"You wanna go in by yourself for a few minutes Dean?" Sam asked his brother gently, but he didn't seem to be listening. "Dean?"
"Huh?" Dean replied, snapping out of his thoughts.
"Go on in, I'll go get us some coffee."
"Yeah, sure." He said slowly.
Dean walked into the room and closed the door, standing and leaning against it for a couple of minutes before taking a breath and sitting down beside his sister. He took her hand in his own and looked over her bruised face sadly. "Why'd you do it Kate?" He whispered. "I don't even know if you can hear me or not but I need you to know, I'm sorry. Kate, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I screwed up big time and now you-" His breath hitched as he realised he was crying. "Come on sis, get your lazy ass up. Please, just wake up.. I need you.. Sammy needs you.. Just open your eyes for me. Please Kate."
He quickly wiped a hand over his face as he heard the door open and close behind him, turning in his chair to see Sam walking into the room with two cups of coffee. Sam handed one to him and looked at him sadly. "I can't lose her Sammy." He said, barely a whisper.
"I know." Sam whispered. He looked at Dean and felt a tear roll down his own face. She had to wake up.
Three days passed without Kate showing any sign of waking up. Sam glanced over at his brother, sitting on the opposite side of the bed from him with Kate's hand in a tight grip. They had pretty much been sitting there the whole time, silently supporting one another.
The sound of Dean's phone ringing made them both jump. "It's Bobby, I'll be right back." He said quietly, leaving the room and closing the door. He only went as far as the window, never taking his eyes off his sister.
Sam looked from Dean to Kate and felt himself tear up again, it was so hard trying to stay strong all the time. He needed to be strong for Dean, and for Kate. He placed his hand gently on her face and stroked her cheek as he let the tears fall silently down his face. "Please wake up Kate.." He whispered to her.
Dean sighed as he entered the room, his brother looked worn out. He knew he hadn't slept at all since she'd been in the hospital, hell neither of them had. He walked around the bed and placed an arm around Sam's shoulders. "Sammy, you should get out of here." His voice was soft, he could tell his brother was breaking up.
"I'm not leaving her." He said quietly.
"You've been here for three days Sam. It's too much. I'm not talking long, just an hour or so to get your head straight."
"I dunno Dean."
"Go, I'll call you if anything changes."
Sam thought about it, he didn't want to leave his sister but he knew that sitting and staring at her wasn't doing him any good. It killed him to see her like that. He wasn't sure how much more he could take. If she didn't wake up soon, he didn't know what he'd do. Maybe Dean was right, a walk would probably help to clear his head a little. "Okay, I'll be back in an hour." He stood up and kissed his sister on the head before leaving the room and walking out of the hospital.
Dean sat the same way he'd been the past three days, clutching his sister's hand in his own. He was staring at Sam's empty chair when he felt something move in his hand. Kate's fingers closed around his hand and loosely squeezed him. His head snapped up faster than it ever had before to look at her. He stood from his seat and moved to sit on the side of her bed. "Kate? Hey, can you hear me sis?"
Her green eyes slowly opened to see him smiling down at her. "Dean?" She murmured, her voice a low whisper.
"Yeah, yeah I'm here." He said, stroking her face and giving her a cup of water.
She opened her eyes properly to look at him, suddenly becoming much more aware of her surroundings. Dean's eyes were red with dark rings around them, she could see that he had been crying and obviously hadn't had any sleep. "How long have you been sitting there? You look worse than I do." She smiled weakly.
Dean looked at her seriously, the smile gone from his face. "You stupid girl."
"What?" She asked, the shock clear in her voice.
"What the hell were you thinking Kate? You jumped in front of a damn car."
"Seriously? I just woke up and you're already going to yell at me?"
Dean sighed and calmed his voice. "No, of course I'm not. It's just.. Why'd you do it? You could have been killed."
"But I wasn't."
"You were lucky. Really lucky."
"Yeah, and you might not have been."
"What?"
"Dean, that car was going straight for you. I wasn't just going to stand there and watch it happen." Dean shook his head at her. "Look, you're my brother alright, I love you. You would have done the same thing if it was me or Sam and you know it. So don't think I'm about to apologise to you for it."
She looked hurt. He knew he'd been too hard on her. "I'm sorry. I'm just tired.. I don't mean to take it out on you." He said softly. "It's just, you could've died and I don't even know what I'd have done or- Kate, I'm so sorry."
She knew that he wasn't just talking about what he'd said to her. "It wasn't your fault Dean. You can't blame yourself."
He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. "Of course it was my fault. I was the one who pissed the guy off. That guy was after me and you paid for it."
"Hey, come on." She said softly, placing a hand in his shoulder and pulling him into a hug. "Dean, I don't blame you for anything, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself all the time." She could feel his shoulders shaking, three days of bottled up emotion all coming out at once. "It's okay Dean, it's all okay.. Don't worry about it." He pulled away from her to see that she had started crying herself. They both laughed and wiped away their tears. "Hey, where's Sammy?"
"Oh, I made him go for a walk, he's been sat there for three days, got too much for him ya know. I'll call him." He said lightly, pulling out his phone.
Sam arrived slightly out of breath ten minutes later. "Hey you, nice to see you awake." Sam grinned, bouncing into the room and placing a kiss on her head, pulling her into a hug. "I'm so glad you're okay." He whispered. "You really gave us a scare this time."
"Sorry about that."
Sam laughed. "So you're okay? How're you feeling?"
"I'll live." She smiled.
"Listen, I'll give you some time to catch up. I'll be back later." Dean said from the doorway.
Sam nodded at him. "Be careful."
Looking between the two of them, Kate realised what was going on. "Dean, no. Don't." She said flatly.
"What?"
"You're planning to go after him right?"
"How'd you-"
"Well, you've been sitting here since I've been here. I know you Dean, you waited for me to wake up and you've seen I'm fine so you're going to find him. It's not worth it."
"Not worth it? Kate, look at what he did to you." He argued, raising his voice. "He deserves ripping limb from friggin' limb."
"Dean's right, he almost killed you." Sam looked just as angry as Dean. "We can't just let him get off free."
"Yeah, but he didn't kill me. You wanna go around there and kill him, spend the rest of your life in jail? This isn't worth your life Dean."
Dean found it amazing how well she could read them sometimes, but he knew how close they'd come to not having her around anymore. He'd let this happen to her and now he was going to make it right, no one could hurt his baby sister or brother and get away with it. He knew what he had to do.
