Summary: It isn't the arm choking his brother that grabs his attention, but Sam clutching his head. "Not a good time, Sammy," Dean says as Sam's hands fall limply to his sides and his eyes stare straight ahead, unseeing of the current events taking place.
Set during Dead Man's Blood.

Visionary Savior
Chapter 4

Caleb is so focused on finding a pulse that he never hears the approaching footsteps.

Meg raises her blood coated knife in the air while taking another soft step towards the hunched over form of another Winchester friend. She takes one last step forward and then brings the knife down.

Bang!

Caleb whips around to see a woman in a red jacket with short blonde hair and a bullet wound through her heart. Behind her is a man pointing a still smoking gun at the woman who for some reason is still on her feet.

The woman brings her eyes away from the small circle of blood that come from her heart to the man behind her. "You'll pay for that," she promises in a sneer.

She takes a step forward towards the man causing him to fire again. The force of blast makes her body jolt back a half step, but she still doesn't stop. Fuming even more, she takes another step forward and he fires another shot, but neither refuses to take a step back.

Caleb, unnoticed, scrambles to Jim's arsenal and pulls open the first drawer. When he finds himself looking at only more guns, he pulls open the drawer next to that one. This time he is met with the sight of knives. Praying that the third time is the charm, he pulls on the drawer's handle.

"Thank you," Caleb whispers to the heavens after seeing the drawer's contents.

He grabs an unlabeled 25 fluid oz bottle of water, unscrews the top, and turns back to the maelstrom at hand. The woman is almost close enough to touch the man, but the man is still firing and refusing to back down.

"Hey, you filthy bitch!" Caleb usually wouldn't have cursed in a church, but since there are a lot of worse things he wants to do to her right now, he figures God will let it slide.

As he had hoped, she turns her head to the source of the blasphemy with enraged black eyes. Immediately, Caleb splashes the holy water directly in her eyes. Instantly, she shrieks while covering her sizzling eyes with her hands in a futile attempt to stop the pain.

Suddenly, the man lunges at her. He knocks her roughly to the ground and pins her there with his weight. Still not giving up, she thrashes against his weight with irregular super strength.

"I can't hold her for long," the man grunts through clenched teeth when her knee jams into his stomach.

Through the struggle to and on the ground, the man's gun had slid towards Caleb. Caleb picks up the gun and slams the butt of the gun as hard as he can against the woman's skill.

A loud crack echoes in the church followed the woman's stillness. The forcefulness of the hit would have killed any human, but since the woman isn't human, it just knocks her unconscious.

Caleb opens his mouth to speak, but whatever he was going to say is forgotten when he hears the faint sound of sirens in the distance.

"I called 911 when I found Jim," the man says while cautiously letting go of his grip on the woman and standing up.

With the mention of his friend's name, Caleb rushes over to Jim to check for a pulse. Before the woman showed up, he had found a very faint pulse and only prays it's still there. He presses his fingers on Jim's wrist having an irrational fear that any pressure on Jim's neck will cause his head to come completely off like in a cheap horror film.

In the time it takes Caleb to find a weaker pulse, the man finds rope and binds the woman's hands and feet.

"He's still alive." Caleb turns around to face the man, "But barely."

The man nods his understanding.

They can now both hear the sirens getting closer and knows the paramedics will soon be there. Then the man picks up the woman none too gently and flings her over his shoulder.

"What are you going to do with her?"

He readjusts his grip on her while answering, "There's some people who want to have a little chat with her." He nods towards Jim. "Call as soon as you know anything."

"Of course." Before the man is completely outside the door and on his way towards the back exit, Caleb asks one last question. "John called me so who called you?"

"Dean," he calls over his shoulder without bothering to turn around.

---

He's driving down a rather empty road when his cell phone begins to ring. He flips the phone open and says, "Hello."

He's met with a voice he hasn't heard in far too long. "Joshua?"

"Dean is that you?" his tone is that of a grandparent who hasn't heard from his grandchild in over a year.

"Yeah. Listen are you anyway near Jim's?"

"Actually, I'm a road or two over. Why?" Joshua can tell something is seriously wrong.

"Jim is most likely dead and the bitch that did it might still be there. If she is still there and you can capture her, bring her to the Lucky 8 motel off Route 89 in Black Ridge. Me and my Dad want to have a little chat with her. One more thing, she's dangerous so watch your back."

"It's going to be her who has to watch their back." It's Joshua's way of saying, 'I'll do it' but in a more hunter-ish way.

"Thanks, Joshua."

"Don't mention it, kid."

---

Joshua carries the woman through the back exit of the church to his old blue Ford. Instead of trying to carry the woman and open the passenger door at the same time, he roughly drops the woman to the hard gravel with a satisfying thud. He then easily opens the passenger door, picks the woman up, shoves her in the truck, and then shuts the door.

Quickly jumping into the driver's seat and starting the engine, he drives away from the church to the main road and to the Lucky 8 off Route 89.

He takes out his cell phone and dials Dean's number. He's expecting Dean to pick up relatively quick, but it only rings and then eventually goes to voicemail. Knowing Dean would want to know what happened as soon as possible, he tries another number.

Joshua dials John Winchester's number and wonders if he had really heard Dean correctly when he said he was with John. It had sounded like he said "Dad" and the cell reception hadn't been bad so there is no reason he shouldn't have heard Dean correctly, but John had worked so hard to disappear so why would he suddenly appear?

He honestly hadn't expected John to answer so when he answers on the second ring he is surprised to say the lest.

John demands an answer as soon he had pressed the 'talk' button. "Did you find Jim?"

Yep, that's John alright. "Oh, he found him alright and a little surprise too."

"Joshua?"

"Yeah. I'm on my way with the woman who tried to kill Jim. Caleb's with Jim and the paramedics by now and he'll call as soon as he knows something. But it looks bad..."

"How bad?"

"You better pray for a miracle." He just passes a highway sign saying he's 10 miles from the town. "I'll be there soon."

---

Sam knows he has to be dreaming because there is no other explanation for why he is beside Jim in an ambulance and transparent. Jim is laying on a gurney with a paramedic leaning over him putting pressure on a saturated red once white cloth on Jim's neck. Sam walks closer--noting absently that he floats instead of taking steps--and can clearly see that Jim isn't doing good.

The pastor's skin is as white as the sheet he's laying on while blood just keeps on pouring out from his neck causing the paramedic to keep replacing the bloody cloths for new white ones far too often. All the while, the machine next to Jim keeps beeping and showing his heartbeat, but is pausing longer between each beat while the line keeps getting straighter.

Suddenly, Sam becomes aware of someone muttering prays and turns around to see Caleb with his eyes fixated on Jim. Sam has no idea why Caleb is here, but is thankful that Jim has a close friend here with him because no one should die with strangers. He glides over to Caleb and stands right in front of his line of vision.

Nothing.

Caleb doesn't even blink; he has no idea Sam is there. Something strange is going on here, but that isn't the issue. The issue is that Jim is on death's doorstep and all they can do is sit back and watch their friend die.

---

Joshua? Dean thinks. He then pats his pockets, but finds no cell phone. Dean must have forgotten it in the car in his concern of getting Sam inside the motel room.

As soon as John hangs up, Dean asks, "Is Jim alive?"

John looks up and Dean knows it isn't going to be good news. "For now, but it doesn't look good," he shakes his head. "Caleb's with Jim, but Joshua will be here soon with Meg. You called Joshua?"

"Yeah. Sometimes we can prevent Sam's visions and even if it was too late," he shrugs, "I figured Meg still might be there. Guess you thought the same thing with calling Caleb, huh?"

John doesn't answer, however, because his eyes are focused on Sam.

"What?" Dean then follows John's gaze and sees what the problem is. Sam's chest had been falling steady and even as if he was asleep, but now his chest is only rising slightly and defiantly not evenly.

---

Sam has never felt as helpless as he does right now. He stands beside Jim hoping his old friend can maybe sense he is there while constantly looking from the still gushing blood to his still falling heartbeat. Sam is no doctor, but he can see it's only a matter of time, probably minutes, before Jim's body can't fight any longer. Any normal person probably would have died already, but Sam likes to think it's the hunter in the old pastor that's still fighting with all he has.

Suddenly, the beeping goes haywire and the lines on the machine go up and down rapidly. Then the beeping turns to a whine while the line goes completely straight. The paramedic jumps to action injecting Jim with something, then charging the defibrillator, and placing one patel over his heart and the other further down on his chest. As soon as they touch his skin, Jim's body arches, but his heartbeat doesn't.

Again, the paramedic injects Jim, charges the deliberator, and shocks his heart, but the whine continues. The paramedic begins the process again, but Sam knows it's too late because he's now looking at Jim's ghost.

A/N: I'm sorry for the long wait. Lots of school work and writer's block isn't a good combo. I hope you're still interested in this story even after the long wait. I promise though that I'll never wait this long to update again.