Sam joined the girls in the kitchen of the small cabin they were holed up in. It consisted of three rooms. Two bedrooms on either end of a large room that served as living room with fireplace, two chairs and a sofa and a kitchenette with table, four chairs, sink and wood stove.

"He ok?' Carrie asked nervously, she was still scared to death of him. He had chosen not to take their lives when they'd attacked Dean but she didn't trust him, didn't want to be with him and didn't want to have him around. She couldn't deny their current situation was her fault. She'd been the one convinced Dean had meant Charlotte harm, her sister had only been trying to protect her. She hadn't wanted Dean dead, she'd just wanted to be away from him.

"Do you care?"

"Hey!" Kelly was in his face. "Leave her alone."

"Don't push me." Sam growled. "No, Carrie, he is not ok. He's in pain and he can't see and his body has to sufficiently recover from needlessly being zapped with 700,000 bolts of electricity. I can't give him what he needs because we can't leave. I have to find a way to talk him out of killing Lottie when I want to kill her myself. Despite what you think about us, we don't make it a habit to go around killing people."

"We're not going to let you kill anyone Sam." Kelly argued. Sam was really getting sick of her; if had Dean been the one dealing with her, she'd be tied to a chair with duct tape over her mouth. "We want to find Charlotte and make sure she's ok. Do you really think we want to be here with you?"

"There's the door!" Sam yelled. "I'm not stopping you from leaving, in fact, I wish you would go! Get out, get lost, go away, go shopping, go do whatever girls your age do, you know how to get back to town, this is your cabin, isn't it? I don't care what you do. I don't need this; I don't need you on my back and I don't want you here! We wouldn't be in this situation in the first place if you had kept your nose in your own business. You're the one who took Dean down and he was no threat to you. Now we have to wait for your grandmother and pray she's able to help us. I'd tell you to go look at what you did to him but if I catch either of you anywhere near him, I'll start breaking bones. You keep pushing me, and I swear to god, Lottie won't be the only one who has reason to fear me."

"Kel." Carrie murmured. "Stop. This is our fault and we owe them our help." she gathered her courage and raised her head to meet Sam's angry eyes "So, um, he woke up? He's…..ok, right? I mean, he can see?"

"We don't have to stay here and listen to him Carrie." Kelly fumed angrily. "He's not in charge, we don't even know him. We're here to help him and he acts like…"

"He didn't kill you and he still wants too and we believed Charlotte without really understanding the situation. Grama will have a cow when she realizes what Charlotte has done and the part we played in her little game." she still held Sam's gaze but she spoke to her sister. "Charlotte lied to us Kel, she told us Dean wanted to meet her here and then she left us to confront him on our own when it became clear he wanted nothing to do with her. She let us believe he was going to hurt her." she turned her attention back to Sam. "So? Will he be able….I mean, is he….?"

"He's ok." Sam admitted gruffly. "But the two of you stay the hell away from him. Am I clear?"

***000***

Dean woke up alone and got up before the time Sam had set to wake him. He found his jeans and his socks and boots and got dressed before venturing from the bedroom. One look around the rustic room and he knew there was no use looking for a door that led to a bathroom. If he was lucky, there'd be an outhouse, if he wasn't, he wondered how far from the cabin Sam would let him go on his own.

"Hey there, hi ya." Dean greeted as he stepped into the outer room and crossed the short distance to the table where a girl, maybe eighteen years of age, sat. "Any coffee?"

She jumped with a squeak, scrambling to her feet in such haste she knocked the chair over, tangled her foot around the upturned legs and crashed to the floor. Dean halted where he stood, holding his hands up in a placating gesture.

"Hey, take it easy." he soothed. He felt better than he had the first time he'd woken up, but by no means, did he feel up to an altercation with a kid. "Where's Sam?"

"Out-outsi-side." she stammered. "Looking, at-at-at the, god I'm so sorry." her hand flew to her mouth. He held a hand out to help her to her feet but she crabbed-crawled backwards away from him. "Ugh, um, so, can you see?"

"Everything's still a little blurry, but I can make out objects, so, what's Sam doing?" he dropped his hand, not sure why she was scared of him. When he made no further gesture towards her, she warily climbed to her feet.

"He's aah, trying to pick the lock. We need…to….eeeek!" she leapt to the other side of the table when Dean moved towards her. "Oh god, oh god…..don't, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you!"

"Relax." Dean said easily, he really wanted some coffee and he didn't understand why she was so nervous and scared to be near him. That didn't make sense, he'd never threatened her. "Just want some coffee doll…so, what's this about a lock?"

"Please, just let me pass, ok? You can have the entire cabin, if you just let me leave, I don't mean….."

"You don't have to leave, I'm dressed. I don't mean you any harm." he placed her as the girl who had sprayed him in the face with pepper spray and here he'd thought her harmless.

"I'm not supposed to go anywhere near you, please, just let me go."

Dean frowned; the kid was shaking, eyes darting towards the door as if she was truly trapped. "Okay, ok, just take it easy." he stepped aside. "Go on…so you're sister still think I'm evil?"

"I don't want my bones broken." she wailed. "Oh god…"

Dean's eyes went wide. Broken bones? Why the hell would she think he meant her bodily harm? Even when she'd confronted him and threatened him with the pepper spray, he hadn't reacted towards her actions with violence or even a raised voice, there was no reason she should be scared of him…

"SAM!" he bellowed, moving towards the door. And where the hell was Bobby?

"No, no, no, no, don't tell on me, honest, I didn't know you'd gotten up or I would have gone outside."

"Sam's not going to hurt you." Dean sighed. "Let me guess, he threatened you if you came near me? He's all bluff kiddo, so where is he?"

"Out…side in the….shed."

Dean frowned. Shed? Doing what? Sam couldn't have told him what the hell was going on when he'd woken up? Probably, and Dean would have wanted to stick his nose in it and run the show. Now that he thought back, Sam had judged him, gauging his condition and had made the decision to leave him be. Sam knew him, knew that sleep was the fastest way to recovery and would do whatever he could to ensure Dean got all the sleep he could.

"What's he doing out in…..the shed?"

"That's where the tools are." she gave him an odd look. "For the lock."

"Why don't we just leave?" Dean asked, finally pouring the cup of coffee he just had to have. It was instant but he didn't care. "Mmmmm, sooo goood." he frowned. "Lock? What lock?"

"We can't leave, I mean, well, we could, but Sam can't."

Coffee turned to mud and Dean was unable to swallow what he had in his mouth. Turning, he spit into a bucket and before Carrie could fathom what he was doing, he was around the table, his hands were around her wrists and he had her pinned with her back against the wall.

"What did you just say?"

She blanched and began to shake, trying hard not to whimper. "He….. Oh god, please, just let me go!"

"What's wrong with Sam?"

"Charlotte! She, she…she….if he gives you to her, she'll…there's a key…..but there's another way..!"

"Son-uva-bitch!" Dean charged out the back door, splintering it as it bounced off the wall and sprung from the door frame.

"Sam! WHERE the HELL are YOU?" he bellowed, striding across the back lawn.

"Right here! What's wrong?" he came running around the corner of the shed. "Oh." he cursed Carrie and her inability to keep her mouth shut. "Dean, let's talk about this." Kelly followed, keeping a safe distance between them.

"Talk? Talk about what Sam? What is it? Poison? Curse? Spell? You let me sleep for hours while you're - you're what? Infected? And where the fuck is Bobby?"

"Dean, you were tasered. I don't care how tough you think you are, your body isn't that strong. Ok, yeah, you overcome more shit sooner than any other human but even you need time to recover, maybe not as long, but you can't just bounce right back." Sam sighed. "No spell, no poison, no curse, relax."

"You're babbling." he looked around, searching for the outhouse. "You better be prepared to tell me everything soon as I'm back or I swear to god, I'll show you just recovered I am."

Kelly handed Sam the screwdriver she'd been holding. "I think I'll let you handle this one alone, good luck."

The last thing Sam wanted was to engage in a fist fight with his brother. Dean wasn't up to full strength yet, but Sam wasn't exactly at the top of his game either. Worry and concern over Dean had worn him down. He'd yet to recover the strength he'd expended carrying Dean and he was forced to admit, he probably wouldn't for another couple of days.

Dean's odd behavior that included his desire and willingness to allow Sam close after he'd been tasered tugged on Sam's emotional stability. The situation they were in, the two girls he didn't care about, because as far as he was concerned, they were the cause of this whole mess, and the ticking clock until his meeting with Charlotte all weighed heavily on his mind. That didn't even include his small problem that required an answer in forty-eight hours.

"That..was..disgusting." Dean announced, returning from his short trek to the outhouse. "I feel….dirty." he started to walk towards the shed; Sam fell in step beside him.

"There's a….." he noticed Dean's face and hair were wet. "Guess you found the stream."

"How long?" Dean followed his brother into the shed. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

"Forty-eight hours."

"From when?"

"From now, look Dean, I'm not stupid, yeah, you needed time to sleep, to get some rest but if I hadn't had the time to allow you to get it, I wouldn't have. I would have told you everything."

"You will now."

"Yes." Sam agreed. "I'd really like to have our lock picks with us."

"Charlotte Sam, when did she find us and what did she do?"

"You don't remember?"

"Nothing since the warehouse."

"Carrie took you down with pepper spray, Kelly tasered you. They thought you were playing some romantic game with Lottie and wanted her to end it by meeting you at the warehouse. She told them I'd be with you and they just needed to distract me while you and she had some 'Quality Alone Time Together.' When they got here, she claimed you threatened her when you found out she had brought them to amuse me."

"What? That doesn't make any sense Sam! What is this, high school?"

"Yeah, pretty much, Carrie is only seventeen and Kelly is not much older…"

"Lottie said she was like, twenty-six."

"Right, women never lie." Sam rolled his eyes. "Anyway, they were… a little startled to find out we were so old…"

"Old? I'm not old, they think I'm old?" he huffed. "Which one thinks I'm old?"

"Will you shut up?" Sam said impatiently. "Bobby wouldn't let me shoot either of them. He was Lottie's mistake, she counted on me being there but not him. Once he had…me and the girls, the situation under control, he and the girls left to go pull the truck up to the doors. Lottie shot me in the leg with a dart that knocked me out. Dunno how she meant to get you outta that warehouse, you sure as hell weren't walking out, course, she didn't plan on her friends knocking you out…..anyway, Bobby came back for us, scared her off. By the time I felt strong enough to carry you out, she'd slashed the tires on the car and Bobby's truck, we couldn't find the Impala and she was gone."

"She better not have done anything to my car."

"Dunno why you can't get a stalker like everyone else." Sam sighed. "We might not need her anyway, it's the reason Kelly still breathes. Seems their grandmother is a practicing witch…. A good witch, who knew there was such a thing? She answered what she thought were innocent questions from Lottie, so if we can get to her within the next twenty-four hours, she'll have time to reverse whatever Lottie has done."

"You know how I feel about witches Sam."

"Shudda thought about that before you picked one up in a bar, took her home and played house for two weeks."

"She wasn't a witch!" he growled. "What the fuck did she do?"

"That's what makes this all the worse….she doesn't know what the hell she's doing."

"Sam, why are we here? Where the hell is Bobby?"

"Walked back to look for the Impala."

"Why are we out here? Hell, why are we even here? This cabin…with them." Dean was well on his way to working himself into a hyper rant. "Let's just go, the Impala can't be that far. Hell, call a freaking cab, we have cell's right?"

"We…..aah can't." Sam sighed again. "Least, I can't." he held his hands up to ward Dean off and try to calm him down. "Lottie, um….." he lifted his right foot from the ground and lowered a hand to pull his pant leg up to reveal a plastic band with a large box buckled around his ankle. "She sent Kelly a text with her demands."

"What the fuck is that?" Dean demanded, causing Sam to give him a reproving look over his language. "Seriously?" Dean demanded, taking offense at the 'look'. "You're going to stand there and give me shit over my language? Are you kidding me? Sam! Come on! Get a fucking grip! What is that?"

"Call it a…well….we're waiting for the girls Grandmother to get here but far as Kelly can tell, it's an electronic device that only allows me to go within two miles from the place where it was activated." Sam was still calm. "She meant to take you and prevent me from following you. She knew the girls would call their grandmother to come help me but by then, she would have enough time to disappear with you."

"WHAT?" he cried, hands going to hold to his head. "So, what? You're saying she's got you collared like a dog with an invisible fence? What the hell happens if you go outside the two-mile radius?"

"Don't know yet."

"Then take it off!"

"Can't."

Dean didn't know what was freaking him out more, Sam's utter calmness and seemingly acceptance of his situation or the fact he had no idea what the situation was, how to fix it or what to do about it. He was more disoriented than he'd thought because Sam wasn't making any sense.

"Sam, so help me it you don't start making sense I'm going to…"

"Ok, ok, okay. Just calm down." Sam said soothingly. "It has a lock and we don't have a key. We were waiting for you to wake up and try to pick it. Bobby tried, got nothing. We don't have the right tools….not finding much of anything to use among what tools they do have either."

"Wait for me? Then why did you let me sleep? And what the hell is wrong with you? You can pick a lot as easily as I can."

"I can't see behind me and I can't twist it so the lock is in the front."

"And Kelly knows this how?"

"Her Grandmother."

"The witch, so….let me guess…..the…that is …..?" all he could manage to do was wave his hands about, searching for words that he couldn't force past his clenched teeth. "The lock is..."

"Charmed." Sam supplied helpfully.

"Of course." Dean spat, kicking the dirt. "And Grama can tell us how, right?"

"The girls say she can. Can tell us what will happen if I go outside the two-mile circle."

"And if Grama can't fix this?"

"Then I have to meet Lottie in forty-eight hours and hand you over to her. I then have to relinquish all claims to you and allow you to live happily ever after with her." Sam didn't want too, tried not to, but he couldn't help it. The utter look of horror and disbelief on Dean's face cast him into giggles.

Dean's eyes, first went wide, and then narrowed, his mouth opened then closed several times. He tried to speak, held a finger up to gain Sam's attention, shook his head, swallowed several times and finally managed to send a murderous glare Sam's way to shut him up.