Thursday, Week 1

Dr. Mercer quietly opened the door to her office, slipped through, and sat down at her mahogany wood desk.

The man sitting in the chair before it didn't move so much as a muscle. Interesting in itself, as many of her patients couldn't stop moving; twitching, muttering, or tapping a foot was the norm. This one sat straight and still as a statue.

She ran a hand through her functionally short locks of mousy brown hair in a distracted manner, her mouth moving without sound as she read through the file of her latest patient. If he wasn't going to be making any noise or kicking up a fuss, then she was going to take the opportunity to do her homework.

After a minute or two, Mercer folded her hands on top of the desk, file still open, and looked steadily at the man before her. His file said 5'10", and she believed it, but the weight seemed to be aiming high—the man was just too thin. She'd have to talk to the orderlies about his eating habits so far, maybe even sneak in some fast food or pastries or something if he didn't begin to gain weight.

Thoroughly mussed dark hair, stubble, chiseled features. She couldn't rightly see the color of his eyes (the file said "Blue"), but the dark shadows beneath them made her worry about nightmares or insomnia. Plenty of both, 'round here, Mercer reflected ruefully.

Friends had thought her odd for choosing to go into her profession, but she decided after a while that she'd rather fix problems, instead of causing them. Her recruiter could certainly attest to the insubordinate tendencies Mercer had displayed during her youth; she was pretty certain he'd thrown a party when she decided against enlisting.

"So," she began, and her new patient's eyes shot up to hers at the noise. Oh my, she thought immediately, her mind going blank.

Those eyes weren't blue, not by a long shot. They were positively luminous, lit up from inside in a way that was different from any kind of delusion or psychopathy.

Mercer cleared her throat before trying again. "It says hear that your name is Jimmy?"

Not technically a question, but Dr. Mercer liked to keep it simple, liked to keep it safe, during those first sessions. Learn what kinds of things drew the unfortunate men and women out of their shells, and which ones were triggers for their issues.

The dark-haired, blue-eyed man sitting in the chair before Mercer's desk looked at her curiously, staring into her eyes as if trying to find the answers of the Universe in their dull green depths. An old friend in high-school who'd known her plans to join the Marines called her eyes "gun-metal green". It was an apt enough description, and it fit how most people called her "Gigi", even well into her twenties.

Her patient seemed satisfied with what he found, possibly even pleased, as he nodded cautiously in response. "It does."

Mercer blinked again. "Jimmy" here sounded like started his day's routine by gargling nails, and ended it with smoking three packs of cigarettes. Not unpleasant by a long shot; she might even call it a bedroom voice, if it hadn't been coming from one of her patients.

Her own curiosity peaked by the way he phrased his answer, she leaned forward slightly and asked with just a hint of a smirk, "You don't sound too sure. Do you think it should say something else?"

Again, he took his time responding, tilting his head to the side in an almost-birdlike fashion, before giving a single, resolute nod. "My name is Castiel," he said decisively, leaving no room for discussion.

Mercer nodded with an agreeable "Okay then," clicked a sturdy blue-ink pen, and crossed off the name 'Jimmy' in the second copy of his file, replacing it with 'Castiel'. She looked back up a second later. "Any last name?"

He-who-named-himself-Castiel shook his head, and Dr. Mercer nodded to herself again, making a note in the margin: Dissociative identity—name biblical? Trigger? Then she mentally shook her head, scratched the last word out, and wrote Doubtful after it.

"So, Castiel, not to contradict, but are you quite sure about that?"

The man did the confused-head-tilt again, so she elaborated. "I just mean that we checked your fingerprints, and they matched a man who's been missing for a few years now. I've got a picture here, if you'd like to see?"

Mercer held up the photograph they'd gotten from the police for him to see—it was obviously a copy of a copy, and it was obviously of him: Castiel/Jimmy was standing proudly in front of a nice-looking house, wearing a T-shirt with a blurred picture or logo on it and a nice-looking smile. No evidence of dark eye-circles, or that anything else was wrong.

If possible, Castiel/Jimmy's expression got even blanker as he merely glanced at the photo before looking back at the young doctor. She raised her eyebrows at him, but she was sorely disappointed if she expected some kind of reaction—positive, negative, or otherwise.

Dr. Mercer tilted her head at him questioningly, but got nothing more than his own confused head-tilt in response. She sighed and shuffled papers around her desk, a calculated move to indicated impatience and a desire to move on to another appointment. It didn't always work, but the move had worked enough times that she continued to use it.

Nothing.

Castiel/Jimmy seemed content to stay silent, so the doctor once again broke the silence. "So... this isn't you? You're not Jimmy—James Novak?"

The blue-eyed man broke at that; a minor shift in his chair that indicated some level of discomfort. Well, it was a start. If only she could get him to elaborate a bit more...

"I am not James Novak." Castiel clearly enunciated; he spoke carefully, not as if to a child, more like he was trying to convince both himself and the plain female doctor before him. "Jimmy is merely a vessel being used to house my celestial form. I am Castiel, an Angel of the Lord."

O-kay, well then, Mercer thought to herself, leaning back slightly in her office chair. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Castiel. I'm Dr. Georgia Mercer, and I'll be treating you for the duration of your stay at the Terrence Hood Psychiatric Hospital."

She gave him a pleasant smile—which he hesitantly returned via a small quirk of the lips—and gestured for him to stand. Castiel did so and the young doctor opened the door for him to exit through. She gave the man a little wave as two orderlies escorted him to the Rec. Room, and made her way back to the desk as soon as she closed the door.

Picking up a pen, she began to write what would eventually turn into pages and pages of notes on her newest subject:

Castiel (name biblical? Note: look up moniker origins) very calm. No visible reaction, pos/neg, to viewing old photo. Severe disconnect with reality—claims to be an "angel of the lord" (his words. Note: examine case notes from old hospital + religious denomination). Bring up familial ties (wife: Amelia, daughter: Claire) in next session?...

A/N: So... yeah. Easing my way into "Supernatural" by starting with an OC-POV story. Shouldn't be too long and, no, Mercer is not going to start an illicit romance with our favorite Angel of the Lord. If anything, there will be Destiel, but no guarantee. (And congrats to anyone who got the joke of "Terrence Hood Psychiatric Hospital".)

Also, I will not post the next chapter without six reviews (preferably positive, but I'm open-minded). Prove that you either want me to continue, or request that I stop, because if others agree then I will.