Eye of the Storm

Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Except Haley. Just don't tell her that, 'cause, y'know, demon parts and all, would probably kill me.

Author's Note: This chapter begins a storyline I've got planned that's going to span over the remainder of this fanfic and some of the next one. Well, actually, it's been going on for a while, but this is where it actually, unofficially begins. Anyone want to make guesses as to what that storyline involves?

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Chapter 12: Recovery

Dean and Sam had both fallen asleep in the coffin, both being utterly exhausted, not mention in pain. Whatever happened after that, neither one of them knew, but it was clear someone had found them, because Sam didn't wake up in the coffin.

And when Sam did wake up, in a strange room, and with Dean nowhere in sight, he was hit by a sudden urge to panic. He might have if his body hadn't felt like one big bruise. He settled for almost hyperventilating, because that didn't involve moving his body.

"Sam?" He looked over in the direction of the voice, and saw Missouri sitting in a chair by the wall.

"Where's Dean?" Sam all-but demanded, looking around the room for his brother. But there was no sign of Dean. Or anyone else for that matter, aside from Missouri. "Where is he?" He asked again, and this time his bed started to shake, and not because he was physically moving. A gasp of pain escaped him when he felt a headache coming on.

"Sam, calm down." Missouri said, suddenly by his side. The bed was still shaking, and he was looking up at the old psychic with pain-filled eyes. "Calm down now, Sam." She ordered. Sam closed his eyes. He wanted to, he really did. But he didn't know how. But between the splitting headache that was slowly taking over all of his senses, and the serious lack of Dean anywhere in sight, he just didn't remember how to calm down properly.

And then he felt a cool hand resting on his forehead, and a sense of relief washed over him. He felt another presence in his mind helping to contain the panic and the pain that was threatening to take him over.

The bed stopped shaking almost immediately after Missouri withdrew her hand, and Sam opened his eyes again. Feeling a lot calmer now, he decided to ask again.

"Where's Dean?"

Missouri took a moment before answering. "He's here, in the hospital." She said. "The doctors fixed up his arm as best they could. He's resting now, but…" She trailed off. Sam narrowed his eyes.

"But what?" He asked. Sighing, Missouri shook her head.

"I don't know." She admitted. "There's something different about your brother. He's barely touched the food the hospital's given him, he won't take visitors, and when your father or I do manage to visit him, he just lies on his bed, staring off into space like we aren't even there." She frowned, looking at Sam. "Did something happen out there before we picked you up?" She asked. Sam bit his lip, trying to remember. It was all a blur; he'd been in such a state when Dean had found him in the…

He swallowed, and felt tears come unbidden to his eyes. Missouri frowned, giving him a concerned look. Squeezing his eyes shut, Sam let out a small sob, memories of waking up in the coffin the first time… before he'd had the vision, he remembered waking up as it was being lowered into the hole. The sound of the dirt hitting the lid as he was buried.

"Sam." He opened his eyes again, looking up at Missouri through his tear-filled eyes. And then, without warning, he gave a small sob and then reached out and hugged the old woman, looking for reassurance. After a brief moment of shock, Missouri put her arms around Sam, rocking him back and forth, with some difficulty; even when he was sitting on the bed and she was standing up he was taller then her.

"They buried me…" He sobbed. "They… they stuck me in a box and…" His voice trailed off, but he continued to sob and cry against Missouri's shoulder. Not really knowing what to say to the distraught young man, Missouri continued patting him on the back, encouraging him to let all of it out. After what seemed like hours (though was probably only fifteen minutes at the most), Sam began to drift off, and fell asleep quite quickly, still rather exhausted by his ordeal.

Missouri gently laid him back down on the bed. Even without her psychic abilities, she could tell, even now, so soon after he'd fallen asleep, that it wasn't going to be a pleasant one. She could already sense the fear brought on by particularly horrible nightmares begin to consume the young man. With a sigh, she shook her head. Even Sam himself couldn't reach into someone else's dreams and change them. It was for the dreamer to protect himself against nightmares, not the person standing next to him wishing she could just make all his pain go away.

-;-

The door opened, but Dean didn't look over to see who it was. It was probably just his father or Missouri again. It seemed about the time they normally visited him, although time had kind of lost its importance to him as of the minute he woke up in this hospital bed.

"So, you're just going to lay there and mope while the world passes you by?" Asked a feminine voice that was definitely not Missouri's. Despite himself, Dean rolled over to see who had come in to disturb his misery, and saw an orderly leaving, closing the door behind him, and Meg sitting in a wheel chair right up next to his bed. The young woman was quite clearly still in a lot of pain, but her focus seemed to be on Dean.

"What do you want?" He asked, propping his head up on his good arm whilst his broken one sort of just lay limply in front of him. Meg frowned at him, leaning forward with some difficulty.

"I came to see if the rumours were true." She said. "Clearly they don't do you justice. You're not miserable, you're wading yourself in self-pity, and I think it's about time you came up for air."

"Why come up for air when it's so much easier to drown in it?" Dean asked, rolling over again so that his back was to Meg. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get some sleep." He closed his eyes, even though it was still sometime during the day. An exasperated sigh came from behind him, and he heard the sound of the wheelchair moving.

"Well, if that's really how you want it…" Meg trailed off. Dean swallowed, and then opened his eyes.

"Wait…" He said. The wheelchair stopped moving. Staring blankly at the wall in front of him, Dean took a deep breath, and then asked the question that had been haunting him ever since he'd woken up in the hospital a couple of days earlier, "What am I?"

Whatever Meg had been expecting him to say, it had definitely not been this. She sat in her wheelchair for a long minute before realizing he was probably expecting some kind of response.

"What… what do you mean?" She asked. Dean still refused to look at her, but he answered her question.

"The… the demon that was possessing you… she said things to me, before we…" He didn't really want to finished that sentence. But Meg seemed to get the gist of it.

"She was trying to break you, Dean, she-"

"But what if it's true?" Dean interrupted. He swallowed again. "I… I've killed… so much… and not just monsters… I've killed people." He rolled over, staring at Meg with a blank look in his eyes. "And I didn't care… not once, I never hesitated. I just… did it. I killed Laura and I didn't even flinch. She was in there somewhere, even in a coma she was still… alive. She was still a human being and pulled the trigger on her without a second thought. What does that make me, Meg?" She just stared at, not sure what to say. Unable to stop himself, Dean continued. "And… you… I was going to let you die. That demon… it was keeping you alive, and I… I hated it… it didn't matter that you were as good as dead, I wanted it dead."

"But you said-"

"What does it matter what I said?" Dean cut across her angrily. "It was everything I've fought to destroy my entire life. And I loved it…" There was a strange look in Dean's eyes, like he was confused by what he was saying. "… it hurt me, and I hated it, but I… I loved it." He blinked. "I killed it… I almost killed you… when does it stop? How much more death do I have to cause before I…?" And at that point he realized he couldn't go on. He didn't know how to. Not much of what he'd just said made sense to him; a lot of it had sickened him. And now he didn't know what to do.

He was surprised to feel a gentle touch on his shoulder, and absently reached up with his good arm, covering Meg's hand with his own.

"Why'd you do it?" Meg asked. This surprised Dean. He'd expected her to be disgusted with him, maybe even horrified. Maybe he even wanted her to be. He remained silent. He didn't want forgiveness; he didn't think he deserved it. Meg, however, believed otherwise. "You did it for Sam, to protect him, to protect all of your family." A pained expression crossed Meg's face; stretching forward to put her hand on his shoulder was obviously not easy for her. But she ignored it and continued on. "That's what separates from them, Dean; that's why you're not a monster. You don't fight for the sake of the fight. You fight to protect the ones you love. For Sam, for your father, for Haley…"

"For you." Dean said. Meg blinked, caught off-guard. Dean tightened his grip on her hand, but his eyes made it clear he was not convinced. "What if you're wrong? How do you know that I'm not going to wake up one morning and…" Again, he couldn't finish the sentence. And again, Meg understood. He felt her own grip tighten in his.

"I know, because when it came down to it, when you could choose between life, and death… you chose Sam's life over its death." Dean blinked. Was she talking about…? But how did she know? "You could've killed it, could've let it die right there. Hell, you could've heard what you wanted and then not given it the blood. But you didn't. You're a good, honourable man, Dean, because you kept your promise. You let your worst enemy live in exchange for your brother's life."

"How could I not?" Dean asked. Meg smiled.

"And that's the difference between a man and a monster." She said. "A monster would gladly sacrifice Sam for the chance to kill the demon. To someone who lived solely for killing, for fighting, Sam's life would be expendable, meaningless in the grand scheme of things. But to you, Sam is the one thing that isn't expendable."

Dean thought about this for a long time, just laying there, holding Meg's hand tightly in his own. She was very convincing. And it wasn't like he didn't want to believe her, it was just… he couldn't help the nagging doubts in his mind. Meg could see this on his face.

"And if you don't believe me that you're not a monster, ask Sam." She said. Dean just stared at her; Sam… Sam would tell him he wasn't a monster even if he grew fur, fangs and horns. Well, maybe he'd joke about it, but he would never, in all seriousness, say that Dean was a monster.

There were silent tears in Dean's eyes. Maybe that was all he needed. For Sam to believe in him. If Sam decided he wasn't a monster, then he wasn't. It was as simple as that.

Meg could see on his face that she'd finally convinced him. She closed her eyes and sighed with relief. Sagging in her wheelchair, she gave him a small smile, her hand still in his.

"Thank you." Dean said. All she did was nod, but she understood how thankful Dean was. Releasing her hand, Dean sat up, staring at her.

"You're welcome." She said, still smiling.

-;-

Haley looked up as the doctor walked into the room. Normally she'd have been too distracted by the many emotions that filled a hospital, but right now she found herself unable to reach past the gaping hole inside of her. Well, it wasn't really a hole; more like a vast emptiness she'd convinced herself was there, the lack of life where her baby had been just the day before. It acted as an effective shield against… anything really. If she opened herself up empathically (okay, she couldn't actually shut it down, but she could ignore it), all she'd feel was emptiness.

"Mrs. Winchester?" The doctor asked. Haley nodded in a non-committal way. He knew who she was. "I've just come to see how you're doing. I can't really begin to imagine what you must be feeling right now."

"No. You really can't." Haley said.

"Now, we've given you something for the pain," the doctor stated, "and something to stop the contractions until-"

"What?" Haley sat bolt-upright. "What do you mean, 'stop the contractions'?"

"Well, Mrs. Winchester, you're only, what? Six months pregnant." The doctor asked. Haley blinked. Why was he talking in the present tense? Had he forgotten she'd just had a miscarriage? She suddenly realized he'd been talking while she was thinking.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" She asked.

"You… you don't know, do you?" The doctor asked. She blinked again, fixing him with a confused look. "You were carrying twins." Her look of confusion turned to stunned disbelief. "From what we can guess… the baby you lost, it must-"

"She." Haley corrected. Even if her baby was dead, she would not have her referred to as 'it'.

"I'm sorry. She must have… cushioned the blow. The second baby…" He gave her what Haley thought might have been a comforting smile. "Your son survived the miscarriage. We gave you something to stop the contractions to keep from losing him as well."

Stunned silence followed this surprising revelation. All Haley could do was stare at the doctor. Was it possible? Had she been carrying two babies all this time without even realizing it? It was, she surmised, totally possible that the first had somehow been shielding the second from her empathy. And she knew that it was possible for ultrasounds to miss things.

Hesitantly, she looked down, raising her blanket to look at her stomach. Her eyes widened; sure enough, her stomach was still larger then normal, though somewhat smaller then it had been. She looked back up at the doctor, not quite sure what to say.

-;-

A/N: I know, chapter's kind of short. I caught a muse (cause it's what all the cool kids are using for ideas these days), but it's lazy and won't get off the bed.

I don't know if there are drugs that can be given to stop contractions during premature labour, so bear with me on this (I didn't say this at the top cause I didn't want to give away the surprise). I've had most of the events of this pregnancy planned since the beginning of this series, including the miscarriage.

Also, I'm not sure if one twin can survive an unnatural miscarriage, but I know that sometimes one twin can die naturally before they're born, and the other can survive (I've done a lot of researched on pregnancy over the last few months).

I hope I portrayed Dean okay, and that Meg was up to expectations (since she was on the verge of death in the show when she was unpossessed, there wasn't a lot to go on personality-wise), as well as the way Sam's acting (no experience in being buried alive, thankfully) and Missouri's reaction to him. Well, I think that's all. Until next time, Cyas.