Chapter 60.

Jules wanted to plan a romantic evening, something she had thought she excelled at in her youth, but it was so much harder now that it mattered so much. It was harder because of Cas and it was harder because her mind was once again, after years of peaceful repression, replaying the horrors of her brother's death.

She and Steve had been close. He could be an annoying little brat at times, but he could also be the sweetest, most thoughtful little brother she could imagine. Steve had been stubborn and outspoken. He had been pushed around by a cop who only cared that he matched the very vague description of the man they wanted and he had been less than submissive and respectful. She had respected that, even as she had wished he had softened his attitude enough to spare himself the bruises.

He was a good kid. There had never been any legitimate reason for the cops to take an interest. He had worked hard, studied diligently and made friends easily. Their parents had been proud of both and relieved that neither seemed likely to fall into any dangerous habits or harmful company.

He was tall, though, his skin dark and he had a tendency to argue and to argue well. In a white kid, it would have been called intelligent and self-confident. For those elsewhere on the colour chart, the word uppity was reserved. Sometimes, cops gave him a hard time. She knew enough law to scare them into backing off. The mere fact that she was quoting the law was usually enough. They were not brave except when shoving a teenager.

If he had fallen to his knees in front of the demon, he might still be alive. He had refused, in front of a crowd and the demon had decided an example was needed.

She dragged her thoughts back to the room she was in, to the bed where she and Cas had finally been able to play naked. If she could stop obsessing about the past, there was a good chance that they could go further that night and that was what she had wanted since Cas's birthday party in September, when she had overcome her fears of involvement with an angel and had kissed him for the first time.

She remember the dazed look on his face, the way he had stood, watching her go, giving no indication of whether she had just offended his celestial dignity or captured his heart. She had given him time to think it through. Everything in their relationship needed time and patience.

From time to time, he disappeared. She knew it was sometimes to the farm, but often he would just wander away, pondering doubts she could never fully comprehend. Then he would come back, sorry for having given her any cause for disquiet, wondering if the very fact that he did that was a reason not to be involved with her. Every relationship in his life was fringed with guilt, except the one with Jack.

She had no illusions that sex would solve more problems than it created. Kissing made the lights dim, foreplay seemed to scramble his thoughts. Sex would be too much for his easily bewildered mind and that nervous system he was still learning to handle. He could be shot through the heart and feel nothing, but her finger, stroking his ear could set off fireworks in his head.

She thought sex would be good. The way he kissed, the ease with which his hands excited her flesh, the knowledge he had of female anatomy and the associated sensations, having worn a female form himself, all suggested that if they ever got the chance to get serious, it would be incredible. However, that pretty much guaranteed that he would be overcome with the sensations and those would lead to the questions, "Is this allowed for me?" and, "Can an angel survive this intensity?"

She was probably as nervous about it as he was, which didn't help, but she knew that she loved him. She knew she would never stop loving him. She, who had once wished every angel could be sent straight to Hell, acknowledged that he was now the most important being in her life, the centre and purpose of her life. If he could never have sex with her, she would settle into celibacy. She'd had years of practice, anyway.

But maybe he could have sex and maybe they were about to, if she could move on from obsessing over her brother's death. Food had not really been a part of their unusual courtship, but a glass of wine might be appropriate. He drank little and she wasn't sure he liked wine, but whisky might have seemed a little too much like she needed a boost to her courage.

It was exhausting, being with someone whose mind was never still and whose perception of the world rarely made human sense. She had to ask herself what he would read into everything and often he still surprised her with some interpretation she had never considered. A relationship with him was as demanding as he was undemanding, both hard work and the easiest, most natural thing in the world. It required focus and she could not afford to be distracted by grief and guilt from a world she had left behind.

Steve had left nothing behind. The bracelet he had given her for her birthday years before he died had fallen between gaps in the rubble of a city torn apart by angels blasting demons. The car he had loved had been stolen by desperate people, fleeing the devastation. She had not been angry. She had seen them go. They had kids. Her parents, law-abiding though they were, would have done the same. She did not even have a picture of him and she was beginning to find his face less vivid in her mind.

She had failed to save him. She had watched him die. She had prayed for his end to be faster, not for his life to be saved. She had still believed angels were good, then, but somehow her faith had not been great enough to ask for that.

The apocalypse would end up taking both of her parents too, but she knew they had died first at the moment they heard her say, "Mom, Dad, Steve ... " and had read the words she could not say in her eyes.

"How?" her father had said.

"Demon." she said.

"Did he suffer?" her mother asked and for the first time in her adult life, she had lied to her parents.

Did he suffer? Every terrible moment and until her own life ended, she would suffer every second of that death over and over.

She got up and went over to the mirror on the wall. She looked bad. She had no intention of confronting Castiel with the deep wounds that nobody could hope to heal. He had enough to deal with. He needed her to be strong. She needed to let the old world go and commit to the one in which she had love and hope and a family.

She wished, though, that she had one picture of Steve or one fragment of his life to remember him by.