Six

Brooke hadn't seen Castiel in over a month, not since right after Sam had gotten his soul back, and he hadn't called her at all. It had been over a month of radio silence, and that was worrying, especially considering the fact that Raphael was after his ass. He had told her that he wouldn't be able to be around all the time, and she knew that being chased around and attacked by an Archangel sort of put dating a human to the wayside, so she didn't really mind. But she worried, and she wondered, and she kept her angel blade close.

She spoke to the boys at least once a week, but she did not work with them, thinking that it might be harder for Raphael or his followers to track all three of them down if one of them was somewhere else. So she Hunted alone. She called her mother occasionally, to check in, but did want to get Rebecca involved with her in case Raphael came after her. It was a lonely month, but she got through it as she always had.

On a particularly stormy night, she rolled over in her bed, trying to sleep through the sound of the rain and thunder. She thought of Castiel—how it always stormed when they were intimate. She smiled sleepily at the thought, and snuggled deeper into the covers… and then she heard the telltale whoosh of angel wings. She opened her eyes and smiled again, expecting Cass, but even as she began to sit up, she knew it was not Castiel. This angel's presence felt different, though not hostile. Still, she gripped the angel blade beneath her pillow and pulled it out as she sat up.

"Relax," the angel said. "I'm not here to hurt you; I'm here to protect you. My name is Balthazar."

Brooke turned and flipped on the bedside lamp. A disheveled blonde angel wearing a shirt that exposed most of his chest was standing at the foot of the bed. The name Balthazar was vaguely familiar to Brooke, being a name that was spread throughout Castiel's memories and thoughts.

"I don't have time to explain," he said, moving towards her. "I need to get you to Sam and Dean."

"Yes, you do," Brooke corrected. "If you're really a friend and not an enemy, then just shove the information into my head like Cass does." She held out a hand for him to touch, to initiate the mental link between them.

The angel shook his head. "I don't think you understand exactly how that works. The mental connection that you and Cassie share is… special—though I loathe that word. Any angel could connect to you that way, yes, but most of them wouldn't want to. If I opened that mental connection with you, you and I would become connected the same way that you and Castiel are connected, and I'm not sure there would be a way to sever it. So, unless you want to suddenly fall in love with me, I really shouldn't go tampering with your brain." Balthazar bent down and gripped her shoulder before she could react, and suddenly she was standing in Bobby Singer's living room.

It was storming here, too; that was the first thing that Brooke noticed. The second thing she noticed was that she was barefoot, in only her night clothes, and holding her angel blade. Sam and Dean stared at her, then at Balthazar, demanding to know what he was doing there. Balthazar did not answer the question, instead going on about the movie The Godfather, and zipping around Bobby's house collecting ingredients for a spell.

"Where's Cass?" Sam demanded, watching as Balthazar scrambled here and there around Bobby's living room and kitchen.

Brooke stood silently, too flustered to chip in.

"Oh, Cassie?" Balthazar said. "He is deep, deep underground. So, good old Raphie put out a hit list on every last Samaritan who helped our dear Cass—including all three of you. And so much more importantly, me." The angel turned to continue fiddling with whatever spell he was doing. "See, he wants to draw Cass out in the open."

"You expect us to just believe you?" Sam asked, stepping towards Balthazar as if he was planning on stabbing him with something. Dean followed his brother's lead and they both moved toward the angel, shoulder to shoulder.

Brooke moved closer to him as well, but placed herself between the angel and the Winchesters. They stared at her in shock and annoyance. She shrugged at them. She trusted Balthazar insofar as she had never sensed ill will about him from Castiel's mind, though she didn't know if that was enough of a reason to trust him.

"Oh, don't," Balthazar said, ignoring the threat in their movements. He was drawing a sigil onto the window. "You'll go where I throw you, either way."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean demanded.

The lights in the house began to flicker. Balthazar looked up at them, and glanced at the three humans. "And that is all the time we have, lady and gentlemen." He moved toward the three of them, riffling around in his coat for something. "Where is it?" he whispered to himself, and pulled the coat away from his body to gain better access to his pockets—revealing, as he did so, the giant bloody wound in his chest.

"What happened there?" Dean asked, making a sympathetic face.

Balthazar glanced down at it as if he'd forgotten it existed. "Oh, garish, I know. You see, Uncle Raphie sent one of his nastiest to handle me. I'm flattered, actually—and down a lung, at the moment, but that's all right." He pulled a key, hanging on a long keychain, out of his pocket and handed it to Sam. "Here's for you," he said.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Sam asked, dangling it in front of Balthazar's face.

"Run with it," the angel replied, staring at him. He glanced away for a half a second and was suddenly flung across the room, crashing heavily into a stack of books.

At the same moment, Brooke pressed a hand to her head in pain as another angel appeared in Bobby's house. This angel—Virgil—was not hiding himself from Brooke as much as Balthazar had been, so his presence, along with Balthazar's was causing her some amount of pain. One of the perks of Castiel's Grace was that it shielded her from the pain that witnessing an angel's true form used to cause her, for she could see them without going blind, but they still overwhelmed her senses. For the most part, she had grown so used to being around Castiel that she hardly noticed him as being much different from any other person. This also meant that other angels did not cause her so much overstimulation, but when they were angry, or in pain, they could still stab through the shield of the Grace in her body and mind. And that's what Virgil was doing now.

Brooke took a steadying breath and gripped her angel blade tightly, preparing to fight Virgil off, but before she could even raise her arm, she heard Balthazar yell, "RUN!"

She was flung off her feet, along with Sam and Dean, and crashed through the window upon which Balthazar had drawn the sigil—

###

Brooke landed, hard, onto asphalt, skinning one arm in the process. She grimaced and looked up to find herself staring at the Impala. She stood up, gingerly, brushing gravel and dirt out of the raw skin on her arm and glanced into the car. No one was inside.

"Hey!" a voice called behind her.

She spun around, gripping her angel blade tightly, and saw a large man coming towards her, carrying a bucket of… something.

"How did you get here?" he demanded, still approaching her. "Get outta here! You can't be on set!" He glanced down at her hand. "Did you steal a prop?"

Dean suddenly appeared at her side, making her jump. "Uhh," he began, nervously. "She's with us."

The man looked at Dean, then at Sam, who had come with him, then back at her. He studied her for a moment, then he looked at Dean again. "She's with you?" he repeated.

"Uhh, yeah. Uhh…" Dean glanced awkwardly at her. "This—this is Brooke. She's… a fan. It's—she won a contest. To come on set with us." He smiled and laughed forcefully.

Brooke also forced herself to smile, trying to look like she belonged there, despite the fact that she was in her pajamas, barefoot, and her arm was bleeding. Curiously, she poked herself in the leg with the angel blade. It did not hurt. It didn't even feel right; it was too light. She looked at it, felt its weight in her hands, ran a finger along the flat of the blade. "It's plastic," she murmured.

The man holding the bucket stared at her like she was insane. "Of course it's plastic." He gave her a once-over, noticing her bleeding arm and bare feet. "You should get that looked at," he said, pointing at her arm. Then he walked began to slop some sort of brown liquid over the windshield of the Impala.

"Hey!" Dean yelled.

The man turned and stared at him.

Dean glanced at the Impala, then turned his head and saw three other Impala's all in various states of destruction. "I feel sick," he muttered. "I'm gonna be sick…"

###

Brooke walked with Sam and Dean as they wandered through the facades of fake buildings and the trailers of actors. They had managed to get someone to clean and bandage her arm, and someone had found a pair of shoes for her from… somewhere, but she was still in her pajamas, and she was cold. She folded her arms tightly against the chill but didn't comment on it. There were more important things to be focusing on right then.

"I wanna go home," Dean said to her and Sam. "I feel like this whole place is bad-touching me."

"Yeah, I know," Sam replied. "Me too. So, what do you think? Cass?"

"Didn't Balthazar say Cass was in hiding?" Brooke asked. "What if asking him to come get us draws Raphael to him—or to all of us?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Dean said.

Brooke sighed and nodded in acknowledgement of his point. Balthazar had sent them to a different universe, it seemed, and the only way she could think of to get back home as quickly as possible was with the help of another angel.

They stepped beside a facade with a half-open door in it. Dean bowed his head to pray. "Dear Castiel, who art, maybe, running his ass away from Heaven… we pray that you have your ears on."

Brooke stared at him, trying not to laugh. What kind of prayer is that?

Dean's head was still bowed. "So…" he continued. "Breaker, breaker…?" He opened his eyes; nothing had happened.

Then Brooke looked through the half-open door and saw Castiel standing in a different part of the outside of the studio. He was looking at them, his hands in his pockets.

Brooke took off running towards him and he stared at her as if he had never seen before—and was a little frightened of her. She slowed down at his expression, studying his face. He looked normal. She reached out to him with her mind, wondering what was wrong—and was met with… nothing. Nothing at all.

Brooke stopped dead, now a foot away from Castiel, and a flood of ice water ran through her veins. She swallowed, unaware of Sam and Dean as they reached her. She slowly raised her hand, to touch his face, and he backed away from her, putting his hands up. Then he looked at Sam and Dean. "Who is this chick?" he demanded.

Brooke felt as if she'd been slapped in the face. "He's not Cass…" she murmured.

Dean glanced at Castiel, then looked at her. "What?"

"He's not Castiel," she repeated, loudly, glaring up at Dean as if the fact that there was a fake Castiel standing before her was somehow his fault. "He's… he's just another actor, I'm guessing."

She, Sam, and Dean all turned to look at the man who was not Castiel, though he looked exactly like him. Brooke thought she might throw up.

"Uh, guys, are you okay?" the man asked, and his voice was strangely high and squeaky. "What—who's this?" He gestured at Brooke, while undoing his tie.

Dean stared at the man as if he was seeing a ghost. "It's… Brooke. She—she won a contest. Bring a Fan to Work Day." His voice was faint.

"Must have missed the memo," the Castiel-clone said, glancing awkwardly at Brooke.

Brooke stared at him, wanting to cry and punch him in the face at the same time. "Who are you?" she demanded.

He stared at her. "You know my character's name, but not my name?" He scoffed. "I'm Misha Collins."

Dean glanced her and Sam, and then he started to walk away. "What's with the names around here?" he said. "Misha? Jensen? I just wanna dig my finger into my brain and scratch 'til we're back in Kansas."

Brooke, who was still feeling like she wanted to cry, muttered, "At least you guys are actors in this thing. Ca—Misha didn't even know who I was. No one did. I'm not… part of this show, I guess."

"That's what's bothering you?" Dean replied. "I thought you liked to stay out of the spotlight."

She shook her head. "It's not that, it's… It feels like Castiel just slapped me in the face. Even though that wasn't really Cass…"

"Don't worry, we'll get home," Sam chimed in, putting an arm around her for a moment. "Then we'll all get to see the real Cass again."

If he's not dead, she thought, darkly, to herself.

Sam stopped. "Hey, look," he said, pointing to a gigantic RV parked on the asphalt. "J. Ackles." The name was taped to the door.

Dean pointed to himself. "That's fake me," he said.

"Yeah," Sam agreed.

Dean looked at the RV, spreading his hands to take it in. "This must be fake mine."

###

Brooke wandered around the inside of the RV as Sam and Dean tried to discover more about the man named Jensen Ackles. She found a jacket crumpled up on the couch and held it up in front of Dean, wiggling it to ask if she could use it.

"What?" he asked, forgetting that he was, in fact, the man named Jensen Ackles. "Oh. Uh. Right. Uh, yeah, sure, I don't care."

She smiled and pulled it on. Wherever they were, it was cold outside, and she was also braless and in her pajamas, which had been sort of awkward as they'd been wandering around set. She flopped down on the couch and waited for Sam and Dean to come up with some sort of plan, listening to them but not finding much to contribute. It was Dean who came up with their means of escape. They would perform the same spell that Balthazar had, and use it on the same window through which they had entered this strange alternate universe.

###

Sam's—Jared Padalecki's—house was fit for a king. Brooke sat awkwardly on a couch, feeling as though she'd ruin it just by sitting on it. And Jared's wife, who was the woman who played Ruby on the show in this weird universe, looked at her as if she, too, thought that Brooke was going to ruin the couch. Brooke smiled awkwardly at her.

"Who is this?" the woman demanded, staring at Sam, and then at Dean, and then back at her.

Brooke didn't thing the "bring a fan to work" thing was going to work now that it was nighttime and they were at Jared Padalecki's house. Sam and Dean stared at fake Ruby, speechless.

"I'm…" Brooke began, searching her brain, wildly. Being a Hunter usually meant that you were good at lying, but she didn't think other Hunters had been transported to strange alternate universes where their friends were TV stars. "I'm De—Jensen's… g-girlfriend."

Dean turned slowly on the spot and stared at her. She stared back, shrugging.

Dean plastered a smile onto his face and turned back to fake Ruby, his eyes very large. "Yyyyes," he said. "This is Brooke. Myyy… girlfriend."

Fake Ruby stared at Brooke. "Well," she said. "Nice to meet you." But she did not sound genuine.

"Yeah," Brooke replied, faintly. "You too…"

###

Brooke had not been shoved off set once everyone else had begun trickling in that morning. They'd all been driven to the airport earlier to pick up what they would need for the spell to return them all home, and gotten to set very early in the morning to avoid everyone else. But things had taken longer than they would have thought and suddenly Brooke had found herself escorted off the set by some men with security jackets on. Dean had tried the "she's my girlfriend" line, but, apparently, girlfriends were not allowed on set.

She'd seen the man named Misha Collins for just a second or two before he'd passed her completely. He had not noticed her, but even looking at the side of him had given Brooke unpleasant goosebumps. Cass, you better be alive when we get back, she had thought, so I can just… touch you. Make sure you're real.

Later, she snuck back on set to help Sam and Dean with the spell to to get back to the real world—their world. A few minutes later, all three of them were picking themselves up off the floor, still in the studio, after smashing through the window. It had not worked. There was no magic in this universe.

###

They sat in Jensen Ackles' trailer. "No demons," Dean said, "no Hell, no Heaven… No God?" He looked up at Sam.

"Looks like," Sam replied. "Even better? No angels."

Brooke flinched and closed her eyes, thinking of Cass.

###

The actor named Misha Collins—the one that Brooke was fairly certain she was going to have nightmares about for stealing Castiel's face—had been murdered. Brooke stood with Sam and Dean as they spoke to the man who had witnessed it all.

"The voice said for Virgil to return tomorrow at the place where he crossed over at the time of the crossing, and Raphael would reach through the window and take him and the key home."

Brooked glanced at the boys, who glanced at each other, and at her.

"Okay," said Dean. "Hey, thank you." He pulled out his—Jensen Ackles'—wallet and gave the man some money.

Sam fidgeted. "If Virgil gets back with that key, Cass is dead and our world is toast."

###

"You know," said Dean, later, when they were back on set the next day, "if we drop Virgil, get the key… I mean, this might be it. We might be stuck here."

Sam looked at him. "No, we'll figure out a way back."

"We'd better," Brooke muttered.

###

They had not anticipated Virgil returning to set with guns. The angel was wreaking havoc, shooting anyone he saw, to reach the window through he which he was to return to the normal world. Dean was on him like a dog, knocking him to the ground and punching him in the face so many times that he was knocked out. Sam riffled through his pockets and got the key. Brooke mainly stayed out of the way. In a situation like this, she was a bit of a third wheel, so she stayed to the sidelines so as not to be a distraction. Her job was to keep an eye on the window. She glanced at it again; the sigil was glowing.

"Guys!" she yelled. "Raphael!"

"Run!" Sam shouted.

All three of them began to turn away, but they were yanked by an invisible force through the window.

###

Brooke stood up, wincing at the shards of glass stuck in her hands and knees. She was especially glad, now, that someone at the studio had given her shoes or her feet would have been torn to shreds, probably.

There was a woman standing before her. Sam and Dean stood on either side of her.

It was not a woman. It was Raphael. The Archangel's presence penetrated the shield that Castiel's Grace put up around her mind. Brooke resisted the urge to press her glass-infested hands to her forehead in pain, which diminished slowly as the shield was put back properly into place.

"Raphael?" Dean said, looking the angel up and down. "Nice meat suit. Dude looks like a lady," he muttered.

Raphael brought his hand up and squeezed. Brooke cried out and fell to her knees in pain. She could feel the Grace in her body scrambling to protect her from whatever Raphael was doing to her insides.

"The key," the Archangel demanded, and picked up what Sam had dropped as he fell to the ground.

Suddenly, Balthazar appeared, spouting off about how the key was a fake, how he'd sent Sam and Dean and Brooke into that alternate universe as a diversion while he searched for the weapons of Heaven.

Brooke did not care about any of it. It was angel politics, something she cared about only insofar as it directly related to Castiel. And since he was not here, it did not relate to him.

And then he was there, the sound of his approach enfolding her mind like a siren song. "Step away from him, Raphael," Castiel said. And it was his voice, his true voice. His true form.

Brooke forgot all else around her. After seeing the abomination that had been Misha Collins—a doppelgänger of Castiel in only looks and nothing more—seeing the real Castiel was a balm for her soul. The Grace in her blood sang; she felt its hum as it called to its twin inside Castiel.

"I have the weapons now," Castiel continued, staring down the Archangel. "Their power is with me." And his voice was singular, his message clear, his tone final. He was power and strength and focus, and Brooke felt herself pulled to him like a magnet. She stared in awe as he spread his wings, all splendid light and energy, and she basked in the glow of his wings like a woman who not seen the sun in years. She smiled, tears coursing down her face—simply happy that it was truly him and not some horrible facsimile.

"Castiel," said the Archangel, and his voice, for Brooke could hear his true voice through the woman vessel, was surprised and a little fearful. As it should be. For Castiel was boundless and beautiful and imposing and terrifying.

Castiel closed the distance between himself and Raphael. "If you don't want to die tonight, back off," he warned, and his word was true, and it was final.

Raphael disappeared.

Balthazar said goodbye, and he was gone, as well.

Castiel approached the three of them quickly. He placed a hand on either of the boys' shoulders, and looked at Brooke, urging her, silently, to grab hold of him. She did, and felt the Grace surge through her fingers.

She blinked and they were back in Bobby's living room, complete with the broken window.

"Wait, Cass, you were in on this?" Sam demanded, immediately. "Using us as a diversion."

Castiel had moved away from them, his back to them. "It was Balthazar's plan," he confessed. He paused. "I would have done the same thing."

"That's not comforting, Cass!" Dean admonished.

Brooke shrank from their voices, their anger towards Castiel, and moved, instead, closer to him. Castiel turned and saw her approach. His eyes were like ice, distant and cold. She stopped.

"When will I be able to make you understand?" he growled, flicking his gaze up to Sam and Dean. "If I lose against Raphael, we all lose everything."

"Yeah, Cass, we know the stakes," Dean said. "That's about all you've told us!"

Castiel looked down, the perfect picture of regret, though Brooke could see the strength and resolve coming off of him in waves. "I'm sorry about all this," he murmured. "I'll explain when I can." He glanced at Brooke, and disappeared.

Immediately, she cried out in anguish, reaching for the place where he had been a moment before.

A strange sensation filled her head, her body, as if the world were suddenly made of molasses, everything slowing down to a crawl. Sam and Dean, beside her, stopped moving entirely, and she felt stuck, as well. Castiel reappeared, standing very close to her. He touched her face and she found herself able to move freely again, though the rest of the world was still moving at a snail's pace. The sound of the rain had stopped.

"What—

He put a finger to her lips. "I don't have time," he murmured. "I'm sorry." He gazed down at her with sad eyes. brushing her jawline with his fingers. She felt her arm, and her hands, and her knees tingle as he healed the place where she had skinned her arm and fallen on glass.

He placed his forehead against hers, and a rush of information was imparted to her, and then he vanished again. The sound of the rain began, and Sam and Dean moved and spoke around her. Brooke stood still, healed, but concerned.

A/N: For anyone wondering why Brooke was not a part of the "fake show" during the episode, "French Mistake," it will be explained in the next chapter, and I'll elaborate more about it in another author's note, then, too.