Author's Note: It's important to me to stick with canon, because some of the later stuff that happens in Seasons 9-11 developed for me even before some of this early stuff did, and if I diverge too far from canon now, that whole plotline won't work later. I had to go ahead and have Ember tell Dean about the demon blood, though, because it wouldn't work for her character and their relationship not to… so then I had to tie it all back in to canon later by having him lie about it. Truthfully, I think it's what he would've done. What do you think? Let me know in reviews.

Also, let me know what you think about the Sam/Ember moment here. This will be a one-off, as it's Sam's hallucination. Please review!

I don't own Supernatural.

***Sam POV***

April 12, Morning

Sam fully expected to find Dean and Ember lying naked in the bed asleep when he walked into the hotel room the next morning, but what he actually found was much worse.

Both of them were fully dressed. "Here's the deal," Ember said, her hands on her hips. "We're having an intervention."

Sam scoffed, laughed derisively, and turned the other way to leave. He not unexpectedly found that his feet wouldn't move. He whirled his body around to face Ember once again. "Really? You're going to use your powers on me?" He gave an enormous effort, and found the control on his body break, which sent him overbalancing onto the bed.

Ember towered over him, angrier than ever. He could see the fury in her eyes, and for the smallest moment he was both afraid of her and also wildly attracted to her. She narrowed her eyes. "You broke my control, Sam. You're stronger than I am now. You broke your promise to me. Again."

Sam turned to leave the motel room once more; he needed air. "If you leave this motel room, Sam Winchester, I swear to God I'll tell him!" Ember screeched after him.

He gave a laugh again. "Whatever demon," he said, and slammed the door on both of them.

***Sam POV***

April 12, Afternoon

Sam opened the door of the hotel room once again, with trepidation. As he expected, he had barely gotten past the threshold when a fist collided with his face.

"Dean!" Ember screamed.

"I probably deserved that," Sam said, coughing from the floor.

"Demon blood, Sammy! What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't," said Sam. "Look, you were right, okay?"

"I… what?" Dean asked.

"You were right. Look, I did a lot of thinking, okay. I went to talk to Ruby, too. I told her… I told her I'm done." He looked Dean in the eye. "Look, Dean, I am so… so sorry. When you went to Hell, I… I got on a bad path. I never should've trusted Ruby. And I see now… if I was this hesitant to tell you, it was never a good idea in the first place."

Dean stopped in his tracks. "Sammy, I don't want to lose you. Not to something like this. How could you do this?"

Sam attempted to look as guilty as possible, which wasn't hard… he did feel guilty, lying to his brother like this. "Look, it's like I said. I just… I didn't do well when you were gone, okay? And Ruby was there, and she helped me, and she saved me, and I just thought…"

Dean narrowed his eyes, and Sam was sure for a second that Dean hadn't bought it. Then he said, "Sammy, that's what they do, though, man! Demons… no offense, Ember… you just can't trust them."

"None taken," Ember grumbled, staring at Sam with narrowed eyes.

"Just promise me it's over, okay?" Dean said to his brother.

"Yeah, I promise," Sam said. "I mean, it'll take awhile for the blood to leave my system, but… I promise, I'm done."

But Sam could tell from Ember's narrowed eyes that at least one person hadn't believed his lie. He supposed he would just have to be more careful. Fortunately, Ruby had given him a flask full of her blood so that he could make it last.

***Sam POV***

May 7, Not Sure When

Detoxing from demon blood was the worst experience he'd ever had. He had kept up the charade that he had quit the blood until the last day of April, when Ember caught him calling Ruby and begging her for more blood. The flask was gone, and he had lost almost all of his "mojo", as Dean called it.

"You're an addict, Sam," she said, appearing out of nowhere in the gas station he'd chosen to dip into briefly to make his phone call.

"Jesus, Ember! You can't do that to me!" he shouted, alarmed at her sudden visibility.

"I knew it!" she said. "I knew you were still doing it!"

Sam knew the jig was up. "Okay, okay, fine," he said. "But I'm taking much less, okay? I have it under control."

Ember narrowed her eyes. "I don't care," she said. "When this case is over, I'm telling Dean. AGAIN."

But, as it turned out, she hadn't had to tell Dean. Dean had witnessed Sam drinking demon blood himself. Sam had had no choice – he was out of demon blood, and was losing his powers. The group had been confronted by four demons, and Ember was holding two of them, and one of the other ones was in a body that just happened to be Castiel's vessel's wife. (It was a long story.) Sam had hoped for one wild moment that if he showed Dean that he could save people, that he could kill the demons without harming the host, that Dean would understand why he drank the blood.

Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way. Instead, he had been trapped in Bobby's panic room to "detox" for the past five days.

A lot of it had been a blur. He definitely remembered hallucinating Alastair torturing him. He had also hallucinated himself as a boy, and his mother. He knew that all three of those were hallucinations, because all three of them were dead.

The next time Sam woke up, Ember was towering over his bed, and he was in handcuffs. "Why am I in handcuffs?" he asked her.

"Why not?" she said, smirking at him.

"Are you a hallucination?" Sam asked her.

She was wearing a short skirt and a low-cut top, which was odd in itself. He was fairly certain that he'd seen her in both items, but certainly not together.

"Do you want me to be a hallucination?" she said. Her eyes were boring into his, and they were dark, almost like a predator's. "I am your brothers' girlfriend, after all."

"But maybe you don't want me to be your brother's girlfriend," she said, licking her lips seductively and moving closer to him. "Maybe you just want a quick fuck." As she said this, she climbed on top of him and lowered herself down. Sam attempted to move, attempted to wiggle away, anything. He didn't like Ember like that – she was attractive, sure, but the most attractive thing about her was the demon blood. They were friends, and only friends, and she was his brothers' girl.

But apparently that didn't stop her from palming him through his jeans, he realized with horror. She was face to face with him now. "After all," she whispered, and she caught his lower lip between hers, just for a second. "It's only a matter of time before you can't control yourself around me anymore. I mean, I'm a demon, you're a demon… "

Sam closed his eyes, fighting with everything he could to move away from her, and suddenly she disappeared. Dean was standing in her place. Sam let out a sigh of relief, realizing that she, too, had been a hallucination. Was Dean here to let him out? Was it over?

Apparently not. "Monster, Sam, you're a monster. I tried so hard to pretend that we were brothers, that you weren't one of the filthy things that we hunt. But we're not even the same species. You're nothing to me."

But then Dean, too, disappeared. And suddenly, Sam realized, the door to the panic room was open.

***Ember POV***

May 13, Night

Someone had let Sam out of the panic room. Dean was sure it was Ruby, but Ember wasn't so sure. She thought perhaps it was Lilith – perhaps she was strong enough to get past the salted walls. Ember also considered that it might have been the angels. Though she couldn't think of a motive, she definitely didn't trust them.

Either way, the boys had never been farther apart. Ember wished that she had told Dean about the demon blood earlier, though admittedly it might not have changed anything. She kept this wish to herself, as Dean was far too busy being broody and angry about Sam to be angry at her for not discussing the matter earlier.

Ember had been unconscious for most of the final brawl between the two boys. She and Dean had confronted Sam and Ruby in the honeymoon suite of the hotel Dean had tracked him to. Sam had been attempting to protect Ruby, and in the process had sent Ember flying across the room, where she'd hit her head on a lamp and blacked out. To his credit, she'd seen the look on his face as he watched her fly across the room – surprise, mostly, at his own strength. He must've just had the demon blood, then.

Regardless, when Ember woke up again, Sam was gone, and Dean was staggering around in pain, covered in broken glass, and broody and silent. Since then, she'd tried to call Sam's phone more than a dozen times (all 4 of them), but he never picked up. Ember had even tried to call from an unknown number and a separate burner phone, but he still didn't pick up.

Dean, in contrast, refused to call Sam, which agitated Ember and Bobby to no end. "He's your brother," Ember pleaded with Dean. "He could be dying. You do realize, right, that he's going to go dark side if we don't do something. Are you going to let that be on your conscience?"

"No, damn it!" Dean said to Ember and Bobby. "No. We gotta face the facts. Sam never wanted part of this family. He hated this life growing up – ran away to Stanford first chance he got. Now it's like de ja vu all over again. I am sick and tired of chasing him. Screw him, he can do what he wants. I'm not even sure if he's still my brother anymore. If he ever was."

Fortunately, Bobby was the voice of reason. "You stupid, stupid son of a bitch!" Bobby cried, throwing the paperwork off his desk in his anger. "Well boohoo, I am so sorry your feelings are hurt, princess! Are you under the impression that family's supposed to make you feel good? Bake you an apple pie, maybe? They're supposed to make you miserable! That's why they're family!"

"Gee, thanks, Bobby," Ember said sarcastically.

"Not you!" snapped Bobby.

"I told him, 'You walk out that door, don't come back,'" said Dean, "And he walked out anyway! That was his choice!"

"You sound like a whiny brat!" exclaimed Bobby. "No. You sound like your Dad. Well let me tell you something – your Dad was a coward."

Ember heard her own intake of breath. Dean stopped short, and turned around slowly. "My Dad was a lot of things, Bobby, but a coward?"

"He'd rather push Sam away than reach out to him," Bobby clarified emphatically. "That don't strike me as brave. You're a better man than your Daddy ever was. So you do both of us a favor – don't be him."

Ember saw it in Dean's eyes – the shred of doubt, the guilty look that meant that Dean Winchester knew he had spoken out of line and was ready to call his brother. But before he could, however, Dean disappeared.

"What the hell was that!" screamed Ember.

Bobby had screamed, "Balls!" at the same time.

"What happened?" Ember asked Bobby.

"Damn angels," said Bobby. "Nothing else has the power to do that."

"Yeah, that was gonna be my guess," grumbled Ember.

"Balls!" Bobby said again, and took a fire poker from the fire place and beat it against the wall for dramatic effect. "Well, now you get to accompany me for what I do on my free days," Bobby said, beginning to pick up all the things that he had shoved off his desk earlier.

"What's that?" Ember asked him.

"Worry about those two damn idgits!"

But Ember's world had gone black. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, her head exploded with pain. She buckled to her knees, and she felt Bobby catch her before she hit the hard floor, and then she couldn't feel even Bobby anymore.

She was overlooking a convent which was covered in blood. A blond girl whom Ember recognized as Lilith was sitting haphazardly in front of an alter, facing Sam. "You turned yourself into a freak. A monster. And now you're not gonna bite? I'm sorry, but that is honestly adorable." Sam was in front of her, looking livid. Suddenly, he raised his hand, and smited Lilith with everything he had. Ember watched in horror as his eyes turned black, and as Lilith keeled over, dead in front of the alter.

But something was wrong. And as Ember continued to watch through her strange premonition, she realized what it was. "You opened the door," said Ruby, who was standing with Sam. "And now he's free at last. He's free at last! And it is written that the first demon shall be the last seal."

God, she had been so stupid! She had read that, way back when, somewhere. Lilith was the first demon? She should have known. It all made sense… But there was still time! There was still time to tell Sam and Dean. There had to be still time… and then everything went black.