Conversation didn't progress much after that. As he resumed staring reverently at the dazzling tree, she occasionally twisted around to take photographs of the scene around her. Then, without even a word or acknowledgment, she left him there alone.

This didn't bother him much. The girl, the raccoon girl – "Audrey" seemed Nice (he was now rather self-conscious about using this word), but he had never interacted with a human being who was not aligned to some sort of supernatural (or, just plain natural to him) investigation, let alone someone who didn't share the same beliefs as he. Yes, she was nice, but for the sake of who he was and who and what he represented, it was best that he never saw her again. Though, that could hardly be avoided when she returned later with a coffee cup in each hand. One was offered to him.

The angel merely blinked at it. "I don't consume coffee."

"It's not coffee." She gave the cup a little jiggle, as though making it seem more inviting.

Pause. "But it's a coffee cup."

"It's a cup, from a café that sells coffee, but it's hot chocolate." Her arm remained extended to him until he took the cup. She watched him make no further move.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Y'know, if you're not gonna drink that, you may as well give it back. There are others who could benefit from it. My stalker is just around the corner and I think he's dehydrated." When he finally took a rather unwilling sip, she rolled her eyes and sipped her own. He was pleased to find that it did not taste as foul as coffee, or beer. How the brothers could consume that stuff on a regular basis, he did not know.

There was something about the way she stood next to him, fidgeting and shifting her weight, that told Castiel she was feeling anxious – the sort of anxiety one endured when they were itching to say something, to declare something.

"I'm afraid I haven't been completely honest with you, Castiel," she spoke rigidly.

"You've lied to me?"

"I've… not told you something that is a part of your business."

He frowned, his sensibilities as an angel automatically rousing suspicion. "We just met."

Letting her head fall back a bit to regard him, her anxious eyes eased and her lips twitched into a small smile. "I know." It was startling as to how quickly she had warmed to him already. She held his gaze for a long moment, before it turned back to the tree. "I took a photo of you. With my camera."

The battle-ready instinct within him retreated as his suspicions faded. Also turning back to the tree, Castiel murmured, "I see."

Suddenly, he could feel her keenly gaping at him, and as much as he willed himself to ignore it, he couldn't. He turned reluctantly back to her and shot her a quizzical glance.

"You don't have a problem with that?" she inquired, awed. She didn't even give him a chance to answer, when she unleashed her rather animated tirade. "Because sometimes people are! I'll tell them that I've taken their photo and they'll be like, "How dare you invade my privacy! Blah blah blah!" like I'm some sort of paparazzo or something!" Must she speak so loud? People were looking.

She threw her hands in the air, masterfully avoiding to spill any of her hot chocolate. "It's art!"

"Art." He immediately turned fully to address her. "But you don't have faith."

"Castiel –" her eyes shot upwards, half-rolling at him, "you don't need to invest any sort of belief in the divine to create art. See, I have faith, in myself, my imagination, and my creations, my art. And I believe –" she shot him a pointed look with a smirk, "– I took a really cool picture of you." She grinned proudly at him.

Castiel was intrigued. He had only ever seen a photograph of himself once.

"May I see it?"

Her eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. "Absolutely! It'll cost you though. I'm kidding. Because you said I have a Nice name, I'll develop you a copy and send it to you. Where do you live?"

Castiel shifted uncomfortably. Her smile fell.

"Ah, sorry. That was a bit too forward of me. Methinks we need to cover a bit more ground before we even reach Facebook level, y'know?" He didn't know, but he wasn't going to ask.

She seemed contented enough to loop her arm around his and gently tug him in a certain direction. "Let's walk to Central Park!"

Her arm had trapped his with hers, so he was forced to follow her step. Castiel saw no harm in conversing with a local, maybe even befriending this one. And what's this about a Central Park? He briefly wondered what other things there were to see in New York City. And were they all as stunning as the Rockefeller Christmas Tree?

After a long silence of walking, he heard her chuckle.

"You're new in town, aren't you?" she asked, grinning rascally up at him.

"How do you know?"

"Because we're walking the wrong way."

They stopped. They didn't even walk that far away from the tree, yet Castiel was still scrutinizing his surroundings in that boyishly innocent manner of his, as if he had just entered a completely different city. Castiel couldn't remember the last time he had been around so many high rises!

She laughed, and tugged his arm in what he presumed was the right direction, but she did not loop is arm around his this time. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were from another country. Is your accent real?"

"Uh —"

"Actually, you look foreign." Castiel didn't know where to direct his eyes when she leaned forward and angled her head to get a good glimpse of him. "Kinda European, maybe."

Castiel attempted to respond in kind. "You look … white?" he tried.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "My my, Castiel, that's politically incorrect! I'm – we're caucasian." Castiel was beginning to feel very stupid indeed. "But in a way, you're correct. My family's heritage traces back to England. Home of the original white folk!"

"You're English," he concluded, watching with bemusement as she went out of her way to step only on the white lines of the crosswalk they were currently walking over.

"Do I sound English?" She smirked and gave him a quick pointed stare, before focussing again on where her feet landed. "I'm American."

There was something bleak in her tone that informed him that this was something about herself she did not enjoy acknowledging.

"You sound disappointed?" he observed, sounding more like a statement, as he angled his head to catch her reaction.

Her mouth twisted into somewhat of a melancholy smile. "Mm. These days, no one wants to be who they really are."

"You don't wish to be an American?"

He moved to grab her when she suddenly slipped on some ice, but she caught herself and struck a brief "I meant to do that" pose. It was quickly followed by her shooting him a scandalized look.

"Don't say that kind of thing out loud! Especially in New York! I could be watched for all I know! I…" She resumed walking unhurriedly, as her eyes wavered, seemingly searching for the right words as though they were on the ground. "It's not that I'm unpatriotic, it's just, these days, no one wants to be labelled as an American, or English, or Indonesian, or Spanish, or Chinese —"

"There is nothing wrong with —"

"I know! But there's so much… social paranoia these days. I'm aware of it, everyone's aware of it, but we can't help it. We live in fear. No one wants to be labelled because no one wants to be generalized, and effectively attacked –" she fixed him with a look, eyes instantly hard and serious, "– however way you wish to interpret the word "attacked"."

The meaningful look evoked a realization in him. Fear? Attacked? New York? He knew exactly what she was referring to.

"The Y2K bug may have been a bunch of jive, but, I don't know Castiel, there's something weird about this new millennium. Everything just seems so bad, and nothing seems to be improving."

He stared at her.

"What?"

"You are very disillusioned," he said.

She shrugged. "Could you blame me?" After a pause, she narrowed her eyes at him. "You don't think there's something wrong?"

Castiel knew that everything that happened was God's will, and always will be, whether he or anyone else liked it or not. Now, how does one say that to a non-believing human girl?

"I believe everything happens for a reason."

"So, 9/11? Hurricane Katrina? The Boxing Day tsunami? The recession? The Virginia Tech massacre? The Beslan massacre? Global warming? – if you believe that one. Swine flu? The Haiti earthquake? 2009, the year of celebrity deaths? 2010, the year of many, many more deaths? (At this, Castiel's eyes darted around awkwardly at her obscure reference to the Apocalypse) The 2011 Australian floods? The Tucson shooting? The Rio mudslides? You think there's a happy ending to all of this?" she grilled. She wasn't angry, she was just genuinely keen on the topic.

"I never said things happen ultimately for a good reason," Castiel was quick to reply, perhaps a little defensively.

"So, by default, it's a bad reason? Huh. Maybe the 2012 theory is true."

"Have faith," he said, the purposeful glint in his eye returning; the type of look once reserved only for Sam and Dean.

The moment "faith" was spoken, as he expected, she shot him a dry, knowing look, as though questioning his ulterior motives.

"Things will improve," he continued, holding her gaze and making sure not to falter. "Trust me."

Her eyes appraised him with a mixture of admiration and curiosity. "A guy who wants to change the world for the better…" Suddenly, she offered him a rueful grin. "You really don't belong in New York!"

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