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Swan Song: - An alternative ending.

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Chapter Two

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Dean sat by the hospital bed, his callused hands clasping his brother's. Luckily enough he had calculated the angle of the blade and had avoided injury to any major organs, but his little brother was dosed up to the gills with pain-killers and antibiotics after the surgery to repair the lacerated internal tissues.

For the Gigantor that he was, his brother looked so small and vulnerable lying there and Dean was touched by just what Sammy had been willing to sacrifice to stop the Apocalypse.

Dean's heart always broke into a thousand pieces when Sammy was ill or injured but he could take this over what would have been the alternative. Images of Sam being hacked to pieces and tortured in the most horrible ways just wouldn't get out of his mind. They weren't just imagination; they came from his atrocious personal experience, for he had suffered those self-same tortures for forty long years in Hell.

Playing the torturer instead of the victim for those last few years had been really only another method of torment, especially for him whose motto had always been saving people, not skinning them alive or hacking them to pieces!

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He was perfectly content sitting here at Sam's side; this was the only place he desired to be. When his little brother opened his eyes Dean wanted to be the first person that he saw in order to soothe his fears and comfort him; not some unknown nurse or doctor, however sympathetic they might be.

Oh, the staff had tried to pry him away from his brother's side but they had desisted at the stubborn look on Dean's face. He was staying here until Sam got out, no matter how long it took. There might still be douche-bags out there who could want to harm him while he was lying here helpless.

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He had gone to Stull Cemetery to kill Lucifer but he hadn't really been sure that his plan was going to work, although if it hadn't then he was going in along with Sam. His little brother was the only reason he lived and fought on; without him there would have been no motive to remain on Earth, and for what he had seen of Heaven they could keep it!

It would have been worse than Hell for him there without Sam, knowing that while he was drinking a beer in Ash's heavenly road-house, his little brother was being ripped to shreds by Lucifer.

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He shuddered, letting go of his brother's hand for a moment as he rushed to the bathroom, the acid vomit invading his gullet at the continual pictures of what could have been his Sammy's fate.

A few minutes later he exited the toilet holding a wet towel to his face, but all thoughts of the Cage left his mind as his eyes fell on the figure standing at the other side of Sam's bed.

"Get away from him, "Dean snarled, fiercer than any she-wolf defending its young.

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"Dean. You are angry!" The angel cocked his head to the side as if trying to understand. "You saved your brother and stopped the Apocalypse; you should be happy. I can cure him if you wish," said Castiel as he reached out a hand.

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"I said get away from him. He doesn't need your insta-cure. If he's still here with me now, it's no thanks to you or your feathery friends. I don't want to talk about it, so get out."

"Dean…."

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"No excuses!" He hissed, his voice low and deadly, "Everyone of you was quite happy with Sam's sacrificial-lamb plan to take all the blame on his shoulders and suffer for everyone! All of you; Death, Crowley, your two-faced angel buddies, and although it breaks my heart to say it even Bobby, whom I had thought would have been as set on stopping Sam as I was.

So yes! I AM angry and the only thing I want to concern myself about now is seeing my brother on his feet again, so go back to wherever it is you usually hang out and leave us alone."

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"Dean, your brother's plan was a noble one, no one forced him to do it, but it was honourable of him to want to put the Devil back in the Cage. After all he was the one who let him out," said Castiel incautiously.

Dean's temper which was already at the red-alert level went into overdrive as he circled the bed and grabbed the trench-coated angel by his lapels,

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"Now you listen here and go tell it to your douchey friends. My little brother is the innocent in this whole miserable little story. He asked for none of it, not Azazel, not the demon-blood not all the lies that were told to him by everyone, especially that bitch Ruby. He didn't deserve any of it, okay! So shut up!"

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The angel's face took on a guilty expression for a moment, somewhat unusual for a visage that rarely showed any emotion.

But Dean was a master at picking up on facial nuances; it was part of his job description.

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"What aren't you telling me Cas?" he demanded suspiciously, as the angel averted his eyes.

Castiel could have beaten Dean to a pulp in an instant if he had wanted to, but when he turned his glance back to the human, the sheer power that emanated from Dean's eyes made him shiver.

Dean had killed the Devil against all odds.

Lucifer could be killed by an angel blade although usually the vessel died too, but Sam had survived. Cas now believed that the absent God had not been so absent at all at Stull Cemetery. If this were so, then Dean and Sam Winchester were more enigmatic than he had believed, if God himself who had not answered anyone's prayers, not even the Winchesters themselves when they visited Heaven, had disturbed his exile to help Dean save his brother.

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Cas stared at Dean in awe. He was truly Heaven's weapon.

"I said, what are you not telling me Cas?" Dean's voice was colder than the Antarctic winds that whipped across the bleak landscape of that white continent.

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Castiel confessed to what he had done, the words coming out of his mouth almost of their own volition.

"When Sam was in the panic room, I was the one who let him out, to go and free Lucifer" There he had said it.

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Dean let go of his coat and stepped back, a sneer on his lips. "Well, well, well," he smirked. "The truth is starting to come out, eh? How everyone was in on making my Sammy the scapegoat for having let Lucifer out.

"Et tu, Brute!" You should read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar when you go back to Heaven, Cas. I'm sure you would enjoy it. Now get the Hell out of here while you still can!"

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Dean turned his back on the angel and circled the bed, where he sat down in the chair next to Sam and took his brother's hand in his own.

Sam's closed eye-lids fluttered and he sighed softly as if the touch of his brother had been received and understood. Dean was oblivious to all but the figure on the bed. He wasn't going to waste his time going over who had done what.

His little brother had been betrayed by everyone, even by himself, and as soon as he was out of here, he was going to track down Sam's amulet, and he would get it back even if he had to sift through months of smelly trash.

He owed it to him, and he wanted that ugly little thing back round his neck where nine-year old Sammy had watched him put it all those years ago. At that moment Dean Winchester couldn't have been happier. He was holding the most important thing in the universe in his two hands.

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