Two

Brooke and Castiel came back to Sam and Dean's motel room two hours after Castiel had found her in the shower. Dean had gone off to get beers, apparently, so Cass sat down on the couch in front of the TV and entertained himself. He kept changing the channel after a few seconds, smiling.

Brooke leaned her hip against the table where Sam sat, tapping away at his laptop. After a few moments, he glanced up at her. "D-Did you need something?" he asked.

Brooke smiled at him, but didn't speak. She still found it too difficult to talk to anyone besides Castiel. And Castiel was the only one she could speak to because he was the only one who could possibly understand, other than, perhaps, Dean.

"She wants you to stand up," Castiel said, from the couch.

Sam glanced at the angel, then back at Brooke. "What?"

"She wants to give you a hug," Castiel explained, patiently.

"Oh." Sam laughed, and stood up.

Brooke wrapped her arms around him. Sam patted her back awkwardly. She pulled away after only a few seconds, understanding from Sam's body language that hugs weren't really his thing. The Winchesters had never been big on hugs, not even Sam, who was softer than Dean. Brooke smiled up at Sam and then turned and made her way to the couch, to watch TV with her angel.

The hug had been necessary. It was part of her exposure therapy, to remind herself that Castiel wasn't the only being in the universe who was there as a friend. Brooke had never spent much time with the Winchester boys on her own. Usually she was with Castiel, either with the boys or not. Probably, neither of them really considered her a friend—more so a constant accessory on the arm of the angel they considered a friend. Even so, they were at least friendly with her, and that was good enough, for now.

Castiel opened an arm to her as she sat on the couch and she allowed herself to be held by him as he continued to flick through the TV channels.

A few minutes later, Dean walked through the door, carrying a case of beers and a bag that smelled like food.

Food. Brooke had not eaten in a year. She stood up on shaky legs, staring at Dean as he put the beer in the fridge. He turned, with a smirk, and tossed the bag at her.

Brooke flinched, hard, but caught the bag. Her legs wobbled so much that she was forced to sit down again, and her breathing was shaky and fast.

Dean looked at her, awkwardly. "S-Sorry," he said.

She shook her head at him, opening the bag. A burger. And fries. She stared up at him.

He continued to look at her, then glanced away, then looked back at her. "What?"

"She wants to know if all the food in the bag is for her," Castiel explained, still staring at the TV.

"Y-Yeah," Dean said.

Brooke smiled. Then she got up off the couch and hugged him.

"Okay," said Dean, patting her back just as awkwardly as Sam had. "Okay. All right. Good."

Brooke pulled away. She went to the fridge, took a beer, opened it, and drank it all in ten seconds, gulping it down in large swallows. She wiped her mouth on her arm and turned to move back toward the couch. Everyone was staring at her. She glanced between three sets of eyes, and then smiled shyly and shrugged.

"I thought you didn't drink," said Dean.

She settled her eyes on him.

"She says, 'Things change,'" Castiel explained, from the couch.

Dean glanced at him, then turned back to her. "What's up? You don't talk now?"

Brooke remained silent.

"Things change," Castiel repeated, his voice softer. Sadder.

Brooke sat back down on the couch and shoved a handful of fries into her mouth. They were only lukewarm, now, but they were the best things she'd ever tasted in her life. Salty, fatty, oily. She looked up at Dean from the couch and smiled, then grabbed the burger out of the bag and took the biggest bite of it she could. Sauce ran down her face.

Dean laughed.

Castiel glanced at her, saw the sauce dripping from the corner of her mouth, and quickly ran a finger through it before it fell onto her shirt. He stared at his finger for a moment, silently wondering what the hell to do with it now, then he seemed to give up and popped it into his mouth. Immediately, he grimaced.

"Food still gross to you?" Dean asked.

"Unfortunately," Castiel said.

"I thought it would be," Dean replied, "or I woulda gotten you a burger, too."

"Well," the angel said, ducking his head and smiling. "Thank you for the thought."

As Brooke finished devouring her burger, Dean turned to Sam, who was still at this laptop. "What's the latest?" he asked.

"The latest is… nothing," Sam replied. "It's like it all stopped. No freak disappearances linked to any freak natural events."

Dean reached into the fridge and pulled out two beers, placing one on the table next to Sam and leaning over his brother's shoulder to look at the laptop. "So, how many is that? Seven?"

"Yeah, uh… Luigi, Justin, Aaron, Maria—

Beside Brooke, Castiel began to speak, reciting names from an invisible list in his head: "—Maria, Dennis, Krista, Sven."

Brooke stared at him, some small ping of warning going off in her head. The fact that Cass, somehow, knew these names meant that he would be useful to the Winchesters. Which meant they would ask something of him. Which meant she would have to go off with them somewhere, into danger.

"I missed television," Castiel said, with a smile, simultaneously squeezing Brooke's hand. Steady, he said to her, silently.

"Wait, Cass," Sam said, "how'd you know those other names?"

"Well, they're prophets," Castiel replied, as if that were obvious.

"Prophets?" Dean repeated.

"Yeah, angels instinctively know the names of every prophet—past, present, and future."

Dean slow approached the angel. "So this list is the name of every one of 'em that exists?"

"Yes, until the next generation is born—plus Kevin Tran, of course. The other seven are future prophets, since, uh, only one can exist at a time."

"How is Kevin a prophet if Chuck is a prophet?" Sam asked.

Brooke stared at him, not really seeing him. She hadn't even thought about Chuck in… years.

Castiel shook his head, finally pulling his eyes away from the TV. "I'm not sure what happened to Chuck, but, um… he must be dead."

"So, the next one comes off the bench if Kevin goes down?" Dean asked.

"Exactly." Castiel nodded. "And they have no idea who they are, of course."

There was a pause, and then Sam said, angrily, "Crowley."

Brooke pulled into herself at the sound of the demon's name, shaking her head. The Grace in her blood, Castiel's Grace, came boiling to the surface so fast that she nearly blacked out. It screeched inside her, ringing so loudly in her ears that she could hear nothing else.

It was not Crowley, himself, that was causing this reaction. It was the knowledge that she would need to go off and help Sam and Dean fight him. That she would need to help Sam and Dean fight… anything.

Castiel had turned to her immediately, sensing the rise of his Grace within her. He was saying something, out loud. She could see his mouth moving, but all she heard was that screeching.

"I don't wanna fight," she said, and her voice sounded muffled and underwater. "I don't wanna fight."

Castiel placed a hand on her shoulder. Brooke, he said, into her mind, since she could not hear anything. Steady.

She only shook her head harder, "I don't wanna fight," she repeated, and began to cry. Over and over, she repeated the phrase, running the words together until they were all one long word: idontwannafight.

Vaguely, she was aware of a low rumble in the floor of the motel room. The walls began to shake. Things fell off the shelves. Castiel stood up, quickly, turning to Sam and Dean, and then he turned back to her and gripped her shoulder.

They were far away now, in the middle of nowhere, outside.

Brooke, Castiel said. Control it. You have to control it, or you'll die. He placed both hands on her shoulders, and she felt him pushing and pulling at the part of his Grace inside her, muting it.

Slowly, with his help, Brooke began to calm down. The ground beneath her feet stopped rumbling ominously. That constant whine in her ears dissipated. Her vision returned to its full capacity. She was left with an awful headache and wobbly knees. She fell into Castiel's chest and breathed heavily, her mind numb. As she came back to herself, she felt his hands on her back and in her hair.

Is this what it felt like when you were insane? she asked, referring to when he had woken up out of his coma with an aversion to aggressive behavior.

Mostly, yes, he replied, unashamed to talk about it with her.

How come you didn't accidentally blow up, like, half the continent every time you freaked out?

He chuckled lightly. I've had millions of years' practice, controlling my Grace, plus I'm an angel. You've had… six years?

"Millions of years?" Brooke repeated, somehow surprised by Castiel's age, despite knowing that he had existed since the time before humans. "Six years?" she added, pulling away from him to stare into his face. "I've known you for six years?"

Castiel tilted his head, glancing upwards as he thought about it. "The two years before and during the Apocalypse; the year that I returned to Heaven; the year that I came to Earth, when I… wanted to open Purgatory; the year during which we forgot who we were, and then I fell into a coma and came back insane; and this last year. The year in Purgatory." He hesitated, recounting, and then nodded, looking at her. "Six years."

"Oh my God," she said. "I'm thirty-one years old." Suddenly, she felt ancient.

Castiel shook his head, touching her cheek. "I am millions of years old," he said. "You're… practically nonexistent, compared to me."

Brooke stared up at him, saying, again, "Oh my God."

"What?"

"You married a… an infant." She grabbed at her head. "Well, at least I'm not worried about Crowley anymore. Now I'm too freaked out about the fact that an angel who is millions of years old… married some thirty-one-year-old human child. That is horrifying. That's like a one-hundred-year-old man marrying a newborn. Cass, you're a pedophile."

Castiel blinked, awkwardly. "I… never thought about that," he admitted. "I would think the cross-species part would be… weirder for you."

"What? I don't even think about that."

He smiled down at her, shaking his head.

"What?" she demanded.

"I… glow, and have wings, and… communicate with you telepathically. I can turn invisible. I don't eat, I don't sleep, and you… don't think about that?"

Brooke's eyes flitted here and there as she realized what he was saying. "Well, I… I think I used to think about all of that, when I was first questioning whether or not I loved you. But now… that's just you. It's who you are. I don't think about it. Your age, on the other hand… I never even really put together how old you were. Never stopped to think about the fact that you've been around since before humans existed. See, that's crazy."

Castiel was still smiling at her, though it faltered. "Does it bother you, truly?"

"No," she said, and touched his face. "Nothing about you bothers me."

He brought his forehead down to hers. "You are too good to me," he murmured. "I don't de—

"You stop right there," she warned. "We've paid for our sins. We deserve each other. That's that."

He closed his eyes, and nodded.

Soon afterward, he teleported them both back into the motel room.

Brooke took some deep breaths, steeled herself, and prepared to face off against a demon. Demons, plural. Most of her weapons had made it through with her when she and Castiel had miraculously appeared on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere back on Earth. She spent the next several minutes, as Castiel and the Winchester brothers spoke amongst themselves, playing with her angel blade.

Finally, right before they left, Dean went up to her. "Listen, are you good?" he asked. "No offense, but we can't afford to have you freak out the second a demon appears while we're trying to rescue Kevin. You can stay here if you're not up to it."

Brooke stared into his eyes. "I'm good," she said, and that was all she said.

"All right, then," Dean replied, and patted her on the shoulder in a friendly manner.

She flinched, but relaxed immediately, reminding herself that she was no longer in Purgatory. Dean was not a monster, grabbing her shoulder to throw her to the ground, or pull her in to bite her. Dean was just Dean, and she looked at him in a new light as he turned away. He had done his best, for her and for Castiel, when he'd found them both, in Purgatory. Their relationship had always been a little rocky before, but she no longer felt any discomfort around him, and he seemed not to feel discomfort around her, either, as evidenced by bringing her food, out of the blue. Somehow, the shared experience of Purgatory had bonded them. If there was ever a silver lining to be found about being trapped in that hellhole… Brooke supposed this was it.