CHAPTER 21: THE WAKENING
The following weeks were hard for Dean: Castiel fell in deep depression and never left his bed, he was eating because people forced him to. He was pretty much sleeping the whole day. He lost weight a lot, and the worst part for Dean was that he lost the little sparkle of life in his eyes, the only thing they could share, and he felt like they lost their special connection.
Dean was also officially jobless now, but he still lived in his St Gerry's place and was doing maintenance jobs, repairs, plumber, electricity, painting or gardening, just like Mary asked him. He could do anything and Mary couldn't afford to pay a full-time professional, plus she didn't want to let Dean go now. She knew he was still fragile despite what he could pretend.
Legally Dean was renting a cheap room in St Gerry and it would last only a time as it was a hospital and not a place to live, but nothing really changed in Dean's habits after he finished his job. He wasn't cleaning rooms anymore and Mary was not paying him anymore, but he had only personal expenses since everything else was in St Gerry's charge, even the laundry, and Dean couldn't complain. The money he raised thanks to the Cage was enough for him, he would see later what he would do in the future.
He asked Mary the authorization to visit the patients he cared the most about and she accepted. Nothing could forbid it, anyone could visit patients even if for most of them nobody would come. It was almost like their social and family life stopped the day they entered St Gerry Hall. The gates closed on their madness.
Mary could feel he needed to be here. Castiel's depression was something very hard for him to handle, he felt like he lost him one more time and Mary could read the guilt in his eyes, she also could read anger and a part of the rage he left behind a few months ago. He felt guilty because he helped Castiel opening up to the world, and he was mad at Leyla because she didn't listen to him when he warned her it was going too fast for Castiel.
He could still feel the weight of sadness and pain in Castiel's tears, when he cried for a long moment in his arms… He could still feel him gripping his shirt, and letting it go when he fell asleep.
The day after it was all over. Dean wished he could find back the intensity of his blue eyes on him, but it was too late.
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Dean was always waiting outside during Castiel's sessions: Garth put a chair in the corridor, in front of room 14 and he would wait here while Mary and Leyla were inside. He wanted to be here if Castiel would wake up from his silence.
When they were stepping out of the room they would see him, but they wouldn't look at him, and when he asked questions about Castiel, they answered vaguely. But he knew it was worse and worse every day.
They pretended they had to respect the patient's privacy… professional confidentiality… all he could see was they just needed to hide their inability to get him out of this depression.
When Dean entered the room, he wished he would see him standing at the window, even if he was locked in his own world, he was living in his own way. He hated the day he went to ask for Leyla's help. He hated the fact he failed again. He wanted to scream because he couldn't do anything about it.
Why did he find the courage to get out of his pain but not Castiel? Why did Castiel or Sam got no chance?
He stepped forward and grabbed a chair to sit down next to him. Castiel wasn't sleeping, he was just blank-staring, he was thinner and thinner and his face was lifeless. He bent over and asked him to fight, like he always did since that day, he asked him to come back, but like every time, Castiel didn't react.
He stepped back and noticed Castiel was certainly lost in his memories. What was he thinking about? What was going on behind the walls of his silence? He couldn't perceive anything and realized their connection was broken. His body was here but not his soul. Disappointment, pain, sadness and fatalism took advantage of hope and broke the connection.
He didn't know that Castiel was actually fighting to come back, he was holding on Dean's presence, but Dean was more and more distant. He hurt so bad and he wanted to tell him he was not dead, he was just trying to break another wall, but this time he had to fight on his own.
Dean was often going to Suzanne after his visits: They would have a coffee and talk about anything but Castiel. Dean closed that door and he didn't want to open it again. She knew it had to come from him.
They were seeing each other several times a week. Sometimes only a few minutes in the refectory, eating in silence, and sometimes they would go out for a walk for a few hours, just to be together. Their kisses became more and more passionate but Dean didn't go further. He wanted to, but he forbade himself to.
He stopped seeing Nina and when he told Suzanne about it, she just smiled and kissed him. Eventually she tried to lean a hand on Dean's obvious desire, but each time he would stop her. They had no choice but to satisfy their physical needs alone.
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Castiel fell into depression two months ago… That's what Dean was thinking about, lost in his thoughts and looking at his plate, when Garth arrived, took a chair and sat next to him without even asking.
"He ate… he ate everything today." He said just like that with a huge smile on his face.
"What?" Dean asked in a whisper.
"He ate everything and he did it on his own… for the first time for weeks! He swallowed his whole plate, Dean!" He repeated laughing.
"Garth…" Dean almost begged.
"I would never lie to you about something so important, dude, you know it!"
"Holy shit!" Dean smiled and leaned his back on his chair, pulling a hand in his hair, relieved. "So he didn't give up?" he asked.
"Nope… looks like he didn't!" Garth smiled. "If he had, Mary would've transferred him in a hospital anyway."
Garth bent over the table.
"We have to wait a little longer before jumping of happiness but Mary says it's a big step. We'll know more about it this afternoon, I guess."
Dean's face changed.
"You know, it's not because they don't want to talk about it with you that you have to imagine the worst."
"Yeah right… professional confidentiality." Dean said sarcastically. "They didn't care about that when I was the only one that could interact with him."
"He opened up thanks to you… but now it's the doctors' job to go on with the therapy. They were honest with you when you started this, you knew it would happen. You don't even imagine the risks they took when they accepted you as a member of his recovery process."
"Yes. I do." He sighed.
"You're frustrated, I know… but I told you it would be long. Keep in mind nothing would've been possible without you, and even if we haven't win yet, you're the main part of his recovery."
"He will never completely heal from all this. How could he?" Dean said sadly. "We can't even imagine what happened to him. When we think he showed us the worst part, he finds something even worse."
"I know, Dean… but we have to keep believing."
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Castiel's look was still empty but he gained weight and was eating almost correctly now. Mary was full of hope.
When Dean was seeing Leyla getting out of his room, he was always very intrigued about a small box she was always carrying. She would sometimes go out with a smile, and sometimes with a sad expression on her face.
Nobody would talk to him about Castiel's evolution though…
When he was coming in the room after them, he was now finding him sitting at the table staring at the wall in front of him, and it was killing him more and more. He was lifeless with him but apparently he was reacting with Leyla or Mary. Why didn't he want his help anymore? Why was he rejecting him now?
Dean felt his heart break and that day he wouldn't stay more than five minutes. He got out of the room quickly, took his car and disappeared for the rest of the day.
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The day after, he crossed Leyla's way and she asked him to meet her in her office. They hadn't talked much since the awful Monday session: just a few greetings to be polite, but Dean was getting aggressive and she understood why.
"Sit down, Dean." She said.
The small box was on her desk. Dean sat down casually.
"We need to talk." She began.
"I don't want to." He replied clenching his teeth.
"I know you're mad at me and I'm pretty sure you're mad at yourself even more… am I wrong?"
"Why would you care? What will it change if I talk to you? I lost him! We all lost him and this is our fault… mainly mine. I wanted to get him out of his fake reality but he was better in it than he is now in ours!"
"You don't really believe what you're saying, do you?"
"He's dead…" he said in a broken voice.
"He's in therapy, Dean, and you insist on visiting him after each of our sessions. What did I tell you a thousand times?"
"I can't…" he replied.
"You're deeply attached to him and he knows it. How did you expect him to react with you after what happened?"
He looked up suddenly.
"Is he mad at me? Is that what you mean?"
"Dean… Castiel spent his whole life hating himself. His own body and his own life have absolutely no importance to him. He held on to you as his only hope because you looked at him like he was human and not like he was sick."
"I still do!" he defended.
"Really? Are you sure about that?"
He looked at her in confusion. She bent over her desk and took the box.
"In this box there are pictures from children games. He associated them to rebuild the puzzle of his hell."
"Wait… Cas did what? You're talking about zombie Cas who doesn't react anymore?" he asked in shock pointing at the door.
"He started reacting again a few days ago, indeed."
"But…" Dean paused and Leyla could read the distress in his eyes.
"You wonder why he doesn't react with you?" She said opening the box. "That's because he's scared, Dean."
"Scared? Scared of what, DAMN IT! I've always been here for him!" he sounded furious, sad and bitter.
"He's scared that you'd reject him… and to tell you the truth he's afraid you already did." She stated picking up a picture of Dean from the file Deveraux gave to Mary.
Dean frowned and came closer. She then picked a picture of Castiel, the one taken after he was transferred in St Gerry Hall and that the FBI used to try to find something about his past.
Of course they never found anything as it was written in his last record. It was like he never had a life, and they even thought he was sold or abandoned to her torturer. The DNA didn't help either, Castiel was a ghost and the FBI let go of the case.
"How could he think such a thing after all that we shared for months?"
"You know who he is now… a corrupted and perverted man, at least that's what he thinks he is. He was humiliated for thirty years, Dean, what did you expect?"
Dean took a little time before answering:
"I don't know… a miracle?" he whispered.
"The miracle happened. It's hard for him to face it alone, you know? Because yes, we are here by his side helping him, but he is the one who suffered alone, he's the one who lived it, it's his body that was destroyed and his soul that was lost."
Dean looked down.
"So what am I supposed to do now?"
"Bring back the Dean you were for him first… Since that session when he revealed the truth he can feel you changed. He thinks you're different because you see him differently now."
"This is ridiculous." Dean sighed.
"Look at me, Dean."
He looked up.
"We will settle new rules. Mary will see Castiel every Tuesday afternoons, and I will work with him on Thursdays and Fridays. Starting tomorrow, you won't visit him these days."
A wave of sadness appeared in Dean's eyes.
"But you can visit him all the other days like you always did."
She paused a moment seeing Dean's poker face.
"Talk to him, Dean. But don't talk to him with pity, he doesn't need pity, he needs your friendship."
She stood up.
"Why did you stop singing to him?"
Dean looked up at her with a questioning look.
"You think he's dead because his look is empty? You never considered you lost him because you changed since that Monday?"
She was right… he was looking at him with pity… like he was sick and not like a friend anymore. He changed because that terrible Monday session crushed all his strength, and it brought the old Dean back. She was right: he wasn't talking to him anymore, they were staying quiet in the room all the time. Castiel didn't change… but Dean shut down after he explained his hell to him.
"Shit!" He said realizing the truth. "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" he blamed her.
"Because Castiel told me only yesterday."
"What?"
"He picked up a picture of a wall and he placed it between your photo and his… and then he threw all of it on the floor with rage. He then picked up a picture of a window and one of a bird and he stood up, lifted his pillow and showed the book you gave him."
"The book…" he repeated feeling tears in his eyes. "What a douche I am! Really I'm an idiot!"
"Castiel cares about you more than you know, Dean. There was not a day he didn't pick the picture of you in the box."
"Today is Tuesday…"
"Yes."
"It means I can't visit him?"
"No, Dean. Not until we say so, but you can see him on Mondays, Wednesdays and the weekends too."
"Fine." He said reluctantly.
"Just stay yourself, that's what he needs the most… no pity, it makes him feel he lost you because he's nobody."
"Thank you, Leyla."
"We will win this, Dean. It will take time but one day he will go out of his room."
"You really think he can?" Dean asked surprised.
"Of course he can. He will never leave St Gerry Hall, that's not possible, but I am deeply convinced he will pass those gates and see what life is outside St Gerry for a few hours, or even a few days. No matter how long it will take."
"I have all my life."
"He made so much progress in a few weeks. Don't give up and trust him, Dean."
"I won't give up… and trust is all I have left."
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That evening Dean invited Suzanne to get dinner at the same Italian restaurant they went before and she smiled at the idea.
He opened the door he kept close for so long and she listened to him talking about Sam, his stolen youth, but he didn't say too much and was very careful about the words he used. It was so new for him!
Then he talked to her about Deveraux, the old attorney who saved him, and he also talked about the magical encounter he had with Castiel, changing his life and breaking his past in a few months.
It was something Suzanne understood: Castiel and Dean would be forever connected to each other. No matter what he could feel for her and where their relationship would bring them, she knew Castiel would have to accept her or she would lose Dean.
After dinner he drove her back home and was very quiet the whole way back to her place. When she invited him in after he kissed her on the front porch, he hesitated. He never did it, he could stay long minutes cuddling her in front of her door but he never came inside her house.
"Dean…" She took his hand and came inside with him. He didn't resist.
They had really clumsy sex that night: he was scared to hurt her and she was scared to disappoint him and to let go too fast as she waited this for so long.
She fell asleep on his shoulder and he couldn't help but caressed her hair breathing her perfume.
When morning came, they had sex again and this time Dean didn't hold anything back, doing everything he avoided the previous evening, and they finally came together staring at each other.
For the first time he loved a woman completely, he loved her body and her soul. He just loved her and it scared him to death.
"I love you, Dean Winchester." She whispered in his ear.
He didn't reply. He just couldn't say those words.
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Next afternoon he took his guitar to go to room 14. Castiel was sitting on his bed showing his back.
Dean stepped closer.
"Hey, Cas!" he said sitting next to him.
They spent a moment just looking outside in the same direction.
"I talked to Leyla yesterday… I always said I would tell you everything, remember?"
He looked at him but Castiel didn't react.
"We talked about me… and about you." He was very uncomfortable but he had to talk to him to make him understand nothing changed between them.
"I reacted like an idiot… I'm sorry, Cas… But I was so scared I thought I lost you again, and it's my fault. I was the one who wanted to get you out of your silence. They all say it was your choice first but I can't help thinking it's my fault."
He looked down.
"I'm sorry."
He felt him moving next to him and when he looked up, Castiel was finally looking at him, and Dean smiled.
"I've missed you, buddy." He confessed in a whisper.
He couldn't help but hugged him.
"Damn it, Cas…"
He felt Castiel's head in his neck, like that Monday, but he didn't cry this time. He just needed to feel the connection, and Dean realized he waited this for a long time, so long he lost hope.
Castiel woke up after years of sleep, and he could now live his emotions, he wasn't scared about them anymore.
She lost… she was definitely dead.
They stayed like this a long moment, Dean thought time froze and he wished he could just stay like that forever. He stroked Castiel's back to comfort him, like he did with Sam, and Castiel was just here with his head on his shoulder and his arms hanging, appreciating the connection he missed too.
Dean finally pushed him back softly, still looking at him. Castiel tilted his head and he couldn't help but smiled. He took his guitar out of the case and started playing a few notes before singing and breaking the silence with his broken voice.
"Hallelujah" rose like a prayer, like a call from the heart, like a scream from the soul, like a hope.
Light exist for people who dare approaching.
When he stopped singing and put his guitar down, he was overwhelmed by emotion and he felt a tear running down his cheek, but one finger caught it. Dean turned his head and saw Castiel observing the tear drop on his fingertip. It ran along his finger and died on his skin. He met Dean's eyes and smiled, he gave him a huge smile that brightened his face, and just like that, he comforted Dean who seemed to be sad.
He actually thought about Sam and his life… he thought about the last months breaking all his defenses… and he thought about Castiel, right here smiling at him.
One day, he will laugh. One day, he will step out of this room. He would take him for a ride in the Impala, careful about his reactions, and he would see the curiosity on his face. They would stop and share the freedom together. There was still hard work to do but they would do it. They would fall again, the past would come back to haunt them again, but future was full of hope.
Dean left when Missouri entered with the dinner, and he realized suddenly he'd stepped away from the staff too, from all the people who'd became friends. Suzanne's presence in his life was no excuse. He just didn't want to talk about Castiel after that awful Monday and he knew it would've been impossible with Missouri, Garth or even Phil. They haven't said anything, they let time pass because they understood Dean's pain, but they never stopped worrying for him, they didn't want him to fall like Castiel.
Dean smiled at Missouri and stood up to get his guitar back in the case.
"Will you work tomorrow morning?" he asked her.
"Yes." She said putting the plate down on the table.
"Still taking your breakfast at the same hour?"
"Yes." She grinned.
"Ok… see you tomorrow, Missouri."
"See ya tomorrow, Dean. Good evening."
He turned around to look at Castiel who was looking outside.
"Cas? I'll see you on Saturday."
Castiel turned around and sank his blue eyes in Dean's green ones. Dean's heart skipped a beat, he'd missed him so much it was almost scary. He didn't feel that kind of attachment since Sam, and he realized if one day he had to make a choice, it would always be Castiel first.
On his way out of the room he gave a huge smile to Missouri who was waiting for Dean to go away so Castiel could eat.
"Bye!" She said smiling back at him.
He opened the door and didn't turn around, but he could feel Castiel's look on him.
"Bye, Cas."
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The day after, Dean met Suzanne and they spent the day together. They ended up in their favorite restaurant and ended the evening at her place, but he didn't stay the night. She would fall asleep alone tonight… and she knew it would happen again. Even after they had sex, Dean rarely spent the whole night with her. He was always leaving when she was sleeping, kissing her on the lips before going away. She never complained, he loved her in his own way, and she needed to give him time. It was Dean.
When he came back home that night, he opened the drawer and took the white book Leyla gave him. He opened it, still standing behind his chair, and he noticed it would be full after a few pages.
Was it a sign?
End of chapter XXI