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I'm fine, but I'm not okay
Meg and Dean talk about music, for about five minutes.
Maybe seven.
No more than that.
And Meg does most of the talking, though Dean seems to ease up a little, and once or twice there was something that might have been a faint attempt at a smile, though mostly he just looks tired.
They stay on their respective sides of the doorway.
Still, it's a slightly easier conversation than they've managed yet.
All forward motion counts, right?
Meg goes back to trying to hang her curtains, standing on the desk chair and fighting with the rod. It's one of the many things that would be easier if she were even three centimetres taller.
And, sure, she could probably get them put up for her, somehow, but then she just has to fill the time with something else.
Besides, she thinks she can reach . . .
Maybe seven.
No more than that.
And Meg does most of the talking, though Dean seems to ease up a little, and once or twice there was something that might have been a faint attempt at a smile, though mostly he just looks tired.
They stay on their respective sides of the doorway.
Still, it's a slightly easier conversation than they've managed yet.
All forward motion counts, right?
Meg goes back to trying to hang her curtains, standing on the desk chair and fighting with the rod. It's one of the many things that would be easier if she were even three centimetres taller.
And, sure, she could probably get them put up for her, somehow, but then she just has to fill the time with something else.
Besides, she thinks she can reach . . .
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He appears quietly, as he always does. Standing behind Meg, watching her wrestle with drapery from a precarious perch.
His head tilts curiously to the side.
"What are you doing?"
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She was not expecting Castiel.
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Castiel raises one hand in an automatic (and unsuccessful) attempt to ward it off, while the other hand goes up to hover behind Meg's back to keep her from tumbling backward off the chair.
The Angel of the Lord looks rather like an uncoordinated scarecrow.
"............perhaps I should have knocked."
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She has just dropped a curtain rod on an angel's head.
"I'm sorry," she says.
"But, yes, knocking might be a good idea next time."
She steps down off the chair.
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Personal touches.
He does not mind. This need to feel at home--this too is something Dean needs. Castiel can only hope that perhaps the feeling will extend past the adjoining door.
"Things are progressing?" he asks.
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She settles on the edge of the bed now, with her back to it, and shrugs.
"I think so," she says.
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"Tell me."
It's not an order. Not really. Despite its phrasing.
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"He . . . he seems a little less on edge, I guess. A little less anxious to be done talking to me. And he's asked for some things.
"But I'd hardly say he's the Dean Winchester I remember from the handful of times I talked to him before.
"More like . . . maybe he remembers that he was that Dean?"
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But it cannot be a bad thing?
"Memory can be a powerful force," he says.
"You said he asked for things. What has he asked for?"
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"This is encouraging."
He fixes Meg with a questioning look.
"When do you feel he will have recovered sufficiently?"
There is a mission to be completed.
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"Recovered sufficiently for what?
"I don't even know why I'm . . . why he's . . . you went to Hell and pulled him out and that can't have been easy and it had to be dangerous and why not just stop him from going in the first place rather than letting it happen and then having to do all that?
"And then you brought him here, and you whisked me out of the bar and the archangel Michael gave me a rubber band and you told me you needed me to help Dean remember how to be human and that you had faith in me and that's all you gave me to go on and I have no idea what I'm doing or if I'm doing it right or if I'm just making things worse."
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It had not occurred to him that Meg would have such questions. Well, maybe it occurred to him that she would have them, but not that she would need the answers to do what was needed.
An oversight on his part.
"He needs to be able to resume his life on Earth," he says, after considering for several moments.
Castiel glances at the connecting door.
"I do not know how much, precisely, you know of Dean's life."
Dean is a hunter. It is probably safe to say that, with seals beginning to fall, he is THE hunter. It's not like returning any soul to Earth.
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"To hunt ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night."
Good Lord, deliver us.
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"Yes."
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely. Once more, his eyes go to the door.
"But it is more than even that."
Spirits and monsters will have moved down on the priority list in the world that Dean is to go back to.
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"What does that mean?"
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Wondering how much it is wise to tell Meg. Wondering how much it is fair to burden her with.
"Ever since its creation, Hell has sought to take Earth as its own. Wrest it from God by force. Always, they have met defeat, of course. But they are growing....ambitious."
"Dean can stop it."
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Well, stop Lucifer from rising. And Hell from rising with him.
"That is why we needed him. Why we laid siege to Hell to get him back."
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"Castiel, I . . . how do I begin to be able to tell that he's sufficiently recovered from being in Hell for that?"
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"I trust your judgment," he says.
"Dean is not yet aware of what will be required of him. But he will learn. And he will be equal to the challenge."
Castiel has faith.
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It takes Meg a long moment to answer.
"I . . . I think you're going to have a bit of a wait, before he's ready to go back to what you're going to ask him to do.
"He . . . for now, the answer to your question is, no, in my opinion, he's not sufficiently recovered."
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"Time is not unlimited," is all he says.
"But if more is needed, then it is needed."
They cannot risk losing Dean altogether.
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Rushing things makes them much, much worse.
"This is another thing I'm not supposed to tell him, isn't it?"
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Probably Dean.
"I am not sure what can be served by telling him right now," Castiel agrees.
"If it is your instinct to not tell him, then that is likely the correct approach."
"Will you speak with him again soon?"
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"I think . . . I'd wait on that one."
And maybe part of that is selfishly motivated. Meg doesn't want to have to explain that. Especially if she has to try to do it without being able to answer questions about how she knows.
Meg also has the feeling that Castiel trusts her judgment and her instincts far more than she does. Or than he should.
But there are questions that elicit no useful answer, and what if I get this all wrong? is probably one of them.
So Meg just nods. "Yes, soon."
She pauses.
"It might . . . when he's ready, it might not be a bad idea to let him speak with people who aren't me. Leave his room, if he feels up to it. Some kind of bridge between just dealing with me in a very controled environment and . . . resuming his life, as you put it."
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He can see the wisdom in that.
Castiel reaches into a pocket and pulls out a key, which he hands to Meg.
"This will open the front door of his room."
"I suppose, if he goes downstairs and things go amiss, either Michael or I could intervene."
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Meg closes her hand around the key.
"Just give it to him when he's ready?" she asks.
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They will watch. Just in case.
Castiel hesitates for a moment, then nods.
"Yes. When he is ready."
This is a necessary step toward completing the mission.
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Something tells her that, too, will be left to her judgment.
"All right."
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"I will leave you to your work."
Making progress means that, for now, he needs to be elsewhere.
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"Just . . . really do knock next time, please.
"I'd life to avoid dropping anything else on you."
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"But I will knock next time."
"And yes. You will see me soon."
He can guarantee it.
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Which means that whatever's keeping her from napping now, it's not the light from the window.
She reads ten pages of Sense and Sensibility and eight of Jane of Lantern Hill. She listens two minutes of Swan Lake and one half of "Fortess Around Your Heart." She paces the length and width and diagonial of the room. She makes a cup of tea and then pours it down the drain in the bathroom sink.
She gives serious thought to screaming at the top of her lungs.
And then, before she can talk herself out of it, again, she writes Dean, I've stepped out but I'll be back soon. Meg on a piece of paper and slides it under the door between their rooms.
And then she grabs her knitting bag and heads downstairs.