July 31, 1986

Dean was seven years old before he saw another angel.

After the night Dad had banished Gabriel, they'd stopped moving around all the time. They settled back in Lawrence for a while, but living there seemed to upset Dad – too many memories. Even with Gabriel gone, he seemed paranoid about angels coming to ruin his family. He became more and more short tempered. He drank a lot and missed work at the garage often. He stayed out late and sometimes didn't come home all night. Dean didn't sleep those nights.

They moved away to a small, beat up house a long way outside of Lawrence, where Dad painted red symbols on the walls and said the angels couldn't bother them now. The paranoia and the drinking got worse, and finally he moved them even farther away – away from towns, from people, from Kansas.

The new house was cool, at least. It was old and drafty, but there were stairs and an attic and a huge yard out back. Or at least a big piece of land cleared of trees. Dean liked the trees and mountains of Colorado a lot better than the flat, dull landscapes of Kansas, but he missed his friends from school. He'd be starting second grade in just about a month. Maybe he'd make new friends.

Sammy was in the house with Dad, who was sober for once, so Dean took the chance to play outside without having to keep an eye on his brother. He'd dragged a shovel and a hose out near the woodpile and spent a couple of hours building up Castle Grayskull. He couldn't dig deep enough to make a bottomless pit around it like it was supposed to have, but he figured a water moat should work.

Skeletor and Beast-Man were attacking the castle, battering away at the defenses put up by the Sorceress. Even though he didn't actually have a Sorceress to play with, she was usually part of his stories. She wasn't an angel, but she did have wings, and Dean thought that was close enough.

He-Man had just arrived to help defend the castle. His sword arm was loose and liked to fall off, but Dean just held it in place whenever He-Man was fighting.

He-Man had just punched Skeletor so hard he flew all the way back to Snake Mountain – Dean flung the action figure and watched as it arced across the yard, providing the villain's shouts of outrage and threats of revenge. Skeletor tumbled through the dirt and came to rest at the tree line.

Dean stopped in shock.

It was the boy – the angel with wings. He was there, watching Dean play, partially hidden in the underbrush a little ways into the aspens, his wings curled protectively around him. Their eyes locked and the angel froze, realizing Dean had seen him.

He couldn't believe it. Dean didn't remember a lot from the day he fell into the pond at the park, but he could never forget the strange angel.

Shyly, Dean raised a hand and waved. The angel's eyes widened and he vanished in the blink of an eye.

"Wait!" Dean called out. He jumped to his feet and raced to the tree line. "Wait, come back!"

When he got to where the angel had been, he stopped and squinted through the dappled sun and shade of the grove, but there was nothing. The boy was gone.

"Where'd you go? Why'd you run away?" Dean asked the empty air.

A flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye. He whipped his head to the right, but only saw more trees and underbrush, missing whatever had moved.

Dean pushed his way through the cow parsnip in the direction he thought the movement had been. Climbing up onto a rock, he peered into the trees, hoping for another glimpse. His breath caught in his throat. The angel was watching him again with wide eyes and a frown from behind one of the small pines that sprouted up between the aspens.

"Hey," Dean called softly. He didn't move from his rock, for fear of scaring the angel off again. "Hi. I remember you."

The boy's wings flared, feathers spiking up at the arches in threat. Dean's heart raced, but he went quiet and still and waited to see what the angel would do. After a few moments of this standoff, the ruffled wing feathers slowly returned to normal. The boy began backing away, keeping a suspicious eye on Dean as he went.

Dean hesitated as the angel disappeared deeper into the trees. He'd played in these trees often enough, but he didn't ever venture farther than shouting distance from the house. Chewing his lip in indecision, he glanced over his shoulder at the yard. Castle Grayskull was waiting for him, but the moat was probably soaked through to mud by now anyhow.

Dean climbed down from the rock and trotted after the angel. There was no choice, really – he had to find him if he could. Excitement made his blood rush, and he picked up his pace.

Following the path the angel had made through the underbrush, Dean worked his way through the trees as quickly as he could, chasing him over the hills and way past the creek that was Dean's usual boundary. At least, he followed until the path vanished. The angel must have flown away. Dean looked around frantically, trying to find some sign of the boy. When he saw nothing, tears of frustration pushed against the backs of his eyes. He squeezed his lids closed until the urge to cry went away. Dad would call him stupid if he cried over nothing.

Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, Dean scanned the trees one more time, trying to decide if he should give up and go back. But then another flicker of movement came from ahead and to the left. He saw the angel for just a split second before he disappeared again into the trees. Without hesitation, he took off in that direction.

"Please wait!" Dean cried, crashing through the underbrush after him.

He followed the boy like a will-o-the-wisp, not caring about the noise he made or how far away from the house he'd gone. He needed to find the angel.

Suddenly, Dean lurched to the side with a shock as his foot came down in a hole he hadn't seen through the underbrush. As he fell, his foot stayed stuck in the hole, and he screamed as the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life shot up his leg. He hit the ground in a heap, too terrified to move. It hurt so bad, it felt like his leg was on fire with every rapid beat of his heart. There was no stopping the tears this time, and they poured down his cheeks as he huddled and shook on the ground, trying not to throw up.

He'd messed up really bad this time. He was so far from the house, even if he screamed all day no one would hear him. He couldn't even call for Gabriel because Dad had banished him. Tears flowed faster as fear welled up, quickly building toward panic.

A sound registered from a few yards ahead of him. Looking up, he saw the boy creeping toward him, gradually edging closer and eyeing Dean warily. Finally, the angel crouched just out of reach in front of him and stared. Dean just watched him back with tears streaming down his face, trying not to whimper.

The boy crawled the last couple feet forward and reached one hand out toward Dean. Without meaning to, Dean flinched back from him which jarred his leg, triggering a fiery wave of agony. He couldn't help crying out at the searing pain. The angel startled back at his cry, his wings flaring out again. They smoothed back quickly, though, and the boy reached toward Dean with more confidence, only pausing briefly just before his fingers touched Dean's cheek.

The angel's hand was warm on his skin, but then the warmth seemed to break through the surface and flow into his skin all the way down to his bones. The tingling warmth trickled down through his whole body. When it reached Dean's injured leg, the angel took a shuddering, shallow breath. His eyes were screwed tightly shut in concentration, and the single shallow breath became many as he panted along in time with Dean's pained breathing. He shuffled closer on his knees and brought up his other hand, framing Dean's face in his palms. A fine sweat broke out on the boy's forehead and the halo surrounding his head flickered and flared. The warmth pooling around his injury got hotter, and Dean gasped to feel the bones in his leg moving and shifting. Suddenly, the angel's eyes snapped open, and he released a huge breath. The heat that had become nearly unbearable swirled into a comforting coolness, taking all traces of pain with it.

The boy's eyes bored into Dean's, the vibrant blue nearly overtaking his entire field of vision. Even if Dean wanted to look away, he couldn't. Slowly, the angel drew his hands away from Dean's face and rocked back onto his heels, breathing like he'd just finished running.

"Thank you," Dean whispered, afraid of frightening the boy away.

But the angel just kept staring at him.

"My name's Dean. What's yours?"

The angel's eyes narrowed and he cocked his head slightly to one side. His wings puffed up, though they didn't spike like before and they didn't spread wide in threat.

"Castiel." The boy spoke at last, and Dean smiled to hear it. The angel's voice was rough and dry, like he didn't use it much.

"Castiel," Dean breathed. Joy swelled inside him. His winged angel was real – he'd found him, and now Dean knew his name. "Castiel, where did you come from? Who are you?"

But a shadow darkened the angel's eyes at the question, and he looked away from Dean. "I am a ghost," he whispered.

"A ghost?" The joy dampened as Dean realized the angel didn't feel the same. "What do you mean?"

Castiel's expression darkened further. "I don't know."

"Castiel?" Dean asked carefully. "Why are you here? Why did you save me at the pond and heal my ankle?"

The angel stood, rising over Dean, still sprawled in the dirt and propped up on his elbows. Castiel's great, black wings rose, arching over him.

"I don't know!" he hissed. And in an instant he was gone.

Dean knew he wouldn't find the angel again that day.