Come Home

Summary: After not finishing the Trials, Sam's in a bad way & Dean's left with little to no hope in pulling him back out of the mysterious coma he fell into. As Dean struggles to find a way to bring Sam home to him, Sam struggles to find his way back to his brother when given a choice of returning home to Dean or moving on. *Sick/hurt/comatose!Sam & Upset/worried/freaked out/angsty/protective!Dean* Set after 8x23-Sacrifice & before 9x1. See note and warnings for more.

Warnings: Language of course. I'm also laying a tissue warning on this one so it may require them for some. Also, despite appearances this is not a death fic so don't worry.

Spoilers: While it may contain spoilers for those who haven't see all of Season 8 yet it may also hold some minor spoilers for season 9…maybe.

Disclaimer: I don't own the boys or anything to do with them. This is written just for the enjoyment of fans.

Author Note: I don't often write stories before the season starts unless the muse and the plot bunny picks something out. This piece is loosely based on the spoilery picture released this week of Sam in the hospital. How I bring him out of it is all from my imagination since I have no clue how the writers will do it. This is just my take on a really sick and hurt Sam. I may do another one but we'll see.

Enjoy it and look me up on Facebook under morgana07 for comments, questions or to chat. Thanks.

Chapter One

"Are you saying my brother's life is in God's hands?"

In thirty-four years of life Dean Winchester had heard a lot of things from a lot of people but nothing went straight through his already clenching heart like the words of the doctor staring across his unconscious and dying brother's hospital bed.

"Mr. Winchester, we've run every conceivable test on your brother and regardless of how his condition continues to deteriorate we can't find any reason for it; much less a way to heal him," the doctor was grim as he faced the older Winchester, though a touch of understanding lit his eyes. "We will keep trying but…I just wanted to let you know the realistic outcome so you could prepare yourself or call any family."

"I'm all the family Sam has left, Doctor," Dean gritted his teeth against the pain of that because as he sat down on the chair by the bed to stare at his pale faced brother and took in all the wires attached to Sam it nearly broke that last barrier he'd shoved up against the pain that wanted to come as he knew if his little brother died that whatever the hell was happening out there would need to find a new savior because he'd eat the barrel of his damn gun.

Scrubbing both hands over his face, Dean slumped back in the chair to try to recall how in the hell they'd gotten here but a look at Sam told him only too well how he'd allowed them to come to this place in their lives again.

"Trying to save the goddamn world again is how I'm facing losing my brother…again," he muttered to the room that was empty save for his unconscious brother and himself, the only sounds present were the constant beeping, hissing or dripping of the machines that kept Sam alive, monitored and hydrated as he continued to waste away from whatever the damn trials had done to him.

Dean had never once thought that doing the three trials to close the gates to Hell would be easy, though he had less concern when he'd originally planned to be the one to actually do the damn things. It wouldn't have made a difference to him how the trials turned out, stopping them or not, if it had been his life on the line.

That had been Dean's plan in the start when their geek of a Prophet had broken the code on the tablet. He planned to do the trials, slam the door on Crowley's mug and that horrible accent, take whatever came…good or bad, just so Sam could have the chance to finally have normal and leave hunting behind.

That had been the plan…until his well-meaning baby brother failed to listen to him about staying inside and came out to the barn to not only save Dean's life from the very Hellhound they needed to kill but killed the damn ugly hell-mutt and took the trials onto his already too heavily laden shoulders.

It took nearly losing Sam to Purgatory to make Dean begin to put things in perspective again. He and Sam had been tense since Dean's return from Purgatory and all for reasons that had been beyond his brother's control really.

Dean wasn't certain was really had started to tilt things back to where they'd been years earlier; if it had been meeting Henry, their father's Dad, or finding out about the Men of Letters legacy that seemed to fit Sam to a tee or watching Sam's health begin to fail the longer the trials went.

The only thing he knew was that he'd almost allowed saving the world from demons cost him his brother because what no one had known was that the fine print of the trials meant closing the gates of Hell would also kill the person doing them.

Dean had known something about the creepy sweater wearing Angel who'd written the tablets had made him wary but when Naomi told him finally that Sam would die if he completed the third trial nothing else mattered to him except stopping his brother…and he had. He just hadn't realized that everything would fall apart soon afterward.

Sam's emotional confession in the church had broken Dean's heart but it had allowed him to express his own to his brother fully for the first time in a long while and he'd almost been able to convince himself when Sam had given in to the hug that he'd pulled his brother back from the brink of destruction again…until he screamed and collapsed that is.

"Damn it," he muttered, stilling feeling the fever coursing through Sam's body as he half dragged and half carried him out of the church where Crowley had still been chained to fall against the Impala even as the night sky literally opened above them as it seemed all of Heaven suddenly emptied with angels falling, burning to Earth.

The elder Winchester had no clue what had happened up there. If Castiel had done it or if something else had happened or where in the hell their Angel in the trenchcoat was right then and as much as Dean knew he should care, and he did on same level, all his thoughts were locked on his brother.

When Sam had started to convulse and throw up blood he knew Sam needed more help than he could give him there or back at the bunker where Dean hoped Kevin still was so a fast trip to the closest hospital had been in order and that was literally the ride from Hell as far as Dean was concerned.

Sam only regained semi-consciousness once and only enough to cling to Dean's hand much like he had as a little boy when sick and scared. It had been easy to offer mindless reassurances to him as he drove or it had been until he looked next to him to see the fear, tears and finally the ultimate knowing of what was happening to him shining in huge glassy hazel eyes.

Dean reach over to slip the cold limp hand lying flat on the bed into his hand as if hoping feeling the strength of his grip would be enough to will his dying brother to come home.

"Sammy, c'mon man. Don't do this. You can fight whatever the hell this is. You've fought worse than this," Dean didn't even realize how raw and shaky his voice was when he spoke as he squeezed the unresponsive hand. "Come home to me, little brother. Don't you dare leave me like this. I mean, looks like all the Angels got kicked outta Heaven. Do you really wanna be stuck up there with Ash and Bobby?"

He refused to even once entertain the thought that Sam would not go to Heaven because his little brother might have made some mistakes and his life might have been screwed up from the night he was six months old when a damn demon infected him with demon blood but as far as Dean was concerned Sam had cleared the slate more than once.

Castiel had once said the trials were affecting Sam on levels that not even he could heal. Dean hadn't liked that then and now as he sat in yet another hospital room watching his brother's chest rise and fall slowly, shallowly, he really didn't like it.

It had been too long since Sam had slipped into what the doctors called an unknown unresponsive coma and Dean feared it would only be a short time before either Sam's body gave out or a white coated doctor walked into the room with the face that he knew meant he'd need to make a decision.

Since hunting had been his life for more years now than he actually liked to think about, Dean supposed he'd been lucky in some ways. Oh, he'd seen the inside of places like this more than he liked but he'd always walked out of them.

Sure there had been a couple times when it had been a close call but he'd always walked out. As had Sam. The times when his little brother almost hadn't were still vivid in Dean's mind because while he honestly expected hunting to claim his life one day he'd always fought to make sure it didn't claim his brother.

This damn life had claimed nearly everyone else they loved, friends and family, and to sit by helplessly to watch the only person left in his life that made going on, that made wanting to carry on the family tradition worthwhile slip further away broke him.

"Okay, chick flick rule locked down for now and I hope in some way you can hear me, Sammy," he began slowly, feeling the hot tears on his face as he spoke but didn't even both to wipe them away. "I need you to fight this. Wherever you are right now, I need you to fight and hold on. I will find a way to make this right, to make this better…to make you better."

Dean reached into his pocket to pull out a black rubber like bracelet that they both used to wear and that he'd pulled from a duffel days earlier, slipping it over the wrist of the hand he held. "This mess, you being here now, is on me, Sammy. I never should've let you do that first spell. I should've stopped it until we could find another damn Hellhound and did the trials myself.

"Yeah, I won't say we wouldn't still be in a hospital but at least it would be my life fading away and I could live with that. You've always been able to slip back into normal and without me around to drag you down or around hunting things you could maybe find normal and stick with it," his fingers tightened around Sam's while watching the pale bruised face for any signs of life but finding none. "I'm…not like that and there is no normal for me if you die, Sammy.

"I've promised you so many damn times that nothing bad would happen to you so long as I was around. Well, it's official. I suck at keeping that promise and with Heaven in an uproar and Crowley kind of…tied up…I know no one would deal with me but I will do everything in my power to make you better but you've got to hold on for me, Sam. You've got to want to live and know that I meant what I said to you back there," Dean's mind was reeling with ideas on how to fix this but nearly every idea he came up with was almost immediately rejected.

Reaching his other hand up to brush a stray piece of long sweaty hair back from his brother's face, it shook Dean how fragile his brother once again seemed. It had been a long time since Sam had looked or been this sickly or weak looking and every big brother instinct in Dean was kicking up a storm to shield and protect if only he knew how.

Angels were out. Deal making with demons was out unless he wanted to trade Crowley for his brother's life and even then Dean wasn't sure if that would work since something told him maybe Hell wouldn't been thrilled for the return of their so-called King.

Sam was on death's door and… "Sonuvabitch," he whispered when it hit him like a pitcher of ice water in the face the one thing he hadn't considered trying, not that he was sure it would work either considering neither he nor Sam were exactly favorites of this particular entity.

"Sammy, I'll be right back. I…I will be back, little brother. I'm not leaving you and if this backfires and you think you're leaving me…it ain't that simple," Dean squeezed Sam's hand firmly before reluctantly easing away. "I…I…love you, little brother. I'll be back."

Brushing fingers that shook over Sam's face, Dean stepped out of the room with something akin to dread curling in his stomach; as if fearing that if he left something bad would happen but he couldn't see anything worse than watching his brother dying and not being able to stop it.

The looks of the sad eyed nurses as they gave him furtive glances as he walked down the hall told him what he already knew. The staff knew Sam was dying and while they'd give proper lip service to the upset family member it was a lost cause in their eyes.

Sam had been a lost cause in the eyes of a lot of people in their lives it seemed but no matter the fights, the issues or problems they might have had in the last eight years he wasn't a lost cause to Dean. He was his little brother.

He was still and would always be the little boy Dean taught to walk, to talk, to ride a bike, to shoot a gun when it finally come to that point because he wasn't letting their often too brusque for his own good Dad teach Sam how to shoot.

Sammy wasn't a lost cause to Dean and he'd find someone to save him no matter who he had to beg or what he had to promise to get it done.

The hospital chapel was small and dark with only a few candles burning to light it but that didn't bother the elder Winchester. He didn't need light for this, just privacy.

It seemed a little weird that it was him sitting down in the chapel when it had always been his brother who'd been the more religious one. Sam had always enjoyed being with Pastor Jim while he prepared his services or would just sit for hours asking Jim question after question to things that amazed Dean and amused the Holy man turned hunter.

Sam's views on Angels had changed a little after he first met one and it still hurt Dean that a lot of his brother's beliefs on Heaven and Hell had been taken away by from dickhead angels that only saw Sam for the choices their mother had made while trying to save their Dad years before either of them were even born.

Lighting a candle out of some long buried instinct that Jim Murphy had drilled into his head, Dean offered a silent pray that someone still in Heaven could at least take the time to look over Sam one more time.

Taking a deep breath, Dean wasn't certain if this would work or not but it was one of his last options before he had to resort to trying the plan that involved the needle in his jacket. "Hey, it's Dean Winchester," he began slowly, closing his eyes as if that would help. "I…I need some help. I know you'll give me the speech about natural selection and how Sam and I screw it up all the time but…c'mon, this is my little brother and by now you should now the things I'll do for him.

"I don't regret any of the choices I've made for Sam over the years and I won't regret the choices I'll make now to save him but I need help because I don't know what's wrong with him or how to bring him back from this," he lifted his head to gaze at the ceiling, tears in his eyes and on his face. "He just tried to save the world again. He just tried to make me see a light of then end of the tunnel but I think the only light he's seeing now is the one on the wrong end and…I will do anything you want if you just give him back to me.

"Sam's been dragged down this crappy road not because he wanted it but because he had no choice. He didn't choose to be infected with demon blood at six months old, he didn't choose our Mom to die or Dad to go down the path he did to avenge her. He didn't choose to be a hunter. I did. I chose it so maybe my brother could be normal but then I failed when by dragging him back because I needed someone.

"If you want to take this out on someone then take me. It should've been me doing these trials in the first damn place so if you want to take anyone, if anyone needs to pay for this, then let it be me," Dean was grasping and he knew it but he also didn't care right then.

He'd gone to Hell for Sam so trading his life for his brother's with the actual Angel of Death wasn't anything too out there for him.

"Take me but let him live…just let me see him open his eyes one more time and then you can have whatever pound of flesh you need from me. Please let him come home," Dean's voice choked on the last word but leaned back with a sigh.

Begging Death was never an exact science since the guy came and went when he wanted but it was all Dean knew to do except resort to using the blood he'd drawn from Crowley earlier.

He wasn't sure what kind of effect, if any, it would have on Sam since part of the trial had been to inject Sam's blood into the King of Hell to cure him and Dean wasn't sure how the blood was now. He also suspected Sam wouldn't be thrilled if he did that because he'd been so certain the trials had been cleansing him of the demon blood he'd been infected with as a child.

The blood was Dean's last resort to try if nothing else would work but as he sat in the silent chapel it slowly became clear that he was very close to having to try it if only to save Sam's life.

Slashing a hand over his face, he made his way back toward Sam's room slowly. He'd made several hard choices in the course of his life in regards to Sam but nothing as hard as this one because while he wanted to save his brother, needed to save him, he also wasn't certain if he could live with Sam hating him if he injected him with demon blood…even if it was diluted demon blood.

"I swear if I get him back I am locking him in a damn bubble so nothing like this happens again," he muttered, nearing the room when suddenly it seemed like a block of ice grabbed his heart and nearly took him to his knees only a moment before alarms, sensors and people all started going crazy. "No…no."

Fighting past the pain and the terror building, Dean broke into a run down the hall back to his brother's room that seemed to be the focus of the noise and people all hurrying with carts, needles, tubes while doctors were using terms like cardiac arrest, bleeding internally and other things that merely served to send Dean further into panic.

"Sammy!" he shouted, taking another step only to have a nurse stop him with a hand to his chest. "He's my brother! What's…what's happening?"

"He's dying."

The male voice from behind him had Dean whirling to face a young looking man in jeans, t-shirt and battered jacket leaning against the wall watching him with a grim face but understanding eyes and no matter that he looked an non-descript as any other person in the hospital Dean didn't need to be a hunter to know what he was looking at.

He was staring at a Reaper of Death, one of those who came to collect souls chosen by Death to crossover and if he was here then it was plain that Dean's time of saving his brother was running out.

"Sam is dying, Dean…and there is very little you can do now to save him. I'm sorry."

Dean's eyes had narrowed, ice flooding his veins even as he could hear his brother's heart monitor beeping like made before it suddenly went to a long straight steady sound and he whirled back around. "No…no…no! Sammy!"

TBC

A/NII: Ducks. I know, I know. This looks bad and yes, I am evil for cliffhanging it here but it wouldn't be a cliffhanger if it wasn't dramatic. Just trust me and remember that I don't write death fics so I will fix this… somehow.