A/N: Hey guys! Thanks for all your reviews. I'm glad you're still with me on this; I know it's longer than I anticipated and I'm so happy you've stuck with me. So I thought this would be the last chapter, but it looks like I've got one more. Oh one more thing – I had said in chapter one that Mark and Dean hunted a case in Syracuse, but I changed that to Massachusetts now. I need to go back and fix that in chapter one, but for any of you who have fantastic memories, I didn't want you to be confused. Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoy!

Sam went to the door and unlocked it, quickly returning to his brother's side. Dean started shifting around just as Sam was trying to place his legs on top of the pile of pillows he had made. He kicked his feet weakly, moaning incomprehensible words. Sam immediately let go of Dean's legs and went to his brother's side. He put a hand on Dean's forehead, shocked at how cold and clammy his brother was to the touch.

"Dean, can you hear me?" he asked anxiously.

Dean weakly pushed at Sam's hand, moving his head side to side. "...off me," he whispered, cracking his eyes open. "Sam?" he asked after a second, taking a moment to register his brother's face. He seemed confused, and that only made Sam more worried. "So...cold," he shivered.

Sam grabbed the comforter and sheets from his own bed and layered them on top of Dean. "I know, Dean. Is that better?" Dean didn't answer, his eyes sliding shut again. "Hey, hey stay with me, man. Can you tell me where it hurts?"

It looked like it took great effort, but Dean managed to focus his eyes on Sam's again. "Shoulder," he mumbled, bringing his hand up to touch his left shoulder.

Sam moved Dean's hand, pulling his brother's shirt down to check the area. But there was nothing there – no signs of trauma or injury; nothing to explain why his brother appeared to be going into hypovolemic shock. Sam pulled the bottom of Dean's shirt up to check his side, where the table had hit, finding a small bruise and abrasion but no signs of significant bleeding.

Sam pressed gently on the bruise, and Dean reacted immediately and violently, curling in around his injured side. "Jesus Sam, what the fuck?" Dean hissed, much more alert now and in obvious pain. Sam crouched in front of his brother, trying to keep him from rolling off the bed. Mark barged into the room a second later, not even bothering to knock.

"Ambulance is on the way," he announced, hurrying to Sam's side to help him keep Dean from rolling off the bed. "What happened?"

Dean clenched his eyes together tightly, taking in tiny sips of air, unable to respond to Mark's question. "It's gotta be internal bleeding," Sam said, looking at Mark. "His left side is tender and there's some bruising."

"Feels…like," Dean gasped, "'m being stabbed." He had his hand over the wounded area, preventing Mark from getting a good look.

"Let me see, Dean," Mark said gently, moving Dean's hands away. Mark pressed gently on the area, and even that light touch elicited a cry of pain from Dean.

"Stop…" he pleaded pathetically.

"Okay, you're okay," Mark calmed, helping Dean roll onto his back. He turned and nodded grimly at Sam, agreeing with the diagnosis of internal bleeding.

"Sam," Dean mumbled, trying to push himself up into a seated position again. Sam tried to keep him lying down, but Dean pushed weakly against his hands. "Feel dizzy."

"That's because your blood pressure is too low, Dean. You need to lie down."

"No," Dean drawled. He closed his eyes again, trying to take deep, steadying breaths. "Gonna be sick," he told Sam urgently, clasping a hand over his mouth, panicked eyes flying open.

"Okay, I got you," Sam looked around for a trashcan, but Mark was already handing him one. He helped Dean lean over it as his brother coughed and sputtered, emptying his stomach of what little there was left in it. Mark took the can once Dean was finished, and Sam helped his brother lie back against the bed. Blood coated Dean's lips, stark against his pale skin.

"Where the hell is that ambulance?" Mark muttered. He quickly went to the bathroom and wet a towel, handing it to Sam. Sam wiped the blood away from Dean's lips, terrified that his brother didn't even protest the intrusion.

A minute later, the faint whine of the sirens sounded outside the room, and it was the most welcome sound Sam had ever heard. Mark went to the door, preparing to open it so the paramedics would see him. He paused, his hand on the doorknob. "Do you guys have insurance?" he asked as an afterthought.

Sam hadn't even considered that, but luckily they had just gotten new insurance cards from Bobby. "Yeah, we're good. Dean and Sam Wilson."

Mark nodded. "Okay good. I'm going to go let the paramedics know where we are." He hurried outside, leaving the door wide open.

"Sam?" Dean called out.

"I'm here, Dean," Sam answered, placing a hand on Dean's forehead.

"You and Mark…finish the ritual."

"Emily and Bill are dead, Dean. It's over."

Dean shook his head, teeth chattering. "P…promise. Need to make sure." He coughed weakly, flecks of blood coating his lips and teeth.

Sam nodded. "Yeah okay, Dean. I promise." He looked up to see Mark racing back into the room, two paramedics following closely behind.

The medics wasted no time once they got into the room, hurrying to Dean's side, listening to his lungs and taking his pulse. Whatever they found, it couldn't have been good. They talked in hushed urgency, expressions serious.

Dean was out of it again, unable to answer any of the paramedics' questions. The younger-looking paramedic, Ed, turned to Sam while his partner continued to take vitals and assess Dean. "Was he injured recently? When did you notice the symptoms?"

Sam had to pull his attention away from his brother in order to process the questions. "He – he fell. Last night. I think he hit his side on a table. He said he was fine," Sam added quietly. "I didn't know…"

Ed realized he didn't have Sam's full attention and moved to get into his line of sight. "Sir," he began.

"Sam." Sam filled in. "I'm his brother."

Ed nodded. "Okay, good. I know you're worried, but I need you to help me out here. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

Sam shook his head slightly, then paused. "He's been sick the last few days. Fever, sore throat. Of course he keeps denying it…" Sam trailed off again.

"Okay, that's good to know, Sam. Does he have any allergies or any past medical problems?"

Sam shook his head in the negative, choosing to leave out the electrocution and car crash from the previous year.

"Ed?" Sean, the other paramedic, had finished examining Dean and inserting an IV. He spoke to Ed quietly, but Sam could still hear every word. "We should get a move on. His systolic is 82 and he's tachycardic. Slight rigidity over his left side. Could be a ruptured spleen. Kid needs to get to a hospital now."

Mark had placed a steady hand on Sam's back, but even that couldn't comfort him as he watched the medics package up his brother. Dean was moaning again, becoming slightly combative as they tried to strap him into the stretcher, unwilling to be tied down. Sam went to his brother's side, taking a hold of one of his flailing arms.

"Hey Dean, calm down. They're just trying to help you."

Dean opened his eyes again to look at Sam. "Sam? What's going on?"

Sam looked at Ed. "Why does he seem so confused?"

"His blood pressure is dropping – it can lead to disorientation and confusion."

"Dean, Mark and I will be right behind you, okay?" Dean didn't answer, but his hand went limp in Sam's grasp.

"We really need to go," Ed told Sam apologetically. "We're taking him to St. Luke's. It's right down the road, you can't miss it."

Sam nodded, following the medics out. Mark was already in the car, ready to leave the second the paramedics had gotten the stretcher in the rig. Sam climbed into Mark's car. "St. Luke's."

Mark nodded but didn't say anything, pulling out after the ambulance.

They arrived at the hospital less than three minutes later, driving only slightly above the speed limit. The medics hadn't run the lights and siren, but they still reached the hospital well enough ahead of Mark and Sam that they were already rushing Dean into the hospital by the time the two hunters had pulled into the ambulance bay. Sam jumped out while Mark pulled the car around to find parking.

Sam just caught a glimpse of Dean as they rolled him away, his pale arm hanging limply over the side of the stretcher and looking almost as white as the sheet that he laid on. Sam tried to follow after them, but was stopped by a sympathetic-looking but no-nonsense nurse. "You can't follow them, Sweetie," she told him gently, and Sam didn't know why but the tone of her voice almost made him cry. "They need room to work, but I'll get an update from them as soon as possible, okay?"

Sam nodded but didn't move, feeling suddenly exhausted. The nurse led him to the waiting room and he sat down heavily, dropping his head into his hands. Mark came in a few minutes later, sitting next to Sam but not bothering him with empty reassurances. The two sat quietly for some time, until Sam broke the silence, turning to look at Mark.

"What happened last time?"

Mark took a second before he realized what Sam was referring to. "You mean the last time I hunted with Dean and your father?" Sam nodded, and Mark continued. "He'll be pissed when he finds out I told you."

Sam shook his head. "He doesn't need to find out. I just…I want to know what happened to him when I was –" he paused, "away. Please, Mark?"

Mark hesitated for just a second before deciding to tell Sam. "We were hunting a rogue banshee in a town called Scituate, Massachusetts. They've got a huge Irish population and banshee sightings had become rather commonplace up there. The townspeople had just come to accept the presence of such supernatural beings. But the thing with this banshee was that instead of just announcing the impending death of town members, this banshee was going off script, causing the deaths of otherwise healthy people."

"How did you know they weren't supposed to die in the first place?"

"We thought about that," Mark mused, rubbing a hand over his facial scruff, as if that would help him remember. "But it was the way they were dying. And then Dean did some research and found that that sort of thing had happened before. Several times, in fact."

"Dean willingly did research?" Sam asked, amused.

Mark chuckled lightly. "Well I mean, John made him. But I think he secretly liked it. And he was damn good at it too. Anyway, Dean figured out how to find the banshee and how to get rid of it."

"So everything went well, then?"

"Everything with the case, yes. Dean's research was perfect and we finished the hunt without any complications. Your dad and brother were set to deal with some voodoo gig down in New Orleans after that, but then Caleb called and said he needed John's help on a case in Rochester."

"So did they go to Rochester, then?" Sam asked, vaguely remembering something Dean had said about doing a solo hunt in New Orleans. But that had been just a year ago, and Sam couldn't seem to make the dates match up.

Mark shook his head slowly. "John went by himself, said Dean could handle the voodoo case on his own. But I didn't like the idea of Dean hunting solo. He was only 22. Tough as nails, but still too young. So I told Dean I was going with him."

Sam smiled, finding himself liking Mark more and more. "I'm guessing Dean wasn't happy with that."

Mark shrugged. "I don't think it bothered him much, actually. He seemed to like the company. But we never made it out of Massachusetts." Mark sighed heavily, and Sam thought he seemed upset by the memories. "Dean…he had hurt his shoulder a few weeks before the banshee hunt – dislocated it and damaged a few of the surrounding ligaments. I didn't even know about the injury, and Dean never said anything to me or John. But apparently it still bothered him because he was popping aspirin like it was candy, not that either of us knew it."

Mark shook his head again and waited a minute before continuing. "On the morning that Dean and I were going to head down to New Orleans, I took him to my favorite diner on the outskirts of Boston – Erin's Place. He seemed pale," Mark added quietly, as if he was talking only to himself and not Sam and somehow blaming himself for what happened. "But he cleared his plate, so I thought he was okay. I thought he was okay." Mark repeated, kneading his hands against his forehead. "He threw up in the parking lot. Bright red blood. A lot of it," Mark almost whispered. "And then he screamed out in pain and just collapsed."

"What – what was wrong?" Sam was gripped with fear. He knew it was unwarranted – clearly Dean had recovered. But for some reason he felt like he was right there with Mark and his big brother in the parking lot of some diner outside Boston.

"Bleeding ulcer, for one," Mark answered. "Combined with kidney failure," he answered quietly.

"The aspirin," Sam murmured.

Mark nodded. "He was in critical condition for more than a week. When I called John, he drove straight over from upstate New York. He made the drive in 6 hours, or something crazy like that. And then he didn't leave Dean's side until the doctors said Dean was going to be okay."

Sam shook his head, "I never knew."

Mark nodded. "I figured Dean didn't talk about it much. I think he scared himself, too. Scared the shit out of John," he added with a laugh. "You should have seen him when Dean was recovering. He was rightfully pissed, but he also felt guilty, I think, that he didn't realize his son was in pain. He just hovered around the kid until he finally drove Dean nuts." Mark laughed again at the memory.

Sam laughed with Mark, finding it nearly impossible to picture John playing the role of nursemaid. That sort of fatherly concern was so far removed from anything Sam remembered that it made him miss the man fiercely, miss what could have been.

"He's going to be okay, Sam," Mark said confidently.

Sam nodded, but he still found it hard to think of anything except Dean lying pale against the sheets, lips flecked with blood. "I should call Bobby," Sam said quietly. "He'd want to know…he'd want to be here." He stood up, pulling out his cell phone and taking a step towards the lobby, but Mark stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. When Sam turned back, he saw a doctor approaching their seats.

"Sam Wilson?" he asked calmly, professionally, like he did this every day. "Why don't you have a seat?"

Sorry! One more chapter, guys, and then you'll know what's wrong with Dean. But does anyone have any guesses? I hope you liked this chapter – I wasn't sure about adding that whole story about Mark and Dean's last hunt in there. Let me know what you think, and stay tuned for the final chapter!