Standard Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me, and I'm using them without permission.

Author's Note: Holy. Freaking. Crap. You're gonna be like, "It took her three months to write this?" Well, I've spared you about forty pages of drafts that just didn't work. Many thanks go out to geminigrl for reading a couple of those drafts and basically for listening to me whine about writer's block for a while there. Thanks, also, to those of you who offered gentle nudges encouraging me to wrap this puppy up.

Damaged

by Liz Bach

Previously...

"It's been really hard." It was a quiet statement of fact, not necessarily a complaint.

Dean nodded silently. It had been hard. And it was about to get so much worse.

"But there were parts…" Sam smiled faintly, as if recalling a fond memory, and looked up at his big brother with eyes full of such acceptance, and sincerity, and gratitude, that Dean almost couldn't take it. "There were parts, Dean…that were so fucking awesome."

And those words – the way they were spoken, the sentiment behind them, the person speaking them – finally did it. They broke him. Dean closed his eyes tightly, and a tremor went through him. He held fast to Sam's jacket, pressed his cheek into Sam's soft hair. His head was so frighteningly cold, when all Dean wanted at that moment was to feel the warmth of Sam's life very close to him.

"Don't let go, Sam, okay?" he whispered, finding Sam's hand on his sleeve. He grasped his brother's fingers in frantic desperation. "Dammit, Sam! Do not let go of me!"

Part X

Dean slid his hand past the cold metal bar on the side of Sam's hospital bed and wrapped his fingers loosely around his brother's wrist. He placed the rough, calloused pad of his middle finger lightly on a spot between the thick tendons below Sam's thumb and took comfort in the strong, steady throb of his pulse. Dean leaned forward with an elbow on his knee and contemplated the pale green pattern criss-crossed over the faded hospital sheets. Several silent moments passed, and he was breathing in tempo with his brother's heartbeat.

It was late to the point of being early, and the eleventh floor was quiet. Room lights were out, but color televisions reflected paid commercial programming and syndicated reruns off dark window panes and shiny tile floors. It was almost peaceful here at Sam's side; as if Sam's side wasn't the last place anyone could reasonably expect to find any sense of peace. Dean felt peaceful, at least. It was the calmest he'd been since they'd first pulled up in front of the McCrays' abandoned house.

Some random piece of collapsed basement had ripped a hole near the right knee of Dean's jeans, and he kept expecting to feel the pervasive coldness that had pretty much defined their whole, miserable experience in Grant, Nebraska, seeping through to the bare skin on his leg. But he didn't. He actually couldn't feel much of anything, except the worn-soft sheet against his forearm and the reassuring warmth of Sam's hand near his. He had to remind himself that they were finally inside again, and the hospital was warm and dry.

After two hours of sitting in the ER waiting room with elbows on his knees, head down, and his right hand clenched painfully in his left, Dean had quite docilely allowed himself to be led behind a flimsy curtain and checked out. There were several strange, thin bruises wrapped clear around the circumference of his chest, and a deep incision just beneath his knee that took seven stitches to close.

Other than that, Dean had escaped the basement's implosion intact. So the blood that was all over his hands, soaked into his coat, smeared across his neck, was Sam's. Dean was a walking bio-hazard, and they'd marched him back out to the hall, given him a clipboard of forms to complete. His hands shook as he made up a name and struggled to recall Sam's true medical history. He couldn't remember if his little brother was allergic to anything. Life-threatening aversion to homicidal spirit bitches was not one of the options.

Dean heard the rubber-soled shoes of one of the night nurses pad past Sam's door and then fade quietly down the hall. Visiting hours had long expired, but, true to form, Dean Winchester was breaking the rules. His clothes had been dirty, wet, and bloody when Sam was moved from recovery to this private room. They were still dirty and bloody now, but the snow and blood had dried, leaving the fabric stiff and full of ugly, dark stains, the details of which he had not yet been forced to disclose.

They had been left alone in Sam's room for a few hours now. The last nurse who had come in to check on them had purposely left the door slightly ajar, and a thin wedge of soft light snuck through, illuminating a narrow strip of the floor and a portion of an empty wall across from the bed. It was enough by which to see an errant tuft of soft hair at the side of Sam's head flutter almost imperceptibly whenever the heat kicked on. Dean bit the inside of his cheek and suppressed the urge to reach over and tuck the lock of hair back behind his brother's ear.

"Damn hippy," he muttered, finally letting go of Sam's wrist and scrubbing a hand over his face. A small smile came to his lips as he imagined what Sam's reaction to that statement might have been. He leaned back in the hard, plastic chair, folded his arms across his chest, and sighed. The smile faded, and he bent forward again, resumed the physical contact without which he felt irrationally cold.

Dean slid his hand down to lightly brush his brother's palm, and Sam's long fingers unconsciously curled, cupping his brother's hand in his. It was such a simple, reflexive movement; like the way a baby clutched tightly to whatever you gave him. But Dean was exhausted and worried, and the gesture caused his breath to hitch.

On those semi-normal days back when they were kids, when the three of them would walk together down a busy street or roam the long aisles of a grocery store, John would seemingly absently hold his hand out to his littlest boy, and Sammy could wrap his entire tiny hand around just their father's index finger. It was probably as tight a grasp as John had ever had on his youngest son; and Sam had let go as soon as he'd realized he could. Was it unreasonable, then, for them to have been so surprised – so completely blindsided – when Sam had eventually managed to wander away? When it suddenly became clear that there were things in this world that just couldn't be held onto, no matter how badly you wanted to, and no matter how hard you tried?

"Sammy." Dean said it quietly, tentatively, as if he was afraid for anyone other than his brother to hear.

He'd been sitting there for hours, and by now he wasn't really expecting a response. So it came as a mild shock when Sam actually opened his eyes and looked at him.

"Hey, Sam," he smiled gently, otherwise paralyzed with relief. "Good to see you're finally awake. They charge by the day here, you know."

Sam kept watching him with dark, hooded eyes. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper. "I forgot you're more accustomed to places that charge by the hour."

Dean smiled again and gave Sam's fingers a quick, hard squeeze before letting go and slouching back into the chair. He felt suddenly weak, and his hands had begun to tremble. He closed his eyes for a moment, but bolted upright again almost immediately when he heard the bedclothes rustle.

"When can I get out of here?" Sam asked, struggling ineffectually with the sheet.

"Uh…I'm thinking probably not right this second," Dean frowned, easily stilling him with a hand to his arm. "So why don't you just lay your ass back down, okay?"

"I'm fine," Sam insisted as his eyes slid shut and he sank back into the pillow.

"Right," Dean scoffed. "Maybe you wanna get a second opinion on that one." He reached over and poked his brother lightly on the chest near his shoulder.

Sam cringed and popped one eye open. "Ow."

"Did that hurt?"

"Yes."

Dean poked him again, and this time Sam's hand feebly drifted up toward his shoulder. "Ow!"

"How about that?"

"Okay, okay," Sam scowled. "You made your point, Dr. Quinn. Your mean, ruthless, violent point."

"You just got out of surgery," Dean reminded him seriously. He stood and took a deep breath, ran both hands over his hair. The legs of the chair scraped across the tile as he nudged it out of the way. He walked over to the window and slid two fingers between a couple slats of the blinds, separated them so he could look out at the thick snowflakes as they went streaking past. A storm had developed and was getting worse as the night wore on. "You can now add freak of medical science to your list of freakish accomplishments."

"What happened?"

Dean spun around to glare at him incredulously. "You impaled yourself on a fucking metal stake," he snapped. It came out more harshly than intended. He wasn't sure why the question pissed him off so badly; maybe it was something about the innocent way Sam had asked it.

"No, I know," Sam clarified. "I meant after. Here. Surgery, or whatever."

Dean sighed heavily and turned back to the window. He could see the Impala from where he was standing. Snow had already accumulated about five inches up the tires, and the tracks he'd made tearing into the spot like a madman had all but disappeared.

"No permanent damage," he said vaguely. "Can you believe that shit?"

"I guess I'm just lucky," Sam murmured, his eyes slipping shut yet again.

"Irony," Dean snorted, still staring out the window. "That's great, Sam."

A strong wind swirled the snowflakes outside, prolonging their descent. He dropped his hand and let the blinds snap back into place with a metallic rattle. Then he just stood there, and the tension threatened to overwhelm the room.

"Hey, Dean?"

Dean leaned his shoulder into the corner between the cold window and the wall. He eyed his brother surreptitiously, afraid that Sam might sense the scrutiny, even though his eyes were still closed.

"Huh," he grunted, wary of what his brother was about to ask.

"Tell me a story."

Dean slumped deeper into the corner and closed his eyes. A small smile touched his lips, and he wiped the back of his hand over his brow.

"A story?" he repeated, pushing himself off the wall.

"Yeah. I'm in the mood for something light."

Dean hooked the chair with his foot and dragged it back to its place beside Sam's bed. He sat down and folded both forearms against the bedrail, rested his chin on his wrist.

"Okay," he mused. "How about that one time when we were kids, and I got you to eat a spoonful of ants for a quarter and a stick of gum. That one's moderately amusing."

Sam opened his eyes and snorted indignantly. "Dude, I never ate ants."

Dean gazed back with an annoyingly disinterested expression on his face. "Yes, you did. You were like four."

"Well, if that's true, it says more about you than it does about me." Sam frowned. "It means even at eight you were already a dick."

"You swore you could feel them moving around in your stomach, and I told you it was because they were multiplying," Dean continued. He grinned at the memory. "Yeah…for a four-year-old, you got pretty pissed."

Sam's frown deepened into a grimace. He hoped his brother was lying. "That was a terrible story," he said finally.

"Sorry," Dean shrugged. "I thought you'd like it."

"I've got some better ones. I'll have to tell you..."

Sam's voice trailed off, and he was left just staring up at the ceiling. Dean could literally see the difference when his brother's breathing became more measured, and pain caused his brow to crease and his eyes to glass over. Sam slowly shifted a hand and began kneading it gingerly across his chest, at a spot below his heart, the place where the rebar would have penetrated his skin had it gone all the way through.

Dean sobered immediately. Gaining his feet, he reached out without thinking and grabbed his brother's elbow.

"Easy," he soothed.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe deeply. The pain was like a harsh echo of that night. Piercing. Like punishment. Like penance. He rubbed harder and prayed for it to stop.

"I'll call somebody," Dean said, reaching for the call button hanging over the side of the bedrail.

But Sam stopped him with a hand to his wrist. "No, wait. I'm fine. It's going away."

Dean looked first at Sam's white-knuckled hold on his arm. Then he looked at his brother's face.

"You're not fine, Sam," he insisted, shaking his head. "Let me call someone. They can help you with this."

"I don't need anyone to help me," Sam said softly – brittle – easing his grip only a fraction. "I don't want anyone to help me, Dean."

Dean froze with one wrist trapped in his brother's ridiculously strong grasp and the other hand wrapped around the smooth metal of the bedrail. He stood there like an idiot for a moment, then slowly lowered himself back into the chair.

"That's it, Sam," he said quietly, but firmly; trying for that same authoritative tone of voice their father used to employ. The one that had only worked until Sammy was about eight years old. "I want to know what that little bitch said to you tonight."

Sam rolled his eyes and turned his head toward the window.

"God – Dean… Do we have to talk about this right now?"

Dean's eyes bulged. "Do we have to – " he repeated in disbelief. "Fuck, Sammy, I'd just as soon we never talked about it! Seriously, I'd shelf this conversation forever if I didn't think not having it would end up killing you."

"Really? 'Cause I thought your concern was whether or not it would end up killing you."

That stung.

For a brief moment, Dean marveled that his little brother even had it in him. But then he remembered this was Sam; and clearly there was no longer any telling what Sam was and was not capable of. Still, Dean shook his head incredulously, a bitter smile on his lips.

"God, you're like a little kid, you know that?" He reluctantly extracted his hand from Sam's and stood up, walked over to the window and stared out. It was snowing even harder now. "Just grow the hell up, Sam, okay? And cut us both some fucking slack for once."

Sam didn't respond, and Dean didn't turn to look at him. He didn't want to see Sam laid up in a hospital bed with a near-fatal stab wound in his back. He didn't want to see his brother engulfed in these layers of pain that the doctors and drugs couldn't touch. He didn't want to see his own inadequacies staring back at him in the form of a brother he wasn't sure he could protect. And most of all, he didn't want to see what their already twisted version of reality had become.

The room stilled, and a ragged cough echoed from somewhere down the hall.

Dean was livid. He was practically vibrating.

"I know what this is about," he said after several more moments of silence.

Sam snorted, and it was such an ugly sound that Dean wanted to run over and strangle him. At the very least, beat the ability to make that sound right out of him.

"You only think you know what this is about," Sam answered, an abnormally low, menacing quality tainting his voice.

"Look, man, Iona Rothschild is a fucking fake. She doesn't know you, and she certainly doesn't know anything about your life, past, present, or future. So that shit she said – "

"She was going to kill you," Sam interrupted softly, closing his eyes and bringing a palm up to his forehead.

"What?" Dean turned and cocked his head. "Are you serious? That old hag? Dude, I could kick her ass blindfolded and with both arms tied behind my back. She wouldn't even have to be in the same friggin' room."

"Not her," Sam bit out through clenched teeth. The fingers over his brow curled into a tight fist, and he ground white knuckles against his skull.

Dean just stood there for a second. "Then who? What are you talking about? Rain? Is that what she said?"

"Because you're important to me," he continued shakily.

It was that unintentional, on-the-verge-of-innocent tone of voice again, the one that could catapult Dean back in time. Before Jess; before their dad disappeared; before Sam left; before every conversation between father and son escalated into a confrontation and then a heated fight; before Sammy the obedient child turned into Sam the conflicted adult; before Sam appeared destined for something Dean was helpless to prevent.

"Maybe I should have told you when I started feeling bad…"

"Damn straight you should've."

"…but I was afraid you would try to go after her on your own…"

"Hell yeah, I would've."

"…then don't you get it? Can't you understand why I couldn't let you do that?"

Dean didn't respond. He didn't understand.

"They all know, Dean. I don't know how, and I don't know what I did to make them care." He shook his head sadly. "But they know," he said again. "They know how to injure me, man. They know how to kill me. First Mom, and then Jess… Dean, I swear to God. So help me, you will not be next."

Sam opened his eyes then and looked up at his brother, his expression so young and brave, yet so tired and afraid; so thankful and yet so full of grief. It was a look only Sam could give, and only Dean could comprehend. What passed between them was beyond anything that could ever be explained. In that look, Dean knew that no matter what happened, no matter what horrors kept them together, no matter which evils ripped them apart, his brother loved him. His brother needed him. And no matter how dangerously the compulsion manifested itself, his brother would stop at nothing to keep him safe.

There was a fractured place in Dean's heart where his worst fears dwelled. And within that place there was an inkling of doubt that Dean could ever really predict what Sam was and was not willing to do with his life, including sacrifice it. At that precise moment, that damaged place began to ache.

Sam was apologizing to him, in his own fucked-up way. For the past two days, and for impending events. Sam, who could see the goddamn future.

"You don't have to do this," Dean insisted quietly. It was all he could think to say.

Sam shook his head. "The things I don't say to you," he said softly, avoiding his brother's painfully concerned gaze. "I'm not trying to keep secrets from you. The things I don't say…it's because…I can't. I just can't say them, Dean."

"But not saying them, Sam? How does that help you? What does that change?" Dean leaned forward, desperate for Sam to listen to reason for once in his life. "What has not saying them ever changed for you?"

Then there was silence. It hung over them for a long time. Until Sam suddenly flinched and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. His hand went back to his chest and pressed roughly into the pain.

"Oh, Christ," he hissed through clenched teeth. His body stiffened as he tensed against the burning pressure radiating from the wound in his back.

"Hey. Hey!" Dean's voice was intense, insistent. "Look at me." He punched the call button with one hand and pointed the index and middle fingers of the other toward his eyes. "Right here, man, okay?"

Sam did as he was told, and his eyes were wet.

"Hey, Sammy?" Dean said, reaching down to squeeze his brother's hand.

Sam kept looking at him, and Dean forced a lopsided smile.

"Tell me a story."

Sam managed a small, clipped chuckle through the pain and shook his head. "Shut up, Dean."

"No, not that one. That one's almost as bad as my one about the ants."

Sam took a deep, shuddery breath before his eyes slipped closed. "Fuck you, Dean," he mumbled as darkness closed in.

Dean closed his own eyes and pressed Sam's hand against his chin. He squeezed tighter.

"Ah, Sammy. That's my favorite."

Okay, now that you've read it, I want to apologize. I so did not want to do the obligatory hospital scene. Ask Gem. And I tried a couple different ways to get around it. But the thing is, if you end up with a big, metal rod in your back, you're not just gonna be able to walk it off. Hence...this. At any rate, I hope it was worth the wait. One more chapter - an epilogue - and I can finally put this baby to bed.