Story Name: Pivot Point

Pen Name: ElenaRoan

Disclaimer: Don't own any of them, written purely for enjoyment.

Warnings:

Summary: What if Anna decided to derail the apocalypse by intervening to help rather than trying to make the brothers never having existed.

Timeline: Season 4

Note: I'm Australian and I can't bring myself to use USA spelling, sorry.

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Chapter 34: Recovery

Wakefulness came slowly, and painfully. He wasn't in the altered perceptions of meditation anymore he could tell that. Voices floated around him.

"Should we be taking him to hospital?"

"Would they even be able to tell if something's wrong? I mean, best guess is he fought that thing for my mind. Would they even be able to tell if he…I don't know…got hurt somehow? And won't they put him on medications? How would that affect his abilities? His mind?"

"I don't know. But Dean, the sum total of what I know about seizures can be summed up in two words. Jack and squat."

He wasn't aware of making any movement or sound but suddenly a hand was on his cheek.

"Sammy? You with us?"

Dean. Sounding worried. Reluctantly he concluded he'd better make an effort to connect with him.

He managed to force his eyes open a little and squinted at his brother.

"Good to see you back with us. How are you feeling?"

Sam went to sit up and aborted the movement when every muscle protested. Instead he rolled painfully onto his back.

"Sore. What happened?"

"Was hoping you could tell us. One minute you were meditating then the next time I looked at you, you were seizing."

"Oh." Sam replied then paused to think and collect his memories, "I decided to see if I could snap the tether like I did with Daggett. If it didn't work then Bobby was already on his way."

"That was way more than what happened with Daggett. You just passed out with him."

"The sickness fought back, was like it was an extra growth or something on the actual ghost. Which I guess makes sense given how it works and spreads. I managed to find the tether and snap it, then the sickness exploded. I don't remember anything after that."

"A seizure is what happened." Dean told him angrily, "what were you thinking?"

"That I wasn't going to just sit around and watch you die." Sam replied.

Dean sighed, "Sammy, I wasn't even sure you were going to wake up yourself or even wake up at all. I'm not worth that kind of sacrifice."

"You are to me." Sam told him, "I didn't know this would happen but I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I needed to, even if I knew I wasn't waking up afterwards."

"Sammy…no…" Dean all but whimpered and Sam found the strength to reach over to him.

"Not something I would do lightly." He assured his big brother.

"You better not." Dean replied before changing the subject, "where are you hurting?"

"Would be easier to list where I'm not hurting." Sam replied with a small chuckle.

"Okay. Let me grab you some painkillers." Dean replied and got up to rifle through their medical kit, returning a few moments later with a tablet cocktail and glass of water.

"You checked on the sheriff?" Sam asked as Dean eased him into sitting position to take the tablets.

"He stopped by. He's okay, knew something odd had been happening to him. I told him the basics."

"That must have been a fun conversation."

"Could have been worse. I don't think he'll try checking up on our credentials but it might be a good idea to get moving anyway." Dean told him.

"The longer we stay in one place the more likely we'll get spotted." Sam agreed.

"I'll see you at my place." Bobby interjected and Dean nodded in agreement.

"Once the painkillers have had a chance to kick in we'll be there." Dean replied and Bobby let himself out.

With a look that warned Sam not to even think about trying to help Dean gathered their stuff and took it out to the impala, cleaning up the salt lines as he did so. Then he returned to Sam and waited until the time for the tablets to absorb had passed.

"How are you doing?" He asked.

"I've had worse." Sam replied, cautiously pushing himself into sitting position and wincing slightly. He either needed more time for the painkillers or trying to do stuff caused more pain than they could eliminate.

"Here. Let me." Dean told him and pulled Sam's arm over his shoulders, managing to position himself right to take the majority of Sam's weight as he got him onto his feet.

That did keep the pain to a minimum, even if Sam did feel kinda bad for leaning on his brother heavily to get to the car. Dean on the other hand just made sure he was comfortably situated in the passenger seat before dropping off the keys and driving them out of town. Sam wasn't sure why they were headed to Bobby's but the way he felt he wasn't going to argue.

"Called Pamela. She said she'd meet us here." The veteran Hunter opened with when they rolled into his scrap yard.

Sam had slept most of the way and felt a little better than he had. Especially as Dean had made sure to get food and more painkillers into him right on time. Dean still helped him out of the car and made sure to take as much of his weight as Sam allowed, which wasn't as much as before given the younger brother's independent nature was starting to reassert itself. He didn't argue with not going further than the couch in the lounge room though.

"Does she think he hurt himself when he pulled that stunt?" Dean asked as he manoeuvred his brother, ignoring the glare Sam sent in his direction.

"She refused to say before looking at him."

Once he had his brother situated comfortably on the couch Dean grabbed some beers from the fridge. Sam waved away the offered drink though, with painkillers in his system he didn't figure it was a good idea even though Dean never thought twice about stuff like that. Many Hunters were heavy drinkers or outright alcoholics and Sam considered it a blessing that Dean, for all his high tolerance and like of alcohol, didn't actually fall into the latter category; he'd never be able to refrain from drinking to excess while on a case if he had been. Bobby accepted one though.

"How are you feeling, by the way?" Sam asked, looking at Dean. With everything that had happened he hadn't checked.

"Fine." Dean replied, looking like he thought that was a silly question.

"You're sure, Dean?" Bobby asked, not able to resist ribbing the older brother, "because this line of work can get awful scary."

"I'm fine. What, you wanna go hunt?" Dean demanded, starting to get annoyed, "I'll hunt. I'll kill anything."

"Aww." Sam looked at Bobby, starting to relax after everything.

"He's adorable." Bobby returned.

"Whatever." Dean grumbled as the other two laughed.

"That wasn't just straight vengeful spirit." Sam commented a while later after a comfortable silence.

Bobby picked up a small book from the table and handed it to Sam, "this encyclopaedia of spirits dates to the Edo period."

Sam opened it and was surprised to find it written in Japanese, "you can read Japanese?"

Dean leant over to take a look too and looked curiously at Bobby.

Bobby replied with a string of Japanese that neither brother understood.

"I guess so. Show off." Sam mock complained as Dean laughed.

"Anyway, this book lists a kind of ghost that could be what that ghost was." Bobby explained, "it infects people with fear. It's called a Buru Buru."

"Glad I had another option rather than salting and burning, that ghost's remains were spread to kingdom come." Sam commented, continuing when Dean threw an exasperated look his direction, "I'm not going to apologise for or regret doing so, no matter what the consequences are. I wasn't going to let you die."

"The lore says you can kill a Buru Buru with fear, 'cause it was born of fear. Hell, it is fear. How you go about scaring a ghost to death, though, beats me." Bobby told them.

"Might have been able to figure something out, you and genius boy over there." Dean said.

"In time?" Sam asked reasonably, "and the sheriff had an even shorter amount of time left."

"You'd have had two hours left by the time I got there then however long until we figured out how to scare it to death, if that's even possible. The chance of the sheriff surviving until then is slim to none and your chances wouldn't have been that great either." Bobby pointed out, "much as I hate to admit it what your brother did was the most likely solution."

"What if…" Dean started.

"Then we'll deal with it." Sam interrupted, "we don't even know if it damaged anything yet, it's just as likely it just looked bad. People survive with epilepsy all the time, there's no reason to think that it has caused permanent damage because I had one seizure. I wouldn't take it back even if it wiped out my gifts."

"Is that a possibility?" Dean asked worriedly, half wondering if his brother hadn't mentioned something.

"I can still sense you, and Bobby, so no." Sam answered.

A knock at the door had Bobby heading to answer it and a short while later he returned with Pamela following him.

"You know, if you wanted to see me you didn't have to go banging your head against ghosts." She told them, "it's always a pleasure to see two great looking guys."

"Good to see you too, Pam." Dean told her though he didn't manage to conceal his worry for his brother.

"You have been practicing the sense that I taught you?" She asked as she sat down next to Sam, "that should have warned you off if it was going to damage you. Though knowing you, you'd have ignored it if Dean was in danger."

"Probably." Sam agreed, "but it didn't fire off, and yes I've been practicing."

"Well that's a good sign." Pam stated, "let me have a look at you."

She put her hand on the side of Sam's head and he felt her gently probing his defences. It felt strangely like prodding a scrape.

"Well your defences are a little raw." She declared as she withdrew her hand, "but you're otherwise unharmed. The defences are probably what caused the seizure though, them holding off the onslaught of whatever that was."

Dean looked at her perplexed and she continued, "if he hadn't had those defences he probably wouldn't have woken up."

Dean winced.

"Not something you need to worry about, Dean." Sam told him.

"Yes." Pamela agreed, "he might be in uncharted territory but defenceless he isn't."

"He'll be okay?" Dean asked.

"Yep. Nothing that a little R and R won't fix." Pamela returned with a smile that spoke of what she thought one of the R's should be.

"I think I'll just be happy with some more sleep." Sam said with a chuckle.

"You do that." Pamela told him with a grin before seeing herself out.

Dean insisted on helping Sam lie down then settled in a chair to watch over his brother. Pam may have said he wasn't in danger but Dean wouldn't relax until Sam was completely recovered.

"So, what did you see in the hallucinations?" Sam asked when Dean woke him to eat and take the next dose of painkillers.

"What?" Dean asked, surprised.

"I know you didn't actually hear what I said with the one I witnessed." Sam replied.

Dean hesitated for a while before deciding that his brother deserved the truth, no matter how irrational it was, "your eyes went yellow."

Sam looked surprised, "yellow eyes is dead."

"I know. Never said it was logical or rational for that matter."

Sam pulled down the collar on his shirt to reveal the anti-possession tattoo as a silent reassurance.

"Anything else?" Sam asked.

"That you didn't need me, that you couldn't wait to be rid of me, at the same time as the eyes."

"I will always need you." Sam told him, knowing that while his brother wouldn't normally be uncertain about that he'd need the reassurance now, "hell, I wouldn't dare do half the stuff I do without knowing you'll watch my back."

"I know." Dean replied, "and sorry I spaced out on you a few times there."

"Definitely not your fault." Sam replied with a chuckle, "not like either of us has much experience in dealing with extreme anxiety. Fear, yes, but not the type of all-encompassing anxiety that that ghost caused. And your logical reasoning and detail orientation overrode it several times, which I don't think the sheriff managed at all."

"Still feel bad that I didn't have your back."

"Still not your fault." Sam told him, "you did better than most too so stop beating yourself up."

"Okay, okay." Dean replied with a chuckle. He looked him over with worried eyes, he still looked exhausted, "how are you feeling anyway?"

"Tired." Sam admitted, "mind if I grab some more sleep?"

"Go ahead, I'm not going anywhere." Dean responded.

"You need sleep too." Sam told him as he lay down.

"I will." Dean assured him. Would probably be on the floor down here he had to admit, to himself if no one else, though.