It took a moment for Joan to realize why she'd woken up. She could feel Sam's warmth against her back; hear Dean's even breathing on the other bed and Billy's soft snores on his cot. Her boys were all light sleepers; it was more than a little unusual for something to disturb her slumber and not alert them. She sat up as her eyes adjusted to the gloom and she could make out a figure sitting at the table. She started to reach for Sam, to wake him up, but hesitated and looked at the man again. "Michael? What are you doing here?"
The Carpenter patriarch smiled gently. "I thought I'd stop by and see you. How is your work going?"
"Fine, I guess." She glanced at the Winchester boys all around her, but they remained fast asleep. "I'm needed out here, I think. Sam and Dean would get themselves in trouble or arrested if they didn't have someone to keep them in line."
Michael nodded, still smiling. "He knew what he was doing when he put you with Sam. You need to stay open to the possibilities, Joan. He'll put you where you're supposed to be. He knows what your family needs." He stood up and walked to the door. "I have to be going, Joan," he said, and his flannel shirt and jeans changed into a set of chain mail and a white cloak. He stepped through the door and into the sunlight.
Joan jerked awake, unintentionally elbowing Sam as she did, scrambled out of bed, and began digging for her cell. Sam sat up and hissed his brother awake as she hit the speed dial for the Carpenter house. Daniel answered on the third ring, his voice tense. "It's Joan," she said before he could get anything out past 'hello.' "What happened?"
Daniel paused for a moment, obviously not expecting this particular phone call. While none of the Carpenters outside of Michael and Charity had been told about her work, the older kids had probably figured something out between some of their visits to Chicago. "My dad's on the way to the hospital, the paramedic thinks it's serious. We were going to start calling around in a few hours when we know."
Joan could hear the sorrow and worry behind the matter-of-fact words, and tears welled up in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she choked out, handing the phone over to Dean before turning and burying her face in Sam's chest.
Dean talked quietly with Daniel for a few minutes while Sam held Joan. The two brothers looked at each other as Dean closed the phone up. "Michael Carpenter's on his way to the ER. They think he had a heart attack, maybe half an hour ago."
"You saw him in a dream," Sam murmured.
Joan nodded, staying in the comforting embrace. "He was sitting at the table, talking to me."
"Do you want to sleep a little more, or just leave now for Chicago?" Dean asked.
Joan looked up at Sam and he made it obvious that the decision was hers. "I'm not going to sleep anymore this morning," she told them. Every time she blinked she saw that final image of Michael on her eyelids. The last time she'd had a dream like that the subject had died. It was enough to shake her to the core.
"Then we go," Dean announced. "We're three hours out. If we hustle we can be there in time for breakfast."
Joan remained in her husband's arms for a few minutes as Dean started packing. Finally she sighed and Sam loosened his grip. She dressed and gathered up Billy's things, waiting until the last moment to pick up her son to carry him out to the car. She buckled him into his car seat and then curled up next to him on the back seat. The car ride would probably be a miserable one for her, unless something provided a distraction.
The drive to Chicago was quieter than usual, the music turned down low. Both of the Winchester brothers liked Michael, although neither of them happened to be as close to him as Joan. Billy slept like a rock most of the way there, but Sam and Dean talked quietly and she listened to their conversation while making plans. Charity would be spending as much time as possible at the hospital and she'd need an extra hand around the house and with the children. What she wouldn't need would be the burden of four more people staying at the house, so they'd either camp out at the church for the duration or get a motel room. Joan was betting on the motel, since staying at the church always bothered Dean.
Before any of that, though, they would be stopping at the hospital to see Michael, Charity and the children and to get a list of what the older woman needed. They'd probably end up splitting up soon after arriving in Chicago, but that was unavoidable.
Joan owed Michael and Charity a lot for all of the ways they'd helped her over the past few years. She'd help out anyway she could, and Sam and Dean would be willing participants for her and Billy's sake.
xxx
Amanda was running late, and she hated that. Scott had gotten stuck in traffic, forcing her to wait for him to take responsibility for their son, Cody. She normally liked to arrive at the hospital with plenty of time to familiarize herself with the patients in her care, but as it was she would barely get in for her shift.
In addition to the multitude of pacemaker outpatients and the 'regulars' with chronic heart problems, there were two new patients in the cardiac wing; a middle-aged single woman who had just had open-heart surgery installed in the room directly across from Mr. Carpenter, who was waiting for a new heart, and they both reportedly had a waiting room full of family on rotation for the allotted visitor time. Amanda suspected that some of the family didn't technically qualify by normal definitions, given the sheer number of them, but those who fulfilled all of the qualifications were backing their right to be there.
The woman was recovering well and would be home by the end of the week. Amanda was pleased with all of the friends that would be available to help with all of her medical restrictions. Mr. Carpenter was in good spirits, hopeful and he had every right to be. It was summer and he had an easy tissue type to match. He was now at the top of the transplant list where he had been languishing since the drive-by shooting that had damaged his heart beyond repair. The heart attack had been expected and explicitly warned for. The question was whether or not he would have a second heart attack waiting for the new heart. Mr. Carpenter's vitals were diminishing due to the sluggish heart, but he was healthy otherwise. His mind was whole and sharp. He understood all the ramifications. His wife was just as sharp, but more like a scalpel. She asked the hard questions and her knuckles were white from how hard her hand clenched her husband's. She was understandably worried.
As Amanda explained all of the possibilities, the room phone rang. The wife didn't move until Mr. Carpenter said, "That'll be Molly."
Mrs. Carpenter slowly loosened her grip and picked up the phone, turning away the murmur into the receiver.
"My oldest," Mr. Carpenter told Amanda. "She can't be here so she's hovering from a distance."
Amanda smiled in understanding, though it seemed impossible that the crowd in the waiting room was missing one.
"Joan and the boys are here," Mrs. Carpenter said after hanging up the phone. She looked relieved as she dug in her purse for a pen and some paper. "She wants a grocery list, which she's sending Daniel to fill and the keys to the van. She's taking the rest home for the rest of the day."
Even the calm, even-keeled Mr. Carpenter relaxed at the news. "She'll take care of everyone." He smiled at his wife, lovingly. "You could let her take care of you too."
Mrs. Carpenter glared. In love. Amanda was amused at the contradiction. "She wants to know if you need or want anything."
"I am content," he answered truthfully.
"Somehow, I'm not surprised," a voice by the door commented.
Amanda turned to face the newcomer. From the facial and body bone structure, she guessed that this was yet another 'family member.' The young woman edged into the room to give both of the Carpenter hugs. The hug she gave the patient bespoke years of experience of loving a physically handicapped person.
"Joan," she offered with her hand to Amanda.
"Dr. Amanda Waller."
Joan smirked like all comic book fans did. "I bet you're a DC fan," she said directly.
"My dad was. My mom didn't know what she was getting me into." She could have taken her husband's name, but she had grown into the name of Amanda Waller. Seriously smart and determined, Amanda helped her patients survive against the odds, and if the HMOs were the bad guys that she liked to foil, no one had to know.
After the mutual 'nice to meet you's,' Joan asked for the grocery list.
Mrs. Carpenter passed over the hurriedly scribbled list and asked, "Where are the boys?"
"Sitting with Daniel and praying for Papa Mike."
"Billy I believe, but Sam and Dean too?" Mrs. Carpenter looked skeptical.
"Yes and Dean is looking very uncomfortable while doing it. Everything is under control out there. You two only need to think about what's happening in here. Sleep," Joan ordered the two of them. "Stay here. Rest."
Mr. Carpenter looked suspicious and a bit amused.
"Yes," she said to whatever question was on his mind. "And I don't want it to happen again."
The hospital intercom paged Amanda and somehow she knew that this was going to be news that Mr. Carpenter's new heart was on its way.
xxx
When they pulled up in front of the hospital Molly was waiting there, too worried to go anywhere inside. At the moment the traffic lights across from the hospital couldn't even handle her presence, but apparently no one had been able to pry her from the premises. She had decided to be the perimeter guard; the monsters her father had been killing for years held grudges. She had been calling from the payphone in the hospital parking lot, one of the few left in the city, all through visiting hours and then afterward, checking for updates and reassurances that her father was still hanging on. Dresden had shown up to keep her company for a little while (with a pocket full of change) and was there when the Winchesters arrived, but it was clear that he had something urgent that was calling for his attention. With his apprentice sidelined due to lack of control (and staying put while her father went under the knife for his new heart), he was in desperate need of backup and Dean offered their services without a moment of hesitation. Joan had collected the shopping list –passed on to Daniel, Molly refused to budge- and was holding down the fort with the little ones back at the Carpenter household, probably safer behind that threshold than anywhere short of Bobby's place. That freed up him and Sam to help the wizard. It was useful, it was their usual line of work, and it meant that Dresden would probably owe them a favor sometime in the future. The wizard was a valuable contact. It was in their best interests to help keep him breathing and sane.
They hadn't really worked with the wizard since the day he'd helped them hold off the Demon, though Sam had called him a few times for a consultation and he'd showed up for the wedding with a cop as a date. Dean had a cautious respect for the guy, and they'd even shared a beer or two during one of the Winchester's Chicago visits. It helped that the guy had a fondness for setting nasty monsters on fire. Right now the guy had a lead on a cadre of vampires and he needed help clearing out the nest before it got out of hand, a task better taken care of in the daylight.
Dean and Sam were armed with machetes out of the trunk, with Dresden on fire duty. He looked a little more twitchy than normal, occasionally glancing at the leather glove that covered his scarred hand, but he'd set his jaw and carried on with helping make the plan.
Urban vampire hunting was a different animal than what Dean normally had to handle; making plans to assault a structure in daylight in the city was an order of magnitude more complicated than it was in the country, even when that building was abandoned and condemned. Their window of opportunity was short because even in a lousy neighborhood like this one someone was bound to call in an emergency once the fire started going, and fire around Dresden was pretty much an inevitability.
When they pulled up in front of the dingy storefront Dean turned off the engine and turned to the wizard. "I'm guessing you have some kind of plan for this mess."
Dresden nodded, looking almost comical in the backseat. Even the Impala had her limits when it came to space. Sam hadn't been able to fit easily back there since before he'd left for Stanford and Dresden had several inches of height on him. It was almost as funny as watching the man fold his body into his tiny clown car. "Red Court vampires, holed up in the basement of this building. There's only two doors in and out of the place and no Undertown access, so if one of you watches the front from inside and the other handles the back I can head on down and flush them out."
"Anything special we need to know about this particular type of vampire?" The brothers had been displeased to be informed that several different kinds existed beyond the ones that they'd been brought up to hunt.
"Beheading should put them down and slashing them across the belly takes out some kind of blood reservoir. After that we'll need to complete destroy what's left to make sure that they don't come back, but that shouldn't be a problem with enough fire." Dresden grinned, the expression fierce. "Oh, and they've got narcotic saliva. Don't let them spit on you."
"Oh, that's just gross," Dean complained.
"Does it penetrate fabric?" Sam asked.
Dresden blinked. "No, I don't think so, not unless they're trying really hard and by then you'll have much bigger problems. It needs to reach skin. They normally go for a licking move."
"Really gross," Dean reiterated.
"Didn't you lick every one of your fries at lunch today?" Sam asked.
"That was different. That was to discourage you from eating my food. It worked, didn't it?"
Dresden snorted out a laugh, relaxing a fraction. "You two get in place. I'll head down and kick the hornet's nest."
Of course, Dean chose Sam to take the front door and to cover Dresden's back and to distract any Nosey Nellie's. Dean doubted that too many monsters would be able to sneak past the wizard's fire. Dean picked the chancier job of holding the door that all of vampires would be more likely using to escape.
Dean knew the second Dresden had been spotted; two or three of the smarter and more cowardly made their way to the door. Dean managed to dispatch them because they weren't expecting his kind of assistance but by the time the main force was running from Dresden (and Dean was sure that Dresden had severely miscalculated the number of blood-suckers since the wizard would have killed as many as he missed) the floor was slick with blood. The slipperiness helped as much as it hindered. If Dean survived it, he'd find the memories hilarious as hell.
He twisted wrong. It hurt. A vamp took advantage and damaged his knee further and for shits and giggles hit his rib cage hard enough to send a couple of bones into his lungs. Shit. Pain. Shit. Breathe. Shit. Shit. And more blood suckers coming.
Now Dean just wanted to survive. He was waiting for his baby brother to save him.
xxx
Sam kept his mind savagely focused as he drove to the hospital, his brother bleeding and gasping wetly for oxygen in the backseat with Dresden stressing his limited first aid on keeping Dean alive. He held himself together while they rushed Dean into the emergency room, yelling about O2 stats and blood volume. He stayed relatively calm while he filled out insurance information and waited for Joan. He restrained himself to pacing in the waiting room until the doctor sounded the all-clear and they were allowed in to see Dean. He even managed to wait until they got back to the motel room and Billy was asleep before he broke down.
Joan's arms were around him in an instant and he clung to her, working hard to keep quiet so that Billy didn't wake up. His son was already aware that something was wrong and getting him to sleep had been a nightmare. Sam buried his face into her stomach and cried at how close he had come to losing his brother and Joan cried quietly along with him, her hands carding through his hair. "He's alive, Sam. He's alive, and he'll be fine."
"Too close," Sam said. "I can't lose my brother, Joan. I can't lose Dean." She didn't say anything more, simply holding him tight, and Sam took a moment to appreciate it. There was a very real chance that he would lose Dean someday, or that Dean and Joan and Billy would lose him. That was the price for hunting. They might cover it up with jokes, but every time they went out on a hunt could be the last time. This time was just closer than usual.
There were arrangements that needed to be made, people that they should call, but Sam let Joan lead him over to the bed and strip him down to his boxers. She turned the lamp off and pulled him into bed and he slept in her arms.
xxx
Later on down the line, Dean would refer to his recovery and the several months spent in rehab relearning how to use his rebuilt knee as the most boring form of torture that existed. The punctured lung healed relatively quickly but the broken ribs put off the knee rehabilitation until they were mostly healed. He was in pain pretty much constantly, he couldn't drive, and they were tied to Chicago for that entire time. Consequently he spent most of that time working to fight off a permanent bad mood. It didn't help to see Michael cheerfully recovering. Billy was the one bright spot that never seemed to dim, even amidst the rare tantrum. Dean had time to teach him words like 'Dude' and 'Jerk' and 'Unca De.' Billy was starting to talk in short sentences and it was delightful (and sometimes embarrassing) what new words and ideas spilled out of his mouth at the weekly meetings at the Carpenters'.
The family had rented a small, dingy house in a sketchy part of town for the duration of their stay rather than burden the Carpenters or waste money on a motel. The place was only borderline handicapped-friendly, but it was cheap and they could handle the inconvenience. Dean spent most of his time outside of physical therapy watching his nephew and pounding out hunter-related research for several of their other contacts while Joan's Job was to pick up a job at the diner down the street, making enough in tips and salary to cover rent, food and their meager utility bills. She was sure to be touching lives in quiet and great ways. This left Sam at loose ends, since he'd specifically promised his wife he wouldn't take on any hunts without his brother to back him up. On mornings that Joan didn't work, they would drive out of town where no one would hear gun shots and call the police and let Dean plink. He needed the therapy tailored to his history and he needed to know that if someone with ill-intent went after his family that his aim was just as good as always.
That left Sam kicked out of the house most days since Dean didn't want him 'hovering.' They didn't need money for medical bills since the Church had covered it all and the Winchesters weren't materialistic. It didn't make sense to buy a bunch of stuff that they would be leaving behind as soon as Dean was well enough. He picked up something short-term to fill up the hours, but that ended after only a couple of weeks and he was once again at loose ends. He helped out at the Carpenter household whenever they needed someone taller or stronger but the family mostly solved their own problems and Sam wasn't entirely comfortable in a home where everyone else knew their place.
Research wasn't really a good idea without the hunting option to resolve the issues, as he'd just end up being frustrated at his inaction. Dean wouldn't be happy with Sam horning in on his busy work. He went through the family hunting journals and then Bobby's and Ellen's, putting together a computer database of everything that they had encountered, but that took less than a week. Joan was the one to make the suggestion one morning, mentioning that it was a shame how close he was to having a degree, especially with three years logged in at an Ivy League school and a handful of online classes since. He'd dismissed the idea out of hand at first. Those dreams hadn't belonged to this Sam, after all, the Sam Winchester that was a husband and father and Hunter. Finishing up his degree seemed pointless now, with his life the way it was. It would get expensive and time-consuming to go any further as well, especially if he did decide to finish and try for the part of a lawyer.
He'd made up his mind to completely ignore Joan's suggestion when he ended up having a long discussion with Father Forthill when they met up to go over some things for the Order. Like any organization there was a fair amount of paperwork when doctors and medical bills were involved, and with Forthill as their go-between, the priest was often saddled with such things. It seemed only fair to help out, and as they worked they talked. And Sam learned that Father Forthill was also a lawyer, one who legally represented certain families as part of his responsibilities. The father was eager to have assistance in those situations and knew that the Order would help financially.
So he did a little research; how much needed to be finished and the timeframe needed. Joan was right; the undergraduate degree could be finished before Dean regained full use of his leg, the credits could be transferred and then Stanford would issue his diploma. The JD would take longer but some colleges were putting the initial courses on-line. He would never be able to boast of a justice degree from Stanford or Harvard, but the people he'd be representing (namely Hunters or civilians caught in supernatural crossfire) wouldn't care about his Alma Mater, and it wasn't like University of Chicago was a bad school by any stretch of the imagination.
With a character reference from Father Forthill and a scholarship from the Order, the University of Chicago was happy to help him finish his degree. Slipping back into the student mindset was both easy and complicated. Studying for a class now was actually much simpler than it had been before, and he could knock out a paper with the same speed that he'd had back in his college days, but the in-class discussions and mentions of parties made it hard to fit in with his classmates. Had he ever been this naïve? Being around the others in his classes made him feel old.
Time passed and Sam remembered family life in a series of snapshots. Sometimes, Sam would surface from an assignment and Billy's new words would be clear as a bell and Dean was walking with a crutch, then a cane, then just a bit unsteady and finally with his normal swagger. Joan was the only one that didn't change and it was that anchor that got him through the last semester.
For the finals, Sam turned off his phone and sat in the corner of the library until every question was answered and every problem solved. He was exhausted but satisfied with the results of all his studying. When he finally surfaced, it was to find out that his wife had been kidnapped at a book signing with the author of his favorite guilty pleasure novels, his son had been in the protectorship of a shady government agency and his brother had risked his leg and his life hunting them down with Dresden and Molly. ("Once I told Dresden that I wasn't his red shirt, I knew I'd be fine," Dean had blithely told a furious Sam.)
Sam was the only one with any energy to throw their meager belongings into the car and drive away before some agents tracked them down for 'follow up.' They all (even Billy) heaved a sigh of relief when they put Chicago in the rear view mirror. Michael called as they were an hour away; Molly had told them what had happened and the family sent them off with well wishes and prayers for blessings and safety. The Winchesters had a couple of easy ghost hunts lined up to ease them back into hunting, Sam's degree would be sent to Bobby's, along with his transcript. Life was finally getting back to normal.