"I want to hunt with you." The words startled Castiel. He had done his best to discourage Jack from entering the life of a hunter, though it was inevitable.

A million arguments coursed through Castiel's mind then. It was too dangerous, but no; Jack was able to protect himself. He was too inexperienced to hunt, which was true to a point. He was too young, much younger than the appearance of his hastily aged body. Not that that seemed to matter, or stop Jack in any capacity anyway.

"What?" Castiel asked sternly, ever the father figure. It was a role he took on doubly so, now that Sam and Dean were gone.

"I want to hunt with you." Jack repeated himself, almost insistently.

"Jack..." Cas sighed heavily, and opted to keep his answer plain and simple. "No."

"Please? You know what I can do with my powers. I can fight, I can even kill. And I have it all under control now."

"I said no." Castiel was adamant about it.

"Why not?" It was almost, but not quite, a whine.

Castiel suddenly stood up and slammed his fist on the table. Luckily it held up under his angelic strength. "Do you want to end up dead, like Sam and Dean?" Castiel raged. "Even after everything I did to protect them, I lost them. I won't lose you, Jack. Not to some monster. The answer is no."

"But you let Claire hunt, and she's human," Jack protested. "That's different," Cas explained. "I don't let her hunt. She is a free spirit; she does it on her own. I merely assist her on her hunts when she is in dire need. I suppose it's my way of atoning for the tragedy I caused her family."

Jack nodded. "She told me about that. About both of those things. I can learn to be as good a hunter as she is. Maybe someday I'll even be as good at hunting as Sam and Dean were."

The mention of Sam and Dean no longer felt like the stab of an angel blade piercing Castiel's heart; it had since faded down to a dull ache in his chest. They had been more than heroes; they had been Jack's dads. It stood to reason that Castiel bringing Jack along to a hunt would honor their memory.

"Fine," Castiel relented at last. "I'll let you come along with me when the time is right."

He'd been determined at first not to give in, to ensure Jack's complete safety. But who could resist those pleading puppy-dog eyes?

Time went by, and Castiel waited for a very special day before following through with his plan. And then the day came when he drove Jack to the destination he had planned, trying to be as discreet as possible. Luckily, this didn't take much effort at all. Along the way, Jack enthused about how excited he was to finally start hunting, and how grateful he was to Castiel for the opportunity.

Castiel stopped the Impala close by the most convenient entrance to Heaven he could think of at the moment. For once, no angel stood to guard it, meaning one of two things. Either the angels didn't bother to keep Heaven in order anymore, or there weren't enough angels left in Heaven to spare for the job to be done.

"You said you were going to bring me on a hunt," Jack huffed, looking around disappointedly. "Not to some playground."

"This is no ordinary playground," Cas explained. "It's an entrance into Heaven."

"Heaven?" Jack protested. "But why? Why are we here?"

"Don't worry," Cas said as he knelt down and began drawing Enochian symbols in the dirt, "I am taking you on your first hunt. This is just a stop along the way."

They entered one after the other through the gateway. Heaven had been slowly but steadily repopulated with angels over time after the disastrous state it had been left in. The process of rebuilding what had been lost had taken so much of a toll on the angels that Castiel doubted that the fallen angel and Nephilim who now walked among them would be noticed.

After much wandering, Cas and Jack approached the door that was their destination at last.

"This is Mom's part of Heaven," Jack said in wonder, seeing the name engraved on the door in bold block letters.

"Yes, it is," Castiel agreed as they stepped through the door. "I thought you'd like to see her again."

The expansive meadow of Kelly Kline's childhood was one that Castiel and Jack had visited before. This time, there was no desperate need to save Jack, no reason for anyone to make steep sacrifices out of love the way Castiel had done.

Just when it seemed that Kelly was missing from the landscape, she appeared before them, coming from around the corner.

"Hi, mom," said Jack.

Kelly let out a soft gasp. "Jack," she said in disbelief. "I'm so glad you're here."

She moved forward and hugged him, prolonging the contact slightly to make sure that he was real. Then she pulled back, tears starting to form in her eyes as she looked at him. "How are you here? You're not dead this time, are you?" She asked cautiously.

"No," Jack confirmed. "Castiel brought me here for a visit. We're gonna go on a hunt together after this."

She looked past him then, to the angel who stood silently beside him.

"Castiel," she said. "It's good to see you again."

"Hello, Kelly," he said, smiling slightly.

As she had with Jack, she enveloped Castiel in a hug that in no way satiated Castiel's newly developed hunger for physical contact.

"What happened to you?" Kelly asked, noticing the changes, both subtle and obvious, that had come over Castiel in such a short amount of time.

"I'm a hunter now," he declared proudly.

"You are? Good for you."

Rather than try to talk Jack out of hunting, as Castiel had been anticipating, Kelly smiled widely when she turned back to her son. "Oh baby, I'm so proud of you," she said. "You'll make a great hunter. You've got Castiel, and Sam and Dean to teach you everything they know."

Castiel cleared his throat. "Actually, Sam and Dean are, um..." He didn't think he could finish the sentence properly, still not ready to speak the fact that they were dead into reality. And yet he managed to say, "They're somewhere in Heaven, I hope."

Kelly looked to him in sympathy and understanding. She had seen a similar look on Castiel's face before, the last time he and Jack had visited her in Heaven. "I'm so sorry, Castiel," she said. "They lived good lives."

"They did," Jack chimed in. "We have them a hunter's funeral, and it was...awesome! I made a new friend there, too."

"That's so great," said Kelly enthusiastically. "Why don't you tell me all about it?"

They strolled off together through the luscious landscape as Castiel hung back, waiting patiently for them to return. Time was not of the essence, as far as he was concerned. In fact, he had brought Jack to Heaven in order to buy more time to come up with a plan. For once, there was no case as of yet, no hunter in desperate need of saving or too far gone to be saved. It was a small blessing, but, until disaster struck again, Heaven would provide a distraction for Jack while Castiel came up with a solution.

By the time Jack and Kelly came back to their starting point, Castiel still had not figured out what to do about the situation he had brought himself into. Luckily, he had a way to prolong his distraction.

Their small, happy reunion over, Kelly hugged them both, in turn, goodbye. She urged them to visit her again when they could, and then they left the little piece of Heaven that belonged to her.

"Where are we going now?"Jack asked as they walked through Heaven once more.

"We have one more stop to make," Cas announced, "provided that their souls are here, and are not lingering in Purgatory."