyes were questioning. He wanted to make sure she had gotten his message.

She knew she had to keep up the act. The other angels were probably watching them both right now.

"Yes," she spat, putting as much venom as she could muster into her voice. And for a second, she moved her eyes upwards, to the heavens.

Castiel released her arm and her face roughly, and then he turned and vanished a gust of wind.

###

Brooke awoke with a gasp the next night. Castiel stood over her on the couch. Before she could even begin to sit up, he pressed two fingers to her forehead. Sleep, he commanded.

She fell back into darkness.

The next morning, she did not remember seeing him at all, and Sam was gone.

###

Dean had gone off to find Sam, and Brooke stayed behind with Bobby. She hardly spoke; she'd been feeling strange since she'd woken up that morning, as if she were forgetting something.

"What's the matter with you?" Bobby asked her, after she'd spent about an hour sitting the on the couch without moving.

She glanced up at him, shaking her head. "I dunno, Bobby," she admitted. "Something's… wrong."

Bobby studied her, folding his arms over his chest. "What d'you mean?"

She shook her head again, slowly. "Cass," she said.

"What?"

"All I know is that it's something to do with Castiel."

"What is it between you and that dick angel?"

"Hey!" Brooke's head snapped up to glare at Bobby. "He saved my life, if you'll recall."

"Yeah, and what's he done since then?"

She sighed, nodding. "I can't really explain it to you; I just…"

"Right," said Bobby, in a tone that suggested he did not understand at all.

###

Dean returned from hunting down Sam empty-handed, but not for lack of trying.

Brooke sat, exhausted, as she listened to Bobby and Dean arguing about Sam, about Dean wanting to give up on him, about family. About love. She closed her eyes, trying to drone out their yelling.

The room went silent.

She opened her eyes, wondering, for a hysterical moment, if she were psychic on top of being able to see angels and demons. Dean was gone. Bobby stood in the middle of the room, staring at the spot where he'd been just a moment before.

Brooke stood up. "What the fuck?"

Bobby stared at her, then looked back at where Dean had been.

In desperation, they ran around Bobby's house and property, calling for him, but he was gone. When they'd exhausted themselves, they came back into the living room. Brooke sank onto the couch and Bobby sat in a chair nearby.

"Do you think the angels took him?" he mused. "He was on call."

Brooke shook her head. "I didn't see anything, or feel anything…"

"Then what the hell…?" Bobby dug into his Jeans pocket, saying, "I'll call Sam. See if knows anything." But the call went straight to voicemail. He left an angry message and then snapped the cellphone shut.

Cass, Brooke thought. I know you can hear me. Where's Dean?

There was no response.

Brooke and Bobby wandered around his house for hours, pulling their hair out. Bobby called every Hunter he knew, but no one had heard anything. Brooke paced back and forth, back and forth, in the living room, praying. She knew that some angel could swoop down and kill her for even talking to him, but she didn't care. She prayed and prayed.

Find Dean, she told him. Find Dean and help him. Help him stop the Apocalypse. Or go find Sam and bring him here. Do something, Castiel. I'm not afraid of the other angels. You shouldn't be, either. I know they have you on a leash. Snap it. Rip it from their hands. Find Dean, Castiel.

For hours, she paced. She forgot to eat. The sun went down. Her legs were sore and stiff, but still, she paced. Bobby tried to get her to sit at some point, but she barely heard him.

Castiel, she prayed. Eventually, all of her words, her thoughts, had jumbled into one big ball of emotion tied up in his name. She knew she didn't even really need to think out what she was praying to him. She knew that he could understand her, regardless. So, countless hours into her prayers, they simply became a chant of his name.

Castiel… Castiel… Castiel…

"I'm here, Brooke."

She felt his light upon her and burst into tears before she had even turned to face him. Her vision was blurred but she could see Dean standing beside him.

"You found Dean," she croaked, taking a step towards him. Her legs were all pins and needles, and she stumbled.

"Cass, we don't have time for this," Dean said.

"Wait," Castiel replied. "Just give us one minute."

He approached her with a strange gentleness, one she had not felt from him before. He was… unsure of himself, of her.

She was still sobbing, her breath coming out in gasps. Her legs shook with the effort of standing.

He cupped her face in his hands delicately, as if she might break. She inhaled sharply through her nose, remembering the way he had squeezed her face in one hand when he'd warned her about the other angels. He pulled his hands away at her memory, and a feeling of utter heartbreak washed over her, coming from his mind.

It's okay, she said.

No. It's not.

She placed her own hands on his face and brought him down to her, until their foreheads touched. Close your eyes, she instructed.

I remember, he said.

They closed their eyes and breathed, five deep, slow breaths, in tandem. By the time they were finished, her tears had abated. In the time it had taken to complete those five breaths, he had given her all of his recent memories. All of his feelings. She felt the pain of having to decide between helping Sam and Dean, and herself, of doing what he knew was right; or of sticking to his orders, as he had previously done for millennia. To disobey orders had never occurred to him before he had met Dean, before he'd met her. He was a creature of habit, and one who had believed, until recently, in the Plan. Whatever that Plan had been. All that righteousness inside him had been based on the fact that his cause had been the will of God.

But now God was no longer calling the shots. He had to find faith in something else—in someone else. And he had chosen to place his faith in Dean, in Sam, and in Brooke.

They lifted their heads, and she stared into his eyes. She would have liked to stay there forever, just like that, but she knew there were far more important things to be doing. And besides, those beautiful blue eyes were not Castiel's eyes. They were the eyes of Jimmy Novak, who she knew was in there somewhere. She had not forgotten about him.

"Let's go," she said.

Castiel looked at her a little sadly, for he, now, was forced to remember that he was possessing the body of a man who had given up his life in service to a cause that was not even just. He, just like everyone else, had been strung along by angels playing God.

He took Brooke's hand, placed his free hand on Dean's shoulder, and teleported them away.