Fallen.

Refound.

The next few days were hard.

Physically, Cas was healing well. Not as fast as when he was an angel but well all the same.

Mentally, he wasn’t doing so well.

The night of his return, Dean had stayed with Cas. Stayed and tried his best to comfort the fallen angel as best as he could manage as he fell into a restless sleep, one which he didn’t awake from until the afternoon of the following day.

Sam had stumbled into the kitchen the next morning, finding it hard to walk straight and having to hold onto the nearest appliance for support, to find the older hunter sitting at the table with his face in his hands.

“Dean?” Sam asked, as worried as he could be in his still half-dazed state, “What is it?”

Dean lifted his head at the sound of his brother’s voice to reveal a pair of red eyes.

“Its... Its Cas” he replied, his voice breaking slightly in the middle.

Quickly realising that this was not the return they were hoping for, the one where their oh-so-helpful angel friend would heal Sam and explain what had been going on no less, Sam shuffled unsteadily to sit by his brother and wait for him to continue.

“He’s fallen”, Dean muttered, the image of Cas’s broken, helpless face forcing its way to the surface and causing yet another tear to fall down the older hunter’s cheek.

“What happened?” Sam questioned, more alert than he’d been in weeks at the news.

“I don’t know, but he blames himself,” Looking directly at his younger brother he continued, “he blames himself Sammy. He thinks that he’s to blame for all of the angel’s falling. Thinks that he’s the reason that we’re in this mess.”

Sam was speechless, he remembered Cas’s guilt at disrupting heaven previously. That was nothing compared to the scale of what had happened this time. If he was inconsolable last time, barely able to see the brothers for want of sorting out “his” mess, what would he be like this time?

A messy haired Castiel appeared later on as the two brothers were silently consuming their dinner; Sam a homemade soup and Dean a mixture of any leftovers they had which, on this occasion, appeared to be some type of pasta with a small helping of shepherd’s pie.

“S-Sorry..” Stuttered Cas, not wanting to get in the way, “I’ll come back later...”

“Hey! No, come sit down! I think we’ve got some soup left.” Dean replied, having promised himself to ignore the despair he was feeling inside and be as cheery and welcoming as was possible. Castiel was who was important at the moment and damn him if he wasn’t going to do his best to help him.

“Oh..Ok” Cas replied, realising the deep ache in his stomach may have been what the humans call hunger and that, despite his discrepancies, some food might be just what he needed.

Dean poured out the remaining soup as Cas slowly made his way to the table.

Sam, having been told by his brother about the state the fallen angel arrived in, noted the dark eyes of the man now sitting beside him; eyes even smaller than usual, constantly looking to the floor and drooping at the corners as if they had long since given up looking for what they were trying to find.

“Hear you go” Dean chimed, with all the cheeriness he could muster, “bon appétit!”

“Thank you” Cas replied, not removing his eyes from the table and with no emotion in his voice.