ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2010-05-13 12:44 pm
ratherastory) wrote2010-05-13 12:44 pm
Entry tags:
Roses in December (3/?)
After a lot of fiddling, I have finally come up with Chapter 3. Because this is an Experiment in Fanfiction™ I'm not putting up a header each time. You can find all applicable summaries/authorial wibbling/whatnot at the Master Post.
There are specific Season 5 spoilers in this section, although nothing that will reveal Important Plot Points™.
Chapter 2
“What're you doing out here?”
Dean looks up from the newest cigarette he's just lit, holds it in his lap, forearms resting on his thighs so Jess won't see his hands shaking. “Having a smoke.”
“Uh-huh. You sure you're not hiding?”
He scowls, doesn't meet her gaze. “Why would I be doing that?”
She drops to the step next to him, smoothing out her skirt as she sits, and leans her elbows on her knees. “Why don't you tell me?”
“Nothing to tell,” he says shortly, taking a drag off the cigarette.
“Bullshit. Sam's asleep, or I'd be dragging you in there right off. Consider this a reprieve, but you're not off the hook. You spent two weeks practically glued to your brother's bedside. I had to pry you away with a crowbar half the time, and now that he's awake and out of danger you won't even go near his room? What are you afraid of?”
He narrows his eyes at her. “You studied law with Sam, right?”
“Yeah,” her look says plainly that she doesn't know what he's driving at.
“So quit trying to psychoanalyse me.”
She looks away, hurt, and it figures that Sam would be dating someone who could match him hurt look for hurt look. “Fine. But Sam needs you, and when he wakes up again you should be there, and not out here.”
He shakes his head. “I was thinking maybe I should take off, now that he's out of the woods. Go find my Dad, see if anything happened to him.”
“So you're not hiding, you're running away,” she says flatly, and he winces at her tone.
“You don't know what you're talking about.”
“Don't I?”
He finishes the cigarette, uses the still-lit butt to light another. “I'm not talking to you about this.”
“Yeah, it's a family trait. I put up with it from Sam, because I love him, but you? I don't have to put up with that kind of bullshit. You're just going to leave him there like that? Alone and confused and frightened?”
She's angry, but he's dealt with his share of angry women in his line of work. “I don't have to explain myself to you.”
“Maybe not, but what about Sam? What am I supposed to tell him when he wakes up again? 'Oh, sorry babe. Your brother was here, sure, but he just bailed when he realized you were awake.' What do you think that's going to do to him?”
Dean gets to his feet, starts pacing in spite of himself. “It's not like that,” he snaps, losing his temper in spite of himself. “You can't understand this.”
“Try explaining it to me. Feel free to use small words. Is it because he doesn't remember you?”
“No! Okay, sort of. It's... I've been thinking, and... maybe it's better if I'm not around, you know? Sammy always wanted a fresh start, and... maybe if I'm not around, he can have that.”
“So you're just going to ditch us? Ditch him?”
“I don't want to, okay?”
“Then don't!” she's on her feet too, eyes flashing dangerously. She's even more beautiful when she's angry, he thinks a little breathlessly. “I don't know what happened before, because Sam never told me, you won't say a word, and now he might never be able to tell me—” her breath hitches for a moment, “but you can't leave him in there like that! You're the only one who can tell him who he really is.”
He doesn't look at her. “That's exactly the problem,” he says, and pushes by her back into the hospital.
*
It's hard to tell if Sam is asleep. The drugs keep him sedated and vague, and with his eyes closed and his breathing even and regular, he could as easily be asleep as awake. Dean settles into the chair by the bed, trying to stay quiet. If Sam is asleep, better he stay that way. The longer he's asleep, the longer Dean doesn't have to come up with answers to questions he'd rather not hear.
At the sound of the chair legs scraping on the floor, though, Sam's eyes flutter open. For a moment Dean holds his breath, waiting for a flicker of recognition, but there's nothing. Sam blinks at him, eyes unfocussed, smiles timidly.
“Hi.”
He forces himself to smile. “Hey, Sammy. Sleep well?”
Sam shrugs, then winces. “Okay, I guess. Weird dreams.”
“Morphine'll do that. How you feeling?”
“Can I get back to you on that?” the sheepish smile is the same, but it doesn't reach his eyes, and Dean nods, looks away.
Physically, the doctors tell them, Sam is doing much better than they could have hoped for. They've reassured Dean so many times about how young and healthy and resilient his brother is that by the time a week went by he was ready to throw a punch at the next person who said it. He knows he should be pleased that Sam is recovering well, because it's really good news. Sam could have died and instead he's here and awake and the doctors are saying he might need only one more surgery on his leg and that with proper therapy he'll probably be up and walking around in a few months and in another year or so he might not even have a limp.
Sam plucks at the thin blanket on his bed with the fingers of one hand. “So Dr. Fitch says they don't know if I'm ever going to remember anything,” he says softly.
Dean's instinctive reaction is to deny it, to reassure Sammy that he's going to remember everything, that it's all going to be fine, but the words stick in his throat.
“She wants me to see a psychiatrist. Apparently there isn't any one treatment for this, it has to be managed on a case-by-case basis,” Sam continues, sounding for all the world as though he's explaining the research he did on a case rather than describing his own medical treatments.
“Whatever gets the job done, right?”
“Right.” There's a moment of awkward silence. “Is it stupid that I'm afraid even to start asking questions?”
Dean looks up, sees the way Sam is worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. “Hey, of course not. Don't sweat it. Me and Jess will fill you in on the important stuff, until you remember on your own.”
Sam nods, swallows hard, and Dean is startled to see that he's trying hard not to cry. Sam sniffs, cuffs at his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Sorry. I'm like a damned faucet.”
Dean grins and pats his good knee gently. “Well, it's good to know some things haven't changed. You always were kind of a big girl.”
His brother huffs a tearful laugh at that. “I'll take your word for it,” he says, and Dean's heart kind of clenches at that, because it's not what Sam would say normally.
“Okay, first lesson in being Sam Winchester. When I call you a girl? You're supposed to call me a jerk.”
Sam snorts, but his eyes sparkle a bit. “Fine. Jerk.”
“Bitch.”
He gets an eyebrow quirked at him at that, but at least the tears have stopped, for now. “Seriously?”
“What can I say?” Dean shrugs, grinning. “We have a healthy fraternal relationship.”
*
Once it's obvious Sam's life is no longer in danger, it's pretty much impossible to keep his friends away. They're more tactful now than they were, even Charlie-the-Asshole, as Dean has taken to calling him privately. They all figure out pretty fast that their presence is often as much a source of stress for Sam —who's racked with guilt that he can't remember any of them, and gets agitated far more easily, which in turn ratchets up his pain levels. After being told off by a doctor and a couple of nurses, they get the message and back off a bit. They mostly show up to talk to Jess, only go into Sam's room in ones and twos, and never for long.
Apart from Charlie-the-Asshole, the one friend who comes by the most is a tall blond guy with an easy smile and the blood-shot eyes of a student who drinks way too much alcohol at night and way too much coffee during the day and doesn't sleep nearly enough. He introduces himself as Brady on the first day, then comes back every afternoon after his classes to get an update on Sam's progress. He smiles at Jess, gives her shoulders a reassuring squeeze, but he mostly talks to Dean, and eventually Dean decides he's not a complete douchebag. In fact, he seems to be the only friend Sam has that he didn't meet through Jess.
“I'm the one who introduced them, actually,” Brady confides on the third day. “I met Sam in freshman Latin —he's a natural for dead languages, although I don't know what that says about him,” he gives Dean a shit-eating grin which is almost impossible not to return.
“He always did like school way too much.”
“He's a good guy, your brother,” Brady says, cradling a styrofoam cup of coffee between his knees. “Stuck by me when my parents got killed, and he's one of my only friends who didn't drop me like a hot potato when I didn't exactly cope with it in a healthy, well-adjusted way. Everyone else freaked out when I dropped out of pre-med, spent their time lecturing me about throwing my life away. Sam? He just took away my car keys when he had to, let me crash on his couch all the time —hell, I practically lived there for a couple of weeks, and he and Jess never said a word. It means a lot, you know? So I just want to be here now. Make sure I return the favour.”
It's Brady who thinks of bringing photographs. Sam with Jess, faces pressed together and grinning in front of one of the faculty buildings. Sam on the grass amidst a group of friends. One of them has a guitar, the rest sprawled out and draped over each other, relaxed and laughing. Dean feels an unexpected pang looking at that one, seeing Sam sitting only fractionally apart, but laughing along all the same. He's not sure that it's not entirely his fault that Sam isn't sprawled on his back in the grass instead of sitting with his back to a tree, able to spring to his feet at a moment's notice if necessary.
“It's hard to get him to relax,” Brady comments, looking over Dean's shoulder at the same photograph. He hasn't brought them into Sam's room, is waiting to get Dean's approval beforehand. “It's like he's always waiting for something terrible to happen. That's the only good thing about how he is now... whatever he was worried about, he doesn't remember it now.”
It might be the most fucking tragic thing Dean has ever heard.
Sam doesn't get through five photographs before he starts to cry again, face flushing with embarrassment. He turns away from them, trying unsuccessfully to mask the way his breath keeps hitching, and Dean just wants to pull him into his arms, rub his back and whisper that it's all going to be okay. Except it's not okay, and Sam doesn't actually know him. He's been reading up, and he knows that it's really stressful for people with retrograde amnesia to deal with close contact from their friends and family.
“Sorry,” Sam is saying, repeating himself. Always apologizing. Dean rubs a hand over his mouth.
“You don't have to apologize. The doctor said your emotions are gonna be all over the place for a while 'cause of the head trauma. Nothing to be sorry for, okay?”
“It's perfectly normal,” Brady agrees. “I may not be on the track to being a doctor anymore, but I remember enough of my education to tell you that with all the professional authority I can muster.”
Sam scrubs at his eyes. “I hate this,” he mutters to no one in particular. He's gone pale under the red splotches on his face caused by the tears, and Dean risks putting a hand on his arm.
“Hey, you hurting?”
Sam looks sheepish. “A bit,” he admits, and Dean rolls his eyes.
“No martyrs allowed in the hospital. Use the morphine pump like a good trauma patient. Or do you need me to get someone?”
A head shake. “I'm good,” Sam says quietly, but he fumbles for the dispenser's button, and a moment later Dean sees the tension drain from his shoulders.
“All right. I'm cutting this one short. Let's go, Doogie Howser,” he nudges Brady and jerks his head toward the door. Brady nods, gets up.
“I'll leave the photos, so you can take your time. I wrote the names of everyone in them on the back, from left to right, back to front. Except for the people I don't know, and for them I just wrote 'random guy we don't care about.'” He smiles, to show he's joking.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Sam doesn't acknowledge the joke, looking a little overwhelmed even by the handful of pictures. When Dean follows Brady out the door, though, he calls out. “Hey, uh, Dean?”
He turns back. “Yeah, Sammy?”
Sam twists his hands in his lap, stares at them as though they might hold all the answers in his life. “Could you, uh, maybe stay a bit?”
Brady claps him on the shoulder. “I'll see you tomorrow, Dean,” he says with a quick nod, heads off down the hallway, leaving him in the room with Sam.
He heads back in, trying not to let on just how relieved he is that Sam still wants him, even under the circumstances. “You need anything?”
Sam shakes his head. “No. I just... I don't like being alone. I don't have anything to think about, and... okay, this is going to sound stupid—”
“Sam.”
His brother takes a shaky breath. “I know it's stupid, okay? But I... every time I fall asleep, I feel like I'm falling into a black hole, and every time I'm scared that this time I won't get out.”
Dean doesn't know what to say to that, so he stays silent.
*
It's only after he's been out of his coma for three days that it even occurs to Sam to ask for a mirror.
“I don't know what I look like,” he tells Jess, who looks like she might cry. He hopes she won't, because that'll definitely set him off, and he's tired of having no control over his own tears. It's been three days of riding an emotional roller coaster, and it's exhausting.
“I'll bring one by later. The only one I've got is my compact, and I don't think that should be the first look you get at yourself,” she says, and he's absurdly grateful for the thought.
“How long have you —have we been together?”
“A year and a half or so. We met sophomore year.”
“Brady introduced us, right? That's what he said.”
“Yeah, although we spoke a couple of times before. We were in Philosophy 101 together in freshman year and we were in a discussion group together. I thought you were kind of cute,” her voice trembled for a second, but she keeps hold of herself, “but you were so damned shy... you wouldn't talk at all outside of class. You always had really insightful things to say in class, though.”
“So I'm a shy, bookish nerd?” he can't help but smile at the thought, and she laughs.
“Actually, yeah, although you're a pretty fair soccer player, too.”
“Latin, philosophy and soccer.”
“And law. We just passed the LSATs together. You always said you wanted to practice family law.”
“It's weird that I can remember LSAT questions, but I don't remember writing my name on the exam paper.”
“It'll come back,” she says, with the finality of a promise, and he tries very hard to believe her, right up until she comes back that afternoon with a hand-held mirror and places it in his lap.
For a moment he's afraid to pick it up, of what he might see. His hands shake so badly that he has to hold the mirror with both hands to keep it steady, bracing his forearms on his stomach. His face is covered in mostly-healed bruises and cuts. The worst one bisects his left eyebrow and continues onto his cheek a bit, and he thinks it might leave a faint scar. It's easy to concentrate on the injuries, so he forces himself to look at the rest of the face staring back at him. Whatever hopes he had of having all his memories flood back to him are dashed, because he's looking at a stranger with wary-looking hazel eyes. The face is nice-enough looking, he thinks, can't see what Jess obviously sees, but he thinks maybe it wasn't his face that drew her to him. He puts the mirror down, placing the glass against his lap so he won't accidentally catch sight of his reflection again.
“What if I never remember anything?” Will you still want to stay with me? He wants to ask, but doesn't.
“You will, but even if you don't, we'll work it out.”
“Sonia says they found a ring in my jacket pocket,” he doesn't meet her eyes. “We were gonna get married.”
She gets up, stumbles blindly from the room, hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle the sob that wells up from inside her. He watches her go, puts the mirror carefully face-down on the table by his bed, and doesn't bother trying not to cry.
*
“So how old are you? I know I'm not supposed to ask, but I figure I can get a free pass this one time, right?”
Jess laughs, and not for the first time Dean thinks she has a really pretty laugh before squelching the thought as hard as he can. Lusting after your amnesiac little brother's girlfriend has to be at the very top of the list of Shitty Things You Don't Do To Your Family. Besides, he knows himself well enough to have figured out that he's kind of got a thing for her only because she's so damned loyal to Sammy, and it's kind of like foxhole-bonding without the grenades and shrapnel. She's having a hard time today, after the whole ring thing, and so now they're all trying to keep it lighter than before, to spare all of them, but it's hard.
“You're not allowed to tell anyone else, but I'll make an exception for you. I'm twenty-two, same as you, although I'm nearly five months older.”
Dean looks at her in surprise. “When's your birthday?”
“January 26th.”
“No kidding. Mine's the 24th.”
“It's the Age of Aquarius,” she says seriously, and then they both laugh while Sam looks at them, nose slightly scrunched in confusion at the joke he obviously doesn't share. He looks like he's working out something in his mind, and the next words out of his mouth confirm that.
“So that means you were born in '79,” he says to Dean, who nods.
“That's right.”
“When's my birthday?”
Dean manages not to flinch. “May 2nd, 1983.”
It's the six-month anniversary of their mother's death, and he's always hated that that's how their family sees the day, except that he can never wipe that particular slate clean. Maybe Sam will be able to, he thinks. So far, though, Sam hasn't asked all that many questions about his past, focussing on Jess, as though instinctively he feels that it's safer territory to explore first.
Sam shifts uncomfortably on the bed. He's able to stay awake longer now, but with that improvement comes the realization that he's essentially trapped in his bed until the doctors deem him fit enough to start physiotherapy. All his broken bones are mending, but it's a slow process, and because of the multiple breaks in his ribs, he's sentenced to quasi-immobility for the time being, lest he cause himself even more harm. It makes sense, but Dean knows all too well just how quickly a guy can drive himself nuts, sitting in a hospital bed with nowhere to go.
“You hurting?” It's become a standard question. Sam shakes his head.
“No, I'm okay. The magic machine is working just fine,” he adds with a self-deprecating grin. Jess leans forward, wraps a hand around his wrist, her fingers looking small and delicate by contrast.
“You know you can ask about anything you want, right?”
Sam bites his lip, glances at Dean out of the corner of his eye. “Is it just us?”
Dean blinks. “Is what just us?”
“Our family. You haven't mentioned anyone else, and, uh, there's no one else here...” he trails off uncertainly.
“Oh.” Dean isn't sure what to say. “No. I mean, yeah. There's our Dad, but apart from him there isn't anyone else, no.”
Sam keeps plucking at the blanket, as though he's afraid to voice his next question. “So how come he's not here?”
Dean makes a helpless gesture with both hands, gets up from his chair and paces a couple of steps, ignoring the flare of pain in his ankle as he does so. “I can't get hold of him. I left messages, but he's been on a —a job that took him outside of cell reception, and I think maybe it's taking longer than he thought, or something. I don't know. He'd come if he could, though, I swear.”
Jess' mouth has thinned to a colourless line, and Dean knows just how little she thinks of John Winchester for being incommunicado for nearly three weeks when his youngest son nearly died, but there's nothing he can do to change her opinion.
“Right, yeah,” Sam says, but he sounds unconvinced. “Did I —did we get along? Do we get along, I mean?”
He rubs at his mouth, wishes he had a cigarette, grimaces. “Sort of. I mean, you're always butting heads. You have a smart mouth on you, and you know Dad —okay, bad choice of words. Dad's just Dad. He's an ex-Marine, doesn't like backtalk.”
“Is that why he's not here?”
“'Course not. He cares about you. Hell, he spent all our lives making sure you were safe,” he snaps, doesn't miss the sharp look he gets from Jess at his slip-up, and curses himself. Sam also gives him a look he can't quite decipher, but doesn't say anything. “I'm going to get a cup of coffee. Can I get you one?” he asks Jess, who shakes her head and glares at him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that he's not fooling anyone.
He doesn't dare look back at Sam's face, turns and just barely manages not to sprint for the door, escapes to the shelter of the outdoors and the empty sky. He lights a cigarette, leans against the rough wall, and inhales the smoke as though it might somehow fill the gaping hole in his chest where his family used to be.
Chapter 4
There are specific Season 5 spoilers in this section, although nothing that will reveal Important Plot Points™.
Chapter 2
“What're you doing out here?”
Dean looks up from the newest cigarette he's just lit, holds it in his lap, forearms resting on his thighs so Jess won't see his hands shaking. “Having a smoke.”
“Uh-huh. You sure you're not hiding?”
He scowls, doesn't meet her gaze. “Why would I be doing that?”
She drops to the step next to him, smoothing out her skirt as she sits, and leans her elbows on her knees. “Why don't you tell me?”
“Nothing to tell,” he says shortly, taking a drag off the cigarette.
“Bullshit. Sam's asleep, or I'd be dragging you in there right off. Consider this a reprieve, but you're not off the hook. You spent two weeks practically glued to your brother's bedside. I had to pry you away with a crowbar half the time, and now that he's awake and out of danger you won't even go near his room? What are you afraid of?”
He narrows his eyes at her. “You studied law with Sam, right?”
“Yeah,” her look says plainly that she doesn't know what he's driving at.
“So quit trying to psychoanalyse me.”
She looks away, hurt, and it figures that Sam would be dating someone who could match him hurt look for hurt look. “Fine. But Sam needs you, and when he wakes up again you should be there, and not out here.”
He shakes his head. “I was thinking maybe I should take off, now that he's out of the woods. Go find my Dad, see if anything happened to him.”
“So you're not hiding, you're running away,” she says flatly, and he winces at her tone.
“You don't know what you're talking about.”
“Don't I?”
He finishes the cigarette, uses the still-lit butt to light another. “I'm not talking to you about this.”
“Yeah, it's a family trait. I put up with it from Sam, because I love him, but you? I don't have to put up with that kind of bullshit. You're just going to leave him there like that? Alone and confused and frightened?”
She's angry, but he's dealt with his share of angry women in his line of work. “I don't have to explain myself to you.”
“Maybe not, but what about Sam? What am I supposed to tell him when he wakes up again? 'Oh, sorry babe. Your brother was here, sure, but he just bailed when he realized you were awake.' What do you think that's going to do to him?”
Dean gets to his feet, starts pacing in spite of himself. “It's not like that,” he snaps, losing his temper in spite of himself. “You can't understand this.”
“Try explaining it to me. Feel free to use small words. Is it because he doesn't remember you?”
“No! Okay, sort of. It's... I've been thinking, and... maybe it's better if I'm not around, you know? Sammy always wanted a fresh start, and... maybe if I'm not around, he can have that.”
“So you're just going to ditch us? Ditch him?”
“I don't want to, okay?”
“Then don't!” she's on her feet too, eyes flashing dangerously. She's even more beautiful when she's angry, he thinks a little breathlessly. “I don't know what happened before, because Sam never told me, you won't say a word, and now he might never be able to tell me—” her breath hitches for a moment, “but you can't leave him in there like that! You're the only one who can tell him who he really is.”
He doesn't look at her. “That's exactly the problem,” he says, and pushes by her back into the hospital.
*
It's hard to tell if Sam is asleep. The drugs keep him sedated and vague, and with his eyes closed and his breathing even and regular, he could as easily be asleep as awake. Dean settles into the chair by the bed, trying to stay quiet. If Sam is asleep, better he stay that way. The longer he's asleep, the longer Dean doesn't have to come up with answers to questions he'd rather not hear.
At the sound of the chair legs scraping on the floor, though, Sam's eyes flutter open. For a moment Dean holds his breath, waiting for a flicker of recognition, but there's nothing. Sam blinks at him, eyes unfocussed, smiles timidly.
“Hi.”
He forces himself to smile. “Hey, Sammy. Sleep well?”
Sam shrugs, then winces. “Okay, I guess. Weird dreams.”
“Morphine'll do that. How you feeling?”
“Can I get back to you on that?” the sheepish smile is the same, but it doesn't reach his eyes, and Dean nods, looks away.
Physically, the doctors tell them, Sam is doing much better than they could have hoped for. They've reassured Dean so many times about how young and healthy and resilient his brother is that by the time a week went by he was ready to throw a punch at the next person who said it. He knows he should be pleased that Sam is recovering well, because it's really good news. Sam could have died and instead he's here and awake and the doctors are saying he might need only one more surgery on his leg and that with proper therapy he'll probably be up and walking around in a few months and in another year or so he might not even have a limp.
Sam plucks at the thin blanket on his bed with the fingers of one hand. “So Dr. Fitch says they don't know if I'm ever going to remember anything,” he says softly.
Dean's instinctive reaction is to deny it, to reassure Sammy that he's going to remember everything, that it's all going to be fine, but the words stick in his throat.
“She wants me to see a psychiatrist. Apparently there isn't any one treatment for this, it has to be managed on a case-by-case basis,” Sam continues, sounding for all the world as though he's explaining the research he did on a case rather than describing his own medical treatments.
“Whatever gets the job done, right?”
“Right.” There's a moment of awkward silence. “Is it stupid that I'm afraid even to start asking questions?”
Dean looks up, sees the way Sam is worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. “Hey, of course not. Don't sweat it. Me and Jess will fill you in on the important stuff, until you remember on your own.”
Sam nods, swallows hard, and Dean is startled to see that he's trying hard not to cry. Sam sniffs, cuffs at his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Sorry. I'm like a damned faucet.”
Dean grins and pats his good knee gently. “Well, it's good to know some things haven't changed. You always were kind of a big girl.”
His brother huffs a tearful laugh at that. “I'll take your word for it,” he says, and Dean's heart kind of clenches at that, because it's not what Sam would say normally.
“Okay, first lesson in being Sam Winchester. When I call you a girl? You're supposed to call me a jerk.”
Sam snorts, but his eyes sparkle a bit. “Fine. Jerk.”
“Bitch.”
He gets an eyebrow quirked at him at that, but at least the tears have stopped, for now. “Seriously?”
“What can I say?” Dean shrugs, grinning. “We have a healthy fraternal relationship.”
*
Once it's obvious Sam's life is no longer in danger, it's pretty much impossible to keep his friends away. They're more tactful now than they were, even Charlie-the-Asshole, as Dean has taken to calling him privately. They all figure out pretty fast that their presence is often as much a source of stress for Sam —who's racked with guilt that he can't remember any of them, and gets agitated far more easily, which in turn ratchets up his pain levels. After being told off by a doctor and a couple of nurses, they get the message and back off a bit. They mostly show up to talk to Jess, only go into Sam's room in ones and twos, and never for long.
Apart from Charlie-the-Asshole, the one friend who comes by the most is a tall blond guy with an easy smile and the blood-shot eyes of a student who drinks way too much alcohol at night and way too much coffee during the day and doesn't sleep nearly enough. He introduces himself as Brady on the first day, then comes back every afternoon after his classes to get an update on Sam's progress. He smiles at Jess, gives her shoulders a reassuring squeeze, but he mostly talks to Dean, and eventually Dean decides he's not a complete douchebag. In fact, he seems to be the only friend Sam has that he didn't meet through Jess.
“I'm the one who introduced them, actually,” Brady confides on the third day. “I met Sam in freshman Latin —he's a natural for dead languages, although I don't know what that says about him,” he gives Dean a shit-eating grin which is almost impossible not to return.
“He always did like school way too much.”
“He's a good guy, your brother,” Brady says, cradling a styrofoam cup of coffee between his knees. “Stuck by me when my parents got killed, and he's one of my only friends who didn't drop me like a hot potato when I didn't exactly cope with it in a healthy, well-adjusted way. Everyone else freaked out when I dropped out of pre-med, spent their time lecturing me about throwing my life away. Sam? He just took away my car keys when he had to, let me crash on his couch all the time —hell, I practically lived there for a couple of weeks, and he and Jess never said a word. It means a lot, you know? So I just want to be here now. Make sure I return the favour.”
It's Brady who thinks of bringing photographs. Sam with Jess, faces pressed together and grinning in front of one of the faculty buildings. Sam on the grass amidst a group of friends. One of them has a guitar, the rest sprawled out and draped over each other, relaxed and laughing. Dean feels an unexpected pang looking at that one, seeing Sam sitting only fractionally apart, but laughing along all the same. He's not sure that it's not entirely his fault that Sam isn't sprawled on his back in the grass instead of sitting with his back to a tree, able to spring to his feet at a moment's notice if necessary.
“It's hard to get him to relax,” Brady comments, looking over Dean's shoulder at the same photograph. He hasn't brought them into Sam's room, is waiting to get Dean's approval beforehand. “It's like he's always waiting for something terrible to happen. That's the only good thing about how he is now... whatever he was worried about, he doesn't remember it now.”
It might be the most fucking tragic thing Dean has ever heard.
Sam doesn't get through five photographs before he starts to cry again, face flushing with embarrassment. He turns away from them, trying unsuccessfully to mask the way his breath keeps hitching, and Dean just wants to pull him into his arms, rub his back and whisper that it's all going to be okay. Except it's not okay, and Sam doesn't actually know him. He's been reading up, and he knows that it's really stressful for people with retrograde amnesia to deal with close contact from their friends and family.
“Sorry,” Sam is saying, repeating himself. Always apologizing. Dean rubs a hand over his mouth.
“You don't have to apologize. The doctor said your emotions are gonna be all over the place for a while 'cause of the head trauma. Nothing to be sorry for, okay?”
“It's perfectly normal,” Brady agrees. “I may not be on the track to being a doctor anymore, but I remember enough of my education to tell you that with all the professional authority I can muster.”
Sam scrubs at his eyes. “I hate this,” he mutters to no one in particular. He's gone pale under the red splotches on his face caused by the tears, and Dean risks putting a hand on his arm.
“Hey, you hurting?”
Sam looks sheepish. “A bit,” he admits, and Dean rolls his eyes.
“No martyrs allowed in the hospital. Use the morphine pump like a good trauma patient. Or do you need me to get someone?”
A head shake. “I'm good,” Sam says quietly, but he fumbles for the dispenser's button, and a moment later Dean sees the tension drain from his shoulders.
“All right. I'm cutting this one short. Let's go, Doogie Howser,” he nudges Brady and jerks his head toward the door. Brady nods, gets up.
“I'll leave the photos, so you can take your time. I wrote the names of everyone in them on the back, from left to right, back to front. Except for the people I don't know, and for them I just wrote 'random guy we don't care about.'” He smiles, to show he's joking.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Sam doesn't acknowledge the joke, looking a little overwhelmed even by the handful of pictures. When Dean follows Brady out the door, though, he calls out. “Hey, uh, Dean?”
He turns back. “Yeah, Sammy?”
Sam twists his hands in his lap, stares at them as though they might hold all the answers in his life. “Could you, uh, maybe stay a bit?”
Brady claps him on the shoulder. “I'll see you tomorrow, Dean,” he says with a quick nod, heads off down the hallway, leaving him in the room with Sam.
He heads back in, trying not to let on just how relieved he is that Sam still wants him, even under the circumstances. “You need anything?”
Sam shakes his head. “No. I just... I don't like being alone. I don't have anything to think about, and... okay, this is going to sound stupid—”
“Sam.”
His brother takes a shaky breath. “I know it's stupid, okay? But I... every time I fall asleep, I feel like I'm falling into a black hole, and every time I'm scared that this time I won't get out.”
Dean doesn't know what to say to that, so he stays silent.
*
It's only after he's been out of his coma for three days that it even occurs to Sam to ask for a mirror.
“I don't know what I look like,” he tells Jess, who looks like she might cry. He hopes she won't, because that'll definitely set him off, and he's tired of having no control over his own tears. It's been three days of riding an emotional roller coaster, and it's exhausting.
“I'll bring one by later. The only one I've got is my compact, and I don't think that should be the first look you get at yourself,” she says, and he's absurdly grateful for the thought.
“How long have you —have we been together?”
“A year and a half or so. We met sophomore year.”
“Brady introduced us, right? That's what he said.”
“Yeah, although we spoke a couple of times before. We were in Philosophy 101 together in freshman year and we were in a discussion group together. I thought you were kind of cute,” her voice trembled for a second, but she keeps hold of herself, “but you were so damned shy... you wouldn't talk at all outside of class. You always had really insightful things to say in class, though.”
“So I'm a shy, bookish nerd?” he can't help but smile at the thought, and she laughs.
“Actually, yeah, although you're a pretty fair soccer player, too.”
“Latin, philosophy and soccer.”
“And law. We just passed the LSATs together. You always said you wanted to practice family law.”
“It's weird that I can remember LSAT questions, but I don't remember writing my name on the exam paper.”
“It'll come back,” she says, with the finality of a promise, and he tries very hard to believe her, right up until she comes back that afternoon with a hand-held mirror and places it in his lap.
For a moment he's afraid to pick it up, of what he might see. His hands shake so badly that he has to hold the mirror with both hands to keep it steady, bracing his forearms on his stomach. His face is covered in mostly-healed bruises and cuts. The worst one bisects his left eyebrow and continues onto his cheek a bit, and he thinks it might leave a faint scar. It's easy to concentrate on the injuries, so he forces himself to look at the rest of the face staring back at him. Whatever hopes he had of having all his memories flood back to him are dashed, because he's looking at a stranger with wary-looking hazel eyes. The face is nice-enough looking, he thinks, can't see what Jess obviously sees, but he thinks maybe it wasn't his face that drew her to him. He puts the mirror down, placing the glass against his lap so he won't accidentally catch sight of his reflection again.
“What if I never remember anything?” Will you still want to stay with me? He wants to ask, but doesn't.
“You will, but even if you don't, we'll work it out.”
“Sonia says they found a ring in my jacket pocket,” he doesn't meet her eyes. “We were gonna get married.”
She gets up, stumbles blindly from the room, hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle the sob that wells up from inside her. He watches her go, puts the mirror carefully face-down on the table by his bed, and doesn't bother trying not to cry.
*
“So how old are you? I know I'm not supposed to ask, but I figure I can get a free pass this one time, right?”
Jess laughs, and not for the first time Dean thinks she has a really pretty laugh before squelching the thought as hard as he can. Lusting after your amnesiac little brother's girlfriend has to be at the very top of the list of Shitty Things You Don't Do To Your Family. Besides, he knows himself well enough to have figured out that he's kind of got a thing for her only because she's so damned loyal to Sammy, and it's kind of like foxhole-bonding without the grenades and shrapnel. She's having a hard time today, after the whole ring thing, and so now they're all trying to keep it lighter than before, to spare all of them, but it's hard.
“You're not allowed to tell anyone else, but I'll make an exception for you. I'm twenty-two, same as you, although I'm nearly five months older.”
Dean looks at her in surprise. “When's your birthday?”
“January 26th.”
“No kidding. Mine's the 24th.”
“It's the Age of Aquarius,” she says seriously, and then they both laugh while Sam looks at them, nose slightly scrunched in confusion at the joke he obviously doesn't share. He looks like he's working out something in his mind, and the next words out of his mouth confirm that.
“So that means you were born in '79,” he says to Dean, who nods.
“That's right.”
“When's my birthday?”
Dean manages not to flinch. “May 2nd, 1983.”
It's the six-month anniversary of their mother's death, and he's always hated that that's how their family sees the day, except that he can never wipe that particular slate clean. Maybe Sam will be able to, he thinks. So far, though, Sam hasn't asked all that many questions about his past, focussing on Jess, as though instinctively he feels that it's safer territory to explore first.
Sam shifts uncomfortably on the bed. He's able to stay awake longer now, but with that improvement comes the realization that he's essentially trapped in his bed until the doctors deem him fit enough to start physiotherapy. All his broken bones are mending, but it's a slow process, and because of the multiple breaks in his ribs, he's sentenced to quasi-immobility for the time being, lest he cause himself even more harm. It makes sense, but Dean knows all too well just how quickly a guy can drive himself nuts, sitting in a hospital bed with nowhere to go.
“You hurting?” It's become a standard question. Sam shakes his head.
“No, I'm okay. The magic machine is working just fine,” he adds with a self-deprecating grin. Jess leans forward, wraps a hand around his wrist, her fingers looking small and delicate by contrast.
“You know you can ask about anything you want, right?”
Sam bites his lip, glances at Dean out of the corner of his eye. “Is it just us?”
Dean blinks. “Is what just us?”
“Our family. You haven't mentioned anyone else, and, uh, there's no one else here...” he trails off uncertainly.
“Oh.” Dean isn't sure what to say. “No. I mean, yeah. There's our Dad, but apart from him there isn't anyone else, no.”
Sam keeps plucking at the blanket, as though he's afraid to voice his next question. “So how come he's not here?”
Dean makes a helpless gesture with both hands, gets up from his chair and paces a couple of steps, ignoring the flare of pain in his ankle as he does so. “I can't get hold of him. I left messages, but he's been on a —a job that took him outside of cell reception, and I think maybe it's taking longer than he thought, or something. I don't know. He'd come if he could, though, I swear.”
Jess' mouth has thinned to a colourless line, and Dean knows just how little she thinks of John Winchester for being incommunicado for nearly three weeks when his youngest son nearly died, but there's nothing he can do to change her opinion.
“Right, yeah,” Sam says, but he sounds unconvinced. “Did I —did we get along? Do we get along, I mean?”
He rubs at his mouth, wishes he had a cigarette, grimaces. “Sort of. I mean, you're always butting heads. You have a smart mouth on you, and you know Dad —okay, bad choice of words. Dad's just Dad. He's an ex-Marine, doesn't like backtalk.”
“Is that why he's not here?”
“'Course not. He cares about you. Hell, he spent all our lives making sure you were safe,” he snaps, doesn't miss the sharp look he gets from Jess at his slip-up, and curses himself. Sam also gives him a look he can't quite decipher, but doesn't say anything. “I'm going to get a cup of coffee. Can I get you one?” he asks Jess, who shakes her head and glares at him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that he's not fooling anyone.
He doesn't dare look back at Sam's face, turns and just barely manages not to sprint for the door, escapes to the shelter of the outdoors and the empty sky. He lights a cigarette, leans against the rough wall, and inhales the smoke as though it might somehow fill the gaping hole in his chest where his family used to be.
Chapter 4
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I'm updating kind of sporadically on this one, unlike my usual M.O.
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Oy, this whole scenario is so heart-breaking and I wonder how or whether you manage to put John into this mess at some point.
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I'm glad you're enjoying it. :)
I haven't yet figured out what John's role is in this story, but he will have one, have no fear.
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Thank you for the update!!!
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There is no such thing as a "fresh start" in the Winchesters' world.
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I'm hoping that it'll get a little less angst-ridden soon, but I dumped all three of them into a pretty stressful situation, and they're refusing to just walk it off this time. ;)
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Your Experiment in Fanfiction is working well!
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If I tell you whether Brady's demonic or not, it would ruin the surprise! ;)
Dean isn't "Cristo"-ing all of Sam's friends because this is pre-series. They didn't even consider demonic presences anywhere until 1.04 ("Phantom Traveler"), and demons only got seriously involved in 1.11 ("Scarecrow").
That being said, Dean *does* know how to take other precautions (salt lines and the like), so you never know. Something might come into play later. :)
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I feel bad for all of them too. :(
Thanks for the lovely feedback!
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I'm very much looking forward to more of this, yes. ;D
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Everyone seems to be enjoying Brady's presence in this fic. I am pleased as punch. :)
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Everyone seems to be reacting well to Brady, so that's all to the good!
And yeah... there's a reason Dean was very seriously contemplating fleeing for the hills, there. He has to explain everything *and* make sure Jess doesn't find out. Yikes.
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I'm glad you liked it, though.
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And poor Dean, being caught between his father and Sam again even when John isn't there and Sam doesn't know who he is.
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Still catching up on comments myself, here. I'm glad you're still enjoying it, and yeah, the whole Brady thing has everyone on edge. :)
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I am all about the good pain. ;)
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Sam is killing me. With the not remembering how he looks and THE RING (god, poor Jess) and the crying all the time and wanting Dean to stay and asking about John. And Dean. Oh, Dean. So awesome and sad.
One little thing: Dean and Jess have the same birthday. (I love how you made her older than Sam though!)
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No worries! I'm not in the habit of deleting comments unless they're spam or really offensive, and yours is neither. It will stay here for posterity to witness. ;)
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I'm glad you liked the rest! :)
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Okay.
Well, I am therefore calling fanficcer's fiat and declaring that my AU is more AU than I thought, 'cause otherwise I have to change an entire section of this chapter for what's essentially a detail. ;)
Thanks for the clarification!
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I wouldn't change it either. Wrote a fic where the Impala had a stick shift even though it's got automatic transmission and I refuse to change it because it would mean changing a part of the fic that I like. So yeah. *leaves now*
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It's all good.
I was reading a fic the other day in which there is Porn in the Impala™, and at one point one of the boys ends up kneeling between the seats (ah, the logistics of car sex). One commenter pointed out that the Impala has bench seats, to which a few others responded: "Really? Three pages of porn and what you got out of that was that the author got the bench seats wrong?"
It made me giggle. :D