Sorry ya'll; had to work on my fic exchange fic. Anyway, here you go. :) I hope you'll let me know what you think, and come back for the rest! It should be very soon! Thanks so much. :)

Chapter 22

Dean had been staring at the crossroads for more than an hour, wondering what the hell he was doing here and why he hadn't gotten out of the car at the same time. What was he doing here? Was he crazy? But then again, what was he waiting for? There was no more time. None. If it was the only way...

He almost jumped out of his skin when his cell phone rang. Bobby had been attempting to call him every few minutes or so up until about half an hour ago. It had been thirty minutes of silence since he'd heard a damn thing. He stared at the cell, letting it ring, telling himself he wasn't going to answer it now, either.

Then he did.

"What?" he snapped.

"Dean, thank god. Where the hell are you?"

He hesitated. "Doesn't matter."

"You need to get back here. Now."

Something in his chest clenched tightly, nearly cutting off his air. "Why?"

"Sam's awake."

"Excuse me?"

The incredulity was apparent now in Bobby's voice. "I don't know, Dean; it just happened. He's extremely weak, but he's awake, and he wants you. He's insisting on it." His voice dropped. "You should hurry."

Dean had to swallow several times before he could answer. "I'm coming." Bobby met him outside the motel room door after he'd screeched into the parking lot.

"I thought you said he wouldn't wake up."

"I said probably, but I'm no doctor. Still...I don't see how it's possible. He shouldn't be awake, much less coherent..." Bobby trailed, shaking his head.

"So he's awake awake? I can talk to him?" Dean asked quietly.

Bobby sighed. "Like I said, he's insisting on it. He woke up asking for you; says it's important. Whatever it is, I'd get in there and take advantage of whatever chance you've got here," he answered gently.

"Right..." he choked. Bobby moved and he pushed past to open the door, but his friend didn't seem to be following.

"I'll just wait out here."

"Oh." Dean shrugged and went in, closing the door quietly behind him.

Sam hadn't moved much, but his eyes were open, and he tried to push up when he saw his brother. He failed miserably.

Dean moved quickly to his brother's side. "Sammy. Hey...Bobby said you wanted to talk to me?"

He nodded weakly. "I think I had a vision..."

"A—what?" He'd been expecting to hear the things Sam had been trying to tell him for days. He'd been expecting something else. This time he'd even been half prepared to listen. He hadn't been expecting that. "Really? Of what?"

"The house...in Mississippi, where everything happened, and...a woman. I don't think she was alive." Sam paused to pull in a few shallow breaths; enough to keep going. "I thought the voice I heard back at the house was in my head...but it was her. It was real. I know it."

Dean frowned. "Sam, what are you talking about?" What if Bobby was wrong? What if Sam was gone and this was only the misfiring brain synapses of a dying shell? His breath caught in his throat. "Sam?"

"She told us—me to come back. She said I had to go there."

"Why the hell would you want to go there? There's nothing there but an empty house and a bunch of crap neither of us wants to remember."

"No...no, she's there," he muttered insistently, already drifting back toward unconsciousness. "She's there and we have to go there..."

Dean clamped a hand on his brother's shoulder and shook just enough to keep him awake. "Sam, don't you dare. Stay with me," he demanded.

Sam's eyes opened again and he grabbed Dean's arm in a surprising grip. "We have to go back."

"Why?"

"I think she can help..."

"Help you?"

He nodded again.

"Are you sure it was a vision and not some crazy dream?"

"It didn't hurt...but I know it was real—different than a dream. It was...like the first visions. It was real," Sam repeated.

Dean sat back on his heels and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Sam...how the hell could a woman or a ghost or whatever she is help you? I just don't get it; there was nothing there when we were there besides that psychotic bitch that did all this."

"Well, we really never got a chance to look around."

"Leah said she swept the place; she said there was no ghost."

Sam looked like he wanted to laugh, but didn't have the air for it. "Dean...she was insane. She could have missed something."

He opened his mouth, but he didn't have a comeback for that one. And...why was he questioning this, anyway? He wanted to find a way to save his brother.

He let out a breath. "So you're sure it was a vision?"

"I'm sure..."

Dean swallowed and nodded, standing slowly. "Okay...okay." He gave Sam's shoulder a squeeze before he headed for the door again. "I'll be right back."

He found Bobby sitting in his own car outside, with the key in the radio quietly on. He only had to knock on the window once before the older hunter pulled the key out and took it with him as he climbed from the car. "What is it?"

"Sam had a vision."

"What? How?"

"I have no more idea how than you do, but he did. I guess that's why he woke up; maybe it helped him wake up. I don't know. I just know he's awake, and he had a vision."

"What about about?"

Dean paced away. "About that house back in Mississippi. He's says there was some woman or ghost there or something, and he says we have to go back—that there might be something there that can help him."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know! But these visions of his have never been wrong. There may really be something there. What, I don't know, but something."

"We're in Wyoming! Do you know how long it would take to get to Mississippi from here? At least eighteen hours, if we hauled ass, and I don't even know if we can move him..."

He swallowed and turned back to Bobby. "We have to try. What other choice do we have?"

"Dean—"

"Bobby, please!" It wasn't until then that he realized he was shaking, and he quickly crossed his arms. Bobby just looked at him searchingly. "You said yourself that we're out of time, and this is the only thing we've got. If there's any chance, so help me, we have to take it. I can't lose him—"

Dean cut off abruptly and let his head drop while he collected himself. "Please." It was long enough before he heard an answer that he thought something was wrong.

"Okay," Bobby sighed. "But we're taking your car, and we're taking turns driving. Both of us are gonna have to get at least some sleep soon."

"But what about your car?"

"This isn't that far from home; I can come back for it later. I'll talk to whoever's at the desk at this hour; pay 'em something if I have to to make sure it doesn't get towed off. Then we can go, but I'm driving first. I know you've been up a lot longer than I have."

"Bobby—"

"No, Dean. If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it my way. I'll drive first, and we can put the oxygen generator in the passenger's seat so you can stay in the back with Sam. You don't have to stay awake—like I said, I want you to sleep if you can—but I don't want him back there alone."

Dean nodded. "Fine—makes sense." The shaking had stopped, but his shoulders were still locked up. He carefully released the muscles and sighed. "Thank you."

Sam was cold, and the back seat of the Impala had always been a little bumpy. Those facts would have worked together to make for a miserable trip if Dean hadn't taken the comforter from the motel bed. Sam had made some small sound of protest when Bobby and his brother had bundled him in it and carried him to the car, but Dean wouldn't hear it.

"We'll have to come get Bobby's car anyway; we can always bring it back," he'd muttered.

Now he was glad he'd left it at that. The thick blanket fixed both problems...though Dean, too, helped with the first.

Sam was quite certain that in any other circumstance, if he were in his right mind, it would have been embarrassing or uncomfortable lying in the arms wrapped around him now as he rested against his brother's shoulder.

But here, now, he was sure he would lose it if they weren't there.

He didn't know how long they had been driving. He couldn't remember everything that had happened since he'd woken up again back at the motel and scared the hell out of Bobby. Consciousness, awareness...it came and went. When it came there was pain, no matter how comfortable Dean tried to make him or what position his brother shifted him into in the attempt to make it easier to breathe.

There was no easier anymore. It was only hard. He could barely breathe at all, and he couldn't really move, and he was fairly certain that if he tried to talk it just wouldn't come out anymore.

But he didn't need to talk. Not now. Even if nothing came of this trip, of the vision...this was enough. Being here with Dean was enough, and he didn't mind that Bobby was there, either.

This was how he wanted it. If he couldn't be saved, this was how he wanted it. If he had to die Sam wanted to do it here, with the only two people left in the world that really loved him.

Sam seemed to be semi-awake for the first half of the trip, but by the time the night ended and the day had passed and evening was approaching again, and Dean was climbing into the back seat once more after his second turn driving, he hadn't moved in hours. The subtle, uneven in-and-out of his chest was the only indication of anything, and they were slowly losing that.

Dean pulled his little brother into his arms again, holding on maybe a little tighter than he should have. "How much farther?" he asked as Bobby pulled back out onto the interstate.

Bobby glanced back at him via the rear-view mirror. "We're in northern Mississippi now; I'd say two or three hours. Four at the most," he answered quietly.

He swallowed and tucked Sam's head under his chin. "Hurry."

The rest of the drive couldn't have passed quickly enough, but the relief at their arrival didn't compensate for the roiling in his gut when he saw the house again.

Dean gently settled his brother against the door as Bobby pulled into the gravel driveway, but before he bothered to get out he tried to rouse him. "Sam, we're here. Sammy?" He shook a little, tapped at Sam's face, but he was afraid to do anything else. It didn't matter, because it didn't seem that he was going to wake up.

His jaw clinched as he climbed quickly out of the car. Bobby already had his gun and the trunk open, and Dean yanked his own sawed-off from his bag. "Let's go."

Bobby cast a worried glance toward the back seat of the car. "We don't have much time. What the hell are we looking for?"

"If I knew what was in there we wouldn't need these," he snapped back, hefting his gun. "It could be a trap for all I know; there could be an ambush in there."

"I though you said his visions have never been wrong before."

"They haven't, but that doesn't mean what he's seen hasn't led to dangerous situations." Dean was already on the porch steps, with Bobby on his heels.

The front door was unlocked this time, and they went in with weapons ready. This time there were no darts—there was no Leah, no nothing. Then why were his hackles up already? Two steps in the door and he could feel...something. He hadn't felt it before, but he felt it now.

Is he here?

The question came from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"What the—"

"Ghost?" Dean muttered.

"Don't ask me."

Is he here?

Neither of them were certain how to answer that, but they were looking for the source down the barrels of their rifles.

Dean wasn't expecting the blur of color that darted past his face—white and cream and washed-out purple. He knocked back into wall with a good bit of force, and was seeing stars until Bobby shook him out of it.

"What the hell was that!" he yelped.

"Apparition, I think," Bobby answered uncertainly.

"You mean a ghost?"

"Not a very strong one. It wasn't even walking; it was hovering. I don't think it was solid."

"Which way did it go?" he demanded. Bobby glanced anxiously out the open front door in response, and Dean cursed under his breath. "Sam!" He was out on the porch again in seconds, scanning.

It was there, at the car, and it was at Sam's window. It looked like it was trying to get in at him.

"Hey!" He sprinted down the porch steps, firing when it didn't move. The first shot dispersed the woman-like figure, and he yanked the car door open. It hadn't touched Sam, but Dean suddenly felt the desperate need to check on him.

Sam all but dropped into his arms when he opened the door his brother had been leaned against, but that was fine. They needed to get him out of the damn car anyway. The vehicle was too easy a corner to be backed into—too hard to keep a ring of salt around, too hard to defend from inside...

Why the hell were they here? Was Sam wrong for once? Was it all a trap? But...what trap? Who was the woman? It wasn't Leah. She was salted and burned and buried—and she had probably never worn a purple sun dress in her life.

"Bobby!" That was all he had to say before the older hunter was at his side, helping him carefully pull Sam from the car and lay him on the ground. On his knees at his brother's head and still holding onto him, Dean glared worriedly up at the oxygen generator in the front passenger seat of the Impala. "Can we get him inside?"

"The thing came from in there; I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

"Well what else are we supposed to do!"

Bobby let out a heavy breath. "Put a ring of salt here. Keep Sam inside it, and I'll find the ghost."

"And do what? It's..." That was when he remembered what Sam had said about the previous owner of the house--months ago, when they'd first arrived. She'd disappeared. "It's probably the woman who owned the house. She's officially a missing person, so if she's dead there's no telling where the body is. We can't salt and burn it."

And why had she led Sam back here anyway? To finish what Leah had started? But why? What the hell did she want?

"Damnit," Bobby groused.

The uncertainty brought the first moment of silence since the apparition had brushed past him, and it was then that Dean realized his brother was completely still in his arms.

"Sammy?"

Sam wasn't breathing.

"No, no, no!" he hissed. He pushed out from behind his brother to lay him flat. This was not going to happen now. It couldn't happen now.

"What is it?" Bobby asked urgently.

"He's not breathing!" Bobby moved to come down with them, but Dean waved him off quickly. "Get the salt in case she comes back!"

Dean was leaning down to breath into Sam's lungs when Bobby stopped mid-stride, halfway around to the trunk. They both looked up to see the ghost hovering just above the gravel no more than a few feet away.

Bobby went for his gun, but she held up a hand.

Wait.

He hesitated.

The thin apparition of a woman looked to the brothers, an almost pleading expression on her face.

No harm...I can help.

What?

Dean only blinked, and she was beside them, hovering low over Sam, reaching for his face. Everything in him wanted to fire on her, but he remembered what Sam had said, to convince him to come here in the first place.

Maybe...maybe it wasn't a trap after all. Maybe she could help.

If she could, the trip was well worth it. If she couldn't, he was going to lose Sam whether she helped that along or not.

There was the damn helplessness again.

Bobby looked back and forth between the ghost and Dean, but he didn't move. Dean's hand clamped onto his brother's arm, but he didn't move either.

The woman cupped Sam's face in her hands, and rested her forehead against his. I couldn't save him. I couldn't save any of them. But perhaps…