Notes: Sometime in season 5, after "Abandon All Hope" and before "The Song Remains the Same." There weren't supposed to be angels in this 'verse, but what do I know? I'm just the writer, apparently.

Witness

Sam and Dean think he's losing his powers because he's been cut off from Heaven. This is only partially true. His powers are lessened because of that, but the real thing draining him is his search for God, because he's been shuffling between universes, looking for one where God might be more accessible. After all, God is God, eternal and omnipresent. He may step back from a particular universe for awhile, just to see what happens without His direct interference, but in other universes, universes where He hasn't retired to some divine resort, He may be more easily found.

Angels are supposed to be too straightforward to consider pulling such stunts—they are creatures of straight lines and right angles—but being around the Winchesters has taught Castiel to think sideways.

Most of the universes he visits are...unpleasant. Even though he limits himself to the ones where Sam and Dean were both born on schedule, where Mary died and John raised them to be hunters—the most important contributing factors in the plan to set off the Apocalypse in his own universe—the things he sees are terrible. Universes where Sam couldn't find a way to repair Dean's heart, where Sam ruthlessly defeated the others at Cold Oak, where Dean was killed for a series of shapeshifter murders—that very unpleasant one where Sam beat his brother to death while under the influence of a ghost, regained his senses long enough to realize what he'd done, and then went legitimately mad, powers full bore...

Castiel finally has to add another filter to his universe-search: both brothers have to still be alive. The Winchesters just don't function well without each other, and in those universes where it was Sam who outlived Dean...especially if it was a Sam who won at Cold Oak or was otherwise corrupted...

Unpleasant is a mild term. He never realized just how much Dean's presence works to tamp down the taint buried in Sam.

Even so, most universes are similar to his own, teetering on the verge of the Apocalypse, the air thick with the schemes of angels and demons alike, God nowhere to be found. The differences are minor: Bobby dead here, Jessica or John alive there, the Impala destroyed, Uriel still on the field, a couple of very interesting universes where Dean is actually Lucifer's vessel and Sam is Michael's, despite the taint. This one, though—

There is no hint of Apocalypse in the air. He is not certain, but it feels like Lucifer has not been released. He would have to investigate the Cage to be sure, though, and there is only so much he can do and still have the energy left to get back to his universe, his Winchesters.

When he sends himself to the place where Dean is, that being the quickest way to figure out specifically how this universe differs from his own, Castiel just stares, stunned. Of all the possibilities, he had never once considered this, and he has no idea how to react.

He is standing on a little rise behind the crowd at a sunny green field with a soccer game in progress. A children's soccer game. None of the bright young souls scrabbling over the black-and-white ball have been on this earth more than twelve years.

He still anticipates a threat—Dean and Sam might very well come to this kind of event if there was something preying on children or parents or even the energy of the crowd—but there's nothing nearby. No ghosts, no demons, and the only angels he senses are the bottom-rank, low-powered, near-mindless guardian angels that hover protectively near most children before the age of discernment.

And then he sees him.

Dean Winchester is sitting in the crowd, on the very front row of the bleachers, cheering. Smiling, laughing, relaxed.

Happy.

This is not the Dean he knows. And yet... This is something his Dean could so very easily be, if things were only slightly different.

Even from here, he can tell that this Dean has never been to Hell. He wonders if somehow his search failed and this Dean escaped hunting—but no, many of the old scars are still there, the ones that twisted Dean into someone capable of making that deal in the first place. Yet here, for some reason, he never did. Less than a handful of the other Deans he's found have avoided that, and most of those were because someone else made the deal first—John usually, if he still lived; Bobby once, though that was more to save the world from a grief-maddened Dean than to save Sam from death; the less said about the time Jessica made the deal, the better.

Castiel slips through the crowd to get closer, telling himself that he must be mistaken. Maybe he's slipped into one of Dean's dreams, or perhaps this universe's Zachariah is making a point again and none of this is real. This— This is too bright, too happy to be reality. Sam isn't here, either, and he's not certain Dean can find happiness without his brother.

He freezes halfway there, seeing it.

Dean isn't sitting on the bleachers, the way he initially thought. Dean is sitting beside them, because Dean is in a wheelchair.

In all the universes he's scanned, he hasn't found a single one where Dean was physically damaged, not at this level. Scarred, certainly, occasionally missing a hand or an eye or an internal organ or two, but never anything this severe. The Winchesters have an ability to heal that borders on the supernatural itself—and Dean in particular has a superhuman, perhaps even idiotic, ability to ignore pain and injury and trudge on.

But why is Dean here? His Bobby is in a wheelchair, and it hasn't stopped him from hunting—or, at least, helping other hunters. The Dean he knows wouldn't just stop. He knows too much about what's out there, cares too much about saving others. Does it have something to do with where Sam is? Sam's alive—he has to be, because that was one of the limits Castiel placed on his search—but he's nowhere near. Not in the same town, perhaps not in the same state—perhaps even farther.

A harsh horn sounds, and the action on the field suddenly stops. The game must be over. By the squeals and hugs, Castiel thinks the ones in red won, but he can't be certain. After a few moments, out of the melee of children emerge two in red that run towards Dean—a boy and a girl, near the same age. Neither are his—the nature of Castiel's assignment means he can recognize any Winchester immediately, and these two have no Winchester blood at all. Nor do they share blood in common. They are not even the same race: The girl is an ethnically-indistinct Caucasian, the boy Vietnamese.

Yet Dean greets them as if they're his, and the girl even calls him "Dad." Love swirls around them as thick as it does around his Dean and Sam—the way it does between the Winchesters and Bobby Singer, the way it did between them and the Harvelles. Not blood, but family nevertheless.

And then Castiel sees her. She had been sitting on the bottom tier of the bleachers, next to Dean, and when she stands to give the boy a quick, celebratory hug, it's obvious that she's their mother. Not by blood, perhaps, but the emotions are unmistakable—as is the silver ring she wears on her left hand, identical to the one his Dean lost somewhere in Gabriel's television-worlds. This Dean has merely moved it to his left hand.

Married. Dean. And happily, from everything he can see. What happened in this universe? It couldn't just be the wheelchair. Was it the woman?

He wants to reach out, to sift through their thoughts, to find out what happened to create this idyllic scene—but he doesn't dare. Dean might be able to sense it. Castiel has seen it in other universes, an echo of the relationship with his Dean that makes the other Deans superaware of his presence.

And—if he is honest with himself—he's afraid that if he touches it, it might shatter, and even if it's not real, he suddenly can't bear the thought of destroying Dean's happiness. Even if it isn't his Dean.

"You are not supposed to be here." He turns, and finds himself facing—himself. Except the vessel housing his other self is not Jimmy Novak, but Claire, in a soccer jersey—red, like the ones Dean's children are wearing. "They moved here a few months ago," the—other?—angel explains. "Claire is great friends with Maggie Winchester. Dean has not met her father yet, or he would have confronted you by now, since he knows that Jimmy is out of town, and he tends to be—overprotective." Castiel manages—barely—not to snort. "Did you really think our Father wouldn't know you were trying this?"

"You've talked to Him?"

"Of course. Here, it is not so uncommon, even for lowly warrior angels like me. Or should I say, like us?"

"I need—"

"The answer is no." Claire tilts her head, and Castiel can't help but wonder if he has that same mannerism, because it's annoying. "Our Father knows what you wish, but He will not see you here. Not when you risk the fabric of the universes this way. He asks that you go back to your world."

"We need Him!"

"If you needed Him, He would be easily found," Claire retorts. "You have all you need, if only you use it properly."

All he needs? He has two stubborn young hunters who happen to be the vessels for Lucifer and Michael, an old car, a cell phone with rapidly-dwindling minutes, a stubborn old hunter in a wheelchair, and the hosts of Heaven trying to kill him, assuming the demons don't manage it first. That is nowhere near what he needs to stop the Apocalypse. "We need—"

"Trust in our Father, Castiel. And return home. The presence of two Castiels, even for a short time, damages the fabric of the worlds. If you keep searching this way, you will destroy every world you visit."

"But—"

"Look at him," she says, and points at Dean and his family. "Is there anything you would rather see? Would you destroy a world where he is so content? Where he is still capable of this kind of happiness?"

Castiel watches the small group—there's another child there now, a small one he hadn't noticed before, who has crawled into Dean's lap. It is at once utterly alien and completely natural. His Dean should be so lucky. His Dean deserves to be so lucky. "Where is Sam?" he asks instead. There is no way Dean—any Dean—can be this happy without his brother. Not in any universe where they were raised on the hunt.

"Sam lives in New York. He went there to visit an old friend after Dean was hurt, and he stayed. They are not estranged, merely physically distant." Such an odd thought: Sam and Dean living separate lives. Willingly. His have tried, but they never manage. Outside forces always throw them back together. "Sam will come back eventually, and their lives will merge again, but it will be no tragedy this time."

He studies his other self a moment. "Do you guard them?" he asks, finally.

She does not laugh at his question, but he can feel her—his own?—amusement. "What do they need protection from here?" she asks reasonably. "No angels plot against them. Azazel's schemes were derailed when they killed him. Cold Oak never happened, Sam never died, the righteous man never broke, Lucifer remains imprisoned. It is coincidence that I had a vessel so near."

"Coincidence that the vessels of my bloodline are near Dean Winchester?" He has definitely been around Dean too long. The cynicism is wearing off. "Or our Father's doing?"

"Perhaps," she admits, with a trace of a smile. "But He did not tell me, and I did not think to ask."

"Of course not." Angels do not question. Angels who question are not truly angels anymore, as the twinge in his vessel's back and that permanent stain on the inside of his coat constantly remind him.

"I must release Claire now," the other Castiel says, "she is supposed to ride home with the Winchesters. And you must be on your way."

"But—"

"Trust in our Father, Castiel."

Claire-Castiel walks away, towards Dean and his family. About halfway, she freezes, just for a second, shakes her head as if to clear it, then tears through the crowd towards them. The ease with which the other Castiel leaves her should surprise him, but doesn't. Once, long ago, taking and leaving a vessel had been that easy in his own world, before God disappeared, before the archangels took over.

"There you are, hero." Dean greets her with a grin and a high-five. "Excellent goal. I was about to send Maggie to hunt you down."

"I saw a friend of Dad's." Claire lies easily—or had the other Castiel implanted that memory? "Dad's been trying to get hold of him, so I thought I'd let him know."

"Warn us next time," Dean's wife tells her, but mildly enough. "I got two votes for pizza, two for burgers, and one abstention, so you're the deciding vote."

Perhaps it is too dangerous, risking the various universes this way. Perhaps if he searches harder in his own, where he belongs, without running that risk... If he can find God there... The other him said all he needs is there, and he needs God, so...perhaps...

The dim gray hope of his own world makes this bright joyous place suddenly too much, and Castiel wrenches himself away from this alien happiness and back into his own reality.

the end