That's What Friends are For Part Two

Keep smilin', keep shinin'
Knowin' you can always count on me, for sure
That's what friends are for

That's What Friends Are For by Dionne Warwick

The drive from the motel they were staying at to Nebraska was uneventful, most of the time passing with Dean bitching and moaning about how Sam was driving his "baby." It took a couple of days, Sam driving as far as he dared to keep Dean in the car before stopping at motels for the night. Sam didn't want to put his brother in anymore pain and a bumpy car ride wasn't what someone dying from heart failure needed. Finally arriving, the Impala splashed through mud puddles from a recent rain and up a gravel drive leading to a large tent.

Dean glanced out of his window at the tent, his shoulders tensing; this didn't look like any doctor's office he'd seen before. Watching the people mingling and walking into the tent, he had no idea where they were. He pushed Sam off as he hurried around the car to help him out; pushing weakly passed him as he slowly raised himself out of the car.

"Man, you're a lying bastard, you know that?" Dean complained. "I thought you said you were taking me to a doctor?"

"I think he said a specialist. Right, Sam?" Kallie glanced at Sam where she hovered uncertainly next to him, nibbling anxiously at her lower lip. Was this really such a good idea?

Sam nodded, "Whatever works, man. Let's just try it out and see what happens. I'm not giving up." He went on, Dean only half listening as Sam told him that this guy was apparently a real healer.

Dean didn't believe that someone working out of a tent could be the real deal. He told Sam and Kallie as much, rolling his eyes as a woman passing by spoke praises of the man.

"There isn't anything wrong with having faith," Kallie said. "A lot of people have faith. Look around you; they're all here because they believe. If it helps you, why won't you?"

Dean shook his head, "I believe in what I can see. Faith isn't about seeing; it's about believing in a higher power that never shows itself."

Soon the brothers were bickering, something Kallie found rather amusing. Sam didn't understand how Dean could be such a skeptic after all the things they'd seen; things that other people told stories about and didn't believe were real. Dean's argument was that they had seen and fought those things.

"I've seen what evil has done to good people." Like their mother, a woman who hadn't deserved to die so young and violently. Or what about the innocent lives that they didn't get a chance to save? If there was so much good out there, why was there so much evil?

A new voice spoke up from behind them, "Maybe God works in mysterious ways."

Even sick Dean couldn't help but smirk, telling the beautiful woman how God had already turned him around on the subject. The woman didn't fall for it, only laughing and Dean explained that Sam and Kallie believed enough for him.

Inside, the tent was full of sickly looking people; old and young alike, and Dean figured each one had an illness they were hoping to get healed. Did they really believe in this? As usual, his eyes scanned the tent for each exit and way of escape if something should go wrong; the hunter in him wouldn't let him not, even if he did feel like his heart was about to burst out of his chest.

Sneering, he nodded up at a camera in the far corner. "Yeah; peace and love all over."

"I'm sure it's just a precaution." Kallie said, her own eyes darting around at the crowded tent and wrapped her arms around herself.

Spotting some empty chairs in the back, Dean went to sit down but Sam wouldn't have it; they were going to sit up front where he hoped they would be noticed.

"He told you he isn't giving up. There's no easy way out of this, Dean; just go with it." Kallie told him, gently pushing him to follow Sam as he started complaining.

They found seats towards the front and sat down, Dean curling up slightly as though he was trying to hide as the man on stage began speaking. Others around them were so enraptured by the man's speech that they echoed his words and praised them.

Dean found himself muttering to Sam, "Yeah, right out of their wallets." Still believing this was just a hoax.

To his surprise and embarrassment, the man heard him and asked Dean to come up on stage. Dean tried to shrug it off, telling the man to pick someone else as he ignored Sam and Kallie's looks of disbelief and pushed for him to go.

Finally he was up there, listening to the man pray with raised eyebrows with a look on his face that clearly stated to the audience he wasn't buying into any of this. Suddenly he was hit with a wave of dizziness, his knees felt weak, and it was like the air had been sucked out of his lungs. The next thing he knew Sam was pulling him up off the floor with a worried Kallie hovering over them and people were clapping loudly. He heard his brother talking, but his eyes were focused on the shadowy figure standing next to the man; It didn't look natural and it hadn't been there before.

"Get off me." Dean mumbled, pushing himself to his feet; still staring at the spot the figure had disappeared from.

"Are you…how do you feel?" Kallie asked anxiously.

"Dean?" Sam wondered, worry clouding his features.

"Well young man, feel any different?" The man, Roy, wondered; a knowing smile on his lips.

Dean nodded; looking at Sam and Kallie, he truly did feel better. He wasn't in any pain and didn't feel weak; normal. In fact, felt better than back to normal. Had it really worked? Had some crazy faith healer truly healed him? And how had he healed him?

"The Lord heals all, my friend," Roy said, clapping Dean on the shoulder; though his hand slipped first. "The shock will wear off soon. It's always a bit of a shock at first; especially for those who didn't believe."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Dean muttered, glancing from Sam to Kallie. He still couldn't believe it had worked, and wouldn't completely until he got checked out by a doctor. Things like this didn't just happen; it was unnatural. And unnatural was never a good thing.

"Son?" Roy frowned.

Seeing Dean wasn't going to answer, Sam stepped forward and took the man's hand, raising it slightly and then shaking it. "Yeah, thank you; thank you so much."

If Roy had truly given Dean his health back, then he had given Sam his life back. Without his big brother, the world was a lot darker, colder, and scarier. Sam had learned that in his time at Stanford; Life without Dean wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He had often found himself missing the small annoying things that Dean did and even those that weren't so annoying.

Kallie echoed Sam's gratitude, her eyes wide with amazement as they each took an arm and lead Dean down off the stage.

People stood and continued to clap and praise the Lord. But Dean was already betting that God didn't have a part in this. It took a while, but they finally managed to find their way out of the tent and the crowd of people swarming Dean that wanted to know what it'd felt like. Once they reached the Impala, Dean slid behind the steering wheel in the driver's seat, his hands clutching it. "Doctor now." Was all he said as the other two closed their doors.

Sam nodded in agreement, "You're right; we need proof." But his eyes said that he already knew his brother was better.

"I'm almost positive that I saw some kind of clinic when we first came into town. We can swing by tomorrow and see if they have time to give you a check up?" Kallie suggested.

Instead of answering, Dean pulled off of the grass and down the gravel drive, mud flying as he took off down the road to find a motel for the night.

The clinic was where Kallie said it would be, the semi-empty parking lot suggesting that they could get Dean in today and put all of their minds at ease. They signed under the name of Bowie and took a seat, not talking as they waited. Before long Dean's name was called and he headed back with the nurse, leaving Sam and Kallie to wait in the waiting room.

"Do you think it worked?" Kallie wondered, her eyes on the ground. "I mean, he looked better, right? Not as pale and it didn't look like it took as much effort for him to walk."

Sam nodded, "It did seem like it, but I guess we'll know for sure soon enough." His eyes never left the door Dean had disappeared through.

They sat in silence together while others mingled around them and checked in and out of the clinic. Kallie picked up one of the old magazines the clinic had laid out on the tables and flipped through it, not really taking any of what she read in while Sam continued to stare at the door silently; hoping that this would prove Dean wasn't dying anymore. He was on his feet before Kallie even realized that the nurse that had taken Dean back was walking toward them. "The results are back and he figured you would want to be there."

"You changed his wording, didn't you?" Kallie guessed; a smile coming to her lips.

The nurse laughed as she led them back, "Maybe just a little."

Dean sat fully clothed on the examining table, looking bored to anyone that didn't know him; Sam saw the worry, fear and suspicion there. The nurse left them, but she was soon replaced with the doctor holding Dean's file.

"The tests all came back negative for any heart failure and there aren't any signs signifying that you ever have or would. Is there any reasons that might have had you concerned?" The doctor asked curiously. "It would be very…unusual for an otherwise healthy man your age to have a heart attack."

The way she said it put them all on high alert.

"Unusual?" Kallie wondered, glancing at Dean who was looking at Sam with the exact same look of confusion.

"Just yesterday there was a 27 year old man that was athletic who died from a heart attack." The doctor sighed, her brow wrinkled in confusion.

Yesterday; the day Dean had been healed; healed from an injured heart.

Suddenly everyone was solemn. It was as if they were all thinking the same thing. Dean thanked the doctor with Sam echoing it, staying silent until they were sure the doctor had walked far enough away so that she wouldn't hear them.

"Well, that's odd," Dean said, voicing what they were all thinking.

Sam, ever one to try and stay positive said, "Maybe it's a coincidence; people's hearts give out all the time."

Though she didn't want it to be true, Kallie couldn't help but echo Dean's skeptic look.

Noticing, Sam held up his hands, "Alright! Well why can't we just be thankful that the guy saved your life? Why do we have to look into this?"

"Because I can't shake this bad feeling, that's why." Dean answered, getting to his feet.

He explained to them that it didn't feel right when he had been healed; it felt wrong and cold and he swore for a moment that he saw a figure standing over Roy.

"Then why didn't we see it?" Kallie pressed, "There was no one there, Dean. Sam and I were both right there, we didn't see anyone. There wasn't anyone else on the stage besides us."

Getting defensive Dean shrugged on his coat, calling Sam a name and gave them both a lecture on having faith in him and how he had been hunting long enough to know when to trust his gut. Not wanting to argue, they agreed and separated to start investigating. Dean went back to talk to the faith healer while Kallie and Sam went to find out more about the young man that had died.

"Do you really think that something managed to heal Dean and kill another guy?" Kallie wondered quietly, toying with the hem of her shirt.

Sam sighed, running a hand through his hair, "I don't know; I guess it's possible. I mean, I'm starting to learn that anything is possible. I just hope we're wrong."

Silently agreeing, Kallie fallowed him up the stairs and into the only public gym, figuring it was their best shot at finding a lead. If it wasn't there they would start private gyms next; the doctor had said that he was athletic after all, so wouldn't it stand to reason that he would have had a membership at a gym? Luckily for them the woman at the front desk knew exactly what they were talking about and was willing to talk to them about it after they introduced themselves as journalist wanting to give the story a proper article. She introduced them to a man who could tell them more than she could, telling them how wonderful it was that people cared enough to write more than his obituary. Kallie began feeling a bit morbid as they fallowed the man down a hall, inquiring about the death.

"So he didn't show any signs of an illness?" She wondered.

"No, he seemed in perfect health. He would run laps and swim here every day. I don't think he even smoked. So a heart attack at his age just kind of seemed…bizarre." He led them into the men's locker room; the quickest way out to the pool.

Before opening the door that led out to the pool, Sam turned around. "And you said he was running right before he collapsed?"

The man nodded, explaining about how he had been talking about how something was after him. But there was nothing there; no animal or person: Nothing.

Realizing they wouldn't be able to get anymore out of the man, they thanked him for his time and began heading over to the pool. Kallie paused, glancing at the clock on the wall before looking at the watch on her wrist. "The clock is wrong." She muttered, checking again just to make sure.

"It's stuck on 4:17," Sam observed. To a normal person it wouldn't seem all that ordinary for a clock to stop working. Something could go wrong with the wiring, sometimes batteries died; anything could cause a clock to stop working. Of course, Sam knew better than it being any old fluke.

"Let me guess, that was the same time Marshall died?"

"It is," the man said, standing a few feet behind them. "How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess." Sam repied.

"I've been meaning to have maintenance take it down all day." The man told them thoughtfully, waving good-bye to them before walking through a door on the opposite side of the pool.

"Sam, this isn't looking so good," Kallie told him, her stomach turning fearfully as they walked back out to the locker room and through the gym.

"We need to get back to Dean; there is definitely something going on in this town." he agreed, his shoulders heavy; telling Dean wasn't going to be fun. He knew his brother well enough to know that he would blame himself for the man's death; that he would blame Sam for even taking him to see the faith healer, saying that Sam should have left him in the hospital to die. While there was a part of Sam that did feel bad, he couldn't find it in him to actually feel guilty; he would do it all over again if it meant saving his brother.

Just as Sam thought, telling Dean didn't go over well. Instantly guilt flooded Dean's eyes as they began going over the list of people that had been healed and saved before arguing about how some man had died because of him.

"Not to be…I dunno," Kallie trailed off, "mean or whatever, but the guy probably would have died anyways; just not from a heart attack. There would have been some other healing, like lung cancer or something; it was going to happen anyways."

But Dean wouldn't hear of it as he started in on the blame; saying Sam never should have brought them here. Having already been aware of these antics from his brother, Sam barely blinked, telling his brother how he had just been trying to save his life and that he didn't know that things would turn out this way. Moving on, they realized what they were up against: A Reaper. So began the search. It turned out there wasn't just one Reaper, but a crap load of Reapers. Which was scary news to Kallie, but understandable. People died all the time, it would be a tough job for just one Reaper to reap the souls. Then the argument about killing Roy started; Dean wanted to kill the man while Sam was completely against it.

"Guys! Guys!" Kallie shouted, getting to her feet and holding up her hands as if to separate them. "Sam has a point; as evil as the whole scheme is, the guy is human. You can't kill a human; he isn't a monster by supernatural standards. We need to find another way."

Grumbling Dean agreed, snapping at Sam to find something which didn't take long. They figured it was dark magic; some kind of spell or something used to control a Reaper; now all they needed was to find out exactly what it was and who was controlling it.

It turned out that it wasn't Roy; he had no idea what was going on or what he was doing. It was Roy's wife, Sue Ann that was controlling the Reaper. That had been a bit of a shock to everyone, none of them saw it coming, and the woman definitely didn't go down without a fight. She had even tried getting the Reaper to go after Dean in revenge; tried to do everything to keep them from stopping her. In the end Sam and Kallie managed to find her alter, destroy it, and destroy the necklace that bound the Reaper to Sue Ann. Of course breaking the bound had sent the Reaper after Sue Ann; angry that she had used him to reap the souls of people whose time hadn't been up yet. The Reaper killed her and there was nothing they could have done to stop it. They managed to escape with only minor bruises, mostly on Dean.

Before they left town, Kallie showed Sam that she had some of her own research skills. She tracked down Layla's phone number, the blonde girl from the tent, and together they managed to convince the woman that Dean wanted to say good-bye and that she should stop by their motel. Dean was surprised when Layla showed up, and Sam and Kallie didn't manage to hold back their smirks and smiles, leaving the two alone to talk.

While Dean and Layla stayed inside, Kallie and Sam went out, grabbing some sodas and talking amongst themselves to pass the time.

"So, where do you guys think you'll go now?" She wondered, kicking at a pebble in the dirt.

Shrugging, Sam leaned back against the soda machine, "Take you back to your car, for starters. Then we'll probably just head to the next town; see if we can find anything in papers or online that points to the next hunt."

Lifting his head, he glanced at her from behind his bangs. "Hey, you did pretty well. Just so you know…It only being your second hunt and all."

She couldn't help it as her cheeks heated up with embarrassment. "Oh." She laughed nervously, "Well, thank you. I just kind of went along with whatever you guys were doing and tried not to get in the way."

"You could barely tell." Sam smiled. "So what about you? Heading back home?"

She snorted. "If you can call it that. Yeah, I'm heading back. Nava is there; Uncle Roy is keeping him for me There's no telling how spoiled he has him; I'm scared to find out. Probably likes him better than me now." She joked, but her smile didn't quite reach her eyes.

Sam reached out, resting his hand on her arm, "Hey, is everything okay?" Something seemed off to him, and it didn't have anything to do with Nava being spoiled.

"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"

He could see the lie in her eyes, but if she didn't want to tell him he wasn't going to force her; she knew he was there for her to talk to if she ever needed it.

He held up his hands in defense. "Alright; just making sure."

An awkward silence washed over them and Sam was glad to see Layla making her way back to her car; it was time for them to hit the road again.

Kallie didn't hear from them again until she got a text from Dean, saying that they had run into their dad. They weren't with him anymore, something happened and it wasn't safe for them to be together, but they knew he was alive and well. She told him how happy she was for them, knowing it meant a lot that they finally knew he was alright. But the truth was she couldn't manage to smile at the idea; it was only words. She had quit her job at the diner and started working only at the bar, helping Roy out. But she hadn't made it in to work in almost a week; staying in bed and only getting out when Nava needed let out. She wasn't sure when it had gotten so bad, her depression. But it was and she was afraid to let anyone know. She didn't want to worry Sam and Dean or find out that no one cared. So instead she kept to herself, withdrawing further and further into herself.

He watched over her whenever he could, growing more worried as he watched her start to stop interacting with other humans. There were times when he was too late to stop her from harming herself, being too involved with his other duties; it was moments like these that he felt disappointment in himself, something he had never felt before. He was running out of ideas on how to keep her from doing so, on how to help her get healthy…how to make her realize people did care for her. His only hope was that the Winchester brothers would realize it and make a move.

The months went on the same way, Kallie worked when she had to, leaving her apartment when she had to, getting fewer and fewer messages from the Winchesters. There were days when it was as if suddenly the cloud had been lifted from her. She took Nava out running and playing in the park, worked out herself, helped Uncle Roy over time at the bar, stayed out more, smiled more…but then there were days when things weren't so peachy. And still Kallie kept it all to herself, knowing if she could just focus on something she could make it through.

Little did she know she was about to get her wish, only not like she expected. The Winchesters were about to come back into her life…or well, she was about to come back into the Winchester's life. But it wouldn't be an entirely happy reunion. Their lives were about to change.

You won't save me
'Cause I'm not the fortunate one
So, don't blame me
If I decide to go hide or instead to just run

-I Don't Want To Be Me by Amanda Clemens