October 3, 1958 – June 19, 1983

Castiel found a quiet place near the river outside of the town. Unwilling to hunt the humans anymore, he settled into the grasses, leaning against a smooth barked tree and watched the river instead. He watched the flowing water and listened to the wind in the leaves and waited to die.

Days passed. Lots of them. Castiel grew more confused as each one went by. He didn't know how long it took to starve, but it seemed he should at least be growing weaker. Instead he felt the same as he always had since the day he'd been dragged here.

More days went by, getting colder as they went. Castiel still lived.

For a long time, he was angry. Furious with everything about his situation. He hated the angel that brought him to this horrible place and killed his maker. He hated the human that had cut him, leaving him with a scar on his palm. He hated all the other humans and angels just for being monsters. And most of all, he hated that he didn't die.

Days got colder still, and rain and snow fell.

Castiel began watching the town again. He had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. From watching the people, he'd learned how to keep himself warm when the temperature dropped. He stole unattended pants and shoes and mittens. He couldn't wear shirts or coats like humans, though. His wings didn't allow for it, but his feathers were enough to keep him warm without them.

The snow melted, and eventually he discarded the shoes and mittens. He preferred his fingers and toes to be free.

One day, long after the days had grown hot again, he went back to the yard with the sand pit. He hadn't really planned to, but when he found himself there, he stayed. Late in the afternoon, the child he'd stolen and nearly killed appeared through the back door of the house and ran out into the grass to play.

Castiel blinked. That couldn't be right. The child had been smaller than him, but he was almost certain it was larger than him now.

In a flash, Castiel flew to his nest by the river to find his shoes. He put them on. They felt the same as they had in the winter.

He hadn't grown in all this time. Whatever was keeping him from starving was also apparently keeping him from growing up.

Winter came again, then summer. Winter. Summer. On and on and on it went, and Castiel stayed small. It was impossible, but it was his life all the same. He missed the ether. He missed home. It felt like a great aching hole in his heart when he thought of his makers. For a long time, he just stayed hidden in his nest, watching the river during the day and crying miserably during the nights. He was invisible, forgotten. Sometimes he wondered if loneliness could kill him, it hurt so much.

Eventually, Castiel left his nest. He couldn't stand to spend another minute there.

He learned he'd been living in a place called Kentucky, and once he realized there was so much more to earth than just this town, he began wandering, flitting through town after town. Exploring forests and deserts and mountains. Though he was still terribly lonely, it was easier to bear when he kept moving.

More winters. More summers. So many more, he lost track.

Castiel was exploring the beautiful, snow packed peaks of the Sierra Nevadas when a strange shock went through his body. It started in the back of his neck and arced under his skin all the way out to the tips of his wings and down to his frozen toes. The odd sensation hadn't hurt, but it was startling, and unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

But that wasn't quite true.

A shiver that had nothing to do with the icy mountain air ran down Castiel's spine. He rubbed his thumb into the palm of his other hand, digging into the scar that was still visible there after all these years. The day he'd been ripped away from his home and abandoned in a strange world, the monsters had done something to him. Changed him. And the shock he'd just experienced felt just the same.

He rubbed harder at the scar and wished it were erased. He wished none of this had happened. He wished he could just go home.

A twinge in his chest. He looked to the east.

Shaking off the accumulated snow that had fallen on his wings, Castiel flew eastward to nowhere in particular. He was uncertain where the urge had come from and now it was gone. When the feeling didn't return, he chose to dismiss it as a fluke, though it left him unsettled.

Castiel continued his wandering as he'd done for so many years now. Occasionally, the urge to go somewhere would strike him. He was never able to determine where exactly he was supposed to go, until one day four summers after the first shock, the need to stop hit him like a blow to the chest. The twinge he'd felt before grew much stronger, drawing him irresistibly toward a town in Kansas called Lawrence. He snooped through the town, trying to determine what drew him here, but it seemed no different from any other.

He stayed. The pull grew more urgent, so he continued to search, growing more frustrated by the day.

At last, he landed in a park in the northern part of town. The park was important. There was something here, he was sure. It seemed ordinary enough with its playground and many trees growing untamed near a large pond. He hid himself in the trees and scanned over the humans and occasional angel, looking for whatever made this place different.

A human child slightly bigger than him left the playground and ran full tilt across the grass directly toward him. In his fear of being seen, he flitted high up into the branches of the trees. One thing he'd noticed and taken advantage of over the years was that humans rarely looked up.

The child stopped near the water's edge, looking around for something. For him? Castiel folded his wings tightly around himself, letting his dark feathers hide him more deeply.

Soon the child lost interest, his attention refocused on something in the water. He hesitated briefly, then ran toward the bridge that crossed to an island in the center of the pond. Partway across, he climbed the railing, trying to see down into the water. A strange, anxious feeling twisted Castiel's belly. He dropped down from the tree to the water's edge, not taking his eyes off the child.

The human boy looked up, locking his gaze with Castiel's. For an instant, everything froze.

Then the child slipped, tumbling over the rail and dropping into the dark water. Castiel saw him surface once briefly before disappearing again.

Fear. Castiel gasped as a wave of terror rolled into him seemingly out of nowhere. Before he even thought about what he was doing, he was in the water, pulling the boy close and flitting back to the shore, his wings nearly as effective in the water as they were in the air.

He dropped the child at the water's edge, falling to his knees beside him. The human coughed and gagged, bringing up water from his lungs. He was in pain. Castiel could feel it in his own chest but knew it came from the boy. Instinctively, he reached out to the child, pressing his palm to his chest.

Something happened. Something big. When he touched the boy, Castiel felt energy swell through him. It came from the child, but it also flowed into the child. He found the source of the pain and removed it, though he had no idea how.

The boy stopped coughing and opened his eyes. There. It happened again – that moment where time seemed to hold its breath as their eyes locked. This boy was the reason he'd been drawn here. He was certain.

"Dean!"

Castiel's head snapped up. Someone was coming – he needed to hide. Turning back to the child, he stood, spread his wings, and flew to safety, though he didn't go far.