Song Remains the Same

Chapter 22: This Our Mortal Life

"God only cries for the living 'cause it's the living that are left to carry on."
- Diamond Rio

The Next Morning

Beep, beep, beep...

The sound faded in as Alex slowly came out of a dreamless sleep. She groggily opened her eyes halfway, for a second not remembering what had happened—and then she saw the hospital room ceiling above and felt the uncomfortable pressure where IV needles were shoved into her arms. A dull throbbing pain emanated from the palm of her hand where stitches crisscrossed. That's when she remembered yesterday. And the days before it. Whatever peace she'd had while asleep was immediately gone.

"Good morning, Alex," came a deep, husky voice. Startled, Alex snapped fully alert, sitting up halfway and then cringing as her body complained. Castiel stood beside the hospital bed and his ever-present frown softened as their eyes locked.

"You're... still here," she said clumsily, both a question and a surprised comment.

Alex heard a soft, familiar snore and realized that her brothers were there. Sam was in a corner, his giant body crammed into a hospital chair with an elbow on his knee and his face propped awkwardly on his hand as he leaned into the wall. And on the other side of the room, Dean slumped down uncomfortably in another chair, head awkwardly hanging back as his mouth gaped widely.

"I don't think he meant to fall asleep. He was very irritable last night." Of course he was. Alex glanced at Cas, feeling bad. She could only imagine. Lately, it had been nothing but mood swings and authoritarian rampages from her oldest brother, who was under increasing stress and didn't seem to know how to handle it any other way than to rip into his siblings (and anyone else who dared get in his way). That, combined with his general weird attitude toward Cas more recently—well, it had all probably come to a bit of a head yesterday. And it didn't help that Castiel had just spirited her away to a hospital without a second word to Dean, but for God's sake, her brother was really being a nightmare lately. She had to wonder how exhausted Dean had to have been to fall asleep with Cas standing there—or maybe Cas had left and just returned a few minutes ago. She frowned intently and cocked her head to the side. "Have you... been standing there all night?"

His answer was simple and immediate. "Yes. I watched over you."

A shiver of warmth raced over her. And the silence that hung seemed to demand she say something, anything. But she literally felt that she'd forgotten the entire English language. Couldn't think of a single damn thing to say. An eloquent, "Oh..." escaped. Then the angel surprised her again by drawing in a deep breath, sitting on the edge of the bed as his eyebrows knit together in a thoughtful, troubled expression. Alex was frozen, helplessly noticing how close he was. The end of his trench coat bunched up over the top of her thigh.

Pensive, he looked at her intently, oblivious to her sudden inability to breathe deeply. He was so close, and that look on his face was heart-stopping. His troubled eyes searched hers in silence, then fell away. "Seeing you in torment was..." his eyes flicked back to hers, "unbearable to me."

Her chest tightened. Their eyes remained locked and the air in the room thinned. Cas's forehead wrinkled deeply as he waited for her to say something... but she was speechless. He had said it almost as if he were asking her what to do about it. And it was clear that he had been thinking about it long and hard—waiting all night to tell her after gathering the courage and trying to decide how to say it. Alex swallowed. He was basically confessing that her pain affected him on a level that frightened him. And that, in turn, scared her—because... what the hell did that mean for them, exactly?