Thank you so much Ktoon for beta'ing this muddle for me. You spot the repetition and make it right. Thank you also VegasGranny and Ncsupnatfan for being pre-reader champions.


Chapter Five

In the three days that followed their arrival at the hospital, Dean's conviction that Sam was going to wake up soon was tested.

Though there were improvements, like Sam's fever breaking and the fact he was trying to breathe alone more frequently since his chest began to clear, he remained unconscious and no amount of pleading from Dean on the rare occasions they were left alone in the room together seemed to reach him. He didn't even twitch a finger.

They fell into a pattern. Mary, Dean and Bobby would leave the room for meals in turns, and once a day they would go back to the motel Bobby had booked for them to shower and change clothes. Only Bobby ever stayed at the motel to sleep, and that was under Mary's insistence. She and Dean slept in shifts in the side room off the ICU while the other stayed with Sam so that he was never left alone.

Dean preferred when he could stay at the hospital, as he had sworn he wouldn't leave until Sam was awake to tell him to go, but Mary became more stressed when he refused to leave at all, and he wanted to spare her more worry. She was already at her limit with what was happening to Sam; she didn't need to worry about him, too.

Dean was driving back to the hospital from the motel, having taken his turn to clean up and change in the double room Bobby had booked for him and Sam to share when Sam got out of the hospital. Dean liked that he'd gotten them a double. It was fierce proof of what they all knew—sooner or later, Sam was going to be out of that hospital bed and with them properly again.

He pulled into a spot in the hospital parking lot and climbed out. He walked at a brisk pace into the hospital and hesitated for a moment when he saw the people congregated at the coffee cart. He had intended to get them all a drink before going up again, but the queue was long, and it was going to delay him longer than he was willing. He thought he would check on Sam and then come back down later.

He strode to the elevators and stepped into a car with a couple and what looked like their young daughter. She was dancing near the button panel, reaching up to press the buttons and having her hand caught and pushed down by her father.

Dean remembered Sam like that: when he had been enchanted by such simple things as a ride in an elevator or picking his own bottle of soda from the fridge in The Roadhouse. He'd been a happy kid, though Dean had always felt a sense of superiority in the things he was able to do sooner than him. Sam had sulked the first time Bobby let Dean light the candles for the ritual to seal a curse box, though neither of them had really known what they were doing it for then as it was before they learned the truth. Bobby had handed him the matchbook and told him to go ahead. Dean had felt like an adult that day, and he'd been perhaps a little too confident as he'd dropped the match and set fire to some papers on Bobby's desk. The fire had quickly been extinguished, but the burn mark was still there in the varnished wood, a reminder of what had done.

Sam had stopped brooding quickly when it happened, once his fear of the fire had passed, and he'd tried to console Dean—who was feeling stupid. Dean hadn't been able to accept it though, and he'd snapped at Sam.

That and a hundred other moments of normal childhood disagreements and insults seemed to matter more to Dean now that he knew how easily he could lose his brother. He made a mental vow to be the brother Sam deserved in the future. He'd show him how much he cared—and he did, he loved Sam—instead of brushing off the 'chick flick moments' when Sam would allow his sensitivity to show.

Dean stepped out on the fourth floor and made straight for the ICU and Sam's room. When he got into the room, he saw Mary sitting in her usual place at Sam's bedside, her eyes fixed on his face and her hand stroking back his hair from his brow. She looked up at him as he entered and took his seat on the other side of the bed, saying a soft greeting to him, and then returned her attention to her youngest son.

Bobby was pacing back and forth in front of the window, his phone pressed to his ear. "I can't do it, Jim," he said. "We've got something else going on. We're in California right now." He listened for a moment. "It's nothing you need to worry about. I'll call you if it is. Yeah, okay, bye." He snapped his phone closed and said, "Jim's got a case he's looking for someone for. Maybe a vampire in Colorado."

"Why doesn't he get Daniel Elkins on it?" Dean asked. "He's closer, and vampires are his speciality."

"He tried, but Daniel already has a nest in Washington to deal with. He said he'll try Bill Harvelle."

Dean nodded. Bill was a damn good hunter, and Dean knew he was more than capable of taking care of it.

Bill and Jim had been the staples of his life for almost as long as he could remember. They were just friends of Mary's when he was young, people they visited occasionally, but when he'd discovered the truth about the world and the monsters that resided in it, he'd learned they were heroes like his mom and Bobby. Jim was more of a lore man than a hunter, finding and distributing cases among hunters and providing them with weapons, but Dean had taken a couple actual hunts with him and he was good; good enough to make Dean wonder why he didn't do more in the active hunts. It wasn't a matter of fear, Dean was sure.

Sam and Dean spent holidays at Jim's growing up when Mary and Bobby needed to take a case together, and those memories were ones of pleasure. Sam especially liked going to the house behind the church where Jim preached, playing in Jim's garden and helping the parishioner that tended to the lawns and flowers there, even sitting at the back of the church for Jim's services. Dean had no real attachment to the church itself, God wasn't for him, but he'd always enjoyed seeing Jim.

He'd preferred The Roadhouse to the church, with its wealth of other hunters to observe and sometimes talk to. Even before he and Sam had learned the truth, the men and women that sharpened their knives and field stripped weapons at the tables while drinking the beers poured by Ellen had a kind of dark glamour to him. Sam and Jo, much younger, had been less impressed. It was only when Jo hit her late teens that she'd become interested in the hunting life, and Dean was already hunting by then. He'd been one of the glamourous to her, and he'd enjoyed the sensation of her awestruck eyes fixed on him and the way she'd listened attentively to his stories.

Dean knew Jo wanted to hunt too, but Ellen and Bill wouldn't allow her to make the choice to commit until she'd finished college. It was a similar kind of deal to the one Mary had offered Dean and Sam when they turned fifteen. Before that, they'd been limited to helping with lore and studying some of the journals Bobby had inherited from dead hunters. They couldn't really commit until they'd finished school.

The rhythm of the ventilator stalled again, snapping Dean's focus back to the present as Sam's chest moved unevenly for a space of ten breathes before falling into the mechanical rhythm again.

"He's doing it again," Bobby said with satisfaction.

Mary smiled and touched her palm to Sam's cheek. "He's trying."

The first time Dean had noticed the change in Sam's breathing, it had scared him, sure that it was a sign of decline in his brother's condition, but he knew now that it was improvement instead. When it happened Sam was taking breaths alone, interrupting the machine that sensed the action and stopped to give him the chance to do it himself. Each time it happened now, he was pleased, as it meant Sam was taking up the strain himself.

"Think we should tell someone?" Dean asked hopefully.

The doctor had been talking about taking Sam off of the ventilator for a day now, and Dean wanted it to happen. Sam would seem like he was really coming back without that tube down his throat, and Dean knew his brother well enough to know he would want it out. He had faith in Sam to handle it.

"Worth a shot," Bobby said, tucking his phone into his pocket and crossing the room to the door.

As the door clicked closed behind him, Mary said, her tone encouraging, "Keep that going, Sam, and you'll be free of it sooner." She stroked his cheek. "You're doing so well."

As if Sam had heard her—and Dean supposed it was probable he had—the machine stalled again, and Sam's chest moved in a different rhythm.

"Nice work, Sammy," Dean said approvingly, his eyes crinkling with his wide smile.

The door opened, and Bobby was followed in by Doctor Kempner and one of the nurses Dean hadn't learned the name of yet. She was in her thirties, with short hair, and Dean thought she looked kind. If Sam was going to do this, take this on himself, he wanted someone like her there with him for it.

The doctor approached the bed and Dean got up and moved away so he had clear access to the machines. "I hear Sam's triggering the vent again," he said.

"He's been doing it off and on for a while all morning, but he's doing it more now," Mary said.

The nurse handed the doctor the chart from the end of the bed and he examined it, turning pages before looking up at the machine. "I think he's ready to wean," he said.

"You're taking him off?" Mary asked, her eyes bright.

"We're going to try. If you would give us a little space. We will slow the ventilator and see if Sam sustains his sats himself. If he can do that, we will extubate and start oxygen support through other means. There may be a pause before Sam's body reacts, and that can be frightening, but we're here and will resume the flow at the first sign of trouble."

Mary nodded, then stood and bent over the bed to kiss Sam's cheek before moving back to stand by the window with Dean and Bobby.

Doctor Kempner checked Sam's chest with a stethoscope before nodding and addressing the nurse. "Watch him carefully for signs of distress, Sally. I'm going to decrease flow."

"Yes, doctor," she said professionally and fixed her eyes on the monitor beside the bed.

He pressed a button on the machine and the noise that had become almost constant in the room, the whoosh and click of each breath, slowed. Dean watched Sam's chest nervously, but before even three of Dean's quick breaths, it rose and fell again. Mary's hand found Dean's and her fingers curled around his. Dean gave it a reassuring squeeze and she drew a shaky breath of her own.

"Coming down again," Doctor Kempner said, pressing a button. "How is his ox sats?"

"Eighty-five," Sally said.

The doctor nodded slowly.

"Is that okay?" Dean asked.

"It's lower than we would like, but with the weakness from pneumonia it's to be expected. We'll use supplemental oxygen if he needs it."

He pressed another button, and the machine stopped completely. Dean held his breath, and Mary's fingers clenched around his to the point of pain, but Sam's chest rose and fell evenly still, and the doctor turned to smile at them.

"He's doing it."

Mary made a gasping sound and Bobby put his arm around her.

Dean understood her relief. Sam was handling it, and that was a huge achievement for him after everything he'd been through.

The doctor smiled and said, "We'll extubate now. If you would like to clear the room for a moment, we can attend to his other needs, too."

Mary nodded, and Bobby dropped his arm from her shoulders. Still clinging to Dean's hand, Mary walked to the bed to touch Sam's cheek, towing Dean with her, and then to the door. She didn't release him until they were outside the room, and then it was to rake her hands over her face, rubbing at her wet eyes.

"This is good," Dean said, confused by the show of sadness.

"I know," she said, smiling at him while tears welled in her eyes. "I'm fine, Dean."

Sally came to the window and smiled apologetically before pulling the cord to close the blinds, blocking their view of Sam. Dean was guiltily relieved, as he had a feeling that they'd been asked to leave the room for more than the need to attend to Sam's needs. He thought what was about to happen was going to be unpleasant for them to witness in someone they loved.

"Shall I get us a coffee?" Bobby asked.

"Yes," Mary said eagerly. "Please."

"I'll go down to the cart," Bobby said. "Come on, Dean. You can help me carry them."

Confused by the fact Bobby wanted help when he'd managed alone every other time by using a cup holder, Dean checked his mother's expression, saw her nod, and then followed him to the elevator.

They rode down in silence and joined the queue at the cart before Dean asked, "What was that about? Why do you need help all of a sudden?"

"I thought your mom could use a moment alone."

Dean's brows pinched together. "She said she was happy."

"She did, and I think she meant it, but there's a fine line between happy and a breakdown. She's been as strong as she can so far, but she could use a little space for a while to get herself in order."

"She's handled it all though," Dean said. "Why break now when he's doing better?"

"She handled it because she had to. You were there. She needed to be strong for both of you, especially you since you were there seeing and feeling it all, too. I think she is really feeling it now, though: what happened to Sam and what we almost lost. She needs to feel it, and she needs space for that. Your mom is one strong lady, but we all have a breaking point. She won't want you to see her like that, Dean."

Mary had been pretty incredible since they'd first arrived at the hospital, seeming to be staying strong while Dean was close to breaking, only letting her worry show on rare occasions such as when they were trying Sam off the ventilator. The idea she'd been maintaining that act for him made him feel guiltily relieved. He hadn't been through something like this in his life before. When his father died, it was sudden and there was no lingering panic or worry about recovery as it was all over quickly, leaving them with grief to handle. This wasn't the same, and they were grieving in a different kind of way—for Jessica's death and for what Sam had lost, bearing the fear that they would lose Sam. He thought if he'd seen Mary breaking, it would have stolen the strength he had left.

The queue moved forward slowly until they were next in line and Bobby was appraising the snacks on offer. He took out his wallet as the barista looked up and him for their order.

"Three americanos, please," Bobby said.

Their coffees were made and served, and Bobby paid for them while Dean carried Mary's over to the stand where the pots of creamer and sugar packets were. He doctored Mary's then met Bobby at the elevator.

"You think she's ready for us to go up?" Dean asked.

Bobby looked at the large clock on the wall and nodded. "If she's not yet, she will be when we get there. When you get there," he corrected himself.

The rode up the elevator and through to the ICU. Mary was no longer in the hall, and Dean wondered if she'd taken some space or if she was back in with Sam. He saw the nurse, Sally, at the station and she smiled at them and said, "You can go back in. Sam's doing well. If he stays stable for the next few hours, he'll be moved to the step-down unit."

Relieved and murmuring his thanks, Dean went back to Sam's room and went inside, holding it open with a foot for Bobby to enter. He followed him inside and looked at Sam. He seemed infinitely better without the tube in his throat and the mask on his face that had been replaced with a nasal cannula, but his skin was still pale, standing out more starkly against the dark stubble on his face and jaw that had been partially concealed before.

The dressing on his arm was also gone now, revealing a patch of puckered red skin that ran from a little above Sam's wrist to his elbow. Dean could see that it was going to be an ugly scar that Sam was probably going to bear for life, but if that was the worst physical side-effect of what Sam was going to have from the fire, it was a blessing.

He handed Mary her coffee and she thanked him before setting it down on the locker beside the bed, returning her gaze to Sam, only looking up again when Bobby cursed quietly.

"What?" Dean asked.

Bobby set down his coffee and said sadly, "Jessica's parents are here."

Dean looked to the window in the hall that Bobby was facing and saw two people standing in the hall, looking in.

Mary got quickly to her feet and walked to the door; she opened it and said, "Please, come in," before stepping back and holding it for them.

Dean had never met Jessica's parents before—though he knew Sam spent a lot of time with them as they lived in Sacramento and he and Jessica had made regular weekend trips to her home—but he had seen photographs of them in Sam and Jessica's apartment. His first thought when they came in was that Bobby had to be wrong, that these couldn't be Jessica's parents; they looked far too old.

Upon closer inspection, he saw that Bobby was right; it was them, but they looked the furthest thing from the people that had smiled out of the photographs he'd seen. They appeared to have aged years. Their faces were pale and their eyes shadowed; their clothes seemed to hang too heavy on them. Jessica's mother was twisting her hands in front of her, and her father looked as though he had been crying recently.

"Michael, Elizabeth, this is Mary and Dean…" Bobby introduced.

"You're his family," Elizabeth said. "I can see. It's nice to meet you at last. Sam and… Jess spoke of you often."

As her voice caught on her daughter's name, Michael's eyes filled with tears that spilled down his cheeks when he blinked.

Elizabeth touched his arm gently, and he drew a breath to master himself. "We're sorry to intrude," he said. "We won't stay long. I know they wouldn't like so many of us in his room. We just wanted to check on Sam."

"We've been coming every day to see his doctors," his wife added. "They wouldn't tell us much, of course, but we wanted to check in."

"I'm sorry we didn't see you," Bobby said. "Things have been kinda…"

"We understand," Elizabeth said, her eyes drifting to Sam and a sad smile playing on the corners of her lips. "Has he woken up yet?"

"Not yet," Mary said. "He's breathing on his own now though. We're hoping he'll be awake soon."

"So are we," Michael said fervently. "We've been so worried."

There was no doubting the sincerity of the words. The way his eyes fixed on Sam and the fervour in them—just how Mary and Bobby looked at Sam and how Dean himself probably did—told their own story. They really cared. After everything they'd lost, it would be easy for them to resent Sam's continued existence when Jessica had been lost, but there was no sign of it in either of them. Dean thought they were better people than him. He was aware just how lucky he was that Sam survived. If it had been the other way around, if Jessica was the one in the hospital bed and Sam gone, he knew he couldn't have been so generous.

"He's doing better," Bobby reassured her. "His chest is clearing, too."

Elizabeth nodded. "I'm glad. We've been waiting for him."

Dean frowned as the strange words fell awkwardly from her lips, as if they'd been forced out over a silent sob. What did they want from Sam?

"We've not had the funeral yet," Elizabeth explained, seeing Dean's confusion.

"Jess loved Sam more than anything in the world, and we don't want to say goodbye to her without him there," Michael added. "He deserves to be there as much, if not more, than anyone else."

Dean had seen a lot of grief in his life, through his mother after John had died and in survivors of hunts that had suffered their own losses. He'd always thought of grief as an insular thing that blinded people to what was happening around them, but both Michael and Elizabeth were thinking of Sam. They were either exceptional people, truly selfless, or they were clinging to Sam as the last piece of Jessica that remained. Dean wasn't sure whether that was a good thing. Sam was going to be the one that needed the support when he woke up; he wouldn't be able to bear the weight of someone else's need.

Mary took Elizabeth's hand and cupped it between her own. "Thank you. I know that will mean a lot to him."

"He made Jess so happy," Elizabeth said in a choked voice. "She knew what it meant to be in love thanks to him. It makes us grateful to…" She broke off with a sob and Mary wrapped her arms around her, rubbing her back and making soothing sounds as she sobbed into Mary's shoulder.

"It matters," Michael said, his forehead creased with sadness and tears gathering in his eyes again. "She was so young and there is so much she never did, but she did know love. He nodded. "And, yes, that makes us grateful."

Elizabeth pulled back from Mary and wiped her hands over her face. "It's not right," she said fiercely. "We're not supposed to be the ones to bury our children. She was supposed to have a life without us, not the other way around."

Dean couldn't imagine how it felt for them to have lost their daughter, the complete opposite of the natural order, and he didn't know what to say to them. He let his eyes drift back to Sam and thought, perhaps cruelly, that it would be better if they hadn't come as there was a chance Sam was hearing this, too. He had cared about Jessica's parents, Dean knew, and now their pain was filling the room.

"We don't even know what caused the fire," Elizabeth went on. "They can't find where it started. There is nothing for us to be angry at, nothing or no one to blame for it. Maybe if we knew, we could make sense of it."

Dean absorbed her words, feeling Bobby's eyes on him. If it had been the demon, there would be no known origin that they could detect; it was unnatural fire. It added credence to the theory that it had been him. As eager as he was to know if it really was, if the monster that had killed his father was back, he didn't want Sam to have to tell them.

Elizabeth dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex and said, "We'll leave you alone now."

"You don't need to go," Mary said quickly, though Dean selfishly wished they would. He wanted their penetrating pain away from Sam.

"No, we should get home," Michael said. "We have arrangements to make." He took a card from his wallet and pressed it into Mary's hand. "Please call us if there's news, though, and tell Sam we're thinking of him when he wakes up."

"We will," Mary promised. "And you call us if there's anything we can do." She patted her pockets and pulled out her wallet. She fumbled with it for a moment then pulled out one of the dark blue business cards she and Dean carried with their official details on. She handed it to Michael and said, "Anything at all."

Michael thanked her, and Elizabeth gave her a brief hug before smiling wetly at Sam and following her husband out of the room.

Dean waited until the door closed behind them and then blew out a breath. "That was brutal," he murmured. "Worse than I imagined, even after what you said, Bobby."

"Yeah," Bobby said, coming back to his chair beside the bed and patting Sam's hand where it lay on the sheet. "And that's better than it was before."

"I can't even imagine what they're…" Mary shook her head. "I don't want to. That could have been us."

"But it wasn't," Bobby said. "We're the lucky ones. We've got to hold onto that."

Mary nodded and kissed Sam's cheek before taking her seat beside the bed again. "We're lucky," she said quietly.

Dean knew that they were; they could have lost Sam so easily, and he was getting better every day now. They were lucky, but Sam wasn't. He had come close to losing his life and survived, but he had lost the love of his life, and that was going to wreck him. Dean saw now, in Michael and Elizabeth's pain, that seeing Sam lying in a hospital bed was bad, but there was worse to witness still to come.

He would have to see his brother's grief.


So… Sam is doing better. I didn't want to linger on this part of the story as I never wanted it to be a Sam-centric story alone. With Mary alive, that would have been a waste. I angsted over it a lot—VegasGranny and Ncsupnatfan will tell you. It is going to be about Sam at first, but the balance will come.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx