.Title: The Guilt of Still Being

Chapter: Five

~~~~~~~~~~

When Risa woke, she couldn’t believe she was waking. Her left arm twinged with pain from her shoulder all the way down through her wrist and her entire body ached. She was in a hospital bed, about the last place she’d thought she’d be, an iv in her left arm.

A man came into her line of vision. He was in o.d. green fatigues, the way he carried himself indicative of high rank, his assessing gaze cool.

“Afternoon, Risa.”

“How do you know my name,” she asked in a whisper through a voice that felt raw.

He cocked his head, his reply ringing false due to his pause and the tone. “Your companion.”

“He’s okay?”

“I wouldn’t use that word to describe Castiel’s condition. Alive maybe, but certainly not ‘okay’.”

“How did I get here?” She felt groggy and very, very tired. She thought she remembered getting up and trying to alert people that they were in the basement, but she wasn’t sure she’d actually done that, that it hadn’t been a dream.

“One of my teams found the both of you and brought you to the base. What happened in that room, Risa?”

She had the oddest feeling that he already knew everything, right down to the darkest things she and Castiel had done together. “He couldn’t take it anymore, took some pills, and I did the same.”

“Deliberate.”

“Yes.”

“I see.” He seemed troubled by that, brows drawing together and a hint of guilt on his face. His hand stretched out towards her and Risa closed her eyes, falling down into sleep once more.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Welcome back.”

Cool fingers brushed against his brow and Castiel opened his eyes. It took a moment to focus, but when he did, a pretty woman’s face swam into view. Jo Harvelle. He and Dean had both thought she was dead. When she and Ellen had left after helping start the camp, Dean had expected them to come back within a few weeks and they never had. He raised a hand, the effort making him shake, and touched her face, thinking he must be hallucinating. “Jo?” Her skin was smooth, warm.

She smiled and grasped his hand, pressing a kiss to his knuckles before laying his hand back at his side. “Sure is.

“I know I’m not bound for heaven and you likely are, so I must be…alive.” He almost groaned at that.

“I thought we’d lost you about five times on the way back to base.”

“I had a few pills.”

“Sweetheart, I’d say you had more than a few.”

“Where am I?” He rolled his head, squinting in the brightness of the room, trying to see. He was on one hospital bed of many in rows on both sides of the room. There was a tube running from a bag suspended on a hook above the bed to his left hand. The liquid was clear.

“Fort Mitchell. It used to be called something else, but it was re-named after the man who took it back from the Croats: Jack Mitchell.”

“That really happened? Dean thought it was propaganda, an attempt to calm citizens.” He remembered the news of that victory a couple years earlier and the brief glimpse of hope in Dean’s eyes before he’d declared it had to be fake. To take back a whole military base? Impossible.

“Hell, yeah, it happened. Mom and I were there. It was pretty hairy for awhile, but they were trapped in the gates and all we had to do was flush them out and kill them before they could do the same to us.”

The rest of the beds were empty. “Where’s Risa?” His gut clenched as he asked the question.

“Risa?” Jo squeezed a cloth out in a basin and patted his face with it. The coolness felt good.

“The woman with me in the panic room.”

“You were the only one in the panic room. We found --”

“I didn’t make her up.”

Jo paused, setting the cloth aside and putting a hand on his chest. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. We found her at the bottom of the stairs. Looked like she tried to go up, fell, and was sick.”

“Sick.”

“Yeah. She’s in the ICU next door.”

He closed his eyes, tears prickling. “She only took the pills because I did. She didn’t want to.”

“It’s a precaution, Cas. She’s already been awake and talked to someone. She’ll be fine, we just think she needs a little more observation and care right now.”

“When can I see her?” Castiel kept his eyes closed. Inside him was a flicker of guilt for pressing Risa to take the pills, too. He shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have --

“Soon.” She touched his cheek. “Why don’t you sleep for a little longer while I go rustle you up some dinner?”

He felt a prickle and sting of a needle against his arm and let the drug she’d given him slide him down into sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ellen was at work. Jo’d poked her head in earlier to let her know she was back safely, but now was the time to give her the rundown of what had happened. It was a thing Jo did every time she came back.

By the time she got to one barstool, her mother had a beer waiting for her. Jo took a long, appreciative drink.

“Well? Rumor has it you found two survivors this run, male and female.”

“They almost weren’t survivors. They’d taken a bunch of pills and it was touch and go on both of them all the way back.” She crossed her arms on the wood top of the makeshift bar. “Mom, one of them was Castiel.”

Jo knew very well Ellen had had feelings for Cas, so she tried to tell her the news gently. The romance between her mother and Castiel hadn’t been one she’d expected and while it had gone well for awhile, things had changed as his ‘woe is me’ attitude had grown. He hadn’t been able to handle becoming human, not the way they’d all hoped. It had been because of him that Ellen had refused to return to the camp at all. She’d been too affected by his moods to stay and deal with them, unable to watch as he willfully destroyed himself with little to no thought of those who cared about him. Ellen Harvelle was strong in many ways, but at the time, that hadn’t been one of them.

Surprise, then shock, and finally a mix of concern, fear, and sadness crept across her face, the sadness staying in her eyes. “He took an overdose?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed. Risa had told Jack that.

Ellen sighed and bowed her head, shaking it several times before looking up again. “Saw that coming three years ago.” She rested her hands on the edge of the bar and leaned on them. “Self-controlled with the pills he wasn’t. Popped ‘em like candy.”

“Well, he popped a whole handful according to the woman with him and she did it because he did. Was too afraid of being alone not to.”

“Sort of understandable in this world we have now. Not the first time you’ve found that.”

“No, but the first time we saved both people.”

Ellen looked around the empty bar. It wouldn’t pick up until after dinner. Jo saw two servers playing cards in one booth. “He’s okay though? I mean, he’s not….” She shrugged. “I need to know he’s okay.”

“Aside from whatever emotional issues he’s having these days, yes, he’s okay. He won’t be feeling too hot for a few days from everything we had to do to keep him alive, but yeah, he’s okay. Jack wants him off any drugs ASAP. He’s awake or will be again soon.”

“Oh.” She reached for a cloth and began wiping down the bar. “I can’t get away to see him right now. Maybe later.”

Jo didn’t argue. She could see the old wounds Cas had caused reopening right in front of her eyes. While she was glad they’d found him and that he was alive, his reappearance caused some problems. Ellen would see him only when she was ready to face the past and not a moment earlier.

She finished her beer and got up. “Okay. I need to get Cas some dinner, then I’m meeting Jack for dinner.”

She went to the kitchen and turned in her request, thinking about the past and the present. Had Castiel even been aware of how deeply Ellen had felt for him? Jo’d never gotten a sense that he had. The only other time Jo had seen her mother so torn up inside had been when Jo’s dad had died. Jo’d done her best to patch Ellen up, but two emotional holes of that magnitude changed a person. Ellen had never quite recovered the second time. Castiel had hurt her and Jo didn’t think he even knew it.

She’d had mixed feelings about taking a team to Bobby’s, but it had been necessary. They’d needed parts and she’d known the auto salvage had them. Bobby’d had a little bit of everything in there. She’d almost expected to find someone holed up in the house and for it to have been Castiel shocked her.

When they’d gone to aid Dean in that trap that had been set, she’d thought then that Cas might be there. She’d looked at every body they’d pulled out, wondering if the reason he wasn’t there was because he was already dead, for he would have followed Dean anywhere.

Jo remembered that clearly, the blind devotion he’d developed and how Dean hadn’t seemed to notice the obsessive depth of Cas’s feelings. Restrained Castiel wasn’t. Ellen was very right on that. When he felt, it was to extremes and he took his coping methods to the extreme as well, copying Dean’s methods with disastrous results.

Did Cas know that Dean had turned away their offerings of an alliance? Jack had sent a small team every few months to approach Dean about banding together and each time Dean had refused. Maybe if Jo or Ellen had gone with the teams he might have considered it, but Jack hadn’t wanted them to be in the way in case Dean shot first and asked questions later. Jo wondered about those offers and why Jack Mitchell kept tabs on Dean. She supposed it made sense to keep an eye on a civilian army and try to gain them as allies. Still, sometimes she thought he was regretful about something that had happened between him and Dean even though he swore up and down that they hadn’t met.

She didn’t believe him on that. Jack knew too much about Dean and discovering Dean’s body had made him actually mourn, a thing she’d never seen him do in three years. He’d known Dean. Somehow. Jo didn’t know how or when, just that his reaction was awfully emotional for the death of someone he claimed not to have met.

Dean’s death had hit her hard. The world seemed worse without him. She recalled sitting beside his body while a funeral pyre was being readied, thinking about all they’d been through over the years. She’d remembered thinking how gorgeous he was when he’d walked into the Roadhouse and then thinking about how dangerous he could be. She’d recalled jobs they’d done together and their friendship that had always been just one step away from something more. While he’d seen her, he hadn’t seen her, and she’d been unwilling to compromise on what she wanted from a man. Even in the end, she wanted more than to be simply another woman.

She’d once told him she wasn’t a bar slut he could pick up, bang in the backseat of his car, and leave the next day. His reply had been flippant, something about getting a room and being too scared of Ellen to leave her. Her point had been taken, however. She wasn’t going to let him treat her like the other women and if he couldn’t handle that, he should stop propositioning her. He’d stopped trying to get her into bed.

He’d also tried to stop them from leaving, but Ellen had been determined. She couldn’t watch anyone do a downward spiral, least of all someone she’d come to love. They’d ignored Dean’s dire predictions and set out, two women against the world.

Meeting up with Jack and his men not long after that had been a God-send. Without him and his resources, Jo believed they really would have died per Dean’s predictions.

She took the tray that was set down before her back to the medical ward, finding Jack waiting there, staring through the one way glass at Castiel. His hands were in his pockets, brow pulled down in a pensive frown.

“You talked to him yet?”

He drew in a breath and looked at her. For a second, his gaze was distant, as though he’d been a million miles away, but then it cleared and he shook his head. “Not yet. I’ve been thinking about what the woman Risa told me.”

“What? That he took an overdose?” She set the tray down. “I’m not surprised.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise you?” His gaze was intense, searching, and Jo shrugged beneath the weight of it. After two and half years with him, she’d gotten used to his stares.

“That’s just how he is. He copes with his pain using pills, booze, and women, usually too much of all of them. It’s probably not the first time he’s taken too many pills. He was on the verge of that when mom and I left Dean’s camp. I’m actually a little surprised he made it this far.”

He seemed shocked and surprised by her words, running slow hand through his blond hair. Strange to have that reaction from a man who’d witnessed so much in his life. Why such care over one man and not the others they’d found?

“Jack…. Do you know Castiel?” If he did, then his reaction made sense.

He turned away. “I don’t think I do. Go talk to him. See if you can’t get something from him.”

She lifted the tray again. “Open the door for me?” Jo took the tray to Castiel and braced herself for whatever was going to come next. Somehow, she doubted that the next few days were going to be easy for any of them.

~~~~~~~~~~

While he’d slept for awhile, it hadn’t been a deep sort of sleep. Castiel felt restless this time and yet strangely calm as well. He felt…different. That hole inside him that he remembered feeling didn’t seem as terrible at present. It seemed smaller, manageable. An odd thing. Perhaps there was some drug mixed in the iv line.

He laid in the bed and wondered if someone was watching him through that mirror on the wall and what they were thinking as they watched him.

The door opened, Jo approaching. She looked tired, her smile warm.

“You’ve got a visitor waiting,” Jo said, setting the tray in her hands down and rolling the table close.

“Ellen?” Castiel raised the head of the bed so he was sitting instead of lying down.

“No, mom’s still at work. She couldn’t get away, but she’ll stop by after her shift if she can. It’s Mitchell that’s outside. Jack Mitchell.”

He shoved the table back without lifting the lids to see what food she’d brought him. She caught it and rolled it most of the way back. “What’s he want?” The last thing he wanted to do was have a chat with him.

“To see you.” She lifted the lid off the main plate.

“I don’t want to see him. I want to see Risa and Ellen and you. That’s it. No one else.”

Jo waited, brows raising as she held the lid high.

He sighed, looking at the plate, smelling something he hadn’t had in over a year. “Is that a hamburger?”

“One hundred percent dead cow. Not standard anymore, but I have some pull with the mess.”

“And fries?”

She shrugged. “I remembered you liked burgers and fries and figured it’s probably been awhile since you’d had them.”

Stretching out his arm, he dragged the table back to him and reached for the burger. It looked wonderful. He took a long sniff, surprised by the pleasure he received from the smell of it. His mouth began to water. “I still don’t want to see your esteemed ‘leader’.” The first bite was excellent and he groaned as he chewed. “This is really good,” he mumbled around the mouthful.

“Glad you like it.” With a laugh, she set the lid aside. “You know, it’s not like you have a choice not to see him.”

“There’s always a choice, Jo.” Transferring the burger to one hand, he lifted one small lid and found ketchup for the fries. It was hard not to dig into the meal as though he hadn’t eaten a full meal in weeks, which of course was the truth. He and Risa had been rationing food to keep from having to leave Bobby’s house.

“No, not this time. It’s his base, after all.”

“I want to finish this first.” After a few more bites, he looked over at her. “Risa getting a meal like this, too?”

“Hers is a bit more standard sickroom fare until we’re sure she can keep it down. She’s not displaying obvious symptoms of a concussion, but she does have a big old goose egg on her head, along with a broken wrist and forearm. Her shoulder had been dislocated in the fall, too. She’s a mess, Cas, but she’s doing okay so far.”

“Good.” He accepted the news with relief.

“You were both dehydrated and are malnourished, according to the doctors. It’s treatable. All of it.”

As he ate, trying not to take big bites or cram the food into his mouth, he asked her about Mitchell. “What’s he like?”

“Like any man the world considers great: a reluctant hero for the times. He got a battlefield promotion because everyone else died and his crazy plans worked. Not just with the Croats either, but with all of the weird shit coming at us.”

“How’d you meet the guy?” He finished the burger and lifted the last lid. Beneath it was a slab of chocolate cake. Not just any cake, but a fancy one that had layers of frosting in the center. He chewed a few fries and wondered why the food was so good here -- or at least what he’d had so far. Dean and others had always told him that military food was terrible.

“We were at the same fight. Mom and I and a few others were in a town trying to take it back and he came along with his units. We did the job and he invited us to join up as civilian aid.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He has no problem utilizing whatever resources he has, Cas. We’ve a few civilian teams here that go out in the immediate area with minimum back-up and a few that are further reaching that take a team of soldiers and medics -- like my team. We search for survivors, bring them back. There’s a quarantine procedure, but you and Risa got a pass. By the time we got back here, the time the virus takes to turn a person had long since passed.” She sat in one chair. “I’ve known him for about three years, since almost directly after mom and I left the camp.”

He paused in eating and stared at her. There was a sparkle in her eyes and the way she talked about him…. “You’re sleeping with him,” he pronounced in a sure tone.

“Sleeping? No. He doesn’t sleep much, at least not when we’re together.” A faint blush colored her cheeks.

“Let me rephrase it then. You have carnal knowledge of each other on a day-to-day basis.”

“That’d work to describe it.”

“Then your opinion of him as great means nothing. You’re infatuated with him, Jo. It’s messing with your objectivity.”

“Not true. It’s not only my opinion and I’m not infatuated. We have a relationship, Cas. It’s not all sex.”

He tried one bite of the cake, then pushed the table away and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Why is he so great?”

“Because he’s the only one in mainstream population making any headway against Lucifer.”

“What about Dean?”

“What about him?” Jo shook her head. “Dean may have done some good here and there, but he had a hard-on for the Colt. It was his main objective. Everything else was periphery.”

“He saved a lot of people, Jo.”

“Maybe. But Dean’s dead, Cas. He died from a broken neck over five months ago.”

He went very still. “How did you know that?” Had it really been five months? Had he and Risa been in Bobby’s house that long alone together?

Her gaze was sad. “We found him, my team and I. We’d gotten wind of a trap being set for someone, but by the time we got there to help, it’d been sprung and Dean was dead. Him, a few others. We were a day too late. I made sure he got a hunter’s send-off.”

Castiel leaned his head back, not bothering to try to stem the tears that fell, the food he’d eaten heavy in his stomach. “I couldn’t protect him. He faced Lucifer alone.” He left out past Dean. At this point, he wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t hallucinated that part, he and Risa both.

“Wait…you were there?” Incredulity colored her voice.

“Risa and I. We were in the building.” He glanced at her, then back at the water-stained ceiling. “He let us go, Lucifer did, and like complete idiots we led him straight back to the camp.” He licked his lips and avoided looking at her again. If he didn’t look at her, he wouldn’t have to see the disappointment and disgust in her eyes when he admitted the rest to her. “We abandoned them. Just…lied to get supplies and headed out, saving our own asses. Didn’t even tell them he was coming. Not that it would have done any good if we had. He was right behind us by not fifteen, twenty minutes. Maybe a half hour at most. They never had a fighting chance.”

“Oh, Cas….”

“What kind of man does that make me, Jo?”

“A frightened one.”

“That’s not even the worst. There were people in my cabin and I gave each of them some pills, enough to make them sleep and not wake up.” He took a shuddering breath that immediately became a sob. “I killed them and told myself it was the best thing for them.”

She touched his hand, but he jerked it away. “Okay. Okay.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod and stand, picking up the tray. “I’ll be back later.”

Castiel rolled onto his side away from her and turned his face away, pressing it into the pillow. He heard her leave; heard the murmur of voices outside; the sound of a door slamming and footsteps going down stairs. The clock on the wall ticked by the minutes. Finally, the door opened and he heard someone crossing the room to him. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck raised. The person with him had a presence, a feeling of power.

“You mope too much, Castiel. Always have.”

He blinked and rolled back over, turning his head to look at the man with him. He wasn’t a man and had never been one. Even being mostly human, Castiel recognized him.

Gabriel.