The Wheels On The Bus Chapter 29

Jack’s head is pounding when he opens his eyes.

Which is enough to alarm him straight into alertness, because the last thing he remembers is falling asleep in his chair, a calm enough memory that doesn’t warrant waking up on the floor, back propped on a wall, feeling like something sharp is being dragged out of his skull.

He puts a hand on the wall behind him and pushes himself up.

The infirmary is a wreck. Dean, Sam and Belphegor appeared to have slept through whatever’s happened - himself too, somehow - but Belphegor’s bed has been pushed aside slightly, there’s dust all over the place, and there’s a huge jagged hole where the door used to be.

There’s the stench of Grace in the air, smelling like ozone and burning wood.

Although that might just be the smell of property damage.

He runs out of the room. The wreckage extends there as well, with the wall across him also busted through, like whatever had blasted through the door had hit that, and every other succeeding wall behind it. Several lights in the hallway are blown out, and the damaged rooms themselves are dark.

To his right, there’s the sound of running, and a couple of shouts.

Jack turns. There’s a crowd hurriedly pushing several  gurneys down the corridor.

He takes a step back, getting out of the way as they rush the wounded into the infirmary. To their credit, they take the damaged doorway in stride and pay it no mind, focusing on getting everyone they can inside, and making room.

“What’s going on?” he asks. Aside from the people on the gurneys, there’s a couple of other injured hunters trying to hobble their way into the infirmary - broken arms, broken legs, some wounds still steadily gushing out blood from their torsos. It’s the aftermath of a fight.

Thankfully someone answers him, letting go of the gurney she’d been helping push so that it can fit through the door as the remaining others let it through. “We got attacked.”

“By what?’

The hunter’s eyes darken. “An angel.”

Jack’s blood turns cold.

They can’t have lost Heaven, can they? There were already few angels enough as it is, they’d been sure that they’d have to sit the whole thing out if their numbers stayed the same. That was the whole point of trying to get angels revived in the first place, so they had more fighters on their side without completely collapsing Heaven.

...did Dean succeed and an angel already turned against them?

But that wouldn’t make any sense. The plan was to revive angels who they knew would help them. Dean wouldn’t just get the Empty to send back everyone carelessly.

“We’re gonna need a blood transfusion!” someone yells down the hallway.

At the sound of the voice, Jack turns, and he pales as he sees who’s on the gurney.

“Adam!”

The young man is unconscious, dust and blood smeared all over his skin and clothes. There’s a dark stain all over his stomach, a large sword sticking out of his torso.

“Step aside,” the hunter beside him says, gently pushing him back so the gurney can get through.

“What the hell happened?” he asks.

“He saved us,” the hunter says. “I don’t know how - I still don’t understand what the fuck happened, but he did it, somehow.”

Through the doorway, Jack sees the hunters pushing aside the occupied beds and loading the unconscious injured onto the empty ones. When they see that there’s barely enough beds, they let the injured stay on the gurneys instead.

“Okay, everyone who’s not bed-bound - we’re gonna need you to be in the other empty rooms, we need this space - “

A few other injured hunters begin their way out, assisted by their unharmed friends.

Jack snaps out of his shock as he realizes what’s happening.

“Wait - wait!” he says. “I can help. I can heal them.”

“Get the fuck in here, then, kid!” someone from inside the infirmary yells, and Jack rushes in.

He goes to Adam’s side first. Someone’s already taken the sword out of his stomach and is currently cutting his shirt open to get to the wound.

“Can you deal with this?” the hunter asks.

“Yeah,” Jack says, wasting no time in hovering a hand over Adam’s wound. Slowly, the skin and muscle start to knit themselves back into place, until there’s nothing but unmarred flesh underneath all the blood. The bruises and cuts all over Adam disappear after it.

“Good job,” someone says, gently patting Jack’s shoulder. A memory from his time in the alternate universe comes back to him, and his breath catches for a moment. “Help us out here, we’ve got a couple more.”

“Of course,” Jack says, stepping back. He turns to the next bed.

It’s going to be a long day.

-

A hunter (her name is Marge, he learns) hands him a bottle of water. He takes it, giving her a soft, “Thank you,” and she nods and continues to hand out water to the rest of her colleagues.

Everyone’s patched up now. A few are still unconscious - Adam included - but they’re all fine.

There’s a couple who didn’t make it, sadly, the ones who’d died instantly during the attack before Adam had managed to get there. That’s where the other hunters are headed now, to burn their dead and send them off in a proper hunter funeral.

Jack stares down at his shoes.

He’d done his best. He knows this. Something had happened and that was why he’d been unconscious. He’d done his best the second he’d woken up, and they have a lot less casualties for it.

Still.

He takes a sip of the water and places it on the desk beside him. After a moment, he puts his head in his hands.

Things are already going so wrong. They’d expected an attack, yes, that was why he and Adam had been stationed with Sam and Dean in the first place, but they were hoping it wasn’t going to come to that. It wasn’t supposed to come to that, it was only supposed to be a day of gathering intel, gathering the pieces of their plan, not...this.

He feels his father’s thoughts gently hovering in the corner of his mind.

I got knocked out, somewhat, he thinks to Castiel. Adam had to save everyone.

Is he okay? Castiel asks him.

He’s okay. He’s alive. He took a sword to the gut, though.

It was Zachariah, correct?

Jack frowns. Who?

Ah - I forget you weren’t around for that, his father says. An old...enemy. A dead one, at least before Chuck revived him for this.

Jack sits up straight. “What?!”

Apparently, he was revived to put a stop to this operation, or, at least your end of it. We’ve been on high alert, Castiel says. We’re still making our way to the Cage. It’s farther away than any other place here.

Are you almost there?

The Shedim says we’re closer than we were before, certainly, Castiel says.

That’s good.

A pause.

Jack.

Yes?

Are you alright?

Jack takes in a breath, slowly. He slumps in his seat.

No.

The warmth and heartbreak that floods into his mind the second his father hears him is enough to make him put his face in his hands again, trying his hardest not to make any noise as tears stream down his cheeks. There’s still other hunters here, checking on their friends before they join the rest for the funerals. Jack pulls his feet up to the seat, hiding his face between his knees, just so nobody bothers him.

Oh, Jack, Castiel says, compassion woven into every part of the thought.

I was supposed to protect everyone, Jack says. That was why I was put here with Adam. It was me who was supposed to fight. Now people are hurt and dead.

You were knocked out, Castiel says. We are all fallible, Jack.

But when I mess up, people die!

He remembers the apocalypse world. He remembers everyone putting him in front of the lines, because he could take down angels faster than anyone could. He remembers immediately being ushered to the infirmary tents after battles, to heal the wounds of the people he couldn’t protect while out on the field when he was supposed to because that was the point of being at the front of the lines. He remembers corpses being burned, people being laid to rest, because he either hadn’t been strong enough, or had been too late, or had been too tired to muster up enough Grace for something.

He remembers Mary, who practically raised him in that apocalypse world. He remembers killing her with a single touch.

Jack -

“It’s my fault,” he murmurs.

Jack!

The sternness in Castiel’s voice makes him freeze. Then, right after, comfort flits into his mind, gentle. Compassion. Love. It feels almost like a hug.

You are a child, he says. War is not your responsibility. You had been thrust into a circumstance outside of your control, and you tried your best to help. That’s it.

What about Mary?

That was wrong, yes, but it had also been an accident, Castiel says. You tried to make amends as best as you could. You still are. You’ve kept your powers in check and have been trying to help people and I am very proud of you.

Jack feels his shoulders shaking.

From the very moment of your conception, there has been so much put on your shoulders, his father says. He feels regret in the words. And I am ashamed to say that I’ve been complicit in placing that on you too. Forgive me for not realizing it sooner.

What are you talking about?

I believed that you would change the world, he says, Your mother believed it. So did I. But, Jack - there is time to save the world, and there is time to simply live. You are a child, and I had no right to expect you to be a warrior, or whatever messiah this world needed.

Had he been pressured? He doesn’t know. He can’t tell. His life has just been a series of events one after the other, and while he’s tried his best to understand it, it feels more like he’s just been stumbling through everything either through coincidence or sheer luck.

You shouldn’t have had to carry that burden, Castiel says. You shouldn’t have had to disguise yourself as an adult to survive, or learn to be a grown up incredibly quick to survive.

But I can help, Jack says. I can.

That may be so, but it doesn’t mean the weight of the whole world should be put on your hands, Castiel says. You are a mere boy. You make mistakes, you are not perfect, and we should never expect you to fix or solve everything on your own. We should never put the burden on you in the first place. But with your circumstances, you have done so much, and Jack - that is enough. The effort is enough. Your best is enough.

Jack thinks it over. He doesn’t get it, not really, but maybe this is one of these things he wouldn’t understand until later. Adam had told him stories once, that sometimes he’d learn about things when he was younger, and only understood it at surface level. He never grasped the depth of it until he’d gotten older, he’d said. Maybe this is one of those, where he’ll realize something from a new lens and understanding as he grows.

You’ve done very well, Jack. Do not blame yourself for circumstances you can’t control, Castiel says. You’ve done your part. Do you understand?

Not really, but he gets what his father is saying. He couldn’t help being knocked out. He couldn’t possibly save everyone back at the apocalypse world even with his powers, but he’d healed up everyone he could, both there and here. He’d protected everyone he could whenever given the chance.

Yeah, he says. I do.

Very good. There’s that burst of warmth again. And Jack?

Yes?

You don’t have to change the world.

Jack smiles. He wipes the tears away from his eyes, as discreetly as he can. This, he understands.

Thanks, dad.