Bridging Two Solitudes Chapter 3, a supernatural fanfic

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. Story takes place mid-to-late Season 2, but before the events of All Hell Breaks Loose.

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.

A/N: Surprise! I'm a day early with this update – a blatant attempt to rid myself of this sign over my head that says 'Warning: Evil Person Below.' It's putting a real crimp in my personal life. Thanks again for the incredible feedback to this story so far; I am incredibly grateful. For those of you impatiently waiting to see what happens to Dean, here it is. Enjoy.

BRIDGING TWO SOLITUDES

CHAPTER THREE:

Jason Tait had never been a patient man.

Common sense told him to sit tight, wait for the Search and Rescue crew to show up and pull this stranger out of the river. That's what they were trained, and equipped, to do. But logic told him there was a good chance the man in the water would be dead by the time they arrived. When Jason saw Dean lose consciousness again, his face falling under the water, he knew waiting for Search and Rescue was no longer an option.

He shrugged off his winter jacket and began to unlace his boots. "Give me the rope from the backpack, Penn."

Penny turned away from the man in the river and toward her boyfriend, her eyes widening as she realized what he had in mind.

"No…NO….I mean….I…"

Jason continued pulling off his boots. "I have to Penn. Look, he's gone under. He's not going to last until Search & Rescue gets here." He smiled at her grimly. "It's okay. I can do this."

She nodded, far from convinced, but knowing it just wasn't in his nature to sit on the sidelines if there was anything he could do.

Weakly, she returned his smile. "Right. Well let's do it then." As she reached for their backpack that carried basic survival items, including a length of rope, she hoped her voice sounded more confident than she felt.

Jason was a strong swimmer; he'd been a lifeguard all the way through college, but that was on the beach in summer and the county pool in winter, not in an ice-filled river.

Reading her thoughts, Jason offered her another tight smile. "We'll tie off the rope to a tree and tie the other end round my waist. We should have just enough to get me down to the water and over to those rocks. I'll grab the guy and swim back to shore. If you help reel us in, it'll be even faster."

His words were an attempt to reassure himself, as well as Penny. "I shouldn't be in the water all that long."

Penny walked back a few steps to loop one end of the rope around a tree, knotting it expertly. She looked at Jason worriedly. "Look, I get why you're doing this. I don't want to see that guy out there die, but I don't want to see you join him either."

"It'll be okay." Jason flashed her quick smile. "I…we can do this."

Noting Penny had secured the rope around the tree, Jason knotted the other end around his waist. He then gathered up the loose coils, creating a taut line between himself and the tree, and used that to brace himself as he rappelled down the embankment, gradually letting out the rope until he reached the river's edge. Once there, he dropped the loose coils still in his hand, quickly assessing the length of rope remaining. There was enough to allow him to swim out to the rocks where Dean was pinned. So far, so good.

It was only when he stuck his foot in the water, the cold shocking his system and stealing his breath, that he hesitated.

Then he looked over to the man in the river, the guy who was still fighting, still alive after being in this freezing water for God knows how long. He didn't know his name or anything about him. Jason wondered if he had a family? A girlfriend? A wife or kids, frantic with worry, wondering where he was? Suddenly the body became a person – he was someone's son, maybe someone's father or husband or brother – and he needed his help. Jason shoved his fear aside and plunged in.

Penny watched from shore, her already pounding heart ratcheting up another level the minute Jason stepped into the water. Using the rope to steady her descent, she scrambled down the incline to the water's edge. There, she grasped the rope with both hands, needing the connection to Jason as reassurance, and ready to pull the two men to shore as soon as Jason got hold of the unconscious stranger.

With the speed of the current, Jason swam only a few quick strokes before he reached Dean, and Penny allowed herself a quick sigh of relief. Jason tucked himself behind the boulder so he wouldn't be pulled further downstream and lifted Dean's face out of the water. By this time Jason was shivering violently, the first stages of hypothermia setting in. He smiled grimly. The poor dude he was trying to save had long ago passed the shivering stage.

His plans for a quick, straightforward rescue disintegrated when he tried to pull Dean free. The chunk of river ice that had slammed into Dean had become wedged between the two boulders, the relentless current jamming it tightly in place and trapping Dean behind it.

On dry land, the ice would have posed little challenge to Jason. But, in the river, the icy water quickly sapped his strength and with little traction to help him, he struggled to free the unconscious man, punching and kicking the ice, all while trying to keep Dean's head out of the water.

"Damn it." The effort had expended both energy and body heat, neither of which he could give up uselessly if he hoped to get both of them to safety. Realizing a quick rescue was out, he drew on his lifeguard training and assessed the victim.

He pressed shaking fingers against Dean's neck, checking for a pulse. He said a silent prayer when he found one. It was faint, but it was there.

But Dean wasn't breathing. The beating of Jason's own heart quickened when he wondered if he was too late.

No. No, damn it. Anger-fuelled adrenaline spurred his actions. "No way, dude. You're not dying on me now."

He moved beside Dean, treading water clumsily as the frigid water progressively robbed him of control of his limbs. He used one trembling hand to tilt back Dean's head, the other to pinch his nose closed and began rescue breathing.

Breathe.

One-one thousand. Two-one thousand. Three one-thousand. Four one-thousand. Five one-thousand.

Breathe.

He slid his hand between the ice and Dean's chest, trying to sense the rise and fall which meant the stranger was breathing again, but the fast-moving water, the layers of clothing the man wore, the ice pinning him in place and his own shaking limbs conspired to rob him of any definitive answer.

The words "come on, come on, come on" looped through his head in a desperate, plaintive mantra, as he alternated between breathing and counting.

Then Dean coughed, throwing up river water as his lungs fought to take in air. Jason tilted the man's head forward, supporting him as the coughing and vomiting racked his battered body.

Jason smiled, teeth chattering, as the stranger's eyes blinked and slowly opened, revealing dazed green irises beneath.

"Hey, man. You hang in there, okay. Not sure how you got yourself in this mess, but we're gonna get you out. You keep fighting, you hear me? I just need to get you unstuck and get us both the hell out of this river."

xxxXXXxxx

Dean couldn't see. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe.

He could hear, but sounds around him were muffled, distant, distorted.

He tried to open his eyes but they showed no interest in co-operating.

He tried to move, but no luck there either. And there was a steady pressure on his chest, making it hard to breathe.

He struggled to put the pieces together. Why the hell was it so hard to think?

He tried again to open his eyes but with no more success than his previous attempt.

He was vaguely aware of hands supporting his head, something he seemed incapable of doing himself, as he felt himself retching, then puking.

Nice.

The vomiting was followed by a coughing fit that tore at his lungs and throat but the pressure on his chest lessened. Something was still pushing against him, making it impossible to move, but breathing was now less difficult and the sounds around him began to lose their distortion.

He could almost make out words. A man's voice. Talking to him.

Sammy?

Okay, Winchester, he told himself, quit screwin' around. Open your eyes.

This time his eyes obeyed and slowly slid open. He blinked at the onslaught of light. A figure bobbed in front of him, moving way too much for Dean's liking.

Damn it Sam, keep still or I'm gonna toss my cookies all over you. Again.

The pounding in his head didn't help either. He retched and coughed, silently cursing the headache-fuelled nausea. He felt like crap.

He felt his eyes sliding closed again.

Just let me sleep, 'kay Sam? It's either bad burgers or I picked up some bug. Just let me sleep it off…. I'll be fine….

Dean frowned as the chatter continued. What the hell was Sam saying?

His last few words ignited a spark in Dean's fuzzy brain. 'Get us both the hell out of this river.'

Struggling to keep his eyes open and his gaze on Sam, Dean fought to get the words out. "What…we…doin' in … river….Sammy?" His voice was barely audible but Sam must have heard him because he stopped moving around, and turned Dean's face toward him.

"What? No, I'm not Sammy….."

Dean rolled his eyes, missing whatever Sam said next. Here they were in deep shit, and little brother was bitching about the use of his childhood nickname.

"So not the time, Sam…" he mumbled, blinking again, trying to force his vision into focus so he could figure out what the hell Sam was doing. His brother had begun moving around again; he could hear him splashing about and see his blurry form bobbing up and down but didn't have clue what he was trying to accomplish.

"What the hell, Sam?...Syn…chronized swimming's…. a chick's sport." A lame joke, he knew, especially since the energy used to get the sentence out left him teetering on the edge of unconsciousness yet again.

"Hey. Hey, stay with me, okay! What's your name?

"Huh?" Dean concentrated fiercely on trying to understand his brother's words.

"Tell me your name."

Oh. Okay. They were playing the head injury game. Sam must think he had a concussion. He swallowed hard to calm another wave of nausea that also refueled the pounding in his head. Good call there, little brother.

"So?"

"Huh?"

"What's your name?"

Right. "Dean."

"Good. I'm Jason."

Dean frowned "You hit your head too, Sammy?"

Confusion was painted across the faces of both men as each tried to figure out what was going on in the other's head.

Jason's question died on his lips as he heard Penny yelling from the shore. "Hold onto him."

Penny had watched helplessly as Jason began breathing for this stranger. Her heart had skipped a beat when she saw the man coughing and spluttering, knowing he was alive – at least for the time being. She then watched with increasing frustration as Jason struggled to pull the man free.

The two men had both been in the water way too long.

"Jason!," she yelled again, finally succeeding in getting his attention. "Hang onto him Jase, I'm going to try and pull you in."

Grateful for the gloves protecting her hands, she grabbed the rope, wedged her foot against a large rock embedded in the shore for extra traction and pulled with every ounce of strength she possessed.

Dean was wedged too tightly for Jason to slip his arm around his shoulders, so he opted instead to hook his elbow through Dean's and use his foot to try one more time to dislodge the ice.

Then Mother Nature lent a not-so-helping hand. The warmth of the sun was slowly melting the exposed portion of the ice chunk, gradually shrinking its diameter. The ice, finally succumbing to Jason's attempts to move it, suddenly shifted sideways, its narrowing girth now easily pulled downstream between the two boulders by the relentless current. It gave way so suddenly Jason lost his tenuous grip on Dean and the elder Winchester slipped below the surface. Jason grabbed for him, his trembling hand snagging a fistful of the back of his jacket just as Penny heaved on the rope to pull them to shore.

With the current pulling him one way and Jason pulling him the other, Dean's barely conscious body slipped out of his coat, between the two rocks that had held him captive and drifted downstream.

xxxXXXxxx

Sam was exhausted. Stumbling through the forest, unable to see clearly, he'd lost track of the number of times he'd tripped, lurched and outright fallen. Each tumble zapped even more strength from his already depleted reserves.

He slumped against a tree, breathing heavily, once again trying to orient himself, make sure he wasn't walking in circles. He was trying to navigate by the sun but it was educated guesswork at best.

Sam flashed back to a stupid argument the brothers had fallen into a few weeks earlier when they'd got lost in rural Ohio. They were tired, hungry, had been cooped up in the Impala far too long and their patience with each other had worn paper thin.

"I did not miss a turnoff, Sam."

"Yeah, you did, Dean." Sam tapped his finger impatiently against the map he was holding. "You should have turned left just after that farm we passed….."

"If we should have turned left, why didn't you say so when….

Sam slammed down the map. "I did say so, Dean. As usual, you knew better…'

Dean glared at Sam. "I'm driving, you're navigating. So navigate. Channel your inner Columbus and get us the hell back to where we should be."

Sam snorted, turning back to the map. "Nice metaphor, Dean," he grumbled, tracing his finger along the road they wanted to be on and obviously weren't. "Columbus was looking for India and found North America. With his sense of direction, we could end up in Florida. Did you manage to sleep through every history class in high school?"

Dean shrugged. "I'm in good company. Columbus apparently snoozed through a few geography classes; didn't seem to hurt his career prospects."

He glanced over at Sam, tenting his eyebrows. "Besides, would it be so bad if we ended up in Florida – sun, sand, girls, girls in bikinis….."

Sam rolled his eyes. "A certain waitress in Tampa." Sam met his brother's sideways glance and they shuddered simultaneously, before snorting with laughter.

And with that laughter, the tension in the car dissipated as quickly as it had arisen.

Sam smiled at the memory then shivered, rubbing his hands on his arms trying to generate some body heat. God, he wished Dean was with him right now. Together the two of them always seemed to be able to figure a way out of whatever mess life dropped them in. That didn't mean there wasn't a lot of bickering and butting heads along the way but knowing they had each other to lean on always made things easier, more tolerable.

"Just be okay, Dean," Sam muttered. "Just be okay."

Sam blew out a deep breath, pushed himself off the tree and stumbled forward. His thoughts returned to the spirit on the bridge. He frowned as he pictured her face and the anger that blazed in her eyes. What had happened to make her so angry she would just lash out at Dean? Lash out at both of them?

Under normal circumstances, or what passed for normal for the Winchesters, it was the kind of supernatural mystery Sam loved to delve into. But he first needed to know Dean was safe; then he'd go after the spirit who attacked them.

A noise off to Sam's left broke through the silence of the forest, grabbing his full attention. His eyes widened when he realized someone was running toward him, heavy footfalls mixing with labored breathing, branches snapping and cracking as the runner barreled through dense underbrush.

The sounds quickly disoriented him, first coming at him from his left, then charging toward him from his right. His head snapped from one side to the other as he tried to get a fix on the runner.

Behind him, a woman screamed. Sam whirled around in the direction of the cry but, reflexes dulled by injury, his body wasn't ready for the sudden shift and he fell, hard.

His right knee twisted as he went down and he landed heavily, the impact sending a jolt of pain from his knee all the way up to his still pounding head. He retched as the pain fuelled a new wave of nausea.

Lifting his head, Sam scanned the forest around him, blinking rapidly in yet another futile attempt to clear his vision. Where the hell had the scream come from? And who was screaming?

The wind rose suddenly and blasted past him. Sam raised his hand to protect his face from the dust, dirt and ice that pelted him. Then, as suddenly as it arose, the wind died down and disappeared completely.

There was nothing, or no one, in sight, at least as far as his fuzzy vision could tell. He closed his eyes and listened, hoping his hearing might pick up something his faulty eyesight couldn't, but the only sound was his own rapid, shallow breathing. The forest around him was silent. Unnaturally so.

Shakily Sam pushed himself up to a sitting position and blanched as the movement reignited the pain in his knee. He surveyed the abstract landscape around him, shifting uncomfortably.

Get it together Sam, he chided himself, you're imagining things. But instinct told him he wasn't. In the world Sam and Dean lived in, imaginary fears paled next to the real thing. Something was out there, he just didn't know what.

He grimaced at the pain in his leg. Gingerly, he pressed his fingers into the side of his swollen knee, wincing at the tenderness. Perfect. Add a sprain to his growing list of injuries. At this rate, he'd be dragging himself out of the forest on his ass, if he got out at all.

He exhaled loudly, knowing he had to get up, test his leg and hope to God it would hold his weight. As he braced himself to attempt standing, he heard it again.

This time there was no mistaking it. It was no bird's call. No animal's cry. It was a scream. A woman was close by and in trouble. Sam staggered to his feet, again leaning heavily on a tree and shifting most of his weight to his good leg. A sound in the distance caught his attention and he closed his eyes trying to zone in on its origin.

Again he heard someone running, fast. He could hear leaves crunching underfoot, a cough as the runner fought to suck in air. Sam looked to his right, to his left, behind him and across the clearing. Nothing. Where the hell was the runner?

Sam's heart beat loudly, the percussive accompaniment to the dizzying symphony of footfalls that bombarded him from all directions. He closed his eyes again, willing his ears to focus on the runner.

Sam opened his eyes and his head snapped to the left when movement there grabbed his attention. Someone was running towards him. A woman. Her face was a blur to Sam but he guessed she was young by the speed she was moving. Long, dark hair swung freely behind her as she ran. She wore a light-colored blouse and a long, dark skirt.

Still running, she cast a quick glance behind her and stumbled. He foot caught in the hem of her long skirt and, unable to stop her forward momentum, she fell.

Instinctively, Sam moved in to help but, hobbled by his injured knee, could only watch as she went down. By the time Sam reached her side, she had rolled onto her knees, breathing heavily and was staring off into the distance.

"Are you okay? I…." Sam's offer of assistance was cut off abruptly as, startled by his unexpected appearance, the woman spun round to face him. Unseen by Sam, the woman's hand closed around a dead branch lying to her side. As Sam reached down to help her up, she swung the branch and it connected with the side of his head. He crumpled instantly, pain exploding through his skull.

As he collapsed and the world greyed out around him, the last thing he was aware of was the woman scrambling to stand up, running toward him – and right through him.

To Be Continued …….

A/N: So, Dean is breathing again but he's still not out of the water. Next chapter, I promise. Although that doesn't mean he's out of trouble. Grins And poor, poor Sam – what the heck do the spirits have against his handsome head? Stay tuned. Thanks again for reading. Please drop me a note – your comments make my day!