"Cas?" Kylie's voice rang out clear as a bell in the darkness. Castiel searched about frantically, terrified. She was here somewhere. She had to be here somewhere. "Cas?!" Her voice was scared, worried, frightened. "Cas!"

Castiel kept searching, kept running, kept trying to find her. It was so dark, so foggy, he could barely see his own two hands in front of him. "Kylie?!"

He stopped, breathing hard. Something was wrong. Something was bad. Something was missing, something he should know but couldn't see in front of him.

"Kylie?!" The silence was deafening. She should be here, be somewhere. Why had she stopped shouting? He couldn't find her without her helping. He couldn't find her if he couldn't hear her or see her.

He had to find her.

She had to be here somewhere.

Castiel turned in a full circle, catching the barest glimpses of a shadow out of the corner of his eye.

Something is wrong. Run. Run now. Run far and fast and don't watch this.

"Cas?" Kylie's voice came from behind him, quiet and scared. Castiel turned around to see her, standing still. She was wearing a white dress, simple, almost…

Almost like a wedding dress.

A simple one, with a slight V neckline, billowing sleeves and a flowing waistline. It trailed behind her slightly, blowing in the unseen breeze. She looked absolutely beautiful, and yet… Her expression was so terrified. She was staring at something that scared her.

She was looking at Cas, and she looked utterly terrified.

"Kylie, are you alright?" Castiel asked her. She didn't answer, made no motion to answer, just kept staring. "Kylie?"

The front of her dress started to bloom a brilliant red, and Castiel felt his stomach drop as a new figure appeared from behind her with a soft schlick. The figure… It looked like Castiel, looked like him, but it wasn't. It was Lucifer. "Sorry, little brother." He crooned. Kylie fell back, the fear never leaving her eyes. "But she's only an ape, after all, and it's not like apes are ever actually that important." He dropped her, let her fall to the ground like a piece of trash. Castiel ran towards her, trying to catch her before she hit the ground, as Lucifer cackled above him.

Castiel woke up with a start, actually feeling sweat on his brow as he sat up straight. He was back at the cheap hotel desk, in the cheap hotel chair, with all his notes on tracking Lucifer splayed out in front of him like a thin pillow. There was no oppressing darkness, no fog and mist, no Lucifer…

Then again, no Kylie either.

That part... That part was true.

She was dead. Lucifer had killed her, with his own hands. He had been about to say her name. He could feel it on his lips.

Cas reached up to clasp the ring, her wedding ring. She'd taken it off, for some reason. She'd had it off when Lucifer had killed her, and he'd kept it to maintain his cover. Now, of ourse, with the Devil gone… Cas wore the ring around his neck, on a simple leather cord. It was want she would've wanted. She hated fancy and decadent, even as a reminder of her no longer being homeless. It was just… It wasn't her.

He'd lost Kylie, lost Sam, almost lost Dean… Cas kept losing people.

The angel was just tired of losing so much. When it came to finding Sam, he'd been ruthless. Mary's question of whether he really was an angel had definitely been warranted. Cas hadn't been acting like one.

He stood up from his desk, taking a look at his notes on Lucifer for a moment. He was still out there, after all. Lucifer was the cause of all this. Lucifer was the one that killed Kylie. Lucifer was the one that failed against Amara. Lucifer was to blame, and Castiel was going to find the bastard. The angel let go of Kylie's ring to twist his own, for just a moment, remembering how particular Kylie was about how her things were organized.

Babe, I love you, but you gotta let me organize these. Kylie had said. Her notes on Amara, on anything, all were organized in a specific way. It was the same way Kevin had done his. Cas started to organize the notes, doing his best to imitate how Kylie had done it, before resuming his work.

For Kylie. He thought. For Kylie.

When he was finished, he stared at them a while longer. It was late at night. Extremely late.

And yet someone else, other than him, was awake.

Cas walked out of his room, towards the other awake presence he felt. It was Mary, Sam and Dean's mother, sitting at the battle table as she read through John's notebook. Mary looked up at the angel, and offered him a small smile. "Castiel." She greeted. "What are you doing up?"

"Oh, I'm always up." Castiel answered. It probably wasn't pertinent for her to know that he had just been attempting sleep, to try and get through another night quickly. "Angels don't need sleep." It didn't stop him from trying to, though. He could dream.

Mary looked a little stunned by the information, and took a second to process it before looking back at the journal. "Wish I had the problem." She muttered. Castiel walked up to the table Mary sat at, intending to sit beside her. They were both awake, after all. No point in letting people suffer alone. At the nearing of his presence, though, Mary let out a sigh before closing John's journal. "Anyways," Mary said as she rose. "I think I'll go try again." She walked away from Cas with quiet footsteps. "Wish me luck."

"What's the expression humans say?" Castiel had asked. He was straightening his tie, getting ready for the interview at the Gas n Sip. "'Wish me luck?'"

"Luck!" Kylie responded, offering him a small smile.

"Luck." Castiel responded, his voice… Different. A little hollower. Mary stopped, then. She understood that tone.

He may be an angel, but he was struggling with something as well.

So she stopped, turning to look at him. "Castiel?" He looked up at her, returning from whatever memory he had been chasing down. From the look on his face, that sorrowful mourning look, Mary decided not to ask what he was thinking about, and went with a different question. "After you left heaven, when did it start to feel like…" She thought for a moment. "Like you fit – like you... Belonged here?"

"I met someone." Castiel admitted, sitting down. "More than once, actually. The first time… I don't know if that was actually meeting as more as me reaching for verification that I was a good God." He let out a small laugh. "And afterwards… I don't know. She was kind. She was honest. She was… Well… Her." He shrugged, and smiled. "She was her, in every sense of the word, and I loved her for it."

"Was that hers?" Mary asked, pointing to the ring around his neck. Castiel nodded.

"I proposed to her, I wanted to marry her like… like normal humans do, and live a life with her, whatever kind of life she wanted, if she would have me."

"What happened?"

"It was my fault." That was all Castiel would say about it to her. That was all he could say about it to her right then. Her face was still fresh in his mind, the one from his nightmare. "And now," he shook his head. "Well, I'm not sure if I do belong here anymore. Not fully."

Mary let out a small sigh, patting him on the shoulder. "I know that was hard for you to tell me." She said. "And I understand. I miss my husband too." The admittance was like a weight being lifted from her shoulders.

"Does that feeling… Do you think it will ever go away?" Castiel asked. He wasn't certain which answer he wanted to hear, the yes or the no.

Mary shook her head. "No." She told him honestly. "I don't think it's supposed to, either."

She sat with him a little longer, the both of them thinking on that. When Mary got up to go to bed again, this time Castiel stopped her. "Mary," he said. She stopped in the entrance to the hallway, turning over her shoulder to face him as she clutched the journal tightly to her chest. "You do belong here." He assured her.

Mary just let out a small smile. "Goodnight, Castiel." She said softly.

When he got a hit on a possible Lucifer sighting the next morning, he jumped at the opportunity and went.