Dean made the seven hour journey to Pike County, Illinois in just over five hours, breaking several speed limits and a few other laws along the way. They didn't talk much for the majority of the journey, except when Sam would call the hospital for an update on Annabelle's condition. Each time he called, the receptionist grew a little more impatient, because the news was always the same: 'She's still in surgery, we'll call you when we have any news'.
After what felt like days driving along Route 36, they passed a road sign informing them that they were only ten miles from the hospital, and their proximity seemed to force Sam to say something that had been on his mind since they stepped into the car.
"Can I have thirty seconds where I'm not your brother, and you can't hate me for what I'm about to say?" Dean glanced over at him, curious but wary.
"Okay…"
"Cas never told me what happened between you two. No matter how much I asked, he wouldn't tell me why you left or why he'd been so upset, but I could tell he was suffering. No matter how much of a brave face he puts on, he's been through hell while you've been living out here."
"You know, it wasn't always a picnic for me eith-"
"Shut up, I'm not done," Sam cut in. "I know you were doing what you thought was right, in your own scared, confused, moronic kind of way, but the long and short of it is, you protected your own feelings at the expense of his. I want you to be happy Dean, it's all I've ever really wanted, but you have to put Cas first for a while. You owe him that."
"I'm trying, Sammy," he sighed, frustrated. "I just don't know what else to do, and frankly, he's not at the top of my priority list right now." Sam raised his eyebrows.
"I'm not saying he isn't important," Dean said, his temper fraying under Sam's judgemental gaze. "God knows I love him, but he's not on death's door right now; Anna is, so forgive me if I'm not thinking about mending bridges when my girlfriend is lying in a hospital."
"I thought she broke up with you?" Sam's brow raised even further. Dean opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly stopped himself short, an expression of sad realisation dawning on his face.
"Fine, ex-girlfriend," he muttered. "Force of habit, whatever." Sam continued to watch him for a moment, apparently weighing up what he was going to say next.
"You have to make a choice, Dean," he said finally. "For your sake, and for Anna's, and Cas'. You have to choose."
"I'm pretty sure your thirty seconds are up," Dean said, staring stonily ahead at the road.
Ten minutes later, they were entering the front door of the hospital. A receptionist gave them directions to the ICU and they hurried along several identical corridors until they reached the large automatic doors of the Intensive Care Unit. There was a small group of doctors standing outside Annabelle's room, and they all turned to look at Dean as he entered.
"How is she?" he asked.
"She's okay," said one of the doctors with short, red hair. Dean had met her once before, she was a surgeon like Anna, but he was too distracted and worried to remember her name. "She'll be awake soon, you can go in."
The group of surgeons parted to let Sam and Dean into the small, private room. Annabelle was lying, still unconscious, on a narrow bed, her freckled skin scraped and bruised, and her right leg immobilised in a cast. Dean stopped a few feet from the bed, too shocked to advance any further. The last time he had seen her she was fine, and now…
Sam put a comforting hand on his shoulder and guided him towards the hospital bed where Dean sat robotically down in the chair by the bedside and took Anna's warm hand in his, the only part of her body he was confident he could touch without hurting her. Sam sat on the other side of the bed and they watched in silence as she breathed slowly in and out. The afternoon sunlight was streaming through the single window, making Annabelle look even paler amongst the thin white sheets. Twenty minutes dragged by before Annabelle began to stir at last.
"I'll be outside," Sam said, rising from his chair, obviously not wanting to intrude. "Call me if you need anything." Dean nodded, not taking his gaze off of Anna. She opened her eyes, but she was too groggy and exhausted to really know where she was. After several minutes, she managed to prop herself up stiffly against the pillows and look at Dean, only really registering his presence for the first time.
"Hey," she croaked, clearly surprised to see him there.
"Are you okay?" he asked immediately.
"Fine," she said, despite being anything but fine. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm still down as your next of kin," he explained. "They called me after the accident." She just nodded, her eyes still a little cloudy.
"Do you know who hit you?" Dean asked.
"Mr. Barber." She stared slightly beyond Dean with unfocused eyes as she remembered the accident.
"Which one?"
"Henry, Mrs. Barber's husband...the one she cheated on. He was really drunk, and he just came out of nowhere, I didn't even-" Her voice caught in her throat, and Dean held her hand tighter in his.
"Don't worry about it now," he assured. "You're okay."
"Do you know if he's alright?"
"Honestly, I never thought to ask," Dean frowned.
"I tried to help him, I got up and tried to treat his injuries, but he was in a bad way…"
"You got up?" Dean asked incredulously, looking at her bruised and bandaged body, her broken leg immobile on the bed.
"I was only unconscious for a second after he hit me," she explained. "I know I should have stayed still, but there wasn't another doctor nearby, and I had to check that he was okay."
"You got hit by a speeding drunk guy who almost killed you, and you just stood up and saved his life?" Dean asked, as if repeating it more slowly would make it more credible.
"It was just the adrenaline…and instinct, I guess," she shrugged. "I was probably just in shock."
"Don't be modest," he said, "you're a freaking hero." She smiled slightly, but it fell still again with a slightly pained expression on her face.
"I'm sorry you had to be here," she whispered after a moment, readjusting herself tentatively on the bed. "Especially after I basically kicked you out."
"Are you kidding?" Dean scoffed. "There's nowhere I'd rather be right now." She smiled and gave a long, slightly shaky sigh, as if all her damaged, aching muscles were trembling in protest. "But, since you brought it up," Dean continued, "you're mom's pretty nice for a dead woman." Annabelle looked confused for a second before an expression of apologetic comprehension dawned on her face.
"I'm sorry I lied, but I know you, Dean. You'd never have left if I hadn't told you all that stuff. When Cas came round to drop off that jar of water, I practically begged him to tell me about your life before you came to Illinois. He told me about hunting, and monsters, and how you basically save the world every couple of years."
"I don't, not really."
"Don't be modest," she chided and Dean smiled. "I used bits and pieces of what he told me to make all that stuff up about Shifters killing my parents, because I didn't know how else to convince you to go. You would have lived with me for the rest of your life if I'd let you, and you would never have been happy."
"I was happy," Dean insisted. "I really was."
"But not as happy as you would be with Cas," she said sadly. "Your old life in Kansas with Sam…that's the life you were born for, and I could see it every time Sam came to visit. You miss it. You need it, and you need Cas, too."
"I don't think it matters anymore. I've messed everything up," Dean sighed. "I don't think I'll ever see Cas again, I've disappointed Sam more times than I can count, and now I've lost you, too."
"Don't be stupid," she scolded, a glimpse of her old self flashing across her bruised face. "You haven't lost me. But you can't live with one foot in each world, Dean." He gave a non-committal nod. "For what it's worth," she added, "Cas will forgive you, and Sam is only disappointed because he worships you; that's his fault for thinking you're infallible, not yours. You're human. Don't be so hard on yourself."
"I don't know what to do," Dean failed to keep the note of sadness from his voice, rather selfishly looking for comfort from Annabelle when he should have been the one comforting her.
"Nothing," she said, sighing slowly, her eyes growing heavy with medication and fatigue. "Right now, you don't need to do anything. Just sit here with me." He nodded, feeling pathetically child-like in his confusion, and he sat holding her hand as she drifted into an exhausted slumber.
Dean didn't move for a long time, savouring the familiar comfort of being around Annabelle. Whenever he was with her, it was as if the weight of his problems, the expectations, the guilt, the worry, all disappeared. He knew perfectly well that he was hiding from the choice he had to make, but that didn't stop him. Being with her felt safe.
An hour or so later, he let go of her hand so he could rest his head on the edge of the bed. Annabelle shifted slightly under the thin white sheets, and he felt her hand on his head, her fingers combing gently through his hair like she had done a hundred times before. Within seconds, he was asleep.
No one disturbed them for a while as they slept, until a nurse had to check Annabelle's vitals. Once they were awake, Annabelle was constantly bombarded with well-wishes from her friends and colleagues at the hospital, most of whom Dean knew, but a few he didn't. Sam came by a few times too, occasionally bringing Dean cups of coffee and having short conversations with Anna, but for the most part he left them alone. In the few hours that Dean sat there, every nearby surface had become engulfed in get well soon cards and vases of flowers. Around midnight the visits became less frequent and the couple got a few minutes of peace, so Dean took the opportunity to ask a question that had been nagging at the back of his mind.
"How did I go a whole year without knowing a single thing about your parents?"
"We haven't spoken in about five years now," she said, staring at her hands as she fiddled absent-mindedly with a thread on the sheets. "My dad cheated on my mom… it had been going on for two years before we found out. Two years he'd been sleeping with another woman, and it took my mom about three seconds to forgive him. I've never been able to work out if that makes her a saint or just stupid. Either way, I couldn't forgive him, and I was so angry at my mom that as soon as I finished med school, I moved out here. They moved to Alaska a couple months later, and that was that. We made some attempts at contact over the years, but after a while we just stopped."
"I'm sorry. That must suck," Dean grimaced.
"Hey, at least they're not dead," she smiled. She watched him closely for a few seconds before she spoke again. "So, are you going to tell me exactly what happened with Cas?"
"C'mon, Anna, I can't talk about that with you. It's not fair. None of this has been fair to you."
"Dean, I am so high on pain meds right now that I don't think I'll remember this in a half hour. Just tell me what's going on inside your head. Talk to me; I want to help."
"I've been selfish," he admitted after a moment of hesitation. "And I'm confused and worried and all I know is that Cas needs to come first."
"No, he doesn't," she said plainly. "You do. The only thing you need to ask yourself is if you want to be with Cas to make him happy, or because you actually love him."
Before Dean could answer, another friend of Annabelle's entered wearing navy blue scrubs, a stethoscope looped around his neck. Dean recognised him as Chris, an orthopaedic surgeon around the same age as Anna. He had come round to their house for a barbecue a few months previously, and he and Dean had spent the whole time manning the barbecue and discussing classic cars. Dean rose and shook his hand.
"Hey, man, how's it going?" Chris greeted before turning his attention to Annabelle. "Two things: your parents called; they finally got a flight so they'll be here tonight. Second thing, Mr. Barber just woke up. He had a brain bleed and a broken vertebra, but Jenny from neuro fixed him up. She says you saved his life; I say you were a complete idiot." Annabelle tried to keep her expression serious, but Dean could see a little smile pulling at her lips. Chris shook his head and sighed in exasperation. "What the hell were you thinking, getting up after an accident like that? Do you know how close you came to losing your leg?" She apologised but Dean could tell she wasn't sorry at all.
"I was just doing my job," she shrugged. Chris's pager began to beep and he just shook his head again and left.
"You might not know this," Dean smirked, "but there's this unspoken rule that if you get hit by a speeding car, you don't actually have to do your job."
"I know," she said, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. "But it's a part of my life, you know? I can't just switch it off."
"Yeah, me neither."
Annabelle lifted her head again to look at him, forcing a smile on to her face that didn't quite mask the sadness in her eyes.
"You've made your decision," she said quietly. It was more of a statement than a question.
"I guess I have."
"My parents will be here soon," she cleared her throat and looked brightly up at him. "You can go if you want."
"Nah, I'll stay til they get here. I don't want to leave you by yourself."
"I have a dozen friends in this building, all of whom are surgeons," she insisted. "I'm going to be fine."
"Yeah, but-"
"Dean," she interrupted, more firmly this time. Her jaw stiffened as she fought to hold back the tears that were creeping into her eyes. "I need you to go." As she spoke, he realised that she had, at last, come to the end of her supply of understanding and patience. Dean stood slowly and pulled on his jacket.
"I really do love you, Anna," he said.
"I know," she replied. "I do too, but I'm not going to be your consolation prize."
"You were never that," he said, taking one last, long look at the beautiful face he had seen every single day for the past year. He looked into the dark brown eyes he had seen glittering with mirth so many times before as they chased each other around the house, or got into food fights in the kitchen. He looked at her lips, and thought of all the times he had made her smile, all the times he had grabbed her and kissed her as she walked past him in their living room, all the long conversations they had had lying in bed, warm limbs overlapping under the covers as they talked about everything and nothing. "You were never that."
He left the hospital room and headed to the lobby, passing Sam on the way but not stopping to talk to him. His brother fell into step behind him.
"What happened?"
"You were right," Dean said. "I had to make a choice and I did. It doesn't mean I have to like it."
"I'm sorry," was all that Sam said. It wasn't until they crossed the parking lot and got into the Impala that Dean spoke again.
"If I'd never met Cas, I'd have married that girl," he said, looking back at the hospital in his rear view mirror.
"But you did meet him," said Sam.
"Yeah and the son of a bitch turned my life upside down, and now I can't live without him," Dean muttered.
"Well, now what?" Sam asked. Dean took a deep breath and turned the key in the ignition.
"Now I'm going to get Cas back."