It wasn't until Dean's eyes were open that Sam realized how much he had missed seeing them. It had been almost ten days since Dean had looked back at him, and that very simple gesture seemed to mean the world in that very moment.
Still, Sam got over his shock and squeezed Dean's hand again before he pressed the call button, hoping that Marian or someone else would be able to get into the room before Dean passed out again.
"Dean? Are you…" Cas trailed off, not sure how to finish his question. Dean's eyes tiredly drifted over to Cas, and Sam watched the usually unfazed angel visibly tense up at the gaze. Eventually Dean looked back over to Sam, but nothing else moved besides his eyes and his hand a bit in Sam's.
A minute later, there was a slight tap at the door and Marian walked in. "Got the buzz at the station, there a problem?" she asked, clipboard in hand. As she walked up closer to the bed, she smiled upon seeing that Dean was up. "Tired, but green nonetheless," she nodded, and jotted a few things down onto her notepad before she looked to Sam and Cas.
"If you don't mind going into the waiting room, I just need to check a few things, see how he is, shouldn't take longer than fifteen minutes."
Sam was reluctant to leave Dean's side so soon after he had woken up, but he knew better than to fight with a nurse in the ICU. "Thanks," he nodded back and stood up. It took a moment to get Dean's hand disengaged from his own, and afterwards Dean's eyes didn't leave him.
Cas followed suit and soon the two of them were out the door and on their way to the waiting room. They sat down unceremoniously in semi-cracked chairs with a collective sigh before Sam ran a hand over his face. Dean had been in the coma, what, eight days? Most comas lasted one to two weeks from what he heard, so while it wasn't exactly a good scenario, it could have been a lot worse.
"It is good to see him awake again," Cas said, almost absently. Sam cast a glance over his friend, who was smiling to himself at he stared at the empty wall across from where they were seated.
"Yeah, you're telling me," Sam agreed. "He'll probably be really tired for a few days, but hopefully he can build up from here and eventually work his way back to normal. Best case scenarios and all."
Cas nodded back in agreement and the two of them sat in silence until Marian came back, clipboard and capped pen in hand. In her other, she carried Sam's laptop and jackets. The two men rose to greet her and she smiled a bit. "How is he?" Cas asked before Sam could get the words out.
Marian passed off Sam's things to him before she replied. "Resting now. The first few days after a patient has been in a coma are critical, they usually don't remain up for very long, but eventually they can hold small conversations and gradually build up," Marian informed. "It's definitely a relief to see him awake," she nodded slightly and looked at something on the sheet.
Sam knew the look on her face well enough; it was one he had to wear himself many times in their line of work. It was the look of bad news to come. "Is there a 'but' to follow that?" he asked quietly.
She finished looking at a few papers for another moment before she looked up and sighed. "Hard to say. We'll see how he progresses over the next few days. He just woke up, so there was no attempt at verbal communication just yet. Some of his scans showed what could be damage, but we'd have to get another, more recent scan to see if it's healed."
"Damage? As in brain damage?" Sam clarified, pretty sure that he had gone a shade paler at the mere thought of it. Hunting aside, brain damage was never something to be taken lightly, especially after a crash. He looked back to Cas, who had a similar expression to his own on his face as he took in the information.
Years ago before the angels fell, he could have probably fixed something like this with nothing more than a touch on the forehead and some angel juice. Now, they had to deal with it like everyone else.
"As in brain damage," Marian affirmed. "It could be nothing, again, we'll have to wait and see how he progresses. I'm going to see if we can't get him in for a scan tonight, it's unlikely he'll be up much again," she took a quick glance at her watch. "You two should probably head back to where you're staying, just let him rest for tonight, we'll fill you in when you come back in the morning."
Sam tried to nod because of course she was right, but Dean had just woken up. He should be there beside him in case anything happened and Dean needed him. Dean was always there when Sam needed him, so he had to reciprocate what had been done for all those years. "Are you sure?"
Marian gave him a small smile, looked to Cas, and nodded. "Trust me on this one, Sam."
"I do, not saying I don't, I just want to make sure," Sam corrected quickly, but Marian was already politely holding up a hand.
"I know you are. Worrying in the room won't help anything. So you two get some rest, Dean will get some rest, and we'll all meet back in the morning, alright?"
Again, Cas was the one nodding for both of them even though he still looked deep in thought. "We understand, thank you, Marian."
She smiled again and turned to leave. "You two drive safe now, if anything comes up, someone will contact you." She waited for another moment before she started walking back the way she came, still carrying the clipboard and pen.
The angel and the hunter kept standing in the waiting room, unsure of what to do next. Sam kept looking between his laptop, the floor, and Cas until the angel jingled the Impala's keys in his pocket and sighed.
"In the morning then," he said quietly. "Come on, Sam, some rest will do you some good."
Again, Sam couldn't fight that fact, and it would be pointless to do so. Cas began walking down the hall towards the elevator, shoes echoing on the tile floor. Sam cast another glance down the hall where they had come from, down the hall where his now partially awake brother lie all alone…Sam followed Cas down the hallway before he could turn around and go back to Dean.
The first thing Sam registered when he started coming to was that the car had stopped. He wasn't sure how long it had been stopped for, but it couldn't have been long because it was still warm inside. The next thing he registered was that he was no longer propped up against Dean because Dean was no longer in the car.
"D'n?" he breathed out and blinked, trying to clear some of the fog from his vision as if it would help. He tried twisting to see if he was getting something out of the trunk, which only reignited the fire in his lungs and made sure that the next few moments were spend in complete stillness.
Eventually, the car door opened and a flurry of voices began pouring in. Dean's was the first that he recognized, and it turned out to be the only one. His hand was light and comforting on his shoulder.
"Heya, Sammy, good to see you up. Listen, we're here at the hospital, and we need to get you out of the car so these nice doctors and nurses can patch you up, alright?"
Sam was sure that if he could have seen Dean, he would have been half smiling to hide the fact that he was deathly worried about his little brother bleeding out on the Impala's seats. He wanted to remind his brother that he wasn't five anymore, but instead he just nodded weakly, though moving wasn't sounding like the best option at the moment.
"Great. Just hang on and stay awake for me, okay?"
There it was again, the 'alright?', the 'okay?', as if Sam had any say in the matter. He wasn't going anywhere, if he had any say in that at least.
Before he knew it, there were multiple hands on him gently sliding him towards the passenger side door of the car.
"We've got a gurney here and we're going to get you up and then laid out onto it, Sam, I need you to stay with us," came a new voice, a young female if he was hearing correctly. Sam blinked slowly in affirmation that yes, he had heard and understood even though he'd much rather not move and go back to being unconscious.
There was a count to three and then he was lifted up onto the gurney and given a moment to try and catch his breath before he was laid down. Of course, catching his breath didn't exactly work and he ended up painfully gasping more than anything else.
"There we go, see, nice and easy, like it always is, Sammy, they're gonna take care of you."
Dean was standing right above him in his field of vision as the people around him got the gurney set. There was a streak of blood on his cheek, probably from where he had absentmindedly wiped a hand across it. It was dark outside save for a few streetlights, but his eyes were still as green as ever. Someone attached some sort of oxygen mask to his face which first felt confining, but then vaguely freeing. From there, everything began to spin again and the gurney began to move, rough and grating under the wheels.
"You're gonna be just fine, just fine, you hang on for me, Sammy," Dean reminded.
Soon they were passing through a set of doors and then another one and there were some very bright lights. It was only when the voices of everyone else started getting so loud that Sam realize she couldn't hear Dean's any more.
November 20, 10:47am
It had been eleven days since he had last heard Dean's voice. And yeah, Sam was aware of how cheesy it sounded, which was why he would never repeat it to Dean directly, but still, the thought weighed on him.
Marian had been in earlier to tell them that Dean had been up a few more times, the longest being for a span of seven and a half minutes. There had been no talking, but there were a few blinks, so he was able to communicate to a degree. Though she did mention that he seemed very confused, which was normal with patients coming out of a coma.
More worrying though than his confusion were unfortunately the scans. From what they could tell, it was possible that there was some damage to Dean's hippocampus that he had endured when the plane went down. Again, it could just be nothing, but they were going to have to 'wait and see how Dean progressed'. While it was a somewhat hopeful sentiment, because Dean was getting better, Sam was growing to hate it. He wanted to know what was wrong and what he could do to fix it, it was simple…and it wasn't.
Since he and Cas had been in the room, Dean had woken up one more time, but it was just another few confused glances and then his eyes fell shut again. When Sam looked over to Cas, he could see that the angel was just as lost about what to do in the situation as he was.
Still, Dean was waking up and getting better, and Sam just had to keep reminding himself of that.
A bit of a flashback, a bit of an awake Dean :) It's a bit of a slow build but we're getting there so thanks for reading and sticking around! To DearHart, Celtic Knot, Bjester74, Persephone Lupin, and TXKimsonFan, thank you all for your comments, they mean the world :) Onto chapter 13 next week, see you then!