A/N 1 - This is set in the second half of season 2 and slightly AU regarding Sam's visions. It's basically finished and has 11 chapters which I hope to post every other day (I have to mess about just a little more with each before I post of course!).
A/N 2 - Huge thanks to my Beta CDNGirl for all her help and support on this.
A/N 3 - If anyone is wondering about the last chapter of Chance Encounter, it is coming! There will be a delay on it though.
Dean felt something like a shove from behind, followed swiftly by the realisation that he had been stabbed through his left side. He turned around just in time to see someone, or something, disappearing through the open barn door. It was only then that he felt the pain and a sensation of heat spreading as blood seeped down the back of his leg, soaking through his jeans and making the denim gleam in the early morning light. A wave of nausea overtook him and he fell to his knees, clutching his side as the jolt sent pain shooting through him. Fighting the urge to vomit and taking rapid, shallow breaths, he dragged himself up onto a straw bale. He was close to blacking out.
With his head swimming he looked around the barn – he needed something to pack against the wound. There was precious little there but he finally spotted a sack of some sort. Foolishly he went to stand up but staggered back as blackness threatened to engulf him. The sack was only a few feet away, but right now, that looking like quite a distance. He tried to steady his breathing and finally the black mist lifted. On the second attempt, he slowly lowered himself to the dusty, straw littered floor and crawled, painfully, over to the sack. Even that much effort exhausted him and he had to sit and wait for a few minutes before he could carry on. He made as good a field dressing as he could, wadding the none-too-clean material against the wound and securing it with his belt - though tightening it had again nearly caused him to pass out.
Sitting on the floor with his back against a wooden support, he felt a strong urge to close his eyes. He fumbled around in his pocket and found his cell phone but his brain was refusing to function properly. He knew he should be doing something, but he couldn't quite keep hold of the thought long enough to work out what it was. The cell phone slipped from his hand and his eyes closed as he slid sideways to the floor.
Sam paced around the small, dingy motel room, flicking aside the curtain at the window for the umpteenth time and desperately hoping to see the Impala pulling up outside. Still nothing. He hadn't heard from Dean for over 8 hours and he should have called in long before now. He had tried calling his brother's cell phone a dozen times – it just rang and rang and then went to voicemail.
"For Christ's sake Dean, where the hell are you?" he muttered, not for the first time that afternoon.
He knew he was going to have a vision for a split second before it hit. Pain lanced through his skull and he staggered to the nearest bed. Sweating, shaking and holding his head in both hands, he saw Dean! He was lying, motionless, on the floor, unconscious or dead – it was impossible to tell. And just as quickly as it arrived, the vision was gone. Sam was left pale, and damp with sweat. He only just made it to the bathroom before he vomited. Swilling water around his mouth to get rid of the foul taste of bile, he tried to figure out where his brother was. The fleeting images didn't give much away. Clearly a barn judging by the few casually strewn straw bales he had glimpsed. But where the hell was it? He frowned in concentration, trying to retrieve anything from the vision that might, somehow, help.
Getting nowhere, Sam went back over the previous few hours. The mysterious text on Dean's cell – giving co-ordinates. The argument they had had over Dean going alone to the location and then Dean storming off, slamming the door behind him. Sam still couldn't understand why Dean hadn't wanted him along, but he had said he would call in a couple of hours when he got there… only where was "there"?
Dean opened his eyes. At first he had trouble focussing but eventually he made out a white ceiling. Which was odd. His fuzzy brain was trying to work out what was wrong with this picture – shouldn't he be looking at a barn roof right now? "Crap, I'm dead – again!" he thought. Finally, he decided to move his head, only slightly though, because everything started swimming in and out of focus. "I'm in hell" he concluded, in a kind of detached, unconcerned way. He was in a world of pink and lace. Pink curtains with lace trim, pink floral wallpaper, pink lampshade with more lace. As his gaze travelled around the room, he spotted a posy of dried, brownish pink flowers, then the pink carpeted floor, and finally, back to the bedding, which matched the curtains. The lace trim on the pillow was just catching against the stubble on his chin. "Yep, hell." He drifted back into unconsciousness.
Sam had an idea and mentally kicked himself for not thinking of it before. He could track Dean's location using his cell phone and the same web database Dean had used to find him a few months ago, when he had been possessed and gone AWOL. Putting aside the memory of what Dean had told him he had done back then, he opened up the laptop and soon had the web site open.
Having acquired a reasonable idea of the location, he needed transport – Dean was a good two hour drive away. There were several cars out in the parking lot. And as much as he hated the idea, he knew he had no choice – he'd have to steal one of them. He packed up his and Dean's few possessions and checked that no one was about, then left very quietly. He chose an old, rusting Honda Civic - mostly because it was easier to steal than the other newer cars with their immobilisers. He realised it was going to be a pretty uncomfortable drive as soon as he sat behind the steering wheel – it certainly wasn't designed for someone of Sam's height! He had to scrunch down to keep his head from grazing against the roof, and his knees were jammed up under the steering wheel. He pulled out of the lot and headed off to find his brother.
Dean was dreaming and trying to call out in his sleep, though in fact he was making no sound, but was moving around in the bed.
"Hey – it's okay."
The voice worked its way into his consciousness, and finally Dean opened his eyes. After the blurred image cleared, he realised he was looking into the face of a woman. He started at the unexpectedness of it and felt his heart beating much too fast. He turned his head just enough to see a large man standing in the bedroom doorway, cradling a rifle. A cool, damp cloth was pressed gently to his forehead and then his burning cheeks. He tried to speak but all that came out of his parched throat was an unintelligible "ngh" and his tongue seemed to be twice its normal size.
"Hello Dean – it is Dean isn't it? I'm Kelly and that's Earl. He found you in the barn."
"Here, try some water" Kelly said, and supported his head with one arm while holding a glass of water to his lips. He tried to drink but found he was unable to do even that and most of the water just dribbled down his chin and neck. The coldness of it against his heated skin, made him shiver. Kelly laid his head carefully back on the pillow and mopped up the spilt water.
"Don't worry; I'll get you a straw. You're going to be fine". She and Earl left and, within moments, Dean fell back into a fitful sleep.
Sam cursed more with each pothole he encountered. Damn stupid country roads! Fuming but determined, he drove on, as fast as the ridiculous car would go. His cramped legs were on fire and he had lost count of the number of times his head had banged on the roof. The headache pulsing across the top of his skull was nothing to do with that though. The vision of his brother - either dead or near to it, had seriously unnerved him. With their father gone, and Jess and his mother too, Dean was all Sam had. The vision surely meant he had a chance of saving his brother? Otherwise, what was the point of them? A vision had helped him save Dean before and he felt sure this time was the same. Anything else was unthinkable.
He checked his map and realised he must be very close now. A pale, wintry sun was sinking rapidly below the tree line and soon it would be dark. Sam didn't want to contemplate the notion of Dean lying all night, wounded, in a freezing barn. Oddly, rising panic seemed to help him focus and he made a quick right turn when he saw a sign for the Munroe Farm. The road narrowed to little more than a track and trees closed in on either side, but eventually he arrived at the farm and immediately spotted a barn over to the right. He stood on the brakes and was out and running towards the barn in seconds. Passing the Impala, his heart was thumping wildly as he pushed open the door. It was completely dark now and he couldn't see anything. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and flicked it on. As the beam tracked across the barn, he noted the straw bales he had seen in his vision. But there was no sign of Dean. Feeling even more panicky, he went over to where Dean had been lying and instantly saw dried blood on the floor, both there and further off to the left. And there was his cell phone too! Picking it up, he realised Dean must have lost an awful lot of blood – surely there was no way he had walked away from this? Before he had time to form any other thoughts, a noise startled him and he spun round to see the silhouette of something very tall, filling the doorway. As he played the flashlight across its face, Sam realised it wasn't human. Suddenly it moved with lightning speed and had knocked him out cold before he had a chance to do anything. Grabbing hold of one of Sam's legs, the creature dragged him out of the barn and off into the freezing night. Sam's head bumped and scraped across the frozen undergrowth, snagging on stones and roots, which tore at his scalp and the sides of his face as his head jolted from side to side. Fortunately, right then he couldn't feel a thing.