A/N: Yeah, I'm a loser. Another Supernatural story. This one just wouldn't let me go.
Thanks again to Monica for beta-ing.
Waking up is like fighting an upstream current.
There's an unimaginable force working against him, smothering him, and he is helpless to do anything about it. Struggling brings nothing but further entrapment, sinking him deeper into whatever mental quagmire he's fallen in to. He thinks that he should be better than this; he is a hunter, a trained warrior with more than enough ability to fight a little unconsciousness. He should be able to beat this.
But with this thought, he sinks only deeper; whatever is holding him down becomes stronger, or maybe it stays the same and he becomes weaker. He's not sure which one it is, but he feels like it matters nonetheless.
Just when he begins to think that it's too much, that he's going to sink back down below to wherever it was he came from, the darkness begins to recede. The pressure dissipates, and he feels like he can breath again.
Slowly, in fragmented pieces, he begins to become aware. A bright light in his eyes, murmured voices in the background, dull, aching pain in his limbs. It comes to him like through a fog, as though he's dreaming and trying to remember details past his awareness.
There's a cool pressure on his forehead, and warm breath against his ear. He tries to open his eyes, to get a glimpse at whoever this person is, but his eyelids seem unwilling or unable to obey the simple command.
"You're safe, Dean. I'm here with you."
The voice is achingly familiar, but it feels out of context. Something's not right, and it's that thought more than anything that pushes him past the point of no return. He forces his eyes open, but they close automatically with the bright light; he feels some reflexive tears break loose and run down his temple. He thinks he groans, but he still feels a small amount of disconnection between his body and his mind; he can't be sure.
There's pressure on his arm, a hand, cool fingers wrapping around his wrist. He anchors himself to that feeling, clings to it, and opens his eyes again. Shadowy figures loom above him, and he blinks again.
Blurry shapes shift into focus, and suddenly it's his father staring down at him, with a strange emotion (concern, maybe? Or worry?) in his face. Dean opens his mouth to exclaim his surprise, but all that comes out is a long, meaningless croak.
"Take it easy, son," his father says, laying a hand on Dean's cheek, and another on his chest. "You're safe; they're taking good care of you."
Enough of his senses return that he begins to become aware of his surroundings. He's lying in a single hospital bed, reclined slightly with a fluffy pillow beneath his head. There's a blinking monitor next to the bed, one that Dean thinks he's hooked up to, if the synchronicity between his heart pounding in his temples and the machine's beeping is anything to go by.
He tries really hard, puts more energy into this one thing than he's ever put into anything, but he can't remember what happened, what went wrong that put him in this hospital bed and finally got his father to come back to him. And that scares him.
"Sam?" It still sounds like he went twenty rounds with a case of strepp throat and lost, but he's clear and focused enough that his father understands regardless.
"Sam's fine, son," he says, his hand coming up to stroke the back of Dean's hair. "He's stuck on a job, but he's going to get here as soon as he can."
Ah. And just like that, his confusion and disorientation lift, and understanding settles in. He was hurt on a job, on a hunt, and had to leave Sam to mop it up. That explains why his father's here, if Dean was hurt badly enough, surely John Winchester would come out of his self-imposed exile to get to the hospital. But it doesn't explain why his hand is still cupping Dean's cheek like he might snap beneath it. The last time his father touched him like this…well, Dean doesn't think he ever touched him like this.
He hears footsteps nearing them from behind his father, and his body sub-consciously tenses into battle readiness. His father turns away with a smile, but his hand never leaves his son.
"Look whose come back to us," he says softly, to their unseen visitor.
There's a soft exclamation of pleasure, then the footsteps come even closer, and Dean finds himself wondering why his father sounds so…different. There's no weight to his voice, like he's suddenly become the carefree and easy man Dean only remembers in his dreams. The kind of man he hasn't been in twenty-two years.
"Oh, Dean, honey." He barely has time to consider the familiarity of that voice before a face appears on his left. And…all thought processes shrivel up as he literally feels his heart stop in his chest. But it can't be possible. He saw her die. Twice. Twice she sacrificed herself for a son who is not Dean, and twice she burned up and disappeared. But here she is. Smiling at him, stroking the side of his face with the knuckles of her hand, and are those tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes?
"Mom?" He doesn't have the presence of mind to be embarrassed at the pleading quality in his tone. He reaches up with one hand, the one not connected to the IV drip on the other side of the bed, and touches her shoulder experimentally. The lump that has been swelling bursts in the back of his throat when his fingers encounter warm flesh covered in the cotton of her t-shirt. "Mommy." The word slips out as tears begin to streak down his face, but he doesn't care. He lurches up to a sitting position, pain in his right side be damned, and throws his arms around her.
"Dean, sweetie, it's all right. I'm here."
He buries his face in the nape of her neck, breathing in deep the scent of her, the mixture of jasmine and lavender he thought he'd never know again. She strokes the back of his head with one hand; the other is rubbing soothing, concentric circles on his back. She feels so warm, so solid in his arms that it almost seems too good to be true. He wonders if this is all a horrible dream, his sub-conscious playing a joke on him. But he finds that he doesn't care. If he wakes up to a dirty hotel room, with Sam's concerned face hovering above him, at least he will the have the memory of this to carry with him.
"Should I get the doctor?" His father sounds concerned with Dean's reaction, like his mother hasn't been dead for the past twenty-two years, and he's known all along.
"Sweetheart, you have to lie back down. Don't worry; I'm not going anywhere."
He allows her to lay him back against the stack of pillows, but he doesn't let go of her hand and she seems content to let him hang on like she's his lifeline.
"You pulled out your IV, son," his father says, picking up Dean's other hand and ghosting his fingers over the blood slowly dripping down the back of Dean's wrist. He grabs the corner of the hospital blanket and presses it against the tear in the skin.
"How do you feel?"
Mary Winchester is sitting on the edge of Dean's bed, his hand held comfortably between her own. She looks so concerned, and so fucking real, that for a long few minutes, all Dean can do is stare and feel his heart swell with each breathe. It doesn't seem to be more than a second for him, but his silence stretches on long enough that he notices his parents exchange worried glances over his head.
He clears his throat, rubs the remainder of his tears on the shoulder of his hospital gown. "Uh, I'm fine. I just…didn't expect to see you."
"Honey, you're hurt. You're in the hospital. Of course you would see me." She leans forward and presses a gentle kiss against the skin of Dean's forehead. "Nothing could keep me away."
Dean closes his eyes against the swell of feelings that rises up, and a few more tears squeeze past his eyelids. He feels his mother carefully wipe them away with her thumb. When he opens his eyes again, his father is leaning on the other side of the bed, one hand still pressing the blanket against the back of Dean's hand. His parents are wearing matching expressions of concern.
This isn't right; Dean has no disillusions about that. His mother is dead, his father is missing and has no interest in being found. Whatever's happening, it isn't right, and though he's learned that generally speaking, nothing good can come of that, he can't sum up the interest to care. He gives his mother's hand another experimental squeeze.
"I'm fine," he says again, putting extra emphasis on 'fine.' "I'm just…my head kind of hurts."
His father is reaching over his head for the call button before Dean's even done speaking. "The doctor said to expect that; you got nailed pretty hard."
Dean frowns. "What exactly happened? I can't remember."
Again, a look is exchanged above his head. His mother mimics his frown, and begins rubbing his forearm with her free hand. "You were driving home from work, sweetie. Somebody ran a red light, and you were hit."
Well, that certainly is…mundane. He can't help but feel the sting of disappointment. He hasn't been admitted to the hospital in a number of years, something that given his profession, he considers to be quite a record. The idea that something as simple and commonplace as a car accident brought him down is a little embarrassing. And if he weren't on a hunt when he got hurt, that would mean…
"So…Sam?"
His father quirks an eyebrow at him. "I told you, son. He's been held up on a case. He'll get here as soon as he can."
Dean frowns thoughtfully. A case, then. Not a hunt. Interesting, yet obvious choice of words. He wonders if it means wherever he is, this Sam finally has the normal life he's been craving since he learned that killing ghosts and goblins isn't exactly status quo.
"Honey, are you okay?" His mother is looking at him with such earnestness and love he feels like confessing all his sins to her, everything that he's done that he knew she would never approve of since she died. Except…the fact that she's here, sitting on the bed in front of him and holding his hand, is beginning to make him doubt everything he thought he knew to be real.
"I just…Things are a little weird." He doesn't elaborate, doesn't tell his mother that he remembers her dying; he remembers the hot blast of heat on his face as she burned up on the ceiling in his brother's nursery.
She opens her mouth to question that, but the door behind her opens, and before she gets a chance a middle-aged man in a white lab coat comes striding in.
"Ah, I see you're awake." He pulls a clipboard out from under his arm, and studies it for a few seconds. "That's wonderful. How are you feeling?"
Dean glances quickly at his parents before saying, "uh, okay, I guess."
And even the doctor, who has never spent a waking moment with the man, knows that that answer isn't right. He raises an eyebrow incredulously.
"You 'guess?' And that would be my clue you're not telling me everything, right?"
He pulls a penlight out of the front chest pocket of his lab coat, and shines it carefully into Dean's eyes. Whatever he sees seems to please him, because he nods to himself, scribbles something on the clipboard, and sets it down on the bed. He fixes Dean with an intimidating stare.
"I can't possibly hope to help you if you don't tell me everything." He reaches over Dean's head, carefully checking the hanging IV. "So, should we try this again?"
Dean rolls his eyes. The hand not wrapped up in his mother's tightens on the bed sheets. He's never liked being patronized, and that's exactly what he feels like now. But his mother squeezes his hand again, rubs his upper arm gently, and the urge to bite back sarcastically fades. Instead, he sighs.
"Things are…uh…different than I remember them."
The doctor raises an eyebrow again. Dean's aware of his parents' confusion and worry on either side of him. "Different how?"
Sub-consciously, he glances at his mother. He doesn't want to get into this, not with her standing right next to him. Regardless of whether or not this is really happening, it feels real enough, and he doesn't want to hurt her feelings. And he's quite sure being told her son remembered her dying would do that.
Apparently more perceptive than Dean would give him credit for, the doctor nods slightly. He turns to Dean's father.
"Ah, Mr. Winchester, if you and your wife don't mind, I'd like to have a private word with your son. Perhaps you'd like a cup of coffee? We've got a pot going at the nurses station."
Dean reluctantly releases his hold on his mother, and watches with growing disquiet as they slip out of the room. There's a part of him that is certain whatever is happening to him is not real, but still worries that his parents will not come back through that door. It's an irrational fear, given that he knows he doesn't belong here, but then his mom disappears through that doorway, and none of that matters. He doesn't care that she died twenty-two years ago, leaving behind a shattered family that will never truly get over losing her. He doesn't even care that his brother, his real brother, the one who was raised to be a warrior, and lost his girlfriend to the same thing that stole his mother, is probably waiting for him somewhere, worried to death. He just wants his mom back.
"So. You want to tell me what's going on?"
Dean turns watery eyes back to the doctor, who is acting entirely too friendly and comfortable for Dean's taste. He blinks away the wetness from his eyes, and frowns.
"Uh, things are different."
The doctor, whose name Dean still doesn't know, nods a little too emphatically. "Yes, we've covered this already. But you haven't told me how yet. And until you do-"
"She died." His eyes are wide, his pulse is too quick, and he leans forward on the bed, desperate to get this across to the doctor. He doesn't know why he's telling this man, because if everything is as he suspects, it won't matter what the doctor does. If none of this is real, than it's reasonable to assume it won't have any affect on his actual life. But regardless, he finds the details of his life pouring from his lips, like a dam inside himself burst. "I remember her dying. When I was a kid. There was this…this fire, and she was killed. I can remember it all, how the heat felt on my face. The hallway filled up with smoke, and I thought I was going to choke on it, but then my dad shoved Sammy in my arms, and told me to run, and I did. One of the neighbours called the fire department, but it was too late. My dad came running out of the house, scooped us up, but my mom never came out."
He freezes for a few moments, lost in memories of that night, the worst of his life to date, until he breaks out with a shake of his head. He turns nervous eyes to the doctor. "How can that be right? How can I remember her dying when she's standing right there?"
The doctor is studying him with a gentle frown, and it's not until he lifts his hand from Dean's arm that Dean realizes he was gripping his wrist tightly. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. You did suffer from a fairly severe concussion, and while we didn't see any evidence of damage on the MRI, it's possible your memory was affected. The mind is capable of great things; perhaps your sub-conscious rejected the amnesia and constructed a new set of memories to deal with it."
"Is that even possible?" Dean is about as far away from a neurosurgeon, or head specialist that a living person can be, but what the doctor is describing seems a little far-fetched, even for him.
Much to his dismay, the doctor shrugs. "I've never heard of it before, but at the risk of sounding a little clichéd, there's a first time for anything. The only thing that bothers me is that generally speaking, when a person suffers a cranial injury and amnesia is the result, anterograde amnesia is the one we most often see. That's when a person remembers everything up to the accident, but the damage results in them not being able to form any more long term memories."
"But that's not what's wrong with me."
"No, the kind you seem to be experiencing is retrograde amnesia, the inability to recall details or experiences made before the accident. The fact that you appear to have formed a new set of memories is something that doesn't happen every day, if it ever has." He lays a warm hand on Dean's shoulder, and casts him a reassuring smile. "Let me run some tests, talk to some colleagues. We'll get this straightened out."
Dean nods slowly, but he doubts anything conclusive will come from the tests.
"Do you want me to have a word with your parents?"
Again Dean nods. Explaining the situation to his mom and dad will only create questions that he does not want to answer. The doctor gives his a shoulder a squeeze, then grabs his clipboard off the bed and leaves the room, closing the door softly behind him.
Dean is left alone, and the room is far too quiet.