Chapter Text
When Sam wakes up again, Bobby’s sitting next to his bed.
He comes awake all at once, sucking in a breath and sitting up and wiping at his face with his left hand. “Bobby?” he says, confused. “What’re you doing here?”
Bobby snorts. “I was babysitting,” he says, shifting his jacket to one side enough for Sam to see the pistol attached to his hip. “But seeing's how you’re getting released as soon as the doc gets another look at that thick skull of yours, I’m gonna be playing chauffeur in an hour or so.”
Sam has to admit that he feels better—his head and shoulder still hurt, but not as fiercely, and the nausea is all but gone—but he stiffens in alarm at that. “What? No, I can’t leave. Dean’s—”
“Not going anywhere. Your daddy’s with him now.” Heaving himself up from the chair he was sitting in, Bobby goes over to the dresser, where Sam belatedly notices there’s a bulging, brown paper bag. “Gave him a couple of things he can use in a pinch.”
Not any guns, though, Sam’s guessing. Not even John Winchester would be able to keep that kind of thing a secret when he’s under the watchful eyes of the nursing staff.
“Doesn’t matter,” he argues, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m not leaving Dean.”
He tosses the covers off and then immediately tugs them back over his lap. From the looks of things, Jill and whoever helped her get him back into bed—Sam was a little out of it at the time—weren’t too squeamish to strip him down again, because the ill-fitting pants are gone. Good thing Bobby was turned around fussing with the bag because otherwise he’d have gotten quite a show. Grimacing, Sam hitches his hips up and readjusts the Johnnie so that he’s more adequately covered beneath the blanket.
“You want to do your brother a useful favor, Sam, then you come on back to the salvage yard with me and help me find that gun.” Bobby turns around again, arms full of a familiar-looking wad of clothing. Boxers, jeans, t-shirt, hoodie, the works. Sam feels a little better just looking at them. As he hands the clothes over, Bobby adds, “John told me you had it in the car, but there’s no record of it in the police reports. Not that they had a whole lot of time to search, since some hooligan stole the car right off the impound lot.”
“Some hooligan, huh?” Sam says dryly as he sorts out the pile of clothes on his lap.
Bobby gives him a patented, innocent look that Sam doesn’t buy for a second—especially since he just admitted he had the Impala back at his house—and then says, “Your daddy figures you stashed the Colt in the car somewhere. He right?”
“I—” Sam tries to remember, but all he can come up with is a blur of confused images and nightmarish thoughts. And a sound like bees buzzing, for some reason. “I don’t remember.”
“Yeah, well, I ain’t going through that wreck on my own, so get dressed and I’ll fetch the doctor. And in front of anyone else, my name’s Bill Deveren, since I’m supposedly traipsing around in Canada right now.”
He doesn’t sound thrilled by the cover, and Sam flushes a little under the man’s gaze. Thankfully, after a few seconds, Bobby snorts and turns for the door.
Mostly, Sam wants to let the man go so he can get dressed, but if he’s going to be spending an extended amount of time with Bobby, then he wants to get the question of Dean's defilement out of the way first. He doesn’t want it coming up out of nowhere and biting him in the ass later, when he needs to be focused.
“Bobby?” he calls.
Halting in the doorway, Bobby turns back. “Yeah.”
“Did Dad—did he tell you about ...” Sam can’t say it. Much as he knows it needs to be addressed before they can move past it, he just can’t get the words out. Not when it’s Bobby. Not when it’s someone who knows them.
Knows Dean.
Clutching the clothes more tightly against his abdomen, he presses his lips together on the sob that wants to come.
“If you’re talking about what happened your brother,” Bobby says softly after a moment, “Then he didn’t have to.”
And before Sam can ask what the hell that’s supposed to mean, he’s out the door and down the hall.
Sam’s doctor isn’t thrilled to find him already dressed, but eventually pronounces Sam fit for release. Things move as molasses slow as Sam expects them to after that, as his release is processed in the same plodding, reluctant fashion that dogs every administrative system Sam has ever had the displeasure of tangling with. Not that it matters all that much to Sam, since he’s stuck in his hospital room answering Officer There-There and Officer Eager Beaver’s questions.
It’s probably best that he didn’t have to do this eight hours ago, when both officers were bright-eyed and eager for answers. Now, past the end of their shift and pulling overtime, they're both exhausted and therefore less forceful than they would otherwise have been. Sam, on the other hand, has had some much needed sleep and feels more grounded than he did when he first woke up. Not that any of that makes it easier to get the words out.
Bobby reappears at the end of Sam’s interview and leans against the dresser with his arms crossed and his cap pulled down low over his face. Not so low that Sam can’t tell the man is completely unsurprised by the topic of conversation, though. In light of Bobby's recent words, and Dean’s odd behavior when they showed up on Bobby’s doorstep, and the thank you that meant more than it should have, Sam thinks he knows what happened. He’s just missing the details.
He doesn’t comment on it after the officers leave with a promise to be in touch if there’s any news. Doesn’t comment on it when they take an elevator ride up to ICU so that Sam can say a stilted, awkward goodbye to his brother under Dad’s watchful gaze—Dad gives him a grunted farewell himself, but Sam’s pretty sure that he wouldn’t have merited even that much if Bobby hadn’t been standing in the doorway. Sam doesn’t comment on it during the long drive back to the salvage yard, either, even though the trip takes two hours and they’re both clearly thinking about it.
Instead, Sam waits until they’re back at Bobby’s, standing in the yard and looking at the broken wreck of the Impala in front of them, before asking, “What happened?”
To his credit, Bobby doesn’t try to dissemble or evade the question. He doesn’t bother asking for clarification.
Still studying the Impala with distant, shadowed eyes, he answers, “Came home from a hunt and found him waiting for me. Damn fool was passed out on the front steps—God only knows how long he’d been there. He’s lucky as hell it wasn’t raining.”
He pauses for a moment, and Sam can tell from Bobby’s expression that the man isn’t exactly seeing the salvage yard any longer. When Bobby speaks again, his voice is uncharacteristically subdued.
“I didn’t know what was wrong at first. Thought maybe just the conk on the head, but when I was dragging him into the house he woke up and panicked. Damn near broke my knee trying to get away.”
He falls silent again, frowning, but Sam feels no urge to prod him. There’s no reason to rush this particular unveiling, which is making his skin feel clammy and his chest sting.
After a few minutes, Bobby gives himself a shake and continues, “He said a few things while he was at it and then passed out again. I got him up on the couch and I—” He looks over unexpectedly, catching Sam’s eyes. Bobby’s own eyes are alarmingly wet, and pained, and meeting them makes Sam’s stomach twist unnervingly even before the man says, “Sam, I swear to God, I wouldn’t’ve looked but he was bleeding.”
At the sudden upsurge of nausea that takes him, Sam turns his face away and staggers forward to crouch beside the Impala’s crumpled side. Despite the chill of the day, the metal is warm against his skin as he rests his hand against it. His back is to the man, but that doesn’t feel like enough and so he bows his head as well, desperate to distance himself from Bobby’s story.
His cheeks feel wet in the sunlight, but he doesn’t think he’s crying. Or maybe he is. It’s hard to tell when he’s so focused on the vise around his heart, on getting another breath.
“Got a doc here,” Bobby relates. “Friend of mine, works on hunters. She’s good and she’s discreet. She took real good care of him.” Then, letting out an audible sigh, he adds, “I don’t know how in God’s name he made it here like that. He’s lucky he didn’t drive himself into a tree, the goddamned idjit.”
“How long?” Sam chokes out, and it looks like he is crying, because he can hear the tears in his voice.
“How long was he here, you mean?” Bobby checks, and then without waiting for Sam to nod he answers, “Couple of weeks. I was gonna call John in the morning, but Dean woke up first, made me promise not to. So I, uh, I sent a couple of texts from his cell, let your daddy think he’d run into a hunt. Sent Caleb out John’s way to keep him from doing anything stupid in the meantime.”
Sam wonders if Dad has figured that part out yet, if he knows that he was deceived and lied to by someone he trusted, no matter how rocky their relationship might have been. He wonders if this is the first time Bobby has confessed the part he played in the whole sorry mess.
He wants to hate the man for keeping this from him—and to resent Bobby for being there for Dean when Sam wasn’t—and can’t manage either emotion. He’s sure they’ll come at some point, but right now all he feels is deep, throbbing regret for what Dean went through and numbing gratitude that he at least didn’t have to go through it alone. Thank God someone was watching after Dean those first few days.
“Dean wouldn’t talk about it with either of us,” Bobby continues into the silence. “But he let Sharon do what she needed to quietly enough.” His breath huffs out in a sigh. “He spent most of his time sleeping, actually. I think—he came close once, I think. To talking. But before he really got anywhere with it, he went stiff as a corpse and clammed himself right back up again.”
Bobby’s voice cracks, dropping to a whisper that carries audibly enough in the quiet yard. “It was like living with a goddamned ghost. Even when he was awake, he wasn’t all that responsive. Had to call his name half a dozen times before he’d hear me, and most times he’d just. You’d walk into the room, and Dean’d walk out. No hesitation, no thought, he just—he just drifted away. I don’t think he even knew he was doing it.”
Sam’s throat pulls hot and tight, and he struggles to swallow the keening sound he wants to make. Behind him, there’s the sound of gravel scraping against dirt as Bobby shifts his stance.
“I didn’t know what to do with him,” the man says, and his voice carries all of the helpless bewilderment Sam guesses he felt at the time. “I was about to give you a call and to hell with Dean’s pride when he just. He got up one day, and he was smiling again, and joking around. He came into breakfast, went out and worked on a couple of the cars.” He lets out a hoarse laugh. “Could’ve knocked me over with a feather.”
“He blocked it out,” Sam translates. His voice comes out dull, empty of the pain and grief clogging his chest.
“Every damned thing,” Bobby agrees. “I felt around it over dinner, and after a while it came out that he thought he’d been on a hunt and got himself banged up a bit. He was itching to get back to your daddy, said he was leaving in the morning, and I. I let him go.”
Sam doesn’t say anything to that, but he feels the first, faint echoes of anger.
“I guess that makes me the idjit in your eyes,” Bobby continues, “But you didn’t see him, Sam. He was like night and day. And he’s got one heck of a stubborn nature. I thought he’d locked it up for good, and it wasn’t gonna do him any harm not to remember what happened. Sharon ran his bloodwork when she was taking care of him, and he gets himself checked every six months anyway, you know that.”
Sam does know that—or he knows that Dean used to get himself checked, back before Stanford when he was screwing around every chance he got. He isn’t all that sure that his brother has kept up with that particular routine over the past year, though, and he doesn’t see how Dean getting his bloodwork done justifies what Bobby did.
He realizes that this must be the thing Bobby was trying to decide whether or not to fill him in on when he and Dean were here last. This is what Bobby was deciding whether or not to warn Sam about.
Well, fuck him for thinking he could keep something like this from Sam.
“What the hell else was I supposed to do?” Bobby demands as the silence drags out. He sounds a little defensive now, like he knows Sam’s judging him. Hell, he probably does. Sam certainly doesn’t have the energy to conceal his own feelings on the matter.
“I don’t know,” Sam answers caustically as he tilts his head back to look at the sky. “Call me?”
“And what would you have done?” Bobby demands. “You left, Sam. Way I heard it, you didn’t want anything to do with your daddy or your brother anymore.”
That’s not true, and it isn’t fair, but Sam has to admit that he can see where the man might have gotten that impression. Because Sam wasn’t so sure that he wanted anything to do with them himself at the time, too buried beneath the weight of his own unconscious desires and resentments to think clearly.
And as much as Sam knows that he would have dropped everything and come running if Bobby had called, he can’t be sure that he wouldn’t have hated Dean for it—just a little. Can’t be sure he wouldn’t have resented his brother for pulling him away from his chance at normal.
Resentment aside, though, Sam knows that he wasn’t mature enough to handle Dean’s rape as well as he’s handling it now—and even now, he’s still making a mess of things. If Bobby had called him in back then, it would have been a complete disaster.
“I know,” he says in a more subdued voice as he finally glances back at Bobby.
The man’s eyes are sharp and challenging, but his cheeks are wet with evidence of his own grief, and Sam finds the rest of his anger slipping away.
“But he’s so fucked up, Bobby,” he continues in a quiet, choked voice. “I mean, he was fucked up even before, and now—after what the demon did to him this time, I don’t know—”
Sam looks back at the Impala—at the twisted, ruined metal before him—and is reminded of his brother. Dean’s body isn’t this badly broken, it’ll heal—Davidson told them as much before Sam left with Bobby—but inside? In Dean’s mind and in his heart? Sam thinks Dean might look something like this.
“I don’t know if I can fix him now,” he confesses. Saying it out loud hurts just as much as he thought it would. “But I—I can’t help thinking that I could’ve fixed him then, maybe. If I’d been there.”
The gravel crunches again beneath Bobby’s boots and a moment later the man’s hand lands on Sam’s shoulder, heavy and reassuring. “You can’t get caught up in maybes and might’ve beens, son,” Bobby tells him. “Just keep your head on straight and be here for him now.”
Sam lowers his head and nods. He will. He’ll be there for Dean until the skies run red and the oceans overboil their bounds and the mountains sink into canyons. He’ll be there beyond that.
He just doesn’t know if he’s going to be enough.
They find the Colt wedged underneath Sam’s seat.
Most of the rest of the weapons in the trunk are as wrecked as the car, but Bobby manages to salvage a couple of those as well, although when everything is laid out on the ground it’s a pitiful accounting. Sam’s laptop has been demolished. Dean’s tapes are nothing more than ribbons and twinkling shards. Sam’s favorite knife, which he brought with him to Stanford, has been snapped right in half.
But it’s the car Sam can’t stop looking at. Dean’s black beauty, that he’s babied ever since he was thirteen and Dad first let him drive it on his own.
“Man,” he says finally, breaking the silence. “Dean is gonna be pissed.”
Sam hopes his brother will be pissed, anyway, because the only option aside from anger is devastation, and there’s already been more than enough of that.
As he comes to stand beside Sam, Bobby sighs. “Maybe we should junk it before he sees it,” he suggests. “Ain’t like it’s gonna improve any between now and when the sawbones decides to spring him.”
For a moment, Sam’s surprised—pleasantly, he thinks—by the unspoken assumption in Bobby’s words that they’ll be staying here while they finish recuperating, and then his mind catches up to what the man is actually saying and he clenches his hands into fists. His right shoulder, already strained from all the activity, throbs.
“No,” he bites out. “Dean would kill me if we did that. When he gets better, he’s gonna want to fix this.” Because Dean is getting better. He’s getting better if Sam has to drag him there every step of the way.
“There’s nothing to fix,” Bobby argues, looking at Sam as though he’s lost his mind. “The frame’s a pretzel, and the engine’s ruined. There’s barely any parts worth salvaging.”
Recalling his earlier thoughts about the car—about Dean—Sam bristles and growls, “Listen to me, Bobby. If there’s only one working part, that’s enough. We’re not just gonna give up on—” He doesn’t say ‘him’, but that’s only because he clamps his mouth shut on the word before it can get out.
Bobby’s sharp enough to hear it anyway, though, and his eyes go soft with realization. “Okay,” he agrees. “You got it, kid.”
Slightly placated by the concession, Sam runs a hand through his hair and lets out a slow, controlled breath. “Right. That’s settled then.” He pauses for a moment longer, giving himself a breath to take in the wreckage laid out before him, and then turns away. “I have to get back to the hospital.”
“Sam, we just got here a couple of hours ago,” Bobby protests. “And you haven’t been doing anything but rooting around out here. You just got out of the hospital, son, and you still have a concussion. You’re in no condition to drive.”
“Then call me a cab.” Sam replies. When Bobby continues to give him a stubborn, concerned look, he softens his expression and pleads, “I can’t stay here, Bobby. Not when he’s—I need to be closer.”
“What you need is to sit down for a spell before you fall flat on your face. Christ, Sam, you’re no good to anyone unconscious.”
Bobby has a point, but Sam’s edgy enough as it is already. He can feel the distance between himself and Dean like the tension of a stretched-out rubber band on the verge of snapping, and he doesn’t trust the demon not to try something when he’s so far away. When he can’t help.
“He’s—”
“He’s gonna be asleep for another day at least,” Bobby interrupts firmly. “You’ve got time to sit down and have some dinner with me. I’ll drive you back after myself.”
Sam’s stomach growls at the prospect of food, but he continues to hesitate, glancing in the direction he knows his brother is.
“Four more hours tops, Sam,” Bobby pushes. “Hell, I’ll even drop you off curbside so you can go visit while I check us into a hotel. I think the ICU’s got open visiting hours.”
Sam perks up at the thought—open visiting hours means he can stay by Dean’s side as long as he wants, leaving only to grab a bite to eat here and there. He’ll be able to be there more consistently than Dad, anyway—Dad’s going to have to go get checked over and submit to whatever treatments his doctor is prescribing. Still, it’s gonna take Bobby time to cook, and then there’s clean up ...
“Can’t we grab some fast-food on the way?”
Bobby rolls his eyes as he complains, “Christ, you’d think you two were joined at the hip.”
Sam colors a little, thinking of how the man isn’t actually all that far off, but Bobby is already turning away and doesn’t notice the absent hand Sam uses to press against the tattoo. There’s no real pulse of pain anymore, so the skin doesn’t feel any different from anywhere else.
But then again, it does.
“Give me twenty minutes to toss a kit together,” Bobby mutters as he heads toward the house. “And we’ll hit the road.”
Dad isn’t thrilled to see Sam back so soon, and he looks even less happy when Sam mentions that there’s a hotel within walking distance. The flash of the Colt that Sam casually shows him seems to cheer him slightly, though, and he offers a grim nod in Sam’s direction before going back to staring at Dean’s face. They’ve been sitting there in complete silence for half an hour when a woman comes in, rapping her knuckles against the doorframe on her way through.
She’s gorgeous—dark haired and curvy and everything Dean normally likes in a woman—and it takes Sam a moment to look past that and see the scrubs as she greets their father. Then she gives Sam a smile and holds out her hand.
“Mr. McGillicuddy? I’m Rachel. We met last night, but under the circumstances I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself.”
Sam gropes back and remembers a kind voice, steady and calm, and a hand squeezing his own. “I remember,” he says, standing up and reaching out to accept the offered greeting.
Rachel shakes hands the same way she comforts, with careful competence, and Sam finds himself returning her smile even when she shifts her gaze to Dean and says, “Time to get you cleaned up, Mr. McGillicuddy.” Glancing back to Sam and Dad, she adds, “You’re both welcome to stay if you like, or you can wait outside. It shouldn’t take long.”
“Thanks, but Sam’s going to take me for a cup of coffee.”
Sam’s halfway to glowering—he knows exactly why Dad wants him out of the way for this—before he realizes that Dad’s removing himself as well. He hesitates for a moment longer and then, on the off chance that Dad actually wants to have a civil conversation, steps over to the man’s wheelchair and pushes him out the door.
The cafeteria’s on the ground floor, which means using the elevator, and as soon as the doors close on them, Dad says, “Let me see it.”
Of course.
But Sam wordlessly pulls out the Colt and hands it over, keeping an eye on the elevator doors as he does so. Dad gives the gun a cursory once over and then passes it back so that Sam can hide it again before pushing him out onto the first floor. Even this late in the evening, it’s fairly populated in this area of the hospital, and Sam is more careful than usual about the fall of his jacket, making sure the Colt is concealed.
He parks Dad by an empty table in the cafeteria and then goes to get them both a cup of burnt, hospital coffee. When Sam returns, taking the seat next to his father and sliding one of the cups over, Dad doesn’t look at him. He’s too busy watching the elevator doors.
Sam knows how he feels: he’d rather be upstairs with Dean right now too.
“You sure we should be so far away from him?” he asks as Dad takes the top off of his coffee and blows on it. “The demon—”
“Bobby and I set up wards in his room. It could probably break through, but it’d take time and it’d make a hell of a lot of noise.” Dad pauses and then adds, “And I don’t want you in there when they’re washing him.”
“Yeah,” Sam mutters sourly. “I got that.”
“Just making sure we’re on the same page.”
Sam’s silent for a moment, doing his best to swallow his petty resentment, but in the end he can’t quite manage it. “So, is this how it’s gonna be from now on? You giving me the cold shoulder and treating me like I’m some kind of child molester?”
“For a while, yeah,” Dad answers evenly. As he sips from his coffee, he looks as calm as ever, and Sam's anger twitches aside momentarily to reveal the rejected, guilty sorrow beneath. But the anger is more familiar, and it hurts less, so he pulls it close and clings to it.
“You can’t—you can’t just ignore me,” he hisses, still too aware of the other people moving around them to yell. “Dean’s gonna notice.”
“I’m talking to you now, aren’t I?”
Sam lets out a harsh laugh. “I don’t know, are you? Far as I can tell, you’ve been talking to the elevator, and the floor, and your goddamned coffee cup.”
Dad’s jaw pulls tight. “I look at you right now, Sam, and I’m gonna lose my temper. And I think you and me screaming at each other’s gonna be more upsetting to Dean than me not looking at you all that much. Not to mention how that kind of row would probably get both of our asses tossed into lockup. So I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings, but this is the way it’s gonna have to be.”
Except Dad isn’t sorry at all, his tone gets that much across loud and clear.
Sam’s filled with the overwhelming urge to haul the man out of his wheelchair and punch him until that calm, contemptuous attitude snaps. It isn’t his fault he feels the way he does about Dean, it isn’t something he planned or asked for, and it isn’t any of Dad’s goddamned business. Except he knows that it is Dad’s business, and there’s a large part of him that knows he deserves worse than the man is offering.
It still takes him more than two minutes of clenching his jaw and staring down at his own, white knuckles before he feels sure enough of his temper to ask, “Did the doctor stop by again when I was gone?”
“He said Dean’s doing well,” Dad answers immediately, and with more than a hint of gruff pride in his voice. “Boy’s a fighter.”
The evidence of Dad’s undiminished love for Dean in the face of all the abuse he’s been heaping on Sam makes Sam feel small and sick inside. God help him, he can’t help resenting his brother just a little bit for somehow managing to inspire in the man something Sam’s never quite been able to evoke. In the next moment, of course, guilt crashes in and leaves him even more off balance than he was a moment ago.
“Did you get anything more out of him about when they’re going to wake him up?”
“Nothing yet. They’re going to do some more scans tomorrow, try to get a better look at his lung. Doc said he’d talk to me again then.” There’s a pause and then, with a grudging grimace, Dad asks, “You want to be there?”
Coming on top of everything else, the implication that Sam could have any other answer for that question than ‘yes’ snaps his fraying control and he says, “Damned right I do. And I’m going to be there. You can’t—Christ, Dad, I promised you I wasn’t gonna touch him. You can’t fucking dictate to me when I can and can’t see him.”
“I think the fact that you thought it was okay to approach your brother about that at all means that I can dictate that to you, Sam,” Dad retorts, his voice low and terse. “And if you don’t like it, I can also get you thrown out of here so fast it’ll make your head spin. Go ahead—push me and see if I don’t.”
Sam doesn’t doubt for a second that Dad could sling some serious shit his way, but he also knows that he’s capable of making sure that he won’t be the only one who comes out dirty. He’s tempted to call Dad’s bluff for a moment—just to prove that he isn’t defenseless—until he realizes that doing so would only get them both banned from Dean’s room, which isn’t going to solve anything. Better for Sam to play along for now—let Dad have some semblance of control over the situation.
If a situation arises where he has to play hardball—where it comes down to being there for Dean and obeying Dad’s ultimatums—then there’s no doubt in Sam’s mind which side he’ll come down on, but until then it’s best to put Dad at ease. Play the properly repentant and chastised son.
“So lay out the ground rules, then,” he says. It isn’t too difficult to sound reluctant and miserable and surly, the way Dad probably expects him to. Not when it’s so close to the way he actually feels about this fucked up, wretched situation.
“I don’t want you in there with him when he’s undressed. Or on your own.” Sam’s head jerks up, and he means to protest, but before he can, Dad continues, “If I’m not there, you get a nurse to sit with you, or bring Bobby along.” He fixes Sam with a stern, uncompromising look. “This isn’t negotiable, Sam.”
Although agreeing is about as painless as swallowing glass shards, somehow Sam manages it. For Dean’s sake.
Sam doesn’t expect Dad’s conditions to curtail his time with Dean so quickly, but less than half an hour after they go back upstairs, the man starts to doze off. Rachel, popping her head in to check on Dean—she does that often enough that Sam alternates between reassured and annoyed—sees Dad slumping in the chair and frowns. Sam’s pretty sure he knows where this is going, and sure enough, a couple of minutes later another nurse appears in the doorway and heads over to tap Dad on the arm.
“Mr. McGillicuddy? Time to get you back to your room so you can rest.”
Dad’s head comes up sleepily and he looks around, blinking and confused. Sam isn’t used to seeing the man so off guard, even when he’s this exhausted. Probably a combination of stress and the painkillers he’s doubtlessly taking for his leg.
“Yeah,” Dad grunts after the nurse has repeated herself. “Probably a good idea.” Then, as he looks over in Sam’s direction, he comes more awake and his eyes narrow. “Sam can push me down on his way out.”
“Okay,” Sam replies easily. After all, there’s nothing stopping him from dropping Dad at his room and then coming back up to see Dean. What the man doesn’t know won’t get Sam kicked out on his ass.
But as the nurse heads out in front of them, Dad twists in his chair and clamps a hand down on Sam’s wrist. “Don’t think I won’t hear if you come back up here, Sam,” he murmurs.
He will, too. Dad’s always been good at conning people, and Sam has no doubt that the man already has the nurses eating out of his fingers. He wouldn’t even have to be sneaky about his inquiries. All he has to do is ask whether Dean had any more visitors after he left.
Damn it.
By the time Sam has wheeled his father over to the elevator, he has graduated from glower to full-on sulk. He’s busy staring down at his own hands on the wheelchair when the door opens, so he doesn’t notice the car is occupied until a familiar voice says, “Mr. McGillicuddy. Didn’t expect to see you here so late.”
Sam looks up to see Jill—the smiling fruit on her scrubs has been replaced with ice-skating penguins—and backs the chair out of the way so she can step out of the elevator.
“This your dad?” she asks, and then, without waiting for Sam to answer, offers her hand. “I’m Jill Marushek. I was your son’s nurse until he went AWOL on me.”
“They released me this afternoon,” Sam protests.
“Good thing too,” Jill replies, straightening. “Any longer and Patty probably would’ve proposed.” To his surprise, Sam finds himself flushing a little, and Jill’s smile widens as she adds, “Not that I blame her.”
“If you were Sam’s nurse, you don’t actually have any business up here, do you?”
This time, Sam’s flush is deeper.
“Dad,” he hisses, and then, belatedly, realizes what his father is getting at. The eyes he raises to Jill’s after that are a little too wide: a little panicked. But there’s no knowing smirk on her face. No sickening, sulfuric gleam in her eyes. Her expression has gone slightly stiff, but that’s only natural, considering the rudeness of Dad’s observation.
Still ...
“Christo,” Dad says.
Jill’s eyes remain their usual nut brown, and Sam relaxes. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “He’s—”
“That’s okay,” Jill interrupts quickly. Now that she’s getting over the initial surprise of Dad’s attitude, she looks more pitying than anything else. “I came up to visit your other son, Mr. McGillicuddy,” she explains. “I was a floater down in the ER when they brought you in, and I’m the one who brought him up here. Rachel gives me updates—she’s my roommate—but I like to stop by when I come off shift anyway. If it makes you uncomfortable, I can—”
“No,” Sam interrupts. “No, go ahead. We’re just, uh, surprised. That’s all. People don’t usually ... care so much.”
It isn’t a line.
Sam grew up understanding that human kindness is the exception rather than the rule. It’s a lesson he learned while living on the fringe of society, in the uncertain shadows where he and Dean grew up. He never even thought to question that truth until Stanford showed him that it’s different when your clothes aren’t bloodied and torn, when they aren’t either three sizes too big or a hair too small. It’s different when you look like you belong.
It hurts to think that if Dean could hear this conversation, he’d be giving Jill a befuddled, suspicious look, like a wary dog that’s been kicked one too many times. Dean, who doesn’t know what it means to belong anywhere, who never had the opportunity to understand that human kindness isn’t a myth or a fairytale. If Dean were here right now, his hackles would be raised so high he’d look like a porcupine. Especially if Jill were offering him the same soft, sympathetic eyes she’s currently giving Sam.
But of course if Dean were awake and here instead of unconscious in a hospital bed, they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
And suddenly, just like that, Sam realizes that Jill has just given him the perfect opening.
“You mind having company?” he asks. “I have to bring my dad back to his room first, but I can come right back up.”
“That’d be nice,” Jill agrees, smiling, and touches him lightly on the arm. Then, turning her attention to Dad, she adds, “It was nice meeting you, sir.”
“Likewise,” Dad agrees, ever the consummate liar. Outwardly, he’s all charm but Sam knows better; he can sense his father fuming from here. “Thanks for looking out for my boy.”
“My pleasure.”
Sam has to push the elevator button again, but the doors open right back up and he wheels Dad inside. Dad waits until the doors have closed on them and the elevator car is sliding down, and then grounds out, “When she leaves, you leave.”
The disgust in his father’s voice can’t derail Sam’s triumph at having found a way back to his brother’s side. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, though, and Sam’s voice is carefully polite as he says, “I got the message the first time.”
Dad nods, his expression grim and dark in the silvery reflection of the doors. “Just make sure you remember it.”
Sam makes it back upstairs in less than five minutes, worried that Jill isn’t even going to be there anymore, and then walks into his brother’s room to find her sitting next to Dean with his right hand clasped between both of hers. She’s looking down at him with a soft, sad little smile on her face, and Sam would be furious at the presumption if it weren’t immediately apparent that it isn’t really Dean she's looking at.
He walks over to her and stands there quietly for a moment, looking down at his brother, who would look like he’s sleeping if it weren’t for the mask. And the gash on his forehead. The steady rise and fall of his chest, aided as it is by the ventilator, is deceptively healthy.
“So it’s like that, is it?” Sam asks finally.
Jill glances up at the question, her eyes both wider and wetter than Sam’s comfortable with. He shifts slightly and then, following his instincts, puts a hand on her shoulder.
Jill doesn’t respond to the touch, but she doesn’t act as though it’s unwelcome either. She just looks back at Dean, one corner of her mouth twitching sadly, and agrees, “It’s like that.”
Sam should let it go. He knows he should. But his own insides hurt too much to resist picking at someone else’s scab for a change.
“Who was he?”
For a long moment, he doesn’t think Jill’s going to answer him and then she whispers, “A good friend.”
“How did—”
“I don’t—I’m sorry, Mr. McGillicuddy, but I don’t want to talk about it right now. I know that’s selfish of me, considering I’m in here with your brother, but—”
“No,” Sam interrupts, suddenly shamed of himself for prying. “I understand. You don’t need to say anything.”
Taking a deep breath, Jill nods. “Thank you.” When she glances back up at Sam, she has herself a little more under control. “Whenever you want me to go, you can just kick me out, okay? I won’t hold it against you.”
“Stay,” Sam answers. He isn’t thinking about Dad’s conditions. Isn’t thinking about anything but the fact that she clearly needs this, that he can see distant reflections of himself in her. And it isn’t hurting Dean at all to have a pretty girl sitting in here worrying about him. “Stay as long as you want.”
The smile Jill gives him is slightly self-deprecating, which reminds Sam of Dean. “You’re going to regret that, Mr. McGillicuddy.”
“Can you—I mean, I’m not actually your patient anymore. Do you think you could—”
“Sam, then,” Jill corrects. Her smile widens a little, warming. “Now you’re never getting rid of me.”
Sam’s pretty sure he can live with that.