Castiel was not the most powerful of angels.

There was no shame in this. He was as his Father made him and he served his garrison honorably and well. He was dedicated in his studies, his skill with traps and wards much admired among the Host. On the battlefield he was possessed of a calm, tactical mind, leading his fellows to victory even when faced with the most desperate of odds.

Still, it surprised no one more than Castiel when he was chosen to raise the righteous man from perdition. It was the first time he questioned an order, but his superiors were patient when they explained that Castiel had a gift none of his kin could match.

Castiel was fast.

His garrison held back the gibbering hordes of smaller demons while Castiel dove into the depths. Damned souls watched as the blue radiance of his Grace streaked past and were comforted, if only for a moment. He found Dean Winchester's soul, tarnished but whole, and was gone before Alastair could register the theft.

Later he would repeat the trick on one of his own, leaving Zachariah muttering impotent curses at the empty space where Dean had stood. Castiel's speed kept him safe from the consequences of such blatant disobedience, allowing him to outpace those who would distinguish themselves by hunting down Heaven's traitor. When all was uncertain and God himself had turned his back, his wings were the only thing on which Castiel could rely.

It was a faith that teetered on the knife's edge of pride. Their feathers were blackened by hell fire, but his wings were strong, his reflexes made for the unpredictable ebb and flow of the celestial winds. Flight was his prayer, a hymn to an absent father that still brought comfort to the singer. It was his calling but also his joy.

It was Dean who took that from him. He placed his hand on the sigil that Castiel himself had invented, never thinking that it would someday be used against him, and sent Castiel's Grace back to Heaven, into the very midst of the Host.

All was panic and confusion. Castiel was flying before he fully materialized, striking out in no particular direction but doing so as fast as his wings could carry him, eager to escape before his brothers gathered themselves.

He was almost at the Gates before Chamuel founds his wits and threw his spear straight and true. Chamuel, angel of tolerance, the only one to understand that to cripple Castiel's wings was to remove his one advantage. The barbed blade struck home in the delicate elbow joint of the left wing, shattering bone and tearing flesh. Castiel fled in a halo of blood and feathers, leaving the fields of paradise behind a second time.

He huddled in a cave on a mountain in Iceland like a fox gone to ground, pouring his energy into his shields and trying to assess the severity of the wound. His wings were part of his true body, the part of him that could be hurt, could be killed, independent of the mortal shell he wore. Even with full access to his Grace there would be no hope of healing the damage.

Yet when the preacher called and Dean's presence thickened the air, Castiel spread his wings and took wearily to the air. By the time he landed at his charge's side Castiel understood that he was crippled. He would fly, but it would ever after be slow and lumbering.

After all he endured this was a loss too cruel to be born. He took out his grief on Dean's body. It would have been easy to kill the human, but in the end he found he could not. Not out of loyalty, but because Dean would not have understood the root of Castiel's anger. His human eyes could not see the white bone jutting through mutilated flesh.

Castiel was wounded, he was tired, and he needed desperately for someone to see it, to see HIM.

At the warehouse in Van Nuys he could feel his brothers waiting, guarding the room containing Adam. He could feel Zachariah as well, already gleeful, his Grace humming with confidence. He turned to Sam to carve the sigil into his flesh, unable to look Dean in the eye after the human's declaration that Castiel was faster than them all.

There was no fear in Castiel when he walked into the warehouse. No fear, no anger, just quiet resignation. Before the Winchesters he had only thought he understood pain. Now he knew it intimately, in all its forms, and he was ready for the solace of death.

None had used the banishing sigil in such a manner before, but Castiel had always been known for his willingness to innovate. He fully expected to be thrown back to Heaven, had found a certain peace in meeting his end in the same realm where he had been born. Disappointment was an inadequate term for the emotion that gripped him when he woke alone on the outskirts of Van Nuys.

Castiel did not waste time wondering what had gone wrong. Once he might have taken it as a sign, but his Father had abandoned them, had no sympathy left for his treasured humans and certainly not for a wayward angel. There was only emptiness in him where devotion had dwelt. Death had been delayed but its pale had settled over him, smoothing over the rough edges of his sorrow.

It took him a few days to track down the Winchesters. Finding Dean still wholly himself was a surprise but Castiel knew this too was temporary, as all things with humans were fated to be. He followed the brothers on their travels, but he did not show himself. He had no faith, not in his orders, not in God, not in Dean, his righteous man, but he still had a duty to do. A duty he himself had chosen, and that was enough to sustain him as the Impala wound its way down dusty roads.

Still, guarding the Winchesters was a tiresome task, undertaken only because there was nothing else left. Castiel limped through the skies above them and where his blood rained down vivid flowers bloomed, hued in tones of crimson and cobalt. They were a reminder that life was unending even when individual lives were not, but Castiel found he did not care what might come after the Earth was laid to ruin.

The lines craved into his chest refused to close. The sigil resisted his Grace and as the miles passed infection set in. Castiel might have succeeded in healing his battered shell through mortal means but it scarcely seemed worthwhile to make the attempt.

One night he tumbled to the ground, gripped by a fever that brought dreams of dancing once more among the stars. There was another form close beside him, but when Castiel turned to look he caught only a glimpse of green eyes and a ready smile. He woke weeping and furious, pounding his fists against the soil until he remembered the walking dead need not feel.

Two days later he relocated the Winchesters. By then the rains had come, cooling the burning heat that weakened his vessel. The brothers sought shelter from the storm in a hotel that pulsed with ancient power.

Castiel hid his presence as best he could behind his shields and took up position on a telephone pole. He had never heard of the old ones gathering en masse before but it did not bode well for the brothers. Many of the pagan gods took their power from human flesh. He thought that underneath the tang of meat and copper Dean would taste of hardwood ashes and Sam of paper gone yellow in the sun.

Perhaps he was not yet free of the fever after all. He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts and drew his sword, preparing himself to make an attempt at freeing the Winchesters. The arrival of a familiar aura made him settle back in surprise.

Gabriel.

Once Castiel had known the archangel well. It had been Gabriel who first recognized his potential and set to teaching Castiel all he knew of the ancient sigils forgotten by most of the Host. Castiel had the ability to create as well as mimic, uncommon among angels. Gabriel had nurtured it, prodding Castiel to twist the lines to suit his needs instead of blindly repeating the wards as written.

But now Gabriel was a stranger to him, Grace overlaid by the persona of the Trickster. The mask had become its maker and Castiel could not trust his brother to protect Sam and Dean.

Yet still he hesitated, wanting so badly to believe that Gabriel might yet surprise him. It would be a relief to pass the burden of the Winchesters to stronger, more capable hands.

Then a new presence approached, a being ancient and terrible, and the time for waiting was over. Castiel threw himself into the rising wind and spiraled upward. Something tore deep within his wounded wing but the jolt of savage pain passed through him without penetrating.

It was Lucifer, Lucifer come at last to claim Samuel, and even as Castiel prepared himself to plummet down he knew this time he would be too late. A sudden flare of purest light blinded him at the height of his climb. Gabriel's shields had fallen, exposing the full glory of his Grace.

Far below the Winchesters fled, out into the night and back onto the road, leaving Gabriel to sacrifice himself in their stead. Perhaps they knew guilt for the escape, but if that were so it was a shallow remorse. They were blind to the ways Castiel had been broken and blind too to Gabriel, seeing only so far as the archangel allowed. They did not see the Gabriel who was kind to lesser angels, who loved his family enough to turn his back on their war.

Castiel remembered when Gabriel took leave of Heaven. He remembered the press of the archangel's lips to his forehead, his admonishment to listen to his instincts before his orders. And Castiel had, trusting in the impulse to aid Dean when he knew he would be punished for the act. A foolish choice, perhaps, but a choice he had made on his own, much like the choice Gabriel was making now.

Castiel pulled his wings in tight, making of himself an arrow of taut fury, and dove.

He ripped through the air, faster twice again then he had ever flown before. It was not feathers and Grace that drove him but love, a love so terrible and choking it could only be human. Angels understood love as a command, not a force that pushed from within, an all consuming fire that fed upon itself.

Love for Gabriel. Love for Dean, for Sam. They had given this glory to Castiel by opening him to the world, emptying him of the dust of his faith and leaving room enough for emotion grown savage. He bled as he flew and he wept, for his lost brother, for the righteous man and the boy with demon blood, and finally, finally, for himself.

Castiel slammed into Gabriel at a speed just under that of light. The tip of Lucifer's sword tore a bloody line across his back as he bore his brother away from the blow that would have killed him. Tangled together they darted across layers of time and space, Lucifer always a step behind no matter how Castiel dodged and doubled back.

It was a race to beat the devil and Castiel did not realize he had won until Gabriel flared his own wings in a desperate attempt to slow their flight. 'Castiel, Castiel, you have to stop, you're ripping yourself apart, please brother, you have to STOP…'

Castiel cast out with his senses but Lucifer was gone, left so far behind not a trace of his presence remained. Castiel's Grace was a dwindling flame, his wounded wing a scream of agony, but there was joy in his heart. He knew this flight would be his last and was content.

He breeched the last thin barrier around the mortal world above the desert moonscape of Nevada. His vision was blurring, badly enough that he misjudged the entry point, coming in far too low. In the attempt to bleed off speed he lost his grip on Gabriel but he knew the archangel would survive the impact with the ground.

The same could not be said for Castiel. The satisfaction he felt at the possibility was a far cry from the numbness after Van Nuys. Then he had thought he would meet his end in Heaven. Far better to die as he had lived, a creature of the air feathered and swift, the wind in his wings and the sun at his back.

In the end, falling felt much like flying.