Warnings: Swearing, language, hospitalization, mention and reference to gun violence, mention of rescucitation, emotional breakdown, mentions of John Winchester, mention of slight drug use (morphine), mention of homophobic violence, mention of homophobic threats, homophobic language
Chapter 26: Recovery
Dean remembered the first time he had seen the father of Castiel. Chuck didn't look like his son except perhaps the curly grizzled hair that had been black one day. He had a poorly maintained beard, and wore a dressing gown over the ugliest pants Dean had ever seen. He had a cup of coffee in hand that smelled alcohol. That was years ago and Dean still remembered his discomfort in this house which attempted in vain to be perfectly tidy, facing the man who had greeted him by extending his hand: "Oh, so you're the boy who sings?"
Castiel had called him "boy who sings" with a laugh for weeks after this, and Dean had mentally asked himself if it was physically possible to dig a hole under the coffee table while Chuck poured him a whiskey.
The circumstances were different today, and even if Dean had wanted to, he couldn't have gotten up from his bed. He felt vaguely nauseated and furry. The sound of a quiet chat was rocking him. How much time had passed? A few days... He lost track of time in his room even though he was regularly reminded of the time. At night, the room was illuminated by the floodlights of the journalists who lingered outside the hospital, waiting for a declaration from Bobby that wouldn't come. The old grumpy insulted the journalists under his breath and moved them away from him with big arm gestures without giving them any news, more or less consciously maintaining the certainty of the fans that something serious was going on.
Dean croaked something and a hand laid on his shoulder. Not Castiel's, and the smell was not the same either, but maybe he didn't smell anything because of the oxygen blowing his nose. He had eyes so dry he didn't want to open them.
"Castiel will return. It's the middle of the night." Said a deep voice. The tone was clear-cut and comforting, something that, curiously, Dean had never associated with Chuck. "Sleep son, you need it."
Nobody had called him "son" for a long time. At least not in a nice tone, not with this kind of compassion. No one had called him "son" as a sign of affection since... He shut his eyelids tighter to wipe the image of his father and the fuzziness surrounding the moments around the shot. Chuck gently squeezed his shoulder. The singer fell back into a sleep induced by the treatments, slightly reassured by the presence of Chuck. He dreamed of the downright ugly pants of their meeting.
##
Charlie felt numb and the neon light above her head was very unpleasant. Someone was talking loudly in the room and it took her a moment to emerge enough to distinguish the silhouette of Kevin who was pacing, his phone glued to his ear.
"Don't talk about Sam, Channing. I know he's shocked, I too am shocked, but his friend is in the bed next to me and him... He's at the end of the corridor, whining on the shoulder of Castiel's mother! …No... Chan... No I don't understand!"
Charlie closed her eyes again. The discussion seemed to last an infinite time before Kevin finally shut up.
"Kev..." She croaked. Damn how her shoulder hurt!
"Hey... How are you doing?"
"We survived the Battle of Endor?" What day was it? Her head was spinning and she had a slight nausea that never left her for so long that it seemed to her she was born with it.
Kevin suppressed a reassured chuckle. If Charlie had the presence of mind to make reference to her favorite movie, everything was fine.
"I'll go and tell them you're awake."
"No." She stopped him with a sudden movement of the arm which drew her a grimace of pain. "How are the others?"
"Dean was shot, less badly than you I believe, Cas is with him. His parents arrived yesterday, they say they will manage the supplies."
"We're on a pirate ship?"
"What? No... You're confusing with wheelhouse Charlie!"
"Ah." Muttered the young woman. "Why are you mad at Sam?" The story of the last days was a puzzle she intended to piece together as in a video game.
"Nothing."
"Liar. It's rude to lie to a sick chick." Her eyelids were heavy, talking drew on her chest and it hurt, it also itched. "Well, hurt."
Kevin smiled. "He… I think he kinda lost it."
It was all he could say without getting to spill his venom over his friend. And Charlie didn't need this. She was already starting to fall back asleep. Kevin changed the subject and babbled until she sleeps entirely and Channing discreetly enters the room.
##
"Sam." The drummer could barely remember the first name of the mother of Castiel. Anna was a discreet and trim woman who did not attract attention. She was leaning over him and handing him an isothermal mug. "You haven't eaten since yesterday."
"Eating is not going to help me. No offense Ms. Novak."
"As is starving yourself." She replied by forcing the mug in his hands before sitting down next to him. It seemed to Sam that he had not left the seat of the waiting room of the post-emergency service for weeks. Actually, he had only been here for twenty minutes, but every second lasted longer than the previous one. He was unconsciously massaging a big ball that he had in the pit of his stomach, trying to find the courage to go down the floor that separated him from Charlie's room. He stretched his legs with a grimace of pain and took a sip from the mug. The slightly warmer than lukewarm soup was oddly comforting.
"Thank you."
Anna's eyes were fixed on the door of Dean's room.
"The nurses will soon throw us out, visiting hours are over."
"I'm not leaving."
"I know. Neither is Castiel. We'll find an understanding."
Sam had a tired smile. "I saw the nurse last night, she's not easy-going."
"You say that because your charm didn't coax her." Anna laughed. "As long as you keep a low profile, she won't say anything. We'll still have to be gone before morning."
"I just wanna be sure he's not going to deteriorate tonight. Her neither..." Sam took another sip of the soup. "It's good."
Anna shook her head. "Never say that in front of Castiel. He's drunk so much of it that just the smell gives him nausea now."
Sam nodded, realizing only now how much time the Novaks must have spent in hospital. "How did you do? All those years..."
She shrugged. "We make do. And we pray."
"I don't believe in God."
Anna took a moment to answer, looking at the tips of her shoes. Usually, Sam thought to himself, she probably wore kitten heels pumps, smooth and of neutral color. For traveling and for what would follow, she had put on ankle boots of which an undone lace was lying on the floor. He couldn't imagine that she might have sneakers, she wasn't that kind of woman.
"Want to know a secret? Nobody here believes in Him. Probably not even the night nurse with her crucifix necklace. That doesn't stop us to pray when we are left with nothing else. Finish your soup."
Sam lifted the mug to his mouth reflexively and stopped in motion.
"I said..."
"I heard you." He said. "It's just... This is the first time a mom gives me an order."
"You'll get used to it." Anna smiled. "And you're going down to see your friend. She needs you too."
Sam pressed his hands around the mug. He couldn't rule against Anna. But going down to see Charlie seemed too much for him. She would be pale in the bed because of all the blood she had lost. And he wouldn't know what to do or say. It was stupid because it was so late she was probably sleeping. But he couldn't help but think of all the implicit promises they had made the past few years. All the times he had claimed to be her boyfriend in nightclubs or on the street so she wouldn't be bothered. All the times she had dragged him to the homes of strangers in the middle of the night to jump from their roofs into pools that were not theirs and make him forget for a moment that he was lonely and miserable sometimes.
It came back in a loop with the shitty taste of failure and "I should have". I should have seen it coming. I should have been able to prevent it. I should have been a better friend and not remain like a coward one floor above instead of going to hold her hand.
It was a tacit agreement between the three of them, to stick together. Between the four of them with Kevin, to support each other when they were not okay. Between the five of them with Castiel, to not let themselves get down by circumstances. And Sam was conscientiously scrapping all this, sitting there in the company of Anna, too shocked to move, too weak to only try.
"I can't." He sighed.
The gaze of Anna weighed on him so hard that he had to look up at her. She looked angry as much as a gentle woman could be and he wanted to shrink under her gaze.
"I'm not asking you if you can." She said coldly. "I'm just informing you that you have to. I had a sick son. Do you think that I could, that I really had the will to come and see him every day in the hospital? Do you think I wanted to read him the Neverending Story again and again because he couldn't stand any other story? Do you think Chuck and I could bear that?"
Sam lowered his eyes, ready to apologize. Anna took the empty mug from his hands.
"It's not about if you can do it or not. It's about duty. And it's your duty to help your friends. We take care of your brother, you go take care of the teeny."
"The teeny." It was a so odd nickname for Charlie. Sam realized that although she was two heads shorter than him, he had never seen her as tiny. And that it wasn't gonna happen anytime soon. In the elevator he hesitated on the button to press and finally choose the one of the first floor. Before going to see Charlie, he had a thing or two to do.
Take a shower, for starters. And stop by her place to find a copy of The Hobbit or the Neverending Story... or anything else to distract her. Anything with a hero so strong they can overcome death, to ensure that she does the same.
##
On the floor below, Kevin's stomach was protesting in the quiet room of Charlie. He had not dared to leave to get food for fear of being prohibited to return. Her condition had taken hours to stabilize enough to get out of continuing care, she was no longer breathing through a tube down her throat and it was a relief for the young man. It was an image he was sure to never forget. He now understood why Castiel left the room whenever someone watched a medical show.
Real hospitals were not as bright nor as beautiful as behind the screens. People looked grumpy behind their smiles, tired, neon lights made them all grayish or yellow. And patients hadn't the perfect and calm sleep of TV shows or movies. That was a bunch of lies.
"I'm staying near her. The nurse said you could shower in the bathroom."
Channing was handing Kevin a pile of linen topped with a bottle of shower gel. He looked at her with eyes red from been too rubbed and looked more shocked than if she had offered him a trip to the moon.
"But if she wakes up..."
"If she wakes up, she'll prefer to see me rather than your zombie face!" Channing retorted, putting the clothes on his knees. He got up reluctantly and she took his place, slipping her hand into Charlie's. He smiled as he realized she was humming the introduction of a Beethoven symphony. The bathroom lighting was both too violent and almost useless. The walls were cream-colored plastic and smelled of lemon disinfectant. The water never exceeded the limit of acceptably lukewarm when he just wanted to suffocate in steam. He stayed there a long time. Enough to begin to tremble and cry a little the lump he had in the throat. Enough to force his brain to remember the time that had passed. Forty eight horrible hours that had seemed to last ten years.
Charlie had died, literally died between them on the bed of the ER for a few seconds. Only one shock had sufficed to revive her. The nurse might have explained to Kevin that her heart had just bolted, that it had never stopped, for him, his friend had died for seventeen seconds.
And none of them had been able to help her. None of them was here for her. Dean had Castiel, and Sam. Castiel had his parents. Kevin had Channing.
But Charlie had no one. No worried parents, no distraught siblings or even friends came to ask after her. Her friends, it was them, and Kevin blamed himself, blamed them all for encouraging Castiel in his stupid idea, for having turned to Dean, leaving Charlie bleed to death on the stage. He knew that he was unfair, that he shouldn't have been mad at Dorothy for not being here, nor at Sam for only going back and forth between Charlie's room and Dean's. But he couldn't help it. He had to evacuate his anger and fear, and for now, he blamed everybody. The shower didn't calm him.
Sam was seated next to Channing and pressing Charlie's hand when he came into the room and a lump of resentment went up in his throat.
"You don't need to be here." He snarled, throwing his old clothes rolled into a ball in the large bag of Channing.
"Yes, I do." Replied Sam. Kevin knew, just by his tone that his calm was only hanging by a thin thread he would have been happy to cut. Let's just shout at each other once and for all, let's just fight and let's get this finished with! They didn't talk to each other for two days, and now...
Sam was sitting straight. Noticing this surprised Kevin so much he forgot his anger for a moment. Sam wasn't sprawled as he usually was, his limbs weren't spread out all around him. He was sitting properly, legs tucked under his chair, staring at Charlie's chest, counting the breaths under his breathe.
"I screwed up." Sam said softly. "I didn't deliver... and I'm sorry for that." He looked up at Kevin. "You've been... you've been here for her and… thanks, and I'm sorry."
Kevin blinked several times, shocked. As far as he remembers, he had never heard Sam apologize more than a vague and polite "sorry" when he bumped into someone. The cellist sat down on the bed, shaking his head. Nobody said anything. Charlie was sleeping, pressing Sam's hand in her own.
"What made you realize?"
"Cas's mom. She made things perfectly clear. And you're right to be angry with me, she'll be right if she's mad at me when she really wakes up. But I'll do my best to... I don't know, to not let you down again."
##
It was the morning. Dean knew because he had heard the service door open several times on the nurses on duty, and smelled the breakfast coffee. He almost no longer feel anything but a sharp pain to the side when he breathed, and the pressure of Castiel's hand on his wrist. He took a moment to analyze how he had recognized Castiel.
Sam had his hands full of calluses, Charlie had some at her fingertips. The hands of the accountant were soft and he could exclude Kevin. The kid wasn't tactile.
Besides he recognized the smell of Castiel even when they were not glued to each other. And even when his clothes no longer smelled of laundry and his cologne had evaporated.
The young man had inevitably felt him wake up but he didn't move from where he was until Dean speaks. The singer had the distinct impression to put words on a very long dream.
"'m sorry."
It was dark in the room but he knew his lover so well that he knew the other looked surprised.
"For what?"
"Should have known he wouldn't stop. That he'd keep coming after you."
Dark was conducive to confidences, for years, the important things, they said them to each other in the morning, when they were still either grumpy of their night or half asleep.
"You don't have to be sorry. It's not your fault, nor mine."
"Maybe, but there are days when you must regret having fallen in love with me." Dean smiled. Even pretending to laugh was too painful, and his sentence remained between them, sadder than he would have wanted.
"None." Castiel replied, pressing his hand. "You know I don't believe in fate, I don't think two persons are made for each other. I think we find someone with whom we want to do all the battles, even the cruel and unjust ones. And I think we're fortunate, you and I, to have found this someone. So no, I never regret to have fallen in love with you. I am grateful actually."
"You're grateful for a bunch of crap, and it doesn't reassure me." Dean grumbled.
"And you blame yourself for a whole bunch of crap too but I don't reproach you with it. Stop feeling bad for things that are not in your power to change!"
Dean closed his eyes, sighing. "I can try... it's not likely to work but I can try."
"What? To change things?"
Dean slowly nodded. Even in the dark Castiel could tell he was starting to smile as an idea was taking shape behind his closed eyelids. He smiled in his turn. In all probability it was a stupid idea, doomed to failure and which would pass like most of his passing fancies. But it would have the advantage of distracting him. And sometimes Dean's passing fancies caused some very interesting things. This uncertainty was something exciting and reassuring. Something normal in circumstances that were not.
"Remember when you said that if my music could save just one other kid like you, it was worth fighting for?"
"You mean the last twelve months? Yes, I remember."
"If I wanted to fight for something else... you'd be..."
"By your side." Interrupted Castiel. "This is my place and I don't want to be anywhere else."
Dean smiled. "You'd take a shock picture if I set about to campaign for the limitation of arms to civilians?"
Castiel let out an out of place chuckle. His hand trembled a bit in that of Dean. "I thought you were going to talk about campaigning for gay rights."
"That too, but I guess shock pictures of that, there's already a load in all the magazines."
Castiel nodded. It was dark and only the snoring of the drains suction and the gentle hissing of the electric syringes in the room was heard. Maybe the stifled echo of the night shift discussions behind the door.
Castiel would have wanted to slip next to Dean, because for some days, sleeping next to one another was more important than before. In recent days, he really feared that Dean was gone when he woke up. He had pulled the camp bed the hospital had provided as close as possible to Dean, but it was not enough and he woke up in the morning, arms painful of having been stretched to the singer for hours.
"If it can make a difference for only even just one more person, yes, I'll take your photo."
##
"I don't get how he could bring a firearm into a concert hall! Aren't people searched before?"
Crowley sighed, raising his eyes to heaven in front of the police officer and the intern who were taking his deposition.
"Dear, you went to many concerts in your life?" He said.
"Hem... No."
"Security officers do a brief search because they don't have the means to do a thorough one, even for a small concert like this one. And in case it escaped you, John Winchester is in a wheelchair. One could introduce a bomb in a concert hall with a wheelchair and nobody would notice. If he was sitting on the gun do you think someone made him stand to make sure he wasn't concealing anything?"
"But the halls have special seats for the disabled, haven't they?"
Crowley and the police officer both shook their head. "Not the small rooms, they content themselves with making them enter by the side entrances to avoid the crowds and putting them a little aside in the front rows."
"The perfect angle shot. He was not likely to hit anyone other than his target." Summed up the officer who was writing the deposition down.
"A former marine never misses his target. Question is, how did he leave?"
"Taking advantage of the movement of panic." Answered the officer. "By the time the police arrives, by the time the security has calmed down the crowd, he largely had time to leave, wheelchair or not." The officer paused, strumming something on the testimony of Crowley. "Will you press charges?"
"As their producer, yes. The rest will be for the boys to decide."
"You think they'll..."
Crowley crossed his hands on his legs and seemed to give himself a time of reflection quite unnecessary because he had the answer to this question since Bobby had informed him of the shooting.
"It depends on who you ask to. If you want a complaint, contact Sam Winchester, not his brother."
"But it's his brother who was shot!"
"Dean won't lodge a complaint. Sam will." Crowley thoughtfully stroked his pants. "And I advise you to let him call for justice before he takes it into his own hands. The kid doesn't like people to lash out at his big brother."
##
The apartment of the Winchesters should have seemed too crowded, yet they didn't live on top of one another. Castiel's parents were sharing the guest room, Castiel was sleeping in the bed of Dean, and Kevin had collapsed on the couch without a glance at Sam. Anna had dropped by the apartment of her son and had brought clean clothes and Chevy who had just discovered she hated traveling by car. The kitten had curled up between the back of cellist and the back of the couch and refused to move. Sam resigned himself to cover them both with an extra duvet.
He was about to go to bed when someone knocked on the door. It was not the first time that night and he opened, ready to send packing the journalist who importuned him. He froze, mouth open, hand still on the handle by seeing Madison. She looked terribly tired, he probably didn't look better. And his heart skipped a little beat while his blood ran cold suddenly.
"What are you doing here?"
"I heard for Dean and Charlie..." She had a big bottle in the hands that she held out shyly. "Dorothy's grandmother gave us this. I don't know if it's for them or not."
Sam said nothing, behind him, in the living room, Kevin was beginning to wake up and the drummer stepped into the hallway, slightly closing the door behind him.
"Sorry.. I know I should have called first but... It went very quickly." Madison said in a low voice. "We hit the road as soon as we knew."
"We?"
"Dorothy came back with me. She went directly to the hospital."
"And you came here?"
She nodded.
"Why?"
"That's what we do when our friends have problems, we come to help." She answered.
"Dean and Charlie have problems, not me."
"Yes, but you are my friend."
For a moment he stood very straight, overhanging her of his full height, for one second he gave the impression of being a puppet to whom one has just cut its strings and who is standing only by chance, and then he collapsed, his knees seemed to suddenly let go while his whole body began to tremble, shook with sobs he couldn't restrain. Madison had instinctively wrapped her arms around him, dropping the bottle as he dragged her in his fall. She let herself slide to the ground, half supported by the wall, holding him tight against herself.
"It's okay..." She whispered repeatedly without really knowing what she was talking about. "It's gonna be okay Sam, I'm right here, I'll take care of you."
"Dean... Charlie... They're..."
"They're fine... They're gonna make it."
Sam was still sobbing.
"Everything's going wrong Maddy... Everything is..." He was shaking very hard, unable to finish a sentence, fists clenched on the arms of Madison to the point of hurting her.
"I know... It's gonna be okay."
Much later, he would ask her why she had come back that night and she would answer that it was the right thing to do, but at that moment she had no idea what she was doing. She just knew she had to be here.
"It's gonna be okay." She repeated.
##
The day had been long for Charlie. She had been told the last 48 hours by phases. Kevin and Channing had left only when nurses chased them away for cares. She had a large bandage on her chest and breathing pulled on her stitches. She had asked if she could keep the bullet they had removed but was told it had been thrown out. A surgeon had nevertheless sent her a picture of the object. She would have loved to see the bullet retracted on itself as if it had experienced an impact against the chest of Superman, but the object was black, intact and just covered in blood. She had to work through not being Superman.
Sam and Kevin had looked daggers at each other over her bed all afternoon until Channing, incensed, orders them to stop behaving like children. Thereafter, Charlie had fallen asleep while Sam was reading her The Hobbit and had missed the visit of Castiel who had written her a note on a paper towel, which now served her as a bookmark.
Curiously, while falling asleep after tasting the bland hospital dinner and exchanged several texts with Dean, she felt tired as if she had done sports. Calm, almost serene. She was convinced that it wouldn't last, that it was a side effect of the morphine injected in her, and decided to enjoy it as much as possible.
There was someone in the room when she awoke during the night, and for a moment she didn't pay attention, convinced that it was Kevin. Then her brain informed her that she was wrong and she opened her eyes with a start.
"You came..." Suddenly, the hospital, the shooting, the two or three previous days didn't really matter anymore. It was as if all the excitement that the drugs prevented her from feeling was coming back suddenly, like Christmas and National Day at the same time.
Dorothy nodded. She had drawn features and large dark circles under the eyes, but she was smiling.
"I..." A big sob cut Charlie off. Dorothy took her hand.
"I'm here... Charlie I'm sorry... Please forgive me..."
"I prayed..." Charlie stammered, excitement melting into a wave of emotion difficult to stem. "I prayed so much for you to come." Dorothy felt tears well up in her eyes. The bassist looked so lost in this all-white bed. "I don't even believe in God and all I could think was "my God, please, do not let me die, not before having seen her once again, please"."
"I'm here." Whispered Dorothy. "And I apologize."
"You're staying?"
Dorothy nodded.
"Why?"
Charlie couldn't sit up to be at Dorothy's level, it still hurt her too much when she moved for this. She didn't move when Dorothy put her hand on her forehead to push her bangs aside.
"Because I thought you were gonna die. And it was even worse than… Than everything."
"Why did you leave?" Charlie sobbed. "I thought you… That we were good together."
"Not now Charlie..."
"Yes." Shouted the young woman. "Yes, now!"
"It's not the moment."
"It'll never be the moment. So if you came back to stay, tell me why you left in the first place?"
Dorothy sighed and removed her hand from Charlie's forehead to fish deep in her pocket a crumpled piece of paper she handed her. The heart of the bassist stopped again when deciphering it.
"It came to your house the day before my departure."
"He… He's the one who shot? He did that to me?" John Winchester had signed. Naturally.
Charlie had only seen him once or twice, and each time, she had had the urge to hold the boys in her arms. As if for once it was them, the lost kittens.
Dorothy nodded. "I was scared for you. He was after you because he knew you were with a woman and such people... I didn't want to endanger you so I left."
Charlie frowned. The relief and happiness she had felt when seeing Dorothy had lost its savor while reading the letter, and was now giving way to anger. It seemed to her to feel a week of emotions in the space of one short discussion. She crumpled the letter from John and cast a hard look at her friend. "You didn't want to be responsible if someone went after me because I'm a lesbian. But I would have found someone else and it would have happened anyway and shit, it happened anyway! But at least you're doing well, you can tell yourself that it's not your fault!" She yelled, throwing the letter to her face. "Clear off."
"No." Dorothy replied calmly. "I'm staying. I came back to stay."
"Shouldn't have left."
"I know. And I apologize."
Charlie said nothing for a moment. She was looking through the window the rain that had started to fall, controlling her anger. The sky was very gray and we could barely see the light of the rising sun behind the clouds. She remarked to herself that Castiel would certainly love this weather.
"The father of my best friend shot me." She said softly. "And the girl I love wasn't here to support me. I looked for you in the crowd, I don't know why I was hoping. And there was only Kevin. The others were around Dean. And me... And I was all alone again and I thought I was gonna die." She was crying so much she had trouble breathing. "I thought I was going to die Dotty..."
She felt herself painfully raised and gasped in the shoulder of her companion as she closed her arms around her reflexively. Dorothy was holding her to ache, she was shaking and she had a lump in the throat she couldn't swallow.
"I thought you were going to die... There was blood everywhere on TV. And I was so far away... too far away to protect you, too far to do anything and if you had died... People die in this hospital every day, but I forbid you to be one of them." Dorothy didn't really recognize her own voice, and she was terrified. She hated this word and this feeling, but there wasn't one more appropriate. "I've been praying the spirits since yesterday... I don't even believe in them, but if you had died..." She stopped, unable to go further, unable to support the green eyes of Charlie looking at her with compassion she felt unworthy of.
"What do you tell them?"
"Please, let me tell her that I love her at least once again." Dorothy began to cry too. "Just once again, if she dies, she must at least know."
The pain was just an unpleasant twinge as long as Charlie didn't move too much, but she needed only to move a little to kiss Dorothy. The hospital bed was less uncomfortable with her weight beside her, it was less cold, everything was less awful. "You're staying?"
"I'm staying."
"Why?"
Dorothy helped her to readjust herself between the pillows, preparing her answer. It had been years it seemed, that she hadn't had the right answer to any question.
"Because all my life I was afraid and I ran away. I was scared for me, of things I didn't even know whether they were true. And when I saw you jump from that cliff last year, I wondered why you were inflicting that to yourself. And now I know."
Charlie said nothing, she blinked to chase the last tears she hadn't the courage to wipe.
"When you do the right thing, you're no longer afraid. So you gotta test everything, try everything. Jump from a cliff, set off on an adventure, wake up anywhere... create your own fear and control it all the time. And when you're faced with something important, faced with true fear, realizing that when you do what must be done, everything stands to reason so much you..."
"You feel safe." Finished Charlie. "Because you know you're strong enough to face all the rest."
Dorothy nodded, a big lump in her throat.
"Remember, when I said people don't like girls who share an appartment with only one room?"
Charlie nodded.
"I was afraid of them. Of what they might do to us, of what you suffered. And running away didn't prevent anything. So I'm coming back, and I'm staying."
"You're not scared anymore?"
Dorothy shook her head and brought Charlie's hand to her lips. "No. I'm doing the right thing. For once."
##
"How did you put up with that all those years?" Dean asked while Castiel was helping him getting up and rotating to sit heavily on the big chair of the hospital. He was already counting the days separating him from his realease.
"I didn't exactly have a choice." Answered the young man, turning to the bag full of clothes he had brought.
"We always have a choice."
Castiel stopped in motion and turned very cold blue eyes to him.
"It was either that or dying." He rummaged through the bag again to take out jogging pants, he remained crouched at the foot of the chair to put it on the legs of his companion before letting him pull it up alone.
"You'd make a good nurse." Smiled Dean. The nasal cannula that he hadn't been entitled to remove dried up his nose and mouth. He gratefully accepted the flannel shirt Castiel slipped him into, careful not to touch the drains coming out of his chest.
"They will remove that tomorrow, and at the end of the week hopefully I'll take you home. My mother made enough soup to withstand a siege."
Dean smiled. He knew exactly how much Castiel hated soup, he also knew exactly how much he loved his mother and the idea of seeing him swallow this mixture just because it was her who had made it greatly amused him. Castiel sat on the bed, hands clasped.
"He was aiming for me." He said. "He had sent threatening letters to Crowley. And you saved my life again."
Dean made a face. "Yeah, and you owe me because this time it literally hurt me."
"I thought you were going to die." Whispered Castiel. "I was so scared... I thought I was going to be forced to live without you."
Dean took his hand gently, the one on which the dandelion tattoo was starting to swarm its seeds.
"I'm tougher than that." He said softly.
Castiel nodded. "I'm going to file a complaint against him." He said. "Against your father... For attempted murder and... I want him to pay for what he did to you and Charlie."
Dean pursed his lips.
"It's my father."
"I know. I'm sorry, but I don't care."
They were holding hand so hard they were both beginning to hurt but they didn't release their grip. It was like a reassuring anchoring point for Dean while he was slowly coming to terms with the idea. He had delayed as much as he could the moment to face up to the truth, but now, nearly laid up in a hospital bed, with the permanent drain pain, with the blood that sometimes moved back up along the drip, and the certainty that if he had been less lucky, Castiel would have died... now it was too real to be ignored.
"Your mother went to see me yesterday." He said softly. "She's nice. She's brave."
Castiel nodded. "Don't say that to her. She would answer that she just does what needs to be done."
"That's precisely what I find admirable." Dean was looking through the window without really seeing the scenery, slowly unrolling his thoughts as if exploring a winding path. "We'll never have children." Castiel was listening silently. "But if we could... Or if we'd ever want to adopt someday... You know what I would be most afraid of?"
"That they don't love you?"
Dean shook his head. "I would be afraid of not understanding them in the same way my father don't understand me. I'd be afraid to hate what they are just because I'm unable to be like them. I'd be afraid to stop to love them."
"That won't happen." Said Castiel. "And anyway, for now we only have a cat. No, forget it, it's my cat. I don't share her."
Dean smiled and turned his gaze to him. "Just prevent Sam to destroy the car. She has nothing to do with it."
"What does Sam have to do with it?"
"He's also gonna file a complaint against our father. And I don't intend to stop him."
"Until recently, you would have. You would have told us to try to understand him, or at least to behave better than him."
Dean winced. "You know... they say you see your life pass before your eyes when you're dying." He said softly. "That ain't true. I saw nothing of it."
"What did you see?" Castiel made a mental note of the ease with which he accepted the strange drifts of Dean's brain.
"You. Yelling at me that I had no right to leave you alone in this world."
Castiel smiled. "I must have yelled something like that yes."
"It shouldn't have happened. It wouldn't have without him. And I want him to pay."
"He will." Promised Castiel.
##
Castiel expected this, returning to work after the events of the weekend was... particular. The discussions around the coffee machine stopped upon his arrival, bringing him back in high school time when people whispered in the passage of the "guy with cancer". Some of his colleagues turned their heads away, suddenly very absorbed by the sugar at the bottom of their cup. The intern was there, and on the evidence of the attitude of everyone, until he entered, she was clearly at the heart of the conversation.
He put his bag on one of the small tables of the office and made himself a coffee in a heavy silence until someone clears his throat. The small records in the head of Castiel got a move on to identify his interlocutor: Bruce, from the Human Resources.
"Is it you we saw on the news?"
"Depends which news."
"The shooting at the concert."
"Yes, it was probably me." He said before taking a sip of coffee without taking his eyes off Bruce. He knew exactly how his fixed gaze and dark circles put people uncomfortable and he had no intention to make the conversation easier for him.
"So you really sleep with a rockstar?"
Someone else had spoken, someone Castiel was seeing for the first time. Clearly, this rumor interested everyone.
"I sleep with the person I love." He answered after carefully weighing his words.
"It's not very natural." Grumbled the intern in her corner. One or two persons nodded. Castiel was only there for five minutes and he already had enough of it. A better man than him probably would have decided to target someone else, but he chose the intern knowing he was doing it because he couldn't stand her. He just had better things to do than being a good guy these days. He put down his coffee calmly and saw from the corner of the eye one of his colleagues who was shaking his head as if he felt sorry for the poor girl in advance.
"In addition to being incompetent and spreading rumors, you are also homophobic?" He said coldly. "You really have every flaws."
The intern took a half step back as if he had slapped her and he took the opportunity to move towards her.
"I had a very bad weekend. The person I love and who shares my life for years is in hospital because someone thought it was "not very natural" as you say. And neither he nor I will apologize for this." He turned to his other colleagues. "And if it's a problem to anyone, just know that I don't do my balance sheets with my dick, and here it's all that matters." Then to the intern: "I already have enough work without adding the report which must be filled to get you fired. But until the end of your second internship, stay out of my sight." He hissed.
He left the office in a big silence broken only by the rustle of his trench coat.
"And how did it end?" Anna asked that very evening, hands gripping the steering wheel of the car in which were crammed Chuck, Sam, Castiel and Madison.
"Nobody said anything, and I didn't see her again."
They emerged near the junkyard where the Impala had been moved.
"Why does he want to keep that old thing?" Grumbled Sam. He had his arms folded and was narrowing his eyes under the light winter sun, watching the battered wreck of the Impala. "Why can't we just make a little box of it and throw it away?"
"Because it's easier for you than for him."
Sam gave him a puzzled look, forcing Castiel to explain.
"Dean was your father figure for a long time, and you know he loves you and respects you. But he didn't have that luck. When this story is over, hopefully, John and he will never see each other again. And he will only have this old car left to remember that upon a time he was the beloved son of his father. Give him at least that, he needs it."
Sam nodded slowly after a minute of reflection.
"We're still going to fill a complaint, and make sure he gets out of our lives forever."
Castiel nodded and went in search of the owner of the junkyard to negotiate the repatriation of the framework of the car to a garage close to the apartment of the Winchesters.
"He's right." Said Chuck thoughtfully while Madison was climbing a stack of old cars to settle on the hood of one of them in a hole stack the size of her buttocks. Sam turned to him, puzzled. Since their arrival, he had only exchanged a few words with the father of Castiel and he sincerely didn't see what he was talking about.
"Castiel told us how Dean took care of you since you were children. He had been more a dad to you than your own father."
"He, he thinks it makes no difference, that our father deserves respect whatever he may do... it may be easier for me, but I don't understand that he's so attached to him. He shot him for God's sake!" Sam got angry.
"This is because he clings to the memory of the time when John was also his dad."
"He still is." Sam said dryly. "That doesn't make him a role model."
"No." Chuck shook his head. "The dad is the one who gives out slaps when needed, and praises when needed. He is the one who stays up late at night in the hospital and who knows when something is wrong or when his son has a date."
"Yeah... My father no longer knows that for a long time." Sam grouched.
"Exactly. And Dean needs to hang onto it for a little while."
"It's sick."
"This is why you have to watch over him." Anna said softly. "He really needs it. And your friend Charlie too. Her, she has no one."
"She has us!" Madison shouted from her perch.
"Try to all remember it!" Anna retorted before dragging her husband in search of their son. Sam climbed in his turn up to Madison's perch and sat beside her. They were tense in the presence of each other since the day before and that moment seemed chosen to burst an abscess which was filling slowly with unsaid things.
"If you want me to go back..." Started Madison.
"No." Sam interrupted her. "Just... the situation is weird... I don't know if you came back because they got shot or if..."
"Or if I came back for you."
He nodded.
"I came back for you, because I knew you would need help to deal with the fact they got shot."
They said nothing for a moment and then Madison sought his hand on the cold sheet metal. "And I came back because I missed my friend."
"Just your friend?"
She nodded. And pulled out of her bag a book dog-eared of having traveled. "There's a love story that we haven't read together." She said, holding out the book. He frowned at the colors of the cover.
"The Beauty and the Beast?"
Madison nodded. "I've always found that you were like the Beast. Full of resentment and dominated by anger, and I thought... I don't know, that maybe I could change you a bit." Sam was turning the pages of the children's book without reading the big letters. "And I thought I was Belle, before I realize the movie doesn't end as it should have."
Sam gave her a puzzled look. "The movie ends well!"
Madison shook her head. "This is a forced end that brings nothing to the characters. Belle wanted a friend, someone who wouldn't laugh at her for being different. Not great love. It wasn't what she needed. She just wanted a friend and a library. I just wanted someone who wouldn't judge me for being afraid of the entire world."
"No one judged you here."
Madison nodded. "And I made the mistake of thinking that among these people it was absolutely necessary that I find someone to get myself back on track or whatever. When I just needed security. Not great love. Just not being alone and terrified."
Sam said nothing for a moment. He was turning the pages slowly and came to when the Beast saves Belle from the wolves. "I've always found the moral of the story a bit... twisted. Because Belle never falls in love with the Beast for what he is. She ended up loving him because he changes for her."
"She makes him better."
"Maybe. But if I were him, I would prefer to be loved with my flaws. Not because I've corrected them." He closed the book. "I haven't changed Mads. I have made efforts, but basically I haven't changed. And I don't want to."
She nodded. "And yet I'm here. I would love you perhaps less or differently without your flaws."
"I would love you perhaps less or differently if you had confidence."
They smiled to each other.
"Who plays the role of the rose in your story then?" Asked Sam.
"Music."
"So what do we do? Do we rewrite the end of the story before the fall of the last petal?"
Madison nodded and pulled a pen out of her bag. Together, they tore the last page of the book, crossed the words out and replaced them by theirs.
"Belle lived surrounded by her new friends.
The Prince applied himself to do good around him to redeem himself for his past selfishness.
He made her strong, she made him calm.
And they all lived happily until the end of their days."
Madison smiled.
"This is the perfect ending for them." She said.
"And for us?"
"Does it looks like and ending?"
Sam looked at the carcass of the car below, and further, the office of the manager where Castiel and his parents were coming from. He breathed a big gulp of fresh air that made him cough. The car stack creaked under them. He tried to imagine the future. Something had changed since the shooting. Something in the attitude of Dean or Sam himself. The way in which Kevin stood straighter now and how he reassured his mother on the phone. How Charlie looked at Dorothy, not mentally undressing her like before but with a confident detachment. And the hardness of Castiel that showed just under his skin.
It was different, but in a positive sense, as if the situation had forged them together, a little stronger and a little braver.
"No. It looks like when there's nothing to tell because we're finally happy."
It was not quite true. It looked more like when the heroes know exactly what to do for the story to end well. But for now, he decided to stick to the happy part. The next fight would come soon enough.