Chapter 4 - The World I've Known
Castiel was back in the United States now, trying to help however and wherever he could. He felt torn these days between the desire to protect what was left of their family and friends and keep them together, and his greater sense of responsibility to every human on the planet. There were fewer and fewer of those every day, but he still had to do what he could. Cas felt each and every death acutely, as if it were his own. Because, in a very real way, it was. Every day, he died a little more in soul, and in spirit. But he would live on and on, of course, until he was nothing but a hollow shell, just going through the motions. The process was already happening.
When God had triggered the true End of Times, He had already brought Cas and Gail back to the forest floor at Kilimanjaro. Back to the reality they had been living in before they'd obtained the Book of Life. So Sam and Dean were at the bunker, and Nicole had been in Canada. Chuck, Jody, Tommy, Emma, Liz, and Eric were all dead again. Lucifer was gone, but the spiral of destruction he had started in the other reality had somehow bled over to this world. Since there was no Raphael here, because Castiel had killed him years ago, there had never been an Angel army, attempting to annex Earth. But Bobby had been cast down to Earth from the High Office, which was currently sitting empty. That meant little to the Angels, however. None of them had any appetite for war, or politics. Therefore, Demons had free rein on the planet. They had been raining down destruction for the past year, just because they could. Some humans had taken it upon themselves to band together and fight the Demons, and they'd had a fair amount of success. But now, there were groups of humans fighting other humans, because violence was an unfortunate aspect of human nature, and because violence often begets violence. Then there were the religious types, and they broke into separate factions, as well. There were the true believers, who thought that if they increased their prayers and church attendance, God would deliver them from Evil. Then there were the zealots, who told those people they were wasting their time. So were the humans who had picked up arms. This was the Armageddon that had been promised in Revelation. Soon would come the Final Judgement, and then the Rapture. The Righteous would ascend, while the others...not so much. But they had been warned, hadn't they? You reap what you sow, and this had been a long time coming.
Cas stood on top of Lebanon's former Lookout Point, staring down at the remnants of the city. Dean had said he used to come here with Sam, sometimes. They would crack open a beer from the little green cooler and sit on Baby's hood, looking at the twinkling lights down below. They would seldom talk, enjoying the quiet serenity instead. Their lives had been messy and noisy enough, and things were even worse nowadays, of course.
Then Dean had elbowed Cas and told his best friend that sometimes he would bring a woman up there instead, and then, things hadn't been so quiet. But he'd regretted the lame attempt at humour immediately, because Cas had rushed out of the room in tears, and he hadn't come back for days.
Gail was gone. Just...gone. Was she alive, dead, or simply missing? No one knew. God had touched her with His finger that day on the jungle floor when she had asked Him to spare Sam, and then she had simply disappeared. Then so had the Father, after He had quoted the passage that Kevin and Emma had translated from the ancient Texts. Cas had racked his brain, wondering if there had been a message in there somewhere, something that the Father had been trying to tell him that he had missed. Well, besides the fact that He had decided to bring about the end of the world, that was. Besides that.
As Cas looked down at the rubble of the downtown buildings, his heart clenched. Up here, there was a gentle breeze, and the trill of birds. Down there were still-smoking ruins, blood, death, and destruction. Cas had been popping around to all of the surrounding cities, digging through the rubble, looking for any survivors. Occasionally, he would find one that he could heal by himself, but most of the time, they were either too far gone, or already dead. Still, he kept on going.
But Cas had been too devastated to search for survivors close to home, ever since he and the men had come across Hester's body. Her little house had been in ruins, and her corpse had been stabbed repeatedly, and desecrated. They had all looked at each other grimly, and then Bobby had lifted the poor woman gently into his arms, telling the boys that he would take Hester to the local cemetery and give her a proper burial. Ethan had volunteered to go with him, and then the rest of them had moved slowly back to the vehicles they had borrowed from the local dealership to continue on with their sad work.
Cas had disappeared from the scene without a word, and they had all sighed. Everyone knew how heartbroken he was. Cas blamed himself for everything. All of it. No one knew exactly what had happened between him and Gail and God at Kilimanjaro that day. Gabriel had tried to find out, but Cas had shut him down. Totally and completely. Nobody had been able to find out anything about Gail, not even Frank. He had confronted Cas as soon as he'd found out that his brother-in-law had come back from Africa without her. Cas had told Frank that he didn't want to talk about it, and Gail's brother had looked at him incredulously, waiting for the punchline. Cas had remained mute, so Frank had looked at Sam and Dean. The brothers were shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. They knew nothing about anything, they'd told Frank. One minute all four of them had been standing on the forest floor at the base of the mountain, and the next, they'd been back at the bunker with Cas, but...no Gail. God had wiped the rest from their minds.
Frank had been astonished. What? God?! Now, he had about a million more questions! But Cas had said miserably that he had no answers for Frank. None. Then Frank had grabbed Cas by the front of his shirt and shouted that he'd better come up with some, right now, or else. But then Cas had simply popped out from his grasp, leaving an outraged Frank behind.
Sam. That was the one thing that Cas couldn't get over. Sam Winchester was back at the bunker with them, alive and well, with nary a scratch on him. Gail had asked their Father for Sam's life, and apparently, her wish had been granted. So, where was Gail, then? What had God done with her? What had God done TO her? Had He decided to trade her life for Sam's? That was why Cas hadn't been able to answer anyone's questions, and why he hadn't been able to remain in Lebanon. It was bad enough having to watch the entire world crumble without having to see his family suffer, as well. Besides, Cas knew it wasn't exactly a contest, but he felt as if none of them were suffering as badly as he was, right now. He had cried, prayed, begged and pleaded for God to give him some sort of a sign, anything, to tell him whether Gail still existed somewhere, in some form. She had technically been a human when she had vanished, had she not? So, had God simply taken her somewhere else, until such time as He decided to show mercy?
So Cas had performed his atonements at various points all over the globe, showing kindness and compassion to the humans who needed his help, and dispatching the ones he came across who were causing harm to others. There were Demons, too, but they usually vanished the instant they saw Cas coming. None of them wanted to be on the receiving end of his blade.
But Cas still held out a sliver of hope. This was the harshest God had ever been with him by far, but once he had done his penance, God had always relented before. Cas had already lost Gail in the past, a number of times, but he had always been reunited with her. Even if the reunion had taken hundreds of years to occur. This was the most painful loss of them all, though. Half of their family was already dead, and the other half were in constant peril, every moment of every day. Cas wanted to be with them to share the pain of all of their losses, but if he couldn't tell them if they would ever see Gail again in their lifetimes, what good was he to them?
Everywhere Cas went, he saw her face. He would close his eyes, and hear her voice. His hand felt wrong without hers in it. The pain was so intense, so acute that he had to look around sometimes to make sure that he wasn't being stabbed by a blade. But it was heartache, pure and simple. For himself, because every second without her was pure torture, but even more so for their human friends and family, who might die before ever setting eyes on her again. Surely the Almighty Father wouldn't be that cruel. Would He?
"I have no right to ask You this for myself, but I beseech You to give us some sort of a sign that we will see her again," Cas said now, bowing his head. "Please. For Frank and Rob and Angela. For Sam and Dean, Barry, and Nicole. For all of us who love her so. Please, Father."
Then, Cas felt it: a light touch on his shoulder, followed by a fluttering sound. He opened his eyes, and his heart soared. There was a white dove perched on his shoulder. It looked at him with big eyes, then cooed softly and flew away.
Cas quickly shed his blazer and then his shirt, and his wings emerged from his back. He flew eagerly after the dove. This was his sign! It had to be. White doves had been very significant to himself and Gail over the years. They symbolized hope; a message from their Father that all was not lost.
They flew through the downtown area to the north end of town, where there was much less damage. Just as it had been back at the time of the death squads, the suburban areas had remained largely unscathed. Demons tended to concentrate on urban areas; there were more people there, and more places of iniquity.
The dove alit on the sign outside the property: the Sacred Heart Sanitarium. Cas landed a moment later, hastily retracting his wings and putting his clothing back on. He hadn't seen anyone yet, but he could tell that the hospital was still operating.
"Thank you," he murmured to the bird as he walked up the curved driveway of the facility. It cooed once more, and then flew away.
It was strange, though. When Cas entered the lobby of the main building, there was no one around. The place was still clean and in good repair, so he didn't think the premises were abandoned. Perhaps they were merely short-staffed. These days, there must be quite a few people in need of mental health professionals.
But he had been led here for a reason, so Cas began to move quietly through the corridors, peering into all the rooms. Many were empty, but there were some individuals here and there, reading, sleeping, or just sitting on their beds. All seemed calm; presumably, this was a lower-security facility. Cas was glad.
"Can I help you, Sir?" A nurse in blue scrubs approached Cas, with a concerned look on her face.
"Yes. I'm sorry, but there was no one in the lobby to speak with," Cas said pleasantly. He swallowed hard, trying to stay calm. "I wonder if you could tell me if you have a patient here by the name of Gail?"
"What's the last name?" the woman said briskly.
Cas thought about that for a moment. He had no satisfactory answer, so he said, "She may not even know her name. I'm not sure what her condition might be. May I describe her to you?"
Before he'd gotten too detailed in his description, though, the nurse was already nodding. "Yes, that's Jane Doe 2. I'm pretty sure it is, anyway. She's in Room 15A, just around the corner. I can take you there, if you want - "
Cas was already rushing down the hall in the direction Lisa had indicated. She sighed, following him. She'd been hoping to be able to sit down with a cup of coffee for a few minutes before having to portion out the meds and make the rounds with them. At the moment, Nurse Lisa was the only one here to help these poor people. More than half of the hospital's staff were either dead or presumed to be, and many days, Lisa was the only one who showed up for work. Truth be told, she had nowhere else to go. When the world had started to go to hell, Lisa had been living with her boyfriend A.J. in the city, and driving out here to work at Sacred Heart five days a week. They'd had a pretty good thing going. A.J. was a cop, and Lisa was a nurse at a psychiatric hospital, and together, they were helping to make their community a better place. But when the reports had started to come in advising of the deaths and destruction being wrought in nearby cities, A.J. had told Lisa that she should move back to the 'burbs until the situation was under control. Of course, nobody had known back then just how bad things were going to get. So now Lisa was here, apart from the guy she loved, worrying about him constantly. They texted each other and talked on the phone when there was time, but it wasn't the same. But A.J. had been adamant: what kind of a man would he be if he didn't do his duty? He'd signed on to serve and protect, hadn't he? And how about Lisa? She needed to be there for those poor, traumatized people. The hospital had only been about half-full when everything had begun, but slowly, people had been drifting in, asking for help. Strictly speaking, patients were supposed to have insurance, or at least have been referred by a physician. But these were different times they were living in now, and the few staff members who remained had allowed the newcomers to stay, so that they could still have the illusion that they were helping others, at least in some manner.
Cas stopped in the doorway of the room, unsure of how to proceed. The room was almost pitch-dark. There was a figure of a woman sitting in a chair next to the bed on the far side of the room. Was it...? It was so dark that he couldn't make out the woman's face. But now, Cas was feeling afraid. There was just something about that motionless figure...
"Why is it so dark in here?" Cas asked Lisa.
"When she first arrived, we tried to find out who she was and where she had come from, but she wouldn't talk to us," Lisa replied softly. "So we gave her this room. It's on the southwest corner of the facility, so it's the most peaceful wing we have. We'd hoped that if she felt safe, she would open up. At least tell us what her name was. But so far, nothing. The only reaction she has shown is an aversion to light. We tried turning on the lamp in the room and opening the curtains, but she became so agitated that we had to medicate her. So we feed her, although she doesn't eat much, and we try to talk to her every now and then. But we've got so many people coming in here to try to help, and more and more are coming in all the time..."
"I understand," Cas said. He edged closer to the woman, so as not to startle her. And then, the miracle: as his eyes adjusted to the dark, Cas could see the woman's face. It was Gail! Oh, thank You, Heavenly Father.
"Do you know her?" Lisa asked.
"She's my wife," Cas said. He started to cry, partly from the immense relief he felt and partly because it hurt him to see her like this. She was completely motionless, staring straight ahead. She hadn't looked at Cas, or reacted to his presence at all.
"Your wife?" Lisa echoed in surprise.
"Yes." Cas drew up another chair and sat beside Gail, drinking in her profile. "She's been missing for quite some time, now. We didn't know - " His voice broke, and he swallowed hard, trying to collect himself. "We didn't know if we would ever see her again."
"Well, I'm glad you found her, but you need to know about her condition," Lisa said cautiously. "When your wife..." She stopped. "What's her name? What's yours?"
"Her name is Gail," he said, looking warmly at Gail's face. "My name is Castiel. Cas, for short."
No movement on Gail's part. Not even a twitch, to suggest that Cas's presence or even his name meant anything to her.
Lisa nodded, as if Cas had spoken again. She had seen this many times before. A patient who was nonresponsive, and a family member hovering over them anxiously, trying to will a reaction out of them. It didn't work that way. The human brain was a mysterious and complex organ. Who knew what sorts of things triggered a break with reality, or what sorts of things might bring the afflicted individual back from wherever they'd been?
"It certainly wouldn't hurt to use her name when you're talking to her, but be aware that you may not receive any sort of immediate result," Lisa said in a quiet voice. "When Gail first got here, Dr. Michaels examined her. He diagnosed her as being catatonic. She's been stuporous, and suffering from mutism. It sometimes seems as if she wants to communicate, but her brain won't enable her to do it. Dr. Michaels' theory is that she is suffering from an acute case of PTSD. I guess there's a lot of that going around, these days," she added dryly.
"How can we cure her?" Cas said, his brow furrowing. "I mean...how can we cure Gail," he amended hastily, making Lisa's lips twitch briefly. "How can we cure Gail?" Cas repeated.
The nurse let out a breath. "We don't. We can't. Normally, with medication and therapy, she might emerge, eventually. But I'm sorry to say that we don't have the time, or the staff any more, to give her that kind of one-on-one care. She should be constantly monitored, if possible. If she experiences a sudden breakthrough, there should be someone with her, in case..."
"...In case she tries to harm herself," Cas said sadly. He understood. He knew a lot more about that kind of thing than this woman might suspect. There had been many times since God had taken Gail from that cursed mountain that Cas had turned the subject over and over in his mind, as one would attempt to work out a riddle. But ultimately, he hadn't been able to bring himself to do it. Staying on Earth and watching all this pain and suffering was his legacy. It was what he had been created to do. And there had still been that one small spark of hope, that tiny ember burning in his chest that his and Gail's story was not yet over.
So now, it would appear that Cas had been right. God had been very merciful. He had allowed Cas to find her again. But this was only the first step in a journey. Cas ached to tell this nurse that he would take Gail away from this place and stay by her side, for as long as it took. But Cas was pretty sure that the road to redemption didn't include being selfish. If he abandoned all the humans who still needed his help just to sit with his own wife, that would prove that he had learned nothing at all about being the kind of Angel he was supposed to be.
Lisa could tell from the look on his face: "You don't have a home, do you, Cas?" she asked him softly.
He looked at her, startled. Then she realized what she must have meant. She must have assumed that their house was one of the hundreds of thousands that had been destroyed. Now it occurred to him that he had no idea if their house was still standing, or not. He should probably go there, to look. But without Gail, it was just a structure. They had to get Gail well again. The rest was unimportant.
"Why don't we just keep her here for the time being, then?" Lisa said compassionately. "If you want to come and visit her, feel free. But I get the feeling that you've got other things that you have to do, right now."
Cas was surprised. "How did you know that?"
Lisa smiled wearily. "My boyfriend's a First Responder, too. You just have that look. Don't feel guilty, Cas. A.J. and I are apart too, right now, because we're trying to help as many people as we can. I'm a big believer in karma. If you're kind to others, they'll be kind to you, and to others they encounter along the way. I know, I know; it's kind of a naive way of looking at things, sometimes. But these days, kindness is pretty much the only currency that's worth anything."
Cas was quiet for a moment. "That's a lovely thing to say," he said eventually, when he felt able to speak.
Suddenly, there was a loud, keening wail coming from down the corridor. Lisa sighed. "That's my cue," she said wearily. "Feel free to stay here with Gail as long as you want. And don't give up hope, Cas. Sometimes, hope is all we have."
Tears prickled at his eyes again. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Lisa gave him a brief nod of acknowledgement and then she left the room, presumably to go to the aid of the patient who had cried out.
Cas turned to Gail. "What a nice woman," he remarked. "I'm glad she's here for you." He stared at her. She hadn't moved a muscle. She was merely staring straight ahead, her eyes glazed-looking and unfocused. "We've missed you so much, my love." He looked down at her hands, which were in her lap. Should he attempt to take her hand? No; maybe he'd better not. He wasn't sure if the sudden action would startle her.
But he sat there with her in the dark and talked to her for quite a while in a soft, soothing voice. He said nothing about what was happening in the outside world, or about Kilimanjaro. He only told her how much she was loved, and that he was overjoyed that they were together again. Then he reminded her of the many happy times they had shared, both together and with their family. He said nothing about the future, though. That was still very much in question.
A few hours passed, and nothing had changed. But he had found her now, and that was the most important thing.
"I have to go now, but I'll return very soon," Cas finally told her. "If it's all right, I'll bring Frank to see you when I come back. Is that all right, my darling? Would you like that?" Then Cas remembered he was supposed to use her name, so he said, "I love you, Gail."
Silence. Cas sighed. He would have to be patient with her. He could do that. God had brought her back to him, hadn't He?
Cas popped out of her room.
Weeks passed, and Gail's status remained unchanged. The one bright spot was that Cas had been able to leave her at Sacred Heart all this time. When he was away from her, he felt a tremendous sense of guilt. But he had vowed to help even more humans, going forward. Nurse Lisa had talked about karma and hope, and Cas had thrown himself wholeheartedly behind those concepts. The more good he did on Earth, the more likely it was that Gail would return to herself once more.
Cas had brought Frank to see Gail as promised, and her brother had wept, too. They had experienced so much loss and heartbreak that he'd already convinced himself that he would never see her again.
The two men had sat and talked to Gail, and to each other, for a while, and once again, they had kept the subject matter light and breezy. It had broken Frank's heart to see his sister like that, but a very small part of him, a part he would never admit to, envied her. This was the death squads on steroids, and here Frank was again, wading through the mud and the blood. Losing friends, and loved ones. Just before Cas had arrived to take Frank to the hospital, their rescue group had been attacked by a dozen Demons. Carolyn had been stabbed in the neck by one, and by the time Bobby had winked over there to heal her, she had already bled out. Frank had been devastated, and he had been angry, too. Now Peter was going to have to grow up without a mother, just like Angela, and Rob. Carolyn had never picked up a weapon in her life, and she had never harmed anyone. She had simply insisted on helping, because she'd said it was the right thing to do. Their Canadian friends had all moved into the bunker now, just as they had back when Lucifer had been loosed on the Earth.
Well, the Devil was old news, Frank thought bitterly as he sat beside his sister in her darkened room. Cas had finally been able to open the drapes at the window just a crack, but Gail had become so agitated when he'd started to open them that he'd had to stop immediately. Still, there was enough light now so that Frank could make out his sister's expression. If she'd had one, that was. As with every visit Cas had made, Gail merely sat there, looking straight ahead and not speaking. She hadn't said a word, to anyone. She hadn't even acknowledged that there was anyone else in the room with her.
If Cas found this fact disheartening, he didn't let on. He chattered away as if Gail was an active member of the conversation. He'd seen a butterfly out on the grounds, and its markings had been so beautifully unique that he had stopped to stare at it for a while. Would she like to come outside with him, and see if it came back?
There was no response, of course, and Cas looked at Frank sadly. Then Frank had tried to get a rise out of his sister by making a bad joke about Cas trying to catch the butterfly with a net, which would be completely apropos, considering where they were. Nothing. Then he made another, about the fact that the games room here used to have marbles, but they didn't any longer, because everybody kept losing theirs. Not his finest work, maybe, but it was becoming increasingly harder for Frank to joke around these days. The world was an ugly, suck-y place now, and it was all Frank could do not to tell Gail to shove over. Maybe the two of them could be crazy together. Frank could sure use a really good break from reality, right about now.
Eventually, both men had run out of things to say, and Frank was needed back at the bunker. There were weapons to be cleaned, beers to be drunk, and a frightened little girl to comfort. Angela didn't understand what was going on in the world, or why they were all under lockdown at the bunker. Frank's house still stood, amazingly enough, but he felt like they would be too vulnerable there. Look at what had happened to poor Hester. So he'd moved them into the bunker: himself, Rob, and Angela. Oh, and Poochie, of course. Heaven forbid his daughter should go through the Apocalypse without her stuffed elephant. But it was funny, because Frank and Rob had ransacked the house, and Ralph had been nowhere to be found. Gail's stuffed penguin had mysteriously vanished. Rob had made some kind of weak joke about Ralph having gone in search of colder weather, but it really was the strangest thing. Angela had had a cry over Ralph, but then she had simply hugged Poochie to herself more tightly and taken to her bed with him. And if that wasn't the saddest illustration of what their lives had become, Frank didn't know what was. They all had to hug each other more tightly these days, didn't they? Because any of them could lose any of the others, on any given day.
Just like they'd lost Gail now. Sure, her body was here in the chair, but the Gail they all loved was gone. Taken a powder. Gone on an extended leave. The expressions were numerous, but the fact remained: this wasn't Frank's sister sitting there, it was a hologram. A mannequin.
"Let's go, Cas," Frank said, and the men rose. Cas looked down at his wife. "I'll be back soon," he told her. "I love you, Gail."
No reaction, of course. The poor bastard, Frank thought. He had been as mad as hell at Cas when he and the Winchesters had come back from Mount Kilimanjaro and Cas had stonewalled him regarding Gail. But seeing Cas like this now just made Frank feel sorry for the guy. He was trying so hard to get Gail to snap out of it. But unless there was some kind of a miracle, Cas was facing a future without his wife, just like Frank was. No wonder his brother-in-law was flitting around the world, busting his ass to help people. It was the only thing he COULD do. It was all that any of them had left.
Cas took Frank's arm, and the men winked out of Gail's room. She showed no reaction.
A week or so later, Cas had once again run out of things to say. This time, it was Mike who had died, not by murder, but by a simple heart attack. He had been helping Dean lift some chunks of concrete off of a little girl who'd been trapped under a decimated downtown building. They'd gotten the child out, but as Bobby was healing her wounds, Mike had clutched at his chest. Then he'd gone down like a ton of bricks, and he'd been dead even before he'd hit the ground. No Angel could fix a heart attack, and it had happened so suddenly there'd been no time to teleport him to a hospital. So the men had driven his body to the cemetery and interred Mike next to his beloved Carolyn, and beside Hester. Even in death, he wanted the family to be together, Bobby had said gruffly, and no one had said a word.
But Cas wasn't going to tell Gail about that bit of sad news, or even about their small victory in saving that little girl. Gail had no idea what had been going on in the outside world, and Cas meant to keep it that way. Why would he want to tell her about the state that the world was in now? Why would she ever want to come back, if she knew how bleak things were? It would be nice if she could just come back for him, Cas thought, but he also knew by now that things didn't work that way. He had done a lot of research on the subject, and all of his research seemed to suggest that the patients actually had very little control over their own minds in these types of situations.
That notion had led him to an idea, though, and so Cas tried to see if he could find out how bad things really were with her. So he'd reached out slowly and put his hand on her forehead. She didn't flinch, or shrink back. Cas wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing.
The house of her mind was very dark, with dust and cobwebs in all of the rooms. The rooms were completely empty, devoid of any colour, people, love, or laughter. Cas's footsteps echoed through the emptiness of it all. Now, he was really scared. He'd never seen anything like it before. It was as if the house had been abandoned for years and years. It was eerie, like one of Sam and Dean's haunted houses. But there was no ghost, only emptiness. Desolation.
Cas removed his hand from Gail's head. What could he possibly do for her?
Then, an inspiration: "I'll be right back, my love," he told her.
Cas popped out of the room, and a few minutes later, he came back, holding Gabriel by the sleeve. "Can you help us, please?" he asked the Archangel.
Gabriel looked at him, then at Gail. Man, this sucked. When Cas had first told him he'd found her, Gabe had wanted to rush over there, but Cas had said no. He didn't want a lot of people around Gail right now, frightening her. What did he mean? Dean had asked angrily. Weren't they her friends, too? Her family? But Cas had explained as much as they knew about her condition, and when Frank had seen his sister, he'd backed Cas up by saying that Gail probably couldn't handle a lot of commotion right now. Look at how she'd freaked out when Cas had opened the drapes an inch.
So Gabriel had been upset, but he'd tried to understand. But now, Cas had basically hijacked him and now here they were, standing in front of his little Kitten. She hadn't reacted at all to their sudden appearance. Cas had advised that that was a normal state of affairs, but it was still more than a little disconcerting. Gabe's little Kitten was catatonic, all right, and there would probably be a great joke in there for Frank somewhere, if the situation weren't so tragic.
"Can you enter her mind?" Cas asked Gabriel now. "Can you try to restore her house?"
Gabe looked at him incredulously. "Are you nuts?"
Castiel stared at him, unamused at the remark. He didn't know if Gabriel had been joking, or if the humour had been unintentional, considering where they were. But either way, Cas didn't care. Gabriel was an Archangel, with prodigious powers. "If you will enter her mind, maybe you can give her back her memories," Cas insisted. "Even one or two. If she has those, she might come back to us."
Gabriel continued to stare at his Brother. What Cas was suggesting now was unprecedented. The Angels had both entered peoples' minds and modified their memories before, many times. But was it possible to install memories, where none existed?
"I'll try, Cas," Gabriel said, sighing. His Brother needed Gail back. They all did. Things were lousy enough, as it was. He hadn't realized how much life Gail brought to their family until she was gone. Just like Liz, and the rest of them. This was unacceptable.
Gabriel drew up a chair beside Gail. He extended his hand tentatively, glancing at Cas once more. His Brother nodded encouragingly. What Gabriel was about to do was a very personal act. Intimate, even. It was too bad this was not the time to make jokes, because Gabe had about a million of them running around in his head right now.
He reached out and placed his hand on Gail's head.
Gabriel was astonished. Cas had been absolutely right. The Archangel had never seen anyone's mind in this condition before. Dark, and desolate. Dusty. Abandoned. Gabe walked down the main hall and peered into the rooms, but they were devoid of...well, everything. He had expected to see things in freeze-frame. Suspended animation, maybe, while her brain was having a rest. That was the way that Gabe had understood it, anyway. Gail was just...resting, for the moment. God knew, pun definitely intended, she'd been through a lot over the past few years. If she had just decided to check out for a while, who was Gabriel to say that she wasn't entitled to do so? Everybody had their own way of dealing, sometimes. Maybe Gail's way of coping was simply deciding not to be here, for a while.
But there was nothing, here. Nothing at all. Gail wasn't simply on vacation; she had moved out, leaving no forwarding address. Gabe stood there in one of the big, empty rooms for a moment, contemplating.
"OK, my little Kitten," he said aloud. "Let's see what you do with this." He waved one hand, and an image of Cas and Gail's wedding was projected onto the wall of the room. Not the fancy first one, because Gabriel hadn't been part of the family back then. No, this was the small affair that they'd had in the backyard of their house on Earth, right after Cas had resigned his post in Heaven. It had been a very brief ceremony, but Gabe was sure that it was no less heartfelt than the first one had been.
He stood there smiling at the scene. That had been such a good time, for most of them, anyway. Before Dad had decided to break out the giant flyswatter and thin out the herd. Before the Almighty Father had decided that making war was preferable to making love. Boy, was God ever wrong on that score. But you couldn't tell the Father anything. When God wanted your opinion, He would give it to you. Gabriel had emerged relatively unscathed from this whole so-called Cleansing. Well, except for the loss of his fiancee, that was. Except for that one little, itty-bitty detail. But at least God didn't have Gabe jumping through flaming hoops, and balancing a ball on his nose. No, Cas was the lucky one who got to do all that.
Gabriel spent another minute watching the ceremony. Frank and Dean were teasing the newly married couple that the reason their vows had been so brief was because they couldn't wait to start smooching. That gave Gabe another idea. He whirled around, waved his hand again, and there was another image, on the side wall. Him and Dean, imitating Cas and Gail at the after-party following their private premiere of the second Supernatural movie. They'd had everybody rolling on the floor laughing, that night. Now that Gabe thought about it, he believed that night had been the last night they'd all been happy, because after that night, God had begun to dismantle their family, piece by piece.
Still, it was a damn good memory. The Gail that Gabriel knew would appreciate it. What else could he show her that would make an impression?
But as the Archangel stood there thinking, a shocking thing happened. Both images suddenly vanished, and the dim light that had enabled him to navigate his way through the hallway extinguished itself. Then Gabriel felt himself moving, as if someone had given him a hard shove backwards. He pinwheeled his arms for balance, and his hand flew off her head, breaking the connection.
Gabriel was beyond astonished. He looked at Cas, open-mouthed. "What? What happened?" Cas asked his Brother anxiously. Gabriel spoke haltingly, still trying to process what he'd just experienced. "I've been kicked out of a lot of places by a lot of women, Cas, but I've never been ejected like THAT before!"
Then, incredibly, Gabriel's face broke into a grin. "That means she's still in there, Cas, and she's putting up a fight!" the Archangel said excitedly.
Cas's heart started to race. Gabriel was right. He sat down beside Gail and took her hand impulsively. It was limp, and she did not react. But at least she didn't show any signs of agitation.
"I'm not giving up on you, Gail," Cas told his wife. "I will never give up on you."
Another few weeks passed, and this time, at was Sam who was standing at the Lookout Point. He came here sometimes, for a few moments of serenity. When he wasn't out there in the trucks cleaning up the streets, he had been hitting the books, hard. He'd read so many books on mental illness and depression that he'd managed to depress the hell out of himself. All the words he'd been reading made sense as individual words, but when he tried to put them all into one cohesive package, all they did was bleed together into one big ball of incomprehensible medical terminology.
Science and education were failing Sam, so he had come here to utilize the only tool he had left in the kit: he prayed. Not to Cas, or Gabriel, or Bobby, of course, but to God Himself.
"People tell me I'm smart all the time, and I guess I am," the younger Winchester said out loud. "But there are a lot of things I don't understand. And that's OK; I've made my peace with most of those things. But what I don't get, what I'll never get, is why you seem to think it's acceptable for a good guy like Ethan to get shot in the line of duty and sent to Heaven, only to be stabbed to death with an Angel blade, when all he was doing was helping humans! And, in what universe is it OK for Dean to be in Canada, keeping a vigil at Nicole's bedside?" Sam took a deep breath, swallowing the lump in his throat. Nicole had been helping Dean and Rob excavate at the site of yet another collapsed building. Ethan, Bobby and Frank had been standing by, weapons at the ready. Many of the humans who had been rampaging alongside the Demons were either dead or had lost whatever twisted motivation they might have originally had, but Demons were eternal beings, and there were way too many of them. Sam wondered where Crowley was, and what his role might be in all of this. Was he still alive, or had he finally been usurped? Had he signed off on this whole mess, or were the Demons acting independently?
In any event, Sam supposed it didn't matter. The rescue party's guards had been attacked by a band of the black-eyed bastards, and Ethan had fallen. Then, as if that wasn't enough, a metal beam had fallen on Nicole, giving her a solid blow to the head. Bobby had called Gabriel, who was helping Sam's team at the other end of town, but the Archangel could do nothing for her. He'd taken Nicole and Dean to the hospital in Vancouver, because their own hospitals were full to overflowing. Unlike the death squad years, Canada hadn't emerged unscathed this time. But there was less destruction, and fewer deaths. The neurologist on duty told the men that Nicole was currently in a coma, which she may or may not come out of.
It was ironic, Sam thought bitterly. Both Dean and Cas were holding vigils for their significant others, wondering if Nicole or Gail would ever return to them. And now, George had earned his spot on the growing list of kids without both parents.
"Where's your compassion?" Sam railed aloud. "How is any of what's going on now right, or fair? If you want to cleanse the Earth so bad, why don't you start with guys like Crowley, and his followers?"
There was no response, of course. Cas and Gabriel could have told Sam that he was wasting his breath. But he'd needed to get it off his chest, anyway. He turned and got into his car, driving away.
Crowley emerged from the trees behind the Lookout Point. None of the God Squad knew it, but he himself went there for quiet reflection, sometimes. The current times weren't exactly being kind to Crowley, either. His Kingdom was in disarray, and his subjects were all over the map. Many of them were indulging in the perceived freedom of total anarchy at the moment, not realizing that they were better off within the not-so-friendly confines of Hell. That was the product that Crowley was trying to sell, anyway, but hardly any of his minions were buying it. Talk about a hard sell. The ones who were on Earth were having the time of their non-lives, killing, raping, and pillaging. What self-respecting Demon would want to give that up, for the structure and hard work in Hell? The rewards of Sin were all being reaped upon the Earth right now, and the King's subjects were diving into the pool, feet first.
He walked up to the edge of the Lookout Point and looked down at the city. It was dusk now, and the stars were coming out in the sky. There were fewer city lights than there had been before all the property damage had occurred, but Crowley didn't necessarily think that was a bad thing. Like Castiel, he was an old-school type of entity, who didn't always think that modern was better. Maybe his Demons were doing the humans a favour, in a strange way. Not that they would look at it that way, of course.
It was funny, really. The King of Hell used to think that this was what he wanted: his Demons running roughshod over the Earth. Murder and mayhem. His way, or the highway. But to what end, exactly? If Crowley were to take the planet for his own, what would he do with it? He gave a short laugh. What an arse he'd been. A first-class, bloody fool.
The only way to restore order would be for his subjects to realize that they were better off in Hell than they were on Earth. But there was very little to discourage them from pursuing their nefarious activities here on Earth, at the moment.
Crowley frowned, deep in thought. He could just pop around and start corralling them all, box their ears, and send them back to the Kingdom. But he believed that would be the wrong approach in this particular situation. Besides, he was extremely powerful, but there was only one of him. None of his lieutenants could be trusted. They were all sharpening their blades, looking for the opportunity. No; if he was going to scare a bunch of Demons into running back to Hell with their figurative tails between their legs, he needed to put the fear of God into them.
But there was no God here, and the most fearsome Angel the side of Good had at their disposal was spending way too much of his blade-wielding time playing wet nurse to his equally ferocious wife, whose brain had turned to tapioca, at the latest report.
What did one bring, for a visit to a catatonic patient? Did it even matter? Crowley thought with wry humour. It's not like she would know the difference, anyway.
He snapped his fingers and disappeared, just as the sun began to set over the city.
VIGNETTE - FOOL'S GOLD
Cas had popped up to Canada to take Dean to see Nicole, and the men received some encouraging news from the nurse who had been changing the bedding. About an hour or so ago, just as the health care professional had been putting a new blanket on the bed at Nicole's feet, the patient had stirred. The nurse had looked up excitedly, waiting to see if the patient would wake. She hadn't, but they had taken her for an emergency EEG, which had shown some brain wave activity that hadn't been there before. It was only a matter of time until she regained consciousness, the doctor had told an elated Dean, and he had hugged Cas fiercely. If they were going to get Nicole back, they would get Gail back too, Dean assured Cas. He was positive.
Cas had returned Dean's embrace with a crooked smile on his face. It was wonderful news about Nicole, but Cas wasn't so sure about Gail. After he had taken her hand for the first time, Cas had slowly started to institute a bit more physical contact, embracing her and kissing her in greeting when he arrived and holding her hand the whole time. When that hadn't gotten a response, he'd resorted to pleading with her, reminding her of how things were between them. He talked about Frank, Sam and Dean, Gabriel, and the rest of their Angel family. Didn't she miss all of the fun they used to have together? His tactics had become a bit questionable, in his desperation for her to come out of it. There wouldn't really be very many happy times ahead, as decimated as their family was becoming. If Gail came back to them, she would be coming back to a very different world than the one that she had left.
As Dean sat down next to Nicole and held her hand, Cas realized with horror that he had thought the word "if", not "when", Gail came back to them. Now, he was really scared. What hadn't he done, yet? What hadn't he tried?
So far, he had only been talking about the wonderful times they'd had. Maybe he needed to show her, instead. "I need to go see Gail for a bit," Cas said to Dean now. "Call me, or Bobby, or Gabriel, when you need a lift."
Dean nodded in understanding. Now that they'd received the good news about Nicole, Cas wanted to see if he could get through to Gail. They always said that bad news came in bunches; maybe good news could too, for a freaking change.
"Hello, sweetheart," Crowley said to Gail. She didn't react to his sudden appearance, or his greeting. He approached her, looking curiously at her face. Unless this was a damn good act, she really did appear to be catatonic. "Hell-oooo," he said softly, waving his hand in front of her face. "Anyone home?"
There didn't seem to be. He drew up a chair, facing her. "Here's the situation," the King of Hell said conversationally. "While I agree that a vacation can be very relaxing, this little breakdown of yours is a luxury none of us can afford, right now. So I'm going to put my hand on your head, and in a few minutes, you'll be right as rain."
Crowley put his hand on her head, and there was no reaction from her at all. Now he was convinced she wasn't faking. There was no way she would sit there so calmly and allow him to do this. No way. She would be smacking his hand, telling him to get lost. He was dreaming if he thought he was getting in there. Crowley's lips twitched. He'd missed their repartee. But he'd better get to it, now. Her room was blessedly Castiel-free at the moment, but he didn't know how long it would remain that way. He was sitting in a dark room with his brother's wife, about to enter her mind. They would have to invent a new word for the level of anger Cas would achieve if he caught Crowley doing what he was about to do. He had briefly considered calling Castiel before coming here, but the King had decided against it. His brother was abrasive at the best of times, and Crowley wasn't in the mood to face a bunch of questions about rampaging Demons. Once Gail was fixed, the tide would likely turn in the God Squad's favour. At the very least, Castiel would be in a much better frame of mind to negotiate, once he got the missus back.
Crowley entered the house of Gail's mind. Unlike Castiel and Gabriel, he wasn't a bit surprised to see its condition. He'd actually seen worse. When he had cured Bobby of the madness that Lucifer had cursed him with, Bobby's house had mostly collapsed. Gail's house was structurally intact, it was just...empty.
In a way, though, this was going to be trickier. Crowley had used his powers to just reconstruct Bobby's house. What to do, here? How to proceed? His hand was stroking his beard as he looked around at all the dusty, empty rooms.
He waved his arms, and the dust started to swirl. Maybe he would do a little light housekeeping, and then install some memories.
Crowley had no idea that Gabriel had already tried that very same thing. The dust he'd stirred up promptly flew in his face, making him sputter. He shut his eyes tight, and incredibly, he heard God's voice: "Nice try." Then, Crowley was yanked back as Gabriel had been, and his hand came flying off of Gail's head with such force that he almost fell off his chair.
What the bloody hell? he thought, shaking gritty dust from his suit jacket. Crowley wiped his face with his pocket handkerchief, staring at Gail's face. So, this was God's handiwork. What on earth had Gail done, to piss their Father off to this extent?
Well, it was a moot point, wasn't it? There was nothing that Crowley could do for her now. Unless God relented, that was. Maybe He would, eventually. But Crowley knew that this type of punishment could last for years and years.
"Good luck, sweetheart," the King said softly, winking himself out of her room.
An hour or so after Crowley's visit, as Cas was sifting through the wreckage of their house on Earth and crying silently while he did it, Gail's nose twitched. She sneezed twice, in quick succession. Then she smiled faintly. That had been kind of funny, actually. If there was anything Crowley hated, it was getting his fancy suits dirty. Served him right, for killing her in that park. Served him right for a lot of things.
If Cas had been there at that moment, his heart would have soared to see his wife smile, if only for that one brief second. But by the time he had found something to bring to her from the smoking rubble of their home, the veil had dropped again, and Gail was in the void once more.
Nicole squeezed Dean's hand, and his heart stopped for a second. Then she started to stir, and he lunged for the call button. A moment later, she opened her eyes. "What time is it?" she asked her boyfriend, and then she added, "Do we have anything in the medicine cabinet for a headache?"
By the time the nurse arrived, Dean was laughing and crying, at the same time. Nicole was dazed and disoriented, but the health care worker who came into the room assured Dean that was very normal in these types of situations. The doctor would want to examine her and there would be another round of tests, but it looked like Nicole was out of the woods now.
Dean was shooed out into the hallway while the doctor looked at Nicole, and he used the opportunity to call Sam on his cell phone with the good news. His brother was elated. Finally, something positive to share with everyone.
"Make sure Cas finds out," Dean told Sam, who frowned now. Their friend wasn't here with them, he told his brother. He was probably visiting Gail. That was OK; they would see him soon. Then he hung up, after telling Sam he would call back for an Angel Uber after he spent a bit more time with Nicole, and found out when he could bring her back to the bunker.
Cas appeared in Gail's room holding his prize: the one thing he'd been able to salvage from their house. But it was curious, because it had really had no business being there at all. Cas had been utterly amazed when he had been digging through the rubble of their home and had unearthed the stuffed penguin. The last anyone had seen of Ralph, he had been at Angela's side as always, with his best friend and constant companion, Poochie. Cas remembered the frantic search the little girl had mounted for Ralph, at the time. The adults had all pitched in, but no one had been able to turn up hide nor feather of the stuffed penguin. And now here he was in the ruins of their house, almost as if he'd migrated there, to await his original owner's return.
Cas had started to smile, then. The expression felt so foreign on his face; how long had it been since he had worn a smile? But this was his sign that Gail would come back. He was sure of it, now. If a stuffed toy had this kind of faith, then Cas supposed he'd better have it, too. That was a silly notion, of course, but as Cas pulled Ralph carefully out of the debris, he found himself talking aloud to it, anyway. "I can't wait until Gail sees you," he said to the furry little creature, shaking the dust and grit from the toy. "Now that you've come back for her, I have faith that she will come back to us."
Ralph was mute, as always. At least he and Gail would have that in common, at the moment. But Cas was sure that she would be overjoyed to see Ralph. He represented that hope that Nurse Lisa kept referring to. Every time Cas saw Lisa bustling around the hospital, tending to all those patients on her own, his admiration for her grew. She had shown Cas photos of herself and A.J. in happier times, and he'd had to remind himself that he was not the only one who was suffering, in this not-so-brave new world. Peter and Ilene only had Barry now, although they all pitched in to help, of course. Likewise, Karen and George were having to do without Ethan, after all those years of being separated from him previously. Kevin was the lone Musketeer now, and the young Prophet was without his friend and partner, Emma. Mike had been a new addition to their family, but they had all liked him very much. And the losses went back much further, from way back before the disaster that their acquisition of the Book of Life had ended up becoming. They had been warned, but they had paid no heed. If Cas had known things were going to turn out this badly, he would never have sought out the Book of Life in the first place. "Book of Life", indeed. Book of Death and Heartbreak was more like it.
But there was a glimmer of hope now. Cas winked himself over to Gail's room, holding Ralph behind his back. "I have an old friend here, who would like to say hello," he told her. Then he brought the stuffed penguin out with a bit of a flourish. "Ralph has been missing you, very much," Cas said whimsically. "Almost as much as I have. He asked me if he could come here and keep you company. Maybe you can talk to him, if you're not ready to talk to me, yet."
He'd really thought that Gail would have shown some sort of a reaction, if only even for a second. But she did not. Cas glanced down at the stuffed animal. Despite his ministrations, Ralph was still a little dusty. He shook the toy again, brushing its artificial fur. Now that Cas thought about it, it was rather ridiculous for a penguin to have fur, wasn't it? Shouldn't it have feathers? But this was a child's toy, not an actual representation of the species, Cas reminded himself. He was falling into the trap of imagining that Ralph was real. Still, as he looked closely at the glassy eyes and the crooked beak, Cas could picture little Gail as a child, talking to him as if he were. She would assign him a personality, and characteristics to match. She would imagine that Ralph was listening intently as she poured out her heart to him, and to her, his expression would change, according to what she was telling him.
Well, Gail was almost like the child she had once been now, wasn't she? Cas gave Ralph one last dusting before handing him over. It was funny, though; when he glanced down at the floor by her chair, there appeared to be quite a bit more dust and grit than there should be. Hmmm. Odd.
Cas placed Ralph gently in Gail's lap, watching her face carefully. Did he see a twitch of her lips? A flick of an eyelash? Or was he imagining it? He was hoping that her hands might move to hug Ralph to her, but they did not. Her arms remained on the armrests of the chair, but Ralph was still sitting upright in her lap, so Cas left him there. Maybe it would take a little time. Hadn't he seen a subtle change in her expression?
He sat next to her for a few more hours, alternating between speaking softly to her and watching her, to see if she would move. But she did not. There was absolutely no change. None.
To say that Cas was disappointed would have been an extreme understatement. "Fool's Gold," he murmured. All of the optimism he'd felt earlier left him at that moment. Ralph wasn't a penguin at all; he was a red herring. Fool's Gold. Loosely defined, the term meant something that seems more promising than it really is. That was certainly apt in this case, wasn't it?
Cas stood from his chair, sighing heavily. Just like he always did when he left here. When he left HER. He looked at Ralph, wondering if he should just take it to the bunker and give it back to Angela. Not "him"; it. Ralph was not real. He had no personality, and no emotions. He was just cloth, and stitching, and he had eyes of glass. For a moment, the inevitable comparison to Gail and her condition hit Cas so hard he felt dizzy.
But he couldn't quite bring himself to take Ralph from her. Her inimitable bastard of a father had already done that to Gail, when she'd been even younger than Angela was now. Even if his wife wouldn't notice Ralph's absence, Cas couldn't do that to her.
"I love you, Gail. Please watch over her for me, Ralph. Please, keep the faith that I lack," Cas said softly. He bent down to kiss Gail on her forehead, and then he winked himself away.
Cas reappeared at the Lookout Point, sinking down on the bench that was there on the crest of the hill. He put his head in his hands and wept. He'd cried plenty of times since this whole mess had started, but now, he completely let go. The skies opened up and a steady rain began to fall. Cas's self-pity had inadvertently performed a good deed: a group of Demons had set a few houses on fire further down Frank's street, and if the rain had not doused the flames, Cas's brother-in-law's home would likely also have been lost.
But the downpour was relatively brief. Cas remembered other occasions when he had gotten carried away in that regard, and the last thing the world needed on top of all the other problems it had was to be flooded right now. That thought inevitably led him to think of the time that his and Gail's roles had been reversed from what they were right now, and he had been the one who had needed her help and support. She had never given up on him, not once. Not even when Patricia had used the powers of the High Office to imprison him, drugging him to the point of madness. Nor had Gail given up on Cas when he had made that repugnant deal with the Demon Rudy that had resulted in Rob being shot, having to fight for his young life. Gail hadn't even given up on Cas when they'd both thought that he himself had been a Demon, the most vile sort of individual in existence. Even though they now knew that had never happened, in both Cas and Gail's minds, it had all been very real. Yet she hadn't even given up on him then, when every ounce of logic and self-preservation had suggested; no, SCREAMED OUT, that she should.
No. Cas would never give up on Gail, either. He couldn't possibly. She had given Cas everything. She was his entire life. Everything Cas was now, the kind of Angel he was, the kind of man he was, was all due to Gail. She had given him everything. She deserved everything he had to give, in return. He would have to find a way.
Cas popped back into Gail's room. He stood there looking at her lovingly for a moment. There had been no change in her condition or her expression, of course. Ralph was exactly where Cas had left him, too.
"I remember a song that Dean has listened to, from time to time," Cas said aloud. "The song is called 'Fool's Gold', ironically enough. That phrase usually has a very negative connotation. But the lyrics of this song would suggest otherwise. In the song, the singer states: 'I'm like a crow on a wire./You're the shining distraction that always makes me fly home./I'm like a boat on the water./You're the raise on the waves that calms my mind./But I'm not done yet/falling for you./But I don't ever regret/falling for you'."
Then he popped out again, because he didn't want her to see him crying.
Moments after Cas left for the second time, Ralph fell from Gail's lap onto the floor. She made no move to pick him up, but a tear fell from her eye, dribbled down her cheek, and splashed onto Ralph's fur. An errant puff of dust rose, and then disappeared.