Destined

Chapter 25

  Dean stared at me, a smile breaking across his face. I took a step toward him, paused for a moment, then grabbed his face and kissed him, long and hard. My wings flared out behind me. Dean grabbed me by the waist and pulled me closer, kissing me back passionately. This felt so right. My wings swept forward to wrap around Dean and I broke away from him, pressing my forehead to his and grinning. Dean smiled back at me.

  "Father was wrong. There's nothing wrong about this," I said. Laughter bubbled out of me and I hugged Dean. "There's nothing wrong with me after all, is there?" Dean pulled out of the hug to look me in the eyes.

  "Never," he said, pressing another quick kiss to my lips. We stepped away from each other, my wings folding against my back again. Dean let out a laugh.

  "My god this is such a shitstorm," he said. I laughed too, but then the weight of all of this hit me. 

  "It is, isn't it? Oh god, what are we going to do?" The smile slid from Dean's face as well.

  "I wish we could run away," he said. "Just leave, never look back." I reached forward reluctantly before taking his hand. Dean looked up at my eyes.

  "I wish things could be different," I said. Dean smiled sadly.

  "You say that a lot," he said, running his thumb over the back of my hand.

  "I feel it a lot. Constantly," I said. Dean squeezed my hand.

  "You've had a long day. You should get some rest. I can walk you up to your room if you want, and maybe we can figure this out tomorrow. For now, let's just enjoy it," he said. I smiled at him.

  "That would be lovely, thank you," I said. The two of us started towards the castle in silence. 

  We didn't speak again except for our whispered goodnights outside the door to my room. I tried to sleep after that, but I couldn't, my head still reeling with thoughts good and bad. It wasn't long before I decided that sitting in my room wouldn't do me any good and I needed to take a walk. Of course it was exactly that thought that had gotten me here in the first place, but I couldn't think what else to do. Part of me wanted to just walk out of the castle and never come back. I wanted to be done with all of this. But... I couldn't leave Hannah. And the more I thought about it, I realized I couldn't leave Dean either. Not now, not when everything was about to happen. I didn't want Dean to stop being in my life. So as I walked, I stayed inside the castle. 

  It wasn't until I was close to one of the servant entrances that I heard a voice speaking from a hall away. It was Charlie.

  "Are you sure about this? If you leave now, you can't come back, and I know how much you love Cas." I paused, wondering who Charlie was talking to.

  "I'm sure." I froze. It was Hannah. "I'm going to miss Cas. I really am. But this is for the best. I'll see him again one day, and hopefully he'll forgive me." I stepped into the hallway and Hannah looked up sharply from where she'd been standing with Charlie. The two of them looked like they were prepared to travel. My heart sank. Hannah looked at me, fear and sadness clouding her eyes. Charlie looked between the two of us.

  "I'll be outside," she said quietly, sqeezing Hannah's hand and ducking through the servant entrance and out into the night.

  "Hannah, what's happening? Are you leaving?" I asked, walking up to her and taking her hands.

  "I'm sorry, Castiel. But I won't be happy here. Charlie and I... We're going to run away together. Please don't be mad, I just... Dean and I don't make each other happy. I'm so sorry to leave you like this, but..." Tears began rolling down Hannah's cheeks. My own vision became blurry as tears filled my eyes.

  "Mother would want you to be happy. I wish you the best and I hope you and Charlie are happy together. You deserve someone who really loves you," I said, smiling at Hannah. Hannah smiled back, the relief in her face obvious.

  "Will you be okay here? I don't want you to get in trouble because of me," she said. I pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  "I'll be fine. I can handle myself around disgruntled royals, you know that," I said. Hannah grinned and threw her arms around me. I hugged her back tightly, the tears spilling down my cheeks now. My wings wrapped around Hannah and a part of me never wanted to let her go. But only a few moments later Hannah was pulling away, and I had to let her go.

  "I'll miss you, Castiel," Hannah said, smiling at me.

  "And I'll miss you too. Live well, Hannah," I replied. Hannah wiped the tears from her eyes, squeezed my hand, and slipped through the door. I wiped my own tears away and stood there for a little longer. Quite a lot had happened in the past few days, but this was probably the hardest thing to have happened since I arrived, and it didn't escape me that Hannah was doing exactly what Dean and I had been lamenting our inability to do only a few hours ago. Now I wished more then ever that I could run away as well, but I couldn't leave now. I had to do damage control, and I envied Hannah that she was able to escape. As much as I was happy for Hannah, as she got further from me, I began to feel so alone. And tired. So incredibly tired. I wiped my eyes again and began to make my way back to my room, where I finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.