Chapter Eight

"Wait...Alturoc the demon Lord...the evil bastard that's after Ambre?" Sam rose to his feet from the bed. "The bad guy..." Dean finally cut him off.

"Yeah Sam...thank you Mr. obvious." Dean arched his eye brows. "It's not as cut and dry as it seems." Dean sighed rubbing his hands together nervously before looking back to Nessa. "I think we had a deal."

She smiled brightly. "Oh come on...I can't give in yet...you haven't explained to poor Sammy."

"It's Sam." Sam glared back at her.

"Alright, Sugar." Nessa winked at him then looked back to Dean. "Sooo..." Nessa angled her head sideways slightly. "Alturoc...sent you back...you made a deal." She beamed. It was almost an I told you so. Some vindication for her perceptions that Dean was in some sort of contact with the villain of this story.

"I didn't make a deal...not really." Dean shook his head. "The sending benefitted us both."

"How?" Everyone in the room asked at once.

Dean looked to his hands before finally feeling his eyes drift to Ambre. He paused a moment to long and Sam looked between the two of them thoughtfully. Dean then met his eyes and Sam narrowed his own in wonder. How indeed?

Dean cleared his throat looking back to his hands. "Things were bad. The world was in ruin..." A hint of tears played into his voice as Dean's gaze seemed to drift far away and he finally had to close his eyes. "The foci and the resistance were marching on the armies of hell. They were getting cut down so fast...Ambre and Sam...you were trapped in the basement." Dean's voice hitched again as he suddenly realized that he couldn't force himself to mention the baby. "We couldn't hold them back. Alturoc wasn't in control any more...the god was...so he wanted to send me back...to fix the whole gods thing. Put himself back on top...said he wanted the world populated and not so frozen. All I had to do was agree to go back. I'd be the only one that remembered...and he of course lied that he wouldn't go back himself. That he wouldn't be prepared for me." Dean met Sam's eyes as the tears fell across his cheeks.

"I couldn't pass it up."

Sam slowly nodded. There was so much that Dean wasn't saying...and he knew it. But he would get him to talk, eventually.

"Oh how noble." Nessa smiled wickedly.

"Shut up." Ambre suddenly said.

Everyone looked in her direction in shock.

"Excuse me?" Nessa asked all at once.

"You heard me." Ambre pushed herself out of Shay's protective arms. "He's been through hell...real or imagined or a little of both...anyone can see that just by looking. So cut him a break." Ambre glared at Nessa.

Nessa smiled softly with a slight nod. "I guess I did make a deal, Cowboy." She finally replied. "Alright...he's probably telling the truth or some semblance of it...and even if he's lying...I promised...so for those of you not acclimated to the changing weather...." Nessa's smile grew as she tucked her chin slowly downward closing her eyes.

Ambre narrowed her eyes as she watched Nessa and then took a step back instinctively as Nessa's wings appeared in a shimmer unfurling in a glorious span. Nessa looked back up to Dean. "I held up my end."

"Holy Mary..." Shay sat down on the edge of a bed his voice trailing off as Ben and Bobby and Sam and Ambre and all watched Nessa wiggle her wings up and down as if she was stretching.

"Yeah...I'm still not letting you go." Dean whispered completely unphased by the display.

"Oh come on." Nessa growled.

"Just sit down." Dean breathed as he nearly dropped to a knee his legs sinking out from under him suddenly. Bobby was the one that moved forward to catch him. Sam tried to get there, but he wasn't fast enough. Ambre was still starring at Nessa...now torn between the man that she was clearly concerned about and the white wings that slowly disappeared.

Ambre felt like the display of wings only confirmed the multitude of others other worldly things that she had seen tonight and affirmed that Dean's story could be true. She sank down on the bed beside Shay though, some what in shock...until Bobby helped Dean back to his bed.

"Dean, you just got out of the hospital." Sam was saying as he followed them over. "And you weren't even supposed to be out...you can't keep going like this."

Sam didn't know what to think as his mind was racing. Dean seemed pretty convinced...and after Nessa unfurled her wings he was convinced that Dean was telling the truth...what scared him was what Dean was leaving out. How hard he was fighting...how fast and strong he was coming on...like he was scared to death of what lay ahead.

"Hospital?" Bobby asked looking from Sam to Dean. "Dammit, Dean."

Dean looked up at the two of them with a pained smile as the perspiration line his brow. "Yeah, well I didn't have time to recover and save the world too."

"He's burning up." Sam whispered pulling his hand away from Dean's forehead with a cautiously concerned glance mixed with a hint of frustration that his brother couldn't fill him in a little faster instead of trying to take on this Alturoc guy by himself. Sam could tell that Dean was really letting himself have it over who he'd made this deal with as well so he wasn't about to bring it up just yet. Sam knew Dean had a very compelling reason...and it was more then what eh was telling them.

Sam glanced at Ambre who was shaking herself out of the shock long enough to make it over to Dean and start barking out orders about the medical kit and some fever reducers. Dean fell silent on the bed as the room seemed to fall into some awkward sort of fumble for direction. He stared at the ceiling. Blinked...long and hard...as his vision danced in and out against the potion and the dream and the fever...

He felt the fuzzy voices coming and going in his ears. Felt Ambre's skin against his pushing the pills against his lips. Dean slammed his eyes shut and felt the tremble going through his body from the contact. This was wrong...God. He felt Sam pull his head into his hands forcing him up high enough to get some water down his throat so he could swallow the medicine.

Dean lay there...in his fleeting world...shrouded with heat and bodily contact from Sam and Ambre as they tried to help get him under the blankets...get more liquid into him. Voices were coming and going with the movement.

"I'm going to get some ice..." Bobby almost whispered.

"This is real...this is real." Shay was mumbling to himself.

"Hey man it's hard for everyone at first." Ben was saying to Shay even in his own weakened state.

"I don't think it's that hard." Nessa cooed sliding back down the wall sullenly. "I mean it's all real...monsters...creatures of the night...secret organizations...bad evil demons...ghosts...What's hard about that?" Nessa wrinkled her nose.

Dean stiffened suddenly hearing the door open and then the long pause before it was supposed to close...should have closed...Dean opened his eyes seeing Ambre still hovering above him as she pulled the blanket up around his chin. Dean shook his gaze from her and looked to the door feeling his heart plummeting into his stomach. Bobby was standing there...just standing there...looking. "God..." Dean breathed.

The rattle chains sounded in the distance. "Bobby!" Dean called out suddenly. Bobby was white as a sheet hand trembling on the door. "Bobby!" Dean suddenly shoved himself upward as Sam and Ambre looked to the door as well.

Bobby turned back toward Dean. "Close the damn door!" Dean screamed and he was on his feet stumbling toward it just as a chain wrapped around Bobby's middle and yanked him through the door.

"Bobby!" Sam and Dean screamed in unison both of them running for the door.