I've returned! I'm not usually a fan of the long hiatus (usually because it's a story or a show I desperately want back that goes on one) but I really needed one on this story and just because real life tends to be a demanding mistress like that, I took one to regroup.
But I've returned with new evil tenacity for putting the boys and their angelic BFF in predicaments.
Disclaimer: I am the proud owner of my imagination only. The complete and utter lack of any money whatsoever being made from this fic is also mine.
Disclaimer 2 (The Disclaimer Returns): I know NOTHING about medicine or science. Everything I say should be taken as inaccurately entertaining
CANTICUM GRADUUM
They might have wanted to think this through more. Sure, in theory it all sounded simple enough, just hang around the ICU waiting for someone to croak, but it's not exactly the most subtle way to spend their time. Even dressing all three of them in scrubs hasn't done a hell of a lot to help them fly under the radar. They're still three people hanging out just waiting for the crash cart to come barrelling down the hallway so they can run after it. It kind of feels like playing the part of the vulture flying over the desert just waiting for someone to keel over so they can swoop down. Dean goes for a charming, innocent smile when a nurse catches his eye, but he's still got the vulture thing in his head.
Their track record with reapers sucks to say the least, and no one brings up Pamela, and how royally they screwed up the last time, but it's hanging there in the air, implied, that they're not going to involve anyone else in this, not again. So they're stuck on a reaper stakeout for the time being. Right now, their plan is suffering two major set-backs. One: No one's coded yet. Two: Even if someone codes, how do they manage to run into a room full of doctors and nurses and perform some serious voodoo and have a little chat with a reaper without getting their asses hauled out of there? Or possibly worse, without someone grabbing them thinking they've got medical training beyond: pour a little whiskey on it and stitch it if it doesn't stop bleeding... Cas doesn't even have that.
At the moment, the former angel's probably doing the worst job of staying incognito out of the three of them. He's standing there with a mop (the prop Dean handed him in the faint hope that the guy would clue in and at least pretend to have a legit reason for being here). But he's just sort of standing very still with his head tilted, as if trying to listen for something. At some point Dean made what was apparently the almighty mistake of asking Cas if he was getting some angel radio or something, but the former angel went so quiet Dean's starting to think he's going to need a search rescue to team to get his damn foot out of his mouth. Of course the guy isn't hearing any heavenly chatter, being cut off from the home office as he is. And as for Cas being able to see the reapers when the time comes...
Dean's mind keeps going back to the last time he was in a hospital with Cas. They'd stepped out the front doors, ready to leave the damn place after a week of Cas gritting his way through recovery, sometimes bewildered by all of the new shit he was learning human beings have to deal with on a daily basis, sometimes just so damn quiet and stricken, it left Dean with the uncomfortable feeling that it wasn't as simple as Cas just having to make do without super-human powers like the rest of them, but that a sizeable chunk had been taken out of his friend. Cas had been breathing free air for the first time in a week, standing there looking kind of comically sad, dwarfed in one of Sam's hoodies, and Dean had turned to him and asked:
"How bad is it?"
Cas' unreadable blue gaze had stayed levelled out across the parking lot.
"It's not that bad..." the former angel had lied softly.
"Cas..."
"It's..." he'd frowned apparently searching for the right words, "disorienting...I've lost senses I used to depend on."
"You gonna be okay?"
"Yes."
And that subject had been effectively closed for business.
Another nurse walks by, and that's the second disarming smile Dean's had to dish out in less than five minutes and he's beginning to feel like maybe this whole thing's going to go south after all, when there's an announcement over the hospital's PA.
"Code blue. Code blue. 602."
A flurry of activity erupts from down the hall and a team of doctors go charging by with a crash cart. He sees Sam round the corner and Cas follows suit and they get caught up in the flurry of activity. In the room at the end of the hall, a woman is being basically swarmed by nurses and a doctor. Dean lets Cas go ahead of him and the angel strides purposefully past him into the room. He and Sam stay at the door watching Cas watch the proceedings, so far going unnoticed. They shock the woman twice with the paddles with little result, and Dean feels his stomach drop. It reminds him too much of standing there watching them work on his dad, and he has to look away.
"Call it."
He looks up as a nurse records the time of death. Cas is still standing at the periphery a frown of concentration on his face. Sam, who's standing at the ready with the ritual looks at the former angel then back at him unsure, and Dean shrugs. The doctors begin to file out leaving the family to grieve and Castiel follows them out into the hall.
"Anything?" Dean asks quietly.
"No," Cas answers, still watching the deathbed scene, and the family crying and gathering around the body.
"C'mon," Sam puts an arm on the former angel's elbow and they retreat down the hall to give the family some privacy.
"So what now?"
Cas sighs and looks away, "I think we need a new plan."
Sam turns over the ritual thoughtfully in his hand, "Last time we needed to track down a reaper..." it's a subject no one really wants to dwell on and Sam ploughs ahead, "Well, we needed to be on the astral plane right?"
"Yeah," Dean frowns at his brother, "But how do we get there this time? I mean... Y'know without getting someone killed."
"We find someone who's already there. A spirit," Cas contributes.
Sam nods, "Yeah that's what I'm thinking."
"Worth a try," Dean considers, "I mean assuming we find a spirit who's not at rest and for some reason decides to be our handy little helper for a few hours."
They decide to start their search in the hospital since they're already there, and the basement gets nominated as the starting point. They only have two EMF detectors and Dean and Cas pair up, with Sam searching across the hall. The only staff they run into don't seem too interested in their presence once they've seen the fake clipped to their stolen uniforms.
"So..." Dean gives the hall a quick once over before pulling out his kit and getting to jimmying the lock on the door to the morgue, "You didn't see it?"
"The reaper. No."
Cas is squinting at the the EMF detector.
Dean spares the former angel a quick glance but Cas is pointedly absorbed in watching the needle flicker.
The lock pops and clicks and they're in.
"You picking up anything?"
Cas looks up, and shakes his head."Not yet."
Dean finds the light switch, and the bare fluorescent bulbs sputter to life to reveal rows of stainless steel tables and walls of metal drawers. Cas hands the EMF detector back to him, and they make a careful circuit of the room. As they get closer to the opposite wall, the needle begins to jump and they get their first positive reading. The closer they get to the back wall, the stronger it gets, until they're standing in front of a barred metal door with nothing but a 6 painted on it in flaking white paint. Dean hands the EMF detector back to Cas and gets a closer look at the bar locked into place.
"Peachy," he grumbles, "This could take a minute."
He catches Cas giving the door a hard look as if he's going to blow it open with nothing but the intensity of his gaze. Then Dean remembers that not so long ago that was a pretty big possibility.
"Cas?..." he's relieved when the former angel looks away from his staring contest with the door, "Can you uh, grab Sam and tell him we found-"
He's interrupted by the door to the morgue swinging open. A geeky looking guy in a white lab coat and a nervous looking blonde a couple million miles out of the guy's league, stop in the doorway when they see the room isn't empty. They look like med school students.
"Warren," the woman hisses, "I thought you said no one was down here!"
The geeky guy scowls at her, then turns to Dean, "You gentleman have some ID?"
From the shifty look of these two, Dean's betting they're not supposed to be here either, "Yeah sparky we've got ID. How about you and Grey's Anatomy there?"
"You first," the blonde demands.
"I show you mine, you show me yours?" Dean smirks.
Cas sighs beside him and he's pretty sure the angel's missing that handy ability to knock people out with a quick, painless tap on the forehead.
"Wait a second..." Warren pushes past his partner into the room, "Is that what I think it is?" he asks looking at the EMF detector in Cas' hand.
"That depends what you think it is," the former angel answers carefully.
"It is." He breathes a sigh of relief and turns back to the blonde, "It's Okay Jesse close the door. They've got an EMF detector. It's Carter and I'm guessing his assistant. Right?" he looks to Dean for confirmation.
Who is this guy? Some kind of poser amateur ghost hunter?
"Yeah, that's right." Dean nudges Cas.
"Uh...yes." the former angel seconds him after a minute.
"I thought your flight got delayed," Jesse says, folding her arms, not looking entirely convinced.
Dean shrugs, "We took a bus. We didn't want to miss...you know...anything."
"This is such a dumb idea," Jesse grumbles, "How do you even know if it's them? I mean did you even ask for a picture all that time you were talking to this Carter guy on that stupid internet forum?"
"We didn't exchange pictures, Jesse," Warren informs her with a superior roll of his eyes, "We are trying to keep this research under wraps remember?"
"Yeah," Dean chimes in, "We want to keep this...stuff a secret."
Warren pulls out an EMF detector from the duffel bag he's carrying and a set of keys, "Shall we? The lab's just through that door," he says motioning to the barred door near where Dean and Castiel are standing. "Lots of paranormal spirit activity in that old section."
"Great," Dean steps aside for Warren to open the lock.
Just as he's sliding the heavy bar back, Sam appears, EMF detector in hand. He looks from Warren to Jesse to Dean to Cas and finally back to Dean, trying to figure out who the new additions are.
"Oh good!" Dean says a little too loudly, "Uh this is my assistant. My...other assistant."
That gets him a pretty comical bitch/confused face from Sam, and a suspicious glare from Jesse.
"Now you have two assistants? Right. And why didn't you mention him before?"
"Jesse," Warren looks at her condescendingly, "he's got an EMF detector too. He's obviously with him. Anyway, it'll be easier to have an extra pair of hands to take readings." He turns to Dean and whispers, "These two don't think they're going to get their names on anything we publish right?"
"No. No are you kidding?" Dean chuckles, "They're just lab monkeys."
Sam and Jesse are both scowling at him by the time they get the door open and make it into the next room. All three EMF detectors go ballistic and Warren hits a light switch.
"Home sweet home," he announces, "This is where we've been doing our research. Once we're published, we're going to turn this place into a legit lab. I'm thinking of calling it the Morgendorfer NDE and Paranormal Research Lab."
"Of course you'd name it after yourself like a complete tool," Jesse mutters, crossing to a table in the centre of the room and flipping on some machinery clustered around what looks like an exam table.
"So NDEs...You research near death experiences?" Sam asks, watching Jesse.
"Man," Warren looks annoyed, "you didn't explain it to your assistant, Carter?" he asks Dean.
"Yeah, well," Dean shrugs, "Secrecy and all, right?"
Warren seems to accept his answer and goes to hassle Jesse who's still messing with the equipment. He sends the Winchesters and Castiel to take readings around the surprisingly large room. It seems to be mostly a storage room for sealed containers of hospital waste, and when he rounds a corner out of sight from Warren and Jesse, Sam catches up to him with Cas in tow.
"Dean, what the hell are we doing?"
"We need a spirit right? Well I figure the Ghost Buster wannabes probably have a good idea where to look."
Sam pulls a brand new bitchface, "I don't think that's all they're doing down here. I mean why all the paranoia, and the creepy illegit lab?"
"We're set."Jesse's voice startles them as she appears from around the corner, "Did you get the readings?"
"Yeah we got 'em," Sam answers her, though he keeps his eyes on Dean, in a well perfected this-conversation-is-so-not-over look of annoyance.
Jesse shrugs, "Whatever. Let's get this show on the road."
They follow her back to the operating table in the centre of the room, where Warren is now sitting, finishing attaching a heart monitor to himself, "The equipment's old," he explains making a few adjustments, "But it does the trick. Jesse and I have both taken successful dives and resurfaced no problem."
"Dives?" Sam asks.
Jesse snorts and flicks on the monitors, "He means we stopped our hearts, were clinically dead, and then brought each other back. It's simple and it's scientific."
"What did you see when you died?"
Everyone pauses to look at Cas, who's watching all of this with a thoughtful frown.
"I saw..." Jesse shakes her head, "Random hallucinations caused by a misfiring of the pineal gland."
Warren lies down on the table and makes himself comfortable, "Jesse's the resident sceptic. She doesn't believe in the afterlife or ghosts-"
"Or auras, or angels or the Easter Bunny," she adds dryly.
"I see," Cas mutters, evidently not liking being lumped into the same category as the Easter Bunny.
"Me on the other hand," Warren grins, "I've got bigger ideas for this lab." He nods to Jesse, "Go ahead. We'll let Carter and his assistants make some observations and his team can go second."
Holy shit. Beaker here's about to go and kill himself for some wacked out science experiment and Dean's not 100% he can stand here and watch that.
"Sounds good."
He turns to give Sam an are you out of your mind look but his brother has the ritual out in one hand already and shrugs.
Jesse has a syringe ready and Warren's looking way to calm for a guy about to die. Dean wracks his brain for something they've done that's more unethical on a hunt lately. Not much comes to mind.
Jesse injects the contents of the syringe into Warren's arm and they watch as he goes under and the monitor slows to a flatline. As soon as the tone goes flat, Sam practically leaps into action casting a quick circle and Dean pulls Jesse out of his brother's way, as Sam starts the incantation.
'What the hell?" she breaks away from Dean angrily and manages to get to Sam to shove him aside before Cas can intervene.
'Wait Jesse-"
She rounds on Sam furiously, "Shut up! I don't know who you freaks are, but I've got to bring him back before it's too late. And then the rest of you are going to get the hell out of here!"
She grabs the paddles close at hand and shocks Warren back. There's some confusion in the next few minutes as Warren rejoins the land of the living to Jesse growling about his stupidity and the cultist freaks that roam the internet, and Sam trying to calmly lie his way into some kind of sane sounding explanation, and Dean trying to keep his little brother from being knocked flat on his ass by a girl.
'What did you see?"
The question from Cas to Warren startles everyone into dumb silence for a second.
"What do you-" Jesse starts in, but Cas pushes on.
"An old man? Wearing a suit?"
Warren actually does a pretty good imitation of a fish at that moment, and the arguing dies off.
Cas' eyes flicker from the circle on the floor to Warren's eyes. As an angel with all of heaven behind him Cas always had a wicked million mile stare. Now it's all Cas, but the stare still goes on infinitely piercing and Warren nods slowly.
"Yeah it was an old guy wearing this faded old black suit. He looked about a hundred years old... How did you...How did you know that?..."
"A reaper."
Dean realizes that's more for his and Sam's benefit.
"'Cause we've dealt with them before," he tells the stunned med student.
"You mean...you mean in other near death experiences?" Warren asks.
"Something like that, "Sam offers.
"Are they like ghosts?"
Warren's surprise is giving way to curiosity as he gets excited about something new and supernatural he might be able to study.
"No," Cas spares Jesse a brief glance as she glares unimpressed daggers at him, "They're the messengers of Death. They ferry newly deceased souls."
'And they look like old geezers?" she mutters doubtfully.
'Yes."
"And you were doing what?" Jesse scuffs at the chalk circle scornfully with the toe of her shoe, "Casting a spell to make one appear?"
Cas watches her smear the chalk, "We were trying to trap one to talk to it so we could-"
"Study it," Dean cuts in.
Cas still doesn't quite have the hang of the whole lying thing. The angel like to get to the point and doesn't seem to get the fact that normal people aren't going to just jump on board and lend a hand if they start going on about heaven and hell and the impending apocalypse.
'And did it work?" Warren asks excitedly.
"Jesus, Warren," Jesse groans.
"No," Sam shakes his head, "I didn't get to finish the ritual."
"Because General Hospital here cut him off."
Jesse gives Dean the finger.
"We should try again," Warren tells them, excitedly, "Of course I can't do it a second time safely, but Jesse-"
"Like hell I'm going to do it with these Enya-loving new age pseudo scientist freaks in the room."
Dean's starting to miss the good old days now too when Cas could have sent the blond for an angel nap and shut her up.
"I'll do it."
Everyone looks as Cas who shrugs, "It wouldn't be the first time."
Thanks for reading! Reviews feed the muse. Writing this chapter reminded me how much I really should get back to this fic!
~Amazon