Chapter Twenty-Eight

The whole drive back to the motel, Sam watched Dean out of the corner of his eye through the rearview mirror. His brother sat in stunned silence, hunched up as if wishing he could disappear. It had been a long time since he had seen Dean look this guilty and shocked, since the night that Julie died, actually.

Dean hadn't spoken since Sam killed Cynthia and freed his brother from her spell. There had been a long, tense moment right after Dean snapped out of it, when he stood there in front of Julie and he wouldn't drop the Blade. Finally, Sam simply said his brother's name, and Dean released the First Blade. Sam had quickly picked it up, and he had waited for Julie to rush to Dean and put her arms around him and comfort him like she always did.

But instead, she just stood there and stared at Dean, still looking a little afraid of him. And who could blame her? That man had just attempted to kill her. Twice. But…it was Dean. She loved him, and he loved her. They would be okay. Sam kept telling himself that as he burned the siren's corpse and gently guided Julie and Dean to the car. Neither one had spoken in almost half an hour, and Sam was starting to get really concerned.

Julie rode in silence in the passenger seat next to Sam. She was pale, but she at least seemed to be recovering from what had just happened. By the time they got back to the motel, Julie stopped Dean in the doorway and said gently, "Dean, look, can we talk about-?"

"I can't," he whispered, unable to meet her eyes. "Please, I just…I can't right now." Julie looked a little hurt, but mostly concerned. "I'm sorry," Dean added in a whisper, and then he stepped into his motel room and closed the door.

Julie stood there, feeling a little lost. That was her room too, but it was clear Dean needed to be alone. She wasn't sure what to do, and then Sam put a large hand on her shoulder. "You can stay in my room tonight, if you want," he offered.

And so Julie slept in a separate bed from Dean once again. This time felt different than the last time they had slept apart, when they were fighting. This was a one time thing. Dean just needed to fix things with himself. That was all. It had better be.

Sam insisted Julie take the bed, so he stretched out on a slightly battered couch in the motel room and attempted to drift off. He couldn't sleep though, and he doubted Julie was doing so well either.

Sure enough, after maybe thirty minutes of attempting to sleep, Julie's voice asked softly, "Sam?"

"Hmm?"

"Dean…what the siren made him do…that was all her, right? All her and not…"

Sam tensed up at the concern and fear in Julie's voice. "That was all the siren's doing," he assured Julie. "Well…her and the Blade and the Mark. But Dean…he would never-"

"I know!" Julie said quickly. "I know he would never try to hurt me. I just…I don't know. I'm worried about him."

Sam smirked bitterly. "If you weren't, I would be worried. I wish so badly that we could help him. I wish I could do this instead of him. But it's got to be his battle, and if he won't let us help him…"

"We'll make him," Julie muttered defiantly, and Sam smiled slightly in the dark. God, how had Dean survived without this woman? Dean was a ball of guilt and grief and anger and pain held together by duct tape and Sam, and the Mark of Cain and the First Blade were threatening to undo him. Without Julie to put him back together before and to try and hold him together now, Dean would crash and burn.

Sam was reminded suddenly of another young, sweet, beautiful blond woman. Jessica Moore, the woman who had represented happiness and safety and a normal life to him. He had loved her so much, and lost her, and it would have destroyed him if it weren't for Dean. Now he wanted to be able to help save Dean, but if his brother wouldn't let him…

Sam pushed those thoughts away and tried to sleep. Things would be better in the morning, or at least he really hoped they would.


The next morning, Sam checked to make sure Dean was still here, and that he hadn't run off, and then he stepped outside and dialed a familiar number. Castiel picked up on the third ring and asked, "Sam? Is everything alright?"

Sam laughed bitterly. "Uh, no. Look, Cas…I'm worried about Dean. He's not doing so hot with this whole Blade thing."

"What exactly is wrong with him?" Cas asked, concerned.

"Last night…well, last night, a siren found us and put Dean under her spell. Then she forced him to fight me and attempt to kill Julie. And he's really messed up about it. And he's having nightmares too, and I just don't know what to do…"

"I am not sure what to do either, Sam," Cas admitted. "I've never seen anything like this. Nobody has, not since Cain."

"I know, Cas," Sam sighed. "I just thought you should know since he's your…" What even was Dean to Cas? He wanted to say friend, but it almost seemed like something more. Cas was the one who pulled Dean out of hell, the one he spent a year with in Purgatory. Sam supposed they were best friends, but there was a deeper bond between them than that. They were connected, and Sam knew what it would do to the angel if he had to watch Dean go dark and eventually "put him down."

Castiel sighed. "I wish…I wish I could go to him. But the angels…we are in turmoil. Metatron is keeping us busy, sending his angel and demon minions alike after us to keep up from doing much in the way of helping you. It's all I can do to keep my brothers and sisters together as is."

Sam sighed. Everything was falling to pieces. He couldn't ask anything of Cas, not when he had an angel war to fight. And Crowley…he didn't trust that demon well enough to bring him in on this.

It looked like it was just Sam, Dean, and Julie.

Sam said goodbye to Cas and stepped into his motel room. Julie had gone out to get some food before they hit the road and headed back to the bunker. Sam had to assume that Dean was still in his motel room.

Sam wandered over to the dresser and found himself staring at the bundle of brown cloth in front of him. He knew what was in there, and for a moment he wanted nothing more than to smash it to pieces or burn it or throw it into the ocean for what it was doing to his brother. But if they ever wanted to kill another Knight, they would need it.

"Keep it," a hoarse voice said behind him, and Sam whirled around to see Dean standing in his room. He must have opened the adjoining door, and Sam hadn't even noticed. Dean looked pale and tired and worn, and he was purposefully looking anywhere but at the weapon sitting on the dresser.

"Dean-" Sam started.

"Keep the Blade, Sam," Dean said firmly. "Keep it and make sure I don't even touch that thing until I'm face to face with a Knight."

"But, Dean-" the younger Winchester tried again.

"Keep it away from me, Sammy!" Dean pleaded. "Please, I…I can't let it do that to me again. Because no siren, I don't care how powerful, could make me do that to you and Jules. It's going to turn me into something I don't want to be, and if I hurt either of you…"

Dean looked down, ashamed, as tears welled up in his eyes. "Okay, Dean," Sam assured his brother. "I'll keep it away from you. But…you know that if you don't kill with the Blade, you'll start to…to…"

"To die?" his brother smirked bitterly. "Oh, well. Let's just hope I find those Knights first."

Sam swallowed. "Dean, I can't just let you die, because that's what will happen if you don't use it! What if you just use it on monsters?"

"Don't you get it, Sammy?" Dean snapped. "Every time I kill something with that Blade, a part of me dies. If I keep killing, the human part of me is going to die, and then I could very well end up killing you and Julie, and I can't let that happen."

"Dean…" Sam stopped, knowing that as much as he hated to admit it, his brother was right. He sighed. "Alright. Fine. But we're going to find the Knights and we're going to kill them before we ever have to worry about something happening to you. You got it?"

Dean smirked, but his eyes were hollow and tired. "Okay, Sammy," he whispered, looking about a thousand years old.

Dean knew he wouldn't last long enough to find and kill every one of those Knights. But whatever kept his baby brother happy…that was what was important.


The next week seemed to stretch on for months to Julie. Part of it, she was sure, was how boring it was, digging through books of lore and going through every death or weird occurrence in all of the country that could possibly be the doing of a Knight of Hell. The only breaks she ever got from the research was to eat, sleep, or call Castiel. She and Sam were trying to do their best to keep the angel updated on everything that was happening so he wouldn't feel so bad about not being with his best friend in such a rough time.

But Julie wasn't sure how much having Cas around would really help Dean. He was doing his best to shut everyone out, surely to keep them safe after what had happened with that siren, but it was killing Julie.

Every day, Dean would look slightly paler. The circles under his eyes were slowly but surely getting darker. At one point, Julie walked into the room to find Dean clutching the wall for support. Once he knew she was there, he pretended he was fine, but she knew what she had seen.

Dean hadn't killed anything in three weeks, since that hunt with the vampires. Julie wasn't sure how long the Blade and Mark would allow him to go without killing, but judging by the way he was slowly deteriorating, she would guess not very much longer.

Julie wanted more than anything to try to help him, but Dean was avoiding her as much as possible. And it wasn't because of anything she had done. He just couldn't look at her without his eyes suddenly filling with guilt and pain. Every time he looked at Julie, he saw the fear in her eyes right before he tried to kill her, felt his hands closing around her throat. What he had done was inexcusable no matter what sort of spell he was under, and there was no way Julie could forgive him.

Except that she had. Julie had forgiven Dean the day after he tried to kill her, and she had told him so. He hadn't replied, just looked down and flinched ever-so-slightly when she touched his arm. That night, they had slept in the same bed, but Dean had kept his distance from her. Julie had been upset, but the distance between them didn't feel like it had a few months ago, right before she died. Julie didn't doubt that Dean loved her; in fact, somehow this guilt and pain he was filled with that was keeping him away from her somehow proved he loved her even more.

But Julie was getting tired of it. So a week after returning to the bunker, Julie walked into the room where Dean sat at a wooden table, reading a book of lore he had read twice before, carrying a plate with a couple of sandwiches on it, on a mission.

"Eat," Julie ordered Dean, sitting down next to him and pushing the plate in front of him.

Dean hesitated. "You haven't eaten anything all day," she snapped. "Now eat the food I made before I feed it to you like you're two."

The shadow of a smirk twitched across Dean's mouth, and he picked up one of the sandwiches. He took a bite and nodded. "Thanks," he muttered once he had swallowed.

For a moment, his green eyes met her blue ones, and the space between them was charged with all the things they hadn't been saying for a week.

"I'm sorry-" Dean blurted suddenly.

"Stop it," Julie snapped, and he blinked, startled. "That's about the only thing you've said to me for the past week. 'I'm sorry.' Well, I forgive you, Dean. I did a week ago."

"But I haven't forgiven myself," Dean muttered, looking down again.

"Big surprise," Julie said sarcastically, and Dean looked up once again, surprised by the amount of attitude she was giving him right now. "Dean Winchester is struggling with guilt, and he can't forgive himself, and he's blaming himself for everything little thing that's ever gone wrong. What else is new?"

"It was my fault," he muttered darkly. "I was the one who tried to kill you and the one who fought Sam."

"Under the influence of a monster and the First Blade," Julie shot back. "The real you would never have laid a finger on either of us."

"But it still happened, and it's inexcusable!" he snapped, unable to understand how Julie wasn't angry about what he had tried to do to her.

"Funny, because I'm excusing it," she said. "Now, you need to do the same and move on. I'm fine. Sam's fine. The only one we're worried about is you."

"I'm fine," Dean muttered, looking down, and Julie laughed bitterly.

"Funny, because it seems like the only time you ever say that is when you're on the verge of falling apart."

"Which for me is always," Dean said sarcastically to cover up the truth of those words. "I don't even know why you're still here, Julie. Why do you put up with me? Why didn't you just get out when you had the chance? Why don't you now?"

Julie's face softened as she realized he was honestly asking. Julie reached out and touched Dean's arm, and for the first time in a week, he let her. "Dean…I honestly don't know why I stayed at first, when I first met you. I must just have a thing for really dangerous guys. I would have been a lot safer if I had just left…but now I'm in this. I'm a part of this as much as you and Sam, and shutting us out isn't going to keep us safe. Leaving us won't keep us safe. The Knights will just find us and use us as bait. And pushing us away will just make you lose yourself faster. Please, just let us help you!"

Dean swallowed. He looked very conflicted, but then suddenly he lifted his head and looked Julie right in the eye and said, "Okay."

Julie blinked, surprised that had worked. "Really?"

"Yeah. I…I need help. I don't want to become what I almost did last time and…I need help, Jules. I can't do this without you and Sammy and Cas…"

"I know," Julie said, her heart breaking at the pain and fear in his eyes. She moved closer and put her arms around Dean, letting him lean into her and take comfort in her touch. "It's okay, Dean. We're going to help you. You'll be okay."

For a long time, they just held each other. Eventually, Dean composed himself and pulled away, back to his tough hunter self. He closed the book or lore on the table and said, "You know what? I am sick and tired of sitting around all day, reading books."

"I know," Julie sighed. "Thankfully, Sam and I, in all of our digging around, have found a case."

"Really?" Dean asked, slightly surprised.

"Yep," Julie said. "There's a town four or so hours east of here, and they've got this huge corn maze. It's a big deal to the locals, and it's supposed to be super complicated or whatever. But in this past week alone, three teenagers went in there and two of them disappeared, and the third one came out screaming and sobbing. They found out later she had just gone insane, and no one could get out of her what happened in there. They closed the place, and when these two cops went in to search the maze, they never came out. No one's going in anymore, but we think it sounds like a case."

"Huh," Dean said. "I haven't heard of any monster like that."

"Sam hadn't either," Julie said. "Looks like we've found the only type of monster on the planet that Sam and Dean haven't ganked yet."

Dean smirked slightly and stood up. "Where are you going?" Julie snapped.

Dean frowned. "To get ready for that hunt."

"Not until you finish your food, you're not."

Dean smirked. "You're joking." He took in Julie's expression and quickly amended, "You're not joking."

"I made that food, and you are going to sit your ass down and eat it and you are going to like it!" Julie ordered him.

All of the sudden, Dean grinned and as he sat back down, he leaned over and kissed Julie for a brief moment. "I love you," he admitted.

Julie grabbed the collar of his jacket and pulled him closer to kiss him back. After a long kiss, Dean pulled away and smirked, "What about eating?"

"God, Dean, it's just food," Julie muttered. "You can eat later." And they both grinned as they leaned in again and kissed, and for one single, shining moment, things felt normal and happy once again.


Sam and Dean closed their car doors in unison and walked over to the entrance to this infamous corn maze. A few cops stood outside the maze, talking in low, concerned voices.

As the two brothers and Julie approached the policemen, they pulled their badges out of their jackets and casually held them open. "Is there a problem here?" Dean asked the officers.

The oldest man, who looked to be in his late forties with a bushy moustache and beard, asked suspiciously, "If there was, why would you care, agent? Don't the feds have bigger problems than this?"

"Than four disappearances in one week?" Sam asked sharply. "Seems pretty serious to me."

"Five, actually," a young officer muttered.

All three hunters turned to face him. "What?" Dean snapped. "Did you let someone else go in there?"

"It's not our fault!" the young officer snapped. "Some kid sneaked past us when we weren't looking and he ran inside."

"How long has he been in there?" Julie snapped.

"A couple of hours," one of the officers admitted. Sam, Dean, and Julie exchanged concerned glances. They had better get in there fast to save the kid, if he wasn't dead already.

Another officer walked over to them, comforting a thin, pale woman who looked maybe thirty. She was sobbing, and Dean instantly felt sorry for her.

"The mother?" he guessed, nodding towards the sobbing woman.

"Melanie Wolfe," the oldest officer said. "Her son, Johnny, is still in there."

"Not for long," Dean muttered. He started towards the entrance, but one of the police officers moved to block him.

"The hell do you think you're doing?" the officer snapped.

"I'm going to go save that kid instead of sitting on my ass like the rest of you," Dean snapped, and even Sam and Julie were a little surprised by the anger in his voice.

"I don't really like your tone-" the officer started.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings. Now get out of my way before I make you."

"De…Agent Combs, maybe we should stop and think about this," Sam said carefully, touching his brother's arm.

"There's a kid in there, and who knows what could be happening to him, and I think it is our duty to try to save him," Dean said.

"Everyone who has gone in there in the past week hasn't come out," the youngest officer warned them.

"We'll be okay," Julie said, more to Sam than to the officers. "We know what we're doing."

Dean nodded, and Sam sighed and gave in. The cops gave in and let the three "FBI agents" into the maze.

It was dark out, and there was a pretty strong wind blowing. The corn around the three hunters rustled noisily as the wind blew through it, making it near impossible to hear something sneak up on them. Dean kept his hand near his waist, fingering the gun tucked under the waistband of his dark slacks. Julie checked on the various silver, iron, and bronze blades she kept tucked inside her jacket, and Sam gripped a small canteen of holy water as they walked. They had no idea what to expect, so the hunters had come equipped with every weapon at their disposal, except one.

Dean felt himself wishing that he had the First Blade. There was so much uncertainty in the air, and Dean knew he would feel much more confident if he had the weapon that could kill nearly every creature in existence.

But more importantly, he wouldn't feel so damn weak. Exhaustion was making his limbs heavy, even though he had been sleeping six or seven hours most nights, which was a record for him. He couldn't eat anywhere near his normal amount of food, or else he would just puke it back up. He coughed often, but insisted to Sam and Julie it was just a cold. He tried to hide how truly awful his condition was, but he doubted he was really fooling them.

He was dying. He knew it, and he knew deep down they probably knew it, too. But Dean tried to ignore that fact and pretend it was just another case.

They had been wandering through the vast maze in silence for maybe ten minutes when they heard the first scream.

It was a child's desperate wail, and Julie instinctively grabbed Dean's arm at the sound of a young boy in such fear and pain. The three hunters turned to the west, where the scream had come from, and they were about to take off running when another scream came from the east.

This one was a woman, and she sounded as if she was sobbing, too. They hesitated, unsure what to do.

"Split up," Julie said, knowing how foolish that was in a case like this. But they had no choice. If they saved one victim, but another died because of their refusal to split up, they would never forgive themselves.

The brothers hesitated for a moment, but they knew she was right. "Julie, you go with Dean and save that kid," Sam ordered. "I'll find the woman."

Julie nodded and took off, Dean at her side. They ran through the corn until they came to a fork in the path. Unsure which way led to the child, they froze.

"Which way…?" Dean asked uncertainly.

Julie was torn. Part of her was certain the boy had sounded a little to the south of here, while the other knew he had been only a few yards to the north of here. She didn't want to do this, but she knew she had to.

"You've got you phone, right?" she asked Dean. He pulled his out. "And Sam's got his. So we can reach each other if we have to."

"Right," Dean agreed, obviously understanding what she meant. "I'll go left, you go right?"

"Sure," Julie sighed. She hesitated for half a second and whispered, "Be safe," before taking off down the opposite path.

Julie ran for a while, until her feet were sore and she was out of breath. She was about to give up, certain Dean's path had been the right one, when a small, dirty boy of about seven or eight stumbled onto her path.

Julie dropped to her knees in front of the small, shaking child. He stared at her with big, teary, brown eyes. "Hey, you're okay," Julie assured the young boy. "You're fine. I'm going to get you out of here and back to your mom, okay?"

"He's still in here," the boy whispered.

"What? Who?"

"The…the doctor," he said, sounding terrified. "The one with the big needle, and he said he was going to…to kill me with the big needle!"

The child started sobbing again, and Julie pulled him in for a hug. Once the child had calmed down a bit, she asked, "Johnny—it is Johnny, right?" He nodded, wiping at his nose. "Well, Johnny, where did this doctor go?"

With a small, trembling hand, the boy pointed to the east. The direction that Sam had gone, alone.

Julie pulled out her phone and quickly dialed Sam's number. But she had no service out here, and her phone was useless. She put her phone away, trying to keep her fear and frustration under control. She had to focus on getting this kid out of here safely. Then she could try to find Sam before it was too late.


Sam wasn't sure how long he'd been running, but it felt like a long time. He was slightly out of breath when he paused briefly. He should have found the woman by now. Of course, he could've taken a wrong turn at any of the forks in the path he had found, but he had just been trying to follow his natural instinct. It had guided him well on many cases, and he hoped it would this time.

The wind changed directions and Sam froze, the cool wind blowing his hair and jacket back. There was something ominous about that wind, about this whole maze mess. Sam had never been on a hunt like this, and something felt very off about it.

Suddenly, a woman's scream came again, and not too far away. He took off running, trying to pinpoint the location before he lost the sound again. It didn't take Sam long at all to find the place where the woman's voice had come from.

However, when he got to the small clearing where the woman's voice had come from, he found it abandoned.

Sam hesitated. He was certain that the scream had come from here, and yet there was no woman in sight. The wind shifted again, and he tensed up, reaching for his gun.

He couldn't explain it, but he could somehow sense that whatever they were hunting was near.

Sam cocked his gun and waited, tense and ready. But nothing happened, and he was beginning to doubt himself when the woman screamed just a couple feet behind him.

He whirled around, but there was no one there. He found himself staring at nothing but corn.

And then a horrifyingly familiar voice laughed lightly and said, "Oh, come on, Sam. You really fell for that? That's like the oldest trick in the book! I thought I taught you better than that."

Sam whirled around and pointed his gun at the figure in front of him. Sam wanted to look tough and intimidating, but his hands were shaking slightly, and he was sure he looked as terrified as he felt. There was only one thing in all of creation that could change him from feeling like a hardened hunter to a trembling, terrified kid. And that thing was standing right in front of him.

The tall, attractive, sandy-haired man waved his hand lazily, and Sam's gun flew out of his hands and disappeared into the thick walls of corn. Sam found himself standing terrified and helpless in front of the most evil creature in existence.

That evil creature grinned at him. "Heya, Sammy," Lucifer chuckled. "Did you miss me?"