A/N 2/4/07: Okay, I'm a horrible person. I've been trying for two weeks to write another chapter and it's not working because I think Eight was the last one (and not as revisable as I thought - made a few minor edits, added some GNR lyrics at the end, but I don't know what else to do with it). Turns out this fic is a three-parter and I've reached the end of the first part. I'll need a little time to get the second part going. It'll be Sam and Dean on the road. The third part will feature John's return and a showdown with the demon. Theoretically. I might have to get some other fics out of my system first, though. What can I say? Life's a bitch. Throw me a line if you have preferences; I have a list of current and possible projects on my profile page.

Chapter 8: Running on Empty

You know, I don't even know
What I'm hoping to find.
Running into the sun,
But I'm running behind.
-Jackson Browne

Sam leaned against the car and stared at his feet.

The winter wind was freezing his insides, but he didn't care. The cold was numbing, and he didn't want to feel anything if he couldn't feel Dean. Without his brother's spirit to fill the hollows, Sam knew he would collapse and melt.

So he let it blow against him, let it swirl the snow across his shoes and flip his laces back and forth over his work boots.

He heard Mica's footsteps crunching down the front walk. He didn't look up when she spoke to him.

"Did you get rid of the bones?"

Sam nodded at his shoes. Heard Mica shift her weight.

"Don't think Agatha should be alone tonight. Could you...take care of something for me and come back after dawn?"

Sam slowly drew his gaze up to hers, trying to concentrate on the words.

"Take care of what?" he asked thickly, and he could tell from the pause, from her unblinkingly blank expression that the cold, empty places inside him were showing. He didn't care.

"Some volunteers are coming to the church in a few hours to pick up presents and shit. Somebody needs to be there to open the building and help load the truck." She handed him a set of keys. "The packages are under the tree to the left of the altar."

He stared at the keys for a moment before he pocketed them.

"Okay."

"Here," she said, and handed him something else. He felt cool stone and metal in his fingers. Dean's amulet. "Where'd you find a charm against lilim?"

"I didn't," Sam replied, eyes on the object in his hand. "My brother...this was his. I just brought it along for...luck, you know?"

He could tell from her eyes that she did. They both knew there was no such thing as luck. You got shit before it got you or you didn't. Simple as that. Simple as Sam being alive and Dean being dead. Simple as a demon's obscure plans plotting out Sam's life. No such thing as a coincidence. No room for error or ignorance.

But sometimes it was nice to have something to hold on to.

"Um." Sam cleared his throat before continuing. He was coming back to himself as he talked. "You know how you said that lilim are supposed to be the spirits of men who died before they had children?"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe that makes them vulnerable to representations like this."

"Oh, the horns. Fertility symbols."

"Yeah." Sam paused, remembering. "Dean had this for almost as long as I can remember. I always assumed it was for protection from spirits or something, but he told me one time that he carried it to get laid. I thought he was just jerking my chain."

"Maybe he was. Sometimes lies just happen to be true."

Sam nodded, looking away.

"I'll come back after sunrise," he said as he opened the driver's side door.

He felt Mica's eyes on him as he drove away.

Sam cranked up AC/DC on his way back to church, even though he hated AC/DC. It didn't help as much as he hoped it would. It didn't replace Dean's presence, but he left it on anyway. When he reached St. Michael's he fled to the rectory and downed a shot of the goat piss Mica had recommended. No Coke this time. He coughed once and collapsed into a chair, long legs sticking out in all directions, face buried in his folded elbows.

Dean had destroyed the lilu. He knew that. Dean was still with him. He knew that.

It didn't feel like it.

That pilot light in the back of Sam's mind had flickered out when the apparition did. He hadn't been able to sense his brother's spirit since then and it was pulling him apart.

A mother he's never known, never seen.

"Get out of my house. And let go of my son."

There's fire everywhere and the invisible pressure holding him against the wall dissipates. He knows what's happened but he won't believe it until Missouri confirms it later.

"The energy of your mother's spirit and the poltergeist cancelled each other out."

He sat where he was for hours, not sleeping, not awake. When he heard someone pounding on the door, he opened it and let them in. Carried packages without speaking. Ignored the puzzled looks, the questions about Sister Barbara. He knew if he spoke, he would scream, rage against them for their ignorance, their innocence, their normalcy. For being alive when his brother was dead. For living in sunlight and not even seeing the shadow world that lurked behind it.

He walked the church like a ghost, staring at the dark windows, waiting for sunrise. The eastern light lit them on fire and splashed shafts of color all across the marble floor and granite pillars.

Sam floored the accelerator when he left the parking lot. He burned rubber and slammed gears.

The silence was ear-splitting.

"Sam!"

He turned his head and forced his eyes to focus on Mica. She was giving him that look - the one Dean had generally replaced in favor of a "Sam wears women's underwear." This time Sam hadn't been listening. He had no idea how many times Mica had called him or how long he'd been staring out the window.

"Agatha's going to be fine, not that you seem to care," Mica said as she rummaged in the fridge for Christmas breakfast.

Sam hesitated for a moment, then decided to ignore the second part of that sentence.

"That's good."

"We have to talk about what happened back there," the nun continued. She set out orange juice and peeled back a layer of aluminum foil from a loaf of banana nut bread.

Sam saw the suspicion in her eyes when she shot a glance his way. She'd had time to think about it. Time for the adrenaline to run its course and the pieces to come together into a coherent picture.

She knew.

"That was a black dog," Mica said sternly when he couldn't find a reply. "A damn strong one. That wasn't no barely sentient byproduct of too many deaths in one place. It wasn't no grim. That was a black dog manifestation of a single powerful spirit. A corporeal manifestation."

She was cutting the bread into thin slices and putting them on a plate. She managed to make the action somehow aggressive.

Sam turned back to the window and watched the snow fall. He didn't really see the point of arguing. She knew where Dean was buried. She knew enough about the supernatural to put two and two together. And he was too tired of the silence in his head to fight her.

"You didn't burn your brother's bones, did you?"

He knew he didn't need to say anything. He could hear the certainty in her voice. He could hear the accusation. He could hear her digging Jim's grave and lighting his body on fire. Letting him go.

"He asked me not to," Sam whispered.

Mica set a plate of cream cheese on the table and frowned at him.

"That doesn't make it right," she said, her tone moderated somewhat.

"I know."

She paused for a moment. Opened her mouth once and closed it before speaking with forced casualness.

"The demon that killed Jim...that was Meg, right?"

Sam looked at her, thrown by the change in subject. She did not meet his eyes.

"Yeah. Well, it was possessing Meg. We never did find out its name."

"And your brother, he was the one who promised he'd let her go and then exorcised her bitch ass anyway?"

"Yeah."

She ducked her head in the fridge again and emerged with a pineapple. Her knife made rhythmic thumps on the cutting board as she sliced it.

"I won't disturb that grave. And neither will anyone else. You have my word."

The call came after the last Mass.

Sam had spent the morning finding out that St. Michael's library didn't have any new information for him. He told Mica this as she returned from the church. She was telling him he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted when the phone rang.

"It's Ash," Mica said, and put it on speaker. Sam bolted from the armchair to listen.

"Never seen nobody track a demon like this," said the tinny voice with the cartoon cracker accent. "But fuck me if it don't work."

"So you know where the demon is?" Sam asked, his heart pounding.

"I can tell you where it's not. The tracking method's solid, but this boy's moved on. Or layin' low. There's no sign of 'em. Anywhere. Just...poof. Gone."

Beer bottles clinked in the background as Sam digested this.

"How can you be sure you're tracking it right?"

"I'm sure, man." Ash belched. "And if this demon shows his ugly-ass face again, I'll know."

"You'll call me if that happens?"

"Sure. But you owe me a beer the next time you're in Nebraska."

The line clicked, and Sam exhaled.

"Sorry," Mica commiserated.

Sam nodded in response. "Thanks for your help. I guess I...better get going."

Mica looked like she was about to say something, but changed her mind and settled for a nod.

The Impala growled as Sam opened her up on I-90.

St. Michael's was comforting, in a way, but he knew he would have suffocated there. Dean was gone. The trail had ended. He had neither brother nor revenge. Movement was the only thing that would keep him together. Centripetal force.

Was this why Dean had never argued when Dad moved them from one place to another? Was this why he'd always been so eager to find the next job, to make the next town before they stopped for the night? Was this why Dean had never, ever stopped running? To keep his own inertia from breaking him during the deceleration?

Sam didn't know. He still couldn't feel Dean. So he drove. He saw nothing but blacktop and gas stations for almost twelve hours. He drove into the setting sun as if he could catch it before he was left in the dark alone.

But he wasn't alone. When the dark came, so did his brother. The moon rose and Dean's presence flooded the car just in time to prevent Sam from falling asleep at the wheel and playing chicken with a big-rig.

Sam felt rough hands pushing his shoulders, pulling on his shirt. He opened his eyes long enough to register that he was somehow stretched out on the bench seat in the back. It was familiar and comfortable and he didn't question it. Just closed his eyes and obeyed the voice he heard just as he drifted off.

Get some sleep, little brother. I'll drive.

So nobody ever told you, baby,
How it was gonna be.
What'll happen to us, baby?
Guess you'll have to wait and see.
-Guns N' Roses