Chapter Fifty Seven: Broken

Amriel walked through her favorite piece of Heaven, her eyes skimming the book titles as she moved into the room, where she knew Evan Sanders would be organizing his stacks of first editions.

Instead of Evan, however, Amriel saw a familiar tan trench coat and dark hair she missed more than anything.

"Castiel," she breathed, watching him thumb through a book.

He looked up, his eyes sparkling when he saw her. He looked well rested, far better than the last time she had seen him. She felt her heart begin to race as she got closer, and when she was close enough to touch him, he set the book down and pulled her into his arms.

"I've missed you so much," Amriel mumbled into his chest, trying to ignore the fact that she had started crying.

"Elle, this isn't real, you know that right?"

His deep voice startled her, and Amriel quickly pulled away.

"What do you mean this isn't real? You've been in my dreams before, just as I've been in yours!"

"This is a manifestation of your subconscious telling you that you need to let me go. Letting Dean keep my body in the bunker isn't doing you any good," the fake Castiel told her.

"I don't want to, though! We were supposed to have eternity!" she yelled, ignoring the way her voice echoed through the library. "You promised you wouldn't leave me! You broke your vows, and now I have to deal with everything alone."

"That's not true, Amriel. You're not alone," Cas said with hope clear in his voice. "You have Sam and Dean. You have Jack-"

"He's a ticking time bomb. There's no way I can help him control all of that power. Sam and Dean won't put up with me for much longer now that you're gone," she sighed. "It's probably time for me to go out on my own. Maybe I can help them on hunts when I'm needed."

"Elle, now is when they need you the most! They're grieving too, but they're hiding it for your sake. You're stronger than you think. You had Lucifer inside of your vessel, you should be able to deal with this," he reasoned, and Amriel shuddered at the unwanted memory.

"I just don't know what I'm supposed to do. I feel cheated out of our happiness," she said, taking a seat in one of the armchairs and holding her head in her hands, letting the defeat wash over her.

Cas was in front of her in an instant, rough fingers on her chin to tilt her face up towards him.

"Life isn't fair, Amriel. But life must go on. You must go on, without me."

He took her hand and pulled her up, his free hand cupping her cheek like he always did. And like always, Amriel leaned into his touch, closing her eyes and reveling in the feeling.

"You're going to wake up with a new outlook on life, okay? You're going to live your life to the fullest, and do what you need to do to cross everything off of that to-do list of yours," he said quietly, his warm breath cascading over her face and neck, making her shiver.

"I want nothing more than to wake up with you beside me. For everything to have been a nightmare," Amriel said, opening her eyes and staring up into his bright blue eyes. "But that's not going to happen. I just want you to know that I love you more than anything in all of creation, and I will never stop."

"I know," he answered, leaning in and pressing a lingering kiss to her lips. Amriel held onto the lapels of his coat tightly, trying to keep him there for as long as she could, and when she opened her eyes, he was gone.

She was alone.

"I want to give him a hunter's funeral," Amriel said as she walked into the kitchen where Dean and Sam were eating breakfast.

"What about what we talked about last night? Asking Jack, and all that?" Dean asked, and Amriel shook her head.

"No. I don't want to mess with things we shouldn't be messing with. I want to honor Castiel properly with a funeral," she told them firmly. "We need to move forward, and keeping him.. Keeping his body in the basement isn't going to help."

The brothers looked at each other and Sam sent Dean a small shrug that didn't go unnoticed, and Amriel continued, "Does sunset work? If you need me before then, I'll be downstairs with him."

"Amriel, are you sure that's a good idea?" Sam asked, and she shook her head.

"It's the last thing I want to do, Sam," she told him with a sad smile on her lips, "But I have to do it. I need to say goodbye. We all do."

Without another word, Amriel left the kitchen and headed down into the basement, closing the door behind her and taking a deep breath. She finally turned and saw Castiel's lifeless body, and felt like she was watching him die all over again.

Her chest ached as she looked at him, sadness filling her entire being. She grabbed a chair and pulled it up beside the cot, picking up his hand and frowning at how cold it was.

She didn't know what to do. They had been through so much together, and now she was alone. Nothing she had ever felt in her entire existence hurt as much as she did now, knowing that she would never see Castiel again.

The silence was driving her crazy, so she started talking. She talked about what had been going on since what had happened at the cabin, how she had been trying to cope, and how different things were without him there. How she felt like a burden to the brothers, but they were helping her through it in their own ways.

On the other side of the door, both Sam and Dean stood as close as they could without alerting her of their presence. She had been there for hours, and they were pretty much ready to start.

"I haven't even looked at my to-do list, but I know it by heart," Amriel said, "We were supposed to go to Washington for our anniversary. It's in two weeks, but you knew that. I saw the hotel you were looking at booking on the computer. Maybe I'll go, just to see our lavender fields.

"I'm so sorry that I left you to deal with everything… With Heaven, and Dagon, and keeping Kelly safe. I shouldn't have gone on all those hunts just because I was mad at you for putting Sam and Dean first. I should've been there when Ramiel stabbed you, to stop it from even happening. I should've answered your calls. I wish I had gotten to make it up to you, and now I never will."

Sam glanced down at his brother, who looked just as sad as he felt. Finally, Dean knocked on the door three times before opening it, and they found Amriel leaned back in a chair, staring up at the ceiling, almost like she was praying.

"Uh, Amriel," Sam started carefully. "We're just about ready. Do you want to head outside and wait for us to finish everything up?"

She knew he meant so they could wrap Castiel's body up, but he was trying to be sensitive about it. Nodding, she rose from her seat and pressed a final kiss to her husband's forehead, whispering that she loved him as she removed the platinum band from his finger and tucked it into her pocket. Amriel brushed past the brothers without a word on the way out, making her way upstairs and out of the bunker.

The funeral had been short. Jack asked what they should say, and Sam started with saying that they were sorry. He finally said his goodbye, before Dean his own goodbyes to Crowley, his mother, and finally to Cas. The three looked at Amriel, and she could feel their eyes on her as she stared ahead. Were they expecting her to break down or make some sort of speech?

Amriel merely lit the pyre and stepped back, and didn't move until the fire had burnt out as the sun rose high into the sky the next morning.

She stared past the pyre, into the distance and spoke softly in Enochian, vowing to be strong. She vowed to do what was right, and to make him proud.

"Noan da etharzi," she smiled sadly as she glanced up towards Heaven.

Be at peace.

She went back into the bunker and spotted Dean with a bottle of whiskey, apparently waiting for her to join him, but instead she headed straight for her bedroom and collapsed onto the mattress.

"Why is Amriel so sad?" Jack asked Sam a few days later, having just watched the angel brush past them on her way out of the bunker, her half a grace flickering wildly as she walked. "Her grace seems… unwell."

"She lost Cas, and she doesn't know what to do without him," Sam answered quietly as he stared up towards the door she had just left through, wondering where she was going.

"So she would be better if Castiel were here?" he asked curiously, and Sam nodded.

"We'd all be better if Cas was here…" Sam trailed off before straightening up and patting Jack on the shoulder. "But, there's nothing we can do but go on and try to live without him. She'll grieve… but eventually it'll start to hurt less."

"I'm not so sure about that," Dean interrupted. "From what it sounds like, when he died, his half of grace she had burnt out. It's never gonna not hurt her, Sam."

"Is there anything I can do to make her better?" Jack asked, looking between the brothers, who quickly stiffened and shared a look of their own.

"Not unless you can bring Cas back, kid," Dean finally said, a pained look crossing his face before it quickly disappeared. "But with God M.I.A., getting him back is gonna take a Hail Mary."

"A what?" Jack mumbled, and Sam shook his head, saying that he would explain later.

"Let's just table this for now, okay? Keep an eye on Blondie, and Jack, if you see her grace doing anything… funky… you let me and Sam know," Dean's tone left little room for argument, and with nothing else to say he left the room.

Sam left shortly after his brother, exiting the bunker and leaving Jack to his thoughts. The nephilim thought about Amriel's grace, how dull and lifeless it had become over the days he had known her. Maybe he could share some of his with her… or maybe, he wondered, he could bring Castiel back for her, so she wouldn't be sad or hurt anymore.

Somewhere else, there was a disturbance in the unending darkness.

"Castiel… Castiel…"

A faint voice filled the void, and then Castiel was alive.

His eyes opened to find that he was surrounded by complete nothingness. He stood shakily, looking around and trying to figure out just where he was.

"Hello?" He called out, only to be met with silence. "Hello?"

Sam found Amriel not far from the bunker, sitting in the field where they had held Castiel's funeral.

"I figured you guys would understand that I want to be left alone," Amriel said quietly, not looking up at her charge as he approached her with not-so-stealthy footsteps. She never understood how he could sneak around anywhere with his large, heavy boots.

"I thought you could use some company, actually. Going through loss isn't something anyone should deal with alone," Sam told her as he sat down beside her, crossing his long legs beneath himself.

Amriel sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, deciding if she wanted to tell Sam what she had been thinking about— what she wanted to do now that Cas was gone.

"I think I'm going to go and help people," she finally told him. "My grace will burn out eventually, so I might as well make the most of it and cure as many people of their illnesses as I can. I want to save lives."

She wasn't going to tell him that she couldn't stand being in the bunker with Castiel's belongings and things that reminded her of him everywhere she looked.

"That's really noble of you, but don't you think you should stay here with Jack?" he asked curiously. "I know it might not seem like it, but helping him adjust and learn to control his powers is important. He- he could hurt people, Amriel. Kelly... she chose you to look after him."

"And you think I don't know that?" she snapped, shooting him a glare as she spoke, "I remember the look on Castiel's face when he told me that Jack had communicated to him that we were chosen to raise him. We never expected to ever be parents, never considered it, and I was doubtful. How could angels be parents? But it isn't fair that I have to do it without him. He was supposed to be by my side!"

Sam heard the power lines begin to hum with life, so he reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder in an effort to calm her down.

"Amriel, things don't always work out the way we want them to," Sam tried, and when he realized she wasn't going to calm down he wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her against him in what he hoped was a comforting hug. "You can't deal with everything by just running away from your problems, or the things that cause you pain."

She struggled at first, trying to pull out of his grasp, but she gave up and just leaned against him, letting herself cry for the first time since she brought Castiel's body back to the bunker. Amriel held on to Sam, burying her face in his chest as she sobbed, finally coming to terms with the fact that she was going to have to live without Cas for the rest of her existence.

"It's okay," Sam mumbled gently, rubbing her back as he felt the air crackle around them. Her grace was still radiating energy, but at least it wasn't affecting the power lines nearby. "I'm here for you, and so are Dean and Jack."

Amriel nodded, not really listening, but understanding what he meant. She freed one of her hands and wiped away her tears, letting out a shaky breath as she tried to get herself together.

"It isn't possible for an angel to be a ghost, right?" she asked quietly, glancing at Sam before staring out into the distance. "I swear, sometimes I can hear his voice, or I'll see flashes of his trench coat in my peripheral, even when I'm wearing it."

"I- I don't think Cas is a ghost," Sam answered her honestly, a sad smile on his face as he watched her deflate. "Sometimes… Sometimes I swear I still hear Jess, but I know she's at peace, and so is Cas."

"Thank you, Sam. After spending this time on Earth, so close to humans, so close to being human, emotions are hard to handle. You've been so patient, even though I'm sure you're hurting too," she frowned up at him, realizing that she had only been concerned with her own feelings. "I'm not the only one who lost him, and I'm so sorry…"

"Don't apologize, Amriel. What you're feeling is completely natural, and very human," Sam reassured her. "Do you want to go back inside?"

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes again before she nodded, "Yeah, I guess so. There's nothing out here for me anyways."