Replies to reviews:

Well, those were the shortest reviews I got on a chapter of this story. I managed to render most of you almost speechless. lol

So, I too will keep this short - Ncsupnatfan, Secretwrittenword, SilverDragonflymoon, Blondie20000 thank you for reviewing. Love ya guys. Special thanks to Summer who wrote such a nice review and pointed out everything that I wanted to convey in the chapter.

And Aisha, I am so sorry, but I cannot approve your review, for reasons that will be revealed in the next Sam chapter. But I do appreciate it.


Chapter 25: Stand by me

The closer they got to the bunker the more anxious Dean got, and Sarah could feel every ounce of it. With each passing moment, Dean's thoughts became more focused on Sam and on finding him. A spec of hope arose at the thought that Sam could have saved himself and managed to get back to the bunker, but Dean shut it down, knowing his brother would have called if that was the case. No, Dean had only one thing on his mind right now and that was the contents of a certain drawer in the bunker's library.

Reaching the outskirts of Lebanon, Dean gave Sarah directions to the bunker, explaining where to turn, where a pothole was and where to be careful of a certain tree that had his branches sticking out to the road. And when he pointed to a secret passage on a side of a hill, that's where Sarah had to huff a laugh, reminded of a certain superhero, or vigilante as some are called these days and his hide-out.

"Next thing you're gonna tell me is that you're Batman." Sarah said with a giggle, and Dean smiled too, his heart pinching at the sound of her laughter. "So what's the deal with the bat-cave?" She added, curious.

"There was a secret society a while back that gathered information on the supernatural, they called themselves the Men of Letters. We didn't know, the members were killed in the fifties, but we leant out grandfather was one of them. And now, so are we." Dean explained, sounding too serious to himself.

"Oh, wow. Really? That is so cool." Sarah responded with genuine impression. She always like those old mystery things and conspiracy theories and her curiosity was through the roof. She wanted to ask more, she wanted to know more, but as they neared the entrance to the bunker's garage, she felt an odd pressure on her temples that shifted her focus. She clenched her teeth and remained quiet as she focused on driving, but the closer they got, the more it hurt and finally, right at the garage entrance, she gave a hiss.

"Sarah? You alright?" Dean asked, worry furrowing his brows. Sarah didn't respond, but chose to get out of the car and as fast as he could, Dean followed, limping and grabbing his crutches before he went after her. She came up to the wall by the door, leaning on it with one hand and using the other to massage her temple, focusing on breathing as she tried to push through the pain. Just when Dean managed to dislodge himself from the car, Sarah turned, leaned her back against the wall and let her head fall back.

By the time Dean got to her, she was crouching on the ground, her hands clasped over her ears, as her breathing got more erratic. She was clearly in a lot of pain. Dean didn't know, but she was fighting against whatever was causing the pain and it made everything hurt even more but the other option was out of the question. The other option was to leave and she would not do that. She felt as if something was compelling her to stay away but she would not do that. Not when Dean needed her.

Strangely enough, there was also something compelling her to stay, something drawing her to the bunker, some odd feeling that said this is where she is supposed to be. Jimmy Durante said it perfectly when he sang "Did you ever get the feeling that you wanted to go, still had a feeling like you wanted to stay..." Well, Sarah did. But the fight was wearing her out the more she fought, the more the invisible force fought against her. On her last ounce of strength, feeling as if she will pass out any minute, she looked up to see Dean one last time, not knowing what might happen. But Dean wasn't there.

Panic arose that strangely brought forth more strength to fight as she focused more on Dean and where did he disappear. As she focused harder she seemed to recall his words "Hang in there..." said to her only a minute ago, but where could he have gone? Why would he leave her? Did he know why this was happening, why her head hurt so much? And as the emotions over-flooded her, she felt another wave hit her, and she fought so hard, her nose started to bleed. And then it was over.

"Sarah... Sarah?" She heard Dean's voice but it sounded so distant, so muffled, and she tried to breathe and to focus on his voice and on staying awake. 'C'mon, let's get you inside." she heard him say and she felt him trying to lift her, but she knew he couldn't, not with the crutches. Taking yet another deep breath, she pushed on, and managed to get herself on her feet and allowed Dean to lead her inside.

Dean was so worried about Sarah when he saw her in pain, it took him time; too much time to figure out what was causing it. But as soon as he did he set his hand gently on Sarah shoulder, assured her he will fix it and limped towards the garage entrance. Sam could open these doors with such ease and Dean always struggled, but somehow that didn't happen this time. Like the doors knew not to mess with him in this state. He hurried inside and there was a buzzing sound that increased and then toned down as Dean powered down the wardings of the bunker.

It was an educated guess, but a guess nevertheless, the idea that it was the wardings that were affecting Sarah. And it was good, he was glad, glad he figured it out and helped her, but there was a downside to this. Now, more than ever, Dean was sure she was more supernatural than human and he was almost positive she had demon blood in her system. And he did not know how he felt about that.

A stale smell hit her, mixed with a scent of leather and parchments, if she could compare it to anything, it would be a library/museum smell, only much older. She let Dean lead her through a long tunnel that continued into a tile paved hallway and then they entered something that looked like the garage. From there Dean lead her to their right, up a bunch of stairs and into more hallways and by the time they reached the first 'normal' room, Sarah felt dizzy and lost. But at least the kitchen had a table and a chair and she collapsed on it, leaned her head in her hands and just focused on breathing.

She could hear noise of cupboards being opened or maybe a fridge and she felt Dean approach her. "Here." He said and she didn't even look up, but reached with her hand like she new exactly where it was and grabbed the cold water bottle. She opened it and took a long swing, instantly drinking almost all of it.

"Thanks. That helped. What was that?" She asked looking up at Dean. He seemed a bit reluctant to answer at first, but seemed to come up with a solution not to tell the whole story, at least not now. Maybe after she rested and... When he figures out how to tell her that she might have demonic blood in her system.

I mean, no matter how open-minded someone is, you can't just come up to them and say "We are having burgers for lunch, oh, and by the way, you're high on demon blood." Yeah, not an easy thing to just slip into a conversation.

"It was a kinda of a protection spell. The place is warded against... A few things supernatural. I'm... I'm sorry, I forgot about it, I didn't mean..." Dean could see some hurt in her eyes as she smiled and waved her hand off. She has been discriminated against her whole life and this... Still, she hid it well as she spoke.

"Oh, that's ok. Gotta keep safe, right? So... I suppose this is the kitchen, huh?" Sarah knew it was a poor excuse of a deflection, but she didn't know what else to say.

"Yeah. We are at the ground level now, and there is a big hall through there, and a big library..." Dean kept talking and explaining, but Sarah zoned out for a moment, feeling odd. Like there was a residue of whatever that spell was that kept the bunker safe. She never felt like this before. It was so consuming, mesmerizing feeling and she felt like she was weak to resist it, weak and tired and...

Ok, so maybe there was one feeling that was similar to this, the feeling she experienced back at high school when she and what she thought were her friends got together and hid in Mike Kripke's basement and made her try pot.

It felt intoxicating.

Sarah flinched out of her thoughts when Dean set his hand on her, and he quickly retracted it, but the concern in his eyes remained. "You sure you're ok?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Just... Connecting to the place you know... It... It has so many different types of energies running around..." Sarah replied with a smile, but didn't hold Dean's gaze for long, opting to start looking around the kitchen again. For only a second, she imagined where everything in the cupboards was and she imagined herself moving around making...

"Maybe we should go to bed... You... I meant you... Maybe you should go and get some rest..." Dean said and looked away, cursing at his own choice of words.

"I should definitely get you into bed..." Sarah said sounding different, sounding strange. Sounding not like herself. More like someone who was a lot more playful and... But instead of correcting herself like Dean did, she chose to turn it into a joke. "...to get that cast off. I promised you I would, remember?" She said with a slight smirk. Where is this coming from?

Dan huffed a smile but nodded and with some manoeuvring, he got up from his chair. He led the way, and Sarah followed as they took a hallway to a grand hall, and Sarah was eye-wide with awe at the sight of the old War table, old equipment, but most of all at the sight of the vast library at the back.

But she kept her focus at Dean as she followed him, focusing on his tight ass and the way it moved whenever he took a step... Oh my God, what is happening to me? She blushed like crazy and was so glad Dean had his back turned so that he did see it. Just as they were passing some old machines with lights and switches, Sarah felt such a jolt to her system that made her want to jump Dean, rip his clothes off and take him right there on the floor.

Sarah bit down on her lower lip so bad it started to bleed and she clenched her fists turning the knuckles white with pressure. She looked down on the tiles and counted them as she followed Dean into the hall with the bedrooms. She didn't notice he stopped and she bumped into him and reached out to grab a hold of something so as not to fall. That something turned out to be his upper arm, and they both gasped in surprise, before their eyes met and the whole world seem to fade away into nothing.

But Dean snapped out of it, cleared his throat and the moment passed too soon for her liking. She had no idea what was happening. Sure she liked Dean, she liked him a lot, but being this aroused all of a sudden, without clear cause...

"This, um... This is my room. You can take the one down the hall, second to the right, that one is empty. " Dean said looking at his door and reaching to open the door, while Sarah just nodded, and followed him in. "I...um... Sorry about the mess, I guess, I wasn't expecting company." Dean added with a slight blush.

The room wasn't really in a big of a mess, just a few shirts on the chair and ground, right next to some beer bottles and two empty pizza boxes and with an unmade bed.

"That's ok. Why, um... Why don't you lay down while I find some scissors and..." Sarah spoke as she moved around the room, picking up the shirts and tidying up, not really noticing what she was doing until Dean's hand clasped over hers and their eyes met once more.

"You don't have to do that." He said and glanced at the pile of his clothes in her hands and it seemed to snap her out of it , and she looked down and huffed a laugh.

"Sorry... Um force of habit, I guess. Especially when I 'm nervous." She replied setting the clothes on a chair.

"Nervous? Why are you nervous? I'm... I'm not gonna do anything." Dean said, the last part coming out as a shy whisper.

God, I want him to do everything she thought, but said "No, I meant nervous about your leg. I am pretty sure it is healed by now, but if I am wrong, then..."

"It's healed, I'm sure. – Dean interrupted – Had my fair share of broken bones, so I know how it feels. Honestly, right now, it hurts more that I can't bend it and there is this part that cuts in a bit..." Dean's eyes snapped from his cast back on Sarah again as she hummed in agreement (excitement) and he nudged his head at his desk. "You have a pair of scissors there. Cut away."

"Ok...Um... Lay down." Sarah said trying to hide the nervousness in her voice. He did as he was told, and she sat by his hip, turning her back at him while she tried to focus on the cast. Slowly she began to cut, with each movement freeing his leg a bit more until it was cut all the way. Slowly she removed the cast, her hand around Dean's calf, listing his leg up, feeling the strong muscle that was there. She moved her fingers over the skin, ever so slowly, to remove the dust from the cutting and then focused her touch on the place the wound used to be. She pushed just a bit feeling it around and was satisfied with how well it healed.

She looked back at him to give him the good news, but was met with a slightly parted lips and something odd in his eyes and she wondered if she took too much time to remove the cast, did her current feelings affect her into making a wrong move, touched too much? It was now her turn to clear her throat and break his gaze.

"You should rest, not get up for while. Are you hungry, I can make you something to eat? Or order in?" She asked looking over the pizza boxes.

"Nah, you don't need to do that. Besides I'm fi..." Dean tried to get up, but Sarah's firm hand on his chest stopped him and he looked back into her eyes. Her own chest was heaving a bit as her heart pounded just a bit faster and her breaths came up just a bit shorter.

"R... Rest. I... I'll make us some breakfast." She said as she mustered enough strength not to lean in and kiss him, those full red lips of his that just screamed to be tasted and bit and Sarah almost ran out of the room. Dean wanted to protest, but found himself suddenly feeling very tired. He didn't get much sleep in the motel room yesterday and Sarah drove through the night to get them there, so any sleep he got was while he was crammed up in the car.

"You... You should rest ttoooaaa..." Dean said with a yawn. "You drove all night, you must be tired. Promise me that you will lay down and rest too, and then when we can eat, ok?"

Sarah nodded and quickly left the room. She turned to her left to find a room for herself but remembered they left the car outside and she knew how much baby meant to Dean, so she decided to find her way back to the garage and park the car inside. She went right, coming to the War room and feeling more of that previous arousal bubbling up. Sarah decided to push it down and just do what she was supposed to. She could deal with it once she found a room.

After parking the car in the garage, on her way to the dorms, passing through the War room, she found herself panting and her heart seemed ready to explode. It was like someone plugged her in, but not in just any outlet, in a erotic one and she felt every bone in her body shaking with desire and that intoxicating feel of pleasure. As fast as she could, Sarah ran to the dorms, found the room Dean pointed to, entered it and slam the door shut.


Dean woke up completely relaxed and rested. With a sleepy his face he turned in his bed, and cracked open his eyes to look around, frowning seeing that he was in his room. Slowly the memory of what happened crawled into his mind and he snapped up. He only remembered his leg when he leaned on it, trying to get up off the bed and he winced at the small pain that shot through it. It wasn't broken anymore, but it still hurt. Slowly, he moved to the door and walked out of his room in search of Sarah.

He didn't understand. All he thought about was getting to the bunker and to a specific drawer that had a certain locating spell on it, but instead somehow managed to fall asleep and let 4 hours pass for nothing. Last thing he remembered was Sarah telling him to rest and he said she should do the same and then he just... Dozed off. That was weird, even by his standards.

He found Sarah in the library, munching on a sandwich, surrounded by stack of books. She looked so in her element and so... Familiar.

"Oh, hey! - Sarah said cheery - Good, you're up. I got news..." Dean raised an eyebrow, and opened his mouth to ask when Sarah just continued, trying to say a lot in a short amount of time, some of the things she said didn't make any sense to Dean.

"So, get this... I went back to get the car and went past this thing in the war room and there... There is definitely some weird energy there, made me... Anyway, I couldn't sleep, so I went back to it, and the radio, it isn't really working, but it still kinda spoke to me and I... I tried to find out what it wanted to say and thought I would find the answer maybe in these books..."

Sarah kept talking, stopping a moment to chew and swallow a piece of her sandwich and she offered the other one she had to Dean. The hunter sat opposite her and listened.

"I mean, the books you have here are amazing! Like, there are explanations on every thing out there, what makes a certain creature react in a different way and what can hurt them and... Like did you know you can confuse a 'unpure blood' werewolf with a dog whistle? Or, or... That while there are some creatures you can kill by decapitation, there are others that can survive that, like..."

"I know, like..." Dean tried as he remembered the nachzehrer, or the werepire as he called them, but Sarah had something else in mind.

"Like Leviathans. Oh, these things are..." She started, but Dean cut her off.

"I know." He said abruptly and raised his voice a bit, the memories of the Leviathan fight still haunting him along with the memories of Purgatory. "We fought them, we killed them. They are gone."

Sarah felt there was more to it, but decided to drop the matter seeing the serious look on Dean's face. She might have sensed a connection to Sam's current situation, but she didn't know that was it. She instead kept quiet and watched him take a deep breath before getting up and walking to a shelf. He pulled a piece of parchment from the drawer below it and brought it to the table along with a small bag.

Sarah wanted to ask, but Dean's previous behaviour of 'not taking any nonsense' made her remain quiet, however she did allow herself a curious glance. Dean on the other hand noticed her retracting and holding back after he cut her off so abruptly and signed. He wanted to apologize, but felt that bringing back attention to it will only serve to blow the whole thing up, so he decided to say nothing on the matter, but focus on what he was doing and... Maybe explaining it to her too.

"Tracking spell. I light this map up and chant a few words in Latin and the fire will burn all of the map except for the place Sam is." Dean said as he opened up the parchment to reveal a map of the United states and he pulled out a hair from his pocket and set it on the map. Sarah assumed it was Sam's and that Dean must have picked it up in his brother's room, but something else bothered her and this time she had to ask.

"Don't... don't you have to be a witch to perform spells?"

"Normally you do, especially for big spells, it is better to have someone who knows what they are doing." Dean explained, never wondering why he praised witches now instead of condemning them. "But small spells like these, anyone can do them. You just have to know the right words. Invenire scopum!" He said as he lit the map up. Sarah found it strange that a simple command like Find the target! would work (She was a nurse so she studied Latin), but she had to admire the slight red flames that seemed to cheerfully dance on the table, burning the paper down, not leaving a mark on the table. In fact, not leaving a mark at all.

"Damn it!" Dean cursed startling Sarah. "The spell didn't work. They must be hidden somehow..."

"Or you just need a bigger map." Sarah offered and Dean looked at her completely baffled. Of course, why would he just assume Sam was still in the States? Whoever took him could have taken him anywhere in these past five or six days. Oh, he could just... Kiss her right now.

Instead, Dean sprung around, leaned his weight on his still hurting leg and stumbled forward. Sarah caught him and their eyes met for a second. "You're a genius." Dean interrupted the moment and moved to take a map of the whole world. He repeated the process of burning the map and Sarah watched as all hope drained from Dean, as he went pale and clearly beaten by the fact that the whole map burned, not leaving any clue as to where his brother was.

He stormed out of the room and Sarah felt torn for a moment before she turned to follow him and to try and comfort him, knowing they will find Sam. Her instincts told her to stay, but her heart told her to go after him. Oh if only she didn't. If only she stayed.

If she stayed, she would have seen a small piece of ash fall down on the table after being lifted into the air by the flames. A small piece of ash, of paper that was scorched on the rim, but pure white inside and had the tiniest inscription on it. Three little letters. D Y E


A/N: See, told ya there was a reason Sam and Juls were put on the North Pole. Not just because I can just randomly turn off the heat, but also, this way, they could hardly be tracked. I know this chapter was... Slow and not really eventful if you don't count Sarah's clear empathic feeling of what Sam and Juls were doing, but I hope you liked it. Did I mention I love reviews?

Oh, and just because you all have been such amazing readers, I will reveal a something... The two pairs will soon reunite. But that's far from the end on this story.