Author's Notes: Well, all in all I wrote this chapter in a quick hour. Exams have been eating up my time and I have Trigonometry and Physics tomorrow. Those will require a lot of studying. But by the time the next chapter is up, I will have graduated and our schedule can get back to normal. In the meantime, please enjoy! Don't forget to review!

Castiel was not the simple, ignorant fool many people took him for. Especially among his rival angels, he was considered foolish with only his charms to back him up. In the old days, he had been respected, known for his power and his cunning. However, he had given his all to humanity and the angels saw him as a rebel, the one thing they could not tolerate. They thought of him as disloyal, unworthy of the wings he wore so proudly.

This power and cunning still existed, sharpened by his experiences on earth, perfected in pain and glorified in struggle. Beneath his handsome vessel, he was made of celestial fire, able to burn a human from the inside out if they did not have the mettle to withstand his grace. He was older than the Earth, had watched humanity grow and had given his all to them. Castiel was wrath. Castiel was fire. But above all, Castiel was love.

Gravel crunched under his shoes as the angel moved at the perimeter of the playground. His eyes were distant, his mind far away in thought as he contemplated his next move. He had been surveying the playground for an hour now and the humans were giving him strange looks. He was not bothered by them, ignoring their glances and focusing on the presence that had drawn him here.

Light reflected off of blue irises as he turned his head to the skies, as he so often did. He thought of heaven daily now, remembering how the place used to be his home, a place to heal after assaults by Hell's army. It was a place he had fought to protect and uphold his entire life, a place he could belong with all his brothers and sisters.

But no longer. Naomi had taken that from him. She had taken everything from him. The trust of the Winchesters, his free will and his home. Now Castiel must walk among the humans, trying to avoid the wrath of Heaven for as long as possible. There was no way to mask the aura an angel's grace gave off. It was bright, dazzlingly so, in comparison to the humans' souls he was surrounded by.

"Oi, mate. You alright?" Castiel's head turned to find a woman looking at him. His eyebrows furrowed and his head tilted in slight confusion, wondering why the woman spoke to him. She sat alone on the park bench, though she cast the occasional glance to the children wandering amongst the odd metal fixtures that composed the park they were near.

"I'm afraid I don't know to what you refer." His human voice was a low rumble, hiding the powerful, earth shattering true voice of his celestial form. Nonetheless, his human voice did hold a margin of power, betrayed not only in the way he spoke, but also in the proud jut of his chin, the straight back behind which wings were hidden, human senses being too dull to perceive them.

"You've been standing around like a lost puppy for a while now. Why don't you come sit down?" Castiel took a moment to look at this woman who had noticed him. She seemed no different than the others. She had the accent customary to the region of earth he was searching out, her body functioned the same as theirs, there was nothing odd about her. But she took notice of him.

Without Castiel consciously willing them to, his legs began to move, bringing him to the park bench. He sat beside the woman, her coat sleeve brushing against his as he seated his vessel. He kept his gaze on her, watching the flickering glow of the human soul just beneath her physical form. He never got tired of looking at humans. They fascinated him.

"I am looking for something." He felt free to confide in this woman, this stranger who had noticed him out of all the millions in this city. Besides, who would she tell? The fact that he was looking was no secret to anyone, celestial, human, or otherwise.

"Did you lose your dog?" She joked, nudging him with an arm. Castiel no longer frowned at the strange human need to touch. Dean often jested with his brother by making physical contact, mock punching or pushing, typically. Castiel did not mind. He didn't perceive touch in the same way humans did. He didn't feel flesh on flesh. No, he felt the gentle brush of her soul against his grace. It was slightly chill in comparison to the burn of celestial grace but Castiel found it refreshing.

"No, the creature I'm looking for is crafty. It's hiding somewhere in the city." Crafty was an understatement in reference to the demon he was hunting. There were thousands of demons in the belly of the city, thousands of humans taken by the black smoke and screaming for release. These demons mostly caused minor mischief, nothing compared to the one the angel hunted.

"London is a big place. Don't think you'll find it that easily." The woman asked no questions as to the type of beast he was hunting, choosing to focus more of her attention on the small boy swinging from a bar nearby. Her offspring, Castiel inferred. It was not hard to guess. Even if he had been a human it would not have been difficult.

"I was following a trail when something distracted me. A familiar presence. I came to this playground searching for it but I have found nothing familiar." Castiel had wasted no time in commencing his search, searching the city first as a wavelength of celestial intent, able to cover more of the place without the tedious task of walking.

Narrowing the location of the demon terrorizing the country had taken only hours, leading him to London. He had been hot on the trail of the demon. Its smoke was different than any other demons Castiel had encountered. Putting it in human terms was difficult, but as near an approximation as possible was comparing wisps of cigarette smoke to the billowing smoke stack of a forest fire. This demon was darker, more poisonous, deadly.

And yet the presence of a familiar human was enough to take Castiel off the trail. It was so quiet, so subtle in comparison to the line of destruction left by the demon that the angel would have missed it had he not been so careful in combing the city. The feel of it evoked a strange feeling, as though the angel were forgetting something. This was, of course, highly improbable considering that Castiel did not posses the failings so common in humans. It was why he felt the need to investigate.

"Don't worry about it. Happens all the time in London. You see a face that looks sort of familiar and you run after it and find yourself talking to a total stranger. Unless you're like me and you think it was one of your ex boyfriends. Then you turn and run the other direction." The woman snorted at her joke, giving a good-natured laugh. Castiel smiled, not understanding the joke but not wanting to seem impolite to this woman that had taken such an interest in him.

"You're from America, yeah? Been over here before?" She asked. Castiel's head cocked slightly, wondering from where she made that inference. Ah, the accent of his vessel. Jimmy Novak distinctly lacked the strange coloring to his words found on this end of the ocean. It had never been something Castiel had payed much attention to before this moment, though now he supposed that for humans it was something obvious.

"I have not had occasion to visit your country in centuries." The response was automatically truthful. He had not been here for hundreds of years. Not that he minded, he could infer what the place looked like by observing the rest of human development. Besides, Sam and Dean Winchester were not here, and he owed loyalties to them. For what reason would he come here now?

"Centuries, ay? You're looking good for your age." She laughed again. Her laughter put the angel at ease for some reason. Her face was open and friendly. It was another reason Castiel could find himself in love with humanity. Those small acts of love and kindness shown to strangers. She did not know that Castiel could end her life in a flash of celestial grace but she laughed and teased him anyways. She was kind.

"What's your name, then?" She inquired, taking her gaze from the children on the playground to ask her question of the angel. Castiel had always gotten mixed remarks about his name. Apparently it was not typical to humans, but that was to be expected. His name was little known on earth, unlike some of the names of his siblings such as Michael or Anna.

"Castiel." He said simply. A grin tugged at the corners of the woman's mouth as she raised an eyebrow.

"Castiel? Were your parents religious? Sounds like some bizarre religious name." This was, as Castiel had learned, ironic. Irony had taken him some time to master.

"Yes, my father was, in his own way, religious." He did not bother to openly say that his father was actually God. This was not often well met by the people he told. Nor was the fact that he was an angel. It seemed to frighten the humans as opposed to centuries ago where he was praised for his abilities and grace.

"And your mother? Was she a church goer too?"

"I do not have a mother." In fact, Castiel did not know how angels were created. It was a secret God had not revealed to his army. Perhaps there was a way to create more angels, to restore them to their former numbers, to save their dying race. Angels were not able to reproduce amongst themselves, nor would they want to, being siblings, but if Castiel could find out how they were created, Heaven might once again be home to a future garrison of fledgling angels. Perhaps this would once again unite his people.

"Oh, I'm sorry, love." The woman's hand was on his arm. The angel supposed this was meant to be a comforting gesture. He had learned there were many meanings behind the way humans touched each other. He was still working on a way to distinguish between each touch.

"I have to be going now. Lovely chatting with you." The woman then stood, her bright red hair bouncing around. Castiel stood as well, his vessel towering over her. Due to the height of his friends, people often underestimated Jimmy's size. Castiel had not picked a physically weak human as a vessel. "I'm Donna, by the way."

Physical pain lanced through Castiel's being and he clamped a hand to his head, his breath coming in through his teeth with a sharp hiss. Donna had already walked away, going to collect the small boy from the playground. She didn't notice his wide eyed stare following her away from the playground even as his hand remained on his head. She didn't notice the distress and the wonder. Nor did she see when the angel vanished from the playground with the slightest rustle of invisible wings.

Castiel remembered.