Summary: They were just boys being boys, how could a simple joke be so close to claiming one son's life and crumbling the mental walls of the other. Will their family ever build the wall back it took so long to put up after Mary's death.

Dislaimer: I own absolutely nothing but the story idea, winchesters are the CW's

A/N: Sorry the chapter took so long, I tend to stress myself out (not with fanfics, classes and techers and sports) so I took a little mini hiatus from writing but I'm back and relaxed. I even wrote a longer chapter as a constellation for the wait.

Chapter Two

John had never been so scared in his life. He never expected to come home and find his son sitting in a puddle of blood, slicing his wrist. Mary would have never let this happen. Now, here John sat beside his oldest son. Never in his life did he ever have to do something so painful as to put his son on suicide watch.

"Mr. Winchester?"

John turned around to see Dean's nurse. "Yes"

"Your other son, Samuel is out of surgery. They wanted to meet with you in the conference room after they get him settled in his room."

"Is he okay?" John asked, knowing that if they had scheduled a conference it had to be terrible.

"I don't know sir, I'm sorry. I'll be back later to take you to the conference room."

"What about Dean? Will he be okay?" John said as he looked at the soft restraints around his son's thickly bandaged arms.

"I don't know that answer either Mr. Winchester. It really is up to him. Dean's Post-Traumatic Stress is pretty serious, he feels responsible for what happened, but the doctors think that if his brother is okay; having him here will take him out of his cationic state, his personal bubble, so to speak." She said as she took Dean's vitals. "They should be about ready to go, how about I just take you to the conference room now?"

John was already seated in the conference room when two doctors walked in. "Mr. Winchester?" John nodded his head motioning them to continue. "I'm Doctor Kirkland and this is Doctor Lang." He said motioning to a petite woman with long black hair and chestnut eyes. "She will be Dean's psychiatrist when he snaps out of it, so to speak."

"What about Sam, he's not…" John couldn't bring himself to say it, but the doctor seemed to understand. "No, no sir."

"Then what's going on?" He asked

"Samuel," Oh god this will be bad, "lost a lot of blood from the stab wound, and as we went into surgery we were almost completely blind to the damage caused, but we had to operate or he was going to die anyway."

John took in what the doctor was saying, trying to remain calm through the doctor's bluntness.

"Sam was stabbed in a very peculiar way. And that made it difficult. The entrance point was the left abdominal cavity, and the spleen and stomach were impaled. From what we got out of your oldest son before he started panicking, if Sam would have turned the other way Samuel could have died on scene. I have some pictures on the puncture I would like to use to explain his condition if you don't mind, I know a lot of parents don't want to see the young ones like that?" John nodded giving his approval.

"Okay, as you can see this is the entrance, notice how ragged it appears. I believe the weapon was a pair of scissors?" Another nod, "From the way this looks I believe that the scissors were open during entry and closed inside. This is how we lost the spleen. Luckily the stomach puncture was fixable."

"So Sam no longer has a spleen?" John asked holding his emotions at bay.

"No, sadly it ruptured from the physical trauma. But your son does have some angels Mr. Winchester because to tell you the truth I wasn't sure he could survive." Doctor Kirkland said trying to show John how lucky his son was.

"What about his stomach?" You said it was punctured." John asked

"He was very lucky in all senses of the word. We were able to suture it up with no other problems. We're just going to keep a look out for infection, especially with the lack of a spleen." The doctor paused to look John straight in the eyes." Without Samuel's spleen he is more susceptible to infection, clots, and blood poisoning. So it is extremely vital that you listen to what I am about to say…We gave Sam the required immunizations for a splenectomy before surgery, but beyond that Sam is going to be on a copious amount of medication for years to come. Vaccinizations need to be scheduled periodically and before leaving the country. Beyond that I want you and Sam to be constantly aware that tic bites and animal bites need to watched for. And I don't mean to be blunt, but being idle with these can potentially kill Samuel. Do you have any questions?"

John was horrified, this wasn't supposed to happen. He couldn't have been that absorbed in hunting that his sons were this far gone could he? "May I see him?"

The doctor nodded, "Anesthesia will have him out for a while, but you can see him. I'll take you too his room. His room is private; we didn't want him to get an infection in the ICU." He said as he guided John down the hallways of the hospital.

"When do you think Sam will be able to see Dean?" John questioned.

"Once his antibiotics get in his systems and his vaccinations are completed, Doctor Land and I are fine with putting Dean and Sam into the same room." Doctor Kirkland stopped and turned to John. "It is vital that you keep your hands clean as possible. Sanitize your hands before and after entering and exiting the room." He said as he used the hand sanitizer dispenser on Sam's door.

"How long do you think it will take for Sam to recover doctor?" John asked as he sat down in the chair next to his baby boy's bed.

"I am aiming for three weeks for him to be out of the hospital, but if he needs more time or god forbid he has a set back it may be longer. But it will take far longer for him to recover completely." Doctor Kirkland said as he checked Sam's vitals and recorded them in his chart. "I'll be out of your way in a second."

"Before you go, I have another question." The doctor nodded as he stopped in the door frame. "I know I already asked, but do you know exactly when Dean can be moved into Sam's room?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, Sam should be finished with his vaccinations and he'll have the antibiotics in his system. Goodnight Mr. Winchester, I'll be back in the morning to check on Sam" Kirkland said as he disappeared down the hallway leaving John with his rebellious, naïve baby boy.

John woke up some hours later to find Dr. Kirkland looking between Sam's stats and his stitches. "Dr. Kirkland? Is something the matter?"

"Oh John, sorry I didn't mean to wake you." John glared at Kirkland, a silent order to give up and explanation.

"The truth is I'm not really sure John. I sent a few blood samples and test to the lab. His blood pressure isn't normal and his temperature is slightly elevated. We started him on stronger antibiotics just to be safe, if anything is strange have me paged." John nodded as he looked down at his son. He was engulfed in wires, monitors, and that hideous nasal cannula. "John don't worry they'll be okay. I won't accept anything other than that." Kirkland said

"What's wrong with his stitches?" John asked as Kirkland pulled the sheets back over Sam.

"Nothing actually, their uninfected, which to be honest disturbs me a little bit?"

"You said he didn't need set backs, so isn't that a good thing?" John asked confused by the doctor.

"It's a great thing John, but the fever and BP is throwing me in quite a loop. I'm really hoping every test comes back negative." Doctor Kirkland said looking at the pale boy. "I really hate seeing kids with as much life and promise as Sam suffer like this."

"Yeah, me too" John said as he lovingly moved a lock of hair out of Sam's face. The kid needs a haircut; he's starting to look like Shaggy. "Has Doctor Lang had any lead way with Dean? I know it hasn't even been twenty-four hours, but anything is something right?"

"r. Lang has been trying very hard John, but she can't relate to him like you and Sam. She recommends that you talk to him about Sam, until Sam can talk to Dean for himself."

"I will go right now. I haven't seen him since last night." Dr. Kirkland nodded before leaving.

John had been sitting with Dean for about an hour; he didn't know what to say or to do around him. What was he suppose to say? He had stabbed his brother; he thinks he killed his brother. "Dean, hey son." John cleared his throat

"They said you and Sam could see each other tomorrow. They said he's doing really well. You know Sammy…" John heard the monitor staccato a little, and looked down to see Dean starring at him. His eyes were vacant, but it still lifted his low spirits. "Sammy's a fight, he won't give up."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there, I should have been…You boys are all I have, and now I could lose you both for my stupidity" John took a shallow breath. "Just snap out of it Dean, Sam needs you, this family needs you."

John watched as Dean closed his eyes and his heart rate leveled out.

"So did you get him to respond at all?" John turned around to see Dr. Lang standing behind him.

John gave her a small nod, "He opened his eyes and his heart rate went up a little when I was talking about his brother."

"That's good."

"I don't know what to say to him." John huffed, frustrated with his lack of conversational skills.

"A lot of people don't. And you know what I tell them?" John turned tired eyes to her. "I tell them to say what is on their mind. Just because you don't know what to say, doesn't mean you don't have something to say Mr. Winchester. If you can't talk about Sam, talk about the weather."

"I'll try it, but I don't know if he'll listen, he is not into that heart-to-heart, touchy feely awkward crap."

"I'd be surprised if he was, young men usually aren't. I'll be back to check on you men later."

John watched as she left, trying to slow his thoughts enough to verbalize what he was going to say.

"That was Doctor Lang, Dean. She's a wise woman. Told me I should talk to you about the weather…It stopped raining a while ago. Should see it, giant puddles everywhere, like when we lived in North Carolina few years back, when you and Sammy were shorter than the door knobs. I remember you boys playing in those puddles. Sam splashing water all over the place, laughing and smiling, and it just happened to be the day I bought the both of you boys' clothes... And you know how much Sammy loved that Batman t-shirt I bought him. He just had to where it as soon as he got home. Well, needless to say it was soaked and dirty by the end of your little game. I was pissed because when you boys came back inside Sam was shaking like a leaf. Poor kid had that nasty bug for two weeks." John was laughing as he remembered how much Sammy resembled a stray, wet dog that day. "Kid was miserable, bored out of his mind. Even started watching the news, and every time you came home from school or I came home from work he would ask so many questions, what does 'precipitation' mean? Is the President really a red, white, and blue elephant? What is the stock market? Is it like the grocery store, because I want to try DOW? Kid was so damn curious." John's smile faded as he remembered how sick Sam looked now. "I'll be back in a little bit Dean, got to go check on Sammy for a little while, make sure he isn't talking the doctor's ear off." John said as he got up and walked out of the room.

"Sammy? Don't go Dad…" Dean whispered as he blinked his eyes and looked around the room. "Sammy?" Dean yelled seeing the empty room. He was alone. He killed Sammy. "Nooooooooooooo!"

Dean was frantic now. He didn't even notice when world war three erupted around him and doctors tried to hold him down to further restrain him. "Stop! Sammy!" Dean was beyond panic.

"Give him something to calm him down, before he pulls his stitches." Dr. Lang said as she tried to get Dean's attention. "Doctor please find his father."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," were the last panicked words that left his mouth before unwanted darkness took him into the arms of unconsciousness.

Hope you all enjoyed my little cliff hanger, and as always comment ( anonymous too) so don't be shy. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter