Diagnosis: subarchnoid hemorrhage; bleeding in the space around the brain, caused by a cerebral aneurysm or, in Sam's case, a traumatic head injury.
Prognosis: devastating.
Nevermind he'd beaten the odds upon admission, forget he'd survived the OR. The unit they placed him in was intensive care, and neither the surgeons or doctors radiated confidence that he would be moved in the near future.
"Unfortunately the delay in seeking treatment, and the severity of the injury, he is at heightened risk for persistent vegetative state and post traumatic epilepsy."
The doctor was leaning on the end of the bed with one hand, the other on his hip in a heavy sort of nonchalant pose. His mint green scrubs were starch stiff with creases like wrinkles on skin that's seen too much sun, his eyes ringed with years of built-up exhaustion. He wasn't old, but he had seen more death that even we, and that added an easy ten years to his face. Compared to Sam, though, the doctor looked like a golden god.
Sammy.
His sleeping form might have looked peaceful, were it not for the IVs and tubes and wires hooked up to his body like he was part of the goddamn Matrix. Hope might have been easier to hold onto if one of those tubes hadn't been rammed down his throat, taped to his lips, supplying him with the air his lungs had forgotten to take in on their own.
It was a trainwreck; too horrible to look at, too horrific to hear, but fuck if you couldn't turn away.
"How long?" Dean wanted to know. He was standing at Sam's side, arms folded protective over his chest, brows set creased on a bitter face.
"How long?" the doctor echoed.
"Until he wakes up?" He wasn't ignoring what he had been told. He was raging against it.
A sharp sigh exhaled through the doctor's nose, a practice in thinning patience.
"Agent Young." Deep breath to steady the discord before what he perceived to be a greater authority. "I assure you we have done everything that we can for your partner. What happens next depends entirely on his biology."
"'N' whit kin we expect?" Mystery asked, still wearing her M-I agent persona to prolong the charade and the fearsome confusion that came with it. "If he wakes."
"It's too early to tell." He liked her better, but any fool could see she was more removed from the situation; with logic still in place, she was easier to talk to. "But given his condition on admission, short term we're looking at possible cranial bleeds and hemorrhaging. Severe disability, fever. This is, of course, on top of an elevated risk for PTE and coma."
"Long term?" Dean again, a statement with a question mark at the end.
The doctor's green eyes sought me out, begged me to stand away from the wall and reign in the overly emotional "agent". And then he remembered I was "officially not there", and he looked to Mystery for help. Uninterested in spreading false hope as much as he was in irritating Dean any further.
"That is a bridge better crossed whin we come tae it." She spoke out of experience and empathy, but Dean didn't care, because he wasn't asking for medical based answers to desperate questions. He was asking humans to perform miracles.
"Long. Term."
"Forgive me, agent, but I am not in the business of false hope." The doctor folded his arms across his chest. "If your partner regains consciousnesses, his chances of walking alone is a snowball's chance in Hell. Even if he somehow makes a full physical recovery, Agent Young, your partner will never be who he was."
Mystery folded a defensive brow, but couldn't bring herself to argue what she already knew to be true.
"It's very rare for someone to walk away from a TBI scottfree. Best case scenario, chronic headaches and fatigue, but I would be surprised if he improves beyond permanent cognitive impairment."
Dean pursed his lips, and I could see the cogs behind his eyes turning out of time, too frantic and messy to be able to decipher anything rational in that moment.
"That's not good enough."
Like the mortal before us held in his fist the keys to immortality rolled up in his PhD.
"I'm sorry, Agent Young." He was, too, but not deeply. Long years had taught him to detach an easy decade and a half ago. "From a medical standpoint, there's nothing more we can do right now." He looked to Mystery for ration. "We'll have to keep him monitored for at least two weeks. I'll understand if your people want to move him, but as a medical professional I'm obligated to warn you against it until he starts breathing on his own."
"T'ank ye, doctor," Mystery said, drawing out a professional aura. "We'll be lettin' ye ken if there's anythin' else we need fae ye."
The doctor took his dismissal, dropping silence in his leave. Not total silence; there was the mechanic hiss of air from the life support system, the steady beep of the heart monitor. It was the thick quiet that comes with frantic thought. Inside, Dean and I were screaming. Searching our memories, turning over puzzle pieces to get a better picture of what we needed to do. What we had to sell, the words we had to say and the herbs we had to burn to bring Sam back from the brink of death.
It occurred to me that this was Crowley's backup plan. Plan A was to bring me to him. B was to hurt one of my boys bad enough for me to come to him. It was devious enough for the bastard king to conceive of, and had he been there he would have delighted in my consideration.
How far would I go to avoid the destiny that waited for me? How far and bloody would I make that path just to spite the King of Hell?
The lids closed heavy over my eyes. My jaw tensed, and any inkling of humanity left in me stung to the very core. It wasn't the pangs of denial or barbs of guilt. It was the jagged weight of brutal honesty.
"Don't you dare think about it."
His voice was unstably calm, the pullback of a cobra warning of teeth and venom at the falsest of moves. I could feel the heat of his glare thrashing against me like the devil's fists against the doors of Heaven.
"Not again."
I opened my eyes in time to watch Dean swipe away a hand Mystery had placed on his forearm. His eyes were wet, but the tears he choked down with anger.
So much anger.
I drew in a deep breath.
"It's the fastest way." Steady words from a desperate demon's lips. "And time is not on our side."
His fingers curled into tight fists and he exhaled hard through his nose.
"No," he growled, commanding and sorrowful. "You don't get to do that to Sammy."
"Dean–"
He cut me off, blunt, the same way a wooden bat to the head is blunt.
"No!" He was shaking now, his face reddening, jagged lines of rage and anguish cut across his brows. "Do you have any idea what it did to me when I found out you sold your soul for me? It destroyed me. Okay? It fucking wrecked me. And now here you are after all these years, and you're a demon. Because of me." His jaw clenched, he swallowed hard, trying to bring his unshed tears with it. "Sam would rather die."
He wasn't talking about his brother, not exclusively.
I blinked at him.
"Okay," I said.
He blinked. The twists in his face unknotted, his head pulled back. He was prepared for a brawl, and I had handed him a towel.
"Okay?" He echoed. He scowled suspicion. "You're not gonna fight me on this?" His eyes narrowed. "You're not going to go behind my back and turn yourself in to Crowley?"
"No. I won't."
It wasn't a lie. Not the part where I turned myself over to the sitting king of Hell, anyway. That's not how I was going down this time.
Dean was visibly conflicted, unprepared to just stop whatever roll that was just getting started. Mystery was polite enough not to stare, but wasn't stupid enough to leave. At least not as far as the threshold where she leaned in watch.
"I don't know if I believe you," he said after some thought and scrutiny, grit on low volume.
I nodded, straightened my position against the wall.
"That's fair." My eyes fell to Sam, then quickly away; it hurt too much. "You two go get some sleep. It's been a long couple of days."
Days that felt like years, and he wore it on his face, along with sudden severe distrust.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you."
"For fuck sake, Dean." I rubbed the space between my eyes. "You need sleep. Real sleep. You're no good to Sam running on empty. I'll stay. Start researching if you trust me with a computer."
"He's right," Mystery said, coaxing in a lullaby tone. "Let the wicked watch for the wicked so the rest of us can refuel. Unless you want to end up with your own room three floors up."
Dean opened his mouth to protest, but Mystery wouldn't have it. The nature of nurture had already possessed her, and it was damn near impossible to resist a strong willed woman in mama bear mode.
"I saw a motel down the road," she told him, far more of a command than a suggestion, wrapped in warmth. "There's still a can of salt in the van."
Dean was at odds with this newer chain of command in his team free will heart, uneasy about leaving Sam's side, but he was too exhausted to put up much more fight.
"Four hours," he said with a defeated sigh, unable to deny his mortal body's need for sleep, not just for him, but for Sam.
Mystery agreed to the terms with a nod, but flashed me a grin and showed me six of her fingers, then winked.
"Don't leave his side," he instructed me with a halfhearted grumble.
"I won't," I swore, and at the time I meant it.
I wasn't expecting the angel to call.