Song Remains the Same

Chapter 119: Puzzle Pieces

"...The final amnesia, the one that can erase an entire life."
- Luis Bunuel

Dean Winchester was beaten to a proverbial pulp. His head was throbbing to the agonized beat of pain; his wrist was snapped and broken, his entire body screamed from being thrown around by an angel who was supposed to be his friend. One of his eyes had swollen completely shut from the brutal beatdown, the other was hard to see out of because it was blurred by his own blood. But despite his weakened eyesight and nearly-crippled state, he'd recognized her the second he'd seen her. Without even seeing her face he'd known it was her and his heart had leapt up in his throat. How and why, he didn't know... but Alex was here. Not dead and gone as Cas had claimed. Not lost forever like they had thought. But obviously not quite herself, either.

After all, Dean was standing there with his already-swollen cheek pulsing anew from the impact of her fist. Confusion was making his head swim. Why had she done that? He'd tried to sweep her into a hug and she'd reacted like he was attacking her. When Cas had said she didn't know him or anyone, Dean fell into a short, offended silence. The words made no sense in his mind. "What do you mean, she doesn't know anyone?" he finally asked, pretty damn sure that Cas was completely wrong. Alex might have forgotten Cas for whatever reason but she would never forget Dean. That was crazy talk. To prove his point, Dean gestured to himself the best he could with a broken wrist. It must have been his gruesome and mutilated appearance that had scared his sister. "Alex, it's me."

He waited for her to recognize his voice or for her eyes to adjust to the dark. But Alex seemed able to see him fine and she only shrank back further, mistrust and suspicion and fear making her face tense and hostile. She looked at him like he was an absolute stranger. Even as Dean's emotions began to derail and his mind raced with all the possibilities of what the fuck was happening here, Cas gently held a hand out and stopped him by gently catching hold of his upper arm, preventing him from going any closer to his sister.

"Dean, she has no memory of who she is," he insisted urgently. "Don't frighten her."

Dean looked at Cas in quickly-increasing alarm. "Frigh—?" Panic became fear, and he covered up that emotion with gruffness. "Cas, explain. Now."

But Cas was looking at Dean's face with sorrow. "Look what I've done to you," he murmured, his eyes taking in the beaten and bloody appearance of his friend. Even as he touched Dean's face with two gentle fingers and uttered, "I'm so sorry," the pain disappeared and all of the injuries were taken away like magic. Alex's eyes popped wide when that happened in shock.

Dean angrily slapped Cas's hand off, too distracted with Alex's reappearance to care about himself. "Forget me, Cas!" he thundered, then gestured to his silent, cagey sister. She was against the wall and both of her hands were white-knuckled, pressed hard against the stone on either side of herself. She looked like she was waiting for an opportunity to bolt—her eyes were feral. She had visible injuries—a few guts and gashes and bruises, the side of her head was bleeding, and her knee was still gimp like it had been when they got out of Purgatory. And Dean was furious and freaked out at the same time and needed some knowledge pronto. "What happened to her?! Where the hell has she been all this time and why are you saying she doesn't remember and why the hell were you just trying to kill me?!"

All damn good questions he needed answers for like yesterday. Castiel looked mildly overwhelmed at the rapid-fire barrage of questions and it was then that Dean noticed the trail of blood beneath Cas's righthand eye. "An angel named Naomi was holding your sister captive and forcing me to do her bidding," Cas said somberly, his shoulders caving with guilt. "She threatened to kill Alex if I didn't comply with her demands and..." he looked over at where the strange, bloody metal part he'd pulled out of his own eye had fallen a moment ago. "That thing made sure that I wouldn't remember she was even still alive, among other things."