Reed had been back for three days, and she'd barely left Dean's room. She slept there, curled up small in his bed like she used to when they were kids, making herself as small as possible, as if trying not to take up more space than she deserved.
She slept more than Dean had ever seen, even after their worst hunts. When she wasn't sleeping, she was crying - silent tears that carved paths down her face, drawn from a depth he didn't know how to reach. Sometimes, she'd wake up gasping, clutching at whoever was closest like she was drowning. Usually, it was Dean. He rarely left her side, sleeping in the chair by the bed or stretched out next to her when her shaking hands reached for him.
Sam brought food she wouldn't eat, coffee she barely touched. He'd sit with them for hours, sometimes reading, sometimes just being there. Dean knew Sam understood this part - the overwhelming flood of emotion after getting a soul back. The crushing weight of remembered actions.
But Reed was different.
Where Sam's guilt had turned into anger and a fierce determination to make things right, Reed's seemed to be drowning her, pulling her under without mercy.
They took shifts, neither willing to leave her alone for too long. They'd both noticed the way she stared at her hands sometimes, like she didn't recognize them. Like she was remembering what they'd done when she couldn't feel anything.
Neither of them had told Cas she was back. They knew they should. He'd been texting Dean regularly, checking in and each message felt like a lead weight in Dean's pocket.
But how could he tell his best friend? How could he explain that his sister, the one who'd let Lucifer use Cas's body for her own pleasure, was back - that she was falling apart in his room? That whatever she'd without her soul had turned into a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding?
"We need to tell him," Sam said quietly one afternoon. Reed had finally drifted off after hours of tears, her breathing uneven but steady.
She'd told them some of what had happened in those empty months, fractured words pouring out of her like arterial spray from a mortal wound.
Dean looked down at her face, finally peaceful in sleep, her hand clutched tight in his t-shirt like he might vanish if she let go. "I know," he said roughly. "But not yet. She's not… she can't handle it yet."
Sam nodded, understanding. Dean knew Sam remembered how raw it had felt, those first days after his soul was restored. How every emotion stripped him to the bone.
And Reed? Reed had always felt things more deeply than either of them.
"She keeps apologizing," Dean murmured, his voice barely audible. "When she thinks I'm asleep. Keeps saying she's sorry for not protecting us. For letting herself become something that could hurt us." His jaw clenched as he brushed her hair back with a gentleness that surprised even himself. "Like she's the one who failed us, not the other way around."
"We couldn't have stopped Amara from taking her soul, Dean," Sam said softly.
"No," Dean said, his voice rough. "But we could've protected her better after. Instead, we let her walk around for months. Let her…" He trailed off, unable to finish.
They both knew what he wasn't saying - that they let her walk into Lucifer's arms. Let him use her in ways that were tearing her apart now that she could feel again. They should have seen it sooner. Should have stopped it.
Reed stirred in her sleep, a faint sound of distress escaping her. Dean immediately tightened his grip on her hand, murmuring soft reassurances that Sam couldn't hear. She settled again, pressing closer to Dean like she could disappear into his protection.
"She'll get through this," Sam said, though his voice wavered slightly. "We'll help her through this."
Dean didn't answer. He just kept his eyes on his sister, afraid that if he looked away, she might disappear again. The weight of Cas's last message sat heavy in his pocket, unanswered.
Some conversations could wait. Right now, keeping Reed breathing through the flood of her restored soul, through the storm of emotions she couldn't stop, was all that mattered. Everything else - Cas, Lucifer, all of it - was for later. If later ever came.
•๑ ๑•
Reed sat curled in one of the library chairs, wrapped in Dean's old flannel like armor. She wasn't really reading the book in her lap; the pages hadn't turned in over an hour. But it gave her hands something to do. Sam was at the table with his laptop, sneaking worried glances at her every few minutes. Dean was nearby, cleaning guns with a precision that bordered on obsessive, the repetitive ritual almost soothing.
It was the closest thing to peaceful they'd had since Reed came back.
The bunker door creaked.
Reed went utterly still.
Sam's head snapped up, and Dean's hands froze on the gun he was reassembling.
The footsteps on the stairs were unmistakable. That familiar cadence used to mean safety, family, home.
Cas appeared in the library doorway, and everything stopped.
Reed made a sound - a small, broken thing that tore through Dean like shrapnel. The book slid from her lap as she pulled her knees up tight, trying to make herself smaller. Invisible. But it was too late. Cas had already seen her.
"Reed," Cas breathed. One word, heavy with shock, relief, and pain.
Dean shot to his feet, moving instinctively between them, caught in an impossible position - his best friend on one side, his shattered sister on the other. Sam stood frozen by the table, the same conflict written across his face. "Cas-"
But Cas wasn't looking at him. He wasn't looking at anyone but Reed.
"When did…" Cas's voice faltered as he stepped forward.
Reed flinched so hard the chair scraped against the floor.
"Don't," she choked out. It was the first word she'd spoken all day. "Please, I can't…" Her voice broke completely.
Sam was halfway out of his chair, torn between protecting his sister and helping his friend. Dean didn't move, his body a shield in front of Reed as Cas stood frozen in the doorway, the weight of everything unsaid filling the space between them.
"Reed," Cas started again, taking a step forward. His voice was gentle, careful, like he was trying not to spook a wounded animal.
That gentleness seemed to break something in her. "Don't," she choked out. "Please don't be kind to me. I can't- I have to-" She looked desperately at the library's other exit, clearly fighting the urge to bolt.
"Stay," Dean said roughly, not sure if he was talking to Reed or Cas. Both, maybe. The weight of having to choose between them was crushing him.
"I'll go," Reed whispered, her voice cracking. "I shouldn't be here anyway. I'm just making everything worse, making you choose-" She pressed her hands to her face. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. For everything. For making you have to..."
She couldn't finish. The shame was choking her.
Sam moved toward her slowly, but she flinched away from him too.
"Just... give me a minute," she managed, still not looking at any of them. "I just need a minute."
She slipped past them and disappeared down the hall, leaving behind a silence heavy enough to crush stone.
Dean stood there, torn between following her and staying with Cas, the choice physically painful. Sam looked equally lost.
"Go," Cas said quietly. "She needs you more right now."
Dean's jaw clenched. "Cas-"
"Go," Cas repeated. "I'll... I'll come back another time."
Before anyone could move, the sound of a door slamming echoed through the bunker's halls, followed almost immediately by running water - her newest method of drowning whatever lived behind her eyes.
"Cas." Dean's voice came out rougher than intended. "When Lucifer was... do you remember...?"
"Dean." Just his name, but weighted with warning and something that might have been a plea. "Don't ask me that. Please."
The silence stretched between them, filled with questions Dean wasn't sure he had the right to ask and answers he probably couldn't bear to hear.
"I should have known." Cas's voice was low, rough. "I was... aware. I should have realized what he was doing. What she was—" His words crumbled under the weight of them.
"Cas." Dean's voice came out rougher than intended, caught somewhere between wanting to know and desperately needing not to. His hands curled into fists, unsure whether he wanted to punch something or fix something he couldn't. "Whatever happened... that wasn't you."
The angel's laugh held no humor. "Wasn't it?." His hands clenched at his sides, and Dean caught the slight tremor in them - so human, so wrong on a being of celestial intent. "I was conscious for... moments. Fragments. Long enough to-" He stopped again, jaw working.
Dean wanted to look away from the raw pain etched across his friend's features, but couldn't. "She wasn't herself either," he said quietly, though the words felt inadequate even as he spoke them.
"No." Castiel's voice dropped lower, rougher. "She wasn't. But she remembered everything when her soul returned. Every moment, every choice..." His grace surged visibly, making the lights flicker. "And now she can't even look at me without seeing-"
He cut himself off again, but Dean heard what he wasn't saying. Heard the weight of knowledge neither of them wanted to voice.
"We'll figure this out," Dean said, trying to inject certainty he didn't feel into the words. "She just needs time."
Castiel's expression shifted into something complicated. "Time won't erase what she remembers, Dean. What I remember." He looked down at his hands like they belonged to someone else. "Perhaps it would be better if I-"
"Don't." Dean cut him off sharply. "Don't you dare say you should leave. We've lost enough."
The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications neither was ready to face.
"Dean." Castiel's voice carried a weight that made something in Dean's chest constrict. "There are things you don't... that you shouldn't..."
"I know." Dean ran a hand down his face, suddenly bone-weary. "I know, Cas."
The distance between them felt infinite and microscopic all at once, filled with knowledge they couldn't unknow and wounds that might never heal. Dean wondered how many times their family could fracture before there weren't enough pieces left to put back together.
Neither spoke again. There was nothing left to say that wouldn't just deepen the cracks already spreading through their carefully constructed reality.
•๑ ๑•
It took three weeks before Reed could stay in the same room as Castiel for more than a few seconds. Even then, she moved like a ghost at the edges of his presence, her exits carefully timed to appear natural rather than desperate. The bunker developed its own gravity around their careful dance - spaces that belonged to one or the other, never both, times of day carved out in silent agreement.
It was a month and a half before she spoke directly to him, and even then it was just "excuse me" as she reached past him for a book in the library. But her hand hadn't trembled as it brushed his sleeve, and she hadn't flinched at the slight static charge of his grace. Small victories that felt like mountains moved.
The first real conversation happened in the pre-dawn quiet of the bunker's kitchen, that liminal space between night and morning where reality felt slightly less solid. Reed had been there first, another sleepless night driving her from her room to seek solace in coffee and silence. She didn't look up when Castiel entered, but she didn't leave either - progress measured in inches and staying power.
The coffee maker gurgled between them, its familiar rhythm filling space that might otherwise have collapsed under the weight of everything unsaid. Castiel stood perfectly still by the doorway, radiating that particular stillness that spoke of an angel trying very hard not to spook a flighty human.
"You can sit," Reed said finally, her voice carrying only the faintest tremor. "If you want."
The words hung in the air between them, fragile as soap bubbles and just as likely to burst. Castiel moved with careful precision to the chair furthest from her, maintaining distance that felt both necessary and crushing.
They sat in silence broken only by the soft clink of Reed's spoon against her mug, the sound echoing slightly in the pre-dawn quiet. Neither looked directly at the other, but awareness hummed between them like a live wire.
"I'm sorry," they both said at once, the words colliding in the space between them.
Reed's laugh held no humor. "You have nothing to apologize for."
"Neither do you." Castiel's voice was rough with something ancient and grieving. "What happened when you were..." He trailed off, unable or unwilling to name the empty space where her soul had been.
"Don't." The word came out sharper than she'd intended, making them both flinch. She took a careful breath, steadying herself. "Please. I can't... I can't talk about it. Not yet."
The silence stretched between them again, heavy with memories neither could forget and neither could face. Reed's hands wrapped around her coffee mug like it was an anchor in uncertain seas.
"Does it help?" Castiel asked finally, his voice softer than she'd ever heard it. "Not talking about it?"
Her laugh this time held a ghost of genuine feeling. "No," she admitted. "But it's all I can manage right now."
The silence between them felt like spun glass - beautiful in its fragility, dangerous in its potential to shatter. Reed's coffee had gone cold, forgotten between her palms as she stared into its depths like it held answers to questions she couldn't voice.
"I wasn't conscious for most of it," Castiel said suddenly, his voice carrying that particular gravel that meant he was choosing his words with angelic precision. "When he... when Lucifer was in control. I only surfaced a few times."
Reed's hands tightened around her mug, but she didn't flee. The morning light painted soft shadows across her face, highlighting the vulnerability she usually kept carefully hidden these days.
"I know that's supposed to make it better," she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. "But I'm not sure if it does." She swallowed hard, still not looking at him directly. "The times you were aware..."
"Were enough to understand," he finished quietly. "But not enough to... not enough to have witnessed everything."
Something in Reed's posture shifted slightly, like a door opening just a crack to let in light. "So you don't..." She stopped, took a careful breath. "You don't remember all of it?"
"No." His grace flickered softly, like candlelight instead of lightning. "Just fragments. Moments." He paused, weighing his next words carefully. "I think... I think he wanted me aware sometimes. To watch. To..." He trailed off, unable or unwilling to finish the thought.
Reed made a sound that might have been a laugh if it wasn't so close to something else. "Of course he did. That was half the point." Her fingers traced the rim of her mug, the gesture almost hypnotic. "Using both of us to hurt each other."
The silence stretched between them again, but it felt different now - less like spun glass and more like morning fog, slowly lifting.
"I wish..." Castiel started, then stopped, uncertainty obvious in his dropped gaze, the clench of his jaw. "I wish I had been stronger. Had fought harder when-"
"Don't." Reed's voice was gentle but firm. "You did what you had to. To protect them." She finally looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time in weeks. "We both did what we thought we had to."
Their eyes met across the kitchen table, and something shifted in the space between them - not healing, not yet, but perhaps the beginning of understanding.
The dawn light continued painting gold across the kitchen walls while somewhere in the bunker, the day began stirring to life. But in that moment, in that space between night and morning, two broken pieces of a fractured family began the slow work of learning how to exist in the same air again.
Not forgiveness, not yet. But maybe something like acceptance, born in the quiet hours where truth felt easier to bear.
•๑ ๑•
Dean nearly missed it at first.
The library hummed with the quiet rhythm of research—the shuffle of books, the clink of coffee cups, and the occasional murmur of Sam and Reed discussing lore. Sam was buried in an ancient tome, his hair falling into his eyes like always, and Reed sat nearby, her notes sprawled across the table in her usual organized chaos.
It was ordinary. Mundane. Exactly what they'd been fighting so hard to get back.
Which was why the scene before him now felt like watching a miracle unfold in slow motion.
Reed had been reaching for one of the higher shelves, stretching up on her toes in that familiar way that always made her seem smaller somehow. Castiel, without thinking, had stepped up behind her to help - a gesture so normal it would have gone unremarked a year ago.
Dean tensed, expecting the familiar recoil - the careful step back, the polite but distant "thank you" Reed had perfected since she'd gotten her soul back. But it didn't come.
Instead, she leaned back just slightly, letting Castiel's quiet presence anchor her reach. Her shoulder brushed his chest as he handed her the book, their fingers brushing briefly when she took it. Reed didn't stiffen or retreat. She turned, tilting the book to show him something on the page, their heads bending close together.
Dean blinked, surprised by how natural it all looked. How effortless.
The library seemed to hold its breath, the moment stretching as Reed pointed something out in the text. Her hair brushed Castiel's shoulder, and he tilted his head to better see, his expression soft with that patient attentiveness he reserved for her. There was no awkwardness, no tension - just an ease between them that Dean hadn't realized he'd missed until it was there again.
They didn't move apart, didn't shuffle to maintain the boundaries that had defined their interactions for months. If anything, Reed seemed to gravitate toward Castiel's quiet presence, drawn by a pull neither of them acknowledged but both instinctively obeyed.
Dean glanced at Sam, who was watching too, his expression mirroring Dean's mix of relief and disbelief. They'd both watched Reed piece herself back together, slowly learning how to live in spaces weighted by memories she couldn't escape. They'd seen Castiel do the same—rebuilding his steady calm as Reed stopped flinching from his closeness.
But this was something else entirely. This wasn't just survival. It was healing.
Dean's chest tightened as he watched his sister smile - small and fleeting, but real - at something Castiel murmured. It wasn't grand or dramatic, just... right. Like watching a wound knit itself closed, the scar barely visible in the soft light of an ordinary afternoon.
Sam caught his eye again, his relief almost tangible.
The library stayed still, as if afraid to disturb the fragile balance between the two standing so close at the shelves. But Reed and Castiel seemed unaware of the weight of the moment, lost in the quiet simplicity of existing in the same space without tension or hesitation.
It wasn't about proximity - it was about the unspoken trust that had been rebuilt, thread by thread, until they could stand there like this without fear.
Reed laughed softly, the sound warming the room like the first rays of dawn breaking through the longest night. Dean froze, unable to remember the last time he'd heard her laugh like that—unforced, genuine. Castiel smiled in response, his expression open in a way Dean hadn't seen in too long. There was no calculated distance, no burden of guilt - just quiet joy.
Dean exhaled slowly, his shoulders easing as a thought settled over him, clear as daylight: Sometimes miracles weren't grand battles or heavenly interventions. Sometimes, they happened in libraries on lazy afternoons, written in the brush of a shoulder, the shared warmth of quiet laughter, and the simple act of existing together in peace.
•๑ ๑•
Reed found him in the library's quiet corner, lamplight casting soft shadows across his familiar profile. The sight of him - sleeves rolled up, tie slightly askew, surrounded by ancient texts - made something warm and careful unfurl in her chest. Time and distance had gentled the edges of harder memories, letting older, sweeter ones resurface: his rare smiles, his head-tilts of confusion, the steady comfort of his presence.
"Cas?" Her voice was softer than intended, carrying months of careful healing in its tone. He looked up immediately, something shifting in his expression at the sight of her - a softening around his eyes that spoke of how far they'd come from those first broken moments after her soul's return. The space between them felt charged but not dangerous - like static before a summer storm rather than lightning about to strike.
She settled against the edge of his table, close enough to catch the subtle scent of ozone and ancient paper that always clung to him. For the first time in months, being this near didn't make her want to run.
"I need to ask you something," she said carefully, watching his reaction. "And I need you to be honest with me."
His head tilted slightly - that familiar gesture that had once made her heart skip, and somehow still did. "Of course."
Reed took a careful breath, steadying herself. "Before... before everything. Did you..." She paused, gathering courage. "Did you want me? Not just because of Dean, or duty, or what was proper. But really want me?"
The question hung between them like crystal about to shatter. Castiel went very still, but he didn't look away. "Yes," he said finally, his voice carrying that particular roughness that meant absolute truth. "For longer than I should admit."
Something in Reed's chest loosened at the confession. "And now?" The words came out barely above a whisper. "After everything that happened, everything he did with your body, everything I let him do..."
"Reed." His voice was impossibly gentle. "Nothing that happened then changes what I felt. What I feel."
She studied his face in the soft library light, noting how his eyes held none of the careful distance that had defined them for so long. "Can I..." She swallowed hard, forcing herself to continue. "Can I kiss you? Just once, just to see if..."
His breath caught audibly. "Are you sure?"
"No," she admitted with a small laugh that held more warmth than fear. "But I want to be. I want..." She gestured vaguely between them. "I want something that's ours. Something he didn't touch."
Castiel stood slowly, telegraphing every movement as he stepped into her space. His hand came up, hovering near her face without quite touching. "Whatever you need," he said softly.
Reed leaned forward slightly, letting her forehead rest against his. His skin was warm, human-warm, nothing like the cold she remembered. "Just kiss me," she whispered. "Before I lose my nerve."
His lips met hers with infinite gentleness, steady and warm and present. Nothing like the harsh, demanding cold she remembered, the empty want that had driven her before. Just Castiel, with his careful touch and steady presence.
When they broke apart, Reed kept her eyes closed for a moment, cataloging differences. No lingering cold, no predatory intent. Just warmth and light and the subtle scent of ozone that was purely him.
"Okay?" Castiel asked softly, his hand finally settling against her cheek.
Reed opened her eyes to find him watching her with such careful concern that something in her chest ached with it. "Yeah," she said, and meant it. "More than okay."
His smile was gentle and real and entirely his own. This time when she kissed him, she didn't need to search for differences. This was nothing like before - this was new and clean and untouched by darker memories.
This was just them, finding their way back to each other in library lamplight, like a promise finally kept.
•๑ ๑•
Sam nearly dropped his book when he rounded the corner into the library. Reed and Castiel stood wrapped in each other's space, one hand wrapped in his tie, his palm against her cheek.
They were kissing - not desperately or frantically, but with a careful sort of tenderness that made Sam's chest tight.
He backed away silently, not wanting to break whatever spell had finally allowed his sister to accept gentle touch again. His feet carried him automatically to the garage where he knew he'd find Dean under the Impala's hood.
The familiar sounds of Zeppelin and metal on metal guided him through the bunker's corridors. Dean was half-buried in the engine, humming off-key.
"Dean." Sam's voice came out rougher than intended.
His brother emerged from under the hood, wiping his hands on a rag. "What's wrong?"
Sam leaned against the workbench, crossing his arms. "I, uh... I just walked in on Reed and Cas."
Dean frowned, tossing the rag over his shoulder. "Walked in on them doing what?"
"Kissing."
That word hung in the air between them for a beat too long. Dean's expression flickered—first confusion, then something Sam couldn't quite place. "You serious?"
Sam nodded. "They didn't see me. I didn't stick around to... you know."
Dean let out a sharp exhale, running a hand through his hair. "How'd she seem?"
"Good, I guess, " Sam said simply. "Should we say something?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer.
Dean snorted, shaking his head as he turned back to the engine. "Hell no. You really wanna have that conversation? 'Hey, Cas, saw you making out with my sister. Good job keeping it above the collar.' Yeah, pass."
Sam let out a low chuckle, glad to see Dean's shoulders relax just a little. "Fair point. But seriously, she looked okay. Like... actually okay."
Dean's movements slowed, his hands lingering on a wrench. "Good," he said, voice quieter. "She deserves that. A chance to feel normal again."
They fell into an easy silence after that, the kind of unspoken understanding that had taken years to build. Dean tinkered with the Impala while Sam stayed leaned against the workbench, the quiet relief of seeing their sister healing settling between them like a welcome weight.
•๑ ๑•
Dean had gotten used to checking on Reed during her nightmares, a habit born from months of hearing her pace the bunker's halls at odd hours. So when he pushed her door open that afternoon, a case file in hand to discuss, the sight before him made him pause in the doorway.
Reed lay curled against Castiel's chest, deep in the kind of sleep that had eluded her for months. Her boots sat neatly by the door next to Castiel's dress shoes, his suit jacket and trench coat draped carefully over her reading chair. The angel sat propped against her headboard in shirt sleeves and loosened tie, his usual formal posture softened into something almost human. One of Reed's hands rested over his heart, fingers tangled in his tie even in sleep, while his fingers carded gently through her hair with the kind of easy intimacy that spoke of a well-practiced gesture.
A paperback lay abandoned near Castiel's free hand - one of Reed's dogeared favorites that she'd been trying to get him to read for years. The whole scene carried the comfortable familiarity of a repeated moment: his sister finding refuge in an angel's arms, Castiel's steady presence keeping her nightmares at bay.
Castiel's eyes met Dean's over Reed's sleeping form, and his hand didn't still in her hair as he offered a slight nod of acknowledgement.
"She finally fell asleep about an hour ago," he said softly, voice barely above a whisper. "The nightmares were... particularly difficult last night."
Dean nodded, throat tight at how peaceful his sister looked - no tension in her face, no shadows under her eyes, just pure unguarded rest. She shifted slightly in her sleep, pressing closer to Castiel's warmth, and the angel adjusted automatically to accommodate her movement with the ease of frequent practice.
"I'll come back later," Dean managed, already backing toward the door, closing it silently behind him.
And that's it - that's the end. I'll be posting an alternate ending to this that is Lucifer-centric and a lot darker if anyone's interested. I'd also love to hear what you thought if you'd be so kind as to leave a comment. Thank you to everyone who has so far! I appreciate every single one.