Chapter 53.
"You'll persuade Jules to accept the crystal?" said Cas to Sarah.
"I'll try." she said.
"Even though you hate that I made them?"
"I don't. I just hate that you thought it necessary, but maybe it was. Anyhow, I don't want the risk you took to have been for nothing. You need them protected, I will do all I can to ensure they are. You should tell Claire about me. Tell her, my home is a safe place for her, whatever happens."
"I will." Sarah's love seemed inexhaustible. He knew that she loved Claire without ever having met her, purely from his stories and the fact that he cared about her.
She meant what she was saying. If Claire turned up, bleeding, dragging a corpse or pursued by the authorities, Sarah would take her into the warm kitchen and give her sanctuary, just as she had taken a confused, stunned and splintered angel into her house when most would have locked the doors and called the cops.
"You've been good to me, Sarah." he said.
"Don't talk as if it's over." she said, "You're just tired." He wondered why she bothered to pretend, when there was no-one else to hear. She reached out to tidy his hair, a sweet, maternal gesture that brought him a feeling of comfort that he couldn't really explain.
"I want to thank you," he said, "Before ... "
"You don't need to thank me." she said, "You've done more for me than I have for you. Clear eyes, strong joints, an old age free of pain and incapacity."
"When I'm gone to ... to that place ... I will not be able to stave off the effects of age and time." he said.
"No." she said, "But I never wanted to live forever. I'll want it even less if you're not around."
"Don't say that." he said.
"I'm sorry." she said, "I'm not trying to make things worse. I know how hard it is for you to think of leaving."
"It should be easy. I know it's the right thing to do. I know that I will leave you all with as much protection as I can arrange."
"But you know that you will leave us all."
"And the thought is painful."
"So we should seek another way."
"There is no other way."
"Can the Empty be destroyed?" she said.
"No. It may be the foundations of the universe."
"But you're not sure?"
"Nobody really knows anything about it, not even Jack, who is the only one who can even reach the place with his will. It's not worth the risk. I accept my fate."
"Your fate is a terrible one." she said.
"Which I chose." He smiled at the thought. Until he had met the Winchesters, the concept of choice had not existed for him. Now, he had, consciously and deliberately ... chosen the worst possible ending for himself, a damnation more absolute and enduring than eternity in Hell.
It was terrible, as she said, but it was a choice and he had made it of his own free will. In the midst of all the hopelessness, despair and regret, there was something glorious in that.
"I made a free choice." he said.
"You said you had no choice."
"I think I've been confused for a long time. I don't know what freedom is, entirely, but I know that the angel I was could never have made that sacrifice. It was not his to make. He had nothing to bargain with, no soul to sell."
"I know what you mean." she said.
"Technically ... accurately, I still have no soul to sell, but I have a will of my own and I have some freedom of choice and what I feel for them, for you and for Jack seems almost to have become a soul." That sounded foolish. He sounded drunk. Without his grace, his mind was disordered and unquiet. He wanted to cry and laugh and walk naked in the woods as the rain poured over his frail, human flesh. "I think lack of grace makes me crazy." he said.
"You never sounded saner to me." she said, "This is not all bad, this temporary loss of grace. I know your senses are more limited, but your emotions are less so and perhaps you can consider things with a different perspective."
"I feel light-headed, unstable, emotional."
"What else do you feel?" she said.
"Sad, for the losses to come, for the farewells I will not have time for. Though, honestly, I'd never have the words for them anyway. How could I tell Dean in a moment what he means to me? How could I tell Sam in less than three vast volumes, bound in a dragon's hide? What words are there for the love I feel for Jack? What words ever existed for that?"
"How about Jules?"
"It should be easiest to say goodbye to her. We spoke freely to each other, always. We said our words of love and gratitude. We wearied the stars with our talking. With all things said between us, it should be easy to walk away in silence, each knowing what love we shared."
"But it isn't?" said Sarah.
"My lungs ache to breathe the perfume of her hair. My arms are in agony, dying of grief, because they will never hold her again. My heart has no desire to beat when it cannot make time with hers. Now, all the words that we said are meaningless. I said I loved her, but chose to leave her without a second thought. I knew how hard it was for her to trust me ... a stranger ... a celestial ... and I betrayed her trust without blinking. I thought I was sacrificing myself for Jack, but I also sacrificed her. I never deserved her love. I never could."
"She still thinks herself unworthy of yours." said Sarah.
"She will find a better love than mine. She'll find someone strong and true and human. When she does, be sure to tell her that I have given my blessing. She gave me so much. She owes me nothing. Tell her I want her to be happy."
"We both want that for her, my dear," said Sarah, "But I have to say, I don't think she will find it in the arms of anyone else. When my David died, I didn't seek or find another love. That part of my heart remained engaged in loving him. To love some other man would have been infidelity to me, however long he had been dead. I am his wife, for as long as I exist in this world or any other."
"But he was a great man, filled with compassion and kindness. He deserved your devotion."
"Oh, Castiel, please stop this. You are good. Even in comparison to Sam and Dean, you are good."
"Your husband did only good. I have done mostly bad."
"No. That isn't true."
Tears filled his eyes. "I have made so many mistakes and so many would have been avoided if I had not trusted my judgement over Dean's. I have erred through pride and fear and confusion and I have hurt everyone who ever loved me. If she knew how worthless I was, she would not even mourn my loss, much less give me eternal fidelity."
"You talked with her as you have talked with no other, even me. You showed her who you are. You concealed nothing from her."
"True."
"And she loved you. She chose to love you. Maybe you're not as worthless as you think."
"You lost David. I have lost her. Is there some way you have discovered to make it hurt less?"
"I haven't found one yet." she said, "Only ways of living with the pain. The most useful one is to keep on loving, him and everyone else. Grief breeds a bitterness that can poison your life. Love may not be easy, but it is very healing. Hold her in your heart. Remember all the things you said to each other. Remember that a beautiful, wise, clever woman considered you worthy of her undying love."
"Right now, that thought just makes it all hurt more."
"I know." she said and he thought about all the lonely, unhappy nights she had spent since her husband's sudden death.
"Your loss ... " he began.
"If all we had shared was a single kiss, it would have been worth all the pain. He was my lodestar. He was everything."
"So she was to me." he said, "I may die of missing her."
"No, you won't." she said, "But sometimes, you may wish you could. I won't tell you the path of loss is easy ... I won't even call it bearable ... but a life without a love to lose is, I think, far worse."
"I wonder if Jules agrees." he said.