Thanks again for all of the reviews, guys!
Sam sat in the motel room, staring blankly at the white wall. He had shot his only brother. Dean had disappeared before his eyes, dissolving as soon as the rock salt had hit him. It had been almost six hours since he'd pulled the trigger, and Sam still hadn't seen his brother.

The children had disappeared as soon as they realized that their intended victim was gone, and Sam hadn't stuck around long enough to find out if they knew he was there. As much as he'd hated to do it, he'd run to his car and sped off down the gravel drive, his heart pounding.

He'd realized between the time he left the house and the time he'd arrived at the motel that his father had never told him what happened to the spirits they shot. He just knew that they went away and often returned shortly after.

He'd been waiting, staring at the wall and collecting his thoughts, ever since returning to the room. What if Dean never came back? What if he was mad? What if he was really dead now?

Knowing he would regret it later, Sam pulled out his cell phone. Slowly, he dialed his father's number. It rang, as always, before transferring him to voicemail.

"Hey, dad. It's me. Thought you should know I'm heading back. I, uh, I know what's wrong with Dean, and I know how to fix him. I know how to wake him up. But I think I messed everything up today." Static began cutting in on his conversation as he finished up. "I swear, I'll find a way to make this right. Just keep him alive."

He hung up as the white noise burned into his ear, causing him to cringe.

"You must really be worried, calling dad like that."

Sam looked up, a wide smile quickly spreading across his face. "Dean?"

"No way you're getting rid of me that easy," the elder commented, sliding from the wall beside the door and onto the bed beside his brother, "what were thinking shooting me in the face like that, you freak?"

"I shot you in the face?"

"Yeah, some aim." Dean smirked, a simple, typical action that caused his brother much relief. At least he wasn't mad.

Sam grinned sheepishly, "sorry about that. But you deserved it, jerk."

"Bitch."

The customary brotherly banter out of the way, it was time to get down to business, and both Winchesters knew it.

"So," Sammy began, "you know we have to go back, right? She was buried in the cellar. We have to burn the body to release those kids."

"No," Dean shook his head, "no."

"Well, I can go alone if you're scared," Sam challenged, "chicken."

"No, Sam, she's not buried in the cellar. She's in the fireplace. That's how it became a portal to the afterlife: the fact that she never moved on and trapped all those kids. She got walled up behind the fireplace."

"Oh. Does that mean you're coming with me?"

"You just hate to be alone, don't you, geek boy?"

Sam nodded, one final question escaping his mouth before his brain could stop it. "What happened? After I shot you, where'd you go?"

Dean got up off the bed, suddenly on the other side of the room. He just stared at his brother, understanding and fear written clearly in his hazel eyes. "We're never going to talk about this again," he said softly, though with an incredibly demanding tone, "it never happened. This whole hunt never happened. Got that?"

Sam swallowed hard and nodded. His brother had given him a direct order, the first in almost half a year, and he was going to obey. Besides, something told him he didn't really want to know what had happened to Dean. Things would be better off forgotten.


The house creaked and groaned under Sam's feet as he and Dean entered, the door squealing loudly as it slammed shut behind them. It was pitch black in the old home, which seemed even more sinister in the darkness.

"You got this one, right, Sammy?" Dean asked, hanging back as his brother approached the fireplace.

Sam just smiled softly, sliding the duffel bag off his shoulder and rummaging through it for the supplies he needed. "Sure thing, Casper. Wouldn't want another close call, would we?"

"That seamstress is a psycho," Dean replied, grinning inwardly about the Casper comment, "no wonder she cut herself up."

"Yeah. Just makes us seem a little more normal."

"Said the psychic to the ghost."

Sam grinned, pulling a crowbar, rock salt, gasoline, and a matchbook out of the duffel. Holding the crowbar aloft, he walked forward, toward the crumbling fireplace. He slid the iron grate to one side and leaned into the old structure, glancing quickly up the flume, which was open. "I think you're wrong, Dean."

"Behind the fireplace," he clarified, "she's walled up behind it."

"Oh, great," Sam rolled his eyes and put the crowbar, originally brought along for the purpose of digging Meredith's remains from the flume, to work pulling out the stones that lined the back of the fireplace. Sure enough, once a few were removed he found himself staring into the blank face of Meredith Michaels. He turned back to his brother, who grinned broadly.

"Told you."

"I certainly wish you hadn't" someone behind him moaned. Dean spun around to face Meredith, who seemed none too happy with his reappearance, "because now you're both in trouble."

Without even waiting to see what the seamstress meant, Sam dashed back across the room, his eyes on the supplies needed to burn the body and rid the house of its resident spook. Unfortunately, Meredith anticipated his movement and popped suddenly up between him and his goal. She effortlessly flung him back across the room, where his head slammed hard against the rotting wooden wall.

She was beside his limp form in an instant, standing over him and smiling menacingly. Gently, she bent down and grabbed his wrists, her eyes flashing with manic light. She began to pull Sammy towards her corpse.

"What are you doing?" Dean asked, stalling for time as he slowly crossed the room to finish the job his brother had started.

"Well, dearie, he's not dead yet. You'll both cross over in time. Together now. We just need to cut off his air supply. What do you say? Help a poor girl out?"

Dean nodded, smiling that charming smile of his, as he grabbed the salt, gas, and matchbook. "Sure thing, dearie. Just let me widen the hole a bit. He's a little bigger than you were."

"You've got that right," she huffed, struggling to drag Sam across the dust-covered floor as he began to stir.

"Say, why don't you search his pockets, just in case. Wouldn't want him escaping."

"Good idea," Meredith marveled, dropping Sammy's wrists and begin to riffle through his pockets, looking for anything that could possibly help him escape a prison of stone.

Dean used the opportunity to fill the small hole his brother had made with salt and gasoline. Smirking, he lit a match. His favorite part of the hunt had always been burning the body, to just watch it go up in flames was something that never failed to make him happy, make him feel truly alive. "Hey, dearie, guess what?"

"What?" Meredith asked, turning just in time to see him drop the match. Her ghost began to dissolve into a swirl of smoke almost instantly as the spectral forms of all the kids she'd brutally murdered appeared, their thanks and apologies all melting into one as the portal in the fireplace opened to allow them entrance.

Sam smiled, sitting himself up off the floor. All those kids were finally free, no longer stuck in the dilapidated house with the woman that had killed them. He was starting to remember why he hunted. And then he looked at his brother.

Dean was barely hanging on to the side of the fireplace, his fingers slipping as the white light of the portal to the hereafter tried to suck him in. His mouth was open in a silent scream, his voice drowned out by the sudden creepy chanting of the mass of children.

Fearing for his brother's life, Sam jumped up and ran toward the portal, hoping that it didn't pose a threat to his own wellbeing. He reached the swirling vortex of light as Dean's grip finally gave, sending him, still screaming, into the light.

Sam reached out and grabbed the older man's hand, solid as it had been before the crash that had almost taken his life. Struggling against the pull of the portal, he pulled his brother back to the land of the living. The vortex closed with a burst of air that sent both men sliding back across the floor.

"You all right?" Sam asked, holding out a shaking hand to help his brother up.

"Yeah," Dean replied quietly, "fine. Thanks. Oh, and mom says 'hi.'"