Disclaimer: I don't own the recognizable characters, obviously. Only the plot!

Author's Note: Thanks for tagging along on this weird adventure! I'm enjoying the company!

You already know how awesome you are but let me remind you, YOU'RE AWESOME!

Also, thanks to Winjennster for nailing down an actual season for this story. It fits nicely in Season Six, where the war is raging in heaven. Onward!

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Sam glowered at Bobby from the floor. "What did you do," he asked again, his voice was lower this time but somehow even more angry than before.

Bobby swallowed the hard lump in his throat. He knew that tone. It was the famous Winchester tone that surfaced when they felt betrayed by someone they trusted. And they had so few people to trust anymore. "He asked me to, Sam. He asked me to let him go."

"But why would you," Sam yelled, instantly grabbing his pounding head as the buzzing in his ears worsened; he couldn't see straight as his vision continued to swim. He slowly pulled himself up from the floor, clinging to the doorframe for support. He glanced down at the floor, seeing the blood he had left behind. He slowly touched the back of his head, hissing in pain as he gingerly felt the large, swelling lump. Bobby reached to help him; cringing when Sam angrily pushed his hands away.

Sam continued to cling to the doorframe, leaving bloody finger prints along the wood. His head pounded from his efforts to keep himself upright. He stepped slowly across the room, swaying heavily, in an effort to reach the backdoor. He had to know. He had to see that Dean was really gone. Bobby hovered a step away, hoping that if Sam went down, he would be able to catch him; hoping also that Sam would even let him near enough to do it.

Sam groaned and held a hand to the oozing lump on the back of his head. He refused to even acknowledge Bobby. The only person Sam wanted was gone. And it was Bobby's fault.

Sam slowly made his way to the door, lunging for the doorframe with his last step. The room was beginning to spin faster. He swallowed hard as the taste of bile rose to his mouth.

He shoved the screen door open and his unfocused eyes frantically searched the porch and yard for any sign of Dean. There was nothing. Not even a footprint in the dust on the porch.

Bobby watched as Sam slowly slid down the doorframe until he was nearly sprawled on the floor.

"Dean... I have to find him."

"Sam—"

"I have to find him!"

"We will, Sam. Calm—"

"Don't tell me to calm down! You let him go," Sam yelled out, his breaths coming in short pants. His whole body felt heavy. He pointlessly tried to swat the dark spots in his vision. "You let him go..."

"Sam, you need to calm down. Breathe," Bobby said as he kneeled next to Sam. "Take a breath, you're going to hyperventilate and that won't help anybody."

Sam struggled to breathe, anxiety rolling over him like waves in a stormy sea. His eyes were glazing over, his lips pursed as he tried to pull in a breath. "I need to find…how…how could you?"

"Sam, look at me," Bobby demanded, turning Sam's face towards him. He frowned at Sam's glassy eyes. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Sam uncoordinatedly tried to swat Bobby's hand away. "Leave me alone! You let him…"

Bobby grabbed Sam's jaw and forced him to look up at him. He held Sam's angst filled gaze as he said, "I know what I did, Sam. But right now, we need to worry about you. Stop being an ass and tell me how many fingers I'm holding up."

Sam tried to focus on the blurry image in front of him. "Seven. Now get out of my way, old man! I have to find Dean."

Bobby shook his head, he ignored Sam's harshness. Another reason to find Dean, he was the only one Sam would listen to. "You're not even close, considering I was only using one hand. You've got double vision to say the least. You know the drill: name, place, and date."

Sam burst out in hysterical laughter, his breathing becoming choppy. "You let him go…and you want me to lay here and recite bullshit for you?"

"Sam, humor me or I will drag your ass to the emergency room and we both know they'll keep you overnight for observation. Is that what you want? To waste even more time?"

Even concussed, Sam knew the right answer; it had been drilled into them over years of injury. He tried to shake his head but cringed as it made the pounding in his head worsen. "Sam Winchester."

"And?"

"We're at your house."

"Not good enough. Name the state and town," Bobby said with a huff. Winchesters, always trying to cut a corner to prove their invincibility.

"Sioux Falls….Dakota."

"North Dakota or South Dakota, Sam?"

"The lower one," Sam said confidently.

Bobby huffed in exasperation. "Date?"

Sam looked thoughtful, his eyes wandering across the room. "Ummm…."

"Stop trying to read the calendar, Sam. Besides, you've got double vision; it'd be a miracle if you could read the damn thing even if your nose was pressed to it."

Sam tried to roll his eyes, which only made his nausea worse. "Dean doesn't know the date either."

"And that's supposed to make your scrambled brains alright? Stay put while I get something to clean you up. Might need some stitches."

Sam rolled his head away from Bobby and stared out the door and across the porch to the Impala. "I need to go."

"Not a chance, kid," Bobby said with a sigh as he pulled open a kitchen drawer. "We have to wait til you're up to it and even then we have to know which direction to go in. We'll get a call, we have every time. This time won't be any different."

Sam stared up at Bobby, tears streaking down his face and into his hair. "You don't know that."

Bobby didn't say anything as he held a towel to Sam's bleeding head. Hell, he wanted this time to be like all the other times but how could he know? Dean could end up in some patch of unknown wilderness and die of exposure. He could wind up in the middle of a major highway and be run over by a church van filled with singing nuns. Who knew?

A phone started to ring somewhere in the house, making both of them jump. "Keep pressure on it. I'll be back in minute."

Bobby hurried to the other room and answered the phone; he stepped back into the room long enough to give Sam the 'it's not him' look. Sam laid there listening to Bobby talk to someone named Jane about a banshee in Montana before his eyes caught a glint of metal on the floor. He slowly rolled over and picked them up; he knew the second he touched them what they were, the Impala's keys. They must have fallen out of Dean's pocket on his forced march through the kitchen.

He needed to find Dean.

He paused to listen to Bobby in the next room, the sound of pages being flipped and Latin being recited caught his ears. Bobby was busy; too busy to help Sam. Too busy to help Dean. He would have to do this alone.

Sam gripped the keys tightly and willed the spots in his vision to go away. He slowly climbed to his feet, gripping the table as he tried to regain his balance. His head swam as the room began to spin again.

Only one thought resounded in his addled brain, find Dean.

Sam opened the screen door and slipped out as quietly as he could. He could still faintly hear Bobby explained the details of some ritual into his phone. Sam didn't care. He could find Dean on his own.

Sam stumbled across the yard, tripping on his own feet and falling hard onto his knees. The impact made his stomach roll. He glanced furtively back at the house, half expecting to see Bobby coming after him. He breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't see Bobby. He pulled himself to his feet using the car for support. His brain pounded in his skull, threatening to explode with every movement he made.

He tried to yank the door open; it was locked. He squinted at the keys, trying to see which one he needed. The first one didn't even fit after a full two minutes of trying to get it into the key hole; the multiple scratches now surrounding the keyhole went unnoticed in his stupor.

He smiled triumphantly when the second key slid into the lock. With a groan, he slid behind the wheel. He fumbled with the ignition and finally the reluctant engine cranked for him.

"I'm coming Dean," he slurred to himself. His head swam as he shifted into gear, his vision blurring.

He gripped the steer wheel tightly and peered out the windshield, wondering briefly why everything was so blurry. Maybe he needed to clean the windshield. As the junkyard's exit came into view he gunned the engine and headed for the road.

As the car hit a pothole it sent a jolt through him, rattling his brain in his skull. He cried out and brought a hand to the back of his head. It came away red.

He stared at his hand in surprise before another bump made him look up quickly, his head swimming from the sudden motion. He yanked on the wheel and tried to find the junkyard's exit again. He couldn't see anything but black spots in his vision.

With a sudden and hard lurch, the car came to a halt, throwing him into the dash.

As the pain behind his eyes exploded, his vision gave out to darkness.

Bobby stood on the porch, shaking his head in disbelief. He hurried down the steps and towards the Impala, his heart pounding in his chest. "Sam!"

Bobby gave the car a quick glance as he rounded it; a slight frown crossed his face as he stared at the damage, nothing he couldn't fix luckily. He yanked the driver's side door open and stared in at Sam. Blood trickled from his forehead now, as well as continuing to ooze more slowly from the lump on the back of his head. "Sam?"

He was unconscious.

"Sam? Can you hear me?"

Bobby reached in and killed the engine. Sam didn't move.

Bobby sighed and debated over what to do. He could call an ambulance. He could haul Sam to the emergency room himself. Or he could lug him inside and wait it out. He had dealt with concussions before, on more than one occasion. It never got any easier to decide what call to make. Every concussion merited some level of medical care, but most hunters lived under the radar, out from under prying eyes and questions. He glanced at Sam's bloody face and mentally tallied up the numerous signs Sam had exhibited.

Aggression, confusion, slurring, dizziness, repetitive conversation, blurred and double vision, nausea…and then his blatantly poor decision that had resulted in him crashing the Impala into a pile of rusted out pickup trucks in the salvage yard; Bobby stopped counting with a sigh and pulled his phone from his pocket, hoping to God that Dr. Fisher was on call. He hated filling out hospital paperwork, but not nearly as much as he was going to hate telling Sam that he had dented the Impala.

WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN

It was warm. Not hot, not cold, not even humid. A faint breeze blew past him. He opened his eyes slowly. It was daytime, wherever he was.

The blue sky overhead had no clouds, but trees cut into his line of sight. He moved slowly, hoping to hear a road noise or anything that would give him a direction to start walking in.

He could hear nothing. No passing trucks. No emergency sirens. Not even a distant birdsong. Nothing.

He cautiously lifted his head and peered around. It was too perfect, the sun was too bright and the sky to blue. He was in a clearing; immense oak trees encircled the grassy meadow where he was laying. He took a minute to take stock of himself. His feet no longer hurt, in fact, nothing hurt. He looked at his arms, there were no traces left of the bruises that had encircled his wrists and laced to his elbows. Without even looking, he knew the ones on his ankles were also gone.

He felt himself beginning to panic and scrambled to pull his phone from his pocket. He stared at his phone in horror. No service. No signal. And only one bar of battery life left. It was utterly useless.

Wherever he was, he wasn't going to be able to call Bobby or Sam to come and get him.

He felt his heart pounding in his chest, his lungs burning as he tried to breath. His hands shook as he shoved his phone back in his pocket. He was going to have a full blown panic attack if he didn't stop.

"Snap out of it, Dean," he said aloud to himself. "Just have to wait it out."

He knew he had probably been dropped 'here' before, wherever it was, every time he had been snatched up. And who knew, maybe he had been aware each time and just forgot when he returned to real life…Either way, chances were he'd end up back on the side of a road eventually. He just had to keep calm and wait for whatever this was to be over.

He wracked his brain trying to figure out who or what could be taking him. Remembering what Bobby had told him about hexes and curses, he began frantically looking at his arms for any mark that he didn't recognize. With a cautious glance around the clearing, he yanked his shirt off and continued his search. Nothing.

He sighed deeply, his eyes closing for a second. He shook his head. This wasn't going well. With a quick prayer to whomever was still using the prayer channels, he slipped his boots and jeans off.

"Sure, just as I get naked, I'll end up getting zapped back to reality. Oval office maybe," Dean grumbled aloud as he flung his boxers onto the pile of discarded clothes. "Least I'll get a chance to tell the President I'm sick of the gas prices."

Dean continued his search for curse and hex marks. There were the usual array of scars and freckles, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. He pulled his clothes back on with a sigh. He was stumped. What was taking him? And why?

A breeze suddenly swept past him, a recognizable smell filling the air. It was sweet and sugary, like the most delicious pie in the universe had just been pulled out of the oven; only better somehow. As he pulled in another lungful of the mouth-watering aroma, he heard a noise nearby.

He glanced around for anything he could use as a weapon; a small branch lay nearby. He crawled towards it and wrapped his hand around it just as something stepped right in front of him.

White fabric brushed his knuckles, the faint print on the fabric making his heart skip a beat.

He glanced up slowly, his eyes taking in the unforgettable silhouette.

He stood slowly, tears pricking his eyes as he reached out to touch her blond hair.

"Mom?"

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Bobby stared out the doorway of the small room, wondering where Dean might be. He held a cup of coffee in his hand, more out of habit than anything. No one drank hospital coffee because they liked the flavor. They drank it because it was all part of the crappy experience, one that started with admission paperwork and pesky questions and ended with discharge paperwork.

He had already asked for Sam's discharge paperwork to be finalized. It had been the first thing he had asked for when the xrays confirmed that Sam's skull wasn't fractured.

Sam sat silently across the room on the bed. He had slowly gotten redressed, refusing Bobby's help. He was staring at his boots on the floor. They seemed so far away. He knew there was no way he was going to able to reach them without falling over. His head was still pounding.

He knew from listening to Bobby and the emergency staff that he had stitches, nearly a dozen on the back of his head from the kitchen doorframe and six near his temple from hitting the dash. He had been luck, they said. The car was moving so slowly and he had been so lax from his concussion that he had moved through the crash like a rag doll, the lack of tensing up had lessened his muscle strain. Regardless of how lucky they said he was, he was still sore. And angry.

Bobby sipped his coffee, refusing to acknowledge Sam's glare. He knew Sam was still out of it and wasn't ready to listen. He would deal with Sam's attitude later. He just wanted to get them out of the emergency room as quickly as possible. Luckily, Dr. Fisher had taken charge of Sam's case the second they had set foot into the hospital.

He watched the corridor, knowing that Sam's paperwork should be en route. He spotted Dr. Fisher down the hallway and nodded to him. Dr. Fisher hurried into the room and thrust a large envelope into his hands. "Prescriptions and discharge paperwork are in there. "

Bobby nodded his thanks.

"You sure you want to take him so soon? I'd feel better if he'd stay the full twenty four hours," the elderly man said with a glance at Sam.

"Can't," Bobby simply stated. "We've got something more pressing than your need to glance at him every hour."

The man chuckled. "It's called observation for a reason, Bobby. We don't open up everyone who comes in here with a concussion; only one percent, you know that. Be glad he didn't fracture that skull of his; we'd be having a standoff over his discharge if he had. Just follow my discharge orders and call me on my cell tonight and let me know he's doing alright. You promise to do that and I'll let you walk out of here without any trouble."

Bobby nodded and shook his outstretched hand. "Fine by me."

Sam slowly slid from the bed, closing his eyes as the room spun uncontrollably. He felt a hand steady him and guide him into a wheelchair. "Sorry, but you know the drill."

"Whatever," Sam mumbled as Bobby pushed him towards to door and out into the hallway. He glanced into every passing room, believing unrealistically that Dean could be in any one of them.

"Who's watching the phones," he asked, not really wanting to talk to Bobby right then but desperate for information.

"Nobody," Bobby huffed. "I've got both of our cell phones in my pocket but as for the land lines…we'll just have to check when we get home."

Sam said nothing. There was no point in telling Bobby how important the phones were right now, he already knew.

"I have to go find him," Sam said softly, more to himself than for Bobby's benefit.

"We will find him, Sam. But until your brain's done sloshing around in your skull, you're not driving or lifting anything heavier than a spoon," Bobby said as he pushed the wheelchair through the exit and into the parking lot. "Bear in mind, you get out of line again, I'll pump you full of morphine and break both your arms and legs and leave you on the hospital's doorstep with a fake suicide note pinned to your shirt. You wanna bet how long they'll keep your ass under observation for all that?"

Sam didn't say anything. The tone in Bobby's voice was enough to keep Sam from retorting.

"Should have never taken the time to help Jane out like that, knowing you were concussed," Bobby spat. He was seething with anger, more at himself than Sam. "Should have known you would attempt something stupid the second I took my eyes off you."

Bobby watched in amazement as Sam burst into tears. He instantly felt shame. Sam wasn't thinking straight, from the concussion and his panic over Dean, and he needed to cut Sam some slack.

"Sam, I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at me, you dumbass," Bobby said gently. "Just...Listen to me. We'll get him back."

"How," Sam sniffled.

"How about we start with something a little old school?"

Sam looked up at Bobby, confusion on his face.

"We're going to start with a prayer."

Sam's confusion increased. Maybe Bobby was the one who had hit his head.

"Bobby, Cas already said that God is missing. No one's listening."

"Cas might be," Bobby said as he hefted Sam into the car. "Just cause heaven's having a little war right now, that doesn't mean he wouldn't like to take a little sabbatical and help us out."

"I've been trying, Bobby. Dean and I have both tried to get his attention for a while now. He's not listening," Sam said he fumbled with his seatbelt.

Bobby sighed. If Castiel hadn't answered Dean himself, there was no way he was going to listen to him or Sam.

"Maybe you're just not doing it right," Bobby mused as he pulled away from the hospital. "Might have to peak his interest is all."

Okay, okay. I know. I'm going against my own grain here by recruiting Castiel. But let me ASSURE you, he's not being added as a way to "POOF!" Dean back into reality. I hate using all powerful characters, they make everything to friggin easy on the writer. So bearing that in mind, Castiel isn't going to save the day in a snap of his fingers.

Keep your eyes peeled. More clues and adventure coming down the pike.

We're about to lean heavily on the Germanic tones of this species. Better bake up some goodness, strap on a bell, and catch yourself a rooster!

Oh! Please leave a review! They make me write faster…and better!