Fic: The Apotheosis of Wile E. Coyote, SPN S3, part 4/6

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

Title: The Apotheosis of Wile E. Coyote
Author: nwhepcat
Fandom: Supernatural, gen;
Rating R
Spoilers: Set shortly after S3 "Mystery Spot," but spoilery for S4 "Heaven and Hell"
Summary: Even with the clock ticking toward death and hell, Dean insists on taking on a routine job. It's anything but routine when he finds something he's not meant to discover, and things get a great deal more complicated, while Sam tries very hard not to break.
Disclaimer: So not mine, and it is a sadness.
Warnings: Language, h/c, psychosis, extreme Sam angst

Previous parts are here.



It's tough to shake the feeling of deja vu when he returns to the room with a Ouija board under his arm. Considering all that happened after that, it's tough to shake the feeling of impending doom.

Pulling the box out of the bag, he says, "You remember how this works, Dean. All you have to do is talk to me."

A voice in his head, one he doesn't want to listen to, reminds him that the circumstances were different last time. He'd felt Dean's presence, seen evidence of it in a shattered glass. This time he's felt nothing.

Sitting on the floor, he opens the box and unfolds the board.

"Now wait a minute," Bobby says. "I'm too damn old to be sitting on floors."

"It's okay," Sam says. "Dean will move the planchette with me. It's how it worked last time."

"Sam." Bobby's voice is laced with a cautionary tone wrapped in uncharacteristic gentleness. "The answers you get that way are bound to be tainted by wishful thinking."

He keeps his gaze on the board. "It worked last time," he repeats, an angry edge to his voice.

"All right," Bobby says, settling back into his chair.

Sam places the planchette on the board. resting his fingertips lightly on one side. "Dean I know you're there. Help me figure out what's wrong, and we'll bring you back."

A pinpoint of pain appears just above the bridge of Sam's nose, and he realizes he's so tense he's probably working against himself. Removing his fingers from the planchette, he shakes out his forearms, flexes his back, then repositions his hands. "Don't be afraid, Dean. Bobby and I will help you. Just tell us what's going on."

Though the headache spreads through his forehead, Sam welcomes the ferocity of the pain. It feels much like the blinding headaches that accompanied his visions. "That's right, Dean. I'm here. Can you feel how close I am?"

The pain brightens, sharpens, deepens. Sam's hand twitches involuntarily, but he forces it back to the planchette. "That's right. Come on, come on." On its own accord, the piece scoots across the Ouija board, shooting over and past the word NO, just as Dean's raspy shout bursts out, sharp as a gunshot.

"Keep talking, Dean." But the pain in his head forces him to raise his hands from the planchette to clutch at his skull. "Dean. God --"

Something roars up and at him from the board, slamming him up and back until he crashes against the wall by the door. A thin howl rises up, and Sam's not sure it comes from his throat or Dean's.

"Cristo," Bobby says, and Sam feels a splash of water on his arm and hand.

Dean's thrashing calms, just as the headache eases by a small fraction. Before Sam can push himself up from the floor, he feels a sudden thread of wetness slip toward his upper lip. By the time he can raise a hand to his face, the trickle has become a gush of bright red blood.

***

Bobby scrambles to his side. "Sam!"

"I'm okay," he says thickly. "See about Dean."

Making a quick detour to the bathroom, Bobby tosses him a rough hand towel.

"Dean," he snarls to Bobby, but chokes on the viscous river clogging his nose and throat. Pressing the towel to his face, he's alarmed by the speed of the crimson stain spreading through the cotton.

"Dean," Bobby says, his voice gentled. "You're safe, son. We're here and we're not goin' anywhere."

"Must not look upon me," Dean mutters. "Stay away."

"Settle down now," Bobby croons. "They took off the restraints -- you want to keep it that way."

"I am bound still," Dean says. "Almost blinded. I can't hear -- Brothers!"

"Sam's right here, son. I'm right here."

"You are not my father," he insists.

Sam staggers to his feet, cloth pressed to his face. "Dean, I'm here."

Whirling to face him, Bobby hisses, "Sam, get the hell back before you scare him shitless. Get in the damn bathroom and clean up."

Hurrying to comply, Sam reels as he drops the blood-soaked towel into the sink and clutches the porcelain. No wonder Bobby told him to get the fuck away from Dean. He looks like he's gone fifteen rounds with the heavyweight champion of the demon world. His blood drips on the sodden wad of towels in the sink, spat spat spat, slowing only for a large clot to push its way through his nose. It both fascinates and disgusts him.

All he can hear from the room is the indistinct murmur of male voices. Anxious to get back out there, he grabs for a washcloth, dampens it, and runs it across his face, but another thick line of blood flows down to stain the skin he's just cleaned.

What the hell was it that pushed at him like that? Sam's never had a nosebleed this bad without taking a direct hit from something as hard as a bat or gunbutt or another man's skull.

"Sam?" Bobby calls out. "How's it coming in there?"

"Not good."

In a moment Bobby sidles into the bathroom doorway. "I gotta keep an eye on him, but -- Jesus, boy."

"I need to have this packed."

"I'd say you do," Bobby says drily. "There's a call button right by the toilet."

"Can't you?"

Bobby favors him with an eye roll. "Stupid me, I didn't think to bring my kit. Cause we happen to be in the damn hospital. Christ, he's trying to get up." Leaning in and punching the call button, he sighs then heads back out to Dean's side.

The muffled sound of pounding soft-soled shoes grows louder until Sam hears the door burst open and Bobby's quick, "In there."

A nurse steams into the place that Bobby just abandoned, fixing him with a sour look. "You're not the patient."

"No. His brother. Look, I -- I get nosebleeds when I'm stressed. I think this needs to be packed."

"We'll need to take you to the emergency room, get you into the system."

"I'm not leaving my brother."

She puts a hand on his arm, and Sam realizes she's totally capable of frog-marching him down to the ER. "You're not having it done here."

"Then I'll do it myself. Bring me some gauze and some tape." Fighting rising nausea, Sam spits another clot into the sink.

"I don't take orders from you, junior. If you want treatment, you have to be a patient."

"Get Dr. Moultrie. Please."

"You are not wasting a neurologist's time with a bloody nose."

Marching toward them, Bobby more than matches the nurse's attitude. He thrusts his head forward, nearly pecking her with the bill of his cap. "You're upsetting the one who is your patient. Give me some supplies and I'll patch the boy up. I was an army medic, and I jammed a cork into a helluva lot worse messes than that one, back when neither of those boys was even a randy thought in their old man's head."

They exchange glowers for a long moment, then the nurse says. "Fine. Just clean up the mess in the sink while you're at it."

Once she's gone, Sam lets out a breath. "Stay with Dean till she gets back. I'll be all right."

***


"Well, you ain't pretty, but that should do it," Bobby says.

It doesn't feel pretty -- two wads of cotton shoved tightly into his nose, with the ends sticking out. Sam can imagine Dean now: Hey, Tampon-Nose. Then again, he'd happily put up with the abuse, since it would mean Dean was himself again.

Bobby waves Sam off when he tries to help clean the sink and everything else he's touched, so he leans against the bathroom door frame, watching Dean.

"I've never felt anything like that, Bobby. Whatever the hell has gotten into him, it has power."

"Yeah. I'll hit the books while you sit with him." He waves Sam away again. "Go on now, I've got it covered."

Warily, Sam approaches his brother. "Hey, Dean," he says, voice soothing as he can make it considering the weird, congested quality it now has. "You knocked me for a loop there, dude. You're safe here, okay? Bobby and I are going to figure out what's happening, and nothing's going to get to you in the meantime."

"Too late," Dean mutters. "It's already happened."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"I was pushed out, cast down."

Dean's rising distress is evident, and Sam is torn between the urge to back off and the desire to push for more information. The second impulse wins out. "Cast down from where?"

It takes a long time for Dean to wrestle the next word out. Closing his eyes, he whispers, "Home."

Home is a word they use so seldom it might as well be never. Dean hasn't had anything like a home since he was four, unless you count that summer Dad parked them at Bobby's. Sam doesn't remember the house in Kansas at all, except their visit two years ago, but the place he shared with Jess had been home to him.

Resisting the urge to touch Dean's arm, afraid it will bring his revelations to an abrupt halt, Sam contents himself with leaning closer. "Tell me about your home."

"It's gone. The other took the memory when I was torn out."

The other. The words make Sam's skin rise up in goosebumps, though he doesn't know why. "What can you tell me about the other?"

"The other chose this. To leave me in this place, blind and deaf and hollowed out. Alone."

This time when the urge comes on, Sam does reach out, laying his hand on Dean's arm.

Dean pulls away, snarling. "This is your doing. I was sleeping. Why did you force me awake?"

"Dean--"

The only response is another push, which sends Sam reeling back into the wall.

***

The dual thuds of Sam's contact with the wall and the floor bring Bobby hurrying out of the bathroom to kneel at his side. "What the hell happened?"

"He gave me another one of those psychic pushes." Gingerly he touches the tip of the nose tampon (now that he's heard this in Dean's voice in his head, he can't think of it any other way), but there's no blood leaking through. "I touched him. I don't know if that's what set him off, or just the emotions that were building up. I think maybe we need to step out into the hallway and have a talk."

"You all right?"

Nodding, Sam says, "Give me a hand up." As he gets to his feet, he steadies himself with a hand on Bobby's shoulder. "Dean, Bobby and I are going to step outside for a couple of minutes. We'll be just outside the door, so if you need anything--" As if Sam's the answer to his distress, and not the cause.

When they're in the corridor, Sam says, "I've got a theory. It sounds nuts, but it's all I've got."

"So stop pussyfooting around -- what is it?"

Sam gently tests the nose tampon again with the back of his forefinger, recognizing the beginnings of a really annoying tic. "I don't think it's random crazy. I think Dean's possessed. But whatever it is that's possessing him -- there's something wrong with it. I think -- I think it has amnesia. Have you ever heard of anything like that?"

"Can't say I have, but there's a first time for everything."

"So the question is, does exorcism work on something that doesn't remember what it is?"

"One way to find out," Bobby says, turning and pushing through the door.

"Shit!" Sam calls out behind him. Despite the fact that they'd been blocking Dean's door, the doctor who'd awakened him in the first place stands over his bed, reaching a hand toward Dean's face. "Get away from my brother!"

Bobby lunges toward the doctor and finds himself slammed against the wall as Sam had earlier.

"Cristo!" Sam says again, though he knows it's useless.

"Do not interfere." The doctor's voice is commanding, arrogant. "This man has taken something that is not his to keep."

"Taken? Whatever it is, it took him."

He makes a dismissive gesture. "No matter. He will relinquish it."

"What happens to him then?" Sam asks. "To my brother."

The doctor gives him a look that says the conversation is beginning to bore him. "That is not my concern." He turns back toward Dean and Sam tries to tackle him, but some force restrains him, holding him motionless.

Before the doctor can lay a hand on him, Dean vanishes.

Anger seems to make the air crackle around the doctor as he whirls toward Sam as if this is his doing. Then, in a heartbeat, the doctor vanishes too.

***


Wide-eyed, Bobby turns to meet Sam's gaze. "What in the fucking fuck?"

All Sam can do is shake his head. He rushes out into the hallway, not sure what he's expecting. Neither Dean nor the doctor is out there.

"I did see that, didn't I?" Bobby demands. "He didn't take Dean -- Dean disappeared first, right?"

"Yeah. That's what I saw. Where the hell do we look, Bobby? In the hospital?"

"Beats shit outta me, Sam."

"The tree. Whatever's got him might remember the tree."

"Good thought." Bobby darts back into the room to grab his coat and Sam's. They fly down the hall as they wrestle their way into the coats, dodging orderlies and nurses and slow moving patients. Sam slips and nearly wipes out on the slick pavement outside the hospital entrance, but rights himself before he falls. When he makes it to the Impala, he reaches toward the driver's door, stopping in mid-motion.

"Dean!" Sam wrenches the door open and Dean recoils, throwing an arm up to shield his face. Sam gentles his voice, crooning, "Dean, it's all right, I won't hurt you."

Dean drops the arm to half mast, but his breathing's still ragged, eyes wild with panic. The hospital gown has come untied at the back of the neck, leaving one shoulder mostly bare.

Sam reaches a hand toward him, but freezes when Bobby says behind him, "Careful, Sam."

Instead he makes a placating gesture, palms out. "We won't hurt you. How did you get here?"

"I don't know. What is this place?"

"It's my brother's car. He must have led you here." It gives Sam goosebumps to realize the truth of this, to feel the strong surge of hope that follows that thought. He's still in there. "We should find someplace less exposed. Who is that man who's after you?"

"I don't know." His lack of answers is making his panic level rise, and Sam shows his palms again.

"Okay. I know this is scary as hell for you. But Dean -- he's my brother -- he led you here because this is the place he considers home. He put you right behind the wheel, which is one of the places he feels safest. He trusts this car to get him someplace safe, no matter what's going on. He trusts me, and he trusts Bobby here. Can you try that too? We'll take you somewhere safer."

It's hard to tell at first if Dean -- or whatever's got him -- even processes this. He sits behind the wheel, his hands clenched around it without any of the familiarity and love Dean's hands convey when he touches the Impala.

"If you'll let me drive," Sam says gently, "I'll get us somewhere safe."

Dean's grip on the wheel loosens.

"That's it, just slide over to the other side. You don't even have to get out."

Awkwardly Dean shoves over to the other side, as far against the passenger door as he can get.

"Good, that's good," Sam says. Making no sudden moves, he settles in behind the wheel, and Bobby gets in back with the same care.

"Where you thinking to go?" Bobby asks.

"Across the street," Sam says. We'll park in the garage and get him up in the elevator without too much exposure."

"Exposure's the word, in more ways than one. You got a pair of pants in here, or at least a blanket?"

"Dean's clothes are back at the motel in Union. There's a blanket in the trunk. I'll go back and get our stuff when we get him settled in." He finds a spot close to the elevators, checks that the coast is clear, then delivers a blanket to Dean. "It's gonna be okay," he says. "Bobby and I, we're going to keep you safe."

Still rigid with tension, Dean nods tightly and lets them guide him up to the room.

***

Blanket wrapped around him, Dean sits on the edge of one of the beds. The sight of his pale, bare feet on the carpet twists Sam's heart. "Is there something I can get for you? Are you thirsty or hungry? Maybe a hot shower to warm you up?"

Dean just stares at him, seemingly puzzled by any of these choices.

"Give him a few minutes, Sam," Bobby suggests. "Let him get used to being here."

Realizing that's a smart plan, Sam backs off, literally as well as figuratively. The last thing he wants is Dean to get freaked out enough to teleport somewhere else. They were lucky enough to find him easily the first time.

Bobby gestures him to the other side of the room, and Sam complies.

"We may have some other issues coming up," Bobby mutters. "They're gonna find their patient is missing, eventually, and nothing but a Ouija board and a bathroom full of bloody paper towels left behind. Someone might sound the alarm."

"Shit. You're right." Sam flips open his phone. "I'm gonna talk to Dr. Moultrie."

"Sam --"

"I trust him, Bobby. You know that's not my automatic response. And I'm pretty sure he trusts me. If I come clean about bringing Dean with us, I think we can avoid the whole fugitive thing. I'll go over and see him."

It takes a few minutes to get Moultrie on the phone. "Dr. Moultrie, this is, uh, Sam Plant." He cringes every time he has to use this stupid alias. He vows he's going to burn these insurance cards, get another set. "I need to talk to you about my brother."

"Sure thing," he says. "I'll meet you in his room."

"No. He's finally calmed down some. I'd like to let him sleep."

"My office, then." He gives Sam the room number and signs off.

Perching on the bed next to Dean's, Sam says gently, "I have to leave for a few minutes, but Bobby's going to stay. Just do your best to stay calm. Trust Dean's instincts, because he doesn't give his trust without good reason.

His only reply is Dean's apprehensive gaze. Sam casts a helpless look toward Bobby, then heads out for his meeting with Dr. Moultrie. The upper floors of the hospital are more challenging to navigate, but Sam finally finds his way through the rabbit warren of hallways and taps on Moultrie's door.

When Moultrie opens the door, there's a coolness in his manner that Sam hasn't noticed before. Maybe it's being on his turf, in the chief neurologist's office. He raises an eyebrow. "What happened to your nose?"

Or maybe it's the fact that Sam looks like a prize fighter who's had his ass stomped.

"Oh. Monster nosebleed. I get them when I'm stressed, and the last few days have been right off the charts."

The doctor nods and gestures him to a chair facing his desk. "Have a seat." Perching on the edge of his desk, he regards Sam. Casually he picks something off the desk and idly turns it over and over in his hands, ivory flashing against the pink and brown of the palms and backs of his hands. It takes a moment before Sam recognizes the object -- a Ouija board planchette.

His breath catches in his throat. "You went to Dean's room."

"One of the nurses did, between the time you called and when you got here. Is that what this is about?"

Sam nods. "He panicked and got past us both -- Bobby and me. We were lucky enough to catch up with him. He was in our car."

Dr. Moultrie raises an eyebrow. "His condition's changed substantially if he's prepared to drive."

"No. He's nowhere near ready for that. Our car -- his car, really -- it's almost like home to him. It belonged to our dad. It was the one constant of our childhood."

"Some part of him remembered that. That's encouraging."

"Yeah. But mostly he's just blank and scared. Anyway, we took him across the street, hoping to settle him back down. Bobby's with him now."

Pursing his lips, Dr. Moultrie thinks for a moment. "Do you have any idea what set off his panic?"

"There's a doctor." Actually, Sam very much doubts it, but he keeps that to himself. "White guy in his thirties, medium height, dark hair, blue eyes." Saying "Cristo" doesn't work on him. "I've seen him three times, and the two times he was with Dean, Dean had the same kind of panic."

"Do you remember the doctor's name?"

"He never gave one."

Dr. Moultrie scowls. "That's against staff policy."

"He didn't strike me as a guy who cares about policy."

"It's my business to make them care. But he doesn't sound like one of my staff. I don't like the sound of this." He puts the planchette back on his desk. "Tell you what. I'd like to examine your brother. If it's calming him down and I think it's safe for him to stay with you, I'll let you keep him there."

***


As Dr. Moultrie rises and reaches for his overcoat, Sam says, "Could you leave the white coat behind? I honestly can't say it'll make much difference, but the guy who freaks him out wears one."

Moultrie shucks the white coat before Sam even finishes his request, which reassures him that this extension of trust isn't going to go all cockeyed.

As they wait for the elevator, Moultrie says, "I'm curious as hell about the Ouija board. Scrabble and cards I've seen, but that's not the standard hospital pastime of most families here."

We're not your standard family, he thinks of saying, but instead what comes out is: "No. I thought -- I thought maybe I could reach him."

Moultrie's brows shoot upward, but the elevator arrives and they're alone for only one floor of their journey. Sam keeps his silence and Moultrie follows his lead. When they reach the ground floor and gain some space from other people, Sam says, "It worked once before. We were in a pretty bad car accident, and Dean was pretty close to death. I managed to ... connect with him." As they step out into the cold air, the wind knifes through him with a sense that he's taken trust one step too far. He hears Dean's voice in his head: Now you've screwed the pooch, Sammy. Good plan -- let Dr. Moultrie know he's being asked to leave his patient in the hands of crazy people. "That, uh, sounds a little extreme, I know."

"I've seen plenty of things in my career that are hard to explain," Dr. Moultrie says. "How did it work this time?"

Not well, doc. I got bitch-slapped by something that's taken over my brother's head. Right. This is the place where Sam reaches the limits of his trust. "It didn't."

The hotel lobby seems overheated in contrast to the freezing air they've just escaped, and it seems almost elegant in contrast with the usual shitholes Sam and Dean frequent. Moultrie, on the other hand, is perfectly at ease here.

Sam fumbles the card key in the door badly enough that Bobby gets there before the lock releases. Opening the door with a curse for electronic locks, Bobby goes carefully neutral when he sees Sam's not alone.

First things first. "How's Dean?"

"Pretty much the same." He shoots a guarded glance at Moultrie.

"This is Dr. Moultrie, the head of neurology. He's been looking after Dean." Sam gestures at Bobby. "This is our Uncle Bobby."

Extending his hand, Dr. Moultrie says, "It's good to meet you. I'm glad to see Dean has a support system in you two. I'd like to look him over, see if he's going to be calmer out of the hospital environment."

Bobby nods and lets them enter, but as soon as the doctor passes him, he favors Sam with a bug-eyed What kind of moron move was that? look.

Ignoring it, Sam turns his attention to Dean. Sometime after Sam had left, he'd settled all the way onto the bed, swaddled in a blanket now, his knees pulled up with his arms wrapped around. Not exactly a relaxed pose to begin with, and now he looks up at Dr. Moultrie with apprehesion.

"Dean," Sam says, "you remember Dr. Moultrie. He's been taking care of you since they took you into the hospital."

"They sent you."

"Who, Dean?" Moultrie's voice is soothing.

"I don't know. The ones who sent the other."

"Nobody sent me," Moultrie says, maintaining his distance. "I asked to come and see if you're okay, and your brother Sam said I could. Can I come closer?"

"It's okay," Sam adds. "I trust him. It's okay."

Dean's expression is a mixture of misery and fretfulness, but after a moment he nods.

***

Shifting his feet, Bobby mutters, "Three people might be too much for him. I'll be right outside."

Relieved, Sam nods and closes the door behind him, bending to smooth the line of salt he'd led Dr. Moultrie through.

Moultrie's attention is firmly on Dean as he perches on the edge of Dean's bed. "Give me your hand, Dean," he urges, and to Sam's complete surprise he does so after a moment's hesitation.

Even more surprising, the doctor doesn't use it for any kind of examination; he just holds it. "You're safe now, Dean. Can you tell me about this other that you talked about?"

"The one who tore us in two, or the one who wants to destroy me?"

"The one you're afraid of."

"I haven't done anything. No one gave me a choice, but they want me to pay."

"What can you tell me about them?"

Dean shakes his head violently. "It's gone. They're gone. I used to feel them, all the time."

"Where were they?" Dr. Moultrie flicks a look up toward Sam, then back at Dean. "Were they in you? In your head?"

"Inside me, outside me. They were everywhere. I think they still are, I just can't feel them anymore."

"Can you tell me what it was like when they were there? Do you know how many there were?"

"Untold hosts," Dean murmurs. "But I can't remember how it felt."

The anguish bleeding through Dean's voice and his manner tears at Sam. "Doctor."

"Thank you, Dean," Dr. Moultrie says. "You've done very well. Why don't you rest for a few minutes." Releasing Dean's hand, he rises and crosses the room to Sam.

"Damned if I can make out what's going on," he tells Sam softly. "This talk of the others, it could be symptomatic of schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder -- what used to be called multiple personalities. I could probably narrow it down with a few more questions, but I think we agree your brother's miserable enough at the moment."

Nodding, Sam says, "Thanks for backing off."

"The thing I can't make out is, Dean claims this is how things were, that these others were a constant presence -- but the manifestation of illness occurs once he says they're gone. Were you ever aware of --"

"No," Sam says firmly. "There were no signs of any kind of mental illness before the seizure and coma."

"How much time do you typically spend with your brother?"

Sam tries not to let his temper flare. "Most waking hours, for the last two and a half years or so. Before that, I was in college." He doesn't mention that there was not a single family visit during those four years.

"What did you study?"

The question throws him off balance, since everything up to this moment has been about Dean. "Pre-law." As soon as this piece of information emerges from his mouth, Sam realizes just how telling it is. Four years of preparation for something that never happened. "Then -- well, family stuff. Our dad died about a year and a half ago." He lets that hang there, creating an impression of sickrooms and a selflessness Sam can't honestly claim. "So, uh, what's the next step with Dean?"

"I'm going to discuss his case with a couple of psychiatrists on staff, and I'd like to get him evaluated."

Calling Dr. Bombay, Sam thinks. Maybe he'd have a snowball's chance of helping Dean.

"For now, though, I think he could use some rest." He looks back toward Dean, who leans against the headboard, still wrapped in the blanket. "What d'you think, Dean? Would you like to stay here a little while, maybe try to rest a bit?"

Wide-eyed, Dean takes in the doctor and then Sam.

"Would you be more comfortable here?" Dr. Moultrie prompts.

Comfortable isn't the word, but Dean finally says, "They haven't found me here." He nods, quick, agitated little movements. "I could stay."

"Good man," Moultrie says. "Your brother will take good care of you. And I'll be in touch when I know what's next." Turning to Sam, he adds, "Call me if anything changes. Have them page me if necessary."

"Sure, thanks." He gives his cell number to Dr. Moultrie -- an all-time Winchester first, he's certain -- and shows him out.

***


As Dr. Moultrie steps outside, Bobby touches two fingers to the bill of his cap in greeting, then says to Sam, "Want me in there yet?"

"Give me a minute," Sam says. "I'll call, if you want to head down to the bar."

Closing the door, he lays down another salt line, then turns to Dean. "How are you doing?" Nowhere near as bold as Dr. Moultrie is, he settles on the other bed.

Dean looks like he hasn't got the slightest clue how to answer that.

"Dr. Moultrie's a pretty good guy, I'm thinking," Sam says conversationally. "We were lucky to wind up in his care."

Hesitantly, Dean nods.

Sam weighs his words carefully. "I think, though, that he's looking at this problem the way he's been trained, and I'm not sure he's got the right frame of reference."

Sam's lost Dean with that; his gaze wanders around the room, not pausing to focus on anything.

"Dr. Moultrie thinks it's mental illness. I think -- I think maybe you got pushed in there with my brother somehow, and you're as freaked out as he probably is." Sam prays that Dean is still there inside his body; he clings to the hope that the appearance in the Impala is proof that he is. "Can you feel him in there? He should be right there with you."

His eyes stop flicking all around him and come to rest on Sam's face.

"He's there, right?" Reaching for his wallet, Sam says, "There's something I want to show you. About Dean." He slips an old photograph from its sleeve and holds it out to Dean. "See this? This is a picture of my brother and me when we were kids."

Dean's stare wavers between Sam and the snapshot in his hand, as if it's a weapon.

Sam makes no move to push the picture on him or take it away. "He's my big brother, y'know? He looked after me since I was six months old."

After another moment's hesitation, Dean reaches for the photo and studies it. Sam knows it by heart -- the two of them leaning against the side of the Impala, Dean with an arm hooked over the back of Sam's neck. Dean's posture so casual, full of twelve-year-old cool, but still that expression of pride on his face. Look, Dad, I'm still watching over Sammy.

"He still does that. Takes care of people, whether he knows them or not. I couldn't begin to count the number of people he's saved from things that were after them." He'll throw himself into the Pit just to have one more year looking after me. Sam bites back a surge of emotion, but Dean looks up at him as if he's given it voice. It's all Sam can do to push out the next few words. "So maybe if you step back and leave some space for Dean, he could help you too." Is what he's offering even possible? Sam's torn between wanting to help this terrified being in some fashion, and saying anything he can just to win Dean's release. "He knows his way around the world. He knows how to fight things you can't always see."

Dean thrusts the photo back toward Sam, who reaches out for it carefully, hoping to avoid another psychic assault or sudden disappearance.

"Why don't you rest now," Sam says soothingly. "Like Dr. Moultrie said." You trust him, even if you don't trust me. "Bobby and I will keep watch."

As he teases the picture from Dean's fingers, Sam lets out a pent-up breath. His fingers brush Dean's, and in an instant, Sam's looking at an empty bed.

***

Part 3

Dean:

-- thing he --

Wait, what?

He's been crammed into this box, he's not sure how long, and now the lid is off, and he's --

Standing in the kitchen of a strange house with his ass hanging out of a hospital gown.

Or maybe not so strange. A weird feeling of familiarity washes over him as he looks around. That ribbon of sunlight slanting across the table. How the hell can a sunbeam be familiar?

Why is he wearing this drafty and deeply fug rag he wouldn't use for waxing the Impala?

On the end of the table closest to him sits an empty juice glass with a milk ring and a small plate dusted with crumbs. Dean gets a sudden, disorienting flash of himself sitting in that very spot, watching a blonde, very pregnant woman move around the room. She's humming to herself.

Dean blinks, then looks around the room. There are changes -- some post-fire, some after the poltergeist -- but he knows this place. The house in Lawrence.

The hell? How did he --?

As he takes a step forward, his bare foot lands on a squeak toy.

"Richie?" a woman's voice calls. "I thought you --" A blonde, not-at-all-pregnant woman walks into the room, catches sight of Dean and screams.

"I'm not--"

Then he's slammed back in the box.