Author Note: A random tag. I was feeling a need to write a little something, and Nova42 provided an awesome prompt for me. I've tackled 2X01 a couple of times before but this is something muuuuch more angsty. You've been warned. I'm also putting another tag, something longer and from Dean's POV, on the list to be written.

The Space Between

The next few moments stretch on for an eternity. Nothing happens, save for the long, low drone of his father flatlining before his eyes. The doctor's gaze lands on where Sam and Dean are huddled together on the threshold. He makes eye contact with one of the nurses, gives a pointed jerk of his chin. Get them out of here.

She nods and crosses to them, lays a gentle, supportive hand on Dean's arm but speaks to Sam. "He shouldn't be out of bed."

"That's our dad," Sam replies, voice paper-thin as he echoes his brother.

"I'm so sorry." She tilts her head and she might very well mean it, but she doesn't let go of Dean, and there's no might in what she means to do with the hold. Behind her, leads are removed from Dad's unmoving chest, and the room falls silent.

Sam knows she's right, but her intentions count for exactly shit in this scenario, and despite the state he's in it takes both of them to physically, however gingerly, haul a stubborn Dean away from the room. Sam's grateful for the help, because he seems to be having a hard time summoning any strength into his numb hands. He reflexively overcompensates, grips his brother's arm harder than necessary as he propels him along. Dean hums in pain and buckles between them, and Sam loosens his hold, murmurs, "sorry, sorry."

He stands dumbly by as the nurse gets Dean situated back in bed, as she reinserts the IV he'd yanked out and adjusts blankets around his middle until she apparently satisfies herself that the look on his pale, drawn face is merely one of expected emotional shock, and not profound pain. She throws one more "I'm so sorry" Sam's way, and then she leaves them alone.

"What – " Sam starts, stops. He swallows a lump in his throat the size of a bowling ball and sinks into the chair beside his brother's bed.

Dean doesn't register Sam's voice or movements, doesn't even look at him. He's sitting worryingly still, staring at nothing in particular: that safe, familiar spot in the middle distance where he retreats when he doesn't want to deal with the world crashing down around him.

Sam has always been both frightened by and envious of this talent of his brother's. He's never been able to do that, can't remove himself from the reality of the situation. He feels it all, every awful bit. That same heavy, detached sensation in his limbs he'd felt when the doctor told him to have realistic expectations about the possibility of Dean waking at all. Grief like an elephant sitting on his chest, and a choke in his throat of a thousand tears waiting to spill over.

Dean doesn't even look at him.

He assumes someone will come. The doctor, or someone in a jacket and tie with a clipboard and a stack of paperwork. He'll have to sign something, surely. Claim the…the body. Sam will have to do it, but it should be Dean. He's older, but he isn't…he can't…

Sam's suddenly overwhelmed by a jarring, lonely flush of responsibility. One even more potent than the pang of helplessness he'd felt inside the mangled confines of the wrecked Impala, in those terrifying moments before the paramedics arrived, with neither Dad nor Dean responding to his frantic pleas.

He should call Bobby, has his phone in his hand before he realizes he'd rooted it out of his jacket pocket. He stares at the screen and the buttons a long moment before fumbling out the right combination of movements.

"Bobby," he manages, when the man picks up.

Bobby immediately thinks something's happened to Dean, and why shouldn't he? Last he heard, they were awaiting divine intervention to keep Dean among the living, and a turn for the worst seemed all but inevitable.

"It's not…it's Dad." He catches Dean's flinch out of the corner of his eye.

Sam can't get into the details now, but he doesn't need to. Bobby hears it in his voice: the loss, the vulnerability. The man's already gotten the thrashed Impala back to his yard in Sioux Falls, but he tells Sam he's getting back on the road right now, that he'll handle everything as soon he gets there. Asks about Dean.

"Yeah," Sam responds vaguely. Too vaguely.

"Put 'im on."

Sam has to fold his brother's fingers around the cell phone before he'll take it. Dean listens to Bobby for a moment, muffled words that Sam can't hear. "I'm okay," he says, in a tone as dull as his gaze, and hands the phone off to Sam without looking at him.

He's not okay. Not at all.

The doctor comes, expresses more hollow condolences and updates them both on Dean's condition, reads through a laundry list that somehow sounds so much worse now than it did in the immediate aftermath of his brother's sudden, miraculous waking. Injuries that seemed doable just a few short hours ago now seem daunting and like too damn much to handle. It's no longer Dean's alive but; it's Dad's dead and.

The cerebral edema has vanished, but Dean's got a hell of a concussion, the pale skin around his eyes lined as pain rages in his severely rung skull. He's no longer bleeding internally but like Sam, has bruises all over from the crash, some readily visible on his face and arms, a pair of cracked ribs on the left side where he'd been propped against the door when the semi impacted them, and stitches in his forehead, right arm, and chest.

These lingering injuries might not be life-threatening, might not even be anything Dean hasn't dealt with before and without the added benefit of a trained medical staff and intravenous painkillers, but they aren't trivial. He'll be taking it easy for a few days, and the doctor wants to keep him at least another night. Even if that wasn't his professional recommendation Sam would probably plead with the man to keep his brother under observation just a little while longer.

He doesn't know what happened, exactly, but he can't risk losing them both.

The man in the jacket and tie is next, and Sam signs everything that's put in front of him, an illegible scrawl that's some hybrid of the name his father gave him and the name on the paperwork they're registered under. Then Bobby comes.

Dean lifts his chin when the older hunter grips his shoulder, but he doesn't speak, gaze dark and dangerously faraway.

He seems rocked by Dad's sudden passing, but asks vague, easy questions to which Sam mutters vague, easy answers. No, they weren't there. No, there weren't any signs. Yes, Sam's feeling fine.

His brother stays mostly quiet, bruised arm pulled protectively across his middle, expression pinched with pain radiating both inside and out.

Bobby steps out of the room to find the man in the tie, leaves them alone and not speaking, and Sam with some very dangerous thoughts. Because there were signs.

Can we not fight?

Dad was…he was acting strangely. Before.

I've made some mistakes. But I've always done the best I could. I just don't want to fight anymore, okay?

That's the kind of thing people say when they aren't sure how much more they have to say, and things like this don't just happen. Injuries as serious as Dean's don't disappear overnight. His brother doesn't remember anything, but there was a goddamned reaper after him. Reapers don't just stop.

There was an intervention, all right, but it wasn't divine. Dad was acting strangely because he did something. He summoned the demon – that much Sam knows for sure – and he must have…must have made a – made a –

The air leaves Sam's lungs in an audible, painful rush as the realization settles in.

Dad made a deal. Made a trade.

Sam jerks where he sits, struggling to catch his breath, and Dean tenses but won't look at him.

He doesn't think they'll ever say the words out loud, doesn't think either of them ever could, but Sam knows in this silent moment that they both know, and he aches for his brother.

He can't ever – ever – risk saying the words out loud. If he doesn't say it, it can't be true. And it can't be true, because it would destroy Dean.

He can't risk losing them both.