Hey all, I'm sorry about the delay in posting the next chapter, I had to work out a few details in the storyline. Thanks for reading. Seth
Chapter Eleven
"I was wondering when you'd get around to coming to see me," Monica said without turning around, and Hank shook his head in amazement that she always seemed to be able to sense his presence. She threw down the towel she was wiping the parallel bars with, and pivoted to face him. "Take a seat an' let me look at that knee."
"It's fine, Darlin', just a little sore's all." Even as he argued, she gently pressed her fingertips into his chest and guided him backward toward a chair. "You know what with all this special treatment, people are gonna start talking." He slid into the seat and rolled up his pant leg as she knelt beside him.
A low hiss escaped her as she removed his prosthesis, prosthetic ply sock, and the thick pad he had placed beneath his knee to lessen the pain from his newest injury. "Straighten your leg," she ordered in a no nonsense manner, and he reluctantly complied. Wincing, he pushed himself backward into the chair as she carefully prodded at his bruised knee. "I don't suppose you went to the doctor?" she asked, and heaved an irritated sigh when he shook his head.
"I was already suspended from work for two weeks, I'm not gonna have some damn doctor tell me I shouldn't be doing my job." Hank snatched the ply sock from her and slipped it back over his knee. With her still watching his every move for any signs that he was in pain, he slid his prosthesis back in place without so much as the slightest twitch. "Besides, I didn't come here to talk about me. I wanna know how he's doing."
"He's just like you were." Monica clucked her tongue disapprovingly as she rose to her feet. Taking a seat beside him, she grasped a hold of his hand. "He's so busy being worried about what he can't do yet that it's impeding the progress he could be making."
Hank processed the information she had just shared with him, and wondered not for the first time if he was making a huge mistake in offering to help the younger man. In his moment of indecision, Sam's words came back to both haunt and reassure him that he was doing the right thing. H-he would die to s-save you – y-you do the same for h-him. Please do the same for him.
"Don't let up on him, Monica," pursing his lips, he shook his head, "I don't care how angry he gets or how much he fights your help, you keep pushing him. You hear me?"
"Hank, it's not your fault what happened to him." Monica shifted in her seat to look at him, and lightly trailed her hand across his forehead to pushed back his shaggy bangs. "I know after what happened to Sarah, you – "
"This isn't about Sarah," he abruptly cut her off, the reminder of his wife's death like a sucker punch to his gut. "It's about something his brother told me when we were searching for him, an' I just can't get it out of my head."
"Are you sure you're not just making excuses to try an' help him because you couldn't help her?" Her startlingly clear blue eyes searched his for any hint that he was lying to her and himself, and had the decency to blush when she realized he knew what she was doing. "You don't owe him anything, an' you certainly didn't do anything wrong. He's alive because of you."
"Sam said Dean would die to save me, an' I should do the same for him." Suddenly choked up, Hank cleared his throat as he recalled how determined Sam had been to make certain Hank understood how important it was to save his brother. "I've done this job for a helluva long time, an' not once has anyone ever said that to me before."
"He was badly injured himself, and he had witnessed his brother being buried in an avalanche. I'm sure he would've said anything to get you to find him." Monica tried to rationalize Sam's reasons for saying what he had said, but it did nothing to deter Hank from believing there was more to it than that.
"I've always lived on gut instinct, Monica, an' I know I'm not wrong about this." Whatever Sam and Dean were doing up on the mountain, they certainly weren't sightseeing. His first thoughts had been that they were police officers trying to retrace the steps of the three people who had gone missing in the area a few weeks prior. However that idea rapidly changed when he had come to the hospital to see how they were doing and discovered they were registered under a fake last name. And if they were using a fake name, they had to be on the run from something.
He had considered the possibility that they might somehow be involved with the three disappearances, but that theory was blown apart when a young woman had vanished without a trace after Sam and Dean had been admitted to the hospital. Still, Hank couldn't shake the feeling that the Winchesters knew something about what had happened to all of them, and was determined to find out if he right.
The search and rescue patrol teams had scoured the mountains several times, but only found bear and other animal tracks, yet there was nothing to suggest that the missing people had been attacked by any of the creatures roaming through the wooded areas. Just to be on the safe side, Hank and Harvey had checked out all the known bear dens on the mountain range for any signs of activity, but found that all the bears were still hibernating for the winter, and had no reason to suspect that any had awoken.
Maybe a new bear's moved into the area? It would explain the tracks, and maybe the disappearances as well.
"I told Dean they could stay with me until he gets on his feet again," Hank said without any sort of preamble, and wasn't surprised in the least when she gawked at him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
"Are you out of your mind, Hank?" Abruptly taking to her feet, she paced back and forth in front of him, hands flying in vivid animation of her anger. "You don't know the first thing about them. You don't know where they came from – or what the hell they're doing here." Shaking her head, she huffed at him as he laugh at her tirade. Her eyes flashed a stormy shade of blue as she continued to upbraid him. "Don't you laugh at me, Hank. They could be murderers for all you know. Four people have vanished from around here, an' these two just happen to show up in the middle of it all. That's more than just a little coincidental if you ask me."
Hank instantly sobered, the laughter dying on his lips. "The girl disappeared after we rescued Dean from the avalanche, Monica, so they couldn't have had anything to do with it."
"Well, maybe they didn't have anything to do with it, but that still doesn't mean you should open up your house to strangers."
Hank leveled off his feet, and pushed himself into a standing position, careful to put most of his weight on his good leg. Taking a hold of her arm, he gently turned her to face him, and lightly caressed her cheek. "My home is set up to accommodate Dean's needs right now, so I'm not gonna have him go stay at some motel while he's here. I wanna do this for him, just like your Uncle Harvey did for me."
SNSNSNSNSNSN
From Dean's scowl, and by the way he kneaded his right leg, Sam was left with little doubt that his brother's physical therapy session hadn't gone any better once Sam had gone back to their room. After a male physical therapist with bright red hair helped Dean into his bed and had left, Dean sunk down as low as he could possibly position himself on the mattress. Without a word, he closed his eyes, feigning sleep so he wouldn't have to talk to Sam.
Sam glanced at his computer screen, scanned the article he had been reading, and paused on the words that had struck him earlier when he had read it though the first time. Closing the laptop, he shifted in his bed to look at Dean. "Have you ever heard of Carl Brashear, Dean?" he asked, not sure if his brother would even respond, but even if he didn't, Sam was still determined to speak his mind.
After what seemed the longest time, Dean finally muttered, "No, is there any reason I should have?"
"Not really," Sam shrugged, feeling slightly encouraged that Dean hadn't shut him out completely. "He just said something that kinda got me to thinking."
"An' what was that?"
"He said it's not a sin to get knocked down; it's a sin to stay down'."
Dean lifted his head off the pillow, and glared at him. His eyes glistened as he tried to rein in his anger, and Sam could tell it was taking everything in him not to say something he couldn't take back later. "Well, good for him. Bet he never lost his fuckin' leg in a avalanche, but when he does, I want you to go an' remind him of that great little quote of his."
"No, he didn't," Sam said with a nod, "he lost his after pulling a nuclear warhead out of the ocean."
Momentarily left speechless, Dean's lower jaw dropped open as he processed what Sam had said. Not about to let his older brother make excuses why his situation was different, Sam took the rare opportunity that Dean's silence presented, and pushed forward with the point he was trying to make. "They wanted to retire him, but he refused to give up, an' he proved them all wrong."
"Where you going with all this?" A glimpse of hope shaded Dean's features, but was quickly overshadowed with a grimace as he dug his fingertips into his thigh, kneading at his sore muscles.
Sam opened his laptop, clicked on the screen and brought up a picture of Carl Brashear. He turned the computer toward his brother and showed him the image of the African American amputee climbing up a ladder of narrow metal poles with numerous heavy weights strapped to his back. "It's gonna be hard work, Dean, an' it definitely won't happen overnight, but if you wanna hunt again – then we are gonna hunt again."
Afternote: I know this was kind of a short chapter, but I really just wanted to leave it with Sam giving Dean some hope back that they could hunt again. I know a lot of people doubt Dean could return to hunting after losing his leg, so I came across this picture of Carl Brashear and thought it might be of interest. www(dot)chasingthefrog(dot)com/reelfaces/menofhonor/brashear_test(dot)jpg It is the same picture that I had Sam show Dean. I think it is a real inspirational picture of a man determined to do whatever it took to return to the job he loved. After losing his leg in an accident he went on to become a U.S Master Diver, a job the navy said he couldn't do without his leg, he proved them wrong, so I have no reason to believe that Dean would be any different. Seth