Ariel walked through the door of the dingy warehouse in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It had been several months since her talk with the eldest Winchester brother. Michael had returned to the front lines as the commander of their forces, but he had expressed his desire for her to remain here and discreetly watch over the elder Winchester to make sure that he did not stray from the path to redemption. Their Father had disappeared from his study, leaving Michael in charge of the heavens, and so she obeyed his orders as if he were proxy to their Father. Ariel waited, and waited, to see what choice Dean would make. And now, it had finally come down to it.
Ariel was most intrigued by their last encounter with her old demon mentor, Alastair. She had watched as Dean and Sam astral-traveled in the nearby town of Greybull, trying to find out why people had stopped dying. Summoning that child's spirit like that? Not the best idea in the world, but it did work. Since she couldn't enter the town because of all of the Enochian wards around its boundaries, she could only watch as Alastair brought out Death's Scythe. Afriel inside of her began to fight with her: they had to get their hands on that scythe and return it to its rightful owner. She knew that Alastair was lying when he told the brothers that he had gotten it from Death itself; that was an impossible act. However, when they were finished and the wards were broken and Alastair was captured by her mate, she took the forgotten scythe and kept it with her. It would most definitely come in handy later.
Right now, though, she stood in the shadows and witnessed as Castiel and Uriel told Dean that Heaven needed him to torture Alastair, to get the information about who was killing the angels, and that it was not a choice. She was worried about all of this: her sisters Armatt and Shekinah were slaughtered, both from the same garrison as Castiel. She had not seen them for a long time, but they were still her sisters. More importantly, however, the time was coming near for Dean to make his choice.
"I want to talk to Cas, alone." Dean stood up to Uriel. Scoffing, Uriel told Castiel that he would go seek revelation, that there might be some further orders for them. Dean, being Dean, told Uriel to bring back some donuts when he came back. Uriel laughed, telling Castiel, "This one just won't quit, will he? You know, I think I'm starting to like you, boy." With that, he left.
Trying to act cool, Dean turned back to Castiel with one of his smart-aleck comments. "You guys don't walk enough. You're gonna get flabby." Ariel had to hide a laugh in order to remain invisible to Castiel. She did not want to give herself away just yet.
Castiel looked confused, and at that, Ariel pitied him. Castiel had been a warrior for so long that he had forgotten what it was like to act human. Now, he was simply occupying a vessel, a tool for his angelic persona to speak through and not harm the humans around him. Ariel furrowed her brows as she thought through the earlier conversations. Why was Uriel leading Castiel? Castiel was the leader of the garrison... Her heart sank when she realized the answer, however much she disliked. Their father was so caught up in the war that he must not have noticed when one angel took control from another because he might seem weak. That must have been the situation between her mate and the one angel in the entire Citadel that she tried so hard to ignore before her banishment.
Dean, unimpressed with Castiel's lack of laughter, told him, "You know, I'm starting to think that Junkless has a better sense of humour than you do."
Castiel, still emotionless, replied with, "Uriel's the funniest angel in the garrison. Ask anyone." Ariel shook her head in the shadows. Castiel really needed to get out of his shell more often. If Uriel was considered the funniest, then who was the most serious?
Dean was shocked by that information, but he tried not to show it. Instead, he just moved his focus around the room and took a breath. Catching on with the situation, Dean walked forward and confronted Castiel. "What's going on, Cas? Since when does Uriel put a leash on you?" Dean truly considered himself friends with Castiel, Ariel saw from her vantage point; he was one of the few humans that she had witnessed to actually care about the angel and not just their occupied form.
Castiel got his emotions back under his control and looked at Dean with the same stone eyes. "My superiors began to question my sympathies." Ariel furrowed her brow. So, this was not simply a matter of garrison rivalries. Maybe Phanuel, the little-known last archangel of angelic judgement, had finally put his foot down. She wouldn't know, though. It had been a long time since she had spent time in the Citadel.
Dean, taken aback, retorted with, "Your sympathies?" It was as if Dean thought that Castiel was something other than an angel, something other than one who simply listened to orders and obeyed. The truth was, that was what an angel was: someone who took orders and followed them without question. Ariel cursed Phaneul: he hated human displays of emotion as much as Uriel did, and he despised when he saw them among the angels. He made it his personal mission to stamp out the human feelings from the angels, saying that because they were an older race and far superior to the humans (but only out of their Father's hearing), they didn't need the sticky side of emotions. Only she, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael were above his jurisdiction, and she was incredibly thankful for that.
"I was getting too close to one of the humans in my charge. You. They feel that I've begun to show emotions, doorways to doubt. This can impair my judgement." Castiel and Dean stared at each other, and Ariel finally understood the missing piece of the puzzle. The two of them had become friends, and because of that, Castiel was starting to question and feel. As a result of that, Phanuel put his foot down without the permission of their Father. Well, she would change that... She left her thoughts and returned to the conversation before her.
Dean just was not having it, abject terror beginning to color the air around him. He walked away and faced the door where Alistair was being kept behind. "Well, tell Uriel, or whoever... You do not want me doing this, trust me."
"Want it, no. But I've been told we need it." Damnit, Castiel! Ariel wanted to run up to him and shake some sense into his emotionless stance. Angels were not mindless robots. Yes, they were supposed to follow the orders given by their Father, but they can show and feel emotion! Their Father intended for them to do so; that was the original angel: a glorified human, with their full set of emotions! Why else did humans hold dear to the misconception that they could become angels when they died? Phanuel had gone too far with his methods. This was the result of centuries of unneeded too-rigid discipline, and it had to stop in order for them to win! How else could they protect the humans that are placed in their charge if they don't understand what they go through on a day-to-day basis?
Dean was starting to show the terror in his voice. "You ask me to open that door, and walk through it, you will not like what walks back out." Ariel knew that he was reliving his time in Hell: the screams, the flame, the blood, the joy of the torture. She knew as well as Dean that neither of them wanted to relive it for fear of what would happen to them. However, neither of them had a choice.
"For what it's worth, I would give anything for you not to have to do this." That was the closest that Castiel would get to an apology.
"So," she finally walked out of the shadows and frightened both angel and man. They were both oblivious to her before; unlike some of her brothers, she chose not to make a fancy entrance with the light bulbs breaking and the wind howling. Instead, a simple appearance from the shadows suited her. "He won't do it alone." She walked up to Dean, and looked into the depths of his soul before looking back to Castiel. "Dean goes through that door, and so will I. I will not permit him to go through this alone."
For the first time that night, Castiel let the anguish inside of him show on his face. "But, Ariel..."
"Castiel." She took on the commanding tone of her voice that her brother had taught her so well. "You have your orders. I have mine." She stood at Dean's shoulder, but she communicated with Castiel through their mind so that their conversation would be private. I know how much you care for him, Castiel, even if you don't show it. He will get through this; that, I swear to you on my Grace. That was the strongest oath that any angel could swear, and she did not make it lightly.
That's not what I'm worried about, Ari. He will make it through, I know it deep in my Grace; but will he make it through whole? Castiel's answer to her oath made her raise an eyebrow. Walking away from Dean for a moment, she wrapped her arms around Castiel and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
If you are worried for him, then stand a vigil out here, say a prayer or two. If you feel that either of us are in danger, then you come in without question, Cas, and pull us out. You understand? They both nodded their heads at one another before Castiel dipped his head and kissed her on the lips.
Before she had come to this decision to join Dean in the torture of her former mentor, she had conferred with Kushiel. He was the heaven's version of Alastair, peering deep into the souls of the fallen and deciding if they were worthy of heaven or Perdition; he was the deliverer of punishment for the disobedient ones in Heaven, because, oddly enough, he was Alastair's blood brother, similarly to how she and Michael and... the other were blood related as well. He had told her that Dean Winchester was one of the few humans that had confounded him in all his centuries of life. Dean wished that he could come to Heaven, but that was only possible if he forgave himself and did God's bidding. Since he could not find it in himself to forgive his acts in Hell, he felt that he was unworthy of Paradise.
Well, Ariel had witnessed that Dean could not forgive himself, but he had accepted what he had done in Hell, just as she had done by the end of her service. That was as close as either of them were ever going to get to forgiving themselves. The rest was between Dean and her Father. Within the pit of her Grace, Ariel knew that she and Dean were in this one together, for better or for worse. She walked beside Dean as she opened the locked door and he brought the cart of tools past the saddened Castiel and into their own personal Perdition.