Sammy was doing worse.

It was sudden and just happened, these kinds of things happen when it comes to infants in precarious situations like Sammys. They're just not strong enough and sometimes, they just don't make it.

His lungs were too small, his heart was too small. Everything about him was too small, it couldn't really sustain him. They'd keep him on the ventilator, on the pacemaker, on all the machines that there were already attached to him.

But it wasn't a guarantee, and it could only keep him alive for so long. At some point or another, they had to make a choice.

Take him off of the machines and see what happens. Maybe a miracle could happen and he'd start breathing and kicking and living on his own.

Or his organs, small and precious and so desperate, could fail and he'd die in moments. There just was no telling what could happen.

And there was nothing else the doctors could do.

Her parents had left, they had gone straight back to Lawrence to meet with Henry and Millie, the former having been through the Mens of Letter healing spells in the hopes of finding something that could help them. He said there were a few, he was also providing the ingredients, but they were all for adults, none for infants, so there was no telling what it was going to do.

He was also breaking quite a few rules by doing what he did, and surprisingly in his own words, he didn't give a damn if it meant Sammy could live.

Talking to the doctors was exhausting, they had nothing that they could actually tell her. At one point one of them convinced her to let them examine her as well and John pushed her into saying yes, giving Dean to him for the time being while they did so.

She was healthy more or less, drained and weak, but otherwise nothing else to note. She was warned against becoming pregnant again however, based on her pregnancy with Dean and how Sammy had gone, it wouldn't be a good idea for her to have any more children.

She wasn't planning to but thanks doc, thanks for that sentiment. She was too drained to throw them the middle finger, just nodded and made her way back to the hallway so that she could stare at Sammy with John and Dean.

When John saw her coming back he had been writing something on a piece of paper, he folded it and shoved it into his pocket when she reached them. "Anything?"

"Nothing that can't wait." she said, turning to look at Sammy, while he didn't necessarily look any different, she could feel something different, something had changed. "Anything?"

"Nothing. Same as before, getting worse." John answered softly. He glanced at the sleeping Dean on his lap, curled against his chest. "I think we should let him go with...Bobby."

She ignored the way he said his name. "I told him that, but he doesn't want to." she said. "Said he wants to be here for Sammy cause it's his little brother." she managed a small smile, reaching out to stroke over Deans head. "What were you writing?"

John hesitated, then took his head. "Nothing important."

Mary raised an eyebrow at that, needing something else to pay attention to for a few moments, otherwise she was terrified that she was going to collapse and not get up. "If it's not important, show me."

"Mary it's not important, drop it."

Mary just stared at him for a moment, moving quickly to grab the piece of paper and yanking it out of his pocket, he wasn't able to move to stop her, doing so would mean waking up Dean after all.

She stepped away and glanced at it, feeling her stomach drop. It was an ingredient list; picture, graveyard dirt, black cat bone, yarrow flowers.

The exact ingredients she had been trying to figure out how to sneak away from Bobby's storages.

In order to summon a deal making demon.

"You...were you planning to summon a demon?" Mary asked, staring at the ingredient list in horror, in something she couldn't even name.

John didn't look at her, he looked straight at Sammy. "Made the most sense, dad said that the spells he managed to find were most likely not going to do a damn thing. And he's getting worse and worse and-" he closed his eyes. "This way at least we can have a guarantee of some kind. Problem is, I have no idea where there's a crossroad here or where to get the ingredients."

Mary stared at the words until they started to get blurry and her hands were shaking. "The ingredients are all at Bobby's house. There's a crossroad ten minutes away." she whispered. "I was preparing to go there myself."

John's head whirled around to stare at her, lips parting in surprise. "No." he told her, shaking his head. "If either of us does it, it's me."

"Why you?" Mary whispered, rubbing a hand over her face. "This is my fault, it's all on me. I couldn't be a good mom to him, I couldn't carry him properly. Its my fault, I should be the one paying for it."

"That's not how it works, that's not how any of this works." John said, half glaring at her. He looked down at Dean again and then back at her. "Come here."

Mary swallowed but walked over to him, sitting down and placing her head on his shoulder. He shifted himself and Dean enough to wrap his arm around her shoulders.

"Alright, we're both willing to do this," he said softly. "We're both willing to sell our souls for our son, but it should be me Mary."

"And why should it be you?" she asked him, just as softly.

"Because the boys need you a hell of a lot more than they need me." John said, his thumb rubbing against her shoulder. "It's something we've always known, something we knew that would be done. You've been taking care of Dean, being his parent. I was just the visiting dad who dropped by every now and then."

"That wasn't your choice, it was what we had to deal with." Mary reminded him.

"The boys need you." he repeated, his voice steady. "They can be without me, not without you."

Mary's voice hitched when she spoke. "I need you." she told him. "You can't go to hell."

"Neither can you." John said, she could feel his lips brush against the top of her head. "So...stuck again, aren't we?"

"Stuck again." she whispered, rubbing at her eyes. She couldn't hold back the tears at the thought of John going to hell, being tortured, being hurt like that. Maybe even eventually one day climbing out with black eyes of his own.

She shuddered and turned her head to bury her face in his chest.

"So what do we do now?" she whispered. "What can we do?"

She felt him take a deep breath. "We wait." he said simply. "We just...wait."

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