Whoa. That wasn't supposed to happen.
Cas found himself broken from his listless stare by the scrape of fast approaching boots. The rattled angel looking up from his hunched crouch just as a warded and ready stretcher was laid across from him, along the line of his best friend's unmoving form.
Within moments, by the sure and quick efforts of Sam and Mary, Dean was in the stretcher and covered with a sheet painted in complimentary sigils. Then the party, laden with their injured member, was out the Room and well on their way to the chamber designated as 'medbay'. Cas simply doing his best to keep up with the Winchesters as they moved along at an eerily coordinated half run.
There, out in the light of the bunker's hallways, it was far too easy to see the frail condition of his friend. How pale he was from his extended time hidden away from any form of sunlight; the unnatural pallor accentuating the nascent bruises turning nearly one half of Dean's face a livid mess of greens and purples. The corresponding eye swelling visibly even as they hurried through the halls.
And though Cas knew there was nothing he could do for his friend until they reached their destination, the angel couldn't bring himself to look away.
No one spoke. Not a sound but that of hurried motion was made as the hunters bore their injured member through a large doorway and into their medical ward, where the mother and son led the way into an enclosure of privacy screens, dispensing their relation with the greatest of care onto the waiting bed within.
How the two had managed to erect such a thing —let alone mark its interior with every containment sigil known to Enochian kind— in such a short time, Castiel would never know.
Taking his place in the thoroughly warded space, the angel offered a nod to each hunter in turn, took a fortifying breath, and bent to his task. Laying divine hands upon the battered and broken body before him.
After a time, he was reminded of the others' presence by the scrape of a single shoe and the clearing of a large throat.
"Uh, so, how's it going, Cas? Are they-"
"Is Dean going to be alright?" Mary cut in, the thread of desperation just as obvious as it had been on her son's voice.
"It... it's slow work. Perhaps too slow," the angel said as he took a half step back and raked both hands through his hair and down his face. "I'm afraid that, for this to work, Michael and I both will require fewer restrictions against our divine powers. At least until I can get the internal bleeding under control."
"The what?!" The worried family demanded. In unison.
"As established earlier; Dean is not in a good way. And, it turns out, the two of you are very good at angel-proofing," Cas informed, the attempt at levity understandably going underappreciated by the practically vibrating pair.
"Um, if you would?"
At Castiel's gesture toward the medical tent's freshly painted walls, Sam and Mary lurched forward. Starting on the same foot and each going straight for the curtained dividers they'd so thoughtfully situated. Moving them back far enough that sections of the medical ward were visible between each freestanding privacy screen.
"Thank you," Cas said as he moved back to his battered friend's side, shoulders falling in relief as he was immediately able to make out the finer details of what was ailing Dean's insides.
"Now, if you could please pull down the sheet?" He asked with a nod at the angry red sigil emblazoned upon the white cover. Meant to keep Michael from moving himself via miracle, but impeding the flow of Castiel's grace as well.
Immediately, two Winchesters descended upon either side of the bed, quickly though gingerly pulling back the cover and exposing Dean's upper half, before stepping back to resume their previous posts.
Once again sparing a nod to each harried hunter, the angel tuned out his surroundings and tunneled every available effort through his hands and toward the healing of his grievously injured friend. Relieved when his grace flowed virtually uninterrupted.
Within minutes though, Cas cursed himself for a fool, for as he surveyed the progress of his divine intervention, he was reminded just how diminished his angelic powers had grown these last years.
Still, this was the absolute best —and perhaps only— chance that Dean and indeed Michael had. So, holding onto hope with gritted teeth, the angel soldiered on.
Another stretch of time passed and a clear of a large throat once again reminded Cas that there were others in the 'operating theater'.
"Uh, ignore this if it's distracting, Cas, but I- uh, I can't stop thinking about it: Who was behind the wheel when this happened?"
Cas glanced up to meet Sam's troubled gaze before answering.
"Michael," he said, trying not to let the strain of the situation show on his voice. "He couldn't have enacted such a strike from the recesses of Dean's consciousness. It would already have required his full concentration as it was."
After a moment of silence, Cas gave a relieved huff and moved his hands, having finally, successfully, cleaned up and repaired the hemorrhage of a severely traumatized liver.
Then, before moving on to the rupture of a length of small intestine, the heavenly healer diverted his attention, just for a moment, to investigate that other matter which before Sam's mentioning, hadn't crossed his mind.
"Huh," all that Cas could afford to say before turning his efforts quickly back to his healing endeavors. Engrossing himself with pushing both bile and the occasional partially digested food particulate back whence it had come. Lest his patient lapse into some dangerous and wholly preventable form of toxic shock.
"'Huh'?" Sam asked, prompting the angel to expand upon his one word assessment.
"It's strange," Cas started, face scrunched in concentration. "Because he was 'behind the wheel', it stands to reason that Michael would be the one to take the brunt of the blow... but this feels somehow more than that. Almost as if- but that would be ridiculous," he admonished, putting that last bit of his attention to coaxing the intestinal walls to mend just that last bit faster.
"What does that mean, Cas?" Sam demanded, body coiled tight in nervous concern.
"I can't be sure yet, but it feels like..." the angel paused as a glow lit up his eyes, the only outward evidence of his ever increasing angelic struggle. "If I'm not mistaken, Michael wasn't simply 'behind the wheel' at the time of his attack; he was swaddling Dean. Or, rather, Dean's soul."
"What? Like a baby?" Sam asked, face pure befuddlement.
"I think he means that Michael was protecting Dean. Using himself like some sort of blanket or spirit shield. Right, Castiel?" Mary translated, voice every inch the worried mess of her uninjured son's.
"Yes, and it's a good thing that he did, because a human soul is resilient, but this blast that Michael premeditated was... powerful," Castiel was reluctant to inform. Taking a moment to breathe as the intestinal breach sealed to his satisfaction.
"Wait, so Dean's soul is- is- It's okay, right, Cas? Or, it'll be okay, right?" The tallest in the room asked, face going worryingly pale as he gave his brother's unmoving form a desperate looking over.
"...His soul is one of the strongest I know," Cas started, hands moving to the other side of his patient's abdomen, breath sufficiently caught. "If anyone could come out of this 'okay', it would be Dean."
"That doesn't answer the question, Castiel," Mary pointed out, voice rough around the edges. "Is Dean's soul okay or not?"
The angel's eyes glowed with the enactment of another small miracle. After which, Dean's color improved to a noticeable degree. Some of the stark paleness being replaced by a hint of his natural, vivacious hue.
"As we all know: Dean is resilient. I have no doubt in my mind that he, and his soul, will be fine."
"...But?" Sam prompted with a less than patient nod.
"But even as protected as his soul was when Michael enacted his smiting," the angel paused once again as his hands hovered over his best friend's diaphragm, eyes glowing as he willed fuller breath into the recumbent hunter. Then, only once Dean blessedly began to draw air in a manner resembling his natural rhythm did Cas glance up at his audience.
"Dean's soul is, to put it in secular terms, bruised."
"That can happen?" Blurted Sam as he reached up and put a hand on his mother's shoulder. Which she reflexively covered with a hand of her own.
"It can. Though I've not seen it myself. Not in an age. And not within a human vessel- er, that is, I've never before seen a human soul contused in this way," the angel explained, ignoring the small drop of sweat that rolled down the side of his head as he pushed against the remaining wardings in a bid for more divine leeway. Feeling more sweat bead at his hairline when the recalcitrant things pushed right on back.
"An angel's soul then?" Sam asked.
"An angel, being a being of light, technically doesn't have a soul. Though, in their true form, an angel and a human soul do bear some similarities," the healer clarified.
"So, an angel then?" Mary asked, echoing her son as she watched Castiel work.
"Yes."
"...And?" Sam prompted.
"...And they recovered. For the most part."
"Oh my God," Mary let out as she turned from the scene and walked to dump herself in a visitor's chair.
"So, you don't actually have much to go on here, do you, Cas? Just faith and- and a hunch?"
"That is correct, Sam. I have faith in Dean and a hunch that the most stubborn, tenacious soul any of us know is going to put in more effort than anyone rightly should to come back from this. To come back to us."
"Wait, he's gone?" Mary demanded, straightening in her chair.
"Until he's recovered, his soul will be... basically in a regenerative, catatonic state," Cas informed, moving to bring Dean's head into easy reach. Knowing he would need to see to the intracranial trauma as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
"Dean's soul is in a coma?" The woman asked, eyes going wide as one hand gripped the arm of her chair.
"In a word? Yes."
"Oh, God," The Winchesters swore over each other, both losing some color as they did. Sam badly enough that his mother insisted he take a seat in the remaining visitor's chair. The old piece of furniture creaking miserably as he did.
The next half of an hour passed in a heavy, almost palpable silence, neither hunter willing to speak nor leave to speak, lest they break the angel's tireless concentration.
"Alright," announced a thoroughly wrung out Cas as he at long last straightened from the stoop he hadn't realized he'd contorted himself into, "the bleeding is staunched and the worst of the trauma has been diminished considerably. I expect Michael will wake naturally before any of us have processed... any of this."
Then the exhausted angel looked around at the harried hunters collapsed in differing states of disarray and asked the only pertinent question at his disposal.
"Who wants first watch?"
Phew, it sure is a good thing Castiel knows what he's doing! Maybe, back in his garrison days, he was a bit of a medic as well as an elite soldier? Angels probably don't have to swear the Hippocratic oath after all!