Thanks so much Jenjoremy for working your beta magic. Thank you SandraEngstrom2 and Gredelina1 for everything you do.
Thank you all for reading and supporting the story.
Chapter Ten
The door opened and all eyes snapped up to follow the doctor's movements as he entered the room.
"How is he?" Ellen asked at once.
Dean listened for his reply even as he tried to analyze the timing of the doctor's arrival. It hadn't been long since he left them; had it been long enough for him to save Sam or was it just long enough for Sam to die on the table?
The doctor fixed his eyes on Dean. "He made it through."
Ellen sighed with relief and Jo laughed shakily. Dean felt his heart restart with a jolt.
"We were able to drain the bleed successfully and without complications," he went on. "The pressure has gone down significantly."
"This is all good, right?" Dean said. "I mean no complications has to be good."
Doctor Marsden nodded. "Yes, it's good, but I don't want to lie to you. It was a massive bleed and it's very unlikely there will be no consequences."
"You're saying he could still be brain damaged," Dean said.
"Yes. I think it's better that I am honest with you from the start. I have never seen someone with the size of bleed your brother had without some damage. You need to accept that now."
Dean bowed his head. This was so much, too much. Sam, his brilliant, gifted brother, was damaged. How was he supposed to deal with that? How were any of them, Sam most of all, supposed to deal? Sam was independent to a fault. He wouldn't be able to bear this.
Would he even realize?
Dean thought over the list of possible complications the doctor had given them before the surgery: seizures, problems with speech, movement, memory. Would Sam even know them now?
Dean swallowed bile and anger. He wanted to lash out, to attack someone. He wanted to siphon his feelings into someone else, make them pay the way he had with Ellsworth. There was no one to hurt though. Samhain was gone, exorcised and sent back to the pit for another five centuries. Dean had no outlet.
"Can we see him?" Jo asked.
"You can. We have settled Sam in a room now. You need to be prepared, though. He is intubated and on a ventilator to help him breathe. He is triggering the vent on occasion, which means he is trying to breathe himself, but we're using the machine to allow his body to rest. There are IVs and other tubes. The thing to remember is that each of those things is helping him."
"How long will he need all that?" Ellen asked.
"I can't give you a definitive answer about that right now," Doctor Marsden said evasively.
"A guideline then?"
He drew a breath and seemed to brace himself before speaking. "Sam is in a coma. It's not as deep as it could be. He is responding to pain stimulus, but he isn't opening his eyes or making sounds. He is not brain dead. He still has function, but until he wakes up, we can't be sure what the deficit will be."
"Okay," Dean said, holding his hands up. "That's all I can take."
"Dean…" Ellen said, soft and consoling.
"I just need to see him," Dean said. "Please."
"Of course." The doctor opened the door again and gestured them out before him.
Their voices were too loud. The room was too loud. The ventilator whooshed and clicked and the heart monitor beeped, but those sounds were comforting as they documented life; they showed Sam was still fighting. The voices weren't comforting. Ellen and Jo spoke quietly enough, barely reaching over the other sounds, but their voices were like nails on a blackboard to him. He wanted them gone.
He couldn't send them away.
They had as much right to be there as Dean. They were Sam's family, too. He would want them there.
Despite the notices posted in the halls and room declaring the limits for visiting hours, no one had made them try to leave. Dean tried to be pleased about that, but the defeatist part of him worried that it was because there was little time left. Little time left for his brother and him to be together.
Tears stung Dean's eyes and burned a path down his cheeks. A sob built in his chest and bubbled up his throat. He brought his arms up to his chest, hugging himself, and cried. Hands touched him and a voice shushed him, but he couldn't stop. He was scared, more scared than he had been the night the hounds came for him; then he had only been losing his own life, now he could be losing his brother.
As Uriel watched the scene play out, he felt annoyance mixed with amusement. Dean Winchester was crying and the older woman was trying to comfort, but even Uriel could see it was futile. There was only one person who could help him, and that person was somewhat incapacitated now. If there was no intervention, he would be incapacitated permanently.
What Uriel knew and the humans didn't was that Sam Winchester was ruined. The damage he had done to himself while exorcising Samhain was catastrophic. He would never move, speak, think or even emote again. He would know no one, not even his brother. He had destroyed himself.
Under other circumstances, it would have pleased Uriel to see him brought so low. Sam Winchester was a stain on the face of the world. He was the abomination and Uriel wanted to see him dead, but he wanted to see Lilith killed and Lucifer freed even more. He saved the thought of the Winchesters' destruction for those times when he came close to losing hope. They would both be taken as vessels and their lives would be over. Uriel could hardly wait for that day. It wasn't yet though. There was too much to be done still.
Uriel had to do something.
He wouldn't act yet though. Sam Winchester could suffer a little longer first; not that he was technically suffering. His brother was though, and that pleased Uriel. Uriel would leave him to suffer a little longer, that way, when the time came, they would both know that the blood was the safest choice to make.
If Heaven gave the orders to heal Sam Winchester, Uriel would obey them. If Heaven decided he should die, Uriel would defy them. It was better for him to be under Heaven's trust for now, and he would hate to lose it, but the ultimate goal didn't require that trust. He would adjust.
He took flight away from the hospital room feeling satisfied.
Dean finally had some time alone with Sam while Ellen and Jo went in search of food for the three of them. Dean didn't think they had any more appetite than he did, but it was what you had to do when you were human: you ate, you drank, you slept, you spoke, you moved, you did a hundred other things that Sam might not be able to do anymore. In short, you lived.
He was sitting beside Sam's bed, his arm stretched across the distance between them and his fingers entwined with Sam's. The idea of Sam's reaction if he could see it brought a smile to Dean's lips that became a grimace when he realized Sam might be unable to react even if he did see.
The door open and Dean dragged his eyes from his brother's face to look at the nurse who entered. It wasn't the first time Dean had seen her. She had come in periodically along with Doctor Marsden to run checks on Sam. She was young—Dean would tag her as in her early twenties, pretty with her blonde hair and blue eyes. Dean had taken notice of her as his first thought had been was she even old enough, experienced enough, to take care of Sam? She seemed competent in her movements though and she treated Sam with respect, talking to him and explaining what she was doing even though he was unconscious, so Dean had felt reassured. He turned his attention back to Sam, comfortable sharing the room with her.
The absence of sound was what alerted him: the loss of the steady beep of the heart monitor. It wasn't replaced by a droning alarm; it was just silent. Dean lurched to his feet and spun to look at the machine and he saw the screen was dark. "What the…" he started, and then he shouted an inarticulate cry of shock as he saw the nurse's eyes—the blue had been replaced by black.
"Good to see you, Dean," she said in a smooth, sultry voice.
Dean reached for the back of his pants for his gun, but it wasn't there, of course. He hadn't brought a gun or knife with him. Why would he in a hospital?
"No, no, no," she said, sounding amused. "No weapons today, Dean, and Wonder Boy here is too busy dying to help out."
"Get away from him," Dean said, starting toward her.
"I don't think I will. I think I will have a little fun." Dean was almost there, his hands up and ready to claw her black eyes out if that was what it took to stop her, but she was ready for him. She swept a hand through the air and Dean flew back into the wall. The breath was knocked out of him as he hit hard, and he groaned. With another wave of the arm, the sleeping chair Dean had been sitting on skidded to the door, pinning it closed.
"Now, let's get to work," she said. "There's a lot to do before your little tree-topper friends arrive." She moved closer to the bed and turned her back on Dean. His view of Sam was blocked for a moment but he could still hear. There was a hiss of air and then the ventilator fell silent. Dean heard a choking, gagging sound and then rasping breaths that seemed to fill the room.
She stepped back and Dean had a clear view of Sam. She had pulled the tube out of his throat and now he was struggling to breathe. His chest heaved and there was a sick, gargling sound with every indrawn breath.
"Hmm…" she said thoughtfully. "Wasn't expecting that to be honest. Figured he'd be enough of a vegetable to slip off the mortal coil without that. Oh well. Where there's a will, there's a way."
"Stop!" Dean shouted still pinned against the wall. "Leave him alone!"
She laughed. "Not a chance. This is too much fun."
Just then, someone tried to open the door and Ellen spoke, her voice muffled through the door. "Dean, what's going on?"
"Demon!" Dean shouted. "Get help!"
He wasn't sure whether Ellen had obeyed—Who could she even go to for help?—but someone started slamming his or her body against the door. The chair was too heavy to be moved though.
The demon smiled as she grabbed the pillow from beneath Sam's head and held it up to Dean. "What do you think, will this do it?"
"Please don't," Dean begged. "I'll do anything."
"There's nothing I want from you," she said. "Nothing except to desecrate your bloody corpse, that is. But I'll get to that in my own time. Now, stand back and be a good boy."
She pressed the pillow down over Sam's face and leaned her weight on it. The affect on Sam was immediate. He began to thrash on the bed as the human need for oxygen drove through him.
Dean was weaponless, trapped. He was going to watch his brother die, and there was nothing he could do to save him.
Sam's gargling breaths were quieter now, hushed under the pillow, and his thrashing had ceased. Only his hands still twitched at his sides. It was almost over. Dean was going to lose the one person he loved above all else. Then it happened. It was like a switch was flicked in his brain and he realized he wasn't entirely weaponless.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…"
The demon's gaze snapped to him and her weight lifted slightly from the pillow, allowing Sam a shallow breath. She looked almost betrayed, as if she couldn't believe he would do this to her.
Dean let the words flow from him. The exorcism Sam had insisted he learn was going to save his life. The demon's head thrashed from side to side and she growled deep in her throat. The pillow had fallen to the side and Sam's mouth was clear, but his breaths still weren't easy.
"It's too late," she said with a laugh. "He's already gone." Then she threw her head back and black smoke poured out of her mouth and into the air as she escaped the incomplete exorcism.
Dean staggered away from the wall and started toward Sam, but then a face appeared before him and Castiel was reaching for his temple. Dean just had time to moan, "No," before he was unconscious.
When Dean woke, he was lying on an uncomfortable bed in an unfamiliar room. He allowed his eyes to rove around, and he discovered he was in a hospital and Castiel was standing beside the bed.
"Cas?" he asked drowsily. "What are you doing here? What happened?"
"What do you remember?" Castiel asked.
"You knocked me out."
"I thought if they found you unconscious there would be less suspicion."
"And there was a demon," Dean said. "She… Oh God! Sammy!"
"He is safe."
"He's okay?"
"He is safe," Castiel said again.
"What does that even mean?"
"It means he is in no immediate danger. The doctors are being attentive. Dean, we need to talk."
Reassured, Dean said, "Course. I'm glad you're here, man. We need you. Sam needs you. He's in a bad way, and—"
"I am not here for Sam," Castiel said.
Dean frowned. "What do you mean?"
Castiel looked away. "I am not here to heal."
"Why not?" Dean asked in a weak voice. "You have to. You have to! Please."
"I told you once I am a soldier. I am. I obey orders, and no orders have been given for Sam."
"But… There has to be. He's in a bad way, Cas. He needs help I can't give him."
"I am aware. Heaven is aware, but they have decided not to intervene."
Dean's heart contracted painfully in his chest. "You have to," he said, his voice raising. "Dammit, Cas, he's a mess. They're talking brain damage. I can't let that happen."
"I have seen him," Castiel said. "I know the extent of the damage, and while I would help you happily if allowed, I cannot defy my superiors."
Dean's hands curled into fists and he wished more than anything that he could strike out at Castiel and have him actually feel it. He swung his legs around and slid from the bed then made a couple passes up and down the room as something else Castiel said sunk in. "You know the…" He swallowed hard. "You know the damage."
Castiel nodded. "I do."
"What is it? How bad?"
"I think it is better that you wait to see for yourself."
"You're kidding, right? You actually think it's better for me to 'wait and see'? This is Sam that we're talking about. My brother. I need to know now."
Castiel looked undecided for a moment, and then he nodded. "Very well. But remember this was your choice. The damage is substantial. Sam will almost certainly never walk, talk, speak…"
He trailed off as Dean swayed on the spot. He felt sick and faint. He wished he hadn't asked. He couldn't bear it. Before, he'd had a little hope, now he had nothing. "Stop," he croaked. "I don't want to know anymore."
Castiel nodded his understanding. ""I am sorry, Dean."
"Sorry? You should be. You're telling me Sam's ruined and even though you can fix it, you won't." Anger surged like bile. "Screw you, Castiel. You, all of you angels, can go screw yourselves. I'm not doing anything for you now. I don't care if the world goes to hell. I don't care if Lilith cracks all the seals like eggs. I don't even care if Lucifer is freed. I am done with you all. I will not do a single thing for you again."
Castiel shook his head looking doleful. "You will change your mind."
"I won't."
"And the rest of your family? The Harvelles, Bobby Singer, Sonny, would you leave them to a destroyed world for mere revenge?"
"You wouldn't call it revenge if you weren't an angel," Dean said quietly. "If you could love, you would understand." He shook his head. "Leave, Castiel. Go now and never come back. I don't want to see you. I don't want to talk to you. I don't even want to think of you again."
Castiel stared into his eyes for a moment and Dean looked back without flinching, then he was gone with a faint whisper of sound and Dean was alone.
He sat on the edge of the bed again and buried his face in his hands. He would go back to Sam soon, and he would hold his hand and talk to him, but there would be no point. Sam would feel nothing, no connection between them, because he was as gone as if he had died.
Dean got a shock when he finally staggered into Sam's room again. The ventilator was gone. He felt a moment of fear, thinking Sam was lost completely, but Ellen saw it and hurried to reassure him. "It's okay, honey. He's breathing on his own now. He doesn't need it anymore."
Dean nodded and made for a chair beside the bed. He reached over and picked up Sam's hand, staring at his expressionless face. He wondered whether he would ever see it animated again. Would he be met with the mask every time he looked at him? The idea hurt him physically.
Even without the ventilator regulating them, Sam's breaths were steady and even, hypnotic in a way. Dean lost himself in watching the rise and fall of his chest for a while before Jo broke into his thoughts. "What happened with the demon?"
Dean gave her an account of the demon's actions, not looking at her for her reaction. When he finished, she and Ellen spoke about the demon's motivation if not orders from Lilith, but Dean tuned them out, keeping his attention fixed on Sam instead.
Time passed and nothing changed for any of them apart from rising tiredness and frustration. Dean didn't tell them what Castiel had said about the damage to Sam. He didn't want to steal their hope, too. Dean was considering telling them to leave, to go get some rest when something changed. Sam's breaths quickened. The gaze of everyone in the room fixed on him, and they all witnessed the incredible moment Sam's eyes began to roll beneath their lids.
"Sammy?" Dean said quietly. "Sam, open your eyes for me."
It seemed to take forever, but in truth it was a matter of seconds before Sam's eyes opened.
Ellen choked a sob and Jo ran from the room, calling for the doctor. Dean stood bowed over the bed, cupping Sam's cheeks in his hands and turning his face to his. "Sammy, look at me," he ordered.
Sam's eyes moved slowly, as if they were weighted, and looked at Dean. It was possibly the most painful thing in Dean's life to date, the moment his brother looked at him, because there was absolutely no reaction, not even a flicker of recognition. Dean lurched back, his chest burning.
Missing it completely, Ellen came to the other side of the bed and leaned over Sam. She pressed a kiss to his forehead and stroked his cheek. "Welcome back, honey."
Sam's gaze moved to her, and Dean watched carefully. He wasn't sure whether he wanted Sam to recognize Ellen or not. It would be a cruel twist of fate if he knew her and not him, but it would also mean there was still someone he loved that he knew.
There was nothing.
Sam could have been staring at a blank wall for all the reaction he gave.
"Sam, honey?" Ellen said in a worried tone.
Sam's gaze moved away and he stared up at the ceiling.
Ellen looked at Dean, her face horrorstruck, and Dean knew the questions were coming, though she could have no idea he had some answers for her. The door opened then though, and the doctor came in with Jo following.
"I hear we have a conscious patient," he said.
"Yeah," Ellen said, "but there's something wrong."
The doctor nodded and moved closer to the bed. "Sam, can you look at me?" he said loudly.
Sam looked at him but there no reaction in his expression. He didn't look confused or upset; he was blank.
Dean didn't know what it was that did it, he just knew he couldn't bear to watch them run through checks and assess what the damage there was. He fled. He ran from the room, legs pumping and feet pounding the floor, until he was outside the hospital in a large manicured garden he thought perhaps they brought patients to for fresh air. He collapsed onto a bench and hid his face in his hands. He couldn't bear it. He was in so much pain he felt like he was on fire. His every nerve screamed at him.
What was he supposed to do?
Sam, the part of him that made him Sam, was gone. He was a shell now. Castiel had laid it out for him clearly enough. Dean had lost his brother. He had done so much, given so much for him. He'd gone to Hell for Sam, and yet he could be dead now for all the difference it made for him. Perhaps he should have died. Heaven would be better than the living hell he was trapped in now.
Heaven…
Dean hated the word. Heaven wouldn't give the orders for Sam to be saved. They had the power. It would take almost nothing for them but they wouldn't do it.
"Assholes," he hissed.
"I assume you are speaking of doctors and not angels," a deep voice said from behind him. "As I will not be disposed to help you otherwise."
Dean turned. "Uriel."
"Observant little mud monkey, aren't you?"
"You're going to help me," Dean said hopefully. "With Sam?"
"What other dire emergency are you dealing with now? Of course with Sam."
Dean leapt to his feet. "Yeah. Right. Awesome. Come on."
Apparently walking was too slow for Uriel as the next moment they were in Sam's room again and the doctor was just closing the door behind him as he left.
"Dean," Ellen said tearfully, and then she caught sight of the imposing angel. "Who's this?"
"This is Uriel. He's an angel. He's going to help Sam. Come away," he said in a rush.
Ellen and Jo obeyed, moving to stand by the window.
Uriel moved to the bed and looked down at Sam, his lip curling back in disgust. He looked up at Dean as he brought a hand up to rest over Sam's temple. "Take better care of your brother, Dean Winchester. I will not intervene again."
Dean nodded eagerly. "I will. Anything. Just help him please."
There was a rush of light from Uriel's palm, a strange piercing noise that Dean couldn't barely perceive, and then a voice, the most welcomed voice in Dean's universe, saying, "What the fuck are you doing?"
A sob and laugh mixed in Dean to come out in a strangled choking sound and he staggered towards the bed where Sam was pushing himself to a sitting position and looking around. "What the hell happened?" he asked.
Behind him, Dean could hear crying and he knew it was Ellen and Jo. He felt like crying, too.
Uriel looked Dean in the eye and said, "Better care," just before he disappeared.
"Dean, what's going on?" Sam asked impatiently.
Dean fell forward and Sam caught him, and then Dean's arms were coming up and holding his brother, squeezing him against his chest. Tears streamed down his face and wet Sam's shoulder, and though Dean knew Sam was probably incredibly uncomfortable with the contact, he didn't care, because Sam's arms were coming up to grip him in return and he was saying, "It's okay, Dean, it's fine," under his breath and he was capable of saying it. He knew Dean and he cared, and it was more than Dean thought he would ever have again.
It was the look in their eyes that did it: Ellen, Jo, Dean, they looked afraid. No, not afraid of him, afraid for him. He had scared them, so he accepted it when they begged him to lie down back at The Roadhouse.
Before he had left the hospital AMA, as part of the doctor's pleas for him to stay, he'd learned he had suffered a massive brain bleed. That must have scared them, obviously, but he thought there was more to it than that. Something else had happened.
How it had happened was clear: Samhain. As much as he had trained his powers in the months without Dean, he hadn't achieved the ability to work without harming himself without the blood. He didn't think he would ever be able to build that strength, no matter how hard he practiced.
That was a problem. They had the knife of course, but the backup of Sam's powers was gone as long as he stayed off the blood. And he would. He couldn't go back to that. He couldn't defile his body anymore than he already had. There was nothing that could make him do that. Nothing in the world.
Perhaps.
Suddenly, he wasn't alone in the room anymore. Ruby was standing at the end of his bed. She looked grim.
He quickly sat up. "How did you get in?" he asked.
"No one's put the protections back in place yet. Lucky for me."
"Unlucky for me. What do you want, Ruby?"
She perched on the edge of Dean's bed and looked at him. "I heard what happened to you. Wanted to make sure you're okay."
"Sure you did," he said. "What do you really want?"
She sighed. "I don't know how many ways I can say this, Sam, but I care. When I hear my friend almost died, I make a trip to check up on him."
"We're not friends," Sam said. "We're barely acquaintances."
She shook her head looking frustrated. "You need me."
"I need nothing from you."
"Maybe not me," she agreed. "But you need something."
"No," Sam said brutally. "I am not doing that again."
"And the next time you come up against a demon that needs exorcising, what'll you do then?"
"I'll manage."
"It will kill you, Sam," she said emphatically. "She will kill you."
"Lilith? No. She's not my problem. She's the angels' issue."
"You don't mean that. I know you, Sam. I have seen you at your very worst. Has any of your family seen that? Have they seen you delving so deep into your nature that you're barely human? Do they even know?"
"No," Sam said. "And they never will."
She shook her head. "You should tell them."
"Never," Sam said angrily. "And if you tell them I will take that knife we stole from you and shove it through your throat. I am not joking Ruby. If you tell them, I will end you."
Sam glared at her. It wasn't an idle threat. Dean must never know what he had done. It would ruin everything. He was back. He didn't remember hell. There was no deal hanging over them now. Lilith and the seals aside, things were as good for them as they ever were, and Sam was not going to destroy that by sharing what he had done.
He would lie.
So… Did you recognize the demon? This was basically just going to be a whump chapter, but then I got the idea for the demon visit and I ran with it.
Until next time…
Clowns or Midgets xxx