If Only Chapter 21

Disclaimer: Same as before don't own them so don't sue me.

Warnings: Same as before if you've come this far you know what the stories about.

A/N: Attention all angst fans, the boys are offically back. For those of you who weren't overjoyed with the nap our boys took in the last chapter Rejoice both are awake and active here! Thank you again to everyone who keeps letting me know they are enjoying the story. Feedback is always welcome. This one goes out to Teal-lover who nicely pushed me in her feedback response to get my butt moving on this chapter. Thanks again everyone! On with the story.

The first thing Dean became aware of was voices floating on the edge of his hearing. Not a single voice but a group and while he couldn't make out the individual words the cadence of their speech buffered him like he was floating back and forth on an ocean wave. Slowly the voices and mysterious song drifted further away and Dean began to regain a sense of the room around him. He could hear Sam breathing slow and regular next to him, he heard the tiny squeak the ceiling fan made turning in a lazy circle overhead and from somewhere else in the house he could hear hushed conversation.

Dean stretched tired muscles and pulled open bleary eyes. He felt much better than he had when he'd awoken earlier and could only figure that drugs had worked their way out of his system and the residual grogginess would pass shortly. He looked over at Sam his hand still rested on Dean's wrist as if continually taking his brother's pulse in sleep and Dean slipped his arm out from under the warm weight. Sam turned towards Dean his hand seeking its lost contact but Sam quieted when Dean gently swept aside his brother's fever dampened bangs and rested a hand on Sam's forehead. Dean could still feel the fever there but while Sam's forehead still radiated far more heat than it should it was a relief of sorts to find that he was no where near as flushed as earlier. Dean absently stroked his brother's hair, while he allowed his body time to awaken fully and the contact had Sam stirring slightly, moving closer to consciousness in response to Dean's reassuring comfort. As Sam started to wake, Dean rubbed Sam's shoulder gently leaning down he whispered. "Shhh, Sammy it's just me, go back to sleep, okay buddy?"

"'Kay Dean" he mumbled rolling onto his back breathing quickly evening back out to deep sleep.

Dean gave himself another moment to look over Sam. He appeared to be resting comfortably, no nightmares plaguing his sleep. Looking up briefly, Dean confirmed the charms were still in place. Satisfied Sam was as protected as he could be; Dean pulled himself up from the bed, stepping into the bathroom and taking a moment to splash some water on his face. The cool water helped to dispel some of the remaining lethargy he was feeling. Finishing Dean felt compelled to watch Sam sleep for a few minutes longer feeling comfort in the knowledge that at least for the moment Sam was safe and on the way to recovery. 'I hope' he thought to himself. Dean slipped out of the door and down the hall taking care to leave the door to the bedroom open so he could hear Sam.

Dean heard a soft noise coming from the front bedroom and stopped just to the right of the doorway to peer in and see what had caused it. He was mildly surprised to find Dr. Erickson sleeping there. Deciding to question the doctor later he continued on without waking her. Moving away from the door he continued towards the front of the house.

Seeing the sunlight streaming through the front windows he cautiously glanced out the front window noting the Impala's position was unchanged and fighting a growing feeling of suspicion at the lack of Tom's vehicle, 'Coming back quickly my ass' he thought angrily, then his anger flared further when he realized that if indeed Tom wasn't back and if Dr. Erickson was blissfully sleeping in the other bedroom no one had been watching out for Sam. Dean turned on his heel ready to drag Carrie from her bed to give her a very large piece of his mind, when a sound had his head whipping around. Waiting he heard it again, the quiet scrape of a chair against the floor of the kitchen.

Dean retrieved a gun from its hiding place in the end table drawer thumbing off the safety as he moved to the kitchen doorway. Moving swiftly into the room he kept the gun up and pointed at Tom who was sitting at the kitchen table apparently reading over Sam and Dean's notes a pile of closed folders sitting next to his other elbow. "Find anything of interest?" He asked menacingly his anger clearly evident in his voice.

Tom started at Dean's voice breaking through his thoughts. Looking up he felt the color drain from his face as he saw the gun and the very angry man holding it. Clearing his throat he stammered before recovering his voice totally, "Dean, you're awake."

"Yes, yes I am no thanks to you." He stated flatly, not lowering the gun.

"Dean…Look I'm sorry…Will you at least give me a chance to explain or are you going to shoot me?""

Dean glowered at the man and finally lowered the gun, thumbing the safety back on as habit as he placed it on the table before drawing up a chair and falling into it facing the older man. Sighing Dean answered honestly, "I haven't decided yet. So you can try explain your decision like the doc did and then I'll decide if I still want to shoot you."

"Fair enough" he answered with his own sigh. "Do you want something to eat while we talk? You've got to be starved?" he asked as he pushed his chair away from the table to stand up.

Dean was on his feet instantly putting some distance between the two of them. Tom noticed the skittishness but said nothing about it simply rose and filled his coffee cup before returning to his seat at the table.

"I'm not taking or eating anything you or the doc happens to hand to me at least not anytime soon." Dean said flippantly watching his movements like a hawk.

"You're right I deserved that." Tom said returning to the table sighing heavily. "I'll wait while you make something if you want."

Dean nodded and picked the gun back up off the table and placing it at the small of his back. Whether he wanted to admit it or not Dean's stomach was growling full force and he was a little curious as to how long of a "nap" he'd been forced into. As he finished putting together a sandwich he spared a look over his shoulder confirming the man hadn't moved his position and Dean felt his shoulders relax a little as some of the tension eased. "How long was I out?"

"Umm, about 10 hours after your conversation with the doctor, that is. It's just after 8:30 now."

"Huh, that stuff the doc gave me really packed a wallop." He stated sounding mildly impressed, Tom turned his head to look back at Dean at the counter and watched as some other thought slammed into Dean mind as his body tensed and his breathing hitched painfully. Dean was already starting to move out of the kitchen, before Tom could even register what was happening.

"Dean, what's wrong?"

Dean stopped in his tracks fixing him with a glare that could have frozen his blood. "What's wrong?" he asked incredulously. "Doc said Sam needed his meds again in 8 hours it's been over 10, I need to make sure he's ok." 'No wonder he still felt warm to the touch' he berated himself silently as he turned back towards the door. 'You can't protect him can't even do the simplest things can you?' The all too well known voice echoed through his head causing his stomach to reel at the thought of failing Sam.

Watching the color fall away from Dean's face Tom reacted as best he could to provide Dean with some reassurance that they had been watching over them. "Dean…Dean look at me." Tom begged as Dean finally looked back up at the man self recrimination floating through his eyes. "Wait, it's okay Dean, Carrie.. Dr. Erickson gave Sam his meds about 2 ½ hours ago. She checked him out and seemed to be happy that the fever was coming down, albeit slowly but it's steadily improving." Tom paused waiting for Dean to process the information. Dean finally nodded and grabbed his plate from the counter and rejoining the man at the table. Tom was engaged in a silent war with himself at the same time. 'Tell him now and piss him off more or tell him later and possibly have Sam beat me to it? No win either way…hell may as well be now, how much more damage can I do?' he thought, clearing his throat as Dean looked up at him expectantly. "I …uh talked with Sam earlier too. He was pretty coherent, gave Carrie a hard time, me too as matter of fact."

"You, I understand, he doesn't really know you but I told Sam to let the doc help him. What happened he get delirious again?" Dean asked sounding worried.

"No, nothing like that. But he did figure out what we'd done." Seeing the puzzled look in Dean's eyes he continued. "To you that is the…sedative and all. He wasn't happy about it."

"Yeah, well I'm not really overjoyed about it either, but how did Sam…" Dean stopped trying to think it through on his own.

"You mean how'd he figure it out?" Dean nodded in confirmation dread pooling in the pit of his stomach from the look on Tom's face. "It was our mistake really we came in to move you and he was awake. Told the doc he couldn't get comfortable and she offered to give him something to help him sleep."

"Ok but that still doesn't explain how he made the leap from her helping him to me getting drugged by you two."

"She used you as an example, said she gave you something to help you sleep. He apparently was awake for more of your earlier confrontation with Carrie than either of you realized because he accused her of taking your decision away by not giving you the option."

"Damn right she did." Dean huffed, his eyes glowing with the intensity of his anger.

"No, she didn't Dean, I did. I convinced her it was the best thing to do. It was my choice and honestly I'd do it again. I told your brother that too. I felt he had a right to know what I'd done and not blame Dr, Erickson unnecessarily. We talked for a little while, or I should say I talked and he glared at me to spit out every detail about how the doc and I came to be here. Which brings me to what I need to talk to you about."

"What did you do?" Dean growled.

"Sam, was having problems talking, his throat you know?" He said looking at Dean seeing him acknowledge the comment. "He tried to ask me questions but I knew the talking was hurting him so I asked him if he just wanted me to tell him what I knew and he made it clear wanted to know everything that happened. Sam had no idea how sick he'd been earlier how sick he really still was and when I told him about him being delirious he freaked out a bit." Tom said neglecting to include the fact that he told the younger man about holding his brother at gun point.

Dean's hand hit the table with such force that everything jumped and it had Tom pushing away from the table startled at Dean's reaction. Leaning forward across the table and into Tom's face he growled again. "What did you tell him exactly? And what do you mean by freaked out? Because I swear if you hurt Sam with your choice of words after all he's been through I'm going to have to rethink my whole stance on shooting you."

"I told him that he was delirious and that he….pulled a gun on you…" Tom finished refusing to meet Dean's eyes.

Dean's felt the blood drain out of his face as he slumped back in the chair. "No, no, no, no, tell me you didn't do that to him, tell me please."

"I… I'm sorry Dean, I didn't know, I knew he might get upset about not remembering but then he started saying that you were going to leave him. I didn't know…Dean I swear I didn't even think that it would have that effect on him."

Dean rested his head in his hands, his body shuddering once; he looked back up at Tom with world weary eyes. "I know, I know. What did you tell him? How bad was he?"

"I told him nothing happened that everything was fine that you were really worried about how high his fever was and that you didn't take it personally. He seemed ok after that. We talked for few more minutes before he started to fall back asleep. He seemed relieved."

Dean shook his head fervently hoping that Tom's assessment of Sam's condition was correct. After all they'd been through recently Dean wasn't sure how much more battering Sam's psyche could take, and Sam finding out that he'd held his brother at gun point again, even if he hadn't shot him this time, would not be reassuring Sam in the least. "Was there anything else you talked about?"

Tom looked sheepish "I tried to win him over, hoping that you'd consider forgiving me my transgressions on your health if I got Sam on my side."

"And?"

"And he said that he wasn't sure he trusted me but he understood the reasons why I made the choices I did. He said that the real test would be convincing you that you needed the rest."

"Well he nailed that in one." Fixing Tom with another glare he continued. "Look Tom, I'm not going to say that I'm alright with what you and the doc did…cause I'm not… but …I like Sam can understand where your thinking was coming from. Forgive you for it? Not likely, at least not yet. But I'm going to move on from it. It's the best I can do for now. So tell me where you went when the doc was in visiting me and Sam." Dean stated smoothly, moving forward and closing the previous topic for any further discussion.

Tom nodded once willing to take what he could get for the moment and gave Dean a rundown on his trip to the station to collect the files that he'd asked for earlier. He pulled the files off the other end of the table handing all but one of them to Dean.

"What's the other folder?" Dean asked.

"It's …the file from when we raided the farmhouse, where we found…Sam. I brought it with me in case we needed to reference something in it." Dean reached over to pick up the file when Tom put his hand over the folder to hold it in place. "Dean, you really don't want to have to look at this if you don't have to. Sam was bad enough off when you first got the hospital this isn't going to help anyone."

"Give me the file Tom."

"Dean."

"Just give me the file." Dean said quietly. "Trust me when I tell you that anything I see in that file is nothing compared to what I already know happened to Sam."

"The photos and reports in here are nothing like what Sam told you in the hospital Dean. They're raw documentation I'd like to spare you and Sam that horror if I could."

Dean just stared at Tom for a moment as he tried to determine how much he was going to tell him, then decided the worst that could happen was that Tom would scoff at him. "The last time our friendly voice paid a visit to us, I got an up close and personal tour of the hell Sam endured. I watched some bastard light matches and drop them on Sam's back just to watch them burn." Dean stated flatly as he watched as the color slowly seeped from Tom's face, "I saw him so clearly that I can pick him out from across a room, and when I find him I am going to light him on fire and watch him burn. Then I got to watch some whore rape my brother, while he could barely breathe and they laughed. Sam fought them just trying to breathe while feeling betrayed by his own body's reaction to the torture and finally he didn't even fight them, they'd broken him so badly that all he had left were tears. I promise nothing in that file can hurt more than what I've already seen Tom. I will take the images of my failure to protect my brother to the grave and if there is a god I hope that he forgives me for destroying each every one of those sick fucks that made the mistake of laying a hand on my brother. The only thing that file can do is help me find them so I can kill them all slowly one by one."

Tom drew in a shaky breath thinking back to when he found Sam, the question he'd wondered since that time he finally uttered out loud as he reluctantly handed the folder over to Dean. "How could anyone have survived that? How'd he do it?"

Dean gave a sad smile and said "I'd like to say that it's Winchester willpower and that he learned it all from me but it'd be a lie. Sam's always been one of the strongest people I've ever known even if he doesn't always see it, hell with the way we were raised he believes he's the weak one, but he has more stubbornness in him," Dean paused searching for the right word finally settling his thoughts. "No he has this thirst for life, always seeing the best in everything even with all he's been through, he still believes, in it all believes in me and it amazes me." Dean admitted the quiet confession, "Not that I tell him that often enough, I should…you know tell him" Dean said looking at his hands.

"He knows" came the quiet response. "And you were right from the beginning; everything I've learned is because of you.

Both Tom and Dean looked up in shock realizing Sam was leaning heavily on the walker in the kitchen doorway. Sam's eyes were clear for the first time in hours, although it was hard to tell if his face was flushed from the exertion of coming down the hall unassisted or the fever that still lingered in his body. As Sam looked at his brother noting the unshed tears in his eyes, he understood they were perilously close to another chick-flick moment that he wasn't certain either of them could really handle. So smiled and did his best to lighten the mounting tension in the room. "Ya, know this walking by yourself thing is harder than it looks" Sam smiled and then grimaced slightly as his arm muscles trembled from supporting him. "Think you guys could help me to the table?"

Dean finally pushed away his surprise and nearly knocked over his chair as he stood to help his brother, hovering like a mother hen, Dean inspected his younger brother critically. "Sam, why don't you let me get you set up in the other room again on the sofa or the recliner these chairs are going to be rough on you and your body needs the rest."

Sam shooed Dean away with his hands "Relax mom," he croaked, "I'm only going to rest here for a minute." He said slumping down in the chair with relief. Sam then turned his full attention to the other man in the room. Locking his gaze on Tom he asked "I'm assuming that you and Dean have talked your issues out and have reached a truce for the moment?"

"Yes, I think so" he said looking over to Dean for silent confirmation that he wasn't misleading Sam. Seeing the agreement in Dean's eyes he continued. "At least he hasn't shot me yet."

Sam coughed trying to clear his throat one hand wrapping around his chest again, before continuing. "Then I expect once I've had something to eat, you all will relocate with me back to the living room so we can finish what we started."

"Sam you need to rest, you still have a fever."

"It's okay Dean, we'll keep an eye on it now that we know about it. Besides if I saw the lump in the front room correctly Dr. Erickson hasn't gone home yet so she can check me out again once she's up again. Besides, I'm tired of being tired I need to do something….Please Dean let me help." Sam pleaded fixing his brother with the dreaded puppy dog eyes.

Dean relented with a huff, "Fine Sammy but we are laying down some ground rules. First, if I catch you yawning or drifting off it's straight back to bed with you no exceptions, second if your throat starts to bother you more or you any problems breathing you tell us then not later." Dean waited for Sam to nod before continuing, "Third any strange voices or visits from our friend that you hear or feel you tell me and we work through them together before they get out of control. Got it? Lastly, you take your new meds when it's time including the pain pills and do whatever the nice doctor tells you. Deal?"

Knowing it was the best he was going to get out of Dean after the recent events Sam had only recently been informed of Sam caved without a fight, if only to protect his brother. "Deal." He croaked out.

Dean smiled at the agreement, feeling a little more in control of the situation. "Ok so what do you want to eat? The kitchen's officially open for business."

Sam kept his word as soon as he finished eating he let Dean relocate him back to the living room and once again found himself propped up on the sofa with Dean on the floor in front of him bent over the table as he'd been the night before. Tom had taken over the recliner nearest the two men and Sam listened while Dean explained their suspicions on what they'd found on Cranson and the gang in their research. Sam looked over his notes from the night before and was surprised at how coherent they really were given his deteriorating mental state then. It took him about another half hour to finish putting down all the bits and pieces of conversations he'd heard or thought he'd heard before handing the pad back to his brother.

Dean had taken Sam's notes and started to sort them into piles with his by common features while Tom started working through the case files on each of the victims after handing over the file on the book store robbery to Sam and discretely handing over Sam's file to Dean.

Not wanting to upset his brother Dean made sure that Sam was engrossed in the file before he pulled open the file in front of him. Dean made sure that the angle of his body hid what he was looking at without making it obvious that he was trying to keep something out of Sam's line of sight.

Moving past the standard case file form that clinically listed the date and time of the event and the officers involved Dean noted that while the exact address for where Sam had been found was missing the name of the farm and it's general location were listed in the file and Dean jotted them down in case it was important later.

Dean continued on with the statements of the officers on scene and tried to read with detachment the stark details of how Sam had been found and his initial condition. The room Dean had seen in his dream had been photographed in detail and Dean felt bile rise up in his throat at the pictures of the bloodstains on the altar that he knew belonged to his brother. Dean felt like he'd been sucker punched when he saw the pictures from the rape kit taken by the hospital before Dean's arrival. His head swam briefly as he saw his failure to protect Sam painted in crimson and black and blue.

Dean hadn't realized he had clenched his fists until his nails bit through the skin on his palms. Taking a deep breath he carefully locked away the tide of emotions threatening to swamp him. He took all the photos turned them face down on the table and continued to go through the file looking for something that would give him a break.

Dean was pretty sure he'd found it twenty minutes later when he heard Tom's phone rang. Both Sam and Dean waited concern growing as they watched the expression flash across the man's face. The side of the conversation they could hear only re-enforced the feeling of dread as Tom insisted that he was secure and that to keep him informed until he could make it back. As he closed his cell phone he looked over at them his grief clearly displayed in his eyes. "They've taken another victim." Tom said simply.