Chapter 1

It had been a few long weeks that had stretched into a couple of very painful months since she had ripped Sam's still-broken heart out, threw it on the ground and danced naked all over it, then shoved it back at him bleeding and crushed with a wink and a smile, all the while claiming she'd done it out of sheer love for him before he'd gone ahead and put a bullet into her evil, ruthless chest and ended her life for what she had done; and not just to him. Every day that went by he thought about it, about her, and no matter what he did, he couldn't push what she'd done to him out of his mind. She had taken every precious memory he'd had of his beloved Jessica and twisted them all into something horrific. Every time he thought of Jess, he thought of her, and as hard as he tried, he couldn't bring back any thoughts that weren't tainted or tarnished, until they finally ended up causing nothing but anguish and pain, leaving him empty and hollow inside.

Her actions had been cold, calculated, and cruel, but what she did to him had been nothing compared to what she had done to Dean. No, that was a whole new level of torture he'd never seen before, from man and beast alike, and his agony was nothing next to his brother's; not by a long shot. So, on the days that he could actually wake up in the morning with his ability to forget what she'd done working like a blessed charm, he still had Dean's constant pain to dismantle it and woefully remind him.

Some of Dean's days lately had been good ones, and the ones that weren't he did his best to fake for Sam's benefit that they were. Every once in a while though, dark clouds would come rolling in and hover over him, enveloping him deep inside and forcing him to ride them out until they mercifully blew themselves by. Sometimes it would hit him like a mild thunderstorm, nothing too serious that a day of good sleep wouldn't do the trick for; but more often than not it would come raging in like a category five hurricane threatening to rip apart every fiber of his being, leaving him a decimated mess for days at a time. Dean would never actually say anything outright to his brother, nor would he ever complain, but by now Sam could always tell when a another tempest was looming on the horizon, and he could tell just how severe it would be too, just by his brother's actions before it came. Dean would just get a weird, blank look in his eye, and say one thing, and one thing only to him.

"Do you think you could drive for a while Sammy?" Was all he would have to ask, and the keys would be launched into the air before Sam could answer him. It wasn't a question he could say no to, and it was always his first clue. What Dean did next though would silently tell him what they were in store for over the days to come. Sam would hold his breath and watch his brother walk to the passenger side of the Impala, then he'd let it out when Dean decided which door he would choose to open. On the occasions he would climb into the front seat, close his eyes and just rest his head against the cool glass of the window, Sam would let that held breath out with an audible sigh of relief, knowing it wouldn't be that bad this time. But there were the times when Dean would reach for the back door, and the sigh wasn't one of relief but one of anxious dread instead. When he heard "I think I'm gonna lay down in the back while you drive, ok?" as he climbed in and relegated himself to the rear and out of Sam's sight, his heart would sink to his stomach, his stomach would drop to the floor, and he knew he'd only be driving to the nearest town with a motel that didn't come complete with complimentary six-legged pets, and that's where they'd stay for the next few days until it was thankfully over enough for them to move on.

Sam had heard every word when the doctor told him these episodes were likely to happen over the next few months, but the first week or so after Dean's release had been smooth as silk, aside from all the sleeping he had done, and he honestly thought his brother had finally dodged at least one of the bullets that had been aimed directly at him throughout the whole ordeal after being repeatedly hit point blank by all the rest of them. He had thought it strange though when Dean asked him to drive the roughly 375 miles to Indiana from Rockford after their father's call while he slept through the first half of the trip, then buried his face in a map for the rest and made one annoying comment after another about the genius of their absentee father, the father that they hadn't heard from in months that had finally had called; not to make sure Dean was still alive or ok after the dozens of messages Sam had left him over the last couple of weeks; not to ask for their help on his current plight; or to just tell them that 'yeah, I'm still here', but to order them to stay away, to stay out of the fight Sam felt he had every right to be a part of, then sent them off on another ridiculous job to obviously keep them out of his hair while he hunted down the very thing that had put them all in this position in the first place.

He'd been fuming since Dean had stripped him of the phone and finished the call himself; first at his father for denying them any role in the fight to come, then at Dean, who mindlessly dropped like the good son he thought he should be into soldier mode at the mere sound of their father's voice, taking down the orders and not once questioning how or why. He just climbed from his bed and started packing, telling Sam to do the same and blindly following his father's direction. Sam was so mad that when Dean told him to drive he was almost grateful, hoping that being behind the wheel would help him blow off some steam, which it actually had. Between the soothing rumble of the engine and the slow and the rhythmic breathing coming from his brother, he did find some slight clarity seeping into his head… until Dean woke up, that is.

Once he was awake, he'd dragged out a map and the notes he'd made when he was on the phone, and started putting their father on a pedestal Sam felt he had no right to even polish the base of let alone stand atop of. The more Dean praised the man, the angrier Sam got again, until he just couldn't listen to another word coming from his brother's mouth anymore. Sam pulled the car over and basically told Dean that come hell or high water, he was going to find their dad, which Dean strongly disagreed with, and like the last couple of weeks had never happened, Sam grabbed his gear and left Dean behind and alone to fend for himself, again.

He didn't know for sure what made him go back. Maybe it was something Meg said, or something she didn't say, or the fact that Dean wouldn't or couldn't answer his calls, but whatever it was, he knew something was wrong, very wrong. He'd been very right too, finding his brother tied to a tree in the cold night air for only god knew how long with his head split open, waiting to be the next scarecrow in the pagan apple orchard. He vowed to himself at that very minute that he would never do that again, he would never leave his brother behind. He'd always have his back.

They dropped Emily off at the bus station and thankfully headed out of town with no real destination in sight yet, driving in total silence the entire time. By the strange look on Dean's face, Sam didn't want to push his luck anymore then he had already by engaging his brother in any kind of conversation, and he just figured Dean wasn't in a very talkative mood, which he never was to begin with anymore anyway. They'd driven all of about two hours when Dean pulled into the first truck stop he'd seen, not even bothering to turn off the car as he quickly made a beeline to the bathroom, leaving Sam to gas the car up himself and wait.

Five minutes turned into ten, ten turned into fifteen, and Sam was starting to get a little freaked out by Dean's overly long absence. Then he heard the commotion coming from inside, and his stomach knotted and dropped. He just knew it was Dean. He'd damn near sprinted from the car when he'd heard someone yelling something about a guy passed out on the bathroom floor, and Sam pretty much figured it could only be one person. He ignored everyone he passed that stood around doing nothing but gawk as he rushed through the door, and sure enough, there was Dean with his arms wrapped around the toilet and his face plastered to the seat, covered in sweat and breathing hard and heavy.

Sam forced himself into the tiny stall that was really only built for one, not really wanting to think about the fact that his brother's face was nearly fused to the nasty seat that probably had more deadly bacteria living on it than the dead, rotting carcass of some sorry piece of road kill left on the shoulder for the crows and other scavengers to have at. To his surprise, Dean had answered him when he called his name, albeit barely loud enough for anyone but Sam to even hear. He wrapped his arms around Dean's waist and tried lifting him off the floor, and that was no easy task now that Dean was nothing but dead weight and the walls were barely three feet apart. After awkwardly struggling for some time to get his brother on his feet, he'd managed to bring him up vertically enough to drag him from the cramped confines as the audience behind him watched transfixed like they were staring at some train wreck they just couldn't turn away from.

"Is he ok?" Someone finally broke the deathly silence. Human curiosity always won out in the end.

"Yeah, he's fine. He's just got the flu or something," Sam responded to the faceless inquisitor as he wrapped one of Dean's arms around his shoulder and tried shielding him from the numerous sets of staring eyes. Sam could only assume the person posing the question was the same good Samaritan that grabbed Dean's other arm and threw it over his own shoulder when he saw the sick man couldn't even get his feet under him, and together they got Dean back out to the waiting Impala with relative ease.

"I think you better drive for a while Sammy," he whispered into his brother's ear as Sam made an attempt to open the passenger's door, causing Dean to just shake his head in protest. "Back seat Sam… I need to lie down."

Sam did his best to make Dean as comfortable in the back as he could, thanked the man that had so graciously helped him carry his brother's limp, lifeless body back to the car, climbed behind the wheel and took off down the highway, keeping his eyes peeled for the first motel he could find. He bypassed two or three rather shady looking places that would have been perfectly acceptable to Dean, had he been the one driving, and opted for something a little more upper end, at least upper end to Winchesters, having no idea just how long they'd be staying.

'Having no idea how long they'd be staying' ended up being five very long, very nerve-racking days with Sam almost throwing his brother in the car and carting him to the nearest emergency room on more than one very scary occasion. He'd opted on calling Olivia instead when things started getting a little harrier than he thought they should be, and she welcomed the call. Sam rambled off one ailment after another in their order of appearance, starting with the vomiting, profuse sweating and eventual passing out in the bathroom to the intense stomach cramps that never seemed to let up by the time they'd made it to a motel and continued well after they'd gotten there, accompanied by the migraine, fever, and nearly unquenchable thirst that finally brought up the rear. The more water he drank, the more water he'd throw right back up until he'd decided being thirsty was better and stopped drinking altogether. Dean hadn't eaten in nearly three days either, yet he continued heaving uncontrollably, and Sam was starting to get really scared Dean would dehydrate. Olivia pretty much told him that there was really nothing he could do but ride the waves, told him she'd call in a prescription to hopefully stop the vomiting, but other than that, he'd just have to keep him comfortable and wait.

By morning of the next day, Dean's body had calmed, and the storm seemed to have passed. He'd settled into an eerie quiet and did nothing but sleep for nearly a day now that he wasn't either heaving or curled up groaning in pain. Sam had only seen his brother like that once before, the day her poison had nearly killed him, and prayed to god he would never have to see it again. Nearly another full day later, Dean seemed perfectly content to leave, pretending nothing had ever happened when he noticed Sam couldn't even look him in the eye.

They'd had a couple of simple jobs here and there, none of which proved to be very eventful, until they'd found themselves in some tiny shithole town in Michigan, searching for what they had been led to believe was a coven of witches that turned out to be nothing but a teenage hoax. Three days they'd wasted in that rat's nest, and Dean was way beyond pissed. Way beyond pissed enough to go out to the nearest bar and get rip-roaring lit on a fifth of Jack and stuffed on greasy bacon cheeseburgers, both of which he was told he shouldn't have yet.

By early the next morning, he'd wished he'd listened to that good advice. He'd been able to hide it from Sam for nearly the entire day by passing it off as a simple hangover, but by late evening it dropped on him like a ton of bricks and buried him. If Sam had thought the first episode was bad, there were no words to describe what was happening now, and this time he did drag Dean to the local urgent care when he did dehydrate to a dangerous level. Dean had wanted nothing more than leave that god-forsaken town and move on, but his stupidity earned him a full extra week in the little town he wanted nothing more to do with. 'Live and learn,' he'd thought when it was finally over, and he promised himself he wouldn't do that again anytime soon.

Life had gone by pretty smoothly after that, now that Dean had learned his lesson the hard way. He'd been feeling pretty good for a while after the last bomb dropped, until he'd found himself being dragged half dead to Nebraska by Sam. Half dead because Sam had left him alone in that basement with a rawhead, and while standing in a pool of water when he'd electrocuted not only it but himself as well, had pretty much been given a death sentence, all because he hadn't had Dean's back…again. Sure, this time it really hadn't been Sam's fault, but each and every time something happened to Dean that could have been prevented, Sam always let the guilt get the better of him. At this point, he just couldn't help it anymore, especially when the doctor had told him that his heart was damaged beyond repair and that that Dean would die, it was just a matter of time.

The good Reverend Roy Le Grange had unwittingly taken care of that. Dean was as good as new when he'd laid his hands on him, not knowing that his wife was sending a reaper to do his bidding for him. Dean had been cured, but at the expense of another innocent person, and he couldn't live with that, and intended on doing something about it. Sam had stopped Sue Ann before the reaper could kill Dean in exchange for Layla, but the damage had been done. They packed their gear and made to leave town after Dean had said his goodbyes to the ill-fated woman, feeling not only the guilt for dooming her to death, but also feeling full well what was coming to plague him again, but not wanting to spend another minute in Nebraska that he didn't need to. They left in silence and drove in the silence that they seemed to always settle into until they were well out of the state that Dean could go the rest of his life without ever stepping foot into again.

Dean had done well, making it all the way to nightfall before finally needing to stop, but at least he was in Iowa now, and that's all that mattered to him at the moment. He had pulled into the first gas station he'd seen once he was across the border, taken a moment to remove the cap and shoved the nozzle into the gas tank, then took off for the bathroom without saying one word, leaving Sam sitting in the car with his eyebrows raised and his mouth hanging open. Sam gave Dean all the time it took for the pump to click itself off before placing it back in the cradle and coming after him; stopping at the cashier to pay before heading to the back where the bathrooms were located. He watched dismayed as his brother staggered out through the heavy bathroom door, his face pale and covered in sweat and his hands uncontrollably shaking.

"I think you better drive Sam," he mumbled as he breezed by him, only stopping long enough to give his brother the order before moving on.

He followed right behind Dean with his eyes trained on the backs of his feet, unable to watch as his brother steadied himself against the wall next to him while he made his way slowly to the door, positive his Dean would either fall forward or backwards at any second. He wanted to offer some sort of assistance to him to get him back to the car, but by the body language Dean was giving off, Sam knew he didn't want to be coddled at the moment. Dean just continued his delicate walk unhampered to the car, not even hesitating to climb into the back and resting his face against the cool, familiar smelling leather as he waited for Sam to close the door behind him.

He was nearly asleep by the time he'd heard the door slam shut, then felt the weight of his brother climb into the passenger seat before the engine turned over, but the sudden movement brought him back to some form of consciousness and made him hang his face over the seat, thankful the small trashcan Sam had put back there 'in case of emergencies' was in it's appointed place, pretty sure he was going to need it in the very near future. Had Dean been himself and had Sam not been preoccupied with worrying about him every second of every day over the last couple months, they both probably would have noticed the little, black car that had followed them from the station out onto the deserted highway. The same little, black car that was always following them, they were just too much in a world of their own notice.