Cas opened his eyes into blackness. He gasped in cool air, groaning as he moved from the ground slightly. His human body ached and screamed as he tried to stand, his hands moved to his chest, feeling for the hole where he had impaled himself with the blade, wondering how he had survived. He felt nothing, no dry stickiness of old blood, no gaping hole from where the blade had entered, just the cloth of his shirt and the patter of his heart beat.
He felt anger flood his sore muscles as he remembered the earlier events. Sam and Dean, how they hated him so much, how he didn't deserve to be saved. Hate filled him like fire. He had given everything- everything- for them and they showed no gratitude whatsoever. How could he had ever loved them? He questioned himself. How had he been so naive and stupid to think they loved him?
How could he have loved them?
He looked around, listening in the darkness and hearing the sad rustle of skeletal trees and dried bushes in a cold wind coming from nowhere. Not for the first time he wondered where he was. Shivering, Cas pulled his trench coat tighter around him. The absence of the warmth of his Grace was still something he was getting used to, as was the huge range of human emotions and the intensity of them.
Love was powerful but hate was more so and Cas knew this right now was absolute hatred, strong than Lucifer, strong than Amara.
He hated Dean Winchester, he wanted to make him pay for all he'd done. And Sam Winchester, he would throughly enjoy causing that one the pain he had caused him. But Dean, Dean was his top priority, first thing to destroy when he could. Cas knew his anger was irrationally strong and vivid shut he didn't care, in moments he was no longer 'Cas', the man in the ratty trench coat. He was 'Castiel', the Angel, despite lack of Grace, the stone soldier, the soulless beast. He could kill and ruin as he pleased- there were no chains of compassion holding him back any more.
"Phase two. Complete."
Billie stood in the middle of Central Park. Her keen eyes were fixed on a blue car speeding down the road. She watched, unmoving and unfeeling as a biker drove in front of it. Blood splattered, a woman screamed and a man shouted, children were being grabbed by parents, adults were running out to the street and the driver of that blue car stared in horror at the mangled yet breathing body under the wheel.
In a flick of her wrist, Billie appeared next to the biker. A man named Bradley Morgan, fit, attractive, healthy, a ring in a shinny box in his pocket and a boyfriend at home. "It's your lucky day," she murmured as she turned and walked away. "See you in sixty years." Then visit was unnecessary but still, Billie did not kill as much anymore and loved to watch the ways of life, watch people recover from past wounds.
It wasn't that her job was unpleasant, Billie thought. It was necessity. Everyone needed to die at some point, everyone had an expiration date. Everybody except those damn Winchesters it would seem. Dean, back and alive once again, walking and breathing. She smiled to herself, having secretly grown quite fond of the boys. Reaping Dean was hard, leaving Castiel where she had was harder but it was her job after all, and it had to be done.
Billie decided to pay Dean a visit, perhaps see how he had managed to evade death once again. In an instant she was at the bunker. "Dean Winchester," she called from the staircase.'"My oh my, boy how did you manage it this time?"
She heard the faint talking the other room come to a compete stop as chairs were pushed back and footsteps headed towards where Billie was. Dean appeared first, Sam second, shaky and pale. Then came the Angels, Gabriel, Asmodei, and Lucifer. She wanted to hit herself. With Angels there was always a price for life. What had Sam and Dean bargained with this time?
"Billie," Dean called up. "Took you a while."
Billie gave him a small smile. "Back from dead once again, I see. You promised me Dean, that this next time you would come."
Sam looked sharply at Dean. "When did you promise her this?"
"When I was comatose back at the hospital. She told me to go back as long as I could accept her coming the next time and go with her." He turned back to Billie. "But I didn't evade you this time. You let me be brought back. You told me to save Cas, I haven't done that yet."
Billie gave a mysterious smile. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. How did you manage it this time? I knew you were coming back but I didn't know how."
"Angels," Dean said. "Come down and I'll tell you if you can tell me something I need to know, agreed?"
Billie gave a sharp nod. "Agreed."
Five minutes later they were gathered around the table, everyone listening as Dean finished up his story.
Billie sighed. "Angels," she murmured. "Damn them."
Lucifer looked affronted. "Hey, we had reason to bring him back!"
"Castiel," she said. "You want to know where he is, correct?"
"And you know where, correct?" Dean replied, mimicking her tone.
"I do know. Oh it's a dark and dangerous place, unheard of to all but a few Reapers. This was the first time someone was so damned we actually have put them there." She looked across that the Angels mournfully. "Even if you try and get him, I fear it may be to late:"
"How do you mean?" Dean asked, his green eyes filled with worry and fear, his hands doing a poor job of hiding their shaking. Sam put a hand on Dean's own.
"Hey," he whispered. "I promised you we'd get him back and that's what I fully plan to keep that promise."
Dean smiled down at him. "I know Sammy." He turned his attention back to Billie. "How is this place to dark and dangerous? How could we be to late?"
Billie rubbed her neck. "Well, this place, it turns people. Make monsters out of men, destroys the humanity in them. Imagine what it would do to an Angel, especially one that has feelings so profound as Castiel."
"But he didn't die an Angel," Gabriel said.
"But in life," Billie told them. "He was an Angel, a flawed one, but an Angel none the less. He has Grace in this world, or he's getting it back with every trial that makes him less human."
"So what is this place?" Dean asked, leaning forward, eyes fixed upon her, drinking in every word.
Billie met his eyes. "The Garden of Eden."
