Well, as some of you have guessed, Cas and Meg's troubles had only just started with the demons… I hope everyone enjoys this chapter!
Chapter Four
The next morning, Meg extricated herself from Castiel as carefully as possible so as not to wake him and checked his injuries. They had healed to all but a couple scars on each palm, so she took the bandages off to avoid questions from the doctors that day. Then she quickly slipped out of the hospital and headed out to find a place to dump the bodies.
By the time she got back for her appointed shift, she was almost late, but she had gotten rid of all evidence of the demon attack the night before. Unfortunately, that also meant the bodies of the two night shift nurses.
When she went to put her stuff away in the back room, Dawn greeted her from where she was drinking a cup of coffee.
"Hey, did you hear that Jerry and David went missing last night?" Dawn asked.
Meg mentally cursed. Of course their 'disappearances' would have been discovered by now. She put on an innocent look. "No, I just got here. What happened?"
Dawn shrugged. "Don't know. They weren't here when the shift changed and I guess they didn't clock out. It might be nothing serious, but still. It's kinda weird." She took another sip of coffee. "Castiel was asking for you first thing. I think he probably overheard some of the doctors talking and wants to make sure you didn't go missing too." She winked.
Meg narrowed her eyes. "I'll check on him. I hope they find the nurses." Or not.
She went to Castiel's room where he was sitting at the table against one wall, staring at his tray of breakfast. He looked up with some relief to see Meg.
"You're here," he said and smiled. "I was worried there might be more demons."
"If there were, I'm sure you would smite them too," Meg told him, leaning her hip against the table. "And do us both a favor and don't talk about the missing nurses to anyone."
Castiel looked down at his plate. "I wish I hadn't had to kill them."
"Hey, don't go soft on me as well as crazy," Meg told him, slapping his shoulder. "We may have worse things to go up against later. We can only hope that these demons weren't stupid enough to tell any of their friends. Although considering they would have already been splitting the reward money three ways, probably not."
"Can we go to the garden again today?" Cas asked suddenly as if wanting to change the subject. "Or perhaps we can play more board games."
Meg sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. "Fine, but finish your breakfast and take your pills. Like I said, we're trying to keep a low profile."
"Of course," Cas said and picked up his fork. "I do like pancakes more than the meal last night."
Meg smiled. "Well, maybe you're not completely crazy after all."
She took him out to the garden with some of the other patients after breakfast where they worked on planting some new flowers in a freshly made patch. Castiel enjoyed it, despite the fact he got completely dirty while doing so, and it kept him occupied enough for Meg to take a quick turn of the gardens to make sure there were no other lurkers. Again, she wished she could demon-proof without hampering herself but that was out of the question.
She could start collecting cleaning supplies with borax for if any Leviathans showed up though, since angel blades or smiting wouldn't work on them. Of course if the big mouths did show up, it would probably be best just to run. Meg was wondering if she shouldn't just pack up Castiel now and take him somewhere safer.
She wandered back over to the garden patch as Cas and the others were finishing their planting and Cas looked up at her with his typical smile of greeting that made him look far more attractive than any crazy angel had the right to be, damn him.
"Meg, we just finished planting this butterfly garden. These are all flowers they find particularly appealing." He looked to one side as a bee buzzed into view, scoping out the new flowers and Castiel smiled at it fondly. "The honeybees too will be able to have more nectar to turn into honey." He bent toward the bee and got so close Meg was certain he would get stung on the nose, but of course, the bee simply looked at Castiel and buzzed as if holding a conversation. Cas nodded as if he had understood exactly what the bee had said. "Yes, the bees are definitely pleased."
Meg shook her head. "Alright, well, if you're done being the next Disney princess it's probably time to get you inside and cleaned up." He had somehow even managed to get dirt in his hair. Meg wondered not for the first time, how a big, bad, angel of the Lord could look so much like a kindergartener.
He stood and attempted to brush the dirt off of his white scrubs, but only managed to leave smears. Meg rolled her eyes as she led him back inside.
"Meg, will you play a game with me now?"
She looked over at him and saw with little surprise that he had mojo'd himself clean. "You know, Castiel, I do have a job here. I can't just sit around and play board games and talk to bees all day." She looked around and lowered her voice. "Besides, I have to keep a lookout in case any more baddies come a-knocking. Why don't you ask Mrs. Cleary to play Monopoly with you again?"
"Mrs. Cleary is not always in the mood to play a game," Castiel said and turned to look her in the eyes. "I would like you to play with me, Meg."
And she thought Sam Winchester had the puppy-dog eyes. She bit back a sigh. "Alright, but I have to get some work done first or they might fire me and then who would play with you?"
Castiel smiled and she dropped him off in the day room before she went to do some of her other duties. Meg wondered, not for the first time, why on earth she was even bothering to do this. It might have had something to do with how Cas looked at her like she was someone who was worth having around. Someone he wanted around. And sure, he was crazy, but she would take that where she could get it. It wasn't like she'd had a ton of fans over the long years she had been a demon. Her mind flashed back to Cas asking her to stay with him last night, comfortable enough to sleep beside her without being afraid that she would hurt him even though they were mortal enemies. Maybe being wanted wasn't such a bad thing, even if she was mostly just doing the duty of a security blanket at the moment.
She came back to the day room a couple hours later to find Cas sitting where she had left him, sketching flowers on a pad of paper.
"Nice work, Van Gough," Meg commented, looking over his shoulder. She wasn't being facetious, either; he really was a rather surprisingly good artist.
Castiel smiled but didn't look up from the paper. "Capturing the true essence of living things on paper is nearly impossible, but it is enjoyable to try. I see why humans like to do artwork. I was always interested to see what the great artists would come up with, even if the other angels didn't seem to care."
Meg sat down across from him and watched as his pencil created deft lines across the paper, forming stems and petals, capturing even the veins in the leaves. There was even a bee hovering over one of the flowers.
"Have you found any other signs of demons?" Castiel asked her after a moment.
Meg shook her head. "Nope, seems clean for now."
He drew for a few more minutes before asking, "Meg, what will happen if more demons come? Or Leviathans?"
Okay, she could deal with lucid conversation. "We'll do what we can, and if we can't take them out we'll run."
"I may not be able to smite them. I believe that was a lucky occurrence last night."
"Well, you do what you can and I'll clean up the mess you leave behind," Meg told him. "But hopefully, we won't have to."
He nodded but looked somewhat unsettled, shading the underside of a petal before he set the pencil down on top of the paper.
"I don't want to fight anymore," he said softly.
Meg narrowed her eyes at him, watching as he fiddled with the pencil. "What? Like it or not, Clarence, we're in the middle of a war, in case you haven't noticed. Now isn't exactly the time to go Gandhi on me."
He looked up at her and she was somewhat taken aback to see the pain in his eyes. "The Leviathans, all of this, is my fault because I fought a war I thought I could win—and I did, but at great cost to, well, everyone. And I betrayed people I cared about—my friends…my family." His eyes squinched up at the sides, and his mouth turned down. "I think it's best I don't fight anymore. I am much better at watching the bees."
Meg wasn't sure what to reply to that; she certainly hadn't expected it, either the sentiments or the clarity of them from her crazy angel. But she could kind of see where he was coming from. She didn't know all the details but it seemed like Castiel had royally screwed up with the war in heaven. Obviously, his working with Crowley hadn't exactly been a highlight, but she did enjoy the thought of Castiel leaving the self-professed King of Hell in the lurch when he no longer needed him. But Cas had done what he had thought he had to do; Meg knew what that was like. How many questionable things had she done in the name of Lucifer? Of course, being a demon typically left her free of the guilt Castiel was suffering from. He had been hanging out with those self-flagellating Winchesters for too long.
"Well, I'll do the fighting for now, as long as you'll step in if I need the backup," Meg told him finally.
Castiel smiled. "Don't worry, Meg. I'll protect you."
She was sure her cheeks heated up at that, though from discomfort or annoyance, she wasn't sure. Of course she was self-professedly using Castiel as protection, but she didn't need him to acknowledge that.
Castiel stood up and reached over to another table, plucking up a game box and showing it to her. Meg frowned slightly as she saw that it was the game Sorry.
"I would like to learn this one, would you teach me?" Cas asked her, taking the lid off and pulling the board out.
Meg cleared her throat and forced a small smile. "Sure, why not?" She helped him set it up and explained the rules. Somehow Castiel managed to win even though it didn't look like he was paying too much attention.
"Seriously?" She raised an eyebrow.
Cas smiled. "I enjoyed that game." He then seemed to sober and his gaze got so intense Meg began to shift uncomfortably in her seat.
"Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly.
He blinked and his eyes lost their intensity. "Meg, may I draw you?"
She looked up at him in surprise, cocking an eyebrow at the unexpected change of conversation. "What? Like one of your French girls?"
He cocked his head to one side in that confused bird look. "I don't have any French girls. I thought you would make a good subject for a portrait. You have so many layers."
Meg sighed and shrugged. "Whatever floats your boat, Clarence."
He cocked his head again. "I don't think it will float a boat."
"Never mind, just do what you want," she grunted, putting the game pieces back into the box and setting it to one side.
Cas happily picked up his pencil, turned the page of his notebook and set to work. Meg browsed through several magazines that had been left on the table and didn't look up again until Cas spoke.
"I finished. Would you like to see?" he asked.
Meg braced herself for the angel's artwork and closed the magazine. "Sure, let's see it."
She wasn't sure what she had expected, but this certainly was not it. She reached out and took the paper in inexplicably trembling hands.
Her likeness had been sketched onto the paper, looking down and slightly away as she must have been from Cas' point of view, but the angel had somehow managed to superimpose her physical body, over…something else. The image of the human body she had taken was there at the forefront, but underneath there was a certain darkness that almost shown through her skin and that was wrapped in thorny rose briars. They culminated on the left side of her breast where her heart would be in a blooming rose that looked almost illuminated.
She just sat there staring at the picture for a long time, not sure what to say, or even how to feel about it.
"Do you like it?" Cas asked hesitantly, reminding her the angel was still there sitting across from her. "You don't like it." He decided after another few seconds of her speechlessness.
She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. "This…is this how you see me?"
Castiel smiled softly. "I did tell you that you were not all darkness inside." He looked at her as if he were once again looking into her true self. "There is a nobility in you, Meg. You may like to deny it, but it is true. Nobility, along with the thorny beauty, is what sets you apart from most demons. As I told you before, a rose can never be without its thorns, after all."
"I'm not much for poetry, Clarence," Meg told him, uncomfortable with his observation, and yet…maybe a bit flattered? Meg quickly dismissed that as an option. She was a demon, plain and simple, nobility was an unreachable goal for her. She had tried something like that when she had fought for Lucifer and she had quickly become disenchanted. But then…maybe Castiel of all people would actually be able to understand that. He too had fought for a cause once, and had turned away from it when it had no longer been what he had believed it to be. In reality, they weren't so much different at all. Maybe that was why Meg was so inexplicably attracted to him.
She was almost relieved when Dawn came in a minute later, beckoning her.
"Hey, Meg, can I get your help for a minute?" she asked.
Meg nodded to Castiel. "I'll be back later. Behave."
Her mind was far too cluttered for her own good for the rest of the day and she hated it. Even thought she kept busy, all she could think about was Castiel's stupid picture and how he saw her, and his admission that he didn't want to fight anymore. She had suspected he was more broken than he was letting on, but the thought that he literally blamed himself for everything, well…Meg decided she might have to work on that later. That one was probably the Winchesters' fault, especially Dean, since Cas had broken his precious baby brother's mental wall, never mind the fact that Cas had literally taken Sam's crazy and transferred it to himself. They hadn't actually been broken up to leave Cas there with her. The abandonment had to be weighing on the angel too, which made Meg feel oddly protective of him. In any case, she was thinking of way too many things, which confused her when she should have been concentrating on keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.
When she finally got done with her shift, she didn't have time to say goodbye to Cas because the head of the hospital gathered everyone together to ask if anyone knew what had happened to the nurses the night before. Meg played as innocent as possible and then was finally able to leave once everything had settled down. Hopefully, they wouldn't beef up security and make it impossible for her to get back in to Cas that night.
But everything was normal when she drove back just after midnight and she made her way to Castiel's room where she found him sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading a book—thankfully present and safe this time. He looked up without his typical smile in greeting, seeming relieved to see her.
"You're late," he accused.
"Gee, sorry," Meg scoffed, slumping down in the desk chair. "I was just stuck answering questions about the nurses you smote last night."
Castiel's face scrunched up in distaste at the mention of it. "I would rather not think of that. Would you read to me instead?"
Meg took a deep breath of patience and reached out to take the book from him. "Alright, a little bit, but at least try to sleep."
This got a little smile from Cas as he settled down on the bed, and pulled the blanket over himself. "Of course."
Meg never got the chance to start reading though. She had just barely flipped to the first page when the lights in the hallway outside started flickering and then the one in Castiel's room did the same. The angel sat up suddenly, his head cocked as if listening, a bemused expression on his face.
"Was that you?" Meg asked him hopefully, but was already reaching into her jacket for one of the angel blades. He shook his head.
"Other angels," Cas said, then frowned. "They seem…angry."
Meg's heart clenched in her chest and she was on her feet instantly, reaching out to grab Castiel's arm and drag him to his feet. "We need to go. Now!"
But it was already too late. The door to the room burst open, splitting at the hinges and causing Meg and Cas to shelter their faces from the flying splinters.
When they looked up again, three angels were standing in the doorway, blades drawn, and righteous anger on their faces.
"Crap," Meg breathed.
They were totally screwed now.
Yeah, cliffhanger… On another note, Happy Halloween! I did post my Halloween themed fic in "A Thing Or Two About Being Human" earlier this week if you missed it :)