A/N Once again, I would like to express my gratitude for the people who have stuck with this story so far and left such awesome reviews. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!
Disclaimer: Sadly, I am still not the owner of Supernatural or its characters, just the ones that I have made up.
No Rest for the Winchesters
Chapter 4
The nervous knot in Abby's stomach grew exponentially at the prospect of seeing her father again. So many times over the past seven years she had reached for the phone, about to call him, before she was stopped cold by the memory of the look on his face when she had left.
"He missed you, you know." Dean's voice cut through the swirl of anxiousness in Abby's thoughts. She looked up at him in surprise, then saw that he had noticed her twisting the hem of her scrub top between her fingers, a gesture that had long been a nervous habit of hers.
Abby glanced around at the doctors, nurses, and patients that surrounded them in the hall. She pulled her phone out her pocket, flipped it open, and held it to her ear.
"Who are you calling?" Dean asked in confusion.
"No one, but I'm the only one who can see you, remember? This hospital has an excellent psychiatric ward, but I would rather not wind up in it because people think that I'm talking to thin air."
"Oh, so they'll just think you're talking on the phone. Nice."
"Well, don't be too impressed; I stole the idea from an episode of House," Abby admitted.
Dean chuckled, but then remembered why he had started the conversation in the first place.
"Seriously though, Abby, Dad doesn't hate you for leaving," he said earnestly.
"You think? It sure seemed that way to me."
"Well, sure, he was pissed; he thought you were being selfish. But he was mostly worried about you being on your own, not having your family around to look after you. It was why he got so mad when Sam left too. But he never once hated you. He used to drive by Johns Hopkins whenever he could, just to make sure that you were alright. He did the same thing for Sammy."
Abby stopped and stared at her brother until she began to notice the odd looks from people in the hallway. She began to walk again, but she kept turning Dean's words over in her mind.
He never once hated you. For seven years Abby had been carrying the weight of her father's disappointment and disgust, and to hear that she might be free of it was nearly overwhelming. She quickened her pace and soon arrived at the door to her dad's room. She took a deep breath and turned to her twin.
"Would you…I mean, do you mind…?" She had trouble getting the words out, but Dean understood what she was asking for.
"I'll wait out here," he assured her. "I'm not really a fan of the emotional crap anyway." Abby gave him a grateful smile and pocketed her cell phone as she pushed the door open.
John Winchester was sitting up on his hospital bed, clearly in the process of trying to get out of it. He looked up when he heard the door opening, and his mouth fell open in surprise when he saw his daughter.
"Abby?" he asked softly, disbelieving.
"Hey, Dad," she returned shyly. She stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of how to approach him.
Abby's instincts as a doctor kicked in when she saw her father try to get to his feet. She dashed to his side and held him by the shoulders, forcing him to stay seated.
"Whoa, Dad, take it easy. You've been kidnapped, beaten, possessed, shot, and hit by a truck within the last 48 hours; you really shouldn't be standing."
"What are you doing here?" John demanded, reaching up to place a hand on her arm, as if to make sure that she was real.
"I work in this hospital. I was actually Sam's doctor, but he was in pretty good shape and stubborn as a pig, so he checked out." Abby looked around, surprised that her little brother was not in the room. "Where is he? I sent him to you."
"He went to Bobby Singer's place to take care of the car and ask Bobby to get some stuff that I needed," replied John absently. "So you're alright?" he asked intently.
"Am I alright?" she repeated incredulously. "I'm the only Winchester that doesn't look like they got hit by a comet. I've been living a perfectly normal, safe life. I'm fine, Dad."
"Good," said John, releasing his grip on her arm, and pulling her into an embrace. Abby was still for a moment, too shocked to respond, but then she wrapped her arms around her father gently, mindful of his injuries.
After a moment that lasted a thousand years and the blink of an eye, the two Winchesters pulled away from each other. Some of the emotion faded from John's face as he schooled his features back into their usual stoic mask. Abby let her hands drop from his shoulders, satisfied that he would not try to get up again. "I went to your graduation from medical school, but I lost track of you after that. I was worried."
Abby was stunned again. Dean had told her that their father checked in on her, but she realized now that she hadn't really believed him.
"You were at my graduation?" she asked, her voice nearly a whisper. She had not thought that her family cared about that. Sam had come to her college graduation, but he had not answered when she had called him two months ago about her med school ceremony. She realized now that it was because he was hunting again. But she had never imagined that her father would be there.
"Of course." John looked up at his daughter's face for a moment before sighing heavily. "Look, Abby…after you and Sammy had both left, and I realized that I had managed to alienate two of my three children, I did some thinking. When you were born, I never wanted any of you to live like hunters. But then your mother…" John broke off, his eyes glazing over with the memory of the worst night of his life. "Anyway, I realized that, somewhere along the way of trying to get you prepared for what's out there, I stopped being your father and became your drill instructor. I didn't care about what you wanted, because I was too busy trying to keep you alive, safe from all the evil I could see.
His words, though undeniably sincere, had a rehearsed quality to them.
"You already had this conversation with Sam, didn't you?" she asked. John smiled and chuckled dryly.
"Yeah, I had to do some patching up there, too. But I mean it, Abby. I want you to be happy. And I am proud of what you've done."
"Thanks Dad," whispered Abby past the lump in her throat.
"You're welcome. Now is the moment over? Because I'm not really good at this emotional stuff, and I've had to deal with far too much of it over the last few days."
Abby smiled and nodded, amazed at how profound her feeling of relief was. She had not realized just how much she hated being estranged from her family. Her euphoria faded when she remembered what had brought them together at last.
"Dad…Dean is in really bad shape." She glanced behind her, making sure that the door was closed so that her twin's spirit could not hear her. "If we don't do something, I-I don't think he's going to make it."
Abby decided not to tell her father about Dean's spirit. He would not be able to talk to her brother, and it would just upset him further to know that his son was on the verge of becoming a ghost, something that he hunted.
"Yeah, Sammy told me," said John quietly. "I need to see him."
He tried to rise from the bed again, but received a ferocious glower from his daughter.
"Don't even think about walking, Dad. Car accident aside, you got shot in the leg. You're riding in a wheelchair." Her tone allowed for no argument, but it did not stop the man from grumbling as he settled into the chair.
"Stop complaining; you're as bad as Sam," Abby chided. John rolled his eyes, but fell silent.
"So, how did it go?" asked Dean as his sister and father emerged into the hallway.
Abby gave him a small smile and a thumbs-up as she pushed John towards Dean's room. They were about to enter when they heard a call from behind.
"Dr. Winchester!"
"Seriously, again?" she muttered to herself. No one ever needed to talk to her this much. She turned, annoyed, but her heart dropped and her irritation evaporated when she saw who it was.
"Mr. Meyer," she said softly. For the first time since she had seen her family on the helicopter pad, she remembered Caitlin, the patient she had lost this morning. She was hit by a wave of grief that she had not had time to feel earlier, as she looked at the man who had just lost his only child.
The young doctor pushed her father's wheelchair gently into Dean's room, telling him that she would be back shortly. He just nodded absently, staring at his oldest son lying in a nest of tubes and machines. Abby then squared her shoulders and left her brother's room to face the man that she had gotten to know so well over the past month.
Timothy Meyer looked terrible, his eyes rimmed with red and his thinning hair disheveled. Abby knew for a fact that he had slept in the clothes he was wearing at least twice, and she was alarmed by the sunken pallor of his cheeks. It was when she noticed that he was swaying on his feet that she started moving towards him.
"Mr. Meyer, please, you should sit-" she began.
"No!" he shouted, jerking away from her. "Don't you dare tell me to sit! You let my daughter die. You said you would help her, but you let her die."
The accusation hurt like a physical blow. Abby had done everything, everything she could to save Caitlin's life, but the teen had been too far gone. But a grieving father would not see it that way. Abby glanced back at her brother's room.
"Please, Mr. Meyer, I understand that you're angry, but there are other patients here. Can we please talk somewhere else?"
The older man glanced around the hallway as if he had just realized where he was. He ran a hand distractedly through his hair.
"Fine, fine," he muttered. "Let's go to Caitlin's room."
"Abbs, who is this guy?" Abby had forgotten that her brother was standing behind her. She just motioned for him to be quiet. She had to concentrate on the conversation before her.
"I'm not sure that's the best-" started Abby hesitantly.
"I don't care what you think! We're going to my baby's room."
Abby looked at the determination on his face and gave a sigh of defeat. If this was how he needed to work through his grief, then she would go along with it. She was about to follow Mr. Meyer down the hallway when she heard Dean gasp and saw him jump back from something. She whipped around to face him.
"Dean, what-?"
"You didn't see that?" His voice was shaken as he stared down the hallway.
"See what?" she asked in confusion, but Dean had already taken off at a run. Abby looked back at Timothy Meyer, whose face had begun to grow purple with rage and pent-up emotion. She was torn for a split second, but she found herself dashing after the brother that would always take priority for her.
Abby followed her twin through the hospital at a run until he pulled up short, staring around wildly. Finally his gaze locked on something visible only to him.
"There!" he shouted, pointing. "Did you see it? It was some kind of ghost, or spirit, or something. It just went in that-" Dean was interrupted by a choked cry from the room he was pointing at. The siblings glanced at each other for an instant before rushing in together.
"Lucy!" gasped Abby as she dropped to her knees beside the nurse.
"Help! Help!" her desperate gasps pierced Abby as the doctor searched frantically for some sign of what was wrong. "I…c-can't…breathe!" With one final, fruitless wheeze, the girl grew still.
"No," muttered Abby as she searched for a pulse in Lucy's neck. Finding none, she started CPR. "Come on, Lucy," she said after forcing a lungful of air into her friend and continuing compressions. "You're getting married in a month, don't do this."
After what felt like an eternity, Dean finally rested a hand on his sister's shoulder. It went right through, but Abby looked up at the motion.
"She's gone, Abby," he told her gently.
"But…" Abby looked down numbly at the body below her. "I just had lunch with her yesterday. She's healthy, she's getting married."
"I'm sorry. But I saw what did this, and I'm going to find it, don't wo-"
"Someone else you failed to save, Dr. Winchester?"
The siblings looked up to see Mr. Meyer in the doorway, red faced and panting, clearly having followed them at his own version of a run. Abby stood carefully. She was beginning to worry that the death of his daughter had unhinged him slightly.
"Sir-"
"No! No more! I won't let anyone else get hurt because of you."
Abby heard the sharp crack of the gunshot and her brother's desperate shout before she felt the fiery blaze of pain in her chest. Her eyes rested on the dark gun clutched in Timothy Meyer's trembling hand. She looked down in surprise to see a crimson rose of blood blooming over her heart.
The last thing she was aware of before slipping away into the waves of black and red was the sound of her twin desperately crying out to her as he tried to stem the tide of blood from her wound with incorporeal hands.
A/N Sorry about the cliffhanger. Well, actually I'm not sorry. I did say that the action would pick up, did I not? For those of you who don't know, Johns Hopkins is a prestigious university in Baltimore, Maryland. In this story, Abby went there for both college and medical school. As always, I would appreciate feedback, even if you want to tell me that the story sucks; I can take it. The next chapter should be up in a few days.
