Song Remains the Same

by R. W. Winters

For Alex Winchester, normal has never been in the equation. Mute since the nursery fire, she grew up on the road chasing ghosts with her brothers and father. When her voice is inexplicably restored and the angel Castiel appears claiming to be her guardian, both of their lives change forever in ways that Heaven and Earth never expected. Castiel/OFC. Sisfic - S4-9 - Alternate Ending.

76. Shadow of a Doubt

Song Remains the Same

Chapter 76 / Shadow of a Doubt

"Darkness building on my mind still I keep it all inside."
- Sacred Mother Tongue

---

Lansing, Michigan

Two flashlight beams skimmed over shadowed surfaces: a twin bed, a dresser, a locker-style closet, a nightstand stacked with books and journals.

"This place gives me the creeps," Dean muttered as he cautiously entered the makeshift bedroom.

Right behind him, Alex was similarly wary. "Can't imagine why…"

They were at the Campbell compound which was by all appearances completely deserted. Just a couple doors down Sam and Bobby were looking through Samuel's office space. Why? Because Sam said there was some kind of library hidden on the premises. The idea was if they could find this library, they might be able to find something more about this Eve character who was popping up and making trouble.

The last straw was a couple weeks ago when Eve sent that Khan worm and almost killed Bobby. She had the blood of Rufus Turner on her hands as well as a bunch of innocent regular Joes and as such, the Winchesters were hunting her down with intent to kill. But they needed more information… like where she was, how to track her, what could gank her. And so far they had zip, zero, zilch and oh yeah… nada. That's why they were here. They'd exhausted Bobby's resources to no avail trying to find anything about the mother, but Samuel, who'd had his hands in a few underhanded places, might have left some resources behind in his library. That was the hope, anyway.

Dean went over and opened up the locker to look for anything useful. Alex crouched to shine her flashlight under the bed. Sam said he remembered a trap door being 'somewhere' that led to a secret room where the library was. He just couldn't remember where. His memories were still pretty stark from his time being soulless and he didn't remember much. He said he could still barely remember being possessed by Lucifer. Alex saw no trap door under the bed and pushed on a knee to stand back up. She let her flashlight spotlight the books on Samuel's nightstand.

"Why you think the rest of the Campbells just disappeared?" she asked, picking a volume up and frowning at it dubiously. The entire place was a ghost town—a neat, orderly, well-supplied, ghost town. Why would people bug out without taking all these resources with them?

"Maybe there weren't any left after Gwen," Dean supposed. He was making a good bit of racket as he poked through the locker. "We won't know, now."

Alex set the book back, a little skeeved out about where they were—granddad or not, she had come to hate Samuel Campbell with a passion by now.

"Son of a bitch." Dean let out a disgusted breath of air and jiggled something at her that sounded like a tic-tac container. Alex turned to see. He was holding an orange pill bottle between his thumb and pointer and he had a wan expression on his face. "Roofies." He looked sickened and let the bottle crack back down onto the shelf he'd found it on. "You believe this motherfucker?"

Alex shook her head in disbelief as her stomach turned. Samuel had probably been using those to keep Jamie dumbed down, but Alex had a hunch that there was something supernatural involved too. After all, Jamie had been pretty brainwashed when they had found her with Samuel until her memory was jogged. As the subject of Jamie came up without being spoken aloud, Alex wondered. She knew Dean had spent a few days with her helping her find her car and weapons but… she didn't really know how it went. All she knew was Jamie had hit the road afterward and Dean hadn't said much about it either way. And now, being here at the Campbell compound, well, it really made her curious. Did Jamie maybe confide in Dean about whatever twisted shit went on here between herself and Samuel? One way to find out. Alex debated internally a couple beats. Then decided to ask. "Did Jamie say anything about… I dunno, anything?"

Dean stiffened slightly at the mention of her then gave a brief, curt shake of the head as he continued to look in the locker. "Nope."

Hmm. Alex pawed through the nightstand drawer—lighter, pens, paper. Nothing of consequence. "So how'd you two leave it?" she asked her brother, trying to sound casual.

It didn't work. He got defensive and looked at her indignantly. "What do you mean, 'how'd we leave it'?" He was trying to hard to sound like he didn't care either way. "We found her car and stuff then she took off. After I bought her a couple beers and eats. You know. To say thanks or whatever."

Alex found herself smiling in the dark despite everything. She had been right. She could hear it in the way Dean talked. "You like her, huh?"

The very idea seemed ludicrous to Dean. "Pssh." He scoffed with too much gusto. "No."

Alex chuckled and teased her brother. "Ooh you got it bad…"

"I do not!" he insisted grumpily.

Alex was still chuckling. "You make it too easy, Dean," she said fondly, because he really did. Goading him was fun, but as she thought of Jamie's experience here, she became somber again. The witch might act tough but was just as emotionally fucked up as the rest of them… and now it was worse thanks to Samuel. Alex was guilty and frankly a little worried. Jamie had no one—no family, no real friends. Only a small network of hunting acquaintances but no one to really turn to for anything besides job help. Not that Jamie would. She was the type to lone wolf it. "Wish she hadn't gotten mixed up in all of this," Alex murmured softly. It seemed like the family curse… get involved with the Winchesters, get screwed over in one way or another.

Dean took a moment to reply. "That makes two of us." He sounded pretty guilty too.

Alex shined her flashlight around the room as her thoughts deepened. "Her brother, our granddad… goes to show monsters aren't just the guys with claws." Dean turned his head to look at her tensely when she mentioned Glen so offhandedly. She was busy looking at the top of the dresser. On it, a framed photo of Samuel and his family—his wife and his daughter. She picked up the photo and contemplated it, trying to find a sign of her grandfather's true nature in that old, faded photograph. She couldn't see it, yet she knew it was there. "Honestly sometimes I think humans are the worst ones of all."

Dean shut the locker with a resounding metal clang. "I've said it before and I'll say it again." He headed over to her. "Demons, I get. People…? Who knows."

Alex set the photograph back down. "I'll drink to that," she agreed. Dean gave her a tight, cautious smile and then put his arm around her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Alex looked at her brother sidelong, scoffing and smiling at the same time skeptically. "Dean—what's with all the random hugs lately?" For the past week or so her brothers had been extremely huggy and reminiscent, and a little annoying honestly—jumpy, overprotective (insisting on accompanying her everywhere, even to the grocery store), sort of sappy. "You're acting weird. You and Sam both."

Dean scoffed too, abruptly dropping the emotional tones in his expression. "You really gonna whine about us hugging you?" He let go and shoved her head lightly. "Lame." Alex chuckled at his typical macho man reaction.

From nearby they heard Sam give a muffled shout. "Guys! In here!"

Dean and Alex were already darting out the door. They found Bobby and Sam pushing the heavy oak desk in Samuel's office backwards. "Think we found it," Sam said, grunting a little as the desk scraped across the floor. "Samuel's secret stash."

Sure enough, a trapdoor had been hidden underneath the large desk. Sam unlatched it and pulled it open. "I'll be damned," Bobby breathed as they all looked into the small, dark square. The beginnings of a ladder was visible before darkness obscured the descending rungs from view. Bobby looked up and glanced between the Winchesters. "Must be some good stuff down in there if ya gotta go through so much trouble to get to it."

"Here's hoping," Sam agreed. They were all hesitating about going down into that dark, unknown space.

"Ladies first?" Dean joked, giving Alex a teasing little grin.

Yeah right. Without missing a beat she looked at her twin expectantly. "That means you're up first, Samantha."

Sam gave a prissy little expression like he was thinking very funny guys. Either way he carefully turned and headed down the ladder. He found and flipped on the lights in the small area as Dean followed then Alex and then Bobby.

"Huh. Welcome to the Campbell family library!" Sam commented, gawking around. It was a small, clammy space with old cement walls. Even though the lights were buzzing overhead, the space was still pretty dim. Dean's flashlight skimmed over a wall of old family photos—civil war era stuff. A table and chairs sat in the middle of the room and on all the walls there were low shelves filled with books. Alex spotted a cobweb in the corner of one of the shelves and shuddered mildly.

"So Samuel collected all this stuff, huh?" Dean asked, sweeping his flashlight over the shelves on the far wall. The room felt like a bomb shelter—lifeless and cold, confined.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed, letting his flashlight sweep the space as well. "Think a lot of it might be stolen from other hunters, too. Can't remember all the details."

"Wow." Dean turned to Bobby. "All right, well, what're we looking for?"

"Anything that'll put a run in the Octomom's stockings," Bobby replied. He sounded tired already and they hadn't even started. "Pick a row."

Alex pulled a slight face as she took in the amount of books. "We're gonna be here all night."

Dean sent a little wise-ass smile her way. "Good thing I packed the bedtime stories."

That got him a slightly irritated side-eye from Alex as she gingerly pulled a cobweb-free book off the shelf she was closest to. "You know, I think you could do standup." The way she said it sounded genuine, like a compliment. Dean chuckled (that stupid little heh heh heh he did when he thought he'd hit the jackpot). And then Alex finished her sentence loftily as she cracked open the dusty volume in her hands. "…and I'd be in the front row to boo you off the stage."

Dean's grin dropped and he scoffed. "I'm hilarious!"

"Hilariously awful," Sam put in from nearby as he tried to hide a smile on his face. He got a peevish glance for the teasing comment.

"Kids, can we squabble later?" Bobby asked in weary impatience—he was forever irritated when they decided to kick it high school and see who could out-insult or out-annoy each other. "Get readin'."

Sam chuckled and answered for all of them. "Yes sir."

For about forty-five minutes they were all pretty silent and focused as they set to work dividing and conquering the stacks. Some were journals, some were library volumes, some were hand-written. None of them had anything about the mother of all or Eve, at least not that Alex found. She was in the middle of rubbing an eye in an attempt to keep herself from falling over asleep when Bobby spoke up.

"Bingo!" He waved a volume up in the air briefly. "Think I got something. Wanna gather round for story time, kids?" He sat down at the table and switched on the little reading lamp there and spread the book out, squinting at the pages. Dean and Alex joined one by one—Sam had already been sitting and reading. "You jokers ever heard anything about a Phoenix?" Bobby asked when they were all seated.

"River, Joaquin, or the giant flaming bird?" Dean asked.

"You forgot 'Harry Potter and the Order of'," Alex said. At the looks she got from her brothers she made a face. "What?"

"Nerd," Dean coughed. He got kicked in the ankle courtesy of his sister. "Ow!"

"Had that one coming," Sam commented to Dean, hiding his amusement poorly as he glanced up from the volume he was skimming.

Bobby was disgruntled at the time wasting. "I'm tryin' to talk here, idjits, can ya pay attention for three seconds?" He gave them a parental, expectant look that told them to get in line quick. Then he summarized from the book in his hand. "It says here that the ashes of a Phoenix can burn 'the mother.'"

"Hm. Sounds like what we need," Alex said thoughtfully, craning her neck to peer at the archaic illustration Bobby was looking at.

"Yeah—so where do we get one?" Dean asked.

Bobby shrugged, made a bit of a face. "You got me. I thought it was a myth."

There was a short silence. "Well I'll call the local pet stores, see if they have any," Alex said churlishly, flipping her book closed haphazardly. That would be just their luck if the one thing that could kill Eve was extinct.

"Back to the books," Sam suggested, ever the dogged optimist. "There's gotta be something about a Phoenix in all these volumes somewhere."

"Yeah right," Dean muttered, grumpy about having to do so much reading and fact-finding. "Watch us read all these friggin' books and find nothing else at all."

"That's the spirit," Bobby commented flatly, sending Dean a little side glance.

They hit the books again and spent awhile more running into dead ends before Dean was the one who hit gold. "Guys." He sounded mildly excited. "Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, check this out!" He slid into the chair at the table across from Sam. Bobby looked at Dean curiously and Alex turned halfway from where she stood at the shelf that was behind Sam. Dean began to read and he sounded pretty stoked. "'March fifth, eighteen sixty-one. Sunrise, Wyoming. Gun killed a Phoenix today. Left a pile of smoldering ash.'"

Sam looked intrigued. "Really. Whose gun?"

Dean was holding back a grin. "Colt's."

"Colt?" Sam asked. "Colt like—"

"Like the Colt," Dean said. A grin was beginning to spread across his face and it made his eyes crinkle up. "From…" he held the book up that he had just read from to show them the cover. "… Samuel Colt's journal." The leather-bound book had a devil's trap on the cover and the inside page said it was the private journal of Samuel Colt.

"What?!" Sam grinned and his eyes were bright with sudden glee. "That's his?"

"For real?" Alex asked, also feeling pretty star-struck—she'd drifted over slowly, forgetting the book she'd been skimming.

Dean was more excited than he had been in a long time. "Yeah."

Sam fangirled. "Dude, no."

So did Dean. "Dude, yes."

Alex joined in. "Awesome!"

"Well lemme me see it," Sam said, grabbing for it across the table.

Dean sat back, keeping the journal to himself. "Get your own."

"Hey!" Alex made to grab. "Share!"

Dean yanked it out of reach again. "Make me!"

"Hey, hey, can we focus here, children?" Bobby asked with a long-suffering glance at each in turn. "Dean, what else did he say about the Phoenix? What's it look like? Has it got feathers?"

Dean looked at the journal entry again. "It just says 'Phoenix.'"

Bobby's frown deepened. "Did he say where he tracked it?"

Dean shrugged mildly. "No."

"Say anything else useful at all?"

Dean shook his head once. "Uh… negative."

Bobby all but rolled his eyes. "Well I feel well equipped with knowledge, how about you chuckleheads?"

Sam rested his index finger against his lips as his thumb sat against his jaw. "Hm. Guess we just gotta find one of our own, whatever it is," he surmised.

"What if they're extinct?" Alex asked doubtfully. She let out a terse sigh and headed back to the shelf with her book. She'd been so excited for a minute there and wasn't anymore. "This is a dead end."

"Hey, how about some optimism, Eeyore?" Dean asked. He suddenly paused as he got a look on his face like he was thinking ah ha! His demeanor took on mounting excitement. "I know where we can find one." He got three very intense, expectant looks. He spread his arms like the answer was obvious to him. "March fifth, eighteen sixty-one. Sunrise, Wyoming. We'll Star Trek four this bitch."

Bobby looked to Sam in confusion, who shrugged. Bobby shrugged too. "I only watched Deep Space Nine."

Dean looked at Bobby in disbelief then at Sam who appeared clueless, then at Alex who was scratching the side of her head and frowning where she stood off by a few feet. Severely disappointed, Dean scoffed. "It's like I don't even know you guys anymore—" he gestured at his sister almost indignantly. "Alex, you remember, come on, I know you do!"

She shrugged and made a face like she thought he was half-crazy. "Well yeah but I don't know what humpback whales are gonna help with…?"

Dean gave her an incredulous, deadpan look. "Not the whale part, the time travel part."

"Ohhh…" she smiled and pointed a finger at him knowingly. "Now I see what you're getting at." She paused and then adopted a serious tone and got him back for the comment he made earlier about her being a nerd. "But I also need you to reevaluate who the real nerd in this room is."

"Yeah well you're the one who just knew the plot of a Star Trek movie," Sam pointed out in staged innocence.

She frowned his way. "Shuddup."

"Focus, kids," Bobby said, more lost than anyone else. "What's Star Trek have to do with getting us the Phoenix?"

"It's easy," Dean explained, getting intense and talking like it was the most logical plan he'd ever heard of. "We hop back in time, we join up with Samuel Colt, we hunt the Phoenix, and then we haul the ashes back home with us." He looked at Sam and Bobby like he was waiting for either of them to tell him how much of a genius he was.

"Time travel?" Bobby asked incredulously. "That's a reasonable plan?"

"Yeah! I mean we got a guy who can swing it, right?" Dean asked, not deterred. In fact, he seemed excited. He stood up and leaned over the table, shutting his eyes. "Castiel," he said loudly, surprising Alex. That name alone made her heart beat a little faster. "The, uh, fate of the world is in the balance. So, come on down here." Dean let an eye pop open and he looked around. No one appeared. "Come on, Cas, 'I Dream of Jeannie' your ass down here pronto. Please." Again, nothing. Dean frowned and looked at Alex. "Okay, well, maybe if you're the one who—"

He stopped speaking when the soft whisper of angel's wings sounded nearby. Everyone turned to look. But instead of Castiel, a polished woman had appeared. Everyone was mildly surprised—she was tall, wore a business suit, and had long blonde hair that was clipped back halfway. "…Jeannie?" Dean asked once he found his voice. Alex darkened the second she saw the angel. She knew who she was and didn't like her at all.

"Rachel," the angel corrected graciously. Her demeanor seemed pleasant enough, but Alex didn't buy it. "I understand you need some assistance?" she asked, looking from Dean to Sam with a forced smile that didn't reach her eyes. "How can I help you?"

Everyone in the room was mystified at her arrival paired with Cas's unexplained absence. "Well, uh, we kind of need to talk to the Big Kahuna…" Dean said, trying to be polite for the moment.

Rachel smiled, professional and unreadable but slightly off-putting. "I'm here on Castiel's behalf."

"…Where is he?" Sam asked, frowning faintly in worry and suspicion as he stared at the angel.

Rachel looked at him sharply even though that plastic smile held. "Busy," was her curt reply.

"With what?" Alex asked lowly, folding her arms.

Rachel looked at Alex directly and her eyes were cold and full of aversion. "Matters that do not concern you."

Indignant at the rude remark and the increasingly lofty attitude, Alex took a step closer as her arms loosened. "So he sent you?" she asked in sarcastic skepticism as her hands set onto her hips. No way. No way. He would have sent Balthazar or had Samandriel go un-invisible and deliver that message, right? Was Rachel screwing around? Had something happened to Cas?

Dean looked at the two women who were exchanging dagger stares. "I take it you two have met…?" he asked slowly.

Alex's face was cold and hard and she didn't take eyes off of Rachel. "A little." This was the angel who hadn't delivered Castiel's message to her last year. This was the angel who had lied to Cas and said Alex had gotten the message and was waiting for him when in fact Alex had spent the year not knowing where her angel was at all. She kind of despised Rachel with that in consideration… and obviously Rachel didn't like Alex either.

Dean hesitated, growing a little cautious about what was currently happening. He addressed Rachel with growing mistrust thanks to his sister's attitude. "Well listen, we've got a line on the mother of freaking everything so—"

"I'm sure your issue's very important," Rachel interrupted, smiling again in false pleasantness as she swiveled her head to look at him. Her smile was pinched, clearly phony and patronizing. "But Castiel is currently commanding an army, so—"

"So we get stuck with Miss Moneypenny," Dean muttered insolently.

Rachel's smile faded into a more unfriendly expression and her voice hardened a little. "So you need to learn your place," she corrected.

Dean's eyebrows shot up, Sam sat back in surprise, even Bobby looked shocked. "…Excuse me?" Alex challenged. "Just who the hell do you think you are?"

Rachel looked at her testily. "I'm his friend."

"What, and we're not?" Alex asked, shocked at this development and also pretty sure Cas didn't view Rachel as anything but a foot soldier and an asset—not a friend. Seriously, who did this moron think she was?

There was a deeply judgmental air to Rachel's demeanor when she replied. "I think you call him when you need something."

Again, Alex was thunderstruck. "What are you, his secretary? His mother?" Her voice was getting harder and harder because Rachel was seriously starting to piss her the hell off. "And more importantly, why is this any of your business?"

"He's my brother." Rachel stepped a little closer to Alex, heightening the tensions in the room—Dean stiffened, Sam stood up slowly behind his sister, Alex's hand twitched as she thought of her angel blade. Rachel didn't notice. She was too busy trying to act like Cas was hers or something. "He's my concern, not yours," she said in a low, hostile voice. "You don't hold rights to him."

Alex's eyebrows moved in together as her eyes narrowed. This was bordering on absurd. "What, and you do?" Cas had never said much about Rachel, but this crazy cow was acting almost like a jealous girlfriend or something.

"He belongs to Heaven, not to earth," the angel said accusingly. Her already confrontational tone was growing even more impassioned. "You've clouded his mind, you've perverted his judgement!"

Dean and Sam both looked at Alex in wordless confounded shock like they had no idea what to say to that and were a little nervous about how she would take the insults. Their sister inexplicably smiled to herself and looked down at the ground, chuckling. Rachel looked confused at the reaction. "Okay, you know what, Rachel?" Alex asked calmly. She let her tone drip superiority that would hit Rachel right where it hurt. Tilting her head back, she looked down her nose at the angel deliberately. "Don't come in here and act like you get to say where he belongs and who he answers to." She realized that she had the upper hand as Rachel's expression grew more and more angry. Alex pressed the petty advantage. "He made his choice a long time ago, bitch, and his choice was me."

Rachel's expression went cold with wrathful anger and she made to move forward. "You petty, entitled little—"

Between the two women a new person appeared with a burst of wind—it was Castiel, and he was angry. "Rachel!" His sharp ringing voice stopped her short, his appearance seemed to shock her. "That's enough."

"C-Castiel." Rachel shrank back a step, abruptly nervous and simpering. "I—I was only—"

"Save your excuses Rachel." Castiel cut her off in a dark, baleful voice. His wrathful gaze burned into Rachel unhappily and his brow was knit together deeply. "I told you not to come here." There was a long pause. Dean, Sam, and Bobby gaped at what had just happened as Castiel took a step closer to his subordinate and left no uncertainties about his stance. "You will not speak with disrespect to her. To any of them. Do you understand?"

Rachel was cowed underneath Castiel's fierce glare. "…Yes." She was diminutive and chastened but clearly sullen. "I understand." Her eyes darted to Alex darkly. There was an accusing quality to the glower.

Castiel stepped in front of Alex, blocking her from view in a demand for Rachel's gaze. "Now go."

Rachel complied but unhappily. When she disappeared, Dean crossed his arms and set Cas with a pretty challenging look. "Wow. Friend of yours?"

Cas was no longer hostile. Instead he was abruptly contrite. "No, Dean. She's my lieutenant. She's... she can be abrasive at times, but she's committed to the cause." Cas turned halfway to look at Alex, who was quiet at his side now. "I apologize for her behavior. I came as quickly as I could."

Still taken aback at what had happened, Dean cast around for support of his reaction. "Just me or did she seem kinda… interested?"

Cas's eyes crimped up. "…In what?"

"In you." Dean looked at Cas suspiciously. "Seemed pretty possessive, kinda like at desperate housewife levels."

Castiel looked even more confused than ever. "She's not my…" he trailed off, frowning deeply and glancing at Alex then abandoning his sentence completely. "That's inconceivable," he assured Dean. "Her behavior is a result of her feelings about the war. About angelic code." Cas seemed weary of himself and the world in general. "She believes that my devotion and loyalty to your family is misplaced."

Sam gave a facetious little smile and nod. "Yeah, we kinda got that."

Mildly embarrassed by all appearances, Cas looked down briefly. "I apologize if she spoke to you out of turn." He looked at Alex again and touched her gently on the arm when he saw her half-pinched expression. His deep, rough voice softened when he spoke to her. "Are you all right?"

A little self-conscious with her brothers and uncle nearby and watching, Alex's eyes were timid to meet Castiel's steady ones. "I don't like her," she muttered. Maybe it was childish, but Alex felt worried now, a little skeptical and jealous—her heart rate was still elevated from the adrenaline that had accompanied that argument she and Rachel had been getting into. "Why did she come instead of you?"

Castiel was still contrite and his gaze fell somberly. "I was in the middle of laying battle plans. She must have intercepted the prayer Dean sent. I'm sorry for the delay. I had to finish what I was doing." He let go of Alex's arm and stood there looking miserable.

Surprisingly, Dean was the one who spoke up first. And he was even nice. "Buddy, don't worry about it—we understand," he said genuinely, giving Cas a little smile that said it was okay. "Thanks for coming."

Cas looked at Dean with surprise, appearing touched. "Of course, Dean." Feeling a little more sure of himself, the angel looked around the room. "Now what is it that you need?"

"Yeah, so… we found out we need the ashes of a Phoenix to gank this bitch mother of all," Dean explained. "Well, we found a Phoenix, which is where you come in." He paused, Cas's frown deepened. "The Phoenix is like a hundred and fifty years in the past. March fifth, eighteen sixty-one, somewhere in Sunrise, Wyoming."

"…You want to travel back in time," Cas surmised after a short pause.

Apparently Dean couldn't find it within himself to resist some snark. "No, we want to sit around and play Bingo."

Castiel looked thoroughly confused. "What is Bi—" he suddenly realized. "You're being sarcastic."

Dean let that one slide. "So what do you think, Cas?" He wiggled his eyebrows, apparently pleased with whatever he was about to say. "Can we ride you like the Delorean?"

Sam made a weird, teasing face at Dean's reference. "Really sure you wanna phrase it that way, Dean?"

Dean scoffed sidelong at his brother. "Shut up."

Cas was contemplating tensely. "It's… an interesting idea. Travel to the past and use this Phoenix's ash to kill the mother." His jaw flexed briefly in a grave expression. "I'm not sure. I—I don't want to upset the balance of the timeline."

"The what?" Alex asked. He sounded strange to her. Guilty maybe.

Cas's eyes slid sidelong to look at her in a hooded way. "The timeline," he repeated. "Altering the past like that. It… could be dangerous." He sounded like he was very reluctant to even consider sending them… but hadn't he tried to change the past before with Dean? He'd had no issue with it then.

Dean smacked the angel on the shoulder in familiar horseplay. Cas seemed jarred by the shove and looked at Dean with a staunch frown. "Lighten up, Cas, we just gotta steal some ash from a Phoenix that already got shot," Dean said. "Nothing's gonna change."

Castiel thought about it for a couple more beats and even though he was reluctant, he conceded Dean's point. "I suppose you're right. If the ash is already there to begin with…" he trailed off and frowned deeply, letting his gaze flicker over the occupants of the room in turn. "Do you have any leads on Eve's location?"

Dean scratched the back of his neck, Alex made a face that said nope, and Sam answered out loud: "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"So… no," Cas surmised questioningly.

"Right." Sam hid a smile. "No."

Cas thought more then expelled a heavy breath of air and gave a single nod. "All right. I can send three of you. Any more than that and it gets complicated." He paused and looked around the room again in detail. "What is this place?"

"Campbell family library," Alex supplied.

"It's very small," Castiel observed then squinted at a shelf. "And I see spiderwebs." He looked at Alex in abrupt, serious concern. "Have you encountered any arachnids?"

A surprised, touched, amused smile popped onto Alex's face and she tried to smash it away out of self-consciousness—Bobby was peering up at them from underneath his cap, Sam was smiling like he thought it was kinda cute, Dean was shaking his head with a semi-amused but mostly-annoyed expression on his face as he looked at the floor. "Uh, no," Alex answered, trying to be tough in front of her family who she knew were all laughing at her silently. "All good on the spider front right now."

Cas nodded and that intense, soulful gaze of his burned into her briefly. He contemplated her eyes with an unrelenting, fierce nature… but was that hesitation and the beginnings of fear hiding in his eyes? Alex felt a sinking sensation and the awareness that something was amiss—and that's when his eyes darted from hers to look upward briefly. "I need to finish some things in Heaven—" he looked at Dean meaningfully and avoided meeting Alex's gaze. "Prepare for your journey back in time and I'll meet you back at Bobby's in a day or so to transport you."

Sam was suppressing a smile again. "Sounds good, Cas."

Cas acknowledged Sam with a nod then looked at Alex. His expression changed slightly to regretful and that same, strange quality still rested in the cobalt depths of his eyes. It mystified and worried Alex but she couldn't ask (not with so many extra ears present) and he didn't stay. "I'll see you later," Cas said to her quietly. Don't go, she wanted to reply. He backed away and then disappeared without anything further at all. When the space he'd occupied was suddenly empty and void, Alex fought off a nosedive of severe internal disappointment. It must not have shown outwardly… her brothers were already joking around poking fun.

"'Prepare for your journey back in time,'" Dean mimicked in a goofy, cartoonish voice.

"Oh, and are there any spiders around I can rescue you from?" Sam joked, dimples cutting into his cheeks from his amusement.

At the teasing, Alex made a royally bitchy face and rolled her eyes insolently. "Shut up."

Her clear annoyance only made them grin bigger.

---

The Next Day

Cas went to where he always did—the attic—but instead of finding Alex there, he found Dean. The oldest Winchester had his back turned to Castiel as he rummaged through large boxes quietly and intently. Cas wondered what Dean was searching for. The attic was in a constant state of tightly-packed clutter… perhaps Dean was looking for old belongings, and perhaps he would be looking for awhile through all the semi-orderly chaos. The more important question was where was Alex? Even as Cas wondered that, Dean turned around. When he saw Cas he jerked in surprise and dropped the box he was holding. "Whoa, geez—!" His hand had gone to his own chest and now chopped through the air accusingly at Cas as he began to glare indignantly. "How many times I gotta tell you not to do that?"

"Do what?" Cas questioned, finding Dean's question inconvenient and slightly nonsensical. "Arrive to where you are?" At Cas's question, Dean made a churlish face and gave a hefty sigh as he rolled his eyes. It was a predictable reaction and not worthy of much attention. Frowning a little, the angel bypassed Dean's disgruntlement. "Where is Alex?"

"Bathroom," Dean said and heaved a semi-frustrated sigh as he turned to another box near him. He began to go through it with a focused expression as he looked for whatever it was he was trying to find. "So. We're almost ready to go but I'm trying to find some stuff I remembered I stashed up here first." He glanced up at Cas and gave a sudden excitable, troublemaker's grin. "Gotta look the part."

Castiel didn't reply to Dean. He was too busy thinking about something else. Dean said we. "So Alex does plan to join you in this excursion."

"No actually," Dean replied, making a face at the broken plastic slinky he found. He tossed it backwards and kept digging. "Said seventy-nine was enough time travel for her. Bobby's going with us."

Cas tried not to let his relief show. "Oh." Truthfully he hadn't wanted her to go. Not while he was far away and unable to go with her. And with everything that had happened recently due to a change in history… this entire thing made Castiel nervous and on edge. He hoped that even if the Winchesters did succeed in finding the Phoenix ash in the past that Eve would remain elusive to them in the present. After all… he and Crowley needed her and had been trying to find her for as long as the Winchesters had… however, they hadn't been able to locate her yet. What if the Winchesters beat himself and the King of Hell to it? Cas was highly anxious thinking of that and all the things he had done in the dark, the deals he'd made, the secrets he'd kept. He didn't want them to know. He didn't want anyone to know. But he especially didn't want her to know.

"Yes!" Dean achieved success in his hunt, forcibly distracting Cas from his morose thoughts. The hunter pulled two wrinkled brown paper bags with handles out of the very bottom of the box and held them high on display as he smiled at Cas like he had won some great prize. The bags said Wally's Western World.

The angel observed his friend's mannerisms with mild intrigue and confusion. "You seem… enthused."

"Dude, it's the wild west!" Dean said, grinning widely. "And I'm going there! Do you know how cool this is?"

Was that a rhetorical or earnest question? "Uh… no." He ventured. "How cool is it, Dean?"

Dean abruptly set him with a look that implied impatient chagrin. "Very cool, Cas. Like, mondo-cool." He chuckled to himself as he pulled out what appeared to be a blanket from one of the bags. He looked at it in grinning approval, nodding. He then pulled out a small fringed vest that looked more Alex's size than Dean's. Cas wondered at this odd collection of textiles—they didn't look like things the Winchesters wore typically. Dean had sobered slightly at the sight of the vest and then he became completely serious as he gently tucked it back into the bag. "Hey Cas, while I got you alone… maybe you can help me figure something out."

Cas hesitated, a tinge of nervousness pitting itself in him. He already had a guess at what Dean wanted to know and it was something Castiel did not want to face or confront. But to seem more innocent than he was, the angel pretended to be none the wiser. "Of course Dean. What is it?"

Dean set the bags down onto the top of a box beside him slowly and he gave the impression of reluctance to speak. When he did speak, it was slow and unsure, doubtful of himself. "Last week Sam and I… we had this freaky dream thing, or hallucination or… I dunno, something." Cas stood there silently with a face like stone. They remembered. It was because in his distress, Cas had forgotten to erase their memories of that alternate reality. He had made certain to erase hers right away but he hadn't erased theirs. Then they'd woken up and Cas had hesitated to interfere with their memories. Maybe he'd hoped they would write it off or leave it alone. But obviously it was still bothering Dean.

Dean proceeded to explain what had happened, not seeming to suspect Cas as being the culprit even for a moment. "We were us and we were still hunters but…" he trailed off and chuckled nervously. "It sounds so crazy, but a bunch of stuff was different in our lives and the world. You wanna know why? Because Balthazar unsunk the Titanic, you believe that?"

Cas felt mildly sick and made himself look faintly bemused. "How strange."

Dean shared the sentiment and he was speaking in a tone of disturbed hesitation. "Yeah, one word for it. Some pretty major things changed. Ellen and Jo were still alive, for example but…" the hunter's face pinched a little as he looked down with an unreadable expression. "Alex wasn't."

Cas remembered her: fifteen years old and frail, scarred by her own hand, fading away and dying as he held her. What a miserable liar's question Castiel asked next: "You're saying… she died?" He tried to sound appropriately shocked, confused, and taken aback, as if he didn't already know what Dean did.

Dean nodded grimly. "Yeah. Dude, it felt so real, Cas. And it would have been weird enough if I had dreamed it by myself but Sam? …He dreamed it too." This was difficult for Cas—Dean looking at him in worry and trust, asking for answers Cas was too ashamed to give. "We both dreamed the exact same thing, I mean down to every detail we compared. So… you got any idea what happened to us? You know anything about that?"

In a twisted and childish attempt to paint himself as blameless, Cas tried to appear even more confused. "Why would I?" Instead, he sounded mildly defensive.

Dean made a little bit of a face at Cas's tone and held his hands up in an implication of put-out surrender. "I dunno, sometimes you know this stuff! Don't have to get bitchy about it."

Cas hesitated. He didn't want to lie outright. So instead, he guiltily suggested a falsehood to his friend in an attempt to derail Dean from the line of questioning. "Perhaps it was a coincidence."

Dean scoffed. "Really? A coincidence that we both had the same dream?"

Cas faltered, panicking internally even as outwardly he remained frowning and unreadable. "Well what other explanation can you think of?" Playing the fool was the only way out of the line of suspicion for him.

Frustrated, Dean's expression seemed to indicate that he was wondering if Castiel had lost part of his mind. "Dude, dunno if you've noticed but I live a pretty twisted life, I can think of like a zillion explanations."

Cas realized that Dean was many things, but afraid was the dominant emotion… he was afraid that it had been real and could happen again. Cas thought of erasing Dean and Sam's memories of that alternate reality that he and Balthazar had created, but it felt wrong to do that so far after the fact. Tampering with minds was something he now knew was morally wrong. So, instead of erasing the memory and also lessening the trail of clues, Cas attempted to explain it away and continue playing the card of ignorance. "Well as far as I'm aware, nothing is wrong or has affected you or Sam supernaturally." He paused as Dean nodded slowly with a tense expression. Cas decided he could also try to blame Dean's love of substances, perhaps cast his thoughts into doubt. He made his voice utterly grim and low. "Were you and Sam under the influence of psychoactive drugs when you had this dream?"

Dean soured indignantly. "No, Cas, we were not high."

There was a slightly awkward pause. Cas felt uncomfortable but knew his question wasn't unreasonable. "It was a fair guess, Dean."

Dean did have to concede that fact. "Yeah, it was."

There was another short silence. "I'll keep my eyes and ears open and tell you if I find any information regarding this mystery," Castiel told Dean after a moment. He lied, to put it plain. It wasn't a 'mystery' why Dean and Sam had 'dreamed' what they had. Cas knew exactly what had happened and as such felt great pity and horror alike for the circumstances he found himself in and the unthinkable things he was doing. Still, he tried not to dwell on it. If he did, he would begin to hate himself. He tried to reassure the other man. "I wouldn't worry, Dean."

Dean made a soft sound like psh as he shook his head ruefully. "All I know how to do is worry. And you don't know how real it felt, how…" he trailed off and his face was stretched tight by all the memories.

Cas could secretly relate. "I'm sorry Dean," he said heavily, and he was sorry. To have caused that pain even though most of it had been swept away to never exist at all. Dean remembered. Sam remembered. Cas remembered. And it hurt, it was terrifying. "It must have been heart-wrenching for you." Real emotion slipped into that statement.

There was mild surprise in Dean's expression as he looked at Cas with a certain type of appreciation and possibly even the beginnings of some kind of respect. That look on the hunter's face made Cas feel even lower than before. But Dean was none the wiser and was now obviously very grateful for Castiel's empathy and understanding. "Yeah," he said, then smiled tightly despite some remaining somberness. "Yeah, thanks Cas." Dean looked like it was difficult for him, but he still said it: "You're… an all right guy. Thanks for keeping an ear out."

There had been a day when Cas had wanted so badly for Dean to treat him with respect. And now when he did… Cas felt unworthy of it. A feeling of self-loathing sank deeply in his stomach. It had been tolerable and acceptable for some time, the need to deceive and work in the shadows. But now it was abhorrent and Castiel could barely stand himself. What would Dean think if he knew? How fast would he be to condemn Cas for what he'd done? Or would he, perhaps somehow, understand the impossible decisions the angel had been forced to make? Castiel wanted to believe they would all understand and sympathize with him but he had a deep feeling of dread inside. They won't. None of them.

Dean was looking at Cas with crossed arms and a studious, sympathetic expression. "So uh, you think the war upstairs is gonna be over anytime soon?" he asked, apparently thinking Castiel was being silent because he was thinking of his heavenly duties.

Cas dodged the questioning gaze as his guilts and fears consumed him. "I don't know, Dean." Not soon enough, that was for certain. He wished he could see the end of these deep, dark hours that were warping him and dragging him down.

Footsteps could be heard coming up the attic stairs. Dean smiled sadly and patted Cas on the side of the shoulder encouragingly like he sometimes did to Sam and Alex. "Well just hang in there buddy."

The gesture was not lost on Cas, and the friendship Dean was offering, however slightly, touched him. "I'm attempting to," he said, trying not to appear as guilt-ridden as he was.

The footsteps on the stairs reached the top and Cas slowly turned to see her come in. He was almost reluctant to see her. He'd never felt that way before and it worried him, confused him, pained him. But he was just so afraid that she might see straight through him, he was afraid of her knowing how he'd changed the past and had been ultimately responsible for her death in that alternate reality. He felt that every time they met surely this time she would discover everything he was hiding, surely this time she would catch him in a lie. He hated who he was becoming. He almost felt like he shouldn't be around her and it was the strangest, most disturbing feeling he had ever possessed.

Alex's familiar brown head of hair poked through the open attic doorway. Mild surprise and happiness showed on her face when she saw him there and then she hesitated at the doorway, clearly wondering what kind of moment she was coming into. She became faintly cautious. "Hi guys." She said 'guys' but she only had eyes for Castiel, who could only think of her at fifteen and dying in his arms.

"Welp, that's my cue." Dean grabbed up his bags and headed for the stairs.

Alex folded her arms and looked at the bags with a discerning, curious frown. "What is that?" Dean briefly held a bag up wordlessly. When she saw the store logo on the bags a very peculiar look came over her face—she seemed to be thinking that she should have known. "You are such a dork," she said, but it almost sounded like a compliment or a loving remark.

Dean cracked a grin at her before he departed. "Takes one to know one." He clopped down the stairs loudly with his bags and Alex and Cas were left alone.

Uncomfortable and not able to look at her very long without feeling terrible things, Cas instead looked down. He felt how his body was in a state of heightened anxiety. His stomach was queasy, his veins fluttered with sickening nerves, his palms felt damp, his throat felt dry. All because of what was happening in his mind. The floorboards creaked as she came a little closer and all of his anxieties intensified. Cas made himself look at her lest she suspect him further, but he felt like a miserable man and his thoughts on himself weighed on him more heavily than ever. The worst part of that moment for Cas was the worry on her face, the worry about him. "You okay, Cas?" she asked with heartfelt concern.

No. He was not okay. He ached for all he had done, all he was going to do. He wanted to tell her so badly, he wanted to pour himself out at her feet and beg her forgiveness and understanding, her help. But no one could help him. Not now. He was too deep in and too far gone. He couldn't bear himself—how could she? So he lied. "Of course I am," he said, trying to sound pleasant and unassuming. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Her eyebrows rose faintly and she seemed almost sad that he would ask that. "I can think of a few reasons."

Abruptly overwhelmed with dismay because he couldn't even number the reasons he was not okay, Cas turned his back on her, trying to put himself together emotionally. He tried to change the subject, he tried to make her think the only thing bothering him so greatly was what he spoke on next. "I'm sorry about Rachel. She's… she can be petty."

He heard Alex very slowly coming up behind him. "Yeah… she seems just a little unfriendly." She was being forcibly light but she also sounded… wary? Skeptical? Worried, certainly. Worried about him. Cas shut his eyes for a brief second. She was right to worry. What am I doing? This certainly can't be the correct way to handle this. Lies, distractions, deceptions…

All of it was to keep his Alex safe. All of it was to save the world itself. He couldn't risk everything he'd set into motion falling apart or failing. He had to follow through. He had to see it to the end, no matter what he felt and no matter what he had to do. With that in mind, Cas tried to keep speaking about Rachel in an effort to cast suspicion off of himself, in an effort to give a reasonable excuse for his behavior. "The way she spoke to you was unacceptable," he said, which was very true. He was very angry with his lieutenant who had been missing since the confrontation at the Campbell library. "I'm frankly very close to demoting her." A piece of truth, finally. He was close to telling Rachel to get out of his sight and stay out until she could accept his loyalty to and vested interest in Alex and the Winchesters. But he couldn't afford to lose any more allies, so he was 'stuck' with Rachel. "Unfortunately I have next to no one left at my side." He meant in Heaven. He meant in the war. But he felt her arms circle his middle from behind and she rested a cheek against his back.

"Well, you have me."

Her quiet statement touched him and devastated him all at once. "Yes." He looked down at where her hands hugged around him and instead of reassurance he felt a thick, dreadful sense of doubt. "I have you." The doubt wasn't in her, but in himself. He'd lost her briefly for that alternate timeline. And he still thought about that horrific future he'd glimpsed in 2014. Life and love were both precious and frightening… because anything that could be had or held could also be lost and torn away. Including her. Angel or not, he faced so many internal fears. There were things he couldn't control or change, things he couldn't guarantee or know. One of his greatest fears was that he wouldn't be able to save her immortal soul once all was said and done. And Heaven help him, he had to. Had to. Slowly, he turned to her, allowing her to loosen her arms on him. When he came face to face with her and saw how deeply her eyes searched his, he felt the conflicting needs to both run away and also cling to her tighter. Overcome, he touched the side of her face and looked into her eyes in utter silence, wishing so much it hadn't come to this life of lies.

She was so beautiful to him, even when so clearly worried and confused. Her eyes were so vivid and startling on close inspection and made him think of creation itself. He bowed his forehead to hers as he let out a soft, anxious exhale through his nose and shut his eyes in anxiety—he just needed to feel her against him, hold her for a minute, rest with her like this. The way she leaned into him and softened into his embrace made his chest clench—she trusted him even though she was so clearly aware that something was wrong. His hand moved to the back of her neck and he breathed her in, reminding himself why he was fighting this abominable war, why he was subjecting himself to the things he was. For this, for her, for them. He remembered her dying in his arms twice now… in 2014 and in 1998 and he held her tighter as his chest tightened painfully. She wouldn't die. He was going to make sure of it. In a silent promise and a deep yearning, he hesitantly tipped his chin forward fractionally to press his lips to hers in a simple, soft, quiet kiss that lingered—a kiss he felt guilty to give but helpless not to initiate. I'll save you. For a moment, everything felt right and as it should be and the touch of her lips made him feel less abominable for however long a moment. He felt her responding to his kiss, craning her neck forward to him to push her lips against his more fully and then brushing fingers against his cheek.

Warmth, comfort, belonging, thankfulness all washed over him and he knew he was loved and vastly so. Then he thought that he had perhaps cheated his way into this love she gave and he pulled away from the kiss, guilty all over again. Alex had taken hold of his lapel with a hand and was looking at him with questioning confusion. She was clearly made doubtful by his strange behavior, his unexplained actions and the way he held her. He had no words for her, no explanation, and that look in her gaze killed him inside. "Cas—?" she started very quietly and slowly.

He was afraid of what she'd ask and what she'd say. He didn't want to lie to her. As such he cut her off and stepped back jarringly, preventing her from saying anything else. "We should go downstairs," he said. Before she could protest, he moved them both to the entrance of the study instantly. She was startled by the sudden jolt but said nothing, just looked at him with an odd expression as she recovered from the surprise of being taken from one place to the next with no warning.

There was only one occupant in Bobby's office: Bobby. "Howdy," he said and tipped the cowboy hat he was wearing in their direction. He seemed unfazed by the sudden appearance. "The boys're getting dressed for the dance." He spread his arms slightly, indicating his outfit. "How do I look?"

"Uh… not bad." Alex said, visibly making herself focus on Bobby and not Cas. The older man wore his regular outfit: jeans, boots, a faded shirt with a rolled-up sleeve flannel over it. The only thing different was what was on his head. Alex squinted, a dawning amused smile on her face. "All you did was switch hats, huh?"

"A-yup." Bobby was busy pulling out assorted gold objects from a lock-box on the desk. "Can you get me that bag from the kitchen? Gotta pack us some currency for this shindig." Alex complied after another hooded glance at Cas. Bobby turned his attention to the angel. "Cas. Nice to see ya. Sure you don't wanna join us for this little rodeo?"

Alex brought in duffel bag and Cas's eyes watched her sidelong as he replied to Bobby. "No, thank you," he replied stiffly. "I can't at this time."

"All right, well don't ever say I didn't ask you nothin'," Bobby said in that muttering, weary way he had of speaking. Cas wasn't sure what that meant but made no reply. He was watching Alex stuffing gold items into the bag and trying to pinpoint where he could have made different and better choices. Even though he was about to send the Winchesters and Bobby back into the past, he was so aware that he could not go into his own past and change the things he'd done. She kept glancing up at him and he saw her worry. Her skepticism.

Two sets of footsteps came down the stairs and Sam and Dean appeared dressed in very different clothing than usual. While Sam was visibly unhappy and attitude-ridden, Dean was swaggering. As they came into view, Alex stopped what she was doing and looked at her brothers with a taken aback expression. "Whoa. You… look…"

"Stupid," Sam said, throwing his arms out insolently and giving his sister a churlish look. "I look stupid."

"Uh no. You're not the one who looks stupid." She tilted her head at her oldest brother and made a face. "Dean, what are you doing?"

He strutted into the room and shot finger-guns at the sky as he chuckled, extremely pleased about his appearance. "Raise 'em high, pard-ner!"

"…You goin' to a hoe down?" Bobby asked Dean in skeptical entertainment.

Castiel wasn't sure about the material draped over Dean from neck to waist. "Is it—is it customary to wear a blanket?"

"It's a serape," Dean corrected, trying in vain to quench a grin. "And, yes. It's, uh…" at the strange looks he was getting from everyone in the room, Dean stopped mid-sentence. "Never mind. Let's just go." He glanced at the bag of gold. "What's this?"

"Where we're goin' they don't take Visa," Bobby wisecracked.

Dean smirked to himself and picked the bag up, tossing it at Sam. "Fair point." Sam caught the heavy bag and staggered a little underneath its weight.

"Don't spend it all in one place," Alex joked.

"I'll send you back to March fourth," Cas said, motioning for Bobby to join the brothers. "That should give you time to find this Phoenix creature and its ash. But before I do…" he looked at them seriously. "About your plan. You'll only have twenty-four hours."

"Wait, what?" Sam asked, confused.

Dean frowned a little, eyes narrowing. "Why?"

Castiel began to answer honestly. "Well, the answer to your question can best be expressed as a series of partial differential equations. Time in all factions works linearly, not alike a—"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Dean said, holding a hand up. "Don't bring the evil of math and science into this."

Bobby agreed. "Aim lower."

Frustrated about how to explain the details of it, Cas tried his best regardless. "The further back I send you, the harder it becomes to retrieve you," he said. "Twenty-four hours for you there is all I can risk. And it will be twenty-four hours here as well. If I don't pull you home within that time, you'll be lost."

There was a short silence. The brothers glanced at each other—then Sam shrugged. Dean seemed to decide it wasn't a big deal. "Well then, we better get you a watch," he said jokingly. He turned to give his sister a pointed look. "Make sure he doesn't lose us, Al," he said, then looked back at the angel. "And make sure she's okay here alone, Cas." He was utterly serious about that one and it was clear from the look on his face.

Cas nodded once. "Of course."

Dean studied him a second longer then nodded back, adopting the cavalier attitude from before as he let a wide, crooked grin split his face. "All right, well… see ya at high noon tomorrow." He winked and clicked his tongue in his mouth cheekily and gave his sister a little smirk. "Yippee ki-yay."

She rolled her eyes even as she smiled ruefully. "Be careful, Three Amigos."

Cas reached out to touch them and then paused, giving Sam, Bobby, and Dean grim glances. "Do not change history if you can avoid it."

"Got it, Cas," Sam said. Dean signed 'OK' with his hand and Bobby nodded once. Despite his better judgements, Cas touched the brothers then Bobby, sending them hurtling back in time to March of 1861. And so it was done.

Behind Cas, he heard the floor creak a little as Alex shifted her weight. He waited a long, painfully silent moment and she finally spoke up. "So… they're there?"

"Yes." Cas turned around and hid beneath a serious, stoic exterior. "You don't need to worry. They'll be fine."

His statement made her eyes narrow softly and her eyebrows work in toward each other faintly. "You sure about that? Kind of makes me nervous."

Filled with regret, Castiel touched the side of her face and studied her features as anguish tore at him inside. "I'm not sure of much anymore, Alex. But they'll be fine." Before she could continue to question him, he glanced upward and drew back. "I should return. Pray for me in twenty four hours. Samandriel is outside should you need immediate assistance."

"You can't stay?" The tone in her voice of mild hurt was not lost on him, nor the way she tried to hide a very deep disappointment.

He could have stayed if he truly wanted to. But he was a coward in that moment and a lie was already formed on his tongue. Hesitant to fully meet her gaze, Cas shook his head once. "I'm afraid not." He couldn't face her right now.

She hesitated, then charged forward in cautious earnestness. "Cas, look, I'm starting to get the feeling that something's really wrong… am I way off base?"

Bristling out of alarm at her insight and how close she seemed to seeing everything, Castiel reacted more harshly than he meant to in an attempt to cover himself. "There is a war in Heaven, Alex." His snapping tone startled them both and even Cas was shocked at himself. His temper had flared and he hadn't been able to control it. Subdued and sorry, he swallowed. He didn't know how to fix this quickly crumbling situation and as such, another lie came out of his mouth. "I… have to go."

She was hurt and confused but he saw how she believed him with the war being at the root of his behavior. "Okay." She flattened her mouth out and the disappointment on her face defeated him. "I'll just… wait here then."

He was hurting her, bewildering her, and causing her emotional turmoil. And with his guilt tripling with every second, Cas had to leave. Without saying goodbye, without anything further, he leapt through the dimensions, effectively running away from her and from facing himself.

Everything he'd done crushed down on him like the heaviest gravity known to man and he was consumed misery and thoughts of his shortcomings and misdeeds, his depravity, his cowardice. It all ran through his mind darkly: His deal with Crowley, him raising Sam wrong and lying about it, his possession of Alex's soul claim, the lies he'd told her about that. Tricking the Winchesters intentionally into thinking Crowley was dead, creating thousands of new human souls in an attempt to use them to his own gain… the terrible alternate reality he'd created instead. All he was trying to do was the right thing, so why was he feeling more and more sickening doubt about his choices?

Every direction he turned, the walls were closing in. The prison he was building himself only sealed his fate further. Some dreadful crescendo was on its way and he felt it but ran from it, trying even harder to finish this terrible thing he had started. If he could just finish it, if he could just have it end…

He had to end it. The actions he'd taken had to pay off or he wouldn't be able to live with himself. The worst part of it all was that he was beginning to truly doubt his victory in this war. So many angels had died, so much time had transpired. It felt hopeless and futile down the deepest part of himself, the place he thought a soul might be.

He contemplated the trust Alex put in him, the love she loved him with—and he knew that he didn't deserve it. It felt more and more as if he were tricking her into loving him by keeping the secrets he kept. He knew he shouldn't continue in the path he was on. And yet he still did. He was too afraid to confess it all, he was too afraid it would all collapse and break if he didn't see it through. He was too afraid.

In irrationality and despair, he clung to that idea of Alex and himself together and happy someday after all this. She would understand his actions when he had found victory and succeeded in saving her. She would forgive him. He would never, ever lie to her again. They would be happy, it would be like that night they stole together after marrying. Quiet, safe, honest, true.

He would do anything to get them there again. Anything.

---

A vague amount of time passed for Castiel. One moment he was on the battlefield and discussing battle plans with Ezekiel, the next he was suddenly pulled from there and to a cold, empty warehouse. It was startling and unexplained, and Castiel was immediately on guard. He saw no one nearby and the large, industrial space seemed deserted. Who had done this? Who had forced him here? Crowley? He frowned deeply, scanning the dank place for lifeforms. And then behind him, he felt her arrival. He turned around even as she spoke up. "We need to talk."

It was Rachel, and Castiel was as close to indignant as he'd ever been. "You summoned me here?" he asked in a hard, disbelieving voice. Forced summonings were not conducted by friends. And from the severe look on her face, he could see that this meeting could perhaps prove most unfortunate.

"Castiel, I've been hearing things," she said in a soft, measured, treacherous voice. Cas's chest constricted in a pang of panic. "Seeing things," she continued with veiled, mistrustful eyes. "Things I find disturbing. Things that I didn't believe for a long time, but now… now I wonder. Just tell me if it's true."

Another pang of panic struck him. What did she know? What had she heard? About Crowley? About the souls? About his secret, forbidden marriage? "If what's true?" Cas asked, staying on high guard.

"You know," she said without blinking. "Your dirty little secret."

Cas bristled defensively, immediately assuming that she meant his wife. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, but I do," she said softly, dangerously. She began to approach him and her tone was laced with deep judgmental piousness. "Leaving battles in the hands of others so you can assist them? Her? Changing history to try and generate human souls for your own purposes? Even I find that deplorable, and I don't care about humans as much as you apparently do! And then the demon." Her expression was chilling. "The King of Hell. Is it true?"

Confronted for the first time by a fellow angel about all of his unseemly actions, Castiel was stricken. How did she find out? He'd been so careful to cover his tracks. The only small mercy was that she didn't seem to know about what he'd done that April day in 2010 with Alex. He could only imagine Rachel's reaction to that and he could only imagine the ridicule and disgust he would face from the entirety of Heaven should the secret marriage be discovered. He already faced enough disdain and scorn for his love of her as it was. Rachel was waiting with a masked anger for Cas's reply—she wanted to know if it was all true. And Castiel was too tired, too frustrated, too jaded to attempt a lie. "I have to defeat Raphael," he all but growled, not in the mood or mind to argue with his sister.

Mild disgust showed on the other angel's face. "Not this way, Castiel."

"Rachel—you don't understand, I—"

"We put our faith in you, and look what you're turning into!" Her voice punched through the cold air loudly, echoing slightly in the huge, empty space they stood in. She let her statement hang for a moment to send guilt unfurling in Cas then she fixed him with an insolent expression as she shook her head. "Do you imagine yourself that different from Lucifer?" she questioned, shocking Cas all over again. "He was self-righteous, misguided, thought his way was right. He put his own feelings above everything else. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I just described you!" Her statement slammed into him like a wall of bricks. His every worst assumption about himself was true, and Rachel was confirming it. "Listen to reason, Castiel!" she exclaimed. "You aren't yourself anymore. Ever since her you've been different, lesser, confused, lost! I thought you were fighting this war for us, for the angels." She sneered in disgust as she looked off, apparently too revolted to even look at him. "Not for some human speck."

The insult inflamed him. His face was like a stone as anger coursed in his blood. "You will not call her that," he growled flatly, taking an intimidating step forward. Nothing upset him further than someone attempting to belittle the one he loved so fully.

Rachel stepped forward too, meeting his threat without care. "I'll call her what I like!" she retorted. "Alex Winchester has corrupted you, she's perverted your viewpoint!" In both disbelief and superiority, Rachel raised her head and looked down her nose at Cas frostily. "I wonder, if it weren't for her, if you would even be fighting this war. Perhaps Heaven would still be as it was before—peaceful, orderly—not ripping apart at the seams!"

Castiel had never felt as insulted as he was right then. "You're implying this is her fault?" he demanded, incensed and incredulous. "No. I started this war, I will end it!" His powerful, loud timbre echoed through the warehouse.

"By what means, brother?" she questioned softly.

His reply was immediate and severe, unforgiving. "By any means necessary. Rachel, the apocalypse is imminent unless we do this, do you not understand?" He didn't comprehend her apathy, her utter lack of care for what was at stake. It could be the end of the world should Raphael win, it could be the death of every human alive, it could be the extinction of the entire human race.

Rachel turned cynical. "Yes. I understand. Castiel. I understand that it isn't too late for you to stop living with your feet on earth in some hedonistic fantasy. You are a son of Heaven—start acting like it!" Rachel was growing furious. "Forget the human, Castiel! She's done nothing but sully you and lessen your greatness!"

Again, he stepped closer, his glare burning into her. "No." Cas's face was hard and his emotions were in turbulence. He felt the need to disprove what Rachel was saying. He hung onto the things he knew were good in himself, and most of those good things were connected intrinsically to Alex. She had not ruined him—she had built him up and given him things he had never had before in all of time: hope, love, peace, comfort, the sense of belonging. He had learned feelings and intimacy and beauty with her, she had given meaning to so many things he had never even comprehended or had hope of comprehending. She was everything to him, and he said as much. "She's made me who I am today." Because of her he was Heaven's patriot, a revolutionary, a commander who had gained infamy for his doggedness and tenacity. He had a cause to uphold, he had something worth fighting for. Her. Who had he been before Alex? Another angel among thousands. Just Castiel, the angel of Thursdays. The angel of Solitude. The Watcher.

Now he was trusted, wanted, important. Lover. Friend. Confidant. Husband.

When he said Alex had made him who he was, Rachel fumed and scoffed and began to tear him down. "What, fallen? An angel who would stoop to Hell itself to commit atrocities against his species and legacy? You're not the leader I thought you were! You've tricked us all!" Her accusations all hit him hard and his doubts and fears came howling back. "And what's worse, you're at this human's every beck and call, you act as if she is the most important being in all of existence—she's nothing, Castiel, another trivial human among billions! What has she done to you? How has she deluded you like this?! You weren't meant to serve humanity, you were meant to lead armies and serve God, you're a warrior! So why do you let this insignificant speck control you?"

Temper molten hot at the continuous insults, Castiel gave Rachel a condemning glare. "Call her insignificant again and you will live to regret it," he threatened. He meant it, too. He had reached his limit of tolerance in all respects. Instead of appearing intimidated, Rachel became scornful. This was going nowhere and fast—Cas didn't think Rachel would ever understand why he felt the way he did. But he didn't stop trying to defend Alex and put whatever blame his sister saw onto his own shoulders. "She doesn't control me," he said in a harsh, argumentative voice. "I do what I do because I love her."

Rachel appeared to have been stung at that word. "Love." Reviled, she sneered. "Are you really so stupid? Have you forgotten our brother Mariel? He loved too, or so he claimed… and because of it and that human he fawned over, all of Pompeii was destroyed and he still abides in prison to this day! He couldn't control what the disease of 'love' did to him. Can you?" The abhorrence twisting her features was growing more and more pronounced. "Castiel, your little preoccupation with the female Winchester was tolerable at best in the beginning but I can't continue stand by while you go down this dangerous, foolish road." She gave her ultimatum: "I will not follow you or condone what you're doing anymore."

Castiel was embittered, sorrowful, resigned, and defeated all at once. Another of his own kind turning their back on him. It was nothing new, but it truly pained him by principle. "I'm sorry to hear you say that," he said stiffly. "But, I suppose this has been a long time coming." Perhaps he shouldn't have ever given her a second chance after her first betrayal—the failure to deliver his message to Alex last year. He couldn't change that. All he could do was tell her he would not bend to her will. "I am not abandoning Alex." His voice was almost menacing. "Now or ever. And as far as the things I am doing to win the war… I don't have a choice, Rachel." He was realizing at that moment that he couldn't let her go—she would tell everyone else about his deeds. He was going to have to kill her to keep her silent.

Rachel seemed to be realizing the fatal nature of the conversation at that exact same moment. "Then I'm sorry," she said. "But neither do I." She took a step back and smiled at him calmly. Too calmly. And then instead of drawing her weapon, she disappeared without explanation, leaving Cas to blink in utter shock. Unbelievable! She fled like a coward! Cas stared, truly surprised she wouldn't fight him or face him. And then Castiel realized oh no… she hadn't fled from him. She'd gone to his heart and soul itself to hurt him and kill him in a way nothing else could. Panicking, Castiel rushed to Bobby Singer's home where Alex had essentially been left all alone.

---

Alex glanced up from her book at the wall clock in Bobby's study for the millionth time. Just about three hours to go until the twenty-four hours were up. Alex gave a low, frustrated sigh. The Singer house was lonely and empty without Bobby shuffling around and grumbling about politics and reality TV, without Dean and Sam quibbling and getting in the way, without any other human being in it except herself. She was regretting her decision not to go with her brothers to the past now because… so bored.

Samandriel was supposedly outside, watching as usual. But she hadn't heard a peep from him since that time he brought flowers for her. Alex returned her attention to the book she was attempting to read. Pacing back and forth slowly because she was so tired of sitting, she probably looked half-crazy walking slow circles and back-and-forths across the study with her nose stuck in a book. She was distracted from her attempt to read by thoughts of Cas. He had been acting more and more oddly lately. She had the distinct feeling that he was avoiding telling her something. She couldn't imagine what though and wanted to believe she was just imagining stuff. Blaming her paranoia and overthinker mind, she tried not to dwell. He was under enormous stress. The war was impossibly difficult for him. That was all… she hoped.

Even as she thought that, a powerful blast of wind knocked into Alex and made her eyes blink rapidly against sudden dryness.

Before she could even register what was happening, Alex was seized brutally by the throat and shoved up against the wall hard enough to dent it—her book went flying to the ground even as she grabbed at her assailant blindingly, unable to find purchase for a brief moment. Her feet dangled above the ground and Rachel's cold, wrathful face was inches from Alex's. "I should have slain you when he told me to deliver that ludicrous message to you," she spat, easily holding Alex against the wall with one hand. "I should have known you would be his downfall—the day he set eyes on you he was ruined!" Alex's feet kicked wildly as she tried to breathe and get away, but her windpipe was crushed under Rachel's iron grip. To no avail Alex fought to pry the fingers away as the angel kept ranting at her venomously. "Do you know the lengths he's fallen from grace for you? The pains you've dragged him through, the filth you've soiled him with?!" She whipped out her blade with her free hand and the wicked tip flashed ominously as she raised it high overhead. Alex felt close to asphyxiation as it was and woozily looking up at the point of the blade which was about to plunge into her skull and end her life.

Just when Alex thought it was all over, her attacker was ripped off her by an invisible force and thrown sideways like a rag doll. Rachel crashed sideways into the window of the study, shattering it when her lower half hit. She fell down onto the study floor but was already getting back up. She hadn't lost her grip on her weapon.

On the floor too and slack against the wall, gasping in lungfuls of air through a bruised windpipe, Alex clutched her own throat as she reeled. She looked up and saw that Castiel stood in the middle of the study and his blade was at his side, his expression was utterly murderous. He was glaring daggers at Rachel as he breathed fast and hard, as if he'd sprinted somewhere. "Stay—away—from her." He stood between Alex and the other angel, blocking another attack.

Rachel was half-crazed with rage and she stared with wild eyes at Castiel as she stood back up. "You were supposed to be the chosen one! You were supposed to be God's favorite!" She was shrieking at that point and heaving with fury, almost spitting in anger. "But you're just as low as they are! As wretched and hopeless, as twisted and as evil!" She let out a cry and thrust her hand into the air at Castiel, who suddenly went flying backwards into a bookshelf by invisible angelic powers. The wood cracked and groaned as he impacted, books spilled out and went sailing into the air as Rachel's gaze slid to Alex malevolently.

Oh shit. Scrambling to stand and get away, Alex wasn't fast enough. Rachel strode forward and grabbed her up and whirled her around as Cas fumbled to his feet. Rachel held Alex's back against her chest hard, pressing the cold metal of her angel blade at her neck. Holding stock still, Alex stared wide-eyed at Cas. What was happening right now? What brought this on?!

Cas stopped short and held out a staying hand and his expression was utterly afraid. "Rachel—please—don't hurt her."

A humorless laugh escaped the other angel. "Raphael is right—all of them are right," she replied scornfully. "You're pathetic. So weak." She almost seemed to be taunting him at that point. "Look at you. I could make you do anything right now with my blade at the neck of your precious little human whore."

Castiel's nostrils flared, his jaw clenched hard, he took a step forward as his knuckles turned white on the the hilt of his blade. When he did that, Rachel dug the length of the blade harder into Alex's neck and when Alex gave a wince and a sharp exhale, Cas stopped short as his rage rear-ended into terror. Alex made herself think smart and stay calm. Her throat hurt, she was reeling from the last thirty seconds or so, but she still had her wits about her. Then she realized… wait a minute. Inside her jacket, held in place by the sort of shoddy little system she'd sewn (badly) all by herself, her angel blade. It pointed backwards and rested along her side. So if she could get a little leverage and twist just right… she could possibly wound Rachel without much movement at all. Alex looked at Cas meaningfully, slowly, intensely, trying to convey a plan. She let her eyes go downward toward her blade. Cas knew she kept the weapon there. All Alex needed was an opportunity. A distraction. Her eyes then slid sidelong toward Rachel and then she let her eyes flick back at Castiel. Did he get her meaning?

His face registered brief questioning, then he seemed to think it through and he realized what she was silently telling him. He became deadly serious and stiffened just a little in preparation. He provided Alex the opportunity she needed and looked at the other angel with a hard expression that was half sick. Alex saw how scared he was of her getting hurt. His voice wavered. "Rachel… let her go. Now."

Rachel thought she'd won and spoke in a cool, triumphant voice. Her death grip lessened just a little on Alex. "I'm done taking orders from you, Castiel."

Even as she was saying that, Alex used the slight distraction to her advantage. With all of her strength, she threw her own weight back against Rachel and twisted, slamming her hand against the top of her own blade's hilt where it rested beside her ribcage, driving it through the back of her own jacket and into Rachel's torso by about three or four inches.

"Ahh!" Shocked and wounded, Rachel stumbled back with a hand against her glowing blue wound—Alex went sideways thanks to a hard shove. Her shoulder collided with hard wood as she stumbled down into a heap against the side of the desk. She looked up in time to see it happen: Rachel briefly forgot her weapon and it hung at her side limply while she stared down at the bleeding, glowing hole in her middle. Castiel had been ready and blindsided her with a killing blow, plunging his blade deep into her heart and holding it there. Rachel gasped and looked up at him in utter disbelief as her eyes began to burst white-hot blue. Her expression changed into a crying snarl even as she died. And then Cas frowned, letting out a strange breath, almost like he'd been hurt or surprised. He looked down at himself and Alex followed his gaze, mystified… and then she saw what had happened. Rachel had stabbed him just below the heart—not deep enough to kill, but deep. Even as he realized he'd been wounded badly, Rachel lost grip on her weapon, screaming and falling backwards into stillness to never move again. The room suddenly blazed so bright that Alex was temporarily blinded. When the light faded, spidery black wings were charred underneath Rachel's dead body across the study floor.

Cas staggered back a couple steps, dumbfounded as he pulled Rachel's blade out of himself. It clattered loudly to the floor. Alex was lurching to her feet in horror breathlessly. Rachel's blade had pierced to his Grace itself and blinding blue light shone out of where he'd been stabbed. Blood ran freely and he pressed a hand against himself, dazed, slack-jawed. He breathed heavily, he wheezed, he appeared close to passing out. "Cas… oh my god, Cas!" The blue and the high-pitched ringing sound that accompanied the wound was terrifying Alex and she grabbed him by both arms in an attempt to steady him and bring him into more clarity. Her voice was rasping badly because of her bruised vocal chords but she didn't even notice, such was her alarm. "You're hurt!"

He wheezed shallowly, his eyes vacant and woozy and struggling to meet hers. "No, I'm…" his face abruptly went blank, his eyes fluttered closed, and he slumped forward onto her, unconscious.

He was heavier than she remembered him ever being and she abruptly strained not to collapse under his broad, slack body. "Son of a bitch," she wheezed, then fell backwards to the floor underneath his weight. He was completely limp on top of her and his full weight made it hard to breathe. Groaning and pushing at him and freaking out at every level, she managed to get him to roll sideways so he didn't suffocate or crush her. His head hit the floor with a loud crack and Alex swore loudly, floundering to get herself off the floor and crouched next to him. She checked his weak pulse, she looked at his wound, she wanted to be sick. "Cas? Cas?" He was breathing shallowly but was not responsive at all to her voice.

Behind her, she heard the sound of angel's wings. Panicking all over again she shot up to her feet and whirled as she whipped out her blade, preparing to fight off whatever henchmen Raphael had sent to the bitter, bloody end—she wasn't going to give up Castiel without fighting tooth and nail for him. But instead of an enemy, it was just the young, wide-eyed angel in the hot-dog stand uniform. "Miss Winchester?" he asked softly, looking from the blade to her in confusion. "I heard—oh my." He saw Castiel and Rachel on the floor and became deeply shocked. "What's happened here?"

Still pretty dazed over it herself, Alex shook her head, her bodily tension suddenly giving way to weak shoulders and shaking hands. The blade fell from a defensive stance in front of herself to dangle at her side. "Rachel, she, she just came in here and attacked me and… tried to kill me and… Cas killed her but she, she wounded him, he looks pretty bad off, I don't… I don't know what… to do." Alex stared down at Cas, who was dumped on the floor like a sack of potatoes. She was truly so beside herself at this sudden and shocking event, not to mention whenever Castiel got hurt it sent her into full-blown panic mode.

"Allow me to look," Samandriel said, then waited a moment for Alex's consent—the blade in her hand must have made him nervous. When she nodded urgently, he knelt on a knee beside Castiel and peered at the wound, touched it with two fingers, then shook his head in what appeared to be grim amazement. "Any deeper and I think he would have died."

A wave of terror ran through her like a current of jolting electricity. "Is… is he okay? Is he gonna be okay?" Alex asked urgently. When the angel didn't reply for two seconds, worry got the best of her. "Samandriel, is he going to be okay!"

Acknowledging her by looking at her, the angel in the goofy Wiener Hut hat nodded somberly. "I… I think so. But I'm not entirely certain, I'm not the most knowledgeable on these things." Samandriel looked at Cas's still face grimly. "He'll rest for some time, I believe. I'll move him off of the floor." In a feat of super-human strength, Samandriel scooped Castiel up and lifted him as if he weighed nothing then carried him toward the couch. Seeing what was happening, Alex hurried over and used a jacket-clad arm to brush the broken glass off of it.

"Call one of those medic angels, he told me about those, he needs one," Alex said, watching helplessly as Samandriel stood back and left Cas laying slackly on the couch.

Deeply regretful, Samandriel shook his head. "I can't call a medic." At the look of shocked confusion on her face, Samandriel hesitated. "Perhaps Castiel hasn't told you. There aren't any left. None that support his cause, I mean. There's barely anyone left."

Emotions of horror and sadness and alarm swimming to the surface, Alex shook her head blankly and knelt beside the couch, running a hand across Cas's sweaty forehead. He hadn't told her that. Now she thought she understood his strange behavior lately and her heart broke for the one she loved. "You're right. I—I didn't know that." The skin of his forehead felt odd to the touch. Cold and clammy. Looking up at Samandriel in deep worry, she appealed to him out of desperation. "Can't you heal him? Can't you do something?"

Samandriel was very clearly sorry and even a bit embarrassed of himself. "No, I'm afraid I'm not powerful enough. I'm… a much lower angel than he is. Than most are. His vessel has to repair, the Grace has to restore itself. We can't do anything for him but keep the enemy from discovering what has transpired here." Locating a hunting knife on the desk, Samandriel picked it up and without ceremony slashed his own arm open so that blood flowed freely.

Sitting back slightly in shock, Alex watched with wide eyes. "What are you…?"

He had begun to finger-paint something onto the wall with his own blood. "It's a protection ward. To keep enemies away, to keep him safe and hidden." He finished the symbol after a few seconds and then looked at Alex and Cas apprehensively. "Stay with him. I'll be outside and I'll keep watch to see no other enemies get in. And I'll… I'll take her body from here." He bent and picked up Rachel. His face was sad as he looked at his fallen older sister.

"Why would Rachel do this?" Alex asked, feeling utterly betrayed and angered. Cas could die and she was so scared that he would. "I know she was a first-rate bitch but… she tried to kill him, not just me."

Samandriel hesitated. "Perhaps she…" he trailed off and he seemed reluctant to say. "There are rumors in Heaven, rumors spread by Raphael's side about Castiel. Perhaps she listened to them."

Alex frowned. She hadn't heard about that. "What rumors?"

Samandriel shook his head and his expression was strange. "Rumors that couldn't possibly be true. I should go." Before Alex could ask anything further, Samandriel disappeared and took Rachel's body with him.

Alone with her unconscious angel, Alex looked at him in worry that was making her stomach twist in knots. She wasn't sure if she could do anything to help him. So, what, just wait and see? Was that really all she had left to do? She looked at his bleeding wound and pressed a hand to it, not caring at all about getting blood on herself. She studied his peaceful face—the dark lashes and handsome features, the relaxed brow. "Always getting yourself hurt over me," she murmured, brushing some hair back from his forehead. Oh, Cas. Why didn't you tell me you had almost no one left? He'd said vague things that could have been interpreted that way and today he had alluded to the fact that he had very little left in the way of close, trusted soldiers. But she hadn't known he was so close to depleted. Why wouldn't he tell her that?

She didn't know. And frankly at the moment she didn't care. She just wanted him to be okay. With nothing she could do to help except stay at his side, that's just what she did. Alex didn't move from where she was knelt beside the couch at all even when her knees got sore. She waited until the blood flow from his wound clotted and congealed and then she laid her head beside him and took one of his hands in hers, holding it against her cheek. Then she worried, worried, worried as she studied his face. She was very aware that he had to get Bobby, Dean, and Sam back and time was lessening. What if he didn't wake up in time to bring them back?

After more than two hours had passed, he woke up without warning. Alex was sitting there awkwardly on the floor beside the couch with her head resting against his shoulder. She ceaselessly stroked worried fingers against his hand as she listened to the silence and fretted. Then he suddenly tensed, inhaled sharply, and shifted. Alex sat back in surprise and hope even as Cas jolted upwards with an expression of disorientation on his face. He seemed in a state of panic, like he didn't know where he was or what had happened, and Alex attempted to get his attention, taking hold of his arms. "Hey, hey, you're all right, Cas, I gotcha!"

Breathless, he found her gaze and sat still, grimacing against some pain. He saw the burned wings on the floor of the room and his face showed confusion. "What… where did Rachel go?" he asked in a tight, pained voice.

"Samandriel took her," Alex said. She was more worried about something else and held him by the side of the face as she stood on her knees between his legs to be closer to him. "Are you okay?"

His eyes were downcast and not managing to meet hers. "I'm…" he winced and made a face, pressing a hand against where he'd been injured. He attempted to stand very briefly but with a grunt and pathetic cough he gave up and Alex pressed him back down to sit.

"Hey hey hey, don't push yourself Cas." He was hurt bad and Alex had no idea how to react. He sat there with slumped shoulders and horrible posture; he breathed heavily as his face showed him fighting to hide his pain. "Are you gonna be okay?" she asked, throat tight.

He nodded briefly, seeming not to care much about himself. "Yes, I'll heal." Relief flooded Alex. Cas looked at her through pained eyes and a miserable expression and he looked her over apprehensively, touching one of her arms lightly. "Are you all right?" he questioned anxiously. He then traced fingers against her throat where Rachel had so brutally grabbed. "Did she… hurt you?"

Alex shook her head and fought a smile and tears at the same time. "No, I'll be fine." She hugged him impulsively and tightly around his neck. She buried her face there and shuddered in relief, so glad Cas wasn't going to die. It had been so close, so very close. Cas's arms weakly circled her in return and his head rested by tilting toward hers. Safe and warm and held in this place of familiarity and love, Alex shook against emotion. The thought of losing him was simply unbearable. Her arms tightened around him and she tried to breathe steadily.

She felt him move slightly and his lips brushed against the hair at the topmost side of her head. "Why are you crying?" Cas asked gently, tender despite his own pain and distress.

She sniffed and pulled back, trying to show him that she wasn't sobbing or anything, just overcome with emotion momentarily. "I—I was just scared for a second."

Apologetic and empathetic, Cas touched the side of her face. He beat her to wiping away the one tear that had escaped out onto a cheek. "I'm sorry she frightened you."

Alex cracked a surprised grin through teary eyes. His mistaken assumption was kind of cute. "No, I was scared because…" she brushed her fingers lightly against where his wound was and her smile fell as she remembered how it felt to see him with a blade in him. "For a minute, just a second, I thought you were dead." Her shining eyes raised to his and she didn't know how to explain how terrified that had left her.

Cas was utterly emotionally bereft and his shoulders sagged down further. "I'm so sorry, Alex. I shouldn't have ever given her a second chance. Forgive me." He looked down, expression miserable. "All I do is make mistakes."

As always, she tried to comfort him. Shifting up to sit on the couch close beside him, she was empathetic. "You couldn't have known, Cas."

He wasn't comforted—in fact he looked even more upset. "Perhaps not, but I knew she was untrustworthy as a whole," he muttered, shaking his head and still looking down. "That should have been enough." His eyes slid up to hers reluctantly. "And now I can't bring the boys back."

Alex's stomach dropped. "Wait… what?"

Cas was frowning deeply, still slumped over and by all appearances totally useless. "This injury… it's drained me badly," he rumbled.

Alex blinked fast, trying not to get alarmed. "Okay—well, you can just call in another angel to do it then, right? Samandriel's right outside, he could—"

"No, he's not powerful enough to do this," Cas said in grave chagrin. "Furthermore, I need to be the one to bring them back. It's… complicated to explain."

"Cas, this is my family we're talking about!" Alex sputtered as she stood up, starting to freak out at how resigned Cas seemed. She forcibly made herself calm down. "Okay—sorry—there has to be something to get you recharged… a spell—something, right? I mean we can't just leave them there…!"

Cas looked up at her with a strained expression on his face and it was clear that he was very, very dismayed at the current course of events. Then he frowned more deeply and looked down and to the side in thought. "There is one thing that might work, but… it's extremely dangerous."

"What is it?" Alex asked urgently.

"No, it's… I couldn't," he said, seeming to change his mind completely. "It's not safe."

Alex looked at him in rapt concern. Was it something he'd have to bleed for? "What is it?" she asked again, desperate.

He hesitated to tell her, then he did. "It's… your soul."

Not what she had expected to hear. "My… soul?" she repeated, unsure what that could do or be used for. "What about it?"

Cas seemed slightly mortified. "I… I'd need you to let me touch it."

"Touch it?" She'd seen him do a soul touch before to get information. "Why?"

He explained it to her with no shortage of visible discomfort. "The human soul—it's pure... energy. If I can siphon some of that off from yours, I-I might be able to bring Sam and Dean and Bobby back."

"Might?" she asked. This got worse and worse by the second.

"In all likelihood it would work but…" Cas turned his hands upwards in a weak shrug. "It might not."

Alex wet her lips, thinking hard. "And this is the only thing that might work?"

"I'm afraid so."

"And you said it's extremely dangerous…?" That didn't make sense to her.

Cas hesitated but explained it to her slowly and clearly. He seemed very anxious about her reaction to the idea. "Yes, well… doing this is like… putting your hand in a nuclear reactor. I'd have to do it very gingerly."

"Or…?"

He blinked twice and looked down, shook his head faintly as if he couldn't even believe he was considering this. "Or I could kill you."

"Kill me?" Alex repeated. "But I saw you soul touch that Aaron kid and Sam too, and my grandfather. Didn't seem so dangerous then…"

His eyes snapped up to meet hers grimly. "It was." Holy shit. Cas's jaw clenched and a muscle jerked in his cheek. "I'm… much more hesitant to do it to you than I would be anyone else."

A little blindsided, Alex took a minute to reply. "Well, I'm… I'm not seeing any other options here, Cas."

Cas's face showed utter distaste in the idea and a slight panic. "I know, but I don't want to chance it, Alex."

"You have to," she said intently, getting panicked at the thought of never seeing her brothers ever again. "If this is the only way to get them back, you gotta do it."

She was right and they both knew it. Still, he resisted. "Alex, this will be excruciating for you," he argued, obviously warring within himself at the thought of hurting her purposefully.

"I don't care." She was matter-of-fact and controlled, accepting of the consequences. It was mind over matter in her experience. She would never let some pain stand between rescuing her family. "I can handle pain."

"I don't want you to have to," he protested beseechingly. "It will drain you, Alex. Exhaust you, it could damage your nervous system, it could—"

"It doesn't matter," she insisted, cutting him off and looking at him in deep pleading. "I'll be okay. You'll be careful… and I'll be okay."

Cas seemed to get that she wasn't going to stop insisting. "You're sure about this?" he asked in a heavy voice, his bright blue eyes staring into hers uncertainly.

"Yes," she replied immediately. "Now come on. Let's do it." Before I lose the nerve. He was really hyping it up to be bad.

He gave a soft and worried sigh. "All right." He pushed himself up to stand as if he were an elderly man, grunting and straining the entire time. When she moved to help him, he seemed embarrassed that he needed the help and he wouldn't look at her. "Sit down," he instructed quietly and she did on the edge of the couch. He began to look around the room for something he couldn't seem to find. "I… need to find something for you to bite down on."

"We don't have time for all that, let's get this over with." Alex gripped the couch on either side of herself with tight hands. Cas was appearing to have exhausted himself by standing and he shuffled closer to her to stand between her legs and he bent a little, put a heavy hand onto her shoulder for support. When he did nothing but look at her with an expression of pained dread, Alex gently took his free hand in both of hers and began to roll his sleeve up for him—she'd seen him do this before, after all. He seemed mournful when she did that.

"I do not want to do this," he said softly, brokenly, appealing to her one last time.

Softening and taking a moment to stop freaking out, she looked up into the angel's eyes. She trusted him. Still holding onto his hand, Alex pulled it close to her, palm first, and pressed a soft kiss there. "I know." She let go and nodded once, telling him to go ahead.

His hand on her shoulder gripped tightly to keep him from falling over. He moved his other hand to the topmost part of her stomach and his fingertips grazed lightly there. He hesitated, looked her in the eye. "You're sure?"

Even though she was scared of it—Cas just sticking his hand into her and touching her freaking soul—she put the fear out of her mind. She reached up and held tight to his hand on her shoulder, breathed out, then nodded, bracing herself for agony as she stared into his glacial eyes. "Do it."

What happened next neither of them saw coming.

He hesitated just a second longer, then took in a deep breath and did it. With a grimace that was more because of her oncoming pain rather than his, he pushed his hand forward into her. A scream ripped out of her mouth even as his fingers and then hand sank deeply into flesh and invaded her being in every way—it was like being burned alive from the inside out and she felt like her stomach was being ripped apart, like she was dying. And then without warning, it ceased. The intense agony faded away when everything that was him touched everything that was her, when his fingers brushed up against her soul itself. Later she would realize what happened was that even as Cas touched her soul, her soul reached back out and touched him, seeing into everything he was.

In approximately thirty seconds, a vivid existence surged through Alex. She felt and saw everything Castiel had ever seen or felt as if it had all happened to her. For Alex, for a moment, it was like she was Castiel. It rushed through her like a flood, and this is what she remembered:

First, consciousness of being. I am alive. Then, knowledge of who he was: a son of God. A soldier of Heaven. An angel of the Lord. There was no emotion whatsoever, only understanding and acceptance. Around Castiel were thousands of other angels and Alex could feel them more than she could see them. They were indistinct shapes of light and they all seemed the same: powerful, peaceful, orderly. Heaven was glorious and pristine and everything was as it had been created to be. The universe exploded into being: stars and suns and moons, glorious cosmos, endless planets and celestial bodies.

And then the earth was created, the planet God had the greatest plans for. Out of nothing came everything but it was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the many waters. And then there was light—the sun blazed into existence and the earth began to take form. Vegetation sprung out of the ground, valleys were carved and mountains were formed as rains came and went and eroded, shaped, and softened stone and earth alike. How many centuries passed in what seemed to be seconds? Alex didn't know… all she knew was that Castiel watched with the rest of the angels and he felt nothing but duty and awareness. No wonder. No awe. Just a certain kind of detached reverence and understanding that creation was holy.

The earth was left to itself to grow, to cultivate new life through evolution.

And then, Castiel's first mistake. His first instance of curiosity. Castiel went to earth by himself—without orders, without being told, because he had glimpsed a very peculiar thing: a small gray fish that was different than the others. It had small nubby feet and it was heaving itself onto a shore, dragging itself toward the lush and wild jungle beyond. This sight, this unique creature defying its purpose in favor of walking on land and breathing air made him feel the beginnings of true amazement. And then Raphael appeared—he was a fierce archangel and his halo burned bright like magma, his wings were large and crackled with lightning, the color of his feathers was ever-changing as electricity hummed and sizzled. He was intimidating, and Castiel, much smaller and lesser in comparison, was startled.

"Don't step on that fish, Castiel," Raphael advised in a voice that conveyed itself through thunder in the clouded sky. "God has a special purpose for that one." Cas watched in fascination and puzzlement. Special purpose. "Some say this creature is the beginning of what will someday be the glory of all creation," Raphael said, but he was haughty and puffed up even then and put forth a scornful opinion. "I say that has yet to be seen. Now come away from this place, Castiel. The host awaits. And do not go someplace ever again without being told."

Castiel's response was immediate and obedient. "Of course, brother. My apologies." Even though he said that, he wondered: But… why? That was the first question Castiel ever asked. He didn't voice it aloud because questioning commands and the word of God and the archangels was blasphemous.

Thousands of years passed with little happening for Castiel, who was tasked to watch Thursdays and to govern Solitude. He didn't stray from commands for a long time again, at least not that he recalled. He watched the first humans come into existence and his fascination and interest in them was deep and ever growing. He saw how humans had relationships with one another, how they shared fondness for each other and love, and he didn't understand how all of this worked. It was a foreign language to him, but one he found interesting to behold. The years waxed and waned and he did everything he was told. He fought in wars against Hell, he saw the exile of Lucifer, the loss of Gabriel, the banishment of Genesis. He saw Gadreel allow sin into the world, he saw Mariel the angel disobey by falling to damnation with a human woman. He observed the rise and fall of Rome, he saw humans grow, change, expand, learn, change more, adapt. He became endeared to humans and reverent of them. In time he came to think that they truly were what Raphael had said they would be: the glory of all creation. To him, they were special.

Castiel continued in his existence quietly and simply. He carried out the word of God, he watched, he went all but unnoticed in Heaven. And then one fateful day in 2004 changed it all. Castiel's name was put in among the angels who were tasked to carry out the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. The death toll would be almost three hundred thousand human souls. Castiel was horrified and said no, he couldn't be part of destroying God's most precious creation. When he continually refused to be part of what he called a massacre, he was punished and put into prison for three human years.

When he was pulled out without explanation, he was told by Michael and Raphael that he was being given another chance thanks to his sister Nandriel's recent disobedience. He didn't understand what they meant by that, he only understood that he was being disciplined and given a second chance. He soon learned that even though he was a high-order Seraph he was being tasked as a guardian angel—it was considered a low duty among Heaven. For Seraph such as himself, the assignment was meant to shame him and humiliate him. "You will learn your place," they said to him. "You were given God's word and you scorned it. Now you will watch over this human for the duration of her life as punishment." Ashamed at himself for not following the word of his father but grateful for a second chance, Castiel vowed he would do what he had been told and earn back his honor.

There was no inkling in his mind about how his fate was sealed that day. With that task, everything changed. With that assignment, his life was made new. The human he was given task over was her. The moment he first saw her he was taken by a feeling of recognition. She was important and he felt it without explanation. He watched over her day and night. Very quickly he became vested in her at a personal level. Her safety became his motivation and purpose. She intrigued him, this silent human with the bright soul.

She never even knew he was there. Not at first. Without a vessel, he could still manipulate matter as if he were a ghost, he had his powers but no way of manifesting himself so that her eyes could see him or her ears could hear. He saved her several times in very clever ways—he manipulated the weather once and struck a Wendigo that was chasing her family dead with lightning, he locked the door for her when she forgot to one night—why? Because a shady man followed her back from a bar while Sam and Dean stayed out—Cas then shattered all the glass of all the nearby cars, setting off the alarms to frighten the man away. He broke iron bars at a later date in a window to allow her escape when vampires caught her. He stayed with her and sometimes wished, just once, she could know he was there. But… why? What would that matter? He didn't know.

Castiel witnessed many moments she tried not to show her brothers: her deep grief and despair, her terror at Dean's coming death day, her deep loneliness and depression. Castiel thought perhaps he was wrong, but to him, the two of them were alike somehow. Some part of him resonated with some part of her. He wished he knew how to reach out and take her pains from her. She smiled sometimes, and when she smiled, he felt the greatest sense of peace of mind he had known. She should smile more, he thought.

One night he overheard her brothers lamenting how they had tried everything to get her the ability to speak again. As Alex slept Dean said, "I shoulda asked for her voice back too when I made that deal, huh Sammy?" There was a grief in that voice that made Castiel feel as though he were grieved, too.

More and more questions occurred to Castiel. These questions made him uncomfortable, they filled his mind without ceasing. Why should this human be made to suffer? Why should she be resigned to spending her life unable to communicate as humans had been designed to communicate? It was within the power of Heaven to fix and he found out that she had been born with a voice only to have it taken by a demon at six months of age. Why couldn't Heaven restore her voice? Castiel asked Michael about it mere days after first seeing Alex for the first time and Michael waved it off apathetically, saying that some humans were defective and some weren't, this one was mute and so be it. Castiel had felt strange at that statement. She wasn't defective. None of them were, not to Castiel. Just because they weren't the same as most of the rest of their kind didn't make them less of value.

Still, all he saw was unnecessary pain and all he felt was the strong conviction that he should do something.

It was the middle of the night on December the fifth of 2007 when Castiel crumbled and did what he had thought about doing since he first laid eyes on her. The last straw was when as her brothers laughed and commented raucously on a humorous television show together. Alex turned away and pretended to go to sleep. Instead, tears fell down her face because she couldn't participate with them—she couldn't speak to them and reply to their banter, she didn't even have the ability to laugh out loud. For Castiel, he couldn't stand by any longer and just watch—some part of him was broken for her to see her suffering so needlessly. He threw away his desire to please Heaven in favor of giving this young woman what she needed, wanted, and deserved. Beyond explanation, nothing else had ever seemed as important for him.

He knew he would be punished. He knew this was forbidden. And none of it mattered to him at all. Whatever Heaven would do to him for the actions he was about to take, so be it.

When they all slept, Castiel changed all of their lives forever—even his own, though he didn't know how much so at the time. From Heaven itself he bridged the gap, reaching down and letting all the power he possessed heal her, restore her. She remained unaware, sleeping peacefully. Even though he touched her as an angel in his true form, he couldn't feel her at all. He had no sense of touch and he was left wishing he could just once know what it was like to touch. Be touched. By her. He shouldn't think such things. When he had healed her and had finished, he looked upon her and wished another thing he shouldn't have wished: he wanted to see her human face. He could see her face indistinctly, but not fully. As an angel, he saw her soul more clearly than anything else. But he was curious to behold her with human eyes. He remembered thinking that just before he was snatched to Heaven where he faced the wrath of Raphael and Michael.

They demanded to know what he had done—Heaven had trembled when he healed the young woman and they berated him without mercy, telling him he had done something unthinkable by interfering with the natural order and healing a human without permission. Castiel didn't make excuses or deny what he had done. Instead, he defended his actions and insisted she was important and that it wasn't wrong of him to do what he had. In Heaven he bore physical form and Raphael struck him across the face, calling him a heretic. The archangels had said they wouldn't tolerate his audacity and that he was no longer fit to bear the esteemed title of Seraph. With that, Michael struck him down to his knees and Raphael pulled out his blade. Castiel thought he was to die. But instead, they each seized one of his magnificent wings and cut, tore, and ripped half of it away brutally. In a pain and shock he had never known, Castiel cried out but made no move to fight back. He allowed them to tear his wings to half their size. It was a barbaric act, merciless and cruel, the ultimate punishment an angel could receive. As the wings were ripped away mere shadows of the glory they had once been, Castiel became a Virtue instead of a Seraph. Many of his powers were gone, many of his abilities. But still he didn't fight. He suffered the consequences because he had known there would be a price to pay. Even as soft black bloody feathers floated down around him, Castiel received lashes and beatings. He didn't fight back, not even when he was nearly dead. When the archangels had finished with him, they told him to get out of their sight.

Bloodied, wounded, belittled, shamed, Castiel went back to where the Winchesters were. He could hear angels whispering to each other across Heaven—they whispered about him and spread rumors, increasing his shame a hundredfold.

Suffering from pain, humiliation, and great disgrace, the angel bore witness to Alex stubbing her toe and letting out a sound of irritation and pain then freezing as her mouth dropped open and her eyebrows slammed together. He saw her brothers both whip their heads in her direction. He saw them stare in shock. He heard one of them ask if she had just made that noise. Breathless from disbelief, she asked their names, clapped hands over her mouth with eyes gone wide, then began to jabber and then hyperventilate. She cried and laughed at the same time. And her laugh, that sound… despite what had just happened to him and the pain he was in… Castiel felt as though in some transcendental part of himself, he smiled.

In all of history he had never seen anything better than that moment. She was free. And he had done that.

And thus it was worth it to him—worth the pain, worth the way his brothers and sisters would judge him, worth the loss of his wings. She had what was hers, and he was satisfied.

Alex's new voice was a thing to behold and her use of it was clumsy at first but quickly grew. Castiel never regretted what he had done, especially not when he saw the happiness he had given to her. Especially not when he heard her laughing.

And then Dean died. The Hellhounds came for him and Alex was devastated, lost, broken apart inside and outside. She barely spoke and Castiel watched her fall apart and go into a shell of herself. One night she sat in a shed with a gun and he didn't know why. She just kept staring at the gun as if she was thinking about using it for something. But she didn't do anything with it after Bobby Singer came out and found her.

The call came shortly thereafter across Heaven: Dean Winchester must be raised out of Hell.

Without a thought Castiel volunteered himself for the mission because he knew that Dean was the beloved brother of the human in his charge. Moreover, he would require a human vessel to do what needed to be done. The secret thought which flashed through his mind briefly: Perhaps I can look on her with human eyes. Only once would satisfy me. He thought he should be ashamed of himself for that desire.

He sought out a vessel. Jimmy Novak. And he began to beseech this man for use of his human body. Two months later, Dean Winchester was raised from Hell and Castiel was given a human vessel after Jimmy's consent. He walked stiff, new steps with feet clad in shoes into a warehouse built by human hands and for the first time, he laid eyes on Alex Winchester and truly saw her. And seeing her once, he learned, would never be enough.

As time progressed, he was entrusted with other tasks again and his guardianship of Alex was pushed to the side then put to an end by Heaven's standards when things fell apart and Lucifer rose. But for Castiel, he would always be her guardian. Forever.

Alex felt how he fell in love with her: slowly by intellect but fast in every other way. He loved her much before he realized it, he longed for her before he even knew what he longed for. Alex saw how they were drawn together. She saw their fights, the way she mistrusted him, the way he healed her and cared for her even when he knew he wasn't supposed to. She felt the love that burned inside of him like an inferno and needed physical expression. She felt what he had felt during their first kiss, their second, their third… and it was like tasting something from paradise to feel his feelings like that. She saw their first time: accidental, honest, clueless and difficult but also perfect because it had been them. She could feel his emotions and passion as though they were her own and it was intense enough to knock her onto her back.

She saw everything that happened after that and before they stopped the apocalypse: Cas sacrificing himself for her then spending what felt like forever in the darkness of a coma. When he woke up, his first thought was of her. He was all but human and afraid, uncomfortable, out of his element. Then came the Croatoan virus, the impending end of the world, the question Castiel never asked directly: Will you marry me? His thoughts and feelings for her were too vast to count, his love was too deep to measure, and Alex saw herself through his eyes: precious, fleeting, special, and worthy of everything he had to give and more.

And then more painful revelations came: Lucifer. Cas's horror when he saw the devil possessing her. Sam dying. Alex dying. Cas dying. And then Cas being resurrected back to life, and not just resurrected, but restored to the Seraph he had been before.

And then Alex saw Castiel raise Sam from the grave soulless. She saw Raphael threaten Castiel and assert himself as Cas's enemy. She saw him tell Cas should he ever visit Alex again, Raphael would be there to take her away and make her suffer for eternity. And then worst of all Alex saw Castiel and Crowley. All of it. The plan about Purgatory, the deal that the King of Hell and the rebel angel would split the souls therein. She felt Cas's aversion to himself, his panic, the way he didn't know what to do or where to turn. He was trapped. It began to blur together then and all she saw were snatches of things now. She saw Castiel take hold of her soul claim and put it into himself for safe keeping. She saw Cas and Crowley planning to burn the fake bones, she saw how Castiel tricked her with the fake soul claim, she saw how he went into the past to the night of the nursery fire to try and find her when Nandriel had taken her. She saw that Azazel muted her when she cried out as a six month old baby because Castiel startled her. She felt that Castiel blamed himself for her being mute for her first twenty-four years on earth. And more than that she felt his panic, his horror, the weight on his shoulders from the war, the secrets. It was soul-crushing, impossible to carry.

If he lost, he lost everything.

With that final thought in her mind, the vision ended. The world faded back into existence. She heard someone moaning and screaming and came back to herself with a mind that was completely blank for a moment. Castiel had his hand inside of her and white-hot veins were crawling up his face, his eyes were squeezed closed, his mouth hung open as he let loose a sound that was almost erotic—then his eyes flew open and light brighter than the sun blazed out. His hand held on crushingly tight to her shoulder and she was grabbing at him anywhere she could find to hold as the pain and intensity and some inexplicable pleasure drowned her alive. Had anyone been right outside the room, they might have mistaken the sounds Alex and Cas made as those of a mutual, intense orgasm.

Something had been taken from Alex, something monumental, and she felt as though she would faint—and then it was over, he pulled his hand out of her and caught her against himself as he knelt in front of her and pulled her close with strong, renewed arms as they both trembled with ragged breaths. She sagged against him, half-sitting on the couch. "A-are you all right?" Castiel asked, pulling back and using a hand to turn her face up to his. "Alex? Can you speak?" She made no reply, just looked at him dumbly, her mind scattered and incoherent. "Are you hurt?" he asked urgently.

She didn't know what had just happened and it was all a puzzle box full of pieces in her mind. "That was… I saw… I saw everything you ever did, felt everything," she mumbled, trying to remember it all, trying to find clarity again. Her mind felt like it was close to explosion from all the things she had just seen. "So much."

His face fell fearfully. "Everything?"

She was drained and felt like her muscles had turned to water. Her mind was reconstructing everything she'd just digested from beginning to end. She remembered Castiel in the beginning, she remembered him refusing to be part of the tsunami, and she was mystified, even a little scared at what she had seen so vividly. "W-what happened?" she asked faintly. It had felt so real, the memories almost felt like her own. "Why could I see…?"

He shook his head, seeming just as confounded himself. "I don't know. I—I saw you, too. Felt you, I don't… I don't know."

Alex was remembering more and more. Cas taking unbearable torture and punishment for her. Cas loving her so fully and truly. Tears came to her eyes as she remembered his screams as his wings were ripped apart. Her trembling hand grazed against the side of his face and she opened her mouth to say something about it. And then Alex suddenly remembered Crowley. And the soul claim. And Sam. And the lies. And tricks. And she abruptly went stock still in terror. Her hand hovered in the air beside Cas's face. No. Oh my god, no. "Wait. Wait." Her eyes were filling with tears, her expression showered utter disbelief and hurt, her hand slowly retracted to herself. "Cas… what are you doing?" she asked, and she was shrinking away from him, shaking her head, suddenly fearful of him because he had lied, consistently, tricked her and her family and it couldn't be true—it didn't matter his intentions, he was lying to her—and to them all. She begged for some explanation even though she knew everything from the soul touch. Her heart began to jackhammer in her chest, her stomach was sick, she wanted to throw up, she needed to understand his choices, because even though she'd felt his thoughts, it was inconceivable and heartbreaking. "What… are you doing?"

The look in her eyes of dawning horror terrified him—and he reacted like a pitiful, worthless coward. He did what he had promised to never do again. Motivated by panic, he touched the side of her head fast even as her eyes widened in shock. Before she could say anything or push him away or even fully realize what he was doing, Cas snatched those things out of her mind as if they were on fire, he flung them far away and erased all his connections to Crowley, all his recent wrongdoings. He considered erasing it all—everything that had just been revealed… but he didn't. And then he realized he should have, because this was even worse.

She was left remembering what he'd done to give her voice back, she was left remembering mostly good things. And because of that, she looked utterly in love with him. She relaxed now, leaning towards him again, and he was disgusted with himself. "Cas." Her voice broke with love, not with disbelieving devastation. "You… they clipped your wings. They hurt you," she said, and she began to cry as she thought of it, her hands weakly holding his face in tenderness. "How could you do that for me? You knew you'd be punished!" How could she look at him like that? How could she trust him? And how could he allow himself to keep violating her like this? The tricks, the lies… he would accept any punishment for her. Any pain. Any hardship. Any bitter end. But this was the far worse. He rejected her touch, turning his face away as his inner voice asked one question over and over again: what have you done?

"I'm… I'm not the hero you imagine me to be, Alex," he said, agonized at himself and at the point of miserable tears himself. His mind spun, his stomach was knotted, his reaction to what had just happened was wrong. He was a fool, a bastard, a wretch.

"I don't have to imagine. I know," she choked out affectionately. She then reached for him more fully, craning her neck for a kiss he was sickened to receive or give… but then she winced and withdrew, her face crumpled in pain and she held a hand against her stomach as the soul touch effects settled in. "Oh god it feels horrible…"

His heart broke all over again. She would be drained and lethargic and wracked with pain for some time to come and he could do next to nothing of it. Utterly wretched, Castiel swallowed through a thick throat. "I'm so sorry, Alex," he said in a thick, guilty voice. He touched two fingers to the side of her head and put her out of her misery. "Rest."

Her head lolled to the side and her eyes closed as she obeyed his command and lost consciousness, falling into a deep and painless sleep. Cas gently laid her down onto the couch and stood back as feelings of physical illness and panic and loathing overcame him more and more fully.

What am I doing? What have I done?

She believed he was a hero. When he knew that he was becoming the villain. Deep, intense despair overcame him and he shut his eyes against it, trying not to lose control of himself as he clenched his fists impossibly tight. Outside, the sky darkened and thunder rumbled. What am I DOING?! What have I DONE?! As his emotions surged to unmanageable levels and self-hatred clawed at him like a beast he couldn't tame, the glass panes in every room of the house burst and shattered completely.

Castiel's eyes snapped opened and he was shocked at himself. The darkness of the sky faded to blue again as he caught his breath and managed to get himself under control.

He shouldn't have ever been created. Not if he was going to do nothing but betray the ones he cared about, lie to the one he loved. He looked at Alex and felt as though he could never look her in the eye again. Not after doing what he had promised to never do again. But, I'm protecting her. If she found out, she'd tell Sam and Dean and they might try to stop me. They might not understand. And I have to win this war. I have to do whatever it takes.

The timer on the desk buzzed loudly, and Castiel looked at it, vaguely startled. It read 0:00 and realizing it was time, the angel made himself focus. The soul touch had recharged him fully. Castiel reached back and pulled the boys back through time and space from then to now. And then where there had been no one before, there were abruptly three someones. Dean ran to an abrupt stop, almost coming right up into Cas, Sam smacked into the side of the doorjamb of the study, and Bobby was crouched on the floor.

Disoriented, the three of them stared at Castiel. "Please tell me that worked," Cas said in a stiff voice that disguised his distress very poorly.

"The hell happened here?" Bobby asked, gawking around at his study as he stood up. A shelf was broken, a wall was cracked, everything glass was broken, and angel wings were burnt across the floor. Bobby only seemed to hone in on one thing though. "The window's busted? Again?"

"All of the windows are." Cas replied flatly.

Sam looked at Cas carefully. "You okay?"

Cas gave him a brief, hooded glance. "No."

Dean looked around with a suspicious, careful expression. "What happened?"

The facts came out of him in a robotic monotone because his mind was elsewhere and he was so grieved that his only way of functioning was automated. "There was a fight. With Rachel. She wounded me. If it wasn't for Alex letting me touch her soul, you boys might be stuck in the past."

Dean looked taken aback and a little offended. "Soul touch?"

Sam's voice rose slightly in growing protective concern and he pointed to his sister while staring hard at Cas. "Wait a minute, is she napping or…"

"She's injured," Cas supplied grimly, looking down the entire time. "From the soul touch. I… feel terrible about it. But she insisted. And saved your lives by doing so, too." Even as Sam and Dean both became indignant and opened their mouths to say something to Castiel, he cut off the opportunity. "I have to go," he said, running away again because he couldn't deal with everything that had just happened. "Tell her I'm sorry. Please."

"Wait, Cas—" Dean started. When the angel disappeared into thin air he threw his hands into the air out of frustration. "Friggin' angels."

Sam was already crouched beside his sister, checking her forehead for a temperature then feeling for her pulse. "She… she seems okay," he said. He still sounded worried though. "Guess she just needs some sleep."

Dean said nothing. He appeared highly disturbed.

"Hey, least we got what we went there for," Bobby muttered, holding up the little glass bottle he'd collected the Phoenix ash in. "No thanks to you two idjits. Hate to think what woulda happened if I hadn't been there."

"Come on Bobby, I totally had that," Dean complained.

"Mmhm, sure."

---

That Night

Curled up in bed on her side, Alex gazed off into the dark unseeingly. She had woken up a few hours ago to her brothers fussing over her and drilling her for details on what had happened in their absence, if she felt okay, why the hell had she been okay with a soul touch, etcetera, etcetera. She'd tiredly answered their questions for a few moments before telling them to screw off and let her rest. She still wasn't sure why all of the windows had burst in the house. Maybe that had happened during the soul touch? She couldn't remember. Either way, Dean, Sam, and Bobby had taped cardboard panels over the gaping broken windows for the time being. As such, the attic was darker than usual. No silver moonlight bathed the floor. It only snuck in through small cracks.

Her eyes adjusted to the velvet darkness as she laid there in bed and rest didn't come. She was still feeling the aftereffects of the soul touch—her body was sapped of strength and vigor, her head felt tired and spent. But she felt emotionally amazed, alive, in love, and so very deeply longing of Castiel. All she could think about was what had happened when Cas touched her soul. She finally knew the full extent of what he had done to save her and to give her voice back to her. It was understandable that he hadn't wanted her to know. It was shocking what had been done to him, what had been taken. Her chest tightened again as she thought of it. He'd gone through agony for her. How could someone love another someone as much as he loved her? She wished so badly he would come to her that night and be with her. She wanted to be close to him more now than ever.

After the inexplicable revelation given by the soul touch, she understood him more than she ever had, loved him more than she ever had. She had seen the centuries he'd existed, the things he'd watched, the feelings he'd felt. She had accessed those things and been part of them somehow. She was pretty sure that didn't happen during other soul touches—Cas had seemed pretty surprised by what happened and he'd said he saw her, too. Did he feel her life like she'd felt his? It was like being connected in a new, impossible way she had never heard of before and despite physical discomfort, her heart felt warm. She only wished the touch hadn't abruptly cut off when he'd been resurrected from death at the cemetery… past that she'd strangely seen nothing at all.

Missing him and frustrated with his absence, Alex gave a restless sigh and shifted, flopping around to lay on her other side. And then she gave a startled squeak and shot up to sit up against the headboard.

Cas sat at the edge of the bed near her in complete silence and his head was turned to look at her. How long had he been there?! She breathed out a shaky breath, triying to get her suddenly-racing heart to calm back down. "Cas! Oh my god, you startled me!" she exclaimed softly, a little embarrassed at herself. "How long have you been there?"

He said nothing for a long time. In the dark, she could barely see his face, but what she could see was held gaunt by misery. When he spoke, it was soft and shocking. "Do you ever wonder… if this was a mistake for us?"

His question was not what she had expected. It hit her like a ton of bricks, shattering her internally, making the air in the room hard to breathe. "What?" she asked, thinking no, certainly he can't be asking what I think he's asking. "What are you talking about?" When he made no reply, she began to sit up to try to see him better. She tried not to panic before she even knew what he was talking about. "If what was a mistake?"

"…Everything." His voice was quiet and haggard and scared the shit out of her. He wouldn't look at her and all she saw was his profile bowed low in contrition she didn't understand. "I've done nothing but harm you, I've done more harm than good."

Alex was confounded. "More harm than good?" she repeated. "What are you talking about?" she repeated, shifting and moving toward him and trying to touch his arm. "Cas, the things you did for me, what you gave me, what you went through for me…" it choked her up again thinking of him suffering so much for a human who hadn't even known of his existence at the time.

Cas was non-responsive and guilt-ridden, still looking at his knees without emotion. "It was nothing."

Quickly after feeling insulted, Alex was indignant. "It wasn't nothing! They ripped your fucking wings apart, Cas! That's not nothing!"

He didn't react to her exclamation. He only seemed to sink further into depression. "You're just attempting to comfort me."

Appalled, Alex tried to form words through a gaping mouth. "Wha… should I not?" she questioned, truly confused at him. She hesitated then touched his shoulder in gentle appeal as she tried to reach out to him emotionally. "Cas, just—"

In an act that startled her completely, he yanked himself out of her touch and stood, whirled, then shouted at her. "I don't deserve your comfort!"

They were both shocked at his words, perhaps him more than her. Staring at him in utter vexation, Alex was beginning to get really worried and even a little scared. But she wasn't sure what of. "Why are you acting like this?" she asked, tossing her blankets off and standing up.

She only wore underwear and a t-shirt and Cas glanced at the bare lengths of her legs briefly before clenching his jaw and looking away. "It's… you wouldn't understand."

"Yeah, because you won't even give me the chance," she accused. She was at her limits of patience where that was concerned and all she knew was there better be a damn good explanation for why he kept saying that she 'wouldn't understand' about whatever was making him so miserable and broken. "Look, Cas. I'm not stupid," she appealed, trying to get him to talk to her. "I know something's going on with you. You have got to tell me what!" Her plea didn't fall on deaf ears.

Cas's eyes raised to hers in slow defeat and so much pain rested there that he could have been close to tears. He reached out and took her hands in his gently, gingerly. "Certain regrettable things are required of me," he said in a slow and heavy voice as he looked at their hands. "Things you wouldn't like. Things I can barely tolerate of myself." He swallowed and shuddered, abruptly putting his face into a hand and appearing to be fighting off tears. "Alex… I…" his voice broke like a boy's might. "You don't understand."

Seeing him like that broke her down too and she grabbed him tight in a hug because she didn't know what the hell else to do. "Tell me then," she whispered anxiously, holding him and trying to tell him she was there for him. "Help me understand."

"It's… the thought of losing the war," he said. His voice was almost a whisper and it wavered. "The thought of losing you. I feel terror every day now. It is one of the worst sensations I know to exist." He was stiff in her arms and pulling away. "I feel sometimes as though… my mind is being lost to me. As though I don't know who I am anymore." Her hands were on either one of his arms and he wouldn't look at her even briefly. "I am worn down in every way possible. I question my every choice." His misery was palatable, horrifying, and Alex didn't know how to comfort him. "I feel as though I've failed you, Alex."

His words made her sadder than she'd been in a long time and she shook her head fiercely, trying to get him to look at her. "Cas, no." His eyes met hers and he said nothing. "You're fighting a war for the right thing," Alex continued, trying to break through to him. "You're keeping the apocalypse from happening again. How is that failure?" her questions seemed to mildly appeal to him and he considered her words but didn't react. "It's gonna be hard, this path you had to choose," she continued. "It's gonna be difficult. But you're not alone. I'm here. And I wish you would let me be here for you more." His look of pained distress continued. She was fierce and meaningful as she took hold of the side of his face, refusing to let him withdraw and resist affection. "I love you Cas." And she did, so damn much she could barely hold it. He had given everything and then some and it floored her.

Maybe it was time to stop keeping secrets. Maybe it was time for her to give in to the wishes Cas had expressed time and time again. Maybe that would give him some optimism. She actually thought, you know what? I want that. I think I finally do want that. After witnessing and feeling his love for her, after becoming aware that the love story she was part of was the most epic romance she could comprehend of even existing, after seeing him let archangels rip his wings to shreds for her… she wanted to give him anything and everything he wanted, no matter what it was. Fuck whatever Dean or whoever else would say. "You know what?" she questioned softly, stroking the side of his face tenderly, trying to catch his downcast eyes with hers. "Cas, I wanna tell them. About us. Everything."

His eyes darted up to hers in surprise. And then instead of a reaction of happiness, he faltered, appearing to become anxious. He fumbled verbally. "I—I don't feel ready."

His answer was not what she had expected in the least. Alex was taken aback completely, shocked. "But you… I thought you wanted them to know," she said, trying to hide how hurt she immediately felt. "You… you always wanted to tell them."

"I… yes, I do," he managed regretfully. His eyes were on the floor again and he seemed to be grasping for replies to make to her. "But… I've reconsidered and I-I think it should be after the war. After… after my position has become less precarious." There was a long, horrible pause in which Alex felt like her world had been blown apart. Castiel was formal and stiff and clenching his jaw tightly as he looked away. "I hope you understand."

Alex swallowed. What was happening? A shift had taken place and it terrified her. "I… I don't."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence that seemed to kill them both a little bit. "I'm so sorry, Alex," Castiel told her in a voice weighted by things she didn't understand. "You deserve so much better than me."

That statement made no sense to her. None. So Alex tried to believe the best of everything, she tried to put this past them one more time because she knew Cas—and his self-loathing was one of his greatest stumbling blocks. He needed to know she didn't think so lowly of him as he did. "There is no one better." She touched his face and leaned in carefully to kiss him—if words couldn't reassure him, kissing could.

So when Cas held her away from himself with his hands, when he turned his head and held her back, rejecting the affection, Alex was utterly blindsided. He gave a flimsy excuse even as his face showed heartbreak. His eyes flickered and scurried away from hers even as he refused her advances. "No, I—I'm being summoned away, I—I can't."

Alex's mouth dropped open because she was almost certain he wasn't telling the truth about being called away. "Cas—"

But he was gone with a blast of wind, devastating and confusing her to the point of tears. In the empty, dark attic, Alex was left with a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach… the shadow of a doubt that something was terribly, horribly wrong. Had she done something? Did he suddenly not love her anymore? What the hell was going on? She was left alone with her vast feelings of despair.

She called Castiel several times and he didn't come.

A floor below his grieving sister, Sam awoke in the guest room from a nightmare that had him breathless and gasping in panic. Usually he would tell himself it was just a dream. Only, he didn't think it was just a dream that time. It was a memory, and as he thought about it, he remembered even more and laid there in growing panicked horror. Everything from his time being possessed was coming back to him inexplicably and powerfully. Lucifer taunting him and telling him of twisted plans Sam would die to keep from reaching fruition. The visions Satan had given him of those plans. Sam was almost sick as the things he'd forgotten rushed into his mind.

And then Sam recalled something else Lucifer had known about Alex that absolutely broke his heart in shock and dismay.

Sam laid there and tried to breathe steadily. His sister couldn't have known about the things Lucifer had planned but… he wondered… had Alex known about the other thing he had just remembered having knowledge of? He didn't think so. Maybe she should never know. It would break her heart so fully.