They're coming -

She woke as the first hazy strains of dawn began to whisper across the gray concrete floor. She wasn't exactly sure where she was at first. Then she shifted and suddenly she remembered all too well where she was and who's arm was across her waist. She tensed which only served to cause the arm to tighten and pull her further back into the solid comfort of his chest. Her first instinct was to struggle. She didn't really do touching. It wasn't something she was comfortable with, not like this anyway.

This was too close, too intimate and she was certain she didn't like it. Sex was one thing, but this was something different all together. It was weird and creepy and the fact that she could almost say she was enjoying it made her skin crawl.

Without giving it another thought, she eased his arm off of her and got out of the bed. He shifted behind her but didn't wake and she was glad for that. She wasn't ready to deal with him yet. She needed a moment for herself. She took very few. He occupied nearly all of her time.

It was all very self-less of her. She almost laughed out loud at the thought of those two words in the same sentence, her and self-less. She had never been what anyone might describe as self-less, at least she'd never thought so. Truth be told, she'd always seen herself as quite the opposite. Maybe she was growing. It could happen. It wasn't out of the realm of possibilities.

Or maybe when it came right down to it, her motives for being self-less were entirely selfish. She needed him to get rid of Crowley and crazy took a lot of time to deal with.

See? All very selfish after all. She was glad she was able to reason it out in her head. The only other possibility for all this was that she really cared about the man behind her. And that was so utterly ridiculous it didn't deserve any more thought.

The morning flew by quickly with very little interference from the outside world. Most of their days were like that. People left them alone. She did her best to see that they continued to do so. The less people in direct contact with the angel the better.

He was having a good week, by most standards. He hadn't freaked out in a number of days. He hadn't really done much of anything in days. And she had to count that as some sort of progress. At least he didn't seem to be struggling like he had at first. That was comforting. It said he was learning to deal with all the noise in his head. Either that, or he was sinking even further inside himself and she was losing him. Something about that thought made her gut clench, so she pushed it away and pretended it wasn't there.

She had no idea how to define the emotions she was dealing with lately. She had no bases of comparison. She hadn't felt fondly towards anyone in so very long. It was hard to grasp the concept. In all honesty, she hadn't felt anything in longer than she could remember.

Once she became the thing she'd become, she turned all that off, pushed away all the feelings that she had no idea how to deal with. It was just too much, too huge to consider. The pain she'd caused, the things she'd done, she never would have been able to handle all that if she hadn't turned off it all off.

Now she was numb. There wasn't anything left inside her to feel anything. She'd managed to shut it all away in a neat little box that she never intended to open. Pandora had nothing on what was locked away inside Meg's box.

That was why every time she felt those tingling feelings in the pit of her stomach while she watched him sleep, every time her heart skipped a beat when it seemed that he was really seeing her, every time she felt the need to comfort him through his worst episodes, she pushed it away. She was afraid if she let herself actually feel anything for the broken man, it might bust that box open and she was pretty certain that if that happened it would destroy her.

She pushed the good feelings away with the bad. Better to feel nothing at all than to have to feel everything. That was the price she paid for the things she'd done.

She pretended to help him eat his breakfast, ate it herself and sent the empty tray away. Then she started the exercise she'd started when she first came to look after him. It wasn't helping, but she figured, at least, she was doing something.
She brought the chair over to the side of the bed where he was sitting and placed it directly in front of him. Then she sat and took his hands in hers.

"How are we doing today, Clarence? Is there anybody in there?" she asked, leaning forward and placing herself directly in his vision.

Some days, it worked and those days sent a thrill of triumph through her that she had to work hard to suppress. Other days nothing happened and she felt deep disappoint that she hadn't been able to reach him.

Today, it took long enough that she was just about to give up when he finally squeezed her hands halfheartedly.

"I was just about to give up on you. But we're going to have a good day today, right? We're going to do it just like we practiced, remember?"

He gave her another squeeze and she returned it with a warm, reassuring smile. "Okay, now concentrate on my voice. You can do this. Forget all the other crap rolling around in there and just listen to me."

She watched him carefully, seeing if her 'therapy' was having any affect at all.

For a moment, a fleeting, blinking second in time, she thought she saw something cross through his eyes. A recognition and an echo of the man he used to be, but it was gone quickly and soon enough the mask was back.

So she tried again. "Castiel, I know you can hear me. You can't just hide in there like this. We need you out here with us." She hated going where she was about to go. It always upset him when she brought it up. "I don't mean to point fingers, or anything, but you've left a helluva mess out here. We need you to help us clean it up."

His hands twitched in hers and he tried to pull away, but she held tight and continued on. "Those Winchester boys certainly can't do this without you. They can't tie their own shoes without help." Another fruitless twitch in response.

"Come on, Clarence. I need your help, too." This time instead of trying to get away, he squeezed her hands. "I'm just so tired of running. I need you to help me so I can stop running."

He was watching her now, closely examining her with eyes that looked clear. They raked over her face slowly like he was taking inventory of it, studying her.

She looked away, not liking the intensity of his gaze, then felt like a fool for doing it. This was what she wanted, to connect to him. Now, here he was reaching out and she was pulling away. Before she had a chance to bring her eyes back to his, she jumped as his hand came up to cup the side of her face.

Her eyes shot to his as hope surged through her. But the hand fell away, landing with a resounding thump on his thigh.

He was gone again. She knew the signs. There would be no more progress for now. The exhaustion was clear on his face. He had fought as hard as he could, for as long as he could.

"Damn it, Cas. Why can't you give me a break?" she muttered under her breath and got to her feet.

She didn't know what it was, but something was suddenly making her impatient and cranky. Not that that was unusual for her, but it wasn't normally directed towards him. Usually she managed to keep all that in check around him. Normally, he didn't inspire those feelings in her.

But there was something pulling on her today. Something she couldn't explained. She just hoped her mood wasn't a harbinger of things to come.

She would never admit it out loud, but there was something of a romantic hiding deep inside her. She couldn't let that kind of information get out. Those were the things about herself that were better hidden away. Not meant for public consumption. But it was there all the same and it was that part of her that stood at the window in the tiny room and watched as the afternoon sun struggled to peak through an array of clouds that were doing their best to block the attempt. It broke through in several places, casting its rays through the army of clouds. The clouds were moving quickly enough to easily catch with her eye and it seemed as if they were rallying around the beams, plugging the holes in it's defense.

It was fitting somehow, the scene in front of her, indicative of the scene silently playing out behind her. He was the Sun, doing everything in his power to peak out through the heavy cloud cover of his madness. It was a daunting thought that left her feeling more than a little melancholy. She didn't like thinking about him on those terms. She preferred to imagine him strong enough to break through any barrier set in his path. That was how she'd always seen him.

Since the first time she'd met Castiel, standing behind Sam and Dean in his rumpled tan trench coat with his normal, perpetual confession at the world around him, he'd still managed to seem strong to her.

She remembered how incredibly strong his hands felt as they grasped her arms in the moments before he threw her to the ground and used her to escape the trap of Holy Fire holding him hostage. She remembered how strong his body felt as he pressed against her in Crowley's lair moments before his lips seized hers in a kiss that still caused things in her body to tighten just from the memory of it.

The kiss played itself over in her mind quite often since she'd found herself playing nursemaid to him. There was so much potential there, potential for an unbridled passion she'd never have imagined coming from a being that was supposed to be so pious and righteous. It was something she'd spent many hours contemplating. How could this Angel, of all things, possess the kind of fiery intensity she'd witnessed in those moments? She'd only seen that kind of hunger in those of her own kind. She'd never expected it of him.

And seeing him in his present state only added to her confusion at the situation. Maybe there was a part of himself he was hiding from the world at large just like she did. It amazed her sometimes how much alike they were.

Both so very lost in a world that held no place for them. They were both soldiers, set on opposites ends of the field, but soldiers all the same. They both knew what it meant to follow orders. But they were both also leaders and they both knew how to give orders when they had to. He'd been the strong one when it came time to question those orders. He was the one with principals, ethics and a sense of right and wrong. She'd never gone against the grain like he had. She'd never had that kind of courage.

She let out a deep, audible sigh as a splattering of heavy, fat raindrops hit the window and the Sun lost it's battle from dominance. The last of its beams disappeared as the clouds finally pulled in enough reinforcements to send it packing, giving it no choice but to give up the fight. A roll of thunder off in the distance was followed quickly by a flash of lightning and she braced herself.

Castiel didn't like storms. He didn't like anything that didn't follow the status quo.

She didn't like the rain either. It was depressing. But thunderstorms, on the other hand, that was a different story. There was something so violent and unhinged in the air when the skies shouted out with such conviction and unmistakable fury. It was a testament to just how destructive one of the human's 'Gods' could really be. They bragged on and on about the goodness of the Gods they choose to worship. Yet here, right in front of her was the evidence to the contrary.

Not one among the humans could claim that Mother Nature wasn't one of the good and righteous of their nature Spirits. She routinely unleashed the power of her violence down on Her people, smiting them indiscriminately through hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, flood and fires. The humans never really bothered to connect those dots. They never thought about the thing in those particular terms. And what really astounded Meg, was that not one among them seemed to see that Her wrath was getting stronger as the humans continued on their path to destroy Her. Meg never been what one might call a tree-hugger, but even she could see the disadvantages to pissing something as power as Mother Nature off.

"Meg?" her name caused her to spin around towards Castiel and what she found startled her.

He was sitting up on the side of the bed and how she hadn't heard him move was beyond her because when she turned away from him, he'd been laying down. His eyes, clear and sober and so very, very blue, scanned her face as the furrow between his brows deepened in confusion.

"Well, look who decided to join the land of the living," she said, taking a step towards him and offering him a warm smile.

He tried to smile back but it fell away long before it came to full fruition. "I need to..." his voice trailed off and he seemed lost once again, but there was still something of him in his eyes that remained glued to her.

She came quickly to his side, kneeling and taking his hands in hers. "You need to what, Feathers? Come on, you can tell me. Just give me some kind of clue."

His face tensed and he closed his eyes and shook his head. "I..." he muttered. "They're so loud!"

Then his hands suddenly came around her biceps and he pulled her in close. There was a look of agony on his face now, an unspeakable pain as he struggled for enough clarity to get his message out. His fingers dug into her skin, leaving bruising marks in their wake as he fought desperately. "They're here." He finally managed in a twisted, unfamiliar voice that sent a chill straight up her spine.