Chapter 1

Sam was headed for North Dakota, meeting Castiel there. Dean was there, somewhere, wanting Sam to let him go. But, Sam knew his brother better than anyone. He knew Dean wasn't a demon. It wasn't in his nature to be evil. It was his nature to fight evil. That was their job since ever.

Dean felt he was living. Having a blast, drinking and singing karaoke, badly. Sam tried with all his might to find his brother and convince him to come back. Dean just did not want to be found but, thankfully, Sam found him, anyway.

Castiel tried to help as much as he could. The angel wasn't getting anywhere, either. When Sam found Dean, Castiel agreed to meet him there as soon as something was checked out, first. Though he ended up with some strange sidestop that the angel wasn't sure why it led him there. It was strange enough that Castiel felt he needed to call the youngest Winchester.

Sam picked up on the third ring. "What's up, Cas?" he asked, into the phone.

"I found myself, distracted, to this mobile home, in Santa Fe," Castiel explained.

"Why?" Sam wasn't sure what a Santa Fe mobile home had to do with Dean. "That's out of the way."

"I'm unsure of why." Castiel walked around the mobile home. In one of the bedrooms, he found a couple with their throats slashed and blood everywhere. The air also reeked of sulfur. "Demons have been here," he declared, while still holding the phone up to his ear.

"Demons?" Sam questioned.

"Yes. Two people are dead, a man and woman." Castiel headed further, down the hall, to another bedroom. This one was smaller and had baseball decor and toys scattered everywhere, on the walls and floors. One would think a boy occupied the space, if it weren't for the few Barbie dolls.

"Are there any survivors, or is the place, completely, desolate?" Sam knew it couldn't have been his brother that had done that. Or, hoped, anyways.

"There is a child's room, but no sign of a child, anywhere."

"Maybe the kid managed to escape," Sam suggested, hopeful. He didn't want to think about the worse thing that could have happened to that child.

Castiel stepped inside and looked around. "I can't tell if the child is male or female," he observed.

Sam asked, "What do you mean?"

"There are cars, dragons, that sport you play with a stick. However, there are also dolls." Suddenly, the angel caught sight of the closet door, moving. He, cautiously, made his way over to it. "I detected movement."

"Be gentle, Cas. If it's the kid, they're probably already traumatized enough," Sam warned him.

Castiel agreed.

The angel approached the closet. "Who's there?" he asked.

A small hand appeared, pulling the door, more ajar. "Are you nice?" a small voice asked.

"Yes." Castiel made sure to keep his tone, gentle, as possible, considering how deep and rough it was. "What is your name?"

"C…J…"

"What did they say?" Sam asked.

"CJ. Is that really a name?" Castiel was confused why the child had given him, two letters instead of a name.

"It's probably a nickname the kid goes by," he guessed. "Find out how old they are."

Castiel turned back to the hand still showing. "How old are you?" he asked the child.

"Six."

He repeated it to Sam. "Should I try to bring the kid with me?"

"Well, find out if they have any other family," Sam suggested. This wasn't the best time to have a kid running with them. They had other stuff they had to deal with, they couldn't keep an eye on a little child.

Castiel asked the child about any other family.

"No. Just Mommy and Jimmy," the child squeaked out. Castiel assumed they were the couple in the other room. "Is Mommy okay?"

The angel didn't know how to answer that. "Your mom is dead," he said, flat out.

Sam hissed, "Castiel!"

He shrugged, "What?" unsure why Sam was scolding him.

"Did you have to say it, that bluntly? The kid is only six years old."

"How else should I have said it?"

"A little gentler, maybe." Sam sighed. "Try to bring the kid, here. I'll talk to them."

"What should I say?" he asked.

"Tell them…" Sam thought about it. "Tell them the truth. Kids at that age would believe in angels," he shrugged. "The kid might even think you're a guardian angel."

"But, I'm not."

"Well, yeah, but the kid doesn't need to know that. Just let'em think that," Sam told him.

Castiel hung up the phone and took a step, closer, towards the closet. "I won't hurt you. I'm an angel here to help."

"Jimmy says, angels aren't real," he heard the child say from behind the door.

"Well, we do. I want to take you somewhere safe. You have to trust me," he assured the child.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, but you need to come out."

The room grew quiet. Castiel waited to see if the child opened the door, the rest of the way. Time passed. He stood there for a good fifteen minutes, waiting.

"You'll be safer if you come with me." He caught the sight of an ear, with short, blond hair, overlapping the top of it. So, was it a boy?

"If you're an angel, where are your wings?"

"I don't have them, right now," he admitted. "But, I promise I am."

"Cross your heart?"

"What?" Castiel tilted his head. "Cross my heart?"

"Yeah, do you cross your heart?" the child asked.

"I don't understand."

"It means you promise," it replied.

"Oh, then, I cross my heart."

"Do it."

"Do, what?" he asked.

"Cross your heart."

"That's impossible," he told the child.

"No, it's not. Just draw an ima-gin-awry line over where your heart is, with your finger."

Castiel did not understand the child's ritual, but did it anyway. Anything to prove to it, he was what he said he was. The angel drew an imaginary line across his chest, with his finger. "There, I promise I am an angel."

The door was then opened, more. Standing there, was a small child, in jeans, with a tear in one of the knees and a Dodger's baseball jersey. On the child's head, Castiel could see a matching ball cap, with green eyes peering from underneath the bill, and light freckles all over their nose and upper cheeks.

"Hello, CJ," Castiel greeted now that the child was out of the closet.

"Hi. What's your name, Mr. Angel?"

"Castiel, but everyone calls me, Cas," he replied.

"You don't like your name?"

"I wouldn't say I dislike or like my name."

"Then, how come they call, you Cas, instead?" CJ asked, innocently.

"A friend of mine just started calling me, Cas and everyone else followed it," he shrugged.

"Oh. I like to be called CJ, because I hate my name."

"Why is that?"

"It sounds stupid."

"What is it?"

"Clara Jean. My mom gave it to me when I was born. Jimmy says it, a lot, especially when he's mad."

"Why do you call your father, Jimmy?"

"Jimmy isn't my dad. He's my mom's boyfriend."

"What happened to your father, then?"

CJ shrugged her small shoulders. "I never met him. Mommy only met him, once. He doesn't even know. Mommy wishes she could find him, but he's hard to find. So, Jimmy was supposed to take his place. Jimmy, kind of sucks at being a dad." She shook her head, "Please don't tell him I said something bad about him."

Castiel asked, "Why?"

"Because then I would have to get the spoon for him."

The angel looked at the child, confused. "The spoon?"

She nodded. "His dad used it on him, and his dad before him, and his dad before him."

"Used it?"

"It's real scary and hurts a lot," she explained to the angel.

"How can a spoon, hurt?"

"Jimmy hurts me, with it."

"Hurts you?"

CJ nodded. "Mommy never hurts me, just Jimmy. She cries when I make Jimmy, mad. She tries to talk him out of it, but he hits her, down."

"He hurts both of you?" Castiel looked alarmed the child was being hurt by another human. "Does he have black eyes?"

CJ shook her head. "No, he has blue eyes."

"So, Jimmy has, complete control of his body?" Castiel had heard of humans hurting others, but not to a defenseless child. He finally suggested they leave and turned around, to leave the room.

"Wait, can't I pack?" she called after him.

Castiel turned back around. "Uh, sure, I guess. But, make it, quick. We shouldn't stay here, long."

CJ hurried back to her closet and pulled out a baseball duffel bag. She dragged it out, and went to her dresser, pulling out a bunch of clothes. She packed the way a child would, shoving everything inside the duffel bag.

Castiel watched her, do so, including putting some toys inside, as well. She tried to make her favorite toys, fit, especially a baseball and glove. At this point, he couldn't tell and figured CJ was a boy, not knowing that she was actually a girl. With the short hair, it seemed most logical that CJ was a boy.

When she was all packed, CJ zipped it, closed, sitting on it so it would. She dragged it, by the straps, towards Castiel. "Okay. I'm ready."

"Here, let me carry that for you." Castiel reached down and picked up the duffel bag. Boy, did she pack. "Do you really need all this stuff?" he asked of her.

CJ nodded. "I need clothes and I only packed my favorite toys."

"You seem to have a lot of favorite toys, then."

"Oh." CJ hurried from the room, to the bathroom. She returned a few minutes later with a plastic basket of shampoo, bubble bath, a tooth brush, tooth paste, and floss. "This won't fit in there, so I can carry this," she showed him and ran back into the room, to the unmade bed where CJ grabbed a tan, fat stuffed dog, with a collar and a huge, black nose. "This is Doug," she told Castiel, holding the dog up to show the angel when she walked back over.

"It's nice to meet Doug, but we really should go." Without another word said, Castiel led the child back down the hall. He tried to stay on the side of the murder scene, but CJ still saw part of it, and unfortunately, it was the part with her mother.

She stopped in her tracks. Her mouth opened, but no words came.

Castiel stopped to look back. He could see the look of pure horror that traumatized the poor kid.

Tears filled her eyes.

He felt for the girl and offered to carry her, outside. CJ, clutching the stuffed dog to her chest and holding the basket in the other hand, allowed the angel to lift her up, in one arm. She latched onto his neck and cried into the crook of it. Castiel wasn't sure how to comfort the child. He remembered seeing a mother comforting a child in the park, once, when the kid scraped his knee. That was how he knew to pick her up, at least.

Castiel had to set the bag down, on the floor, to open the side door, before picking it back up, again, and made his way down the tiny porch steps. He carried CJ, over to where he had parked.

Setting the duffel bag back down, Castiel opened the side door, on the driver's side. He set the child on the seat, kneeling to her level, beside the car. "Are you okay?"

CJ nodded, staring at the floor, as she hugged her stuffed dog to her. The basket was now on the seat, next to her.

Castiel reached over to touch her shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to see that. I tried to walk between you and the room."

She didn't say a word.

Castiel decided to leave her to her own and placed her duffel bag in the trunk, before sliding in, under the wheel. He then started the car and pulled away from the curb, headed for North Dakota.

Occasionally, Castiel would check on CJ, through the rearview mirror, adjusting it the first time, so he had a good view. She didn't say a word, the whole way there. He tried to offer to turn on the radio since Dean taught him how to use it. CJ remained silent.

CJ did fall asleep for the last half of the trip, waking up the next morning, right before they pulled into the parking lot of the motel Sam was staying at. He stepped out of the car as Sam met him, outside.

"You got the kid?" Sam asked.

"Yes," he answered and looked back, towards CJ's window.

Sam squeezed past the angel, to open the car door. To a six-year-old, he looked really tall.

CJ jumped, scooting backwards, towards the other side of the backseat.

Sam held up his hands, "It's okay. I'm a friend of Cas," he assured her.

"Are you an angel, too?" she asked.

"No, I'm human, just like you. I won't hurt you, though, I promise."

Cautiously, CJ scooted towards him. She inched her way to the edge, sticking her feet out. While CJ was packing, she had slipped on some flip flops, child-sized.

"My name is Sam," he told her. "CJ, right?"

She nodded.

Sam also figured CJ was a boy. "Want to come inside and have something to eat?" he asked.

Again, she nodded.

He stood up, moving so CJ could slide out, offering his hand. Sam led CJ inside while Castiel brought in her duffel bag.

Once inside, Sam led her over to the table and offered a breakfast sandwich and hash browns from a fast food place, to her. While CJ ate her breakfast, Castiel told him what CJ had said, back at the mobile home, the day before.

Sam stared at him, in disbelief. "So, the kid was abused," he said, afterwards when Castiel was finished.

"I assume so. CJ didn't say anything about black eyes from the guy. When he called the man, Jimmy, I thought he meant my vessel, at first."

"Jimmy's a common name," Sam told him.

"So, what should we do with him?" asked Castiel.

"I don't know. I don't even know why I suggested bringing him with us. We have Dean to worry about."

"Um, excuse me." The men looked over at the little girl. CJ was standing on her legs, holding her sandwich. Doug sat beside her food, on the table, watching, its tongue hanging out.

"What is it, kiddo?" Sam asked, gently.

"Did you say, Dean?" she asked.

"Yeah, why?"

CJ climbed down from the chair and dashed across the room, to where Castiel had set it down, on one of the beds. She climbed up, on the bed, grabbing the comforter in her hands, to help pull her up. CJ, then climbed over to the bag, opening it. She pulled everything out until she pulled out a wooden music box.

"I don't remember her packing that box," Castiel said to Sam, a confused look on his face.

"It's my mom's. She lets me keep it in here so Jimmy can't find it," she informed him. CJ opened the box and began looking through papers, jewelry, and photos until she found what she was looking for. It looked like a photo.

Clutching it in her right hand, CJ climbed back down. She walked over to the men, holding out the picture, to them. "My mom said she had that taken when she and my dad met. I don't know him and he doesn't know about me, though, but Mommy says his name is Dean."

Sam took the photo from her, looking at it. Sitting at a bar, next to who he presumed to be CJ's mother, was none other than his brother, from six years ago. His mouth dropped.