strangers when we met

11

Meg was certain there were other ways that she could have spent the hours that followed. Figuring out a way she could convince her demons about what they were going to do with the Cage or an appropriate threat so they would shut up and follow her orders (which, if she was being honest, was certainly more her style).

But Eris had other ideas.

"I don't want to stay here and watch TV," she complained when Castiel suggested they do just that while they waited for Sam to call. "Can't we go for a walk? Go have dinner? Do something?"

She was about to start pacing the room like a tiger in a cage, and honestly, Meg was feeling a little restless herself.

"Take us somewhere, Clarence, will you?" she said.

Castiel frowned at them, as if he wasn't sure why he should be the one taking them anywhere, but in the end, he agreed with a sigh.

There wasn't much to see in that little town in the middle of nowhere, but Eris still managed to find something to keep herself entertained anyway: she went straight to small library and found and at least two dozen books she wanted to read. The clerk startled when she deposited her pile in front of him.

"You're going to read all of that?" he asked.

"I've got some time to kill," Eris said, with a shrug.

Meg laughed as Castiel resignedly pulled out his credit card to pay for it all.

After that, they found a park where there were a bunch of children with their parents playing. Eris and Castiel sat down on the bench next to her and watched them in silence for a while. Meg couldn't really see the appeal, so she picked one of the books from the bag and started leafing through it. It was some British nonsense about an angel and a demon trying to save the Earth from the Apocalypse. The blurb had made her chuckle when she read it.

"They have no idea, do they?" Eris asked after a while. "How close their world was to ending. How close it may still be."

Meg lifted her head from the pages.

"No. They don't know," Castiel said.

"Everything that happened, all the secrets this world contains... only people like Sam and Dean Winchester know the truth," Eris continued. "It's quite unfair that they have to deal with it all."

"I'm sure Sam and Dean don't think of it that way."

Eris turned to him very slowly.

"No?"

"No. They just... do what they must. Always."

"You admire them," Eris said. It wasn't a question.

"If I hadn't admired them, I wouldn't have joined their cause," Castiel said. "I wouldn't have helped them stop the Apocalypse. And I wouldn't have met your mother."

Meg let out a huff before she could stop herself, even though she recognized it was true. If the Winchesters hadn't fucked everything up, her and Castiel would have been enemies. She would have killed him or, more likely, he would've killed her, and that would have been the end of it.

Eris seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"So, in a way, it was their story that allowed mine to exist." She tilted her head. "That's very interesting.

Of course, she didn't elaborate on how or why. Neither Meg nor Cas pressed her. They had learned by now that she didn't answer any questions she didn't want to.

"Are you going to miss them when they're gone?" she continued asking him. "Or do you think you'll go with them?"

Meg eyed Castiel while he frowned. That was certainly a question that had come out of left field.