"What happened?"

Sam and Dean walked into the kitchen just after Castiel asked his question. "Ola Amigos, we're back early, turns out that job was a…" Dean trailed off, stopping dead in the doorway the minute he sensed the tension emanating from Bobby, Castiel, and Aiyla.

"Hey everybo…" Sam slammed into Deans back, "Why did you sto…?" Eyes darting around, the brothers frowned, taking in the broken plate scattered across the floor, Aiyla's bloodless face, and Bobby and Cas's stern frowns.

"What the hell happened?" The brothers chimed in unison.

Castiel never removed his gaze from Aiyla, "That is precisely what I am trying to discover. What did Crowley say to you Aiyla?"

Dean's eyebrows shot up, "Crowley! You mean to tell me that asshole…"

Castiel interrupted Dean, cutting the hunter off with a slashing motion of his hand "I'm going to ask you again, what did he say Aiyla?"

Aiyla flinched. Castiel's voice was cool and controlled, but his eyes burned with an intense rage that was palpable enough to send her stepping backward until the backs of her thighs hit the table.

"I…he didn't…" Aiyla fought the overwhelming urge to run screaming out the door. Castiel stalked her across the room, stopping just short of his toes touching her own, he used their vast height differences to intimidate her. At least that was what it felt like to Aiyla.

"…and how the hell did the bastard get in in the first place?!" Dean added.

"Cas! Back up you feather brained idgit! Can't ya see your scaring the poor girl spitless!" Bobby placed a hand on Castiel's shoulder, attempting to drag the angel back a few steps. Unfortunately, trying to move an angel when he did not wish to go proved a fruitless endeavor. Cas remained stubbornly rooted before her. He did turn those burning eyes away from Aiyla's frightened ones however, focusing his attention on Bobby instead.

"Crowley… The King of Hell, just made a point to personally visit your kitchen…" He pointed an accusing finger at Aiyla, "… to speak to HER. We need to know why!"

Sam stiffened, and Dean's eyes instantly turned hard. The eldest Winchester pinned Aiyla with a suspicious stare and stepped forward as well, crowding Aiyla even more than she already was. An angry Castiel and Dean, towering above her own head with twin looks of suspicion and near contempt nearly broke the tenuous hold she maintained on her sanity. Aiyla squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back the blind panic that threatened to turn her into a mindless ball of terror, rocking on the floor. She succeeded, just barely.

Bobby shot Cas a murderous stare, "That's all well and good, but you don't have to back the half-pint into a corner and stare her down like she's enemy numero 1 on your shit list of spots to be rubbed out! Need I remind you HOW we found her? Of WHO was responsible for how we found her? Show some compassion you angelic asshole! The girl just had a face to face with the bastard who tortured her for almost 2 years! I know you've been away from the earth side of things for a while, but you can't have forgotten all of what you learned when you lost your angel juice during the apocalypse. You are better than this Castiel. We taught you better! Now remember it, and act like you give a damn! Not just about Crowley, or Raphael, or the War…but about the people who count you as friends and the girl you rescued from hell on earth and vowed to protect! " Bobby shot Dean a murderous glance next, "And wipe that damned glare off your face Dean Winchester! You're near as bad as Cas, staring Aiyla down like that! And you definitely should know better!" Bobby's face was red by the time he had finished with his rant, his chest heaving with righteous anger. Aiyla got the impression that the word's Bobby spit into Castiel's face had been a long time coming…before she was ever part of the equation. She almost felt sorry for the angel, whose shoulders began to slump as if each word Bobby uttered was a boulder piling upon his wings, grounding him to the earth until he looked ready to crumble from the insurmountable weight.

Dean just frowned, and took a small step back, mumbling under his breath something about someone waking up on the wrong side of the bed.

Castiel's eyes softened, grew sorrowful, as Bobby stared him down. "I…I did not realize..." He stopped, breathed deep , correcting himself, "…I did not allow myself to realize how my actions have been affecting all of you. I am…sorry. Is this how all of you… feel?"

Bobby shrugged, softening just a bit. "You know it is Cas. We all count you as our friend. Hell, we know how much you risked for us. You DIED for us…and we'll always be grateful for that. And we know this war has got you backed into a damn corner. We're tryin' to be understanding, but you can't keep shuttin' us out until it's convenient to do otherwise. We're family, and family is there for each other come hell or high water. Share a bit of your damned burden with us and maybe we can help lighten the load a bit you idgit. And for god sakes, try to remember we ain't like those robot angel brethren of yours…we're human's with human emotions." Bobby pointed at Aiyla, "And that little girl over there may not be all human, but she's as sweet as they come, and has more compassion in her pinky finger than the rest of us messed up sums o' bitches put together! She doesn't deserve the way you're treating her, not one bit. Dammit! I'm talking to you too Dean!"

Dean finally seemed to take Bobby's words to heart. The green eyed hunter shot Aiyla a look, "Sorry jail bait, that was a dick move on my part. It's hard to turn the old hunter's mentality off sometimes, you know?"

She dropped her head, letting her hair fall forward to hide the tears threatening behind her eyes. She nodded, unable to look the hunter in the eye. Gentle fingers cupped her chin, raising her eyes to meet timeless blue ones. Cas studied her face, furrowing his brow when he saw the hurt and betrayal she couldn't quite hide. "I am sorry as well. I had no right to take my…frustrations…out on you." With the apology made, the angel released her and took several purposeful steps back, allowing Aiyla to breath a sigh of relief.

Bobby stepped forward, wrapping an arm around her sleight shoulders. "Don't you take any of these idgit's actions to heart half pint, they all got a few screws loose when it comes to remembering not everyone has hides as thick as theirs."

Sam, who had been standing innocently in the doorway, watching the entire scene play out, frowned. "Hey!"

Bobby shot the younger Winchester a glare, "Don't get me started on you boy…the whole soulless Sam fiasco is all too fresh on my mind!"

Sam seemed to acknowledge the point, and lapsed into a chastised silence.

Aiyla wanted desperately to stay within the protective circle of Bobby's arm. The craving for human touch and compassion had not abated in the weeks since her rescue from the demons. If anything, it had grown stronger. Unfortunately, living in a house of hunter's had not proved to be the best place to find such contact. Aside from manly back slaps, The Winchesters, and even Bobby weren't exactly the poster boys for touchy-feely types. She took a deep breath, gathering her courage, and stepped out from under Bobby's protective arm, shooting him a look of gratitude to ensure he did not think she was rejecting the embrace.

"It's ok." She glanced at Dean and Cass, "I'm sorry too. I know I don't exactly embody courage…I need to stop cowering at everyone and everything. It's just…well, be patient with me? Habit's are hard to break, and some of the ones I learned the last few years don't seem very happy to just up and leave." She turned to Cas, "Crowley said he was just checking up on me. He said he was inclined to let me stay…he told you as much as well." She hesitated to share the next bit of information, but decided to tell them everything. "He…he said I was swapping out prison cells, nothing more. He said that I was never meant to be free and that the only reason you are keeping me here is that my soul…my mixed heritage… is valuable." She dropped her head, cursing the traitorous tear that tracked down her cheek, and her lower lip that trembled without her permission. "H…He said I'm just another monster…just like the one's you hunt…that you are all my new wardens, and the minute I'm not useful or of value, you'll destroy me like you do w…w…ith all…m…monsters."

Silence.

Aiyla looked desperately at the hunters and the angel, willing them to say something, anything. To tell her she was not a monster, she was not a prisoner, that she was a friend. She looked to Sam, but instead of reassurance, she found only pity. She turned to Bobby and Dean, but the two hunter's couldn't even meet her eyes. Bobby rubbed the back of his neck, and Dean's jaw ticked as he dropped his chin to his chest. She whirled on Cas, frantic for just some smidgen of reassurance or glimmer of friendship. The angel locked sad eyes with her for only a moment, before he looked away too. Aiyla lost the small bit of composure she had been fighting so hard to maintain, her knees buckled and she sat down hard on the floor, wrapping her arms around her legs, she buried her head in her knees, unable to stop the racking sobs that shook her whole body. She could feel pieces of the broken blue-plate digging into her feet and through her clothes. She welcomed the small bite's of pain they inflicted as she rocked back and forth. The shards were the same as her..and so they passed no judgment.

Useless, a danger, unwanted. Broken beyond repair.

...

Castiel had lived a long time. He had bore witness to countless human wars and tragedies of every kind. He had looked into the haunted eyes of soldiers, holocaust survivors, and mother's who had lost their babies in child birth. He had felt a detached sort of sorrow for the poor souls, even cursed his inability to help. But he had never truly understood or truly empathized as he should have. Even during the apocalypse, when he was as close to human as he would probably ever get, Castiel had not been able to truly understand the hopelessness and depression that Dean had suffered. Indeed, when Dean had given up, ready to say yes to Michael, Cass never attempted to understand the hunter's reasons behind his actions. Instead of Compassion or empathy, he had only been able inflict the hunter with his own impotent anger and wrath….he had beat a man he considered a friend, to a bloody pulp. He simply was not able to understand. He was an angel, and angel's were not made as human's were. He was not made to question, or comfort, or empathize. He was a soldier, a war machine, nothing more and nothing less. At least that was the excuse he'd been allowing himself to believe all this time. Never once had he considered that he had only been using the excuse to keep himself at a distance and guilt free from the pain of those around him...and within himself… Until today.

Cass watched the little silver haired female look desperately from one hunter to the next, seeking some small shred of reassurance that she was not just a pawn in their lives, a passing footnote in their grand stories. He watched the color drain from her face as she came up with naught from each of them. And then those big blue eyes locked on his…desperate for any small word of comfort… and shamed, full of guilt…he looked away.

He had watched again and again the spark of hope, of life itself drain from the eyes of humans, but never had he been the cause of it. He watched now, as the brilliant innocence and hope that had shown so brilliantly from her eyes, dulled and died. He watched as he singlehandedly broke the will of another living being so completely and awfully that his vessel's chest constricted in pain. He felt guilt, he felt shame…but even more profound, he felt true empathy for the female that sunk to the floor in utter defeat. He had once felt as she did now he remembered with a start. How could he have so easily forgotten the feeling he experienced when he was told that god himself had given up on them all? That his father wanted him to stop looking for him. How easily he had forgotten. How conveniently.

"I…I want to go home! I…I…n…never wanted any of this! P…please…just let me go home!"

She was no monster, Castiel realized with horror, he was.

The three hunters looked at the sobbing female on the floor in outright panic.

Dean took a hesitant step forward, "H…hey now jailbait…just calm down…we ah...Bobby? Help me out here."

Bobby glared at Dean, just as at a loss for words as Dean was. Sam just hung his head.

Another sob tore through the air, making all three hunters flinch. Cas dropped down onto his knees, and, after a moment's hesitation, reached his hand out to cup the back of Aiyla's head in what he hoped was a comforting gesture, clumsily stoking her baby soft locks. "You are not a monster Aiyla. And you are not a slave or our prisoner or a pawn. We may have started out thinking of you that way…and that was wrong of us to do so. We were wrong." He cupped her cheek and raised her startled eyes to meet his own. "Crowley was wrong. Do you understand? You are precious, you are free, and you are our friend. We …I…am the monster for ever allowing you to feel remorse for what you are. Because what you are is kind, and…sweet, and worthy. You survived horror and torture that would break the most hardened of souls and somehow managed to maintain an innocence and hunger for life that I have never seen the equal to in all my many…many…many years." Castiel felt a boulder lift from his chest when the smallest hint of hope sparked back into her wary blue eyes. He felt a swell of hope himself when she cracked the tiniest of smiles at his poorly executed joke about his age. "I will take you wherever you wish to go Aiyla…and…if you insist on it, we will leave you to your freedom, and you will never have to worry about us hunting you or taking you somewhere against your will." Cas watched the hope flare a bit brighter…"But I hope you won't send us away. We want to help you…as friends, not jail keepers or wardens. We will protect you, like…like…"

"…like family is supposed to." Bobby finished for the floundering angel.

Castiel shot Bobby a look of gratitude, "Exactly. If you stay, it will be of your own free will and the I promise, on my word as a celestial being of god, that if you ever wish to leave you may do so…although I can't promise we won't try to convince you otherwise." Cass added with a rueful grin.

Bobby hunkered down next to Aiyla and Cass, "Let us be your new home squirt. We may be a bit rough around the edges…but we take care of our own."

Cas had never realized how good a man Bobby Singer was until that moment. The angel returned his gaze to Aiyla, whose downturned face was again hidden by the silvery cascade of her hair. The angel's gut clenched. Had he said something wrong? Was she going to look at him with that broken gaze again? "Aiyla? …what…what do you say?" He began to flounder, "I…um…I'm sorry I …did I say we were sorry? We are really…ah sor…"

She snapped her head up, stopping Cas's suddenly halting apology short, tears pouring down her face, Cass panicked…He'd mucked things up…she was crying again, and…"

Aiyla launched herself at the angel, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in the crook of his neck, as giant sobs wracked her body. Castiel, angel of the lord, Celestial being of the heavens, had never been embraced in such a manner. (He refused to count the cupids idea of affection as legitimate embrace's) He had never felt the wet heat of another's tears soak through his shirt and sink into his skin. It was a day of many firsts for the angel. Cas looked to Dean and Sam in panic, unsure of himself and what he should do. The two hunters were no help. Dean and Sam's jaws were hanging open as if they were hoping to catch mosquitos…or was it flies? Cass could never seem to remember the many human sayings. Dumbstruck…the Winchesters appeared utterly and hopelessly dumbstruck.

Bobby leaned over to Cas, muttering under his breath, barely audible, "Hug her back, ya idgit."

Cas awkwardly patted at Aiyla's back, and then, catching Bobby's glare, haltingly wrapped his arms around the female clinging so stubbornly to his neck. He was surprised to find the sensation so wonderful, and tightened his arms carefully around her fragile frame, mindful of his own angelic strength. "Does…ah…does this mean you will stay?"

Aiyla pulled back a bit, sniffling, to look up into Cas's face. "I want to stay…please?"

Bobby grinned, slapping Cass on the back and then using the angels shoulder as leverage to pull himself off the floor. "Well that's settled then, now whose hungry?" The old hunter took in Dean and Sam's stunned looks as they looked at Cas as if he had grown another head. "Hey, ya digits. Shut your mouths, it looks like your tryin' ta catch flies with them hanging open like that. Sammy, make yourself useful and grab a broom and clean up this mess. Dean, you go run into town and get us all some nice steaks and Aiyla here some veggie burgers!" When the Winchester boys made not move to comply, Bobby smacked the two of them on the back of the heads, finally breaking them from their dumbstruck stupor. "I said move!"

Dean slowly turned around, whispering to Sammy as they made their way to the door, "What the hell just happened?"

Sammy shook his head, still in a daze, "Hell if I know…I think Cas just…I don't even…I don't think he's ever talked so much at one time…like ever."

Dean grabbed at Sammy's sleeve, near panicked. "Did Castiel, Angel of the Lord and all around clueless, socially challenged nerd, just…just…"

"Yep." Sammy replied

"And did…she…a tiny little girl…woman…jailbait…just reduce, Castiel, Angel of the Lord…" Dean trailed off.

"I think so. Maybe it's a female thing. I swear to god they all have magic powers."

"Huh."

Dean glanced back over his shoulder again, to where Cas was righting himself, and Aiyla had finally realized who she was clinging to, and had a deep crimson blush spreading across her face as she disengaged from her zelous embrace of the angel. She looked absolutely mortified, and was muttering sorrys over and over to the angel, who simply looked down at her in awestruck wonder. "He was hugging her Sammy…he…are we being punked? Do you think Gabriel survived? Should I go get a steak…or an angel blade?"

Sam stopped dead. Dean crashed into his brother, still gazing over his shoulder at the angel and the girl…dazed. "Uh…Dean…I don't think even the Trickster would be so cruel as to do…this to us."

Dean, turned back around, "Do what? Ohhhh shit."

Sheriff Jody Mills, clad in a huge floppy hat, Hawaiian shirt, and Bermuda shorts and sporting a lobster red sunburn, stood in the doorway, murder in her eyes as she took in the broken glass scattered across the floor, Aiyla's cut up feet and tearstained face, and the three hunters guilty faces.

Dean cleared his throat, attempting to sound overly cheery and carefree"Jody…good to ah…see you again…I see you're back early."

The sheriff glared at the Winchesters, Bobby, and Castiel. "Don't you Jody me you Assholes. WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Dean's eyes widened, "We're dead men Sammy…this is the end of the line. Finished. Elvis has left the building. We're going to that big Pie in the Sky…"

Sam could only nod in horrified agreement. The Wrath of Jody was scarier than any monster they'd faced.

….

Note: I hope you like this! I tried to stay true to the characters as much as I could, although I know I probably took a few liberties. Aiyla doesn't exactly fit the mold of the typical females the Boys, Cas, and Bobby typically come across…so I felt it was a good excuse to stretch the characters waaaay out of their comfort zones. Lol…that and I'm a sucker for these kind of scenes so I couldn't help myself. Well, the relationship dynamic has certainly changed between Aiyla and her new "Family"…which should allow her to blossom a bit more as the story progresses. I don't think her character will ever be quite as badass/assertive as most of the female characters in Supernatural…it's just not in her personality…but she will grow and change as she finds herself again. Aside from Jody showing up to incite a bit of motherly wrath on the men, I think the chapter ended up pretty darn positive….but don't worry, all you lovers of angst and woe…there will be a healthy helping of that coming up eventually. But I do like humor…so there's going to be more of that too. : ) Stay tuned. And I'd love reviews and feedback…I really don't have any idea what I'm doing lol, just playing the whole story by ear.