Smokey Mountain Inn…

"Will you stop pacing." Sam rested his forehead against the fingers of one hand; the other held a pen he tapped on a pad of paper. He sat on his bed, trying his damnedest to ignore his brother striding back and forth across the room. Every time Sam brushed his bangs away, Dean stopped moving and watched him like a hawk watches its upcoming dinner.

It was unnerving.

He couldn't blame Dean, not one bit.

"Okay, what do we know?" Dean decided to stop his roaming back and forth and stood next to Sam's knee.

Sam looked up, turned the paper so Dean could read too. "Not a whole lot. None of these numbers make sense, I can't find any pattern, other than four two's, three one's and a zero. At least it's not just me, you see them too."

"Sammy," Dean perched on the edge of the bed, took a deep breath. He looked bothered, upset by something. "Yesterday, when I was changing the tire for Kathy, is that what you saw? That gray…cloud?"

Nodding, Sam picked at the edges of the pad. "I didn't know how to explain it."

"Ya know Sammy, for a guy who never shuts up, you sure haven't told me much lately."

"Everything just," he shrugged, groped for the right words, "went away. I was surrounded by it, by this empty nothing. I tried to warn you, tell you to get away, but when I tried to talk, nothing came out."

"That's not what I mean."

Sam smiled sadly. "I don't have to be psychic to know you thought I made it up."

"I didn't think you made it up. What I do think is we've had a lot of stuff happen, and we've got nobody but each other to talk to about it, and you…" Sam shifted sideways, smiling in earnest when Dean poked at his ribs. "…have a tendency to shut things up, mostly when you shouldn't. I did give some thought to the idea maybe you—"

"Snapped."

Dean sighed that noise that told Sam his patience was wearing thin. "No. I thought maybe you let your imagination get the better of you. That your vision was…"

"It wasn't a vision," Sam cut in quickly. "It was worse than any vision I've ever had. I wasn't watching it, I was part of it. I could see you, I couldn't hear anything, and I never moved. Like I said the ground just…went away. I don't have any other way of describing it." He moved his hand up, rubbing at the back of his head. Dean's arched eyebrow was a warning, another few seconds and he'd be pulling Sam's hand away. Sam saved him the trouble this time, letting his hand drop to his lap, resting it on the pad.

Dean glanced down at the paper. "So what do we have here, the same numbers popping up in all sorts of ways in seemingly random order. So far no two alike."

"I have no idea how many combinations there'd be, so don't even ask. I can't even think of how to figure something like that out."

"They add up to eleven, which is prime, which becomes two if you add one and one, so according to numerology, two means what? Eleven means what? We've got to have a list of that shit somewhere."

"We do." Sam looked pointedly at his laptop, sitting idly on the table across the room. Damn, didn't he feel like one big failure just then. Dean depended on him for these bits of information. Not that Dean wasn't perfectly capable of gathering bits of information himself, but Sam liked to research while Dean did not. Dean could put together patterns, see things others never saw like no one else Sam ever knew, but he needed information to help him, or to make sense of the patterns. It was Sam's job to get the information.

He felt he was sorely lacking lately in holding up his end of the job, starting with not stopping the Hellhounds.

Rubbing his forehead, Sam kept his eyes on the pad, he didn't want to see Dean, see the disappointment. "I'm having a hard time concentrating since I saw that yesterday."

Dean snorted a short laugh. "I'd be worried if it didn't have some affect. Hell, I can't stop thinking about it either, and I wasn't standing in the middle of it. Anyway, we depend on that thing," he waved one hand in the direction of their computer, "way too much. Bobby's got the right idea, books."

"Bobby's got a house," Sam reminded him.

"And this town has a library. I want to know what some of the things people were talking about are, CME clouds for one." Dean slapped his knee. "Any idea on who in the diner this morning was possessed, how many of them?"

Sam shook his head.

"Well what tipped you off? I didn't see anything, or smell sulfur."

"I heard them."

"Them? That close you heard? Sam, I was right there with you, I didn't see, or hear anything, so how could—"

"In my head."

"In your…" Dean's voice trailed off. He blinked at Sam, stared at him until Sam started to squirm.

Touching his temple with two fingers, moving them in small circles, Sam drew in a deep breath; he had to tell Dean everything, the truth. He couldn't hold this in. It'd kill him if he tried. "In here, they were talking to me, in my head."

Dean swallowed, wiped one hand slowly across his mouth, nodding. "Alright Sam, it'll be alright. It's all tied together, I'm sure of it. We'll get to the bottom of whatever this is, we'll figure it out. We always do." This time Dean's fingers rested against Sam's knee, squeezing gently. "It'll be alright."

Standing, Dean started to move away, toward the door. Halfway there he stopped, turning to face Sam again, this time gaze boring so far into Sam he felt impaled by it.

"You think," Dean began slowly, and Sam didn't miss the slight tremor in his brother's deep voice. "I don't understand, I don't know how it feels? Everyday, Sam, everyday I remember, I relive watching my brother die, feeling him slip away in my arms, and helpless to do nothing but watch. Sam, I know exactly how you feel."

"It wasn't your fault." Sam said softly, staring at the bed on which he sat. "You didn't turn your back on a man trying to kill you, leave him with a weapon to finish the job. You weren't pinned to a wall—"

"I might as well have been." Dean cut in quickly.

Anger, grief and guilt surged through him, pushing Sam off the bed. "You would have killed Jake, not left him to hurt anyone. You're the one who gave up everything for me, and I'm the one who promised to keep you from dying, from going to Hell," he was shouting now.

"I'm here!" Dean shouted back, standing his ground, not backing down. "And honestly, I'm damn glad you've got enough courage and compassion to do things like not kill people like Jake!"

"I'm the one who didn't carry through, who didn't make good on my promise to you."

Dean sucked in a quick breath, paled a bit. His voice dropped, softened to nearly a whisper. "I'm here, Sam. Right here. I'm here and don't think I don't know the only reason I'm here, however it happened, is because you're here too. My dying, it wasn't your fault."

"It wasn't yours either."

"Beating yourself up over this isn't doing either of us any good. You're not alone here, Sam. I know, know, what it felt like, what you went through. Why the hell do you think I made the damn deal in the first place?" Dean's voice escalated again, until he shouted the last few words at Sam. He backed up a few paces, not for distance Sam understood, but to tone down any hint of threat, voice softening Dean's eyes never wavered from his. "I'm sorry for everything you went through the whole year beforehand, I am, Sammy I really am. But it's over, we're both here, and it's time to let that go. We need to move on."

Dean was right, it was exactly what they both needed to do, let go and move ahead. Problem was Sam didn't seem to be able to. He'd wake up more nights than not, having relived watching Dean die, his body slashed and bloody. The time between then and when he'd woken up in the caretaker's shack in Wyoming with Dean hovering over him, his brother's arms wrapped around him were hazy at best.

There were times he caught Dean watching him, just looking at him when he thought Sam couldn't see or might not notice, but Sam did. He knew Dean wondered, would always wonder, what had Sam done? Maybe the bigger question was what had Sam become?

Dad said I might have to kill you Sammy.

Now, trapped in this town, Sam wasn't able to grab onto a single thought long enough to do much good. Ideas slipped through his mind, elusive and fleeting. There was something, he was certain. Something connected to hundreds of demons being released, to his brother dying and reappearing, alive and well a week later. If only he could grab it, hold it, maybe he could make some sense of it.

If I couldn't save you I'd have to kill you.

Dean was there, with him, at his side, just as always, his big brother, best friend and protector. Sure and competent, the same warrior he'd always been, maybe even more so now. The same island of safety Sam had known since he was a baby. Dean had been given back to him, a gift. Sam was no fool. He had no delusions, the reason rested with himself. He'd been given the gift of his brother's life because what he had—bombs go ka-boom—what he was, he strongly suspected, was no gift at all.

Remember what I taught you.

Sam remembered alright, he'd learned one lesson above all others exceptionally well. Nothing, repeat nothing came before family, and there was nothing he wouldn't do for Dean. No matter what Dean's opinion on the subject was.

"Sam?" Dean snapped his fingers near Sam's nose. "Sammy? You in there?" He wasn't being a smart ass; there was genuine concern all over his face, in his eyes.

Eyes darting to Dean, Sam nodded spasmodically. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Are you okay? You completely zoned out on me for like two or three minutes."

"Sorry."

"So what was it going through your head, what were you thinking?"

Sam bit his lower lip, hand slipping up so his fingers could wind in the ends of his hair. "I don't really remember."

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yes," Sam snapped. "Quit asking."

"Sam, your eyes didn't focus, you just glazed right over."

"I—" He had no idea what to say, what to do, just that he suddenly felt small and uncertain under Dean's scrutiny. Gaping at the floor between his feet, Sam fought to still his bouncing upper lip, angry and scared and frustrated with himself all at once.

Dean didn't seem to notice Sam was flying through emotions faster than he could identify what he was feeling. Reaching out, Dean's hand rested on his bicep, fingers tightening just enough to be reassuring. "Sammy." Flattening his hand, Dean rubbed up and down Sam's arm a few times. "Take it easy, kiddo. Breathe deep."

He hadn't even realized he was inhaling, exhaling in such rapid succession. The edges of his vision were starting to haze to black, he felt lightheaded. Licking his lips, wondering if he looked as spooked and nervous as he felt, Sam tried desperately to collect his scattered thoughts, pull them in and put them where they belonged. A few deep breaths, as Dean suggested, did make him feel a bit better, clearer. He concentrated on Dean's fingers on his arm, focused on Dean's voice.

"Stick with me, okay?"

Sam knew Dean wasn't really speaking in the physical sense. Jerking his chin up and down a few times, "Yeah, that's the plan."

Cutter's Landing Public Library…

Eyeing Sam, seated at one of the tables in a room off the main part of the library floor dedicated to resource materials, assured he was fine, Dean stepped farther along a row of books, letting Sam out of his sight for a few minutes while he scanned the books. At the same time, he was trying to eavesdrop a bit on the several groups of people huddled around tables and scattered throughout the main section.

He made a mental list of the words he heard flung around between these people, many of them upper level scientists, researchers, and executives of Tennessee Valley Authority. He was learning more than he'd ever wanted to know about the operation of the place providing the eastern half of the United States with power.

Pulling a few books off the shelves, he headed back to where he'd left Sam.

Glancing up when Dean set a small stack of books at the corner of the table, Sam flipped a book around so it faced Dean. "Coronal Mass Ejection."

Dean stood blinking at Sam; half shrugged with one shoulder and leaned over the table to see the book. "I knew that."

Sam rolled his eyes, "CME, stands for coronal mass ejection, essentially solar flares. They can cause disruption in power, communications, knock out satellites if they're strong enough, and are responsible for the Northern Lights."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Sam chuckled softly. "And people think what we do is weird."

"The people in the far corner are favoring some sort of nuclear war, but we didn't see or hear any blast."

"If the TVA was targeted, we wouldn't be here talking about it, we'd be vaporized."

"That's what I thought too. People at the table in the center," Dean shifted his weight to one side while Sam leaned around him to see. "They're thinking some sort of terrorist attack, maybe biological warfare, and we've been cut off. The two other groups are going over protocols and scenarios for disaster preparedness."

"This stuff is pretty technical, honestly, I don't even understand a lot of it. I've spent as much time looking up words as I have reading."

"Hmmm." Dean skimmed the pages of the book in front of him. Picked up another, thumbed through it, and repeated the same thing with a Scientific American magazine. The books, reference materials Sam had spread out were nothing above what any high school, heck middle school would have in their student libraries. There wasn't a single concept, word, or phrase he didn't understand, or couldn't decipher.

Glancing at Sam, Dean literally felt his brother watch him with an intensity Sam rarely did. What he saw in Sam's eyes sent shivers through Dean's stomach and icy spikes down his neck. Confusion, fear, embarrassment.

"Yeah, this is all just techno babble if you ask me. These guys like to use four big words when one small one will do just fine."

Some of the tension rolled out of Sam's shoulders, appreciation replaced other emotions on Sam's face, in his eyes. Neither one of them was fooling anyone, especially not each other. "Bet none of them can rebuild a car."

That made Dean smile.

"Nothing I've read, that I can make sense of anyway, in any of this," Sam waved one hand expansively over the table cluttered with books and journals, "Can account for what we saw on the road today, or what I saw yesterday."

"No one else seems to have seen it, though there are a few who are saying they saw people, or vehicles disintegrate when reaching a certain spot in the roads, all the roads going out of town. What about the numbers?"

Sam tossed one hand in the air, let it drop onto another group of books, shaking his head. "Depending on what you want to read, and who wrote it, two mostly stands for Yin, relationships, balance. Eleven isn't much other than its prime and adds up to two. One represents the individual, aggressor, Yang."

"So, nada?"

"Pretty much." He picked at the edges of one of the books. "I'm sorry."

"For what, Sammy?"

"I'm not being very helpful." He rubbed at his neck. "We're trapped here."

"Hey, we'll figure it out, we always do. Some just take more effort than others is all." Dean glanced around their part of the library again. "Did you find anything that might relate to the gray…shit I don't even know what to call it, and maybe electrical fields?"

Sam shook his head. "No. Why?"

"When we were there today and you walked up to it, got close, I felt something."

"What?"

"Like an electric current, tingling."

"From the…cloud?"

It was Dean's turn to shake his head. Hooking one thumb through the leather cord holding his amulet to his neck, he pulled it silently away from his chest.

Sam's mouth opened, closed, he frowned then blinked at Dean. "From that?"

Nodding, Dean perched on the edge of the table. "It tingled, buzzed like someone plugged it in to a socket. It stopped when you backed away from…IT."

"It tingled?" Sam sat back in his chair, hand moving to his head, fingers winding in his hair.

"Sammy, the most this thing's ever done is bounce around between random sets of tits." Dean reached across the table and pulled Sam's hand down.

"Thank you, Dean, for that picture I could've lived my life without." Sam snorted. "Maybe…I don't know, maybe that cloud has some sort of charge? Your amulet is metal."

"So is the car, and my belt buckle and my ring, and your watch. Did any of those things tingle?"

"No." Sam's voice was soft, shaky.

"Okay, you keep looking. I'm going to mingle a bit," Dean jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the groups of people, "See what I can find out."

Wandering from table to table, Dean didn't say much to the others, just listened in, every few minutes casting a glance in Sam's direction. His brother seemed himself again, as if some switch had been flipped. Sitting, forehead resting against his fingers, Sam was completely engrossed in whatever he was reading, making the occasional notes on a pad resting under his free arm. Curiously, Ernie was also a prime topic of discussion, making Dean smile a bit.

Another glance at Sam, and Dean froze. Sam was no longer reading, no longer sitting relaxed and half slouched over his table. Now he was rigid in his chair, pale, breathing rapidly, eyes rabbiting between Dean and a group of people in the farthest corner. Moving nothing but his eyes, not wanting to draw attention to either of them, Dean followed Sam's gaze.

He studied the group of people at the farthest table. There were three chairs. Clustered around the closest chair were three people, standing a few feet from one another. The second chair had no one near it. The third had eight people, each standing in pairs. The hair on the back of Dean's neck rose, he felt as if tiny feet danced a pattern along his arms and back, raising gooseflesh.

11102222

When Dean turned back to the group he stood near, he sucked in a quick breath and shoved his hands in his pockets to steady their sudden trembling. The people he'd been standing right beside were gone. Their books, purses, pens, other possessions sat scattered on the table just as they'd been a minute before. Turning a circle, Dean took in the rest of the people in the library, still where they'd been. He'd heard nothing, no rustle of clothing when someone moved, no scraping of a chair leg as someone stood up, nothing. He'd been close enough to some of them to touch without taking a step, yet they'd all just left without him hearing or seeing any of them move.

They'd vanished.

Panic rocketed through him as he spun on his heels again, seeking out Sam. His mouth dried, his breath caught and held in his chest until Sam came into his line of sight.

His eyes met Sam's.

One final glance at the table behind him, Dean turned back to Sam, sudden relief flooding him that Sam sat where Dean left him. Moving fast, he closed the distance between him and his brother in seconds.

"Did you see anyone leave?" Dean hissed, pointing behind him without turning away from Sam.

"No," Sam barely whispered. "Those people over there," he nodded at the group still standing around the three chairs.

"I saw."

"One, one, one, zero, two, two, two, two."

"Yeah. Sam, the other table?"

Sam shook his head. "When I looked back every one was gone." He looked up at Dean, eyes wide. "Just gone."

"Sit tight, I'm going to check outside, see if I can find them." Dean tapped the table top lightly, took two steps and stopped. Sticking one hand in his jeans pocket, Dean's fingers skimmed his cell phone. Pulling it out slowly, he held it as he pivoted back toward Sam, who held his own phone in his hand.

They split up plenty on hunts; it wasn't anything unusual for them. However, what was unusual was having no communication between them when they were separated. Out of sight did not mean out of mind or out of touch. Again, his eyes met Sam's.

Back to the table, close enough he leaned his hips into the side opposite his brother. "Not a good idea." Dean started gathering up the books, closing them and stacking them to make carrying them easier. "We'll take it on the road."

"I can't make copies, and I don't know if we can take all this." Sam was already on his feet, moving around to Dean's side of the table.

"Then we'll come back."

Sam nodded. Dean did a quick look around their floor of the library. Everything else was as it had been ten minutes before. They headed down the steps. Sam twice brushed Dean's elbow with his fingertips, letting him know he was right behind him. Dean was grateful for the silent communication. They searched the first floor quickly, still not seeing any of the missing people. Sam ducked out the front door, hanging onto it as he swung his upper body one way, then the other to see who was on the street. Looking back at Dean, he shook his head.

Dean snagged Sam's jacket between two fingers, pulling him back inside. They stood there for a few minutes, just looking around. Everything seemed fine, peaceful, quiet.

"Let's just grab a few things to go through at the motel. We can come back for more."

Sprinting up the steps and across the room, they were both confronted with the fact that yet a second group of people was gone. "Back door?" Sam suggested weakly.

"Uh huh." Dean helped Sam gather his notes and pack up his bag, stuffing a few of the books inside. "We'll return them later." The urge to get out of the building flooded him, he could feel it building behind his eyes like a pressurized pot ready to blow.

They headed back to the main entrance, stopping to listen to two women, words about their friends just vanishing rushing out of their mouths. Dean stepped forward, about to question them, when one turned to him, grabbed his wrist, nails digging into his flesh. Her wide eyes focused on a spot just behind him. He was about to swivel around to see what had her so freaked when he heard a thud against the floor.

"What's wrong with him? What's he doing?" She nearly shrieked at him.

Sam was on his knees, eyes scrunched shut, hands clutching at his head, incoherent words babbling out of his mouth, and damn wasn't Dean getting tired of people in this town asking what was his brother doing?