11Michael's business had taken longer than expected, and Castiel found himself watching over Dean Winchester and his family for an entire week after Angela's arrival. Something about her soul was so familiar, achingly familiar in fact. Castiel marked it up to the fact she was Dean's sister.
He ignored the niggling feeling there was something more to the small human child that was toddling around the motel room under the watchful gaze of Sam as John and Dean packed all of the family's belongings into the Impala.
Castiel couldn't fight the smile on his face when Angela successfully walked around the motel room twice without falling. The Winchesters were three hours from the home of Pastor Jim Murphy. It had been a week since Castiel's initial assignment from Michael.
"Castiel," speaking of the Archangel, Michael appeared as omnipresence in the small motel room. "Who is the small human? She was not here the last time I checked on Dean Winchester."
"She is Angela Marie Winchester," Castiel replied dutifully. "Her mother is a hooker and not of import. She left the child with John Winchester to be raised with the boys."
"Who is the mother, Castiel?" Michael asked his brother, and stopped. Angela had looked up from her Pooh Bear and was staring straight at Michael. Not through him to the television behind him, but AT him. "Ariel?" he whispered hopefully, but Angela turned back to her brother squealing about something and the moment was over. "Castiel, your new task is to annually check in on this family. Stay with them for two weeks. Report back to me." Michael said with a sigh and longingly gazed at the child. "Balthazar will continue with the search for Ariel."
"Of course, Michael," Castiel said tersely. He understood that Michael wanted him as far from finding Ariel as possible, but Father be damned, it was his MATE that was missing. She may have been the only fledgling since Lucifer to spend almost every hour of every day with Michael, but Castiel had more claim to her now.
"Brother, I'm not punishing you," Michael said quietly, understanding Castiel's ire. "I've even removed myself from the search. Balthazar will be answering to Zachariah, who will report to me. We will find her, Castiel. I promise you that."
Castiel nodded and took one last look at the Winchester family before him. It would be an entire year before he found them again, and he was drawn to the family like a moth to flame.
Angela grew like a weed. John had a hard time keeping her in clothes, with a growth spurt every summer, her winter clothes wouldn't fit the next year. Her baby fat was slowly receding, and her squat pudgy frame was becoming thin, and all limbs. She looked a little like a colt, all arms and legs, with her chestnut colored curls bouncing all over the place. She was eternally glued to Sam or Dean's sides while John was away on a "business trip", and upon her father reappearing in their small apartment in Peoria, Illinois, she'd become John's shadow.
Castiel visited the Winchesters in Peoria twice. The first visit held nothing of consequence; Angela was three, Sam was thirteen, and Dean was seventeen. The family had gone on several trips with John, but kept a primary residence for stability in Angela's little life. Stability that went out the window after an incident at the local high school between Dean and the Mayor's daughter involving a late movie, mayonnaise, compromising positions, an epi-pen, and a goat.
The Winchesters disappeared from Peoria overnight.
The years flew by to Castiel as he watched all three of the Winchester children grow into remarkable young men and an adorably determined young woman.
September 2000
"DEAN!" seven year old Angela squealed happily as she scampered into the motel room after her third day of school.
Dean strolled in behind the energetic girl at a more subdued pace and set her back pack down on an unused luggage rack. "What, Squirt?" he asked her as he collapsed onto his and Sam's bed.
"Can you help me with my homework?" she asked with her big doe eyes, fluttering her eyelashes like Sam had instructed her to.
Dean groaned. It was impossible to refuse the kid when she used that face. He was going to kill Sam for teaching her that. Speaking of Sam… "Where's Sammy?" he asked his sister as he moved from the bed to the table.
"He said he had to stay after and he'd be home for dinner," Angela recited as she opened her backpack. "When's Daddy coming back?"
"I told you this morning," Dean said with a sigh, "I don't know. Pastor Jim said he'd call us if he and Dad take longer trying to help the Joneses than expected."
"How long is that gonna take?" Angela asked as she flipped open her spelling book and took out all of her homework for the night.
"A week, maybe two," Dean said catching the disappointed look the flitted across his sister's face. "Hey, we can have fun without, Dad, can't we?"
"Yeah, but it's Daddy," Angela said forlornly. "He's almost never around anymore."
"He's working, Angie," Dean said with a shrug. "He'll be back soon, I promise." Dean knew this was another promise that would fall through. He tried to not make promises about when Dad was coming back to protect Angela, but this time he couldn't help it.
"Okay," Angela said and glared at her math worksheet that was nestled inside of her spelling book. "I hate math," she announced after two minutes of trying to determine the magic behind an input-output table.
Dean took one look at her homework and his face fell. "You're in first grade," he said groaning. "I didn't learn this stuff until fifth grade. Why is this being taught to you? Can you even do division yet?"
"What's division?" Angela asked. "It sounds hard."
Dean groaned; it was going to be a long night.
Sam made an appearance in their dinky motel room after five, armed with food from the diner down the street, and Dean forgave him for being so late, primarily because Sam brought an entire apple pie.
Angela was happy because both of her brothers let her polish off their French fries in addition to her own and her chicken fingers.
Dean laughed as Angela clambered up Sam's back to get her favorite headband back, and turned on the TV.
Dean flipped through every channel on the crappy TV set, and it was the same thing, weather bulletins. "Sam," he said trying to not upset Angela, "grab all our gear and put it in the Impala's trunk."
"Dean, why? It's seven thirty at night," Sam said protesting. He liked this little town in the middle of Kansas. He had a few friends, and knew that Angela loved first grade and her teacher, Mrs. McGee.
"Sam now," Dean said pointing to the TV, thankful that Angela hadn't learned how to read just yet.
Sam saw the words "Tornado Watch" in red lettering across the bottom of the screen, and their county highlighted along with three others, and started throwing clothes into bags, trash into the barrel, and sent Angela into the bathroom to get their toothbrushes and her comb.
"Deano, why are we packing?" Angela asked sleepily as she stuffed her Pooh Bear into her backpack along with her school things. "I have school tomorrow!"
"I know you do, Baby," Dean said as he triple checked the room to make sure they had everything packed away. There were no signs of any weapons left behind, no books, no toys, and no God forbid, signs of Blankie being left behind, again. Once was bad enough, and Dean had taken it upon himself to triple check all of Angela's things made it out to the car before leaving a motel.
"So why are we leaving?" she asked, clinging to Dean's neck with one hand, and to her second hand purple Disney Princess backpack with the other.
"We're going to Uncle Bobby's because there are some really bad storms coming our way," Dean said, struggling to come up with an age appropriate explanation of tornadoes. "And the safest place to be when these storms are happening is someplace with a basement."
"Uncle Bobby has a basement!" Angela exclaimed as they exited the motel room and headed for the Impala. "We'll be safe there!"
"Exactly," Dean said with a smile and buckled the little girl into her car seat.
"We're checked out, and the manager gave us the refund for the rest of the week," Sam said, slamming the passenger door closed behind him. "We're good to go."
Angela was down and out for the count twenty minutes into the car ride. It took eight hours of continuous driving to get to Bobby's in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Eight hours of the Impala's purring engine, storm-damaged highway, and Sam bitching about the same AC/DC, Metallica mixed tape series.
When the Impala turned into the driveway to Singer's Salvage at four am, Bobby was standing on his front porch, arms crossed over his plaid shirt clad chest, his hat pushed back on his head, and a worried expression on his gruff face.
"Figured you kids would show up sometime tonight," Bobby said as Dean and Sam emerged from the classic car. "Saw the tornado warnings on the news and knew you three were in Kansas."
"Thanks, Bobby," Sam said as he opened the back door to retrieve the sleeping Angela. Angie stirred, but realizing it was only Sammy, she snuggled into his chest happily. "We've been driving all night to get out of the way."
"Your room's all set up," Bobby said, pulling his hat back down onto his forehead. "Well almost set up. Angela's cot's up in the attic. Caleb blew through town last week. You kids'll have to share for the night."
"Not a problem," Dean said, closing the trunk to the Impala and grabbing their bags.
Angela woke up the next morning snuggled between Sam and Dean on the Queen sized bed in Bobby's guest room. Cracking open her eyes, the seven year old assessed her surroundings and realized she had enough wiggle room to move her legs from under Dean's arm and the rest of her off of Sam's chest without waking either of her brothers up.
Just when Angela thought she was free to go pester Uncle Bobby about letting Rummy into the house for the day, Sam started to wake up. Angela froze.
"How long have you been up, Angie?" Sam asked, sleepily.
"Not too long," Angela said shrugging. "I was gonna go potty and ask Uncle Bobby for pancakes."
"You were going to ask him to let Rumsfeld into the house, weren't you?" Sam asked her as he picked her up and set her on the bedroom floor.
"Yes," Angela said looking at her feet. "He's a fun puppy!"
"Babe, he's a guard dog, not a house pet," Sam told his sister as he got out of bed and tossed his pillow onto Dean's face. Dean didn't stir. And Sam got this look on his face.
Angela had learned to associate this look with quite a few things, most of them ending up with Sam attempting to humiliate Dean publicly with Dean retaliating causing Sam to become a hermit who refused to leave the motel room/apartment/rented house until he regained his dignity.
"Sammy, what are you planning?" Angela asked, looking from brother to brother as Sam's small but incredibly cocky smirk broke into a shit eating grin.
"We, my darling little Princess Angela, are going to get revenge on Dean for every prank and not funny joke we've been on the receiving end of," Sam informed Angela as he began to sift through Dean's bag and extracted a bottle of Nair. "Starting with the Nair Incident of 1997."
Without any further instruction, Angela darted down the hallway to the bathroom, grabbed Dean's shampoo and handed it to Sam in the hallway with a giggle, and raced down to see Uncle Bobby about pancakes for breakfast.
Dean waited until about two hours after he woke up to shower, and Angela knew she and Sam were busted the second Dean started cussing up a storm in the bathroom upstairs. She looked up from her spelling book, no sense in falling behind the other kids before she got a new school, to glance at Sammy. Sam in turn actually looked sheepish.
"I forgot how much that stuff burns…" Sam said, nervously glancing at the stairs. "Maybe I shouldn't have used the entire bottle…"
"SAM!" Dean shouted from upstairs. "I'M GONNA RIP YOUR LUNGS OUT!"
Angela shrugged at the empty threat as Sam cowered behind a couch, hugging Rummy and trying to read one of Uncle Bobby's smelly silly made up language books. "Why is Deano gonna rip your lungs out?" Angela asked innocently.
"We put Nair in his shampoo," Sam said quietly as Bobby walked into the house from the scrap yard.
"What's Dean yammering on about now?" Bobby asked as he cleaned his oil coated hands off with a greasy rag.
"Sammy and me put Nair in his shampoo," Angela informed her Godfather dutifully. "But I don't know why it's makin' him yell."
Bobby doubled over laughing, grabbing the door frame between the kitchen and study for support as he laughed. "You put Nair in his shampoo?" he gasped out between laughs.
"Yupp," Sam said nervously. They could hear Dean slamming things around in the bathroom and the door being thrown open. "Shit!" Sam said and he tried to get up to run away. Rummy wouldn't move. Sam was trapped by a seventy pound Rottweiler and was a sitting duck for his pissed brother.
"Language," Bobby said with a smirk as Dean thundered down the stairs to confront his siblings.
Angela's jaw dropped when she saw her brother. Patches of Dean's hair were gone, and the remaining splotches looked like something out of a horror movie. "Dean, what happened?"
"Sam is what happened," Dean growled out, catching sight of Sam's full head of hair behind the couch. "He put Nair in my shampoo!"
"Sammy," Angela said, turning on the couch and dangled herself upside down so she was face to face with Sam. "How come you didn't tell me it was gonna take Dean's hair off?"
Dean made some kind of noise that reminded Angela of talking underwater, and she leaned back and fell onto the couch and looked at her brother as the blood rushed out of her head. "Dean, what's wrong?"
"You….you were in on this?" he asked in disbelief.
"Sammy said it would be fun," Angela said, ratting out her brother. "And we were bored. You were sleeping."
For punishment and slight retaliation, Dean didn't enroll Angela or Sam in school in Sioux Falls until a week after they arrived at Bobby's. Their old school in Kansas was incredibly understanding about their rather abrupt overnight departure and sent their school records to the Sioux Falls Public School system without a problem.
As Dean drove them into town, Angela's nose pressed up against the glass of the window in the back seat taking in her surroundings, and Sam in the passenger seat triple checking his school supplies, Sam finally spoke up about their new schools. "Why are we going to school here? I mean, out of all the times we've stayed at Uncle Bobby's, Dad never had us enroll here."
"Well Dad's not here," Dean said, smirking at Angela, who was now busy making smiley faces in the condensation from her breath on the window. "And I talked to him last night, and he said to put you guys in school."
"You talked to Daddy?" Angela said, pulling away from the window and bouncing up to the front seat. "What he did he say? Does he miss us? Is he coming back soon? Are we meeting him somewhere?"
"Whoa, down, Monkey Girl," Dean said as Angela tried to climb over the front seat. "Sit down before we get pulled over."
Angela slumped back in her seat and pouted, waiting for Dean to answer her.
"Right," Dean said laughing at her pouty face. "Dad says he missed you and loves you, just as much as he loves me and Sam. You need to eat your veggies, do what Uncle Bobby tells you to do if Sam and I aren't around, and Pastor Jim needs his help with some Church stuff, so it'll be another week or so before he can make it out here."
"Can I call him tonight?" Angela asked, hopefully. She still didn't know her father was a hunter.
"We'll see," Dean said with a shrug. He wasn't sure how much longer they could keep this a secret from Angela. "Maybe if you're lucky, he'll call us."
"Okay!" Angela beamed as Dean pulled up to Sam's high school. "Bye, Sammy! Have fun at school! Make new friends! And Dean wants you to get a girlfriend!"
Sam paused in getting out of the passenger's seat and gave his older brother a glare that could melt an ice berg. Dean fondly referred to it as 'Bitchface No. 5'. "Gee thanks, Dean," he said with a huff and headed for the high school.
Halfway from the car to the door, Sam turned around and shouted, "Bye, Angie! Make some new friends, okay Squirt?"
Angela waved to her brother again, and once his back was turned, clambered over the seat into the passenger's seat. "SHOTGUN!" she shouted happily.
Dean laughed. "You remember the house rules, Short Stuff?"
"Shotgun picks the music, driver shuts his cakehole," Angela said with a glint in her eye.
Dean threw his head back and laughed a deep throaty laugh that Angela hadn't heard in weeks. "Close enough," he said when he could properly breathe again. "Just don't tell Sammy we changed the rules."
"You got it, dude!" Angela squealed. Dean groaned. He knew letting Angela watch Full House would come back and bite him in the ass.
December 24th, 2001
Eight year old Angela snuggled down deeper into the blankets in her room at Uncle Bobby's. The past year had seen the unused guestroom down the hall from Sam and Dean's room became the perfect little girl's room. Just as she was about to drift off again, it was Christmas Eve after all, and she should be allowed to sleep in, the familiar rumble of the Impala's engine approached Bobby's house, causing Angela to launch herself out of bed.
"UNCLE BOBBY! UNCLE BOBBY!" Angela shouted as she raced down the stairs, Rumsfeld at her heels, "Sam and Dean are here!"
"No running in the house, Angela," Bobby said, not looking up from his demonology text as he researched something for Garth, one of his hunting buddies. Angela still had no idea why Bobby kept those books lying around the house or why he was constantly reading them and making phone calls in the middle of the night while she was supposed to be sleeping. John and Bobby agreed that it would stay that way as long as possible.
"But, Uncle Bobby," Angela whined coming to a halt in the hallway. "Sammy and Dean are here!" Rumsfeld came to stop after running straight into her legs and whined at his sudden collision. "I haven't seen 'em since Halloween!"
Bobby sighed and kept flipping through his books. "Then why the hell are you standing in the hall? Go out and give those idjits what for."
A huge grin emerged on Angela's face and she raced outside shrieking her brother's names happily. "DEAN! SAMMY! YOU'RE HERE!"
Sam and Dean climbed out of the Impala with their biggest shit eating grins on their faces the eight year old bundle of energy jumped off of Bobby's porch steps and straight into Sam's arms squealing as Rumsfeld ran circles around their feet barking happily.
"Hey there, Princess," Sam said, squeezing his sister in his special Sammy Sized Bear Hug. "I missed you so, so, so much."
"I missed you more," Angela said, squeezing back tightly and nearly cutting off Sam's oxygen. "Don't leave me like that ever again. Never."
"And what am I," Dean protested from next to Sam, "chopped liver?"
"Dean-o!" Angela cried happily and was transferred from one brother to the next. Dean held Angela in front of him with her arms wrapped around his neck. "I missed you, too!"
"I know, Angie," Dean said with a smile. "I missed you so much, kiddo."
"Then why do you keep going away?" Angela asked sadly as she continued to cling to her oldest brother. "I don't want you to go anymore."
"I know you don't, Angie," Dean said as he settled the girl onto his hip and they headed into the house. "But it's our job that keeps us moving around, kiddo."
"Can I come with you?" she asked hopefully. She knew from Uncle Bobby's and Miss Pamela's stories that Sam and Dean got to go with Daddy when they were her age while Daddy was 'job hunting'.
"Not a chance," Same said, closing the front door behind Rumsfeld. "Dad wants you in school and not moving around all the time. I should have graduated high school by now, but I didn't because we moved so much and I missed so much school. We all want you to finish school in one place."
"But I miss you guys," Angela said, the tears welling up in her eyes.
"We miss you too," Dean said, hugging her even tighter. Over Angela's head, Bobby and Dean exchanged a series of looks that came down to Dean silently begging and Bobby finally giving in. Angela didn't notice Sam slipping out of the room to make a phone call. "Me and Sammy'll try to swing by more often to come and visit you. I promise."
"Really?" Angela asked hopefully. "You really mean it?"
"Really, really," Dean replied and set the girl down on the floor. "Come on, let's let Bobby get back to whatever it is he's up to and go unpack upstairs."
Angela beamed and tugged Dean up the stairs chattering a mile a minute about everything that had happened to her since Halloween, including how Missy Smith had thrown a huge birthday party in November and there were BOYS at the party, and she filled him in on the quiet Thanksgiving Dinner had put together for himself, Angela, Miss Pamela, Mister Joe Turner, and Mister Rufus.
At the mentions of the Thanksgiving Dinner, Dean felt guilty. He and Sam had meant to be there. Hell, they'd even fallen short of promising on their mother's soul they'd be there, but at the last minute, the hunt they were on with Dad went south and the cleanup had taken far longer than any of the Winchester males had anticipated.
"Did you bring me anything cool for Christmas?" Angela asked, pulling Dean out of his musings.
"I'm not telling you, Runt," Dean said with a laugh and dumped his duffle bag onto the cot he slept on in the spare bedroom he and Sammy called theirs. "Even if I did have something cool for you, I couldn't tell you. That's cheating."
"It was worth a shot," Angela said with a shrug. "But then I'd better get out of here so I don't see my presents by accident."
"Fine, fine," Dean said shooing her out of the room. "Go bother Sam for a few hours, will ya?"
Castiel watched with interest as the Winchester siblings fell into their comfortable grooves with each other and Bobby shouted out reminders about loaded shot guns in the linen closet.
Angela hovered in the doorway to her brothers' room for the better part of a half hour before Sam took pity on the girl and took her out into the salvage yard to play keep away with the dog to let Dean unpack their things. Since Castiel had been assigned to look in on this family unit of humans, he'd been amazed to see how she reminded him of his missing mate. After eight years of searching, there was still no trace of Ariel.
Castiel and Michael knew she wasn't dead because the fragments of her Grace that had fused with her father and mate's respective Graces were still pulsing away happily, with a steady soothing rhythm of "I'm alive! Come and find me!"
Castiel was pulled from his musings on top of a rusted heap of snow covered cars as some sort of Chevy truck turned up the drive to Singer's Salvage. He watched in curiosity as Angela dropped the ball Sam had thrown her and raced through ankle deep snow to the truck as it pulled to a stop next to Dean's beloved Impala.
"DADDY!" Angela shrieked happily and ran into her father's waiting arms.
John Winchester picked his daughter up and spun her in a circle as his little Princess cried with joy at seeing her father once again.
Robert Singer and Dean walked out onto the front porch as Angela continued to cling to her father as Sam and Rumsfeld came over to see her.
"Bobby, I don't think we can thank you enough," Dean said, standing next to the man who was like a second father to him. "I don't know what happened between you and Dad to have you threaten to shoot his ass full of buck shot, but him being here for Christmas means the world to Angela."
"I know," Robert said with a shrug. "It's Christmas. Time for family. Even if it means dealing with his sorry ass for a few days, Angela deserves to have her family here."
Dean smiled and headed over to his father and siblings with a grin on his face. "Angie, did I or did I not tell you I got you the best Christmas present ever?"
Angela picked her head up from her father's shoulder and grinned. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!" she screeched, slightly loosening her grip on John's neck.
"Merry Christmas, Baby Girl," John said with a smile and kissed her temple as he carried her back into Robert's home.
Castiel didn't stay to watch them celebrate the birth of his brother, Jesus. He returned home to Heaven and to his family, letting the Winchesters and Singer celebrate in peace.
You know what to do! Reviews please! Supernatural belongs to Kripke and The CW. *Shakes Fist* BARROWMAN! Ahem. John Barrowman on the other hand has nothing to do with this show or story what so ever. I've just been watching too much Doctor Who themed things on youtube. I only have rights to Angela Winchester. She's mine. I'm just playing in this teeny tiny corner of The CW's sandbox.