Buffy was as good as her word; she manufactured a reason for Willow to go downstairs, then let Sam into Dean's room. She didn't leave—that was probably too much to ask, really, under the circumstances—but she didn't hover.
"It might be awhile before I'm back in here, Dean," Sam said, feeling a little stupid, but at the same time praying that Dean somehow heard him, that his brother didn't think he'd abandoned him. "Buffy and Willow say I have to stay out. I don't want to. But they say it'll be better for you. Both of us." Dean's eyes opened, but Sam could tell Dean didn't see him—at least, not the him of here and now. "Dean?" he asked softly, just in case.
Dean's hand clamped down on his, hard. "It's okay, Sammy," he said. He sounded about twenty years younger.
"He keeps saying that," Buffy said.
"He's said it a lot." Every bad dream, every illness, every hospital visit, every fight that ended with Sam hiding from their father so he could cry without sparking another fight, those words had been said sooner or later. Dean probably said it more often than he said son of a bitch.
The cat raised its head—and then it was on its feet, arching its back and spitting at Sam. He froze.
"Priss," Buffy said warningly.
But Priss was a cat, not a dog, and there probably wasn't anything either one of them could have done to prevent the cat from leaping at Sam, howling like—well, like an angry cat, claws fully extended. He managed to get his arm up in time to keep the cat from landing on his face. "Shit!" he yelled as the claws sank into his arm.
"Priss!" Buffy grabbed the cat and wrenched it away, trying not to hurt either one of them. One claw stuck in Sam's arm, just for a few minutes before Buffy pulled the cat away with enough force to make the skin tear. "God, Sam, are you—"
"Fine," he answered through clenched teeth.
"Uh-huh." She gave the cat a gentle toss; it immediately hopped back on the bed and stood on Dean's chest, hissing at Sam, daring him to come closer. "I don't think Priss wants you in here."
"I'm getting kicked out by the cat?"
"She's more dangerous to me than you are."
"Hey!"
"Besides, you need to tend to those scratches." Priss hissed at them again. "Come on. I'll show you where the first-aid kit is."
Corinna arrived that evening, an older, no-nonsense woman who radiated an aura of "career nurse"—except for her hair, which was an electric blue that Sam wasn't sure could be obtained from hair dye. She didn't speak to Sam, just looked him over, her eyes lingering a moment on the rough bandage on his arm, and seemed to dismiss him. Never asked him a single question about Dean, and before he could confront her about that, she and Buffy had disappeared into Dean's room so she could "meet" her new patient.
"That's okay," Sam growled at the door that had just shut in his face, "I'm just his brother. No need to involve me in this. Never mind that I've known him all his life and you met him a few days ago. Hey! Nurse!" he shouted. "You wanna know about his allergies?"
Buffy stuck her head out the door. "Sulfa drugs? You too, by the way."
Sam refused to take the bait. Refused to accept that she actually knew that. It was a common allergy, anyway. "Betadine," he said flatly.
"Really? We never—"
"You've never been with him through surgery." Of course, they'd only found out by accident themselves; it was supposed to be minor surgery—a broken bone? appendicitis? Sam couldn't remember which surgery it had been, only that he'd been fairly young—but they'd used betadine as part of the prep and Dean had nearly died.
"True enough. Thanks." She closed the door. Again.
Sam swore under his breath—and then it hit him, really hit him, how very lucky they'd both been. Wandering around the country, giving hospitals and clinics and ERs fake names and fake credit cards... There was exactly one person in the world left who knew enough about Sam's medical history to keep some well-meaning paramedic from accidentally killing him. The same held true for Dean.
Dad had kept files for them, he thought—he remembered two thick envelopes that had always accompanied them on any trip to the hospital—but those were long gone. He'd found that out the hard way, when Stanford wanted his immunization records. It had turned out to be easier just to go down to the health department and get re-immunized.
What if there was something about Dean's health he was forgetting? Hell, he'd been away from Dad and Dean for four years, what if there was something he didn't know? Dean could be missing a kidney for all he knew. Okay, he probably wasn't, but there were a thousand other things that could have happened.
"Write it down."
He jerked around. Willow was standing there, watching him. "What?"
"Your medical histories. Start writing them down." She patted his arm reassuringly. "If there's one thing I've learned from working with Slayers, it's that a copy of your medical information is always useful. It might help you remember something, too, if you have forgotten it. The paper and stuff's in the cabinet under the TV."
"You keep writing materials under the TV?"
"I get a lot of inspiration for new spellwork when I'm watching Survivor."
He stared at her. "You watch Survivor?"
"Hey, we've all got our vices. One little reality show compared to some of the other stuff out there? I'll take the reality show."
He smiled at that, though it was half against his will. She had a certain point, he supposed. "Willow—"
"Yeah?"
"Buffy said—" He stopped, not quite sure how to word this. "She said we—I mean, the twins—that they fought a lot."
Willow smiled. "That would be putting it mildly. You— Well, let's just say I'm glad to see that you and Dean get along. I wasn't sure the blocks would fix that. Not that I told your dad that part."
"How—" Sam faltered again. "Did we ever—"
"Hurt each other?" she finished, and he nodded. "A few times. Bruises, mostly. Until—until the end. And then—um—Alex tried to kill Liam." She sighed. "We tried, Sam. But after that, it was just a matter of time before we either had to hide you or kill you. And Buffy just couldn't take the thought of killing you."
"And you?"
She gave him a long, level look. "I wasn't about to risk the stability of the Primary. No matter what the Council said."
Buffy finally emerged from Dean's room—alone, without the nurse. She sat down beside Sam and absently read over one of the scribbled pages. "Good idea," she said, "we never got a chance to diagnose that much with you. You never really got that si—shit! How many bones has Dean broken?"
"Most of them," Sam said absently. "Those are just the ones I remember."
"You guys must heal like Slayers. Anybody else would be a mass of scars by now."
"Maybe we inherited it," he replied. She smacked him on the back of the head. "Ow."
"Smartass."
"Trained by the best."
"Dean or your dad?"
"Dean."
"You know, somehow, I'm not surprised." A quick flash of a grin told him she was teasing.
"Is everything settled with the nurse?"
"Boy, you got the hang of topic changes quick," she said dryly. "And yeah, everything's settled. Corinna's going to be here during the day—nine to six. Me and Willow and some of the older girls'll cover the nights. She doesn't want him left alone."
"I'll—"
"Sam, you can't."
"You can't keep me away from him!"
"I most certainly can," she replied levelly. "Would you like me to prove it?"
Sam shoved himself away from the couch. "Dammit, Buffy—"
"Sam, we can't let you in there! I can let you interview everybody if it makes you feel better, but you have to stay out!"
"I'm his family! I don't care what you claim, I'm his—"
"And there are things brothers shouldn't have to do!" she snapped. "Do you know what Corinna is doing to Dean right now, Sam? She's putting in a feeding tube and a catheter, and she wouldn't do that much with me in the room! How do you think she'll treat you?"
"But—"
"Dean is unconscious. He needs intense care that none of us can provide—"
"Then you're not any more qualified to sit in there with him than I am!"
"No, I'm not," she admitted. "But you know what else I'm not? A half-demon with a memory-block."
Was she trying to piss him off? "You don't know that! We might not even be your—"
"Oh, you might be some other kids that were given to John Winchester the demon hunter to raise?" she asked acidly. "Another pair of boys with memory-blocks? Wow. I had no idea that Winchester was that much of a bleeding heart. What's the names of your other brothers?"
He couldn't answer that, and she knew it.
"For everybody's sake, Sam, including you and Dean, give us the benefit of the doubt. At least until we know for sure, one way or the other. Okay?"
"He needs me."
"I know." Her voice was soft, and for a second, Sam thought she might understand. "But he'll need you even more when this is over."