Disclaimer: I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.
Thanks go to SnarkyMuch2 for beta'ing this and for telling me it was worth posting.
I was blown away by the response the first chapter got. Thank you to everyone that reviewed. You all made me so happy with your kind words.
Chapter Two
Garth wasn't being entirely altruistic when he told Dean to go in the ambulance. He wanted a break from Dean so he could marshal his thoughts. He was in shock after everything that happened, and there was still more to come. Dean needed to know everything that had happened at the motel, and it wasn't going to be an easy conversation for either of them. Garth hoped Dean would be distracted by Sam long enough for Garth to come up with a gentle way to tell him he beat down on his brother.
He watched the ambulance pull away and then climbed into his beat up old Ranchero. He gunned the engine and flicked off the radio. He didn't want music pounding his ears right now; he had other things to worry about.
The drive to the hospital only took a few minutes, and soon he was walking through the emergency room doors. He searched the waiting room for a sign of Dean, but he was nowhere in sight.
He made his way to the reception desk to enquire about Sam when his attention was caught by shouting through the main doors. A second later, Dean came flying through the doors followed by two burly looking orderlies.
"Well, screw you too!" Dean bellowed.
Garth ran to his side, and gripped his arm. "Dean, what's happening?"
"They won't let me see Sam!" Dean snarled.
"Sir, he's being tended to right now. You will only be in the doctor's way in there. You need to stay out here. Someone will come talk to you when there is news."
Dean surged forward, as if he was about to attack the orderly that had spoken, but Garth wrapped his arms around his chest and pulled him back.
"Calm down!" he said forcefully.
"Did you hear them?" Dean demanded.
"Yeah, I heard them, and I heard what they said. They'll tell us when there's news. All that you're doing by kicking off his taking people away that could be helping Sam."
Garth words reached Dean like nothing else could. By keeping these people from Sam, he was putting him at risk. He slackened in Garth's grip, and allowed himself to be led to the bank of chairs lining the room. He sat down stiffly, keeping his back ramrod straight, ready to jump into action at a moment's notice.
"Feeling better?" Garth asked.
Dean turned to face him and scowled. As if anything could be better while Sam was behind that wall, barely clinging onto life.
"Stupid question," Garth amended. "How's he doing?"
Dean looked down at the floor. "He coded again in the ambulance. They had to shock him." Dean couldn't find words to convey the horror he had felt as the alarms had screamed and the EMT had worked frantically to save Sam. There were no words.
"They got him back though, right?" Garth didn't think an army of orderlies would have been able to drag Dean away from his brother if the answer was no.
"Yeah. It took a couple of goes, but they got his heart going again." Dean shuddered. The memory of those minutes waiting crept in on him, and he felt like his heart was being squeezed in his chest. It was horror so great it was a physical entity.
"That's good," Garth said in a rallying tone. "They'll take good care of him, Dean. Don't worry."
Dean knew Garth was only trying to help, but his platitudes did nothing but annoy him. How could he not worry after everything he had seen happen to Sam in the last hour? His brother had died, dammit, twice. If there was ever a time to worry, it was now.
Dean bowed his head and clasped his hands between his knees. To an outsider, he looked like he was praying. He wasn't praying though. He knew there was no one listening. What he was doing was mentally willing his brother to pull through. He focused all his thought on that simple wish.
"Do you want something?" Garth asked, at a loss for something to do. He wasn't good at tense moments like this. His instinct was to try and comfort Dean, but he didn't know the words to use.
"No thanks," Dean said tonelessly.
"I think I'll get us some coffee," Garth said. He got to his feet, and disappeared through a door to the main hospital lobby where Dean knew from his earlier visit to the hospital there was a coffee cart.
Glad of the chance to be alone, Dean lifted his head and looked around the large room. There were people all sitting in chairs, some with minor injuries, some chaperoning the injured, and others like him, waiting for news of a loved one.
Dean felt tears prick at his eyes, but he refused them their release. To cry would make him feel a little better, and he had no right to feel better. Something terrible had happened to Sam. And he had a secret fear that it was his fault. His knuckles hurt, and his jaw ached. He had been fighting, just like Sam looked like he had been fighting. Somehow, whatever that penny had made him do, had caused this nightmare.
A nurse came through the doors, and Dean recognized her from the trauma room he had been forcibly evicted from.
Dean jumped to his feet as the nurse approached. "How is he?" he asked at once.
"Sam is in critical condition," the nurse said. "They are taking him down for a CT scan now."
"What's wrong with him?" Dean asked.
"There are signs of a bleed in the brain. We believe it is a result of the trauma he suffered."
The strength was stolen from Dean's legs. He sank down onto the chair again and buried his face in his hands. He had a hundred questions, but no voice with which to ask them. He felt weak and shaky. All he was capable of doing was asking in a childlike tone, "Will he be okay?"
"We're doing all we can. If they find a bleed, they will take him straight down to surgery."
"Brain surgery?" Dean asked tremulously.
"It's not nearly as scary as it sounds. Depending on where the bleeds and how bad it is, they will use either a craniotomy or trephination."
"I'm hearing a lot of scary words here," Dean said. "All I want to know is if my brother's going to be okay."
"We're doing all we can," the nurse said again. "He's a fighter though. He's come this far. You have to have faith that he will make it the rest of the way through."
"Faith…" Dean sighed. Sam was the one who had faith, or at least used to. Dean didn't know what he believed in anymore. All Dean knew was that God did exist but he was prepared to sit back on earth and let his children tear the world apart in some macho pissing contest. Dean found it hard to have faith in that kind of God. "I don't have faith in anything anymore."
"Have faith in Sam," the nurse said. "He's fighting to stay with you."
Her words gave Dean some small measure of comfort, and he nodded to her. Sam was fighting. That was the important thing.
The nurse patted him on the arm, and stood. "There is a private waiting room, located off the main ER. Would you prefer to wait there?"
"Please," Dean said, getting to his feet again. "There's a guy with me. He's a tall kid, kind of gawky looking. Dressed like an extra in an Indiana Jones movie. Can you tell him where I've gone?"
"Is that him?"
Dean looked in the direction she was pointing, and he saw Garth coming back to him, holding two cups of coffee. He paused midstep as he saw Dean with the nurse, and Dean gestured him forward.
"Is everything okay?" Garth asked.
"We've got ourselves a private waiting room," Dean explained.
Garth nodded enthusiastically and beamed at the nurse. "Okay then."
They followed her through the double doors and onto the main ER wing. The corridor was lined with curtained off cubicles, and from behind the curtains, there were occasional groans. The place made Dean's skin crawl, and he was glad to get to the end of the hall.
The nurse opened a door and gestured them in ahead of her.
Dean looked around the small room. It was decorated in pastels, and had comfy looking couches. As nice as the room looked, he couldn't help but think it looked like the kind of place doctors brought family members to deliver bad news.
He sat on the edge of one of the couches, and took the cup of coffee Garth held out to him.
Sipping at the burning liquid, he filled Garth in on what the nurse had said.
"That's good, right?" Garth said. "They're taking him for a scan, which means they think they know what's wrong with him."
"Yeah, they think it's a bleed in the brain."
Garth chewed his bottom lip. He knew how bad a brain bleed could be and the risks involved.
"What is it?" Dean asked, seeing Garth's troubled expression. "What are you thinking?"
"Nothing." Garth shook his head jerkily.
Dean turned angry eyes on him. "Tell me or I swear I'll beat you down. That's my brother in there, and if you know what's happening to him, I need to know, too."
Garth raised his hands in front of him. He didn't want Dean to follow through with his threat, and he knew he was more than capable of doing it. He had seen the proof of Dean's temper in the motel.
"It's bad, Dean," he said quietly. "Sam's in trouble."
"I worked that much out for myself, thanks. Watching your brother die in front of you twice is a clue that all's not good. But they're going to operate. Then he'll be fine, right?"
Garth nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, I'm sure once they've drained the blood, Sam will be fine."
He was lying through his teeth. There were serious consequences for a bleed as bad as Sam's, and Garth knew it. And it had been a bad bleed to cause Sam to seize and his heart to stop. Garth was being a coward, and he didn't deny it, but he didn't want to be the one to deliver that blow to Dean. That was the doctor's responsibility.
They allowed the silence to lengthen before Dean spoke again. "I guess I owe you my thanks. You were brilliant back at the motel. You stayed calm and in control. Don't get me wrong, I know CPR, but I lost my head back there. You saved Sam's life."
Garth looked a little uncomfortable under Dean's heady praise. "It's all in the training, Dean."
"Training?"
"I'm a certified EMT," Garth said simply. "I got my certification about a year ago. Just after you guys disappeared. People were calling on me about demons and fuglys, and I didn't always know what to tell them. Once I taught myself everything I could about them, I moved onto humans. I figured it was best to be prepared."
"Yeah, Bobby used to know all the medical stuff for us," Dean said sadly.
"Exactly. I didn't know what to tell people, so I went out a learned what I needed to know."
"That's pretty impressive, Garth," Dean said, drawn from his fear for Sam for a moment.
Garth blushed. "It was nothing. I recommend it to anyone though. You need to know how to take care of yourself."
"As soon as Sammy's back on his feet, we'll look into it," Dean said. He made that a promise, taking comfort in that day of normalcy in the future to look forward to. When Sam was back on his feet and this nightmare was forgotten.
Silence set in between them again. Both of their thoughts were with Sam. They were wondering what was happening to him, and what would happen when they woke again. Dean was contemplating all he would say to Sam when they saw him again, how he would give him hell for scaring him like this. Garth on the other hand, took a more dour view. He was wondering how bad the consequences of the day's events would be.