OK all, This is gonna be my last update until I can get my laptop straightened out. The program I've been using to write this isn't on my desktop so until I get a copy, I'm stuck where I am. Hopefully the program will be here on thursday and I can get back to writing by then. I'm sorry for the inconvience. Here's another big THANK YOU to everyone reading and reviewing this. I hope to have the next chapter up by the end of the week. Loves to alll,

KIM

Chapter 35

The first 6 months pretty much sucked for me. Dean and dad spent most of the time comparing me to Sam. I understood that they missed him, but it was getting to be too much. There were several times I nearly took off and left them both, but didn't. Dean asked me to be there, which meant he needed me and I wasn't going to leave him.

It was my 20th birthday when things started to turn around. We were working a case in the Minnesota woods. We were hunting a Wendigo and had been out in the woods for 4 days trying to locate the thing. Dean spent most of the time complaining cause he hates camping, but I was actually having a good time. Dad was just interested in getting the job done.

We were setting up camp on the 4th night when they attacked us. What we were assuming was 1 Wendigo was actually 2. They were working together. We managed to fight them off, but not without some serious injuries. Dad got the worst of it.

Dad had a couple broken ribs, a broken arm and a concussion. Dean had a broken ankle and I had another broken wrist. I patched them up as best as I could and gave them both sedatives to keep them asleep while I took care of our little problem. It didn't take me long to find the cave our little predator friends were hiding in. We were only camped a mile away from them.

I managed to catch them while they were sleeping so one of them was really easy to take out. The second one, not so much. It beat the hell out of me, but I got the job done. Before I left I used a little dynamite and sealed the cave. My version of a burial for all the people the Wendigos had taken over the years.

By the time I got back to camp, dad and Dean were awake and pissed off. Dad thought I had left them to go get help, but Dean knew better. Big brother knew exactly what I had done and was trying to figure out what direction I had gone off in when I walked up behind him. I told him to sit down before he screwed that ankle up worse and scared the crap out of him. He spun around and then fell right on his butt.

I started laughing at him and he growled at me that it wasn't funny. I heard dad say my name and looked up at him. He asked me if I was ok and I said I was fine. Dean asked me what happened and I told him the Wendigos were toast. Dad asked about the explosion they'd heard so I told him.

It was getting dark, so we stayed where we were for another night. We decided to hike out in the morning. I gave dad and Dean another once over and then climbed into my tent so they couldn't see and checked myself out as much as I could. I knew the gashes in my back were pretty deep, but they had stopped bleeding for now. I also had at least 1 broken rib if not more and then there was my wrist. I knew I had screwed that up more, but did the best I could to immobilize it for the night.

Dad woke us up as soon as the sun started to rise. He figured that it was going to take us at least a day to walk out if not more. We packed up our stuff and headed out. Things went kind slow because dad and I were basically holding Dean up. At some point, the claw marks in my back had started bleeding again, but I managed to hide it from dad and Dean.

We made it back to the cars as the sun was starting to set. There were some park rangers there as well as several other rescue personnel. They were getting ready to come looking for us cause we were spossed to have reported back 2 days before. They looked us over and insisted we go to the hospital. Dad was trying to tell them that we could drive ourselves into town when I dropped to the ground and passed out.

I woke up in the hospital a couple days later. Dad and Dean were asleep in chairs on either side of my bed. Dad's arm was in a cast that went from his shoulder to his wrist and I could see a set of crutches leaning against the wall by my brother. I had a cast that started just below my finger tips and went up my arm, stopping just short of my elbow. I could also feel several sets of stitches in my back as well as a set on my side where my broken rib was.

When I turned back toward my dad he was watching me. He asked me why I didn't tell him I'd been hurt so bad. I said that I wasn't that bad. He told me they had to do surgery because the broken rib had punctured my lung and collapsed it. I just laughed and said that would explain why it so hard to breath.

Dad got mad at that and told me it wasn't funny. He said I had really scared him and Dean when I passed out. He said that next time I needed to say something about being hurt so that he could take care of it. He also said that if I ever took off by myself like that again he'd kick my butt personally. Dean piped up about then and said he'd help.

I just nodded and said ok. Truth was I didn't really know what to say. I could tell by the tone of dad's voice that he really had been worried. It was the first time I thought that he really did care about what happened to me. I liked the feeling.

We stayed in the hospital for another day. The doctor's wanted to keep me longer, but I was having none of that. They finally agreed to let me go when I threatened, and tried, to break a nurse's arm. The chick was being a little bitchy with my dad and brother for being in my room all the time. We went back to the motel and stayed in town for another day before we went on to the next job.