Disclaimer: See Chapter One

A/N: Again, thanks for your notes! I appreciate them! I think it's cool when y'all try and guess what has happened/what's going to happen. It makes me smile and gives me goosebumps (Vonnie and Carocali, that is so for you!). Ah, and thanks to my wonderful MAZ101 from across the pond. She gives me goosebumps, too. Really, really good kinds!

Chapter Four: Get Drunk and Be Somebody

March, 2009

The thing about living in Chesterhill was that no matter who they asked, no one was ever able to tell them who Chester was. They didn't have to ask about the hill, though. The entire town was built around that big old mound.

There were two distinct problems with this. One: whenever it rained, the mud and muck would run down the grooves into the town surrounding it. Cars got stuck, trucks plowed through, leaving behind deep ruts and furrows. Kids lost more shoes and socks per capita than anywhere else in America. So their mothers claimed.

Two: the hill was home to all of the former residents of Chesterhill.

The stones in the cemetery were mixed with old and new, some of the old had fallen down from age and weather. Loose rock was scattered on the wet ground, weeds over grew the small markers, hiding them from boots and weak ankles. Etchings on slabs were either rubbed off or too faded to make out. The newer ones were bigger, with ornate decorations on pretty colors of marble. They shone even in the rain. The ground around them easier to maintain with the grass cut short and flowers laid along the foot of the grave.

Dean hefted his shovel over his shoulder and felt Sam pull away from him, which was odd because he hadn't even noticed Sam's close proximity to him as they started the trek up the mud slimed hill. Dean stole a sideways glance at Too Tall and bit back a snide comment about personal space and a momentary joke about Sam being afraid the rain would melt him away. Instead he found himself clinging to the small act and stuffing it silently away in a place inside that he didn't even realize that he had made until now.

The realization suddenly made him nauseous.

"Do I need to carry you up?" Sam shouted down at him when his older brother started lagging behind.

The rain was coming down in a steady pour. Not hard but not soft, either. It was the perfect rain to lull a good nap. Not so much for digging in the mud and earth. They had checked the weather report, though, and this was it. At least four more days of rain and then… potential snow. It was do it today or wait and kick themselves for not doing it yesterday so Sam took the salt can and Dean took the fuel and each sharpened the blade of their shovel.

"I'm comin'." Dean pushed harder with his legs, his boots losing tread on the steepest parts of the hill. His hand reached awkwardly out catching his body from getting a mouthful of mud. Then he laughed silently at the irony of it all.

Mary Winchester had been a hunter who's hopes and wishes for her children were to not have to live a life like this. John had to have known about their mother's past. Her parents suddenly murdered, the remembrance of his neck snapping at the hands of her father. What reasons could she have given to explain all of that? Did she tell him that she had brought him back from the non-living? Did she tell him she made a deal with a demon with yellow eyes? Is that when their dad had first caught wind of it?

He hated to admit it, but it was getting harder to keep up with Sam. His long legs vs. Dean's bowed ones. It just wasn't meshing like it used to. Dean reached up and wiped at his forehead. He was actually thankful for the rain. Sam wouldn't be able to see the sweat spilling off his brow. Dean watched Sam jump effortlessly over a sunken headstone flanked by clay angels and he picked up his pace to try to stay in the game. The clay angels sure didn't look like any of the angels he had met. These looked sweet and serene, exactly the way Mary would describe them to him, watching over him full of love and kindness. He quirked a smile. If only she had known what they were really like.

Dean knew why the angels chose him.

It's not the blame that falls upon you. It's the fate.

Which didn't make him feel any better. It was still his fault. The apocalypse. The possible rising of Lucifer. The fact that he went to Hell in the first place. Left Sam alone. Unprotected. Unloved. It was his fault.

Sam started to veer to the left and Dean followed suit, making it look like he had caught up with him easily.

When he had been given the gift to go back in time and see his parents young and brilliant and in the life they were supposed to lead, Dean had felt the love from his mother. The love he kept tucked and zipped at the bottom of his heart. The love Sam would never know.

It didn't matter how much Dad tried. Or Dean for that matter. There is no replacing the bond of a mother's love for her child. Dean hadn't had a lot of time to experience it. But he still remembered it. And when he saw his mother's spirit, when he saw her younger face, the zipper came undone, the love unfolded and he felt that warmth again.

Sam never would.

"It's this way," Sam was nodding to a center portion of the hill.

Dean stifled a huff. "How do you know where it is?"

"Dad. He took us here that one time. I remember it was against that fence over there. There's a drop-off behind it."

Dean thought about that for a moment. "Dad took us up this hill?"

Sam nodded, glancing behind his shoulder. "Yeah. It wasn't so muddy back then."

"And you remember a fence?"

This time it was a shrug that Sam chose as his weapon of choice. "There were a whole bunch of birds on it. They creeped me out."

Dean looked over towards the center of the hill and there was an ancient wood fence running down the hill. Or more like falling down the hill. "Huh."

"I told you about it last night."

Okay, that was it. There was no way – no way – Sam had talked to Dean about where Valentina's body was buried and how he remembered because of some damn worn down fence line that he saw a whole bunch of birds sitting on when he was a kid. He narrowed his eyes and challenged his brother. "When?"

"Last night."

"Yeah. When last night?"

"When we were going to sleep." Sam pointed with his blade – "Should be right over there."

Dean took a glimpse to the area Sam was pointing to. In the near distance there was an off-white headstone with large hands praying towards the sky. "You mean you told me all of this after I went to sleep?"

"I didn't know you'd passed out."

Dean opened his mouth –

"I know, I know, you didn't pass out."

"That's right."

"You were just failing at trying to get drunk and be somebody."

Dean eyes snapped up. "What are you talking about?"

Sam stopped at the plot right before the off-white stone and brought his shovel down off his shoulder. "You only drank ten beers and whatever the hell was in your flask within a two hour period."

"Six beers."

"Ten."

Dean swung around the other side of the grave and dropped the lighter fluid onto the muddy ground. He rested his weight on the handle of the blade and looked wearily over at his brother. "Ten?"

Sam nodded back. "Ten." He swallowed and met his brother's eyes. The rain fell down from the cloudy sky, its temperature dropping a few degrees up on the large mound. He nodded again and held Dean's gaze for a moment, neither saying anything. Dean wondered which part of each story was the truth and which was the part that he told himself was the truth.

"So this is Val's?" Dean broke the connection first, looking down at the grave they had sidled next to. It was a simple granite stone, dark in color with just the basic information engraved:

Valentina Mondalvo, born April 7, 1958; died August 28, 1990.

He glanced behind him and noticed the rocky drop-off wasn't too far away. It looked like the hill just came to an abrupt end, the grass and mud plunging off the face of the earth. His gaze dropped and he looked to the stone next to Val's. It was the off-white tomb with the praying hands that he had noticed earlier. Up close it looked alone and cold sitting on the other side of the fence.

It belonged to Angel.

"Well?" Dean lifted his brows. "Looks like we made it further than Harpo and Groucho did."

Sam pulled back and came down slamming the blade into the first layer of mud. It filled the shovel rapidly with gunky sludge, which made it really heavy on the boys' backs when they swiveled to throw the slop to the wayside.

They had made it through the mud and about half way down into the ground when Dean's shovel hit on rock. "Son of a bitch," he muttered as he scraped along two or three small boulders. "Probably slid down here as the earth's been shifting."

Sam reached down and helped his brother dislodge and move the stones. "Hope this is her casket down here. I wouldn't be surprised if they're all sliding down the hill." Sam's face wrinkled into a scowl as he pulled up a rock and pushed it out of the grave, his arm grazing Dean's as he pushed forward.

"Don't know why the hell people," Dean grunted, "put bodies in the ground anyways."

Dean felt his brother stop and knew he was staring down at him without ever looking up. He felt his body tense up, felt the movement of his hand resting on his hip. And he felt his brother's blood go from hot to cold in a single sigh.

"Sam –"

"There are reasons why people bury bodies, Dean."

"Yeah, I know that."

"Not everyone has to be torched."

Dean stretched and rested his weight against his shovel again and tried to wave his hand dismissively. "I'm know and I'm glad –"

"You don't. You don't know." Sam looked down and started back in with his shovel, the dry and wet dirt flying out of the grave as fast as his back would allow.

Dean let it drop. They'd been here before. Sam couldn't understand about Hell and Dean couldn't understand… well, Sam. So he let his shoulders take out his frustration towards his brother and started back in on the dirt, less the rocks now, until Dean heard Sam's blade hit on something familiar.

Clunk. Clunk. It had a nice hollow ring to it. Kinda like the Tin Man without a heart.

"We're here," Sam announced as he scraped the curve of the coffin's top. Dean hoisted himself out of the grave, noticing the change in temperature, the cold had snuck in while they were below. The wind had picked up from the east, irritatingly blowing his short wet spikes flat against his head.

"We'd better hurry up, Sam!" Dean called down. He watched as his younger brother worked the crowbar against the seal of the lid, pulling with the muscles of his forearms effortlessly. Dean's eyes constricted. He had never seen Sam work that fast before on a seal. He unscrewed the cap off the salt can from up above, still quietly watching as Sam reached over with one powerful arm and pulled the front part of the lid open.

Valentina Mondalvo was put to rest in a pretty blue dress, collar buttoned up to her neck. She had numerous gold chains adorning her, most with a cross, or a locket, or a symbol of Christ to protect her soul as she entered into the next life. She held a picture of her children in her left hand and the Holy Bible in her right. Her hair had been longer when she died, always kept beautifully fashionable, but now it looked like dark straw as it splayed away from her bones and splattered across the silky white satin of her forever bed.

Then there was her abdomen. It was slightly distended under the blue cotton. Acting as a lifelong shroud for Val's last treasure. Her last gift she would have given the world if only…

Dean blinked and swallowed hard. He tried to block out the memories of Val and her children, coming to the tavern when Sam was sick or when Dean was injured or when dad felt the need to do some "no reason" research. Val hadn't made the best impression on the older son. When Sam was sick, Dean barely had a recollection of her; but when they had returned, she scared the crap out of him.

He blanked out the memory, pushed away the recollection of how lovely the woman once was and got to business. He poured the salt over her body, starting with her head and ending with her feet as Sam un-jarred the bottom portion of the lid.

The wind kicked it up a notch and Dean eyed the can of accelerant on the other side of the gravesite. He dropped the empty salt container and started to walk around the open grave when his eye caught a faint apparition heading towards him.

Its presence took the hunter off guard. It wasn't flickering or suddenly appearing in front of him. It was charging up the muddy hill like a mother coming for her lost child. It wasn't fully visible, either. It was dim and faded, almost like it was trying to be a real, solid person as it forged up the mound towards the hunters.

"Honey!" She called to Dean, her tongue thickly accented. Her left hand pointed at him with a pale, bony finger.

Dean's head turned slightly over his shoulder and he realized, horrified, that he was actually checking to see if he was the one she was talking to. He turned back around, giving her his full attention.

"No, no, honey. Don'. Don' do dat."

"Sam?" Dean called down, hurrying around the open grave, grabbing up his sawed-off. "Think we got company."

Sam looked up, over the recently dug ground, seeing his brother taking aim with his gun. "Shit," he muttered, trying to find his footing to climb out of the grave.

The blast echoed against the hillside as Dean let the rock salt fly from the barrel, his shoulders hitching back from the release. The homemade cartridge skidded by the diminished form as she quickly ducked and the ghost only increased her speed, soft hands coming out in front of her body as the hunter tried to rack the gun again.

She had already reached Dean, though, and grabbed at him in an odd hold. Her body nearly crashed into him as she looked up and pleaded with him, her eyes searching his face. "Please." She gave Dean's jacket a light shake.

For being so tiny, the first thing he noticed was how strong she really was. The line on his forehead deepened slightly. He tried to move his hands between them to gain the room he needed to bring the shotgun up.

She shook her head. "I… can't."

He thought he could actually feel her breath on his face and for a moment Dean wondered if this was a ghost at all. She seemed so real. Full of human wants and needs. In need of help, wanting, well he wasn't quite sure what she might want... but Dean felt something inside of him start to dissolve and for a second, he thought maybe he and Sam were on the wrong track.

Out of his periphery, he could see Sam's head start to bob up out of the six-foot hole and his long arms were grasping at muddy purchase to pull himself out.

Val's eyes widened. "You smell that?" she whispered and Dean's heart skipped a beat pounding against his ribcage. He shoved at the tiny spirit and gripped the sawed-off tight.

It was too late. The small ghostly hands were already in action, thrusting against the hunter's chest and sending him flying backwards through the air. There was a crushing thud as Dean's body came crashing down flesh on stone.

"Dean!" Sam called out as he emerged from the pit below. He lost the rest of his breath and his words somewhere in the air as the apparition made contact with the younger man and her whitish eyes narrowed at him in recognition.

-0-

August, 1990

John had visited Ben's house the next day. The bartender had taken his wife and daughter out for a Saturday matinee while the hunter cased the joint. John had went through with an EMF detector, methodically checking each room – especially the bathroom – and had come back empty handed. If anything had been there, it wasn't showing its face any longer.

Ben wasn't surprised by the findings. He had his doubts that anything supernatural had caused his son's death. He was sticking to what he knew, what the police reports had said, "It was just a freak accident."

The Winchesters had stayed through the weekend while John poked around a little more. He had taken his boys up the hill, had gone to the off-white stone with the praying hands and had stood a long time while Sam shooed away birds and tried to convince Dean to play with him and his Army men.

Dean had ignored him though, half his attention on his father. The other half on a cute little red head riding her bike at the bottom of the hill.

"Dean!" John shouted. "Get over here!"

Dean's attention snapped back as fast as his neck had. He looked down, not even realizing he had wandered over to the drop off. He looked down. It was a long ways to the bottom.

"Dean!" John yelled again.

His father's hand was waiting as Dean approached and without asking, he placed John's journal in his open palm. John wrapped his fingers around it and started flipping through pages. He had already walked around the perimeter of the gravesite at least a dozen times, noting and mumbling to himself. Nothing surrounding it was dead or dying. There were flowers growing, birds chirping, the grass was green and, besides the tracks of mud, it was easy to walk around. No oddities.

So when Sunday came, John had their bags packed and was ready to blow the joint again. He had given his respects and sympathies to the men. He had written down his new phone number and had emphasized that they could call under any circumstance.

The bartenders had agreed, they were grateful for his time. Ben had answered all his questions and had almost felt bad for the hunter as he came away with no answers. It was almost like John had a stake in the death of Ben's only son. Like there was a connection to himself that he wasn't sharing, that he needed to find something that he hadn't.

Peanut Butter and Jelly was what stalled him.

"I'm hungry," Dean complained for the fifth time since they had zipped up their duffels.

It was close enough to lunchtime and Jeff brought out some bread, a jar of Skippy and some grape jelly. He didn't even ask, just started putting together a couple of quick sandwiches. He pulled out two paper plates and ripped open a package of potato chips from a cabinet behind the bar.

John smiled and waited. Until Jeff put a PB&J in front of him. "Got to keep fueled up, Winchester," the longer haired Timmons' commented.

Half way through his sandwich he heard the door scrape and scruff along the wood floor. A hot midday breeze blew inside the bar. John swiveled on the seat of his stool and saw the outline of Valentina's small body coming in from the heat.

She swished her hips in an odd waddle and John's eyes fell to her middle. Her white shirt flowed loosely around her growing stomach, but knowingly hugged all the right places. Her dark skin looked sun soaked, radiating a copper hue and she shifted her brown eyes around the bar in search of someone.

"Where's Benny?" her tongue was coated with accent.

The peanut butter and jelly got stuck in John's throat. She didn't have the wild, untamed look in her eyes as she had the previous time he had seen her. This look was distraught. Destroyed. Delusional.

A dark haired girl sprang from behind the small woman, gold chains wrapped around her neck, and John's eyes focused on the pre-teen. Ramona had grown tall, probably a foot taller than Dean, her body maturing faster than her face. She still had her baby fat cheeks, her chestnut round eyes and John felt a small smile tickle the corners of his mouth at her pre-puberty awkwardness.

"He's in the back," Jeff answered. "He'll be around in a minute."

Val was nodding and wobbling up to the bar. She reached down and pulled a stool out, hefting her small ass on top of the worn cushion. The load she was carrying in front rested heavily on her lap. She folded her hands and watched as Ramona went to the jukebox to play a song. The child stopped at the machine, though and was staring back at the counter, looking at the boys eating their sandwiches.

It wasn't everyday she saw a kid her own age rolled up to the bar.

Valentina's eyes followed her daughter's gaze. Her eyes danced from one boy to the other. Then she stopped and stared at John.

He nodded and tried to smile, without showing her that he was still chewing. But her stare turned into a glare and John felt a sudden change in the air around them. A coolness snagged on his forearms and his hairs pricked on end.

"You." She spoke to the man on her left.

John swallowed hard, his hand extending towards her. "John Winchester – "

"You smell that?"

John paused. He inhaled a few seconds and tipped his head to the right. "Peanut butter?" he volunteered.

Her eyes swayed to the boys and then back again. "I remember you." Her voice dripped with her heritage, her R's rolling from the roof of her mouth, her Y's getting lost at the beginning of her words.

John nodded. "Right. We met a few years ago."

"El Segundo de Mayo." She frowned at the man, her eyes filling with moisture.

John sighed. This was the reason he had avoided Val. Her son. His son. They had been born on the exact same day. The exact same year. They were the exact same age. He knew she was fragile and he didn't want her getting confused, comparing apples with oranges. He didn't want this to be more difficult on her than it already was.

He didn't want it to be difficult on him, either.

She was on her feet before he had the opportunity to delay her, let alone affirm her statement.

She passed Dean and stood behind Sam, her body leaning towards the small bow of his back. She peered over his shoulder and watched as he went on about eating his sandwich, oblivious to how close she really was.

John stood just behind Val, curiously eyeing her. He noticed the rigidity of her body, the way her arms folded around herself, the way her legs were bent at the knees like she could take off and run at any moment.

"I'm sorry," John's baritone voice rumbled behind her.

A small hand anxiously splayed on her chest and she spun around. "What?" Her eyes darted from John and then to her daughter, who stood quietly behind him.

John waited a few seconds, letting her take in a calming breath or two. "I'm sorry. I heard about Angel."

Sam had turned around during the commotion, his hands and face covered in grape jelly. His eyes were soft and young and confused as he looked up at his father.

"Dean," John instructed, keeping his eyes on Valentina, "why don't you take Sam on into the bathroom and help him wash up."

The older boy jumped down and tugged on Sam's shirt as they made their way down the small hallway, passing Ben in the process. His eyes widened as he first saw his daughter, knowing if she was here, that meant Val wasn't too far away.

"Hola, sucre," he said as he entered the room, a plastic smile on his face, his hand on Val's wrist, a man trying to hold it all together as he pulled her gently away.

She scowled at him.

"Ramona," Ben went on, keeping his body pressed against Val's, "you go on to the back, too. Make sure those boys have a clean towel." His eyes didn't move as his daughter shuffled around the trio. He didn't take a breath until he heard her knock on the small bathroom door adjoined to the bedroom. "Valentina – "

"You smell that?"

Ben released her wrist and thrust her stiffly away from him. "What?" He sniffed loudly, filling his head with the scents in the room. "Peanut butter? Beer? Piss?" He shook his head. "What is it that you think you smell?"

The woman blinked back at him and John noticed how small she suddenly looked. Meek. Scared. Her chest heaved in time to the long, deep breaths she was taking and her lips parted slightly as she muttered, "Sulfur."

"Sulfur?" Ben bellowed. "Again?"

"The boy –"

"He's dead." Ben's voice was sharp, a knife cutting through his anger, through his pain. "We've been through this. I smelled him. There was never any sulfur –"

"Not Angel." She looked down the hallway. "That… that boy."

"Which boy?" John asked, genuinely interested.

"Don't do this, Val," Ben begged. "Don't make him-"

"El pequeño."

John was nodding at her and Ben's jaw dropped to allow more air into his shocked system.

"The little one?"

She nodded at the hunter. A small silent tear ran down her sculpted cheek.

Ben tilted his head. "Hey, John…" he gestured towards the small seating area of the bar, away from Valentina. "Could I just talk to you –"

John obliged and sidestepped with the man as Val took her wide-open opportunity to bolt down the hallway.

www

When Dean opened up the tiny door from the tiny bathroom, two people greeted him and Sam. The first was Ramona who was being pushed forward by the second person, her mother.

"Inhale," Valentina was telling her. "You smell that?"

Ramona's eyes looked frightened as she approached the boys timidly. Dean met her shocked expression as she nervously took a deep breath in through her nose.

Dean was immediately on alert. He stopped in his tracks and fisted Sam's shirt in his hand. "Stop, Sam." Then he let out a breath as his brother stilled and Dean contemplated what to do next.

"Ramona, close your eyes and smell again," Val was saying to her daughter, her R's rolling along the roof of her mouth and Dean watched with quiet horror as Ramona complied.

The girl's eyes squeezed tightly shut and she breathed in deep. There was a moment as her eyes opened where Dean glanced to the door, calculating how many steps it would take him to get out. And then how many it would take if he were dragging his brother behind him.

"It's okay," Val's voice crept in, seeming to read the older boy's thoughts. She reached her small hand out to Dean and let her fingers graze his shoulder. "Your father sent me in to get your brother." She smiled wide and beautiful. "It's okay."

Dean didn't let go of Sam's shirt but he was staring at her and before he realized it, Val bypassed the older brother's shoulder and grabbed hold of Sam's.

"Dean?" Sam squeaked out as the small woman wrapped cold fingers around Sam's forearm and drew him to the bed with her.

There was knocking and kicking at the door to the bedroom. Dean could hear John screaming his name. Ben was scrambling, his fist pounding on the door, demanding Valentina to Open the goddamn door right now!

"Dad!" Dean rushed out into the bedroom, slamming into Ramona who was acting as interference.

Then Dean skidded to a stop. He wanted his dad in there with them, he heard the pounding against the door but the pounding of his own heart halted him. There on the bed was his brother with Valentina. She had him laid flat on the mattress, her pregnant body sitting next to him and she was cooing to him in Spanish, talking softly, soothing him. "Duerme, niño."

Dean started again for the door. Get his dad inside and he could get them both out, but Val's words were entrancing. He felt his body freeze, his feet unmoving and he watched as she pressed her heart shaped lips against Sam's forehead and kissed him.

Then she took her petite, graceful hand and placed it over the child's nose and mouth, pressing all her weight into the seal.

"Sam!" Dean yelled, his feet suddenly able to move, his body flailing towards the bed. He could hear his father's muffled shouts, he could hear Ramona's screams and he could hear his heartbeat speed up.

He was losing Sam.

His hands were extended from his body as he smacked into Valentina, but she stayed with his brother. Her hand didn't slip, her voice dropped low and she kept a constant chant near his ear.

Sam's body was shaking. His legs kicked, his arms grabbed weakly at hers, his chest barreled from the lack of oxygen. Dean's own vision started to swim as his head pulsated hot blood to his temple, the thrum thrum of his heart rattling against all his small pulse points. Only one beat played in the back of his mind.

Save Sam.

The door was kicked in by a large black boot and Dean found himself suddenly thrown onto the dirty floor, looking up to his father scooping up Sam's body from Val's clutches. The woman was crying, screeching at the large man, clawing at Ben as his hands tried to contain her.

"Val." Ben's face crashed into hers, a pained expression that had everyone looking away. "Why?"

But she was screaming and falling to the dusty wood floor. Her eyes locked on Ramona's as her daughter fell with her, crawling on her knees to her mother. Val skittered away from her love like he was the enemy and wrapped her arms around her only family and sobbed into the young girl's alarmed body.

"What the hell just happened?" John's voice boomed into the small room.

Ben looked over with sad green eyes and thumped the side of his skull.

-0-

March, 2009

Sam squinted his eyes. There was something right in front of him and one moment he could see it and then the next he couldn't. He watched as it seemed to sway and turn. It focused on him and Sam became more alert. The hairs on the back of his neck pulled tight and his stomach churned. He tucked his legs underneath him and stood beside the open grave, looking straight ahead. It looked like a ghost, but it moved smooth as a human would. It wasn't like most of the spirits he had ever seen, it didn't flicker from one spot to the next, it held substance. Her body was pale, her hair was dark but her eyes… they were so pastel, they looked almost white.

That's what made his stomach change from churning to clenching. Something inside of him sparked. Something turned on and ticked-tocked, ticked-tocked to a clock that he had concealed under layers of skin and bones. His vision tunneled and all he could see was the apparition. It could be the moment he'd been waiting for. It could be her. Lilith. Right here on this hillside. It would be just like a demon to catch him with his pants down around his ankles. No help from Heaven or Hell, nothing but the Winchesters on a routine hunt.

Sam's arm extended out in front of him, palm forward. His eyes closed and he muted out all sound. He slowed his heart rate, slowed his breathing and he envisioned Lilith. He shut his mind down to everything but her. How he pictured her. Not the little girl she rode, not a blonde haired Ruby. But Lilith. Grotesque and unnatural and hideous.

And bloody.

Sam felt a force step up next to him and his eyes fluttered open. His arm bent towards his body and his hands came up together and pushed at the thing that he thought was Lilith. His eyes broadened and his ears spliced back with the rush of sound around him as he realized too late that this was not a demon he was dealing with.

A faltering vision of a small Latina woman engulfed the space next to him as his head was being secured in a vice grip and a pressure was being unwillingly locked over his nose and mouth. He tried to gasp, tried to take in desperate air, but all he received was a firm shake.

The world quickly spun in blues and grays above. His knees buckled and Sam felt himself being eased to the grass and the mud, his upper torso falling back to the earth. His eyes filled with heat as his blood raced through his veins, trying to find a reprieve, an escape from this prison cell.

He felt a cool sensation rub up against his hot cheek and press close. He thought he heard a breath and so badly wanted that to be him, inhaling and exhaling so freely and boundless. His eyes quivered towards the end and his heart hammered and stuttered simulateneously and he wondered if he really wasn't all that special after all.

Then an icy breath of air pressed against his ear and it tickled and kissed and whispered, "Conchita."

-TBC-

Translation: El Segundo de Mayo: The second of May

Hola, sucre: Hello, sugar

El pequeño: The little one.

Duerme, niño: Sleep, baby

Get Drunk and Be Somebody performed by Toby Keith