"I'm so sorry. I didn't want this to happen to you. I'm so sorry. I'm the worst guardian ever."
"No, you aren't. We all make mistakes."

Azriel had called the Winchesters, as promised, who showed up promptly and gave the angel and Charlie a ride back to her apartment after she got a cast on her arm. There they discussed how Charlie should probably wipe the slate clean and get a new identity, a new life. Charlie agreed, and so did Azriel.

Once Charlie got her bag packed, the Winchesters gave them a ride to the bus stop, where she bought a ticket to take her east. Where exactly, she didn't know yet.

While the redhead had her final words with the Winchesters, Azriel handed over Charlie's bag to be put under the bus. With a final, "Peace out, bitches," Charlie boarded the bus. Azriel nearly followed her but jogged over to the Winchesters as an afterthought.

"Hey," she started, unsure of what to say but sure that she wanted to say something. "I'm... I'm sorry I was a douche. And... thank you. For looking out for her,"

The Winchesters nodded and Azriel half-smiled at them. "Good luck. You're going to need it." And with that, Azriel hurried over and onto the bus, plopping down into the seat next to her ward.

"Where should we go?" Charlie asked, comfortably slumped into her chair, gazing lazily at her angel.

Azriel shrugged. "I hear Michigan's nice this time of year,"

☼☼☼

The bus ride was long and absolutely boring. Azriel was trying to pass the time by reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but while her eyes scanned the pages, her mind wandered. Finally, she let the book fall into her lap and she stared at her muddy boots in conflict.

The redhead by her side noticed and unlodged the earbuds from her ears, nudging the angel with her elbow. "What's up?"

The angel's eyes remained on her boots as she spoke, her hands squeezing the ends of the armrests. "Why didn't you let me heal your arm? Do you—" She worked her jaw, her voice betraying her. "Do you not trust me, or—"

Charlie was quick to resolve the angel's inner turmoil. "Azriel, no, no, it's not that. I was just delusional and, and in pain. It had nothing to do with you."

Azriel met Charlie's eyes, the emotional distress evident in her. Her stomach hadn't stopped churning since the night before. Guilt dominated all of her other emotions, shoving them to the side and becoming the sole feeling she experienced. "So, it's not payback, or anything, because I wasn't there, or because of our fight the other night? Because literally my only job is to stop stuff like that from happening, and I failed, and I haven't stopped feeling like trash since then, so..." Her rambling trailed off when Charlie reached over and wrapped her hand around the angel's gently trembling one. Her heart began to thump at a quicker pace, though she tried to slow it, it only continued to race.

"No, none of that. You're quick to panic, Azri. Besides, it only hurts a little. And the cast is pretty badass,"

Her eyes were glued to where the angel had signed her name in big, sloppy print. Charlie had demanded that Azriel's be the first signature on there. Sam and Dean signed too, because she had requested it. Azriel knew that Charlie was lying about it only tormenting her slightly, because she could sense the pain radiating off of her. Her painkillers were probably wearing off. The angel inconspicuously allowed some of her grace to flow through her fingers and into Charlie and watched as she visibly relaxed, her suffering suddenly dulling.

"Now, I have a question for you," Charlie countered.

"What's that?"

"Why are you riding on this bus with me for eight hours? Don't you have better, more angelic stuff to be doing?"

Azriel struggled for a response. Sure, she could be doing anything else, literally anything else, but the thought hadn't even crossed her mind until now. Eight hours on a bus was mind-numbingly boring, but with Charlie Bradbury, it was slightly more tolerable. There's no place she'd rather be.

With a shrug, she summed up her feelings into a simple five-word phrase. "Where you go, I go."

This brought a grin to Charlie's face, which brought one to Azriel's. The redhead squeezed the angel's hand before leaning her head on her shoulder. The brunette tensed at the gesture at first, but relaxed after a moment. Contact with Charlie made her nervous for reasons she couldn't pin.

But this, this was alright.

☼☼☼

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