Supernatural isn't mine. Thanks and love to sasha2002, Liz Bach, carocali, bally2cute, Spooky-girl, PadfootObsessed329, Elemental-animal, Evergreene and charli for their kind reviews.

Forgot to mention last time that this is set sometime between Shadow and Dead Man's Blood.

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But for the Grace

Chapter Two

Memory spell. Memory spell. Memory spell.

It wasn't easy negotiating the streets of Palo Alto one-handed while being sure to maintain a unfamiliar and badly looked-after gun levelled at your brother, but luckily Dean had a lot of experience both with weapons and with handling the Impala, so he managed OK. Not so much experience with the whole threatening to shoot your brother thing, though. Hopefully he wouldn't have too much of a chance to get good at that one.

Or a curse, maybe. That could be it. Shit.

He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he needed to get out of this town with its university and its California-ness and Dean thought maybe it was evil. Once he reached the freeway, he lowered the gun, because Sam was many things but stupid enough to jump out of a car doing seventy was not one of them. Probably.

What else? Maybe something messed with his head, a ghost or a demon or whatever. As if he wasn't freaky enough already.

Sam was just staring forward out of the windshield, but there was this muscle twitching in his jaw and Dean knew what that meant. Sam was pissed. Not an unusual occurrence, but Dean supposed that maybe this time Sam kind of had a right. Actually, no, screw Sam. Dean was the one who had woken up to find all his worldly possessions gone. Dean was the one who had had to spend all day sitting in a cramped, shiny, silver goddammit Japanese car. Dean was the one who had had to come to California, where everybody was a freak and the weather was just ridiculously goddamn perfect and actually Dean was beginning to think maybe the whole state was evil.

Dean was the one who had had to look his own brother in the eye and see no spark of recognition.

A ghost would be better. None of that magic bullshit. I'll find the son of a bitch and we'll fix this. Yeah. I ain't no freakin curse-breaker.

"Do you know what the penalties for kidnapping are in California?" Sam asked suddenly, his words slightly slurred. He hadn't moved, hadn't looked at Dean. It was the first thing he'd said since they had got in the car.

Dean shrugged. Typical Sam, give him a life-or-death situation and he wanted to argue freakin legal codes. "They force me to sit in a little room with your sorry ass the rest of my life?"

That probably hadn't been what Sam was expecting. At any rate, his eyebrows drew down. "Do I have to remind you who's doing the forcing here?"

Dean snorted. "Hey, you're the one who seems to think it's a good plan to smart off to a guy with a gun." Even as he said it, he wished he hadn't. He knew that for the time being, he had to let Sam believe he was willing to hurt him, but the more he played the part, the harder it would be to convince Sam when it came down to it.

We're gonna have to go back there. Shit. I don't think I even remember the name of the town.

Sam was quiet for a long moment, and then he said, "Do I know you?"

Dean almost drove into a ditch.

He took a long breath, flexing his hands on the steering wheel at least the freakin car's ok. "Why're you asking?" he said carefully, because he knew it was a precarious situation. Sam's head was messed up and he didn't trust Dean, and if Dean didn't step carefully, if he did what he wanted to and shook Sam and screamed at him that of course they knew each other, they'd slept in the same goddamn room for eighteen years and how the hell, how the hell could Sam have just forgotten him, if he did that then Sam would think he was a nutjob, and maybe he was.

Sam shrugged. "You kinda act like you know me. And your voice is... familiar."

It freakin well should be. Dean risked a glance at Sam, feeling a little spark of relief, of control. Maybe whatever this was, it was starting to wear off. Which was good, great, goddamn freakin fantastic, the best news he'd heard all day. It wasn't going to stop him hunting down the thing that did this to his little brother, though. "We've met a couple times," he said, trying to sound indifferent.

Sam slouched a little lower in the seat, rubbing his face, his movements slightly sloppy. Dean wondered just how much he had had to drink. It wouldn't take much anyway. Sam could handle his booze about as well as a fourteen-year-old priest's daughter.

"I don't remember," Sam said, and then he suddenly glanced sharply at Dean. "Oh, hey, listen, man, sometimes I... I get kind of weird and I do... stuff... and I don't remember. Look, if I did something... I'm really sorry, honestly I am, you don't need to do this. You can just drop me off somewhere and I promise I won't say anything to the police."

Dean tried to understand what he was hearing. Sometimes I get kind of weird – that was pretty much a ridiculous understatement, but it wasn't what was bothering Dean, because Sam had said he didn't remember, and that was whacked out to hell and back. Sam had always had a goddamn near perfect memory, which had pretty much pissed Dean off a lot of the time, but he had to admit it came in handy. Sam didn't forget stuff. Well, except the shtriga thing, but he had just been a kid then.

Oh, and Dean's entire freakin life.

When I find the thing that did this, I'm gonna kill it so hard. Then I'm gonna find a resurrection spell just so I can kill it again.

"Hey," said Sam, and Dean glanced over at him to see he was looking pale and sweaty. "Hey, mister, pull over."

"What for?" Dean asked, feeling pretty fucking crappy about the fact that his brother had just addressed him as mister.

"I think I'm gonna throw up."

Dean looked again, sharply this time, because this was a trick, right, it had to be, except that Sam's breath really had reeked pretty strongly of spirits and he was beginning to look kind of green now, hunched over and holding his stomach.

Oh yeah, and if Sam puked, he wasn't going to puke in some over-engineered little runabout or whatever the damn thing was. He was going to puke in the Impala.

Dean pulled over.

Sam had his hand on the handle and was out of the door before Dean had even shut off the engine, but he wasn't retching on the verge. He was running.

Dean swore, and then he was running too, running across the dark, uneven ground after the shadow that he knew was his brother. He was running, and Dean Winchester was fast, always had been, Dean Winchester was pretty goddamn amazing at running, but Sam had outpaced him for the first time when he was sixteen and had finally grown into all that height, and the kid hadn't looked back since. Sam had a headstart and longer legs, but on the other hand, Sam was wasted, really freakin wasted Dean realised now as he watched his brother's shadowy figure move across the bare ground, Sam's arms and legs were flailing, uncoordinated, and there was nothing of the steady determination that Sam usually showed when he ran. Dean hadn't slept for nearly twenty-four hours, but he was used to pushing through all that crap, the aches and pains and the stupid goddamn emotions or whatever. Dean was used to running on empty. Sam, it seemed, was not used to running drunk (and there was no reason he should be, freakin buzzkill that he was), and for a moment Dean thought he was going to close the gap between them.

Dean stumbled, and the moment passed.

He struggled to his feet and realised with sickening clarity that he was going to lose his brother, out here in the middle of nowhere, lose Sam in the dark, and the next time he went back to Palo Alto for him, the police would be waiting. And wasn't that just goddamn wonderful.

They'll probably lock me up in the nuthouse. Like it's me that's the crazy one.

Then there was a curse and a thud, and Sam went down, hitting the ground hard with a crack that Dean knew from experience was the sound of a skull connecting with something too solid to be pretty. He sprinted the last few feet, and flung himself on top of his brother, hoping that his weight would be enough to keep Sam down in his state of inebriation or, you know, total fucking wastedness.

For a moment, all Dean could hear was his own harsh breathing echoing in his ears. Then Sam shifted under him and said, "You gonna shoot me?" He sounded weirdly distant, like he didn't really care one way or the other.

Dean snorted. Sam was OK. He hadn't lost him. The sudden loss of adrenaline made him feel kind of nauseous, though. "Maybe later. Don't do that again, OK?"

"Not likely," Sam said, his breath stuttering a little. "I think my ankle's broken."

"Shit," said Dean. There wasn't much else to say.

----

By the time Dean had managed to get Sam back to the Impala, his brother was barely able to stand even on his good leg. He hung off Dean's neck like a freakin anvil or whatever, but Dean had to admit to himself that the weight was kind of comforting. Sam was banged up and out of it, but he was there, and his memory was coming back, and if Dean had his brother and his car he knew he could fix whatever was wrong.

He hauled Sam into the back seat and pushed him down, flipping on the light. Sam actually looked pretty freakin terrible. Dean hadn't seen him in full light since the whole memory thing had happened, and he looked weird, hollowed-out maybe, not to mention the blood matted in his hair and streaked on his face, both from the gash that Dean could only surmise he had obtained in a bar fight, and the more serious one on the back of his head from the fall.

"Well, aren't you the pretty one," Dean muttered, and went to fetch the first aid kit.

It was dark at the back of the car, not much traffic around at this hour of the morning, and those headlights that did come by only served to blind him. He had to open the trunk more or less by touch, but that was OK. It wasn't the first time Dean had fetched stuff from his trunk in the dark. He felt for the edge of the false bottom, groping around a bit in the darkness and then lifting it open, reaching inside to grab a flashlight or the first-aid kit, whichever came to hand first.

Except that when he put his hand into the lower compartment, there was nothing there. Not just no first-aid kit, but nothing at all. Dean scrabbled for a moment, running his fingers from one end of the compartment to the other, and they met not one single obstacle.

Fuck.

Sam was still sprawled on the seat when Dean came back round, and his eyes were closed. Dean wasn't really in the mood for pleasantries though. OK, even less so than usual. He leaned forward, grabbed his brother's lapels, and shook him.

"Sam," he hissed. "What the hell did you do with the goddamn weapons?"

Sam opened his eyes and stared up at him, looking kind of confused and unfocussed, and Dean caught another blast of alcohol breath. Did he smell like that when he'd been drinking? No wonder Sam was always so pissed at him.

"The weapons, Sam, the weapons. Where are they?"

"Uh..." Sam made a weird sort of gesture. "You're the one with the gun, dude. I didn't do anything with it." Dean glared at him, but although Sam was acting weird and different and wrong, he was still Sam, and Dean could still tell when he was really confused and when it was just for show.

Jesus.

Dean felt his legs go weak. Sam hadn't just forgotten him. Sam had forgotten his entire life, and what the hell had been put in its place? Dean sat back, kneeling on the back seat with one knee on each side of his brother's ridiculous lanky legs. Sam raised himself up on his elbows and looked at Dean curiously, though he still looked kind of spacy.

"I remember," he said, and Dean thought for a moment he meant it, but then he carried on and the little hope that Dean had clung to slipped away.

"I remember where I've heard your voice before," Sam said, and his words were definitely slurred now, his voice thick. "You're the one who left those freaky voice mail messages on my... on my phone, aren't you?"

Dean closed his eyes. He didn't have the strength to deny it.

"Man, you know, you're kind of a weirdo."

Dean considered this. He knew it was true, of course: after all, he had spent his entire freakin life (well, apart from the first four years, and let's face it he wasn't really Dean then, because back then there wasn't a Sam) hunting after the sort of things that most people stopped believing in when they were five. Only Dean had started believing in them then, started believing in earnest. And now, here he was, officially dead, covered in scars from werewolves and ghouls and whatever the hell else, having a conversation about missing weapons with his brother who was only semi-coherent and wouldn't even remember Dean's name even if he had been fully compos goddamn mentis, who had clearly had his brain messed with by something unnatural and seemed to remember an entire life that had never happened. Yeah, OK, Dean was kind of a weirdo.

But Sam was worse.

"What--" Dean said, and his dry tongue stumbled over the words, so he cleared his throat and started again. "What does your dad do, Sam?"

Sam let out a harsh laugh. "Rots, mainly."

"Jeez," Dean muttered, more at the tone of Sam's voice than the sentiment. After all, he knew Dad wasn't dead.

"What?" Sam raised an eyebrow. "No apology? Oh, I guess you don't have to worry about tact when you're a freakin kidnapper, right?"

Dean snorted. "Shut up, geek boy. What did he do when he was alive?"

Sam lay back down on the seat and laughed again. He sounded kind of hysterical. "He was an alcoholic mechanic. Or a mechanical alcoholic. Nice ring to it, huh? Yeah, he pretty much rotted when he was alive, too."

"He didn't--" Dean cleared his throat again. "He didn't hunt?"

Sam stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing for real, just for a moment before he winced and clutched at his head. "Oh, Jesus," he said. "Man, the idea of John Winchester with a rifle is pretty damn scary. No-one would make it out of the woods alive except the goddamn deer."

Dean had a sudden urge to slap Sam, to tell him to stop talking about their father that way, to call John's voice mail and force him to listen. But things were way out of control, and something had really messed up Sam's head, and the fact that Sam was drunk and most likely concussed meant that Dean figured this what not the best time to tell him that all his memories were fake. Instead he just swore and clambered out of the back seat.

"You know, I always hated this goddamn car," Sam said idly. His legs were hanging out car door, and one of them swung like he was ten years old. "You can just take it if you want. You can, like, sell it or something. Or drive it. Or whatever. You know," he made a broad gesture with his arm, "just leave me here. I'll be OK. I'll walk back to town. I like walking. It's. You know. Cool."

Dean stared. "Sam, number one it's fifty freakin miles back to town, and number two you broke your freakin ankle, remember?"

Sam frowned. "Huh," he said. "Guess that's why my head hurts, then."

Dean rubbed a hand over his face. Sam was making about as much goddamn sense as a movie by that guy, what was his name, Swedish guy, black and white shit. Anyway. No goddamn sense at all, that was for damn sure. It was time to get off the road.

----

Dean was glad that their motel room was away off at the far side of the parking lot where there were no lights, and glad that it was still dark when they arrived there, because Sam was boneless and noisy and huge and sprawling and goddamn conspicuous as he hauled him the few feet from the car to the room. The kid had been in and out of consciousness for the last half hour in the car, and his mumbling was pretty much the kind of thing that Dean would have filed away for later to tease him about when he was well again, except Dean didn't know how he would take being teased by the freak who had kidnapped him. At any rate, Sam was out the moment he hit the bed, which suited Dean down to the ground since now he would finally have the chance to examine his brother's physical state.

The ankle wasn't broken, only sprained and swollen. That was kind of weird, since Sam should have known from experience the difference between the way the two injuries felt. Except, of course, as far as Sam was concerned he didn't have any experience. Dean cast around the room for something to wrap it with, finally finding a spare sheet in a cupboard and tearing it into strips. Whatever had happened to their duffle bags, they were no longer in the car, and they were going to need some new clothes. That could wait till morning.

Dean filled the trash can with ice from the ice machine on the forecourt, then wrapped some in the remains of the sheet and tied it securely to Sam's leg. Then he started on the face, cleaning the gashes as well as he could with water and ripped up bedsheets. He considered going and asking for a first-aid kit at reception, but he didn't want to attract any more attention than he already had. After all, for all he knew he had been reported to the police already. The guy with a gun in the parking lot, forcing another guy into his car. He was pretty sure no-one had seen them, but nothing was ever a hundred per cent.

When he was done, he sank back into a chair and found himself just staring at Sam. It was four o'clock in the morning, and he had just had what was probably the worst freakin day of his whole freakin freakish life. The problem was, he couldn't see how it was going to get any better. No. No, it would get better. He would make it better. He would go back to that stupid hick town that was the last place he had seen his brother and his brother had really seen him, and he would find the goddamn thing that did this and he would make it give Sam back.

He was Dean Winchester, and he was not giving up without a fight.