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: Many thanks – and plates of cookies - to Heather for the awesome medical beta. It really helped juice up this chapter and the next. I am a chronic tweaker so any mistakes that may still exist are mine and mine alone. Enjoy.

BRIDGING TWO SOLITUDES

CHAPTER 5

Cocooned in blankets, intubation tube still in place and currently attached to an Ambu bag pumped rhythmically by a nurse, Dean was barely visible on the gurney as they wheeled him out of the ER and toward the ICU.

Monitors tracking his heart and respiration rate were piled on top of the blankets, their readings watched carefully by the medical staff who pushed him down the corridor and into the waiting elevator.

As the elevator doors closed, Dr. Jack Kendall shook his head. The kid must have a horseshoe up his ass. It had taken the ER chief and his team hours to get their patient's body temperature stabilized near normal and his heart beating steadily.

Dean's heart had stopped twice while in the care of the paramedics, once more shortly after arriving in the ER, and there had been a few minor episodes of arrhythmia since. While his heart had been beating steadily for the past two hours, Kendall had got him admitted to Cardiac ICU so he could be monitored closely for the next 24 hours.

Kendall grabbed his patient's chart and scanned the list of injuries and procedures it detailed. When Dean had first arrived their main focus had been to keep him breathing and warm him up. Warmed fluids were introduced intravenously and heated oxygen was pumped into his tired lungs via the endotracheal tube. They'd keep him intubated for the next few hours, at least, while they watched for any signs of pulmonary edema or respiratory distress syndrome.

A neurologist had also been called in. While Dean's tests had been promising so far they couldn't yet rule out further complications, ranging from seizures to swelling of the brain, from the lack of oxygen.

The head injury compounded neurological concerns. Twice over the past several hours, Dean had roused briefly, but had yet to fully regain consciousness. Kendall scribbled down an order for an MRI.

Dean had also needed seven stitches to close a deep gash along his scalp line, the impact point of the head trauma. An impressive array of bruises also painted the left side of his body, starting at his shoulder and travelling down his side to his thigh. The hematoma on Dean's hip was the worst of the bruises. A compression bandage had been applied and they would continue drug therapy and icing it to control the swelling. Surgery to drain the blood trapped within the muscle fibres was still a possibility if the swelling didn't subside within a day or two, but Kendall believed that an unlikely option. The ER chief had been pleasantly surprised when X-rays revealed the hip bones beneath the contusion were neither broken nor fractured. The kid would be in pain when he woke up, be uncomfortable walking, but he wouldn't be in traction.

Kendall stared at the box on the patient chart that asked for 'cause of injury.' His pen hesitated over the empty space before scrawling in 'Unknown.' Given the head injury and deep bruising, the doctor's best guess was some kind of heavy impact; maybe he'd been hit by a car and knocked into the river. It turned his stomach to think someone may have done that intentionally – or even accidently but not bothered to call for help.

Staring at another empty box on the form, the doctor slammed down the chart in frustration, pulling off his protective gown and soiled surgical gloves and throwing them in the disposal bin near the treatment room doors. His trauma team had spent the better part of their day helping save this man's life. His chart now listed his injuries in detail and would soon contain a full outline of every drug they had given him and every procedure performed in the course of saving his life. But on the line for patient's name, there was a solitary entry – Dean.

The other kid they'd fished out of the water, Jason Tait, had been taken upstairs hours ago. He was conscious, aware and, backed up by his girlfriend, was able to tell the authorities what had happened, at least from the point of spotting Dean in the river. He had been able to provide Dean's first name but nothing more. Kendall stared again at the box asking for a surname, refusing to fill in 'Doe.'

He turned to one of the nursing assistants. "Jane, call admin and tell them to work with the cops to get a proper ID on this kid. He'll be out of it for a while and he's likely got family wondering where the hell he is."

"I think I can help there."

Kendall turned in the direction of the new voice. The offer came from Dr. Kelly Caine, a Stanford University Medical Centre surgeon, brought in by County General to conduct a week-long seminar for their medical residents in her speciality, paediatric trauma. Kendall had been aware of her observing his team as they fought to save Dean's life but had chalked it up to professional curiosity. Now he wondered if it was something more.

He smiled. "That's kind but not necessary, Dr. Caine. Really. Our administrative staff can take care of….."

"Please…" she returned Kendall's smile. "Believe it or not, I know him. His name is Dean, Dean Remington. I treated his brother about 11 years ago."

Dr. Kendall's eyes widened in surprise. "You remember the brother of a patient you treated 11 years ago?"

Dr. Caine shrugged, biting back a smile. "Trust me, if Dean was awake, you'd find him hard to forget too."

Jack Kendall smiled, shaking his head. "That I can believe. A few hours ago, I would have laid odds he wouldn't wake up at all. He put up a helluva fight."

Dr. Caine nodded. "Let's just say his family doesn't know the meaning of the word quit." She cleared her throat. "I'll give my secretary a call; ask her to dig up Sam's medical records. Those should give us a contact number for Dean's family."

Dr. Kendall nodded. "By all means then. I'm sure his family will be grateful and it'll save the police a lot of legwork."

Dr. Caine smiled again at Kendall. As he turned away, she grabbed the plastic bag holding Dean's sodden clothing, batted open the ER doors and headed down the hall.

Her smile slipped as soon as her back was turned to the glass ER doors. The story she'd told Kendall was a careful blend of fact and fiction; enough fact to stand up under scrutiny, enough fiction to keep the cops' interest in Dean at a minimum.

Kelly Caine had first met the Winchester brothers when she a med student in Boston. Twelve-year-old Sam had the flu and it had turned into pneumonia. John was out of town on a hunt and Dean, panicked at the sight of his little brother struggling to breathe, half-carried, half-dragged Sam into the ER where Kelly was an intern.

Dean, getting over the flu himself, was barred from seeing Sam after he was admitted to the ICU and almost got himself kicked out of the hospital permanently when he pitched a loud, curse-filled fit over being separated from his brother. Kelly managed to calm the irate teen by promising to get him in to see Sam. She'd kept her word, breaking more than a few rules in the process, a move which earned her both an official reprimand from the attending physician and Dean's respect.

In the years since, Doc, as Sam and Dean called her, had proven herself a trusted friend to the Winchesters. The friendship was further cemented when a supernatural tragedy struck close to home, taking the lives of Doc's husband and infant daughter.

Now fully aware of what the Winchesters did for a living, and the cause behind their numerous and frequent injuries which had first raised her suspicions, Doc often helped patch them back together whenever they were in the same zip code and, on occasion, had helped them cover their tracks with authorities whenever hospitalization was necessary.

Doc glanced down at the bag containing Dean's clothes. The paramedics had said there was no I.D., nothing to tell them who Dean was or where he was from. That, in itself, was actually a good thing; it gave her a clean slate to come up with a fake background for Dean Remington. A quick name change on Dean's medical records, adding the alias du jour, and they'd be good to go.

What she hoped to find was something that might tell her where the hell Sam was. That first meeting with the brothers, when Sam was 12, had clearly illustrated what subsequent encounters reinforced; when one Winchester was down, the other was at his side. End of story. The fact Sam was nowhere around now told her something was wrong. Very wrong.

Doc had been calling Sam since she'd first recognized Dean in the ER but every call had gone straight to voicemail. The paramedics had said they'd pulled Dean out of the river and it scared her to think Sam might have ended up in the water too. And if they hadn't found him yet, he could be…well, she chose not to dwell on that possibility.

Ducking into the thankfully empty staff lounge, she pulled her cellphone from her pocket, hitting redial to again call Sam. She blew out a breath in frustration when, once again, the call went straight to voicemail.

"Sam. It's Doc. Dean's with me. He's okay. Call me as soon as you get this."

Her first message had been short and blunt. "Call me." Now she offered enough information to put Sam's mind at ease if he heard it, but not enough to give much away if it fell into unwelcome hands.

Doc scrubbed a hand across her face before glancing down at her watch. When she couldn't get hold of Sam, she'd called another old friend for help. His plane should have landed by now.

As if on cue, her phone rang. She smiled at the name in caller display.

"Hey Bobby. Where are you?"

"Pulling up to the hospital. Cab's gonna drop me off right at the front doors."

Doc grabbed the bag holding Dean's clothes and headed toward the lobby. "I'll be right there."

Doc hurried down the hallway, well aware her cellphone use within the hospital was a blatant breach of protocol, and headed for the main entrance.

"How's Dean doin'?" The worry in Bobby's voice was obvious.

"Still out of it, but he's hanging in there."

"Sam shown up yet?"

Out of habit, Doc shook her head. "No sign of him, and all my calls are going straight to voicemail."

She heard Bobby sigh. "Mine too."

"What the hell did they find, Bobby?" Doc ignored the glare from the volunteer at the visitor information desk as she crossed the lobby, still talking on her cellphone. "There wasn't supposed to be a job here. We were meeting for coffee, that's it – until I got the e-mail from Sam saying they'd be about an hour late because they wanted to check out some haunted bridge."

Bobby sighed again. 'Yeah, well even when Sam and Dean aren't looking for trouble it has a habit of finding them."

The glass main doors of the hospital slid open automatically as Doc stepped in front of them and she walked outside, stopping under the canopy that framed the entrance. The temperature was dropping sharply as the sun went down and, dressed only in scrubs and a lab coat, she shivered.

The headlights of a car driving up toward her from the left quickly drew her attention, as did the illuminated Airport Taxi sign on its roof. She clicked her phone shut as the cab pulled to a stop and the back door flew open, the car's interior lights showing Bobby also putting away his phone. He handed some bills to the driver, grabbed his duffle from the seat beside him and stepped out of the car, pushing the door shut behind him.

He gave Doc a quick hug then motioned with his head to the hospital behind her. "I wanna see Dean, then I need to go check out the bridge. See if I can pick up any clues where Sam might be."

Doc nodded, motioning for Bobby to follow her. "It's going to be pitch black by the time you get there. Think you can find something that will help?"

"If it's there, I'll find it," Bobby growled, in a tone that left no doubt he would.

"Excuse me. Dr. Caine?"

Doc and Bobby both turned toward the male voice. It belonged to a uniformed sheriff's deputy crossing the lobby toward them.

Doc's bright smile hid the suspicion in her eyes. "I'm Kelly Caine. What can I do for you, deputy?"

The deputy returned her smile and nodded at Bobby. "I'm following up on this morning's John Doe case, er…." He pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket, "I believe his name is Dean Remington. Doc Kendall in the ER said I should talk to you. Says you know the family. What can you tell me about Mr. Remington – and how he might have ended up in the river?"

xxxXXXxx

Sam stared up at the spirit in front of him, wishing he could clearly see her face. She seemed to be studying him intently.

The sun had long since disappeared behind the horizon and daylight was almost gone. Sam sat mostly hidden in the shadow of his jury-rigged shelter, only his long legs illuminated by the dancing flame of his small campfire.

Slowly, awkwardly, Sam pushed himself up on his elbow. He squinted at the apparition in front of him, trying to bring her into focus, as curiosity quickly overpowered his initial surprise. "Who are you?"

Anger fuelled her response. "Don't play games. You know my name."

Sam shook his head lightly, wincing at the movement. "No, I don't. Look, my name is Sam, Sam Winchester….."

"Liar." He recoiled instinctively as she took a sudden step toward him. "Your name is Paddy. I heard the other man call you that."

"Paddy?" Sam's brow wrinkled in confusion. "No, my name is Sam. And what other man?"

Sam's muddled thoughts turned immediately to Dean. Had she seen him? Had his brother found him? He shifted forward, the hood of his sweatshirt slipping off his head as he pushed himself out of the shadow of his shelter and fully into the firelight.

His sudden movement seemed to startle the spirit. She backpedaled clumsily, landing in the middle of Sam's fire. Her translucent form stood there, oblivious to the shower of sparks that surrounded her and untouched by the flames that danced up through the torn hem of her long skirt.

Sam held up his hand in a non-threatening gesture. "Please. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on? He looked hopefully into the dark forest that surrounded him, looking for any sign of his brother. Reality grabbed him again before he could fully buy into the welcoming delusion his battered mind created.

He turned again to the spirit, swallowing to fight off a new wave of nausea fuelled by his still pounding headache and worsening knee pain. "My brother is missing. I need to find him. When you said you'd seen another man, I thought for minute….maybe…."

The spirit tilted her head quizzically. "You're not him."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Not who?"

Again, he cursed the fact he'd couldn't read her expression. She moved toward him again, stepping out of the fire, the draft sending another shower of sparks into the air.

"You look much like him….you…..What did you say your name was?"

"Sam." He shifted warily. "Sam Winchester."

"Sam Winchester." She repeated his name slowly, as if testing it out, seeing if it was a good fit. She raised her arm, pointing at his battered face. "You're hurt."

Unconsciously, he rubbed his swollen left eye, wincing at the tenderness of the broken, bruised skin. He smiled ruefully. "Yeah, you swing a pretty mean tree branch."

The spirit started. "What? I wouldn't, I mean……." She moved closer to Sam and knelt down in front of him. He shifted away from her instinctively; the last time she'd been this close he'd ended up being clubbed. He swallowed hard and willed his blurry vision to focus so he could read the spirit's expression but she remained little more than a dark silhouette against the firelight.

Disbelief tinged her response. "I hit him. I was careless, slow – he almost caught me. I needed to get away. He laughed at me…. I was so angry……."

She tilted her head at Sam and once again he wished he could read her expression. "I…..I thought you were him. I hit my head when I fell and, sometimes, I can't see properly."

"That makes two of us," Sam mumbled, pushing himself from his shelter and closer to the fire.. "What's your name?" When there was no answer he tried again. "Please?"

"Mary."

He smiled softly. "One of my favourites. It was my mother's name."

"Really?" Mary's voice suddenly sounded very young.

"Yeah. How old are you, Mary?"

"Eighteen."

Sam nodded. "And where do you live?"

"Why?" Suspicion tinged her question.

Sam smiled disarmingly. "I'm just trying to figure out how we both got here – wherever here is."

Confusion and uncertainty weakened Mary's anger.. 'I…I…I'm not sure. When you….when he grabbed me and threw me across the room, I hit my head. I couldn't see….everything was blurry. I couldn't think clearly…...I think I must have fainted because I don't remember what happened next – one moment I was at my home, then I was here – with him.

"Now, now I'm lost….. No matter which way I run, I can't find my way home."

Sam sat up straighter, a sense of déjà vu overwhelming him. He blinked rapidly, his vision clearing briefly, teasingly, before sliding out of focus yet again. In that moment of clarity, however, he took in Mary's haunted, tear-streaked face.

Sam shifted to get more comfortable but winced as his knee protested the movement. Experience told him a violent death of some kind was the likely cause of Mary's spirit being trapped here in the forest, forever in search of a way home she was doomed not to find. "This man, the one who took you…did he, um." Sam's voice softened, knowing there was no easy way to ask the question, even of a spirit. "Did he rape you."

Mary inhaled audibly at the question. "No." She was shaking her head. "No. He tried, but I got away. I hit him and I ran away. But he chased me…he keeps chasing me….and now I'm so lost, I…….."

The sound of heavy footfalls crashing through the forest to Sam's left cut off Mary's story. She scrambled to her feet. "It's him. He's coming." She turned to Sam. "You have to run. He's not very fast but you have to run or he'll find you too."

Without waiting to see if he'd follow, she spun around, hitched up her long skirts and took off at a run, vanishing before she was halfway across the clearing.

"Wait." Sam struggled painfully to his feet, forcing his uninjured left leg to support all his weight. A wave of dizziness washed over him and he squeezed his eyes closed and swallowed hard to regain his equilibrium.

"Mary, please……." There was no answer and no sign of her. He looked around him warily. Could there really be another ghost, literally running around the forest? Sam's question was answered when the chill down his spine made him aware of another presence behind him. He turned unsteadily to see an imposing figure standing on the far side of the small clearing. The man was of similar build to Sam – a little taller perhaps, broader across the shoulder too. As he walked through the fire, untouched, it became obvious this latest visitor was yet another spirit. Sam swallowed hard, struggling to maintain his balance.

As the spirit lurched toward him, Sam miscalculated, putting too much weight on his injured leg. It gave way and he fell, landing heavily at the feet of this latest spectral visitor. Breathing hard, he looked up to find the massive spirit looming over him.

The spirit stared past Sam into the dark forest behind him, then looked down to glare at the man at his feet. He crouched down slowly so his face was level with Sam's, leaning in closely. "The little bitch is mine," he snarled.

Sam recoiled, repulsed by both the spirit's words and the cloying odor of stale tobacco and sour whiskey that seemed to envelop him. Sam's vision swam in and out of focus, briefly allowing him to see the man's cold eyes glitter in the firelight as his lip curled into a sneer.

The spirit stood up suddenly, his hulking frame lumbering at Sam and right through him. Sam shuddered at the sensation. In the fleeting connection, the evil within the spirit was overwhelming.

Sam's breathing became shallow and rapid as he dragged himself painfully around to face the retreating specter. He wanted to stand, use his own considerable height to full advantage, but his strength was gone.

He was in no shape for a confrontation but he couldn't help himself. He cleared his throat. "No."

The single word was enough to stop the spirit in its tracks. He turned slowly to again face Sam. For a brief moment he didn't move. Then he blinked out of sight, reappearing almost instantly right in front of Sam. A meaty hand reached down and grabbed Sam by the throat, lifting the younger Winchester with ease. Sam struggled to breathe and to free himself but the spectre held him effortlessly. His vision began to grey with lack of oxygen but he clearly heard the spirit laugh, just before he felt himself thrown through the air and collide with a tree on the far side of the clearing. He was out cold before his body crumpled to the ground.

xxxXXXxxx

"Thank you Mr. Singer." The deputy shook Bobby's hand. "This is a good hospital. I'm sure they'll have your nephew back on his feet in no time."

Bobby nodded. "Appreciate that, Deputy. And thanks."

"Ma'am." The deputy nodded at Doc before turning and walking across the lobby and out the main entrance.

Doc met Bobby's gaze and raised an eyebrow. "You come up with that cover story on the spot, or map it out on the way here?"

Bobby shrugged. "Bit of both. Did some research on the area while waiting for the plane."

Bobby had informed the deputy his nephew Dean was an environmental studies major, concerned that the planned construction of a causeway just outside of town would have a detrimental effect on fish passage in the river. Dean, he said, must have slipped and fallen when he was out gathering information for his thesis.

In the best case scenario, the cops would buy that story, write up the whole thing as an accident and move on. Worst case scenario, if they needed more to convince them, they'd head out to the proposed site for the causeway, which was about five miles further upriver than the old bridge the Winchesters had been investigating.

Bobby visually tracked the deputy as he walked away. "Hopefully it's enough to keep the cops out of our way until we figure out what the hell's goin' on, and keep them off Dean's case until he can walk himself out of here."

Doc nodded. "Come on. I'll take you up to the ICU. Dean's unconscious and on a ventilator but I'm sure it'll do him good to know you're here."

Bobby nodded, shaking his head as they crossed the lobby toward the elevators. "Still a stickler for rules, I see."

Doc feigned innocence, as she pressed the button for the elevator. "Can't think what you mean by that."

The doors opened and Bobby followed Doc inside the car, where she hit the button for the fourth floor. "Just goin' out on a limb here," he said, glancing at his watch, "but something tells me visiting hours are long over."

Doc shrugged. "I do what's best for my patients, regardless of what the rulebook says. Always have, always will and I'm too damn old to change my ways now."

That made Bobby laugh. Doc was still a couple of years away from turning 40. She was a small, trim woman, her honey blond hair now worn shoulder-length and loose rather than long and in the ponytail she always sported when Bobby first met her. Kids loved her, which made her chosen field of pediatrics a natural fit, and adults were quickly won over by her genuine warmth. But behind the easy smile there was a sharp mind, a quick wit and, when pushed, an even quicker temper – one Bobby held a healthy respect for.

Bobby had never known Doc while her husband and daughter were alive but Sam had told him there had been a subtle shift in her personality after their deaths. She was more guarded with her emotions, less trusting of people – traits the Winchesters were all too familiar with and ones that, ironically, deepened their friendship.

When the elevator doors opened at the fourth floor, Doc crossed to the nurses' station, confirmed Dean's room number, then pointed it out to Bobby.

She smiled. "Go on in. I'll give you some privacy. I'll be right here when you're done."

Bobby nodded his thanks then walked over to the doorway Doc had pointed out. The glass-walled room was located just behind the nurses' station. Dean lay in the lone bed in the room looking grey, drawn and unnaturally still. Bobby exhaled audibly as he walked up to his bedside. He had seen the Winchester boys in the hospital numerous times but it never got any easier to see them like this.

The head of the bed was elevated and Dean's face was partially obscured by a flat, oval pad holding the intubation tube in place. An IV drip fed into the back of his left hand, another into the crook of his arm. A blood pressure cuff encircled the top of his right arm while a collection of multi-colored wires, disappearing under the neck of his hospital gown, connected him to the bank of monitors tracking his heart rate, respiration and god knows what else.

"Dammit, Dean." Bobby shoved his ball cap back, scratching his head worriedly, before pulling the hat firmly back in place. "What the hell have you boys gotten yourselves involved with this time?"

Dean stirred slightly, whether in response to Bobby's voice or just by coincidence, Bobby wasn't sure. He reached forward to squeeze Dean's shoulder reassuringly.

When Dean did wake, Bobby knew the only way he would concentrate on his own health was if he knew Sam was okay. "You hang in there, ya hear? I'm gonna head out and see if I can find that brother of yours. Should have him parked in this chair beside your bed by the time you wake up."

Bobby had no idea where Sam was, if he was even alive, but if the younger Winchester was still breathing, he was damn well going to find him.

A sudden, shrill beeping yanked Bobby from his thoughts. The alarm on the monitor beside Dean's bed was shrieking for attention. Two nurses and a doctor, followed immediately by Doc, rushed into the room and past Bobby to get to Dean.

Bobby's eyes widened, his heart pounding. "What? What's happening?"

Doc looked at him grimly after taking in the feverish activity around Dean. "He's drowning."

To Be Continued…….

A/N: I did it again didn't I? Blame Heather, medical beta extraordinaire, this time though. This little cliffie was all her idea. Okay, I'm fibbing. The idea was hers, the placement all mine, so I'll take the blame. Like I said – I'm evil! Thanks again for all your feedback. Forgive me for being greedy, but please – send more! As always, thanks for reading and hope to see you back.