Title: Consequences of Action

Chapter: 7

~~~~~~~~~~

While Castiel was admittedly bitter over his familial relations, he didn’t regret the way his relationship with Dean had evolved. Nor did he regret the path that had brought him Jo. He didn’t regret because he had to believe that some good could come from all of the horrible things that had occurred. He had to believe there could still be good coming, whether it ever came or not.

The medication he took helped, making the dark not quite so dark and the weight of his sometimes pessimistic thoughts bearable. With the drug in his system, he could see the possibilities for a decent turn to world events. He could function rather well day to day and did, as long as he continued taking the pills. When he stopped taking them, he returned to the emotional wreck he’d been. He didn’t ever want to feel that way again, like there was no hope anywhere to be found and no point in trying to do anything. He’d hated the sensation.

So Castiel took his pills like a good boy and retained a bit of hope for the future that grew in light of Chuck’s returned visions.

The drug made Jimmy’s depression bearable as well, because Jimmy did have long periods of despair. Understandable, in his opinion. He thought about his situation with Jimmy, a thing he did often. Life hosting an angel was different than being stuck with a humanized one. Jimmy seemed to feel emotions all the more strongly for being the non-dominant one in their body. Like what he was feeling now.

Jimmy had begun to develop feelings for Jo. Castiel could sometimes feel them as easily as his own when they were with Jo. He knew Jimmy’s joy at her smiles, his pleasure from hearing her voice, and on more than one occasion, Jimmy’s feelings were strong enough to produce a physical response. It didn’t happen often, but it did happen.

It didn’t surprise Cas that Jimmy liked her, nor that he was attracted to her. Jo just had something about her that appealed.

Cas had told Jo that he took the pills to treat depression, but not about Jimmy. Never about Jimmy. He had no idea how to broach the subject with her in a way that wouldn’t make her feel weird about it. In the future, he’d have to tell her and in all honesty, he should have immediately, but at the time it hadn’t seemed the sort of thing to share.

He stepped to the dock and to the end of it, sitting and stretching his legs out, then crossing his ankles. Castiel leaned back on his hands, staring at the water, listening to the sounds of nature and the faint sounds of people in the camp.

He’d told Risa what he did because she was right. The knowledge had been a secret between her and Dean and there should be no secrets between a husband and wife. He’d given her enough to assuage her curiosity for the time being and hopefully Dean would loosen his lips before she had many more questions. While he’d gladly give her his version of events, what she needed was Dean’s. Dean needed to open up to her the rest of the way and tell her everything; share the pain with her and let her help him shoulder it.

A laugh burbled up.

I’m one to talk about sharing and not keeping secrets, he thought. I can’t even figure out how to tell Jo the most important thing about me.

Castiel loosed another laugh and watched the storm clouds rolling in from the west.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jimmy Novak was very afraid that he was falling in love with Jo Harvelle.

The deeper Castiel’s feelings for her grew, the deeper Jimmy realized his own were growing, but it wasn’t a symbiotic thing. On the contrary, he was fully capable of hating what Castiel liked and vice-versa -- and had. They were separate in that regard, each with their own feelings, like, and dislikes.

In a conversation they’d had about having separate pieces of themselves within the whole, he’d told Castiel that they were two personalities mostly conscious of each other, interacting to run their body, and that Cas was the dominant one who took over because Jimmy couldn’t emotionally handle his religious delusions.

Castiel hadn’t found that amusing, going into a lecture on how Jimmy wasn’t crazy and neither was he. He wasn’t some made up personality created by Jimmy’s mind and he certainly didn’t appreciate Jimmy trivializing their situation, or the attempt to compartmentalize it into human understanding that was blatantly wrong.

He hadn’t meant it the way Castiel took it. He wasn’t trivializing or compartmentalizing. He was trying to put it in terms others would understand if they couldn’t grasp the whole angel and vessel thing. Like if Jo couldn’t get it. Not he thought she couldn’t. She appeared to understand a lot of things that made most people shudder in horror.

But Castiel was in no mood for discussing it, so Jimmy dropped it. And dropped it. And dropped it again, each attempt to discuss it ending in an argument or lecture.

The bottom line about Jo was that Jimmy was lonely. It was very lonely with only Castiel to talk to and even though he knew Jo didn’t know about him, he liked the emotions he saw in her eyes when she looked at them. Amelia had once had those same emotions. He liked how Jo talked to them, telling them about her family and her life before the end. Jimmy wanted most desperately to talk to her himself, to feel like he actually existed in some form other than a voice in Castiel’s mind and the occasional shifting presence when he was upset. He desired her to say his name and look at him with pleasure. Him, not Castiel.

Jimmy wanted what he couldn’t have.

And it was hell that he couldn’t escape from.

Certainly not the hell Dean had known, but a hell nonetheless. Always to watch, never to be known.

One-sided affection was never fun.

Jimmy endured.

He attempted to soothe the pain of it by sleeping during the hours Castiel was awake and with Jo, yet as a balm, it was ineffectual. It left Jimmy awake when Castiel slept, unable to experience anything. He had the quality of life of a slug, which left him more frustrated than ever. In an effort to feel something, he realigned himself with Castiel’s waking and sleeping hours and resigned himself to how it had to be.

Jimmy returned to loving Jo from afar -- if afar merely meant he never talked to her himself. There were still the hours Castiel spent with her to experience and he was careful not to alert Castiel to his being awake when moments turned intimate. He shuddered his pleasure at her touches and kisses, thrilled to the feel of her body against his, then wept because he was an intruder that shouldn’t even be present.

It was a horrible existence, but it was all he had.

~~~~~~~~~~

At the end of a month, Jo had begun to feel almost like her pre-Apocalypse self. She could relax with Castiel without one word that hinted of the drama they’d created for themselves. It was enough that he continued to watch her and the fact that he treated her initial request as something completely normal went a long way towards making her feel she could some day set that bit aside.

She was pleased to see each person she’d led finding some place in Dean’s camp and making friends. Rick had become buddies with that Yeager guy, the two often going hunting together, and Mya now strolled the camp with Carrie and Natalie, calling them ’very cool chicks’. Jo had to agree. Both were polite and well-mannered, neither ever once bringing up that they’d been Cas’s girlfriends. As for herself, she’d begun a tentative friendship with Risa. They had coffee mid-morning most days, discovering many shared interests including movies and music.

Risa poured them both coffee and carried the cups to the table. They were alone in the office. Outside were the sounds of people practicing at the range.

After doctoring her coffee with a packet of sugar, Risa crossed her arms on the tabletop. She slid the fingers of one hand along the crack in the table, over and over and finally asked, “Did you know Sam?”

Jo nodded. “I did.”

“What was he like? Dean…. He won’t talk about him; says Sam died, but I know that’s not true. Sam’s Lucifer’s vessel. I know it and I know very well an angel’s vessel has to have a live soul inside that agreed to it and remains alive. It’s not like the demons. So…Sam is alive.”

“Sort of. I think he’s more dead than alive though. He ceased to be Sam when he said yes.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

Jo laughed, but it was a bitter laugh. “Just before Detroit. A demon named Meg had gotten her claws into him, told him a bunch of lies, started getting him ready to accept Lucifer. You see, she really knew Sam. She’d possessed him once and learned a lot about him. I don’t know why he listened to her to begin with. He knew….” She sipped the coffee even though it was scalding. “My mom and I tried to stop him. We were among the only ones to survive Detroit. It was bad, Risa, and I’d fully expected to find Dean there fighting to save Sam, but their…bond had been broken too long.”

She didn’t tell Risa about that meeting she and Ellen had with Sam and how he’d been twisted into thinking he was doing the right thing. It had been too late to turn him back to the side of good.

“Before that though, he was the kindest, gentlest man most days. Dean would kid him about his chick side, really dig into him, and Sam would hit right back. It was good, you know? They made a good team.”

“If they were so good, then what happened?”

Jo shook her head. “Not sure. We defeated the horseman War and then Sam was gone. He just left and Dean never told me what happened to cause that.”

“Do you ever wonder?”

“Every damn day.”

It was a surprise when Dean joined her for lunch a few days later, asking about the very thing Jo had mentioned to Risa: Detroit.

She stared at him, trying to decide if he really should know and if she told him, what she should edit out. Finally, she nodded her consent. She’d tell him how she and Ellen had managed to live when all the rest had died.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dean had been trying to figure out how to broach the subject of Detroit with Jo since she’d arrived in the camp. He was insanely curious as to how she and Ellen had gotten out of there alive. He took his lunch and went to the table she’d chosen off to one side, away from the rest.

“Tell me about Detroit.”

He didn’t want to hear it, yet at the same time he did. Just because he hadn’t seen Sam didn’t mean he’d stopped caring. He hoped Sam had had a little fight left in him, but by all accounts he’d heard thus far, Sam had simply walked right up to Lucifer and invited him right inside.

Jo set her sandwich down. It slid apart into a mess on her plate. “Dean. You don’t want to know.”

“Tell me anyway,” he insisted. “You and Ellen. Sam. What happened? Come on. Not like anything can tarnish my memories of Sam any further, is it?”

She abandoned her lunch, took a deep breath and turned on the bench, drawing her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. She nodded. “Okay. We blew into town already knowing that Sam had been compromised. Mom had been talking to other hunters she knew who were tracking him. He had a demon companion. Female.”

“Sounds familiar.” He snorted. He recalled Ruby and found it darkly funny that Sam had been the one swayed by a pretty face and seductive words in the end, when most people would have thought that’d be Dean’s fate. Dean didn’t trust demons under normal or abnormal conditions. Sam, though? Sam had wanted so badly to do the good thing, the right thing, that he’d ignored how he’d gotten there. Just because good could come from something, didn’t mean that thing itself was good or that the outcome would be good. Didn’t necessarily follow. Sam had trouble seeing that, especially with Ruby. Not until it was done and the good he’d thought he was doing had been evil in disguise and Ruby really was a deceiving bitch demon.

“I don’t know how they reconnected or why he even let her near him, but she knew him. Knew him well. She’d possessed him once.”

“Meg. Son of a bitch.” To trust Meg of all demons? What the hell had Sam been thinking? Dean tried to work that one out in his head, going through all of their interactions with her and not understanding why Sam had let her close.

“Yeah. She’d been working on him, going at his emotional weak points. She was good, Dean. She didn’t apologize for what she’d done to him before or anything like that. What she did was feed him lies about you, make like you were the one sending the hunters after him. She told him he wasn’t worth your time anymore. The great Dean Winchester was saving the world with his new buddy and surrogate brother at his side. He didn’t need his real brother and never would again.”

“New buddy and surrogate brother?” He clenched his hands into fists, seeing just where Meg had taken Sam and hating that Sam had believed her.

“You see it, Dean? She played on his jealousy of Castiel. Maybe he didn’t have any jealousy really to begin with, but by the time she was done relaying how you two were bonding after he left, he was raging, spitting Cas’s name like it was poison, blaming Cas, claiming Castiel deliberately took his place and edged him out.”

“How do you know all of that, Jo?”

Tipping her head back, she stared at the sky, face impassive. “I’m getting there. Just…let me tell it at my own speed okay? The plan was to meet him, convince him to come back to our side. Mom and I discussed our strategy, had it figured out and even a few contingency plans. I called him, said that we knew the two of you’d fallen out, but that didn’t mean we had to as well. We were still friends, right? I played dumb about Lucifer, pretended he was plan old Sam and that he wasn’t going dark side.” Jo sniffed, licked her lips. “We met for dinner at an upscale place. Got to finally wear my little black dress again. Anyway, he started giving this spiel about how you, Dean, were wrong and hunters were persecutors, indiscriminately killing…. It was a bunch of garbage like that. He’d lost sight of what truth really was.”

“Bet Ellen took that well.”

“Man, Dean, she was pissed. Our whole plan went right out the window. Didn’t bother arguing, just got up and told me we were leaving.”

“Did you?”

“No. Like an idiot, I told her I was staying awhile. I mistakenly thought I could somehow bring Sam back.” Her attention turned to the lake and she sighed. “He told me about Meg and how she’d helped him. Told me all those things I just told you.”

“I don’t understand why he’d tell you all of that, Jo.”

“He tried to flip me, Dean. He said all of those things like they were facts. Those things about you and about Cas…. He was trying to flip me, and then….” She lowered her forehead to her knees and sat that way for several minutes. When she looked back up, he lips trembled.

Oh Sam, Dean thought. You should have known Jo was stronger than that.

That Sam had thought he could sway her said something about what Sam had thought he’d known about Jo. Had Sam not seen how she’d matured? Had he not noticed Jo had changed? Granted, their actual conversations during the War incident had been brief, but even Dean had noticed the difference in Jo.

“Sam talked about how Meg had been right in Duluth. He and I, we could be so much more to each other than friends. We could be quite the team with the things we both knew. He had it all thought out. He and I against the world, finally getting in a position to where we could make it better. We’d have the power. Never mind that he wasn’t going to be him much longer. He was so certain Lucifer would keep his promises and give him the power to change things.” She laughed. “He’d been deceived to such an extent that there was no coming back from it. He’d convinced himself that he was in the right and if I wasn’t with him, I was against him.”

There were tears on her cheeks. She let them fall, making no attempt to wipe them away.

“Meg wanted to kill me. Sam wouldn’t let her. He told her that mom and I weren’t a threat, which pissed me off at the time, but that insistence…. When the battle was over later and we were prisoners, Lucifer came to us in Sam’s body and he let us go. He said he believed we weren’t a threat to him, called me a ‘little girl pretending to be grown up living in her mother’s shadow’ and mom a ‘controlling bitch who refused to let her child live her own life’.”

“That’s not true. You and Ellen settled a bunch of those differences and you were a team.”

“No, it was true. On some level at least. That’s how he works, you know. A little bit of truth. He chooses his words carefully to bend people to his will or to demoralize and neutralize -- which is what he did with us. He said we’d never be a threat because we were too busy fighting each other.”

Dean could see the pain in her face, hear it in her voice. “I’m sorry, Jo.”

She wiped her cheeks and looked at him with a sad smile. “We set out to either bring Sam back or kill him before Lucifer could step in and we failed. He talked to me alone, Lucifer did. Went after my weak points, my fears. He made some very good points, but he put just a little too much lie in them to sway me. He made the same mistake Sam did and I was honestly surprised when he let us go. Thought for sure we were done for. You know I can still hear Sam’s voice telling Meg that mom and I were just two women and how could two human women be any sort of threat to Lucifer.”

“He was wrong.”

“Meg found out how wrong later. I sent that bitch back to hell where she belonged.”

“I’d like to hear about that.”

“Another time.” Jo turned on the bench and dragged her plate back in front of her, picking apart the sandwich and eating the meat out of it. “I think I’ve done enough talking about it for one day. You’ll have to ask me about Meg another time. It’s quite a story all on it’s own.”

“I will.” He reached out and put a hand briefly on one of hers. “Thank you, Jo. You know, for telling me all of that.”

“I never want to talk about it again. I want to remember Sam how he was in Philadelphia, before…well, before everything.” She wiped her eyes. “And now I can’t stop crying. Geez. Regular waterworks here.”

“Cry all you want. I have.”

They sat in silence until the sun slipped behind the clouds and Castiel and Risa came up the path towards them.

~~~~~~~~~~

He had to find the missing angel before he did anything else. That was Michael’s first assignment. God knew who it was, but Michael needed to figure it out himself.

Michael sighed and went through a neat, methodical list of his brethren, checking each one off and moving on to the next. As usual, Gabriel was no help, sitting with his feet propped up and hands clasped behind his head, one of the few who hadn’t gotten in as much trouble as the rest. Funny that Gabriel was one who’d kept his nose clean.

“You could help,” Michael suggested.

“Oh, I already know who’s missing -- aside from Lucifer.”

Michael waited for enlightenment, but Gabriel only smirked up at him. When the silence got on his nerves, he asked, “Well? Who is it?”

“You’re so smart, big bro, you figure it out. I think it’s obvious who’s missing, but then, I don’t think you noticed that one much.”

He didn’t deny the charge. While he knew all of them, he didn’t know them. He knew names of all, but not the personal details of most. “And you noticed that one?”

“I had occasion to down there. You could say we bumped into each other in the course of time.”

“Vesseled then? Male or female vessel?”

Gabriel’s laugh was raucous. “One of those.”

“You frustrate me, Gabriel.” Why couldn’t Gabriel say, for once, what he meant? Why did he have to play games?

“Look, just think about the details of what’s been going on down there and it’ll come to you.”

“How far back?”

“Consider the major players in the event. Come on, Mike,” he sat up, leaning forward, “this is an easy one. You’re making it hard. You’ll laugh when you see it.”

Michael started with Mary and John Winchester and worked his way forward, through the birth of their sons and through their deaths. He continued onward in the lives of their sons, looking with care at the acquaintances and friends of both until he reached Dean Winchester’s liberation from hell. Michael slowed in his perusal and, if Gabriel hadn’t been sitting there all smug, he might have groaned with what he found.

No, not what. Who.

Castiel.

The inquisitive one. The resourceful one. The one who grasped things other angels didn’t. The one who enjoyed sifting through the arcane to gain knowledge.

Castiel, who was as bad as the humans in that regard.

Michael had hoped that being placed in Anna’s charge would temper him; make him turn his energies to a different purpose, but then Anna had willfully fallen and, in doing so, planted the seed that had ultimately led Castiel into disobeying those orders Zachariah had issued. Wrong orders and not those of their Father, but disobedience nonetheless.

He must have made some noise or expression, for Gabriel chuckled. “I see you do know the missing one.”

“Castiel. I remember him. I placed him in Anna’s garrison at our Father’s urging. He agreed it was the right thing to do and the proper place for him.” He sighed, searching time for Castiel’s whereabouts, watching his actions, studying what had occurred up to the point the earth had been veiled from view. “The last thing I see from him is his realization that he’s been left powerless and nearly human.” Michael looked at Gabriel, puzzled by that. “I gave no such order. Even Lucifer was not stripped of his powers --”

“That would be Zach’s doing.”

Michael looked around, but Zachariah was not in immediate view. To strip an angel of powers, of grace, of angelic essence, was a severe punishment. Anna had lost her grace when she took her nosedive to earth, growing in a human body as a human, but to cut off the tap while the angel was in a vessel the usual way? Michael wondered what it would do to the angel and the vessel, the long-term effects. He could see the beginning of it with Castiel and then nothing. What were Castiel and his vessel like now, after time had gone by? Had they both been driven mad from it?

“He never liked Castiel, you know. Castiel was too inclined to look everywhere for needed answers and not just where Zach sanctioned. He pissed Zach off big-time by batting for the human team and aiding Dean Winchester.”

“Castiel chose them like you did.” He didn’t understand Gabriel and it appeared he wasn’t about to understand Castiel either.

“You should see him now, Mike.”

He ignored the shortening of his name. If he let Gabriel know it bothered him, it’d never stop. It might never stop anyway. “You’ve seen beyond that point? Since we were called home?”

Gabriel’s gaze shifted slightly to the right. “I took a peek,” he admitted.

“And?”

“And I have to admit, I’m very curious as to what dear Dad has in store for him. You will be too, when you see what’s been going on down there.”

Michael took his conclusion to their Father and, at last, was able to see what had been happening on earth.

It was not what he’d expected.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you okay?”

Jo bent over, putting her head between her knees and concentrating on breathing the queasies away. Her stomach continued to flip-flop for long minutes until finally abating. For a second there, she’d thought she was really going to hurl. She stood back up. It was better when she didn’t look at the lake, so Jo turned away from it, focusing on the beach. “I think so. It’s weird. I’ve never been seasick before. Usually I’ve got an iron stomach.” Looking up at him, she caught a flicker of something she couldn’t quite identify in his eyes. It wasn’t worry or dread or anything like that, more like he suspected something. “What? What is it?”

“Oh, nothing.” He shook his head and crouched down, setting the towels beside her. “It’s a little choppy out there today. I’m not surprised you’re a little nauseas.”

“You aren’t.”

“I don’t get sick like that.” He shrugged. “Well, unless I’ve had too much to drink. Then it’s sort of inevitable.” One hand motioned to the rest of the beach area. “Pick out a good spot. I’ll bring up the stuff from the boat.”

She took the towels and laid them out a ways up the beach. It was nice to get away from the camp and do something like this. Castiel had told her she was the first person he’d ever brought here. This little beach area was his ‘spot’, or one of them, rather. He had ‘spots’ of his own all over the woods and immediate area, places he went to be by himself.

While the weather was getting cooler and the breeze was strong today, the beach was in a sheltered place, with no hint of the breeze save across the water. Jo was looking forward to getting a little sun. She hadn’t laid out like this in years. When Castiel had suggested it, she’d jumped at the chance.

Stripping to her underwear, since she didn’t have a swimsuit, she began to slather on the sunscreen that Chuck had very nicely found for her. It was funny how he’d had it out and ready, handing it to her before she’d even finished her question. He did things like that a lot.

Jo accepted Cas’s help with her back, his suggestion of help on her front making her smile as she peeled off her bra. He warmed the lotion in his hands before smoothing it across her skin, fingers kneading as though he was giving a backrub and not just rubbing lotion on. It felt good. She closed her eyes, wincing a couple times when he pressed a little too hard. In degrees, her back relaxed. Still, he continued. Jo opened her eyes, glancing at him over her shoulder.

He was off in his own little world, expressions crossing his face in rapid succession. Annoyance, anger, sadness and more. What the hell?

She cleared her throat and spoke.

~~~~~~~~~

And so it begins.

Castiel looked out at the lake. It was the water, he told Jimmy.

Of course it was. She said never, Castiel. She’s never gotten seasick. It’s starting. She’s pregnant, just like I said she’d be.

No it isn’t. You’ve got babies on the brain. He pulled the boat up further from the water.

I wonder if she’ll be sick throughout. Amelia had morning sickness at bedtime mostly and a craving for that Hormel chili. It made her sick, which was a vicious cycle. She’d crave it, eat it, and throw it right up. It’s funny, Claire never would eat chili. Said she didn’t like the taste. It didn’t matter what seasonings I used or how mild I made it, Claire refused to eat it.

Castiel carried the cooler up to where Jo was laying out the towels. Jo’s fine. He watched her shinny out of her jeans and t-shirt, then reach for the sunscreen.

She is fine, Jimmy agreed. You know, some women get really horny when they’re pregnant.

You have lots of experience with that, Castiel inquired.

Jimmy was silent a minute. Cas wondered if Jimmy was looking at Jo like he was, studying her shapely curves with appreciation. No, actually I read about it. Amelia got a little touchy in her sixth month. Wasn’t very interested in sex. Not that our sex life wasn’t satisfying, because it was, it was just…different when she was pregnant.

You’re hoping Jo would be like that. Horny.

Can you blame me, was the dry reply.

Castiel got undressed and moved to the towels. “Need some help with the sunscreen?”

“Do my back?”

“Only your back or could your front benefit from some attention too?”

“Oh…both.” She undid her bra and slid it off.

How often have you been awake when Jo and I were in bed, Jimmy?

He felt the shifting sensation in his head of Jimmy stirring for an argument. When Jimmy spoke, his voice was both loud and defensive.

Occasionally, okay? I like her, Cas. I like her very much. She’s fun, intelligent, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know all of her.

You’ve synchronized with my waking and sleeping patterns, haven’t you?

Maybe.

Castiel smoothed lotion along Jo’s back in slow, steady sweeps. Maybe, huh? It was something Jimmy could do without Castiel even being aware of it. She doesn’t know about you.

You think I don’t know that? You think I’m unaware that the only way I’m living is vicariously through you? Do you think I can’t have feelings of my own?

I know you have feelings, Jimmy. We’ve talked about that before. He attempted a soothing tone, but Jimmy was having none of it.

This is so damn frustrating! I want to touch her the way I want to touch her! I want to hold her and kiss her and…. Damn it!

I’m sorry. He was sorry. This was a difficult life for Jimmy and they both knew it.

I can’t do any of that. I can’t. I have to experience it through you and that sucks. So yeah, Castiel, I’m hoping she’d horny, because feeling her touch is all I’m ever going to get. It’s you she loves and I’m just the guy stuck here who loves her that she’ll never know about.

If they were in two bodies, Castiel suspected Jimmy could give him a run for Jo’s affections. And if they were in two bodies, they’d be really fighting over her. Maybe even coming to blows. I wouldn’t say never. She’ll have to know about you eventually.

He had to figure out how to tell her and that was the problem.

Will she? What will you tell her? Hey, Jo, my vessel’s soul is still in here and he’s fallen for you, too?

If I have to, I will.

Jimmy’s laugh was caustic. Yeah, whatever, Castiel.

Geez, Jimmy What do you want me to do? I can’t change anything any more than you can.

Well, I don’t see you trying too hard to come up with a plan to tell her about me, so you’ll have to excuse me for not quite believing you right now.

“Cas?” Jo looked over her shoulder at him. “I think my back is fully covered.”

“Huh?” He blinked, transitioned from Jimmy to Jo with some difficulty and nodded. “Oh, right.”

She turned, hands raising to cup his jaw, thumbs brushing his cheeks. There was concern in her eyes. “How about you? Are you okay?”

“I’m my usual self. Why do you ask?”

She lowered her hands to his chest, then dropped them away. “You had these weird expressions on your face just now.”

“I did?”

“You did. Almost like you were arguing with yourself or something. What were you thinking about?”

Tell her, Jimmy insisted in an urgent tone. Perfect opportunity, Castiel. Tell her right now. She wants to know.

“Cas? You can tell me whatever it is that’s bothering you. I’ll listen.”

See? She’ll listen. Tell her now, or so help me, Castiel --

What’ll you do, Jimmy? Hmm? Tell me that.

He wasn’t ready to tell her about Jimmy yet. “I was thinking about the way things are and the way things should be.”

After a moment, she wrapped her arms around him and moved in close. “Another time, maybe?”

Selfish bastard, Jimmy spat, and was silent once more.

“Another time,” he agreed, pressing a kiss to her lips and letting the opportunity to tell her slip away. There’d be another time, another day for that conversation and maybe by then he’d be ready.