Chapter Text
Castiel looked around the garden trying to take in every detail of his surroundings. There were high reaching trees, colourful flowers and everything in-between. He couldn’t even name half of the plants that were growing here. But all those colours coalescing into something so breathtakingly beautiful simply took his breath away. And as the low afternoon sun warmed his face, the rays still shining strong above the green hills in the distance, he closed his eyes and breathed in the fragrant smells that surrounded him. The tension from his body just draining away more and more with every breath.
“Dr. Novak?”
He felt the faint touch of a hand on his shoulder, and instinctively opened his eyes. The garden was gone; instead his eyes fell on a white styrofoam cup filled with lukewarm black slush and a rather sad-looking sandwich that consisted of stale bread and cooked ham, both of which were currently sitting on the table in front of him in the doctors’ break room. He must have fallen asleep again. To be fair, he was in the middle of a 24-hour shift that was already lasting closer to 30 and it really wasn’t a surprising occurrence anymore to doze off every chance he got.
Castiel sat up slowly, stretching his arms over his head and rolling his shoulders to get rid of the stiffness. His next nap really needed to happen in a real bed if he wanted to avoid back or neck problems in his near future.
“How long was I out?”
“About ten minutes, I think. Just wanted to let you know that Mr. Hudson’s asking for you.”
Castiel sighed, dropping his arms back down onto his lap. His eyes fell back to the pathetic excuse of a sandwich and then he scrunched up his face, feeling nauseated just thinking about eating another bite of it. He pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath, and then got up from the chair grabbing the paper plate with the offending sandwich to throw it into the trash can.
“Okay, let’s see what he wants this time,” he said as he motioned for Brenda to walk ahead of him.
Time to go back to work.
* * * *
Castiel stepped out of the elevator and into the busy setting that was the Emergency Department at Stanford Medical Health. There was rarely a quiet moment to be had down here with nurses, doctors and patients running around in various states of distress. Despite the lack of sleep Castiel loved working here because there was always someone who needed help and it never got boring. This was especially the case when one of his closest friends from med school, Dr. Balthazar Dupree who was also head of neurology, came by during his breaks to talk to the nurses, or rather one nurse he had taken a special interest in lately.
“Castiel, I just talked to Brenda here and she told me she found you with your face on your sandwich, asleep,” Balthazar remarked with the hint of a smile as Castiel approached him.
“I wasn’t …”, Castiel began, his tone defensive even though he knew Balthazar was right. There really was no point in denying that he was tired but he hadn’t actually been sleeping on his sandwich. Or had he? His mind was drawing a blank so in the end he just shrugged his shoulders.
“When was the last time you slept in your own bed?” Balthazar asked, more serious this time, a worried expression on his face.
“I don’t know,” Castiel admitted although he knew the answer to that perfectly well - it had been two days ago after an especially gruelling shift and he had slept 12 hours straight afterwards. Then he had come back to work and hadn’t really left since.
“Well, in that case, you should probably go home and sleep. We don’t want you to get cheese all over your pretty face now, do we?”
“Going home is not going to get me the attending position though. You know how tough it is, you’ve been in this situation, Balth. And if I remember correctly, you didn’t go home for weeks on end.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean …”
“Novak? I could use a hand here,” another attending yelled from across the room as he was trying to calm down a patient who was flailing with all her limbs, trying to claw at his face and repeatedly kicking him.
“I will see you later, Balthazar.”
Castiel patted him on the shoulder and then walked towards the patient beds, pointedly ignoring his friend when he yelled “go home” as he grabbed a syringe and a sedative for the patient from a nearby cart.
Of course, he was tired. But he also needed to show he was committed to his job so that he would get the single attending position the hospital had to offer this year. If he didn’t get it he was either going to have to stay here as a resident for another year or move to god knows where, and away from his sister, the only family he had left.
He would simply have to suck it up and stay awake for as long as it was required, even if that meant quick naps on a sandwich in the break room.
* * * *
Castiel spent the next few hours treating patients – stitching up cuts, cleaning wounds and trying to convince people that just because some obscure website had told them it was cancer didn’t mean they actually had cancer. At some point he even got proposed to twice by the same elderly lady with dementia who had broken her wrist in a fall and kept calling him “Charles”. All in all, it was a quiet day.
Pneumonia, UTI, migraine. Rinse and repeat.
* * * *
“So, the school wants the parents to make the costumes for their kids. But like, when am I supposed to do that?”
“Can’t you just go to one of those costume shops and buy something? I’m sure no one is going to notice.”
The break room was usually the quietest area in the hospital and the perfect place for doing paperwork, plus it had a coffee machine that actually made half-decent coffee. And that was why, more often than not, Castiel came here to sign off his patient files, trying to keep his paperwork as meticulous as possible. For that though, it needed to be quiet. But today Brenda and Jordan had decided to spend their lunch break talking animatedly about Brenda’s kid and her upcoming school play. And that was positively not quiet.
“You are so lucky, Castiel.”
It took him a moment to realise that someone had said his name, and when he looked up from his paperwork, Jordan and Brenda were looking at him, an expectant look on both their faces. He hadn’t heard the question so just kept staring at them with a blank expression, the pen still perched over the same spot he had started to sign his name on.
“Just saying, all you have to worry about is work. Must be nice,” Brenda shrugged her shoulders and turned back to Jordan who nodded in agreement.
Castiel watched them for a bit as they moved on to talk about other things that were happening in the hospital - the new doctor up in paediatrics who was apparently charming everyone’s pants off with his smile and other gossip that Castiel was not interested in. Thankfully, it only took him another ten minutes to finish everything and so he grabbed the stack of files and headed back to the records room, glad he didn't have to listen to more gossip.
As he walked back to the Emergency Department his mind drifted back to what Brenda had said. Thing was, he didn’t want work to be all he was worried about. Because even though he loved his job, he wanted more than spending endless hours at work. He wanted someone he could share his life with. And while there had been a few potential candidates in his past, most of them had bailed as soon as it became clear to them that they would have to share Castiel with his job. It had always turned into some kind of ultimatum - and in the end, it had always been his job that had won.
His sister Anna had made it her personal mission to find him as many dates as she possibly could, from random guys she had met at the supermarket to a friend of a friend. Castiel knew she meant well because she was his big sister and had looked out for him his entire life but considering she was single herself, although by choice as she kept telling him, it was difficult for him to understand her obsession with trying to get him laid.
As he put away the last patient file into the appropriate tray in the room adjacent to the nurses’ station that was stuffed full with medicine cabinets, supplies and filing cabinets, his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He leaned against the back wall and smiled as he pressed the phone to his ear,
“Anna, hello.”
“You are still coming over tonight, right?”
“Yes, I was planning to. Why?”
Castiel watched as a nurse came running in to grab a few suturing sets off the shelf. She did a double take when she turned around and saw Castiel standing there, her hand moving to her chest in response. He mouthed a quick 'sorry' and gave her an apologetic smile.
“You are like a ghost, Castiel,” she whispered, then winked at him and left the room with the supplies.
“... and I know you don’t like surprises that much but...”
Castiel turned his attention back to the call and his sister’s rambling about something he hadn’t quite caught. Something about another friend she wanted to introduce him to tonight.
“Anna…”
“He is really nice and you are perfect for each other.”
“You know, I am perfectly capable of meeting people myself.”
“I know that, Castiel. But wouldn’t it be nice for once if they weren’t bleeding while you talk to them?”
“Funny.”
“Oh, I have to go now. See-you-at-seven-bye.”
Castiel sighed as he lowered the phone to lock it and stow it back in his pocket. He wasn’t even angry with his sister for trying to set him up anymore but these things never lasted more than one or two dates anyway. And just because Anna thought he was perfect for her little brother didn’t mean he was interesting or someone Castiel could imagine spending the rest of his life with. He had learned that the hard way when one blind date had taken him home a couple of months ago and then had showed him his collection the creepiest dolls Castiel had ever seen.
“Novak! We got a trauma case coming in in 5. You up for it?”
Castiel saw his attending Dr. Walsh standing at the counter when he walked back out of the records room. She didn't wait for his answer, instead proceeded to march towards the exit to the parking bay for the ambulances.
“How long have you been here?” the older doctor raised an eyebrow at him when Castiel finally caught up with her, trying his best to stifle a yawn.
“I am good.”
“Novak. Tell me or I’ll have you empty bed pans for the rest of the week,” she gave him one of her trademark looks that were constantly scaring all of her residents even though the woman was only about half their size.
“31 hours,” he finally admitted, knowing perfectly well that he should not be treating new patients anymore anyway. And he was not going to be working on this trauma case now that he had told her, either.
Walsh eyed him for a few moments then turned her head back to a group of other residents on the other side of the room and called, “Miller, we got a trauma case. You up for it?”
Castiel let out a defeated sigh, his shoulders dropping down in resignation as Walsh turned back to him, a sympathetic smile on her face.
“Novak, you are an exceptional doctor. You are going to become an attending sooner rather than later. But do yourself and your patients a favour, and go home. Get some sleep. I will see you tomorrow.”
And then Castiel watched as the two doctors walked towards the ambulance that had just arrived outside.
Well, at least he would make it to dinner this time.
* * * *
Half an hour later, after a quick shower, he had changed into black slacks, a white button-up shirt and a blue cardigan that Anna had given him for Christmas last year (and according to her made his eyes stand out), and was now jogging across the parking lot towards his car.
The sky was an ominous dark grey and it had just started to rain when Castiel came up to his beaten down Triumph Acclaim. And as he was once again trying to get the keys to work, it crossed his mind that he really needed to look into getting a new car. The doors didn’t really lock anymore and the seatbelts were basic at best. His sister had mockingly named the car ‘death trap’ a few weeks ago when she had taken it into a garage for a checkup and, while the brakes and everything were working fine, the mechanic had told her it was just a matter of time before the engine would die on them. Castiel had insisted on driving it for a bit longer because he really liked the car and most of the time it worked just fine. But it was on days like this when he wished he had listened to his sister.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, the rain picked up quite a bit, the wipers pushing the water around on the windshield instead of clearing it away, effectively making it worse to the point where the street in front of him looked like a watercolour painting. There wasn’t a lot of traffic so he slowed down a bit, his eyes firmly trained on the blurry street in front of him.
When he was halfway across the first intersection, he suddenly noticed a bright light in his peripheral vision. He turned his head as if on autopilot, tearing his eyes off the street to see what was happening. The heavy rain made it impossible for him to see anything but then there was a loud crash and he felt his head forcefully connect with the window to his left before his whole body was yanked back to the other side.
Castiel wasn’t sure what had happened but when he finally managed to open his eyes the first thing he noticed was that the rain had picked up even more. There was a faint sound of voices outside but the heavy cacophony of the rain, pelting down on the roof of his car, was too loud to make out any words.
The next thing he noticed, as he looked down at his hands, was that they were covered in blood. And then there was a whiff of cold air on the left side of his face and suddenly the voices were back, closer this time, but he still couldn’t make out what they were saying.
He closed his eyes for a few moments, his head dropping back onto the headrest, and tried to remember what had happened. There was a faint pressure on his leg and when he opened his eyes again, his vision was blurry around the edges. He could make out someone sitting in front of him, their face contorted into a horrified expression before something was pushed against his head. Someone was talking but no matter how hard Castiel tried, he couldn’t make sense of the words or if they were even meant for him.
It was getting increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open and someone was yanking at his shoulder. The last thing he noticed were the bright flashing lights that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Then everything went black.