Disclaimer: If wishes were kisses, I'd wish for a wish (thus a kiss) from Dean. Alas, I am still unkissed. Okay, so weirdo way of saying I don't own them.

Author's Note: Second Last Chapter. Hope you're all loving it, and thanks heaps to those who have reviewed. Happy New Year to all!

Chapter 10: Finding Freedom

Dean wasn't sure what it was that woke him. He jolted awake, though he still didn't have the energy to open his eyes. He felt so tired. The hunger was gnawing at him, the thirst was rabid in the back of his throat. He was so cold. How long had he been down here?

And why had he woken? He didn't want to. He knew the answer to the first question though; forever. He had been stuck in the dark for eternity and he had accepted that no one was coming. The ghost had hidden him too well. He knew Sam would continue looking, would look for yet another eternity before dying himself. The world was doomed. But he had accepted it. He just wanted to die in peace now. Just let the exhaustion carry him into oblivion.

He smiled as he heard it. He didn't smile knowingly, and he didn't know who the voices belonged to, just that they were familiar and loving. Well, one was loving, and he ached for it. But he didn't know whose voice it was.

He shifted slightly, turning over in the corner he had settled himself in. But the voices wouldn't leave. Maybe they were here to take him away from this dreary, blind, cold place.

The voices came closer, and one of them tugged at him. He shifted again, wondering where he knew it from. It wasn't coming to him and he opened his eyes in frustration.

He jumped as he realized the world wasn't so dark. Afraid to accept relief, he waved a hand in front of his eyes. And then he laughed, silently, because his throat wouldn't let noise out.

He wasn't blind.

He had never been so relieved in his life, and then grief struck him, because his little brother would never feel the same relief. And then the tiredness came back, and he slumped, relief disappearing in the wake of resignation. No one was coming.

Then he frowned, knowing something was wrong with that thought. Where was the light coming from? He looked around but the walls were still black stone, jagged and cold. The light wasn't much, but it was there, it was, and he felt a surge of life come into him. He managed to look up.

There was a square outlined by light in the roof. He realized for the first time that he had to be underground. But it didn't matter, because by the way the light moved, someone was up there, swinging a flashlight.

"Down here!" he tried to cry. It came out as a croak, a very soft croak. He knew they would never be able to hear him.

He felt panic as he tried to push louder words out of his throat. "Hello! Down here! Please!"

The attempt sent him off coughing. But even those weren't loud at all, and he felt tears begin at the thought that sweet escape would be denied because he couldn't speak.

He looked up again as the coughs receded. "Help!" he tried to call out. And then the voices began again. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but it was in that instant that he recognised one of the voices. Joy and relief flooded him.

"Sammy!" he cried, somehow managing to speak louder. It was still little more than a croak.

And then the light began to grow dimmer. Sam was moving away, Dean realized. His mouth dropped in horror, and he tried to get to his feet, to get closer to the hatch above his head. But his limbs were frozen after ages in the same position, in the cold, in the dark. He could barely move, let alone get to his feet.

"No," he whispered. "No, no, no. Come back! Sammy!"

Hayden moved to the trap door at the end of the unfinished tunnel. Sam walked with him. There, Hayden dropped to one knee, taking a hold of the handle dug into the hatch. Sam took the light to illuminate Hayden's movements. The first hatch was opened.

A smell hit them immediately, and Hayden fell back, dry retching. Sam covered his nose, gagging slightly. Then he had to take a step back, shaking his head.

"Whoever was in here is long dead," he told Hayden as the man stood and came to stand next to him.

"How?" the older man asked, fear coming into his voice. "Ella survived months."

Sam felt a realization hit him and had to take another step back. "Yeah, but Wain was human, despite what he did. He must have fed them, given them water, to prolong what he was doing to them." He shook his head. "Ella's spirit is doing this, which can't just walk into a store and get them food. Hell, she probably puts them in the cell and then leaves them. She can't feed them."

"So, Steve's probably…" Hayden couldn't finish the sentence, his voice breaking.

"I don't know. Most of them will be, I think. But there's mud under our feet. So, I think water probably gets in, when it rains. But you can only go so long without food, so… Come on, we still have to check the rest." They moved away, going to the nearest hatch.

There were twenty hatches in total. Within five minutes they had looked through fifteen. In eleven, including the one they looked in first, they found more dead bodies, the stench wafting in and making the chamber stink. In the rest they found only skeletons, the remains of Wain's victims from thirty years ago. And so they moved onto the sixteenth hatch.

As Hayden lifted the door, Sam felt a surge of life from below him. He waited with bated breath, wondering if it was human, rather than… anything else. He knew it wasn't Dean. But maybe, just maybe, there were more survivors than just Dean. That his older brother would be alive, Sam didn't doubt. He couldn't doubt it.

Hayden lifted the hatch, and Sam shone the torch in the hole. They both heard movement, and Hayden peered in anxiously.

"Steve!" he shouted, relief making his voice break. Sam smiled, breathing again, thankful that the older man's brother had been found. But in what condition?

There was no answer from Steve as Hayden called again. This time the name had worry tinging it.

Sam put a hand on Hayden's arm. "It's okay. Or it will be. He's probably very dehydrated, cold, maybe a little sick from breathing unhealthy air. We get him to hospital, and he'll be fine."

He looked around. There were another four trap doors, he knew. He just had to find Dean's.

"Come on, we know where he is now. Help me find Dean, and then we'll get them both out."

Hayden nodded reluctantly, afraid to move from his brother lest he disappear once more. But he crawled away, moving to another hatch. Sam waited anxiously for the older man to open it.

That one too, was empty, but at the next one, Sam felt that same surge of life he had felt at Steve's cell. "It's this one," he told Hayden breathlessly. "Come on, open it!"

The door lifted and Sam shone the torch in. He felt Hayden heave a sigh of relief as the light fell on a living, breathing figure.

"Sammy?" he heard Dean's voice croak, so softly he almost didn't hear it. Sam broke out into relieved laughter.

"God, Dean, yeah, it's me. Thank God I found you. It's so good hearing your voice again."

"I thought you had left me," Dean whispered. The admission broke Sam's heart. But he could also hear the fever in his brother's voice.

"Never, Dean, never. Now hang on for just a moment while me and Hayden figure a way to get you out."

He turned to the older man. "He's not going to be able to get out by himself. How deep is it?" he asked, trying to think up a plan.

"Six and a half feet, maybe a little more. Not very deep," Hayden answered.

Sam nodded. "If I lower you down, can you help him? And then you can help me pull Dean up, then I can pull you up."

Hayden nodded. "Him first?" he asked, worry still in his voice. Sam nodded.

"Yeah. I don't think we'll be able to lift Steve out without hurting him. We should wait for the medics, just to make sure he's all right."

Hayden nodded once more, biting his lip. "Okay. Let's do this."

Sam leaned over the edge of the hole. "Dean! Hayden's coming down, and he's going to help you out."

There was a muttered reply that Sam couldn't understand. He wished desperately that he could see his older brother. See what was wrong, how he was.

Sam dropped the shotgun and Hayden lay down on the muddy ground, where Sam edged him over the lip of the hole in the ground. Slowly, slowly, he lowered Hayden over the edge.

It was hard, but Sam hadn't lost any of his strength with his sight. He gently let Hayden's hands slip through his own, laying down as Hayden dropped in.

"That's as far as I can go, Hayden," he called out to the man below.

"It's fine," the older man called back. "You can drop me."

Sam did so, letting Hayden's hands slip from his grip. There was a thud and a groan.

"How's he looking?" Sam asked. He heard shuffling from below.

"There's blood all over the back of his head." That meant concussion. Probably a pretty serious one. "And he's hot, but he's shivering." Fever. "And I think he's dehydrated."

Sam used one hand to feel about for the water bottle he had chucked into the bag before they had left. Grabbing it, he let it fall into the cell. "Heads up."

Hayden caught it and returned to Dean. Sam called out instructions from his position above them.

"Make him drink it slowly. Not too fast, and not too much." Hayden didn't answer verbally, and there was silence for a moment. Sam waited, holding his breath. When he couldn't take it any longer, he called out again.

"How is he?" he asked anxiously. Hayden never had a chance to answer.

None of them heard or felt it approach. Not even Sam, though his excuse was that he was worried about Dean to the point of distraction. All he knew was that one minute he was leaning over the hatch, the next he was hitting the wall of the tunnel and the spirit of Ella Fitzgerald was bearing down on him.

Not that he could see it coming, but he felt it this time. Only he had dropped the shotgun in the excitement of finding Dean. And now he was without a weapon as Ella attacked him.

He flew through the air again, landing hard on the ground and losing his glasses. He felt a snap in his shoulder and cried out with the pain of the dislocation. He had no clue where he was now, but he could hear Hayden shouting out from somewhere to his right. Only Hayden was down a hole with Dean. Sam was on his own.

He rolled over, holding his shoulder and groaning as he felt bruises beginning on his side. Goddamn stone. He hated mines.

He felt Ella coming at him again, and rolled to his feet. "Ella, stop!" he shouted, his cry echoing around the chamber. She kept on coming. "Please, Ella!"

He flew through the air again as his words didn't effect her. He hit another wall, falling to the ground with a cry. He rolled over again, wincing. He felt her bearing down on him once more.

"Ella!" he shouted desperately. He was sure he had cracked a rib already, besides his freaking dislocated shoulder! He couldn't take hitting any more rock. "I can help you!"

To his utmost relief Ella stopped, mere inches from him, or so he thought. He swore he could feel her breath on his face. Only he knew that spirits didn't breathe.

"Ella, please, you have to stop this," Sam begged. Ella's rage flamed again at his words. She shrieked, one long, terrible cry, and at the end of it, Sam found himself being held against the wall, pressure against his chest, his feet kicking rock two feet from the ground.

"I don't have to stop anything!" she screamed at him. "He sent me mad, took my life from me!"

"Yes, he did," Sam struggled to say. "But they're not him. They only wanted to help you. They don't deserve this. You didn't deserve this!"

She cackled at his words. "I only wanted to help him, too, you know. I thought I would be nice, stop and help the poor man stuck on the side of the road. And I spent the next eternity in darkness!" Her last sentence was screeched, full of pain and anger and fear that Sam couldn't help but be infected by. He felt it clench his chest.

"But you won't be in it any longer," he told her, pleading with her with his tone. "I know you're frightened -." She cut him off once more with another cackle.

"You have no idea. The darkness bears down on you, cutting you off from everything. They swore I wouldn't have to endure it any longer. They lied!"

He assumed, correctly, that she meant the people at the psychiatric hospital. "They didn't know. And yes, it might happen again. But it won't last forever. And then there will be light, and vision, and the darkness will lift." He couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice, but at his words, some of the pressure around his chest lifted, and he felt her consider his words for the first time. He continued, trying desperately to get through to her.

"Please, Ella, listen to me. I understand what you went through, more than most. I live in the dark too. Everywhere I look, it's just black." His voice was soft, insistent. "I hated it at first. Feared it. I still do, at times. But I've also accepted that this may be what life is like for me, forever."

He dropped to the floor as she released him, falling to his feet before his legs gave way, and grabbing his shoulder. But he didn't stop speaking, knowing that she hadn't stopped listening.

"It won't be like that for you. I know you can feel that pull, the pull of your body. Surrender to it. You can. And you won't be in the dark forever. You'll see, that there's nothing to be afraid of. Please. You don't have to do this."

At the end of his words, he felt a ripple in the air, like a struggle, or something. He knew it was Ella. And then she was disappearing, fading from Sam's senses. And then she was gone.

Sam sighed with relief, then winced as he felt the full effect of his shoulder. And his ribs. He would definitely need to get those looked at. But for now he had to ignore it.

"Hayden?" he called out, thinking of the man and his brother for the first time since Ella had shown up.

"Still down here, Sam," the reply came from somewhere to his right. He crawled forward, feeling his way cautiously. And then he came to a hole. "This one?" He hoped so.

"Yeah, that's the one. Can you get us out of here?"

Sam sighed with relief again. "No, I've dislocated my shoulder. I can't lift anything." Hell, he was having trouble breathing as well.

"So how are we getting out of here?" Hayden asked, panic in his voice.

Sam sighed with frustration this time, and looked uselessly around. "I'll have to go to the entrance and call for help. Will you be all right down there for a bit?"

"As long as Ella doesn't come back," Hayden responded. Sam shook his head.

"She won't. I think it's over. I think I convinced her to go back to her body." Which was a huge relief seeing as he couldn't see any other way of doing it. "I'll be back as soon as possible."

"Sam!" Hayden called out before the hunter could leave. "Will you be all right, getting back?"

Sam shrugged. "I'll have to be." He stood, found the wall and made his way from the mine, slowly. Very slowly.

But he found that he didn't care. He was dealing with it. Finally dealing with it. Maybe, probably, he would still hate it at time, curse being blind, feel angry at the world. But in the end, he had to accept it, just like he had told Ella. Because until he got better – if he got better – the dark was his world.