Disclaimer: OK, I don't own Sam, Dean, John, etc. I know, it's shocking!

"Got him."

Dean felt a rush of hope at those words. Excited, he went to stand up.

"No, don't. Keep your eyes shut and concentrate."

Dean really did try the best he could. He just didn't know what he was doing in the first place that she wanted him to continue. Mainly he just tried to relax, which was hard considering how close they were to finding Sam.

After about five minutes someone entered the room. Dean didn't dare to open his eyes, but Deena hadn't reacted so he took it as safe not to leap for his gun. The footsteps stopped and he heard the squeak of someone, most likely John, sitting in the seat by the window.

Less than a minute after that, he could hear Deena moving rapidly from her seat. He opened his eyes. John was also on his feet.

"We have to leave now," Deena said. Her voice sounded nervous, giving him the impression that every second would count.

"We aren't ready yet," John argued.

"What, you didn't get anything?"

"Yes, I did. Just, are we really prepared for this?"

"Dad, we don't have time for this. We can continue our little chat in the car."

"We don't have the Colt." That thought had just occurred to Dean. It was their only hope in an emergency and if Missouri was going to mail it (which he doubted, based on security) then it would be another day. Another day they couldn't afford to lose.

"You mean this?" Deena held the Colt out to him, having pulled it out of one of her drawers. He just stared, taken aback. John had a similar look plastered across his face. Dean reached out and grabbed it without a word.

"Don't ask."

"Wasn't going to."


They had just driven into view of the sign reading 'Welcome to Ithaca, the City of Evil'.

"Ithaca?"

"Yep. The City of Evil, though I think they named it that for a different reason than the purpose the Demon chose." Deena was driving, much to Dean's chagrin.

"Can you turn that music off?" Dean complained.

"No. Driver chooses the music. Shotgun, aka you, aka guy who got his car run over by a semi shuts his cakehole." He wondered if maybe she could read minds and had picked that line out just to piss him off.

"There's only so much Kelly Clarksona guylike me can take."

"Dean," John warned "just shut up."


"Dammit," Dean muttered, climbing down from the edge of the hotel room's bed and consulting the book Bobby had given them, the Key of Solomon. "Sam was always the one that was good at this freaky symbol shit."

He tilted his head back to study his handiwork. The protective ring didn't look quite as impressive as when Sam had set it up for Meg, but it still served its purpose. If a demon stepped within the circle it would be stuck there, practically powerless.

He carefully climbed back up and corrected his mistake as he heard John and Deena preparing everything.

Dean cursed one last time before he jumped down again, realizing it wasn't getting any better. He saw John with the Colt in his hand.

"I'll take the Colt," Dean volunteered. John looked up.

"No."

"What do you mean no?" Dean knew he shouldn't have let the damn thing out of his sight.

"I mean I'm taking it, you are not. You're getting irrational." Dean opened his mouth to protest, but John cut him off. "Think about it for a minute. You let your anger take over a little too often. If Sam was dead---"

"Don't ever say that."

"Wouldn't your point of view be 'I'm taking down as many of these sons-of-bitches as I can'?

"If he's not dead, then you'll do anything to save him. I will too, but logical reasoning tends to come secondary to you. We have to do anything not to use these bullets. They're our only hope. You'll probably shoot any ofthosethingsyou get a chance to and then we'll have none of them left. Look where that would leave us."

"With no Sam."

"With no chance whatsoever of survival."

Dean realized John wasn't going to budge on this issue. Getting revenge on this demon meant too much to him. More, probably, than Sam meant to him.

Well, it was a little harsh for him to think that. But Dean hated being put in this position.

"Fine, then. But when it comes down to saving Sam or saving a bullet, I'll choose Sam." With that, he stalked out of the room, ignoring John's voice calling his name.


"Here we are," Deena proclaimed, pulling the car to a stop. "We'll have to walk the rest of the way." She rolled her eyes at the silence in the car and opened the door.

Neither John nor Dean had broken the vow they had made to themselves that they wouldn't give up their arguments. John hadn't surrendered the Colt and Dean hadn't halted his plans for taking it the second he got the opportunity.

She beckoned them to follow her as she started down a dirt trail leading through the woods.

"You mean they're hiding out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Technically it's not the middle of nowhere. We're just off the main road."

"But come on, how cliché are these people?" Deena rolled her eyes again, though something seemed to be bothering her.

"Are you ok?" Dean asked. He didn't need her having a seizure or anything right now. She nodded in a distracted way.

Dean started to walk in stride with her, John trailing a few steps behind in silence.

"Um," Dean started. There had been something bugging him for awhile. "Can I ask you something?" Again, she nodded, still looking straight at the ground, her thoughts far away. "If you have powers, and Missouri, and Sam, then why did the Demon want Sam and not either of you?"

She turned around and gave him a look like he was missing something important, something obvious. This only confused Dean more.

"Not to sound too B-movie, but it is kind of obvious. Just because some of us have abilities doesn't mean we're all equal. You have no idea what he could be capable of, what he is capable of. He might not realize it, you might not realize it, but the Demon does. I'm not really important compared to that." Dean hadn't really expected that. Well, something along those lines, maybe, but Sam had only ever had, what, four visions and moved a dresser about a foot. But then again, look at Max. Because of that he had nearly ended up with his brains blown out.

She had sped up her pace and seemed to be walking without thinking now.

"We're getting close, but his signal is--- holy shit!" She looked like she had been physically shoved and stumbled back right into Dean, nearly sending him tumbling over too.

"What the hell was that?" John asked from behind them.

She promptly regained her balance and picked up her brisk pace a bit faster.

"Come on, we don't have much time to lose." Her voice sounded urgent and both Dean and John wasted no time in matching her acute pace and mood.

They turned one last corner and Dean could finally see the building.

"Welcome to the Kent Farm," Dean muttered. It was the full deal, with a house, barn, stables, and field. It was obviously not in use anymore: no equipment, trucks, crops, or people in sight except for a lone beat-up Chevy. There was one flickering light on in the window of the top floor in the main house.

"This is it, all right," Deena said, softly, just in case.

"Do they know we're here?" John asked.

"No," she said matter-of-factly. Neither questioned her.

"Let's go, then."

They quietly crept across the yard, silently praying that the creatures inside were preoccupied with something else at the current time. Once at the door, Deena nodded in confirmation that no one was on the other side, and Dean leaned down to pick the lock, finding thatthedoorwas already open.

"Am I the only one that finds it ominous they left the door open?" John gave him the 'shut up' look.

Looking like he was already regretting it, John held out the Colt to an astonished Dean.

"Well, that's a nice development; I was just going to---"

"You don't use this unless absolutely necessary, got it?" Dean nodded and grabbed it from John's outstretched hand, a grin already spreading across his face.

Turning to Deena, he asked "Are you sure you don't want to wait outside? There might be some fighting, and---"

"Shut up," she snapped, pulling out the gun he had given her. Normal guns would work at least well enough to distract the demons.

"You ready for this, Dean?" John asked. In response, Dean grinned, pulled out the Colt, and held it in a ready position. He had been ready for this since the second Sam left his sight.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was a normal house, the only defining feature being its complete emptiness. Deena confirmed their suspicions by nodding up the stairs.

Being careful of the creaky floorboards Dean led the way to the foot of the stairs, where he forced his footsteps to become even softer. He began to hear voices carrying from up the stairs as he reached the halfway point. There must have been at least three of them. First he heard the female voice, the one he would never forget: Meg, or as he preferred to call her, simply The Bitch. She was speaking in the unmistakable tone of someone in authority giving orders, though he couldn't decipher any specific words.

The next one he had never heard before. It was a male voice and it also held a note of urgency. They both spoke in lowered tones, though the house to them was empty.

He heard footsteps as one of them shifted to the other side of whatever room they resided in. Someone was whispering, though why Dean again couldn't understand. Had they caught on?

He looked back to the foot of the stairs to gauge Deena's reaction, and was met with a look of panic on her face. He started backing down the stairs, John following his example, both still careful not to cause a disturbance that would send whoever was upstairs down to them. If at all possible, they did not want anyone knowing they were there until as late as possible.

By the time Dean reached her, Deena had dropped to her knees and looked a lot like Sam did when he was having a vision.

Dean pulled her face up to look at him.

"Come on," he breathed, hardly daring to let any sound out at all. Her eyes still held a touch of panic, but had the glazed over look that Dean had never quite understood. "What happened?"


"Wake up, little Sammy." He heard the voice as he returned painfully to consciousness. It was the sound he had woken up to ever since the night he had left his brother.

He felt the darkness pressing in on him, smothering him. He found he had to concentrate on each breath; it was strange how he had never realized before what an enormous effort it took to draw oxygen into one's lungs.

He couldn't place whose voice it was, though. He had known the name at one point, but his mind just didn't want to work properly right now. He couldn't concentrate, he couldn't think straight. He tried vainly to hold on to whatever his mind could conjure up; for some reason, even his name managed to escape him at this point. It was like trying to hold water in cupped hands. No matter how hard he tried it would slip out eventually.

"Did you have a nice nap?" The voice whispered in his ear. "You know, you've got some visitors. Do you remember Dean? Or John?"

Oh, god. His memory returned and damn that hurt. For some reason he told himself thinking shouldn't be painful. Yet, amazingly, it did. Everything did these days.

Why had Dean come here? He wasn't lying here trying to remember his own name because it did him any good. He wanted to open his mouth to say something, but all he managed was a low gasp of air. Great. Just freaking wonderful.

Meg pretended to soothe him. "We'll take care of it, Sammy. He deserves to see his baby brother one last time, don't you think? I think it's finally time to end this." At least Sam tried to move, but he just couldn't gather himself up enough. These past few days, at first he had tried to resist, but he just didn't have the strength anymore. The darkness pressed ruthlessly on him, smothering whatever resistance he might have had.

He felt her palm upon his forehead, which was far from comforting,and knew this was the end; the panic bubbled weakly beneath the surface and he heard a man's voice speaking monotinously, almost rythmically from somewhere behind him. He could anticipate how Dean would react and the selfish part of him was almost glad he wouldn't be around to see the look on his face.

"I think it is safe to say this will be the last one of these little chats we have together. You, your brother, and your damn father have all been royal pains in the ass for us, but at least you had a bit of potential. Potential that you just couldn't reach on your own. Can't say it's been nice, but it's been interesting. It's sad, but I finally have to say it: Goodbye Sammy."

He felt a stab of pain coursing through his body for about a split second before he couldn't feel it anymorel. He couldn't feel anything anymore.

He suddenly felt cold, colder than he'd ever felt before. His body involuntarily shuddered before it slackened uncontrollably. He took one last gasp of air before he surrendered that ability too.

The darkness used its full abilities; it was on a mission, to take him down. His mind was wandering, and he reached out for anything familiar to comfort him in these last moments. He focused on his family, not like it had been recently----brooding, yelling, and generally miserable----but the times he had actually liked, just never had the time to fully enjoy them because they had to run off and save somebody or kill something. He tried to remember, through the growing haze his mind had formed and in the little time he had left, the times when either John or Dean had actually smiled in a non-sarcastic way.

With these thoughts he surrendered to the darkness and let himself be carried away relatively peacefully.


Deena gasped weakly as her eyes returned from their glazed-over state.

"He's gone." Dean froze, suddenly finding himself unable to breathe.

"We have to get out of here. Now!"

Author's Note: OK, I'm sorry for the wait, but it's been really hectic this week. For the next few chapters I actually had to write an outline, which is really weird for me. (I'm really unorganized) I had to write this stupid paper for my History class that took forever because while using the computer I kept taking little "breaks" to write this. I hate papers. I was going to make this and the next chapter one chapter but I like this ending (a little bit of a cliffhanger) and I figured you guys had waited enough. So originally I was going to have two chapters up next, but I kept arguing with myself over where to put the break. Next chapter is the easiest to decide where to stop but the one after that I just want to throw something heavy across the room when I try to decide which will have the best effect. It's such a tiny thing, where to end chapters, but I'm obsessive with shit like that and it's driving me insane.

Well, I promised Sam would be in the story soon. Does that really count? I mean, it wasn't very long, and what's implied isn't very good for him... and I'm talking too much already.

One more thing: Grey's Anatomy. I know, totally off subject. I started watching because it had Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays John Winchester in it and I was curious, and whoa, his character is like the polar opposite of John. First of all, he actually smiles. He's an awesome character and I just saw the season finale. I freaking cried my eyes out! It was not fair that they did that! Sorry, had to let that out.

Next chapter should be out soon, so be patient, please.

Review please!