I hope you're all doing as well as you can be during the pandemic. It's a weird time, and I don't really know how I'm feeling. Trying to take it day by day!

But here's a new chapter, and if you haven't checked it out already, I posted a the first chapter of a new short series I've been working on during quarantine called Finding Grace. It also features human!Cas, and explores him adjusting to his new life.

Thanks so much for all of your comments, messages, favorites, and follows. It means the world to me and keeps me going.

Disclaimer: In no way do I have any rights to Supernatural or any of the characters you are familiar with. I only own Amriel and any OCs that pop up along the way.

Chapter Fifty Three: Tension

Once they got to Cleveland, they interviewed the bandmate of an aging rockstar named Vince Vincente, only to discover that he hadn't been acting like himself, and that his eyes glowed red and he had superhuman strength.

After that interview, they ran into Crowley. They discovered that he had gone through Vince's room and found out about a woman named Wendy. The entire time they were on their way to find her, Crowley tried to goad Cas into an argument just for the fun of it, saying that fate had brought them all together, and they were simply meant to be. Amriel ended up having to separate the two. She had given Crowley the most intimidating look she could while simultaneously calming Cas down through their shared grace and she wondered why she was even there.

"I am not your peace keeper," she told them as she unlocked the truck they had been traveling in. "Figure out how to get along before I leave you both somewhere neither of you can escape."

Castiel seemed to heed her warning, while the demon rolled his eyes and scoffed at the threat, muttering, "As if you'd leave your hubby alone with the likes of me."

The blonde's eyes flashed a bright blue, and Crowley stopped in his tracks, not liking the sudden thickness of her power humming in the air around him.

"Fine, fine. I'll play nice, but just because you're my favorite angel," Crowley conceded, and Amriel grinned while Cas glared. "Don't worry, Castiel. You're my favorite too."

"Good."

Following leads that forced them to spend any amount of time with Crowley wasn't Amriel's idea of fun.

She and Cas would've been much happier on their own, but the former King of Hell had connections and intel that they didn't, so Amriel bit her tongue when he tried to goad her into a petty argument. Besides, it was her fault Lucifer was free to walk the Earth, so maybe this was a part of her punishment for that.

The three found Vince's sister, Wendy, and the angels immediately noticed that she had been healed recently.

It turned out that Vince had been at her house the day before, with a woman that Wendy had described as his groupie friend. After hearing her description, they realized the groupie friend was actually Rowena.

They continued to talk with Wendy, trying to find out if she had any information as to where her brother would go if he wanted to get away from everything, and learned that he had a cabin.

After explaining that they didn't want to hurt him, and promising her that they would find Vince and make sure he was okay, the three left and headed out for the cabin in Sagamore Hills, only to have just missed Lucifer.

Instead, they found Rowena sitting on the back porch having a drink, and she offered the three a cup of tea.

Amriel was surprised, since most of her interactions with the witch hadn't been very friendly, and Lucifer had killed her while using her vessel. But Rowena was hospitable and offered to be there when they had Lucifer cornered and needed her help.

While Crowley and Cas were busy discussing their next move, Amriel stood outside with Rowena and stared out into the forest.

"I'm so sorry for what Lucifer did to you while he was using my vessel," Amriel broke their silence, feeling the witch's gaze on her now. "He's a monster, and I'm going to make sure he gets put back where he came from."

"Well, I would say that it wasn't your fault, but it was, wasn't it dearie?" Rowena said with a small smirk on her lips. "No need to beat yourself up about it. We all make mistakes, some are just much… grander than others."

Amriel wasn't sure if Rowena was being rude to her or not, so she shrugged it off and glanced down at the witch, deciding that she was going to be nothing but kind to her.

"I like your eye makeup," Amriel told the redhead, feeling deja vu all of a sudden. "I wish I could do my eyeliner like that, but it never comes out evenly."

The angel watched Rowena's eyes light up, and Amriel knew she was going to win her over.

"Thank ya, girlie. You know, it took years of practice, but I'm sure I can show you a few tricks I've learned," Rowena smiled. "I'm sure you've been dying for some girl time, since ya live with the Winchesters and you're attached to that one at the hip."

Rowena nodded behind them to Cas, and Amriel nodded, saying it had been a while.

"What are you doing over there?" Castiel's voice flooded her mind, and the blonde quickly shot him a glance before returning her focus to Rowena, noticing that he hadn't stopped his conversation with Crowley. He had always been good at multi-tasking.

"Making friends. We don't want to have her as an enemy… Plus, she seems nice once you get past her tough shell," she answered him, feeling his exasperation.

Amriel grinned as she gave him another look, one that Rowena immediately noticed and commented on.

"You do know it's absolutely disgusting how adorable you two are, don't you?" Rowena asked, and Amriel tilted her head.

"I- we've been told that before, yes," she finally nodded. "Maybe one day you'll find someone to be disgustingly cute with…"

"Oh, no no no," Rowena shook her head, chuckling at the blonde. "I don't do cute, Amriel. I'm a sophisticated woman who enjoys the finer things life has to offer-"

"Sophisticated my arse," Crowley interrupted. "My mother is an absolute hag, don't let her fool you into thinking otherwise."

"How dare you speak to your mother that way, Fergus!" Rowena gasped, "Amriel and I were having a lovely conversation, bonding and such. Lord knows you never want to spend time with me."

Amriel could sense the tension between mother and son, and she quickly excused herself and rushed over to Cas to tell him that it was time to get going.

While they had been busy trying to find Lucifer, he had been busy hopping from vessel to vessel, from billionaires to high ranking priests, up the ladder until he ultimately ended up in Jefferson Rooney, President of the United States. Somehow he had managed to get Rooney's staffer, Kelly Kline, pregnant. Crowley used the poor young woman to lure Lucifer into a trap, where they were able to exorcise him from Rooney's body and Rowena cast a spell to banish him back to the cage.

The Secret Service arrested Sam and Dean for attempting to assassinate the president, and Kelly had fled the motel where they had exorcised Lucifer. Amriel and Cas had split up, he and Mary went to find Sam and Dean, while Amriel tried to follow Kelly Kline until her trail ran cold and she had to rejoin her husband, empty handed.

They spent weeks with Mary, commiserating on how they should've done more to keep her sons from being apprehended. How they could've been doing more to deal with the monster attacks that were suddenly on the rise. Their efforts weren't enough, but they were still trying their best.

The pair of angels spent many sleepless nights together in the bunker, doing what they could to distract one another from their failures. Their intimacy could only do so much to keep each other from their suffering, though. Amriel hated that she had let her charge be apprehended, and she hated that she couldn't answer his prayers. But hearing his voice, despite how far away it was, kept her from losing it. If she could hear his prayers, she knew he was alive.

It had been two months when Cas got a phone call from Dean. They'd busted out of the secret military base they had been held prisoner in. They met up with two of the British Men of Letters, Mick and Arthur Ketch- Castiel's idea of back up. Amriel wasn't thrilled with the idea, and neither was Mary, but it was the only choice they had, so they took any help they could get.

Sam and Dean had escaped with the help of Billie. They'd made a pact that they'd get to die just one more time in order to get out of their cells, but in exchange, one of the Winchesters would die for good.

Mary had attempted to sacrifice herself for her sons since she was a Winchester, but Cas ended up killing Billie to break the pact instead, and Amriel had been furious with him.

"How could you be so impulsive? Killing Billie like that?" she had yelled at him once they'd gotten back to the bunker.

"I did what had to be done. They mean too much to me, to everything. The Winchesters are too important for the world to lose," Cas replied, his voice just barely cracking as he spoke, and that was when Amriel finally realized that he would always put Dean, Sam, and now Mary Winchester above himself, and above her.

"You'd put them above yourself? Above me?" she'd asked, ignoring the urge to conceal the hurt and anger she felt in that moment. She stopped and took a deep breath before she continued, "Fine. Okay. I need to cool down, then we can have a serious talk."

Amriel had stormed off to their room after that and kept herself busy so she couldn't have a real, full conversation with Castiel for weeks. Instead of going along with him to investigate the murder of an angel named Benjamin, Amriel convinced Sam to send her on hunts and took out her frustration on demons, ghosts, and anything else she could find.

Whenever they were at the bunker at the same time, Amriel would keep her interactions with Cas to a minimum, giving him short answers to any of his questions, letting him kiss her on the cheek every so often. She'd sleep in the same bed as him, but rarely cuddled.

Technically, she wasn't running, like Mary had told her to stop doing. She was there off and on, taking hunts whenever she could to get herself out of the awkward tension that lingered between them because they hadn't hashed things out like they should have.

Cas had stopped texting her while she was on hunts except if he was giving a status update on what he was doing with the Winchesters, and she had had shut down most of her side of their shared grace to focus on the jobs she went on, so whenever he tried to reach out to her he was met with little to nothing.

Amriel kept telling herself that after the next hunt, she'd sit down with Cas and they'd talk, but every time she worked up to it, he wasn't at the bunker. So, she kept hunting until the stars aligned and she could apologize in person.

One night on a wraith hunt outside of Louisville, she had been in excruciating pain, like she had been rotting from the inside out, and she had been unable to move from the bed of her motel room. She heard her phone ringing, but hadn't been able to move to get into her bag that was on the foot of the bed.

Amriel laid there in absolute misery, and even though nothing was physically happening to her, she thought she was going to die. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from making too much noise- she didn't want to draw any unwanted attention from her next door neighbors.

She could hear bits and pieces of Castiel's voice in the back of her mind, calling out to her, begging her to let him in, and so she did.

His voice wasn't clear, like the connection was fuzzy as he cut in and out. Maybe it was due to the pain, or the strain on their connection, but she could hear him asking if she was hurt, if it was happening to her, too.

"It hurts so much," she breathed aloud, unsure if he could hear her or not.

The buzzing in her ears cut out, and the pain was suddenly gone. The angel gasped, sitting up and getting off of the bed, looking at herself in the mirror to make sure nothing had happened.

She grabbed her phone from her bag, noticing that the missed call was from Sam and he had left a voicemail. Knowing it was probably him explaining what was going on, she listened to it.

"Elle, Cas was stabbed by Ramiel- the, uh, Prince of Hell- and he used the Lance of Michael. I think- he might be dying? He wanted me to make sure that this wasn't happening to you. Th- that you're not in the same pain he's in-" She heard Cas groaning miserably in the background, cutting Sam off.

Amriel could hear Dean too, telling Cas that everything was going to be okay, that he wasn't gonna die.

"I'm dying, I know. I'm okay with that. Make sure Elle knows I love her. Know that I love all of you-" Castiel coughed, and there was more commotion in the background before the call ended.

Tears ran down her cheeks as she listened to the message two more times, her fingers hovering over the screen of her phone, wanting to call Cas just so she could hear his voice and make sure he was okay.

She felt fine, so she assumed that something had changed and Cas wasn't dying.

Amriel couldn't bring herself to call him, though. She wouldn't be able to hold herself together if she heard his voice in real time, so instead she sent Sam a text.

"Is Cas ok?" she typed out, and a few minutes later she got back a "Yes. Are you?" from the Winchester.

The blonde breathed out a sigh of relief and rubbed a spot on her lower stomach that had been where the pain had started. She could only imagine what Castiel had been going through for this to affect her so much.

Her phone started to ring and she saw that it was Sam, probably to tell her about what went on because it'd be too long to text. He was lazy like that sometimes.

"Hello?" she asked, answering before it could go to her voicemail.

"Amriel, Cas… He's perfectly fine now. Are you okay?" Sam's voice filled her ear, and she nodded.

"Yeah, I am. Earlier, though, it felt like I was dying. I heard Castiel calling to me, and I got your message. I couldn't get to the phone… It hurt so much," she tried to explain to him. "As long as he's okay, though."

"Crowley saved him, actually. Do you want to talk to him?"

She could hear Sam rustling around, and she could only imagine what he was doing on the other end of the line.

"No, I- I can't right now. I have to go. Just… Keep him safe. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid," Amriel said quietly.

"Elle, come on. You can't keep him at arm's length forever-" Sam started, but she quickly cut him off.

"Please don't, Sam. I'll text you soon, okay?" She hung up before he could answer, and she quickly turned off her phone and tossed it back into her bag.

"Damn it!" Amriel groaned as she burst into the motel room she had been in for the past few days, cradling her right arm gently as she closed the door behind her.

It'd been weeks since her call with Sam, and a werewolf pack she had taken down had proved to be a challenge, and one had almost gotten the upper hand and ended up dislocating the angel's shoulder. Amriel had used her powers to end him swiftly and disposed of the six bodies she had beheaded with her one good arm, then drove herself back to the motel.

After reading online about how to pop her arm back into the socket on her own, Amriel took a deep breath as she held her left arm out in front of herself, grabbed her wrist, and slowly pulled her injured arm forward and straight until she felt her shoulder come back into place. Grabbing a towel from the bathroom, she quickly made a sling to wear until her grace healed her completely.

Amriel heaved a sigh and moved to the mirror to inspect the damage, not surprised when she found bruises and scratches littering her face and neck. They were all starting to heal themselves, however, which was a good sign. She didn't want to get any weird looks from strangers during her travels.

She knew that what she was doing was stupid. This wasn't a mere avoidance out of anger anymore. She'd been gone for too long and was afraid to go back now. He was probably just as livid as she was at this point. She'd tried calling him a few times before, letting the phone ring once or twice before losing her courage and hanging up.

So she just kept going on hunts and killing monsters.

The angel sighed as she sat on the bed and laid back on the pillows, her shoulder throbbing dully as it began to heal. What was she going to do next?

Amriel forced herself off of the bed and began stripping off her torn and bloodied clothes, dropping them as she made her way to the bathroom. She turned the taps and once the shower was running at an acceptable temperature, she stepped in and hissed at the feeling of the hot water coming into contact with her open wounds.

She leaned her forehead against the cool tile and counted to ten, feeling better now that her skin didn't sting as much.

It was difficult to wash her hair with one good arm, but she managed to get it done with only a little pain. Amriel stood under the scorching water, staring blankly at the wall and wishing that Cas was there with her. She loved the feeling of his fingers scrubbing her scalp, and wanted nothing more than to feel him close to her at that moment… But then she remembered him putting Sam and Dean above her, and suddenly she didn't miss him as much.

Amriel would have given her life for Cas. She had let Lucifer possess her to keep Castiel from doing it himself. She would go to the ends of the Earth, to Heaven, and beyond, if that's what it took to keep him alive and safe, but she couldn't say that she would do the same for Sam or Dean. Sure, Sam was her charge and she had responsibilities to keep him safe, but she wasn't going to give her life for him. She had millions of charges she had to look out for. People who didn't have such luck in escaping dangerous situations.

Cas was too selfless for her liking, she mused. She was constantly pulling him out of situations where he was ready to let himself die in order to save someone or for the greater good, as he would usually put it.

Maybe she should reach out to him and try to talk things out. She couldn't protect him if she wasn't with him, and Amriel would never forgive herself if anything happened to him and she could've stopped it. The incident with Ramiel had been too close of a call.

With her mind made up, Amriel got out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel, gasping when she heard her name ring through her head as if the voice was in the room with her.

"Amriel, this is Kelly Kline. Castiel told me that I should pray to you, so I hope you can hear me. Please, I need you to come. My son will be here soon and he needs you here… I need you here."

The angel frowned, wondering how Kelly knew that her unborn child needed her. She shook her head, trying to focus. Kelly was with Cas, apparently, preparing for the nephilim's impending birth.

She grabbed her phone and navigated to the contacts page, pressing the call button.

"Elle," a familiar voice filled her ear after the first ring, and Amriel felt herself relax.

"Hello, Castiel. I heard Kelly's prayer. What exactly are you doing with the mother of Lucifer's child?" she asked coolly, not wanting to give away her feelings.

"I have so much to tell you… But it would be best if it was in person. Wo- would you come to us? Kelly isn't in any condition to travel…" he trailed off, and Amriel immediately tensed up, wondering where all of this concern for Kelly was coming from. Was this what jealousy felt like?

"I… I'm not sure that's a good idea-" she started, but Cas cut her off quickly.

"You're in pain, Elle. I can feel it. You'll be able to heal much faster if you're here with me," he reasoned. "Please, just come to me… Come home."

She had always told him that no matter where they were in the universe, she would always be home when she was with him, and here he was, begging her to come back. To return home. Amriel had already been considering it before Kelly's prayer, but now it was decided.

"Of course. Send me the address and I'll be there as soon as I can," she finally relented.

"I'm texting it to you right now," his voice was far away now, but then he was right back in her ear. "Please hurry."

"I'll try, but I will not get a speeding ticket for you again, Castiel," she teased, before realizing that now wasn't an appropriate time for it. "I'll call when I'm close."

They exchanged awkward goodbyes, and Amriel tossed her phone on the bed and looked around at the motel room, figuring it was time to go.

She quickly packed up her belongings and slipped on her shoes, slung her bag over her good shoulder, and turned out the lights as she left the room to go check out.