JESS

Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Supernatural. They belong to Kripke. This is done strictly for fun, not profit. Also, if anything seems familiar, I don't own it.

A/N: (tap, tap, tap) Hello, anybody still out there? If you are…thank you so much for sticking with me through the incredibly long update time for this chapter. My life here lately has been…chaotic? Nah, too light of a word. I know that it's no excuse and I will try not to let it happen again. Also, thank you so much for all the great reviews. If I didn't get a response back to you please know that I do love getting them.

A/N2: If I flub some of the medical stuff please forgive me. I tried to do some research and asked a fellow writer on some of the points (thanks by the way to Salem's Child for the info I hope I do you justice) but some things may still not quite jive. So yeah, mistakes…all my own. Also, I tried to look at stuff about Stanford on the web but have never been to the campus so if what I write doesn't quite work. Sorry.

Spoilers: Season 1 up until "Shadow." I kind of flubbed the time line a little because technically in the U.S. the season finale had aired by the time Sam had his birthday, but in this story we're still before "Dead Man's Blood". But other than that, I hope I got things right.

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Summary from past chapter:

Sam becomes deathly ill with no explanation and somehow it is connected to his dad. After a phone call from Dean, John shows up and explains about a psychic named Lillian who he thinks might be trying to take Sam's psychic powers from him and thus killing him even though he knows that she is dead. Meanwhile, Sam has been having 'dreams' about being at Stanford with Jess on his 22nd birthday, and after a confrontation with Lillian in his mind he tries to communicate with his family to warn them of the pending threat.

THEN

Dean moved slowly as he removed his hand from Sam's now limp one wincing slightly at the sharp pain radiating from his crushed fingers before carefully cradling the hurt arm to his chest protectively as he stared at Sam. He took a step away and tried to get his heart to stop pounding so damn loud in his ears.

The ventilator continued its steady click-whoosh as if nothing had ever happened which seemed to add a sense of creepiness to the situation.

"What the hell was that?" Dean asked completely confused hoping that his Dad would have some kind of answer.

John just shook his head, slightly out of breath also at a complete loss. He looked down at the forgotten pad of paper and reached to pick it up.

Both men started as a loud piercing beep broke the silence and John felt the color drain from his face when he realized what was wrong. "No!"

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NOW

"Sam!" Dean shouted as the alarms continued to blare their warning. Sam's body shook and arched as his heart rate skyrocketed and he seemed to gasp for air as he fought against the ventilator. "Oh, God, Sammy?" Dean moved towards Sam but even before he had taken a step Sam's body arched again to its highest point and then fell bonelessly to the bed finally still. The heart monitor blared its shrill single tone and Dean thought he was going to fall right there next to Sam's bed.

"Sam!" John yelled as he raced to his son's side quickly checking for a pulse hoping that the screeching machine was wrong but he couldn't find one. "Sam, no!" He quickly ran to the door and threw it open. "Help! We need some help in here!" He could see nurses scrambling and he turned back to the room trying to figure out what to do next. Oh, God, Sam? "Dean."

Dean seemed rooted to the spot too shocked to even process what was happening.

"Dean!" John came up and grabbed his eldest's by the shoulders and spun him towards him. "Dean, snap out of it!"

"Dad?" It came out little more than a whisper and John could see the devastation in Dean's expressive eyes.

The door burst open and the room began to fill with people as the medical staff hurried to save Sam. "Code blue! Start CPR, get the paddles charged."

In the flurry of motion both John and Dean were swept aside. John, still holding Dean's shoulders, guided them out of the way and towards the corner of the room.

A nurse finally noticed them and started to usher them towards the door. "I'm sorry, but you can't be in here," the nurse said as she gently pushed them towards the door.

"But my brother," Dean mumbled.

"He's in good hands. Please, just let-"

The constant shrieking of the heart monitor quickly stopped and then there was one lone beep.

The nurse turned back to the controlled chaos surrounding Sam's bed with a quizzical look before there was another beep.

"We've got a heartbeat?" one of the other nurses said almost as if she wasn't sure what it might be.

Beep………..beep……..beep……beep…beep

The monitor continued its beeps showing a continuous rhythm. "Regular rhythm. Heartbeat is holding steady."

"Blood pressure is almost back to normal," another nurse said in almost awe.

John frowned in confusion as the reports on Sam's vitals continued to come in. All of them better than the last until finally…

"I've got spontaneous breath sounds," the nurse who had been bagging Sam said with slightly widened eyes. "He's actually breathing on his own."

Dean felt like his legs were made out of Jell-O as he listened to the nurses' chatter through what seemed like a fog. Everything seemed hazy and he wasn't quite sure what they were saying until John took a step forward and that one step seemed to break the spell that had fallen over Dean. "Sam?" he said softly.

John turned back to look at Dean and his eldest was still staring at his youngest and then finally tore his eyes away to look at his father. "Dad?"

John just shook his head at Dean's unasked question and then turned back to look at Sam. "I don't…I don't know, Dean."

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It had been over an hour since the doctors had kicked them out of Sam's room and Dean was pacing the waiting room like a caged tiger. He absently rubbed at his sore arm as he glanced towards Sam's room for like the billionth time and hoped once again that someone would come and tell them something about Sam. But so far none had come.

"Dean for the love of God will you sit down?" his Dad growled and Dean just ground his teeth together before going to sit down next to him.

When he was finally seated John gave a slight sigh of relief. He knew how anxious Dean was to hear what was happening with his little brother but he wasn't doing anybody any good pacing that way. He sighed again and hung his head before rubbing his hand across the back of his neck and winced slightly as the tense muscles twanged slightly under his kneading fingers. He then scrubbed his hand across his face feeling the three day old growth and slightly wishing he had a razor. But for right now, his main focus was his sons. As both Winchester's sat next to each other, he noticed Dean rubbing at his sore hand again and leaned back to get a better look at his oldest. "Your hand still hurt?"

Dean's hand stilled and he pulled it away with a deliberate motion. "It's okay," he mumbled.

"Uh-huh," John murmured as he continued to stare at Dean. "Maybe you should get it looked at?"

Dean turned wide eyes towards him. "No, I'm fine. I just…" He hung his head slightly lowering his eyes to the floor. "I just want to know how Sam is."

"Yeah," John said softly. Both men sat in silence for at least another thirty minutes before John finally gave out a frustrated noise. "Dean, please."

Dean continued to stare at the door as if he hadn't heard his father and his foot continued to bounce showing how nervous he was.

"Dean? Dean!"

Dean finally started and looked at his father. "What?"

John just looked at him for a moment before getting up. "That's it."

Dean just stared at him as he walked over to the nurses' desk and spoke quietly with the nurse there. They both looked back over at him and he suddenly got a bad feeling about all of this. The nurse nodded and picked up her phone before John walked back over to him. "What was that about?" Dean asked afraid of what the answer might be.

"I told her that you had fallen earlier this evening and asked her to get someone to look at your hand," John said.

"What? Dad, I'm fine," Dean started to protest as he glanced over at the nurses' desk anxiously.

"No…you're not. You've been rubbing at that arm since we got carted out here." He nodded towards the offending arm. "And I bet by now you can't even bend that wrist can you?"

Dean looked down at his arm sheepishly and tried to bend the swollen joint. "It's not so bad," he said nonchalantly. "Besides, I don't want to leave without knowing how Sam is."

A nurse came into the waiting room. "Dean Jackson?"

Dean looked at her with slightly scared eyes and then back at his father. "Dad, please."

"Dean, just…please…go have it looked at. I promise to come and find you if I hear anything. Now, go." John could see Dean's hesitation to leave and decided to head it off. "Besides, what do you think Sam would say if he wakes up and finds out you refused treatment because of him?"

Dean just stared at him for a moment longer before finally nodding. Smiling slightly at the nurse, he got up and followed her back through the double doors and John let go a little sigh of relief.

One down, one to go.

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It had been almost another hour since Dean had disappeared through the waiting room doors, and now John was starting to feel restless. What the hell is taking so long?

He found himself tapping his foot and he gave a slight growl of frustration before getting up not able to sit still any longer and started to pace.

Another hour went by and by then he had checked out all the old magazines at least twice, the pamphlets about different medical illnesses at least once, and had studied every picture on the walls he didn't know how many times. Hell, he thought, he could probably close his eyes and describe every little detail in the room from memory by now.

As he finished another circuit of the small waiting room, he decided enough was enough and stocked towards the nurse sitting behind the glass partition. "Excuse me, can you try and find out how my sons are doing?"

"What are their names?" she asked sweetly and John had to grit his teeth from yelling at her.

"Dean and Sam Jackson," he said with as much calm as he could muster. Easy, John, don't fly off the handle quite yet.

"Just a moment," she said and picked up the phone.

John sat there tapping his fingers on the counter and tried not to look too annoyed. Just a few more minutes. That's all.

The nurse was on the phone for a while before finally turning back to John. "Dean is almost done he should be out soon. As for Sam, I don't have any news yet. Sorry. I'll see if I can have his doctor come out and talk to you."

John just clenched his jaw slightly and tried not to sigh too loud. "Okay, thank you," he managed to grind out before going back to his chair.

He hated waiting, especially when it was to find out how one of his sons was doing, let alone both of them. He knew the waiting time in hospitals was bad but it shouldn't take this long. He hadn't thought that Dean's wrist had been that bad. Probably just a sprain from where Sam had twisted it, but maybe he was wrong.

He put his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together before him worrying at his wedding ring as he waited. He knew that this whole situation was his fault. If he hadn't went to Lillian in the first place, she would have never had known about Sam. But he had thought that the problem had been neutralized when he had taken out Lillian. He had even gone to Stanford to make sure Sam was okay after everything had calmed down. And yet somehow, she had found some way. And now, his mistake might cost Sam his life.

He still couldn't get the image of his son dying right in front of him out of his mind. He closed his eyes not wanting to dwell on those thought anymore. He rubbed a hand across his face once before pulling the notebook that Sam had written in out of his coat pocket. He hadn't even realized he had grabbed it before everything went sideways until the nurses had pushed them out the door and they were standing in the waiting room hoping for news on the youngest member of their family. Now he studied the words Sam had written trying to figure out their meaning, he looked at Sam's writing and still felt a slight chill at the memory of how Sam had looked when he had written them. Eyes wide but unseeing and the tremors that had shook his body towards the end.

Shaking off the memory he studied the words again. "Funky town, Christi, Spoon bender, Hilts," he mumbled to himself as a frown settled across his face. He tried to figure out the connection between each word. Possibly an anagram or a code? But what kind of code? The more and more he tried to figure out what they might mean, the more he realized he would need Dean's help to interpret it. He instinctively knew that the message had been meant for Dean and that Dean alone would know what it meant.

He gave a slight snort of laughter and shook his head at that thought. When it came to Sam, John had always needed Dean to interpret. He was never able to understand his youngest and yet Dean could read Sam like he was an open book. With everything that those two boys had gone through, they had developed their own special language and could almost tell when something was wrong with the other. Sometimes he had marveled at how with just a few gestures his two sons could communicate so much. In some ways it made him almost jealous of that close bond, but he also knew that he had instilled and encouraged that bond by how he had raised them. He may be their father, but John knew without a doubt that the real person to raise them had been Dean.

"Dad?"

John's head snapped up at his son's soft reply and he was out of his chair in a second. "Dean, are you okay?"

Dean walked towards him a little hesitantly and John noticed the splint on his son's arm. He also noticed the slightly glazed look of Dean's eyes and his eyes trailed to nurse that had followed Dean out. "How is he?" he asked her without any preamble as he turned to study Dean more acutely.

"He's fine," she said and John felt his shoulders loosen just a little. "He just sprained his wrist really good. He'll need to keep the brace on it until it's healed. We also gave him some pills to help with the pain." She handed him a small bottle and gave him a few more instructions on how to treat the sprain and what to expect but John just nodded already knowing all the procedures for a sprained wrist.

"Thank you," he said with a slight smile and then turned back to Dean.

Dean had sat down in his chair with a slightly dazed look on his face, but as John studied his oldest son he could also see the worry there too. "How's Sam?"

John just grimaced and sat down next to him. "I don't know yet. Nobody's come out yet to talk to me." He looked at Dean and saw his expression fall slightly at the news. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Dean just looked at him and gave a slightly dopey smile. "Sure, no problem here, they gave me the good stuff." He motioned towards the bottle John was holding and then his smile slipped from his face as he noticed the small notebook in John's hands. "Could you figure out what he wrote?"

John blinked at him once in confusion and then looked down at the notebook as if noticing it for the first time. "Oh, uh…no, not yet. I think he probably meant it for you." He passed the notebook over to Dean and Dean hesitated only a moment before taking it in his good hand.

John watched as Dean studied the words and watched the flash of emotions cross his eldest's face as he flipped through the pages. "Do you know what it means?" he finally asked after a while.

Dean glanced up at him and then back to the paper. "Yeah, but…it doesn't make any sense." Dean studied the four words repeated over and over again noticing how they started off rather neat and the further they went, the sloppier they became until the last few words were basically scribbles. He noticed the last three words were different from the others and he frowned in concentration as he tried to figure out what they said.

"What is it?" John asked noticing his son's expression.

"Well, uh," Dean cleared his throat trying not to get overwhelmed by his emotions. He couldn't break down. Not now at least. Maybe later. First, he had to save Sammy. "Okay, 'funkytown' is our reference for being in danger," he explained nonchalantly and John just nodded.

"Yeah, I remember that, and 'christo' is obviously a reference to demons. Plus the fact that when I said it to Sam he seemed to snap out of it for just a moment there," John said.

"Yeah," Dean said softly wishing that he could erase that image from his mind. He shook himself slightly. "But his eyes didn't turn black like a regular demon though."

John just nodded also puzzled by that thought Not that he wasn't relieved by that thought but... "What does the rest of it mean?"

"Well, 'spoonbender' is a reference to psychics. After that time in Michigan, I kidded him about trying to bend spoons," Dean smiled slightly before trying to swallow the lump in his throat from the memory.

"What happened in Michigan?" John asked with a slightly bewildered look on his face.

Dean looked at his father and if John hadn't known his son so well he would've missed the flash of surprise that crossed his face. "He, uh…it's a long story." He looked back at the notebook and tried to ignore his Dad's stare, knowing that sooner or later he would have to explain that comment but still not quite sure how to tell his dad that Sam had moved a frickin' bookcase with his mind because he had thought Dean was going to die.

"The, uh…final word," he hesitated slightly and glanced up at his Dad trying to judge his reaction to his not so subtle brush off and saw his him frowning slightly. "The final word, 'Hiltz', is a reference to The Great Escape."

John frowned slightly in confusion before the pieces fell together. "Ah, Steve McQueen's character. So all together they say what?"

"Uh, let's see…'danger', 'demon', 'psychic', 'escape'?" Dean looked up at his father to see the same confused look he knew he was wearing.

"Family for Sam Jackson?"

Both Winchester men glanced up to see Sam's doctor standing in the doorway. In one quick movement they were both standing before the doctor.

"How's Sam? Is he going to be okay? What happened?" Dean asked first wanting to get to the point.

"Whoa, calm down," the doctor said holding up his hands. "Sam is doing fine. In fact he's doing great. I don't quite understand how, but it seems that he's made almost a full recovery."

"So he's going to be okay?" John asked in astonishment.

The doctor smiled and nodded his head. "Yes, Sam is going to be fine. I apologize for taking so long, but we needed to run some tests. It seems whatever was causing his body to shut down has somehow just…disappeared. Now granted, he's not completely out of the woods, but his blood work looks good, his heart rate is normal, and he's actually breathing on his own. We've already removed the ventilator and we've just got him on some oxygen so his body doesn't have to work so hard. After everything he's been through, he's definitely going to need some time to recuperate. But all I got to say is that he must have one hell of a guardian angel on his side."

"So he's okay? He's going to make it?" Dean asked just to make sure. "What about his fever?"

Here the doctor frowned slightly. "Yes, that…well, it's still…a little high; but definitely better than it was. We'll keep him on some I.V. antibiotics and hopefully it will continue to go down. Until then we'll be keeping him here under close observation and hopefully in a couple days if everything goes well he might be able to go home."

Both Dean and John sighed in relief at that and John grabbed Dean's shoulder giving it a slight squeeze. "Thanks, doc," he said as a genuine smile crossed his lips. "Can we go see him?"

"Sure, he's still in the same room as before. They're just bringing him back from the latest round of tests. Give us a few more minutes and then I'll have the nurse come and get you when he's ready."

Dean just nodded and then watched the doctor disappear. They waited a little bit longer and finally the nurse came to get them. As they walked towards Sam's room, the nurse chattered on about Sam's recovery and that it was a miracle, but to Dean it just sounded like blah, blah, blah. The closer they got to Sam's door, the more he felt like he might throw up. His heart was beating so fast he thought it might just jump out of his throat and without knowing why he began to slow down. He tried to calm his nerves not knowing exactly why he was so nervous and when they finally got to the door he hesitated.

John just looked at Dean and waited patiently for Dean to pull himself together again. He knew that Dean was probably just as nervous as he was about what they might find behind that door and didn't try to push him any faster than he wanted to go. Dean took a steadying breath and gave a quick nod before pushing the door open.

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A/N: Okay everyone. There's the new chapter. Hope it was worth the really long wait for. Let me know what you think by sending me a review. Come on. You know you want to. (I will not beg. I will not beg. I will not…)

A/N2: Also, I've posted a poll on my profile page asking, "How do you think Dean will come back from Hell?" So please go to my profile page and let me know what you think. Until next time.