In the cemetery in a small town in the middle of Kansas, there’s a gravestone with a peculiarity to it. The statue of an angel lies there, slumped over, weeping.
The townspeople like to tell stories about the angel. They say the angel’s lover was buried there, and the angel was so heartbroken that he turned to stone, lacking the motivation to move ever again without his lover to move with him.
People go missing there, sometimes, in the graveyard. Parents warn their children never to go alone, to be careful, because people go in to mourn their loved ones and they don’t come back.
Emma Grey views the hospital around her and blinks. She’s sprawled on the ground, confused. Emma wipes the tears off her face and stands up. She’d been walking to her recently passed father’s grave to talk to him and give him her weekly flowers but now – where was she?
“Shhh, let’s get you to the nursery. You’ll be fine, sweetie. We just need to get you checked out and then you can go back to Mommy.” A nurse hurries past Emma, pushing a cart with a crying child down the hall.
Michael blinks, confused. He’d been walking with Mommy, to visit where Anna was sleeping in the ground, but Mommy got mad after he asked when his sister would be back and Mommy scared him when she was sad-angry like that, so he ran off. But now there was a big orange and yellow fire eating up the house in front of him. Michael turns around and around, trying to find the familiarity of the stone rows and fresh flowers, but all he sees is the house and the firefighters in their big suits and look, there was another boy! He was running out of the house carrying a bundle of blankets and Michael tries to call out to him but the boy doesn’t turn around.
One moment, he was standing in front of his mother’s grave, and the next, Thomas Fox was pacing the pavement in front of a shitty motel. He blinked, dazed, taking in his surroundings as two young men argue several yards away. One of them is carrying a duffel bag over his shoulder and he’s yelling.
“Dean, this is my choice. I told you I want a normal life and Stanford–”
“Shut up, Sammy.” The shorter one - Dean - seems to hesitate and then he embraces the other man. Thomas isn’t sure but he thinks they both might be shaking.
Her palms have suddenly been sliced by broken glass and Ingrid blinks rapidly, trying to wash away tears of pain and grief. She’s in some kind of supply store, an abandoned one judging by the glass everywhere, and fuck she cannot deal with this right now. All she wanted was to call Leah and tell her about the most recent insane development in her life but Leah was just a hole in the ground now and - Ingrid lets out another sob and pulls herself up, avoiding the shattered glass while she walks to the door.
The cemetery is old and crumbling now. The woman, bones brittle with age, hobbles to the middle of the graveyard and raises a bony hand to what once was the statue of an angel. It’s almost as if the feathers on it’s wings have fallen out. Castiel, she whispers. It took years of research and conversations with shady people in shadier alleys, but she’d figured it out eventually.
This statue is utterly broken. What must once have been powerful and indestructible is turned to stone, to dust. She crouches, paining her old knees, and brushes the dirt from the grave. It wasn’t unmarked after all; the shadows of Castiel’s stone trenchcoat merely hid it.
Castiel, she breathes again. Castiel, he was saved the moment his soul and your grace embraced. Do not mourn, for heaven has granted him all the paradise it could. Rejoice, for he only waits for you to join him and complete it.
Emma Grey walks away and does not look back, knowing only stone feathers remain.
