Disclaimer: I own nothing that has anything to do with Supernatural or the characters, unless you count the DVDs. This is just for fun.

Thanks for all the great reviews! I'm genuinely sorry to be ending this fic, but I think I have brought it to a point where it fits. I hope everyone has enjoyed reading this story as much as I have writing it.

Enjoy!

Chapter 5

Bobby's lead panned out, and two days later Dean was heading back to Lawrence to meet up with this supposed healer, all plans for rest forgotten, if this worked then he'd have his brother back, he truly believed that this could work, that the healer would do his thing, and Sam would just wake up.

But it could never be that easy.

First the bus that Dean was on got a flat, and they had to wait on the side of the road for five hours.

Then because of the hold up with the bus he missed the planned meet up with the healer, and had to wait until the next day to rearrange a meeting, in those hours, Dean had to go back to Meredith and Ray's, back to Sam, which in itself nearly broke him, after having convinced himself that the next time he saw Sam, Sam would be alright, back to his old self, or just about to be.

And of course Meredith and Ray had questions for Dean when he returned after his abrupt disappearance, to say the least it was an interesting conversation, especially given that they had no knowledge of the hunting world, and as long as Dean could keep it that way, he would.

Lying by omission is what saved Dean. "I was stressed so I went to visit a friend of Dad's."

His story was hardly adequate for the couple, but they accepted that they barely knew him, and it wasn't their place to pry, he was already under immense stress.

The next day Dean went into town, forced to briefly leave Sam home unattended, to meet up with this contact of Bobby's, who if it panned out, Bobby thought might be able to heal Sam.

His name was Pete, Dean never found out much more than that about him, other than a few details about what he could do, as much of the touchy feely crap it sounds like, all Pete had to do was lay his hands on a person, give it a few minutes and they were healed, of course Dean was sceptical, but he was also desperate, and for the first time since the accident he had a shred of hope that he would get his brother back; he had to take the chance.

Dean took Pete back to the family home, and led him into Sam's room. "Are you sure about this?" Dean asked, a hint of nervousness in his voice, the last thing he wanted was to risk inflicting any more pain on his baby brother.

Pete simply nodded as he knelt down beside Sam's bed, he placed his hands on Sam's arm, and began to chant in Latin. Dean couldn't help but take a step back as an ethereal glow enveloped Sam's body.

But then at the worst possible moment, Dean heard the front door slam open, Pete heard it too, and it broke his concentration, the light disappeared, and Pete sat back on his heels.

"What happened? Please, don't stop!"

"I can't. What was that? I thought you said we wouldn't be interrupted."

"Someone must be home. Are you sure you can't-"

"Very, I'm sorry," Pete said before slipping out of the room, and the house otherwise unseen.

Shame they were interrupted, maybe if they hadn't been then Sam would have been fully healed, but as it was, he was not. But that's not to say that it didn't help, shortly after the seemingly failed healing, Dean was sitting at Sam's bedside when he noticed Sam shift slightly in the bed, the way someone would in their sleep.

"Sammy?" Dean was instantly alert, and out of his chair, to hover over Sam.

Minutes passed, and nothing further happened, but then just as Dean was giving up hope, Sam's eyelids opened.

"Sammy?"

Sam open his mouth to speak, but the words didn't come out, they couldn't not as long as he was on the ventilator, he looked up at Dean with unfocused eyes.

"Sam? Come on man, are you with me?"

Dean could see that Sam was getting frustrated, and so he attempted to calm Sam, as he pulled his phone from his pocket and searched for the number of Sam's treating doctor, not that he knew what he was going to tell the guy, but Dean guessed that whatever was going on, Sam needed to go to the hospital to be checked out, "It's okay Sam, it's okay, calm down, you're okay, I've got you, you're okay."

Dean put the phone to his ear as it rang.

"Hello, Dr Stillman's office."

"Hey, my brother's a patient of Dr Stillman, Sam Deacon, I need to talk to the doc."

"I'm sorry, he's with a patient now, can I take your number and get the doctor to give you a call back?"

"No, I need to speak to him, now."

"Okay, I'll put you through. Just hold for a minute."

"Thanks."

Dean's conversation with the doctor was not an easy one, all Dean told him was that Sam, somehow was awake, and he asked what to do, it to anyone who didn't know the truth would have seemed to be a miracle. In short, the doctor instructed Dean to call an ambulance, and have them bring Sam into the hospital.

Just as Dean was getting off the phone, there was a knock at the door, and Ray entered the room. "What the hell?" He murmured looking at his formerly comatose nephew, who was now moving around listlessly in the bed, making more than an occasional uncoordinated grab for the tracheotomy and ventilator tubing.

In the moment, with everything happening, Dean had actually forgotten all about the front door slamming, well he hadn't, but he hadn't continued the thought chain to its reasonable conclusion that someone was home. He froze, how was he supposed to explain this? In hindsight, Dean would realise that he should have thought it over more carefully.

"Dean? Son, what is going on here?"

Dr Stillman had been stunned when he saw Sam being wheeled into the ER, awake, though not fully alert, and even after taking nearly an hour to examine Sam, he still could not fathom what had occurred, had he missed something or was this, dare he say it, a miracle?

And as for what the doctor's examination showed, Sam was breathing without the ventilator, and though he was very weak, he had regained nearly complete feeling and movement in his arms and trunk, though his legs remained lifeless and unfeeling, and where previous scans had shown massive, permanent brain damage, there was now healthy brain tissue, though as the neurologist pointed out, there were still a number of remaining let's say glitches, areas that according to a functional MRI scan were not functional.

To Dean's absolute relief, as more time passed in that first day, Sam started to come around, and Dean was right by his side, waiting not so patiently to see if his brother was actually by some miracle, healed.

Sam did wake up, two days later, but all it did was confirm Dean's fears, Sam wasn't Sam, he wasn't the same person he was before the accident. Though he stood at 6'4 and was very much an adult, the doctor's declared that mentally Sam had been left with the capacity of a three year old.

Dean cringed at the thought as he came back from getting a coffee to discover that Sam was hysterical, two nurses were in the room, trying to calm him with no success.

As soon as Sam saw Dean though, he instantly settled, though he did nearly fall out of bed trying to embrace his brother who had been across the room at the time.

"De, De! Wher'd you go? Got scared," Sam sobbed into Dean's shoulder.

"Sorry man, I'm sorry, Sammy, look, you're okay just calm down... Please," Dean pleaded with his brother, god he didn't know if he would be able to take a lifetime of this, he had prayed for Sam to be healed, and now he had been, and Dean found himself wishing that Sam was still in the coma.

Sam spent three days in the hospital before Dean got sick of all the attention his brother's mysterious recovery was causing them, and so he discharged Sam, and took him back to their aunt and uncle's house.

Sam's miraculous improvement had even made the local papers, "Local man wakes from irreversible coma", the headlines read, but that had only served to further irritate Dean when he was already under immense stress, the doctors kept pushing Dean to allow further tests and scans, consults with supposed experts, at times he wondered if the treating team really had his brother's best interests at heart, though admittedly he himself had had more than a couple of moments in recent months in which he had thought of ending the life that they were now looking at with such fascination.

But truly Dean as always at the end of the day only wanted what was best for his brother, and after he had taken Sam home, Dean returned to being Sam's caregiver, Sam's level of consciousness had changed, but sadly his care needs hadn't nearly enough.

Dean's day started out at five am, Sam's new favourite time to start the day, he would usually be disorientated, sometimes even to the extent that he would be combative. After calming Sam down came changing him, replacing the almost always soiled adult diaper with a new one, trying not to cry alongside his brother, who was aware enough to know that having to wear a diaper, and more so, having to have Dean change him, was humiliating and upsetting. Then Dean would help Sam dress, before putting him in his wheelchair, and taking him out to the verandah, where Sam would usually sit, relatively quiet, watching the world go past, while Dean got as many chores done around the house as he could, before inevitable Sam would get tired, and start calling out for Dean to take him for his sleep. Some days after Sam had rested, Dean would be given the gift of a few minutes in which Sam was lucid and aware, very rarely he could even have a conversation with his brother, a real conversation, but that would inevitably end. Then it would be time for the van to arrive to take himself and Sam to the hospital for Sam's session with the physiotherapist; though he himself hadn't attended so much as one session of rehab, Dean made sure that come hell or high water, Sam got to the rehab centre the five days a week that he was meant to, he had to keep hoping that maybe the therapists would help Sam, that maybe he would get another little bit of his brother back, though he honestly didn't know if it would do any good, or if this was as good as things would get for Sam. After rehab Sam would be tried, and it was always a struggle for Dean to make sure that Sam ate a decent sized meal before he would bathe him and put him in pyjamas, before transferring him back into his bed. And so after usually eight hours of something resembling rest, the cycle would begin again.

If possible it was more tiring than before, but Dean could cope, he could have conversation with Sam, watch a movie, even if Sam never got any better, Dean would cope, even if this was as good as things got.

Epilogue

It would be the first Thanksgiving that Dean and Sam had actually, truly celebrated, they sat at a table crowded with family, one of three, between helping Sam manage his meal, Dean was talking with one of his newfound cousins about the houses that he was looking at for himself and Sam, one just streets away from Cecilia and Fred's.

To think about it later, Dean would laugh, it still seemed odd to him that he was there, surrounded by family that if it wasn't for a tragedy he never would have known... He supposed that this was how his life would now be.

The End.

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