AN: The next chapter after this one is mostly written and should be up soon!

Shazza: Sam's POV for this chapter, but the next chapter will move the story along more, I promise.

Blondie: I think a LOT of us are struggling after that finale. I seriously have been rewriting that ending in my own head since I watched it on Friday. I like the OCs in this story! Oh, and I'm glad that chapter 8 came off as creepy…that was my goal. hehe

Sam was so confused. His thoughts flailed like…those long leg thingies jellyfish had. Sam couldn't catch any of them and wasn't sure if they'd sting if he could.

There had been danger, and he couldn't get up to fight it, but he was pretty sure it was gone now. And there was something about Johnny somebody. And sausages. And he could hear the song but didn't remember why it was important. How did that verse go? Johnny built a machine and made sausages out of his neighbors, right? Or their pets? Or both maybe? Oh, yeah.

One day the thing got busted /

Darn thing wouldn't run /

So Johnny crawled inside of it /

To see what could be done /

His wife, she had a nightmare /

Went walking in her sleep /

She gave that crank an awful yank /

And Johnny VerBeck was meat

He tried to tell someone but didn't think he got the words out right. There was pain, and he was being moved, but it was by familiar hands and he heard Dean's voice. So he rode it out the best he could and fought to keep from fading out again. He heard Dean say something about torching Agatha and it unraveled a thought that was important. Something Dean needed to know.

"I already did it," he tried to say, but hardly any of it came out and Dean didn't understand. Sam rallied all the focus he could find and tried again, and was able to keep his eyes open long enough to see that Dean got it this time. Then the drifting tides swept Sam off again.

"Uncle Bobby, I found a book that's age 'propriate. Can you read it? Pretty please?" Sam missed his brother every minute of the day and night, but stories helped.

Uncle Bobby took the book. "I'm not sure you'll like this one, kiddo."

"Please, Uncle Bobby?" Sam looked at the man with the face that usually got him what he wanted, and saw the capitulation in Bobby's expression.

Shaking his head, Bobby sat in his recliner and pulled Sam up on his lap. Sam felt oddly like he wouldn't fit, but he tucked right in easily, the top of his head coming up to the top of Bobby's shoulder so he could lean against Bobby's chest and hear his heartbeat underscoring the story.

"Once upon a time, a scorpion stood on the edge of a stream and asked a frog to give him a ride across," Bobby read. Sam sighed happily. It wasn't Dean, but it was still comforting. Bobby might grumble like he hated it, but he rarely denied Sam a chance to sit on his lap or be picked up, and never when Dad and Dean were both gone. "'I cannot swim, and my family is on the other side,' said the scorpion. The frog shook her head. 'I will not, for you would sting me and I would drown.'

"'I would not sting you,' replied the scorpion. 'For if I did, I would drown as well.'

"The frog had a kind heart, so she allowed the scorpion to climb onto her back. But when they were halfway across, the scorpion stung the frog. As the venom paralyzed her muscles and she began to sink, the frog cried, 'Why would you do that and kill us both?'

"The scorpion answered. 'I could not help it. It is my nature.' The end."

Unlike normal, Sam squirmed off Bobby's lap as soon as the story was finished. He should have listened to his adopted uncle, because he did not like that story. "I'm gonna color," he mumbled, not even thanking Bobby for reading to him. He went to the kitchen where crayons and an out-of-date phone book waited for him.

Bobby let him color in silence for what felt like a long time, and Sam was grateful. Bobby understood better than Dad, even better than Dean, that sometimes Sam needed the silence. Not to "pout" or "sulk" but just to sort things out when there was too much to think about or too many feelings Sam didn't have names for.

Actually, Dean would have known that the story would bother Sam and would have added his own embellishments. He probably would have said something like, "but the frog had on a bullet proof vest, so the scorpion's stinger broke right off, and he had a sore butt for the rest of his life." The thought of it made Sam start to feel better.

When Bobby tousled his hair and said, "Let's take a ride. Ritters up the road got some new puppies a coupla weeks back," Sam went with a smile.

Adult Sam thought Dad might like the story. After all, he liked to say, "You can't adopt a rabid dog and be angry when it bites."

Gunshots roused Sam a bit, though reality was wavering. He felt so, so tired, like he could simply sink into the ground and sleep forever. And he was cold. He simply couldn't follow what was happening around him. So instead, he let all the activity simply flow over him and thought about what it was he needed to remember.

Ghost. Burned but not gone. He was pretty sure he'd already told Dean that. Who was shooting, anyway? No, not important. Dean would have to handle that part. The ghost was…not just a ghost. He'd had a thought about it while he was crawling to…his phone, maybe? About how to weaken the thing while they figured out how to kill it. Or banish it, probably.

Pain roared forward, eclipsing everything else for a while. His body wasn't just heavy, it was reacting without his consent, and all he could do was wait for reality to resettle. Dean's voice was there again, and Sam finally had a bit of himself back, though his vision was still just a blur.

Damn, his side hurt. Other places hurt too, but the burn in his side was chewing through his consciousness, making it so hard to concentrate. No, conscecrate. That was his idea. Get a priest to consecrate the ground. Dean was talking, but the spots in Sam's vision weren't going away, in fact, they were growing. He needed to say this. "C-c," he tried to yell it, gesticulate, anything, but instead barely made a sound and his hand flopped pathetically against Dean's knee. This wasn't working. Still, Dean bent closer.

"Shh, Sammy. Don't try to talk."

Sam swore silently, nearly lost his train of thought, and stubbornly tried again. "Con-consecrate," he enunciated as carefully as he could. But Dean, oddly, didn't understand what he meant. Knowing this was probably his last chance, Sam licked his lips, then oh-so-carefully said. "Ground. Trap. Weaken. Priest."

He wasn't sure how much, if any, was clear, but his endurance had been reached.

Who knew darkness could be so comfortable…?