Chapter One

Day 8

Through a thick, crusty caking of dust, walls of red dirt and brown, sun-burnt grass rush by the window. Out the windshield, massive expanses of bright blue sky seem to go on forever, finally blending into the yellow dotted line on the asphalt up ahead, where the line between earth and heaven start to blur.

Having shrugged out of the weight of his leather jacket a few miles back, Dean rolls down the window and lets in a heavy gust of hot air that rustles the creased paper in Sam's hands and earns him a silent glare from the corner of his brother's eye. Ignoring him, Dean turns up the volume a little higher on his CCR cassette tape and lets one arm dangle out the window, tapping along with the beat on the heated black metal.

"I had the air conditioning on." Comes the surly remark from Dean's right.

When he turns to glance at his brother, Sam hasn't lifted his head once from distastefully eyeing the map in front of him. Dean gives him a cheerful smile anyway. "I know, I turned it off." Tipping his head out the window, Dean draws in a deep breath through his nose and struggles not to sneeze at the stray pieces of dust that blow into his face. "Nothing like the cool, desert breeze."

Sam snorts, still not lifting his irritated eyes from the diagram. "More like opening an oven door," he mutters, purposely kneeing the dashboard and shifting around restlessly in his seat.

"Aw, come on, Sam. The weather's warm, not a cloud in sight…" Dean can't help but smirk as the fingers holding the paper obscuring Sam's face from view tighten marginally and make a sharp crackling sound. "I can hear you rolling your eyes back there." Dean teases with a wagging finger.

In a huff, the map is punched at and roughly manipulated back into a more compact shape as Sam shoves it away from his face. Wordlessly, he reaches forward and stabs at the A/C button with his thumb. "If you ask me, there's enough hot air in here as it is." He grumbles, settling tensely back in his seat.

Dean tries to take the situation lightly, or as delicately as possible with his little brother in an obviously bitchy mood. "That's just bad for the environment, Sammy," he chides, and hopes for at least some semblance of a grin.

Sam disappoints him by finally meeting his eyes with a glower. "Dean," he warns venomously.

Throwing up his hands in momentary defeat before replacing them on the wheel, Dean sighs his relent. "Alright! Cool your jets. Who crapped in your cereal this morning?" Really, he knows better than to aggravate Sam further when he's like this, because in his experience, it only leads to a fight he didn't mean to start, and then petulant silence.

But it's not as though Sam hasn't been like this for the past five hundred and some miles – because he has. In fact, Sam has been distant ever since they left Wyoming one week ago, and between that fiasco and the stretch of highway ahead of them there'd been an exorcism in Nebraska and a dead-end case in Oklahoma. Okay, so Dean hadn't been so clueless as to hope that getting back to business would magically solve all of their problems, or better yet, drop the solution to reversing a deal with a crossroad demon right into their laps. But he'd at least thought that being on the road again would give them something useful to do instead of slowly driving one another crazy as days dragged by and the concept of time started to feel like hangman's noose.

He didn't expect miracles. But damn it, Sam wasn't making things any easier. When Dean had gotten the tip from Ellen about the case in New Mexico, the details had gone in one ear and out the other. Just as long as it was somewhere sunny, somewhere they could unwind for a little and come up for air, maybe erase some of the deep lines of exhaustion and pain on his little brother's face. That's all Dean is asking for. But Sam has to at least give him something to work with, and so far, he was getting nothing.

When he glances at the passenger side, Dean isn't surprised to see that Sam's glare has gone from irritated to downright pissed off. "Dean, stop it," Sam says shortly.

Dean shoots him a look of what he hopes is pure innocence but is more likely a combination of amusement and his own rapidly mounting annoyance. "Stop what?"

"Stop trying to…cheer me up, if that is what you're doing, because you suck at it," he glowers, crossing his freakishly long arms in front of his chest and staring out at the flat, dusty landscape with a frown. "I still don't see why I agreed to let you drag us all the way out here for nothing." It's probably supposed to sound like resentment, but to Dean it sounds an awful lot like whining.

Raising his eyebrows, Dean smirks. "Because you know from experience that hitchhiking totally sucks," he says, one last vain attempt at humor.

Sam continues to stare listlessly out the window. "Whatever."

Okay, Dean's patience has just about reached its quota of Sam's emo attitude for one day. He squares his shoulders and lets the heat and cramped quarters get the better of him. "Look, man, it's a job, okay?" he insists, shooting his brother a look from the corner of his eye. "All I'm asking is that you stop acting like a five-year-old long enough for us to get it done."

Sam snorts in response. "If there even is a job to do. I mean, you tell Ellen that we'll look into this hospital," he scoffs and shakes his head in disbelief. "In freakin' Roswell, no less…"

Dean cuts him off. "Hey, Roswell is awesome, okay? Tons of freaky history here…"

"…Over a bunch of random accounts of weird noises and strange lights." Sam finishes, and Dean can feel his stare without turning to look. "It's probably just a bunch of UFO advocates trying to cause a stir in an already paranoid town, Dean. It's going to turn out to be a complete waste of our time, just like the last one," he says doubtfully.

The seemingly never-ending, straight highway allows Dean to take his eyes off the road long enough to look insolently at his brother. "Hey, that swamp gas could have easily turned out to be some sort of apparition." Okay, so that last hunt had been a bit of a long shot, even Dean could admit – at least privately. "Besides, you don't know that this one won't be worth it. I mean, come on - a white owl appearing inside a hospital at random? A creepy old lady wandering the halls, seen by at least five patients? Sounds right up our alley."

Letting out a sigh, Sam seems to sag against the window in defeat. "For the record, I said you were wrong about this," he says quietly, staring sightlessly at the bright green sign informing them that their destination is less than five miles away

"Dually noted," Dean says, nodding his head once and concentrating on the road. And then suddenly, his smart mouth was moving on its own accord, and the words were snapped out in a rush before he could even think about how badly he wanted to take them back. "Please don't let me keep you from your busy schedule, Princess. Is there something more important you'd rather be doing?" And he wanted to take them back bad.

Sam's silence is the first sign of an impeding blow-up. It's a long, heavy stillness that is so wrought with tension and so filled with things unspoken and loaded with emotion, Dean swears that it's audible. Deafening, even. But Sam isn't talking, and when Dean finally turns to look at him, he's just sitting there staring at his brother's profile with a look so intense, Dean's sure he can see right through him to the canyons on the other side.

Dean doesn't need to stare back. It's been a week since the showdown in Wyoming, since Dean fucked up big time and let his little brother out of his sight long enough to get taken by the God damn Yellow Eyed Demon, and then killed (yeah, killed) right before his own eyes. If making that deal with that bitch in the black dress had been a mistake, Dean wasn't ready to admit it – and probably never would – because it meant Sam was alive, and however he spun that one, there just wasn't any alternative

And maybe Sam wouldn't be able to get him out of this thing. Hey, he was already trying to come to terms with that, and it was hard enough to do without watching Sam tail spinning day in and day out around here with a crazy, driven look in his eyes. Too many nights spent hunched over his laptop or memorizing Dad's journal and he was already running on empty. Dean doesn't need to stare back because he's already memorized all the pain that's on his little brother's face, and he doesn't feel too good about being the one that put it there.

It's Dean's turn to sigh, as he turns his eyes back onto the road, watching the falling sun turn the blue sky to a warmer shade of pink and orange. "I don't know about you, but I could go for some food right about now," he mutters finally, fingers tightening on the wheel.

Beside him, Sam snorts.

As civilization draws nearer, Dean takes in the first sign he sees and turns to his brother with a grin. "I think I've just found us some shelter, Kemosabe," he declares proudly, turning the wheel to the right.

Sam raises his eyebrows in incredulity. "The Cozy Cowboy Motel?" The disdain in his voice is laid on heavily as the car comes to a stop and he peers out at his surroundings.

"Hey, there's a diner and a vacancy sign. It may as well be the Ritz to me," Dean says, cutting the engine, removing the key from the ignition, and pushing the door open with a satisfying squeak. Outside, the air is hot and dry, their backdrop is bleak and covered in the same brick-colored dirt that seems to coat the entire landscape. But Dean's back gives an appreciative crack to his upright position and his legs throb with pins and needles as he walks to the trunk to retrieve their bags. "You coming, or what?" He calls to the passenger side.

Moments later, Sam is sidling up beside him. "Lead the way, Tonto."

When Dean kicks the door to their motel room shut, Sam is nowhere in sight. Dropping the grease-stained bags of food down on the ash tray-laden table top along with his keys and coat, he relaxes when the sound of the pipes shutting off with a wail bring his attention to the closed bathroom door and the billowing steam from beneath the crack.

Dean feels like he should laugh at himself for his own jumpiness, worrying like a freakin' mother hen, but truthfully, nothing is the same since he let Sam go into that roadside diner alone, and not come back out.

By the time Sam comes exits the bathroom in sweats and a t-shirt, Dean is sprawled on the bed closest to the door with Styrofoam containers of food laid out before him like a feast. "I got grub," Dean says needlessly.

Sam wrinkles his nose as he approaches. "I thought I smelled my arteries clogging."

Ignoring him, Dean nudges one of the burgers in his brother's direction. "Here." Purposely, Dean focuses his undivided attention on the hideous boot and spur print on the bedspread beneath his leg.

"I asked you to get me a salad," says Sam, looking from his food to his big brother, eyeing both with disappointment and mild disgust.

Dean offers a shrug, digging into his own cheeseburger. "They were out."

Sam's eyebrows disappear up into his bangs. "They were out of salad?" he asks lowly, and the shower clearly hasn't done the wonders for his mood that Dean had been hoping for.

"So I talked to the waitress a bit," Dean jumps in quickly. "And it turns out that her brother is a patient at this Eastern New Mexico Medical Center. She says he's always seeing weird stuff over there, and not always at night." To his delight, he watches as Sam reluctantly bites into his food. Mission accomplished.

His expression, however, is still skeptical. "Define 'weird stuff'."

"Well, for starters, he says he's seen this old woman's spirit first hand three times, once even in his own room." Sam looks like he wants to protest or butt in somehow, most likely about how they have no proof yet that it is, in fact, a spirit, but Dean plows on so he doesn't get the chance. "Plus, Nancy – that's the hot waitress – she says that sometimes if the hallways are really quiet, you can hear this weird chanting in parts of the hospital. Spooky stuff," he says, filling his mouth with another bite of beef.

Sam's face is the picture of doubt. "Ghosts in the middle of the day, man?" he asks dubiously.

Dean wipes grease from the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand and tries really hard to not think about smacking that negative look right off his brother's bitchy face. "Hey, wouldn't be the first time," he says, and feels a flare at anger when Sam has the nerve to shake his head and give a little exasperated chuckle at his expense. "Okay, so chanting? Owls? Maybe it's a witch."

That makes Sam laugh even harder, the smug bastard. "This isn't Harry Potter, Dean!" He exclaims as he gets to his feet, his dinner now forgotten on the bed.

Dean decides to join him. "What the hell is your problem?" he demands angrily, pushing to his feet and staring up into his little brothers face, wishing not for the first time that he wasn't such a damn giant.

"My problem is that you're grasping at straws here, man. You did the same thing in Oklahoma," he says, and gestures blindly around the room, and that wild look Dean has become unwillingly accustomed to is back. "It's like you don't even care that you're just wasting our time with this."

At least he finally said it. "You mean wasting my time, right Sam?" Dean demands, and instantly wishes he hadn't when Sam looks down at his sock-covered feet like he's just been slapped.

"Well…yeah," says Sam, and does a damn good impression of his ten-year-old self when he refuses to meet his big brother's eyes.

A sad smile twists Dean's mouth as he reaches up to lay a gentle hand on Sam's shoulder, and he feels the muscle tighten under the layers of cloth. "Come on, man. We're not going to be here that long." He says it like an offering, because really, what else is he supposed to say? "Then we can get back on the road and go to Bobby's, if that's what you want…"

"He didn't know anything that could help us when we left." Sam interrupts darkly, his gaze finally lifting from the carpet.

At that point, Dean was willing to say just about anything to get rid of the hopeless look on his little brother's face. "Yeah, but, I mean it's been a few days, maybe…"

Sam's arm flies up suddenly to tear Dean's hand from his shoulder, dark eyes flashing dangerously as he takes a step back, leaving a foot of space between them that may as well have been miles. "Maybe we shouldn't be lying around in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico when we could be looking for something that could actually help you," he shouts, and the abrupt change in his demeanor is enough to make Dean flinch in surprise.

He doesn't want to say it, because of course, he's only human, and he doesn't want it to be true. But one little part of him knows it, so Dean can't help himself as the words wrench themselves from somewhere deep in his chest and escape from his mouth. "Sam, there might not be a way to help me. And I can't even help you look."

His brother's response to this revelation is to snatch up the remains of his dinner and toss it angrily into a nearby garbage can. "I know that," Sam mutters, but it's hard to hear because his back is turned. "It's only been one week, Dean."

So help him, he has to try really hard not to laugh at that, because hearing Sam put an only in front of that one week is definitely a new occurrence. "No leads, Sam. Nothing in Dad's journal…"

Sam turns around to look at him and Dean feels his breath catch in his throat at the utter sadness in his eyes. "Then maybe I'm not looking hard enough," He mumbles, and with that said he delves into their luggage and retrieves his laptop, laying it down on the table with a smack that can't be at all good for whatever the hell is inside.

As he watches his brother seat himself in front of his computer, Dean rakes a hand through his hair, suddenly feeling exhausted. "You know that's not what I meant, Sam," he mutters, and moves the rest of his dinner into the garbage as well.

To his relief, Sam actually sighs, but doesn't turn around. "I know."

Winchesters don't really do apologies, and that's about as close as they ever come to one. So Dean decides to take it, for now, and kicks off his boots before flopping down onto his bed in a heap, nearly impaling himself on a steer-horned-lamp on the way. Once he's located the remote control, and the sound of Sam's steady tapping away at the keyboard lulls him somewhere closer to a doze, Dean lets his eyes wander from the screen to his brother's hunched back. "Don't stay up too late. We're hitting up that hospital bright and early tomorrow morning," he warns half-heartedly, because like Sam ever actually listens to him, anyway.

It's worth it, however, to see Sam's shoulders slump slightly and hear the barest of amusement in his voice when he replies, "Yes, mother."

Day 9

A bell above the doorway rings obnoxiously as they shove inside the diner, alerting the few customers seated at various tables of their presence. Heads lift from plates stacked with waffles and cups of coffee, curious eyes peering at them from beneath wide-brimmed cowboy hats. Clearing his throat, Dean decides it would be best to cut the angry rant he had been in the middle of short – for the time being.

Once they've settled into a booth and Sam is hiding from him behind a wide, faded menu, Dean lets his voice sink to a low, grating reprimand. "Did you think I was being cute last night when I told you to go to bed?"

Sam mostly ignores him. "When are you ever cute?" He asks indifferently.

"Sam, I'm being serious, here," Dean snarls, reaching up to yank a corner of the peeling plastic away from his brother's face. "I know this situation sucks – believe me – I know. But I didn't exactly expect to wake up to you drooling all over your keyboard. For the third morning in a row, I might add. This has got to stop." He can hear that note of pleading in his voice, but he really doesn't think he cares. Much.

Sam has the nerve to shrug at him. "I have to make up for what I can't get done during the day somehow," he rationalizes, laying his menu down flat on the table and staring his brother down, but the fierce persistence is less effective when weighed down by the blatant fatigue in his expression.

Rolling his eyes, Dean glares down at his own menu. "Yeah, well, you have to sleep somehow, too."

Dean doesn't bother to look up when Sam huffily fiddles with his coffee cup and saucer, muttering, "I did sleep some," under his breath.

"I know. I can still see the imprints of an 'd', 'e', and a 'w' on your cheek," Dean snorts, smiling widely as the pretty blonde waitress with the short skirt and fantastic rack from last night spots him across the room and makes her way over with a wave. "Looks like you were trying to spell out 'dweeb'."

"Well, look who's back again!" Nancy greets in her high-pitched twitter as she whips out a notepad and a pen from her apron.

Dean does his best to dole out the charm as thickly as possible at such an early morning hour. "Sam here is just dying to try out those blueberry pancakes you were telling me about yesterday."

Nancy smiles toothily at his brother, who is glaring across the table and still rubbing self-consciously at his face "No problem, and for yourself, Sugar?" she asks next, turning her attention back to Dean with a flutter curled eyelashes.

Dean orders the greasiest thing on the menu and tells her to keep the coffee coming. When she's gone, he feels Sam 'accidentally' kick him under the table. "That's your source from last night?" he snorts in disbelief. "Dean, she would have told you she's seen the Ogopogo if it kept you flirting with her."

"Don't judge a book by its cover, Sammy," Dean advises, folding his hands on the table in front of himself. "Just because she has the hots for me doesn't mean the information she was giving me wasn't the honest to goodness truth," he says matter-of-factly.

Sam shakes his head. "Yeah, well, there was an article printed in the local paper here claiming the chanting she told you about is really singing – and it isn't in English. They don't now what language it is," he explains factually.

Dean doesn't try to hide the smile that creeps up onto his face as he reaches across the table to slap his little brother's arm. "Hey! Look who's decided to jump on the band wagon," he says glibly. "Nice of you to join me on the case, Sammy. Welcome. You do this research last night?" he asks the last part seriously.

"Yeah," Sam mumbles, and lowers his gaze, as if he's ashamed. "I wasn't really getting anywhere with…you know…" he trials off, his voice low and dejected.

Just as Dean is opening his mouth to fill the silence with something – anything – Nancy bounces back up to the table with a steaming pot of coffee. "Made it fresh for you boys," she tells them proudly, giving Dean a wink.

Dean grins at her widely. "So, Nancy, to what do I own this honor?" He asks cheekily. "You waiting on me two days in a row, I feel like I'm getting a little spoiled, here." From his peripheral vision, he sees Sam roll his eyes.

"You're just lucky, I guess," says Nancy, smiling sweetly, but something sad and secret crosses over her bright features. "I've been picking up some extra shifts these days to help out my brother."

And suddenly, it's Sam who has turned on the charm, his brown eyes gone wide and caring as he stares up at their waitress. "I heard that he's in the hospital," he asks, and Dean is still amazed at how he can look and sound genuinely concerned at the flip of a switch. "Do you mind if I ask what happened to him?" he asks gently.

Of course, with that puppy-dog expression, she doesn't. "He was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago," she says, her voice soft.

Sam's mouth pulls into a sympathetic frown. "I'm sorry," it's said so quietly, Dean can barely hear him. He realizes it's meant for Nancy's ears only.

Nancy goes quiet, as she brings a hand up to her forehead and rubs at the wrinkles that have formed there, almost like she's willing herself not to get too upset. "You know, it's the darndest thing, too," she starts, and Dean wonders how he never saw this about her last night, because it's just so apparent now. "He went into the hospital for a broken wrist. The next thing I know, he's havin' headaches and they're getting MRI's done and whatnot…suddenly he's got a brain tumor." Her lower lip trembles slightly.

Dean watches as Sam slowly lifts a hand and places it warmly on her forearm. "It must have been hard…happening so sudden like that."

"It really was, too," Nancy admits, her eyebrows knitting together, like she's realizing it for the first time. "Bill was always healthy as a horse, you know? Went and busted his arm wrestlin' steers. Hardly ever was sick, and sure didn't complain about his head…well, not until now, anyways." She stops herself there and brushes her long bangs out of her eyes uncomfortably, like she's trying to bring herself out of the trance that is Sam's eyes, Sam's sympathetic voice, Sam's reassuring touch on her wrist. "Your friend here was tellin' me that you two just started work there? At the hospital?" she says, gesturing to Dean.

Before Sam can look too caught off guard, Dean jumps in. "Yeah, we're nursing students. Just started this week," he explains, exchanging a quick glance with his brother. "We've just heard so many weird stories about, uh, crazy things like ghosts and owls and stuff. We're starting to get a little bit worried." He makes a face of false unease.

"Well I don't know about owls, but I've heard some strange stuff, alright," Nancy says knowingly, her slender shoulders giving a slight shudder. "Like I was tellin' you last night, my brother has seen that ghost everyone talks about with his own two eyes, right there in his hospital room."

"And when was that, uh, Nancy?" Sam cuts in, playing up the doe-eyes even further.

Nancy seems to think about it for a moment, fiddling with one of her hoop earrings before raising and lowering one shoulder. "I think the first time was around the time he was first admitted. For the arm, I mean," she says, and then gives her ponytail a shake. "Well, I'd say I've just about talked your ears off, boys. I'm gonna go see if your orders are up," she jerks a thumb in the direction of the kitchen, and makes a hasty retreat.

Dean barely has a chance to take a sip of his already cooling cup of coffee before Sam is fixing him with an offended look. "You couldn't have said interns? Or even orderlies?" He demands testily.

"What?" Dean asks, forehead wrinkling in confusion.

Sam gives his head a shake. "You told her that we're nurses, Dean," he mutters under his breath, leaning back into the booth, exasperated. "You've been watching way too much porn."

Dean smirks. "No such thing, Sammy," he says, and pastes his sickeningly pleasant smile back on as Nancy returns to their table with plates full of steaming food.

Glancing sideways at his brother, Dean can't help the grin that creeps up onto his face. "You know, burgundy is really your color, Sammy," he chuckles, giving the younger man an assessing look and the thumbs up sign. "Helps to bring out your eyes."

Sam punches him in the arm. "Shut up," he snaps, fidgeting with the hem of his hospital scrubs as they duck as inconspicuously as possible out of the linen closet they had taken refuge in. "This was your idea, Dean," he growls, and looks down at his ID card for the fifth time in dismay.

"Yeah, and it's brilliant," says Dean, scoffing slightly. "Besides, Jay Silverheels is a perfectly respectable name…"

Reaching out to press an arm across Dean's chest, Sam stops them in the middle of the hallway. "You're getting way too into this cowboy crap, Dean." He takes a calming breath and rolls his eyes skyward. "So what's the rest of the plan, anyway? We got in here, now what, we're just going to wait for Casper to find us?"

Dean shoots his brother a glare. "You, Nurse Cranky Pants, are going to mingle with the other employees in this joint. See if someone knows anything about what's been going on around here. Maybe an angry doctor that died, a crazy patient…who knows," he explains, absently pulling on the stolen stethoscope looped haphazardly around his neck.

When Dean starts walking down the hall again, Sam's hand shoots out to snag on his sleeve. "What if someone tells me to perform some kind of procedure, Dean?" he demands anxiously.

Dean thinks about that for a moment or two, and then shrugs. "Run," he says, and breaks into a grin at Sam's look of combined fear and horror. Then he wrenches the cloth of his scrubs free from Sam's grip and spins on his heel, continuing down the corridor. "If you need me, I'll be hunting down Nancy's brother," he tosses over his shoulder, and turns a corner.

It doesn't take long – or even a map of the hospital – to find the oncology wing. When he gets nearer to hunks of plywood and drywall, hammers banging in the distance, Dean worries that he's gone too far. But when an abundance of bald-headed patients begin to appear in the hallways and just within the doorways of the many rooms, Dean swallows his discomfort and keeps walking. It's almost alarming, just the sheer quantity of ill people around him, pushed in wheelchairs, seated on empty gurneys, or trailing IV poles in the wake of an agonizingly slow pace. They brush past him like ghosts themselves, all pale skin and hooded eyes and pained expressions.

An unusual feeling of shame creeps up on Dean as he reads through the names of in-patients hung outside each of the hospital rooms, but he forces himself to shake it off and act professionally. It takes awhile, but Dean finally finds a Bill Truss listed with two other roommates (Sam may be good with the sympathy part, but Dean's flirting skills had gotten him a last name to go along with the first with little difficulty), which Dean thinks is weird, because how much company do really sick people need, anyway? Surely a hospital of this size can spring for enough rooms to avoid having severely ill people jammed together. But then Dean thinks that maybe he's being a little insensitive, so he tells himself to shut up.

Dean sneaks a lunch tray from a cart down the hall, and quietly slips into Bill's room. He tries his hardest to look as though he belongs there, glancing at each of the patient's charts from the pockets at the foot of their beds, and as luck would have it, the only one awake is Bill, sitting up in his bed, gaze flicking between a muted TV screen and Dean, curiously.

"Bill, right?" Dean asks, pasting on an easy smile.

"Yeah," says the man in the bed, so Dean approaches slowly and slides the tray table closer to the patient, placing the meal serving of food on top of it. He'd been in a hospital enough times to look like he knows what he was doing.

Bill looks like Nancy, Dean thinks instantly, but his pale, thin features make something in his chest tighten, so he tries not to look longer than he has to. "Today's menu is a sandwich…which looks like bologna, but it's a tough call." Dean removes the plastic covering with a grimace. "And for dessert, what else? Jello. And as if things could get any worse, it's green."

The man's nose crinkles in amusement and distaste. "I don't mind the green," he says mildly. "Aren't you a little early?" he asks, looking up at Dean quizzically.

"Sorry," Dean apologizes meekly, raising one hand. "I'm new."

Bill snorts, picking up a fork and poking unenthusiastically at a limp piece of lettuce. "Yeah, I can tell," he says, but not unkindly. Even as sick as he looks, his eyes sparkle and smile pleasantly, and doesn't that just suck all the more? Because at least if the guy was a complete asshole, Dean could try to pretend that this was the universe's fucked up way of evening the score.

"So who did you piss off to get stuck with the bald squad?"

Dean blinks, realizing he wasn't paying attention, and feeling stupid. "Huh?" Oh, so much better.

Bill raises pale eyebrows at him. "Oncology is like, bottom of the food chain around here," he explains, obviously taking delight in Dean's confusion. "You must have done something wrong to get stuck on vomit-cleaning duty." Then the corners of his mouth quirk up, like he's letting Dean in on a secret of the trade. "That's what it's called when you're looking after the post-chemo patients, like me and my boys, here," he tells him, nodding to the sleeping occupants of the room.

Suddenly, Dean is really starting to have second thoughts about this so-called brilliant idea of his. "Uhh…" He really wished Sam was here to do this part.

Bill's face breaks out into a mischievous grin and he waves a weak hand at Dean's concern. "I'm just messin' with you, buddy," he assures quickly. "I ain't blind…what, with all the sick people around here these days, its no wonder they've hired so many lackeys to look after us. No offense."

Dean can smile at that. "None taken." He finds a chair that had been pushed up against the wall, and brings it to the side of the bed, taking a seat. "So it's not just me, then? I mean, this place is filled to the max, it seems. How normal can that be?" he asks, hoping that he isn't pushing anything too far too quickly.

However, Bill lets out an easy laugh. "Well, first you have to understand that here in Roswell, we have whole different definition of 'normal'," he explains, giving his head a shake. "I mean, how many places in the world can try to blame a sudden cancer endemic on a UFO crash from fifty years ago?"

"Seriously?" Dean asks, his eyes widening.

"Not officially, no. But there are a lot of alien freaks out there pointing their fingers at the government," Bill says, and raises a hand in a swiping motion that leads Dean to believe that he is not among the alleged 'freaks'. "Something to do with radiation and whatnot. Whatever it is, it got 'the man' to reach into his pockets and throw some money at the hospital."

Dean raises his eyebrows in interest. "So that's what all that construction is?"

Bill nods. "You got it - adding on to this wing. Gotta find somewhere to stash all us Ghandi look-alikes," he jokes, and finally reaches for his sandwich, taking a tentative bite. After chewing for a moment or two, Bill grimaces and closes his eyes, replacing the food back on its plate and pushing the tray away slightly.

Wincing sympathetically, Dean places the cover back on the dish. "Not bologna?"

When Bill opens his eyes again, he's even paler, if possible. "Don't know, don't care," he sighs. "Doesn't really matter these days, if you know what I mean." It's the first time that Dean actually hears misery in his voice, and it's bone-deep.

Dean doesn't know what to say, so he settles for uncomfortable silence. Then, after a moment or two, he remembers what he came here for, and clears his throat. "So, uh, Bill, I need you to put my mind at ease here, man," he begins casually. "Tell me that all the stories I've been hearing are just tall tales and that this place isn't really haunted."

"Well, I don't know about haunted," Bill says, settling back in his pillows and looking at the ceiling. "But I won't lie to ya, I've seen my fair share of spookiness around here. Even ghosts." He looks proud at the revelation.

"Ghosts?" Dean repeats, forcing a note of surprise and disbelief into his voice.

Bill shrugs a shoulder. "Just one ghost, actually," he corrects, giving a slight shudder. "I've seen her a few times, wandering the halls. But the first time she was right in my room in the ER, standing at the foot of my bed."

Dean leans forward in his seat. "What did she do to you?" he asks eagerly.

"Nothing, really, just stood there, staring." Bill says, fixing Dean with a set of bright blue eyes that stand out on a pale face, and it's all he needs to know that this guy isn't just yanking his chain. "She was clutching something in her hand, kind of fidgeting with it. And she was saying something, over and over again, but I couldn't really make it out because…"

"It wasn't English?" Dean jumps the gun before Bill can finish, and curses himself in his mind.

Thankfully, Bill is too into his story to look very phased. "Yeah. And at first, that didn't really strike me as odd. But I've worked as a ranch hand for most of my life, and you pick up a lot of what you hear." He shakes his head, and his eyes narrow, as if he's trying to solve the missing piece to a puzzle. "I speak Spanish, and I can understand my fair share of Navajo. But this didn't sound like neither."

Dean holds up a hand, eyebrows furrowing. "Whoa, whoa, so she was Native American?" he asks, struggling to put two and two together.

Bill nods. "Yeah," he says, and then looks confused again. "But she didn't hurt me, or nothin'. Just kept talking under her breath. Then I look away for no longer than a moment, and she's gone."

At that, Dean leans back in his seat, arms folded against his chest. Somehow, none of this fits together right. A ghost that chants like a witch but speaks in tongues and doesn't seem intent on harming anyone…well, that would definitely be a new one. Plus, not to mention, incredibly boring.

Bill interprets his silence as skepticism. "I know, I know how it sounds," he starts, looking slightly self-conscious. "And I'd totally think I'd gone insane if these guys hadn't seen her, too," he says, gesturing at his roommates.

That perks Dean's interest. "They've all seen the ghost?"

"Spirit, ghost, whatever you wanna call it," Bill confirms. "Right in their rooms, too. And not just them. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find someone in this department that hasn't seen it – her…whatever."

As Dean tries to wrap his mind around that, he realizes that things just got a lot more interesting.