Author's Note: Okay, this entry just grew. The story was meant to be a short and snappy series of six, and I thought I knew exactly where it was going to end, but the journey has got more complicated. Maybe I've been inspired by the fact that Season Two has just come out on DVD in Australia and Season One has been re-released with the extras we Region 4 people missed out on first time round. That has made me very happy, but means that Supernatural is taking up more of my brain than I really have free. And this series has gone a bit mad.
Third - June, 1999
He had managed to break his left leg in six places. Two of the fractures were compound. He'd also knocked himself around a fair bit, sprained a wrist, cracked a couple of ribs, but it was his left leg that was the trouble. Surgery had gone on for hours, and now he was being told that the leg would need to be in traction for a month.
That was a problem. A month gave the hospital time to discover that "Dean Kennedy's" medical insurance wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Dean felt like an idiot. He'd fallen off a frickin' cliff! Admittedly, he'd been dodging the prurient ghost of a late high school principal who haunted the lookout attacking parking teenagers, but even so – he'd known the cliff was there, he should have realised that the spirit was going to try and send him over it. He'd been so busy trying to keep himself and his salt-loaded shotgun between the spirit and the Dawson and Joey look-alikes it was after that he hadn't noticed that the cliff had a piece taken out of it. Trying to lure the spirit away from the kids he'd taken a step back - onto nothing.
The teenagers, scared out of the few brain cells they shared, had taken off and Dean had to wait until his dad finished the salt and burn and came looking for him. That had taken several hours, since the principal had been buried on the other side of town from the area he'd chosen to haunt, and John had gone from the cemetery to the motel expecting Dean to meet him there. Those hours of waiting had done nothing for Dean's leg. The doctors had managed to put it all back together, but they were being pretty serious about keeping it immobile and weighted. When Dean had suggested crutches, even a wheelchair, the chief surgeon had laughed.
"Son, I spent eight hours of my life making sure you keep that leg. At this point I feel about as attached to it as you are. If you don't mind I'd like to keep an eye on it."
Dean couldn't tell the man that, actually, he did mind. The guy had saved his leg, and life without it was literally inconceivable. Fortunately, he hadn't known anything about the risk of losing it until it was over; he'd been unconscious when his father found him and hadn't really surfaced again until the day after the operation. But he could tell by looking at them that John and Sam had both lived through every minute of that uncertainty in agony. John had more lines around his eyes and mouth than he'd had three days ago; and Sam looked like something that had been left out in the rain. Both of them seemed absolutely horrified at his suggestion that they should get the hell out of Dodge.
"Dean, you heard the doctor. You need to keep that leg still. Better here than anywhere else."
"But the insurance …"
"That's my problem. You concentrate on your leg; I'll take care of everything else."
Sam didn't say anything. He just sat silently, head down, as close to Dean's bed as was physically possible without actually getting on it. At sixteen he was pretty quiet, unless he was having one of the screaming, shouting arguments with John that made Dean feel sick to his stomach, but he usually said something. An absolutely silent Sam was unusual. When John went to get them all coffee, Dean called him on it.
"Come on, Sammy, show me that sunny smile. How am I going to get special treats from the nurses if you don't charm them with the puppy dog eyes?"
That made Sam laugh, although his chuckle broke a little in the middle. "You've never needed my help in charming nurses."
"Well, my charm is formidable, that's true. And it'll work on the younger ones. But getting the motherly types to bring me snacks between meals, that needs Sammy charm all the way."
It wasn't really working. Sam's eyes were still looking much too big for his face, were still filled with pain and sorrow and fear. Dean tried again.
'Look, Sam, I get that I scared you and I'm sorry. But I'm fine. Still here, still with both legs attached. There's nothing to worry about."
"I should've been there." Sammy muttered so low, staring down at his hands clasped tightly in his lap, that Dean wasn't sure at first that he'd heard.
'What?"
Sam looked up, big brown eyes slowly filling. For a moment he stayed silent, and then the torrent of words flowed.
"I should've been there, Dean! I could have helped. I could have warned you what Snyder was doing. Even if you'd still gone over the cliff, I could've gone for help. You lay there, alone, for three frickin' hours! I should've been there with you. Come on, Dean, I'm sixteen. I'm part of this family. Why can't you let me have your back? I've been training for years; I've been on hunts before; you don't need to always protect me. I should've been there!"
"Sam…"
"What if you'd died?" Sam's voice broke. "Dean, what if you hadn't come back?" He dropped his head again, mumbling into his hands, "I need you, Dean."
Dean rubbed his hand over his face, trying to work out what to say. When Sam started talking he really started talking. Dean decided to pretend he hadn't heard the last bit. After all, he wasn't dead, he had come back, and they didn't need to talk about what Sam would have done without him. Personally, Dean thought that Sam would have done just fine. Sam had outside interests, things beyond his family and the hunt. Dean didn't. For Dean there was Dad and there was Sam and that was it. But that was something else that didn't need to be discussed. So he went back to the beginning of Sam's freak-out.
'Look, it wasn't about protecting you. I know you're capable; hell, you're better with a knife than I am! But it was meant to be a simple salt and burn. It didn't need all three of us and you'd done your bit when you figured out who we were after and found his grave. I just figured that one of us should get a good night's sleep. And it was simple, until I decided to walk off a cliff. This is my fault, not yours, not Dad's. Mine."
"Well, you'd have been found a lot quicker if Dad had gone straight to the lookout instead of back to the motel."
Damn. Dean might have known that, if he wasn't going to blame himself, Sam was somehow going to find a way to blame John for this. He wasn't sure which he wanted less; a weepy Sam filled with guilt over his own failings, or a pissed-off Sam filled with anger over John's.
"For the last time, it was no one's fault. Hunting's a rough gig, you know that. Sometimes we get hurt. That's it, end of story. But I won't have you blaming Dad for any of this and I sure as hell won't have you blaming yourself. Now, if I'm going to be stuck in this room for a month we're going to have to think of ways for me not to go stir crazy."
For the moment that worked. John came back with three coffees, and he and Sam started thinking of "ways to keep Dean amused". Suggestions included driving the Impala into the ward so Dean could make sure his baby wasn't missing him too badly, and convincing Christina Aguilera that the "Dean Kennedy" at Black Rock Memorial was a little kid with cancer whose dying wish was to meet her. By the time Sam was finally, forcefully, ejected from Dean's room and sent to get some sleep he looked a little less like 'orphan puppy in the rain' and Dean was able to lie back and let some of the pain show. He really was feeling like crap. Next time he'd do the salting and burning and his Dad could do the cliff-top patrolling. No spirit was going to trick John Winchester into walking over a cliff.
The next morning Sam was back with a Dean care package. In among the auto magazines and candy and Preacher comics and beer hat was a tattered paperback. Dean looked at it with suspicion.
"Why is this here?"
"Well, you're stuck in this room for a month. I thought it might give you time to read some quality literature."
"The Lord of the Rings is not quality literature. It's a cult for geeks who think that speaking elvish will help them get laid. By the way, they're wrong."
"Hey, what else have you got to do? One month, in this bed. Trapped. Imprisoned. Incarcerated. Caged …"
"Bitch."
"Jerk. Anyway, this time, skip the prologue. Just go straight to chapter one."
"What do you mean, this time? You are the Lord of the Rings reading geek, not me. I am the reader of awesome comics," and Dean settled down with Preacher.
Several nights later, up-to-date with the travels of Jesse Custer, bored out of his mind, and unable to sleep, Dean reluctantly reached for the book beside his bed. By Dean's count, Sam had read all 1138 pages of this thing five times. Maybe reading it would give him some insight into what went on in his little brother's freaky brain.
One chapter in, and Dean found that one of the hobbits was called Sam. Why had he never discovered that before?; there were years of teasing in it. The hobbit even sounded a bit like Sam.
'Well, I don't know,' said Sam thoughtfully. He believed he had once seen an Elf in the wood, and still hoped to see more one day. Of all the legends that he had heard in his early years such fragments of tales and half-remembered stories about the Elves as the hobbits knew had always moved him most deeply.
Dean settled down to read more. His leg was hurting and he needed the distraction, and he made it halfway through chapter six before he found himself reading what even Tolkien admitted was nonsense:
Hey dol! Merry dol! Ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! Hop along! Fal lal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
"Ring a dong dillo? Give me a break!"It was five am, his leg was really, really, hurting, and nonsense nursery rhymes just weren't doing it for him. He rolled over and tried to sleep.
There was pain: fire in his leg; there were voices talking over his head, infection, need to get his temperature down, not unusual with compound fractures, we're doing the best we can; there was his Dad's voice, hold on, son, just hold on, keep fighting; there was a glimpse of Sam, white, in tears, scared; someone was scaring Sam; he needed to protect him; why couldn't he move?; why couldn't he speak?; needed to keep his eyes open; then there was pain, more pain, more voices, amputation, sacrifice the leg to save him, Sam crying, his Dad crying? John Winchester didn't cry; more voices, another four hours, we can give him that, then we'll need to operate; Sam's voice, come on Dean, come back, please come back; Sam pleading; Sam needing him; had to come back; had to find Sam; I'm coming, Sam.
He opened his eyes, slowly. Someone had weighted his eyelids down while he slept; it took a while to raise them. He was lying down, staring up at a ceiling, white. He turned his head, slowly. He had the sense that it had been a long time since his body had obeyed him. John Winchester was sleeping in a chair beside the bed. He looked grey, with huge bruises under his eyes. Sammy, all lanky sixteen-year-old length of him, was curled up in the chair beside him, head in his Dad's lap. Dean didn't even know how Sam was managing to fit on that chair. Sam's eyes were red-rimmed and he looked as though he'd lost weight. Dean opened his mouth, tried to speak. His throat was beyond sore; all he could do was croak. But that was enough. Both of them were upright, on their feet, bending over him.
"Dean? How're you feeling, buddy?"
"Truck? Run Over? Me?"
"What?"
"Cement? Truck? Squished Me?"
Then Sam was laughing and crying and talking all at once. "No, Dean, it was an infection. Your leg got infected. No trucks."
"Feels. Like. A Truck."
John was smiling down at him. "No, just an infection. Took a while to get it under control, but you're fine now. You're going to be fine."
Things were coming back to him.
"Leg? Attached?"
The colour drained out of his Dad's face. "Yes, both legs attached. You're going to be fine. You thirsty? They said you could have some ice chips when you woke up."
"Yes. Please."
Sam got them for him; put them in Dean's mouth, one by one, as though Dean was a baby, while John went for the doctor. Then there were tests, and exams, and lots of drugs for the pain. It took another week before Dean was fully awake, fully conscious. Whenever he woke during that week his Dad and Sam were there, sitting by his bed. They'd take it in turns to get food, coffee, go to the bathroom down the hall. He'd overhear John trying to get Sam to leave, get some sleep in a bed. Winchester stubbornness had met Winchester stubbornness: Sam never went. Whenever Sam thought Dean was asleep he held his hand. Sometimes Dean was asleep; sometimes he wasn't. He didn't think his Dad was fooled.
Eight weeks after the 'simple' salt and burn the Winchesters left Black Rock. Dean never found out how his Dad had worked the insurance. The chief surgeon told Dean to take good care of his leg; it was some of his finest work. Two of the ICU nurses, older, motherly types, kissed Sam. One of the ICU nurses, much younger and hotter, kissed Dean.
The Impala was loaded up with everything Dean had acquired over the past couple of weeks. Once Sam had decided that it was okay to leave Dean's room, once Dean felt well enough to be crabby and bored, Sam had scoured the town for things for a daily Dean package. Dean wasn't going to tell Sam, but he was planning on keeping all of them. They filled a duffle: comics; model cars; the beer hat; an Impala key-ring. He might never look at anything in the bag again, but everything in it meant 'Sam' to him and as long as there was room in the Impala for them they were staying.
The tattered paperback of Lord of the Rings he gave back to Sam: "Here, you've only read it five times. I wouldn't want to deprive you of it before you get your money's worth."
Sam huffed – but took it anyway.
