"I know your body, every atom," Castiel says, very softly. "And it knows me. My will shaped it into being. It obeyed me when I told your heart to beat, your lungs to breathe, and when I placed you within it, I told it that it was now yours, to do with as you will.

"It mattered," Cas rasps. "When my Brothers told me to submit to my final discipline in Heaven, I fought them; when they offered me mercy in Heaven, I told them to send me back to earth; I helped Dean on his mission."