Author's Note 1:

So this is all Kailene's fault. She got me hooked on this series in June, handing me five season's worth of box sets and instructing me to catch up by the premier of season seven because she was tired of suffering alone. Besides, I was editing her stories and I had no clue what was going on. I think she was sick of all my questions. Gauntlet thrown, I had to accept. She is my best friend, after all, and that's what best friends do—even when the first season scared me stupid and I had to watch the episodes through my fingers with every light in the house on. But, hey, those Winchester boys are so fine; and so worth enduring bugs and scary-ass clowns and creepy, jerky-motion ghosts who lurk in mirrors. Mission accomplished, even cramming in all of season six in only a few days, I was all caught up by the premier. Who needs to sleep anyway? Then Kailene told me that she was bouncing around ideas to fill in those Missing Three Weeks. Little did I realize that she was tossing down another challenge? Help her write it. Gauntlet thrown, I had to accept.

So, Kailene, thank you for inviting me to play in your sandbox—I'm honored—and for getting me hopelessly—okay, obsessively—hooked on this show; and thank you for helping me coax my battered and traumatized muse out of hiding. I don't know what I'd do without you.~~~Riathe Mai

Chapter 2 is written in 3rd person, but in Dean's 'voice', because he's just too fun to write. Warnings for language, because…well…it's Dean. All errors and out of character behavior are my fault entirely.

spn

Dean wasn't sure at what point he'd dozed off. He remembered the mad dash out of Ooze-Falls General Hospital-and wasn't that just about the best-damned timed and executed rescue he'd ever seen. He remembered Bobby, freaking alive and going all Dr. Phil on his drugged up ass. If Dean wasn't so damned happy and relieved and...God! Bobby was alive! Maybe he'd have to let that feel-fest ambush slide, just this once. Provided Bobby never brought it up again. Sam would never let him live it-

"Sam!" Dean came fully awake into a small shit storm.

"No shit, Sherlock!" Bobby yelled.

Dean's immediate world jerked violently beneath him as the ambulance bounced over the uneven ground. Tree branches flew by the windows much closer than they should have been on the interstate. The vehicle bounced again and Bobby swore. Dean grabbed the courtesy bar above his head with one hand and the dashboard in front of him with the other.

"What the hell-"

"Service road!" Bobby said as though that explained anything at all.

"What?"

"NO!"

It took Dean a second to realize that that gut-wrenching cry hadn't come from Bobby. That left only one other source. Heart in his throat, he spun around in the seat. Sam thrashed violently on the gurney. His head flew back and another of those terrible cries came from his throat, desperate, frightened, and angry.

"Sammy!" Dean tried to climb out of his seat to get to him, but his seat belt threw him back into the seat. Swearing, he fumbled with the clasp and then to untangle himself from the strap. Finally free, he started to pull himself through the narrow space between the seats.

"Siddown, ya damn idjit!" Bobby snapped, taking his eyes off the road long enough to push Dean back into his seat. "Or didja forget yer damn leg is in a cast up to yer ass?"

The ambulance bounced and swerved again slamming Dean back against the door with an audible impact of bone on glass. "Son of a bitch, Bobby. Ain't one cracked head in this group enough for you?"

"Then stay put for another damned minute, will ya."

Sam yelled again, the words garbled but sounding way too much like 'get off me' for Dean's comfort. He bucked up in the gurney, his head and shoulders coming up off the mattress as though he were trying to get off of the stretcher. Only the straps kept him from escaping.

"Let me go!"

"Sammy!" Dean called out again, trying to reach back to touch his brother.

"NO!"

The word tore out of Sam's throat, harsh and anguished. Tortured. Hell-filled and agonized; the sound was like a punch to the gut, stunning Dean and stealing his breath. He knew that scream. He'd screamed it for years and years, until his vocal cords had blistered and his throat had filled with blood. He'd screamed it until he could scream it no more and he'd accepted their offer, stepped off that rack, and taken up the whip and flail himself. Then, he'd listened to it and hundreds…thousands…countless others just like it. Endless and terrible and all at his hands.

The ambulance bucked again. Something banged against the undercarriage, hard, and Bobby swore inventively. It snapped Dean out of his haze and back to the present, to the immediate. He blinked, then rubbed his hand down his face. Sam thrashed and struggled a mere three feet from where Dean sat. Damn it, he needed to get back there!

"Bobby!"

Just then, the ambulance skidded to a stop. "Go!" Bobby instructed as he threw the gear into park and shut off the engine. Dean had his door open and his body half out of the seat before he remembered his gimp leg. He caught himself by the door, narrowly saving himself from another unceremonious face plant on the ground.

Bobby already had the back door open by the time Dean managed to hobble back there, but he merely stood aside while Dean pulled himself up into the back by shear stubborn will alone.

Sam's head tossed side to side. His eyes were closed and creased deeply in the corners. His lashes were spiked with moisture, but no tears traced down his cheeks. His breath was fast and harsh, hissing between his clenched teeth and raking across his abraded throat.

Dean was no doctor, but he knew this wasn't a seizure. He almost wished it were. This was worse…so much worse. This was a nightmare, and he didn't need to be a psychic to know what it was about.

I should have known, he thought for the umpteenth time. I should have known you weren't all here. I should have gotten you out of there long before…

He wasn't going there. He just wasn't. Ruthlessly shoving the thought aside, he reached out to grab Sam's shoulder to wake him. As soon as his hand touched him, though, Sam screamed again.

Dean knew this scream, too. He'd listened to for days when they'd locked Sam in Bobby's panic room to purge him of the demon blood: angry, desperate, despaired, frightened. God help him, but he was almost relieved.

Then, Dean had been useless, forced to stand outside that iron door and just listen to his brother do battle, unable to so much as touch him to let him know he was near. Now, he'd be damned twice over before he'd let Sam think he had to fight this alone.

He grabbed Sam's arm and gave him a careful but firm shake. "Sammy! Wake up!" he said forcefully.

Sam shook his head. A small sound escaped his throat, part gasp, part sob, but all negation. That's right, Sammy, Dean thought. You fight that bastard. Don't give him a freaking inch.

Unfortunately, Dean realized quickly, Sam fighting his inner demons meant Sam fighting Dean, because clearly they were one in the same to Sam at that moment.

And, Sam could be one strong son of a bitch when he thought he needed to be.

Sam surged up against the straps pinning his chest and legs to the gurney. How they didn't snap was anyone's guess. Sam's face was flushed a dangerous tone, beads of sweat starting to glisten on his skin. The veins in his temple stood out, thick and engorged. The cords of his neck strained and pulled. If he still had been hooked up to the monitors from the hospital, they'd have been ringing enough to wake the dead.

"Damn it, Sam. Ya gotta wake up. Come on, Sammy." Dean shook him again, trying not to jar his head in the process.

"No! Get off me!"

"It's the straps," Dean said, not necessarily to Bobby. "If I take them off..."

"You think he's hard t'hold down, now?" Bobby remarked.

It was exactly what Dean had been thinking. They were the only thing keeping Sam on that gurney. The way he was struggling, he'd have knocked Dean on his ass by now if he could have gotten an arm free.

Dean released Sam's arm and took his too-warm face in both hands. He leaned in close-hoping that Sam didn't suddenly lunge up and head-butt him in the nose with all his thrashing and carrying on.

"Sam!" he yelled. He'd been going for that 'Dad means business' tone of voice that had always succeeded in stopping them both in their tracks. What came out, though, sounded so much more desperate and scared. Damned morphine, he thought and opened his mouth to try it again.

Sam suddenly gasped and went rigid beneath Dean's hands. His eyes flew open. They locked on Dean's, wide and devoid of sense or sanity. If Dean had been a more fanciful man, he'd have sworn he'd seen the flames of hellfire swirling in their hazel depths.

Sensing that Sam was about to look away, Dean quickly called out to him again, "Sam! You're safe."

Sam blinked, and sense slowly surfaced. "Dean?"

"Yeah, it's me, big guy. You awake?"

Sam winced slightly. "What?" His gaze drifted aside. He would have turned his head, but Dean still held him, hovering a foot above him and willing Sam to look at him with something other than confusion and doubt.

"Come on, Sammy," he said. "Show me some of that intelligence that snowed a free ride outta Stanford."

Sam blinked, once, and then again. "Where am...w-what hap..."

Dean felt Sam's muscles bunch under his hand, but he didn't react fast enough. Sam lifted his arm, and met with the resistance of the gurney strap.

His gaze shot back to Dean's, and what little sanity had drifted into his eyes, fled. Distrust was all that remained.

"No." Sam started to struggle for real and it was all Dean could do to keep his balance. He wasn't going to let go, though. Not even if Sam pulled him right off his perch.

"Let me go, damn you," Sam snarled, trying to free his arms from under the straps.

"Sam, stop it. Look at me!" Dean yelled right into Sam's face. "It's me."

"No. You're not real. You're…"

"Yes, I am."

"No. No."

"Yes!" Dean yelled, punctuating it with a gentle shake of Sam's head. "Look at me, Sammy. Please. Come on, we already played this game, remember? In the warehouse after you went all walkabout through Wigoutland. Remember? No white rabbits, you said."

Sam's struggles grew weaker. Dean didn't think it was because he was getting through to him. Sam was tiring. His heart was racing, the pulse pounding against the side of Dean's hand where it rested against Sam's neck. If he didn't find some way to calm him down and soon...he wasn't going to go there, either.

"You were hurt, remember? In Bobby's lot. The leviamawhatchit. He tire-ironed you one good. Knocked you out cold. Broke my freaking leg, for crying out loud."

Sam went still, but his breathing was still too fast. His eyes were still too wild.

"Sammy, come on. It's me. You're safe. You hear me? You're on a stretcher in an ambulance. That's why, the straps. We were at the hospital...the one where the Ooze Patrol had set up residency. Bobby saved our bacon, but good."

Sam gasped. "B-Bobby?"

"Right here, son," Bobby said from where he still stood by the back door. "You done scaring the bejeesus outta us, ya think?"

Sam looked in the direction of Bobby's voice, but Dean doubted he could see him worth a damn. "Bobby? He's not..."

"No, Sam," Dean said softly. Sam looked back at him, still unsure but maybe, just maybe willing to take Dean's word for something. "He ain't dead."

"You think we can button this up any time soon?" Bobby said then. "We still gotta put a slew a'miles behind us before we can ditch his ride and find us another. An' the pickin's are gonna be slim of vehicles that are gonna hold that there bed."

"Yeah, well he ain't getting outta this 'there' bed until I know he ain't gonna dump his grey matter out of his ears if he stands up," Dean remarked. He gave Sam a wink. "Sorry, there, big guy. But you've had just one too many hits with the snake." At Sam's blank expression, Dean sighed. He brought up one hand and curled it into a fist, pantomiming a striking cobra. "Come on, Sam. Aladdin? Get it?"

Sam suddenly relaxed under Dean's hand. The last remnants of doubt faded, and a look of exhausted relief eased the stress from his flushed face. His eyes drifted closed, a small smile pulling the corner of his lips. "Aladdin." The tiniest chuckle escaped him, barely more than an exhale, really. "It must be you."

There was an insult in there. Dean just knew it, and wasn't it just like Sam to be a snarky bitch even with a few marbles rattling around his junk drawer. Somehow, Dean didn't care. "Oh yeah, I'm just feelin' the love, here," he teased, not that Sam was listening anymore. He'd fallen back asleep. The lines of tension were gone and his features at peace, his breathing slow and even.

Dean gave Sam's shoulder a quick squeeze, then slouched back in the bench. Resting both elbows on his legs, he dropped his forehead into his hand and let out a weary sigh. He turned his head slightly and looked at Bobby out of the corner of his eye. "I hope you gotta plan, Bobby," he said, tired to his very bones. "'Cuz I got a whole lotta jack, with a side order of effin' squat."

Bobby made a face, then shrugged. "First order, we gotta get new wheels. They'll be tracking this wagon, if they ain't already."

"Awesome," Dean uttered. He rubbed his hand down his face, then pushed himself up straight on the bench. "Where the hell are we going to find something that's gonna fit that?" He jerked his chin in the direction of the stretcher in front of him. "'Cuz, I'm not kidding, Bobby. We're not movin' him if…"

"I hear you, son. Don't worry. I gotta few markers I may be able to call in. We ain't sunk yet."