Listen to the Lost

Summary: Metatron stabbed Naomi in the head with a drill. But it didn't kill her. Just left her badly injured and mostly dead. Fallen to Earth, Naomi seeks out Castiel. Not to kill him, but to fulfill the promise she made. A promise to listen. But can an injured angel, even a leader of Heaven, and Heaven's most wanted truly stop the violence filling the world? Can she stop her followers? AU Season 9. Sequel to Turnabout Perspective.

Chapter One: Fallen Angels

The angels fell.

In a ruined church, a demon made almost human, tortured by his guilt, watched the sky burn with falling bodies. His newly awoken soul was too wracked with pain and grief to feel anything other than sorrow. Certainly not the vindictive pleasure he might once have felt.

Outside the ruined church, two brothers watched the angels fall, flashing like meteors. Falling, burning, crashing to the ground. The youngest slumped against their car, barely conscious, not fully aware of what was happening. The eldest supported his brother, his eyes devastated. "Angels...they're falling. Cas, what have you done?" His words were half prayer, half horrified lament.

In a deep underground bunker, a storehouse of supernatural knowledge, a young man stood, watching a 75 year old map light up as alarms sounded throughout the structure. His eyes were filled with horror, regret, anger, fear, and a deep sense of confused pain.

In a patch of woods, a man staggered into a clearing, gasping in horror as he watched the angels fall. His eyes were wide and anguished, filled with pain and guilt so great as to seem unbearable. He stood, heedless of his surroundings, one hand clenched at his side, the other touching his neck, where an hour ago his throat had been cut, his essence drained from him, transforming him from angel to man. In the light of the falling angels, two tears slid from his devastated eyes to fall onto his dirty trench-coat. Unheard by anyone, a litany spilled from his lips. "I'm sorry…I'm so sorry. Please, forgive me..."

In another place, a slender, battered woman staggered into a parking lot, her eyes watching the sky. Blood trickled down the back of her neck, staining the collar of her suit. Her eyes were full of horror, and of regret, and pain. "No. Castiel..."

***LttL***

Naomi stood and watched as the angels fell, helpless.

She was aware of the wound on the back of her head. Aware too that she had been injured in her fall from Heaven. She hurt. Her wings felt all but destroyed. Her Grace held only a fraction of her usual strength.

She was surprised to be alive. When Metatron had ambushed her on her return to her office, when he'd stabbed her with the interrogation drill, she'd thought she was done for. The pain had been blinding, incapacitating her completely. And yet, it hadn't quite killed her. She'd been paralyzed, but not dead.

She had seen everything, and even as an angel, she shivered at the knowledge of Metatron's twisted evil, at the horror she had seen.

Castiel had come, as she'd asked him to. He was just as likely to have come to rescue Metatron as to speak to her, but he had come.

She hadn't been able to see, but she had felt his presence, felt the spike of confusion, followed by shock as Metatron's drawling voice sneered at him. "She told you I lied, didn't she? You should have listened to the bitch."

She had heard the scuffle and thump of someone being shoved into the interrogation chair, the snap of manacles. The spike of fear that she recognized as Castiel's. She had felt it so often when she'd administered his 'correction'.

She'd heard Metatron's explanation. Felt the ice-cold horror at what he had done.

He had taken Castiel's grace. Ripped it from him by force. Not even Lucifer had suffered such a fate, such a cruelty. There had been fallen angels who had ripped out their own Grace in the fall, but nothing like this, this deliberate stripping of everything that made an angel an angel. It was a violation that she could never have conceived of. Re-writing an angel's mind, yes, she'd done that. But what Metatron had done to Castiel was an abomination.

And then Metatron had cast the spell to send Castiel to Earth, and she had been caught in it, weak enough to be swept away.

Had she fallen as her fellow angels were falling, it would have killed her. But the spell Metatron had used on Castiel had been a gentler one, meant to convey a human soul through the fall, and that had been her salvation. She had been as weak as the Fallen seraph.

The last of the lights faded from the sky. The angels had fallen. Heaven was closed.

The earth was about to erupt into chaos. And she was too weak to prevent it. There had been numerous factions in Heaven, her own included. Weak as she was, she had no power to stem the fighting about to break out. She didn't even have the strength to call out to her comrades. The drill Metatron had driven into her had damaged her.

She needed to find Castiel. She had promised Castiel that she would listen to him. And now...that was more important than ever.

Castiel was a scapegoat. She was a strategist, and she knew Metatron's strategy. He had made Castiel gather the spell components, so the Seraph's hands would be visible in the process, then taken his Grace. It would serve to make it seem as if Castiel had known the plan all along, because it was unheard of for an angel to strip another of his Grace, but not for an angel to donate their power to a certain goal. And it left Castiel helpless prey, to be hunted while Metatron strengthened his own power base in Heaven. Given Castiel's already tarnished reputation, most of the heavenly Host would be eager to pursue him and their own agendas, leaving Metatron far too much time to plan.

She was the only one who knew that Castiel was truly innocent. He had been tricked. Tricked into destroying the Heaven he had sought to save.

Regret filled her. She had meant what she said to the seraph, and to Dean Winchester. Forced to re-examine her views of Castiel in light of Metatron's memories, she had come to realize she had badly misjudged him. Castiel had done terrible things, there was no denying it, but he had always done them with a goal of protecting that which God had created. Protecting humanity, God's last and best loved creation. Protecting Heaven, in spite of everything he had endured.

She wished she had been able to prove to him that she was sincere about listening to him. Perhaps, if she could find him, she would be able to help him, to prove herself to him.

If she could find him. With the transformation to human, his essence had changed. She wouldn't be able to track him through his Grace. That was gone. And, wrapped in heavenly power as they were, she hadn't been able to read the signature of his soul before Metatron had flung them both from Heaven.

If she could not find Castiel, perhaps she could find the Winchesters. They were warded, but she knew roughly where they had been. The ritual for closing the gates of Hell generated a great deal of power.

She would go to them. And as she traveled, she would listen for word of Castiel.

She was wounded, unable to fly. She would need to find alternate means of transportation. She surveyed the parking lot, looking at the options available, and began to plan.

Author's Note: This just started as an idle wish that someone in Heaven would have listened to Castiel at least once. Then I watched the Season finale of Season 8, and this little idea formed. We never saw Naomi's wings when she died in the episode, so it seemed possible that she survived at least to Fall. So...onwards and upwards.