Discliamer: I own them in my mind. Kripke owns all rights.
A/N: I don't have a beta, so all mistakes are mine. Spoiler warning through S4 Lazarus Rising.
This story is dedicated to black67impala. My Sammy

Get her.

Sam lunged forward, determined to destroy Lilith, but a quick glance at Dean stopped him in his tracks. Sam's brow furrowed as his eyes focused in on his brother. He looked bad. Very bad. Blood was splattered everywhere and he wasn't moving. Everything had been chaotic seconds earlier but now, the room seemed so quiet and daunting that Sam was keenly aware of his footsteps as he walked over to Dean and knelt down beside him. As trails of blood slid down Dean's face, Lilith left Sam's mind completely.

"Dean," he breathed quietly as blood pooled around his shoe. He shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment, desperately trying to wake from the nightmare that surrounded him. No such luck.

"Dean!" he screamed as his brother lay unresponsive. Sam swallowed hard and stood up, taking a step back as he did so. That's when he noticed the blood on his shoe. Dean's blood.

"Dean! I'll get help," he cried frantically and pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans. His hands trembled as he tried to remember how to get the damn thing to work. He had managed to pull up Bobby's number, but couldn't quite figure out how to dial out.

Finally, he heard a familiar voice on the other line. " Dean's hurt," he said with desperation in his voice. It would all be fine now though because Bobby would know what to do, he reminded himself.

Sam heard Bobby ask him where exactly in the house he and Dean were and for some reason this made him angry. He looked down at Dean again and tears formed in his eyes " Dean's hurt!" he tried to convey to Bobby again, wiping the tears away angrily because there was no reason for tears. Sure, Dean was hurt badly, but it wasn't like he was...

Sam knelt beside his brother once again and gently lifted his head. Tears were dropping onto Dean's face and Sam hurriedly wiped them away because he knew that Dean wouldn't like that. He slipped the necklace carefully over Dean's head and held onto it so tightly, he could feel the talisman biting through his skin. It seemed like he could feel all of the agony in the entire world at once and he smashed the phone against the wall as the room began to spin and slowly melt around him. Then there was nothing but darkness.

The next thing he remembered, he was standing by the makeshift grave that he had made for Dean against Bobby's wishes. Bobby had given up on salting and burning Dean's body, as he knew he would have wanted, because Sam had told him that he would need his body when he came back. Bobby had tried to explain to Sam that Dean was not coming back. He knew that Sam was in shock and felt the only way to shake him out of it was to make him accept the fact.

Sam remembered the look he had given Bobby when he had said those words to him. Worse, he remembered the feeling of rage he had and the violent impulse that shook through his body. The look of fear that Bobby had given back to Sam was enough to calm him and to help him to remember that this was not Bobby's fault. Bobby never spoke of burning Dean's body again.

Sam stood beside the grave with the shovel in his hand and felt that enough had not been done. He walked around the grassy edge of the forest until he found two pieces of wood that he felt were good enough to make a cross and, with Bobby's help, nailed them together. When he put the cross into the ground, what should have been a feeling of closure was replaced by a feeling of fresh pain. He stood back and Bobby started to speak but Sam only held is hand up to silence him. The smell in the air and the warmth of the sun shining down on him on that day was a feeling that he would live with every waking moment.

As he walked along the now well-beaten path toward Dean's grave, the sun was beating down just as it had on that dismal day four months earlier. The air smelled the same, as did the grass and trees around him. Sam was a different person though, and four years may as just as well have passed as four months. His phone began to buzz and he grabbed it from of his pocket and frowned. Bobby was calling again.

" Drunk probably," Sam muttered to himself as he silenced the phone and put it back into his pocket. It wasn't that he didn't care for Bobby, he just had no clue as how to help the man when he couldn't even help himself. He felt guilt creep up into his heart but pushed it back down as he had been doing with most of his emotions lately.

He absently touched the fabric between his shirt and Dean's necklace and almost found himself reliving the nightmare again. " Get it together," he growled to himself " You're a Winchester. Quit being a pansy that can't handle what cards were dealt." That one he had practiced a few times and the words actually made him feel better because he could hear Dean's voice coming through them.

He was almost to the clearing when he heard a noise that sounded like a possible footstep and silently cursed as he had just stepped on a twig. He stood frozen and alert but heard nothing else. Waiting was the hardest part when you were standing in a very awkward position, but nothing could be done when you knew that if you moved an inch the damn branch under your foot would crackle again. When he was sure that it was his imagination, he moved forward with caution.