Stay

by gaelicspirit

Season 1, post Shadow. Written for Rooftop Confessions 3 zine. It's not always the leaving that's hard. Hurt!Sam, Hurt!Dean, ghosts, and... an elevator.

Disclaimer: The boys are not mine. More's the pity.

Spoiler: Set in Season 1. Timeline is one week after the events that take place in Shadow.

a/n: This story was written a little over a year ago for the Rooftop Confessions 3 zine, March(ish) of 2008, printed by GriffinSong Press. If you read it there, I thank you! Many thanks to the GriffinSong Press for the opportunity. Rooftop Confessions 4 was just printed and includes stories by some fantastic writers. I am honored to have a story included.

I'm posting this as a one-shot, though it is a bit long. I very much hope you enjoy!

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"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, day and night, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight ... and must never stop fighting ..."

–e. e. cummings

"Our situation hasn't exactly improved."

"Just... gimme a second to think."

"That's gonna take... more than a second." Sam ground the last bit out through teeth clenched against currents of hot pain shimmying down his arm.

"Ha fuckin' ha," Dean panted, forcing his tired, stiff fingers to release the metal gate that lined the interior door of the old elevator and, turning on his heel, dropped down beside Sam's sprawled form. "Lemme see."

Before Sam could protest, Dean had grabbed his wrist, pulling his bloody arm toward him, turning it gently in the wan light, his fingers like bands of iron, his actions a dichotomy of might and contrition.

Gritting his teeth, Sam watched his brother's face in the muted, yellow light drifting down from the bare bulb in the ceiling of the elevator car. The light wasn't effective for much besides casting shadows in the corners of the small space and toying with Sam's imagination. Dean frowned, his eyes raking over the slash on Sam's arm, his brows meeting in pissed-off agreement over the bridge of his nose. Sam felt his overheated body chill at that expression.

"Bad?"

"Well, it sure ain't good," Dean muttered, flashing quick green eyes up to Sam's face. The marks left by the daeva's attack last week had nearly healed, but the purpled paths they'd left behind rippled as Dean's forehead creased. "Don't move."

Sam nodded wearily. Dean stood, shrugging out of his long-sleeved flannel shirt with quick, sure movements, then bent and with steady, concise motions, began to wrap Sam's arm.

"Damn, Sammy," he whispered. "Bitch did a number on you."

Sam stiffened, cursing under his breath against the flash of heat, instinctively pulling away from Dean's sure hands as his brother wrapped the black and tan material around the deep cut that ran from the top of his shoulder to his elbow, effectively filleting the skin nearly down to the muscle and soaking his arm, hand, and chest with warm, sticky blood.

"Hold still," Dean commanded, his voice tight.

Dean gripped Sam's arm, trying to close the wound and wrap it tight at the same time. Sam felt water gather in his mouth, fought back the acidic bile that struggled to the surface in reaction to the pain.

"Ah! Damn, Dean!"

"Sorry." Dean's voice gentled and his touch became lighter as he continued to wrap.

"Wh-what hit me?" Sam swallowed, flicking his eyes up to Dean's tense face.

"Fingernails, I think," Dean growled.

Watching Dean's hands, Sam tried to replay the last few minutes in his head, trying to figure out how he'd let the spirit get that close. His thoughts ricocheted, settling on quick sensations, scattered sounds: the burning slice down his arm, Dean's yelled command to go, move, the roar of the shotgun. Then he was pushed, forced, shoved into the elevator car, landing in a tangled heap of legs, pain, and blood.

Sam blinked, shifting his gaze up to Dean's face. The light in his brother's green eyes had turned almost feral; the person Sam usually saw reflecting there was shadowed by fury. When he was younger, Sam had thought the look in Dean's eyes was anger at him—he thought Dean had been upset with him for bobbing when he should have weaved, dodging left instead of right, basically messing up.

It took watching his father react the same way when Dean had been hurt for Sam to see that it was fear and not anger fueling the heavy voice, the rigid jaw, the sharp eyes. Fear of loss. Fear of losing.

"You're supposed to keep this red stuff on the inside, you know," Dean said, his voice softening at Sam's low groan of pain.

"S-so they tell us," Sam quipped back. "Somebody forgot to tell the spirit."

"This should hold it for awhile," Dean said, nodding with satisfaction at his field dressing of the wound. "But we gotta get out of—"

Just as Dean tied off the end of his make-shift bandage, the elevator car shook, hard, knocking him sideways, off his feet. Sam shot wide eyes around the narrow space, holding his wounded arm against his stomach, his other arm sweeping out to press flat against the wood paneling framing the walls.

Dean rolled quickly to his knees, a curse quaking his lips, silenced by caution. Sam slid his eyes over his brother's crouched form. Dean balanced on the balls of his feet, one hand stretched out toward Sam, the other braced against the floor like a runner in starter position. Dean's eyes bounced quickly around the car, shooting up to the ceiling, then back to the gate-lined elevator door.

"Where's the shotgun?" Sam breathed, afraid to speak any louder.

"Bitch knocked it out of my hands."

"When?"

"Right after I shot at her." Dean looked at him out of the corners of his eyes, and Sam realized that by shoving him into the elevator car to get them away from the spirit, Dean hadn't had time to retrieve their only weapon.

Sam dragged in a trembling breath, heat from his wounded arm sliding over him like vertigo. He rested his gaze on Dean, working to steady himself, his head, his eyes, the hard thrum of his heart. Dean somehow looked… wrong… without a gun in his hands. The elevator car shook again, and Dean went to one knee. They both held still, silent. The barely-healed cuts on Sam's cheek suddenly itched, but he didn't dare move to scratch them. Dean was his benchmark; he wouldn't move until he saw his brother do the same.

The bulb above them flickered, snapping and fizzing as their only source of light lost its valiant fight for survival. The old elevator car was plunged into pitch. Sam heard Dean pull in air. Sam tried to open his eyes wider, hoping to see something... anything. Trying to see Dean.

Black ate black.

Darkness built upon darkness and soon Sam's eyes watered from the need to blink. He licked his lips, shuttering his eyes, wetness seeping from the edges and gathering on his lashes. It was completely silent, save for his heartbeat. He couldn't even hear Dean breathing over the clamoring sound.

Sam felt sweat trickle slowly down the back of his neck, tickling the hairs there and slipping silently beneath his T-shirt collar to chase the length of his spine. He tightened his shoulders. The darkness seemed to grow, absorbing reality. There was no sound. No light. No air... the darkness was killing the air, sucking it up and pulling it away.

He was suffocating.

A sure, steady hand gripped his lower leg and Sam jerked.

"Easy." Dean's voice was low and calming. "Just take it easy, Sammy."

And suddenly Sam could breathe again. Dean kept his hand on Sam's leg, his powerful fingers—so like their father's, Sam realized—tightening reflexively as he shifted. Sam could feel Dean move slightly as he searched for something.

"Wha—"

Two quick shnicks and Dean's face was illuminated by the warm light from his Zippo. Sam felt weak from the uncanny relief of just seeing his brother's face. Seeing his brother's eyes reflect reassurance back out at him. Sweat glistening as it ran down Dean's temple to smear the grease and dirt gathered on his left cheekbone from where it had impacted with a wall less than an hour ago.

"There you are." Dean grinned.

Sam smiled back, feeling the tremble of fear on the edges of his lips. "It's doing this. The spirit."

Dean let the lighter go out.

"Probably," he said, his voice casual in the darkness.

Sam held still, not wanting to inadvertently dislodge Dean's hand.

"Dean," Sam said, cursing the weak shiver of air that wrapped around his whisper. "Those people—"

"They're okay for now," Dean replied, and Sam heard his voice sway as he turned his head in the direction of the elevator door.

Don't go, Sam wanted to call out. Stay. Stay right here. But he said nothing.

"As long as they stay inside that salt ring, anyway."

"That Allan guy—"

"I know," Dean interrupted. "He could be a problem."

Dean's sigh was heavy. The slight increase of pressure on Sam's leg carried with it the weight of responsibility Dean had shouldered so many years ago, going it alone without realizing there was someone else there able to carry the load. That weight increased when innocents were endangered. Even if those innocents were arrogant, loud-mouth, bastards like Allan Foley.

"You think he'll step out of the circle?" Sam asked, swallowing, suddenly thirsty.

"I have no idea," Dean replied wearily. "We told him—all three of them—what would happen."

"Hell, they saw what would happen," Sam said softly, thinking of the fourth member of the party they had been trying to get out of the building.

The small group of people had recounted to Sam and Dean how they had all watched helplessly as the spirit had grabbed Sean Andrews, one of the building contractors renovating the old five-story hotel into apartments. Sam remembered the realtor, Jen, describe how, with a choppy tilt of its head, the spirit had burrowed with talon-like nails into Sean's chest, stopping his heart with a vicious clench of its fist.

The elevator car jerked violently a third time, and without warning dropped several feet, sending Dean lurching to his side, across Sam's legs. Sam's stomach bounced nauseatingly to the base of his throat before settling back into place.

"Shit," Dean spat out, trying to untangle himself from Sam in the dark. Sam heard something crack against the wall next to him. "Son of a bitch."

"You okay?"

"No, I'm not okay," Dean complained. "I've had it with this fuckin' spirit."

"Well, we're not exactly in a position to do much about it right now, man," Sam pointed out.

"Like hell," Dean said, his voice low, dangerous, and Sam felt a chill as Dean's hand left his leg. He held his breath, listening as Dean used the wall to Sam's left to gain his feet.

"Dean, we don't know where the bones are," Sam called out. "We got a hundred year-old, renovated building, three people trapped on the fourth floor, and we're stuck in a broken elevator."

"Thanks for the recap," Dean snapped, and Sam heard his voice traveling away from him as he felt along the walls toward the door.

The threadbare industrial carpet that Sam rested upon absorbed very little sound and Sam listened as Dean's boots marked off space. He knew Dean was trying to figure out how much area they had to work with inside of the elevator car. He'd always counted on Dean's constant motion... and the purpose within the movement.

"Sam." Dean's voice came out of the darkness to rest on Sam's ears, pulling him from his reverie. Near as Sam could figure, Dean was standing next to the elevator door in front of the control panel.

"Yeah?"

"Those letters... the ones on the tail-end of the coordinates Dad sent us..."

"O-T-I-S," Sam supplied.

"Yeah..." Dean's tone was soft with thought.

Sam tilted his head in an automatic gesture of question even though he knew Dean couldn't see his own hand tickle his face in this blackness. He quelled the instant rush of resentment that he'd been struggling against since receiving the coordinates just five days after John had left them, beat-to-hell and bleeding, in the alley behind the apartment building in Chicago. Left them because he was vulnerable with them.

Bullshit, Sam rebelled silently. You just didn't want to stay…

"Otis is the name of the spirit, right? Thought we already discussed this." Sam's tone carried the hard edge of his thoughts.

"Yeah, well." Dean's voice reflected back to him in a muted timbre as he turned his back to the elevator doors and faced Sam. "Don't know about you, but I saw a chick."

Sam blinked, thinking. "Yeah... it's definitely female."

"You know any girl Otis'?"

Sam shook his head, his thoughts jumping like a stone skipped over a still pond, searching for the end point, reaching fingertips of logic toward the solution.

"There's a plaque... thingy above these buttons," Dean said. "Feels like letters..."

"Holy shit," Sam breathed, feeling Dean standing close.

"Didn't some dude named Otis invent the elevator?"

"Elisha Otis," Sam said softly. "Invented the pull system."

"It's the friggin' elevator, Sam."

Sam nodded in agreement, knowing instinctively that despite the pitch-darkness Dean felt it as he felt every response, every refusal, every rebellion, every reaction that Sam had ever made throughout his lifetime. Dean simply listened to him on a different level than the world, than John, than even Jess had.

"Dad was trying to tell us—"

Sam didn't get to finish his sentence.

The car shook again and Sam braced himself against the wall for another plummet, but this time the elevator shot up, fast, hard, jerking to an abrupt stop. Sam bounced roughly against the floor and heard the distinct crack of a body hitting the ceiling then felt the impact as something—an arm?—crashed across his outstretched legs.

Sam ducked, swearing, as the burned-out light bulb and a square of ceiling tile fell away, dropping on top of him. He shook the glass out of his hair and shoved the tile away from him—in the opposite direction than he'd heard Dean land.

"Dean?"

Silence.

"Hey, Dean, you okay, man?"

Nothing.

The darkness felt suddenly thick around him, as if the jarring elevator had shaken murk from the corners, filling the space inside with nothing, yet leaving no room for them. Sam leaned forward cautiously, reaching out and down with his good arm, searching for his brother. His long fingers tracked down the dusty denim of his legs until he felt the warm skin of Dean's limp arm.

"Dean?" he whispered again, shifting so that he could grip Dean's arm, shaking it. "C'mon ..."

Dean's arm twitched under his hand.

Sam felt along Dean's arm to his brother's T-shirt-clad shoulder, wincing as the increased movement reverberated fiery pain through his own wounded limb, causing his fingertips to quake. His hand found Dean's neck, his hair, his ear, his cheek. Blood, unmistakable in its slick stickiness, flowed freely from a gash that Sam could feel paralleling Dean's eyebrow.

Dean twitched under Sam's exploration once more and this time the movement was accompanied by a low groan.

"Hey, man," Sam whispered, relief making him weak.

"Son of a..." Dean moaned.

"Can you move?"

"Yeah," Dean forced out through clenched teeth.

Sam kept his hand on Dean, sliding it from his brother's face to his shoulder, down his arm, and then finally breaking contact as Dean slowly pulled himself to a sitting position, slumping against the wall next to Sam.

"This isn't an elevator," Dean muttered, and Sam felt him shift, his bare arm resting against Sam's. "It's a fuckin' Jiffy Pop popper ..."

"The spirit's haunting the elevator," Sam pointed out helpfully.

"No shit, really? I'm so glad you're here to tell me these things," Dean grumbled.

Sam ignored him. Knowing that Dean's sarcasm usually increased in direct correlation to his level of pain, Sam continued, "If the spirit is focused on us, maybe those girls will be okay up there with Allan."

"Asshole," Dean muttered. "One of these days we're gonna bleed because we're saving someone who actually deserves it." Sam heard him pull his knees toward his body. "I could handle that. Bleeding for assholes is getting old."

"What about the girls ...Jen and Carina?" Sam heard Dean sigh. "We're bleeding for people like them, Dean."

"Always the silver lining with you, isn't it?"

He felt Dean move again in the darkness and heard the shush of his cotton T-shirt rubbing against the wall of the elevator as his brother stood.

"Whoa." Dean's exclamation was heart-lurchingly weak.

"Dean?"

"Gimme a ...gimme a minute," Dean muttered.

Sam reached out to his side and found Dean's legs. Fear stabbed low in his gut at the tremble he felt there.

"Why don't you sit back down?"

"'Cause we're not gonna be able to just ...will ourselves outta here," Dean said, his voice clipped. "Unless you picked up another superpower I don't know about."

"Not lately," Sam said, breathing a bit easier when he felt Dean's leg steady.

"Okay," Dean said, taking a breath. "So ...Dad was trying to tell us that the spirit was tied to the elevator."

Sam felt the muscle in his jaw flinch. "Would have been nice to know before we, y'know, hid in it."

"Nah, Sammy, you were right. This is perfect."

"How do you figure?"

"If it's focusing on us, it'll leave them alone. And we can get rid of it."

"Get rid of it?" Sam's voice was incredulous. "We lost our weapons, we used all of our salt to protect those people back there, and we have to destroy an elevator car. That we just happen to be sitting in."

"I take that silver-lining comment back."

"Face it, Dean." Sam slumped back into the corner, gingerly pulling his wounded arm across his body. "We're screwed." He could feel fresh blood warming the flannel material Dean had so carefully wrapped around his wound.

"No way, Dude. When I'm screwed, I know it."

Sam blinked silently in the darkness, letting the quiet speak for him.

"Shut up," Dean grumbled. "You know what I meant."

"So what's the plan then?" Sam challenged.

"I don't know," Dean tossed back. Sam could hear him moving around the car again. "I'm making this up as I go along." Implied in his pinched tone was the plea to work with me here, Sammy.

Sam sighed. "Okay, well ...aside from the fact that it's tied to the elevator, what do we know about this spirit?"

"It—she—was killed by that Doctor Whosit ..."

"Doctor Rand."

"Yeah, him, back when this building used to be a hotel. We knew he brought a patient with him to stay—just assumed it was Otis."

Sam sighed, rubbing the heel of his hand against his right eye. He was tired. He hadn't slept well since... since the Benders grabbed him. Since they burned Dean. Since they made Dean choose. Sam shivered. He couldn't help but think that sleep might have come easier if John had still been with them. If they hadn't separated. If he had stayed despite what Dean had said.

It was suddenly too quiet.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Just checking."

"You okay, Sammy?"

"Yeah," Sam lied.

"What is it?"

Sam opened his mouth, but closed it again almost immediately. How could he tell Dean something he didn't truly understand himself? How could he explain how in one moment the broken puzzle of his fucked-up life had coalesced into a complete picture with the sight of his father's rugged smile, the feel of his father's arms, and then shattered again with the words you've got to let me go and the image of taillights receding in the distance?

Dean had been just as broken by John's departure as Sam—more so, Sam suspected, as Dean was the one to point out that John had to leave. That staying would only bring him pain. And Sam knew that for Dean, bringing their father pain was worse than anything he would suffer in the meantime.

Sam swallowed, deciding to change tactics. "So, this doctor killed the patient how? By throwing her down the elevator shaft?"

"No, don't do that." Dean's voice pitched low, and Sam heard him lean against the wall to his left. "Spill it, Sam."

"Why?"

"'Cause you're the let's-talk-this-through one."

"You never... spill it."

"Doesn't help me."

"How do you know if you've never tried?"

"It's Dad, isn't it?" Dean said, slicing through the bullshit, through the evasive maneuvers, vectoring in on the target of truth as Sam knew he would.

Sam nodded silently in the darkness. Dean was quiet a moment. Sam knew Dean's head had to be beating a rhythm of pain unique as his own heartbeat. He cringed in empathy. The silence continued for almost a full minute, then Sam heard Dean pull in a breath, deep, as if it might be the last one he took.

"It's my fault, Sam."

"What?" Sam leaned forward in surprise, forgetting his arm for a moment. He hissed at the sharp reminder of his wound and melted back against the wall.

"I called him. I fell for Meg's trap and called him."

"I didn't stop you," Sam pointed out.

"He left me to go hunt this demon, Sam," Dean said quietly. "It was the possibility of finding the demon that brought him to Chicago. Not me—er, us."

He left me ... Sam blinked at that. Dean hadn't spoken about John's decision in any other terms than we have to find him. Sam had often found himself wondering how the departure had ultimately happened. Had there been words of anger and betrayal reflecting the night he'd left for Stanford before the moment John disappeared? Had Dean had any idea that he would wake up alone one morning?

"It's not your fault," Sam said quietly. "He was never gonna stay, Dean."

"I sent him away, Sammy." Dean's voice was soft and resigned.

Sam bounced his eyes around the darkness, wanting, needing to see Dean. But all he saw were the images his mind cruelly tossed before his eyes. John's tired smile when home from a hunt after days away. John's tense face when he and Sam were toe-to-toe about something so important at the time that Sam had felt the words rake his insides with sharp edges as they tumbled into reality. Dean's quiet eyes as he calmed Sam down, talking until their Dad's face lost the lines of anger around his eyes and mouth.

I just want us to be a family again...

"Dean, it's not your fault, okay?" Sam shifted his stiffening back, pulling one leg under him, keeping his arm steady. "You did what you were supposed to do. What he trained us to do, man. You called him because we thought the demon was there."

"It's not the first time I called him. Asked him to come."

The words were soft, the voice low, but something behind them screamed at Sam. A wordless scream that sounded like his brother's soul was bleeding.

"Well, yeah, I know, I mean, hell, I called him after the Rawhead—"

"I called him from Lawrence," Dean interrupted.

"You...you did?"

"Yeah." Sam heard Dean shift against the wall. "I didn't... I was pretty sure it wasn't, y'know, our demon in the house, but... it was something and... I didn't want to face it without him."

"Jesus, Dean, I—"

"But the thing is... I did. We did. You and me."

Something new slid into Dean's tone, pulling Sam's head sideways in question.

"After Jess... Sam, you could have gone. You could have left me. But you didn't. You stayed."

"Well... I had to."

"No, you didn't. You're a good hunter, Sam. You could have gone after the demon, just like Dad. You could have gone your own way."

I would never have made it, Sam thought. Not without you. He sat silently, listening to the quiet sound of Dean's breathing. Matching his own breath to his brother's rhythm. In wonder at the honesty darkness could entice into the open.

"Sammy, you and me..." Dean paused. "You were right when you said it's never gonna be like it was before. I didn't realize... that could be a good thing, y'know?"

"How so?"

"It's my fault Dad's not with us because... because right now... it's more than just him being vulnerable when he's with us. We're better off without him."

"What?!" Sam couldn't have been more surprised if he'd suddenly found himself nailed to the carpet.

He heard Dean sigh, as soft as a confession. When he spoke, his voice was tight and Sam could imagine the grimace of pain folding his brother's green eyes together as blood flowed from his forehead.

"He came to us when he thought it would help him, Sam. Not when it would help us. I mean... don't get me wrong. The man is a hero. And I miss him, man. I miss him like hell. But… he's gotta want to stay. He's gotta believe that we're stronger as a family. Or he'll... break us."

Sam was denied his chance to reply by the violent shake of the elevator car. His silent question of whether Dean was on his feet or not was answered when he heard his brother hit the floor with a curse. Sam clutched his arm to him, his teeth clenched against the bone-deep ache spreading from his wound, across his clavicle and into his jaw.

Cold began to seep into the elevator car. A familiar cold. A chill that warned of old death, of danger.

"All right! This chick is toast!" Dean spat harshly, his voice directed toward the floor.

"Dean?" Sam whispered.

"I'm gonna show this bitch how we do things downtown," Dean growled.

Sam heard him grunt with effort as he stood.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going topside."

"What? No, Dean, you can't go out there—"

"You stay here, you hear me?" Dean's voice had an edge to it that demanded obedience.

But Sam rebelled. "What the hell are you gonna do, huh? You can't shoot her… can't burn her bones..."

Dean was panting. Sam strained to pick up any visual of his brother. The darkness deprived him of even the tiniest glimpse.

"What are you doing? Dean? Dean!"

"Climbing the walls," Dean gasped. "Spidey makes it look so easy."

"And then what?" Sam felt sweat gathering at the base of his throat and along the waistband of his jeans. He felt his fingers tremble from pain. He felt his breath hitch.

Dean was leaving him.

Alone.

"Ya think Spidey can see in the dark?"

"Fuck Spidey!" Sam yelled. "You're not going out there without me!"

"Hey." Dean's voice was once again commanding. "Listen to me. Sam? You listening?"

"Yes," Sam replied sullenly.

"Here's what we're going to do. I'm getting out through the top... somehow... and I'm heading back to the girls and Allan. They're gonna get you out of here, okay?"

"I'm coming with you." Sam shifted his weight to his good arm, leaning forward. He tried to ignore how harshly his body shook with even that little movement.

"You can't, Sam. Not with that arm."

"What about you?" Sam asked plaintively.

"I'm gonna take out this elevator car..."

"How the hell..."

"I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out," Dean muttered.

"This is one of the stupidest ideas you've ever had, man," Sam complained.

"Ain't gonna argue with you there." Dean's voice was strained.

Sam heard the shink of Dean's Zippo and suddenly the room was once again warm—not by the meager flickering light from the flame dancing in Dean's hand, but by the sight of his brother's eyes.

"You look like shit, Sam." Dean grinned.

He was standing, braced, on the rail that ran along the middle part of the elevator walls, his neck bent at an uncomfortable-looking angle to get his head under the still-intact ceiling tile. Blood traveled down the side of his face as if it knew the path—Sam wondered if the crack against the ceiling tiles had simply re-opened the wound inflicted by Meg less than a week ago.

"Thanks." Sam shook his head, unable to tear his eyes away from the light that framed his brother's face.

"These tile thingy's," Dean grunted, keeping the Zippo lit and pushing up on one with his shoulder. "They move pretty easily..."

"Careful..." Sam grabbed the rail above his head, pulling himself to his knees, shifting toward Dean's balanced figure.

Dean glanced at him once. "You stay here. I'll be back. I promise."

"Dean—" Sam's chin trembled. He pulled a breath in. He let the air back out. He stared at Dean.

"I promise," Dean repeated.

Sam started to push himself to his feet, his legs trembling like a new colt. He couldn't let Dean go out there—alone—and face this thing. He had to find a way to fight. He saw Dean open his mouth with the obvious intent to force Sam back with words. He wasn't given the chance.

An arm suddenly snaked down through the hole in the ceiling tiles that had been created by Dean's ricocheting body and reached toward Dean's neck. The skin was grayed and mottled; long, yellowed nails curled like talons as they dug into the exposed flesh beneath Dean's chin.

Sam had time to gasp at the sight of the purplish face and hideous jaundice of the eye that peered out at him from beneath dirty strands of black hair before the Zippo went out, dropping, dead, to the floor of the elevator car. Dean's cry of surprised pain was cut off as Sam heard the spirit pull him up through the loose ceiling tiles and onto the roof of the elevator car.

"Dean!" Sam yelled after his brother. The car shook with the struggle that ensued above him. Sam clutched his arm, working to get to his knees, needing to help and helpless to do so.

"DEAN!"

Dean was gone.

And Sam was alone.

www

The feel of the cold, decaying flesh on the hand around his neck enticed Dean's stomach into performing pirouettes as he twisted to break free from the spirit's grasp. He could hear Sam calling for him, his brother's terrified voice fueling his fight. In a moment of chance, he worked himself loose; the spirit's nails leaving grooves down the side of his neck.

The opened entrances to the elevator shaft in the partially-renovated building filtered pale light down on him from above and up to him from below. Dean grabbed the thick cable that suspended the car in the shaft and looked wildly around for the spirit. He spied her perched on one of the steel supports across from and above him.

"Nimble little minx, aren't you?" Dean muttered, gingerly touching the wound on his neck, thankful that the spirit hadn't had either the time or the leverage to fillet his neck as neatly as she had Sam's arm.

The scratches stung and blood seeped from the wounds, but he'd been lucky. More than lucky; the spirit had given him more than furrows in his neck when she'd released him—she'd given him an idea on how to get out of the elevator shaft. The trick was going to be doing so without joining her in death while also keeping her away from Sam.

Dean turned slightly, wiping his blood-smeared hand on his jeans, and reached for the steel support beam behind him, maintaining his grip on the cable that held the elevator in place. He was forced to stretch; his arms spread wide, his teeth clenched as he worked to keep his balance. The chill that had permeated his thin T-shirt inside the elevator car wrapped around him with sudden vehemence and Dean had one moment to rock back to a solid stance on top of the elevator before the spirit dropped the car down the empty shaft once more.

Dean heard Sam's cry from below him and he flattened his body on the cold steel hoping that when the car jerked to a stop he wouldn't tumble off the side. The car continued to fall and Dean shifted his hope from don't fall off to the car stopping before he and Sam became smears on the basement grunted when the spirit jerked the car to a stop just shy of the bottom floor, then pulled it up toward the top floor with equal speed.

"'S not... a... fuckin' yo-yo..." Dean gasped out as the pressure of movement pinned him against the roof.

The car came to a stop with a head-rattling jolt.

Dean groaned. "This has been fun and everything, but..." He pushed himself to his knees, working to steady his spinning vision. "I'm ready to get off this ride."

The spirit was in front of him before he could gain his footing. She hissed, her fetid breath making him gag. Stumbling to his feet, he stepped back, the heel of his boot tipping off the edge of the elevator car. Dean flung out a hand on pure instinct, gripping the steel support beam above him. Using that grip to his advantage, he turned, stepping off of the rail car, and pulled himself toward the open doors leading to the fifth floor of the old hotel.

His arms began to tremble as he pressed his elbows against the edge of the flooring, maneuvering his suddenly heavy body out of the shaft and into the empty hall. He desperately swung his legs up, gasping, clawing his way forward until he was able to roll onto his back, blinking in the dim neon light filtering in from the street outside.

The hiss of anger was his only warning before the elevator shot up past the opening and then once again plummeted down before bouncing up toward him. Dean winced.

Sammy...

"Hey! Hey, you freaky bitch!" he yelled into the opening for the elevator shaft. "I'm gonna burn you, you hear me? The elevator fun ride is closing down!"

The elevator slowed to a gradual stop on the floor below him. The distinct smell of rot and decay wafted around him, mingling with an unnatural cold.

"Yeah, that's right," Dean whispered. "Stick with me, honey. We'll go out with a bang."

Pushing himself to a wavering stance, he stumbled over the construction materials left behind when the renovation from hotel to apartment building was halted after the unexplained deaths of several contractors. Using one arm as a guide along a dimly lit corridor, he searched for the stairwell. He knew he wasn't on the right floor. They'd left the girls and Allan on the fourth floor, and there hadn't been any construction materials on the fourth floor. He just didn't know how far he had to go to find them.

This demon is a scary son of a bitch. I don't want you caught in the crossfire, I don't want you hurt...

The memory of his father's rugged voice came to him, unbidden. Dean shook his head roughly, the image of John's smile suddenly teasing the edges of his hazy vision. He'd been so happy to see his dad, to feel for himself that John was in one piece, that he'd completely missed what John hadn't said. The meaning behind the words that Dean usually heard loud and clear: I don't want you with me... this is my fight and I don't want you with me...

Dean came across a door, tried the handle. Locked. A sharp-edged shove from behind caused him to stumble past another door. He pulled up short, looking over his shoulder. A small sign reading stairs flanked the door.

"Not such a clever girl after all," Dean muttered, pushing through the door.

A big, black number five painted on a white-washed wall greeted his eyes. He launched himself at the downward stairwell, taking them two at a time. His thoughts tangled his tongue, but he kept talking as if by allowing the words to escape into the open he was fueling his tired legs, propelling his beaten body down the stairs and toward a possible way out for Sam.

"Gotta get Sam out get the people out destroy the car how the hell am I gonna destroy an elevator car? Never mind worry about that later—AH!"

Just as he reached the fourth floor, something grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him roughly back and slamming him against the stairs. Dean blinked in the shadowed passage of the stairwell. The spirit of Doctor Rand's patient stood over him. With a quick, choppy motion, she straddled him. She sat on his chest, impossibly having weight, and reached for his sternum.

"Oh, hell no," Dean gasped out, and in desperation, he swung his sweaty arm sideways, slicing through her image as though it were smoke. When she vanished, he took a breath, not bothering to wonder if the salt on his skin had actually been enough to momentarily dislodge her, and lurched to his feet.

Pulling the door open he practically fell into the hallway, trying to remember thedirection of the room where they'd left Allan and the girls inside of the salt ring.

"Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey," he whispered, glancing both ways. "No, wait, that's jar lids..."

He picked right and started a slow jog... into a dead end.

"Shit!"

Turning, he nearly ran headlong into the spirit, her stilted, stuttering movements raising goose bumps on his flesh.

"Sorry, sweetheart," he muttered. "A little short on time here—"

This time he didn't even feel her skin, her nails, her touch. He was simply in the air one moment then slamming against a closed door the next. The door gave way with the force of his body and he fell to the dusty floor, gasping for the breath that had been driven from his lungs. The spirit twitched into the room, swinging her leg over him once more.

"Guh, damn—"

Dean coughed as his lungs fought for air. His mind was spinning; he couldn't focus on one image, one thought, one sensation. His chest felt flattened, a crushing weight pressing him to the floor. He closed his eyes against the vertigo; his head had completely split open and he was cold, achingly cold.

Suddenly, a white-hot searing sensation shot through his chest, instantly clearing his head, bringing his world into focus. His eyes flew open, wide, and he gasped with the perfect wholeness of pain. She was killing him. She was reaching for his heart; she would crush it while it beat in his chest. And then she would go after Sam.

Like hell...

With a monumental heave, Dean rolled violently to his side, the spirit riding him as though she'd been a rodeo queen while alive. Dean screamed, pain wracking through him as her silent grip drove closer to his skin through his T-shirt. The unexpected blast that suddenly knocked the spirit free rocked him into shocked stillness. He curled slowly onto his side, pressing one hand against his chest and closing his eyes as he tried to remember how to breathe.

What the hell? Had Sam gotten out of the elevator? Found the shotgun?

"Y-you okay?"

It was a woman's voice, trembling more from adrenaline than fear. Swallowing, Dean rolled to his back, blinking through blurred eyes at the figure of the slightly plump, very disheveled realtor standing in the doorway of the room, Dean's sawed-off shotgun gripped in her hands and pointing at him.

"Can you...d-drop the barrel," he managed.

Jen Cooper stared at him another moment, then looked down at the gun in her hands. "Oh!" She lowered the barrel to the ground and took a hesitant step forward. "Holy shit," she breathed, soft brown eyes raking over him. "You look—" She stopped, swallowing as her eyes blinked from his face, to his chest.

"I've had ...b-better days," Dean interrupted, attempting to sit up. He was still having trouble pulling in air. There was an unyielding stitch in his side every time he breathed that he knew from experience meant something was cracked... or worse.

"I'll say." Jen stepped further into the room, carefully reaching for his shoulder, and helped him roll to a sitting position. "Did I... is it... dead?"

"Was already dead," Dean pointed out, pressing his hand flat against the floor and slowly curling his legs beneath him. "But you made it go away, so, uh, thanks for that."

"Well, you were hollering to high heaven," Jen said, bending over to hook an arm under his shoulder and heave him to his feet. "Scared the shit out of us."

"You left the circle," Dean said suddenly.

"Good thing, too," Jen commented, staring up at him. Dean saw that her short, graying ponytail was crooked and there were streaks of black tracing the lines at the corners of her eyes.

"They okay?" Dean asked, his eyes darting toward the open door.

"Carina's a mess," Jen said, keeping her strong hand on his arm as he turned toward the doorway. "Allan's busy worrying about how he's going to sell apartments in a haunted building."

"Friggin' asshole," Dean barked quietly.

"Nicely put." Jen handed him the shotgun when he paused in the doorway, looking down at her.

Dean gripped the still-warm barrel and breathed a genuine sigh of relief. Finally, something to fight back with.

"C'mon," he said. "We gotta get you guys out of here."

He took a step forward, wavering on knees that shook from abuse and oxygen deprivation. His vision went white and he lurched sideways. He felt Jen grip his arm, easily shoving her shoulder under his arm.

"S'okay," Dean slurred as the room tilted beneath him. "M'okay."

"'Course you are," Jen agreed sarcastically. "You look like you stuck your head in a garbage disposal and let it chew down through to your shirt, but I'm absolutely sure you're okay."

His vision steadying once more, Dean glanced down at her. The realtor had struck him immediately as a soccer mom, but he now could see she was the type that would be coaching the coaches on how to play the game. She moved him through the door and he returned his focus to the darkened hallway. Turning left, Jen led them down the hall to the room where he and Sam had left the straggling party of survivors.

The room was relatively empty save a large floor sander, two industrial-sized lights, a stack of leftover lumber, the dead body of Sean the contractor, and the two other people Dean was counting on to help him save Sam. Carina, the twenty-something prospective apartment buyer that had clung to Sam, weeping uncontrollably as he offered her comfort, sat in the center of the circle, arms wrapped around her knees, body rocking quickly back and forth. The fortyish building owner, Allan, who Dean wanted to plug on principle alone, paced the edge of the circle, muttering to himself.

They both stopped moving and looked up when Dean and Jen breached the doorway. Carina gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth when her large gray eyes landed on Dean's bloody face. Allan ran a meaty hand over the top of the strands of greasy black hair that had long ago lost the battle for full-coverage of his shiny, white pate.

"Where the hell have you been?!" He demanded of Dean, his blue eyes pinpricks of panicked anger. "Do you have any idea what we've been through? No cell phone reception in this place, no way to call for help. And you leave us in here with that—" he gestured without looking to the still, bloody body of the contractor in the corner of the room, "—and tell us to wait inside a fucking magic circle of salt—"

"Hey!" Dean barked. "Shut the hell up."

Allan blinked, his teeth clicking loudly as he closed his mouth.

"Are you okay?" Carina's voice trembled softly from the floor. She had yet to untangle the knot of her body.

"Does he look okay?" Jen asked harshly, obviously hesitant to release Dean's arm.

He looked over at her and nodded. "I'm okay," he assured her. "You can let go."

Jen did so slowly, her fingers extended toward Dean's bare arm when she pulled away as if wary of him listing before her eyes once more. Dean stepped to the side, putting a bit of distance between himself and his rescuer.

"Go." He jerked his head toward Carina.

Jen nodded, stepping over the salt ring and crouching down beside the frightened girl, wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulders.

Allan watched, his upper lip curling in a disgusted snarl. "I've had enough of this shit. I'm out of here."

"Stay where you are," Dean commanded, his voice low. He didn't look at Allan, merely shifted his shoulders square, tightening his grip on the barrel of the shotgun.

"Or you'll do what exactly?" Allan challenged, stepping forward, his bulk twice the width of Dean. The toes of his shoes edged the salt ring loose. "You and that other guy ..." Allan raked his eyes down Dean's frame with obvious contempt. "Nothin' but trailer trash hustlers ..." He glanced once over his shoulder at Jen and Carina who stared back at him in shock. "I mean look at them, Jen! I've been telling you this whole time that they got no idea—"

Dean's eyes were empty of all emotion when Allan turned back around. Whatever he had started to say died on Allan's lips in the wake of Dean's stare. Dean felt the muscle in his jaw coil across his jawbone, threatening to crack his teeth. He'd heard worse insults than this his entire life—directed at him, Sam, their father—but he was tired and he was bleeding and he hurt and his brother was still in very real danger and he didn't have the patience to deal with this.

"Listen," Dean said, his tone dangerously controlled. "I may not put on a tie when I go to the office, but right now I'm the only thing standing between you and a shit-ass nasty way to die, so why don't you cut me some freakin' slack?!"

Allan swallowed, taking a step back from Dean.

"What can we do?" Jen asked quietly.

Dean shifted his eyes from Allan to Jen, automatically softening them as he took in the quiet glare she was directing to the back of Allan's head. Taking a breath, Dean used the heel of his hand to wipe some of the blood out of his eye.

"Okay, well, your shot dispersed the spirit for a bit," he said, glancing around the room, "but I don't know for how long, so—"

"Are you kidding me?" Allan interjected. He stepped across the salt ring, bumping Dean's chest with his own, leaning his sweaty face forward into Dean's. Dean didn't budge. "Dispersed the fucking spirit, huh? All you had to do was shoot it and we could get out of here?"

"Allan—" Carina started, but Jen shushed her.

Dean lowered his chin, his eyes cold and deadly. "Don't do that again."

"Why not?" Allan challenged, raising a wiry eyebrow. "What are you gonna do about it, big shot? Huh? What could you possibly do to me?" He reached out and pushed two fingers into Dean's chest right above the shredded marks left behind by the spirit's nails.

Dean felt an instant calm rush through him like liquid gold. It swarmed his legs, belly, arms, and brought his right hand up in a fluid, accurate swing, cracking his fisted knuckles against the underside of Allan's jaw. The big man dropped like a felled oak, a huff of air breaking free from his flat lips.

"That," Dean said, shaking his throbbing hand. He looked at the girls. "I need your help to get Sam out of here."

Jen nodded, instantly on her feet. Carina stared at Allan.

"Is he okay?" Carina asked.

"I could give a rat's ass at the moment," Dean snapped, his eyes finally finding his duffel on the floor behind Carina. "My brother is bleeding and trapped in a haunted elevator. My job is to get you guys out of here—get him out of here—and destroy that spirit."

"How are you—"

"Hand me that bag," Dean ordered.

Carina seemed to break free of her trance and grabbed the bag. She stood, approaching Dean. He reached out for it, setting it on the pile of lumber and pulling it open. They'd left most of their weapons down in the Impala, bringing only what they thought they would need for this supposedly simple salt-and-burn.

Should have known better... when has anything been simple for us...

He pulled out the remaining shotgun shells—four in all—and reloaded the gun that was gripped tightly in his hand like a lifeline. Grabbing his .45 from the bag, checking the clip and nodding in satisfaction that he had a sufficient amount of bullets, he looked over at Jen who stood waiting for orders, unconsciously shielding Carina's seemingly fragile form with her strong shoulders.

"Take this," Dean said, thrusting the shotgun toward her and simultaneously shoving the .45 into his back waistband. Jen grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, shifted the grip to her hand, pointing the barrel toward the floor. "This spirit isn't going to take much longer to, uh, pull itself together, so you need to listen and move fast, okay?"

The girls nodded mutely, their eyes riveted to his face.

"Sam's in the elevator. I'll get the door open for you, but you need to get him out of here, down the stairs, and away from the building."

"What if it..."

"You see the spirit," Dean bit out, feeling the heat of pending battle flash behind his eyes, "you smell anything rotted, you so much as feel a shiver, you shoot. You got me? You shoot first, ask questions later."

"But what if it's you?" Carina asked. "Or Allan?"

"It won't be." Dean shook his head, casting his eyes around the nearly empty room.

Gotta torch that elevator ca ...think, Dean, think... He bent over, groaning a bit as his chest protested and his head throbbed, and grabbed an errant screwdriver, spinning it in his hand like a knife and holding it gripped in a slashing position. What I wouldn't give for my Bowie...

"But, what if it is?" Carina insisted, tears on the edge of her voice.

"Well, if it is, you won't kill us, okay?" Dean snapped. He rubbed his chest over his torn shirt. "Believe me. But you will harm the spirit." He looked hard at Jen. "Do not hesitate."

Jen nodded her head mutely in agreement.

"Okay." Dean took a breath. "First things first." He turned toward the doorway. "People before spirits."

"You gonna just leave him here?" Jen asked, stepping over Allan's unconscious body to follow Dean out of the room.

"For now." Dean nodded, his sharp eyes peering both ways down the corridor before stepping free of the room.

Carina squeaked at that. Dean suppressed the overwhelming urge to roll his eyes.

"I won't let him die," he promised. "Let's roll."

He led them down through the shadows toward the elevator, his back, neck and shoulders tense as he waited for the glimmer of cold, the stench of death that warned of the spirit's return. They reached the opened shaft door, and Dean released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding at the sight of the elevator car.

"Oh, thank God," he breathed. "It's still here."

"Where else would it be," Jen whispered in question.

"You don't want to know," Dean grumbled, shoving the screwdriver into the crack of the door and jimmying the doors apart. "Keep a look out," he tossed over his shoulder, listening as Jen pushed Carina behind her and backed them both up to the wall next to Dean, the shotgun pointed out and ready. Dean shoved the doors wide enough apart that he could peek in.

"Sammy?"

"Dean?!" Sam's voice was weak and rough, as if he'd been screaming and holding his breath at the same time. "You okay?"

"Yeah, you?"

"Helluva lot better now," came Sam's relieved response. Dean heard the smile in his brother's voice.

"Okay, man," Dean grunted, shoving the door further open, maneuvering his shoulder between them and using a combination of his shoulder and his knee to push the doors completely apart. "You ready to get out of there?"

He could see Sam now, thanks to the graying light from the outside. His brother's bandaged arm was nearly black from seeping blood and his boyish face was pale and drawn. There were smears of blood on the walls where Sam had apparently tried to follow Dean's lead out of the top of the elevator, and Dean could see smeared fingerprints in blood, black in the muted light, around the metal gate that lined the doorway.

Keeping his wounded arm against his belly, Sam worked his way over to the doorway. "How you gonna get that open?" Sam asked as Dean shoved the screwdriver into the bottom of the elevator doors, holding them apart.

Dean took a breath, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, ignoring the tremble even Sam could see. "Got an idea," he said, reaching into his waistband. "Cover your face."

Putting his back to Jen and Carina and waiting until Sam had rolled himself away, Dean aimed at the latch on the metal gate and fired. It broke away clean and the outraged screech of supernatural pain that followed the last echoes of the shot sent shivers of dread down Dean's spine.

"Oh, shit," Jen breathed.

"You pissed her off now, man," Sam grunted, scrambling as quickly as his weakened body would allow toward the slim opening between the gate and the elevator door.

Dean reached for Sam's arm, the dread at the base of his spine finding a home in his belly as the elevator car shook.

"Grab my hand," Dean barked when Sam hesitated.

"Dean, she'll—"

"Sam, reach out and grab my hand. Now!"

Dean's vehement words sparked obedience and Sam did as he was told, grasping Dean's wrist with his good arm, pushing off of the floor and launching himself toward his brother. With a heave, Dean hauled roughly on Sam's arm, falling back on his haunches, then tumbling onto his back as he pulled Sam free of the elevator car and on top of him just as the spirit bungeed the car back down toward the basement.

Knowing the spirit wasn't done toying with the two-ton elevator car, Dean frantically pushed Sam off of him, rolling him away from the door.

"Go go go!" he yelled toward Jen and Carina as the cacophonous rattle of the empty car and broken gate roared back up toward them. The women scrambled to the side, ducking and wrapping their arms over their heads. Dean scuttled across Sam's prone body, blocking it from the open elevator shaft.

As the careening car passed the opening, the gate broke loose and shot out like an eight-foot by four-foot bullet, lurching across the hall and smashing into the opposite wall in a clash of metal. Carina screamed. Jen gasped. Sam groaned from the pain that rolling across his wounded arm had created. Dean swore.

"Son of a freakin' bitch!"

He pushed himself roughly to his feet as the elevator shot past the opening once more, plummeting toward the bottom floor, then slowly crept back up to the fourth floor like a tease.

"I've had enough of this shit, Sam."

When Sam didn't reply, Dean bent and turned to him, rolling Sam from his wounded side to his back. There was a swath of blood left from where the flannel-wrapped cut made contact with the floor. Dean gripped the front of his brother's shirt, cupping his hand behind Sam's neck, raising his head from the floor.

Sam blinked up at him through the dusty murk left behind in the wake of the gate-bullet.

"Dude," Sam coughed, "you look like crap."

"Yeah, well..." Dean winced as his eyes roamed Sam's arm. "It's been a helluva day."

"What happened to your shirt?"

"Spirit tried for a heart-to-heart," Dean quipped, easing Sam up to a sitting position.

"Lemme guess," Sam hissed, gripping Dean's forearm as they worked together to stand. "You weren't in the caring and sharing mood?"

"Not so much," Dean replied, holding tight to Sam as his brother wavered against him.

Dean could feel Sam tremble as the shiver of pain shook from Sam's wounded arm through his chest. Sam was just shy of limp in his grip; even the fist knotted in Dean's ripped T-shirt was weak. Dean knew his brother. The only way he was going to keep Sam upright and conscious was to give him something to do. Something to focus on.

"Sammy, you gotta get these two outta here, okay?"

"What? Wait." Sam's hazel eyes sought Dean's in the dim light of the hallway. "What about you?"

"Job's not done, man." Dean lifted a shoulder.

"Then I'm staying," Sam asserted.

"No, Sammy—"

"What about that Allan guy, huh? Let him get them out."

"Your brother knocked him out," Carina said in a small voice.

Sam shot surprised eyes in her direction, then looked back at Dean, eyebrow raised. Dean shrugged.

"Dude, the guy was being an ass. Trust me, you would have done the same thing."

The chill that surrounded them was sudden and severe. Dean reacted instinctively, releasing Sam and turning to face the direction of the elevator. Without Dean's sturdy grip, however, Sam's legs betrayed him and he started to sink to the ground. Dean rotated back to grab him but was knocked off his feet by a harsh, invisible blast of frigid air.

He was pushed past Sam's crumpling form, Carina's cowering figure, but as he slid to a rough stop against the wall, he saw through dizzy eyes that Jen had brought his shotgun up and fired both barrels directly toward the blast of cold, past the sprawling bodies in the hallway, causing the spirit to screech once, loudly, then go silent.

Lowering the shotgun, Jen looked over her shoulder toward Dean with wide, scared eyes.

"Y-you said don't hesitate," she offered.

Dean shook his head, pushing himself slowly away from the wall. His chest ached, his head pounded fiercely, and he tasted blood in his mouth from where his teeth bounced through his bottom lip upon impact with the wall.

"I sure as hell did."

He crawled over to Sam, gripping his brother's shirt and pulling him up and toward him. Sam's head hung back, his eyes closed. Dean gripped the back of Sam's neck, pulling his face up.

"Sam?"

Sam pried heavy eyes open, his gaze hazy and unfocused.

"Sammy, you with me?" Dean shook Sam gently, his brother's head bobbing loosely on his neck. When Sam didn't reply, Dean felt the dread that had settled in his belly tighten into a hard knot of fear. "Sam. Sam!"

Sam blinked, his wide pupils beginning to narrow and focus until Dean found himself able to breathe again.

"Don... don't feel so... hot, Dean," Sam slurred.

"I know... I know, man," Dean said, allowing Sam's head to fall forward onto his shoulder, patting the back of Sam's neck. "We're gonna get you out of here, okay? You just gotta hang in there a little longer."

Dean looked up at Jen. "I need to trust you," he confessed. The words felt like razorblades in his mouth. "I need to trust you with my brother."

Jen nodded. Carina stood, huddling close to the older woman who until five hours ago had been a perfect stranger. Dean shifted his eyes to her, folding them both in with a look that said do not let me down.

He returned his eyes to Sam, pulling his brother's head away from his shoulder. Sam blinked, but Dean could see that he wasn't focused. Dean licked his bottom lip, momentarily surprised by the taste of blood there. Ducking his face against his shoulder, he wiped the blood away on the material.

"Sam?" Dean dipped his chin, working to catch Sam's eyes. "We're gonna stand up. Together, all right? You ready?"

Sam nodded. Dean shifted, slinging Sam's good arm across his shoulders and with a low growl, leveraged them to their feet. Dean shot a look over to Carina who stepped close to Sam, taking on his weight from Dean. Sam seemed to come to himself when Carina's smaller frame melded against him and he blinked, straightening.

"Dean?"

"I'll be right behind you, Sam," Dean promised. "Well... not too far behind you anyway."

He shifted his eyes to Jen, then nodded toward the door. Jen nodded quickly and turned toward the door, gun out.

"No, wait!" Sam tried to turn away, back to Dean, thwarted by Carina's small body.

Dean ran his tongue across his bottom lip, his chest tightening as he watched Sam struggle. "Go!" He ordered, waving a hand toward the trio.

Sam grunted with effort as he tried once more to pull away from Carina, tipping dangerously to the side before Jen grabbed his belt loops and shoved her shoulder against the stairwell door. She shot a look at Dean, then hauled Sam and Carina through the doorway.

Dean held himself as still as possible, watching as Sam disappeared into the darkness.

www

Sam was wrapped in fog. Sounds held an unreal, tinny, quality. He was floating. He couldn't feel his legs moving forward, though he knew they were. He couldn't feel the body against him that he knew held him up. He knew he was breathing, but he couldn't feel the air pass his lips or the motion of his lungs as they filled.

The dark that pressed around them had almost a physical quality, lobbing surreal, nightmarish images toward him like confusing excerpts from his father's journal. He stumbled and the sharp heat that shot through him brought a wicked clarity to his surroundings.

For one brief moment, Sam felt real fear.

The woman against him wasn't Jess; the person leading the way wasn't Dean. What the hell? He tried to pull up, to stop, but the small hand clutching his wrist, bracing his arm, resisted, pulling him forward.

"Where's Dean?" he croaked.

The woman in front of him looked back over her shoulder. "We're almost out, Sam."

"Where's my brother?" Sam asked, trying again to pull up, surprised when he was once again denied.

"We left him," said the girl positioned under his arm.

"What?" This time Sam was able to stop moving. And suddenly he remembered. The coordinates, the old building, the dead contractors, the people inside when no one should have been there, the spirit, the pain in his arm, the elevator, Dean ...

"We gotta go back," Sam said, trying to pull away. The world tilted under him causing Carina to gasp and clutch at his chest to keep them both upright.

"I promised your brother we would get you out of here, Sam," Jen said, reaching back and gripping his belt loops, propelling her young charges forward and to the emergency exit.

"I can't leave him—"

"You already did," Carina panted.

"Carina, stop," Jen snapped. "Sam, you're barely on your feet. You need help. Now."

"But Dean—"

"Told me to get you out," Jen finished. "And I don't intend to let him down."

As she barreled through the door, a shrill alarm vibrated the air around the exit. Sam blinked against the soft light of the early morning; the sun hadn't quite taken the edge of the horizon, but its tendrils of light crept across the brightening sky with hungry fingers. Carina breathed a sigh of relief and Sam felt her release him.

Determined to stay upright, Sam pulled the brisk morning air into his body, feeling it stir through his tired lungs, drive his blood throughout his body. He clutched his wounded arm across his chest and stumbled forward, away from the building, toward the curb across the street... and the Impala. The large black Chevy sat where Dean had left it last night, its gleaming metal body dewy in the morning light, waiting for them to return from battle.

Sam leaned up against the hood of the car, sinking slowly to his knees, and then rocked back to sit with his head resting against the front quarter panel. He just needed a minute... just a minute and he would go back, get Dean, get rid of this spirit. Then they could get in the Impala and get out of there. Just like they always did. Just like they were supposed to.

Dimly, Sam could see Carina pacing directly in front of the building door. Jen stayed near her, holding Dean's shotgun in one hand and a cell phone she seemingly produced from thin air in the other. Sam blinked. He breathed in. He breathed out. He blinked again. The buzzing in his ears increased and spread to his lips, making them feel numb.

We left him... He left me to hunt this demon… I just want us to be a family again... It's my fault... We left him... He has to want to stay... We're better off without him... I'll be right behind you... We left him...

"—bulance is on its way, Sam, okay?"

"What?" Sam swallowed, tearing his eyes from the exit and rolling them up to peer at the wild, graying hair framing the gentle, motherly face and brown eyes that were peering down at him in frank concern.

"The ambulance is on its way," Jen repeated.

"I gotta get my brother out of there," Sam said, ineffectually trying to regain his footing.

Jen stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. "I think Dean can take care of himself."

Sam lifted shattered eyes to hers. I know... that's the problem. "That's not the point," he argued.

Sirens silenced further protest as a cadre of lights hit the far end of the street. Jen seemed to suddenly realize that she held a sawed-off shotgun in her hand.

"Oh, no," she breathed.

"Here." Sam reached under the front wheel well, pulling out a magnetic key. "Put it in the truck."

Jen hurried to do what she was told, returning the key to Sam with wide eyes.

"You guys were serious about doing this for a living," she said, jetting her eyes back to the trunk.

"'Course we were serious," Sam said tiredly. "But, uh... I wouldn't mention that to the cops."

"Why?"

"It would be bad."

"Define bad..."

Sam looked over at Carina who had shoved an unlit cigarette in her mouth and stopped pacing long enough to stare at the flashing lights.

"Try to imagine life as you know it coming to a screeching halt and an endless stream of skeptics and believers replacing the friends you used to have."

"Right. Bad. Got it." Jen swallowed, looked from Sam to the approaching lights.

Sam closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the Impala. Dean… How the hell was Dean planning on destroying the spirit if it was tied to an elevator car? He had nothing that could destroy the spirit... no back up... nothing...

I should call Dad...

Sam felt himself falling inside, tumbling into the waiting arms of quiet dark, unaware of the approach of the medics, the shift of his pliant body from the street to a stretcher, the insertion of a saline IV to raise his dangerously low blood pressure. He just knew that at some point he felt better, the rotation of the earth slowed to a manageable spin, and he was able to finally open his eyes.

Sam was slightly shocked to find himself staring up at the inside of an ambulance. He started to push himself up—stopped by a large, black arm.

"Whoa, where do you think you're going?" The voice was deep and the words rolled off the EMT's tongue like warm molasses.

Sam shifted frantic eyes around his surroundings. Okay, doors are open, we're not moving... I can still see the Impala...

"How long was I out?" Sam asked frantically, looking over at the muscular medic who was taking his pulse.

"Oh, I'd say about twenty minutes or so," the medic replied, nodding with approval at Sam's vitals. "You lost a bit of blood, son."

Sam looked down at his arm. Dean's shirt was gone and a large, white gauze bandage covered his arm from shoulder to elbow. He curled his hand into a fist.

"Hurt?" asked the medic.

"Not really." Sam shook his head. The ache was still present, but the fiery pain had receded to almost nothing.

"Good—they'll give you something more at the hospital. After they sew you up."

"Where's my brother?" Sam tried to shift off of the gurney.

"He one of the hostages?" the big medic queried.

Sam looked over at him. "Hostages?"

The medic nodded, writing something on a clipboard, then turning to slide the clipboard into a slot secured on the wall. "The lady with you and the other kid said that you were being held hostage and you three managed to escape. Seemed pretty shaken up about it—couldn't even give a good description on the bad guy."

Sam rubbed his hand over his face. He had to get back in there.

"Police are probably going to want to talk with you," the medic commented, reaching to pull the door closed.

"Wait!" Sam stopped him. "We can't leave yet."

The medic frowned. "Why's that?"

"I can't leave without my brother."

"I'm sure he'll be fine, kid." The medic tried again to close the door.

Sam launched forward, tethered only by the IV in the back of his hand. He grabbed the medic's shirt front. "I'm not leaving without my brother," Sam stated, his voice flat, his tone leaving no room for argument. "We're staying."

The medic swallowed, his eyes on Sam's, seeing something there that changed his mind. He swung the door back open and wordlessly helped Sam to the end of the ambulance, fixing the bag of saline on the edge of the door.

Just as Sam looked up at the building's emergency exit, an upper window shattered. He watched with silent dismay as the falling glass was followed by a plume of billowing smoke and the unmistakable sound of someone screaming in pain.

"God, I hope that's not a hostage," the medic whispered.

Dean...Sam reached for his IV.

www

The stairwell door closed quietly behind the retreating forms of Jen and Carina as they led Sam away from danger. Dean took a breath.

"Great, Dean ...just ...friggin' great." He turned from the stairwell and walked stiffly past the elevator opening, the twisted metal gate, the frosted windows that allowed pearly strands of dawn to seep into the dim corridor, back toward the room where he'd left Allan. "No, no, you go... I'll stay behind and... what? Destroy a spirit with leftover rock salt and a screwdriver?"

He scratched at the blood drying on his cheek. Otis. Thanks a lot, Dad. Think this one falls under the 'need to know a little more' category...

Dean paused to lean against the doorway of the nearly-empty room, somewhat surprised that Allan was still unconscious. He didn't think he'd hit him that hard. Pushing himself away from the doorway, Dean approached the big man's still form. He tilted his head, peering at the man's slack face. He shoved him slightly with the toe of his boot. Allan grunted.

"I knew it." Dean shook his head. "Faker."

"Hey, you guys left me," Allan complained, peering up at Dean, salt particles sticking to the side of his fleshy face.

"Oh, so, what?" Dean asked, stepping back over to his duffel that rested on the pile of leftover lumber. "You thought you'd play dead? With a spirit? Think she's got you beat in that game, pal."

"Where are the women?"

"Out."

"Out?!" Allan shot to his feet. Slightly surprised by how fast the big man could move, Dean tossed the empty gas can at him. Allan caught it against his chest.

"Yes. Out. Fill that back up with the salt from the circle."

"You fill it up." Allan started to throw the can back at Dean.

Dean turned on his heel, advancing on Allan so quickly that the big man tripped over his own feet trying to get away. Dean felt his jaw tighten as his fists clenched, the bruised tissue stretching tight over bone. He wanted to pound on this guy. He wanted to bruise his ego, break him.

"Listen to me very carefully," Dean said through clenched teeth. "I can get out of here. At the moment I'm still willing to take you with me. You want to change that, just say the word."

Allan swallowed loudly and Dean's upper lip bounced in disgust.

"No, no, that's okay. Fill the can, got it." Allan edged along the wall past Dean, then bent down and started to scoop the salt from the ring and into the narrow opening of the can.

Dean could hear him muttering complaints and obscenities under his breath. He ignored him, turning back to face the empty room, resting the urge to lean against the wall. His head ached through his jaw down into his neck and he was bone tired. He hadn't slept well since...

Allan's terrified voice cut into his thoughts. "Oh, shit ...shit shit shit."

Dean shot his eyes over to the opening. The spirit stood in the doorway, head tilted to the side, peering out at them through one yellowed eye. Dean swallowed, thinking furiously.

"Give me the salt," he whispered harshly to Allan.

"...shit shit shit shit ..."

"Allan!"

"What?!"

"Give. Me. The. Salt."

Allan thrust out the barely-filled can with shaking hands to Dean. It fell between them as Dean reached for it. The spirit flashed further into the room. Keeping his eyes on her twisted, shuttering form, Dean bent, grabbed the can of rock salt, and with a heave shot a spray of salt toward the figure in a wide sweeping motion.

With a quick, ear-splitting screech that caused Dean to flinch, she dissipated. Dean turned back to Allan, tossing him the can.

"Finish it," he said, heading for the door. "We're running out of time."

"What?! Where the hell are you going?!"

The spirit was venturing further from the elevator, jumping floors, finding them. Dean had to move fast. He had to figure out a way to burn the source of the spirit—the object that bound her here. But... how was he going to destroy two tons of metal? He shoved his hand into his jeans pocket, fingering the rectangle shape of his Zippo. Fire alone was not going to do the trick. He was going to have to amp it up... burn it brighter and hotter than any salt-and-burn they'd done before...

"I gotta make a bomb," Dean grumbled over his shoulder.

He looked left: mangled elevator gate, elevator shaft, stairway exit, the way out. He looked right: doors. A seemingly endless hallway of doors.

"One of these has got to be a supply closet," Dean muttered to himself.

Approaching the first, he tried the handle. Finding it locked, he reared back and kicked it open. Empty. Pulling his bottom lip into his mouth, letting his tongue worry the cuts there, he tried the next door. It opened, but was also empty. Three doors down he found what he was looking for.

"Yahtzee."

Dean stepped into the maintenance room, running his fingertips and eyes across the jugs, spray cans, and jars on the shelves, reading the labels, searching his memory for formula's or jerry-rigged solutions that he'd witnessed his dad figure out on a moment's notice. He moved around the packing boxes and materials, trying to find something that might work to burn an elevator car.

"C'mon, Dean," he chided himself. "What would MacGyver do? Gotta be a roll of duct tape and a Campbell's soup can around here somewhere..."

When his eyes lit on an actual roll of duct tape, he laughed. Turning in a circle he saw ammonia and borax on the shelf of cleaning supplies, but no baking soda. Okay, so... no bomb that way...

Stepping over the packing material, he accidentally kicked a can of gasoline. Frowning, he looked down.

"Why the hell would they have gasoline in a supply closet?" he wondered aloud.

His memory shot back to the floor sander in the room where he'd left Allan. Maybe...Picking up the can, he remembered a hunt...several years ago... Sam had been staying with Pastor Jim recovering from a broken arm...John had used gasoline and... something else... created a fire hot enough to burn through the metal cage wrapped around a coffin secured in a mausoleum...

Dean frowned, rubbing at the blood drying and matting his eyebrow. As the memory continued to tickle the back of his mind, his eyes rested on a shelf of industrial-sized hand soap and large bottles of Draino. Dean narrowed his eyes.

What was it Dad had said about mixing homemade napalm...

"I got all I could." Allan's voice suddenly behind him caused Dean to jerk in startled surprise.

"Jesus Christ," he whispered, pressing his hand against his sternum. For a big man, Allan was fairly stealthy.

"What are you gonna do with duct tape?" Allan snorted derisively.

Dean shot him a look, telegraphing his loathing. "I got a few ideas."

Allan stared at him.

"Look," Dean sighed. "Keep the salt, okay? Get out of here. If you see the spirit, use the salt to dissipate it."

"What, that's it? Salt? You're sending me out there with just...salt?"

"Hey, I'm fresh out of proton packs here, Dude," Dean said, grabbing a discarded Snapple bottle from the trash can without a lid, shook the remnants of the beverage onto the floor, then filled it part way with gasoline. "You want out? I'm not gonna stop you."

Dean felt Allan's eyes on him as he grabbed one of the pink shop rags from a pile and stuffed it deep into the bottle, then used the duct tape to seal off the top, leaving part of the rag hanging out like a fuse.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to firebomb the elevator." Dean looked up at Allan, his quick grin not meeting his eyes. "Get rid of your little spirit problem."

"You're gonna do what?"

"Not like you can sell many apartments with the homicidal spirit of a mental patient haunting your elevator system."

"We'll just wall the elevator back up," Allan said, stepping in front of Dean as he attempted to exit the room with his Molotov cocktail, soap, drain cleaner, and gas can.

"Oh, you mean like before? So the spirit can just wait until the next suit comes along and renovates?"

"Yeah." Allan nodded.

"Dude, get the hell out of my way," Dean growled, shoving his shoulder into Allan's soft chest. He started down the hall toward the elevator shaft.

"Wait!"Allan called after him. "No, wait, you can't do this."

"Watch me," Dean grumbled.

He reached the shaft and set the supplies down next to the twisted remains of the gate. Grabbing the drain cleaner, he started to turn toward the elevator when he felt the swish of a hand reaching for his back. Dropping the bottle, he turned, reaching behind him for his gun, but blamed exhaustion, headache, and that Allan was a friggin' ninja, on the fact that he wasn't fast enough. Allan stood in front of him, Dean's .45 pointed at his face.

"Are you kidding me?" Dean snapped. "Put the gun down."

"You're not setting fire to my building," Allan stated flatly, flicking the safety off of Dean's gun.

Dean swallowed. "Allan, this spirit can and will kill us both if I don't destroy this elevator car. Listen? You hear that? Sirens. We burn the elevator car, the fire department puts out the fire, few minor repairs, you're gold."

"You have any idea what fire damage costs?"

"You have any idea what it feels like to have your heart crushed inside of your chest?" Dean retorted. "'Cause that's what this bitch will do to you. It's what she did to your contractors. Hell, she tried to do it to me."

"I'm spraining something trying to care," Allan retorted.

"Aw, screw this," Dean muttered, turning from the barrel of the gun and grabbing the drain cleaner and soap. He poured them on the floor of the elevator car, then turned back to the gas can, ignoring the gun Allan kept trained on him.

"Stop," Allan commanded.

Dean didn't spare him a glance. He started back toward the elevator car, unscrewing the cap of the gas can as he went.

"I said, stop!" Allan yelled, and Dean swore he heard the click of the trigger before the boom of his gun jerked his back tight in an automatic reaction and a hot bead tugged violently along the outer edge of his right shoulder.

"Son of a bitch," Dean cursed, dropping the gas can and grabbing for his shoulder, stumbling against the wall next to the open elevator door.

Red fury blinded him. He didn't even recognize the roar that built low in his gut, erupting from his lips in an explosion of anger. He turned to Allan, striding up to him and splattering blood across the man's chest as he swung his wounded arm, knocking the gun out of the building owner's hands.

Allan attempted to back up, to raise his hands in surrender, but Dean was too far gone. Grabbing the front of the big man's sweaty shirt, Dean shoved him up against the far wall next to the window, and in the light of the dawning sun, proceeded to pummel him, words snapping in time to the blows of his fists.

"Fuckin' selfish bastard! We nearly get killed saving your worthless ass… thinking of your goddamn building when people are dying around you... dealt with people like you my whole life... sick of it..."

"Wait... wait... uh, please, okay, I'm sorry..."

Allan's messy tears brought Dean back to reality and he stepped back, breathing heavy. His hands trembled, his knuckles raw and bruised. His right arm throbbed in time with his heartbeat, in time with his head. He couldn't seem to catch his breath. He stepped back from Allan, trying to swallow, trying to steady his hands.

He could see his body shaking as if he were suddenly separate from himself, watching someone else drive their fists into this man's now-bloody face. As if it were a physical, visible act, Dean pulled his anger back to him, wrapped it into a ball, and shoved it down inside, behind impenetrable defenses he'd spend a lifetime creating. He rolled his shoulders back as he pulled in a breath.

"Stay," Dean panted, pointing to Allan.

He turned back to the elevator, picking up the gas can, and poured the contents over the sticky, gelling mess covering the floor of the elevator car, trying not to gag, watching as the chemicals twisted and flowed over each other like mercury, creating a bubbling, flammable liquid. He threw the can in once it was empty, stumbling back as the fumes threatened to overwhelm him. Digging his Zippo from his pocket, he grabbed the glass bottle and, with a glance over at Allan's still-cowering form, lit the end of the rag. He stepped back near Allan, at an angle from the elevator entrance and out of the blast zone.

He threw the bottle toward the open elevator car, and several things happened at once. The bottle smashed against the far wall of the elevator, igniting the napalm-like concoction and shooting an intense heat out into the hallway that was followed quickly by a severe cold as the spirit railed against inevitable destruction.

Dean's only warning was Allan's gasp before the spirit slammed into him, knocking him away from Allan and propelling him to the floor. Smoke billowed and poured from the elevator entrance, filling the hallway and choking the men inside. Dean twisted away, but the spirit's weight seemed to grow as her anger was fueled by the fire that was annihilating her.

Dean heard Allan break out the window behind him, heard the big man gasp and wheeze from the poisonous smoke, and then the spirit's hand slammed into his chest. Just as before, Dean felt the constriction, the pressure, the intense pain as her nails dug in, reaching for his heart. He screamed, unable to dislodge the spirit, stop the pain.

His thoughts scattered, regrouped, then shook loose as he felt her nails find purchase, digging through his skin, digging to his bone. He wanted desperately to breathe, wanted to move, but he was frozen and burning, pressed flat into the floor, suffocating.

And then suddenly, she was gone.

Rolling slowly to his side, curling his arms against his chest, Dean whimpered. He couldn't open his eyes, the smoke was too harsh. He couldn't move, he was shaking too hard. He simply rolled his back away from the searing heat of the elevator car as the fire that saved his life ate through the metal of the elevator car and consumed the cables that had held it in place.

With a mighty groan of mangled metal, the car dropped—this time in a free-fall that wouldn't be stopped by the whim of a spirit. Dean cringed, ducking his head toward his chest and curling into a ball as he heard it crash against the unyielding floor of the basement and then cried out as the answering sweep of heat shot up through the chimney-like elevator shaft.

Dean's mind fired commands in half-spoken sentences. Sparks of thought snapped and fizzled behind his eyes. On one level, he knew he had to get Allan out and away from the smoke. He knew he needed to crawl toward the stairwell. He knew he needed to return to Sam. But something was broken inside of him, denying him the ability to obey even his own commands.

Forcing himself to move, Dean crawled toward the window where he'd last seen Allan. The smoke was thick, oppressive, and Dean's coughs wheezed from him with bone-shaking ferocity. Tears of retaliation poured from the corners of his eyes and he felt blindly along the floor. No Allan. Just his .45. Dean turned, sliding the gun into his front waistband, and pulling himself forward by his left arm toward the stairwell, hoping that Allan had done the same.

Even assholes deserved a chance to live.

By the time he reached the stairwell door, Dean's coughs wracked through him so hard he wasn't able to do much more than press his face into the swiftly-warming floor. Sam ...He'd made Sam a promise, told him he'd be right behind him. He'd be damned if he was going to leave his brother now.

Reaching out with a shaking hand, Dean pushed weakly at the door, surprised as hell when it flew open to expose the sound of coughs and curses.

"Dean!"

"Sam—"

"I'm here, man."

Hands, Sam's hands, on his arm, his shoulder, the back of his head.

"W-what ...took you ...so long?"

"Stopped off for a saline cocktail."

Shaking, coughing, thirsty for air... he needed to move, to crawl to Sam. His brother's fingers flexed across the back of his neck, his shoulder.

"I... I c-can't..."

Help me, Sam.

"I'm trying, Dean."

"I got him, I got him, kid..."

The rich voice was foreign, unfamiliar, and welcome. New arms wrapped around Dean's back, pulling him swiftly through the door. He still couldn't open his eyes and his legs had apparently decided that now would be a good time to quit, thank you very much. The stairwell door cut off the majority of the smoke and Dean felt the rasping wheezes of breath rattling in his chest ease as he was half-carried, half-drug down the stairs.

"Holy shit, Dean, your chest is a friggin' mess and what happened to—did someone...did that bastard shoot you?"

Dean's eyes felt swollen from tears and smoke, but he pried them open. Peering through slits filtered by his lashes, he saw Sam in front of him, his arm wrapped in white. Rolling his head against his shoulder, Dean realized that his left arm was across the massive shoulders of a man that made Sam look small. Swallowing and trying to keep his legs moving forward, Dean managed to trip them both.

"Ease up, kid," the black man said, his voice rumbling against Dean through his chest. "I got this. You just work on staying with us, y'hear?"

Dean nodded and allowed himself to be maneuvered down the stairs, keeping his eyes on Sam.

"Allan," he croaked.

Sam didn't slow, tossing his words over his shoulder. "He'll be fine. Looks like someone broke his nose, though."

"Me," Dean wheezed.

"Good." Sam's reply was laced with wicked satisfaction. "Son of a bitch was outside screaming his freakin' head off about arresting you for setting fire to his building while I could still hear you screaming, man."

"Nice."

"Did he shoot you?" Sam repeated.

"Yeah." Dean coughed.

"I am going to kick his ass," Sam growled.

"Get in line," Dean retorted.

They pressed flat against the second floor stairwell as firemen in full gear passed by them, heading up toward the smoke and flames.

"There's a... body," Dean managed.

Sam picked up his effort. "There's a body of a contractor on the fourth floor—first room down from the elevator," he called to one of the firemen as they passed. He was given a nod of understanding, and they continued on.

"What about the... terrorist?" the medic asked as they reached the first floor and headed to the emergency exit.

"Huh?" Dean rolled his head on his neck, looking over at the medic with blurry eyes.

"You take care of... it?" Sam asked.

"Yeah... toast," Dean said, blinking in the harsh brightness of the morning light.

Sam looked over at the medic. "Bad guy is cooked, man."

Dean ignored the medic's grunted disbelief. He concentrated on breathing, on the fact that he was out of the building, he was alive, the others were alive, Sam was alive. Looking around with tired eyes, he saw flashing lights, sirens, heard voices, calls, engines, felt the mist of water from the massive fire hoses... and Sam.

www

Leading the way back to the ambulance, Sam cast several anxious glances over his shoulder at Dean. His brother looked beat to hell. Scary beat to hell. Sam wrenched the door of the ambulance open and teetered on his still-wobbly legs as the medic sat Dean on the bumper.

"You—in there," the medic said to Sam, pointing to the gurney. "My boss would have my ass if he found out what I just let you do, blood pressure like yours."

"What about Dean?" Sam asked, holding the door tightly. He was pretty sure he would be okay if he let go... but he wasn't anxious to test that theory.

"Joe!" the medic called to another EMT who was talking to Carina.

"Yeah?"

"Gimme a hand with this guy."

"Holy shit, Hughes!" Joe jogged over to the trio at the back of the ambulance, shooting worried eyes to the big medic. "You just pull him out of that fire?"

Hughes jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Sam. "This kid didn't give me much of a choice."

Sam watched as Dean sat, slumped and silent, his eyes closed, his shoulders shaking with exhaustion, pain, and the effort to breathe. Joe and Hughes climbed into the ambulance, creating a chair out of their linked arms behind Dean's shoulders and under his knees, lifting him up and setting him on the gurney cross-ways so that his feet rested on the floor and his back melted against the inside wall of the ambulance. Hughes turned to Sam.

"Need a hand?"

Sam nodded. In minutes, he was sitting on the gurney next to Dean. He felt his brother tilt sideways, resting his left shoulder against Sam's right one. Sam took a full breath for what seemed like the first time in twelve hours.

The two EMTs moved around them, fastening oxygen on Dean, re-hooking an IV up to Sam, taking vitals, cleaning and wrapping Dean's shoulder and head, checking the gouges on his chest, speaking to each other in the coded language of the medical profession. The brothers sat silent, responding only when questioned directly. Sam felt Dean grow heavier against him and pressed back, offering support.

"These the last two from the building?" a voice called from the entrance to the ambulance.

"You're gonna have to question them later, Chief," Hughes informed the new voice. "We gotta get this guy to a hospital pronto."

Sam watched Hughes jerk his head in Dean's direction and slid tired eyes to the back of the ambulance. He could see a blue uniform, but not much else. He looked back at Hughes, watching as he took Dean's pulse with a frown.

"What about the tall kid? Leave him behind, catch the next bus," the blue-uniformed man suggested.

"No," Sam and Dean replied in unison, though Dean's refusal was muffled by the plastic oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. Sam felt him shift as he reached up a trembling hand and pulled it away from his mouth.

Hughes looked at the brothers.

"He's staying," Dean asserted.

Sam nodded his agreement.

"Guess you got your answer, Chief," Hughes replied. Joe jumped from the end of the ambulance, shutting both doors with a solid slap of metal against metal.

"The car," Dean said, looking over at Sam.

Sam looked at Hughes. "Will our car be okay here?"

"Yeah." Hughes nodded. "One of you... well, you," he amended, nodding to Sam, and putting the oxygen mask back over Dean's face, "can catch a ride back for it later today after you get checked out."

He turned to the front and grabbed his CB, calling in orders as they pulled away. Finishing the orders, he hung the CB up, glanced at the brothers leaning against each other and back against the wall behind them, then climbed into the front seat, leaving them alone for the moment.

"Jen told the cops we were being held hostage," Sam said in a low voice meant only for Dean.

"She gonna convince Carina and Allan of that, too?" Dean rasped, his words rattling in his throat before filling his mouth and resting on Sam's ears. He pulled the mask away again and looked over at Sam.

Sam saw the green of his brother's irises shine out of his red-rimmed, soot-framed eyes like beacons of light. He nodded. "I think she'll either convince them of that, or convince the cops that Carina and Allan are nuts," he said with a chuckle.

Dean coughed into his fist, curling forward a bit, the corner of his mouth tipping up a bit in agreement.

"What did you use to torch the spirit?"

"Homemade napalm," Dean said, his grin widening.

"What?!" Sam's eyebrows shot up in shock.

"Saw Dad make it once..."

"When?"

"That hunt we went on when you broke your arm," Dean said, gingerly touching his wounded shoulder.

"Broke my... Dude, that was like... ten years ago."

"Yeah, so?"

"You remembered something Dad jerry-rigged once on a hunt ten years ago?!"

Dean shrugged, tapping his temple. "Like a steel trap."

Sam leaned back, closing his eyes. He felt Dean rest against the wall beside him, their shoulders touching once more. In the dark of the elevator, Dean had revealed a truth that Sam knew he'd avoid in the glaring light of day. Working his tongue against his teeth, Sam tried to think how he could bring Dad up again, how he could try once more to reassure Dean that he didn't blame him for John's leaving them again. That it wasn't his fault.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't worry so much."

Sam opened his eyes and looked over at Dean's sooty profile. Some people had hard-wired personalities, Sam knew. His brother was one of them. Protector to the end.

"I'm not... worried."

"Uh-huh."

Sam sighed, looking down. "I'm not, I'm just... I just wish..."

Dean subtly pressed his shoulder harder against Sam's. "Sammy, listen. Job's done. Dad's... Dad. We take care of the things we can take care of." Dean opened one eye and looked over at Sam. "And we survive the rest."

They were silent for a moment.

Sam glanced over at Dean. "You manage to keep your phone with you in there, Fire Marshal Bill?"

Dean chuckled, pulling his phone from his back pocket and handing it to Sam. "We lost the extra duffel."

"You keep your gun, too?"

"What do you think I am, huh?"

"We're gonna have to figure out how to explain that when we get to the hospital," Sam said, staring at the cell phone screen and working to type a text message with one hand.

"Already there, Sammy," Dean said, sliding the gun from his front waistband into the slot on the wall behind the clipboard. "You'll just need to come back to ambulance number, uh... 53... to get your cell phone."

"But I didn't—oh." Sam nodded. "Good thinking."

"What are you doing?"

"Texting Dad," Sam said, rotating the screen to show Dean.

"6847... 47... 86278? What kind of a phone number is that?"

"It's not a phone number." Sam grinned.

"Well, they're not coordinates." Dean pulled his eyebrows together in confusion.

"Nope." Sam's grin grew wider.

"Sam, if you're pissing me off, then—"

"It's a message... " Sam said. "Thought maybe Dad could figure out the cryptic for a change."

Dean looked at the screen again. Sam watched his eyes shift to the letters painted above the numbers on the keypad of his phone.

"Otis is toast?"

Sam nodded, his grin folding his dimples deeper into his cheeks. Dean laughed softly, pressing his hand against the remnants of his T-shirt.

"I dare you to hit send." Dean coughed.

"Oh, no worries," Sam said, pressing the green 'send' button.

Dean laughed again. "Your ass is grass, man."

"Dude... it's your phone," Sam pointed out.

"Oh, terrific."

"Hell." Sam shrugged, closing his eyes. "If it gets him to call us again... I don't really care."

"Yeah," Dean agreed.

A comfortable quiet settled between them for another moment.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

Sam felt the pause this time. He felt it as if silence held weight.

"Thanks for staying." Dean's voice was almost a whisper.

Sam waited for a moment before speaking, thinking about the one person who had never left, the one person who was the constant for the family, the one person who gave him, who gave their father, someone to come back to. He reached out and clapped a hand on Dean's leg, letting it rest there for a moment, letting Dean feel the reassurance of contact that Sam had felt inside the darkened elevator.

"Always," Sam replied.

---

a/n: It was nice to go back to Season 1 for a bit and remember when the boys were troubled, angsty, but without the world's weight on their shoulders.

Starting next week, I'll be posting my 3 Virtual Season stories. Each story is in four parts. After that, I'll start with Desolation Angels, which is also set in Season 1. Other than the occasional tag and some zine stories… I might hang out in Season 1 for a bit.

Might.