Note: Hey hey hey to my favorite people.... School's finally outtttt!!!

So, I spent most of the week writing term papers and taking exams, but it's officially over. I start working full time this week, but I should still have more free time than I have all semester, which means hopefully I'll be able to write some of your longer requests.

This week is for writingmina, who asked ages ago to see more Cas. I meant to add him in more regularly. I really did. But it's harder than I thought it would be, so I figured I'd just write a Cas chapter. Hope you like it!

Sorry to everyone who's been waiting forever for a request. I promise they're all coming :)

In this one, Anna is sixteen.

The Eye of the Storm

Anna tried to roll over, hit something, and rolled back onto her side. Kate, she realized belatedly. They didn't have any rooms with two beds at the bunker, and whenever Kate stayed the night, she and Anna usually stayed up so late hanging out that they just crashed in the same bed. Glancing back over her shoulder to make sure she hadn't woken Kate up, Anna eased herself up and out of bed.

Usually it took her much longer to drag herself to her feet in the morning, but she was about a month past her sixteenth birthday, and things were going okay. She and Dean were both back on their feet after that bad hunt a few days before she turned sixteen, and the boys had been home for nearly a week, which just always made her feel better than she did when they were gone. All in all, she felt okay this morning. That, and a cup of coffee sounded like heaven to her.

Snatching her phone off the nightstand, Anna strolled out of her bedroom and down the hallway. It was only seven, and she'd crashed around three this morning, so she felt a bit like a zombie as she entered the kitchen... which was probably why she didn't recognize the third voice besides her brothers' before she turned the corner.

"Morning, Rugrat," she heard, and her hair was ruffled.

"Hey, Ladybug."

She offered a tired smile and nod to Sam. Then her eyes grazed over Castiel's face before they landed on the coffee pot, and it made her heart leap a little. There was some relief, some excitement, but she kept it all on the inside and only gave him a little smile. "Hey, Cas," she said and poured herself a cup of coffee. She hopped up to sit on the counter before actually picking up her cup. "Where you been?"

"Um-" She watched as Cas looked at Dean and Sam cautiously. Was he measuring his answer? What could they possibly be wanting to hide from her? She knew about the mark, and she'd been implicated when Dean went black-eyed, so it couldn't be about that. "Nowhere," was the answer Cas settled on, looking like he thought he'd told a convincing lie. He gave a short little nod, looking at Anna.

She just shook her head and took a sip of strong coffee. She couldn't do this at frickin' seven a.m. before she'd even gotten halfway through her first cup of coffee. If Cas didn't want her to know where he'd been, she could deal with that. She'd been excluded from bigger secrets, she was sure. She probably didn't even have any clue just how much crap had been hidden from her over the years. She would likely never know.

"Are you staying?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," Cas said, appearing distracted... or concerned. It was hard to tell with him sometimes.

"Course he's staying," Dean interrupted, sitting down beside Sam at the table. "Think Kate'll freak out if she knows he's an angel?"

Anna shrugged. "I doubt it. She kinda takes this shit in strid-"

"Language."

Anna rolled her eyes and slid off the counter. "I'll go get her up. She's supposed to go home by ten anyways, and we're gonna make cereal pancakes."

Dean made a face and leaned forward as if to take a sip of coffee. "What the hell is a cereal pancake?"

"I imagine," Cas said, stepping over to stand beside Anna at the counter, "that they're numbered."

It was Anna's turn to make a face of bewilderment. "They're made with cereal," she said to Cas. "Cereal with a 'c.'"

"You know what? Uh, maybe Cas can help you," Sam suggested. "Dean and I have something to check out in town." That secret Cas had kept from her rearing its head? Anna figured it was best not to ask, at least for now. "That way, uh, Kate and Cas can get to know each other."

"And I can play awkward middle man," Anna said with a wildly fake grin.

"Cas'll take care of the awkward. You just play middle man," Dean said, matching her smartass smile with one of his own.

Anna pursed her lips at him and sauntered out into the hallway, holding her cup of coffee. Why Dean thought he was so funny, she would never know.

()()()

"So, how long have you two known each other?" Kate asked, cracking an egg into a mixing bowl.

Anna shrugged. "Since I was a kid."

"We met in September of 2008 after I raised Dean from Hell."

Kate seemed startled by that bit of information. Holding two pieces of eggshell, she looked up at Cas with slightly widened, cautious eyes. "Is that a metaphor?" She looked from Cas' face to Anna's, and Anna let her eyes flick awkwardly down toward the recipe displayed on her phone screen. "Of course it's not," Kate mumbled, sounding half-horrified, half-exasperated. "So, uh, that's cool, then, that you, like, raised Dean from Hell. Pretty B.A."

"Don't let him intimidate you with his bad-assery," Anna said, reaching past Kate to pick up the measuring cups off the counter. "He's even more of a teddy bear than Sam and Dean when you get to know him."

Kate nodded along, but she still looked a little freaked out. Anna could tell, because Kate had this way of focusing more than she needed to on one task when she was nervous. And at the moment, she was not only looking intently at the recipe on Anna's phone, but she was using her finger to follow the ingredients list, and Kate didn't finger-read.

"B.A. That stands for Bachelor of the Arts?"

Anna looked sideways at Cas. Part of her wanted to pull him aside and tell him to act normal and stop freaking out her best friend. But another part of her felt bad. He didn't mean to act weird. He just didn't know how to be normal. Really, compared to the Cas she'd met when she was nine, he was very normal.

"In some circumstances, Cas, yes. But would anyone call you a Bachelor of the Arts? Context dictates that she was calling you badass. Not educated."

Fortunately, Cas didn't take offense to the terseness of her voice. At least not outwardly. Cas was a hard read. "It's a colloquialism," he deduced.

"Yeah," Anna said, then turned back to Kate and the half-prepared bowl of pancake batter. She was surprised to see her friend smiling. In fact, Kate was biting her lip to keep from full-on grinning.

"I think he just got ten times less intimidating."

Anna let loose with a smile of her own, glancing back up at Cas with a glimmer in her green eyes. "Hear that, Cas? You not getting stuff actually turned out to be a good thing for once."

Cas nodded, smiling back down at her, and even giving an airy chuckle.

"How much flour?" Anna asked, pulling the paper sack open and holding a measuring cup at the ready.

Kate leaned over to read a number off the recipe, but Cas spoke first, "Two and three-quarters cups."

Anna wrinkled her nose a little and started scooping out the first cup, looking sideways at Kate. "He remembers the recipe."

Kate shrugged nonchalantly. "You make pancakes a lot?" she asked Cas. She had tons of recipes memorized, because she cooked all the time, so to her it likely seemed like no big deal that Cas should know the measurements by heart.

But Anna knew that Cas had only seen the recipe once.

"No," Cas admitted.

Anna let her shoulders fall half-an-inch. Why couldn't Cas just lie? "He remembered it the first time I showed him," she said.

"Woah," Kate said. "So you're, like, a savant?"

Savant syndrome. It was a great way of explaining a lot about Castiel's behavior. Seeing a way out of explaining to Kate that Cas was an angel, Anna nodded eagerly, even though she knew that, really, this was a terrible lie to be telling. "Yeah. Sure," she said. "Exactly like that."

Kate nodded, appearing interested and content to understand. "'kay, so, we need oil."

Anna dumped in her last partial cup of flour and then turned around to retrieve the oil from one of the cabinets. But she opened the cabinet door only to see that one of her dumb, tall brothers had put it up high. Perks of letting Dean do most of the cooking. He probably didn't think twice about where he put things, because he could almost always count on having been the last one to use it and therefore just magically knowing where everything was.

"Shit," Anna muttered and placed her palms on the shelf to boost herself up onto it on her knees and then stand up. The bunker's ceilings were so high she didn't have to hunch over, even standing straight up on the counter.

"Are you allowed to stand on kitchen surfaces?" Cas asked. It sounded like it was supposed to be a reprimand, but it was all too strange coming out of his mouth.

"Absolutely," Anna said distractedly. A glance over her shoulder told her Cas had his arms crossed over his chest. A glance over her other shoulder told her Kate thought it was hilarious. Irritated but trying to stay good-natured, Anna added, "Are you?" She snatched the oil out of the cupboard and hopped back down off the counter, meeting Cas' serious gaze head on and smirking.

()()()

The boys wound up staying out for most of the day, only getting back around 4pm. Anna was sitting in the map room, chewing worriedly on a pen cap, when they pushed in through the heavy bunker door and rushed inside. They both looked wet and cold, shaking their jackets off and draping them over their arms.

"It's really comin' down out there," Dean said as he and Sam reached the bottom of the stairs.

Anna had already perked up when she'd seen them come in, but she perked up even more at those words. "It's raining?" she asked, bolting out of her seat.

"Try storming," Sam corrected, catching her with an arm in front of her chest before she could even start up the stairs. He must have seen her eyes widen in excitement, because he made a face and told her to go sit down. She didn't, instead opting to follow them through the bunker.

"Where's Cas?" Dean asked and tossed his coat over the back of one of the chairs in the library.

"I don't know," Anna said, but her tone made it obvious she was lying, as did the way she looked conspicuously off to the left. She caught, in her peripherals, the way Dean looked over at her in some combination of confusion and surprise. Like he could tell she was lying but didn't understand what on earth she needed to lie about.

"You're gonna stick with that answer, or what?"

Anna shrugged this time. "He was getting on my nerves. I gave him Watership Down and told him to count how many times the letter 'e' showed up."

"How did you even convince him to actually do that?" Sam asked, sounding tired.

"Well, first I told him I was writing a paper for school-- which I was," she added, thinking that maybe this would earn her a couple brownie points. "And then he asked if he should help, and that's when I told him to count 'e's."

By this point they'd made it to the hallway where all their bedrooms were, and Sam turned on her, pointing a finger. "Go tell him he can stop," he instructed.

Anna shrugged. "Fine, but you can find a new way to entertain him. And me," she added after a second. "I'm bored out of my mind."

"Did you finish your paper?" Sam questioned like the dutiful freaking mom that he was.

"No," Anna admitted. "But I wrote three pages already, and I'm saving the rest for tomorrow night. It would be straight-up weird for me to hand it in more than five minutes before it's due."

Dean had already disappeared into his bedroom to change his clothes. Sam looked, for a second, like he was going to say something reasonable in an effort to talk her out of that philosophy. But he shook his head instead, appearing weary as ever. "Go rescue Cas, Ladybug," he reminded her and stepped into his own room.

Anna watched his bedroom door click shut and sighed. They were both tired now, and she didn't even know what the hell they'd actually done in town to come back looking that tired. But they were stormed in for the rest of the night, and usually that meant one of two things: game night, or movie night. She wasn't sure they were going to be up for either one of those things tonight, though, and she sure as hell wasn't about to get into either one with just Cas. As much as she loved him, she just didn't have the mental energy to explain board games or movie plots to him on her own for several hours.

She dragged her feet to the little study room where she and Kate had hung out to play monopoly on the floor every weekend for most of last year. Inside, Cas was sitting at the small desk in the room, hunched over a novel.

"What're we at?" she asked as she walked in. Why not have a little fun while she still could?

"12,346," Cas said, holding his finger in place on a page of the book and looking up at her. "Why would your teacher give you such a tedious assignment?"

Anna shrugged. "He's the worst," she said lightly. "Let's take a study break, huh?" She gave Cas a pat on the shoulder and reached forward to close the book. At the look on his face, she hurriedly assured him, "Don't worry about losing your place," she said, her voice tooth-rot sweet. "I really should've been doing it myself anyway. The guilt will eat me alive if I cheat."

It was a lie. Anna wasn't above cheating if necessary, and she didn't waste time feeling guilty about that when she had so much else to worry about, but she usually didn't need to cheat at all. Sam was right when he said she was smart but just wasn't 'applying herself.' But Anna still rolled her eyes every time he said it. Of course she wasn't applying herself. Why should she put her energy into school, of all things? She didn't need a 4.0 GPA to stab monsters in the face.

"You're making the right choice," Cas assured her, giving her a pat on the shoulder as he stood up.

Anna gave a solemn little nod, trying not to smile. "Boys are back," she told Cas, leading the way out of the room. "And it's storming, which means you're stuck with us for the night." Much crap as she gave him, she couldn't help the teasing, happy smile on her face.

She loved having Cas around, and it was no secret. She just didn't like when he acted like he had any kind of authority over her-- which he often did by mimicking the looks and warnings that Sam and Dean were always giving her-- because it just felt wrong coming from him. Anyway, she liked to think of Cas as a friend, not another guardian. But it was okay. She was good at finding ways to get him off her back whenever he got on her nerves, and for the most part, he was just chill and confused.

"I was thinkin' maybe we could do a movie night, but I don't know. Depends if they're too tired, and they looked tired."

"What if we watch something on the Netflix?"

Anna smirked, "Just Netflix, Cas. I've been thinking about watching Shameless. I guess we could watch that together."

"You would like Orange is the New Black," Cas told her thoughtfully. "There are no characters in it that are your age. But there are many lesbians."

Anna's face split into a wide grin. "Aww. You know me so well Cas." She didn't tell him that she hated that show, because she didn't want to watch the pleased look on his face disappear.

"Dean would like it as well. There are naked women in nearly every episode."

"Aaaaand you ruined it."

()()()

"Shameless?"

Anna put her hands on her hips. She didn't like the indignation in Dean's voice. "It looks good."

"I thought we were gonna do movies."

"It's not your turn to pick what we watch," Dean reminded her. "You chose the stack last time."

"And you choose it every other time."

"Fine," Dean said, though he looked unhappy. "It's Sam's turn." He turned to their brother with a look that said he'd better not screw this up.

Sam shrugged. "I'm good with Shameless."

Dean gave him a lethal look. "Seriously?"

"Fine, Cas can pick," Sam said, indifferent. He looked to Cas and cleared his throat.

"There's kids in it, Cas. You love kids."

Dean's hand clamped over her mouth before she could entice the angel any further. "Cheater," he hissed at her. "When have I ever shown you a bad movie, Cas?"

Anna pulled his hand off her mouth. "Now who's cheating?" she complained.

"Now we're even."

"Cas, what do you want?" Sam asked, giving their friend a consolatory pat on the shoulder. Anna knew what he must be thinking. Sam knew what it felt like to be the deciding vote in a dispute between Dean and Anna. That was a lot of pressure, and Cas wasn't used to that like Sam was.

Castiel narrowed his eyes in thought, looking between Dean and Anna. His eyes settled on Dean, and Anna thought for sure she'd lost, but really Cas was just watching warily for Dean's reaction as he slowly, cautiously said the word, "Shameless."

Anna cheered and Dean dropped his face into his hands.

By some miracle, they all four squished themselves onto one couch. Cas, unaccustomed to the kind of lack of personal space that the Winchesters knew so well, seemed mildly uncomfortable at first, but he quickly adjusted. Anna had her back to Sam's arm, her legs spread over Cas' lap and her feet in Dean's. That way she could take up almost no room, making it easier for everyone to fit.

In her lap was a bag of gummy bears, which she had forced Cas to snack on with her, even though he claimed they tasted like nothing more than granules of sugar to him.

"I can't believe this asshole," Dean complained aloud, making Anna roll her eyes for the twentieth time. They were only ten minutes into the second episode of Shameless, but everyone had already gotten used to Dean's intermittent outbursts about how terrible Frank Gallagher was. "I mean, how old is that kid? Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"And he's throwin' himself a pity party," Anna tacked on in a grumble. Ian was fast becoming her favorite character, and she'd made the same indignant sound as her brother when Frank's head first collided with Ian's on screen.

"I think he's a narcissist," Sam commented idly from behind her.

Anna tilted her head back to see his face. He was watching intently, analyzing shit like he always did. She liked watching movies with Sam. He could be quiet through most of the show, and when he did say things, he said interesting things. Dean was usually just as fun to watch movies with, but whenever he started to get angry, he lost all ability to keep his mouth shut.

"Shit," Anna muttered, impressed, when on-screen Lip had to intercept Debbie, who was wielding a frying pan. For once, nobody corrected her language.

The storm on the TV seemed to match the one outside. Noise and pain and drama. But the couch was calm and safe, and the company was good. It felt to Anna like they were sitting in the eye of the storm.

"Why aren't they kicking him out?" Dean demanded, gesturing in annoyance at the TV screen.

He's their dad, Anna thought but didn't say. It would have changed the atmosphere. And she liked things the way they were.

La Fin