apocalypsos | Fic: How To Fix Things (Supernatural/Grey's Anatomy)

Title: How to Fix Things
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural/Grey's Anatomy
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,196 words
Pairing: None
Spoilers for: "Shadows"/"Superstition" (Futurefic-ish, with GA)
Warnings: Bad language
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I just like playing with them.
Summary: Denny Duquette is keeping secrets.
Author's note: Well, somebody had to write it. ;) (I've had to fudge the timelines a tad, because SPN's ahead of GA, but hopefully, it worked.) Thanks to

bailunrui and

chicklet25 for the betas.

*****

How To Fix Things

*****

Dennis John Duquette is the name of your grandfather on your mother's side, so you figure it's a good alias when you first go to the hospital complaining of chest pains.

It's not like anybody's looking for the man, after all. He died of heart failure before you were born.

*****

It's been months since you've had to go see Dr. Burke, but you disappear in late October when your breathing starts to hitch in that odd way, when Dean's attention keeps being drawn from the ghost you're both researching or the creature you're stalking to narrow his eyes at you in concern.

You've been good at being stealthy about the whole thing. You keep your meds separate from the Percocet stash you boosted from the hospital while you were there. You make sure you're both staying in different motel rooms when you're sure you'll wake up in a cold sweat.

But Dean will know, because Dean always knows when it comes to you, and you vanish from his side so fast you might have left skid marks.

Dozens of voicemail messages later, you're in a hospital bed in Seattle, and you have to get back in the habit of answering to Denny again.

*****

Denny, you decide, doesn't have a beard.

Denny is ten years younger than you and losing the beard is just the touch, and if you've got to lose that to make yourself younger, then shedding that dark heavy sadness that drapes your eyes like velvet curtains is a must, too, while you're at it. You crack jokes more. You smile. You let yourself flirt without guilt for the first time in years.

The intern looks like Mary when she tilts her head just so and grins at you, and that helps.

*****

In between hospital stays, you find out about the thing that's in your old house and drive back to Lawrence fast enough to turn the pickup inside out. Missouri greets you like always, with open arms, a warm smile, and an empty guest bedroom. It feels so good to be around someone who doesn't see you as some sort of invalid that you almost forget about it until she makes you stop loading up on weapons and lie down.

A minute later, your heart clenches ominously and if that isn't enough to keep you in bed, Missouri's warning look will do it.

*****

You're feeling better when you call the boys, stopping in Sacramento as you meander back to Seattle because if there's one way to throw them off your trail at this point, that might do it. Sam's voice washes over you like the best painkiller on the planet, pissed off and annoyed and there.

Weeks later, you hear his voice again in a message, telling you Dean's been hurt, that his heart's been damaged, that your eldest son is dying of heart failure. Maybe that's what sends you into the hospital that time, that circular way this fucking heart problem is tearing away pieces of your family even worse than that goddamn demon, and not being able to shoot a heart attack becomes the thing you hate most.

John Winchester can't call his son back about Dean's heart attack when Denny Duquette was either unconscious or in surgery for three straight days.

If there's one thing you'll be glad for when this whole thing is over, you think, it's this referring-to-yourself-in-the-third-person bullshit.

*****

Denny, you decide, is a nice guy.

Denny thinks Izzie is the most beautiful girl he's seen in years -- almost as beautiful as Mary was, but that's John's thinking right there -- and just the sight and scent of her nearby makes him feel like the air in the room is laced with laughing gas. Denny doesn't have a gun stashed in the nightstand, and doesn't have plans to set fire to anything evil that sneaks into the hospital with an oxygen tank and a lighter, if he plans it right.

Denny doesn't wonder if you can be in love with two women at once, if it's okay as long as one of the women has been dead for two decades.

*****

The transplant is something you try not to wish for, even though Denny in all of his infinite optimism has grabbed onto the possibility of one with both hands and won't let go. It's happened before, the vicious taunt of a healthy heart, and you're not holding out as much hope as you probably should, considering that evil son of a bitch is still out there.

The transplant happens on a Saturday, and it's a roaring success.

After the surgery, if you're a little too smug to that intern Izzie used to date, you figure it's all Denny's fault for being giddy enough to let a little bit of John slip out around the edges.

*****

You're not healthy enough to leave by the time you get the message from Dean, not by a long shot, but Izzie backs down when you say it's a family emergency even though you can tell she's dying to come along. There's a fierce streak of steel in her that wants to tear your family to shreds for not being there, for not being anywhere nearby when they were replacing your fucking heart.

Sooner or later, you'll get up the nerve to tell her the lie came from your end and not from theirs, but then again, Denny doesn't lie.

If she can't make you stay or go with you, she at least makes you agree not to do anything too strenuous and that's why you're standing in the hotel room when they come back rather than raising a gun to protect them in that warehouse.

Hell, they can handle that bitch by themselves. After all, you raised your boys right.

*****

John Winchester has two sons and a mission to hunt down the thing that killed his wife.

But you have a brand new heart that beats without trouble and a scar on your chest that puts the others on your skin to shame. You have a house blessed by half a dozen holy men and protective symbols carved into the window frames and a handgun in the glove compartment of your pickup, because even when you're deluding yourself you're still realistic. You have a job and bills and a will that's simply a letter telling Izzie everything.

And you are far too young to have grown sons.

Which will make it difficult to explain if Sam and Dean show up here one day, you figure, when you wake up next to Izzie one morning and realize you can't remember the last time you didn't wake up next to her.