Chapter 3
Castiel flew away from the hospital with barely a thought, and landed in one of his favorite places in the world. The Los Angeles Public Library.
But it wasn't just for the books. He could read whatever he wanted to in a second flat and recite it without faltering. But that was nothing compared to listening to people read. It was the way they said things and what they though about the words on the page and how the words made them feel. He could listen for days on end.
"As I walk among the stony shore of the pond in my shirtsleeves..."
"...Amazon basin in the north, once an island sea..."
"The highest truth on the subject remains unsaid, probably cannot be said. For all that we say is the far off remembering of the institution..."
"...she begins to pull away from the awareness she had once..."
'Commencing search,' searching for my soul, said a woman a the computer.
What happened to the cards? You could touch the cards.
She's been looking at me for half an hour. Maybe if I just stand here...
"This is a delicious evening, when the whole body's one sense..."
"What if I screamed? What if I just screamed right now?"
"When a woman decides to sleep with a man..."
Castiel sat himself down opposite an old man, wearing a sweater vest and a tie. He came here often, and always tried to sit in the same spot. He read, " You knew there would always be a spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason."
The old man closed the book and stood from the table, heading home. The book: A Movable Feast , by Earnest Hemingway.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Gabriel Messenger was in love. She was German, and she was delicious.
He scraped another spoonful of the ice cream from the bottom of the bucket, and had to fight back a moan of pleasure as it hit his lips, slightly warm and melty as it was. It was one of the finer things in life, chocolate, and he had learned to appreciate it quickly. A bit much, if anybody were to take one look at him, but another thing he had learned was not to care what anybody thought.
He was sat up in a hospital bed, the curtain drawn around him to do what little it could to separate him from the noise of the hospital. The arm that held the ice cream sported a plastic bracelet with his name, an IV in his hand, his wedding ring, and a tattoo of what looked like an Indian goddess on his bicep only slightly obscured by the sleeve of his hospital gown.
He continued to scrape at the bottom of the ice cream tub until he heard the quick footsteps that he recognized immediately as his Kali's, his wife. He hurriedly stuffed the evidence under his sheet, and put on his most innocent face.
Kali swept the curtain aside with a loud whoosh! and placed a handful of pink flowers into the vase she'd brought from home. "Alright," she said in her thick accent. "They have rescheduled the operation for Monday."
"What happened yesterday?"
"They had a golf tournament," she said sarcastically. "I don't know. Who knows with these people."
Before Gabriel could inquire further, a young man in a white coat pushed the curtain the rest of the way open. "Good morning, Mr. Messinger. I'm Dr. Winchester."
Kali scoffed, but Gabriel corrected him before she could turn her wrath the doctor's way. "The 'g' is soft, like 'messenger.'"
Dr. Winchester didn't respond. He had Gabriel's chart in his hands, and he checked the IV before even looking at Gabriel. His eyes narrowed in confusion. "What's on your lip?"
"What? Am I slobbering here?" Gabriel reached up a hand to swipe at his mouth, but as he did the ice cream fell from where he'd been holding it under the sheet.
The doctor stooped easily to retrieve it, glaring at Gabriel on the way back up.
Kali turned indignant. "Where did you get that?"
"What am I, a prisoner," he sniped back.
"You want to get well, or you want Ben & Jerry's?"
Dr. Winchester went to the linen closet, and grabbed a clean gown for Gabriel, tossing it onto his bed. His glare did not fade. "This operation is a big deal. If you're going to continue to eat like this, you might as well skip it. Save yourself the thirty grand."
"Yeah, well, if you'd performed the operation yesterday like you were supposed to, I'd be sucking carrots through a straw in my arm. What happened?"
The doctor hesitated. "Circumstances were not optimal for the procedure."
Kali looked disbelieving, but Gabriel didn't let her say anything. "Hey, I ain't 'the procedure.' My name is Gabriel Messenger, and I'm sitting right here."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
The more Castiel thought about Dean Winchester, the more he realized he could not stop thinking about him. Never before had he been so interested in a human. One very particular human. The next days, often without conscious thought, he found himself reaching out with his Grace, feeling Dean's presence. It called to him like a beacon.
Unable to resist it any longer, Castiel followed Dean's presence to the second floor of the hospital, and landed right next to him, already walking along. Castiel trailed after him, watching the human as he was approached by a nurse for a signature. He signed quickly and kept walking.
He stopped suddenly, however, upon seeing a darkly complected, middle aged woman at the nurse's station. Dean glanced frantically around for an exit, and was granted an open elevator which he disappeared into. He was deposited back onto the fourth floor where Castiel stood waiting.
The fourth floor was the children's ward. Dean sighed and smiled as he stepped out into a much brighter atmosphere than the rest of the hospital. The walls were covered in colorful framed paintings and bright yellow walls, crayon drawings from the Ward's occupants stuck to the walls with tape. Dean walked up to the window of one of the playrooms, the glass of which was covered in blue hand prints. He curiously placed his palm over one of them.
Castiel appeared on the other side, and just so, placed his hand opposite Dean's.
Dean continued on, along the corridor, and Castiel followed.
As they passed room after room, Castiel was pleased to see his brothers and sisters watching over the ward. In one room, his sister Hannah was playing with the two young occupants, batting a balloon back and forth. Floating, floating. Don't pop it, don't pop it!
Annael, in the next room, stood sentry over a sleeping child, and her mother, passed out on in the chair next to the bed.
Uriel was humming along to Do You Know the Muffin man, and smiling as he watched his charges bobbing their heads along to the tune.
And Samandriel in the last room with two children, staring open mouthed, young and innocent, at the television program.
Castiel chuckled at the last, and then turned his attention back to Dean Winchester who stole his way through the doors into the much quieter maternity ward. The nurse on duty – her name tag read M. Masters, R.N. – just smirked at him and let him pass like it was a common thing he did.
Dean went into the nursery and sat on a stool in the middle of the room, finally taking a deep calming breath. He rolled his neck around carefully, a peaceful smile crossing his features.
o0o
Dean sat still, taking in the silence of the nursery, only occasionally interrupted by a quiet coo from one of the infants. As he did this, he could feel his stress crack and start to crumble away. In here there were no worries. No patients (not his, anyway), no bitchy wives, no grieving families. Just new life. And the ever-present smell of baby powder.
The silence was broken by a familiar laugh. "Dean! I see you charmed the nurses into letting you in again."
"Hey, Sam. Sorry I missed lunch the other day."
"It's okay," said his brother. "I'm sorry about what happened." He put a file into the desk and leaned against it. "What are you doing here?"
Dean did a 360º on the stool, and stopped facing Sam. "Oh, you know... I was on my way up to X-ray... and I though I'd stop in and just... hide."
"From what?"
Dean paused, he didn't want to talk about it right now. Instead, he said, "I should've gone into pediatrics."
Sam laughed, but quietly, mindful not to wake the babies. "Oh, no. Every girl you meet is either married or a gyno. Not the best chances."
Dean hummed in agreement.
One of the babies chose that moment to let out a pitiful wail. Dean stood up and watched his little brother throw a receiving blanket over his shoulder before picking up the baby. "Poor little guy," he said. " Yeah, okay. He never stops crying."
"What's wrong with him?"
Sam patted the baby's back soothingly. "No insurance. Found him in a dumpster behind the House of Pies. We worked him up the wazoo for everything from drug exposure to diabetes." The infant continued to wail. "We go nothing."
Dean took his stethoscope from around his neck and stepped closer. "May I?" Sam nodded and changed the baby's position.
Dean warmed the stethoscope with the palm of his hand and pressed it to the baby's chest. It was hard to tell over the whimpers, but there might be something. "Did you do an ultrasound?"
"You hear a murmur?"
"Worth a shot."
Sam nodded, eyes concerned, and held the infant to his chest again. " Okay, baby. Yes." He then looked back up at Dean, expression only increasing in potency. "So what are you hiding from?"
Dean sighed. "My patient's wife. She wants me to tell her that... that her husband is going to be okay... and that I have every confidence." Dean blinked and swallowed, forcing out the words, "But I don't." Sam said nothing, so Dean continued. "And after all this time, and after all this work... I – I suddenly have this feeling that... That none of this is in my hands. Nothing . And if it isn't... what do I do with that?"
Sam continued looking at Dean for a moment, like he was trying to think of something to say, but then he cast his eyes down and kissed the still whining baby on the head.
o0o
Even after Dean left Sam alone, with a promise to get together soon – outside of work this time – he couldn't stop thinking about that poor abandoned baby. The little guy didn't have anybody who cared for him in the world. There had to be something that Dean could do. Technically, it wasn't his responsibility, but since Dean was basically useless until Monday he figured he'd better take the initiative.
This is what found him in his dark office late that night surrounded by medical textbooks, lit only by the desk lamp he'd switched on when the light had faded. He'd been there for hours, his eyes drooping behind his reading glasses, yet he had nothing to show for it. He flipped through a few more pages and then stretched his aching neck from side to side.
Feeling defeated, Dean closed the multitude of books around him, and left them on the desk, thinking he ought to check up on Mr. Messenger before he left for the night.
He got off the elevator on the sixth floor. A lot of the lights were off for the night shift, and Dean realized he'd stayed later then he'd intended to.
He stopped by the nurses' station – empty, perhaps they were on rounds – and picked up the patient chart. He walked down the hall, reading the chart as he went, and blinked back the sleepiness from his eyes. Rubbing a hand over his face, Dean looked up and was surprised to see a man in a tan trenchcoat. "Excuse me?" Dean called out. The nurses should have kicked this dude out hours ago.
The man turned around, and Dean stopped short for a moment, struck by the unruly windswept hair and bright blue eyes that matched his tie perfectly. He shook himself mentally. "Are you a visitor?" Dean asked.
"Yes," the man answered, his voice a deep rumble.
Dean blinked. "Visiting hours have been over since eight."
He cocked his head to the side, like a confused puppy. "Why do they have that?"
"What?"
"Hours? Doesn't it help the patient to be visited?"
Dean almost smiled. "Who are you visiting? Mr. Messenger?"
"Right now?"
"Yeah."
"You."
Dean paused, and then said, "I don't need a visitor."
"You're not ill?"
"No. I'm one of the doctors here." he twitched his arms in an aborted gesture meant to indicate his white coat.
The man gave Dean a meaningful look, eyes, wide and caring, but with an undercurrent of... Dean didn't know what. The man asked, "Are you in despair?"
Dean should have been indignant. He should have yelled at this stranger to get the hell out and never come back asking personal questions he didn't have the right to know the answer to, but... there was something... Something there in how the man looked at Dean, like he already knew the answer. And he wanted to help. "I lost a patient."
"You did everything you could?"
"I was holding his heart in my hand when he died." He had to fight back the emotion attempting to bubble up in his chest as he remembered what had happened.
"Then he wasn't alone."
"Yes he was." Alone and my fault.
The man's eyes hardened and his voice changed from weird and ethereal to serious. "People die."
"Not on my table."
"People die when their bodies give out."
"It's my job to keep their bodies from giving out. Or what am I doing here." Who was this man to tell him what was supposed to happen.
"It wasn't you fault, Dean."
"I wanted him to live."
"He is living. Just not the way you think."
Dean narrowed his eyes. Who was this guy? "I don't believe in that."
"Some things are true whether you believe in them or not."
Then something struck Dean. "How did you know my name?"
The man pointed at Dean's badge, a small smile on his face. Dean covered it with his hand – for all the good it would do. "What's yours?"
"Castiel."
It was such a weird name, Dean almost though he was making it up. He repeated it out loud, "Castiel... You better get out of here, Castiel. Or security's going to think you're a psych patient." Dean couldn't help it, he smiled. He turned on his heel and walked away, kind of happy he'd gotten the last word in that roller coaster of a conversation, but kind of weirdly upset that it had come to an end. Psych patient or not, Dean hadn't felt so at ease with a person outside of Sam... pretty much his entire life.
He turned back around, hoping to get one last glimpse of the mysterious trenchcoated man, but when he looked, there was no one there. The hallway was empty. Dean hadn't heard anything. He kept walking but turned back a couple more times, wondering how the man had been so quiet, and if he was even real at all.
Dean went to the locker room to change for the trip home, and as he was hanging his coat up, noticed his badge. It read 'D. Winchester, M.D. Thoracic Surgeon'. Nowhere on the id did it say 'Dean.' Dean smiled, thinking perhaps Mr. Messenger told Castiel about him.
o0o