Discovering Hell [COMPLETED]

Chapter Twenty-seven

The doctor finally left Sam's room after twenty minutes of checking and rechecking all his vital signs.  Cas showed up a few minutes later, laying his hand on Sam's forehead to fix him up. Of course he still had a slight head ache and his joints ached and protested at every movement, but he felt a lot better without the concussion.

"D'you have any Tylenol?" Sam asked Dean, grabbing his clothes and sliding off of the bed.

Dean pulled a small white bottle out of his jacket pocket and passed it to Sam who popped the lid off and downed two pills.

"So Lauren's okay," Sam hollered from behind the closed bathroom door. "When do we leave?"

Dean hated bringing this up again but he really had no choice. "Zoe's still in surgery. We'll have to wait until she's fixed up before we can head out. And I still don't know what to do about Baby. She's probably pretty wrecked..." He groaned again just thinking about it.

"So you've forgiven Zoe for the whole monster thing?" Sam asked, exiting the bathroom and running his hands through his hair. Of course his mane of hair was immediately tamed only because he wanted it to be. If any other human being had done what he had just done, it probably only would have made it worse.

Dean pressed his lips together in a thin line. "I'm withholding judgement until she's out of surgery." That seemed like a safe response. "She's got other things to deal with. Like staying alive."

Sam blinked. "Okay. Let's go get Lauren and hunt down your car."

"Lead the way," Dean agreed, waving his arm towards the door. They were just about to leave the room when a hoard of nurses and doctors rushed down the hallway, directly in their path.

"What's going on?" Dean asked a nurse, pulling her out of the crowd.

"Somebody's crashing. We've gotta get a crash cart in there before we lose her." The nurse hurried off to help push, what Dean assumed, was a crash cart into the room at the end of the hall where all the other doctors and nurses had gathered. Dean managed to get a glimpse of blonde hair before a nurse pulled the curtains closed. His heart stopped as he realized that it was Zoe lying in that bed, dying just feet from where he stood. He subconsciously moved forward, pushing his way to the door of her room.

"Dean," Sam called behind him, "what're you doing? You can't go in there." He grabbed Dean's arm just as he was about to throw the door open.

Dean looked back as Sam, worry in his eyes. "That's Zoe in there, Sammy. I'm not gonna stand uselessly out here while she dies in there with a bunch of stupid doctors. Cas needs to get in there and save her."

"Dean, you can't just go barging into hospital rooms. Besides, how d'you even know it's her?"

Dean's jaw twitched in frustration. "I saw her, Sam. It was her and I can't..." He couldn't fully explain how he was feeling at that moment. All he knew was that he couldn't stand out here while her heart gave out.

"Clear!" A doctor called from inside the room. There was a high pitched whir and they shocked her with the defibrillator paddles. There was a pause and then the doctor called "clear"  again.

Dean waited very impatiently for the doctor to either call time of death or open the damn door and let them inside. Finally, the right word to explain his feelings came to mind: anxious. He was feeling very anxious and it was almost as if he couldn't breathe. His vision tunneled and all he could think about was Zoe and what was going on in that damn hospital room.

After what seemed like a century of waiting, the door finally opened. A small nurse blinked up at Dean who was practically glaring down at her. If looks could kill...

"Are you family?" She asked, obviously seeing that they wanted inside.

"I'm her fiance," Dean said quickly, not thinking about the long term consequences of lying to the nurse. It was the first thing that came to mind; the only thing he could think of that was believable enough to get him inside that room.

She looked over his shoulder at Sam and Cas and Sage all eagerly awaiting admittance. "And them?"

"The tall one's my brother; the one in the trench coat is her cousin; the girl in the back is her other cousin."

The nurse seemed hesitant, as if she had a reason to doubt that they were telling the truth, but she only sighed and opened the door wider so they could come in.

A doctor stepped away from Zoe's bed where he had been listening to her heart beat. "Can I help you folks? Only family is allowed in here."

Dean was about to snap at him that they were family, but the nurse stepped up and explained everything in a much calmer manner. The doctor only frowned at the news. "She really just needs to rest. If she crashes again, we'll be here to bring her back but she needs to get better, and to do that, she needs to be left alone."

"We'll be in and out, Doc," Dean assured him, looking not at the doctor but past him at Zoe laying in the bed, cuts and bruises covering her body.

The doctor's frown deepened. "Ten minutes. Then you'll all have to leave." He eyed Dean suspiciously. "You're the fiance?" Dean nodded. "You can stay for however long you need. Just don't wake her. Let her get up on her own."

Dean nodded again--his last shred of patience spent--and stepped around the doctor, hurrying to Zoe's bed. He heard the doctor telling all the medical staff to clear out to 'give these folks some time alone with the patient' and felt huge relief flood through him as he realized Cas would be able to fix her soon.

She looked bad and probably felt worse. Her eyes were basically swollen shut and black and blue bruises were scattered over her skin. Small cuts still seemed fresh and large ones had been stitched together. He could see the stitches peeking out of the top of her hospital gown from where the doctors had cut into her. He couldn't see how she was a monster. She was just a girl. A girl that could shoot a gun and pin him to the floor and save him from demons.

Cas walked to the other side of the bed and put his palm against her head. Dean looked up at him expectantly. "Is she gonna be okay?"

Cas pulled his hand away and nodded despite the frown on his face. "She had some serious internal problems, but she should be alright now."

"What about the--" Dean stopped mid sentence. He was going to ask about all the stitches but they had disappeared when Cas had healed her. "Never mind." He realized then that he was holding Zoe's hand tightly in both of his. He ignored this fact although he was sure Sam would say something about it later. He sent up a silent prayer to whoever would listen that she would be okay. Dean never prayed unless he was trying to get a hold of Cas or if somebody he cared about was seriously injured. He cared about Zoe and it didn't matter that she wasn't human (okay it did matter a little, but not as much as he'd previously assumed).

Dean didn't know how long he stood there, staring at Zoe, but her eyes finally fluttered open. She seemed confused about where she was as she slowly looked around the hospital room. Her eyes finally fell on Dean and she managed to force a weak smile onto her face before wincing and closing her eyes.

"Are you okay?" Dean asked. "Where does it hurt? Cas tried to fix you up the best he could but sometimes, you're still sore after things like that."

She peeked one eye open to look at him. "It's just a headache," she grinned and then cleared her throat. "Don't worry, Dean. I'll be fine." She stretched her arms out in front of her, making Dean's hands fall onto the mattress, and looked at the pale skin that had been, only seconds ago, covered in bruises and scrapes.

Dean couldn't help the joy and happiness he felt well up inside him. She was okay. She was talking and stretching and she was okay.

His glee was shattered, though, when Sam came into the room from wherever he had been.

"Dean, Lauren's gone."