Yes, yes, I know, a long wait. But here is Chapter Three hot out of the oven for you!

I do not own Supernatural! It is the baby of Eric Kripke!

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Dr. Cedric Browning had seen many people in his career in the medical practice, a reign which had spanned nearly twenty years. He'd seen unconcerned parents whose children were an inconcenience, and he'd seen parents of an only child who flitted from corner to corner of the waiting room, anxious over a simple case of stitches.

But he'd never been faced with anyone quite like John Richards. A scruffy beard that clung to his face like whisps of shadow served only to heighten the sense of urgency in the shining eyes as he burst through the hospital doors, steps sure and steady, even though in his arms lay a man of fairly large stature. Someone close to him, that much was obvious, because nobody held a stranger with that much care. He'd wasted no time, military in his actions, pushed his way through a few other people right to the front desk.

"A doctor." Eyes burning with urgency, a man of desperation. Nothing else had been needed to set the staff to work. They'd taken the young man, Sam, and undergone every test they could think of. Scans of his body showed no injury. Blood tests came back fine. Heartbeat was normal.

Dr. Browning pushed through the swinging double doors into the waiting room, expecting to see the man with burning eyes gazing at him with rabid anticipation. Instead, he saw him hunched in a chair in the corner, head buried in his hands, the air of total command gone.

"Mr. Richards?" Cedric extended his hand. John took it tentatively. "We've run all the tests on your son."

"How is he?"

"We have every reason to believe he'll return to conciousness soon and with no complications afterwards."

The relief in the stranger's face was immense. "That's good. How long until…"

"That's what I've come to speak to you about. You say it happened while hiking?"

"Yeah. Me and my boys, we're big hikers. My oldest boy and I had climbed a little ahead, when we noticed Sam wasn't following. We went back and found him on the ground."

"I see. Do you hike often as a recreational activity?"

"Yes." Suspicion laced John's words. "Why?"

"We're simply trying to pinpoint exactly what's wrong with your son. Right now, we believe he probably just slipped and hit his head. As of now, he's wavering between extremely deep sleep and an actual unconscious state. Though it is unusual for the sleep accompanying a bump to the head to last this long, it's not unheard of. Judging by the information you've just given me, I'd give him until morning. If he's still not awake by then, we'll have to call in a specialist."

John leaned back in his chair, running a dirty hand through dust coated hair. "Good."

"Is your older son here?" Clouds of distrust and defense, raining hostility, suddenly swirled in the air surrounding the two men.

"No. He isn't."

Dr. Cedric Browning thanked him walked away very quickly.

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Ever since a Semi had slammed into the side of Dean's car, and John had almost lost his oldest, he'd had to do a lot of thinking. Watching Dean fight his way through meals because the agony of swallowing was so much to take, watching as he would lapse in and out of sleep because the doctors had to keep waking him up to check for continual damage, watching, watching, watching. They had come so close, he and Sam, come desperately close to losing the only string that really tied the Winchester family together. It had gone so far as to have Dean flat lining once during the duration of his stay in the hospital. And for that matter, Sam's head had slammed against the window in the crash, and he hadn't been particularly on top of his game, either. John had realized some things during the long hours next to their respective beds.

First, he had become a twisted man, sick with the lust for revenge. How on earth had he ever lost his focus to the point where his sons, his children, had become second priority? The reason he had hunted in the first place was to protect those boys from what was out there. Before the first hunt, he'd gone in, taken Sammy out of his crib and held him close, and when Dean woke up to his father's sobs, well, John'd scooped him up in the other arm and rocked them both until they went back to sleep. He was killing that banshee for them, because that was one less thing that would pin them on the ceiling and burn them until they died. Because that wouldn't happen to his boys. He would protect them. He was their father.

But then, as Dean proved to be built solid and fast and obedient and an even better shot than his father, and Sam had turned out to be an intelligent and calculated fighter with a right hook that could have knocked The Rock for a loop, he'd stopped worrying about them. Not entirely, paternal instinct was too strong for that, but he'd stopped having that fierce pang of need to keep them away from the darkness. Dean started doing jobs alone, jobs that went flawlessly every time, and Sam…well, Sam grew up. Went from a chubby twelve-year-old to a fierce alpha male in what seemed like hours. John had, in a sense, forgotten about them. Revenge had become his reality, hatred his sustaining substance.

Sick and twisted that it took near death to bring that back into perspective.

Secondly, that he was so sorry. It had brought him to tears a few times, when he was away from the boys. Sorry for birthdays that were forgotten. Sorry for days when the boys hadn't eaten, and he hadn't even noticed until he saw their eyes fixing on diner billboards and remembered. Sorry for forcing them to call a hundred dirty apartments 'home'. Sorry for never teaching them that sometimes, it was okay to ask for help, that sometimes, being a man meant being willing to share the load.

Lastly, he hated that the boys had moved past it all. He didn't deserve them. Not even close. Dean waved everything away, forgiving as a freaking Saint, sidestepping huge vices and continuing on as though he hadn't even seen them. Sam still glared at his father over the table, sometimes, lacking his older sibling's ability to forgive, but even he was willing to swallow a lot. An awful lot, even if sometimes, it was only to protect Dean.

But John didn't understand how they did it. He'd stripped any semblance of normality from his youngest, dragging him out of every extracurricular club he tried to join, because they wouldn't help him hunt. He'd worked hard to keep Sam in check, harsher with him than he was with his more complacent older brother. He'd kicked Sam out, a raw, unprepared eighteen year old kid, into the world and cut him off. He didn't call, and he monitored Dean's calls too, obsessed that if Sam was going to live without them, they would prove that they could live without him.

The selfishness of it all made him sick.

And then there was Dean, the picture of injured abandonment. Dean lived for his family. He fought and scraped and bled and starved to keep them together. Sam's lack of remorse over leaving his older brother had left Dean so emotionally starved he'd practically begged for John's attention in the first months. Hunting sprees that lasted for days without sleep, fighting and killing so he could come home and say with a child's eyes, "Dad, look what I did, do you love me now?"

And John's stomach still turned when he thought about how he'd never answered.

In the silence of the hospital lobby, John Winchester picked up his cell phone, and with a hint of an unspeakable sorrow trailing wet and cold down his cheek, he called his son.

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This was very possibly the oddest sensation Dean had ever experienced. He was exhausted, his mind fragmented, pulled into pieces and bloodied by the events of an impossibly long day and night, and the horrors experienced throughout it. But his body felt no less run down than it had hours ago. He was literally at odds with himself, his living mind begging, pleading his dead body to sleep, and so far, it had adamantly refused. He opened vivid green eyes to glare in fury at the alarm clock, which continued to show a neon red '4:19' despite his visual threat.

His cell phone vibrated and jingled on the bedside table, and he made a grab for it, his breathless "Hello," loud in the silence of the room.

"Dean, he's going to be okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You okay?"

"What do you think?"

"You sound tired."

"I am."

"They say Sammy'll be up and running by late this morning, so you need to get some rest."

I'd love to. "You sure you don't want me to come and wait with you?"

"No, Dean. You stay where you are." A pause. "Everything salted?"

"Yes, sir." It was true too. Despite what he told himself, the fact that he had suddenly decided to cheat death a second time was more than a little discomfiting. Looking around the room, he almost had to laugh at his own paranoia. Salt covered every entrance and exit. Really, really covered it. He had two empty half-pound bottles of salt to prove it. "I'd rather be waiting with you." Say yes, say yes, I don't want to deal with this on my own, I can't deal with this on my own.

"Too many people. If the thing that killed Mary did this, I don't want you anywhere but where I tell you to be, understand? I need to know you're safe, Dean. I can't look out for Sam if I'm wondering where you are and what you're being exposed too. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Alright. I'm coming by the motel, okay? You get yourself cleaned up?"

"Yes, sir." The wound in his neck looked even stranger without the dried layers of deep, crimson blood clooming all around it. It had taken nearly an hour in the shower to get it all off, but now it looked possibly more unnatural, now that if Dean had put on a high-necked shirt, there would have been nothing to indicate he was, in fact, dead. Unnerving.

"You sit tight and wait for me. We'll fix this. Anything you need?"

"A scarf, maybe? Just a wild guess, but I'd say we're going to look slightly suspicious without it."

John made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat. "That's original."

"Yeah, well, I have a lot on my mind."

"Right. I'll be there in ten minutes."

"What about Sam?"

A long pause, neither Winchester giving any ground. "We'll see how the scarf goes. If it works, we'll come back here and wait. He'll be fine for now." John's voice took on a sort of awkward, sorrowful tone. "Dean?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I'm not going to leave you alone again, Dean-o. Don't worry. I'll see you soon."

Alone in his motel room, Dean Winchester hung up his cell phone and wondered why he felt torn between crying from sadness and crying for joy.

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"Jess went down easy, you know. Not like your mama. Sweet little Jess just looked at me. Until I killed her. Then she didn't look at me anymore."

"Funny, kind of the same way with your daughter."

The Demon's smile faded. "You are a bit of a smart mouth, aren't you?"

"Everyone says so."

"Dean was always more of a smart alec, wasn't he? I have to admit, sometimes, when I would watch you two in those crappy motels, he would even amuse me. I think he and I would get along, if it weren't' for the hatred we have for each other."

"Pity."

"Oh, yes." The Demon stretched lazily in Sam's head, making the youngest Winchester's temple throb. "Well, our time grows short. You'll be awake in a few hours."

Sam didn't say anything. Truthfully, his silence stemmed from his own insecurity about what, exactly he was going to do when he woke up. Dean was dead. His rock, his anchor to sanity torn to pieces on some mountain top. What now, where to go, who to talk to rang through his head like thundering church bells.

"We've had a nice chat. What, the cold shoulder now? You don't have to talk. But you do have to listen. This is important stuff, Samuel."

'You don't have anything to say that I want to hear."

"I can save your brother." Sam's head snapped up to meet cruel amber eyes.

"What?"

"How much do you know about Melanesia?"

"How can you save my brother?"

"While most human folklore is ridiculously far-fetched, those islanders seem to have gotten one part right. When someone dies in a violent manner, like your brother dearest, their soul effectively splits, one part moving on to 'a better place', and the other remaining as the ghost, vengeful spirit, whatever you hunters call it nowadays.. The word for the former is Aunga, I believe, and the latter, Adaro."

Sam's eyes searched the Demon's face, feeling a giddy, wild sense of hope, even though rationality demanded him to stop and think. But so far, the Demon had been serious about things like this. When he wanted something, he could certainly make a deal to get it."How can you save my brother?"

"When I killed your brother--don't give me that look-- I 'caught' his Aunga. I sealed a tiny, tiny portion of it back in him." That smile again. "Your brother's there, Samuel, with your father, walking, talking, breathing…well, not actually breathing…. something wrong? You look a little pale."

"I don't understand. Why kill my brother, then give him back?"

"Give him back? I'm not explaining this very well. It's very complicated, but I'm not giving him back for free. I have half your brother's soul, and not only that, but half his spiritus vitae as well. I attached it by a very thin strand to your brother's body, giving him the ability to interact without actually being alive. Good news, I can give it all back, join the Aunga with the Adaro, and let your brother live again, no questions asked."

"The bad news?"

"Oh, that. It's simple really. I need you to find a woman. Her name is Eloise Mitchell. She'd be in her seventies by now, most likely. When you find her, you kill her. When I've confirmed her death, you get your brother back. I'll seal up his throat myself."

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"You'll be awake in an hour. Dean's in the truck on his way to see you now. Make the deal, and if you still don't believe me after you've seen him yourself, you can break it off. No questions asked. Of course, I'll crush my half right then, and you'll have to watch him die in front of you again..." He shrugged. "But it's your decision."

"Why should I kill a stranger for you?"

"I think the question is, would you kill a stranger…for your brother?"

They both already knew the answer.

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And there you have it! I hope you enjoyed, and by the way, there have been nearly 200 hits on this story, but not as many reviews. Come on, people! Work with me here! Review!

Thanks for reading!

--Kim Who Knows