"Ellen?" Dean whispered.

Ellen didn't move at first, but Dean could see that her eyes were open and that she was breathing very short, shallow breaths.

"Ellen," Dean called again. He peeked around the front bumper of the Impala to look at the cemetery to make sure no one was watching them. He crawled toward her a bit. "Hey. Hey hey hey." He whispered with a very concerned tone. Laying on his stomach he reached out to touch her hand, trying to give what comfort he could.

Ellen didn't move. "Shhhh..." Dean heard her say softly, her breathing had slowed. She reached into her right coatsleeve, drawing the Colt from it's hiding place and handing it to Dean. "Kill...that...bastard." She said with pained effort.

"Did Sam do this to you? Is he part of this?" Dean asked, his voice gruff.

She was starting to shiver from the shock, but Dean was able to recognize her shake of the head. "N-n-no," she said softly.

Relief flooded Dean's senses. He closed his eyes in silent gratefulness to whatever power that may be listening. "Hang on, Ellen," Dean said, squeezing her arm, resolve adding a steely quality to his voice. "We're gonna end this and then we'll get you and Bobby some help, okay?"

Moving silently toward the gate of the cemetery, he depressed the crane latch on the Colt, which allowed the cylinder to fold out so he could check if the gun was loaded, and which chamber the last remaining bullet was in. "Thank God," he muttered to himself, as he saw the bullet. As interesting as an antique gun may be, it was useless without being loaded.

He arranged the cylinder so the bullet would load when the hammer was cocked, then snapped it closed as quietly as he could. He looked through the fencing. Sam and the Demon were still on the far end of the cemetery from his current position. Dean knew he was a good shot, but even the higher powered handguns would have been pushing it to hit a target at that distance, and with only one chance he didn't want to risk it. He had to get closer.

He looked at the ground in the cemetery, trying to get a feel for if it would make much noise when tread on. Strangely, the grass seemed to be pressed down, unlike any unkempt prairie Dean had ever seen. Weird though it was, at least the short grass would not make as much noise as the knee-heighth stuff. He could only hope that Ol' Yellow Eyes wasn't as good at hearing people sneak up on him as his daughter was.

Sam was following the directions that the Demon was giving him, moving things telekinetically and various other menial tasks. It appeared to Dean that the Demon was trying to train Sam quickly, get him up to speed on latent powers he may have had. After watching Sam electrocute a raven the Yellow Eyed man had supplied, Dean was very glad Sam had been on his side all this time.

He snuck through the gate and hid behind the nearest large headstone. Peeking around the side he watched his little brother excel at each task as their arch nemesis looked on with a proud expression on his face. The scene turned Dean's stomach. Sammy had always been the teacher's pet, but this was beyond Dean's comprehension.

"Ha ha!" The Demon clapped his hands together victoriously. "Excellent, Sammy. I think we're done here. I've been looking forward to riding in that car of yours again." He turned and strode away from the crypt, walking right past the grave marker Dean was squatting behind. He called back over his shoulder. "Just one more thing. Bring the Colt."

Dean crawled back to the last stone he had hidden behind, this time crouching on the opposite side so as to be unseen from the Demon's new vantage point. He thanked the heavens silently that the darkness of night was at least in some part concealing his movements.

Without missing a beat, Sam went to the crypt and pretended to be looking for it. "It's not here," he called over his own shoulder, sounding convincingly confused. "Ellen or Bobby must have taken it."

The Demon turned on his heel only a dozen or so feet from Dean, the jubilant look gone from his visage. "Find it." He demanded sternly, eyes burning so into Sam that, if they had been capable, they would have killed Sam right there.

"It's right here." Dean stood and fired at the Demon before the last word had fallen.

The split second it took for the bullet to travel from gun to target was enough for Dean to see a myriad of expressions cross the Demon's face. Confusion to recognition, to shock, to anger, and finally dismay as the bullet punctured the chest of his human host. Right through the heart. Dean's one shot was perfect.

The man looked down at his chest. Something akin to electricity lit his body from the inside out. Sam and Dean stood in awe as the man's bones were visible through his skin. The man fell to the ground, lying flat on his back. The energy seemed to flicker out, as a whisp of black smoke leaked from the bullet hole, and the yellow glaze over his eyes disappeared.

The Yellow Eyed Demon was dead.

Dean turned around and looked at Sam, who smiled shyly. It was his little brother. Alive. Standing right there. And the Demon was dead. It was all too much to take in, especially for the newly resurrected. Dean blinked and fell to his knees.

"Dean!" Sam ran to try to catch his brother, not quite making it, but keeping him from falling any further than his knees. "Hey, are you okay?"

"We did it." Dean said, looking over at the body of the man who was once an unlucky hospital janitor. "Check that off the 'to do' list."

Sam looked at the body, shaking his head slightly. "I don't know what to say..."

"I do." Dean crawled over to look directly into the dead man's face. "That was for our mom, you son of a bitch."

As he stood, Dean guffawed, still trying to take it all in. "So, are we both alive, or are we dead?"

Sam chuckled, pulling Dean into the first hug he had shared with his brother in many years. "I think we're alive." Each squeezed the other tightly, like they were trying to confirm that he was real and neither of them were dreaming. "Dude, what the hell were you thinking? That was a shitty deal." Tears were streaming down Sam's cheeks.

Dean kept his grip on his brother, tears rolling down his own face. "Don't you be mad at me, Sammy. I had to look after you, that's my job."

Sam shoved Dean's shoulder hard, but playfully, and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, not if it gets you killed. Got it?" He levelled Dean with a look of consternation.

"Yeah, whatever." Dean looked over Sam's shoulder, seeing Bobby lying on the ground. "Fuck!" How could he have forgotten? "We've got to get them to a hospital."

Ten minutes later, Sam and Dean had loaded Ellen and Bobby into the back of the Impala and were headed to Cheyenne to the hospital. Bobby had began to come around, though Sam checked his eyes with a pen light and he seemed to have some symptoms of a concussion, and Ellen seemed to be better as well. She was sitting in the back seat wrapped in a blanket, head down.

"I'm so sorry, Ellen." Sam apologized again, turned half around in the front seat so he could look at her. "I tried to put you down softly."

She didn't raise her head, but looked up at Sam silently for a moment. Then she shook he head slightly and gave a small shrug. "I know, honey."

Dean glanced up at the rear view mirror, then back at the road. "How many demons you think got outta hell?"

Sam shrugged, "A hundred, maybe two. An army."

Dean nodded, sticking his lips out a bit. "Well, then," he said, reaching for the radio, "We've got work to do." He turned the power knob and AC/DC's Highway to Hell blared from the speakers.

Dean floored the gas petal and the four hunters drove east into the rising sun.

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EPILOGUE

Three days later, Dean and Sam drove away from Bobby's home in SD. The doctors in Cheyenne had taken good care of Bobby and Ellen, and released them with a clean bill of health, but told them both to take it easy for a few days.

Dean put on his sunglasses as he turned the Impala onto the on-ramp for the interstate. He reached under the front seat and pulled out the ancient box of even more ancient casette tapes and started shuffling through them.

Sam was reading through his email on his Palm Treo when Dean slammed on his breaks and quickly pulled off to the right side of the road.

"Dude," Dean looked sternly at Sam, using his most John-like tone. "Where the hell is my B.O.C. tape?"

Sam opened his mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out. He was searching for a good story, but wasn't able to come up with one. He closed his mouth and settled on a shake of the head and a quizzical look on his face.

Dean clenched his jaw, dissatisfied, then leaned into the floorboard to search in case the tape had gotten bumped out of the box. He sat back upright emptyhanded, scratching his head, and glanced at the dash. His hand went immediately to the small cut in the vinyl, trying to sooth it away as if it were an illusion of the early morning sun.

"And what the HELL did you do to my dash?"

Fine

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I hope you all liked it, thank you for reading my story. I know the ending was a bit cheesy, but it was harder to wrap everything up like I wanted than I had expected, and I still didn't figure out how to fit John in.

Ah, perhaps there is a story in the future for his now-freed spirit...

Also, sorry for any spelling errors in the last chapter, I was working without spellcheck.