Chapter 24

"The New World"

Dean couldn't sleep that night; he never could when he was worried about Sam. His mind continued to play the day's events over and over again as he tossed and turned in his bed. He looked over at his sleeping brother's frame and frowned. He couldn't believe that Sam had been so stupid.

"What do you mean it's not just you in there, Sam?" Dean had asked his brother, terrified, knowing full well what Sam meant and choosing not to believe it to be true.

Sam had lowered his eyes at his brother, "You know what I mean, Dean. I said yes!"

Before Dean had known what he was doing he had grabbed onto Sam's shirt and pinned him up against the wall. "What the hell were you thinking? What about our plan?"

Sam had put his hands up in surrender, even though he could have easily taken Dean down without lifting his little finger. "I made a mistake, Dean. He cornered me and promised me that if I just did this for him that he would bring our parents back and we could have nice, normal lives. I did it for us; for you!"

Dean looked into his brother's eyes and for a moment he felt bad for having been so angry with him. He knew that his Sammy loved him and was weak to all things Dean and their parents, but it was never supposed to be Sam's job to make sacrifices. "Since when do we ever trust him?"

Sam sighed, "We don't; that's why I made a stupid mistake and now he's in me and I can't get him out."

Dean let his brother go; he knew there was no point in trying to remain physically dominant with the man whose body housed the most powerful evil creature in the galaxy. "No! You're my brother and it's my job to take care of you. I will find a way to fix this, I promise you!" Dean had fully meant what he had said. There was nothing he wouldn't do for his brother and he knew that he would not rest until Lucifer was banished from Sam's body and he could have his Sammy back to normal.

Stephanie slept five blissful hours in that warm, soft, inviting bed. She had felt safe and for some reason the nightmares were kept at bay. When she awoke it was nighttime. The room was pitch dark, except for the moonlight shining in the window. She shivered and held herself. She hated the dark; that was when all the monsters came out to rear their ugly heads and do horrible things to people. She didn't know if she hated the dark prior to meeting the Winchesters but ever since she had met them the dark had not been peaceful and comforting in the way that she believed it should have been.

She looked over at the other side of the ginormous bed and frowned to see that there was not a Winchester frame lying beside her. How was she supposed to get through the darkness without them? Where was she? Then it came back to her; she was 'home' with her husband and friends and the Winchesters were out there somewhere, hopefully nearby. There was some comfort in knowing that they were most likely somewhere close, maybe even a call's distance away.

She grabbed her cell phone and looked at the time; it was 11PM. There was a chance that Dean was still awake so she decided to give him a call and make sure that he had found Sam and they were okay.

It took about three rings before she could hear Dean's gruff voice on the other line. "Hey." He said, his voice not betraying any emotion.

"Dean. I just woke from a nap and was thinking about you. How did everything go, did you find Sam?

"Yeah, he was back at the motel. I didn't have to look very hard to find him."

"Oh." She said, feeling stupid for some reason. "Well, that's good then. Did I wake you?"

"Nah, I couldn't sleep anyway." Dean had rolled out of his bed and walked into the bathroom to talk to her, so that he would hopefully be out of earshot of his brother.

"Did Sam talk to you about some stuff when you got back there?" Stephanie wanted to make sure that Dean knew everything so that she didn't give any secrets away prematurely.

"I know all about the Lucifer thing." He sighed and ran his hands over his face, trying to figure out what words he should use to say his peace. "I'm disappointed, Steph."

"I'm sure you are."

"I mean, with you. I'm pissed and frustrated with Sam, but I'm disappointed with you."

His words cut like a knife stabbing into her heart. Tears fell from her eyes then; she couldn't stand the thought of him feeling this way about her, "I'm sorry."

"I just don't understand why you didn't tell me about this sooner when it's obvious that you knew everything. I loved you, Stephanie, and I thought we had something special."

Loved. Had he just said that in the past tense? A sob caught in her throat, "We do, Dean, but I just thought that he should tell you himself. It wasn't about me and I just felt that it wasn't my place to get in the middle of it."

"He's my brother!"

"I know that. I also know that he's your whole life; everything you do is about him, for him. I know that about you, Dean and that's one of the things that made me fall in love with you. I just didn't feel like being a snitch was good for me. This is about you and Sam and it was his job to tell you, Dean, not mine." She couldn't stop the tears from flowing.

After they had hung up, Stephanie left the bed, realizing that she had to face her new life head on, because she wasn't going to get the old one back. She wiped the tears from her eyes and stepped out into the living room of their two bedroom apartment. Chuck was sitting on the couch, watching a movie on the television, his head in his hands. He looked up when he heard her sit down beside him.

He smiled, "Hey sleeping beauty."

She couldn't help but smile back, "Hey. Sorry I slept so long. I wanted to talk to you and learn more about myself, but I had been so wiped out."

He nodded, "it's okay. We have all the time in the world to do those things." He reached over and grabbed a big, square book and handed it to Stephanie. She looked at him confused. He smiled, "It's your scrapbook. Well, it's your first scrapbook, you were working on the second one when you—" His voice trailed off.

It was obvious to Stephanie that the topic of her being possessed and leaving was extremely difficult for Chuck to deal with. She felt bad for giving this guy so much pain. She knew in her heart that he must have really meant something insanely much to her and if she could just remember her old life maybe she could be happy.

She flipped through the book. It started with pictures of her as a baby with her family; her parents, her brother and her grandparents. "I looked so happy."

"You were, Steph, you were." Chuck showed her some pictures of her in her ballet uniform from first and second grade, her brownie and Girl Scout uniform from pretty much all of elementary school and even her softball uniform from fifth and sixth grade. It seemed like she had been involved with a lot of things and had made many friends in the process.

She smiled looking at her embarrassing hairstyles in middle school and even the early years of high school. The hairstyles got somewhat better by the end of high school but it was still pretty scary. She let out a loud laugh looking at herself in her costumes from the plays and musicals she had done in high school. "I played a nun?"

Chuck laughed, "Yeah, it was The Sound of Music"

"I can't exactly see myself as a nun." Stephanie laughed.

He smiled back at her and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, "Well, you're not really that much of a horrible sinner, Steph, you really loved God."

She nodded, "I still get that feeling. You know I get these really messed up dreams that I think are flashes of actual memories and things. There always seems to be some element of good vs. evil in them though. Bibles, Biblical references and Bible verses seem to stand out a lot to me too."

Chuck nodded, "You've been a devout Christian your whole life. Don't get me wrong though, you've not been a saint all the time or anything; you've made some mistakes, but we all have. Once we were married you seemed to go off the bandwagon a little bit, but I know it was still important to you inside of yourself.

She looked up at this man who she had promised to love, honor and cherish for as long as she lived and she could see why she had chosen him. He was sweet, romantic and loyal to a fault. It was funny to her that she could tell all of these things about the man after knowing him a matter of a few short hours. She knew it was all in there somewhere; the memory of this life that she was looking at in the pictures and the gentle man sitting beside her, giving of everything he had to bring his wife back from the fog and stupor that she was in.

Dean spent the next five days pouring over every book he could get his hands on. They had shown up at Bobby's, waking him from a sound sleep, so that he could assist them in the book pouring sessions. It didn't matter who they consulted or what books they read, there just wasn't anything that seemed like it could help them out of this craptastic situation.

The most irritating part of the whole thing for Dean was the fact that his brother had seemed to just give up on trying to get the devil out of him. "You could at least pretend like you want to fix this." Dean growled at his brother, after 72 straight hours of studying.

Sam glared at his brother, "Of course I want him out of me, Dean, don't be ridiculous. I just find it hard to get deeply involved in this when I know that nothing is going to work. Things are happening the way he always said they would."

Dean shook his head, "No, Lucifer said he would control your body. That isn't happening so it's not the same."

"Only because I've been drinking demon blood like I've been in the desert for forty days without water. I can only hold him off for so long, it's just a matter of time!"

"You know what; you're really starting to piss me off! Not only did you make the world's stupidest decision, but now you're getting bitchy with me because I'm trying to help you! What the hell?"

"Go ahead and get me mad, see if that helps!" Sam glared, his nostrils flaring, feeling Lucifer growing stronger within him.

"Would you two idjits please shut up?" Bobby yelled at the two prisses sitting in his living room, yelling at each other like an old married couple. "We don't have time for this. Now, Sam please explain to me what you know about Lucifer's plan."

Sam shrugged, "All I know is that he wants me to force myself on Stephanie."

Dean groaned, he did not like the sound of that even one little bit. "I won't let you touch her!"

"Why do you think I ran out of there? Every time I'm in the room with her it gets harder to ignore him." Sam hated admitting this to these men, especially Dean who loved her so much.

"She's great and everything but what exactly does Lucifer want with her?" Dean tried to force himself to remain calm, getting mad at Sam wasn't going to get the answers he needed or help Sam keep Lucifer at bay.

"Don't you think I would tell you if I knew?"

Dean shrugged; he had no idea what his brother was going to do from one minute to the next. Sam hadn't been acting like Sam for a while so you just never could tell what he was going to say or do. "You haven't exactly been opening up to me lately. It's pretty sad when Stephanie knows you better than I do."

Sam looked down at his hands. He hated it when Dean was disappointed in him, he hated it more than just about anything in the world, but he didn't have the ambition to try and defend himself. "Dean, please, just stop. This whole thing is—"

"Scary, horrible, apocalyptic? Any of those words apply?"

Sam nodded.

Dean stood up, "I'm going to do something I haven't done in a while. I'll be back." With that Dean left Bobby's and got behind the wheel of his beloved Impala and drove down the road until he found a nice abandoned building in the middle of nowhere, where he could have some privacy. He stepped from the vehicle and rested against it, looking up into the sky. "Cas, God, whoever….Sam's in a lot of trouble and I need some help." He rubbed his hands over his face, "I just don't know what to do."

He could hear a rush of wings behind him. "All you had to do was ask, Dean." Castiel said, right behind Dean.

"Did you know about Sam?"

"I heard. But not until after it had already happened. How is he?"

"Peachy." Dean grumbled sarcastically, "We need to know how to fix him."

"You can't."

"Come on Cas! You're supposed to be my friend, now I need your help!"

Cas lowered his eyes and gave Dean one of those weirdly intense glares that made Dean a bit uncomfortable inside, "I said that you couldn't help him. I didn't say that no one could."

Dean perked up; maybe there would be hope for Sam after all. "Who? Who can help him?"

"You know I can't give you the answers outright."

Dean glared at his angel friend, "This is important, we only have so much time!"

"I'm not at liberty to tell you anything, but it's all about genetics."

Dean looked at the angel, perplexed, "Could you be any more cryptic? We know that Lucifer wants Stephanie for some reason but we don't know why."

"She has very strong powers."

Dean raised his eyebrows, he really didn't like the sound of this, "Please don't tell me that she has the kind of powers that Sam has."

"They're actually the complete opposite."

"She can put demons into people?" Dean was at his wits end so he had resorted to his smart ass ways again.

Castiel frowned, "This is no joking matter."

"I'm sorry; you're just not giving me anything to work with." Dean said, feeling completely and utterly defeated.

"If I could tell you everything I would, but my wings are tied." Castiel appeared as though he was about to say something and then his facial expression changed into an intense look of worry. "You need to go, Bobby's in trouble. I will zap you back there, but whatever you do, please stop this! Stop this before it's too late! The fate of the whole world rests in Stephanie's arms!"

Before Dean could even think about responding to the words that his angel friend had spoken he was standing back in Bobby's house. Bobby was on the floor, knocked unconscious and bleeding from a head injury and Sam was nowhere to be found.

"Sam! Sam, where are you?" Dean screamed, nervously. He didn't know what was happening all around him but it was clear that it wasn't good at all!

A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! I know that I have taken some long breaks between chapters in the past but I was inspired last night to finish this story. I think I now know exactly what should happen...it might even lead into a sequel, but we'll have to wait and see about that. Anyway, I will be updating again very soon. I'm super excited for where this story is going to go and I hope you all are as well. Keep reading and reviewing...I love reading the reviews. Thanks again!