A/N: The response to this piece has been incredible to me, I am humbled by and grateful for everyone who has commented on LJ and ff.n as well as the unexpected link-love. I can't thank you all enough for your support and kind words. I can only hope this chapter lives up to whatever you enjoyed in the first one. I would also like to say that I am not a doctor - I researched the best that I could and will just have to ask you to please suspend your disbelief if you can should there be something glaringly wrong. Once again: this is for Dizzo and, most of all, I hope it lives up to your wishes! Word Count: 3314

Chapter 2

It was late afternoon by the time Sam got them pointed back in the direction of the Impala. Seemed sort of strange to be heading out almost exactly two days to the hour after starting in, almost like it should mean something. He tried to distract himself by calculating how far along they would be if they had actually managed the early morning start they had wanted to get for the trek in.

He wondered if they would have found it first if they had managed that early morning start.

He wondered if Dean would still have been injured if they had been there sooner.

A mutinous part of his brain wondered if it would have been worse somehow, he clenched his jaw against the thought tight enough to hurt.

Sam had clipped the headlamp to the outside of the backpack hoping Dean would be able to handle the bumpy ride well enough for him to continue into the night without stopping. He seriously doubted that would happen, listening to the shallow, raspy breaths from behind him punctuated by the occasional pained grunt. Dad had taught them to be prepared for any eventuality better than any Boy Scout troupe ever could have, though.

He let his thoughts drift back to the day he picked up the headlamps, one for each of them. Dean had bitched a blue streak about them, Sam had listened to hours of whining about how it would mess up Dean's hair every time he came across them stowed in the gear. He knew his brother wasn't particularly vain, but he had always been meticulous about his hair.

Hey, at least I never have to worry about pony-tailing it in the middle of a fight he liked to say, with a meaningful look at Sam's thick mane. It got to the point where Sam would mutter the words along with Dean and usually earn himself a good-natured swat for it.

When the time came to use the headlamps for the first time, Dean had grabbed his and slapped it on his head as though he'd been wearing it for years. Sam knew in that moment his brother had thought it was a good idea all along, had just felt obligated to give his little brother a hard time about doing something clever.

Because that's what big brothers are for, right?

At least, that's what Dean was for. Sam would have given nearly anything in that moment for Dean to be able to harass him about his hair, or his geek brain, or any one of a thousand other things Dean teased him about in his own unique way of showing affection.

And goddamn didn't it just suck that he was hurt so badly he could barely draw air into his lungs and he hadn't even been doing anything stupid when it happened? Though he would undoubtedly deny it, Sam knew Dean was one of the best hunters out there. Seemed like the only time he ever got hurt was when he threw himself between someone and whatever danger was bearing down on them.

Between Sam and danger.

Not this time. This time he had been hurt because Sam had not watched his back well enough. The thing had come from behind Dean, charging into the space between the two men before Sam could focus on the blur moving into his field of vision.

If he had just been a little faster.

"Sam." The sudden almost-whisper of his name nearly made him stumble. He caught his footing as smoothly as he could, cursing and praying he didn't jar Dean too badly when he heard the hiss of pain slide past his brother's defenses.

"One sec Dean." He was surprised to realize twilight was already settling through the trees, darkness falling sooner inside the cover of the forest. He had not realized so much time had passed, lost in his thoughts. He should have checked on Dean already, should probably have dosed him with more painkillers.

He stacked that guilt neatly on top of the rest as he looked for a place to prop the litter so he could have a look at his brother before darkness fell. The forest floor rose in a gentle curve on his right, the crest of a hill some several feet above his head and not too distant. To his left the slope continued downward, not so gently, on the other side of the trail he was standing on. Short of propping the crossed section he was gripping against one of the trees lining the trail, resting it on the up-slope was just about the best option.

"Gonna set you down for a sec so I can get a look at you Dean. Okay?" He did not wait for a reply, suddenly wanting more than anything to lay his eyes on Dean once more before darkness fell.

"You crawl any farther...inside that big head...you'll need a roadmap...to get back out." The short sentence rattled apart by too-shallow, wheezing breaths. By the time he managed to force out the last few words, Sam was kneeling beside him with that look on his face. "Not your fault...Sam. Stop blamin'... y'self."

"Just. Don't talk for a minute, 'kay Dean? Lemme have a look, I'll get you some more Advil and you should try to eat something before we get started again." Sam watched his brother's face go from a frightening grey tone (and yeah, let's just add that to the never-want-again list right friggin' now) to a pale shade of green at the mention of food.

An empathetic flinch passed through Sam as he undid the sleeping bag and rope combination that was holding Dean securely to the litter. He could see the spasms of pain passing across the older man's face, despite his efforts to hide it, as his own muscles had to engage slightly to hold him in place. As Sam got close to the final knot he felt a shudder rip through Dean, saw his pale face crumple in agony when his muscles instinctively contracted hard against the motion.

Tossing the backpack off his back to rest against his leg, Sam moved quickly to remove the last few knots. Unzipping the pack and reaching into it with one hand, he leaned over and braced Dean's ribs with his other arm again hoping to offer him some small relief from the pain. The acrobatics were well worth it when he heard the wheezing lessen somewhat for the next few slightly deeper breaths, some of the tension slipping from the injured man's trembling frame.

He was still fishing for the Advil when all hell broke loose again.

Sam found himself suddenly sliding down the rough bark of a tree, slamming to his ass at the foot of the trunk with black spots dancing in his vision. A flash of the now-familiar grey fur had him wondering for a moment if he'd been knocked unconscious and was reliving earlier events.

A harsh, pained cry from Dean shook his brain loose from that thought.

A mate?

Really?

What the fuck?

Some detached corner of his brain drifted out guess that's proof someone can love even the ugliest mother as he shoved himself to his feet. Why had he never given any thought to a mate?

Beat yourself up later, he thought as he launched himself toward where the angry creature had snatched Dean up by one arm and crushed him to its chest. He heard Dean yelp again but it was weak and cut off abruptly. The sound seared into his brain, cut him to the bone. He would be hearing it in his nightmares along with the rest of the unpleasant soundtrack of the day, Sam was sure of it.

As it turned to dive off the edge of the trail down the embankment, Sam shifted his upper body downward on the fly and snatched his boot knife from its sheath.

He had Dean's .45 in his waistband, but there was no way he could pop off a shot without possibly hitting his brother. No way was he risking that.

Burdened as it was with Dean's dead weight, the beast's movements were slowed enough that he thought he might stand a chance. He hoped his pain had dropped the other hunter into the soft bosom of unconsciousness because what he was about to do would suck hugely for both of them if he was still awake.

As the grey-furred head vanished down over the edge of the trail, Sam vaulted over the drop and onto its back. He used his momentum and considerable weight to slam the butt of his knife into the thing's ugly skull as he wrapped his other arm around its shoulder, trying to grab Dean's shirt and brace him for the impact. His fingers skittered ineffectively off the front of Dean's button-up as the creature loosed a raw, primal howl of pain and spun towards Sam shaking him loose. Its elbow slammed into the side of his face as it flung Dean's limp form further down the slope with the other powerful arm.

His vision blurred out as, for the second time that day, he heard the air slammed from his brother's lungs. The sound infuriated him, rage burned through him searing away everything but the tunnel-vision zeroed in on that ugly grey muzzle.

"Leave my brother alone you ugly sonofabitch!" he heard himself snarl and he hardly recognized his own voice through the haze of emotions.

He had no memory of drawing the .45, instinct taking over and channeling years of training into a zone that needed no conscious thought. Before he realized what he was doing he'd snapped off half a dozen shots. The thing was completely unrecognizable.

Barely resisting the urge to tuck the hot barrel back into his waistband, he sprinted down to the crumpled form draped motionless over a large boulder. Long fingers danced across his brother's skull, checking for bumps or blood and he was relieved to find neither.

Bracing Dean's head and neck he carefully turned the battered man over, cradling his broken upper body carefully against his chest. Not wanting to see but needing to look anyway.

Between one heartbeat and the next it seemed, the sun slipped behind the horizon leaving the forest floor in near-total darkness. That heartbeat was all he needed to see the blood leaking from his brother's mouth.

"Oh shit, nonono Dean, c'mon man, don't do this." he whispered. The headlamp was still clipped to his pack at the top of the hill. Without it he wasn't sure he could tell whether the blood was from a split lip or a bit tongue, or if the broken ribs had shifted and punctured something inside his sibling's body.

His hand instinctively sought out the pulse-point below the jaw, the weak thud-thud against the pads of his fingers brought tears to Sam's eyes. The thought of doing chest compressions on the broken form in his arms made him sick to his stomach.

A chill screamed through his veins as he realized Dean wasn't breathing. Another flash of almost-deja-vu, except this time he wasn't even struggling. Sam felt himself strangling, fear and frustration closing his throat off so tight he couldn't breathe either.

A choking sob preceded a growl wrenched deep and painful from his chest. This was not happening. He was not losing his brother this way. He rubbed his big palm back and forth across Dean's stomach, avoiding the broken ribs but hoping to elicit some response with the gentle pressure.

Nothing.

"Dean, come on man, don't you leave me. I get it, I do, lesson learned, it sucks to be left behind by the ones you love. I'm here, though, and I'm not going anywhere and you can't either." He'd started with gentle taps to Dean's cheek when the words started pouring out of his mouth, but as he spoke he realized he was not getting a response and the terror of losing his brother twisted in his chest.

In the space of a couple words he escalated from a not-so-gentle tap to a stinging slap serving as a sort of punctuation, ending his rambling with a stunned silence.

He pressed his hand back to Dean's stomach as horror swept through him. He'd just hit his desperately injured brother. What the hell was wrong with him?

His mental self-flagellation was interrupted by a gurgling breath shuddering into the trembling body under his palm. The sudden sting of the slap overrode his body's natural reaction to having the breath driven from it again, but the shock of it caused Dean to draw in too much too quickly. He choked as the blood bubbled up into his throat, coughing and gasping. Fresh blood ran down his chin, gruesomely black against his pale flesh even in the near-dark.

Dean was growing cold to the touch, and the wet burbling sound that accompanied each shallow breath told Sam everything he needed to know.

He lifted Dean in his arms as carefully as he could, wavering for a moment before finding his balance point. As he started carefully making his way up the hill to where the gear lay waiting in the dark, he started talking.

They both seemed to have a sixth sense where the other was concerned, and the sound of one's voice always seemed to give the other comfort when they were hurt or sick. He hoped the same held true now, that Dean was not so far under that he could not hear him. Sam rambled about anything and everything that crossed his mind, not always making sense but pressing onward until a different thought dragged him in another direction.

By the time the shining chassis of the Impala blinded him through the edge of the trees, he'd nearly lost his voice. He had worked past exhaustion some dozen or so hours before and only the sheer need to not hurt his brother further kept him from staggering as he moved.

He slowed to a stop for the briefest of moments as tears welled up and he fought for control, overwhelmed by exhaustion and relief. Sam always teased Dean about his love of that damn car, how he treated it like it was family for crying out loud. Sam could admit it always symbolized home in his mind, but actually talking to it was taking things a bit too far. In that moment, he understood.

After so much pain and blood, the absolute certainty he was going to lose his brother sometime in the last agonizing days, that damn car looked like a gift from God himself. A way out of this, the means to get help, an escape from the nightmare.

"Hey baby," he breathed, his abused voice rough and broken. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he started moving again, "Don't ever tell Dean I just said that, will you?"

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Sam was trembling with exhaustion as he somehow managed to settle Dean into the front seat. He needed to be able to keep an eye on the older man, couldn't bring himself to let his brother out of his sight. With a punctured lung and damaged kidney, sitting up was probably best anyway he told himself.

He flicked out his boot knife, recovered from the forest floor, and sliced through the rope holding the sleeping bags to the litter. Rope they could replace, he needed the sleeping bags to wrap around Dean to try to stave off shock if possible. If it wasn't already too late.

Sam gently wrapped the blankets around Dean's chilled, limp form, dragging the injured man carefully across the bench seat to lean against his side. He wrapped an arm behind Dean and braced his chest the best he could given the circumstances, hoping to keep anything else from shifting out of place.

He could also feel his brother's faint heartbeat against the palm of his hand this way, though he told himself that was nothing more than a lucky side-effect.

The navigation program on his phone said the nearest hospital was 40 minutes away.

He made it in 20.

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Sam managed to keep himself upright and conscious for the over 4 hours Dean was in surgery. He had fended off well-meaning nurses who had wanted to check him over, too, after laying eyes on the blood covering his front and the deep bruise on his cheek and eye.

The blood was not his. He did not need help. He needed his brother to be okay.

It would be two days before Sam took time enough to look at himself in a mirror and discover the impact had been hard enough to bleed his sclera red.

By the time the doctor came to talk with him, Sam's body had nearly locked up solid from the punishment he had been dealt. As he pushed to his feet his overexerted legs trembled and threatened to buckle. Gritting his teeth he locked whichever knee was bearing his weight as he moved stiffly toward the doctor.

The list was like some kind of freak medical pop quiz.

One lung was collapsed, the other punctured and had barely been functioning enough to keep Dean alive. He had a deeply lacerated kidney, a fractured scapula, 6 broken ribs, 3 of them displaced, significant internal bleeding and so many bumps, bruises and scrapes the attending doctor actually stopped logging them.

But the thing that made Sam's stomach clench and sent him dizzy with dread was when the doctor said Dean would have to be on a ventilator until his lungs healed sufficiently to sustain life on their own.

When Dean was finally moved into his own room a nurse in hot pink scrubs was dispatched to retrieve Sam from the waiting room. He braced himself before walking into the room, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of his brother looking so pale and broken once again. Dean's snow-white face was actually lighter than the hospital bedding, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast over his slack face. Injury, exhaustion, pain, blood loss or some combination of all of them leaving deep purplish-black bruising around his eyes.

Everything hit Sam at once and he wobbled over and dropped heavily into the thickly padded chair beside the bed. He was distantly aware that there was a cot made up in the room for him, but with the last of his strength he dragged the chair closer to his brother's bedside.

Sam took Dean's hand in his own, carefully avoiding one of the IV ports that pierced both of his brother's hands. He reached his other hand up to rest on what he hoped was an undamaged section of badly abused flesh and bone over Dean's heart. Despite the fact that a machine was breathing for him, Sam took comfort in the rhythmic rise and fall of Dean's chest and the steady, even beat of the heart under his hand.

"I'm here Dean. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere, so you just keep fighting and come back to me big brother. We've still got lots to do, ya know." He dropped his unbruised cheek to his brother's arm and finally let the darkness suck him under to where he was sure the nightmares were waiting for him.

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A/N I am working on the next chapter now - hope to have it up soon. Thanks to everyone for your support and patience!

LD