A Kind Of Magic

Disclaimer: Nothing to do with Supernatural, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to me. That's why I'm stuck with writing, thinking, and dreaming about them.

Timeline: SPN - Sometime in the second season, BtVS - nearly four years post Chosen.

Summary: Hospitals can be full of surprises...

Author's Note: I still can't believe I did this. My first Buffy fic for five years, my first ever posted Supernatural fic. This was a LJ challenge for Eshe - hey, I got it finished on time!

xxxXXXxxxXXXxxx

Part One

Sam

The room was still, an almost deathly quiet smothering the four white walls, two beds and three occupants. Sam's breathing sounded too loud, out of place, a sinful noise in a sacred place. If he concentrated, and held his breath, he could hear the relaxed, deep breaths his brother was taking. He could match each in and out to the slight rise up and down of the crisp white sheets enveloping Dean's battered and bruised body. The regular rhythm was a balm to a battered and bruised soul, but still Sam couldn't tear his eyes away. He didn't really believe that Dean's hold on life would disappear if he wasn't watched, but the little Sammy who was inside the 6'4" Sam, kept yelling at him to watch his brother. After all, his father wasn't around to do that job anymore.

Further down the hall a telephone was ringing, and the hushed footsteps of hospital workers passed by the door. Here in this room though, Sam had stepped into another world, a different dimension. A place outside of normality, divorced from reality. The only other person allowed in, was his smart-ass, idiotic know-it-all jerk of a brother, who had nearly got himself killed. Again. Here, Sam was the one in charge, the protector, the guardian. The votes on that had been cast and tallied while Dean had still been out for the count, while the doctors had worked on stopping the bleeding and fixing the damage. While Sam had paced the waiting room nervously, impatient for news. Again.

He looked across to the bed nearest the door, wishing his borther was currently resting there. Dean always wanted - and usually got - the bed closest to the way out, or the way in for anything wanting to get to Sam. That bed had already been occupied when Dean had been wheeled in though. A dark-haired man with a serious looking full arm and shoulder cast and, biazzarely enough, an eye-patch. He didn't look that tough, but Sam found himself checking the guy's wrist for handcuffs, just in case. Would he be willing to swap beds later? The doctors probably wouldn't be too happy about him moving with all that hard-ware plastered on, but come on. This was Dean. What Dean wanted, Sam would make sure he got. After all, they were Winchesters.

Another ten minutes ticked slowly by on the watch strapped to his wrist, before Sam stretched his legs out in front of him, placed his cup of almost-coffee on the little cabinet, and sighed. Heavily. Breaking the silence, but he stubbonly refused to feel guilty. The couple of hours sleep he had managed to snatch earlier, hadn't done anything to wipe away the feeling of bone-deep exaustion, but he couldn't leave. Not yet. Not when he didn't know when Dean would wake, and need him. He had to be there, to reassure Dean, to let him know the job was done, and that he wasn't alone. That his family was here.

At least Dean was off the machines which made Sam's insides clench and twist until they felt in danger of choking him. If he ever heard a heart machine beep while counting the beats of the life of someone he cared about, once more in however many years were left to him - it would be too much, too soon. He'd had enough of watching his brother fight for his life, for every breath which kept him alive for just another second.

Dean was sleeping peacefully now, the painkillers doing their job and allowing Dean the release from duty he never allowed himself. Sam's eyes lingered on the so familiar features of his brother, (he'd never admit the fact to Dean, but his brother really was the handsome one) and idly wondered where that sense of duty had come from. How, why did it grow so strongly that Dean seemed to view the value of his life only in terms of what he did to save others. Family in particular, 'Sammy' above all else.

Did it really all stem from the moment that defined all other parts of their lives? All the causation of the demon which now had taken both parents from them, and had who knew what plans for their... for his... future? Or were the roots further back than that day, further back than maybe even Dean realised. Had that sense of duty instilled by two proud parents who were preparing their firstborn to be a proud and protective big brother. Parents who never realised how that sense of duty would develop and be needed, or of the sacrifices which would be made without a second thought, because they had become an automatic response. Parents who didn't know that, so soon in the future, that sense of duty would be cemented when their older son would carry their younger son out of their home, while in an upstairs room, a husband failed to save a wife, a mother was lost, and a father irrevocably altered.

Maybe it was down to one of those reasons, or both, or the responsibility Dean had been given to look after Sammy while their actual father had been off hunting. Whatever the cause though, the end result had been a man who had an indelible stamp of 'protect others, protect Sammy' on his soul, and a self-sacrificing spirit as an intrinsic part of his make-up. Sam knew, knew as well as he knew when Dean's birthday was, and the name of his favourite song, that nothing in this world, or out of it, would ever stop Dean from stepping in between his baby brother and danger. Never mind the point that his baby brother was taller, and as strong as him. Blow away the training that Dean had undertaken to make sure 'little Sammy' could fight - and win. Ignore the number of hunts they had been on where Sam had come out without a stratch, while the thing they were hunting was dead, or destroyed. Forget the fact that Sam...

...oh forget it. Dean was Dean, and Sam couldn't change that. All he wanted was a chance to save Dean for a change. To step between his big brother and danger, and make sure Dean didn't get hurt. Again.

The anger was building again, the anger he had banked down so much over the years, that it shocked him as much as anyone whenever it suddenly exploded with the force of a volcano.

The type of anger that led him to walk out of the door, his father's parting words ringing in his ears. "If you want to go, then you can stay gone."

The type of anger that fuelled his actions for the next few years - obeying his father for once, and cutting both father and brother out of his life at Stanford.

The type of anger that Ellicott had discovered, and twisted to his own ends.

The type of anger that, ultimately, had led to him shooting his brother. Twice.

The type of anger that needed to be released in a different way, safely, calmly and not directed against an unconcious, helpless Dean.

He straightened one leg, and kicked a small trolley towards the door.

Of course, that had to be the moment when the pretty brunette walked in.

xxxXXXxxxXXXxxx

To be continued.

Reviews get me through another day at work...