Chapter title is from song by Breaking Benjamin.
37
Ashes of Eden – Breaking Benjamin
He hadn't meant for any of it to happen. Things had not gone according to plan, assuming there had even been a plan. How had it all come to this?
Castiel looked out over the expanse of the lake. A puddle compared to the ocean, a drop in the universe. He could just see the far shore, the dock there, miniscule and fading in the distance. It would not be long now until all he would be able to see was the stretch of water before him, yawing seemingly to the horizon when he knew it did not. And even this, the ability to see to the far shore, to know that Janine and Carl were celebrating their 'anniversary' with a picnic there, was nothing compared to what he had once been.
He looked down at his hands, scrubbed clean of the flecks of paint they had gathered from applying sigils to Zelda's, Zee's, lakeside house. He rubbed his hands together, speeding up the flow of blood to his fingertips, warding off the cold.
How was he cold?
He had been human before. He could manage it again.
It hadn't been like this last time, though, caught in the evanescence of Theo's grace, knowing more and feeling his sight fading. It hadn't been like this, being reduced by the soft coil of human limitations slowly winding around him, binding his phantom wings.
He remembered his wings. Oh. How he remembered them.
He remembered grace. What it had been like to fly. To know light, to be certain of it. Certain of himself. Certain of the plan.
There had been a plan, right?
He no longer knew.
Unlike last time when Metatron stripped his grace from him and returned him to the earth human, this time, when Theo's grace burned out, it would slowly take Jimmy's body with it. It would take him with it too then, whatever he was—neither angel nor soul—some kind of disembodied freak of consciousness, with his imperfect angelic awareness and a human's flawed sensibilities.
And that would be fine. He'd overstayed his time anyway.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the lake and the chatter of fish beneath the water's surface. Tried to shut out the memory of Noah's bleeding face, his brother, clutching desperately at his hand, Noah trying to summon the strength to rip out his own grace.
"Take it, Castiel. Take it. You must take it. You have to keep fighting. This cannot be. You have to find a way to make things right."
"No."
He'd held Noah until the other angel faded. Gone to wherever the end was for them, between the stars or the dimensions or nowhere at all. Perhaps they expired, returned to atoms or energy, to be composted into stardust, having served their function.
And somehow he was still here.
Creating chaos.
If this was part of the plan, it did not seem to be a very good plan.
The Fallen had taken Hannah. He could still hear the panicked chattering of his brethren, the ones still alive, the ones on Earth—the ones they hadn't trusted enough to let back into heaven.
"What's happening?"
"What's happening at home?"
"Who's in charge?"
"What are our orders?"
"Is it Metatron again?"
"What do we do?"
"Who do we follow?"
"What's happening?"
It wouldn't be long before a clear voice sounded above the fray and the rabble. A clear, strong voice, melodious and firm and certain. Guidance and direction.
Hope.
Castiel shivered. It was cold out here on Zelda's deck. The noises coming from inside the house suggested there was some kind of food preparation activity going on. Did he now require sustenance? It was likely she would press him to eat, as she had pressed a gauze over the cut on his neck to stop the bleeding, bluntly pointing out he was no good to her if he bled out. He had used up precious grace then, looking at her, seeing her, seeing the zombie wound in her side. She had jerked back when he went to put two fingers to her forehead to heal her, but he still had an angel's reflexes and it had been done before she could pull away.
Dean would have wanted that.
He stood up, brushing the dirt off Jimmy's trench coat. He would do this thing Dean had wanted him to do, because it was small and somewhat doable and because he, Castiel, in his limited being—he believed in his friend, and he believed it to be the right thing to do.
As best he could, he would protect the woman and the child from the vengeful wrath that was now Heaven.
How had it all come to this?
Toby came awake screaming. She was by his side in two steps. Without a word he flung his arms around her neck, shaking hard enough to feel again, trembling sobs muffled against her sweater. She held him quietly against her shoulder. Castiel was no more than a step behind her, scanning the room with an implacable expression that was a hard contrast to his normal one, the hilt of the angel blade slipped from his sleeve into the palm of his hand.
She shook her head at him. No monsters here. Not real ones, anyway.
Did angels understand nightmares?
Maybe they did. The ragged shadows under Cas' eyes came from something.
She rubbed Toby's back until as his sharp sobs subsided into hiccups. He pulled back, swallowing, breathing gathering breaths.
Reining things in.
She hesitated mid-motion, not knowing the right thing to do.
Toby squared his shoulders, straightening away from her, lips setting into a straight line.
Familiar. Bit like looking into a mirror.
"Scoot over."
She said it quietly, without inflection. He snuck a quick look at her face as she reached for the TV remote. He made room for her as she pulled the comforter up around him, sitting down next to him on top of it, and started flipping through the channels.
By the fourth night she was so tired it was five in the morning before she started awake, the wrongness of having been able to sleep for a few uninterrupted hours shocking her awake. She sat straight up, looking over at the bed where Toby lay fast asleep, his right hand curled around the hilt of a stout silver blade by his pillow. A shadow fell over the corner of the bed. Cas stood just beyond, gazing out the window with his back to the room.
He turned around to look at her, the blue of his eyes deeper than Toby's, somehow bright in the darkness.
"It seemed to help." He said in a gravelly rough voice that barely carried.
Zee closed her eyes. She tried to unclench her fist, her heart, her voice. In the shadowy dark the boy breathed deeply and evenly, his hand not letting go of the weapon in it. Sleeping. He needed the sleep to counter the smudges growing beneath his eyes.
Cas was looking steadily at her, seeing, no doubt, the agitation that lay in her uneven breaths. She got to her feet abruptly when Cas didn't move from where he stood by the window and swept her sword off its rack with a silent cut through the stillness. Her legs moved her in familiar directions until she was out on the deck, the wide sweep of water night-silver before her. Her left hand closed tight around the scabbard with breaking force before she slipped the sword into position on her belt.
She set her right hand on the pommel. Looked out over the lake.
Her hand closed around the hilt.
Breathe.
There was only one way out now.
Flick.
There was no other choice.
Draw.
The steel blade slid free and sang through the cool chill of the morning. The rhythm of the pattern took over, one movement flowing into the next and the next, until at last the first hint of dawn rose to kiss the late winter mist.