Author's note:

This is it.

This is the end.

You guys were amazing supporters, and every time you left a review of positive feedback, it made me want to squeal and cry (I did make some inhuman noises quite a few times) and it felt so amazing to have this story continue. I loved the plot and the characters, and I especially loved you guys.

Thank you for the continued support. I can not thank you guys enough.

Welcome to the end.

3

"I love you, Dean." Castiel whispered against his cheek, trailing kisses from the temple of his forehead to his lips. "I miss you."
He wrapped his arms around Dean, though it was as if he couldn't reach out to touch Castiel. He couldn't open his mouth to say 'I love you' one more time. All he could do was stare straight into the bright blue eyes that showed what he wanted to say. Cas understood. Dean was speechless.
"I want you to live on." He said with a smile, kissing him deeply before taking one of Dean's hands in his own. "I want you to live on, but never forget about me."
Dean swallowed back what was forcing down his words.
"That's a little selfish, isn't it?" He said breathlessly, a small smile playing on his lips.
"You're right." He admitted, resting his head against his shoulder. "But I just wouldn't accept it if you moved on. You'd eventually have to, but... Keep me in mind, alright?" He kissed Dean one more time before leaning his head against his shoulder once more.
Don't go, Dean tried to form the thoughts into words, but it wouldn't come out. Don't leave again. He didn't want Cas to put his head down. He wanted to see those eyes with life in them. He wanted to make eye contact with the one that he loved. He wanted to get up and walk away with him.
"Cas." Was all he could manage, but he could feel Castiel smiling against his shoulder as reality seemed to drift further and further away.
Dean woke with a start, rubbing his head. Cas again. He haunted him, though it wasn't a bad haunting. It was something that kept him going, and kept him away from the brink of depression.
Lisa moved beside him, and he looked her way, smiling slightly. She was a good woman, and had to put up with everything about Dean Winchester that included his many flaws. She didn't deserve his mind being lost back in a high school romance that hadn't even lasted 3 years.
It had taken time, but through persistence, he had given in. He loved her, though he had even told her that he had already lost what he had assumed was a twisted version of a fated soul mate. A twisted, vile, fucked up story line for him to carry on with for the rest of his life.
He got up, looking down at his pajamas. There was an old bleach stain on the front of the shirt, but he obviously hadn't cared much when putting it on.
He moved towards the kitchen as Lisa began to stir, kicking the sheets aside and sliding on a robe.
He filled the house with the scent of French vanilla brew as he prepared their morning coffee. This was his life now.
Sometime while he was pouring creamer into the cups, Lisa wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning into his shoulder. He hasn't heard her footsteps, so it surprised him a little.
"Did you have that dream again?" She asked, rubbing her hands on his shoulders in a soothing manner.
He sighed, leaning into her touch. "No." He lied, though he had no reason to. She knew what he had dreamt about last night, whether he confirmed it or not.
She kissed the side of his chin in a comforting manner. "I know what it did to you." She said, and he sighed, knowing that she was going to say something about the past being the past, and water under the bridge and shit like that. It was the same every time.
The problem was, he couldn't forget Cas. He came to mind almost every day. Maybe it had been a form of shock, from the suddenness of his death, or perhaps it was the profound bond they had that had become far more than a platonic relationship. It felt like... They had been meant for each other, and then torn apart.
Lisa's arms traveled around his chest, toying with the ring on the rubber cord around his neck, next to the amulet Sam had given him all those years ago.
"Now Ben and I need you." She said, and this took him by surprise. She may not have repeated what she usually said, but it felt as of she had said it a million times before, because just now it got trough to him.
"This was yours, wasn't it?" She continued, still playing with the ring, now referring to it.
When she said 'yours', Dean knew she meant Castiel's and his.
"Yeah." He murmured, his own hand traveling up to it. "It was his."
"So you kept it all these years..." She mumbled into his back, her face pressed against the center of his shoulder blades as if she could fall asleep there.
He swallowed, knowing that by the tone in her voice, she was hurt.
"I'm sorry." He said, but she lifted her was and shook it, coming to stand beside him.
"Don't be. You loved him." She said, looking up at the sad green eyes she had to face every day. Never had a smile tainted the hurt in them.
Of course she wished that he would move on already, but she also had the sensitivity to know that true love only came once, if true love was even a thing. She knew he had found his, and then lost it.
"Why make true love if only to snatch it away from those lucky enough to find it?" She wondered aloud, and he remained silent, a sort of cloud seeming to storm over him at her words.
"I can't ever love you like I did him." He said suddenly, breaking the tense silence. The words seemed to come off as abrupt and a little harsh, so he amended. "You don't deserve this, especially not from me. You deserve to be loved and cared for, and I should have gotten over him a while ago."
She listened carefully, and waited a few moments, ensuring he was done. "Should have." She repeated his own words. "You should have given up on your feelings for him when he died, but the fact that you didn't is what makes me love you. You're loyal, brave..." She laughed a little. "Stupid, arrogant, extremely good-looking... The list goes on." She then poured the last of the creamer into her coffee, stirring it as she opened her mouth to speak again. "But I understand. I know that he meant the world to you. I know that you would go anywhere for him in a heartbeat... No, less than a heartbeat if he came back for you. The thing is, I also know that I love you, and I'll do whatever it takes to help you."
He cleared his throat as he went to take a sip of coffee, sighing so that the hot steam blew from the cup and into his face. It felt nice, and it distracted him.
"No." He said, and she halted in her stirring, looking up at him curiously. "You're right. I loved him." He looked at the brown of his coffee. It smelled great, but did it taste even better? "But Castiel is dead. I need to let go of the past or it'll drive me crazy."
He looked out the window, feeling we hand overlap his on the counter.
"He's waiting for you, you know." She said, following his eyes towards the street outside. "He's watching us with envy now, but he'll have you all to himself far too soon, I'm afraid." She looked to him with disappointed eyes.
"I guess I expected too much." She commented. "I'm in competition with a dead man." She mused.
For once, Dean wished that she was saying what she normally said. He loved her, and he loved Ben, but there was something that could never have been replaced after Cas left.
"I'm sorry." Dean whispered, and he smiled, kissing her on the cheek before getting a brown paper bag for Ben's school lunch.
"Ben!" She called him. "You'll be late!" She then looked to Dean. "That's all I wanted to hear." She said, and he nodded, turning back towards the cabinets.
He had a family now, and he needed to love them and care for them. "Till death do us part", it said in his vows, and as soon as he died, they probably would be parted. One, he was going to hell. Two, he had someone waiting for him. And he had promised to be there.
Ben still hadn't come down stairs, and now Lisa looked over to him with worried eyes when she realized that he hadn't moved. He was probably lost in thought, but she had only one question to ask him.
"How did he die?" She asked quietly, sliding peanut butter across a piece of bread.
Dean looked up at the cabinets, realizing that they were a bright blue. Since when? Had he not noticed before?
He considered her question. His death?
Why had he forgotten all of a sudden? Why was his mind drawing a blank?
How did he really die?
He blinked rapidly, clearing his eyes of tears before he turned around, helping her pack up Ben's binder and a few folders and homework pages.
He hesitated before speaking again, purposefully dropping a few papers on the ground in order to stall. He knew that she was waiting, but how could he respond in a way that showed that he cared about her enough to tell her, but not enough to forget him, all the while without hurting her with the adoration that was bound to show in his eyes and be heard in his voice?
He decided to go for it. After all, what did he have to lose if he already lost everything?
"Castiel." He said, the name warming his heart. "He would have died of malaria. One little mosquito bite."
He looked up at her to meet her eyes. "But instead he came close to surviving. He probably would have made a great recovery. He would have been fine."
She was silent, nodding while he spoke, not wanting to interrupt with questions.
"But in the end... It wasn't the malaria that killed him." He paused. "It was his own brother."