First off, let me say that you can thank heather03nmg for the brotherly snuggle in the last chapter. She loves them brotherly snuggles (and I guess I kinda spoiled her with Problems With Dean: Road Trip) so I had to slip in at least one, just for her. I didn't want to say anything when I posted it, because I didn't want to ruin the surprise. Glad so many of you enjoyed it, too! And always - thanks to hotshow for her continual support and editing.

Chapter 16

Elizabeth Jeffries hung up the phone. An associate, Doctor John Clevant, who specialized in amnesia cases, called to inform her that he spoke with another doctor with a patient who had a startlingly similar case history to Sammy. She ground her teeth, tapping bright red nails on her desk. Her attempts to petition the courts for custody, even temporarily, for Sammy stalled the moment the judge learned his brother took him – under duress. Elizabeth considered lying about it, claiming the man was some lunatic with a thing for mentally incompetent men, but that kind of lie always came out at precisely the wrong time. Besides, the nurses and doctors she used to testify to Sammy's condition all mentioned the overly protective brother and their dramatic departure.

A dull throb behind her eyes was early warning of the migraine threatening to come on. She slid open a desk drawer, popping two pills dry in order to ward it off. Dean Mahogoff was not a person to be ignored, no matter how hard she tried. She was going to have to deal with him, as well as the backwoods hick doctor currently treating Sammy. For a moment, Elizabeth considered calling the hick doctor to warn him about the fluid build-up on Sammy's brain, like a peace offering. She quickly dismissed the idea. It would only warn them that she knew where they were.

If she left now, she could be in Hicksville by tonight and approach the doctor in the morning. She might even be able to convince him that it would be best for Sammy to be placed back in her care. Maneuvering around that volatile brother of his would be extremely difficult, but Elizabeth was confident it could be done. She picked up the phone again to inform Morgan that she had a lead on their missing patient.

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Sunlight filtered through his closed eyelids. Dean groaned. His damn shoulder ached. It didn't bother him this bad before he started wearing the sling, he could swear. He sat up, looking around the empty room. Where was Sammy? The sheets on his bed had been thrown aside, half resting in the floor. Dean reached over to feel that side of the bed. It was cold. Sammy had been up for a while.

He grumbled to himself about pain in the ass little brothers as he made his way downstairs to check on Sammy. His brother was at the kitchen table with his head down.

"Sammy? You okay?"

Sammy's head lifted and he looked at Dean with bleary eyes. "Headache."

"Why don't you go lie down?" he asked, already dialing Doc Wayne's number in his head.

Sammy shook his head. "Where's your sling? You're supposed to be wearing it."

"I need to change first."

Sammy squinted at him. The headache must be bad. "Okay, Dean. I'll wait here." His brother's head drooped back down onto his arms.

Dean raced to the stairs and into their bedroom. He snatched his cell phone off the small bedside table and hit the call button. All his calls recently were to Doc Wayne. Good thing the man was so damned nice about it.

"Hey, Dean. What's going on with Sam?"

Dean tried to steady his breathing. "Headache. Looks pretty bad."

"But no more strokes since the one in the shower? That you know of?"

Dean shook his head. "No, nothing like that."

The silence from the other end seemed to last forever. "It could be part of the healing process, but let's not take any chances. Why don't you bring him in and we'll run some tests, just to be sure?"

"When?" Dean demanded, looking for a halfway decent pair of jeans he could pull on.

"Oh, say, now?"

"We're on our way." Dean snapped his phone shut.

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Sammy was oddly silent during the drive up to the hospital. Dean kept glancing over, but his brother looked about the same as usual. He decided that maybe it was the headache making Sammy so quiet. Sammy kept his head down and his eyes shielded from the sun.

"Sammy? Look in the glove compartment. There's a pair of sunglasses in there you can wear." He would do it himself, but with one arm in a sling, he hated to drive no-handed to fumble around looking for sunglasses.

"It's okay, Dean," Sam snapped.

Dean looked over, surprised by the attitude. That was when he noticed the other odd thing. "Sammy? Where's Batman?"

Sam lifted his head just long enough to glare at Dean. "Batman? Are you kidding?"

Dean tried not to let that feeling of hope surge up, he tried to build a wall to keep it at bay. How many times had he hoped that this was it, Sam was back, only to have it all torn away? He bit down hard on his lower lip, trying to distract himself with the pain. He only stopped when he tasted blood.

He cleared his throat. "Sammy? Anything other than the headache bothering you?"

"Not at the moment," was Sam's surly reply.

"When we get back, you can go back to bed. I can handle the car by myself today." Dean watched his brother out of the corner of his eye, hoping to elicit some type of reaction.

Sam started. "Don't be stupid, Dean. Not with your shoulder like that. If I take the day off, you have to too."

"How…" Dean's voice cracked. How long had they waited for this? "How old are you, Sammy?"

"Dude, if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you."

Dean's foot pressed harder on the accelerator. They had to get to the hospital, now. This either meant Sam was back to himself, or dying. He hated to be that way, but in the Winchester World, that's the way things usually worked. He knew he was panicking, but he could not help it. Sammy was his one true weakness, and he knew it.

Dean left skid marks on the road leading to the hospital parking lot. He wanted to run inside, but Sam was not up to it.

"Dean?" Whiny Sammy voice nearly brought him to his knees as they walked to the hospital at an excruciatingly slow pace. "I don't feel good."

"I know, Sammy. That's why we're here." Dean guided his brother inside hoping the cool lobby, which was not as bright as the sun outside, would be more welcome to Sam. He led Sammy up to the front desk. "Doc Wayne is expecting us for some tests."

The woman at the front desk smiled at him. "Cooper, right? Doctor Wayne is expecting you. Do you know where to go?"

"Yes, thanks." Dean flashed a smile as he shoved Sammy in the right direction.

Doc Wayne was waiting for them upstairs, a hypodermic in hand. He rushed over to Sam, swabbed his brother's arm, and plunged it in. "It'll take a minute before he feels the full effect." Then to Sammy, "Sam? You'll be feeling much better real soon."

Sam nodded, not looking up. They waited, watching Sam tensely. After a few minutes the tension fell from Sam's shoulders. "Better," he said, offering them a small smile. Dean released the breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Sam? Can you tell me when the headache started?" Doc Wayne asked.

Sam shook his head. "Not sure. I was, uh, watching cartoons," he had this odd, faraway look on his face. "Dean? Where's Batman?"

"At the house," Dean replied, his confusion battling with his worry to see who crossed the finish line first.

Sammy shook his head again. "Um, maybe an hour after I got up? Doc? Why am I obsessed with a Batman toy? That isn't normal." Sam's face was pinched and his brow furrowed.

Doc Wayne's eyebrows did a little dance right about then. "Obsessed? I don't know Sam. Think you can handle the tests this morning without being sedated?"

Sam shrugged. "Sure. No problem."

Doc's eyes cut over to Dean. "I want you in there with him. To keep an eye on things."

"Sure, Doc." He looked hopefully at the doctor, but the man's face blanked on him. Dean guessed doctors didn't like false hope either.

"Good. Let's go." Doc Wayne's voice projected confidence that Dean did not feel.

He waited in a plastic chair inside the room while they scanned Sam's brain. Scanned his brother's brain. The thought alone was enough to make his skin crawl. Dean fidgeted in the chair. He wondered if people had to go to special design schools in order to make chairs this uncomfortable. Sam's brain scan, Dean shuddered, felt like it lasted longer than last time. When the machine finally quieted, Dean walked over.

"Hey, man. How you feeling?"

Sam grunted. "Like some dude with a jackhammer doesn't know when to call it quits."

Dean grinned as the assistants unstrapped his brother from the table and helped him sit. "Ready to get out of here?"

Sam nodded, moving slowly toward the room where his clothes waited. Dean stood outside the door, anxious. He could not put his finger on it, but every hair on his neck stood straight out and his skin literally crawled with tension. He wanted to leave. Now. Five minutes ago.

Sam stumbled out of the small changing room, squinting against the light. "Head still bothering you?"

"A little," Sam admitted, grabbing Dean's arm for support. Dean felt silly at the immense relief he had for a migraine instead of another stroke. He did not care how mild the damn things were, or that they did not appear to cause permanent damage, he wanted them to stop. The strokes freaked him out a hell of a lot more than some damn vision. Visions he could handle, or at least pretend to.

They rounded the corner, Dean with a wary eye out for trouble. That feeling he had when something was about to go wrong on a hunt, and when it did it always went really, really wrong, was screaming and shouting inside his head. He did the best he could to ignore it, not to let Sam in on it, because Sam had enough to worry about. But when Dean looked up and locked with a pair of cold, blue eyes, all pretense fell.

"Son of a bitch."

He knew Sam recognized the bitch when fingers dug into his forearm. "Catwoman," Sammy whispered. Dean swung Sammy around, pushing him in the other direction. He might have only been here once before, but Dean knew where every stairwell was. He shoved his brother forcefully ahead, his pace quickening.

For a moment Dean regretted his decision not to carry a gun inside the hospital. As they raced downstairs, he decided it was probably best. Had he been packing he just might have shot that bitch, purely out of reflex, of course. Then there would have been the whole 'killed a human' thing, not to mention a mad dash out of town and the search for yet another doctor.

Speaking of doctors, how the hell had that Jeffries bitch found them, anyway? Dean noticed Sammy's breathing was heavier than it should be for a short run as they reached the car. He unlocked Sam's door first before running around the car. By the time he made it around, Sam had unlocked the driver's side door and pushed it open from the inside. Sammy's face was white and a sheen of sweat glistened on his brother's forehead.

Dean peeled out of the parking lot as if the yellow-eyed demon itself were after them. He raced back to Bobby's, never pausing to consider if that was a wise move. The whole drive only one thought kept running through his mind: Maybe Doc Wayne did work for Catwoman.

"Dean?" He saw Sammy was shaking as he parked the car. "Dean, how did Catwoman find us?" He looked around frantically. "Where's Batman?"

"Easy, Sammy," Dean said, trying to inject some confidence in his voice. "She can't get you here. Okay?" Damn it, he thought, Sammy was looking for Batman. If he saw that bitch again, he was not going to need a gun. Dean wanted to strangle her with his bare hands.

Sammy's wet eyes met his, tears threatening to fall. "P-p-promise?"

Dean put his hand on Sammy's shoulder. "I promise. I won't let her get you."

"But what about you?" Sammy asked, a higher whine in his voice. "Lion-o is out to get you!"

Okay, that came out of left field. "Sammy, let's deal with one bad guy at a time. Come on, Batman's in the house."

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Dean wanted to deal with one bad guy at a time, huh? Sammy wrapped his arms around himself as he stepped out of the car. Okay, then Dean could deal with his bad guy, Catwoman, and he would deal with Dean's bad guy, Lion-o. Doctor Wayne said brothers take care of each other. But he didn't have a gun.

Sammy studied his brother as Dean headed for the door, no doubt to tell Bobby what happened. Dean looked scared, too. But Dean didn't get scared. Sammy hung back, watching Dean go into the house. Okay, he was not supposed to be outside by himself, but he wasn't staying outside. He just needed to get something. Sammy rushed over to where he and Dean worked on that dirty old car. He put it away yesterday, just in case Dean got any funny ideas, but he needed it now. With a guilty glance over his shoulder, Sam reached behind some boxes and pulled out that heavy black stick. He knew it was not just for beating up cars, but he was pretty sure that was the only thing Dean was going to use it for.

Sammy turned the black stick over in his hands. He knew what it could do to a car. He imagined what it could do to Lion-o, especially if that thing tried to come near his brother. Liking the feel of it in his hand, Sammy headed to the house. The black stick might be a better friend than Batman.

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It watched the black machine roar up to Singer's house. The men inside were tense, nervous. They knew it was here, that much was certain.

The tall one remained outside after the other one went in. This was unusual. Was the tall one looking for it? To help him remember? It smiled at the memory. If its kind could laugh, it would. It help a man. The idea was absurd.

The tall one headed for the rusting machine that occupied his attention all of yesterday. Moments later, he headed to the house. It squinted in the bright light of day, but it saw nothing new or different. The tall one's reasons were often strange and illogical. It slid back down into its sleeping spot, curling into a tight ball.

Only Singer and two of the other murderers of its family still lived. Tonight it would hunt another. For now, it would sleep.