Well, you know the drill; 5 reviews!

And, if I may take a moment to vent a little; I. Hate. Drivers Ed.

I've had all of one class, and the fact that I'm going to be in a musty church basement for three hours every Saturday, Sunday and Monday afternoon for the next month makes me want to dig a hole and sit in it until someone comes and brings me a blackberry pie, chocolate milk, and maybe a basket of kittens and puppies to play with and lick my face until I feel better.


Nikki POV

I was following Sam down one of the hallways. His hands where jammed in his pockets as he walked quickly to Dean's room, I had to take two steps just to match one of his.

"What the hell is going on with me?" I heard Dean yell at me. It took everything I had not to snap at him. I think he knew that, because he kept repeating it over and over, five inches from my ear.

"He, uh, he's in there," Sam said, nodding towards the door. I nodded, waiting for him to go in, when he didn't, I just went in.

I dropped my bag in a chair as I stared at Dean in the hospital bed. "Did-Did the doctor tell you what's wrong with him?" I asked softly. I felt like someone was grabbing my heart and squeezing. And not in a good way. He had tubes running in his nose connected to a ventilator, IVs in his arms, a heart monitor beeped steadily, that was the only comforting thing about this picture.

"The doctor said he lost a lot'a blood, contusions to his liver and kidneys…And he had the early signs of a cerebral edema." Sam said, his voice sounded dead.

I nodded, thankful I took a basic anatomy class in high school, I had an idea of what kind of shit injuries like that could do.

I sat down in the chair next to Dean and took a deep breath.

"What are you doing?" Spirit Dean asked me, sounding…worried.

After I'd calmed myself down and channeled my energy, I grabbed Dean's hand that wasn't connected to anything. "Corpore sano, sana animam meam. Do tibi vis, fac me in toto. Magia servo meo male, sicut Deus vult. Ad onera, ad imperium tuum precor supernae dilectionis tuae deum laver."

"No, Nikki no!" Spirit Dean yelled, walking around to stand in front of me. I opened one eye to glare at Spirit Dean.

"Sam! Sammy, man- you can't let her do this!" Spirit Dean yelled at his brother, who was leaning on the doorway, staring at the floor.

"Corpore sano, sana animam meam. Do tibi vis, fac me in toto. Magia servo meo male, sicut Deus vult. Ad onera, ad imperium tuum precor supernae dilectionis tuae deum laver." I recited again, starting to feel a sharp pain in my head.

"Damnit Nikki! You can't do this to yourself! I'm sure you can find some hoodoo in your books so save me, huh? But don't do this." Spirit Dean yelled at me, pacing the room.

"Corpore sano, sana animam meam. Do tibi vis, fac me in toto. Magia servo meo male, sicut Deus vult. Ad onera, ad imperium tuum precor supernae dilectionis tuae deum laver." I said, the pain was getting uncomfortable.

"Damnit Nikki!" Spirit Dean yelled again, this time swinging his arm in a way that would have yanked all the vertical blinds off the window. Instead, they just swayed nosily.

Sam must have looked up because I heard him inhale sharply. "Nikki, stop it." He practically ordered me, grabbing my wrist and pulling it away from Sleeping Dean's.

"Why?" I asked him, standing up. "I could save him, Sam!" I whispered as doctors passed the open door.

"Nik do you know what happened to you after you passed out on Bobby's couch?" Sam asked me, his jaw was clenching and unclenching as he waited for me to answer.

"Well, n-no-" I admitted.

"You got a fever over a hundred and six, your heart started racing so fast we almost took you to the hospital. Then, you're fever dropped dangerously low, your breathing got shallow and your heart rate got too erratic and slow, at one point we thought you died." Sam said this all in one breath, looking up at me with sharp eyes.

"I'm gonna need your help," He added seriously. "I don't need you in a hospital bed too."

I instantly felt guilty after that. I played with the ends of my hair and nodded. "Ok," I said quietly. "Ok, I won't use that spell."

"Thanks," Sam sighed, visibly relieved. "Hey, is your shoulder ok?" He asked randomly.

I shrugged. "Fine, why?"

"When you were passed out you kept trying to roll on your side, mumbling about how it hurt." Sam explained.

"I had a fever and had God knows what kind of magic going on inside me. I wouldn't really rely on anything I said." I reasoned.

Sam shrugged and nodded slightly.

"C'mon! Nik, can't you do anything?" Spirit Dean asked me.

"Uh, I brought Bobby, he's gonna tow the Impala back to his place. Might wanna grab what you want from the trunk." I said, trying to think of a reasonable excuse to be alone in Dean's hospital room. Well, 'alone.'

"Thanks," Sam mumbled, giving me a sad smile as he walked out the door.

I shut and locked it after him and spun around to look at Spirit Dean, who was leaning on the wall, ankles crossed, arms crossed.

"You have the hots for Sammy?" He asked me randomly, like he was asking if it was cloudy outside.

I whipped my head up from my bag and looked at him with wide eyes. "Excuse me?"

"It's an easy question." He shrugged. "Do 'ya?"

"I-He-Shut up," I snapped, feeling my cheeks blush. He just chuckled. "And will you please not talk to me when other people are around?"

"Why?"

"'Cause if I answer I'll probably get locked up in here." I snapped, unzipping my backpack.

"Are you gonna help me or not?" Spirit Dean snapped at me.

"Yeah, I'm gonna help you," I waved him off as I grabbed my index. "So what physically happened to you? You passed out in the Impala, then what?"

Spirit Dean seemed to pause and think for a moment before answering with a shrug. "Woke up in a hospital bed."

"You just…woke up." I repeated, pausing in my page flipping.

"Yeah," Spirit Dean nodded.

"Oh." I muttered as I kept flipping. I sighed and slammed the book shut. "You know what? I'm gonna change clothes, then look through this gigantic book."

Spirit Dean rolled his eyes. "Glad to see I'm so high on your list of priorities." He drawled out sarcastically.

I glared at him as I dug out a clean set of clothes. "And don't you dare stick your head through the wall while I'm changing." I said as I walked to the bathroom. Before I shut the door I saw him looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling, then he raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Stop thinking about it!" I snapped as I shut the door, hearing him chuckle.

I waited a few minutes before I changed out of the dirty jeans, t-shirt and hoodie, and into a clean pair of jeans and a tank top. I used a few damp paper towels to wipe away the dirt and grime on my face and neck.

I threw them in the trash can with a feeling of frustration and anger that surprised me. I leaned on the sink, an arm on each side, and stared at my reflection. The ring of green flecks that had been growing around my pupil was still there, confirming that it wasn't the motel light. Thankfully, I didn't look as tired as I felt.

You got the hots for Sammy?

Dean's word rang and echoes in my head, bouncing around my skull like bouncy balls in a blender.

Part of me felt like I was back in high school, when one of Percy's junior friends asked me, a lowly sophomore, if I liked him. I remember blushing bright red and mumbling 'yes.' The next day he asked me to the homecoming dance; our first date.

Another part of me felt…guilty. Very, very guilty. Not the 'I ate the last cookie' guilty, the kind of guilt that grows and grows until it completely consumes you and you break down. It was small now, but it festered and grew when I thought about it. I don't know why I was guilty, this wasn't the worst thing I've done.

I let out a groan and hung my head, pinching my eyes shut. I'll bet this has to do with that soul binding Jane did. I really appreciate that she fought off Hell for me, and bound our souls so I didn't spontaneously combust due to pent up magic, but that whole thing screwed me up.

Yes, I did have a slight preference for Sam over Dean. Yes, his eyes could reduce me to a stuttering mess. Yes, there where was almost nothing I hated about him. But it was just a little crush.

"Hey! You done in there princess?" I heard Spirit Dean call through the door.

I raked a few stray tendrils of hair out of my eyes as I lifted my head and opened the door with an annoyed look on my face. I stalked past him as I tossed my dirty clothes back in my backpack.

I looked over my shoulder at Dean, who was pacing the room, a pensive look on his face. "What happened to you?" I asked, pulling on an old plaid shirt. It was Chris's when he was in high school, I took it God knows how long ago and just never gave it back.

"Just yelled at my dad, didn't even hear me." He muttered. "He was in here. Probably good you took so damn long. He probably wouldn't be your biggest fan right now."

I shrugged, buttoning the bottom buttons on Chris's shirt and pushing the sleeves up to my elbows. I sat in the chair next to Sleeping Dean and pulled the index from my bag again. I started to page through it slowly, reading the pages carefully.

Spirit Dean was obviously going stir crazy. He was still pacing, and he's started to hum something that sounded a lot like The Animals' The House of the Rising Sun. He'd even started to tap the side of his leg as he paced.

"Dean?" I eventually called, breaking him out of his little trance.

"Yeah? What? You find something?" He asked. I bet he was that kid in elementary school. You know, the one who got pencils stuck in ceiling tiles and spent the whole class staring out the window and writing swear words on the desks.

"Why don't you walk around," I suggested carefully.

"What? Why? I wanna be here when you find out what the hell is going on." He said, frowning stubbornly.

"Fine," I sighed, turning the page.

When he started mumbling the words to Traveling Riverside Blues I huffed in frustration. "Ok, shut up or get out." I snapped at him. He looked at me in surprise.

"I thought you liked Led Zeppelin." He all but pouted.

"I do, but not when I'm trying to figure out why you're acting like Casper." I snapped. Dean rolled his eyes and walked to the door. When he reached out to grab the door knob, his hand went right through it. He looked over his shoulder expectantly. I groaned and opened the door for him.

"Casper?" Dean repeated as he walked down the hall. "Really, Casper? Could'a said 'why you're pulling a Swayze' but no, I get Casper."

"Ass." I muttered, leaving the door open as I walked back to my chair.