Wow. i come back from a day at the campground to find a bunch of awesome reviews! I'm so spoiled! Thanks, you guys.

On a totally realted note, we're camping! About ten miles from our house. And the campground has no wi-fi. So I'm home or my borther's TaeKwonDo thing, but we'll be leaving again once he gets back. That means there probably won't be any updates until about Monday. Is that ok? Ok. Please enjoy this one!

Chapter 9

Where Do You Run To Escape From Yourself?

He was scared. He hadn't felt fear in so long, hadn't felt anything in so long, that he almost welcomed it. He would have preferred happiness, sure, but anything was better than nothing, right?

Sam sighed, staring into the dirty water as it rushed by. He'd left the safety of the resistance HQ, looking to get a little air. He didn't care that it reeked, didn't care that it was sour and stale, just needed to get out.

He'd needed to get away from Dean. He'd needed to think, to avoid Jo's harsh glares, his brother's apologies and encouragements that everything would work out, Bela's accusing gaze. That was the worst, probably because it had just happened that morning, was still so fresh in his mind, stood out starkly against the murders of Ruby and Lilith, two demons who had it coming. He'd tried to kill a person, and she'd survived to live a half-life in a sewer with a hodge-podge army that she had to know didn't stand a chance against something that could decimate the world like he had.

Dirty water rushed past in a little river, eroding the stone sides of the sewer tunnels, the dirt and grime that had settled there, but refusing to touch his sins. He was marked, and even the cleanest of water wouldn't have been able to wash that guilt away.

o0o0o0o0o0o

The door creaked open as he entered the old house. He wasn't even sure how she'd done it, how she'd managed to live and hide and lie for two years while he searched hopelessly for anything and everything that could help. He wasn't even entirely sure how he'd found her. Everything over the past couple of weeks had been a blur.

He slid the knife from its place at his side as effortlessly as he would slice it through her flesh. He knew what he was going to do to her, knew how she would suffer, knew the pain that could be inflicted by this one, simple action.

Through another door, treading softly, and he'd found her. She was up and out of her chair, the book she'd been reading splayed at her feet as soon as he entered the room. She backed away from him, from the soulless glint in his eyes, the numbness of his feelings, the solid knife. "Sam?"

Before he was even aware that he'd moved, Sam had slammed her up against the wall. "I wanna know how," he demanded, pressing the steel of the blade against the delicate skin of her neck.

Bela stared at him with wide eyes, her mouth working soundlessly as she gaped.

"Tell me how you're alive!" he screamed, spattering her face with flecks of spittle.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, her face crumpling as her body went slack in his strong grasp. "I'm so sorry."

"Tell me!"

Bela sobbed, fresh tears washing away the drying saliva that had settled on her cheeks. "She told me," the woman gasped, "she told me to do it. She knew you weren't in the room."

"Who knew?"

"Lilith."

Sam glared her, hoping his confusion wasn't as visible as it felt. "What do you mean? You're the one who gave us a name. You're the one who sent us after her."

She gazed up at him, her eyes revealing the same kind of pain that he had tried for two years to hide. "She wanted you. Sam, she wanted you dead. She said… she said she'd let me go, let me live, if I gave you to her."

He tightened his grip on her, moving the knife to send it deeper into the flesh of her neck, drawing blood. "Why? Why would she do that?"

Bela sobbed again. "I told you, she wanted you dead. She said that if I gave you her name, then you'd go looking for her. Either you would be too late and Dean would die, making you," she paused, swallowing hard, "making you vulnerable…"

"Or?"

"Or you would get there in time to save him, Dean would try to kill her, go against the contract, and you'd die. He'd be easy pickings after that."

Sam narrowed his eyes, feeling rage bubbling up through the cracks that simple desperation had put in the wall he'd built around his heart. "You set us up."

"Sam, I'm sorry. I-"

"You set us up. You lived. He died. You played us."

"I had to."

He glared at her, his eyes mere slits, burning with what little human emotion he was letting through, what little he had left. "Self-preservation, right?"

She slumped down even farther, leaning against him for support, as if her whole body had gone limp. "I'm sorry. You have to understand-"

"I understand perfectly," he muttered, "you used us, and a good man died."

"I thought-"

"Do you at least have it?"

She straightened up a bit, her eyes no longer filled with terror and remorse, but curiosity. "Have what?"

"The sundial."

Bela's head cocked to one side in an imitation of a confused puppy, an imitation of innocence. "It was you?"

"Of course it was me. Who else would want it?"

She stared at him, much like she had when he had arrived, her eyes flashing between uncertainty and raw fear. "You want to use it bring him back?"

"No, I was gonna go for a stroll through fifteenth-century Paris." He glared her. She glared right back, no longer afraid, certain that the man that had burst through her parlor doors was the same one that she'd left for dead so many times, the same on she'd shot once, the same one whose brother she'd let die for her own selfish reasons. She was dead wrong.

Slowly, Sam eased off of her, backing away, letting the knife fall to his side. Bela slid from the wall with a satisfied smirk. "I've got it all wrapped up and ready for you," she said, turning from him. "And I am sorry."

He watched her back as she stepped slowly away, apparently to get the sundial. It was funny, really, the way that she thought he still needed her at this point in the game, after his searching hands had felt the lump in her pocket. He smirked, the light dying from his eyes as he slid smoothly forward and jammed the knife into the small of her back.

Bela fell to her knees instantly, just as Sam had nearly three years before. He ripped the knife from her spine, her blood slicking his hands, and leaned in close to her. His long fingers wrapped themselves into her hair and he yanked her head roughly back to stare into her dying eyes. "Go to Hell," he whispered, "and say that to him."

He shoved her to the floor, enjoying the tinkling of metal jewelry hitting the hardwood, the soft thud of her body, the chokes of dying breath. He bent down, turned her over, stared into dying eyes, and reached into her pocket.

Sam smiled as he pulled out the small package wrapped in the white handkerchief. He'd found what he was looking for.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Sam blinked, bringing himself out of his memories as the sound of footsteps approached. He spun around to see Jo rounding the corner, leaving the safety of the hidden room. She stopped when she saw him, her body immediately going into a fighting stance.

"Relax," he sighed, "I'm not in the mood."

She did as she was told, walking up to stand beside him, looking into the shallow, murky waters. "Some place, huh? Nice and safe and smelly."

Sam grinned. "Yeah. Not exactly the kind of place I'd expect Bela to hole up, though."

"Oh, she used to have a house. Big one. It was razed about ten years ago. After that, we all went looking for someplace new, and this is what we found. Those of us that survived."

He nodded, letting a silence fall between them, letting the rushing of the water overtake his senses, threatening to pull him back into his thoughts, his memories, the horrible places that he'd been, things that he'd done.

"Dean told me that I, um, did some things," Sam said, wanting anything but silence, anything but thought, "he said I started by…killing… hunters." From the corner of his eye, he saw her nod. "So, how come you're still here?"

Jo chuckled, but it was a dry sound, lacking in humor or emotion. "I guess you came after me early," she said, "back when you were still human enough to spare children. Will was maybe five when you found me. I can still remember the look on your face when he woke up from his nap and saw," her voice broke and she turned away, "saw that damned knife. You jumped out the sliding glass door and ran."

"I'm so sorry." But he knew from experience that sorry didn't cut it. Bela knew that, too.

"Yeah, well, I should be thankful, I guess. A couple more years, and we would have both been goners."

"How old is he?"

"Who? Will?" Jo grinned. "Gonna be twenty-one this year. Hard to believe, huh?" Her smile faded. "I kinda feel bad for him. He's old enough to remember what things were like before, but too young to really do anything about it. He thinks he's invincible, though."

Sam nodded, unable to stop himself from asking the next question that popped into his mind. "Who's his dad?"

Any semblance of kindness faded from Jo's face, as if a switch had been flipped in her brain. "The Devil," she hissed, "but don't tell him that." She turned on her heels and stalked back around the corner toward the door.

Sam stared after her in shock. He wasn't entirely sure what he had been expecting, but it sure hadn't been that. In fact, he wasn't even sure what that had meant, just knew that it was cryptic and somehow the most disturbing part of his little time trip to date.

He turned back toward the water, the ebb and flow of the waves up against the side of the little sidewalk that he found himself on. He didn't have time to think about that now, had no time for Jo or her son. He had to figure out what had gone wrong, what had made him do what he'd done, where he'd turned into a monster.

Unfortunately, his brain was working with an information overload, and he couldn't quite seem to focus, couldn't seem to shake the feeling that something was off about Jo's remark, that something was eerily familiar about her son.

"She told him his dad was a hunter," a voice said behind him.

Sam jumped, nearly falling into the murky sewage, and turned to face his brother. "Dean? What the Hell?"

"Sorry," the older man said, shrugging, "couldn't help but overhear."

"No problem. So, what about her son?"

Dean joined him by the edge of the water, staring down into it, and sighed. "He's Luke Skywalker. She told him his dad was a hunter, one of the best. Said he was the first casualty of war, which is true, I guess."

Sam nodded, taking that in, trying to wade through the mess that his mind was in to find meaning in the statement. Suddenly, it dawned on him. "You mean, you…?

"Me?"

"Yeah. I mean, you were the first real casualty, Dean. You died, and that started this whole thing. And now you're… well, you know. It was you, wasn't it? You're Will's dad."

Dean shook his head. "Hate to break it you, but I wasn't the one who threw her up on a bar and raped her." He turned away, back toward the door. "You should probably head on in. It's dangerous out here."

He walked away, went back to the safety of the organization's little hidey-hole, leaving Sam alone with a newly-dropped bombshell and very limited mental capacities.