Disheartened as I may have been losing the few angels willing to follow me, I still had family. Broken as they often were, they still mattered the most. Hazel and I went home with her brothers to the bunker, where things always felt better somehow.
The Seer wasn't acting quite the same as she had been recently, since our army walked out on us. She spent most of the ride, and then still when we went home, shutting out the world with head phones on. Not speaking a word to anyone. She even changed out of that armor for once into long forgotten causal wear. I wasn't sure what was going through her head, but I was almost positive she wasn't War, anymore.
I sat with her silence at the map table, while her brothers argued from the halls nearby. Over the First Blade and Dean's increasing dependence on it.
He came out to join us, without Sam, and sat across from me. Watching the same thing I watched. His sister's distant expression, with eyes barely opened and music blaring faintly from the head phones.
"She alright?" he asked me.
"Is she ever?" I replied lowly, touching her hair with no response.
"Occasionally," Dean said, faking optimism, then fell more sincere after a pause, "we're not gonna let her die, Cas. You know that right?"
"Even if it might be for the best...?" I sighed.
"Don't, man," he rumbled, "nobody wants that, not even her."
"And when I die?" I reminded him, referring every time my absence devastated her.
"Right...batteries..." Dean flipped the topic.
"I'm fine," I insisted somewhat honestly. For the time being, it was true.
"No, you're not," he argued calmly, "how long you got?"
"Long enough to destroy Metatron, I hope," I answered quietly, "but without an army..."
"Well hey, you still got us."
That was more promising than it sounded. I let a small smile free, pondering that while I dragged a knuckle down my catatonic wife's arm.
"Dean...those bombers...you don't really think that I-"
"Cas, you just gave up an entire army for one guy," he assured, "No, there's no way that you blew those people away."
I nodded, grateful my dearest friend, troubled as he may be, still had such faith in me.
"You really believe we four will be enough?"
Dean shrugged. "We always have been."
Hazel shifted and stirred in her seat at last, slamming down her cellphone that appeared to have gone dead, and ripped the headphones off. Her brother and I stared curiously at her scowling face, searching for signs of normalcy. She looked confused. Lost.
"Hazey?" Dean whispered to her hopefully.
"No battles...no songs...we are nothing and everything. .." she mumbled to herself.
Dean looked to me expectantly for translation. My heart sunk hearing her speech regressing back to insanity.
"The divided peices of her..." I began to explain sadly, "now none of them want to come out."
"So what does that mean?" Dean asked roughly.
I shook my head. "I ...I dont know. She's...nothing, I guess?"
"And you can't do anything about it?"
"No."
"Screw that..." he suddenly snapped, standing up to lean over the table at her almost menacingly, barking, "Hazel!"
Nothing.
Far from discouraged, he rounded the table and forcefully spun her chair around to face him.
"Hey! I'm talking to you, brat!"
