AN: Okay, so maybe that last chapter wasn't all that calm. But I make up for it here (hopefully). Schmoop, anyone?

Probably just one more chapter after this one, so if you have a prompt idea, now would be a good time to get it to me. I have a one-shot mostly written and I might add the chapter to Bewildered that Kathy asked for, but not of my bigger ideas are really working for me right now. Remember to e-mail ideas, since I can't see any PMs. (grumble, grumble)

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Dean was not doing this. Not again. Not with some angry ghost who was trying to work out her own guilt. Dean was not holding onto his brother just to feel his chest still, to watch the light go out of his eyes. Yet here they were, Dean kneeling in the street with Sam lying limply across his legs in the middle of some rich man's playground. Sand whipped around them, but Dean didn't even notice it abrading his skin anymore. He was too busy noticing details like the heat coming off of Sam and the way his breath stuttered and he trembled. God, it was like Cold Oak all over again after Jake had stabbed Sam in the back. It was even more like sitting at Sam's bedside in the hospital in Randolph, New York with doctors telling him there was no possibility that Sam would survive the damage the Trials had done.

"No. No, no, no, Sam. This is not happening!" Dean's world narrowed to the guy sprawled out in front of him, struggling to breathe through the shirt Dean had tied around his face. The guy whose head and shoulders were half on Dean's lap as if he could tether Sam to life if he just physically held onto him long enough or hard enough.

But distracted or not, Dean was still a Hunter, and reacted to the motion above his head, swinging his empty shotgun in an arc to intercept the strike. The impact of Mara's spade-sized hand (seriously, how big was she going to get?) knocked Dean forward across Sam before she dissipated, from the contact with one of the iron bands around the barrel. The quick glimpse Dean had of Mara before she disappeared showed her leaning, impossibly long, over the kneeling Barb and Camilla to reach them. She really, truly wanted Sam dead.

Sam twitched again as Dean sat up and coughed weakly. Unless they got some help right damn now, the angry ghost might get her wish. "You first, bitch," Dean ground out. "Camilla!" he snapped louder. "Sam – my brother! – came here to help people, and he's going to – to – to die if you don't stop Mara. She already hurt him, and she'll go after Barb's sister next, or me, or Barb. She's not going to stop killing. Not unless you move on, then she'll have to go with you."

"Go on," Barb encouraged. "I'll plant these seeds by my house, if that's okay with you."

Camilla said something too low for Dean to catch, but he saw the way her expression changed from sadness to resolve. Not a second too soon, either, as Mara began to re-form yet again, faster than the last time, and even bigger than before. She had to be fifteen feet tall, and Dean had a fleeting worry that she wouldn't disappear with Camilla after all. Sam stirred lightly against Dean's elbow, and Dean looked down at him, thinking about how certain Sam had been of his theory. Just like that, that particular worry was gone. He trusted Sam's instincts.

Camilla stood between the brothers and her long-dead servant. "Castellana, you failed me," she said sternly, and the larger figure froze. "You never believed that Dante would hurt me. You thought I was a silly girl, making up tales because I no longer had my parents to coddle me." Mara began to shrink. "You were the only one I could tell about the things he did, the only one who possibly could have helped me, but you failed. You failed me and my unborn child and broke your oath to my parents." Mara was now the same size as Camilla, a petite woman who was simple, translucent white, no longer made up of sand too, no longer clawed and fearsome. Her features, too, now looked like an ordinary woman, thin and older than her mistress. She looked like a stern old schoolmarm, except that she looked stricken. Guilty even.

Camilla reached out a hand and laid it on Mara's arm. The latter flinched, and Dean realized that it was the bandaged hand. "But I forgive you. Let us go. Leave this place and find what comes next. It is time to be at peace."

"But they must pay, Camillita," said Mara, and what do you know? She sounded like an ordinary person now. No more Exorcist voice.

"No. These people did not hurt me. The one who did is long dead. I want no one else harmed on my account. Come." Camilla's form began to dissolve into a thousand tiny tiny dots, which spiraled up and disappeared into the night. The clear night. Dean hadn't even noticed that the sandstorm had stopped.

Mara looked at Dean. No, at Sam, and her face turned from uncertain to angry. She took one step forward, ignoring Dean's answering snarl. But that was as far as she got. The arm she was reaching forward began to dissolve, then her shoulder, chest, and the rest of her as Camilla had. The last thing to disappear was her shocked expression.

Dean didn't have the luxury of feeling relieved. He turned his attention fully to Sam, unwrapping the shirt from around his face and putting two fingers under his jaw to find a pulse. It was there, but too light, too thready, though a hand on his forehead revealed that he was no longer burning up. Sam's breathing was shallow and too fast. Dean laid Sam's head on his leg, pulled out his boot knife and cut the bandage off his left hand. The blackness around the wound was gone, as well as any other sign of infection. So, the poison was gone, but the damage it had already done apparently was not.

What to do? Hospital an hour away?

"Dean? How – ?" Barb asked quietly, laying a hand on Dean's shoulder.

"Check on your sisters," he said, more harshly than she deserved.

All she said was, "I'll be right back," and squeezed his shoulder in a gesture that reminded him way too much of Dad.

Cas was off playing odd couple with Crowley who-knows-where, and of course, he couldn't fly anymore. Jody wouldn't know what to do, nor Donna. Rowena would probably be able to help, but she had gone off the grid after the Amara fiasco and he had no idea how to reach her. Mom...Dean wasn't going there. What he wouldn't give to be able to call Bobby…

A memory of another supernatural poison suddenly flooded Dean's brain. Cas had asked Dean about it once, after he'd healed Dean from something that Dean couldn't even remember any more. "I detected a great deal of scarring in your right leg. There was evidence that it was once infected with a toxin that I do not recognize. What was it?" he'd asked.

What it had been was a vicious bite to his calf by a muscaliet, a nasty, venomous creature that looked like a rabid squirrel had a baby with a giant, carnivorous rabbit. Even after Dad and Sam had finished killing the creature and its friends, Dean had been feverish and shaking. He didn't remember the frantic drive to Bobby's house, or a fifteen-year-old Sam pushing Dad aside to perform the cleansing ritual himself. He didn't even remember Sam cutting Dean's arm before slicing his own palm open and slapping the bleeding appendage onto Dean's new cut. But he did remember jolting awake to the feeling that electricity was surging through his body, starting at the cut but focused most intensely on his chewed-up calf.

It had sucked, and when it was done, Dean slept for something like ten hours straight, but it took care of both the poison and the damage it had done, leaving just the bites themselves behind. When Dean had told Cas the story, the angel had asked Sam to show him the ritual. And Cas had a damn near eidetic memory. Hopefully, he remembered this, and hopefully Dean remembered right and all it took was a mingling of blood from the affected person and someone who cared for them, plus some weird words. That was too many hopefullys for Dean's taste, but them was the breaks, as Caleb used to say.

Dean pulled out his phone, grateful that his pocket had protected it from the sand. Sam moaned lightly. "It's okay, Sammy. Just hang on. I gotcha." To himself, as he wiped enough sand off his hand to be able to manipulate the buttons, Dean muttered, "Cas, you better answer." He gave up on wiping sand off, since his shirt was even dirtier than his hands. "Hey, dummy, call Feathers," he ordered his phone.

"Calling Feathers."

"Hello, Dean."

Whether it was because of Dean's "prayer" or that hope that he'd been clinging to like a drowning man, Cas answered on the first ring. "Cas, do you remember the ritual that Sam showed you that he and Bobby and Dad used when a musc- mus- uh, angry squirrel monster thingie bit me back in, like, 1997? I need it now."

"Of course." The angel sounded concerned. "Have you been bitten by a muscaliet again? Or...it's Sam, isn't it? You would not be so worried about yourself."

Dean wasn't touching that assertion. "Not a musk-whatever, but yes. I need it, NOW." Dean propped the phone between his shoulder and ear so he could draw his knife over his own palm.

"Aspergetur ex hac sanguine. Hoc expiabitur. Perdes omnes veneno sanitas. Amen."

Cas had said the words slowly enough that Dean could repeat them after him. Then he clasped his cut palm over Sam's now-uncovered cut. It was sort of like being struck by lightning. It only lasted a few seconds for Dean, but when he recovered himself, Sam was jerking and shaking like he was being electrocuted, or perhaps having a seizure. Dean supported him, didn't let him crash to the sand-covered pavement and talked him through it, trying not to hear the soft, choked sounds of pain. It probably lasted five minutes, and it was excruciating. Sam's absolute stillness afterword was a thousand times worse.

Uncaring that he was in the middle of the street, cradling Sam in his arms, Dean began to beg. "Sam. Sammy. Please. Please. Just breathe, just take a breath and I'll figure out a way to – "

After what felt like forever but was probably just a minute. Sam sucked in a huge breath as if he'd heard. Then he settled again, breathing easily and looking comfortable for the first time since before Mara had slashed him. Under the layer of sand, his color was good, and his eyes no longer looked bruised. He didn't open his eyes, but his pulse had settled as nicely as his breathing, slow and steady, as if he were merely asleep. Dean lowered his forehead to his brother's for a few seconds and didn't even pretend that it was sand causing the tears in his eyes. "Damn. Too close."

As Dean lifted his head, Barb's voice filtered in, but she wasn't talking to him. "...remember you too, Sweetie, though we were never really introduced. You healed both of the boys at my house once, right? I think Sam is fine now. He didn't wake up, but he looks much better. Yes, I imagine Dean needs a few minutes, but I will have him call you." A pause. "Yes, I'm sure wings were very convenient, but whatever you told Dean seems to have worked, so thank you, as I'm sure Dean and Sam will both say, too." Another pause, shorter. "Well, they should. Good-bye,dear."

Oh. He must have dropped the phone. Dean breathed in and pushed all of his fear and stress aside. It was time to get Sam out of the street and do a better triage. And make sure all of the Firths were doing okay. And call Cas back. And he'd probably be amused soon that Barb was calling an angel names like "sweetie." Just not quite yet.

WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER

Murky hazel eyes were the best thing Dean had seen in a while. He set the laptop on the nightstand and leaned forward into Sam's line of sight, though he wasn't entirely sure his brother was really aware. Dean smiled anyway. "Thought you were going to sleep for a week, Dude. How you feeling?"

"Shleep?" asked Sam, the word mangled almost beyond recognition.

"Yeah, you've been sleeping for like two days straight, Sam." And I was considering a hospital if you didn't wake up soon, to get fluids into you and find out if there's any damage that I don't know about that the purification spell didn't fix. "You with me?"

"You?"

This time, it wasn't just repeating what Dean said, it was an inquiry about Dean's health, and his heart did a little flop. Yeah, I'm not the one who just about died. "I'm fine. You're the one who was circling the drain from the witchy, ghosty poison. Anything still hurt?" He was pretty sure that everything had hurt after he'd been on the receiving end of the cleansing spell, but just muscle aches and the actual bite injury, nothing sharp or severe.

"Um. Slee-eep," was Sam's brilliant response, and his eyes started to close again.

"Oh, no you don't. Not until you drink something and maybe get up and use the can." He nudged at Sam's mouth with a straw in the fruity drink thing that Judy had showed up with earlier. It looked like something Sam would like, and Judy swore it was just what Sam needed.

Sam drank more than Dean had expected, but he looked exhausted again and it took a lot of work to get him to the bathroom and back. Dean say anything about it, even when he had to pull Sam's pants back up for him. After all, they'd both done more for each other plenty of times. He was just so damn relieved that their biggest issue seemed exhaustion. He'd checked Sam over carefully when he'd changed his clothes and wiped the worst of the sand off his skin, and besides some pretty lurid bruising, the burn, and the cuts on his left hand (which just looked like ordinary cuts now), Sam was unhurt. And his vital signs had stayed steady and essentially perfect. Dean had even re-stitched the middle of the cut at the base of Sam's thumb, though it was already visibly healing now that there was no otherworldly nightshade preventing such.

So, having handled the most pressing physical needs, Dean was content with his brother going back to sleep for as long as he needed. "You just rest. I got it. Mara's gone. Camilla moved on."

Sam, contrarily, squirmed a little at that and blinked owlishly a few times as if uncertain that he was safe. Well, that was easy enough to fix.

Knowing from how hazy he looked that Sam was unlikely to remember any of this, Dean moved to perch on the edge of the bed and rested his hand on Sam's closest wrist. "We're fine. We've got this place pretty much as long as we want while you recover. After all, we arrested the serial killer, or that's what all the locals think. And Barb and the Mighty Firths are all safe and sound." Dean made sure the bleary eyes were more or less focusing on him and smiled warmly. "Job's done. Take five. I did Bobby's old purification spell on ya, and I remember what that feels like, you know? That exhaustion after the poison's burned out. So chill, dude. There will be a feast waiting for us whenever you're up for it, I'm sure."

Sam frowned slightly as if Dean was giving him something terribly complex to figure out. Dean's smile widened a little. That look was all Sam trying to wake up and figure things out while his head was muzzy. He knew that Sam wasn't really ready to be awake yet. "I had to keep kicking the lovely ladies out until I finally convinced them that it's my job to look out for you. I think they finally got it, though."

Sam blinked more heavily. Dean swept his thumb rhythmically back and forth on the soft skin of Sam's forearm. Keeping his voice low and soothing, he kept talking.

"So, I don't know if you remember that someone blasted Mara away once after I was out of ammo, but turns out it was Carolyn!" Dean shook his head. He'd been amazed to learn that fact, but it turned out Papa Firth (William maybe? They'd told him the guy's name, but he couldn't remember) had made sure all of his daughters knew how to handle a gun. Carolyn had run after Barb outside and Sam's shotgun had ended up practically at her feet. She claimed to have almost fainted after firing it, but Dean was starting to suspect that she was a lot tougher than she realized.

"Myra laid on top of Judy to keep her from running outside too." Dean chuckled. He could respect that kind of protectiveness. "Judy was pissed about it, but she was safe. Unlike you, running outside to draw Mara off, knowing she was after you. Man, you better have been delirious for that, or I'm kicking your ass. You're supposed to stay where I can watch your back, you moron. Or better yet, behind me, watching my back."

Sam's eyes slipped closed, then struggled to open again, and Dean was forcibly reminded of Sam as a toddler, struggling to stay awake, desperate to not miss out on anything. Dean lowered his voice even farther, still sliding his thumb back and forth. "The ladies had to move to a different place because of all the broken windows, and I swear this one's even bigger. Other than worrying about you, they seem to finally be getting their fun vacation. Oh, and I returned all the stuff you stole from the archivist. Um, did you forget to mention that the stuffy old guy is actually a sexy woman? Sly dog, trying to keep the hot chicks to yourself, huh? Miss Janna is very worried about you and eager to see you when you're feeling better. Well, I'll have you know I made a bit of a connection myself, and sexy Dana and her teeny bikini I are going to check out the hot tub in her place…"

Sam's eyes had closed again, and this time, they didn't reopen.

"There it is. That's right, just sleep it off."

Sam sighed, smiled a little, and settled more heavily, his head falling to the side. Dean wasn't ready to move just yet, though, so he just kept talking.

"When you really wake up, you'll want to take the world's longest shower, trust me. Good thing this shower's like seven feet tall, because man, I had sand in places I didn't know that I had places..."

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AN: Buh-bye, Mara! Don't let the door hit you on your way out. (Yeah...I couldn't stand her!) For what it's worth, I gave Mara the name I did because it means bitter. In a similar vein, Dante was named for Dante Alighieri, because the latter wrote Inferno, which is what the former deserves. *grin*

The muscaliet is a venomous cryptid that is only ever mentioned by one guy, by the name of Pierre de Beauvais, in a bestiary from medieval times, but I thought the description was funny.

The Latin comes from Google translate. It means: Heal this blood. Heal this body. Destroy all poison and bring healing. Amen.

Barb sort of "met" Castiel in my story Uncanny Valley, though he kind of showed up, healed, and left. That's why she tells him that she remembers him.

sfaulkenberry: Glad you liked that! There's a little more out-of-it Sam here, but not a whole lot, sadly. It's fun to write loopy logic when characters aren't quite all there. *g* Wanna hear something funny? I actually made quiche yesterday, because I had it in my head. I have mixed thoughts about Mary, and while I'm glad that she got a chance to be a real person instead of just the vaunted lost paragon (ie. Jess), I think they tried to do too much, if that makes sense. I went back and forth about how I'd have Sam healed, but finally decided that I wanted Dean to be the main impetus behind it. I mean, Camilla did her part, and Barb (and even Carolyn!), but I'm also a sucker for the boys looking out for each other. Who am I kidding? I'm a sucker for every brother interaction, pretty much.

muffinroo: I can't even imagine being out in a dust / sand storm! I've been out in a blizzard when the wind blew hard enough that the snow and ice hurt, but sand, eech. Especially in your eyes, but mouth and nose and all of that too. Sounds so miserable! I'm glad you like the h/c as much as I do; I thought of you when I wrote the chapter above. Aren't you the one who told me there's no such thing as too much schmoop?

Shazza: I'm glad somebody else remembers the Mummy movies! As a big fan of action movies, I really enjoyed the first one. And it wasn't Barb who fired the gun – I was amused by the thought of Carolyn firing the shotgun. I had to give the timid sister her chance in the sun, so to speak.

Colby's girl: Oh, thank you! Action is really hard to write. I sometimes get caught up in it and go back to find that I didn't write it well at all, then have to start over so that other people get what I'm actually picturing. So it's incredibly nice to hear that the finished product worked.

Christine: That's really insightful. I sort of wavered back and forth between making Mara slightly sympathetic (made a mistake, feeling guilty about it forever after) and contrasting her negatively with the love-fueled protectiveness of the Winchesters and the Firths. In the end, I hope I left it a little up in the air – did she love Camilla and just make a terrible mistake, or did she stick around and become vengeful because of the oath she'd made to Camilla's parents? Either way, she definitely went off the rails!

stedan: See, you understand my sarcasm all too well! *g* And it was fun to have Sam guess that Dean was angry because he was out of ammo instead of because Sam is, you know, dying in front of him. I like writing characters that aren't quite in their right minds, for whatever that says about me! Ha!

Kathy: As I've told you before, I find it heartening that you feel the twists and turns that I come up with as "clever" rather than "whackadoodle." hehe Yup, witch-ghost, supernatural poison, and a sandstorm. Good think I didn't give the boys too much to deal with! I think I kind of left it up in the air whether or not Mara caused the sandstorm or just used a natural one, so you get to decide for yourself. (Lazy writing? Possibly.) I can't wait to read your reaction to chapter 9! Why do I have a feeling you'll scold me for claiming it's a nice, calm chapter? (Cheeky grin.)

Timelady66: Man, I want to read what you write! I really like the trope of convincing a ghost to move on instead of burning the bones or banishing it. That was my plan all along for Camilla, and for Mara to be attached to her, and forced to go too. Can you imagine if I ever wrote for SPN? They'd be like, no sorry, Woomie, all of your plots are basically the same!

bagelcat1: I'm glad you like seeing the name in print! It seemed to fit the sisters well. I hope you find the comfort and care in this chapter in character too, because it's pretty blatant. You really called it with a few of the details here and coming up! (Janice would say GMTA!) And I'm so pleased that the action works for you. And I know you've said you had a story idea or two -- I'd love to hear them!

Janice: Yes, we do think alike sometimes! That made me laugh! I'm glad that you're right there with me in the "mushy" stuff. I figure that Dean can get away with it when Sam's totally out of it and probably won't remember what he says or does. Thanks for your help, as always!