17

Summary:

That Dean sold his soul is taking a serious toll on Sam, and their relationship is strained until it breaks. Sam won't stop trying to find a way to save his brother and in the process is losing himself. Post AHBL.

Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own the copyrights to the Boys. But thank you Kripke for such fab characters and letting us play in your universe!!

Rating is for some bad-boy language.

My first Supernatural, my first submitted. Hope you enjoy!

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Six Months

Chapter 2

Sam pulled out his cell and quick dialed Dean. The lights of the Impala were just disappearing in the distance as the phone rang. When it switched over to voice mail Sam fumed.

"Dammit Dean, we need to stay together," he said.

He called again. Again he got the recording.

"Dean will you answer me?"

"C'mon Dean, come back here."

"I'll just steal a car and follow you. You know that."

The next five messages would have made a sailor blush. Sam glared at Dean's name in the cell's phone book. Dean had probably shut his phone off and likely wouldn't listen to the messages for a good couple hours.

He couldn't believe Dean had left him in the middle of night, in the middle of God-knew-where. Did he think Sam was working insane hour after insane hour because he wanted to work himself into a stupor every night? While Dean hustled and drank, Sam plowed through everything he could lay his hands on that was even remotely related to demons and deals. The loss of Ash and Caleb and Pastor Jim, and all the others—so much damned knowledge lost. All Dean wanted to do was drink and look for the next hunt. Anytime Sam tried to engage him in conversation about breaking the deal, Dean would change the subject or clam up and stew, or crank the music louder. Sam had finally given up trying to get any help out of him. Even so, he'd sworn he'd stand by his brother through it all, and he would find a way. He had to. He just couldn't bear to lose his brother too. If Dean were just to die, that would be horrible, but he could have eventually lived with that. To know that Dean would go to Hell—forever—oh, God, no. Not that. Not for him. Sam grabbed his duffel and the precious computer from the ground and looked around. Tabitha—that was her name, wasn't it?—had a small white pickup truck. That would have to do. He strode toward it. He'd catch up to Dean and knock some stupid sense into his jack-ass of a sibling. This wasn't the time for them to be apart. Time was too short and too precious.

When Sam reached for the door of the truck, he heard a woman's voice whisper in his ear, "Wouldn't do that, Boy."

Sam jumped and looked around, his hand going to the knife inside of his coat, but no one was beside him. The porchlight came on and a woman waved at him. "C'mon, Sammy," she called to him. "You're not going anywhere tonight."

Sam ground his teeth, looked once more at the truck, then gave a frustrated sigh and headed up toward the woman. She'd already gone back inside by the time he climbed the stone steps. He pulled open the screen door and walked inside the cozy house. The wooden screen door thudded close behind him.

"Ma'am?" he called out.

"In the kitchen, Young'un. Come on in and have some coffee with me. And shut the door, if you don't mind. Bit of a nip to that air tonight."

Sam closed the door, flipped the deadbolt out of habit, and carried his belongings into the kitchen. An older woman, probably in her late sixties or early seventies sat at the table, two steaming coffee mugs in front of her. A sleek black cat lay on the table by her arm and watched Sam with a calm, green-eyed gaze. The woman was slender and light wisps of blonde highlighted her short silver hair. She wore a celtic knot necklace with a red stone in its center and a gold ring with some design Sam didn't recognize. She was dressed in a wrinkled tie-dyed t-shirt, sweatpants, and slippers. Sam glanced around the simply adorned kitchen and saw the clock. It said 3:15.

He stood dumbly, trying to get his brain around the fact Dean had left him at a stranger's house at 3:15 in the morning. Hell, he didn't even know what city he was in, let alone what state.

"I guess you know Dean and my dad?" he finally asked.

"Sit your tired butt down, kiddo." She waved him to the chair across from her. "Yes. Sorry about John."

"How did you meet them?" Sam asked as he set his two bags on the floor and slid into the chair. He was surprised to find his knees didn't bump the underneath of the table and that the table was at a comfortable height to lean on. It's wooden top was scarred and stained through years of abuse.

"Oh, Pastor Jim sent John my way once I'd retired from hunting," Tabitha said as she scratched her cat's ears. The cat's purr vibrated the table.

"You were a hunter?" Sam asked, surprised. He realized that he thought old hunters just simply went on one-too-many hunts and that was it. He had never really considered anyone managed to live through it to retire.

"Oh, yes," Tabitha said. She took a sip of her coffee and seeing his expectant look, continued. "My parents were killed by a wight. A hunter tried to save them but was only able to save me. When I was fifteen, I tracked the hunter down and started learning the trade. I stopped when I was sixty-five and a nasty little poltergeist almost did me in. That son-of-a-bitch put me in the hospital for four months. I came out of it blind in one eye," she tapped below her bloodshot right eye, "and it left me with a limp that needs a cane if I go very far. I decided it was high time I retire and become a consultant." She chuckled. "Or sometimes a baby-sitter."

Sammy scowled at her jibe.

She laughed. "You've got the same hurt look your daddy would get when I poked fun as his ex-Marine butt."

"Ma'am, I really need to go after my brother," Sam said as patiently as he could. He dredged up one of his best puppy-dog looks.

"No, you really need to spend a few days here and get your priorities straight," she said, ignoring his pleading face. "Dean-O will be busy doing research and sorting out a strategy to handle the ghost he's after. He won't need you for a good few days, and I'd wager a little apart time might do you two a world of good."

"How would you know what we need?" Sam snapped, his pensive, pained look gone in an instant.

She straightened suddenly and snapped back, "You take that tone with me again young man and I'll show you I can still put a brat over my knee no matter how big he is."

Sam blinked, a sudden chill going through him as she had "that tone", the one his father would use when Sam and Dean were getting into trouble and a belt across the bottom was only one more infraction away. "Yes, ma'am, sorry, ma'am," came out of him before he realized it.

"John certainly did a good job teaching you boys manners," she said, pleased. "Now just cool your jets, Sam. Dean will be fine. He won't be hasty without you there at his back." She motioned to him to try his coffee.

He stared at the creamy mocha and reluctantly sampled it. It was just the way he liked it and a hint of a vanilla aftertaste added that little extra soothing goodness.

She pushed herself to her feet. Sam gaped, certain she matched him in height. She pulled out some plates, put some cake on each and after half a dozen seconds in the microwave, slid a piece of warmed gingerbread in front of him with a healthy dollop of whip cream. After setting a small bowl of whip cream on the floor for her cat, she returned to the table with her own piece of cake. The black cat wasted no time in getting to the bowl of whip cream.

"Now Dean tells me he brokered a deal to bring you back from the dead. And that you are obsessed with trying to break that deal," Tabitha said, and waved him to start eating.

Sam nodded mutely as he slowly cut off a piece of the gingerbread with his fork. He watched as a dribble of cream crept down the side of the warm cake.

"And you've got some bit of talent you think came from the demon blood."

"He told you that?" Sam gasped.

"Of course. He trusts me. He wouldn't have left you here if he didn't. Now you listen up, Sammy. Your mom had the gift, so I really don't think any demon blood caused it. The demon blood might have made you a little stronger, might have made it so you could use it easier, and it surely made it easier for that yellow-eyed bastard to track you, but plenty of folk have the gift without it coming from a drink of demon blood."

"He said I was one of his. And I'm the only one left of that generation," Sam said quietly.

"And God's gift to you is choice. It's still your choice, Sam. Everyone has two destinies, one dark, the other not. That choice will always be yours. Sometimes it can be awfully hard to see the two paths until your partway down one or the other and the right choice just isn't always the easiest choice."

"It seems to be getting harder," Sam said. He still remembered the pleasure he felt when he put the bullet into Jake. He still savored that feeling and part of him knew he shouldn't. Every time he destroyed a ghost or other evil, that feeling of joy seemed to well up inside him and fill him. And every time, he saw the concerned look in his brother's eyes.

"Yes, I imagine it does. You've been pushed awfully hard down that dark path. The more that comes between you and Dean, the harder it will be to keep coming back to the light. The two of you need to resolve your differences. You need each other."

"I know." Sam said with a sigh. "You said you knew my mom?" Sam asked her, looking up from his cake and meeting her blue eyes. He slid a bite of cake into his mouth. His eyebrows lifted, startled. Man-oh-man, he'd forgotten how good gingerbread really was.

"Not well, but I'd met her," Tabitha said with a nod.

"Mom, she knew the demon," Sam said.

"Really? How do you know that?" Tabitha asked, surprised.

"The demon showed me the night she died. She recognized him. Was she…a hunter?" He really didn't know anything about his mother, and at this point, the news wouldn't surprise him.

"Sweet little Mary? Heaven's, no," she said with a laugh. "At least, if she was, I didn't know about it. I do know she had gone up a big bad evil once though, helping a friend in trouble. Sounds like the evil was one and the same."

Sam considered this and wondered if maybe, just maybe, her death wasn't all his fault. Maybe whatever she had done had marked her and therefore him. "Was the friend you?"

Tabitha shook her head. "No. It was the hunter who saved my life, who trained me." She paused to take another bite of her cake then said, "Dean's worried about you, Sam. You know that."

Sam leaned back, frustration clear in his voice as he spoke. "I just don't understand. He doesn't seem to want me to find a way to break the deal. He hardly helps with the research. All he wants to do is hunt the next big bad to raise its fugly head."

Tabitha took a long, slow sip of her coffee as she studied him. "I've spent a bit of time here and there with that brother of yours. I imagine it's his way of dealing. He's as scared as you, I'm sure. Probably worse. If you haven't been there to talk with him, even about the next hunt, he's probably having a hard time coping. Eternity in Hell is a mighty long time. Enough to scare anyone into fits. Looking for a way out just throws it up in his face that his times running out."

"But I've got to find a way to save him. It's all my fault. I didn't make sure he was dead and he got up and I felt the knife and then…then I woke back up, and Dean…." Sam swallowed back the sudden emotion he tried to keep locked securely away in a deep closet of his mind. "Dean told me what he'd done. What's dead should stay dead. He always says that, and he could hardly deal with the fact Dad went to Hell to save him, and hated that he had to carry that burden, and now he expects me to and, oh, God, I just—he's going Hell because of me and he's a good man, a good soul and—" Sam struggled to stop the sudden babble of words spewing from him like a geyser.

"Sam," Tabitha said, reaching across the table and taking his hand gently in her own. "Just take a deep breath. What's done is done and can't be undone. You have to look ahead."

"He's got six months left. He's only got six months!" Sam said. He fought back his tears as he clutched her hand.

Squeezing his hand reassuringly, she gave him an understanding smile. "You all have had a tough road you've had to walk. Well, it wasn't the smartest of Dean, but at least he bought a bit of time, a far sight better than John managed."

"And that time is running out." Sam pushed himself to his feet and began to pace. "I haven't found anything, not really. Legend and lore, but nothing that's a deal breaker." He turned and faced her. "You were a hunter. Do you know anything, anything at all that might help?" Sam asked, this time the pleading in his eyes reflecting the very anguish in his soul.

Tabitha gave a shrug. "I know my share of magicks, of strategies, of secrets. When a body deals with devils, the honor of the oath will foil most blades aiming to sever the deal. Let me think on it. Now you finish that cake and let's put you to bed. We'll both think better on a few more hours of sleep and a good breakfast in the morning."

"I'm hardly going to sleep after the coffee, ma'am. And my brother needs me. I need to be on my way."

She waved a hand. "Bah. That's decaf, m'boy. I'm not allowed the real stuff anymore. And Dean will be in Nekkers late tonight. He's not going anywhere that he'll need you. And you'll sleep just fine. Your bedroom is through the door under the stairs and the bathroom is beside it. This house is on consecrated land and has more sigils and protection runes than ol' Solomon put in his book. You can sleep in safety and comfort. And that bed in there? Made for us tall folk." She winked and pushed herself to her feet. She slid her empty plate and mug into the sink and picked up the empty bowl the cat had eaten from and set it beside the others.

"If you're not going to finish your cake, git, young 'un. To bed. Way past your bedtime."

"I'm 24. I don't have a bedtime," Sam said.

"Okay, way past my bedtime and I have the hearing of a hunter. You creep around or tippy-tap on that computer and I'll be awake in an instant. To bed. That's an order, young man."

"No," Sam said firmly. "I need to go after Dean."

She stepped up to stare eye-to-eye with him, her blue eyes fairly blazing. "Now you listen to me, Samuel Winchester, your brother will be fine. We will deal with this in the morning. Maybe I can come up with something that might help, but you need sleep and I need sleep. Chasing after your brother in the middle of the night isn't going to help anything or anyone. Now you get your butt to bed. Do I make myself clear, young man?"

Sam's lips pressed together. He felt dead tired and honestly, he knew he wouldn't get more than a few hours on the road before he'd have to pull over and get some sleep. "Yes, Ma'am," he finally said, relenting, as a yawn crept out of him. All his energy just seemed to drain away as he picked up his belongings, and slowly shuffled into the next room and the bedroom beyond.

For the first time in months, Sam found himself drifting slowly into wakefulness. Muscles he didn't realize had been wound tight as springs seemed to have uncoiled and he felt relaxed. His stomach rumbled loudly and he realized not only did he have to piss like he hadn't gone in ten days, but he was hungrier than he could remember being in a long time. The window showed it was still dark outside and he made his way to the bathroom and took care of business. He didn't want to wake the old lady, but he really felt like he needed a good hot shower, so he turned the water on and climbed in.

After his shower, he wrapped the tan towel around his waist and turned to the sink, pleased to find a razor and shaving cream set out for him. When he started to shave, he paused, looking at himself in the mirror, maybe really for the first time in weeks. When had his cheeks gotten those hollows? When had his chest gotten so thin and his body so gaunt? The stitches he'd gotten from the nasty wound he'd taken in the fight with the skinwalker on their last hunt were due out three days ago. He just hadn't gotten around to it, and the black thread suddenly looked gruesome to him. He dug around until he found some small scissors and nipped the threads then pulled them out. It was going to be a wicked scar. It had been stupid on his part, he reluctantly admitted. The skinwalker shouldn't have gotten a piece of him like it had. When he went down, Dean nearly lost it. From Dean's angle, apparently it had looked like a lethal blow. Sam washed over the scar, then wiped his face clean of the remaining shaving cream. Maybe Dean had been right. Maybe he had lost his edge. He'd just been so damned tired for so damned long that anything beyond doing research and backing up his brother on a hunt just didn't matter.

The smell of bacon distracted his mind from his somber thoughts. He peeked out the door and saw that the kitchen light was on, and he could hear Tabitha clanking pans and talking to her cat, who was apparently named Gutenburg. He slipped back into his bedroom in just the towel, shut the door, and turned on the light. His clothes had all been washed and neatly folded by his duffel. Hell, even his duffel bag had been washed free of the musty smell it had taken on recently. He growled, troubled that she'd taken it upon herself to paw through his belongings. And when the hell had that happened? It couldn't be later 6 or 7 AM. She must have snuck in as soon as he'd fallen asleep and taken his stuff, and then been up the rest of the night washing them.

"Well, what's done is done," he muttered and after dressing, repacked his duffel. Everything seemed present and accounted for. He screwed down his annoyance and headed into the kitchen.

"Ma'am?" Sam said, standing at the door to the kitchen.

"For God's sake, Sam, my name is Tabitha. Or my friends will sometimes call me Bitty."

"Yes, ma'am. Tabitha," he corrected himself, then asked curiously. "Bitty?"

She looked over her shoulder and grinned at him. Her hair glistened, freshly washed and was still dripping. "Yes, a joke about my height." She wrinkled her nose. "I'm sure you understand."

Sam laughed a little and nodded. "Oh, yeah. Do I ever. What time is it?"

She waved at the clock. "Five A.M."

"I only slept for 2 hours? It sure felt like more." Sam said. He eyed the coffee, grabbed a mug sitting on the counter, and poured himself a cup.

"No, Sam. More like 26."

"What?" he gasped, nearly spilling his coffee.

She laughed. "I thought for certain I'd wake you with my puttering about yesterday."

"I gotta get going after Dean. How could you let me sleep-" Sam said, hastily setting down his coffee and heading for the door and the bedroom beyond. The door slammed shut before he quite reached it.

"Hold those horses." Tabitha said sternly. "Dean called me yesterday. He's fine. The library was closed yesterday, it being Sunday. Today's the first day he'll been able to get into any records. I told you, you've got at least a few days to catch up with him."

He spun on her. "You slammed that door, didn't you?"

She grinned mischievously. "Funny thing about this house. Sometimes doors just open and close of their own accord."

"You did it, didn't you?" he demanded. Sam suddenly felt naked without Dean by his side. Frankly, he was surprised he'd slept as well as he had. He hadn't ever slept well when he was away from his family, at least not until Jessica. How could Dean leave him here with someone clearly with power like this? What if she was dangerous? What if she was like Ava? What if she'd turned since Dean had been here last?

She gave a slow shake of her head. "Now you know, there sure are times I wish I had Missouri's talents. Must have been some interesting collection of thoughts racing through that brain of yours, if your face was any indication. Yes, I have a few small talents, but they aren't from any psychic abilities. Not like yours anyhow. So just calm down and stop looking at me as if I'd just grown horns."

"How do I know you haven't? You can shut doors without touching them, you can whisper in my ear from across the yard. You went through my stuff. And why should I believe Dean called you when he didn't call me?"

She looked heavenward and shook her head. "You raised yourself quite a son, there, John. I can see now why you and he butted heads all the time." She began stacking pancakes onto a plate. When she finished she turned to face him. "You want to go? Go. Don't let the door hit you in the ass. Dean left you here because he thought maybe I could help. If you don't want that help, suits me. I've got plenty of other things I can be doing. But don't think you'll be stealing my truck or anyone else's in this town. I can see to that, just out of spite, m'boy." She gave him a tight smile. "As far as your duffel, it stank to high-heaven. You had socks stuffed in the bottom that had practically petrified. Definitely putrefied. And Boy, didn't your father teach you to keep your knives sharp? If you had to cut anything more dangerous than butter, you might have been in trouble. I took 'em out to the garage and gave all a much needed sharpening. John would have had a fit if he'd seen those knives. And if you don't believe Dean called me, right there is the caller ID. Check it yourself. His was the last call I got."

Sam walked over to the caller ID and hit the review button. Dean's cell number was there, at 9:31 pm last night. He felt his stomach clench and stared at the blue linoleum floor. "I'm sorry, Tabitha. I-I'm all twisted up inside. Every fiber in me screams I need to be going after my brother. I don't want him out there alone. I don't want…" he trailed off.

"…to be alone either? Like you'll be in six months?" she asked gently.

He swallowed hard and nodded.

"C'mon. Nothing brightens a man's spirits like a good breakfast," she said and waved him into the dining room, then picked up the plates of fresh pancakes and bacon.

After she set the plates on the table she turned and, shaking a finger at him, she scolded, "And I just have to get this off my chest. Your weapons are your lifeline. You don't take care of them, they can't take care of you. Don't you ever let them get in that sort shape again, young man."

"You sound like my father."

Her scold gave way to a smirk. "I'd take that as a compliment if I didn't know how much your and you father fought. Now let's eat. I'm hungry. Then we'll sit down and after you tell me what all you've unearthed, maybe I can fill in some holes, and my scrying gave me some ideas. This really is the best thing you can do for Dean today. Come tomorrow, maybe we can put you on the road to Nekkers, okay?"

He frowned but slowly nodded. If she could offer anything that might help, it may well be worth the delay. "Scrying?" he asked.

She grinned. "Wiccan Ways, Sammy Boy. I'm a witch. But don't worry, I'm a Glenda."