AN: This tags mostly to season 15, episode 9, The Trap. I actually don't touch on one of my favorite moments from that episode. Dean and Cas have gone to Purgatory and almost died to make a weapon against Chuck, but Sam refuses to use it. But when he explains his reasoning, Dean just says, "That's good enough for me." I love love love that trust! It was just what Sam needed to hear, too!

So, this should be the last chapter, but I didn't put enough Cas in (again), so just like the Moments: Dean story, this will have one more chapter, an epilogue.

Blondie: in chapter 21, Sam's thoughts about his soul are my favorite part too! I understand about there being just so much happening in that ep. As an aside, have you seen the blooper from the moment Sam is supposed to smash the pearl thing? One time, it went flying across the room instead, and Jensen and Jared laughed so hard they laid on the floor! lol

Rosie: don't worry about me stressing myself out! It's my own doing. Thank you so much for your very kind words. I don't know if I'm a super thoughtful person, but I'm surrounded by people who are, and I know their influence shows up in everything I write. I get very emotionally attached to "my" reviewers, so you are very appreciated too!

Kathy: aw, thanks! It was a hard chapter to write, but I enjoyed doing it and love to hear that you liked to read it. There was so much emotion in that episode it's hard to do it justice.

CHAPTER 22: Hope

Chuck was…well, not worried. He was above petty things like worry. Concerned. Sure, he was a lot different since he'd lived for some years in the Chuck persona – for example, he could sleep sometimes, if he wanted to – but he hadn't gotten to the point where he actually worried. Still, he should be flush with victory right now. He'd healed the wound he'd gotten from the Equalizer and he'd driven Sam Winchester to despair. He'd killed the kid's hope. Now it was just a waiting game until the end of the story. Sam without hope was just an empty shell, and Dean without Sam was useless too. And they were just humans anyway. So why was he still concerned?

Chuck hadn't really looked in on these Winchesters until Sam was 2 and Dean was 7, other than taking a quick second to monitor how the timeline was going. He had been pleased to note that this was one of the worlds in which John had survived the fire, since that produced the most heroic brothers. But that spring, John was cursing his name in a way he didn't often do, and Chuck became curious. He discovered that John had had to kill a ghoul in the form of a young woman with long, blonde hair who bore a more than passing resemblance to Mary. That explained it.

But looking in, Chuck had seen an interesting sight. Coming home from the hunt, stopping only for supplies that leaned heavily toward alcohol, John sent the sitter away. He drank, definitely more than he should, but having Sammy there, he stopped before falling into a stupor. Then he pulled the little boy onto his lap and simply sat, almost perfectly still, just holding the small, warm body.

And Sam, who at that age, was never still, let him. Every once in a while, he would pat one of the muscular arms that held him in place and say, "'Sokay, Daddy." John sat in silence, absorbing the peace, no absorbing the hope that saturated Sammy. They sat for almost an hour, an eternity for such a young child. Then Dean came home from school, and John's reverie was broken, and he let "torpedo Sammy" do his traditional move of throwing himself at his brother, screaming "DE!"

That's when Chuck's attention had drifted.

This trip down memory lane was…interesting. Chuck almost resisted it, because it seemed a pretty human thing to do. But he'd enjoyed the reminiscing with Metatron, and later, with Amara. And he thought his subconscious, as much as it existed, was trying to tell him something. He remembered an interesting situation that happened when Sam was 15. It had drawn his attention only because he didn't think it had happened on any of the other worlds. He closed his eyes and pictured it perfectly.

Some kind of instinct made John take a second look at the newspaper article about missing teens. What was strange was that there was nothing to indicate just what they'd died of. They were beaten, bruised, and dehydrated, but none of those things were at a level that should have been fatal. It was like they had simply laid down and died. One girl was nearly in her own back yard.

Police thought they had a serial killer. John thought they had a minor demon, sort of a demi-demon that feeds off human emotion, called a qaba. In fact, they had twelve.

He and his boys had gone into the woods at the center of the attacks to track their quarry. Qaba were incapable of possessing anyone, and their forms were unusual enough they couldn't allow themselves to be seen. They were about 2/3 of the size of an adult man, bald, slightly bluish, and totally hairless. And they liked children and teens the most.

John wasn't about to let his own teens out of his sight. Except, the very worst happened. Two of the qaba came right at them from the front, dropping from the trees and running at them with garbled hissing and hands curved into claws. They moved so fast that one slashed John's forearm and the other knocked Dean almost off his feet before they were summarily dealt with by silver bullet to the brain.

But in the confusion, Dean somehow heard a sound far more frightening than the noises of the fight and shooting. It was soft, just an oof of breath whooshing out suddenly. He spun and saw Sam was on his stomach, gun out of reach. Before Dean could do more than register the sight, Sam was gone.

"Sammy!" he cried, diving for his brother, but it was too late.

When the gaba jumped them, Sam, who was in the back, quickly realized that he couldn't shoot the closest two because of their proximity to Dean and Dad, so he'd turned his sights to the trees they'd been hiding in. He shot one still up there, pleased when he took it down with one shot.

But then clawed hands closed around his ankles and he was jerked backwards off his feet. To his disgust he lost his gun. He was dragged too fast to do anything but try to protect his face, but he did get a glimpse of Dean's horrified expression and hear his brother yell his name before he was dragged into the heavy underbrush.

Sam fought like a crazed thing. He knew about the bodies and the fact that nobody who'd been taken had been found alive. But there were so many hands and they moved so fast most of his struggles accomplished nothing. He managed to stab one but lost his knife, then he was flying through the air and came up against a tree, knocking the wind out of him and sending pain shooting through his torso. He fought more even as his shoulder careened off another unseen obstacle.

His fingers struggled for purchase on anything, but he was instantly torn away from anything he grasped. He lost a few fingernails from his attempts. Then his head was rushing at another tree. Darkness descended so fast he never even felt the pain of the impact.

Dean and John ignored the 3 dead gaba and plunged after Sam into the brush. The path was very clear with all of the broken branches and leaves. Shortly, they came to a dying gaba with Sam's knife buried in its sternum. Dean grabbed the knife and finished it off with hardly a pause. A moment later Dad, who had retaken the lead, stopped so suddenly Dean nearly ran into him. Wordlessly, he pointed to a tree. Bark had been knocked off and there was a smear of blood, too dark to belong to a gaba. Then the trail ended.

They searched all night and half the next day without stopping, focused on the outside and nearly frantic on the inside. With great reluctance, they grabbed a few hours sleep and even told the local police about Sam's disappearance. John swallowed his pride and called every hunter he knew who was still talking to him. They pushed their bodies remorselessly, funneling their desperation into their tired bodies to keep looking, keep searching. And still no sign of Sam.

Now the gaba weren't especially hard to kill, and they weren't the brightest monsters, skirting the edge of sentience. They followed a proscribed pattern for each kill and didn't have the reasoning ability to adapt. But they were also utterly pitiless. They dragged a young victim off, inflicting painful but minor wounds. They would bring them to an isolated location and then allow the victim to escape…sort of. They would track their prey and drag them back again. And again. And again. Because their emotion of choice for feeding was despair.

They had never caught anyone like Sam Winchester. When he woke up in an abandoned woodshed, he immediately vomited. He started crawling away almost before he finished. They dragged him back. He started to crawl again. And again. And again. Finally, they beat him back to unconsciousness. When he woke again, his head was ringing and it hurt to take a deep breath and at least two fingers were broken. He shed a few tears, somehow gained his feet, and started walking. This time when they came for him, he laid an ambush and killed two more with nothing but a sharp stick. They dragged him back. He rested until they left and walked out again. He took a claw slash to the face but killed one and broke another's foot with a rock. They dragged him back.

But Sam never gave up, never stopped. He knew that Dean (and Dad too) would never, ever stop looking for him. On the third day, Sam stumbled out of the woods onto a road and flagged down a passing motorist, who drove him to a payphone (and was only barely talked out of taking him to the hospital). He called the motel room and was surprised to reach Caleb, taking a turn manning the phone.

Dad and Dean made the 20 minute drive to pick Sam up in 8 minutes flat. Sam was so tired he fell asleep before he could tell them his story, only waking up to eat, drink, and swallow pain pills for the next 15 hours. Then he took a long shower, ate and drank again, and told all six of the hunters who were still there what had happened.

"And I think they're all dead, because the last day, none of them came after me," he finished. He pretended that Dean wasn't staring at him like he was going to vanish into thin air. He was actually surprised that Dean had let him use the bathroom alone at this point.

"Most people don't survive gaba, Sam," said Bobby softly. Sam looked up, embarrassed, realizing everyone was looking at him. "They just give up hope."

Sam gave a half shrug. "I didn't," he mumbled. "I knew people'd be looking for me." His glance drifted to his brother. No matter what, he had the hope – no, the certainty – that Dean would never stop looking.

WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER

Chuck knew he'd killed Sam's hope. He'd seen it on his face. Still, he remembered the teenager who fell and 100 times and got up 101 while facing the gaba. And the toddler who unknowingly gave hope to his father. He thought of the man who had told Dean so movingly, "You don't see light at the end of the tunnel, but I do."

He remembered the man determined to cure his brother of the Mark of Cain. The man who had always wanted to believe in something bigger than himself, even when he believed he himself didn't deserve redemption. The man who had believed that Cas could be saved after he'd ingested the souls from Purgatory.

Chuck remembered too a room full of some of the most impressive beings in the world – the most powerful living witch, the sometimes king of hell, the most extraordinary seraph, arguably the greatest hunter ever to live, and even Chuck himself. All of them had despaired. They'd decided to simply drink until the end of creation. But Sam Winchester had not. He had refused to lose hope.

But now, Chuck had certainly killed the hope that had colored every moment of Sam Winchester's life. It was gone for good. Right?

Right?