SUMMARY: A vengeful spirit's attack leaves Dean hypothermic and fighting for life, while a concussed Sam, lost and alone, battles to get back to his brother.

DISCLAIMER: Nope. Don't own Supernatural. Still playing in Kripke's sandbox. Will happily vacate premises when strike is over and Kripke & Co. are allowed to play here again.

BRIDGING TWO SOLITUDES

A/N: SARTechs are Search and Rescue Technicians. Thanks so much for all the great feedback for Chapter 1. It was a real confidence boost. Here's the next installment. This chapter is not as frenetic as the first but it sets up a lot of things that come into play later. Enjoy.

CHAPTER 2

Sam startled awake only to close his eyes again just as quickly, assaulted by a pounding headache. He groaned as he tried moving, rolling onto his side, wrapping his arm around his head and breathing deeply as he willed the hammering inside his skull to stop.

"Dean?"

His voice, muffled behind his arm, sounded weak and thick with sleep. When there was no answer, he pulled his arm from across his face, cleared his throat and tried again.

"Dean?"

Still no answer.

Sam forced his eyes open but his vision was blurry. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, and then pushed himself up into a sitting position; his long legs sprawled awkwardly in front of him. He frowned as he felt cold earth between his fingers. Still fighting the vertigo that threatened to topple him, he realized he was outside.

Sitting on the ground. Outside. That couldn't be good.

Leaning forward, he screwed his eyes closed, pinched the bridge of his nose and blinked rapidly in an attempt to clear his eyesight but everything remained out of focus. It was like someone had smeared Vaseline on a piece of glass and asked him to look at the world through it.

Sam rubbed his eyes again, slowly turning his head in one direction, and then the other, trying to get his bearings. He was in the midst of a stand of trees. He squinted upwards. There was a blur of blue sky beyond the abstract treetops and he could feel a shaft of sunlight warmly caressing the left side of his face and his left arm.

Okay. So how did he get here? The last thing he remembered was, um…..

Well…..

Sam groaned, rubbing his temple. Relax, he told himself, pushing back the building panic. It's all there. You just have to reach it.

He glanced upward, squinting again as the sunlight hit him in the face. From the position and strength of the sun he guessed it was mid morning.

Sam snorted in frustration. Un-frigging-believable. He could tell time from the sun's position but he had no clue where he was or how he got there.

And where the hell was his brother?

"Dean?" Sam's attempt at a shout failed miserably, his usually big, deep voice barely audible and raspy. The attempt also refueled the pounding in his head and his stomach lurched in response. He stilled momentarily, closing his eyes and holding his breath as he fought to push back the nausea.

As the churning in his stomach quieted, Sam drew up his knees, wrapped his arms around his legs and lowered his head onto his knees. "Think, Sam," he muttered to himself. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Lifting his head again a moment later, he clasped his hands together at the nape of his neck, closed his eyes and squeezed his head between his elbows. "Think"

Slowly the events of earlier in the day came back to him. He and Dean were meeting up with an old friend. On the way they decided to look into a recent death supposedly linked to a haunted bridge. They'd gone to check it out and…. Confusion ramped up Sam's headache as he once again took in the forest that surrounded him. He'd lost consciousness on the bridge. How the hell had he got from the bridge to here, wherever here was?

Sam's eyes widened as his mind's eye suddenly focused on the spirit of the old woman. She'd grabbed him - after she'd thrown Dean off the bridge….

Oh God. The spirit had thrown Dean in the river.

The memory of his brother's body falling, then being dragged away by the current fuelled another wave of nausea and this time Sam couldn't stop it. He barely had time to twist to the side before his body expelled the contents of his stomach, the heaving continuing long after there was nothing left to throw up.

When the heaves subsided, Sam pushed himself weakly backwards and collapsed against a tree. He spat angrily to clear the bile from his mouth and used the back of his sleeve to wipe his mouth, his other hand to clear his watering eyes.

It was early morning when he'd watched, helplessly, as the spirit had thrown Dean into the river. How long had he been unconscious? Out of habit, Sam glanced down at his watch but his fuzzy vision could barely tell there were numbers on the face, let alone make out what they read. But given where the sun was now, it had to have been hours since Dean….since he……

No. No way. Dean wasn't dead. He couldn't be. Sam's heart was now pounding in time with his head, but he refused to allow himself to think the worst. He was still alive so his brother was too.

He had to be.

Sam again pushed himself up so he was sitting rather than slumped. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in an attempt to clear his head.

He had to get help. Find out what happened to Dean. Find Dean.

Sam reached for his hip pocket, fumbling for his phone, but his heart sank when he realized he was no longer wearing his winter jacket. He'd shucked off the down-filled coat to jump into the water after Dean, right before the spirit grabbed him. His phone was in the pocket of that coat.

Sam swore silently. Screw the phone. He'd walk back to the bridge and find his brother. He twisted so he could grab the tree behind him and tried to haul himself up but his legs felt weak and rubbery, refusing to hold his weight. The effort made his head spin and he crumpled immediately, landing on his ass at the base of the tree, breathing heavily.

He let out a yell of frustration. He needed to get to Dean. But how?

Sam blew out a slow, steady breath to calm himself down. He needed to think. Clear his head. Figure out what to do first.

Closing his eyes, Sam could clearly see the bridge spirit's face, her dark eyes burning into him. He could feel her icy breath, her bony fingers squeezing his arms and his face. Then there was the horror show of sounds and images that tumbled through his head right before he blacked out.

What had the spirit said to him?

Her words echoed through his head. "He had to pay. Now you will too."

Was the 'he' she referred to Dean? What the hell did he have to pay for? No, that was too literal. They'd only just rolled into town. There was no way they could have done something to get her pissed off at them personally. At least not yet.

The 'now you will too' part of her threat obviously linked to him waking up here in the middle of nowhere, but why?

"Not to mention 'how'," he muttered. He shivered, and not just from the chill that persisted in the late March air. In an attempt to retain what little body heat he had left, he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt, shoved his hands in the pockets and shifted slightly to his left into the shaft of sunlight breaking through the trees.

According to the reports Sam had found online, a man had supposedly jumped from the bridge a few weeks earlier. While the official cause of death was suicide, the incident had refueled stories of a vengeful spirit who haunted the bridge.

At the diner where they'd stopped for breakfast, the waitress had filled them in on the local legend. Depending on whom you talked to, she said, the spirit was either a grieving woman mourning the loss of her soldier beau in the Civil War or an angry woman, seeking revenge after her lover cheated on her. While the waitress had dismissed the stories as tourist fodder, a quick Internet search by Sam revealed a dozen or so deaths connected in some way to the bridge and going back decades.

It had been enough for them to decide to check it out. Sam now wished he'd done more research first. Guilt over what happened to Dean further stoked the nausea roiling in his gut and he swallowed hard to stop himself throwing up again.

The spirit's words continued to spin through his head. What else had she said? "Ask the Lord to forgive you, for I cannot."

Forgive what? Sam rolled his eyes. Why the hell did spirits always talk in riddles?

Of the two options the waitress had presented, the second seemed the better fit for the spirit Sam had seen. She was definitely pissed; maybe she was just lashing out at her cheating husband through any man she met on the bridge. Sam frowned. But, if that was the case, the body count should be a lot higher since she'd supposedly been haunting the bridge since the Civil War.

And how was all this connected to the supernatural slideshow the spirit had projected into his head? The images had flashed by so quickly Sam couldn't sort one from the other. He could hear the screams, he could sense the fear but he couldn't seem to slow down the film to get a good look at the pictures.

The more Sam thought about it, the more he kept getting stuck on one image. His brother being thrown off the bridge.

His stomach lurched again at the memory of Dean being tossed through the air, smashing through the bridge railing and disappearing into the angry current below.

Sam leaned heavily back against the tree, closing his eyes and breathing slowly and deeply in an attempt to quiet both his headache and his stomach. He was all too familiar with the symptoms, all classic signs of a concussion.

Pulling down his hood again, he ran his hands over his face and through his hair, feeling for cuts, lumps or bumps to explain the persistent headache, fuzzy vision and constant nausea. He winced when his fingers brushed over a blood-encrusted goose-egg on the back of his head.

"Own." The pain jarred loose the memory of him being thrown through the air, and cracking his head against the stone pillar on the bridge, just before the spirit grabbed him. That explained a lot.

Closing his eyes, he had a clear image of Dean's face with trademark smirk firmly in place. "Shake it off, Sam. If you're seeing two of me, the world's already a better place. Now get off you ass, and get moving. You need to get help."

Sam couldn't disagree. Concussion or no concussion, he had to get out of there – wherever there was.

As the latest wave of nausea dissipated, Sam figured he'd rule out the obvious before tackling the more difficult options available to him.

He cleared his throat and he shouted. "Hello? Can anybody hear me?"

His voice, at least, seemed to be improving. It was still raspy and lacking its usual power but if there was anybody around, they were going to hear him.

He repeated his call for help.

The only reply, however, was a slight echo of Sam's own words.

Again Dean's voice sounded clearly in his head. "C'mon Sammy, What'd you expect? Ranger Rick hiding behind a tree, ready to jump out and escort you back to town? Nothing's ever that simple for a Winchester."

Sam had to smirk. Dean was right, of course. Lady Luck had a blind spot when it came to their family.

Thank God it was a sunny day. At least he had that going for him. Given the sun's position, he could basically figure out east from west, north from south. The river where this whole mess started ran west to east, dumping into the Atlantic Ocean. The forested area south of the Crooked Arm River fell mostly within the boundaries of Plymouth State Park and covered roughly 150 square miles. Given the terrain, abstract as it was with his current fuzzy vision, Sam felt fairly confident he was somewhere within the park, southwest of the bridge. What he didn't know was whether he was one mile southwest or 100 miles.

Or how the hell he got there for that matter. Once again his brother's voice played out at full volume inside his head. "It was that spirit bitch, Sam. Tossed my ass in the water, threw yours in the middle of nowhere."

Sam saw his brother frown. "That's twice now we've gone over the side of a bridge," Dean's voice said, referring back to the Woman in White encounter that had pulled Sam out of Stanford and back into the hunting world. "Both times I ended up the drink and you stayed high and dry. How is that fair?"

"It's not fair, Dean," Sam muttered, ignoring the fact he was answering a question posed by a figment of his own imagination. "Nothing about this is fair."

He shifted uncomfortably. His ass was getting damp from sitting on the cold ground so long. It was time to try getting up again even though he didn't know where the hell he was going to go.

xxxXXXxxx

Capt. Doug Bishop grabbed his two-way radio from the passenger seat, climbed down from his truck, slammed the door behind him then jogged down toward the water.

SARTechs Joe Timlin and Steve Johnson, already dressed in cold water survival suits, had arrived just before him and were scrambling to load gear into the rescue boat.

Doug had been working with Search & Rescue in Plymouth County for more than 30 years. The fast-flowing river that cut along the northern boundary of this east coast tourist region was the site of many of those rescue operations.

When the 911 call had first come in, it was for a recovery. A man's body had been seen in the river, caught up on rocks off the south bank about two miles west of the municipal dock.

Then there was the second call. The body was no longer 'a body.' The man was alive.

With that news his squad moved into high gear. Experience told Doug this rescue may yet become a recovery but until he knew for sure, they would assume the victim was alive.

The only land access to the south shore where the victim was located was via the park hiking trail, a trek that would take them nearly an hour on a good day; by boat, they were only nine minutes away.

The county chopper, returning from a run delivering organs for transplant to the state hospital, had also been called in; if the victim was still alive when they pulled him out of the river, the chopper would be needed to get him to County General ASAP. Sheriff's deputies were already on site, blocking off the county road that ran parallel to the river along the north bank, to create a makeshift landing zone.

Doug crossed the dock to which the rescue boat was moored, surveying the river as he climbed aboard. The spring thaw was well under way so the water was high, fast-running and still dangerously cold.

An ambulance had pulled into the riverside parking lot just after Doug. The paramedics inside jumped from the vehicle, moved around to the back doors and began unloading medical supplies. Matt Hardy, the senior of the two paramedics, had been working emergencies in Plymouth County almost as long as Doug. His partner Jenn Cabot had been with him for the past five years.

Doug's radio crackled. He recognized the voice as Sheriff's Deputy Ethan Harris. "Search & Rescue: we're on location with roadblocks established. Chopper ETA: 17 minutes. We have a visual on the victim; he's in the water about 20 feet off the south shore and……." Doug listened to the deputy's heavy breathing, transmitted over his shoulder radio, as he ran toward the water. When Harris spoke again, worry cut through his professional detachment. "Search and Rescue, be advised: the victim just slipped under the water. He's still pinned in place but, I repeat, his head is now under the water."

Doug's heart rate ratcheted up a notch as he brought his radio up to his mouth. Now, more than ever, every second counted.

"10-4, Harris. We're under way. Out."

The paramedics, Matt and Jenn, were now seated in the middle of the boat fastening their life vests, medical supplies stowed at their feet. The SARTechs, Joe and Steve, unleashed the mooring ropes and pushed the boat away from the dock. Now in place in the wheelhouse, Doug fired the engines. The powerful twin outboards roared to life, and Doug deftly guided the large, inflatable craft against the current, praying as he did so they would be in time.

xxxXXXxxx

Sam knew there were cabins and campsites scattered throughout the park. Most, if not all, would be unoccupied as it was late March and the park didn't officially open for the season until the end of April. But if he could find a cabin or ranger station, there was an outside chance he could find a phone or radio to call for help.

As Sam stumbled along, he knew the odds were against him, even if he didn't have a concussion and impaired vision to contend with. But, however slim, his chances of finding help were far better than if he stayed put. He and his brother wouldn't be missed for at least another few hours. They had arranged to meet their friend Doc for lunch but she wouldn't move them from late to missing until at least an hour or so after the time they were supposed to meet – the Winchesters didn't exactly have a good track record when it came to showing up on time.

Any head start Sam could give himself increased his chances of being found, and being found faster. And that improved the odds of finding Dean - alive.

Sam was cold, shivering noticeably whenever the sun disappeared behind the occasional cloud or the forest canopy thickened. He'd pulled his hood back up, which helped a little, but his hands were freezing. He'd tried shoving them in his pockets but, given his problems seeing, needed his hands free to steady himself and help him navigate. He'd settled for pulling his hands up inside his sleeves, no easy task for a man who had a hard time finding shirts or jackets whose sleeves were long enough to begin with.

Before he'd set off, Sam had checked his pockets to see what supplies he had at his disposal. The first thing he'd found was the lock-pick set he always carried on a hunt, shoved in the back left pocket of his jeans. He'd shook his head at that discovery; not much use for lockpicks in the middle of nowhere. His money clip and a handful of change found in his right front pocket would be even less helpful. In his left front pocket, however, he'd found his Swiss Army knife and a book of matches he'd taken from the diner at breakfast. At least those might prove useful.

When he stuck his hands back in the pocket of his hoodie, his left hand had closed around an opened tube of breath mints. He smiled as he rolled the candy between his fingers. He'd bought them the day before when the brothers had stopped for dinner and Dean had ordered his favorite extra onions burger. Following the meal, Dean had taken the roll of mints, offered innocently by Sam, popped one in his mouth with a scowl, then thrown the roll back at his brother, mumbling something about salad-breath not going to win Sam any new friends either.

Sam's smile widened at the memory, but faded quickly as it was replaced by the image of Dean being thrown off the bridge and into the river, the current carrying him helplessly away. Sam's stomach churned and his chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. What if that was the last image he ever had of his brother?

Sam glanced across the clearing in front of him. He'd give anything to see Dean walk out from behind a tree, worriedly chewing him out for landing in the middle of this mess. He forced himself to concentrate on that image; anything to chase away the one of Dean flying off the bridge and into the water.

"You better be okay, Dean. You'd better be…."

Sam paused to catch his breath, stuck his hand in his pocket and rolled the pack of breath mints between his fingers. He popped a mint in his mouth to chase away the taste of bile that still lingered there before tucking the rest of the roll back in his sweatshirt pocket.

As Sam looked up, the landscape tilted crazily in front of him. He stumbled and grabbed a nearby tree to steady himself as the pounding in his head returned with a vengeance. He swallowed hard, eyes screwed shut, and punched the tree in frustration. A few deep breaths later, his headache quieted and the nausea leveled off.

He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly in another failed attempt to clear his vision. Turning to face southwest, or what he hoped was southwest, he stuck his right hand out to his side and felt through the air until he found another tree for support, then took an unsteady step forward. He took two more steps successfully before stumbling over a root and landing hard on his knees. He closed his eyes, breathing hard, as he fought to summon the strength to haul himself up again.

"You've gotta do it, Sam," he chided himself. "You've gotta find Dean."

With that mantra playing through his head, he pulled himself to his feet, took one shaky step, then another, then another. He bit back a laugh when a Chinese proverb he'd once heard popped into his mind, the one that said every journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

His smile widened as he remembered repeating that proverb to Dean. His brother had snorted loudly. "Yeah," he said, trademark grin firmly in place, "but it's the last five or six that suck out loud."

As Sam stumbled along, he failed to notice a sudden burst of wind kicking up the leaves behind him, or the abrupt drop in temperature that accompanied it. As the dust, snow and forest debris settled, a young woman stood where the wind had originated. As the wind lifted her long brown hair from her face, it revealed bruising around her eye and temple, the mottled skin caked with dried blood. She was breathing heavily as she scanned the forest around her.

Her breath caught as her eyes fell on Sam's retreating form. Fear flashed briefly in her grey eyes but was quickly replaced by anger. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the tall man unsteadily make his way through the forest. She bit back a smile as she turned and ran, fading quickly until there was no sign she was ever there.

To Be Continued………

A/N: I know, I know…. I'm an evil, evil person (you told me so in Chapter One!) for keeping you hanging about what happened to Dean. Think of it as sharing Sam's pain. Okay, I can see your eyes rolling from here. Fear not. Dean's rescue is under way in Chapter 3. Really. And my fingers aren't even crossed behind my back! Please leave a note to let me know what you think and I hope to see you back in Chapter 3 when the action picks up again.