Unfortunately, it was proving a promise that was increasingly difficult to keep. The seconds had turned into minutes, the minutes into hours, and then five days had went by, and still Dean had not woken up. Dean's room in the ICU was becomingly horribly familiar, and Sam was now on a first name basis with the nurse assigned to Dean's care. She insisted he use her first name too, but there was something about calling her Amanda that made the whole situation seem too familiar and comfortable, when it was anything but. 'Nurse' was better, more anonymous, less cosy and familiar, less permanent.

The hospital was an entirely different world to the one Sam was used to. Certainly they didn't come to the hospital often. Dad was a dab hand at stitching up cuts and gashes, and Sam himself had been doing it since he was no age. The last time he could remember being in hospital himself was when he had broken his arm, and even then he was only there for a couple of hours while they set it in plaster. Never before had he been forced to endure five days at the bedside of his desperately ill brother.

Sam pretty much spent every day at Dean's bedside, leaving only when the nurse forced him down to the cafeteria to get some food, or Dad insisted he get a few hours of sleep back at the motel each night. He hadn't been at school since they'd brought Dean in, but he didn't really care. They'd only been here a week or two anymore before this all happened, and he doubted whether his teachers would even notice his absence. He remembered back on that night when he'd insisted he had to study for some big test, but that had all paled into insignificance now. He couldn't even remember what class the test was for anymore. He'd actually brought all his school books with him from his most recent trip back to the motel, but they still remained untouched in his backpack. He couldn't concentrate on them now, and besides, burying himself back in his books would essentially mean that he was going back on his promise to Dean. It was Sam stuck in his own affairs that had started all this, and he wasn't about to do that again. He had to watch out for Dean, hadn't he? He couldn't do that behind the pages of a textbook.

Sam wasn't sure where Dad was, but he wasn't that worried. In fact, it was much easier to keep his promise not to fight with Dad if Dad wasn't actually there. At present, it was just Sam and Dean, the way it usually was, though the nurse was doing her usual hovering act, scribbling things on her damned clipboard, checking Dean's temperature. Almost like clockwork, Sam began his daily routine of questions, because he couldn't stand sitting here not knowing what was going on with his brother.

'How is he today?'

'You could probably give a better assessment than I could, Sam. Have you left this room at all today? You need to eat, you know.'

Sam held up his half-finished can of soda and candy bar as a way of response.

The nurse sighed. 'You won't do your brother any good by worrying yourself sick.'

'Never mind about me,' Sam said quickly. 'How is he today?'

'Your brother's stable, Sam, and that's a good sign, it really is. His temperature's gone down a little, which is a relief, and if his breathing continues to improve, then we'll be able to remove the vent. His broken ribs will take their own time to heal, and we're pumping enough antibiotics into him to clear up the sinusitis.'

'But he still hasn't woken up yet!' Sam couldn't help but point out the blatantly obvious. 'You said the sedatives would wear off after a day or two, then he would wake up!'

'Your brother sustained quite a serious head injury, Sam, and we won't know the full extent of it until he wakes up. And besides, when a person's body suffers a serious trauma, or an illness like Dean, the brain shuts itself off for a while to give the body time to repair itself. Some comatose patients may not want to wake up for one reason or another, you have to consider that too.'

'Why wouldn't he want to wake up, though?' Sam couldn't help but ask. If he knew Dean at all then his brother would be fighting tooth and nail to make his way back to the land of the living right now.

The nurse smiled her pitying, sympathetic smile that made Sam want to throw up. 'Dean could just be frightened. It must be a terrifying experience being in a coma. He doesn't know where he is or what happened, so he's scared to wake up,' she said softly.

'Dean doesn't do scared or frightened,' Sam tried to scoff, but he couldn't completely dispel the image of his brother crying in the backseat of the Impala, crying and whispering for a long gone mother. Sam had to admit that was the closest Dean had probably ever come to being scared.

'Well then, he could just be in need of a good sleep,' the nurse continued.

Sam raised an eyebrow. 'How can he need sleep? He's been out cold for five days!'

'He could just need good, proper sleep. Your brother's been very ill, Sam, especially in the last few days, and his brain and his body just need rest to recover. He's probably been trying to wake up, and we've just missed it.'

'I won't have missed it,' Sam said stubbornly

'Just small things,' the nurse hastily amended. 'Little things, you know? His eyes twitching or something like that.'

'I'd have noticed.'

As if on cue, as if by some wonderful coincidence, one of the machines hooked up to Dean began to beep loudly, alerting the nurse to something that Sam didn't understand.

'What does that mean? What's happening?' Sam cried at once.

The nurse didn't answer him at once, instead inspecting the machine. Sam looked down at his brother, nursing a childish hope that Dean was about to sit up, perfectly restored to full health and raring to go again. Instead, he saw the tiniest twitch, almost imperceptible, in one of Dean's fingers. It was barely there, and lasted barely a second, but there had definitely been some movement.

'Is this him waking up?' Sam cried eagerly.

He watched as, just like the nurse had said, there started a small twitch in Dean's eyes, like he was struggling to open them and wake up. Sam held his breath, sure he was about to get a glimpse of those familiar green eyes he hadn't seen in days, maybe even a 'Hey Sammy' to accompany it. Instead, he was greeted with simply a hint of the whites of Dean's eyes before his eyelids fluttered shut and the machines settled down once more.

'What's going on?' Sam demanded at once. 'What just happened?'

The nurse turned back to smile at him, more of a genuine smile, less like the one she'd been trying to palm him off with the last few days. 'You see?' she said gently. 'These are the little signs I was talking about.'

'So he's going to wake up?'

'Give him time, Sam. His brain became a bit more focused there, he became more aware of his situation and panicked. It's quite common for coma patients.'

Sam wanted to retort that he didn't want to give Dean time, he wanted him to wake up now, right now, but he didn't want to the nurse to get annoyed and insist he leave.

'So this is a good sign?' He was surprised at the forced calmness of his voice.

She hesitated for a moment. 'Well,' she said at last, 'that was a good indication of his brain activity, and that was one of our main concerns, considering that head injury of his. But,' she said and Sam was disheartened to see that she was no longer smiling, 'he isn't out of the woods just yet. That head injury is still worrying, and we really don't know what its long term effect will be when he wakes up.' She broke off for a moment, watching Sam carefully. 'If he wakes up.'

'When he wakes up,' Sam corrected her firmly.

'Yes, of course,' she said, dropping a hand onto Sam's shoulder and he did his best not to shrug it off. 'Just, just keep saying your prayers, alright?'

She left them alone once more. Sam was about to relay everything she had just told him to Dean, it was a habit he had fallen into, when Dad came into the room, sinking into the vacant chair on the other side of Dean's bed. Sam didn't ask where he had been, and Dad didn't explain, but both remained silent for a moment. Again Sam reflected on how much easier it was not to fight when neither spoke. Their prickly silence wasn't exactly comfortable or companionable, but Sam knew it was preferable to them going for each other's throats, as they were so wont to do.

Ten or so minutes passed, the only sounds the steady beeping and whirring of the machines attached to Dean, and the hustle and bustle of the busy corridor outside.

'Dean moved one of his fingers earlier,' Sam said at last, feeling it was prudent to share this information with his father.

Dad, who had been slumped in the chair, staring into space, suddenly jerked to attention. 'He did?' he asked, his eyes now fixed upon Dean as though expecting him to jump out of bed.

Sam nodded. 'His eyes twitched a bit too, just for a second though. The nurse said that's normal.'

Silence crept up on them once more. With a slightly bitter thought, Sam realised that normal families wouldn't react like this. He'd seen those normal families, trudging past the rooms of other patients as he made his reluctant way to the cafeteria or the motel. Normal families helped each other when one of the members was in the hospital; he'd seen them huddled together, gripping each other's hands as they waited for news. They hugged each other, yelled in joy when the news was good, throwing their arms round each other. When the news was bad, they collapsed into each other's arms, dried each other's tears, stroked hair and whispered condolences and sympathies. None of the others sat in painful silence, waiting for a son, a brother to wake up. None of the other patients had to be scared of waking up, scared that the two people he loved most in the world would be fighting again; the same fighting which had allowed him to get so ill and injured in the first place.

'What are we going to do, Dad?' Sam said quietly, some time later.

Dad looked up, frowning slightly. 'What do you mean?'

Sam indicated the pale and lifeless form lying between them. 'What are we going to do about Dean?'

'We're going to wait for him to wake up, Sam, what else would we do?'

The words had left Sam's lips before he could stop them, and he instantly regretted them. 'But what if he doesn't wake up?'

Dad scowled, his hands tightening round the armrests of his chair, and for the first time, Sam realised that he was scared. If seeing Dean scared and upset was unusual, then Dad being scared was downright weird.

'He will wake up,' Dad said firmly through gritted teeth. 'He has to. You hear me, Dean?' he added, directing the last words at his eldest son's prone body.

'It's his head injury,' Sam said quietly. 'That nurse said the rest of it is under control.' Now that he had started talking, he didn't seem able to stop. 'His temperature's gone down a bit and they're giving him loads of antibiotics and his breathing's improving. But they don't know how bad his head injury is, and they won't know until he wakes up.'

'Dean's going to be fine,' Dad muttered, almost automatically. 'He always is.'

'It's different this time,' Sam burst out. 'This isn't just a cut that needs a few stitches or a bang on the head that just needs an ice pack and some painkillers. Dean's seriously ill, Dad. They don't know if he's ever going to wake up, ever, and even if he does, he could have brain damage, or he mightn't remember anything, and he won't be Dean anymore!'

'Sam, lower your voice, you'll get us thrown out.'

Sam clenched his fists, biting down so hard on his lip that he drew blood, trying to stop himself from tearing into his father, thinking hard of his promise.

'You're upset, I understand,' Dad was continuing.

'Do you?' Sam couldn't hold the words back.

Dad narrowed his eyes. 'I'm many things, boy, but I'm not an idiot. I can tell when my own son is upset.'

'You couldn't tell when your own son was sick though, could you?'

Ah. There was it was. Sam had done so well to hold it in for five days, but he couldn't do it anymore. The words had fallen from his lips, almost without his volition, all promises flown from his mind.

'Sammy-'

'Don't Sammy me, Dad. You didn't even notice that Dean was sick, and now look where he is!'

'He should have told me. If I had known-'

Sam cut him off again. 'What would you have done if you'd known, Dad? Told him to go back to bed? Made him soup and tucked him in? Come off it. You'd have told him to man up and stop acting like a kid.'

'Sam, stop it.'

But Sam continued. 'You act more like an army commander than a real father. Well, this may be news to you, Dad, but me and Dean aren't soldiers, and we aren't invincible. Dean's pretty much proved that, hasn't he? He was so damn eager to please and not disappoint you, and look what happened.' He broke off, breathing heavily through his nose as though he had just run a great distance.

'I know why this happened,' Dad said quietly. 'I know I'm to blame, but you have to admit-'

'I have to admit that it's my fault too? Well I know, Dad, I know it's my fault. If I had stopped acting like a spoiled little kid and followed your orders like a good little soldier, then Dean would be fine. Yeah, I know, Dad!'

To his horror, hot tears filled his eyes and began splashing down his cheeks. He furiously wiped them away with the back of his hand.

'Sam, listen, Dean himself-'

'You can blame me all you want, Dad, and you should sure as hell blame yourself, but don't you dare try and blame Dean, don't you dare. He couldn't trust either of us enough to tell us he was ill, and then he went off on that hunt himself, trying to protect me and be loyal to you. Dean spends his whole life looking out for us, both of us, and we let him end up fighting for his life in a hospital bed. You know what that nurse said? She said that coma patients are sometimes too scared to wake up, too scared of what they're going to find when they open their eyes. Dean's scared, Dad, he's scared of our reactions, scared that you'll be angry with him, that I'll be worried.' Sam broke off, almost panting for breath as he pushed his sweaty hair off his face.

'Well you are worried, and I'm sure as hell angry.'

'How-how can you be angry with him now?' Sam spluttered. 'After everything? How can you be angry with him now?'

'Because it was damned irresponsible and reckless what he did. Out in that rain, not even a jacket, not even armed. What if that spirit had have caught up with him?' Dad raised his voice for the first time.

Shaking, literally shaking with anger, a red mist descended in front of his eyes. 'He had a fever!' he yelled, forgetting he was in a hospital, forgetting that he needed to be quiet, forgetting the promise he had made not to fight with his father.

Dad probably made some reply, but Sam couldn't hear. Two hospital orderlies, broad shouldered and even taller than he was, had arrived. He and Dad were rather forcibly removed from the room, told to go and cool off elsewhere. Sam's shouts of 'Leave me alone!' mingled with Dad swearing under his breath and the orderlies' talking loudly about 'tensions running high' and 'difficult times will do this.'

In the ensuing chaos, nobody noticed the figure in the bed. As Sam and Dad were removed, the door swinging shut behind them, nobody was there to see Dean clench his right hand into a fist. Nobody heard the loud beeping of the machines as Dean opened his eyes fully for the first time in five days, looking all around, dazed and confused. It was too much for him, and by the time the nurse noticed and rushed to his bedside, his eyes had already closed again. It had been nice while it lasted, but ultimately, he fell back asleep as the sounds of Sam and Dad fighting filled his ears once again.

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