Thanks for all your supportive messages for the last chapter. They really helped and I finally managed to finish the story.

Chapter Eight

They knew better. They'd both read the pamphlets and listened to the doctor's warnings. If there were any signs of infection, any signs, they were to come back to the hospital straight away. But it was late into the night when Dean noticed Sam's temperature, and they were both exhausted, so they agreed to go to the hospital first thing in the morning to get Sam checked over. It was just a matter of hours. That shouldn't make a difference, right?

They were wrong.

Dean had fallen into a fitful sleep, listening for his brother even while resting, and Sam had crashed out on the other bed. Only a few hours passed before Dean jerked awake, not sure what had woken him at first, until he heard the sound of Sam's labored breathing. He threw himself out of bed and hurried to the side of Sam's bed.

"Sam! Hey, Sammy, you okay?"

Sam shook his head. "Think…" He drew a shuddering breath. "Need hospital."

That much was obvious, Dean thought. He yanked on a pair of jeans and sweatshirt and helped Sam to sit on the edge of the bed. "You going to manage to get to the car, or should I call an ambulance?"

"Car," Sam said firmly.

He seemed to be having trouble getting a deep enough breath, and the sound of the wheezing coming from his brother's lungs had Dean tensed. With assistance, Sam got to his feet, and then his real condition became obvious. He was struggling to stand and his frame was rocked with tremors. He could feel the heat radiating from Sam's skin, but the way he hugged his arms around himself made Dean sure he was suffering with chills. Sam reached for the blanket on the bed, but Dean pulled his hand away.

"I know you're cold, but you're running a fever, so we can't bundle you up."

"Cold," Sam said, and there was something childlike about his tone that scared Dean. He could have jumped back twenty-five years to the time Sam had flu that had landed him in the hospital in the end with pneumonia. He prayed it wasn't that again.

"I know," Dean said. "But we've got to bring your fever down. They'll know what to do at the hospital."

Struggling like a bizarre three-legged race, Sam and Dean got out to the car, and Dean settled Sam in the passenger side of the bench seat. As soon as Dean eased the door closed, Sam slumped against the window and closed his eyes, still trying to draw those wheezing breaths. Dean slid in behind the wheel and gunned the engine, reaching over and patting Sam's arm. "You'll be fine, Sam. They'll know what to do." He didn't know whether his words were reassuring Sam, but they were doing nothing for him.

The hospital wasn't far from the motel, though it seemed much too far for Dean in that moment, and they were soon pulling into the no waiting zone in front of the ER.

He deliberated for less than a second about what to do next. From the looks of it, there was no way Sam was going to get into the hospital under his own steam, so he hurried through the main door of the ER and grabbed the first person in scrubs that he saw. "My brother, he's sick. I can't get him in."

"Okay, sir. I'm Mark," the man he'd grabbed said calmly. "Where is your brother now?"

"In the car."

The man turned to the woman sitting behind the reception desk. "Get someone to bring me out a gurney."

The woman disappeared and Dean hurried back through the exit to the car. Sam was blinking drowsily and still sagging against the door. Dean climbed in the driver side and knelt on the seat. "Sammy, we've got to get you out, okay?"

Sam eased himself away from the door and sat up, listing towards Dean now. Dean supported him with a hand on the shoulder, and watched as a nurse came out wheeling a gurney. Mark eased the door open and helped Sam to turn with his feet planted on the asphalt. Between them they got Sam straight and then to perch on the edge of the gurney. Sam's last reserves of strength seemed to leave him with the change in position, and he slumped forward and would probably have hit the floor again if the nurse hadn't caught his shoulders and eased him down. Dean scrambled out of the car and made for Sam's side again.

"Sam!"

Sam's head lolled toward Dean but he didn't speak; he was still breathing those labored wheezes that made Dean feel sick.

The gurney was turned and directed to the door, and Dean tried to follow but the orderly laid a hand over his chest and held him back. "Sir, you need to move your car."

"What?" Dean said, trying to make sense of the words while keeping Sam within his view.

"Your car. It's blocking the ambulance bay. You need to move it."

"But Sam…"

"I'll stay with your brother until you get back," he promised.

Hating himself, but knowing that he wasn't going to be allowed near Sam again until he'd done it, he climbed back into the car and pulled out of the ambulance bay. Despite the late hour, it was still hard to find a parking spot, and it was five minutes before Dean was back in the ER. He hurried to the woman behind the desk to get directions to Sam, but before he reached her, the nurse that had helped them get Sam into the hospital before came through the doors and made straight for Dean. His heart contracted painfully at the sight of her striding towards him with a severe expression but when she saw his panic she smiled and Dean relaxed infinitesimally.

"He's just through here," she said.

Dean followed him through the door and into a long room flanked with beds, some curtained off and other's open and empty. He looked at the curtains, wondering which hid Sam from him, but he didn't lead him to any of them. Instead, they came to a door at the end of the hall marked: trauma bay one.

Sam was lying on the bed. His t-shirt had been removed and the head of the bed was raised so he was almost sitting. There were electrodes on his chest now and an oxygen mask covering his mouth. His breaths seemed to be coming easier though, and Dean clung to the improvement as a talisman against the pale skin and visible ribs—When had Sam got so thin?

He crossed the distance between them and reached out to hold Sam's forearm. At his touch, Sam's eyes opened and rolled towards Dean. It could have been wishful thinking, but Dean thought Sam looked more relaxed when he saw him.

A throat was cleared and Dean turned to see a man in pale green scrubs. "I'm Doctor Harrow," he said. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Dean raked a hand through his hair, wondering where to start. "He had a slight temperature last night, but we thought we'd get it checked out in the morning. He woke up a little while ago having trouble breathing. I brought him right here. He's a patient on the…" He couldn't make himself say it.

Sam tugged the mask away from his face and spoke in a whisper. "Brain tumor. Jacobsen. Chemo."

Doctor Harrow nodded. "Okay. I'll have Doctor Jacobsen notified of your admission. He'll probably want you on the oncology ward. In the meantime, you stay on the oxygen and we'll take some chest films."

Sam nodded and pulled the mask back over his face. His eyes drifted to half mast again and his head tiled to the side.

"What do you think's wrong with him, Doc?" Dean asked.

The doctor looked at him apologetically. "It sounds like a chest infection. Ordinarily, I wouldn't worry too much, but given your brother's diagnosis and chemotherapy…"

Dean closed his eyes. He knew what the doctor wasn't saying.

It was a chest infection, and with the added benefits of Winchester luck and Sam's depleted immune system, it turned into pneumonia pretty damn fast. Dean camped out in a reclining chair and waited it out with his brother. He knew the facts, Sam could not come back from this, but he knew his brother. Sam had beaten the Devil once, he would beat this. He wasn't so stupid as to believe that getting through this would mean a cure for the other thing ailing his brother, it was a mere stay of execution, but it was enough. At least it had been enough before Sam made his latest damn fool decision.

Dean was in the bathroom attached to Sam's room, cleaning himself up, when he heard Doctor Jacobsen's voice rumble. He quickly dressed and made his way back into the room, running a hand through his damp hair, not wanting to miss what the Doctor was saying. He was hoping for good news, as Sam's breathing had seemed easier in the night. What he didn't expect was for Sam to have cast aside the oxygen mask and to be talking to the doctor as he sat with a clipboard on his lap as he read aloud from a official looking form.

"I request that all treatments other than those needed to keep me comfortable be discontinued or withheld and my physician allow me to die as—"

"What the hell?" Dean said sharply.

Sam looked up and Dean saw his 'busted' face.

His heart pounded in his ears and his hands fisted at his sides. "Sam," he said in a tone of forced calm. "What are you doing?"

"Making plans," Sam said weakly.

"Plans! I'm pretty sure I heard the words 'allow me to die', and they don't sound like any plans you want to be making right now."

Sam shook his head. "This is important, Dean. We need to talk about this."

"Sure we do," Dean said. "In a couple months, when it's time to talk. We're not there yet." They couldn't be there yet. Dean wasn't ready. "You've still got the chemo to finish."

Doctor Jacobsen cleared his throat. "Sam and I have discussed this, and Sam has indicated that he doesn't want to continue the chemotherapy regimen."

Dean's hands were shaking. "You're quitting?"

"No," Sam said plaintively. "It's not doing any good, Dean. There's no point continuing it now." He turned to the doctor. "Tell him what you told me."

The doctor sighed. "I'm afraid Sam's right. We cannot start it now with Sam's health as precarious as it is, and I am not convinced it was doing any good anyway."

Dean's breath whooshed out of him and he swayed on his feet. Doctor Jacobsen jumped to his feet and led Dean to the chair he'd just vacated. "Do you need some water?" he asked.

Dean shook his head. "I need to talk to my brother. Alone."

Sam frowned. "Dean, I need to…"

"No!" Dean said brutally. "We're going to talk alone."

Doctor Jacobsen laid his clipboard on the table at the end of the bed and made for the door. Dean watched him go, and as the door clicked closed behind him, he rounded on Sam. "You're giving up!" he accused.

"No, I'm not." Sam said. "I'm just facing facts. The chemo isn't giving me more time; it's sapping the time I've got left. There's new growths, more secondaries, and they're going to keep coming with or without the chemo. I'm not giving up, but I'm not going to spend what time I have left sick and weak in a bed."

Dean sat back in the chair and absorbed the news. "More cancer?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. It's time to face the facts, Dean. This is what we've always known was coming. We need to make plans, and that's what I was doing."

Dean picked up the clipboard from the end of the bed and tore the pages free. He balled them up and tossed them onto the bed. "No! You're not making plans to die. I won't let you."

Sam's head flopped back against the pillows and the show of weakness made Dean's anger surge even more. If the situation was different, he would slug his brother for this crap.

Sam seemed to know what he was thinking, as he raised an eyebrow and lifted his head slightly. "Hit me if it'll make you feel better. Just remember you promised. You said when it was time, you'd let me go. It's time now."

Dean lurched to his feet, his hands fisted ready to strike. "It's not time!"

Sam merely smiled knowingly at him and Dean's anger spike. His hand struck out and slammed into the wall by the door. He felt something give way and his skin tore, smearing blood on the wall. When he turned back to his brother, he saw Sam's smile had been replaced by a frown and wetness in the eyes.

"I'm sorry, Dean," he said softly.

Dean turned away from him and marched out of the door. He didn't want to see his brother cry.

He didn't know how long he sat in the Impala, watching people come and go through the hospital's main entrance; he just knew he'd seen Amelia go in once and not come out yet. He made a deal with himself. He would go back to Sam as soon as she left. He wouldn't let him be alone again.

When he'd got into the car, he'd had every intention of driving to the nearest liquor store and getting completely, numbingly drunk. But his fingers had refused to turn the key, and he'd sat bowed over the steering wheel for five minutes before he realized he couldn't leave. He couldn't be with his brother, but he couldn't bear to leave him behind either. So he sat in the car, watching people move through their lives, not knowing that his world was crashing down around him.

He saw the main doors open and Amelia came out. He sat up straight, waiting for her to make her exit so he could go back to Sam, but she didn't leave. Her eyes scanned the parking lot and came to rest on him. With a look of determination, she strode towards him and pulled open the passenger side door. If he'd been thinking clearly, he would have locked the door or driven away, anything to get rid of her, but he hadn't been thinking, so there was nothing he could do to stop her sliding into the seat beside him.

"Amelia," he said stiffly.

In contrast to his tension, she seemed relaxed. "Dean."

"How is he?"

"Tired, upset, thinking you're going to leave him, and in pain," she said.

"He's hurting?"

"That's what cancer does," Amelia said. "It hurts."

Dean opened the door and was about to get out, to go back to Sam, when she spoke again.

"You know why I chose to become a vet and not a doctor?"

"All the fluffy puppies," Dean said sarcastically.

She pushed her hair back from her face. "No. I couldn't treat people knowing we let them suffer. With animals there's mercy."

Dean spoke through gritted teeth. "So, if you had your way, you'd put Sam down like a dog?"

She relaxed back in her seat and spoke calmly, though Dean had expected her to be angry or at least affronted. "Not yet I wouldn't."

Dean couldn't be near her; he had to get away from her and her twisted morality. He had to get away from the woman that said she'd kill his brother. He pushed open the car door and climbed out, but she followed him, catching his arm as he made for the entrance again.

"Wait," she said earnestly. "I need to talk to you."

"You think… I can't… You want to kill him!"

"I don't want Sam to die," she said, and there was no denying the sincerity in her tone. "I love him. I love him enough to let him go without making him suffer more than is necessary."

"You think I want him to suffer!" Dean growled. "Everything I've ever done is to stop Sam suffering. You don't know me, you don't know us, but believe me I've tried."

"What's coming for Sam is going to be hard, for him and you, and you're making it more difficult by reacting like this. You need to be there for him, not make it worse by punching walls and walking away."

Dean looked down at his bloodied and sore knuckles. He didn't want to hear this, not from Amelia, but he had a sneaking suspicion that she was right. It couldn't have helped Sam to see him brother losing his temper and lashing out, but what was the alternative? To sit with him and help him fill out the forms that would essentially kill him? He couldn't do that, could he? Was that what Sam needed from him now?

He leaned against the hood on the Impala and she came to stand beside him. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked.

"You need to go back to him and talk. Let him explain what's happening. He is waiting for you. Sam will always wait for you. While he can," she amended.

Dean raked a hand over his face, hating the implication of her words. Sam would wait as long as he could, but he could only hold on for so long, only as long as he lived. Even now, Dean was wasting vital minutes with him in favor of nursing his own feelings. Sam needed him and here he was, hiding. He pushed away from the hood and walked to the main entrance again. He felt Amelia's eyes on him as he walked, but he didn't turn. He didn't need her now, he needed Sam.

When he got back to the room, Sam's eyes were closed and his breathing soft, he was sleeping, but as Dean sank down into the chair beside him, he woke and looked tentatively at his brother.

"Sam, I'm sorry," Dean began before Sam could speak. "I shouldn't have left."

Sam licked his lips. "And I shouldn't have started moving on with those forms without talking to you first."

Dean saw the clipboard on the table and noticed that there were fresh forms clipped onto it. They weren't filled out though, and that gave him some small measure of relief.

"It's an advanced directive," Sam said, seeing where his gaze lay. "It just means I get to have some say in what happens to me at the end. It's not like they'll kill me."

"But they won't save you."

"Dean, nothing can save me now," Sam said sadly.

Dean sighed. "It's really time for this?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

Dean closed his eyes for a moment, willing the tears back. "How long?"

"I don't know. Doc says the antibiotics are working and my lungs are clearing. That's good, but it's not the answer. Things are still moving on, and the time is coming soon."

Dean swallowed thickly. "Amelia said you are in pain. Why didn't you tell me?"

"What would be the point?" Sam asked. "You and I have both had worse, and the meds are helping now."

"I should have know. I should have realized. I could have helped."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe. It doesn't matter now. You can still help me."

"Anything," Dean promised.

"I need help with these forms," Sam said, gesturing to the clipboard.

Dean reached over and picked up the clipboard. Taking a deep breath, he began to read the first section. "If, in the judgment of my physician, I am suffering with an irreversible condition so that I cannot care for myself or make decisions for myself and am expected to die without life-sustaining treatment provided in accordance with prevailing standards of care…"

"I request that my physician allow me to die as gently as possible."

Dean closed his eyes for a moment and a tear slipped down his cheek. "Okay, Sammy, as gently as possible," he agreed.

I cried like a baby writing the last half of this chapter. I am trying to be as realistic with the storyline as possible, and that means angst. There are three more chapters after this and I will try to get them out to you as soon as possible.

NEW STORY! I have posted the first chapter of my Sam/Castiel fic.

Summary: Castiel sacrifices more than his freedom when he goes to save Sam from the cage, but he gains so much more in return. Now linked with Sam in a way no angel and human have been before, they struggle to pick up the threads of their old lives. S6 AU. Sastiel friendship/pre-slash

Please give it a look and leave me some love.

Clowns or Midgets xxx