Fic: Shards (Part 2 of 2)
Title: Shards
Author: brightly_lit
Crossover: Supernatural/Princess Tutu
Rating: PG for a teeny bit of iffy language
Genre: um ... literary crack!fic? Your guess is as good as mine. Also, teen!chesters, angst, light romance, high school/boarding school, mystery, hurt/comfort, fairy tale, gen
Characters: Castiel/Princess Tutu-Duck, Sam/Mytho, Dean/Fakir, Ruby/Rue, Bobby/Mr. Cat, Gabriel/Pikae, Balthazar/Liliae, God-Chuck/Drosselmeyer
Word Count: ~10,600
Summary: Sam has lost his soul, and it's up to the angel Castiel to collect the shards and return them to him without letting anyone know what Cas really is ... but Sam's girlfriend Rueby and his brother Dean stand in Cas's way ....
A fairy-tale-esque retelling of how Sam's shattered soul/mind got put back together, based on the plot of Princess Tutu.
Continued from here.
Evil soulless Sam embarked on a new campaign: to sleep with as many of the girls on campus as possible, and Pikae was his first intended victim. Fortunately, Cas--always stalking him--was there to save her from this terrible fate ... or, well, it wouldn’t have been that terrible, if rumors of his prowess were to be believed, but he would certainly have broken her heart when he moved on to the next girl.
“Sam’s kind of creepy,” Pikae remarked to her as Cas returned her safely to their dorm room. “I’m stickin’ with Dean love from now on!”
Sam was a little annoyed by Cas’s “cock-blocking” ways, as he put it, but dismissed it as jealousy, offering to sleep with her as often as she liked. Cas demurred, deeply troubled. This was not the Sam she loved--not at all. Perhaps with more shards of his soul returned, the effects of the demon blood would be diluted and he would return to his old self, or so she thought; instead, each new shard seemed to experience agony as it reentered him, and seldom did there appear to be any struggle between good and evil inside him with the introduction of another formerly pure part of himself. Evil, it seemed, had already won within him, just as Rueby said.
She found another soul shard wandering the garden, gazing at all the flowers, a sweet smile on its face. “Sam Winchester,” she whispered, and it turned to smile at her. “Which part of Sam’s soul are you?”
“I’m the part that loves,” it said.
Cas’s eyes filled with tears. On one hand there was the hope that love could overpower the evil and save him, but on the other hand, what if ... what if even Sam’s love were somehow sullied? She took its hand. “I know where Sam is. I can return you to your home. But--” she said as its expression brightened “--Sam is not as you left him. He’s been made evil.” She started to cry. “A part of his soul was soaked in demon blood, and--”
“I still want to go,” it told her, sounding strong and determined. “If anything can defeat evil, it’s me. I can’t do any good hiding here away from where I’m meant to be.”
Cas nodded, choking back her tears, and took it back to Sam, who was just then romancing Anteaterina on a park bench and not getting very far with it. He looked irritable and resigned to see Cas coming. “Just a second,” he told Anteaterina. “I’ll get rid of ’er, and then we can get back to ....” He arched his eyebrows at her. He got up and met Cas on the riverbank behind the treeline where they couldn’t be seen, muttering about striking out with Anteaterina. Then his expression lightened, as if he’d realized something about why Cas might be there--although on this new evil Sam, his lighter expression also looked far more wicked. “You finally decided you would say yes?” he said hopefully.
His words cut her. She reminded herself it wasn’t the real Sam Winchester talking. “I have something for you,” she told him, and the love shard stepped into view.
Sam rolled his eyes. “How many more of these are there going to be? I’m feeling pretty good now; I don’t think I need another one.”
He was so cold and so evil--unsurprising, since he lacked the capacity to love.
“Please--please at least take this one,” she begged him, holding back tears.
The love shard stepped up to Sam, embraced him tenderly, and became one with him. Cas eagerly watched Sam’s face for a sign that love had overpowered evil and he was saved. There was a flicker of something in his expression--confusion, mostly, as if he couldn’t logically reconcile this new part of himself with what he already was--but the confusion died away soon enough and he gazed at Cas with hardly any more warmth or kindness than before. “Well ... thanks,” he said perfunctorily. “That’s the last one I need, okay? If you want me to take another one, you’re gonna have to give me something in return, if you know what I’m saying.” His expression was calculating. “Otherwise, stay out of my business. You’re worse than Dean.” He turned and went back to Anteaterina, sliding onto the bench next to her sensually, saying, “I like your long, agile tongue ....”
Cas slumped down on the grass beside the river. So this was the human emotion of despair. As an angel, Cas couldn’t see how humans could succomb to it. Now she couldn’t fathom how they ever did anything else. She had already failed at everything she’d been asked to do. Evil had become a part of Sam Winchester, despite all her efforts--and with only the third soul shard. Love had not saved him; it had only given the evil inside him new power. She was no closer to finding out why things were so screwy in this town. Sam even knew her feelings for him. Everything she had tried to do was in shambles.
She paid no attention to the sound of feet approaching, as she had no friends besides Pikae and Lilliae, and it couldn’t be them. They would be running and giggling, perhaps planning to push her into the water or some other mischief. No one else had any interest in her, except Sam, and his interest was only of the carnal kind.
Someone sat down beside her, and said, “Hey.”
She turned to look, and was astonished to see Dean.
“Cas, right?”
“Yes, Dean.”
“So what’s this with trying to put my brother’s soul back into him? How’d he lose it, anyway?”
“Rueby’s father indirectly caused it to shatter.”
“So why ... why are you doing this for him?”
Cas sighed, staring deeply into the water. “Because my father asked me to, and ... and because I wanted to.”
Dean stared intently at her for a long moment, then suddenly seemed to see something she must not keep very well hidden, since everybody--everybody--knew. “You love him!” he gasped.
Cas glanced at him anxiously. “Please ... please don’t say it out loud.” She longed to tell him why, but even the words, “... because I’m not allowed to” could be enough of an admission to bring an end to her.
Dean looked out over the water sorrowfully. “Yeah, well ... me, too. I wasn’t sure about what you were doing at first, but ... obviously Sam needs his soul back, and looks like you’re the only one around who has the power to do it, am I right?”
Cas nodded. She tried really hard to keep them at bay, but the tears kept filling her eyes, obscuring her vision, until finally she couldn’t help covering her face and weeping out loud. “Only I can’t do it! I thought if I just returned more pieces of Sam’s soul, he’d get better, but he only gets worse! He’s as evil as ever, he just gets stronger and smarter all the time!”
“It’s okay!” Dean said. Cas was shocked to feel a comforting hand on her arm. Mean old Dean, of all people?? He was capable of kindness? “It’s okay. You just do your thing, getting him back the pieces of his soul, and I’ll try to figure out how to get the demon blood out of him. I mean, jeez, you can’t do it all on your own.”
Overcome with relief and gratitude, Cas turned and clutched Dean tightly, sobbing into his chest, as he awkwardly attempted to comfort her. She’d hated and feared Dean so much ... but in the end, he was only doing his best for Sam, too, trying to protect him, as Cas was, from terrible, deceitful danger that seemed to come at Sam from all sides, and Sam there in the middle of it all, vacant and helpless against all these forces so much more powerful than him. “I’ll help you,” Dean murmured, and then Cas was for the first time able to understand another baffling human emotion: hope.
It renewed her zeal to help Sam and gave her an idea. “The answer to how to save Sam must be somewhere in Rueby’s lair. I can’t go in there on my own, but with your help ....”
Dean grinned. “Help Sam and screw Rueby at the same time? I’m in.”
They crept into Rueby’s lair once Dean erased all the angel-proofing sigils so Cas could get in. It was cavernous, dark, and hellish. They searched through every section of the caves, creeping along quietly. Some of the sections had underground lakes, but this posed no problem for Cas, since water only turned her human, and had no effect on her human form.
Only when they were far too deep in the caverns to turn back did they realize it was a trap. Rueby was there, her father behind her. Truly, he was evil incarnate. His great black wings nearly spanned the cave. Now fallen, his giant black wings spanned a distance greater than Cas’s ever could, just as he was infinitely more powerful than she.
A battle ensued immediately. Dean was badly losing, because Cas was virtually useless as a fighter in her human form. She saw Dean thrown to the ground, saw him grunt and try to struggle, yet again, to his feet--indomitable Dean, who kept on fighting and fighting and fighting, even when there was no hope. He’d always been like that. There was only one thing she could do.
She whispered her father’s name, and her wings and her halo flared into existence. She caught sight of the shock on Dean’s face, the awe, lit by her own light, before she turned to face Lucifer.
“Castiel!,” he said, surprised. “Brother!--er ... sister! Let me guess: dear old dad sent you down here to do his dirty work for him.”
“As you have sent your daughter to do your dirty work on Earth,” said Cas, voice strong with determination, though she knew she would fail when she tried to battle him.
“What, Rueby? Yeah, she’s a good girl,” he said, while Rueby preened. “She helped me a lot with Sam. But you just had to go and undo all the good work I’ve done.”
“I will undo the rest, as well. Return Gold Crown Town to normal. Free the people from their animal forms. Give them back their true identities.”
Lucifer made a face. “Yeah ... I don’t know what the deal is with that town; whatever’s going on up there, that wasn’t me. Freaky, though, am I right?” He looked amused by the whole thing.
Cas cocked her head. If he hadn’t done it, then who had?
He went on, enjoying his position of certain victory. “So, sister, here’s what’s going to happen: I guess there’s going to be some kind of ‘fight’ between you and me, and then Rueby’s gonna kill Dean and shatter Sam’s soul again, and then I’ll finally have Sam right where I want him.”
Cas noted that he had specified that Rueby would be doing the killing. He must still be powerless upon the Earth--against humans, anyway; even if not against angels. This was good news--it meant that though she would surely perish, Dean might be saved. “Dean,” she said quietly, just to him. “Leave this cave now, and don’t look back.”
“Wh--why? What’s gonna happen to you?”
“It doesn’t matter. Go now; he can’t hurt you.”
“Well, I can’t just leave you here!”
“You can and you must. Dean!” she said urgently, as both Rueby and her father began to circle her. “Now!”
Dean struggled to his feet. “Nope. We leave together or we go down together. There’s no other option.”
“Actually, there is,” said Sam behind them. They both turned, shocked, to see him standing at the entrance to the cavern. “Thanks for all the demon blood, Rueby,” he said. “It’s about to come in handy.” He stretched out his arm toward her and narrowed his eyes, concentrating as he stared at her. They looked at Rueby, who was beginning to twitch. Her expression grew pained, and she coughed. Cas watched astonished as Sam used the power of the demon blood to draw the demon right out of Rueby and send it back to hell whence it came. Her body dropped to the ground, now nothing more than an innocent girl.
“Come on; let’s get out of here!” said Dean.
“Bring the girl!” Cas cried urgently. “We must save her, too!”
Sam ran and picked her up, and they hurried toward the entrance to the cave, Lucifer roaring behind them, in pursuit. On the other side of the entrance to this interior cavern, Cas drew some markings on the stone wall in her blood. She barely had time to finish the sigil before Lucifer lunged for the entrance--and was stopped by an invisible force. He could no more cross an angel-proofed boundary than Cas could. He was trapped inside the cavern where they’d found him.
Dean couldn’t resist rubbing it in from the safe side of the cave entrance, making rude gestures and slapping his butt, before Sam managed to drag him out of there, home, to their room.
Sam nursed the human girl Rueby back to health in their room, upon which she was able to return to her room in the girls’ dorm, but Sam and Rueby spent more and more time together. Cas collected and returned more shards of Sam’s soul as she watched Sam and Rueby slowly fall in love. Even though the demon blood was still inside Sam, apparently the love shard had made this possible ... but for some reason, he never felt such love for Cas, even though it was she who was restoring him. Maybe if she were able to tell him how she felt, he could begin to see her that way ... but she would never be able to, which seemed like the cruelest irony. It was agony for Cas to see Sam fall in love with another girl right in front of her face ... but she was an angel. Her father had told her these were the rules, and she had accepted them. Who was she to believe she deserved anything more?
So she did her job, and made herself smile and be happy that Sam was becoming more himself ... except for the demon blood. With the addition of the love shard, he had enough feeling for Dean to come searching for him and save him in the cave, enough feeling to fall in love with Rueby ... but it was hard for him to keep his evil impulses at bay, and they were no closer to figuring out how to rid him of it.
Cas scoured the town and the forest, as far as the city walls would allow, and found every last shard of his soul. All four of them hoped fervently that with the return of the last shard, he would finally be purified. Even if Sam didn’t love her, Dean, at least, had respect for her now, and gratitude for all she did. Sam was grateful when she returned the last shard, but though he tried to hide it so as not to disappoint them, it was soon obvious the demon blood still acted on him.
Rueby was some help in their quest to heal Sam, as she was able to remember a little of what happened when she was possessed by the demon. She was able to tell Sam and Dean and Cas how they soaked the shard in demon blood ... but once Cas heard the story, she was filled with an even greater despair than before, for she knew now exactly what her brother had done, and that it was not something that could be undone. She begged her leave of them, wandered across the square and through the town, finding herself once again beside the river, staring down into its depths. Tears streamed silently down her face. She had failed. Sam and Dean were doomed. The story was ruined. Even all the people of Gold Crown Town were trapped here in this fairy-tale land where they couldn’t tell fact from fiction.
She wished with all her heart she’d never been so foolish and selfish as to ask to become human. She was not up to the task, and besides, she could not make one single thing she’d ever hoped for come true--not only for herself, which would have been bad enough, but at this point she would be satisfied if she could make one good thing happen for anyone else, and she couldn’t even do that. She tried to be happy for Sam and Rueby--no, she WAS happy for Sam and Rueby--but even their love had been sullied by Cas’s failures.
Dean found her there. “Hey, you took off pretty fast. What’s going on?” He caught sight of her tears. “What’s wrong?!” he gasped.
“I returned the last shard of your brother’s soul,” she told him, “and still--and still--”
She saw Dean’s face crease with horror equivalent to her own at the news.
“If even love wasn’t enough to make him good again .... You and your brother, and even all the people in this town, are lost because I could not save him. There is no way to erase the evil from his soul, or ... unless ....”
Cas suddenly had an idea. It would probably mean the end of her ... but at least it wouldn’t mean the end of Sam, or Dean, or the story her father was trying to write about them. If she did what she wanted, with all her heart, to do, she would explode in a burst of light, which would be the end of her, anyway. Maybe she was doomed from the start. She could sacrifice herself for this ... couldn’t she? God sent an angel for a reason. There was something Cas could do that no one else could do. “I can’t fix it, but I may be able to shift it ....”
She headed for the boys’ dorm at a run, Dean on her heels. When she burst through their bedroom door, she found Sam alone, lying on his bed.
“Oh, Sam,” Cas cried. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to save you from all your pain, but I can do this much for you ....” She leaned over him, touching his head, collecting the evil demon blood and bringing it into herself. Both of them writhed in pain as it went from one to the other of them, as Dean looked on helplessly. When the transfer was complete, Cas collapsed. Dean caught her just in time before she crumpled to the floor. He shouted her name, but she only stared blankly, as if she was the one who had lost her soul.
“Oh, God,” Dean groaned. “Sammy! Are you okay? Are you still evil?”
Sam felt his head in wonder. “Yeah, Dean. Yeah, I’m fine. I can feel that the--the demon blood is gone!” He sat up and looked at the two of them, and he looked agonized. “But Cas--”
“Not so good. Help me get her on the bed.”
They lay her gently on Dean’s bed, where she stared at the ceiling, unblinking and unseeing. Sam hunkered down next to him to look and see if he could help out with Cas, and he did seem better--way better, and looking mostly human now--or again, or something; he couldn’t seem to remember what he’d looked like when they were little. The evil was gone--Cas really had managed to remove it, at great cost to herself ... but Dean knew his brother better than anyone else on Earth--better even than he knew himself, anymore--and he wasn’t all there. There was still a piece missing.
They kept Cas in their room in Dean’s bed, and the brothers shared Sam’s bed. She couldn’t take care of herself--couldn’t even move. The last thing she needed was to go back to those evil roommates of hers. Everything sucked--everything. Here Dean was, stuck with a still-partly-soulless brother, and a comatose girl--the only girl who knew how to return the part of Sam that was missing. Meanwhile, Dad still wasn’t back, Sam still had burning and itching where he’d be better off not having it, and his brother was getting taller by the day. Soon he would overtake Dean, his four-years-older brother! The world had gone to hell in a handbasket! Fortunately, that had been happening almost since Dean could remember; he knew all about how to deal with that. Plus, he kicked ass at hand-to-handbasket.
It was Cas he was really worried about. An angel. A real-life, flesh-and-blood angel. Dad had always said they didn’t exist, but apparently even dad didn’t know everything. God had cared enough to send down an angel to try to help little Sammy.
Cas had been like this for weeks. Dean couldn’t stand it anymore. He broke down and did a ton of research in the library. He paged feverishly through Dad’s journal. He even got desperate enough to try to ask their teacher and Dad’s hunter friend Mr. Bobcat about it, since Dad still hadn’t come for them, and after hissing and growling and cussing a lot, Mr. Bobcat had finally said it didn’t sound like anything he’d ever heard of.
That afternoon when no one else was around, Dean sat on his bed next to Cas and stared down at her pretty face. As a general rule, he wasn’t into freshmen--he preferred older women, in fact--but there was something about Cas that seemed wise beyond her years, an old soul. He took her slack hand in his. He kissed it. He knew it was Sam she loved, so Dean wouldn’t think about her that way, couldn’t afford to. It was just that she was so ... good. She’d done everything she could to help them, getting nothing for herself. She’d sacrificed herself for his brother. It wasn’t fair that this is what she got in exchange. His eyes filled with tears. He’d tried everything--fighting, spells, even research--but it got him nowhere. “Please,” he whispered, the tears finding their way down his cheeks. “Please, God, save her.”
His eyes were closed, praying. When he opened them again, Cas was sitting bolt upright, her wings and halo bright and vivid, her eyes open. He practically fell off the bed. “Oh, my God! Cas? Is it you? Are you all right?”
She turned to him and smiled. He was so happy to see some sort of expression on her face, he could have gotten up and done a pirouette. “Yes. I’m all right now.”
“Oh, thank God!” He threw his arms around her.
“Dean,” she whispered fervently, holding him back gently.
There was something in the hug, some sort of deep, unfathomable longing. She must be thinking of Sam, wanting him, Dean figured, so he blurted out, “You’ve got to tell him how you feel, Cas, and now, or ... or it’ll be too late. Maybe it already is. He and Rueby ....”
Dean saw the ripple of pain pass across her expression, so why did she then force a smile to her face? “Sam and Rueby should be together.”
“No, they shouldn’t!” Dean protested, outraged. “I know she’s supposedly good now and everything, but ... I don’t know, I still don’t trust her. Tell him how you feel. Maybe ... maybe then ....”
“No,” she said, trying to be strong, but Dean saw a couple little tears escape anyway, and she turned her face away to hide them. “Dean,” she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady, “I can’t.”
He heard in her tone something he understood well. It was the same kind of “can’t” he meant when his father had given him an order he couldn’t disobey. He just nodded. “Okay,” he said simply. “I get it.”
There was a silence as she tried to pull herself together, struggling to get all the parts of herself she wasn’t allowed to express under control again. This kind of struggle was as familiar to Dean as breathing, had been since he was four. He politely looked away and acted like everything was cool, not remarking on it, until she could speak again.
“Is Sam all right now?” she asked, her voice quavering only slightly. For a tiny freshman girl, she had a toughness Dean couldn’t help but admire, the same kind of toughness he’d always aspired to. The two of them had way more in common than she and Sam did. So why didn’t she have those feelings for Dean? Didn’t matter; she just didn’t.
“Yeah! Yeah, Cas, he’s ... great. The demon blood’s gone.” He didn’t have the heart to tell her he was still missing a part of his soul.
“Good, then I have only one more task.”
How much time Cas had spent with Sam and Dean had made Pikae and Liliae even more jealous, so they were more horrible than ever, and Dean had finally suggested Cas continue to live with him and Sam in their room, which she agreed to without a moment’s thought, as if it had never occurred to her that there might be a reason why girls and boys had separate dorms. Living with Sam and Dean meant she got to spend lots of time with Sam, which thrilled her. Dean felt a bittersweet joy of his own, to see her so happy. Still, her happiness waned the more time she spent with Sam, until one late morning after Sam had gone to class, she confessed to Dean, “Sam still doesn’t seem ... quite himself.”
Dean deflated. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I think ... I think there’s still a piece missing.”
She looked confused. “But--I’ve searched the whole town and the surrounding forest, to every wall. There are no more shards here.”
Dean couldn’t let her see how the news crushed him. She’d been ready to give her life to save Sam--even just to save Dean. She’d tried so hard--she’d done her best. Was Sam doomed to be not quite a whole person forever?
Cas kept talking about how there was something wrong with this town. She claimed people didn’t turn into animals in other towns, and that they could remember their pasts. Was that really true? The fact was, Dean couldn’t remember, so he figured she must be right. He’d had some sense that something was off since they came here, but if he had to guess, that wouldn’t have been the thing he thought was the problem.
“Really?” Cas asked him in her calm, kind way as they walked along the river. He and Cas often took evening walks together, since Rueby and Sam were always hanging around in their room at this time of day, making eyes at each other, blech. “Hmm. Then, if you had to, what would you say is wrong with it?”
Dean scowled. “I dunno,” he muttered.
Cas only gazed up at his face, waiting. His grouchiness never bothered her. It was like she understood him. She knew he was just embarrassed, and if she waited, he’d answer eventually.
“Well,” he finally growled irritably, “I dunno, but I’ve always hated those bitch roommates of yours. I mean, what the hell? Those girls have been making eyes at me and Sam since we got here, and they’ve always just pissed me off. How did you even end up with two roommates, anyway? I thought it was only two people to a room.”
Cas quirked her head. How had she ended up with them as roommates? She couldn’t remember.
“And why did Sam go after Pikae? He always hated her just as much as I did. So why was she the first one he wanted to ... you know, when he turned evil? It doesn’t make any sense. Plus, I saw her that night you jumped in the fountain. She was watching from your room, grinning like the psycho she is.”
Cas’s eyes flew wide. If Pikae had seen her jump in the fountain, then she must have seen her angel form! “Pikae ... Pikae knows?” she whispered.
She turned mid-stride and started heading for the dorms. Dean followed. Maybe Cas could take on Lucifer, but an evil high-school freshman girl? Dean knew he’d better stay close by.
They found Pikae alone in a hallway, smirking at them. “... Yes?” she said. “Didja finally realize you’re interested in moi, Dean?”
“The jig is up,” he told her unceremoniously, shoving her up against the wall. “We know you’re somehow to blame for ... actually, I’m just gonna blame you for everything until I have some more information, so out with it!” To Dean’s surprise, Cas stood beside him, helping him pin Pikae there, staring seriously into her eyes.
Dean watched, astonished, as Pikae transformed into a smirky, hazel-eyed man. “Ya caught me,” he said, as Cas gasped.
“Gabriel?” she exclaimed.
“In the flesh,” he said proudly, gesturing to himself. “Though I go by ‘Loki’ now.”
“Trickster god,” Dean muttered. “Great.”
Cas lifted her chin, unamused. “You’re to blame for what’s wrong with Gold Crown Town.”
Gabriel looked most pleased with himself, then started laughing helplessly. “Your brother ...,” he gasped, soon laughing so hard he could barely get the words out, “the moose!”
Dean frowned irritably, but he was all business. “Fine,” he said to Cas, “how do we kill this thing?”
“We don’t,” Cas said, still reeling from the revelation. “He’s an angel. Gabriel,” she said sternly, “make things right in this town. Our father is displeased. Sam and Dean could have been killed, and Sam is still missing part of his soul!”
“Now now,” Gabriel said quickly, “you can’t blame me for that; that was all Lucifer. I was just having a little fun here in Gold Crown Town, then lo and behold, along come the Winchesters! Suddenly, it was twice as fun!”
“Set it right,” Cas commanded.
Gabriel looked disappointed, like she’d just ruined all his fun. “Fine,” he pouted, beleaguered, and gestured again. Dean felt memories flood back into him and he staggered back. How could he have forgotten everything--everything that happened in their lives, everything he and Sam had been through?? He remembered now. “Happy now?” Gabriel said irritably. Cas, noting Dean’s strong reaction, let Gabriel go uncertainly. Gabriel smirked at them one last time, chortling, “A bobcat in a trucker cap!,” snapped his fingers, and disappeared.
Cas rushed to Dean’s side. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Dean gasped. “Yeah, I’m okay ... just .... Why are you looking at me like that?” She was staring deep into his eyes, and Dean couldn’t help the sudden hope that burst through him, thinking maybe, just maybe, she was looking at him like that because ....
“I just found the last soul shard,” she whispered. She gently placed her hand on Dean’s heart, then drew it away, and out of Dean stepped another ghostly image of Sam. “What part of Sam are you?” she asked it, awed, as Dean stared, bewildered.
“I am the part that is my brother,” it said.
Cas’s eyes lit up. “Of course,” she said. “Sam could never be whole without his brother.” She smiled at Dean, her eyes sparkling, and took his hand. “Shall we find Sam?” she said.
~ The End ~
Author: brightly_lit
Crossover: Supernatural/Princess Tutu
Rating: PG for a teeny bit of iffy language
Genre: um ... literary crack!fic? Your guess is as good as mine. Also, teen!chesters, angst, light romance, high school/boarding school, mystery, hurt/comfort, fairy tale, gen
Characters: Castiel/Princess Tutu-Duck, Sam/Mytho, Dean/Fakir, Ruby/Rue, Bobby/Mr. Cat, Gabriel/Pikae, Balthazar/Liliae, God-Chuck/Drosselmeyer
Word Count: ~10,600
Summary: Sam has lost his soul, and it's up to the angel Castiel to collect the shards and return them to him without letting anyone know what Cas really is ... but Sam's girlfriend Rueby and his brother Dean stand in Cas's way ....
A fairy-tale-esque retelling of how Sam's shattered soul/mind got put back together, based on the plot of Princess Tutu.
Continued from here.
Evil soulless Sam embarked on a new campaign: to sleep with as many of the girls on campus as possible, and Pikae was his first intended victim. Fortunately, Cas--always stalking him--was there to save her from this terrible fate ... or, well, it wouldn’t have been that terrible, if rumors of his prowess were to be believed, but he would certainly have broken her heart when he moved on to the next girl.
“Sam’s kind of creepy,” Pikae remarked to her as Cas returned her safely to their dorm room. “I’m stickin’ with Dean love from now on!”
Sam was a little annoyed by Cas’s “cock-blocking” ways, as he put it, but dismissed it as jealousy, offering to sleep with her as often as she liked. Cas demurred, deeply troubled. This was not the Sam she loved--not at all. Perhaps with more shards of his soul returned, the effects of the demon blood would be diluted and he would return to his old self, or so she thought; instead, each new shard seemed to experience agony as it reentered him, and seldom did there appear to be any struggle between good and evil inside him with the introduction of another formerly pure part of himself. Evil, it seemed, had already won within him, just as Rueby said.
She found another soul shard wandering the garden, gazing at all the flowers, a sweet smile on its face. “Sam Winchester,” she whispered, and it turned to smile at her. “Which part of Sam’s soul are you?”
“I’m the part that loves,” it said.
Cas’s eyes filled with tears. On one hand there was the hope that love could overpower the evil and save him, but on the other hand, what if ... what if even Sam’s love were somehow sullied? She took its hand. “I know where Sam is. I can return you to your home. But--” she said as its expression brightened “--Sam is not as you left him. He’s been made evil.” She started to cry. “A part of his soul was soaked in demon blood, and--”
“I still want to go,” it told her, sounding strong and determined. “If anything can defeat evil, it’s me. I can’t do any good hiding here away from where I’m meant to be.”
Cas nodded, choking back her tears, and took it back to Sam, who was just then romancing Anteaterina on a park bench and not getting very far with it. He looked irritable and resigned to see Cas coming. “Just a second,” he told Anteaterina. “I’ll get rid of ’er, and then we can get back to ....” He arched his eyebrows at her. He got up and met Cas on the riverbank behind the treeline where they couldn’t be seen, muttering about striking out with Anteaterina. Then his expression lightened, as if he’d realized something about why Cas might be there--although on this new evil Sam, his lighter expression also looked far more wicked. “You finally decided you would say yes?” he said hopefully.
His words cut her. She reminded herself it wasn’t the real Sam Winchester talking. “I have something for you,” she told him, and the love shard stepped into view.
Sam rolled his eyes. “How many more of these are there going to be? I’m feeling pretty good now; I don’t think I need another one.”
He was so cold and so evil--unsurprising, since he lacked the capacity to love.
“Please--please at least take this one,” she begged him, holding back tears.
The love shard stepped up to Sam, embraced him tenderly, and became one with him. Cas eagerly watched Sam’s face for a sign that love had overpowered evil and he was saved. There was a flicker of something in his expression--confusion, mostly, as if he couldn’t logically reconcile this new part of himself with what he already was--but the confusion died away soon enough and he gazed at Cas with hardly any more warmth or kindness than before. “Well ... thanks,” he said perfunctorily. “That’s the last one I need, okay? If you want me to take another one, you’re gonna have to give me something in return, if you know what I’m saying.” His expression was calculating. “Otherwise, stay out of my business. You’re worse than Dean.” He turned and went back to Anteaterina, sliding onto the bench next to her sensually, saying, “I like your long, agile tongue ....”
Cas slumped down on the grass beside the river. So this was the human emotion of despair. As an angel, Cas couldn’t see how humans could succomb to it. Now she couldn’t fathom how they ever did anything else. She had already failed at everything she’d been asked to do. Evil had become a part of Sam Winchester, despite all her efforts--and with only the third soul shard. Love had not saved him; it had only given the evil inside him new power. She was no closer to finding out why things were so screwy in this town. Sam even knew her feelings for him. Everything she had tried to do was in shambles.
She paid no attention to the sound of feet approaching, as she had no friends besides Pikae and Lilliae, and it couldn’t be them. They would be running and giggling, perhaps planning to push her into the water or some other mischief. No one else had any interest in her, except Sam, and his interest was only of the carnal kind.
Someone sat down beside her, and said, “Hey.”
She turned to look, and was astonished to see Dean.
“Cas, right?”
“Yes, Dean.”
“So what’s this with trying to put my brother’s soul back into him? How’d he lose it, anyway?”
“Rueby’s father indirectly caused it to shatter.”
“So why ... why are you doing this for him?”
Cas sighed, staring deeply into the water. “Because my father asked me to, and ... and because I wanted to.”
Dean stared intently at her for a long moment, then suddenly seemed to see something she must not keep very well hidden, since everybody--everybody--knew. “You love him!” he gasped.
Cas glanced at him anxiously. “Please ... please don’t say it out loud.” She longed to tell him why, but even the words, “... because I’m not allowed to” could be enough of an admission to bring an end to her.
Dean looked out over the water sorrowfully. “Yeah, well ... me, too. I wasn’t sure about what you were doing at first, but ... obviously Sam needs his soul back, and looks like you’re the only one around who has the power to do it, am I right?”
Cas nodded. She tried really hard to keep them at bay, but the tears kept filling her eyes, obscuring her vision, until finally she couldn’t help covering her face and weeping out loud. “Only I can’t do it! I thought if I just returned more pieces of Sam’s soul, he’d get better, but he only gets worse! He’s as evil as ever, he just gets stronger and smarter all the time!”
“It’s okay!” Dean said. Cas was shocked to feel a comforting hand on her arm. Mean old Dean, of all people?? He was capable of kindness? “It’s okay. You just do your thing, getting him back the pieces of his soul, and I’ll try to figure out how to get the demon blood out of him. I mean, jeez, you can’t do it all on your own.”
Overcome with relief and gratitude, Cas turned and clutched Dean tightly, sobbing into his chest, as he awkwardly attempted to comfort her. She’d hated and feared Dean so much ... but in the end, he was only doing his best for Sam, too, trying to protect him, as Cas was, from terrible, deceitful danger that seemed to come at Sam from all sides, and Sam there in the middle of it all, vacant and helpless against all these forces so much more powerful than him. “I’ll help you,” Dean murmured, and then Cas was for the first time able to understand another baffling human emotion: hope.
It renewed her zeal to help Sam and gave her an idea. “The answer to how to save Sam must be somewhere in Rueby’s lair. I can’t go in there on my own, but with your help ....”
Dean grinned. “Help Sam and screw Rueby at the same time? I’m in.”
They crept into Rueby’s lair once Dean erased all the angel-proofing sigils so Cas could get in. It was cavernous, dark, and hellish. They searched through every section of the caves, creeping along quietly. Some of the sections had underground lakes, but this posed no problem for Cas, since water only turned her human, and had no effect on her human form.
Only when they were far too deep in the caverns to turn back did they realize it was a trap. Rueby was there, her father behind her. Truly, he was evil incarnate. His great black wings nearly spanned the cave. Now fallen, his giant black wings spanned a distance greater than Cas’s ever could, just as he was infinitely more powerful than she.
A battle ensued immediately. Dean was badly losing, because Cas was virtually useless as a fighter in her human form. She saw Dean thrown to the ground, saw him grunt and try to struggle, yet again, to his feet--indomitable Dean, who kept on fighting and fighting and fighting, even when there was no hope. He’d always been like that. There was only one thing she could do.
She whispered her father’s name, and her wings and her halo flared into existence. She caught sight of the shock on Dean’s face, the awe, lit by her own light, before she turned to face Lucifer.
“Castiel!,” he said, surprised. “Brother!--er ... sister! Let me guess: dear old dad sent you down here to do his dirty work for him.”
“As you have sent your daughter to do your dirty work on Earth,” said Cas, voice strong with determination, though she knew she would fail when she tried to battle him.
“What, Rueby? Yeah, she’s a good girl,” he said, while Rueby preened. “She helped me a lot with Sam. But you just had to go and undo all the good work I’ve done.”
“I will undo the rest, as well. Return Gold Crown Town to normal. Free the people from their animal forms. Give them back their true identities.”
Lucifer made a face. “Yeah ... I don’t know what the deal is with that town; whatever’s going on up there, that wasn’t me. Freaky, though, am I right?” He looked amused by the whole thing.
Cas cocked her head. If he hadn’t done it, then who had?
He went on, enjoying his position of certain victory. “So, sister, here’s what’s going to happen: I guess there’s going to be some kind of ‘fight’ between you and me, and then Rueby’s gonna kill Dean and shatter Sam’s soul again, and then I’ll finally have Sam right where I want him.”
Cas noted that he had specified that Rueby would be doing the killing. He must still be powerless upon the Earth--against humans, anyway; even if not against angels. This was good news--it meant that though she would surely perish, Dean might be saved. “Dean,” she said quietly, just to him. “Leave this cave now, and don’t look back.”
“Wh--why? What’s gonna happen to you?”
“It doesn’t matter. Go now; he can’t hurt you.”
“Well, I can’t just leave you here!”
“You can and you must. Dean!” she said urgently, as both Rueby and her father began to circle her. “Now!”
Dean struggled to his feet. “Nope. We leave together or we go down together. There’s no other option.”
“Actually, there is,” said Sam behind them. They both turned, shocked, to see him standing at the entrance to the cavern. “Thanks for all the demon blood, Rueby,” he said. “It’s about to come in handy.” He stretched out his arm toward her and narrowed his eyes, concentrating as he stared at her. They looked at Rueby, who was beginning to twitch. Her expression grew pained, and she coughed. Cas watched astonished as Sam used the power of the demon blood to draw the demon right out of Rueby and send it back to hell whence it came. Her body dropped to the ground, now nothing more than an innocent girl.
“Come on; let’s get out of here!” said Dean.
“Bring the girl!” Cas cried urgently. “We must save her, too!”
Sam ran and picked her up, and they hurried toward the entrance to the cave, Lucifer roaring behind them, in pursuit. On the other side of the entrance to this interior cavern, Cas drew some markings on the stone wall in her blood. She barely had time to finish the sigil before Lucifer lunged for the entrance--and was stopped by an invisible force. He could no more cross an angel-proofed boundary than Cas could. He was trapped inside the cavern where they’d found him.
Dean couldn’t resist rubbing it in from the safe side of the cave entrance, making rude gestures and slapping his butt, before Sam managed to drag him out of there, home, to their room.
Sam nursed the human girl Rueby back to health in their room, upon which she was able to return to her room in the girls’ dorm, but Sam and Rueby spent more and more time together. Cas collected and returned more shards of Sam’s soul as she watched Sam and Rueby slowly fall in love. Even though the demon blood was still inside Sam, apparently the love shard had made this possible ... but for some reason, he never felt such love for Cas, even though it was she who was restoring him. Maybe if she were able to tell him how she felt, he could begin to see her that way ... but she would never be able to, which seemed like the cruelest irony. It was agony for Cas to see Sam fall in love with another girl right in front of her face ... but she was an angel. Her father had told her these were the rules, and she had accepted them. Who was she to believe she deserved anything more?
So she did her job, and made herself smile and be happy that Sam was becoming more himself ... except for the demon blood. With the addition of the love shard, he had enough feeling for Dean to come searching for him and save him in the cave, enough feeling to fall in love with Rueby ... but it was hard for him to keep his evil impulses at bay, and they were no closer to figuring out how to rid him of it.
Cas scoured the town and the forest, as far as the city walls would allow, and found every last shard of his soul. All four of them hoped fervently that with the return of the last shard, he would finally be purified. Even if Sam didn’t love her, Dean, at least, had respect for her now, and gratitude for all she did. Sam was grateful when she returned the last shard, but though he tried to hide it so as not to disappoint them, it was soon obvious the demon blood still acted on him.
Rueby was some help in their quest to heal Sam, as she was able to remember a little of what happened when she was possessed by the demon. She was able to tell Sam and Dean and Cas how they soaked the shard in demon blood ... but once Cas heard the story, she was filled with an even greater despair than before, for she knew now exactly what her brother had done, and that it was not something that could be undone. She begged her leave of them, wandered across the square and through the town, finding herself once again beside the river, staring down into its depths. Tears streamed silently down her face. She had failed. Sam and Dean were doomed. The story was ruined. Even all the people of Gold Crown Town were trapped here in this fairy-tale land where they couldn’t tell fact from fiction.
She wished with all her heart she’d never been so foolish and selfish as to ask to become human. She was not up to the task, and besides, she could not make one single thing she’d ever hoped for come true--not only for herself, which would have been bad enough, but at this point she would be satisfied if she could make one good thing happen for anyone else, and she couldn’t even do that. She tried to be happy for Sam and Rueby--no, she WAS happy for Sam and Rueby--but even their love had been sullied by Cas’s failures.
Dean found her there. “Hey, you took off pretty fast. What’s going on?” He caught sight of her tears. “What’s wrong?!” he gasped.
“I returned the last shard of your brother’s soul,” she told him, “and still--and still--”
She saw Dean’s face crease with horror equivalent to her own at the news.
“If even love wasn’t enough to make him good again .... You and your brother, and even all the people in this town, are lost because I could not save him. There is no way to erase the evil from his soul, or ... unless ....”
Cas suddenly had an idea. It would probably mean the end of her ... but at least it wouldn’t mean the end of Sam, or Dean, or the story her father was trying to write about them. If she did what she wanted, with all her heart, to do, she would explode in a burst of light, which would be the end of her, anyway. Maybe she was doomed from the start. She could sacrifice herself for this ... couldn’t she? God sent an angel for a reason. There was something Cas could do that no one else could do. “I can’t fix it, but I may be able to shift it ....”
She headed for the boys’ dorm at a run, Dean on her heels. When she burst through their bedroom door, she found Sam alone, lying on his bed.
“Oh, Sam,” Cas cried. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to save you from all your pain, but I can do this much for you ....” She leaned over him, touching his head, collecting the evil demon blood and bringing it into herself. Both of them writhed in pain as it went from one to the other of them, as Dean looked on helplessly. When the transfer was complete, Cas collapsed. Dean caught her just in time before she crumpled to the floor. He shouted her name, but she only stared blankly, as if she was the one who had lost her soul.
“Oh, God,” Dean groaned. “Sammy! Are you okay? Are you still evil?”
Sam felt his head in wonder. “Yeah, Dean. Yeah, I’m fine. I can feel that the--the demon blood is gone!” He sat up and looked at the two of them, and he looked agonized. “But Cas--”
“Not so good. Help me get her on the bed.”
They lay her gently on Dean’s bed, where she stared at the ceiling, unblinking and unseeing. Sam hunkered down next to him to look and see if he could help out with Cas, and he did seem better--way better, and looking mostly human now--or again, or something; he couldn’t seem to remember what he’d looked like when they were little. The evil was gone--Cas really had managed to remove it, at great cost to herself ... but Dean knew his brother better than anyone else on Earth--better even than he knew himself, anymore--and he wasn’t all there. There was still a piece missing.
They kept Cas in their room in Dean’s bed, and the brothers shared Sam’s bed. She couldn’t take care of herself--couldn’t even move. The last thing she needed was to go back to those evil roommates of hers. Everything sucked--everything. Here Dean was, stuck with a still-partly-soulless brother, and a comatose girl--the only girl who knew how to return the part of Sam that was missing. Meanwhile, Dad still wasn’t back, Sam still had burning and itching where he’d be better off not having it, and his brother was getting taller by the day. Soon he would overtake Dean, his four-years-older brother! The world had gone to hell in a handbasket! Fortunately, that had been happening almost since Dean could remember; he knew all about how to deal with that. Plus, he kicked ass at hand-to-handbasket.
It was Cas he was really worried about. An angel. A real-life, flesh-and-blood angel. Dad had always said they didn’t exist, but apparently even dad didn’t know everything. God had cared enough to send down an angel to try to help little Sammy.
Cas had been like this for weeks. Dean couldn’t stand it anymore. He broke down and did a ton of research in the library. He paged feverishly through Dad’s journal. He even got desperate enough to try to ask their teacher and Dad’s hunter friend Mr. Bobcat about it, since Dad still hadn’t come for them, and after hissing and growling and cussing a lot, Mr. Bobcat had finally said it didn’t sound like anything he’d ever heard of.
That afternoon when no one else was around, Dean sat on his bed next to Cas and stared down at her pretty face. As a general rule, he wasn’t into freshmen--he preferred older women, in fact--but there was something about Cas that seemed wise beyond her years, an old soul. He took her slack hand in his. He kissed it. He knew it was Sam she loved, so Dean wouldn’t think about her that way, couldn’t afford to. It was just that she was so ... good. She’d done everything she could to help them, getting nothing for herself. She’d sacrificed herself for his brother. It wasn’t fair that this is what she got in exchange. His eyes filled with tears. He’d tried everything--fighting, spells, even research--but it got him nowhere. “Please,” he whispered, the tears finding their way down his cheeks. “Please, God, save her.”
His eyes were closed, praying. When he opened them again, Cas was sitting bolt upright, her wings and halo bright and vivid, her eyes open. He practically fell off the bed. “Oh, my God! Cas? Is it you? Are you all right?”
She turned to him and smiled. He was so happy to see some sort of expression on her face, he could have gotten up and done a pirouette. “Yes. I’m all right now.”
“Oh, thank God!” He threw his arms around her.
“Dean,” she whispered fervently, holding him back gently.
There was something in the hug, some sort of deep, unfathomable longing. She must be thinking of Sam, wanting him, Dean figured, so he blurted out, “You’ve got to tell him how you feel, Cas, and now, or ... or it’ll be too late. Maybe it already is. He and Rueby ....”
Dean saw the ripple of pain pass across her expression, so why did she then force a smile to her face? “Sam and Rueby should be together.”
“No, they shouldn’t!” Dean protested, outraged. “I know she’s supposedly good now and everything, but ... I don’t know, I still don’t trust her. Tell him how you feel. Maybe ... maybe then ....”
“No,” she said, trying to be strong, but Dean saw a couple little tears escape anyway, and she turned her face away to hide them. “Dean,” she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady, “I can’t.”
He heard in her tone something he understood well. It was the same kind of “can’t” he meant when his father had given him an order he couldn’t disobey. He just nodded. “Okay,” he said simply. “I get it.”
There was a silence as she tried to pull herself together, struggling to get all the parts of herself she wasn’t allowed to express under control again. This kind of struggle was as familiar to Dean as breathing, had been since he was four. He politely looked away and acted like everything was cool, not remarking on it, until she could speak again.
“Is Sam all right now?” she asked, her voice quavering only slightly. For a tiny freshman girl, she had a toughness Dean couldn’t help but admire, the same kind of toughness he’d always aspired to. The two of them had way more in common than she and Sam did. So why didn’t she have those feelings for Dean? Didn’t matter; she just didn’t.
“Yeah! Yeah, Cas, he’s ... great. The demon blood’s gone.” He didn’t have the heart to tell her he was still missing a part of his soul.
“Good, then I have only one more task.”
How much time Cas had spent with Sam and Dean had made Pikae and Liliae even more jealous, so they were more horrible than ever, and Dean had finally suggested Cas continue to live with him and Sam in their room, which she agreed to without a moment’s thought, as if it had never occurred to her that there might be a reason why girls and boys had separate dorms. Living with Sam and Dean meant she got to spend lots of time with Sam, which thrilled her. Dean felt a bittersweet joy of his own, to see her so happy. Still, her happiness waned the more time she spent with Sam, until one late morning after Sam had gone to class, she confessed to Dean, “Sam still doesn’t seem ... quite himself.”
Dean deflated. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I think ... I think there’s still a piece missing.”
She looked confused. “But--I’ve searched the whole town and the surrounding forest, to every wall. There are no more shards here.”
Dean couldn’t let her see how the news crushed him. She’d been ready to give her life to save Sam--even just to save Dean. She’d tried so hard--she’d done her best. Was Sam doomed to be not quite a whole person forever?
Cas kept talking about how there was something wrong with this town. She claimed people didn’t turn into animals in other towns, and that they could remember their pasts. Was that really true? The fact was, Dean couldn’t remember, so he figured she must be right. He’d had some sense that something was off since they came here, but if he had to guess, that wouldn’t have been the thing he thought was the problem.
“Really?” Cas asked him in her calm, kind way as they walked along the river. He and Cas often took evening walks together, since Rueby and Sam were always hanging around in their room at this time of day, making eyes at each other, blech. “Hmm. Then, if you had to, what would you say is wrong with it?”
Dean scowled. “I dunno,” he muttered.
Cas only gazed up at his face, waiting. His grouchiness never bothered her. It was like she understood him. She knew he was just embarrassed, and if she waited, he’d answer eventually.
“Well,” he finally growled irritably, “I dunno, but I’ve always hated those bitch roommates of yours. I mean, what the hell? Those girls have been making eyes at me and Sam since we got here, and they’ve always just pissed me off. How did you even end up with two roommates, anyway? I thought it was only two people to a room.”
Cas quirked her head. How had she ended up with them as roommates? She couldn’t remember.
“And why did Sam go after Pikae? He always hated her just as much as I did. So why was she the first one he wanted to ... you know, when he turned evil? It doesn’t make any sense. Plus, I saw her that night you jumped in the fountain. She was watching from your room, grinning like the psycho she is.”
Cas’s eyes flew wide. If Pikae had seen her jump in the fountain, then she must have seen her angel form! “Pikae ... Pikae knows?” she whispered.
She turned mid-stride and started heading for the dorms. Dean followed. Maybe Cas could take on Lucifer, but an evil high-school freshman girl? Dean knew he’d better stay close by.
They found Pikae alone in a hallway, smirking at them. “... Yes?” she said. “Didja finally realize you’re interested in moi, Dean?”
“The jig is up,” he told her unceremoniously, shoving her up against the wall. “We know you’re somehow to blame for ... actually, I’m just gonna blame you for everything until I have some more information, so out with it!” To Dean’s surprise, Cas stood beside him, helping him pin Pikae there, staring seriously into her eyes.
Dean watched, astonished, as Pikae transformed into a smirky, hazel-eyed man. “Ya caught me,” he said, as Cas gasped.
“Gabriel?” she exclaimed.
“In the flesh,” he said proudly, gesturing to himself. “Though I go by ‘Loki’ now.”
“Trickster god,” Dean muttered. “Great.”
Cas lifted her chin, unamused. “You’re to blame for what’s wrong with Gold Crown Town.”
Gabriel looked most pleased with himself, then started laughing helplessly. “Your brother ...,” he gasped, soon laughing so hard he could barely get the words out, “the moose!”
Dean frowned irritably, but he was all business. “Fine,” he said to Cas, “how do we kill this thing?”
“We don’t,” Cas said, still reeling from the revelation. “He’s an angel. Gabriel,” she said sternly, “make things right in this town. Our father is displeased. Sam and Dean could have been killed, and Sam is still missing part of his soul!”
“Now now,” Gabriel said quickly, “you can’t blame me for that; that was all Lucifer. I was just having a little fun here in Gold Crown Town, then lo and behold, along come the Winchesters! Suddenly, it was twice as fun!”
“Set it right,” Cas commanded.
Gabriel looked disappointed, like she’d just ruined all his fun. “Fine,” he pouted, beleaguered, and gestured again. Dean felt memories flood back into him and he staggered back. How could he have forgotten everything--everything that happened in their lives, everything he and Sam had been through?? He remembered now. “Happy now?” Gabriel said irritably. Cas, noting Dean’s strong reaction, let Gabriel go uncertainly. Gabriel smirked at them one last time, chortling, “A bobcat in a trucker cap!,” snapped his fingers, and disappeared.
Cas rushed to Dean’s side. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Dean gasped. “Yeah, I’m okay ... just .... Why are you looking at me like that?” She was staring deep into his eyes, and Dean couldn’t help the sudden hope that burst through him, thinking maybe, just maybe, she was looking at him like that because ....
“I just found the last soul shard,” she whispered. She gently placed her hand on Dean’s heart, then drew it away, and out of Dean stepped another ghostly image of Sam. “What part of Sam are you?” she asked it, awed, as Dean stared, bewildered.
“I am the part that is my brother,” it said.
Cas’s eyes lit up. “Of course,” she said. “Sam could never be whole without his brother.” She smiled at Dean, her eyes sparkling, and took his hand. “Shall we find Sam?” she said.
~ The End ~