A/N: Hey guys, this is the second go around with this chapter, this version being MUCH better. Nothing plot wise changed, just structure, voice, etc. I just wanted to let you know if you've read this before... it's different now. :) Enjoy!

There was a loud crash, an explosion, a sort of caving in on the rear end of the car, it was all very sudden. Very violent. Very wrong.

There was fire, and the smell of burning paint. Swearing followed by a door swinging open.

Two men, one terrified, one broken, sprawled on the concrete. One panicking, the other one so far gone he didn't notice the fuck's and the goddamnit's. He didn't notice the fumbling fingers, the shaking voice, the frantic words. He didn't notice the fire, the bike, the car. He didn't notice the concrete beneath him, the rips in his skin, the digging shrapnel cutting through his clothes.

But, the other was so keenly aware of everything. All of it happening so quickly. Passing like a flipbook of photos, some of them dragging on for an eternity as if he'd stopped on a page. He put a hand on either side of the man's head, screaming questions, needing responses.

But, he wasn't fast enough.

He couldn't save him.

The fire was faster than he was.

He watched the man bleeding out on the pavement.

The fire catching on his leg, and eating away at his skin before he noticed.

He watched the man burning, bleeding, dying, and he couldn't do anything.

He couldn't save him. He couldn't save couldn't-

"Dean, dude, wake up," Sam hissed, shaking him harshly.

Dean sat up with a panicked flickering of his eyes, cold sweats coating his skin like the blazing fire had coated the skin of the man. The smells of a hospital lobby hit him with a suddenness he was unprepared for, plastic seats, sickness, freshly cleaned carpets, receptionist perfume.

"Man, maybe you'd feel better if you didn't sleep here," Sam sighed and shook his head at Dean. He turned back to his phone, the disapproving frown melting into frustration. "Or if you would just go up there and get this over with." He flicked through emails, typing responses quickly and sometimes muttering under his breath about the goddamn morons I work with.

Dean pulled his hand across his face, trying to wipe off the nightmare he'd had for the last two nights. "I'm working up to it," Dean growled, his voice groggy with morning.

"You've been working up to it for two days. C'mon, Dean, he's not gonna bite you." Sam rolled his eyes.

"Alright, when you hit some guy with a car, and you call me up for sympathy, I'll be damn sure not to share any with you," Dean caustically replied.

Sam raised his eyes, "I wouldn't be stupid enough not to look in my blindspot."

"Well, I didn't get any points off on my driver's test, whereas you…"

"Shut up, I got a perfect score on my written portion," Sam said it with a snotty undertone.

Dean rolled his eyes, "Yeah, but you couldn't drive, Sammy. You can write it all you want, but behind that wheel, you were screwed." He chuckled.

Sam glared at him for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. "Dude, go up there and apologize. Make sure he's alright. Talk to him for a little bit."

Dean grumbled, "See this girly chick flick shit is so much more your thing."

"Well you're the one sitting here like a teenage girl waiting for him to call you first. God, you're so immature." Sam's phone buzzed. Then buzzed twice more. He looked at his phone, buzzing again. "Goddamnit," he hissed. "Alright, Dean, I gotta go to work. They can't handle anything without me. Look, just go up there. Let me know if you make it in, or if you need a ride or something."

"Sure, sure, whatever," Dean said, a hollowness setting in his stomach. "I'll see you later."

"I don't want to see you later. I want you to go home, Dean, and sleep in your bed, okay? So, get this over with okay, stop being such a girl." Sam sighed, grabbing all of his stuff from the chair and tucking it under his arm. "I'll call you later, okay?"

"Okay," Dean said in exasperation. "Bye, Sam."

And with a few steps, a whoosh of the door and a whisper of cologne, Sam was gone. And Dean was alone in the lobby.

Dean felt the panic setting in. The feeling he thought was long gone. He felt the anxiety curling around his organs, forcing him to acknowledge the creeping fear that's been lurking in his veins since the crash. The shiver-inducing, breath halting, pain inflicting fear that's skulked around the back corners of Dean's waking thoughts and the very plain on which his nightmares took place.

That the man was as good as dead. That Dean had killed him. That all Dean ever did was kill people. That Dean was more of a burden to this world than any sort of savior.

That fear encapsulated all of his feelings.

It forced him into stillness and a paralyzed sort of terror that kept him trapped in that lobby, in that chair.

But, Sam was right. He needed to do this. Needed to go up there. Needed to try to help. Needed to see him.

On shaky legs, Dean stood. With shaky hands, he grabbed the flowers that lay next to the chair. Shaky breaths escaped his lips as he began to trek towards the elevator.

He knew the room number by heart. He was in the ICU, room 221.

The elevator seemed to arrive before Dean pushed the button, it's arrival near immediate despite Dean's desire for everything to slow.

Soft music was playing in the elevator. The kind of music Sam would listen to, classical, quiet, gross. Dean took a deep breath, holding on to his scathing thoughts about Sammy's music to keep him level headed.

Dean wanted to have pushed the wrong button, stepped onto the wrong floor, or have forgotten his jacket downstairs, all so that this may have been avoided. He looked around desperately for an escape. But, there was none.

He was on the ICU floor. He had his jacket. He had his gay ass flowers.

All he could do was walk, follow the signs, trudge his way until he was standing in front of 221, staring at the handle. And, so much, he wished that he could just push the handle, throw the flowers in, yell an apology and run. But, Dean Winchester wasn't raised to run away.

He was supposed to fucking fight.

To be a man.

To be strong.

To only hurt those who threaten Sam, who threaten Dean, who threaten their country.

He's not supposed to run away like a little bitch.

Dean took a deep breath, resolved to finally do this.

"Sir, are you alright? Do you need something? Are you lost?" A shorter nurse had stopped mid power stride to question him, her eyes flicking between him and her clipboard, calculations happening behind her eyelids every time they closed.

"Uh… I'm fine," Dean said, confusion laced in his tone.

"Do you know who you're visiting?"

"Uh, yeah, this is his room." He gestured.

She did a startling clap, "Oh good, I'm glad someone came to visit him. This is the Biker, right? Are you family?"

"Uh… no. I… just saw it happen…" Dean muttered, feeling the stretch of the truth carving more of his insides away into the hollowness he'd felt earlier, he felt all the time.

She smiled gently. "Oh, well, that's still nice. You know, I think they can still hear us when they're out like that."

"Out like what?"

"In a coma, of course. He went under after he came in. He was yelling something awful when they were setting his leg, but after that, he was out." She looked sadly at her clipboard. "I'm sure he'll be fine, he seems like a fighter to me." She smiled broadly, then, "Well, I've got to be off. Why don't you head on in, they may be able to hear us, but definitely not if we're out in the hall." She giggled, then whisked away, her scrubs swishing against her plump body at every step.

He looked at the door, then back to the woman, and finally pushed the door open. There were quiet beeps coming from the room and soft breaths from behind the curtain. Dean stepped into the room and closed the door.

His footsteps were nothing next to the breaths that Dean was counting. One, two, three… He was alive. The biker was alive. Four, five, six… Unconscious, but breathing.

He moved aside the curtain.

On the bed was a man. Broken, battered, burned and bandaged, but still a man. His chest moved with an achingly slow pace, and the ventilator next to the bed let out soft puffs of air when his chest went down. His body was encased in casts and wrappings and bloodied gauze. His left arm was in a white cast and the bottom half of his left leg in a blue one. His chest was wrapped in some white material, but there was blood staining it. His eyes were covered, and he had a tube under his nose. The rest of his body was spattered with bruises and scrapes.

Dean sank into the chair next to the bed.

"I am so sorry. I really am. I… I didn't mean to…" Dean whispered the words as the pain settled into his stomach. "I was just trying to turn around. I… you… you were coming so fast. I just…" On the side table, he put the wilting flowers that were missing half of their leaves from the nervous fingers Dean had acquired in the lobby where he'd tried to work up some courage.

"I brought you flowers. I know that's kind of girly, but whatever. That's what you're supposed to do, right? Flowers for the sick? The flowers die, but the person lives, it's like an exchange. The flower's life, for yours. Sam said some shit like that, and I figured it was decent reasoning."

Dean ran his fingers through his hair. "It's so stupid. I don't even know your name."

He watched the body on the bed. No response, no twitching, no life. The man was practically a corpse. Breathing, but nothing else. And, more than that, he seemed to be barely a person. No friends at his bedside, no weeping mother at the window, no piles of gifts and flowers, just Dean. The guy who'd gotten him into this mess.

"Where's your family, man?" Dean asked the body, looking at his lips for an answer he knew he wouldn't get. "Or your girlfriend? With that head of hair, you've got to have one. Or at least now you do, maybe little nursie got lucky while you were in surgery and that's why your hair is all sexified." Dean chuckled at himself.

When the man did nothing, when there were still only empty breaths filling the room, Dean felt the weight settle on his shoulders again. "I'm sorry, man. No one should be alone when they're like this."

Dean's phone started buzzing, Ellen it read on the screen. He sighed. "Look, man, I gotta go. I haven't gone to work for the last two days, and it's kind of my business."

Nothing. Only silence.

Dean felt the debilitating guilt wrapping itself around the fear and hollowness that swirled through his blood and around his veins.

"Well, how's this… I'll come in again tomorrow. Maybe bring a burger or something. We can share if you're into that." Dean stood and walked to the door and stopped, suddenly afraid to leave again. "Hey, bud, if you could… not die tonight, that'd be great." He took one more look at the sex haired man and left the room.

In the elevator he pulled out his phone and called Sam.

"Dean are you alright? What happened? What do you need?"

"God, mom, chill. I'm fine. I went in. I'm headed to work now. I just wanted to let you know I did it."

"So? What'd he say?"

Dean stood in silence for a moment, working over the words, trying to figure out how he could say it without it ripping more seams in his soul and caulking them back up with even more guilt and frustration.

"He's in a coma, Sam. And no one but me has visited. It's not right that someone is left alone when they're broken like this. I'm gonna come in again tomorrow."

"Oh… okay. I have to work, Dean… I would come, but…"

"No, Sammy, it's okay. I can do this. I'm the closest thing to family he's got right now."

"Considering you hit him with a car, I'm not sure I'm totally on the same page, but, whatever. I'll see you later, Jerk." There was a lilt in Sam's voice, as if he was trying to cheer him up.

"Whatever, bitch."