All Your Dreams Are Still As New

Part four of a fanfiction by Velkyn Karma

Disclaimer: I do not own, or pretend to own, Supernatural or any of its subsequent characters, plots or other ideas. That right belongs to Warner Brothers and associated parties.


Dean's illness isn't the last time he sees Sam's ghost.

Four days after his recovery, he catches sight of his little brother's spirit while working on a customer's engine at the garage. He startles so badly he smacks his head painfully on the car's hood, when he sees his brother staring across the mechanics at him in broad daylight.

Three days after that, Sammy winks into existence right in his spot in the Impala when Dean heads to mom's house to drop off some money for the bills. Dean nearly runs the car off the road when Sam starts begging him for help again.

And three days after that, his brother's spirit starts pacing restlessly back and forth in his kitchen at nine in the morning. Dean nearly burns his hand on the stove's burner when he startles while frying eggs, and barely restrains himself from reflexively chucking salt in ghostly Sam's direction.

He knows Sammy's not doing it on purpose. He's seen enough actual malevolent spirits forcing their victims into dangerous situations to know how to recognize it, and this isn't that. But all the same, the potential accidents and minor injuries seem like a cruel reminder as to what Sam will be doing in the future, if Dean doesn't find him help soon.

And there's no way in hell Dean's letting it come to that.

But he's starting to get more than a little frantic, because try as he might, he can't seem to pin down what's keeping Sam here in this world. He knows he didn't miss a thing at the coffin—he'd been one hundred percent thorough because he'd been trying to avoid exactly what's happening now. And he knows nobody kept any additional part of Sam, like a lock of his hair, because he'd had a hand in preparing all the funeral arrangements and had been sure to keep track of that sort of thing out of habit.

But burning the bones hadn't worked, that much was clear. Sam was still appearing, to Dean and no one else, and Dean's starting to see him more and more often too. At first it had been every four or five days, but as time passes it's every three days, and then two, and then at least once a day, randomly and without any traceable pattern. Eventually he starts flickering into Dean's sight multiple times a day, although never for more than sixty seconds at a time. He's never more than a room's length from Dean when he does, although what he does differs day by day—sometimes he sits, sometimes he stands, sometimes he paces restlessly. He always gives Dean that exhausted, helpless look, though. And he often pleads with his older brother for something, always in the same far-away, underwater-static-broken voice: please and you have to and I'm sorry I couldn't and why didn't you listen, even though Dean's listening as hard as he damn well can.

But the worst by far for Dean is that every time Sammy comes back he looks a little different, a little worse. When Dean first saw him, before the salt and burn, Sammy had looked more or less alive, if like crap. As the days pass and the sightings increase, Sam seems to be gradually falling apart. His shoulders slump farther, his whole body starts to sag, and if Dean didn't know better about ghosts not needing to rest, he'd say his brother hadn't slept in days. The dark lines under Sammy's eyes get worse, his face a little gaunter, and his skin takes a waxier, unhealthy pallor. He looks thinner, and his ragged jacket and jeans look rumpled and uncared for. And the worst are his brother's eyes, which seem to be gradually losing hope day by day, as defeat settles in instead.

Dean can read the signs, and it scares him. He can tell his brother is deteriorating, his spirit falling apart, and when it falls too far that's when the despair and the madness will set in and a new dark spirit will be created. And he can't let that happen to Sammy, he can't. It'd be so cruel and so, so wrong for a good kid like Sam to turn into a vengeful thing like that.

And, if Dean's honest with himself—something he doesn't do all that often—he'll admit that he can't let it happen out of selfishness as well. He knows, if Sam were to change like that, he'd never be able to fight his brother anyway—because a part of it would still be Sammy, and after everything that's happened, all the ways he's failed his little brother, there's no way he could turn on him that way. Especially not when part of him would feel that he deserved to be killed in whatever violent fashion the spirit would come up with, as penance for letting that spirit down.

So he throws himself relentlessly at the problem, searching for a solution. Sammy is clearly being tormented here, if the way he pleads and begs Dean for help when he appears is anything to go by, and that's all the encouragement Dean needs to keep going. Sam might be dead, but damned if Dean is going to let anyone or anything hurt his brother, even in the afterlife. He's going to find a way to release Sammy even if it kills him.

But in order to find an answer, he first needs to know what's holding Sam there to begin with, and that's not so easy. Ghosts are usually held to the earth by their bones and a salt and burn generally does the trick, but other things can hold them as well, although it's less common. Sam could be attached to a particular object that was significant to him in some way, or he could be held in place by unfinished business or a grudge. He could even be trapped because of the thing that killed him; it wouldn't be the first time a malevolent spirit would be hellbent on achieving justice or vengeance before it could move on.

After brooding on the matter for over a day, Dean realizes that helping Sam move on is not going to be nearly as cut and dried as he'd first hoped. The situation is rapidly growing complex, reminds him too much of their old hunter cases while traveling the country. That life has taken everything from him, even now, and he hates being dragged back into it; hates even more that the case is so difficult, because he just wants it to be done as fast as possible for his and Sam's sakes both.

But he's determined to do it anyway. He's not going to get back into the life—he threw in the towel and accepted his second chance gratefully, and he doesn't owe total strangers his life and his soul and his sanity, not anymore. He doesn't have to be the hero for them. But he'll be damned if he doesn't owe Sam, owe him everything. He owes him more than he can ever hope to repay for how badly he failed to protect him, and if he can save his little brother in some way, even after death, then he'll do this one last job and gladly.

So he begins the hunt. He starts simple, digging through boxes of Sam's possessions in the attic at mom's. He waits until she's out of the house, because he doesn't need yet another lecture about letting Sam go and how he wouldn't want this, honey. Sam's spirit occasionally flicks in and out, watching mournfully, as Dean digs through the more sentimental, personal stuff that hadn't been donated to charity—photos, academic awards, sports trophies, books, laptop. There's other boxes marked Sam in the corner from when he'd been a child, and Dean digs through those too for good measure. He handles faded photographs of a happy toddler Sammy, and worn toys and stuffed animals and brightly colored crayon drawings, with an extra edge of bitterness, because these were the things Sam never had a chance to have in his own memories and wouldn't see again now.

But none of the objects seem to trigger Sam's spirit or even catch its attention. When he's even there, the ghost only focuses on Dean and nothing else. Nothing strikes Dean as being a potential ghost anchor either, and with a sigh of disgust he finally gives up and leaves the painful memories he can't actually remember behind.

The item theory is more or less a bust, so Dean starts researching into Sam's history instead, trying to figure out if there's any unfinished business holding him here. It takes him three days to break into his brother's computer—the digital stuff had always been Sammy's thing more than Dean's, and he doesn't have as much practice at it. But when he finally gets in, he spends long hours up at night digging through his brother's files, searching for any hints of anything that might give him some clue as to how to save his brother. Carmen tries time and time again to peel him away from it, insisting he needs to rest and take a break, that this is obsessive and unhealthy, that he should just let Sam be already. Dean ignores her, carefully skimming through each and every word document and image file. But other than a lot of very boring law theses, some official-looking documents about scholarships, photos from college outings, and a couple spreadsheets for expenses, he finds nothing of interest; kid doesn't even have any porn hidden away on it. So unless Sam's hanging around because he's pissed he didn't get to finish his degree (unlikely), that's a dead end.

When that turns out to be a bust he starts interviewing Sam's friends at school instead. He finds these easy enough from Sam's Stanford yearbooks, connecting untidy well-wishing scrawls to names and faces and contact information. Stanford's nearly two thousand miles away and he can't exactly pop over there and back before dinner, even running the Impala at top speed, so he settles for calling with official sounding titles and emailing with fake important addresses, making it out like an investigation. Sam's got a lot of friends, and Dean goes on longer and longer breaks at the garage to handle them all, ignoring his manager's frowns every time he turns his back on a customer to answer his cell. They don't understand, after all—this is Sammy's soul on the line, it's a hell of a lot more important than some whiny customer's rust bucket.

But his investigations turn up nothing on that front either. Sam was well liked, friendly and helpful with everyone. The girls, all of them, adored that he was such a sensitive individual and so understanding; you could always talk to him. The guys all claim he was a bro that'd back you up in almost anything, and you could count on him to come through. Nobody seems to think he had any sort of enemies or problems, and everyone agrees his relationship with Jess was happy and healthy. In other words, as far as everyone knew, Sam had the most perfect, content life in existence, with no grudges and nothing at all to regret.

And Dean let him die, like the terrible big brother he was. The thought digs the knife in his heart in a little further, especially when he realizes he's at another dead end.

Sammy, or at least his spirit, seems to realize it too. After days of useless research the ghost seems to become more agitated. When he flicks into existence around Dean more often than not he's pacing restlessly, glancing over at Dean with an expression that's exhausted as always, but now there's something else to it too. He looks sullen, a little betrayed, and—as more days pass—a little angry. Once he freezes in the middle of his pacing, stares at Dean, and spits angrily in that far-away garbled voice, "Don't you dare do this to me, Dean." He looks so frustrated and helpless and furious that Dean's automatic retort chokes in his throat. That expression on his brother's face hurts, and it also scares him more than a little, because Sammy's never been angry or aggressive before now as a spirit, and if he's starting now...

Dean doesn't want to think about what that might mean.

Sam vanishes, and Dean, out of habit, relocates to a part of the house not occupied with things that could potentially stab or bludgeon him to death. But there's no attack, and Dean throws himself more feverishly into his research, trying to find answers for his brother. Don't you dare do this to me, Dean, Sam had snarled, like he was scared Dean was just going to give up when he hit a dead end, like he was only making a token effort at best. "Not givin' up that easy, Sammy," he mutters out loud, determined more than ever to finish this.

But he's been pushing himself hard since he's resolved to free Sam somehow. Carmen and his mother comment constantly on how he's not taking proper care of himself anymore, not eating as much as he should or sleeping as much as he ought to, how he's obsessing over these little details and things about Sam unhealthily. He supposes something he's doing is unhealthy, because he gets sick again—the same thing as the last two times—that very night. By now he's used to the fever and the aches and the difficulty breathing, and the burning hot pain around his heart doesn't resurface, so it's not as bad as before. He's miserable all the same, though, struggling and gasping to breathe through the night, and it only gets worse when Sam reappears at his bedside, looking anguished and scared, at three in the morning. "I'm sorry," the ghost babbles, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Dean, I didn't mean it, you can't—"

But he vanishes before Dean learns what he can't do.

He forces himself up the next day before the illness is really even over, but he can't waste time being miserable—he's got to help Sam. He dives back into his research on his brother's life, ignoring mom's and Carmen's insistences that he please take it easy, let them help him, because it's not like they can help with this, they wouldn't understand. Sam's the only one who really can, and he's poor company at best these days, when he even bothers to show up. Sam's spirit wavers a lot between angry and mournful these days. One visit he'll be begging Dean for help like he always does, and the next he'll be furiously accusing Dean of abandoning him or giving up, accusations that Dean would be fighting back against if there wasn't already a shred of truth in them, with the way he failed his brother so badly. The anger still scares Dean, because while he's no stranger to an angry Sam, anger in humans is normal—anger in ghosts is deadly.

Fortunately, while Sam is sometimes a pissy spirit, he's never a violent one—not yet, anyway. The worst he does is pace around angrily for a minute or two before winking out of existence to go wherever he goes when he's not here, and after the first few times Dean stops worrying as much about having steak knives or appliances flung at his head by invisible hands in a fit of rage. If nothing else, Sam makes an awful poltergeist—even now he's just too damn nice for it, and more often than not the next time he blinks back into Dean's peripheral vision he's apologizing for shouting before returning to his pleading.

Dean really, really hopes this means that Sam's fighting off that edge of madness and darkness that eventually takes wayward ghosts. The longer he can last, the more time Dean has to find him an answer.

No matter what he does, Sam's background yields nothing but dead ends—but there's one more possibility, near as Dean can figure. He resorts to old habits and breaks into the office of the doctor that used to treat Sam, digging through his brother's medical records for signs of something unusual—namely, migraines or weird dreams. Sam's visions made him a target when they were hunters, and haunted his little brother in life as surely as Sammy's haunting him now. Maybe they'd caused him some sort of stress or trouble and he'd tried to keep it to himself, the way he'd tried to hide the visions from Dean at first.

But there's nothing there either. Sam had a perfectly clean bill of health and Dean sees no traces of anything unusual whatsoever. Furious, Dean chucks the folder across the dark room, scattering pages everywhere. Sam flicks into being in the midst of them and gives Dean one of those dull-eyed accusatory looks that says they're heading for another angry moment in the next couple of visits. Dean groans in frustration and feels like tearing out his hair.


The unfinished business angle's a loss; he just can't turn up anything no matter what he does.

Dean figures the next order of business is killing whatever the hell killed Sam—not easy to do when you live nearly halfway across the country, much less when you've got family to still protect. But he can't not do this either, not if it means Sam's release, so although he'd prefer to be on hand in case of an attack he prepares some alternative defenses. He carves careful sigils into the foundations of his and mom's houses to protect his mother and Carmen, sets up purification bags in the four corners of each house, and hides devil's traps in discreet but fortifiable areas. He also makes sure both houses are stocked with salt, and slips a few of his mother's silver knives into his own house and the trunk of the Impala, just in case.

His mother and Carmen grow from concerned to alarmed at his actions, and don't seem to believe him when he tells them it's safer. He doesn't really expect them to understand anyway, which is why he offers little in the way of explanation beyond stay here and stay safe, I've got to take care of something important before he takes off for California in the Impala.

It's only when he's halfway to Palo Alto that he even realizes this is exactly what dad did, when he ran off on hunts for days at a time with no explanation. He can't decide if he understands dad better for it, or hates himself more.

It turns out that the thing that killed Sammy is a poltergeist—and a real nasty one at that. It takes Dean all of an hour to identify the damn thing, once he visits the apartment complex Sam and Jess had been looking at (now condemned, after six other 'accidents' in just under a year). It takes almost a week to actually kill it, though, mostly because he hasn't got a lifetime of supplies he needs in the back of the Impala anymore, nor does he habitually stock herbs and spiritual remedies just for the hell of it. Palo Alto doesn't have much in the way of the real deal when it comes to spellcasting and hoodoo, and Dean spends most of his time driving all over the damn place collecting components for the purification ritual, as well as rearming himself for when the thing inevitably tries to kill him.

It also takes longer because he gets sick—again. These weird fits of fever and aches and chest pains and breathing problems are starting to come more often, and although they don't usually last more than a day, they leave him feeling frustrated and weak as a newborn kitten. Dean hates feeling weak to begin with, and he really hates these fits because Sam's ghost always becomes more active when they arrive—he gets panicky and distraught, pleading with Dean more insistently than usual, often begging him not to give up yet. Dean hates seeing his brother acting like he's the one dying, and he sure as hell doesn't want Sammy getting even more upset, not when he's the one already dead and his soul is on the line.

It's the ghost's latest panicked, pleading fit that makes Dean go charging in before he's really fully recovered from his latest bout of illness, desperate to finally free his brother. It's not one of his smartest decisions. Poltergeists are really best fought in teams, with at least one other person covering your back, so one person can act as a distraction while the other takes care of the rituals and is on hand just in case things go south. Dean had briefly considered tracking down another hunter to recruit before he'd gotten ill, but had decided against it. It would have felt weird going in without Sam or dad, and besides, this was his fuck up, his failed brother, and his mistake to fix alone. Which was all well and good, except he'd forgotten it was a damn apartment complex, there were a hell of a lot of floors and walls to stuff purification bags into, and nobody else to distract the damn poltergeist while he did it.

But Dean's not one to back down once he's decided to do something, and he dodges cracking ceilings and flying rubble as he tackles what is at least a three-man job solo. Well, mostly solo—he frequently catches sight of Sam out of the corner of his eye as he works, staring at him pleadingly, looking anxious. He's honestly surprised that's all Sam does. Ghosts can fight poltergeists, after all; mom had proven it at their very own house, before Dean had accidentally made his wish. And if this is really what Sam needs for closure so he can finally move on, Dean's a little surprised Sam isn't attacking the thing with every incorporeal atom in his body. But he doesn't even seem to notice the presence of the evil spirit—he just continues to watch Dean when he appears, and grows more agitated whenever Dean takes a particularly damaging blow, murmuring no, please and Dean, hang on and you can't give up yet in that far-away garbled voice of his.

Several cracked ribs, a sprained ankle and wrist, one dislocated shoulder, a nasty bump on the head, and more bruises and cuts than he can count later, he finally stuffs the last bag into a crack into the top floor on the north wall. There's an unearthly screaming as the spirit finally disappears—and finally stops flinging things at him. He slumps back against the wall and breathes as shallow as possibly can to keep the stress off his injured chest, eyes flicking around the room as he waits for Sam to step in again. As much as he loves his brother, wants to see him again the right way, he hopes Sam doesn't come back. If he doesn't, then killing the poltergeist worked, and Sam's finally free.

But he doesn't see anything but stars dancing in front of his vision from exhaustion and pain, so he picks himself up and heads for the motel he's been staying in for the past week, just like old times. He patches himself up with the first aid kit he'd been careful to secure during the ritual components hunt, sleeps like the dead until checkout, and wearily heads for home, finally glad that at last, it's all over.

Somewhere halfway through Nevada, Sam appears in the passenger seat of the Impala, and gives Dean that mournful, pleading look that Dean's gotten all too familiar with. "Please," his little brother's spirit whispers in that cut-off static voice. "Dean, please, you have to..."

Dean screams wordlessly in the car, a strangled noise full of all his pent up rage and frustration and desperation, and wonders what the hell he has to do to finally escape this fucked up version of everything he's ever wanted.


Between travel time, his illness, and the hunt itself, it's almost two weeks before he rolls back into his driveway in Lawrence, Kansas.

His family is in a state of panic. Dean had learned from dad's mistakes enough to remember to answer his cell phone and tell his mom and Carmen that he was okay, just had something he needed to take care of, and not to call missing persons on him or anything. It seems it didn't reassure them any, because Carmen looks like she's seen a ghost when he walks through the door. And when his mother rushes over after Carmen's frantic call, she's horrified by the remains of Dean's cuts and bruises and bursts into tears, wondering what's happened to him.

"Sam wouldn't want you to do this, honey!" she says helplessly, cradling his head in her palms, like he's a child and she's checking if he's feeling well and trying to reassure him. "You're hurting yourself over him, he'd be horrified if he could see you now, honey, please, please, you have to let us help you."

Sam's spirit, looming over her shoulder, doesn't look horrified so much as exhausted, and gives Dean that begging look again that utterly ruins his mother's attempts to calm and convince him. And Dean feels bad for making them worry so much, he really, really does. But he can't give up on Sam like that, never.

They keep an eye on him for hours, which keeps him from getting any decent research done or figuring out new angles. His mother is reluctant to go home, but Carmen promises to keep an eye on him. Dean can feel his mother shaking when she hugs him goodbye. Not for the first time, he hates how his wish for her could so utterly ruin her life.

He discovers he's been fired from the garage, after not showing up for more than a week on top of his poor performance. No loss, really. Having a job had been a novelty, but it's not like he's ever really had one in the past. More time to devote to saving Sam, now, without any distractions. Carmen seems disappointed at his distant response to a perfectly normal disaster in perfectly normal lives, but Dean's never been that—it had been foolish to pretend, it had cost him too much.

Sam's pleading hounds him now. Dean barely sleeps anymore, and when he does he doesn't even bother to go up to his and Carmen's room anymore; just crashes for a couple hours on the couch, close to the books and the computer so he can jump to it as soon as he's up again. He's getting more than a little desperate now, looking for answers, because he's exhausted all the options he can possibly think of that could keep Sam's spirit here. If it's not his remains, or unfinished business, or a need for vengeance and justice against the thing that killed him, then what's left? What could possibly be anchoring his little brother here, and what could he do to free him before it's too late?

He digs further into information on curses and spells—maybe his brother's trapped because of one inadvertently triggered. He researches cleansing rituals and methods used in dozens of cultures and religions to help wayward spirits move on. He starts hoarding spell components and ingredients, ordering them online and delivered directly to his door so he doesn't have to waste a second away from the books. He practices every single chant, incantation, and even prayer he can find, hoping to send his brother on his way.

Nothing works. Sam continues to haunt him, pleading, anguished, desperate, looking worse and worse by the day. He begs for help and every day Dean fails him, and it's driving him crazy.

His family tries again to get him to go see someone—doctors, grief counselors, anyone. He refuses. His mother is getting scared for him, he can tell. He does his best to reassure her that he's okay, drags himself away from his books long enough to stop by her house fairly regularly and make sure she's alright, that nothing's slipped into the house to come after her next. He tries to reassure Carmen too, but her constant attempts to get him to leave the house to go out to dinner or to a movie or just out for fresh air are annoying and frustrating. He has to keep shrugging her off, telling her no, he can't, not until this is done.

She asks less and less, until one day he realizes he doesn't hear her anymore at all. It takes him three more days to actually find the letter she leaves on the bed, which reads simply, I'm sorry, Dean—I tried, I really tried to support you and help you with your grief and to get you to move on, but it's like you don't hear me anymore, and I can't help you this way. I used to know you pretty well, but I don't anymore. I wish you the best, and I hope one day you can forgive yourself and find yourself again. I love you. Carmen.

He stares at the letter dully for a while before tossing it in the trash. Part of him hurts to think he'd failed somebody else that he'd considered family, but it's pretty much all he does these days anyway, so what's one more disappointment?

The world's starting to fall apart at the edges with one more of those perfect pieces gone, and Dean devotes himself relentlessly to fixing the one constant that's left: Sam's spirit, which is still hovering and pleading like always. In between even more frequent bouts of those feverish sickness episodes, he starts grasping at straws when none of the counter-curses and spells and incantations work. During one bout of sickness his headaches are worse than usual, which makes him think of Sammy's vision migraines, which makes him think of the Demon, and in a desperate flurry he starts researching the hell out of that thing too. Never mind that over twenty years of hunting had already turned up nothing—Sam, the Sam he knew, had a powerful grudge against that thing, and maybe that's keeping him from moving on somehow.

But there's nothing. Like it didn't exist. Dean spends hours on the internet, searching for the omens and warning signs his dad and Ash had pieced together regarding the Demon's arrival, for signs of the strange 'freaky kid' army. If there any out there he can't find them; it's like the bastard was never a problem for Sam at all. Mom had said there wasn't a fire in the nursery either, and Sam didn't display any powers—it's like the Demon had been written out of their lives completely.

Which means he's not the thing holding Sam there, either.

Sam's looking worse and worse, now, barely speaking anymore, dull-eyed and hopeless. He only becomes more agitated and frantic when Dean's not feeling well, like he knows Dean's pushing himself to the brink and if he goes over now there's no hope for him at all. Every time Sam winks out of existence Dean's afraid the next time he comes back he'll be an ugly, vengeful spirit, agonized and lost. The thought pushes him even harder to succeed.

Dean's at his wit's end when he starts trying to contact everyone he used to know before everything changed. He's fully expecting them to not know him; since he'd never been hunting, he'd never have met them. He's more surprised when it turns out the vast majority of his old connections—Bobby, Caleb, Ellen and her family—are dead, probably because they didn't have one of the three Winchesters backing them up or saving their asses. That hurts too, as yet another confirmation of just how imperfect his perfect wish is. Hell, even Gordon's dead—not that Dean ever considered calling that bastard up, but he'd seen the obits dated back to around the time he and Sam would have stumbled across that vampire nest and saved his ass normally. The only one who he manages to connect with is Pastor Jim, who is kind enough as a priest but utterly impersonal compared to how Dean remembers him. The man offers to pray for Sam's soul, but Dean figures it's not going to be enough.

He considers visiting the crossroads again. He vetoes the idea almost immediately. It's not that he wouldn't pay anything, life and afterlife included, to save Sam—but he's not trusting the redemption of Sam's soul to a demon. Not even he's that foolish.

His mother visits daily now. She's concerned he's having a mental breakdown; she's scared out of her mind for him. She's already lost her husband and one of her sons to death, and as far as she can tell the last member of her family is slipping away into madness. It's gone too far, she insists. She's getting him help. She'll have a doctor come first thing in the morning.

But Dean knows what that means. They'll lock him up, padded rooms, meds and all, and he's not crazy. He knows he's not crazy. He knows this stuff is real and he's got to save Sam already, he's been failing him too long. So in the middle of the night, he packs his duffel bag with some clothes, loads the laptop and all the books into the Impala just like old times, and hits the road. He breaks into mom's house long enough to make sure all the wards and sigils he'd put there are still in effect—even now he has to be sure she's safe, because mom was the point of it, all of it. He leaves her a note—Sorry, have to do this, wish I could explain. I wish I could fix everything, undo all the ways I messed things up. Going to fix what I can now. Lives are on the line. Love you—more than you could ever know. Dean—and sets off into the night.

Sometimes, Sam's sitting next to him, and for a few moments at a time it's almost, almost, like everything went back to the way it was.