Designated Driver

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in posting! My muse went on walkabout and then I skipped off on vacation. The good news…I got to spend some time writing.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Chapter 6: Rearview Regrets

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Letting his need to hear his brother's voice override his pride, Dean began dialing Sam's cell phone number. He was hoping Sam's concern for him would postpone the yelling part of their conversation until they were face to face. Until he had regained his emotional equilibrium enough not to cater to any demand Sam made of him.

"Uh hello," a hesitatant female voice said, causing Dean's head to come up to see a tall blonde woman in her earlier forties standing uneasily at the opening to his curtained off section of the ER. "I know you don't know me but Pastor Pete said you were injured on the Smithfield track," she explained as she stepped up to the end of his bed. Not waiting for him to confirm or deny the statement, she continued. "My husband was injured in a racing accident there too…a couple weeks ago. The Pastor was up visiting him. He's on the fourth floor…the burn unit."

Putting the phone back onto the night stand, Dean sat up against the pillows at his back and focused on the woman he realized was Karl Phillips' wife. "I heard about your husband's accident. I'm sorry."

She gave a nod of reply but Dean could see it was a tactic to remain in control of her emotions.

"I didn't realize he was still in the hospital."

"He comes in a few days a week for treatment. I thought…him being at home, that it would help," her voice cracked on the last word and her eyes filled with tears. "I don't know what to do and I thought…maybe you could talk to him."

Dean's eyebrows raised. He had never been asked to talk to anyone, had never gotten the green light to do his whole investigative questioning on anyone. "Talk to him?" he parroted back, thrown off guard by the request and the desperation in Mrs. Phillips' eyes, especially coupled with the knowledge that Phillips had refused to see anyone from the track, except, apparently the Pastor.

"The accident," Mrs. Phillips looked away as if searching for the right description, "it changed him." Her eyes flew to his almost instantly and she stammered, "I don't mean about the burns on his face. Oh crap! If Karl heard me say that…" Dean barely moved his legs out of the way in time before the woman sat on his bed, pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped away tears that had dared to slip from her eyes. "I'm not saying this right, I'm not saying anything right. Not to Karl, not to you."

Compassion flared in Dean and he leaned forward, rested his hand on her shaking shoulder for a moment. "It's alright, I'm listening. Changed your husband how?"

Shooting Dean a watery, grateful look she continued, "He thinks he's losing his mind. He keeps telling me he …he felt something ..wrong in the car before his accident. And when I ask him to explain wrong how…he just…" She shook her head again, but the compassion in the younger man's eyes didn't fade but increased and she found herself telling him what she hadn't breathed to a single other soul. "He's very depressed and I'm afraid…he thinks he's crazy and useless and ugly and …I don't know what he'll do and if I tell the doctors my fears, they will admit him for physiological observation and that, for Karl, would be worse than dying."

"Don't do that," Dean quickly ordered, fighting down a cringe of what would happen if the poor man starting talking about cold spots, cars driving themselves..let alone ghosts. "I'll talk to him," he firmly said. Though he wasn't sure what his words would be, he knew he could allay at least some of the man's fears, could tell him that he wasn't going crazy, that his accident hadn't been caused by any fault in his driving.

But it was the other issues that Dean knew he couldn't heal: the trauma of the wreck, of a disfiguring burn, of maybe never racing again, of having his life long dream stolen by some supernatural event that the man couldn't have prepared for or fought against. "But…Mrs. Phillips, what your husband went through…it's more than just dealing with the car accident. I can tell him how my accident happened, why I think it happened but…"

"That's all I'm asking of you," Mrs. Phillips beamed at Dean, as if he were the answer to all her prayers. Pulling a business card from her pocket, she handed it to Dean. "Karl will be at home on Monday. Just call me before you come, my cell number and our home address is on my card. Thank you so much Mr…."

"Dean," Dean interjected.

"Dean," Mrs. Phillips repeated with a warm smile though her eyes still shimmered with tears as she stood up and walked out through the curtains.

Leaning heavily back against the pillow, Dean sighed, which ensued another bout of coughing. But his mind wasn't so easily distracted. 'What I am thinking?! I'm barely keeping my own crap together and now I'm going to go play therapist for some guy who might be disfigured for life, whose wife is worried he's going to off himself. No way I am going there without Sam.' Finally regaining his breath, he lay there, hand on his chest as if he could ease the tightness in it. Then he pushed the covers back, ripped the hospital ID bracelet off his wrist and sat up. The world sloshed back and forth a few moments before it righted itself.

With determination, he stood up, felt only a slight lightheadedness at the action and shuffled over to the closet, already wondering how he was going to get back to the Impala in a town that was so small it didn't have a taxi service.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Squeezed between an ancient guy that kept mumbling about air raids and a woman rambling on about her cat in between intakes in the oxygen mask that was attached to her own personal oxygen tank, Dean wasn't sure hitching a ride with the "Nursing Home Express" van had been his most brilliant plan. "Ah, excuse me Millie," he politely interrupted the cat woman with a false smile, before he slid forward in his seat. Propping his arms on the front seat of the van, he asked of the driver, "How long until we reach the race track?"

The van driver gave him a toothy smile from the rearview mirror. "Just remember, I asked you how desperate you were for a ride," the man laughed back.

"Yeah and I'm desperate but the cat lady has been telling me the same story about the same cat for the past twenty minutes. And the old guy…well the old guy beside me…I'm a little worried he's going to go all war vet on me and strangle me with the seatbelt."

His comments only made the van driver laugh harder. "Ah, kid, you've made my day. You busy tomorrow?"

"You do this everyday?!" Dean incredulously asked, unable to imagine enduring this torture more than once a year.

"Contrary to popular belief, the elderly are constantly on the go." At Dean's raised eyebrow look of challenge, the driver clarified, "Ok, so it's mostly back and forth to the nursing home and hospital but they do wrack up the mileage."

"Mileage I know about," Dean mumbled.

"Yeah, you have that look about you," the man said, their eyes meeting in the rearview mirror. Before Dean could ask the man to explain, he answered his initial question. "You only have to hold off the war vet's attacks for another five minutes."

"That I think I can manage," Dean said as he slid back into his seat between his two traveling companions.

"I can show you my cat," the woman offered, her cataractic eyes shining as Dean gave a polite smile. "He's in my room at the nursing home."

"They allow pets at the home?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. He's no trouble anymore. He's stuffed."

The unforeseen statement sent Dean into a choking, coughing fit that bent him over and had the old lady trying to slip her oxygen mask over his mouth.

Five minutes later, the van had barely come to a complete stop before Dean stumbled out the van doors. Giving a wave and a wane smile to his traveling companions, he shut the door. Leaning in the front passenger window, he extended his hand to the driver who heartily shook it. "Man, my hat's off to you. Keep up the good work."

"Yeah and how 'bout you try to not get yourself killed racing some tinbox of a race car. Then, when you're ninety, you can have some guy like me ferrying you around," the driver said with a warm smile and a light tone.

"That's what younger brothers are for, dude," Dean said with a smile as he stepped back from the van and began walking to the track employee entrance. He wasn't prepared for the desolate feeling of the track, to look around and see no one, to have deafening silence greet him. Though he concluded that Garner had sent everyone home earlier, after his accident had been investigated and cleared up, Dean couldn't shake the feeling that the rapture had happened for the track. He fought down the urge to call out "hello" just to see if it echoed back to him.

Stalking to the Impala, he was opening the car door when he heard a race car engine come to life. Grimly he wondered if their resident ghost was taking advantage of the deserted track, was planning a joy ride. Shutting the door, he went to the Impala's trunk and pulled out his shot gun and rock salt shells. He was loading the gun even as he trotted toward the sound of the race car. Thinking briefly of calling Sam, he shot down the idea. He wanted to know first if he was truly dealing with the spirit …or just some mechanic putting in overtime on an engine.

The engine cut out as he slipped quietly into the backdoor of the garage three bays down from the #16. Shotgun still in hand, he kept low as he slipped forward past the supply area and the engine diagnostic equipment. But Bruce Garner's voice had him skittering to a stop before he broke cover. e he

"See Troy, I got her running again like I promised," Garner said, a gentleness in his tone that Dean had never heard from the man before. "And the frame, well…it took some molding and some bartering for used car parts but she's not looking bad."

Risking a glance, Dean leaned forward around the tool chest, saw Bruce running his hand along the hood of a car embossed with a number #36 on the side. He was about to make his presence known, accuse the race car owner of knowing his boy Troy was the residence ghost on track when Bruce's next words reached him.

"But the car…It's nothing without you kiddo. I'm sorry, Troy. I should have called for help after the second accident, when I knew in my gut that something was wrong, that something here felt like it did on that Vietnam hill when guys were dead and dying all around me and yet weren't ….gone. Were somehow locked there to that place, to this life instead of the next." Garner slipped to his knees, rested his head against the front panel of the car. "I let you down, kid. I stood there and watched you flip that car four times and I knew, oh I knew what had happened. That I put my pride before the lives of the people on this track, before your life. And it's still happening, the accidents. I've asked for help but Troy, this thing, this spirit, it just won't stop. I need it to stop, kiddo. I just need it to stop."

Slipping back behind his cover, Dean sat crouched there, his eyes closed. Suddenly he understood Garner better than he wanted to. And Dean cursed himself for not being the help the race track owner needed, for failing Garner, for adding another failure onto his own recent "track record". Quietly he made his way out of the garage, let Garner to his grief…and his regret. As he walked back across the desolate track fairgrounds to the Impala, resolve settled into Dean. "This spirit isn't taking any more lives, I'm not letting it."

SNSNSNSNSNSN

Tiredly entering his motel room, Sam sprawled out onto the closest single bed and closed his eyes, wished Dean's accident wasn't replaying in his head, over and over again. It was frustrating to learn through a fourth party report that his brother was alright, was probably going to be released that day. He was supposed to be at the hospital, was supposed to be the one talking to the doctor, was supposed to be the one reading between his brother's 'I'm alright' façade. And he couldn't help but wonder who exactly was deciding Dean could be released that day: the doctor or Dean?

Pulling his cell phone out, he held it above him, cursed when there was no little envelope indicating that he had missed a call. He almost dropped it when it rang. "Are you alright?" he breathlessly answered the call, his worry blatant.

"Yeah. My throat just feels like I've been smoking cigarettes for 24 hours straight," Dean's voice came over the line, almost too hoarse and low to be properly identified.

Unnerved not only by the quality of Dean's voice but by his brother's admission of discomfort, Sam sat up, clutched the phone tighter in his hand. "You still in the hospital?" he asked, because Dean sounded like he should be.

"Nah, sprang myself."

"Against doctor's orders," Sam concluded more than accused.

"It there any other way to go?"

"Where are we meeting?" Sam demanded, standing up, hand diving into his pocket to make sure the rental car keys were still there.

"Sam, we're not supposed to meet. You know, in case someone sees us together," Dean tried to come across smug but his voice wasn't up to that kind of charade.

Being able to easily detect the exhaustion in his brother's raw voice did nothing to alleviate Sam's need to see his brother, to take stock of his brother's health with his own five senses. "Forget it, Dean! We're meeting! And if you don't specify a place, I'm going to come to your motel room and I don't care if anyone from the race track sees me there."

"Alright, alright. Don't get your blood pressure up. Fine. We can meet under one condition," Dean negotiated, let his demand hang in the air until Sam made a reply.

"What's that?" Sam warily asked, knowing that he probably wasn't going to like the condition his brother was imposing. He rarely did.

"You don't say, 'I told you so.'"

Sam's free hand swept the air in frustration. "Dean! You almost died today…in a fire! This isn't a game of who is right or wrong!"

"'Kay," Dean mumbled back as if he had yielded his right to his demand instead of having won the concession.

Before Sam could make a suggestion of where to meet, a knock came at his door. "Crap, someone's here," he lowly hissed into the phone, wondering who would have tracked him down. "Stay on the line Dean!" he growled as he crossed over to the door and opened it.

Standing outside Sam's door, wearing a smug smile on his pale face, enjoying his brother's gawking expression, Dean flipped his phone closed.

"I told you so, Dean!" Sam thundered, his right hand shooting out to latch onto Dean's shoulder, yanking his brother none too gently into his room before he kicked the door shut.

Struggling to regain his balance, Dean straightened up to his full height to stand toe to toe with his little brother. "Hey, you promised to not say that!"

"Oh, I never promised," Sam snarled back, mimicking Dean's defense…right before he climbed into the race car that day and nearly got himself killed. "Sit down," he directed even as he shoved Dean backward to tumble onto the nearest bed.

"Dude, don't shove me!" Dean tried to growl out but his voice betrayed him with a squeak midway.

Towering over his now seated brother, Sam felt his voice rise with his emotions, "What I should do is knock your head from your shoulders. You knew I didn't want you driving on that track! But you did it anyway!"

"Tim told me to," Dean deflected with a quick smile, felt a smidgen of guilt for throwing the mechanic into the mix but this was war and in war one used all of one's resources.

But Sam snorted at that implication. "Yeah, right. 'Cause taking orders from people other than Dad has always been your strong suit."

Meeting Sam's glaring eyes head on Dean admitted, "Fine, he asked and I wanted to do it, Sam. How's that? Honest enough for you?"

"You jerk! You almost died!" Sam roared. Having known the truth before his brother spoke it did little to temper his fury, to break apart the terror that still had its claws in his heart. Seeing Dean gearing up to make a defense, Sam ruthlessly cut him off. "Don't you dare tell me danger is your middle name or that it wasn't close or any other lies! Between the steering wheel freezing, the brakes going out and the fire, it's against all the odds that you're even alive!"

Noting the trembling in his brother hands, recognizing the haunted look in Sam's eyes, Dean felt some of his anger dissipate, let compassion and affection for his brother soften his next words. "Sam, it was a spirit, alright. I threw salt on the steering wheel and it freed up. If anyone else test drove that car instead of me, they would have hit the wall. They would have died, Sam." Needing Sam to see that what he had done, what he had risked had meant something, had saved someone, had been all in the line of duty.

Tiredly, Sam shook his head, "So once again it's OK if you almost die…just so long as it's not someone else, some stranger's life in danger."

"Sam, it's our job to protect…"

"Others but not you, right. Protect me but not yourself," Sam quietly accused.

"I took a friggin' joyride, Sam! Don't blow this into something it's not!" Dean countered heatedly, defensive now that Sam had made it personal, had incorporated a million of the issues they had between them into the argument.

"Yeah, joyride…on a possessed track!"

"Kinda fitting in my line of work, Sam. Look if all you want to do is yell at me, I'm leaving," Dean tiredly said, ready to push himself off the bed but Sam stepped closer, cut off his escape route.

"No," Sam quickly pleaded, eyes shifting from anger to concern, to need. "I'm sorry, alright. But seeing you in that car, heading for a wall and then when it started on fire.." his voice cracked on the last word and his eyes purposefully shied away from Dean's.

Beginning to understand what was truly prompting his brother's anger, Dean gently apologized, "Yeah, sorry that it went that way, Sammy," hand reaching out to slap the side of Sam's leg. " I know …fire..it's…" but his words were cut off as the tickle in his throat sputtered into a painful bout of coughing that bent him over.

Quickly slipping away to the bathroom, Sam returned a moment later with a glass of water. Letting his hand come to rest on Dean's back, he held out the glass, nearly put it into his brother's hand and wrapped Dean's fingers around it. Crouching down beside Dean, Sam watched anxiously as Dean took a sip only to sputter harder. Grimacing at his brother's discomfort and his own helplessness, Sam said nothing, only drew closer to Dean, slid his hand up to massage the back of his broher's neck as Dean struggled to loosen the constriction in his lungs.

When he could finally draw in a breath, Dean rasped, "That was fun," chagrined that, for a few moments there, he had wished that the old lady with the oxygen mask had been nearby.

"Yeah, sounded like it," Sam softly said, his sympathy evidence in his tone and the look he bestowed upon his brother.

Tentatively swallowing some water, Dean nearly sighed in relief as the coolness slid down his throat, eased some of the raw tenderness the coughing had caused. Feeling Sam's eyes on him, he met Sam's gaze, saw the worry in his brother's eyes before Sam shuffled his expression, withdrew his hand from his back and sat back on his hunches.

Sitting up now that his body was no longer attempting to shove his lungs up his throat, Dean sat the empty glass on the bedside table. "So, now that we know for certain that this is one of our gigs, we have to start researching previous deaths on the track, see whose spirit is still sticking around and is pretty pissed off if 6 accidents are any indication."

"Seven," Sam corrected quietly. But at Dean's protesting look at his accident being added to the tally, Sam stood up, crossed over to the other bed, the bed that would have normally been Dean's and scooped up a stack of computer printouts. "I have been looking, Dean, and like most of the driver's have told me, the track's been pretty blest in the past twenty years. No deaths, even the serious accidents the drivers have walked away from, were back racing in a month or so. And when I looked at the track's casualty record before that…" shuffling the printouts until he found the one he wanted, he looked up at Dean. "Except for some race car owner having a heart attack, there haven't been any deaths on the track for nearly fifty years."

"Until a couple months ago. Oh, that's great," Dean groused. "So basically we got nothing."

"Yeah, seems like it."

Pushing to his feet, Dean sent Sam a warning as his brother started to step forward, hands raised as if to grab him. Waiting until Sam halted and dropped his hands, Dean said, "Well, guess we'll just have to keep doing what we're doing," starting to head for the door.

Behind Dean's back, Sam bit his lip, struggled to not ask Dean to stay awhile longer, to make up some excuse for his brother to not leave just yet. Instead he tersely charged, "This pretending to be strangers, it sucks, Dean."

With his hand reaching for the door, Dean swung around at his brother's words, surprise in his eyes, even objection. For a moment Dean almost challenged Sam's sentiment, almost reminded Sam of his love for 'method acting', almost said that he thought Sam would jump at the chance to disown him…to disown his family. But the affectionate look in Sam's eyes stopped him, shamed him, made him realize that, as much as he thought he understood his brother, sometimes he didn't know him at all.

"After this job we aren't doing it again, Dean. You got it," Sam commanded in the silence that had fallen, taking advantage of his brother's obvious perplexity at his confession. When Dean didn't react, simply stared at him as if he didn't understand his words, Sam took a step closer to Dean and forged his tone with steel, "You got it, Dean. Never again. Dean?!"

"Yeah, yeah, never again," Dean grumpily replied, waving a hand in the air as if to dismiss the notion as soon as he agreed.

There were some things worth arguing about, worth fighting for and Sam suddenly knew this point was one of them. "Promise me for real," he lowly demanded, eyes locked onto Dean's.

At his brother's tenacity, Dean sighed, "Come on, Sam. This is childish."

"And promise me you won't drive on that track again," Sam tacked on, hoping Dean couldn't see he was holding his breath as he waited for his capitulation.

Instead of replying, Dean turned around and started to open the door, was surprised when Sam's hand suddenly impacted against the door, slamming it.

"I want your word," Sam insisted as he sandwiched himself between Dean and the wall, his shoulder now resting heavily against the door.

Meeting Sam's intense gaze head on, Dean angrily denied, "Forget it, Sam!" Feeling like he was barely keeping his head above water as it was with the promise his father had exacted from him, he bitterly confessed, "I'm full up on promises and keeping my word. I'll do what I have to do to get the job done."

Recognizing that a line had been drawn between him and Dean, a line he couldn't cross and hope to keep his relationship with his brother intact, Sam relented sullenly, "Fine." Withdrawing from his brother's side, allowing Dean free access to the door, Sam waited until Dean had stepped out of the door before he spoke. "You know I've been wanting a real feel for the track myself. You know, for my magazine article. I think I'm going to take Rook up on his offer to let me take his car for a few laps."

Swiveling around, Dean began, "Sam…" a dark warning in his tone and glimmering in his eyes.

"Night, Dean," Sam cut him off and shut the door in his brother's face.

Hands fisted, Dean shouted through the door, "If that's the way you wanna play it, fine, Sam," before he walked to the Impala, fired up the engine and tore up the macadam as he sent the car barreling from the motel's parking lot.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

TBC

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

OK there were a few brotherly moments in there. I promise more to come.

I might have another chapter up this week..of course kind words do wonders for my desire to post.

Thanks for still reading and reviewing!

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.