AN: Getting this chapter done was like pulling teeth and I'm not sure why! And yes, I'm not very nice to the boys, but I promise things will resolve soon. *grin*

Sam was confused. It felt like he had two sets of thoughts, but both were slightly distant. And he remembered pain, but that was distant, too. He rubbed his chest absently, remembering smashing into something unyielding. And…he was walking, climbing stairs and walking along some kind of catwalk. And though he didn't know where he was, his body moved confidently. He needed to get to her, to protect and keep her from killing again. But who was she?

The second set of thoughts surged with purpose, and felt like it riffled through memories like paging through a magazine. A memory was pulled to the front and everything else disappeared.

"The only way you're going to get to do what you want to do is to memorize this stuff. I don't understand why you fight him so much. This crap's going to save your life some day," Dean was saying, as he inspected his machete for any speck of dirt or blood he might have missed.

"I know it all already," Sam complained. "He's only making me go over it again because I'm not an unthinking automaton."

Dean had ignored the implied insult, knowing Sam was just spoiling for another fight. He'd gone literally nose to nose with Dad the night before, insisting on knowing the whys of the next hunt and arguing that Dad's analysis of what they'd be hunting was off. Dad had been as angry as Sam had ever seen him except when bodies were literally dropping. Sam and Dad had both said some pretty horrible things. Sam of now knew that they were both right and both wrong, but 14-year-old Sam couldn't see it. Dad's punishment had been for Sam to memorize four pages of a hunter's guide Bobby had leant them. Given the awful things Sam had said, it wasn't a particularly bad punishment. The bad part had come the next day, when Sam had come home from to school to find that Dad had sent Dean away to help a friend on a hunt for two weeks. But this Sam didn't know that yet, and he was dawdling over his learning.

"If you know it already, tell me, Lewis," Dean egged him on. He considered it his brotherly duty to pester a pissed-off Sam until he was so annoyed he forgot about what originally made him angry. His brother had always had a twisted kind of logic. The nickname came from Revenge of the Nerds, which they'd found on TV the night before.

"Fine." Sam closed his eyes and pulled the page up in his mind. He'd always been able to store and retrieve information easily. "There are four main types of ghost that a hunter may encounter: Vengeful Spirits, Death Omens, Death Echoes, and Poltergeists. All have the same main weaknesses: cat's eye shells, salt, and iron, though it has been theorized that any pure elements can…"

The memory faded away, and Sam was vaguely disappointed, because the night had ended in a wrestling match and a lot of laughter between the brothers, which had helped sustain Sam through the next two, long weeks. Another memory shoved its way to the front of his mind before he could think more on that, though.

Sam was supposed to be sleeping. They were going after a group of werewolves in a few hours, and Sam had begged to come along. At 12, he hadn't yet started questioning everything about hunting. He just wanted to be with Dean and Dad. He knew that they'd only consented to bringing him along because Bobby, Caleb, and Leo were coming too, but he didn't care. But he was too keyed up to sleep, not to mention it had to be 100 degrees in the tiny upstairs bedroom where he was lying. The house they were crashing it might be a lot more spacious than what they were used to, but it was also one good storm away from falling down.

Sam had fought to open the room's only window, which opened over the porch. It didn't help much, but now he could hear voices drifting in, and he realized that Dean and Leo must be sitting on the porch below. He perked up when he heard his own name.

" – even longer than Sam's. Seriously, some big bad is going to grab you by the hair and give you more of a haircut than you ever wanted!" That was Dean.

Leo laughed. "You're just jealous of this glorious mane."

Sam heard a choking noise and grinned, picturing the expression on his brother's face.

"Besides, you wear that ugly-ass necklace on every hunt. Some nasty is going to decapitate you with that thing some day."

Sam held his breath, but could still hardly hear the answer. "Yeah, Leo, that doesn't come off. It means something, okay?"

There was a long pause, and Sam was glad there was nobody to see the tears that came to his eyes at Dean's words. He knew his brother wore it all the time, but to hear him say it was important, and in that tone…

"Sorry, man." Leo's words caught Sam by surprise. The young man was serious even less often than Dean was. The two friends cheerfully abused each other at every opportunity. "I get it. See this? Yeah, it's a bracelet, but I wear it for Emma."

Sam had learned much later that Leo's sister Emma had been possessed by a ghost that made her commit suicide. Leo's bracelet was lined in iron, to prevent him from being possessed.

That memory faded too, and Sam found himself before a heavy door that had all kinds of warnings all over it. Engine room, he realized. That's right, he was on the SS Badger. He watched his hands punch in a code he shouldn't know to open the door, and he walked into the massive engine room. Each of the four engines were as tall as a 2-story house and housed under a huge metal dome. And on top of the one second from his left were two figures that seemed to be struggling. Sam recognized Dean just as an unseen force pushed him backward. And. He. Began. To. Fall.

Whatever had taken over Sam's body and brought him here and whatever was making him review memories from the past suddenly didn't matter. He shoved everything out and ran with every ounce of energy and speed he could muster. Pain didn't matter, nothing mattered except the fact that Dean was sliding down the curved side of the metal dome and the landing might kill him. Sam never knew he yelled out as half-slid, half-tackled Dean a mere half second before he would have hit the ground. He didn't realize that his hand had closed around the nail necklace in his pocket or hear one seriously pissed-off ghost burst out of his body. All he knew was the impact, then darkness.

WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER

To Dean's surprise, he didn't really fall when the floor disintegrated. No, he found himself draped over a metal I-beam. It was too smoky to realize much more for a few moments, then he saw that there was metal floor only about eight feet below him. His burned arm protested, but he swung himself to hang from the beam so the drop was only a couple feet. Burning wood and embers were still falling around him as he located Michelle. She looked especially psychotic now, holding the book to her chest, hair smoking and blood smeared on her face and dress. But she was on her feet and not nearly injured enough.

Dean registered that they were on top of a very tall, curved piece of metal, but it didn't matter. He had to stop the witch, and to do that, he had to get that book away. He jumped at her and grabbed at the book, punching her twice in the ribs before his ankle turned under him and he started to slip. Michelle pushed him and the slip became in uncontrolled slide over the side. The fall from this height most likely wouldn't kill him, but it would majorly suck. He turned his body, trying to grab at the rough metal, but only managed to tear up his hands without slowing himself in the least.

Just before he could hit the ground, something plowed into him, taking much of the impact and propelling him sideways. He and the thing – person? – rolled over and over and finally came to a stop halfway under a set of stairs.

"Defensus de periculo," intoned Michelle from far above them, but even her hated voice couldn't draw Dean's attention away from the giant, stupid, idiotic brother lying next to him so very still.

"What did you do?" demanded Dean as he tried to quickly give a field assessment. He had no idea where Sam had come from or how they'd ended up the same place, but that would have to wait until after Sam woke up so he could tear him a whole family of new ones for putting his brainless self in the way of a falling body. He was bleeding from his head and there was no way he'd avoided broken bones. Dean felt like he'd been put through a washing machine with a pile of rocks, and he'd had the better of it.

No: focus. Pulse steady, though too fast. Breathing shallow but okay. Right wrist, broken. Nose, broken and bleeding heavily. Possible broken rib or two. Crazy, reckless… "Really? Gonna leave me to take care of a witch and a ghost? Classy, Sam," he whispered, pissed beyond belief that he had to go face the baddies before he could take better care of his brother with his dumb gigantor body that had saved Dean from worse injuries.

On cue, Michelle limped into view. Dean fought to his feet as his knees and shoulder and damn it, pretty much everything, screamed at him. Still, he stood, making sure he was between his brother and the psychotic witch. She smiled, a macabre, blood-filled sight, and raised a hand. "lequeum!" Dean tried to dodge the spell, but it was too fast, and he found himself pinned against the wall yet again.

In his hatred for that stupid spell, for the witch in front of him, for all things supernatural, Dean thought about his list of never-agains. For years, the list had contained nine things. After a disastrous liaison with a waitress in Tampa, it had been upgraded to eleven. Now, pinned against the wall like a bug and looking over at his bleeding brother, Dean decided it was time to make another addition. From now on, the list would be known as Twelve Things Dean Winchester Will Never Do Again. He was never, ever getting on a fucking ferry again.

Michelle opened the book, and he was pleased to note just how stiffly she moved. "Let's see what I can find to finish you off, here and now, no waiting for you to get off the ship," she said, turning pages. Then a blur flew between Dean and the witch. It was – the ghost, maybe? It swirled around and around her, but didn't approach. She laughed. "Li Wei, you silly ghost! I may not be able to control you, but you can't get through my shield." The ghost screamed at her and flew instead right through the closest engine, then another, the third, then the fourth. With hisses and groans, the engines fell silent. Oh, good. Dead in the water. Unconscious brother. Ghost. Witch. No weapons. That was damn outstanding.

Defensus de periculo means "shield me from harm"