Thank you so much Jenjoremy for working your neta magic on this for me, also thanks SandraEngstrom2 and Gredelina1 for all your help. Love you ladies.

Thank you all for the support you showed the first chapter. It's much appreciated.

Chapter Two

"No!" Dean said loudly. "He's not gone! He can't be gone!"

"Dean," Charlie said, her tone soft and consoling.

"No," he said again. "You don't understand. I have been here before—Sammy running around without being Sammy—and I am not doing it again. I can't. This is our flipside, dammit!" He rounded on Ezekiel. "Find him! Now!"

"I can't," Ezekiel said impatiently. "Did you not see me trying? Sam is—"

"I swear, if you say he's gone one more time, I am going to end you."

Ezekiel raised an eyebrow. Dean was aware it was a futile threat. There was no way to hurt Ezekiel without hurting Sam. But Dean wished there was. He wished he could punch him, vent some of his feelings on the angel that seemed so calm and collected in the face of Dean's horror.

"I don't know what you want me to say," Ezekiel said. "There is nothing else I can do."

Dean closed his eyes, summoned calm, and said, "Fine, I'll find him myself."

"How are you going to do that?" Ezekiel asked.

"I don't know yet," Dean said. "I will find a way though. I always do."

Charlie looked hopeful. "You have all this magic and books and stuff here, right? Maybe something here has the answer. We could…I don't know, research." She bit her lip. "That's what Sam would do, and what Bobby would have done if he was… Oh. Bobby!"

"What about him?" Dean asked.

"In Dream a Little Dream—"

"Charlie, those books are a load of bull," Dean said irritably.

"Shush," she said sharply. "I have an idea. In the book, Bobby was trapped in a kind of coma, right? And you and Sam got through to him by using African Dream Root. You found him trapped inside himself. Maybe you can…"

"Yes!" Dean said eagerly. "Charlie, you're a genius."

"I know," she said with a small smile. "You guys have Dream Root in that lab, right?"

"Yeah! It's what we used to get you out of that Djinn nightmare, too."

He ran out of the room and along the corridor to the working area of the bunker. His heart was racing in his chest. This had to be it. He would find Sam and bring him back. The hell with what Ezekiel said about him being gone. Sam was just lost for a while. Dean would show him the way out. He would surely be able to find Sam where Ezekiel couldn't because he knew him better than anyone on earth.

He got to the lab and immediately began to search the shelves of labeled jars and boxes for Dream Root.

"This will not work, Dean," Ezekiel's dour voice spoke behind him. "If I cannot find him…"

"I will," Dean said doggedly. "You might be an angel with all kinds of power, but I am a Winchester and Sam's my brother. I will save him because that is what we do."

He turned back to the shelf and found what he was seeking. A neatly labeled jar filled with stringy roots. He snatched it down and carried it over to the basin. He took a beaker from the shelf and half filled it with water. Charlie unscrewed the lid of the jar and held it out to Dean. He carefully extracted a piece of root and dropped it into the water. It turned the water an unattractive, murky khaki.

"That does not look tasty," Charlie said, wrinkling her nose.

"Nope," Dean said. "It's disgusting, but it's all I've got." He turned to Ezekiel and said, "Ante up some hair then."

"I am telling you, Dean, this will not work," he said tersely.

"Shut up and give me the hair."

Ezekiel sighed heavily as he brought a hand up to his temple. He plucked a few strands of hair and held them out to Dean who extended the beaker. Ezekiel dropped them into the water and then brushed his hands on the leg of his pants.

Dean brought the beaker to his mouth but Charlie caught his arm before he could even take a sip.

"Charlie, dammit!"

"Cool your jets," she said. "I am not stopping you. I was just thinking you might want to be somewhere other than standing on concrete before you drop like a stone. In the book, Carver Edlund said you lost consciousness pretty quickly."

"Oh. Yeah." Dean felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier. He left the room and made his way out of the working area of the bunker, through the library where Dorothy was waiting perched on the edge of the table, and back into the sleeping quarters. He went into Sam's room and sat on the edge of the empty bed. Charlie came in behind him, looking eager, and Ezekiel trailed her.

Dean drew a breath and brought the beaker to his lips again.

"Dean," Charlie said tentatively.

Dean glanced at her. "Yes?"

"What are you going to tell him when you get him back? I mean, he's going to want to know what happened. One minute he's possessed by the Wicked Witch and the next he's… here."

Dean considered, his hands tightening into fists. He could cover the change and time lapse by telling Sam there were unforeseen complications with the witch's possession and he was unconscious for a while, or he could be honest at last. Make Sam understand how bad it had been, how close he had come to losing him and what he had been forced to do to save him. He could persuade him to leave Zeke where he was until he was healthy enough to live without an angelic life support. It was a risk, but he thought it was a risk he was going to have to take.

"The truth," he said. "It's about time, don't you think?"

Charlie nodded, her expression solemn. "I do."

Dean brought the beaker to his lips for the third time and took a gulp of it. He grimaced as the foul taste hit his tongue and then he felt the beaker being plucked from his hand as he fell backwards on the bed.

The room was vaguely familiar to Dean though he had only visited it twice, and one of those times it had been in the process of being consumed by flames. There were no flames there now though. The comfortable living room was bathed in the light of dawn coming through the unshaded windows, and outside Dean could hear birds. The thing that held his interest was Sam, though. It was his brother as he had known him long years ago, with shorter hair, a softer face and unhaunted eyes. This was him as he had been the day Dean had pulled him from his apartment in Palo Alto to come search for his father.

This was Sam at Stanford.

He was sitting at a table with books spread across it and a notepad covered with writing in Sam's neat hand. Dean watched as Sam pulled a book closer and flipped through the pages, searching for something. Finding it, he tapped his pen against the page and read quickly, his eyes darting back and forth almost manically.

Dean recognized the tableau as he had seen it more than a hundred other times in his life hunting with Sam. Usually it was books of lore he was poring over and John Winchester's journal. He would get that same intense look in his eyes and he would work for as long as it took to get the information he needed, forgetting the world around him until he had found it or until someone forced him to stop and rest. From the shadows under his eyes and the empty coffee cups Dean could see among the books, no one had stopped this Sam for a while. He needed someone to take care of him.

The thought jolted Dean. He was the one supposed to take care of him. That was why he was here; he was supposed to be getting Sam back.

He cleared his throat. "Uh, Sam, we need to talk."

For all the reaction Sam gave, he might not have spoken at all. Sam leaned back in his chair and tapped his pen against his teeth—an annoying habit Dean had got him to quit after a couple years' effort—thinking hard.

"Sam!" Dean said harshly, moving closer to his brother. "Snap out of it, man. I need you to hear me." When Sam continued to stare thoughtfully across the room, Dean stepped into his view and clapped his hands together. "Sam! Look at me."

Sam seemed to see right through him. He gave no sign that he was aware of anyone else in the room. He bent over his books again and began to read. Dean sighed as he went to the table and reached to pull the book away. He couldn't seem to though. His fingers moved through the book as if it was made of smoke.

"Dammit!" he shouted.

Sam's head snapped up then and a smile curled his lips.

"Sam?" Dean said. "You heard that, right?"

He obviously couldn't see Dean still, as Dean was waving a hand in front of his face, but he must have heard or sensed something. "Sam!" Dean shouted. "Wake up! I know you can hear me. This is a dream. You need to… Crap."

He hadn't heard Dean. He had heard someone else. Dean could hear it too now, soft footsteps coming from the room behind him.

Had he given it any thought, he would have known who was coming. He was consumed with his brother, though, so when she walked into the room, hair sleep tousled and eyes drowsy, Dean was shocked at the sight of Sam's first love, the woman whose death had come close to destroying him completely.

"Jess," he sighed.

Sam turned to her as she entered and his smile grew and he held out a hand to her. She took it and gave it a squeeze. "Did you sleep at all, baby?" she asked him.

"Sleep's for freshmen," he replied easily. "Besides, I need to nail this stuff if I'm going to pass my LSAT."

She sighed heavily. "You do need to know it, but you also need to be awake to take the tests. You're going to be fried if you don't rest."

Sam tried and failed to stifle a yawn behind his hand.

"See?" Jessica said pointedly. "Come on. You've still got time before your first class. You can catch a couple hours sleep."

Sam shook his head. "I've got to—"

"Sleep." She finished his sentence firmly.

"Okay," Sam sighed. "Okay, you're right."

She tugged on his hand and Sam let her pull him to his feet. He wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace and kissed her hair.

"What would I do without you?" he asked in a musing tone.

She grinned. "Crash and burn." She pulled back to look him in the eyes. "Luckily, I'm not going anywhere."

"Promise?" Sam asked.

"Promise," she vowed. "You and me are forever, baby."

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. He had been entranced by the scene in front of him and hadn't been able to even attempt to break his brother's moment of happiness in memory, but as Jessica led him into the bedroom, he knew he needed to act. He stepped in front of them and clapped his hands. "Sam! Jess! You have to see me."

They walked right through him as if he was a ghost. Though he shouted and waved his arms, neither of them paid him a moment's attention. He watched as Sam flopped down onto the bed and punched his pillow into shape. Jess covered him with a blanket and sat down beside him. Sam closed his eyes and his expression softened as Jess ran her hand through his hair, gently soothing him into sleep.

It took only a minute for Sam's breaths to slow, oblivious to Dean's desperate attempts to reach him. Dean watched as Sam succumbed to sleep and then gasped as the room around him shimmered and faded, sweeping away Sam and Jess and leaving Dean in darkness.

When the room reformed, it was the same one that Dean had just been in with Sam and Jess, only it was the full dark of night now and Sam was lying at the foot, dressed still in his coat and boots. His eyes were closed and his expression was happy, satisfied; in his hand there was a cookie.

The cookie jogged something in Dean's memory, something he had heard a long time ago. A laughing voice crowing, "She was baking cookies." It was what the demon Brady had told them about the night he killed Jessica. Dean knew then what he was going to see. He dragged his eyes upwards and gasped. Jessica was pinned to the ceiling, a bloody stain on her stomach and wide, agonized eyes.

"No!" It was Sam's voice that ripped through the room. As if his exclamation was the cue, the ceiling erupted in flames, engulfing Jessica and billowing down toward Sam. Dean rushed at him, determined to protect though he was incorporeal here, but someone else was already there. He heard his own voice shouting Sam's name and then he was there, dragging Sam from the bed and forcing him bodily from the room, even as Sam fought and struggled against him. The fire rushed after them, as if it was herding them out. The fire rushed over Dean but he felt no heat; he just heard a rushing in his ears and then felt a disconcerting sensation as the room and fire disappeared, casting him into a new scene.

Sam was pacing back and forth on the worn carpet of a grungy motel room, hands stuffed in his pockets. John Winchester sat at the table. Sam was tense, waiting for something, and Dean guessed from his absence in the memory it was him.

John watched him for a moment and then said, "Sammy."

Sam turned, his expression guarded. "Yeah."

In contrast to Sam, John's expression was softer. "I don't think I ever told you this but… The day you were born, you know what I did?"

"No."

"I put a hundred bucks into a savings account for you. I did the same thing for your brother. It was a college fund. And every month I'd put in another hundred dollars, until... Anyway my point is, Sam, this is never the life that I wanted for you."

"Then why'd you get so mad when I left?"

John's eyes were sad as he said, "You gotta understand something. After your mother passed, all I saw was evil, everywhere. And all I cared about was keeping you boys alive. I wanted you prepared, ready. Except somewhere along the line, I stopped being your father and I became your drill sergeant. So when you said that you wanted to go away to school, all I could think about, my only thought was, that you were gonna be alone. Vulnerable. Sammy, it just... it never occurred to me what you wanted. I just couldn't accept the fact that you and me — we're just different."

Whatever Sam replied was lost as Dean snorted. Sam and their father weren't different. They were two carbon copies of each other. Always had been. That was why they had butted heads so often.

He looked back at his brother and saw something softer in his expression now. It was as if a small flame had been lit behind his eyes, something hopeful.

Dean had never questioned that his father cared for him. He had always known, without words, that he was loved. It had never occurred to him that Sam might doubt that. In that last awful fight, the night Sam left them for Stanford, some terrible things had been said. Did Sam go away thinking John didn't care? Did Sam believe he had meant those terrible things he had said? Seeing the hope in Sam's eyes now made him think he had, and only now was he letting himself believe he was loved.

The motel dissolved and became a hospital corridor. Sam was standing by a coffee machine, leaning his head against the wall. Dean struggled to place the scene, but then Sam straightened and Dean saw the cuts on his strained face. This was after the car crash that had almost killed Dean. Sam moved to the coffee machine and fed a bill into the slot and prodded the buttons roughly.

Dean knew what was coming.

He remembered that awful scene in the room where his father died. He remembered the doctors and nurses working to save him, he remembered the abrasive sounds, and he remembered the puddle of coffee on the floor and the crushed cup under someone's foot. He knew what he was going to see next, and he couldn't bear it. Sam shouldn't have to bear it. And after all, wasn't that the whole point of Dean's presence in these dreams?

Dean leaned in close to Sam's ear and bellowed his name. "Wake up! Wake up now! We're not doing this again, you're not. I won't let you. Wake up, Sam!" He waited for some reaction, even a quiver of awareness, but there was nothing. Sam was oblivious to him.

Sam turned away from the coffee machine, a paper cup in his hand, and walked along the corridor. Dean walked backwards in front of him, waving his arms and shouting Sam's name, but it didn't make an iota of difference. Sam didn't react to his presence at all.

Sam reached their father's room, and Dean pulled back, away from him. Coward that he was, he couldn't bear to see his father's death again. He heard Sam gasp John's name and then the plunk as the coffee cup fell to the floor. Sam's words became a shout as he begged for help. Nurses and doctors ran past him and into the room and Sam was thrust out. He ran along the corridor, and Dean knew he was coming to fetch his past self from his own bed. Dean closed his eyes and willed it to be over. He couldn't live through this again.

The new scene was another motel, one that Dean vaguely recognized, though he couldn't have placed the state let alone town. Sam was sitting on a decrepit-looking easy chair by the TV, and Dean was sprawled on the bed with a bag of popcorn open beside him. On the screen, Jack Nicholson was smashing down a door with an ax. Dean remembered this. It was a few months before the hellhounds came, on one of the rare times they had been able to put the deal to the backs of their minds and just be brothers again. Why Sam would fixate on this ordinary night to remember in his dreams, he didn't know.

"Hand me the popcorn," Sam said, reaching across to Dean.

Dean snorted. "No way. You get the chair, I get the snacks."

Sam sighed long-sufferingly. "I won it fair and square. You picked scissors."

"You cheated," Dean argued.

"Dean, you can't cheat at rock, paper, scissors. Well, I guess someone like Missouri could. But I can't."

"How do I know that?" Dean asked. "Your psychic whatever could be more powerful than I know."

"Yeah, you're right," Sam said. "I am a mind reader and I never told you. While we're on the subject, you're a twisted, twisted man who needs to stop picturing middle-aged police chiefs naked. Okay?"

Dean scrambled back on the bed. "Dude, that's disgusting!"

"You started it, giving me crap about my psychic whatever."

Dean grimaced. "Disgusting, Sam. You are one disgusting son of a bitch."

Sam bent over in his seat laughing so hard tears began to stream down his cheeks. Both versions of Dean, his past self and his present, watched with wide, satisfied smiles on their faces. Sam didn't laugh like this anywhere near enough, less in Dean's present than the past even. Life had beaten the laughter out of them both.

Dean didn't try to interrupt Sam's dream this time. He thought Sam deserved his laughter.

The scene he was thrust into next was sickeningly familiar. If he had had the ability, he would have run from it, but he couldn't; he was forced to watch it happen.

He tried harder than ever to break through to Sam in this memory: he shouted, clapped his hands together in Sam's face, swung punches at him even. It did no good. With Sam alongside him, he watched as the clock chimed midnight and the hellhounds came.

The memory for him was one of agony and fear that was blurred around the edges, overtaken by the memories that came after—Hell. He saw now with perfect clarity the way the hounds' claws raked over him, the mess they made of his body, the torn skin and ruptured organs. He saw it all and winced away from it. The memory was all the worse because of its perfect clarity. This was how Sam remembered it; worse, this was how Sam dreamed of it. How many times had he relived this moment in rest? How many times had he seen his brother die?

As Sam clutched Dean's ruined body to him, tears wetting his face, Dean swallowed back bile.

"Please hear me, Sam," he said, kneeling to eye level with his brother. "I need you to hear me and snap out of this. You need to come back."

Sam gave no sign that he could hear at all.

Dean knew the way Sam's mind worked now. He would dream of the best and worst of things, so he was wondering who and what he would come to next. He was stunned, therefore, when he came to the memory of an alley he remembered with perfect clarity. He had to wonder what had gone wrong this time.

Sam was standing with Bobby, a look of tension on Sam's face and barely concealed horror in Bobby's. "I'll see ya around, kid," Bobby said.

Sam nodded. "See ya around."

That was the worst part of their farewell in Dean's mind. He remembered his mind crying out at the time, "No! You won't!" and how hard it had been for him not to drag his brother away from that place, away from the devil and the sacrifice Sam was preparing to make.

Sam and Bobby hugged and when Sam pulled back, Bobby held onto his arms, looking determinedly into his eyes. "He gets in, you fight him tooth and nail, you understand? Keep swinging. Don't give an inch."

"Yes, sir." Sam turned to Castiel and held out a hand. "Take care of these guys, okay?"

"That's not possible," Castiel said solemnly.

"Then humor me," Sam said a little sadly.

Castiel grimaced. "Oh. I was supposed to lie. Uh... Sure. They'll be fine."

Sam held up a hand. "Just… just stop talking."

He turned away from his friends and came to Dean where he stood by the open trunk, the jugs of demon blood stashed inside. He glanced at Dean and said, "You mind not watching this?"

Dean moved closer while his past counterpart walked away. "Stop, Sam!" he shouted. "Wake up. Don't do this!" He had to stop him because he understood now why he was seeing this. This was Sam's twisted idea of a good memory. Here he was, with the people he loved, preparing to sacrifice himself to save the world. It was good to him, though it was one of the very worst moments of Dean's life.

"Sam, please, wake up," he begged.

Sam reached for a jug and Dean turned away as darkness descended.

When the scene resettled they were in Stull Cemetery. Dean was looking at his own battered and beaten face. Even through the blood and swelling the horror and pain in Dean's face was easy to see. He was at the point of outright devastation.

Dean flinched as he heard Adam's voice, deepened by Michael's presence, shout over the roar of the portal, "Sam! It's not gonna end this way! Step back!"

"You're gonna have to make me!"

"I have to fight my brother, Sam!" Michael shouted. "Here and now! It's my destiny!"

Hating that he had to do it, sickened by it, Dean turned to his brother and saw him spread his arms and tip back into the hole. Michael grabbed for him. Sam caught Michael's arm and pulled on it, dragging them both into the hole.

There was a roar of sound that hurt Dean's ears and then an impact that rocked up his legs. He looked around and saw he was in a vast room, no, not a room, a cage. On the floor were two figures, Sam and Adam, and they were cowering away from the pillars of light bowed over them—the archangels in their true forms.

Dean threw himself forward at Sam and reached for his shoulders to shake them. "Sam!" he bellowed. "No! Not this! Wake up! Wake up now! Please! Not this, please!" He punched and pummeled, slapped and clawed, but he moved through Sam without leaving a trace of awareness. All the time he was begging and pleading with Sam to wake up, to stop this, because more than his own fear of what was happening and what he would see, he was terrified of what Sam would feel.

Sam began to scream and Dean felt his own rise in his throat and escape him, then he felt arms on his shoulders, shaking him and a voice in his ear calling his name.

There was nothingness for a moment, and then a bright light bulb above him and Charlie's face swimming in his vision.

"Dean! Calm down!" she commanded. "It's okay. It's not real. Whatever you're seeing, it's just a dream."

Dean rolled over and buried his face in the blankets, his chest shuddering with quick breaths.

It was not a dream. It was a memory. And Sam was still there.

So… A little dream root and a little trip through Sammy's best and worst times. Did it make a good read? It sure made a fun writing session.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx