CHAPTER 5

Cornwall, Connecticut

Pierpont Inn

Tyler was in the water.

No.

Sam was bashing the door in with the pot, hammering on the glass, again, again.

No please.

Sam knew what it would be like for her, he had to help, because when you couldn't swim, all you could do was panic, and the water would swirl around you and sink into you and flood you everywhere.

Crack, crack, crack against the glass of the door....the glass of the tank.....

The spiderweb patterns spread as Sam beat the glass, and then it shattered, and without pausing to think Sam was pushing through the doorway, panting, and he crossed the floor, a foot on the balcony banister, leapt up and fell quick, the water rushing up to meet him.

And he remembered he didn't have Dean.

Water...

He gritted his teeth.

He fell onto the pool cover, the plastic surrounding him as the water whooshed around him, filling his ears. For a moment he had to panic, he couldn't get through the plastic, couldn't see through it, and he punched, flailing, about to lose his hold on the reason he was in there to begin with, about to forget how to hold his breath at all...

And then he shoved it away to the side, and there was Tyler, floating still and small in the pool water just feet away from him.

He stroked out, swimming toward her, and tugged her up with him, lungs burning now, skin prickling at the feel of the wetness, his heart accelerating with the need to be out of the water now.

And then he broke the surface and pushed her up into the air, and made his way to the shallower part, breathing shallow and fast, too fast she's not breathing at all, his casted hand soaked and soggy and his clothes heavy on him, threatening to pull him back down she's drenched, she'd dead weight, and Sam tried to focus on Tyler limp in his arms, and not the blue expanse of the wide pool trying to break him.

* * *

Dean finally got the door open with a vicious kick, breaking through and bolting through the hall, the tile ending and turning into the pool room, where Sam was in the water, holding Tyler.

The met at the pool's edge, where Sam laid Tyler down, and Susan was kneeling, and it was like everything was in slow motion, and Dean was back a foot away and staring at Susan and reading her mind no, no please, not like this, no because he knew, he knew what this felt like, he knew what it would feel like to her if-

And then Tyler choked out a cough, and spat water, and then time sped up again, and it was like Susan could suddenly read Dean's mind as she sobbed, "Thank god, thank god."

Dean reminded himself to inhale just as Sam spoke.

"Tyler, do you see maggie anywhere?"

"No she's gone."

Dean watched Sam lift his gaze, and they shared a look, Dean silently screaming get out of the water, now and Sam silently pleading please get me out of the water with his hands and arms held gingerly above it, shivering. Dean tried to abate the feeling, looking up and around, then looked back to Sam.

He put out a hand, "Get out. C'mon." Now. Please.

Sam looked desperate to oblige.

They followed Susan and Tyler out, Sam shaking and Dean furtively watching him out of the corner of his eye.

"You cold?" he asked quietly. Sam jumped.

"What? No. Yeah. I dunno, I'm fine." Dean raised his eyebrows.

"Alright." But then Sam huffed, seeming frustrated.

"Was just...scared. For a minute." He sounded like he was confessing a sin.

And that had Dean freezing in his tracks, Sam stopping a good step and a half in front if him.

"Dean?"

"Why?" Dean's voice was still quiet, still low, but he kept his eyes intense and one Sam's face, which looked a little freaked.

"Wh-what?"

"Why were you scared?" Sam's eyes bulged, and a pang of hurt flashed across his face as a faint blush rose in his cheeks.

"What? Are you serious?" Dean just looked at him. Sam's face drooped, "Didj-did you seriously forget?" Sam looked like Dean had hit him, "god Dean..." and he turned to follow Susan back to the house.

"No", Dean muttered, and jogged to catch up, to grab Sam's shoulder and pull him back around, "no Sam, I mean I thought it was over. I thought you'd done something, managed to get over it somehow. You're still," Dean was getting a sick, pulling kind of feeling in the middle of his chest, imagining his brother leaping into the pool, still panicking, still terrified, still stuck in a glass tank, "you're still....?"

Sam looked embarrassed.

"No I," he huffed again, but Dean noticed he wasn't shaking anymore, "it's fine, I can handle it, just," he paused, and looked up at Dean again, and it was really something how Sam could manage to look eight years old sometimes, "just not alone like that. Just....ok?"

And Dean heard the sentence that came in between those last two words, even if only they were only in Sam's head, don't leave me alone again.

And like someone had flipped a switch, the hotcold feeling Dean had carried in the center of him since Lake Manitoc was gone, the horrible bitterness he couldn't focus or manage to get away from, it was suddenly just replaced with that other one, the your-brother-needs-you part, and dang this feels mushy and aw crap I kinda like it. Son of a mother-

"Ok," Dean said roughly, clapping Sam's shoulder again.

And they hurried to get back into the hotel, back to the job.

They had work to do.

And Sam needed a towel. And a new cast.

The End