The girl stopped at the door of the room and looked in: it wasn't very bright, the shutters were almost completely lowered. The creepy, cold, green light of the machines was reflected on the walls all around, and their disturbing, repetitive "bip-bip" was the only noise in the room.

Hayley, shocked, was staring at the numbers and lines on the monitors.

Castiel patted gently her shoulders. "You can enter, if you want." he suggested.

She turned, staring at his eyes.

A deep terror was written on her pale faces, her hands were gripped around the cup of tea she was holding.

"Hayley, sweetheart." Castiel said, caressing her cheek, "Are you okay?" he asked, worried. She blinked for a moment, then she slowly nodded.

Hesitating, the girl walked a couple of steps to the bed in the middle of the hospital room. She was staring at the floor. She was terrified to look at Dean's face. She didn't wanted to see all the livid, the needles plunged in his arm, the oxygen mask that was covering his nose and mouth.

She didn't wanted to face what was around her, she refused to believe that the nightmare she was living wasn't just a nightmare at all: that was the reality, she couldn't wake up. She was afraid to look at Dean and to see something that would have broken her heart forever.

Castiel shrugged his shoulders. "You should know doctors: they never have something sure to tell you. They said that his conditions are steady now, but they prefer to wait for him to wake up, before to tell us something more. As he would say, they're all clever bastards who want to save their ass."

Hayley tried to curve her lips in a smile, but a tangle of desperation in her throat was choking her. She sighed sadly.

Castiel walked over her, he put his hans on the girl's shoulder and shaked her.

"Look at me." he ordered with a deep, black shade of angst in his voice. She obeyed, and her hazel-green eyes met the blue ones of the man.

"Everything is going to be perfectly alright, okay?"

Castiel's voice trembled on his last words, and Hayley understood that he was just trying above all to convince himself: she wasn't the only one who was scared to lose someone.

She felt coward, selfish and terribly guilty.

If Dean was there, laying in that hospital bed, so weak and wounded, it was just her fault. If Castiel was forcing himself to be strong, while everything he ever loved could have disappeared in a blink of an eye, the only one to blame was her. Just her.

Because she was a selfish, stupid, naughty seventeen years old girl.

She put the cup over the night table and tugged a chair next to the bed. She sat down and took Dean's hand in hers: it was rough, but so warm. She held it so tight, as she used to do when she was just a little girl, hoping to keep him right there, with her.

"Can he hear me?"

"Doctors are not sure about it." Castiel explained, "But I believe he can."

Hayley nodded. She would have wanted to say so many things, but she didn't know from what to begin. Tear were ready to fall from her eyes. The girl didn't wanted to cry, because she was sure she couldn't ever stop.

"I am going to eat something, okay? If you need me, I'll be downstairs. However, Sam is on his way, he should arrive soon." Castiel's voice broke her thoughts.

"Okay." she replied. She couldn't help to keep caressing the hand of the man who was sleeping next to her. Hayley took a deep breath.

"Hi dad" she sighted. "You're safe okay? I am with you now. I am with you. Castiel went to find something to eat. He's handling very well, you know? He didn't freak out at all. Honestly, you're the one that always freaks out, aren't you? You like to say that you're the only adult around, and that Castiel and I are two children that helped each other to grow up." Hayley smiled, holding the hand of her father even stronger.

"And I don't know what we would do if you… If… If we would remain…"

The girl stopped talking and closed her eyes to keep that insolent tears inside, trying to behave as the brave girl her family taught her to be.

"Do you remember my favorite fairy-tale, dad? That one that tells about how mom brought an angel to you. I know this is not exactly what a fairy tale is supposed to be, but you and Castiel have always told me it like if it was. And I never cared about princesses-tales that the other girls seemed to love so much. That was the only story I wanted to hear. Do you remember it, dad? Do you?"

Hayley was staring at Dean's face, consumed with the hope to see even the littler sign of consciousness in it.

"Okay." she said "Don't worry if you don't remember it, I am going to tell it to you now, okay? I know I am not as good to tell stories as Cas is, but just be patient and listen to me, okay? I love you, you know it, right?" her question sounded like a plea.

"I love you, daddy."