Chapter 2
They arrive at the sheriff's station and Emma tells Castiel to have a seat. "Just wait there for a minute. I have to go in there and make a phone call." Emma goes into her office and closes the door. As he sits and waits, Castiel pulls out his own cell phone and tries to call both Sam and Dean to no avail. Disheartened, he sits there staring at the phone.
In her office, Emma waits impatiently for Regina Mills to answer her call. "Come on Regina. Pick up. We have a situation here."
Regina finally answers the phone, "Emma? What's going on? I have 3 missed calls from you. I'm trying to enjoy my morning coffee."
"Yeah, well, you may want to enjoy something stronger. There's a stranger in town," Emma states.
Regina almost does a spit take all over her phone. "What? That's not possible. The spell we cast is supposed to keep regular people out, and magical-or magical adjacent-people in."
"You think I don't know that?" Emma asks. "That's why I called. Can you please just come to the Sheriff's Station right away?"
In a puff of purple smoke, Regina appears in Emma's office. Emma gives her a "dear in the headlights" look. "What?" Regina says, "You said to get here right away."
"Yeah, but I meant to walk or drive over. What if the stranger sees you?" Emma asked.
"Oh, Emma, relax. Look at him, he's too busy staring at his cell phone." Regina looks the stranger over again. "At least he's easy on the eyes. Well, let's go talk to him."
The women approach the stranger and Emma makes introductions. "This is Regina Mills, Mayor of Storybrooke. And this is Castiel, who has no idea how he got here."
"Castiel? Is that a first name or a last name?" Regina asks, "Or is it like Madonna or Cher?"
"I don't understand those references," Castiel almost groans as he cradles his aching head in his hands.
"Well, this is getting us nowhere," Regina states. Suddenly, she holds her hands up and a white light glows from them. She waves them around Castiel as if she were doing a magical exam of his aura. "OK, now I know how you are able to be in this town. You're magical…or were magical anyway."
"You're right," Castiel agrees. "I was an Angel of the Lord. But it appears my grace has disappeared…or been stolen."
"Your grace? What is that?" Regina inquires regally.
"It's like…my angel…mojo," Castiel replies, smiling a bit using Dean's word for it.
"And you don't remember how you got here?" Emma asks.
"No. One minute I was in my friend's car, and the next you were standing over me telling me not to sleep," Castiel answers, and then asks, "May I use your cell phone? I'd like to call my friends and see if they can come get me, and my phone seems to not be working."
Emma hands him her phone and he punches a series of numbers. He ends the call and enters another number. He does this multiple times before handing the phone back to Emma. "Your phone doesn't appear to be working either."
"That's impossible. I just called Regina with this phone. Let me see your phone." Emma grabs Castiel's phone and calls her own phone with it. The call connects. Emma looks over to Regina, "So apparently our spell isn't just keeping us in and others out, but it's also keeping us from communicating outside of Storybrooke. Interesting side effect. I guess we never noticed before because we only ever call people who live here."
"Well, then, can you please just undo the spell so I can contact my friends and they can help me find my grace?" Castiel practically pleads with the women.
Emma and Regina exchange a glance and Emma finally speaks up, "Well…you see…it's not that easy. When Regina and I cast this protection spell over the town, we made it to be unbreakable. Bad things tend to happen when people from out there get in here."
Regina adds, "And when the former Evil Queen and the Savior put their magic together, it's pretty much unstoppable."
"Former Evil Queen and Savior?" Castiel asks incredulously. "What land did I end up in?" With that, he drops his head onto the desk in frustration, among other emotions he hadn't felt since last time he was human.
Back at the Men of Letters bunker, Sam and Dean sit at the conference table, which is covered in papers, books, reels of audio and video tapes, and lots of leftover take out. Sam sighs, "I don't even know where to begin looking for an angel that's fallen off of everyone's radar. How is that even possible?"
Dean shoves everything that's in front of him off the table. "Son of bitch! There's not even anything here about missing angels. This can't be happening. How the hell can Cas just disappear like that?"
At his home in Storybrooke, Mr. Gold is speaking to his wife Belle, who is still under a sleeping curse. "I've finally found a way to cleave myself from this cursed dagger. Maybe then I can be the man you've always wanted me to be. I only need two more ingredients to make the spell work. Blood from a former Dark One, and blood from a member of my bloodline. Luckily, both of those things happen to be here. But there's no way Ms. Swan or Hook or Henry would willingly give me some of their blood."
Emma takes Castiel to Granny's diner. "Whether we figure out how to get you home or not, you still need to eat," she told him logically.
Granny herself comes over to take their orders, "Well, Sheriff, I know you'll have a grilled cheese. And your guest?" She asks, eyeballing the stranger suspiciously.
"Can I please have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Grape jelly, please," Castiel asks, his charismatic smile masking the ache in his head.
"Don't get a lot of orders for PB&J," Granny replies, "But I'll see what I can do," she smiles at him this time.
"Peanut butter and jelly, huh?" Emma asks, amused.
"It was my favorite thing to eat last time I was human," Castiel explains, then grabs his head as another wave of pain engulfs him.
Emma tosses a bottle of aspirin at him. "Here, take these…although you may want to wait until you eat something first."
Despite the pain in his head, Castiel manages to take a look around the diner. He notices a teenage boy and girl in a booth in the corner. Seeing where he's looking, Emma says casually, "That's my son, Henry and his…friend, Violet." Emma was still unable to admit that her son had a girlfriend.
"They're on a computer," Castiel observes. "The internet, is it working? Can the internet get outside of the magical barrier?"
"Good question." Emma gets up abruptly and heads over to Henry's table. "Hey, kid, what are you guys doing over here?"
"Hi, Mom. We're just hanging out." Henry replies, a little sheepishly, wondering if he's in trouble for not being home doing his homework.
"I can see that," Emma answers. "I mean, what are you doing on the computer?"
Confused, Henry answers, "Just watching a movie."
"Downloaded or streaming?" Emma asks.
"Streaming. Mom, what's with all the questions? You're freaking me out a little bit."
"Sorry, Henry." Emma apologizes. "You see that man over there in the trench coat? He just showed up here in town, despite the spell me and Regina cast. And it turns out; phone calls to people outside of Storybrooke don't connect. I've gotta find a way for that man to contact his friends so he can get home."
"Oh!" Henry exclaims. "The internet works. I email my friends in New York all the time."
"Great. Can I borrow this?" Emma grabs Henry's laptop before he can answer.
When Emma returns to the table, their food has arrived. She puts the laptop down in front of Castiel, almost smooshing his sandwich. "Email works. You can email your friends. Although, I don't know how that will help. They still can't get in…and you still can't get out."
"If I can reach my friends, they may be able to find a way around or through your spell. You see, they reside in a bunker filled with all sorts of books on magic, magical, objects, almost anything that defies explanation. The Men of Letters catalogued anything and everything that was mysterious to mankind. They may even have something on this little town of yours." Castiel explains, and then he opens the laptop and starts typing. "Thank you for this."
"You're welcome. I just hope it works."
"Dean!" Sam calls his brother excitedly. "Dean! Get in here! I just got an email from Cas!"
Dean runs into the conference room, where Sam had been tirelessly working all night, even after Dean's hissy fit. "What? You got an email from Cas? Is he ok?"
"Well, yes and no," Sam starts.
"Yes and no? What the hell does that mean?" Dean asks impatiently.
"Well, he's alive and in some town in Maine called Storybrooke. But, he's lost his grace and this town is under some kind of protection spell that keeps people who have magic in and people without magic out. And it's not on any map of Maine anywhere, but that's probably part of the spell," Sam explains. "I've just started looking to see if the Men of Letters have anything on this town."
"Good, you keep looking. And email Cas back and see if you can get coordinates," Dean practically barks the order.
"What are you going to do?" Sam asks.
"I'm going to Maine. Call me when you get something." And with that, Dean was out the door.
