A/N: This story is for Kaly who graciously agreed to let me turn this into a multi-chaptered fic, even after I warned her that updates may be sporadic. You're great, and I hope that I can give you lots of sugar to go with your angst!

As always, thanks to Starliteyes, who is a wonderful beta.

Broken

NOW:

Chapter Two

Sam tried to swallow, and emphatically nodded while the doctor spoke to him. He had survived the crash largely unhurt, but Dean was still unconscious.

"Your brother has minute lesions on his kidneys and liver. We have the bleeding under control, and we are confident that his condition will heal itself with the aid of medication. The human body is an extraordinary organism."

"So that's good?" Sam shoved his clenched fists further into the front pockets of his jeans to keep from fidgeting. His soft hazel eyes flickered over to his brother, who was lying sickly pale on the stiff hospital sheets, unresponsive to the voices in the room.

"Yes, very good." The doctor, an older distinguished looking black man, flipped open the chart he was holding. "It says here that he was asleep in the front seat when the semi struck you. The fact that he didn't tense up probably saved him from receiving further injury even though he was on the side of the impact. The EMT's also said that you were driving an older classic vehicle."

The doctor looked to Sam for confirmation. Sam nodded, his eyes sliding back to his brother. From the corner of his eye he saw a blinding flash of white as the doctor smiled at him.

"Good old Detroit steel probably saved both of your lives. If you had been driving a newer model car made of fiberglass, you two wouldn't be here today."

Sam shifted, refocusing on the doctor, a slight frown on his features. It wasn't that he wasn't thankful for the Impala's sacrifice for them, but he had larger concerns.

"When will Dean wake up?"

The doctor sobered, and consulted his chart again.

"We are weaning him off the sedatives now and expect him to regain consciousness late tonight or tomorrow. We anticipate discharging him by the end of the week."

The doctor flipped the chart shut, and tucked it under his arm. Sam graced him with a tight smile, turning back to his brother as the doctor left the room.

Sam stood over Dean, his fingers wrapped tightly around the metal guardrail, his knuckles blanching white. Dean looked so pale and helpless, but Sam could still see the horror in his brother's eyes when he had shot their father. Sam would never forget the sound of Dean's panted denials as he crawled over to John's corpse, his bloody body trembling with grief.

He unwound one hand from the bar, his fingers cramping in protest. He brushed it over his brother's crew cut, feeling the spikes of soft hair feather across his palm.

A wave of guilt flooded him, stealing the breath from his lungs. He wavered on his feet, and had to grip the rail tighter to keep from falling over. He pressed his palm against Dean's forehead, feeling the cool, waxy skin beneath his fingers. A hot tide of tears lodged themselves in his throat, and he had to drop his chin to his chest to compose himself.

His hand drifted lower until he was covering Dean's eyes, blocking them from sight even though they were closed. There was no way he could be there when Dean woke up. He couldn't bear to see the look of disgust and hate that was sure to be reflected in his green eyes.

He deserved all the damnation that Dean chose to heap upon him, but not yet. He couldn't handle it just yet. He needed time to come to grips with his grief and remorse. He needed to rebuild the walls around his heart, so he could stand tall and look his brother in the face, while being torn apart.

Gently, Sam removed his hand from Dean's eyes. His own were jewel-bright with unshed tears and his breathing was labored. He released the rail and took a step back, distancing himself from his brother, preparing himself for the worst.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I'm so very sorry," Sam whispered, and backed away. He wheeled around and rushed from the room as if hellhounds were at his heels.

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Dean came awake in stages. First he regained his hearing, a steady beeping jerking him forward out of a dreamy abyss. He rolled his eyes beneath his lids, trying to swallow, but his throat was raspy and sore. He could smell and taste antiseptic and he knew instinctively that he was in a hospital.

Feeling was the last thing to return, but it was muted and dull. He knew he had fingers because he could move them, but feeling them was something else entirely. The narcotics in his system made him feel like he was wrapped in a wad of full body cotton, and he wanted a drink of water desperately to wash them out of his system.

He blamed the drugs for the lag in his memories too. He counted back, trying to remember why he was once again prone in a hospital bed when he swore he would never go back, even if he was dying. He recalled Meg, and the exorcism that freed an innocent girl. He remembered rescuing his dad, and salting the window sill in a deserted cabin. He even remembered being pressed up against the weathered wooden planks, cold air seeping in through the cracks at his back, his life's blood bleeding out of his pores like sweat on a hot summer day.

After that he drew a blank. Instead of his memories pushing forward, they seemed to reel backwards. He could vividly recall standing across a grassy quad, watching as Sam loped up a wide set of concrete stairs, taking the steps two at a time to enter the library at Stanford. The memory of Sam waking up a few weeks later in a cold sweat after Jess died lacerated Dean across the heart and he briefly wondered why the meds couldn't dull his emotional pain like it did his physical agony.

Their crappy hotel room in Chicago swirled into the forefront of his mind, him braced up against an old wood dresser while Sam told him that he was going to go back to school after the demon was dead. That he never wanted this life and he wanted out. Sam wanted to be a lawyer; he wanted to be a husband and a father. He wanted all the things that Dean couldn't give him. Sam wanted things he couldn't have as long as the demon was alive---as long as Dean kept him tethered to this life.

Lastly, Dean remembered watching as Sam stood over their father, his face grim, his arm unwavering as he pointed the Colt at John. Sam shot down the past in order to claim his future. Dean didn't want to blame him for that, but he did. God help him, he did. The retort of the gun was still ringing in Dean's ears, and he thought maybe it always would.

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Dean was awake for three days before Sam came to see him. Bobby had stopped by the day before to tell him that Sam had the Impala towed to his yard and was trying his best to find replacement parts for Dean's baby. That led to an awkward conversation as to why parts were needed in the first place. Dean fumed, but didn't have much to say. There wasn't a lot he could say.

Dean had been air-vacced to the nearest hospital, which was a day's drive from the scene of the accident. Bobby was quick to excuse Sam's absence by saying he had unfinished business back at the cabin, but neither of them needed to say what that business was. They knew. Sam was retrieving their father's body.

So when Sam walked in, carrying two cups of coffee, Dean knew why he hadn't been around, but it didn't make the supposed desertion any less painful. All it did was ram home the truth of the matter. The steadfast reality of Dean's life. He was finally, once and for all, truly alone.

Those long three days gave Dean the time that he needed to think. He wasn't a fool. Sam hadn't stuck around because he felt guilty. As well he should. A gunshot echoed between them, separating them more completely than a ten foot wall of steel and stone.

"I brought you some real coffee. You're not supposed to have it, but what they don't know won't hurt them." Sam nodded towards the nurses' station conspiratorially. He set the coffee down on the moveable table that was swung across Dean's lap, and pretended that he didn't notice that his older brother didn't respond to him.

As Sam's hand retreated his sleeve rose up his arm and Dean could see a white bandage wrapped around his wrist. Sam steadfastly did not meet his brother's heavy gaze, giving Dean a clear view of his little brother's cut and swollen face. Dean had also noticed that Sam was walking with a slight limp, though he tried to hide it.

Dean was struck with the unfairness of it all. The disaster that was their lives. Their mother should have never died, and their dad shouldn't have had to suffer twenty years without his wife. Dean shouldn't be lying in a hospital bed, and his little brother shouldn't have so many ragged scars on his body.

Dean knew that he was done for. His soul was wilting away like an assassin vine being splashed with holy water. He suspected that he wouldn't make it another year. Something was going to get him. A hellhound, a witch, a vengeful spirit. He had lost his edge, and the only thing that he could do was to make sure that he didn't drag his little brother down with him.

"I was able to check out your chart and you're doing well. I figure we can spring you tomorrow, if you're up to it."

Sam frowned when Dean didn't answer and he moved closer to the bed. Taking a deep breath, Sam lifted his gaze and stared hard and heavy at Dean. Always needing to talk, and never willing to back away from any subject no matter how taboo, Sam opened his mouth and plunged right in.

"I took Dad's body to Bobby's. We should give him a funeral as soon as possible."

This was it. This was his chance. Anger suffused Dean's chest, creeping up into his cheeks until they flushed. It wasn't hard to fake anger. It was the only emotion that he could get a handle on. He was pissed at the world and everyone in it. They had all let him down, and now he was alone. Even his little brother had let him down in the end.

Dean's green eyes hardened to stones of jade as he flung a disgusted look at Sam. He backhanded his hot coffee, splashing most of the contents across Sam's legs and sending the Styrofoam cup flying to the floor. Sam jumped back with a hiss, his hand swiping at the hot liquid seeping into his jeans.

"Dude!"

Dean cut him off before Sam could say more.

"Get out!" he snarled, and Sam looked at him wide-eyed.

"What? Dean." Sam stepped closer, but Dean reacted violently, pushing the rolling table away from him and into his brother's legs.

"I said get out and don't come back."

"Dean," Sam choked, and Dean could see tears glittering in his hazel eyes. Dean's eyes only narrowed at the sight.

"I mean it, Sam. Get. The. Fuck. Out." Dean flung the words out with such furious conviction that Sam was already backing towards the door before he finished. Dean watched him go impassively, knowing in his aching heart that it was for the best.

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Bobby came to collect him the next day. Neither of them said a word about Sam. Once in Bobby's truck, Dean asked for a phone, which was handed to him wordlessly.

Bobby cast him a disbelieving look when he asked the operator to connect him to the Stanford Admissions office in California. He spent the entire two hour drive back to the salvage yard talking to the department manager about getting Sam enrolled into school and funded for housing. Sam had kept up on his extension paperwork and the woman knew all about Jessica. Her sympathy only deepened when Dean briskly told her about their father dying recently.

She rescheduled Sam's courses for him, and assured Dean that she might even be able to set up another interview law school. Dean thanked her and hung up, his chest so tight that he could barely breathe.

Sam was waiting for them on the rickety wooden porch when they pulled up, but Dean brushed by him without a word. He went directly to the bathroom, staying in the shower for nearly an hour. He tried to convince himself that it was only water rolling down his face and into the drain, but he couldn't seem to wash out the salty taste in his mouth and on his lips.

They burned Dad's body that night. Dean washed John, anointing him with scented oil and herbs before wrapping him in strips of muslin. Sam wanted to help, but Dean stoically refused. Instead, Sam stood miserably in the doorway, watching Dean's meticulous preparations with watery, bloodshot eyes. Later, they stood side-by-side, silently watching as the flames licked their father's corpse, devouring him until nothing was left but ash. Dean thought it was fitting that husband and wife should be consumed by flame. Maybe now they would burn together for eternity, since it was so very obvious to Dean that there was no Heaven.

Fire was a purifier. It was supposed to burn away all the taint that the world left behind on your soul and leave it free to ascend into Heaven. Dean couldn't believe that, but he could hope that the flames ate away anything that was left behind by the demon before it had died.

Sam cried a river of tears, but Dean didn't shed a one. Dean could feel his heart dying inside. It was being torn apart piece by piece. A part was buried with his mother, another was burning with his father, and the rest was going to walk away with Sam. Without them, Dean would cease to be. He would be nothing more than a walking, talking corpse, just waiting for the next monster to take his head off.

The next morning, Dean broke his self-imposed silence and told Sam that Stanford would accept him back for the new semester. Sam just looked at him like he had taken a puppy out and drowned it, but Dean didn't miss the shadowy flicker of hope in the back of his worn eyes. Sam didn't say a word as Dean walked away from him. The last piece of Dean's heart broke, but no one but he heard it crack.

For a week, Sam followed him around the salvage yard, trying to convince Dean that they were still a family and that it didn't have to be that way. Dean met the onslaught of words silently, always knowing that actions spoke louder. He impassively tore apart the Impala by day, sorting her parts into piles of salvageable and non-salvageable items. At night he stood in the moonlight and watched his little brother sleep. It wasn't lost on him that Sam finally slept through the night for the first time in a year.

On the last day, Sam silently packed his duffel while Bobby waited for him outside to give him a ride to the bus stop. He had to leave today or he would never make it in time for classes. He tried one more time to get Dean to listen to him, but he just watched with emotionless green eyes. Finally, Sam's frame slumped and he swung his Army duffel up onto his shoulder. Dean watched as he walked away.

"Have a good life, Sam."

Sam paused in the doorway, his head drooping below his shoulders, his back to his brother.

"You too, Dean," he said softly and walked away.

Dean's heart died completely, but only he heard its last whimper.