Disclaimer: I don't own the Winchester boys and I guess I never will, not unless a miracle happens.

OoOoO

I looked up into Dean's face and I was terrified. There was nothing behind his green eyes but limitless terror, the same terror that I had broken free from.

"Please," I whispered. "You have to come with me. You have to save Sam."

"And how do I know you are telling the truth. All demon's lie. You just want to take me back to hell. Well, I am already there, so I might as well go down fighting." He spoke. There was no variation in his tone or volume, just hopelessness and despair shutting everything down.

A single tear rolled down my cheek. "Please, he isn't dead, but he will be if you don't come now. I can't save him and he made me promise not to take him to the hospital. I don't know what happened between you two, but the only thing you should feel guilty about is ignoring him now, when he lies bleeding in my bed because he had to try to save me."

I felt a slight muscle tremor and realized just how weak Dean was at that moment. He moved his knife hand away from my throat for a second to steady himself, but it was one second too long. I brought my knee up and kicked him where it hurts and in his moment of agony, I heaved with my upper body and managed to flip him over and straddle him in turn.

He was again just a little bit too slow and I took that opportunity to reach into my pocket, grab a handful of salt and shove it into his half open mouth. I held my hand there as Dean's eyes went wide. His entire body went rigid and he began to thrash about violently, but I remained on top of him, holding him down and keeping the salt in his mouth. Guttural screams tore out of his throat, half muffled by my hand. Finally, black smoke began to drift through my fingers and pour out of his mouth. Brilliant green eyes rolled back in his head and he relaxed, still and silent beneath me.

I carefully took my hand away from his mouth and leaned in to listen. His chest wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing. "Dean!" I shouted his name as I turned his head to the side and roughly scraped out the salt that filled his mouth. I listened again but there was no sound of moving air.

Something snapped inside of me and I began to hit him, slapping his face and pounding on his chest, screaming at him about letting Sam die and giving up. Tears poured down my face to pool in his eye sockets and hang glistening on his lips. It didn't take long for my momentary psychosis to expend itself and I collapsed, weeping on his chest.

At that moment, Dean gasped wildly, sucking in air like a drowning man, and bolted upright grasping my arms fiercely. He shouted one word that carried all the grief and pain he had been lacking before. "SAM!!"

I shrugged off his arms and grabbed his face in my hands, pulling his gaze to mine. "It isn't to late. You can still save him."

Dean leapt up off the floor and pulled me out of the hotel room after him. "Where's your car?" he shouted.

"I brought my bike," I said. "You will have to run."

"No time!" he cried and pulled me to a nondescript brown sedan, jimmying the lock so fast my head was spinning and hotwiring the car practically between one breath and the next. He shoved me through the driver door and over to the passenger side.

Thus began the most terrifying, exhilarating car ride of my life. I barely had time to gasp out directions before we reached the next step. I had never felt so out of control and yet, as I looked at Dean behind the wheel, my heartbeat slowed and time seemed to stop and I realized that he handled that car asif it was an extension of his own right arm. I was frightened, but I was also safe.

We reached my home in no time at all and I barely had time to tell Dean where to find my bedroom before he ran ahead of me, feet barely seeming to touch the floor as he rushed to save his brother. I saw him stop at the doorframe, shock and worry overtaking his features. I was not far behind him. I looked underneath his arm and could not stop the cry of horror at what I saw before me.

Sam's hand was torn open, blood leaving abstract patterns on the floor, and a darkness crouched over it, claws grasping his forearm as it laboriously struggled to drag him across the salt line that surrounded the bed. It was small and still largely transparent, but the more Sam crossed the line, the larger and more opaque it became. This barely had time to register in my brain before Dean was moving. He saw the shotgun resting beside my bed and flung himself toward it, not caring if anything was in the way.

In one fluid moment, he grabbed the shotgun, pulled it to his shoulder and fired. The creature disappeared and Dean was moving again, hoisting his brother up on his shoulder and back onto the bed before running at me, sweeping me up in his arms and depositing me unceremoniously next to his brother. He grabbed the rest of the salt and reapplied the salt line where it had scattered and then collapsed backward onto the bed. He took his first breath since that heartstopping moment when he had first seen Sam as we lay on the bed in a tangle of arms and legs.

There was silence for a long time and then Sam moaned softly, his eyes fluttered and he was back with us.

"Dean, you came." That beautiful smile with the dimples spread across his face.

"Yeah, little brother, I came. Couldn't let you do this by yourself. You know I would never forgive myself if. . ."

"Stop it Dean. That is all in the past. You are here now." I jumped in before guilt could overwhelm him again.

"She's right," Sam whispered. "I am just glad to have you back."

"I just wish. . .you know I would do anything to change this. . .to protect you like I should have been doing all along."

"Well, you know how you can make it up to me?" At Dean's negative he spoke again. "Patch me up and then lets get this bastard."

The afternoon felt really long. Dean sent me to the kitchen wrapped up in every protective measure he could come up with a request for something to eat as he started on Sam. I was grateful when I heard the shouts of pain coming from my bedroom. I went all out, hoping it would be over when I got back to the room, cooking up the last steak I had in the freezer, some potatoes and even a pie that I had made a couple of weeks ago and then frozen instead of baking.

I held my breath as I pushed the door open, carrying a laden tray and, instead of the gore-covered, field hospital I expected to find, I saw Sam sitting against the head of the bed, a little bit of colour back in his cheeks and swathed in neat, white bandages. Dean had already washed up and was repacking the first aid kit. There was a garbage bag leaning in the corner that I assumed held all my bloodstained bedding and the broken glass, but there was no evidence other than my memories and Sam's injuries that the night had even happened. That, and the newly repaired symbols that had been spray painted on my wall, ceiling and floor.

Dean's eyes lit up as he saw the tray I carried, eyes fixing greedily on the steaming blueberry pie. "I love you," he whispered in reverence, but I wasn't sure if he meant me or the pie so I just kept my mouth closed and set the tray on the bedside table.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on my bed. For the first time, I was thankful my parents had been so extravagant with my grad present as to buy me a king size bed. Dean had been set free and the lack of chains had made him rather more carefree than he had been in a long time. He was also relieved. Sam's injuries had looked bad at first, but they were manageable, even the poor hand that had looked so mangled was easy enough to fix. It had only been trying to drag Sam across the line, not kill him, so its claws had missed all major blood vessels and tendons. I was giddy with relief over Sam's improving condition and Sam, well Sam was high. We sat there in the eye of the storm and I had never known such peace. There was a battle behind and it was to continue with the dying of the day, but we were alive and ready to face whatever comes.

We talked and laughed as the day wore on, shadows becoming longer and the sun exploding in a fiery passion of bright colours. Words grew less and silences grew longer as the glory of the sunset gave way to twilight and that began to deepen to true night.

Finally, Dean stood up, looking at both of us as if to remind us of the parts we had to play. "Its time."