Note: I started this fic early in Season 4, and I suspect it was right around the "I Know What you Did Last Summer" episode. We hadn't learned about the demon blood yet, or much about angels and their vessels. Even when a fic ends up being an AU, I try to keep as close to canon as I can, so I found myself having to do a lot of tweaking and improvising as time passed and new information was revealed. (I was really surprised when some stuff I actually got right ahead of time!) Then I got stuck on how to end the thing. Two, nearly three seasons later and I have finally found the right way to wrap it up. When I started I never thought it would take me so long to write, nor that it would grow to such immense proportions.

I also never expected to lose my own brother right in the middle of it.

RIP Mikey. If the silver Camaro in Chapter 2 sounds familiar, it should – it's yours.

-T

Dean's instructions were simple.

1. Find the demon called Ruby.

2. Eliminate the abomination.

Simple was good. Dean liked simple. What he didn't like was starting a case with nothing at all to go on but some really vague instructions.

Right out of the starting gate he had to ask "what abomination?" Was it Ruby, or something else? The answer was not forthcoming, which Dean pretty much expected. His superiors tended to be stingy with the intel.

If Ruby were the abomination then simply finding her would kill two birds with one stone. If she weren't – well it was obvious she was tied in to it somehow and he still had to find her. There would be nothing simple about that. After the last battle with Lucifer, Ruby had vanished without a trace. Nobody knew where she'd gone. There had been no sign of her on any plane; Heaven, Hell or Earth.

There was someone who might be able to put Dean on the right track toward finding Ruby, and that was Sam. The problem with that was they had been out of contact for years. Dean would have to find him first. Fortunately locating Sam would probably be a hell of a lot easier than locating Ruby. Sam was still Hunting. He was still driving Dean's car. If he was still using the tried and true techniques of subterfuge and stealth the Winchesters had always depended on, then Dean could find him in a heartbeat.

First though, he needed a heartbeat.

He asked for his old suit back, and was refused, so he went out and found a suitable vessel on his own. This did not please his superiors, who would have preferred Dean go about his task without involving humankind. His immediate supervisor simply sighed and stated that if Dean got himself in trouble, he wasn't going to come rescue his ass. That was fine with Dean. He didn't plan on getting into any trouble.

Unfortunately, trouble always seemed to find him.

Sam sat in a worn armchair – or rather, slumped in a worn armchair – with his right hand raised to rub his temple and his long legs stretched out before him. The fabric had torn on one arm of the chair, and the stuffing was spilling out. Sam idly plucked at it with his left hand, flicking the pieces onto the floor beside him, taking care not to flick them too hard and send them too close to the fire. If they were set alight the whole damn house would go up in flames. That might be an option when he was done, but he wasn't done.

"Let's try this one more time," he said quietly. "Where did you come through?"

"Screw you!"

With a sigh, Sam lowered his hand and sat up straighter in his chair. Sitting across from him in another chair, bound and trapped inside a circle of arcane symbols, was a kid just this side of being able to vote. It looked like a kid at any rate – save for the black eyes and the twisted snarl.

Well, Sam thought. Teenagers do snarl sometimes. I know I did when Dad and I got into it.

He shook his head slowly and leaned his elbows on his knees. "Wrong answer."

The demon laughed. "I don't spill my guts, you send me to Hell. If I dospill my guts, you still send me to Hell. So why should I tell you anything? Huh?"

Sam sat back in the chair and resumed picking at the stuffing. "Dante described nine levels of Hell in the Divine Comedy. That's because he only knew about nine." He paused and leveled a cool look at his captive. "You and I both know that Hell is a lot bigger than that. So, if you tell me where the hole is that you squirmed out of, I'll keep you in the single digits. If you don't, I'll flush you down to the very bottom of the Pit – and trust me, that will hurt more."

The demon's teenaged costume blanched white. "You're a bastard, Winchester."

"By definition no, I'm not. Now make up your damn mind. I don't have all day."

Technically that was a lie for two reasons. One, it wasn't day at all, but well past midnight and two, Sam didn't have anything else on deck besides finding the crack this particular demon crawled out of and sealing it shut. He simply wanted to get the interrogation and exorcism part out of the way so he could pop some pain medication and get a couple of hours of sleep.

With a growl, the demon spit at him. Where saliva hit the lines of the Devil's Trap it sizzled and popped, evaporating into nothing. There was no way it could have hit Sam, but it pissed him off. His eyes narrowed as he slowly stood up out of the chair. He began pacing back and forth just outside the borderline of the trap, never taking his eyes off his captive. Before him the demon stiffened. A squeak of pain issued from its throat.

"Don't," Sam said, his voice lowering an octave as his gaze locked onto the demon's black-as-pitch eyes. "Push me."

"Idaho. It's in Idaho in a storm cellar."

"There are a lot of storm cellars in Idaho." Sam raised his chin ever-so-slightly and turned up the pressure.

"An old church, near a farm," the demon shrieked. "Johannsen's. It's just outside of Arco, Idaho." He looked up at Sam pleadingly. "I'm not lying! It's in Arco!"

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. "Good," he said. "That's what I wanted to hear."

The demon was panting. Sweat ran down his temples. "Please," he said breathlessly. "Please let me go."

"You know I can't do that," Sam replied.

"No. No! Don't…"

His final plea was choked off abruptly. The kid coughed once, then twice, and smoke began pouring from his nose and mouth like noxious black vomit. It sank toward the floor where it swirled restlessly within the constraints set upon it by both the devil's trap and Sam's own power. Sam reached out with his mind again, this time seeking a weak spot within the veil separating Hell and Earth.

Just one little push…

A crack appeared in the floor. He could feel heat rising up from the tear, and for a second he could hear the screams of the damned and smell the reek of sulfur. With one last psychic nudge the demon's smoky essence slipped through the crack, descending back into Hell with an inhuman scream. Sam released his hold on the veil, and the crack slammed shut with a "snap" that was more felt than heard.

As soon as it was over, a sharp, hot javelin of pain stabbed itself into Sam's skull. He reeled backward, groping blindly for the chair, and once finding it, literally fell into it.

"Mother fu...shit!"

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. The room had gone black, and the roar of his own heartbeat deafened him. He fought the urge to panic, and found success there. After all, he'd been in this position before many times, and his senses always returned. This knowledge did not, however, prevent the initial surge of fear as he wondered what would happen if his senses did not snap back. Deaf and blind he'd be at the mercy of any one of hundreds of nasty things that had him on their hit lists. He wasn't afraid of death though, he was afraid of what torture they'd inflict on him before they killed him, torture that could quite possibly follow him into the afterlife.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, Sammy.

For several minutes Sam sat in the chair, head bowed between his knees, rocking back and forth until the pain eased up and both his hearing and sight returned. The pain never went away entirely. It remained to nag at him in his every waking hour, and had done so for many years. He controlled it with prescription drugs and alcohol, prompting more than one doctor to express worries about the damage he was doing to his liver. Sam just laughed at them. One look at a brain scan and they shut up about his liver. He was already a dead man.

Rising from the chair with a bit of a wobble, Sam slowly made his way across the room to where he'd laid out his things on a scarred wooden table. His vision was still blurry, making it difficult to read the labels on the half dozen or so prescription bottles lined up in front of him. He found the one he sought and swallowed a pill with a swig of tepid water from within a plastic cup. Picking up a second bottle, he checked his watch and then shrugged.

"Close enough," he murmured, and fumbled off the cap. His right hand had gone numb again.

Dammit.

He sat down at the table after he took a third pill. Head bowed, elbows on the table, he remained there for some time, trying to pull himself back together. He'd have to get some rest before he moved on to Arco, Idaho. The atlas was in the car wasn't it? Sam had no idea where the hell Arco was located, but he had to get there before another demon squeezed out of Hell.

It had been five years since Lucifer had been dispatched back to Hell. Most of the demons loose in the world had been sucked down with him. During this time Sam rounded up the stragglers, and whenever a new one escaped, he tried to hunt down and seal the place where it had gotten through. He still Hunted the more mundane nasties of course, but his main focus remained the demons. After all, he had a reputation to uphold, and anymore he was one of the only Hunters out there who knew how to handle the damn things. There was still Bobby, of course, but in recent times the old man hardly ever ventured out of his house. He'd be a fool if he did, and if he tried Sam would make him go back home. Bobby's arthritis had gotten too bad for him to go running around popping ghosts and exorcising demons. He was just reluctant to admit it.

Sam levered himself up out of the chair when he heard the boy stirring behind him. He couldn't crash just yet. It was time to get up off his ass again and take care of the demon's young victim. A hospital would look the kid over and call the cops. The cops would get him home. All would be good.

Thank God I found this dump not far from County General. I seriously don't think I could drive any further than that tonight.

I really do look like crap.

Sam lowered his eyes from the rear view mirror and switched off the Chevy's ignition. The slightest of hesitations as her engine cut out warned him he'd better take her in for a tune-up, and made him wonder, not for the first time, why he even kept driving the thing. The Impala's mileage was off the chart, it devoured gasoline like nobody's business and violated emission laws in at least half the country. It was also disgustingly conspicuous, which made lying low from cops, and various other persons Sam would prefer to avoid, a pain in the ass.

I keep her because she's family, and all I have left.

He pushed open the door, hardly noticing the old squeak that would go away with a squirt of DW-40 and return as loud as ever within just a couple of days. He'd no sooner give up the car than he would his life. Anymore the car was his life. It was certainly his home. This ragged old house with the sagging roof was merely a pit stop along the way to nowhere in particular.

Not true, Sam reminded himself, I need to get to Arco before that rift gets any bigger.

First though, he had to get some sleep. His head was pounding despite the meds he'd already taken, but as he staggered in through the door he immediately sought another pain pill and the bottle of whiskey he had stashed in his bag. The pain was such a constant anymore even forced unconsciousness didn't entirely relieve it. A hangover was nothing, he'd hardly notice that, and getting just a modicum of rest of his overtaxed body and mind was well worth the trouble.

He retreated to the living room and threw another log on the fire. The house he'd chosen was just far enough away from civilization that nobody would notice a trickle of smoke coming from the chimney. If anyone did notice and show up at his doorstep, Sam would simply play a little Jedi Master trick on them and convince them they'd seen nothing at all. Using that ability wouldn't help his headache, but it would keep him out of jail. So far he had remained undisturbed.

The sofa was filthy and stunk of mildew, but it was also soft, and by virtue of facing the fire, warm. Sam lay back on it with one arm thrown across his forehead and the whiskey bottle within easy reach at his side. He didn't bother to set an alarm. He rarely slept more than a couple hours at a time, even when he was completely sauced. Being sauced tonight was further away than he desired. He groped for the whiskey and raised it to his lips.

Once he might have felt a pang of remorse, or maybe guilt, over the fact he was drinking too much, but that little voice of conscience had been silenced a long time ago. It wasn't like he was drunk 24/7. He still did his job. He still functioned. The alcohol was simply another entry on the long list of medication he took on a daily basis. It was a pain killer, sleep aid and anti-depressant rolled into one.

Technically alcohol is a depressant, not an anti-depressant. That's a common misconception.

Maybe he hadn't silenced that voice as well as he thought he had.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes. The headache still throbbed, but the edge had been taken off enough that he could almost relax.

Almost.

It was this twilight time between awake and asleep that he hated, when his mind wandered to places he'd rather it not go and things he thought were forgotten came back to haunt him. Even long hours on the road weren't as bad. It was tapping into his subconscious that led to problems. His subconscious mind harbored secrets, secrets revealed during the twilight time. None of them were pleasant.

There was once a time when all the secrets of his subconscious mind, and more than a few memories he might have wanted to keep, were buried so deeply Sam couldn't access them at all. It had taken months, nearly a year, before things started to come back to him. Once the immediate danger had passed, before the long term effects became known, Bobby had joked that Sam had "blown a fuse."

Sam rolled over on the sofa, burying his face in his arm to avoid breathing in the smell of the rotting upholstery. There were many memories he regretted regaining. For a while he had forgotten about the night the Hell Hound came, about Dean's screams, the metallic stench of blood, and the dirt wedged beneath his nails from the grave. He'd forgotten about his own grief. When it returned it was as if the event had happened yesterday, and the memory thrust itself like a dagger into his heart.

Lying there on a rotting sofa, years later, Sam remembered. He remembered Dean's first death – and then Sam remembered his last.

Stop.

He moaned. It was too late. Once the floodgates were open it was hard to stop the memories from bursting forth, just like it had been impossible to keep Hell from escaping through the gaping wound Lilith made between worlds.

"I can give you Lilith."

"Liar," Sam muttered. "Lying bitch..."

It had been the other way around. Ruby, the consummate liar, taught by the master himself centuries ago, Azazel's favorite protege, she'd even managed to sucker Dean by the end. They trusted her.

Loved her.

"Shut up."

And she had betrayed them, leading Sam right to Lilith, and from there, right into Lucifer's clutches.

Sam's stomach churned as he relived the vicious attack. No fancy tat would stop the Devil from taking what had been so carefully prepared for him. Crimson smoke burst from the open portal and went straight for Sam. It had been crimson, not black like other demons, but the dark red color of drying blood, and it burned as it forced its way into him. It had felt as if he'd swallowed a thousand razor sharp needles that ripped and shredded his mouth and throat all the way into his gut. There had been nothing – nothing- anyone could have done to stop it.

While the others – Bobby, Dean, a handful of other Hunters – battled the demons that swarmed out of the pit in Satan's wake, Sam had been waging a war of his own. The battlefield had been inside his own head where he struggled to maintain his position as master of the keep. This had surprised the interloper, who had expected little or no resistance from his vessel. Sam held on to what was his own, refusing to be overcome completely, and instead of rejecting the demon-borne abilities that had led him to this place, he had embraced them.

Lucifer had also not been expecting the power he had helped instill inside his vessel to be turned against him. Instead of giving ground, Sam took it, at one point siphoning off Lucifer's own strength. He treated the Devil as he would any demon possessing a human, with one exception. Instead of "pulling" the demon from its host, Sam concentrated on "pushing" the presence out of his own body, using every bit of strength he had to perform the greatest exorcism of all – upon himself.

Satan fought dirty. Bits and pieces of memory assaulted Sam's mind, little flashes of pain and visions of horrors unspeakable. He had seen angels fall to Earth with wings smoldering from the flames of Hell; friends, family and all the world's innocents brutally savaged to death, their tortured souls writhing, drowning, burning in pits of molten lava; a planet all but destroyed by disease and war. Past, present and future, it was what had been, what was, and what would be if Lucifer succeeded with his usurpation.

Azazel's gift, his sacrifice, had opened the door to the Apocalypse.

No normal human body could tolerate possession by the Devil. His presence was caustic, so poisonous the "meat" would rot from bones turned soft and brittle. Azazel had solved the problem, creating a demonic super human. Sam's body would survive, but so too would his spirit, trapped inside his own head and slowly tormented into madness to feed the master's lust for pain. He'd gotten a taste of it before, but possession by the demon "Meg" held no comparison to this.

Sam knew he'd been successful – obviously. Much of his knowledge of what happened came after the fact, but in the twilight he remembered. He remembered Lucifer's initial surprise at Sam's counter-attack, and the fury that followed upon his recovery from said surprise. He remembered the moment when he started to crumble beneath Lucifer's renewed onslaught, and how in desperation he had begun pulling strength from any source he could find. He drained his own body nearly to its death. Bobby told him later that every living thing within a six foot radius of him died – grass, trees, birds, insects – all sucked dry of their life force.

He moaned in his sleep, recalling the hand that fell on his shoulder, and his immediate thought:

It's all right now. Everything is going to be all right.

Too late he realized what was happening.

Dean!

"Hang on, Sammy. I'm right here with you."

NO! Run! Get away from me!

He'd struggled to let go, to break the connection that was draining his brother's life away. It wouldn't be enough. There was no reason to make that sacrifice!

Then, suddenly, there was pain, and blood, and a surge of psychic energy so great Sam could barely control it. One part of his mind took that power and sent it cascading down upon Lucifer like a tsunami. Another part began to wail with grief and agony, knowing instinctively what had happened.

Ruby.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see her step back, her knife dripping blood. He felt the hand slip from his shoulder. A body fell heavy against him on its way to the ground.

A body – no - not dead yet, but dying and every drop of blood that spilled into the earth continued to fuel Sam's war machine.

"NO!"

There's power in death, in sacrifice. Lucifer made one final push. In blind panic, Sam reached for the last of what Dean could give him and threw it, spear-like, into the maelstrom going on inside his own head.

"Go back to Hell you son-of-a-bitch!"

Lucifer was forced to leave the field of battle, defeated by love and sacrifice. Sam paid the price of victory. His mind, body and soul were damaged beyond repair, but the most valuable thing he'd lost lay cold and lifeless in a pool of blood at his feet.

"DEAN!"