It's been at least a month since Dean found out about the pregnancy with Cas. And boy was he mad at Cas. He's gotten over it with me, probably because I didn't have a soul at the time and didn't really care but he's still kinda mad at Cas for it.
Dean and I are driving in the impala when suddenly Cas appears.
"Hello, Dean, Ash. Are you alright?" He asks.
"Yeah. I'm...I'm fine. How are you?" Dean says in a monotone voice.
"Just wanted to check in."
"So, any word on, uh, Satan Jr being alive?" I ask.
"I'm...looking, believe me. I just don't understand how Crowley could've tricked me."
"Well, he's a tricky son of a bitch, that's how. Doesn't matter. But if he is up and kicking, then what does matter is finding him, ripping his head off, and shoving it up his ass." Dean says. Completely filled with rage.
"What about you? Have you found anything?" Cas asks.
"No, nothing yet." I say.
"Where's Sam?"
"He's keeping busy. He's tracking a Djinn in Omaha as we speak. In fact, we're heading out there right now to meet up with him."
"Well, I'd come if I could."
"Yeah, no, we get it. No worries. But, Cas, you'll call right? If you get into real trouble?" I ask.
"Of course." Cas says then disappears.
"Dean, you should really give him a break." I say.
"Why the hell would I do that?"
"You forgave me for it."
"You didn't have a soul and don't remember it. I told him not to do it because you're my girl, and he still did it anyways, multiple times."
"Dean, he said he was sorry, multiple times. What else do you expect him to do? Yeah, there's a small bump there already but I can still fight and I'll still be able to for another few months."
"Fine." Dean says. And it's silent the rest of the ride there. By the time we get to Sam he's ready for us with a demon to take back to Bobby's. I feel bad about lying to Cas about what we're actually doing but it has to be done.
This demon, named Redd, we get him strapped into a chair with iron cuffs and under a devil's trap.
"I gotta tell you, Redd... for a filthy, lower-than-snake-spit Hellspawn, you seem to have turned yourself into a damn fine hunter. I don't know whether to kill you or kiss you." Bobby says.
"Oh, please, kill me." I leave the room and walk into the kitchen where Sam and Dean are. Dean just started filling in Sam to Castiel's little visit.
"So, what'd you tell him?" Sam asks.
"Nothing. Just relax."
"What's the hubbub?" Bobby asks as he enters the kitchen.
"We saw Cas. He popped in on us about two hours back." I say.
"What'd you tell him?"
"Nothing, alright? Told him we were on some crap monster hunt. He doesn't know that we're getting close to Crowley. You know, he's our friend...And we are lying to him through our teeth." Dean says.
"Dean-" Sam starts.
"So he burned the wrong bones. So Crowley tricked him."
"He's an angel." Bobby says.
"He is the Balki Bartokomous of Heaven! He can make a mistake!" I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe it's just because I'm carrying his offspring.
"Nobody's saying nothing yet."
"You think that Cas is in with Crowley. Crowley?" Dean says.
"Look, I'm just saying I don't know. Now, look, I hate myself for even thinking it. But I don't know." Bobby says.
"Look guys, he's our friend too, okay? And I'd die for him. I would, but... Look, I'm praying we're wrong here." Sam says to me and Dean.
"But if we ain't... if there's a snowball of a snowball's chance here... that means we're dealing with a Superman who's gone dark side. Which means we've got to be cautious, we got to be smart, and maybe stock up on some Kryptonite." Bobby says.
"This makes you Lois Lane." Dean says to me.
"Look, one problem at a time here. We got to find Crowley now, before the damn fool crack open Purgatory." Bobby walks back into the room where the demon is keeps going with the torture.
Apparently this Redd, demon doesn't refer to Crowley directly, he goes to another demon named Ellsworth. It doesn't take us long to figure out where that is and to go pay Ellsworth a visit.
We enter the house and there's no demons here.
"Hey. Clear from the back." Sam says. Him and I went into the house from the back door while Dean and Bobby went through the front.
"Demons get tipped and bugged out?" I ask.
"Maybe they run from us now. I mean, that would be a nice thought, right?" Sam says.
"Yeah, if that's what happened." Bobby says. We continue searching the house, upstairs and downstairs and meet up in the living room again.
"Hey... the place is clean."
"Yeah, but it's... it's like 'Mr. Clean' clean, you know? It's kind of OCS for your average demon."
"Yeah, so what now?" I ask.
"We'd call Cas." Dean says.
"What?" Sam asks.
"This is usually the point where we would call Cas for help."
"We talked about this." Bobby says.
"Yeah, Dean." Sam agrees.
"No, you talked. I listened. This is Cas, guys. I mean, when there was no one... And we were stuck, and I mean really stuck, he broke ranks. He has gone to the mat cut and bleeding for us so many freakin' times. This is Cas! Don't we owe him the benefit of the doubt at least?" Dean asks.
"Castiel... This is really important, okay? Um... we really need to talk to you." Sam says.
"Castiel... Come on in." Dean says.
"Cas is busy." I say after a few minutes of no-show."
"That's alright. We are too. Come on." Sam say.
"Back to square one." Bobby says.
"Great. Well, what do we do now?" I ask.
"Well, we caught one hunter demon before. We can do it again."
"Ash!" I hear Sam yell and then we're all attacked by demons.
"Crowley says 'hi'." One of them says. Suddenly Cas appears and saves us all. Right on time.
"It is good to see you , Cas." Dean says.
"You alright?" Cas asks as he helps me up.
"Yeah, perfect timing, Cas." Sam says.
"I'm glad I found you. I come with news."
"Yeah? What?" Dean asks.
"I firmly believe Crowley is alive." Cas says.
"Yeah. You think, Kojak? Well, Bobby, what do we think about Cas saving our asses... Again?" I ask.
"I think we owe you an apology." Bobby says.
"Why?" Cas asks.
"We've been hunting Crowley this whole time... And keeping it from you." Sam says.
"We thought... You were working with him." Bobby says.
"You thought what?" Cas asks.
"I know. It's crazy right?" Dean says.
"It's just that you torched the wrong bones. It doesn't matter. We were wrong." Bobby says.
"You know... You could've just asked me." Cas says.
"And we should have. We never should've doubted you. It's... I just hope you can forgive us." I say.
"It's forgotten." Cas says.
"Thanks."
"Yeah. Thanks, Cas." Sam says.
"It is a little absurd though."
"I know, I know." Bobby says.
"Superman going dark side. I'm still just Castiel."
"I guess we can put away the kryptonite, right?" Dean says.
"Exactly." Cas says then disappears.
"That was weird right?" I ask. We do another search around the house, this time we're able to find a few bodies. We can tell that they were possessed by demons. Dean goes outside to that back yard and starts raking up the leaves so that we can bury the bodies back here. Once we're all finished it's night time and we decide to have little chat with Cas again, but not before making a circle of holy oil.
"Castiel, uh... We need you for a little powwow down here, so come on down." I pray to him.
"Hello." Cas says as he appears.
"Oh, Johnny on the spot." Bobby says.
"You're still here." Cas says.
"Yeah, we had to bury the bodies." Sam says.
"And we found a little whiskey. Thanks for coming." Dean says.
"How can I help?" Cas asks.
"Oh, look. We, um... we have a new plan. We think we've finally figured out a way to track down Crowley." Sam says, looking in a book to put on a show.
"What is it?" Cas asks. Bobby lights a match and drops it on the floor where the holy oil is, making him trapped in a ring of holy fire.
"It's you." Bobby says.
"What are you doing?"
"We gotta talk." I say.
"About what? Let me go!"
"About Superman. And Kryptonite." Dean says.
"How'd you know what I said?" Bobby asks.
"How long have you been watching us?" Sam asks.
"You know who spies on people, Cas? Spies." I say.
"Okay, just wait. I don't even know what you mean."
"What about this demon craphole? How is it so, uh... 'Next to godliness' clean in here?" Sam asks.
"And how exactly did Crowley trick you with the wrong bones?" Bobby asks.
"It's hard to understand. It's hard to explain. Just let me go. Let me out and I can -"
"You got to look at me, Cas. You got to level with me and tell me what's going on. Look me in the eye and tell me you're not working with Crowley." I say. I am carrying his offspring, half angel kid, the least he can do is tell me the truth. He looks at me, holds the gaze for a few seconds and then looks away.
"You son of a bitch." Dean says.
"Let me explain." Cas says.
"You're in it with him? You and Crowley have been going after Purgatory together? You have, huh? This whole time."
"I did it to protect you. I did it to protect all of you."
"Protect us how? By opening a hole into monsterland?" Sam asks.
"He's right Cas. One drop got through, and it was Eve. And you want to break down the entire dam?" Bobby asks.
"To get the souls. I can stop Raphael. Please, you have to trust me." Cas says.
"Trust you?! How in the hell are we supposed to trust you now?" I ask.
"I'm still me. I'm still you friend. I'm the one who raised you two from perdition."
"What? Well, no offense... But you did a pretty piss-poor job of it. Wait. Did you bring us back soulless... on purpose?" Sam asks.
"How could you think that?"
"Well, I'm thinking a lot of things right now, Cas."
Listen. Raphael will kill us all. He'll turn the world into a graveyard. I had no choice."
"No, you had a choice. You just made the wrong one." Dean says.
"You don't understand. It's complicated."
"No, actually, it's not, and you know that. Why else would you keep this whole thing a secret, huh, unless you knew that it was wrong? When crap like this comes around, we deal with it... Like we always have. What we don't do is we don't go out and make another deal with the Devil!" I say.
"It sounds so simple when you say it like that. Where were you when I needed to hear it?"
"We were there. Where were you?" I say much calmer now. Stupid hormones.
"You should've come to us for help, Cas." Dean says.
"Maybe." Suddenly it gets very windy outside. I go look out the window. A large cloud of demon smoke is coming. "It's too late now. I can't turn back now. I can't."
"It's not too late. Damn it, Cas! We can fix this!"
"Dean, it's not broken! Run. You have to run now! Run!" We run out the door to the impala, leaving Cas in the ring of fire.
We head back to Bobby's. I crash on the couch with Dean at the other end of the couch. My feet in his lap. I get woken up a few hours to Dean and Cas talking.
"The angel-proofing Bobby put on the house... he got a few things wrong."
"Well, it's too bad we got to angel-proof it in the first place, isn't it? Why are you here?" Dean asks.
"I want you to understand." Cas says. I sit up on the couch.
"Oh, believe me, I get it. Blah, blah, Raphael, right?"
"I'm doing this for you, Dean, and Ash. I'm doing this because of you." Cas says as he looks at me.
"Because of me. Yeah. You got to be kidding me." I say, still a little groggy.
"You're the one who taught me that freedom and free will-"
"You're a freakin' child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want!" Dean says.
"I know what I'm doing, Dean."
"I'm not gonna logic you, okay? I'm saying don't...Just 'cause. I'm asking you not to. That's it."
"I don't understand." Cas says.
"Look, next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest things we have to family, that you are like a brother to me. So, if I'm asking you not to do something... You got to trust me, man."
"Or what?"
"Or we'll have to do what we have to do to stop you." I say.
"You can't, Ash. You're just mankind. I'm an angel."
"I don't know. I've taken some pretty big fish." I say gesturing at the growing bump at my torso.
"I'm sorry, Ashlee."
"Well, I'm sorry too then." And then he just disappears.
"As far as I'm concerned that kid is mine." Dean says before I fall asleep again.
