** See Part 1 for full story notes and disclaimer.

PART 21 NOTES: We've finally reached the penultimate section. Thank you all for staying with us as we've traveled across the country with the boys. Huge hugs and chocolate go to Lynette for her awesome beta skills, especially for these last parts. I could ask you to go over them one more time, but that might be asking too much. (veg) Any remaining mistakes are mine alone as I tend to fiddle up until the very last second. Bad habit, that. (vbg) As always, any and all feedback is appreciated.

Part Twenty-One

THEN …

"Any ideas?"

"Nope. She seemed pretty sure Silas was gone, though. I think we can trust her as far as that goes."

Sam looked up to meet the other man's steady gaze. "What about the rest? About Dean being gone?" His fingers curled into the chest below his hand, digging into the muscles with a rhythmic movement as if he could hold Dean there by will alone.

Looking away, down toward the unmoving man, even Bobby's stoic face couldn't hide his fear from Sam. "I don't know, Sam. I just don't know."

NOW …

MARCUS SILAS'S HOUSE, TURKEY HILL, KENTUCKY

Tuesday, 12:03 am

It looked like it should have hurt, but Dean felt absolutely nothing during the entire process. When the woman made small cuts on his hands and feet he flinched involuntarily. And when she handed the blade to Bobby he almost lunged for the knife itself, forgetting his incorporeal status. After he got it through his thick head there was nothing he could do to help them, he managed to resign himself to letting them do all the work and was more than happy to be a passive bystander in the pain receptor department. As far as he could tell, the red headed woman recreated the spell almost exactly. He only had Matt's descriptions to go off of yet even the long dead hunter seemed pretty sure it was accurate. Exactly who was she anyway? He could only assume she was a witch. How else would she know about the spell and its specifics. And where had Sam and Bobby picked her up? "Hell, if that's all it takes to send Silas's ass to the pit I'd have done it myself a week ago. Hindsight's a bitch, isn't it?"

"It is always far easier to recognize what would have been the best course of action from the future." Matt stood at his side, hands clenched tightly. Dean didn't even want to think about what memories were flooding the other hunter's mind just then. He had his own share of nightmares to torment him at all hours. Reliving a horrific death while standing helplessly by, trapped forever as a spirit by that same death? Yeah, that probably beat his by more than one level of Purgatory. "If I could have done it all over again, I would have waited for White Claw. Together we might have been able to stop Silas before he could reign death over fifteen decades."

"Take it easy, Matt. What happened, happened. Nothing you could have done would have changed the outcome. Just like me ending up here with you. I can't exactly cry about it now, right?"

Greying blond hair shushed over his shoulders as he shook his head. "You are correct and I know you are. I knew before I spoke. That does little to keep the thoughts from recurring."

"No joke that," he said, watching Sam watch Bobby wield the knife on his outstretched arm. He couldn't hear the short argument before Bobby had taken the knife, but he was pretty sure he could quote both sides with almost perfect accuracy. The blood dripped onto the ground slowly, darkening the spot where the woman had shoved her hand wrist deep into the dirt. Dean's eyebrows had risen at the action, as well as the fine hairs on the back on his neck. A niggling voice in the back of his mind had whispered indistinctly, trying to tell him something, but Sam and Bobby doubling over in obvious pain had distracted him.

When Sam and Bobby kicked open the door, he had just about given Matt a heart attack he'd shouted so loudly. His brother looked like crap, his face pale and drawn as if he hadn't slept in a couple of days. Bobby looked to be in similar shape and Dean had to wonder what the hell exactly had happened since Silas had hijacked him. It was next to impossible to keep track of time with a watch that didn't work and only Silas's trips down to the underground room had given him any idea of its actual passing. If the other two men were any indication at least a couple of days had passed. Dean knew it took a while for his brother to start looking like death warmed over and Bobby even longer.

He'd followed Sam as he'd hammered a metal spike into each of the carvings littered around the house like tiny hidden treasures. The final one had sent his brother flying right through his body, leaving him tingling all over and thoroughly disconcerted. Thankfully Sam had only been shaken up, the minor hurts Dean could see easily shaken off as he'd gotten to his feet and staggered down the stairs, albeit not as graceful as Dean himself would have been.

Bobby handed the knife back to the woman and went to stand by Sam once again. Neither said a word, but Dean got the impression they had no clue what was next on the list of surprises for the evening. Before he could ask if Matt had a clue, Silas's entire body bowed off of the ground, face a mask of agony. Dean's eyes widened and he swallowed roughly, suddenly appreciating the fact he couldn't feel a single thing more than mere seconds ago. He couldn't find it within himself to care the witch seemed to be in excruciating pain. If he was honest with himself, the sight actually gave him just the slightest bit of a warm and fuzzy, but he didn't want to delve that deep into his own capacity for vengeance at the moment. He'd remind himself to be ashamed later. Really.

The wounds on Silas's palms and feet had barely bled, only the thin lines of red indicating she'd ever cut him up. His eyes kept returning to those tiny marks, yet more scars to add to his already impressive collection. He shouldn't be worried about scars when he didn't even really have a body, but it hovered in the back of his mind regardless. Sam would laugh his ass off if he ever found out. Well, he and his crazy people staring theory could go ahead and laugh all day long. At least Dean would be around to hear it.

The quick flash of silver reflected from the flashlight pulled his attention. The woman knelt at Silas's side, mouth moving in silent words, face serious and just slightly triumphant. He took a step forward, ignoring Matt's softly spoken warning, completely unprepared for her to bring the knife down across the mark on Silas's chest. If she'd had a line drawn over it she couldn't have made a more perfect cut through the center of the circle. From his position near the witch's feet, Dean had only a split second to acknowledge her precision before the world exploded.

Bright white, sharp and all consuming, filled his eyes yet strangely didn't cause any pain. All he could see was the blinding white, not his hand raised unconsciously in front of his face, not Sam and Bobby on the other side of Silas, not the woman and her shiny silver knife. It could have lasted a few seconds or it could have lasted an hour, but when the light faded and the room returned the tableau had altered significantly. Sam and Bobby lay in crumpled heaps against the far wall, Silas's stolen body was slumped bonelessly on the ground and Matt was nowhere to be seen. Only Dean himself and the woman remained as they'd been, one standing, the other kneeling.

"Matt?" he called, spinning in a quick circle. "Where are you?" Silence was his only answer. Turning to his brother who'd made it to his knees, he felt a lightness fill his chest. "Sam? You okay?" Once again, he received no answer even as he watched his brother's mouth form Bobby's name. "Hey, lady," he said, the lightness spreading down into the tops of his legs and up toward his shoulders. "All of you listen up!"

The shout merely echoed in the small room.

He was getting a bad feeling about the lack of response and Matt's unexpected disappearance, but he wasn't willing to voice the thought, as if it would make the idea reality. The tingling numbness had reached his shoulders by the time the woman stood, expression haughty and eyes gleaming a distinctly non-human black. He stumbled back, surprise warring with confusion. A demon. The voice whispering in the back of his head snapped into painful focus. She wasn't a witch, one of Silas's fellow rabbit killers. She was a demon. Hell, she was the demon he and Sam had run into back in Kansas. Sarah. Bobby and Sam had been working with Sarah. Since when did they work with demons? Staring at the woman, demon, his hands tightened into fists at his side. She'd said she'd return when Sam was ready to listen. What the hell had happened after Silas had taken over? Had both Sam and Bobby lost their freaking minds?

"I don't want to be saved like that, damn you," he said, not sure which man he was yelling at. They'd had to have made a deal, there was no other way they'd work side by side with a demon. His phantom chest gave a hard squeeze, a lump weighing down the lightness trying to take over. "I don't want you to give up anything for me. You know that." But they ignored him completely, their focus only on the body lying so still between them.

Sam's hand clenched on the chest, on Dean's chest. At least he assumed it was his chest once again. The explosion of light and power that had thrown Bobby and Sam clear across the room had to have been the spell breaking. If it had been the demon they would have returned the attack at a minimum, exorcising her if at all possible, not letting her saunter up the stairs and out of the house free and clear. Circling the kneeling pair, Dean wished lip reading had been on his dad's necessary skills list for training hunters. "Matt, any help here would be great," he said, not really expecting a response after the spirit's vanishing act. If he was right the spell holding Matt prisoner was gone and the hunter had finally been able to move on leaving Dean alone in the witch's house without a physical body. Since Sam remained kneeling at his body's side and not frantically performing CPR or any other life saving technique, Dean assumed the body was still alive, at least in the breathing and heart beating sense. "Come on, people! What the hell am I supposed to do now?" He wasn't really expecting an answer so the sound of his brother's voice nearly had him stumbling right over them both.

"Bobby, should we take him out of here?"

"Sam?" He almost fell to his knees at his brother's side, his physical legs just as useless at the moment. "Sam, tell me you can hear me."

"I don't know, Sam," Bobby answered, head shaking slowly. "If Dean were here, I think he would have returned to his body by now."

Panic was almost instantaneous. "No. Bobby, I'm right here. Damn it, Sam, I'm right here."

Neither man so much as blinked.

"Come on, Sam. We've done this before. And I can't believe I can actually say that, but we have. You figured it out last time. Don't give up on me now."

But his brother wasn't listening. His face practically crumpled, deep creases appearing between his brows and around his mouth. "Can we... I don't know." He looked up, hand never breaking contact with Dean's chest. "Can we just take him back to your place?" Dean couldn't remember ever hearing his brother sound so destroyed, not even when their dad died. He never wanted to hear it again.

"Sure, kid. Of course we can."

Dean watched, impotently pacing around them as they removed the gag and restraints, checked the wounds on his hands, feet and chest. Each of the wounds had healed over, the cuts on palms and soles thin pink lines. Only the cut on his arm from Bobby's initial attack remained, but even it had stopped seeping blood. Sam cut a strip from Silas's no longer white shirt and tied it around Dean's arm, the makeshift bandage placed with a gentle care he would have argued with if Sam could have heard him. The mark on his body's chest had vanished entirely, only a barely discernible line remaining where Silas had branded him so painfully in the cemetery. "Huh," he said, tugging down his black t-shirt. The mark he'd shown Matt was gone as well, not even the faint pink line remaining to show he'd ever been injured. His shoulders eased just the slightest bit at the sight. If this was all that was left for him, at least he was simply Dean and only Dean.

"Could you get the flashlights, Bobby?"

Sam's voice jolted him into action. They were going to leave. His brother already had one of his shoes back on and was working on the other sock. "No. Stop." They couldn't leave. Who knew what would happen if they took his body out of the underground room? "Bobby, Sam, stop." They just kept working in the silence.

He waved his hands inches from his brother's face, desperation a growing ball of lead in his gut. "Sam, listen to me. Stop. You have to stop. Don't take me out of here." His voice echoed off of the rafters, rising in pitch as he spoke yet Sam still didn't respond. Whirling on his heel, he crossed the room in three quick strides. "Bobby, open those ears and figure it out. I'm right here."

"You ready, Sam?"

"Yeah. I guess there's nothing else here for us."

Dean was going to beat the crap out of his brother once he got back into his body, no question about it. What the hell was he thinking hauling his ass out of the house before they'd fully investigated the damn thing? A reminder in squeezing every bit of information out of a hunt was second on his to do list. But at the moment, Dean had more pressing issues to deal with - like how to get some signal into the physical world they could recognize.

He racked his brain, searching memory and the room itself. Matt was gone, leading him to believe he was no longer trapped by the house. But did that mean he was a dispossessed spirit? Like he'd been in the hospital after the semi accident? It couldn't be that simple, could it? Sam had been able to hear him then. Why not now? And he'd better figure it out fast because they were almost to the stairs.

What had he been able to affect in the hospital? Sam had told him about the talking board and as embarrassed as he'd been about it, the thing had worked. Unfortunately there wasn't a handy board lying in the dirt. His brother had also told him about the glass of water, but he didn't see a glass on the ground. And? And nothing. There wasn't anything else. Except the glass in his dad's room had been fully in the physical realm when he'd flung it across the room to shatter on the floor. He'd hit it in the middle of an argument, yet another argument between his dad and brother. Knowing how frustrated he used to get when they fought, he was pretty sure he must have just reached out without thought and slapped it off the table.

Before he thought it all the way through, his hand whipped out toward Bobby's hat, catching the brim with his fingertips and flipping it off his head. He froze, peripherally aware of the other two men doing the same. "Holy crap. I didn't think that would actually work."

"Dean?" Sam asked, head swiveling wildly as he stepped back away from the entry.

The beam of light shifted as Bobby's grip tightened on the flashlight. "That had better be you, boy. I don't want just any spirit touching my stuff." His hat shifted gently in the dirt, the bill bouncing it back and forth. Despite the crotchety words, Dean heard the relief and hope buried underneath.

"Yeah, Bobby, it's me." He knew they couldn't hear him, but that did nothing to keep him from speaking. At least they weren't moving toward the stairs any longer. "You can put me down now, Sam. Please. No, really." His brother made no motion to drop him on his head.

"So now what?" Sam asked. "If Dean's spirit is really here and separated from his body how do we get him back?"

Bobby ran the flashlight over the room, flat surfaces and corners getting identical treatment. "Well, there's nothing in here. Put him back where he was? Maybe there's nothing we can do. Maybe it's all up to him."

Following his brother as he returned to the center of the room and lowered his body onto the dirt, Dean frowned over at his friend. "Thanks, Bobby. I got that much myself. Any more advice, maybe a little more enlightening this time?" Of course there was no answer.

"You hear that, Dean?" Sam said, staring right past Dean's face before his gaze continued on around the room. "Time to hop back inside. Silas is gone and your body's just waiting for you."

"Easier said than done." He looked from one man to the other, but both faces showed only a giddy hope. "Great. A little help would be fantastic right about now," he said, voice rising at the end. He didn't know exactly who he was asking and he shoved down the feeling of foolishness filling his gut. No one would ever need to know about it.

Staring down at his own body, Dean swallowed back a trickle of bile worming up his throat. This was the second time he'd been separated from his physical self and he didn't like it anymore this time than the last. He hadn't been able to do anything about it in the hospital. At least he didn't think so. Never had his lack of memory of that time been more frustrating. In all honesty he hadn't tried all that hard to get it back, but now he wished he had. Even the smallest piece of information would be helpful at the moment.

With no other ideas, he shrugged and knelt next to his brother. "Here goes nothing." Without letting himself think about it too much, he laid down over his body. His eyes closed automatically, hands clenching in the dirt. He didn't feel any different. Hell, he didn't feel anything at all. One eye eased open, the other lid scrunching tight. It was nauseating to see himself superimposed over his body, four legs lying astray of each other, four arms not quite lining up. Pushing past the disturbing sight, he moved his legs over, inching his butt to his right an inch. His arms were much easier and in mere seconds he set his head back onto the dirt, forcing himself to relax and stay still.

He counted out ten interminable seconds before opening his eyes once again. Another two seconds and he banged his head against the dirt, actually wishing he could feel the pain as it struck. He was no closer to rejoining his body than he'd been when Sam and Bobby had arrived. "Now what? Come on, guys, a few ideas would go a long way right now? Just one?"

"Bobby," Sam said, one hand gripping Dean's forearm so tight he could see white along the knuckles. "Nothing's happening. He's here. We know he's here. Why isn't he waking up?"

The other man, hatless since Dean had knocked it off of his head, frowned, creases deepening around his mouth and eyes. "I have an idea. But you're not going to like it."

With an opening like that, Dean was absolutely positive his friend was right, but he wanted to hear it anyway. "I can not like it later, spill already."

"What is it? What do I need to do?" His brother's voice overlapped his own by a few syllables and he smiled. Trust Sam to ignore the part he could deal with later.

"Listen up, Dean. You're a disembodied spirit, just like the ones we send on all the time. They don't leave because they're holding onto something or some piece of themselves is keeping them trapped. I think maybe you have the opposite problem." Bobby scrubbed a hand over his face, the uncharacteristic stalling tactic almost as blatant as the mini-history lesson and Dean sat up, his physical torso sticking out behind him like some kind of freakish tail. "Dean, you have to want to come back."

"What?"

"What the hell does that mean?" Dean yelled only a split second behind Sam. "Of course I want to come back."

"Bobby," his brother said, shaking his head so hard his hair slapped audibly at his cheeks. "Are you saying Dean doesn't want to come back? That he wants to die?"

Leaning back on his heels, Bobby's hands rose in front of his chest. "That's not what I'm saying. Not exactly. Sam, your brother's been through more than his fair share of hell these past few years. I would be really surprised if there's not a tiny part of him that would just rather have it all be over. To be able to finally rest. No matter what he says, no matter what we tend to think, Dean's only human."

Dean's lips opened, ready to argue every point until his tongue turned blue and fell out of his mouth, but nothing escaped. The longer the silence surrounded them, the more his friend's words took root in his chest, sprouting limbs and vines of their own. His brother was equally silent at his side, face stricken and pale, disbelieving.

Was Bobby right? Was there a tiny, barely measurable bit buried deep down in the place he kept locked up tight that was so tired of it all that it'd rather give up than go back? His entire life had been about the struggle, the fight, the hunt. Every facet of his life revolved around the job in some form or fashion, had since he was four years old. He loved hunting. It was all he'd wanted to do once his father had sat him down and explained the truth about what had happened to his mother and why it was so important to protect his younger brother. He loved his life and reconnecting with Sam over the past year and a half had been some of the best times of his existence.

And yet, a thought crept into the back of his mind, uncalled and unwelcome. Reconnecting with his brother had been the only good thing to happen to him in the last year and a half.

His dad had left him high and dry without so much as a take care of yourself. He'd dragged his brother back into a life Sam had always hated. He'd seen and lost Cassie yet again all in just a few days. He'd been copied by a skin stealing bastard who'd gotten his kicks by torturing and killing women. He was wanted by the cops in no less than three states as well as the FBI. Oh, and how could he forget the fun of getting tortured by a demon wearing his father's skin and nearly dying in the hospital? Actually, he didn't remember that last part, but he'd been told enough about it by his brother to know it had been a time best left in the not talked about column. He wasn't even going to get into the whole possibility his dad had literally died so he could live idea. He still hadn't been able to let that one out of its box.

All of that weighed pretty heavily against the single positive of getting to spend some quality time with his brother.

So, yeah, maybe there was the teensiest, tiniest piece of him deep, way deep down inside where the sunlight never had a chance to shine that could possibly just want it all to be over.

"Bobby, no," Sam said, voice far too quiet and far too shaken for Dean's peace of mind. "No, I can't accept that. Not after everything we've been through. Not after Dad, after Jess." He trailed off, clearly having more to say, but unable to get the words out.

"I'm so sorry, Sam," he said. "I really am."

Face carefully blank, Bobby rested one hand on Sam's arm, the other on Dean's where it lay lifeless across his stomach. "Whether you can accept it or not doesn't make the possibility any less true." As gentle as their friend was, his brother's face still blanched, hand tightening into a fist, but he didn't, or couldn't, say anything in response.

Dean scanned his brother's face, his unusually hooded eyes, and wondered what he'd done to deserve to see the day he put that expression on Sam's face. Guilt aside, he was still trapped outside of his body and if Bobby was right the only thing getting him back inside was himself. "Great, Dean. You're screwed, you know that?"

cont.