Chapter 13.

Before they took to their separate vehicles, Dean called home. "Hey, Sam," he said, "We got a car for Anael. Classic Camaro in electric blue."

"That's great." said Sam, "Eileen and I are planning to go out tonight to celebrate the baby. Feels like a big deal, you know?"

"It is a big deal. You two have a great time." said Dean. He had worried, before the wedding, that Sam had not seemed overly excited about the planning, so it was always reassuring to him when Sam proved that he did feel everything deeply, even if he rarely showed it. Of course, it would mean a change to their plans. "You want me to make my way home right away, to man the phones?"

"No, that's covered." said Sam, "Charlie says she'll do it. She asked if she could call Lydia over. They wanna watch a movie. I said it would be fine."

"Tell Charlie the Dean Cave is theirs." said Dean.

"I will. She'll love that."

"If you're sure you don't need us, we're gonna take the evening off and go have a few drinks to toast the new car." said Dean.

"Yeah, you take your time. You spend too much time around the bunker. A night off would do you good. We'll probably be out when you get back, but there's plenty of food. Cas and Jules expect to be home around seven."

"Okay. See you later." said Dean. He ended the call.

"You forgot to tell him about the college fund." said Anael.

"It's a face to face thing. I'll tell him tonight, after he's suitably envious of your car."

"Where's the bar we're going to?" she said.

"Get in your car and follow me." he said, "It's an hour or so away."

Dean could judge a bar pretty well by location and disposition before he even parked outside it. He'd preferred different types at different times.

For hustling, he'd pick a bar that reeked of cheap cologne, testosterone and bravado. When he wanted to drown his sorrows, he'd go to a place where he would be left in peace long enough to hold them down until the bubbles stopped. When he wanted a hook-up, he knew to choose a bar where the women were looking for the same thing and where the competition was pretty unimpressive. Not that he minded a challenge, but there were times when it felt good not to have to try too hard.

This bar was a quiet one, on the edge of town, where those passing through and those who wished they could leave settled down with drinks that were less complicated than their lives. He got out of the car and nodded to Anael, who had parked beside him. She got out too, smoothing her jeans and straightening the cotton shirt she wore.

Inside, it was much as he had expected, clean enough to show the owner cared, dusty enough to show they didn't care too much. The bar was well-polished, but probably more by elbows than beeswax. The tables and chairs were sturdy, but nothing special. They went to the bar and he said, "Can I get a couple of beers, please?"

She flashed him a quick smile, as if they were doing something irresistibly wrong. He wondered whether she felt drinking alcohol was inappropriate or whether it was merely the fact that they were doing nothing of use to others. Angels were weird, this one, more than most.

He nodded to a table near the window and they went and sat down with their beers. "How's the car handling?" he said.

"The purr of that engine!" she said.

"I know. Nothing like it, right?"

"Do you ever feel like you're a part of the car? Like she's a part of you and all that exists is you, the road and the car ahead."

"In my case, there's not usually a car ahead," he said, "But yeah, I feel that way."

"It's a good feeling. Feels good to belong to something that isn't Heaven."

"Yeah, that makes sense." he said.

"I wish I'd been like you." she said.

He was at a loss. "In what sense?" he said.

"As soon as Heaven made demands of you, you told Heaven what to do with those demands. I felt rebellious, but never really rebelled."

"Well, a) you did too rebel. You came here and you did deals with a demon. Dumb, but a rebellion. And 2) just feeling rebellious is a real breakthrough for an angel. You were all hardwired for obedience. To doubt is a sin. You doubted. You disagreed. When the fall came, you took full advantage."

"But you full-on rebelled and you were human."

"Don't underestimate humans. We're great enough that you want to be one." he said.

"I have total respect for humans, but Michael could have splatted you like a fly."

"Yeah, he could and then later, he did, in so many ways."

"You still defied him."

"Until I didn't." he said. The thought gained an icy grip on his heart. He didn't want to discuss either version of Michael with her. "Can we talk about something else?" he said.

"Sorry." she said. She looked around the bar. "Have you been here before?"

"Not to this bar, but to others just like it."

"To pick up women?"

"For all kinds of stuff, including just drinking until the bad stuff blurs a little."

"You don't do either so often now." she said.

"No." he said. He tried to remember how much he might have said, late at night, when everyone else had gone to their rooms and he and the misfit angel downed whisky together.

"Because the bad stuff is in the past?" she said.

"Because it takes more alcohol than I can afford to blur things now." he said.

"And the women?"

"Another bad coping mechanism." he said quietly, "I outgrew it over time."

"You found better coping mechanisms?" she said.

"Is this really that interesting to you?" he said.

"I want to understand humanity."

"Not sure I qualify. I'm a pretty extreme case." He wanted to change the subject, but her questions were sincere and she genuinely needed guidance. "Since we made a pact to communicate better and especially since meeting Sarah, I think I talk more and distract myself less."

"So the women were just a distraction?"

He gulped some beer. He wasn't proud of his past actions and he knew he was not a better man than he had been then. He just felt less alone. "I'm not making excuses," he said, "But I had a messed up childhood."

She didn't say anything. She was waiting for more.

"My Mom ... " he began. He couldn't talk about it. He looked at her car keys on the table in front of her. "We need to get you a keychain for those keys."

Her eyes never left his face. She was still waiting. Thinking about it, he did wonder whether she might understand better than he had assumed. She, after all, knew how it felt to be isolated, to feel unable to relate to her own kind. "You've felt alone for a long time, right?" he said.

"Right." she said.

"Me too. I can just ... " He thought about it to make sure he could. The memories were there, sharp-edged with the pain of their loss. "Just remember the time before Mom died." he said, "She used to stroke my hair or hug me. She left the light on outside my room if I got scared. She'd tuck me in at night and tell me angels were watching over me."

"They were."

"Yeah, not in a good way." he said, "After she died, it all stopped. It was okay. It was right. I needed to be strong. I needed not to need anyone, because Dad was trying to keep us safe and Sam needed to know I was strong enough to protect him and ... " And all of that was untrue. He had been a child. He had needed the hugs and reassurance he wasn't getting. His father had admitted that he had been wrong to try to make soldiers of them both. Why could Dean not admit to himself the flaw that John had already acknowledged? It didn't matter why. His mouth rehearsed the lies that protected his father from criticism and that dismissed his childhood trauma as justifiable and unimportant. He drank more beer.

Anael watched him with that damn angelic focus he had always hated.

"Sometimes," he said, "I just needed a little physical affection. I don't know why it mattered so much. I don't know why something you barely remember can become so important, but I'm human. As Sarah puts it, I have unmet needs and sometimes, I've tried to find ways to meet them and those ways work, for a while."

She leaned in closer, lowering her voice before uttering what was clearly a difficult confession. "When I was Sister Jo," she said, "People would grasp my hands or even embrace me and honestly, it was sometimes better than the money or what I bought with it. I'd never had loving touches before and I know it's just because I was healing them, but it still felt good."

"You miss being her, don't you?"

"In some ways." she said.

"I always thought you were just doing it for the money, but it gave you a place in the world. It gave you people who liked you, even if they didn't know a lot about you. I'm sorry for my part in taking that away from you."

"Is that what you think you did?" she said, "Yes, I miss it, but if I wanted to go back to it, I would. I don't. Jules and Eileen and Charlie show me real affection. They call me their sister. They hug me and it feels like my whole body is glowing with happiness."

"That's why the hook-ups stopped." he said, "Because I have a family around me now and what I needed was always that feeling of just mattering to someone."

"You always mattered to Sam and Cas has built his life around you."

"Feelings are not rational." said Dean, "I've never wanted to ask too much of either."