"Bobby!" Sam said excitedly into the phone.
"What's goin' on?" the older man asked, sounding a little harried.
Which, he had a right to. Half the night strange things had been happening in his house. Whatever was going on, he'd decided that it wasn't Loki, because it seemed a little too centralized around Alex and not bothering anyone else. If not for the goat incident, he'd've thought it was a poltergeist, bothering her because she was so upset over Dean...
"Dean! He's awake, Bobby!" Sam said, too happy to even notice the other man's tone. "Bring Alex; come on. He's not even hurt; they're gonna sign him out today."
"Not even hurt?" Bobby asked suspiciously. "That don't sound right..."
"Yeah, I know; docs said it was a miracle. Come on, hurry!" he said, hanging up the phone.
Bobby turned to Alex.
"All right, Ladybug, Dean's awake, an' he can come home today." Bobby said to her.
Alex squealed. "Oh! We have go now!"
"Yeah, come on, darlin'." Bobby nodded.
In the back of his mind, however, he thought, "Johnny-boy, what have you done?"
When they got to the hospital, everyone was standing up in John's room, talking at once. John wasn't there... Alex raced to Dean's side, and he put an arm around her, his hand knotting in her hair, which seemed to be going everywhere today.
"What happened in here?" Bobby demanded.
"Mr. Winchester appears to have suffered a heart attack." the nurse said quietly to Bobby.
"Yeah... can you just... leave for a little bit? Give us some privacy?" Sam asked quietly.
The nurse nodded and walked out, closing the door behind her.
"Heart attack my ass." Dean growled.
"What happened, son?"
"He's... he dropped dead." Sam said dully. "And, the gun was gone. We think the demon got him."
Alex dug her fingers into Dean's shirt, burying her face into his side, and Dean cupped the back of her head tightly.
"I'm here. I'm... not even a bruise. You can't tell me him dying and that on the same day is just a coincidence."
"Nobody would try." Sam said softly. "I already said I thought the demon got him---"
"The demon didn't 'get' him, genius; he gave himself to it." Dean spat.
Sam nodded. "Right."
"We have to get the body, take it out, salt and burn the bones. That's what he would've wanted; hunter's funeral." Dean said briskly, as if he were talking about anything other than his father's death.
"Boy, ya don't hafta take this on alone like that..." Bobby sighed.
"It's fine, Bobby." Dean shrugged. "I've got it. It's my job." he said with an air of finality, and walked out of the room.
Sam sighed; Dean always did that. Put on his "game face", bottle up everything. He didn't do the talking stuff; that was more Sammy's department. And, Sam would probably keep poking at him with a stick until he exploded like a loose grenade, Bobby thought. Tick, tick, tick...