Five

They appeared back among the others with twenty minutes to spare before they had to leave. Castiel had "healed" her so that her hair lay flat like it should and her face wasn't quite so flushed, and "healed" himself so that the buttons of his shirt were not broken and popped off.

The others of their party were off preparing, and Castiel and Brooke went looking for Dean. Rather, Castiel looked for Dean, and Brooke simply followed along. He had grabbed her hand to teleport them back and he had not yet let go of it. But when they found Dean, and Dean requested that he speak to Castiel alone, Brooke did not complain. She'd just had enough Castiel to last her a lifetime. The angel glanced at her out of the corner of his eye at that thought, one end of his mouth curling slightly, then she let go of his hand and left.

The next time she saw him, he wasn't as chipper as he had been. Whatever he and Dean had talked about must have been a mood-killer. But, even then, he was gentle and took a moment to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. He went still, right after, and then turned, and Brooke saw the demon woman, Meg, staring at them. Her eyes flicked between Brooke and Castiel, then she smirked at them and flounced off.

###

The group made their way through the building, cautious for any signs of demons. Brooke, like Castiel, could sense that the way was not as clear as they thought, but she could not tell where the disturbance was coming from. She held a flashlight in her hand, lighting the way for herself as she walked beside Castiel, who did not need a flashlight to see where he was going. Creatures—not demons—called out for their help as they passed cell after cell, but they ignored their calls and continued on their way.

The turned a corner into a different hallway, and Castiel stopped, suddenly. "Wait," he called out to them. Brooke felt it a moment later.

"What is it?" Dean asked.

A sound like growling echoed up the hallway from behind them. Growling and barking. Hellhounds.

"Damn it," Meg said. "Here come the guards." Meg, who had stuck doggedly beside Castiel despite everything.

"Go!" Dean commanded, and they went. They ran down the hallway, slamming through a pair of double doors at the end and into a different room. One member of their group was attacked, dragged down, screaming. The rest of them made it through the door and Sam and Dean slammed them shut. They salted and barred the door, but Brooke had a feeling that wouldn't last them forever.

"I knew this was a trap," Dean growled, glaring at Meg.

"What do you want? A cupcake?" she quipped.

"How many are there?" Dean asked.

"Lots," said Meg. "I'll be pulling for you, from Cleveland."

"What?" Dean snapped.

"I didn't know this was gonna happen," she explained. "Bright side? Them chewing up my meat suit ought to buy you a few seconds. Seacrest out." Meg tilted her head back and opened her mouth.

Brooke turned her face slightly away, expecting a whirlwind of black smoke to come pouring out… but nothing happened.

Castiel squinted at Meg for a moment, then turned to the rest of them. "It's a spell, I think, from Crowley. Within these walls, you're locked inside your body."

Dean grinned at Meg. "Karma's a bitch, bitch."

Brooke glanced at him, trying not to smile.

They stood there, for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. Then Sam pulled the demon blade out of his pocket and handed it to Meg. "You can see them. Take this and hold them off. It's our best shot."

Meg looked at the blade for a moment, but didn't take it. "At Crowley," she said. "Take it and go. You kill the smarmy dick. I'll hold off the dogs." Then she turned towards Castiel and grabbed him by the back of his neck, pulling his face down towards her.

Brooke immediately felt the surge of Grace in her blood, hot and roiling.

Castiel grabbed Meg by the front of her jacket and threw her against the opposite wall of the hallway. Her body slammed into the wall, hard, but she managed to land on her feet. She was holding Castiel's angel blade.

"Don't," Castiel growled at her, his true form expanding in anger. He glanced at her hand, the one holding his blade, but did not seem to care. Then he turned towards Brooke and pulled her to him, kissing her, as if to reestablish to everyone in the room that he was Brooke's, and Brooke was his, and that was the end of the discussion.

When he pulled away from her, Brooke could not help but glance at Meg to see what her expression was. Meg was smiling at her, but it was not an evil smile. It was just a normal smile. "Clarence is a keeper," Meg told her. "Not even swayed by me."

Brooke said nothing, but smiled a little. Somehow, as much as she hated Meg, as much as Meg had been making eyes at Castiel all night, Brooke was starting to like the demon, just a little.

"Okay, gotta go," Meg told them all, holding up the angel blade.

"Is that gonna work on a hellhound?" Dean asked.

"Well, we're about to find out. Run."

They ran.

###

Walking down a staircase a little later, there was a blinding flash of light. Brooke screamed and stumbled, nearly blacking out, the Grace in her body screeching. She breathed hard, leaning against the railing, and looked up to see that Castiel was gone and Samuel Campbell was standing below them, an Enochian sigil drawn in blood on the wall beside him. She screamed at him, wordlessly, an automatic reaction that was a combination of the physical pain in her body and the mental trauma of having Castiel ripped away from her and out of her head so violently. Samuel glanced at her, but did not say anything in response to the scream.

"You sold us out?" Dean yelled at him.

And then Crowley appeared.

Brooke stared at him, utterly confused. Castiel and Crowley were working together, weren't they? Had she missed something? "What game are you playing?" she asked him, trying to communicate with him without tipping off Sam and Dean.

He made some snarky comments, went back and forth with Sam and Dean for a bit, winked at her, and then they were dragged off to individual cells. Brooke covered her face with her hand; the inside of her cell smelled like… shit, and death.

"Sam?" Dean called out, from his own cell.

"Yeah!" Brooke heard Sam yell back, though his voice was fainter, as he was on the far side of her.

There was a pause. "I'm standing in pee!" Dean yelled, sounding disgusted.

"Consider yourself lucky," Sam replied.

Brooke waited.

"Brooke!" Dean yelled, after a moment.

"I'm here, too," she called out.

"What's your cell like?" Dean asked her.

She glanced around and made a face. "Nasty."

"Great."

###

They had taken Dean away somewhere, and they came back for Sam later. But he escaped, somehow, and opened her cell door with a key stolen off one of the demons. "Let's go," he said, and she could see, in the half-light, that his teeth were red.

She squinted at him but didn't have time to ask questions. She followed him down the hall as he searched for Dean. Brooke could hear Dean's yells coming from somewhere, but the whole place was made of metal and sound echoed from everything. Sam burst through a pair of double doors and found Dean being beat up by a pair of something or other. They weren't demons—Brooke couldn't see anything scary underneath their skin. She pulled a blade out from a pocket and threw it at one of the creatures. It turned towards her and yelled, charging. "Fuck," she said, and dived away.

Something big and heavy slammed into the creature's head and Brooke looked up to see Sam holding a pipe that he'd just ripped off the wall. He turned to the other creature and smacked that one in the head, too, then buried the pipe into its chest.

"Holy shit," Brooke muttered, standing up. She went over and took her knife out of the creature's back.

She heard screaming coming from somewhere, and grit her teeth as psychic pain lanced across her brain. It wasn't an angel… It was…

"Meg," Brooke said, standing up straight again. "They're torturing Meg."

Sam and Dean stared at her like she was crazy, but they followed her as she ran down the halls. Brooke reached out, sensing the demon through the walls. Attaching her mind to a demon's this way, the way she did with Castiel, was horrifying. Brooke wanted to scream and fall to her knees and scratch her eyes out and stab a knife through her own brain. But she kept the connection, hunting, searching. Meg had been a bitch, but she'd stayed behind and fought off Hellhounds for them all.

The closer she got to the demon, the slower Brooke went along. Many hundreds of memories, all of them awful, were streaming through her head the nearer she drew to where Meg was being held. Memories of torturing and being tortured. Memories of Hell. She cut the connection at the entrance to the room where she knew Meg was strapped to a chair. She fell to her knees as Meg screamed from the other side of the door.

Dean gripped Brooke's shoulder and she stared up at him, hardly seeing him. He put his finger to his lips and gestured for her to stay where she was. She nodded, and sat there on her knees, her head bowed, her mind reeling.

Thirty seconds or so passed, and Sam and Dean returned with Meg's arm slung over one of Dean's shoulders. Brooke pushed herself to her feet, swaying a little. Meg stared at her, and Brooke stared back. The demon did not thank her aloud, but it was in her eyes. Brooke nodded, and they went on.

###

Trapping Crowley to bargain for Sam's soul had not gone according to plan. Nothing ever went according to plan, of course. Brooke, pinned the wall along with the Winchester brothers, stared at the crumpled heap on the floor that was Meg. They should never have let Meg into the devil's trap to kill Crowley in the first place. Crowley was craftier than they had given him credit for. Brooke still wasn't entirely sure whether Crowley was still working with Castiel in secret, or whether he actually planned to kill them all, but the pain her body as she was held to the wall was real enough.

There was a gust of wind and the sound of wings, and Brooke was bathed in Castiel's light. "Leave them alone," he ordered, staring Crowley down.

Brooke looked down upon her angel from the wall and smiled.

Crowley began his monologue as Meg rose from the ground. She stopped as the demon blade was aimed at her face.

Castiel was holding something, a large knapsack.

"Hey," said Crowley, grinning at Castiel, "what's in the gift bag?"

Castiel reached inside and pulled out a very old, weathered, human skull. "You are," he said.

Crowley's face fell, and he stared at the skull, then at Castiel. "Not possible."

"You didn't hide your bones as well as you should have," Castiel said.

Crowley turned away from Meg, holding the demon blade in the crook of his arm, and clapped. "Cookie for you."

Castiel threw the skull back into the bag and dropped the bag loudly onto the floor. "Can you restore Sam's soul… or not?"

Crowley stared at Castiel, then snapped his fingers. Brooke slid down the wall to the floor, along with Sam and Dean, gasping for breath.

Crowley smiled at them all. "If I can help out in any other—

"Answer him!" Dean yelled.

Crowley dropped his hands, and his whole body seemed to deflate. He glanced around, then looked at Castiel, biting his lip in nervousness. "I can't," he said.

Without missing a beat, Castiel turned and looked down at the bag of bones, and it was set alight. In the same moment, fire engulfed Crowley's body, and he screamed as the flames overtook him. In only a moment or two, he was no more, and all that was left was a blackened skeleton.

Brooke stared at the spot where the skeleton was slowly turning to ash, a little overwhelmed by how quickly everything had happened. Sam was the fastest to recover and bent down to pick up the demon blade. Meg disappeared in the same moment, with a smile.

Dean looked around. "Well, she's smart, I'll give her that," he said. "I was gonna kill her, too. Course…" He turned and grinned at Castiel. "I would have given you an hour with her, first," he said, and then paused and turned to Brooke. "Or maybe you. You swing that way?"

Brooke rolled her eyes.

###

Brooke had waited for Castiel to finish killing all the monsters left inside the abandoned warehouse. Factory? Whatever the building was. Dean had left without Sam. Sam who was still soulless. Brooke paced around and around outside, waiting. The sunlight was strange; she felt it should be raining. It would fit the mood better.

Castiel whooshed back outside, appearing before her. "Crowley isn't actually dead," he said, with no preamble.

Brooke stared up at the sky. "Of course he isn't." She sighed, and looked down at Castiel. "So how much of all that was fake? I'm guessing the bones weren't his, if he's not really dead."

"No, the bones were not his."

"So you just… desecrated some other poor guy's grave and burned his bones?"

"Whoever it was had been long dead," Castiel said. "He has been in Heaven or Hell for hundreds of years. Burning his bones didn't disturb him at all, whoever he was."

Brooke came forward and touched Castiel's face. "I know, I'm just annoyed."

"I would have told you all this sooner," he murmured. "But there was no time. I wasn't expecting Samuel to be ready with an angelic sigil. That wasn't part of the plan."

Brooke nodded. "No, I imagine not." She sighed.

Castiel brought his forehead down to hers, automatically, in response to whatever turmoil had caused her to sigh. They stood like that for a time.

"Cass… What if you absorb half the souls of Purgatory and… change?"

He didn't answer for a moment, but finally gave a sigh of his own. "I won't change," he said.

"How do you know?" She pulled away to look at him. "Twenty-million souls? I know you're an angel, but… that's a lot of souls to absorb, even for you. And they're monster souls."

"I know I'll be strong enough because I have to be. I have to be strong enough to kill Raphael, and then I have to be strong enough to release the souls back into Purgatory."

Brooke shook her head. "That's not very reassuring."

He looked at her sadly. "It's the best I've got," he said.

Brooke nodded, and they stood quietly for a while in each other's company. "Next time," said Brooke, "tell Crowley not to pretend so hard to be the bad guy. He coulda fooled me."

"Yes," Castiel muttered. "I'll have to speak to him about that." He pulled an angel blade from his coat pocket. "Here," he said, handing it to her.

She stared at it. "I thought Meg took yours."

"She did. While I was gone, getting Crowley's fake bones, I procured two more. One for me, and one for you. I would… feel better if you had one. The warding on your ribs has kept you hidden from my enemies this long, but Raphael grows in strength and numbers every day. He may find a way to look past the warding."

Brooke took hold of the angel blade very carefully, as if afraid that dropping it would cause an explosion. She hated the feel of it in her hand, hated knowing that this blade could kill Castiel quite easily, in the hands of someone who knew how to fight angels. It was like holding something poisonous, or vile. Something wrong.

"I don't know why you object to holding an angel blade now," Castiel said. "You took mine from me once and threatened me with it."

Brooke smiled tightly, remembering when Castiel had not wanted her to come along on the mission to kill the Devil. He had been overbearing, overprotective, thinking she could not handle herself in the face of real danger, so she'd stolen the angel blade from his coat and rested the tip under his chin, telling him to back off.

"I was never really going to use it on you," she said, quietly. "I would rather stab myself with it first."

"Don't do that, either," he warned.

She shook her head and twirled the blade around in her hand, getting used to its weight. Then she flung the knife down into the dirt where it sunk a few inches and stood upright. She closed the distance between herself and Castiel and pulled him into a hug—something that, all things considered, they didn't do very often. Kissing? Yes. Intense staring? Yes. Angry sex? Apparently, yes. But hugging… Not really.

Castiel stood, awkwardly, for a moment, but recovered and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head. She closed her eyes and stood still, in his embrace, trying to remember what it was like to see him before he'd given her part of his Grace. Trying to remember that awe and wonderment. She could not quite reach it, but this feeling, now, was enough. He was still her protector, his light still boundless and beautiful.

She felt him grow shy, just a little, at such purely romantic thoughts. He did not know what to do with such gentleness. But he continued to hold her.