Broken Dreams

*Author's note: This is set partway through episode 5-18, Point of No Return. It was based on the events of ep 5-17, 99 Problems, and the three clips of 5-18 that could be found on prior to the ep airing. In this AU version, Adam was not resurrected and does not appear. Based on the 5-18 promos and clips, the events preceding this story are as follows: Dean goes in search of Michael. He is tracked down and brought home by Sam and Cas. Dean escapes, visits Lisa and is subsequently captured by Cas again -- the infamous beatdown.

Castiel had been standing by the panic room door for hours, not speaking, not attempting to exhort Dean to change his mind, simply… standing. He found he was calmer here, near Dean. Bobby and Sam were upstairs continuing their research and for a while Castiel had attempted to assist them, but he could not focus, and research of the sort they engaged in was not really his area. He was soldier. That and only that. He had been a soldier of Heaven, a soldier of God. Now he was an expatriate with no home to call his own, no allegiance to God, king or country. He had but one cause left, one thing he still believed in, one man for whom he had given everything and for whom he would yet give more. Dean Winchester. It comforted him to be here, close to Dean, knowing that he would hear instantly if Dean needed him. Knowing that Dean would not be able to slip his prison and escape them – yet again – while Castiel stood watch. Dean would not be able to throw his life, his free will and his very soul away by saying yes to Michael. It would not happen. It must not happen. Let the world burn. Let them all perish. But by the God who had forsaken them, Castiel would never allow Dean to destroy himself thus. Fate and destiny be damned.

So he stood his silent watch alone and thought.

Many things troubled him. Many doubts filled him with apprehension for the coming end of days. Fear gnawed at him, not fear of death, but fear of somehow failing to save Dean, of losing Dean to Heaven or Hell. There seemed little difference between them now. But for all his anxieties, all his worries, only one thing puzzled him, and he could get no answers from Dean. Since his… capture by Castiel, Dean's thoughts had been subdued, his emotions tightly repressed, and Castiel found it difficult to read his mind from outside the panic room. He could sense Dean's physical presence at the moment, but little else, and Sam had forbidden him from going inside. The youngest Winchester was, perhaps, still displeased with Castiel for his "beat down" of Dean. Castiel could not blame him. He was upset with himself. He knew that he would not again become violent with Dean, that he would not allow his emotions to overcome him a second time, but Sam was less certain and being cautious. Castiel had no obligation to follow Sam's commands, but he saw no particular reason to upset Sam's own emotional balance at the moment. No. If he wanted answers, he would have to question Sam.

With a sigh, Castiel place his splayed hand upon the panic room door. "Dean, I will be upstairs if you need me. Call and I will hear you. You are not alone."

There was no response, but Castiel had expected none. Dean was… he believed the human term was wallowing. The hunter was wallowing in his guilt for starting the apocalypse, for allowing many people to die by refusing to say yes to Michael months ago, for getting Castiel cast out of Heaven, for a variety of sins which no one blamed him for but himself. Sometimes Castiel suspected that Dean would be easier to deal with if he were more selfish and less the righteous man that Heaven and Hell alike had proclaimed him to be. Folding his wings invisibly about him, Castiel side stepped through space, appearing beside Sam in the kitchen upstairs. Used to his coming and going after these many months, the human barely even started. He did, however, look up from the book he had been reading with a kind of desperate focus.

"Is Dean okay?"

"He is quiet. He hasn't tried to escape again."

"Is he still trying to convince you to let him go?"

"No. I believe he now knows that I will never say yes."

"And you're liking the irony of that, aren't you?"

Castiel frowned. "I do not like anything about this situation." Sam nodded in distressed agreement. Castiel could not read his thoughts at all – a side effect of the demon blood no doubt – but his thoughts were written all over his face and telepathy was hardly necessary. "He will survive this, Sam. We will not allow him to give up his life, and when this is over you will have the pleasure of saying, 'I told you so,' for a change." The younger Winchester huffed out a laugh. It sounded pained to Castiel's developing awareness of human emotion, but the smile Sam fixed on him was grateful and more than a little misty-eyed.

"Thanks, Cas," Sam said. "Thanks for not giving up on us after everything that's happened."

Castiel shifted his wings awkwardly, a nervous twitch which the humans, happily, could not see. Intense human emotion was still uncomfortable for the angel. "Sam," he asked, returning to his reason for leaving Dean's side in the first place. "Why would Dean go to Cicero, Indiana?"

"Cicero? I have no idea. Why?"

"That is where I found him when he went in search of Michael."

"In Cicero? I can't imagine what… unless…" Sam trailed off, his gaze going distant.

"What, Sam?"

The young hunter shook himself, his eyes returning to Castiel's face. "Lisa Braeden lives in Cicero, her and her son Ben. Dean and she had a thing once, and he got pretty freaked out when she and the kid were in danger. That was more than two years ago, and he hasn't even mentioned her since he got back from the basement. I actually wondered if Ben… but Dean swears he's not."

"A thing? You mean a relationship involving sexual intercourse."

"Uh, yeah." Sam flushed, though why a man who'd had an extended affair with a known demon should be embarrassed to admit to a strictly human sexual encounter on his brother's part, Castiel could not understand.

"And this Lisa Braeden, she is a yoga instructor?"

"Yeah, she is. How'd you know?"

Castiel turned bodily away. He did not like to violate Dean's privacy, not when he knew how important it was to him. Yet Sam, if anyone, had a right to know what drove his brother. "She has been much in his thoughts these past weeks."

Sam's eyes widened. "You're reading Dean's thoughts?"

"Not deliberately, but as my powers have waned and as my direct contact with humanity has increased, it has become more difficult to block out the surface thoughts of the humans around me. Especially Dean's." For a several seconds, Castiel was uncertain which revelation Sam would find more significant. In what the angel was coming to regard as typical human fashion, however, he focused on the girl.

"He's been thinking about Lisa… that's… oh man, he's still carrying a torch for – "

As the hunter had spoken, Castiel's feeling of urgency, of something wrong had grown until he could contain it no longer. Wrapping his wings about him, he side-stepped through space once more, leaving while Sam was still verbalizing his own reaction to Dean's unexpectedly powerful feelings for a woman whom he barely knew. Cicero was cold and damp, the air full of the lingering chill of winter. The skies overhead were dark with clouds, blocking much of the noonday sun, and the angel knew that rain would soon fall. The house before him was moderate by American conventions though large by the standards of much of the rest of the world. The neighborhood was quiet on this overcast day, no children or their parents playing in the streets, no one to take note of Castiel's sudden and inexplicable appearance. Still, the place showed signs of ongoing habitation. The yards were tidy, the cars clean, the street free of litter and debris. It was all too clean in that way that made Dean uneasy and which Sam seemed to find pleasing. The word, 'yuppie,' sprang to Castiel's mind, though he was uncertain of its precise meaning. Jimmy would have known, but Jimmy had been utterly silent since Castiel's resurrection and, in truth, the angel suspected that his human host was long gone, that – unable to return to his family for their own safety – he had been allowed the rest he so desperately desired. Jimmy was almost certainly in Heaven. Castiel could imagine him nowhere else.

He folded his wings about him, prepared to enter the house of Lisa Braeden, but some instinct stopped him. She was not a hunter. She was a civilian and a mother. A woman raising a child alone. She would most likely react in a highly negative manner to the unexpected appearance of a strange male inside her home. Resisting the urge to straighten his tie as Dean had once done for him, Castiel walked onto the small porch and knocked on the door. He waited. Twenty-one seconds after his first tap, the door opened. The woman before him matched the woman from Dean's memories. Long dark hair. Dark eyes. A strong jaw. She wore sneakers, blue jeans and a sweatshirt with the logo of a fitness center, Bodies by Braeden, emblazoned across the front. Her eyes were wary, her posture tense as she looked back at him. "Yes? Can I help you?"

He said nothing for a time, merely staring at her intently, reading her surface thoughts. She was alarmed by the quiet stranger who demeanor screamed not normal at her, inflaming all her danger instincts and awakening ten-thousand-year-old fight or flight responses within her. There was also, to Castiel's immense surprise, something in the back of her mind about Dean, something buried deep beneath the surface where he could not quite reach it. He hurried to reassure her.

"Lisa Braeden?" he asked, not because he needed confirmation, but because he knew that she would expect the question.

"Yes." Briefly, the thought had flitted through her mind that he might be a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon seeking to convert her to his faith, but his slightly rumpled appearance and his knowledge of her name quickly dispelled that notion.

"I am Castiel. I am – " an angel of the Lord " – a friend of Dean Winchester."

Her thoughts become briefly frantic. She thought of Dean openly now, wondering if he was okay, wondering if he was nearby, wondering if he was already dead. Castiel bristled at this last thought. She had reason to believe that Dean was going to die. Clearly, the hunter had visited her, had told her something of his intentions, though just how much Castiel did not know. She felt pulled in two directions, both alarmed by his presence and anxious to speak with him.

"Is he here?" she asked. "Why hasn't he answered my calls? Has something happened to him? What…" She knew she was babbling and stopped, collecting herself. Castiel waited, allowed her time to gather her control anew. It did not take long, though every instant felt like an eternity away from Dean for him now. "Did Dean send you?" she finally asked. "He said he was making arrangements for me and Ben. Are you part of that?"

Castiel contemplated lying, but he needed this woman to trust him. More to the point, in his limited experience of lying, it never ended well. He had lied to Dean, had withheld vital information, and they were now facing an apocalypse in part because of the choices that he had made, and the choices that Sam and Dean had made based on the false information they were given by a supposedly trustworthy ally. It was his greatest sin to his thinking, far worse than his loss of faith in God. Dean and Sam had deserved better from him. God did not. No. He would not lie.

"I am unaware of the arrangement of which you speak. May I enter? There are things you must know."

She hesitated, but the thought that Ben was safely away at school reassured her, and she stepped to the side, gesturing for him to come in.

"Can I get you something to drink," she asked nervously. "I have water, soda or beer if you'd like one."

"No," Castiel could not restrain a small grimace of distaste. "I prefer not to drink alcohol. Thank you."

She sat down on the edge of an armchair, still poised for flight if it proved necessary. Castiel remained standing, though he could see it discomfited her. "Is Dean in some kind of trouble? What's going on? I hadn't even seen him in years and then… those things, on the news. He said things were going to get worse."

"They are going to get much worse if we cannot find a way to stop it," Castiel agreed.

"Stop what?" she demanded.

"It would be far easier for me to show you than to explain. May I?"

"Show me what?"

Castiel knew that her question was not really an assent, but they had so little time. If he could learn of her acute importance to Dean, if he could find her so easily, then so could others on either side of the conflict. Reaching out, he placed his whole hand on the side of her face before she could draw back. She breathed in sharply, convulsed, and he caught her as she fell.