Authors Notes: 1) Don't own 'em.

2) Trigger Warnings for suicide/depression, and for the next several chapter, heart wrenching grief.

3) I have this rated as T, but I'm not sure if it maybe should be M. (launguage and what not). Let me know if you feel it would be appropriate as an M rating.

4) No beta, so all mistakes are mine.

5) I ended up breaking this chapter into 2, so next chapter will be up in the next few hours - you get to meet Byron.


Sam doesn't know how long he's been sitting, holding Deans head in lap. He's been there long enough that his tears have dried up and he's stopped calling his name. He's lost right now, and can't focus on anything but the limp body he occasionally asks to just come back. "I should never have brought you on this hunt. I should have told Byron no. This is all my fault. Please come back. Dean. I don't know what to do." Then he's back howling out his misery, and calling Dean's name until it echoes through the woods, silencing the forest sounds with his anguished wail.

Sam lies down next to his brother, wrapping his arms around the bloody mangle of bone and flesh, as though he's trying to keep him warm and safe. He's kicked the woman – completely human now that she's dead – to the side, and doesn't give her a second thought. She took his brother's life from him, she's not worth it. He'll deal with her later. Right now Dean needs him. Sam buries his face in the back of Deans jacket, convinced that in the morning, he'll be alive again. It's what they do. They die and come back. Dean will come back. He will. He always does.

There's a shuffling that wakes Sam. There's light filtering through the trees, declaring the new day. He lifts his head and sees three wolves pulling flesh off the woman. A forth comes near enough to begin sniffing at Dean. Sam bolts up and punches the animal in its neck. It yelps and skirts away with its tale between its legs and its ears back. The three around the girl perk up and look at him. A grey splotchy one growls at him. Sam decides to let the wolves enjoy their meal for now. He really couldn't care less if the bitch gets eaten by the wildlife or not. Probably not the smartest choice he's ever made, but right now he doesn't care.

He runs his fingers through Dean's blood crusted hair. His body is stiff from rigor mortis, and his side is frozen to the ground. Sam pulls him onto his back, trying to ignore the crunch of breaking ice, fabric, and possibly flesh. When he looks at Dean's face he starts to dry heave. Deans eyes are open and filmy like he has cataracts, staring straight out into nothing. His mouth is open in a strange expression of awe, his checks sunken in. Specs of blood dot his face like thick freckles, now black against the grey, wax like skin. Sam can't look away. He stares at Dean, trying to will pink into his checks and light into his eyes. Move. But there's not no response, Sam knows there won't be this time. He's gone. He's really gone.

Sam jumps up and begins pacing, and grabs his hair and pulls on it. He's seething as the anger builds in him until he stomps over to the woman's body, fully intent of punishing her for her transgression. The wolf he assumes is the alpha snarls and snaps at him, warning him away from his meal, but Sam's the alpha here and he kicks the misguided beast in the side, once, twice, three times, until the dog begins whimpering and slinks away. His rage is taking him over, and he roars at the others, who follow their leader away. Sam kicks the woman. Not a woman. A fucking werewolf bitch. He kicks her side, and her face until his legs tire, then he crouches over her and begins striking the corpse. She's been dead too long to bleed, and that pisses him off more. She deserves to bleed the way she made his brother bleed. He takes her head and pounds it against the ground, determined to damage her. But you can't hurt a body that's dead, and Sam finds no satisfaction in that fact.

He finally falls on the ground between the two bodies, heaving in grief, anger and exhaustion. He knows he has to do something with the bodies. He can't just leave the bitch, she needs to be burned, and he certainly can't leave Dean - which poses an entirely different problem. Sam has no clue how he's going to get Dean out of there, and no clue if he even should. He decides to deal with that later. After he digs a small shovel out of his pack he begins to dig a hole to throw the bitch in and burn her.

As haphazard as he is with the bitch and her "funeral", that is how careful and precise he is with Deans. There's really no way he can get Dean out there, he's decided. It was a four hour hike to get to where he is, and it would be a good six or eight to get back dragging or carrying Dean. He doesn't know why he's considering carrying Dean. He would have to break his bones just to get him over his shoulders enough not to drop him every few steps, and Sam's just doesn't think he could stomach that.

He can't drag him because he has no way to make a litter. While there are plenty of sticks, he has nothing to bind them together. Dean cleaned out the Impala. All the odds and ends Sam may have thought of last minute to tuck into his pack, never made it. He brought water, some food, ammo, salt and lighter fluid. He's mad at himself for being so unprepared.

"It's just a werewolf, Sam." Dean had said. "We probably won't even be there the entire night." Sam had listened. Like an idiot he had listened, and just grabbed the necessities. Not even an extra blanket. He could carry Dean's body on a blanket. He's angry at Dean now for being so glib and careless and , dare he say, calculating. It's almost like he wanted to be unprepared. A knot forms in Sam's stomach at the thought and he pushes it down so quickly it's like it wasn't even there to being with.

Sam shakes his head in resignation. Even if he did manage to get Dean down to the Impala, getting him into the Impala and back to Kansas unnoticed was probably not going to happen.

So Sam now finds himself digging a grave; a proper grave, deep and perfect. He thinks about just burying Dean, and trying to bring him back again, but Sam understands, even in his grief, that this needs to stop. They've been at this for far too long, dying and coming back, sacrificing for each other in more and more twisted ways. A thought pans through his mind that perhaps this is for the best. It's time for Dean to rest. Sam's stomach lurches forward with guilt for wishing Dean dead.

Once he's laid Dean in the grave, he sprinkles salt on his body. Not in the way he did with the bitch, throwing clumps from the can down on top of her. For Dean he climbs into the grave and pours the salt into his hand, and gently scatters it, imagining the salt crystals are snowflakes falling on his brother. Squirting lighter fluid on him seems disrespectful, so instead Sam takes the cap off the liquid and anoints his head, his hands, and his feet. Sam trickles it into the wounds that still carry the bitches' venom.

Sam stands over Dean with the matches in his hand. He considers staying in the grave and letting the fire take him too. He wants to burn with his brother. But he resigns himself to his own cowardice, and climbs out of the grave, before dropping a lit match.