Well... Here we are, at the hospital...
There will probably be another chapter, maybe even a few more...

Taraneh requested something like this, I hope it meets your expectations.

Thank you all so much for the reviews so far! I act like a child receiving christmas gifts when I get them ;)

Bright. Noisy. OW! Hurt.

He had no clue where he was. He tried opening his eyes. A simple task, normally… Right now he had no idea if they really opened or not…

But it was bright. Too bright…
It made his eyes hurt. Whether they were open or not…

There were loud noises all around him, but he couldn't make out just what the noises was… It was just a blur…

He wasn't sure whether he was dead or alive… Most likely he was somewhere just in between right now. Not dead, but far from out of the woods yet…

His leg hurt. It hurt real bad!
When he thought about it, it felt like five billion knives were being stabbed around on his right leg. Dull, ragged knives…
It felt like the bones in his right leg had been through a grinder… Not one of those grinders that leaves things powdery… No, this grinder spit out twigs and pebbles, and left everything in wood-chip size… Each fragment an inch or two, able to jar into each other at every beat of his pulse…

Pulse… Pretty sure he was alive… Dead men don't have pulse… Or think… Or hurt, he hoped…

With every throb of his pulse, it felt like someone took a sledgehammer and jammed it into his mangled leg. As hard as humanly possible…
-or inhumanly possible…

Then the blissful unconsciousness took its hold of him again, and he got some relief. Some much needed relief…

Light again, not as bright on his eyes… But still annoying.

He could now recognize the noise, it was the buzz of people… They sounded far off, and worried…
And medical machines, heart monitor…? He was in a hospital…

The pain had subsided to an antagonizing throb… Slow and steady, painful and almighty…

He wanted to scream! To cry! To cuss! He wanted to go back to the pleasant, cozy, warm darkness of unconsciousness again.

Later, could have been five minutes, could be five hours… He had no clue…
-he woke up.

His eyelids felt like lead, heavier than your regular forklift truck... His mouth was drier than the desert of Sahara…

He felt nauseous, pretty sure he had gotten a blood transfusion… This was not just morphine or whatever else he might have been knocked out with…
He felt like dad looked after a two-week bender…

His leg felt like it was being cut into with dull spoons. Scraping away at his tissue, one antagonizing scoop at the time…

He finally managed to open his eyes, and blurred shapes around him moved in closer. A few seconds later his vision cleared, and he could see the people standing around him.

"You're awake!" Sammy said, and squeezed his left hand. Dean hadn't even realized that someone had been holding his hand until that point.

He tried to answer, but only managed a tired muffled sound. So he tried to squeeze back, the attempt had failed, and he was sure that Sammy wouldn't even have noticed it. But he smiled. Sammy smiled, so that could mean that he had made it…

Some minutes later, Dean hadn't even noticed that he had blacked out. But then he woke up…

His leg hurt like the inner circle of hell, but his head was better, and he felt somewhat stronger. His mouth had reached the humidity of the Mojave desert, which was a little better than Sahara, but far from comfortable…

"You're awake, again… Good!" Sammy smiled towards him.

"Was I gone?" Dean managed to croak out. His throat was just not made for talking right now. It was so dry it hurt…

"Yeah… you were out a for ten minutes or so…" someone else spoke up. It was Jake. He was still wearing the same clothes as earlier, blood had been smeared and dried on his pants. It was Dean's blood…

Dean nodded, and noticed that it felt like his brain was bopping twenty more seconds after he stopped…

There were four people in the room at the moment, other than himself. Sammy, Jake, Ron and Jenny. They all stood close to his bed, but only Sammy was touching him.

"Dad's on his way home from the business trip… He'll be here in ten to twelve hours…" Sammy said, "Uncle Bobby is coming with him!"

"M'kay…"

Twenty minutes later, he felt a lot better. His leg was still being held hostage by Satan himself, but other than that he felt better… Full sentences was within his reach, and he had been allowed to take a few sips of water. Truth be told, even as dry as his mouth had felt only minutes ago, a few sips had been all he could manage…

"How are you feeling?" Ron asked, looking first at Dean's face, then his eyes trailed down to where his right leg lay.

It was covered by the comforter, but he could clearly see the frame of a temporary brace. Holding his leg immobilized, without blocking for the wounds.

"Like I've been dragged through hell… Chewed up, and spit out in a pool of acid!" Dean answered in a cool tone staring up at the ceiling, before he looked straight at Ron. "But you did a great job patching me up!"

Ron gave a short laugh, really…? Was that what Dean thought he was thinking about right now…?

"I'll be fine!" Dean finished after a long pause, and he tucked his hands behind his head. Just as if he knew everything.

But deep down inside, Dean was scared. He knew how badly he had messed up. He knew that many hunters had to 'retire' after similar injuries…
-and he was pretty sure he wasn't cut out for anything else.

After a little while, Jenny moved a bit closer, and put her hand around Dean's right hand.

"How does it feel to be a hero?" she asked, her voice velvet smooth and just above whisper as she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Dean was taken aback for a few seconds. He was no hero… He just had the skills to do those things he did, and by his book that meant he was obliged to do whatever was necessary…
He just did what he'd been brought up to do…

"I'm no hero…" he answered, his voice strained with pain. A rouge tear trailed down his left cheek as his eyes fixed at the form of his feet.

The whole room fell silent for a little while, everybody was looking at each other, and at Dean…

Jake and Ron looked at each other in shock. They had both seen Dean risk his life for others today. Even after he was initially wounded.
He had been taking risks most people would never try, and he had done so without blinking… He had showed more guts than they had ever seen before, hardly even in movies…

Jenny had seen Dean be the only one whom dared to help Tommy. She had seen him be the only one whom dared to go up against the gunman in the cafeteria. She had seen him take two bullets… And keep fighting the pain, keep pushing himself… And then go out to save his little brother!
In her mind, there was no doubt that Dean was a hero. As pure and true as they came.

Sam knew Dean was a hero. More of a hero than their dad… More of a hero than anybody else he had ever known.
Dad was a hero, but it was vengeance. Dean was a hero, and it was putting everyone and everything else ahead of his needs. He had seen his older brother literally stumble inside motel rooms carrying their father, while trying to not pass out from blood loss himself. Carried their dad into motel rooms, at the same time that his own shoulder would be dislocated… That had happened many times, and it had started almost before he had hit double digits. And their dad was no small or feather light man…
-Dean was a hero, but he never realized it himself…

"Yes you are…" Sam spoke in a low voice, a tear rolled down his face as he spoke. He knew Dean could have a short fuse when he was injured, and he didn't want him to get worked up… "You are a hero Dean…"

"No, I'm not!" Dean said, he had set his mind. "I'm no hero, I just…"

He paused, not knowing exactly what to say… Tears started flowing in steady streams from his eyes, accompanied by quiet sobs.

"I'm not a hero, I'm not strong enough…" he chocked out, defeated.

...

The room fell quiet for the next couple of minutes. Sammy, Jake, Ron and Jenny were all unsure about what to do. What was the proper way to handle this situation?

"Dean…" Jake said when Dean had quieted down, he didn't quite know what his next words would be…

Dean nodded once, showed that he had recognized his name…

"Dean, I've only known you since about 10 a.m. this morning… But I can say without doubt that you are the most courageous, heroic, strongest and most self-scarifying person I have ever known…" he paused a few seconds, as tears had started making their way down his cheeks. "Today, you saved more lives than most of us will do in a lifetime!"

Dean kept his eyes off the others, his eyes was stinging. Right now he wondered which were worst. The stinging in his eyes or the pounding in his leg…
-Stupid question… His leg felt like it was trying to move to China without him… That would probably hurt…

"It's true…" Ron said, nodding. His eyes were also glassy with tears. "You saved a whole lot of people today… You two saved all of us today! All of us would have been dead or severely injured by now if you hadn't been there…"

Dean took the time to look up with a quizzed look, not quite understanding the context. They had just stopped a few guys with guns.

Jenny understood that Dean didn't quite follow.

"When the police searched the building, they found eight bombs…" She looked down at her feet, "they managed to disarm them, but they would have blown up almost the whole school…"

"Jake was the one that called 9-1-1..." Dean said, he wasn't the hero… He hadn't called for help.

"Only because you managed to get me to a phone… I never would have left the cafeteria without you… So if you don't think you're a hero, I don't think anyone deserves that title at all… Ever. Because you are a true hero!"

Jake placed a hand on Dean's shoulder, and that was it for him. Dean couldn't take it anymore. He started bawling.

He didn't agree with the rest of them, but this whole thing was starting to look like a God damn chick-flick-moment. And he really hated chick-flick-moments, because it was too fucking easy to lose your mask and start crying like a fucking baby. Just like he was now!

There was a knock on the door.

"May I come in?" the voice of a boy asked.

Sam opened the door. In the corridor a boy with blonde hair and a blue sweater was standing. His left sleeve was tore off, and his arm was placed in a sling. The bandage was clean and white, but his sweater had bloodstains. It was Tommy.

He moved over to Dean's bed, and leaned on the table next to it. He stared at the form of Dean's legs, his eyes wandered up to the white bandage on Dean's upper arm. His eyes lingered there for a minute, while he tried to gather strength to speak.

"Thank you." he said. His voice shaky, but filled with gratitude. "I will always be in debt to you, and I'll probably never be able to pay you back…" he took a long pause, but everyone knew he had more to say. So they waited.

"Thank you for risking your life to save me… Thank you for saving my life… You will always be my hero!" he looked up at Dean's face, he hadn't been able to meet his eyes jet.

When their eyes met, both Tommy's and Dean's eyes were red with tears…

Dean didn't know what to say… He was just stunned!

Well I really hope you liked it!
The next chapter will probably contain both John and Bobby... As you might have guessed...