Song Remains the Same

Chapter 130: Game, Set, Match

"There is such a special sweetness in being able to participate in creation."
- Pamela S. Nadav

The Next Day
Prosperity, Indiana

It was early morning—the kind of early morning that still feels like late night. The sunrise would be soon, but for now, the motel room was dark and quiet as the outside world remained asleep. On one of the two beds the room contained, an angel in a trench coat laid wrapped up in the embrace of a woman wearing jeans and flannel. It was strange... she was much smaller in stature than her companion, but she was the one who held him.

Cas's soft, forlorn voice broke another long span of silence. "It just isn't fair. Or right." With his head curled into Alex's chest, he didn't have to speak loudly to be heard. "I killed someone who did nothing to deserve it."

With a tense expression, Alex nodded and her fingers curled more tightly into his hair, drawing him fractionally closer. "I know, Cas."

On and off for the long, dark hours of this night, he'd told her what he'd done. How he had gone to Jane's tiny apartment. Seen where she lived and the little humble life she led. The fluffy white cat she owned, the church flyer on her refrigerator. The post-graduate homework piled up on her table. Then the look on her face when he had ambushed her.

Alex and Cas were both very aware of how terrible what he had done was. Alex didn't know what exactly had changed Castiel's mind about killing Jane the Nephilim and starting the trials of Heaven... only that he was agonized over his actions. She wished she could take away his pain somehow. "You did what you had to do, right? For the greater good. To save a lot of people." With Heaven closed and angels unable to get out and cause trouble, things would be safer. For the entire world, yes, but especially for Alex and Cas who were always under the line of fire, it seemed. Alex felt a little guilt creep when she thought about it because who was she kidding? She was so selfish...

Cas was incredibly quiet and it took him a moment to reply. "Yes. To save people. The most important ones, especially." Alex felt his hands pull her a little closer to himself. "But... the look on her face when I..." he shuddered against her slightly and Alex wondered if he would cry again. He had cried a few times tonight and it broke her heart. "It haunts me." His voice broke and he held her even harder.

Alex guessed maybe she could have told him a generic 'it's all gonna be okay.' But she knew from experience that it wasn't gonna be. Not quite. The people you killed stayed with you. Glossing over reality didn't feel loving. So, she told him the truth: "And it will. Possibly forever." Cas drew back and looked at her in a stricken, confused way. In pain because of his pain, she touched his face and rubbed a thumb across the wet skin of his cheek. She felt powerless to take away his suffering. His face twisted slightly as he held her gaze, and she noticed it again: something was different about him right now and she couldn't put her finger on what, but the way he kept looking at her... she was aware of it again. Something was shifting. Deepening.

Cas looked at her openly, like he trusted her implicitly, like he was hanging on her every word, like he was depending on her for the answer to all his ailments. "How do you get past the things you've done?" he asked earnestly. Her expression must have registered surprise or hurt, because Cas immediately tried to take it back. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"No, no," she said quickly, shaking her head. He didn't mean it like that and she knew that—her quasi-offended reaction was because she had a lot to feel guilty over. She had done so many things and often, just not thinking about them at all was the solution. But you couldn't run forever from the thoughts that came at night. How did she get past it all? She shook her head, eyes becoming sightless as she thought deeply. "I... dunno. You just keep going, I guess." That was the only choice a lot of times. Well, it wasn't the only choice, but... for her, it was. "Some people cover it over with alcohol. Drugs. Sex. Denial. All of the above." A cynical little laugh puttered out of her lips and she shrugged, not feeling like her sorry excuse for advice would help at all. "You just... try to do more good than bad. Balance the scales a little." Cas was listening in earnest attention and Alex felt more and more like a sham. "I'm not really an expert at being okay with the things I've done, so I'm not really the best person to give advice about it actually." Self-loathing crept in. She could talk all day about being well-adjusted but she knew she'd probably never be anywhere close.