Summary: Sequel to "Too Far Gone" (and probably won't make sense without reading that first)

THAT Summary: All at once, Sam's wall cracks, crumbles, then collapses altogether, and he's trapped in a place he doesn't know how to get out of.

Basically... That story ended depressingly and this is a fix-it of sorts

AN- Guys…I'm sorry. I know it's been a really long time, but here's the sequel to Too Far Gone. It actually is a sequel—as in I would highly advise reading that one first, if you stumbled upon this accidentally—and, for some reason, I had a super difficult time writing it, so it probably wasn't worth the wait, so, again, sorry. If you have any suggestions I'm open to changing things (maybe the 7th time's the charm?) ;)—or feel free to write your own sequel. Just send me a link to your take on it and I'll post it at the top here.

Thanks! :)

No One's Ever Too Far Gone

Noise. That's all it was—noise. He's sure it's supposed to resemble words—something even coherent, maybe—but he can't seem to find the strength to care enough to decipher it. Maybe it was the blood rushing through his ears. Or maybe how his whole body felt like it was shutting down. Or maybe the noise was really only noise. Who knows?

Who cares?

It couldn't be anything important. If it was, Their pitch would get higher, the volume would raise, the tone would become more and more angry. So obviously it didn't matter that much. Nothing seemed to matter down here. But there it was—that noise .

He still wasn't able to move anything (not that unnatural, though), but Sam's head slowly began to clear enough that he could make out that the noise did form words:

"Sammy. Sam, you gotta come back, man. I need you. Please, Sam!"

Just another trick. One more illusion to keep him in line.

"Damn it, Sam, listen to me. It's Dean, your brother —no one else is here. Sam, we got you out; you're safe ."

Just more lies… But Lucifer promised to never lie!—oh. Right. Michael didn't...

The voice grew faint and near-indecipherable again as whoever it was ( it can't be Dean ) moved away. Sam realized that he should really be taking advantage of being left alone, and eagerly welcomed the darkness already forming around him, ignoring the one-sided conversation going on in the distance.

"I know, sorry, but it's an emergency... Do you have any of that African Dream Root stuff around?... Cuz I need it... Because Sam won't wake up... Damn it, Bobby, I said 'won't wake up;' not 'dead!'... Motel on the west side of Des Moines... I haven't even tried—kid got big, you know?—I wasn't even sure I should touch him... Yeah, okay, I'll see what I can do; hopefully we'll make it there in a few hours... Thanks."

Dean closed his cell phone and came out of the bathroom, "Sam?" Nothing. "Awesome." He sighed and started to haphazardly throw everything back into their respectful duffels, actually wishing for once that Sam was awake to grumble about Dean's packing skills (or lack thereof).

As he drove, Dean's words to Bobby played over in his head: "Kid got big, you know?" He was wrong, though—so, so wrong. Dean's baby brother didn't just "get" big; he grew up to be big. He's not a kid anymore, as much as Dean may want him to be.

He wants the man behind him to be the toddler that smiled every day because he didn't know what he would be put through in the future. He wants the kid back who looked at him like he was a superhero. He wants the straggly teenager that ate everything in sight and argued non-stop. Hell, he'd even take the college geek he found who looked happy and settled for once.

But no. Those days are long gone, and there's no getting them back. Now they have to deal with monsters and demons and angels— freaking angels —and Dean can't protect his pain-in-the-ass little brother like he promised he would.

Every so often Dean would check behind him; whether it was to make sure Sam was still there or still alive, he didn't know; but at least his chest was rising and lowering consistently. At least he looked calm, even if he wasn't. This way Dean could pretend he was just sleeping, that his dreams were all rainbows and butterflies—or whatever his "good" dreams are—or that Sam was so exhausted he couldn't dream at all.

Dean could pretend .

It could have been because it was 3 in the morning, but Dean managed to hit Sioux Falls an hour earlier than he should have. (Needless to say, it was a good thing no cops were out setting up speed traps.)

By the time the growling car came to a stop, and the driver's door creaked open, Bobby was already on the front porch waiting for him. They shared a grim smile as Dean opened the back door and Bobby came down the steps to help him pull Sam out. As they carried him inside, Bobby watched Dean watch Sam and seriously asked him: "What happened?"

"Hell," replied just as seriously. "Hell happened, Bobby." He briefly looked up at him, then, and in his eyes was the evident worry and fear and helpless look of I can't lose him again .

"Alright, well, let's get him inside. I did up the living room."

Sam was dead weight as they maneuvered his large form into the house and onto the couch; after which both men straightened and looked down at him. "You were right—he did get big."

Dean let out a hollow scoff, "Tell me about it; at least I had help carrying him this time." The older man grunted in acknowledgment and went into the kitchen before coming back to offer Dean a beer. "Thanks," he mumbled.

"Don't mention it. So, do you have a plan?" Bobby asked doubtfully.

"Did you get the dream root?"

"Cost me an arm and a leg, but yeah, I did."

"Sorry 'bout that," Dean replied sincerely.

"Ah, don't worry about it. So. Plan?"

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and shrugged. "Um, kind of…"

"Really," the older man drawled, "Do tell."

"Use the dream root, find Sam, drag him back to reality."

Bobby stared at him, expecting more; when Dean just stared back he incredulously asked, "That's your brilliant idea?"

"Well, I never called it 'brilliant...'" Honestly, he knew it was a terrible idea—he just didn't really care.

"Or fool-proof."

"Or fool-proof," he echoed. He heard Bobby's muttered "Unbelievable," and looked at him sadly. "I don't really care how it happens, Bobby; I just have to see him."

"Yeah… I know." And he did. He understood how Dean felt—he just worried about the lack of a plan (and the fact that that didn't seem to bother Dean in the least). "Go sit down," he gestured towards a chair next to the couch as he turned around and left the room. Dean numbly nodded but remained standing as he stared at his brother, brow creased in worried curiosity about what (or worse: who) he would find in his brother's head.

Bobby's hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his trance, and he took the warm mug from his hand. He looked down at the steaming beige liquid, "Tea?"

"Yeah." Bobby plucked a hair off of Sam's head and dropped it in, "Get comfortable and drink up."

Dean sighed and got down onto the floor, leaning his head against the sofa under his brother's right hand.

Dean took one more deep breath in and out before taking the cup from Bobby and downing the entire thing in one go. He pulled a face at the bitter taste then closed his eyes...

It was empty. Completely empty. No sight, no sound, no smell, no warmth, no cold— nothing . He tried to call out, but his words died so quickly in the vast space it was like he'd never said anything at all.

He stared off into the nothingness, trying to see anything, really, and spotted a door: A deep, (dried-blood-) red color, about 50 feet away. Though who could tell if it really was that far.

Dean took a tentative step forward, hoping for solid ground, and, sure enough, he was rewarded with another platform. He followed it until he was standing right in front of the entryway, and, after considering his options (and realizing he really didn't have any), quickly opened the door and stepped through…

He blinked to get used to the blinding light— light. He could see. Not that he really wanted to, though. As he looked around himself, Dean almost wished for the sensory deprivation back; he was staring at blood-stained walls—fitting for the red door—and inhaled a strong, metallic smell to accompany it. Screams echoed around him and that's when he realized: It was everything he remembered from Hell. And his baby brother was trapped here somewhere. Awesome.
"Sam?" he whispered cautiously. Nothing. He heard the fire crackling around him, heard the screams of tortured souls, but not the reassuring voice he came looking for.
He continued to run through the flames until some time later he came across another door—this time plain white, and emitting a green-tinged fog under its crack. Not ominous at all...

That was probably the worst room Dean could imagine—no, sorry, rooms . It appeared to be only one room, with one door, but there were dozens of them— and Dean knew the only way to move on was to go through them all —every one of which depicted Lucifer and Sam in different types of torture sessions which Dean was sure had actually happened in the Cage. He watched in horror as Sam was pulled apart and pieced back together; as he was burned alive, or frozen solid, or pressed flat, or expanded to the point of explosion. And all he could do was watch, and try to make it past each scene as quickly as possible.

He managed to get around the Lucifer throwing flaming darts in Sam's direction—a handful of them already scattered around the bullseye burned into Sam's bare chest—and opened the door once again…

Into their last motel in Iowa. Into the room he had just driven from not a day ago. Straight into Lucifer yelling at his little brother. Lucifer…except it wasn't…it wasn't Nick, the vessel he'd seen everywhere else; instead, Dean stared at a mirror image of himself in shock and disgust. Even the Other him stopped mid-rant when he walked in, and Dean just caught: "—even that was your fault!"

They silently stared at each other for another moment before Dean's head cleared and he coldly asked Lucifer, "Where is he?"

A smile suddenly widened over the angel's face and he nodded towards the back corner of the room.

"Sam? Sam, where are you?" He knew where he was—Lucifer's "help" aside, it was a small room, and Sam was a big person—but he also wanted Sam to answer him. He wanted the reassurance that his brother wasn't so far gone that he wouldn't talk to Dean.
A weak, "Stop," was all he got in return.
"What?"
"Please, stop. You promised." He sounded broken, and the fact that he couldn't do anything about it ate at Dean.

"He thinks you aren't real," Lucifer—wearing Nick's face again, thankfully—said, grinning. "I trained him pretty good, huh?"

Dean ignored the unsettling taunt and carefully approached Sam. "Sammy? Sammy, please, look at me."

He vehemently shook his head but eventually stopped mid-motion and just barely glanced up at Dean through lowered lashes before darting his eyes back down. "C'mon, Sam. You've gotta believe I'm real."

"As real as you make him," Lucifer stage-whispered to Sam.

"Stop it," Dean snapped over his shoulder. "Please, Sam. You know, we aren't even here anymore," he gestured to their surroundings, "I took you to Bobby's, we're in his living room right now… I wouldn't lie to you, Sammy; not about this.

Sam looked up at him then with obvious hope, like he truly believed him—and then the Devil offered, "I would never lie to you, either," and Sam's face fell.

"Shut. Up! Sam, damn it, you're out. You have to trust me, man. You're safe."

And then Sam let out a choked noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and it went on for quite a while, and either way it sounded slightly hysterical; Dean stared at him, alarmed and confused. "You're talking to a hallucination," Sam pointed out. "Inside my head."

Dean smiled and relaxed, "Yeah, well, I had to, to get you back, didn't I?"

Sam's answering smile—small and sad and probably the first genuine one in years—was one of the most beautiful things Dean has ever seen in this world. "I guess so."

"So… Can we go now?"

Sam looked over at Lucifer for (hopefully) the last time and grinned. "Absolutely."

Noise. That's all it was—noise. He's sure it's supposed to represent jokes and stories and reassuring words, but he can't seem to find the pressure to care enough to decipher it. Instead, he's watching Dean smile and laugh for the first time in months; he's feeling Dean's hand on his shoulder and ruffling through his hair; he's smelling the home-cooked meal that Bobby's putting on the table. So, maybe Dean and Bobby's mouths really are moving for no reason at all; because everything Sam's feeling couldn't be put into words.

And nothing could be more important.

The End

(The End...question mark? ;) was it a better ending this time?)

Okay… *cringes* let me have it. Tell me what's wrong and what's alright. Please?
Either way, thanks for getting to the end! :)