A/N: This one skips back to cover the last chapter from Sam's pov. Blame him. He wouldn't shut up until I gave him a say…

Awareness returns like a brush fire, creeping inexorably through my nerves and setting them alight. I groan, suddenly realise there really isn't enough air in my lungs for that and choke breathlessly. Spots twirl behind my eyes and my senses fade to the slow struggle to drag hot smoke through a throat paralysed by the shock of a landing I now wish had been head first. Then I might not remember it. But I can feel each lash mark of the grass that whipped at me and slowed my bruising tumble along the ground, still feel the tightness of the burns on my back. And then I remember the frantic voice that yelled my name before the explosion that turned the world inside out in an overwhelming roar of flame.

"Dean?"

The effort dissolves into a coughing fit and damn it that hurts, but I stutter out another call between the paroxysms, stuff my fist into my mouth as I try to hear past the rasping, gagging coughs. There's nothing. No answer.

Oh God.

Next thing I know I'm more or less on my feet, stumbling through the grass that's too freaking long, falling more than running, craning my aching neck to see through the waving crop until pain stabs down my spine. It's nothing compared to the pain that slices straight through my heart as I see a boot through the grass, smoking gently.

"DEAN!"

The sharp thud of my knees hitting the ground goes unnoticed, the sting of a stone cutting through denim and into my skin barely even felt as I reach out to him, hand shaking. He's curled into a loose ball, twisted almost face down, one closed, shadowed eye just visible and what little skin is left exposed by the awkward position is pale beneath streaks and smudges of blood and soot. My hand ghosts over his shoulder and I swallow hard as I take in the clear deformity of the joint, the sharp angle of the bone jutting past his collarbone, straining at his jacket. I snatch my hand back as he jerks, eyes still closed, a strange, muffled sound escaping him.

"Dean?"

The whisper hurts far more than any of my shouts had. The ache as a pristine white head fights free of the body curled round it should surely be fatal. The goat bleats at me, blinking and wobbling to its feet dazedly. I lose sight of it behind the tears that burn my eyes, listen through the roaring in my ears as it bleats again, its hooves clicking softly against the hard ground as it trots back to the still figure and nuzzles it, a white blur nudging an indistinct smudge of sooty, scorched leather and singed hair.

Then my brother moves.

Just a twitch of one out-flung hand, fingers barely moving but it stops the world in its tracks.

"Dean, come on, wake up man."

He's still again, so still, and all I can think is, 'what the hell am I going to put on his gravestone? Here lies Dean Winchester, demon hunter, killed rescuing a baby goat.' There won't be a gravestone of course, cremation is kind of a given for us and always has been but the thought of touching a burning torch to his shroud is just too much and my mind skitters away into the bizarre in self-defence.

"Dean, dammit, you gotta wake up, please."

My breath hitches, my lower lip pushing out a fraction of an inch and trembling. I suddenly realise it's the 'puppy-dog eyes' that he could never say no too, but then it spirals into a shaky grin as a slit of one green eye appears, so bloodshot and reddened I almost reach for the flask of holy water in my pocket.

"Oh God, Dean."

"Sam?"

He sounds so lost my grin dies a long, protracted death that would put any Shakespearean actor to shame. One blood-streaked hand reaches up for me, wavering crazily an inch off the ground.

"I'm here. I'm okay. I'm right here."

"'k," he breathes, barely even a sound and his hand falls limply back down as he sighs and seems to melt into the chipped asphalt.

"No, no no, Dean, stay awake!"

I reach out, shake him, suddenly so scared I can't breathe, can't even see anything beyond his face as his eyes fly open and he cries out, surging up with impossible strength against my hands.

"God!"

My fingers loosen of their own accord, start to let go the touch that's put so much pain into his voice but his hand snaps up and locks around my wrist, so tight I know I'll be black and blue in minutes. I ease back slightly, and the grip tightens further, desperately, digging deep between the tendons as a frantic murmur spills from his lips, slurred thoughts he doesn't even seem to know he's voicing.

"Don' go! Sammy please, don' lee' me behin' again. I can' do this on my own."

My heart breaks into a thousand razor-edged shards as I edge round behind him, pull him gingerly back into my chest and wrap my arms around him.

"I'm not goin', Dean, I'm not going anywhere, ever again, I promise. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere," I whisper, tucking his head under my cheek, tears spilling into his hair, already darkened by soot and sweat. I realise I'm rocking slightly, back and forth, over and over but I can't stop, desperate to reject the image of him lying so still.

"Sammy?"

My breath hitches in my chest, firing pain through cracked ribs but a weak, watery smile twitches my lips and I sniff, wiping the tears from my face with one hand, the other fisted in his jacket. I have no intention of letting go this century.

"Dude, that's just gross."

I have to laugh, though it stutters and breaks as he leans back into me, the barest sliver of an inch, a screamed declaration of need from my brother. The goat suddenly bleats, wanders back to us – I hadn't even noticed it mooch away earlier and I hear Dad's voice chiding me to pay attention, keep watch, Dean's softer echo the one that always stayed with me – and it head butts my brother's knee determinedly. A chuckle escapes, tinged with hysteria as I see that damned gravestone again, then the kid thumps his knee again, bleating authoritatively and the chuckle turns into an honest-to-god laugh, a few hiccups snapping ice through my ribs on the way.

Finally, the adrenaline-soaked mirth runs out and I wipe at my streaming eyes. Dean takes the opportunity to push himself away from me, swaying like a drunk in a hurricane and I hastily grab hold of his shoulder.

"Hey, hey easy man. Take it easy."

He groans, low and deep, shaking loose far down in the depths of the pain he never shows.

"Dammit…"

"Okay. It's okay. Come on."

I don't think he even realises he's reached up to my hand where I still grip his shoulder, latching onto me with a fierce desperation as I haul him to his feet and begin the long, arduous, two-hundred yard trek to the car. By the time we get there the cold of the night has bitten deep, the warmth of the merry blaze gladly left behind and now we're both shivering. I bite my lip as I struggle to slide my brother into the back seat and he says nothing, doesn't even snipe at me as I drag a blanket embroidered with some motel logo from three states ago from the heap of junk between the seats and tuck him in.

The reassuring growl of the engine seems wrong with him in the back, not even by my side and it's jarring as I pull away, trying desperately to drive smoothly, acutely aware of each and every hitch in his breathing when we bounce over the millimetre deep potholes in the driveway. I can't stop my eyes drifting to the mirror, every time I yank my gaze back to the road it sneaks off to search out his quiet reflection a few minutes later. He's half-sitting, half-lying across the seat, one leg propped up on the leather, trying to ease the pressure on his grating ribs. His head is nodding, eyelids already at half-mast and drooping further with each shallow breath, but he forces his chin up every time it lolls, blinks some semblance of awareness into his eyes and meets my gaze in the mirror, the hint of a challenge peeking out through the tears of pain brimming in his lashes. The defiance is totally, utterly infuriating, completely terrifying and I'm

heartily sick of it. My brother will jump in front of every bullet for anyone else, will wear himself to the bone saving the rest of the world but he will never let anyone help, least of all me, and I know that one day it'll get him killed.

Not today, I swear to myself, letting the burning will in the promise show in my stare, knowing that it's softened by the fear.

My turn, Dean. Let me help, just once. Don't shut me out again. Please.

He nods fractionally, reluctantly, and my lips twitch into a rough attempt at a smile as I turn my attention back to the road. We cruise through a dip in the road, he groans quietly and wraps his good arm around his chest, cradling his shoulder. I reach out, flick on the radio and shove a cassette into it, one of the few I've managed to scrounge. He huffs behind me but neither of us says anything. House rules.

My hands tap at the steering wheel, a rhythm turned a little unsteady by the trembling that won't quite leave my fingers. In the back, Dean shifts uncomfortably, goes quiet again and the milometer ticks over another few digits. My heart about stops as he mumbles something, then calls out in a strangled, ragged gasp.

"Dad?"

The breath freezes in my lungs, my blood turns to crystalline ice at the raw need in his voice and for an instant I'm back at Stanford, shivering outside as he ducks his head, almost struggling to meet my gaze.

'I can't do this alone.'

'Yes, you can.'

'Yeah well, I don't want to.'

The confession in his voice that night had stunned me. I wasn't used to my big brother being anything other than invincible, supremely confident and for a moment I'd been almost convinced that the young, lonely man in front of me wasn't my brother at all.

My eyes dart to the mirror, looking for the anger that had lit slowly in his glare that night, shaken away the jarring sense of something buried too deep for too long suddenly dragged to the surface but it isn't there. His gaze is unfocussed, even in the dark interior of the car, heavy shadows of pain beneath his eyes and a dark smudge of soot on one cheek make him look frighteningly young and he's searching the car, looking for Dad, looking for a touch in the dark. I reach back, pure instinct, and stretch as far as I can to brush a hand over that stain on his cheek and he brushes me away, a hint of annoyance tightening his mouth. I should be glad to see it but I shudder instead, feeling the slick wetness on my fingertips where I'd touched that smear that wasn't soot at all.

My foot turns to lead on the accelerator.

"I'm sorry."

His murmur startles me out of a frantic daze. I focus on the white lines blurring past outside, willing them to turn to the stars that streaked past the windows on the Enterprise in Star Trek, some absurd whisper in the back of my head ordering 'Warp Speed Four!' as I try to work out how long we've been driving, if there was enough time for a fever to set in and make him delirious.

"Sam. I'm sorry."

I jump, having managed to absolutely convince myself that he is delirious and I meet his weary gaze in the mirror, wondering at the strength that drives him to somehow make everything alright. His urgent gestures at the world outside finally get through to me and my eyes flick back to the edge of the road. I slam on the brakes, curse as I fight the wheel and the big, powerful and too-damn-heavy car fishtails wildly across the asphalt, finally screeching to a halt neatly in the middle of the road. My heart is pounding so hard it could double as the soundtrack for a remake of Zulu and I know that if my hands weren't wrapped so tightly around the wheel that my knuckles are translucent; they'd be shaking violently. All I can do is stare out the windshield, my mind still stuck in the skid, hearing the tyres screech, hearing my world come crashing down around me.

"Jesus, Sam. First you try and blow us up then you try and crash my baby?"

I blow a breath out through my nose, my jaw locked too tight to let any air out and force words past the lump in my throat.

"Not funny, Dean."

"Guess not."

We sit in silence and I know he's struggling as much as I am tonight. I've heard the panic in his voice, can feel the fingerprints bruising my wrist where he held on so desperately but I don't know what to say, don't know how to make it right, how to get my invincible big brother back. The realisation of the need suddenly stirs curiosity inside me and I wonder what he'd apologised for before I nearly wiped the Winchester family off the face of Utah.

"What for?"

His gaze snaps up and he blinks owlishly at me in the mirror. And suddenly, everything is right again. We're hurting, both of us, battered and bruised and broken but I can read him again, read the apology in those depthless green eyes, all the things we never used to need to say that I hadn't realised I'd missed until now. Hot tears slip over my cheeks, scatter bright into the dark as I jump in the sudden rush of light and sound from the pickup that swerves noisily around us.

"I'm sorry."

I smile a little, as much as I can, finally understanding, that he needs to apologise, has to shoulder the burden we carry so that he can let it drop occasionally. I hold his gaze a moment longer, wordlessly telling him I can carry the weight when he can't and acceptance softens the iron and steel in his gaze. I turn back to the road, shove the car into gear and cast a quick glance to the silent, white lump huddled up in my jacket in the foot well beside me, trying to think up some excuse for the inevitable demand that comes two minutes later.

It's good practice for the doctors at the hospital I drag him to. They take one look at us both as I literally try to haul him out of the car, protesting bitterly and clinging with suspicious strength to the back of the front seat before descending on us. Half an hour later I'm fighting the urge to retch as one doctor stitches up the hole in my head and another works on Dean's shoulder on the other side of the room. Dean, of course, is cursing loudly and fluently. Loudly enough, in fact, to make the pounding in my head kick up a notch until I stand up, shove my way past the startled doctor and weave my way across the room to the bed where he lies pale and clammy and furious and tell him to "Shut the hell UP!"

It's almost worth the vicious spike of pain to see the shocked look on his face dissolve into something like pride. He doesn't make another sound as the doctors wrestle his shoulder back into place, just clenches his jaw so tightly I wonder if they're going to have to set that too, and breaks half the bones in my hand with his grip when the joint relocates with a sickeningly audible pop. He relaxes so suddenly my heart skips a beat, stumbling back into rhythm again as I see his chest rise and fall in slow, even breaths.

"Why the hell didn't you pass out sooner? Stubborn jackass."

My doctor glares at me, waving his needle threateningly after that but I can't summon up the energy to do more than sigh wearily and sink into a chair someone shoves under me, my hand still wrapped in and around my brother's. The white coats blur together then, a low murmur that never quite seems to stop as I slouch down in the chair and let the world drift away for a while.