A/N - Phew... longer one. Hope you all like where it's going :) x

Chapter 11 - "I'm not your Brother."

"I get it, you know? You don't have to worry."

Meg kept her eyes averted as she said this.

Watched the dark streets slide past as Sam drove her home.

"Meg…."

"No. I mean it." She smiled sadly, softly. "I know what you think of me, what your brother thinks of me, but how I was a few days ago isn't what I am now."

Sam said nothing, only glanced quickly at her before looking back at the road.

"You ever meet someone who could strip all the pretence away Sam?"

"I…. don't think so…"

"Then you haven't. If you had, you'd know. You meet someone like that once in your life, if at all. Rare as a unicorn."

"No. I haven't then."

"Well. Cas is my unicorn."

Sam frowned at her before realising she was smiling, then laughed, and she allowed herself to laugh a little with him.

As he pulled up outside her building she turned to him and smiled.

"I wouldn't hurt him for the world. Tell Dean that. Ok?"

"Sure. I will."

She nodded once, then slipped out of the car.

Naomi was sat on the sofa.

Her hair pulled back in a severe bun, her knees pressed tight together, hands clasped in her lap, looking questioningly at Cas, who was stood, nervously swaying from foot to foot in front of her.

"How did you find me?" He blurted out at last.

A smile spread across her face, suggesting that he was being slow.

"You've never really been lost Castiel. We've known where you were living for a long time now."

Cas had the overwhelming urge to sink to the floor in horror. It took all his strength to not just let his knees buckle.

Naomi still had the superior, mock compassionate, tilt of the head she'd used so well back at the compound.

- Castiel.

- Yes Sister Naomi?

- This floor is not clean enough.

Emotionlessly, she kicked over the bucket of dirty water, messing the floor he had spent an hour scrubbing.

- It was clean! I swear!

- Are you calling me a liar Castiel?

- No Sister Naomi.

- Perhaps you think I'm blind then?

- No!… I…

- Perhaps it is you who is blind.

She was strong, even at thirteen, strong enough to grab an six year old Castiel by the scruff of the neck.

Naomi pressed her fingers to his eyes and he squeezed them shut.

Even so, bright flashes of light and colour began to play behind his eyelids as she bore down harder and harder.

- Please! Please Sister! Please stop! I'll clean it well! I promise!

She pushed him to the floor and he lay sprawled in the filthy water.

Smoothing down her skirt she stood very straight, clasped her hands in front of her and smiled kindly.

- You have half an hour Castiel. Unless you feel you don't need eyes that is.

"I have to say, I don't think living in the outer world is doing much for you Brother. You look… scrawny."

"I'm not your Brother."

She shrugged lightly.

The fact that she really didn't care made his skin cold, the flippant way she'd hurt, not only him, but the others, all those years ago, still made his breath catch in his throat.

"I'm not going back."

He was glad to hear that his voice wasn't as shaky as he felt.

Naomi made him feel like a helpless child, and all she'd done was sit in his apartment and smile at him.

"I'm not here to take you back. Castiel….. If we'd wanted you back we could have plucked you up at anytime."

She shook her head and chuckled quietly to herself.

"Then why…..?"

"I have news for you, that's all."

"News?"

"Your Mother. Elijah says she is ill. Dying. She wants to see you one last time."

Now his legs really did buckle and he gripped the nearest bookshelf tight to stop himself from falling.

He hadn't seen his Mother since he was a child.

Not really.

Oh he'd spied her a few times across a courtyard, a thin pale woman moving silently along with others like her.

It had almost got to the point where he could hardly tell her from the next.

As a woman who had bourn a child out of wedlock, she was kept away from the main body of the Brotherhood.

The "fallen" women had prayed, worked and eaten at separate times to the rest of them.

"Why now?" He whispered, swallowing hard.

Naomi shrugged.

"I'm just relaying the message. See her or don't. It won't make much difference to either of you I expect. But, Elijah willed it, so I am here."

She stood and went to Cas, gripped him by the shoulders and smiled at him.

An outsider watching would see a kind gesture, but Cas was shaking with the awakening of old fears.

"If you do want to see her, I wouldn't leave it too long. She has a few days, a week maybe. So decide quickly."

And with that, she was gone and Cas finally slipped to the floor, burying his face in his hands, keening for all that had been lost.

This was how Meg found him.

Bent over his knees, wailing like a child.

He felt her arms go around him but he couldn't stand.

All he could do was grasp at her, pull her down with him and listen to her shakily whispering to him, over and over.

It's Ok.

It's Ok.

The four stood in Cas's neat little apartment, a grim silence hanging over them that Dean finally broke.

"You going?"

Meg felt Cas pressing against her and she clasped his hand in return.

When she'd walked in through the open door and found him bereft, unable to get him to talk to her, she'd called Dean.

It was one thing being prideful, but knowing when to bow out to those with more experience was something she wasn't too vain to do.

"Yes."

She saw Sam glance at Dean, his eyebrows raised in question, but Dean just stood stoically, hands folded across his chest, watching Cas.

"I need to."

"Ok. I'll drive you, we'll be there in a few hours, spend the day, You and me can be home in less than two days. In and out. No fuss."

"…and me…" Meg felt Cas's fingers tighten on hers. "Right?"

Cas looked across at Meg and she saw then, the conflict in his eyes, felt his grip on her hand slowly loosen.

She looked from one to the other. "You're kidding right?"

"… Meg…"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "You don't want me there?"

Cas turned away slightly and with a shaky sigh whispered. "No."

Meg felt Dean grasp her arm, she angrily snatched it away but he took hold of her other though and she turned to glare at him..

"Outside." He growled, jerking her arm and pulling her towards the door.

"Get your hands off me." She snarled as he shut the door behind them.

Dean half growled at her and pushed her against the wall on the other side of the corridor.

"Can you take one minute to think about someone other than yourself."

Meg pushed Dean away furiously. "What the hell are you talking about!"

"You have no idea do you! You can't be like that around him!"

"Jesus Dean! He's a grown man, and you're not his father or his keeper or his fucking boyfriend!"

They stood facing each other, panting like they'd just ran up all six flights of stairs, his eye's narrowed with rage, her fists clenched at her side, ready to lash out of she had to.

Finally he stood down, looked away from her and paced across to the opposite wall, leaning against it wearily.

Meg straightened up.

"What do you think is going to happen? When he gets to the compound? What do you think it will be like?"

"I don't know."

Dean swallowed hard and shook his head sadly. "It's gonna be hell for him. Look. Maybe he told some things, lots of things, about what happened there, but I doubt he told you all of it. Not possible that he told you half of what he's told me over the years, even if you'd stayed up all night talking.."

He glanced over at her and risked a small smile and she returned it, despite herself.

"There's a very good chance that he'll have a breakdown. Maybe on the way, maybe when we get there…. Damn….. Memories will do that to a person, turn around the strongest of us. Do you think he wants you to see him like that?"

She hadn't considered it.

All this time she'd been set on supporting him, helping him through anything that was hurting.

"I've seen him with you Meg. I'm still reserving judgement on whether you two are the real deal, but I've seen the change in him, and it's good…. I'm glad for him. He deserves to be happy….. But any headway he's made by knowing you is gonna be broken if you're there."

"You mean, he needs to be stronger before he can be vulnerable?"

"Exactly."

"Ok."

"Ok?"

"Yeah. I get it. I don't like it… but I get it."

"Huh!" Dean scratched the back of his head and shrugged. "I thought there'd be more…. Arguing.."

Meg rolled her eyes. "I'm volatile Dean, not stupid."

She walked past him into the apartment and went straight to Cas, wrapping her arms around him.

She heard Dean slap Sam on the back.

"Cas, what'd you say I pick you up early tomorrow?"

When he didn't reply She heard them move towards the door. "Let's go Sammy. Six am Cas."

As the door shut behind them, Meg felt his arms slip cautiously around her waist.

"I'm sorry." He whispered.

"No."

"I am. I've hurt your feelings."

"Not at all."

She felt him tense, grip the back of her jacket with both fists.

"I hate this." She felt the anger and frustration vibrating through his body. "I hate the weakness, I hate being so afraid of everything all the time. I hate how a memory can paralyse me."

He took a long slow breath and shuddered in her arms.

"Why are you even here? You're so strong, nothing scares you. What must I look like to you?"

"…Cas…"

"I'm nothing."

"Hey!" Meg pulled away angrily and took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. "You are not nothing, you hear me? You are the strongest person I've ever met. People who've dealt with a fraction of the crap you did never made it out the other side, they let themselves get consumed by it, defined by it. They're not holding down a job and living on their own, so you need to stop thinking like that Cas, because when I look at you I don't see someone who's weak… I see someone who got dealt the shittiest hand imaginable and who came through it to become a kind, generous, strong man that I want to be with!"

Something shifted in his eyes.

A subtle change, like her words had taken him by the shoulders and shaken him.

He pushed her hands off him, raised his own and put them to her face.

Gently he kissed her.

"Cas." She whispered into his mouth. "Take me to bed."

A battle still raged inside him.

Sometimes it was hard to decide if the painful swells inside his chest were from anxiety or desire.

He chose desire.

Maybe he could fool himself.

Fake it till you make it, wasn't that what Dean had always said?

She lay beneath him, her hair tangled around her head, her eyes locked to his, finger tips slowly stroking his chest.

"When you get back…." She said softly, letting her fingers trail lower to his belly. "… we'll go out, just the two of us."

He groaned as she started stroking him, let his head drop, closed his eyes, concentrated on the sensation of her hands working quietly but persistently.

"We'll go se some dumb movie, eat popcorn, make out in the back row…."

He could easily lose himself to her touch, but instead, he propped his weight on one elbow and pressed his hand to her, feeling the push of her pelvis grinding against his fingers.

Meg stopped stroking him and tilted his face back towards her, kissing him hard.

"I can make it sweet." She murmured, moving his hand away and raising her hips towards him.

Slowly he pushed into her, her hand on the back of his neck, pressing their foreheads together, her lips parted to an o, gaze beseeching.

He never imagined he would be here.

Never for a moment thought he would find himself in bed with a woman, any woman, let alone Meg.

Every time he looked at her it was with wonder, confusion even.

He was the guy women's eyes slid over, not the one they flirted with, and yet, here she was.

This beautiful little animal lying under him, arching her back, hands in his hair, willing him on, catching his waist with her legs and urging him deeper, faster.

Her gasps and whimpers, hot in his ear, like the most potent base music known to man.

With a muffled cry she bit his shoulder and he was done, driving hard into her with a shaky exhalation, falling onto her, smothering her mouth with kisses while she lay panting under his weight.

"Will you wait?" A tiny note of panic in his voice.

She nodded, biting her lower lip to stop it trembling.

"I'll be here. When you come back. I'll be right here Cas."

He wrapped himself around her and wished he could let her come with him to the compound.

"I'm not going anywhere." She murmured.

Cas held her tight and fought hard to quash the panic in his chest.

He wanted so badly to believe her.