Chapter 13 Brother Against Brother

Dean looked unhappily at the tomb, set in the centre of the cemetery, a guard in full uniform standing next to the door. "The Unknown Soldier? You're kidding me, right?"

Garth looked at him. "Mary Lew steamrolled her husband the day after this place was vandalized. Do the math."

"But I thought the Unknown Soldier was buried in Arlington," Sam said, his brow furrowing as he tried to drag out the little he knew about it.

"Yep, but this is the Confederate tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Or one of them, anyway."

"Okay, uh, what about the guard?" Sam glanced at Dean, then across to the tomb.

"Uh, he's ceremonial. Gone by dusk," Garth replied, his head bent over the web page on his phone.

Dean's gaze travelled smoothly around the area, looking for anything that might need to be taken into account when they came here in darkness. It looked straightforward enough. Stupid. Risky. But straightforward. "So, then we do this tonight?"

"Yeah," Garth nodded.

"Burn a Confederate soldier's bones in a Southern town?" Sam looked from Garth to Dean sourly. "Sure."

"That the guard's ride?" Dean watched the car head out of the cemetery.

"Yep," Garth said softly, turning on his flashlight as they stood up and headed for the tomb.

"Garth, turn off that light," Dean snapped, glancing at his brother. Sam rolled his eyes in sympathy.

"My night vision isn't so hot," Garth whispered, running into a headstone. Dean stopped.

"You think if someone sees a goddamned light waving around the cemetery days after the tomb was vandalised they're gonna understand what we're doing here? Use your head!" he growled, turning around as they came up to the door and Sam dropped to one knee, pulling out his picks as he looked at the lock.

The lock clicked open and Sam pushed the door, stepping inside, waiting until Dean had closed the door behind them before he turned on his flashlight and looked around.

The tomb was small, perhaps eight feet by twelve, the large stone casket sitting in the centre. On the walls, murals of the fighting of the Civil War had been painted and sealed.

"Place doesn't look disturbed to me. What'd the police report say?"

"Uh, they think it was just some kids messing around. They, uh – they found some beer cans, some graffiti," Garth said, his flashlight on again, and lighting up the stone casket. "Oh, and the casket was open when they got here, but they closed that back up."

"Yeah, but not before Casper had a chance to make a run for it," Dean remarked, running the beam of the flashlight over the coffin.

"So, what? If they never touched this, none of this would be happening?" Sam asked, looking around as he played his flashlight over the floor.

"According to Bobby's account."

"All right, well, let's get this party started," Dean said, looking at the lid thoughtfully.

Sam's light picked up a shadow on the floor and he crouched down. A short length of waxed string lay there. He picked it up, looking at it curiously.

"Sammy, you want to give me a hand?"

Dropping the string, Sam moved to the other side of the casket, standing beside Dean. Garth took the other side of his brother, the three of them sliding their hands under the rim of the lid and testing the weight.

"And ... go," Dean said. Stone slab was a heavy sonofabitch and he wondered how much of a help Garth was as he heard his brother's heavy panting. The lid lifted reluctantly and slowly shifted across the coffin and onto the floor.

Inside, the skeleton wore a dusty and ragged uniform, cavalry sword and pistol laid over the chest.

"Whoa. Check out this hardware. Do you guys know how much this is worth?" Garth looked down in amazement.

Dean heard Sam's disbelieving huff next to him. They burned the bones, but their father had made it clear that they weren't grave robbers, not there to desecrate the dead or make a quick buck on whatever they'd been buried with. Life and death and the dignity of both had been drummed into them before they'd even been allowed to hunt. One day, he thought, he'd have to explain that small point to Garth.

"Yeah, but why open it up if you're not gonna take anything?" Dean's gaze travelled slowly and carefully over the skeleton.

"I don't know," Sam said, picking up the small can of gasoline they'd brought with them. "Maybe the cops showed up and they had to split fast."

"You sure this will work, even on a spectre?" Garth asked, holding a bag of salt.

"It's a ghost, isn't it?" Dean opened a matchbook, tearing off a match. "You burn its bones, the ghost disappears."

Sam poured the gas over the remains as Garth upended the bag and shook the contents over the interior of the stone coffin.

"All right," Dean said, lighting the match as Sam and Garth drew back a little. He dropped it onto the bones and fire flared inside the casket.

Deputy Wallace looked up as a folder slapped onto his desk, the Sheriff walking past.

"Write that up for me, would you, Doug?" he called back casually.

From the cells, Scott Lew called out and Wallace turned, getting out of his chair.

"Help!" Scott looked up the corridor, fingers clenched around the iron bars, his breath wheezing in his throat. "Please!"

"Hey. You okay?" Wallace looked at him.

"Need my... asthma... inhaler. Personal effects. Please."

Wallace nodded and walked quickly to the evidence room, sorting through the plastic bin that held Lew's effect. He found the envelope and tipped the contents into the palm of his hand, the inhaler, a set of car keys, a handful of change, a stick of gum.

His heart began to pound against his ribcage, and adrenalin flooded his body.

Dean looked down at the Sheriff's desk, his gaze moving steadily across it.

"Ten bones says Deputy Wallace had an axe to grind with his boss," he said quietly.

Garth looked at him. "How can you be so sure?"

Dean gestured to the tape dispenser sitting in the middle. Ectoplasm dripped from one end, forming a small puddle on the desk.

"Ah, what the hell?"

Dean looked around the room. "Maybe we torched the wrong soldier."

"Or maybe not," Sam said, looking at him. "Maybe an object was removed from the grave, something the spectre's attaching itself to."

"Um, I don't know, guys. You saw what I saw. Those kids didn't take anything." Garth looked from one to the other.

"Or they did," Sam insisted, looking back at his brother.

"And this spectre hitched a ride with it," Dean added, his thoughts following Sam's with familiar ease.

Sam nodded. "And whoever has the object gets possessed."

Garth looked at them. "Okay. So, who's got the object, and, more importantly, who do they have a grudge against?"

In the holding cell, Deputy Wallace sat on the bunk, staring into space.

Sam crouched in front of him. "All right. We need you to focus, Deputy. Other lives depend on it. Tell me what happened after you shot the sheriff."

"I was on the ground. I think Karl tackled me, and I asked him what happened."

"And?" Dean prompted.

"He didn't answer me. He just took my gun and walked away." The deputy stared a little past Sam, his face twitching occasionally with what he did remember. Blood. A lot of blood.

Sam glanced up at Dean.

"Did he say where he was going?" Dean pressed.

"I guess ... I must have hurt him, too," Deputy Wallace said slowly. "He said he was going to the hospital."

Dean turned abruptly and walked out of the cell, Garth and Sam following him.

"You two find out what you can about the Unknown Soldier." Dean looked at Sam. "I got the hospital," he added over his shoulder as he walked out through the office.

Sam eased himself out of the tight confines of the Pacer as Garth turned off the engine. The library was their last call; the historical society hadn't had anything on the identity of the body buried in the tomb.

Glancing over the roof at the slight hunter getting out the other side, he wondered what was on Garth's mind. Since they'd left the society, Garth had been distracted, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he'd driven them here. It wasn't that the guy was so bad, he thought, walking around the car and crossing the sidewalk to the library's steps, he was just kind of hard to take on an extended basis.

Coming up beside Sam, Garth said, "Hey, uh, Sam. If you ever need to talk, I just want to let you know that I'm here. About anything – you know, life, uh, Dean, you."

Sam glanced at him, smiling uncomfortably as he realised what Garth had been mulling over the last ten minutes. "I'm okay. Thanks."

"I mean, it just seems like you and Dean are talking but nobody's listening to each other. I had this cousin once – well, he's gone now – but his name was Frank. Frank and I used to build …" he kept talking as he walked up the steps and through the door.

Sam stopped on the bottom step, a vivid memory flashing in and out of his thoughts. A small room, the walls mottled with mildew and peeling paint and water stains. Dean, lying on the floor, his face twisted up in pain.

But it was gone and he couldn't nail it to a time or a place. Not even a year.

The library door opened and Garth looked down at him. "Hey, you comin'?"

Sam looked up and nodded, walking up the steps and following him inside.

They stopped at the desk and Sam listened absently as Garth talked to the librarian on duty, a tall, slim woman with gleaming red hair. Ellen Harris was the nameplate on the desk, he noted distractedly. There'd been so much anger. In that grey place. He blinked, realising that he'd almost had it. Garth tapped his arm and he looked up, following the woman through the stacks.

"You do know there is a good reason he's called the Unknown Soldier, right?" Ellen looked over her shoulder at him.

Sam nodded. "Right. Uh, we were just hoping maybe a theory or two had been a floated around over the years – something local, maybe?"

"There is one," she said slowly, stopping halfway along the shelves. She looked at the titles and pulled a book from the shelf in front of her.

The black car pulled up behind the Sheriff Department's vehicle and Dean got out, glancing in the window as he walked past it. No standard issue pump action sitting in the rack beside the driver's seat. His mouth tightened and he lengthened his stride as he entered the building.

The blast of the shotgun was very loud in the quiet space, and the glass divider shattered, the receptionist diving for the floor behind the desk, the intern dropping into a crouch in front of the counter, their screams instant and involuntary.

Dean stopped as he looked at the deputy in the middle of the room, the shotgun's business end pointed at the man crouched before the counter.

Karl, the deputy who'd grabbed Wallace after he'd shot the sheriff and had found himself holding a small coin as well as Wallace's gun, racked the slide and raised the barrel.

"Hey, ump. You remember me? I stole second!"

Stole second? Dean looked from one to the other. Seriously?

"Karl?" The intern looked up, shock chilling him, making it hard to move, hard to think. "What the hell are you doing? Why are you doing –"

"Why am I gonna make mustard from your brain stem?!" Karl looked down at him. "I don't know. Why did you call me out … ump?"

David Kessler, intern and sometime local softball league umpire, stared down the big bore of the shotgun. He couldn't make his brain process what he was hearing. Out? He'd called him out? His thoughts jittered meaninglessly as his mouth opened. "I'm sorry."

Karl's face twisted up and he pulled the trigger, but there was only a click in the silence.

"Looks like you're shooting blanks," Dean commented quietly, standing behind the deputy.

Karl swung around and Dean's hand flashed out to catch the barrel, yanking it free of the deputy's hands and tossing the gun clear, the momentum of the movement putting his weight behind the hit he slammed into the side of Karl's face. A hundred and eighty-five pounds, every ounce behind the broken-knuckled fist, usually put most men on the floor, eyes closed.

Karl's head snapped to one side but he didn't move, and he turned his head back to Dean slowly. "Hey, that tickled."

The deputy's right came fast, hitting Dean just in front of the ear with the impact of a freight train. He was somehow on the floor, head ringing insistently, trying to shake it off when he felt Karl's hands grab his coat and flip him over, the hands tightening as he was wrenched upwards, pulling to his feet apparently without any effort at all, the deputy's hands closing around his neck.

Well, Dean thought groggily, trying to focus on the man's face, he was a bit outclassed in the weight division, might be time to put his mouth to work.

"Karl, listen," he said, forcing himself to keep his eyes locked onto the deputy's. Karl's face was just a few inches from his and he could feel hot breath panting against his cheek, the closeness about as uncomfortable as he could imagine. "I know the spectre's turning the temperature up in there. So just tell me what the object is, and we'll send this joker home."

"I don't think so. There's unfinished business, thanks to you," Karl murmured, thrusting his face closer and inhaling deeply as he sniffed along the side of Dean's face. Dean turned his head as much as he could, the bizarre moment at least clearing his mind from the last of the effects of the blow. "Oh, the spectre likes you," Karl crooned, looking back at him.

Dean shifted his gaze back to the deputy's. "Oh, yeah? Why don't you tell him to come on out here and we'll make promise bracelets."

He felt the energy sucked out from the air around him, the temperature plummeting as the deputy lifted him off the floor, throwing him across the desk behind them, tucking his head down as he hit the filing cabinets behind it with his shoulders and fell to the floor.

"Here," Ellen said, as she stopped on a page, tapping a photograph. "Corporal Collins of the Union shot and killed his brother, Vance, who fought for the Confederacy. Local boys."

Sam looked down at photograph. The man's face was similar to the decaying corpse image they'd seen in the video. "I'd say that qualifies as betrayal."

Ellen nodded. "Legend has it that Vance swore vengeance on his brother with his dying breath. Years later – consumed by guilt, no doubt – the corporal dug his brother up where he'd buried him on the battlefield and brought him home."

"Are you suggesting this Vance guy is the Unknown Soldier?" Garth peered over her shoulder at the photograph.

She turned to him and lifted a shoulder, smiling wryly. "That's one theory, anyway."

Sam leaned a little closer, tapping the page. "What's that?"

Looking down, she nodded in recognition. "Most of the soldiers were from poor farmers, so the families would give them a penny on a string." Turning over a couple of pages, she stopped on a close up photograph of an 1859 penny, a hole drilled through the edge. "It was for good luck, and in case they ever got lost, they always had a penny for food."

Sam stared down at the photograph, thinking of the string he'd seen in the tomb.

"A penny."

Dean rolled over as Karl came around the desk. Cracked rib, somewhere, he thought, looking up at the rabid expression on the deputy's face, looming above him. He was thinking about weight and balance and how the fuck to get the advantage over the man when Karl dropped to one knee beside him and grabbed his hand.

"Here," Karl said gently, pressing something against his palm. "Have a taste."

Dean's eyes widened, his heart beat accelerating and every ache and pain from the last two encounters with Karl disappearing. He had something to do. It was important. He couldn't do it here.

Sam followed Garth out of the library, phone pressed against his ear.

"It's me. Do what you gotta," Dean's voicemail message instructed.

"Dean, hey. There was a string on the floor of the tomb. It used to hold an old penny. That's the object. We're on our way to the hospital right now," Sam said, hurrying down the steps.

Dean sat on the bed in the motel room, staring at the opposite wall. In the silence, he heard the empty click, a hammer falling onto an empty chamber, over and over again. Behind the silver barrel, he saw his brother's face, screwed up in rage, the echoes of Sam's furious accusations repeating in an endless loop.

He heard his voice, low and raw, you don't need me, you and Ruby go fight demons. Sam had lied to him. Again. Fighting demons, trying to save Jimmy, turning around and seeing his brother, kneeling over a demon, his mouth fastened onto her neck, and when Sam had looked up, his lips and chin had been dripping with the demon's blood.

Standing in a crappy hotel room, staring at Sam, willing him to understand, begging him to understand. "As long as it's you and me. Demon bitch is a dealbreaker. You kiss her goodbye, we can go right now." And Sam turning away. "I can't."

The furious snarl of the goddess. "You're lying to me!" And Sam staring up at him, face swelling and broken. "Okay, okay. You want the truth? Here it is. Here it is. God's honest. She was right. There's something wrong with me, really wrong. I've known it for a while. I lied to you."

Rhode Island. Samuel. Betrayal after betrayal. Lie after lie. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

"All you've ever done is run away."

"And I was wrong. Every single time I did."

A year spent in a place that he couldn't feel with a family not his own, pain eating him every single day because no one had told him, no one had come to tell him that he didn't have to grieve, didn't have to feel the guilt, or the shame or the agony.

Sam. Whitefish. The expression on his brother's face when he'd asked. Guilt. Regret. Defiance.

His head was pounding, hurting, aching. His mouth was filled with a bitter, acid taste, the gall of betrayal, like biting on iron. His chest was tight and it was a struggle to get enough breath, throat closing up, memory and thought and feeling beating, bludgeoning the walls that were getting thinner and thinner.

He heard the footsteps outside the door distantly and he looked down at the gun in his hand, feeling its cold, smooth surface, the weight of it, with the full clip loaded. He'd thought that there wasn't any escape from the past, from all-the-everything that had happened. But there was. A final, clean escape that would bring the scales back to centre, balanced again. Would get rid of all the pain.

Sam opened the door and came through, his phone pressed against his ear, hearing the ringing in the room. Dean was sitting on the edge of the bed, his phone ringing next to him, his gaze on the gun he cradled loosely in his hands. Sam cut the call and stared at him.

"Dean? What the hell, man?" He saw Dean's head turn slowly toward him. "We went to the hospital. Dean?"

He stopped as his brother got up, racking the slide of the automatic, the gun rising to point at him.

"You should've looked for me when I was in Purgatory."

Sam stared at Dean, an icy sweat forming on his back as the recognition that he was too late, Dean already knew about the penny, hit him, followed by the thoughts of all that had ever happened between them, flashing through his mind, a tornado of betrayal and mistakes. Keep it calm, he told himself. Keep it rational.

"Come on, Dean. I know it's not you in there pulling the strings," he said quietly.

"Shut up!" Dean snapped, and the barrel twitched to one side as Garth lifted his hand slightly. "Don't!"

He looked back at Sam. "You never even wanted this life. Always blamed me for pulling you back into it."

Sam shook his head. "That's not true."

"Really?" Dean asked, ignoring the fine tremble in his hands as he kept the gun aimed at Sam's head. "'Cause everything you've ever done since you climbed into my ride has been to deceive me."

"What do you want me to say? That I've made mistakes? I've made mistakes, Dean," Sam said, feeling the memories rising inside of him. He'd tried to put them behind, tried to let them be in the past. He'd thought he'd paid for them, paid his dues, paid in full, but he hadn't. Just had … swept them away. Sort of. In a way.

"That's not Dean, Sam," Garth said.

"SHUT UP!" Dean roared at him, staring at Sam.

"Mistakes?" he asked his brother, his tone quiet, conversational now, taking a slow step toward him. "Well, let's go through some of Sammy's greatest hits. Drinking demon blood, check. Trusting Ruby instead of me, check. Not telling me that you lost your soul. Or how about running around with Samuel for a whole year, letting me think that you were dead while you're doing all kinds of crazy. Those aren't mistakes, Sam. Those are CHOICES!

"All right," Sam agreed readily, fighting down the impulse to shout back at him, to throw his mistakes – his choices – back at him. "You said it. We've both played a little fast and loose."

"Yeah, I might have lied," Dean said, taking another step closer. "But I never once betrayed you. I never once left you to die." He stepped closer, feeling a frisson of triumph through his nerves as he saw his brother flinch at that accusation. "And for what? A girl? You left me to die for a girl?"

"I did look for you, Dean! I spent months looking for you and trying to find a way into that place and I couldn't find anything – alright? I failed you! Again! I didn't look for the girl but if I hadn't found – I was running – goddamnit you never listen to me, you think you know me, know all about me but you never listen!" Sam shouted back at him, stepping in, hand flashing up and clamping around Dean's wrist, sweeping the gun aside, his fist closed and tight, with his weight behind it, slamming against his brother's jaw.

He swung Dean around into the glass wall divider, fingers driving into the tendons of the wrist, trying to force him into dropping the gun. The ghost's tenacity and strength was greater than human and Dean turned toward him. He drove his fist into Dean's cheek, then jaw, giving him a few second's more time but he still couldn't force the hand to open. And Dean struck back, his loosely curled backhand blow hitting Sam under the jaw, lifting him up and back, blinding pain as his brother's skull cracked down onto his own and he felt his grip torn free as Dean's foot slammed into his solar plexus, sending him flying back across the room, the low table smashing under him as he came up against the edge of the couch.

Dean looked down at the gun as Sam scrambled around to face him, and Garth stepped in between them.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!"

Sam pushed himself up. "Garth, don't."

"No, he won't kill me," Garth looked at Dean's face, empty hands held up between them. "His beef isn't with me. You're not gonna shoot me, are you, Dean?"

The gun lifted smooth and fast to point at his head. "Don't be so sure. Move."

"Come on, Dean," Garth said, his voice a little unsteady as he forced himself to keep his eyes on Dean's, not look down at the little black hole at the end of the barrel. "You do not want to kill your brother. You – you've been protecting him your whole life. Don't stop now."

"He left me to rot in Purgatory!" Dean yelled at him, his eyes cutting past Garth to where Sam was sitting on the floor.

"I couldn't get you out!" Sam yelled back at him, head tipped back as he tasted his blood in his mouth.

"All right. All right. Maybe he did. I don't know. I wasn't there. But I'm sure he had his reasons."

"Just like you had your reasons for protecting a vampire, Dean!" Sam snapped.

Garth turned around to look at Sam. "What?"

"Benny's been more of a brother to me this past year than you've ever been!" Dean retorted, his voice deepening. "That's right. Cas let me down. You let me down. The only one that hasn't let me down is Benny."

Garth pulled his attention back to the man in front of him. "I know you're angry. But, man, you got to fight this thing," he said, looking at him. "Do not do this! Just let it go."

Dean's gaze shifted from Garth to Sam, his eyes narrowed.

"Come on, Dean," Garth said softly.

"Goodbye Sam," Dean said, and strode toward him, shouldering Garth out of the way. Garth's fist hit the side of Dean's jaw as he moved past, and Dean staggered a little to the side, his fingers opening as his hand reached out automatically to steady himself, the gun held with two fingers and the penny, pressed behind it, falling to the floor.

"Ow!" Garth doubled over his hand, shaking it, his knuckles skinned and throbbing from their bone-on-bone contact with Dean's face. "God!"

Dean looked around, shaking his head, his eyes widening as he took in Sam's hunched figure by the couch.

Looking down, Garth saw the penny lying on the floor and stooped to pick it up quickly.

"Garth, don't!" Sam shouted, too late.

"It's cool," Garth said, holding the penny up. "It's all good. I'm cool."

He looked down at the penny. It couldn't hurt him. He didn't hold on.

Garth walked down the path, carrying his bag toward the Pacer. Walking beside him, Dean's shoulders were hunched, his hands in his pocket. He stopped when he saw the car, and Garth turned around, stopping as well.

"Garth, what did I say?" Dean asked, unsteadily. "To Sam."

"C'mon, Dean, don't rehash old shit, that's what gets you into trouble in the first place," Garth said, shaking his head slightly.

"I'm trying not to. I just need to know." He looked at him, and Garth sighed, recognising the entreaty in the other man's face.

"Uh … you told Sam that he should have gone looking for you, when you were in Purgatory, and um … that he left you to die for a girl … there was something about demon blood and someone called Ruby," Garth's face screwed up as he tried to remember the accusations that had flown between the brothers in the heat of the possession.

"And uh, running around without a soul and a guy called Samuel. You told him that those weren't mistakes, they were choices. And then you pointed your gun at him." He thought for a moment. "Oh, yeah, and you told him that someone called Benny had been more of a brother to you than Sam ever had."

Dean looked at the ground. "Right."

"This thing – it looked for the places where you felt betrayed. And that's what came out," Garth said quietly.

"Yeah."

"Listen to me. Sam said he looked for you, but he couldn't find anything. He was – Dean, I think he gave up because he felt he'd failed you. You two, you need to talk about this."

Dean lifted his head, mouth stretching out a little in a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Yeah."

Garth looked at him a little sadly. He would think about it, he guessed. Maybe they could get it straight between them, but he'd gotten to know a lot more about both of the Winchesters in the last few days, and he wasn't going to bet his next paycheck that they'd be able to get through this. In any case, he couldn't do any more. It was up to them.

"It took me forever to melt that penny, but it's finally gone," he said, turning back to the car.

"How come that penny didn't jack you like everyone else?" Dean asked curiously, shunting the previous conversation aside. He didn't remember what he'd said to his brother but from Garth's short recap, nothing he could now was going to make it right. "I mean, I can understand why it didn't affect the kid who took it. He's young and innocent. But, uh, everyone at some point in their life feels like they've been screwed somehow."

Garth smiled. "Not me, man. I let all that stuff go," he said, slinging his gear into the back of the small pickup and turning back. "And you should, too. You can't change the past, amigo."

He took a step toward Dean. "Now, there's something I want to say to you. With Bobby dead, you and Sam are all each other has. And that's not so bad, man."

A phone rang inside his jacket. "Oh, got to go."

He turned back to the truck, opening the door. "Yo, Lamar. What do we got? Wendigo?"

Dean watched him get into the cab. "You got a flare gun? No? What about a flame thrower? Yeah, well you need fire so start figuring it out." He laughed. "Or get some sneakers, buddy, 'cause you're gonna have to run. All right."

Garth closed the phone, tucking it back into his jacket, and looked along the seat.

"Dean!" He picked up the cap and got out again. "Listen, I … uh, Bobby and me, hunted a rugaru, a while back now. He left this." He handed the cap to Dean, watching as Dean turned it over in his hands, gently, carefully.

"I'm sorry," Garth said, looking at him. "Bobby kind of talked about you guys like you were family, but I didn't know – he didn't give much detail, you know?"

Dean looked at him, hands closing a little more tightly around the cap. "Yeah, I know."

"I wasn't trying to be him," Garth said. "I mean, I like who I am."

Dean smiled, mouth curving up to one side, the smile reaching his eyes this time. "Sure."

"But I was serious about talking. If you ever want. Or need to," he added. "And dead serious about you talking to Sam."

Dean pulled in a deep breath, tipping his head back. "Yeah."

He looked back at Garth. "You're all right, you know that?"

Garth grinned at him over his shoulder as he got back into the car. "'Course I know that."

Sam leaned over the sink, running the water over his hands and wiping them over his face, through his hair. He didn't need a penny, he thought, looking at himself for a moment. He had all the rage he'd ever need, right here.

A soft knock on the door pulled his attention back and he looked around. Eggshells. They were back on eggshells, recognising the tacit request in the softness of the knocking.

He turned back and looked at himself. Nothing that Dean'd said had been untrue. He could admit to that. But his brother had been overlooking the crap he'd been throwing around freely as well. He couldn't walk on eggshells. He couldn't pretend that everything was alright and that they could go back to being what they'd been … whenever the last time that'd been. Their past was littered with secrets and lies.

He looked at the phone, lying on the side of the sink beside his hand. Dean might think that the vampire was a friend. But he'd trusted Cas as well. And look at how that'd turned out. He picked up the phone, scrolling down the list of names. There was a way to be sure, he thought, listening to the phone ring on the other end. A way to make sure.

"Martin? Hey, it's Sam Winchester."

Sam put the bag into the trunk and slammed the lid shut. He pulled in a deep breath and looked at Dean who stood beside the driver's door.

"For the record, the girl – her name's Amelia," he said. He didn't want to get into the car until some of this was straight. "Amelia Richardson. She and I had a place together in Kermit, Texas."

"Look, man –"

"What, Dean? You gonna tell me you didn't mean what you said?" Sam said angrily. "You and I both know you didn't need that penny to say those things."

Dean looked away. "Come on, Sam."

"Own up to your crap, Dean!" Sam snapped at him. "I told you from the jump where I was coming from. But you? You had secrets. You had Benny. And you got on your high and mighty, and you've been kicking me ever since you got back. But that's over." He looked at his brother, his face hard. "So move on, or I will."

Dean saw the trigger-readiness in Sam. Saw how close he was to walking off. He didn't want to leave it like this. Garth wasn't much of a hunter, but he'd been right about this, they had to talk.

"Okay. I hear you."

"Good," Sam said sharply, feeling his anger dip a little with the ready acceptance. He walked around the trunk to the passenger door, and looked over the roof at Dean. "You know what? Hear this, too. I just might be that hunter that runs into Benny one day and ices him."

The threat was deliberate, Dean knew. Provocative and deliberate. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours and he hadn't had a chance to think it through. He looked at Sam and nodded.

"I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, won't we?" Dean said tiredly.

"Yeah." Sam said. "Yeah. You keep saying that."

I-29 N, Iowa

The road was good, empty, clear. Unlike his head, Dean thought sourly.

It's not the betrayals, he'd realised, it's the caring. Caring about the people who'd made those choices, those errors in judgement. Caring that they hadn't cared about him. Caring about hope and a way through.

I want you to take away the hope because that's the thing that's killing me. Leary's scratchy voice in his head. He ducked his head, smiling slightly at the aptness of it.

It was killing him.

Sam leaned against the cool glass of the window, his eyes closed, hearing the thrum of the tyres, the soft grumble of the engine, the occasional slur of fabric as his brother changed position in the seat beside him.

The memory had come back. Whole. Intact. The grey walls of the abandoned mental hospital. The ghosts that had filled the place. The two teenagers who'd been trapped in there with them. The hands gripping either side of his skull, a tearing, blinding pain that had released a rage that had been too big for him to contain, to face.

I am normal. I'm just telling the truth for the first time. I mean, why are we even here! Cause you're following dad's orders like a good little soldier? Because you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval?

This isn't you talking Sam, Dean had said, lying on his back, his shirt tattered from the rock salt, blood seeping through.

That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind, of my own. I'm not pathetic, like you, he'd said, filled with anger, filled with hate, filled with the desire to kill.

You hate me that much. You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it!

And he had. Three times.

He shuddered at the memory of those clicks, unbelievably loud in the silence of the room. At the expression in his brother's eyes before Dean had knocked him down and then out cold and had finished the job by himself.

I-90 W, South Dakota

It's all black and white. There's no maybe. You find the bad thing, kill it. See, most people spend their lives in shades of gray. Is this right? Is that wrong? Not us.

Dean rubbed a hand over his face, the sun rising behind him, the car's shadow thrown out long in front of him. Gordon's voice, he thought. From a long, long time ago. He'd believed that. He'd wanted that. Simple decisions. Find the bad thing, kill it. Yeah, right.

He hadn't listened then. Why did he want it so much now? Because he was tired? Because he wanted life to be simple, not requiring so much thought, so much effort from him? Was it right or wrong that he cared as much for Benny as he did for Sam? Or did he? He'd told Sam that if Benny slipped off the reservation, he wouldn't stop another hunter from killing him. Hell, he'd told Benny that he'd kill him if he didn't keep his nose clean, down there. Would he?

He flicked a glance at his brother, hunched as usual into the corner of the seat, legs drawn up a little in the well.

You've protected him your entire life. Is that what you wanted? To be guardian to him? To have no life of your own? He wasn't sure. It wasn't that simple, he thought.

I told you not to let him out of your sight! I want you to watch out for Sammy. Protect your brother. Don't let anything hurt him, Dean. Watch out for Sammy. You could've got him killed! Watch out for Sam. Protect Sam. Look after Sam. Your brother, Sammy.

Dean, if he changes, you have to kill him. There's no one else.

That was the real difference between Benny and Sam, he thought. Benny didn't come with a lifetime of responsibility, a lifetime of memory and pain and never being sure if he was doing the right thing, for both of them, for Sam. Benny had just followed where he'd led, had just put himself between danger and him, had just had his back.

And Sam. Sam wanted a different life. Had come full circle. Sam wanted a normal life again.

He'd wondered, in Cicero, if Sam hadn't been … where he'd been, if he'd been able to see his friends, keep in touch, if that life wouldn't have felt less like a dream and more like a life. He'd never know, not for sure. There'd been good bits, he guessed. Things he remembered where he'd almost fit in. But for the most part, he'd been barely there, present but not alive. The civilian life hadn't let him be him at all. Maybe it was different for his brother.

Sam stared through half-closed lids at the road ribboning out ahead of them, the traffic to either side, the mid-morning sun blazing out of a blue sky on the wide, flat fields and woods and houses that flashed by, a panorama of normal life that they were so far removed from it seemed more like watching a movie than being in it, a part of it.

He didn't know why he hadn't told Dean about trying to find him. About cleaning up the leviathans and losing Kevin and trying to find any way to get into Purgatory, or open a door to get Dean out. He thought … he'd thought it was because he hadn't wanted his brother to know that he'd failed. Dean had a found a way to save him time and again. The two times that he hadn't, both had been his decisions. To trust Ruby over his brother. And to atone for that mistake by taking Lucifer down into the Cage. Even then, his brother had been with him, right until the very end.

He won't talk about Purgatory. The thought slid through, soft and sly, with sharp little teeth. And it's more than the combat fatigue that keeps him on edge and twitching twenty-four seven.

Maybe.

He remembered a farmhouse, sitting bound to a chair and talking to a vampire who'd claimed that she and her nest were not killing. Just the one talk. And he'd gone back to convince his brother to let them go.

Our job is hunting evil. And if these things aren't killing people, they're not evil!

That'd been him, saying that to Dean. And Dean had listened. Eventually.

His brother had known the vampire for a year, had fought and bled with him. Why didn't he give Dean's vampire friend the same benefit of the doubt he'd asked for Lenore?

I-90 W, Montana

I'm not your brother. Like, I don't even really care about you. Maybe I should feel guilty. But I don't.

Sam winced at the memory of those words, his fingers tightening around the wheel until the bones showed white through the skin.

Dean, we knew this was coming. When you put my soul back ... Cas warned you about all the crap. This is what happens when you throw a soul into Lucifer's dog bowl. And you think there's just gonna be some cure out there?

That memory brought a flinch. He'd been exhausted and ground down from the hallucinations and the sleeplessness and the futility of it all but his brother hadn't deserved that. Hadn't deserved to have that guilt thrown on him as well. It hadn't been Dean's fault.

It'd been Dean who'd made a deal with Death to get his soul back, when he hadn't even wanted it back. What would his life be like if he hadn't done that? Hadn't kept trying, kept going in spite of everyone telling him he shouldn't. Not a chance of a normal life, he realised. He'd been a stone-cold killer, efficient, emotionless, effective. And he would still be that today, if … he glanced at the still figure sleeping beside him.

The car climbed up through the mountains, no other traffic now, just the headlights revealing the black asphalt, the white lines, the flicker and shadows of the forest that lined both sides of the road.

Dean felt around for the cup of coffee, now tepid, that he'd picked up when he'd filled the tank, finding the Styrofoam cup and swallowing half of the warm contents in one gulp. The drive had been going on for days, but it had felt as if they'd been driving for weeks, silence filling the car, thick as fog and cold. Insulating them from everything else. From each other.

Purgatory had been hard and brutal and he'd done things there that had scared the hell out of him. It'd been simple and pure as well. It wasn't life. It hadn't been real the way this life was real. He didn't know if that was important or not. He had a feeling that it wasn't. It had given him a sense of purpose again, in one way. It had made him realise that what he did, what he was … that was something he couldn't change. And didn't want to change.

You can take your peace... and shove it up your lily-white ass. 'Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise. This is simple, Cas! No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it.

He exhaled deeply. In spite of all that had been done to him, all that he'd done in Hell, in spite of a year's combat in a land of monsters, in spite of the despair he'd felt at losing everyone, the failures, the shame, the guilt … he still believed that. Still thought that fighting for right, and defeating evil was an important thing to do with his life.

Sam hadn't left, but he would. He didn't know what to think about that, hadn't let himself think about it. He might see their current quest through. But after, he would leave. For the normal life he wanted.

And he'd be alone.

Whitefish, Montana

Dean pulled into the yard, parking the car and turning off the engine, listening to the tick of the hot metal in the deep silence that surrounded them. Beside him, Sam stretched as much as he could in the confined space and looked around.

"We there?"

"Yep," Dean pulled the keys from the ignition and got out, going to the trunk to get their gear. Behind him, he heard the squeak of the passenger door opening and the clunk of it closing.

"Dean."

He put the bags on the ground beside him, lowering the trunk lid to look at his brother.

"Yeah?"

"Are you, uh, hungry?" Sam looked at the cabin door. "I could make something."

Dean looked at him. It hadn't been what Sam had been about to say, he thought, but the brassy note of anger had gone from his voice. He closed the lid of the trunk and pocketed the keys.

"Yeah, I could eat," he said, bending to pick up the bags. "What are we talking about?"

"Uh … burgers, I guess," Sam said. He'd picked up the ground beef in the store in Bozeman on impulse, along with the supplies for the cabin. The fridge wasn't bad, but it didn't have a freezer so everything had to be eaten fast or from cans.

"Sounds good," Dean said, walking to the porch and unlocking the cabin door. He hit the lights and looked around. Dustier, than when they'd been here last, but otherwise not changed. It was a slight risk, staying here. Crowley knew it. He could always send in the demons if he wanted them. But they'd laid down protection over it and it was the only place left that had the slightest connection with their past.

Dumping the gear bag on the table, he dropped the other bag next to the couch. There was a bedroom upstairs, but neither had used it. He slept on the couch. Sam used the single bed in the lean-to off the living room.

"You, uh, need a hand with anything?" he asked, turned around as Sam put the groceries he'd picked up on the counter. His brother shook his head and he turned back to the gear bag, pulling out their guns, and the brushes and files, the gun oil and solvent, and grabbing a sheet of newspaper from the cupboard next to the door.

The fire burned in the stove, heating the rooms and adding a warmer light to the room. The burgers had been good, Dean thought with an oblique look at his brother. Sam sat at the cleaned-off table, the laptop open and lighting his face in shades of white and blue.

"I thought the same way you do, about Benny, when I met him," Dean said suddenly. Sam looked up in surprise.

"He said he knew about a doorway, out of there, for a human."

"What was in it for him?" Sam asked, carefully.

Dean's mouth twisted up. "I had to take his soul out, put it back in his remains."

Sam looked at him, thinking about it. Dean would've had any number of opportunities to welsh on whatever deal he'd made. And there was only one reason he wouldn't've. The vampire had somehow earned his brother's trust. Earned his loyalty. That wasn't an easy thing to do, he knew. Especially now.

"He saved my life, more times than I can remember," Dean said softly, looking at the bottle held lightly in his hands. "Put himself at risk to save me," he added, looking up at Sam.

"I told him, when we got out, that we'd go our separate ways. But I owe him, for what he did. I'd still be there if it wasn't for him."

Sam nodded, understanding. It was one thing he knew about Dean, one thing that had never changed, under any circumstances. Debts were paid. And trust was holy. It took a long time to get Dean's trust, but once you had it, it was yours. He would trust you with anything – until you proved him wrong. He hoped the vampire wouldn't.

"I tried to make a deal at the crossroads," he said, looking at Dean. "To get you out."

He saw his brother's brows drawing together and a half-smile lift one side of his face. "Crowley showed up. Told me there were no deals to be made."

He looked back at the laptop screen. "That was when I started running, I think. And I only stopped when I got to know her. Because I felt … there again. Not a ghost." He looked back at Dean. "You know, everything got so … crap … the last couple of years. I couldn't – it didn't feel – without you there …"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, I know."

He got up and took the empty bottle to the trash, turning to the fridge and getting out two more. He put one down on the table next to Sam, carrying the other back to the couch.

"Thanks," Sam said, twisting off the top, tipping the bottle against his lips and letting the cold liquid fill his mouth. "You think we can find Kevin?"

Dean looked at the bottle in his hands for a moment, twisting off the top and swallowing a mouthful. "Yeah, it might take awhile."

Sam nodded. "Well, something'll come up."

"Always does."

The fire was burning low. The rest of the cabin in darkness. Dean rolled over onto his side, watching the small flames. The rift between them wasn't … fixed … or healed. Or whatever you wanted to call it. It was just … acknowledged … maybe.

He closed his eyes, seeing the light dancing against the blackness.