Patience-Impatience (Supernatural, Castiel/Daphne, PG)
Title: Patience-Impatience
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Castiel/Daphne
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3598
Spoilers: Up to and including 7x17
Summary: Daphne had found him lost and confused once before, she wasn't about to give up on him a second time.
Author's Notes: My thanks and love to scarletsherlock for betaing <3.
Daphne didn't believe in expressions like "too good to last" or "too good to be true". Good wasn't something flawed by nature - it was built to last, to enjoy without guilt, to trust and believe in. Sometimes an ordinary or bad thing could be confused with something good, but moments of poor judgement or loss of hope were not reason enough to become defeatist.
When Emmanuel had not come home after disappearing with Dean, she had kept calm and called the police; when they told her later that same day that her husband was wanted for murder and she was lucky to be alive, she called in sick to work, went home to bed, curled up on his side of it and started sobbing.
God had guided her to Emmanuel, she knew that much. Something had told her the man she had found naked and confused was no threat, and that something was right - he was a kind man who understood, sympathised with, and even came to share her beliefs. For all that she'd had relationships with other men before - and once, in high school, with a woman - none had been as perfectly simple as hers with Emmanuel.
They fit together well, because she liked her simple life and he needed simplicity to help him recover from his amnesia. Daphne's parents had been wealthy enough that after buying her home through years of hard work, her inheritance from her father had been enough to pay for its upkeep. Any work she did herself paid for food and luxuries, and coping with Emmanuel's addition to her life had simply meant a few more hours and a lot less luxury; she didn't resent it, not only because he had nowhere else to go, but because of the simple fact she wasn't blind or deaf to how attractive he was.
She knew the police would want her to forget about finding him herself, to leave the task of recovering a suspected murderer to them, but her gut still told her that Emmanuel couldn't be responsible - not if he was in his right mind, as he had been with her in recent months despite his loss of memory. He'd been able to read and write when she met him and had some ability to hold a conversation, he'd just had blanks in his past - she hadn't been able to fill those in for him, but she had helped him fit into the world in a way that suited the abilities he still had.
The thought of what Dean might be doing to him, given the circumstances in which they had met, or the possibility of him his relapsing and turning up dazed and confused on someone else's doorstep only to be handed into the police horrified her. She'd always kept her prayers non-specific before, knowing that if God was willing to send aid, she needed to keep her mind open to whatever form it might come in, but when she clasped her hands together she only had one thought, one request; please, God, let her find Emmanuel.
Come two days later Emmanuel still hadn't returned despite her praying fervently for him each night, and Daphne knew she had two choices: continue waiting for him, possibly forever if his amnesia had left him forgetting her along with all the rest of his family and friends, or use her own wits however she could.
Dean might have left without handing over a number or a destination beyond "fixing his brother", but he was not the only person requesting Emmanuel's healing who had treated her husband like he was something other than human even before witnessing his abilities.
Except in Dean's case, Emmanuel always asked for a few quick details before and after healing, just to make certain that he could keep records and avoid being sued. One particular man had crossed out every detail on the form he'd initially filled in and replaced them, telling Emmanuel that he'd never found a miracle worker before who didn't deserve a bullet in the brain. Given Emmanuel later told him the man had made him drink from a glass of water with a crucifix immersed in it before he'd let Emmanuel touch him, the words didn't seem like hyperbole.
They had treated the man as a threat at the time, changing their locks and keeping a baseball bat by the bed while she kept her mobile on the bedside table, ready to dial 911 in an instant, but he hadn't returned. Now she couldn't help but wonder if he had been the one to pass Emmanuel's details on to Dean, and she made a note of his address, wishing she could have the police investigate in her place. She'd always obeyed the law, but that didn't mean she trusted it; if Emmanuel had to be arrested and if, God forbid, he was found guilty, she wanted him to go to jail in one piece.
Mackey treated her with suspicion at first, which didn't seem too surprising given the world that he worked in; after being tied up by a demon wearing the face of a human, Daphne could understand why those who fought them had to work in guerrilla conditions. On the other hand, Mackey didn't like having debts either, and while he wouldn't give Dean's full name or number out to her, he was willing to call him on her behalf.
Daphne was sorely tempted to snatch the phone out of Mackey's hands when it became clear that Dean was arguing against giving her any information, despite the fact that Emmanuel was her damned husband and she had a right to know, but Mackey was sharp and persuasive, jotting details down quickly before passing them on to her.
Emmanuel was in a psychiatric ward. She couldn't help but feel some relief at that - not much, but it was good to know that he was somewhere safe and warm, and somewhere that even if the police got hold of him he'd be unlikely to suffer violence.
"Word of warning," Mackey said after handing the notebook scrap over to her. "He's got his memory back. That healing ability of his? He's an angel, Castiel, the sort you don't want to mess with."
Daphne tucked the paper into her handbag carefully despite having already memorised the details on it, thanked Mackey for his time rather than trying to respond to his warning with any coherence.
Getting any information out of the hospital was almost impossible, but anything that didn't involve information about her husband - finding out where to park, what visiting times were allowed - they told her happily enough.
It was only a few hours' drive away but she still found herself uneasy in the car, restless nights and Mackey's warning having left her tired and distracted. Exhaustion could only be battled to a certain degree with coffee, and she'd drank enough to leave her stomach upset over the last few hours, but she had a destination now and after days of worrying as to whether Emmanuel was safe, she needed to see him to be certain.
Visiting hours were for half hour blocks from eight in the morning to eight in the evening, and after arriving with three hours before the earliest started, Daphne locked the car doors, angled the driver's seat backwards, and let herself catch a brief but desperately needed sleep.
Light tapping on the window stirred her from her sleep, and Daphne woke, startled, glancing down at her cell phone and relieved to see that she'd only slept an hour more than she meant to. "You okay in there?" asked the girl who'd woken her.
"I - yes, I'm fine," Daphne said, fumbling with the lock and opening the door. "I'm fine; I just came to see Emmanuel."
The girl had offered Daphne a hand in helping her up out of the car, but quickly took it back, tilting her head. "That's interesting. We don't have an Emmanuel on our wards."
"Castiel, then," Daphne said, "I don't know how to explain, my husband, he's confused and -"
The girl raised her eyebrows, something knowing in her smile, and Daphne realised she was wearing a white coat - not a visitor or administrator then, but a doctor. "I had wondered what he'd been up to lately. You should be a sight for sore eyes," she held out her hand again, shaking Daphne's, "I'm Dr. Masters, but you're welcome to call me Meg. I've been treating your husband."
Daphne knew it was likely against all sorts of rules and regulations to do so, but she hugged Meg tight for a moment before gathering herself, fixing her hair quickly and straightening out the creases in her shirt. "I'm sorry, I just thought the worst and I'm so relieved he's okay and -"
"It's fine, I'm glad he has someone who cares," Meg replied, eyes bright and flirtatious, tucking her hands into her pockets. "You're not planning on telling anyone where he is, are you? We'd prefer to keep his treatment private."
Daphne nodded, saw Meg's expression soften a little in response, and tilted her own head towards the hospital. "Can we go in?"
"I see no reason why not," Meg replied, her smile kind but something about it sending a shiver up Daphne's spine nonetheless; still, they were outside in broad daylight, and Meg wanted to lead her somewhere public and well monitored, so following her seemed safe enough.
Emmanuel showed no signs of recognition when Meg nudged Daphne into his room, taking Daphne's handbag before shutting the door behind her and leaving the two of them in relative peace. No click - there was no lock on the inside of the door, allowing the doctors to enter in a split second if they needed to for obvious reasons.
Daphne knelt in front of him, trying to catch his eyes with hers. "Emmanuel?"
"My name is Castiel," he said quietly, fingers tense where they clasped his knees and his gaze distant. He looked too small in the simple clothing the ward had given him, as if he had shrunk somehow in the days since she had last seen him.
"I don't know what's happening," she said, trying to keep calm and to keep any anxiety out of her own voice for his sake, "I heard you have your memories back. Do you know who I am?"
Emmanuel - no, Castiel, she had to try and remember that, to get used to it quickly if it was part of what he remembered about himself - nodded once, flinched when she leant forward and closed her hands over his. The room wasn't especially warm or cold, but his fingers felt frozen under hers and she was glad to share the heat of her own with him.
"What do you remember?" Daphne asked, going further when he didn't initially respond and adding, "I've heard - your friends have said that you're an angel. Is that true?"
Saying it out loud felt ridiculous, but parts of her felt that maybe the impossible explanation was the one that made the most sense. She'd already figured that if demons could live on Earth then angels should be able to, but thinking about it explained so many other things about him from the healing to his complete lack of a need to eat, sleep or drink.
The quiet stretched on and she let go of his hands, let hers drop to his feet. "What do you remember about us?" she asked, rubbing his feet through the surface of his lace-less shoes, "The first time we kissed was in the kitchen. You were taking the chicken out of the oven while I made gravy, and -"
"I said I remember you," Castiel said gruffly, voice rough as if he wasn't used to having it. "But it doesn't matter. You can't be my wife. This body has been married before."
Daphne swallowed down bile and the beginnings of a headache, grit out the question, "And you?"
Castiel seemed to recognise that she was there, looked straight at her as he tilted his head and frowned in confusion. There was a stiffness to him he hadn't had as Emmanuel, even if his gestures were still the same. "What does it matter to humans?"
"It matters!" she snapped, furious at him for claiming he'd been married before and not explaining himself, as if an earlier marriage didn't matter - as if their marriage didn't matter. "It matters to me, it matters to God -"
"Nothing matters to God anymore," Castiel said, and she freed a hand to slap him. If Meg or any other doctor noticed, they didn't come inside the room to protest.
It was like slapping a statue, her fingers stinging, but he looked surprised despite the lack of any visible pain on his part. "I married you, I love you, and you're writing off our marriage because your body has been married before? What about the rest of you? Do angels marry?"
Castiel looked startled, the expression taking years off him and making him look like her Emmanuel once more. "I don't know," he replied, reaching out hesitantly to take her hands and healing the sting away in an instant when she allowed him to. "I don't know if we can. I don't have anyone left to ask."
Daphne knew this sort of confusion, stumbling for answers and finding none, and she nodded, trying to coax anything else out of him he could share. "Don't you have God?"
"God stopped talking a long time ago," Castiel said, bowing his head and wincing, "We had Michael and others, and they're gone, and it's my fault," he let go of her hands, stood up and walked a short distance from the bed, turning to face her as she rose to her own feet. "I'm all that's left, and it's my fault."
Daphne closed the short distance between them, wrapped her arms around Castiel's waist and held him tight, unable to pretend she wasn't frightened by the implications of what he had said but unwilling to let the fact she loved him slide. "You're not alone," she said, the headache that had threatened earlier now throbbing and sore, but easy to ignore under the circumstances. "I won't let you do this alone."
"I have to," Castiel said, though he didn't push her away. "Lucifer won't rest until one or both of us is dead."
"He can try," she replied, feeling Castiel's hands grip her shoulders and waiting on a push that never came, his hands sliding down further as he hugged her back, embracing her as awkwardly as if he'd forgotten how to do it.
Whatever had distracted him earlier when she first came in seemed to be distracting him again, and even if he didn't say anything, she could feel him shivering. She prayed Meg and the other doctors would be able to help him; seeing him terrified was a miserable experience, and she gripped him tighter, said quietly, "Whatever it is, ignore it. I'm here, I'm real."
"He's lying," Castiel said, tilting his head to rest it against hers more easily. "You are beautiful."
Daphne wasn't sure how long she spent holding Castiel, but when the door to his room opened and Meg cleared her throat politely, letting go of him seemed impossible, as if her arms had locked in place around him.
"Can we have five more minutes?" Daphne asked, stroking Castiel's back gently through his top and forcing down anger when she saw Meg shake her head.
"I let you have five minutes, I have to let everyone have five more," Meg said. "Sorry sweetheart, but rules are rules."
Daphne nodded, forcing herself to let Castiel go but not before kissing him, finding his lips far less hesitant and awkward than his arms had been.
"I'll be back soon," Daphne said, "Every day, if that's what it takes."
Castiel was quiet at first, seeming to weigh his options despite Meg tapping her foot with impatience, before saying, "I shouldn't ask you to."
"Then don't," Daphne replied. "I'll see you soon."
He didn't smile, but the tension in his shoulders seemed to ease for a brief moment; even if it was a brief moment, at least that was something. "I would appreciate that."
Meg's impatience seemed to disappear as soon as the door was closed and locked, Daphne noticing patterns in the paint scratches around the handle but not saying anything about it. "If you're going to be a regular visitor, we have a support group for patients' families -"
"No thank you," Daphne cut across quickly, knowing that her belief of her husband's claims about his origins would not make her popular - if anything, it was likely to earn her a stay in the ward of her own. Not wanting to seem rude, however, she quickly moved onto another question, one that actually had some relevance to her and one that Meg ought to be able to answer. "Are we allowed to visit more than once a day, or do I have to wait until tomorrow to see him again?"
Meg tucked her hands into her pockets, tilting her head back slightly as if assessing Daphne before replying, "It's a daily thing on weekdays, but you can squeeze a bit of extra time out on weekends."
Daphne took her handbag back from Meg, taking out a pen and paper to make a note and looking up afterwards to find Meg staring at her. "What?"
"Nothing," Meg said, looking almost sad for a moment before quickly returning to her previous flirtatious state. "It's just that a lot of people in here could have done with someone like you."
Daphne didn't entirely know how to react to that, but she figured a "Thank you" was enough.
Even if Castiel didn't believe God could help, Daphne still knew in her heart that He had guided her to him in the first place, and she more than suspected He had given her a nudge in working out how to find him again. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had silent guidance.
Daphne made a quick prayer of thanks as soon as she was behind the wheel of her car, knowing that once she was back home any desire to pray would be straight out of the window in favour of getting a decent sleep. For the most part, she wanted to pretend everything was normal now - she just happened to be calling her husband by a different name, and he happened to be spending what could be weeks, months, or years locked up.
She'd always been a practical woman though, and in between navigating roads she knew would be very familiar in the next few days, she found herself thinking up a rough plan of what she'd have to do in light of what had happened. Moving closer to him was necessary if she wanted to visit him daily without a colossal gas bill or exhausting herself with hours of driving, and it would save her having to plan her visits around work if she simply got a job nearby the hospital.
She didn't especially want to rent out the bedrooms in their home, but she didn't want to give the house up either; the income from rent would more than cover her living costs if she moved into a flat closer to him, and whenever he was able to come home, at least this way they would have a home to return to.
Feeling tears come that had somehow stayed inside while she faced Castiel, Daphne pulled the car over quickly, hoping no one would assume she'd parked because of an accident because she didn't want any attention.
She had known when she first found and named Emmanuel that she was getting into something bigger than her, but the life they had made together had been a small, good life, ordinary to some but perfect for them. She had never asked for much, knew she'd been dealt a great hand with loving parents, good health and comfortable finances, but she'd wanted love. Emmanuel had literally stumbled into her life and they had fallen into each other easily - she'd had boyfriends before him, and a girlfriend, once, in high school, but she had known in each of those relationships that even if they were fun, none of them were meant to last.
Daphne had known Castiel was the one she was going to spend the rest of her life with. Even now with the thought that he could be an angel, could be a murderer, the part that upset her most was knowing that her husband was terrified and she had no means of helping him directly.
Daphne sobbed because she had asked for one thing, to love and to be loved, and she had found it only to have the one she loved be battered and bruised by his own mind.
She would wait however long it took for him to get better, she'd pray every day and every night for him to stop hurting, and she had hope, she truly did, because how could someone as good as Castiel be as beyond saving as he seemed to think?
But hope was a quiet thing, a whisper of a thing, and when everything else in the world screamed in her ear that there was nothing worth holding onto, hope just wasn't loud enough.
The End
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Castiel/Daphne
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3598
Spoilers: Up to and including 7x17
Summary: Daphne had found him lost and confused once before, she wasn't about to give up on him a second time.
Author's Notes: My thanks and love to scarletsherlock for betaing <3.
Daphne didn't believe in expressions like "too good to last" or "too good to be true". Good wasn't something flawed by nature - it was built to last, to enjoy without guilt, to trust and believe in. Sometimes an ordinary or bad thing could be confused with something good, but moments of poor judgement or loss of hope were not reason enough to become defeatist.
When Emmanuel had not come home after disappearing with Dean, she had kept calm and called the police; when they told her later that same day that her husband was wanted for murder and she was lucky to be alive, she called in sick to work, went home to bed, curled up on his side of it and started sobbing.
God had guided her to Emmanuel, she knew that much. Something had told her the man she had found naked and confused was no threat, and that something was right - he was a kind man who understood, sympathised with, and even came to share her beliefs. For all that she'd had relationships with other men before - and once, in high school, with a woman - none had been as perfectly simple as hers with Emmanuel.
They fit together well, because she liked her simple life and he needed simplicity to help him recover from his amnesia. Daphne's parents had been wealthy enough that after buying her home through years of hard work, her inheritance from her father had been enough to pay for its upkeep. Any work she did herself paid for food and luxuries, and coping with Emmanuel's addition to her life had simply meant a few more hours and a lot less luxury; she didn't resent it, not only because he had nowhere else to go, but because of the simple fact she wasn't blind or deaf to how attractive he was.
She knew the police would want her to forget about finding him herself, to leave the task of recovering a suspected murderer to them, but her gut still told her that Emmanuel couldn't be responsible - not if he was in his right mind, as he had been with her in recent months despite his loss of memory. He'd been able to read and write when she met him and had some ability to hold a conversation, he'd just had blanks in his past - she hadn't been able to fill those in for him, but she had helped him fit into the world in a way that suited the abilities he still had.
The thought of what Dean might be doing to him, given the circumstances in which they had met, or the possibility of him his relapsing and turning up dazed and confused on someone else's doorstep only to be handed into the police horrified her. She'd always kept her prayers non-specific before, knowing that if God was willing to send aid, she needed to keep her mind open to whatever form it might come in, but when she clasped her hands together she only had one thought, one request; please, God, let her find Emmanuel.
Come two days later Emmanuel still hadn't returned despite her praying fervently for him each night, and Daphne knew she had two choices: continue waiting for him, possibly forever if his amnesia had left him forgetting her along with all the rest of his family and friends, or use her own wits however she could.
Dean might have left without handing over a number or a destination beyond "fixing his brother", but he was not the only person requesting Emmanuel's healing who had treated her husband like he was something other than human even before witnessing his abilities.
Except in Dean's case, Emmanuel always asked for a few quick details before and after healing, just to make certain that he could keep records and avoid being sued. One particular man had crossed out every detail on the form he'd initially filled in and replaced them, telling Emmanuel that he'd never found a miracle worker before who didn't deserve a bullet in the brain. Given Emmanuel later told him the man had made him drink from a glass of water with a crucifix immersed in it before he'd let Emmanuel touch him, the words didn't seem like hyperbole.
They had treated the man as a threat at the time, changing their locks and keeping a baseball bat by the bed while she kept her mobile on the bedside table, ready to dial 911 in an instant, but he hadn't returned. Now she couldn't help but wonder if he had been the one to pass Emmanuel's details on to Dean, and she made a note of his address, wishing she could have the police investigate in her place. She'd always obeyed the law, but that didn't mean she trusted it; if Emmanuel had to be arrested and if, God forbid, he was found guilty, she wanted him to go to jail in one piece.
Mackey treated her with suspicion at first, which didn't seem too surprising given the world that he worked in; after being tied up by a demon wearing the face of a human, Daphne could understand why those who fought them had to work in guerrilla conditions. On the other hand, Mackey didn't like having debts either, and while he wouldn't give Dean's full name or number out to her, he was willing to call him on her behalf.
Daphne was sorely tempted to snatch the phone out of Mackey's hands when it became clear that Dean was arguing against giving her any information, despite the fact that Emmanuel was her damned husband and she had a right to know, but Mackey was sharp and persuasive, jotting details down quickly before passing them on to her.
Emmanuel was in a psychiatric ward. She couldn't help but feel some relief at that - not much, but it was good to know that he was somewhere safe and warm, and somewhere that even if the police got hold of him he'd be unlikely to suffer violence.
"Word of warning," Mackey said after handing the notebook scrap over to her. "He's got his memory back. That healing ability of his? He's an angel, Castiel, the sort you don't want to mess with."
Daphne tucked the paper into her handbag carefully despite having already memorised the details on it, thanked Mackey for his time rather than trying to respond to his warning with any coherence.
Getting any information out of the hospital was almost impossible, but anything that didn't involve information about her husband - finding out where to park, what visiting times were allowed - they told her happily enough.
It was only a few hours' drive away but she still found herself uneasy in the car, restless nights and Mackey's warning having left her tired and distracted. Exhaustion could only be battled to a certain degree with coffee, and she'd drank enough to leave her stomach upset over the last few hours, but she had a destination now and after days of worrying as to whether Emmanuel was safe, she needed to see him to be certain.
Visiting hours were for half hour blocks from eight in the morning to eight in the evening, and after arriving with three hours before the earliest started, Daphne locked the car doors, angled the driver's seat backwards, and let herself catch a brief but desperately needed sleep.
Light tapping on the window stirred her from her sleep, and Daphne woke, startled, glancing down at her cell phone and relieved to see that she'd only slept an hour more than she meant to. "You okay in there?" asked the girl who'd woken her.
"I - yes, I'm fine," Daphne said, fumbling with the lock and opening the door. "I'm fine; I just came to see Emmanuel."
The girl had offered Daphne a hand in helping her up out of the car, but quickly took it back, tilting her head. "That's interesting. We don't have an Emmanuel on our wards."
"Castiel, then," Daphne said, "I don't know how to explain, my husband, he's confused and -"
The girl raised her eyebrows, something knowing in her smile, and Daphne realised she was wearing a white coat - not a visitor or administrator then, but a doctor. "I had wondered what he'd been up to lately. You should be a sight for sore eyes," she held out her hand again, shaking Daphne's, "I'm Dr. Masters, but you're welcome to call me Meg. I've been treating your husband."
Daphne knew it was likely against all sorts of rules and regulations to do so, but she hugged Meg tight for a moment before gathering herself, fixing her hair quickly and straightening out the creases in her shirt. "I'm sorry, I just thought the worst and I'm so relieved he's okay and -"
"It's fine, I'm glad he has someone who cares," Meg replied, eyes bright and flirtatious, tucking her hands into her pockets. "You're not planning on telling anyone where he is, are you? We'd prefer to keep his treatment private."
Daphne nodded, saw Meg's expression soften a little in response, and tilted her own head towards the hospital. "Can we go in?"
"I see no reason why not," Meg replied, her smile kind but something about it sending a shiver up Daphne's spine nonetheless; still, they were outside in broad daylight, and Meg wanted to lead her somewhere public and well monitored, so following her seemed safe enough.
Emmanuel showed no signs of recognition when Meg nudged Daphne into his room, taking Daphne's handbag before shutting the door behind her and leaving the two of them in relative peace. No click - there was no lock on the inside of the door, allowing the doctors to enter in a split second if they needed to for obvious reasons.
Daphne knelt in front of him, trying to catch his eyes with hers. "Emmanuel?"
"My name is Castiel," he said quietly, fingers tense where they clasped his knees and his gaze distant. He looked too small in the simple clothing the ward had given him, as if he had shrunk somehow in the days since she had last seen him.
"I don't know what's happening," she said, trying to keep calm and to keep any anxiety out of her own voice for his sake, "I heard you have your memories back. Do you know who I am?"
Emmanuel - no, Castiel, she had to try and remember that, to get used to it quickly if it was part of what he remembered about himself - nodded once, flinched when she leant forward and closed her hands over his. The room wasn't especially warm or cold, but his fingers felt frozen under hers and she was glad to share the heat of her own with him.
"What do you remember?" Daphne asked, going further when he didn't initially respond and adding, "I've heard - your friends have said that you're an angel. Is that true?"
Saying it out loud felt ridiculous, but parts of her felt that maybe the impossible explanation was the one that made the most sense. She'd already figured that if demons could live on Earth then angels should be able to, but thinking about it explained so many other things about him from the healing to his complete lack of a need to eat, sleep or drink.
The quiet stretched on and she let go of his hands, let hers drop to his feet. "What do you remember about us?" she asked, rubbing his feet through the surface of his lace-less shoes, "The first time we kissed was in the kitchen. You were taking the chicken out of the oven while I made gravy, and -"
"I said I remember you," Castiel said gruffly, voice rough as if he wasn't used to having it. "But it doesn't matter. You can't be my wife. This body has been married before."
Daphne swallowed down bile and the beginnings of a headache, grit out the question, "And you?"
Castiel seemed to recognise that she was there, looked straight at her as he tilted his head and frowned in confusion. There was a stiffness to him he hadn't had as Emmanuel, even if his gestures were still the same. "What does it matter to humans?"
"It matters!" she snapped, furious at him for claiming he'd been married before and not explaining himself, as if an earlier marriage didn't matter - as if their marriage didn't matter. "It matters to me, it matters to God -"
"Nothing matters to God anymore," Castiel said, and she freed a hand to slap him. If Meg or any other doctor noticed, they didn't come inside the room to protest.
It was like slapping a statue, her fingers stinging, but he looked surprised despite the lack of any visible pain on his part. "I married you, I love you, and you're writing off our marriage because your body has been married before? What about the rest of you? Do angels marry?"
Castiel looked startled, the expression taking years off him and making him look like her Emmanuel once more. "I don't know," he replied, reaching out hesitantly to take her hands and healing the sting away in an instant when she allowed him to. "I don't know if we can. I don't have anyone left to ask."
Daphne knew this sort of confusion, stumbling for answers and finding none, and she nodded, trying to coax anything else out of him he could share. "Don't you have God?"
"God stopped talking a long time ago," Castiel said, bowing his head and wincing, "We had Michael and others, and they're gone, and it's my fault," he let go of her hands, stood up and walked a short distance from the bed, turning to face her as she rose to her own feet. "I'm all that's left, and it's my fault."
Daphne closed the short distance between them, wrapped her arms around Castiel's waist and held him tight, unable to pretend she wasn't frightened by the implications of what he had said but unwilling to let the fact she loved him slide. "You're not alone," she said, the headache that had threatened earlier now throbbing and sore, but easy to ignore under the circumstances. "I won't let you do this alone."
"I have to," Castiel said, though he didn't push her away. "Lucifer won't rest until one or both of us is dead."
"He can try," she replied, feeling Castiel's hands grip her shoulders and waiting on a push that never came, his hands sliding down further as he hugged her back, embracing her as awkwardly as if he'd forgotten how to do it.
Whatever had distracted him earlier when she first came in seemed to be distracting him again, and even if he didn't say anything, she could feel him shivering. She prayed Meg and the other doctors would be able to help him; seeing him terrified was a miserable experience, and she gripped him tighter, said quietly, "Whatever it is, ignore it. I'm here, I'm real."
"He's lying," Castiel said, tilting his head to rest it against hers more easily. "You are beautiful."
Daphne wasn't sure how long she spent holding Castiel, but when the door to his room opened and Meg cleared her throat politely, letting go of him seemed impossible, as if her arms had locked in place around him.
"Can we have five more minutes?" Daphne asked, stroking Castiel's back gently through his top and forcing down anger when she saw Meg shake her head.
"I let you have five minutes, I have to let everyone have five more," Meg said. "Sorry sweetheart, but rules are rules."
Daphne nodded, forcing herself to let Castiel go but not before kissing him, finding his lips far less hesitant and awkward than his arms had been.
"I'll be back soon," Daphne said, "Every day, if that's what it takes."
Castiel was quiet at first, seeming to weigh his options despite Meg tapping her foot with impatience, before saying, "I shouldn't ask you to."
"Then don't," Daphne replied. "I'll see you soon."
He didn't smile, but the tension in his shoulders seemed to ease for a brief moment; even if it was a brief moment, at least that was something. "I would appreciate that."
Meg's impatience seemed to disappear as soon as the door was closed and locked, Daphne noticing patterns in the paint scratches around the handle but not saying anything about it. "If you're going to be a regular visitor, we have a support group for patients' families -"
"No thank you," Daphne cut across quickly, knowing that her belief of her husband's claims about his origins would not make her popular - if anything, it was likely to earn her a stay in the ward of her own. Not wanting to seem rude, however, she quickly moved onto another question, one that actually had some relevance to her and one that Meg ought to be able to answer. "Are we allowed to visit more than once a day, or do I have to wait until tomorrow to see him again?"
Meg tucked her hands into her pockets, tilting her head back slightly as if assessing Daphne before replying, "It's a daily thing on weekdays, but you can squeeze a bit of extra time out on weekends."
Daphne took her handbag back from Meg, taking out a pen and paper to make a note and looking up afterwards to find Meg staring at her. "What?"
"Nothing," Meg said, looking almost sad for a moment before quickly returning to her previous flirtatious state. "It's just that a lot of people in here could have done with someone like you."
Daphne didn't entirely know how to react to that, but she figured a "Thank you" was enough.
Even if Castiel didn't believe God could help, Daphne still knew in her heart that He had guided her to him in the first place, and she more than suspected He had given her a nudge in working out how to find him again. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had silent guidance.
Daphne made a quick prayer of thanks as soon as she was behind the wheel of her car, knowing that once she was back home any desire to pray would be straight out of the window in favour of getting a decent sleep. For the most part, she wanted to pretend everything was normal now - she just happened to be calling her husband by a different name, and he happened to be spending what could be weeks, months, or years locked up.
She'd always been a practical woman though, and in between navigating roads she knew would be very familiar in the next few days, she found herself thinking up a rough plan of what she'd have to do in light of what had happened. Moving closer to him was necessary if she wanted to visit him daily without a colossal gas bill or exhausting herself with hours of driving, and it would save her having to plan her visits around work if she simply got a job nearby the hospital.
She didn't especially want to rent out the bedrooms in their home, but she didn't want to give the house up either; the income from rent would more than cover her living costs if she moved into a flat closer to him, and whenever he was able to come home, at least this way they would have a home to return to.
Feeling tears come that had somehow stayed inside while she faced Castiel, Daphne pulled the car over quickly, hoping no one would assume she'd parked because of an accident because she didn't want any attention.
She had known when she first found and named Emmanuel that she was getting into something bigger than her, but the life they had made together had been a small, good life, ordinary to some but perfect for them. She had never asked for much, knew she'd been dealt a great hand with loving parents, good health and comfortable finances, but she'd wanted love. Emmanuel had literally stumbled into her life and they had fallen into each other easily - she'd had boyfriends before him, and a girlfriend, once, in high school, but she had known in each of those relationships that even if they were fun, none of them were meant to last.
Daphne had known Castiel was the one she was going to spend the rest of her life with. Even now with the thought that he could be an angel, could be a murderer, the part that upset her most was knowing that her husband was terrified and she had no means of helping him directly.
Daphne sobbed because she had asked for one thing, to love and to be loved, and she had found it only to have the one she loved be battered and bruised by his own mind.
She would wait however long it took for him to get better, she'd pray every day and every night for him to stop hurting, and she had hope, she truly did, because how could someone as good as Castiel be as beyond saving as he seemed to think?
But hope was a quiet thing, a whisper of a thing, and when everything else in the world screamed in her ear that there was nothing worth holding onto, hope just wasn't loud enough.
The End