Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Warner Brothers and its affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.


Chapter Three: The Sound of Silence

"You doing okay there, Sam?" the doctor asked as the elevator doors closed in front of them.

Never ask me that question again, Sam thought with an audible wheeze. He had learned the hard way that there were more painful actions in the world than sleeping on bruised ribs. Upon arriving, Hutchison had performed a whirlwind of exams most that required more than his usual poking and prodding. He inspected the bandages on Sam's left wrist and removed the boy's catheter. Sam felt what little dignity he had left disappearing and this time there was no mantra that made the situation all better.

It only got worse when the doctor provided him with a robe to wear. Dressing hadn't been a difficult task since he was three. Of course, when he was three, he didn't have a broken body to contend with. After being bedridden for twenty-four hours, the very thought of moving sent shivers down Sam's spine. The slightest twitch of his limbs caused the agony of his ribs and head to resurface. It only got worse when Hutchison offered to have a nurse assist him, an offer Sam refused immediately. He would allow the doctor to check on his condition in any manner of external probing. He consented to have the catheter removed because he wouldn't have been able to do it himself. But he could not and would not have someone help him get dressed, not when he had so little respectability to hold onto at the present time.

Ten minutes later, Sam's face was bright crimson, his chest was in absolute agony, but he was as dressed as he could be in a hospital issue gown, being wheeled down to his brother's room.

He answered Hutchison's question with a shaky nod having only recently rediscovered the ability to breathe and couldn't find the strength to say anything. Hutchison didn't press him. He waited in silence for them to arrive at the second floor.

Sam toyed with his IV line again, unable to meet his reflection in the elevator doors. Even though they were scuffed from both time and wear, he could still make out a blurry impression of himself. A long line of sutures gleamed over bright red flesh on the right side of his face, while the left was marked with several smaller cuts, presumably from where the window had broken. The tips of his fingertips were cracked but healing. He could only imagine what the skin under the bandages looked like.

The robe covered everything else. Hutchison hadn't let him even catch a glance at his chest while he was checking on the bruises, giving Sam the impression he probably didn't want to know what that looked like. A car door would be a merciless opponent against a human being.

"Take a deep breath. There's going to be a bit of a bump when we get off," Hutchison warned. Sam laughed humourlessly, wincing at the notion of breathing any deeper than he was. He gave some credit to Hutchison though. At least the doctor was warning him now.

The elevator doors opened and, sure enough, there was a bump. Sam could feel his bones rattle from it, but he held his breath, found his center, and just waited for it to be over. Come on, Sam, this is the easy part.

Yeah, right, he scoffed the notion. Never in his life had anything been easy. For the Winchesters there were just varying levels of difficulty, many of which classified themselves as 'suicide-worthy'.

The Intensive Care ward was pristine. White washed walls housed nurses in pastel scrubs wandering between patients' rooms. Soft voices echoed from nondescript conversation at the admitting desk, giving way to the sounds of machines drifting out from the rooms.

Sam turned his attention to the name plates, heart pounding in his head with anticipation. Somewhere in this white nightmare was Dean, hooked up to any number of machine, bleeding out of any number of injuries, completely oblivious to his surroundings. The familiar lump reappeared in his throat at the thought of some figure on a bed, more machine than man.

Doctor Hutchison came to a slow halt. Sam's heart skipped a beat. He'd been so lost in his thoughts he didn't even realize that they were there - standing outside the door marked Dean Winchester.

Through the reinforced windows of the room he could see very little. The lights were kept dim, no more than a single beam of flourescent light shining out from over the bed. It cascaded down onto any number of monitors and tubes, not to mention his brother's rather prominent brow.

"Dean..." he whispered under his breath. Hutchison opened the door and wheeled Sam inside.

It took his mind several moments to register what he was seeing. From the nose and up, it was Dean, face a patchwork quilt of sutures and slashes, courtesy of the window he had been slumped against. Below that there were only a multitude of tubes and bandages. His mouth was taped shut against the thick tube of an intubator and the soft hiss of a respirator acted in sync with the rise and fall of his heavily bandaged chest. Even in the dim light, Sam could make out blood seeping underneath them, not a good sign.

Hutchison stopped at the side of the bed, giving Sam the opportunity to study his brother. Fighting his fatigue, he stood up, shaking slightly from the movement, the pain, and the strength it required. Looking out over the bandages, the tubes, and the monitors, his eyes fell immediately on his brother's face.

He couldn't breathe, but this time, it wasn't from the pain. The sight of Dean injured caused him to freeze entirely. Gripping the bedrail for support, he took another step forward, bringing himself ever closer to his brother's face, all the while allowing his fingers to brush ever so lightly over his brother's prostrate form, a necessary reminder that though it may not look it, Dean was still with him.

"I bet you're real proud of your kids too, huh?" Dean spat, his voice echoing throughout the dark recesses of Sam's memory. "But oh, wait, I forgot: I wasted 'em."

He was thrown backwards into the moment, the fragments of his memory reassembling themselves. Pinned against the wall of the farmhouse, Sam had an all too perfect view of his brother at the demon's mercy. Apparently, the creature inside his father didn't very much like what Dean had said, for a second later, Dean was screaming.

Sam gasped back into reality. "There was so much blood," he whispered. "So much blood..."

"What was that?" Hutchison asked, allerted immediately by Sam's shortness of breath.

"Nothing," Sam said, shaking his head. "What happened to him? Besides the obvious, I mean."

Not really believing that Sam was alright, but having no resolve to argue with an injured man, Hutchison made himself useful. He procured the chart hanging from the end of the bed and flipped through the pages. Sam couldn't drag his eyes from Dean. Even worse, he could feel another bought of tears coming on. He caught sight of their gleam in the corners of his vision, and he hoped he had enough strength left inside of himself to hold them back till he was in his room again, alone.

"Besides the cuts and lacerations - a severe concussion from when his head struck the window; seven cracked ribs, one broken - which lead to a punctured lung, I'm afraid. And..." Hutchison's eyes narrowed. He was toying with his glasses again, which had Sam more nervous. He was searching for another euphemism.

"What?" Sam asked, tearing his eyes from his brother.

"Well I'm not entirely sure. The cracked ribs aren't consistent with the crash at all," Hutchison placed the chart back on the bed. "He struck the car on his right, dorsal side, but the ribs in question cracked around the sternum."

He approached the bed on the opposite side, running his hand along the length of Dean's chest. He was violating Dean's unspoken 'no touching rule', one that had existed ever since they were children. No hugs, no tickling - just pranks and the occassional fire man's lift, the latter reserved only for hunts. The fact that Dean hadn't responded, sedated or not, was unsettling. He'd seen Dean wake up angrier for a lot less.

"Hmmm..." Hutchison said, going back to the charts. He inspected the findings again, fiddling with his glasses as he did so.

Sam was getting impatient. "What is it?"

"Strange," the doctor replied. "Very strange indeed."

"What?" the younger man asked again. Try me. Ten bucks says I've seen stranger.

"According to the findings last night, it would appear as if your brother was the victim of a rare condition I have never witnessed before in my life. The ribs were cracked in such a manner indicative of a forward thrust of the organs in the chest cavity, almost as if something were pushing - or pulling - them outside of his body."

There was a beat. Sam couldn't get his brain to cooperate with all that had been said. He swallowed hard and said, "Excuse me?"

"I'm just making assumptions, but based on the internal damage, I'd say that something tried and failed to rip your brother's heart out last night."


This must be what road kill feels like.

He was too stunned to speak, too stunned to move. He felt like he was being bombarded by a vision again, except that what he saw wasn't in the future and wasn't happening to anyone else. What he saw was in the past and it was happening to Dean.

The movie in his mind was on mute, playing out like a silent picture. There was the demon, his father, pacing the floor like a predator toying with his prey; there was Dean, ever the cocky bastard, toying with him, taunting him. And then there was Sam, the useless wonder, who couldn't manage to shut his brother up even if it meant that they would live for a few more miniutes.

That's when the sound came back to him, along with a bombardment of other, more disturbing sensations. Phantom hands were clamped around his neck and wrists, tightening ever so slowly and then releasing, giving Sam the fleeting impression that he was going to die before backing off once more. His feelings of helplessness were overwhelming as his brother's scream welled up through the mute back drop of the scene. Blood spilled through the pores of his skin, flooding his chest with the crimson liquid before falling in rivers to the floor.

Sam's anger intensified, building up inside his body so much that he felt as if he were going to burst. Every vein was flooded with the thickness of the emotion; the years he had waited for this showdown and his anguish for being so close yet so far away aided only in strengthening his guilt. His mother, Jessica, and now Dean: a holy trinity of failures that he was no more equipped to abate than he was to absolve all guilt over them.

"Sam?" a frantic voice asked, but the voice was faraway now, in a distant realm. Sam could only focus on that instant, that single moment where the world came close to ending forever. Dean was starting to fade under the pain, to slip away. Sam could feel the reaper in the room, thriving in the shadows, just waiting for the final instant when he would whisk Dean away to the next world. No, he had pleaded in his thoughts. Please no. Take me you bastard! Take me and leave him alone!

His sights then turned on the colt. The demon had dared him to try and take it, take it with what little power he had. Sam had focused, just as he had in the Max's closet. He focused all his rage, despair, and powerlessness on that one thing, willing it to lift up and fire a bullet straight through the demon's skull. Come on, damn you, WORK! JUST THIS ONE FUCKING TIME! WORK!

"Sam!" the voice was a little more insistant now. He couldn't care less. He had to help Dean. He had to stop this, this neverending chaos, this flap of the butterfly's wings.

But the gun just stayed there on the table. And Dean just kept on screaming.

For his father. He screamed for his father. Not for his kid brother who couldn't do anything right to begin with. No, Dean was shouting for John Winchester. Because obviously, a man who was possessed by a demon could do more than a rookie telekinetic any day.

And that's when it happened - the phantom hands released their hold. Sam broke into a run, nabbed the colt off the table, and fired.

"Sam? SAM? Talk to me..."

Someone was shaking him. No, you're shaking, Sam's voice of reason notified him. When he returned to his senses he was shivering violently. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead. And God, his head hurt more than it had that morning. He moaned loudly, making a mad grab for the bridge of his nose as Hutchison took him by the shoulders and guided him back to the wheelchair. He was like a puppet - shaped and molded by external influences while the inside was hollow, the internal controller disappearing from existence entirely.

Dropping down into the chair again, the doctor supporting him every inch of the way, Sam felt it all sink in. The showdown with the demon was in the forefront of his mind, followed by the crash, and the realization that this might be it. Dean might die, he father might never wake up, and he would be alone again, standing on two feet that couldn't support the weight their deaths left behind. At least at Stanford their presence was still felt. He knew that somewhere they were still fighting the good fight, ridding the world of evil. But now was different. Now it might just be him, a journal, and an unfulfilled destiny he wanted no part of.

"Tell me what's wrong, Sam," Hutchison urged. "Is it your head?"

He couldn't even manage a response; just another small moan that he was still present in his body, for the most part, and that yes, most of the pain was in his skull just waiting to crack its way out through his temples.

"I'm going to get you something for the pain, alright? I'll be right back..."

The doctor went to stand. Sam grabbed him by the wrist.

"Your son..." he said between winces, "Your son is alive."

The words weren't his own. They were just sounds and syllables floating at random in his consciousness that suddenly threaded together into a coherent statement as the doctor was about to leace. But no matter how random they had been inside his head, the effect they had on Hutchison was astounding. One minute the man had been frantic to get Sam some Tylenol for his headache. The next, he was back on his knees, truly terrified.

"What?" he asked softly, staring deeply into Sam's eyes with the look of a man who had nothing left to live for but whatever words came out of the younger man's mouth next.

"Your son is alive..." Sam said again, feeling his headache lesson as he allowed the words to exist without retalliation. They hung in the air, filling the gap between he and the doctor leaving only the sound of the respirator in its wake. Hutchison searched Sam's eyes for an answer, any sort of explanation for where the statement had come from, but found only a clueless sort of expression, one that made the words even more shocking than before.

Sam breathed slowly as the throbbing faded. Hutchison, however, looked like he was caught in the middle of a panic attack. His mouth hung slightly open and he stared straight through Sam, eyes piercing the wall as well with a question that the younger man didn't have an answer for.

The doctor sighed like a man who had just been told that there was no God and stood up again. He patted Sam reassuringly on the shoulder. "I'll take you back to your room."

They didn't speak on the way back, and Sam doubted that he would have had anything to say even if they did. He had no basis for what he had said, no context with which to discern his actions. Hutchison was just a doctor to him, a doctor he had only known for a collective twenty minutes. Whether or not he had children was beyond Sam. And yet the words were there, in his head, as if he had just known that they were true; like he knew the capital of the U.S. or a sports statistic. He had just known.

Sam groaned. This day can't get any worse.

Hutchison flicked on the light to his room.

"Where the hell have you been?" Dean asked. He was sitting quite comfortably on the bed.

Hutchison didn't notice. To him, Dean wasn't there.

Correction, Sam rolled his eyes. It just got worse.


Author's Notes

Uh oh. Looks like Dean's not the only byproduct of Sam's psychic powers. WHEN WILL THE MENTAL INSANITY STOP? That statement was a grammatical nightmare, but it's been a long day - I'm sorry.

This chapter raises some questions about the extent of Sam's powers, and they're definitely not few and far between. If a demon wants to control them, you know he's got something going on in that head of his. Be patient, dear readers - the answers are coming. Meanwhile, group hug for Sam! Dean's a little fragile right now. And I don't know how you can hug and astral projection.