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It wasn’t meant to be a love story. It was meant to be fun, comforting, and a bit of an adventure for someone who had given up on adventure to be a mom. Lisa looked out the window into the backyard as Dean raked the fallen leaves into a pile and contemplated her future.
She hadn’t meant to fall in love with him, but it had happened anyway.
The first week Dean had arrived, she’d held him while he cried about his brother. While he cried about his friend, and while he mourned the only life he’d really known. He kept a facsimile of what “normal” might look like in front of Ben, tried to shield him from the fact he was so broken inside. At night, Dean would roll over and pull her into his arms to connect with her and get comfort in the most physical of ways. They both needed the connection and the comfort, and they both enjoyed the act together.
Then slowly he started to emotionally heal, and she started to see the boyish man that had attracted her in the first place. Dean smiled more, the crying became a rare thing, and he stopped talking about his old life. He spent more time with Ben; they talked about cars, the best way to grill a hamburger, and how to throw a football. It wasn’t anything big, just the daily attention that made her son blossom into a more animated kid, hungry to try new things. The physical connection between Lisa and Dean grew until it was more than just comfort or even passion for Lisa, it grew into love.
But he wasn’t hers, and he wasn’t Ben’s. She figured that out about 4 months into their cohabitation.
Dean still had nightmares; he would thrash about and moan as though in agony. During one such nightmare, he groaned a name: Cas. Lisa barely had time to wonder who Cas was before she was surprised by a whoosh and a presence in her room. There in the dark, on the other side of her sleeping boyfriend, stood a dark haired man in a trench coat. His head tilted, and his eyes half squinted at her and Dean in the bed as though trying to determine if she was a threat to the man struggling to sleep next to her.
He must have decided she was no danger to her boyfriend, and he reached his hand towards Dean’s sweaty brow with a low blue glow emanating from his fingertips. With his eyes closed, the glow got a little brighter, and the man’s face unexpectedly softened into something like contentment. Dean stopped struggling quickly. His breathing evened out and his face became a model of peaceful slumber.
The stranger removed his hand from Dean’s brow, opened his eyes, and looked to Lisa. “Who are you?” she whispered.
The man, although was he really a man she wondered, the man smiled softly. “You sure you don’t mean what are you?”
“That, too.” She softly asked and struggled to a sitting position while trying not to wake Dean.
“I am Castiel, angel of the Lord. I am Dean’s…friend. You must be Lisa.” Castiel inclined his head in a socially polite way, and then vanished.
The next morning, Lisa thought she’d imagined it all. Perhaps it had been a really weird dream, but something bothered her about the whole event. Maybe Lisa could have asked Dean, but she was afraid of bringing up his old life at this point. While he might have put a Devil’s trap under their front door rug, hidden salt in the doorway under the threshold strip, and kept a strange hex bag under their bed, Dean didn’t talk about his former life. Lisa was afraid to rock the boat.
They went on a date to a Mexican restaurant and laughed over nachos and tacos. Dean took Ben to a basketball game where they did their best to get on the jumbotron and managed it twice. The boys had been so proud of themselves.
The following week, they went with some of her colleagues to a bar where Dean made her feel like a queen. When karaoke time came, he sang the funniest rendition of “Fancy Like” including corny dance moves. She felt happy, and he looked better than he had before the nightmare. But it wasn’t going to last.
Three weeks later, Dean had another nightmare and it nearly pushed Lisa out of bed he tossed and turned so badly. She tried to wake him up and he cried out in pain like she’d burned him. Cas, help us! Dean’s frantic, soft cry came from the recesses of his mind, a place he wasn’t willing to share with her.
Castiel appeared again in their bedroom. Lisa was just as startled this time but less frightened. “Here, let me help.” The angel of the Lord leaned forward and gently touched Dean’s forehead again like last time. The blue glow lighting up both of the men’s faces and showing the worry etched on both as well. Castiel’s worry remained, while Dean’s faded until he looked blissfully asleep and unaware.
Lisa didn’t want him to leave again so quickly and reached her hand out to grasp his wrist. “Castiel? Are you the Cas he’s calling for?”
The angel smiled and nodded. “Yes, we’ve fought together for years. He’s…he’s an amazing person. Please, don’t tell him I came here. He wouldn’t like that I helped him.” She thought he might say more after the hesitation, but instead he pulled back and did that half polite nod again before disappearing into the night.
She didn’t tell Dean that time, or the next time, or even the following time it happened. Lisa understood that her boyfriend was a proud man and wouldn’t like her seeing him need help. That Dean would hate being seen as weak. So, she kept quiet about the angel’s visits.
But one time about four months after Dean moved in, she pretended to sleep through one of his nightmares and Castiel still came to help. The blue glow told her he was healing Dean as usual, and Lisa expected the whooshing sound that went with his normal quick disappearance. But it didn’t come. Instead, the angel stood there and stroked Dean’s hair off his forehead and touched his own to it like he needed to be close to the other man. Like he was trying to put his thoughts of healing, or love, of something into the man’s head.
“I’m so sorry, Dean. I wish I could give you more.” The soft words hung over the couple’s bed and Lisa tried to puzzle what that meant. More what? Lisa wanted to ask, but was afraid of being caught spying. So, she laid there while the angel stayed with Dean for over an hour.
Thinking back to every visit, Lisa realized that Dean was always lighter of spirit and laughed more easily after each time Cas came to help him. The shadows under his eyes disappeared for a little bit, and he looked more hopeful about the world. And when she put those facts together, Lisa began to understand that the angel was far more than a friend.
She started asking small questions at first, about those who had fought with him. He talked about Bobby, Sam, a guy named Ash, and a woman named Jo. He talked about an angel, but he never named him. When he talked about his angel, his face would light up and he would become excited in a way she hadn’t expected.
It hurt that he called Castiel “my angel”, not “our angel”, not “the angel”. Castiel, Cas, was Dean’s angel. Lisa knew that while Dean may care about her and Ben, and that he would die protecting them if he had to, he didn’t love her like he loved his angel.
Almost a year together, of sharing her son, of making breakfast together, having movie nights in the living room, passionate nights in a shared bed, talking about a possible future, and Lisa still hadn’t brought herself to asking him outright about Castiel. She hadn’t been able to ask until yesterday.
They’d been out at the mall, shopping at Macy’s for Ben’s school dance outfit. In the homestretch after trying on twelve different shirt/sport coat combinations, they wandered towards the exit. Heading out of the store with the food court as a destination, they came upon a men’s outerwear section. There, on the endcap was a selection of tan trench coats just like the angel wore. When Dean saw them, he stopped mid laugh and his expression went blank like there were too many emotions rioting through him and none had won the right to take over his face. He stood frozen staring at a tan trench coat like it was going to detonate and destroy the department store.
Ben was oblivious to Dean’s dilemma, but noticed his mom had stopped. When he turned to see Dean still as a statue, he looked at his mom in confusion. They waited a full minute before Dean shook his head and apologized for spacing out on them before continuing towards the food court like nothing had happened. For Ben’s sake, Lisa followed suit and ignored the out of character moment.
That night, Dean sat on the back porch with a beer, looking at the sky with an odd look on his face as though trying to puzzle answers from the stars. Lisa poured a glass of red wine and walked out back to join him, hoping for answers of her own.
“Want to talk about it?”
Dean tried to play it off like nothing had happened as she sat down in the Adirondack chair next to his. “About the leaves that need raking? The insane cost of a simple sport coat for a pre-teen? What 'it', Lisa?”
She nearly lost her nerve and then took a fortifying breath, “The mall. Your angel.”
He flexed his hand and crinkled the beer can he held. “What about it?” Dean took a deep gulp of the beer and set the deformed can on the table next to him. “Haven’t seen ‘my angel’ in almost a year.” He probably thought he sounded angry, but instead it came across as hurt.
Lisa laid her hand on his arm, trying to intertwine their hands, but Dean resisted. He tensed up and looked towards the back fence trying to steel himself for the conversation. “That’s not true, Dean. He’s been here, I’ve met him; I’ve met Castiel.”
Dean jerked away and his eyes turned wildly towards her. Lisa thought he looked like a terrified and confused animal trapped in a cage. “No, how! Wait, I never told you his name.”
“Your nightmares. He comes when you have nightmares, and helps you sleep. I think it’s because you call out for him in the dreams.” Lisa shrunk back into the chair cushion cradling her wine as Dean leapt to his feet.
“Damn angel, can’t leave me alone in peace, can’t give me space to live my life, can’t stay out of my head, can’t even say hi when he stops by to heal me…” Dean paced back and forth muttering to himself, verbally castrating the angel whom he normally told tender stories about to her and Ben.
“What happened, Dean?” She asked the question while hiding most of her face behind the wine glass. Only her eyes tracked his back and forth over the rim of the glass.
Dean stopped the pacing, but didn’t turn to face her. “He saved me. He raised me from Hell, he healed me over and over, he brought me back to life. He kept me and Sammy safe until it literally killed him. Castiel fought all of heaven and hell to help me. But then he disappeared. How can you do all that for someone? How can you call them your best friend, and then abandon them?”
She heard the hurt in his voice as it cracked on the word friend in the last question. Lisa watched Dean stare intently at the fence as though it held the meaning of life, and his hand wandered up to gently rub over his heart as though it hurt, too. Watching the man she loved struggle with pain in his head and in his heart, Lisa wished she had Castiel’s healing powers right then. She could help Dean, and she could help her own heart that was breaking inside.
The next day, standing at the window, watching him gather the leaves, Lisa knew what she had to do. She set down the casserole dish she’d just finished cleaning, leaned forward and prayed for the first time in years. Castiel, angel of the Lord, please help me. Please, help me make Dean happy.
A whooshing sound appeared behind her, and she knew it was him. Turning around, she saw the angel in the daylight for the first time. She takes in the familiar trench coat and dark hair she knows recognizes, and for the first time she sees his startling blue eyes which match the striped blue tie. For once, he was there for her and not for Dean. Although, she had a feeling pretty much everything the angel did was for Dean, whether he realized it or not. “Hello, Lisa. I’m surprised to hear from you.”
“Hi, Castiel. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
The angel cocked his head and held an inquisitive stance. “You asked, and I came. Should I have refrained from doing so?”
“No, I appreciate you coming. You need to know, Dean found out you’ve been visiting him. He’s not thrilled, but I think even more than that, he’s hurt.”
Castiel leaned back as though she’d wounded him.
“Cas, he needs you. He needs you more than he needs me. He thinks he needs me, that he might even love me, but I know the truth.” Lisa can’t hold a tear from leaking out of the corner of her eye.
“What’s the truth, Lisa?” The blue eyes track her tear as it slowly follows the curve of her face and drips silently from her chin to the floor below. Those same eyes return to hers, and they are full of compassion and anxiety.
“Whether I want to admit it or not, you make him whole. You and Sam make him whole.” More tears appear, just as silently as the first and Lisa sniffs them away and wipes her face on her sleeve. “Ben and I make him happy, and I think he truly does love us. But he won’t feel whole without you, without his old life.”
The anxiety increases in Castiel’s gaze and the compassion recedes. “Lisa, I think you’re mistaken. Dean does love you and Ben, I can feel it every time I’ve been near the house. He does not need me, or the life.”
Lisa shook her head with heavy sadness and laughing a self-mocking laugh. “Castiel, he can’t even look at a trench coat without freezing. He may love me, but he’ll never need me like he needs you. So, I’m saying…please don’t abandon him. Please, make him happy. Okay?”
Castiel looks like he’s going to argue, but he stops himself from saying a word. He looks over Lisa’s shoulder, through the window, towards the pensive man raking leaves in the back yard. To Lisa, it looks like his eyes brighten to an even more intense shade of blue as he considers Dean and what she had said.
After a long minute he finally turns his stare back to her and breaks the silence. “You make him happy, Lisa. Isn’t that better than making him whole?”
“I think you do make him happy, Cas. I really do. Every time he talks about ‘my angel’, his whole face smiles and he exudes joy. I’m not sure he realizes how much he misses you.”
Castiel smiles at Lisa fully for the first time. “I miss him, too. I’ll fix this. Somehow.”