Worth the Price?
Part Three

He just stopped breathing, the professor had said.

A split second after that, Dean barreled into the creature in a full-blown rage.

"Stop!" the professor yelled. "You stop!"

Dean was beyond listening, however. It was Sam we were talking about. When it came to Sam, Dean was beyond reasoning.

"Killing him won't help," Bobby said. "And you're wasting time. We have maybe five minutes or there won't be any Sam to bring back. He'll be brain dead. Now let him up so he can put up a barrier. In case we fail."

"Fail what?" Dean said angrily, but listening to Bobby anyway. "We don't know what to do!"

"We can try and break it," the professor said. "If we succeed, Sam's life force will go back in his body."

"We can't risk everybody!" Dean said and then he looked at me. Thought at me. Why didn't you destroy the damn thing?

"This is not my fault," I seethed. "I didn't make Sam do this. Sam did it on his own." Then to Creature, "Put up the barrier."

"Aly," Dean said roughly. "No. You, Bobby, the teacher guy. Get out."

I looked at Bobby and Professor Connors. "Do you guys wanna leave?" Neither of them moved. "Then the barrier goes up."

"What do I get?" Creature asked.

"You offered," I reminded him. Or it. Whichever.

"I offered earlier. You didn't accept. What do I get?"

"This is your job, isn't it?" Connors asked softly. "You want a bribe to do your job?"

"My clan blame me for this. I was supposed to find the stone before this happened. I need something to make them not mad."

"You can have your rock back if you save him. Now," Dean said.

"I can't reverse it. The exchange must be made."

"No!"

I ignored the male energy and went and picked up the now bright white stone. I could feel Sam's life surging through it and I quickly put it back down. Wow. It was really in there. It was a little…disturbing.

But…it gave me an idea. A very bad, very dangerous idea.

I put one hand on Sam's not moving chest and the other hand on the stone and began pulling. I tried working it like I would if I was exchanging energy. I was filtering it through me and back into Sam. I wasn't exactly sure it would work, but over bickering and fighting…it was worth a shot.

It kind of burned. I felt too full because I had both mine and Sam's life in my hands and then I pushed - shoved aggressively - to get the part that was Sam back into Sam. I was glowing again. Bright white, the color the stone had been, but was now fading fast. Once the stone was empty I focused on making sure all of Sam went back in to Sam.

"Aly, no," was the first thing Sam said.

That got everyone's attention. As if my little light show hadn't been enough.

"I'm sorry, Sam. This is just…it's a lot bigger than you saving Dean."

I grabbed the rock and, figuring that since it was empty it was now not volatile, I threw it at the wall. I braced myself just in case.

Nothing happened. Well, except Creature was pissed and it charged at me. I dodged the attack, and pushed it to the floor. I kicked and caught the thing under the chin. It yelped and attacked in a biting kind of way. It's fangs grazed my left calf. It began throwing a tantrum - roaring, cursing - and then it was dead. A knife had gone through its neck.

Dean had been the one who killed it.

"You okay?" he asked. "Did it bite you?"

"Not really. It's just a scratch." And I had already healed from it. "Stone's gone, Sam's good, all's fine."

Dean's eyes reached into mine and I was lost in the intensity of his love for me. It was like the world paused for a second. It made me want to find a remote with freeze-frame and never unfreeze.

Aside from love there was also gratitude. I had risked a lot, doing what I had, but I had done it.

I gave Dean a knowing half-smile and gestured toward Sam. Sam, who looked extremely pissed. At me. He was probably cursing at me for messing up his plan.

Dean squeezed my arm gently before glancing at Sam.

"Sammy, you are so getting grounded for this."

Sam's color had returned, but he didn't say anything or react to Dean's words at all. He was just looking at the broken pieces of the stone I had shattered. He was clenching his jaw, and I was suddenly wondering how long he'd be pissed at me for messing up the only chance we'd had so far to try to save Dean. But…I couldn't deal with that right now. I didn't want to focus on the fact that I hadn't saved Dean. I'd had the chance, the opportunity, but…I hadn't taken it. I could've let Sam do what he'd planned to do. Dean would've been alive…and…

No. I'd had a way to save someone's life, so I'd done it. Simple as that. Or I was wishing it was as simple as that. But it wasn't that simple. It never would be as long as I was caught between Sam and Dean. And I was stuck between them. I couldn't do anything without hurting one or the other. If I had let Sam die or trade himself for Dean then Dean would've hated me forever. But since I'd saved Sam…Dean was happy, sure, but he was still dying. And now Sam was pissed at me.

"You know what that thing was?" Bobby asked Connors, getting everyone back to business.

"A gnome that lives underground."

"Oh, I thought gnome." I had a second of happiness for being right and then I felt like crap again.

"He wasn't lying. Humans did steal some of his clan's secrets. That stone, storage vessel, whatever."

"Yeah, well, guess they won't be getting that back," Dean said, shrugging and looking at the pieces of the black stone; it had broken like glass. "What did they use it for?"

"Prolonging their king's life. So the stories go, anyway. No hard facts, but since the stone was, in fact, in existence, I'd say the legend has at least some basis in fact. They, uh, like things that shine. Like your little light display." The last part was directed at me. "How did you do that?"

I sighed. "Let's just said I'm not completely normal, and we'll leave it at that."

I couldn't exactly tell him the truth, now could I? That would not go over well.

"You said that…gnome…it had a job?" Dean asked, getting the attention off of me.

"Most life forms on this planet have a food chain, so to speak, just like us. Workers, bosses, bosses boss's. That was a worker, obviously. They might send someone else, but it's unlikely. They - his race - will have felt the stone's energy disappear, they'll know it's gone."

"They won't, like, come after us now, right?" I asked. "Uh, revenge or something."

The professor sighed. "Probably not. But even if they did, you won't be here much longer, right? I know what you guys do, what's out there. They wouldn't find you."

"Great," Dean said. "Anything else we need to know?"

"Nope, that about sums it up."

"Good, so we can go. We need to bury that thing."

Dean went to Sam to see if he needed help getting up, but Sam shrugged him off.

"I'm fine, get off me."

Oh, great. Now we were going to have to deal with a bitchy Sam for the next however long it took him to get over it. Sam went up the stairs and out of the basement. I rolled my eyes and followed behind him.

Jeeze, tonight was going to be a ton of fun.

God.

Back at Missouri's place, Sam immediately went to his room. Probably to brood. Ungrateful bastard. He hadn't even helped us bury the gnome.

"I'm…I'm gonna go to bed," I said. "Night, guys."

Guys being Bobby, Dean, and Missouri; she'd waited up for us to get back.

"Don't go to sleep yet, okay? I wanna talk to you," Dean said. "I'll give you a few minutes and then I'll come up."

I nodded, wondering what he wanted. I could tell he wasn't in lecture mode, so… "Okay."

On my way to my room I stopped by Sam's and went in. He was getting his things together for when we had to leave.

"Sam…can we talk?" I hated when either of the guys were mad at me, so I wanted to make it right again.

"With each other? No. Please get out of my room."

I went towards him and said, "You are an ungrateful son of a bitch, you know that? And what did you think was gonna happen, huh? If you had died, Dean would've just switched with you again."

"Shut up," Sam muttered.

"No. Sam, I know you wanna save Dean. I know, believe me. But killing yourself is not the answer."

"I said shut up!"

Then he actually shoved me against the wall and pinned me there. He towered above me. I saw the angry tears in his eyes; I could also see that he wasn't thinking clearly. Obviously, or he wouldn't have shoved me.

"I had a way and you - you ruined it. You should've just let me -"

"Get your hands off her, Sam." Dean's voice was hard and it was coming from the doorway. "Now."

Sam looked like he was considering not listening for about fifteen seconds, but then he let me go. I moved away quickly. I got behind Dean, just in case one of them decided to throw a punch or something at the other. As it was, I'd never seen Dean look so angry at Sam. Apparently, one way to piss Dean off was for Sam to be violent with me.

"What the hell is wrong with you, huh? You don't touch her like that again!"

Sam didn't even look apologetic; obviously he thought I'd deserved what he'd done. As I'd thought earlier…he was an ungrateful bastard.

Dean grabbed my elbow gently and looked me up and down. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" Maybe this is the beginning of their 'one destroys the other' thing.

I wanted to tell him that 'no, it's not, Sam's just having a bitch attack' but I didn't.

"I'm okay," I said softly. "Um…I'm really gonna go to bed now."

I didn't look back at Sam as I left the room because my eyes began stinging. Sam had never done anything like that to me before - excluding the time he'd been possessed. He'd never been angry enough at me before, I guess.

I was in my room for about five minutes before Dean came in. I should've locked the door; I wasn't really feeling up for company right now. I was actually having an I'd-like-to-be-by-myself-so-I-can-cry moment. As it was, I did have tears on my cheeks. Dean did what he usually did and wiped them away.

"Are you really okay?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," I said. The sniffling really helped sell that fact. "He just, um…shocked me. But I'm - I'm fine."

"He was just bein' an ass, Aly. Don't let it get to you."

"Right." I looked down at the bed, not really feeling like looking right at him. "Uh…what did you want before that happened?"

"To tell you you're gonna be okay," he said simply.

I looked up at him and he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"What you asked earlier. You asked if, in my opinion, you were gonna be okay, and, you are. I mean, I don't know if you noticed but it got really bad earlier. The gnome thing was flippin' out, I was flippin' out. But you…you stayed cool. You knew what to do."

I scoffed. "I stayed cool because I had to. I don't have the luxury of freaking out. Bad things happen when I freak out. As it is, I feel bad that you're still dying and part of me wishes that I hadn't saved him. And -"

"No and. You did save him and that's what matters. It's not the what if's or could have beens that count, it's what you do. You did the right thing."

No, the right thing would've been to let him stay dead when he'd been stabbed that time in the ghost town, but nooooo…

That's when all this crap had started. When everything had started to fuck itself up.

"I don't feel very right," I said softly, my voice breaking. "I don't want to have to make these decisions, Dean. You told me once that I shouldn't have to. But you guys don't give me much of a choice! I mean, either way I was screwed. I saved Sam, not he's pissed and you're still dying. If I hadn't saved him then you would've been pissed and then you would've just traded yourself for him again. And so the cycle goes."

I was shaking now as the intense grief I'd been suppressing for so long surfaced. It felt like my heart was literally being ripped open and played with.

"You guys are so stupid! You just need to stop sacrificing yourselves. God!"

There. I'd said what I'd been wanting to say for a long time now, but I didn't feel any better. The only good thing that had come from my outburst was that I was now in Dean's arms. But I was sobbing and having a hard time breathing and, God, I hated this. This, the never ending weight on my heart.

If this were TV we'd find a way to save both Sam and Dean and everything would be okay. We'd be okay. But this wasn't TV and things weren't going to be okay. Things were twelve kinds of wrong because this was real life and it was never simple. This was our reality.

The next morning thing were complicated. Dean and I had fallen asleep together. Granted, I got the best night's sleep I'd had in a while, but this made everything harder. Then again, it had been nice to just have him there with me, for me, if just for a little while. To keep each over company and to fall asleep together. I'd craved that closeness that was so natural for us. I'd had my fix for the night, but I'd be jonesing for it again soon.

Maybe…maybe last night would've showed Dean we could be close without being together. We could still have this, be us, without him worrying. It made me feel better, us being close. I wasn't talking about us sleeping together again - I knew that he'd only stayed because I'd been upset and he didn't like leaving me that way - but we could have something other than awkwardness between us now. Maybe.

I caressed his chest through his shirt before I untangled myself from him. I went downstairs in my pajamas and stopped at the kitchen doorway. Sam, Bobby, and Missouri were there. Missouri was making coffee; Sam was eating toast; Bobby was reading a newspaper.

"Sam," I said softly. "Can I…talk to you? Alone?" Last night was running through my mind and I had a few things I needed to make clear.

Sam nodded, but didn't say anything. He kept his eyes and head lowered as he followed me into the living room. We got to the couch, but neither of us sat down. When I finally looked at him - or when he let me see his face - I noticed his bottom lip was split; Dean had obviously hit him last night. I didn't feel the need to heal him, he needed to know that he couldn't treat me that way and get away with it.

He opened his mouth to talk, but I stopped him. "Don't say anything. You were upset last night, so you get one."

"What?" He looked at me, confused.

"A freebie. You get one. But if you ever touch me like that again, I'm not just gonna walk away. You can't have a temper tantrum every time you don't get your way. It's immature, grow up. And stop taking your issues out on me. You've been doing that ever since you found out about Dean's deal and I've put up with it. But I'm done. Just thought I'd warn you."

I was completely calm, almost stoic, when I spoke to him. I was just tired of his attitude. He was pissed at Dean and he took it out on me and I was through indulging his moods. I'd been nothing but good to him and he couldn't even treat me with the same respect that I showed him. Brat.

"Aly." Dean's voice came from the stairway. My heart stuttered for a second and I turned to him. There was understanding in his eyes and maybe a hint of pride for me standing up for myself instead of just taking it from Sam. Well, sometimes people just needed to be put in their place.

"I'm finished, Sam. You can go back and eat now. Or whatever, brood if you want to. You're good at brooding." Now I was being slightly teasing. I even hit him in the arm to let him know we were good as long as he behaved.

Now that the fiasco with the stone was over, Bobby decided to pack it in and go home. Sam, Dean, and I were going to stay with Missouri for a few days so she could help me get control of my mind-reading thing in crowds.

Granted, I didn't like hearing Sam's or Dean's thoughts either, but they didn't hurt me like hearing everyone's thoughts at once. Theirs I could handle. Everyone else's, not so much.

First I had to learn to put up a wall between my head and the rest of the world. Actually, it would be more like a gate; I needed to be able to open it at will, just in case.

The gate itself wasn't hard to imagine, but it was hard to keep it up. To make it work I had to focus on keeping my power inside, to not reach out with my mind. Sounded simple, in theory, but I never consciously reached out with my mind with anyone but Dean.

Well…I had that one time with that one girl, but that had been because she'd lied to us and I hadn't really had any other choice.

But besides that…only Dean. Everyone else had been out of my control. Meanwhile we practiced the practical fighting and weapons training. The fighting I was good at; the guns…well, I was mostly good - shotguns kicked my ass, though. Or made me fall on my ass, more precisely. There was too much force behind it, and I was new. I would need to practice a lot before I got that down. I was good with knives - I had good aim when I threw them and I knew enough when fighting with them that I needed to put the sharp end in the other guy.

As it was, I was sore. When I'd told Dean he needed to teach me, he was really teaching me. All day, every day. Jeeze. I was almost sorry I'd asked him for lessons.

But I needed to know these things. I'd sort of slacked on practical things when I'd realized how powerful I was. But now…now I needed to find a healthy balance.

The problem was that my instinct was to use my abilities now instead of doing anything the normal way. My abilities were a part of me; they were normal to me now.

Missouri, Dean, and I were sitting in her living room. Practicing. Or starting to practice my mind reading thing.

"Okay…so…" I began. "What do I do?"

"Dean is going to think at you and you're going to block him. Once you can do that, we can bring Sam in and then you can practice when you go out - at the store, at a restaurant."

"Okay." I grinned at Dean. "Think at me."

"Okay, uh…"

Aly? his voice resounded in my head. He sounded uncertain, like he didn't know if this would work or not.

"I can hear you, Dean."

"Good. Now…focus on pushing his voice out," Missouri said encouragingly.

"Okay, uh…I'll try." The problem was my instincts told me to keep Dean close, not to push him away.

Dean then got an annoying grin on his face and I had an 'uh-oh' moment because I knew he was going to do something.

Then I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves and this is how it goes' began chorusing through my brain and I cringed.

"Dean!" That was annoying, but it would definitely get me to try and block him out. And so the song continued. "You're gonna give yourself a headache with that song."

"Or I'm gonna give you one," he teased. "Block me out. Make it happen, Aly."

Make it happen? Okay, this shouldn't be too hard. I'd blocked myself from him before once. It had been the first time I'd learned he might go to hell. The time I'd done that vision quest thing. About a week after I'd been having nightmares about it and I'd been able to control what we'd shared. How, I didn't know, that's just what happened.

I had known what I'd wanted him to know and what I hadn't wanted him to know and that had been that. I'd put up a wall around some of it so he couldn't get through and I'd been able to take it down when he'd wanted to see.

So…maybe all I needed to do was not want him there. If I…if I pushed back would it hurt Dean? Because I didn't want to hurt him. But I didn't want to hear this stupid song either. So I built a gate, one of those black iron-bar ones. It was closed, but shaky. I could still hear bits and pieces, but, hey…at least I was getting better at this.

Not bad for a first try.

Okay, this is short, I know, but this is what came out when I wrote. I needed to let you guys know what the creature was and where it came from; I needed to get the Sam/Aly problem out of the way; I needed for Dean to see and maybe start to realize what the problem might be for all of them, and that maybe Sam and Aly are gonna have issues in the future. Now, about the Sam thing...I don't think he MEANT to hurt Aly, but sometimes when people are angry they do very stupid things. That's why that happened. But I also wanted Aly to come out of her griefy mood swings; she needed to learn that she doesn't ALWAYS have to count on one of the guys to do things for her, and I also wanted her to be honest with Dean about why she's so angry and all that stuff, so...this is what came out.

Enjoy! And thanks to those who review. :)