A/N: Thank you all for your patience. Scream of the Butterfly is coming! I'm sorry I've gotten behind RL is grrr sometimes. Thank you all for reading ans reviewing and thanks to TraSan.

A/N II: For more of Galen and Rob—The Hunt, the second novel featuring the Emrys Brothers is now available at Amazon dot com, and from other book retailers, including Barnes and Noble and international stores.

The Forest

Chapter Seven

There was something howling in the distance, Sam could hear the plaintive sound over the sizzling of what was left of the worm and there was a deep throbbing ache in his ankle warned him of a serious—perhaps debilitating injury. The burning in his arms and shoulders was what he was focused on, that and what was causing it, the rounds of chest compressions and breaths as he did CPR on his brother. He was so intent on his purpose, the tears gathered in his eyes hadn't found their way down his cheeks yet. In the half second before he'd started, he'd seen Rob bending over Galen's, his voice soft and pleading as he spoke to the older Keeper. Sam had turned away, unable to watch the other man's grief. Please, Dean. Count, breath, count, breath, count, breath.

"Sam," a voice came from far away. He ignored it. "Sam!" Count, breath, count, breath, count, breath. "Sam!"

"Get away."

"Sam! Let Galen get to Dean!" Rob said."Let him!"

"Stay back," Sam said, breaking from the rhythm for a moment. His world was focused on Dean.

"Galen can save him!" Rob grabbed Sam and pulled him away, Sam fought against the hold, and he struck out in his desperation to get back to Dean, Rob grunted. "Damn it, Sam!"

"Let me go," Sam growled, still trying to pull away, as he struggled something sent a wave of near-agony coursing through his body, he groaned. He felt a hand at the back of his head and everything went gray for a moment.

"Can you stop the bleeding?" Galen was asking as Sam opened his eyes. It must have been only an instant, because Galen was just kneeling beside Dean.

"I can try," Rob said.

"Okay," Galen said, laying his hands on Dean's forehead and chest. The Keeper paled and closed his eyes.

"Dean, please," Sam whispered.

Galen swayed and Sam felt Rob tense. "Galen," Rob said softly.

"Don't give up, Dean," Galen said, his voice barely audible.

"Galen," Rob said again. Sam recognized the tone—it was similar to his own when Dean was doing something close to suicidal. Rob was starting to move when Galen gasped, an instant later Dean's chest rose in a deep breath. Sam waited, Dean inhaled again. Galen sagged, Rob caught him and lifted his hands forcibly off of Dean. Rob eased the older Keeper back so he was leaning against a log.

Sam tried to get to his brother, but his body was suddenly refusing to respond.

"Help Sam," Galen mumbled.

"Galen?"

"I can't," he said gently. "Dean's alive, but that's all I can do right now. I'm okay, help Sam."

"He's alive?" Sam asked, needing reassurance despite the shallow rise and fall of his brother's chest.

"He is," Galen replied. "Rob."

"Right," the younger Keeper said, stripping off his jacket as he moved back to Sam. "I need to look at your leg."

"My leg?" Sam shivered, shock was starting to set in, and with it the nauseating dizziness of blood loss.

"Yeah, your leg," Rob said, pulling a small dagger out and slitting Sam's pant's leg open. He took a breath and let it out slowly, pulling off his t-shirt, he folded it into a pad and laid it on Sam's leg. Rob then took the black bracelet off his right wrist and started unwinding a long length of cord. When he was finished he pressed the t-shirt tightly against Sam's leg and wound the cord around it to hold it into place. Pain shot up Sam's leg, exploding behind his eyes in waves of white-hot agony. Rob laid a hand against Sam's forehead, and placed the other on his chest. Sam felt a tiny glow of warmth pushing some of the throbbing pain away. "Sorry."

"Sorry?" Sam opened his eyes and looked at him.

"Rob?" Galen was trying to get up.

"Stay there!" Rob snapped.

"What's going on?" Sam asked.

"I can't heal this, I can't even start to heal this," Rob said, gesturing at Sam's ankle.

"What about Dean?" Sam shifted his eyes to his brother's still form.

Rob snorted in frustration, then glanced at Galen for a long moment. The older Keeper nodded. "Yeah, but gods, Galen, I don't want to do that."

"Do what?" Panic was starting to thud against Sam's ribs. Hadn't Dean said that Galen could...

"We don't have a choice, Rob," Galen said. "I can't heal myself, let alone keep Sam and Dean alive. You know what's there."

"Yeah," Rob said, swallowing. "Okay."

"What's going on?" Sam demanded, surprised at how weak his voice sounded.

"Easy, Sam." Rob pulled a phone out of his pocket. "Damn, not much of a signal." He dialed and watched the screen. "Got enough." Rob held the phone to his ear. "Mike? Just great." He glanced at Galen. "He's alive. Yeah, that bad. Out by Tiger Mountain, yeah. Let me get my map." Rob read their location off the map. "You can't miss it, there's a big burn. Yeah, he did." He slid the phone closed and sighed.

"What's going on?" Sam repeated vaguely. The combination of pain and blood loss—and something else, a strange throbbing in his leg—was becoming too much.

"It's okay, Sam, I called for help." Rob frowned at him, his eyes looking unfocused. He tilted his head to the side.

"Something's wrong." Sam tried to get a look at his leg.

"Yeah, the saliva from the larvae is, uh..." Rob looked a little green. "Not good."

"What?" Panic throbbed in time with the crazed beating of his heart. "Is Dean okay?"

"You need to calm down, you don't want to spread that stuff."

"Let me up!"

"Sam, calm down!" Galen said, his voice almost a whisper, but sounding like a shout. "Rob! Don't let that shit spread."

"What?" Sam was becoming increasingly aware of the strange pain in his ankle. It was getting hard to breathe, too. He tried to move, to get to his brother again, when he felt Rob's hand on his forehead and one on the back of his neck. "Wha...?" The sound of a heartbeat filled his mind and the pain disappeared, an instant later everything else disappeared as well.

The strange throb was still there when things started coming back. It was muted, and there was a pinch in his arm that Sam knew must be an IV. The distinctive smell of hospital air wormed its way into his brain, he heard someone shift in the chair beside the bed and forced his eyes open with a groan. "Dean?"

"Hey, Sam," Rob answered.

"Where's Dean?"

"He's okay, he's just down the hall."

"Where?"

"It's okay, Sam, he's got a really good doctor."

"I need to see him." Sam tried to move, the pain hit him so fast he dropped back to the bed with a gasp. "My leg hurts."

"Yeah, I know. We're going to have to wait for Galen to take care of that. They have you on a pump, use it."

"Oh," Sam said, fumbling for the button.

"I got it."

Sam heard the beep of the machine and the warmth from the drugs lulled him back to sleep.

A chill breeze and pressure on his leg woke him. Sam opened his eyes. A doctor was bending over his ankle, a frown on his face. He gently turned Sam's leg to get a better look and Sam hissed in pain. "Sorry," the doctor said without looking up.

"How's Dean?"

"Sedated," the doctor said to Sam's leg. He poked at it again, shook his head and looked up. "Rob promised me you would behave and I wouldn't have to sedate you."

"What?" Sam asked confused, trying to fight his way through the fuzziness of pain meds.

"You're going to behave, right? Not try and pull your IV and race around the place?"

"Huh?"

The doctor chuckled. "I don't think I have to worry about you getting up yet. Your brother is a very determined man, by the way." He smiled at Sam. "I'm Mike Silva."

"Dean? Huh? Where are we?" Sam felt like he'd come in late and had missed something important.

"Hospital in Tacoma. Rob called and we brought you in. It would be nice if he called sometime before everyone was mostly dead."

"What? Mostly dead?" Sam tried to push himself up, his hands weren't really responding but he tried.

"Hold on there." The doctor stopped him with a hand on his chest. "Behave or sedated. I can't have you hurt before you go home."

"Home?" The feeling of having missed something was growing.

"Yeah," Silva said, looking back at his ankle. "I cant have miracle cures in the hospital, people don't get it and I can't do anything about this—or your brother for that matter."

"This?"

"He means your leg," Rob said, stepping into the room with a frown on his face. "How long until Galen is awake, Mike?" he asked.

"It shouldn't be long now."

"It shouldn't be at all," Rob growled. "He can't heal when he's drugged."

"I know that, Rob. The EMT did it, he thought he was helping," Silva said defensively, his hands raised. From the way he was reacting, Sam suspected it wasn't the first time the doctor and Rob had discussed the situation.

"What's wrong with my leg?" Sam asked as his brain caught up with the situation.

"Well, to start, it's torn to shreds." The doctor grimaced. "But that's not the worst of it, and at the rate it's going, you could lose it." He paused when Rob growled. "I know, Rob, don't start."

"Lose it?" Sam grabbed for the doctor's arm.

"The larvae's saliva, um, begins the digestive process, Sam."

"You make my job all shits and giggles. I need to check on my other patients," the doctor said sourly, then turned to go. He laid a hand on Rob's shoulder and gave it a squeeze before heading towards the door.

"Thanks, Mike," Rob answered, then waited until he left before turning to Sam. "He's really not that bad usually. He worries about Galen, they're close, and one or two close calls recently have set him a little on edge." He sank down in the chair beside the bed with a sigh. "Once Galen's awake, I think you'll be okay."

There was something in the way he said it that had the panic back thrumming through Sam. "How is he?"

"Not good, they sedated him, and when he's out like that he can't use the healing. The damn poison isn't gone, and he needs to deal with it or I'm going to lose him again."

"Again?"

"Yeah, he was dead for about ten years," Rob said wistfully.

"How's my brother?" Sam asked. "Tell me!"

Rob looked at him with unfocused eyes. "He did wake up somehow in ER, freak out and start looking for you, which freaked both Mike and the nurse out."

"And?"

"He's in bad shape, Sam. I think Mike's hoping Galen can heal him enough to get him to our place."

"How bad is bad?" Sam dreaded the answer, he was pretty sure he already knew, considering the look in the Keeper's eyes.

"In ICU on a clock. The poison is wreaking havoc, the bites the larvae gave him are digesting, and from what Mike said, he's blind."

Oh god. "Can I see him?"

"Mike said absolutely not, no way are you supposed to get out of this bed."

"Rob," Sam said, his voice somewhere between a growl and a desperate whine.

"It's okay, I understand. I really do," he said seriously, then chuckled. "I already swiped a wheelchair, it's in the bathroom." He got up and pulled the chair out of the small room and rolled it over to the bed. "Getting up is going to hurt."

"I know," Sam said.

"You ready?"

"Yeah."

Okay, here we go." Rob assisted the lift, even with his help it was an agonizing move. Sam dropped into the chair and Rob lifted the footrest so his injured ankle was elevated.

"Thanks."

"Give yourself a dose and we'll go. You're going to have to hang onto the IV. I have a funny feeling Mike would know if I disconnected it."

"Okay," Sam punched the button, waited for the drugs to take the edge off the agonizing pain, and then motioned Rob to go.

XXX

The heavy, sluggish feeling of drugs was filling his body, leaving a dull ache and a metallic taste in his mouth. Galen fought his way through it so he could grab the healing and flooded his body with the light, letting it drive the sedative away and then focused on the underlying problem. The spell that had killed the worm had drained him. It would take a while before he could completely rid his body of the black poison the thing had left. At least with the thing dead he actually had a chance of healing himself once and for all. It wasn't going to come looking for him, neither would its young. They'd all died when the worm had died. Galen knew that, felt it in the way the poison was moving through his body. He concentrated and let the healing light flow. The poison began to dissipate.

He opened his eyes and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling over his head. Hospital. Right, Rob had called because Sam's leg was torn up and Galen couldn't do more for Dean. Gods, Dean. Was the hunter even still alive? Galen knew he'd saved him for the moment, but the combination of poison and the bites was a lot for a body to handle. If he was still alive, he would need healing as soon as possible.

"You're awake," a nurse came into the room. Galen nodded. "I'll let Dr. Silva know."

"My friends?" Galen asked.

"The doctor will tell you," she snapped.

"Please?" Galen let his hand brush her arm where it was resting against the bed, he let a little of the healing flow. "I'm worried about them. Has my brother checked on them?"

"Of course you are." She smiled at him, and patted his hand. "Dr. Silva just checked on the one in ICU and the other is just up the hall. I think he's doing better. Your brother just left your room to check on him."

"Thank you." Galen smiled at her and closed his eyes, letting her do her job.

Once she was gone, Galen cautiously sat up, waiting through the wave of dizziness before slipping the IV out of his hand and stopping the small bleed it left behind. He swung his legs off the bed and did his best to hide his intentions from his brother. The bond was inconvenient at times. He didn't want to worry Rob any more than necessary, but his brother did tend to growl sometimes.

He opened the door and peered down the hall, the nurses were at their station and the corridor was empty except for a heavy woman pushing a meal cart. Galen pulled his gown around him and walked with as much dignity as the garment allowed down the hallway to the elevators. He was on the tenth floor, ICU was on eight. When the elevator arrived, he stepped in, punched the button to the floor and leaned against the wall, focusing a little healing into himself, not much, he'd need it to stabilize Dean.

The doors to the elevator slid open and he checked the hallway before stepping out. He waited for a nurse to go into one of the rooms before heading down the corridor. Galen glanced into each room and he passed. Dean was four doors down, alone in his room.

The hunter was a mess, Galen didn't even need a touch to know how bad it was. The monitors over Dean's head told him enough. He walked to the bed and took in the bandages on Dean's neck and the gray cast of his skin. Dean didn't have long.

Galen rubbed his hands together to warm them and help focus the healing, wondering how much he could get away with before he put his own life at risk. Taking a deep breath, he laid his hands on Dean's forehead and chest. The poison hit him the instant his hands were down, sending pain that shot up his arms and exploded in his head. His vision washed with red and he closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on the healing. He began drawing as much of the poison away, hoping to save Dean's life. They could worry about the details later. It wasn't easy. It was taking a lot to keep the poison from racing through his own body again. Galen could feel the dark scar on his heart starting to react to it.

He was so focused on healing Dean, he didn't hear the sound behind him.

"What are you doing?" Rob shouted, out loud and through the bond.

"Galen! Damn all!" Mike was shouting as well.

He didn't have much time, and he knew it, he rallied what energy he had left and flooded Dean with it, feeling the light pause against a wall. The monitors started beeping wildly, then changing tone. He pushed against the poison. It fought back and he pressed harder, trying to overcome it.

"Grab him!" Rob said.

"Right!" Mike answered and rough hands grabbed Galen and pulled him away. "Galen!"

"What the hell?" Rob growled.

"Dean, oh god," Sam whispered.

"Is he alive?" Galen mumbled, trying to see through the wash of blood and the pain throbbing in his head. "Rob? Is he alive?"

To Be Continued