Okay, this is a lot shorter than my usual chapter, but I was just bridging the gap between this chapter and the next one. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter Nine
Once Dean got Alyson free he knew she had to be taken to the hospital. She wasn't healing on her own, and she'd lost way too much blood. Her hand had been badly damaged too.
And why wasn't she healing? That was her thing, right? Her super power. She could heal herself.
He carried her to the car and once he began driving he called Sam, who picked up almost instantly.
"Yeah?"
"Sam, you need to get to the hospital, okay?"
"Dean . . . What?"
"It's bad, Sam. It's bad and she's not healing, and I don't have time to pick you up."
Once at the hospital, Dean wasn't allowed to stay with Alyson, though he made sure they knew she had no family and he was her boyfriend. After what seemed like ages, the doctor came and told him Alyson was being given a blood transfusion. She probably wouldn't be awake for hours because she was on an IV drip full of sedatives and pain medicine. She would be admitted into a room soon and then he could be with her again.
Sam came in before she'd been admitted. He seemed just as frantic as Dean felt.
"Dean!"
Layla came in right behind Sam. Dean made his way to them and explained what had been going on. They went outside so the people in the waiting room wouldn't hear them talking about demons.
During their conversation, Dean found out that the demon that had been possessing Ric had left him too.
"Dean, what were they doing?" Sam asked. "If they didn't kill her, they didn't want her dead. And they didn't take her to get to us . . ."
"They were playing with her," Dean said. "The demon I ran into, that's what she said. They wanted her to think they wanted her dead, but they really just wanted to hurt her."
Once Alyson had been given a room, Sam and Dean stayed with her. Layla came and went, visiting between her mom and Alyson.
Dean didn't know what to do. Alyson was so pale and she just seemed so lifeless. She'd lost so much blood. Her hand was wrapped in a bandage, and her ankles and wrists had been rubbed raw from being bound. The doctor said her hand was broken from the knife having been in her hand. By far, her abdomen had taken the most damage.
The only good thing going for them right now was that Aly could breathe on her own. Nothing was wrong with her lungs.
It was about six hours and what felt like a hundred cups of coffee later before Alyson began to move. At first it was just twitches of her one good hand and then it was rapid eye movement. She was probably dreaming.
When the whimpering and moaning and groaning started Dean had no clue what to do. The sedatives would keep her asleep, keep her locked inside her nightmares.
"Sam, go get us some more coffee, would ya?"
"Uh, sure."
Once Sam was gone, Dean moved closer to the bed.
"Hey, Aly," he said and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Uh, I don't even know if you can hear me, but, uh . . . you're safe now. They've got you on sleep medicine. Whatever you're seeing right now isn't real and you're safe.
"The doctors say you should wake up soon."
Dean didn't really know what he was saying. He was just talking. He hoped she was hearing him. It might help her while she was asleep.
Alyson's head felt as if it were going in circles as she opened her eyes. Had she been drugged again? That made no sense. Why would the demons have drugged her again?
Even though her vision was blurry she noticed that she was no longer in a dark room. She'd been moved. There was a light coming from a lamp and the brightness hurt to look at directly.
She tried to sit up, but when she pushed up with her hands a sharp pain went through her right one and up her arm. Her stomach felt like it was on fire from the movement, and she couldn't scream because it hurt her throat too much. She was only able to make a short, raspy yelp.
Hands grabbed her shoulders and gently pushed her back down.
"Hey, hey, take it easy," a very familiar voice said.
"Dean!" Dean was there. Wherever there was.
"It's me. It's me. You're safe."
Knowing Dean was there made it easier to calm down. She soon realized that she was in a hospital bed and she was hooked up to a machine – a heart monitor. She had an IV in her left hand.
Sam was in the room, too, but he hadn't grabbed her like Dean had.
The things that had been done to her flashed through her mind and tears formed in her eyes. Demons, pain, near-death, Sam. She squinted in Sam's direction and he looked at her as well, sympathy apparent on his face. Her tears spilled over.
"I'm gonna go get a doctor," Dean said and removed his hands from her shoulders.
"No!" a hoarse cry escaped her throat and it burned on the way. "Stay."
She didn't want him to leave. She didn't want Sam to leave, either, for that matter. She didn't want to be alone, period. What if those things found her again?
Her trying to scream had caused her throat to flare up in pain. Her throat was dry and she needed water. Dean brought a cup from a tray beside the bed and put it to her lips. She drank greedily. It felt good on her throat, but when she was done she tried to talk again, which if anyone had asked she would've admitted was stupid.
"How long was I gone?" she asked.
"Almost two days," Sam said.
She noticed Dean clench his jaw and it occurred to her that he probably thought that this was his fault. Her being captured, her being tortured, everything.
"How did you find me?" she asked. "And why am I in the hospital? What if I had healed or something?"
"We had to bring you here," Dean said. "When I found you, you were barely alive. You'd lost so much blood and you weren't healing. Why weren't you healing? I mean, did they have special weapons or something?"
Anger mixed with worry came through Dean's voice. Alyson knew he wasn't angry with her, so it didn't bother her much. She wouldn't have been able to take it if Dean had blamed her for this.
"No. Regular ones. I guess it was because of the blood loss. Maybe the weaker I get, the weaker my ability gets. How did you find me?"
"We went to the abandoned warehouses. Layla saw Rickie come out of one," Sam said. "Rickie is fine, by the way."
"And the other two? Are they gone? And Layla . . . is she okay?"
Alyson bit her lip as her stomach pain flared up again. She tried to breathe normally, but she couldn't breathe deep enough without causing fire to go through her abdomen.
"Layla's fine, and the other two demons are gone."
Dean leaned over the bed and picked something up, but Alyson needed to get her thoughts out so she didn't pay attention to what it was.
"They lured me here using Layla and her family. They were trying to get to me the whole time."
It didn't take long for her to go back to sleep. Dean had been pressing the button for more pain medicine.
The next time Alyson woke up, the sun was shining through the one window in the room. Sam was nowhere to be seen, but Dean was leaned over in a chair with his head on the bed. He seemed to be asleep, and he apparently hadn't left her side.
"Dean?"
She brought her hand up and gingerly placed it on his head. He slowly lifted his head and opened his eyes. She noticed they were bloodshot. Whether it was from being tired or from earlier tears she didn't know.
"Hey," he said and scooted closer to the bed.
"Hey. Where'd Sam go?"
"Coffee. We've pretty much been livin' on the stuff."
She noticed that his voice was hoarse.
"You wanted me to stay, so I did. Not that I would leave you alone, anyway. Not after –" Dean clenched his jaw, took a deep breath and continued. "I almost lost you. You – you nearly died."
Alyson reached for his hand and he met her halfway. His hand was so big it wrapped around hers and enclosed it fully. It was the only thing she knew to do to reassure him that she was there and safe. In pain, yes, but safe.
"Dean, there's something I have to tell you. The demons told me something."
"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
"Yes, I do. It's about Sam," she said urgently.
Dean sat up a little straighter, his soldier instincts kicking in. "Were they after him, too?"
She shook her head.
"They said that his visions come from some place dark. Like they're not good or something. They said that he can do things that he doesn't know about yet, and that –"
Alyson stopped as a doctor came into the room.
"We'll talk about this later, a'right?" Dean asked, and Alyson nodded.
"Miss Daniels. Nice to see you're awake. I'm Dr. Richardson." He had a clipboard in his hands and he was going through her records. "How're you feeling?"
"Uh . . . my mouth is dry. My head felt like sponge-cake earlier, but it's better now, and I'm a little cold."
"And the pain on a scale from one to ten."
"A four when I'm sitting still. An eight when I move."
"Okay." The doctor wrote that down in her file. "Your mouth being dry is from the drugs. You're on morphine. The fuzziness of mind is probably caused by that as well. You're dehydrated, which doesn't help either of those things. I suggest chewing some ice chips because drinking straight water may cause nausea and you don't need that right now. As for being cold, you lost a lot of blood. We had to give you a transfusion. Do you remember what happened? How you lost the blood?"
Alyson started fidgeting because she knew she had to lie. She held her breath to keep from crying out from the pain she'd caused herself by moving.
"I don't know what happened," she said. "I didn't even know how I got here until Dean explained it."
Dr. Richardson continued writing.
"Yes, well, that tends to happen when one goes through something traumatic. The human mind represses things it can't deal with." He looked in Dean's direction. "Do you mind stepping out of the room for a few minutes? I need to check and possibly change her bandages."
"If you don't mind, I'd rather he stay. Unless I have to get naked or something."
"Sure," the doctor agreed.
Throughout the examination, Alyson thought about things like Sam and Layla. The conclusion she came to about Sam was simple: He would never hurt her, let alone kill her.
The Layla solution wasn't as easy: Alyson had to let her go. It would hurt, but it had to happen because as long as Alyson was in touch with Layla, Layla was in danger. These demons had used Layla to bring Alyson back to San Francisco, and the supernatural world would continue to use her as long as they knew Alyson would come running back. Her friendship with Layla was a weakness Alyson's enemies could use against her.
Her friendship with Sam could be considered a weakness, too, as well as her relationship with Dean. But Sam and Dean knew how to take care of themselves, knew how to protect themselves against demons. Layla didn't know anything, and they couldn't stay there and protect her all the time. They just couldn't. So letting her go would be the safer thing to do.
"Amazing," the doctor said, and Alyson was brought out of her thoughts.
"What?"
The doctor had her wounded hand in his and the bandage was unwrapped.
"You're healing surprisingly fast, and the bones seem to have reset themselves."
"Wow."
Alyson didn't have to act surprised. She really hadn't known she could do that.
Both Dean and the doctor helped her sit up so the doctor could undo the bandages on her stomach. The material was stuck to her skin and it pulled a little, which made her gasp. Once the bandage was off she saw Dean turn his head away. Was it really that bad?
"This is healing beautifully as well."
Alyson looked down and saw how angry the cuts were. She wondered how bad they must've looked before if this was healing beautifully.
But . . . wait!
"Oh, my – Dean!"
She suddenly couldn't breathe. A word had been carved into her skin. From Dean's expression he'd already known it was there.
MINE: That was the word that had been carved into her. The demon had marked her!
"Dean," she almost yelled. "Dean, it's –"
"Hey." Dean sat on the bed with her and tried to soothe her. "Hey, it's just a word, okay? It doesn't mean anything. Please don't hurt yourself."
"He's right. If you pull your stitches, we'll have to put you back under."
What, she wasn't allowed to cry now?
"When can I get out of here?" she asked, throat tight, as Dr. Richardson redid her bandages.
"You keep healing at this rate, you can get out tomorrow morning," he said before walking out the doorway.
"We're leaving as soon as you get released," Dean said.
"Yeah, okay."
Alyson really had no problem with that. She wanted this place so far behind her that she'd never think about it again.
Dean had barely calmed Alyson down by the time Sam returned. Sam had coffee for Dean and himself. Layla came in behind Sam carrying two McDonald cups. She handed one to Alyson, who began drinking quickly even though the doctor had just told her not to drink liquid. Dean hoped it didn't make her sick because he couldn't bring himself to take away something she seemed to be enjoying so much.
"Thank you," Alyson said. "Um . . . Layla, listen, I've been thinking and –"
Dean placed his hand on her shoulder as Alyson broke off.
"You're leaving as soon as you get out of here. I know," Layla said. "Sam asked me to bring your stuff with me this morning."
"Oh. Okay. But that's not what I was gonna say."
Dean thought he knew what was coming. Aly had the same expression now as she'd had when she'd deleted the pictures of her old life from her phone.
"Those things, those demons, they used you to get to me. Your dad is dead because of me. They will continue to use you against me as long as they know I'll come back, so I can't anymore."
Dean heard the tears in her voice and he hated it. He couldn't fix this. There was nothing he could do but be there.
"I can't continue talking to you or seeing you because it'll put you in danger and these things wouldn't think twice about using you as bait again. It's safer for both of us. Trust me."
Layla didn't say anything for the longest time, but then she spoke what Dean knew Alyson needed to hear.
"I get that, I guess. But my dad's death isn't your fault. You shouldn't think that." Layla straightened up. "When does this no contact thing start? Right now or after you guys leave?"
"Tomorrow," Alyson said firmly. "Definitely tomorrow."
So, I don't know much about the side effects of drugs. I've only taken pain medication once in my life and it made me hallucinate. I know the morphine drip caused me to have a fever and itch because I'm allergic to it, but other than than I have no clue! Let me know what you guys think!
