FicWad

** Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and/or added my story to their faves or update lists. I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!

Spoiler warning: only very minor spoilers for episode 4x07,"It's the great pumpkin, Sam Winchester."

Oh, and also I guess I should say: angst warning. Seriously. But on with Chapter 3!



Castiel found the Winchesters in the bar again the following night. They had made plans to investigate an unusual death in the area before moving on upstate in a few days time. The patrons were singing again, and for some reason the brothers had chosen to sit at a table near the stage rather than their usual spot near the bar.

He frowned at the noise coming from the stage, and Dean smirked as if he thought he had his own private joke. If he thought Castiel would be distracted again tonight, he would be disappointed.

"The book?" Castiel said questioningly, not bothering with pleasantries before launching into business. Dean cleared his throat and attempted to wipe the smile off his face.

"Done," Dean replied. "Finito, gone, destroyed. Ain't that right, Sammy?" Hearing his name, Sam looked up from his bottle with a slightly alarmed expression.

"What?" he said quickly. He seemed slightly distracted.

Dean looked at his brother in a quizzical fashion before turning back towards Castiel, and rolled his eyes. "That's my kid brother for you. You know he was going to law school, can you believe it?"

"We got rid of it," Sam finally piped up. "That's what you asked us to do, isn't it? So why wouldn't we get rid of it?"

Dean gave his brother another look, and Castiel followed his gaze. The younger man was acting strangely, as if he were hiding something. The silence seemed to drag; one person's song had ended and another person was taking the stage, looking through the songs to find what they wanted.

"Good," Castiel said, breaking the awkward silence between the two Winchesters. "Because I hope Ido not need to remind you of the severity of the situation. If that book was to get into Lilith's hands -into any demons hands..."

Forgetting what he had been saying, Castiel found himself staring open-mouthed at the stage once again. She was back, with a different song but with the same strong, clear voice that cut through his concentration and distracted him so easily.

It was not the song that distracted him, he knew that. It was this new emotion, this guilt that he experienced every time he looked at her that caused him to falter. But seeing her like this; so happy compared to the memory of when he first saw her, fascinated him as well.

"Cas?" Dean's voice finally brought the angel back to the present, and Castiel realised that Dean had repeated his name several times before he had responded. "You ok? You uh, want some time alone? Or do you need some of our help with her, too?"

The smirk was back on the Winchester's face, and Castiel turned and fixed the human with his most thoroughly righteous glare. The smirk disappeared as Castiel growled between clenched teeth: "Remember your place, Dean. Remember where you were when I found you. Where you can go straight back to just as soon as we don't have a use for you anymore." He paused for a moment when it was apparent that his words had the desired effect of shutting the human up, and Castiel unclenched his jaw. "If the book is destroyed then we're done here. I will contact you if we need you again. And if I were you, I would pray that we dostill need you."

Rather than doing his usual disappearing act, Castiel stalked out of the door and into the night. As the angel left, Dean released a breath that he had not realised he'd been holding.

"Jeez," Sam commented, exhaling at the same time as his brother. "What's eating him?"

Disturbed by the angel's words, Dean did not reply. He got to his feet, grabbed his jacket and turned his back to his brother. "I'm going for a walk," he said, his mood dark.

"Ok," Sam said, and Dean realised that his brother was biting his tongue. "I'll see you back at the motel?" Sam had questions about hell that Dean did not want to answer, and so even though he knew he was causing Sam to worry, Dean stalked out of the bar as Castiel had done moments earlier.

*

Dean trudged his way along the dark streets, hands in his pockets and his feet scuffing the ground like he was deliberately trying to kick it with every step. Sooner or later, everything had to come back to hell. It was "hell this," and "hell that," and "So, tell me about your time in hell, Dean." As if any of them could understand any of it. As if they'd even want to, once they knew. And if Castiel thought he would be able to hold that threat over his head forever, he had another thing coming. He could find some other douche bag to do his dirty work for him, he was frigging done.

He felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder, and suddenly the streets melted away and he was standing in the middle of a park, regardless of the fact that he knew this city didn't even have a park. The hand on his shoulder belonged to Castiel, who was now standing beside him.

"Listen man," Dean spat, his anger still fresh in his mind at the angel's earlier words. "If you've brought me here for round two, you can forget it. I'm not a goddamned angel punch bag, and I'm not in the mood. So why don't you just use your holy transporter beam and send me back to my frigging motel!"

Lowering his hand from the human's shoulder, Castiel stepped back and took a seat at one of the conveniently placed park benches. Frowning at the grass at his feet, Castiel let the silence stretch out for a few moments before finally muttering: "I am sorry, Dean."

Slightly taken aback, Dean did not respond to the apology. Castiel sighed, and looked up but straight ahead, careful not to look at the man standing beside him. "I..." he started, but was having trouble finding the words to describe what he needed to say. "When you stopped me from allowing Uriel to destroy that town, I told you that in the past I had some doubts." He looked back up at Dean before continuing. "Regarding my orders, and regarding what was right and wrong."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, but from his tone it seemed that he was refusing to back down. "So what?"

Realising that Dean was not going to make this easy, Castiel looked down again. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands and rested his chin on top of them. "We're not supposed to experience human emotions," he murmured, his voice low as if he didn't really want Dean to hear what he was saying. "We are supposed to follow our orders, and not get involved with the everyday lives of the people on earth. But sometimes, their emotions... I feel them when I pass people by. And sometimes they are strong; too strong to ignore."

Dean's mood finally seemed to soften a little. He bit his lip and nodded an almost imperceptible amount before finally taking a seat next to Castiel. "The girl," he said, the hardness gone from his voice now. "In the bar. You're talking about her, right? You've seen her before?"

Castiel nodded. He lifted his head out of his hands and leaned back, looked up to the sky hoping that Revelation would finally come to him again. Nothing. He was still on his own. "I was... in a hurry. I was trying to help one of the angels from my garrison, and all that was in my head was trying to reach him on time. I must have flown over thousands of people without sparing them a single thought, but when I reached her." He paused, unsure of how to help the human understand. "She was so afraid. Afraid for her life, amongst other things that I - I suppose I pretended not to notice. She was trapped in her house with a man, but we do not interfere! And my brother was dying."

He risked a glance at the human's face, and wished that he had not. Dean was looking at him with the same expression he'd used when he found out that the angels were willing to sacrifice 1,214 human souls in order to kill one witch.

"Can you imagine losing your brother, Dean?" Castiel asked. "I mean truly losing him, with no hope of rescue?" Dean's jaw tightened at that, and he looked away. "I had my orders, and Ifollowed them."

"So?" Dean asked, his voice tight with anger again. "Was it worth it? Did you save your precious brother?"

Looking down again, Castiel replied with a voice full of resignation. "No. I was still too late. You cannot imagine it, Dean. How long we have lived, how long we had fought together. When we lose one of our own, it is... I can't explain it."

Dean's head snapped back and he fixed Castiel with aaccusing glare. "You think because I'm just a human I can't understand loss?" he growled. "You think that just because you have those damned wings, that you're somehow better than us? More important? Well I got news for you, pal. I don't see any shiny halo on the top of your fricking head. You don't think I lost enough in my life? My mother, and my father, and most everyone I've ever been close to? You don't think that's enough? Well how about the part of myself that I left behind when you dragged me out of the pit! Can you understand that?"

Castiel was silent for a moment as he looked back over at the human sitting beside him. "I understand that you have sacrificed more than you ever thought you could, Dean. I don't mean to belittle your loss. But you should know that everything that you are feeling now, I was feeling at that moment. And when I looked to heaven for direction, none came. I was... lost. So I started to retrace my steps to go back to heaven, but I came across the girl again. And her sorrow at that moment was so close to my own, and I could have stopped it. But I did not."

He felt Dean's gaze on his face, but this time Castiel chose not to find out which expression the Winchester was wearing. "I have never felt guilt before, Dean. We don't interfere, and I know that I did the right thing; Ifollowed my orders. So why am I feeling this way?"

"What happened?" Dean asked, his voice softer again. "To the girl?"

"I looked in on her," Castiel replied. "The man was gone, and she was alive. But she wished that she wasn't. He had taken so much from her, and right at that moment, I could not find the strength to believe in God's will. So I... I touched her. I suppose I gave her some warmth from my grace. And Itold her that she would find the strength to survive what had happened to her."

"Did she believe you?" Dean asked, and Castiel smiled sadly.

"She didn't hear me. Not consciously anyway. But she stopped crying. And she crawled off the bed and told herself that she was still alive, and that it was a start."

Dean sighed. "Look man," he said, and Castiel found the courage to look the human in the eye once more. "For what it's worth, if I had to choose between Sammy and some girl I didn't know, he'd win hands down. Every time."

"Then why the guilt?" Castiel asked, and Dean snorted.

"You had the choice between two shitty options, Cas. Help the chick and lose your brother, or leave her and try to get to him on time. It went south, and you're feeling bad because of it. Do you honestly think you'd feel any better if you'd gone down the other road, and not even had the chance to try to save the angel?"

Castiel closed his eyes and sighed. "Does it ever go away?"

"Not in my experience," Dean said. "But hey, she's turned out ok. She's the best damned singer in the bar, for one thing."

"She is a distraction," Castiel said. "I have a job to do. I need to be able to let her go."

"Maybe you aren't supposed to let her go," Dean said, as if he was thinking out loud. Castiel looked up at him, confused.

"Maybe you should talk to her," the human went on. "Find out for yourself how she's doing."

"Dean, we don't-"

"Interfere. Yeah, Cas, I get it. You need to get over yourself."

Frowning at the human's suggestion, Castiel stood, then placed his hand back on Dean's shoulder and sent him to his motel room, as he had originally requested. He had hoped that his conversation with the man would help him to find direction, but Castiel felt even more lost now than he ever had.



*Author's note: So Iknow, poor Castiel is suffering. And so is Dean. And Cas still hasn't met the mystery woman, not officially anyway. But I'm having so much fun twisting the knife in Cas's little angel heart (that sounds terrible. I love him really!) Maybe next chapter? Let's wait and see J