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Title: Broken Images
Season: 3
Category: General, Action, AU
Warnings: Tissues – lots of tissues.
Tagline: Who was the handsome stranger brought to the mental institution in the dead of night – and what terrible tragedy from his past had reduced him to a broken, empty shell?
Total Word Count: 29,284
Total Chapters: 6
Chapter 5 Word Count: 4848
Beta: ziggyuk
Story Banner: Chasidern
Awards: Sensue.net People’s Choice 2008 1st Place; SN.TV Fanfiction Awards 2008 Best Future Fic; Supernaturalville Unscripted Genius Awards 2008 Best Sam Story.
Awards Banners: Sensue for People’s Choice, Saiyuki for SN.TV Best Future, Bambers (I think?) For UnGen Best Sam.
Chapter 5
For five days, I tried to convince John to re-think his decision, but to no avail. He adamantly refused to help put his son back together, offering no other explanation than the one he’d already given me – that he’d stepped in before and created this mess in the first place. There was that blame and guilt theme again. It had to be a significant piece of the puzzle. Each separate identity blamed himself for something terrible that had happened. So it made sense to assume that an overwhelming guilt was a major factor in Dean’s initial breakdown.
Dean Doe had now been at the facility for almost six weeks. I had made real progress with the Dean and Sam personas, although Sam was starting to show some signs of repressed anger, and I wondered if he’d tapped into John’s thoughts somehow.
It was a stormy afternoon when things came to a head. Jim paged me to Dean’s room, and as the elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor, I could hear the muffled shouting floating down the corridor. I quickly made my way to the nurses’ station, and the waiting orderly. “Jim – what’s going on?”
Jim jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s havin’ a doozy of an argument with himself in there. Thought you’d want to know.”
In dismay, I stopped to listen. From the tones and the cadences of speech, I could tell that it was Sam and his father. This was not going to be pretty. Pushing open the door, with Jim behind me, I stared at the man standing in the middle of the room with his arms raised, shaking his fists in rage.
“You stubborn, selfish bastard!” “You watch your mouth, boy! I’m still your father!” “Then try acting like one! Dean needs your help, and all you can do is sit around and stick your thumb up your ass, but I guess that’s what you’re good at, isn’t it, Dad?” “I helped your brother before, and look what came of it! Don’t you tell me…” “Don’t you pull that crap on me, Dad! Every time I called – every time Dean called – you weren’t there! You didn’t even bother calling back! Where the hell were you, Dad?” “I did what I had to do!” “You did what you friggin’ wanted to do! You’re obsessed to the point where you’re blind!” “And what about you? If you’d followed my orders instead of going your own way, your brother wouldn’t be in this mess!”
The argument continued back and forth between the two personas, and we watched in amazement as Dean’s facial expressions, voice and mannerisms changed with lightning speed. It became quite dizzying to watch, until the Dean persona finally took over and stormed off, throwing himself into the corner of the room and declaring loudly that he refused to listen to their bitching for one minute longer. Which was pretty bloody bizarre, considering the people he declared he wouldn’t talk to were both dead anyway, and he was basically arguing with their ghosts in his own head. He folded his long frame against the wall, and promptly switched off, ignoring everyone, including me.
I motioned for Jim to back me up as I knelt down beside my brooding patient. “Dean, talk to them. Tell them how you feel about them arguing.”
Thunder rolled outside as Dean raised his head, his expression bleak. “What’s the point? They won’t stop. They’ll never stop.”
“Tell them how much it hurts you. Tell them you want them to stop.”
“It’s never been about what I want.” He rested his forehead on his knees, wrapped his arms around his legs, and fell silent, ignoring all my attempts to talk to him.
Finally, I gave up, and left the room, with Jim in tow. We stopped at the nurses’ station, and I leaned an elbow tiredly on the counter. “Keep an eye on him. Call me if anything changes. I’ll check back on him before I go home.”
“Sure thing, Doc.” Jim nodded solemnly as I headed for the elevator.
No further calls came from the fourth floor, and I went home with a heavy heart after checking on my favourite patient. Dean had become severely agitated, shying away from my touch, and refusing to leave the corner of the room where he’d wedged himself against the wall. I’d left instructions for a sedative to be administered if he didn’t settle for the night, but I hoped the staff didn’t have to use that option. A call from the doctor on duty later that night confirmed that my hope was in vain.
* * * * *
Dean withdrew into himself for a week, refusing to communicate, and refusing to eat, until finally we had to put him on a drip to get some nourishment into him. I gazed sadly at him, as he lay strapped into his bed, the IV running into a vein in his left arm. His case file was balanced on my knee, and I made notes while I kept watch over him.
He stirred, his glassy eyes fluttering open, and he rolled his head to look up at me. I could tell from the facial expression that Sam had come back.
“Doc?”
“Hi, Sam. How are you feeling?”
“Have – have I – been sick?”
“Yes, you have. But you’re getting better now.” I smoothed the hair back from his forehead. It was getting a little long, but I didn’t want to suggest a haircut while he was in such a vulnerable state.
“Better – being a relative – term.”
“Well, physically you’re getting better.”
He grimaced a little, turning his gaze to the IV drip. “And mentally?”
“Mentally, you’ve had a bit of a rough trot.” I sighed softly. “Can you remember anything?”
“No. What happened?”
This was the personality that I needed to feed the most information to – I still felt strongly that he was my key. But it didn’t make it easier to tell him. “You and your father had an argument about helping Dean, and Dean reacted – badly. He hasn’t responded to us for almost a week.”
Sam closed his eyes, and I saw a single tear squeeze from under one of his eyelids and meander its lonely way down his bearded cheek. I reached out and rubbed his shoulder, my heart breaking for this shattered soul.
“Don’t worry, Sam – we can make this work. Let’s just give it a little more time.”
He nodded slightly, but I could tell from the soft sigh that he let out that he didn’t really believe me. And I found myself wondering – did I really believe it myself?
* * * * *
The next day, the drip was removed, and Jim helped a weak and shaky Dean to a comfortable chair we’d had installed by the window, so he could look out at his beloved sky in comfort. He had slipped back almost to the way he was when he was first brought in, except for the fact that he allowed me to get close to him. Actually, he tolerated both Jim and me – we seemed to be the only ones he trusted, though. If anyone else approached him, he’d almost go up the wall in an extreme fight or flight reaction, so I kept the staff contact to a minimum.
Jim didn’t seem to mind – he’d taken a liking to the broken young man. I went up to Dean’s room the next morning to find Jim perched on a chair in front of our patient, working away at that unruly mop of hair with a wide tooth comb. Dean sat quietly enough, only flinching a little when the comb came too close to his eyes. Finally Jim sat back, beamed at his charge, and patted the broad shoulder. “There you go, Dean – you’re practically a new man.”
I stared at Dean in pleased surprise. He was transformed. The beard had been neatly trimmed again, and his hair was combed and parted in the middle, the longish fringe brushed back to fall softly either side of his brow. He had a small widow’s peak, and with his hair partly brushed back like that, his face took on an elongated heart shape. Quickly I grabbed a blank page from his file, and drew a lightning pen sketch as he sat passively in the soft sunlight.
My patient glanced up at me, and I smiled back as I added the finishing touches to the sketch. “Wow – what a stunner!”
Jim laughed at Dean’s bewildered expression. “Kayla knows a hot guy when she sees one, buddy.”
I turned the sketch around for Dean to see, and a ghost of his usual cocky grin tugged at the corners of his lips. Pocketing the piece of paper, I stood quietly for a moment and assessed my patient.
Dean hadn’t fared very well in the last few days. He was eating barely enough to sustain his nutrition level, and I feared that if things didn’t improve by the end of the week, we’d have to hook up the IV again. He was moody and withdrawn, but not dangerous or violent – just defeated and broken. It worried me.
After my visit, I retreated to my office, closing the door as I sat staring at the computer screen. Slowly, an idea took shape, and I pulled the sketch from my pocket, studying it with a critical eye. I pulled my pen from my pocket to tidy up a few lines here and there, and then I placed it on the scanner and hit the button. When I had my document ready to go, I emailed a friend at the local newspaper office, asking her to run the sketch with a small story about where our Dean Doe had been found, and adding the hospital phone number and my name as a contact. I crossed my fingers as I sent the email off. The original article hadn’t garnered any response, but perhaps this would turn up something. We could only try – and hope.
Sighing heavily, I opened the door, waved off my concerned assistant, and headed to the cafeteria to grab an early lunch before taking care of some necessary paperwork.
* * * * *
Over the next few days, both Dean and Sam made infrequent appearances. My patient was sinking further and further into a deep depression, and not even Jim could pull a smile from that handsome face any more. Both identities still maintained that the other brother was dead and that they had been somehow responsible, and slowly, details began to emerge as I coaxed out the information during our sessions.
Demons featured heavily in the lives of these men, if it could be believed. I knew that good and evil existed, but I never dreamed of anything on this scale. The two brothers told me how they’d been raised as hunters of evil, and how that evil had touched their family, killing their mother and marking the younger brother to be used in a war between demons and humankind. Both of them still maintained that the other one had died, but they kept silent as to how – just hinting that the deaths had been the work of demons, each of the men blaming himself for not preventing the death of the other.
I’d never heard anything like it in my entire life, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure how much of it was real. I mean – if both of the men had died, whom did I have in my facility? Both brother personalities revealed that John had died as part of a deal to save Dean’s life after a car accident. That led me to wonder if that was where some of the guilt was coming from – if Dean felt responsible somehow for his father’s death. It still didn’t explain Sam. There was still a vital piece of the puzzle missing. And I had a sinking feeling that I was running out of time to find it.
I dutifully noted all the information and speculation down in the growing case file, and I tried to help Dean integrate his personas, but I could see that I was slowly losing him. Every day he grew a little more withdrawn, a little weaker. Every session he gave me less and less information, until the day near the end of the second month of his stay, when he finally stopped answering my questions altogether, turning his weary gaze to the window and the endless blue sky. I left him, struggling to hold onto my tears until I reached the safety of my office. Myra brought me a pot of tea, and wisely left me alone to wrestle with my grief over my failure to help this man.
* * * * *
The next morning, I was late getting to work thanks to a board meeting that I’d completely forgotten about. It was just past noon when I finally got free of the endless round of administrative double-talk and hurried up to the fourth floor.
Dean was sitting by the window, a blanket wrapped around his tall form. His despair-dulled eyes stared blankly out at the ever-changing world beyond the reinforced glass. Slowly he turned his head to look at me as I stood by his chair, and I reached out a hand, brushing it down the side of his face as I willed myself not to break down.
“It’s hopeless, isn’t it,” the gruff voice murmured softly. John was back, but it was a different John to the one I’d previously seen.
“Where there’s life, there’s hope, John. I can still save your son. But I need your help.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand…”
“Then make me understand!” I snapped, my fear for my patient transmuting into anger.
John sighed heavily, his long fingers plucking at the edge of the blanket as I pulled up a chair and sat in front of him, our knees almost touching. “This – this whole thing – it’s my fault.”
“Why is it your fault, John? Is it because of the way you raised them?”
“No – not exactly.” He swallowed painfully. “It’s my fault Dean’s broken.”
Oh, shit – there it was. It was the father that had caused the initial trauma, not the brother. It still didn’t explain where Sam was, or why Dean thought he was dead. Unless it all did stem from the father’s death, and he was transferring that onto his brother somehow, his mind fooling him into thinking that his brother was dead too. If that were the case, it would explain why the Sam identity thought that Dean was dead. “Can you tell me why? It could help Dean, John.”
“I made a deal.”
“What sort of deal?”
John wiped a hand across his face. “A deal with a demon – to save Dean’s life. I didn’t know – I didn’t think about – what it would do to him…” Shudders wracked his frame. “He got twisted – and broken – and it’s my fault.”
“So you know you’re dead.”
“I know.”
I slid forward a little to rest my hand on his blanket-covered knee. “John – I have to ask you – what happened to your boys? They each think that the other one is dead, but neither of them is willing to talk about it.”
John’s chin dropped toward his chest. “Sammy – he was murdered – by some kid who was working with the demon. Dean – made a deal – traded his soul for his brother’s life – just like I traded my soul for my son – he got a year to live before his bill came due, and he got his little brother back – but Sam – he – he couldn’t live with the deal – he couldn’t just let his brother go down to hell – he became desperate – vowed he’d do anything to get Dean out of the deal…”
The more John talked, the larger the pit in my stomach became. This was coming back to Sam, and I found my hands growing chilled as I processed the new information. If Sam had been that desperate to save his brother… A terrible thought was taking shape. Taking a deep breath, I plunged ahead. “John – did Sam do something to try to save Dean, and get himself killed in the process? Is that what happened?”
“I don’t know.” John slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“John – there’s still time to fix this. Help me reach Dean – you might be the only one who can. He’s being eaten up by guilt over whatever has happened. Help him, John. Help him come back from the brink.”
“Dean – my perfect soldier…” John stared at the sky. “Sam – always the rebellious one – always questioning – always wanting to know why this and why that – but Dean – he never questioned – he always followed my orders – always the good soldier…”
“Then use that, John! Give him the order to come back. Don’t let him go out like this,” I pleaded, but the spark of intelligence faded from the tear-filled eyes, leaving them blank and lifeless.
He leaned his head exhaustedly against the headrest, his wasted face turned toward the sunlight. And fear traced an icy finger up my spine. I didn’t know how I knew, but I felt in every bone in my body that this night was going to be crunch time. Calling by the nurses’ station on my way back to my office, I put my patient on suicide watch, just in case. Jim called out to me as I stepped into the elevator, and I put my hand out, stopping the doors from closing. He joined me for the ride down to the third floor, and I told him the latest developments, smiling in heartfelt gratitude when he declared that he would wait at the sanatorium with me, just in case he was needed.
I found a burly, bearded man in a rumpled brown suit waiting for me when I got back to my office. Myra’s desk was unattended – she was still at lunch, which meant I had to deal with the stranger myself. “Can I help you?”
“Doctor Bartlett?” Shrewd but faded blue eyes regarded me steadily. “I’m from the Cedar Rapids Gazette – like to ask you a few questions, Doc.”
Gesturing to a seat before my desk, I settled into my chair. “What’s this about?”
“It’s about your John Doe that was found a couple of months ago. We saw the sketch in your local paper, and we’d like to pick up the story and run a picture. Can you take me to see him?”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
The middle-aged man leaned forward, concern flooding his craggy face for a brief moment. “Why is that, Doctor?”
I wondered where that concern came from – after all, he was asking about a total stranger. Wasn’t he? “He’s ill – he can’t have any visitors at the moment.”
His eyes narrowed. “How ill?”
“Very ill.” I rested my hands on the desktop and laced my fingers together. “To be honest, mister…?”
“Harwood.”
“Mister Harwood – to be quite honest with you, I really think this has come too late. The patient is very weak, severely withdrawn, and traumatised.” My hands trembled, and his brows drew together in a faint frown as he caught the involuntary movement. “I’m afraid we might lose him.”
“Then it can’t hurt for me to see him.”
“I can’t allow it, I’m sorry. It’s not in the best interests of the patient. He doesn’t handle strangers very well, and he’s too weak to for me to risk him being upset and stressed by your presence.”
The bearded man raised a hand toward his forehead in a curious gesture, and then he frowned as he continued the move to run his hand over his receding hairline. The gesture looked almost as if he had been trying to push a non-existent cap off his forehead. “Can you at least tell me what room he’s in?”
“No, I cannot divulge that information, I’m sorry.” I saw his eyes shift to the patient files sitting in an untidy pile on my desk, and I stretched out my hand, resting it protectively on the stack of folders.
“Look, Doc, I really think…”
I stood up, indicating that the interview was at an end. If only he’d come a week ago, I might have held out some hope. “I’m sorry, but that’s out of the question. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a busy afternoon ahead of me.”
Myra chose that moment to come back from lunch, and she saw the man out as I sat at my desk, my shoulders slumped in defeat. I pulled Dean’s file from the top of the stack of patient files, and I leafed through my notes, the pages blurring as my eyes filled with tears. My faithful assistant came back in, handed me a box of tissues, diverted my phone to hers, and closed the office door on her way out.
* * * * *
The afternoon dragged on toward evening, and the complex settled into a tense stillness, as if the very building was holding its breath. Jim was up on the fourth floor, keeping an eye on Dean Doe for me while I cleared up some work. His shift had ended at 3pm, but he’d promised to stay with me through the night, feeling as I did that this night would be the turning point for our mystery man. Myra came and went from the office, silently going about her duties, bringing me the occasional cup of coffee or tea, and fielding all my calls while I worked.
As evening dropped like a soft grey cloak over the landscape beyond the confines of the sanatorium, I sighed, pulled my dark brown hair from its tight coil, and let it tumble around my shoulders as I massaged my scalp. Myra set a meal tray down before me, and she grunted a little as she wedged her ample hips into the visitors’ chair, placing her own tray on the desk in front of her.
“Myra – what are you still doing here? It’s late.”
Myra shrugged as she picked up her chicken sandwich. “It’s crunch time, isn’t it? For Dean Doe.”
I nodded, picking a corner off my toasted ham and cheese sandwich. “Yes – yes, it is. But you don’t have to stay.”
“I’ll go if you really want me to, Doc. But I think I should stay.” Her blue eyes brimmed with concern as she gazed at me.
I felt my throat constrict with gratitude. “Thanks – I mean that.”
“I know, Doc.”
We ate our meagre meal in companionable silence, and then Myra cleared away the plates and cups while I slipped upstairs.
Jim met me at the door to Dean’s room. “No change, Doc. Which could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.”
I tiptoed inside, and flicked the switch to turn on the soft light over the bed. It was empty, and my eyes tracked to the chair, where my patient sat huddled inside his blanket. I heard his faint, shallow breathing as I approached the chair, and I bent down to peer into his face. He was asleep, his brow wrinkled in a faint frown. Tapping Jim on the arm, I motioned for him to follow me outside, not speaking until I closed the door behind me. “Leave him in the chair for now. He seems to be more comfortable by the window.”
“Okay, Doc.”
“God, Jim – this one’s going to hurt like hell…” My eyes burned, and I walked away, dashing a hand across my streaming eyes.
* * * * *
Evening wore on into night, and eventually Myra and I relocated to the fourth floor, taking seats in the small visitor’s lounge just across from the nurses’ station. Jim joined us there, handing around cups of coffee, and we waited to see what the night would bring. I felt sick to my stomach. I’d been so convinced that I could help this man, and I couldn’t comprehend what had gone wrong. There still seemed to be some vital piece of the puzzle missing, and I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
It was around 11pm when we heard the dull thud of a body falling inside Dean’s room. Myra had fallen asleep on the couch, her mouth hanging slightly open as she snored softly. She grunted, her eyes flying open, as Jim and I leaped to our feet and dashed across the corridor.
We found Dean sprawled on the floor, his feet tangled in the blanket. Jim and I unwound the soft material from his legs and sat him up, and I glanced at my orderly friend in concern as I felt the deep trembling in my patient’s long limbs. He’d become too weak to stand up by himself. Together we got him up and into bed, and he lay quietly, his breathing a little laboured, as we spread the blankets over him and tucked him in. His hand found mine, and he clasped my fingers in a weak grip as I leaned over the bed to brush the hair from his eyes.
I don’t know which personality it was that gazed back at me, but I knew from the desolate look in his dark eyes that we’d lost him.
“Doc…” The soft husky whisper was so full of despair that it broke my heart.
“I’m here.”
“Help…me…”
“I’m trying, mate, I really am.”
“Help me….to die…”
Oh, God. “Jim, get Doctor Singh, or whoever’s on duty in the infirmary, up here right now!”
Jim sprang into action, and within minutes I was standing back as the little Sri Lankan doctor hooked my patient up to another IV. Waiting until medico wheeled his supply cart away, I waved Jim to a chair as I sat on the edge of the bed. I took up the sinewy hand lying on the top of the blanket, holding it in my own small one as my other hand stroked Dean’s forehead. He shivered, and I pulled the blankets up a little higher. He leaned into the touch of my hand, not saying a word, a hopeless look in his eyes as tears spilled down his hollowed cheeks.
“Come on, Dean, you have to hold on, mate.” I didn’t know what to do. I was losing him, minute by minute. He was just quietly fading away. An old song popped into my head, and softly I began to sing as I ran my fingers through Dean’s hair, trying to calm him.
“Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.”
Dean settled down, turning his head toward me as his eyes slowly drifted closed. A soft sigh escaped his lips. I kept singing.
“In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.”
“Keep singin’, Kayla,” Jim whispered.
“And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
Fools, said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed in the wells of silence."
Dean’s breathing evened out into a deep rhythm as sleep claimed him, and I kept stroking his hair as I sang the last verse. Good old Simon and Garfunkel to the rescue – for now.
“And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming,
And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence.”
Jim nodded, smiling gently in the soft glow of the bed light, and I carefully disengaged my hand from Dean’s lax fingers, placing his arm under the blanket. He stirred, but quickly settled, and Jim took my place at the bedside as I left the room.
Nodding a reassurance to a worried Myra, I ventured down to my office, the reality of my patient’s failing condition becoming a crushing weight on my heart. So engrossed was I in my thoughts, that I didn’t notice the faint glow of a flashlight beam in the darkened office until I had walked in and palmed the switch, bathing the room, and the tall stranger standing at my desk with Dean Doe’s file in his hands, in brilliant light.
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