Title: The Guilt of Still Being

Chapter: Six

~~~~~~~~~~

“He’s not the Castiel I remember.” Jo set the tray down and turned to look through the one-way glass.

“He’s been through a lot. I doubt you’re the same woman he remembers either.” Jack slipped his hands in his pockets. “You look troubled.”

“He pulled a Jim Jones on some of those people at the camp, Jack. Slipped them pills before he and Risa left. They didn’t tell them Lucifer was coming.”

“Probably wouldn’t have done any good anyway. You know that.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that he did it.”

“Would you have done it different?”

She crossed her arms. “I don’t know. Dean was dead, that still fresh in his head, an emotional trauma, he knew he’d led Lucifer there and was likely feeling guilty for that too….” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he saved them from pain and horror.”

“Maybe? You and I both know what Lucifer is capable of.”

It had been a surprise to her to discover he was just as knowledgeable as she and Ellen on the weirdness in the world. Even more actually. He’d filled in some details on a few things for her. They’d had more than a couple talks on creatures, beings, and angels in the three years she’d known him. They’d talked about Lucifer before. At first, she’d thought he was a former hunter or had grown up with hunters. His knowledge was deeper though. He really knew his stuff. He probably could have given Bobby a run for his money in the area of arcane knowledge. “I do.”

“He reveled in those deaths, toyed with some of them, drew it out for maximum pain on all levels just for fun.”

He sounded more bitter by it than she’d thought he would. “Jack --”

“Seems unbelievable that Lucifer was once the brightest and most beautiful of the angels in all ways. He’s become so twisted.” He sighed and seemed to shake himself from that mood. “I’ll go in in a few minutes and have a talk with our former angel.”

Former angel? Jo frowned. She didn’t recall saying anything to him about Cas having once been an angel.

“We still having dinner,” he asked.

“Of course. After a day like this, I need to relax with you.”

With a glance around the still empty hallway, he stretched out an arm, encircled her waist with it and drew her close, giving her a long kiss that promised a fun night once they were alone. “Give me a couple hours here. I’ll meet you at the house.”

“I’ll be there.” She left, thinking she might take a long, hot shower and put on something pretty to boost her mood. Jack had recently given her a few lacy, racy pieces of lingerie. One of those would work and he’d like it, too.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cas snorted as Gabriel stepped right up to the bedside. “Gabriel.”

“What?” He motioned at Cas. “You thought you were the only one Michael cut off when he threw his last big tantrum and closed off heaven? Please. I spent weeks knocking on that door trying to talk sense into him and anyone else who’d answer. All I got for my troubles was to be told I could just stay on earth with humans since I obviously love them so much. Lucifer’s response wasn’t much different. After that, I became pro-active. It was easy to insert myself into the military. Figured I had a better chance with them than signing up with Dean -- who would have gone for my sword the first chance he got.” He made a face. “That sounded vaguely dirty. True, but dirty.”

“You’re Mitchell?”

“Of course. Like a human could have accomplished what I have.”

“Dean was right. The taking back of the base? Impossible for humans, but not for you.”

“Not for me,” he agreed.

“You’d be the reason the food I just had was good.”

“I’ll go without many things, but a good meal and divine desserts? No compromise. Good food is essential, Castiel. Surely you’ve realized that by now?”

He glanced at the door, mind running at a million miles a minute trying to figure out Gabriel’s relationship with Jo. Nothing of what she’d said indicated she knew the truth. “Does Jo know who you really are?”

“No. And it stays that way, Castiel. I’ve got a good, fun, and mutually satisfying thing going with her. Don’t blow it for me. I actually did it the hard way with her. Wooed her and everything. Do you have any idea how long it took to get in her pants? And to convince her to let me go bareback? So worth it, though. She’s a wild woman in bed.”

“Do I care?”

“Ooh, you’ve got an attitude now.” He wiggled his fingers at Castiel.

Cas narrowed his eyes. “Do you still have your powers?”

“No one can cut off an archangel but God himself and we know he’s not doing anything. If Mike could have stopped the flow to me, he would have. That’s just how pissed he was with me.” He pulled up the chair Jo had vacated and sat. “So you’ve done some things that are very human in nature. Hate to break it to you, bro, but you’re ninety-nine percent human now. When the grace goes ‘poof!’, so does everything angelic, including nature. You’ve got that old sinful human nature now, guiding you along. And what a guide it’s been. Drugs, orgies. You’re a regular party animal.”

“I despise being human, Gabriel. Physically weak, an emotional wreck --”

“You’ve been human for what? Closing in on four years now?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

“Mmm.” Gabriel leaned forward. “Then isn’t it about time you put your big girl panties back on and got back to work?”

There was a hard gleam in Gabriel’s eyes. Cas was familiar with the expression and didn’t much care for his use of it.

“Dean may have coddled you in the whole ‘woe is poor me, I’m a lowly human now’ routine, but I won’t.”

Coddled him? He started to protest that Dean had been a friend to him and stopped. Maybe he had coddled him along the way, ignored behaviors he should have confronted.

“Powers and grace or no, we’re still brothers under it all. You’re a soldier, Castiel, or have you forgotten that? Angel or human, it’s what you are. A soldier, and I still outrank you. I’m a commanding officer -- your commanding officer.” His voice became harder with each word.

“You don’t command the army of heaven, Gabriel, Michael does that, and I haven’t been a soldier in a very long time now.”

Gabriel snorted. “A long time in human years. In angelic time it’s a blink. Whatever my rank in relation to Michael, it’s still higher than you’ve ever been.”

“I’m not an angel anymore! I’m useless! Don’t you get that?” Shouting made his throat hurt. He did it anyway. “I’m a useless human, Gabriel!”

“Suck it up and get over it.” He pointed at the window at the end of the room. “You look out there and you’ll see a bunch of humans that you’re still more than. If you’re useless, then what are they? Take a good look at them, Castiel. They’re fighting. Look at Jo. She’s fighting. That woman never stops.” He sat back. “But not you. You’re going to let the dicks upstairs determine whether or not you’re going to fight for something. They took away your powers and you stopped fighting. You stopped thinking about anything but how much pain you were in.”

“Stop!”

“Boo-hoo, I’m a poor human. Boo-hoo, I’m powerless. Wah, I can’t do anything anymore and it sucks. It does suck and there’s nothing you can do about it, is there? You are what you are now and that’s just how it is.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I want to see Risa,” he said, aware that his voice sounded petulant and childish and not caring.

“Of course you do. After all, she nearly died trying to alert Jo’s team that you were both down there.”

“She --”

“She nearly died. Didn’t Jo tell you that? Let me enlighten you as to what happened. Risa heard them, heard them talking, realized they were potential help, but when she tried to go upstairs, she was too weak or too drugged, one of the two. She fell, hit her head, puked. Or maybe she puked before she went upstairs. Doesn’t really matter. She was a breath from death regardless when one of the team docs started working on her.” He shook his head. “An overdose, Castiel? Really?”

He opened his eyes to glare at Gabriel. “It was either that or starve to death. I determined that sleeping and not waking up again was infinitely better than wasting away in slow agony.”

Gabriel stared at him.

“You don’t understand.”

“Hell I don’t. I lived as a human down here long before you fell.”

“You kept your powers. You’ve never had to deal with that loss.”

“Sure I kept them…and didn’t use them for awhile thinking they were looking for me. Thought it might alert them to where I was. It took a good long while to realize no one cared I’d left except maybe Michael and a few others and a random flare of power on the earth could easily be attributed to one of the pagan demi-gods. So don’t tell me I don’t understand what you’re going through. There’s very little I haven’t experienced. Despair, gluttony, lust…. To tell you the truth, wallowing in your guilt and shame is useless, especially now.”

“I’d think the end of all is a perfect time for it.”

Gabriel watched him a moment longer, then nodded. “Okay, Castiel, we’ll do this your way. For awhile anyway.” He stood. “As soon as Risa checks out as stable enough with the docs, I’ll have her moved over here with you. Should only be a couple hours, though it could be tomorrow morning by the time they’re ready to move her.”

“Can’t you just snap your fingers and make her well?”

“Not after half the base already saw her in that condition. You think I want someone defecting to Lucifer’s camp to tattle on me and bringing him back here? I really don’t want to have big brother showing up. Which reminds me -- you two are so not going anywhere outside this fort on my watch.”

“It was a stupid mistake.”

“And one I won’t let you make again. Enjoy your convalescence, Castiel. You’re going to be back on your feet in no time.”

He resisted an entirely childish urge to throw the nearest thing at him and lowered the bed back to a prone position, staring at the ceiling. It would be futile to attempt to figure out why Gabriel hadn’t shown himself before now, so he didn’t even try. When Jo came back, he was glad for the company, but like his talk with Gabriel, theirs degenerated quickly into something less than genial.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dinner was bland. Risa understood the reason for that and ate it slowly, hoping she wouldn’t be sick from it so she could have something with some flavor next time. As she finished, a woman came through the door. She was in casual clothes, her hair loose about her shoulders.

“Hi Risa. I’m Ellen,” she said as she pulled up a chair and sat. “My daughter’s team found you.”

“Hi. Thank her for me?”

“Thank her yourself. I’m sure she’ll be in to see you.”

Risa took a last bite and shoved the wheeled table to the side out of the way. Ellen studied her with a curious gaze and Risa shifted a little in the bed under the weight of that stare. “What?”

“How long were you at Dean’s camp? I assume that’s where you met Cas.”

“You knew Dean?”

“Sure. Boy was like a son to me. I knew him.”

“You know Castiel then?”

There was a flicker of emotion in Ellen’s eyes. Sadness, regret, and more that made Risa cautious. Castiel had meant something to this woman. “I know him,” she confirmed. “The camp? How long?”

“A year and a half to when Cas and I went to Bobby Singer’s house, so…almost two years ago?”

“Mmm. How long have you and Cas been together then?”

Risa looked away. “No, um…we weren’t…together. Not until the house, when it was just us left.”

“I see.” Ellen nodded. “Okay. I’ll let you rest some more. I’m sure you need some good sleep.”

She reached out a hand to Ellen before she could get up. “Could you see if my chart is here somewhere before you go?”

“Has no one talked to you yet?”

“That’s not it. They told me about my arm and the malnutrition and dehydration.”

“But you’re worried about something else?” Ellen stood and looked around the bed and at the table.

“I’m…. Yeah. I’m worried about something else.”

“I don’t see it. I can poke my head out, snag the nearest nurse?” She raised a hand, jerking a thumb at the door.

“Would you please? I really want to know.”

She started across the room. “Know?”

Risa took a deep breath. “If I’m pregnant.” She blew that breath back out. Until she’d said it, it had only been a vague wondering. As she spoke the words, it hit her that it was a real possibility. After all, birth control hadn’t exactly been a priority. Food, yes. Medicine, yes. Birth control, not so much, and they’d had a lot of sex during those months.

“Do you think you are?” Pausing by the door, Ellen reached her hand up to the file tray on the wall and removed a file folder.

“It’s a definite possibility.”

She opened the folder, perused the contents as she walked back to the bed. “You’ve missed a period?”

Leaning her head back on the pillow, she tried to remember. If they’d been there five months and she only remembered three periods, didn’t that mean she probably was? “More than one. Two.”

“It doesn’t say they did a test, but I’m not seeing any actual test results here, just admitting notes. Keep in mind, it could be stress and malnutrition messed with your cycle, too. It’s been known to happen.” She handed Risa the folder. “I’ll go grab a nurse and ask. See if we can’t give you peace of mind on that.” She was back in a few minutes, carrying another folder. “Here you go.”

Risa opened the envelope and drew out the pages inside. If she was reading them correctly, not only wasn’t she pregnant, she was fairly healthy and free of diseases. “I’m not pregnant,” she whispered, relief flooding her body. “Oh.”

“Were you hoping to be?”

“Kids in this world? No. I couldn’t do that.” And yet she’d risked it repeatedly. What’s wrong with me that I’d do that, she asked herself.

Ellen sat back down. “Five months. I take it you and Cas get along well?”

“Sort of.” When they weren’t playing dark games with each other.

She arched a brow. “You were having sex with him, sweetie. Unless it wasn’t consensual, I think you get along with him pretty well.”

Risa slid the papers back in the folder and ignored the comment.

“You have feelings for him.” It wasn’t a question.

She laid the folder on the table with her dinner tray, trying for nonchalance in her reply and knowing she failed. “How is he? The man that was here earlier only said he was alive. Is he okay?”

“I haven’t seen him yet, but I hear he’ll be fine, just like you will.”

“Good.” Risa felt her shoulders relax, tension falling away. “Good.” She nodded, suddenly feeling very tired. “I’m tired.”

“Get some sleep.” Ellen left.

Risa closed her eyes and tried not to think about the consequences she was going to find when she and Castiel were once more face to face. A lot had passed between them that couldn’t be ignored. They were going to have to deal with all of it.

~~~~~~~~~~

He hadn’t meant to get into a verbal fight with Jo. It just sort of happened.

“Wait, you think that because I was here on base I had it easier than you and Dean?” She shook her head. “You are dead wrong on that, Cas. It’s every bit as hard, maybe harder. It’s still a military base, with those rules and regulations, no matter how differently Jack runs things.” She rested her arms on the bedside and crossed them. “While his superiors let him do pretty much anything because he’s successful, he has rules to follow. Civilians on base live like his troops, with those same rules. We may have our own little corner because it’s too dangerous to have an outside settlement, but we’re all together behind these gates, a lot like what Dean tried to do. We all follow the rules and there are lots of rules for our safety.”

“Looks to me like your life is still normal, Jo. You go to your job, then come back, have a hot, nutritious meal, go for a beer, joke with friends, then spend the night with your…boyfriend before starting it all over the next day.” It surprised him that Gabriel was cultivating a long-term romance with any woman, especially when he could create one with a snap of his fingers.

“That’s not my life, Cas. Sorry to disappoint you. I get that life maybe a couple times a month. I spend more time in one of these beds and in quarantine than most of the civvies and half the soldiers do.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Cas, I’ve been shot twice, stabbed, had three broken ribs, a broken pelvic bone and a dislocated ankle. I’ve gotten through a burst appendix, pneumonia…. Need I go on? I’ve had a lot of crap happen in three years.”

“Join the club.”

“I’m a card carrying member of that club and long before you joined up, sweetheart.”

How was it Jo hadn’t grown bitter and dispirited? How was she still so much of the person she’d been? He didn’t understand. With everything she’d mentioned, he would have thought it’d discourage her, yet from what he could see, she was still determined to do her job.

The fight continued, and he made the unwise decision to bring up Ellen and Jo leaving the camp. He’d meant to ask why they’d never bothered to come back and let them know they were alive and never got that far.

“Do you really not know the reason we left? Are you that self-absorbed that you don’t understand what you meant to my mother?”

He opened his mouth to reply that, but Jo continued.

“We left because she couldn’t stand watching someone she loved tear himself apart like you were doing. The hardest thing I’ve had to do is try to put her back together and keep her together, Cas! She was depressed, moody…. It was like my dad dying all over again. You got into her heart, got her to feel something, and then you hurt her so completely that she --”

“That’s enough Jo,” a quiet voice intruded. It was Ellen, standing in the doorway watching them. “Please. Enough.”

“No, it’s not enough.” Standing, Jo leaned over him and put her mouth right beside his ear, grasping his arm. Her fingers dug in, hurting, making him wince from that pressure. Her voice was low, the words only for him. “You hurt her again and you’ll have me to deal with. Do you hear me, Castiel? I won’t forgive you for it a second time, not like I know she’s here to forgive you.” The fervor of that promise was a searing heat in her eyes when she drew back. “Understood?”

“Yes.” He fully believed she would do some damage to him.

She released him and didn’t say another word, pausing at the door to give Ellen a long look before shaking her head and brushing past her. Ellen closed the door and came to halfway across the room before stopping. She crossed her arms.

“You look good, Ellen.” She looked tired, like Jo did, but well.

“Don’t do that,” she told him with a shake of her head. “Don’t flatter me, Cas.”

“I can’t observe a truth,” he asked in a careful tone, wanting things to be good between them yet very afraid they weren’t going to be. She’d been the first woman in his human life and he hadn’t treated her the way he should have.

“Not today. No flattery, just…honesty.”

He plucked at the sheet across his lap. “Okay. If I can’t say that I think you look good, what can I say?”

“How about that you’re sorry for what happened back then? Or are you too nestled down in your cocoon of emotional pain to admit you hurt me and others?” She shrugged. “Maybe a sorry for exposing me to STD’s and not telling me? I had to overhear that argument between you and Dean to learn you’d started sleeping around on me. Imagine how good that made me feel, Cas. Imagine watching someone you love destroy himself and being powerless to stop it.”

He dropped his gaze from hers. A image of Dean popped into his head and he clasped his hands together in his lap. “You’re right. I was wrong to treat you that way and I’m sorry I didn’t treat you the way I should have.”

“Thank you.” She sighed and took a couple steps closer. “I hope you understand that woman in the next room is every bit as attached to you as I was.”

“You mean Risa?”

“Was there another woman there with you?”

“You don’t understand about me and Risa. For those months --”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea what two people can do to each other when traumatized and feeling trapped. I’ve seen the aftermath of that scenario too many times now to count. Whatever things you did to and with her that shame and embarrass you now? Get over it, because you’re both alive and have the consequences of that to deal with.”

“You don’t --”

“If you say I don’t understand, I’ll slap you upside the head and give you another for good measure. That woman is just as vulnerable and aching inside as you are and she’s going to need you. I’ve seen her, Cas. She’s got her emotions for you all over her face when she asks about you. I suggest you stop the pity-party already and think of someone besides yourself.”

He stared at her. “Did you just call me selfish?”

Her brows rose. “Would you prefer self-absorbed or narcissistic instead? I think selfish fits the best.”

He almost laughed at the notion he was any of those. “How am I selfish, Ellen?”

“You want the full list or the abridged notes?”

“Tell me.”

“In a nutshell? What kind of life were you leading, Cas? Wine, women, and song? Is that hedonistic pursuit not selfish? You were making yourself feel better, but what about all those people around you?”

“It was the mutual exchange of pleasure.”

“Bullshit. You’re a scared little boy running headfirst to anything that can keep you from having to face yourself and the truth of who you are now. It’ll be interesting to see how you treat Risa the next couple months.” She looked down at the floor and back up. “I’m making a choice here, Castiel. I want you to understand that. I’m forgiving you for back then. It’s the past, it happened, and it can’t be changed, but right now, I don’t know how to feel about you here. I came to see you myself, make sure you were okay, but I don’t want to see you again, at least, not for awhile. So don’t look for me when you’re released from this building. Don’t walk outside and come find me. When I’m ready to see you, I’ll find you.”

“Ellen.” A lump stuck in his throat and he couldn’t seem to swallow past it.

“No.” She shook his head. “I have to do what’s right for myself and that means not seeing you, at least not yet. Might be a long time, might not be, I don’t know. I know we’ll probably bump into each other, but when we do…you don’t know me, okay?” Her words were half sobbed.

“I can’t do that Ellen. I do know you.”

“If you ever felt anything real for me, then please. Do this for me.”

Looking at her, he could see the pain on her face and in the way she was holding herself. It made him cringe. Three years later, she was still hurting from him. He’d always thought her so strong and he was the one that had done this to her. He swallowed hard. Ellen Harvelle had been laid low, not by a demon or other evil creature, but by the decisions he’d made in an attempt to bury the pain of becoming human. Why hadn’t he seen it before now? Had he really been just as selfish as she claimed? “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” She uncrossed her arms, gave a last almost helpless shrug and left.

Castiel was alone with his thoughts then, and the shame and guilt of past and present matters. He didn’t even have any pills to dull the pain. All he could do was feel.