Twenty
It was two weeks into Castiel's hospital stay. He had fallen into a coma the same night that he had absorbed Sam's insanity into himself. Brooke, meanwhile, had utilized skills she hadn't needed to use in a long time, stealing wallets and a car. She drove the car one state away, stole another car, and left the first one where it was. She changed the plates on the second car, and drove back down to where Castiel was. She lived in the car, slept in the car, ate crap food, and waited.
Sometimes, rarely, she would come into the room to see him. Meg was there, too. She'd somehow gotten a job as a staff member of the hospital; she spent her time watching over Castiel as he lay in the bed, unmoving. Meg kept the other staff members away so that they would not begin to wonder why the man in the room did not need an IV drip, did not need to be cleaned up or checked on. Meg was a Godsend, although Brooke knew she needed to come up with a better term.
Even being near Castiel when he was comatose was hell on her body. She could feel it just entering the building, that pulling, scratching, roiling sensation as the Grace inside her reacted to the closeness of the Grace inside him. The closer she got to his room, the harder it was to keep going; the closer she got, the farther away she wanted to be. Whatever was going on inside the angel's head as he lay so still and quiet on his bed… well… looks could be deceiving.
Being away from him was not much better, however. At night, she'd lay in the back seat of the car, close her eyes, and try to sleep. She succeeded about half the time, and when she did succeed, her reward was nightmares. Never-ending nightmares. They would disappear into strange, unidentifiable shapes and bad feelings in the morning, so she was never sure what they were about or why she was having them. She could only assume that, due to the tie of Castiel's Grace, even severed from his mind, she was never truly cut off from him. Sleep was the one time her mind was open enough to receive and understand whatever was happening to him in his coma. Asleep, she shared his horrors, but once she was awake, the severed connection kept the bad juju away.
It was either that, or… She was simply having normal nightmares, like every other Hunter on the planet. Nightmares of past Hunts, close shaves, nightmares about the things that go bump in the night. Courage, after all, was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. Hunters were afraid every time they went after a monster, but they did it, anyways. The nightmares were their reward.
###
Two and a half weeks into Castiel's hospital stay, Brooke attempted to thank Meg for watching over the angel while she could not. She came into the room in which he slept and stood at the foot of his bed, fighting the Grace in her blood and bones, trying to keep control of herself. Meg sat, reading a magazine, and ignored her.
"Hey," Brooke said, eventually, but did not look at Meg.
Meg said nothing.
"Listen, I just wanted to thank you," Brooke continued, not to be deterred by the demon's silent treatment. "You don't have to be here, but you stayed, so—
"Shut up," Meg said, but there was no real malice in her voice.
Brooke finally dared to glance at Meg out of the corner of her eye, forcing herself to focus on the human shell and not the true face underneath. Meg was smirking at her, which was about the closest thing to a smile that she would probably ever attempt. Her gaze was at once challenging and accepting.
And Brooke understood. She smiled, looking down at her feet, and nodded.
###
Three weeks in, she got a call from Dean telling her not to eat any fast food, since none of them were exactly sure which chains were safe from Dick Roman, the Leviathan in charge of all the others.
"What the hell am I supposed to eat, then?" she demanded. "It's not like I have a kitchen in my car to cook food in!"
"Figure it out," Dean snapped at her.
Brooke figured he was about to hang up, but he didn't. She could hear him breathing. "What?" she asked, her voice less hostile.
"Bobby's a ghost," Dean said.
"What?"
"He… he stayed behind. He ran from his Reaper and stayed behind, and became a ghost."
Brooke closed her eyes, already feeling tears welling up in the corners.
Dean explained how they had discovered that Bobby was still among them, the case with Annie and the haunted house, Bobby's flask, which Dean had kept. Brooke listened silently, trying not to cry.
When Dean was done, she said, "Tell him… Tell him I said…" She could not get the words out.
"I will," Dean replied, knowing full well what she had been trying to say. "He says he misses you."
"Yeah," she whispered.
Dean hung up.
###
A month into Castiel's hospital stay, he awoke from his coma. Brooke, who had taken to going to bed earlier and earlier in an attempt to get any kind of sleep, was drifting off when it happened. It was late enough to be dark but early enough for her not to be tired yet. Still, in the darkness of the back seat, cocooned in a blanket she had bought at the beginning of all this, she could feel herself slowly drifting into dream land. Please let them be good dreams, she thought—
She sat up, suddenly, knowing, somehow, that Castiel had woken up. She sat in the back seat of the car, eyes flitting here and there, looking at nothing. She reached inward, sensing the Grace in her body; that had been what had told her, for the Grace inside her was still Castiel's, even if it resided in her body. And something had shifted.
Without thinking, she untangled herself from the blanket, got out of the car, and tore through the night towards the hospital, sprinting the whole way. She took the stairs up to Castiel's floor because running would be faster than the elevator. She bolted down the hallway and slammed the door open, then fell halfway over, her hands on her knees, sucking air into her lungs. Finally, she looked up, searching for Castiel. She found him, standing beside the window, looking out.
"Cass," she said, her voice breaking from all the cold air she had just sucked into her lungs.
He turned and smiled at her. "Hello," he said.
She stared at him. She had been with him for years, and even if she wasn't in his mind right then, she had spent a long time studying his face, his expressions, his body language. Something was very wrong.
"Cass," she repeated, and took a step towards him—
He flinched—he physically flinched, and leaned back, away from her, even though she was still all the way across the room, standing by the door.
She stopped, her hand hovering in the air, reaching toward him. She took a breath, confused, and a little hurt, and lowered her arm. "Cass," she repeated for the third time, and her voice came out as a whisper.
Vaguely, she was aware of Meg standing in the room, by the bed, but she paid the demon no mind. Whatever was going was between herself and Castiel.
"Please," the angel said, and his voice, too, came out as a whisper. "Please, I don't… I can't… I—
He seemed to break, to crumple, his face falling, finally dropping that over-wide smile.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Please stop calling me… Cass… I don't want to be… I can't…" He looked up at her, his mouth slightly open, as if he wanted to say something more. He began to cry. Truly cry—real tears.
Brooke stared at him in shock. He had never cried before, ever, in her presence, and not in anyone else's presence either. He was an angel. Angels didn't feel their emotions as deeply as humans did. He had come close, many times, but had never quite crossed the threshold, always able to hold himself back in the end—to get a grip on himself.
But there he was, standing before her, rocking on his feet, crying.
Automatically, she began to approach him again, wanting nothing more than to hold him, to comfort him.
"NO!" he yelled, his voice much more powerful in that moment than it had been for the past few minutes.
She stopped immediately, flinching.
"You don't understand," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "I'm still… I-I'm not… my mind isn't…" A fresh wave of tears overtook him. He covered his mouth with his hand and turned toward the window again, his shoulders hunched.
Brooke nodded, finally understanding why he was so afraid to have her touch him. Whatever insanity he had absorbed from Sam was still wreaking havoc in his mind, and he did not want her to go insane from touching him, from breaking the mental barrier between them.
She stood still, watching him as sobs wracked his shoulders, watching as he seemed to shrink into himself. He placed his forehead against the window, and she had a sudden image of their foreheads pressed together, something they did often to comfort one another. Her eyes flitted around the room as she tried to think of something—anything—to do. Never before had she felt so helpless before him. Even when they had been in pain, before now, they had always had physical touch to comfort each other. Now, there was not even that to fall back on. She realized, then, how important touch was to their relationship. She hugged herself as she racked her brain. Briefly, she caught sight of Meg, still standing in the room; their eyes met. Meg raised her eyebrows at Brooke, as if to say, Well?
Brooke took a few deep breaths to calm herself, and thought harder. Castiel had just told her that he did not even want to be called Cass anymore. He did not like his own name. She didn't know exactly why he wouldn't want to be called by his own name, and wondered exactly what the Hell insanity was doing to his mind for that to occur. But… if he didn't want to be called Castiel…
Her eyes stilled on his form as an idea came to her. "Emmanuel," she said, her voice quiet, but loud enough for him to hear.
He was still crying, but he seemed to react a little to the name, as if he had been about to turn around, but had thought better of it.
"Emmanuel," she said, a little louder. "Would you like it if I called you Emmanuel?"
He finally turned to look at her again. His face was red from crying. He stared at her, but did not acknowledge her question in any visible way. Still, turning to face her again was something.
Brooke took a deep breath and very slowly, one step at a time, began to approach him again. He backed against the window, but she kept coming, accepting to herself that she might be about to go insane if she touched him. "Emmanuel," she said again.
He seemed entranced by her as she came toward him, his eyes widening. "Ruth," he said, his voice hoarse, cracking on her name, the name that she had been known by for the past six months.
She smiled at him, now within touching distance. "You can call me that if you like, Emmanuel." She repeated the name again, wanting to bring him to a sense of safety. Their lives as Emmanuel and Ruth had been safe, cocooned, happy.
Slowly, her fingers trembling, she reached up and touched his cheek.
He inhaled sharply, almost pulling away from her, but then he sank into her touch, rubbing his cheek against her hand like a cat, his eyes closed.
And she finally understood. It wasn't the insanity from Sam's Hell wall breaking down that had gotten him so upset. It was the guilt of all that he had done before he had woken up and pulled himself out of the reservoir with no memory. It was lying to Sam and Dean, to Bobby, to her; it was making plans with the demon Crowley; it was the way he acted to his friends, so short-tempered, impatient, angry; it was all the people he had killed while the Leviathans had been inside his body; it was releasing that threat into the world, and then going on his merry way, living a good life with Brooke for the next six months, not knowing what he had done. He had not deserved that happiness, for he had caused so much destruction, and despair.
He was ashamed. He hated himself.
He was broken, and he was on the verge of entirely Hell-free mental breakdown. She could feel his mind slowly fracturing, even as he tried to hold himself together.
"I don't want to fight anymore," he whispered, bringing his forehead down to hers, closing his eyes, tears still running down his face.
"Okay," she said, quietly.
"I can't. Every time I do, I… I destroy… everything."
Brooke did not believe that, but this was not a time to argue with him about how he felt about himself. Feelings were subjective, and no amount of fact was going to make him see himself in a better light.
"Okay," she said again. "All right."
"Please," he begged.
"Hey," she whispered, pulling back from him enough to cup his face in her hands. "I won't make you do anything. I won't make you fight anymore. I won't make you be Castiel, if you don't want to be. We can… we can go away somewhere, if you want."
Something like joy tingled between them for just a moment, and then he fell, again, into despair. "Sam and Dean will want to know I'm awake," he said. "I won't run from them."
Brooke sighed. "They'll want you to fight, if you're able."
"Then I'll tell them I won't," he replied, and his voice seemed much harder, more stable, more determined. He wiped at his eyes, the last of the tears seeming to dry up.
Brooke stood with him, casting her mind out to the future, wondering what it held for them both. Wondering if he truly would never fight again. What would they do with their lives if that was true?
Castiel—Emmanuel—plastered a smile back onto his face, even as his mind continued to fracture, and placed a hand on her cheek. "We'll do… whatever we want to."
She looked into his eyes, red from crying. "What do you want to do?" she asked.
He gazed down at her, then looked around the room, his mind buzzing with ideas. On the surface, he seemed much more sure of himself than he had when she'd first come in. But she could read his mind, feel his emotions, hear his thoughts, and still, his mind was slowly coming apart under the strain of all that guilt, all that pain, weighing on him. But he pushed it down, and pushed it down, and began to think of happier things. Of beautiful places in nature he would like to go. He thought of those nature hikes that he and Brooke and Daphne had taken on Saturdays. He thought of a long-ago conversation in the car that Brooke had started with him, asking him what he would want to do if he didn't have to be a soldier anymore. He had told her might like to work in nature, maybe be a gardener.
And all the while, small parts of his mind kept drifting back to all the pain he was feeling, to all the pain he had caused. Occasionally, the smile would falter on his lips, and then he would bring it back, forcefully.
Brooke stayed with him, in his arms, and tried, for his sake, to push down all the worry she felt for him. She had been with him this long, and she was not about to go anywhere now. If he wanted to go off and live in some forest somewhere, surrounded by trees and butterflies and… bees? he kept thinking of bees… then that was fine with her.
In her body, she could feel the ever-present hum of Grace, in tune with the rest of the Grace in his own body. It hummed in tandem with his, and that was really how she could tell that something was wrong, still. His Grace, acting almost like a heartbeat, would skitter and jump as he tried to stay positive, but failed, and thought of all the horrible things that he had done.
Brooke breathed, and held her angel in her arms, closing her eyes and burying her face against his chest. Slowly, very slowly, the sudden jumps in his Grace, the sudden high-pitched shrieks—like pressing down too hard on a violin—began to dissipate, but she could not make them go away entirely. This was something that he would have to deal with, partly, on his own. He would have to come to terms with himself.