Hey guys, here's my new story! This is one I've been wanting to write for a while, but kind of felt daunted by the prospect of writing Crazy!Cas, however I decided to just go for it, so I hope you enjoy my efforts ;P

A huge thanks to Aini NuFire for acting as my beta reader on this one! She really helped me make sure Cas' voice was right. (Isn't it crazy how this show has so many different versions of the same character?)

Caretaker

A Supernatural Fanfic

Chapter One

It was strange, Meg mused as she watched the angel sleep. For starters, the fact that he was sleeping at all was odd enough, but everything else too only made it stranger still. Who would have known that transferring mental scars to his own brain would have made Castiel go totally bonkers? But then, Sam Winchester had been nine kinds of messed up for years, so it only made sense that taking some of that freakiness would crack poor Castiel's mind like an egg.

So, this whole situation was weird, but she was grateful for the sleeping at least. Cas was a lot easier to handle while he slept. In fact, it was almost a relief now that he was finally down again. Meg just hoped he wouldn't suffer any more nightmares. She could do with a peaceful night after the day she'd had.

Those first few days after he had taken Sam's mental Cage scars had been rough. Castiel had first been spacey, then weird, then weirder, and finally the hallucinations had started up in earnest and he was screaming about Lucifer and there wasn't much Meg could do about that, but keep the other hospital staff away in case he smote something during one of his fits. She'd gotten the idea after he kept blowing out the light bulbs in the room and surrounding hallway. That was when she began to reconsider her awesome idea to stick close to the angel for protection. Maybe he wouldn't be much good after all, especially when he went comatose shortly after the worst of the fits and stayed that way for the better part of two weeks. But Meg had already committed to this plan, and she wasn't really one to back down. Besides, if worse came to worse, she still had a bargaining chip to offer the Leviathans should they manage to catch up to them, and that was reason enough to stick around Castiel. At least a comatose Cas was easy to look after.

Until he woke up, that was. That had happened three days ago and it had been three days of chasing him around, trying to keep him occupied in the day room, and trying to keep up with him when the crazies were allowed their afternoon constitutional in the hospital gardens. After an hour of watching Cas chase squirrels, trying to start conversations with them, Meg considered getting a leash.

She had not anticipated the deterioration of the angel's mind, but the little treetopper was definitely off his rocker. She had hoped that the coma had been a product of his body and grace healing itself, but apparently that hadn't been the case because he had woken up completely mental and Meg wasn't sure what she was going to do with him now. She only hoped this wasn't permanent.

She looked down at him again over the top of her magazine. Castiel was curled on his side, facing her, the blanket pulled tightly around him. Part of her, a part she really hated, wanted to think this image was kind of adorable, but she wouldn't allow herself to think that. She quelled those observations quickly as she remembered the mess Castiel had made with his lunch, stabbing his juice box too vigorously, and dissecting his sandwich until it no longer resembled anything but crumbs strewn across his bed as he complained that it tasted like molecules. Whatever that meant.

She sighed and went back to reading, when she heard a sharp gasp, and the bed creaked as Castiel jerked in his sleep. She quickly looked up again and saw him trembling, curling up tighter, a keen starting in the back of his throat.

"Hey," she said and nudged his hip with the foot she had propped up on the cot. "Castiel."

He only curled up tighter, panting heavily now. "No, no, please brother, don't," he whispered.

Great, another Lucifer induced nightmare. She had better stop it before he started screaming and woke up all the other patients, thus alerting the night nurses. The last thing she needed was for someone to find her here camped out all night with her patient. Meg stood and bent over the bed, grabbing Castiel's shoulder and shaking him roughly.

"Hey, Clarence, wake up!"

Several more shakes, and he started awake with a gasp, eyes flying open, fevered and wild. He grabbed her wrist and she gritted her teeth at the crushing grip, trying to yank her arm away, until he finally looked up at her.

"Meg?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, same as last time," the demon huffed, pulling pointedly on her arm again.

Castiel looked down at her small wrist clamped in his hand and quickly released her. "Sorry."

She ignored him and sat back down, grabbing her magazine again. "You could have left Sam with his own issues, and stayed in your new, happy, apple pie life as Emmanuel the magical medicine man, you know," she told him.

Castiel's eyes widened as he looked up at her. "Of course I couldn't have. Sam Winchester is my friend. And after what I did to him and Dean…there was no way I would have left him to suffer. I did what I had to. And true, I am paying the consequences, but I think it's fair, don't you?"

Those blue eyes stared up at her with so much intensity that she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I don't know, demons aren't exactly into the whole morality thing. I would have left him."

"I'm not so certain of that," Cas told her with a small smile. "You stayed with me, after all."

She snorted. "I have a crazy angel in my pocket, why wouldn't I stay? You're worth an awful lot as a bargaining chip."

Castiel stared at her for a long time. "I don't think that's the only reason you stayed, Meg."

She glared at him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Whatever gets you through the night."

"If it's any consolation, I think you are better than you allow others to see. I can see inside of you, you know, and it is not so dark in there as I have seen in other demons," Castiel told her in his annoyingly matter of fact way. "And you are also very beautiful."

Meg's eyebrows furrowed, not sure how to take the compliment or whatever it had been, and the indecision made her annoyed. She stood up angrily, suddenly uncomfortable under his gaze. "You're impossible," she scoffed.

Castiel's face crumpled in confusion and something that looked like hurt. "You're angry. Why are you angry?"

His childish reaction stirred something deep inside her that only made her angrier, but this time at herself. This 'mission', or whatever she was going to call it, was starting to get to her in the worst way. She sighed and shook her head. "I'm not angry, exactly. It's…complicated." She turned to the door.

"You're leaving?" Castiel asked, stopping her. His voice held some panic that she hadn't been expecting.

She turned around, cocking one eyebrow. "What, do you want a bedtime story too?"

"A story would be nice," Castiel admitted, settling back into the bed and Meg could almost picture him clutching a teddy bear to his chest. "Would you tell me one that will keep the bad dreams away?"

The pitifully hopeful look on his face made her give in, much to her chagrin. It was disgusting. Had she really gone that soft?

She huffed and slumped back into the chair. "I'm not going to tell you a damn bedtime story, Castiel." His face fell and she amended. "But I will stay here and wake you if you have another nightmare. No more talking, though. Just go to sleep."

Castiel settled back down, seeming satisfied enough as he pulled the blanket over himself again, smiling up at Meg. "Goodnight, Meg," he told her before he closed his eyes and was soon asleep, his face softening in rest.

She sighed as she watched the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

"Goodnight, Clarence."

Meg always slipped out of the hospital early in the morning before she came back in for her actual shift so none of the staff got suspicious about her being there seemingly at all hours. She tried to lie low as much as possible, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention. Demons had been in the hospital before, and even though she knew that had been for Sam, she didn't want to risk them figuring out that Castiel was a new patient there. That would be bad for both of them.

As she dropped her stuff off in the nurses' back room, she greeted one of the other nurses there, Dawn, who usually shared the same shift with her.

"Morning," she forced a pleasant smile at the blond woman who had just come in the door.

"Hey, Meg, your boy was asking for you," Dawn said teasingly with a roll of her eyes. "Refused to take his pills from me."

Meg bit back a groan. "Alright, I'll take care of it."

"He's really taken a shine to you," Dawn said with a giggle.

"Yeah, I know," Meg grumbled.

"I think it's cute," Dawn said. "So is he, actually."

Meg glared at her. "He's a patient. And he's a handful. You're welcome to him."

Dawn laughed, not knowing that Meg was actually half serious. She was beginning to think that the protection Castiel provided wasn't worth the trouble. In fact, in the state he was in, she was beginning to wonder how much protection he would offer at all.

Meg went down the hall to Cas' room and opened the door, seeing him sitting on the side of the bed, hands folded in his lap. His eyes lit up and he smiled as he saw her come in, like he was a freaking puppy or something. Meg bit back another groan.

"There you are, Meg, I was wondering when you would get here."

She folded her arms across her chest. "I heard you wouldn't take your pills from Dawn, Castiel."

He frowned at her. "You know I don't need them, Meg. They will not help my condition at all. Even if they could, I would have to take far more than the recommended dose for them to do anything thanks to my angelic nature."

"Then they won't hurt you either, so you can stop being weird and take them," Meg informed him, grabbing the plastic cup from the side table and shoving it at him.

"Dawn is less grumpy than you," Castiel said thoughtfully.

"Then why don't you follow her around?" Meg grumbled.

Cas gave her another beaming smile. "Because you are the only one who knows who and what I really am. I could tell the others, I suppose, but I don't think they would understand—they generally don't understand when people in here say things. There are at least five patients in here who are also suffering from supernaturally inflicted trauma and not actual psychological illnesses. Of course, the doctor was not happy that I took their side and tried to defend them in group therapy yesterday."

"Well, try to keep a low profile, would you? I don't want to be found out, and you don't want to be carted off and dissected by scientists trying to figure out what sort of supernatural oddity you are."

"I don't think you'll let that happen. I trust you, Meg," Castiel said with such sincerity, she was almost taken aback.

"And why would you do a stupid thing like that?"

"Because you stayed when no one else did. Sam and Dean, they are people I considered to be friends, and they left. Of course, I understand why, I did let the Leviathans loose, and I broke Sam's wall. Dean was very angry about that." He looked sad now, but quickly shook it off. "But you stayed, and I am very grateful for that."

"You do realize that I can hand you over to the Leviathans any time I want to, in order to save my own skin, right?" Meg asked incredulously, unable to fathom how this angel could actually trust her. Maybe he was far more insane than she had thought. But then, he was right, Sam and Dean had pretty much abandoned him. Even if he said he understood, it probably still hurt that the only friends he had ever had abandoned him when he needed them the most. And yeah, that sounded like the Winchesters. Too busy saving their own asses to care about anyone else. She had thought of calling them with the news that Cas was awake, if not totally with it, but figured they had other problems on their hands, and actually, as long as the Leviathans had them to worry about, the big mouths at least probably wouldn't come knocking. Let the Winchesters run interference for a little bit longer.

Castiel ignored her threat, standing up and grabbing his trench coat that he had kept with him since Dean had given it back to him. Thankfully, he had mojoed it clean so that it no longer had the blood and Leviathan ick on it. But it still made him look like some insane Doctor Who reject wandering around the hospital while wearing it over top of his scrubs.

"Can we go outside again?" he asked eagerly. "I very much enjoyed my time in the gardens yesterday."

"Pills first, then we'll see," Meg told him firmly.

Castiel gave her what could almost be a petulant expression, but he swallowed the pills and handed her the cup. "Now can we go outside?"

Meg sighed. "Fine."

Castiel grinned and there was just something about seeing the happiness on his face that made something deep inside of her stir in an uncomfortable, unwanted way.

But she would figure out her annoying feelings later, right now she had better catch up to her wayward angel who was already halfway out the door.