Finally! I had this done last night, but the site was down-ish. I couldn't upload. Anyway, here ya go. :) Don't worry though; it's not the last chapter! There's at least one more coming. Enjoy, and please do let me know what ya think. Thanks so much! :)

Chapter 23

Sam wasn't sure how long he'd been out of it, but he knew something had happened when he was suddenly able to gasp in a breath that he didn't have to fight for.

"Sammy?"

Sam's eyes opened quickly, but he didn't look for the source of the voice just yet. Instead he stared into wonder up into the faint outline of a woman's face he found above him She smiled softly and was gone.

"Sammy?" Dean repeated.

He slowly focused on his brother. "Dean?"

"What the hell happened? What'd she just do to you?"

"I..." Sam trailed off and took another breath. When that one was just as easy, he pushed off from the ground. If nothing had changed he wouldn't have gotten anywhere, but he did. He sat up—mostly. He couldn't be sure how much he was doing on his own because both Dean and Bobby automatically moved to help the second he started to try.

He sat for a moment against Dean, waiting to see if it had all been in his head.

It didn't seem that it was. He could still breathe, so he tentatively reached up to pull the oxygen tube from his nose.

"Sam—"

"No, it's okay...I think..."

"How ok?"

Sam grabbed Dean's arm and tugged weakly. The air was coming, but his body was still rather uncooperative. "Help me up..."

"What?"

"Just do it."

He saw Dean and Bobby exchanged glances, but Bobby shrugged and he and Dean obliged, each taking an arm and carefully hauling Sam to his feet. He swayed and staggered a bit when he got there, but he stayed upright—with a little help. Still, it was much better than anything else he'd been able to do in the past few days.

"Sam, what's going on?" Dean demanded anxiously.

He was clinging to his brother's shoulder to stay up, but he was slowly breaking into a smile. "I think she fixed it."

"Fixed it?"

"Fixed it," Sam nodded, taking a deep breath. "I...I can breathe. I think I'm ok."

"Then why do you look like you're about to fall over?"

"He's just weak, Dean. He's been sick for a while." Bobby gripped Sam's arm. "You're sure? You feel all right?"

Sam shrugged and swayed again, but only because the relief was dizzying. "Not great, but you're right...I've been sick for a while. That's probably all it is. Everything else seems...different. Better. I can breathe, Dean," he grinned, letting out a weary laugh.

It didn't seem real. For three months he'd been sick, struggling for any air he could get, and now it came easily. Suddenly the only things bothering him were his stubborn, underused muscles.

Dean didn't seem to quite believe it either. "You're ok? Like ok ok?"

"I think so..."

"But...how?"

That was Dean; information before emotion. Sometimes, anyway.

"The ghost," Bobby interjected incredulously. "I think she gave him whatever energy she had. It couldn't have been much, as far as ghosts go—it's only been a couple of years since she died—but it must have been enough to help him."

"Is that possible?"

"I guess it is," Sam answered.

Dean frowned. "So what...it was the woman who owned the house?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "It was her all right."

"How do you know?"

Everything from before his eyes had opened came back. "She told me."

"She told you?"

"Sort of."

"What do you mean?" Bobby asked.

He tried to find the right words for what had been left in his mind. "I think she kind of...told me her story? Enough to explain, anyway. It's all kind of...up there now," he said, motioning vaguely to his head.

Dean's eyebrows went up. "Well that's just weird."

"Then what's the story?" Bobby asked.

"It's kind of long...can we sit down?" Even if his internal organs were up to snuff now, his legs still didn't quite like him yet.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean said quickly, tugging him toward the porch of the house. Sam came, and Bobby followed slowly. Sam wasn't sure any of them had really registered any of this yet. "Sit down. Are you sure you're okay?"

He let out a breath and lowered himself top the top step. Dean perched beside him, and Bobby leaned on the porch rail. "Yeah, I'm fine. I still don't get it, but I'm fine—just a little wobbly, I guess. I probably just need to get my strength back." He paused a moment, still wondering. "What...happened? What did you see before I woke up?"

Dean still had the look of a man processing, so Bobby told him how they'd arrived, and gone inside, and about the ghost.

"She just hovered there for a few minutes like that, over you, and then she faded. It did kinda look like she was transferring something to you—whatever it was that helped you. There's probably no real way to explain it; it's all metaphysical stuff."

"But she did it?" Dean asked. "She...healed him?"

Bobby finally smiled. "Seems like it."

Sam laughed once, more of a huff, and beside him he heard Dean release something that sounded similar. He looked at his brother, and Dean looked back.

"So...it's over?"

Sam blinked. "I guess it is," he repeated.

Dean huffed again and looked away for a moment, blinking something back. "Damn." His hand moved from the porch step to clamp onto Sam's shoulder and stay there tightly. Sam knew his brother would rather be hugging him but felt silly initiating it, and he could understand that, silly though it was. Dean was Dean, and Sam settled for a brief squeeze of his brother's shoulders. He took in an uncertain breath, still trying to absorb this.

"I guess we should get out of here?" Bobby questioned.

"Uh...yeah, I guess."

Dean glanced back at the house. "Yeah. I really don't wanna hang around here if we don't have to."

"Amen," Sam grimaced. They climbed to their feet, and Bobby pulled him into a firm embrace. When Bobby let go Dean's arm appeared under his shoulders, under the guise of offering continued support. Sam knew otherwise. He was feeling more steady, but he didn't protest.

They had only taken a step or two when a screech echoed behind them. They all twisted in surprise.

"What the hell was that?" Dean scowled.

"I'd love to know myself," Bobby frowned.

Sam swallowed. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Could you be any more cliché?" Dean muttered.

"Well I do," he frowned. "Let's just get out of here..."

They didn't have a chance to move before a figure appeared at the front door of the house and threw itself down the porch steps to wrap itself around Sam. From the corners of his eyes he saw Bobby and Dean thrown to the ground away from him, and then he slammed into the ground himself. The furious face that greeted him when he could focus was all too familiar, though it would have been easier to see without his air cut off.

Leah. And she was choking him.

"Sam!" Dean.

A gunshot rang out, and the ghost dispersed.

Sam rolled to his feet and found the friend who had fired. "Bobby, what the hell! I thought you salted and burned her!" he cried, coughing.

"I did, damnit. She must have attached to something in the house."

Dean pulled himself to his feet and came back to his brother's side, rubbing the side of his head where it had slammed into the gravel. "How can she even manifest yet, much less kick the crap out of us? It's only been three months since she died."

"She was insane. It's easier for unstable spirits to disconnect with whatever's left of their human side and grow angry enough to learn how to manifest quickly. She was plenty crazy and plenty angry even before she bought it; to be honest, this doesn't really surprise me," Bobby sighed.

"Well what are we supposed to do now?" Sam protested, with a hand still at his throat as he cleared it.

"There's no way we're gonna figure out what she's attached to," Dean added, nodding. Leah coalesced again at the bottom of the porch steps, and Bobby pulled off another shot at her.

"Well we're gonna have to," the older hunter scowled. "We can't just leave; she could hurt someone else."

They broke off for the car, in search of the rock salt from the trunk. None of them realized Leah had pulled herself together again until Sam felt the hands around his neck, pulling back toward the house and cutting off his air again. He was yanked down off his feet and being dragged within seconds.

"D—n!" he gasped.

Leah had him through the door and into the front room of the house before she stopped, and that was all almost before Dean and Bobby had a chance to turn. Despite Sam's struggling her hands were still clamped like a vice around his throat, and his vision was already starting to fade. Even if his lungs were healed now, they didn't have their strength back yet any more than the rest of his body did.

He was going fast, and that seemed just find to the vengeful spirit.

Leah didn't want him to live.

"N—" He couldn't die now. Not after he'd gotten here, after he'd been saved. He couldn't just die. "N..."

Faintly Sam could hear Dean and Bobby charging up the steps, Bobby cocking his gun. It didn't seem that Dean had gotten a chance to grab his again, but he was coming anyway. Of course he would.

He couldn't just die now. He couldn't leave Dean.

Sam stopped moving. He didn't have the air or the energy to move anymore. He thought he heard a shot or two, but the air didn't come back. The hands didn't disappear. Bobby had, missed, or Leah was using him as a shield...

He didn't know. He doubted he would have felt it if he'd been moved at all, up or otherwise.

No, no, NO!

Sam gathered whatever was left and struggled one last time, but it did no good. He pried his eyes open, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dean and Bobby.

What he saw was the dim purple and white outline of the other ghost woman.

He will live.

She rushed them, and Leah let go. Sam collapsed to the wooden floor on his back, staring up at Leah as she was overtaken by the other ghost. Both of them went up in a flash of white light, and disappeared together. He had to squint from the brightness, and then all was dark again and he was left on the floor, gasping to catch his breath.

"Sammy!" Dean was on his knees at Sam's side in seconds, tugging at him to help him sit up and wrapping his arms tightly around his little brother. "God. Oh god..."

It took Sam a moment to shake off what remained of the oxygen deprivation and realize that Dean was practically trembling. He returned the embrace as tightly as he could. "Dean, I'm okay," he croaked. "I'm okay."

"Almost lost you twice, damnit. In twenty minutes," he growled. "God...don't ever do that to me again."

"Believe me; I don't want to," Sam swallowed.

"Good," Dean answered. He let out an unsteady breath, tightening his hold. "You'll be fine...you're gonna be fine," he said, more to himself than anyone else.

Sam smiled to himself, and flashed the relieved expression up at Bobby, who was smiling tiredly along with him. "Yeah. I'm gonna be fine."

They left the house as quickly as they could, and bunked up at the only motel in Taylorsville, Mississippi ten miles away. The town was so small that they could see the church they'd stopped at on the way to Bobby's three months ago from the back window of their room—the only one they could get, since it was the only motel nearby.

Sam and Bobby fell asleep almost immediately, one in each of the two beds the room had. Dean started out in the armchair by the door, but it wasn't only the fact that it was uncomfortable that kept him awake. He found himself staring across the room at his brother, almost afraid that if he fell asleep Sam wouldn't be there when he woke.

He ended up beside Sam, falling asleep there by choice this time.

He slept much better that way.

Dean let Bobby take the car in morning to grab breakfast, because he didn't want to leave. The feeling was still there—like Sam being all right was all in his head. He wasn't sure how long it would take him to get used to it.

Sam slept late, but they let him, and it wasn't until after everything Bobby had brought for breakfast was gone that they got back to the subject of the other ghost.

"So do you know what her name was?" Bobby asked.

"I didn't catch that, but I know what happened to her."

Dean's eyebrows went up. "Then what was it?"

Sam winced. "She uh...committed suicide. It wasn't anywhere near the house, but the house was where she lived with her husband, and her spirit stayed there. That's why no one ever found a body nearby; she drowned more than twenty miles away."

"Damn...so what, her husband died?"

He nodded. "That's what she was talking about...about who she couldn't save. They were in a bad traffic accident, and he was still alive after they rolled over. She tried to keep him that way until the ambulance arrived, but it was useless. She felt so guilty about it that she couldn't live with herself."

Bobby grimaced. "Poor girl."

"But didn't she say something about not being able to save 'any of them' or something? What was that?" Dean asked.

"She tried to stop Leah from killing the three victims she took to lure us there, but she wasn't strong enough to really do anything about it. She hadn't gotten to the point where she could physically manipulate anything yet."

"So she found a different way to do something."

"Yeah, I guess."

"And then she took Leah down. They canceled each other out," Bobby added.

Sam smiled a little. "So she's at peace now"

Dean shrugged. "Usually I wouldn't give a damn, but...well, she helped you, so..."

"I get it, Dean."

"Right." He stood to toss the trash from breakfast. "So uh, what are we gonna do with...you know, that junk? You don't need it anymore..."

Sam snorted. "I'd say burn it, but it's all metal and plastic."

Dean went back to the table, turning his chair to straddle it. "Then we should at least beat the crap out of it before we dump it. And can we do that soon? I am so ready to be out of Mississippi for good for a while."

"You and me both."

Bobby nodded. "Agreed."

Sam looked thoughtful for a moment, frowning. "Wait...what day is it?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Uh...Friday?"

"Yeah, thanks...look, I know you guys really don't want to, but could we stick around until Sunday?"

"Why..."

Sam glanced over his shoulder out the room's window. "I've got a promise to keep."

Bobby said his goodbyes the next day, and had the boys drop him off at the airport in Jackson. The Winchesters were going a different way when they left Mississippi, so he was taking a flight up to Wyoming to get his car.

"Just take care of yourselves," he made them promise.

The comforter from the Wyoming motel was never returned. It was almost stuffed in a dumpster along with the broken pieces of the nebulizer and oxygen generator, but Sam rescued it in time to stuff in under the back seat of the Impala. It could be useful in the future.

That, and...maybe it had a bit of sentimental value now.

Not that he would ever admit that to Dean.

Dean himself opted out of the trip Sam took across the two neighboring parking lots Sunday morning, to get to First Baptist Church of Taylorsville once again.

The walk was easy, and the climb up the stairs to the balcony wasn't troublesome this time. That alone was enough to make him want to send up a prayer of thanks—again. He'd already done it more than once since Thursday night.

He'd prayed every day for a long time, up until the incident with the ghost of the young pastor that had tried to be an angel. He hadn't stopped, exactly, but...he had slacked off, and he wasn't even sure why anymore.

Sam would never remember later what had happened—the songs he hadn't really participated in, or what the message had been about—but only because he was looking forward to the afterwords, not because they were dull. He did remember being glad he was there, feeling the same sense of inclusion, and even though there were still those in the congregation in more casual clothing, he still felt much less out of place this time having worn a suit.

He hurried down from the balcony as soon as the service was over, past Brother Frankie at the front door—shaking the man's hand as everyone else was—and out onto the sidewalk to wait for the person he was looking for.

It shouldn't have surprised him when she found him first.

"Sam!"

He spun in surprise, and there was Jessica Madison beaming up at him. "Hey," he grinned. "Where'd you come from?"

"I came out the side door over there."

"Oh."

"I'm so glad you came back! So your leg got better?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah...it got better. So did everything else."

She blinked in confusion. "Everything else?"

"I was actually pretty sick for a while."

"Oh...you were coughing when I saw you."

"Yeah, that had a lot to do with it."

"But you got better?"

"I got better," Sam smiled. "Thanks for praying for me. Everything really did turn out okay."

Jessica smiled back. "You're welcome—but God healed ya, not me."

Well he couldn't quite tell her the truth, could he? He doubted that would go over well. "Sure. I guess he did."

Before he realized she'd moved the girl had latched onto him. "I'm glad you're okay, Sam. It's good to see you again."

Sam laughed uncertainly and hugged her briefly before she let go. "Thanks. I'm glad I got to see you again, too."

She stepped back and looked up at him. "How's your brother?"

"He's fine. I...think we're both gonna be fine," he answered quietly.

"Good," she grinned, and waved as she backed away. "I gotta go; my mom and dad are waiting."

"Bye...have a good day." Have a good life. A long one—without the crap I've had to deal with...without ever knowing the evil that killed my Jessica.

The girl nodded. "You too! Bye!"

The demon was still out there. Even if he wasn't sure what was behind the circumstances that had led to his being healed—a higher power, or nothing more than coincidence and a redemptive ghost—that much he knew. The demon was still out there, and he and Dean had to find it.

As Sam watched Jessica Madison disappear into the crowd, he promised himself that they would find it. They would keep this craphole of a world as safe they could—for people like her.