Castiel read and reread the conversation, balancing the journal in one hand while waiting in the check-out line of a truck stop convenience store. He read to find a loophole. To find where he misunderstood or misread. But all he saw was Dean's messy handwriting that straddled the line between cursive and print. Sometimes he wrote his R's in uppercase until he appeared to catch himself doing it. His writing was often tainted with the rhythms of his own speech, more conversation than prose. But those were the things Cas loved about Dean's letters. Only two words haunted him now.
Come Home.
Not the usual Get back here! or What the fuck, Cas? There was no anger in the statement, only hope. Dean didn't claim to own Castiel. He didn't demand anything. It was just a soft plea.
A small hand tugged at his sleeve, jolting him back to the present. Liz stood at his side, her clear hazel eyes looking up at him with a curious expression.
"What are you thinking about, Castiel?"
A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. Though Liz was reaching her adolescence, she still retained a certain innocence. "Just about a friend," he answered.
The young girl nodded, her face serious. They had driven all night from Illinois, Ambriel opting to take the back seat to watch over her former vessel. Liz woke up halfway through the night, rubbing her eyes and stretching like she hadn't been possessed by an angel for almost three months. After feeding her (Castiel thought burgers seemed appropriate) and checking her over for any permanent damage, Hadarniel deemed her perfect. Ambriel had beamed with relief, laughing and joking with Liz as if they had known each other for years. Castiel knew that angels didn't often form emotional bonds with their vessels, but when they did, they could be strong. Liz and Ambriel had been a perfect match, he knew it.
The young girl nodded, her face serious. "I hope it's a good friend. People can suck sometimes." She shuddered dramatically.
Cas laughed. "He's a good friend. One of the few I have left."
"That's not true," she said quickly, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion, "You have Ambriel. She won't leave you. I know her."
Castiel smiled, glancing outside as Ambriel stared at the self-service gas pump. He had put her in charge of filling up the tank to take them all the way to Liz's home. She would undoubtedly use grace to siphon the gas into the vehicle, as soon as she deemed the parking lot deserted enough.
"You, with the vacant expression, you wanna pay or what?"
Cas's gaze snapped back to the cashier. He mumbled his apology as Liz giggled next to him. He placed a bag of potato chips and a hand-held pie on the counter, ignoring the guilt building in his gut the red-nailed cashier ran her red laser scanner over the bar codes. He knew he should take better care of his body, especially since it was his now. Glancing at the sad basket of apples in the corner of the store, he decided to risk it with whatever fruit that may have found its way into the pie.
After paying for their purchases (Liz snuck a bag of peanut m&ms into the mix somehow) Castiel and Liz meandered back outside to where Ambriel sat upon the hood of the Cavalier. He assumed the gas tank was now full.
Ambriel smiled and addressed Liz. "Ready to go home?"
"You don't even know," the young girl joked. She piled into the backseat with Hadarniel, already crunching on her M&Ms in bliss, leaving Castiel and Ambriel to stare at each other in strained silence.
Castiel wondered if the personality of the angel made any effect on the appearance of their self-made vessel. As a species, angels were genderless; but even when they made their own vessels, angels could choose genders. He wondered if they were more human than they had known.
Ambriel looked away from him, staring at the darkening horizon. "Castiel, I was wondering," she began tentatively, "Why did you leave Dean behind?"
Castiel felt the familiar clench at the mention of Dean's name, but couldn't help but notice that it was the first time Ambriel had spoken about him without a trace of spite or anger in her voice.
"I thought it was obvious," he responded, "I wanted to fix what I broke. Fix our family."
"I'm well acquainted with the particulars of our mission," she said, "I suppose I meant how did you leave Dean behind."
Cas exhaled, lost for words. Even in her mature body, Ambriel looked younger than she had in Liz's pre-teen vessel. He walked toward to the car, taking a seat beside her. He thought about telling her that Dean and him were just friends, and that Dean was a hunter and knew all about duty and honor and… ugh. He was sick of all of it.
"Before I left, Dean and I shared… an awkward situation." He shuffled his feet on the ground, trying to find the words. The memory of that night was fuzzy at best; he had been more intoxicated that he realized. But he remembered the soft feel of Dean's t-shirt in his hands. A woodsy smell laced with whiskey and something indescribable…
"Meaning you expressed romantic interest in him and he rejected you?" Ambriel said, jarring him out of his own thoughts.
Blood rushed to his face in involuntary embarrassment, but he nodded. "Yes. After that, things were tense. We snapped at each other a few times and said some things… We both said hurtful things. Sam had been getting better, but then he took a turn for the worse. Dean has always carried so much on his shoulders; I knew he felt responsible for me." He looked down, picking at a loose thread on his jacket. "I only wanted to help."
Ambriel rubbed her forearms as a chill settled in the late summer evening. "Did it help?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Some time ago I told Dean that he can't save everyone no matter how hard he tries. I probably should have taken my own advice."
"Don't say that," Ambriel responded quickly, "We did save our family. And now we know how to help them survive on earth without taking human lives. This is a victory."
"Then why do you sound like you need the convincing?" Castiel asked, turning to look at her.
Ambriel chuckled, a sad sound. "I'm going to miss the girl. I'm not naïve, I've had vessels before, but she's… different. And she wants to go home. She has to go home. How do you deal with it, Castiel?" she asked, turning to meet his eyes.
Hers were red-rimmed and glassy. Overwhelmingly human.
"Deal with what?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"The silence," she exhaled, dropping her head in her hands. "In heaven we always had our family to talk to, and songs to hear. And even on earth we had our vessels but now… It's so quiet."
Castiel nodded. "I'll tell you when I have the answer." He was only beginning to adjust to the deafening silence in his own mind. Jimmy Novak's presence, though dim in these last few years, had been a comfort in hard times.
Ambriel cleared her throat, standing up. "We should go. Liz's parents must be worried."
"Of course," Castiel muttered, following her lead.
Liz lived in Kansas, conveniently enough. After landing in a swampy back-forest of Louisiana, Ambriel's disembodied grace had wandered desperately to find a vessel until coming upon Liz, happy and healthy at her after-school soccer practice. The bond was immediate and intense; Liz had walked off the field, never looking back. After checking in with her parents, Ambriel assumed full control.
"Well it sounds freakin' creepy when you say it like that, Am," Liz interrupted. Ambriel smirked and shook her head. "Why don't you finish the story then?" she retaliated.
"You took all the good parts, but I suppose I can jump in from here," the young girl said. Castiel could see her chin perk up in the rear view mirror as she began to speak in earnest. He smiled to himself. He was going to miss having Liz around.
"Long story short, I freaked out my soccer coach because I was acting like a member of the walking dead," she said, "But really I was just socurious about what she was saying. My family's not religious, but everyone knows about angels. But no one had actually talked to one. I thought I was crazy," she paused, her voice edged with melancholy.
"Believing in the divine does not indicate insanity, Elizabeth," Hadarniel murmured. Castiel almost jumped at the sound of the deep, raspy voice; he often forgot about older angel due to his strong but silent tendencies.
"Thanks pal, but I know I'm a weirdo, accepted it a long time ago," she continued, "Anyway, we get back home, my parents noticed something was off, so I just told them the truth."
"How did they take it?" Castiel asked. Accustomed to the Winchester school of secret-keeping, he was intrigued by Liz's cavalier approach to her whole adventure as a vessel.
"My mother wanted to take me to the ER and my Dad kept shining a flashlight in my eyes." Seeing their confused looks, she quickly added, "My Dad's really big into alien abductions and… yeah. So he was looking for a bug, my mother was sobbing, and Am here decided that she would just have to heal my little brother's broken leg to prove it to them."
"I never knew you had a soft side, Ambriel,"Castiel teased, glancing at his friend in the passenger seat.
"It seemed to be the best option to prove my authenticity, other than showing my true visage and burning their eyes out," the angel growled low.
"Yeah, thanks for that," Liz said, "And then we just set out. Open road, no rules. It was great. Until the police picked us up the first time. We had to teleport all the way back to… Where were we? Louisiana?"
"Correct," Ambriel nodded, "That's where you found us, Castiel."
Castiel nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. The signs for Liz's town were beginning to appear as wheats fields gave way to shopping centers and trailer parks. Like many Midwestern towns, a thin layer of dust coated everything, sticking to his windshield.
"Feels strange to be back here. Thought it was gonna just be you and me on the road forever, Am," Liz said.
Castiel could see Ambriel purse her lips, blinking rapidly. "You know you don't mean that. You're young. Cherish your life. I'm ecstatic that I was able to give it back to you."
Liz harrumphed her answer but otherwise stayed silent. She pepped up when Castiel suggested that she point out her favorite landmarks, describing to them the old fashioned movie theater and the dog park where she would take the family golden retriever on warm summer days. Time flew by, and soon it was time for her to give Castiel directions to her house.
The downtown area thinned out into a quaint residential sector that Liz announced was her neighborhood. The houses were small but well kept, with cottage gardens and lawns burnt brown in the late summer sun.
"Next one on the right, Cas!" Liz half-shouted, bouncing up and down in her seat. Cas slammed on his brakes just in time to swing into a gravel driveway. The small ranch-style home stood out amongst the beige and tan houses, sporting a blue paint-job and a kitchy "Home is where the Heart is" sign draped with plastic ivy hanging over the screen door.
Castiel had already decided to stay in the car with Hadarniel, so with a quick peck on his cheek from the backseat Liz bounded from the car, a slow moving Ambriel following her to the front door. Castiel watched as the door swung open before Liz could even reach it, and a tall man with salt and pepper hair bounded out, the sun shining off his white-toothed smile.
"Dad!" Liz yelled, running into the man's open arms and allowing him to lift her off the ground into a crushing embrace. His eyes squeezed shut, lips moving in some kind of prayer not heard by Castiel.
It was a scene out of one of those insipid made-for-TV movies Kevin sometimes watched to clear his head of tablet jargon, only real. Castiel remembered another time, another dark-haired man with a fair-haired daughter that were never reunited. He felt of twinge of affection, unsure whether it was his own or something left over from Jimmy Novak's receded consciousness. Castiel shivered, trying to shake the thought from his mind.
Liz's mother emerged slower, as if in disbelief. Soon she too had Liz wrapped in a crushing embrace, tears shining on her freckled face. Castiel's heart clenched with need, a purely human need to hold those you love close to you. Looking at the unconditional love this family had for each other, his felt his previous fears begin to dissipate. He would be home with his own family soon.
Ambriel stood awkwardly to the side, out of place. After a few more moments of bliss, the reunited family turned to her as Liz animatedly explained the situation. Liz's parents could only beam at the angel, and if Castiel's lip-reading was correct, he swore he saw Liz's father say "Thank you."
After one final hug goodbye, Ambriel made her way back toward the car. Without looking back, Liz and her family disappeared into the house, the screen door slamming loudly in the quiet night.
Ambriel piled back into the front seat, her face wet with tears.
"Ambriel—"
"Just drive Castiel." Her voice was harsh and heavy. "She was only a child."
Castiel nodded, resting his hand on the shift before impulsively leaning forward and opening the glove box to hand Ambriel the few napkins printed with truck stop logos. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose loudly, making even Hadarniel chuckle softly.