Title: Resurrection, Part 2/2
Author: alakewood
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "I didn't sell my soul for you to lose yours, Sammy."
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing.

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Dean sighed as he started flipping through the channels yet again. There wasn't a single damn thing on the limited cable access their current motel had. He was tempted to see what the pay-per-view offered. Frustrated, he tossed the remote onto the bedside table. "Anything of interest, Sam?"

Sam was sitting only a couple of feet away at the wobbly table, laptop perched in one corner, John's journal just within arm's reach, and the rest of the surface covered with the loose sheets of information that Sam had printed off at some library. He scrawled notes in the margin of one of the sheets. "Not much more than what I've already read. Might have a name, though."

Dean nodded to himself a few times. "Cool." He reached for the remote again.

--

"Dean? You doin' okay?" Sam glanced over to his brother, reached for him and grasped his forearm.

Swallowing thickly, Dean just nodded. His teeth were clenched, muscles in his jaw twitching. He was breathing hard now.

Sam wasn't sure where there was a hospital – they weren't in Chicago that often. It wasn't like he was just going to stop for directions with Dean very nearly bleeding out in the passenger seat of the impala. He just stayed on Archer Avenue and headed for the middle of the city. Once on Michigan, he saw signs for a Mercy Hospital. Getting to the hospital, getting Dean into the emergency room – it was all a blur. He paced the hallway after the nurses rushed Dean away on a gurney. He suddenly stopped, catching sight of his bloody hands. If he lost Dean now…

--

They parked in the cemetery lot just as the sun was starting to set.

"Look at this," Sam said, stopping at the wrought-iron fence.

"What the hell is it?" Dean asked, inspecting the small ridges on the surface of the metal. "Are those…"

"Fingerprints? Yeah. The legend says that Mary did it, just holding on to the bars."

"A ghost melting fingerprints into iron?"

"I know." Sam's grin was practically from ear to ear. He brushed his thumb over the marks.

"She musta been pissed." Dean walked through the gate. "So. Meet you back here in…what? An hour?"

"Uh, yeah." He was squinting into the distance, corners of his eyes wrinkled and his nose scrunched, only half paying attention as Dean headed into the cemetery by himself.

--

"On May 29, 1953, these two men were the first to climb Mount Everest," Alex Trebek said on the TV.

Dean shook his head, hands twisting in the hospital blanket over his lap. "Who are Rocky and Bullwinkle?"

"Hilary and Norgay," Sam answered from the doorway. He glanced up at his brother, then looked away again. "How're you doing?"

"Considering I just about eviscerated myself?" He shrugged a little. "Not to shabby."

"Really, Dean."

"I'll live." He offered a small smile which seemed to say, if only for a little while longer, anyway.

"What happened last night?" Sam moved across the room to Dean's bedside, pulled up a chair to sit down.

"I'm not sure. I mean, I remember parts of it, like it was a dream or something. I left you at the gate, then started looking for that chick's grave. And I remember stabbing myself in the gut. The middle is fuzzy." He paused. "How'd you find me?"

--

The temperature had dropped close to ten degrees since the sun went down. Sam rubbed his gloved hands together and pulled his knit hat over his ears again. He'd been waiting at the cemetery gate for twenty minutes and Dean was still a no-show. He'd give him another five before-

Something white and almost shimmering, just out of his periphery, caught his eye. He turned, and there she stood. "Jess?" He couldn't mistake her for anybody else.

She didn't respond, just held out a hand, gesturing for him to follow her. Her eyes – Jess's eyes – pleaded with him.

Sam followed, marveling at how much she hadn't changed since he saw her standing on that street corner just after she died. He had to wonder if, maybe, the reason the descriptions of Resurrection Mary varied so much was because she showed herself differently to different people. Like how she appeared to him as Jess. He knew it couldn't really be Jess – she was at peace. It had to be some sort of ploy to get him to follow her. And, obviously, it was working.

Mary stopped at a small grove of trees. She inclined her head to the left, blinking slowly, blonde hair cascading about her bare shoulders.

Sam heard a familiar voice – Dean – speaking softly just beyond the tree line. He started for the clearing, then turned back to get one last look at Mary. But she was gone. He left the grove and saw Dean kneeling in front of a big, granite grave marker.

--

"Dean, I really don't think you should-" Sam interrupted himself with a huff, knowing that there was no way he'd convince Dean to go back to motel to rest much less go back to hospital.

It was hard to look at him – buried within one of Sam's hoodies, which he had borrowed until he found time to thoroughly clean the blood from his leather jacket – because he looked just as he had the other two times he'd almost died. His skin was so pale, he had dark circles under his eyes.

"Let's just go to Bobby's. Take a few weeks off."

"We have to send it back," he stated, slowly hobbling towards the grave marker the demon had opened.

There was something about his voice… "Do you know what it released?" Dean's silence was more than enough of an answer. "Dean."

"Doesn't matter. We're gonna send it back. It'll be real easy – just a binding spell." He produced a couple sheets of paper from the front pouch of the sweatshirt. "It'll take five minutes, tops."

"What is it, Dean?"

When they came to the marker, Dean unfolded his papers and pulled a small knife from his pocket. "He's called Eligor – goes by a couple other names, too. A Great Duke of Hell."

Sam shrugged, forehead wrinkled as he tried to think of why any of it was particularly important. "Why summon him? Why'd he pick you?"

"Blood of a condemned man is the key to the ritual. And he knew a way to get me out of my deal."

"What was the catch?"

"The guy's like a frickin' warlord. He would void my contract if you'd agree to fulfill the Yellow-Eyed Bastard's prophecy. You lead their demon army, and I get to live the rest of my life." He paused. "I didn't sell my soul for you to lose yours, Sammy."

Dean sliced his palm open and pressed it to the stone, and started to read the binding spell. The demon briefly appeared, a glimmer in the sunlight, a knight on a winged horse.

"I'm not losing you to them," Dean said, starting back to the car. "There's gotta be another way."

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fin