Locked Out Of Heaven

One

She always loved Autumn. It was never just a season to her, practically an emotion. It meant chilly nights with the windows open and Halloween candy on sale a month ahead of the holiday, pumpkin spice flavored everything. Yet this Autumn, though just starting, was not like the others. These were the weeks when school shopping would start for her family. Unfortunately, it was delayed. Her father had come home from work one night, struggling for breath and quoted as saying that he "Felt like dying".

The whole family was there to watch him get better, but it didn't happen. By the time Christmas came, he was having annual doctor's visits. At first they said it was just an infection, that he should take this medicine and it will all go away. Clearly, they were wrong. On Christmas Eve, he was pronounced with a very serious case of pneumonia. He was to stay over night and have surgery the next morning, though the infection in his lungs had been allowed to progress to a stage that the doctors didn't think they were capable of bringing him back from.

As she sat in the waiting room, a figure stood before her. She thought it would be one of the doctors, or a nurse, but it was just a man. His hair was messy just like his clothes, his trench coat was dingy and his tie was loose and tied all wrong. She thought he might be a homeless man that wandered into the hospital looking for shelter, but he was looking directly at her. The pain in his eyes was prominent, like he had lived to see a thousand horrible things, yet his face was kind, as if he knew what she was going through.

"Can I help you?" she asked, trying to keep the pain out of her voice. His reply shocked her; she didn't know whether to be offended at this cruel joke or believe what he claimed to be.

"My name is Castiel, and I am here to heal your father."