"Where the hell is this thing?" Sam mumbled, annoyed. "We've been here two hours and no sign of it."
"The EMF meter says something's here," Dean insisted. "And the people we talked to in town described classic poltergeist activity centered around this house."
"Yeah, well, maybe the meter's wrong. I mean, how accurate can a homemade EMF meter be, anyway?"
"Hey! I happen to be quite skilled with electronics." Dean protested indignantly.
"Oh," Sam scoffed, looking incredulous. "Have you forgotten that remote control car you 'fixed' for me when I was ten?"
"Hey, that thing was screwed to begin with." He paused, looking thoughtful. "Who knew plastic could burn that hot and that quickly."
"Yeah," Sam agreed, smiling. "Let's hope the safety standard of toys has improved since the 1990's."
"At any rate, the meter's fine. It hasn't led us wrong yet."
"Dean, that thing once told you that my cheeseburger was possessed."
"Could've been mad cow disease." Dean insisted.
"So that's why you bitch-slapped it out of my hands? To save me from brain-eating bacteria?"
"More or less."
"You've got to be ki-"
The sharp whine of the EMF meter interrupted Sam, and both brothers immediately snapped to attention.
"Dean," Sam said softly, and he turned to look in Sam's direction. A crackling snarl of blue energy snapped and flared in the shadows at the top of the stairs. Dean moved swiftly up the steps, Sam in step behind him. Both trained their guns on the spirit, ready to fire if it advanced.
The stairs creaked loudly under their feet – the house, once luxurious and finely constructed, was now old and run down. The staircase was wide and gently curving, leading to a wide, open balcony that overlooked the foyer. The spirit hovered on the far side..
As Dean stepped onto the landing a sudden surge of energy from the poltergeist hurled the remains of a lamp at the brothers. Dean rolled forward, bringing up his gun even as he rolled. Sam dove low, sliding a few feet on his belly in the opposite direction. His shotgun skittered out of his hand and came to rest against the balcony railing.
"Sam, stay down!" Dean shouted, and fired two rock salt rounds into the mass of energy. An ear-splitting wail filled the house and the random, snarled threads of light rearranged themselves into the image of a face, screaming in rage.
"Sam, try the holy water rounds!" Dean yelled, fumbling to reload. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam scrambling after his gun. The wail turned into a roar and Dean was struck by a sudden, painful force from behind. A heavy weight pinned him to the floor and he wheezed as dust puffed up around his face.
"Dean!" he heard Sam yell. He pushed up mightily with his arms, levering himself up until the massive object on his back shifted off of him. It was an old wooden desk, oak, he observed detachedly. His head swam and the room spun as he tried to scramble to his feet. He collapsed back to his knees, blinking to bring his brother into focus.
Sam was raising the shotgun to fire, looking grim and determined. He was focused on the spirit, so Dean saw the end table hurtling toward his little brother a moment before Sam did.
Dean opened his mouth to yell, to warn him, but he hadn't even drawn the breath to scream when his vision blackened at the edges and he began to tilt forward. The last thing he saw was the table hitting Sam, his brother's body breaking through the neglected banister. Sam's terrified eyes locked onto his for a moment, before he fell away from sight and Dean fell away from the world.
Dean blinke. Time seemed to blur, and then he was kneeling next to his brother's still body, waiting for the ambulance. His hands were pressed gently to Sam's skull, trying to staunch the flow of blood. An unbearable amount had already pooled under Sam's head and his lips looked pale and blue-tinged.
"Sammy…" he choked out, his fingers trembling in Sam's blood-tacky hair. Sam remained unmoving. Dean gently lifted his eyelids with his thumbs, immediately wishing he hadn't as he saw his brother's blank, fixed stare.
"Oh, god, Sam…" he brushed his thumbs over Sam's cheeks, leaving damp red smears.
"It's okay, Dean." A small, soft voice said behind him. Dean whirled, and the room around him blurred into a familiar looking hotel room. A ten year-old Sam perched on the edge of one of the beds, swinging his legs back and forth and smiling.
"Sammy?"
"Are you gonna play?" Little Sam asked, hopping off the bed and tilting his little round face up at Dean. "Come on!"
Sam dashed out the open hotel room door into the night, shouted over his shoulder.
"Let's play hide and seek!"
"Sam, wait!" Dean cried, running after him. But as soon as he crossed the threshold of the room an unending darkness engulfed him and he stumbled, unsure of his direction.
"Find me, Dean! Come find me!" Sammy's laughing voice rang clearly through the blackness.
"Sam!" Dean begged, "Where are you?"
Dean shot upright in the chair, his desperate cry still echoing in the empty waiting room. He was drenched in sweat, shaking and panting as though he'd been running. He dropped his head into his hands and took an unsteady breath, grateful that no one else was in the room..
He'd dreamt about the accident every night, always with some strange twist or vision of Sam as a child. It felt strangely symmetrical, that Sam relived his day over and over again, and Dean relived that night. They played out the before and after, each stuck on their respective side of the impossible divide caused by Sam's injury.
Sighing in exhaustion, he glanced at the clock. Sam had been in surgery for four hours, now, and no word from the doctor. Dean couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not. Trying to blink the sleep from his eyes, he retrieved the open medical journal that had fallen from his lap and found his place, determined to finish the article.
His brain ached with trying to interpret the thick medical jargon, but if there was even a remote chance that something in it could help Sam, he'd translate it from Klingon.
"Mr. Winchester?"
Dean stood quickly, the journal forgotten as Dr. Mitchell entered.
"How is he? Is he still-"
"He's alive." The doctor reassured. "He came through the surgery without any complications, and we were able to regulate the pressure in his skull. I'm hopeful that we were able to reverse it in time to prevent any more permanent damage to Sam's brain."
Dean sagged in relief, feeling momentarily faint.
"Can I see him?"
"He's still sedated, but you can sit with him for a few minutes if you like."
Dean nodded numbly and followed Dr. Mitchell down the hall to the post-op recovery room.
Sam was laying on his side, his head swathed in bandages and a capped line of tubing running from the thick gauze at the back of his skull. Dean approached him slowly. The memory of his brother sprawled out and bleeding was still fresh, superimposed over Sam's form in the bed.
"Is there any chance that relieving the pressure could have fixed the amnesia?" Dean asked, his hand hovering just over Sam's head, afraid to touch.
"I'm sorry," Dr. Mitchell said sympathetically. "But I very much doubt that's the case. This was almost certainly a complication brought on by that injury, but unfortunately fixing the complication doesn't repair the root cause."
"Is there even a slight chance?" Dean persisted.
"There's always uncertainty when dealing with the brain, Mr. Winchester. We can never say for sure that we know what it will do. But you need to understand, the chances of Sam making a full recovery are astronomically low."
"You don't know him." Dean said softly, settling on resting his hand on Sam's shoulder. "You don't know him at all."
Dr. Mitchell patted him on the back wordlessly and made a discrete exit, murmuring instructions to the nurses.
"I'm gonna find you, Sam." He whispered. "You always did suck at hide and seek."
A/N: Okay, I just stayed up til 3 am writing this chapter, so I really hope people enjoy it. My ass is gonna be draggin' tomorrow at work for sure… :)
