Day 1.
Meg knocked on the door to Castiel's room in the psychiatric ward. "Hey there, Clarence," she smiled, pulling up a chair next to his bed.
The angel sat on the bed, his face emotionless and unmoving, even more than he was previously. "Why are you here?" he asked, the words flat but genuinely concerned.
"You sure know how to make a girl feel special," Meg retorted, shrugging off his expressionlessness. "Your boyfriends needed someone to keep an eye on you while they go off and save the world. And you're kinda a target for Crowley now that the word's out you're still alive and…incapacitated."
"And you volunteered?"
Meg mulled over that. She did volunteer—but it was less of a choice and more of an obligation. Castiel's recent insanity was a major setback, but he trusted the Winchesters, and she, unfortunately, needed the Winchesters. Meg stifled a sigh and nodded. "Yeah, just call me a Good Samaritan."
The angel stared at her, haggard dark circles underneath his blue eyes, as if he were human and it were days since he last slept. Angels didn't sleep, but Castiel certainly could use some.
"That's…that's rather kind of you," he said. "Thank you."
"No reason to thank me, Clarence." It seemed wrong to accept gratitude from him—an Angel of the Lord—even though she knew how valuable it was in a time when she needed all the help she could get. "I need Rocky and Bullwinkle to trust me, and they trust you, so—"
Castiel's face scrunched in confusion. "Who are Rocky and Bullwinkle?"
Meg refrained from groaning. Instead, she asked, "What's going on in that noggin of yours?"
Castiel shifted his gaze to the wall in front of him. "I see Lucifer."
"Really? Hey Dad, how's it going?"
But Castiel remained quiet.
If killing Crowley meant getting the Winchesters to trust her by dressing in hospital scrubs and tending to a broken angel, then dammit she was going to do it.
Day 4.
"He won't be silent," Castiel muttered. The sudden arrival of his voice startled Meg, but she kept calm, listening to the rest of what he had to say as she scanned through magazine articles.
"He talks continuously. He's currently reciting poetry to me. It's disrupting."
"I hate poetry," Meg commented as she flipped through the magazine pages. "Always some deep meaningful shit or flowery crap."
The silence returned, save for the turning magazine pages and the extraneous sounds of nurses and patients in the hallway.
"'This is the way the world ends,'" Castiel mumbled minutes later. Meg raised an eyebrow at him. "'This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.'"
"Castiel?"
"'This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper,'" he repeated, this time higher. Then again, and again, each time increasing in volume and pitch until the words fumbled into screaming.
"Castiel!" Meg growled, but he didn't stop. She grasped her hands on his shoulders. "It's not real, Clarence," she assured, but her voice was far from soothing. "Calm down." A command. "Calm down, do you hear me?"
"Make it stop," he begged.
"I can't do anything," Meg said. "It's not real, okay, Cas. Not real."
"Distract me…distract me with some…something el-else."
"Like what?"
The angel only whined in response.
Shit. Her mind racing to how she could appropriately "distract" a broken angel, Meg transferred herself to the day room—too frantic to care if anyone saw her sudden appearance—to pick up the thick book of mystery stories that Castiel was reading earlier in the day. When she returned with the book in her hands, Castiel was embracing his legs, huddled in a ball and quivering. "He's singing American Civil War songs now," Castiel screeched, panicked and confused.
"Just give me a second, dammit," Meg demanded, opening to the first page of the anthology she held in her hands. "I hope you like mysteries," she added, completely deadpan, before clearing her throat.
"'To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman,'" Meg began to read. "'I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind.'"
As she read, Meg occasionally eyed the broken angel in front of her. His arms still clutched his legs. He kept his gaze on the wall in front of him, the tensions around his exhausted eyes crumpled and brows furrowed. But he was listening.
"'And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.'"
If killing Crowley meant getting the Winchesters to trust her by dressing in hospital scrubs and reading to a broken angel, then dammit she was going to do it.
Day 14.
Every night, Castiel would cry out and whimper. He no longer saw Lucifer, but claimed to see other "horrors" that he refused to describe. When reading to him wasn't enough, Meg would hold and soothe him. Her voice was never the mollifying, welcoming and warm tone it should be, but Meg wasn't a mollifying, welcoming, and warm being. Meg lusted for violence, chaos, and destruction. At first, her words of comfort were obligations out of desperation; just saying them felt like a betrayal to everything she stood for, everything she was.
But with each day, the words became easier to say, and more sincere.
She kept the Winchesters updated about his progress—"not much at all, but he's alive."
During the days, he was taciturn. To keep him preoccupied and distracted from the visions, Meg played board games with him. She read more stories out loud, alternating from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Agatha Christie. She took him out in the garden, where they would sit on the bench and merely observe the outside. They held small conversations, usually about trivial matters like weather and animals.
While sitting in the garden this afternoon, the breeze washed over Meg; the air was sweet and refreshing in comparison to the stuffy atmosphere of the psychiatric ward. The sun and heat beating down reminded her of home, except far less painful. Closing her eyes, Meg let herself forget about Crowley, about the Winchesters, about Castiel sitting right next to her. Instead, she thought about the good old days, when Azazel was on the throne and everything was going according to plan. Involuntarily, she smiled at the memories that seemed farther away than they really were, days she nearly forgot about herself.
"Meg?"
The gruff angel's voice just had to spoil everything.
"Yeah?"
"Do you remember your human life?"
Meg opened her eyes. She hesitated before replying.
"A little."
"What do you remember?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Just curious."
Meg paused to gather her thoughts. Most demons forgot that they were ever human. She always knew that she was born human and lived a human life, but the hazy pockets of her human memories hadn't returned until…until recently—roughly a year and a half ago.
"I remember I had a brother. Maybe a sister, but I definitely remember a brother. I remember playing games with him, and he really liked learning. I think he wanted to be a scholar."
"Do you remember anything about yourself?"
Meg shrugged. "I was kind of a troublemaker." She chuckled at her choice of words. Even from the few cloudy memories she possessed, troublemaker was an understatement, but she didn't want to violate the angel's ears. "I liked playing pranks on people, and stealing food whenever I could."
"How did you end up in Hell?"
Meg glared at Castiel. "Did anyone ever tell you that curiosity killed the cat?" She rolled her eyes at his signature confused face, but in all honesty, she didn't mind talking to him about this. He wanted to know, and was willing to listen. She wanted to tell him more—if she could remember more.
Softening at his occasional twitches, Meg continued. "I made a deal. My brother was dying from some sickness—I don't remember what. His life for my soul. I was probably six or seventeen when that happened. But it's possible I would've ended up in the pit regardless."
"How long have you been a demon?"
"Since sometime before Charlemagne became the first Holy Roman Emperor. That was a huge deal in Hell—well actually, it was more of a joke than something serious."
"I'm assuming Meg isn't your real name, then."
She shook her head. "I have many names—or, no name at all, really. I usually take the name of my meatsuit; easier to fool humans that way. Except this one. Her name is…was Olivia, but I kept Meg 'cause it was easier for your besties to remember me."
"Do you remember your human name?"
It took Meg several seconds before answering.
"No."
If killing Crowley and getting the Winchesters to trust her in order to do so meant dressing in hospital scrubs and talking to a broken angel about her life, then dammit she was going to do it.
Day 15.
Castiel was unusually quiet throughout the day. He only responded to questions by nodding or shaking his head, and never once looked up to face Meg. Instead he paged through books and watched television in the day room. He occasionally mumbled Enochian under his breath. Meg let the angel be, wondering when he would snap out of this trance.
That night, in his bed, Castiel fell asleep—almost a comatose, completely still.
If killing Crowley and getting the Winchesters to trust her in order to do so meant dressing in hospital scrubs and watching a broken angel sleep, then dammit she was going to do it.
Day 18.
"Don't die on me, Clarence. Abbott and Costello will never give me a chance to kill Crowley if you die on my watch."
Day 24.
"Don't die on me, Clarence. Dumb and Dumber will never forgive me if you die."
Day 31.
"Don't die on me, Clarence. I need you stay alive."
Day 39.
"Don't die on me, Clarence. Please stay alive."
Day 42-43.
At first, he was asleep.
Then, with a bright strike of lightning with a loud clap of thunder, he was awake.
And he was not himself.
She held out on calling the Winchesters to see if everything was in working order. Castiel was incredibly energetic, rambling on about some type of enlightenment, his sentences breaking off into incomprehensible tangents. Endless talking and questions. He followed her wherever she went, begging her to play board games with him, or pull his finger, and would recite gushy, short poetry. This former warrior who once despised her as much as she once despised him, the only being to ever fool Crowley, an angel who fell because he loved humanity, and became God because he thought he was doing what was best for humanity—he was now a bumbling mess of thoughts, and Meg, a demon, was playing nurse for him.
If my fathers could see me now.
In the morning, she called the Winchesters to tell them that Castiel was awake. When she returned to his room, he was gone.
Fuck.
She searched his usual favorite places—the day room, his room—before searching places in the ward that she did not even know existed. She kept transferring back and forth between rooms and hallways, just in case Castiel was on the move. Meg refused to accept that he would go anywhere outside the hospital's boundaries, although he was full capable of it.
Standing in his room for the seventh time, ready to blow a fuse, Meg peered out of the window overlooking the garden. She could see the trench-coated mess running, in no particular shape or pattern.
"Dammit Castiel! Don't ever leave my sight again, okay? I can't afford to have you go missing." she yelled the second she teleported herself to the garden. He was chasing after a small flying object that Meg had to squint in order see—a bee.
Castiel acknowledged her presence, but commented nothing on that matter. Instead he smiled a wide toothy grin that she never saw on him before. "Look, Meg. Bees! What magnificent and noble creatures. And look here," he held out his hand, a nasty bump developing on his palm. "They've accepted me into their own."
"Mhm," she nodded to humor him, but mentally shook her head. "Why don't we just sit down and watch the bees from afar."
"Well, okay," Castiel pouted as she lead him to the bench. They sat in the morning sunlight, but Castiel fidgeted. Tapping his toes, bouncing up and down—after less than five minutes, he jumped up and walked to the center of garden.
"What're you doing, Clarence?" Meg asked, irritated. Castiel did not answer. She observed him and their surroundings. The paltry garden was in desperate need of tending. Plants wilted from lack of water, many leaves brown and shriveled. The patchy grass was rife with weeds. Castiel stopped at a sole dandelion, bending down to its level.
"Look at this dandelion, Meg," he said, placing the stem in between his thumb and index finger to pluck it from the earth. "Dandelions are considered weeds: unwanted, invasive, and parasitic. They cluster." He stood up and walked towards the bench where she sat, twirling the stem between his fingers. "But this one stands alone, as if in defiance. And look at it—it's the healthiest thing in this garden. It looks after itself, but it adds to the charm of this garden." Castiel smiled at her before tucking the stem behind her ear, the yellow head poking out of her meat suit's brown curls. "For something supposedly so vile and unwanted, it is quite beautiful."
A comforting but unpleasant burning sensation flared within Meg's chest and spread to the tendons and ligaments of her meat suit.
"I hate poetry, Clarence," Meg tartly snapped.
Castiel only beamed before catching sight of a butterfly.
If killing Crowley and getting the Winchesters to trust her in order to do so meant dressing in hospital scrubs and letting a broken angel put dandelions in her hair, then dammit she was going to do it.