A/N: From this point on, I am going to tread lightly into the territory of depression. It is a very hard subject for me to write about. Someone close to me committed suicide, and I know how it feels to wonder if you could have done anything to help him, what he was thinking about, and could anyone have stopped him. I hope to explore all of those questions through Bobby in this chapter and throughout the story. He and Sam are going to fight very different battles with themselves over Dean's condition.

"Any change?"
"Nothing," Bobby said as Sam handed him a cup of coffee. "The doctor said he's lucky to be alive."
Bobby looked down at Dean's bandaged wrists. He hadn't been the one to find Dean, and he couldn't imagine Sam's shock at finding his brother in that condition. Somewhere inside him, he could feel a pang of guilt growing stronger, every time he replayed the past three months in his head. He had isolated Dean, become obsessed with making sure he didn't try to kill himself again. He had become an overprotective bastard, and in the end he found himself sitting by Dean's bedside in a small-town hospital, wondering why he didn't help Dean the way he was meant to be helped. The right way.

"Sam, You go on back to the motel room, son. I'm gonna stay here for a while."
"Bobby, you haven't slept in days. You go, I'll stay."

"Just go, damn it!"
Sam was taken aback by his older friend's outburst. The three of them had been through a lot together, but never anything like this. His brother was lying unconscious in a hospital bed, wrists bandaged where he tried to slit them, and Bobby was slouched in a chair next to him, obviously wrecked over the whole thing, maybe even more than Sam was.

"Okay. I'll go. Call me if you—"

"Yeah, right. I will."
Sam nodded and quietly left the room.
Bobby sat up a little straighter in his chair when Sam left. The monitor to his left beeped slowly, telling him that Dean was still alive, though obviously all of the young man was not. Bobby wished he could reach into Dean's mind, and find out what was bothering John's oldest boy so much. He wished he was there when Dean made the decision to cut himself, so he could stop him, like that night at the bar. He felt like a damn fool for not protecting Dean from this. How could he not protect him?

"Dammit, Dean," He put his hand on top of Dean's. In his mind, he had to confirm that all of this was really happening, that he wasn't dreaming.
"Why couldn't you just talk to me, boy?" Tears started flowing down his cheeks. "I took all of this the wrong way, son. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you." He squeezed Dean's hand in his. "Please don't die on me. Please."

--

"Bobby?"
The older man stirred and sat up in his chair when he heard Dean's hoarse voice calling his name.
"Dean," he said quietly. "It's good to have you back, son."
"Where's Sammy?"
"He went back to the motel room last night."
Bobby got up and gathered his bearings.

"I'm gonna grab some caffeine and call your brother." He started toward the door, but stopped when Dean reached out and grabbed his wrist.
"Stay."
Bobby could have dropped to his knees right there. After everything he had done in the past three months, hearing Dean ask him to stay was the best thing in the world.

"Ok," he sat back down in his chair. "I'll stay."

--

Sam came back to the hospital around ten o'clock, and was delighted to see that his brother had awakened. As he and Dean talked, Bobby left them to grab the coffee he had intended on a couple of hours earlier. As he made his way toward the cafeteria, and the coffee machine, images from the night of Dean's suicide attempt replayed in his head. He remembered watching the paramedics lift Dean's limp body out of the Impala and onto a stretcher. He remembered the blood, and the dead look in Dean's eyes. Bobby thought for sure they were going to lose him that night, but Sam insisted that Dean was going to make it.

After grabbing coffee for himself, he sat down at a table to relax for a moment. He was having trouble clearing his mind. With Dean awake, it would not be long before he was released from the hospital. Bobby wanted to make sure Dean got the help he needed from him. Dean needed a friend, a father figure, not a babysitter.
Chugging down the last bit of his coffee, Bobby got up and prepared to head back upstairs. It was time he actually be around for Dean. John's boy wasn't going to be left behind again.