Song Remains the Same

Chapter 61: Get Well Soon

"I've been waiting like a knife to cut open your heart and bleed my soul to you."
- Smashing Pumpkins

This had to be some kind of record: Alex in the hospital three times in less than a space of a month. The first time had been after Glen's brutal assault on her. The second time had been after being un-vamped by Jamie. Now she was here because of Glen again... but this was the last time she'd never be in the hospital because of that asshole... Cas had made damn sure of that.

Dean hung back at the edge of the room and fidgeted his fingers around, rubbing his thumbs against his other fingers in anxious energy as he watched a nurse taking Alex's blood pressure. Sam was outside in the Impala babysitting Cas (who was still unconscious after his very thorough beatdown on Glen). They'd been in the emergency room for a couple hours now and Dean hadn't sat down the entire time. He'd paced around the room Alex had been put in to and watched as the nurses did what nurses did: bandaged, stitched, medicated. In between those things, the staff had given Dean some pretty suspicious looks and asked Alex who he was in relation to her, who or what had injured her like that, if there was domestic violence in the home... all of it was standard hospital procedure, but Dean recognized that the nurses suspected him of doing all that stuff to her.

She did look like a battered woman. There was no getting around that fact. She had a puffy black eye, stitches on the side of her temple, a big bandage on the side of her neck, bruises forming all over her jawline, cheeks, arms, a broken ankle. It looked so, so painful but she hadn't complained at all—she'd even joked around with the nurses a couple times, acting like it was no big deal. That's what was eating at Dean. It was a big deal. She could have died today if it hadn't been for Cas's intervention. Dean shifted and started pacing the small space again as he raked fingers through his hair. He couldn't get over how close of a call his sister had just had and how he should have told someone Glen might have still been alive. If he'd just told Cas when he first found out about it, today never would have happened. It was just another example of more bad decisions and stupidity on Dean's part. He wanted to kick himself in the teeth. He felt personally responsible for Alex being laid up in the hospital bed with all the surface injuries, rib contusions, a concussion, and the broken bone.

Dean remembered running up on the scene and not being able to believe his eyes. He hadn't really known what was happening at first, just saw Alex dazed on the ground and knew something bad was happening from the storm, the trees falling, the crackle of weird energy in the air. He'd crouched to pick her up and get her outta there... and that's when he'd seen Cas unleashing a bone-chilling assault onto Glen. He'd never forget the fury burning in Cas's face. Note to self: Don't piss Cas off unless you want to bite the dust... literally.

"Blood pressure's good," the nurse—short, distracted, with spiky peroxide-blonde hair—told Alex and pulled the noisy velcro wrap off her arm. "The doctor'll be in shortly, all right?"

Alex nodded, leaned back into the halfway reclined bed. "Thanks."

The nurse bustled out of the tiny room and Alex gave Dean a rueful smile. It must have been the worried look on his face that inspired her to tease him. "I look good, huh?" She pointed to one of the plastic chairs against the far wall. "Sit down, will you? You're gonna wear a hole in the floor."

Dean complied reluctantly, pulling the chair over near to the bed so he could sit beside her. As he sat down she sighed restlessly, fiddling with the hospital wristband that had been slapped on whenever she'd first been admitted. Of all things, she seemed impatient. Shouldn't she be freaking out? "I'm so hungry, damn," she muttered, thinking out loud.