Song Remains the Same

Chapter 48: Noise and Confusion

"Oh she's waiting for me but I'm a long, long way from home."
- Foreigner

In a frozen field god knows where, Alex sat in the snow and looked at her arm blankly. The cut Nandriel had slashed into her was gone, and so was the scar along the back of her arm—she held out her hands and turned them over in rapid unison to look first at her knuckles (smooth, unscarred) and then the palms of her hands (like nothing had ever happened). It seemed that every single last scar she'd ever had was suddenly gone.

That wasn't really her first concern though. Had Cas just flung her somewhere and left...? She stood up then promptly let out a surprised, pained "aah!" and almost fell when she realized her ankle was twisted—it must have happened when she tumbled across the field and crashed into the snowbank. She hissed in pain and wrapped her arms around herself uselessly, teeth chattering. It was below freezing and she was in the middle of nowhere—a lone, gravel road stretched out alongside the field she was in. Alex looked upward. "Cas?" she asked, eyes hungry to catch sight of him again. But all she saw was snow. Her heart was still hammering from what had been anxious relief a moment ago. Those feelings were quickly becoming terrified fear that she had been abandoned again.

"Cas!" The only answer that came was wind whistling harshly over the frozen ground. "Please—what the hell is happening?!" she begged. No reply came. She stood there for a few seconds, realizing the obvious truth: she was alone. Her teeth chattered together as she shivered harder. She needed to get herself to shelter, or this cold would turn lethal.

With no choice but to move, Alex began to painstakingly limp and hop her way toward the road. Was he okay? Had that ringing sound she'd heard just before he threw her been the approach of Raphael? If it was so dangerous he had to shove her into the void without even looking to see where she'd land, was Cas even alive now? What war was Nandriel talking about? Nothing had explained why he'd disappeared nearly nine months ago, or why he had never sent a message, or why he'd just left her and never bothered to tell her a reason. She wasn't sure if she should be worried and afraid or angry and indignant. Why couldn't someone just give her some damn answers?! Alex gritted her teeth and hop-hobbled faster. Her nose was already numb and her bare arms were losing feeling from the frigid sting of windchill.

When she got to the edge of the field where a low wooden cross-tie fence marched, rage overcame her and she picked up one of the heavy ties and clumsily threw it several feet with a shout of animalistic anger—which just ended up twisting her ankle even further from the brainless outburst. Eyes glittering with tears, she clenched her fists and glared at the empty field she'd just crossed. She put her face in her hands and breathed deeply to calm herself down. No crying. None. Stop. That shit was the shit that Old Alex did. She looked upward again and gathered herself, committing to the task of surviving.

Alex awkwardly clambered over the fence and onto the other side, glad that she'd gone to sleep in her shoes the night when Nandriel had taken her. She looked both ways—the road stretched straight in either direction and neither way looked different than the other. The road was covered in a light layer of snow with no tire tracks. She didn't hear any sounds of traffic and saw no power lines, meaning this was a remote place. Well, that was fucking comforting. So was the thought that she would die from exposure if she was out here for too long. She picked a direction and headed that way, hoping for the best and wrestling her miserable feelings the entire way.

About an hour later Castiel appeared in the middle of the field that Alex was now miles away from and he looked around in high anxiety, out of breath, blood running down the side of his head in a single trickle from the ambush he'd just barely survived. Short of breath and knowing Raphael was right behind him, Cas squinted through what appeared to be a quickly growing snowstorm. The angel rapidly became dismayed. Where the hell was this? He'd meant to return Alex to the motel he'd met Dean in a few hours ago, but in his rush, he'd been unable to fully calculate the trajectory—and it looked like he'd missed completely. His sense of alarm doubled.