Chapter 36

Fight

It was a forty minute drive back to the bunker.

Dean got them there in twenty.

He ran to unlock the door, then bolted down the stairs and immediately used his arms to push everything off of the study desk so Sam could lay Cassie down on its surface.

"Take off her jeans," Dean said quickly, taking off his coat and using it as a pillow to prop her head up. "I need to get the bullet out of her leg."

Sam complied, feeling sick to his stomach. He gently undid the button on her jeans and slid them down and off after untying his shirt from around her thigh.

Cassie was so pale and delicate, she looked like she could shatter.

Sam started to repeat a mantra in his head. She's going to be fine, she's going to be fine.

A leg wound wouldn't normally be fatal, but she'd lost a lot of blood, and losing consciousness was never a good sign.

"Med Kit," Dean commanded, gingerly tying some gauze around her thigh to put pressure again.

Sam grabbed it from inside one of the desks and opened it up.

By this point Dean's hands were sticky with Cassandra's blood. He wiped his hands on his shirt. "Dial Cas."

Dean made quick work of grabbing some rubbing alcohol so the wound wouldn't get infected, pouring some over her leg then lifting it up to clean it –

"No," Dean took in a sharp breath. "Fuck this is bad."

The bullet had shot clean through her leg.

There was no bullet to extract.

If she were laying down and there was no exit wound, she wouldn't have lost as much blood because it would've stayed in her body. But because there was a bullet wound in the back of her leg, it meant she was bleeding from both sides.

Sam was pacing back and forth, waiting for Cas to pick up but he wasn't answering. "Come on Cas, please," he whispered to the phone, willing him to answer.

Dean took out his lighter and burned the tip of a sewing needle from the med kit, preparing to give her stitches.

His fingers shook but he willed them to be steady so he could slip the thread through the needle's eye, and once that was done, he sutured her up quickly. It wasn't the fanciest job in the world but it was fast and efficient.

"Sammy, towels," Dean said in a tone like it was a question for permission.

Sam's heart pooled with anxiety. Don't call me, that. It's never good when you call me that.

Sam ran down the hall to grab towels from the bathroom. He bolted back down and threw them at Dean, then went to the kitchen to fill up a buck with water.

"Is that water sterile?" Dean.

"Yeah," Sam said, looking on at Cassandra's face, avoiding glancing at her wound at all costs. "Cas isn't answering." His voice was dead, devoid of energy and hope.

"I've been praying," Dean said. "I know his mojo isn't quite to par but it's better than nothing."

Come on, Man, Dean prayed. This is your baby sister we're talkin' about. Where are you?

After her wound was cleaned and dried, all they had left to do was wait.

Wait for Cas to show up, if ever.

Wait for her to wake up…

Sam wasn't even trying to hold back tears. He took her hand in his, holding it. He pressed a finger against her wrist.

"Her pulse is weak, but it's there," Sam said, barely audible.

Dean stood up and folded his arms behind his head, pacing, filled to the brim with stress and guilt. "She saved our asses," he finally said, turning around. "Why did she come to find us? Why wasn't she armed?"

Sam looked up from Cassie's face to Dean's. "I don't know," he said.

"We were completely screwed back there," he continued. "If she hadn't showed up with Crowley…I don't know what would've happened."

"I would've found you," Sam said, but even he didn't believe that.

Dean shook his head. "No. Even if you had found me, Magnus put me under a spell that drained me of all will and motivation. I was his slave. Cassie was the only one who could snap me out of it."

She did it twice.

Seeing her hand in hand with a shifter was a wakeup call, and if she hadn't started singing that song…

"She was stupid and crazy to do it, but Jesus…what would we have done? How did you even make it back in?"

Sam swallowed, trying to think back. "She…she'd been reading the files. She remembered seeing a spell to get in, so Crowley took me back here to get it so we would know what ingredients to have him grab."

Dean sighed. "I don't know how the fuck she knew to come, but she saved our lives." Dean bit his lip, swallowing his grief. "But it's not worth it if she's paying for it with – "

"– DON'T. SAY IT," Sam growled dangerously, glaring. "She's going to be fine."

Dean didn't even argue it. He didn't want to.

He wanted Sam to be right.

"GAAAHH!" Cassie gasped and jolted awake, clinging to her middle. "AAHH!" She was screaming.

It made Sam and Dean both jump. Sam immediately got up from his chair and hugged her to him. "Cassie, what's wrong?!"

Tears were streaming down her face and she looked like she had problems breathing. "HURTS….SO….BA – " She whimpered and her entire body tensed, trying to absorb the pain.

"What the hell is going on with her?!" Dean cried. He rushed over to her other side and took her hand in his. "Sweetheart, you're safe, you're okay, just breathe!"

Cassie's entire body was rigid, and she was making the same outbursts and exclamations of pain that one would expect a woman to make when she was giving birth.

"Make it stop make it stop," she begged to no one in particular, her desperate cries ripping their hearts out. "PLEASE STOP PLEASE!' But it just wouldn't.

The excruciating pain just kept going, and getting worse.

"What is it, Cassie?!" Sam held her by her shoulders and looked into her eyes, full of pain and glistening with tears.

She was sobbing and gasping for air at the same time. "S- " She could barely finish, her arms were crossed over herself. "S-" Her eyes closed and she clenched her teeth, the pain was so bad her vision was going. "S-S-Sarah," she managed to choke out, and her head was thrown back as she let out another pained wail.

Wait…Sarah? "Oh my God," Sam's eyes widened in disbelief. "That's impossible."

"Kill me," Cassie begged. "Sh-sh-she said it'll stop if I'm d- AAAHH!" Sam at this point was the only thing keeping her held up and form crumbling on the floor.

Sam brushed back her hair with his fingers and looked her straight in her eyes. "No baby, I'm not gonna do that. You know why? You're stronger than this. Fight this. She's not real."

"Yes she is, S-Sam," she sobbed. "S-s-she's real and she's h-h-hurting me."

I swear to God, I could kill this bitch. "No. She's not even a person. She didn't make it to the stage of being a person. She's trying to live through you and make you suffer but it's because she's jealous. Jealous of you. How beautiful you are, how kind, how strong, how loved…" He pressed his lips to hers in a soft kiss, then pressed his forehead to hers. "Fight her. Fight this. You can't give up."

Sam held her close to him. "Dean and I worked so hard to get you back home so we could fix you up. You saved us, we want to save you back," he whispered.

Cassie's fits stopped and she was taking deep gulps of air, shaking. She pushed herself from Sam, then growled, "Get back in your Cage, BITCH!" She clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, screaming with the effort to push Sarah back inside the confinement cell that she kept her in.

And then Cassie collapsed.

Sam caught her in his arms. She was breathing hard, finally able to get air.

Dean ran to the kitchen to get her a glass of water.

The room was stained with the echoes of her screams the coppery scent of her blood, and everyone was exhausted.

Once Dean came back with the water she gulped it down like it was her first glass of water in days.

"Easy there, Sweetheart," Dean hushed, helping her hold the glass.

Sam wiped off her tears with his thumbs. He waited for her to stop shaking and calm down, and once he did, he walked down the hall, holding her bridal style, with Dean close behind him.

Once they made it to Sam's room, he gently put her down in bed, covering her up with the duvet.

She groaned with pain, but it was just from her leg this time.

"You gave us quite a scare back there," Dean said. "You okay now?"

She nodded. "Yeah," she said hoarsely. "I owe you guys."

Dean scoffed. "Are you kidding me? If you hadn't showed up with Crowley, I would've been Magnus' new favorite toy and Sam would probably be dead. We're even."

She sighed. "But if I hadn't gotten shot – "

" – If you hadn't had to come and save us, you wouldn't've been shot in the first place," Dean corrected. "Why did you come, anyway?"

She closed her eyes, she was so tired. "I felt you were both in danger. I don't know how or why, I just knew."

Sam smiled, holding her hand again. "You can consider yourself an official Hunter now. You took a bullet for us, you're pretty handy with spells, and you've got more guts than Dean and I combined."

Cassie smiled. "I seriously doubt that," she countered.

Dean crossed his arms. "So…how does this whole two-people-inside-one-body thing work?" Dean asked her, completely serious.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she bit her lip. "It's never been that bad," she admitted. "It's probably because I was so weak…she had an advantage over me. I wasn't strong enough to fight her back like I usually am."

"Whataya mean usually? How long has this been going on?" Dean adopted a parental tone to his voice, like she just admitted to having a nasty drug abuse habit.

"I…my whole life," she whispered. "But…but it's only been over this past week it's gotten out of hand. She was never able to put me in pain before, she was just this voice I would hear every so often. I thought it was my subconscious or something, I never thought it was another person."

Shit, this is bad. Dean's heart raced with newfound anxiety.

Sam climbed up onto the bed, sitting next to her on the opposite side. "We can ask her more about it in the morning," he said, looking at Dean pointedly. "She's had a long night."

Dean sighed. "Yeah, we all have. Okay." He stretched and yawned as if to prove Sam's point. "Goodnight." He walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Sam striped down to just boxers and threw on a T-shirt, then turned the lamp off and snuggled in bed next to Cassie, making sure not to bump her leg.

He was still holding her hand, and he laid on his side so he could face her.

"You could've told me about Sarah," he was whispering, knowing she was about to fall asleep. "I know what that's like, to have another person inside you head, tormenting you."

Cassie's eyes were closed, but her heart was pounding. "How?" she asked, just as quietly.

He sighed.

So he doesn't like this subject, she thought.

"Five years ago, I agreed to be a vessel for an Angel."

Oh, Sam…"Who?" she asked.

Sam didn't say anything for a while, but then finally uttered one word.

"Lucifer."