"Ping."
She couldn't be blamed for being startled. It had been mind-numbingly quiet in this room for the past seven weeks, so dropping her magazine and giving a slight jump was a perfectly normal reaction to suddenly broken silence.
Her eyes traveled to the bed across from her, and that caring side of Nurse Masters wanted to comb disheveled locks and change the now conscious human into something warmer than paper thin scrubs. The demon side of Meg, however, knowing that the man sitting there, looking all too alert for someone in an over-a-month-coma, wasn't human, resisted the urge.
She leaned forward in her chair letting her feet fall from the bed they were propped up on to the floor. "It lives," she deadpanned.
His gaze, piercing and shimmering with an awareness that hadn't caught up with the rest of his body, landed on her. "Demon," he growled, and the power that surged through him made her suck in a breath. Something was off about him, and if she wasn't careful, they could both end up dead.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm a hell-spawn, but I'm here to take care of you." Playing nice with the humans for the past month had taught her a few things, and she let her voice drip with soothing tones as she reined in her dark aura. "Talk to me, Castiel. What do you mean, 'Ping'?"
He slowly blinked, letting the buildup of Grace die away. "Heard it," he slurred as if his tongue weighed a ton in his mouth. "Ping... Angels…"
That could mean a number of things: Either Angels were coming, Cas was being summoned to Heaven, or it was something only angels could hear. Meg's mind raced with possibilities, but it was clear that she wasn't gonna get anywhere with him like this. So for the time being, she let the subject drop.
"Where?" Castiel asked, and Meg worked on steadying her thoughts.
She held in a groan at having to play demon nurse to a broken angel and let herself drift to her happy place; a place full of ways to pay the Winchesters back for this and everything else they dragged her into. "You're gonna have to be more specific, Clarence," she said, and he cocked his head to the side in confusion at the name. "Are you asking where the ping is?"
She couldn't answer that, so she was relieved when Cas shook his head.
"Are you asking where your favorite pets – the Winchesters are?"
His eyes filled with a mix of curiosity, and his face took on a softness, but he shook his head again.
"Are you asking where you are?"
That was really the only other logical question, and thankfully Castiel nodded because she was out of suggestions.
"Easy," she shrugged, even though she had no idea what fried his brain like this, so it really wasn't. "You ganked a bunch of demons, took on lil Sammy's crazy and landed yourself smack-dab in the nut house."
"Not you," he stated, pondering that.
She shook her head. "Nope, you didn't kill me. We're friends, y'see, you and me."
"Mental institution," he nodded with understanding, and she could almost see him fitting together puzzle pieces of memory. "Friends." And she didn't have to be a mind reader to know that all the memories that word conjured were Sam and Dean related.
It was a full fifteen minutes, measured by the ticks of the clock and the resumed flipping of Meg's magazine pages, before he said anything else, and then, "I'm hungry."
Meg felt a tug of pride as she smiled. "A full sentence." This nurse gig was making her soft, and if Crowley could see her now…
"What're you in the mood for?" She didn't even wanna think about what the King of Hell would do if he saw her like this.
Castiel went completely still, thinking. "Cheeseburgers," he said finally, and Meg shook her head with a snort of amusement and a thought of 'Winchesters,' as she got up and made her way to the cafeteria.
( )
Morning saw the angel in slightly better shape. When Meg breezed into his room, Castiel was in white sweatpants and a cotton v-neck, clinging to his trenchcoat and staring out the window.
"Melinda isn't a demon," he greeted.
"Hello works too," she said, walking to his bed and straightening the blankets.
He traced the frayed threads of his coat. "Neither is Bradley or Samantha."
"So you've met the nurse staff. Good for you."
She marveled at his speedy recovery time; a few hours with flashcards – names of animals, objects, that kinda thing – and Castiel was stringing together full sentences. Another two of hand holding and baby steps around his room and he was walking down the winding corridor to the vending machine in the nurse's lounge. She was glad no one else had seen him in the beginning, because doctors would've barged in demanding tests; nothing human could recover that fast, after all. The threat of discovery lurked around the corner, though, and she wasn't about to let them stick around much longer.
"I have," he nodded, "and none of the other women's clothes cling to them like yours do." His fingers stilled on a loose button as he caught her eye. "Are you seeking attention?"
Okay, so his thoughts had no filter, but hadn't he always had trouble with human interaction?
"What kinda gal doesn't wanna be noticed?" She asked.
"You're no girl," he said. "Not a human one, anyway."
"True, but I gotta keep up the charade to take care of you, don't I? I'm the only supernatural nurse they got, and you're lucky to have me."
That kept Castiel quiet for a few minutes. He went back to examining his trenchcoat and gazing out the window, and Meg busied herself with stacking up his breakfast tray and making note that he'd taken his morning pills.
A noise between excitement and wonder made her look up. Castiel was standing at the window, face pressed against the glass. "There's a bee," he pointed as she came up behind him. "On that flower. Look."
"D'you wanna go outside?" And before she could blink, he'd taken her hand and zapped them into the garden.
Five minutes of bee chasing, which Meg spent making sure the garden was actually clear of witnesses, saw the two of them sitting on a bench with a first aid kit between them.
"So what did we learn?" Her voice was lilting, a tone her meatsuit had used with its nieces, as she tweezed away bee stingers, applied antiseptic and bandaged the swollen skin.
Whatever pounding Sam's cage match scars gave Castiel's brain had unlocked emotions because his face twisted into a pout. "Bees are territorial," he mumbled, head hung low and chin tucked against his chest.
She laughed, and it'd been an incredible amount of time since anything had brought something so genuine to her lips. "Yeah, and there's honey in the cafeteria," she told him, glancing over to a sturdy oak tree that housed a now well guarded beehive.
"I have a present for you," Cas said, watching a butterfly float by on a breeze.
"The bee stings weren't my present?" Meg's voice dripped with faux surprise and Cas chuckled, another accomplishment.
Shifting a little, he pulled a small handful of crumpled flowers from his pocket; a dandelion, rosebud, tulip, and six blades of grass were dumped into Meg's lap. "The path of the honeybee," he explained.
Internally, Meg, torturer of Hell and the King's favorite whore, was cursing herself for letting this damaged celestial being and enemy worm its way into her heart. Externally, nurse Meg, helper of supernatural beings in need, smiled warmly. "Thank you, Castiel. It's a nice present."
He looked sheepish, mumbled a "You're welcome," and refused to meet her gaze, and Meg thought the Gates of Hell would freeze over right then because an angel looked at a demon like that.
'Hell, an angel showing emotion – an angel and a demon together –.' She chalked up this whole fiasco as worthy of freezing the Gates, of completely shredding the fabric of time, even. It was all becoming too much. She needed a break to clear her head, and she never thought she'd be so happy to see Annie, one of the receptionists, striding across the garden.
"Mister Winchester," she said, and not for the first time, Castiel traced that name on his hospital bracelet with a look of happiness. "It's good to see you up and about."
Castiel gave her a smile, and Meg noticed the woman blush as his gaze caught hers. 'You're a heartbreaker, angel,' she thought.
Annie composed herself with a toss of hair and a cough. "Um, Miss Masters, the Winchesters have been calling for you."
Castiel's body seemed to overflow with excitement at the mention of the boys, and Meg stood up, straightening her top. "You gonna be okay for a few minutes while I make a call?"
He nodded.
"No more bees?"
"No more bees," he promised, and with a backward glance at the beehive which swarmed with activity, she walked into the building.
( )
Having Dean Winchester place the care of one of his favorite people squarely on her shoulders was not a task that Meg Masters ever thought she'd sign up for. Finding that she also cared for that person was something she should loathe. Realizing, with Dean's concerned and panicked voice in her ear, that she could never compete with the way Dean felt for Cas shouldn't hurt as much as it did.
She currently leaned against the wall of a quiet corner of the hospital, cellphone pressed against her ear as she watched the angel from the window. "You'll be glad to know he's awake," she told Sam, and in the background not even the gruffness of his voice or the distance between him and the phone could hide the worry and excitement of Dean's voice as he asked "When?!"
"Calm it, shorty, it's only been about a day," she said, and when Dean started bitching like a whiney teenage girl who's boyfriend hadn't called, she regretted not lying about the time. She exhaled deeply through her nose and rubbed her temple. The urge to jump through the phone and stab the hunter was overwhelming. "I've been busy. With Cas." Her sentences were clipped.
"Busy doin' what?" He asked, and the 'if you fucking hurt him' threat hung ominously for a few minutes.
"He's just a little bit different from when you last saw him," she said, stretching out her syllables.
"The fuck's that mean?"
She rolled her eyes at that. "Newsflash, Seacrest, not a nurse. You want answers, I suggest you haul ass up here." And before he could fire an insult, she hung up.