ENTITY (Chapter Twelve)
From Chapter Eleven:
Everything grew quietly still. An uneasy calm. Sam raised his head and blinked the blood from his eyes. He clenched his fist, tried to break free. If it dropped him, he would not have far to fall. But it would still hurt like hell with the numerous injuries he already had. But he would live. He would find Dean and it would be okay. He relaxed and another second ticked past.
He felt the change a heart-beat before it happened. And his eyes widened in shocked understanding. He tensed to struggle, but was not given a chance. His body jolted as the ignited air sprang back, pulled taut, leaving the wounded boy painfully hanging by one wrist before he was flipped, spun and thrown. The recoil lashed through Sam, grinding broken bones, splattering blood and slamming him into unconsciousness long before his body hit into the far brick wall.
Chapter Twelve
With the car window down, Missouri felt the gentle drop in temperature as day ceded to night. The warehouses had taken on a dusky pink tone, bricks sparkling and windows glinting. Shadows lengthened and with it came a sense of foreboding. Missouri had always been running out of time, ever since she had set out, but now each passing second hammered like a death knell.
She tried calling them again. Both boys. Both numbers. No answer. She drew the thumbnail of one hand under the fingernails on the same side, sloughing off the crusted blood. Marcus' blood. Her soul ached, caught with a numbing pain that she doubted she could recover from. She could not lose those boys too, yet as the time moved on, she could not help but fear that before the day was out, she would have Winchester blood on her hands, caked and cloying, staining her skin.
The thoughts dispersed, forced off with by a determined clench to her jaw and a strengthened resolve. She approached another junction, another avenue of choices. Left or right… or straight ahead. She had given up trying to intuit the direction, trying to sense them. The intersection drew near and she slowed, deciding to continue straight yet preparing to scan both ways as she cruised through. Before she reached the corner, a wisp of smoke caught her attention. Just off to the left in the street ahead. She leaned forward as the tendril steadily darkened, deepened. Blacker than the closing night sky, the shape twisted and arced, growing as it reached skyward. It shuddered and tightened with a fierce negativity, as though rejecting the heavenly pull. Missouri hit the brakes, transfixed by the unearthly sight.
The black vortex viciously arced up then splayed apart, shattering with a piercing white light. Missouri flinched back, shielding her eyes as the shadow vaporized. One second later, it was gone, a sharp stench of burned ozone in its wake.
Shaking, she pumped the accelerator and wheeled the car around the corner. She expected to see the Chevy. But the street was empty of the car, instead she was met with her greatest fear: blood… Winchester blood. She moaned softly as she slammed on the brakes, cut the engine and pushed from the car. Almost as an afterthought, she grabbed the phone, her fumbling fingers dialling 911 as she ran to the figure that lay on the road.
"Dean. Oh, honey." She fell to her knees beside him. Blood leached from the injured boy, covered his face, his closed eyes, his dirt-blonde hair. He lay on his side on the pavement, still and quiet, one arm extended at almost a ninety degree angle, the other awkwardly twisted beneath his body. Blood pooled at the wrist of the caught limb, a heavy trail that sourced from further up his arm, the wound hidden beneath the leather jacket. Compound fracture, she thought bitterly, but she was not about to mess with it. She pushed the phone to her ear as her fingers sought a pulse, any sign that the wounded young man was alive. As the operator came on the line, Dean moaned, low and deep. She gently pressed against his carotid artery at the same time and the sound and the touch eased some of the raw terror that whittled through her.
"I need an ambulance," she said as an operator responded. Her gaze lifted to the warehouse beside her. Shattered glass framed the second storey window. "Please send two units. Corner of Baker and Stanton Avenues, East Lawrence. Hurry."
"Can you tell me what the emergency is?" the operator asked.
She scanned shaking hands over Dean, the phone pressed between her chin and shoulder. "There are two boys, men… brothers. Injured. I've found one, but… the other."
"Maam, you need to calm down. Take a deep breath."
"It's Missouri not maam, and have you dispatched the two ambulances?"
"Yes. ETA is seven minutes. And I'm Anna. Can you tell me what has happened?"
She ignored the question, focussed instead Dean. She touched his face, encouraged when he roused and blinked dazedly. "Oh honey, don't try to move, you're a bit banged up right now."
His glazed eyes sought hers but there was no recognition there. Nothing that came even close. He weakly called for his brother, the name low and laced with pain. Her heart clenched and she glanced toward the warehouse window. There was no sign of the younger boy, yet the entity had been dealt with. Exorcised. She struggled to understand what had gone wrong. Why Dean was in the street, and why Sam was not with him. She rested a hand on Dean's shoulder, against the black leather jacket that was now soiled with his blood. She needed to exert little force to keep him down. He called for his brother again and she directed her attention back to Anna, the operator on the other end of the cell phone connection.
"One boy, Dean, has a head injury. He's fallen from a two storey window, I think he also has a compound fracture to his right arm, there's a lot of blood around his hand, at the cuff of his jacket. I can't see what other injuries he has aside from his head. He's bled a lot but it seems to have stopped now."
"Is he conscious?"
She glanced down, her breath snagging as Dean's glazed eyes rolled slowly, unfocussed. "Barely."
"Is he on his side or on his back?"
"Side."
"Check his airway."
She did, quickly and gently probing his mouth for blood. She found none. She leaned back and updated the operator. "His breathing is shallow, but unrestricted. There's no blood in his mouth."
"Good. That's good. Don't try to move him."
"No, I won't. But I need to find his brother. I think he's also hurt." She again looked toward the window, her breath grating and cold. Her hands shook, the phone bumped against her ear as she trembled.
"The paramedics are six minutes away, Missouri."
She nodded, acknowledging the operator's reassurance, her calm tone. It did not ease the gnawing unease. She watched the window, the gaping void framed by shattered glass. "Sam," she called. "Sam, can you hear me?"
Beneath her hand, Dean shuddered and moaned. His eyes tracked lazily then slipped closed.
"Anna, he's passed out." She darted a hand to his neck, gently probed through the slick blood for his pulse.
"Is he still breathing?"
"Yes, but—"
"Then don't try to wake him. We no longer consider it useful to keep head injury victims awake. If he stops breathing then I'll talk you through what to do next. But let's deal with one thing at a time."
She wiped her bloodied hand on the thigh of her trousers and rocked back on her heels. Anxiousness again drew her attention up, to the window, to the silence that echoed back. Sam was up there. She knew it. But he was not answering. "Dean's brother is missing," she said desperately. "I think he's hurt too."
"You need to stay with Dean."
"He would not want me to."
"Missouri, it is important that you stay with him. You're doing very well. The paramedics will be there soon."
She looked down at the elder boy, Sam's brother, and she knew what he would want her to do. She touched him again, felt the regular thrumming of his pulse against her fingertips. "How far away are they now?"
"Just over five minutes. Missouri, you need to stay with him."
"I can't." The words tore at her, made her ache with pain so deep that she could barely breathe through it. She dropped the phone to the pavement, letting it rest beside Dean's open palm. "Honey, I'm going to find your brother. You have to stay strong for me. The paramedics will be here soon, they will look after you. And I promise you, I will find Sam. I will take care of him."
He could not hear her, trapped in a deep, dark unconsciousness, the crusting blood on his face, down his neck and pooled beneath his head a testament to the severity of his injuries. She knew full well that leaving him alone was utterly reckless. Dangerous.
She retrieved the phone, pushed to her feet and winced at the ache through her that was more than her aging knees. The strong young man before her did not move, he lay in his own blood, oblivious to her agony and the decision she was being forced to make. She whispered down to him, her tone falsely harsh. "Don't you dare make me regret leaving you, boy."
The stairs were long, dark and brutal on aging knees, but Missouri was lost in her own bitter world so she barely felt the pain. She moved with Dean's blood on her hands, Sam's absence numbing her heart. She knew full well that she may have just doomed the elder boy to death. For all she knew, he may have stopped breathing as soon as she turned her back on him. Instead of being there to resuscitate, to give him a fighting chance, she had walked away. Left him unconscious and helpless.
She hesitated, gasping as her vision blurred and tears stung her eyes. She leaned heavily against the wall of the first floor landing, the burden of choice too heavy to bear. She knew Dean would forgive her for abandoning him, but he would never forgive her if she did not make an effort to help Sam. So she continued – hauling her weary body up the concrete steps to a scene that she was not prepared to face. Yet she reached it all too soon. And it stopped her cold.
As she stood at the entrance to the second storey warehouse floor, the red hue of sunset lacing curdled fingers across the room, she wished she had stayed downstairs. Saved herself the agony of seeing Sam's broken body, the blood splattered on the walls, across the floor, and the hideous cloak of death that falsely cloistered the young boy's motionless form. But she was there now and she had to face it.
She saw Sam first, but unable to process the sight, she moved her attention to Tara. The child was curled into a loose ball by one wall, her eyes closed, her back rising and falling in sleep. Missouri hesitated, she should check her… but her attention roved back to Sam and she had to go to him first.
The youngest Winchester lay toward the side of the room, far from the wall, but not quite in the centre. Tragically still and broken, his abused body cut and bleeding. She crossed the distance on numb legs, her mind abstractly processing the yellow helmet blotched with dark patches of red, the black webbing around his limbs, the lurid safety vest. But it was the blood on the floor around him that halted her movements, made her own blood churn iced cold through her veins.
He lay in a similar pose to his fallen brother, on his side, one arm twisted beneath him, but where Dean's injuries had shocked her, Sam's left her sickened. The boy had been tortured. Brutalised. The blood on the walls and floor had already clued her in that something shocking had happened here, but the variety and extent of his injuries sealed the fact. He had been cut, his left hand and face – injuries that had an edge of cruel deliberateness about them. His left leg lay twisted and blood soaked through the denim and past the black plastic webbing that hugged the outline of his shin. Most of the blood seemed to have come from those three injuries, but Missouri knew the boy was hurt much worse than that. She also now had a little more of an understanding of what had happened, and it churned bile to the back of her throat. Clearly Dean had been thrown out of the window, but Sam… the entity had played with Sam.
She grasped the phone, the line still open to the operator, and dropped heavily to her knees. She reached out a shaky hand, hesitated then drew the phone to her ear. She had to swallow several times before she could bring enough saliva into her mouth to permit clear speech. "I found Sam," she finally forced out.
The operator took a moment to respond then her tone was cautious. "Missouri?"
She held her breath as she felt for a pulse. She could not immediately find one and she gasped softly and closed her eyes, pressing deeper, harder, her fingers sliding through the blood as she searched for some sign that the boy still lived. Eventually she found it. Weak and erratic.
"I found a pulse," she forced out. "But he's hurt bad. Worse than Dean. Much worse."
"Try to stay calm. You should be able to hear the sirens now."
She could not, but that was probably due to the vicious pounding of her own heart slamming blood through her veins. "What can I do for him?"
"Is he breathing?"
She was not sure so she leaned in close. Again she struggled to hear anything, but as she drew back, she saw the bubbles of blood on his lips and heard a raspy, wet sound. "His lungs," she said weakly. "They must be damaged, he's breathing through blood."
"Okay, that's okay. As long as he's breathing, he's okay."
"What if his breathing ceases?"
The operator hesitated then said, "I could step you through a technique, but it won't come to that. The paramedics will be there within a minute. They will know what to do for him. For them both. I have told them that you are in the warehouse behind Dean. Is that correct?"
"Yes. If they look up they can see the broken glass." She glanced toward the window and saw strobed lights, red and blue. Distorted against the glass, a twisted vibrancy that made her head ache. "They're here," she whispered.
"I can stay with you. Keep you company while they work," Anna suggested.
"No. Thanks." She cut the connection and closed her eyes. Unable to manage the assault against her senses. But dull thuds, muted voces and eventual footsteps on the stairs forced her back to her surroundings. To the reality and horror of it all.
Two paramedics entered the room, a male and female. They hesitated, their eyes scanning before they exchanged a glance and split up. The woman, a thirty-something brunette with her hair in a ponytail and her uniform crisply pressed, moved to the child. The male joined Missouri.
"I'm Robert, that's Katrina," the paramedic informed, his sharp gaze appraising. His chocolate brown moustache bobbed as he talked, and he nudged a narrow pair of glasses onto the bridge of his nose. He shrugged the kit he had carried in with him, and she caught sight of a tattoo on his inner wrist, a snake or something. It slipped out of view as he bent down.
"Missouri." She gestured to Sam and her voice wavered. "This is Sam."
Robert nodded, knelt and opened his kit. "Has he been conscious at all?"
"No."
"What happened?"
She licked her lips and bowed her head. "I'm not sure."
"That leg looks like an impact injury. Do you know if someone has moved him? Maybe brought him here after he's suffered these injuries at another site. Maybe a vehicular accident?"
Missouri swallowed hard. Could Robert not see the blood on the wall behind her? The thick splatters across the floor. "I don't know," she said woodenly.
He did not look convinced. "You need to move back."
"I'd like to stay with him."
"We need room to work."
"He's only twenty-three years old."
Robert smiled grimly, nodding at his partner as she joined them.
"The girl's okay," Katrina said as she knelt down. She gently pressed her two forefingers to Sam's neck, frowning as she registered the dull pulse. She leaned in a little closer, touching a finger to Sam's lips. "Pneumothorax?"
"Yeah, pretty safe bet," Robert agreed. "We'll need to tube him, start an IV line and get him on the ECG. And that needs to come off." He gestured to the vest. He considered the black plastic on Sam's arms and legs, his gaze lifting to Missouri. "You really have no idea what happened here? What all this is about?"
"No." It was clear that the paramedic did not believe her, but he would not believe the truth any more than a lie. So she pretended ignorance. It was easier than accepting the truth. Accepting that Sam now lay dying on the cold concrete floor, his life beaten out of him by a formless shadow that had a twisted desire to use him as a host for its homicidal progeny.
Tremors rifled through her, making her teeth chatter. She stood, her attention caught by a dirtied, scrap of fabric near Sam's head. She took a moment to realise that it was Tara's stuffed animal, Boris. It had sopped up some of Sam's blood, the long ears stained a bitter, dark red. Missouri picked it up, stroked back its long hair then moved to the window. Behind her the paramedics shot jargon back and forth, hooked up a beeping, blipping machine that stuttered and faltered as a reflection of Sam's failing heartbeat. She looked down at the toy, at the blood, then her shaking fingers opened and the toy fell. It landed without a sound on the concrete floor.
In the street below, paramedics worked on Dean. The elder boy lay on the pavement, an IV line hooked into the back of his uninjured hand, a pressure bandage around his head. Her mouth twitched, relief and horror warring for first place. Dean was still alive. He had not let her down. As she watched, the eldest boy was loaded into the back of an ambulance, his pale, still features bathed in a lurid blue and red wash from the emergency beacons. She moistened her lips and turned away from the window. Robert and Katrina had yet to get a line into Sam. His system was shutting down, and to evidence that bitter fact, the ECG stuttered again. Her gaze shifted to the blood on the walls, the floor, on the cream coloured latex on the paramedic's hands.
"I can't get the tube in."
Missouri unwillingly watched as Katrina struggled to intubate Sam. The neck brace, it seemed was making her task harder.
"I'll get it. You try to get a vein."
They swapped positions, Robert achieving success but Katrina failing.
"It's not working," Katrina said, "we're going to have to go for the femoral."
Missouri steadied herself against the window, a sharp sting against her arm causing her to look down. One of the shards had sliced a nick in her forearm, through the thin shirt and jacket. Blood seeped through the fabric in a thin, misshapen line. She struggled to steady her breath, her racing heart, forced to watch the bitterly dramatic play for life on the cold concrete floor. The paramedics cut away the plastic webbing and Sam's jeans and Missouri covered her mouth with her hand as she saw young hunter's left leg. The blood she had seen on his jeans had come from his knee. The flesh had been torn open, and no doubt the bone beneath had broken. There was so much blood that she could not make sense of it. It sickened Missouri, but the paramedics ignored it. Focussed instead on setting up an IV line into the femoral vein on the right hand side. When they finally got it in, Katrina announced that Sam had stopped breathing.
"Bag him," Robert bit out, cursing as the ECG beeped long and hard: a toneless flatline.
Missouri's knees weakened. She grabbed for the window as they moved Sam onto his back. They supported his neck, but the CPR was brutal nonetheless. She considered the broken glass around the window, the dark stains and the blood red sunset.
"C'mon, kid. Work with me here."
Tears fell warm against Missouri's cheeks. She blinked and watched the sun slip below the horizon.
"I've got a rhythm, but it's erratic," Robert said.
"He's in VF. Get the defib."
"Shit, I've lost him again."
Missouri bowed her head and closed her eyes. Warm tears stung her cheeks. Outside, the breeze picked up, a soft snickering of leaves in the empty avenue. It licked her face, chased away the tears, and opened up a cavernous aching pit in her heart. In her mind's eye, a tiny dimple faced baby giggled cheekily, his sandy haired brother mercilessly teasing.
'That boy has such powerful abilities.' Her own words haunted her. It was never meant to end this way. That boy was gifted, special. No Winchester was expendable… but especially not Sam. She turned, inhaled sharply and limped over to the kneeling paramedics. The man, Robert, had straddled Sam and was performing compressions. His muscles flexed with the pressure he exerted and Missouri felt ill.
They paused after several minutes, and Robert wiped his brow. Sweat hung in tiny loose beads from his moustache. Katrina looked up, her expression grim. She shook her head and Robert nodded. Over the next few minutes, they injected Sam, hooked up a portable defibrillation device and interspersed between manual compressions and charged shocks. Still Sam predominantly remained in flatline. Missouri understood that Sam was dead. But she refused to accept that he could not be brought back. As time slowly moved on, Robert and Katrina's efforts seemed to be waning. Their exchanged glances longer, more meaningful. She stepped forward. "You will not give up. He is not dying here."
"We will keep trying, but you have to understand that –"
"No. All I understand is that he is twenty-three years old," Missouri bit out, her voice catching. "He's just a child. Do not stop until you have him back."
The man hesitated, threw a glance at his partner then unwrapped another syringe.
"Maam, I know this is hard," Katrina started.
"No. You know nothing. Please, just do your job and reserve your judgement. This boy is not expendable. I hope you never need to understand why."
The woman frowned, then returned to her partner and worked with him. Missouri stood back, her arms folded, her heartbeat fast. She silently pleaded, then knelt, wincing as her knees cracked. She took Sam's hand, his flesh still warm, but there was no pulse, no sign of life. However, as Missouri grasped her hand around his much longer fingers, her eyes widened.
Gentle fluttering registered against her mind, a soft, butterfly wing sensation that had not been there before. It was not his pulse. His heart had stopped, she understood that. This was something else. She hesitated, quickly evaluated the risk of harming him with an unwelcome psychic intrusion, then realised she had no alternative. If Sam's body had been compromised by something evil, then she had to know. She had to be prepared. She probed, quickly nudging up against a bright power, a brilliant pure light. It vibrated with a gentle, warm hum that seemed to recognise and welcome her. Within it was a gentleness and courage that was all Sam. She withdrew, encouraged and disturbed. He was holding on, but she had felt him weaken and knew he had so little time left before he would be gone.
She turned tear filled eyes on the paramedics. "You cannot stop. He's still in there," she knew she sounded mad, grief stricken. She struggled for composure. "Please, think what you like, but you cannot stop. He's not ready to die. He's not."
"We will keep trying, but you have to understand that there's little hope now. It may be kinder to let him go."
She shook her head, her vision blurred. "Do not give up. He has not so you can't." She swallowed hard, thumbed the broken boy's cooling flesh then withdrew. She caught a hint of dark bruising along Sam's side and down toward his stomach before his body tensed under the electrical current from the defibrillator. The moment it had dissipated, she clutched his hand and leaned over him, her mouth close to his ear.
"Sam, you hear me boy, you aren't getting out of it that easily. Dean needs you. That stubborn mule of a father needs you." She touched his unmarred cheek, felt the bare roughness of stubble against his jaw. "Sam. You need to fight. I know you can."
The monotonic flat-line gnawed at her and she turned accusing eyes on the paramedics. "Keep going."
Robert's mouth flattened grimly. She glanced at her watch. Sam had been down for well over ten minutes. She knew what that meant… but she also knew what she had felt. She wrung her hands and winced as his body jerked under the electrical current. Again the same dull tone spilled out into the air and Missouri bit the inside of her cheek.
She held her breath and watched the device. Her hand caught his, then a single blip on the ECG caused her to flinch. Another followed, then another. Missouri tightened her hand around Sam's fingers in an encouraging squeeze. The rhythm caught and held. He was back.
"Good boy," she whispered. Now all she felt against her fingers was the gentle burst of his pulse. The psychic hum had gone, shrouded and protected by his physical life-force. She pressed a soft kiss to his forehead and closed her eyes, willing him to stay strong, to keep fighting. She knew he would, because he was a Winchester and John had raised his boys to be survivors. But she was not about to fool herself, Sam had a long hard road ahead and he would need all the support and strength he could get. Missouri would make sure he got it, and more.
Horrific visual images invaded Dean's slow pull to consciousness. Confusion, blood and pain jarred him awake, but the fog through his mind prohibited full awareness. He moaned, fighting it, knowing he had to try to make sense of it all yet afraid of what he would learn. Then it all locked into place with one sickening thud: the warehouse, the entity, Sam. Oh God, Sammy. Dean's stomach twisted and his eyes flew open. He shuddered against the memories, against the horror of it, the vile conclusions that cut through him.
"Dean, honey, welcome back."
He turned his head toward the voice, took in the woman seated by the bed, her large motherly form protective and warm. He darted his gaze away, terror pounding through him. He tried to speak, to croak, but he could not utter a single sound. Anxiousness thickened and suffocated. Somewhere close a machine chirped and the woman beside him frowned and leaned forward.
"Honey, it's okay. Sam is alive. He made it through, Dean. And so did you."
"Missouri," he forced out. His tear filled eyes widened and locked on her. He struggled to focus his swimming mind, his unstable vision. If Sam was okay then where was he? Then Dean put the puzzle pieces together. Beneath the aging psychic's warm soothing voice was an impending exception. A huge freakin' but. Dean's pulse quickened. He licked his lips, his parched mouth made his tongue feel huge, recalcitrant.
She smiled thinly, retrieved something from beside the bed and then Dean felt a moist coldness against his lips. He opened his mouth, took the offered ice chip and sucked greedily. He watched her and wordlessly questioned. She hesitated, and he felt her take his hand. He tensed and willed her to just spit it out.
"Sam's in the ICU. He was badly hurt, Dean, but the doctors are optimistic."
Dean swallowed hard. He could not speak, could barely hear her past the deafening throb of his own blood against his ears. His eyes locked with hers. She looked down, gently strummed her thumb across the smooth skin on the back of his hand. His vision blurred and his lungs burned. She gently tutted and clutched his hand tighter.
"Dean, honey, he's a fighter. He won't give in."
"Can I see him?" he finally rasped.
"No, you're not well enough to move."
He tried to push himself up, but it was pointless and exhausting. He panted hard and collapsed back against the pillows, shocked by how weak he felt. "What… what did it do to him?"
"We can talk more later, when you're feeling better."
"No. Now. What did it do to him?"
"I think you know."
And Dean did. He had imagined it, had feared it… He closed his eyes against the unwelcome imagery as tears stung his eyes. "Does he have a chance? Really?"
Missouri hesitated, but when she spoke her words were firm. "Yes. He does. He's not going to leave you, Dean. But it's not going to be easy for him and he will need you to be strong. So you need to rest and regain your strength."
"I need to be there when he wakes. I can't let him down again."
"You have never let him down, Dean. And right now he's sedated for the pain, even if he does regain consciousness, he won't be lucid and it won't be for long. Once they move him out of ICU he will be brought in here with you. He will not wake alone."
Dean noticed then that he was in a shared room. He looked across at the empty bed, at the machines beside it. He tightened his fingers around Missouri's. He wanted to ask, wanted to know how badly Sam was hurt… but he also did not want to know. Missouri remained silent though Dean knew she could read his thoughts. He glanced at her with wet eyes and sniffed. She smiled softly.
"You haven't asked about you."
He blinked lazily, gradually becoming aware of the heavy ache through his right arm and shoulder. And his head felt large and scratchy, unusually heavy. "Do I want to know?" he asked thickly.
She raised an eyebrow and considered him. "You'll need a hat for a while, sweetie."
Dean flinched, tensing to draw his hand to his head. She tightened her grip and soothed him.
"You're still handsome."
He flushed and ducked his eyes. He tried a visual triage, but could only see the white sheet. She continued, her voice calm, soft. "You suffered a compound fracture to your right forearm, a dislocated shoulder and abrasions. And a head injury that required surgery to relieve pressure on your brain. It sounds bad, but considering you were thrown from a second storey floor, you are doing exceptionally well. You will be getting used to hospital food for a while though, they want you in for at least a few days."
"To make sure my head doesn't explode," Dean offered weakly.
"Yes."
Dean studied her, his vision a little blurred at the edges so he could not tell if she were joking or not. Then it struck him. Someone had operated on his head. He tried to bring one hand up, suddenly alarmed. "They shaved my head?"
She laughed softly, seemingly amused by his distress. "No, just a small patch at the back. But I know how vain you are. I'll get you a hat."
"I'm not vain."
"No, sweetie you're not," she said, her smile soft and a touch sad. "I'm teasing you. Sleep now, you need to regain your strength."
"Will Sam be here when I wake?" he asked, his voice small.
"Maybe. Now sleep. It's over. You're safe."
Less than twelve hours later, Dean hauled himself from his bed and plonked himself in a wheelchair. Sweating, pale faced and his jaw clenched in pain, he demanded to see Sam. Missouri knew an unwinnable battle when she saw one and reluctantly agreed to take him. IV bag on pole and all. It was a sombre walk down the corridors, she pushing the squeaking wheelchair and Dean trying not to hiss in pain at every bump along the way. They went up in the elevator to the third floor and into the ICU. Dean's fingers were white knuckled on the steel arm of the wheelchair. And, though she had prepared him, told him the extent of his brother's injuries, there was no preparation for the real thing.
At Sam's bed, Dean pulled himself up and stood on shaky legs. Missouri steadied him and he did not pull away. Garbed in a white hospital gown that partially gaped at the back, his arm in a sling and his head partially bandaged, Dean looked far from the picture of health. But his brother looked worse. Much worse.
Dean stared with haunted hazel-green eyes at his unconscious brother. Missouri touched his shoulder, wincing as he flinched, his gaze steadily locked on his injured and desperately still sibling. Sam was on a ventilator, sedated and hooked up to machines that monitored his heart-rate, fluid input and output. The sounds were jarring, the scents nauseating and the visual image sickening. Dean was not ready for this. But, the eldest Winchester boy was alarmingly determined and if she had not accompanied him, she knew he would have crawled there by himself.
"He looks awful," Dean said softly, his voice laced with anguished pain.
"He is doing well, Dean. Doctor Archibald suggested that he may be able to come out of here in another day or two."
"It's already been two days."
It had actually been two days and thirteen hours. Dean had been unconscious for most of that himself, between the surgery to reduce the swelling around his brain and the sedation, Dean had endured his own fair share of medical hiatus. But Sam's would be longer, his injuries more severe.
"What did it do to his face?" Dean asked, his pained tone taking on a chipped, quavering edge.
The injury was hidden beneath gauze, the wound sutured, the scarring would be minimal or non-existent. She had told him, and so she gently repeated it. "It cut him, Dean. Along the cheekbone. It was a clean slice, it will heal well. It probably won't even scar."
"How did he finish the exorcism? How could he with… with those… like that. He had to have been in so much…."
"He's strong."
"He should never have to be that strong."
Missouri agreed. She reached out to steady Dean as he sniffed and wavered. She felt anxiousness threading through him, starting as a dull tremble against her hand.
"You can touch his hand, Dean," she said gently. "It helps a little, to feel that under all of the equipment that he is warm, he is alive." When he did not move, she gently grasped his cold hand and placed it over Sam's. He quivered, then stilled as he registered his brother's touch, the gentle pulse against the pads of his fingers. She knew what he was feeling, she had done it so many times herself, to seek reassurance that Sam was actually alive and not an animated corpse.
"I can't reach Dad," Dean whispered. "I've left messages. I've told him about Sammy."
Missouri tensed then willed herself to relax. "He loves you boys so much," she said with forced evenness. And she knew that John Winchester did, even though she disagreed with the way he showed it. But her reassurance was not enough. Dean's shoulders stooped and he seemed to draw even further into himself. "You know he would come if he could," she added.
"Sam needs him."
"It's okay for you to acknowledge that you need him too."
Dean frowned, carefully withdrew his hand and rubbed at his eyes. He returned his tortured gaze to his unconscious brother. "Was there any other way?"
"Honey? I'm not sure I understand."
"Was there any other way we could have gotten rid of it. Did Sam have to go through so much… so much pain?"
She read between the lines, sensed the self-loathing, the guilt, the burden of responsibility. "None of this is your fault."
"He's my brother. My little brother, Missouri. What he went through. I should have protected him from that."
"You were seriously injured."
"Not like that. You know the guy in the next room from me, the eighty and not out dude with the frizzled hair and no teeth?"
"Honey, calm down."
"His pelvis is fractured, just like Sam's, and he's been in here for weeks. They took him off the pain meds this morning and he sobbed like a baby. That poor bastard only has a fractured pelvis, Sam's got that plus more." Dean took a step back, swayed and paled. Missouri moved quickly and caught him before he fell. The young man leaned heavily against her, his breath fast and catching on heavy, racking sobs.
"The pelvic fracture is minor, Dean and Sam is young. He's strong. It's not going to be easy, but he will get through it. He will. You will help him and you will lose this attitude. It's not going to do you or Sam any good."
"I should have protected him."
She sighed and pulled him into her arms, mindful to not put any pressure on his injured right side. "How, Dean? How could you have protected him from that? It left you boys with no choice."
"I failed. I missed. I screwed up."
"Honey, what are you talking about?"
"Tara. I missed. I had a chance to end it and I fucked it all up."
Missouri tensed, ignored his foul language and deliberately did not pull away despite the horror of what he admitted to. Instead of disgust or loathing for the hurting young man, she ached with a longing to shelter these children from all the pain they had ever suffered. Dean Winchester was many things but he was not a killer. The realisation that Dean had been driven to consider that, to acting on it, almost drove her to her knees. Cruel fortune had spared the young hunter's soul, but had made him and his younger brother pay dearly with their blood. It was not right. Not fair.
"Now you listen to me, boy, and you listen good," she whispered, her lips close to his ear. He tensed against her and she tightened her embrace, making him hear her, making him understand. "You had no choice. Either of you. It's hard right now and it's confusing and painful, but time will heal. This will get easier and you will both be stronger for it. Trust me. I'm old and creaky and I know these things."
He slowly pulled away, ducked his head and rubbed at his eyes. She averted her gaze, allowing him to compose himself, to reassemble his pride. After a few moments, she gently touched his arm. "You are a good boy, Dean Winchester and I'm proud of you, but if you cuss like that again, I'll wash your mouth out with soap. And don't you be thinking I won't."
He managed an unsteady smile. His gaze drew back to Sam and the pained, drawn expression returned. "What if it's not over, Missouri?"
"Sam exorcised it. I saw it myself."
"I know, but where did it come from?" He glanced at her, his eyes hooded, worried. "Sam can't go through that again. Any of it."
"He won't have to." But her gaze slid to Sam's bed, to the heavily bandaged hand, the cut on his cheek, the traction that locked his broken femur and knee in place and the sedation that limited movement to give his fractured pelvis a chance to heal. Until he woke they would not really know what had happened to him in those minutes before he had managed to complete the ritual, but she had hazarded a guess. It was not pretty. Neither was the unease that threaded through her. The knowledge that until they had located the source – the entity's origin, it was not going to be over for them. Especially not for Sam – the entity's most prized and eagerly sought after host.
End Chapter Twelve.
Hey everyone. Thank you all so much for sticking with me on this, and for the amazingly encouraging reviews. It really gave me the boost that I needed, though the next chapter may take a bit more time as I catch up on responses, emails and that infuriatingly persistent real life. lol!> So, if you've reviewed me and I haven't responded, it's not that I won't… I just really didn't want to leave the boys in a broken bloodied heap for too long. So, now that this chapter is up and there's some light at the end of the tunnel, I will get some responses out to those people I've missed. You are all so, so good to me! Thank you!