A/N: I was taking too long to end writing the chapter, so I thought I should at least give this bit to you guys now ^^ I hope you enjoy this chapter :)

"Ugh" Charlie scowled. She was pacing down the hallway to the bathroom. Step, step, step, step, step, step, step, bedroom, turn around, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, bathroom, and repeat.

Worrying about her best friend was taking her a long time to decide what to do. Ever since she talked to Castiel, she had been a bit better, not thinking so much about how much it hurt to see Anna suck Castiel off or just how bad Dean's situation was. Seeing how Dean was starting to get new friends was good; for a long time, she worried he wouldn't have anyone by his side except for herself and Sam, but things were changing.

Bip-bip.

Her phone shook on her jeans and she took it out. This was it, the moment she had been waiting for.

"I'm really sorry… Castiel and I go way back and it was never my intention to hurt you."

It took a few seconds for Charlie to decide what she was going to reply.

"I know… I talked to him. He said you're sad."

As soon as the message was sent, Charlie wanted to delete it and re-write it. Why did she have to say that? Why did she have to say she talked with Cas? What if-

Bip-bip.

The second the phone biped again, she was unlocking the screen and reading Anna's reply.

"I'm sorry I hurt you, Char… I never meant for it to happen… I just hurt him, and I wanted to make it better."

Anna was always like this, she always wanted to help, and make things better. Sometimes it all worked out fine… As for the rest of the time, things went down and she never managed to make peace with herself and the others involved.

"I know you did…"

I miss you

She wanted to add the words to the text, but Charlie couldn't do it. What if she was the only one who felt that way? It was too risky to say it, she could get hurt again.

She pressed send and a few seconds later, she had an incoming call.

INCOME CALL – ANNA

After dwelling with herself for a few seconds, Charlie answered.

"Hey." It was lame, answering your ex-girlfriend with a simple 'hey' but what else could she say?

"Hey." Anna spoke in a small voice, it sounded so weak and yet it sounded so strong.

The few minutes of silence we had were both awkward and a relief; they hadn't talked in so long that even minutes of awkward silence were a blessing.

Anna sighed on the other side of the line.

"I miss you…" She whispered, Charlie's heart was hammering against the ribcage, even if Anna wasn't presently there, those three words made her heart beat faster.

After a debating with herself for about ten seconds, Charlie replied.

"Miss you too…" It was so hard not to have Anna beside her now; Charlie wanted to hug Anna, even if it still hurt that she had agreed with Cas' idea.

"I'm sorry…" Anna choked out. "I'm so sorry, Charlie." Even in a phone call, Charlie new Anna was crying; her breath was labored, coming out in puffs and her voice sounded way too drained for her not to be crying.

Charlie couldn't make herself not care, she was still in love with Anna and there was nothing that Anna could do that would change that, Anna was incredibly vulnerable and Charlie wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around her and sooth her back so that she would stop crying and calm down.

"Shhh…" Charlie tried to calm her as best as she could from the other side of the phone. "I know, baby. I know. I know you didn't mean to hurt me… Shh, its gunna be okay."

Anna kept on crying for a while longer, Charlie's voice getting her to calm more and more with each word. When the distraught redhead finally calmed down enough, she thanked Charlie.

"I'm sorry… I didn't mean to cry either. Thank you for calming me down… Char..." She wasn't sure if she should say what she wanted to; it could be too much right now and Anna didn't want that.

"Just say it, Anna" Charlie obliged, feeling the way Anna's voice was still trembling and unsure. "Whatever it is, just say it."

Anna stumbled on her words for a few seconds, not knowing where to start or even if she should say it.

"I- You- Hmmm… I-" Anna took a deep breath before trying to speak again. "I wanted to know if you will ever be able to forgive me."

The words her ex-girlfriend said were the ones Charlie hoped wouldn't be said. Of course she wanted to forgive Anna and hop on a unicorn and go on to their little paradise once more, but seeing Anna and Castiel in her mind hurt as much as it had live.

"Anna…" Charlie whispered and she swore the other understood what she was going to say in that moment. "As much as I love you, I can't forgive you yet. The wound is still too fresh, I can't do it yet."

"I understand." Anna said sheepishly.

Charlie sighed.

"I didn't say I would never forgive you. I just need some time. When I went over to Cas' place the other day I saw he's a kinda cool guy, and with time I will probably become good friends with him. But that takes time. And so does forgiving you. Look, I'm not mad at you… Not anymore, at least… And I know I will forgive you and get back together with you one day… Just…"

"…Not yet." Anna finished Charlie's speech. "Okay, I understand. Thank you for listening to me, Char."

Charlie smiled shortly.

"You're welcome."

"When Cassie told you, did he say why I did it?" Anna asked. If she wanted Charlie to understand, she better know what she knew… and if that wasn't everything, then she would tell her.

Charlie frowned.

"He said he asked you to do it because you were sort of overwhelmed with something…"

"Well, you better sit down, Char… I got something to tell you."

Slightly afraid of what Anna was going to tell her, Charlie obeys and so Anna begins the tale. As the story went on, Charlie's face paled enough that she could be compared to the white wall behind her.

"So, you're saying Castiel became popular and a shitty-ass kid to help you?"

Anna scoffed on the other side of the phone.

"Help? No-no. Cassie saved me. I would have been raped by those guys if it wasn't for him!"

"I know, I know… I just don't know how to feel. I see now why you tried to give him a blowjob, but Anna, you can't just go on and give blowjobs to people when you want to show gratitude, us mortals do something like going out for dinner or buying them a present… You know, reasonable things to show we appreciate what they did for us."

Anna sighed. She should have remembered that… But it had been the heat of the moment and she couldn't get herself to stop what she was doing…

"I'm sorry…" She mumbled, ashamed of her actions and lack of better judgment. "Promise me you won't breathe a word of this to Cassie or your friend Dean… Please, if Cassie wants to tell you he will and he will try to hide this from Dean for as long as he can. I know he has a thing for Dean, I can see it in the way he looks at him… Cassie even told me he wants to protect Dean just like he did to me… He wants to save Dean. But what does he want to save him from?"

It took a while for Charlie to get a hold of herself once more. She shook her head and tried to reason with herself. Castiel was proving he wasn't a fool, that he wasn't the kind of douchebag who would hurt people just to be mean… There was something about him that made Charlie's heart ache, but at the same time she wanted to be mad. She wanted to grab Castiel's neck and shake him for a bit, if only to let him know she didn't agree with what he did. Castiel should have thought his plan through, that he would someday became what he was trying to protect others from… No-one ever survived when they tried to fight for what they believed in, they would just forget themselves and become what they hated most.

Even though she had all of those things in her mind, Charlie managed to agree with Anna on not telling either Dean or Castiel that she knew.

"Yeah, I promise Anna. I can't tell you what Cas wants to save Dean from… Dean doesn't want people to know and Cas sure as hell doesn't know what exactly is going on."

Anna seemed to accept Charlie's response and they hung up the phone.

Since Christmas was coming up, Charlie decided she wanted to get her Christmas presents done soon. Walking around the mall searching for presents for her friends and family was hard. She knew what they all liked, but what if it was too much?

A tech store was the first place she stopped. She wandered around, looking at their display section until she saw a computer. She knew Dean wanted to buy one for himself and Sam, and she also knew it was still a long way from it actually happening. Being secretly rich was a bad thing that time. She had all the possibilities to buy them a laptop but they would never accept it since it was too expensive.

"Ugh." She let out a sigh as she kept looking.

The phone's section was filled with bright colors, showing the new iPhone cases in the market and some new touch screen phones. That was another thing she wanted to buy. Dean bought a cell phone for himself; it was a second hand phone, one that nowadays would be called an old model. But the point stood, Dean had a cell phone and he wanted to give one to Sam too. As Sam was always the priority (except when he bought the cell phone for himself), Dean hardly had one thing he bought for himself. Charlie wanted to help them by offering it to them. Giving both Sam and Dean new phones would be a good thing, that way Dean could have a new model, a phone that at least was an android instead of the old Motorola he bought for himself.

There was always a way to give an expensive gift to Dean, putting it in the mail and saying it was some kind of reward for being a great student… But would Dean fall for it? Probably not… Suddenly, Charlie got an idea… Yeah… Faking a contest to win a computer and a brand new phone could work! There was the added challenge to make the contest look real, creating a website for it and making the rules and having Dean submit his application, but the prize would go to Dean either way, so that was a good thing.

Happily she sighed and started looking around for a good phone for Sam (because obviously that was what Dean would do to it). Once she settled on a good brand (although it wasn't one that people knew very well) Charlie went back to the laptop section and started looking through information about CPUs and which brand was better… Since most programs were easier to navigate on Windows, Charlie ended up choosing a good Toshiba for her friends.

Paying was not a problem, the only problem was waiting in line for half an hour as the client who was paying decided to stop cooperating and started asking all kinds of questions about the cashier's credibility and the manager had to be called.

Once she was done with Dean and Sam's main presents, she looked around to give them something symbolic, something they actually knew it was from her.

On her way to a store, Charlie saw a lovely cardigan that she was sure her mother would love. Charlie went inside and found the perfect size for her mother and made sure to find a small ring that would go with it. Once the cashier wished her goodbye, Charlie resumed her search for Dean and Sam's gifts.

Finding a good book for Sam was easy, what was harder was getting something for Dean.

Whenever he was asked what he wanted, the answer always came the same way, "I don't need anything… But Sam would love…" he said.

Charlie wandered around the mall long enough to walk it through two times. She was nearing the third round when she noticed a small shop. The shop's walls were black, giving it a dark semblance. It was about then she noticed it was called Colt; Charlie couldn't help but wonder if she was going to find guns inside. It was a surprise to see the shop was actually one of those stores that sell handmade stuff; there were rings that looked like silver -but Charlie was sure they were only metallic rings-, wood figurines and some very neat looking necklaces.

The woman working on the store looked bored, as if she didn't have many people walking inside the store. She walked over to Charlie.

"Hey!" She said happily. "Welcome to Colt! Here you can find all sorts of handmade things."

"Thanks." Charlie was a bit lost, not ever had she been greeted this happily when she got inside a store before.

"Can I help you choose anything?" She asked as she crowded Charlie's space.

Charlie wasn't sure what to give Dean yet… There were only two more presents she needed to buy –excluding Dean's- and that meant looking for something for her dad and Anna.

"I'm not sure what you sell yet, but I'll look around." Charlie answered, not really wanting to send away the woman, but still wanting to be able to choose something by herself.

"Whatever you need, I'm here!" The shop assistant said happily as she walked back to her spot behind the counter.

Charlie looked around all the shelves and desks full of things. She noticed a medium sized wood figurine of an Angel; it was painted with black hair and black wings. The only details of the image were those, everything looked like a blank canvas waiting to be filled. She grabbed it and started shifting it to see every angle and shape the figurine had to offer.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" The shop assistant questioned. "Such strong detail of its hair and feathers, and yet nothing to show how the face is; we can picture whomever we want there."

"It really is." Charlie responded.

She kept looking around the store, the wood figurine still in her hand. It was about that time she saw one more thing that caught her attention. There was a section of the store that held only odd objects, car plates that she could personalize stop signs…

Between many other things, Charlie noticed there was a miniature of High School Musical's background of Breaking Free and Bop to the Top, the one with the ladder, the moon and the stars.

After an internal debate with herself, she was set on asking the question she had in mind.

"Are you really going to tell me you're selling a miniature of a High School Musical setting?"

The girl laughed, her face blissed with joy, man she must really be bored all day long in that shop.

"That was made as a joke, we were drunk; I suggested it and the next morning we had the project halfway done… Hannah finished it and we put it here. It's been here for like five months and no-one ever noticed it." She sighed happily at the memory. "And yeah, to answer your question, we really are selling it."

Charlie beamed.

"Awesome! 'Cause I'm about to buy it!"

There was nothing she could have seen around that would be better. Dean loved High School Musical, he was obviously going to pretend he didn't care about it, but like hell he wouldn't love this as well!

Charlie went to pay and handed both the figurine –there was something about it, she wasn't sure what, that made her buy it- and the HSM setting.

Once the gift was wrapped, the girl made sure to accompany her to the door.

"And make sure to visit more often!" She waved as Charlie went back to her life, trying to find something for her dad.

There was a jacket in one of the stores that was exactly the same her dad wore every day, except this one didn't have holes on it. Despite being rich, her family didn't like to waste perfectly good things, if the jacket was still good enough to keep them warm, they would keep it. Above the jacket, there was a scarf, black and dark blue that went perfectly along with the black jacket. She bought the scarf and a dark blue shirt and left the store.

Now the only thing that was missing was buying a gift for Anna.

Charlie new Anna's taste very well, she liked simple things; didn't wear much jewelry, liked plain shirts with simple saying in them. But she really liked bracelets, rounding the mall once more only to find that every store had either awful bracelets or ones Charlie new for sure Anna wouldn't like.

It was around store number 12 that Charlie gave up and went back to Colt.

The girl was still there, and she smiled brightly as Charlie entered the store.

"Hey! You're back!" She bounced in her seat and quickly got up. "What brings you here again?"

Charlie sighed, the girl had too much enthusiasm.

"I'm looking for a bracelet for my girlfriend."

If possible, the girl smiled even more.

"Oh my God! We have some very cool bracelets!" She chipped happily.

Charlie smiled, but didn't answer.

After looking at everything, she noticed a bracelet with a pentagram. It was one of those black leather bracelets with a metal pentagram on them. She was sure Anna would love it.

"I'll take this one!"

The girl seemed disappointed that Charlie was going to leave again, but kept talking happily and making Charlie promise to come back soon!

And so Charlie went home, her hands full of bags –except for the computer, that one would be delivered to her place, because there was no way in hell she was going to carry a laptop around with five more bags!