SPN Fic: Accountability (Gen, PG, In My Time of Dying)
Title: Accountability
Author: Dodger Winslow
Genre: Gen
Word Count: 5,020
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Up to In My Time of Dying
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.
Summary: Karl Buckman had been driving a big rig since he was eighteen, and he’d never even had so much as a speeding ticket until now. For the life of him, he didn’t know how this could have happened, how things could have gone so horribly wrong that he’d have no memory of the accident at all, only of waking up on his knees in the wet grass, staring at the mangled wreck of a ’67 black Impala and the bloody bodies inside.
Author's Note: Set directly after the events of In My Time of Dying.
Accountability
Karl Buckman had been driving a big rig since he was eighteen, and he’d never even had so much as a speeding ticket until now. For the life of him, he didn’t know how this could have happened, how things could have gone so horribly wrong that he’d have no memory of the accident at all, only of waking up on his knees in the wet grass, staring at the mangled wreck of a ’67 black Impala and the bloody bodies inside.
The doctors ran half a dozen tests before they released him, but none of them showed anything. He’d be a liar if he said it wasn’t a relief to find he didn’t have a brain tumor or something, but to find nothing at all? That made it worse, made him feel guiltier than he already did.
The only thing Karl could figure was that he must have gone to sleep on the road. It didn’t make any sense; he was more religious about pulling over to sleep when his body told him to than he was about going to church, and he’d gone to church every Sunday for as long as he’d been driving a rig, no matter where he was when Sunday rolled around.
He’d had too many friends die - or worse - from trying to squeeze one more hour out of the night. It was a fool’s bet, pure and simple, if for no other reason than because the cost of going bust was so damned high. Dying was the best you could hope for when sleep depravation hit the fan. Because as bad as dying might be? Living with the weight of someone else dying so you could make your schedule was worse.
It was the worst thing Karl could imagine, and he’d been living it for three days now. He’d literally been holding his breath for that Winchester boy. Dean, his father said his name was. Dean and Sam, and their father’s name was John.
Karl met John in the hospital chapel. He’d spent more time there praying than he’d ever spent anywhere, doing anything, since before he became a nomad of the road. And it was only now - only when he was pretty sure the worst of it was over, and only after he’d spent almost an hour talking to John about his boys and the kind of men they were - that Karl could muster up the courage to actually visit the kid’s room to offer some kind of apology, to try and accept some kind of accountability for what he’d done.
His courage almost failed him at the door, but he stood his ground until the urge to run passed. He knew he’d never forgive himself if he hit the road without at least talking to them, without at least telling them how sorry he was, how terrible he felt about what had happened.
Not what had happened, Karl reminded himself. What he had done. It was important to keep that distinction fresh in his head, to be vigilant it didn’t become just a thing beyond his control, like hitting black ice on a dark night, or getting jammed up in a multi-rig melee. Because it wasn’t that. It was something else. It was something he’d done that almost cost a kid his life, almost cost a father his son, almost cost a boy his brother.
They were obviously a close family, and it tore Karl up inside to think he could have been their undoing.
The door was open just a crack, so Karl knocked quietly, hoping Dean was awake, hoping he could get this done and over with so he could move on down the road to the next place he was supposed to be.
"Yeah," a voice said. "Come on in."
Karl slipped through the door, feeling kind of stupid with a small, greasy bag clutched in one hand, hidden under his coat so the nurses wouldn’t catch him in the act. He hoped the kid liked hamburgers. Flowers seemed an obviously idiot choice when it was one guy giving to another; but he’d been in the hospital once, and he remembered how crap the food was, so he thought maybe a burger was something Dean might like.
Several years back, when he broke his leg so bad he spent a week in traction, Karl would have sold his soul for a burger by the time they discharged him. Well, not really sold his soul, but he’d have sold his damned feet. Both of them. And certainly his gall bladder. Maybe his appendix, too. Because really, who the hell needs an appendix?
The kid’s bed was empty, but the room wasn’t. His brother was sitting in a chair near the window. He’d been the one driving; the one still conscious, the one who was glaring at Karl with undisguised hatred and a gun clutched in one hand when Karl woke up, retching black bile, to the unavoidable realization he’d t-boned someone with his rig.
"Uh, hi," Karl ventured. "Sam, right?"
Sam nodded. His eyes were dull. He looked like he’d just lost his best friend in the whole world.
That look made Karl sick, made him want to drop to his knees again, retch black bile again. Surely his brother hadn’t taken a turn for the worse after that miraculous recovery. Surely the kid’s bed wasn’t empty because he’d died and the nurses just hadn’t gotten around to telling Karl yet.
Karl swallowed hard. He had to force his voice to work so he could say, "Your brother … he’s okay, isn’t he? I heard he woke up, that the doctors are calling it some kind of miracle or something."
"Yeah," Sam said, his voice wooden, empty. "Dean’s okay."
Karl almost fainted, he was that damned relieved. He’d never fainted in his whole life - not even when his leg got broken in three place - but he almost fainted right then and there. "Good," he heard himself say. "That’s real good. I’m glad to hear it. Really glad."
Sam just stared at him. The kid looked like hell. Despite the fact he’d taken far less of the impact than either his dad or brother, his face was beat to crap. Their old man said his sons were tough, that they’d be fine, he was sure of it; but Sam didn’t look fine. He looked like he was in hell, and seeing him that way made Karl want to run away rather than face up to what he’d done.
"I uh … I brought a burger." Karl held the greasy sack out like a five year old trying to offer a girl a frog. "I didn’t think to get two. I just … I remember how crap the food in hospitals is, so I thought maybe your brother might want a burger by now. Dean, right? His name’s Dean?"
Sam reached out, took the sack and set it on the bedside table. "Thanks."
Thanks. That was all the kid said. Just thanks. Karl shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. This was going suckier than he’d hoped. He had no doubt Sam remembered him. It was pretty clear he held Karl responsible for what happened to his family.
And he should, Karl reminded himself. Because it was Karl’s fault. Whatever happened, it had to be Karl’s fault because it was Karl’s rig that t-boned their car, his rig that folded it like a wallet as if Karl was stepping on the gas instead of the breaks when he hit them.
He didn’t remember stepping on the gas instead of the brakes, but the cops told him that’s the way it happened. They could figure out most of the whats and where-fors of a wreck these days just by looking at what was left behind, so even though Karl didn’t understand how it all worked exactly, he didn’t see no choice but to believe what they said.
No choice but to believe he was stepping on the gas instead of the brakes when he hit a car he didn’t even remember hitting and almost wiped out a whole family who never even saw him coming.
"Well, I, uh, I know you probably don’t want a damned thing to do with me," he ventured after a couple of moments of awkward silence. "And I understand that, I surely do. I was just … I wanted to drop by to tell you and your brother how sorry I am. I know that’s a little like crying after the milk is already spilt, but I just … I … I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry."
Karl winced. It sounded so weak - so inadequate - in the sterile quiet of a hospital room. He wished there was a better way to say "I’m sorry" than just saying "I’m sorry," but if there was, he didn’t know what it would be. Setting his jaw to see it through, Karl pushed on, hoping to get what he had to say said before Sam decided to tell him where to go and what route to take if he wanted to make good time. "I know I’m not the best guy in the world with words so I’m probably not saying this the way it should be said, but I’m doing the best I can here to tell you that I don’t know …"
Karl hesitated. He didn’t want to make excuses, didn’t want to sound like he was trying to shrug out of responsibility he full well knew was his to carry.
"I’m just not really clear on exactly what happened," he revised after a momentary re-consideration. "I guess I must have fallen asleep at the wheel or something, and I couldn’t be more sorry about that. I couldn’t feel more horrible than I do, and I hope you’ll believe me when I say that because it’s true as true can be. I know it ain’t much, considering what I did to you and your family, but I hope you can see that I really mean it. That I’m being sincere and not just … well … just blowing smoke up your skirt, I guess. Because I’m not. I’m so, so sorry, and I wish it was more, but it isn’t and it’s all I know to say, so I hope you’ll accept it, you and your brother both."
Sam listened to what he had to say, let him get it all out before responding. When he did speak, it was to say, "It wasn’t your fault." His gaze had focused in some; he was looking at Karl now instead of staring a hole right through him. The dull resentment in his eyes was a little less dead, a little less coldly unmistakable in saying he couldn’t give a rat’s ass what Karl had to say or why. "There’s nothing you could have done."
It was such a temptation to grab that small offering of absolution and run that it took everything Karl had not to do exactly that. He couldn’t ever remember wanting to do something more than he wanted to take Sam up on the offer to let him off the hook that way, to view the whole thing as over and done, an apology offered and accepted.
But it wasn’t, and he couldn’t.
He couldn’t because as much as Karl was sorry this happened, and as much as he never intended them any harm, or even knew he was doing them harm at the time he was doing it, it wasn’t right to say this wasn’t his fault. Because it was his fault. Karl knew it. The cops knew it. And he was pretty sure this beat-to-hell kid knew it, too.
It was real stand up of Sam to make the offer like that, but Karl couldn’t accept or this thing would haunt him forever. Just because Sam was willing to be generous in giving him an out; a way to avoid blame; a way to wash himself clean of moral and social guilt, if not emotional guilt; that didn’t change who was accountable for what.
"I appreciate you saying that, Sam," Karl said, hoping it didn’t offend the kid to be called by name when they’d never been introduced or so much as held out a hand of greeting to one another. "But it was my fault, and I think we both know that. The cops say I must have been near standing on the gas to hit y’all that hard. I don’t know why that would be - I can’t come up with a single thought to make sense of it - but that’s what they say happened. And they also say I didn’t lay any skid marks to the pavement at all, which would’ve been the case if I’d even tapped my brakes, so I guess I didn’t do that either, which … which I can’t explain. I truly can’t."
Karl could feel his eyes starting to water up as he spoke, and it make him feel twice the idiot he already felt. He wiped one sleeve across his face, angry to have to do so but not willing to let it come to actual tears. He didn’t come here looking for sympathy, didn’t come here hoping to boo hoo these boys into forgiving and forgetting.
He came here to be accountable. Just that and only that. He came to take responsibility and make sure he told them how sorry he was. Even if that didn’t make any difference in the big of things. Even if they didn’t give a rat’s ass if he was sorry, or if he intended to do what he ended up doing. Even if it didn’t make any difference to them at all, it was still the bare minimum Karl could do to try and make amends in his own mind for this terrible thing he did that could so easily have ended in one of them dying.
Or all three of them dying, for that matter.
"Sorry," he muttered. "I’m not usually the overly sensitive type who goes to watering the daisies when he’s trying to apologize for harm done."
"It wasn’t your fault," Sam said again.
"That’s a generous view of things," Karl said. "And it speaks high of you to be willing to say that to me after all that’s happened. But I’ve got to get this off my chest if you don’t mind. I need to tell you and your brother- " Karl stopped suddenly, slapped in the face by the sound of his own words as he said them.
How wrong was it for him to think what he needed made any damned difference at all at to this boy? Or that it should.
"Sorry," he said after a long beat. "I guess that’s pretty self-minded of me to be telling you what I want, what I need. Me pushing to say something you don’t want to hear right now as if I’m due such a thing is about as far wrong as I’ve been in years. Maybe ever. And I don’t mean to be that way. I’ve brought enough pain on you and your family without piling on more in service of my own needs. I was just trying … I just wanted you to know how sorry I am. To hear it from me in case that might make some little difference to you somewhere down the road."
"It makes a difference now," Sam said. "It means a lot that you’d come here, say this. It really does." The boy stood, unfolding himself to offer a hand for the shaking.
As Karl took it, he found himself thinking John had raised himself some fine boys, and he had every right to be as proud of them as he’d made it clear he was. "Good. That’s good, Sam. I’m glad it does. I’d stay and say the same to your brother if you don’t think it would be an aggravation to him, me being here."
Sam retrieved his hand, shoved it in a pocket. There was an awkwardness to the way he stood, like he didn’t really want to say what he was about to say. "I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now. Dean’s pretty … he’s pretty raw. We’ve had a … it’s just … it’s been hard on him. Today’s been bad. Bad for both of us." Sam looked away, looked at a wall, at a corner, at the floor. "It might be best for everybody if you just let me pass on what you said," he finished after a moment.
Karl nodded. He stepped back, gave Sam a little air he looked to need. "Okay. I can see how that would be."
"It isn’t you," Sam said. "It’s just … just the day, okay?"
"Sure. I understand."
"It really isn’t you," Sam repeated. "This wasn’t your fault."
Karl could see the kid starting to tear up. He was struggling to hold it together the same way Karl had struggled earlier. It was time to go. Karl realized that suddenly, realized he was causing more harm now than doing good. He’d said what he came to say, to one of them, if not both.
"I’m going to head on," Karl said like it had nothing to do with anything except him needing to get on the road again. "But I would be in your debt if you did pass it along to him. Make sure he knows … knows however it did happened, I didn’t mean for it to happen. I know that doesn’t do a lot of help with the pain and the recovery he’ll be facing, but I hope it makes some difference in the way he thinks about it later, if that doesn’t sound to self-minded to say."
Sam forced a smile, forced himself to meet Karl’s eyes again. "I’ll tell him. I know he’ll appreciate it as much as I do."
"Good. Good. Your dad said the two of you were strong boys. I’d hoped you’d be as generous minded as he was, and I can see that to be the case."
Sam’s skin blanched, but it wasn’t him who asked. "You talked to our dad?"
Karl jumped a little, startled to find a kid on crutches could move so quiet as to sneak up on a man like that. He turned, smiled as best he could and said, "Yes. In the chapel, as it happens. I was saying a few … well, just thinking would be the best way to put that I suppose. Thinking about how much I hoped you were going to pull through the way you did. I’ve done a lot of that kind of thinking the last couple of days. Not that doing such makes any difference, I suppose. But I did, still.
"And your father, he walked in and sat down beside me, there for the same purpose, I think. I knew who he was from the … from that night, but I didn’t think he knew me from Adam’s hind ox. Turned out he did though. I don’t know if the nurses pointed me out to him or what, but whatever the case may be, he knew who I was, and it was him who spoke first, him who said the same kind of generous things that Sam here was saying."
"What else did he say?" Dean asked.
"Well, we spoke a bit about the two of you. He told me he’d raised you from little ones, that your mama was took early so he did the best he could and trusted in good luck to even out the rest. He said the three of you worked together, and he was real proud to say that, real proud to have boys who followed his path. Or at least that’s the way I took it. He might tell you different if you ask, but it seemed that way to me."
"He also told me you were a strong one," he told Dean in specific, "so I didn’t need to worry so much about you pulling through. He said you’d be fine. He said it would be hard on you, especially at first, but you’d pull through; your brother would see to that."
Karl chuckled a little. "Not that his saying as much kept me from worrying, mind you; but it was real nice of him to offer it. And as it turned out, he was right as rain because it wasn’t even an hour later that you rose up like Lazarus from the grave. Well, so to speak at least, you not being dead so much as the doctors seeming pretty bleak from what they’d tell me, which wasn’t much, me not being related but rather just pestering them for word on your condition in hope of you waking."
Dean nodded like he’d heard what he more or less expected to hear. Leaning heavily on his crutches, he hobbled into the room, awkward in how he navigated the confined space with its chairs and other sundry items of a medical sort standing between him and his bed.
Stepping aside to let the boy pass, Karl was amazed that, in the long haul of it, he actually looked to be in somewhat better shape than his brother. On the surface of it, where Sam’s face was badly bruised and one eye had the look of having been beat just short of permanent damage, other than a couple of digs here and there and one hell of a scar splitting right down the middle of his forehead, Dean seemed quite near ready to leave the hospital behind in his rearview mirror.
The same case couldn’t be made for the boy’s eyes, though. As much recovered as he seemed from the comatose condition in which Karl had last seen him, Dean’s eyes betrayed how deep to bone the hurt was. They were dull and hollow and dark with the kind of strain that usually comes of grieving someone in the state he’d been in rather than being in that state themselves.
When he got close, Sam stepped up to help Dean negotiate the last leg of the modified obstacle course. Setting the crutches to one side, he settled his brother into the elevated bed with the kind of care that reminded Karl of the panic in the younger man’s voice as he called for his brother in the twisted wreckage of their car, called for him while the paramedics worked to bring Dean back from twice dead, called for him as they loaded him on the life chopper with his dad and sent it on its way.
John was right. Dean’s brother would see him through whatever rough water lay ahead.
The two of them exchanged a look Karl recognized as brothers wanting to talk, so he stepped back, saying, "Well, I’ll leave the two of you be now. I just wanted to come and tell you … well, what I’ve told you, more or less. I thank you again for being so generous with me when it comes to assigning blame. When your dad gets back, tell him I said he didn’t over-represent the either of you. I can see how a man raising boys such as yourselves would be proud of accomplishing as much on his own." Karl smiled a little. "Although he did give your mama’s genes their due credit. Especially with you, Sam. He said you were so like her at times he wondered if you didn’t more survive his influence than being shaped by it."
Both of John’s sons reacted to his words. They looked ill, looked as if Karl had just t-boned them with a rig put to overdrive instead of passing on tell of their father’s pride. "I’m sorry … did I say something wrong?" he ventured.
It was Dean who answered, saying, "No. You didn’t. Thank you. We appreciate you coming by. We’ll tell Dad you were here when we see him again."
Karl nodded. "He said he’d be gone a spell, but you’d be okay until he got back. Didn’t say where he was headed, but he seemed to be on a mission of sorts." Then, with a small nod at the greasy bag that had grown cold on the bedside table where it still sat, Karl added, "Knowing as I do about hospital food, I thought he might have been of the same mind I was in believing his boy deserved something better than what he’d been given to this point in time. That’s what I took him to be doing: setting out on a mission to bring you back with the smell of fresh burger put ’neath your nose to that purpose."
"Of course, that was a while back now," Karl went on. "I stayed in the chapel after he left, kept to my thinking so long I may have even drifted off for a while. I hope, in the big picture of things, there’s no offense taken at that. Falling to the snooze in church is one thing; you can always hold a windy preacher to the accounting. But falling to it in the quiet of your own thinking?"
Karl shook his head, chuckling. "Well, either way, I’d take it as a favor for you to pass on my regards to your father when you see him next. Tell him I’m glad things turned out the way they did, all three of you pulling through such a test of the devil’s favor. Were I a religious man, I might see the hand of God to that turn of events, especially considering your earlier state; but I’m more a trucker than the preaching sort, so I’ll just leave it as being fit speculation for another day’s thinking."
"You said your name was Karl?" Dean asked.
"It is. Karl Buckman." He held out a hand. Dean hesitated for a moment, then took it, granting an apology offered and accepted. He seemed a little surprised in the grip of it, almost as if, even now, he expected something less than a man’s handshake from the trucker who near put him to the grave, who ran his family down with a foot to the gas and none to the brake.
Karl hoped as much wasn’t the case, but he understood if it was. It was one thing to be held to a fair accounting, another entirely to be forgiven for the tallies put to the page. He hoped in time one might become the other in this boy’s eyes as it had in his brother’s; but for Karl, standing for his own actions was what he needed to do before moving on.
He left them with a nod, walking down the hospital corridor to return to the chapel from which he’d come. It was time to hit the road now, time to go someplace he’d never been.
*
Sam watched his brother for several minutes, waiting for him to say something, waiting for him to say anything. But Dean didn’t speak. He just sat on the bed, his expression slack as he stared at the cold, greasy bag on the bedside table with dull, hollow eyes.
"It was nice of Karl to come," Sam said finally. "He was afraid we’d blame him. I tried to explain it wasn’t his fault, but he didn’t want to hear it. Said something about accountability, about owning up to things he’d done. It seemed important to him, so I just let it go, let him apologize like there was something he could have done but didn’t."
"Probably the right choice," Dean said quietly.
"I’m glad you didn’t say anything about Dad," Sam added after several seconds of silence. "I think letting him leave without knowing is the way Dad would have wanted it."
"Probably," Dean said again. He was still staring at the bag like he was waiting for it to do something, like he thought it was going to explode, or start singing, or just disappear all together.
"That’s the burger Karl brought for you," Sam offered when Dean hadn’t spoken for over a minute. "He said he thought you might want something other than hospital food for a change."
"How long was he here?" Dean asked.
"Ten minutes. Fifteen maybe."
Dean nodded. "That tracks."
Sam wasn’t sure what he meant. "Tracks?"
"The timeframe matches. He must have come here right away, dropped by on his way out."
Sam frowned. "I … I guess I’m not following you, Dean. What timeframe are you talking about?"
Dean dragged his attention off the bag with an effort. He looked to Sam finally, met his brother’s gaze with a static, lifeless stare. The flatline of their father’s heart monitor still screamed in the black empty behind his grieving eyes. The sound of it would resonate there for weeks. Perhaps months. Maybe years.
"There was something going on in the chapel down the hall," Dean said. "I heard the nurses talking on my way back to the room."
"And?"
"They said he went quick. Easy. They said it was a mercy, him just going to sleep that way; and he deserved as much, him being the nice man he was. They said he’d been in that chapel day and night, praying non-stop every since they released him after the accident. He was so torn up over what happened, so afraid he’d destroyed a family: ripped brothers apart, taken a son from his father, a father from his sons. They said Karl was a good guy, and it was a shame he hadn’t worked up the courage to come talk to us the way he wanted, to find a little peace in at least trying to apologize for what happened, in taking accountability for what he’d done but couldn’t remember doing."
Sam eyes jumped to the bedside table. It was empty; the greasy bag was gone.
-finis-