Chapter 43
Dean sat outside the hospital wondering why he was still there. Nadia was gone and she wasn't coming back; but still, he couldn't bring himself to leave before seeing Aidan wake instead of her. He stared at the pitch black asphalt in the parking lot and thought, not for the first time, about the people who because of his presence in their lives, had died. Killed. Murdered. He was cursed, he had to be.
Nadia's eyes popped into his mind again and that feeling he always felt when she looked at him like that, like some sort of high, swept through him. He blinked the image away, shifting his focus onto something else. A couple climbed out of a blue foreign car and walked inside. Everything about them said "average," "plain," but he couldn't help the envy that flowed through him. Forcing himself to look away, he caught a change out the corner of his eye and when he turned, Castiel sat on the bench beside him. It never ceased to amaze him the normal things angels did.
"What do you want now?" He sounded accusing but he didn't care; Castiel's fault or not, he was never going to see Nadia look at him that way again.
Castiel looked over the parking lot like he had just come to rest before proceeding on somewhere else and hadn't even noticed Dean. Finally he opened his mouth but still spoke like he was talking to himself, "My…superiors thought Nadia would cause problems down the road. She was always a target."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better? Cause I gotta say, your bedside manner could definitely use some work."
Castiel blinked slowly and again took his time responding. "I remember when the sword was just a powerful sword, not really that different from any other." Dean looked at him incredulously but Castiel continued before he could berate him again for his useless information. "There are a lot of souls in heaven but they're…used elsewhere so there was nothing to feed it, to strengthen it. Then it ended up down here and in the hands of a king trying to win the rule of a broken country. Thousands of people to fell at that sword and with each one, its power became greater. Only then did it catch our attention and we were able to get it back. Then it was so powerful the only angel God trusted it with was, Michael." He paused briefly, "It then became known as Michael's sword. The only way for Uriel to get his hands on it would be for Michael himself to give it to him." This time he paused for a long time while Dean processed what he'd said.
"There is more going on here then even I understand, Dean. From what I've come to find, she was never going to end up old and by your side. She was always going to end up dead. You and your brother are vessels," he turned to face Dean for the first time. "You as Michael and Sam as Lucifer. It's what you have been destined to become for centuries; it was always going to come down to the two of you. The apocalypse. But a vessel has to freely give its consent in order to be filled. With Nadia around, you never would have given it and our side would have been doomed. Uriel and Michael and all the others grew desperate."
"And what about you?" Dean stared intently at Castiel. "Are you a murderer? Is it okay with you as long as you do it in the name of God? Cause there are a whole lot of people down here, humans down here, who have said the same thing; but they still ended up getting juiced in the execution chamber."
Castiel looked back at Dean, unsure what to say. "I can't deal with this right now," Dean went on to say. "First things, first. Uriel. So," he pretended to perk up, "what kills you guys anyway?" Castiel dropped his eyes and turned his head to look down at the asphalt between his knees. "Yeah, that's kind of what I figured," Dean sighed and looked back across the parking lot at the sound of a car door slamming. When he glanced back, Castiel was gone. Dean growled a sigh and rubbed his hand down his face. "More research," he mumbled. Another wave of grief swept over him, "I'll get him, Nadia, I swear."
"Dean, she's awake." Sam stood on the sidewalk, his chest rising and falling from hurrying down the stairs. Dean took one last glance around, not really expecting to see Castiel hiding somewhere but not sure he wouldn't either. He pushed his hands into his coat pockets and turned to follow Sam inside, when a thought occurred to him. Maybe the odd little angel hadn't been talking because he was a history buff; maybe he'd been trying to steer Dean in the right direction… He shook his head and dismissed the idea, How in the hell would I get my hands on Michael's sword anyway? You know, without letting him shove himself down my throat? Do angels do that or is that just a demon thing?
"That yours?" Sam's voice refocused Dean on the present and he looked over his shoulder to the bench where he'd been sitting. Something shined brightly on the seat where Castiel had been. When Dean walked back to see what it was, he was surprised to find a gleaming silver dagger on the worn wood. He looked around but still saw no one. When he picked it up a small zap like he was being shocked by a balloon tingled through his hand. The blade and hilt were engraved with symbols he'd never seen before and immediately he knew Castiel had left it behind for him. He gripped the hilt tighter before carefully slipping it inside his coat and silently thanking the angel whether it would reach him or not.
Aidan blinked and her vision was flooded with white; bright, unadulterated white. With each blink her eyes were able to stay open longer and the brightness faded until she saw a white ceiling and white walls. Upon closer inspection, the walls were a pale blue; not that she cared what colors the walls were, it was just that the whiteness was oddly depressing. An odd sound brought her attention to her right side where she saw Sam unfolding himself from a gray, thickly padded chair, to stand up.
He looked hesitant when he stepped forward, "Nadia?"
Aidan couldn't help making a snide remark to where ever Nadia was hidden away. Even after being spurned, he's right at your bedside. She waited for a reply but none came. Only then did she start to feel hollowness inside herself. She tried to sit up but memory came back to her and she froze. She'd been yelling at Dean, giving him a piece of her mind, when something had happened; she'd been thrown out of their shared body by something sharp and excruciatingly painful.
She'd been stabbed…but the memory wasn't hers; it was Nadia's, she'd taken over as soon as Aidan had been thrown back into the all-to-familiar far reaches of their shared mind. So where was she now?
"Nadia?" Sam repeated and Aidan focused on him; the worry on his face, so strong it was as if he already knew the bad news he was afraid to hear.
She blinked and covertly scanned the room for Dean but he was nowhere to be seen. That was it; all it took for her to realize something had drastically changed. Dean would never leave Nadia to wake in the hospital alone; not even with Sam there. She'd never understood the strength and longing humans had for emotions that would tear them apart—she didn't even understand the dim ones she'd felt herself—but she did understand that if Dean wasn't at her bedside than there was a reason; a powerful reason. "No," she finally answered Sam's question and sat up the rest of the way.
He moved back a couple inches, "Is she…"
Aidan stared at the wall in front of her as she came to understand what Sam was asking and what her answer was, "No." The word came out as a breath but it felt like it did whenever she used her abilities; she might as well have thrown an axe into the wall or created a thunderstorm—she knew what her words meant for Sam and Dean.
Sam stared at her in silence for a few beats before turning and walking out the door. She heard his footsteps fade down the hall and not long after they disappeared, a nurse bustled in with a meal tray in her hands. The nurse was middle-aged, with little to no makeup and hair easily swept back into a loose bun. She paused for half a second, surprised to find Aidan awake and sitting up.
"Well, good morning," she smiled so brightly, an overwhelming urge to throw her back into the wall, almost overtook Aidan. "How are you feeling?" She sat the tray on the table beside the bed and smiled.
Aidan put a hand to her abdomen, "Remarkably well for having been kabobed."
The nurse gave her an odd look, "Kabobed?"
Aidan was quickly losing patience with this woman. "Middle Eastern? Skewered meat and veggies? Grilled? Ringing any bells here?"
The nurse held up a hand, "Oh I know what shish kabobs are, dear." Aidan's jaw clenched at the word, "dear." "I love them. They're like an entire meal on a stick, they're fantabulous."
"Fantabulous," Aidan repeated with a mix of boredom and annoyance.
The nurse laughed and waved her off, "Sorry, I got sidetracked. What I was getting at was that you weren't kabobed. Those two boys found you unconscious on the side of the road. Now I have to ask, what in God's name," Aidan flinched, "did you have to be mad at the two of them for? Those boys are gorgeous."
Aidan ignored her, "Just unconscious?" This was the same hospital that had treated the now infamous Emmett Hale; but seriously how could they miss someone having been stabbed?
She fidgeted with a bag full of fluids and scribbled some numbers on a chart then returned it to the end of the bed. "Of course, sweetie." She looked at Aidan with pity, "I think you must have bumped your head when you passed out. You weren't kabobed…in fact you don't have a mark on you." And with that, she was out the door.
Aidan stared after her; it may have been Nadia's memory, but there was no way of missing the fact that she'd seen a silver blade sticking out of her abdomen covered in her, their, own blood. She pulled the hospital gown she had been put into, up over her legs, over her lavender underwear, and exposed her bare stomach. There was no blood or wound or even a scar—just smooth unblemished skin. "There's no way," she whispered to herself.
Still holding her gown in her hands, she slid off the bed and hurried into the bathroom. No pain stabbed through her as she moved and it felt wrong. She rolled onto her tip toes, flipped on the light switch, and looked at herself in the mirror. Still nothing looked back at her. She rolled back down onto her feet and stared at herself in the mirror, trying to figure out what was going on. Was she going crazy? Had losing an entire half of her, made her go insane? They were both unconscious after the stabbing so there was no way to tell what had happened, but she was fairly sure neither Sam nor Dean knew how to completely heal a wound like that without leaving so much as a scar.
Footsteps came to a stop behind her and she turned to find Dean standing in the doorway with Sam behind him. Dean's eyes dropped down to her exposed skin and his eyes flashed with something she couldn't name before he looked away. She slowly let the fabric of her paper thin gown fall to brush her ankles. She looked Dean over and still felt an odd flutter in the pit of her stomach; Nadia is gone, why do I still feel this way towards him? She blinked and ignored the feeling.
He studied her for a few moments before straightening his back and subtly leaning away from her. He swallowed and doors slammed shut behind his eyes, "So you're alive."
The coldness in his voice made her eyes grow cold as well. "Glad to see you're so ecstatic about that." He ignored her, sparing only a disgusted twitch of his lip. "How exactly is that, by the way; cause the last thing I remember is being stabbed in the back." The feeling of dread fluttered through her again from her memory, "By an angel," she added. Her gaze zeroed in on Dean, "Glad to know some things are still so black and white for some people."
"They've always been black and white," he narrowed his eyes right back at her, his jaw muscles bunched.
She blew a small laugh out her nose and turned to walk back to the bed. She turned to face them and leaned back against the edge of the bed. "What happened?"
Dean looked reluctant to answer her and Sam must have expected that, so he started talking. "Uriel stabbed you. He claimed it was on orders from on high to protect Dean and me."
Aidan thought back to just before she'd been stabbed; she'd been berating Dean by the side of his car. She smiled coldly, "Of course they did."
"Castiel showed up but it was too late and apparently, from what Uriel said, his orders came from way over Castiel's head."
"I couldn't give a rat's ass about angel politics," she said exasperatedly. "That doesn't explain how I survived and ended up here without so much as a nick on my skin."
"It's not your skin," Dean mumbled.
Her focus moved from Sam to Dean and again zeroed in intently; it was all Sam could do not to shrink back and he wasn't even the object of her glare. "Yes, it is; always has been and now that, for whatever reason, Nadia is gone, it always will be. Mine and only mine, the sooner you get over that, the better off we'll all be."
Dean was incredulous, "The better off we'll be? What, you think you're just going to continue riding along in the back seat with us? You think you're a part of our lives? You may look like Nadia, but you will never be Nadia." His lips pulled back over his teeth and his voice was tight. His body was tense like he was barely holding himself back from attacking her right then and there. "The only reason I gave the okay for that angel to save you, is because I know Nadia would've killed me if threw away the chance at a life free from hell, that she gave me. Don't think for a second that this has anything to do with you. You are a demon, you will always be just a demon," his words were slow and measured. "You might have her face, but if I ever see you again, I will not hesitate to kill you."
And with that, he turned and brushed past his brother, walking down the hall without looking back. Sam looked from his brother's retreating back, to Aidan. He blinked and swallowed, "I know I have no right to ask this—and I'm not even sure why I am, considering what you are now—but you still have a chance to save him and if what I see on your face when you look at him, isn't just a figment of my imagination, maybe you will. So…" He started to turn and walk away but, ever the well-mannered brother, he stopped and looked back at her, "Goodbye, Aidan," he nodded awkwardly and left.