So another new chappy...sorry for the delay, but what with my new job and other family things, I am way behind...thanks for sticking with the story... bambers;)

Chapter Forty-Nine

With shotgun at the ready and flashlight in hand, Dean cautiously made his way down into the basement. His stomach twisted and churned as he stepped onto the landing and made his way toward the spot where he had found his brother laying bloodied and broken on the floor the last time he was here. A chilled breeze ghosted past him, raising the hairs on the nape of his neck and forearms.

Dean crouched beside the spot where his brother had landed when he fell, and lightly trailed his fingers over the rust-colored blood stains he found there. His body trembled as he recalled how deathly still his brother was, and he remembered how he momentarily had thought Sam had died.

Come on, Sammy, wake up for me," Dean uttered, his heart in his throat as he searched for a pulse with the fingers, and at first couldn't find one. "No. No. No. No. No. come on little brother, don't you do this to me."

Dean's head fell back onto his shoulders as he glanced up at the hole his brother had fallen through. Fear gripped hold of him and held on firmly as he momentarily relived the horror of seeing his brother thrown into the wall far above and then slipped to fall to the bottom of the stairs where he had fallen through the floorboards.

"D-Dea --" came Sam's weak and shaky voice, pulling Dean back to the present and the situation at hand. "H-Hurs . . . D-Dea--"

"It's gonna be okay, Sammy, I gotcha." He cradled Sam against his chest. "I'm gonna get you outta here."

Sam's heavy eyelids fluttered closed as his head lolled to the side.

"Come on, little brother, stay awake for me," Dean ordered as he gently nudged his brother to try and rouse him, but his brother remained deathly still and quiet. "Don't you dare die on me, Sammy!"

A sudden loud popping, sizzling noise instantly drew Dean from his painful memories, and he turned his head just in time to see sparks of light showering from the electric box in the corner of the room. With another smaller hissing pop, the light bulb inside his flashlight burst casting him into complete darkness.

"Dean!" Marianna called out from somewhere overhead, and with his heart in his throat, he immediately leapt to his feet.

Taking the steps two at a time, he flew up the stairs. Darting through the living room, he raced up the staircase to the second floor. He stopped dead in his tracks, and listened for a moment before calling out, "Marianna, where are you?"

"Right here, Dean," she replied from somewhere directly behind him.

Within a moment, she flipped on a flashlight, and he swung to notice that she was pressing the palm of her hand firmly against her forehead with blood seeping from beneath it. "Damn it," he cursed as he immediately hurried to her side. "Are you okay?" he asked concernedly as he quickly accessed her for any other injuries.

"I'm fine, Dean," she assured with a smile that all to quickly turned to a grimace. "Just hit my head on the medicine cabinet in the bathroom when the lights went out."

"So . . . so nothing came after you?" Dean asked, more than a little confused. Every ingrained instinct, told him there was something inside this house. He had felt a presence along with unearthly cold breezes, and had witnessed the electrical box explode. His EMF reader registered off the chart readings before all the lights on it had burst. The bulb inside his flashlight had shattered. All of these things were clear signs to Dean that something evil rested within the walls of the house, but as of yet, the creature had failed to try and hurt either himself or Marianna.

"No, like I said, I hit my head on the cabinet."

Dean scrubbed his hand through his beard as he glanced around the long hallway searching for any sign of a spirit, but when he saw or heard nothing, he refocused his attention on Marianna. "You're sure you're okay?"

"It's just a little cut on my head, Dean. I'm fine," she once again reassured.

"Lemme take a look at it for you," he said, taking on the tone he usually reserved only for Sam when his little brother was injured. Gently prying her hand away from her head, he noticed a deep gash just below her hairline. It was bleeding quite a bit, but that was not uncommon with head injuries. "Looks like you might need a few stitches. You want me to take you to the hospital?"

"Naw . . . I don't like hospitals, something about all those sick people around and the scent of antiseptic cleaner . . . it's just . . . I dunno, I just don't like it, never have."

Dean nodded, knowing exactly what she meant as he felt the same way. "Alright, do you have a first aid kit? I can bandage it up for ya."

"Yeah, it's in the bathroom." Marianna turned on her heel and with Dean following behind her, she headed back in the direction she had just come from.

After handing Dean the first aid kit and lighting several candles, Marianna took a seat at her vanity table. Dean knelt beside her and gently began cleansing her cut.

"Looks like you know your way around a first aid kit," Marianna commented as she watched Dean intently. "Are you a doctor by any chance?"

"Naw." Dean chuckled as he dabbed away the blood snaking a path down the side of her face. "I took care of my little brother a lot when he was younger." The smile slid from his features as he thought of the last time he had seen his little brother. There had been such a utter look of mistrust in Sam's hazel eyes that any small hope Dean clung to that they might find their way back to being brothers was shattered and lost.

"I'm sorry for your lose," Marianna said sympathetically, lightly brushing the back of her hand against his cheek. "It must've been really hard losing someone you're so obviously close to."

"He's not . . . ." Tears welled in Dean's eyes as his voice trailed off. His breath caught in his throat as he glanced up into her eyes and saw such sadness in them it momentarily caught him of guard. For some unexplainable reason, the moment he looked into them it instantly reminded him of how Sam had looked after Jessica had died. "He's still alive. We're just not . . . I-I did something that he'll never forgive me for . . . ." His voice once again lapsed and died away. A frown etched his brow as he wondered why he was sharing something so personal with a complete stranger.

"An' you don't think you deserve to be forgiven?" She quirked a brow in question, then grimaced as she lightly pressed her fingertips against the butterfly bandages Dean had just finished taping over her cut.

Dean sadly shook his head, and then lowered it so she wouldn't see how badly he was hurting inside. "He got badly hurt, an' it was all my fault. So no . . . I don't deserve to be forgiven."

Marianna lightly cupped hold of his chin, and raised his head so he was looking her directly in the eyes. "He will forgive you, Dean. He's your brother an' no matter what happened between the two of you, deep down he still loves you."

"No, he doesn't. I saw it in his eyes." Dean tilted his head to the side, breaking her hold on him, then he slowly rose to his feet, and headed for the door, but at the sound of her calm voice he stopped dead in his tracks.

"In any relationship there can be horrible scars, Dean. Things we say an' do to each other that we later regret an' think there is no possible way we can be forgiven for them. But I like to think in those times, there are angels watching over us, guiding us in the right direction."

"My mother used to say angels watched over me." Dean lowered his head in a defeated manner, and uttered in a breathless whisper, "She lied. There's nothing out there watching over me."

"Sometimes it might feel that way." Oddly, as she spoke the sound of her voice changed and took on a strangely familiar tone. "But then at other times, all you have to do is just turn around an' you'll see one standing right behind you."

Dean hesitated a moment before he slowly turned to look at her, and his heart lodged firmly in his throat. "Mom?"