Two Weeks Later

"You sure I can't talk you into coming with me?"

Sam slammed the trunk of the tan beater he was setting out in. He would need to ditch the car and get something more permanent soon, but that was the least of his worries. For now, he was more concerned with parting ways with his brother again so soon after reuniting with him. They had spend a good two weeks together, caught up, killed a possessed Big Bird costume and saved a few kids. They had also been butting heads nearly every day over Lilith.

Dean shook his head, hands buried deep in his pockets.

"Not a chance," he replied.

Sam couldn't believe Dean was really going to let him go off on his own.

"This is really how it's gonna be?" he asked, tone dead with disbelief. He felt like he was floating, like nothing around him was real. After months of dreaming, longing to be with his brother again, were they really saying good-bye so soon?

Dean shrugged and Sam searched his face for any hint of emotion, but he couldn't find any. Even Dean's eyes seemed flat. Dead almost.

"Call me if you change your mind about this," Dean said. His tone was as dead as his expression. "We can meet up... things can go back to the way they used to be."

Sam scoffed.

"So you're just gonna run around hunting small fish, pretending there isn't a bigger battle out here to be won?"

Dean shook his head and got into the impala.

"That's it? You've got nothing else to say?!" Sam demanded, voice rising with anger.

Dean glanced back at his brother sadly one last time. He'd already said everything over the course of the two weeks they'd spent together. He knew Sam thought he was doing the right thing. He also knew that Sam was wrong. Sam was lying to himself, acting like hunting Lilith was something noble that he needed to do for the greater good. Dean knew his brother well enough to recognize that Sam was on a vendetta.

He knew him well enough to know that there was nothing in the world he could say to talk his brother out of this hunt.

"Take care, Sammy," he said instead, swallowing the lump that rose in his throat, chasing words he hated to have to say. "Be careful. Don't be a stranger."

Sam opened his mouth to respond, but couldn't decide what to say fast enough. Part of him was furious. It wanted to tell Dean to go to hell. Another part wanted to tell him to wait. Wanted to change his mind and get in the car with his brother.

Another part wanted to smile and forget their argument and tell Dean to take care too.

Sam didn't end up saying any of those things. Instead, he closed his mouth, nodded his head, and watched Dean drive away.

Dean kept one eye on his brother's receding figure in the mirror until he was finally gone. Reality hit him like a freight train. This was really it. At least for now, he was completely on his own. For the first time in his entire life, Dean had somehow left everything he ever cared about behind him. Loneliness swelled within him, washing over him like a tidal wave, all consuming and devastating. The silence in the Impala smothered him like a cloud of smoke.

He wondered when he would see Sam again. Wondered if he even would, or if he had lost him for good to the hunt for Lilith.

Take care of Sammy.

Dean had lived and died following his father's orders. Taking care of his little brother. Now, he had finally done the unthinkable. Abandoned the mission. Disobeyed his orders.

"I did my job," he said aloud. His voice sounded strange, cutting sharp through the silence. It didn't even sound like his voice. "I took care of him. He's a grown man now, for crying out loud. What do you want, Dad, you want me to keep him on leash in the yard?"

He laughed at himself for quoting Bobby, shook his head at himself for talking to himself.

"I mean god damn," he went on, feeling a little lighter as he reasoned with himself and the ghost of John Winchester which he carried like a millstone. "I sold my soul for the kid. I died for him. I went through hell. What more do you want from me?"

He reached for a cassette tape, determined to put an end to the stifling silence in the car. He knew he needed to stop talking to himself before he lost the few marbles he still had left. He stopped though, reminded that the cassettes were all his father's before they were his. The car, hell, even his jacket. All left to him with one condition.

Family is everything, boy. You hear me? You're the oldest. Sammy will always be your responsibility. Nod if you understand.

"Shit," Dean cursed quietly. Then, more loudly. "Shit!"

He pulled over, stomped out of the Impala and started kicking the weeds growing along the interstate, taking his frustrations out on them while he swore and the other drivers beeped at him in passing.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

He kicked until he was out of breath and his boots were covered in dirt and dew. He leaned against the side of the car and slowly slid down to sit by the back tire. The car rocked against his back every time a car passed, pushed by the turbulent interstate winds.

"Damn it, Sammy!"

He banged the back of his head against the car a few times, just enough to give himself a mild headache.

Could he really do it? Could he really let Sam hunt Lilith on his own? How could he let that happen?

Dean wasn't ashamed to admit to himself or anyone else that he was terrified at the slightest prospect that he could put himself back within hell's reach. As much as he hated the idea of hunting down hell's head honcho, the number one person with the power to send him back down there... even that fear didn't quite measure up to an older dread. The fear of letting his Dad down was so deep-seated in Dean that it may as well have been one of his vital organs. It would have been easier for him to pull out his liver than go against the directive that had been drilled into his skull every day since age four.

Then again, of course, how could Dean ever forget the handful of times he'd actually pulled out his own liver in hell? A few times to avoid a worse fate, a few because it hurt worse to have the thing in than out...

A shudder ripped through Dean and his stomach turned. He pushed the memories away, focusing on the rumble of the Impalas engine, still running, sending vibrations coursing through the steel, through his back. They were better than any drug, more comforting than any lullaby. Still, they did little to soothe the storm raging within Dean.

He couldn't go back to hell. But he didn't know if he could walk away while Sammy headed into the meat grinder either.

Dean pulled his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open with glum resignation. He stared at the tiny screen, eyeing Sam's number. Something close to resentment rose in him, ugly and intense. His finger hovered over the call button.

What Sam was doing was stupid. Someone else would take care of Lilith. The world would keep on turning. Revenge was childish, unnecessary. If Sam really gave a crap about Dean, he would forget about Lilith. He would stay. Dean wasn't the one leaving. Sam was leaving, again. He was going out looking for trouble, knowing full well the consequences.

Hell waited with hungry jaws, only for those who wandered willingly into it's belly.

Dean's hand shook as he held the phone, fighting with himself. Sam wasn't afraid of Lilith because Sam had no idea what she was capable of. Sam didn't know what hell meant, couldn't imagine how hot the fire burned or how long eternity lasted. Not many people in the world could.

Another number drew Dean's eye as he was suddenly struck by the urge to talk to someone who knew what he'd been through. Someone who could appreciate hell, who knew the horrors they had left behind. Someone who could tell him he was doing the right thing by running from a one-way ticket back to the pit. Alice's number tempted him like a siren's song, luring him with the promise of sympathy. Understanding. Something that precious few people in the world could give him after what he'd been through.

Precious few. Dean, Alice, and...

A thought struck Dean like lightning. A revelation tore his world apart, simple, potent, unimaginably freeing. For the first time, it dawned on Dean that his father had been to hell too. John Winchester would understand. He wouldn't ask Dean to go to hell. Not even for Sam.

It felt like the sky opened up over Dean. He looked up, contemplating the fluffy marshmallow clouds and pristine blue that seemed to stretch on forever. He exhaled, a sigh of relief that he felt he had been holding his whole life.

Everyone made their own choices. Sam was making his. He was good at going against the flow, swimming upstream. This was far from the first time he had decided to take a path Dean couldn't follow him down. Last time, it was college. Now, it was revenge. Ironically enough for the son who had always chafed against their father's plans and wishes, Sam was now following in John's footsteps. He had chosen the same path their father did after their mother was killed. The very path he had spent most of his life rebelling against. It was almost enough to make Dean laugh out loud.

Dean stood, dusted himself off, kicked the mud off his boots and got back into his car. He started driving again, switching on the radio and rolling the windows down. The world seemed bigger somehow, broader than it had before. Dean had all the same possibilities now that he'd had ten minutes ago, but having left the weight of his responsibility for his brother on the side of the road, all those same possibilities suddenly seemed brighter. Dean decided he needed a drink while he figured out which possibility to pursue first. Maybe some company for the night too. As he drove, one eye on the road signs and one hand on the tuning dial, he couldn't help smiling.

Dean had always lived a relatively loose life, but he always had anchors. People who loomed large, casting the shadow of obligation over him and his escapades. Grounding him, bringing him back time after time to a reality that had been constructed for him before he had a say in the matter. A reality that, truth be told, Dean had always viewed as a prison. That was a truth that Dean had buried for so long, convinced that he was serving a life sentence. Convinced that there was no escape from his reality, only the brief reprieves he found in the embrace of a strong drink or a loose stranger.

Suddenly, Dean's chains were gone. Part of him couldn't shake the guilt of leaving them behind, but it was that glum voice's turn to be buried.

"If you're not living for yourself, you're not really living at all."

Dean's smile slipped away at the sound of Alice's voice in his head, the memory clear as day and vivid as hell. He glanced in the mirror, taking a peek at the back seat to make sure she really wasn't with him. Emptiness stared back at him, infected his heart and spread like a cancer. He shook his head hard to clear it, flooring the pedal as he tried to outrun the feeling. Finally, he found a good station and let his hand fall away from the tuning dial. He sang along to the rock and roll and cranked up the volume, loud enough to chase Alice, Sam and his Dad out of his head.

He was on his own now. And he decided that he would make it a good thing.

For once, Dean was going to try living for himself.

Two More Weeks Later

"You're kidding me, right? More of you bastards?"

Loki's disbelief knew no bounds. This was the fourth group of demons he'd been forced to rough up in as many weeks. He made short work of the first three groups, each time leaving one alive to shamble back from whence they came. One to deliver the news that Alice Smith wasn't fair game anymore. He shook his head as the demons spread out along the sidewalk in front of the clinic, surrounding him.

"When are you guys gonna take a hint?" Loki demanded. "This was fun the first few times, but I can only send the same message so many times before it gets boring."

If Lilith kept this up, Loki was going to have to start going to the trouble of hiding himself and his gloomy plus one from her influence. The demons he now faced seemed apprehensive, but nonetheless determined to carry out their objective.

"So just hand her over then," one of the demons suggested. "If you want, you're invited to watch the show when we deliver her to Lilith. Believe me, you can't walk away from something like that feeling bored."

"Yeah, I'm almost tempted to take you up on that offer," Loki sighed. "I mean, don't get me wrong. She's terrible company. Except when there's enough tequila involved. Then she's really, really fun to watch. It's kind of like a slow motion train wreck, only with more karaoke and punching."

A chorus of disappointed groans and grunts came from the six demons assembled around Loki. This was the biggest group yet, but they were also the least enthusiastic. No doubt considering whether they would rather take their chances hand to hand with a mysteriously efficient demon killer or their pissed off boss. Loki did a quick tally.

"Huh," he hummed aloud after counting on his fingers.

"Reconsidering your chances?" the same demon asked hopefully.

"Not a chance bud. No, I just realized that I missed out on a neat opportunity by killing the first seven of you that Lilith sent."

The demon frowned and one of his compatriots scowled.

"She didn't send us here to chat with him."

He gestured to the others and they made their move, but Loki acted first. He snapped his fingers and half the demons flinched. His first snap was just to screw with their heads. In the split second after the snap, the three demons who were too stupid to flinch all pounced on empty foot of sidewalk where Loki had been milliseconds earlier. Loki tsked and snapped a second time before the three who pounced had enough time to figure out where he'd teleported to. Three demons vanished. Three foil wrapped, five inch tall figures fell to the ground. The three remaining demons looked on with horror and open jaws as Loki picked up what had once been one of their coworkers. He examined his handiwork, an impressively detailed foil rendition of one of the newly transfigured demons. He unwrapped a corner of the foil, exposing the milk chocolate underneath.

"That's closer to what I'd call fun," he mused, making eye contact with the first demon who'd spoken as he bit the head off the chocolate figure. The demon just gaped back at him, unable to process what was happening fast enough.

"Hm. A little bitter. Could use more sugar," Loki mused. He materialized a basket padded with warm yellow taffetta and a few token favors. "So, here's the deal."

Loki spoke while he grabbed the remaining chocolate figures and artfully tucked them into the gift basket.

"I only need one of you to take this basket back for me. Which means two of you are going in the basket with your associates. I'll let you figure this out amongst yourselves."

With a chuckle, Loki summoned a plush velvet love seat, very much out of place in front of the run down clinic. He plopped down to enjoy the show.

By the time Alice stomped out of the clinic, at least twice as grumpy as she'd been when she walked in, the demons were long gone.

"Hey, you missed a hell of a thunderdome session!" Loki greeted her. She scowled, taking in the sight of him relaxing in what was now a red velvet recliner.

"Could you be any more conspicuous?" she grumbled.

"Could you be any more of a wet rag?" Loki retorted. "I take it they didn't give you good news."

"Same bullshit as the last two times," Alice confirmed. "My guess? Danny's little unwanted apple didn't fall far from the asshole, shapeshifter tree. Drugs, surgeries, alcohol..."

"You could try rat poison next," Loki suggested jokingly.

"I doubt it'd work. In fact, I don't think anything less than pure silver could do anything to hurt the damn thing. I don't suppose you'll reconsider helping me out?"

"Aw come on, and put an end to this shitshow?" Loki asked rhetorically. "Yeah. I don't think so. Now come on. I wanna stick your host body somewhere safe and have you jump out and scare some insufferable anti-spiritualist pricks."

"More atheists that don't believe in ghosts?" Alice groaned.

"These ones have this tacky internet show where they bust fake haunted houses," Loki grinned. "Not gonna lie, the show is entertaining, and the haunted houses are fake. Mostly. But the lady hosting it is way self-righteous and I cannot wait to see her face when you poltergeist her ass."

Loki chuckled at his own wit while Alice crossed her arms over her chest.

"No way. I'm not pulling any more stupid pranks with you unless you help me with my problem."

She pointed at the stomach she was borrowing from Danny. He wasn't showing yet, but her meaning was clear. Loki shook his head and stood, his recliner vanishing the minute his ass left the cushions.

"See, I still don't think you get how this relationship works," he said. "I protect you. You amuse me."

"I thought-"

"Ah ah ah! Hey! I don't pay you to think!"

"You don't pay-"

"Ah!"

"Loki!"

"Sh!"

"I-"

"Shhh!"

"Damn it, we had a-"

"Shhhhh!"

"You son of-"

"SSSHHHHH!"

They squabbled back and forth for a good five minutes before Alice finally gave up and let Loki continue. She seethed with rage, but knew from experience that Loki would literally shush her for hours before he let her get a word in past his diatribe.

"As I was saying. You keep me entertained, I keep the black-eyed goons from dragging you back south of the border. And considering how persistent the black-eyed goons are- I mean, seriously, I did not think Lilith would be so eager to get her hands on you- you're lucky I don't have you possessing a professional court jester to hold up your end of the bargain."

Alice growled something indecipherable past gritted teeth. Loki frowned and gestured for her to repeat herself.

"Can I speak?" Alice hissed, separating her teeth just enough for him to understand what she was saying.

"Fine."

"Our deal was that I wreck the Smiths, not that I amuse you," she reminded him.

"Yeah, and you wrecked a fair number of Smiths," Loki admitted. "But face the facts, there are still plenty of Smiths running loose in the world. They'll have their operation back up and running full capacity in... well, it might take a few years. Anyway, the point is, you did about twelve percent of the job you were hired to do."

"Excuse me?!"

"Fine, seventeen percent. Nineteen tops. The point is, what you gave isn't measuring up to what you're getting. You feel me?"

The only thing Alice felt was blinding, inhuman rage that made her want to commit murder, but she kept her mouth shut about it. Regardless, Loki read her vibe and the sharp temperature drop in the air around them and sighed heavily.

"Of course, if you think I'm being unreasonable, nothing's keeping you with me," Loki pointed out. "If you want to leave, just walk away. Deal with Lilith and her goons on your own. Believe me, I wouldn't mind."

"Oh, so that's your angle," Alice griped. "Instead of outright breaking our deal, you're just going to torture me until I decide I'd rather be in hell than have to look at your ugly mug."

"Damn, you got me."

"That's a bad angle."

"I know, I know, spare me the speech about how hell is so bad, yada yada. Are you gonna do the prank with me, or not?"

Alice growled. She ran out of breath, took another deep one, and growled again. Loki, well aware of her recent struggles with bad decision making, watched with great anticipation. He was intrigued by her seemingly sudden need to be a better version of herself, live up to Dean and her long dead grandmother's expectations of her. Truth be told, even though he was sabotaging her efforts to be better at every turn, he was starting to root for her a little. Two nights ago, he'd watched her back down from escalating a bar fight. A week before that, she'd refrained from killing someone who'd gotten a little too handsy. Her self restraint was growing exponentially and Loki was torn between cheering her on and placing bets with himself over how long she could keep it up before she relapsed.

Ghostly nature and bad temper aside, Alice had a deeper, uglier quality that he knew from experience would prove harder to shake in the long run. The woman was positively addicted to the rush of battle. Conflict, struggle, discord... Alice was a veritable chaos junkie. It was a hard drug to kick.

Loki should know. It was his drug of choice.

"I'll do the damn prank," Alice finally spat.

"Thatta girl!"

Loki clapped her on the back while she cursed violently under her breath.

Kaydie Smith woke up suddenly from a nightmare. Her eyes snapped open, only to flutter shut again, blinded by burning flourescence. She squinted and panted, struggling to free herself from the inky, grasping vestiges of a bad dream that she had already mostly forgotten. Her first thought formed instantly, repeating a few times as she adjusted to being awake after so long dead to the world.

I'm alive.

Her next thoughts were all questions.

What happened to me? Where am I? How long was I out? How bad did that skank hurt me? What did I miss?

She started to get a grip, slowly getting control over herself. The first thing she did was to steady her breathing. She slowed it, feeling her pounding heart slow along with her breaths, no longer panicked. The second thing she did was quiet her mind. Her questions would be answered in due time. For now, she needed to get up.

She groaned, moving her body parts one at a time. Right leg. Fine, movable. No pain. Left leg? Same. Right arm?

"Ouch," she groaned groggily. That had to be a break. A fracture, at the very least. Left arm?

Clink.

Cold metal. Weight. She could only move her left arm up by a few inches before something stopped it from going any farther. She tried to lift her head to see what was happening, only to realize that she couldn't move her neck. She fought the panic that started to rise in her, forcing her breathing to stay even. With a grunt of pain and exertion, she brought her left arm up to feel around. It took her all of five seconds to realize that her neck was in a brace. A look at her left arm, now in plain view, revealed that it was in a cast. Broken, as she'd suspected.

"Damn it!" she snarled. Without the benefit of being able to see, she hazarded the guess that her right arm was cuffed to the bed. A cursory glance at her surroundings made it clear that she was in a hospital. That was a start, at least.

Somewhere to her left, she heard a door open. She made a snap judgement and shut her eyes, laying still as stone while footsteps approached.

"Well?" came a man's voice.

"Um... I don't know. Her eyes are still closed," a woman replied.

"But her heart rate jumped."

"Hey! Hey, ma'am!"

The woman nudged Kaydie's left arm, then shook it lightly. Kaydie remained carefully unresponsive.

"Ma'am, can you hear me? Are you awake? Ma'am? She's still comatose."

"That's weird."

"Bad dreams maybe?"

"Must be. I thought I recorded a baseline for her nightmares a few weeks ago though."

"Maybe the nightmares got worse. Poor thing."

"Maybe."

"Well, I may as well change the bags while I'm here."

"Right. I'm gone in a half hour, you?"

"Same."

Kaydie listened patiently as the man and the woman, presumably nurses, flirted and eventually scheduled a coffee date. When they finally left, she opened her eyes again. She struggled, biting her lip and muscling her way through the pain shooting through her body as she forced herself into a sitting position. Her guess had been right. She was handcuffed to a hospital bed. A brief glance around informed her that there was nothing nearby that could help her pick the lock. Not even an IV needle to aid her escape.

Carefully, Kaydie laid back down, heaving a sigh as she realized that at least for the time being, she wasn't going anywhere. If the cuffs were any indication, someone had been going through her car. She bit her lip, wondering what they could have found that would warrant chaining her to her hospital bed. Weapons could be reasoned away. Second amendment, leisure hunting, the same old story. Maybe the explosives? She had a few grenades with her if her mental inventory was current. Maybe she was being held on suspicion of terrorism.

Kaydie had to decide whether she wanted to pretend to be unconscious for a while longer, bide her time and wait for an opportunity to escape. Her second option was to show her hand, let the cops know she was awake and hope that the charges she was being held on weren't severe enough for them to deny her a phone call. She wasn't a gambling woman, but she wasn't a patient one either. She would only be able to stand laying in wait, faking a coma, for so long.

She laid back and took her time mulling over her options, putting everything else from her mind. She couldn't think about her last conversation with her grandmother, so mysteriously cut short. She couldn't wonder where Dean was, or whether anyone had ever gotten around to burning Alice's bones.

For the moment, all she could allow herself to think about was her next move. So she summoned every ounce of discipline she'd collected over her lifetime and put it to work banishing all unproductive thoughts from her mind. It was time to focus.

Lilith had a lot of irons in fire. She dealt most directly only with big picture decisions. The day to day minutiae of running hell and terrorizing the world were handled by an army of delegates. Hell's bureaucracy was sprawling, built up over millennia to accommodate armies of damned souls looking for a ladder to climb. Anything to escape the bottom of the barrel.

Bounties on damned souls gone on the run were handled by a demon working directly under the King of Crossroads himself. Today, that demon found himself crawling back home with his figurative tail between his legs. After sending out three separate groups tasked with bringing back a girl who'd whelched on a deal, he'd been forced to go out and try to take care of the situation himself. Letting her off the hook wasn't an option at his pay grade. His survival depended on his ability to get shit done so his superiors didn't have to worry about it.

Now, he approached the superior who held his life in his palms, gift basket in hand. He shook, too petrified to be the first to speak. The self-titled King of the Crossroads eyed the basket, expression unreadable.

"Creative arrangement," Crowley finally commented. "Though I must say, the colors are garish. Is she in there somewhere under all that taffetta?"

"No," the lesser demon managed. He cleared his throat and repeated himself. "No. I... I was told to make sure you read the card."

"A card? For me?"

"For Lilith."

"From...?"

"The guy who sent the last three messages."

"Hm."

Crowley examined one of the foil-wrapped chocolate demons with wry interest and a terse smile. Then he picked up the card. The lesser demon held his breath. He'd never seen Crowley personally disembowel someone, but he had seen him order some awful punishments. He had a flair for devising creative, surprisingly personal torments.

After an eternity that put the demons time in the pit to shame, Crowley closed the card. He looked contemplative.

"Did you read the card?" he asked. The question caught his underling off guard. He had read the card; he knew what it said.

Next time I'll skip killing your cronies and come for you instead.

The lesser demon didn't know what the right answer was, or even if there was a right answer. Was he supposed to have read it? Was he supposed to have left well enough alone? Did it even matter?

"No," he said carefully.

"Mm."

Crowley appraised him, squinting like he was trying to see something in the far distance. The demon held his breath, wondering if he'd made a mistake by lying.

"No one breaks a deal with hell," Crowley finally said. "Our reputation is four fifths of our leverage. Keep trying. Don't come back to me without Smith again."

"Yes sir."

If he wasn't allowed to come back, the demon assumed he would be allowed to leave. The weight of the world vanished and he managed to straighten. He actually felt light-headed with relief.

"What about the Winchesters, any headway with either of them?" Crowley asked.

"No. That angel is still following the older boy. We can't get near him," the lesser demon reported. "As for the younger, he's in the wind."

"They can wait. Just don't forget that they're wanted. Anything else?"

"Like...?"

"Dimwit. Are there any other reasons why I should be lining up candidates to succeed your sorry ass after I flay it?"

"No, sir."

"Fine. Get gone before I decide to replace you, you sniveling sack of entrails."

The demon was gone almost before Crowley finished his sentence. Now alone, he read the card one more time, mulling its warning over and over. Before he knew it, he caught himself plotting. With a sigh, he folded the card a few times and tucked it into a pocket on the inside of his jacket.

As much pleasure as it brought him to consider the possibility of someone killing Lilith for him, he doubted the norsling Alice was traipsing around with had the juice to pull off a stunt like that.

"Then again," he said aloud, unable to stop himself from smirking at the thought, "You never know. Stranger things have happened."