The Game of God: Day 157 - part 9
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Warnings at the end.
— Day 157, continued —
Castiel busies himself with important and completely mundane work on the patrol schedule, but it takes almost no time at all to update it, which leaves him far too much time to think. He can effortlessly track Dean’s progress, after all: first, four people will go to the garage to acquire extra vehicles (most are in the walls now, so it’s something of a miracle there are any vehicles left) before surreptitiously driving them south of Baltimore to pick up the rest of patrol who will subtly make their way there so as not to alarm anyone with large numbers of heavily armed Chitaqua residents suddenly appearing for no particular reason and assuming the worst.
(Apparently, any number greater than ‘three’ in Ichabod’s streets is considered a large number when it comes to Chitaqua.)
Sitting back in dissatisfaction, he considers and discards several equally important duties he should see to, then realizes belatedly he’s rubbing his right hand absently against his thigh. Lifting his hand, he frowns at the reddened palm before there’s a knock on the door.
“Come,” he says in relief, closing the laptop.
Kamal opens the door with a faint smile, but there’s a strained quality to it. “You have a sec?”
“As many as you need.” He gestures to the chair across from him. “Sit down.”
Taking the chair, Kamal frowns, and Castiel wonders if offering coffee now would be a good idea.
“Needed a break from Micah,” Kamal explains, fingers tapping lightly on the table. “Sheila and Chris took over.”
As that was on the schedule (that Castiel made), he suspects Kamal isn’t sharing that information because he’s worried Castiel will assume he’s guilty of dereliction of duty. “Still unpleasant, I take it?”
“Yeah.” Kamal’s eyes fix on the table, fingers taking up a more rapid rhythm. “Just asks for Alicia between ignoring our questions. Par for the course.”
“We’re not allowed to beat him for answers,” Castiel says sympathetically, though in all honesty, beating Micah for the sheer joy of doing it would be his primary motivation. Kamal’s expression flickers, the strain returning. “Something isn’t par for the course?”
“He’s acting twitchy,” he says. “Like, even more than before.”
Or perhaps Micah does know something. “What questions is he reacting to—”
“I mean crazy,” Kamal interrupts, the words tumbling out like he’s been waiting for an opening. “Cas, I’ve been watching him either in the room or on the TV the entire time he’s been in there. Earlier, he was ignoring our questions and being a dick, yeah, but now he’s… he’s ignoring our questions, but only after we repeat them a couple of times. Like he didn’t hear them or something. Then he asks for Alicia and it starts over again.”
“Does he say anything else?”
“No—actually yeah,” Kamal answers, frowning uncomfortably. “He asks if we can hear it.”
Three minutes of observation clarify matters considerably. He feels the hair on the back of his neck rise as Micah’s head jerks abruptly, like it was grabbed by the hair, to focus on Sheila in surprise when on the third repetition, she raises her voice.
“He’s not faking,” Kamal says from beside him. “I mean, he could be that good an actor, but…”
“Why on earth would anyone want to act like this, yes,” Castiel agrees as Micah’s gaze darts around the room almost frantically, reacting not at all to Chris’s next question. Turning his attention to Chris and Sheila, he examines their expressions; both are professional, but the same strain he saw in Kamal’s smile is visible around Sheila’s mouth and Chris’s eyes as they watch Micah, restless in limited motion. One hand comes up to his throat just as his eyes dart to another empty point of air, stroking the skin almost soothingly. “He wasn’t acting like this before?”
“No,” Kamal answers. “Smug jittery dick before, weird jittery dick now.” They both watch as Micah reaches to touch his nose, patting it as if uncertain it’s there and requires reassurance before jerking his hand back down.
“Before,” Castiel says. “Before what?”
“Before Dean talked to him,” he answers. “Figured at first Dean said something that spooked him and he was fucking with us in revenge. Now, not so much.”
Interesting. “Is the recording still in the camera? I want to see it.”
“Don’t have any,” Kamal says, making a face. “Dean ordered the cameras off.”
Castiel just prevents himself from saying something he will probably regret. Eventually. “Why? I assume it wasn’t to beat Micah to death.”
“Didn’t say,” Kamal offers with a shrug, and Castiel bites back a then why didn’t you ask?; this would be one of those times their militia forgets it’s supposed to do that. Asking why did you let him do that? would be even less productive; Vera’s the only one who might do that (today, possibly from sheer spite), but depressingly, she was needed for saving people’s lives. “Cas, the geas—he probably has it, could this be that?”
If the geas reacts to the feeling of being trapped as well as the reality, both are satisfied by Micah being in that room, but size as well as the fact only two other people are with him wouldn’t. Then again, it may very well have mutated; there’s no way to know what number he is in geas-telephone or what the command is now. Surely Sheila and Chris would have reacted as well; there’s no possible way they aren’t carrying some version of it by now.
“I want someone watching the feed at all times,” Castiel says finally. “Mark and Gary are to check inside the room every fifteen minutes and should receive verbal assurance from Sheila and Chris that they are still in their right minds. Don’t underestimate him; he may be out of practice, but he was one of us, and we can’t count on him having forgotten his training.”
“No one who made it through training can forget,” Kamal says wryly, and Castiel’s surprised by the affection in it. It didn’t occur to him that—at least with the second class—those would be pleasant memories for anyone but him. “Anything else?”
“I trust your judgment.” Micah jerks again to look at Chris in what might be genuine surprise. “I’m going to the infirmary to speak to Dolores; if there’s any change or he engages in hostile action—” He pauses so they can watch Micah’s eyes follow an invisible path across the wall above Sheila’s head, the blind sweep of his gaze over them via the camera sending a chill down Castiel’s back. “Clear the room of everyone but Micah, lock the door, and send for me, in that order. Do not engage; if this is the geas, there’s no guarantee whatever version he has now will manifest as the others did.”
“Got it,” Kamal says with a sloppy salute, and Castiel can’t quite hide his smile as he goes out to speak to Mark and Gary.
Everyone is way too quiet on the jeep ride to the South Gate—which is now three quarters field and the population of which has increased by a number he calls ‘fuckload’ of livestock, nosing the snowy ground, makeshift feeding areas in protected sheds with hay and fresh water and whatever else you feed cows (Dean’s hazy on this, he should learn).
Ichabod didn’t fuck around during Operation: Get The Animals Inside the Awesome Walls. He wasn’t around for most of it (staring at Cas was kind of a lifestyle choice at that point), but eighteen hours, and any area not encompassed by Cas’s wall (and Cas even crazy made an effort to get the primary fields as well as the barns, stables, sheds, pens, coops, warrens, insert animal-related enclosure inside the perimeter) was searched, the animals rounded up (on horseback, even, like a real life western) and herded inside, where groups of residents were already preparing. Not a lot of fences—or really any—but in roughly designated areas horses, cows, sheep, goats, and—just to make this more hilarious and surreal—the occasional alpaca wander together.
He’s still not over the alpaca: according to Alison, about six months earlier, a herd showed up and pretended they’d always been there when feeding time came.
(“Montgomery Ranch,” she told him. “They were way too well-fed, and I’m kind of opposed to stealing animals even if they did it themselves. We checked around, got a lead from a town nearby that they traded with, and went to tell them about the escapees.”
Her expression tells him what they found when they got there. “Monsters?”
“Raiders: Manuel recognizes the signs. We found about forty bodies—plus not a few raiders—a couple of hundred dead alpaca, along with most of the less portable livestock. Didn’t find any kids—which means either there weren’t any there, or the raiders took them along.”
“Nice of them,” Dean says a little sickly; no one wants dead kids, but if they didn’t have the stomach to murder toddlers, he’s not seeing many good scenarios coming out of this.
“The place was stripped bare of food and weapons before they tried to burn it down. Failed, of course: they weren’t competent in arson and the rain that week probably didn’t help.”
Dean sat forward: killing for food he gets (Chitaqua wasn’t near starvation yet before the deal with Ichabod, just restricted rations, but seeing the dwindling supplies and looking at his camp members adjusted his thinking faster than probably anything else could have about survival here), but killing the animals and destroying the ranch doesn’t. It’s not like the raiders needed to cover their crime here. “Why?”
“So people would know they’d been there,” she answers evenly. “Warning, calling card, showing off, who knows? Can’t say the Alliance wasn’t at least one of the reasons they started doing that. We run patrols between our towns, and any town or farm inside the line benefits as well whether they’re members or not; they call, we answer if we can. We’re smack in the middle of Kansas, Dean, and we may be a small area, but it’s gotta grate they can’t get in.”)
Cas’s Greek Alpaca Island Adventure is looking less crazy; apparently, alpaca really is (was?) an industry you wanted to get in on the ground floor of. Though Alison was horrified at the idea of using them for food; like some of the herds of sheep and one of Ichabod’s actual warrens of rabbits, the alpaca are spoiled rotten because they have awesome fur (wool?) that can be turned into clothes by some mysterious means involving yarn and looms. Thanks to the Alliance, they have the resources for investing time and labor in animals for more than their value roasted, baked, or fried.
Looking over the snowy field, he can’t remember for sure if Ichabod has shifts out here full-time or just check-ins to make sure the water isn’t frozen and something isn’t upsetting the herds. The landscape is dotted with random shelters that actually don’t look too bad; he could see someone taking a book and a battery powered space-heater in there, make a day of it in the hay. Sounds nice, actually: he was a cowherder (cowboy? Oh, that would be cool), he wouldn’t be dealing with being the shittiest boyfriend in the world or unable to stop seeing that stricken look on Cas’s face.
Christ, he shouldn’t have let Cas let him off like that, because Christ, he has every right to be pissed about this. Yeah, you should have expected better of me, this was the shittiest possible way to find out; yeah, I fucked up, and from an entire host’s worth of shitty options I picked the one that was easiest on me; it was a mistake and I’m sorry.
A sudden movement in the more distant white-coated fields gets his attention, and Dean picks out the distant black faces of sheep like dots on the landscape. Scanning the herd—flock, right—he watches the white-on-white motion, the suggestion of black legs like blurs, and then notes a slim figure among them, barely an outline at this distance, dressed in something as white as the snow. Shepherd: of course Ichabod has one. He watches him—no, her, definitely a woman—wave her crook, and the flock abruptly disperses, running madcap among the placid cows while others seem to be headed toward the barns and pens, little white balls of fluff on blurry black feet like living clouds. Dean accepts it as adorable and goes with it, especially Tiny Sheep Number Who Knows nuzzling the blunt nose of a lone cow about ten times its size before zipping by.
Rubbing his eyes tiredly, he observes that several more cows seem to have joined it, munching on cleared ground; even cows need friends, he supposes, watching others wander up from somewhere to join. That is, he reflects, a fuckload of cows.
“Dean?” He jerks his attention to Amanda, who looks amused. “You still with us?”
He fights the urge to call Cas and see—what? “Call front desk at HQ. Make sure the kids are paying attention.”
“Now you’re just being mean.” Exchanging a look with Joe, she picks up the walkie-talkie, flipping the channel. “HQ, it’s Amanda, over.”
The pause feels like forever before it crackles subtly and they hear Jeremy, sounding tinny. “Chitaqua front desk,” Jeremy says firmly, like he’s reporting a life and death struggle of the ages. “Over.”
Amanda grins. “Hey, hon, just checking in. Everything okay?”
“Status is—uh, fine,” he says, and Dean bites his lip against a grin at Jeremy’s annoyance with himself. “Status quo ante.”
“Got it. Over and out.” Closing the channel, she cocks her head. “Feel better, mother hen?”
He wrinkles his nose. “Check in again in fifteen minutes. Make sure they aren’t doing anything Maimouna is gonna kill me for later.”
“They’re not—” Joe starts.
“Seventeen,” Dean enunciates, and Mel snickers from the front of the jeep.
Joe looks scandalized. “In the lobby?”
“In the principal’s office,” he answers and Joe’s horror is too much; he and Amanda collapse in laughter (good thing Sarah’s driving if the sounds Mel’s making are any indication). “Under the bleachers during a football game.”
“In the bleachers at Homecoming,” Amanda says smugly, crossing her arms and giving them all a challenging look. “Bathroom of a redneck bar, baby.”
“Behind the bar,” Dean counters as Joe makes shocked sounds. “During happy hour.”
“Stop it!” Joe demands, scandalized, and Dean distinctly hears Mel giggling in the front seat. “What is wrong with you two?”
“I was on business,” Amanda answers sulkily. “She was a contact, thus much contact must be made.”
Dean grins. “Aren’t they all?”
“You’re both…” Joe glares at them both before subsiding, turning deliberately to stare out the window like he doesn’t know them.
Grinning, Dean watches for the South Gate; this is actually his life. Surrounded by cows in a walled city, about to summon a Crossroads demon and not even deal, yet all he can think is that the wall could really be improved by some towers, break up the monotony. Walter may be onto something with that moat idea; some things are restricted from crossing running water.
“Dean,” Amanda says abruptly.
“Yeah?” he asks when she just frowns, shifting uncomfortably before blowing out a breath. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just gotta get this off my chest.” Taking a deep breath she turns to face him. “You’re not going to sell your soul to Crowley or anything, right? That’s not the plan?”
“You heard the plan,” he answers in bewilderment. “Cas approved it.”
“I mean your secret plan.”
“What secret plan?”
“That’s what I’m asking,” she says, so seriously that Dean wonders if maybe there is a secret plan he forgot about. “The one you didn’t tell anyone about because you’re that stupid.”
“I’m not that—”
“Yeah, you are,” she says, and it’s actually terrifying she can say that without actually knowing enough of his (real) history to confirm how right she is. “So I’m asking again: is there any plan of any kind that involves your soul, period? Crowley optional here.”
“No,” Dean answers honestly, which doesn’t seem to be as reassuring as he thought if her dubious expression is any indication. “No soul involvement whatsoever.”
“But if it seems like a good idea, is that on the table?” she persists, and now he’s got Joe—and fuck his life, Mel, who’s actually leaning over the goddamn seat—looking at him. “Let’s make this easy: that’s not an option.”
“I’m not,” he says flatly, “going to sell my soul.”
“Okay, and it’s not that I don’t believe you, because I do,” Amanda lies. “But anything comes out of your mouth that could be mistaken for something like someone trying to make a deal, I’ll shoot you. Three months and some rehab, you’ll be fine, good as new, promise, but—”
“Holy shit,” Dean interrupts. “You really would, wouldn’t you?”
She frowns at him. “Yeah, of course. You know I’m a good shot. Wounds heal; sold souls…do something else, work with me here.”
A desperate look at Joe gets him an adamant nod, and Mel’s with the program, adding in an extra determined look. Sarah’s still driving, or he suspects she’d be giving him the same look but expressionless and therefore scarier.
“You’ll shoot me if you think—think—I might maybe be making a deal with Crowley for my soul?” It’s possible he heard that wrong because belated brain damage due to fever. He hopes.
“Any deal,” she corrects him, confirming for all time that Cas desperately needs a co-parent when raising his next batch of hunters. “Even if all you’re giving up is your shoes, so—fair warning.”
“Why would I give up my shoes?” he asks, because that’s the important question here (also, he’s curious). “What would a demon want with my shoes?”
“No idea, but they aren’t getting them,” she answers darkly and sits back. “Glad we talked about this.”
Dean looks at Joe, then Mel (no help whatsoever) and gives up, deliberately turning to look out the window. Crazy people.
Castiel leaves Headquarters, taking in the semi-busy street so as to best avoid passers-by. Despite that, as he passes an alley, he almost runs into someone, and jerking back before collision, he sees Cathy frozen in front of him, eyes wide as her face drains of what color she usually possesses, and he notices one eye looks suspiciously swollen, the red threatening to become a spectacular bruise, and she’s favoring her right leg.
All his observations of Ichabod have confirmed that abusive behavior would not be tolerated, but that is difficult to enforce when it’s well-concealed. Then, it can happen under your very eyes and not be the wiser, perhaps for months or even years. She always had an explanation, but he never thought to question how many there were, how often they were produced. As if she’d practiced beforehand: as if she’d had practice with explanations.
Of course, that was only after he started to ask when he was training her; before—before, he never asked at all.
“Do you need assistance?” She looks at him as if she doesn’t understand the question. “You’re injured.”
She licks her lips, her uninjured eye darting away. “No,” she answers, shaking her head. “Just—I was clumsy.”
“Perhaps—I am on my way to the infirmary to speak to Dolores. Perhaps you could accompany me so she can—see to that.”
“No!” Cathy takes a step back, looking horrified. “I’m fine, just—just an accident.”
She’s not one of his soldiers; he can’t simply order her back to Headquarters until he’s certain what questions to ask. “If you’re certain—”
“I’m fine,” she says, ducking her head. “I—have to do something.” Before he can think of a non-threatening way to detain her, she slips past him, and Castiel watches her for a moment, uncertain, then continues to the infirmary. Dolores is his object, after all, and this is a matter that he can leave in her hands.
When he arrives at the infirmary, he finds himself hesitating at the door to the ER at the realization that Alicia is somewhere here and feels ridiculous; he’s certainly not the one who should feel awkward at this moment. Going inside, he observes the controlled chaos, carefully avoiding the attention of those waiting. To his relief, Dolores appears very quickly, smiling tiredly but with genuine welcome.
“Cas,” she says. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, thank you,” he says politely. “Do you have a few moments?”
She studies his face, then nods, leading him to her tiny office, where a desk (on which, he notes approvingly, is a laptop), several file cabinets, and a Dolores-long couch take up almost all floor space. “Sit down,” she says, closing the door and indicating the couch before sinking on the other side with a sigh, stretching her legs before looking at him wryly. “Don’t break it to me gently.”
“The people still under observation from the catalyst events,” he starts. “How are they doing?”
Dolores raises an eyebrow. “Some seem a little calmer, but none I’m comfortable with releasing without someone to watch them yet,” she answers. “Now tell me which ones you’re interested in.”
He thinks about how to phrase this. “Are any of them… asking if you can hear something?”
The change in her expression is immediate. “’Can you hear it?’” He nods. “Four—no, three of them now. The ones—”
“The ones who were involved in the catalyst event at Volunteer Services on Fifth.” She nods, lips tight. “One of them has suicided, Dean told me. How are the other three now?”
“Under twenty-four hour watch.”
“They’re suicidal as well?”
“Suicidal, homicidal, and I don’t say this lightly, crazy,” she answers flatly. “None of those who were catalyzed are doing great, but those three are something else.”
“Do they have family here?” he asks. “Perhaps some pre-existing condition—”
“Yeah, we’re looking, but not a lot of luck when the only names we have are ‘Beretta,’ ‘Beard,’ and ‘Bushmaster’,” she answers. “Those are the only names they’d give when they were talking. I’m not saying they’re lying, but something Karl noticed: Beretta was carrying a Beretta, Bushmaster ditto, and Beard—”
“Has a beard?” She nods; he didn’t think there were any guns known as ‘beard.’ “And the one who suicided?”
“Remington, carrying same,” she says. “I’m guessing either nicknames or—well, it’s not like they’re the only people who figured new world, new name, why not pick a cool one? We took pics and used the laser printer to make a few color versions, copied off a few hundred in black and white to show around, but so far, no one’s come forward or even asked about missing friends, so—could be loners. We have a lot of those.”
“Or they came together,” he says absently. Those who catalyze violently tend to be both physically close to each other and from the same towns and even families, their reactions almost simultaneous. While correlation doesn’t equal causation, it does make him wonder if familiarity was also a factor; if one’s brother or close friend became catalyzed, it would raise the chances of a similar reaction instead of being frozen.
With one exception to both of those.
“Cas, just going to ask,” Dolores says abruptly. “Is this about Dean? He’s okay, right? Not…”
Oh. “No, he’s not showing any residual effects.” Dolores nods in relief, and he realizes the significance. “Dean’s the only catalyzed individual who hasn’t required—assistance?”
Dolores raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t notice until now? Don’t look like that: no one else has noticed but me and I’m not spreading it. Not really a surprise, now that I think about it; a hunter’s frame of reference is different from a civilian’s.”
“That’s true, yes.” He hesitates. “If it’s convenient, I’d like to see them.”
Dolores’s gaze sharpens, but all she says is, “Come with me.”
In the same observation room from which Castiel observed Haruhi only a few days ago, he looks into where the man known as Bushmaster is currently confined. Despite being obviously heavily medicated, he’s startlingly restless, albeit groggy, the half-closed eyes flickering constantly as if following invisible trails. Every so often, he’ll still, almost relaxing, before he shudders and the strange, half-focused search of empty air begins again.
Castiel glances over the monitors; when Dean was ill, Vera taught him a great deal about how to read them. While he can’t know Bushmaster’s baseline, he is very much aware sedatives should depress those readings far more. “What medication are you using?”
“Thorazine, five hundred milligrams. See those restraints?” she asks, and Castiel nods; at least, the ones on his wrists, as those presumably on his ankles are hidden by the blankets. “That’s the second set, and we don’t actually have that many more. There’s every indication they’ll break their own bones fighting them when they’re not drugged to the gills.”
Beneath the strict, professional calm, he can hear the fear in her voice; not for herself, but for them.
“They’re acting as if they’re still catalyzed.”
He glances at Dolores when she doesn’t respond, then follows her gaze back to Bushmaster, who sluggishly turns his head first to the left, then the right, pausing for a moment before he begins his search of the air again.
“I’ve personally treated everyone who was catalyzed,” she says slowly. “And I read everything I could get on what happened and listened to them as well. The geas doesn’t make anyone suicidal; at least, before or during an event. After, that much makes sense; besides guilt, that thing is literally fucking with their brain chemistry, and science knows just enough about the brain to know we know shit. It’ll take time for that to get back to normal in everyone—assuming once the geas breaks, everything resets to original manufacturer settings—and if we’re lucky, the worst they’ll deal with is some PTSD and some new or upgraded phobias.
“So far, everyone else who was catalyzed is reacting pretty much exactly like I’d expect; shock followed by panic, guilt, depression, suicidal thoughts, and a few actual attempts; it’s so predictable I named it Post-Geas Stress Disorder. Those four… it was almost six hours before they woke up, and shock, panic, yeah, but they just got quiet after that. Wouldn’t talk much—hell, it was an effort to even get their attention—and every so often, they’d ask—”
“’Can you hear it’,” Castiel finishes, watching Bushmaster begin the pattern again. “How did Remington succeed in his suicide attempt?”
“I fucked up,” she says flatly. “They were calm, so I just ordered them watched and keep trying to get them to talk. There was an emergency near the shift change, everyone got distracted, and somehow, Remington got left alone. Maybe five minutes, but any amount of time would have been too long; he stripped the bed, knotted the sheets, got them looped around both legs of the bed, and one of my orderlies arrived just in time to see him make a running dive out the window. That gave him enough momentum to break his neck.”
On impulse, Castiel reaches to squeeze her shoulder. “I’m sorry.” She nods shortly, muscles tight beneath his hand. “And the other three—when they found out, they became more…”
“Not exactly.” She turns to look up at him. “Valli was handing off Beretta to Lois, and Beretta suddenly started screaming. They got her restrained—barely—and Lois sedated her before going to get me. She saw Remington’s door was open and then heard the orderly screaming. Same happened with Beard and Bushmaster, according to Sree and Chess. Luckily, Sree’s the official medic for patrol and is good at the running tackle, and Chess is literally six feet five inches of solid muscle; he just picked up Bushmaster and held him a foot off the ground until help came. Used to be a college linebacker,” she says with a fragile smile. “Not gonna lie, he’s my favorite orderly these days.”
Castiel nods, watching as Bushmaster relaxes. By now, he can predict to the second when he’ll rouse again, and at the count of fifteen, his eyes flicker half-open, head slowly turning as he looks around the room again.
“Since then, if they’re not drugged, they’re screaming if we can hear it and to make it stop, and fighting the restraints hard enough that Beretta nearly broke her wrists before I raised her dose,” Dolores continues rigidly. “Bushmaster snapped his restraints once already, and I had to replace them all this morning from the strain.” Her eyes narrow, and following her gaze, he sees Bushmaster’s arm twisting sluggishly, pulling weakly at the restraints. “Like that.”
“How long has it been since his last dose?”
“Thirty minutes,” she answers. “I had them on twenty-five before Remington suicided, and it took a hundred to bring them down. Now, I’m raising it every six hours, and six hours from now, I’ll have to administer it intramuscularly because they’ll be fighting too hard by that point to risk oral. And the only thing it’s doing is keeping them relatively docile.”
Bushmaster’s wrists twist again in the cuffs, eyes darting around the room in slow-motion desperation, and nauseated horror washes through him. Whatever haunts their minds still chases them even now, undeterred, and they’re trapped in bodies that won’t respond to their fear, unable to escape, barely able to even move—
“Has Alison seen them?”
“I haven’t asked her,” Dolores says quietly, and he hears in her voice how much that has costed her. “If it’s the geas—the risk—”
“I understand.” Alison’s stability is far too fragile and almost wholly now a matter of sheer will; the risk is unacceptable, to privilege the suffering of these three people over the lives of everyone in Ichabod. As he watches, Bushmaster’s eyes squeeze shut, a fifteen second moment of relief before it starts again, and that decides him. “The six hours after you first increased the dose, you said that worked? The monitors—did they show that they were not experiencing distress or were they simply unable to physically respond to it?”
“Blood pressure’s autonomic, but their sympathetic pathways aren’t suppressed,” she answers. “If it was happening then, it would have shown there, same as now. Why?”
“What about when they sleep?”
“I give them a sedative,” she answers. “Same—at least, for a couple of hours—but—”
“Sedation with a hypnotic,” he answers. “And fentanyl patches, if I remember correctly. Opiates also have euphoric qualities, which might help. It may not entirely suppress whatever is happening to them, but—”
“You want to put them in a coma?” Dolores asks blankly.
“It’s caught them,” he answers, staring at Bushmaster as he starts his helpless search again; can you hear it?. “All the medication is doing is inhibiting their response, not what is happening to them. They’re trapped on those beds in their bodies: they cannot run, they cannot fight, and it tortures them with endless terror at its leisure while we watch and do nothing.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Dolores demands, his own horror in her voice. “I’m not an idiot; every time I give them a dose, I get all I’m doing is the chemical version of tying them up and leaving them to—whatever that’s doing to them. If I could crawl inside their minds and drag that shit out, I’d do it in a heartbeat!”
“We can’t take it from them,” he says. “But we can try and take them away from it.”
“There’s no guarantee it won’t fuck with them even then,” she argues, but her expression is at odds with her words. “People placed in artificial comas have reported being trapped in semi-lucid nightmares, and that can’t be an improvement. And what might happen to them—if only in their minds…”
“Even if it does, this combination should assure memory formation is suppressed,” he answers. “Whatever it does to them there, they won’t remember it, and that would be a mercy. If the possibility is all we have to offer, it’s more than they have now, and we must try.”
“If this is the geas—”
“If it is, this version of it is being shared now by someone who hasn’t been catalyzed,” he answers, and Dolores sucks in a breath. “Micah is currently exhibiting similar behavior, albeit it seems only to manifest in distraction.” Which might mean that this version has five victims, and one of them independent of those at Volunteer Services that day.
Dolores hesitates. “If we do this—and I’m not saying we are—how long are we talking about?”
Until Alison has rested sufficiently not to be a danger to herself and others. “A few days,” he answers. “A week at most. If nothing else, it will give them some relief from their suffering, and that alone would make it worth doing. If it’s the geas—either the one that caused their reaction in Volunteer Services or a newer mutation on the original—then it won’t last forever. A week in an induced coma is the most effective isolation possible; that may be enough to hasten the burnout process.” Then he considers the current state of Ichabod and more specifically, what the medical staff is already dealing with. “If possible, I should say. The demands on you and your staff—”
“We can do it.” Her eyes are on Bushmaster. “Thorazine has a thirty hour half-life, but if we’re going to do this, we can’t wait that long.” She’s silent for a long moment. “I need time to prep, get my staff together, and everyone get a very fast boot camp on how to care for comatose patients.” She makes a face. “Now just have to see what we can do about a bigger room to hold all of them…”
“The wing where Sudha is located has several rooms ready for habitation, and only five occupied at this time,” he says, and Dolores’ face softens affectionately. “Nate was concerned that more women in labor than currently present might appear unexpectedly and wanted to assure they could be accommodated.”
Dolores smiles. “In case you’re curious, between remodeling efforts, he also repaired several doors so they actually close, got two to actually open, did something to the sink in the breakroom to make it drain, and two bathrooms are now fully operational on the second and third floor. He can do plumbing, too?”
Remembering Home Improvement Weeks One and Two, Castiel recalls that Nate (and Zack’s) cabin was one of the only three with a fully functional toilet, shower, and both bathroom and kitchen sinks. “He’s truly a man of many talents.”
Dolores nods. “I better start getting this going.”
“You’ll need someone to help with the patients once the thorazine wears off,” he says casually. “I’m not a linebacker, of course, but I think I can be of assistance and spare one of your orderlies potential injuries. Perhaps even two.”
Dolores’s mouth twitches, giving him an exaggerated once-over, but there’s understanding, too. “If it wouldn’t be an imposition.”
“Not at all,” he answers, just managing to get ahead enough to open it for her and is rewarded with a smile. Then he remembers his other object and closes the door quickly. “I saw Cathy on my way here.” Dolores’ expression darkens. “She had—or will soon have—a black eye.”
“She was okay earlier,” Dolores says, frowning. “I don’t know if Dean told you, but she’s banned from the infirmary. I let her say goodbye to Carol, and she said she was going home.”
“How long ago?”
“Right after I talked to Dean.” No, this was far more recent, within the last hour, perhaps. “I’ll check on her when I go off,” she says decisively. “Make sure everything’s okay. Thanks for telling me.”
“You’re welcome,” he answers politely, and waits for her to precede him before following her out.
So as it turns out (no surprise), waiting around in front of the South Gate is just as boring as Headquarters. He cut short—not voluntarily, but he let it happen—fun with Cas for this; what the fuck was wrong with him?
Which may (partially) explain why this is the highlight of his wait.
“Fine,” Jeremy says shortly, and Dean hopes to God they didn’t interrupt something—as in, there was nothing to interrupt. “Uh—” The background sound of something seems to get Jeremy’s attention, and then Jeremy says, sounding almost frantic, “Sorry, I dropped something!”
“It’s fine,” Amanda says soothingly. “Over and out.” Turning it off, she cocks her head. “Okay, maybe you were right. Second time he sounded like that: not the bathroom.”
“Seventeen,” he says smugly. “Mel, you handle the next one.”
“Dean, come on, they’re kids,” Mel says in amusement. “They do this. Why put roadblocks in the way of true lust?”
“Amanda, quick question,” he says. “Maimouna really training for your next class?”
“Oh yeah,” she says in satisfaction. “She’s semi-regular on patrol, and she’s in the field working out every chance she gets. Top thirty, easy. She’ll definitely make the cut.” Her expression changes. “Oh.”
“That’s why,” he says, looking around the jeep and seeing understanding. “Joelle’s wearing her mom’s latest creation: stiletto-scarf. That’s who’s going to be living a cabin over from one of us. Any questions?”
Everyone shakes their heads.
Climbing out of the jeep, Dean glares at the wall but can’t keep it up; it’s a goddamn awesome wall. “I need air,” he explains, which just means Amanda and Joe follow him out because who the hell knows. Crossing to the front of their jeep, the engine abruptly cuts off, and he glances at the windshield to see Sarah looking back and sighs.
“Dean?” Joe asks.
“I feel like I’m forgetting something,” he explains. “Something really obvious.”
“Like obvious as in front of you, or obvious like the six year old test?” He and Joe both turn to look at Amanda. “Like a plan that if you told a smart six year old, he’d see all the problems immediately and make fun of you?”
Dean blinks slowly. “Where do you get this shit?”
“The internet, when we still had it. It’s a pretty good test,” she argues. “Kids are self-centered, world revolves around them, right? They’re not looking at the plan and thinking ‘This will save a thousand people.’ They think, ‘I don’t like this, let’s not do it’.”
“I see it,” Joe offers, probably just to be a dick. “Details, not the big picture.”
“Don’t worry,” she says, reaching to pat Dean’s shoulder. “We’d be shitty six year olds; I was drawing salt lines in the motel with two sisters below the age of three asleep on the bed. Could change a diaper and perform an exorcism and not miss a beat.”
He licks his lips. “Sam hated his diaper.” She nods, not pretending to be surprised, and yeah, he figured she knew about him having a brother, though he doesn’t have to look at Joe to know he didn’t. No one in Chitaqua knew, Cas said; thinking about it now, though, he wonders how the hell Dean here could have believed it. It’s not like Dad was low-key in any sense of the word as far as hunters go.
“Sam?” Joe says, looking between them suspiciously. “Who’s Sam?”
Amanda raises an eyebrow, and to his own surprise, he doesn’t hesitate. “My younger brother.”
“You have a brother?” Joe exclaims, outraged. “You told her and not me? Why?”
Amanda bursts into laughter, which isn’t helping. “Joe, I—”
“This is bullshit,” Joe continues, aggrieved. “Who’s your drinking buddy and hasn’t told Cas where all that missing Eldritch Horror is going? Who covered for you when you fainted—”
“Passed out, and no, I didn’t,” Dean interrupts. “And I go down for missing Eldritch Horror, all of you are going down with me. Also, I just found out about yours!”
Amanda takes a moment from gasping to say, “He got you there. I knew about Joe’s brother,” she says, which turns Joe inarticulate with hypocrisy. “Joe, calm down. Campbells are an old name in hunting, but the Winchesters made some serious roads in reputation as far as that goes. You can’t be a hunter and not know those names.”
Dean nods. “My dad, yeah—”
“You’re kidding, right?” she asks incredulously. “Dean and Sam Winchester did more in four years than John managed in his entire run.” Seeing his expression, she shrugs. “Might have been a fangirl.”
“You were not.”
“A little,” she admits. “Not knocking your Dad or anything, but Mom kind of loathed him. Didn’t think a woman with kids should be hunting with her husband. Got on Dad about letting her, so Dad, not his biggest fan.”
“Uh.” Dean wonders if he said that one day or two after leaving him and Sam at the nearest shitty motel with questionably working water and a pile of ones on the table. “Sorry about that.”
“And you never…” Joe looks between Amanda and Dean. “Hunter thing?”
“Let’s say need to know is what a hunter wants to tell when it comes to family.” Joe nods in belated understanding. She looks between them for a moment, then at Dean. “I know what you want to ask: go ahead.”
“How long has it been?”
“Coming on ten years,” she says lightly, climbing onto the hood of the jeep, one leg curled beneath her while her free leg swings idly. “They were nice about it, but they had lives: the kids were old enough to ask questions, husbands were getting suspicious about their mysterious shopping trips, jobs were hard, PTA was fighting, pets missed them too much, I think. It’s been a while, so…”
“Yeah,” he says, throat tight. “That sounds about right.”
“What?” Joe is abruptly standing in front of them both. “They what?”
“Cut their losses,” she answers, and only Dean knows what it cost to say it; true things always hurt the worst. “Before you explode, Joe, ask yourself which is easier; living every day wondering if your sister will ever contact you for another meeting and knowing if she doesn’t, that means she’s dead, or cutting contact yourself and living with maybe. They picked the option that kept them sane.”
“I’d pick my brother,” Joe answers, quieter but no less intense. “And he picked me and always has. That’s bullshit; you deserved better than that.” Amanda looks startled. “Their families never asked what happened to Aunt Amanda…” He stills, and it’s weird, watching Joe right now, seeing an outsider react to a fact of his and Amanda’s lives. “They never knew about you?”
“Their dad died in a hunting accident,” she says. “Their mom in a car accident: not even close, but whatever. After that, all they had was each other. An older sister who dropped out of high school at fourteen and got her first felony before she needed a bra, that shit doesn’t fly in the Junior League.”
“They…” Joe bites back the words, looking away, but Dean figures he knows what he was about to say, language unimportant. “All those names you gave me for the border…”
“The aliases they knew about and could use, if they remembered. They could live with maybe,” she answers, a catch in her voice on the last word. “Looks like I can’t. I went looking for them when this started, to warn them, fuck their secrets, but they were already gone; Croat took half the town before anyone knew it was epidemic, and the cover up was the kind you hide from if you don’t want to disappear. They might not have been hunters, but I taught them everything they knew. There’s selective memory and then there’s stupid. I’ll forgive the first if they prove they weren’t the second. I’ll find them eventually, it’s just going to take some time.” Then, “Okay, something else, I don’t care what.”
“Yeah,” Dean says. “Amanda,” he adds, waiting for her to look at him. “We’ll find them.”
“Damn straight,” Joe interjects. “So I can tell them what I think of them. After your better fucking be loving reunion, that is.”
She laughs shortly, searching their faces. “Okay.”
“Cool.” Half-turning, Dean looks back at the peaceful, snowy fields, the scattering of livestock beneath the hazy moonlight peering between the color-slashed clouds above, not really surprised to see the girl again.
She wanders by a massive bull—he’s pretty sure Teresa told them they don’t house him with the cows for reasons—and it lifts a head almost as big as her torso. He tenses, opening his mouth to tell Sarah to detour toward the crazy girl playing with bulls, now¬—but as she reaches out in passing, it lowers its head submissively and leans in when she scratches behind ears almost as large as her hand. She turns her head and looks right at him, brown eyes dancing with laughter, and for a moment, all the worry falls away, peace spreading through him. Two of the sheep—Christ, they’re not sheep, he forgot about that—jog up to her, and she gestures toward the jeep. When they turn, Dean’s breath catches at the sight of the guy’s too familiar face, fear and pain washed away, and fights down the impulse to return his cheerful wave. That, he thinks vaguely, would be weird.
Suddenly, all three stiffen, and he sees it echoed across the field as the others—a lot, he realizes in surprise—emerge from the knots of cows and goats, their heads turning northwest, toward Ichabod proper.
“Dean!” Joe says, and Dean shakes himself, turning to see him looking worried. “You okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” he answers, looking at the field again: just cows. He’s not sure what he expected. “Hey, Amanda, tell Mel to check in with Jeremy now, would you?”
Leaving Dolores to her duties, Castiel follows the irresistible smell of coffee; he’s aware the infirmary's is supposed to be substandard, but that does not make it any less coffee. Half way across the room, however, he becomes aware of a furtive movement to his right, and turns to see Alicia slumped in one of the chairs and staring at him in utter horror.
He never had any intention of having private conversation with her today (or, perhaps, ever again), which may explain why he hears himself say, “I’m getting coffee.”
Alicia unfreezes enough to nod. “Coffee’s good.”
She winces, and Castiel forces himself to turn away and continue his path to the coffee pot, which doesn’t look at all inspiring (rather like a tar-tinged sludge) but is still coffee. Going about the soothing ritual of coffee-preparation, it’s only when he takes his first sip (execrable, but again, coffee) that he notes there’s a second cup on the counter and—for reasons unknown—he seems to have prepared that one, too. He tells himself it’s the habit of refusing to waste anything that makes him decide not to pour it on the floor (also, sugar causes a very unpleasant stickiness that he hates cleaning himself). Picking it up, he turns and grimly marches across the room before extending the cup.
“Oh God,” she says, staring at it like it might attack her. “You got me coffee?”
“It’s not personal,” he says, shoving it toward her (careful, however, not to slop the hot contents and burn her). She takes it automatically, like it might contain cyanide (or possibly, hoping it does). “I made two and—waste not want not.”
“Right.” She takes a deep breath, looking at it blankly for a long, horrible moment. “Cas—”
“You’re very sorry for attempted murder, yes, I gathered.” She flinches, which he pretends to ignore. “Dean left with Damiel’s and Lee’s teams to wait at the South Gate. When are Matt and Jody supposed to return from their shift at the YMCA?”
“About an hour,” she answers, and belatedly, she takes a polite sip. It improves nothing at all that her expression matches his own at the ungodly (yet still unmistakably coffee) flavor. “Right. Thanks. I’ll—uh, finish up and—”
“You understand that Dean wouldn’t send you on a suicide mission,” he says abruptly. “Or any of his soldiers, for that matter.”
“Yeah,” she says quietly, eyes fixed on her cup. “I noticed that about him. Wasn’t even surprised.”
“Then you can guess how he’ll feel if he discovers after the fact that you planned to make it one.” She doesn’t answer. “So let me ask you this: are you planning to incite Erica to kill you, or are you simply assuming it will happen without your connivance?”
“It’s not part of the plan, no.”
“But you won’t try too hard to avoid it.”
“Mission comes first,” she counters. “Like I told Dean, I get what happens next—”
“Public confession, trial—though why that part, I have no idea, since you already decided the verdict—and the penalty, exile,” he interrupts. “Did you truly think that Dean—of all people—would shoot you in cold blood, especially over two years after the fact?”
“I wasn’t thinking.” Her eyes flicker up and then away. “If I had been—”
“Or was it simply wishful thinking?” She flinches, shutting her eyes, and the cup in her hand begins to tremble. “You realize this didn’t have to happen? He never should have left Chitaqua alive.”
Alicia opens her eyes to gaze at him in confusion. “Who?”
“Micah.”
Alicia’s expression dissolves into bitter amusement as she huffs a surprised laugh. “If I’d known this would happen—”
“Not for this, though yes, that would be a very pleasant consequence,” he retorts. “For the crimes that he committed against you.”
Alicia’s laughter cuts off.
“If I had known…” He thinks of her during those months on the training field, the injuries she received: how many were incurred in the line of duty and how many within the questionable sanctity of what by no stretch of the imagination represents the covenant of marriage? Two weeks: when he thinks of her with a gun outside his cabin, his imagination conjures what state she might have been in, what injuries were hidden beneath her clothes: did she limp the length of the camp to his cabin nursing bruised ribs; did a twisted wrist make it difficult for her to raise her gun; was anything recently dislocated; how badly did it hurt to even breathe? A hundred things would make every movement agony, that she would have hidden as reflexively as she breathed, as she’d demonstrated so often on the training field.
He’s watched her dance until her shaking legs wouldn’t hold her upright and never complain; he’s seen her fight, bleeding from half a dozen wounds and never seem to notice; outside Ichabod, she ran far beyond her strength, baiting Croats to protect Dean, and even a twisted ankle wasn’t enough to do more than slow her down before she kicked a hole in the postern door. He’s seen her collapse in exhaustion, but never, not once, has he ever seen her stop.
It chases you, she told them; sometimes, it catches up. Eventually, no matter how fast you run, it will catch up; it’s only a matter of time.
“If I’d known,” he says, “I would have killed him myself.”
She stares at him, eyes wide. “What? Why?”
“His guilt is unquestionable, his repentance non-existent: he is a dog, Alicia, and you don’t reason with a dog that bites; you eliminate it so it cannot do it again.”
She looks at him, cup forgotten in her hand. “Who was she?”
“Who?”
“The woman whose dog you didn’t kill.” Startled, he’s unable to look away from the curious blue eyes. “There was one, wasn’t there? When you were an angel, and you couldn’t—”
He laughs shortly. “We were the Host on earth; our actions upon the earth were above reproach, our judgement without flaw; of course I could have killed him.”
She wets her lips.
“Genocide, murder, torture, rape, abuse: they’re so common, they’re barely worth commentary. Your birthright was free will, and we saw no reason to act when your crimes were only against each other unless ordered to do so. With rare exceptions, of course.”
She nods mute agreement, aware of one of those, at least.
“Unless a human brought themselves to our attention, we didn’t even see you,” he adds bitterly, remembering the wry note in Alison’s voice when she told him that.
“How’d she get your attention, then?”
“She had it from the moment of her birth.” Sitting back, he finishes his coffee and sets the cup aside. “The gods are capricious, and Creation is but the setting for their games, human lives pieces theirs to use, ignore, or destroy. Almost fifty years before her birth, I acted as messenger for Diana to her grandfather, to tell him that his request for vengeance was granted. He wasn’t aware, of course, that as with all the gods’ favors, there would be a personal price to be paid for it.”
“And let the games begin?” she asks wryly.
He nods. “His daughter Sempronia was barren—by accident or by divine will, I don’t pretend to know but can easily guess—and in her fortieth year, she attended the Lupercalia in Rome, the festival honoring Lupa, the wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus. When the Luperci ran through the streets clothed only in the fresh skin of goats, any woman who wished for a child would stand so they might be struck with the blood or flesh of those skins and be granted fertility. Sempronia was struck as they passed, and thus, fertility was granted and she gave birth to a daughter, named Fulvia in accord with her father’s gens. As a child of the Lupercalia, Fulvia belonged to the gods by right of divine intervention, and as the authors of her birth, they had the right to influence the course of her life.”
“That’s bullshit,” Alicia says hotly. “They did that a lot?”
“Not as often as they wished, but yes,” he answers. “The restrictions of free will chafed at them, and they were creative in finding ways to circumvent it.”
She looks her opinion of that before her expression changes to curiosity. “What was she like?”
“Extraordinary,” he says softly, remembering. “She was of high birth and great wealth, but it was her intelligence and will that defined her. Unfortunately, she was born a woman at a time when women—especially those of her class—could do very little, which limited her ability to do what she would have done if she’d been born male: stand for office, lead an army, conquer the known world.”
“That kind of girl,” Alicia says in satisfaction. “I like her already.”
“She was put out, of course, but compensated by marrying men who would carry out her will. Two of them were excellent choices indeed: Clodius and Curio were intelligent, ambitious, and knew her value as friend and partner as well as wife and lover. She guided them to the pinnacles of their respective careers under the aegis of Gaius Julius Caesar, Consul, General, and Dictator of Rome.”
Alicia is gratifyingly impressed. “And the third?”
“The third…” The flare of remembered anger hasn’t faded in all this time. “Marcus Antonius. He was Gaius Julius’ cousin: a skilled general, poor politician, and even poorer excuse for a man. He married her for her name and wealth, but primarily for the power she wielded, both that she inherited from her family and her husbands and that she gained by her own efforts alone, but he did believe he loved her and she did truly love him. Like her first two husbands, he was guided by her to power and prominence, steering him through the politics he scorned and minimizing the disastrous mistakes he made in his mindless pursuit of power. However, as he gained power, so grew his desire for more, and as he was with his wives before her, so he became again; in his anger and frustration, he began to beat her.”
She sucks in a breath.
“When I felt her… I would come to her, and stand witness to a dog who pretended to be a man as he beat her. When he finally left her, I’d watch her gather herself again, call her physician—an Egyptian priest-physician who had long served her family, one whose loyalty and discretion were unquestionable, for concealment was her first object—to see to her injuries, and go about her life once again.
“As she healed, Antonius brought her rich gifts—for even to himself, the dog pretended to be a man—and she would pretend the wounds within her were healed as well. They weren’t,” he whispers. “A wound untreated becomes septic, infecting all within its demesne; there were dozens, hundreds inflicted over the years of their marriage, all suppurating, and they poisoned her and then slowly ate her alive. She pretended she could not feel them, and the dog who wore the flesh of a man never saw them and would not have cared if he did. I could see them all.”
A faint sound makes him look up sharply, horrified to see the tears running down her face; he should have realized… “I should not—” he says, starting to get up.
“No,” she whispers, letting them continue to fall unchecked from reddening eyes. “Tell me the rest.”
“Alicia—”
“He killed her, didn’t he?” she demands, voice raw. “Tell me what happened to her, for fuck’s sake!”
Slowly, Castiel lowers himself back into his chair. “Antonius was offered marriage to a woman of very high birth, sister to his greatest enemy; he thought the alliance would bring him the power he craved. He told Fulvia that he’d divorced her, they fought, and he beat her very badly and then left. He sent word to her friends to deny her protection and succor; he assumed, of course, that she’d either die of her injuries or, friendless, she’d kill herself, and with her death, he’d gain control of her fortune.
“As soon as she could travel, Fulvia gathered her household and fled, though she was not well and only grew worse,” he continues, forcing the words from between his teeth. “Her friends closed their doors to her in their cowardice and fear, offering empty apologies and encouragement but nothing more. She retreated to her home in Athens, where she closeted herself with a scribe and her physician for half a day, then sent them to Rome. She then ordered a hot bath before dismissing her household, and when they were gone, she lowered herself into the bath and cut her wrists.” Alicia’s face drains of color. “Not for the reason you may think: Fulvia was Roman. From birth to death, their lives were their own, and they gave no one the right to take what is theirs. Like her grandfather, her grandmother, and his brother before her, her life would be taken by her hand alone. Anything less would be beneath her.”
Alicia’s shoulders begin to shake. “How’d I guess that’s how the story ended? What the hell was wrong with her, to let him—”
“What was wrong with him,” Castiel interrupts hotly, “that he would beat his wife simply because she was there? What was wrong with him, that he would make her believe herself so flawed that she deserved it? Fulvia walked the Forum Romanum where women never ventured, like her great-grandmother before her, and made it her own. She marched on Rome and she conquered it, in her own name, with an army she recruited beneath her banner. She mourned two good husbands to whom she was beloved wife, partner, and collaborator in all they did, and raised seven children; there was no flaw in her. She could have been none of those things, however; she could have been cruel, and neglectful, and a monster herself, and it would have made no difference. The flaw was always within him!”
He sees her in her bloody bath again, remembering the chilled fingers he touched as he took her eating knife and set it aside and curled those fingers in his own. All that was light had almost been quenched within her, but only almost; even then, she was so bright, the core of her still untouched and shining as brightly as it had the moment of her birth.
“Qafsiel Kaziel, Cassiel, Messenger, you who were Castiel to my great-grandmother, my grandfather, and my grandmother before me,” she whispered, “I entreat you to grant me a single request.”
“You have but to name it,” he told her. “If it’s in my power, it will be done.”
She clutched his hand, eyes barely a slit of brilliant brown. “Tell me: will they reach Rome safely? Will it work?”
“I regret I didn’t kill him,” he says softly. “Both of them.”
The silence that descends between them lingers, and he wonders uncertainly how this conversation went so dramatically off course. Though it’s possible that’s because he never expected to have a conversation with her and therefore had no actual course to follow.
Getting to his feet, he says, “I should recall your team. Please report to the Situation Room when you’re done here.”
“Cas,” she says just as he reaches the door, fingers only inches from the doorknob. Take it in your hand, he tells himself; open the door; leave. He turns around. “I want you to know that—that I’m sor—”
“Not nearly enough.”
She flinches. “I know. It doesn’t mean much after two years—”
“It means absolutely nothing hours before you plan to die,” he interrupts. “Water on the sand, words written in air: those have more permanence than repentance followed by suicide by proxy.”
“I’m not going to—”
“I know you,” he says, crossing back to look down at her. “I trained you as a hunter and then in your chosen weapon that’s also mine; I went on missions with you, I went to save Beanie with you, and I had sex with you. Many times.” Alicia makes a face. “If you’re under the impression that somehow, after all of that, I managed not to gain some knowledge of your character—and this against my own inclinations, I assure you—you must be insane.”
“You never knew me!” she exclaims, jumping to her feet. “You didn’t know my real name is Stephanie, that I’m married to Micah, or that I killed ten kids before I ever met you! For fuck’s sake, you didn’t even know that I was one of the ones who tried to kill you!”
“It’s not as if you did a good job of it!” he retorts; where did that come from? “I also don’t know what you had for breakfast. What does that have to do with anything?”
Alicia opens and closes her mouth. “Breakfast? What the hell—”
“I don’t have to know all that you’ve done to know who you are,” he answers. “And I don’t need to know the minutiae of your past to know who you are now. That person is going on a suicide mission and is only making the minimum amount of effort to convince me otherwise!”
“Why does it matter if I am?” she demands.
“You must be joking.”
“You taught us payment must be rendered, one way or another,” she says, eyes tear-bright. “We pay for our sins, Cas, come on; you taught us that, too. This way—”
“Don’t pretend this is about anyone or anything but yourself.”
She looks away. “I didn’t need the geas to tell me my greatest fear was chasing me; it always has, and four days ago, it caught up. I knew it would happen one day, and best case scenario was dying before it did. I can’t live with it, Cas.”
“Yes, you can,” he corrects her. “You just don’t want to. Matt, Jody, your friends, your comrades at home and here: their grief, their pain is a cheap price to pay indeed. It’s not as if you’re the one that will have to pay it.”
“Fuck you,” she whispers. “Dean decides on exile, that’s better than I deserve, but what then? Where do I go? Just pick a town in the infected zone and hope they let me stay? Make a new life all over again?”
“You wouldn’t be the first who has had to do so, nor the last,” he answers. “I don’t doubt at all you could do it, and do it well.”
“With what? You don’t understand: me—Alicia… she wasn’t real, but until now, I could pretend she was. Now that’s gone, and—”
“That—she—you—are standing right in front of me,” he says impatiently. “Is it a human peculiarity, that you miss this so often? You’re a thousand people, Alicia, and you have been and may be a thousand more, but they’re all still you. If one could simply discard oneself when one is dissatisfied and start anew, I would have done it. It would be far easier—and take far, far less time—than having to resign oneself to doing something with the somewhat substandard material you have at hand.”
Alicia’s glare is interrupted by an unexpected laugh. “God, I can’t believe you’re reassuring me about my character after I tried to kill you.”
“Is it working?” he asks curiously.
She shuts her eyes, and for what feels like years, there’s nothing but the sound of their breathing; even the background of the infirmary only outside the door fades into silence.
Then she looks up at him. “It’s not that easy.”
“It’s not supposed to be,” he answers. “Before you try to solve the ineffable meaning of life inherent in that statement, consider this: you haven’t tried to live with it yet, so how on earth can you be sure you can’t? We haven’t even survived Ichabod, and while the odds are in our favor, according to Lena, there’s every chance that the Misborn will take care of the problem without your connivance. Under the circumstances, I’m not certain what urgency there is to accomplish it now; it’s not as if on the off-chance we survive, you won’t have time later.”
She bites her lip, perhaps realizing her presence (or absence) might very well be a factor in those odds. It’s not as if Chitaqua suffers from a surfeit of even semi-competent team leaders.
“Well, when you put it like that…” Scrubbing a fist over her eyes, she takes a deep breath. “Look, no guarantees here, but just imagining Erica having the satisfaction of standing over my dead body…” She shakes her head. “Also,” she adds in surprise, “I do feel reassured, yes. Not sure of what, though, you know what I mean?”
“Dean has that effect on me regularly,” he agrees. “It’s strange, but pleasant. How long do you need to finish here? You should begin preparations very soon.”
“Just final check of my patients.” She starts for the door. “Look, I’ll run and get Matt and Jody myself, catch them up on the way to HQ. That okay?”
He almost makes the mistake of nodding. “Dean’s order regarding your silence on the subject of your involvement stands. That includes your team.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she says immediately. “He didn’t—I mean, I begged him not to tell you—anyone—and the order thing was just, he made it up to, uh…” She trails off, eyes narrowing on him before she sighs. “Okay, which part?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You trained me twice, went on missions with me, helped me take out a child killer, and we had a lot of sex,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I know all your poker faces. So which part did I fuck up?”
“I wasn’t aware there was a specific order, just assumed. He would have wanted more information before taking any action, and it’s been rather busy recently.”
“You know, that much I guessed,” she says. “Mostly, though, I think that he wanted to make sure you didn’t find out before he could tell you himself.” She reaches for the doorknob. “Meet you in the Situation Room?”
“Yes,” he says belatedly. “Of course.”
Warnings: spousal abuse, infanticide, medical horror.