Thank you so much SamGirlDeanCurious for beta'ing and VegasGranny and Ncsupnatfan for pre-reading.

Chapter Twenty-One

Dean was in the dungeon with Ruby. Dean and both Castiels were outside, preparing a pyre big enough for all the bodies to be burned while Jack stayed with Sam and Jessica. They had faced the attack from the angels, but they weren't going to let down their guard until the trial was done and Hell closed. There was still a chance Lilith would come.

John had been wary of Dean being outside in case they came, but his son had waved aside his concerns and told him they had the devil's trap bullets. Dean thought he understood his counterpart's motivation. He had two choices, he could sit around and wait for his father to die or he could do something useful and be distracted.

Eventually, John had decided to go out with them to help. Dean didn't think he was going to be much help as he was so obviously weakened by the trials, but he figured John was taking all the time with his son that he could before the end. He'd spent two hours with Sam and Jess before.

The last dose was approaching and Ruby seemed no different to the monster John had given the first dose to. Dean didn't understand it. She had to be feeling the encroaching humanity, but that same glint in her eyes told him she was still hiding something. He wished he knew the meaning behind it.

All he could think was that she expected to be rescued, but unless the angels were working with demons and that was part of the attack they'd aborted, there had been no sign of it. Dean didn't think the angels would be working with the demons. Castiel said this version of the archangel would never stoop that low. Demons were Lucifer's creation and Michael hated them as they were corrupt versions of his Father's creation.

The clock was ticking down though, and her time was running out. Dean was going to enjoy the moment she was given the last dose and left to await her fate. He was sure she was going to suffer at the hands of the surviving Winchesters of this world.

Dean checked his watch. They had ten minutes left. John was going to need to come back soon to prepare the blood. The fact it was so close to being finished cheered Dean. They would be able to get back home, either through Jack or Billie, and could get back to their lives in their own world.

He pulled his cell from his pocket and sighed. He hadn't called Sam as he'd not wanted to tell him they'd started the trial. He knew Sam was going to be pissed when he knew, and he'd not wanted to deal with that. He figured the time was right though. Sam would still be too far away to get back in time. Jack could take them to him when it was over and they could go without Sam needing to see Jessica again.

He dialed and brought it to his ear, turning away from Ruby's gaze as she said, "Calling for pizza? Mine's a large with extra pepperoni."

It ran through to voicemail and Dean ended the call without leaving a message. Sam was probably sleeping somewhere. He'd had even less sleep than Dean the day before, and he'd been through all the same emotional and physical upheaval. More even. His emotions had been so much tougher to handle.

He tucked the phone back in his pocket and sighed.

"No one home?" Ruby asked. "Shame. He's probably having a little me time."

"Shut up, bitch," Dean snapped.

She laughed. "Or he's busy doing something else. What can that be?"

Dean's heart sped slightly. She had that glint in her eyes that made him uncomfortable. "What do you know?" he asked.

She lifted her chin. "Wouldn't you like to know."

Dean picked up the angel blade from where he'd left it leaning against the chair and stalked towards her. "What do you know?" he asked again.

She grinned. "Hurt me all you like, I'm not telling you anything."

Dean raised the blade to cut across her cheek, and then lowered it. Hurting her was just going to give her pleasure. If she'd been under Alastair on the rack, the pointless wounds he would give her weren't going to scratch the surface of suffering. And they needed her whole for what came after she was cured. He wanted her to suffer her pain later as much as this world's version of his family would suffer the loss of John.

He took a breath and calmed himself.

So Sam wasn't answering his phone; he probably was sleeping. When Sam was really tired, he slept hard. And he would be exhausted. Ruby was just seeing his weakness and playing on it. She was the bitch that had helped to destroy his world and had helped to trap this world's Sam in Hell. Screwing with Dean was the least of what she could do.

He put the blade down on the chair and took his own phone and loaded the app to track Sam's cell location. He would find him and send this world's Castiel to get him. He'd probably be faced with a bleary-eyed and hurting Sam when he saw Jessica with the Sam that belonged, and that would suck, but at least he would know where he was.

The app loaded but the location didn't show. It said there was no signal. Sam wouldn't turn his GPS off. He was way too careful for that. He knew as well as Dean did that sometimes things happened and they needed to be reachable at all times. The only times they couldn't trace each other was when they were in the bunker. They were untraceable within twenty miles. But Sam couldn't be there. He was driving back which meant he was still hours away. So why would Sam be untraceable?

He walked out to the hall to call for Castiel, to talk out his worry, and then stopped as he heard footsteps approaching. John, his sons, and Jessica, Jack and both angels were coming towards him.

"We've got a problem," John said.

"Yeah, me too," Dean said. "Sam's not answering his phone and his GPS is switched off."

Castiel held something out to Dean and said, "Zachariah. He had this!"

Dean took the phone and saw the missed call displayed on the screen from his own number. It was Sam's.

"What's going on?" the other Dean asked. "Why would an angel need a phone?"

In the dungeon, Ruby howled with laughter, and the other Dean rushed past him and there was the sound of a blow landing and then Ruby fell silent.

"It's Sam's phone," Dean said weakly, his heart now racing.

"How did they get it?" John asked.

Dean didn't want to think of how, the idea was horrifying, but he forced himself to face it. The angels had been close to Sam to get it, and there was no way they would have left him unharmed if they'd been with him. Had they perhaps taken him so he could be prepared as Lucifer's vessel? This world's Sam had suffered centuries of torture without breaking. Did they think his Sam would be an easier target?

He turned to his friend and said, "Cas, you've got to find him."

"I can't," Castiel said, his eyes wide and fearful. "I can't sense him. You both have the rib sigils. And I can't fly."

Dean turned his eyes on the other Castiel and snapped. "You! Go find him! Now!"

"How?" he asked. "If he's shielded from my senses, I would be searching the whole world for him."

"Then do that!" Dean shouted. "Go!"

In answer, Castiel stared at him for a long moment and then disappeared.

"Dean," his own Castiel said consolingly. "It doesn't necessarily mean…"

"Of course it does!" Dean snapped. "Why else would they have it?"

John looked at him a moment and then walked past him into the dungeon, followed by Sam and Jessica.

Dean raked a hand over his face. He felt helpless and scared. If the angels had Sam, he didn't know how to get him back. How to find him even. He could be anywhere. He cursed himself for not having Castiel wipe the sigils. Why hadn't they seen that they were a bad idea after the apocalypse was over? They should have made themselves traceable again for stuff like this.

From within the dungeon, Dean heard Ruby say, "It's too late."

"It's too late for you," John growled. "Time's up. You're going to be human now and then the pain will really start. Whatever rescue you think is coming for you, won't be here to save you. As soon as you're human, I'm finishing this thing. Hell will be closed forever. There will never be another black-eyed bastard on earth."

Ruby laughed again and Dean turned automatically and went into the dungeon in time to see John jab the needle into her neck and push in the blood.

"Dad," Sam said tentatively.

"I've got it," John said, pulling the scrap of paper Dean had written the Latin. He read it and then dropped it onto the floor and used a knife to cut across his palm.

His attention only half in the room, the rest absorbed in his fear for his brother, Dean watched as John pressed his bloody palm, his arms lit with the power of the trials, to Ruby's mouth and said, "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus... hanc animam redintegra... Lustra! Lustra!"

Light poured from Ruby and everyone but John, Castiel, and Jack took a step back and shielded their eyes.

When the light died, Dean lowered his arm from his eyes to see John step back and stare at Ruby as her black eyes faded to brown. She looked around the room, breathing hard, and then smiled again.

The demon they had seen cured in the video reel had been stricken after the cure, feeling the weight of his crimes, but Ruby seemed unconcerned. She winked and Dean and his hands fisted and he stalked towards her.

"Where's my brother?" he snarled.

She laughed. "You'll never find him."

"Jack, make her tell me," Dean snapped.

"No," the other Dean shouted. "She's ours."

Jack ignored him completely and stalked towards Ruby, his hands raised and eyes hard.

"No!" Castiel said. "You'll kill her, Jack. We need her to talk."

"I'll make her talk," the other Dean growled.

"Let me finish first," John said weakly, his face stark white and eyes sagging with tiredness. He touched Sam's cheek and then pulled him into an embrace. Dean watched with a detached eye as John said his goodbyes to both his sons and Jessica and then held himself up on the back of Ruby's chair.

"You're going to regret this," Ruby said.

"Shut up, bitch," Sam growled.

John drew in a heaving breath and said, "Kah Nah Om…"

"He's in Hell!" Ruby shrieked. "Sam's in Hell!"

"John, stop!" Dean bellowed, crossing the room at a run to clap his hand over John's mouth, but before he could reach him, John looked right at him and forced out the last word, "Dar," before he collapsed.

Dean groaned in pain as realization settled over him. It was done. Hell was closed.

And Sam was trapped there.

Sam was bleeding.

He knew it wasn't really his blood as it wasn't his body, but it felt real as it dripped from his bare chest down to his stomach. The pain felt real, too. It was different from the kind of pain he'd felt topside, Dean had once said to him that it wasn't the same, but it was hard to differentiate when his nerves were screaming as the razor sliced through his skin and exposed flesh.

He didn't know how long he'd been there, perhaps only hours of time on earth, but it felt like months to him. It had been that way in the Cage at first. There's was no way to gauge days in that unchanging place, but he'd had some idea of time passing. Once the months reached a year, it had been lost and it became an unending cycle of torture and waiting for torture.

There was no waiting here. When Lilith decided to take a break from the razor, another demon took her place. He was sliced into, exposed, his organs removed and placed in his bound hands until the last organ removed—always the heart—was held up to him and then he was remade and it started all over again. Not always over again with the same thing, not always the same way. Sometimes they did other things. But the screaming and pain were always the same.

Had he been told what was coming, he would have said he would handle it. These demons were in no way as imaginative or twisted as Lucifer and Michael, and his situation then had been hopeless; he'd always known there would be no rescue. This time he knew it wouldn't last forever, and that made it harder when he was waiting for the rescue to come.

While the demon picked up and dropped tools, readying things for Lilith to begin, his eyes searched the cavernous room he was in for the blazing light of an angel coming for him, the door to burst open and his brother to stride in, for Jack to rip the ceiling apart and scoop him out.

There were so many ways for them to come for him. His own Castiel perhaps couldn't make the trip without wings, but this world's version had his still. Dean could find a reaper or bargain with Billie for a door into Purgatory again. Jack could crack Hell open and come for him.

So many ways, so what was taking them so long?

They had to know what had happened by now. Dean would know it wasn't him on the phone. He was too smart to be fooled by Zachariah, no matter how good his impression was. No one knew Sam better than Dean; he would work it out. He would send the other Castiel or Jack to Maryland to find him, and there they would find his body. They would know. There were enough of them to solve the problem. He just had to wait.

He felt the searing agony as his ribs were pulled apart by Lilith's bare hands and then the fingers grappling inside of him then the tug and emptiness of his heart being pulled from its rightful place, and his mind reeled. No matter how often it happened, how well he knew the sensation, it was horrific every time. He sometimes thought it would break his mind before it broke his soul to nothing—and it was already so damaged.

Lilith held it up in front of Sam's eyes and said, "Look at it, Sam. It's still beating."

Sam averted his eyes. He wasn't going to allow her to see the horror in him.

"Nothing to say?" she asked, and he heard the squelchy thud as his heart was dropped onto the stone floor. "The other Sam was so chatty at first. He would make the most delicious sounds, and that was when he wasn't begging. It took so long for him to stop. He would cry for his family and his lover to save him."

"He's safe now," Sam said.

"He is," Lilith agreed. "But you're not. Does it feel like a fair exchange? He gets freedom and you get doomed."

Sam didn't answer. Truthfully, it didn't feel fair, and he knew that made him selfish. He and Dean risked their lives and freedom on a daily basis to help other people, and they'd both suffered Hell knowing what they were getting into, but Sam resented the fact he was here again. Perhaps if it was Jessica or Dean he had replaced, he could bear it, but it wasn't. It was him. He couldn't be brave for a version of himself.

"You don't have to be doomed," she went on. "You just have to give in. I can take you to earth again, set you free. All it will take is a promise. You kill me and you will be able to go back to your brother without a single more drop of blood being spilled. You can go back to your own world even. I hear that's a better one than this."

"Never," Sam vowed.

"You'll change your mind."

She sighed and waved a hand at him. Sam felt the broken bones mending and flesh returning to form and skin healing over it. He was ready to start again.

Lilith pressed the razor to his cheek and cut into the corner of his eye, and then she stopped and stepped back as the floor on which they stood began to shake.

"What…"

They all, Sam, Lilith, and the congregated demons that had formed her audience, looked up as the ceiling split open and revealed a deep red rift open. Black and red clouds rolled like a stormy sky.

Sam's heart leaped, they were coming, it was Jack, but it wasn't his hand or golden grace that reached for Sam. It was a black cloud that poured in and swarmed in the air. The demons staggered and the smoke continued to come, accompanied by a howling sound like a tornado.

"What's happening?" Lilith shouted. "Were you exorcised?"

One of the clouds of smoke funneled to the floor and formed into the shape of a woman that Sam could have pegged as someone's grandma. "I wasn't exorcised," she said. "I was on the point of making a deal when I was ripped out of the meatsuit and dragged back here."

Sam looked up at the rift above him, the fiery red obscured by so many demons, and understood with sudden gut chilling horror. This wasn't a rescue; it was a trap. John had finished the last trial. This was Hell sealing closed.

And Sam was still trapped inside.

So… John is dead. Sam is in Hell. The gates are closed. Things do not look good for our hero. ;-)

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx