Song Remains the Same

Chapter 96: Enemy of My Enemy

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view."
- Harper Lee

She laid beside him in the hospital bed as police lights from the outside world danced in through the window and across the dim, vague shapes of the bare, quiet room. Sam and Dean had left twenty minutes ago and it was sinking in: she had chosen to stay here with Cas—she had chosen to step out of the familiar and the known. The future was totally up in the air, and Cas was seemingly gone all over again. In effect... she was alone and watching over someone who was probably not coming back.

Castiel was alive, yes, but unresponsive. Eyes shut, breathing slow and barely perceptible, he laid on the bed flat on his back with limbs straight and stiff. Before he'd done what he had to fix Sam, he'd basically said a final goodbye. Again. Curled into his side, watching his face in the darkness, Alex was glad no one was there to see the pain she felt on her own face. Love shouldn't hurt this much. That was one of the last things she'd truly said to him before he yet again disappeared from right in front of her eyes. She loved him for healing Sam and saving his life. But she also remembered that he was the one who had broken her brother in the first place.

The red and blue lights droned on and on from the outside world, illuminating Cas's unmoving face, putting Alex in a trance. She knew the police were out there because some poor sap had stumbled upon all of the dead demons she and her family had left scattered across the back of the hospital. Her family left a wake of crime scenes wherever they went—that was nothing new. But usually, they didn't stick around to see the cops try and clean up the mess they'd made.

I wonder if we ' ve saved more people than we ' ve killed. Is this even worth it at the end of the day?

For as strong as she'd been feeling just yesterday, Alex felt like she was right back at the bottom of the abyss again. All she wanted was to stop feeling like the ground underneath her feet was about to be snatched away. Was that really too much to ask? Or did she need to accept that things were always, inevitably going to get worse? Was it some huge, divine test? Feelings of numbness and utter emotional fatigue made it hard for her to know how to react internally. It was so ironic, so like fate itself was out to sabotage her in every way imaginable... she remembered how Castiel and herself had been on a bed together three years ago, but how then had been so different than now...

Three Years Ago
April 30th, 2010

Naked, flushed, and tired in the best of ways, Cas and Alex rested tangled closely together. Only a breath's distance apart, they were saying nothing of the brightening morning outside their motel room or the fact that they really needed to eat the breakfast Cas had brought and then head back to Bobby's to face reality. They were both trying to hold onto this warm, soft, close atmosphere they had created, this rare and precious instance in time when they were together and free to be that way. Yesterday was burning bright in both of their hearts and minds—the day they had married secretly in the face of the apocalypse. Cas traced fingers through Alex's still-damp hair from her earlier shower, his mouth resting against her forehead as she laid with him and stroked her thumb thoughtfully against the warm skin of his side where her hand rested. His breathing was deep and soothing, his physical closeness made her feel safer and more whole than she could remember feeling ever before in her entire life. And that feeling terrified her because she recognized how easily it could be taken from her.

Alex lifted her head and Cas drew back, she looked into his eyes—hazel meeting azure. "Just promise me something," she said in a whispered request that seemed to come out of nowhere.