A/N Ok so I finally got the next one up. I knew I should have waited until I'd at least got a plot before posting the first chapter. But hey. So, sorry for the long wait, but here it is. Warnings for more language than usual. It's not gratuitous though - this particular OFC is a little potty minded.

Chapter 2

Waking up is Hard to Do

Sam was having one of his bad days. Not that there was ever such thing as a good day anymore but this one had been especially bad. It had started with a particular horrendous nightmare, which made the others look like My Little Pony or something and the vomit that had expelled itself from his body had made him feel high from the fumes. He'd been considering making himself puke before going to bed, in order to save himself the trouble when the sixth showing of the sequel to Watch Your Brother be Flayed Alive ripped him from the precious few hours that he'd manged to snatch. Of course sleep didn't really do what it was supposed to anymore in a similar way that alcohol failed to turn his miserable, self loathing, self destructive loser brain into a happy, karaoking, telling-random-strangers-that-you-love-them-and-then-falling-over-in-drunken-hilarity booze-monster. And sleep which was supposed to make you feel rested, didn't anymore and instead subjected you to horror movie after horror movie all with a similar plot and all starring your late brother.

He'd taken to writing things down in the small hours when he just couldn't face closing his eyes. He would write down memories that popped into his head from out of nowhere, just the small trivial things which meant very little to most but for some reason he felt a compelling need to remember and record so as not to ever forget. It was important for him to remember. The things his father and brother had taught him, their faces and the sound of their voices and the way Dean called him Sammy just to irritate him even though it really didn't anymore and hadn't done for some time. He needed to remember these things - he was terrified of forgetting, forgetting his goal, his purpose, allowing the grief to drag him into oblivion because sometimes when he woke, brain muddled with booze and nightmare remnants, just for a split second he would forget who he was.

He'd started to remember every anniversary now, for some reason, not just the big ones but the really small mundanes ones that any normal person would have forgotten by now. Like the anniversary of when they started their first prank war, the anniversary of when Dean puked on his sneakers after too much cider, the one when they put itching powder in Bobby's pants and the time Dean had to be hosed down in Bobby's back yard so as not to contaminate the house with the stench of bog - the bog he'd fallen into from the height of a fairly tall tree while trying to retrieve a Frisbee. He scribbles harder and faster as the memory makes him cry. It makes him cry because it was a memory he'd used himself once, to shake Dean out of his misery and to bring a smile when they really didn't have anything to smile about. And the memory had changed in his head because he'd always thought that he'd won the game, the game they always played when they couldn't decide who got the crappy job, or who had to take out the trash or who got to stay behind with the wolf girl and he cries some more because he realizes that Dean threw that one too, let him have her just like he saved him the trauma of falling from a great height and having a stream of freezing cold water turned on him.

He stopped writing, his breath coming out heavy as if he'd been running and he sniffed and wiped the tears so that he could read the memories back to himself and he wasn't all that surprised to see Bobby's name mentioned more than once. Bobby had always been around; he was almost as constant as the car, always coming to their aid whenever they were screwed or just plain screwed up, always telling them what they needed to hear and not always what they wanted. The memories flood him, the painful ones and the joyful ones, the time where they'd sat in that diner with their Dad's friend Rick and eaten cheeseburgers and drunk beer, all the times when Bobby had cooked for them and Dean had always cleared his plate and Sam had snorted in disgust as his brother licked his tongue across the width of the plate slurping with pleasure and Sam had just been grateful for the chance to be a normal family and sit at a table and eat something that didn't come out of a paper bag. There was the time when Bobby had kicked them out of his lounge for squabbling like a couple of brats and they'd had to sit on the step and drink the cheap whiskey that Sam had managed to swipe and the time where Bobby had had to restrain him, prevent him from getting himself scorched while trying to save his brother from a death in flames and then only a short time later used the same arms to hold him back from beating the crap out of that same brother.

And when they'd messed everything up beyond belief, when they'd refused to listen, when they'd done what the hell they wanted despite him telling them not to, he was always there to bail them out, to pick them up and fix them and send them on their way and he always forgave them. Always. No matter what the stunt, however stupid or irresponsible, he would always forgive them, even though he would pretend for ages that he was still pissed, rolling his eyes and grumbling and they always knew it was all an act.

He wasn't sure if it was the whiskey impairing his judgment or just the crippling loneliness and constant ache for his family that made him crack but he was past caring anyway, past caring that his shaking hands were dialling the number of the one person who he had left in the world, past caring that his breath exited his body in broken wrenching sobs as trembling fingers keyed in the number only to reach Bobby's voice mail and he wasn't really sure if he was relieved or not but he hated that he couldn't speak, hated that the sobs that were forcing their way out of him prevented him from making any coherent contribution and he hated the fact that the harder he tried to speak the harder the sobs came and the more pathetic and wretched they sounded. He threw the phone on the floor defeated and demolished, the alcohol in his system causing him to forget to press the end call button and he buried his face in his arms, propped up on bent knees allowing the sounds of muffled, broken hearted weeping to be permanently sealed on an old man's answer phone.

I broke the world today and I feel as if I have just woken up from a prolonged and suffocating nightmare. A nightmare that didn't feel like one at the time, where you did things, said things, felt things that seemed so right at the time, felt so real but now on awakening appear wrong, shameful, confused and horrid and the agonizing, erratic, pounding of your heart tells you that what just happened was very, very bad. I see things clearly now, like a veil has been lifted, the curtain drawn back revealing what I should have seen before, had I chosen to look but it's all too late. I allowed myself to be manipulated, twisted, changed like nothing more than a puppet, my mind switched off to all other possibilities and now in the cold light of day I simply cannot fathom how I could have been so stupid, so misguided, so naive and so wrong.

I was wrong about everything, about Lilith, about Ruby, about myself and this disease inside me, about what was right and what was wrong, just everything. My world has literally been turned on it's head. Everything that I thought was true was just a lie, a lie to manipulate me into doing this one thing, this one thing which could destroy everyone and everything. Everyone, everyone is going to die and I caused it. I caused it all. How do I make amends for that, how do I ever find forgiveness, how the hell do I say sorry?

And yet Dean still came for me. And he didn't kill me, he stayed by my side. He didn't walk away, didn't leave me to face what I'd done alone, when he could have, probably should have run hard and fast and as far from me as he could. But he did what he always does. He stayed.

The skin is stripped from his bones for the fifth time today and he's lost count of the days or is it weeks, surely it's months now? He's not even sure how he can still scream because it's been that long. He wonders how long vocal chords last in Hell? Wonders if you ever get used to pain or if the psyche takes over and shuts down your consciousness. He thinks it's unlikely but he can hope. He screams for help again as the tears drench his skin - the skin that's been magically renewed again - and wishes he wouldn't but it's hard to control yourself when you're in more pain then the human brain can imagine or tolerate. Of course you don't have a brain in Hell, or skin for that matter - but somehow that doesn't stop them from flaying you daily. He often wonders how that works. In between the screams and yelps and gasps - he ponders the conundrum of inflicting physical pain on a non physical entity. And then when it all becomes too much he stops thinking and screams, no, begs for his brother to help him. And he sobs and cries and screams and begs some more. But he won't give in. He won't become like them. He won't.

Sam's eyes flicker open the second sleep releases him, his hands grasping into the darkness, feet kicking desperately against the sheets as the terrified face and gut wrenching cries of his brother fade into the night. The sweat binds the clothes and sheets to his skin, chilling him deep in his blood. The nightmare recedes into the darkness but the memories and sensations remain, leaving him shaking, gasping, trembling, teeth sinking deep into his lip refusing to allow the tears and anguish in his throat to surface. He fights to regain control and just when he feels he's losing he feels her hand brush away the damp strands of hair clinging to his forehead, feels the warmth of her breath ease away the chill, the soft whispering of reassurances chasing away the horrors of his dreams.

She's always here and it feels so wrong but somehow it hurts less. It hurts less when she touches him, when her lips brush his, when her tiny, slender form presses against his, the pain melts away and he can almost forget. And then he hates himself even more. Hates himself for allowing the pain to subside, for allowing the memories of his brother, shredded, torn torso, gargling on his own blood after the screams had given way to shock, to fade into nothing, into the shadows of his mind where they can't haunt him. He tries to cling on to them but they tear at him, burn him from the inside, devouring his being, his essence and sometimes he allows it. He allows the fire to strip away who he is, who he was, to shred away the fabric of his soul, to change him and sometimes it feels better. Sometimes he forgets who he is, forgets that he was someones brother, someones son, sees someone else in the mirror and sometimes it frightens him, sometimes he simply doesn't care. Sometimes he welcomes it.

"Are you kidding me? I mean seriously? No, no way."

"Sam..."

"Not gonna happen. Forget about it. Think of something else."

"Something else. Like what Sammy? Don't you get it? This is who you are, who you're meant to be..."

"It's too far - I mean what we're doing... I'm already breaking his dying wish but that, it's just...no. No way."

"Dying wish, huh? Sam if you'd have listened to me in the first place, instead of insisting on finding 'another way', your brother wouldn't have had the need for a dying wish."

"Shut up."

"If you'd have listened to me, we could have stopped this before it was too late,"

"I said shut up."

"If, Sammy, you'd have listened to me you wouldn't be waking up in the middle of the night hearing your brother's screams and hating yourself more and more for sitting with your thumb up your ass and doing buttkiss!"

The demon tries not to show her surprise at the speed at which Sam has his hand around her throat and her back pushed up against the wall, his face contorted into a vicious snarl. A snarl she might find a little scary if he wasn't so cute.

"That's it Sammy, use that anger, don't hide it. It's what will get you through this."

He releases her with a shove and turns away, fists clenching and unclenching.

"I can't do that Ruby, not that. Don't ask me to."

"Sam, it's already in you, you know that right? It's inside you, it's already a part of you, you can't escape it. So why not give in to it, embrace it, accept it? You don't have to keep torturing yourself. You can do this. You can kill her but you need to listen to me, you need to trust me. And I know you worry about what he'd do, what he'd say, but he's not here, you are and you need to do what you need to do. We're doing this for him Sam."

Since being a young man, Bobby has always been a hoarder. From books to papers to trinkets and more recently - since he figured out how to use one - text and voice messages on his cell phone. He has messages that date back five maybe six years. They're on the whole pretty benign. It's too risky to keep some of the stuff on there. Some of the texts he's sent and received would get him sectioned, but the other stuff, the normal stuff, he likes to keep. Like the one where the knuckleheads called him on his birthday, saying that they had gone and got drunk for him and were now sending him a birthday greeting. He'd wanted to meet up with them but a job needed doing half way across the country and they were tied up with something worse and angry poltergeists wait for no man - or his birthday. The singing they subjected his voice mail to was in no way going to get them on to American Idol but the sentiment had warmed his soul and had made the fractured rib and concussion he'd sustained seem not all that bad.

Of course he's developed a weird morbid need to hold on to the less than pleasant messages too. He's not really sure why, maybe it's as a reminder, a warning not to let history repeat itself, a reminder of what could be lost, of the harsh things the world can throw at you or maybe it's that his own guilt just won't allow him to erase it. He's tried so many times, he finds the message, listens to it finger hovering over the key which would permanently erase the sound of one of his boys sobbing alone, in a motel room who knows where, out of his reach, his grasp. And even though he'd tried to call the kid back, tried to re-establish contact, tried and failed because when it came down to it he didn't want to be found, it doesn't lessen his guilt, because these boys are his responsibility, made so by his own personal vow and he had failed them both. Lost them both and no matter how much his logic tells him that there was little he could have done, he won't allow himself the luxury of erasing that from his phone and from his mind. Because that is his penance. He listens, as he always does, once a week and sends out a silent, tearful apology and hopes that one day he can make it up to both of them.

"So, you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

Sam looked up from a book which resembled a doorstep and twitched his eyebrows at the older man sat opposite supping his first coffee of the day.

"Huh?"

Bobby nodded his head towards the bathroom which Sam supposed was some kind of aging hunter code for 'I'm referring to the unstable fuck up in the bathroom' but there was no way that he was going to let on that he understood it. And he wasn't being mean because lets face it Dean was a fuck up, although to be fair, he always had been but even more so since coming back from Hell. And it wasn't like he hadn't tried to get Dean to open up but Dean wasn't telling and Sam just didn't have the energy anymore to go through their usual song and dance routine that, lets face it, had been getting old about two years ago. And anyway, he'd asked him and Dean had told him straight. Wasn't talking about it as per usual and Sam should just get over it. Well this time he would because to be absolutely honest he had more important things on his plate right now and those things didn't include playing 'guess the nightmare' with Bobby Singer.

"What?"

"Your brother, y' idjit. You think that maybe he's...."

Bobby waggled his head from side to side waiting for Sam to join in with his weird little game.

Sam sighed wearily.

"What Bobby?"

"You know...remembering."

Sam continued to feign ignorance because quite frankly he was irritated and bored and needed to get out of the house and do things, things which he couldn't really do with the old man breathing down his neck. He hadn't seen Ruby for a while but he still had a few other contacts, contacts that Bobby probably wouldn't approve of.

"Remembering what Bobby?"

"Don't play games with me boy you know damn well what I'm talking about."

Sam raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, well if you mean is he remembering Hell, then yes Bobby, he is. In fact he does. Remember it, that is."

"What and you didn't think to mention this small fact."

Sam pasted on his genuinely confused face.

"Why, is there something that maybe you can do for him Bobby? You know of any hypno-therapists who could wipe his memory and make him forget, or maybe you have some sodium pentathol handy so that maybe we could extract the truth from my brother and save us all a boat load of grief?"

"How 'bout you knock off the sarcasm boy, it don't suit you!"

Sam shrugged in defeat.

"Look Bobby, I've tried okay? I asked him straight and he told me the truth, that yes he remembers, but no he doesn't want to talk about it. In fact, I think his actual chosen phrase was 'there aren't words'. So unless you possess some magical extraction powers, then I really don't see what there is to do about it. Besides, if he doesn't wanna talk about it then can we really blame him? I'm not sure I would either to be honest. And anyway what the hell is talking about it gong to do? How the hell is sharing gonna help him. Can we undo what happened to him? No. can we change the past? No. So if you ask me I say leave well alone."

"What the hell is wrong with you these days Sam? Since when do you ever give up on trying to get Dean to share? Since when did you think not talking about something was the best course of action?"

"Hm, I dunno Bobby, maybe since my brother was torn apart screaming in front of my eyes, by a bunch of hungry invisible hounds from Hell, while I was pinned to a wall unable to do anything but scream like a girl for the bastards to stop?"

The sarcasm in Sam's voice turned to barely concealed fury and he stood and turned away from the table, took a few paces running his hand through his hair. After a few calming breaths he turned back to the older hunter and faced him down.

"Look, Bobby I don't have time for this. I got things to do."

"What sort of things?"

"Just things Bobby!"

"Just what is goin' on with you Sam? You just got your brother back - can't you at least take some time to breathe? To just be happy that he's back?"

"I am happy Bobby, but that doesn't change anything. I still gotta find Lilith."

"I get it, kid, I do. You want revenge, for what she did to your family but..."

"This isn't about revenge anymore Bobby. It's bigger than that. She has to be stopped. End of."

"I'm not sayin' that she doesn't, what I'm saying is that maybe you should just slow down for a minute. Take a look around you. Take stock of what's important."

"Look Bobby, if you want to have a life changing moment then don't let me stop you. Go ahead and enjoy your new found appreciation of life and all it's goodness, but in the meantime - if you don't mind - I'll be trying to save the world."

That was the moment Bobby appeared to embrace his anger too, pushing his chair aside and taking a menacing step towards Sam, which increased his own a notch and before he knew it, they were both yelling at each other.

"Dammit Sam, your brother's in there crying out for you - for his brother to help him. What happened to you to make you stop caring about him?"

"What the hell do you know, huh Bobby? You think I don't care about him? You think I don't have my own nightmares about losing him all over again? You think I'm not..."

Sam stopped short, breathing heavily and turned away again, attempting to gain control. It was important to control ones emotions, his father had taught him that as had Dean and he was all about remembering what he'd been taught. Bobby took a breath too, but didn't seem all that bothered about controlling his.

"Sam, I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm trying to help you. This act you're pulling, it ain't foolin' no one. I know what losing him did to you."

Sam turned on him then the anger replacing any other sensation he was experiencing, but anger was okay - he knew that. Anger would protect you. Anger was better than misery, or heart ache or loneliness, anger was the supreme emotion to which no other could compare.

"Oh really, Bobby. Do you?"

"Dammit kid we both lost him, not just you."

"He's my brother Bobby!"

"And to me he's like a son!"

Sam flinched at Bobby's almost growling rebuke, the anger deserting him leaving him only with shame, guilt, fear and utter sadness. He looked away his jaw tensing, eyes flickering wishing he could feel angry again, wishing he didn't feel so fucking wretched. Wishing he could understand what the hell had happened to his soul and his heart.

Bobby deflated and exhaled slowly his tone softening.

"You both are. Sam don't do this, to him or yourself. Don't shut yourself down, son. It only ever ends bad."

It's hard to look back at the person I was. I never realized what was happening until it was too late, but I can see it all now. Dean coming back from the dead - it was like waking up from one of those horrid, vivid dreams, that takes you days to shake off. The ones that linger and haunt you and no matter how much you tell yourself that it's over, that it wasn't real, you just can't rid yourself of the feeling it left you with. I couldn't go back to the person I was, no matter how I tried, I couldn't erase the months I'd spent alone, couldn't un-grieve for my brother, couldn't shake off the dream because I never really woke up. Dean was back but I never really believed it. A part of me kept thinking it was all a lie, that as long as Lilith was still around she could take him back whenever she wanted. And a part of me just couldn't let go, couldn't accept that he was back, accept that the nightmare was over, in case it wasn't, in case I was still trapped in the dream but just didn't realize it. In case I lost him again. The thing was, when I did finally wake up, after such a long time living with my senses dulled and blinded, closing off the parts of me that made me human, embracing the monster inside of me, the monster that I'd fed with grief and anger and a lust for revenge, it made the reality I was presented with so much more difficult to face.

"I can't Bobby, I can't talk about that."

"Why don't you try. He wants to help you, he's just forgotten how. Maybe you can help each other. You're both lost kiddo and if you can't find your way back to each other, then it's all gonna go to shit."

"Dude what the hell happened to you? Didn't you do anything but drink whiskey and watch daytime TV while I was south?"

"Not really, kid no."

We nearly lost Bobby today. It was almost like a jolt of electricity through my system, a reminder of what we had left and what we could lose, yet another wake up call I suppose. I was terrified and I felt like shit at the same time because I wasn't sure if I was more scared for Bobby or for myself. Scared that if we lost Bobby, I would lose what was left of myself, that I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for that because it would have been my fault. Everything that happens as a result of the apocalypse is down to me and I have to try and live with that without letting it cripple me and turn me into a self pitying loser. It's kind of hard though because self pitying loser is what I do best. But if Bobby had died, it would have been because of me, because I released the devil and brought all the scum to the surface, the scum that was spreading across our world and destroying people who couldn't even spell apocalypse let alone recognize that it was happening.

But I think the thing that scared me the most was the thought of losing Dean for good. If Bobby hadn't made it that would have been it. Dean would never be able to forgive me, sure he'd pretend and try just like he's doing now but eventually it would come out how much he hated me, how much I'd screwed everything up and how I'd been responsible for pretty much the destruction of our entire family including Bobby. And then of course I really would have peaked. Lost everything, completely one hundred percent alone with nothing left and it absolutely terrified me and I can't tell anyone cause it makes me sound like the most selfish son of a bitch in the whole world.

But even after everything he went and forgave me and it felt worse. It felt worse. I wanted to tell him, to scream at him to take it all back, to tell me that it wasn't the demon talking, that it was him because when he told me to lose his number it was almost a relief, that finally someone was acknowledging what I'd done, forcing me to face what I'd done instead of ignoring it or pretending that it was okay and even though it hurt more than anything it felt right, like I was getting what I deserved, without being let off the hook and I welcomed it. I accepted it and I didn't question it for one second. But it wasn't true, it wasn't Bobby and I felt a thousand different things from immense overwhelming relief and and gratitude to the worst, crippling self hatred I've ever known because I knew, I knew, that I didn't deserve his forgiveness or even a chance to earn it, but the relief, the relief was more powerful and it took over and almost floored me and if I could remember how to cry I probably would have crumbled in a mess on the floor right there in front of them both.

But from Dean I still awaited the tirade. Waited for the anger, the accusations, the yelling, the blows, I waited and waited and I wished for it to come but it never did. What I got instead, was disappointment, that look in his eyes that told of everything I'd done to him, how I'd let him down, how I'd hurt him, betrayed him and how there was nothing, not one thing I could do or say that would make it right and it crushed me and I wished more than anything that he would just hit me. A punch, several punches, a full on beat down would have been so much easier. The body can heal, aches and pains fade, wounds heal, split lip's dry up and scab but when your brother tells you that he no longer trusts you and that what you both had can never be retrieved and you know that it's all because of you and your selfishness and pride and overwhelming need for control, power and revenge and because you just couldn't let go - well, there is no recovery from that. No amount of time can repair or mend and nothing can make it right.

I tried really hard to move on. I did. I knew it was the right thing to do, just like Bobby had done. When the demon in his meat suit had said those things to Sam, for a second I felt justified. Almost like it was okay to feel the way I was feeling, to admit that I wanted to beat the crap out of my brother, that I wanted to yell at him, to ask him why, after everything we'd seen and done and promised each other he could allow himself to be manipulated like he had. How he could just turn away from me and trust one of the filthy things we hunt instead of his family. I've tried so hard to understand but I can't and I don't. I can't empathize and I don't want to I just feel angry and betrayed and I want to tell him. When Bobby forgave him in the hospital, I was pleased and relieved for Sam, I was, really. But a small part of me felt just the tiniest bit betrayed. Again. A part of me had wanted Bobby to be on my side, to understand how angry I was and to make me feel like I was right, justified and not the lowest piece of scum excuse for a big brother that I feel right now. I hate feeling like this. I hate it and I hate myself for feeling it because I can see what it's doing to him, I see how sorry he is, how the guilt's nearly killing him, how he just wants me to tell him that it's okay, that I'm still his big brother, that I forgive him. And I want to, I do. I just can't. I can't.

I have to walk away. I have to leave. Leave my brother and the car - the two things I've been able to rely on and call home for so many years. I have to fix this - this mess that I've created and I don't know how but if I even stand a chance and if my brother is ever going to trust me again I have to be able to at least trust myself.

oooooooooooooooooooooo

She's getting fidgety again. They've all felt particularly loud today. Loud and intrusive and fucking annoying. She turns the volume up and tries to block them out wishing that she could turn THEM down. Turn them right down, right, right down, bit more, bit more... bit more and... off. Yes turning them off would be preferable. Preferable to on and loud and in her head, ALL FUCKING DAY. She's run out of whiskey as well which is just awesome. Running out of whiskey means she has to go the store and buy more whiskey which means bumping into others who need whiskey and people who need whiskey tend to be especially loud because they're all so riddled with their mommy and daddy issues and sleep deprivation and they just can't get over that day when Nelson pulled their pants down on stage in front of the whole school, or the fact that people used to laugh at them because they smelled of pee, or brought their packed lunch in a carrier bag. Loud loud loud. Blah Blah Blah. Of course whiskey makes them quiet. Whiskey shuts them up a little, well not totally but kind of muffles them so they're not so intense and itchy and they don't hurt her head so much. That's why her feet are taking her to the scummy bar down the road. She didn't ask them to but they did it anyway, her feet are like that sometimes. Not quite attached to her brain especially when her brain is concentrating on silencing Julia's daily affirmations, or Roger the Todger's weird foot cravings or Mack's unfortunate incident with a transsexual called Phil. It's not that she doesn't understand, it's just that's she wishes they would just shut. The fuck. Up. Just once. For one day. Once.

And she isn't expecting much when she walks in. She'd been in there a zillion times, she didn't even have to tell the bar staff what she wanted - they would always know and it's not like you need to be special to work that out, but what she sees surprises even her and the fact that it surprises her surprises her because she isn't used to being surprised. But - and this is the thing - it does explain the weird dreams she'd been having, freaky impossible to articulate shit which had confused even her and she's generally not used to being confused either. It had scared her a little, because she couldn't write the stuff down, because she didn't know the language for Seriously Fucked Up Shit and then it had just plain pissed her off and she'd smashed a few things which had pissed her off even more and then she'd figured some of it out but now - now she sees him - in the bar, bold as shit, not even having the fucking decency to hide himself from her and that pisses her off as well.

And the moment hits her like a wave. There are few sounds in the room, few people means few sounds and few people and a few whiskeys means even fewer sounds but this - this to her is immense. It's awesome and horrible, agony and sheer joy, misery, hatred, death, fury and elation; it's rapture and it's deliverance, it's terror, horror and salvation and so - so much beauty it steals her breath.

It's about time - she thinks with self satisfied relief. She turns off the music, removes the ear phones and lights a cigarette.

To be continued...

Sorry to be a bit cryptic but I need a plot or something to keep you interested. This chapter was a frigging nightmare so I really hope that someone liked it. If you did, please feel free to comment - they're always gratefully received ;)