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It hadn’t mattered, after, that they’d tortured him. It hadn’t mattered what they’d said or how they’d watched him or the things they’d done to his Grace; because in the end he had still had his free will, that angry white-hot spring coiled in his heart, and it had been his choice to give her up.
He regrets it more than all the rest of his decisions put together, he thinks, what he did to Anna (and also what he did to Balthazar). Thinking of either makes him want to leave his vessel and run, run forever, fly and fly and fly—until his wings tear and break, until his essence moves so shrilly against the fabric of the universe that he tears apart and is nothing but atoms, once again.
At night, lying beside Dean—and he lies next to him with every night, even though angels do not sleep—Castiel stares out the window and whispers I’m sorry, like that matters; whispers, so quietly he can hardly hear his vessel's voice, I miss you.
He wonders if one day he may go mad again, like he did before. He almost hopes for it, if only because it means he will see all of them again again—see what he has grown to think of as Anna’s ghost, a haunting amalgamation of his memories.
When he’d been mad, staying at the mental hospital under Meg’s ironic supervision, he’d seen her every day. They’d talked, talked about everything, about what he’d done and what he’d seen and how much he and his fumbling attempts at free will had broken; talked about the bees and the war and the flowers and the serpents, about him and about her, about conscience, about penance, about loss.
Amidst the other apparitions she had been almost kind, but for that she seemed so cold, so muted, so far from the vibrant Annael that he had known.
(The one that had laughed like crystal bells; the one that had taught him to misbehave; the one that had brought gifts back from Earth to their astral plane, and stories, and sensations. The one who had led him into battle, too, into every cleansing of their father’s failed experiments—the one who had pulled him up every time he stumbled, righted him, had pushed his blazing sword back into his fingers when his grip had faltered.)
He had known her to be a product of his crippled mind, but it had never mattered: amidst the serpents and the demons and the others, she had been respite.
I’m sorry; I miss you, he says every night, sometimes followed by other, added thoughts, and wonders why he says words he knows she will not hear. It isn’t rational. A human brand of insanity, he thinks, but does it, anyway.
He does not think Dean hears him utter his nightly prayers. Perhaps he doesn’t, for a while; but one night Dean rolls over from where he’s turned towards the other wall, and peers at him, awake, whites of his eyes bright in the moon-accented darkness. “You’ve said those words every night this week,” he says, a statement, not a question. He pushes himself up on an elbow, props his head up with a hand. “Want to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” Castiel says, and he is not lying. They are safe (for now); they live and eat and sleep and love together, hidden well away from the rest of the world, resting their feet (and his wings) before they take up the hunt again.
Castiel is also not stupid, and he knows very well that this is not what Dean means. He says it, anyway, because sometimes Castiel is truculent, too.
(It’s an acquired trait, but sometimes he thinks he must have been that way from the beginning.)
Dean narrows his eyes in irritation, makes a face. “Man, soliloquies before bed ain’t in the emotionally healthy category. I would know. Maybe it’s not my business, but . . .” He trails off, and Castiel hears the rest of the thought that hangs in the air, forever unspoken; but it is, because I love you.
“I regret,” Castiel answers, simply, because it is simple. When all other things are incomprehensible, the ache in his Grace is simple, easier to understand than any other emotion he has discovered, still discovers. “I think sometimes it requires words.”
Dean watches him, carefully. “Yeah,” he says, slowly. “Yeah, maybe sometimes it does. There someone in particular you’re talkin’ to?”
“Yes.” (He says the list of the brothers and sisters that he killed to himself every night, but it is silently; only to Anna does he dare to speak aloud. He’s not sure what that means, or that it makes a difference.) “Yes, someone in particular.”
“You’re not gonna tell me.” Dean raises a wry eyebrow at him. “All right, fine. But, look, I don’t know . . .” He shakes his head, face drawn. “Just, Cas, tell me if there’s anything I can do. When there’s something really wrong. All right?”
“Yes, Dean,” Castiel says, and looks away. He feels Dean’s fingers card through his hair, just for a moment, before withdrawing; and then Dean rolls back to his side of the bed, emitting a low sigh.
There are crickets singing outside the open window, and Castiel can smell the captured dry heat rising off the wheatfields as the breeze blows inside, makes the pane clack against the wall.
Anna fell for things like this, he thinks; fell for the night breeze and the sensation of another soul glowing close beside her, fell for the ability to miss another more profoundly than they’d ever learned in Heaven.
I’m sorry, he says, under his breath, as he always does. I miss you.