Chapter 17

Sam wasn't exactly sure what it was that was keeping him awake as he sat stewing next to his brother's broken and abused body, having one hell of a time clearing his head of the murderous thoughts that still lay in wait behind his weary eyes, thoughts that were temporarily dormant but still lurking deep inside. Whether it was the throaty snore coming from across the room as Bobby slept in Sam's bed, knowing he had absolutely no use for it at the moment himself and offering it to the exhausted man, or the repetitive whooshing sound of the dreaded machine next to Dean's side that pushed oxygen into his lungs when he couldn't pull it in on his own, it really didn't matter. Even if he did figure it out, he still wasn't sleeping anytime soon anyway. Nurses paraded in and out every hour like clockwork, and Sam would stand his ground when they'd ask him to move out of the way and watch each and every one of them like a hawk, making damn sure not one of them did a damn thing to his brother other then check on his condition. He'd trusted them before, but not anymore, and nothing was getting by him again.

Bobby had been up since well before sunrise the day before, taking his own turn at guard duty of sorts while Sam had slept until well into the afternoon before heading out and conducting his investigation of what now was most definitely victim number three, which was why he'd crashed out by nine o'clock, not long after he'd finally got Sam somewhat calmed down enough to be sure he wasn't going to sneak out in the middle of the night and slit Trent Waterson's throat. Sam had offered his bed to the older hunter, knowing his still festering anger would keep him conscious for quite some time to come tonight. He'd pulled up a chair not two feet from his brother's side and listened to him breathe, or at least try to breathe, the machine seemingly doing most of the work for him. He was so sick and tired of that sound, sick and tired of that room, and sick and tired of doctors and nurses telling him not to worry that he just wanted it all to be over so they could get the hell out of dodge.

It had been nearly six hours since shit had hit the fan, but he knew they weren't even halfway through what Mark had already told him would be a very long ordeal. It didn't matter though, as long as Dean started breathing on his own again, Sam would make sure nothing else happened to him, and if Bobby could find some kind of evidence against Waterson, like maybe those god damn tongues so he could salt and burn them to get rid of Trish once and for all, life would get even better, maybe even back to normal. Sam hadn't been kidding when he'd said he'd make an exception to their 'no killing humans' rule, but Bobby had been right about one thing, they did need concrete proof. As soon as he got that though, all bets were off. Sam played with ideas in his mind as he slid over closer the bed and rested his head against the mattress, feeling the warmth of his brother's limp arm against his forehead as the adrenaline rush he'd been flying high on earlier finally starting to wind down to a normal level since he'd forced himself to relax and wait, just as Bobby had suggested they do. His head hurt, his eyes hurt, his heart hurt, and as he listened to the monotonous sounds in the room, he'd let his eyelids drift closed, having no intentions of sleeping but just wanting to make the pain behind them go away.

"Hey Sam, wake up kid," the voice echoing in his head was husky as he felt his body being shaken to and fro by the strong arm on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and stared at Bobby's face, which stood mere inches from his own and tried to comprehend why he was bothering him.

"What…what'd I miss?" Sam asked, somewhat confused as to what was going on. Hadn't he just been thinking of ways to kill Waterson without getting caught, and coming up with quite a few good ones at that?

"You're drooling all over your brother's bed boy, go get some sleep in your own. I'll sit here for a while and keep watch over him," he told Sam, not really making it sound like Sam had much choice as Bobby grabbed him under the arm and lifted him from the chair, walking him across the room and depositing him in the bed without any words of protest.

"Bobby, you'll wake me up if anything happens, right?" He asked with sleep riddled words, barely able to keep his eyes open.

"Ain't nothin' gonna happen, but yes Sam, I'll wake you if it does, now go to sleep."

His sleep had been dreamless, which for Sam was a rarity, especially considering how much he'd had on his mind over the last few hours, and it was definitely the kind of material nightmares were made of. He didn't really know how long he'd been sleeping, but when he'd been pulled from it by Bobby yet again, he knew it was over and this time another day of fun and surprises was about to begin, whether he liked it or not.

"Sam, wake up. Dr, Horton's here," Bobby told him, the words waking him almost instantly as he practically leapt from the bed and crossed the room in just a few steps, anxious to hear what the doctor had to say.

"Morning Sam," Mark stated the obvious, noting that it was indeed morning, but not necessarily observing it to be a good one even as bright sunlight filtered in through the half open shades covering the windows, lighting up the room to an almost cheery feel, if it weren't for what was going on inside. No one in the room felt the least bit cheery this morning.

"What time is it?" Sam asked as he yawned and stretched, his eyes falling on his brother, whose condition hadn't appeared to change all night, either for the better or worse as he tried to calculate how long it had been since he'd been drugged up to the point of near death. His skin was still too pale, the sunlight burning bright in the room adding to the sickly pallor his flesh gave off. His face, which had been for the most part peaceful appearing in sleep the night before, now had somewhat of a grimace spread across it, which Sam attributed to the lack of any type of pain medication being administered at the moment. Even in his near comatose sleep, Dean was in some kind of pain, and Sam could clearly see it.

"It's a little after eight o'clock in the morning," Mark answered rather curtly, and Sam could tell something was bothering him, but he wasn't really sure he wanted to ask what.

Sam did the math fast in his head, then went ahead and started asking his questions, knowing they needed answers, whether he wanted to hear them or not. The ever present droning of the ventilator still echoing in the room answered the obvious first question, so Sam didn't even bother to ask it. "It's been thirteen hours, is he getting any better yet?"

Mark shook his head as he answered Sam's question, "His temperature is down and his blood pressure is back up, so I'd have to say yes, he's getting better."

"Then why isn't he breathing yet?" Sam shot the ping pong ball back into Mark's side of the table.

"I don't know Sam, but I'm really not surprised. It could be hours before he's breathing normally again, or it could be days, I just can't answer that. We only know the dosage the nurses gave him, not what Trent gave him after that, and unfortunately for us, we don't have the luxury of asking him," he'd answered, his irritation coming fully to the surface and peaking Bobby's curiosity.

"What do you mean, we can't ask him?" Bobby asked, and he definitely didn't like the way that sounded.

"We can't ask him because he's gone. Apparently, someone tipped off his father as to what happened here yesterday, long before I had a chance to, and it was decided that Trent should take a short leave of absence to get his head back on straight. He damn near kills a patient, and his punishment is two weeks on a Club Med vacation. I guess, in a way, that solves the majority of the problems here. I don't need to find a way to remove him from the case; he's done that all by himself. It really pisses me off that he won't have to account for his actions though, but then again, what did I really expect." He couldn't believe he was spilling his guts to either man about a fellow doctor, but he really didn't want to hold in how he felt anymore since he'd found out about Trent. He knew that if it had been him that had accidentally OD'd a patient, he'd be in the unemployment line right now, but then again, he wasn't a Waterson.

Sam and Bobby shot each other a look as Mark spoke that relayed completely different feelings from the ones the doctor was expressing, and Bobby could almost read Sam's mind as he looked at the young man, noting his eyes were saying it all. It was damn near the same look Sam had the night before, when he was ready to hunt the evil, murderous bastard down and kill him on sight for what he'd done to Dean. The way his eyebrows were tightly drawn together until they nearly met as the scowl formed across his face told Bobby everything.

"Do you know where he went?" Bobby asked, hoping against hope he did, and that somehow he could follow.

"Nope, nobody apparently does, and if they do, they're not telling. I'm sure he won't be gone long, but let's just hope it's long enough to get Dean up and out of here," Mark answered Bobby, satisfied he'd said his piece. "I'll be around all day and I've informed the nurses to page me if there's any change. Unless you guys need something, I'll check back in later."

"I know you said no more drugs, but he's in pain. There's gotta be something you can give him, isn't there?"

"How do you know that, Sam?"

"I just do," he told him. Sam did know, he could tell by the way Dean's eyes wrinkled up at the corners, and had he not had a tube down his throat, he was pretty sure his lips would be pursed together like usually did when he was in pain. He always looked that way when he was hurting, and if anyone would know, it would be Sam. He'd seen that look way too many times in his life to mistake it for anything else.

"I'll see what I can do."

Sam watched as Mark walked out of the room, immediately following him and closing the door once he was out of sight before directing that angry glare in Bobby's direction again, but Bobby was prepared for what was going to come.

"I already know what you're gonna say Sam, so don't say it," he warned him, knowing it would go totally unheeded.

"I knew it Bobby; we should have gone after him last night. What the hell are we going to do now? We can't stop him if we don't even know where he is," Sam fumed, feeling that anger start to rise again.

"Sam, if we'd gone after him last night, you would have killed him sure as shit. You know as well as I do he'll be back, sooner rather than later. This may actually be a good thing. This is his comfort zone, and it's pretty unlikely he'll stray too far from it or kill outside of it. The longer he's gone, the better it is for Dean. I'm gonna head to his house to see if I can dig anything up, you stay here and babysit. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky. Boot up that 'bot of yours and find me an address, will ya?"

Sam did just that, easily finding Dr. Waterson's place of residence and jotting it down on a piece of old newspaper for the older hunter, who wasted no time leaving the room once he had the information he needed, wanting more than anything to be free of the glaring stare Sam was drilling into him, not necessarily from anger but from frustration as well. Yes, Waterson was gone, but he would most definitely be back, because for some crazy reason he wanted Dean dead, and people like that don't normally give up that easily. Oh no, he'd be back soon enough to try and finish Dean off, of that he was sure, but when he did come back, both he and Sam would be ready for him.

The house had been easy to find, easy to enter, and easy to search, considering it had nothing incriminating whatsoever inside to find. In fact, it was pretty much exactly what he'd expected the house of a sociopath to be. Plain white walls, typical, boxy beige furniture, and very little of anything else. Much like the man that owned it, the house had no warmth or personality. He'd left everything exactly the way he'd found it, and returned to Sam, somewhat disappointed he'd struck out. He walked slowly back up to the room with his head hung low, not looking forward to telling Sam he'd come up empty handed, especially when Sam shot him that look again as he entered the room.

"Did you find anything?" Sam queried, the look on Bobby's face telling Sam the answer was a big fat no before he'd even heard it.

"What do you think? You didn't think he'd leave a sign saying 'Hey, I'm a Serial Killer' laying around did you?" Was his aggravated response as he dropped himself into an open chair across the room, it not even being noon yet, but finding he was already exhausted.

"Great, just great. Now what?"

"Now we wait, and hope Dean can give us something to go on. It's our only option at the moment. Maybe he can tell us where to look, 'cause frankly, I got no clue."

Bobby said wait, and wait they did. Hours went by as Sam sat staring silently at his brother, his eyes barely straying from him as he watched Dean occasionally twitch or jerk, or hear him actually try to take what sounded to Sam like a breath through the plastic shoved down his throat. He'd been tempted a few times to have Mark paged when he'd heard the efforts of breathing coming more and more often over the last few hours, but when he laid his hand on his brother's arm to calm yet another bout of uncontrollable muscle spasms, he knew something had to be done when he felt the throbbing pulse in his veins. He rested his hand on his brother's chest and found himself even more terrified then he had already been.

"Bobby, get Dr. Horton in here now, something's wrong," he half ordered, half begged, and Bobby didn't wait around for an explanation, he just took off from the room in a near sprint, not surprised more bad shit was happening.

Mark had already been in the hallway and was making his way towards the room when he saw Bobby bolt out into the hall, causing him to quicken his pace to cut the man off before he reached the nurse's station. "What's wrong?"

"Don't know, Sam said to get you ASAP, I didn't wait around to find out why," he relayed as they both headed for the door, practically knocking each other over as they tried getting inside at the same time.

"Sam, what is it?" He repeated the same basic question and waited patiently for an answer, not seeing anything visibly wrong in front of him.

"His heart's racing. I swear, it feels like it's about to explode in his chest," Sam urgently tried to tell him, his panic making him sound almost like a madman.

"I think he's starting to fight the machine, and it may be stressing him out just a little. Might be time to finally shut it off and see if he can do the work for himself now," he told Sam, hoping it was the only reason for the sudden boost in heart rate. "Sam, can you go get one of the nurses please?"

By the time Sam made it to the desk and dragged one of the women back inside the room with him, the machine had been silenced and pushed into the corner along with the accompanying tubing that came with it. It was still inside, and Sam could see Dean's chest clearly rising and falling at a normal pace as he continued to sleep and he breathed a sigh of relief that was audible to everyone in the room. Sam was next to him before anyone could blink, not caring what his brother would say when he realized he was holding his hand brother's hand as he spoke to him.

"Dean…can you hear me? Wake up and talk to me, please," he was nearly begging, something he'd done a lot of over the last few weeks, so much so that it was almost becoming second nature.

"Sorry Sam, he's not awake yet, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. Just give it some time; he'll wake up when he's ready. I know you're tired of hearing it, but relax, it will happen," Mark did know Sam was sick of hearing those words, but he had to say them, knowing full well what they could very well be in for over the next few days, but hoped he'd be wrong. "Listen Sam, you need to be prepared for when he does finally wake up. He may be irritable…really irritable. Try to keep him calm but don't challenge him, and don't leave him alone. Have me paged too, no matter what time of day it is. I want to talk to him once he's coherent."

"Great, he'll be more irritable then his usual self. This is gonna be fun," Sam almost joked, but Mark didn't find it amusing, and neither did Bobby.

"I'm serious Sam. Just let him have his mood swings and stay out of his way. Hopefully, they won't last long, and we'll be able to see about getting him out of here and somewhere a little more comfortable. If I don't get a page, I'll come back in the morning. Until then, just talk to him, maybe it'll help."

Both Sam and Bobby fell back into that uncomfortable silence once they were alone again, neither one of them wanting to broach the subject of Trent Waterson at the moment, and it didn't take long for Bobby to not be able to stand it anymore. He made some excuse about being hungry, which really wasn't an excuse considering neither one of them had eaten all day, and made his escape, telling Sam he'd be back with dinner, eventually. He'd taken his sweet time at returning, the Chinese he'd decided on merely being picked at by Sam before he just gave up and pushed it to the side, having no appetite at the moment. Sam had made the mistake of coercing a nurse into telling him what it was that Dean had been given such a generous dose of, then looking it up on the internet to see what exactly it was that Mark wasn't telling him. After reading just about all the information he could find, he almost wished he hadn't. By midnight, his eyes were so dry and tired, he decided to just curl up and go to sleep, just like Bobby had hours before, enjoying the peace and quiet.

Morning and afternoon had come and gone along with Mark, who hadn't stayed very long when he realized Sam had somehow found out Trent's drug of choice and had been doing his homework, and was, for lack of a better word, totally pissed off when he realized that Dean would probably live through each and every one of the side effects he'd read could happen, because that's just how things worked in their world. He wasn't pissed at Mark, but at the person that rightfully deserved it, and once again, there was nothing Sam could do about it but wait for the bastard to return to face the Winchester music, and if he had his way, he'd most definitely be leading the orchestra.

By sunset, Sam thought he was going to go out of his mind. It had been nearly two days since he'd last spoke to Dean, and like he was some kind of drug himself, Sam was desperate for a fix. He felt useless and helpless as he watched his brother's body become weak and frail over the last six weeks, and began to wonder if he'd ever be the Dean he used to be. Of course, it didn't help that he had a dead woman living inside with him, physically torturing him at just about every chance she got. He'd been grateful for at least the fact that he'd been spared her attempts at communications over the last couple days, the results of the previous encounters leaving him pretty much in the mess he was in right now. He'd tried numerous times already to wake his brother unsuccessfully, but decided 'What the hell', and tried it again.

Towering over Dean, he rested a hand on his shoulder and gently shook him as he spoke, "Dean…you in there? I really need to talk to you, do you think you can try to wake up now, please…"

"Sam…what's wrong…" he started asking in a mumble, the desperation in Sam's voice finally helping force him somewhat awake, "You ok?"

Sam had a hard time hiding the surprise that was in his voice when his brother finally answered him after two days of silence. "Am I ok? Yeah, I'm fine. What about you? How do you feel?" He watched as Dean's eyes rolled around under their still closed lids, trying to find some source of strength to open.

"Why am I so tired? I could hear you talking, but I just couldn't wake up. What the fuck is going on Sam? Shit…Oh god…I think I'm gonna be sick…" he groaned the last part out as his breathing became rapid while he reached for Sam and tried rolling himself over when his stomach muscles started contracting, the lack of muscle control he had making movement nearly impossible. Sam knew he wouldn't be able to throw up, even if his body wanted to; there was nothing inside it to throw up. Bobby, who had been sitting in a corner quietly listening had already made it to the bed and began raising the back up when he saw Dean struggling and Sam had apparently gone momentarily brain dead. Somehow up righting him had alleviated the overwhelming nausea that had struck, and after a few deep breaths, his air intake evened out to normal and his body relaxed a little, but Bobby could see something was still wrong.

"That better?" He asked, his words finally drawing Sam out of his near trance, that and the slap on the back Bobby gave him.

"Yeah, thanks. This sucks, can I just go back to sleep now?"

"No, not yet. You need to stay with us just a little while longer, can you do that?" Sam eyed Bobby, who took the cue and headed for the door.

"I'll try. Where's he going like his hair's on fire?"

"To get your doctor, because as much as you want to bullshit me, I know you're still in pain, aren't you?"

"What makes you say that Sam?"

"Because you're stiff as a board, and as much as you're trying to hide it, you're breathing heavier then you should be, so, nice try, but no fly."

"Whatever, Mr. Know It All. What the hell happened, anyway? The last thing I remember was…uhh…shit, what is the last thing I remember?"

"Don't know man, but give it time, it may come back to you." Shit Dean, it needs to come back to you, and sooner rather than later.

"Uh Sam, I'm not really sure I want it to come back to me," he told his brother, fully aware of where each and every pain he felt was coming from and deciding it wouldn't be a good idea to relive how he'd gotten them.

"Ok, spill it, what hurts?"

"Everything. My head, my stomach, my…umm…never mind; and it fuckin' itches like a bitch too," Dean was being vague, but Sam knew exactly what he meant.

"Don't try to scratch, you've got stitches there."

"What! Why!"

"I thought you didn't want to know," Sam chided, smiling at Dean who had finally found a way to open his eyes wide.

"Sam…" Anger was starting to flare in Dean's eyes, and Sam knew he was getting annoyed, very annoyed. That was a new record for Dean, zero to pissed in about five seconds, and pissed at him no less. Yeah, well, he couldn't say he hadn't been warned this would happen.

"Ok, I'll tell you if you really want to know, but you aren't going to like it. You sort of fell out of bed and the catheter …well…it…"

"Forget it, I don't want to hear it," Dean grumbled, seeing the look on Sam's face that told him he really didn't want to tell him, and confirming that he'd really be better off not knowing. He just closed his eyes and dropped his head back onto the pillow, fully intent on going back to sleep.

"Hey, don't do that, the doctor wants to see you once you're awake. Come on, you can keep your eyes open for a few more minutes, can't you?"

"Fuck the doctor and fuck you too Sam. Would you just leave me alone, please?"

That was it, and Sam knew the battle had begun.