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He wakes to the sound of the wind, the smell of jasmine creeping along topiaries and honeysuckle dripping off the vine. A caress when he needs it most, but still jarring all the same. Earth may smell rich on a typical day, but this is cloying to every sense, overwhelming in a way he can’t fully comprehend. Through closed eyelids, the sun shines bright, yet cold against his skin, fingers chilled to the bone. Something aches between his ribs, a phantom pain from an injury he felt only seconds earlier, now removed.
This isn’t heaven, Castiel realizes, sucking in a lungful of air—this is the intermediary, proverbial Limbo.
Every sense is dulled here, touches not quite connecting, but at the same time, he feels everything. Grass slides wet between his fingers, water trickling off the tips onto his cheek as he blocks out the sun. It could be dew, or tears; whatever it is, it glides dryly into his hairline, vanishing as quickly as it appeared. In his time of dying, Castiel would’ve preferred many other places: a barren stretch of road at nightfall, watching the Lyrids on a rooftop, grain fields passing from the passenger seat. Here, though, stone bricks line weather-beaten paths, willows and pines dot the edges of squared off hedges, and faintly, a fountain rains water into basins in the distance.
A garden—Limbo is a garden, awash with flowered breezes and the rustle of leaves, and hollow footsteps echoing, souls not yet passed but doomed to walk circles until they find their purpose. Until someone calls to them, until someone gives their memory meaning in the aftermath.
Until someone calls Castiel’s name.
As of now, all Castiel hears is silence and the wind, the emptiness leaving him bereft. It was different before, when he wasn’t so ingrained in the lives of those he met. Then, he could pass off the emotions as residual side effects of burgeoning humanity, and not genuine affection, the knowledge of what his departure would bring upon those he left behind. It doesn’t fully hit him until he sits up, hands beginning to tremble in his lap. Tears flow freely down his cheeks and off his chin, unfelt, even when he wipes them away.
“You loved them,” a voice resounds, hollow and reverberating across the courtyard. A spirit passes Castiel’s foot on the path, its wake ruffling the leg of his slacks, shifting his coat out of the way. All Castiel can do is nod and cover his eyes, willing it all to be a dream. A misplaced nightmare, and he’ll wake up later in bed drenched in sweat with vague recollections of a place where he wasn’t meant to be. For a creature so old, he never realized the futility of life, the fleetingness of death and the pain that it brings, to himself, to the world in his absence.
A shame, Castiel couldn’t realize it until now.
“I loved them,” Castiel murmurs. His hands come away wet as he dries his eyes, time after time, all failing attempts to steady his resolve. As lifeless as the scenery looks, he can’t help but feel flayed, his heart worn close to the skin, close enough to touch, to truly feel what he’d been longing for so long. Love. Love, now tainted in hopelessness and despair, longing and misery all rolled into the plaque that clogs his heart, the new weight where wings once rested insurmountable. Hell would be safer, for the pain there would be much less than what he feels now.
“I love them,” he says again, looking up to the abysmal blue sky, at the impossible sun shining down on him and his anguish. “I can’t stop.”
“You can go back,” the voice calls, soothing, just enough of a balm to take the edge off. “You’re not done here.”
“Do they want me there?” Castiel asks, blinking long enough to clear his vision. “Does anyone? After what I’ve done, can I be forgiven that easily?”
“You’re underestimating humanity’s greatest strength.”
Castiel lowers his head, unfocused eyes watching the stains on his pants grow larger. He can’t bring himself to stop: crying, feeling, anything. “I can do better than this,” he admits. He slides his shoes along the grass and bends his knees, marveling at the elasticity of each blade, the resilience behind every strand. “I can be better. I can prove my worth, I can…”
“You have nothing to prove,” it speaks. “You have to be yourself. Follow what you feel, not what you’re told.”
“But what if I can’t?” Castiel asks. The wind answers him first, the breeze rustling through tear-soaked hair. “What if I’ve given all I can?”
“There’s always more. More to give, more to experience. I told you before, you’re not finished here. You never were.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
Quiet meets Castiel for a long, arduous minute. Quiet, and the sounds of nature and his own heart beating wildly in his chest, pounding behind his eardrums. A man once promised him free will if he made his own choices, to abandon millions of years of teachings and instructions, all to save a world he had only watched from afar. Where did that get him, though? Death for an Angel is finite. While humans ascend or plummet, Angels cease. Why should Castiel be any different?
Why should the universe care about him, the Angel who died on a Thursday?
“Go back to the ones you love,” the voice calls out to him. “Make amends. Hold them close and listen, give yourself to them as they do to you.” A pause, accompanied by the wind. “You’re free now, Castiel.”
Free. What does freedom mean in the grand scheme, if he’ll only die again? Death itself is painless, but the residual effects gut him at his core. The longing inside of him doesn’t belong solely to himself anymore, but to the ones he abandoned, to the boy kneeling at his side, the man taking him into his arms and weeping, calling out to God to restore him. Soon, a second will join him, and they’ll be forced to reconcile differences, discuss how to proceed.
And by all means, Castiel intends to be there at their side, to never let them make such a decision again. Not as long as he’s alive.
“You love them,” it says for a final time. “Tell them and rejoice, Castiel.”
Castiel swallows, pushing himself to his feet, just in time for the garden to crumble and collapse around him, the black chasm brightening to reveal the sky and the wind flowing between feathers, his coat rippling in the wind. If freedom means living, then he’ll hold it tight and keep it in his heart, for as long as he can.