On to the next chapter! If things seem a little vague, they'll be explained within the next few coming chapters. Thanks, as always, for reading. Please review if you can!

Lurve,

CA

Dean blinked dumbly at the pistol being offered him, grip first, by this strange version of the djinn that had attacked him. "Choose?" He wanted to say more. He wanted to tear this ugly freak a new one, and kill him three times over, but he couldn't remember how to move.

"Choose, Dean," the djinn said. Or at least it looked like a djinn, but none of the ones Dean had ever dealt with used guns. Or spoke. Or bartered. "I'm sure you've heard the word before, knowing you, probably in the context of 'burger or pizza' or 'blonde or brunette'. Yes, choose, Dean. Lily? Or Sam?"

Some part of him understood right away. It must have, because why else would his knees suddenly go weak?

Even so, he heard himself say, "What do you mean 'Lily or Sam'?" Both Lily and Sam were still there behind him, seated on the ground, confused and oblivious. He thought.

But Lily, his baby sister, Lily understood. "You…" she started, then coughed to clear her throat. Even so, her voice was miraculously still. She sounded almost…relieved. "You have to kill one of us, Dean. You have to kill…me."

Dean thought he would vomit, but before he could do that, his fist was flying through the air, at the djinn…who vanished and reappeared behind him, laughing.

"I thought you'd have some trouble. You humans always do. It's gotten so I have to…step in. So, here's your incentive: choose one in the next fifty seconds, or they both die."

"I'll kill you." Dean's words were a snarl. His voice sounded foreign in his own ears. "I'll find a way, if I have to stand here 'til morning."

"I'm sure you'll try. But you'll only waste your time. You know what I am, even if they don't," it said, nodding at Sam and Lily. "You must know by now that you're in my world. I'm in charge here. I gave you perfection, and I can take it away. I can take it all away and trap you here, alone."

"No…"

The djinn only shrugged. "You shouldn't have pushed."

Dean would never know how much time had passed before he heard Lily calling his name.

"…Dean? Dean, please? Can you hear me?"

He looked at her suddenly, and she looked back, looked relieved, even, to see that he was okay. The djinn could change things all he wanted—Lily was Lily, and always would be. She sat there, dry-eyed and trusting, Sam's head cradled in her lap. It was everything he had not to laugh. Finally, perfection, and the djinn had twisted it into a perverted nightmare of the love his siblings normally shared. And then he knew what he had to do.

He dropped to his knees beside Lily. "You alright?"

"It's okay, Dean," she said. "I'm not scared."

"I know. I know you're not, Lily." He pushed back her bangs and kissed her forehead. "I swear, I don't know where you get it sometimes, but you're too stubborn to be scared."

Absurdly, she laughed. He watched her carefully, and saw that, truly, there was no hint of fear there. She was nearly giddy. It scared him.

"Really?" she continued. "You don't know where I get it? Mr. I'll-find-a-way-if-I-have-to-stand-here-til-morning?"

"I didn't say that. I just said I didn't know where you get it."

The djinn spoke again before Dean could respond. "Touching, but time-consuming, Dean." The djinn's voice made Dean's blood roil in his veins. "Make your choice."

Before Dean could even turn around, Lily's trusting look slid off to reveal a mask of fury and disgust. "Say another word, creepy, see where your face is in five seconds."

Dean laughed, a strange, choked sound. "Now, that, I can see." He paused. "Are you happy here, Lily?"

"Here? Dean, I'm about to die." She was too nonchalant about it. Maybe she was in shock. Maybe he should try calling someone anyway, getting her and Sammy out of here…Would Bobby's number still work? Would he even know them here?

Lily went on, oblivious. "I wouldn't say—"

"No, I mean…here. In your life. Are you happy? With…with everything? Sam and me and Mom and…you know, your life?"

She blinked and stared at him for a long second. Then she smiled. "Before tonight, I would have laughed in your face."

"But now?"

She shrugged. "Like I said, I'm about to die. And…and I'm okay with it. Really. I don't care as long as you and Sam are okay and talking, and…after all this, I dunno. I guess I can see you guys making up."

"So, you're happy."

"Yeah. I think I am."

"Good. I'm glad you're happy. You and Sammy'll be happy together, okay?"

Either this Lily truly wore her heart on her sleeve, or she was just so much the Lily he knew that Dean could read her like a book. He watched as her expression shifted from confusion to understanding, to horror in a matter of moments. Now, and only now, as she sat just inches from the gun she thought would take her life, did the tears come. "What? What do you mean?"

"Look, if this doesn't work—"

"If WHAT doesn't work? What's happening? Dean, you have to shoot me, he said. If you don't, he'll just kill all of us. Please, Dean, it's okay. I'm ready. I'm not scared, I promise."

He took her hands in his and leaned in close. If the djinn knew what he was about to do, he didn't give any sign. "I know you're not," Dean whispered. "Do you trust me?"

"Dean, it has to be this way. It has to. You and Sammy are…you're getting married. Mom's so excited, she's already got dresses, and Jess booked the chapel, and we picked colors, and—"

"Lily."

"And Carmen loves you. She loves you, Dean! She talks about you all the time, how you changed everything for her, and you can't leave her now, you can't, you'll kill her—"

"Lil, wait."

"You've got people to go to, Dean. Families! Mom'll be okay without me, she'll have Carmen and Jess, and I'm not too young, Sammy's just a few years older than me, so it can't be him, and it can't be you! It has to be me, Dean. It has to." She was sobbing now, shaking, and Sam was stirring in her arms. Dean had to finish this, and he had to do it soon.

He leaned over and swept her into his own arms, deftly silencing her protests against his shoulder. "Shh," he soothed gently. "Listen, Lily. I need you to listen. If this doesn't work…if I'm wrong, you take my phone and call the police, okay? Don't try and take the freak on, and don't leave Sam. Just sit tight and call the police." He could feel her shaking against him. Her cries were muffled, but even so, he heard:

"…has to be me…has to be me…"

Dean shook his head and kissed her brow. "No," he said, releasing her and turning away to hide the sight from her. For a moment, his heart jumped in his chest. If he was wrong…

No.

"No. It has to be me."

He put the barrel to his head and pulled the trigger. He'd expected the sound of the gun firing to be overwhelming, but all he could hear was Lily's scream.

Her voice came first. It always did.

"Dean…Dean, please…"

It was dark. His head was heavy, and everything around him felt dense and cold. But he could hear her voice, and it was rescue enough.

"Mom…?"

The voice faltered, made the tiniest of sounds, a whimper somewhere between anguish and relief. Then, "No, Dean. Open your eyes. It's me. It's Lily."

"Lily?" He felt as though he'd just left his little sister, and hadn't seen her in ages all at once.

"C'mon, Dean, you gotta open your eyes. We've gotta go."

He didn't want to go anywhere. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to remember his dream…his mother…

There was a sharp pain in the crease of his arm, then his wrists, then his legs, then all at once, something solid collided with his body.

"Dean, please…please…"

It was Lily. He heard her clearly now, even as the tar-heaviness of the air around him began to dissipate. The fear in her voice made him open his eyes on instinct: something was very wrong.

She was there, standing in front of him, her green eyes swimming into motion, first, and beyond that, a mass of unwashed hair, pale skin, purple-blue bruises, a fat lip.

Beyond that still, what looked like an empty barn house. The scent of sweat and mildewed hay struck his nose, and he suddenly realized he felt wretched. His body ached, his head throbbed, his throat was dry. He coughed.

"I know," said Lily, pressing a hand to his head. "I know. You're dehydrated, but we have to run. Lean on me. C'mon."

And then he was walking, feeling as though he hadn't stretched his legs in years. Pins and needles came alive in his feet and hands—his wrists, he saw now, were rubbed raw. There was a pinprick of blood at the crease of his elbow—evidence of an IV line he couldn't remember. Moonlight streamed in through a gaping hole in the roof, throwing a dim silver light over a straw-covered floor, bales of hay…two bodies, and blood. A lot of blood.

Dean staggered to a halt, his stomach in his throat. "Lily—" he coughed.

"It's not mine. Please, Dean, I'll explain on the way. Right now, we have to go."

She wouldn't look at him—another sign something was wrong—but her voice told him not to ask any more questions, though several burned their way into his head, even as he stumbled, stiff-legged, after her.

What happened? Where were they? Who were these people? Had they done that to his sister's face? And where was-?

It was then he saw the djinn. There were many djinn, he knew, but even if they were all identical, he'd have recognized the one that had nearly ruined his life. It lay facedown in the hay, oozing blue-black blood from a knife wound in its back.

Everything came rushing back all at once. He staggered. Next to him, Lily slowed.

"Dean?"

Dean stopped and looked at her. It had only been four letters—one syllable. His name, something he heard hundreds of times a day. But uttered like that, it told him things were bad. Very bad. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to take Lily and run far away, as fast as he could. To sit her down, and tell her everything would be okay. To protect her, from what, he didn't know.

Instead, he said only, "I'm okay, Lil. Let's go."

Together, him leaning heavily on her, they made it out of the barn house, into the moonlight, down a short trail, and into a clearing where the Impala was hidden. He couldn't guess where they were—it was too dark out. But at that moment, it didn't much seem to matter.

Lily reached the car first. "You need to sit," she said. "It's been…it's been keeping you alive, somehow, but just barely—"

"What has? The djinn? How—?"

"I'll explain in the car," she said tersely, digging in her pocket, presumably for the keys to the Impala. Why she had them, he couldn't guess.

"So, you're driving now?" It was supposed to be a joke, but it sounded lame and empty in the unsettling quiet of the night.

Not that it mattered. Lily didn't hear him. Maybe it was the jangling of the key ring in her hand as she tried to unlock the door. She dropped the keys, and bent to grab them, and over her shoulder, Dean frowned at the sight of his baby—or rather the mass of coffee cups and energy drink cans that had once been his front seat.

"Jesus, Lil, caffeinate much?"

"What?" She was trying the keys again—then dropping them again.

Dean's frown deepened. "You want me to get that?"

"W-what?" Lily said again absently. Dean watched her try to unlock the door for the a third time—cringing as her shaking hands nearly took the paint off with the key.

"Okay, enough." He grabbed her shoulders to turn her around—and backed up as she jumped half a foot in the air.

"Lily, what the hell?"

And now she was looking at him, really looking at him, and shaking visibly, too hard to speak. Oh.

"S-s-sor—"

He ignored her and laid two fingers gently on the inside of her wrist. "Lily," he said cautiously, "you're pretty close to tachycardic, okay?" He gestured to the cache of caffeine cups and can in the front seat. "When's the last time you had anything to eat to balance all that out?"

Suddenly, she wrenched her hands away from him to clutch at her chest, reddening and coughing as she struggled to breath. "C-can't—I—I can't—"

Dean didn't say a word. He turned and used his hip to shove Lily up against the car, supporting her with one arm before her legs gave. With the other, he unlocked the door, pulled it open, and shoved her inside.

"Back, Lily. Lie back." He'd taken on the stiff military tone he remembered John using back during those early hunts, when he was scared, but didn't want anyone to know. I knew, Dean thought. I always knew.

Dean put a gentle hand on her chest and guided her back. The contact seemed to calm her for a moment, but he could still feel her heart pounding, and it frightened him. Face impassive, he rolled down the window, and put her feet through—above her heart. Then he shut the door and went to the other side of the car where he knelt by her head.

He could see the tendons in her neck, white and rigid and jutting from her skin as she clutched the seat beneath her hard enough to break her fingernails. Tears ran from the corners of her eyes—she lifted a hand to dash them away, but she was shaking so hard, she came closer to blacking her eye than drying it.

Dean caught at her hand and squeezed, stilling it for a moment. He saw her eyes suddenly fasten on his, on the only thing keeping her together while her body threatened to shake itself apart.

"D-d-dean," she said, and for a second, he was afraid she'd bite through her tongue. "I-it h-h-hurts. It hurts, I—can't—"

"Shhh," he said smoothly, allowing an ounce of softness into his voice without loosing his cool demeanor. Not yet. Lily couldn't handle that yet. Instead, he slid into the car and put her head in his lap, taking her hand firmly in his. "I know, Lil. I know it does. You way overdosed here, but you're gonna be okay, alright? Listen to me Lily—you're gonna be okay. You and me, we're gonna get through this. Squeeze my hand now, okay? Squeeze as hard as you can. Do it now, Lily."

She stared up at him, eyes huge, shaking hard enough to move the seat. "C-can't, I—I—can't—"

"Yes, you can. I know it hurts, and I know you feel like you're out of control, but you're not. I've got you. You feel my hand, Lil? I got you, okay? I'm right here. It's just gonna take a minute for the caffeine to work its way out, and then it'll stop. You'll be okay. But now you need to squeeze. Hang on to me, Lil. The shaking'll stop. Your heart rate's gonna go down, and your chest'll stop hurting. C'mon, Lil, think. You know this stuff. You know this."

There was a pause long enough that he considered taking her to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. Then her fingers twitched inside his. It was all he could do not to cry. Not yet. Not yet.

"Good girl," he said, brushing his free hand over her hair. "Good girl. That's it. It's getting better now, see? The pressure's lifting. It's easier to breathe. Keep squeezing, Lily. Big, deep breaths. You can do it."

And bit by bit, the tremors stopped. The tension eased out of her body, leaving her limp and exhausted, but alive. Her eyes drifted closed as her breathing evened, and for a minute, he thought she'd passed out.

Then she blinked her eyes open. Her grip had gone limp in his, but he still held her hand, anchoring himself as much as her. He let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Was he shaking now? Or was that just the memory?

Her ghosted a hand over her hair again. "Better?" he said.

She offered a weary half smile. "Give me two seconds," she said hoarsely, then vaulted up, threw open the door, and vomited between her feet in one fluid moment.

She was sick a long time, during which Dean found a plastic water bottle in the trunk that had been there God knows how long, but since he didn't think water had an expiration date, he handed it to her, anyway, as she sat limply hang over her knees, and hand clutching the doorframe weakly.

"All done?"

She didn't even lift her head. "I think so."

He carefully stepped around her mess, cracked the lid on the bottle, and offered it to her. "Good. Drink, Lil. All of it. Slowly."

She reached out to accept the bottle with a shaking hand—now from exhaustion, he hoped—then stopped. "You have some first." She shook her head when he started to argue. "Trust me, you need it more than I do," she said. "And I can't drive like this, so you have some water, and I'll finish the rest, I promise." She grinned wryly. "Look, either way, we're both drinking from that bottle. You're probably gonna wanna go first."

He studied her face a moment, pale, and bruised, but honest, then downed half the bottle. Truth be told, he could have had the whole thing, and six more. But if he let Lily see as much, she'd have never taken it back.

"I'm never looking at another cup of coffee again." She accepted the bottle and swung her feet back inside the car—and straight up onto the dash, so she sat sort of half cradled between the seat back and the window. She took a deep drink, then leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and exhaled.

Dean climbed into the car beside her, glanced at her shoes on the dash, and raised an eyebrow. "Does that help your stomach?"

"What?" She didn't open her eyes—she already sounded half asleep.

"Sitting like that. With your feet on my baby. Does it help your stomach?"

Now she did open her eyes, and looked so subtly defiant, he almost laughed. Dream or reality, only Lily could scowl like she did. "Who said anything about my stomach?"

"Um. The three-months worth of caffeine you just threw up outside."

She clenched her jaw and looked about to argue, but then rethought it and said only, "Yeah," and then, "When do the cramps stop?"

Dean grimaced, having heard the pain in her voice clear as day. "You need to eat something."

"Yes, that's exactly what I want now."

Yep. She was back. "Lily, five minutes ago I was about thirty seconds from taking you to the ER. I don't really care what you want—I'm telling you what you need, and you need to eat." He glanced at the cache of old coffee cups and soda cans on the floor of the Impala. "When's the last time you had something that wasn't caffeine?"

The way Lily went from defiant to avoidant in a half second told him exactly what he needed and stopped his blood cold. His mind was suddenly pushing a million questions a minute—more than just when, but why? Why hadn't she eaten? Where had she been, who had she been with? Where was—?

"There wasn't time, Dean."

Lily's voice had changed. Gone was the defiance, gone was the humility, gone, even, were traces of physical pain, though he doubted the pain itself had fled. This was fear. Fear and guilt, and when he looked up at her, she was staring at her hands.

And now it was his heart pounding painfully and too quickly against his chest as he said, "Wasn't time for what, Lily? Why didn't you have time?"

"No time for anything," she said, her voice quiet and hateful. "I didn't—I couldn't—eat, or—or sleep. I've just been driving. For days. Looking for you, and—" Her voice broke here. "There's no time, Dean," she said again. "We have to go. We have to go now."

"Go where? Why?" As if he didn't already know.

"They've got him, Dean. They took Sammy."

His heart slammed to a halt in his chest. He would never know if he'd actually ever said the words, or if Lily answered without prompting, but when she looked at him, it was with fear and hate and guilt.

"The Yellow-Eyed Demon. Him and his army. They took Sam."