SEASON 2

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

2x01 - In My Time of Dying (Part 1)

In My Time of Dying ~ Led Zeppelin

"In my time of dying,

Want nobody to mourn..."

Sam hurt all over.

He could feel blood trickling down his face, and as he opened his eyes, he groaned at the pounding in his head and the aching all throughout his body. What had happened? What….

His thoughts came in flashes. Arguing with his dad, continually glancing back to check on Ronnie and Dean, bright headlights from a semi-truck crumpling the side of the Impala as if it were made of paper.

Sam felt around in his pockets without even realizing what he was doing, until his hand closed around the Colt that rested there. Good. It was intact. He pulled it out of his pocket, his instincts kicking in.

And those instincts told him that this wreck, this attack, was no accident.

His instincts were proved correct when an older man with black eyes walked up to the driver's seat, where Sam sat, bleeding and hurt and pissed.

He picked up the gun and cocked it. "You take one step closer, and I will kill you, I swear to god."

The demon's eyes flickered. "You wouldn't waste that last bullet on me."

Sam lifted the gun, eyes narrowed, voice unwavering. "You really wanna bet?"

The demon stared at him for a moment longer, and then its head flew backwards and its mouth widened as black smoke spilled from its mouth and up into the sky. The old man, now demon free, collapsed to the ground.

"Dad?" Sam asked, turning his head slowly. John was splayed out next to him, bleeding, utterly unconscious. His heartbeat quickened. "Ronnie?" he asked, trying to turn to get a good look behind him. "Bud?"

His eyes finally fell on the backseat, and he felt his heart jump into his throat. Ronnie was thrown over Dean, her body crumpled against his, her head on his shoulder, bleeding onto his shirt. Dean's arm hung over her shoulder. It almost looked like they were embracing, but of course, Sam knew this wasn't the case. They were too still. Too covered in blood.

"Dean?" Sam asked. His brother was awfully still, blood streaming down his head and chest, his face pale. Sam thought back in sheer terror to the bad shape Dean had already been in before the crash.

"Dean?" Sam repeated, his fear becoming more intense by the moment. "Dean! Dean!"

Dean woke up in the hospital. And he was surprised.

Not that he was in a hospital. Oddly enough, he could remember nearly everything about the crash, despite the fact that he'd been in and out of consciousness in the back of the car. He remembered opening his eyes to see Ronnie, surrounded in bright light — headlights — and her eyes were wide, fearful, and her whole body turned towards him as the sound of crunching metal filled the air. He remembered the feeling of her body colliding against his, her arms knotting around his neck. He said her name, fighting unconsciousness, hoping she would, too, but he could hear her whimper of pain that melted into silence soon before he himself entered total darkness.

So no, it didn't surprise him that he was in a hospital. That made sense.

What surprised him was that he was in no pain at all.

He sat up, rubbing his head and glancing around. The room was empty, bare. He frowned. "Sam?" he called out. "Dad? Ron?"

Nothing.

He stood up, walking over to the door and glancing out of his room. The hospital hallway was empty, and his brow furrowed in confusion.

"Sam? Dad? Ron?" he called out again, stepping out into the hall and making his way down the row of empty rooms. "Anyone?"

He walked barefoot through the hospital until he finally came upon a help desk. A pretty blonde nurse appeared to be working it, and Dean, just happy to lay eyes on a person, immediately hurried in her direction. She didn't even look up as he did; he figured, working in a hospital, she had to be pretty unfazed by escapee patients.

"Excuse me, uh, hi," he said. "I think I, uh, was in a car accident? My dad and my brother and my… my friend, I need to find them. Could you…."

The nurse still hadn't looked up.

"Hello?" Dean asked.

No response.

He snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Hellooo," he tried again.

Nothing.

"What the hell?" he breathed, heart racing inside of his chest. He backed up and hurried down another hall, ducking into rooms, trying to see if Sam or Ronnie or his dad could be found in any of them. As he went, he passed by everyone as if totally invisible. Nobody acknowledged him, even when he waved his hands in front of their faces.

He gulped and stopped trying to get anyone's attention, instead focusing on the rooms.

Until finally, what he saw in one room made him freeze.

The man laid in the bed, covered in wires, a tube shoved down his throat. He looked weak, and helpless. And he looked just like Dean.

Because it was him. Dean was looking at himself. And he was...dying.

He swore loudly, backing up out of the room.

But as he did, he heard a heartachingly familiar voice whisper, "Oh my god. Dean."

He turned to see Ronnie standing in the doorway, and his chest swelled — she was okay. She was wearing a similar hospital outfit to him, and her auburn curls tossed up into a bun that probably shouldn't have looked as good as it did to Dean, given the situation. She looked exhausted and panicked, a few cuts on her face and arms... but she was okay. Her eyes were fixed on Dean's inert body, her gaze filled with horror.

But then, to Dean's utter shock, she turned and looked at him. Not the unconscious him. But him. Her blue eyes were wide, light, hopelessly confused.

"Dean… can you see me?"

His mouth dropped open for a second, and then he just responded, "Can you see me?"

Her response was simply to hurtle herself at him, and Dean was shocked as her arms wrapped around his neck as she stood on her toes to crush him to her. "Oh my god, Dean," she breathed. "I thought you were dead, I thought that…."

Dean held her to him for a moment, savoring the moment perhaps half a second longer than he should have. "Ronnie… look at me."

She stepped back, looking up at him, searching his eyes.

But he shook his head. "No. Look at me."

He pointed to his body, covered with wires and tubes.

Ronnie bit her pinky nail, an old, old anxious habit of hers that Dean hadn't seen in a long time.

"I'm not really sure I'm not dead, Ron," Dean said gruffly.

Ronnie glanced at him, nail still wedged between her teeth. "And if I can see you, that means I'm probably not not dead, too."

Dean straightened. "We're going to figure this out, freckles. The two of us ain't dying today."

She sighed, her eyes locked on Dean's body. "Where do you think I am?"

"Huh?"

"My, uh, body. Where do you think it is?"

Before he could respond, he saw someone approach the room from behind Ronnie.

Sam.

His brother didn't look great. His eye was still swollen, and he was covered with cuts and bruises. But he was standing, and breathing, and from the looks of it, he couldn't see Dean and Ronnie, which meant it was actually him.

"Sammy?" Dean asked, still somehow hoping Sam could see him. He was a psychic after all.

Sam just stared through spirit Dean and at Dean's body. Dean backed up, standing next to Ronnie, breathing out in defeat.

"We'll find a way to get through to him," Ronnie said, touching his arm gently.

He glanced down at her hand on his arm, blinking a few times. Then he moved away, walking up to Sam.

"You really can't hear me, Sammy?" he asked. "Ron's here, too, can't you see her?"

At that moment, a doctor walked into the room, and Sam turned to him.

"Your dad's awake," the doctor said. "You can go see him, if you'd like."

Dean exhaled. "Thank God," he whispered. Ronnie gave him a reassuring grin.

"Doc, what about my brother?" Sam asked, wasting no time, clearly less concerned with John's wellbeing than Dean's.

"Well," the doctor exhaled, "he sustained serious injuries. Blood loss, contusions to his liver and kidney. But the head trauma is what I'm worried about. There are some early signs of cerebral edema."

Ronnie walked over to Dean's body as the doctor talked, looking at him carefully. Dean watched her watching him, trying not to get too tripped out by the whole scenario.

"What can we do?" Sam asked.

"We just have to see when… if he wakes up."

"If?" Dean repeated. "Of course I'm waking up."

"He can't hear you," Ronnie reminded him.

"I know that," he snapped.

Sam and the doctor kept talking. "Honestly, sir, someone with this degree wouldn't normally have made it this long," the doctor said. "Your brother is fighting hard. We just need to have some realistic expectations."

Dean walked over to where Sam was standing. "Forget this crap, Sam, just go find some hoodoo priest to lay some mojo on me and we'll be on our way."

Sam was quiet for a long time. "And where's my sister?" Sam finally asked, changing subjects. "I can't find her anywhere."

Dean glanced over at Ronnie, who looked confused at first before realizing that Sam had told the hospital she was his sister, likely to make things like insurance and visitation easier.

The doctor looked at Sam steadily. "She's in surgery. They're mainly worried about internal bleeding, but her leg also suffered a nasty break that they need to work on. She's sustained significant head trauma, as well as internal damage. It's been touch and go. She'll be in there for a while, but unfortunately I don't really have a prognosis for you right now. When I do, I'll let you know."

Dean swore under his breath, looking at Ronnie in concern, but she just nodded, accepting. She'd clearly expected an answer like that, given her current situation.

The doctor paused, and there was a suspicious look on his face. "Sir, your sister came in with several serious injuries from the crash, but she also appeared to be suffering from severe dehydration and several wounds that she sustained prior to yesterday evening, including a pretty badly infected gunshot wound and a few broken bones already in the earliest stages of healing, suggesting serious mistreatment prior to the crash. Do you know anything about that?"

Dean frowned. "Is this dude trying to ask if we did all that to you?"

Ronnie nodded. "He's just doing his job. Wouldn't it look suspicious to you?"

Sam, however, appeared to have lost his patience. "Are you trying to ask if someone in our family has been hurting her?" he snapped at the doctor.

"Sir—"

"We found her like that," he said harshly. "We were bringing her to the hospital when the truck hit us. I don't know who did all of that to her, but I do know the rest of us would rather die than do that." His voice cracked at the end, and he leaned over to grab the edge of the bed, his knuckles turning white as he looked hopelessly at Dean's body.

Dean watched as Ronnie's eyes grew sad, and she raised a hand to Sam's shoulder, knowing he wouldn't feel it but seeming unable to help herself. "Oh, bud," she whispered sadly.

To both Dean's and Ronnie's surprise, Sam turned and looked at his shoulder, as if maybe, just maybe, he could feel it.

But then he just shook his head.

"Where's my dad?"

"Here, Sam, just give them my insurance."

Dean and Ronnie stood by and watched as Sam stared at his father, who seemed to be doing just fine considering the fact he was constrained to his hospital bed.

Sam took the card that John was handing him, glancing at it. "Elroy McGillicutty?" Sam asked.

John gave him a little smirk. "And his three loving children."

Sam tilted his head. "Since when have you had Ronnie on your fake insurance?"

"Since a demon took out her dad in front of her own eyes, during a hunt that I was involved in," John replied gruffly. "She didn't have anyone left, and I ain't heartless. Even when she was gone I'd add her. Just in case."

Ronnie, who'd been standing near the door, looked at John in surprise. "I never knew that," she murmured.

Dean looked over at her. "Me neither," he admitted.

"Well, it's a good thing you did," Sam told John. "Looks like she's gonna need it."

"What'd the doctor say?"

"Nothing, really," Sam said. "Just that she's in surgery, and that it's pretty critical."

John blinked, face unreadable. "What about your brother? Any updates?"

"Not really," Sam said. "Look, the doctors said they can't really do anything, but we can. We can find someone that can help, like I did the last time. I'll… I don't know, I'll find some hoodoo priest and lay some mojo on them."

Ronnie and Dean exchanged a glance.

"We'll look for someone," John agreed, but there was a hesitancy in his voice that couldn't be missed.

"Yeah," Sam affirmed strongly.

"But Sam," John continued, sounding somewhat strained. "I don't know if we're gonna find anyone."

Sam shook his head. "I found that faith healer before."

"That was one in a million, Sammy," John told him, as if comforting him.

"Well then we'll find the second in a million! What else are we gonna do, sit here with our thumbs up our asses?" Sam exclaimed.

John narrowed his eyes. "I said we'd look," he retorted, closing the matter with the tone of his voice. The following silence was loud. Then, "Where's the Colt?"

"Are you kidding?" Sam exploded. Ronnie was almost certain a vein would burst in his forehead. "Your son is dying, and Ronnie is on some cutting board right now in god knows what shape, and you're worried about the Colt?"

"Is he really surprised?" Ronnie grumbled. Dean shot her a look, and she just shrugged.

"We're hunting this demon, and maybe it's hunting us, too," John shot back. "The Colt is our best shot at it."

Sam just shook his head. "It's in the trunk, but the car was pretty totaled. They dragged it to a yard off I-83. Bobby's an hour out, he's gonna make sure the trunk's cleaned out before someone sees it."

John nodded. "Alright. Good. Well, you go meet up with Bobby and make sure that Colt gets back here to me. And while you're out, I need you to grab the things on this list. Bobby can help you find them if you can't get them yourself."

Sam grabbed the list and stared. "What the hell is all this for, Dad? Summoning a demon?"

"No, no, just protection against one," John told him.

Sam took another look at the paper and then tucked it into his pocket. He turned to walk out of the hospital room, and then paused. "Dad?" he asked. "The demon said that he had plans for me, for the other kids like me, with...with these psychic powers, or whatever. Do you have any idea what he means by that?"

John shook his head. "No, son. I don't."

Sam just nodded, looking desolate, and walked out of the door.

Dean straightened next to Ronnie. "He absolutely knows something."

"What?" Ronnie asked, surprised.

"I know my dad," Dean said tersely. "He's lying. He knows something."

Ronnie was silent for a moment. "Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we screwed here?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"Are we screwed?" she repeated. "Like… I don't know, it doesn't look great for us, right? We're having a literal out of body experience, we're in mortal peril, I mean… are we going to die?" She stared at her hands. "I really don't want to die."

Dean turned towards her, his eyes widening a bit. "Ron, you're not…."

"You don't know that," she said shortly, still staring at her hands. "I don't want to die, at least not until we get Sam through whatever the hell is going on with him. It wouldn't be fair for him to go through it alone, and let's be honest, we can't really rely on John to stick it out with him."

Dean stared at her, at every part of her face. She was far too young for this, for any of this. Twenty-two. Not a kid, not anymore. But still, too young. Her eyes were the deepest things he'd ever seen, filled with too much feeling, too much pain, too much bravery.

No one should need to be that brave at twenty-two.

He didn't know what to do. He just wanted her to stay alive, no matter what it took.

"Listen, Ron," he told her, placing his hands on her arms, needing her to hear what he's saying. "I know I can't promise you anything. But if there's anything that we can do from this end to get us back to the land of the living… we're gonna do that, okay? We're gonna make it happen."

She nodded, and the pinky nail went back into her mouth. Then she glanced at Dean's hands on her shoulders, and she grinned. "Couldn't have asked me on a proper date first?"

He lowered his hands, unable to stop himself from grinning back. "Tell you what," he told her. "We both make it out of this, I'll take you on one. Like… a we-survived-limbo proper friend date. Just, you know, without the sex."

She smirked at him. "You do know that's actually a fairly common occurrence, right? Dates without sex? Especially friend dates, whatever the hell that is."

"I do know that," Dean responded defensively. "It's just not my move."

"Sure," Ronnie replied. "So what does a proper no-sex friend date look like, then?"

"For us?" he asked. He looked into her eyes, head tilting slightly to the side. "It looks like… I don't know, ice cream?"

Ronnie laughed abruptly, and the sound hit Dean's ears like the coolest drink of water on a muggy Kansan night. "Ice cream?" she laughed.

"What's wrong with ice cream?" Dean asked, offended.

"Nothing," she shrugged. "If you're twelve."

"We will have a proper no-sex ice cream friend date, and we will like it," Dean snapped at her.

She laughed again, and his stern face shifted into a mildly amused one. "Alright. Deal. If we live through this, you can buy me some ice cream."

"When we live through this," he corrected.

The grin slid off her face a bit. "Sure, yeah," she said. "When."

And the pinky nail went back into her mouth.

When it became clear they'd need to wait a little while for Sam to return, Ronnie left Dean for a moment to see if she could find out any information about how her surgery was going, and Dean set up vigil next to his dad's bedside, trying to get his dad to realize he was there.

Ronnie wasn't sure why she felt the need to get an update. She was pretty sure that if she got better, she'd just go back into her body, and if she didn't, she'd simply… die. But still, she wanted to know. Wanted to see. And maybe, a part of her just needed to be away from Dean for a moment.

Being with him, and being so near his practically comatose body, just kept reminding her of how serious their predicament actually was.

She ended up getting lucky. She walked past what appeared to be a nurse and a doctor discussing a chart, and heard the name "McGillicutty" spoken between them. She stopped, backing up a few steps.

The doctor, a pretty redhead with thick glasses, was talking seriously to an older nurse. "Too soon to tell with the McGillicutty girl," she said. "We fixed the fracture and the gunshot wound, stitched up all the wounds, and did what we could with all the internal damage, but… I don't know. Looks like she was tortured before the wreck. She might just simply… reject returning to the land of the living."

Ronnie shook her head. "No way, doc," she found herself saying, even though she knew the doctor couldn't hear her. "I don't want to stay here, I want to come back! It's not for lack of trying, I swear. At least not on my end."

The nurse, who also hadn't heard Ronnie, nodded grimly. "Her brother's been asking about her. He good to visit her?"

The doctor nodded. "I'd like to speak with the family first, about both her and their other brother. Make sure we're managing expectations."

"Managing expectations?" Ronnie exclaimed. "We're here. We want to go back. Why is this so difficult?"

At that very moment, Ronnie felt a cold wind rush past her, and she whirled, watching as a gray shadow whizzed down the hall and around the corner. Her hunter instincts had apparently joined her in limbo, and without thinking, she started after it, the doctors behind her forgotten. She followed the direction it had gone in, wondering if she'd missed it, when she heard a scream farther down the hall.

She ran, wondering what monster could possibly be roaming her dimension, when she turned into a hospital room to see where the scream had come from.

It was clearly from a woman, who was sobbing and holding the hand of a man in a hospital bed. Above him, the gray spectre hovered.

"What the hell are you?" Ronnie whispered.

The vitals monitor next to the man in the hospital bed rang out in one, long tone. Two doctors stood by, one checking the man's pulse. He sighed. "Time of death, 3:15 PM."

The woman holding the man's hand sobbed uncontrollably as the gray shadow disappeared.

Ronnie gulped.

She raced back to John's hospital room, needing to tell Dean what she'd seen, but when she approached she heard loud voices.

Her groan was audible to her ears and her ears only. Of course John and Sam were fighting. What was new?

She made out their words as she got closer, Dean's voice mingled in.

"It was possessing you, Dad!" Sam yelled. "I would have killed you, too!"

"Yeah," John snapped. "And then your brother and Ronnie would be awake right now."

"Shut up, both of you!" Dean barked.

Ronnie entered the room and saw Sam and Dean standing, John still stuck in his bed, all three looking furious. Dean's eyes flitted to Ronnie, and he gave her an exasperated look as she stood in the doorway.

"What happened?" she mouthed.

As if anyone would have heard her anyway.

"You know what? Go to hell," Sam told John.

"Damn," Ronnie whistled.

"I should have never taken you along in the first place," John clapped back. "I knew it was a mistake, I knew I was wrong—"

"I said shut up!" Dean yelled, swatting at a glass of water on the bedside table.

To his, Ronnie's, John's, and Sam's shock, it flew across the room and crashed to the floor.

Everyone and everything froze as everyone stared at the cup in shock.

Dean looked up and made eye contact with Ronnie, a disbelieving grin on her face as he looked at her stunned expression. "Dude, I full on Swayze'd that motherf—"

But then the lights in the room flickered, and Ronnie looked up at them in trepidation. "What was—" Before she could complete her thought, the accomplished look on Dean's face disappeared, replaced with a grimace of pain. He dropped to his knees, his whole body flickering.

"Dean!" She raced over to him, dropping in front of him, placing her hands on his shoulders in an attempt to keep him upright. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," he gasped through clenched teeth. "It just hurts."

"Something's going on out there," she heard John say. She turned to watch as Sam exited the room, rushing down the hall.

She turned back to Dean. "You have to stay here," she told him in a panic, watching as he flickered again. "You can't leave me, Dean, I don't know what to do, I can't—"

"Shut up, you moron, I'm not leaving you," he snapped at her. His jaw tensed and he moved to stand up. Her hands stayed on his shoulders as he did so, and she stood with him, her hands sliding down his shoulders and resting on his forearms as his height won out over her own. Still flickering, still in pain, his eyes followed her hands as they slid down. She couldn't read his mind beneath the pain in his expression, but his eyes were glued to the spot where her right hand gripped him.

And then the flickering stopped for a moment as he gave a tight grin. "We haven't even had our proper date yet, freckles, and you're already feelin' me up."

"Shut up," she snapped, hitting his arm. "You scared the hell out of me!"

"Well, I scared the hell out of me too," Dean said.

Then he winced, and flickered again.

She jumped, and then her eyes narrowed. "We've gotta go see where Sam went," she asserted, grabbing Dean's arm and pulling him with her. They raced down the hall, and she was unsurprised to see Sam standing at Dean's hospital room.

They approached, and Ronnie's eyes widened as she saw doctors swarming Dean and the familiar gray spectre hovering over him. She looked up at Dean, about to say something, but his eyes were narrowed, locked in on the ghostly figure.

"You get the hell away from me!" he growled, running forward and tackling the smoke-like creature. It bent and swirled away, and Dean stood by his own bedside, confused. "Where'd it go?"

Ronnie had no answer. The doctors, however, stepped away from Dean, looking satisfied. "We have a pulse," one of them said. "We're back into sinus rhythm."

Dean rushed into the hall, clearly looking for the spirit, but it had vanished. He walked back, standing by Ronnie and Sam, the latter of whom looked relieved but tense. "Don't worry, Sammy, I ain't going anywhere. Ronnie and I are gonna figure this out."

A nurse approached Sam, and Ronnie recognized her from the conversation she'd overheard earlier. "Mr. McGillicutty?" she asked.

Sam nodded tersely.

"One of our attending doctors would like to discuss your brother's and sister's conditions with you and your father. I think she's waiting in his room right now. Let's walk down together."

Sam stared at Dean's body. "Is he okay?"

"He's stable for now," she assured him. "Come on."

Sam followed her out, and Dean and Ronnie followed suit.

The redheaded doctor was waiting in John's room, checking a few things on a clipboard as she seemed to wrap up an assessment on John. "Oh, hi," she said, looking up as Sam walked in with the nurse. "Your father's doing great, by the way. All things considered."

Sam nodded shortly. "What about my brother and sister?"

The doctor exhaled softly. "Well, you know about your brother. While there is brain activity, the trauma to his head was rather severe. We're going to simply have to wait and see, and try to keep him stable until then. Which is tricky, given his other injuries, as you just unfortunately saw. There's hope, but… I don't want you to get the wrong impression. He might pull through, but we just can't know what that would look like until he wakes up. If he does."

Sam swallowed. Ronnie got the feeling he'd expected that kind of answer. He glanced at John, who looked like he had not one word to say to the doctor. "And my sister?"

"She's out of surgery," the doctor told him. "She had severe internal damage, severe dehydration, and severe blood loss. It's a miracle she pulled through. But she… she hasn't woken up yet."

"Should she have?"

The doctor looked at Sam in the eyes. "We're not medically sedating her right now, and she still hasn't woken up. We're not sure why. We have some tests lined up now to see if we can figure it out. But she's stable, for now, and there's no reason to worry too much until we know more."

That wasn't helpful. Ronnie knew that Sam would be worrying anyway.

"Can I see her?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes. Follow me."

Sam glanced at John. "I'll be back."

His dad just nodded.

Dean started following Sam and the doctor without even looking back at Ronnie, and she chased after them, anxiety rushing through her veins. It'd been horrible seeing Dean lying unconscious on a hospital bed; how awful would it be to see herself?

And how awful would it be to watch Dean see her?

When the doctor and Sam turned into the hospital room, she grabbed Dean's elbow, holding him back. "Wait."

"What?" Dean asked, looking at her.

"I just…." Then she saw the fiercely concerned look in Dean's eyes, and realized there was no way she'd be able to keep him out of that room. "Never mind," she said softly.

Together, they walked through the door.

Ronnie hadn't felt the totality of her out of body experience until she saw her own body. But now she felt it, seeing her own self lying in a hospital bed, connected to all sorts of tubes and wires and beeping machines. She was horribly bruised, and a large cast encased her leg. Her hair was tangled, and while it was clear someone had tried to clean off the worst of the blood, it still speckled her scalp.

Before she could say anything, she felt Dean's arm wrap around her shoulders and pull her to his side. She looked up and saw that his eyes were locked onto her unmoving, unconscious body, and realized that he just needed to make sure what he was seeing wasn't the full picture. Needed to feel that some other part of her wasn't confined to that hospital bed.

"I'm here, too," she told him, giving him a gentle nudge. "I'm there, but... I'm here."

"I know," he said, eyes still on her body. "It's just… it sucks."

Suddenly, she pulled away from him. "Dean, I am not dying like this," she said firmly. "In this stupid bed because of that stupid demon bitch…. You hit that glass earlier. How did you do that?"

Dean turned to look at her. "I… I don't know."

"Well, we need to figure out how," she said. "Because if we can communicate with Sam or with John… maybe we can figure out how to get us back into our bodies."

"And what about that spirit?" Dean asked.

She shrugged. "We'll deal with it when we need to."

He was about to respond when they heard a voice call out, "Hello? Hello, is anyone around? Can anyone hear me? Hello?"

They looked at each other, and then ducked outside of the room.

A woman walked the halls, looking utterly lost. She looked about Ronnie's age, maybe a bit older, and had shiny black hair and big blue eyes. She stared at Ronnie and Dean as they approached her. "Hello, can you two see me?"

Ronnie tilted her head. "Can you see us?"

The woman nodded. "My name's Tessa," she said. "Where the hell am I?"

Hello all! Back from the dead for season 2. Sorry it took so long - I wanted to make sure I had S2 sort of planned out in my head first before I wrote anything. Also, I honestly wanted to make this episode only 1 chapter and not 2, but I felt bad continuing to delay posting. Life's busy, ya know.

Anyway, thanks for sticking around! See ya soon - next chapter is a must-read for sure.

~ Lacey :)