Prologue
Carter Wallace had seen action in the Marine Corps in '69 through to '72. He'd seen the face of war and buried more than one friend. But he would never forget what he saw that day.
It took nearly an hour before he could hear someone yelling over the sounds of the shovels and axes. He shushed the men near him and called back.
"Hello? Who's down there?"
"Help us!" a voice called faintly, and the men around him stirred.
"It's a kid," Sully said grimly.
"Hold on, son!" Carter yelled. "We're coming!"
Ten minutes later they were peering through a hole in a brick wall, and Carter, still in front with the search and rescue team, blinked against the damp, musty air. It was a kid, two kids, one still as death on a narrow cot, the other crouched beside him, shielding his eyes against the light. He raised a gaunt hand in appeal.
"Help my brother," he whispered, then fell over in a dead faint.
The Promise
ByGillian Middleton
Part Two
John Winchester rode to the hospital with the cops, because even at his fastest he didn't have lights and sirens. He barely made sense of the story the detective told him, or the messages over the radio. His every thought was concentrated on his boys, and the only words that mattered to him right now:
"They're alive."
Press was already gathered around the hospital entrance when the police car tore up, hospital security herding them back as John and the detectives climbed out of the car. John didn't bother to shield his face; he'd given into the cops' demands to appeal to the public using the press, but now that he had his boys back, he no longer cared what they did.
He refused to entertain the thought that he might have gotten them back only to lose them again in this hospital.
"My sons," he demanded of the bewildered nurse behind the desk of the ER. "Where are my sons?"
"Uh, one of them is being treated in Room Four," the nurse said, shooting a glance at the three detectives flanking John and the four more patrolmen arriving. "Down there," she began, pointing, but John was way ahead of her, tearing past cubicles until he shuddered to a stop, his eyes telling him he'd found his youngest son, but his brain refusing to believe it.
Lank brown hair tumbled over skin as pale as bone. Gaunt face, sunken cheeks and eye sockets. A nurse held Sam's hand, inserting an IV, and John could see every vein in that bony paw.
Sam moaned in pain as the needle was inserted, and the small sound galvanized John, brought him back to life.
"Sammy," he said hoarsely, and blue shadowed lids lifted over dull eyes. A doctor pressed an oxygen mask over Sammy's face, and for a moment John was sure his boy didn't recognize him. Then the hand still in the nurse's grip fluttered and Sam's head twisted away from the plastic mask.
With a few paces, John was by his side, catching hold of Sammy's flailing hand, heart lanced with agony at the fine tremor of his son's long, thin fingers.
"Dad," Sam whispered, and the doctor lifted the mask away for a moment.
"I'm here, Sammy," John said as steadily as he could manage. How many times had he watched Sammy's hands deftly take his gun apart and clean it? Wield a pencil as he bent over a school assignment. Patch up a wound, fingers delicately stroking a tender patch of skin. Sammy's strong, beautiful young hands, now bruised and bloody and fluttering in his grasp like a broken bird.
"Dean," Sam whispered, eyes imploring. "Where's Dean?"
"He's nearby, Sam," John assured him.
"Go find him, Dad," Sammy said weakly.
"I'm sorry," the doctor said. "He can't talk any more right now."
"He promised me, Dad," Sammy managed as the doctor fitted the mask back over his face. "He promised."
Sam's fingers squeezed weakly at his again before letting go, eyes still desperate and wild.
"I'll be back," John promised.
In the treatment room next door, he could hear urgent voices and sounds and John knew his oldest son was in there, ill and in pain. A nurse in scrubs rushed by, and John grasped a swinging door and clung for a moment as he watched trained professionals hover around his boy, his Dean. As they stuck needles in him and pushed a tube down his throat and attached him to a machine. Dean coughed and choked around the thick plastic, and John winced in pain at the horrible, hollow sounds.
He wanted to go to Dean as he had gone to Sammy, to take his hand and tell him he was safe. That hell itself could open now, and John would stand between them and it and fight to his final breath to keep them safe.
But it was obvious that Dean was beyond such assurances. If it weren't for the machine inflating his lungs, John would have believed Dean dead on that table, so still and pale and thin was he. A nurse hooked an IV bottle to the bed and then they were pushing him out of the cubicle and away from him.
"Where are they taking my son?" John demanded, finally finding his voice again.
"Mr. Winchester?" A young man with dark, tousled hair was pulling off a pair of latex gloves. He wore a white coat with a stethoscope slung around his shoulder.
"How is he? How's Dean?"
"We're taking Dean to ultrasound and radiography." The doctor gestured to the door. "Please, Mr. Winchester. Let's find somewhere a little more quiet to talk."
John cast a look back at the room that Sam was being treated in, but followed the doctor down the hall to an empty waiting room. He needed to know everything about Dean's condition, and Sammy wouldn't rest until he could be reassured that his brother was getting better. The doctor closed the glass door behind him, and John passed a trembling hand over his face. He was still reeling with shock at the sight of his boys, so gaunt and pale. So weak and vulnerable. It was his every nightmare brought to life.
John sat, legs shaking. No, not every nightmare. His first, greatest fear was, for the moment, overcome.
His boys were alive.
"Mr. Winchester," the doctor began, sinking down opposite John. "Dean is being taken for an ultrasound on his kidneys. Severe dehydration and malnutrition can cause renal failure; that's one of our immediate worries. The other is his lungs. I'm guessing from the sound of his breathing that he's developed pneumonia. That at least is easily treated, although still a concern in his weakened state."
John took it all in with a grim nod. "What happens if his kidneys fail?"
The doctor hesitated. "We have several treatment options available to us. For the moment, let's just wait for the test results and hope for the best."
John frowned, turning the conversation over in his mind. "You said those were the immediate worries?"
"There can be more serious longterm effects, but I don't think we need worry about that right now, either. Dean's young and he has that on his side. Such a rapid weight loss is never a good thing, but he's in the best of care now, and I'm confident we can bring him through this."
"What serious longterm effects?" John persisted stubbornly. He had to know everything, had to be prepared for what might come.
The doctor studied his determined face. "Starvation can cause an abnormally slow heart rate and low blood pressure. This in turn produces changes in the heart muscle and increases the risk of heart failure."
"What about Sammy?" John asked numbly.
"Both boys are being monitored carefully, however Sammy seems to have come through it best. Mr. Winchester," the doctor said gently, "I know the sight of them was pretty shocking. It looks like neither of them could afford to lose the weight they did, especially so rapidly. But I'm very hopeful that we can get the boys through this without any serious longterm effects."
"I've got to get back to my son," John murmured, not really taking in the doctor's words. He wasn't sure how much of it to believe anyway. He'd always had a healthy disrespect for authority figures, and he remembered hearing their lies and half truths before. "When... When will you have the test results?"
"As quickly as possible. I'll find you."
Sam still had the oxygen mask strapped over his face, but his shadowed eyes opened and he sought his father's gaze as John squeezed his hand. They asked a question as clearly as the words he couldn't utter, and John attempted a reassuring smile.
"Dean's okay, son," he said as firmly as he could manage. "They're doing tests right now, but he's in the best of hands."
Sammy groped for the mask with his free hand, and John reached forward and lifted it a little.
"See him?" Sammy managed.
"Soon, Sammy."
"Promise," Sam mumbled, eyes closing.
"I promise." John stroked his son's lank hair back from his forehead and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Sam's pale skin, closing his eyes and sending up a prayer of gratitude. "I promise."
666
Dr. Robards came back smiling, and John felt a little more of the tension leave his shoulders.
"Dean's kidneys are fine," the doctor said cheerfully. "The x-rays do show he has pneumonia, but we're treating him with antibiotics, and his prognosis is good."
"Is he awake? Can I see him?"
The doctor hesitated. "Dean is still intubated, and I'm keeping him sedated for the moment. I don't want to put him through the stress of trying to breathe alone right now."
John nodded. "Please, doctor. Tell me honestly. Is he in danger?"
"I won't lie to you, Mr. Winchester. For someone in Dean's weakened condition, pneumonia is a serious illness. Dean's being moved to Intensive Care, and over the next day or so we'll be monitoring him closely to stave off any secondary infections. I'd put his chances at good right now, and if all goes well in the next 48 hours, I'll upgrade that to excellent." The doctor glanced at Sam, who was sleeping fitfully, lashes fluttering above the oxygen mask. He picked up Sam's chart and ran an eye over it. "I'll have someone tell you when Dean's settled in the ICU, and you can go and visit him. Dr. Singh is the best," he assured John. "Sam is in good hands."
"You hear that, Sammy?" John murmured as the doctor left the room. "You're both going to be just fine."
John wondered when he'd start believing that for himself.
666
Dean looked so small laying on the hospital bed, John thought as he approached his eldest son's bedside. His gown was loose around his neck and pads and wires were attached to his sallow skin. Dean still had a tube taped to his face, and his chest rose and fell evenly with the wheeze of the machine.
"Dean?" John murmured, carefully touching Dean's hand. It was taped, too, an IV protruding from the papery skin. "It's Dad, Dean." He leaned forward. "Sammy's fine, son. You're both gonna be just fine. And I'm here to protect you."
Dean's fingers didn't squeeze back; his eyes didn't move beneath his shadowed eyelids.
"Hold on, Dean," John whispered.
666
"Hey, Sam," John said gently when Sam's eyes flickered open. "How you feeling?"
Sam blinked up at the ceiling.
"You're in your own room now, son, and the doc says you don't need oxygen any more. Sam?"
"Dean?"
"He's in another room. He's doing just fine."
"I want to see him," Sam whispered, eyes fluttering closed again. "I want to see Dean."
"Soon."
Sam breathed slowly in and out, hands flexing on the hospital sheets, long limbs shifting a little. "The air smells so clean," he murmured, narrow chest rising and falling as he breathed deeply. "Is this a dream?" he wondered softly. "It doesn't feel real."
"It is real, son," John said thickly. "You're safe."
"We were ready to die." Sam continued distantly. "I was listening to Dean breathing, I could hear him struggling for breath. I did like I told him I would, I didn't give up. But I was ready, when he stopped, to follow him."
"Please, Sammy," John managed, his throat tight. "Don't think about it now, okay? Just concentrate on getting well."
Sammy turned and blinked at him, and John was momentarily disconcerted. It was almost as if his son was only just noticing him.
"Is Dean better?"
John clenched his jaw. "He's... holding his own."
Alarm flared in Sam's eyes, chasing away the dull confusion.
"Dad?" he said, lifting his head and pressing down on the mattress as if he was going to sit up.
"No, Sammy." John stood, taking thin shoulders and gently pushing him back down.
"Where's Dean?" Sam said wildly. "I thought you said he was okay?"
"He is," John insisted. "I promise he is. He's just.. recovering more slowly than you."
Sam shifted under his father's gentle touch. "Let me up," he said, his voice shaky. "I have to see him, I have to talk to him."
"He won't hear you," John told him. "They're keeping him sedated while he gets stronger."
"Sedated?" Sam repeated fearfully.
"It's the best thing for him, Sammy. He's just so... weak."
Tears prickled Sam's eyes and he blinked them away. "Dad," he said. "Please, Dad. I need to see Dean. You have to take me to him."
John shook his head, heart aching at the pleading tone in his son's voice. "I can't."
"Please, Dad," Sam repeated, tears overflowing, spilling. "We made a promise to each other, Dad. A promise. And Dean's never ever broken a promise to me."
"A promise?" John said, searching his son's eyes.
"Dean promised that whatever came next we'd go there together," Sam said, eyes willing his father to understand. "I made him promise to wait for me. But if I'm not there with him..." Sam swallowed hard, weak tears running down hollow cheeks again. "If I'm not there, he might think it's all right to let go. You understand?"
And John did understand; he'd seen men let go of life and give up when they lost all hope. Somehow his sons had survived the hell they'd been through, somehow they'd come through it, and John never doubted for a minute that they'd done that because they were together, because they had each other.
Sam was still gazing at him, asking him... and there'd been so many times Sammy had asked for things that John couldn't give him. Wouldn't bend far enough to give him.
But he could give him this.
"Okay, Sammy," he said, squeezing his son's hand again. "I'll make it happen."
666
"I'm sorry, Mr. Winchester," Dr. Robards said gently. "It's impossible."
"No," John bit out. "You know what's impossible? Getting my sons back from the brink of death. Seeing my strong, beautiful boys reduced to shadows of themselves." John stepped forward, eyes boring into the young doctor's. "Looking into my son's eyes and telling him he can't be with his big brother. After all they've been through. After all they've suffered. Please, doctor. Just bend the rules a little bit."
Dr. Robards shook his head, clearly torn. Behind them in the deserted waiting room, a TV set was playing; a sturdy, grizzled black man in a yellow helmet was being interviewed.
"I can't imagine how they survived," he said in a deep, shaky voice. "I was down in that place for just a few minutes, and I couldn't wait to get out and breathe fresh air."
The doctor closed his eyes and shook his head again. "I'm going to get into so much trouble for this," he muttered. "Look, there's no way Sam could join Dean in the ICU. But I will allow him to visit his brother - for a short period of time. Then, if Dean improves the way we hope, we'll get them into a room together."
"Thank you, doctor," John said, relieved he wasn't going to have to disappoint Sam.
"He's going to have to be cleaned up first," the doctor said. "And masked and gowned as well."
"Whatever it takes," John agreed.
666
A nurse came to give Sam a sponge bath, but didn't object when John helped her, smoothing the warm, damp cloth down Sam's thin arms and over his bony hands. She wiped his face and then gently rubbed at his scalp and hair, leaving the brown strands damp and tousled. Sam lay still, but his eyes were eager and impatient as his gown was tugged away and a fresh one was pulled up his arms and over his torso.
John helped smooth it over his son's shoulders, fighting to keep the horror off his face at Sam's wasted body, his strong young limbs so thin and trembling.
"Can I see him now?" Sam's eyes were glassy bright; his pale cheeks were flushed.
"Maybe you should rest a little first," John said and Sam turned a familiar black frown on him.
"Dad," he said reproachfully.
"All right." John gave in, and the nurse shrugged and fetched the wheelchair from the corner. "But I'm bringing you right back here when you're worn out, okay?"
Sam nodded and let his father help him into the chair. The nurse tucked a blanket around his legs.
"We have to use the service elevator to ICU," she said apologetically. "Security is having real problems with the press."
John cast Sam a glance, but the boy didn't seem to be taking her words in. He was focused on the door, his thin body almost vibrating with impatience.
666
Sam didn't pay any attention to the wires and the machines surrounding Dean's bed. His eyes were drawn straight to his brother, and he reached without hesitation for Dean's hand. John settled the wheelchair in place and laid a hand on Sammy's shoulder, watching with mingled joy and sadness as his sons were reunited. Sam held Dean's hand between his own, then bent, turning his cheek into Dean's vulnerable palm.
"Dean," he whispered.
Around them nurses moved quietly, checking machines and making notes on Dean's chart. John barely noticed the people pausing to peer in through the glass window, only dimly aware that there was a lot of curiosity about his boys. All his attention was fixed on Sam as he stroked Dean's hand gently with his own trembling fingers.
"He gave me his food," Sam said haltingly, eyes still fixed on his brother's face. "By the time I realized what he was doing, he was already so weak."
"Dean takes care of us," John murmured. "That's what he does."
Sam pushed against the arms of the wheelchair, and John leaned over and helped him to his feet. "Sam," he warned gently, and Sam shook his head.
"Just a minute." Sam leaned forward and whispered something in his brother's ear, resting his forehead against Dean's, hand flat on his brother's belly. Then he collapsed back in his chair.
"That's enough, Sam," John said. "You won't do Dean any good if you end up in ICU yourself."
Sam slumped and closed his eyes. "It's okay, Dad," he murmured. "He's gonna be okay."
666
The day after Dean was moved to his own room, Sam lay on his side in bed, eyes on Dean as always. The nursing staff had moved a lounge chair from their staff room for John, and he stretched back into it with a sigh. He'd just taken his first shower in the three days since the boys had been found and managed an hour's sleep while Sammy was napping. Now if Dean would only wake up, he could actually allow himself to relax.
"Dad?"
John looked over at his youngest son, noting with approval that Sam's cheeks were already starting to fill out a little. Sam was tolerating the bland, high-nutrient liquid diet and handfuls of micronutrients and vitamin supplements well, and his doctor was very pleased with his progress.
"Okay, Sammy?"
"How long, Dad?"
John knew instantly what his boy was asking, and he heaved a sigh, wondering if it was a good sign or a bad sign that Sam finally wanted to know. He climbed out of his armchair and stood next to Sam's bed, stroking overlong hair back from Sam's pale brow. He hadn't touched his sons so much in years, but now he couldn't seem to stop himself, as if only by physically reaching out for them could he convince himself that he had them back.
"Twenty-five days, son," he said.
Sam blinked. "It seemed longer." He shook his head. "What happened, Dad? What happened to us?"
"You were kidnapped off the street, Sammy. A witness came forward and said he saw a man putting a boy into a white van, and for ten days that was all we had to go on." John swallowed hard as memories of those days flooded back over him. It was all still so close, so raw.
"Ten days?" Sam frowned.
"On the eleventh day after you disappeared, a man named Leon Campbell tried to kidnap two girls from their back yard. Sisters," John said grimly.
Sam's face grew noticeably paler. "Are they okay?" he asked. "Did he..?"
"He picked the wrong house," John said, his voice harsh. "The girls' father was a cop, and he arrived home unexpectedly as Campbell was dragging the youngest into the van. He ended up shooting and killing the kidnapper."
Sam's hands clenched in the hospital blankets. "He's dead?" he whispered.
John nodded. "He died at the scene. It was only later when the cops searched his house and found your wallets and... your shoes..." John faltered, unable to continue for a moment around the tightness in his throat. He remembered the devastation on the cop's face when he realized that by saving his girls he'd condemned two other pairs of siblings to an unknown fate.
John remembered sitting with his head in his hands as hope seemed to ebb away from him. Sam and Dean had been gone eleven days. Next to him were a married couple whose son and daughter had already been missing nineteen days. John wondered fleetingly where that couple were now, what they were thinking. What did they think when they heard how close it had been for the Winchester brothers? They must have realized at that moment how little chance their own children had of still being alive.
"The sisters?" Sam said in a small voice. "Are they okay?"
"They're fine, Sam," John assured him, wishing that Sam need never know about the other teenagers. One day he'd have to, but not now, when he was still so close to the edge.
"They're okay," Sam repeated as if reassuring himself. "And... he's dead?"
"Dead and cremated," John said with satisfaction. "He'll never hurt anyone again."
"Why did he do it, Dad?"
John sighed and stroked the fine, pale skin of his son's hand. "I wish I had an answer for you, Sam, I really do. He'd spent his life in and out of prisons and institutions, we know that much. Some people say that he was mentally ill, like that's a reason." John set his jaw. "But we know that some things in the world are just evil."
"I thought it was a job," Sam said lowly. "But Dean never believed it."
"No, not a job," John confirmed. "Not all the bad things that happen in the world are supernatural, Sammy."
Sam nodded and half-closed his eyes under his father's caressing hand. "Dad?"
"Hmm?"
"When's Dean going to wake up?"
They both looked over at Dean, who was propped up in the bed to keep his chest clear of congestion and was finally breathing on his own.
"Soon," John promised.
666
Afterwards John realized he'd been gone for ten minutes at the most. It would have only taken five minutes to fix himself a mug of coffee, but the TV had still been playing in the waiting room, and John had been caught by the newscast about the serial kidnapper and his victims. Two saved, two miraculously rescued. And two still missing, presumed dead.
It was the faces of the two missing children John saw first when he nudged open the door to his son's hospital room. A large black and white picture of a brother and sister sitting beside a Christmas tree. It lay on the floor by Sam's bed, which was flanked by a woman turning a guilty face on him and a man with a camera on his shoulder.
One look at the devastation on his son's face and John saw red; the rage and fear that he had suppressed for weeks rose up inside him, and with a roar he flung the scalding coffee at the cowering reporter before ripping the camera away from the cameraman and dashing it to the floor. A nurse appeared in the doorway as the woman screamed, then she rushed away calling for help. John grabbed the screaming woman and the babbling cameraman by the scruffs of their necks and threw them bodily into the hall, not caring what happened to them next as he focused his attention back on his son.
"Sammy?" he said softly, stepping past the smashed camera to his son's bedside. "Sam?"
Sam didn't look up or acknowledge his presence in any way. Fingers trembling with fear, John reached out and caught his son's chin, gazing into blank brown eyes.
"Oh, Sam."
666
"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," Dr. Singh said shortly. Her lips were still pinched and white with anger at the security breach. The camera and the coffee had been cleaned up, along with the picture the reporter had shoved under Sam's nose. But Sam's reaction to the horrible realization that another pair of siblings had suffered as he and Dean had could not be so easily swept away.
"I've known men who've suffered PTSD," John said grimly. "They had symptoms for years. But Sam's just..." He broke off, jaw clenching.
Singh nodded sympathetically. "Quite often in children this emotional shutdown is also linked with shutting down verbally. It's an avoidance symptom of the anxiety disorder."
"What are we supposed to do?" John said helplessly.
The doctor sighed. "Just as there are no set patterns as to how each individual will suffer PTSD, so there are no set cures. Right now my recommendation would be time. Talking to Sam. Plenty of physical contact to keep him grounded." The doctor shook her head. "I don't know what to tell you, John," she said quietly. "I'm sorry."
"I shouldn't have left him," John muttered. "I should have known something like this was coming."
"No one could have known," the doctor assured him. "But we'll get Sam through it. I promise."
666
There were a lot of promises flying around, John thought as he sat by Sam's bed and held his hand. Dean's promise to Sam. His own promise to protect his boys. The doctors' promises to make them well. But life didn't care about promises; it happened regardless.
"I'm sorry, Sammy," John murmured, stroking his son's hand. "You must be thinking I do a lousy job of looking after you compared to Dean."
And as if his name somehow got through to him, John heard a quiet moan from behind him and the crinkle of crisp bed linens as Dean stirred and sighed towards wakefulness. John closed his eyes in a moment's gratitude, although he couldn't help but see the irony of his situation. He'd lost one son only to get the other back.
Except Sammy wasn't lost to him, he was warm and alive under his hands, even if his eyes were open and he stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Instinct that he didn't even know he possessed had John reaching over and slipping the plastic tube from Sam's IV. Then he gathered his youngest son in his arms and carried him to his eldest's bed. John laid him beside his brother, lax head on Dean's shoulder, long, thin arm draped over his brother's body.
Dean stirred again, sighed and turned his head to nuzzle his brother's cheek as his eyelids flickered then lifted slowly.
"Sammy?' he breathed.
John cupped Dean's lean cheek and smiled into dazed eyes. "Hey, sleepyhead."
"Hey, Dad," Dean mumbled. He lifted his arm, stared for a moment at the IV, then draped it over his brother, curling Sam close and half-closing his eyes tiredly. "Hey, Sammy," he sighed.
For long moments Sam's blank eyes stared past him sightlessly, then Sam blinked and frowned and focused on his brother's face next to his own.
"Dean?" he whispered, and John groped for the chair and collapsed into it as his legs threatened to give out in sheer relief.
"Sam," Dean said, squinting at his brother in the bright light. "I told you we'd get out."
Sam frowned again, then his brow cleared and his mouth trembled. "Yeah," he whispered, curving closer to his brother. "You promised."
End of Part Two.