Supernatural Fan Fiction ❯ Til' Death Do Us Part ❯ Chapter Four ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

 
 
A/N: I know that I said in the last chapter that this would be the end, but apparently I lied. I didn't mean to lie, but this story has just taken on a life of its own. There will be at least another chapter after this, and probably an epilogue after that. We'll see. I hope you guys continue to enjoy, and remember reviews feeds the muse!
Thanks to Starliteyes for lending her awesome beta skills.
 
Til' Death Do Us Part
Chapter Four
 
Sam and Dean were dying.
Separate.
Alone.
Isolated.
After Ellen revived Sam she called 911, making up some half-cocked story about finding him in the pond out behind the farmhouse. The EMTs weren't interested in the how and why, as much as they were interested in what treatment was needed to keep Sam breathing.
He was admitted to the nearest hospital with hypothermia and lung damage. With so much cold water in his lungs, it was inevitable that he developed pneumonia. As strong and healthy as Sam was it should have been easy for him to fight off the infection, but as the hours passed his health only seemed to deteriorate. It was as though he had no more fight left in him, and he was allowing himself to die slowly but surely.
After the showdown with the demon, Bobby high-tailed it to the nearest Wyoming hospital where Dean was admitted with severe internal hemorrhaging. The doctors were at a loss to explain how such wounds were possible when there was little external proof of impact or crushing damage to his torso. They immediately rushed him into surgery, repairing the damage to his organs and prescribing medication to help his wounds clot.
After twelve hours of surgery, he was placed in the ICU. For three days, Bobby sat by his side, murmuring words of support. For three days, Bobby drank bad coffee and ate stale food. For three days Bobby prayed for Dean to wake up from the coma he had fallen into.
8888
When Sam woke up, he knew immediately that something was wrong. He stared up at the bleached white ceiling trying to pinpoint the reason for his unease. There were tubes taped under his nose and the nauseating taste of antiseptic at the back of his throat made him gag. In the background he could hear the steady hiss of the oxygen as it was fed to his lungs. He tried to swipe his hand over his face, but was brought up short by a tight tug on his wrist. He had been injured enough times over the years to know instantly that he was being reined in by an I.V. He recognized where he was at, maybe not exactly, but he was in a hospital and that was familiar, so his surroundings weren't the source of his unease.
He slowly glanced around the room, his eyes settling on the dark form that was slumped in an uncomfortable looking chair next to his bed. When his blurry gaze finally focused enough to make out who was sleeping next to him the unease in his gut sharpened into a painful stab deep in his intestines.
Ellen was sitting vigil at his beside, not Dean. Dean wasn't there. Dean was gone. There was only one reason for it. Dean was dead.
Dean was dead!
Sam let out a keening wail that jerked Ellen into consciousness with an aborted scream. She hurried to his side, wrapping her strong, work-calloused fingers around his thick wrist. He shook her off, raising his hands to his face so he could press the heels of his palms into his burning, sandpaper eyes. The I.V. snapped and he could feel the stinging jab of the needle all the way in his bicep.
“Sam! What's wrong?”
Ellen's voice was far away, barely able to penetrate the haze of his grief. He had failed. All his planning; all his hard work; all the promises he made to save Dean burned to ash in his dry, torch-blown mouth.
Dean was dead. There was no point in going on. The oxygen hissed, and Sam sobbed.
Ellen reached for the call button, certain that Sam was having some sort of seizure after suffering with such a high temperature for the last few days. She drowned in guilt as she sat by Sam's side. For the thousandth time she cursed herself for listening to the Winchester's half-baked scheme to cheat the crossroads demon. It had been foolish and thoughtless. Holding Sam's head under the cold water had been one of the worse moments of her life, only eclipsed by the day John Winchester showed up on her doorstep to tell her Bill was dead.
“Dean's dead.”
Sam's softly sobbed statement stopped her cold. She didn't know how it was possible for him to infuse those two tiny words with such a wealth of agony and loss. She dropped the call button and clutched his hands, pulling them away from his face with quite a bit of effort. His eyes were tightly clenched, his face screwed up in heart-wrenching misery.
“No, Sam. Dean's alive.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they did Sam cracked his eyes to look at her. Her breath caught at the sight of hope and despair mingling in the muddy deaths of his bloodshot eyes.
“If that were true then he would be here.”
Ellen dropped her eyes to stare at their hands that were still tangled together in his lap. She wasn't sure what to say. It was true that Dean was still alive, but for how long was anyone's guess. He was in critical condition in a hospital in southern Wyoming. The doctors said that his insides had been shredded with razor-like precision, and everyone was at a loss to explain how. Even Bobby had no idea exactly what went down in the graveyard that night.
“Sam,” she started, but the words choked off. She was filled with such an overwhelming sense of dread that it nearly suffocated her.
Sam twisted his hands over so he was the one now gripping her fingers. He squeezed and even as weak as he was she could feel the strength of his grasp.
“Dean's hurt real bad. They don't know if he's gonna make it.” The words cut sliced the tension in the room like an executioner's axe. The look in Sam's eyes told her that she might as well take out her gun and shoot him through the heart. Frantic, she scrambled to soothe his despair.
“They said the same about you, honey. But look at you. Speaking to me when no one thought you would ever wake up again. You've been out for three days. The fever nearly did you in.”
Sam looked away from Ellen, his thoughts drowning out her words. Dean wasn't dead yet, but he was dying. He was lying in a hospital bed somewhere all by himself. Sam should be there next to him, holding his hand like Ellen was holding his.
“Where is he?”
“Wyoming,” Ellen answered in a small voice, but that quickly changed when Sam threw back the covers to his bed.
“Sam. What do you think you are doing? Get back into bed, boy.”
He managed to wrestle himself upright and swing his feet off the bed, but that was as far as he got. Fire burned his lungs and suddenly he couldn't breathe. A coughing fit nearly doubled him over, and if Ellen hadn't been there to catch him he would have fallen off the bed.
“Didn't you hear me, Sam? You nearly died. You still could. You aren't nearly recovered. You could relapse any minute now.”
Sam wrapped his long fingers around Ellen's upper arms, holding her to him until he could draw a breath. He was pretty sure that he might suffocate if he went too long without the enriched oxygen the respirator was pumping into his lungs, and he dared not to take out the tubes. Once he got himself under control, he looked up at Ellen who was trying desperately to push him back onto the bed.
“Ellen,” he rasped and her wide brown eyes met his. “I have to get to Dean. He needs me. He needs to know that I'm okay. That it's okay to keep living.”
Ellen blinked at him, and something painful spiked through her heart. There was a bond between the brothers that as a mother she could just barely comprehend. They needed each other, needed to know that the other was safe and healthy, as if their own life hinged on the other's wellbeing. That need had only deepened over the last two years, as destiny seemed to open its back door to take a crap on them every chance it got. But what Sam was saying, that was just crazy talk.
“Don't be ridiculous, Sam. Dean's unconscious and Bobby is right beside him. As soon as Dean wakes up, he'll tell him that you are okay.” She tried to push Sam back, but for a man who had been at death's door for the last seventy-two hours he was amazingly resistant.
“No, Ellen. I have to go now. If I don't, then Dean will never wake up.”
Sam's utter conviction in his voice was for the lack of a better word, creepy. She wondered if it had something to do with his psychic ability. Did he have a vision while unconscious? He had been legally dead for almost ten minutes. Had he seen something while on the other side? Ellen shivered and tried to pull herself together. She was a no-nonsense woman, and while by trade she believed in all things that go bump in the night, the thought of Sam being Dean's only connection to the living was a little farfetched even for her.
“Sam, there's no way that you're going to make the drive hundreds of miles to Wyoming. Maybe you don't realize how sick you are, but there's a good chance that you'd die before we even get there.”
“That's a chance that I have to take. Either you can help me, Ellen, or you can stand by and watch me do it myself.”
The steel in Sam's voice lacerated her across the heart. She cringed as his fingers tightened on her upper arms. She knew that she would end up with bruises where his fingers pressed into her soft flesh, but at the moment she didn't care. She was more interested in the intensity she saw in Sam's eyes.
She sighed with resignation, untangling herself from his grasp so she could gather up his clothing for him. She helped him to get dressed before she slipped out the door to find him a wheelchair. It was late in the evening and the ward was nearly deserted. The only reason she was allowed in Sam's room after visiting hours was because she had convinced the staff that she was Sam's mother. As inconsolable as she had been when he was brought in, it hadn't been that much of a stretch.
She came back with the wheelchair, relived to see that Sam was still sitting quietly on the edge of the bed, waiting for her return. After a lot of grunting she was able to get him situated, setting an oxygen tank that she stole in his lap and fitting a mask over his face. There would be just enough air to get him to Wyoming that was if he didn't die from a relapse before then. Already she could see his cheeks redden and his eyes had that shiny glint that screamed fever.
The drive to Rock Springs in southern Wyoming was torturous. Ellen drove white knuckled, her ears straining to hear Sam's wheezing breaths in the dark cab of her truck. He was slumped against the passenger door, his huge body huddled into a small ball. Every once in a while he would groan and mutter. At one point she reached across the distance to place her hand against his brow. His skin was so hot that it nearly burned her.
In South Dakota she pulled over and roused him enough to drink some bottled water. He didn't want it at first, but she refused to go any further until he drank it all. After that he was barely conscious, and all through Nebraska Ellen chewed on her fingernails. By the time they hit the Wyoming border all of her fingers on her left hand were bloody and she was making a good start on her right.
Bobby met them at the backdoor of the hospital, having already disabled the alarm for the emergency exit. Somewhere just past the Wyoming border, Ellen had called him to say that she was hauling Sam's ailing ass his way and after they stopped screaming at each other like an old married couple with four kids and two mortgages, they agreed that it was best to sneak Sam in the back way.
Sam was in bad shape and there was no way the hospital staff was going to let him walk through the front door without checking him out. They both were of the mind that once Sam saw his brother and was assured that he was still breathing, they would call the docs to fix the boy up.
Bobby hadn't realized how sick Sam was, and Ellen had been feeling too guilty to fess it up over the phone. Unprepared, he hadn't bothered to bring a wheelchair for Sam who was near collapse. Another round of bickering echoed down the mint green corridor as Ellen and Bobby, Sam's long arms slung over their shoulders, ambled to Dean's room.
Rock Springs was a small town and Dean was the only person in ICU so thankfully he had a room all to himself. Ellen had driven through the night and most of the day, arriving at the hospital at supper time. Most of the nurses were in the other wing passing out dinner trays so they were able to slip into Dean's room undetected.
“Dean.”
Sam tried to lumber over to Dean who was lying deathly still on the bed, his skin waxy against the soft, pastel pink sheets, but he didn't have the strength to hold himself upright. Where Dean was pale, Sam was flushed; he had been alternating between feverish chills and cold sweats the entire trip. His shaggy, brown hair was matted with sweat, his eyes burning with near delirium.
The only response from Dean to his brother's call was the steady beep of his heart monitor. His eyes were sunken, dark, and so very, very still beneath the red, paper thin lids. Ellen and Bobby helped Sam closer, listening with fear to the boy's labored breathing. Sam's oxygen tank had run out before they hit the edge of town and his raspy breaths had gotten worse with every passing mile.
They angled Sam down into a chair next to Dean, stepping back to look at each other in question. How much longer should they wait before calling someone, they wondered?
Sam instantly reached for Dean's hand, threading their fingers together. He wanted to say something profound to Dean, to tell him that everything was all right, that he was there for him, that they were alive, and he could come back from his little vacation to unconsciousness anytime now, but he couldn't. He was too tired, his eyes were too heavy and breathing was too much of a chore. He leaned forward, resting his head on Dean's bed near his brother's hip, their hands still laced together.
If Dean was awake he would jerk away, spit at Sam to get off him, while calling him a girl, but Sam didn't care. All he wanted was for his big brother to wake up.
“What's going on here?”
A doctor walked in, his hair perfect, his coat blindingly white. His footsteps had been Hunter- soft on the scrubbed linoleum, and Bobby was ashamed that he had been caught so off guard by his sudden appearance. Ellen found her tongue first, and stepped forward between the doctor and Sam.
“That's Sam, Dean's brother.”
The doctor looked at her sharply, his small brown eyes assessing her in one sweep.
“And you are?”
Ellen paused, somewhat nonplussed and more than a little exhausted from her marathon drive through four states.
“Their mother,” Bobby supplied, stepping up next to her.
The doctor's gaze never wavered and both elder Hunters were left with the impression that his skills were wasted in the backwater town of Rock Springs.
“Well, then Mrs. Donnelly. Can you tell me what's wrong with Sam?”
Ellen's brow furled at the address. She would have she figured that it was the name supplied on the Dean's insurance card, if she hadn't felt Bobby shift uncomfortably beside her. Huh, the doc thought she and Bobby were married. Wasn't that a kicker? Bobby must have told the staff that he was Dean's father so he could stay in the ward after hours.
It wasn't hard to miss that Sam was sick. He was practically weeping illness from his pores, so she wasn't surprised that the doctor had caught on even though he had barely glanced at the boy.
“Pneumonia.” She saw no reason to lie, knowing that Sam needed assistance as soon as possible anyways. However, she wasn't prepared for the doctor's reaction. His cold mask slipped into incredulous disbelief as he gaped at her.
“Are you serious? Do you have any idea how delicate Mr. Donnelly's condition is at this time? How could you bring his brother into the ICU while he's carrying such an aggressive communicable disease? What is the matter with you two?”
Ellen's jaw dropped before she snapped it shut with a snarl. The last time a man spoke to her like that, he got an ass full of buckshot and he never came back. Fortunately for the doc, it went against good manners to open fire in a hospital. Sick people and all.
“We didn't think---“she murmured, but was cut off.
“That's right you didn't think. Why don't you just release diseased rodents into the halls while you're at it?”
The doctor rushed from the room before they could reply, his thunderous calls for a nurse echoing behind him. Ellen and Bobby exchanged identical looks of murder, but made no move to interfere. They both knew that Sam needed treatment right away; it didn't matter if the doctor doing so was a complete ass.
If Sam heard the doctor he gave no indication of it. His head was still nestled near Dean's hip, and miraculously his breathing evened out as he slipped into a state of near unconsciousness. Only Ellen seemed to notice, since she had spent the last day and half with him listening to every little hitch. She was amazed that the simple act of sitting close to his brother seemed to ease his breathing in a way the oxygen tank could not.
The doctor returned with a pair of obscenely large male nurses, exciting the room into a flurry of activity. He busied himself with checking Dean's vitals while the nurses who looked like they would rather be deer hunting, tried to wrestle Sam into the wheelchair they had brought. As soon as Dean's limp wrist slipped from his fingers Sam jerked upright into consciousness. Sam's fever-glazed eyes scanned the room and he came to one instantaneous and damning conclusion.
They were trying to separate him from Dean.
“No!”
Sam erupted from the chair, two hundred and forty pounds of fury that topped out at six foot four, his lips peeled back to reveal sharp, white teeth. He snarled in a manner that was not unlike a hungry, lean wolf standing over the last piece of meat in a cold, hard winter. The entire room swelled with angry energy, the nurses stepping back, and the doctor flinching on the other side of Dean's bed.
Sam's big hand whipped out and he wrapped his long fingers around his brother's wrist. For a handful of seconds nobody moved except for Sam who swayed hypnotically, grounded by wide feet, his pupils blown with fever.
Finally, Bobby stepped forward, his voice a low rumble, the words slathered so thick with his good ol' boy accent that for a minute no one could understand what he was saying. He approached Sam like he would a beaten, half-dead dog that was backed into a corner. Hand held out, palm up, eyes downcast.
His words manifested themselves into a string of soft soothing assurances and promises that no one was going to make a move on him or his brother. Sam let him approach, everyone in the room holding their breath as Bobby eased him down into the wheel chair, taking care that Sam's grip on Dean wasn't broken.
The hospital staff had no concept of the extremity of the danger, but their brains were screaming Warning! Volatile! Stand Back! as loudly as they could. They had their share of dangerous people hyped up on drugs and adrenaline, but never before had they been in the room with what was so obviously a predator. Ellen shivered safely behind Bobby, knowing what the doctor and nurses did not. If Sam, half-crazed with fever, thought anyone was a threat to his brother, they would be dead before they hit the floor.
Bobby nodded, and the staff moved through the room in a soundless ballet, the doctor passing a syringe to a nurse who passed it to Bobby. Only the man's soft murmuring, the boy's now strained wheezing, and the steady ping of the machines was heard in the room.
Sam barely noticed when Bobby injected him in the arm. His shoulders were already drooping with exhaustion, his entire attention fixated on Dean. A nurse, feeling it was safe, took hold of the wheelchair and slowly pulled it away from the bed.
“No!”
Sam clenched his fist around Dean's wrist, leaning forward, but was unable to stand as the sedative swam through his blood. The other nurse rushed forward, trying to pry Sam's hand away.
“Dean! Dean!” Sam croaked in panic and Ellen wrapped her hand around her throat to choke down her own cries. Feverish tears leaked from Sam's red eyes, and sweat glistened on his wide brow.
The nurses kept pulling and the gap between the brothers widened. Dean's arm was stretched off the bed, and Sam's fingers were slipping. With one last heave they were separated, one nurse wheeling away Sam while the other fussed over Dean.
The entire room cringed when Sam's head lolled back on his neck, his eyes sightlessly glaring at the ceiling as an agonizing scream ripped from his throat. The howl echoed down the halls, ricocheting off the sickly green walls.
The doctor followed Sam out of the room, casting a sympathetic glance back at the `parents' who stood together in the wings, their faces identical masks of misery.