Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

Chapter 5 Wait

Sam strained against the hands to follow his brother.
"I'm sorry sir you are going to have to calm down," said an unknown male voice to Sam's right.
"The Doctors will see you as soon as they can."
Sam felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Bobby looking at him.
"Come on, Sam. Lets let them do their job. We don't want to get thrown out now do we?" Bobby pushed Sam gently over to some blue plastic chairs and sat them both down.
Sam looked at the double doors that his brother had been taken through with tears in his eyes.

An agonizing half hour later, one of the nurses that had been with Dean came over to Sam and Bobby with a clipboard of paper work for Sam to fill out.
"Please is Dean okay?" Sam pleaded to the nurse.
"We got him breathing and he is being prepped for surgery." The nurse smiled kindly at Sam.
When Sam was finishing the paperwork using Deans fake IDs a Doctor, who introduced himself as Dr Jenkins, came over and spoke to Sam and Bobby about how Dean got his injuries. Sam and Bobby went though the story they had made up at the cabin about Dean falling down an old mine shaft and that they couldn't get Dean out quickly so had to do as much first aid as they could at the wilderness area.

The Doctor seemed to accept what the hunters told him and made notes on a clipboard.
"Doctor, Can I see my brother?" said Sam.
"Well your brother is having X-Rays, and will then go straight into surgery." said Dr Jenkins.
"What surgery is Dean having?" said Sam anxiously.
"Well at the moment the trauma to his chest and head are the most worrying. They are conducive to a fall from some height and he may have hit his head on the way down. So is the amount of bruising he has. We have to check his spine for trauma. I know you said he fell on his front but there is significant bruising to warrant examination. His spleen is damaged and looks like it may have to come out and his liver and kidneys have both taken a battering. He also has some broken ribs. He has a fractured skull and fairly bad concussion. At this stage the pressure on the brain is being monitored. Then there is the significant blood loss so we have started a transfusion and the broken arm will have to be set. We'll know more when the X-rays are back and then we can treat him as soon as possible. Now you and your uncle can wait in the waiting room next to recovery if you like. I will have a nurse take you there in a few minutes."
"Thanks Doctor" Sam handed Dr Jenkins the paperwork he had been filling out and he took it with a small smile.
"Don't worry we will look after your brother".

And with that he turned and went back though the doors. Even though Sam liked the Doctor for his honesty, Sam felt himself tear up again at the staggering amount of injuries he had just described. Bobby slipped an arm around the young hunter and pulled him back to the plastic chairs.
"Don't forget your brother is one hell of a fighter." Bobby tried to soothe Sam, rubbing his shoulders.

A nurse came shortly after to take Sam and Bobby to another smaller waiting room one floor up. This one had no other people waiting. Sam and Bobby got themselves coffee from the coffee urn on the table and settled in for a long day of waiting. There was a TV in one corner and Sam looked at it to stop himself looking at the door marked operating theatre staff only. It wasn't working too well as he keep looking at the doors and catching himself. Bobby was uncharacteristically quiet but made up for it by pacing a track in the carpet between the window, which was now brightening with daylight, and where Sam sat with his foot tapping nervously.
'All the times I've spent in this situation and it never gets any easier.' Sam thought worriedly.

After three hours of Bobby's pacing getting on Sam's nerves to the point he might actually strangle him, Dr Jenkins came out of the doors in scrubs and walked over to Sam.
"How is he?" said Sam, straight to the point.
"Well, we found Dean was sightly on his left side when he hit the ground so a majority of his injuries are on that side which means Deans spleen was ruptured so it was removed and his liver and kidneys had been damaged. We did lose him for a few minutes during surgery and we have him on a ventilator to assist his breathing until he is more stable. His vitals are lower than we would like but we are monitoring those closely. He has fractures of the 7th to 10th ribs on his left side but they have received treatment. The fractured skull isn't as bad as we thought, just a hairline but we will keep an eye on it there is still some pressure there and the concussion is pretty severe. He still has a lot of problems but we are hoping to see him wake up soon so we can assess the damage in more detail."
"When do you think he will wake up?" queried Sam
"Well in this kind of case it would be better if he could rest for a few of days, to get over the shock you understand. Apart from that I would expect him to wake in the next few days. Then we can properly measure his pain medication and so forth. I have put him on an antibiotic to ensure he doesn't get an infection as there are quite a lot of cuts and scratches. The bruising he has is also quite severe on his chest and spine. He seems a tough guy. Doesn't want to give up. He has been moved to ICU because of his need of the ventilator. I can take you up there now if you like."
"Yes, Deans as tough as they come, thanks Doctor,"said Bobby.

Dr Jenkins led Sam and Bobby up another floor and down a few rabbit warren corridors Bobby was sure he would never find his way out of and into a very quiet corridor with rooms with much more glass instead of wood. There were more beeping and humming machines up here and it made Sam choke down a lump in his throat. They entered a room halfway down the corridor where they found two nurses attending to machines and IV s on either side of the bed. There were no windows in this room and only minimal small lights on in the room. The nurses finished what they were doing and moved quietly from the room.

Sam walked slowly up to Deans still form and grabbed his right hand in his own; he looked so helpless and small. His left arm looked impossibly white because of the cast on his forearm and hand, and there were lots of bandages over his body.
"You can talk to him. It may encourage him to hear a familiar voice," said Dr Jenkins kindly.
"Hey buddy, how's my big brother doin?" Sam said softly realising he was crying again, tears leaking down his face.
"You can stay with him as long as you like. "said Doctor Jenkins softly.
"Thanks Doc." said Bobby.
Sam nodded to the Doctor as he took his leave. Bobby dragged a plastic chair closer to Dean for Sam and then one for himself. Both men stood for a moment looking at their friend, more than a family member to both of them.
"Man he looks beat." said Sam softly.
"Yeah. I'm glad we got him here in time but he'll be up and around in no time."
"And yelling to be let out of here no doubt" said Sam with a soft smile at his brother, tears still falling. Sam and Bobby both sat on the chairs to keep watch over the young hunter, Sam keeping his hand on Deans and giving it a light squeeze.
"We're here, Dean. we made it."

Sam and Bobby spent the rest of the day in Dean's room waiting for Dean to show some signs of life. They only left the room when the nurses asked them to, so they could change and clean Dean. Sam felt at first the coffee in the ICU visiting room was sightly better than in the waiting room downstairs but by the end of the day he felt it was pretty awful.

As night started to fall Bobby left to make a call and was back half an hour later to say a fellow hunter he knew in the area was going to drop him up at the hunting cabin to get the Impala and help clean up any evidence that they had been up there.
"Thanks Bobby," said Sam as Bobby turned to leave.
"No problems, Sam. I'll bring you back some food. Anything else you need? Change of clothes maybe?"
"No I'm okay, thanks Bobby"
"Let me know if there's any change." Bobby clapped Sam on the shoulder and left knowing it was going to be hard to get Sam to leave Deans side even for the few minutes it would take to change out of the dirty, blood stained clothes he was wearing.

Sam watched the door close behind Bobby and turned back to watch Deans still face. He knew he must look a wreck with Deans blood all over him and his clothes still dirty from the hunt, but he just didn't want to leave Dean long enough to go and change. He noticed some of the nurses were giving him funny looks some sad, some in horror and some just weird. He got up slowly from the chair and leaned over Dean's face and kissed his brother on the forehead.
"I'll be right back, okay?" Sam whispered to his brother and walked over to the small washroom in the corner of the room.
'God, I must be really tired or going completely soft.' he thought to himself. 'Kissing Dean on the head, I'm going mad. Dean would laugh his ass off if he was awake. Or punch me out.'

He used water from the small sink and numerous paper towels to give himself a quick clean up. He turned his tee shirt inside out so that the blood didn't show as badly. Then he walked back into the room and over to Dean grabbing his right hand again.
"Did you miss me Dean?" He asked in a slightly louder voice, surprised by how his voice sounded dry and cracked.
Way too much coffee today. Sam yawned loudly and put his face down on Dean's hand on the bed that was cradled in his own. His back and neck objected to this new position but his eyes felt it was great as they closed and Sam immediately fell in to a light sleep.

Bobby returned later in the night to find Sam asleep with his head on his brothers hand. He didn't have the heart to wake him but Sam woke anyway to the smell of the food Bobby had bought him.
"Hey Bobby."
"How's the neck?" Bobby chortled as Sam rubbed the kinks out of his neck and stretched his back.
Sam took the chicken burger and fries Bobby had bought him and dug in with gusto not realising just how hungry he was. Bobby passed over a large bottle of water which Sam took with thanks and drank a quarter of the bottle without stopping.

After letting out a large burp, much to Bobby's amusement, Sam looked over at Dean and noticed something was missing.
"Hey Bobby, the bloods gone."
Sure enough the bag of blood was missing from the IV pole where it had been. It must have been removed while Sam was sleeping next to his brother.
"That has to be good right?"
"I think your brothers on the improve." said Bobby.

The next three days passed in much the same way. Sam napping with his head on Dean's hand and Bobby snoring lightly in a chair on the other side. Eventually Sam got Bobby to leave and go get a room at the motel across the street from the hospital. Sam knew Bobby wasn't sleeping well and was getting grumpy because of all the beeping machines in the room. Dean's condition seemed to be the same without much change at all. On the third day Deans Doctor came to see Sam.
"Sam, we would like to do some tests on Dean." he started.
"What's the problem?"
"Well, we expected to see some improvement with Dean by now but he is using the ventilator more not less so I think there may be more damage to his kidney than we thought. We can do an IVP examination to see what damage there is – it just an x-ray examination of the kidneys that uses iodinated contrast material injected into veins. With any luck we can treat any problems with medication".
"Okay, just do what you have to get Dean better." Sam said quietly.

TBC