Hey guys! So I think I'm back on track again. No more writer's block! Yay! Thanks again so much for all your reviews It definitely helps me out to see so positive feedback. I'm humbled. You guys are awesome! On with the story. ...Oh, yeah. Don't own Sam or Dean.

A loud thud resounded from inside room 9, followed immediately by a loud yell. "Deeeeeeean!"

The fraction of a second it took for Dean to jump to his feet and tear into the room felt like an eternity to the older Winchester. "Sam!" Sammy's in trouble. I'm coming Sam! Dean burst through the door, terrified at what he might find. The actual sight did little to comfort him.

Sam lay prone on the floor of the dingy motel room, his transfer board still teetering on the edge of the bed he'd been attempting to move onto. The wheelchair lay on its side, on top of Sam's right leg. The top wheel continued to spin as though controlled by an unseen force. The covers of the other bed were messed up, pulled halfway off from Sam reaching out and grabbing at them, trying to break his fall.

It took Laura only slightly longer to arrive in the doorway, and together, she and Dean crossed the floor to where Sam lay, panic on their faces. "Sam, what the hell were you thinking?" Dean cried, tossing the wheelchair to the side in a frantic attempt to un-bury his baby brother.

"I was trying to go to bed," Sam answered. "It didn't seem like you'd be coming in anytime soon, so–"

"So you thought you'd get me in here faster by throwing yourself on the floor?" Dean asked, his need to turn everything into a joke still dominating despite the tense qualityof his voice.

"I didn't want to bother you."

As Dean slid his arms under Sam's armpits and lifted the younger boy to the bed he began to scold him, but stopped short when he saw Laura. She was smiling. What the hell? This isn't funny. He could have been hurt. Dean faced Laura, a stern glare his expression, but once again stopped when he realized that not only was she smiling, she was laughing. Odder still, she wasn't laughing alone. Having released Sam to the safety of the bed, Dean was free to look at his brother's face. Sam was laughing too, a smile plastered playfully across his face. It was obvious that Laura didn't know why she was laughing. She was just following Sam's lead. But Sam knew full well the reason for his good mood as Dean eyed him with disdain.

"What on earth is so funny?" Dean demanded, leaning over Sam angrily, hands on hips. "Do you realize how scared I was whenwe came in here and found you on the floor? And you're laughing?"

It took Sam a few minutes longer to compose himself, tears oflaughter sliding down his face. But he finally breathed in a deep breath and settled the laughter. "You should have seen your face," Sam said,his body still quivering happily. "It was priceless."

"You fell, Sam. I still don't see the humor in this!"

"You idiot, I didn't call you in here because I fell. I called you in here because of what happened when I fell. Dean, the wheelchair landed on my foot...and I felt it! I could feel pain in my foot!"

"Pain?" Dean cried in disbelief, immediately dropping to his knees in front of the leg he'd pulled the chair off of and picking up Sam's foot in his hands. "You felt pain? You're sure? Can you feel anything now?"

Sam watched as Dean rotated the foot, pressing his thumbs deep into the soft flesh. His face fell. "Well, no. I can't feel that. But I did feel something. I felt it, Dean. I don't know why I can't feel anything now, but I'm certain I felt something. It wasn't my imagination." Sam's protests fell on deaf ears as Dean had already grabbed his cell phone and was frantically punching buttons. "Who are you calling?"

"Harry. He's got to have an explanation for all of this. Don't worry, Sam. This is a good sign. This has to be a good sign."

Twenty minutes later, Harry was crouched in front of Sam, his strong hands stretching and massaging Sam's feet and legs, trying to solicit another response out ofhis patient'snerves and muscles.

"Harry, what's going on with him?" Dean asked, nervously pacing the room. He hadn't been able to erase from his mind the look of Sam's crestfallen face when the pain he'd felt just seconds before refused to return to his numb foot. "Is it going to come back? He'll walk again, right? This is a good sign, right? You're gonna fix this. You've got to!" The intoned threat in Dean's voice didn't go unnoticed by Harry, and he stiffened his shoulders in response. The aging man liked the boys a lot, but he wasn't blind to the fact that the older brother could easily snap the man's neck like a toothpick if the situation presented itself. As long as they were on the same side, both working toward the same miracle, everything would be fine, but he wasn't sure he ever wanted to be the bearer of bad news.

Laura finally stepped forward, catching Dean as he made another pass by the door, and turning him toward her. "You're not helping," she insisted, whispering through clenched teeth so Sam wouldn't hear. "Your brother's nervous enough as it is without you going off half cocked, too. Let Harry check him out."

A gasp escaped Sam's throat as Harry finally hit the right spot. "There! That's it!" Sam cried happily. "I felt that."

A smile spread slowly across Harry's face as he dug his thumb deeper into the spot on Sam's ankle that was sensitive to the touch. "That's great, son. So great."

"Sam, did you see that?" Laura's eager voice broke in. She jumped forward, eyes holding steady on Sam's big toe. "Your toe moved. Did you see that?"

Dean stepped forward as well, his eyesgluedto the toe. "Do it again, Sam. Wiggle your toe."

Focusing all his energy and attention on the favored appendage, Sam attempted to move it again. Slowly, ever so slightly, the toe moved and everyone in the room breathed a collective sigh of relief. Harry stood, his old bones and muscles creaking with the beginnings of arthritis.

"Well, Sam..." he started, rubbing his chin between two fingers. "In my limited experience, I would say this is definitely a good sign. You're moving in a positive direction, and the fact that you have some movement tells me that something is definitely beginning to heal."

"Oh my God, Sammy, this is great!" Dean exclaimed, forgetting for a moment his promise not to call his brother by that name. Sam didn't seem to care this time, quite possibly never having noticed the slip of the tongue;he was too excited by the turn of events. It took every once of effort Dean had to resist the urge to pick Sam up and swing him around in celebration, but that would have been too near an undesired chick flick moment. He didn't want to lose his masculine edge, especially not in front of Laura. In an effort to calm himself, Dean turned anxiously to Harry. "So how long is this recovery going to take? Hours? Days?"

Harry tried to suppress the chuckle that overcame him when he realized the seriousness of Dean's question. Despite all the research he'd done in the last couple weeks, Dean still had no clue. Sam and Laura were also looking at him with soulful eyes, waiting greedily to hear his answer. A slightly more somber expression clouded the old man's face, realizing they wouldn't be exceptionally happy with the reply. "These things take time," he answered, choosing his words carefully. "Everyone's body works on a different schedule, so I honestly can't tell you when you'll see some dramatic improvement. There's no timescale for stuff like this. But you should expect the recovery to be weeks, maybe even months. And Sam," Harry looked directly at the boy, making sure he was focusing. "Sam, there's still a chance that you won't recover fully. I don't want you to ever give up, but you need to realize that it is a possibility."

Sam nodded his head, showing Harry that he had heard and understood, but Dean interjected. "With all due respect, Harry, you don't know my brother. You don't know the power of Winchester genes. We can overcome anything. He'll be just fine. He'll do this." The powerful conviction in his voice shed all doubt in everyone's minds. Sam would walk again.

Dean showed Harry to the door, thanking him profusely, and then turned to the two remaining people in the room. Sam and Laura sat eagerly, side by side, on the bed. The broad smile hadn't left Sam's face since his toe had wiggled voluntarily under his orders. As he turned, Dean's face lit up and his mouth widened into a smile that rivaled Sam's. Rubbing his palms together impishly Dean faced them. "Well guys, I think this calls for a celebration. Whaddya say, Sam. Think you might be up for a little bar crawl?"

Nothing was going to bring Sam down that night, and he'd accepted Dean's request without hesitation. The three of them now approached the bar with eager anticipation. The flashing neon sign above the door announcing 'JAKE'S BAR' screamed tacky. "Well there's originality for you," Dean scoffed. "How long do ya think it took him to come up with that name? Think he wrote a bunch of options on a piece of paper before he arrived at that decision." Dean feigned writing on a piece of paper, looking thoughtful. "Jake's Bar. The Bar of Jake. The Bar. Hmm, which one should I pick?"

Laura laughed, punching Dean playfully in the arm. "Give the guy a break, will you? This place actually isn't that bad. And they serve alcohol. Can't go wrong with that combination."

Cradling his wounded arm in mock pain, Dean shot Laura his sad puppy dog eyes. "Oww, that hurt."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Stop being such a wuss and open the door, jerk."

Dean let out a breath, chuckling as he grabbed the handles of the chair and pushed. "Alright, let's go, roller boy." Dean guided Sam's chair through the door Laura held open, popping a wheelie on the shallow step up into the bar. They stopped dead in their tracks as, once again, every eye in the place turned to stare.

"Here we go again," Sam murmured, dread beginning to sink in his stomach.

But the stares came from a different mentality this time, and they weren't directed just at Sam. For days, headlines on the town paper had screamed information about the two brave guys who had fought the campus attacker and ran him out of town. There weren't any pictures of Dean and Sam, but Laura's face had graced several issues, and the body of the articles told the story of Sam's injury. Despite the fact that most of the bars' patrons had already gone several rounds with a shot glass, they had still been admitted imto the university for a reason. Having put two and two together, albeit slower than if their brains had been fully coherent, every head turned to the entrance as their heroes entered. Eyes widened in awe, and a voice from the back of the bar yelled. "Holy shit, it's them!"

Dean and Sam eyed each other nervously, already overwhelmed by the attention and they'd barely made it three feet. The crowd converged on them, attacking the boys with question after question about the fight. What did he look like? How did it feel to shoot him? What happened when you were taken? Are you sure he's gone? Why do you think he picked you? How did you get out alive? The sea of people swarmed around the boys, as their heads swam, trying to process the jumbled words. As the far better liar of the two, Dean stepped up to answer the majority of the questions, puffing his chest dramatically to match his new hero complex. He was able to answer the questions with minimal difficulty, and largely omitted explanations, to the satisfaction of the group. When he finished, Dean made to step through the crowd. "If you fine people will excuse me, my good friend's Jack and Jose are beckoning me to the bar." The drinks sat waiting, already paid for, as Dean, Sam, and Laura approached the bar. Dean passed them around, nodding his thanks to their benefactors. Drinks in hand, the brother's drank greedily, pouring the burning feel of cheap liquor down their throats in one cursory gulp before chugging the beer almost as quickly. Laura sipped hers in a much more lady-like fashion, eyes twinkling as the brothers accepted the next drinks offered them. They didn't pay for a drink the entire night.

At one point, an hour or so into the evening, Dean turned around frantically, having realized Sam was no longer there, matching him drink for drink. He had disappeared. But a smile soon played across Dean's lips when he realized where Sam had disappeared to. In a corner, on the other side of the room, Sam was being tended to by three very curious, extremely flirtatious undergrad girls. The look of bewilderment, with a hint of horror, was undeniable, and Dean considered rescuing his little brother for all of a second before erasing the thought from his mind. In the best of health Sam had never been the ladies man that Dean was. Let the kid squirm. This should be good for him.

The girls had pounced on Sam, moving as stealthily as a cat hunting its prey. He hadn't even realized what was happening until he'd found himself following them obediently to the corner table. One of the girls, a leggy blonde named Junie, had taken a particular interest in him and wasted no time before she climbed into his lap, draping her long, slender legs side saddle over his and wrapping her arms around his neck. "So what's it like?" she cooed, stroking his cheek with the back of her hand. "Not being able to feel your legs, I mean."

Sam shrugged, self-conscious. "It's like hauling around fifty pounds of dead weight everywhere I go."

"So you can't feel me sitting on your lap?" The other girls leaned in further, curiosity piqued. They looked at him like they would a cuddly little puppy, awing and sighing and hanging on to every word he said. They were practically tripping over themselves to learn more about him.

"Not so much. You might as well be sitting in that chair over there for all I can feel you." Sam nudged his head in the direction of an empty chair to their right, and was quick to add, "But there's hope. I got some feeling back in my foot earlier today. That's actually why we're here tonight. To, uh...celebrate."

"Oooh, a celebration," Junie chirped, running her hands through Sam's hair, massaging his scalp tenderly. "I'm all about celebrating."

Sam nodded, unsure what he was supposed to be doing or saying. Girls didn't usually come on so strong to him. He usually preferred girls who were a little more timid; girls who were more concerned with books than looks.

Junie leaned over, whispering in Sam's ear, "So, Sam, tell me...since you still don't have much feeling can you still, you know..." she giggled seductively, gesturing her hand over Sam's lap.

Sam flushed, his voice catching in his throat as he realized her question. This girl doesn't beat around the bush. "I...uh...I can't, I mean I don't...I mean, well, I've never tried. It's only been a couple of weeks, so..."

"So I guess we better get to experimenting while we still can, don't ya think?"

Sam's eyes widened. Was he hearing this correctly? Was she really saying what he thought she was saying? Not even a day had passed since Sam's awkward and self-conscious experience at the restaurant, and now there was a girl sitting on his lap, practically begging him to sleep with her. Against his better judgement and every cell in his head screaming for him not too, Sam's ego needed stroking and he nodded, accepting her offer. "I've just got to tell my brother we're going back to the hotel," he replied, shoving the wheelchair back towards the bar with Junie still sitting on his lap.

"We'll go too," Dean answered when he'd heard Sam's announcement. "Laura and I will just take ourselves a little walk like she wanted earlier." There was no way he was letting Sam leave with that girl alone, and the relief reflected in Sam's eyes reassured Dean that he'd made the right choice. Sam might need back up, and he'd be there.

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Dean sighed happily as he rolled over in bed, draping his arm loosely around a sleeping Laura. He had no idea how much action Sam had gotten, but when he and Laura let themselves into the room a couple hours after Sam had gone in he was happy to see theblonde still there, sleeping peacefully in Sam's arms as a hint of a smile showed on Sam's sleeping face. Didn't do too bad for yourself there, little brother. Good for you, Sammy. Good for you. This was the greatest day they'd had in so long. Too long. Nothing could ruin it. Nothing, that is, except the sound of Dean's phone vibrating incessantly on the bedstand, indicating the arrival of a text message.