hey - thanks for visiting - sorry I took so long to write this next chapter - I'll get quicker :) Enjoy!

Chapter 13

"Dean…" a smile spread across Dean's face at the sight of his brother entering the hospital room; the doctor, who was standing beside Dean's bed, spun around to face the newcomer.

"Sammy…" Dean replied as his brother walked into the room.

"You're ok?" Sam asked him; Dean was sitting up in the bed, he still looked a little pale but most of the machines were gone and only a heart monitor and one IV bag remained.

Dean nodded, the smile never leaving his face, "He seems to be doing fine. We are all, completely baffled; he simply should not be in this state? Woke up about an hour ago, nothing wrong, besides the initial chest injury. It's a miracle!" the doctor offered his thoughts, first eyeing Sam and then the girl that walked in behind him, "You're hurt." the doctor added, as he looked Sam over. It was a statement, more than a question. Sam's face was bruised and battered; there were small cuts all over his face that he had tried to clean up, and he walked in a way that clearly favoured his left leg.

"I'm ok…" Sam said to the doctor, walking straight past him, to get to his brother, "Even better now… seeing that you are too…" he said to Dean.

"You did it…"

"Nah… We did…"

The boys looked at each other, all smiles.

"Me too…" chimed Harper, and all three gave nervous laughs of relief.

Harper left the hospital a couple of hours later, but only after she made the boys promise that they would stop in at her place before they left.

"Cass?" Dean asked minutes after Harper had gone.

"Nothing…" Sam shook his head; he did not know what to say. Castiel had been missing in action for days now; he had been absent when the boys had needed him the most. This was not like Castiel and both boys sat, silently wondering what had happened to him; because if there was anything that they knew for sure right now, it was that something had happened to Castiel. What that was, they could not say, but it definitely was not good.

"There is something I want to know?"

"Yeah, what?"

"How did you get Billie to help you?" Sam asked, breaking Dean free from his morbid thoughts about Castiel.

"Challenged her to a game."

"Of what?"

"Paper, rock, scissors…"

"And you won?" Sam scoffed… disbelief rampant that his brother, Dean, had won a game of paper, rock, scissors.

"Shut up… Bitch…"

"Jerk…"

The doctors kept Dean in the hospital for another day and a bit before he decided to check himself out against doctor's orders. He did, however, spend the next night asleep in Harper's spare room, while Sam slept on the couch after the trio had spent hours talking about Chayse, aka Hope, Bobby and life in general.

The day was bright, as Sam opened the driver's side door to the Impala. He had already said goodbye to Harper and now it was Dean's turn.

"Don't you dare give up?" Harper pleaded to Dean before she moved in to give him a big hug; Dean grimaced a little, the pain of the stitches and broken ribs getting to him; still, he hugged her back.

"I won't…"

The boys had told Harper everything, well, almost everything, they had left out the bit about Hope's soul being trapped somewhere in hell, having glossed over it, explaining, simply, that they had to finish what Hope had started.

Harper released Dean and stood back from him. Dean turned towards the car, opening the door slowly.

Harper added, "You really should find Hope's true love… she should be told, what happened to her…"

Dean's head turned back to Harper, his body following slowly, "Her true love… but I thought…"

Harper shook her head sadly, before admitting, "No… not me…"

"How can you be so sure?"

"It was in her eyes… hell… it was in everything she did. You can't give yourself completely when your heart belongs to someone else. I should know… I've been living that for past ten years…" Harper looked down at the ground, as she finished her sentence; the first time, admitting aloud, that her heart belonged to Hope.

Dean sighed.

So much pain and sadness, amidst love, around one person.

Harper looked up at Dean, a small smile moved across her lips, but not beyond. Dean gave a small smile back, before hopping into the Impala. Sam, gunning the engine softly, pulled the car out onto the road and the pair drove off, leaving Harper to her memories.

Suburbia and the 'normal life' rolled by as the car sped out of town.

"Harper thinks that Hope was in love with someone else?"

"Really…"

The pair had been silent as they had driven out of town, Sam waiting for Dean to start talking, knowing better than to push a conversation that he might not be ready for; Dean, working up the courage to face everything that had happened in Grand Junction.

"She thinks we should find her…"

"And… what do you think?"

"I don't know… Where would we even begin? And besides, haven't we got enough on our plate?"

"Yes, we have." Sam answered Dean's second question, before returning to the first, "but if you were interested… you would start here…"

Sam reached down under the seat and pulled out a journal.

Hope's journal.

He held the journal out for Dean to take.

Dean hesitated.

Sam checked the rear vision mirror, before pulling the car over to the side of the road, leaving the engine running. Still holding the journal, he turned in his seat, to face Dean.

"In the entry about Harper, there are a series of notes in the margins, initials and numbers. I don't know what the numbers are, but I worked out some of the initials. RS. Robert Singer…" Sam paused, watching the understanding dawn on Dean's face, "It's not the first time those initials appear… and it's not the last…" again, Sam held the book out for Dean; this time Dean reached out and took it. "There are other things… other initials, you will find interesting…"

Dean's head whipped up from the journal to look at his brother, but Sam did not give up the information he had gleaned from the journal. "Dean… you need to read it…"

Sam turned back in his seat, again checking the mirror, before pulling the impala out onto the road. Dean's eyes had not moved off of Sam, but realising that he wasn't going to offer up anything else, Dean eventually turned his head back, his eyes dropping to the front of the journal and the scratched out words 'My sonny boy', before he slowly opened to the first page and started reading.

Time passed.

Sam drove.

Dean read.

A world of green and blue smeared by outside; neither boy paying particular attention to it, as beautiful as it was.

One lost in his thoughts.

The other lost in words on a page.

Neither spoke.

The sound of the wind, whipping through the open windows, the only thing they heard.

Until that too died down.

Suddenly, into the silence, one, whispered, word, "Dad…"

Sam's eyes closed.

So…

He had found it too.

Slowly, Sam turned his head towards his brother, who was eagerly waiting for those eyes to reach him; Sam's eyes opened, just as his head reached Dean, all he saw there was a great sadness.

Silence.

Then.

Dean sighed.

Before, "J… E… W…" a whisper, "That's dad…"

Sam bit down on his lower lip, desperate to stow the tears.

"When?"

Sam sighed before answering, "Not that long…" it did not look like Dean believed him, "I swear… When you were in the hospital… I had a lot of time…"

"And you said nothing…"

"Dean…" Sam pleaded with his brother, but Dean had turned to look out the window; it was only now that he realised they were in the car park of a holiday inn.

"Where the hell are we?"

"Limon…"

"Why?"

"The doctor said you shouldn't be in a car for hours on end, Dean… This is halfway home…"

"Screw what the doctor, Sammy…" Dean yelled at his brother.

The car went silent.

Dean was furious.

Furious that they had stopped, when all he wanted was his own bed, back at the bunker; furious that Sam had failed to mention the initials in the journal, but more furious, than anything else, that he knew so little about their sister. That she was dead and that he could not just go and ask her everything that he wanted to know.

The silence lingered until Sam could take it no more.

"Dean… you were hurt, and then… then, you were dying…"

"That was days ago… and what… you wanted me to read it for myself…" Dean was trying to lessen the harsh tone of his voice, he knew it was not Sam's fault, but Sam was all he had to lash out at right now.

"I wasn't sure… I'm still not… Those initials could be anyone's…"

"It's him… You know that… Jericho… Centennial Highway… Come on Sammy…" Dean turned back to look at his brother, "Not only did he know about her… but he met her… He. Met. Her… She was twenty-six… Twenty-six… My god…" the tears fell silently from Dean's eyes. "We were right there… So close… I just… can't…" Dean shook his head, silent as he thought about the first case he and Sam had worked together, all those years ago, when their father went missing. When Dean had bought Sam back into the life.

"I know…" was all Sam managed to say. Dean closed his eyes, his head turning back, before it dropped, his chin on his chest. A chest that rose and fell with silent sobs.

Sam could not bear to watch.

He turned to look back out his window.

They sat like that.

Together.

Yet, alone.

For ages.

In time, Dean's tears dried up and he asked, "Is that it?"

Sam did not want to answer, but he knew exactly what Dean was asking; and the pain that the answers would bring, "No… She mentions him again a few pages on…" Sam stopped unable to find the words. The look on his face, made Dean reach for the journal, flipping forward a few pages until he came across the only thing that he knew, would make Sam act this way.

In the margins.

Seven scrawled letters.

J.E.W. D.W. S.W.

A sharp intake of breath.

A skipped heartbeat.

The book fell from Dean's hands as he read the top of that section; Lawrence, Kansas.

In a flash, Dean was reaching for the handle, shoving the door outwards, desperate to flee the confines of that chunk of metal. Somehow, he managed to ignore the pain that raged at him, screaming for him to stop moving. He moved quickly until he was several feet away from the car; here he stopped suddenly and looked up at the sky, his breathing coming in short ragged gasps.

Sam was out of the car and running for Dean; almost as quickly as Dean had moved. He reached Dean just as he collapsed. "Dean…" he cried, as he slowly lowered him to the ground, having caught him just in time.

Dean held his head in both hands, pain etched across his face; his eyes bloodshot and swiftly moving from side to side as if they were watching some rapid, stop motion, game of tennis.

Sam started to panic, was Dean relapsing? He knew they should never have left the hospital, but would Dean listen to him. No. Sam reached into his pocket for his phone; he was going to ring for another ambulance, when Dean grabbed his hand, forcibly stopping him from dialling, "No…" he pleaded with Sam; one hand still clutched his head, the pain was still etched across his face; Sam wavered, unsure what to do, "No…" Dean was trying desperately to talk to Sam, but something seemed to have a grip on his mind, "Casper…" he pushed the word out between sharp breaths, "We. Need. To. Go. To… Casper." Dean slumped back down, the effort of each word taking its toll on him.

"Dean…" Sam cried out, slowly he started to raise the phone, Dean only had a light hold on him now, so he was free to dial for an ambulance, but Dean's next statement floored him; as the pain finally cleared from Dean's face, his breathing still erratic, Dean whispered, "Sammy… she's gonna die… I saw it… We need to save her…" before he passed out.

There would be, very few things that would make Sam put away his phone, scoop Dean up and put him in the back of the Impala, to head off on a five hour trip to Casper, Wyoming; but Dean's statement, 'I saw it', was one such thing. Sam could only think that the pain Dean was clutching at just now was because he had had a vision. 'She is going to die… I saw it…' and a vision, is definitely something Sam would not ignore, not after everything he had experienced when he went through the same thing all those years ago.

Hours past as Sam drove north.

The sun was just approaching the horizon when Dean stirred on the back seat.

"Dean…" Sam asked after his brother, a slight groan the only reply.

In the rearview mirror, Sam could see Dean struggling to sit up, "You alright? You want me to pull over?" he asked his brother.

"Where are we?" came Dean's gruff reply.

"About an hour out from Casper."

"You listened to me?"

"Yes, Dean. I listened to you. It sounded like you had a vision?"

There was nothing but silence from the back seat of the car; Sam glanced in the rearview mirror again and his eyes locked onto Deans. Dean nodded, only slightly. Not really wanting to admit that he had had a vision.

"What did you see? Exactly?"

"A girl. There was… fifteen or twenty people… and they were surrounding her, hitting out at her… I think they'll kill her…"

"What were they?"

Dean shook his head, trying to remember or to see more clearly, "I don't know… I just… I was… I saw her… I felt her pain… and how scared, she was… I don't know who or what they were… just that it was bad… real bad…"

"Where?"

"Casper."

"I know that, I mean, where in Casper? And how do you know it was Casper?"

Dean's eyes went wide, before closing slowly, his head drooping down towards his chest. He was tired. He was in pain. His head hurt, but he wasn't sure if that was the ass kicking the spirits gave him or the weirdly timed vision he had had hours earlier. How did he know? Dean tried to fight through the pain to find the memory; what had set them down this path?

"I don't know. I just feel that that's right."

"What?"

"Sammy…" Dean cried in exasperation, he was struggling to stay awake, to fight the darkness that was trying to take him, the darkness that whispered at him, pulling him in to a place that was quiet and safe, "I can't explain it…" he finally offered, opening his eyes and looking at Sam in the rearview mirror, "It was like… I was her… Everything was from her point of view. I…" Dean's eyes wandered away from the mirror, as they looked out through the front windscreen, a sigh escaped past his lips, and shaking his head he continued, "I felt what she felt. The people hitting her, the hatred in the room, how scared she was. She was terrified." Dean's voice faltered slightly as he remembered the vision and the girl's feelings. "I know she is in Casper, because… because she knew she was in Casper… I… I don't know how to explain it any better than that…"

Sam glanced back at his brother, worry and fear the two main emotions he was feeling right now. Worried for his brother's health, his brother's mind. Fear that things were about to get ugly if they were able to find this girl and try to stop the vision from coming true. Underneath all that, though, there was also the thought, 'Why Dean? How was Dean connected to this girl? Why had he had the vision and not Sam?'

"Where are we heading to in Casper?"

Dean shook his head, "It was an industrial area. Like a garage or a parts shop… The area was big but dark, no natural light… so... deep in the building…"

Sam shook his head in return; it was not much to go on. It is not as if Casper was huge, but with no address or any concrete place to start, this was the needle in the haystack situation.

The car went silent as Sam continued to drive and Dean slipped back into semi-consciousness. Fighting the darkness; wanting to stay awake, to stay alert to try to find the girl and save her from the fate that awaited her, but at the same time wanting to give in to the security and peace the darkness brought.

As the car approached, the outskirts of Casper, Wyoming, Sam saw a sign that indicated an industrial area was off the highway to the left. He took the exit and slowed the car when he reached the edge of the estate. "Dean…" he called to his brother. When no reply came, he tried again, louder this time in an effort to break through his brother's thoughts, sleep, or both, "Dean…"

"hmmm" came the groggy reply.

"We are here… Do you recognise anything?"

Dean slowly turned to look out through the window at the passing buildings. Nothing looked familiar and nothing was screaming out to him, this, this is it.

Dean shook his head in frustration, as he turned to look back through to the front of the car, "Nothing… there's nothing…"

Sam sighed before he said, "Just relax and try to remember the vision and see if you recognise anything…"

"I told you… it was her… what she was seeing and feeling… I didn't have a vision of what was happening and where it was… I could feel her…" Dean's voice trailed off as he thought about the vision, he closed his eyes, hating the feeling of how scared the girl felt, and all he wanted to do was help her.

Sam had almost driven through the entire estate. They were at its far end, where the buildings were much older and most of the area looked to be somewhat abandoned or at least in a very dilapidated condition. Dean opened his eyes again and yelled suddenly "Stop… Stop the car…"

The building they were parked in front of was indeed an old garage. One that in its prime would have had the capacity to work on up to twenty cars at a time. Dean and Sam exited the car, Sam walking around to the boot while Dean looked over the building. He was sure this was the place; he felt like he had been here before, or, at least she had.

Sam shut the boot and passed Dean his gun and a blade, not sure, what they were going to find in there he was not taking any chances. The boys walked slowly around to the back of the building where they found a small window, the kind that serviced a toilet. The window was ajar and Sam, seeing this, pushed the dumpster over so that he could climb up and through the window.

Once inside, Sam checked that all was clear and then called out for Dean to follow. Together the boys then entered the main part of the garage, following the pool of light their torches made on the ground in front of them.

"This is it…" Dean said as he walked around the open space where the cars were once serviced a long time ago. "This is where it goes down…"

"Right!" Sam replied, "So we stake out the place and wait for it all to go down or do we want to take a…" Sam's voice trailed off as he realised that Dean was not listening to a word he was saying, instead, he was walking away from him in the direction of a small opening in the wall that would have been just wide enough for a vehicle to drive through. Sam slowly walked after his brother.

"No. no. no…" Dean cried as he rounded the corner; the sudden cry and anguish in Dean's voice made Sam run after his brother.

In the middle of the next room, barely visible in the light from the boy's flashlights, lay a large bench with a cage over the top of it. The bench was barely wide enough for the body of the girl that lay in the cage; her arms splayed out to the sides, through the bars. Dean stood, frozen in time, unable to move forward, unable to back away, "No…" he repeated over, and over again.

"Is that her?" Sam asked his brother, but Dean was miles away lost in his mind, unable to hear his brother's question, "Dean…" Sam yelled at him, shaking his shoulders until Dean's eyes blinked and finally focussed on Sam's. "Dean…" Sam said more calmly, "Is that her?"

"Yes… but I don't understand, Sammy…"

Dean shook his head from side to side, while Sam still stood there squeezing his brothers shoulders, trying to keep him calm, "Why would I see the vision if she was already… if she was…" Dean just shook his head, unable to finish the sentence and point out that the girl they had come to save now lay on a wooden bench, dead. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried desperately to block out what was in front of him, but all he found in the darkness now was the frightened thoughts of the girl as she faced her attackers and their relentless blows. Dean's eyes flew open, unable now to find any comfort in the darkness.

"Dean?" Sam asked; Dean looked up into his brother's eyes, "I'm good…" he finally managed, shaking his brother's hands off of his shoulders, "I'm good…" he repeated, almost like he was trying to convince himself.

Dean moved over towards the cage, his flashlight reflecting off the bars in the spots that were not as rusty as the rest of it. Sam walked up behind his brother, his torch moving slowly over the girl's body, before coming to rest on her arms, the marks he saw there making his eyes go wide, "Vampire bites" he exclaimed. Suddenly alert to the possibility of a new danger, Sam's eyes scanned the room, while Dean focussed on the bites, "My God… these bites are old, hours old… I don't understand… the vision should have let us stop this, but it's… it's more like I saw it as it was happening… What is the point of that?"

Dean was not really asking the question of his brother, but Sam answered anyway, "I don't know, Dean. I don't know why you had the vision, if not to try to help…" Sam turned back to the girl, finally convinced that the room was clear and that there was no imminent threat of vampire attack. Looking over the girl's arms he thought he could make out several different bite marks; it looked like a nest of vampires had attacked her, "You think they were vampires? The ones that were attacking her?"

"I don't know… Maybe… but they were hitting her, and tearing at her with their hands, not trying to bite her… and when was the last time we saw fifteen or twenty vampires together, going after…"

"Dean…" Sam's cry interrupted his brother's speech, Dean turned to look at Sam, but his eyes were focussed on the girl's arm, "She moved…" Dean's eyes flicked over to the girl's hand and sure enough, just as his eyes focussed on her, her hand twitched slightly, making a fist, the kind that indicated its owner was in pain.

Things happened very quickly then, Dean reached out for the girl's hand and the cage at the exact same moment that the danger of the situation dawned on Sam.

"Dean, NO!"

Sam yelled at his brother, just as his hand grazed the bar nearest the girl's hand; a sharp blue light filled the small space as the burn of white-hot electricity spilt through the air. Dean's body flew back through the air, smashing into the ground several meters away. The girl's body arched up off the bench, as the electricity pulsed through her body, unable to move further, constrained by the cage. Sam stood still, the electricity having missed him; the bright light, however, had blinded his eyes. After a few hazy minutes, his vision returned and he quickly turned, calling out to his brother as he made his way over to Dean's unmoving, crumpled body.

More to come...