A/n: Yay! Just about finished with Dead in the Water. Just FYI, the plan is to work through a couple more episodes in this fashion, allowing me to play out some different scenarios created by this particular story arc. Sorry it's not as straight forward as I originally thought it would be.

Originally, I thought it would be very emotional, set mostly in the characters minds, but the characters are so action based that this felt like the best way to show Sam 2.0. Plus, it really allows me to push Dean, which he probably needs, as loyal as he is to John. John is actually pretty kick ass in this chapter, which may come across as disparate, but I never thought John was evil, just wrong. If he was simply interested in letting Sam die, he would have let it happen long ago. So please don't think my John is out of character for this story, I just want to show how Dean's opinions evolve, and that's a process that takes time. And for those of you that think Sam's a little OOC for what has been happening, I look at his emerging psychic powers almost as a symptom of his emotional trauma, much as Sam describes Lucas's abilities in the actual episode Dead in the Water. So Sam in the past few chapters has been slightly more emotional than he will be later on, because his flaring psychic powers are a new thing for him. Don't worry, he isn't just going to fall into Dean's and John's arms. He's evolving too, and his evolution will be what fuels Dean's, so please bear with me.

Feedback helps me to know I am making sense, and I try very hard to answer signed reviews personally, especially if there is a question or confusion. I love sharing my thoughts on my stories, so please share yours too, because I genuinely want to hear from you.

As Always,

EverReader

Disclaimer: Still not my sandbox

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Chapter Seven- "The Dreaming in the Deep"

When they finally pulled up in front of Andrea and Lucas's home, it was nearly midnight. Sam shot from the car, sprinting up the walk to the front door.

Dean spared a moment to wonder just where exactly all of Sam's sudden energy was coming from, before he, too was in motion, trailing his brother like tail on a comet.

Sam had tried the knob once, but it was locked, and now he was banging on the door like a madman.

Dean flinched at the racket, glad the Sheriff had no close neighbors. He leaned to the side to glance in the darkened front window when he heard the distinct sound of the lock on the door being unlatched, the sound harsh in the sudden silence.

Well, that was never good.

Sam had frozen, arm raised to continue banging against the wood and he tossed Dean a startled, apprehensive look.

"Sammy-" Dean started, reaching out to slow down his nearly manic brother, but Sam was already in motion again, and damn but that kid could be fast when he wanted to.

Sam had pushed through the front room without another second's thought, positively flying up the stairs, past an obviously terrified, sobbing Lucas.

Sam ran like he was zeroing in on a beacon only he could hear, and Dean had a terrible, breath-stealing moment where he was suddenly certain that returning had been a horrible, massive mistake.

The house was freezing. Dean could see his breath, and he could smell that same smell of old, rotted things and dank water that he had smelled this morning on the dock when the ghost had attacked his brother.

Sam had been right, obviously. Peter was nowhere near finished.

Dean reached the top of the stairs just in time to see Sam race into what appeared to be an old fashioned bathroom, complete with a claw foot tub, overflowing with dark, murky water. He could see flailing limbs, barely managing to push above the edge of the tub, and water splashed wildly.

He'd nearly reached the door the bathroom when it slammed shut with enough force to knock down photos up and down the hallway.

Dean was going to fast to stop, he ran into it headfirst, so hard he actually bounced off it, nearly losing his balance. Throwing himself against the wood again, he yelled the only words he could think of in that moment.

"Sam! Sammy! SAM!"

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Sam felt the draft created by the slamming door, could hear his brother screaming his name, but he felt like nail pulled to a magnet, drawn to the water and the drowning woman submerged beneath.

Dean's yelling sounded dim and much further away then it should, door or not, he was only a few feet away, yet Sam couldn't bring himself to focus on anything but Andrea.

Water was puddled everywhere, and the wet, rotting smell of it had Sam gagging as he plunged his arms unthinkingly into the tub, up to his shoulders, wrapping his arms around the struggling woman. Andrea was fighting, fighting hard, but she'd obviously been under for quite a while already and Sam could sense her weakening, could almost feel her fading away.

"Like Hell" The words were his own, spoken in his own mind, and if you'd asked Sam later, he wouldn't have even remembered that the voice he heard in that moment sounded an awful lot like his older brother.

Sam pulled with all his strength, but no matter how hard he strained, the ghost was stronger. Andrea was barely moving, now, and panic was flooding Sam's body.

Desperate and frightened and suddenly angrier than he'd ever been in his whole life, Sam braced his legs one more time and pulled so hard he imagined he could hear his spine snapping, his muscles tearing.

But more than that, it felt like he had somehow pulled not just with his body, but with his mind.

It should have frightened him. It should have terrified him. Normal people didn't hear ghosts when no one else could. They couldn't see images in the water like the witches of old with their scrying bowls. And the certainly didn't out strong-arm ghosts with their minds.

But Sam didn't have time to think about all that. Andrea's head broke above the water, crying and gasping and screaming all at once. Sam felt a fleeting, brief moment of satisfaction, a fierce triumph as he pulled Andrea from the water, pushing her towards the corner of the bathroom. She was frantic, moving jerkily like a frightened animal. Sam was about to hand her a towel when it happened.

Dean had just hit the door from the other side exceptionally hard, and the noise echoed in the tiny room. Perhaps that''s what startled Sam. Or perhaps he was fatigued, he was sick, after all, and he had just used more energy than he had any rightful claim to at that moment.

Perhaps he simply slipped in an unfortunate puddle of water. Andrea's struggle had thoroughly doused the floor.

Perhaps nothing mattered, except for the fact that Sam did, in fact slip. Arms pinwheeling backwards as he sought to regain his balance, Andrea would think back later and wonder if the expression on his face had really been as unsurprised, as resigned as she remembered.

Sam fell straight back into the still full tub, the crack of his head hitting the porcelain nearly as loud as the banging of Dean from the other side of the door.

As Andrea watched in horror, swirls of red drifted up across the water.

Sam's legs didn't move.

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Dean's arm beat in desperate futility against the door separating him from his brother. At first there had been sounds of a struggle, frantic splashing, the sounds of Sammy grunting as if he were lifting something heavy. Then a loud thud following by a devastating silence.

Sam wasn't answering.

"Sammy! Sam! Dammit, SAMMY" Dean was still screaming, not caring that his voice was going raw, not even noticing.

He had tried forcing the door with his shoulders, tried kicking it in. A part of his mind was shouting at him that he needed tools, needed a crowbar, or an ax or a fucking flamethrower, he didn't care what, but his mind was so full of Sam-Water-Sam-Silence-Ghost-SAMMY that the half-formed ideas never took flight, never reached his legs.

"MOVE!"

Had the words been shouted in any other voice but that of John Winchester's Tone Of Authority, Dean probably wouldn't have heard them, much less understood them. Twenty years of obedience held him in good stead, that night, because he threw himself to the side just as John took the fireman's ax he kept in his truck to the bathroom door.

The door practically disintegrated under John's onslaught, and Dean nearly got himself beheaded throwing himself at the wreckage, forcing himself through the too-small hole into the bathroom.

Andrea was curled into the corner, eyes wide with shock, shaking with cold, apparently not even realizing she was naked. Her eyes were locked on the tub, and Dean nearly screamed in rage and fear when he saw Sam's motionless leg's hanging over the edge, like a puppet who's strings had been cut.

He screamed again, a war cry when he saw blood in the water, and plunged his arms in, daring, almost hoping the damn ghost would make a pass at him if it meant it let Sam out.

He could feel Sam, his motionless body laying heavily on the smooth porcelain bottom of the tub, but he couldn't see him, the water dark with blood and silt and god knew what else.

Dean didn't care. The only thing in that tub that interested Dean was Sammy.

It was like Sam had his own gravitational pull, though, his brother suddenly weighing a thousand, a hundred thousand pounds, and if John hadn't joined Dean in that moment, there was absolutely no doubt in Dean's mind that they never would have gotten Sam out.

Somehow, though, the two of them combined did manage to lever him out, boneless and white, a bloody gash near his hairline towards the back of his head.

Nearly frozen with terror, Dean lunged forward, placing his ear against Sam's mouth to see if he would take a breath.

A moment passed, and Dean reacted, fear making him irrational as he shook his brother.

Sam flopped like a rag doll. He could feel John trying to pull Sam from Dean's arm. Intellectually, Dean knew they had to lay Sam down, start CPR, start breathing for Sammy, but the boy inside him who'd spent sixteen year's looking after the kid lying motionless in his arms was having trouble with the concept.

John was about to take more drastic action, when Suddenly Sam gasped, coughing and Dean instinctively turned him over, watching dark water pour from Sammy's mouth.

Wearily, Sam turned back to look in his brother's eyes.

"I saw it, Dean. I saw Peter. I saw everything." His eyes fluttered shut then, and Dean found he actually remembered quite few more of the prayers Pastor Jim had taught them than he would have ever thought.

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Sam looked up in the deep blue sky, late afternoon sun falling across his face. He could hear birds in the distance, and could smell that peculiar scent trademark to the north in early autumn. Like fallen leaves and pine trees and snow and sunshine, all at once.

Where was he?

He was walking along a gravel road, and with a start, he realized he was...shorter? He held up his hands in bemusement, marveling at how small they were, and that was when he realized he must be dreaming.

Dreaming of being a kid again. Ten maybe? Twelve?

He continued walking down the road. Ahead, in the distance he could see what looked like sunlight being reflected off water. He sped up, bewildered by this strange dream where nothing at all seemed to be happening.

The lake finally came into full view, and Sam stopped suddenly, chilled as the sun went behind a cloud.

There was a dock up ahead. Three bikes were at the end, in a hap-hazard pile, as if they owners had given little thought to them as they were abandoned for other sport. He could see three figures on the end of the dock now, and Sam felt his breath unconsciously speed up.

This was bad. This was wrong. This...this wasn't a...was this a dream?

It felt more like a memory, a bad memory, but Sam couldn't remember anything like this. Why was he so tense all of a sudden.

He raced towards the dock, tripping over one of the bikes and scraping his hands in the process. Glancing down, he took in the cherry red paint-

And suddenly Sam remembered everything.

"Peter." He breathed, feeling disoriented, like he was in one of the nightmares where the harder you tried to run, the slower you moved. The air suddenly thick like quicksand, he fought his way to the end of the dock.

He was too late.

He could see the panic, the fear on the two bigger boy's faces as they realized what had happened.

What they had done.

Sam could see them argue, could see them flail their hands desperately, but he couldn't hear them, couldn't get closer, there was a buzzing in his ears, like someone was shouting in the distance, and why was he so breathless, Sam couldn't get a deep breath.

One of the boys made to shove the body of the end of the dock and Sam strained forward again, gasping, reaching.

"No!" He choked out, dizzy with the need to breath and wasn't that stupid, there was air all around him, just breathe!

"Don't" He cried, falling to his knees, except maybe he was falling further, falling faster, because the whole world was spinning, and god, his head hurt, and he closed his eyes against the shooting pain.

He opened them to see Dean's strained face above him, eyes gone dark and stormy with fear. He opened his mouth to tell Dean what he had learned, what he had seen, but choked instead, gagging as foul water forced his way out of his mouth in place of his words.

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Dean paced back in forth in the Sheriff's living room. He wanted to break something,to take a baseball bat to the windows, to pull his gun and start firing at the walls.

Sam hadn't been breathing.

The fact circled round and round his head and he paced round and round the living room.

Sam hadn't been breathing, had been dead, had in fact, not just been dead but apparently dead in some homicidal ghost's memory of dying and yet his family was sitting in Andrea's living room, drinking coffee and giving the traumatized woman the cliff notes version of the supernatural world.

Or, at least John was. Sam looked completely done, skin ghost white except to the angry red wound where John had been forced to stitch him up because Dean's hands hand been shaking too much. Dark circles decorated his eyes and he couldn't seem to catch his breath. The coughing would normally have driven Dean insane by now, but every cough, every breath meant at least Sam WAS breathing, was alive.

Dean wanted him to stay that way.

Dean had been all for leaving four hours ago, just packing up Sam and Lucas and Andrea and driving them away, far away, like, Tennessee far away. Or maybe to Bobby in South Dakota. That might have been far enough away. Then John and Dean could have come back and taken some freaking C4 to that stupid dam and pulled the freaking rug out from under that good damn brother targeting brat.

And yet, somehow, when Dean voiced his (excruciatingly good, in his opinion) plan, the others had all looked at him as if he were crazy.

As he listened to them talk, he found himself idly wondering if he could fit Sam into the trunk of the Impala and just deal with the fall out himself later.

"None of this makes any sense." Andrea was insisting, for the fifth time. "Obviously, I am having a nervous breakdown. I'm nuts."

"You're nuts, alright!" Dean muttered to himself, ignoring the baleful look John was giving him.

Instead he strode over to where Sam had suddenly stood, watching as his little brother slowly steadied himself, letting out a deep breath that ended in a cough.

"Sam?" Dean said warningly, in no mood for Sam to wander off anywhere without an armed guard at this point.

Sam raised his hand, shaking his head a little. "No...I'm good. I just need to walk a little. I'm feeling a little off right now."

Dean rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I wonder why?" He drawled sarcastically.

Sam shot him a glance before rolling his shoulders, coughing once more for good measure. Dean reached out on instinct, meaning to check for fever, but Sam shrugged out of dodge.

"Working, Dean." He chided, with a glance at Andrea, who had Lucas at her feet, drawing once again.

Dean wanted to torch that kid's crayons.

"Not if I hogtie you?" Dean offered, much more serious than he sounded.

Sam shot him another look, and went to look at the photos on the bookshelves. Dean knew the moment he found something, he stiffened up, just as he had at Mrs. Billings house yesterday (and god, was it only yesterday?).

"Andrea?" Sam said, picking up a photo and turning to the woman, a odd sound to his voice.

"Who is this kid?" He said, and Dean noticed his hand was shaking just slightly. Perhaps sensing Dean's scrutiny, Sam glanced at his brother again before his hand steadied, and Dean wondered just how much that little trick had cost Sam.

She shook her head, looking confused."Um, that's Dad. My Dad, I mean. I guess, He's only twelve there, maybe? Thirteen? Why?" She said, looking more alarmed by the minute.

The three Winchesters shared a look, and Sam scrubbed a weary hand down his face.

"This is who I saw, in my...vision." Sam's voice stumbled with reluctance over the word, and Dean noticed a strange...hardness...pass over their Dad's features for a moment.

"He was there. He helped...kill Peter." Sam said, somehow managing to look Andrea in the face, and Dean admired his little brother so much in that moment.

If what Sam said was true, than Andrea's father was the reason Sam had nearly just died saving her life, yet he looked at her with so much compassion it hurt Dean to see.

Andrea was shaking her head, tears running down her face, about to open her mouth, to argue, to refute Sam's words, but Lucas stood suddenly then, and every eye in the room flew to him.

"Lucas? Baby?" Andrea asked, move towards him with a careful arm outstretched. Lucas ignored her however, moving towards the window over looking the backyard, where the sun was just starting to lighten the sky behind the tree line.

Lucas glanced behind him, eyes unerringly zoning in on Sam. Sam shook his head tiredly.

"You're gonna have to help me out with this one, kid." Sam said, exhaustion tainting every word and Dean again felt the urge to put him in the car a drive away, anywhere, as long as they could leave right now.

Lucas paused a moment, as if listening to something only he could hear, and Dean supposed that was true.

Then he calmly walked out the back door, the four of them trailing him like lost ducks. Dean kept to the rear, keeping Sam in his sights the whole time.

Lucas walked to the far edge of the property, hovering for a few moments before walking over to a large pine tree, needles carpeting the ground for several feet in every direction.

He tilted his head at Sam one more time, inquisitively, and Sam laughed a tired, punch drunk laugh.

"Okay." He held up his hands in surrender, walking over to Lucas. Something on his face changed as he walked under the boughs on the enormous pine, however, a stark, wide-eyed look creeping across his features.

He closed his eyes, nodding. "Yeah. Okay." He sighed heavily. "Here." Sam repeated, looking at John and Dean. "He's right. We need to dig here."