"You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead..." - from "Two of Us" (Lennon/McCartney)

Dean sighed. His breath swirled from between his lips in cloud of white vapor. The blame for the chill in the air didn't fall on any restless spirit, only a cold front making its way East. It was a cold, rainy spring morning just damp enough to make everything inside Bobby Singer's old house reek of mildew, and everything outside slick and muddy. There had been no sunrise. The sky had simply gone from dark grey, to light grey beneath a thick layer of cloud cover.

After a restless few hours of sleep, Dean had woken to the sound of rain on the windows and a distant rumble of thunder. Cold coffee, a couple of pills from an ever increasing collection of pharmaceuticals, and he managed to summon enough energy to get out into the wrecking yard. He'd found a tarp, and secured it over the Impala's busted out windows before retreating back under the cover of the garage.

The damp was getting to him. Even if he hadn't been beat to hell several times over in the past twenty four hours, he'd still be a fucked up mess. His knees and shoulders ached, and for all he kidded Bobby about having creaky knees, Dean's weren't much better. Bobby was twice his age, but Dean had been Hunting far longer. Resurrection and angelic healing mojo couldn't undo everything. Dean was beginning to realize that now. One's lifestyle would always catch up eventually.

Dean raised his head. The rain had become a light drizzle, which was almost worse. He needed to get up and check on the car, make sure what he and Bobby saw when they hoisted her up on the wrecker was true. It had looked as if the old Chevy's frame hadn't been damaged when the demons flipped her. The damage was mostly cosmetic. Dean had rebuilt her from the ground up once before, fixing a few dents and broken windows would be a piece of cake.

Except…

"I'm tired," he murmured. He closed his eyes on the forlorn sight – the battered car with one flat tire sitting crookedly beneath a ragged blue tarp that drooped low in places where water had collected. "I'm sorry, Baby. I just can't."

There had been plenty of times in his life when Dean felt defeated, and even during the worst of them he'd somehow managed to pull himself up and keep going. Sure, it usually took some time and a hell of a lot of alcohol, but he'd managed. This wasn't even one of the worst, though it did rank right up there with the others, and came in the wake of shutting the door on Lisa and Ben forever –that gave it more weight. But it hadn't been a ten-ton weight that broke the camel's back; it had been a straw.

I'm done. I just can't do this anymore. I can't.

Cas hadn't known Dean Winchester long enough to understand what Sam's betrayal had done to him, seen the scars it had left behind. He didn't realize Dean could not trust him, could not believe in his crusade, because Dean had seen it all before. He knew it was going to go bad. Sam and Ruby, Cas and Crowley – and Dean had been right. History had repeated itself, and once again a door had opened that should have remained closed. Only this time it wasn't the Devil they had to stop, but God. The task seemed insurmountable.

That they were alive at all was a combination of luck and bullshit. How Bobby managed to keep cool in the face of Cas' ultimatum still amazed Dean.

"You know, Cas, we're only human, and we're pretty jaded sons-of-bitches when it comes to God. The last God we had left us high and dry. You're gonna have to prove yourself before we bow down and worship you. "

And Cas, still Cas – gullible as hell despite being jacked-up on Purgatory souls and full of himself - had nodded. "I can respect that," he'd replied. "I have business to attend to in Heaven, and when it is complete you will see what kind of God I will be. You will worship me."

Dean had his doubts. Egotistical fallen angels were historically not good for the health and well-being of man-kind. The ruse had worked, however, and Cas had taken off, leaving Bobby and the Winchesters to limp home with their tails tucked between their legs, wondering how the hell they were going to save the world this time.

God. We have to kill God.

Terrific.

The scrape of boots upon gravel made him open his eyes and look up. A shadow blocked what little daylight came through the open garage doors; a tall, broad-shouldered shadow. Like the cold, it wasn't borne of the supernatural, but of something more mundane. In this case it had been borne of a human woman – Dean's mother.

Sam pulled up another chair and sat down. He looked like Dean was feeling – utterly defeated, and all-around shitty.

"Hey," he said hoarsely.

"Hey, Sammy."

They hadn't talked since Sam showed up in time to shove an ineffectual angel sword into Cas' back. Being issued an ultimatum by their new God had left them all a little shell-shocked; conversation was held to a minimum. Bobby took Sam home in a hot-wired Honda and left him there when he came back to meet Dean at the Impala with a tow-truck. By the time they'd come back with the Chevy in tow, Sam had been sleeping, and Dean had been too exhausted himself to wonder if this time it was a normal sleep or not. Later, when he'd heard Sam get up in the middle of the night to take a piss, he figured all was good.

Dean didn't need some sappy emo-fest to fill him in on what had gone down with Sam. One look at his brother told him all he needed to know. Sam's blood-shot eyes, the tightness of his mouth and the worry lines creasing his forehead, spelled it out clear as day – he'd recovered his memories, all of them.

Dean's own memories dredged up a vision of his little bro the morning after a frat party they'd crashed once when Sam had still been in high school. Sam had been butting heads with their father the day of the party and was pretty pumped up when they showed up to join the fray. He'd headed straight for the alcohol and drank more that night than he'd ever done before, so much so Dean had started to worry about the kid ending up in the emergency room. (Unfortunately Dean knew how this would go from his own personal experiences with teenage overindulgence – having your stomach pumped was no picnic.)

Luckily Sam had passed out before it came to that point. Dean finally found him sprawled out on the lawn in front of the fraternity house, lying in his own puke and missing a shoe. At seventeen Sam had finally reached his full height but had no bulk, so Dean simply hoisted him over his shoulder and took him home. John's reaction to this was a weary sigh and a roll of his eyes.

"He'll feel that in the morning."

Looking at him now, Dean figured Sam was feeling a lot more than a hangover. Again, Dean knew from personal experience that even long after the fact, Hell could do a number on you. The agony of Hell was different from anything else a human could experience. You banged your head or broke your arm, and the pain faded as the wounds healed. Pain experienced in Hell tended to stick around for a good long while, as if it seared itself into you – not into your mind or your body – but into your very soul. Sam's case was a perfect example. Soulless, or without his memory, he had been free of the pain. Getting both back equaled the world's most agonizing morning after.

Dean guessed there was a shitload of guilt there too. Sam probably didn't end up playing Dr. Mengele with a razor knife and a bone cutter, but even given the short time Dean had spent with the soulless version, he imagined there were more than a few other skeletons in his brother's closet.

"Flashbacks?"

Sam nodded, running his hands through his hair with a weary sigh. "I came to just now curled up in a ball on the floor. It's like getting blindsided by a bus."

"They'll slack off eventually," Dean avoided meeting Sam's eye. "Give it time."

Of course avoiding eye contact indicated Dean was avoiding something else, and Sam picked up on it – naturally. "But they don't stop," he said quietly. "Do they?"

Dean toyed with a lug-nut that he found in a pile of odds and ends strewn across the workbench. How long had it been since a flashback of his time in Hell stopped him in his tracks? What had triggered it? He couldn't remember. He just recalled the breath rushing from his lungs as if he'd been gut-punched, and the real world vanishing behind a crimson veil.

Alistair's face – the demon's true scarred and savage visage – hovered before him. He smiled, a twisted snarl of a smile, as he threw aside a bloody strip of skin he'd just removed from the inside of Dean's left thigh. He'd been working his way up from Dean's feet, meticulously peeling the skin from flesh as if he were peeling an apple. Not an ounce of skin remained on either leg, just raw and bloody meat. Alistair was nothing short of thorough. He'd removed all Dean's toenails first.

Blood dripped from the demon torturer's hands. His voice dripped honey, though the words burned like acid.

"This next bit is going to be quite painful. But I'm sure you're aware of that."

Thankfully Dean's mind had snapped back to reality before the slicing resumed. Having the skin removed from certain particularly sensitive parts of his anatomy wasn't something he'd wanted to relive.

He wished he had some whiskey. This conversation needed whiskey.

"They will," he said, hoping he wasn't lying.

"But yours haven't."

Dean shrugged.

"You could have told me."

"Why? So you could give me a hug and a cookie and make it all better?"

Sam glared at him. "Don't be an ass."

"I'm just sayin'. It's something I have to deal with on my own, Sam. You can't fight the demons inside my head. Only I can, and you should know that, especially now." Dean paused, and felt a wave of sadness sweep over him. "I can't help you get through this, Sammy, and I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I know," Sam replied softly. "I don't expect you to. Just make sure I don't get hurt when I go down. I don't want to pass out in traffic or take a nose dive into a pond."

"It's that bad, huh?" Dean had never been knocked off his feet by a flashback, and for that he was thankful. He wondered if Sam's bus analogy wasn't actually understating things a bit.

"You know the irony is that Michael was almost harder on me than Lucifer. They were both pretty pissed, but Lucifer had experience with failure, and he'd been locked up before. Michael had more reason to hate me. He was angry and he was frustrated, which made him violent and cruel. Lucifer was…." He winced before concluding. "Lucifer had more patience, and that gave him time to be more - creative."

"Do I want to know?"

"No," Sam said flatly, and dropped the subject immediately. "So what are we going to do about Cas?"

Dean shrugged. "I know one thing, praying won't do us any good."

Sam smiled slightly. "Yeah, probably not."

"He's not going to give up that all-day-sucker he's high on. We're gonna have to hurt him – or kill him."

"If he's as powerful as a God – the God – he'll drop kick our asses back to Hell before we even get close."

"Not a pleasant thought."

"Ya think?"

Dean's shoulders slumped. The ache of defeat gnawed mercilessly at the pit of his stomach and sapped all his strength. His urge to drink or drug himself into oblivion was almost overwhelming, but he stopped just short of calling himself suicidal. That thought was depressing unto itself – death wouldn't be any sort of escape. Cas was in Heaven waiting for them, and the alternative was, of course, Hell.

"This sucks, Sam."

After a moment of silent agreement, Sam spoke softly.

"You know what, though, Dean."

"What?"

"The odds are we'll go down together this time."

The words struck a chord. Dean remembered how his heart ached when the door to Lucifer's cage slammed shut, separating him from his brother for what would probably be eternity. He recalled the terrified look on Sam's face as he realized Dean could not escape the Hellhound Lilith set upon him. The last thing Dean remembered just prior to his death had been the sounds of tearing flesh and agonized screaming; had those screams been his own, or Sam's?

Dying hurt, but it was over pretty quick.

Being left behind hurt worse - and it never went away.

Dean glanced over Sam's shoulder at the tarp covered car. His jaw clenched. His shoulders straightened. With a sudden surge of renewed energy, he stood up and went over to the car, pulling the tarp away with a jerk. Droplets of water flew off in all directions, glistening in the light from a sun finally making its appearance. Dean surveyed the damage.

"You realize," he said. "That after we take care of Cas, we're going after Crowley."

"I figured." A slow smile crept over Sam's face, a slightly dangerous smile. "But I'm guessing not for the whole Purgatory deal."

Dean nodded. "Among a butt-load of other things, I'm going to roast that Scottish prick for screwing up my car." He pointed at Bobby's tool box. "Get me a wrench and help me pull these doors off. I'm not saving the world in a freakin' Honda."