{AU: Once again, I seem to find a perfect song}
Wrong mind and burning walls made it difficult. Only the Queen and the road made sense. Little sleep and food. Frequently lost. Distractions of songs everywhere. And the dead...the dead were all around. Crying. Confused. Reapers couldn't reap. Nowhere to go.
Castiel was hard to see. Fleeting, burning visions. So hard to follow. He kept moving. Smarter this time. It was easier before. And I was tired.
I'd had help before, but I knew.
The lights were really gone this time.
Gone and I was still broken. Not enough time to heal, it seems, not even over ten years.
I didn't count the days. The first day, Dean called, furious with me. Then the next, begging me to come home. Then just a voice-mail and a text, both asking if I was alright.
After that, I lost track. Everything was different and the same. Time and places alike. Didn't know who or what I was at times. Just walked or drove through the colors.
And then I heard I heard the phone ring again. Knew where I was. Middle of the night. Parked on the side of the highway in heavy rainfall.
All my focus on the unknown caller ID on the screen before I clicked to answer.
I let the silence answer for me.
"Hazel."
My heart skipped, rushing electricity through me in surpise. Everything snapped together. Made sense. If only for a moment.
"Castiel...?"
"Yes."
"How did you-"
"I called your brothers, Hazel...You disappeared on them again and stopped answering the phone I...we were all thinking the worst."
"I'm ok. I am the one..."
"What? Hazel listen to me. Whatever you're doing, stop, go home."
"I have a purpose, Pretty Bird...I understand now. I'm not supposed run."
"No, that is exactly what-....You don't sound good. What's happening?"
Involuntary tear crept out of the corner. "I dont know..." I sighed shakily, "I'm lost. I'm tired..."
"You dont know where you are...?"
Sighs became a stifled sob. "No. All the books are on the floor and the pages are on the ceiling!" I said, slowly incrementing into a distraught shout.
"Ok calm down...what do you see?"
"The Queen. The road. Trees. Lots of rain," the more I realized how wrong the mind was the more I panicked, "I can't see the secrets, Pretty Bird. I can't reach them..."
☆☆☆☆☆
{Castiel}
Hazel sounded so scared. This was exactly what I was afraid of. Mind so torn apart she couldn't even decipher the simplest of psychic tasks like self locating. Until now I really hadn't thought much of her madness, but it was clear it was more than just attention deficit and poetic gibberish.
"Dont panic, ok? Just call your brothers. They can track your phone."
"So they can drag home the prize. The prisoner."
"Honey - PLEASE ENTER MORE CHANGE - damn it, hold I need more coins...." I fumbled forcing half of what I had left into the coin slot, "Hazel nobody wants to keep you locked up but it's for the best."
"No. I am the champion. The best is never for me."
"What are you talking about?"
"Fragile. Always think she's fragile. But she was chosen. Earth is her duty....she has to fight."
I sighed with anguish, leaning back into the plastic phone booth window.
Now I understood. She was on a mission, in that maddened mind of hers. The mission she was always meant to have. But in her current state, it was suicide to do anything but stay off the battle field.
"What are you going to do, Hazel...?" I whispered into the receiver, "what were you thinking?"
