#s12ep23

Coda to 12.23

Castiel died on a fine Thursday, surrounded by the people he loved, the people who loved him. The irony wasn’t lost on him, the angel of Thursday dying on a Thursday but it seemed fitting. He felt the ghost of smile forming on his lips, except he didn’t have lips, or a face or body for that matter. He was disembodied, a spirit perhaps but angels aren’t supposed to be spirits are they? He surely did not possess a soul. Yet here he was gazing down (though he did not have eyes!) upon his loved ones, watching helplessly as Mary Winchester fell through a portal along with Lucifer into some apocalyptic reality. He watched as Sam Winchester ran into the cabin to find the son he could have raised, had he lived. Regret echoed somewhere in his disembodied existence.

He saw Dean Winchester fall on his knees and for the first time noticed his now empty vessel lying amidst the charred marking of his broken wings. How art thou fallen, O Castiel?! He had rebelled, he had fallen , he had forsworn heaven and made poor choices but he loved and cherished, pined and fought, he embraced humanity and fell prey to emotions, he felt empathy, sympathy, hunger and privation, he experienced anger and profound sadness, satisfaction and unadulterated joy, he had desired and had been desired, he made mistakes and tasted regret. And God! If he was given a chance to choose, to rewrite his fall, to make a different choice, he wouldn’t change a single damn thing, he would fall again and a thousand times over for because he was fallen, Castiel had truly lived.