The Rain It Fell, The Story Went On

Chapter 2

After awhile, he was vaguely aware of several things happening at once.

But he didn't wake up, not really. Waking upwas the wrong term for it.

It was more like things drifting in and out of his mind, sounds and sights and sensations, none of it making a ton of sense. If it wasn't for the throbbing in his ribs, he'd have thought he was just dreaming it all.

First it was the rain. Wet, and cold, sickening when it drummed against his chest.

Then it was Sam. Yelling something at him, shaking his arm. He sounded scared. Dean tried to answer, but he was just so tired…

And then the sound of sirens. Red and blue lights, he knew that, even though he never remembered opening his eyes to look.

And, at some point, something being shoved over his face, down his throat. It burned the whole way down. He couldn't even gag. First it was even harder to breathe, then weirdly easier.

Pressure constricting his arm, then something sharp piercing the crook of his elbow.

Being lifted off the ground and onto something hard. The pain of that was just about unbearable, and he remembered swatting at the hands moving him to get them to leave him the fuck alone, but it didn't do any good.

Car doors slamming.

More lights. More sirens.

Voices, low and businesslike.

And where the helldid Sam go?

It was only quite awhile later that he'd look back and realize that all these things actually made sense.

EMTs. Right.

And Sam would've had an ambulance of his own.

But he was out cold again before he had the time to figure any of that out.

What may as well have been months or years later for all he knew, he became vaguely aware of things once again.

It was cold, but he was dry, lying on something soft now.

He still couldn't close his mouth. The plastic irritated his throat.

Everything smelled like rubbing alcohol.

Something was beeping.

More voices, muted and distant now.

Pain, still potent, but nearly as muted and distant the voices.

Added to it, a new, very bizarre tightness on that side of his chest, just under his armpit.

And then, the even more bizarre feeling of a totally involuntary in…out…in…out…in…

And that's when he realized that air was being pumped through him, and he had no say in it.

Like a bad scifi movie, he thought hazily, and he wasn't sure whether or not to laugh or be scared shitless.

He didn't have to open his eyes to know the obvious: they'd made it to the hospital, he was doped up to the gills with a freaking machinebreathing for him, and Sam was—

Sam was where?

He forced his eyes open.

They were itchy and gritty, and he had to blink a few times before anything came into focus.

The intrusive brightness of fluorescent lights immediately assaulted his eyes.

Yup, definitely the hospital.

And even though he knew that, and it shouldn't surprise him in the least, that was right about when panic set in.

And not because he had a tube down his throat, or that his lungs wouldn't work right, or that he was alone, or even that he had no idea where Sam was, though that certainly wasn't helping things.

No, it was the fact that last time he'd woken up in the hospital, after nearly being gutted by the demon and then hit by a truck, and thenhaving his disembodied spirit chased up the wall by a Reaper (or according to Sam anyway), Dad had dropped dead on the floor of his room.

Not even two months ago.

And he had a funny feeling he knew why.

He couldn't do this, couldn't be here, not again. Not right after.

The beeping sped up. He tried to take a breath, but the tubes wouldn't let him. An awful rattling sound came out when he tried. Another jarring beep-beep-beep now joined the first, louder and more urgent. Dean's eyes watered, and he reached up to try to rip the stupid tubes out so he could breathe.

And there was Dad, dead on the floor all over again…

Shit, pull yourself together…

Before he could even wrap his trembling fingers around the tube sticking out in front of his face from what was apparently a big plastic face mask over his mouth and nose, a small woman in blue scrubs had rushed into the room. She took one look at him, eyes going big, and then in a flash she was by the bed, grabbing his hand and pulling it away from the mask.

"Sir," she said in a voice that was firm but just as tiny as she was, "Don't touch that. You need it to breathe, do you understand?" She didn't let go of his hand, but looked at him, as though waiting for some indication that he understood. Dean reached for it a second time, and she seized his hand in both of hers, forcing it down with probably all the force that her noodly little arms possessed. "Don'ttouch it, sir," she repeated. Dean glared at her mutinously over the plastic mask, and she looked a little frightened. She was a twiggy, nervous-looking woman, blonde, probably in her thirties and maybe pretty if you overlooked her slightly protuberant eyes. Her nametag designated her as a "Jodie" something-or-other….he couldn't pronounce her Scandinavian-looking last name if he tried. If he hadn't been alone and drugged up and in pain and totally freaked, he'd feel kind of bad for scaring her.

She gulped, but didn't let go of either of his hands. "Now," she said, her voice a bit shaky. "You need to relax, okay?"

He knew he couldn't talk, but he tried anyway, hoping the strangled sound that came out would make her take the hint.

"Please don't talk."

Have it your way, then. He wrenched his hands out of hers and reached for the mask.

"Stop!" she grabbed him again, looking a bit like she was going to cry. "Please don't. What do you want?"

He rolled his eyes. Why somebody like this working in an ER at all was beyond him. She looked like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

And then he had an idea. He pointed at himself with his right arm, having found when going for the mask that it hurt a hell of a lot to lift his other arm, and then mimed holding a pencil and writing something on an imaginary paper on his lap. Jodie blinked, and then seemed to get it when he pointed at the pen that was sticking out of Jodie's front pocket.

"Oh," she said, sounding slightly suspicious and reaching up with one hand to touch the pen. "You want to write something?"
Dean raised an eyebrow. No shit, Sherlock.

"I'd have to check with your doctor first…" she began.

"Check what?" said a voice abruptly from the doorway. An elderly man stepped into the room, rather severe-looking with a silvery crew cut, wearing a lab coat.

Jodie looked uncomfortable, realizing she still had ahold of Dean's hands. "He wants to write something down. He was trying to take the mask off because he wants to talk."

"I see." The doctor looked down at the clipboard he was holding. "Doctor Rodney Walsh, Black River Memorial Hospital, by the way. I'm your primary. So…Dean Singer, age 27, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota? Am I correct?"

Well, three guesses where they were headed once all this was over with.

Dean nodded.

And—thank God—that meant that whatever shape Sam was in, he'd been awake enough to tell them that much.

The doctor nodded, and continued his rambling. "Admitted 3AM this morning, and being treated for a flail chest caused by blunt force trauma, as I understand. What we've got here is a lateral flail segment comprised of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth ribs on the right side and a cracked sternum. When you arrived you were showing symptoms of a pneumothorax, or collapsed lung. You were unconscious then."

Dean nodded again, impatiently, and mimed writing once more. The doctor frowned, then turned over the paper on his clipboard so that the blank side faced up and set it on Dean's lap, pulled a pen from his pocket, and placed it in Dean's hand. "Alright, as long as you don't mind me asking you a few questions of my own when you've finished. I'll have a dry erase board brought for you as well."His voice was blunt, no-nonsense.

Dean struggled to hold onto the pen, the drugs making his hand shake horribly. Eventually he managed to scrawl,

Where's Sam?

The doctor leaned over to read the message.

"Your brother, you mean?"

Dean nodded.

"He's been moved to a multi-patient room in the ICU." The doctor's voice was a bit too impersonal for Dean's tastes. Not that he liked gushy touchy-feely shit either when it came to doctors, but this was Sam he was talking about.

Dean gave him a questioning look, and Walsh proceeded to explain, "The lacerations to Sam's right arm were severe enough that he was suffering from a moderate amount of blood loss by the time he arrived here, so we administered a blood transfusion—"

Dean winced.

"—to which he reacted poorly."

Dean immediately scooped up the pen again and wrote,

HOW poorly

He knew he should've expected that, but still…

The doctor paused. "It's…an unusual case. He's currently running a hundred and one degree fever and showing symptoms of fatigue and exhaustion. Normally I'd chalk it up to a ferbile nonhemylotic reaction, which is generally not a serious condition, but the results of the blood tests came back…rather unusual in regard to his blood's chemistry. We're monitoring him while we run some further tests."

Dean's stomach dropped. This wasn't a new thing; virtually the exact same thing had happened when Sam was 16, after a mishap during a poltergeist hunt. Sam had needed a transfusion thanks to having been pushed through a window, and had inexplicably felt like shit for days afterward. The doctors had all scratched their heads when they'd tested his blood after the transfusion—before, it had seemed perfectly normal, but afterwards, the chemical levels were completely out of whack, many of them spiking so high or so low that it shouldn't have been possible for a person to survive it, even though Sam very clearly was. It was weeks before they would discharge him, and after every test they could think of, still baffled and claiming that either there had been several consecutive equipment flukes or else there was an unknown but benign chemical in the blood that was throwing the machines off. Apparently not unheard of, but rare. They'd referred him to a specialist a state over, but for reasons that Dean had never been able to figure out, Dad had never taken him. It had really bothered Dean, because for all Dad's rub-some-dirt-in-itmentality, he never fucked around with serious medical issues. He'd had half a mind to take Sam himself, but Sam, then sick of hospitals, had asked Dean not to. Sam had never needed a transfusion since, and all of his subsequent bloodwork at normal doctors' appointments had come back normal, so up until now it hadn't been an issue, really. But it was one additional reason they tended to avoid hospitals if they could help it.

"I understand this has happened before, yes?" The doctor said, looking at Dean intently. Dean nodded. "Sam explained to us afterwards," Walsh continued, sounding slightly more fascinated than concerned. "I believe he may have tried to mention it to our emergency team beforehand, but he was delirious at the time and they were unable to determine a valid reason why they shouldn't, so they opted to go ahead with the transfusion."

At that, Dean felt a rather irrational surge of anger. Yes, Sam probably had needed a transfusion, but the fact that nobody listened to him while he was being pumped full of what he probably saw as poison made Dean's own blood boil. Delirious my ass… And he felt worse at the fact that Sam had had to face it on his own.

Is he awake

"He is. He's asked about you. Several times, in fact." Walsh looked mildly annoyed; Jodie, who had been listening to the whole discussion with meek, wide eyes, was unable to hide an amused grin. A-ha, so she was Sammy's nurse then, too.

Can I see him

"We'll get to that. But if you don't mind, I need to ask you a few questions first—"

Can I see him

Walsh's eyes narrowed. "Mr. Singer, I really need you to cooperate here—"

Dean just underlined the words three more times. Walsh did not look amused. Obviously this was a man who was used to being listened to.

Well tough.

Walsh's eyes narrowed. Dean met his gaze defiantly.

"Obviously we're not understanding each other, Mr. Singer," Walsh said, drawing out the title as though
Dean didn't merit being called a "Mr." anything. "This is a life-threatening condition you're facing here, and seeing as you and your brother were found trespassing on government-owned property—"
Dean made a derisive sound into the oxygen mask. Walsh ignored him.

"—You would do well to cooperate in this instance."

Dean glowered at him.

Is that a threat

"Merely an observation," the doctor said cooly. "Now let me do my job, Mr. Singer. Scale of 1 to 10, how much—"

7ish.

He looked miffed at being interrupted, even by a written comment. "Now you were thrown into a tree, yes?"

Dean nodded.

"By what?"

Dean paused for a second, wondering if any of the EMT's had described to Walsh exactly what they must've seen.

A bear or something, I don't know okay. Now can I see Sam

"Did you attempt to move yourself at all after you'd fallen?"

He shook his head.

"And you weren't coughing up any blood or fluids or any type afterwards?"

He shook his head again, and then wrote,

Take the tube out can't breathe

"Maybe not, but you certainly can't breathe without it, either, Mr. Singer. A flail chest requires positive pressure ventilation to maintain the proper chest wall movement during recovery. That's why you have a chest tube as well," he said, pointing at Dean's side, at the source of that weird pressure that had been coming from just under his armpit. "You can't see it with the mask on, but there's a tube sticking out there. That's how we fixed the lung collapse and it's staying there for continuous pressure relief and fluid drainage."

Fluid? Dean automatically reached for the spot, forgetting momentarily about the busted ribs, and nearly passing out when his fingers made contact with bare skin—apparently they'd left his chest uncovered— before the doctor pushed his hand away. "You don't want to do that, trust me."

Oh, so now you tell me…

"So the mask stays on until you're stable enough without it. And I don't appreciate you giving the nurses trouble over it. As it stands, on positive pressure alone, you're facing several weeks at least…"

Weeks? The beeping sped up again.

He couldn't do that, he couldn't, he had to get the hell out of here…

Walsh paused and glanced at the vitals monitor for a moment before continuing.

"…and within the next hour we're going to see about getting you another morphine injection for the epidural—"

Ugh. He didn't know all that much about epidurals, except that the word pregnant chicks to mind. Unless he was wrong, that meant he had a tube sticking somewhere out of his back right now in addition to every-frickin'-thing else….

"-But until you're more stable we can't begin to discuss other treatment options. Namely, surgery."
Fear morphed into anger. He could hardly process the word surgery right now, but in the meantime—

Then how am I gonna eat and talk and breathe

(…you asshole?)

"You're not," Walsh said dryly. "Mr. Singer, I don't think you're appreciating the gravity of your situation. Let me make this perfectly clear. There is a thirty-five percent mortality rate for severe flail chest patients. That's more than one in three, Mr. Singer."

Dean blinked once, stunned.

Oh.

Well…

Fuck.

"Do you understand, Mr. Singer?"

Dean nodded slowly. The beeping only grew faster.

Walsh's expression softened a bit. "You should know we've notified your uncle. Mr. Robert Singer, is it? Sam spoke to him. We requested he come as soon as possible."

Rather grudgingly, Dean wrote a quick

Thank you

Walsh inclined his head slightly. Jodie looked between the two of them, her expression solemn.

When can I see Sam

Walsh sighed. "I wasgetting to that. I understand that neither of you have any sort of medical insurance, is that correct?"

Dean paused, then reluctantly nodded. The drugs must've been wearing off a bit, because it was starting to hurt to nod, the tubes tugging at his raw throat at the small movement.

That was one cardinal rule that he and Sam followed—they were pretty damn good when it came to stuff like forgery and fraud, but until they learned how to make it completely airtight and a hundred percent foolproof, like Bobby could or Dad…had, they weren't going to push their luck in life threatening situations. It wasn't worth it, potentially compromising a life saving treatment.

But that meant, if they couldn't sneak out, landing Bobby with the hospital bills, seeing as they'd dragged him into it. Which was a kind of shitty thing to do, even though Dean knew he'd do it if they needed him to.

Oh, well. Dean would just owe him a car repair to pay it off. Or two.

Or ten.

…You know, as soon as he was actually able to pick up a freaking wrench.

There was thinly veiled disapproval in the doctor's eyes, but it didn't come through in his voice.

"Unfortunately, that means we're obliged to house you and Sam in multi-patient rooms. Now that you've woken up, we'll move you to one as well."

"You know, there's a double open," Jodie chimed in before she could stop herself, then flushed when Walsh turned to look at her. "You could just move Sam there, and then…" she gestured at Dean and trailed off lamely, quailing under his glare.

"Yes," he said, eyebrows raised, turning back to Dean, "but be that as it may, in this instance like all others we have to follow protocol. If the room is filled before you're in a fit state to be moved, there's nothing we
can do about that."

Dean rolled his eyes. Yeah, I bet.

Walsh ignored the gesture, and turned to leave. "I'm afraid I have to go check on a few other patients now—"
Oh, yeah, I bet you're just so sorry to go…

"—but Jodie's going to check the machines and your incision sites before she does her own rounds, and a nurse should be in shortly with another morphine injection. Give Jodie the clipboard and pen when she leaves."

When he was gone, Jodie came over, still timid but less so, and started fiddling with the machines that

Dean could see out of his peripheral vision. He didn't bother to look; just turning his head would pull at various tubes in various places. She pretended not to notice him watching her do whatever it was she was doing, but he must've looked both really confused and really, pathetically non-threatening (which was likely because he was getting sleepy again), because she eventually gave him an unsure, rather pitying smile.

"I know Dr. Walsh can be a little…um, blunt—"

Behind the mask, Dean snorted.

"—okay, maybe that's an understatement, yeah." she bent over to reach for something on the floor next to the bed. "Blunt, and uninformative." She held up a little white square box. It had a handle, as well as three transparent chambers. Two of the three were full of fluid; the fluid was the color of blood, if a bit thinner-looking. And the whole thing was attached with a tube—scratch that, two tubes—that Dean realized were leading into the side of his chest. "This is where your chest tubes go," she explained, suddenly more comfortable apparently now that she was in her element, doing her job without her boss breathing down her neck. Either that, or if she was still scared of Dean, she must've figured that telling him what Walsh hadn't was a good way to appease him. "Like Dr. Walsh said, they're acting as a pressure relief system for you. Right now the air pressure in your lungs is all out of whack, so until it heals, you first of all need that mask so you can get the oxygen you need without doing any more damage by trying to breathe on your own. And then there's this," she held up the white box a little closer so he could see, "which helps with letting the air back out on the injured side, and makes sure the broken ribs or blood from them aren't going to press hard enough to collapse your lung again. It also takes care of anything extra that might be clogging up your lung; fluids mostly. A lot of what's in here is probably blood from the incision, and maybe a little from the intubation in your throat. And then there's condensation in here from the intubation, too, and we don't want that because it can cause pneumonia."

Okay…weird, but okay…

"And then there's the epidural…" she looked nervous again. "Which I actually need to check out, make sure it's clean and not at risk for infection or anything…if you'll let me help you turn over on your side, just a little…" She moved over to his left side, and—very cautiously, as though afraid he'd hit her or something if this hurt too much—helped him shift his weight to his right hip so he could turn enough so she could get to his back. He gripped onto the sidebars of the bed for dear life while she did whatever she was doing back there (oddly he couldn't feel a thing, despite the fact that he smelled rubbing alcohol), and even though she helped him lie back down only a few seconds later, he'd broken into a sweat. Even if he was enough of a douchebag to hit somebody like jumpy little Mouse-Lady here, he doubted he'd have the energy or presence of mind to do it at a time like this; he had no clue what she was so afraid of.

She pulled off her gloves, apparently satisfied that all was well. "Back there's another tube, really really thin, basically going into your spine through your upper back. We inject morphine into the tube, and that mixes with your spinal fluid and it relieves the pain."

Dean glanced at the IV he could see hanging above his head on one side, confused.

"We don't administer it through the IV because it's too strong that way," said, following his gaze to the hanging pouch. "It's a depressant; slows your breathing down and we don't want that. There are some non-narcotics in there, less strong but won't inhibit your airways. And it means you're a lot less likely to have a, erm, bad trip. You know, hallucinations and such." She shook her head. "That's why I personally don't like the stuff, it terrifies people who are hurt and delirious to begin with…not that it's all that bad, in certain cases when it's, um, necessary…" she added quickly and shuffled her feet a little.

Okay, either she wasn't supposed to be dishing her opinions about stuff like that, or she was taking it back because she'd remembered that Sam was on morphine right now. And he probably was, after being kibbles and bits for a Black Dog... Great. Hopefully Sam wasn't going to see a room full of evil sea serpents like he did at 6 when he'd gotten his tonsils out.

At any rate, Dean had a nasty feeling that he himself didn't need morphine to have what she called a "bad trip," and began to wonder just how many more times he was going to see Dad dead on the floor before he got out of this place…

"Anyway," she continued, "You got your other basic emergency stuff here, IV, heart monitor, clip monitor on your finger, uh…" she sounded embarrassed. "and a catheter."

Despite himself, he felt blood rushing to his face. Exactly how much had Mouse Lady here seen of him? Not that she wasn't pretty okay for a nurse, but still…. It was bad enough they wouldn't give him a shirt or a hospital gown or anything, especially when it was fucking coldin here.

When she was checking the incisions for the chest tubes and close enough to him to read it, he wrote on the paper,

When am I moving to ICU

"Soon," she said, a tinge of sympathy in her tone now. "Definitely today. It's about 11AM right now, and honestly I'd be surprised if we didn't start getting you ready to be moved within the next hour or two. And he's technically right about protocol with filling the rooms up, but really, we've been pretty dead today." She shrugged. "We're pretty dead in general, really. The most, well, exciting thing that's happened around here lately are the string of victims of that bear or whatever it is out there in the national park, but…" she sighed. "You and your brother are in better shape than anybody else we've gotten. None of them lived very long."

Yeah, and that's why we had no idea the thing was actually three for the price of one…

And that's why we got our asses kicked.

And speaking of…

How's Sam doing

Because it wasn't like Walsh actually told him.

"Okay," she said. "He was sleeping when I saw him last. That was about an hour ago. Last time he was up, he was hurting and a little out of it, but not bad…all things considered."

He gave her a steady look. Go on.

She seemed to understand. "Well…we're still trying to determine the problem with his blood and where the fever came from, so we couldn't finish the transfusion like we wanted, which means his blood volume's a little lower than we'd like. That's part of it. And then, well, his arm's broken, and with the lacerations we can't cast it yet, but considering the fact that it was a bear attack, we're lucky we didn't have to operate. But barring any other complications from the transfusion, prognosis is good."

His eyes shut for a second. Good.

"Whatever it is, let's hope it works itself out. Transfusion things often do." Her brow knit. "And those numbers on those results?" She shook her head. "Those can't be right. They can't be."

Obviously you don't know Sammy, he thought, bemused. Welcome to my world, lady.

She gave him a sad smile. "Your brother's a sweet kid. He's done nothing but pester us with questions about you whenever he's been awake enough to tell which way is up."

So that's why Mouse-Lady was actually talking to him right now. Made sense. She liked Sam.

…Liked him? …Or liked him?

Aw, gross… She looked 35 at least. Probably closer to 40. Or maybe that was in his head. But Sam was 23, for crying out loud…

That probably wasn't it at all, but there was no stopping that disturbing train of thought once it started.

His gaze drifted to Jodie's ring finger. There was a wedding band there.

Not like that meant much. They'd dealt with some pretty eagernurses before in their time…

She didn't really seem the cougar type, though.

Not that that meant much either.

This was giving him a headache.

Stupid train of thought.

"Somebody should be here in a few minutes with the epidural, okay? You can go back to sleep if you want. But please, don't touch the mask. Really. I know it's uncomfortable, but you need it." She hardly sounded authoritative, but she definitely sounded sincere.

Reluctantly, Dean nodded.

She looked up at the TV that was hanging suspended from the ceiling in one corner of the room, turned off. Walking up to it, she stood up on her tiptoes and turned it on. On the screen was a crime drama of some sort. "Hope this is okay," she said, looking up at the screen. "I can't find the remote, and I'm not sure how to change the channel otherwise…just thought it'd get too quiet in here. Like I said, we're slow."

He nodded once. It was definitely better than last time he'd been in the hospital for anything really serious—he'd been stuck watching 7th Heaven reruns for most of the day because it'd literally been the only thing on. Add that to the fact that the doctor had barged in with news of terminal heart failure before Sam had even shown up, and holy shit I'm gonna die and…yup, all things considered, not a fun day.

She took the paper Dean had been writing on back, and then was about to leave when she turned back to him, leaning in the doorway. "You know Walsh is just on edge around you because he thinks you're a criminal, right?" The words tumbled out quickly, as though she couldn't help herself. She flushed, but cleared her throat and continued. "Drug trafficking or something, because he figures you'd have to be really stupid to go out there what with all the recent bear attacks."

He rolled his eyes. Right, because we were totally out in a national park at 2AM smuggling meth to squirrels…

She squinted at him. "I don't think that you and your brother are criminals…We've treated criminals in here, and you don't seem the type."

She shook her head. "But if you don't mind me asking…what were you doing out there? Your brother said something about you two going back to find his wallet that he dropped on the trail…but surely you'd heard about the bear attacks?" She looked apprehensive again. Okay, yeah, maybe she thought that Sam didn't seem the type, but he wondered how long it was going to take before she stopped looking so damn skittish whenever she came to check on him.

He tried to shrug. It hurt. Vaguely he wondered exactly how much hospital protocol was being broken in this joint….an underinformative douchebag of a doctor, an and toverinformative (and potentially creepy though probably not really but still) nurse…administering freaking treatment without patient consent….But heck, small town. It wasn't like anybody was complaining.

"Guess you really aren't from around here, huh," Jodie asked after a moments' pause.

He shook his head.

"Well…" she sighed. "Welcome to Black River Falls, I guess."

To be continued