When Castiel opened his eyes slowly. There was a heaviness in them, like he had been asleep for some time and was only just now waking up. But that was ridiculous.

There was no way he was actually awake.

He found himself at the front of a diner. Humans milled about, but no one noticed him. He thought he recognized it, but it could be any one of the hundreds that he had visited, either with the Winchesters or without.

He approached the counter where Raphael — back in his human, male vessel — was already relaxing with a cup of coffee. After a moment's hesitation, Castiel took a seat and a cup of coffee appeared before him.

…He would have preferred some alcohol actually. Unfortunately, he still couldn't figure out how to exert control over these dreams like Raphael was doing, and he doubted that the other would grant any meaningless requests.

Tentatively Castiel took a sip and studied the older angel. Raphael made no more comments about the discussion they just had. For all Castiel knew, what was an instant for him could have been an eternity for the archangel. Time worked differently in here, after all.

In any case, Raphael didn't look like he was going to bring up those topics again.

So he bit his tongue, pushed down the flare of old anger. There were more important things to be thinking about.

With a heavy sigh, he started reviewing what he knew about the Empty. It was a void of nothingness, ruled by a sleeping cosmic being. And also, it was where demons and angels went to after they died, forever trapped in eternal slumber.

At recalling that, he quickly blurted out, "How do I talk to the other angels?"

"It's impossible for you."

Castiel flinched, but then scowled. "How do you do it, then?"

Raphael put down his cup with a soft click on the countertop. "The Empty traps angels and demons alike in their regrets and sorrows in a dream-like state, just as you experienced," he explained. "Normally, gaining consciousness and control over them is not something I would have been able to do."

Castiel nodded. "Only the being that rules this place… " — he paused before saying the name, as if evoking it might summon the entity itself — "the Shadow, should have power here. So how is it that you do too?"

Raphael was hesitant to speak, so Castiel pressed on. "Is it because you're an archangel?" Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. "What about Gabriel? Where is he?"

It was a spark of hope. Why hadn't Castiel thought of him before? Gabriel. Of all the archangels, he was always the most sympathetic to them. If there was some one here who would still be wiling to work with him, it would be the trickster-angel.

"He's not here. He was never here," Raphael said so casually that Castiel knew he wasn't lying. He had no reason to.

Horror clutched at him. Was it because Gabriel had died in a different dimension? But the Empty preceded all of that. It shouldn't matter what dimension one came from or ended in. Everything returned to Nothing in the end.

What were the only other options? The only one that he could think of was that… "He died fighting Michael. Surely he couldn't have somehow…"

"Faked his death?" Raphael raised an eyebrow at him. "He's done it before. Twice, that we know of."

Castiel exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding. That Gabriel left them tricked them again. Abandoned them to their enemies that he nobly said he would fight against. There was a chance, course, that he was trapped in that other dimension, unable rather than unwilling to help.

Except… "He didn't appear to fight the Darkness. He didn't appear to help with anything else," he muttered, mostly to himself, anger starting to rise up again. "He never changed." He downed the cup of coffee. It tasted more bitter than a moment before.

Raphael watched him out of the corner of his eye, before sighing. "And no, being an archangel isn't enough. Even Father doesn't have power here."

"That can't be right. He's brought me back before."

"The first time you died… I killed you right next to Him. He most likely just caught your grace and essence before it could be brought to the Empty. I can easily picture the other times occurring similarly."

"Then how, Raphael," he pleaded desperately. "If even God doesn't have control here, how can you?

And Raphael, finally, finally, relented. "Do you remember how the Empty and the Shadow came into existence?"

Castiel shook his head. "Both existed before anything. 'Before anything was created, there was nothing.' "

"And therein lies the paradox. How can nothing exist? And to be a paradox is a painful thing. That is why the Shadow sleeps." He took another sip from his cup. "For even with all the power he has over this domain, its the only thing he has for relief."

Castiel pondered it for a moment. "Then what about us? Our deaths should have brought about our nonexistence. But we're only dreaming, asleep like the Shadow."

Raphael nodded and started to clarify, "It is the same for us. To be truly gone, It would have had erase our existences throughout all of time. Fortunately, Its power over the living is quite limited. So the shadow keeps us asleep. If we were to wake, It would be forced to as well."

"That doesn't explain why you have power here."

Raphael pursed his lips at Castiel's impatience. "Sleeping is such a simple act, and yet its a somewhat adequate solution to the paradox of existing and not at once. Similarly, there are actions can bring us away from that nonexistence and closer to existence."

"And the closer you are to existence…"

"The more I am able to access the power I had when I was alive," Raphael confirms.

"What do I have to do then?" Castiel asks urgently. "To bring myself closer to existence?"

"Castiel, there isn't anything you can do. There isn't anything I can do either," Raphael says quickly to shut down his rising protests. "We're already dead. 'Nothing' has no effect on the living. What we do here has no meaning. Its not up to us."

Castiel just stared at him, so Raphael continued, "The humans had it right when they said that one dies twice — when they die, and when they are forgotten."

"You get your power form the other side," Castiel concludes. "From those that are still alive." But he was still confused. "You're receiving help from our brothers from — "

"No. Not them. There's none of them left on that side that would spare a thought for me," Raphael admitted. "Its humans — their prayers to be exact." So it was the beings that Raphael hated the most that gave him his power here.

"And even with that, what ability I have is limited. Not enough to bring someone back to life." Raphael said slowly, to make sure that Castiel understood that it was pointless to even ask him. "Even with the amount of times that my name is invoked, I only have just enough to keep myself conscious like this."

Castiel blinked. That meant that Raphael wasn't the reason why he was like this (not that Castiel even believed for a moment that he was). In was only in this moment that he stopped to consider how…

Castiel met Raphael's eyes for one quick second. Figure it out, they said.

The only thing that could give them power here was prayer.

Oh. Oh.

Tears welled up in his eyes. There were only so few who knew his name, and even fewer still who would say it in prayer. "I have to go back." Determination surged through him.

"Still?"

"Did you expect me to change my mind about this?"

Raphael scoffs. At who or what, Castiel doesn't know, but at a closer look, he thought saw a flash of disappointment.

He shook his head and stood up abruptly. He's done wasting time. Sure he has no other leads, but Raphael has already revealed that there was nothing more he could do. "I'm leaving." He didn't wait for a reply and headed out the door.

Stepping out of the diner, Castiel found himself on standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. To his surprise, he heard Raphael step out after him. He glanced back to see the restaurant was gone, along with any other sign of civilization. Once more, it was just the two of them in the middle of nowhere.

In the distance, a storm was brewing, its dark clouds shifting rapidly into itself. Its as tall as Castiel's true form, and it stretched the length of the horizon.

Castiel wondered if it was part of this memory, or if it was just Raphael being Raphael again.

The angel in question had walked to the edge and was silently staring down into the waves as it rocked against the cliff. Was this his memory, then? Castiel wondered. He was tasting the salt in the air when he realized a change in himself.

Despite the frozen age of his vessel Castiel had felt the years weigh on him. But now he felt a lightness. Youthfulness, more specifically.

Perhaps shouting at Raphael had done some good after all.

Maybe even later, after he figured out how to control his surroundings — his dreams — as Raphael had, and after he learned how to actually put up a fight, they could go at it again, he mused.

But taking another glance around, he realized that there was something else to his newfound youth.

The earth felt raw and wild and untouched. The grass was primitive — no, it couldn't even be called grass but its ancient predecessor — and the air was pure and lacked the excess of pollution Castiel had unconsciously gotten used to.

This was a time far before the emergence of humanity. Castiel marveled at it.

Meanwhile, Raphael seemed to be on a mission, as he suddenly started striding away and down the slope. For a lack of a better option, Castiel silently followed him to an ashy beach. Might as well learn what was so important that Raphael had deemed it worthy to dream of.

Raphael walked straight into the water until it lapped at his heels, unbothered by his vessel's formal attire. Castiel stayed on the shore, where his slacks and shoes could stay dried for just a little while longer.

The storm loomed towards them.

Castiel wondered what Raphael was looking for, and he got an answer a moment later when a familiar-looking fish was spat out by the waves a few meters from him.

It flopped around uselessly in the sand.

He eyed it in suspicion.

It continued to flop some more.

"I thought this was your memory," he blurted out in surprise.

"It is." Like lions circling prey, the two of them approached it. Back then — the time at which this dream took place — Castiel even imagine the big plans for for this little fish.

It gills opened and closed, grasping for breath, for life.

And then without another word, Raphael lifted his foot, and stomped on it.

Castiel could only stare at him in shock.

Raphael grinded his foot down, as if to make a point. "I concede to you on one thing," he said, "Freedom."

The fish stopped moving under his foot.

"I don't understand."

In the distance, Castiel heard the faintest sound of thunder. The storm would soon be upon them.

"You attempted to convince the Host before," Raphael explained, staring him in the eye, "that angels as well as humans should be given free will."

Castiel has done the impossible it seems. For Raphael to say something like this.

"What made you change your mind?" He asks, a bit bitterly. If Raphael noticed his tone, he didn't comment on it. Castiel just can't help but think of how his attempts at teaching the rest of the angels about free will has led to nothing but death.

"Experiencing it myself. Both freedom and free will."

His episode of wallowing in self pity stutters a bit at that. "When would you have gotten the time to…?" He asks out.

"Do you remember what I said about the endless cycle you and your humans were trapped in?" Raphael seemed suddenly restless. Angry in a different way than their fight earlier. "If it really was God's will to save the world, why do you all keep failing?"

"He saved us from the Darkness!" There's something in Raphael's eyes that made Castiel think that he's closer to seeing the real Raphael than he was when he was looking straight into Raphael's true form earlier.

"He saved himself," Raphael hissed, "And left as soon as he was no longer in danger.

Castiel feels like a conspirator, because he can't deny it. He could only think about having to fight Lucifer after all that was over, about how he never had a chance to even talk with his father and the Being never tried even though he was right there, being used as a meat suit for the once-favorite son.

At how he wasn't caught and saved this time around.

Or the rest of his siblings, at any time at all.

"I remember that you said that he was dead."

"I hoped he was." Castiel couldn't tell what made him shiver: the howling winds or those words?

"Raphael," he asks slowly, "Why did you try so hard to start the apocalypse?"

Raphael smirked at him, like he was laughing at an inside joke that Castiel wasn't a part of. "One can never be sure of what He wants. And as the creator of everything, only His will shall be done."

"It can't be stopped." Gabriel had said once, a long time ago."I just want it to be over."

"All that I've done were nothing but for His last words before left. Can you really blame me for not believing that he expected us to do something different?"

The sky darkened. The dark clouds had reached them.

"Father," he whispers so softly that Castiel could barely hear it over the howling winds, "a the being of creation, has no dominion over non-existance."

The temperature around them dropped rapidly.

"Your sorry attempt at playing god was truly pathetic, in comparison." With that, Raphael broke away, striding back into the ocean. The tide was rising.

Then, one giant drop from the sky fell onto to the earth.

And the dams broke, unleashing the rain, lighting, and thunder upon them.

Water wrecked water, and in that moment, Castiel knew with every fiber of his being that for all his knowledge earlier, Raphael never even tried to escape this cursed place.

And Raphael faced the wind and the rain. But not peacefully, Castiel thinks. Not in the way that Raphael is bared, facing the battering winds. Not in how the rain carves rivers down his face. Not in how he watches each lighting strike with a solemn face as it strikes the earth and paints shadows against the wind. Not in the thousands of angelic essences, whom Raphael could glimpse in their dreams but untouchable in the ways that it truly mattered. And not in the dying breaths of a heaven left behind.

It was not peace. It was graceless, bitter defeat of a once unbeatable general.

Castiel hated it.

At least the others had gone down with fists swinging.

Raphael had crumbled and begged at the end.

He clenched his fists. It may have been enough for the archangel, but not for him.

Even if Raphael was right, there was no way that Castiel could just give up on family like he had.

And in his dissatisfaction and renewed determination, he nearly missed it.

A voice carried by the wind.

No.

It was a prayer.

Castiel, it said.

He stood up.

Castiel.

It wasn't Dean or Sam or any other voice he knew but it was familiar all the same.

Castiel, if you can hear me.

He could, just barely, over the howling winds.

It's me, Jack.

Raphael was listening too, watching him with a tilted head.

I-I don't know if I'm doing this right, but I saw Dean doing it, and Sam said I should too.

It pulled at him. It restarted his human heart and sent it into a frenzy. "JACK!" He screamed at the sky.

We had a funeral for you.

He ran towards the voice, up the cliff again, to the center of the storm.

Oh, I'm with Sam and Dean now.

It was a bit rough at the beginning, but they're taking care of me. Teaching me.

That's… good. That's really good. Castiel knows that Sam and Dean didn't exactly believe that Jack would be anything but the devil's son, but seems like Jack has won them over.

As Castiel knew he would. He couldn't be more proud.

I wish you were here too.

Castiel does too. He reaches the utmost top of the hill again and can't go any further up. Can't get any closer to his son.

I miss you.

His words striked at his heart.

I love you.

And as suddenly as it came, the prayer fades off, ripping him to shreds in the process, leaving nothing but a husk.

Castiel crumbled to the earth, quivering. When he pushed himself up again, Raphael was standing over him with a blank expression, the world still thundering around them.

"What a strong prayer," Raphael murmured. "That is not the prayer of a normal human... nor an angel."

Tears were still pouring down Castiel's face. Jack's voice was already gone, but still it tugged painfully at his heart, urging him to go past the horizon. "He's a Nephilim…" He chocked out.

Raphael blinked in surprise, before a contemplative look passed over his features. "Ah, the devil's spawn…" he murmured to himself, his mouth pursed. "He sounds a bit older than what I was expecting."

"I need to get back to him. I promised him I would protect him."

"You promised that to the son of your worst enemy?"

"Jack is more than that!" He yelled over the surging storm. He was already soaked to the bone. If he had enough in him left to care, he would have been surprised to see that Raphael was also in a similar state.

"Is he who you died for?" Raphael shook his head. "You will never learn, will you? That your actions bring you nothing."

"No, Raphael, it's you that still doesn't understand. It doesn't matter what happens to me. I do it for them, not myself. And even now, I will get back to them no matter what it takes."

Raphael eyed him, and considered. "Then I suppose that for just this once, you get your wish." He raised a hand up at the sky, as if to catch the raging wind.

And suddenly, the sky directly above them opened up, letting light shine through. Wind and rain swirled around them, but no longer battered them. Out of the reflection in Raphael's eyes, Castiel saw lighting strike in every direction, each flash quartering the world.

Raphael approached him, gripped his chin with stony hands and looked. Castiel was studied, as Raphael's eyes roamed over every crease and hair, over the curve of his wings and each feather. But there was no judgment nor evil intent there, only the simple desire to impress his figure into memory.

"What are you doing?" Castiel asked. Raphael put his hand over Castiel's heart, and Castiel could feel the power cursing there.

"Nothing much," Raphael drawled, "Just experimenting, on what the prayer of being that should have never existed could do." He hummed, a low buzz of electricity that turned into the booming thunder.

"But, why?" He asked in shock, realizing that Raphael was going to help him. For some one who searching so desperately to escape, Castiel suddenly felt hesitant to go. "You think that going back there is nothing but suffering."

"I do." Raphael agreed. "So just think of this as payback, my revenge. Suffer long brother, for each mistake you've made, for each angel dead at your hand, for your humans, and for that little nephew of ours… Suffer for as long as you wish in the living world."

"Is..is it enough?" Castiel choked out. He gripped Raphael's arm as power surged into him. His muscles twitched and his legs felt weak, but his heart was lurching forward as always.

"Not enough to push you all the way, but enough to keep you awake. Even against the Shadow's power."

Castiel nodded. So He would still have to tangle with the Shadow. But that was something he could figure out himself.

And as unconsciousness overtook him, he blurted out his goodbye: "I'll pray! Not just for you but for all our brethren!" Raphael paused, before answering him with a smile, so that it was not darkness that Castiel fell to once more, but the gradually dazzling eyes of his brother.