Chapter 1:
And We All Fall Down…
Sam stood at the back of the Impala, surveying the contents of the trunk ruefully….his shook his head for a moment…the hunter's life…He was right back where he started again…only now…the madness of the past year and half made it all the more desolate in his mind's eye….It had been a shock when Dean had shown up unannounced in his apartment all those years ago, asking for his help to find dad, and grudgingly, he'd agreed to go with him with the promise of being returned to his apartment in time to make his interview…they'd found the Woman In White, stopping her from taking lives of the men, who, whether completely innocent or not, deserved to learn from their mistakes in the arena of love and relationships, rather than be killed outright….
They hadn't found dad, though…grudgingly, Dean had taken him back to the apartment, even though Sam could see the pain of his rejection of Dean's plea that Sam go with him, that they find dad and get the family back together and hunt together again, just like old times…Sam had seen the sadness, the loneliness in his elder brother's eyes, the raw need to have the people he cared about close by so he wouldn't feel so alone in the world…It had hurt Sam to tell him no…His brother was like a father to him as well as a brother and he hated seeing that look in his eyes…but he was leading the life he had chose…he was happy, he had found Jess, and he intended to marry her, he'd even been looking for the ring to ask her…when he got out of the car, he could feel the pain radiating from his brother…the dejection…the disappointment…the hurt…yet he still walked away…
In the early hours of that morning…that was when everything had changed….the demon had come, ripping away the life he had built so carefully… the life he'd always longed for…the safe, sane normality of it was like something out of a long wished for dream…the dream had been burned away as his nightmares came true…Jess was gone…he was back to being a hunter…then they finally found their father and he was ripped away from them as well as he sacrificed himself to save his dying eldest son…and the madness just kept coming…the demon's plans blowing through their lives, twisting them, turning them every which way but loose…then he and the other children like him had been taken…one by one they died, 'til only he and Jake remained…and the demon had been playing mind games with him too…Jake killed him that night…setting into motion a sequence of events that shredded any remaining sense of life the Winchester's had been able to muster…
Dean was lost…more alone than he'd ever been…he couldn't live like that…though it killed him to know his dad had done it for him, Dean sold his soul to save his little brother…he had always thought Sam was the better man, that he deserved better than what they had endured…that his own life was worth the knowledge that his brother would live…he took the deal, sealing his fate…
Sam had tried desperately to save his brother from the fate that awaited him…the fate meant for him…he had failed…with Dean gone, Sam had tried everything he could to bring him back, to sell his own soul, but Dean would not be returned to him, so he was set on going to Dean…that hadn't gone as planned either…and just when things seemed like they had finally stopped spinning…God himself sent an Angel to save Dean…
They had jumped back into the life, despite the fact that while physically, Dean was here, with him, a piece of the man he had been had irretrievably left behind in Hell…and in the void that missing piece left, all the terrifying, painful, hurtful things that had been his life in Hell took up residence…a constant, perpetual reminder of it, there to haunt him forever…and so they hunted…the Apocalypse, and angels and demons and all the biblical BS that went hand in hand with it always front and center, a new dimension to the old game they played…Sam shook he head in sadness…the more things change, the more they stay the same, he thought bitterly…
He turned slightly to call out to his brother to see if they had everything from the motel room when out of nowhere a torrent of things happened all at once…he heard the stopping of footfalls behind him, heard the cocking of a gun…the chambering of a round…the panicked shout of his name…he started to turn only to be blind-sided by a blur of a figure as the cacophony of guns firing and bullets hailing around him quickly brought time to a near stand still…he caught a glimpse of a figure dropping to the ground behind him just seconds before the blurred figure shove him from the path of fire, slamming him bodily to the brick wall… time flooded in, the world catching up to the events…Sam couldn't breath…he slid down the wall in a oxygen-deprived haze…his shoulder was on fire, having taken the brunt to of the impact, the side of his head blazed in searing pain…he felt a steady trickle of warmth flowing down the side of his face…he turned his eyes downward, his brain fog causing his view to tilt crazily for a moment, the object before him shifting in and out of focus…something familiar plucked at the back of his brain…and a sense of urgency to figure out what it was flooded through him…Sam locked his eyes shut for a moment, willing himself to think…to focus…when he opened them again, he saw a figure lying next to him…crimson Rorschach shapes welling from three separate wounds…the familiar mother-of-pearl grip was clutched in the hand of the figure, the muzzle of which had ended up underneath the body…Sam's mind snapped into focus in a dizzying rush of pain and terror…Dean…oh God!!
"Dean!!!!!" he screamed as he lurched forward to his brother's prone form…he lifted his brother's head carefully, just enough to feel for a pulse…for seconds that seemed like eternity, he struggled to find his brother's pulse point…he finally located it, pressing his fingers to it, he prayed to find a rhythm…it was there…faint…but there…
Sam's eyes shifted to look at the other fallen figure…the man's wide, black eyes shifted toward him briefly before his head was violently thrown back as a column of ashy black smoke poured out of his throat and into the air, disappearing rapidly from sight… the man heaved and jerked and was finally still…Sam turned back to Dean…he had to get him to a hospital…things were still a bit fuzzy, but if he remembered correctly, there was one a few blocks over…
Sam unfolded his lanky form from the ground…discovering that he couldn't put pressure on his right ankle…in fact, his whole right side throbbed, and in certain places burned…but none of it matter now…he had to help his brother…he had to save Dean…He bent and lifted his brother up by the denim of his coat, until he could grip him around his chest and drag him bodily to the Impala…he tore the door open, shoving the seat forward harshly on it's tracks…he lowered his brother face down to the back seat…he paused just long enough to prizen the gun from his brother's hand, and the long silver dagger tied to his outer thigh…he shifted the seat back in place, went to the trunk, placing his and Dean's weapons in the lock box and securing the trunk before he raced back to the driver's seat and folded himself into it…
Sam powered the Impala's throaty engine up, slamming it into reverse, he torqued the wheel in a violent turn and awkwardly slammed his left foot down on the gas, being mindful to not apply pressure to his right ankle…the Impala surged backward out of the parking space, skidding out of it in a hail of gravel, ending up facing in the direction of street…Sam shifted to drive and the Impala surged toward the street before him…he roared around the corner, the back end spinning out in a harsh fishtail…he corrected the turn and surged down the street toward the hospital…he took the last turn at break-neck speed, narrowly avoiding spinning out into a 360 as he fish-tailed wildly again…he launched the car into the narrow drive under the over hang of the Emergency Room banner affixed to the building…he blared the horn, calling attention to himself to speed the response of the emergency workers…
He slammed to a halt, parking the car and clumsily unfolded himself from the car, catching his foot and falling in his haste…he gripped the car frame, clambering back to his feet as he slammed the seat forward once again…
"Help!!!!" Sam bellowed….."Somebody help me!!! My brother's been shot!!!!"
A flood of nurses and doctors rushed to his aid…two strong orderlies gripped his brother and slid him out of the seat, carrying him between them to place him on the waiting gurney…Sam slammed the door and made to follow his brother's retreating form into the hospital when a voice shouting beside him finally registered in his mind…
"Sir!!!...Sir!!...You have been shot as well!!...We need to treat you!!!...Sir!!...Can you hear me?!?!?....Do you understand?!?!?" the woman's urgent voice becoming clearer…he felt a pressure on his shoulder as the woman shook him firmly to try to get through to him…as his brother disappeared through the doors, he turned to look at her…she saw the haze clearing in his eyes, the focus returning….
"Sir…" she said more gently…"Sir, do you understand me?" Sam nodded…"Good, ok, you have been shot as well…we need to treat you…can you get onto the gurney on your own, or do you need me to help you?..." she said gesturing to the waiting gurney…Sam hobbled to its side, he turned and sat down gently swinging his legs over the edge as he lay himself out…the nurse was right there next to him, just in case he lost balance…she took his hand and he looked into her eyes for a moment as they began moving toward the hospital…
"What's your name?" she asked….
"Sam…." he said, suddenly weary…his eyes became unfocused again and he kept drifting off…
"Sam…my name is Krissy…I don't want you to worry…we are going to take good care of you and your brother, ok? You just hold on…" she said, holding his hand tightly in hers as the wheeled him into Exam 1…through the door to her side, she could see them working on the man's brother…they were already hanging a fresh bag of plasma…it didn't look good from where she stood…she hoped the young man pulled through…She turned back to Sam…he was drifting in and out of consciousness…
"Sam?....Can you hear me?..." she said gently…
Sam heard a woman…the nurse...Krissy calling his name…he opened his eyes to look at her, nodding…"Dean….how's Dean…" he asked hoarsely…
"They are working on him next door….I'll go check on him for you in a moment, ok? Sam, what happened?...How did you and you brother get injured?" she said, keeping her voice calm and steady.
"Dean….savvvveeddd…me…" he said, his words faltering and slurring as the trauma to his body finally overrode the adrenaline in his system…"He sssssaaaaveedddd my….liffffffffeee…." Sam's eyes flickered rapidly and the rolled to white as he fell into unconsciousness… his hand went limp and the computers attached to the probes and leads on his body went nuts…
"He's in V-tach!!" another nurse shouted as she rushed to get the crashcart…..
"No pulse!!! He's not breathing!!! Someone bag him and start chest compressions!!!! The doctor called out as he worked to save him…"Get me an amp of Epi, stat!!!
"Dammit Sam!!!! Stay with me…." Krissy shouting, ticking the bed back to full recline…another of the trauma nurses injected the drug the doctor ordered into the IV…it didn't seem to have any affect…"come on Sam…I'm sure Dean didn't save you out there only to lose you in here…you've got to fight it!!!" Krissy said, as she prepped his chest for the paddles…she squeezed the gel onto the paddles, and handed them to the doctor…he nodded his head as he accepted them…
"Charge to 250…Everybody clear!! " he assured himself everyone was clear and then placed the paddles down, sending a jolt of electricity screaming from the wires and the paddles straight into the young man's chest…he arched violently off the gurney before slamming back down…they waited for a moment with bated breath…no appreciative response…"Charge to 300!!!! Clear!!!!!" he waited for them to clear…he placed the paddles down again, sending the electricity slamming through the man's body again…he arched up again, but this time, when he slammed back down, his eyes flew open briefly then closed again and he sucked a long, ragged breath in…they waited another moment to see if his body would take up the rhythm again…another heaving breath…then another…then another….the erratic pattern steadying out…"We got him back!! Good work, people!!! Get him stabilized…he needs to get to surgery…..Let's move people!!!" the doctor shouted and every one started moving at full-tilt-boogie…Krissy detached herself and went to check on Dean for Sam…just as she promised…