Song Remains the Same

Chapter 57: All Led Here

"In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours.
In all the world, there is no love for you like mine."
- Maya Angelou

Chuck penned the following words down thoughtfully:

...A year ago almost to the day, things were very different.

There wasn't a huge gap forced between Alex and Cas, there wasn't a war in Heaven that ripped them apart from each other. Not yet.

Instead there was Castiel, who was all but human at that time. There was Alex, who had spent the past month believing Cas was dead after sacrificing himself to save her.

There was the ever-deepening love affair between them: the fallen angel and the human who found something in each other they'd never known before. There was an apocalypse, there was the idea that the world was going to end in a few days or weeks. There was a general feeling of inescapably hurtling toward a doomed crescendo, toward the end of all things.

People do strange things when they think they don't have a lot of time left. Maybe that's why Cas and Alex did what they did. But really... I think you and I both know there was a lot more to it than an impulse decision or flight of fancy. In a time to come, both would come to second-guess and even at times regret their mutual choice. But that day, they felt nothing but the certainty of love and a deep desperation to hold onto each other.

Maybe it was crazy, maybe it was ill-advised. But in either case a year ago, Castiel—fallen angel of ancient days, and Alex Winchester—flesh and blood human—married in secret. This is how it happened.

The author sat back with a fond smile on his face.

April 29th, 2010
Springfield, Missouri

Rain poured heavily outside. In the back seat of a stolen SUV that was pulled off to the side of an abandoned road, two lovers who had been recently and cruelly divided by fate were finally in each other's arms again. Unable to withstand the distance or desire any longer and having just had a close encounter with death, the two of them flung caution to the wind in favor of having each other once more—they barely managed to get enough clothes off to make it happen in their frantic hurry. It was only their third time being together like that.

They collapsed down together when it was over, him on top of her in the back seat, both of their bodies shaking from what they'd just done. In the moment of climax, she'd gasped his name and then whispered aloud... for the first time ever... that she loved him. Tears had run out of her eyes. And he loved her too.

The angel Castiel, fallen to earth and devoid of his celestial abilities, trembled in the arms of his human lover, unable to do anything but reciprocate readily, his heart full beyond compare. "I love you, Alex Winchester," he confessed in a whisper—helpless to hold back the words that had for so long silently beat to the rhythm of his heart; helpless to do anything but finally tell her what he had been aching to speak aloud for what seemed such a long time. Her face softened, her lips parted slightly and her eyebrows rose fractionally—her eyes, already shining with tears, seemed fuller. He somehow saw his own feelings mirrored back at him wordlessly there—he saw and understood that she loved him too. Incapable of doing anything else, Castiel bent down and kissed the woman he adored, letting his mouth remain soft and chaste on hers. His eyes fell closed at the indescribable sensation of her lips pressed to his, of her fingers gently weaved into his hair. He breathed her in, this resplendent creation of flesh and bone who wrapped him in a warmth like a sunrise.

She seemed holy to him in that moment, divine and hallowed. He touched the side of her face with a soft hand, marvelling in the feeling of her quick pulse beating underneath the warmth of her skin. She was so beautiful, every last atom and molecule, so precious. And he drew back from her as uncomfortable beginnings of guilt began to creep up on him. His proclamation of love felt so hypocritical. Deeply ingrained laws and warnings against sexual sin flashed through his mind. They had copulated three times now, and afterward, each time, guilt predictably swallowed him whole.