Chapter Ten- Good Little Soldier- And Nothing But

I have the best Christmas present ever for you guys- Bobby. This is it. You're welcome. Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I'm too lazy to reply to yall. But for the people who wanted John's ass kicked, I haven't decided his fate yet.

Speaking of Supernatural, SATAN. AM I RIGHT?

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"All right. Let's pull the plug."

The voice comes out of nowhere, like I've been blindfolded. There's more voices following the first, but I can't quite make them out. Maybe I am blindfolded; it would certainly explain the pitch darkness. I try to open my eyes, but I'm too exhausted. I just came back from the dead, and I'm beginning to see why people don't do it very often; Jesus Christ, it's hard. Clouds and harps certainly seem like the better option right about now. How do I even have enough energy to breathe?

There's a heart monitor, cutting through the other noises, the beeps getting steadily slower, marking all the progress I'm losing. I'll be dead again all too soon. Why did I even bother? Mom was back there. Coming back to life is the worst mistake of my life. Death. What?

Damnit. Open your eyes, I tell myself, on the off chance that it'll make a difference. It doesn't. Come on, Dean. You want to see Sam go to college, don't you? Whatever hospital you're in, it probably has pie. So open your friggin' eyes.

The darkness thins a little. The heart monitor picks up a little speed. And someone gasps.

Come on. Almost there.

Light comes flooding in, too cold and way too bright. I close my eyes again and groan, wondering what the legal limit of painkillers is. And what I'll have to do to get the doctors to double it. I guess I should've thought about how much getting killed hurts before I came back. Seriously; I think someone lit me on fire. That's what it feels like.

"Jesus…" someone says from across the room. "Kid, you were dead."

"I know," I rasp out. Talking makes it worse. Bad idea. I don't remember swallowing glass, but I must've.

The (doctor?) guy stares at me for a long time, as though I just turned into an alien, then snaps himself back into focus. "You got a name?"

"Dean Winchester."

"Okay, Dean. I'm Doctor Roberts. Is there someone we should call? Like, your parents or something?"

"Don't call my dad," I hiss, fingers lacing around the sheets. God, if Dad found out I was alive… what would happen? He's probably already killed Sam. Unless he knew about me being alive. Unless he's waiting until he can do it in front of me… I'm having serious doubts about this whole life thing. "I… uh… I have an uncle. Bobby Singer."

"Do you know his phone number?"

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I don't hear the door open. I do hear Sammy scream and run across the room.

"Dean!"

"Hey, kid," I manage, turning to look at him. Three days is way too long to go without seeing my little brother.

"Dad said you were dead," he says, sniffing a little.

"I was. Mom says hi."

He laughs a little, and I sigh. Of course he doesn't believe me. It probably wasn't even real, right? But something about that forest seemed real, more real than this hospital. Like this is me dreaming. And that was the only time I was ever awake. God, I want to believe it happened. I can't, though. Not right now. Because it would be the same as before. There's no point in trusting something that won't-can't- help you. Actually, I can't really trust anyone. Dad probably knows I'm alive. He's probably on his way here. And if I tell anybody, he's going to know about it. Jesus, I thought this was going to be easy?

Bobby and Dr. Roberts are standing outside in the hallway. No doubt there's a mile-long list of ways I'm broken, and none of them can be written off as accidents. I clench my fist and run my thumb over my fingers. How much do they know? Exactly how much can you tell about a person by looking at their scars? Suddenly, I realize Sam's talking and focus back on him. On anything besides the clipboard in the hallway that almost certainly has nine years of secrets mapped out for all the world to see.

"… and then he dropped me off at Uncle Bobby's, and he still wouldn't tell me what was going on and he said go to the kitchen so I did and when Bobby came in he was crying and I asked what happened? And he said you were dead. Why did Daddy tell him you were dead?"

"Because he thought I was."

"But at least he called 911 to make sure, right?"

That's another thing. How did anyone know where I was, and that I was dead/dying/ whatever? It wasn't Dad, so who called?

The door opens again, a lot louder than when Sam came in. Seriously, the kid has a gift. Bobby comes in first, red-eyed, and I look out the window. It's bad enough a total stranger saw. But Bobby? Dr. Roberts follows, a little too professionally. I wonder how often this happens; random teenagers who were murdered and committed suicide simultaneously showing up in the ER. "Hey, Dean," Bobby says. There's too much pity in this room. I need out.

They tell Sam to leave. It starts raining outside. I watch the drops pound against the window, tracing my finger over the starchy blanket. Bobby won't stop looking at me. And after a lifetime of people's looks glancing off the surface, it's making me pretty damn uncomfortable.

"Dean…" Doctor Roberts starts, all business. As though he deals with zombies every day. That's what I am, isn't it? I was dead. And now I'm not. If that doesn't make me undead, I don't know what will. "You were injured pretty badly when we found you."

"Oh, really? I'd never know. Thanks for the insight."

"Dean, please. Now's not the time."

"Question. How did you know I was there? No one called."

"We got an anonymous phone call."

Dad? The thought comes to mind before I can stop it. And it makes me want to kill something. Because after nine years, there's still some part of me that believes Dad would call the ambulance after he tried to kill his son. Sorry, not his son. His wind-up soldier who does everything he's asked without questioning it. It could have been Mom… yeah. Okay. The dead parent who's never helped you, ever, called 911 when she found out her baby was gonna die. You're not in a friggin movie, Dean. Wake up.

"The point is," Bobby speaks up, "we were wondering if you remembered anything. No matter how crazy."

"It's not like I was attacked by a werewolf or anything," I say with pointed sarcasm. Though maybe I could convince Bobby. Maybe I could come up with a lie in the next five minutes that would convince everyone, no matter what they believed or didn't believe, that my dad was innocent. Because that's what I'm really doing, isn't it? I'm not saving Sammy's life. I'm covering for my dick father.

My dick father, who will know if I tell these people what he did. Somehow, he's going to know. And somehow he'll kill Sam. In front of me. It took me nine years to figure it out- there's no way of escaping John Winchester. He's the shadow in the hallway that only looks like a monster when the lights are off. And no matter what you do to stop seeing it, you're going to know it's there and it's going to scare the crap out of you the entire night.

Unless.

The rain gets harder. I think it needs help; it's obviously trying to get into the hospital. Someone go help the rain. It's fallen and it can't get up. Bobby keeps looking at me like I'm a transparent time bomb. Which I very well might be; it's a good thing this goddamn glass box is going to act like a blast shield when I explode. Which I will do alone, in private, where no one will see my scars and no one will ask any questions I'll never be able to answer.

Unless.

I tell them.

Everything. Right here, right now, spill my guts as if they've been sliced open with the scalpel in the room down the hallway where people are paid to slice and spill guts. All the nights I spent crying, lying on my stomach because my back was made of glass that shattered every time I moved. Relive them all, now. Every single time he'd ever called me worthless, up until he'd carved the obvious into my stomach. Tell all the stories. I've got a lot, for I've got a lot of scars. It'd be easy, three simple words to start an avalanche.

"You can tell us, Dean," Bobby whispers, and I realize I'm crying. Damn it. Now I'm a crying time bomb. The only thing that could make this more pathetic is if I had the dead mom card, too. Maybe I have cancer. I probably have cancer. That would be fan-friggin-tastic.

"No, I can't," I say, not taking my eyes off the injured rainstorm. It convinces myself about as much as it convinces the table in the corner; I could if I wanted to. If I was brave enough to suffer the consequences. But if there's one thing I've learned in the past week, bravery and Dad are two things that should never be mixed. "He said he'd kill Sam."

"If you told anyone?"

I nod.

"He's not going to know you told us."

Yes, he will. But how do I know? Of course I'm going to break down and tell him if he asks me who knows, but he doesn't even know I'm alive. Yet. As far as I know. It's not like he's going to walk into the room at any second. And it's not like Sammy and I aren't protected. It's a hospital; there's a good chance they don't allow murdering.

"Dean, please. The police are conducting an investigation-"

I laugh, cutting off Doctor Roberts. You couldn't track him with the FBI. Hell, sometimes he is the FBI. Dad will have a new name, job, license plate, and state by now. "They're not going to find him. I'm pretty sure he's wanted in every state except Hawaii, and he still hasn't been caught. Ever."

We've never been to Hawaii; Dad doesn't fly. Sam thinks it's because I'm scared of planes (my mom died on a ceiling. Obviously, there was leaving the ground involved. The same thing could happen to me.) But it's really because the man couldn't bear to leave his precious car unattended for long enough. If it wasn't for the Impala, we'd be flying everywhere. Simply because I'm so scared of it. He loves that car more than me. By far.

And do I really want to keep a man like that innocent?

Mom asked what I wanted. And I'm not sure about a lot of things, but I do know this: I want to be okay. Not happy, that's too much to ask, but okay. Not lying in a hospital bed with people pitying me because I was murdered/ killed myself four days ago. Not sitting in a motel room waiting for my dad to come home drunk and wondering if this, this would be the night Sammy woke up and saw something.

Not stuck in a glass box, with the walls getting closer and the bottom filling up with blood. A coffin only I can see.

Here's what I want; the truth. Maybe not the whole truth, right now, but something close to it.

"You want a name?" I whisper, adrenaline rushing into my veins.

"Do you have one?" Doctor Roberts asks. Revenge, you bastard, I think.

"John Winchester."

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Okay. Do this with me. Everyone go to the nearest thing that plays music, and blast Light 'Em Up as loud as possible. Because that's what I'm doing and seriously it's making everything that much better.

Please review! Only 22 days till the new episode!