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— Day 156, continued —
Castiel counts the minutes as he first fulfills his duties as Chitaqua’s commander: verifying the patrol schedule and reports before appointing Mel duty officer until midnight followed by Christina until dawn, and assuring Carol is safely returned to the infirmary and reassuring her that if Dolores permits it, she’s welcome to return.
That leaves him twenty-seven minutes, and belatedly remembering the vaguely dazed look of his subordinates, it occurs to him that perhaps he could have taken a little more time.
Going to the mess, he starts to ask if there’s anything remaining from dinner and stops short at the sight of Brenda frozen by the oven, mitts on both hands.
“Brenda?” he asks, reaching to touch her and only then registering the unnatural silence and the fact he can’t smell whatever’s cooking.
Drawing back, he crosses the mess and enters the lobby, throat tight when he sees the frozen tableau of Evelyn at the desk, Jeremy holding his coat and leaning over the log book; the Situation Room is empty, but a quick check of the second floor reveals Mel caught leaning against the wall outside her team’s door, David cupping her face with a tender expression meant for no one eyes but hers.
Going to his and Dean’s room, he calmly retrieves Ruby’s knife and another of cold iron, concealing Ruby’s in his boot and strapping the other against his inner arm just above his wrist. Searching through his kit, he removes powdered silver and powdered cold iron, and on further consideration, takes wood—and silver-tipped bullets (why not?). He also quickly sets the baskets of clean laundry by the bathroom door and out of the way; there’s no reason not to be tidy when possible (and reminds himself to thank Rosario and Frederick for their good work).
When he emerges onto the balcony, the late evening makes it impossible to be sure, but focusing on the fire, two minutes observation shows no discernible change in the shape; that’s what he thought, but it’s pleasant to have confirmation.
“I’m going to need more than this,” he tells the empty air on his way down the back stairs, checking his sidearm. “As portents go, it’s substandard; I could do better with a broom and a questionably clean sheet.”
He’s just reached the lobby when he hears a voice, so unexpected he just manages to conceal the fact he almost drew. “Cas?” He looks up at Nate leaning over the railing of the floor above him. “Cas, I can’t get Mira and James up, and Mel and David are—”
“Yes, I noticed.” He looks around the lobby suspiciously. “Not better,” he murmurs to whoever is listening before telling Nate, “You can come down—”
Nate’s halfway down the spiral staircase before he finishes the sentence, emerging almost at a run and crossing the silent lobby uneasily. “So Dean was right about the building.”
“It’s not the building,” he says, then revises that for honesty. “At least, not now. This is simply time in suspension, that’s all.”
Nate gazes at him incredulously. “Oh, that’s all? Time’s suspended?”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Castiel tells him encouragingly, wondering why Nate seems so disconcerted; he doesn’t think anyone who lived happily in Winchester House has any grounds to panic whatsoever. “The only question is why you’re not affected. And me, I suppose.”
“That’s the only question?” Nate bursts out, a baffling edge of hysteria in his voice. “How about—I don’t even know,” he finishes helplessly, looking around them. “How about ‘why’?”
“That would be useful,” he agrees, tilting his head toward the door. “And the extent of the area this is affecting as well. Come along.”
“What?” Nate exclaims, but when Castiel emerges onto the street, Nate is almost plastered against his back.
As they both look around, Castiel smiles at the sight of snow-flurries captured mid-motion; it’s quite beautiful. Nate approaches the nearest one with an odd lack of appreciation for its pure aesthetics, staring at it in horrified fascination. Raising a hand, he reaches into the flurry and jerks his hand back, looking stunned as he stares at his hand, as if he expected it to change into something else. “It feels like… like snow.”
He’s become spoiled by Dean’s quick mind and easy sangfroid no matter the situation; either that, or humans are becoming stupider. “That is because it is snow,” he answers as patiently as he can. “In case this is your next question, you are indeed still breathing ‘air’.” He cheers himself by reminding himself that this is the man who didn’t notice the Apocalypse began when he was living in Winchester House. And needed it to read his mind because he was so prone to almost dying walking out random windows.
“God, this is weird,” Nate mutters as Castiel scans the empty street. Not many people are out this late, of course. “So is this—is this happening everywhere or just here?”
That is a very good question. “There’s no practical way to be certain,” he admits, thinking of time bubbles and rivers and the inadvisability of using his ability to see all things at the moment. Looking up, he studies the sky, tracking the streaks of frozen color that are the intersection between the storm and the protective bubble over Ichabod keeping it at bay. “Knowing the reason it exists would possibly also tell us its extent. But it’s definitely not confined to Ichabod proper.”
Following his gaze, Nate nods uncertainly. “I’ll take your word for it. So why would someone stop time?”
“Slow time, rather,” he corrects Nate after staring at the snow flurry that Nate touched; the area of the flurry that Nate’s hand displaced is incrementally smaller, though he’d need several hours—relatively speaking—of observation to work out the exact differential other than ‘rather high.’ “So the question is, why would anyone want to slow time here and now…”
He meets Nate startled gaze, who stares back at him, eyes widening in realization. “We should—”
“—go to the infirmary,” he agrees, starting for the street exit. “Yes, now.”
“What the hell,” Dean mutters, coming up to an empty Second Street at a dead run, panting and making a note a lot of running around Chitaqua is in his future; this is bullshit. Jogging down the street, he ignores the feel of not-moving snow flurries hitting him in the face even if it’s spooky as shit; he doesn’t have time for spooky right now, thanks.
Opening the door to Headquarters, he shouts, “Cas!” before he realizes he’s in the white room. This goddamn building: he doesn’t have time for spooky goddamn buildings, either.
Stopping short, he realizes something else; it’s not just white now, but white, painful as snowglare. He has to squint, eyes burning, and gasps from the shock of ice-hot pain from his hand, muscles curling on themselves so tightly the bones seem to be trying to bend with them. “What the fuck—”
“Sorry,” a familiar voice says, and through his lids, the endless white glare starts to fade. Squinting, he waits for it to go down the rest of the way before opening his eyes, blinking away the remaining glare, and after a moment makes out the shape of his usual companion a few feet away.
Then blinks, startled: worn jeans and a leather jacket over a faded flannel and thermal, brown hair in a sensible braid, and wearing at least two guns and a knife in her left boot. She’s also in the process of sheathing a sword, silver-white that vanishes into a plain leather sheath worked in darker symbols he can’t quite focus on enough to read; that’s what was causing the ‘way too white’ issue, okay. For some reason, the pain fades as well, settling into a sullen throb in his palm as he tries and fails to flex his hand; he’s pretty sure they’re past the ‘hot water will help’ now.
“I panicked,” she says apologetically. “I thought you were… them.”
Dean checks the walls—no pictures—but he already figured this was a non-standard… whatever they do here. “Them?”
“Reason I’m here,” she answers distractedly, looking around suspiciously, like she expects them—whoever they are—to appear any minute. “Well, mostly.”
Right, one of these conversations. “What’s going on?”
She makes a face. “I was hoping you’d tell me.”
He’s not sure if that’s scary or kind of sad. “No idea. I was—”
“Torturing yourself at the burning,” she finishes carelessly, raising an eyebrow at his expression. “What? Dean Winchester, infer self-torment. A gimme, as it were.”
He licks his lips, not sure what to say to that. Time for a change of subject. “Nice outfit?” Oh God, what?
She brightens, looking down at herself in satisfaction. “Trying to fit in; this is how your hunters dress. Even the women.” She turns—for his benefit, he assumes—and looks at him hopefully. “When in Rome and everything…”
Despite himself, he grins, nodding. “Yeah, that’d be it. You look great.” Except for the sword: as yet, none of his hunters carry one of those standard. “So where’d you get the sword?”
“This?” She looks down, like some other sword may have showed up, wrapping her hand around the plain, leather-wrapped hilt. “Same place you got your knife: myself.”
He tries to flex his empty hand, feeling a hilt pressing against his palm for a burning moment.
“It’s not done yet,” she continues, face puckering. “It’s missing something, but I don’t know what.”
Behind her, he sees a faint, misty image form; it’s the river he saw before. It’s no longer bathed in golden light, though; grey, churning water rushes beneath a thinning grey-white mist, frantic activity around the nearly-complete barge that’s almost the size of a cruise ship now, and the shore now boasts dozens of lines of kilted soldiers in silver steel, more still forming behind them as he watches.
“Almost ready?” he asks her as a man and two women wade ankle deep into the water, another man behind them, all wearing breastplates of silver ice and the women the crimson of a Roman general, eyes on the opposite shore in the far distance, a bare suggestion of a bank concealed swirling grey-white. Claws of hardened carbon, empty-black and sharper than anything corporeal, abruptly emerge, miles long and swiping at those waiting.
Two swords flash out: one of the women jumps to land on the pitted surface of one claw and stabs downward with a flash of blue-white light, nailing it into the mud; the other woman cuts through it just behind her heels with a second flash with a sound like a metal-on-metal scream. With a bone-jarring shriek, the claws retract, vanishing into the mist, and the first woman jumps down with a splash and jerks her sword up, holding it aloft with six feet of black claw impaled on the blade.
“I like them,” he tells his companion. “Yours?”
“Penthesilea and Hippolyta, two of my generals,” his companion says in satisfaction as the second woman wraps an arm around the hips of the first, lifting her effortlessly before the eyes of the lines of soldiers. Even from here, he can see their fierce smiles, hear their laughter float over the soldiers lining the river’s bank, the responding shouts of affirmation and triumph. Her smile widens as she draws the attention of the two men before turning back to him. “You were right,” she says abruptly. “About asking for help.”
He nods: he is, sometimes.
“I just don’t know what I need yet.” She blows out a breath, lips curling in a silent snarl. “How do you kill something that’s never been alive? Got anything? I’m open to ideas, even really bad ones.”
Oh, them. “Yeah, we’re working on that.”
“Keep me informed, would you?” She sees his raised eyebrow and sighs. “I know, but this one we can’t bend; trust me, I would. You can help me, but I can’t help you. At least, not like this.”
He cocks his head; that’s not the answer he expected (if he’s honest, he didn’t expect an answer at all, and for that matter, before he even asked a question). “Why?”
“You told me why.”
“When did I…” It’s not better with a script, no matter who writes it. “Huh.” So he can help, awesome. How, though… “Might help if you told me what you’re doing.” Though he has a pretty good guess; the barge-cruise ship is up in the air, but that’s an army if he ever saw one, and he could be wrong, but what they’re gonna fight is on the other side. And it has really big claws.
He only debates for a moment; if he can help, he should. That’s not even a question. “One of their corporeal forms is canine,” he says, and her eyes widen. “Hellhounds raped Cynothoglys to breed them, but no idea how many. Cas thinks they may be patrolling all the lands and paths of the dead, including the gates of Heaven, but there’s no way to tell. That’s all we know right now.”
She covers her mouth, eyes closing for a moment before she composes herself, a soldier reforming before his eyes. “Mortal eyes could see them without damage?”
“Nate could,” he says, filing away the question in the vague hope he’ll remember that if nothing else and hey, that explains something else. “You thought I was them when I came in? In this building?” She nods. “Nate’s here. He’s—contaminated by their cousin or something. In a good way, I mean.”
Her expression tells him she’s going with it, which is good; that sword looks really sharp. “I wonder why I didn’t sense him before?”
If she doesn’t know, he can’t even guess. “Magic? Or maybe the time bubble.”
“Time bubble?” she asks in surprise, and oh, he’s owed this one.
“You know, the thing outside; time bubble around Ichabod.” Or however far it goes. She blinks at him slowly and he can’t resist. “Time’s like a river,” he starts, adopting Cas’s exact tone when dumbing down Creation for human (his) benefit. “You can dam it—bad idea, like fireworks—or make a bubble around an area and slow time down inside it. Hidden in plain sight, like, you know, the slow part of a river.” He shrugs casually. “Happens all the time, like a party trick. You never ran into one?”
Her eyes narrow. “Smug isn’t a good look on anyone.”
He grins back. “It feels good, though.”
Looking annoyed—that reminds him of someone, though he can’t quite think of who—she paces a few feet before stopping short, shaking her head. “This is impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” he corrects her. “Just really, really improbable. Trust me, I know.”
She rolls her eyes. “I forgot, I’m talking to the impossible himself. You’re a standard all your own, Dean Winchester.”
Her hand drifts to the hilt of her sword. Frowning, she looks down at it again, fingers flexing around the leather uncertainly.
“What did you put in it?” he asks, nodding at it.
“My determination, to do what I must,” she recites, straightening. “My strength, given freely and without reserve. My courage, to stand when others flee. My endurance, in the face of suffering and deprivation. My resignation, should the battle go against us—”
“How does defeat feel?” he cuts her off, and she stiffens. “Christ, you lost already and you haven’t even stepped on the field.”
“What?”
“You’re doing it wrong.” Crossing to her, he covers her hand, pulling the sword out a half inch and squinting against the glare, ignoring the scream of pain shuddering along his nerves. “That’s a checklist. Throw in ‘shoots well’ and ‘can drive a car’—or ride a horse, I guess—and you got a list of decent skillsets. You need more than that.”
“What’s missing?”
“Where’s your hope?” Without thinking, he folds back the loose sleeves of the flannel and shoves up the thermal, revealing the network of open red wounds stretching up her forearm, still bleeding; Licinia wasn’t the only one who didn’t fuck around getting shit done. He glances up at her, but she’s staring at them as well, eyes blank; in the too-bright light, he traces the suggestion of purple around one eye, the angry swell of her lower lip, and fights down the shock of helpless rage. He bites back hot words; she doesn’t need to deal with his shit, and the person that deserves it isn’t here anyway. “This isn’t all you are. Where’s the rest?”
“Of me?” She touches the scars with shaking fingers. “I lost that a long time ago.”
“Time to get it back.” Fresh blood wells up, and Dean frowns, using the edge of his own flannel to clean it away. “This isn’t you; that was just the end. It’s past, no help for it, but you gotta stop wearing it as your skin; it’s not you.” When he wipes away the blood again, they aren’t any more healed: still open, still waiting to bleed again. They’ll bleed forever if you let them and sometimes even if you don’t. “You aren’t weak.”
“You don’t know—”
“I don’t need to,” he interrupts, impatiently wiping away the blood again; this time, it sticks. Still open, though, and it’s not enough, but it’ll have to be, at least for now. Gently, he tugs her sleeves back down, settling the flannel over her forearm. “Something’s missing, it’s always gonna be missing, because it’s not everything; you gotta take it all back. Everything you are, you were, and will ever be; that’s what’s gotta be in there, or it won’t work.”
Letting her go, he steps back, fighting the urge to flex his hand around a knife that isn’t there and doesn’t shouldn’t can’t exist. If it did, he’d want to use it, and the guy who did that to her isn’t here anyway.
“So,” he says, changing the subject. “No idea what’s going on?”
She starts to shake her head, then hesitates.
“Specifically, no,” she answers, frowning as she looks around at the unchanged walls. “But I think—could be wrong—that someone is trying to perform a miracle.”
The infirmary is equally unsettling, but Castiel concentrates on their destination, pulling Nate behind him on the stairs when he seems inclined to linger to look around in shocked horror.
“Later,” he says impatiently as they reach the second floor and start toward the third. “I promise, you can spend time being unsettled by the memories just as easily. Though considering your history, it’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”
“What?” As they reach the third floor, they both hear Vera’s voice, professionally calm to anyone else, but Cas recognizes the edge in it and speeds up. “Hey, so Vera—”
“To deliver a baby, a medical professional is generally recommended, if available,” he says, taking the remaining stairs two at a time and then stops just short of the hall that leads to the newly created pregnancy wing. “Before we arrive—Nate, what did you do to Sudha’s room?”
Nate looks at him blankly. “Patched the walls, gave it a coat of primer and paint—”
“I mean,” he tries again. “Did you do—anything not strictly within the laws of physics?”
Nate’s expression goes from ‘blank’ to ‘incredulous.’ “How would I—”
“The same way you repair massive dimensional rifts,” he interrupts impatiently. “With drywall and paint. It’s what you do. Very well, I should say: well done.”
Nate looks down the hall, then at him. “Okay, one—thanks? And two…” He looks away, but Castiel sees him flush. “I didn’t do anything but what I said, but I hoped—if you were right about what I was doing with House—maybe it would protect them or something, I don’t know. When Dolores said there were a few women who might deliver soon, I thought—” He shrugs, but for some reason, the flush deepens. “They’ve been through a lot getting here, and I wanted them to at least have nice rooms, somewhere quiet.” Nate looks defensive. “What? I was here, so why not?”
“Sudha liked it very much,” he answers, starting down the hall. “You did very well.”
Outside Sudha’s door are several very unfrozen women—Deepika, Cathy, and Suma sitting beside a very worried-looking Mercedes—all of whom look at him and Nate in surprise.
“Good evening,” he says, wondering if they’re aware of anything outside this area. From their expressions—worried but not terrified, and the lack of catatonia is also reassuring—he assumes not, and blesses whoever may be listening for small favors. “How is Sudha?”
“Calm,” Suma says, one arm around Mercedes’ shoulders. “Vera was hoping you’d be here soon.”
Castiel tries to remember if he saw anyone mid-run on his way here and dismisses it. “Wait here,” he tells Nate, who nods in relief. “Let me see if she needs my assistance.” His vessels’ memories of childbirth are not entirely pleasant except in outcome.
When he enters the room, he has a moment to take in the scene; Sudha calmly walking the length of the room on Njoya’s arm, her abdomen seemingly even larger and wires trailing from under her gown to a machine by the bed; Rabin tracking her from a few feet away with a worried but not alarmed expression; Neeraja speaking quietly to Rabin, but also unalarmed; Alison in one of the chairs, face pale and very composed, but far too tense and very successfully hiding it; and Vera reading over a chart with a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
When she looks up, however, her expression is one of barely-hidden relief. “Cas,” she says, lowering her chart. “Sudha, be just a sec; I’m going to update him. Keep walking: you’re doing great. Njoya, just stick ‘em back on if the monitors fall off.”
Obediently, Castiel follows Vera down the hall and out of earshot of those waiting outside the room. “Her water broke, labor started,” she says. “And no change in why she can’t deliver: Cas, help me out here. What do I do?”
His vessels’ birth experiences did not cover this. “Remain calm and follow her lead.”
“What—”
“She’ll be fine,” he says. “Just do your best as if this was a normal labor.”
She swallows hard, hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I’m going to kill her.”
“You aren’t—”
“Cas, I don’t know—the C-section was luck, book outlined what to do, a goddamn cat could have done it, but this… Cas, I can’t do this, I’m going to kill her, I’m going to miss something obvious, come on! I’m gonna kill her and her baby because I don’t know shit about what I’m doing!”
He hesitates, looking at her upturned face and the obvious terror. “You know more than anyone else here,” he says. “Dolores wouldn’t have left you in charge of Sudha if she had any doubt.”
Before Vera can answer, Njoya comes to the door of Sudha’s room and says, “Vera? She says the contractions are getting stronger. I’m timing at under two minutes.”
“Be right there,” she says, and he watches the effort it takes her to reassemble her professional demeanor and finds himself thinking about Carol and her brutal tongue, how she spoke of Alicia, and wonders what—if anything—she might have said to Vera when she was told about her leg.
“Vera,” he starts, filing that away for later. “I doubted many things, but not you. I never would have trusted you with Dean otherwise.”
“I didn’t—”
“Try again,” he tells her, reminding her of that terrible night in the cabin when Dean’s heart stopped for the last time. “That’s what I told you. I knew you could do it; all you needed was time.”
She nods jerkily, unconvinced. “Cas—”
“You’ll save her,” he says softly. “Just like you saved Dean. And me.”
“Right,” she says, squaring her shoulders and turning toward the door like a woman facing her own execution. “Let’s go.”
“A miracle?” Wow, they could use a couple of those about now. “Any chance you can… no, of course not,” he adds in disgust when she shakes her head. “That would be easy.”
“Not omnipotent,” she reminds him. “And really, don’t want to be, having thought about it. Imagine knowing everything.”
“I have,” he admits, thinking of Cas. “An expert told me it’s pretty goddamn boring.” Despite everything, he finds himself looking back at the door. It’s like… “So why would someone stop time?”
“Slowed down,” she corrects him mockingly. “Or so you seemed to imply.”
“Yeah, the better to hide something.” A miracle, why would you slow down time? To do something and hide it, sure, that helps, but what? What would make time a problem, enough you need to slow it down? To keep something from happening, okay, or put it off until… “A miracle,” he says slowly. “Is that kind of like a cosmic event?”
“Can be,” she agrees. “Why?”
“That door take me back outside?” he asks, just to check. “It will, right?”
“It should,” she says, touching her sword again. “Are you going to keep up twenty questions or tell me—”
“Later,” he says, turning back to the door and ignoring her scowl. “Maybe.”
“What—”
“Now you know how it feels. I gotta get to the infirmary,” he says, opening the door to the night outside and the still-frozen but much less spooky flurries of snow. “Something impossible’s about to happen.”
Sitting at the foot of the low bed, Rabin behind her and giving her his support, Sudha practices excellent breathing technique; of everyone in the room, she’s genuinely the most calm, one hand resting on Rabin’s forearm, the other closed over the edge of the mattress each time there’s a contraction. Neeraja and Njoya, sitting on chairs on either side of her, both mirror her breathing, while Alison reads Sudha’s favorite Indian folk tales in unsettlingly fluent, very idiosyncratic Hindi.
(Sudha’s warning look tells him not to mention it. Deepika explains that Sudha picked that collection for Alison to read with this in mind.)
Returning from scrubbing down in the nearby bathroom, Vera snaps on clean gloves and smiles at Sudha before kneeling in front of the thick towel protecting the padding on the floor between Sudha’s spread legs.
“So, how’re we doing?” she asks, nodding at Njoya to lift back Sudha’s hospital gown after a check with Sudha results in a quick nod. “Just checking dilation, and I promise, my hands are warm this time.”
Sudha grins between regular breaths, and Castiel averts his gaze back to the tray, stacked with rolls of clean gauze, thick gauze pads, and meticulously cleaned instruments of both obvious and obscure functionality and uniformly frightening when he considers where they might be going. Sudha gasps softly just as Alison’s voice cuts off, and Castiel just stops himself from accidentally knocking over the tray; a glimpse of Vera’s back shows she’s not pleased with whatever she discovers.
“One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand,” Njoya recites as she and Neeraja extend their arms for Sudha to hold when she shifts off the bed to crouch on the floor, eyes turned inward as her abdomen seems to visibly ripple. “Four one thousand, five one thousand…”
They get to sixty-three when Sudha relaxes and pushes herself back up on the mattress with a groan, tipping her head back against Rabin’s shoulder as he wipes her forehead, murmuring encouragement in her ear.
“Two minutes forty-five apart, and about sixty seconds duration,” Njoya tells Vera, and Castiel picks up the clipboard and pen, pleased to have something to do and not look at the dark blood on the towel. “Vera?”
“Good so far,” Vera says, meeting Sudha’s eyes and smiling. “It’ll be soon now; just tell me when you feel like pushing.”
“You’ll know,” Njoya says firmly. “I did this three times and have another one coming up in six months; trust me, this part pretty much just happens.”
Sudha nods, closing her eyes, and Castiel glances over to see Alison relax, rubbing her temples impatiently and looking noticeably paler, and wonders when was the last time she slept a full night. Even with her shields, she’s reacting to Sudha’s pain, doubtless hoping to find some way to alleviate it with the strength of her mind alone. If she could take it herself, she doubtless would; instead, she reads the same fairy tales to Sudha that Sudha’s grandmother did in her grandmother’s voice.
Still smiling, Vera folds away the ruined towel and holds out a hand toward Castiel until he realizes she wants him to get another. Taking one from the stack, he approaches, stopping exactly the length of his reach and handing it to Vera, aware of Sudha, Neeraja, and Njoya all smiling at him indulgently for reasons unclear.
“Thanks,” Vera says, laying it out before getting to her feet and stripping off her gloves. “Mind if I update the peanut gallery real fast?”
“Please,” Sudha answers as Alison returns to the story, voice firm and clear, and Vera discards the gloves and a glance at Castiel indicates he should follow. Politely, he waits as Vera tells everyone Sudha is progressing very well in a voice so convincing that no one seems to doubt—except Nate, who watches her face and swallows hard.
“Hey.” Castiel jerks his gaze down the hall to see Dean jogging toward them, red-faced and looking annoyed as he unbuttons his coat. “Am I too late?”
Castiel looks at Nate briefly before shaking his head. “Not at all.”
“Dean,” Vera says blankly. “What are you doing here?”
“Baby,” Dean says, like it should be obvious. “Think she’d be okay with me saying hi real fast?”
Vera opens her mouth, then stops, and Dean checks those waiting before saying, “Also, want to ask you something—got a second?”
“Yeah,” she says, and Castiel follows her and Dean down the hall, out of earshot of those waiting. “Seriously, Dean—”
“How’s she doing?”
Vera sucks in a breath. “No change,” she answers. “Bleeding’s heavier than what I read—read, okay? This is all theory to me—but I think it’s in range. Whatever is going on, it’s not happening—”
“Vera!” Vera turns at the frantic edge in Njoya’s voice, jogging back down the hall and going in the door. Dean’s hand on his arm stops him from following.
“That the reason for someone hitting pause on the world?”
“Slow motion,” he says, and Dean’s mouth quirks. “You asked if our god would know when the Misborn would be able to sense them; now we know. Within five minutes or less of when this started in unaltered linear time.”
“Cutting it close, but can’t argue with the results.” Dean’s hand tightens on his arm as his eyes travel down to see Nate. “And Nate’s… here.”
“He did the repairs on the rooms,” Castiel says, and Dean’s eyebrows jump.
“Did you ask?”
“He hoped it would help but wasn’t sure if he did anything—unusual,” Castiel replies. “And—he wanted the pregnant women to have nice rooms.”
They both watch Nate murmur something to Cathy, red-eyed and curled up in her chair, before getting to his feet and drifting toward the door. “Good guy,” Dean says, and Castiel reads the praise in understatement.
Nate stiffens at whatever he sees, taking a step back. “Cas, Vera needs you,” he says at the same time Deepika and Suma push by him and go inside.
Exchanging a look with Dean, Castiel returns and swallows hard; the floor is splattered with blood, and Deepika, Suma, and Alison—all gloved—are on their knees frantically cleaning it up, jeans and woolen skirts stained dark. To his relief, Sudha, though very pale, is perfectly composed, breathing calmly, her only concession to the floor is one foot in Neeraja’s lap and the other braced on the edge of the bloody mattress. She seems comfortable, however, which Castiel’s blank mind assures him is to be encouraged when women are in labor.
“I apologize for the mess,” Sudha starts, looking down and meeting Vera’s eyes with a mischievous smile. “That was unexpected.”
Vera grins back up at her; her surgical gown is splattered with blood. “This is where I double charge for the dry-cleaning.” She calmly does something beneath the gown while Rabin and Sudha hold up the edge of her bloody skirt, and Sudha’s face twists in obvious pain. “We’ll get you cleaned up and towels changed in a minute, okay?”
Castiel doesn’t back away, though he wants to; instead, he looks around the room, sees the biohazard bag, and quickly acquires it, picking up the bloodstained cloths and towels as they’re discarded, then turning his head to see Nate and Cathy staring inside. Mercedes, he guesses, has retreated to the bathroom for reasons he is certain he doesn’t want to think about at this moment.
“Come here,” he says firmly and watches in satisfaction as both jump, coming in like they’re unable to stop themselves. “Put on some gloves and take this bag,” he tells Nate. “Bring them clean towels and collect those that are stained. Cathy, acquire clean linens and surgical gowns for everyone from…” He can’t send her downstairs. He doesn’t even know why she was excluded; if it was herself for Sudha’s benefit or this area in general.
“Right, two doors down, supply closet,” Nate tells him, pulling on the gloves and taking the bag before going to Alison. Looking relieved, Cathy flees to find supplies.
Vera takes a pillow from Rabin and drops it on the recently cleaned floor, taking several surgical pads from Nate to cover it and also for her own knees. Half-turning, Castiel sees Dean sitting with Mercedes, trying to be reassuring while darting vaguely horrified glances toward the room; he supposes it’s one thing to see blood in the field (or while tending to corpses) but quite another to see it in this context.
Cathy returns with what looks like everything surgical or sheet related in the closet, setting it safely away from the remaining blood, and Vera looks at Sudha.
“Up to you,” she says, cocking her head. “I just want you out of that gown. It’s warm enough that if you want to strip down, go for it. I’ll do it, too: solidarity and everything.”
Pausing, Castiel takes note of the temperature and realizes that it is warm enough; despite the freezing cold outside—and the infirmary’s not entirely perfect heating system—the room is far warmer than anywhere else he’s been in town.
Sudha thinks, glancing up at Rabin, whose expression seems to imply he doesn’t care provided Sudha is comfortable. “For now I would prefer something to wear,” she decides.
“Thank God,” Alison says in relief, sitting back on her heels. “If you did, I’d have to do it for support, and seriously, not everyone looks as good as you do au naturale.” Laughing quietly, Neeraja agrees.
“All right,” Vera says, “everyone not Sudha’s support, out for a few minutes. Cas, you’re staying to hand me things.”
“Njoya, Alison,” Sudha says as Alison starts to get to her feet. “Stay, please.”
“Wouldn’t leave if you paid me,” she assures her, and he watches her focus on Sudha, eyes going distant, and can almost feel her fumbling to find the right way to take away her pain before grimacing. “Any requests?”
They exchange a look before Sudha says, “New York, eight—nine years ago. The train was late, and people suddenly started singing that song—”
“Bizarre Love Triangle,” Alison says with a grin.
“Yes, while we all watched the rats.” Njoya gracefully moves for Alison, who sits on the chair and reaches for Sudha’s hand. Rabin tightens his hold on Sudha, resting his chin on her shoulder; Neeraja tilts her head, eyes half-closed; and Njoya rests a hand on Alison’s shoulder and shuts her eyes; as he and the others watch, he feels Alison’s mind expand, encompassing those by the bed and move outward to those waiting outside the door.
A subterranean scene opens, dark and rather uninspiring, a few rats chasing each other over the sunken, empty tracks and exhausted people littering one side; the impression is it’s very late and everyone is very, very tired, and he wonders why Sudha chose this.
Then from the group clustered nearest the tracks, he hears women’s voices start to sing, off-key and wavering, interspersed with laughter, slowly getting louder; faintly he sees a second tiny group—Neeraja, Alison, Sudha, and Rabin, all exhausted, Alison looking somewhat homicidal—and they all turn in surprise, their tired faces brightening. Sudha abruptly joins in; Neeraja and Alison begin to laugh as Rabin adds his voice to Sudha’s and then they join in as well.
From the corner of his eye, he sees Cathy smiling, eyes distant, and outside the room, Deepika, Suma, and Mercedes are watching as well, worried expressions melting into pleasure as Alison infuses it with what they felt that night: tired, disappointed, feeling lost—and then unexpected joy found in an unlikely place: an a capella rendition of techno-pop to three very determined rats in the New York subway.
“Cas, get me that bowl,” Vera says softly, pulling him out, and for a moment, he almost resents it before he remembers his duty. Looking at Sudha, the contrast is striking. He didn’t realize—though Vera and the others must have—how tense she was. He supposes Alison couldn’t risk this before when Sudha’s attention was needed for her body, but from the way the lines on her face ease, this is the only way she can take away Sudha’s pain.
In the real world, Vera helps a compliant Sudha out of her gown and into a clean one, and Castiel hands her fresh gloves and then holds the bowl—the water is still hot, to his lack of surprise—as Vera quickly and professionally cleans away the worst of the blood. Rabin surfaces enough to help Sudha to the chair while Castiel and Nate strip the soiled padding and sheets from the bed and remake the bed with fresh layers of padding. Rabin takes his place again, Sudha settling between his spread legs and leaning back against him, strong arms wrapping around her just above the swell of her belly as he nuzzles her hair, murmuring encouragement and comfort.
Keeping his gaze firmly averted, he notes with a chill that the thick pile of padding below Sudha is already soaked with blood. Intellectually, he’s aware it’s not as much as it looks like—and he can calculate from what he saw when he entered the room exactly how much she lost—but it seems like far more.
Vera sends Njoya, Neeraja, and Alison to get cleaned up as she reattaches the monitors, checking Sudha carefully and making light conversation until they return. “Njoya,” she says, “watch for me while I get cleaned up? Yell if anything happens.”
She nods, eyes on Sudha. “Got it.”
At her glance, Castiel follows Vera to the small bathroom two doors away. There, he helps her strip off her gown and blood-splattered t-shirt (Vera points to a bag that she sensibly packed, in preparation for this, he assumes) and gets her a clean one, and then helps her into a fresh gown, tucking her pinned hair beneath the bright blue cap. Turning to the sink, she turns on the water and then braces her hands on the sides, head dropping.
“I think…” Her voice breaks. “I think the placenta might be rupturing. Incomplete, if it is, but…”
He nods. “How long—never mind. The child?”
“Seems fine,” she answers. “Monitor isn’t showing any problems. I was thinking an ultrasound, but I’m not sure I’d know what I was seeing looking right at it.” Taking a deep breath, she thoroughly cleans her hands and arms to the elbow, and Castiel picks up her gloves, holding them out for her; routine can be comfort, but it can also be a reminder. She’s a practitioner nurse with vast experience, but she is also his and Dean’s doctor and their faith in her abilities has been proven.
“You can do this,” he tells her firmly; neither alcohol nor drugs are a wise way to offer reassurance, so he must offer it with his voice alone and be believed.
With a faint smile that doesn’t reach the worried eyes, she lets him glove her. “I can do this,” she repeats, mouth trembling. “But I could really use some help here. Any help.”
He nods. “That’s why I’m here.”
When they return, Dean is sitting outside the room alone, right hand fisted on his thigh. Castiel stops while Vera goes back inside, crouching to look at him. “The bubble didn’t affect you.”
“No.” Castiel sees him abruptly stuff his hand into his jacket pocket. “So it’s all of Kansas, you think?”
“If I were guessing—and I am—it reaches just short of the border, where the Misborn might be able to sense it,” he agrees. “But that is a guess.”
“Makes sense.” Dean sighs. “Need me to do anything?”
The slightly desperate edge in his voice tells Castiel that is less a question than a demand. Looking inside, he assures Sudha is comfortable, and notices that Cathy and Nate are surreptitiously removing the blood-soaked pads that Neeraja immediately replaces. His mind helpfully scrolls through the history of childbirth, the greatest dangers; cervical rupture, placental rupture, uterine rupture, all leading to hemorrhaging sometimes fast and sometimes slow but too often fatal.
Then Alison looks out into the hall and stabs them with a glare. “Get some gloves, get a towel, and get in here,” she snarls, and bemused, Castiel watches Dean jump to his feet and take two steps before stopping in sheer horror.
“You could help with bagging the hazardous material,” Castiel tells his rigid back before Dean can think of something to say that would not in any way be appropriate for the room of a woman in labor. Gently, he pushes on his back to get him moving as Vera goes to the tray; he should be there to bring it to her, he remembers, and pushes Dean harder until they’re both inside the door.
He stiffens, and Vera stops just short of the tray.
There’s a moment of utter stillness, and he senses something surrounding them, waiting, held barely contained. Castiel searches the room quickly: Nate and Cathy are occupied with their bags; Rabin, eyes closed, his forehead resting on Sudha’s shoulder, is oblivious; to Sudha’s left, Njoya and Neeraja are speaking quietly; Suma and Deepika are arranging a pile of clean sheets, towels, and padding while Mercedes opens a new box of gauze; all unaware.
Alison isn’t; she’s looking around the room warily; Dean is tense in front of him; Sudha, however, is smiling, looking relieved, and despite her sickly pallor, her face almost seems to glow.
And Vera—
“I can do that,” she says to someone, tilting her head back, and he sees the tear tracks on her face. “Yeah, I understand.”
“No,” he says belatedly. “No, you can’t—”
“Gonna be fine, now shut up. My business, Cas,” she says, not looking at him. “Yes, do it. Now.”
There’s no time to move and it’s far too late in any case; the world dissolves around them, infinite space unfolding into reality like a vast stone dropped into the smallest of puddles, ripples trapped within the confines of this room. The door shuts behind them, and a scorching wind blows through the room that softens into spring warmth, the scent of flowers and spice filling the air.
The world trembles as a god—perhaps the greatest of them—manifests fully upon the earth, their godhead revealed; dimly, he wonders how any of them—even him—have survived it.
Vera turns to look at them, brown eyes vast, peppered with infinite stars, expressionless as she surveys them before dismissing them from her attention and crossing to a glowing Sudha. One dark hand rests on her ashen cheek for a moment, and Sudha smiles up at her, love and joy written across her face.
“You never doubted,” the goddess says softly.
“Of course not,” Sudha answers, smile widening impossibly. “I think—however—that we are ready now.”
“Very soon, yes.” Crouching gracefully, she looks into Sudha’s eyes. “Rest for a moment, little one. We shall not abandon you.”
Sudha nods trustfully, closing her eyes and leaning back against Rabin. Without turning around, the goddess raises a hand. “Cassiel, you who are the balance and the karma, you will stand witness for us.”
“I haven’t been Cassiel in a very long time,” he answers, eyes trained on Vera’s too-fragile, mortal form that holds the infinite within. “Why do you invoke us now?”
She twists around, and the expressionless face regards him thoughtfully, but for a moment, he sees a flicker of humor, What a very stupid question. In retrospect, he supposes that it was.
Inexplicably, Dean suddenly moves in front of him, left hand closing over his hip; it seems he was paying attention to procedure during Andy’s wake. “This is where you tell me who you are, and more importantly, where the fuck you’ve been.”
Sudha winces, looking embarrassed. “Dean—”
“What he said,” Alison interrupts, and as the goddess turns to look at her, Castiel shares a helpless look with Sudha. Somewhere (where is she?), Teresa just realized her life partner is challenging a god but can’t do anything since she’s trapped in time. It will not help her mood when she finally sees Alison again.
“Impressive,” the goddess says colorlessly, and with a start of alarm, he wonders what Alison just tried to do. “But pointless; you cannot harm us.”
“You sure about that?” Alison answers pleasantly, ignoring Sudha’s tight grip on her hand, and stiffens as the goddess lifts her chin. No human can win a straight fight with a god: Tantalus is only one of the places those go who even try.
From here, he can see Alison begin to tremble, then her fingers close around the edge of her chair, knuckles going white. Castiel’s aware of a sense of growing pressure, filling the room to bursting as she surrounds Sudha’s fragile mind with herself, protection and defense and utter determination coloring it in shades of red-green and hot gold. To get through it, Alison will need to be torn apart. He remembers the sweep of Alison’s mind through the town the day the Croats attacked Ichabod for the children; then, panic and still uncertain skill left her groping for what to do, but raw power she doesn’t lack, and she’s never lacked will.
Psyche counted a million pieces of grain with an army of ants at Aphrodite’s jealous order; Orpheus played his lyre until his fingers bled until he could step over Cerberus’s sleeping body into the Underworld and regain his wife; no one, even a god, can claim victory against the fullness of human will when it’s set against them. Alison may die for it, but she won’t break.
Abruptly, the pressure ends, but Alison doesn’t move, even to wipe away the trickle of blood from her nose. Despite the expressionless stare, he thinks the goddess might be surprised.
“Do you wish us to save her?” the goddess asks, and it may not be a concession, but Castiel decides to take it as one anyway. “We are at the end of our strength; we can destroy you or assure she and her child survive; you decide.”
“I know the value of a promise made by a god,” Alison answers, voice strained but no less determined. “It’s worth exactly as much as who has the power to enforce it.”
“Alison,” Castiel says, relieved to still have a voice, even if the tight grip of Dean’s hand makes it inadvisable to move. “She asked for Cassiel to witness her; we are the enforcement of covenant.”
“You aren’t an angel anymore,” she answers, eyes on the goddess. “What the hell can you do?”
This is difficult to explain. “Our—name—is enough; she invoked it. This is natural law; if she meant to break covenant, she wouldn’t have spoken it at all.” If she meant to break it—if she even could—she certainly wouldn’t have come all the way here to do it.
“A human reason, then,” the goddess says, tilting her head curiously. “When the world was young, before you were so much as a thought, we danced upon the earth and a mortal man saw us; he pleased us. We laid with him by the Kali Ganga and allowed ourselves to be quickened with his seed.” Castiel raises an eyebrow in surprise and just bites back a comment; this would not be the time. “When in the fullness of time, he married, his wife was barren, but their love was such that he would not set her aside. She came to us and offered herself on our altar, her life to give birth to our child.” She looks at Sudha, and even Castiel can feel the fierce, protective tenderness. “Your many-times great grandmother, firstborn but not last; for the gift of bearing our child, her womb was made fertile and her labors eased. She loved them all without reserve, child: her first daughter was ours, but that made her no less hers.”
Sudha nods, eyes shimmering.
“That daughter grew strong of limb and great of beauty and wisdom; many contended for her hand, and by her parents’ will and ours, the one who would have her was the one who pleased her most. She bore many strong sons and daughters, but to honor us, one was brought to our temple and consecrated to us in thanks. So it has been since: the first daughter of the first daughter was given to us, their lives ours, given freely, to do with as we would. Until now, we have not called upon you; we need you now.” She rests a hand on Sudha’s abdomen. “When Lucifer was uncaged, his first act was to eliminate all mortals who may hold a god without harm; your line he exterminated immediately, for our crimes against him were great, and your line offended him above all others. He knew we would never bow for him, so would make us watch his slaughter before he took our life himself. That is our burden, child, and not of your doing.”
“I would ask—hope,” she corrects herself, “to know—have we broken your will? We are far from home, and came here for earthly advancement; did we do wrong? Are we what you—the children of your daughter, did we disappoint you? Is that why—why I was barren? Because my actions were ones that… that denied your will for me?”
The room changes, a sweep of scorching heat, but around Sudha, it remains a warm spring wind. Cupping Sudha’s cheek, she meets the wet brown eyes.
“With your own will, you grew to womanhood, sought education and enlightenment; with your wisdom, you chose the man among those your parents offered you not for lust or fleeting beauty, but his character and suitability as companion of your life, and from that grew love; due to your intelligence, you were offered opportunities to enrich your life and the children you hoped to bear, and you took them; you doubted, you questioned, and you came away with your faith stronger. Your heart is open and warm, your generosity freely given, you offer your strength to others without reserve. If we could have laid the path for you to follow, daughter, this is what it would have been. Few gods can boast such children as ours; we were envied.” She leans closer, forehead touching Sudha’s. “We have run for eons, and our time is almost done—”
“No!” Sudha says fiercely, pulling away from Rabin and throwing her arms around the goddess, and Castiel has the pleasure of seeing a goddess looking expressionlessly stunned. “Stay, we will…” her voice breaks off thickly, tears running down her cheeks, and Castiel feels Dean’s hand tighten on his hips. “Lucifer will not win. We just need time.”
Slowly—as if she’s not sure how to do it—she wraps her arms around Sudha’s back, holding her as she sobs, and Castiel is startled by a tightness in his chest in response to Sudha’s grief.
Then, with startling tenderness, she eases Sudha up and smiles at her, sweet and warm. “Sweet girl,” she whispers, “the road I travel was once written and its ending known; I walked it without regret. It was your call I heard, and in answering you, I unwrote it, and together, we write it anew, you and I; now I give unto you its end. Hush,” she whispers, wiping Sudha’s tears away. “You have loved me as your god all your life, and I loved you as my child; now, you will love me as your daughter, and… of all the world, in all of time, I could not have chosen better the woman who I will love as my mother. My time is almost done now, but only now.
“Now rest,” she whispers, touching Sudha’s forehead. “This will take all your strength and mine to complete, and it will be done. Rest.”
Leaning back into Rabin’s oblivious arms, she nods, tear-streaked face at peace.
“Cassiel,” she says without turning around. “Dean Winchester. Alison of Ichabod. Will you bear witness to covenant fulfilled?”
“Yes,” Alison says quietly, squeezing Sudha’s limp hand. “I will.”
“Yes,” Castiel says, acknowledging the name without protest. “But we prefer to be addressed by Castiel; the name is ours and we claim it, but it has been long and long since we have been them.”
“As you wish,” she says. “Dean Winchester, we await your decision.”
Dean says, “Okay. One question though—is Vera gonna be okay? She’s not one of yours; is this gonna kill her?”
She turns around, eyes flickering to Castiel in something that may—with an effort—be interpreted as amusement, before looking at Dean. “This is covenant,” she answers slowly, making no effort not to imply Dean is being foolish and Castiel has been remiss in his education. “She made herself part of its fulfillment. There will be damage, but we do not stay long, and we shall heal it when we leave. She will be unimpaired.”
“Just so that’s clear.” Dean’s hand loosens reluctantly on Castiel’s hip. “What do you need us to do?”
“Support her,” the goddess answers, and after a glance at Castiel, Dean goes to her other side, looking around the room uneasily at everyone absorbed in random tasks, oblivious to them. “Castiel, please join me. My Sudha,” she says softly, and the unexpected tenderness makes his chest tight, “awaken. It is time.”
Crossing to the bed, he kneels beside her; it’s impossible to see Vera in that body. Despite her efforts, her true form overwhelms it entirely, rich blue skin fading the blue surgical scrubs into insignificance; two of her arms gently reach to spread and arrange Sudha’s legs while two others ease her to the very edge of the mattress and provide an anchor, Rabin a support and bulwark behind her.
“We are at the end of our strength,” she tells him expressionlessly. “We will require yours.”
“I don’t have—” He stops as her eyes meet his. “We shall do what we can.”
She inclines her head before turning to Sudha, another arm reaching beneath her, and Castiel averts his eyes but has no comforting illusions on what is occurring when Sudha gasps in pain, grabbing Dean’s and Alison’s offered arms. Resting one of her hands on Sudha’s stomach, the goddess’ eyes grow distant.
“There will be great pain,” she tells Sudha.
“I can bear it easily,” she answers, biting her lip as a fresh well of blood spills onto the floor and allowing Rabin to help support her weight. “I’m ready.”
“So you are.” Sudha’s belly ripples alarmingly, and Sudha chokes back a scream at the next gush of blood. “She is being contrary; your daughter’s will is a match for your own.”
“Wonder where she got that from,” Dean mutters, and a pale Alison exchanges a smirk with Dean, for neither of them have any sense of self-preservation whatsoever. Then Dean stills, gritting his teeth as Sudha’s grip on his arm becomes an order of magnitude tighter.
Castiel watches Sudha’s rippling belly, distorting on multiple planes in response to the changes being enacted on her body both to safely bear a child and to assure her future fertility, should she choose to have more; correcting the flaws to the uterus and cervix, manually beginning the chemical process to hasten labor that was partially in abeyance due to her body’s confusion with the contrast between her actual body and the miracle that made it possible for her to become pregnant. Further corrections, part of covenant with Sudha but not specific in request, simply to benefit Sudha from nothing more than love and gratitude, are enacted with love and care. Dean and Alison match Sudha’s breathing instinctively, the rhythm carrying her through the agonizing physical pain that accompanies remaking a human body in such a fundamental way.
When the goddess’s arm emerges from beneath Sudha, it’s bloody to the elbow.
“Now,” she says to Sudha, “bear down; it will be quick.” She moves slightly. “My time is almost done. Castiel, you must be the one to deliver it when it leaves her body.”
He looks at Sudha in alarm, and her grimace of pain turns into a glare. “There is nothing there that should be unfamiliar to you, Cas. Your female vessels were no different from I.”
He ignores Dean and Alison’s strangled snickers; their gasps tell him Sudha dealt with that. Yes, they were no different, but he was never within them during this particular event, and vast is the difference between memory, theory, and very messy reality. Moving over, he waits for Sudha to shift from the bed to crouch over the blood-soaked padding, glancing up when a clean padding is offered by a smiling Njoya.
“Thank you,” he says, taking them and wondering how they will remember this evening. Spreading one on top of the blood, then another when it quickly grows saturated, he makes a thick pad of the third, aware of Njoya hovering with clean towels, Deepika with the bowl of eternally clean but now simply warm water, and Nate with a stack of cloths. For the baby, he suspects, who will doubtless be rather… fluidy.
At Sudha’s gasp, the goddess reaches impatiently to place his hands in the correct position beneath her, just above the padding, and Castiel watches in horrified fascination as a red-stained yellow-brown lump emerges from Sudha’s body. “That’s a baby?”
“You said,” Sudha grits out, “that you knew of these things from your memories!”
“None of them could actually see this part!” he answers incredulously, realizing his hands are shaking. Sudha’s response is a low growl that becomes a shocked gasp and slowly, more emerges—blood and mucus-covered lumps he realizes belatedly might be shoulders (hopefully), then with a determined snarl, the remainder emerges so abruptly that Castiel is holding a tiny, slippery lump of humanity that at some point will be the size of Sudha or greater. Looking at it—her, the external sexual characteristics indicate female—he honestly can’t imagine how on earth that is possible.
The puckered face clenches as tiny lips part, and time stops entirely.
“We must go,” the goddess whispers into his ear. “What Sudha remembers is her choice; let her have it. We trust you all will respect it.”
“We will,” he answers as the baby lies unmoving in his hand, on the cusp of her first breath. “You have many mortal lines; those of Durga and Pavarti and Devi, they who were of and also Shakti, Great Divine Mother; those when you were but an aspect of one or all; and those who are yours alone. Those lines you have chosen for avatars and vessels both, but hers you never touched; why—now, of all times—did you hear her?”
Her eyebrow raises.
“When you dance upon the earth, none can deny you whatever you may want of them, but you are not so careless as to give them more than that,” he says softly. “No one, mortal or god, would ever take another after they knew you. None could compare.”
“Cassiel would not have agreed,” she observes dispassionately. “The balance, he said, must be maintained.”
“Cassiel was a…” He bites back several uncomplimentary observations on Cassiel; they never understood passion, and they certainly would never have walked through fire just because they thought it was interesting. “We believed the same, even then; we just would not admit it. If you wish for our apology at this late date, you have it; you and Amy would have much to discuss.” He tilts his head. “You have not answered my question.”
“When the world was young,” she says, “by the Kali Ganga, I lay with a mortal man unlike any before him or any after.” She tilts her head. “I quickened, yes, but no mortal seeded what I carried.”
Castiel stills, almost forgetting the warm, motionless bundle in his hands. “What?”
“I allowed it to remain, however, and in the fullness of time, that mortal man met a woman whose beauty was in her strength and will, worthy of this gift. She came to my temple, and I gave her what she sought.” The stern mouth softens. “When the world was young, he looked down upon the earth and saw me dance; he sought me by the river that day in secrecy, wearing the borrowed flesh of a mortal man. I have known many lovers, Castiel, mortal and divine, but only one who would risk the laws of Creation simply for the joy of knowing me. You are correct; when he came to me again, when I permitted him to find me, he told me none could compare.” The faint sense of satisfaction is unmistakable. “But he did try. You see, at the time, it was supposed to be a joke.”
He looks at Sudha, stunned. “I would have known…” Then he remembers who he’s talking about and starts to laugh: of course. That would be part of the joke, yes, one that no one would even know existed. That would explain why she tried to kill him; the only wonder is he survived that long. “I better understand why you were displeased with him.”
“We are the Destroyer,” she says quietly, looking at Sudha, the tenderness as unmistakable as the fierce love. “But we are the Creator as well; it is fitting that this be our final work upon the earth.”
He almost asks her to stay; two dawns from now, the barrier will rise again, and she’ll be safe behind it. Then he dismisses it; she would never be content to hide and watch her people slaughtered, and combat would risk them becoming Lucifer’s. “Are you—”
“We were, are, and will be the last.” She looks at him. “The Misborn sought me in time; I ran. I did not allow them to catch me; my death would be of my choosing, not Lucifer’s; my people are mine, he will not touch them; I would give him nothing.” She pauses, eyes turning inward for a moment. “Wherever I went, they would find me; no matter how many I killed, more would replace them… and I heard him.”
Castiel straightens. “Who?”
“The impossible,” she answers. “He asked the question, and through all of space and time, I heard it. I followed his call and manifested before him to give him my response.” She rises gracefully, and he watches her armor materialize around her like a second skin, mercury and onyx and living fire, a gleaming sword at her side and khaṭvāṅga in her hand. “My answer is yes. There I began the road I chose to walk. I must be the last, Castiel, that much has not changed; it was to be my end as well, but that—that, I changed myself.”
Those words: the mess, she said that, too. “What are you doing?”
“I must go,” she says. “It must draw its first breath, and I must learn what it is to be mortal from first principles.” Her gaze drifts to the child in his hands, almost dubious. “It shall be different.”
With an effort, he gathers his scattered thoughts. “If they chase you, where will you go that they can’t find you while you descend?”
“Where our road began, of course. Lucifer looked forward and back to find us, to hunt us,” she says. “But no one can see the impossible, even Lucifer, and the impossible hides us all, now as well as then. He will help me, as he helped her first.” She tilts her head, looking at him. “This town protected our daughter and will protect us as well; for one score years, the earth will repay our debt with plenty.”
“They will be grateful,” he says honestly. “On their behalf, I thank you.”
The dark eyes narrow, and she then says the most ominous words that can ever be spoken by a god “We owe you a debt for your work today as well, Castiel.”
Castiel fights to remain still; it was all going so well until now. “You don’t, truly.” This never ends well for mortals, that much he’s well aware.
“We shall pay it now.” Before he can think of a way to stop her (there isn’t one, but he would try), burning fingers touch his forehead, and he’s aware of nothing but agony, burned alive for all of time. Then it’s over; not even the memory of pain remains. To his own surprise, he’s still kneeling with all parts accounted for and not at all crispy fried. “The debt is paid,” she says, and he looks at her sharply; the satisfaction in her voice is unmistakable. “It’s not over yet, Castiel of Chitaqua; it’s only just begun.”
Abruptly, the room is in motion; Sudha’s panting, Dean and Alison helping her back onto the bed, and the tiny girl in his hands begins to wail as if she’s been waiting all of time for just that (possibly in shock, possibly simply because she’s a baby and they do that a great deal).
“First principles,” he tells her, smiling helplessly, and wide brown eyes slit open to regard him with startling clarity and not a little doubt, a glittering spark deep within. “This would be those, yes. You’ll be fine.”
“Cas,” Sudha says urgently, and Castiel quickly takes the offered sheet, wrapping the baby carefully before setting it in Sudha’s waiting arms. Despite her exhaustion, her face lights up, cradling her daughter as Rabin stares at her in patent shock. “Sweet girl,” she whispers tenderly, stroking the tiny cheek, utterly indifferent to blood and—other things. “She’s beautiful, is she not?”
Dean’s ridiculous grin tells him that apparently, the question is not ironic. “Gorgeous,” Dean agrees with unmistakable sincerity as the others abruptly crowd around the bed. “Just like her mom.”
Castiel looks at Alison and is immediately relieved at her dubious expression before she quickly re-arranges her features into agreement. “Very,” she says. “You and Rabin pick a name?”
Sudha, investigating beneath the sheet and looking delighted at the tiny foot, nods. “Jaya,” she answers. “We decided on Jaya.”
“I like it,” Vera says, and Castiel turns, startled, aware of all the eyes in the room now fixed on her as well. She looks very pale but is still upright, but there’s no way to know how long that will last. “Why is everyone looking at me like that?”
Nate opens his mouth and shuts it with a click at Castiel’s warning look. “Nothing at all,” he says clearly, and thinks at Alison, Can you warn everyone not to react, please? The relevant people should understand her easily, after all; perhaps they’ll simply assume… he has no idea how to explain Vera speaking Hindi. Hopefully, no one will ask.
Alison gives him an incredulous look but nods, and Castiel is relieved to see everyone make themselves very busy.
“Move, Cas. Sudha, I need to check you and the baby out, okay?” Her eyes travel over everyone, pausing to blink at Dean a few times before shaking her head as if to clear it. “Hint: everyone leave but Sudha and three people she asks to stay. Cas, don’t even try: I need you here.”
He nods helplessly. “Of course,” he agrees. “I should definitely stay while everyone who Sudha doesn’t require here leaves.” Looking at Vera carefully, he tries to decide how much time she has. “Dean, if you would, perhaps Karl or Lewis or Dolores should be told? About the baby.”
Dean looks between him and Vera. “Good idea,” he agrees. “I’ll do that.”
It’s nearly forty-five minutes—after two Apgars, a check of Sudha as well as the administration of an opiate, and the arrival of Karl (already warned to pretend Vera is speaking English)—before Vera frowns, rubbing her forehead distractedly, and Castiel has just enough time to catch her as she abruptly loses consciousness.
The next room over has been fully furnished, and after they’ve settled Vera, Alison excuses herself to join them. Her expression watching Sudha with her daughter bonding was probably more revealing than she realized, and he knows Dean saw it as well; the only question is which of them (Alison or Teresa) is so affected.
Vera wakes briefly to growl a warning (in Hindi) before going back to sleep. Alison raises an eyebrow. “Guess carrying a god around makes you sensitive.”
“Is there any damage?” The goddess said she would repair it, and in this case, he believes it without reservation. If she needed to keep Vera functional to care for Sudha, however, the healing would probably be delayed.
“You tell me.” Her hand reaches for his without hesitation, fingers cold, and Castiel folds them against his palm to warm them as he searches Vera’s mind. The divine touch of a god is subtle but unmistakable; he shows Alison how to recognize it as it does its work with care as Vera sleeps. He also searches Alison’s mind as she concentrates on Vera, looking for any sign of damage from direct contact with a god’s power, and is less than surprised to find all is on order. “Want me to ask Haruhi to get Amanda?”
He raises his eyebrow, but Alison looks back blandly, and he decides it’s pointless to even ask. “I think Amanda would appreciate it.”
“How long?” Dean asks from the door, and as Alison concentrates on finding Haruhi, Castiel goes to join him.
“Twelve hours at most,” he replies. “Probably at dawn.”
“And she’ll be okay?”
“She was careful, but her power was also greatly diminished, and the time she spent in Vera brief to complete the covenant,” he answers. “If she was planning to descend, she’d want to burn out as much as possible first in any case; that would explain her gift to Ichabod, at least. We should have requested she use some of it to perform a miracle and perhaps fix whatever issue with wastewater is requiring the creation of latrines.”
“Wish I’d thought of that.” Dean looks curious. “Why would she want to burn out her power first?”
“Divinity is too small,” he explains. “It’s… limited. A human soul is in potential all things and in actuality many things, sometimes contradictory, in succession or all at once; the divine can only ever be divine.” Dean’s expression tells him he should try again. “A god is a chair—a very nice chair, perhaps, an extraordinary chair—but that’s all they can be and can only do those things that a chair can do; a human soul can be furniture that never existed before or will again.”
“Furniture.”
“I’ve been thinking we should take our bed here back to Chitaqua,” he admits, and Dean starts to laugh, but Castiel doesn’t miss the lines around his mouth, the shadow in the green eyes. “It’s a very nice bed.”
“It can go in the new room,” Dean agrees, grinning at him and earning them both a loud sigh from Alison. “So what, it—interferes with the soul?”
He thinks how to put this. “To become mortal—much like becoming a god—requires a leap of faith. Your burnt offering is everything, leaving nothing behind; only then can you become something else.” Like the rack, he thinks but doesn’t say, in intent if not in practicalities, and once again, he’s unwillingly reminded of the other Castiel, who burned away his own divinity in exchange for godhead.
Amanda arrives quickly enough that Castiel assumes she only took enough time to put on her boots (while running, he guesses), flannel thrown over a tank top and glaring at them all suspiciously. Castiel leaves the explanation to Dean, the gist of which is ‘falling barrier’ and ‘because magic and maybe the earth’ without any mention of gods, a divine birth, or Vera as temporary vessel; it shouldn’t be believable—in fact, he’s not even sure it makes sense—but he almost believes it himself when Dean is done.
(He hopes the earth doesn’t take offense at being blamed. He should speak to Teresa, just in case.)
It probably helps that Amanda loses interest immediately after ‘she’ll be fine when she wakes up.’ “Awesome,” she says, eyes on Vera as she retrieves a chair and pulls it up to the bed. “I’ll keep watch.”
“Inform me when she awakens,” he tells Amanda’s back, and she waves a hand to acknowledge and also shoo them all out.
Looking amused, Alison goes back to see if Sudha needs anything and meets Dolores just coming out, tired face wreathed in a smile. Inside, Castiel sees Sudha coaxing Cathy close enough to hold the baby, and seeing her expression—grief and tentative pleasure—he hopes Sudha and Alicia were both correct that this might help ease her pain.
“Shower here isn’t restricted,” Dolores tells him. “There’s some sweats in there—Karl’s, I think—so wear those when you go back to headquarters.”
“Thank you,” he says in relief as Nate gets up from one of the chairs. “Are you going back now?”
“Yeah, I need to make sure James and Mira are okay,” he says. “You need me to do anything?”
“Confirm with Mel that Dean and I are off-duty until an hour after dawn,” he says, ignoring Dean’s frown. “Also, remind her that we need to meet with the team leaders two hours before noon and to tell those coming in or going off duty tonight. The patrol schedule should already reflect the changes.”
“Got it,” he says, and Dean nods absent dismissal when Nate turns to him for any further instruction, which has the effect of requiring Castiel to hide his smile.
As Nate jogs down the hall, Dean tips his head toward the stairs. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You ready?”
They take the back stairs to the admin section, but it’s obvious the time bubble has dispersed by the sheer level of noise. Stripping down in the chilly bathroom—Sudha’s room remains warm and will doubtless continue to be until she’s released from the infirmary—he steps beneath the lukewarm spray.
“So you were really armed,” Dean remarks, gathering up the plethora of weapons and checking the small jars as Castiel ducks beneath the hot spray of water. “Powdered cold iron?”
“Quickest way to deal with glamor without shedding blood or having the correct plants on hand,” he says, and hears Dean sneeze. “As well as a simple way to break fey bindings. Fey can manipulate perception of time, not time itself, but it can be hard to tell the difference, and I wanted to be prepared. The strongest of them can deceive even an angel if they’re very determined and very, very suicidal.” He hears Dean wipe his nose and make a surprised noise, encouraging him to elaborate. “Your exposure has been to the lesser ones and those that have bred with mortals; the great courts passed beyond the veil millennia ago.”
“Why does that sound like foreshadowing?” Dean asks suspiciously, and he can almost see him glancing around worriedly for any stray royal fey.
“If you are asking if they’ve returned, yes,” he answers, and he hears something fall that he hopes isn’t the powered cold iron; that is not easy to make. “They are not ones to miss such an opportunity. Are they interfering with mortals? No, they do learn from their mistakes, a genuine surprise; they’ve never displayed common sense before, but truly, all things are indeed possible. The great queens, from what I’ve gathered, have issued strict warnings; if only we could convince them to come and gather up the brownies, but depressingly, they’ve been here too long.”
“Queens?”
“In general, the fey are strictly matriarchal,” he answers. “That would be why you hear few stories of young women being tempted beneath the earth to dally forever for the pleasure of the court. Not so terrible a fate, most would think, until you consider the length of ‘forever,’ the performance limitations of the mortal body, and the lack of same in a fey. In case you’re curious, it rarely ends well for the man in question, unless he is fortunate enough to have a mortal woman love him enough to forgive him his trespasses and come herself to claim him.”
Dean snorts a laugh. “Never thought of that.”
“Men rarely do,” he replies. “If you feel tempted, I beg you consider how the fey might react to carnal disappointment and plan accordingly.”
“Talk about pressure…” Dean trails off, and Castiel hears him packing up the weapons before there’s an unsettled silence. “That wasn’t your goddess, the one at the church,” Dean says abruptly, and Castiel almost drops the washcloth. “I knew her, though.”
That is one way to put it. “You did, yes.”
“I’m thinking her name right now,” Dean says, an edge in his voice. “But I can’t say it—”
“It’s deliberate; she masked it, but she could not—and would not—inhibition recognition in this case.” He pauses in scrubbing; blood is pernicious. “If you try hard enough, you should be able to break it, but I don’t recommend it, at least until the barrier rises again.”
“Why?”
There are many reasons a god would do so, but none of them are relevant now. “Practicality, I suspect. If Lucifer were to search the minds of those in attendance, none could reveal her under any of her names, even by accident. The gods are supposed to be confirmed dead two years ago; any hint of her appearance now would…”
“Be bad,” Dean finishes for him since he’s honestly not sure. “It’s easier to find her with a name, yeah, I remember.”
“It was a risk, what she did for Sudha, that much was clear,” he says honestly. “Gods generally don’t mask themselves without a very good reason, especially among their worshippers.”
“But we all know a god was here.”
“He can’t search my mind, yours is restricted by mine, and I wish him well prying anything from Alison’s mind,” he answers, remembering Alison’s expression: a strong will, dangerously strong, the kind of will the Host liked least in humans. Like Dean, breaking it was impossible without knowing exactly the right place to strike at the right time, and like Dean, the consequences of doing that were unpredictable at best and disastrous at worst (case in point, Dean Winchester: please turn to page ten in your non-existent textbooks on what not to do and who not to do it to. It’s a very short book, and Dean wrote most of it). “For the others—there’s no proof of it being a god, just one who appears a god. A name confirms it, especially one spoken, and it is far more noticeable and liable to get his attention.” In any case, a very minor god who happened to escape the purge would be very different than knowing that this one, somehow, was here when she shouldn’t be.
Dean seems to accept that, for now at least. “So, Nate—if he didn’t do anything to the room, why was he here?”
“The fact he was excluded from the time bubble implies he was needed when Sudha gave birth, and there’s no reason I can think of unless it was something to do with his work on her room. For what, I don’t know, so you needn’t ask.” He thinks for a moment. “However, it would probably be wise for Sudha to remain there with her child until the barrier rises. It’s possible that may protect them both, on the extraordinarily unlikely chance the Misborn were aware of the time suspension here and intuit the possible reason for it.”
“Right. And you were probably to do the witness thing,” Dean says. “But why the rest of them—okay, scratch that, maybe Sudha needed them. So that leaves me. Why wasn’t I suspended or whatever?”
Castiel hesitates. “I don’t know,” he answers slowly. “But—it could be a coincidence, of course.”
“Spit it out,” Dean says, a sigh in his voice.
“She didn’t manifest until you entered the room. The first time you entered the room,” he says, adding quickly, “but that might also have been the first time everyone excluded from the time bubble was within it as well. I didn’t think to watch for that.”
The silence outside the shower isn’t reassuring, and Castiel distracts himself with undistracted cleaning.
“She was different,” Dean says finally, grudgingly. “Not like—when we met. I wouldn’t have thought she’d give a shit about anyone.”
“You never worshipped her,” he answers. “The aspect you knew was but an aspect; she’s a god always, but not one to you and never yours. Four people in that room were hers, and Sudha of her own line; she loves them. That’s what gods do; they can’t help it.”
Rinsing off, Castiel considers how to broach this particular subject and decides simply to say it. “While we were out of time, she spoke to me.” In the interests of honesty, he adds, “She also said she owed me a debt as well as Ichabod, but—”
The shower door is open before he realizes Dean even moved, the water off, and he finds himself pressed against the icy tile, Dean’s hands clamped around his face as he peers into his eyes. “What did she do to you?”
“I don’t know.” Dean steps back, looking him over as if—what? “What are you looking for?”
“If she has a sick sense of humor,” Dean answers grimly, and at his gesture, Castiel turns around, resigning himself to Dean being Dean. “So far so good,” he says grudgingly, and Castiel snorts as he turns back around. “You feel—anything different?”
“Not really.” Without the warmth of the water, however, it’s getting colder. “Dean, she was paying a debt; for all I know, she assured I live four score years in health.”
“How can that go wrong?” Dean demands. “Like health but without your feet or something?”
Castiel smiles, offering a silent apology to Nate; he wasn’t up to the standard of Dean Winchester, but then again, no one could be.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he answers, recalling himself. “Can I finish please? Also, it’s getting cold.”
Dean’s eyes narrow, but he nods, going back out and waiting impatiently outside the now not-quite closed shower door; in case, he supposes, something happens, though what, he has no idea.
“So you said she spoke to you,” Dean starts. “Anything I need to know? Put it another way—do I need to know, maybe should know, or doesn’t matter and it’ll wait?”
“The last for the most part,” he admits. “And some in the second category, I’m not sure. Nothing that affects what’s happening now, in any case. There was a reason she told me out of time and let me remember it after without requesting I conceal it—if she had, I would have told you immediately—but… what she said, it seemed familiar, and I’m not sure why.” He tries to recall the mess again and as always, frustration is his only reward. “If it helps, most of it was—personal.”
“I get what Alison meant about ‘do I need to know’,” he answers thoughtfully, and relieved, Castiel smiles. “Need to know is always shitty, ignorance is bliss. Never thought I’d say that.”
Ducking under the spray, Castiel finishes rinsing away the soap and comes out; the chill of the room should inhibit any desire to remain unclothed, but Dean’s gaze keeps making him forget that.
“You ready to get back?” he asks, tipping his head toward the door, and Castiel nods. As Dean passes him, he notes Dean’s right hand seems very attached to being pocketed. “Let’s go.”