Brave for Her Angel

Castiel looks up and sees Ivy and Charlie strolling hand-in-hand toward them. He waves, and they wave back. Something seems off.

"Ivy?" he asks cautiously.

"Neither of us goes by that name, Sir," Charlie responds. "Though maybe one of us did. Perhaps you could help us. We do not look as we once did."

Ivy nods, looking puny. "Having seen you two...well, you look familiar." She looks at Charlie. "I think we are reincarnated, Joan."

Charlie smiles at her. "My bright girl. I do believe you are right. I am getting a feeling the same as you, as if God is whispering in my ear."

Emma blinks. "So..." she says to Castiel. "All these people are forgetting their current lives, and remembering a past one?"

"It seems so, yes," he mutters back. He takes it upon himself to explain everything to the women, fighting down the rage that rises within him at the way their past selves seem to be mated.

"And you're supposed to be with Castiel," Emma adds when he finishes, pointing from Ivy to him.

Ivy looks at him and frowns, as does Charlie.

"Sir, though we are not openly so, due to the fact that we would be burnt at the stake if we told, Joan and I are not romantically interested in men."

"I see," he replies. "You are in this life, though she is not. But I would not force anything on you. Think of me as a good friend, alright?"

She graces him with a smile as warm as the sun. "That is so very kind of you, Castiel. Men with whom we are familiar are not as accepting as yourself."

"Some men today are bad, but I am not, and I just want you to be happy."

Charlie drops Ivy's hand in favor of wrapping an arm around her waist, possessively pulling her close. "So we can stay with you two, then?" She addresses Emma, rather than Castiel, with a smile.

"Yes, of course. Ivy is my sister and lives with Castiel and me, and you're our friend who is staying with us."

"Good, good. This is so very strange."

Ivy rests her head on Charlie's shoulder, looking fearful.

"We will do our best to fix everything," Emma promises them. "It will be harder without Ivy, but we will try.

"I'm Ivy, right?"

Emma nods at her. "Yes. Hopefully you'll remember soon."

"And I'm...?" Charlie frowns, forgetting.

"You're Charlie."

"I have the name of a man?"

"Yes. Well, no. It's for both men and women today."

Charlie grins. "Amazing. And I'm wearing men's clothing, as well. Normally I would wear a skirt over tights, but this feels even more free than that."

Ivy looks up at her, giving Charlie a shining smile. "I'm happy for you, Joan," she says softly.

Charlie touches her forehead to Ivy's, looking into her eyes with such devotion and love. "Thank you, Rosie," she says softly.

Castiel whirls away from them and walks back toward the Impala, with Emma quick on his heels.

"You can follow us, you two," Emma tells them over her shoulder. "Please don't be afraid of the strange things you see. We won't let anything hurt you."

"I would normally have a sword to protect my lady," Charlie replies as she and Ivy start off after them. "But I see that this body doesn't have one."

Emma grins. "Oh, don't worry. We have plenty of weapons we'll share with you."

***

Once the Impala has been explained to Ivy and Charlie--er, Rose and Joan--Emma opens the trunk to reveal their collection of weapons. Joan stares in awe, then looks up at Emma in reverence.

"You must be very wealthy and capable."

"My sister and I are," she replies.

"I'm sorry I don't know you," Rose says gently with sad eyes.

Emma gives her a tight smile. "It's not your fault, Rose."

"Though I know that getting your sister back means that I will return to permanent sleep, I hope you do get her back."

Emma looks overwhelmed by emotion at Rose's incredibly kind words. She quietly thanks her, turning away and shutting the trunk.

"Are you two hungry?" Castiel asks.

Rose looks up at Joan, who looks at her for a moment before nodding. Rose then looks at Castiel and nods, smiling gratefully.

"We'll go home, and while Emma does research on this case, I will make food for you."

"That is kind of you, Castiel," Rose says, looking at him with those ridiculously gentle eyes that only reflect maybe a third of his Ivy.

He decides that they both seem to only be fractions of what Ivy and Charlie are. Rose is soft and sweet, looking to Joan for guidance on everything. Ivy is rarely this way, but he sees it in her every now and then. Joan is rough and bold and proud, while Charlie is all that, but only rough when she really needs to be, not all the time like this Joan. Charlie is mainly sweet and lighthearted and kind. It's almost as if the past life women's personalities are switched with thier present selves, then altered somewhat.

Emma helps them get into the car, and Castiel "rides shot gun" as Ivy would say. Everytime he looks in the rear view mirror at the woman with the face of his love, Joan glares flaming daggars at him. 'She learned quickly how to use the mirror,' he thinks to himself. She's as smart as Charlie. That might later cause some trouble for Castiel and Emma later on.

***

Joan and Rose stare at everything they see in total awe. Castiel does his best to explain things to them, and Joan seems to grasp what he says fairly quickly. After he cooks and distributes food to them and to Emma, he gets an idea.

"Rose, Joan."

They look up at him. Joan eats as if she's been starved, while Rose visibally controls herself to be much more ladylike. It makes him sad. Normally Ivy would eat as if she didn't care what anyone else thought.

"If you give me your surnames, I could have Emma look up records and illustrations of you."

"Oh, how interesting might that be, Joan?"

"Quite. My surname is Arthur."

"Mine is Bell."

Castiel nods and goes to pour himself a drink. "When you finish eating, we will go talk to Emma. But let me warn you: looking at whatever information we find on you might remind you of how you died. That might be...traumatic."

Joan and Rose look nervously at eachother.

"I would like to remember how I died," Rose says softly.

Joan nods. "As would I." She gives Rose's hand a firm squeeze, and then they continue eating.

Castiel sits across from them at the table with his glass of whiskey, and Rose stares at him, fork halfway to her mouth. They look into eachother's eyes for a very long time before she speaks.

"Cas," she says softly.

He sets down his drink, watching her intently with an ache in his heart.

"That's what she called you. 'Cas.' And she never told you that she likes the smell of whiskey on you, and her heart broke when you told her you wanted her but she couldn't say it back. And she still wonders how she could do that to you." The light in her eyes dims back to normal and she shakes her head, blinking to clear her mind.

"Rose?" Joan asks quietly.

Looking down at her plate, she responds with, "I suppose I'm learning more about this Ivy whose body I share."

Castiel tears his eyes away from her, looking down at his drink and mentally gathering himself. He feels Joan's sharp eyes on him, but he won't look back up.

***

Gathered around Emma and her laptop, Castiel, Rose and Joan wait for results to be found. When Emma finally speaks up, the three others peer over her shoulders.

"Okay. I want you two to do something for me." She hides the laptop's screen from them and does something quickly before turning it toward them. "Each of you please pick from these pictures which one is you."

They almost immediately pick the correct images. Rose is painted with fine strokes and bold colours. She looked quite alot like Ivy; with long, wavy, thick brown hair that reached past her back (but with no widow's peak), a very curvy figure, pale white skin with flushed cheeks, and blue eyes. But they are still clearly different people. And both are people Castiel knows. He forces his eyes to shift to the other image. Joan is painted more crudely, but with nearly the same skilled strokes as Rose's painter. She doesn't look even close to being the same person as Charlie, but she did have similarities: green eyes (small and slitted instead of big and wide) white skin, a thin frame, and red hair. She looks cruel and dangerous, but Rose gazes upon the image with an expression of adoration.

"You know," Rose says quietly to Joan, turning from the screen to look into Charlie's eyes, "even though you are in the body of another, I can see you in there."

Joan smiles and takes her hands. "I see you as well, my love. I saw you so clearly in those eyes, I barely realized you were in a different form."

They kiss, emotion seeming to take them, and Castiel's heart breaks.

Emma waits politely for their moment to be over, when they are looking at the screen again, before speaking. "Your past selves are from the same families as Ivy's and Charlie's. Castiel, is that how all reincarnations are done?"

"No. And very few souls are reincarnated. It is usually because an angel enjoyed watching a particular human and decided their soul should join another in a new person, at the birth of that new person. And then both those souls will be joined, and they will join a third when that next person dies."

"I see. Is there any way we can find out which angel interfered with Rose's soul?"

Castiel doesn't speak for a moment, and he takes long enough to have everyone staring at him. "The angel's mark would be left on the original soul. If Rose is the original soul, then the mark would be on her."

"How do we see the mark?"

"A spell."

"Of course. Well, I'm curious enough to try."

"Of course you are," he says quietly, and she doesn't hear him.

"Tell me more, Cas. Like, do Rose and Joan find eachother in every new life? Is that why Ivy and Charlie met?"

"I believe so. Even if only of them were reincarnated by an angel, if the other loved the one reincarnated enough, then the one who was not interfered with by an angel would reincarnate as well, finding her love over and over again for eternity."

Joan and Rose are holding hands, eyes locked in the most serious, loving gaze of all time. Castiel watches them. He knows how they love eachother. He knew back in the sixteenth century as well. But he cared for Rose so deeply, and now he loves Ivy so dearly. And he dislikes Charlie, just as he hated Joan.

***

"Cas?" asks Emma, once she's gotten Rose and Joan to bed. "Do you know the spell? To see which angel reincarnated either Rose or Joan?"

"No, I don't."

"Oh, okay. Maybe Bobby know. I'll call him tomorrow." She heads toward her room, calling, "Night, Cas!"

"Goodnight, Emma." He sits on the couch, where he will stay now, until they reawaken Ivy. Emma assured him that she put the women into separate rooms for bed, like the good friend she is, and that eases his nerves slightly. But he so deeply wishes to join Ivy in their bed again, and until that happens, he will not be happy, and he will not rest.