LAURENS, GEORGIA

The Red Carpet Inn was not as glamorous as it sounded. The structure was a stretch of rooms on two floors with the doors facing outwards onto a balcony or sidewalk depending on which floor you were on. Nonetheless, it was clean and relatively inexpensive. It was early, the first light of dawn was breaking, painting the sky a dismal grey as the stars began to slowly die away. A '67 Impala sat in the parking space in front of one of the rooms, which had its curtains tightly drawn. The fluorescent lights that lined the roof over the strip of sidewalk that ran in front of the doors of the lower rooms flickered and buzzed as a young man wearing a trench coat stepped down the sidewalk and moved to the door of the room. Briefly, he disappeared inside. His eyes passed over the forms sleeping in the beds and he paused. Deciding to wait until a more reasonable hour, he reappeared outside of the room and stood by the door.

After a few moments, a streetlight began to flicker, before a young brunette woman appeared about ten feet away from him on the sidewalk in front of the rooms. "Hello, Castiel," Her voice greeted him softly. Her skin was very light, almost porcelain, and her cheeks were a light shade of pink. She was wearing a dark brown dress-jacket over top a pale gold colored strapless dress. Her light blue eyes looked him over for a moment.

Castiel lifted his eyes and stared at the woman a moment in silence before his brows furrowed slightly. "Jael...?" He whispered, stepping away from the door toward her. His eyes ran over her form and he paused just a little in front of her. "It's... it's been a long time."

She nodded. "Yes, a hundred years or so. But I've now been demoted to bothersome guardian duty. Or promoted, it depends on how you look at it."

Castiel's brows lifted slightly. "Guardian duty? For who...?" His voice trailed off as he glanced over his shoulder back toward the room he had been standing in front of. "For... for Ella..?"

Jael nodded. "Yes. I realize this mission is a undoubtedly a futile one, in view of the fact that the last two of Ella's guardians were either brutally murdered, or tried to kill her sister. But I am here to do a job, Castiel."

Castiel nodded slowly, "Do not worry, Jael. I will do my best to help you with your job. I myself have been traveling with the Winchesters and Blackwoods for some time now."

"I'm well aware of that," Jael said with a slight nod. Without another word, she disappeared, and reappeared on the other side of the motel room's wall. Castiel hesitated before appearing in the room as well. He looked at the sleeping humans a little fondly; he had grown quite close to them since he had come to earth. He turned his attention back to Jael.

"I am glad that you are alright. I was worried that you had been killed by Uriel and the others."

Jael nodded, walking over to the bed where Sam and Ella slept, looking over them a moment, quietly, before she looked back up at the man in the trench coat. "Yes, that was unfortunate. I suppose we have you to thank for the way it ended. I realize that Ella killed him, but if it hadn't been for you and your doubts about his intentions, I might have well been the next one"

Castiel blinked in surprise, feeling a little embarrassed at her gratitude. He shook his head slowly. "I was only trying to do what our Father would have wanted..." His voice trailed off. "I only wish that Uriel had been discovered sooner so that our brothers and sisters had not died..."

Jael nodded. "So, shall I wake them now?"

"No," He said without hesitation. "We should let them sleep. They seem to be in better spirits if you wait until the sun is nearly in the middle of the sky." He whispered, recalling the complaints he had received every time he had awakened them early.

xx

It was half past 11am when Ella's eyes fluttered open and she sat up slowly in bed, stretching her arms and yawning. After what had happened with Chuck and the Kere, Chuck had left. As much as she had a soft spot for the poor little Prophet, she was glad that they no longer had to share a room with him, and be woken up at all hours of the night by him typing incessantly on his keyboard. After rubbing her eyes she looked down and realized the covers beside her were Sam was were pushed aside and the spot was vacant. She pulled the covers off her and swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, walking into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. A few minutes later she reopened the door, only have her heart nearly jump out of her chest as she let out a short, loud cry of surprise. A brunette woman with bright blue eyes stood directly in front of the doorframe. The woman tilted her head a bit and frowned. "Is something wrong?"

Oshea jerked awake at the cry and sat up in bed, her eyes growing wide as she saw the strange female inside the room. "Dean!" She said, turning toward him and giving him a quick shake. Castiel appeared in the middle of the room, shaking his head.

"Do not be alarmed. This is Jael... she is your guardian, Ella."

Ella's eyes widened. "Tell me you're kidding, Cas, please tell me you are kidding. Tell me anything but that the person in front of me is another one of your crappy guardian angels."

"I understand your apprehension, Ella, but I am not to blame for your previous keepers. I am here because I was sent to do what they failed to," Jael explained. "You liking me or my sisters or brothers has nothing to do with it."

Oshea stood up, grabbing the angelic blade from the nightstand. "We don't need your help. We don't trust you angels, and so far you've been more danger to my sister than help." Castiel stepped up behind

Jael, casually placing a protective hand at the small of her back.

"Listen," He said, looking between Oshea to Ella. "I will personally vouch for Jael. She will not betray us as the others have. You have my word."

Ella watched her warily before nodding over at Oshea. "If Cas says we can trust her, we can at least give her a chance. But the first dodgy feeling I get about you, don't think we won't be using that," she gestured at the weapon.

"Fair enough"

Oshea narrowed her eyes, but slowly lowered the weapon back down. The door opened and Sam stepped into the room carrying a tray of coffees and a few brown paper bags. He sat down the items on the surface of the table, starting to speak when he noticed Jael. He narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"

"Ella's new guardian angel. Cas says we can trust her." Oshea said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I find that hard to believe," Sam complained lowly.

Ella sighed. "You're not the only one," she said, walking over and picking up one of the coffee cups, taking a long sip and sitting it back down as she started to rummage through one of the paper bags. She tossed Dean his usual breakfast sandwich, and Oshea hers. After pulling out her own bag of hashbrowns, she passed Sam the bag. Oshea yawned as she caught her sandwich and climbed back into the bed with Dean while she ate it, still eying the new angel with suspicion. It was only a few minutes after they had started eating when Dean's cell phone began to ring.

Dean eyed his already half eaten sandwich hungrily as he sat it down on the wrapper on his lap, and flipped open the phone. "Hello?"

"Dean, it's Bobby. I think I have a case for you all." He said, flipping through a few newspaper articles that were on his desk. "Students have been disappearing from a high school in Pinedale, Wyoming. I'm talking literal disappearing. One person claimed that they saw their best friend fade away while in the locker room after cheerleading practice."

"Got any leads on what it might be?" Dean asked.

"Not yet, I haven't been able to get too much information about it. The police are thinking its some kind of prank and aren't doing much in the way of investigating, and the cheerleader disappeared before I

could talk to her about what she saw. You guys are on your own for this." Bobby said, shrugging as he sat down a little heavily in his chair.

"Very weird," The elder Winchester asked. "What high school is it?"

"Pinedale High School on Hennick Street," Bobby said, looking over the newspaper articles again. "Shouldn't be too hard to find."

"Okay, thanks Bobby," Dean hung up the phone and dropped it on the bed. "That was Bobby, he's got a case for us. Couple of cheerleaders going poof in Wyoming, he thinks we oughta check it out."

Oshea groaned softly, flopping back against the pillows of her and Dean's bed as she took another bite of her breakfast sandwich. "Wyoming? That'll take hours! Days!"

"We'd better leave now, then," Dean said, and then he hesitated, looking down at his breakfast sandwich. "After we finish eating, of course."

xx

PINEDALE, WYOMING
xx

It was dark by the time they had pulled into the Half Moon Lodge Motel which consisted of 19 ground level rooms smushed together in an angular semi-circle. Oshea sighed as she walked to the blue striped bed and dropped her suitcase onto it, hearing the bed creak softly. "So... what's the plan?" She questioned, rubbing her eyes a little. "We going to try to get jobs at the school? Pretend we're FBI? Pose as dropouts that decided to come back to school?"

Ella collapsed onto the other bed and sighed. "One of us could pose as a teacher. Janitor, maybe? Not it." she added quickly.

"I'll be the janitor," Sam said, lifting up his hand a little as he trudged over to the table and sat down his laptop and suitcase before sitting down on the edge of his and Ella's bed. Oshea nodded as she stepped toward the bathroom with her pajamas,

"You would be a good teacher, Ella."

"Really?" Ella asked a bit skeptically.

"Oshea and I can work the whole FBI angle," Dean said. "Unless you had something else in mind?"

"Of course," Oshea said with a yawn as she stretched her arms over her head before disappearing into the small bathroom. After a few moments, she stepped back out wearing short black shorts and a dark green tank. Her thick hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She stepped to her and Dean's bed and nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me, Dean. We can start first thing tomorrow." After quickly preparing themselves for bed, the Winchesters and the Blackwoods fell asleep almost as soon as their heads hit the pillow.

Jael, who had remained silent during the entire two day drive and the whole conversation, was standing outside the door of the motel room in the cool night air. The lights outside of the motel began to flicker and there was a soft rushing of wings as Castiel appeared just a few feet from Jael. He stepped toward her, glancing to the door of the motel room briefly before looking back to her. "Has everything been going smoothly?"

Jael nodded. "Yes, and no. There were a few demons as we were passing through Missouri that would have been a threat, but I annihilated them before the Winchesters or Blackwoods realized they were there. Zachariah was not kidding when he said demon after demon would be targeting Ella."

Castiel nodded slowly. "It is not only demons that are targeting her. I suppose you've heard about Ezra?" He questioned, clasping his hands together behind his back. "You must be careful... I do not want to lose any more of my brothers and sisters." He added, lowering his eyes.

Jael nodded. "Likewise. You are very valuable to us, Castiel. As much as Zachariah and the others try to deny it, you are one of the most loyal and trustworthy angels we have going for us. We never guessed that there would be so many rogue angels, though, even for an apocalypse," she said with a sigh.

The angel nodded slowly. "It has been very difficult...having to fight against our own kin. I am glad that Ella finally has a trustworthy angel guarding her." He said quietly.

Jael smiled a little, and then the space where she had been standing turned suddenly vacant, as she reappeared on the other side of the motel door, while the four hunters in the room were fast asleep, unaware of her presence.