Fear had spread through Heaven like a poisonous weed. Every angel felt it gnawing silently on their nerves, slowly consuming them. Every angel, even the most seasoned of warriors, could not completely hide their jumpy, paranoid behaviour. Every one of them was terrified they would be next.
Every angel except one.
Metatron's act had not wavered for one second of the last three months. Amitiel had interrogated him for three weeks without interruption, and yet he still clung to the false image of a penitent fool. His screams had clambered through the prison walls, broken only by his shouted answers to Amitiel's repeated questions, but he had not changed.
The angels had stopped believing that he was the cause of their terror.
Castiel knew he was.
Every angel, Castiel included, struggled (and usually failed) to hide the fear lurking deep in their eyes. During one of his many visits to the angelic dungeon, Castiel had looked into Metatron's duplicitous eyes, trying to find the chink in his seemingly impenetrable armour. He never saw even the tiniest glimmer of fear.
There was only one reason why he would not be afraid. He knew that whatever was hunting the angels of Heaven and Earth could not – or would not – attack him.
Castiel did not believe for a second that whoever had killed ten angels, and who was presumably responsible for the disappearance of thirty more, was incapable of murdering a prisoner. All it would take was one cut, one touch. He was convinced they were working for the old scribe.
But he could not prove it.
"Castiel?"
He jerked sharply out of his stupor and looked wildly around for the speaker, his angelblade flicking to his hand reflexively.
Hannah jumped back slightly, her hands raised in a gesture of peace.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I thought you heard me come in. I didn't mean to startle you."
Cas closed his eyes for a moment, allowing his breathing to slow. "No, I'm sorry," he muttered. "I was just thinking ... It's – never mind."
He slid the weapon back into his coat and gestured for Hannah to sit down in the chair opposite him.
He was, as usual, in Metatron's old office. He found it was the only place in Heaven wherein he could think straight. Apart from investigating the increasing number of crime scenes and visiting Metatron, he never left the dark study.
Hannah sank into the armchair set at an angle beside the contentedly crackling fire.
Cas had gotten tired of staring at the grey, empty hole in the wall. He had taken to lighting it whenever he was in the room. His thoughts were so dark these days it did him good to stare into the shifting light and feel the gentle warmth on his face.
"Has there been another?" Cas asked, dreading the answer.
"Two. Fiachra and Vincent have disappeared. No trace, just like the others. They missed their check in." Hannah's voice was as low and as heavy as Castiel's heart. He looked up and saw the determined calm in her eyes. She was handling the crisis far better than he was.
Cas sighed, the breath heaving through his borrowed lungs and whooshing out of his borrowed nostrils, leaving him feeling emptier than he had before. Forty-one lost angels. And he was no closer to finding and stopping the culprit than he had been three months ago.
His eyes moved to the flames, dancing merrily in flickering waves from the charring logs. The wood was almost completely black now, save the glittering red-hot embers that oozed a bright red glow. The flames seemed weightless in comparison, tied to their ember seeds yet reaching ever higher into the chimney. Such beauty from such devastation. A juxtaposition that seemed to run through the universe like an intricately woven thread in a tapestry.
"Castiel?" Hannah spoke softly, as though reluctant to pull him from his thoughts. He dragged his gaze from the fire and settled it on her bright blue eyes.
He smiled at her – or rather, he did his best approximation of a smile. "Yes, Hannah?"
"Fiachra and Vincent aren't why I'm here," she said slowly, taking the empty seat opposite him.
"Then why are you here?"
Her eyes darted around the room before reluctantly settling back on his. "You're – there's trouble."
Cas snorted. "Thanks, Hannah, but I noticed that myself –"
"No, new trouble. You're in trouble."
His eyebrows rose as his heart sank. "Oh?"
Hannah suddenly seemed fascinated by her fingers, fidgeting in her lap. "A lot of the angels – most of them, in fact – they don't think you're – they're scared, Cas, you know they are, and well, maybe it helps them to blame someone – but it shouldn't be you, I know it shouldn't, you've done so much for us these last months and I know it's not your –"
"Hannah," Cas cut across her, leaning forward and laying a gentle hand on her wrist. "What are you saying?"
She looked up at him with tortured eyes. "The angels are blaming you for all the disappearances. They think it's your fault."
"But why?"
"I don't know – I don't understand it. You've done so much for us – almost all the angels are home, but they're just not thinking clearly and –"
"Hannah. Breathe."
She nodded quickly, taking a deep breath and smiling ever so slightly.
"They think ... they think you spent too long investigating Metatron. They don't believe he was ever responsible for the murders and that you were trying to, I don't know, shift the focus from you or something. And ... they have all heard what the Winchester demon" – Cas flinched – "has been doing. They seem to think you're ... working with him. Trying to take over Heaven and Hell."
Cas bowed his head and squeezed Hannah's wrist.
"And do you believe that too?" he asked, not looking at her.
Her free hand found his chin and turned his head up to meet her suddenly fierce gaze.
"No," she said firmly, her brows furrowed. "I don't believe it for a second, Castiel. I believe in you."
To his surprise, his lips widened in the first genuine smile he could remember in months. He pulled her head closer and kissed her forehead, trying to convey his gratitude with the touch.
"Thank you," he whispered as he released her.
"You don't have to thank me, Castiel," she replied. She was smiling too, now, and the fear that was always hiding in her eyes seemed further away.
Cas's smile drained from his face as he sank back in the chair, thudding against the cushioned back. "Do you know what they're going to do?"
"The angels? Well ... They ... They want to elect a new leader I think."
"Let me guess," Cas groaned. "Metatron."
Hannah looked surprised. "No. Egrid."
"Huh." He supposed that made sense. She was a powerful angel, a good leader. Cas didn't trust her.
"So they're not planning on doing a Barbossa on me then?" he asked half-jokingly.
Hannah blinked in confusion. "Do a what?"
"It's a reference to a popular film in which, ah, a first mate commits mutiny on his captain after learning the location of the treasure they seek. They're pirates."
"Oh."
Cas was beginning to understand how he must have seemed to Sam and Dean when they tried to explain these references. The look of polite confusion on Hannah's face was both comical and exasperating.
"So, are they planning to overthrow me? Kick me out of office?" He gestured to the grand, gloomy room, a humourless half-smile winking across his lips.
"I'm sorry. I don't know. They won't tell me much. They know I'll choose you over them. But I don't think so."
Cas glanced at her. "Thank you for that."
She nodded once. "What are you going to do?"
He thought for a moment, staring once again into the fire.
"I don't know," he said at last. "I suppose if I can somehow stop the abductions or killings, or whatever is happening soon, they might ..." His voice trailed off. They wouldn't change their minds. They were afraid and blaming someone gave them comfort. He'd seen it – well, Metatron had seen it – over and over again in countless stories. One man cannot change the minds of an angry, frightened crowd.
"Maybe I should leave," he wondered aloud.
"But you can't!"
"Why not? What good am I doing here? Angels are dying, demons are booming, the Veil is bursting, and the human population is as scared as they haven't been since the days of the almost apocalypse. Even the Reapers are disappearing – did you ever find Achmed or the others?"
"No. He's vanished, in hiding. If he's still alive ..."
"Exactly. Death is everywhere and what use am I against it?" His temper and his voice were rising now and suddenly he was on his feet without remembering deciding to get up. "I can't protect the angels, nothing is helping! No spells, no hexbags, nothing. I know Metatron is behind this, he has to be, but I can't prove it, and I can't just kill him!" He was shouting now. Hannah sat quietly in the armchair, listening to his rant without interruption.
"I can't save anyone!" he roared, his voice breaking. Suddenly his energy seemed sucked out of him and he wilted where he stood. Sinking slowly to his knees in the middle of the office, he was too tired to conceal the fear in his voice as he whispered.
"And I'm going to die."
He knelt there, staring at the ugly carpet with wide eyes. An aching hollowness filled him. He did not want to die.
Hannah slid off the chair and sat beside him, putting a hand on his slumped shoulder. She didn't know what to say, and Cas was glad she chose to stay silent.
"I know it'll be soon. A few weeks at most. Hannah." He looked up at her with eyes overflowing with sorrow. "I don't want to die. Not now, not when everything I love is dying. I can't leave like this. I-I have to fix it but there's no time –"
His voice was cut off by an odd sort of hiccough and suddenly his head was cradled against Hannah's chest, her arms wrapped tightly around his head and shoulders.
He felt pathetic, slouched on the ground in the arms of another angel, but he could not bring himself to pull away. He ached inside, an ache that had nothing to do with the Grace that was killing him. He missed Sam. He missed Dean. He wished, more fiercely than he had ever wished for anything before, that he could just fly down to their motel room and let them tell him that they would always be there for him, fighting in his corner.
But wishes never came true.
They weren't in some motel room, working a case.
And there was no one left to pray to.
Hannah held him in silence until the flames had burned themselves out in the fireplace. When at last he pulled himself free of her gentle embrace, the embers were glowing like minuscule eyes in the darkness of the blackened logs.
Cas looked up at the angel he had found among a dozen dead siblings. She was looking at him with more compassion than he could remember seeing in another angel's eyes. Perhaps it was because she had never been a soldier. The garrison had always been so mission-oriented they were often callous to each other's suffering. Hannah was different. She cared about him. Or maybe she had simply spent too much time with him, the ex-angel who was tainted with humanity.
"Thank you, Hannah," he said quietly, his voice slightly husky from unshed tears. "It's ... it's nice to have a friend again."
She smiled at him. "It's nice to be a friend. And I am honoured to be counted as yours, Castiel."
Abashed, Cas looked down uncomfortably as he got to his feet. He held a hand out for Hannah, and she took it.
"Have you spoken to Sam Winchester since he told us of his brother's plans?"
Cas shook his head. "No. We, ah, we had another argument. Same one, really. He doesn't appreciate my sending angel assassins after his brother."
"Well ... maybe it's time you spoke to him again. After all, you're his guardian angel, aren't you?" She smiled. "I bet he needs you as much as you need him right now. Maybe more."
Cas nodded. If he was lonely, he didn't want to imagine how Sam felt. At least he had Hannah. He had someone. Who did Sam have now? He should have him, Cas, his guardian angel. But pride and grief had driven a wedge between them. But then, ego and a god complex had driven a wedge between them and they had still been friends. Hell, Cas had unleashed the unrestrained might of Lucifer into Sam's mind, his most intimate space and his last sanctuary. Sam had forgiven him that atrocity.
Maybe Hannah was right. Maybe it was time to just agree to disagree and help each other. The two musketeers.
Besides, Castiel didn't particularly want to die alone.