milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The debriefing with Zachariah had not been pleasant.

Fortunately, he had stopped short of taking punitive action. Castiel had, after all, gone to the barn with the honest intent of doing his duty and killing Anna. None of them had foreseen her taking a gamble as big as pitting demons against her brothers.

Still, Castiel has gotten what you might call an earful of biblical proportions.

He is quite relieved to be able to take refuge in Milliways for a while.

Castiel is sitting in a booth. A mug of coffee is on the table in front of him.

It’s full. He just wants to appear occupied.

[Plotlocked: Here there be very focused and powder-keggy angels.]

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"He was my brother, too.

"But I guess I deserved the question."

The anger passes as quickly as it ignited. Castiel goes back to staring at his mug of cooling coffee.

For a moment. Or three.

Until he's composed again.

"It cannot be undone now."

None of it.

"No, it can't.

"Not by us, anyway."

She supposes their Father could undo anything He liked.

If He liked.

Even angels have to learn to deal with consequences.

"Why are you here, Anna?"

It's not accusatory. It's not even curious.

Resigned might be the best description.

Anna shrugs.

"I don't know.

"I guess I thought we should talk.

"Somewhere you don't have to try to kill me on sight."

Not that he'd succeed.

Still, it would be . . . awkward.

"Would you like me to go?"

It would be awkward. And potentially painful. And X would not be at all amused.

A part of him would like her to go. To let her simply be the Undesirable To Be Killed On Sight. It would make things much easier.

Another part of him just wants to sit here and talk to his sister. Pretend things are the way they used to be.

That can't happen, but Castiel decides he doesn't want her to go. Not just yet.

"No. I don't."

It's only a little bit grudging.

"Was there something in particular you wanted to talk about?"

He can think of many things, but isn't sure at all where to start.

Anna shrugs again.

Has he forgotten who he is dealing with?

This is the sister who expected him to pick their directions occasionally.

It's good for him.

"Is there anything in particular you want to talk about?"

Topics spring to mind in a flurry that almost rivals the swirl of emotions he's currently attempting to manage.

But out of the chaos, two words push themselves to the forefront.

"You Fell."

Two words, and in them is every question he's wanted to ask her since that day.

The first being why?

"Yes."

Sorry, Cas.

You're going to have to actually ask the question if you want the answer.

It's a struggle to get his thoughts in line.

Castiel doesn't care for it.

"I don't understand."

Even when he had looked back and seen the path leading up to it, at the core he never understood.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Anna stares at him for a long moment.

"Tell you what?" she asks, finally.

Incredulous.

Amused.

"Tell you that I had decided to Disobey?

"Really?

"Which option would you have taken?

"Turning a blind eye or turning me in?"

"I've asked myself that question more often than you know."

More than anything, Castiel would like to have something to do with his hands right now.

"Not that it mattered. Do you think they were so quick to accept that I had no knowledge of what you'd planned to do?"

It had just been questioning.

Bad cops could learn a thing or two from Heaven's questioning.

"Were you afraid to hear the arguments against your plan?"

"But they did accept it. Because you truly had no knowledge of what I planned."

And call her crazy (you wouldn't be the first), Anna doubts they would have accepted it if he'd actually know anything at all.

"And no, I don't think you could have made an argument against it that I hadn't already made.

"Or do you really believe that I looked up one morning out of the blue, no prior thought, and went, 'I think I'll Fall today'?"

It took centuries to make that decision.

Unmake it.

Remake it.

Unmake it and remake it again.

And again and again and again.

"I don't know. I've never known what to think."

Yes, logically, the decision must have been long in the making. But at the same time, one day she must have woken up with the determination to carry it through.

And who knows what he might have been able to do if he had had warning?

"Was it worth it?" he asks after a long moment.

"Yes."

No hesitation.

No equivocation.

No rationalization.

Just yes.

Castiel looks her square in the eyes.

"Richard and Amy Milton? Would you say they'd claim it was worth it?"

It's a low blow.

He doesn't especially care.

Anna doesn't so much as blink.

"Yes."

It's not as if the Miltons are in any position to tell them otherwise now, is it?

"I take it you know what happened to them."

His knowledge of what Anna had learned while she was with the Winchesters is spotty.

"Yes," Anna says, for a third time.

"That doesn't mean I consider the manner of their deaths to be more important than nature of their lives."

"At least, from what I heard reported, the demons were more merciful than they might have been."

The kills had been relatively clean.

"I am not sure if it is proper to offer condolences."

Seeing as how she seems more or less unaffected by their deaths.

"This is beneath you, Castiel."

He can't begin to understand how she was affected.

(The real tragedy is that she's not sure she can properly understand it, either. Not any more.)

"You have forfeit the right of assuming that you know me."

Though she probably still does, in many ways. With annoying accuracy.

And yet, a quantity of water has gone under that bridge, and she herself was the one who opened the dam.

"Things are different now."

"Maybe I have," Anna says, easily. "But are you sure it's only an assumption?

"As you said, we have a history."

A long one.

Like it or not, Anna still knows him.

See what he means? Annoying.

"We do."

And thanks to Milliways, it's a more convoluted one than even Heaven knows.

"But history is, by definition, the past."

And it's a tricky situation they find themselves in at present.

"You no longer have a part in what's happening now, except as a fugitive."

And given the swath Lilith has been cutting across the Earth, no matter how undesirable Anna might be, there are bigger problems to be dealt with.

"Such certainty, little brother.

"But ask yourself . . . can you truly, truly be sure that I have no role to play?

"An angel with out orders, on the edge of the Apocalypse?"