Chapter Fifty Six: Gone
Something didn't feel right to Amriel.
While Mary was busy taking care of Kelly, the angel paced back and forth near the window, glancing out of it every few moments to see if either of the Winchesters, Cas, or Crowley had returned from the rift.
Amriel winced as she felt another pain shooting through her, this time it was like a kick to the ribs. Cas must've been fighting with Lucifer in the other dimension, and she was doing everything she could to keep herself from going down there and crossing through the rift herself.
Good to know that their bond crossed dimensions.
When Sam and Dean appeared through the rift without Castiel, she turned to look at Mary, making eye contact before asking if she had things handled here.
"Yes, Amriel. Go, I've got it covered," Mary nodded affirmatively, and she took off from the bedroom and down the stairs, out into the back yard where she saw the brothers getting to their feet.
The rift was starting to fade before them, and Amriel was prepared to run into it and get her husband before Sam grabbed onto her arm, pulling her back as the rift pulsed and Cas came through the dying light.
"Cas!" Amriel breathed with relief. The rift flared once more and Lucifer was standing behind him. Before anyone could make a move, Lucifer thrust an angel blade through his back, the tip showing through his chest.
Amriel watched as a bright, white light escaped Castiel's body, unaware that her own eyes were a similar white as he fell to the ground, feeling like her heart was being ripped out of her chest. She didn't even realize she had been screaming until her voice cracked.
"Castiel!" she shouted, trying to run towards him, only stopping when Sam wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her up so her feet couldn't touch the ground. She stared at her husband's lifeless body, wanting nothing more than to get to him.
"Let me go!" Amriel cried, only to fall silent when Lucifer started to speak.
"That was fun! Seriously, guys, points for trying. Super impressed, kinda disappointed you didn't bring my former vessel into the game, though. Hiya there Amriel. Long time, no see. Too bad about killing your hubby, huh? Sorry not sorry 'bout that. But anyways, uh.. Playtime's over."
"Get away from them," Mary Winchester's strong voice filled the air, and Amriel glanced over her shoulder and around Sam's frame to see the woman standing near them, a resolute look on her face.
"Mary, right?" Lucifer asked, "Yeah, I've heard about you. You, uh, are certainly living up to the hype. Look, seriously, I just wanted to say thank you for everything. I owe ya, kid."
Mary stepped toward Lucifer after having activated the angelic brass knuckles she had been concealing behind her back, ignoring her younger son's attempts to stop her.
"Mom. Mom… Mom!" Sam called, holding onto Amriel with one arm still wrapped around her while trying to reach out to Mary.
"I love you," she said to her sons softly before punching Lucifer in the face.
"Cute. Is that all you got, mama?" Lucifer asked with a cocky grin on his face, and Amriel wanted nothing more than to kill him where he stood.
Mary punched him again and again, and Lucifer dropped the angel blade beside Castiel's body. She continued punching him, each hit lighting up the red grace beneath his skin. Amriel watched in amazement as Mary punched him back towards the rift, and as he fell through it, he grabbed onto her arm and pulled her with him.
"Mom!" Dean called out, rushing towards the rift as it flared brightly before disappearing altogether.
Sam noticed a glowing, flickering light inside the house, and then finally let go of Amriel to go and see what was going on.
Amriel stumbled without the support as she ran towards Cas and she fell to her knees beside him, rolling him over and checking for any signs of life.
"No.. No, no, no," Amriel began to mumble to herself, ignoring the searing pain that was coursing through her body, "You can't— you can't do this! You can't leave me, Cas!"
The power lines nearby began to spark and she heard thunder in the distance, a streak of lightning illuminating the sky not long after as the wind began to pick up around them.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and she bristled, her wings flexing to push Dean away, even though they were still invisible to him.
Not even bothering to look over her shoulder to see how far she had pushed him she said, "Don't! He's going to be fine—"
"Amriel," Dean said calmly, too calm for her liking, "He's gone. There's nothing we can do."
He approached cautiously and tried to help her off of the ground, but she latched on to Castiel, unable to let go of him. She focused her grace and tried to find his so she could heal him, but she found nothing.
"I'm not— I can't leave him. He's part of me, Dean," she told him, her eyes filling with tears as she tried to process what was happening. She felt like something was wrong with her. Something was missing. "He can't be—"
She cut herself off, unable to say it. Unable to say that Castiel, her husband, her other half, was dead.
"I know, let's move him to the car, okay?" Dean asked, trying to hurry her along. Sam was inside, trying to deal with the aftermath of whatever had happened in there, and he… Well, he was trying to deal with what had just happened. He lost his mother and his best friend in the span of a few minutes. Instead of letting it sink in, he compartmentalized and focused on the blonde in front of him, her tear stained face as she stared down at Cas tugging at his heartstrings in a way he hadn't expected. She loved Cas and was tied to him in a way he could never begin to understand, and he didn't know if she was gonna be able to deal with losing him.
"C'mon, Blondie, help me pick him up," he tried again, but she shook her head and gathered him up in her arms, picking up her husband's body with ease and trying to ignore the wings scorched into the ground.
Amriel carried Cas to her car and placed him in the back seat, crying the entire time. She couldn't take her focus off of him, waiting for him to open his eyes and smile at her in the way only he could.
Amriel sat in a chair in the library as she stared straight ahead, but not really seeing anything.
Sam watched her from the doorway, a mug of coffee in his hands as he frowned. She looked so lost, wearing Cas' sweatshirt that was way too big for her, and he didn't know how to help.
She had brought Cas back to the bunker herself while he and Dean dealt with keeping people off of Jack's trail and making sure he was safe before bringing him there. She had been alone for days.
Dean was begrudgingly watching Jack, the nephilim who looked like a teenager but was really only a week or two old, while Sam kept an eye on Amriel, who had been silent the entire time they'd been back. He knew it was probably because she had screamed herself hoarse, but the fact that he hadn't heard her say a word in days was troubling him.
"Elle, do you need anything?" he asked, drawing her out of her daze.
She looked at Sam, her eyebrows furrowing as she blinked a few times in an attempt to stop the tears she felt welling up, and she shook her head.
"No," she finally spoke. "Please, don't call me that though. It's what Cas calls- called me."
Amriel watched Sam tense up before he finally nodded, coming into the library and sitting in the chair next to hers.
"I have no idea what you're going through right now, but I'm here if you need me, okay?" he asked, offering her the mug. She shook her head and tugged the hoodie tighter around herself in response, glad he had decided to keep some of the clothes he had worn as a human.
"I don't know what to do. I feel like part of me is just... gone," she said quietly. "It hurts so much."
She was doing all she could to hold herself together. To keep herself from tearing apart the bunker or drinking until she dulled the pain.
How was she going to survive and continue to exist in a universe without Castiel?
"We have an eternity together, we'll be okay." His words to her were on a constant loop in her mind now, and she couldn't make it stop.
"What am I supposed to do, Sam?" she asked him, her voice steadily rising as she worked herself up. "I feel like I'm underwater. I can't breathe, everything hurts. He- he's dead!"
Sam was out of his chair and had pulled her into a tight hug, rubbing small circles over her back and shoulders as she cried.
"Amriel, you're going to get through this," he told her honestly, like he really believed it. "You're going to survive, day by day, and Dean and I will be there for you. We need to do something about this nephilim though. Kelly... she said he wanted you and Cas to be his parents, right?"
"Yeah, that's what they told me before-" a sob cut her off, "I don't want to do this alone. I can't."
"Like I told you, we'll be right there with you, okay?" Sam said, setting his hands on her shoulders and holding her back at arm's length. "You're going to be okay. It might take a while, but eventually, it won't feel like this."
She shook her head, telling him that she would never be okay. That she didn't want to be okay without Castiel, and Sam gave her an understanding look.
"When Dean died, all I did was look for a way to bring him back," Sam told her. "I tried to make deals, I tried spells, anything that could possibly bring my brother back-"
"Yeah, but he came back! Dean always comes back," she snapped, quickly apologizing after.
"Cas has too, you know. More than once," Sam said, looking up when Dean came into the library.
"Uh.. The kid wants to see Amriel," the older Winchester announced awkwardly, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck.
Amriel frowned, shaking her head, "I can't. I just.. I'm not ready yet."
She backed out of Sam's grasp and quickly headed out of the library, through the war room and up the stairs, exiting the bunker as fast as she could, ignoring Sam and Dean as they called after her.
Taking a deep breath of fresh air, Amriel glanced behind her to see if they had caught up to her. When she realized they hadn't yet, she took out into the fields that surrounded the bunker. She needed some time to clear her thoughts.
There was no way she could take care of a newborn nephilim by herself. He contained so much raw power- how could she possibly help him control it? She laid in the grass, watching the clouds pass by as she sighed. There was no getting around it. She had promised his mother that she would help in any way she could, and a promise was a promise.
Maybe if she helped him, he could help bring Cas back… And if not, she'd have to find Chuck and get him to help.
Amriel knew what she had to do, and only hoped that she was strong enough. It's what Cas would have wanted her to do. So she picked herself up off of the ground and headed back to the bunker, where she found Sam waiting outside for her.
Disappointment filled her as she watched him heave a sigh and she prepared herself for a lecture that only Sam Winchester could give.
Instead, he handed her an open beer, motioning for her to take a seat on the steps leading down to the bunker. Narrowing her gaze, Amriel took the bottle and sat on the top step, and Sam sat beside her.
"I can't even begin to imagine how you're feeling," he started, and Amriel mentally prepared herself for him to scold her. "But you need to grieve. If it's by talking, drinking, or ignoring it, or whatever, you need to do what'll help you. Dean's got a half empty bottle of bourbon on his nightstand. I'm trying to cope too. But you've got to do something-"
"I don't know what to do," she said quietly, leaning against her knees and looking up at Sam, "But I think the nephilim, Jack, could help. He contains a lot of power that could maybe bring Cas back."
"Don't use him though, Amriel. That's not right," the Winchester told her. "He's still a living being, you know."
Amriel took a deep breath. She had been taught that nephilim were creatures and that they were beneath angels. They had been called abominations. But she had never actually met one before.
"Okay. I'll try, and that's the best I can do right now," she finally said, moving the beer back and forth between her hands before taking a sip.
"That's all I can ask," Sam gave her a reassuring smile, and together they finished their beers. He helped her up off of the step and together they walked into the bunker and down the stairs, where Amriel found Dean standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.
"You blow off some steam? Got your feelings worked out?" he asked, and Amriel felt all of the energy she had just gathered rush out of her, deflating her in a way.
"Not really, but here I am," she mumbled, and Dean turned around to lead her into the library.
"Hey Jack, here's the angel you've been looking for," Dean announced, and Amriel watched a young man look up from the book he was reading.
The nephilim had dirty blond hair and pale blue eyes that were watching her closely. He stood, setting the book down, and walked over to Amriel, almost invading her personal space. He was a little taller than she was, and she felt uneasy in his presence.
"Hello, Jack," she said quietly, feeling incredibly awkward with both Winchesters watching her introduce herself. "I'm Amriel."
"I know exactly who you are," he answered with a wide smile, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and hugging her tightly. "You're my mother."
Amriel froze, wanting nothing more than to push him off of her, but she stood there in his embrace, feeling the power radiating off of him in waves.
She struggled to figure out what to say while simultaneously wondering why she was having trouble breathing.
"I'm not the woman who gave birth to you, but I'm the angel that's going to try my best to raise you," she finally said, taking a step back and staring up at him, trying to ignore the fact that he was the spawn of Lucifer himself.
"Well, mother, I look forward to everything you have to teach me," Jack said eagerly, and Amriel fought a grimace from covering her face.
"Please, just call me Amriel," she told him, forcing a smile, "Your mother was a lovely woman, and I wouldn't want to disrespect her memory."
"Are you okay?" he asked, looking her over with a narrowed gaze, seeing something that the Winchesters couldn't. "It seems like you're missing something."
Amriel's eyes fell to the floor, staring at her shoes as she tried not to think about what had happened. She felt three pairs of eyes for her, waiting for an answer she didn't want to give.
"I- After Cas and I got married, we-" she stumbled through her words, unsure of what to tell him. "We participated in a ritual that united our graces. When he- when he died," Amriel's voice cracked, "I felt it. I felt everything. Now I only have half a grace, and I'm essentially useless."
The warmth of a large hand on her shoulder drew her attention and she looked up to see Dean staring at her with an empathetic look in his eyes.
"Amriel," he started, but she shrugged off his hand and wrapped Castiel's sweatshirt around herself tightly, moving towards the corner of the room. "We'll figure out how to fix you."
The angel fought off an eye roll, knowing that there probably wasn't anything they could do. Instead, she nodded and turned her attention to Jack.
"Have you tried figuring out what you can do?"
Amriel laid in a bed down the hall from the room she had shared with Cas, staring up at the ceiling. She couldn't shut her brain off- her session with Jack weighing heavily on her mind. The nephilim was nervous and he hadn't been able to move a pencil when Sam had asked him to.
Jack had been disappointed in himself, but she reassured him that it would take time. He was new to the universe. He would come into his own.
She frowned in the darkness, remembering how she had tried to move a book across the library, only to watch it hover slightly before falling back to the table. Jack had accidentally thrown her into a wall with his powers, and her bruises took a bit longer than they should have to heal. Then afterwards when she had taken a shower, she took the time to unfurl her wings and inspect them for the first time since Castiel had died. She had been horrified when she saw that they were dull and lifeless, devoid of everything that made them grandiose and beautiful. The feathers that had once been black, a physical representation of her union with Cas, were now gray. Like they were a shadow of what they once were.
It wouldn't belong before her remaining grace would begin to diminish, and she'd essentially become human. Amriel wondered what it'd be like if that happened. Surely the Winchesters wouldn't want to deal with her. They'd probably send her away like Dean had done to Castiel.
A knock on the door brought her out of her thoughts, and Amriel watched as Dean quietly entered, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two coffee mugs in the other.
"Can't sleep?" he asked casually, sitting in the chair near the bed and setting the mugs on the nightstand.
"I don't sleep. Not for now, at least," Amriel shrugged, sitting up and tucking her feet beneath herself, watching Dean pour a hefty amount of whiskey into each mug.
"You think your battery is gonna run out? Like when Cas had that stolen grace?" Dean handed her one of the mugs before picking up his own and taking a sip.
"I'm not sure," she said with a sigh. "But I do know that Jack is powerful, and we need to tread carefully with him. If the wrong person finds him and convinces him to join them, we're screwed."
"Which is why you need to mentor him. He thinks you're his mom," Dean stressed. "He'll look to you for answers. Maybe you could convince him to do something about Cas... His body is still here-"
"What?" Amriel hissed, "I thought you, I don't know... Gave him a hunter's funeral?"
"I couldn't do it," Dean looked at her sadly, "And you know I'd tell you if I was gonna do anything. I was thinking about leaving the decision up to you, since you're his wife and all."
"I don't know what to do. You actually knew him longer than I did… I only got a short amount of time to truly be with him, and we were going to spend eons together," she answered, staring down at her mug. "Part of me wants to search as long as it takes to get him back, but a small part of me is saying to let go. Castiel would never think like that, and it makes me feel terrible for even considering giving up."
"Then there's your answer. Don't give up. We'll talk to Jack in the morning and see if his weird superpowers can somehow bring back a dead angel," Dean told her, immediately regretting his word choice when he saw her recoil. "Yeah, sorry. Uh, look. We'll figure it out. If the Winchesters are good at anything, it's bringing someone back from the dead."
"I'm not a Winchester, though," Amriel tilted her head, staring at Dean in confusion.
"You may not be blood, but that doesn't mean you're not family," he tapped his mug against hers and downed the rest of his whiskey, pouring himself another. "And hey, I heard you came back from the dead once, too. If that doesn't show you're a true Winchester, then I don't know what does."
"Thank you, Dean," she answered quietly, "I know you didn't like me when we first met, but I'm glad we've come to an understanding."
"Yeah, well, you know me. Hunter's intuition is to kill everything that isn't human," he shrugged. "But I saw you with Cas. He loved you with everything he had. Sam thinks you're great, and you've saved my ass a couple of times. We take care of our own, Amriel."
Amriel offered the man a small smile of appreciation and finished off her mug of whiskey, and Dean nodded in return, collecting her mug and standing up, heading for the door.
"Good night, Blondie."
"Night, Dean."