Disclaimer: I own nothing Supernatural. All characters belong to the CW and Kripke Scrap Metal and Entertainment Company.

A/N: Chapters will alternate between pre-season and early Season 1, after Phantom Traveler. My thanks as always to my beta's: Merisha and Scotia. This story is infinitely better because of them. All remaining errors are entirely my own.

ooooo December 2005 ooooo

"I'll take you to his room. I'm sure he'll be fine now that you are here. He talked about you all the time you know. I'm glad I remembered that he said you were at Stanford." She put a framed picture in his hand. "Dean kept thinking my son looked like you at the same age." She pointed, "That's Adam of course." She looked at him searchingly. "The hair is the same", she laughed, "but I can't imagine my son being as tall as you." She smiled, and he tried not to blush as he gave the picture back.

"Is your Dad coming too? Dean gave me his number and said he was in Florida." He shook his head. She stood up, "He was asking for him. Your Dad must have been with him the last time he was here but I haven't found the records yet. I'm so glad you could get here – were you in California?"

"I left Stanford two months ago. I was, we, well Dean and I are traveling together. We were in Ormond Beach staying with a friend of mine when this happened." He thought for a minute. He had no idea what name Dean or his Dad might have used two years ago but he knew when. "He would have been here in January 2004, about mid-month. Maybe that will help you find him. He won't be under Winchester."

As they walked, she put her hand on his arm. "So right after I last saw him. I'll keep looking. Sam - he thinks you're at Stanford. And that you don't want to talk to him. He didn't want me to call you at all. I called the school without his consent." She stopped outside room 615, and quietly said, "I won't come in with you. I'll let Dr. Williams know you're here."

He touched her arm as she started to step away. "I can't thank you enough for taking care of Dean and for finding me."

"You're welcome, Sam, but we owe him. It's not a problem."

"Oh, wait. I almost forgot. Do you know where his car is? Was it damaged?"

"His head actually dented the rear quarter panel. It's already fixed and my husband drove it to our house. He'd love to bring it here when you're ready, or I can bring you to it. Oh, and Sam," she glanced up and down the hall, then leaned in and said, "We're first cousins, mother's side. Immediate family members are treated gratis." She walked briskly down the hall and turned toward the elevators. Sam turned and entered the room, and rounded the curtain to see his brother. He walked up to the bed, and shook his brother's arm gently. "Dean, hey, Dean, wake up."

Dean's eyes opened slowly. "Hey, dude, how are you feeling?" He watched as Dean focused in on him, expressions flickering over his face. He'd been better at reading Dean before Stanford. Sometimes now he was totally opaque, but Sam was able to read surprise, the start of a smile, and then wary confusion.

"Sam? What are you doing here?"

"Hey Dean, sorry it took me so long to find you. I was in Ormond Beach when I got the news you were here." He touched Dean's arm lightly. "How are you feeling? The doc said you have one hell of a concussion."

Dean started to shake his head, but winced when it moved. "Concussion? No, I", he paused, clearly trying to think, "that thing, it landed on my head, but…" He touched his left shoulder with his right hand. Sam recognized the gesture from Valdosta. "It's my back. It's nothing. I'll be out of here today". He looked at Sam a little blearily. "Dad will be here any minute, Sam."

"I don't think Dad's in Florida right now. The last place we heard from him was Jericho, in Cali, remember?" Dean was staring at him like he had two heads. "Dean, the doctor said the concussion was giving you some date problems. It's December 28, 2005. We had an argument on Christmas Eve and I haven't seen you since. I've been looking for you for three days just to apologize." He smiled but Dean was still looking at him suspiciously. "I wasn't in California, I was just a bit north of here. Do you remember Jeremy? We are staying at his house in Ormond Beach. Can you remember why you headed south on Christmas Eve? I was sure you were leaving the state."

"What? I was in Ocala, and then … I went to the beach, I was going back to the beach, I think." He rubbed his eyes. "Man, nothing's clear. 2005? There's no way in hell I would come back here – all I'm trying to do is get out. Why were you in Ormond Beach? Your classes have already started …" He swallowed and quietly said, "And you aren't talking to me. How did you know I was here?"

"Jill reached me. But, not talking to you? I never stopped talking to you. I'm not going to Stanford right now, remember? I left two months ago after… after you came. We were in Ormond Beach together for Christmas." Sam looked around and saw what appeared to be an almost comfortable chair. He pulled it up to the side of the bed, and sat down. "We got that black dog in Valdosta before I talked you into coming to Florida. And I'm sorry now for that too."

Dean was shaking his head, and closed his eyes. "Black dog? I don't remember. But Dad might come ... he was going to check..." He looked hard at Sam. "Did you say you left Stanford? Two months ago? I'd've noticed if you dropped out of school."

"It's the concussion, Dean. The doctor said things might be rough for a bit. Don't worry, it'll come back to you. But bro, try to remember, you stopped calling me two years ago, not the other way around."

"I was just doing what you wanted me to do …." He was blinking slowly, taking longer each time to open his eyes. "You blocked my number."

"I what? What I wanted? You were …" He stopped, looking again at Dean. "We'll figure this out later, I promise. You should go back to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up. Try to remember that right now, you are in the hospital because", Dean gestured again toward his back, "not because of the bite on your back, that's two years old. You were clipped by a car after you stopped to help at an accident. You have a concussion."

Dean's eyes slipped shut. He muttered, "'K, we'll talk later. Glad you came, Sammy."

"I'm glad I found you." He heard a noise on the other side of the curtain. Glancing at Dean, he stood, and pulled the curtain aside just as a woman in a white coat took a step forward. "Have you been here long? I thought I heard something a minute ago. I'm Sam Winchester." He took her arm and moved her away from the bed. "He's just gone back to sleep, um" reading her coat, "Dr. Williams. Let's talk in the hallway." He closed the door behind him.

"I didn't want to interrupt you. Sam, can I call you Sam?" Without waiting for an answer, "I'm Dean's physician. I understand you spoke to Dr. McDevitt already?" He nodded. "I'm glad you're here – he really needs friends and family around him – but I'm surprised too. He was quite clear that you wouldn't come."

"The concussion has made my brother a little confused. I've actually been traveling with him for the last two months and", he stopped to take a deep breath, "and what he said is based on a misunderstanding, two years out of date." When she didn't reply, he continued. "What can you tell me about the severity of his head injury? This happened Sunday morning, early, right, and he's still pretty well out of it. He couldn't even stay awake five minutes."

"He is improving I promise. The MRI and the CAT scans we ran Sunday showed no bleeding or swelling and no underlying physical damage to the brain. He should recover completely, however his confusion on the date, and his worry about an injury to his back, are most alarming. There is a scar there yes, but he says some kind of large cat dropped on him outside his motel." She consulted a chart. "I've called in a psych consult for this afternoon to make sure that this isn't some underlying form of dementia."

"That won't be necessary, Doctor, although I appreciate your thoroughness. Dean doesn't have any problems with mental instability." He tried not to smile too much at that. "Is he still in a lot of pain?"

"Sam, I feel it necessary to tell you that this is for his own protection and yours. He could be…"

He was incredulous. "His own protection? He was hit by a car and has a concussion." He stopped, and cleared his throat. Dean really had to be out of it if he talked about a hunt to a civilian. Starting again, he said, "He's not making that up, he just has some of the details mixed. Dean was injured by a big cat two years ago, of course not outside of a motel." He smiled winningly, thinking quickly. "A friend of my father's owns some big cats, and during a trip there Dean was bitten by a 'pet' cougar." He touched her arm, and did his best to radiate sincerity, allowing his eyes to brim with emotion, "We are so grateful that my brother recovered without any permanent damage. The fact that this accident brought those memories back must be unsettling to him. And it's such a comfort to have Jill here to help. We're very close." OK, that might have been a little over the top. "You know he was the first person to arrive after the accident, don't you? To think someone just trying to help was hurt by a careless driver." He shook his head, still smiling, silently urging her to agree.

She looked down at the chart. "Well, I don't see any reason that it has to take place today. If your brother begins to recover his memory, there would be no reason to continue. But if he insists on some sort of attack outside of a hotel, we'll have to reconsider." She looked back up at Sam, "Now about his other injuries."

The car had clipped Dean's side, wrenching his back and severely bruising his right leg from his hip to his knee before skidding him headfirst into the Impala, but everything else was just as Jill had told him. He excused himself and went back in the room, closing the door behind him, and opened the curtain to keep the door in view. He resettled himself in the chair next to Dean's bed before calling Jeremy. If the doctor decided to come in unannounced again, he'd see her.

OOOOO

Jill peeked in later that night. Dean was sound asleep, having had a dose of painkillers about an hour before. She brought in a chair and a medical records file. She stepped to Dean's bed and checked his briefly. "Can we talk in the room without bothering him?"

Sam nodded. "We should be fine for at least another hour." He picked up the folder and checked the name – Brian Cole. He glanced through it briefly before handing it to her as she sat down. "Are you sure this is Dean?"

"The timing is right, reported dog bite, brought in by his father... height, weight, hair and eye color – it has to be him. I can't believe what I'm reading. He'd only left Ocala the day before he was brought into the ER here." She pulled started leafing through the papers. "Here are the wounds I treated on his chest and left leg", she said, showing him a page describing the patient's prior condition. "It can only be Dean." She looked up at Sam. "His injuries from the Skunk Ape were healing. It's the symptoms upon admittance that just confound me. The bite was bad enough, but surgery on that had to be delayed for over 24 hours while they treated for minor heat stroke, dehydration, blood loss, infection..." she rubbed her forehead. "How he could have gotten in such bad shape in such a short time?"

Sam winced. "A leftover from a hunt got Dean, something Dad didn't kill." He was remembering a phone call to Dean and his conversation with Caleb. Jill looked at him questioningly. "I probably owe my brother my life a dozen times over but we've been apart more than four years. One of the reasons I had to leave, I had to go to college, was to stop hunting the things Dad and Dean do, to stop being a participant, a witness, even the cause of Dean's ... injuries, hurts. He was always trying to protect me. God, the thing that scared me the most is that he would die in front of me." He breathed deeply through his nose. "Once I was in school, he never told me if he was hurt, or injured. When I talked to him that day, I thought he was coming off a bender. At least I got Dad to him. I didn't hear from Dean again after that so I never knew what happened."

"You couldn't have known…"

"No, I should have known. If we'd talked like brothers I would have known."

Jill watched him for a moment before she continued. "If you're assigning blame, save some for me. He said he was going to meet up with your father but I never thought to check up on him. He promised he'd call if he needed anything." She looked toward the darkened room windows. "And me and my family – we would have done anything for him, Sam, anything." She handed him a sheaf of papers and scanned the remaining papers in her hand. "According to this, your father brought him in but left after a few hours. He never came back – although he did call in for a status report the next day. Oh hell. I would have come, Adam and my husband, we could have come to see him. I interviewed for a job here before he was released."

"Dad left him?" He took some of the papers from Jill and scanned them. "Dad would never leave us in the hospital." He leaned back and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "And Dean didn't call me – he thought I'd blocked his number. Probably tired of me calling him a drunk too."

"Why did he think you blocked his number?"

He had to wait a few minutes before he could answer. You tell strangers things you never tell people you know. Except this wasn't a stranger, this was someone his maniacal big brother saved. And she remembered him, hell, she liked him. Felt she owed him. Sam scrubbed his face. No one ever liked their father. Except Dean.

"Just a misunderstanding, I never did but I wasn't talking to him either. Dean didn't want me to go to school, not sure he told you. But he didn't try to stop me, and he didn't let Dad stop me. He would call me and I wouldn't pick up. All he wanted was to shoot the breeze for a few minutes. But I so proud of being in college, proud of getting away..." After a few minutes, he quietly added, "He never told me about what he and Dad were doing, not once. He knew it'd piss me off. He practically raised me, he was just a kid, and he had to bring me up, but once I got to college, I wouldn't talk to him." He took a shuddering breath. "I suck, don't I?"

Jill put a hand on his shoulder. "No, you don't, Sam. You made a hard decision and lived with it the best you knew how. Dean is so proud of you." After a few minutes in silence, both staring at anything but each other, they both looked up as Dean moved restlessly in the bed. "I should check him again."

Jill stood up and approached the bed. "Dean? Are you awake?" When she heard no reply, she checked his vitals and shown a penlight into his eyes. He turned his head away from the light, muttering, but didn't wake. "Just do your best to keep him here in 2005, OK?"

"I will." After Jill left, Sam pulled his chair up to the bed, and settled himself for the night. There was no way he was going to leave his brother alone again in this benighted state.