A/N: Sorry for the wait on this. My muse has been in the tank recently. Actually, it's been shit since the start of season 12 and I've been pushing through it, but I really needed to take a break. IDK what my upload schedule will be like, so sorry for any future waits on this.

Three

Sam called Castiel two days later, and the angel answered the phone with bated breath, putting it on speakerphone so that Brooke could hear without listening through his mind.

"We got Dean back," Sam said.

Castiel put a hand up to his mouth, his eyes red and watery, and stared at Brooke.

She smiled.

###

Jack was already there when Castiel and Brooke went to the main room to see Dean, who had just come back to the bunker with Sam. Brooke watched as Jack reached out and hugged him; Dean patted the boy, but pulled away from the hug rather quickly, probably feeling a little awkward.

"Dean," Castiel said, smiling, and trying not to burst into tears.

"Cass," Dean replied, with his own smile, and then his eyes slid to Brooke. He nodded to her, though he did not say her name.

She returned the smile and nodded, trying to push down several years' worth of issues with Dean. He'd been better, recently, and their relationship—such as it was—had improved dramatically since their fight back when Cass had still been dead. There was no reason to stir the pot now.

Castiel took a deep breath. "Sorry. I wanted to be there, but we figured that Michael would sense my presence, so…"

"Sam told me," Dean said, nodding. "Ain't no thing."

Castiel smiled again, and could not quite stop his lower lip from quivering.

You can cry, Cass, Brooke said, glancing at him.

I'd rather not. Not now. But, thank you.

She sighed, silently. Not in front of Sam and Dean, you mean. Men.

"Where's Mary?" Jack spoke up.

"She and Bobby stayed back in Duluth to clean up the, uh—the situation," Sam explained, though he seemed to have trouble getting the words out, and glanced not-so-surreptitiously at Dean.

Brooke's eyebrows drew together, but she did not ask.

"Yeah, well, speaking of cleanup, I, uh… I need a shower," Dean said. He looked… exhausted.

Brooke couldn't blame him. Even being possessed by Castiel, who often gave her control of her body, and was in all ways kind and respectful of her while inside her, was exhausting.

The four of them watched Dean walk towards the door, which led to one of the bathrooms down the hall. At the last minute, Sam turned. "Hey, y-you…"

Dean turned. "Still okay," he said. "I promise." He glanced at Castiel and pointed at him in a friendly manner, and then left.

Brooke, Cass, Jack and Sam all glanced awkwardly at each other for a moment, all wondering if Dean was secretly lying about being okay, but they moved past that without taking about it.

"Uh," Sam began, clearly trying to pick a new topic, "how's Nick?"

Jack sighed. "He's… He's gone."

"What?" Sam demanded.

Castiel pursed his lips. "Nick just—he left a note, said that he had some personal business to attend to, and he hasn't—he hasn't been returning my calls."

Sam glanced away, looking frustrated.

"He was in a dark place," the angel went on. "Maybe he just needed some time."

"All right, yeah, maybe," said Sam, in a tone of voice that suggested he did not believe that at all.

Castiel shifted from one foot to the other, agitated, and brought he conversation back to the Winchester brother that they'd just gotten back. "Sam… Dean, how is he really?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted, sighing.

Brooke glanced away, trying not to roll her eyes about the fact that the brothers had clearly not talked much about what had happened with Dean on the drive here. How many years had it been since she'd met them, and they were still keeping secrets from each other?

"Why would Michael just… give up his vessel like that?" Castiel wondered.

"I don't know," Sam repeated.

"And why was… why was Michael helping monsters?"

Sam stared at the angel, a defeated look on his face. "Cass, truth is… we don't know anything."

Brooke sighed. "Well, we've been down this road before—not knowing anything. We've always figured it out in the end. We just gotta… look for clues, I guess. Do some research. Something."

###

As it turned out, the first clue they discovered was on Dean's body—a strange scar on his right arm, the scar tissue thick and obvious. Whatever had caused it had been big, and gone deep.

"I don't know how I got it," Dean said, as he showed it off for them all, later.

"Well, what could hurt Michael like that?" Castiel wondered, staring down at Dean, curiously.

"Whatever it was, it musta been strong," Sam said.

"And… big," Brooke added. "And… pronged?" The scar was not one long line. It was actually two scars, close together, with a space in between them, like… well, like a pronged weapon had stabbed Dean's arm.

"Right," Dean said. "So, Cass, I'm gonna need you to, uh, get in my head. You know, do the whole Vulcan mind-meld thing…" He glanced at Brooke. "N-Not like you do with her, okay? We're not gonna kiss and get married after this, are we?"

A very small part of Castiel's heart twinged at those words, but he'd been true to his promise with Brooke about giving up pining for Dean. "No, that shouldn't happen," he murmured. "But—

"Good," Dean replied, cutting him off. "'Cause if I don't remember what happened, I need you to drag it out of me, okay?"

"W-Wait a second," Sam spoke up. "You sure about this?"

"Yeah, I can handle it."

"Dean," Castiel began.

"Cass, come on," Dean interrupted him. And then he glanced at Brooke again. "Is this gonna be weird for you?"

She took a breath. "Possibly," she said. "But as long as Cass isn't torturing your brain, I should be good."

"Will you be able to… see into my head, too?" he asked, sounding hesitant. Uncomfortable.

Brooke looked up at her husband.

"She won't be able to see into your head," Castiel assured him. "Unless something… crazy happens."

"I-I can…" Brooke took a deep breath. "Cass, you can… pull out of my head, if—

"I'd rather not," he replied, gently, his eyes softening as he looked at her. It's not fun for either of us.

Right, she thought back, and smiled a little, gratefully.

"All right, then," Dean said, slapping his hands down onto the table where he sat. "Hit me."

Castiel took his own deep breath, glanced at the others, then placed his hands on top of Dean's head.

Brooke's mind filled with that strange, static-y interference and she held her head in her hands. It wasn't painful so much as very uncomfortable, as if she had forgotten how to form her own thoughts. It was like a swarm of locusts were flying around in her head. The sensation lasted a few seconds, with a small reprieve for a moment, but it started again as Castiel placed one hand over Dean's scarred arm. Her head buzzed again, the room spinning momentarily, and then it cleared, as if nothing had happened. She lifted her head, blinking a few times in rapid succession as the room stopped spinning.

Castiel was looking at her, and she could sense him in her mind, gently poking and prodding to check that she was all right.

I'm okay, Castiel, she said. I'd rather get that static headache than go through you pulling yourself out of my head.

Good, he replied, caressing her mind and memories with his own, before focusing on Dean again. "Who was that?" he asked the Winchester, clearly talking about a figure he and Dean had seen in his memories.

Dean stared at the wall ahead of him, gone somewhere in his head, trying to place the figure…

###

A call to Jody Mills had revealed that Dean had not been the only person to be recently stabbed by a giant spear-like object. The sheriff had a case involving at least one body found—headless—and with the same scar that Dean was sporting. Brooke packed a bag along with everyone else, intent on heading out to see what the hell was up with whoever had killed Kaia in the Bad Place, over a year ago now.

"You're leaving?"

Brooke looked up from packing, surprised at Jack's voice. With the loss of his Grace, she could no longer sense him coming, especially not over the presence of her husband, whose own Grace, while slowly failing, was still much more prevalent than Jack's was right now.

"Kaia's killer is in Sioux Falls," Dean explained to the boy.

"And he, she, or it can hurt Michael," Sam spoke up. "We just gotta figure out how."

"I'll get my things," Jack said, turning away.

"Uh, Jack, um…" Castiel hesitated, not wanting to hurt the boy's feelings, but still needing to come out and say the words. "That might not be the best idea."

"Michael's my enemy, too," Jack argued. "I fought him for months. And Kaia… I'm the one who brought her into this. I'm responsible for what happened to her."

"No, you're not," Brooke said, gently.

Jack looked at her. "I want to help."

"Yeah, well, not gonna happen," Dean said.

Jack looked at him, now, annoyed. "Because I'm human now?"

"Jack," Sam began, trying to be positive. "Maybe you just need a little more—

"Training? I've been training with Bobby!" Jack's voice was rising now.

"C'mon, kid," Dean said. "Look at you. You're barely a hundred pounds soaking wet. You know?"

"That's not a valid argument," Brooke intervened, gesturing at herself. A life of Hunting, constant fighting, constant movement, had left her lightweight, with sinewy muscle. She had no idea how much she actually weighed, but it probably wasn't much above a hundred or so. 120, maybe?

Jack stared at Dean for a long moment, and then turned and walked away.

"Wait!" Brooke called after him, an idea popping into her head. "I-I could stay here with you, Jack. I—

"I don't need to be babysat!" Jack spat over his shoulder, without stopping.

Brooke blinked after him, stunned.

"I didn't… I didn't mean to be a dick," Dean mumbled into his canvas bag.

Brooke was still staring after the boy.

Castiel laid a hand over one of hers, which rested on the table in front of her. Jack didn't mean to… be a dick, either, as Dean would put it.

Brooke shook her head a little, clearing it, and nodded. Of course not, she thought, and fumbled with her pack.

"Little help here!" a woman's voice rang out from the bunker entrance.

Everyone dropped what they were doing and rushed over to find one of the rebels from Apocalypse World—Jules—half-carrying a young woman down the steps and setting her into a chair.

"Jules, what's going on?" Sam asked.

"Case I was workin' in Wichita—the missing teenagers, dried-up husk bodies? Turns out it was a witch. She was holding the girls hostage, and this…" Jules turned and gestured at the teenage girl. "… Is the only survivor."

Brooke studied the girl. No obvious injuries. Crossed arms, fidgety, darting eyes. She was nervous about something.

"Took Broom-hilda down with that witch-killing bullet you gave me," Jules continued, "but, soon as I did, something went wrong. Didn't even have time to bury the body before—

"Before what?" Dean asked.

Jules turned and looked at the girl again. "Lora, darling, show them."

The girl, Lora, sighed heavily, tears falling from her eyes, and released one of her arms, pulling the sleeve up. Her hand and wrist were wrinkled. The skin was like an old woman's.

Castiel's head cocked to the side, studying her hand.

"The witch must've hexed her," Jules said.

"An aging spell?" Brooke wondered aloud.

Castiel nodded.

"Can you fix it?" Sam asked.

"I think so." He stepped forward, slowly reaching out a hand to press two fingers to the girl's forehead. She stared up at him as he reached out, looking a little freaked out.

You should really warn people before you randomly touch them, Brooke suggested. She watched as Castiel's fingers made contact with the girl's skin, and closed her eyes, expecting to hear that dull roar in her head, like static. There was something, some sound or sensation, but it was very quiet. Too quiet.

After several seconds, Castiel pulled his fingers away, confused.

"Cass?" Sam asked, staring down at the girl's hand, which was still old and wrinkly.

"Uh, this might take a while," he said, several trails of thought already zooming about in his mind as he attempted to figure out how to heal the girl. "You two, go," he told Sam and Dean. "Get to Sioux Falls before the trail goes cold and I'll catch up when I'm done."

"No, no," Sam began, "I dunno."

"Cass is right," Dean argued. "He can handle this." He looked at his brother. "We need to hit the road. Let's go."

Brooke stared after him for a moment as he turned and left. He seems… eager, she thought.

I would imagine so, Castiel replied. Eager to find a weapon to use against Michael.

Right.

"Sam," Castiel urged, aloud, seeing the younger Winchester continue to simply stand there.

"All right, all right," he murmured. "Yep." He told Jules good work and then turned and followed his brother out of the bunker.

###

"I can't find it," Castiel muttered, some time later, as he, Brooke, and Jules scoured the library. They were still searching for a way to save Lora.

"Find what?" Jules asked.

"The book. It's got to be around here somewhere. She said to look in the White Magic Lexicon." She being Rowena, of course. They had discovered fairly quickly that no amount of angel magic would save Lora, so they'd moved on to witchy magic, instead.

Brooke sighed, halfway pulling out book after book from the shelf she was in front of. None of these old tomes had titles on their spines so they only way to see the title was to look at the front.

"Is it this one?" Jules asked.

Brooke and Castiel both looked up to study the book in Jules' hands.

"Yeah, yeah," Castiel replied, a note of excitement, or urgency, in his tone. "It's that one."

Castiel took the book from the woman's hands and the three of them rushed off to the bunker's operating room. Brooke had no idea if that was the room's actual function, but it contained a hospital bed and a large, open area, so Brooke assumed that it was meant to be some kind of surgery room, or perhaps just a hospital wing (although, there was only one bed).

Lora lay in the bed, holding her aging arm in her normal hand. She was staring at the ceiling with an unreadable expression.

Brooke came over to her. "Do you want anything? Water?"

"No," the girl said. "Please, just… just fix me."

Brooke nodded silently and turned away, coming to stand beside her husband who was leaning over the table upon which he had placed the Lexicon. She did not attempt to read the book; Castiel was capable of reading much faster than the average human and he was the only one who needed to read the book to gain the spell.

"Who's that?" Jack's voice floated down to them from above.

Castiel glanced up at Jack and then looked over his shoulder at Lora. "It's a girl," he said. "Lora. She's, um… she's been enchanted."

"Like Sleeping Beauty," Jack breathed, something like awe in his voice.

"No," Castiel said. "No, not like…" He shook his head, opening his mouth to explain.

"You read," Brooke interrupted. "Do the spell. I'll explain to Jack."

"Right," Castiel said, and went back to the book.

Brooke went up the steps to where Jack was standing and murmured, "It's an aging spell. It's killing her. She's… she's aging too quickly."

Jack stared at Brooke, his brows drawn together. "Can't Cass just heal her?"

"No. He tried, but it… it didn't work."

"The magic," Castiel murmured, though just loud enough for them to hear him, "it's too knotted." He sounded distracted—he was distracted. But he felt the need to explain why his powers had failed in this instance. He felt guilty. Useless. He was worried that they would not be able to complete the spell in time, and if his powers had only worked, they wouldn't have that problem at all.

Less self-hating, more spell work, Brooke thought.

Right. Sorry.

"We called Rowena," Brooke told the boy, turning back to him. "She suggested a reversal spell, so that's what we're doing."

Jack said nothing. He stared down at where Lora lay in the bed, and then he turned slowly, as if to go out of the room. In the process, his backpack nearly hit Brooke, who pulled her upper body backwards to get out of the way.

"Where are you going?" she demanded, eyeing the backpack suspiciously. From below, she felt Castiel pause and also look up at Jack.

The boy turned around again, stared at Brooke, then Castiel, then at Lora, who seemed to have fallen into a fitful sleep and was moaning in apparent distress. "N-Nowhere," he said. "I'm… not going anywhere."

Brooke raised an eyebrow at him, in a very Castiel kind of way. "What's with the backpack, then?" she asked.

But Jack was still staring at Lora, and he slowly went down the steps back into the room, and wandered over to the side of her bed.

Good, Brooke thought. Keep her company.

…

"Sage, pyrite, and sheep's eye?" Jules asked, looking up from the book. "W-We got that here?" She made a face.

"Yes," Castiel said, his mind flicking through several memories in the blink of an eye. "Storage room, red cabinet, bottom drawer. It's marked Gross Stuff."

Brooke smirked for a second or two, and then her face fell because there was a dying girl behind her. She went back to helping her husband prepare the spell.

From behind her, she heard the beginnings of a soft conversation between Lora and Jack.

"Is that your mom and dad?" Lora asked.

A pause, and then, "One set of them, yes."

Castiel could not help the small smile that curved his lips, that shy, hopeful flutter in his chest. Brooke lay a hand over one of his, and he lifted his thumb up to brush her pinkie.

Brooke tried her best, afterwards, to ignore Lora's conversation with Jack, but, like always, her sensitive hearing picked up the words as if they were being spoken at a normal volume. She busied herself at the table, but could not unhear Lora explaining to Jack exactly what had happened to her and her friends. She'd run away from home, feeling that her parents' rules were too strict, and been taken in by a witch, along with some other girls. The witch had been kind, at first, and Lora and the others had lived with her for a long while. But then the witch had turned mean and used her magic against them to make herself younger. Two others had died from this aging spell before Jules had managed to rescue Lora. And now Lora lay in the bed, crying, terrified that she, too, would die.

"Cass and Brooke are gonna fix this," Jack assured her in a calm, quiet voice. "I promise."

Castiel looked up from his book, turning to stare at the two of them, and then his eyes caught Brooke's and he looked… worried. What if we can't heal her? he thought, without even realizing he was thinking it. What if she dies before…

Stop, Brooke begged him. Let's just… focus on what we can do. We need to do the spell.

He swallowed, staring at her with wide eyes for another moment, and then nodded once, squaring his shoulders.

…

Brooke, Castiel, and Jules' voices all came together in an eerie chant as they repeated the words of the reversal spell over and over again, tossing in the required ingredients at the right time. They glanced at each other from across the table as they chanted and poured or sprinkled, making sure that each of them was keeping up. On the last loop, their voices raised slightly, and as Castiel tossed in the last ingredient, a puff of purple smoke wafted up from the bowl.

Brooke glanced at Lora, who sat up, staring at them. She was breathing heavily, her chest heaving. Brooke didn't know if that was a bad sign, or if the girl was simply nervous.

"How are you feeling?" Castiel asked.

"I-I don't know," she stuttered, shaking her head. A second later, she fell back onto the bed, gasping horrendously.

Brooke watched in horror as the exposed skin on her chest wrinkled with age in seconds.

"Lora?" Jack yelled, bending over her in fear. "No!"

Lora was still gasping, as if she were choking, and she clawed at her chest and throat. "Help," she begged, but her voice came out in a whisper.

Brooke stepped toward her, but there was nothing anyone could do. She clenched her hands into fists, staring down at the girl, and watching as she died. When Lora had stopped breathing, she turned away, rubbing her face in one hand. Goddamn it.

Death was a part of life for all Hunters, and she'd barely known the girl, but that didn't make it any easier. Here was just another person that they'd failed to save. Another face to haunt their nightmares.

Castiel rested a hand on her shoulder, sighing slowly and taking a long time to inhale, standing with no air in his chest for a while, as if he hoped he could give the oxygen to Lora. When did finally inhale, he also stepped towards the bed and pulled the sheet up over her face, gently. "Jack," he said, but could think of nothing else to add.

"We let her die," the boy croaked, tears in his eyes.

We didn't, Brooke wanted to say. She wanted to tell him that they had done all they could. But the words would not come out.

Castiel, too, was silent, staring down at Jack with tears in his eyes.

Jack sniffled, then leaned forward and whispered to Lora's covered body, "I'm—I'm sorry. If—If I still had my powers, I could have saved you. I…" He lowered his head, then, and cried.

Brooke wanted to reach for him, but stood rooted to the spot. She stared at Lora's body and was beset with a flashback that nearly floored her: the image of her husband's body wrapped in a white sheet, his arms and legs tied down with the curtains ripped from the front windows. She trembled violently, unblinking, her fists clenched at her sides. Her fingernails, short as they were, dug into the palms of her hands, but she hardly felt it. All she could see was Castiel, shrouded. Dead.

He was there in a second, pulling her against his chest, resting his chin atop her head. "Shhh," he said, gently pulling at strands of her hair.

She barely had time to take him in before Jack shot up out his chair. She ran her hands through her hair, taking deep breaths, and turned away from Castiel enough to see what the hell Jack was up to. He'd pulled the sheet down from Lora's face and was staring at her intently.

"Jack, what are you doin'?" Castiel murmured, in a soft, defeated tone. You don't have your powers. She's dead.

"The witch," Jack said, looking up, his eyes still wet with tears.

Brooke stared at him, confused.

"Where's her body?" he demanded, his voice louder.

She continued to stare, then blinked a few times and turned her head to look up at her husband.

Castiel turned and looked at Jules.

…

"The witch-killing bullet, it's still in her," Jack said, as they stared down at the witch's dead body. Jack had just pulled her out of the wall in the bunker's morgue.

"Guess so," Jules said.

"Jack, what is this about?" Castiel demanded, worried the boy was about to do something stupid.

"The witch told Lora she and the others kept her young. I thought it was a metaphor, but the witch was stealing her youth."

Brooke blinked at Jack, saying nothing aloud, but in her head, she thought, Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.

Castiel glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, giving her a reproving look.

"When you killed her," Jack went on, looking at Jules, "maybe the magic kept working, sucking Lora's life-force, trying to keep the witch young, to keep her alive, but it couldn't work because the bullet was still inside her."

Brooke was nodding slowly, now, pretending she had never thought her earlier comment.

"So, the magic worked harder and harder and consumed more and more of Lora," Jack said. "That's why the reversal spell didn't work. She wasn't cursed." He tore the large, bright green emerald pendant from the witch's neck and held it up. "This was." Without waiting for a reply of any kind, he rushed off, carrying the pendant by its gold chain and rushing away.

He returned to the operating room where Lora's body lay. Apparently, all he'd been looking for was something to smash the pendant with, which he found on a table two feet away from her bed. "Lora's life-force is in here," he said, laying the piece of jewelry down on the table and clutching the medical instrument he'd found.

"Jack, are you sure?" Castiel asked, staring at him in concern. If this backfired, somehow, the boy could end up hurt.

"Why don't you let me do that," Brooke suggested, motherly instinct taking over.

"It's fine," Jack said, quickly, and smashed open the amulet in the same moment.

Green light swirled upwards from the broken amulet, casting the boy's face in an eerie glow. Then it floated its way toward Lora's body, and disappeared inside the matching amulet around her neck. A moment later, the girl sat up, gasping. Immediately, her hands went to her throat, then she felt her left hand, the one that had grown so old and wrinkly. She was fine; her skin had returned to its young, smooth nature. She looked up, staring between Jack and the others. "What happened?"

Brooke only smiled, sighing in relief, and left the explanation to Jack. She could feel an emotion coming from Castiel, something warm and expansive. Curiously, she looked up at him, and realized by looking what it was that he was feeling: fatherly pride. He was standing tall, his hands out of his coat pockets for once, he chest puffed out. And he was looking at Jack with such a smile—a grin.

Brooke felt the same way, of course, and she reached down at took Castiel's hand. As he squeezed it, she thought, That's our boy… Right?

Castiel took a deep breath, still smiling. Right.

Brooke paused. Now I feel really bad for thinking, 'No shit, Sherlock' earlier. I should've given him more credit.

Castiel laughed.

###

They came into his room later, after everything had settled down, because Castiel had simply been unable to stay away from the boy. He had this need to tell Jack how proud he was of him. He'd been smiling for the last two hours, sometimes quite broadly, and other times in a much softer manner. He'd never felt this particular emotion before, and he was enjoying himself immensely.

Brooke was proud of Jack, too, but this was not her first time feeling such a thing about him, so she was not as keen to strut about the bunker like a peacock—although she was enjoying watching her husband do so.

"Well, Jules is off," Castiel told Jack, as he stepped into his room, Brooke right behind him. "She's taking Lora back home to her mother."

Jack smiled softly.

The Castiel stepped farther into the room, his lips pursed. "Jack, I just wanted wanted to say I'm—I'm sorry. I know that you've been going through a lot lately. We've all been going through a lot. It's just no excuse. I… I just haven't been there for you." He gave a tight-lipped smile. "Not the way I should have."

Brooke reached down for Cass' hand to offer emotional support. This sudden change of tune was strange, even knowing all of his thoughts. He must not have realized how badly he felt until he was standing right in front of the boy. She wanted to say something, but this seemed like such a father-son moment that she refrained.

"Cass, it's okay," Jack said.

"Well," Castiel replied, ducking his head a little, and then another smile lit up his face and he bit his lower lip like an excited child. "What you did today, you just…" He chuckled. "You made me so proud. You know, learning to hold your own in a fight, without your powers, that takes time and—and training, but today, you—you proved that you have the mind of a Hunter, and the heart of a Hunter."

Brooke remained quiet, but she smiled at the floor.

Castiel grew a little nervous, then, his heart fluttering. "I was thinking, um… I mean, I'll talk to Sam and Dean, but, um, I thought maybe—maybe we could go on a Hunting trip. I mean, if you want to." He shrugged, and prayed, silently, that Jack would say yes.

Oh my God, you're so cute I'm gonna die, Brooke thought, trying not to squeal. She looked at Jack to see that the boy had a big smile on his face.

"Yeah," he said, and cleared his throat. Then coughed. "Yes," he said, his voice clearer that time.

Brooke spoke for the first time. "Is this a… guys-only thing?" she asked, only half-joking. Perhaps it would be good for Jack to spend time with only the boys, away from her mothering influence. She hoped she had never come across to him as overbearing.

"What, no!" Jack exclaimed.

In the same moment, Castiel turned to stare at her with something like horror on his face. "Of course not!" he said. "Have you forgotten? Entreat me not to leave thee."

Brooke ducked her head, a little flattered at how quickly both of them had demanded that she go with them.

Jack coughed again, harder this time, then his head came up and his eyes were squeezed shut as he cleared his throat. "Sorry," he said.

Concern flooded Brooke's system and she stepped up to the boy, the back of her hand to his forehead. "You don't feel warm," she murmured.

"Are you okay?" Castiel asked.

"I'm fine," Jack assured them, and smiled up at Brooke. "I'm human now." He chuckled. "Must be getting my first cold."

Brooke stepped back, smiling and laughing. "Oh, boy," she said. "Cass can tell you all about that."

Castiel bowed his head with a smile, remembering when he had been human several years ago, after Metatron had stolen his Grace. He had, indeed, gotten a cold. And then he'd given it to her. "Well, I'll make you some soup, then, Jack," he said.

Brooke returned to her husband's side. "I want soup, too," she said, in a whiny toddler-like voice.

Castiel was still smiling. "I'll make enough for both of you," he assured her.

With a few last smiles for the boy, they left his room and went off to the kitchen to make soup.