Sanctuary

by Cheryl W

When Dean’s near misses with death start adding up, Sam is brutally reminded that there is no such thing as just having a bad day when you are a Winchester. No Slash.

6. Chapter 6: Doing the Right Thing

Sanctuary

By: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, Dean or Sam, nor am I making any profit from this story.

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Chapter 6: Doing the Right Thing

"Sam!" Dean cried, twisting his head around to see Sam laying on him, unmoving, the tree limb pinning his legs. Pulling his left arm from under his own body, Dean gently shook Sam by the shoulder. "Sam, Sammy, come on!" his desperation leaping higher and higher at his brother's lack of response.

With slow measured moves, Dean extracted himself from under Sam, more worried than ever when his brother didn't stir, didn't make a sound. Kneeling at Sam's head, Dean put his hand on Sam's right cheek, "Sam, open your eyes, man," he pleaded. When Sam remained unresponsive to his plea, Dean surged to his feet, determined to remove the tree from his brother. He kept telling himself that Sam would be Ok when he moved the tree, if he gave Sam a few more minutes to gather his strength, he would be fine, everything would be alright.

The trunk sized tree limb was angled against the bottom of the tree trunk and slanting across Sam's upper legs, causing the limb's leaf covered smaller branches to pool on the ground at Sam's right. Slipping to Sam's left side, positioning himself between the tree and Sam, Dean struggled to lift the tree from Sam. Groaning in exertion and frustration, Dean found his strength was useless against the weight of the sixty year old tree limb. Changing positions, he bent down and placed his shoulder under the limb, his muscles strained but the tree didn't move an inch. "Ahhhh!" he roared in panic and aggravation, this couldn't be happening, not to Sam. This is supposed to happen to me! Not him!

Sam groaned, galvanizing Dean to instantly crouch beside his brother's head. "Sammy," he urged gently, his hand again on Sam's cheek, watching as his brother's dark lashes fluttered.

Emerging from the murky depths of unconsciousness, Sam struggled to open his eyes. Accomplishing that feat, it was the effort to bring his sight into focus that next claimed his attention. "Dean?" he wheezed as his brother's pale, worried features crystallized. The seconds before his unplanned nap returned to him sharply. "Dean, are you alright!" he asked, apprehension bleeding from his voice and his eyes.

"You're pinned under the tree but I'll get you free, Sam," Dean vowed, his brother's question unanswered as he made to climb to his feet and force the tree free from his brother no matter what it took. He was surprised when Sam's hand shot out, capturing his wrist.

With his hold on Dean ensuring his brother wouldn't move, Sam risked a glance over his shoulder to assess his own condition. Now, having the chance to make out the size of the limb, he felt himself trembling, recalling how he saw it falling, aiming straight for Dean. His reactions had been instinctive, and had nothing to do with being a man used to danger, and everything to do with being a brother. Settling his eyes back on Dean, he couldn't help assess his brother for injuries since Dean had chosen to not answer his question.

The relief in his brother's eyes confused Dean. He was about to fly apart and Sam looked like he had just gotten some of the best news he'd ever heard. Fearing that shock had begun to set in, Dean soothed, "You're going to be alright, Sam. How much pain are you in?"
His brother's question forced Sam to evaluate his condition. "There's not pain so much as pressure on my legs."

"I'll get you…" Dean began but another voice cut him off.

"I saw what happened…" a man announced as he run up to the brothers, his breath wheezing at his obvious run. Three other men were coming behind him. Dean remembered walking past these guys as they threw football in the park.

A woman's voice coming from near Sam's feet had Dean realizing that they had attracted a crowd. "I'll call an ambulance," the brunette middle aged woman announced, nestled in among the other six people fanned out at her side.

"Wait!" Sam exclaimed, feeling like everything was happening too fast, too out of his control. Shooting his brother a look, he was surprised to see Dean accepting if not relieved by the notion of an ambulance being sent for his brother. For a fleeting second, Sam wondered if it was his brother's payback for forcing him to let the medic do his examination. The ashen look of his brother's features, the dark worry in his eyes made Sam blush in shame. Gut wrenching fear drove Dean's actions, he was a fool to think otherwise.

Latching onto Dean's wrist again, Sam implored, "Don't call an ambulance, not yet. Just get me free of the limb first," his eyes looking pleadingly to Dean.

But it wasn't Dean who replied but the first man on the scene as he crouched down beside Dean. "I'm a doctor, I can check him out before we call the ambulance," he offered. Nodding toward the tree limb, he reassured, "Relax, we'll have the limb off you in a minute."

Putting action to words, the other men that gathered around Sam each took up a position around the tree limb. Dean and the doctor moved to be in front of Sam, their hands slipping under Sam's arms, poised to pull Sam free at the first instant they could.

"On three," Dean ordered, his eyes settling on Sam's too trusting gaze that didn't leave him. "One, two, three.." With straining muscles, the group freed Sam of the tree limb. Instantly Dean and the doctor pulled Sam forward, not stopping until he was totally clear of the tree.

Dean didn't even see the other men reposition the limb back unto the ground, didn't register that the doctor was already examining Sam's legs, all that Dean could do was choke out, "Sam? Are you alright?"

Sam opened his mouth to reply but it was the doctor who answered, "Nothing feels broken." He turned his look to Sam, "Are you in a lot of pain, lose any sensation to your legs, any tingling?"

"No," Sam stammered, breaking Dean's eye contact to look over his shoulder to the doctor. "Feels bruised that's all, I think the brunt of the impact was on the tree trunk. I just got pinned under it." Turning his look to Dean, he firmly reassured, "I'm fine."

Dean was wearing that shuttered look and Sam wasn't prepared when Dean quickly stood up. "Dean?" he called in question before the doctor invaded the space Dean had vacated.

"You seem fine. There will be some bruising though. Should an ambulance be called?" the doctor asked, his eyes on Sam but Sam's eyes remained fixed on his brother, just as another man stepped up behind the doctor.

Panic gripped Sam as the crowd gathered around him, shutting out the sight of Dean. "No ambulance," he refuted, wanting to yell out his brother's name, the fear in his gut ensuring that the call would come out broken. Swallowing he managed to order, "Help me up," and he began to move his legs to begin that process. The doctor's hand on his back halted his progress. "Whoa, let's take it nice and slow. You have been through an ordeal."

'An ordeal'? Sam wanted to scream. Watching Dean hurt and almost killed so many times today that I've lost count, and you say I've been through an ordeal! You have no freakin' idea what an "ordeal' is pal!' Knocking off the restraining hand, Sam rolled over and achieved a sitting position. Upright now, he was certain his eyes would land on Dean. Peering through the strangers gathered around him, he didn't catch sight of his brother's piercing green gaze, didn't find the mud encrusted boots and worn jeans Dean was wearing among the legs circling him. "Dean?" he called out, a revelation coming to him, making him ignore the instinct to appear calm, collected, unruffled by his accident in front of these strangers.

When no reply came back, Sam scrambled to his feet, shoving away the helping hands, ignoring the protest of his legs. Pushing through the crowd, his eyes frantically sought out the familiar sight of his brother, a sight he couldn't find. Not here surrounding him, not across the expansion of the park, not crossing among the trees on the outskirts of the park. "Dean!" he yelled, stalking forward, his eyes swinging around, desperate to see his brother standing calmly somewhere, to catch a glimpse of his brother's smirk and "gotcha Sammy" gleam in his eyes. "Dean," Sam's voice cracked as his worst fear was confirmed. Dean was gone.

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Climbing from the taxi, his heart in his throat, Sam felt tears prick his eyes. The Impala wasn't in the motel's parking lot, was no where to be found, just like his brother. Numbly crossing the lot, Sam came to stand in the space the Impala had occupied, looking like an abandoned, lost child. Cursing, Sam sank down on the parking space's cement marker and bowed his head.

'I should have seen this coming! Should never have let go of his wrist!' desperately wanting Dean to be there so that he could land a punch, could rail at him about his asinine protective tactics! 'I'm not the one in danger, the one that needs to be protected, you are, stupid! You are!'

'Think Sam, keep it together,' Sam coached himself, took in a deep breath and raised his head. Calling Dean was out: the remnants of Dean's phone still littered their motel room carpet. Tracking Dean was like trying to catch the wind in his hands. Putting an APB out for the Impala was asking for his brother to end up in a State Penitentiary for the rest of his life, (somehow the murder rap would stick, regardless of the fact that the murdering Dean Winchester had supposedly died in St. Louis.)

"He'll be back," he reassured himself out loud, "Dean will come back," his eyes on the street as if the Impala would pull in right then to prove his point. But no black car streaked into the parking lot, Sam's cell phone didn't ring and Sam felt the terrible weight of being without his brother settle in his soul. "Dean, come back," he pleaded, his soft words stolen away by the wind.

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'You're doing the right thing, the best thing. This is the only way to keep Sam safe,' Dean assured himself, valiantly trying to lock away the sickness that gathered in his stomach at his betrayal and abandonment of his brother. 'Do you want Sam to die for you! Cause that was what was going to happen today if you didn't leave him behind!' He yanked the Impala's wheel harder to the left than he meant, causing the tires to squeal as he ended up onto another street, his direction unmapped, unimportant.

But the memory of Sam there on the ground, clutching onto his wrist, would not go away. Nor would the way that Sam had pleadingly said his name as he had gained his feet at his brother's side, distancing himself for his escape. It didn't require the gift of perception to sense how urgently Sam wanted him to stay with him. 'He's in danger when he's with me. He can make it on his own. Leaving him behind was necessary.'

Going around a delivery truck parked in his lane, Dean felt his rationale turn around and bite him. 'Is this the way Dad felt? Is this why he left me behind? To save me?' It was a bitter pill to swallow; your heart being ripped out so that you could draw another breath of life, would keep drawing those breaths, even when you no longer wanted to. Dean cursed. Sam would not forgive him for this, not anytime soon. Not if he felt like Dean did about his own father's act of protective abandonment. This type of protection wounded even as it saved, spurred hatred despite the fact that it was done out of love, decimated what it strove to safeguard. And was the only thing Dean felt he had done right all day. Sometimes it sucked out loud to be Dean Winchester.

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For two years he had lived without Dean, without a call, without a postcard, without the pleasure of seeing that cocky smile grace his brother's face. It hadn't been easy, some days it had been the sharpest pain he had ever endured but he had done it. Now Sam couldn't contemplate how. Sure there had been Jess, his college curriculum, his other friends but none of that filled the hole that Dean had left. A hole he had agonizingly been reacquainted with these past two hours. Two hours without Dean at his side.

Having abandoned his dejected post in the parking lot, Sam had found their motel room stuffy and quiet and so lonely, entirely too lonely. His vision had blurred as it rested on their father's journal, feeling as if it was virtually Dean's last will and testament. "No!" he denied fiercely, throwing the bedside lamp across the room to shatter on the wall, feeling as if it were him shattering along with the ceramic. How had it come to this! Choosing separation instead of staying together? His father and now Dean had left him…just as he had left them four years ago. For the first time, he understood fully what his departure had done to his family, what it had cost his own soul.

Running his hands through his hair, Sam bowed his head, closing his eyes against the empty room. This reminded him too sharply of when Dean had had his heart attack. When Sam had come back to the motel, had sat there, alone, searching for a way to save Dean, despair clawing at his soul, and the very walls whispering that his brother was going to leave him forever. His head snapping up, Sam passionately vowed, "No!", stalking for the door, ready to tear the city apart to find Dean.

Once before he had found a way to save Dean, against all odds. He would simply do it again, today. And then again tomorrow and next week and next year, would do it for as long as he lived, as often as he had to. Dean was not going to die, he wouldn't let him. He was going to find his brother and no curse, no diverging futures, no honorable heroics of protection was ever going to separate them again. Sam swore that even his hope to return to college, to pick up his charade of normalcy would not tear them apart, not in their hearts, not where it counted. Phone calls would be exchanged, postcards would be mailed, visits would be a common occurrence. He would never again take Dean for granted. "We're a family, you jerk. We're sticking together from here on out," Sam groused, pressing his worry down with his resolve as he took to the streets in search of his brother.

That had been an hour ago. Hope shouldn't have been so easily intimidated by time but it was, Sam's was. Anything could have happened to Dean since the park. Anything! A million bloody scenarios played out in his head at each block he walked and they all ended the same way: him losing Dean. For a fleeting moment he contemplated jumping on a flight, tracking down Anna Corvante and forcing her to either lift her curse on his brother or draw her last breathe. It was a satisfying thought, its cold bloodedness not even setting off his moral alarm, not when Dean's life was in jeopardy.

'It's not what Dean would want, a life taken so his would be spared. He is still drowning in guilt about Marshall Hall and that hadn't been a conscious exchange, his life for Hall's. But this…this murdering a woman to save him, Dean would bare the guilt even if I did the actual deed.' And Sam knew it was no coincidence that Dean had driven the Impala as far away from Hanestown, New Mexico as he could get after their latest job. Whether that was to keep temptation from Dean himself or a preventative measure in case his little brother uncovered his secret, Sam did not know. What he did know was Dean wanted the woman left unharmed. 'He values the life of some woman who cursed him more than his own life. That's really reassuring, Dean. Really helps me to feel like you're out there fighting to stay alive.'

Tucking his hands into his pockets and dropping his shoulders into a slouch, Sam scanned the bustling city around him, overwhelmed by its scope. Finding Dean in the city, a Dean that did not want to be found, now seemed such a lost cause. It would take some divine intervention to be able to reclaim his position at his brother's side. Sam wasn't above sending up a prayer or two. 'Please, God, let me find him before it's too late. Don't take Dean away from me too.'

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Dean snarled, "Come on! Come on!", turning the Impala's ignition key again. For the fifth time he was treated with a sputter that refused to catch from his usually beloved engine. "Not you too!" he railed, focused on the car's gauges, oblivious to the gang graffiti that decorated the part of the city where the Impala had decided to betray him.

Climbing from the car, he slammed the car door with a level of force which would have gotten Sam banished. Roughly opening the hood, he leaned over the engine, hands reaching to tighten a hose. Instantly he yanked his fingers away, the fingertips singed. Waving his fingers as if to cool the burn, he muttered, "You're punishing me, aren't you! For leaving Sam, right?" He was about to try again to tighten the hose when reason struck him. "Oh great, now I'm carrying on a conversation with my car," he sighed aloud. Placing his hands on the upraised hood and bowing his head, he closed his eyes, hoping to get his crap together.

His eyes flew open as the cold metal barrel of a handgun pressed against his cheek. Without moving, he took in the situation. Five gangbangers were taking up stances around him. The early twenty year old white man with the silver Magnum bruising Dean's face radiated the energy of a leader.

"This must be my lucky day," the leader drawled, sliding the gun barrel under Dean's chin, "cause I've been thinkin' of gettin' me a sweet ride like this one." With purpose, the gun was cocked and rammed harder under Dean's chin, forcing Dean to raise his head, nearly blocking his ability to swallow normally. "But you, you're about to have a real bad day."

The words caused a sardonic smirk to spring onto Dean's face and a chuckle to escape from his throat. "Dude, I'm already having a bad day," he countered, beyond caring that he was leveling an arrogant 'bring it on' tone to a man that was fully prepared to send a round into his skull.

TBC

Thank you so much for reading!

A heartfelt thank you to all my wonderful reviewers! I'm running short on time this week and will be unable to personally reply back but I hope you all know how much your words encourage me! I appreciate every single review, every single thought.

Cheryl W.