Chapter Text
He can’t think about it. Can’t think about it. Won’t think about it.
After the last light has faded from the night sky, Castiel forces his mind to clear. He may be human now (fragile, incomplete, wrong), but he’s been a soldier for thousands of years. He knows strategy, knows how to compartmentalize.
So he shoves the thoughts of his now-fallen brethren (dead, dying, wrong) as far into the back of his mind as he can, focusing instead on the most immediate problem.
He is alone, in a forested area, unidentifiable by any sort of familiar landmarks. He instinctively tries to stretch his wings (fractured, faded, gone, wrong), and the ache in his chest is sharper than he’s used to. This he needs to pack away as well.
Remaining rational is the only way he will get through this. Distantly, he marvels at the already-manifesting will to survive that is one of the core qualities of humanity.
Making up his mind, Castiel treks through the forest, choosing one direction at random and striking out in a straight line—if he changes directions, he is likely to get lost (rejected, thrown away, wrong) and end up walking around in circles.
His reasoning pays off. No more than twenty minutes later, he reaches a two-lane blacktop, and where there are roads, there are cars. Where there are cars, Castiel can flag down a driver, find someone to help him on his way to the Winchesters. Because there is no one else for him to turn to.
There is no one else he wants to turn to.
Failure or no failure, Dean has maintained that Castiel is family, and that means he can earn forgiveness.
With the thought of Dean, some of Castiel’s will crumbles, and he forces himself to wall that up. He needs to stay lucid, cannot have a mental breakdown in the middle of nowhere. He cannot think of his brothers’ plights (stranded, abandoned, wrong), cannot—
He hears the rumbling sound of an engine in the distance and instantly turns toward it, grateful for the distraction. Sure enough, moments later, a car appears, still a few turns away but visible through the thinned-out forest near the road.
Castiel stands at the edge of the road and holds a hand out, hoping that the driver will stop. The odds of the driver being a demon are small, but Castiel mentally recites the incantation for an exorcism, just in case the fall ruined some of his memory recall. Every word is perfectly clear.
The car slows to a stop in front of Castiel, and the driver, a middle-aged woman, leans over to frown at him. The passenger-side window slides down halfway, and she asks, “What are you doing out here, sir?”
“I’m lost, and I need some assistance to reach a friend of mine,” Castiel says.
“How did you end up out here, though? Did your car break down or something?”
“I may have been stranded. I’ve… I’ve been hitchhiking to my friend’s home in Lebanon, Kansas, and the last driver left me here.”
The woman deliberates for a moment before unlocking the door. “Hop on in, then,” she says.
Too easy, something tells him. This is too easy. “Why are you helping me?” Castiel asks.
The woman shrugs. “Guess I’m feeling like a good samaritan. C’mon, get in. The next town’s not for forty, fifty miles.”
Castiel opens the door and slides into the car, because what other choice does he have? He could walk along the road and wait for the next car to come by, but the likelihood of flagging down two cars does not seem good.
“So, what’s your name, stranger?” the woman asks.
Sudden, inexplicable panic floods Castiel’s chest, and he inexplicably says the first name that comes to mind—“Dean.”
“Hmm,” the woman grunts. “You don’t look much like a Dean. Well, my name’s Alana. And it just so happens that I’m driving to Lawrence, so Lebanon’s on the way.”
Castiel raises his eyebrows. This is definitely too easy. “If you are offering to take me all the way there, I would be very grateful.”
Alana flashes a half-smile in his direction. “Sure. It’s on my way, anyway.” After a moment of silence, she says, “So, why don’t you tell me your story?”
“Story?”
“Yeah. You’re hitchhiking from Montana to Kansas—gotta be a reason why,” Alana says. “Your friend couldn’t help you out, buy you a bus ticket at least?”
“He… no, he did not have the means,” Castiel says, and he remembers Dean’s demand to return to Sam. He shivers at the possibility that Sam has gone already. Dean must have stopped him in time—he must have.
“Okay…? And?”
“It is… a long story. I have a hard time choosing where to start,” Castiel says, stalling for time as he collects his thoughts. This woman could be a demon, though that remains unlikely. It is even less likely that she is another type of supernatural creature, but Castiel feels strangely wary of her.
(Wrong)
“It’s fine, take your time,” Alana says in the meantime. “We’ve got at least a day or two on the road, so you have plenty of it.”
“I used to work with the friend whose home I’m trying to reach. His name is Sam,” Castiel says, remembering that he is, because of his stupidity, “Dean” to this woman. “We were in the business of fixing things. Contractors,” he says. “But we had a… a falling-out, if you will, and I left.”
Here Castiel pauses, but Alana says nothing, giving him his promised time.
“I drifted around for some time and ended up working at a towing company owned by a man named Mal Creese. He called it Creese Tow,” Castiel says, rushing his words together a little at the end and monitoring Alana’s reaction.
But she doesn’t flinch at all. Instead, she looks over at Castiel, and he resists the urge to tell her to keep her eyes on the road, because he’s mortal now and can definitely die in a car accident.
“Why would you work at a towing company of all places?” she asks, and he can be certain, then, that she’s not a demon. What is it that’s wrong with her, then?
“It was a job,” Castiel says, shrugging. “As I said, I drifted.”
“No family?”
“No,” Castiel replies. “I was alone.”
“Shame,” Alana says quietly. “Family is everything. I have a little sister, y’know? I’m actually going to Lawrence to meet up with her.”
Something clicks into place (Dean), some niggling thought that Castiel couldn’t really pin down earlier.
“I uh,” Alana says, smiling a little (loving, caring, Dean, wrong), “I haven’t seen her in two years. She ran away from home, kept her distance because she was worried that I’d tell the folks, but hell, all I ever wanted was for her to be happy. After I got over how pissed I was at her running away in the first place, that is.”
Oh, no.
(I want you to live this new life to the fullest)
Then Alana’s laughing, a little bit uncomfortably. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to drop all that in your lap. I guess I’m just… I’m excited to be seeing her.”
(Find a wife. Make babies.)
All of Heaven knows of Castiel’s regard for Dean. Alana has sandy hair, strong features, and large eyes that Castiel is willing to bet are green, flecked with gold.
“It’s all right. I think I can understand,” Castiel says, perhaps a beat late, but he does understand. He knows all-too-clearly why Alana is opening up to him, why she’s showing kindness to him. Metatron is pulling strings, orchestrating this.
(And when you die and your soul comes to Heaven, find me.)
“Yeah? You excited to get back to your old business partner?”
“Very,” Castiel replies. True, he is eager to get back to Sam and Dean, but he is equally eager to return to Heaven and give Metatron a piece of his mind.
(Tell me your story.)
If Castiel has his way, he’ll be telling a story, all right, but it won’t be the one Metatron wants to hear.