Five

Jack's main symptoms were a fever and coughing up blood. He was also having problems remaining conscious. They'd gotten him into his bed, and there he lay, sleeping, or unconscious. Occasionally, he would cough, and every time he did, he'd cover the front of his shirt in drops of blood. Brooke eventually got him to lay halfway sitting up in the bed to prevent him from choking on his blood, and she lay a rag across his chest to catch the droplets.

They tried every human remedy they could to reduce his fever. Tylenol, a wet wash cloth for his head, then ones for his wrists. They tried to get him to drink water, but the longer the coughing went on, the more it tore up his throat and made swallowing painful. And, eventually, he was hardly able to stay awake long enough to sip at his water, anyways.

Brooke was losing her mind.

"What's taking so long?" Dean asked.

She jumped and looked up. She was standing in the hallway with Sam and Dean as Castiel attempted to heal Jack with angel magic.

"I don't know," Sam answered his brother. "Whatever's going on with Jack is probably complicated."

Brooke knew that Castiel's magic would not work. Somehow, she knew. But that would not stop him from trying, and for that she was grateful.

"Yeah, but, I mean, weird stuff happens to kids all the time," Dean said, pacing the hallway and slapping his fist into his palm. "They get coughs, bloody noses."

Inside Jack's room, Castiel stood up. His magic had not worked. He left the boy's room with a heavy sigh.

"Is he okay?" Dean asked, before Brooke could speak.

Castiel spread his arms, helplessly. "I-I did what I could, but I don't…" He took a breath, gritting his teeth, fighting his own rising panic. "I—I don't know what's wrong with him."

Brooke stepped closer to her husband, fighting down tears, fighting the urge to curl up and hyperventilate. Automatically, and too roughly, he reached for her, pulling her against him, squeezing her so tightly that she could hardly breathe. Because he needed her, too. Because he was terrified, too. Because Jack was their son, and he was laying in that bed, coughing up blood.

"But you can figure it out, right?" Dean asked, stupidly.

A loud sound came from Jack's room.

As one, the four of them turned and hurried to the boy's doorway.

"Jack?" Sam called, reaching the room first.

It was seemingly empty.

"Jack?" Sam repeated.

Then Brooke heard the horrible, gasping, wheezing sound coming from the floor on the far side of the bed.

"Jack!" Brooke cried and shoved Sam out of the way to reach her son. He was curled up on the floor, on his side, trying desperately to breathe. Brooke grasped one of his arms and pulled him up into her lap to look at his face. She recoiled slightly at the sight of thick foam bubbling up from his mouth, as if he'd gone rabid—

Castiel lay on the couch in the barn, that horrible night, the poison seeping from his mouth in a black curtain that ran down his chin. He was choking on it as it flooded his system, gagging and wheezing—

"Get him up!" Dean yelled, breaking her out of that terrible memory.

Brooke scrambled to her feet, feeling strangely numb, and passed her boy off to Sam and Dean, who half-carried, half-dragged him out of his room, and up the stairs that led out of the bunker. They got him into the Impala, Castiel and Brooke a step behind them the whole way.

Brooke scrambled into the back of the car, sitting on one side of the boy as Castiel got in on the other side. Sitting between them, Jack was still wheezing horribly, more foamy spittle falling from his mouth. With every turn the Impala made, he would slide to one side or the other, and Castiel and Brooke held onto him, to keep him upright. They could not lay him down or risk choking him.

…

"I need a doctor!" Dean yelled, loudly, as he slammed his way into the ER.

Brooke seemed to come awake, then, as if she'd been dreaming up 'til that point. She held Jack by one arm and Castiel held his other. Jack was partially conscious now, but seemed dazed. He had stopped oozing foam from his mouth, finally, but at this point, that was not very reassuring.

Brooke stood still as a statue, her grip on the boy's arm quite tight, as the three men argued with the woman at the front desk.

"Family medical history," the woman said. "Let's start with the father."

"He's dead," Dean said.

"Cause of death?"

"He was stabbed through the heart and he exploded," Castiel replied.

At any other point in time, Brooke would have had a hard time stopping herself from laughing. Right now, she was still so numb that she was beginning to wonder if she had gone into shock.

The next thing she was aware of was that Jack's arm had been torn out of her grip as he fell over, unconscious again.

…

They were rushing down the hallway, now, with Jack in a hospital bed.

"It's all right, Jack," Sam said. "Hang in there, buddy."

"Jack, hey, we're right here, buddy," Dean said.

"He's in good hands," one of the nurses said. "Don't worry."

Brooke could not find any words. She stumbled as she went along.

They got the bed into a room to begin doing tests on the boy, and Brooke and the other three were shoved out, even as Sam continued to babble about Jack's symptoms.

The door was shut. They were left in the waiting room. Alone.

To wait.

For a long time, they stood at the glass door and stared in as the doctors cut away Jack's shirt and put an oxygen mask on him. Put nodes on his forehead to do a brain scan. Put in an IV. They watched. And waited. But still the tests continued. And no one would tell them anything.

Eventually, they sat down.

Brooke sat in her chair next to Castiel, her hands in her lap. She stared straight ahead, still so numb. And then she began to spin her wedding ring around and around on her finger, something she hadn't done in a long time.

And then, all at once, she seemed to crumple.

Castiel, his mind ever-focused on Jack, still caught her right before she fell apart. Even with so much on his mind, he was attuned to his wife. He pulled her close to him as she sobbed, hard, into his chest, and blubbered, and possibly drooled a little. Everything had happened so fast. He'd been fine… and now he was here. What were doctors gonna do for him? Even without his powers, he was still a Nephilim… What were they going to discover was wrong with him if he was so different so as not to have fingerprints? What would the brain scans do except to tell the doctors to call the government because they'd discovered an alien in their hospital?

Brooke slid down Castiel's body until she lay curled into a ball on the long, wide hospital chair, with her head resting on one of her husband's legs. She covered her face with her hands, pressing against his stomach to shield herself from the world, and continued to sob.

My boy, she kept thinking. My boy… And then, Our boy.

And Castiel, God help him, could think of nothing to say or do to comfort her, because all he could think was, Our son… Our son… Oh, God, I promised Kelly… Castiel did not cry, but the hand that rested atop Brooke's head trembled.

###

Some time past the first hour stuck in the waiting room, Sam got up out of his chair and pulled Dean aside, speaking in murmurs. Brooke was still curled up in the same position she'd fallen into an hour before, though she'd run out of tears to cry a long time ago. Her eyes were swollen and dried out and she had a pounding headache. Castiel was so distracted by his own worry that he had not thought to heal the pain in her head. His hand still rested in her hair, fiddling with strands every now and then, but other than that, he'd gone deathly still. Angelic, like a statue. He'd stopped breathing, even—an optional body function for an angel, which he normally did to make himself blend in more.

"Brooke, uh, hey…"

Brooke opened her swollen eyes, slightly lifting her head, which set the world spinning. She groaned, sitting up and holding her head in her hands. It was Sam who had spoken to her. "Sam," she rasped, her voice thick with phlegm from so much crying.

"Why don't we, uh, go get some coffee or somethin', huh?"

She lowered her hands from her head, squinting up at him. "What?"

"Just come on," he said, and gently pulled her to her feet.

Brooke turned and looked down at her husband.

"Hey, Cass," Dean said, just then. "Why don't we talk for a while, okay? Until Sammy and Brooke get back."

Castiel blinked, inhaled, as if he were an android booting up. He looked up at Brooke first. "I could go with you."

She opened her mouth.

"No, it's okay," Sam said, quickly. "You stay here with Dean. We're just gonna get some coffee. We'll be back. We'll bring you some, okay?"

Brooke blinked owlishly up at Sam and allowed herself to be led away from Dean and her husband. She'd be more bothered about it if it were not for her mental connection to the angel. She trailed behind the younger Winchester for a while as he made his way towards the front of the hospital. Eventually, he stopped in front of a coffee kiosk that Brooke had not even noticed on their way in. Of course, she hadn't noticed anything on their way in.

She jumped slightly as Sam put the coffee cup into her hand.

"Here," he said.

"You ordered already?" she asked, dumbly.

"Man, you're really out of it, aren't you?" Sam said.

She stared down at her coffee without drinking any.

"I got Cass and Dean some, too," Sam said, and handed her another cup to hold.

"Cass doesn't drink coffee," Brooke murmured.

"Yeah, he does," Sam replied. "He's had coffee plenty of times. I thought he liked it."

"Oh," said Brooke. "Yeah, you're right." She shook her head, trying to clear it. "Sorry."

There was an awkward silence.

"Listen," Sam began, "Jack'll be fine."

Brooke took a deep breath. "Why'd you bring me to get coffee, Sam?"

He cleared his throat. "You and Cass tend to… enable each other to flip out. No offense. So, I, uh, thought it would help for you guys to be separated for a while. So you can't, I dunno, feed off of each other's emotions, or whatever."

"But he's still in my head," Brooke argued.

"Yeah, well, that's why I had Dean distract him."

She studied the younger Winchester for a moment, and then gave him a tired smile. "Thanks." Finally, she took a sip of her coffee.

There was another awkward pause. Sam cleared his throat again.

"Hey," Brooke said, slowly, thinking back. "I know it's way too late, but… I just realized I never thanked you guys for… for being there for me when I was, you know, dying. After Cass died." She thought of all those days she'd woken up to find Jack sitting by her bed, with one or both of the Winchesters standing nearby.

Sam smiled. "You're welcome, but, it's no big deal. You woulda done the same thing for us."

Brooke squinted. "You? Yeah. Dean? Ehhh." But there was a joking tone in her voice.

Sam chuckled. "Well, you'd do this for Dean… for Cass, right?"

Brooke stared up at Sam with wide eyes. Was he implying what she thought he was—that he knew about Castiel's feelings for Dean?

He smiled a little, as if reading her thoughts, and glanced down at his coffee cup. "You think you're the only one who knows about that?"

Brooke continued to stare at him. "You see a lot more than people give you credit for," she muttered.

"I pay attention."

Brooke smirked a little, and then her face fell. "Oh, my God. You didn't tell Dean, did you?"

He scoffed, laughing. "I'm not an idiot. Besides, that's not… really my secret to tell, is it?"

Brooke sighed in relief. "Thanks," she said. "I… Cass appreciates that, I'm sure." She thought back to her conversation with her husband a few months ago, about the fact that he had realized that he was in love with a version of Dean that no longer existed, and that he wasn't going to pine anymore. He'd kept his promise to her, though she knew there would always be a small ember or two glowing for Dean in his heart. And she was all right with that.

"We should bring the coffee back," Sam said, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"Right," she said, and followed him back through the hospital to the waiting room where they'd left Castiel and Dean.

When they got there, Castiel seemed calmer, and took his coffee cup from Brooke's hand. He then turned, slightly, and caught Sam's eye, nodding just once, such a small movement that Dean did not notice.

Sam nodded in return, and that was it.

###

"This crazy," Dean said, some time later. Jack had been moved to a different part of the hospital, for the doctors to conduct more tests. "When Jack became human, I was worried, you know, given what we do, that—that something would happen to him, but I thought it would be a vampire or a ghoul, not a freakin' cough." He shook his head, turning away from the window where they all stood to watch Jack. "He's just a kid."

Brooke stood in Castiel's arms as they stared in at Jack. The two of them were outwardly calmer, now. No more tears. But inside, they were still just as worried as they'd ever been.

"Hey," Sam said. "Cass, Brooke."

They looked up and saw the doctor coming toward them. Brooke's heart skipped a beat.

"Doctor," Sam said.

The woman came and stood before them, holding a clipboard full of paper in her hands.

"So, uh… what do we know?" Sam asked her.

"Well, I can tell you what we don't know," she replied.

"I don't like the sound of that," Dean muttered.

"Jack's test results all came back negative."

"That's great, right?" Sam asked.

"Well, Jack—he's very ill," the doctor said. "We're just not sure what we're up against."

"You just said his tests came back negative," Dean said, confused.

"Well, those tests. But we have to run more tests."

"More tests?" Sam repeated.

"Yes, until we can figure out what's happening to him."

"What is happening to him right now?" Dean demanded.

The doctor looked uncomfortable, glancing at the floor. "Jack…" She turned her head and looked in on him, and then sighed. "Jack's in total systemic failure. His body's in the process of shutting down."

Brooke was at once horrified and enlightened. "Like what happened to me," she murmured.

"What?" the doctor asked.

She ignored her and turned to Cass, then to Sam and Dean. "You think it could be… like what happened to me? When… you know." Cass died. She raised her eyebrows. Without her husband, the Grace in her body—his Grace—had begun to die, and in turn, it had begun to kill her organs, her body. Maybe, without his own Grace, Jack's body was unable to properly function. Nothing like that had happened to Castiel when he'd been Graceless, but Castiel wasn't a Nephilim. Maybe Nephilims were different…

###

It became clear that these human doctors were not going to be able to heal Jack, and the longer he stayed here, in the hospital, the less chance they'd have of finding a way to heal him themselves. So, in they went to his room and got him up out of the bed. Brooke carefully removed the nodes from his forehead while Castiel gently pulled the IV from his arm. Thankfully, he was conscious, or moving him might have been a bigger challenge, although Brooke was sure that Castiel could have simply carried him down the halls.

The doctor came in just as Castiel was sliding his trench coat over Jack's shoulders. Brooke, despite the fear she felt for her son, stood back, smiling just a little, and taking in the scene. She remembered all the times that Castiel had given her his coat, or she'd simply taken it when he wasn't wearing it. To see him giving it to their son… it warmed her heart.

"What's going on?" the doctor demanded.

"What's it look like?" Dean asked. "Can't expect him to hit the streets with nothing on but a hospital gown, his ass hangin' out."

"He's not going anywhere," the doctor said, shaking her head.

"We're just—getting a second opinion," Sam tried, with a smile.

"Jack?" the doctor asked, looking at him.

Brooke knelt down, taking the boy's shoes from Sam's hands and placing them in front of his feet. She held them still as he stepped into them, leaning heavily against Castiel for support, who had both arms wrapped around him.

"We're getting a second opinion," Jack repeated, his voice thick with pain.

The doctor sighed. "If he leaves the hospital, we are no longer responsible for him. You and he have to acknowledge that you're leaving against medical advice."

"Fine," Castiel said, as he helped Jack out of the room, Brooke holding his other arm.

"We're leaving," Jack added, as he stumbled out the door.

###

It was Sam's idea to get Rowena's help. Of course, he had to lie to her to get her to show up at the bunker. She hadn't exactly met Jack yet, and they were all fairly certain that she would not willingly help the son of Lucifer. And they were right. When she arrived and Sam admitted that it was not Dean who was sick, the witch wasn't happy. She nearly left. Until Jack spoke to her himself, admitting that yes, Lucifer was his father, but he was trying hard, every day, not to be like him.

With Rowena's heartstrings thoroughly tugged, she reluctantly agreed to examine the boy using magic, to try and determine what was wrong with him.

Brooke, Castiel, Sam, and Dean all stood in the hallway with bated breath. Dean had begun to pace. The entire examination took perhaps five minutes, but it was the longest five minutes of Brooke's life.

When Rowena finally emerged from Jack's room, Dean turned. "And?" he asked.

"It's as I suspected," she began. "A Nephilim, for all its power, is an unnatural presence. Part human, part angel… It—It doesn't quite fit. It's delicate. Its Grace is what holds it in balance, and when Jack's Grace was taken from him, his being fell into chaos. The—The cells are gobbling each other up."

Brooke put her face in her hands.

"Well, if it's Grace he needs, he can have mine," Castiel said.

"He can take what's in me, too," Brooke murmured into her hands.

But Rowena only smiled a sad smile. "No, dears, it won't do. Jack is part Archangel. He needs a much stronger force and probably some kind of magic, and he needs it quick."

"How quick?" Sam asked.

"I don't… I don't exactly know, but he's enterin' a critical phase." Rowena sighed, frustrated. "Sometimes, he'll look just fine, but then his body will give way, and… it'll be the end of him."

It'll be the end of him…

The end of him…

The end of her son.

Her son was going to die.

Brooke's vision flickered strangely, and she swayed on her feet. Castiel caught her before she blacked out.