Many thanks to Eyum daRelmera, gnbrules, NeteleJala, and Damaged Emerald for taking the time to share their thoughts. Because you've all been such good little readers, you get two chapters in one week =)

Chapter Ten

There was a surprise waiting for him at the restaurant on Friday afternoon.

"Anna?"

She had her back to the door, talking to Naomi, but she turned at the sound of her name and lit up like the sun when she saw him. "Hey, chef." She had to hug him carefully because of the baby in a sling on her chest, but it was no less warm than her smile, and it made him realize how much he had missed her. Of all his coworkers, she was the one he considered closest to a friend. (Dean was in a category by himself.)

"You're not back already, are you?" Castiel asked as she released him. "It's barely been three weeks."

"No, I'm just visiting. Actually I wanted to talk to you about that before the meeting. Castiel, I …" She rocked the sleeping baby nervously. "I don't think I'm coming back."

"What? Why?" Much as he enjoyed working with Dean, he couldn't imagine Paradis without Anna. She'd been with them since the beginning, and even though she could have had her own kitchen a dozen times over by now, she'd always insisted that she would rather be sous chef, that the stress of command would detract from her enjoyment of the cooking. But someone must have finally made her an offer she couldn't refuse. "You found another job," he said, trying not to sound too unhappy. She was talented, and she deserved a chance to spread her wings. He'd been lucky to keep her this long. Eight years was an eternity in the restaurant business.

"Yes, in a way." She looked down at her baby, and a soft smile of pure love curved her lips. "She's my job now. I don't want to miss a second of this. Her name is Rose Marie. I wanted to name her Rosemary, but Josh thought it was too old fashioned, so we compromised, and we probably would have ended up calling her Rosie anyway."

"She's beautiful," Castiel said sincerely. Knowing that Anna hadn't been poached by another restaurant made it much easier to be happy for her. He could understand her desire to spend every waking moment watching her daughter grow up. And then, for just a moment he couldn't see Anna and little Rosie. It was Jimmy standing in front of him, cradling tiny newborn Claire and smiling at her like he would give her every star in the sky if she asked. The memory cut into him like a shard of glass, and he missed some of what Anna was saying.

"… And Naomi says she's willing to hire Dean permanently if you agree to it. Oh, speak of the devil."

Castiel felt a big, warm hand on the small of his back and heard Dean exclaim, "Anna! Didn't expect you back here so soon. Come to take my job?" He said it playfully, and it was probably only because Castiel knew the real Dean, the man behind the charming mask, that he could hear the faint note of real worry in the question.

"Kind of the opposite," Anna said. "We were just talking about tha—"

"Cas?" Dean suddenly cut her off, and this time he didn't bother to hide his worry. "Cas, what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

That wasn't far from the truth, and Castiel wondered what it looked like from the outside. Was it obvious to everyone or only to Dean? Anna was also frowning at him in concern now that Dean had pointed it out. He made an effort to shake off the memories and focus on the present. "I'm fine. Anna just gave me some news that took me by surprise. She's quitting the restaurant business to be a full time mother, so the job is yours permanently. If you want it."

Dean blinked. Then a grin spread slowly over his face. "Are you kidding? Of course I want it."

Castiel managed a real smile of his own. "Good. It's settled then."

The fog of melancholy lifted as quickly as it had come, replaced with a sort of giddy relief. He'd been unconsciously trying not to think about what would happen when Dean had to go looking for a new job. Of course there were lots of restaurants in New York. Odds were good that one of them would need a cook, and he was reasonably sure that Dean wouldn't just up and leave when things were going so well. But it was nice to have one less thing to worry about. He would miss Anna, but they could keep in touch, and maybe now that he wasn't her boss, they could actually be friends.

"So he hasn't driven you crazy yet?" Anna said teasingly to Dean.

Dean laughed. "Oh, he's driving me crazy all right. But in a good way." He settled his arm more comfortably around Castiel's waist, and Castiel automatically leaned into the embrace, heedless of Naomi's disapproving eyes watching them from the other side of the room.

"Oh." Anna's eyes widened, and she didn't look at all disapproving. "Really? You two are …"

"It's a recent development," Castiel said, "but yes, we're dating."

Gabe was going past with a tray of food at that moment, and he stopped so fast that only many years of experience saved him from spilling something. "Wait," he said in tones of confusion. "That's not a secret anymore?"

Castiel frowned. "It was never a secret. You thought it was?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, worst kept secret in the world, but you were obviously trying your best, so we took pity on you and pretended not to notice."

"Oh, for … We were trying to be professional, not secretive."

"We were actually deliberately not trying to be secretive," Dean put in. "We were starting to think you were all incredibly oblivious."

"So we can stop pretending?"

"Yes," Dean and Castiel said in unison.

"Oh, thank God." Gabe somehow managed to theatrically sag with relief while still holding his tray perfectly steady. "If I had to spend one more night trying to keep a straight face while you two eye fucked each other from across the kitchen, I was gonna quit."

Castiel tried to glare sternly at Gabe, but it was difficult with Dean shaking with laughter beside him.

"If you aren't having too much fun over there," Naomi called peevishly, "perhaps we could begin the meeting."

There was a semi-official seating order at staff lunches. Naomi sat at one head of the table and Castiel at the other, though this had less to do with restaurant hierarchy and more to do with keeping a safe distance between them in case an argument broke out as it always did sooner or later. The seat to Castiel's immediate right was reserved for the sous chef, and everyone else sat wherever they liked. (There was always a discrete race to get the seats farther away from Naomi, but despite Castiel's own fearsome reputation, no one seemed to mind sitting at his end of the table. If Naomi had ever noticed this, she made no comment.) Today Anna happily relinquished her favored place to Dean and sat between two of the waitresses who were delighted at the opportunity to coo over the baby.

Naomi caught Castiel's eye and tipped her head questioningly towards Dean. Castiel nodded, confirming that everyone was in agreement on this.

Naomi didn't need to call for their attention. She always had it like the cat has the attention of the mouse. She began speaking and everyone else fell silent. "Before we begin, I have a short announcement to make. I'm sorry to say that Anna will not be returning at the end of this month as we expected. She has found her calling elsewhere, and I'm sure you'll all join me in wishing her well. Fortunately Dean has agreed to stay on permanently in the position of sous chef, so this should cause no disruption, and our service will remain up to the high standard our customers have come to expect."

She was looking rather pointedly at Castiel as she said that last part. He, equally pointedly, put his hand over Dean's on the table in plain view and lightly caressed Dean's knuckles with his thumb. The quality of their work hadn't suffered in the slightest since their relationship changed. She couldn't use that as an excuse to come between them whatever her personal opinions about workplace romance.

The reaction around the table was predictable — surprise and a little sadness, but everyone was pleased that Dean would be staying. They congratulated him and made Anna promise to visit occasionally. Then the food was passed around, and they moved on to the usual business.

The food served at staff meetings had no relation to the restaurant's menu. The kitchen staff took turns catering, and whoever drew the short straw that week cooked whatever they liked. This week it was Benjamin's famous ropa vieja with huge mounds of white rice and fried plantains. Leftovers were looking increasingly unlikely by the minute.

An hour later the business part of the meeting was concluded and everyone was chatting while they polished off the last of the food. Little Rosie was being passed from one pair of arms to another, the female staff, and some of the men too, bickering good naturedly over who would get the privilege of holding her next.

"Chef? Want a turn?"

Castiel looked up from a quiet conversation with Dean about which movie they should go see Monday night. "What?"

Anna was standing next to him, offering him the baby. "Would you like to hold her?"

"Oh. N-no, that's all right." There was no way he could hold Rosie without thinking of Claire and Jimmy, and if it hurt as bad as it had before …

Misinterpreting the cause of his panic, Anna said with gentle amusement, "You won't break her. Here, I'll show you how."

He stood up so fast he bumped the table, making the dishes rattle, mumbled something about the bathroom and fled. He heard laughter behind him, but he didn't care. Let them think it was a silly male phobia of babies. He wished it was that simple.

He didn't go to the bathroom. Instead he headed through the empty kitchen to the big fridge, his sanctuary on busy nights when Naomi was getting on his nerves even more than usual and he needed to clear his head before he bit off someone else's. It felt colder when he wasn't coming from the heat of a kitchen in full dinner rush mode and wasn't wearing his chef's coat. He hugged his arms around himself and took deep breaths, trying to calm down, but the lump in his throat only seemed to get bigger. What was wrong with him today? He'd been doing so well, facing the memories a little bit at a time. Why did this one hurt so much more?

The door opened, and Castiel prepared to snap at whoever it was to go away. It was Dean. He took one look at Castiel and wordlessly put his arms around him while the door swung shut on its own.

Castiel buried his face in Dean's shoulder, burrowed into the warmth of him, and sobbed. Dean still didn't say anything, didn't ask questions or offer meaningless words of comfort. He just held Castiel as tightly as he could without hurting him, and somewhere in the maelstrom of grief and pain and confusion, part of Castiel wistfully wondered if this was what it felt like to be loved.

After what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes, his body reached the limit of its ability to continuously produce tears, but he continued to cling to Dean, his breath hitching a little in his chest.

"Is this about Anna leaving?" Dean asked as his fingers carded soothingly through Castiel's hair.

"No." His mouth felt sticky and strange. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried that hard. Maybe after he broke up with Bart, but that had been a quiet, reflexive sort of sadness that had more to do with wasting two years of his life on a man who would never love anything as much as he loved the sound of his own voice, and once he'd gone through the usual post break up rituals — cry, eat comfort food, burn all the cheating bastard's stuff — he'd felt better. He didn't feel better now. He felt like Dean's arms were the only thing keeping him together and without them he'd shatter into a million screaming pieces.

"Do you want to tell me what it is about?" Dean wasn't nudging. He was really asking what Castiel wanted to do, and that made Castiel want to tell him.

"It's hard to explain. I'm not sure I understand it myself. It's just … For some reason seeing Anna with her baby makes me think of Jimmy, of how much he loved Claire, and of all the things he won't get to see. Her first crush, her first first date, her graduation, her wedding. It's … It's so unfair." His voice broke on the last word, and a few more tears leaked out, but he was still mostly dried up.

"Yeah, it is," Dean said. He didn't add that life wasn't fair. It wasn't even implied. He just acknowledged that Castiel was right and then fell silent again, waiting to see if Castiel had more to say.

"I'm angry at him," Castiel whispered, admitting it to himself for the first time. "I'm angry at him for leaving me to raise Claire all by myself, and I feel guilty for being angry because it wasn't his fault, and I know he would never have chosen to leave her, not like —"

Not like our mother chose to leave us, chose it long before she actually died. He decided not to say that part. One trauma at a time.

"And at work I have to be professional, and at home I have to keep it together for Claire's sake, and by the time I have a minute to myself I'm too tired to do anything but sleep. I'm just so tired all the time." The words poured out just like the tears, raw and uncontrollable.

"Oh, baby," Dean murmured into his hair. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you're hurting. I wish I could make it better."

"But you do." Castiel lifted his head to look at Dean. "You being here makes it better. I only feel like myself when I'm with you. I think —"

He stopped again, but this time it wasn't because the words teetering on the tip of his tongue were too painful. They were bright and beautiful and wonderful and terrifying and much, much too soon. He kissed Dean, fierce and hungry and demanding, because it was the only way to stop himself from blurting out those dangerous words.

I think I'm falling in love with you.