What Happens in Hell

"If he's dead, I swear, I won't sleep or eat or stop until you're gone. I will find the worst way possible to kill you if you tell me he's in . . ." Hazel looked at the demon who took her greatest love away. She couldn't finish the statement as she looked into her wicked eyes. She knew what the answer was, but for some reason she couldn't let herself believe it.

"I don't have to tell you what you already know." The Crossroads demon stared at her with arms crossed. The longer the demon stared the more Hazel's rage grew.

He was gone. She was too late. He was in Hell now, replacing his brother with himself. She had driven all the way across the country a year ago to stop him, but he had made the deal. The year had passed too quickly. She only wished that she could have been there to tell him goodbye.

The demon walked toward her slowly, "Look, as much as you don't want to believe it, it's better this way. At least you didn't have to watch him die. There was nothing you could have done to save him, there was nothing anyone could have." She looked up at the twisted woman who let him make the deal.

She stepped away from her. "Don't try to comfort me. I loved him. And I never got to tell him because of you."

With everything that was going on the demon still had the nerve to laugh. Hazel shook with anger at the sound. "That's not exactly my fault now is it? You had your chance, a whole year before he had to go. Your being a chicken isn't my doing."

She swung her fist into the demon's face with all of her emotions going into the hit. The demon stumbled back with the hit but didn't react. "Listen to me you son of a bitch. I am not a chicken. And if you ever think otherwise I will personally rip your guts out with my bare hands. That hit? It was only half the pain you're going to endure when I come after you again. And weather you like it or not, I'll find a way to get him out." Tears stung her eyes as they slid down her cheeks. They only made her more chilled with the brisk night air.

The demon only laughed as Hazel walked back to her car. She got in and turned the key in the ignition. Her foot slammed the gas pedal harder than she intended and she drove. She didn't know where she was going just yet. She didn't know why. But at that moment, she couldn't care less. She glanced in the rearview mirror at the monster she left standing. Smiling in the road. She kept her eyes on the road and her mind on murder as she drove to a destination unknown.

Chapter One

She awoke with a startle from the dream she had been having for the past five months. The five months without Dean. She looked around the small motel room trying to get her mind to focus. Her thoughts were clouded with the image of him whispering promises to her and all too soon being ripped from her grasp. From her life. She shivered at the thought and shook it from her mind.

Getting out of bed hurt like it had every morning. Emotionally, and physically. She stretched her arms above her head as she walked to the bathroom. She rubbed her eyes one at a time as she shuffled her feet across the shaggy carpet. Flipping the light on she saw her reflection in the mirror. Bed head. Bed head and my mind stuck on the one thing I wish it wasn't. Dean.

She turned on the tap and plugged the sink. She let the sink fill with ice cold water before dunking her head in and holding it there. It helped to clear her mind, the cold water. It was like an alarm clock blaring in your ear at 3:30 in the morning. Something you can't ignore. Something to get you up and focused. She blinked her eyes as she counted down from thirty.

30

29

28

27

26

25

24 . . .

As she counted down she felt her mind become more and more alert. She forced herself to focus on the hunt she was on. Wendigo. Or at least that's what she suspected. She and her new partner of course. Well, new wasn't exactly as it should be described. She had been working with him for years, years before Dean had gone. However, it was only recently that it was only him and her working. Without his brother, it grew silent often, and she couldn't help but cry sometimes.

As she counted down she felt a large hand gently pull her out of the water by her back of her tank top. She picked her head up gasping for air to see a smiling Sam Winchester standing beside her. "Trying to drown yourself again HD?" She grabbed a towel and wiped at her wet face.

She smiled at the name he hadn't used for months. HD was a name that only he called her. It stood for Hazel Dythe. "Well it's better than living without my heart." Only Sam knew that she'd loved his brother. It was something she kept to herself.

He looked down sad and mumbled almost inaudibly, "I'm sorry that I'm putting you through this." He had said this all the time after Dean died. He blamed himself for his brother's death.

Hazel smiled up at him and lifted his chin gently. With how tall he was it was awkward to make him look up. "Stop beating yourself up Sammy. He was just looking after you. You were dead, he didn't have much a brain to stop himself." He grinned only a little at her attempted humor.

They were silent for a few moments as it had gotten to be so often in the past. Breaking the silence finally, he said, "I brought coffee. Thought you might need the caffeine. We still gonna leave early?" It was like that almost every day. He woke up, got breakfast, brought it to her, they left, and they hunted. After that routine, it changed everyday. Some days they would go to a bar to let go of some stress, others they would go straight back to the motel they were currently staying at and go to sleep. Then there were those few nights when they did the thing she hated most.

He did it for her, she knew that. Those few nights they would go to Dean's grave and he would leave her alone to reminisce in the memories that flooded her mind. Tears stained the grass that surrounded his grave. Her tears. She hated those nights, but knew that she needed them. To remember that he was here. Remember that there's still a body left for him to come back to if I can find a way.

"Earth to Hazel." Sam mumbled waving a hand in front of her face.

Blinking away the tears that had formed in her eyes, she slapped his hand away and focused again on the hunt. "Yeah. We'll leave just as soon as I get dressed. Get out now, I don't think you need to see anything under what I'm wearing now." She shooed him out of the door still fighting tears.

She shut the door behind him and leaned against it. Memories flooded her mind. Memories that had haunted her since the night she saw the Crossroads demon. Memories of him. Him alive. The thought of him dying. His body. Bloody. The image of him in Hell. Everything about him came to her like a tidal wave. It was more than she could handle. She crashed to the ground crying unwillingly. She couldn't control herself, just the thought of him where she was just a few years ago killed her. She reached to the back of her neck where the imprint of an angels hand laid. That could happen for him. He could be saved. Although, no matter how many times she thought it, it killed her nonetheless.

He was dead. She just had to remember that and live with it. She pushed the memory out of her mind and got up off the floor. She walked to her duffel bag that lay next to the stiff bed. Trying to keep her mind focused, she pulled out a pair of jeans, a faded blue ACDC T-shirt and her favorite leather jacket. His leather jacket. That was what she kept to remember him. Sam kept the necklace he had given him, she kept his jacket.

She looked at the jacket remembering how he looked in it. How powerful it was on him. She placed it back in her duffel bag and pulled out her own leather jacket. It was sleeker, skinner, black. While he chose a sort of faded olive green, she stuck with her favorite color, black. She put it on over the T-shirt and jeans and threw on her best pair of combat boots. She picked up her duffel bag and walked to the door.

When she opened it Sam stood waiting. "You know, it sucks just as much for me as it does for you. Don't beat yourself up though. Us Winchesters don't stay dead for long." He smiled a warm smile that comforted him. Although he wasn't Dean, Sam was still a great guy. And her only friend. Her sister Trina passed away three years ago on a hunt.

Instinctively, she pressed her hand to the two necklaces she wore around her neck. One was a moon with a star dangling from the tip while the other was a bright sun. Along one of the chains, the moon, ran her name. Hazel Christine Dythe. Along the other, the sun, ran her sister's name. Trina Kyra Dythe. She kept them both after she died. She missed her more than she missed Dean, but after she came back as a spirit and assured her that she would be alright in heaven, Hazel was alright. She knew Trina was there in heart and she always would be.

She hugged Sam tightly with tears still in her eyes. "Thanks for being the only one I could turn to, Sam. You don't know how much that means to me," and she meant it. He was the only person who stayed in her life after her sister and Dean died. She needed him, and he was there.

He hugged back and for that moment, she felt safe. Sam had a way of doing that, making your problems go away with just a hug or a smile. She liked that about him.

She pulled away and wiped her eyes. "You ready Gigantor?" It was her nickname for him. Sam was a tall man.

"When you are HD." He smiled that smile that made her troubles melt. And they were on their way to her car. They didn't keep Dean's just in case he did come back like she did. It was right there waiting for him. Just like I am.