The Story of US

Chapter 21

While Dean spend the next month fighting, Castiel was relearning his life. He unpacked his apartment and had a mild panic attack about putting things in the wrong place. With Meg beside him he started navigating the city where he lived. Everything was new to him, it felt odd, being able to discover things twice. He spent his evenings going over his course schedule and felt fairly confident that he could resume teaching soon. He also spent a lot of time grilling Meg over everything. Except about Dean. He could handle what came with losing a huge chunk of his memory and move with it, but the thought of losing someone who obviously meant a great deal to him made him sick to his stomach. He had a never ending list of questions but wouldn't ask a single one. He had begun seeing friends that he had made again and everyone was trying really hard to treat him like nothing had happened but it seemed that the vast majority of his friends were linked to Dean in some way or another.

 The night that Meg had thrown him a welcome home party he had overheard a couple of guys talking about Dean. He had listened to them talk about him fighting and how there was no stopping him right now. He wasn't going to school anymore, just fighting and working at the auto yard. Castiel spent the rest of the night floating around and trying to catch anyone speaking of Dean. Mostly he picked up the same thing, that Dean was on a hot streak, fighting like a man possessed. Now that his life was regaining some stability he found himself very curious about his ex. The only person Castiel felt comfortable talking to about Dean was his therapist. He'd been seeing one since shortly after he left the hospital. they had tried all kinds of things to help him try and regain his memory but so far nothing had worked and all Castiel had to show for it were a few short stories that meant nothing to him and a few failed attempts at drawing. Talking helped, Ellen was an outsider and it felt safe to tell her everything he wouldn't say to anyone else.

"Why don't you talk to him?" She asked him one afternoon. Castiel had been talking about overhearing some kids at the college talking about Dean and his fighting again.

"What? No, I couldn't do that. I mean I think I've hurt him enough don't you? " He said to her.

"You have no idea how much you've hurt him. He may be recovered, he may be a mess, but either way you would be talking to him and not lurking in the shadows waiting for overheard conversations." Ellen countered.

He thought about this for a minute, the thought had crossed his mind more than once but he always talked himself out of it.

" I wouldn't know what to say to him" he said.

" You could start with 'Hello I'm Castiel' I've heard things like that tend to work more than they fail" She said, smiling at him. When he left they had agreed that he would reach out and try and talk to Dean and he felt good about it. When he reached his apartment that good feeling was gone, replaced with a tight anxiety. He wanted to change his mind. This was crazy and there is no way he could do this. He was full throttle into talking himself out of it by the time he was inside. Meg was home and she could tell something was wrong. After a few minutes of relentless nagging he broke down and told her everything. She sat and listened until he was quiet and then said

" So you want me to call him for you or what?" her eyes had lit up while he was talking and you could tell she was a full supporter of the idea.

" What? No! Not yet. I mean, ugh, I don't know. What if he doesn't want to talk to me? I mean it's no more than I deserve for just cutting him off" He said to her.

Meg seemed to think this over for a few minutes and then snapped her fingers and jumped up from the couch.

"Get up my silly unicorn, we are going out." She sang to him.

Laughing he let her pull him from his spot "What?"

" You want to see Dean and maybe talk to him or maybe chicken out right? He's fighting tonight, we can go and if you decide to talk to him you can, if not we'll make sure and be sneaky" She told him.

 He had to admit his mind was all over the place and he couldn't stop thinking about Dean. Maybe it was better to just jump first and think later. I mean he could always change his mind and leave. He agreed to go along and an hour later he and Meg were changed and heading in the direction of Dean Winchester.