A/N: Again, all kinds of love and gratitudeto Faye and Kaly, who helped me keep this moving.

Sam, being Sam, hadn't made things easy. He hadn't given Bobby a specific destination, hadn't left any notes, and was frustratingly unreachable on his cell phone. Dean left no messages. He didn't trust himself to not explode as soon as he heard his brother's voice over the sheer stupidity of what Sam had done. But he knew Sam would see his name on the caller ID. He wasn't sure what kind of a response to expect. So far, there had only been silence.

Instead, Dean basically tore apart Sam's room looking for any sort of clue. He finally found it in Sam's journal. The most recent entries weren't helpful – mostly just Sam's speculation about the demon. Even if there had been time, Dean wasn't sure he would have wanted to read it.

Against the first blank page, though, Dean could feel the imprint of lines that he hoped formed a name or directions, some kind of a trail to follow. He took a pencil and rubbed it over the paper, straightening when he could finally make out the word "Farewell."

"No," he breathed. He can't be gone. He can't be. He's not . . .

He shook his head, making himself focus. Sam wasn't saying goodbye, not like this.

He went back to his own room and plugged the name into a search engine on the laptop. Farewell, Arkansas. A small town in the Ozarks.

Beyond a hastily printed set of directions, it was all he needed.

Theirfather's pickup was sitting in Bobby's yard, parked in the same spot where it had been unloaded from the tow truck. The tires were new, and it was polished and gassed up. Dean knew Bobby had taken special care with it – it practically gleamed.

The only thing missing was a part that even Bobby couldn't replace.

The truck was his father's the way the Impala was Dean's. He'd been a passenger in it only a handful of times, and he had never been behind the wheel. Driving it felt a little like walking on his father's grave.

But Sam had Bobby's only vehicle that wasn't a tractor or a picked-over beater purchased for spare parts. Dean forced away all thoughts about his father and the wrongness of being where he was and focused on the route and his brother.

Time passed interminably, the drive south through Nebraska and Oklahoma a blur of farmland and flatness. He called Sam every hour, growing more and more agitated when each attempt was greeted only by Sam's voicemail. He wouldn't put it past his brother to simply ignore him, especially given the way their last conversation had ended.

If that was the case, then cast or no, Sam was going to be thoroughly re-acquainted with Dean's fist as soon as he caught up to him.

If it wasn't . . .

Dean couldn't bring himself to think about it.

Dean crossed the border into Arkansas in the pitch dark of early morning, one of the few cars still on the road. If he'd plotted the directions right, he had about 90 miles to go – but it was 90 miles of narrow, unlit mountain roads.

By the time he reached Farewell, dawn was just starting to peak over the horizon. The new sun gave him a headache, burning into eyes that had not spent so many hours open in a long time. Fatigue was pulling at him – he was nearly dizzy with it – but there was no time to rest. Sam had at least a 12-hour head start, and the clock was still ticking.

He drove slowly down the town's only main street, looking for Bobby's blue '74 International – or a hopefully mint-condition '83 little brother. But he didn't see signs of either.

There was no motel and no library. His only options were the small diner and City Hall – a one-roomed brick building that didn't look remotely as important as the name made it sound. Neither were open yet, so he pulled into a parking lot and dialed Sam's number again.

When it clicked to voicemail this time, he couldn't stop himself from speaking. "Sam, if you get this . . . Just call me. Soon as you can."

He flipped the phone shut and pressed it to his forehead.

You'd better be okay, Sam, or I'm going to kick your ass.

The diner opened promptly at six. Dean gave them ten minutes to get a pot of coffee brewed and then plopped himself down in a booth. The laptop, a local newspaper and his father's journal were spread out before him.

He ran delicate fingers over the worn leather binding of the journal. Unlike the truck, he was intimately familiar with it. He and Sam both had read it cover to cover more than once in the past year.

It was the first time he had opened it since John died.

Dean could hear his father's voice, deep and somber in his ear, as he re-read the opening words. I went to Missouri to learn the truth. He wondered if his father had known then that the truth would never bring him any peace.

"What can I get you, honey?"

A woman's voice interrupted him. Dean turned an automatic smile on the waitress and ordered a cup of coffee and toast. Another time, he might have grinned when she brought a plate of grits and a glass of juice to go along with his order – after all, it was usually Sam who inspired love and affection in the over-50 set. But he couldn't meet the sympathy in her gaze. Instead, he tucked the cast under the table and ate as quickly as he could, scattering a few bills when he rose so he could bypass the cash register.

The newspaper had been a bust – no real news articles, unless he counted wedding and birth announcements and advertisements for used cars and farm equipment. There was a story about the high school's plan to hold a fundraiser for a new athletic field, and another about the town's oldest resident, who had died at the ripe old age of 97. Definitely nothing supernatural going on there.

The laptop and journal hadn't turned up much else. As states went, Arkansas was relatively spook-free. There were smatterings of ghost sightings and the frequent appearances of the Gurdon Light, but no harm had ever come from any of it.

What had brought Sam here?

Morning slid to afternoon and finally evening with no other answers and the growing certainty that the last words his brother would ever hear from him had been I don't need you.

Dean pulled the truck over on a quiet stretch of State 311. He was too tired to keep driving, but he couldn't bear the thought of sleeping in an empty motel room. It seemed too final. Like he'd given up. Like Sam was really gone.

There was a sudden, unbearable pressure in his lungs, in his head. He ducked his chin, trying to slow his breathing, and was mortified when a sob escaped instead. He folded over the steering wheel, the shuddering feel of his own tears foreign and harsh.

He'd maintained a thin veil of control since that day in the cabin. One day that seemed a lifetime ago – that was a lifetime ago. John's lifetime.

Such a thin veil to cover up the grief and the pain and the memories. Memories of begging his Dad to not let the demon kill him and feeling like his heart was being squeezed, his insides melted, twisted, ripped apart. Memories of whispering don't you do it Sam and the sudden, horrific impact of metal-on-metal as the semi rammed the side of the Impala. Memories of the even more sudden and horrific impact of Sam's quiet voice saying the unthinkable . . . He's gone, Dean. We've lost him. There was nothing they could do.

And now that veil was torn. The spider web of cracks that had traced the veins under Dean's skin for so long were blown open, blown apart, and he was shattering. He squeezed the wheel until his knuckles were white and pain lanced down his arm. He still felt the sting of tears in the creases of his eyes but he ignored it, ignored the hitch in his chest and the way his shoulders hunched as he tried to shutter the gaps that only Sam could fill.

He would find him. He would find Sam and bring him home. There was no other way.