“Others have joined me, Cas. Now, please, brother. Don’t fight me. Help me. Help me spread the word. Help me bring on the apocalypse. All you have to do is be unafraid.”

“For the first time in a long time, I am.”

And he was. Even with Uriel’s revelations and knowing exactly how deep his brother’s betrayal ran, Castiel had no question or doubt as to what he needed to do, and that made him unafraid.

This was the power of certainty.

Of course, Castiel knew that he had, at best, barely even odds of beating Uriel. Castiel was a soldier, yes. But destruction? Destruction was what Uriel had been built for.

At least he had the element of surprise. Briefly. Little good that it did him.

On his knees on the concrete floor, Castiel looked up through a haze of blood at his brother. And he was sure, in that moment, that he was going to die.

“You can’t win, Uriel. I still serve God.”

“You haven’t even met the man!” Uriel’s voice bled with rage and frustration, as he rained blow after blow down on Castiel’s head. “There is no will. No wrath. No God.”

Then, suddenly, it stopped. Castiel stared in shock at the blade that had erupted from Uriel’s throat.

And at who was wielding it.

“Maybe,” Anna said, “Or maybe not. But there’s still me.”

Uriel’s existence ended in a blaze, which, Castiel would reflect later, was somehow only fitting. Castiel staggered to his feet, looking down at his newly fallen brother.

And then at the sister who had just saved him.

Castiel had gone on record as being against this plan. In retrospect, he feels that was probably a miscalculation on his part.

Zachariah had merely blinked at him for a moment or two before remarking quietly, “I do sometimes wonder, Castiel, where exactly it is your loyalties lie.”

And just like that, Uriel was put in the lead for this particular mission.

His brother had attempted to be sympathetic. In Uriel’s own unique way.

“You grow too attached to them, Castiel. The humans. Do not forget their place. Or yours.”

And Uriel and Zachariah didn’t even know about Meg. Or Milliways. Or Anna. Or…

Dean.

Castiel stands back a bit, letting Dean look in on Alastair through the dirty square of window in the door. While Uriel might be calling the orders on this mission, he’s more than willing to let Castiel handle this part. Attempting to make Dean understand. To make him see why what they were asking of him was necessary and important. Angels were being slaughtered, and Heaven couldn’t take those losses. Not with what was at stake.

Castiel waits for another heartbeat, and then steps up behind Dean.

“This devil’s trap is old Enochian. He’s bound completely.”

You’ll be safe.

Test Post

In the immediate aftermath of the summoning of Samhain, Castiel had had only a short audience with Zachariah. With yet another Seal destroyed and more lined up to fall, there hadn’t been much time for an in-depth debriefing.

So when Castiel receives a summons from his superior, he assumes that Zachariah is now ready to discuss the events of October 31st in greater depth.

He finds his commanding officer on the steps of the Roman Coliseum, scratching the ears of a large, grey tabby cat – one of the scores of feral felines that have made the ancient structure their home. It’s always been a subject of mild amusement among angels – that God created these small creatures to not be overawed by much of anything.

“You wished to see me?”

“Castiel. Well, aren’t you Johnny-on-the-spot,” Zachariah says, brightly. He tickles the purring cat underneath the chin before turning his full attention to his subordinate. The cat blinks bored yellow eyes at Castiel before beginning to fastidiously wash its paws. “I like that. We have a lot to discuss.”

Castiel nods. “Of course. I know the events around the summoning of Samhain were chaotic.”

“Chaotic? Yes.” Zachariah sounds, if anything, disinterested. He idly paces to the the edge of the step, looking down over a cluster of tourists in the open arena below. “Pity the Winchester boys screwed the pooch on the Seal. But Dean’s call to save the town was more or less what we predicted.”

“His test.” Castiel hesitates a moment before venturing onward. “Did he pass?”

Because while Dean made the choice that Castiel had prayed he would make, he is still uncertain if that choice was indeed the right one.

“That remains to be seen,” Zachariah replies. He turns back around and regards Castiel with a pleasant smile that somehow manages to be not pleasant at all. “So. Let’s talk about your sister, Anna.”

What crashes through Castiel for a split second is so strong that the cat pauses its bath and aims a thin growl of disapproval at him.

“Anna ceased to be my sister the day she Fell,” Castiel says, evenly, looking at a point somewhere beyond Zachariah’s shoulder. “Maybe even before that.”

“Yes.” Zachariah’s smile hasn’t budged. “And yet the two of you were very close from what I hear.”

There’s little point in denying it. “Yes. We were.”

Zachariah steps closer, his smile shifting to something slightly less grim. “And have you seen her since?”

Castiel’s gaze drops to the ground as dozens of images flash through is mind. Anna in a nursery. Lost in a shopping mall. Sitting in church. Taking a test in school. On a date to the movies with a fidgety, awkward high school boy. Graduating from college.

Following him around in Milliways.

Sitting in a clean, white hospital room, eyes closed, listening.

A hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and Castiel looks up to see something he did not expect.

Sympathy.

“Of course you did,” Zachariah says. “To have your sister torn away like that, even if it was by her own hand? You’d have to go see whatever was left. Visit her grave, in a manner of speaking. I wouldn’t fault you for that.” He looks closely at Castiel. “Yes, Anna may be a traitor to Heaven, but it was you who she betrayed the worst, I think.” Zachariah drops his hand and begins to pace along the step again. “Left you to take the responsibility. To have your loyalty called into question. Oh, yes. You know, there were still a few die-hards who said I was crazy for taking you onto my team?”

Zachariah shakes his head as if to say, Can you believe it? He pauses on the edge of the step, watching the sun begin to sink into a bank of clouds.

“And now she’s set to betray us again.”

Castiel closes his eyes. He doesn’t ask.

He knows that Zachariah knows.

“It seems that our return to Earth woke something up in young Miss Milton. She’s been listening to us. And raising quite a commotion about it, let me tell you.” Zachariah turns back to look at Castiel. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the problem this creates. If the demons learn about this—and they will learn about it—they’ll know every move we intend to make.”

Castiel makes himself look up as Zachariah comes back to stand in front of him.

“I’ve made the report to the big bosses, and they’re in agreement with me. It was one thing that she went over the wall to go hide out and play human. But now? Now she’s putting all of us in danger. And our cause. And the world. We have no other choice. Anna Milton is to die. As expediently as possible.”

It takes Castiel a few seconds to put the pieces together. Why Zachariah had called him into a private meeting to tell him this.

“You want me to do it.”

Zachariah smiles, and a chill comes back into the air.

“It’s a privilege, Castiel. And your right. Like I said, she betrayed you the worst. This is your chance to put things right. Others might not trust you with this in light of your history with her. I do.” Zachariah takes that one extra step into Castiel’s space. “I certainly have no call to question your loyalty. Do I, Castiel?”

Castiel holds fast and shakes his head. “No. No, you do not.”

He doesn’t want to do it. God knows that, even if he’ll never say so to Zachariah. It’s like Meg had said – Anna has done plenty to hurt him, to make him angry. But underneath it all, he’s never stopped loving his sister.

But Zachariah is right. If the angels know about Anna, then it’s only a matter of time until the demons do, if they don’t already. And if they take her, they will use her to win this war.

That cannot happen.

“I will carry out the order.”

“Good.” Once again, Zachariah claps him on the shoulder. “Very good. And don’t worry. You’ll have assistance.”

As if on cue, there’s the sound of fluttering wings a few steps above them, and then the crunch of shoe leather on stone. The grey cat—who had worked its way down to the base of its tail—looks up, sneezes, apparently decides that this section of the steps is getting a little too crowded, and stalks off.

Uriel steps down to join them.

“Castiel,” he says. “Zachariah.”

Zachariah beams. “You and Uriel worked so well together recently that we’ve decided to extend your partnership. He’ll be assisting you in this little endeavor.”

Uriel’s lip curls a bit at the ‘assisting.’

Castiel works hard to keep any evidence of dismay off of his face. It had made sense to involve Uriel with the summoning of Samhain. As Castiel had told Dean, Uriel is a specialist, and had it come down to sacrificing the town he was the logical choice to do the job. But for this?

“I’m sure Uriel’s expertise could be put to better use, elsewhere. I can do this alone,” he says to Zachariah.

It’s treading close to questioning an order, but Zachariah just sighs and settles down on the stone block that the cat just vacated.

“Under ordinary circumstances, maybe. But there’s one small hitch you should know about.”

And he explains.

Just one small hitch.

To carry out his orders, Castiel is going to have to wrestle Anna out of the hands of the Winchesters.

“And that’s when you called for a retreat?”

Castiel would like nothing better than to be someplace quiet right now. The center of a forest. A deserted seaside cliff. The bottom row of bleachers at the Milliways baseball diamond. Even just to be with his brothers and sisters from the battle on the mountain.

The ones who are still alive.

Instead, when they’d gotten back to the Garrison, he had reported immediately to his next highest superior after Ecanus. Who had passed him to his superior. Who had passed him to her superior.

Who had passed him to Zachariah.

“Yes,” Castiel replies, looking slightly off to Zachariah’s left. He’s not sure whether to expect a dressing down for his actions or not. Angels generally don’t withdraw from battle, and certainly not on the say so of a random soldier.

But Castiel isn’t sure what other option he had. They were six soldiers down, their commander dead, and the Garrison needed to be informed of Lilith’s appearance as quickly as possible.

Zachariah seems more interested in the broken sword than in addressing Castiel’s little display of initiative. Blade in one hand, hilt in the other, he looks over the blackened metal with an expression that is half disgust, half fascination.

“Yes,” he says, holding the blade up and carefully turning it in his hand. “Yes, more than one of these went missing back in the day. Spoils of war, and all. ‘And it is written that the righteous blade shall know the fires of Hell, and be reforged. And She shall wield it under the moonless sky, and She shall strike the armies of Heaven. Twice three times She shall strike, and then break Her blade. And as it breaks, so shall the seal.’ We didn’t think Lilith would be foolish enough to try for that one so soon.”

How foolish was it when she succeeded? Castiel finds that he almost has to bite back the insubordinate comment. This night has left him more worse for wear than he cares to admit.

Zachariah finally tears his attention away from the sword.

“I guess we’re just lucky that she hit her quota before she opened you up like some sort of sacrificial farm animal.” Castiel is quietly baffled. Zachariah sounds…..cheerful. “But then, everyone knows about you. You’ve been to Hell and back. Literally. Clearly, you know something about surviving.”

He is clearly waiting for some kind of response, and after a moment of mental fumbling, Castiel falls back on the safest possible option. The facts of the battle.

“The Seal within the mountain is safe. As we did interrupt their ritual, they cannot attempt to break it again. Had we realized in time what Lilith was doing, I’m sure Ecanus would have ordered--”

But Zachariah is waving off his attempt to explain.

“No time for thoughts like that,” he says. “Lilith broke her Seal. Two of them, actually; this one and the Rising of the Witnesses. That mess has finally died down, thank goodness. They’re broken, we can’t undo that, we move on. We’re still standing, and the Winchesters have pulled through without losing any more skin than they normally do.”

For the first time, Castiel looks directly at Zachariah.

“The Winchesters?”

“Oh, yes,” Zachariah replies. “While she was breaking seals, Lilith decided to eliminate some human….well, competition is probably too strong a word. Left a bloody smear of hunters across half of the Midwest. Oh, don’t look so stricken,” he adds in response to whatever it is he sees in Castiel’s face. “I know that you’ve been made responsible for Dean Winchester, after a fashion, but you were needed elsewhere. And frankly, given what he’s destined for, if he couldn’t handle a few rabid spirits on his own, we’d have far bigger problems. You can check in on him when we’re done here.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Castiel can only imagine the sort of welcome he’s likely to get from Dean Winchester.

“And then you will report directly back to me.”

There is a part of Castiel that is beginning to wonder if Zachariah enjoys keeping his subordinates off balance.

“Of course.” What else can he do but agree? “I would like though, if I may…my unit….”

“Your unit no longer exists.” Zachariah’s tone has definitely dropped in warmth. “You and its other survivors are being disbanded and reassigned. “ The senior angel shakes his head. “It should have been done before this, I say, after Anna deserted. But others thought it better to keep you as intact as possible. Now that Ecanus has proved to be fatally incompetent, we have a unanimous vote. And I’ve requested you.”

“Requested?”

The smile is back, though Castiel thinks that it is somehow less reassuring than the cool efficiency.

“Why so surprised? You were hand-picked to walk into Hell. To babysit humanity’s golden-boy. Even, from what I hear, to go sit in on tutorials on some out of the way plane of existence.”

Zachariah is giving Castiel a calculating look, as if to see how he will respond. For his part, Castiel has no idea how to. None of the other angels have ever brought up Milliways with him before, nor he with them. He had never been certain if they were oblivious to his comings and goings, or if they were under orders not to discuss it with him.

The silence stretches out until it is within millimeters of ‘uncomfortable.’

“So,” Zachariah says, briskly, “I want you on my team. I expect great things of you, Castiel. I trust you won’t let me down.”

“Of course.” Castiel feels a surge of relief, sensing that this interview is winding down. “I do my best to serve. Always.”

“Now that’s what I like to hear.” This time the smile is practically lionish. “Go tend to your duties, Castiel. We’ll talk more later.”

Castiel does not need a second dismissal. Without quite knowing where he is going, he finds himself standing on a cold, flat prairie, dry brittle grass as high as his elbows, under a night sky crusted over with stars. For the first time in many hours he feels as if he can breathe again.

He steadfastly ignores the niggling feeling that he has just had a second brush with danger tonight, and this time he failed to escape.

It is time.

It comes as no surprise to Castiel that Dean has quickly grown impatient, wanting answers. Wanting to understand why he had been brought back from Hell. Answers that Castiel had not been able to give to him in a small patch of decimated forest in Illinois.

Logistics had had to be seen to. A vessel claimed. And, well, Heaven operates on its own timetable.

Dean will learn that soon enough.

Castiel contemplates the barn, standing at the far edge of the empty field. He can feel the faint itch of protective magic, a wise if unnecessary precaution. No demon will trouble this place tonight. It does, however, give him pause from simply appearing within the building. How many times has he been told? It unnerves people to be snuck up upon? A valuable lesson to remember in a time like this, when there is trust to be gained.

So Castiel lets his wings carry him across the field slower than he otherwise might, to the bare patch of dry earth before the doors. He pushes them open and walks inside.

For eight days, Castiel stays in his room.

Next door, Michael keeps vigil over Dean Winchester.

It it not that Castiel does not trust Michael. He trusts her implicitly. And it is not that he fears she will require his help. If anything Michael is far more equal to this task than he is.

But Dean Winchester is still his mission. And to leave would feel tantamount to abandoning his post.

So, he waits. Sometimes sitting. Sometimes watching out the windows. Sometimes reacquinting himself with the odd little collection of items he amassed here some time ago.

Always listening. For the most part, it is quiet next door. Occasionally he can hear a faint voice.

The crashes are much louder.

And then finally, on the eighth day, he receives a visitor.

The room is small and fairly plain. But it is comfortable, as humans judge such things. Castiel had asked Bar for “quiet” and this room somehow manages to exude it.

The view from the window is not terribly different from the view from his own. Which, Castiel reflects, it wouldn’t be. His own room is right next door. He has been standing at the window, appreciating the sight, for some time. It is good to see something other than Hell.

And he is still waiting for his charge to wake up.

Dean is laid out on the bed, dirt and smoke against clean muslin. He hasn’t stirred yet, but they have time here. And when he wakes, Castiel will explain what has passed, and then they can move forward in their respective missions.

They both have work to do.