After the credits of Sympathy for the Devil. The opening dialogue is not mine, it is from the show.

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"I'm just—I'm having a hard time forgiving and forgetting here. You know?" The words were hard, forced. Dean's internal struggles always had a hard time finding a voice.

"What can I do?" Sam asked, almost desperate.

"Honestly?" Dean asked, breathless with uncertainty. "Nothing."

Sam looked down, nodding, not surprised. Grief closed his throat, heavier than guilt, as he mourned all the things he had lost.

But he needed to hear this. He'd found no solace in Dean's softness and optimism. He'd wanted violence, anger. He'd wanted – needed – Dean to blow up at him. In fact, Dean was still being too soft, too kind, even if the words were brutal.

"I just don't..." Dean went on, when Sam stayed silent. "I don't think that we can ever be what we were. You know?"

Sam nodded again. There were no tears in spite of the dryness clogging his throat. Guilt this heavy transcended any physical reaction.

Then Dean dropped the final blow, just before turning and walking towards the Impala.

"I just don't think I can trust you."

Sam had known that of course. But hearing it out loud was like a drop of ice falling into his soul and settling there. It was so cold he shivered.

The car door slammed shut and Sam stood with his hands jammed in his pockets, trembling.

Before he could decide what to do, Raeth appeared beside him. He jumped, heart stuttering and then beating like a trip hammer against the band that seemed to be tightened around his chest.

"Raeth," he exhaled. He willed his body back to calmness, taking deep, deliberate, measured breaths

She put a steadying hand on him. "It's all right," she said.

"You're not supposed to fly," he reminded her, his consciousness leaping at something – anything – else to concentrate on; anything but the loss of Dean.

"I didn't. I haven't left you. I was standing over there. I heard everything he said."

"He's right," Sam acknowledged with a short, miserable burst of choked, hysterical laughter.

"He still loves you?" Raeth asked.

"Yes," Sam answered, nodding, "If he didn't he'd have already driven away."

It was true. Dean had never, in their entire history, tried to control Sam by withdrawing love; or even threatening to do that. Dean's love was unconditional. He couldn't trust Sam but he wouldn't leave him broken and bleeding in a hospital parking lot.

Raeth's eyebrows knitted together though, as she thought through that.

"He was cruel," she said, "he hurt you."

"He was right," Sam growled, fiercely. "He didn't say anything I haven't said to myself."

"So he's just waiting for you to crawl back to the car like a whipped dog?"

She saw the clench of his teeth, the ripple of the muscles in his jaw, the flare of his nostrils that meant a flare of anger under the ice-cold guilt.

"No," he said. "He's telling me that he hasn't deserted me."

Sam turned to look at Raeth and realized from the look on her face that she had pricked his anger – attacked his brother - on purpose. She still had her hand on his arm and she squeezed it now.

"Sam you're both hurting. You're both on your knees at the moment, in pain; you because you blame yourself for everything that happened and Dean because he blames himself for not being able to stop you. But you're brothers, you're Winchesters and you're going to do what you've always done."

Sam glanced away, shook his head. He didn't want her sympathy or her compassion. He didn't want words of comfort. So he said, in a voice dripping with skepticism, "And what's that?"

But what she said next pulled him out of the shadow, gave him a brief light in the ugly fog that had settled over him. Her voice was infinite with gentleness and patience and Sam heard heaven's mercy in it. She offered him neither platitude nor attempted wisdom. Raeth gave him simple truth.

"Whichever one of you gets up first will help the other."

He was still gazing, awe-struck, into her eyes when she vanished. He knew an instant of frustration because he still didn't want her to fly. But he also knew that he and Dean needed to be alone to work this out and he was grateful to her for the privacy.

The Impala was still sitting silent, inky-black, darker than the night around it. Moonlight gleamed from the chrome. Propelled by the strength of a thousand regrets and the glimmer of hope Raethaniel had given him, Sam walked towards it.

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