A/N: Hello, and welcome to my new oneshot series for my story Lost in Time. If you have not read that, I would recommend that you do so, as these oneshots will be more meaningful for you. Besides, I think it's a pretty good story. Anyway, this story will consist of oneshots from Castiel's time in the past, and is open to request. There will be more details about that in the author's note at the end. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Shockingly, I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters.

Toy Soldiers

The next time Castiel landed, the sun was high in the sky and the temperature was mild. The angel looked around curiously, taking in the neat streets of a small town. He did not understand what he was doing there, as Dean was nowhere to be seen. But then he heard the familiar rumble of that old impala again, and he turned to see the black car pull up in front of one of the buildings. The driver was not the one that Castiel was accustomed to seeing, but it only took a moment to recognize John Winchester.

The young man got out of the car, and Castiel's face broke into a smile as he caught sight of who was in the passenger seat. He started walking towards Mary, but then stopped himself, knowing that she would not be pleased if he approached her while her husband was present.

John himself was currently bent over, extracting something from the backseat. That something turned out to be a squirming Dean, evidently not pleased with where his father was taking him. Castiel watched in concern as John carried his son towards the nearest building, but relaxed when he saw the sign on the door that labeled it as a daycare facility.

"He hates it when we leave him here."

Castiel whipped his head around, startled, but he relaxed when he saw Mary standing next to him, a bright smile on her face. He sighed. He really needed to work on being aware of his surroundings. He was not used to having senses this dull. He did not realize just how dull those senses were until he looked down.

"Sam," he said in surprise.

Mary laughed, rubbing a hand over her extremely swollen abdomen.

"So his name is Sam," she said triumphantly. "I knew I would win this one."

"John wants to call him something else?" Castiel surmised curiously.

"He wants to call him Michael," Mary told him. "He just likes the name. But I want to name the baby after my dad."

"Sam suits him far better," Castiel said firmly.

"I agree," the young woman said, her eyes twinkling. Then her brow wrinkled. "Although I guess you would know that better than me, wouldn't you? You know him as an adult."

"Yes, and he is nothing like Michael."

Mary raised an eyebrow, but seemed to decide not to ask. Castiel deemed it an appropriate time to change the subject.

"If Dean hates daycare so much, why bring him here?" he asked. Mary sighed.

"We try not to," she told the angel. "And it's not so much that he hates being here, he just hates not being with us. Especially now that the b- that Sam is on the way. Dean loves his brother already. He spends hours just talking to him, because he doesn't want the baby to get bored."

Castiel smiled, utterly unsurprised to hear that Dean was already so attached to his brother.

"He will be an excellent older brother," he said.

"I'm glad to hear it," Mary said with a tender smile. "Although I never expected anything less from Dean. I can already tell that he's going to be special."

You have no idea, Castiel thought.

"But still, we couldn't take him with us to the hospital today, so he's being subjected to the dreaded daycare."

"Hospital?" Castiel repeated in concern, examining her more closely for a sign that something was wrong.

"It's just a check-up, Cas," Mary assured him quickly. "We just want to make sure that the baby and I are healthy."

"Oh." Castiel relaxed again. "Well then I can assure you that both you and Sam are in perfect health, although you do have a mild sunburn on your shoulder."

Mary glanced bemusedly at said shoulder, the skin of which was covered up by her t-shirt.

"Oh, yeah. We took Dean to the park yesterday and I missed a spot with the sunscreen. It's not too bad though. Besides, it's not like I'm going to burn to death."

Castiel could not suppress a small flinch at that, but Mary did not notice. Her gaze had shifted to the door of the daycare, and her alarmed expression told the angel that it was time to hide himself from view. Mary shot him a grateful look as he made himself invisible, before she turned to smile at her husband.

"How'd it go?" she asked him, nodding towards the building he had just exited.

John gave her a theatrical grimace and she patted his arm sympathetically.

"You didn't have to get out of the car, babe," John said with a frown as he seemed to realize that she was standing next to him.

"I'm not on bed rest, John," Mary said with a roll of her eyes, though her smile was indulgent. "Standing up for a few minutes isn't going to hurt me or the baby, and I wanted some fresh air."

"I know, sorry," said John, taking his wife's hand and squeezing it. "But I'm not gonna stop worrying about you."

"I wouldn't want you to," Mary told him, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.

Castiel felt the need to look away from the private moment, but it was not long until he heard the couple getting into the impala. He watched as they drove away, Mary waving surreptitiously in his general direction as they passed. The angel smiled after them for a moment before directing his gaze toward the building that housed his friend. He was not rested enough to move on again quite yet, so he decided to get a glimpse of what Dean had been like when he was this young.

Maintaining his invisibility, Castiel strode into the daycare. He was immediately accosted by the shrieks of children, but none of the voices were familiar. It only took him a moment to locate Dean, sitting by himself in the far corner of the room. Getting to him was another matter entirely. The daycare consisted of a single large room, with a desk off to the side of the door and the rest of the space open. It seemed that every square foot of colorful carpeting that was not taken up by a squirming toddler was littered with toys.

After stepping on two different toy cars and almost running over a little girl playing tag, the angel decided to just fly to Dean's side. The boy was focused intently on the rows of green plastic figurines that he had lined up in front of him. A closer inspection revealed them to be tiny models of soldiers.

Curious, Castiel sat cross-legged beside his friend, watching as Dean acted the general for his troops, organizing them into battalions that he then pitted against each other. Though he was only four, he already showed promise as a strategist.

As the minutes ticked by and turned slowly to hours, Dean remained in his corner, only moving when snacks were handed out, and even then quickly retreating back to his miniature army. The solitude was by choice; several of the children had tried to draw Dean into their games, only to be turned away. Apparently even at this age, Dean had guarded his heart carefully, opening it very slowly to people who were not in his family.

It made Castiel sad that Dean had been so lonely, even when he was living his supposedly normal life. The boy did not seem to mind though. He was utterly absorbed in his game, his face wrinkled up in concentration as the imaginary battle unfolded before him.

ooooooooooooo

Two and a half hours after he had left, John Winchester walked through the door. Dean was up and running before the man had even made it all the way into the building, and he launched himself into his father's arms the moment he was close enough. John chuckled, giving his son a hug and rubbing his back comfortingly before setting him down and leading him outside, waving to one of the staff to make sure that she noticed them leaving.

Castiel watched them go with a smile, but made no move to follow them. It was time for him to move on. Before he took off though, he gathered up all of the toy soldiers with which Dean had been playing. Each of them had the initials DW written on the base in faded black marker. Castiel deposited them carefully in the plastic bag that he had seen John carrying earlier, before making the quick flight out to the impala.

John was buckling Dean into the backseat while Mary told him about the appointment, and how much his little brother had grown inside her. Castiel did not want to interrupt the family moment, so he just reached through the open window to set the bag of toys on the seat next to Mary. She glanced down in surprise when the bag appeared next to her, but then she smiled warmly.

"You know why you and your little brother are so lucky, baby?" she asked her son, meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror. Dean shook his head. "You two have the best guardian angel there is."

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into the past. It's something that I wrote a while ago, but never managed to fit into the story itself. From now on, each chapter of this story will be written for a prompt that you guys submit. Leave a review with your prompt, and I will write them in the order in which I receive them. There will be a few basic rules: one prompt per person, please. You can leave multiple reviews, but I will only fill the first prompt that you submitted, unless I run out. Your prompt can be from any point in the timeline from 1978 to 2005, but keep in mind that there are some years that I have to avoid, based on the plot of Lost in Time. Your prompt can be as specific or vague as you want, and can be gen or romantic, but I will not write smut, simply because I can't. I will do my best to update this fairly regularly, but I am also working on the sequel to Lost in Time, as well as a deancas big bang, so I will be pretty busy.