AN: This is only my second fanfic, so please be nice.

I had planned to get this posted before the finale for all the folks in the USA, but work has been manic and it my boyfriend's birthday tonight so I have had a surprise party to plan!!

First chapter focuses on Sam, the second follows Dean.

This is unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine. Oh yeah, and as sad as it is I don't own them, I leave that please to Kripke and co.

"Where are you going now?" Dean called after his brother.

"Well it looks like I'm going to Ohio!" Sam called back, then spun on his heel and started walking.

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He wasn't exactly sure where he was going, but he did know he had to get away from his brother right now, before he exploded.

Some many thoughts were running through his mind about what the professor had just told him, the deal and now Dean's revelation.

I'm gonna kill her, he thought. How could Ruby lie to him like that? The only reason he hadn't sent her ass packing back down to hell already had been her promise that she could save Dean. Now though, he couldn't wait to catch her in a Devil's Trap and send her right back to where she belonged.

How could I have been so stupid and naive? Sam berated himself as he wove between the people filling the street; friends and families huddling together under umbrellas as the rain began; business men and women in suits hurrying from one meeting to another, briefcases clutched firmly in their hands. They were all oblivious to the evil and terror around them. Jealously pooled in the pit of Sam's stomach. If only the Winchesters' lives were normal. Dean wouldn't be going to hell in 21 days, 10 hours and 45 minutes.

Sam pulled the collar of his jacket up around his ears as the cold rain snaked down his back and chest, making his t-shirt and flannel shirt cling to him and numb his body, not that he really cared. His thoughts were elsewhere.

Ruby had bloody promised him. Demons lie Sammy. Dean's voice filtered through his thoughts. Hmph, he thought. Dean had been right all along. He never should've trusted Ruby; but, the thought of saving Dean had been too tempting to resist. He was willing to do anything it took to save his brother, anything. And at the time that had meant alliances with a demon. Looking back now he supposed he should've been more suspicious. She just turned up unannounced, knowing more about his family than he did and offering a miracle.

So stupid, so stupid, so stupid. Sam continued his mantra as he trudged along, shoulders hunched, brows set to a frown. He had no idea where he was going, but after a while it seemed as though he had crossed to 'the other side of the tracks', so to speak. Up ahead he saw a rundown bar, a neon sign in the window announcing 2 for 1 on anything. Perfect, thought Sam as he crossed the gravelled parking lot and pushed through the wooden door. Its high pitched wine as it swung inwards announced his entrance to the handful of patrons already drowning their sorrows before noon.

Sam crossed to the bar. What the hell am I doing, this is so Dean's scene.

"What can I get you?" the barmen grumbled from his spot on the other side of the counter.

"One beer," came Sam's short request. He exchanged a few crumpled dollar bills for the bottle and turned towards the booths lining the back wall. Choosing one with the best view of the door and smokey room, Sam fell into his seat, letting his shoulders hunch forward and his head fall so that his chin almost reached his chest.

He was done with being angry – angry at his dad for making Dean believe he always had to sacrifice himself; angry at the crossroads demon's decision to grant Dean only one measly year; furious at Dean for accepting the deal; but deep down, he was livid at himself. If the demon had never been after him in the first place the demon would not have killed their mother, or left Sam to fight it to the death in Cold Oak and Dean would not be facing eternity in hell.

He could still remember, vividly, how it had felt. The rage and the anger, how out of control he'd been when he had figured out that Dean had sold in exchange for his life. Sometimes, now and then, he'd have nightmares about - that in a few precious weeks his brother's soul would be trapped in hell, at the mercy of the hell fire and demons he had exorcised over his life.

As he rolled the bottle of Bud between his hands he looked back on the hunts he and his brother had taken on, side by side. He had no idea of how many people Dean had saved over the last 20 years. How many evil things he had destroyed. How could that all count for nothing now? Despite all the bad things Sam had seen in this life, all the evil he had come to face, he still held a belief that to juxtapose all the malice and hate, there had to be a higher being, made of nothing but love – be it God or something humans had not yet come to think of, he didn't know. But he had been sure they had been watching over his family. Even with the infamous Winchester bad luck his family had survived 20 years of demon hunting.

Now though, he had never felt more alone. His brother was leaving him, his only remaining family. He had vowed that there no way in hell he was abandoning his brother. Huh, hell. Thanks to Dean's revelation that even Ruby didn't hold the key to saving his brother, he didn't know what else to do.

Dean was his rock. Whether protecting him, taking the mick out of him or pestering him beyond belief with his food habits and loud music, Sam wouldn't change him for the world. Sam didn't want any other family. Despite butting heads with his Dad almost constantly after he hit his teens, Sam knew the deep bond shared by the Winchester men was something special. If he could pick his family, Dean and Dad would be it, all over again, through everything.

Sam knew there was nothing his brother, and his father before his death, wouldn't do for him, and that sentiment was reciprocated 100 percent.

Now though, it looked as though he was going to be left with nothing. All alone with no one to share the good times or the bad with; to fight over first shower with, or just with brothers with. He wasn't ready to say goodbye to all of that yet, not for another 50 years at least. But now he was faced with the very real prospect of being forced to part from his brother, with no hope that they would meet again, that Dean would be waiting for him with his parents and Jess. He didn't know how to say goodbye now, especially as he never wanted to say it at all.

For some reason, Sam already missed his brother. Already he was not the Dean he had grown up with, heck been raised by. The person he knew he could always depend on, even when he wasn't there... that somehow, someway, Dean would come through for his little brother if he really, truly needed him. That he'd never let me down. Dean was slowly becoming an empty shell, crumbling in front of his eyes and there was nothing he could do. No matter how much he protested to his brother that there was still hope, still a chance, he knew it wasn't true.

He had exhausted every possible lead, called every contact that the Winchesters or Bobby Singer had ever heard of, and then some. He wasn't ready to accept that he couldn't save his brother. Not yet, not after he promised. After all, Winchesters don't break their promises. He couldn't believe what was happening. His whole world was disintegrating around him and no matter how blaze Dean decided to act, he was scared. Scared shitless in fact.

He stared at the now luke warm beer resting in his hands. Swirling the amber liquid his heart ached with the knowledge of what his brother had done. Sam couldn't believe it and desperately wanted no needed a miracle. They would find a way out for him. They didn't have time for denial, for what ifs and waiting on false promises. He pushes himself up, squaring his shoulders and heading for the door.

He doesn't have time to lose; he was going to save his brother.

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AN2: Planned to end this on a lower note, but with how Sam has been acting recently, I decided to end with his resolve to save his brother.

Please leave me a review and let me know what you thought. Thanks soph x x