Chapter 3: A Call for Guidance
He prayed silently, though he was unsure if God would even listen to him at this point, after all his own faltering faith as well as the fact that all of Heaven had pretty much decided he was tainted…evil, and seemed to be quite willing to kill him rather than give him the benefit of the doubt…he pressed on though…he had to try…he prayed for guidance…for help…he didn't know how to help Dean and he knew he was running out of time…Dean was slipping away, falling prey to his inner demons, all under the worried gaze of his little brother…Sam agonized over what he could do to help him…
"Please help him Lord...I don't know what to do…you saved him from the physical place of Hell, but it lives on in his mind…and it is killing him… slowly but surely…if he's really important enough send an Angel into the depths of Hell itself…. to have Cas bring him back, make his body whole and new, then why are you letting him die again? Please…let me help him…I can't lose him again…I won't survive it…" The whispered words had poured out of him…words he had wanted to voice for so long but held inside…sometimes he wanted to just let it all end…to let the world end…even if both he and Dean died because of it…he knew where they would both be going anyway, he thought ruefully…at least they would be together…he didn't doubt Hell would keep them separated from each other, all the easier to break them down that way…and though he was terribly ashamed and saddened to admit it…knowing Dean was near would be as comforting as it would be appalling…
Sam shook his darkly swirling thoughts away…his brother was alive…and he was determined to keep him that way…he would have to deal with things one thing at a time…right now, he was able to produce a solution for Dean's physical wounds…those he could do something about, so, he would focus on the task at hand and work on the next problem when it came around…he swiped his hand over his face, erasing as much of the evidence of his tears as he could…he had to be strong, now more than ever, he needed to be like the Dean he remembered…the Dean that had raised him, who had always been more than a father to him than his own father had been. Though he loved him, John Winchester had pretty much left Dean to raise Sam himself…to Sam, Dean was his brother and his father, all rolled into one man…Sam steeled his will, determined to return the favor to his elder brother…