Just One More Thing 4/4
As they approached the hospital room, Bobby tried one more time to get Sam to be rational about things.
"No, Bobby!" Sam couldn't hear his own voice to regulate the volume. He was shouting as they walked down the hall. "I am not going to tell Dean I can't hear, and neither are you! It'd be just one more thing for him to worry about!"
As they passed by the nurse's station, Bobby heard a nurse answer a page and Dean's voice coldly reply that he needed a doctor to his room now.
Bobby fought the grin. Everybody on that floor had heard Sam.
Including Dean.
Sam walked in and smiled. "Ready to get out of here?"
Dean glared at him and shook his head. He jabbed a finger at the chair beside his bed -- a clear order for Sam to sit down.
Frowning, Sam sat. "Dean?" Too soft, now. "Dean, what's the matter?"
Dean turned his head as his doctor came into the room. He shook it and Sam saw his mouth shape, "No, Doc. Not for me." Then Dean's eyes were on Sam. "This is my little brother Sam. He was in the crash with me."
"Dean...." Sam began.
Dean plowed on. "He could hear just fine before it, and now he's apparently deaf as a post."
Sam sighed. "Dean...."
"Why did you try to hide this, Sammy?"
Another sigh seemed torn out of Sam. "I... I just didn't want you to worry. Not after.....Dad."
Dean nodded, understanding. Then he looked back at the doctor. "Can you fix him, Doc?"
As it turned out, the answer to that question was no. Sam's slowly encroaching deafness was due to his brain had swollen and bled in the exact spot for the swelling to press on the auditory nerve.
The good news was, Sam would most certainly get his hearing back.
The bad news was, the doctors couldn't tell them exactly when. The brain is a tricky thing, after all. Sam's deafness could last a week.
Or several.
Or a month.
Or several.
"So," Sam sighed when the doctor left the room. "Now you know."
Dean nodded slowly.
"So..." Sam repeated. "Now what do we do?"
Dean met his eyes, and watched them skitter down to focus on his lips.
"Dad's gone," Dean said slowly, carefully. "We're all we've got, Sammy. We stick together. Deaf or not -- we'll make it."
Sam nodded and they checked Dean out of the hospital. Bobby took them straight to his home.
And when Dean caught his first sight of the savage damage the semi had done to his baby?
Well, that was one of the very few moments that Sam was actually glad that he was now deaf.
END