Dad?

DISCLAIMER - If I owned either Supernatural or Grey's Anatomy, I really really really wouldn't kill off Papa Winchester or Denny. I love them too much...

A/N - It's been done to death, but I don't care. I'm conveniently ignoring the fact that Denny's like 10 years younger than John. Set somewhere within Supernatural season 2 and in the Grey's season 2 episode where Denny and his L-Vad go for a wander, can't remember the ep. name and I can't check cos my Beta stole my DVD's.

Dean hated hospitals. He'd seen the chaos of an Emergency Room a million times, each one adding another mark to the 'this is how much I hate hospitals' dipstick in his mind.

Of course, he was usually in a concussion or blood-loss induced comatose state when he was subjected to the ER experience, which helped some.

What didn't help was when it wasn't him who was passed out, when he was the helpless bystander, just another family member wearing out the carpet in the waiting room.

"Mr Mahogoff?" A blonde he wouldn't have hesitated to hit on if this had been any other time or place gestured for him to come closer, "My name is Dr. Stevens, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your brother needs emergency surgery."

"What?"

She carried on, apparently the disbelief and anxiety in his voice weren't anything unusual, "the MRI shows a swelling in Sam's brain. We're going to have to open his skull and relieve some of the pressure."

"Open his skull?" Dean ran a hand across his face, his worry for Sam now with an edge of anger. The demi-god that had thrown Sammy headfirst into that brick wall was going to have a whole new definition of pain once Dean found him again.

"I'm afraid so. I can have the neurologist, Dr. Shepherd explain the procedure to you, but we really need you to sign some forms so we can get Sam into surgery right away."

In a haze of anger and fear, Dean signed the forms she put in front of him, not even bothering to read them. Sam needed surgery. That demi-god was going to pay. 3 day's sleep deprivation, messing with his brain to make him see things that weren't there, smacking him around a bit – these things were par for the course when hunting the things he and Sam hunted. But putting Sammy on an operating table because his brain was swelling up? That was not allowed.

"How long's he gonna be in surgery for?" He questioned with an intensity he could tell startled the young blonde.

"It's a relatively simple procedure, it shouldn't take longer than 3 and a half to 5 hours. We have a waiting room up on the surgical floor if you want to wait up there."

Simple procedure? "No thanks," Dean grabbed the discarded brown leather jacket from one of the beaten chairs he'd thrown it on when they'd taken Sam away, "I'll be back in three and a half hours."

"Mr Mahogoff?" The confusion in her voice rang out clearly over the din in the triage area, "Mr Mahogoff, where are you going?"

216 minutes later, Dean was pacing the waiting room on the surgical floor. Sammy wasn't out of surgery yet and Dean wasn't a fan of sitting still at the best of times. When his little brother was lying on an operating table, it was so far from anything remotely resembling the best of times as to be almost laughable.

With that much nervous energy running through his body he couldn't stay in the waiting room with other family members, who had nothing to do but hope and watch the pacing guy with dark bruises blossoming his features and what looked suspiciously like blood stains on his deep green t-shirt.

Screw this, he needed a coffee.

It was a few yards from the coffee machine that Dean first saw him.

In the past 20-odd years of his life, Dean had seen so much that he had almost ceased being surprised or caught off guard by something. Especially when it wasn't happening in the middle of a hunt, but at the sight of the man walking down the corridor towards him, Dean was shell shocked.

"Dad?" The word caught in his throat as he looked the guy up and down. He was slimmer, the perpetual beard replaced with a lighter stubble, but it was unmistakeably him. Even with the heart wrenching thought that maybe this was just another illusion, a lingering effect of the demi-god, Dean couldn't help himself.

"Dad?" Louder this time, moving towards him. The world narrowed to him, to the roughness of his t-shirt under Deans fingers as he placed a hand on his shoulders. His eyes which were somehow softer and filled with confusion.

Dean wrapped his arms around him, not caring what anyone else thought. "I knew you could do it."

"Do what?" His accented drawl was more pronounced and his voice puzzled, but all Dean could concentrate on was the hesitant pats against his back.

"Come back to us. I knew you'd find a way to crawl back out of hell."

"Woah, woah, woah," the tentative hands on his back were suddenly pushing gently against his chest, "I don't know what you've heard about me son, but I've never been to hell, and I don't plan on going down there anytime soon."

Dean released his death grip on John and allowed himself to be pushed back.

"Sammy's here, he's in surgery, Dad," it was Dean's turn to be confused, was this lack of recognition a side effect from whatever he'd done to make it back to the real world?

"Look, I'm sorry kid, but I'm not your dad," the way John was looking at him was breaking Dean's already chipped and battered heart, "are you a patient here? I think this is the psych floor…" he looked round as though expecting to see a Doctor searching for his missing patient.

"What? No, I'm not a patient, I just told you, Sam's in surgery." Dean had no idea what was going on. This guy couldn't be a shapeshifter otherwise he'd have all of John's memories, and there were very few other creatures that could take the shape of a different person, none of which would be hanging out in a hospital in Seattle.

"You don't remember Sammy? My brother?" Dean ran an exasperated hand over his face at the bemused headshake from the man with his fathers face. "You've never heard the name John Winchester?"

"I'm sorry boy, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not your pop, I'm just a patient here."

"Well what the hell are you doing wandering the corridors then? Shouldn't you be in a bed or something?" Dean's emotions were dangerously close to the surface, his confusion and worry over Sam – and now over whatever the demi-god had actually done to him – were so easy to turn to anger. Anger wasn't as weak as fear, he'd learned that long ago.

And it was so tempting to take it all out on the guy in front of him. Ream him out for all the things that were wrong with their life, how even with him dead, they still couldn't have a normal life, Sam was on an operating table with his skull flap open instead of at a college party with his girlfriend. To spit out every damn thing he'd ever wanted to say to his father but couldn't because he was the 'perfect soldier'.

He cut off whatever the stranger was going to say with a curt "sorry to bother you," turning away before he had to hear his dead fathers voice speaking from those too familiar features. He'd taken no more than a couple of steps when that voice stopped him dead in his tracks once more, "uh…I hope your brother, Sammy's ok."

Something snapped and suddenly Dean couldn't hold back anymore, suddenly didn't care that the man beside the coffee machine was just a guy who looked like John Winchester, with nothing to do with the jaded hunter he was filled with rage towards.

"No. You do not get to do that," he turned back to the shocked man, completely oblivious to the strange glances his raised voice had drawn from the few others in the corridor.

"You do not get to say his name. He's lying on an operating table with holes in his skull because of your stupid mission, because it's what you would have wanted."

"Hey, I didn't mean any disrespect," the man was backing off slightly, hands held non-threateningly beside his hips, palms facing Dean in a universal 'unarmed' gesture.

"When you died, for a second I was relieved," Dean didn't realise he was crying until the salt of his tears began to sting the cut on his cheek, one of several that marred his features, "for a split second I thought, 'now Sammy can go back to college, he'll be safe and he'll be happy because you won't be on his back anymore'. But the thing that killed Mom and Jess is still out there. And we still gotta find it. But now we gotta do it alone 'cause you died."

Stare focused despite the tears, Dean looked straight into those hazel eyes and bit out the words he'd wished he'd had the chance to say to his father.

"I wasn't worth it."

"Sir?" Before either of them had a chance to say or do anything more, a slightly anxious looking nurse stepped between them, her eyes darting from one to the other a couple of times before settling on Dean, "Your brother's out of surgery. He's still sedated but you can sit with him if you like."

She hesitated by his side as Dean's overwrought brain processed this information. "He's out of surgery? Is he ok?" He tore his eyes away to look at the small red-head.

"He should be. Is everything alright here? Denny?" She turned to address the now-pale man who'd borne the brunt of Dean's anger.

"I'm fine, Olivia, I think he's just wound up about his brother, is all."

Dean managed a hastily muttered apology to the man he now knew to be named Denny before following the nurse as fast as she would take him to see Sam. So caught up in getting to his brother, he failed to notice the man's breathing quicken and his legs collapse, slumping his body against the pale wall.

Sam was going to be ok. He was going to make it through, and then Dean could rest. Sleep for a while, oh, how he needed to sleep, something he never allowed himself to do until he knew for sure that nothing would come out of the darkness and take his brother from him.

Relief numbed the anger and the anxiety that had been boiling his blood for what seemed like an age and as he sat beside Sam, Dean allowed himself to feel like they might just make it through after all.

When the broken looking man had called him 'Dad', Denny didn't know how to react.

When he'd started to yell, Denny's first instinct was to shout back, but the pain that lurked behind his rage was so clear, he couldn't muster any anger.

When he'd whispered those 4 words in a desperate voice, Denny had wanted to comfort him, tell him that whatever his father had done, he must have been worth it.

When Denny's heart was racing and his breathing was laboured, the broken man's hazel eyes were all he could think about, the myriad of emotions and feelings, unspoken words and unshed tears they held.

When Denny slept a sedated sleep, he dreamed of the broken man. He stood in the corridor, looking exactly the same as he had before Olivia took him away. But he was looking at the ceiling.

Denny knew what he was looking at, he saw it in almost every nightmare he had. And just like those nightmares, he couldn't help lifting his eyes to stare at Izzie, pinned to the ceiling, a single bead of blood falling slowly from the pool of red at her abdomen before the flames burst out around her.

The End