Until We Meet Again, My Angel

Chapter 15: Have a Heart

   Sam sat down onto the bed behind him as he cocked his head at Gabriel and repeated, "You found us a case?"
"Yeah," Gabriel confirmed. "Come on, don't tell me you guys aren't excited!" He sidled over to Castiel's bed and continued, "Baby brother, get up. I know you're sad, but moping around isn't going to make you feel better." Gabriel snapped his fingers and suddenly Cas was dirt-free, shaved, and wearing clean clothes.
   "There." The Archangel announced happily, "All cleaned up. No excuse for not going. Now," he turned back to Dean, who, surprisingly, was almost smiling. "The town is about an hour from here, and you'd better hurry before they call the real Feds."
   Gabriel waved his hand, and a piece of paper appeared in Dean's hand. "That's everything you need to know about the vics, and the addresses of the Police Department and the morgue." With that, he disappeared.
   Dean frowned, glanced at his brother, then his boyfriend, and stood up. "Whelp," he submitted, "looks like people are getting killed. So, we'd better get going."

   It had taken fourteen minutes to get Cas out of bed, and he was still grumbling his objections as they walked to the car. Sam and Dean had each showered and dressed before they began incessantly begging Castiel to get up. Dean had given him a fake badge and one of his suits.
   Once they had arrived, Dean left Sam and Cas to examine the latest body, and took the Impala to question the neighbors who'd reported the incident.
   In the cold, monochrome room, Sam stood in silence, studying the gaping hole in the corpse's chest; the victim was a young brunette by the name of Jenny McNeal. She was killed the day before. Through the wound, the Winchester could see several cracked ribs and the space where the heart should be.
"So young..."
   Sam was startled by Castiel's sudden words. Castiel continued, "This woman was only twenty-two," he brushed the back of his fingers against the victim's smooth cheek. There was no doubt her skin was very cold by now; but it didn't seem to bother the Angel as he added, "A college student, just one year from graduating. She is at peace, in her Heaven- most likely enjoying a warm Spring day on which class was cancelled."
   Sam, pulling his attention from the claw marks at the opening of the wound, raised his gaze to Castiel and asked, "Her Heaven?"
"Yes," Sam's companion confirmed, "Every soul has their own personal Heaven, fitted exactly to their idea of paradise. Sometimes it's a pleasant memory from childhood, other times it's a secret fantasy. There are even a few Heavens designed to simulate the person's life continuing as if they'd never died." Smiling for the first time in what seemed like forever, he added, "I often visited people's Heavens whenever I had free time. I often favored the eternal Tuesday afternoon of an autistic man who drowned in a bathtub in 1953. He spends his time in a beautiful yard, playing catch with his dog- a basset hound who never growled when the man would pet him a little to hard."
"Do you miss Heaven?" Sam asked solicitously.
"Slightly. I wasn't there very often after I'd been assigned to you and Dean," Cas replied as they made their way out of the morgue. "But watching you boys learn and grow was almost as good as paradise."
"Did you ever think about," Sam paused for a second, choosing his words carefully, "going back? Before you went rogue, I mean."
Castiel sighed and said, "No. Heaven is paradise; but, if paradise means losing a piece of myself, then it would be Hell."
   Sam refrained from asking any further questions as Dean pulled up in the Impala and asked, "Well?" Sam squinted against the sunlight, confessing, "Definitely a werewolf. Heart ripped out, claw marks around the wound, the whole nine. What'd you dig up?" As Sam climbed into the passenger seat, Dean responded, "Only one of the girl's neighbors were home, a Mrs. Johnson; says she was watching TV when she heard 'loud, canine growls'. About a minute passed and the growls subsided, then she heard Jenny scream, and immediately called 911. I went through the local PD's phone records, her story checks out.

   It was about 5 P.M. when the Impala pulled up to Jenny McNeal's house. Due to the coming of Fall, the sun had already begun to set. Jenny's was a Tudor style house, the pale shade of faded paper, with ivy climbing up the sides; it would have been beautiful, if not for the police tape surrounding the perfectly maintained yard. Sam and Dean nodded at each other assuredly, but Cas' face remained blank and dedicated as he stared straight ahead. He strode up the path leading to the house, the Winchesters on his heels.
   Unlike it's crisp and clean exterior, the inside of the house was a disaster. Chairs were overturned, blood on the walls and ceiling, splinters of wood all over the floor- obviously the remnants of a broken-down door. Sam and Dean pulled out the pistols they'd loaded with silver bullets and began combing through the house, watchful and alert. Cas, on the other hand, righted an upside-down chair and sat down, determined to remain apathetic. Converging once again in the living room, Sam shot Dean an expectant glance, but Dean only shook his head. Lowering their guns, they exhaled aggravatedly and Dean sighed, "So how the Hell do we find her? Get Cas to pick up her trail and wait until we hear him start barking?" The Angel frowned indignantly.
   Suddenly, Castiel went rigid, freezing in place.
"Cas, wh-?" Dean began.
"Shhh!" Cas raised his arm in a gesture that demanded silence. He whispered, "Sam, Dean... Get. Down."
Sam's face was overcome with confusion, "Wh-?"
"GET DOWN!" Cas bellowed, but he was too late.
   A female figure crashed through the window, landing on all fours. The force had thrown the Hunters against the wall. Whipping her head up, the hair flew from her face, revealing lupine eyes and a mouth of sharp canines.