Disclaimer: I own nothing that has anything to do with Supernatural or the characters, unless you count the DVDs. This is just for fun.

Hello all, new fic time again. I've been wanting to do a fic where Dean is put into a situation where he has to care for his brother for a while now, I've also wanted to look into John's side of the family, because while they aren't in the story, unlike Mary's family, there's no indication in the show as to what has happened to them and where they are, so here's to killing two birds with one stone.

Enjoy.

Chapter 1

It was just before two in the morning, and Sam and Dean Winchester had just finished up a job in Deer Trail, a remote small town in Colorado, they were heading out of town, heading south on interstate 70.

One moment, that was all it took.

Ironically given their location it was a deer that caused it. There had been a deer was standing in the middle of the road, and Dean, thinking that he was preventing damage to his precious car, swerved violently, but it had been raining for days, and so the road was slippery, too slippery.

Dean was despite his best efforts, unable to stop the car as it went into a spin, then flipped on to its roof, it then came to a violent halt as the passenger side was slammed into an old oak tree, more than thirty feet from where the tragedy had begun up on the road.

Both brothers had been rendered unconscious by the impact, but unlike his brother Dean came around within minutes.

The car was totalled, completely crushed to the point that Dean couldn't even shift, his legs and right arm were pinned by the steering wheel, his side window, along with the windscreen had shattered, and there was broken glass everywhere, and so cuts littered Dean's exposed skin.

Everything hurt, all Dean could register was the pain, which was not at all helped by the fact that he was upside down and had been for some time now. It would be a lot longer though before help arrived.

It was the worst time of Dean's life, being trapped, hurt, and having no idea if his brother, who was only inches away, was even alive.

It was nearly seven thirty in the morning before another car came along the road, the weather had cleared, and it was unmistakable that something terrible had happened there. The road was in a scene of disaster, there were fresh tire marks on the road, the Armco fencing at the edge of the road had been broken, and there was a path of destruction leading in to the dense shrubbery from the road.

The driver was Frank Reid, a forty-eight year old husband and father who ran a local plumbing business, before he even left his van he called 911, and called for an ambulance, the nearest station was in Denver, half an hour's drive away, and he knew from experience that it was better to call and be wrong than have to wait even longer for assistance.

Once he knew that help was on the way, Frank left his van parked on the roadside, and he quickly made his way through to the wrecked car.

"Holy mother of god," Frank murmured in horror, putting his hand to his mouth, he was certain that no one could have survived this.

But he was wrong. Dean Winchester was alive and conscious, though panicked, and his younger brother, Sam was also alive, though on the verge of slipping away, he was barely breathing, unconscious, and had lost much blood.

Dean had heard the man approach, and using energy he didn't have, he called out for help.

Frank could have been knocked over with a feather when he heard signs of life from within the crumpled vehicle, but he forced himself to get his act together through self talk, and went to work. Frank went to the driver side of the car, there was no way he could see to access the passenger side, and he knelt down to see into the car, he had to bend down very low to the ground before he could finally see the elder Winchester.

Dean's head was turned to the left, so he came face to face with their rescuer. There was no mistaking the relief in his voice as he said, "Oh thank god. Damn it's good to see someone."

"Are you hurt, mister?" Frank asked uncertainly, it wasn't as though there was a handbook on this sort of thing.

"Think so," Dean said as he tried to regain his strength enough to speak for longer, "Pretty stuck in here I reckon."

"Looks like. Help's on the way, they'll be here soon. What's your name buddy? I'm Frank."

"Dean. Please, my brother is in the passenger seat, but I can't get to him, check on him."
"Of course, what's his name?"

"Sam."

Frank attempted to reach Sam from several directions, but the best he could do to get glimpses of skin and clothing amongst the crumpled metal, the right side of the car had been entirely crushed by the impact, it was wrapped around the tree. Frank was sure that Sam was dead, there was no way he could have survived, was there? But he knew better than to say that to the guy's brother. Frank opted to sit with Dean, and to reassure him as best he could for the twenty-five long minutes before an ambulance's siren resounded through the area.

It was quarter past two before the Winchester boys were extricated from the wreckage, three in the afternoon before they reached the hospital. That was over twelve hours since the accident.

Dean had broken both his legs and his right arm, and had a hairline skull fracture and concussion; he had gotten off lightly compared to his younger brother.

Sam, who at first the rescue workers had thought was dead, had been much more severely injured. When the doctor went to speak with Dean about his brother's condition, he had only told him that his brother had suffered "very serious injuries, which currently threaten his life". And that was true, Sam had lost more than half his blood volume, suffered major head trauma, an intracranial haemorrhage, which they wouldn't know if and how badly had affected his brain function until he woke up, if he woke up, and he had also broken two veretebrae in his neck, which had led to damage to his spinal cord, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe it would have been better if he had of died.

Dean had surgery on his broken limbs, and it was another four hours before he could be informed of his brother's condition.

As soon as Dean was awake from the anaesthetic, the first words out of his mouth were, "Where's Sam?"

Carly Grayson, a young enrolled nurse who had been assigned to Dean's care had been in with him when he regained consciousness. She had been briefed on the grave condition of her patient's brother, and when he asked, she felt obligated to deliver the devastating news. Carly was quiet as she pulled a seat over, and sat down next to Dean's bed, only once she was seated did she speak, "Dean, hi I'm Carly, I've been taking care of you. You've just come out of surgery, everything went very well."

"Where's Sam?" Dean asked insistently, he didn't care about himself, he wanted to know that his brother was alright.

"Dean, what do you remember?" Carly was taking it slowly, trying to break the news as gently as she could.

Honestly the last thing Dean remembered was leaving the motel the afternoon before the accident, and that's what he told her before again asking, "Where's Sam?"

"You were in a car accident, Dean, you and your brother," Carly hesitated, she noticed that Dean's heart rate was climbing, maybe she should leave this up to the doctors, someone with more experience.

"Please? What's happened to Sam?"

"I'm sorry," Carly said gently, in preparation to tell Dean of the extent of Sam's injuries, but Dean took it the wrong way.

"He's dead? No way, no way, he can't be dead, he just can't be dead!"

"No, Dean, your brother is alive. He was severely injured in the accident."

"What do you mean? Where's my brother?"

"Dean, your brother is still in surgery. I'm sorry, I don't know much, but... Dean, it's bad, very bad."

In that moment Dean's life was changed more than he thought possible.

The next day Dean, who was sporting full leg casts on both legs and a small cast on his right wrist, which of course came with a complementary wheelchair for his non-optional use, was permitted to visit his younger brother in the intensive care unit.

Dean had already spoken with Dr Wesley Moore, the intensivist charged with Sam's care, and the older doctor hadn't sugar coated it. Sam was in a medically induced coma, he had numerous fractures and contusions, but it was the internal injuries which threatened his life, he had suffered a major bleed within his brain, which by the time he reached the hospital and the blood which the doctors drained had already caused his brain to swell, and with nowhere for it to go, the neurosurgeon had done everything he could, but there was no chance that Sam would make a meaningful neurological recover, it was a similar story with the fractured vertebrae in Sam's cervical spine, they had been repaired, but irreparable damage had already been done to the spinal cord, he also had a collapsed lung, which the doctors were apparently expecting to heal without any problems. But in all likelihood from what the intensivist had told Dean, Sam was never going to regain consciousness, the term that was used to the distaste of most, but was true was a persistent vegetative state, that he would need full time care, and that was if he survived the coming days, which were still uncertain.

The doctor had gone as far as to suggest that it may be for the best for Dean to consider placing Sam in to a long term nursing care unit.

There was no way in hell that Dean was going to place Sam, his baby brother, the kid that he had pretty much raised, into some nursing home, no way, that was not going to happen.

Sam was on a ventilator, a machine which took over the function of his lungs, a life support measure which hopefully in time he wouldn't need, but for now he would die without.

Dean had never foreseen this, who would have? Who would have so much as had a passing thought that at age twenty-six they would be suddenly faced with a reality that he would be his formerly healthy, smart, active, now quadriplegic and profoundly brain damaged brother's caregiver for most likely until the day one of them died? Simple, no one, no one would ever have seen it coming.

But there was nothing he could do to change it now, as much as he wished that he could go back to that night, and have just stayed at the motel another night, to not have been on that road, he couldn't, they couldn't go back to how things were.

Dean and Sam had still been on awkward terms when the accident occurred, following the incident at Rockford Asylum just weeks earlier, some of the things had Sam had said, even though he claimed they weren't his true opinions had still struck a nerve, and Dean couldn't quite let that go. And as Dean was wheeled in to the room which was currently home to his brother, and he saw his little brother lying in that bed, comatose, having come way too close to death for comfort, all he could think of was how frosty things had been since Rockford. That couldn't be the last meaningful time Dean had with his brother, it just couldn't be. Dean needed to tell Sam how sorry he was, how much of a stubborn idiot he had been, he needed his brother to forgive him.

He would never have the chance.

Dean sent away the nurse whom had brought him in, having her leave him near the doorway. Dean struggled, not just physically to go to his brother's side, seeing him lying there, knowing that the life his brother had had was gone, that his brother who was going to be a lawyer, now because of him was going to spend out his days not even able to feed himself. If he had of just stayed away from Sam, if he'd never gone to Stanford, his brother would have gotten a scholarship, and he would be halfway through his first year of his law degree, living with Jess, happy, not lying in a hospital bed with no chance of recovering to any meaningful level.

"Sam," Dean sighed sadly, finally starting to move his wheelchair forward. That was his brother in that bed, and no matter how hard it may be for Dean, he was going to do whatever he needed to so that Sam was alright, it had always his responsibility to care for him, and that was what he was going to do.

How was that? Would you like to read more?

Drop me a review, let me know what you thought of the start of this fic! And as always any suggestions or constructive criticism is appreciated.