Contact, ch. 7
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"It's good to see you a little more awake. Your brother's been worried."
Sam's eyes moved to Dean, then back to the doctor, before shifting to Jo off to the side. His expression changed, slight surprise again, like maybe he'd forgotten she'd been there earlier. Dean wondered if he should be concerned, but when the doctor glanced over at Jo, then to Dean, he nodded, clearly pleased.
He addressed Sam. "You remember Mrs. Sweed, Sam?"
Sam's brows drew down, and he nodded.
Jo's eyes filled, and she sniffed, moving past the doctor, back to the far side of the bed. She picked up Sam's hand carefully and held it. Dean saw Sam's fingers tighten slightly around Jo's, and his eyes rested on her for a minute before he drew in a shaky breath and refocused on the doctor.
"So, what's next Doc?" Dean asked.
"Well." The doctor reached up and unslung the stethoscope around his neck. "I'm going to check vitals and responses." He looked at Sam, including him in the discussion. "Sam, has your brother told you what happened?"
It took Sam a longer moment than is should have, but he nodded.
"He talked to you about the injury to your brain? And the possibility that there may be some issues related to that damage?"
Again, Sam nodded, eyes seeking out his brother before meeting the doctor's again. His mouth worked, but nothing came out and his lips tightened in frustration, anger beginning to show itself on his face.
Jo yelped. "Ow!" She flinched around the hand Sam was holding, pulling free when Sam released her abruptly. She breathed out a laugh, shaking out her hand a little bit. "Easy, sugar." She touched him gently on the cheek. "Your grip's still strong anyway," she teased, taking Sam's again.
Sam let out a shaky breath. His lips moved around what should have been "sorry," but wasn't.
Jo answered the sentiment anyway. "It's okay, honey."
"I know how frustrating this is, Sam," the doctor said. "You know what you want to say, right?" He looked at Sam, raising an eyebrow, and Sam nodded. "It's getting the words out that's the problem?" Again, Sam nodded.
The doctor made a considering face. "It's possible we're dealing with some degree of aphasia. You're understanding what's being said around you and you know what you want to communicate, but your brain's not making the connection between what it wants to say and the muscles that the mouth needs to work to get that information out."
Dean felt something cold and heavy lodge in his gut and he knew – when he looked at Sam's face – that his brother was feeling the same thing. Sam unable to communicate was wrong on so many levels. Dean shook himself internally and patted Sam's chest carefully. Sam's head turned toward him.
"We'll figure it out, Sam." Dean slid out of the way as the doctor moved up, ready to get to the task at hand.
The doctor put the eartips for the stethoscope into his ears. "We'll run some tests to see about brain function and mobility and get Sam started on PT for his leg and speech therapy." He patted Sam on the leg briefly before putting the cold, round chestpiece on Sam's sternum over his gown. "I'm very encouraged, Sam," he said. "Now take a deep breath for me."
Sam obeyed carefully, wincing at the pressure on his bruised ribs, attention on Dean, even as he followed the doctor's instructions.
We'll figure it out.
xxxx
"Where's Sam?" Luke asked as he strolled into the room with his hat in his hand. He was dressed in jeans and boots and a crisp white button-down shirt. He, Jo, Tommy, and Michael had gone to the 9:15 service at the church the boys attended. Michael – wearing his usual scrubs for a shift after church – had mocked his uncle for "dressing up."
Luke had turned to Dean. "We went to church with the boys this summer, and there were grown men wearing shorts and flip-flops," he'd said. "Grown. Men." Luke had repeated it slowly so that Dean could understand the depth of his disapproval. He'd shaken his head mock-despairingly. "Austin."
"It's solid preaching and good worship," Jo had contributed as she'd come into the living area wearing exactly what she would have worn to their small, conservative church at home. "Even if they meet in a school gym, and I have to wear earplugs when the band is playing."
Michael and Jake and Tommy had all rolled their eyes.
Jake had announced he would go to a later service – he had a study group meeting in the morning – and had dropped Dean at the hospital before heading to the library.
"He's got PT," Dean told Luke.
It had been a couple of days since Sam had woken up and the hospital staff was serious about getting Sam up and around and building strength in his broken leg. There was speech therapy each day, too, trying to help Sam communicate more effectively. It had been rough going. For everyone.
Nodding, Luke hung his hat on the back of one chair, picked up the big, blue bear Jake and Tommy had bought for Sam out of the other, and took its place. He held it on his lap for a minute before finally setting it gently on the floor against the wall next to him, making sure it was facing the bed. Tommy and Jake were insistent that Blue Bear, as they'd imaginatively named the monstrosity, be treated kindly and respectably. They took it strangely personally if someone, say, happened to toss the stuffed animal into a corner to get it out of the way. Luke had obviously decided it was easier to play along.
"How's he doing this morning?" Luke stretched his legs out as he got settled.
At this point, Sam's PT sessions were fairly short, primarily intended to get Sam moving and started putting weight on the broken leg. Even so, he was usually exhausted when they brought him back to the room.
Dean shrugged. "Not excited about the work out."
Added to the pain that came from his healing leg, Sam's head was hurting him badly. Sam may not be able to communicate well when he needed relief, but Dean already had a lifetime's experience reading his brother's tells. He was doing what he could to help Sam stay ahead of the pain.
Luke nodded again. "Jo's going to cook something this afternoon and bring it by for his dinner tonight. See if she can tempt him."
Dean smiled slightly. "He'll like that."
Sam had been cleared for regular food but hadn't been enthusiastic about what the hospital had to offer. Though that could be the medications having an impact on his appetite. It was hard to tell, especially since Sam was limited to nodding or shaking his head in answer to questions.
They'd tried having him write out questions and responses the day before, but what Sam had managed to produce hadn't made sense – random letters or words that were unrelated to what Sam had been trying to say. He'd gotten so frustrated he'd tried to hurl the pen across the room. Sadly he was still so weak, the toss had gotten the pen only as far as the end of his bed. Which hadn't helped Sam's mood at all.
"Where's Tommy?" Dean knew Michael was at the hospital for work.
"At the apartment with Jo getting quizzed on Pride and Prejudice."
Dean grimaced. He didn't remember having to read that in high school, though maybe he had and just forgotten. Of course, he'd dropped out before senior year, so he probably hadn't gotten that far in English lit. Thank God. He dropped his head back against the chair.
"How are you doing?" Luke gave him a sharp look.
Dean shrugged. It was easier to stay focused on Sam than his own continued exhaustion and sore throat. There wasn't much he could do to help himself anyway, so there didn't seem like any point in talking about it.
Luke just shook his head at the non-answer, reading it for the deflection it was.
They sat in comfortable silence for a while until Sam was wheeled back into the room. Sam looked grim and the PT determinedly pleasant as they got him settled. Dean followed the woman out into the hall after she said good-bye to Sam.
"Bad session?" he asked.
The woman took a deep breath and blew it out. But she smiled reassuringly. "He's understandably frustrated and angry. But that's part of this – for him and for me. He did everything that I asked of him, even if he wasn't very happy about it." She patted Dean on the arm. "Don't worry." She turned away. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Dean watched her go, trying to decide if a bad attitude toward PT was something he should address with Sam. Before he could reach a conclusion, he saw Jake and Michael approaching down the hall.
"Hey." Jake looked at Dean shrewdly. "Everything OK?" The kid was disconcertingly perceptive when it came to reading other people.
Dean shook himself. "Yeah. Fine." He led the way back into the room. "You done studying?"
Jake huffed out a breath. "I wish. Just taking a break for some food." He was holding a bag of what smelled like hamburgers. "Figured I could get some studying done with Sam while you go home to take a nap."
Dean didn't even fight the Sweeds' bossing him around anymore when they were determined to get him away from the hospital for a while. There were too many of them crammed into Sam's room anyway. And he was dragging. He'd get Luke to take him home after they ate.
Michael was pulling things out of bags and the four men who weren't currently confined to a bed found places to perch around the room.
Dean cut Sam's burger into pieces while his brother glowered at him. Dean mostly ignored him. "You want to pick them up yourself or do you want me to hand them to you?" Sam's face darkened, and Dean amended, "Do you want to pick it up yourself?" Yes/no questions.
Sam nodded and reached for a piece of hamburger. His hand trembled visibly, but Sam managed to get a grip on what he wanted. Dean balled his own hands into fists to keep from reaching out and just doing it for his brother. The way Sam was holding the chunk of hamburger, he wouldn't actually be able to get it in his mouth easily.
Sam frowned at the food in his hand, concentrating hard; it took him a long minute to figure out the best way to hold the food in order to get it to his mouth most effectively, but he did it, adjusting his grip a couple of times before bringing the bite to his mouth.
Dean had to consciously resist the urge to clap when Sam got a bite. And he let go of the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. If the exhalations of air around the room were any indication, Dean hadn't been the only one who hadn't been breathing.
"So." Luke took a bite of his own meal. "What actually brought you boys to town?" He looked at Michael and Jake. "Do we know that?"
Dean blinked in surprise. The fact that the Winchesters' presence in Austin hadn't come up said something about the extent of Sam's injuries and Dean's own illness.
Dean looked at Sam who was regarding him steadily, chewing determinedly.
"The house that collapsed on Sam—which, by the way," Dean gave his brother a jaundiced look, "we're going to have to talk about at some point," Sam continued chewing blandly, "was – is – haunted."
"Is that why it collapsed?" Jake asked. He had found a way to balance on the deep window ledge across from the bed.
Dean shrugged and – out of habit – glanced at his brother, who, to Dean's surprise, shook his head slightly in the negative. Dean frowned. "You remember what happened?"
Sam swallowed his bite, then nodded.
"So no ghostly activity before it came down?"
"No?" Dean said it in response to Sam's shaking of his head again; Sam made a face. "As far as you know?" Dean added, and Sam nodded. "Huh." Now Dean shook his head. "What were you even doing in there, man?" he asked, then waved off his own question. "Never mind." He sighed.
"You figure it's still haunted?" Michael had found a spot in the corner and to Dean's surprise was almost done with his burger. He'd gotten in the habit of eating quickly during his time in hospitals.
"Hard to know," Dean admitted. "The structure's mostly down, I guess, but it's not gone." He slid his eyes to Sam. "Like if we burned it." He wondered if Sam would make the connection to the Hell House all those years ago. Wondered how he'd know if Sam did.
"You're not burning the house down." Luke sounded alarmed.
Sam blinked at Dean, frowning as he thought, then his eyes rolled, and he shook his head – whether in disgust at Dean's attempt to get a rise out of him or to indicate that "no" Dean shouldn't burn the remains of the house down—was hard to tell. Though Dean would bet on the former.
"Does that work?" Michael asked curiously.
Dean shrugged. "We did it once a long time ago and haven't heard of any more activity there, so … maybe."
"You are not burning anything down," Luke reiterated, more forcefully this time.
"Yeah, probably not," Dean agreed. "We were on the track of figuring out who we needed to salt and burn before things went to hell. Plus, there's way too much activity there with the house collapse."
Jake looked at Michael then back at Dean. "We could help. What do you need to do?"
Nodding, Michael sat forward.
Dean looked at Luke to see what his reaction was going to be to that offer.
"We don't need Luke's permission, dude," Jake said dryly. "We're a grown men, believe it or not."
Oh, right. Dean was still getting used to that.
Luke didn't look particularly pleased with the idea, but he nodded. "It's true. They've been making their own decisions for a while now." He shrugged. "And neither of them has done anything so stupid it's been irreparable." He shot a pointed glance at Jake. "Yet."
Dean considered, looking at Sam absently while he thought it through. "Sam had started on the research and was getting close, I think." Sam nodded, chewing determinedly on his last bite of the hamburger. He eyed the onion rings Dean had placed before him consideringly.
"You want me to cut those for you?" Dean asked, already reaching to do it. "We can look at the notes Sam made, see what the next …"
Sam brought his hand down on the rolling tray that was situated over his lap with a sharp smack.
Dean and everyone else in the room jumped.
"Did you have something to contribute, Sam?" Luke asked wryly.
Sam's eyes were wide, and he snapped clumsily, pointing at Dean.
Dean's eyebrows went up. "Had you figured out who the ghost was?"
Sam's head bobbed.
"Who?" Dean asked without thinking, grimacing in frustration even as Sam brought his hand down again, rattling the tray. "I know, I know. Sorry." Dean ran a hand agitatedly over his head. "How…?"
Sam's hand smacked the tray again and, man, that was going to get annoying fast.
"What?" Dean snapped.
Sam made a fumbling gesture like he was writing and as Jake was scrambling through his backpack, looking for a pen, Dean growled, "Dude, writing hasn't worked. What…?"
Sam raised his hand, clearly about to whack the table again when Dean reached out and snagged his brother's wrist. "Stop. Doing that."
Sam jerked his arm away and the two men glared at each other, both frustrated and exhausted.
"Is the name in your notes, maybe, Sam?" Michael asked.
Now Sam pointed at Michael. Then cut a glower at his brother. See, he seemed to be saying. He got it.
Dean huffed. "Fine." He closed his eyes, thinking through next steps. "I just dumped everything in your laptop bag. I'll go get it – is the name on the computer or did you write it down?" Dean felt the tiredness he'd been holding at bay since before lunch wash over him, and he sighed heavily, realizing he'd need to go back to the apartment, then drag himself back to the hospital, and….
"Do we need to do this right now?" Luke's question broke through Dean's somewhat haphazard thought process. "There's no deadline, is there? Dean, you're about to fall out of that chair; you need to rest first. Then we'll take on this ghost."
Dean rubbed at his eyes. That was probably a good idea. This damned mono was a complete pain in his ass. "Yeah," he agreed. "That OK, Sammy?" He was a little concerned that Sam, in his frustration, was not going to be pleased about a delay, and he braced himself for his brother's reaction.
But Sam's narrowed eyes when Dean looked over at him weren't angry; they were assessing, calculating, really looking closely at Dean, finally taking in what Dean knew was pale skin and dark circles under his eyes. He looked like crap. And Sam had just realized it was more than simply the usual worry associated with his being in the hospital.
The motion when Sam's hand came down on the tray this time was questioning, two gentle slaps. What is going on with you? Sam's frown was concerned, but insistent.
Dean sighed. "You remember that I was sick before this whole mess happened?" Sam nodded. "Well. Turns out I've got mono," Dean said begrudgingly. Sam's eyebrows went way up, and Dean could read the mockery in his brother's eyes.
"Shut up," he grumbled.
Sam's expression sobered, and he studied his brother.
"There's nothing to do about it, Sam." Dean responded to the question he figured Sam was thinking. "Just rest and fluids and all that crap."
Sam looked at the other men in the room, frown deepening slightly into a scowl.
"We're doing what we can, man," Jake defended them. "It's not like we can tie him up and make him rest."
Sam cocked an eyebrow at him.
Jake's eyes went from Sam's face to Dean's. "Can we?" Jake asked thoughtfully.
"No," Dean said emphatically. "You can't. I just said I'd rest, didn't I?" He rubbed a hand over his head. "We'll track down the spook later this afternoon."
"After your nap, you mean?" Jake asked sweetly. Michael had started wadding up the wrappers for his food and stuffing them in the paper bag. He gathered up his brother's and Luke's, reaching for Dean's.
Sam did them the favor of not slapping the table this time, just tapped it insistently with his index finger. When Dean looked at his brother, Sam nudged the onion rings he'd pushed in front of Dean earlier.
Dean frowned, not understanding. Sam scooched the onion rings forward another inch. Oh. Right. Dean picked up a plastic knife and sawed them into more manageable bites before shoving them back in front of Sam.
Sam reached out with a shaking hand and got an unsteady hold on a piece before moving it into his mouth. He watched Dean closely as he chewed and swallowed, then pointed at the door. Go.
Dean hesitated and considered protesting just on principle, but he was too tired to make the effort. He pushed himself slowly to his feet.
Luke did the same. "We'll reconvene the ghost-busting committee later this afternoon," he said shaking his head and picking up his hat. "By the way – no mention of this to Tommy. I'll talk to Jo, but he's not part of this."
There were agreeing nods around the room.
"We should meet this evening, not this afternoon" Jake said, moving the chair Luke had been sitting in to the position he liked it when he was studying. "Dean has to rest, then we'll all have to eat, and I've got church."
Dean raised an eyebrow at the younger man.
"What? I've got stuff I have to do at church, and I'm not missing this." He said it emphatically. "It'll have to be late before we can do anything anyway, right?"
That was true enough. And it would probably be easier to work around Tommy if they didn't all troop off to do something together while leaving the kid behind in the middle of the day. Dean shrugged at Luke, who nodded.
Jake grinned. "Yes!" He sounded like the kid he'd recently denied he was.
Sam's eyes came to Dean's from across the room, and he was smiling. The curve of his lips was slight and oddly tremulous, like his mouth wasn't exactly sure what it should be doing, but it was there.
Dean felt the corners of his own mouth tug up in response and he shook his head.
"Fine."
xxxx