They looped their way through the winding roads and on-ramps back to I-80, Dean taking every turn at a snail's pace, while Sarah braced Cas very carefully for each turn. But Cas was still pretty much comatose, and to Dean's relief they managed to get on the highway without and flapping incident.
Dean found himself surprisingly unsettled by not being able to check Cas's breathing every single second. After an entire night spent staring at Cas pretty much nonstop, watching him breathe and monitoring his pulse, it was weirdly disorienting not being able to see him.
So a few minutes after they got onto I-80, Dean asked, "Sarah, is he breathing okay?"
"Yup," Sarah said. Dean checked the mirror; he couldn't really see Cas very well from this perspective; mostly he was just seeing Sarah's shoulder. He angled the mirror a little more till he could at least see the edge of Cas's bandaged wing.
A minute later Dean thought he'd check in again, so he asked, "Sarah, how's his O2? And pulse?" Dr. Mac had loaned them the little finger-clip thing for the drive, and Dean felt practically expert now with the pulse and "O2 saturation" readings.
"Steady," said Sarah. "Pulse is maybe a little fast, but steady. O2 sat's pretty good."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, he's been very stable, actually."
A minute later: "Sarah, how's his breathing now?"
A little pause. Sarah leaned forward and said, almost into Dean's ear, "He's good. Dean, just so you know, I'm looking right at him nonstop. I'm not taking my eyes off him and I've got one hand on his chest so I can feel him breathing. And I'm watching his pulse and O2 levels pretty much constantly."
"Uh... okay," said Dean. "But... what are the numbers? If you don't mind telling me? Just curious."
Sarah gave Dean kind of a piercing look in the mirror, but she just said, "Sure." She looked over at the monitor of Cas's little finger-clip thing (Mac had loaned them a spare that he had), and said, "Let's see - pulse 88, oxygen saturation is 98%, respiration was 24 a minute ago. His last BP was 110 over 60. So, pulse still a little high and BP still a little low, and that's still just because of the blood loss, but he's been very stable. Those numbers haven't changed in a while."
"Um," said Dean, "Great. So... could you just, maybe, tell me if any of that changes?"
"Right away. I promise," said Sarah.
Dean caught her eyes in the rearview mirror again and realized Sarah was looking at him.
Dean suddenly felt her hand on his shoulder. Sarah was patting his shoulder, and she said, "He's going to be okay, Dean. I'll update you the second anything changes. Now, you just focus on driving, okay?"
Dean said, "Okay," and tried to keep his eyes on the road.
Soon they were shooting right out of Salt Lake City, past the massive Wasatch Range of mountains that towered beside the city. The Wasatch was Utah's section of the great sprawling Rockies, and even though it was only just past Thanksgiving, the mountains were already totally white already, completely coated in the first winter snows.
As they motored along past that beautiful view, Dean noticed that the traffic seemed unusually thick. Sarah had insisted that Sam (driving ahead in the Impala) should find a spot soon for them all to get a bit of rest, but as Sam led them through one rest stop after another, they couldn't seem to find a good spot to park. They were searching for a semi-deserted rest stop where they could park in a deserted, inconspicuous corner. Ideally somewhere where nobody would notice that they had a six-foot-tall surgery patient laid out in the back of the Subaru, curled up on his side with a gigantic bandaged wing pretty damn visible on top. And an unbandaged wing, feathers and all, not all that well hidden underneath. Plus, just for extra conspicuousness, an IV bag hanging by the passenger window.
But the traffic was strangely heavy, especially for so early in the morning, and every single rest area seemed crammed with cars. Every gas station was busy, every parking lot full.
Oh. It's Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, Dean finally realized. One of the biggest travel days of the year. Dean took a closer look at some of the cars around him: there went a minivan loaded with kids, probably headed home after the Thanksgiving weekend at Grandma's... over there was a couple in an SUV with the classic kid-and-a-dog in the back... there, a younger couple, no kids yet, maybe on their way back from one of their folks' houses... there went a gang of college students, two guys and two girls, an array of snowboards and skis strapped on top of the car, headed up to the mountains to the ski places.
Everywhere he looked, families and friends. Families traveling, families on vacation, couples, and groups of friends going off to have fun.
Families and friends.
Dean glanced in the mirror— there was Cas. Still alive. (And there was Sarah, too, for good measure.) He looked ahead - there was Sam, in the Impala. Still alive.
I guess we're not having fun exactly, Dean thought, but at least we're still together.
He stopped inspecting the cars around him, and concentrated just on his own little two-car convoy: the Impala and the Subaru. The two cars that held his own family, right now.
He followed Sam onto I-80 and east into Wyoming. It was going to be another damn long drive, another twelve-hour all-day haul. Sarah was definitely right that they needed some sleep, and once they were out of the Salt Lake region they did finally manage to find a place to pull over, on the edge of a national forest, where Sam and Dean crashed out in the Impala for a couple hours of much-needed shuteye while Sarah stayed with Cas. Sarah woke Sam and Dean after two hours, passing around a huge pile of snacks and drinks that she'd found stuffed into the trunk of the Impala. (Apparently Cas had stocked up at a Gas-n-Sip somewhere. Which was pretty damn helpful, actually.) Cas was still okay— just sleeping now, reported Sarah. Soon they were as refreshed as they were going to get, and they left the national forest and headed out onto I-80 again.
Dean turned the radio on as he munched his way through one of Cas's bags of chips. The radio was partly to wake him and Sarah up a bit, and partly a distraction to keep him from pestering Sarah endlessly about Cas's vital signs.
It turned out the radio was full of news about the weather.
It seemed a series of three more hurricanes were approaching the East Coast, one after another, all of them due for landfall in the coming week. This was verylate in the year for hurricanes, so there was a lot of discussion on the news about that. Also, some kind of hybrid winter blizzard-tornado storm, immediately dubbed a "snow-nado" by the media, had just hit Ohio. And there'd been gale-force winds last week at a few places in the Great Plains, violent bursts of winds so strong they'd been ripping wind turbines apart.
There seemed to be some water-related things happening too. The Mississippi River was flooding, for one thing— and again, this was very much out-of-season. And gigantic waves had been battering several coastal regions, including San Francisco, LA, and... Chicago. Which was an inland city on a lake. One of the Great Lakes, but still.
Ten-foot storm surges just weren't supposed to happen on lakes. Not even the Great Lakes.
Is there such a thing as a water elemental? Dean thought.
Dean listened to the radio for only a minute or two longer, and then turned it off.
"Weird weather, huh?" said Sarah.
"Yeah."
"Is that..." She hesitated, and then said, "Is that something that you're involved with?"
"I really hope not," said Dean, with a sigh. "Cause we really gotta focus on Cas right now. Sam and I have been kind of hoping the world can hold itself together till we get Cas on his feet again."
After a moment, Sarah said, "At least there didn't seem to be any lightning storms."
It was midnight by the time they got to the bunker. As Dean parked the car on the garage, Sarah reported that Cas was actually awake. Though "very dopey," as she put it. Dean twisted around to check on him, and... there was Cas, awake! Looking up at him!
It was a tremendous relief to see those blue eyes gazing at him again.
"Hel...loooo..." said Cas, blinking at him slowly.
Okay, so maybe the blue eyes were kind of sleepy-looking. And stoned-looking. And barely half-open. But still! Cas was awake!
Dean gave him a big smile, saying, "Good to see you awake, Buddy! How you doing?"
"It... hurts," Cas said slowly, "but... I... don't... care..."
Dean glanced over at Sarah, and she whispered, with a little smile, "Mac gave him kind of a cocktail of painkillers. So don't expect too much in the way of lucidity." Ah. Dean had to chuckle a little. He turned back to Cas and said, "Look, Cas, we're gonna get you back to your bed. But you just gotta not move your wing, okay? Don't move your left wing, no matter what. It's really important, Cas. It won't heal if you move it. So don't move your left wing, and just stay still and relax."
"O... kay..." said Cas, and his eyes slid shut.
Hmm. Dean got out of the Subaru and looked over at the door to the bunker, which Sam was propping open. It was going to be tricky to get Cas inside to his room. The fireman's-carry obviously wasn't a good choice anymore, because of the flapping issue; and they didn't have a decent stretcher that would keep him stable going down stairs; and the wings wouldn't fit on a stretcher anyway...
Hmm.
For several minutes they all just discussed the problem, all three of them walking back and forth to Cas's bedroom, counting up the number of stairs that the bunker had (there suddenly seemed to be a ridiculous number of stairs), the width of the doors, and various other problems.
Sarah finally said, "He might be able to walk. It'd actually be good for him to move a little. However— he's still pretty doped up right now, so we'd have to be extremely careful that he doesn't fall, especially not onto that broken wing. I normally really wouldn't advise trying to have him walk, normally I'd advise against it, but..."
"But it's our best option," said Dean. Sarah nodded. Sam suggested, "Let's just see if he can stand, and then decide." That seemed a good plan, and they all walked back to the Subaru.
It turned out Cas was actually able to move a little. Sarah even managed to get him to his hands and knees and got Cas backing slowly out of the Subaru, coaxing him backwards as if getting a small, sleepy horse out of a horse trailer. Sarah watched his broken wing carefully, Dean grabbed Cas' right arm as soon as he got back far enough, Sam steered his feet down, and Cas slowly backed out all the way out of the car.
A moment later he was actually on his feet. For the first time since the hammer had struck him. He looked pretty wobbly, and Dean kept a firm hold on his right arm, and Sam had just taken the left arm, and Cas was leaning very heavily onto Dean; but Cas was actually on his feet.
Cas looked back and forth between Dean and Sam, blinking owlishly in the light of the garage. Sarah had got him into a pair of sweatpants somehow but he was still naked from the waist up, the folded left wing still neatly bound to his torso in a huge mass of gauze and vetwrap. The good wing seemed to be drooping a little drunkenly, almost brushing the floor.
"Hello... Dean," Cas said, looking back and forth between them. "Hel..lo... Sam."
"Hey there, Cas," said Sam. "Do you think you could walk to your room?"
"Of course, Sam... Sam, did you know... my wing is broken," Cas informed Sam, his head actually wobbling a little. "My wing... broke... Dean, my wing broke. SARAH!" He'd just caught sight of Sarah, who'd just gotten out of the Subaru and had come around in front of him. "HELLO, SARAH," said Cas loudly, slanting heavily onto Dean now as he tried to give Sarah a very clumsy hug, saying, "SARAH! HOW ARE YOU! Sarah, I broke a wing."
"What kind of drugs is he on exactly?" Sam asked Sarah under his breath.
"A bunch," whispered Sarah back, "And remember Mac had to guess at the doses. Normally I would never risk having him try to walk—"
Cas put in loudly, his head leaning onto Dean's shoulder now, "I... can walk... The drugs... have... had... hardly any effect...at...all. Dean... I broke a wing... but I'm not dead." Sarah was smothering a grin now as she got in front of Cas, facing him and holding her hands out. She said, slowly and clearly, "Castiel, can you walk toward me? Can you walk to your room? Take both my hands. Here, take my hands and see if you can walk toward me."
"Sarah, I broke a wing," Cas told her, grabbing both her hands and taking a tiny shuffly step in her direction, Dean and Sam helping him along. "But I'm not dead," added Cas helpfully.
"Yes, I know, Castiel," said Sarah, backing up slowly, coaxing him to follow her toward the bunker door. "Sam, get the doors, could you? Castiel, just keep walking toward me. There you go. You're doing great. Just keep going."
They kept inching along. Cas was just gazing at Sarah's face now, as if riveted. He said, "Sarah you're so nice... you're... just... SO nice." He turned to Dean to say, "Isn't she nice, Dean? Dean, is she moving in?"
"Sarah's very nice, yes, Cas," said Dean, trying not to smile. "Cas— you can lean on me a little more. Just lean on me—"
"Of course I'll lean on you if you want, Dean, of course—" said Cas cheerily, nodding his head, and Dean jumped a little when he felt something press on his far shoulder, the side away from Cas. He realized a second later that Cas had wrapped his right wing tightly all across Dean's shoulders and was using the wing to lean heavily on Dean. This actually made everything feel much more secure, Cas sort of wrapped onto Dean now, and they began to shuffle along with reasonable speed. Soon they were inching down the stairs that led from the garage to the bunker, one step at a time, Cas hanging tightly onto Dean with his good wing, Sarah stabilizing him with every step and Sam steering Cas's feet down the stairs. As they slowly descended, Cas said, his voice distinctly slurred, "Angels... with a broken wing... always die... but I... am not dead. SAM!" Cas had just noticed Sam down by his feet. "SAM. Hello Sam. Sam, I broke a wing, but I'm not dead. Sarah's moving in, Sam, isn't that nice?"
Cas actually made it all the way down the hall to his room, wobbling the whole way there but with his right wing wrapped securely around Dean's shoulders the whole time. And the entire way there, Cas kept up a running commentary, informing all three of them, individually, about a dozen times each, that he had broken a wing but was not dead, and that they were all very nice people and that he was very happy to see all of them. Eventually they got him into his room and he just crawled onto the bed on his hands and knees and slumped right down into the nest of blankets that Sarah had prepared, still muttering, "I broke a wing... but I'm not dead..."
Sarah and Sam bustled around setting up the IV and propping pillows up around him, and Dean leaned down and patted Cas on the head. "Told you I'd take care of you, Cas, didn't I?" said Dean. "Now, you just rest up. And don't move that wing, I mean it."
"O...kay," said Cas, looking up at him out of the corner of his eye and blinking slowly.
And then Cas added, "Dean... did I lose some feathers?"
Dean tensed. Sarah and Sam glanced up.
Cas whispered, "I did... didn't I... I can feel it."
The tertials. It had to be those damn tertials. Whatever it meant to cut a tertial, apparently Cas could actually "feel it". Even through the haze of the drugs, and the pain of the shattered bone.
Cas was still looking up at him, sort of teary-eyed now, and said, "Dean—my feathers— Dean— I—I—"
Dean crouched there by the bed, biting his lip, waiting for what Cas would say next.
Cas said in a fast rapid slur, "Dean I just love you, you're so great! and I knew you wouldn't leave your car! You wouldn't leave your car. Dean I got a movie at the library. It's about... some lost animals... they're all friends... Dean, I broke a wing..."
Castiel drifted off, still mumbling. His eyes slid shut, and he finally went quiet and immediately started to snore. Sarah, Sam and Dean all laughed a little bit, quietly, and Dean kept stroking Cas's head a while longer, till he was sure Cas was fast asleep.
Sarah'd already explained she could only stay for two weeks. Apparently she had to get back to her actual job for some sort of long-scheduled holiday shift over Christmas.
And, of course, she probably has some sort of life of her own to get back to, thought Dean. She must have some boyfriend or something. Somebody to spend the holidays with. She hadn't gone into any details about that, though. But she did say she might be able to visit again in January, when Cas's pins were due to come out, and the bandages would come off.
But anyway, it was an incredible gift just to have her there for those two weeks. The first several days especially, when Sam and Dean were really wiped out, Sarah took care of all of Cas's needs. Not just the medical things like his IV and meds and changing his bandages, but also all sorts of little personal stuff too— feeding him, giving him sponge baths, helping him wash his hair, and, presumably, the sorts of bathroom details that Dean was just as glad not to have to learn about. Cas mostly just slept that first week anyway, conked out on whatever painkillers Sarah was giving him, and surfacing only long enough to eat some more soup and make some more muddled declarations about how he'd broken a wing.
He was actually doing pretty well, it seemed. Though, Dean found himself compelled to sleep on the floor of Cas's room anyway. Just in case.
Sarah didn't even bother to protest this time. She just moved Cas's mattress right down to the ground, and let them sleep side-by-side. And after Dean described Cas's recent history with nightmares, she even suggested Dean keep holding Cas's hand, saying, "If he has nightmares he'll probably try to move the wing in his sleep. So why don't you just give him a hand to hold onto, and see if that keeps him calm."
It seemed to work pretty well.
And Dean really didn't mind.
Within a few days Cas was mostly off the painkillers and was looking much more alert. The day came when, for the first time, Cas was wide awake when Sarah, Sam and Dean were all changing his bandages.
The plan, that day, was that Sarah was going to train both Dean and Sam about how to dress Cas's surgical wounds. But as soon as the dressings came off, Dean was appalled to discover that the ends of the titanium pins were actually sticking right out of Cas's skin (on purpose, Sarah said), and were actually bolted to a little exterior rod. Apparently the exterior rod made it all more stable, and also, apparently, this whole exterior-rod arrangement meant the pins could be removed much more easily later. But Dean wilted instantly at the sight. Sam, once again, had to take over. Dean volunteered to just sit in front of Cas, helping Cas hold his arms up out of the way of the bandages.
"How does it look?" Cas asked, as Sarah was pointing out to Sam how to put more ointment on. This was actually the first time Cas had really seemed awake enough to try to assess the extent of his own injuries. He was sitting upright on a corner of the bed— perched on the very edge of the corner a little awkwardly, actualy, so that his broken wing wouldn't brush the bed, but Dean was helping to brace him. And Cas was turning his head over his left shoulder, trying to see the wing, but of course he couldn't really get a clear view.
Sarah said, "It looks pretty good. Very good, actually. The incisions are healing quite well. The swelling's going down a little, too, and— see, Sam, see how the bruising around his ribs, underneath the wing, looks better, too. Cas, are you finding it any easier to breathe?"
Cas hesitated. He tried a tentative breath, a slow, careful breath, and said, "Yes, actually. I've been noticing that. But... Sarah, do you really mean it's... it's healing? Are you sure?"
"Yes, it's healing," said Sarah.
Cas looked at Dean with wide eyes, and Dean suddenly realized why Cas seemed so startled.
Castiel was healing.
Not only was Cas not dying, he was actually healing.
Just last week, Cas had been unable to heal from any injury at all, even just a bruise. He'd been dying. Because of that damn spell that had cost him the thirty years.
"Cas!" Dean said, "Wait! You're healing! Does this mean... did you get your thirty years back? Or... does it mean you have some grace? Does it mean..." Actually, this was kind of confusing... Cas had been mortal but had lost thirty years... and now he was... mortal again? But with the thirty years back? Or was he... an angel, just with no power? Was he angel or human? Dean got confused just thinking about it, and just blurted out, "Cas, what does it mean?"
"I'm not sure, Dean," said Cas, "but I suspect the thirty-year spell, and the shortened lifespan, is no longer a problem." He went silent a moment, thinking, and added, with a rueful smile, "I only had my powers back for just a moment, but apparently that moment was enough to take care of that particular problem."
"Really?" said Sam, who'd stopped dead in the middle of putting on the ointment and was staring at Cas's face. "That's... that's great news, Cas! Wait, so..." Sam had gotten stuck on the same thing Dean had. "Um... Cas... I don't understand, actually. Are you human now, or an angel that has no power? Or... what's the difference, anyway?"
"Well, I'm not sure—" Cas began.
"Arms, Cas," murmured Sarah, softly interrupting, and Cas immediately put his arms up, bracing them on Dean's shoulders so they were out of the way of the bandages. It was part of the usual wing-bandage routine that Cas and Sarah had worked out, over the past week. (Even in just one week, Cas and Sarah seemed to have developed all kinds of little short-hand phrases and routines with each other.)
"Wing," added Sarah, and Cas flared his right wing up out of the way, so that Sarah could start wrapping vet-wrap all the way around Cas's torso.
As Sarah reached around with a bundle of pink vet-wrap, holding onto one end of it and handing the roll around Cas's back to Sam, Cas said, "I'm not even sure, Sam. I think I probably still have a... well, a de-powered grace, is the best way to put it. An empty grace. But it's hard to tell." He looked up at Dean wryly and said, "This has never happened to me before." He glanced down over his left shoulder again and added, "I must admit, I'm just... astonished, really, to hear it's healing. I was astonished to wake up at all, and more astonished now. I don't know of any other case of an angel healing from a broken wing."
"So, how often has an angel broken a wing?" asked Dean.
Cas glanced up at the ceiling, thinking. "I know of a few dozen cases myself. A few were cases of, um, angels, um, you know, being hit, with, the hammer..." He bit his lip, closing his eyes for a moment.
The horror of his experience was obviously still pretty fresh, and pretty raw. Dean knew how that kind of thing felt, and he tightened both his hands on Cas's arms.
Cas's fingers tightened back on Dean's shoulders. He took a slightly shaky breath, and finally opened his eyes and said, "But more often it's happened to angels in battle, or sometimes just in accidents. If the wing's fully broken like that, all the power draining out of it, they've always died."
"But you guys never tried the new I.M. titanium pins?" asked Sarah with a little grin, looping more vet-wrap around Cas's torso and handing it to Sam.
Castiel gave a little huff of a laugh, and he said, "Indeed we didn't. You know, there are some fields where human technology really shines, and this may turn out to be one of them."
"But," asked Sarah, pressing down the vet-wrap so that it stuck to itself, "I'm still not getting why the magic healing thing wouldn't work."
"In that sort of healing," said Cas. "You simply query the body about its own memory of itself."
"Simply?" said Sarah, raising her eyebrows.
Cas gave her a little half-smile. "Well, it seems simple when you're doing it. You just... you ask the body to remember itself when it was healthy. But if what you're dealing with is a hybrid body— an angel's wings physically present on a mortal vessel— the problem is that the vessel doesn't normally have wings. It has no bodily memory of having had wings. So when you query the vessel you get no response."
Sarah considered that, looking up at Cas's gorgeous right wing, which was still spread up in the air over her head. Sarah had adjusted remarkably well to the whole wing thing, overall, but definitely still had her moments of looking a little shell-shocked, and she had a bit of that awestruck look right now.
Sam was looking at her, and they both seemed to have forgotten about the vet-wrap for a moment.
Dean ignored them both and said, still trying to get it straight in his head, "You mean, the body replies that there shouldn't be wings at all?"
Cas nodded. "Basically, yes. You ask the body to heal and, well, nothing happens. The physical body just has no idea how physical wings should feel. I realize now, we probably should have tried a physical way to put a broken wing back together, all along; we're just so used to our powers being able to heal anything. But, also," — here he paused a moment, glancing at Dean. "... angels with broken wings also suffer a great deal of shock and usually they die before you could try anything like that anyway. To be honest, I think Crowley helped quite a bit. I don't really... remember it very clearly, but... all my blood was leaving. I know it was. I could feel it leaving, Dean." Cas looked very serious now, and he was looking right at Dean. He went on, "I knew I was dying. I knew it. Then Crowley touched my head and suddenly I wasn't dying anymore."
"You're saying Crowley saved your life?" asked Dean. "Well, his timing sure sucked."
"His timing may have... sucked, yes," said Cas, hesitating slightly on the swear word. "But he stopped the bleeding. And stole the hammer. He saved my life." A little pause, and then Cas added, "I don't know why."
Cas fell silent after that. He was looking a little tired, actually, so they finished up the bandaging and got him back down on his stomach, Sarah got the blankets nestled around him just right, and then Sam read him to sleep with another chapter from one of the old Oz books.
To everyone's relief Cas turned out to be unexpectedly obedient about keeping the wing still. In fact, the more awake he got, the more obedient and quiet he got. Which all seemed very un-Cas-like. Dean eventually concluded that Cas was probably far more frightened than he was letting on, about whether the wing was truly going to heal. It was one thing for the incisions on his skin to heal up, and the bruises; but what about that bone?
In fact Cas was spending so much time just lying absolutely still in his room that Sarah had to order him to start walking around. She insisted it would be good for him, and started shepherding him on walks around the bunker. Back and forth down the hallway, and back to his bed. To the library, and back to his bed. To the kitchen, and back to his bed. Around the garage, and back to his bed.
Always back to his bed, in the end. Back to where he could sprawl out on his mattress on the floor, on his stomach. Always back to his bed, because... Well, because the wings were turning out to be a problem.
The wings were turning out to be a big problem, actually. Emphasis on "big." They were just too damn big. First off, Cas couldn't actually sit down anywhere — the wingtips just extended too far down. He could probably have maneuvered the right wing a little, to get it up out of the way of a chair; but the left wing was firmly bound to his side, and the five-foot long flight feathers on that side were sticking straight down past Cas's hip to just past his knee. And he couldn't do anything that even bumped those feather tips, for fear of re-breaking the whole damn wing. And that meant he couldn't sit in any of the bunker's chairs.
Dean had him try swinging a chair around to see if Cas could sit on it cowboy-style, but even that didn't work. His feather-tips were just too damn long. And after Dr. Mac's speech about not ever moving the broken wing, no way was Dean going to risk having Cas bump those feather tips on the floor.
"No chairs for you, Cas, I guess," Dean had to tell him. "Sorry, bud. We just can't take the risk."
All of which meant Cas couldn't join them in the kitchen for meals. And he couldn't sit on the sofa in the library, in front of the fire, with Meg on his lap, like he used to. He wasn't going to be able to sit on the corner of Dean's bed to chat; he couldn't even relax on the sofa by the tv and watch movies with them.
They still hadn't watched that idiotic-looking kids' movie about the "lost animals", in fact. It was still sitting on the map-table, right where Cas had left it.
It was starting to become clear Cas was kind of trapped. Trapped in his bedroom. Of course they were all trying to spend lots of time with him— Dean still was sleeping on the floor in Cas's room most nights, Sam reading the Oz books and branching out into old "Hardy Boys" mysteries too. In fact sometimes they all ended up in Cas's room chattering so much that Sarah had to shoo them out whenever Cas started really looking tired.
But it was still kind of a bummer that Cas couldn't hang out with them anywhere else. Dean even dragged one of the spare beds over to the tv, but it turned out it was a little awkward for Cas to try to watch anything when he had to stay lying down and couldn't sit up properly.
Sam eventually returned the "lost animals" movie to the library, unwatched.
And there was another problem looming. Dean had been ignoring it, but one day when he and Sam were reorganizing the Impala's trunk, rearranging the armory and restocking the ammo, Sam spoke up.
"Dean," said Sam quietly, "He's not going to be able to come on hunts with us. Even when he heals up."
Dean paused in the middle of setting an array of fresh shotgun shells in place. He looked up at Sam.
Sam said, "He's not going to fit in the Impala. He's not going to be able to ride with us. Or work with us. Not with the wings."
Dean straightened up a bit, and looked at the Impala. The Impala that Cas had just learned to drive. Cas had, in fact, driven it all the way to Zion, to try to save them, with his "Cas T.L. Winchester" license in his pocket the whole way. The license had still been in his jeans pocket later; Sarah had found it there during the surgery prep. And Dean happened to know that Cas still kept it on his bedstand, and still held it in his hand when he fell asleep at night.
Dean said, "I was thinking he could lie in the back, maybe? Like when we were driving him to Salt Lake."
"With his wings all jammed into the back window, or sticking right out of the side window? Which is going to be damn obvious if we're in any kind of a town in daylight," went on Sam relentlessly. "And which also can't be comfortable. It barely worked for a couple hours and he got all wedged in and stuck, and that wing's going to need a much more comfortable position for a long time now, like, months. He couldn't even do a day-long drive like that. And also, Dean..." Sam hesitated, shuffling his feet, his hands on his hips. "Even aside from fitting in the car... he's not even going to be able to... You know. Walk into motels. Go to interviews. Use his FBI badge. All that."
Dean bit his lip, still looking at the Impala. Cas can't be seen in public, was what Sam meant. Cas can't come out with us at all. Not with those wings.
Sam was right. And Dean knew it.
Dean just said, "I know. I know. But... I was thinking that when he heals up, maybe he can make his wings invisible again. Don't you think?"
"Maybe," said Sam, but he still looked worried, and Dean felt plenty worried too.
Dean had been hoping to avoid this topic as long as possible with Castiel. In fact, Dean had been kind of avoiding discussing all sorts of details about the wings... like what exactly that flash of light had been, and why Cas's grace was "empty", and what that might mean. And then there were those damn tertials. (Cas, for his part, had never mentioned the "missing feathers" since he'd really woken up, and Dean was kind of hoping that meant it just wasn't that big a deal.)
But as the second week rolled around, Cas started asking if maybe he could come on a grocery run, or maybe go down to the Lebanon library. He seemed sort of aware of how much his wings would freak people out, but it was getting clear that he didn't really grasp what a problem it was going to be— or, perhaps, was resolutely ignoring it. Day after day he asked Dean, whenever Dean was heading out on some errand, "Maybe I could come out with you? I could lie in the back, Dean, like before?"
Dean kept putting him off with, "Not while your wing's still healing." Which he knew was kind of giving Cas the wrong idea, but he couldn't think how to bring up the topic in a way that wouldn't... that wouldn't...
Well, that wouldn't break Cas's heart, really.
Thing was, Cas had just been so damn happy, a few weeks ago, back when Dean had given him the FBI badge and all the other ids. And the shooting lessons, and the driving lessons, and that driver's license. None of which were going to do him any damn good now.
Finally one day Cas announced he was going out for a walk. In daytime. To Lebanon. To the library. To check out that kids' movie again, the one about the lost animals, of all the damn things.
"Cas, you can't," said Dean, lapsing instantly into his default excuses: "Your wing's still healing. And it's... too cold." Which was true, actually, it was too cold, well into December now, and yet another problem with the wings was that Cas couldn't wear any sweaters or jackets. Cas had taken to slinging a blanket up over his right shoulder, kind of like a toga, when he went on his little walking tours around the bunker, but that wasn't going to work outside in a frigid Kansas winter.
"I think I can walk that far, Dean," said Cas. "I thought I could wear two blankets, maybe." He actually held up a little bundle of blankets; turned out he was all ready to go. "And I'm feeling much better. And it would be really nice to get outside. I'll just go quick and I'll be right back—" —and now Cas had actually started to head up the spiral stairs to the door, and Dean had to jump forward and catch his hand, saying, "Cas, wait!"
Cas turned to look at him, frowning.
"No, Cas, you can't, look, what I mean is..." Dean took a breath, releasing his hand. "Cas. You can't let people see you."
Cas's frown deepened. "My... wings, you mean? I know they're unusual, but, Dean—" He glanced down at his right wing, flaring it out slightly. "A few times, in Mesopotamia, I had my wings out like this and people got used to it. Wouldn't people get used to it?" He hesitated, looking at his right wing, and said, "Though... they were all white then. Is the black a problem?"
He's worried the color's the problem? thought Dean. Oh man. He really doesn't get it.
"This isn't ancient Mesopotamia, Cas," Dean tried to explain. "And I'm betting media coverage wasn't really at its best back then. Today— Look, Cas, people will freak. At first glance they'll just think you're a crazy guy wearing a Halloween costume, like the vet did, but it'd hit the media eventually and sooner or later people would figure it out. Best case scenario, there'd be five thousand tv cameras on our doorstep and every poor schmuck in the entire nation who's been trying to pray to God, and getting no answer, would be here banging on the door. Begging for help and probably trying to tear your feathers off or some damn thing. And... worst case scenario... the feds would take you away. Take you off to a lab and study you." Dean just barely managed to avoid adding, "And probably dissect you." He took a breath and went on, "We'd lose you, Cas. And also, all those angels who are trying to kill you, who haven't been able to find you? Might as well just paint a bull's-eye on your forehead, once the word gets out."
Cas was gazing at him now with a sort of hollow-eyed look, still holding the bundle of blankets to his chest. Dean reached out and patted Cas's good wing, saying, "We're not gonna let anything like that happen to you, Cas, I swear. And we'll figure out something. We'll get you your grace back, for real this time, and, once your wing's healed up, you can just tuck them both away again, back in that other place where you usually put them, right?"
"The etheric plane," said Cas quietly.
"The etheric plane. Right. You can put them back in that etheric plane place and you'll be right back to normal. And then you can come hunting with us and everything, and grocery shopping, and everything you want to do. Okay?"
Cas nodded slowly, saying, "Right... Okay." But now he had his full-force Sad-Puppy look on. Dean winced, thinking, He gave me that look when I kicked him out; now he's got the same look when I won't let him leave. Dammit.
Why can't I ever give him good news?
Dean patted his wing again, saying, "You're the first angel to ever heal up from a broken wing, right? Give it a little time. At least you're alive! We'll get you outside again, I promise. Your wing'll heal up and you'll get them back back over to that "etheric plane" or whatever, back to being invisible, like normal, and then you'll be all set. I promise."
Cas nodded again, and gave him a brief, slightly strained, smile. But he wasn't really meeting Dean's eyes anymore.
Castiel got pretty quiet in the days after that.
And Dean kept thinking, There's gotta be some way for him to come hunting with us. Some solution to this wing problem. I just gotta think of something.
But nothing was coming to mind.
A/N - aww, Cas doesn't FIT anywhere! What now?
Please let me know what you think!
edit: Please check out elphiascutie's lovely portrait of Cas with a bandaged wing. awww. (ff readers, your site doesn't allow links in fic chapters; come on over to AO3 to see the link.)