OMG! I'm so sorry it's taken so long to update (You all must be pretty mad, huh?), but I had a surprisingly busy Mother's Day weekend, and then my internet decided to stop working (It's actually taken about half an hour just to get to this site and post this, what with the on-again-off-again service).

Anyway, here's a new update, and just to clarify:

While driving towards the hospital, Dean was totally out of it. he started flashing back and projecting while in the hospital, and Sam figured it out. Now Sam's kinda ticked.

Hope that helps!

Bright hospital fluorescents buzzed over his head as he sat in the room, asking Sam about the aftermath of the crash. His head felt heavy. Mind hazy, something nagging him, tickling at the back of his mind. Something important. Something he should remember, but his mind just drew a big blank.

Someone in the doorway cleared his throat. His father, peeking into the room, looking scared and tired and defeated. Not like a father should look, not after everything that had happened. He should have looked happy, overjoyed to see his eldest son pulling through after being in a possibly deadly coma since the wreck.

Coffee. His father wanted coffee. That was good. It looked like his dad could use a little pick-me-up. Sam would get it. Good thing, too, because it looked like he was about to try and bite his father's head off.

John lingered in the doorway for a moment, watching Sam wander off down the hall, before finally turning back to Dean. He stood there for a moment, staring at his son, watching his eldest boy squirm uncomfortably under his gaze.

"What is it?" Dean asked. He'd never been too comfortable with uncomfortable silences, and this one was especially creepy.

The older man sighed. "You know when…when you were a kid," he said, glancing at the walls, the floor, anywhere but Dean, " I'd come home from a hunt and after what I'd seen, I'd be wrecked. And you…you'd come over to me and you'd put your hand on my shoulder and you'd look me in the eye and you'd," he paused, finally bringing his gaze up, eyes wet with tears and filled with a sadness that shouldn't have been there, didn't belong there, "and you'd say 'It's okay Dad.'"

Dean stared at him, eyes wide, stomach clinching into nervous knots. This wasn't right, couldn't be. It wasn't… it wasn't his dad. His dad didn't say things like that.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

"F-for what?"

"You shouldn't have had to say that to me. I should have been saying that to you. You know I put…I put too much on your shoulders, I made you grow up too fast. You took care of Sammy, you took care of me. You did that, and you didn't complain, not once. I just want you to know that I am so proud of you."

A cold hand wrapped around the young hunter's heart at the familiarity of the last words. "I am so proud of you." Memories flashed through his head, hurting him, making him want to cry out. That pride, that feeling of accomplishment, the realization that it wasn't his dad, not anymore, because dad hated him, had hated him since he was nine and there was nothing he could do to change that.

He closed his eyes for a moment, just long enough to glimpse bright yellow orbs smiling at him ,telling him he wasn't good enough, that no one wanted him, that no one needed him. Sam was his father's favorite. Even when they fought it was more concern that John had ever shown Dean.

"Is this really you talking?" he asked, leaning away from the teary-eyed figured that blocked his only means of escape from the room.

A reassuring smile, no sign that he knew what Dean was talking about, that his son thought he was possessed. "Yeah, yeah it's really me."

Dean still wasn't sure. He'd learned something in that cabin, when the demon had attacked. His father was only proud of him when he wasn't his father. He only said nice things when he wasn't really him. "Why are you saying this stuff?"

John stepped forward, sniffling a bit, and laid a heavy, calloused hand on his son's shoulder. "I want you to watch out for Sammy, ok?"

"Yeah, dad. You know I will. You're scaring me."

Full-on tears, streaking clean lines across his father's dirty, weathered face. "Don't be scared, Dean." There was no sincerity behind the words, no tone of comfort. John Winchester knew that, in order to survive, a person needed to be scared.

Dean just stared at him. There was no comfort derived from the words, which had seemed so hollow and meaningless. Of course he should be scared. He knew what was out there. It had taken his mother. It had possessed his father. It had plans for his brother. It had tried to kill him.

John leaned over, hand still resting on his son's shoulder. Dean could feel his father's breath on the side of his face, puffing down his neck. He hadn't been so close to the man in years. It was the kind of contact he'd yearned for as a child, a reassuring embrace, the proximity, the familiar sound of his father's heartbeat, the smell of cheap whiskey and cologne.

And then John began to whisper. "You have to save your brother, Dean. That's the most important thing. Save him. If you can't do that, son, you'll have to," a slight sob, "you'll have to kill him. Dean, promise me that you'll kill him if you can't save him."

Dean jumped back, the words, cold like ice, stabbing him, twisting in, digging in, making his world go numb as his father, his drill sergeant, ordered him to do the impossible.

"Promise me, Dean."

Not a request. An order. "I…promise." A choked reply, strangled, sounding far-off in the room. Not really him. Couldn't be.

And then the smell of cheap whiskey was gone, the warm breath on his neck, the proximity, the heartbeat, whatever declaration of love he'd been hoping to hear fading with the last words John Winchester would ever speak to his eldest son.

A smile, a nod, and John disappeared through the door.

o0o0o0o0o

The waiting room door opened slowly to reveal the same kind-faced doctor that had led Sam down the hall earlier that day. He looked tired, haggard, spent. Sam didn't really care.

"How is he?" the hunter asked, hopping to his feet and searching the doctor's face for any signs of bad news.

"Better," the man replied, "much better than could be expected. He's fine. Breathing on his own again. That was quite a close call, though."

Sammy nodded. "Yeah. Any chance I'll be able to see him soon?"

The doctor sighed. "I suppose. Just don't stay long. He was asleep when I left. There may still be a nurse or two in there if you head back now."

"Thanks," Sam said, flashing a nervous smile and heading off down the hall toward his brother's room. Suddenly, he stopped and spun around. "Doctor? Um, did anything happen when you… when you brought him back? Any strange… things?"

The doctor shook his head. "Not that I can recall, although his pulling through was a miracle in itself."

"Thanks." He took off, back down the hallway, not quite running, but not quite walking. He passed by two nurses with tears in their eyes, their faces white with shock. They were whispering in hushed tones about the handsome young man they'd just helped resurrect, about how they got a bad feeling in that room.

Sam quickened his pace.

o0o0o0o0o

The bright hospital fluorescents buzzed softly overhead as Dean gazed weakly up at them, his eyelids heavy. He was alive. Alive, and cold, and alone.

There had been doctors and nurses in the room before, and then he'd lapsed into another flashback, a painfully vivid and recent one. When he'd come to he'd found the nurses gone, could hear them hurrying down the hall. He'd seen the spots of water on the otherwise pristine hospital sheets, had heard the tapering sobs, and he'd known.

He'd pulled it back after that. Hadn't even realized he'd been sending those long-ago emotions out at people, but he'd pulled them back.

The light buzzed, the clock ticked, and he was alone. He knew he'd come close to dying. Somewhere through the thick haze he'd felt the panic, the fear, had smelled the stench of death and rot and eternal sleep so sweet that thoughts of a life full of rejection could never penetrate. He'd wanted it. It would have been a welcome release.

Suicide was always an option, but not the Winchester way. Dean was supposed to go down in a blaze of glory. Sam was supposed to lay his graying head on a pillow one night, so many years from now, and never wake up. John and Mary Winchester were supposed to live long, full lives, but evil had other plans. Dean had other plans, too.

He let his eyelids slide shut, letting brief darkness take him. Sam had told him once that when the demon died he would go back to Stanford. Dean knew that he meant it. After all, when Sammy wanted something, he usually got it. Dean was usually the one to give it to him.

So, Sam was taken care of. He wanted a normal life, and he deserved it. No room for weapons or demons or Dean. No, the older hunter would have to go it alone from now on. No one to depend on, no one to love. He'd have to find his own way, surround himself with happy people, try to fill in those painful holes that life had left him with.

He could go back to the Roadhouse. Back to Jo. Sure, he knew that it wasn't really love, just a schoolgirl crush. Lust. It didn't matter, though. She would stand by him, would spend time with him. Maybe she could make him whole again.

Of course, there was always Ellen. She undoubtedly knew what Dean had done to her perfect daughter, and she probably wasn't too happy about it. The Roadhouse would be off-limits, as would Jo. Besides, the empath wasn't exactly eager to surround himself with more hatred. He'd had enough of that in his life.

Cassie. His mind naturally went to her next. She was the one he thought about when the nights got long, when he and Sam fought, when nothing seemed right. He could have had something. Maybe he still could.

There was always the possibility, though, that he would arrive on her doorstep to find that she had gotten married in his long absence, or that she had moved on in some other way. She could always slam that door, always laugh at him, always turn him away.

And what if she didn't really love him? What if he got there and she let him in, but it was all bitter disappointment and regret? Would he really be able to live the rest of his life like that, surrounded by thoughts of what could have been and would never be?

He wasn't ready to go back to Cassie, wasn't prepared to drive back to Missouri just to be rejected. Unless, of course, the Missouri he traveled to wasn't the state.

He could always go back to the psychic, tell her some story about wanting to know more about what was happening to him. She would know the truth, of course, but lying was easier, at least when Sam wasn't around. She would let him stay with her, encompassed in that warmth and safety. He could help out around the house, do little odd jobs, earn his keep. Maybe he could be happy.

A small smile played at Dean's lips. For once in his life, happily ever after seemed within reach.