Chapter 2

Azlin pushed her cleaning cart into Samuel Blackmore's room and was surprised to find the patient alone. True, it was late evening, but in the past week, every time she had gone in to clean and empty the trash, his brother Dean or his uncle had always been in there with him. She had always tried to make herself as invisible as possible, keeping her eyes down and turning up her music so she couldn't hear them if they spoke to her. She didn't know what to say to them, and small talk wasn't exactly her forte.

She made her way over to the left side of the patient's bed, intending to grab the trashcan that sat underneath the heart-rate monitor. As she bent down to pick it up, she found herself eye-level with the sleeping man, face to face with him. He had been positioned on his right side, a long pillow propped against his back and one in front of him that his left arm rested on to help keep him in position. Slowly, she stood up, looking down at him. She hadn't really gotten a good look at him before because she had been too busy trying to evade conversation with his brother and uncle. She hadn't dared to really look at him while they had been in the room.

Although lying on his side, she could still see most of his face, especially if she bent to eye-level with him. He was good-looking, especially for a guy in a coma. She had seen pictures of real people on TV or whatever that were in comas, and they had looked, well, pathetic—their bodies contorted into stiff postures, hands sometimes clawlike, eyes sometimes open, drooling. She had not believed, until she saw Sam Blackmore, that real-life coma patients could look like they did in the movies or soap operas, all quiet and serene and just asleep.

That's exactly how he looked, though, like some movie star pretending to be in a coma, like someone would yell "Cut!" and he would open his eyes and start talking. But he hadn't opened his eyes or talked for almost two months, according to what Dr. Davis had said. She didn't know anything about this guy, but the state he was in was just wrong, and it made her sad.

She felt a little weird staring at him, like she was being rude. She'd probably have a heart attack if he suddenly opened his eyes. He obviously wasn't aware of her, though, and no one else was in the room. She looked around just to make sure it was just the two of them and continued her study of him.

He had a strong jaw and long, dark-brown hair that hit just above his shoulders. Long sideburns added a masculine, sort of hip vibe. A few small moles were scattered about on his face as though whoever had created him wanted to call attention to his best features. If he were a woman—which he most definitely wasn't—they would be called beauty marks. There was one on his upper left cheek near his rather pointy (yet somehow still attractive) broad nose and one just to the right of the faint cleft in his chin.

She thought she could see the promise of dimples in the faint lines around his mouth and wondered what he looked like when he smiled. What color would his eyes be, and what would his voice sound like?

He was wearing a gray t-shirt, and she could see that he was muscular, even though he literally hadn't moved a muscle on his own in a while. She was no doctor, but she had seen plenty of patients at the center who were recovering from various degrees of immobility and knew that his muscles must have weakened and started to shrink, at least a little, from disuse. She wondered at how powerful he must have seemed before all this happened if, even now, he still had an athletic build. If he didn't wake up soon, his muscles would continue to atrophy. A visual in her mind of those sculpted arms and legs shriveling made her feel ill, and she quickly pushed it away.

The bed he was lying on seemed longer than what she usually saw in the other rooms, so he must be really tall. She assumed Sharon must have ordered an extra long bed to accommodate his length.

His smooth, tan skin contrasted starkly with the white sheets he was lying on and the white hospital ID bracelet on his left wrist, even though he obviously hadn't been in the sun for several weeks. She looked at her own goth-pale skin and on impulse put her hand on top of his to compare, careful not to jar the clip on his index finger that transmitted his pulse to the heart-rate monitor.

His hand was surprisingly warm and sort of inviting, and she felt a strange shift inside her at the contact, letting her hand linger there. She wondered what it would feel like to have his long, elegant fingers entwined with hers.

Entwined? What the hell was she thinking? She snatched her hand back quickly. This wasn't some cheesy-ass romance novel, and she sure as hell wasn't a romantic heroine. She suddenly felt guilty for scrutinizing him so closely, like she had objectified him, sort of violated him in some way. The guy was in a coma, for God's sake. What the fuck? Had it been so long since she'd been with a guy that she was attracted to a fucking coma patient?

Ashamed and angry with herself, she hastily turned to go and was shocked when her body collided with the solid male that had suddenly materialized behind her. To her horror, she realized it was the patient's brother. She took a step back but was prevented from escaping by the bed behind her and the man in front of her.

The man—she knew his name was Dean—didn't seem angry. He just seemed so very tired, bone-deep, world-weary tired. There was a faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, and his eyes were a little red around the rims. He was tall, but his shoulders were slightly hunched, as though carrying some invisible burden. He looked to be about her age, but Azlin had the strange sense that he had seen a lot in his relatively short life, much more than the average person saw in a full lifetime of growing old.

He seemed to shake off the aura of fatigue and sadness quickly, straightening a little and giving her a cocky grin, showing even, white teeth. His eyes crinkled a little at the corners, almost as if he were suddenly amused by her. He had been there only a week and had already charmed every female employee involved with Sam's care, and Azlin could see why. He nodded in the direction of his brother lying behind her and said in a deep, sort of husky voice, "He won't bite, you know."

Although he was friendly enough, she could feel her heart hammering in her chest, mortified that he had caught her staring at and touching his brother. She was just a housekeeper and had no reason or right to touch a patient. She could feel her face getting warm. "I—I'm sorry."

He gave her a million-watt smile, almost flirty, and moved to stand beside her. Looking at his brother, he put a gentle hand on his brother's wrist, wrapping his fingers around it. "Doctors say it's good for people to touch him." He gave her a sideways glance. "And talk to him, too."

He turned his attention back to his brother, and Azlin moved away from him toward her cleaning cart and started to push it toward the door, not caring that she hadn't actually done her work in the room. She'd come back later and empty the trash and clean after Dean was gone. Every fiber of her being sought escape, now.

"Hey, Sam," she heard him say, "there's someone on staff you haven't met, yet. This is...?"

Oh, shit. Azlin turned her head away from her goal—the door—and toward Dean.

He was looking at her, eyebrows arched, silently asking for her name. He wasn't letting her go that easily.

Her throat felt dry, and she wished the floor would just swallow her. She didn't want to be involved with this guy or his brother, even if it was just small talk. She used her neutral, I'm-not-really-interested-in-you tone. "Azlin."

His mouth quirked a little. "That your first name or last name?"

She hesitated a second, debating on whether to engage. Finally, she took a deep breath and said, "First. My last name is Browne."

She tried to turn and leave again, but he motioned her back over next to him, and for some reason, she obeyed. He was cocky and self-assured, like he was used to getting his way, which she found annoying. Normally, she would have given him a fuck-you look and gotten the hell out of there. Despite his cockiness, though, he was gentle and very attentive toward his brother, and she couldn't help but be a little moved by that.

"Sammy—I mean, Sam—" he turned to Azlin and flashed a mischievous grin. "He hates to be called Sammy." He turned back to Sam. "Sam, this is Azlin Browne. She works here at the rehab center, and she's going to be taking care of your room while you're here. Lucky for her you're unconscious, so that should make her job easier. You can be such a slob sometimes."

Feeling a little weird, she said, "Hi, Sam."

Of course, there was no response from Sam, who lay deathly still and quiet.

The silence was awkward, and she felt uncomfortable. She looked at Dean, who was no longer keeping up his pretense of lightheartedness. He was just staring at Sam, a look of raw despair in his eyes. He clenched his jaw and suddenly looked up toward the ceiling, swallowing hard.

His pain was so sudden and palpable, she felt a surge of emotion, her own vision blurring with moisture for a second. What was wrong with her? What was it about these guys? She felt like she was getting sucked into their story, and that was not like her. She wanted nothing to do with most people in general, so what was it about these guys that drew her to them? She needed to snap out of it. She didn't want to feel anything. It was the only way she could survive.

SWDWSWDW

Dean was about to cry like a fucking girl, again, this time in front of the goth cleaning chick. It was his own damn fault. She clearly hadn't wanted to stay, almost bolting like a rabbit when he had caught her staring at and then touching Sam.

It was almost nine in the evening now, and he had left Sam for a few minutes to talk to the night nurse, reassuring himself that the evening staff knew what they were doing when it came to Sam's care. It was his last evening with Sam for a while, and he wanted to be sure he had covered all the bases before he left for God knew how long.

When he'd come back to Sam's room, he'd stopped short in the doorway, intrigued by the standoffish cleaning girl that had always ignored him, Bobby, and Sam when she came to clean the room. She was standing on the left side of Sam's bed, staring at Sam as though mesmerized. She had always been so evasive whenever she had been in the room before—listening to loud music on her iPod instead of engaging in conversation—that Dean was surprised by her sudden interest. She was the only person at the little hospital who hadn't made some sort of an effort to speak to at least one of them.

While she was studying Sam, Dean studied her. She was a little taller than average, but not supermodel height. She was still probably five or six inches shorter than he was. She wore a plain, hospital-green scrub on top and jeans and dark-gray Converse sneakers on bottom. Nothing stellar about her attire, but that probably came with the job. Judging by her short, pixie-like black hair, the delicate eyebrow ring in her right brow, and the tiny star tattooed on the nape of her neck, she looked more the artsy, maybe goth type. Not the usual chick you'd find in a small, country town like Dumas, Oklahoma.

Her brow furrowed a little, and she reached forward and very gently put her right hand on top of Sam's. The contrast of her flawless fair skin was almost shocking next to Sam's darker skin. It was strangely charged, the way she touched him, sort of seductive.

Dean had to shake himself mentally and let out the breath he realized he'd been holding. He wasn't usually into goth chicks—reminded him too much of vampires—but there was something definitely magnetic about this one. She was seriously hot in an offbeat sort of way. He was still hung up on Lisa, but that didn't stop him from appreciating the finer attributes of this girl. He felt something sort of like envy that she was touching Sam, but he was glad, too. It was like she was drawn to Sam despite herself, and Dean instantly liked her because of it.

The spell was broken when she abruptly pulled her hand away, blushing. He felt compelled to keep her there for some reason, maybe just to have someone to break the constant silence with—like an actual live, awake human to talk to instead of the TV or a one-sided conversation with Sam—and he walked up behind her.

Before he could say anything, though, she turned around and ran smack into him, anger radiating from shockingly bright blue eyes. She tensed and shot back a step, wary of him. Her eyes darted around for a second as if she were looking for a means of escape.

He was amused by this but wanted to put her at ease. He smiled his Dean-Winchester special and nodded toward Sam. "He won't bite, you know."

She blushed, clearly embarrassed at being caught. "I—I'm sorry."

He noticed she had a pierced tongue when she'd opened her mouth to speak. Kinda kinky. He had felt a little flirty, then, and had tried to be glib, making light of Sam's condition because being solemn and upset about it all the time hadn't done him or Sam any good. So, like an idiot, he'd introduced her to Sam, as if Sam would just open his eyes and shake her hand in greeting.

And, of course, there had been nothing but silence, and Dean couldn't pretend anymore. The frustration and pain of it had hit him like a ton of bricks, and now he was staring at the ceiling, swallowing against the swelling of his throat, trying not to cry like a fucking girl in front of a fucking girl.

"Not much of a talker, is he?" she said.

He looked down at her, surprised by her comment. It wasn't really funny, but she was making an effort to keep up the banter, ignoring his emo display of grief. She was looking intently at Sam so Dean could pull himself together, and Dean was ridiculously grateful to her.

He took a deep breath, getting control of himself, and gave a little laugh. "God, if you only knew. He's like a walking Lifetime movie. Before...this, I couldn't get him to shut up." At least, Sam-With-A-Soul had been that way, he corrected to himself.

"What caused this?" she said, waving a hand to indicate Sam's sleeping form.

Dean was a little startled by her bluntness, but answered the best he could. "He went through a, uh, trauma right before it happened. It's like his body couldn't handle it, so it just shut down."

She gave him a look that was unreadable. "A trauma like a car accident?"

He sighed. "No. It..." He trailed off, tired of the watered-down half-truth he'd been telling people for the last couple of months.

She looked at him intently, waiting for him to finish.

But he couldn't. What was he supposed to say? Sam did a swan dive into a cage in hell with Lucifer possessing his body and then came out an unfeeling dick because his soul was still stuck in hell so I made a deal with Death to put his soul back in and he did but this coma is the result. Dean was so utterly sapped from it all, the pretense, the lies, the fucking horror story that was their life. "It—He—I don't really know—"

She raised a hand to stop him, seeming to disengage. "Sorry. It's none of my business. I should be going." She made a move toward her cart.

Dean put a hand on her upper arm to stop her. "Wait." He suddenly wanted this girl to take an interest in Sam. He trusted the medical staff, but he wanted someone who was sort of an outsider to keep an eye on Sam, let Dean know if anything out of the ordinary happened. The more people on Sam's side looking out for him, the better.

She looked pointedly at his hand on her arm. "I need to get back to work."

He removed his hand, but before she could go, he said, "You're into music, right?"

"So?"

"The docs say it's good for Sam to listen to music. It might help stimulate him to wake up."

She waited for him to continue, face blank.

"Something happened to Sam's old iPod, so I bought him a new one. In all the upheaval of moving him here, I kind of forgot about it. I was wondering if you would load some of your music onto it."

"Why me? Why don't you just do it?"

He had a feeling she was gonna love this. "Uh, I'm kind of stuck in the '80s. All my music is on cassettes."

Her eyes widened, but she didn't smile. Never a smile. He thought he saw a hint of dimples, though, as her mouth quirked for a second. "You're not serious."

"Seriously."

"It's 2011."

He raised a brow just a fraction. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Still no smile, but an eye roll that would rival Sam. "Let me guess. You're a big fan of mullet rock."

He gave her a look of mock affront. "You say that as if that's a bad thing."

"I can't think of anything worse."

"Well, Sam would probably agree with you, and I don't think the music of the Hee Haw variety that the therapist plays for him is gonna rock his world, either."

She gave a derisive snort, dropping her mask of indifference a little. "Yeah. This town is pretty much a music and radio wasteland."

"So, would you mind doing that for him?"

She hesitated for a second, glancing at the door. "Why do you think he'd like my music? You don't even know what I listen to."

"He's always been into that emo, college-radio stuff. He went to school at Stanford, listened to Nirvana, which he thought was classic rock."

She raised a brow. "You think Nirvana is emo, college-radio stuff?"

"It's not Zeppelin."

"And you think I listen to Nirvana?"

"Well, you don't seem the Brittany Spears/Justin Timberlake type."

She shook her head and glanced up at the ceiling—almost another eye roll. She looked over at Sam and then let out a deep breath. "Give me the iPod."

Dean smiled. Being irresistible had its privileges. "Thanks. Sam will appreciate it."

She gave him a neutral look, disengaging again.

He walked over to the small closet in the room and got out Sam's duffel bag. He rummaged through it, finding the new iPod and, by accident, the thin leather string bracelet Sam had always worn. He handed the iPod to Azlin and then walked over to Sam's bed. Sam was lying propped on his right side, so his right arm was underneath the pillow that was wedged in front of him to keep him in place. Dean carefully tilted the pillow up and balanced it with his elbow so he could use both hands to tie the bracelet onto Sam's right wrist. "Sorry, Sammy. I forgot about this. No reason you can't wear it again," he said softly.

Azlin watched him quietly.

He indicated Sam's iPod in her hand. "So, uh, thanks again."

She looked down at it, frowning a little. "Yeah." She turned away to leave, dropping the iPod in her back jeans pocket.

"Hey, uh, Azlin?"

She stopped, her back to him.

He took a deep breath. This could get awkward. "Uh, could I give you my cell number, too?"

She turned and looked at him for a second, expression unreadable. "Why?"

"In case you miss me," he joked.

She just looked at him.

Tough nut to crack. He winked at her and tried again. "You know you're gonna miss me."

No reaction, not even an eye roll.

Feeling a little uncomfortable, he cleared his throat, getting serious. "I just—I need you to call me if, uh, you notice anything...out of the ordinary."

"Out of the ordinary?"

He gave her his best I'm-not-a-weirdo smile. "Yeah. You know, like, uh, strange smells, sudden temperature fluctuations inside rooms, uh, people acting different, lights flickering." Okay. No, that didn't sound weird at all. "And," he rushed on, "of course, if you notice anything different about Sam, anything at all, like if his eyes move or fingers twitch or whatever..."

There was nothing distinct in her overall expression, but he got the feeling it was official—she thought he was a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

"Back up to the out-of-the-ordinary part," she said. "What kind of strange smells?"

"Like, uh, rotten eggs, maybe." He said it tentatively and tried to throw in a charming smile.

"Why would there be rotten egg smells? The kitchen staff here is really good about food safety, and—"

"I know," he interrupted. He sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. God, he was so tired. "Look, that's not what I meant. I know it's a weird request, but could you just promise me you'll call if you notice anything strange or off? I know you're thinking I'm crazy, now, but, please, just..." He trailed off, looking at Sam, hoping his give-me-a-break-my-brother's-in-a-coma look would help convince her. Hell, he was entitled to a little crazy weirdness.

She tilted her head to the side, brow slightly furrowed, and Dean could tell she was debating whether to even go there. And then the impassive expression was back. "Whatever. You know I'm just the janitor, right?"

Dean gave her a flirty smile and wiggled his brows suggestively. "Don't sell yourself short, sweetheart."

"You're a dork."

"I'm adorable."

She pulled out her cell phone. "Give me your number."

He told her, and she typed the number into her phone, her midnight-blue polished nails tapping the keys. She had nimble, graceful fingers. When she was finished, she looked up at him. "I've really got to get back to work."

"Sure. It was, uh, nice meeting you."

"Yeah. Right."

"Thanks again."

She started pushing her cart toward the door, not responding. As she reached the door, though, she turned to him again, pensive. "Your name is Blackmore. Like Ritchie Blackmore?"

Dean felt his pulse quicken. Her reference to his and Sam's "last" name had him instantly alert. And, shit, this chick knew her stuff. "Yeah, I guess. Why?" He tried to sound neutral.

"Ritchie Blackmore, the guitarist from Deep Purple." She paused, blue eyes intense and intelligent. "Thought you might have heard of him since you have the same last name, since you like that kind of music," she added.

He tensed, felt a tightening in his middle. Don't be paranoid, he told himself. Don't read meaning into her words. There was no way she could suspect anything. He looked her in the eye, gave a little smile. He really should have been an actor. He'd had years to perfect the art of lying. "Oh, yeah. Smoke on the Water. Friggin' awesome song—one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time."

She stared at him a moment longer, about to say something more, but seemed to think better of it. The mask of indifference dropped into place. "Yeah. Right." And then she disappeared from the doorway.

Dean heard the squeaking of the cart fade away as she pushed it down the hall.

TBC

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