This is intended to start directly after chapter 70 of Crimson1's Incubus.

Basically I wrote it when I felt I couldn't possibly wait for the next chapter, so yet again, we have a fan fic of a fan fic.

I own nothing.

Except maybe Mike and Gwen but they were signed over to Crimson with a free hold.

It has been said that Hell is other people.

In that moment Sasha knew this was wrong. Hell was the lack of another person, the other half of himself, Dean…

Time passed.

Slowly, some people woke up, and some didn't. Dean didn't.

Sasha's world had contracted to eyes he had to reach out to close, splayed limbs he had to arrange, a cooling dead weight he gathered in his arms and could not let go.

Dimly he knew that Sam was on the ground, sobbing into Sarah's shoulder, while the little girl who had been Lilith crawled into the gangly hunter's lap. He knew Jo was crying in her mother's arms, and that Bobby was left to deal with confused, concussed civilians in a hilly backyard in suburban Minneapolis. He couldn't care. He couldn't cry.

Sasha Kelly couldn't cry for Dean Winchester. His eyes felt hot and barren.

He'd never really believed it. He'd never believed that there wasn't a chance, that it could really happen. Dean… Dean had always known that it would, had tried to tell him a thousand times, but, who could really believe that someone as wonderful as Dean could wind up in Hell because he loved his brother.

Police came, and ambulances. There were half a dozen dead bodies, half the neighborhood in a suburban backyard. The little girl's family saved them. The hunters were good Samaritans, passers-by who had helped when it seemed the whole neighborhood was going mad, probably from some sort of gas leak. It could happen.

Eventually the EMT's wanted to make Sasha let go of Dean.

"No, he's gone, there's nothing you can do," Sasha muttered.

Now Sam was at Sasha's side, and ran a hand over Dean's forehead. "Come on Sasha. Dean wouldn't have wanted this. And…"

Sasha could hear it, even though Sam didn't say it. And we have work to do.

Slowly he stood, letting Dean's dead weight, the cast off shell of Dean Winchester rest on the new May grass. The EMT's did their work as the hunters grouped together.

Jo reached into Sasha's coat pocket and handed him his insistently buzzing cellphone. It was Shiarra, wanting the answer.

Yes or no. Alive or dead. Saved or damned.

Sasha couldn't answer. Bobby took the cellphone from his hands, and went a little ways away, murmuring quietly in a grief stricken voice.

More time passed, seconds and aeons and hours at the same time. They moved on but couldn't leave, and found themselves in the haven of all lost souls—an all night diner.

Sometimes the only way you can cope is to be somewhere else. They couldn't go back to the hotel, not yet. Not where they'd wasted those last few precious days in a fruitless quest they couldn't win. No one wanted to be the first to touch the Impala, Dean's Impala, and no one mentioned the keys.

Sasha didn't say that the keys were heavy in the breast pocket of the leather coat Dean had picked out for him, didn't say that Dean had given them to him before the hunt, didn't say that Dean had known what the rest of them had refused to believe.

If the Devil is calling the tune, there's no way to get out of paying the piper.

Sasha gripped his coffee cup harder, and squeezed back the tears that wouldn't come earlier. The keys were next to the Colt. Dean had asked one thing of him, that an innocent little girl not die in an attempt to save him, and Sasha had betrayed him. It didn't matter that in the end he hadn't shot her, he was going to, and that was enough.

Sasha was numb now, but slowly he could sense the severed half of his soul, flayed and raw and flapping in an abrasive wind. Could an incubus survive the loss of his mate, could he possibly continue, or would he starve to death, knowing his heart would die if he were ever to betray his love like that…

Sasha couldn't care enough to think about it. Dean was gone, and it was impossible for the world to continue, even through the sunrise.

Their waitress kept the coffee coming and didn't press for details on why six people with haunted faces and dirty clothes were sitting silently in her diner in the small hours. Maybe she didn't care, or maybe she was wise enough that there are times when words fail, and only those who know can break into the silent communication of all knowing.

The hunters didn't need to speak. Sometimes someone would cry, and there were comforting arms and the silent acknowledgement that yes, we know too.

Dawn broke, and Sasha found himself staring out the window of the diner. The world was grey and heavy in the early light. They had been the only customers in the diner for hours now, but soon the world would start again, and the breakfast crowd would come, and they would have to find a new sanctuary, because there were things that had to be done.

To avoid thinking about the future, or any plans it would need to contain, Sasha found himself observing everything out the window, the deserted parking lot, the rangy tulips in the flowerbeds, and the powder blue convertible that was pulling into the diner.

So their sanctuary was broken already—but that involved the future and planning, and Sasha didn't want to deal with that. They could wait awhile, or an age of the earth, before they started dealing with the future. Now contained coffee and grief and the two people talking in the convertible.

The hours of heavy silence had sharpened Sasha's super human hearing, and he could hear the car's stereo singing out in the dawn air.

Every day seems a little longer

Every day love's a little stronger

Come what may, do you ever long for

True love from me…

Buddy Holly, rock even older than what Dean had accepted as the only true form of his music, music that had died almost fifty years ago and was sung about in American Pie. Maybe Sasha could write a song for Dean…

Sasha shook his head, and went back to not thinking about it, to observing a pair of people who knew nothing of the grief of that night, who were worlds removed from it. The pain he felt could be tucked away as he watched the little vignette of the sort of happy world his would never be again. The woman had been driving, but after she killed the engine and put the keys in her purse, she waited while the man she was with walked around to open her door for her and hand her from the car.

He was a tall man, wearing harness boots, jeans and a baseball jacket and cap that proclaimed him to be a fan of Los Angeles' team. The woman herself was wearing large sunglasses and had a scarf wrapped 'round her head like a starlet of old, and was wearing a white shirt with red flowers, a white cardigan and slim fitting tan capris. She was tall, slender and graceful with it, and seemed quite happy to have reached the diner. Maybe they'd been driving for hours before and this was their first stop of the day. They didn't look like they could be much beyond college age.

The waitress tried to seat them, but the man waved her off, mentioning something about meeting friends, and suddenly it was obvious that they were heading straight for the hunters, and pulling chairs up to the already crowded table.

The young man removed his baseball cap as he sat down, and Sam stared at him, but most of the hunters' attention was on the woman as she removed her sun glasses and freed her long red hair from the scarf.

Sasha reached for the Colt before he even thought about what he was doing. The happy young couple dissolved away with the face he least wanted to see. Malak's female aspect stared at him with knowing eyes. Sasha was aiming the Colt at the woman's treacherous heart.

Yet he didn't pull the trigger. Partially it was because he knew not even the Colt could do anything more than mildly inconvenience Malak, but also because…

Because it might have been Malak's face, but it wasn't Malak. The woman looked like Malak might if the demon had ever heard of joie de vie (or at least believed in it.) Where Malak was beautiful, cruel, and proud, this woman looked lovely, kind, and happy. And heart broken. It made all the difference in the world.

Sasha spared a glance at the man, and was stunned that he again was looking at Malak, but not. The same build, the same face, but it was a face that smiled, and meant it, with eyes that understood what is just, and good and right, instead of simply rules and laws and…

"Put the gun down, Sasha," the man said, in a voice that again was painfully familiar and entirely unknown, "It won't do you any good, and cannot change the past."

Sasha obeyed, and stared as the two people who had pulled chairs up to the table seemed to settle in.

"You," Sam asked unbelievingly.

"Him," the woman confirmed cheerfully, scanning all the eyes at the table. "My name is Gwen and this is Mike, who you might say is my on again off again boyfriend, of a sort. Although we've answered to other names before now. We're here to help. It took a while for us to be able to catch up with you."

"A while…" Sam hissed. "If you're, if you're… you, where were you last night, a year ago? Where were you when Hell broke into our lives when I wasn't even a year old? Why suddenly now, when there isn't anything left worth fighting for, do you show up like the god damn cavalry to…"

"Because you needed to be free to make your own choices, Sam, and who and what we are can muddle things up in that area," Mike said, his voice calm and steady as a rock. He looked like some pastor's son home from college, but his voice held ages of command. "But you are not alone, you have never been alone, you will never be alone, and your brother has not been forgotten."

Mike paused for a moment, but wry humor crept into his voice when he spoke again, "It would take eternity to explain, and we don't have anything like that long."

Gwen put a hand on Sam's arm and smiled a small sad sort of smile.

"Mike's just annoyed that he couldn't get into another fist fight with Malak last night, but it wasn't until choices ran their course that we could come into things, and there were other opportunities. It's not good to dwell on what might have happened. We can't stay, at least not today."

Mike laughed. "We're basically here to give you lot a swift kick to the ankle to get you moving again. You know there are things that need to be done, and here you are, self indulgently moping and drinking bad coffee. We need you to hold the world together for a while longer yet."

Gwen put something facedown on the table as she and Mike both rose to leave. "My card, so you can call us if you need help."

As they left, unstoppable as Malak for all that they left through more human means, Sasha heard Mike say, "Dear, you watch too many movies…"

"Hey, I left out all the Star Wars quotes I wanted to put in…"

Sasha flipped over the card and found himself looking at the Queen of Hearts. Gwen… An old story occurred to him, and he found relief and hope and light and life flood into him, mingling with the pain, and he laughed.

THE END

A/N~ I'm still not satisfied with the last bit of this fic, but that's mostly because I love how Crim handled the whole thing so much better. But I love Sasha's reaction to the whole deal... pun intended. Love it or hate it, I decided it is what it is, and I told Crim I'd post it, so I did.

Ta ta for now... ~Blue