Song Remains the Same

Chapter 107: Ad Purgatorium

Even though it was night, the sky wasn't pitch black in this strange land. It was dark grey and as she scaled the tree and rose to the top of the treeline, she could see the endless jagged treetops forming a perverse lace edge all along the horizon. And then to one direction, she saw what she had been hoping to see. A huge tree that dwarfed all the others and rose above them in a crooked, strange mess of limbs that reached out into the sky. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The dead center of Purgatory. And she wasn't that far from it, maybe a half a day's walk. That was the way out of this place if you had the Wayfinder. Which she did... in her pocket, promising to get them out when the time was right.

But... her heart sank as she looked around in a three-hundred and sixty degree survey of Purgatory. The trees didn't end. Anywhere. They went on possibly forever, as far as the eye could see. How am I supposed to find them? If they're even still alive? I'm not the best tracker and they could be anywhere...

Every atom that was Alex remained desperate to lay eyes on two of the most important men in her life. But she was forced to remember that she wasn't just here for Dean and Cas... she had to find Crowley's desired object. Without it, Sam wouldn't recover because of the deal she'd made. Alex shut her eyes and breathed steadily, overwhelmed. She had come this far and done this much already to mess it up now. I can do this. Just don't jump the gun. One step at a time. It's all on me so I gotta be careful to do this right.

She opened her eyes back up and searched the darkness all around, all the endless miles of danger and potential death. It was humbling and terrifying all at once to realize what she was in that moment: one small human against all of Purgatory in search of two of the most precious things in the universe. Despite that knowledge and how petrified she truly was inside, Alex summoned courage and refused to let fear control her. She put two faces in her mind and concentrated on them and the love she felt for them.

If you ' re out there, I ' ll find you. If it takes me a thousand years, I ' ll find you.

She didn't notice when her hand errantly went up to touch her penny necklace—it was something she did mindlessly when she was anxious, a habit she'd barely noticed forming ever since she had begun wearing it nearly three years ago. And then her fingers found nothing but empty skin and she remembered, once again, that she had lost it months ago when Cas disappeared and that her fingers were ghosts, seeking something that was gone. She hoped her heart was not the same.

Meanwhile

Castiel realized that he was doing it again—absently touching the penny and ring he had begun to wear around his neck during the time here in Purgatory. Beneath his shirt they rested against his skin and close to his heart. It seemed a fitting place for those objects that represented the best thing about his existence. He took his hand away from the familiar little shape of them, but nothing could take away the dull, constant ache of loneliness and yearning he carried in her name.

Where are you right now? Are you all right without me? Are you better off? Do you miss me like I miss you? Do you think of me like I think of you?

He thought of her sadly and without ceasing. He saw her brother every day and Dean reminded him of her painfully. Same freckly complexion, same stubborn attitude. He worried continually over how Alex was, where she was. If she was safe. If he would see her again. And if he saw her again, how she would look at him now. He could remember his time of insanity and he had developed very embarrassed, rueful feelings about it all—he had been truly out of his mind and could remember how stressed she had been made by his bumbling, unpredictable condition. He likened their relationship during that time almost to adult caregiver and child. And he was sorry it had become like that. He was sorry he had become a surface-level version of himself that had been obsessed with flowers and bees and collecting her fallen hairs. It had made sense at the time, but at the time he'd also been psychotic, so...