22 - Touched By An Angel

"My name is Anna," the angel told them. "I'm an Angel of the Lord. I've been watching over you, Dean, for some time now."

Anna had at least had the presence of mind to let Dean collect himself a bit. Having Sam there helped, although he'd probably never admit it to his brother. Sam knew, though. The bitch had been holding Dean just as he had the first time he'd lost the greatest love of his life. No doubt, once they got back, Sam would stay with him again. This time, though, Dean wasn't sure he wanted to come back. The world seemed so cold and empty now. Bad enough that Emmanuel was gone again. Worse, he knew that this time, Emmanuel wasn't coming back. Over and over, the image of his love lying back, great wings askew and a bullet hole in his chest, played through his mind. He couldn't stop seeing Emmanuel's gorgeous blue eyes glazing over forever. A gun. Dean rarely, if ever, used them. They were clumsy, prone to problems, and way too easy to trace. But he had one in Baby's trunk, where he'd ignored it in favor of pepper spray for Sammy and the knuckles for himself. If he'd had the gun, he could have shot Dinario before he'd shot Emmanuel. If only he'd done that, then maybe Emmanuel wouldn't be…

"Whatever you're thinking, stop," Sam warned. "This wasn't your fault. There wasn't anything you could have done to prevent it."

"Yes, there was, Sam! I had a gun, if I'd grabbed that instead of…!"

"Dean!" Sam was in his face, hands on his shoulders to give him a strong shake. "You're not a murderer, Dean. Do you think that's what Emmanuel would have wanted?"

Dean breathed heavily through his nose. His eyes fell on Anna, standing silent and still close by, and narrowed. "What about you?" he accused. "Where the hell were you, huh? You stood between me and that bullet, swatted it aside with your bare hand before you smited the shit out of Dinario. Why the fuck didn't you do that before he killed Emmanuel?"

"Because I wasn't there for that."

"So you said!" Dean spat. "So you keep saying. Why me, huh? Why me, and not him? I'm nothing, nobody, but Emmanuel? He was… Emmanuel was good!" He was crying again. Fuck it, he didn't care. He pushed past Sam, ignoring his brother's warning to get nose to nose with the angel. "He was the special one! He was the one who really needed an angel, and where were you? Where the hell were you?"

"Watching over you." She was perfectly calm, her hands folded in front and her cool gaze locked with Dean's as he stood over her. "As to why you? It was because I made a promise to a friend."

"Dean?" Sam was there again, hands on Dean's arm, pulling him back. "I get the feeling there's a story here that we probably want to hear."

Anna hummed, tilting her head to study Dean again. The gesture was so familiar Dean ached all over again. "I don't know that he's ready to listen," she mused. "Perhaps it's best that I show you."

Before either of them could react, she was reaching for them again. The sickening feeling of movement came again, doing terrible things to Dean's bowels. He was sure he wouldn't poop for a week after this. But then he recognized what was in front of him and he forgot all about his bowels. "Sammy?" he called. "This is…"

"I see it, Dean." Sammy was holding tight to him. Good thing. Dean felt as though his knees would give out at any minute.

In front of them, deep in a mosquito-filled swamp, was Dean Winchester. He was lying back on the hood of a shining black Impala, beer in hand, watching quietly as meteors streaked across the sky. He didn't seem to react when a doppelgänger of Anna appeared. She had one hand on the shoulder of a bedraggled figure in a cast-off suit. The sight of the familiar black wings made Dean gasp and start forward, but Sam stopped him.

"Dean, I don't think this is real," he warned.

"This is a vision of the past," Anna, the one with them, explained. "You can watch, but you cannot interfere."

Vision Dean began to talk, quietly speaking to his angel. The vision of Jimmy/Emmanuel hadn't seemed to realize that he was anything but alone. Now he looked up at the sound, brightened, and started towards Dean. Vision Anna smiled, watching the winged man approach. But her smile quickly faded. Her wings appeared as she flashed forward, spreading wide to protect Dean just as the meteor struck. Dean was shielded from the damage but Emmanuel, almost to the Impala, was knocked back by the impact.

"I was instructed not to interfere," Anna said quietly, watching the vision of herself vanish in a spray of light and unseen feathers. "This was my punishment for helping to facilitate your meeting."

"What, the God Mob threw a meteor at you?" Dean asked.

"No," she said. "They threw it at you, Dean. Protecting you from it cost me dearly. I had to hide for several weeks until I could heal. By the time I found you again, though, you were together."

"Wait," Sam called. "You facilitated their meeting?"

"I did." The scene shifted, showing Emmanuel, miserable and alone, sitting in the locked room in the Adlers' RV. Anna was there, obviously still unseen by Emmanuel. She waved a hand and the door unlocked. Emmanuel startled as it creaked open. He cautiously tried it, peeking out. The Adlers weren't there. Seeing the coast was clear, he climbed out and quickly dashed out the door, breaking into a run away from the RV. Still unseen, Anna ran with him, gently guiding him towards Dean without his knowledge.

"So you set them up," Sam realized. "You made sure they'd meet."

"I had to wait until they were both close enough to make it possible," Anna admitted. "The more I interfered, the greater the risk that Heaven would notice. This was all I could do."

"But why set them up?" Sam wanted to know.

Now she smiled again. "Because they belonged together."

"Says who?" Dean didn't know how to feel, but was steadily heading towards his old standby - anger. "Who decides who should be together?"

"Normally, that's a job for the cupids, following any plans Heaven might have for the birth of certain individuals," Anna explained, relaying this absurd information without so much as a twitch. "Naturally, as there's no mating involved, same-sex couples are generally left to their own devices. But the two of you were different."

"So why put us together?" Dean wanted to know.

"Because I owed a favor to a friend."

Dean scoffed, shaking his head. "And that's why you saved me back at the base? Because you owed some friend a favor? I don't get it."

"Then look."

Once again, the smell of smoke and burning flesh assaulted Dean's nostrils. He whirled, staring wide-eyed at the remains of a blown-out building.

"Go get help! I'm going to see if there's anything I can do inside."

Dean gasped as his younger self somehow managed to run right through him, heading towards the building. Next to him, Sam watched with wide eyes as Dean started bringing people out. "You ran into that burning building, over and over, to save these people," he whispered. "You were a hero, Dean."

"It didn't matter, Sammy," Dean reminded. He turned to Anna. "Please," he begged. "Don't make me watch this."

"I'm sorry, but you must see," she insisted. "Only then will you understand."

"Why do I have to see it?" he demanded. "I get it, you're the one who saved me, but why? Why me, and no one else?!" He threw out an arm, indicating the three people his younger self had dragged next to the truck, not knowing of the danger that truck represented. "Why was I any more deserving than any of these guys I tried to save, huh? Why me?"

"Watch," Anna ordered. "Watch, and see."

Lt. Donovan was nodding at Past Dean. "Good work, soldier. Ok, everyone, let's get busy! First off, I want…"

It was just like Dean remembered. The explosion, the noise and heat. But suddenly, everything went silent.

"Dean?" Sammy called. "Dean! Open your eyes, you have to see this!"

Dean hadn't realized he'd just squeezed his eyes tightly shut. It took some serious effort of will to open them. But what he saw took his breath away.

The scene was frozen in time. Billowing flames were washing over the entire landscape, devouring everything. But the past version of Dean was different. He was standing, staring at the winged figure that held him tightly, black wings wrapped protectively around him, shielding him from the flames.

Dean moved closer on shaking legs, coming around the still image of his past self until he could make out the face of the angel through the flames and his wings. He gasped. "Emmanuel!"

"No," Anna corrected. "Castiel, Angel of the Lord. You were meant to die that day, Dean Winchester, another victim of that bomb. But Castiel ignored his orders. He saved you. And it cost him dearly."

The scene shifted, showing the Adlers driving along in their RV. The two appeared to be arguing, paying little attention to the road. As a result, when a figure suddenly came hurtling down from the sky, smashing through a billboard and coming to a bouncing, rolling stop right in the road, they barely managed to stop in time.

Hannah and Zachariah jumped out of the RV, racing towards the still figure, only to stop in shock when a mangled black wing unfolded. "Who… what are you?" Zachariah asked.

"Castiel," the battered angel groaned, trying to push himself up. "I'm an… angel… of the Lord." Then his shaking arms gave out and he collapsed onto the street.

"Oh!" Hannah had her cell phone out, dropping it in her haste. "I need to call 911," she said as she picked it back up. "I need to get an ambulance, the police…"

"Stop!" Zachariah ripped the phone from her hands. "Help me carry him into the RV."

"Help you… What?" Hannah shook her head, confused. "Zachariah, he needs a hospital!"

"He's an angel, what good will a hospital do? If we can… Ugh!" The man's face twisted into a scowl of disgust, shaking his hand in an effort to remove the blood. "He's bleeding? This isn't an angel, it's a nutcase!"

"But…" Hannah was looking at the burning hole in the billboard.

"I saw it too, but look at him," Zachariah insisted. "He's a bleeding mess, all scraped up from the road. Whatever happened that he survived without breaking every bone in his body, he's obviously human now. But he's still got those wings, and he can move them. If we can get him into the RV before anyone else comes along, we've got it made, Hannah. Now help me carry him into the RV!"

"That is how Castiel came to be with the Adlers," Anna said quietly. "He was cast down out of Heaven, rendered human. When he woke in the Adlers' RV, he had no memory of who or what he was. Adler took full advantage, as you're aware. He used my brother as a prop, to trick believers into giving him money for healing that Castiel could no longer perform. He was cursed to live a mortal life."

"Because he saved me?" Dean asked, anguished.

"Because he committed a far worse sin than that," Anna explained. "Castiel had to save you, Dean. Because he's not like other angels. My brothers and sisters shake their heads at him, saying he came off the line with a crack in his chassis. Castiel has human emotions, you see, which no angel should have. And his greatest sin against Heaven was falling in love with a human."

Dean's head was spinning. "That's why he did it?" he asked. "He defied Heaven to save me, because he was in love with me? But I'm nothing special!"

"That's where you're wrong."

Again, the scene shifted. Now a child version of Dean was looking up at a man. The man had an obviously-fake badge he was showing the child, but naturally, the child had no way to realize this. Young Dean clearly knew something was amiss, though. He was backing away, trying to keep his distance from the man. Finally, the man lunged for him. Child Dean twisted away and started running.

"This bastard," Sam growled. "So it was Castiel who saved Dean that day?"

"It was."

In the vision, the man had started chasing Dean in his car, cutting the child off, then bursting out to grab the screaming little boy. But then Castiel appeared. He tore the man's hands away from the terrified child. Then the man was flying, propelled by a mighty push to slam hard into the door of his own vehicle. The man grunted as metal dented, glass shattered, and bones broke. Blood had started dripping from his mouth as Castiel scooped the sobbing little boy into his arms.

"Holy shit, he really did kill that guy, didn't he?" Dean marveled. "Good!"

"I don't disagree, but why are you showing us this?" Sam asked.

"Because this is the moment." Anna pointed at Castiel, frozen in time with Dean in his arms. "From the moment he touched you, Dean, he was gone. He told me that your soul shone like none other he'd ever encountered. He was fascinated by you. He found excuse after excuse to return to you, watch over you."

"And he fell in love with me," Dean whispered.

Anna nodded. "He did. And that is why, the day he was ordered to ensure that bomb went off at the base, he disobeyed and saved that one shining soul he loved."

"And for that, he was cursed to a mortal life," Sam finished. "That's how he became Emmanuel. And you watched over Dean for him?"

"For six years, as a favor to my friend. Castiel believed that the world was simply a better place if Dean Winchester was still in it. Having that bright and shining soul made the universe that much brighter. And so he defied Heaven for you, and in doing so, changed the course of history."

"That bomb," Dean realized. "It was supposed to do more than it did, wasn't it?"

"It was meant to trigger a war." Anna's face was solemn now. "Hundreds of lives were supposed to be altered but weren't. Because one man survived, the focus of the story wasn't on the loss of life, but on the fact that one man tried desperately to save others. Sympathy rose above anger, and those that would have otherwise gone to war instead exercised patience. And Heaven's plans were irreparably altered."

"Ouch." Dean winced. "No wonder everyone in Heaven was so pissed!"

"Not all angels in Heaven believed that Castiel deserved his fate. He was right, after all. The world was indeed a better place with Dean Winchester alive. I couldn't help my brother. But I could protect the man he loved." She put a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Do you really think you could have survived this long if I hadn't?"

"She's got a point," Sam mumbled.

Dean ignored him. "When I was in the psych ward?" he asked. "You were there then, with me?"

"I was," she said. "You were never alone."

That made something melt inside of him. He clutched at her arm. "Thank you."

"Of course. I did all I could. I even made sure that Castiel had a chance to live his mortal life with the man he loved. But it's over now."

"Is he in Heaven?" Dean asked. He was crying again. "Since he lived a mortal life, does that mean Castiel's in Heaven? Can I see him someday?"

"Yes." She smiled. Then she was reaching out to touch them, and the brothers found themselves alone, back at the Impala in the field of flowers.