Title: Lost and Found

Author: Arisprite

Summary: Sam was twitching and drugged, hallucinating the devil himself, and then not three rooms down from his in the hospital, Dean finds a very familiar face. Too bad the man who answered to Jimmy Novak has no memories, is probably gonna go to jail for mass murder, and has a butt load of demons after him to boot.

A/N: This was inspired by a tumblr post by gatergirl which I then lost, giving the idea that amnesia!Cas should have been found at the very hospital Sam was put in. I'm breaking my rule, and posting before the story is finished, so I'm sorry this turns out to be just a oneshot. I hope you enjoy!

Warnings/Disclaimer: Do not own, and as much swearing as the show, no slash intended.


PATIENT'S REPORT

NAME: James Novak

AGE: 37 HEIGHT: 6'0" WEIGHT: 165

HAIR: Brown EYE: Blue

RACE: Caucasian

REASON FOR REFERRAL: Pt was found unclothed in the Name River, presenting with retrograde amnesia and severely flat affect.

PRESENT SYMPTOMS: Further examination have shown him to be healthy physically, though he has mid to poor sleep habits, and shows little appetite for food, eating only what he's given. He has good attention to tasks, and detail recall, and is able to form new memories. He will answer to James, or Jimmy. He is able to sit still, and concentrates extremely well.
When asked about his past, pt says he does not remember. Pt shows confusion on being asked if he was depressed or anxious at the present time. Exhibits a lack of energy and low interest in his treatments or his fellow pts.

BACKGROUND: Police were consulted when he was found, and identified him as James Novak. Previous mental evaluations have shown him unstable, with religious psychosis, and possible schizophrenia. Disappeared from his home on the night of Sept 18, 2008 as reported by his wife and daughter (Amelia and Claire Novak) after a slow building psychotic break where he claimed to have been propositioned by an angel to become a vessel, and do the work of God. Is suspected in the disappearance of his wife and child a year later. Was seen again on May 30, 2011 when he brutally slaughtered the campaign office of a well known senator, as well as possibly being sighted killing/persecuting various religious leaders and public figures in the previous weeks. Not seen again until June 3, 2011, when he was found in the river as describe above.


Sam was curled on his side, facing away from the door-not sleeping, but heavily drugged and very out of it. Dean would have thought that being drugged to the gills would make it better, but the hallucinations see,ed to be worse than they had earlier, when Dean had finally snapped and taken Sam to the ER, when Sam's ramblings and delusions had finally scared him enough to get professionals involved.

Sam was twitching now, gasping and shrinking from nothing. Dean made a mental note to ask the doctors about the drugs; they really didn't seem to be helping, and Sam could cope better in his right mind, right?

Dean sighed. Who was he kidding? Sam wasn't coping, hadn't been coping. Why do you think he was here in the first place, in his shady ass mental hospital in the middle of nowhere, USA (which was all they could afford, or even pretend to afford). The doctors at the regular hospital had taken one look at his shaking, sleep deprived brother and ordered all kinds of test. Then, when Sam had stupidly said he was seeing Satan...well, lets just say they coulnd't get him in a straight jacket soon enough.

Okay, that wasn't completely true. He wasn't even restrained, in there on the bed. The nurses and doctors even seemed nice, if professional and restrained, and there was a sad lack of hot ones. Sam would be in good hands here, but Dean still chafed at this, his inborn distrust of everyone who wasn't Sam (and even then), not to mention authority... But, Dean didn't have much of a say. Sam wanted the help, he was willing to try anything and everything the doctors suggested. Dean couldn't get his pleading, desperate eyes out of his head.

Dean turned away, as if those eyes were right in front of him, not wanting to see the way Sam's massive frame looked small and tense on the white bed, in baggy pyjamas and socks. He looked so vulnerable, and scared, even from here. Dean nearly couldn't stand it.

There was a nurse next to him, one of the more hot ones, with red curlyish hair and a small round face. Name tag 'Daphne', with a nice body, and blue eyes, but Dean left it at that. He really couldn't muster the energy to even smile for the woman, not with his brother trembling a few feet from him, full of fear for something only he could see.

Daphne smiled professionally at him.

"You all set?" She asked in that too vague way of determining if he was all done staring at her patient. Dean nodded, and began to follow her down the hall, Sam still weighing on his mind (though not enough to stop him from noticing the way Daphne's hips swayed in her scrubs).

This was no short stint in a hospital bed, with a few days of drugs and bandages leaving you good as new. No, Sam was sick. Sick in the head, and there was no way to fix this. A psychiatrist would be way out of his league with this case. Who could hope to understand what Sam had gone through in a century and a half of hell torture? Dean was the only person in the world who could hope to understand, and he sure as hell wasn't leaving him, but he also didn't know if there was much he could do. His hell was a cakewalk compared to Sam's. Sam wasn't getting better from this. That thought was a brick in Dean's stomach.

Bringing his mind to the present was no better, as the inmates of the hospital surrounded him as he followed the nurse down the hall. Dean tried not to look at the various patients milling around in their white pjs, all ass full of crazy and despair. His eyes darted around anyway, following an old bent man as he tottered down the hallway. He locked gazes with a blonde woman who smiled widely at him with chapped lips. He glanced in each room unwillingly, looking in the open doors for physical manifestations of the insanity which leaked from this place, but mostly he just saw quiet, anxious people.

Dean's feet stopped at a doorway, and his brow furrowed. One of the down turned heads looked oddly familiar; messy dark hair folded forward over narrowed shoulders. It was a weary looking man, wearing the same white pjs as everyone else. Dean couldn't see his face, but there was something about him...

"Who's that?" Dean asked, before he could stop himself. Maybe he'd met him before, Dean did meet a lot of people. Daphne, who'd turned back curiously when he'd stopped, glanced inside. Her face softened.

"That's Jimmy,"

At her voice, at his name, Jimmy's head moved, looking up at the door. When Dean saw the man's face, he took a step backwards.

Cas!

It was the angel's blue eyes, ruffled hair and perpetual stubble, the same that Dean had last seen covered in black goo and sinking into a dark lake. Cas was here, sitting in a psych ward, in the very hospital that Dean had brought Sam to. Conflicting emotions swirled through Dean, both anger and joy, relief and fear, betrayal and happiness. His throat thickened, and he cleared it.

Cas had only looked at the nurse, but his eyes flickered over at Dean's noise. Then they slid back without expression. the bastard wouldn't even look at him.
He realized Daphne was speaking to him.

"...know him?" She asked. There was a strange tension in his voice.

"Yeah, I know him." Dean said, having to clear his throat again. "Jimmy Novak." He said, using his apparent alias.

"You do!" Her eyes widened. Dean looked at her.

"What?"

"It's just, no one knows him. He came in with no ID, and we only figured out who he was with fingerprinting. Lucky he was in the system...well..." She trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

Dean frowned. "What is it?" Daphne looked around.

"I shouldn't tell you." Her voice was whisper. Not even Cas in the room would be able to hear. "But if you know him...Police records say he's done some things, but he can't remember anything. He's been deemed unfit for trial, which is why he's here. But maybe, if you testify, you can help..."

Dean swallowed. Of course Jimmy's records would have some terrible things on it. Cas wouldn't know to wipe his prints when he was off killing in the name of his new religion, and hell, he probably was wanted for the disappearance of Amelia and Claire too. This was bad.

Daphne had gone pale.

"Please don't tell anyone I told you. I could get fired, or worse."

"Why did you tell me?" Dean asked. She glanced into the dim room, and back to Dean.

"He's sweet, and quiet and never lifts a hand to anyone, unlike some of the other patients here. I can take care of myself, but he stepped in one time, and stopped things from getting out of hand. If I can help him...I want to."

Dean felt a pang in his heart. That did sound like Cas, excepting the last time he saw him.

"Can I go in?" Dean asked. Daphne nodded, still looking fearful. Dean smiled at her, trying to be reassuring, while in reality his stomach was tied up like a hangman's noose. She stepped back, and shut the door behind her, leaving the room dim from the overcast weather outside.

Dean approached Cas slowly. He was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, which was about the only furniture beside another chair, a small table and a bed like Sam's; industrial and bolted to the floor. Cas glanced towards him and back to the wall in front of him with little interest.

Dean slid the other chair in front of Cas, and settled in carefully.

"Hey, man." Dean said, and waited for a response. There was none. Dean shifted uncomfortably. He internally shook his head. Why was he even here, Cas was supposed to be dead. Sam would soon be dead because of him, how could Dean just sit here and try to coax a response about the angel who had broken his trust so badly?

Swallowing, Dean pushed all those thoughts away, for now. Cas was alive, and for all his anger, Dean coulnd't deny that he was glad to see him. It caused his stomach to churn, but he was.

"It's Dean. Dean Winchester." Dean said, wondering if his name would trigger something. Cas did blink, and look at him then. His face was blank, if a little confused.

"Do I know you?" He asked, and it was the same voice. Gruff and toneless, and it made Dean's gut twist painfully.

"Yeah, you do."

Cas' eyes cleared a little at that, as if realizing for the first time that there actually was someone in the room with him.

"You know me?" He said, his voice losing that tonelessness, and sounding freaking childlike. "We were...friends?"

Dean nodded. There was no other way to answer that. No words could cover it. The friendship that had led to Castiel's actions last year...There was no way to explain, not without someone thinking he would be crazy for sitting here at all.

Cas took that in, his eyes liquid in the dimming light.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember you."

"It's okay." Dean said, having had to clear his throat again. He shifted in his chair.

Cas stared at him, and damn, it was just like he used to, like he was trying to read the writing on his very soul. Hell, he probably could have seen if, if there was any. But now, this Cas was trying to see a reflection, see what Dean knew about him. After a minute, Cas looked away, his shoulders hunched up.

"They found me on the edge of a lake. I don't remember anything, but they say I did things. Terrible things. That I killed a lot of people." Cas curled up smaller. "Is it true?"

Dean sat back. What to say to that? There was no way to tell him, 'yeah, you did kill a butt ton of people, but you were being controlled by millions of mythological creatures, although it all really was your fault in the first place, you stupid bastard, not to mention what you did to my brother down the hall...' Yeah, way too hard to explain that one.

"You really don't remember anything, do you?" Cas looked at him, but there wasn't any of his old self in his eyes. There was no recognition, none of that knowing which Cas had always looked at him with before. Dean felt a strange kind of hurt.

"Nothing." Cas' gaze intensified. "You knew me before. Tell me."

Dean sighed, rubbing his neck.

"Why do they think you did terrible things?" He said, skirting the question.

"My fingerprints are linked with various and extensive crimes, starting with the disappearance of my wife and child. The only reason I'm here instead of jail is that they can't prove my guilt until I confess."

"But you can't remember doing it," Dean said.

"They said they have footage. It's only a matter of time..." Cas said, almost emotionlessly, but Dean could see slight shakes in his finger when they were clasped together in his lap. Dean remembered with a sickening flash the news clip they watched six months ago. Cas' crazy smile had filled the screen as the Leviathans forced him to slaughter that politician's office.

Cas was staring at his face, and Dean didn't think to hide his reaction quick enough to keep Cas from seeing the change. The angel crumpled forward.

"It is true."

"It's complicated." Dean said, leaning forwards to meet Cas eyes, but the guy stared at the floor. "Hey, listen to me. You did the best you could, everything that happened was because you were trying to do the right thing."

But Cas wasn't listening. His back was curved, and started to shake and heave with each breath. He let out a pained noise, and lifted his hands to his face. The movement alerted Daphne outside, keeping watch through the little window, and the door swung open.

"Cas-I mean Jimmy?" Dean said, standing. Daphne came over, her eyes flashing.

"What did you do?"

Dean stepped back while Daphne soothed Cas' panic and got him into bed. Then she pushed him out of the room.

"What the hell was that?" She said, once the door was shut. Dean, feeling overwhelmed at everything that had happened these past few days, shook his head.

"I just told him who I was." He lied. She bit her lip, and glanced to the door.

"Did he start to remember?" She asked. Dean shrugged.

"I think he was just trying..."

Her shoulders slumped, but there was also relief in her face. Dean could relate. If Cas did remember, he'd only remember all the wrongs he did. Maybe he'd be better off here, with no memories, forever.

"Can I come see him again?" Dean asked. She sighed.

"I'm going to have to speak with his doctors. This is big. Legally big. If he remembers something...well, it could be good or bad for him. You'll probably have to talk with the doctors and police too, if you know him from before."

"Great."

Dean leaned backwards, just wanting to face plant somewhere. Damn, he was tired. Daphne eyed him for another moment.

"Is there any truth to it, to what they say he'd done." She blushed a bit. "I'm not asking as a nurse, but just a ...friend I guess. Who was he before?"

Dean swallowed, and rubbed a hand over his face. Now was not the time for Cas to be picking up little crushes and Dean did not want to have to tell this one that Cas actually had murdered all those people. Damn.

"Cas isn't a bad person. Whatever he's done, he did because he felt he had to. Leave it at that." Dean said, knowing that helped nothing. Daphne screwed up her face.

"Cas?"

Dammit, he was going by Jimmy here.

"Nickname. I called him that." Dean said, the weak excuse earning him the mental echo of his father's reprimand about cover stories and remembering the details.

Oh well.

"Sorry, I gotta check into my motel room. We done here?"

Daphne stepped back, going professional again, and nodding.

"Of course, sorry, sir."

Dean followed her out of the building, leaving Sam, and Cas and his everything behind and driving to the motel that was just down the street. Once there, he didn't even bother changing out of his jeans before he collapsed on the bed and was out.


Retrograde Amnesia = Amnesia for events occurring prior to the episode precipitating the disorder.

Flat Affect= The absence or near absence of emotional response to a situation that normally elicits emotion. It is observed in schizophrenia and some depressive disorders. Also called flattened affect.