A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who's expressed enthusiasm for this fic. It makes me very happy. :D Thanks to everyone who wasn't logged in for your reviews: three guests, KAL, Original anon, Anon, and Land of Parchment and Ink. And to answer one guest's question: Cas wasn't physically tortured, so he wouldn't be injured per se as a kid. But as you'll see, his mind is kinda scrambled, so he's like a partially-amnesiac kid.

Now, my beta told me this chapter's cute factor requires a 'spew warning'—consume liquids while reading at your own risk.

Chapter 2

Dean gaped at the little kid standing on the bed next to him. "Holy crap, Cas, are you shittin' me?"

Cas's face scrunched up in displeasure. "Don't blaspheme, Dean."

He blinked in bewilderment. "What? Cas, I'm being serious. Who turned Jimmy Novak into a four-year-old?" At least, Dean was pretty sure Cas's vessel was still Jimmy.

"Who's Jimmy Novak?"

Dean's mouth dropped open. What the hell…? Okay, whatever happened must have scrambled Cas's brain, and wasn't that just fantastic.

Cas put a finger under Dean's chin and pushed his jaw closed. "Gabriel says if lightning bugs fly in your mouth, they'll make your tummy glow." Cas giggled and hopped off the bed.

Dean stared dumbly. There was so much wrong here he didn't know where to start. "Cas, I need you to focus and tell me who did this to you. You're not supposed to be a kid, you get that, right?"

Cas held up his hands and inspected them seriously. "I'm supposed to be…taller?"

Dean snorted. "For starters."

Cas looked pensive for a long moment. "I'm supposed to be…fighting a war." His eyes rounded as he shot Dean a horrified look. "Why would I be fighting other angels?"

"Uh…well, Raphael wants to restart the Apocalypse." Even as he said it out loud, Dean realized it was a superficial answer at best. And the sad truth was he didn't know all the details of the civil war in Heaven—hadn't bothered to ask or pay attention.

Cas's frown deepened. "Raphael…" Something flashed in his eyes and he started shaking his head violently. "No. Too many pieces. I don't want to be dust and bone and blood."

There was something about hearing a little boy's voice rattle with such fear that made Dean's heart drop into his stomach. Unbidden came the memory of a trashed living room and a molar getting picked out of Chuck's hair. And then Dean had gotten to see a repeat of the event first hand in Stull Cemetery when Lucifer had snapped his fingers and exploded Cas into micro bits.

"Did Raphael do this to you?" Dean asked carefully, lowering his voice in an attempt to keep the little angel calm. What had Cas said, that he'd 'shattered'? But he obviously wasn't in a million pieces…and if this was God's idea of a funny resurrection, Dean wasn't laughing.

Cas paused in his mini freak-out. "No," he said after a minute.

"Demons?"

Cas shook his head.

Dean sighed. "This is not helpful."

Cas's shoulders dropped in a sudden look of dejection. "I'm sorry."

Dean reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. His shoulder was aching, he was exhausted, and kid-Cas was frankly weirding him out. "What's the last thing you remember before coming here?" he tried.

"Mhm…" Cas took a small step back and lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. "Pain."

Dean's stomach clenched. "And?"

Cas shook his head, expression completely closing off. His gaze started roving around the room instead, and that haunted look was soon replaced with curiosity. He didn't say anything, just seemed content in his own little world. Dean didn't know whether to try again or give up. Maybe if he gave it some time, Cas would snap out of it and turn himself back, or whatever spell he was under would wear off.

Shaking his head, he went to the mini fridge to grab a beer. Cas watched him silently, and that intense, I-can-see-into-your-soul gaze was just as unnerving coming from blue puppy-dog eyes as it was the stolid adult version. Dean paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. "What?"

Cas pursed his lips. "You drink a lot."

Oh, he was so not getting a lecture from a four-year-old. "Hey, I'm not the one who drank an entire liquor store."

Cas frowned. "That didn't feel so good after."

"You remember that?"

Cas merely blinked at him and went back to observing the room. Dean knocked back a swig in frustration. Okay, maybe he was a little worried too. But Cas would be okay; this couldn't be permanent…right?

Crap, he needed to do something. Setting his beer on the table, he righted the fallen chair from Cas's landing and then started picking up the pieces of broken lamp. Cas stepped forward as though to help, but Dean barked at him to stay back. The way the kid curled in on himself made Dean feel like a dick, which was really not fair. Cas shouldn't be getting his feelings hurt because Dean was being his normal abrasive self.

"You don't have any shoes on," Dean pointed out. And he did not want to test the angel's self-healing ability at the moment.

Cas glanced down at his bare feet and wiggled his toes, seemingly fascinated. Dean lifted his eyes to the ceiling. Why him?

He'd just finished cleaning up the mess when the rumble of the Impala's engine from down the block announced Sam's return, and thank god for that. Dean didn't know how much longer he could stand the awkwardness in the room by himself.

Headlights flashed through the blinds as the car parked right out front. There was the slamming of a door, and a moment later the latch of the room door clicked and Sam shouldered his way in, carrying a large paper bag with grease stains leaking through the bottom corner. The hearty aroma of french fries made Dean's stomach growl.

"Before you ask, yes I got pie," Sam started, and then pulled up short as Cas darted toward the bathroom and hugged the corner of the wall, watching Sam with wide, wary eyes. Sam shot a startled look between them. "Uh, Dean?"

Yeah, how the heck was he supposed to explain this? He didn't even know what this was. "It's, uh, Cas." Dean gestured helplessly at the kid.

Sam scoffed. "You're joking."

"God, I wish I were." He turned his attention back to Cas, and frowned at how scared he suddenly looked. "Cas, hey, this is Sam. You know Sam, right?" Dean really hoped so, because it seemed to be hit or miss on what and who Cas remembered.

"Sam," Cas repeated slowly. He cautiously stepped away from the wall. "I'm supposed to protect Sam."

Sam tossed another wide-eyed look at Dean, who suddenly had even more knots in his stomach. Shit, was someone coming after them as well?

"Protect Sam from what?"

Cas merely tilted his head and repeated, "I'm supposed to protect Sam. I'm supposed to protect Dean."

"Uh, okay." Sam set the bag of food on the dinette table. "Dean, what's going on?"

"I have no idea, man. I walked in and found him like this. It is Cas, that much I know. But it's weird—he doesn't remember some things, like who Jimmy Novak is."

"Is that…" Sam waved vaguely at the four-year-old. "Jimmy Novak?"

"It's gotta be, right?" Dean replied. "Shit, hell if I know, Sammy. And Cas hasn't said how he got like this. Every time I asked, he either tried to make me play Twenty Questions or didn't answer at all."

Sam turned toward the kid. "Hey, Cas, can you tell us what happened?"

Cas shook his head firmly.

"Can't because you don't know, or you don't want to talk about it?" Sam asked gently.

Cas just shook his head again, lips sealed tight.

"See what I've been dealing with?" Dean exclaimed, throwing his arm up. He grunted as his injured shoulder flared with pain. "Son-of-a-bitch," he muttered.

Sam frowned. "You didn't get a chance to ice, did you?"

"Not with the arrival of Rugrat angel, no," Dean snipped.

Cas's eyes widened. "You're hurt?"

"It's fine," he half-growled, and moved to his duffel bag to dig out some painkillers.

"I'll make it better." Cas ran over, and before Dean could straighten, two little fingers had touched his forehead. Dean had been healed by Cas before, and it was always an instantaneous, one moment there was pain, the next there was none. This time a flood of hot energy surged through him, sweltering as though he were suddenly standing next to a bonfire. The force of it knocked him on his ass, and in the resulting shockwave, the television exploded.

Dean flinched and Sam threw his arms up to shield his face. The television had smacked the wall, leaving a dent, and now the fried box was oozing tendrils of smoke from various cracks. The brothers exchanged alarmed looks, then shifted their gazes to Cas, who was lying flat on his back on the floor.

"Cas?" Dean called worriedly, and crawled over to shake the kid's shoulder.

Cas blinked up at him. "Ow."

Sam knelt down beside them. "What the hell was that?"

Dean distantly realized the pain in his shoulder was gone, and he rolled it to test the joint. Yup, fully healed. Actually, every ache was gone, and not only that, but Dean didn't even feel tired anymore. He felt more like he'd just had eight hours of uninterrupted, nightmare-free sleep.

"I think Cas overdid it on the healing there," Dean said, having no better theory at the moment. He gripped the kid's shoulder and helped sit him up.

"Sorry," Cas said sheepishly. He lifted his small hands to stare at them as though they'd committed some egregious offense.

Sam had one of those pensive creases in his forehead. "I hate to say it, but maybe we need to call another angel for this."

Dean held back a groan. He really hated dealing with those dicks.

"No!" Cas scrambled backwards away from them.

"Cas, whoa, take it easy." Dean got to his feet, as did Sam.

"You don't want to call an angel?" his brother asked.

Cas shook his head. "No, please don't," he pleaded.

Dean's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Did another angel do this to you?"

Cas scampered to his feet and retreated to the corner between the bed and the window, mouth clamped shut again.

"Come on, Cas, you gotta give us something to work with!"

Cas tucked his arms around his middle tightly, as though trying to make himself as small as possible. "Are you angry? Why are you angry?"

Dean's mouth dropped open. What?

"Dean's not angry," Sam jumped in with a soothing voice, while managing to shoot Dean a chastising glare. He cautiously approached the bed and eased himself down on the edge so he wouldn't tower over the kid. "Isn't that right, Dean?"

Dean ran a hand over his hair and resisted rolling his eyes. "I'm not angry."

"You don't sound not-angry," Cas said quietly, and damn he seemed so pitiful that Dean's heart clenched.

"I'm not," he reiterated. "I'm…I'm just worried."

"And you know when Dean gets worried, he puts up a brave front that can sometimes look and sound mad," Sam continued in that overly patient tone. "But it's only to make the bad guys think twice about threatening us."

Cas nodded slowly, and finally uncurled himself. "Bad guys should be afraid of Dean."

Sam's lips twitched. "Yes they should."

Now Dean rolled his eyes. "Can we get back to the problem of what to do here?"

Sam turned a considering look on Cas again. "Hey, Cas, I have some paper and pencils; want to draw something for Dean?"

Cas canted his head as though unsure, but then nodded. Dean just gaped, at a loss for words as his brother dug out a memo pad and pencil and set them on the bed. Cas climbed up and lay down on his stomach, picking up the pencil with a tentative grip, as though not sure how to use it. When Sam moved away, Dean shot him a 'what-the-hell' look.

Sam shrugged. "Child therapists use drawing as a way to get kids to express themselves when they're afraid, or don't know how to use words to describe what they're feeling."

"Cas isn't a kid, Sam."

"Actually, Dean, I think he is. At least right now. I don't know if it's because his vessel is so young, or if his grace has been regressed too…but the way Cas is processing things is with the mind of a child. We're gonna have to be patient here." He let out a long breath and lowered his voice. "I wish we could call an angel, as I'm pretty sure they're the only ones who would have a clue what's going on, but until we know which ones we can trust, it's probably a bad idea."

"So, what, we're supposed to become angel nannies? For how long?"

Sam shrugged helplessly. "We could call Bobby; at least he'd get a start looking into the lore."

Dean glanced back at Cas, who had made a few strokes on the page and was currently staring at it with one eye squinting and his tongue poking the inside of his cheek. "Yeah, alright. And I'll stay up to watch the kid angel. That healing boost was worth sixteen cups of coffee."

Sam arched a brow. "You sure?"

"Yeah." It wasn't like they could leave Cas unsupervised, and Sam looked beat.

His little brother nodded. "I'll call Bobby. That boost get rid of your hunger too? 'Cause food's getting cold."

"You said you got pie?"

Sam let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes."

"Then hunger ain't a factor."

"Neither is nutrition."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

"Ass-butt," a small voice piped up.

Both of them turned to Cas, but the kid didn't even look up from his drawing. Sam shook his head with a chuckle, and stepped outside to make that phone call. Dean opened the paper bag and started unpacking the contents. Lukewarm french fries were not that appetizing, but Dean could eat a burger cold without reservation.

Sam came back and sat across the table from him. "I left a message."

Dean nodded, and they both dug into their dinners. Cas hardly made a sound save for the scritching of pencil on paper. Heck, if he would always be this quiet, Dean thought they could manage with the whole angel babysitting thing. Until they caught another case…

"Okay, I'm hitting the sack," Sam said after finishing his meal. "Wake me if you need anything."

Dean saluted, mouth still full. He pulled Sam's laptop over and started doing a search on age-regression spells. Big surprise, there wasn't much. He typed in 'care for baby angels,' just because, and had to scroll through several diaper-changing blog posts before he found something actually relevant. For one thing, baby angels were called 'fledglings,' so he was able to revise his search with that term instead. But that's where the helpfulness ended.

Sighing, Dean turned from the laptop to take another bite of pie, and stiffened when he found Cas standing across the table, peeking through the slats of the other chair. He was doing that annoying staring thing again. Dean frowned, and glanced down at his pie, then back at Cas, tracking the direction of his gaze. The kid nipped at his bottom lip.

"You wanna try a bite?" Dean prompted.

Cas nodded hesitantly. Dean cut off a piece with his fork and transferred it to a napkin. Cas inched around the chair cautiously, as though he either wasn't sure he really wanted to try it, or he was afraid Dean would snatch it back in an instant. Dean decided to sit perfectly still as Cas reached for the chunk of pie and popped it in his mouth. The kid chewed for a very long time, face scrunched up in serious contemplation. Dean rolled his eyes.

Cas finally swallowed, and a bright grin cracked his face. He climbed into the chair and looked at Dean expectantly.

"You like that, huh?"

Cas nodded, this time enthusiastically.

Dean grabbed the crumpled paper bag and dug out an extra spork. Then he cut the slice of pie in half and pushed one piece toward the little angel. He didn't know whether to be annoyed or amused at suddenly having to share his pie, with Cas of all people. How many times had Dean tried to get the angel to enjoy some of the finer things this side of humanity? But Cas had been too much of a stick-in-the-mud, barring that one time with Famine and hamburgers. Now, though, Dean watched him devour the apple pie as heartily as Dean would, and he felt his mouth quirk. So maybe he didn't mind sharing…just this once.

When the pie was gone, Dean leaned back and cast a look toward the bed. "Wanna show me what you drew?"

Cas bounded off the chair and over to the bed to retrieve the paper, which he then presented to Dean proudly. Dean's brows shot up as he took in the incredibly accurate rendering of himself, done in shades of gray lead that covered the full page. The corners were the darkest where Cas had pressed the pencil down roughly. They lightened gradually toward the center where Dean stood, hands cupped around something he held closely to his chest. It was amazing, how the use of value made the object in Dean's hands appear to glow, and there was an aura of light around his head too.

"Uh, wow, Cas," he finally managed to say.

"Your soul has more colors than that," Cas finally spoke. "But I didn't have any." He came around to stand at Dean's knee and started pointing to various parts of the drawing. "This here is deep green, like the forest. And this here is soft yellow, like daffodils. This has traces of red and murky brown, because you've been through more than a human soul should have to bear, and it's scarred."

Dean's gut tightened at that. He'd always known Hell had left him…damaged.

Cas rambled on obliviously. "But this is silver, because your soul is still pure and you're the Righteous Man." He stopped, and looked up at Dean tentatively, as though waiting for approval or criticism.

Dean swallowed around the lump growing in his throat. "You see all that, huh?"

Cas nodded solemnly, shifting his weight anxiously as he glanced back at the drawing.

Dean forced a smile. "It's incredible, Cas. Can I keep it?"

Cas beamed. "I made it for you."

"Thanks, man." Dean gingerly set it on the table, away from the leftover food wrappers and greasy napkins. "Want to draw something for Sam next?"

In answer, Cas turned and scurried back to the bed to retrieve the paper and pencil and bring it back to the table. Dean sifted through their bags until he found a blue ink pen to add. It wasn't much, but Cas seemed to appreciate the extra bit of color. Dean sat there watching the little angel go to town on his drawing, feeling something inexplicably warm unfurl in his chest. And when Cas pushed a blank sheet of paper his way, Dean took up a pencil as well.