A/N: So thanks for all the reviews! This chapter has some Dean, a lot of John and Sam.
Disclaimer: I realized I forgot this, so, uh, I don't own any of them.
Sam hated concussions. He had had enough experience with them to know that he had to be woken every hour or so, but he was so tired…He had woken in a blind panic in the ER, the chaotic sounds and actions around him freaking him out to the point where he had started to hyperventilate. His brother was nowhere to be seen and he couldn't find his dad either, and Sam had felt the prick of a needle then the blackness that he knew meant he had been sedated.
He'd been woken once already, had looked around groggily until his eyes settled on the sleeping form of his brother, curled up on the small bed beneath the room's window. After that he'd dropped off quickly, relieved and comforted by his brother's presence.
Now, as a nurse walked into the room, turning the dim lights up in the process, Sam groaned, certain that she had woken him no more than fifteen minutes previous.
"Hour already?" He mumbled, rubbing at his eyes, but he was surprised when the nurse ignored him and addressed his brother. What the hell?
"Dean?" The nurse said, reaching out to touch his brother on the shoulder. "Dean?" There was no response, and suddenly Sam was wide awake and scared. Why wasn't Dean answering her? Maybe he was just really tired. Or maybe he was hurt. Sam flashed back to their hunt, to Dean falling, crashing into the rocks…Damn.
"Dean!" This time it was said more forcefully, was followed by some rough shaking, and Sam found himself hoping for some kind of response. When none came, panic gripped his heart. Apparently, the nurse felt the same way. She rolled Dean onto his back, gasping as she saw how pale he was. Sam stared, open-mouthed, as she knuckled Dean's sternum and got no response, then checked his pulse and breathing. Her face paled, and she quickly stood and hit the call button behind Sam's bed.
"What's going on?" Sam demanded, pushing himself upright. "What's happening?" The nurse stepped into the hallway, again ignoring Sam.
"We need a trauma team in here!" She shouted, and Sam completely panicked.
"What the hell is happening?" He screamed, overwhelmed as the nurse rushed back in and made a quick phone call, then started inspecting Dean. A doctor came in too. The nurse pulled something down off the wall next to Sam's head, then placed it over Dean's mouth and nose and started squeezing, and Sam finally realized that it was an oxygen bag. Was Dean even breathing? What the hell was going on?
"Hey!" Sam shouted, trying to get their attention, but they were completely focused on his brother, too still and too pale on the bed.
"We've got massive swelling of the abdomen," the doctor said as they gently tilted Dean onto his side. "Bad bruising of the back. Damn it, I think it's his kidneys." His kidneys? Sam started to feel queasy. His kidneys? He knew that was bad. Suddenly, the room was thrust into chaos. The trauma team arrived around the same time John did, hauling his IV pole behind him, limping badly and blood soaking through his hospital gown. Sam started sobbing as Dean was shifted to a gurney, John yelling, a nurse trying to quiet him, Sam screaming, a nurse finally seeing him and trying to soothe him, and through it all, Dean , too still and too pale, not moving.
"He's bottoming out, we've got to get him to an OR," a doctor said, and Dean was whisked away from them. The room became quiet aside from Sam's sobs and John's muttered cursing.
"What the hell just happened?" John demanded of the nurse who had entered the room with him. He was listing to one side, clutching at the wall for support, but staring at the nurse with fire in his eyes, unwilling to give into his body's demands until he had an answer. The nurse looked down guiltily.
"He's bleeding internally," she answered quietly, and Sam's sobs grew louder. "It appears that he damaged his kidneys."
"You mean to tell me," he said, in a dangerously low, calm voice that Sam had only heard once or twice before, "that my son has been lying there, bleeding to death, for two hours?" His voice cracked on the word death, and even through his own fear, he could tell that his father was barely holding it together.
"I'm sorry," the nurse whispered finally, and John slid down the wall as his strength left him entirely. The nurse moved to help him up, but John angrily waved her off.
Suddenly, Sam realized that he needed his dad, needed what little family he had, needed to just be with someone. "Dad," he cried, realizing that he sounded like a baby, but not caring. This was Dean. Crying was allowed. John carefully levered himself up again, limping over to Sam's side and painfully sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Come 'ere son," he whispered, and Sam allowed himself to fall into his father's arms, listening to the whispered words of comfort, taking solace in the thumb that gently stroked over his forehead and hair.
"He's gonna be okay, right?" Sam muttered tearfully into John's shirt, and the gentle stroking faltered for a minute.
"Of course," John answered finally, but his voice wavered, and now Sam realized that his father was trembling. He was scared. His dad was scared.
Sam cried himself to sleep.
xxxx
It was hours before they heard anything. John had grudgingly allowed his leg to be re-stitched and bandaged, but the nurse had had to do it around Sam's shuddering form as John had absolutely refused to allow anyone to move him or his son. Sam had slept uneasily, letting out shaky sighs and sometimes sobs that cut John to the quick, that made him think, again, just how terrible a father he was. Dean's ripped shirt had lain on the floor, the only sign that his son had been there, the AC/DC ripped partway between the D and the C, and John wondered vaguely why they'd torn it down the side and not the middle. Not that it mattered.
But it did matter. It mattered that his oldest son had had to have his shirt ripped off of him because of injury, because he had been hiding his wounds, because John had made him go on another hunt. Not for the first time, John angrily wondered why the hell Dean hadn't said anything about his injuries, why he had opted instead to basically allow himself to die. Maybe he hadn't known? He doubted that.
"Mr. Winchester?" The doctor that entered the room looked older than he had when John had seen him rushing his son off to surgery, and that worried him. A lot. He considered waking Sam, quickly decided against it. If the news was bad, he would be the one giving it. Not some damn doctor.
"Dean?" John demanded, not trusting his voice to say anything else. The doctor sighed, rubbing at his eyes.
"It was close," he said, and John felt immense relief that at least his son was alive. It went away quickly as the doctor continued. "He'd lost a lot of blood. He was pretty deep in hypovalemic shock, and he was in full respiratory arrest by the time we got up to the OR." John didn't like the use of the past tense, as if his son was already gone, as if he hadn't just said it was close, not over. Not hopeless.
"We gave him blood and were able to stop the bleed. It was a relatively small tear, which explains why your son even lasted this long. If it was any bigger, he would have bled out completely." John gulped, subconsciously stroking Sam's long hair again, the contact with one of his sons soothing.
"We did, however, lose him once on the table, and he isn't breathing on his own yet." And John's world wavered and threatened to collapse, because as many hunts as they'd been in, as many scrapes and bruises and concussions and broken bones they'd gotten, none of them had ever forgotten something so basic as how to breathe. How to live. He was surprised by the tear that ran down his cheek, frowning as he lifted a hand full of tubes to wipe it off, suddenly petrified that his oldest son, his confidant and support, was gone.
"He'll be okay?" He asked quietly, his voice husky, and the doctor looked at him as if he must not have been listening, of course he wouldn't just be okay. His heart had stopped, for crying out loud.
"Hopefully, with time," the doctor answered guardedly, and John had the sudden urge to punch him in the face, to make him bleed and cry and hurt the way he did. The way Dean had.
"We're monitoring him closely. It's…it's unlikely that there will be any effects from the lack of oxygen to Dean's brain, but…it's still possible. We're also watching for pneumonia and infection, and though we managed to save both kidneys, we'll have to keep an eye on those too. And, of course, we hope that we'll be able to wean him off the ventilator soon, but again, we don't really know anything."
"So what you're saying is you don't know a damn thing about how he's doing," John growled, and the doctor nodded.
"Basically," he assented, and John cursed, closing his eyes in quiet despair. "I do know that your son put up one hell of a fight in the OR, and that counts for a lot. I'm sorry, Mr. Winchester." He stood up and walked out of the room, and John watched him go with tears in his eyes. Yeah, his son was a fighter. John just prayed it would be enough. He sat with Sammy, stroking his hair and forehead, wiping the tears from his cheeks, until he fell asleep.
xxxx
When Sam woke up the second time, his dad was still asleep, one hand curled in his hair, the other wrapped around his shoulders. Light was shining through the window, marking a new day, and Sam vaguely hoped that what he had seen last night was nothing more than a nightmare, a bad dream. Dean lying so quiet…
"Dad?" Sam whispered, not wanting to wake his father but needing to know. John stirred and cracked his eyes open. "Was it real?" Sam waited with bated breath, praying for his father to say no, to tell him that Dean was fine, had gone to get some coffee and would be right back. Instead, he nodded.
"Yeah, Sammy. It was real." Sam started crying again, damn he was such a girl, but John just wrapped his arms around him, bundling him into a huge hug.
"He's alive, Sam," John said into Sam's hair, and Sam looked up.
"Is he okay?" He asked, wiping a tear from his cheek.
"Not really, kiddo," John answered quietly, and Sam nodded, lower lip trembling. "He's in pretty bad shape, but the doctors are watching him. It'll be okay." Sam heard the quaver in his voice, knew that his dad was being optimistic, but hoped anyway that he was right. Of course Dean would be okay.
"Can we see him?" Sam asked, and John shrugged.
"Yeah, we probably could. I think you can be released today anyway, Sam, but they want to keep me for a bit longer." Sam blanched. Who would he be with? He supposed he could hang out at the hospital all day, alternate between his father and his brother, but he knew that that would get overwhelming.
"I called Bobby," John admitted, and Sam looked up at him with a frown.
"You did?" He asked questioningly, surprised. John nodded, clearly thinking about something.
"Listen, Sam," he began, and Sam knew that it was about what happened earlier, about the words he'd thrown out, words like hate and leave.
"Yeah?" He whispered, not wanting to fight.
"We have to stop." It was said simply enough, but Sam knew what it meant. It meant we have to stop for Dean. It meant that Sam wasn't being blamed, that John realized that he was making mistakes too.
"I know," Sam murmured, fully aware of what their arguing had nearly cost them-might still cost them. He had come to the conclusion that Dean had hidden his injuries to avoid further fighting, was pretty sure that his dad had thought the same thing, and the guilt was nearly overwhelming.
"I'm sorry," John said quietly, and Sam was taken aback. His dad rarely, if ever, apologized about anything, and usually not willingly. Yet here he was, offering one up like he and Sam hadn't been fighting for a few years now, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Sam knew he meant it.
"Me too," he responded, even hugging his dad a bit tighter. Just a little.
A knock on the door surprised both of them, then Bobby walked in, looking grim.
"Hey Sam," he said, then added under his breath, "John." Sam knew that they weren't on the best of terms, but the fact that the other hunter was here at all was a testament to his devotion to he and Dean.
"You been to see him?" John asked, completely ignoring the awkwardness between them. Bobby nodded.
"He, uh, he's looked better, John," he said quietly. "But he's alive." John nodded.
"I think Sammy and I might go up to see him later today." Sam saw Bobby's eyes flicker over him, as if uncertain that Sam could handle seeing his brother in the condition he was in. Well, considering what he had seen previously, his brother being wheeled out, pale and lifeless, Sam was pretty damn sure he could handle seeing him in a hospital bed.
"Well, I'm gonna go sit with him for awhile, until Sam's ready to get out of here," Bobby said, and left the room. When it was just John and Sam again, Sam turned to his dad.
"I mean it, Dad," he said, and John nodded. "We're doing this for Dean."
"Me too. Now let's get a nurse in here to check you out, and we'll get you up to see Dean."