A/N 1 Same warning as before for swearing.

Dean propelled himself forward as fast as he could on the crutches but was quickly overtaken by Earl.

"Earl wait!" He hissed.

Earl stopped and, turning, caught the gun Dean threw to him.

"Iron bullets! This thing is really fast and really strong, you have to kill it before it gets anywhere near you."

"Right." Earl crept up the porch steps, but the aged boards creaked alarmingly under his considerable weight. Standing stock still, he waited to see if he had alerted anyone inside. Nothing happened. He leant in against a boarded window to see if he could hear anything, but a muffled voice was all he could make out. Kelly and Dean were at the porch steps now and Dean discarded the crutches to climb them. They huddled at the other side of the door.

Another loud cry of pain from inside was too much for Dean. He would normally shoulder or kick the door open but in his current state, neither was an option. So he went the Sammy route and tried the door handle. And miraculously it was unlocked! Earl came up to the door and pushed it open, sending a shaft of watery daylight into the room and lighting up the face of something not quite human. He wasted no time and shot at it twice. The thing staggered and fell against someone tied to a chair, knocking them and the chair sideways. Earl went inside, closely followed by Dean and Kelly. He studied the creature. It appeared to be dead, but he was taking no chances and kept the weapon trained on it.

Heedless of his wound, Dean dropped to the floor next to Sam and untied his arms from the chair. Then he pulled Sam partially upright and hugged him against his chest.

"Sam!" But Sam was unconscious. Dean wasn't too concerned at the cuts and bruises all over his face; it was the fact that he was ice cold and wasn't waking up that was worrying him. Sam's clothes were soaking wet too. He took off his jacket with some difficulty, ignoring the pain, and wrapped it around the too-still form of his brother.

"Come on Sammy, wake up."

"Dean, leave him be for now." Kelly had noticed that Sam's foot was at an unnatural angle and guessed his ankle was broken. It was best he was out of it for the moment. It occurred to her that they were going to have a hard time getting him back to the house.

Earl called over to Dean.

"I think this thing is dead. Wanna check it?"

Dean didn't want to let go of Sam. He was too relieved to have found him. There was a question he needed to ask him when he came round, but that could wait. The main thing was he was alive.

"Sorry Sam." He hugged his brother's limp body to him even tighter.

Seeing Dean there on the floor holding his brother like that made Kelly feel sorry she had doubted him. Still, it was time to go. Sam needed help but before that they needed to get him back to the house. Which was a problem.

"Earl, any chance you could take a look around to see if there's anything here to make into some kind of stretcher?"

"On it."

Dean carefully smoothed damp hair away from Sam's forehead trying to avoid opening up any of the myriad cuts. He was desperate for Sam to wake up so he could really check he was okay.

"Dean, I'm going to check his leg – I'm pretty sure it's broken. If he happens to wake up it's going to hurt a hell of a lot and you'll need to keep him still for me, okay?"

"Okay."

Dean wrapped both his arms around Sam's upper body. Sam's head lay sideways on his chest. Kelly very gently rolled up the bottom of the left leg of Sam's jeans, revealing a blood-soaked and torn sock. When she carefully peeled the sock down, the full extent of the injury was clear and glancing at the sprung trap near the door, she knew what had caused it. The vicious metal teeth of the trap had punctured Sam's ankle twice on either side, punching holes through the denim of his jeans, the material of his sock and finally into his flesh. The bone had snapped under the force of the spring mechanism. However, because he clearly hadn't struggled, the flesh wasn't mangled and the break itself seemed relatively clean. She looked up at Dean, who hadn't relaxed his grip on his brother.

"Well it's definitely broken but it could have been a lot worse." He nodded at her.

"I'm going to find something to splint it with."

"Okay, thanks Kelly."

Sam slept on, oblivious to the fact of his rescue.

Earl was busy fashioning a make-shift stretcher from a couple of broom handles and a blanket he had found. Attaching the blanket to the poles had been a problem until a root around in the kitchen had produced a small hammer and a tin of nails. Dean could hear him tapping away behind him.

"Earl."

"Yeah?" Earl didn't stop what he was doing.

"Thanks."

"Uh huh"

"I mean it. I don't know how much longer Sam would have held on."

"No problem. I'd have done the same for anyone." And Dean knew it was true. Earl didn't even seem to like him but he hadn't hesitated to help a complete stranger.

Kelly finally came back with some pieces of wood, bits of torn material and string, and made a very rough splint around Sam's ankle. It wasn't pretty, but it would have to do and at least would keep the bones from jarring together temporarily.

Finally they were ready and Earl and Kelly hefted Sam's lanky frame onto the surprisingly sturdy stretcher. They wrapped a blanket around him and Dean put his jacket back on again. Earl took hold of the two front pole ends and Dean went to pick up the ones at the other end, but Kelly wouldn't let him.

"Dean, you can hardly walk – there's no way you can do this. Earl and I can manage - you just grab the crutches and we'll get back faster."

Dean wasn't happy about it but he had come to realise that arguing with either of these two was pointless. It had also started to snow, so getting Sam back to the house as soon as possible was a priority. He watched Sam closely for any sign of waking. He had to be there when Sam opened his eyes so he'd know he was with friends. But he needn't have worried. Sam stayed unconscious throughout the journey, which took a little over an hour this time. He offered to take over from Kelly a couple of times but she refused and he had to give her credit, she showed no signs of flagging, even though Sam was no light weight.

When they got back to the house, Dean was reminded again of Earl's immense strength when he picked Sam up and carried him up the stairs. He was put in the same bed that Dean had woken up in and Dean couldn't suppress a slight smirk at what he imagined Sam's reaction would be to all the pink girliness when he woke up. Kelly didn't undress Sam apart from taking off his shoes. She placed a couple of hot water bottles in the bed and piled extra blankets on top of him. She already knew they were in for a heavy snow storm and she was worried about how to get Sam the medical attention he needed if they were snowed in. Living on a remote farm, she had learned a lot of first aid over the years, and could handle a variety of situations, but a busted up ankle was beyond her rudimentary skills.

Turning to Dean, who was sitting in the chair by the bed, she immediately noticed his pallor.

"Dean, it's time I checked your dressing – it probably needs changing by now. Come on downstairs and let's leave Sam to sleep for a while."

"Kelly, I need to be here when he wakes up."

"No, you need to have your dressing changed so you don't get an infection – you wouldn't be much good to Sam then, would you? He looks like he'll be out for a while. Come and get the dressing changed and then you can come back and sit with him."

Very reluctantly, Dean stood up and the grimace on his face gave away how much pain he was in. He didn't think it had been this bad earlier this morning. He limped slowly to the stairs, feeling quite weak all of a sudden. Possibly adrenaline had kept him going up to this point. He grabbed onto the banister and started down the stairs. But about half way down dizziness and sheer fatigue meant he had to stop and sit down, leaning sideways and resting his head against a baluster.

"Great, just fucking great!" he muttered – angry with himself for his feebleness, and then Earl appeared at the bottom step. He took one look at Dean and came up to him.

"Need a hand?"

"Uh, yeah. Thanks." Dean put an arm around Earl's enormous shoulders and felt him take his entire weight, so that he more or less floated down the remaining steps. Earl helped him over to the sofa, which was in front of an enormous log fire and he lay down gratefully. He stared into the flames briefly but soon enough, the warmth, the relief that Sam was alive, and the fact that he was completely exhausted, had him curled up and asleep.

Kelly arrived with fresh bandages and tape and found him sleeping peacefully. She slipped his shirt up enough to get at the bandage on his back. Carefully peeling the tape off at one end, she pulled the bandaging back and sure enough, the wound had opened up again. It was a tiny wound, less than half an inch wide, but quite deep, and there was fresh blood seeping from it. However, it was nowhere near as severe as it had been yesterday. She pulled off the rest of the tape and cleaned up the wound. It didn't look like there was any infection there so she was quite happy that it was healing okay. After putting on a fresh dressing, she found herself looking at Dean's torso. He was quite toned but not bulging with muscles and his skin was smooth apart from a couple of scars – she didn't like to think what had caused those. This whole business with demons still seemed beyond ridiculous, but she had seen the creature this morning with her own eyes - and what it had done to Dean's brother. It wasn't a happy thought that things like that were out there. The last 24 hours or so had probably been the strangest of her life. She pulled Dean's shirt back down and then gently tucked a blanket around him.

Time to check on Sam. She climbed the stairs a little wearily. It had been a long day and it wasn't quite noon yet. As predicted, Sam was still completely out of it, but his colour was better and she was confident any danger of hypothermia was over. She thought about trying to get him out of his damp clothes but decided not to risk waking him. The longer he slept the better, so she sat in the chair next to the bed, feeling a certain sense of déjà vu from the previous day. She picked up the book she had been reading then and opened it at the leather bookmark. It was a pretty cheesy souvenir she'd got at Niagara Falls on a rare trip away from the farm with Jim. He'd laughed at her choice and said she could have something better, but she had liked it and had used it ever since. She ran her fingers over the badly printed image of a waterfall picked out in fading, gold coloured ink, and smiled. Such a small, simple thing, but what wonderful, fond memories it held.

She started to read but every time she got to the end of the sentence she completely forgot what she'd read and had to start again. When Earl passed by a little later, he was just in time to catch the book before it fell from her hand. She had nodded off in the chair and Earl wasn't surprised, given how little sleep she had had the night before. He laid a blanket over her and left.

Earl was the only one awake in the house now and he didn't feel at all sleepy. The strange creature he had seen and killed was on his mind. It wasn't guilt. He'd shot and killed both people and animals before. His concern was that if one of these things could find their way to the farm, what was to stop others doing the same? The thought was deeply unsettling. He still had Dean's gun with the remaining iron bullets and decided he would ask Dean a few questions when he got a chance. Glancing out of the window, the complete whiteout outside proved that the forecasted snowstorm had already taken a firm hold. Clearly neither of the unexpected visitors were going anywhere soon. So, lowering himself into an armchair near the fire and next to a lightly snoring Dean, he settled down to keep watch over the sleeping household.