Pull Me From The Edge

I have never done a story in a first person point of view, and I'm hoping I'm finding Bobby's voice well enough. This is story takes place in mid-season 7, obviously before Bobby's death. Anything else I reveal would have potential to be spoilers for the second and last chapter, so that's really all I can tell you. I really hope you enjoy it, I thank you for taking a look, and as always I make no profit. I hope you have a moment to let me know what you think of it so far.

I was on the road to the hospital about five minutes after I got the call from the E.R. They said they had a Dean Bonham there who was in the process of being admitted and treated for a broken hip, among other injuries, and Dean had asked them to notify me. The boys had left my place yesterday, headed down to Nebraska to check out a possible case, and had planned to crash last night at my old fishing cabin on the way there out on Hiram's Ridge.

As I pulled into the hospital parking lot, a gnawing ache ate away at the inside of my gut. Of course I was concerned for Dean's injuries, but that wasn't all that was causing the acid to boil in my belly. I've known Dean since he was in kindergarten, and in all that time, even with all the bad injuries he's had, he's never had a hospital notify me when he's been hurt. He's just not that way. And since I knew he wasn't having them call me on his behalf, that could only mean that there was some sort of trouble with Sam. I tried to convince that I was just being paranoid, but then again, if nothing was wrong with Sam, how come he hadn't called me about Dean being hurt?

I followed the receptionist's direction to the room they had just admitted Dean to and opened the door. I stood in shock for a moment at the site before me. The kid in the bed looked horrible. His head was thrown back on the pillow, face sunburned to a deep, angry red and his eyes were pinched as they winced in pain. He was very restless as he tried in vain to find a position in the bed that was comfortable and his breathing was very labored. A nurse was at his side, checking the I.V in his arm and telling him to try to relax, the meds should be kicking in soon. Upon seeing me, Dean's head shot off the pillow and his eyes grew wide in expectation.

"Bobby! Thank God." Dean managed to choke out. "Have you seen him? Is he here?"

Dean's voice sounded as if his vocal chords had been through a meat grinder.

"Is who here?" I asked. "Sam?"

Dean's tone became exasperated as he answered me. "Yeah, Sam. Where is he?"

I shook my head and frowned at him. "How the Hell should I know? Didn't he come with you?"

The hopeful look left Dean's eyes as he returned his head to the pillow. He cursed under his breath as he shook his head. "No, he didn't come with me, and when I get my hands on that little bastard….." Dean's sentence was cut short as the nurse brought a cup of water with a straw to Dean's lips. In spite of the anger Dean was obviously feeling and the severity of what he had started to tell me, Dean stopped and took a long, grateful draw from the straw and gulped down three big mouthfuls of water. I could tell Dean's throat was killing him as he winced in pain as he swallowed.

The nurse set the cup down on the stand next to Dean's bed. "You really shouldn't be talking right now." She advised. "You strained your vocal chords quite a bit hollering for help and they are greatly inflamed. Not to mention becoming so overheated and dehydrated in the sun while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Your throat really needs time to heal, and that means very little to no talking." She adjusted the pillow under his head. "And your throat is the least of your worries compared to the broken bones you suffered from the fall. Now, just lie back and try to get some rest. I'm sure whatever you have to tell your friend can wait a bit."

The grateful look on Dean's face was quickly replaced with annoyance. As Dean opened his mouth to answer her and undoubtedly say something offensive that he was going to regret later, I stepped in to play interference. "Um, if you don't mind, could you give us just a minute? Then, I promise, I will make sure he gets some rest." She blew out a breath and placed her hands on her hips, thinking the situation over in her head. When she looked back up at me, I gave her an appreciative smile and reassured her. "It will only take a second, hon." I placed my hand on her shoulder and gently guided her toward the door. "Thank you so much."

She turned as she reached the door to reiterate her orders. "Okay, just for a minute. Then you need to let him rest." Again, I nodded at her and promised I would do just that as I closed the door behind her.

I turned back toward Dean, cocked my head to the side and smiled "I'm sure she means well." I quipped.

Dean gave a snide smile in return. "Oh, I'm sure she does." He croaked.

I went to Dean's bedside and sat down. "Okay, first things first…..what the Hell happened to you?"

Dean flopped his head back down on the pillow and blew out a breath as he calmed himself down enough to recall the incident. "Sam and I had stayed at your cabin last night like we said we were going to. We were headed out this morning and were packing up our gear. We'd started a fire last night at the edge of the ridge overlooking the ravine, so this morning I went to check on it to make sure it was out. Sam was right behind me, bringing the duffels out to the Impala. I crouched to empty my water bottle over the last embers of the ashes and as I stood up, I stumbled backward and tripped over some firewood. Next thing I know, I'm falling backwards down the side of the embankment toward the ravine."

"Jesus, Dean." I responded, "That's a hundred foot drop, pretty much straight down!"

"You're telling me. It scared the crap out of me! Anyway, I somehow ended up on a narrow ledge about half way down, but when I landed, my body hit against the rock ledge really hard. I could actually hear my own ribs snap at the impact, and felt a searing pain in my hip that went all the way down my leg and across my back. I laid there for a few minutes to regain my senses." Dean's facial features turned cold and his eyes pressed into little slits. "It was then that I started yelling for Sam to come help me."

I waited for a moment for Dean to continue talking. When he didn't say anything more, I urged him on. "Well? Then what?"

"Then nothing!" Dean shouted in a hoarse voice barely above a whisper. "I laid on that piece of granite in the baking hot sun for the next three hours, hollering out and practically begging Sam to come help me. Luckily, a couple of guys finally came by in a canoe, said they heard me screaming from clear across the lake and came to see what was going on. They called 911, climbed up the side of the ravine to get to me and gave me some water and some soaked down towels."

"And Sam never helped at all? He didn't do anything?"

"No! Nothing! Even after the rescue came and pulled me back up to the cabin, Sam was nowhere to be found. The car was there, but no Sam. It's like he disappeared or something." Dean shook his head in disbelief. "How could he do that? How could he just stand there and do nothing while I'm lying there hurt like that?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. There had to be an explanation. "He must not have known that you had fallen, Dean. You know Sam would be over there in a heartbeat to help you."

"Well he wasn't!" Dean snapped back. "And he was standing, like, six feet away from me when I took the nosedive. There's no possible way he didn't see me, or hear me when I was screaming for him. Hell, Bobby, those guys heard me from about a mile away. How could Sam not hear me?" A very troubled look crossed Dean's face as he seemed to recall something else. "Plus….." He began.

"Plus what?" I asked. When he didn't answer me right away, I prodded him a little more. "Spit it out, kid, plus what?"

Dean brought his hand to his face and pinched bridge of his nose between his eyes. "Look, I know I had been lying for a while in the hot sun, and I could have been seeing things…" He took a deep breath as he continued. "But at one point I looked up to the top of the ravine where I had fallen and I know I saw Sam standing there, looking down at me. At first I was relieved, and even said, 'Thank God, there you are. Come help me out of this.', but he just stood there, staring at me. When I hollered up to him again, he just turned and walked away." Dean's eyes glossed over a bit as he confessed this information to me. "Just walked away."

I scratched my head as I sat there in stunned silence. My brain ached for a way to come up with a reasonable explanation for what Dean had told me, but I had nothing. "And you say that when you were brought back up to the cabin, Sam wasn't there?"

My question seemed to snap Dean out of his memory for a moment. "Nope. He was gone. I even hollered some more for him with what little voice I had left, and an EMT looked in the cabin, but he wasn't in there. It's like he vanished into thin air."

I shook my head. "None of this makes any sense. Where in the Hell could he have taken off to?"

Dean's expression became almost pleading. "I don't know, Bobby, but you've got to find him. First of all, I owe him a serious beat down, and secondly, I need to understand what happened."

Almost as if on cue, right outside the door the nurse could be heard arguing with a man, whose deep voice was all too familiar.

"Sir, you can't go in there. He's already got someone in there, and he needs his rest. You'll have to wait until you can see him."

"If he's in there, then I need to see him. He's my brother! I need to see if he's okay."

My eyes widened as I looked from the door and back at Dean, who seemed to have the exact same expression on his face as I'm sure I had on mine. Dean tried to sit up, but almost instantly fell back against the mattress, writhing in pain from his ribs and hip.

I pointed at Dean as I stood from my chair. "You stay put. I'll go talk to him and find out what the Hell's going on."

Dean shook his head as he caught his breath from the pain. "No, Bobby. You tell him to get his ass in here. I need to talk to that son of a bitch and find out why he ditched me when I needed him."

I turned again as I placed my hand on the door knob. "I will send him in here, but first I'm just gonna talk to him. Something here ain't adding up, and I'm gonna find out what it is."

I left Dean's room and entered the corridor and sure enough, there was Sam still trying to push his way through the nurse, who by now had some security guards quickly approaching them. I quickly made my way to the nurse's side and intervened. "It's okay," I said as I put my hands up to try to hold off the guards before they grabbed onto Sam. "I know him. He's with me. I'll take it from here, and we're just gonna go over here and talk for a bit while Dean rests." I placed my hands on Sam's shoulders and pushed him away from the others. At first he pushed back a bit and resisted, but after a moment he let me guide him toward a small sitting area across the hallway.

Once I was sure we were clear from the security guards and the nurse, I closed the door to the waiting area and turned toward Sam. I pointed to one of the chairs. "Sit!" I barked out at him.

As Sam reluctantly chose a chair, I wiped my hand down my face and tried to pull my thoughts together. Throughout the years, Dean and I have had our definite ups and downs and have had our fair share of shouting matches. We could holler and lash out at each other when we didn't see eye to eye, and we've even been guilty of name calling and a few things I'm sure we both have regretted afterward, but through all of it, we always knew how the other one felt deep down, and we knew that no matter what we'd be okay, we'd still be a family. Dealing with Sam was different, and even though I had known Sam just as long as I'd known Dean, I could only remember a small handful of times that we had been tangled up in a shouting match, and for the most part it had been me shouting and him standing there looking pathetic. Sam didn't screw up often, but when he did, it was usually a colossal, massive screw up enough to shock you down to your core. I had a feeling that this may be one of those times.

Bracing myself for just about anything, I started in on him. "Okay, Sam, you'd better start talking! What happened out at the cabin and what the Hell were you doing while your brother laid there hurt on that ledge? I need answers and I need them NOW!"

Sam stared down at the floor, his whole body shaking. It only took me a moment to realize that something else was going on with him. I reached out and touched his arm, and he jolted back from the connection as if he'd been electrocuted. His head sprung up and he made eye contact with me as if he were seeing me for the very first time. He looked around the room and gave a few sharp blinks, as if trying to bring his surroundings into focus. He then returned his gaze to me.

My heart started pounding as a lump grew in my throat. Something was definitely very, very wrong with him. Instantly, my tone softened.

"What is it, Kid? What's wrong?"

TBC

Thanks again for reading. I hope you stay with me for the last chapter. It should be up within a week's time.