Fic: Ain't No Me, Ain't No You
Title: Ain't No Me, Ain't No You
Author: brightly_lit
Rating: PG for language
Genre: gen, angst, metafic
Characters: Dean, Sam, Bobby, minor OCs
Word Count: 3,900
Summary: Sam doesn't recover from his amnesia after Cas takes down his wall. Dean and Bobby find him in a hospital a week later, having no memory of them or anything they've all been through.
Inspired by 6.22 via 9.10.
Dean ran into the hospital, Bobby on his heels. Dean paused just inside the main entrance, looking around, then made a beeline for the elevator. When Bobby was still a dozen feet behind as Dean, already inside, hit the button for Sam’s floor, he growled, “C’mon, c’mon!,” reluctantly holding the door open for him.
“I’m comin’,” Bobby growled. When he was finally inside, Dean pounded on the button until the door shut. Bobby eyed him. “He’s not goin’ anywhere, Dean. From what the doctor said, it sounds like even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t know where to go.”
Dean closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply enough to relax, or at least to keep from wanting to pummel Bobby--for what, he didn’t even know. For being too slow, for saying things he didn’t want to hear, for the fact that Sam was in the hospital, even though it would take a lot to find a way to make that Bobby’s fault. It was Dean’s fault. It was always Dean’s fault.
Bobby was right, though. Dean’s main cell phone had rung in the glove box after a week of searching for Sam. They’d left him unconscious in Bobby’s panic room with a note and a gun and gone to try to stop Cas. They’d failed, of course. Maybe if Sam had made his way there ... but he didn’t. They got back to Bobby’s place and Sam was nowhere to be found. The only lead they had was someone matching Sam’s description wandering around Sioux Falls, who’d been apprehended by police, and that was it. They’d hit every police station in a hundred-mile radius, and there was no record of Sam, beyond the fact that they’d brought him in and then released him. Dean didn’t allow himself to think of the worst: that the leviathans had already gotten him.
Then that cell phone rang--not the phone Sam would call--Dean’s ‘other, other cell phone’--but his more public number, the one they gave to victims and people they wanted information from. It was a doctor in Minneapolis, saying they’d admitted someone they believed was Sam Winchester, but they couldn’t be sure, because the patient didn’t remember so much as his own name. After a week of fruitless searching, and now this, Dean was wound as tight as he’d ever been, a keg of gunpowder about to go off. Sam. He’d been afraid he’d never get him back.
The elevator door opened and Dean burst out of it as if catapulted. He walked up to the first staff member he saw and demanded to know where his brother was. A nearby doctor overheard and intervened, telling the nurse Dean was yelling at that he would take care of it.
There was something in the way the doctor looked him briefly up and down, like ... like Dean was not what he expected. “Are you Dean Winchester?” the doctor asked, maddeningly calm, like Sam being here and not having his memory was nothing, no big deal--the kid who stopped the apocalypse, helpless in the clutches of civilians. Dean resisted the urge to shove him out of the way and find Sam. He made himself nod. “Okay, let’s sit down here and talk. There’s some things you should know before you see him--”
“I’m fine standing,” Dean said tensely, glancing continually past the doctor, trying to get a glimpse of Sam. Knocking the guy out wasn’t worth the trouble it would cause, so he waited. That doctor had no idea how lucky he was that Dean had so much practice at keeping himself under control.
Again, the doctor seemed surprised, meeting Dean’s cold, unfeeling eyes ... and then abruptly not surprised but disapproving, as if Dean suddenly was in some way what he’d expected, which threw Dean a little. What the hell? Maybe Sam did remember some things. Maybe Sam had spilled them all, not knowing any better. The doctor sat down anyway, and then Bobby did, so Dean kind of had to, too, but he made sure the doctor could tell his patience wouldn’t last long. “We found you by running Sam’s fingerprints. We always try that first with patients who have amnesia. Most of them aren’t in the system, but he was, and ... so were you.” Well, that explained the disapproval. Dean rolled his eyes slightly, but managed to hold his tongue. The doctor opened Sam’s chart, which had already been in his hand. Dean realized this must be the doctor treating Sam. He’d probably been headed right to his room when Dean turned up. If he’d been treating Sam all this time, maybe he would prove to be useful, after all. “His records indicate you’re his only living family member, is that right?”
Dean nodded tightly.
“Both parents deceased?”
“Yep.”
“And would you say you’re ... close?”
“Thick as thieves.”
The doctor’s eyes went to Bobby for confirmation, as if ... as if he didn’t believe Dean. Dean clenched his fists, but Bobby nodded, and the doctor seemed reassured. “And you are ...?”
“Family friend,” said Bobby easily. “Known ’em since they were kids.”
The doctor smiled slightly, still obviously unconvinced, eyeing Dean. “Funny, you two don’t look a thing alike.”
Bobby must have seen Dean coiling to lunge, because his hand came down heavy on Dean’s shoulder, holding him back. “Doctor, we’d really like to see ’im,” Bobby said evenly. “We’ve been lookin’ all over for a week, ever since he disappeared from my place.”
“And how was he when you left him?”
“Well--uh--” Bobby was good at playing a part when he was interviewing people for a case, but this wasn’t a case, this was Sam. He was caught off-guard. What were they going to say? They left him unconscious in Bobby’s basement, knowing he was as bad-off as he’d ever been?
“Fine,” Dean said quickly. “He was fine. We don’t know how this happened.”
Now the doctor eyed him shrewdly. The doctor took a piece of paper from his chart and held it out to Dean. “Did one of you write this note?”
Bobby was getting his wits back. “Uh, yeah, I wrote that. It’s an address where I’m supposed to pick up a car. I own a salvage yard.”
The distrust so evident in the doctor’s eyes when he looked at Dean now appeared when he looked at Bobby. He read from the chart, “’Patient regained consciousness with no memories. Searched for evidence of identity. Note and gun beside him on bed.”
“Gimme that.” Dean snatched the file out of the surprised doctor’s hands and read frantically. ‘Left premises of salvage yard in a borrowed vehicle and made his way to town. Apprehended by police, immediately surrendered gun. Exhibited extreme confusion and fear. Custody transferred to local hospital when mental difficulties became apparent. Transferred to Minneapolis due to better facilities. Chances of significant memory recovery: 3-5%.’ Sam, scared of the cops, handing over his gun, just like that? Man, he really must not remember anything. Dean handed back the file, shaken. Everything he read in the file, even the smiley polaroid of him in a hospital gown pinned at the top ... none of it seemed like Sam.
“So the note and gun just happened to end up on his bed?”
Bobby shrugged. “My place is full of junk; you never know what ya might find where.”
“He said it was a small bed in the very center of a mostly empty room.”
Dean narrowed his eyes. “Look, doc, whatever you might think of me doesn’t matter. That’s my brother in there, and I’m going to see him.”
Dean stood up, the doctor with him. “Okay. I just want you to be prepared. When people see a family member who has amnesia, often they expect them to remember them, even if they can’t remember anything else. No matter what we tell the family members, they’re often hurt, even angry, when they don’t, but you have to understand, this is a medical event. Sam would remember if he could, his brain just won’t let him. You can’t take it personally if he doesn’t recognize you.”
Dean ignored him. What was there for Sam to remember? He’d basically never had a home, never really had any friends. The only thing that had been there--virtually every second of every day for his whole life--was Dean. He would remember Dean, as Dean would remember Sam, he would have to remember Sam, because Sam was what lay at the very core of himself. Dean really wasn’t sure what would be left of him, if he didn’t have Sam. Dean shoved past the doctor down the hallway and found Sam in no time, his voice wafting to him, his ... laughter. Sam was laughing!
Dean ran toward the sound and stopped short at the door, taking in the strange sight of Sam in a hawaiian shirt and baggy jeans sitting on his bed, smiling, flirting with a nurse and bantering with the intern who was taking his vitals. Sam, who barely opened his mouth for a year when he was seven, shy and awkward around strangers--to this day Dean could tell that inherent shyness was still in him, even if no one else could. Sam, who virtually hadn’t smiled in months--years--cracking up at the littlest joke out of that intern with no sign of self-consciousness. Sam, who had always gotten so annoyed with Dean’s unending efforts to pick up chicks, who never did it himself--certainly never like this, obvious and charming and shameless. Right now, he was acting more like Dean, truth be told. Sam, pure Sam, undeniably Sam ... but not Sam.
Sam looked up when Dean appeared in his doorway, and the nurse and intern followed his gaze. “Sam,” Dean gasped, kind of falling into the room, stumbling to his side. The depth of his feeling landed in the midst of their light-hearted chatter like an anvil, but Dean didn’t care; he’d never cared what people thought of him when it came to his relationship with Sam, only ... only the one who seemed most confused by his intensity was Sam himself, who quirked his head, gazing at Dean not unkindly but without particular interest.
“Hi,” said Sam.
The doctor was there then, coming in the room after Bobby, and Dean was bewildered to see the warmth and recognition he didn’t evince for Dean appear at the sight of the doctor. “Sam, this is your brother, Dean.”
Sam’s eyebrows lifted with interest, and he turned to Dean with a ready smile ... only, to Dean’s further bewilderment, to look him up and down exactly as the doctor had, coming to exactly the same conclusions, which he could read on Sam’s face like he could read a book: displeasure, disbelief. Dislike. He even ... recoiled? Still, he held out his hand for Dean to shake, like they were strangers.
Dean couldn’t stay on his feet anymore. He fumbled around for a chair and finally found one, sinking into it, blinking. Dean had been through things that would crack someone else, things no one would believe, things they couldn’t bear to believe. He’d taken it all and stood his ground, kept on going. He’d always thought of this as one of his few admirable traits, but he suddenly realized it was all because of Sam. As long as he had Sam with him, everything else made sense enough.
Everyone seemed to be waiting for him to say more, but he couldn’t function. He couldn’t feel his body.
Bobby sat on Sam’s bed and patted his shoulder. “I’m, uh--I’m an old friend of your father, Sam. Name’s Bobby. I’ve known you since you were this big.” He held his hands out, as wide as a baby is tall. “Do you remember me?”
Sam smiled apologetically. “No. I don’t remember anything. I, uh--I guess I have a degree from Stanford! Pre-law. That was a waste of four years.” He chuckled. “I don’t remember a thing I learned there, seriously.”
Dean stared at the wall opposite. Yes, it was a waste, he thought, but not for the reason you think. You were never gonna use that degree, Sammy. You were going to suffer and fight just to stay alive until some bad guy or other got you and I was out of options for bringing you back.
“So ... my parents are dead?” Sam asked Bobby curiously, his voice devoid of all of the weight of those deaths and everything they’d meant, the way they’d started them all inexorably down that path they’d never been able to escape.
Bobby nodded, feeling that weight himself.
“And I grew up on the road? That’s what the police reports said.” Bobby nodded again, out of things to say now, too. “And my dad was a ... criminal?” He glanced immediately at Dean. Dean closed his eyes. He knew who else Sam would have read about in those police reports, and how the reports would have made Dean look.
“No, son,” Bobby corrected him. “No, Sam, your father was a great man. Not the easiest to get along with, but ... he helped a lot of people. Don’t you ever think different.”
Sam nodded, reassured. “That’s good. So he was a good guy, a nice guy?”
Bobby couldn’t seem to formulate an answer, so Dean growled, “He was a great man, Sam, what more do you want? He’s gotta be a saint, too?” It was uncanny. Even remembering nothing, Sam still found a way to get down on Dad.
Sam flinched, startled by Dean’s harsh tone. Everyone in the room was--the doctor and the intern and the nurse. Everyone but Bobby. The uncharacteristic vulnerability on Sam’s face gave way to an unyielding hardness Dean hadn’t seen ... well, since Dad was alive. “Hm. Great. Well, it was nice meeting you, but I want to be alone now.”
Just like that, he was dismissing them! Dean chuckled mirthlessly. “No, what we’re gonna do is get you discharged and take you home.”
Sam got this rebellious look he hadn’t had since he was ... what, fifteen? He lifted his chin. “Nah. No, I’ll stay here. I’ve ... already got some plans for my future. Thanks, though. Thanks. It was nice meeting you.”
“What ‘plans’?” Dean snapped. “You don’t have any ‘plans.’ I just told you what the plan is.”
The look Sam was giving him ... Dad would have smacked that look right off his face in a heartbeat. Dean might right now, if there weren’t so many people watching. Disgusted, disbelieving, defiant ... like he was in charge of himself and his own life and it would never occur to him otherwise. Dean glared back. “Please leave, ‘Dean,’” Sam said then snottily. “And ... you don’t need to come back. I’m all right on my own.”
“The hell you are!” Dean roared. He wasn’t going to hit him, just shake some sense into him, but suddenly hospital security was all over him, dragging him out of the room, and only the look of distaste on Sam’s face as he watched Dean’s violent display stopped him from dropping these security goons like so many bags of salt.
Dean managed to shake them off back in the lobby where the doctor had met them, once Bobby assured them he could keep Dean under control, which he had to do instantly, as Dean headed back down the hall the second he was free. “Dean!” said Bobby, yanking him back. “Idjit! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting my brother back, Bobby, what the hell else am I supposed to do?!”
“Sam told you what he wants.”
Dean smacked his hand away. “When did it ever matter what we wanted?!” he shouted.
Bobby looked around and lowered his voice. “Don’t you see what’s going on here, Dean? Sam has a chance to get out. Didn’t you see him? He was happy!” Dean had never seen Bobby this emotional, and he stared at the sight, stunned. “No hunter ever gets out,” Bobby hissed intently, “not really, because even if they stop huntin’, they can never, never forget what made them start in the first place. Sam can!” Dean shook his head and started back down the hall yet again. Bobby caught him and spun him around. “For the first time since Sam was a baby, he has a chance at a normal life, and you’re gonna take that away from him?? Just how selfish are you, boy?”
Dean turned around and headed back down the hall. It wasn’t that Bobby wasn’t making any sense; it was that going back for Sam was the first line in his programming. If Sam wasn’t already by his side, all he could think about was getting him back there before he could think about doing anything else. It had been like that for as long as he could remember. It was all he was.
He heard Sam’s voice again and was about to run back in his room and do whatever it took to force him to come home with Dean and Bobby, including knocking him and everyone here out and dragging him back there kicking and screaming, but Sam’s words stopped him in his tracks. “I mean, did you see that guy? He looks like such a ... transient. And he just orders me around? What a dick.”
Dean paused in a dark corner to listen.
“Are they sure he’s really your brother?” came the nurse’s voice--flirting with the nurse again, spilling every thought in his head to her, like she was his best friend--stuff he would never have told Dean. “’Cos, looking at him, I have to say, I wondered how someone like you could have come from a family like that.”
“They say he is,” Sam sighed, “but those police reports are pretty fishy--he obviously lies to the authorities every chance he gets. I even have someone else’s insurance card! What kind of people are they?” Dean flinched where he stood, unmoving. This was Sam’s impression of him, of Bobby? This was all he came away with from meeting the people who’d given their lives for him? Whom he’d given his life for? Sam lowered his voice slightly. “Cindy, can I tell you something?”
“You can tell me anything, Sam, you know that.”
“The truth is ... I’m glad this happened. I’m happy I don’t remember. I don’t know anything about those people or what my life used to be like. All I know is, I don’t like that guy. I don’t like the lying and the criminal stuff and--and that bullshit with him ordering me around. I’m, what, twenty-eight? And he’s telling me what to do like I’m five?”
“It’s more than that,” came an unfamiliar voice. The intern, must be, Dean realized, Sam’s other new best friend. “The way he lunged at you? Try abusive.”
“Maybe he’s the one who gave you amnesia,” the nurse theorized. Dean closed his eyes and tried to breathe against the pain.
“Probably,” Sam grumbled, and Dean felt it like a spear through his chest. To let Sam think Dean had beaten him until he couldn’t remember a thing. Yet ... it was only a few months ago that he’d beaten him unconscious for being soulless, which in retrospect didn’t make sense, even if in the moment it had been the only thing he could think to do. But he didn’t beat him unconscious for being soulless, of course; he didn’t even know that was what the problem was, at the time. He beat him unconscious for ... not being his brother. Like that guy in there.
Anyway, it was his fault Sam had ended up with amnesia. If he could have just found some way to keep Cas from taking down his wall .... “That guy seriously thinks he’s in charge of my life!” Sam went on.
“Remember, Doctor Sanderson said you have a job here if you want one,” the intern said brightly.
“You’re so good at fixing things,” the nurse purred flirtatiously. “Thank god you were able to fix that monitor that one day; you saved my butt.”
“Yeah, I was waiting to see what happened with my family and see if I had a life to go back to, but ... guess not.” He sounded so sad ... but not as sad as he should feel, to find out he had virtually no family ... and had just dismissed the only one he had left. All business. That was always in Sam, a latent skill: to assess the resources he had at his disposal, make the best of a bad situation, and begin building a new life for himself. “So yeah, I’d love that job.”
“I’ll tell Doctor Sanderson and H.R. can bring up the paperwork!” said the intern.
“Where will I sleep?” Sam wondered. Dean had to stop himself from running in there--Sammy, without a place to sleep or a home or a family, or ... well, Dean had never really been in a position to provide Sam with those things--not very well, anyway. All he’d been able to promise him was himself, that he would always be there, by Sam’s side, come what may, but what good was that if it was something Sam didn’t even want? Had never really wanted, if Dean was being honest with himself. He thought all this time he was selflessly doing it all for Sam, but Bobby’s words echoed in his head, “How selfish are you, boy?” Maybe Bobby was right. Maybe it had never been for Sam.
Sam had the chance to get out. Dean would worry that monsters would come after him, but they’d pretty much left Dean alone when he quit hunting. Once a hunter was no longer a threat, they seemed to lose interest. Dean would keep watching over him, in any case. He edged over closer to the doorway now, to get a glimpse of Sam, bright-eyed and full of life there, sitting on his bed, his expression warm, hopeful, excited about his future. Dean almost couldn’t see his brother in this man--and he was a man. Sam had never seemed more than maybe sixteen in Dean’s mind, but there he was, tall and massive and confident and ... all grown up.
He took out a piece of paper and scribbled on it as he listened to the intern quietly tipping Sam off about the nap rooms they had for interns and how he was sure people would turn a blind eye if Sam had to live here for a little while until he found his feet. The intern announced he’d go tell the doctor the plan and left the room. Dean handed him the note as he passed by, and the intern jumped back, startled as Dean emerged from his dark corner. Dean ignored it. “Hey, I’m taking off. Could you give this to Sam? It’s my cell number. Tell him he can call me anytime if he needs something. Anything.”
The intern nodded warily, glancing toward the nurse’s station where a security guard was stationed. Before it came to that, Dean turned and shambled back down the hallway to where Bobby waited for him, looking like he expected Dean to hatch some plan to hold the nurses hostage while they sprung Sam. “Let’s go,” Dean said, not stopping as he passed Bobby, because he knew if he didn’t keep going now, he’d never be able to move again.
“You’re leaving him here?” Bobby asked incredulously, hurrying to fall in beside him.
“He’s fine.”
“Yeah, but Dean ... what about you? Sam was--he was--”
“Yeah, well, when did it ever matter what I wanted?”
~ The End ~
Author's Notes:
- Much of this fic was informed by a fascinating documentary I saw some years ago about a guy who had amnesia, never recovered his memory, and, like Sam, decided he was happy it had happened and hoped his memory would never return. Interestingly, the guy in documentary used to do bad things and was really not a nice guy. When he met his former best friend, he thought he was a creep and they couldn't relate to each other at all. He would look at photos of himself engaging in rather sleazy behavior and enjoying it and not be able to relate it to the person he felt like he was now. I thought, if the fundamental Sam who wants a home and a life and values education and ethical behavior got a load of the life he'd been living that's so contrary to that, what would he think of it all (to the degree he was even able to understand how they'd been living)?
- I loved Samnesia so much I had to return to it a second time (the first is here), so this story is very much inspired by 6.22, but also greatly informed by the ending of 9.10 and the response of fandom, how strongly various fans are defending the two brothers' viewpoints. I'm an unashamed Sam!girl but always and ever staunchly bi-bro. I confess, watching Sam and Dean's relationship over the course of the last few seasons deteriorate and contemplating the causes, I got frustrated with Dean, wishing he'd get his shit together enough to let Sam do what he needs to do and get over that codependency that's destroying them. Dean's greatest fear is, we can guess, that Sam will walk away from him for good, so I wrote this fic to explore what would happen if he did, and in the end, I could see Dean's perspective just as clearly. It's a very clever setup the writers of SPN have presented, a rock and a hard place, for our boys, where the needs of both are so strong but so at odds with the needs of the other brother. I tried to tease that out more thoroughly with this fic, thinking, if Sam is stripped down to his fundamental self, relieved of years of expectation and conditioning and guilt, what would he be like, how would he feel? And then, stripped of Sam, how would Dean feel? My heart breaks for both boys with this fic, and it makes me very excited indeed to see where the writers go with this theme/plotline. All I hope is that they don't cheap out and gloss over the true depth of the issues in Sam and Dean's relationship.
- For me, one of the most appealing parts of writing this fic was imagining how Sam, with no personal point of reference, would perceive Dean and Bobby. Knowing what he knows of Dean--that he has a long criminal record, lies constantly, has a transient lifestyle, dresses down--I figured he would be unable to see the Dean he knows and has so much in common with through the fact that on the surface they're so different.
- It was fun to imagine Sam in a hawaiian shirt and baggy jeans. :-)
Author: brightly_lit
Rating: PG for language
Genre: gen, angst, metafic
Characters: Dean, Sam, Bobby, minor OCs
Word Count: 3,900
Summary: Sam doesn't recover from his amnesia after Cas takes down his wall. Dean and Bobby find him in a hospital a week later, having no memory of them or anything they've all been through.
Inspired by 6.22 via 9.10.
Dean ran into the hospital, Bobby on his heels. Dean paused just inside the main entrance, looking around, then made a beeline for the elevator. When Bobby was still a dozen feet behind as Dean, already inside, hit the button for Sam’s floor, he growled, “C’mon, c’mon!,” reluctantly holding the door open for him.
“I’m comin’,” Bobby growled. When he was finally inside, Dean pounded on the button until the door shut. Bobby eyed him. “He’s not goin’ anywhere, Dean. From what the doctor said, it sounds like even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t know where to go.”
Dean closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply enough to relax, or at least to keep from wanting to pummel Bobby--for what, he didn’t even know. For being too slow, for saying things he didn’t want to hear, for the fact that Sam was in the hospital, even though it would take a lot to find a way to make that Bobby’s fault. It was Dean’s fault. It was always Dean’s fault.
Bobby was right, though. Dean’s main cell phone had rung in the glove box after a week of searching for Sam. They’d left him unconscious in Bobby’s panic room with a note and a gun and gone to try to stop Cas. They’d failed, of course. Maybe if Sam had made his way there ... but he didn’t. They got back to Bobby’s place and Sam was nowhere to be found. The only lead they had was someone matching Sam’s description wandering around Sioux Falls, who’d been apprehended by police, and that was it. They’d hit every police station in a hundred-mile radius, and there was no record of Sam, beyond the fact that they’d brought him in and then released him. Dean didn’t allow himself to think of the worst: that the leviathans had already gotten him.
Then that cell phone rang--not the phone Sam would call--Dean’s ‘other, other cell phone’--but his more public number, the one they gave to victims and people they wanted information from. It was a doctor in Minneapolis, saying they’d admitted someone they believed was Sam Winchester, but they couldn’t be sure, because the patient didn’t remember so much as his own name. After a week of fruitless searching, and now this, Dean was wound as tight as he’d ever been, a keg of gunpowder about to go off. Sam. He’d been afraid he’d never get him back.
The elevator door opened and Dean burst out of it as if catapulted. He walked up to the first staff member he saw and demanded to know where his brother was. A nearby doctor overheard and intervened, telling the nurse Dean was yelling at that he would take care of it.
There was something in the way the doctor looked him briefly up and down, like ... like Dean was not what he expected. “Are you Dean Winchester?” the doctor asked, maddeningly calm, like Sam being here and not having his memory was nothing, no big deal--the kid who stopped the apocalypse, helpless in the clutches of civilians. Dean resisted the urge to shove him out of the way and find Sam. He made himself nod. “Okay, let’s sit down here and talk. There’s some things you should know before you see him--”
“I’m fine standing,” Dean said tensely, glancing continually past the doctor, trying to get a glimpse of Sam. Knocking the guy out wasn’t worth the trouble it would cause, so he waited. That doctor had no idea how lucky he was that Dean had so much practice at keeping himself under control.
Again, the doctor seemed surprised, meeting Dean’s cold, unfeeling eyes ... and then abruptly not surprised but disapproving, as if Dean suddenly was in some way what he’d expected, which threw Dean a little. What the hell? Maybe Sam did remember some things. Maybe Sam had spilled them all, not knowing any better. The doctor sat down anyway, and then Bobby did, so Dean kind of had to, too, but he made sure the doctor could tell his patience wouldn’t last long. “We found you by running Sam’s fingerprints. We always try that first with patients who have amnesia. Most of them aren’t in the system, but he was, and ... so were you.” Well, that explained the disapproval. Dean rolled his eyes slightly, but managed to hold his tongue. The doctor opened Sam’s chart, which had already been in his hand. Dean realized this must be the doctor treating Sam. He’d probably been headed right to his room when Dean turned up. If he’d been treating Sam all this time, maybe he would prove to be useful, after all. “His records indicate you’re his only living family member, is that right?”
Dean nodded tightly.
“Both parents deceased?”
“Yep.”
“And would you say you’re ... close?”
“Thick as thieves.”
The doctor’s eyes went to Bobby for confirmation, as if ... as if he didn’t believe Dean. Dean clenched his fists, but Bobby nodded, and the doctor seemed reassured. “And you are ...?”
“Family friend,” said Bobby easily. “Known ’em since they were kids.”
The doctor smiled slightly, still obviously unconvinced, eyeing Dean. “Funny, you two don’t look a thing alike.”
Bobby must have seen Dean coiling to lunge, because his hand came down heavy on Dean’s shoulder, holding him back. “Doctor, we’d really like to see ’im,” Bobby said evenly. “We’ve been lookin’ all over for a week, ever since he disappeared from my place.”
“And how was he when you left him?”
“Well--uh--” Bobby was good at playing a part when he was interviewing people for a case, but this wasn’t a case, this was Sam. He was caught off-guard. What were they going to say? They left him unconscious in Bobby’s basement, knowing he was as bad-off as he’d ever been?
“Fine,” Dean said quickly. “He was fine. We don’t know how this happened.”
Now the doctor eyed him shrewdly. The doctor took a piece of paper from his chart and held it out to Dean. “Did one of you write this note?”
Bobby was getting his wits back. “Uh, yeah, I wrote that. It’s an address where I’m supposed to pick up a car. I own a salvage yard.”
The distrust so evident in the doctor’s eyes when he looked at Dean now appeared when he looked at Bobby. He read from the chart, “’Patient regained consciousness with no memories. Searched for evidence of identity. Note and gun beside him on bed.”
“Gimme that.” Dean snatched the file out of the surprised doctor’s hands and read frantically. ‘Left premises of salvage yard in a borrowed vehicle and made his way to town. Apprehended by police, immediately surrendered gun. Exhibited extreme confusion and fear. Custody transferred to local hospital when mental difficulties became apparent. Transferred to Minneapolis due to better facilities. Chances of significant memory recovery: 3-5%.’ Sam, scared of the cops, handing over his gun, just like that? Man, he really must not remember anything. Dean handed back the file, shaken. Everything he read in the file, even the smiley polaroid of him in a hospital gown pinned at the top ... none of it seemed like Sam.
“So the note and gun just happened to end up on his bed?”
Bobby shrugged. “My place is full of junk; you never know what ya might find where.”
“He said it was a small bed in the very center of a mostly empty room.”
Dean narrowed his eyes. “Look, doc, whatever you might think of me doesn’t matter. That’s my brother in there, and I’m going to see him.”
Dean stood up, the doctor with him. “Okay. I just want you to be prepared. When people see a family member who has amnesia, often they expect them to remember them, even if they can’t remember anything else. No matter what we tell the family members, they’re often hurt, even angry, when they don’t, but you have to understand, this is a medical event. Sam would remember if he could, his brain just won’t let him. You can’t take it personally if he doesn’t recognize you.”
Dean ignored him. What was there for Sam to remember? He’d basically never had a home, never really had any friends. The only thing that had been there--virtually every second of every day for his whole life--was Dean. He would remember Dean, as Dean would remember Sam, he would have to remember Sam, because Sam was what lay at the very core of himself. Dean really wasn’t sure what would be left of him, if he didn’t have Sam. Dean shoved past the doctor down the hallway and found Sam in no time, his voice wafting to him, his ... laughter. Sam was laughing!
Dean ran toward the sound and stopped short at the door, taking in the strange sight of Sam in a hawaiian shirt and baggy jeans sitting on his bed, smiling, flirting with a nurse and bantering with the intern who was taking his vitals. Sam, who barely opened his mouth for a year when he was seven, shy and awkward around strangers--to this day Dean could tell that inherent shyness was still in him, even if no one else could. Sam, who virtually hadn’t smiled in months--years--cracking up at the littlest joke out of that intern with no sign of self-consciousness. Sam, who had always gotten so annoyed with Dean’s unending efforts to pick up chicks, who never did it himself--certainly never like this, obvious and charming and shameless. Right now, he was acting more like Dean, truth be told. Sam, pure Sam, undeniably Sam ... but not Sam.
Sam looked up when Dean appeared in his doorway, and the nurse and intern followed his gaze. “Sam,” Dean gasped, kind of falling into the room, stumbling to his side. The depth of his feeling landed in the midst of their light-hearted chatter like an anvil, but Dean didn’t care; he’d never cared what people thought of him when it came to his relationship with Sam, only ... only the one who seemed most confused by his intensity was Sam himself, who quirked his head, gazing at Dean not unkindly but without particular interest.
“Hi,” said Sam.
The doctor was there then, coming in the room after Bobby, and Dean was bewildered to see the warmth and recognition he didn’t evince for Dean appear at the sight of the doctor. “Sam, this is your brother, Dean.”
Sam’s eyebrows lifted with interest, and he turned to Dean with a ready smile ... only, to Dean’s further bewilderment, to look him up and down exactly as the doctor had, coming to exactly the same conclusions, which he could read on Sam’s face like he could read a book: displeasure, disbelief. Dislike. He even ... recoiled? Still, he held out his hand for Dean to shake, like they were strangers.
Dean couldn’t stay on his feet anymore. He fumbled around for a chair and finally found one, sinking into it, blinking. Dean had been through things that would crack someone else, things no one would believe, things they couldn’t bear to believe. He’d taken it all and stood his ground, kept on going. He’d always thought of this as one of his few admirable traits, but he suddenly realized it was all because of Sam. As long as he had Sam with him, everything else made sense enough.
Everyone seemed to be waiting for him to say more, but he couldn’t function. He couldn’t feel his body.
Bobby sat on Sam’s bed and patted his shoulder. “I’m, uh--I’m an old friend of your father, Sam. Name’s Bobby. I’ve known you since you were this big.” He held his hands out, as wide as a baby is tall. “Do you remember me?”
Sam smiled apologetically. “No. I don’t remember anything. I, uh--I guess I have a degree from Stanford! Pre-law. That was a waste of four years.” He chuckled. “I don’t remember a thing I learned there, seriously.”
Dean stared at the wall opposite. Yes, it was a waste, he thought, but not for the reason you think. You were never gonna use that degree, Sammy. You were going to suffer and fight just to stay alive until some bad guy or other got you and I was out of options for bringing you back.
“So ... my parents are dead?” Sam asked Bobby curiously, his voice devoid of all of the weight of those deaths and everything they’d meant, the way they’d started them all inexorably down that path they’d never been able to escape.
Bobby nodded, feeling that weight himself.
“And I grew up on the road? That’s what the police reports said.” Bobby nodded again, out of things to say now, too. “And my dad was a ... criminal?” He glanced immediately at Dean. Dean closed his eyes. He knew who else Sam would have read about in those police reports, and how the reports would have made Dean look.
“No, son,” Bobby corrected him. “No, Sam, your father was a great man. Not the easiest to get along with, but ... he helped a lot of people. Don’t you ever think different.”
Sam nodded, reassured. “That’s good. So he was a good guy, a nice guy?”
Bobby couldn’t seem to formulate an answer, so Dean growled, “He was a great man, Sam, what more do you want? He’s gotta be a saint, too?” It was uncanny. Even remembering nothing, Sam still found a way to get down on Dad.
Sam flinched, startled by Dean’s harsh tone. Everyone in the room was--the doctor and the intern and the nurse. Everyone but Bobby. The uncharacteristic vulnerability on Sam’s face gave way to an unyielding hardness Dean hadn’t seen ... well, since Dad was alive. “Hm. Great. Well, it was nice meeting you, but I want to be alone now.”
Just like that, he was dismissing them! Dean chuckled mirthlessly. “No, what we’re gonna do is get you discharged and take you home.”
Sam got this rebellious look he hadn’t had since he was ... what, fifteen? He lifted his chin. “Nah. No, I’ll stay here. I’ve ... already got some plans for my future. Thanks, though. Thanks. It was nice meeting you.”
“What ‘plans’?” Dean snapped. “You don’t have any ‘plans.’ I just told you what the plan is.”
The look Sam was giving him ... Dad would have smacked that look right off his face in a heartbeat. Dean might right now, if there weren’t so many people watching. Disgusted, disbelieving, defiant ... like he was in charge of himself and his own life and it would never occur to him otherwise. Dean glared back. “Please leave, ‘Dean,’” Sam said then snottily. “And ... you don’t need to come back. I’m all right on my own.”
“The hell you are!” Dean roared. He wasn’t going to hit him, just shake some sense into him, but suddenly hospital security was all over him, dragging him out of the room, and only the look of distaste on Sam’s face as he watched Dean’s violent display stopped him from dropping these security goons like so many bags of salt.
Dean managed to shake them off back in the lobby where the doctor had met them, once Bobby assured them he could keep Dean under control, which he had to do instantly, as Dean headed back down the hall the second he was free. “Dean!” said Bobby, yanking him back. “Idjit! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting my brother back, Bobby, what the hell else am I supposed to do?!”
“Sam told you what he wants.”
Dean smacked his hand away. “When did it ever matter what we wanted?!” he shouted.
Bobby looked around and lowered his voice. “Don’t you see what’s going on here, Dean? Sam has a chance to get out. Didn’t you see him? He was happy!” Dean had never seen Bobby this emotional, and he stared at the sight, stunned. “No hunter ever gets out,” Bobby hissed intently, “not really, because even if they stop huntin’, they can never, never forget what made them start in the first place. Sam can!” Dean shook his head and started back down the hall yet again. Bobby caught him and spun him around. “For the first time since Sam was a baby, he has a chance at a normal life, and you’re gonna take that away from him?? Just how selfish are you, boy?”
Dean turned around and headed back down the hall. It wasn’t that Bobby wasn’t making any sense; it was that going back for Sam was the first line in his programming. If Sam wasn’t already by his side, all he could think about was getting him back there before he could think about doing anything else. It had been like that for as long as he could remember. It was all he was.
He heard Sam’s voice again and was about to run back in his room and do whatever it took to force him to come home with Dean and Bobby, including knocking him and everyone here out and dragging him back there kicking and screaming, but Sam’s words stopped him in his tracks. “I mean, did you see that guy? He looks like such a ... transient. And he just orders me around? What a dick.”
Dean paused in a dark corner to listen.
“Are they sure he’s really your brother?” came the nurse’s voice--flirting with the nurse again, spilling every thought in his head to her, like she was his best friend--stuff he would never have told Dean. “’Cos, looking at him, I have to say, I wondered how someone like you could have come from a family like that.”
“They say he is,” Sam sighed, “but those police reports are pretty fishy--he obviously lies to the authorities every chance he gets. I even have someone else’s insurance card! What kind of people are they?” Dean flinched where he stood, unmoving. This was Sam’s impression of him, of Bobby? This was all he came away with from meeting the people who’d given their lives for him? Whom he’d given his life for? Sam lowered his voice slightly. “Cindy, can I tell you something?”
“You can tell me anything, Sam, you know that.”
“The truth is ... I’m glad this happened. I’m happy I don’t remember. I don’t know anything about those people or what my life used to be like. All I know is, I don’t like that guy. I don’t like the lying and the criminal stuff and--and that bullshit with him ordering me around. I’m, what, twenty-eight? And he’s telling me what to do like I’m five?”
“It’s more than that,” came an unfamiliar voice. The intern, must be, Dean realized, Sam’s other new best friend. “The way he lunged at you? Try abusive.”
“Maybe he’s the one who gave you amnesia,” the nurse theorized. Dean closed his eyes and tried to breathe against the pain.
“Probably,” Sam grumbled, and Dean felt it like a spear through his chest. To let Sam think Dean had beaten him until he couldn’t remember a thing. Yet ... it was only a few months ago that he’d beaten him unconscious for being soulless, which in retrospect didn’t make sense, even if in the moment it had been the only thing he could think to do. But he didn’t beat him unconscious for being soulless, of course; he didn’t even know that was what the problem was, at the time. He beat him unconscious for ... not being his brother. Like that guy in there.
Anyway, it was his fault Sam had ended up with amnesia. If he could have just found some way to keep Cas from taking down his wall .... “That guy seriously thinks he’s in charge of my life!” Sam went on.
“Remember, Doctor Sanderson said you have a job here if you want one,” the intern said brightly.
“You’re so good at fixing things,” the nurse purred flirtatiously. “Thank god you were able to fix that monitor that one day; you saved my butt.”
“Yeah, I was waiting to see what happened with my family and see if I had a life to go back to, but ... guess not.” He sounded so sad ... but not as sad as he should feel, to find out he had virtually no family ... and had just dismissed the only one he had left. All business. That was always in Sam, a latent skill: to assess the resources he had at his disposal, make the best of a bad situation, and begin building a new life for himself. “So yeah, I’d love that job.”
“I’ll tell Doctor Sanderson and H.R. can bring up the paperwork!” said the intern.
“Where will I sleep?” Sam wondered. Dean had to stop himself from running in there--Sammy, without a place to sleep or a home or a family, or ... well, Dean had never really been in a position to provide Sam with those things--not very well, anyway. All he’d been able to promise him was himself, that he would always be there, by Sam’s side, come what may, but what good was that if it was something Sam didn’t even want? Had never really wanted, if Dean was being honest with himself. He thought all this time he was selflessly doing it all for Sam, but Bobby’s words echoed in his head, “How selfish are you, boy?” Maybe Bobby was right. Maybe it had never been for Sam.
Sam had the chance to get out. Dean would worry that monsters would come after him, but they’d pretty much left Dean alone when he quit hunting. Once a hunter was no longer a threat, they seemed to lose interest. Dean would keep watching over him, in any case. He edged over closer to the doorway now, to get a glimpse of Sam, bright-eyed and full of life there, sitting on his bed, his expression warm, hopeful, excited about his future. Dean almost couldn’t see his brother in this man--and he was a man. Sam had never seemed more than maybe sixteen in Dean’s mind, but there he was, tall and massive and confident and ... all grown up.
He took out a piece of paper and scribbled on it as he listened to the intern quietly tipping Sam off about the nap rooms they had for interns and how he was sure people would turn a blind eye if Sam had to live here for a little while until he found his feet. The intern announced he’d go tell the doctor the plan and left the room. Dean handed him the note as he passed by, and the intern jumped back, startled as Dean emerged from his dark corner. Dean ignored it. “Hey, I’m taking off. Could you give this to Sam? It’s my cell number. Tell him he can call me anytime if he needs something. Anything.”
The intern nodded warily, glancing toward the nurse’s station where a security guard was stationed. Before it came to that, Dean turned and shambled back down the hallway to where Bobby waited for him, looking like he expected Dean to hatch some plan to hold the nurses hostage while they sprung Sam. “Let’s go,” Dean said, not stopping as he passed Bobby, because he knew if he didn’t keep going now, he’d never be able to move again.
“You’re leaving him here?” Bobby asked incredulously, hurrying to fall in beside him.
“He’s fine.”
“Yeah, but Dean ... what about you? Sam was--he was--”
“Yeah, well, when did it ever matter what I wanted?”
~ The End ~
Author's Notes:
- Much of this fic was informed by a fascinating documentary I saw some years ago about a guy who had amnesia, never recovered his memory, and, like Sam, decided he was happy it had happened and hoped his memory would never return. Interestingly, the guy in documentary used to do bad things and was really not a nice guy. When he met his former best friend, he thought he was a creep and they couldn't relate to each other at all. He would look at photos of himself engaging in rather sleazy behavior and enjoying it and not be able to relate it to the person he felt like he was now. I thought, if the fundamental Sam who wants a home and a life and values education and ethical behavior got a load of the life he'd been living that's so contrary to that, what would he think of it all (to the degree he was even able to understand how they'd been living)?
- I loved Samnesia so much I had to return to it a second time (the first is here), so this story is very much inspired by 6.22, but also greatly informed by the ending of 9.10 and the response of fandom, how strongly various fans are defending the two brothers' viewpoints. I'm an unashamed Sam!girl but always and ever staunchly bi-bro. I confess, watching Sam and Dean's relationship over the course of the last few seasons deteriorate and contemplating the causes, I got frustrated with Dean, wishing he'd get his shit together enough to let Sam do what he needs to do and get over that codependency that's destroying them. Dean's greatest fear is, we can guess, that Sam will walk away from him for good, so I wrote this fic to explore what would happen if he did, and in the end, I could see Dean's perspective just as clearly. It's a very clever setup the writers of SPN have presented, a rock and a hard place, for our boys, where the needs of both are so strong but so at odds with the needs of the other brother. I tried to tease that out more thoroughly with this fic, thinking, if Sam is stripped down to his fundamental self, relieved of years of expectation and conditioning and guilt, what would he be like, how would he feel? And then, stripped of Sam, how would Dean feel? My heart breaks for both boys with this fic, and it makes me very excited indeed to see where the writers go with this theme/plotline. All I hope is that they don't cheap out and gloss over the true depth of the issues in Sam and Dean's relationship.
- For me, one of the most appealing parts of writing this fic was imagining how Sam, with no personal point of reference, would perceive Dean and Bobby. Knowing what he knows of Dean--that he has a long criminal record, lies constantly, has a transient lifestyle, dresses down--I figured he would be unable to see the Dean he knows and has so much in common with through the fact that on the surface they're so different.
- It was fun to imagine Sam in a hawaiian shirt and baggy jeans. :-)