Mending Fences

Author's Notes: First off I know that there are still many of you waiting for the wrap up of "If Only" and hopefully now that the boys and I appear to be on a speaking basis that will move along a little faster. This however jumped out of my head and on to paper and I felt I the need to share. It is obviously AU from what we know now through episode 4, there are no direct spoilers unless you haven't seen any of Season 5.

Was written for Brotherlove meme over on Live Journal where strgazr04 had the absolute best prompt. Gen. S5. Sam gets brutally hurt during the time the brothers are apart (fight in the bar he's working at, car accident, robbery, something supernatural, w/e). Dean races to Sam after the hospital calls him as Sam's emergency contact. Drugged on pain meds, Sam thinks Dean is still in hell. Dean finally sees just how much his brother needs him and how much he cares.

Thanks go as always to Carocali for the beta without her I'd be lost. Final mistakes are still however all mine.

Disclaimer: This is just for fun, I don't own them or anything like them so please don't sue.

Dean's six and a half hours away when he gets the call. He makes it to the hospital in under four. He has no idea how many state lines he's crossed or even what day it is. All he can hear is the tired voice on the phone asking if he can make decisions regarding Sam Wyatt's health care.

Now, he is pacing the surgery waiting room waiting for an update on his still unseen brother. He knows he must be making the other people waiting nervous just watching him. Already, the front half of the room he's been stalking is devoid of people. All of the families have gradually shifted toward the back half of the room either from fear of what they will hear when those swinging doors open or from the obvious predator in their midst Dean can't be sure. Nor can he really bring himself to care.

Dean had half expected to hear it was some kind of "hunting" accident that took Sam down. Instead, he's shocked to learn it wasn't a poltergeist or shapeshifter who put his brother here but some soccer mom on her cell phone who "was just trying to make the light."

The woman who had been doing 60 in a 35 had plowed through the intersection well after the light turned. The first two lanes of cross traffic managed to avoid her, unfortunately the same could not be said for the cab Sam had been riding in. Caught broadside, the taxi rolled side over side, finally stopping on its roof. It had taken the EMT's almost 2 hours to get Sam out of the mangled wreckage, barely alive.

Dean is contemplating all the various tortures he would like to inflict on the soccer mom if he ever sees her when the doors behind him swung open. Hope and fear playing tug-of-war in his stomach as a blood-splattered doctor makes his way out into the waiting room.

"Family of Sam Wyatt?"

Dean loses all concept of personal space as he follows the older man, anxious to finally get answers. He's led to a small office just off the waiting room as his gut clenches tight. Nothing good is ever said in these small rooms. They are the places the doctors take family members to break down in solitude, where platitudes are spoken of how "every measure was taken" and "the damage was just too severe" are murmured to heartbroken loved ones.

It occurs to him, as he settles into the chair, that he may be too late; Sam's gone and Dean will never get to put right this thing with brother.

"How is he?"

"Sam is holding his own. It was touch and go for awhile. We almost lost him a couple times on the table but he's a fighter and he pulled through. We're moving him to ICU now for monitoring"

"He's going to make it right? He's going to be okay?"

"The damage Sam sustained was extensive and the next 24 hours are critical but I'm cautiously optimistic that he will recover."

"Can I see him?"

"Once he's moved in I will have one of the nurses come down and get you. Just to warn you, when you see him, he's going to be pretty groggy from the anesthesia and the meds we have him on. If he does wake up while you are visiting, don't worry if he doesn't make any sense."

Dean smiles briefly at the older doctor, as the comment stirs images of a stoned out Sammy from the past.

"Don't worry doc, I've got a degree in groggy Sammy."

An hour later, Dean finds himself standing outside his brother's room. He is still amazed how someone as big as his brother can appear so small when laid out in a hospital bed. Gazing at his brother, it's all too easy to remember a simpler time when the bond between them was strong; not how it's been since Ruby and Lilith and the whole start of the apocalypse. How he longs to go back to before all the hurt and betrayal and lies on both sides, to when they were just brothers fighting the good fight.

Dean sighs, still stuck in the doorway; a small part of him wanting to turn and head back out now that he knows Sam will be ok. It isn't his job to watch over and protect Sam anymore. Hell has broken him and what small pieces of himself he has left, "big brother and protector" has been all but trampled to dust by the new and improved Super Sam.

His rage and anger flares as he remembers the words his brother threw at him while under the siren's call and for a moment, as he wraps himself in that warm rage and righteous anger, he turns to go. But a single sound stops him dead where he stands.

"Dean"

Dean's eyes fly to the bed across the room, where Sam starts to shift restlessly in his sleep. Unconsciously, his legs carry him to the bedside where his hands white-knuckle the bedrail, fighting the urge to reach out and soothe his brother.

He watches quietly as emotions flit across Sam's face, startled when those eyes crack open and fix him with a glassy stare.

"De'n?"

"Yeah, Sam it's me."

Dean sighs, feeling trapped now that his brother has seen him. Sam's gaze tracks the small hospital room never staying still for long.

"Hos'tl"

"Yep, you were in a car accident, they just finished patching you up."

Dean watches as Sam appears to shrink into himself, he can tell from the frown on Sam's face that he is trying to process the situation, certain the drugs aren't helping.

"So...you're not…you're still… dead… just dream from the meds."

"What?"

Dean stares at his brother incredulously. Of all the things he expects to hear from Sam's mouth the fact that Sam thought he was a hallucination was not one of them.

"God, I miss you Dean…so much….every day…I try and I try and nothing works. It's my fault you're gone and you're , you're in hell and I couldn't save you, and I promised but I couldn't do it. No matter what I do everyone dies….I wish I was dead too."

Dean falls into the chair next to the bed staring at his brother in shock. His mouth opens and closes as his brain tries to come up with the words to stop his brother's ramblings; to reassure him that he isn't a ghost or a hallucination. But nothing would come.

The stare continues until Sam turns away, talking again like he is confessing his soul.

"I hate being by myself now…you know but I can't stand to be around people either. Everyone keeps acting like nothing's changed that everything is normal but its not…I tried going to a diner but I couldn't even sit at the table. All these people with their families, all blissfully normal, eating like they don't have a care in the world. How can they do that? How can they just sit there when my brother's DEAD and in HELL because of me, because I wasn't strong enough or good enough to save him?"

"I buried you…you know… I know you wanted to be cremated like…like D-Dad but I couldn't Dean, I couldn't. I'm gonna find a way to get you back. I've tried everything since that night. Went through all of Bobby's books, looking for a spell or something that would get you out of hell or get me there in your place, but nothing I tried worked. I tried to kill myself but Bobby kept stopping me. I tried to tell him that at least that way I knew I'd get be in hell with you, but all he did was lock me in some cuffs till I sobered up.

"I know you told me not to but I tried to make a deal at the cross roads but apparently my soul's too pathetic to be worth any value, they wouldn't even bargain to trade places. She even passed up on killing me when I begged her to."

Sam fixes his brother with another watery stare, "Now you know how pathetic your baby brother is, couldn't even get a demon to kill him. You were better off with me dead, never should have made the deal."

Sam's eyes close and Dean almost thinks he's fallen back to sleep when he saw Sam swipe at his eyes, before looking resolutely back at where Dean sits.

"I know why you're here now…You're here to remind me about what you made me promise. That I remember what Dad taught us and what you taught me. And I do, I do it's just been hard, you know? But no more! I'm going to make you and Dad proud. I'm going to find Lilith and make her pay for what she did to you and until I find her, I'll hunt everything else for you, Dean. Saving people…hunting things…the family business…that's what you said, Dean and I'm going to make you proud I'm going to be just like you and Dad."

"Sam."

Sam shakes his head, tears running out from under his closed lids, bringing a hand up to his lips to quiet Dean.

"Shhh, don't, don't say you have to go…I know you're not real…I know, but please just let me have a little longer…stay…please…"

Dean feels his own tears slip down his cheeks as he listens to Sam's pleas. Watching quietly as this time, the drugs pull his brother back to sleep. It occurs to Dean suddenly that he now understands better than ever what his brother went through when he went to hell. He got that the Sam he came back to was his responsibility, too.

When he'd told Sam to remember what he'd taught him, he was trying to keep Sam safe, not turn him into the perfect hunter. But grief and rage had turned the simple dying wish of a protective older brother into Sam's manifest destiny. Sam never wanted to be rid of Dean; he'd only wanted to live up to Dean's expectations, even after Dean had returned from hell. Be the hunter that Dean and their dad could be proud of. Dean had been too blind to see that the motivation had come from a pure place, of love and grief even if the decisions Sam made all led down the wrong path.

Sam wasn't a monster; he was just a man, as battered and broken as Dean was and as much as he tried to tell himself he was enjoying his new found freedom, now maybe it was time to bring his brother home and mend fences before there wasn't a next time.

As Sam mumbles quietly in his sleep Dean reaches out for the first time and grasps his brother's hand. He feels the grip returned lightly as Sam calms in his sleep. As Dean sits there he knows that Sam's drugged confession isn't going to fix everything, but once Sam is awake it's a place to start from and maybe, just maybe, they can get back to where they belong - as brothers and friends.