Thank you so much Jenjoremy, Gredelina1 and SandraEngstrom2 for beta'ing, improving and supporting.

Chapter Four

"When you say 'go with Death…'" Charlie began.

Dean shook his head and turned away. Dorothy was wrong. She didn't know them; she didn't know Sam. She had no idea what he'd had been through and come out of alive. Some damn witch wasn't going to be the thing that took him out, not with something like this. Sam was going down old, bald, and surrounded by fat grandkids.

"I mean that perhaps he died," Dorothy said gently.

He heard Charlie's sharp indrawn breath as the idea was vocalized. Dean gritted his teeth. He did not want to hear this crap. More, he didn't want Charlie hearing it.

"That's enough," he said curtly. "Sam isn't dead. Okay?"

"I know it's not what you want to hear," Dorothy said apologetically, "but this is something you need to at least consider."

"No!" Dean snapped. "It's not something I need to consider because it's not possible. Sam is alive, right, Zeke?" He turned on the angel. "Right!" His tone was a command.

"I don't know…" Ezekiel said uncomfortably.

"I think you do," Dorothy said.

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Zeke?"

"I cannot find Sam," he said. "No sign of his mind, his spirit, or his soul. There is nothing in here for me to sense."

For a moment, Dean was afraid, but then reason caught up to him and he smiled grimly. "You might not be able to, but I can. I found him in there. I saw what Sam was seeing. You can't see stuff like that if you're dead." He crossed his arms over his chest, satisfied with his unassailable logic.

"I am sorry, Dean," Ezekiel said.

"No!" Dean held up a hand. "You don't get to say sorry like that, because you're wrong. Sam is fine. Well, he's alive," he amended. Stuck in a loop of memories, some of them the very worst moments of his life, was not fine, it was some kind of torture. But he was alive.

"I am sorry," Ezekiel said again. "I…"

"Yes?" Charlie prompted sharply. "You what?"

"I knew Dean would despair if he thought there was nothing left of Sam, so I showed him what Sam sees to comfort him."

"Comfort?" Dean asked, seizing on the word rather than the fact of what Ezekiel was saying.

Ezekiel drew a slow breath. "I showed you what Sam dreams. I thought if you could see something, anything, it would give me a little longer to find out what had happened to him."

"And now she's saying he's dead, so you're going to seize on that excuse for losing him?" Dean asked. "Bullshit."

"I did not lose him," Ezekiel said stiffly.

"Then where the hell is he?" Dean shouted.

Charlie flinched and Dorothy looked troubled, but Ezekiel stared back at him unconcerned.

"I do not know," he said. "I have told you this. I have searched for him; you have searched for him. I can think of only two options here. One, Sam is missing because his soul has moved on. Two, his soul has been destroyed."

"Yeah, 'cause that happens to people all the time," Dean scoffed.

"It doesn't," Ezekiel agreed. "But no other soul in existence has had the kind of damage inflicted upon it that Sam's has."

"Castiel…" Dean started, but Ezekiel spoke over him. "Castiel took the experience from Sam, but he did not, could not, repair the damage to his soul. No one in all creation, except for God Himself, could do that. Sam's soul was a powder keg from the minute Death pulled it from the Cage. The witch could well have been the last straw in its destruction. One trauma too many. Think, Dean, the fact of being overpowered, knowingly, by another—just like Lucifer—would have caused Sam massive stress and fear. That could have been enough to destroy him."

Dean felt burning bile rise in the back of his throat and he swallowed convulsively.

"Uh, I didn't understand half of what you guys said," Charlie started, her voice strained, "but are we saying Sam's dead or not?"

"We are saying death is the better of the only two options I can think of," Ezekiel said mercilessly.

Dean retched and ran from the room with his hand clapped over his mouth. He got to the bathroom in time to lose the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl. He continued to heave, his muscles cramping, long after there was anything left to lose.

He heard light footsteps behind him and someone held a glass of water out to him. When he was sure he wasn't going to vomit anymore, he flushed the toilet then turned and took the glass. He rinsed his mouth with the water and shifted so he was sitting against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. He leaned his head back against the cool tile and cursed the burning behind his eyes.

Charlie sat beside him, close enough that he could feel her shoulder brushing against him when she breathed. "I'm sorry, Dean," she said, her voice choked.

"Thanks," he said tonelessly. He felt numb, in shock. His heart felt the weight of what had happened and been said, but his mind didn't seem able to compute it. It just didn't feel real. Only a day ago they'd been together, happy, sharing a bowl of popcorn and a few beers. How did it all go so wrong?

He wasn't aware he vocalized the question until Charlie answered. "I don't know. He seemed fine. So much better than before."

"He was," Dean said quietly. "When Zeke took over, Sam was so trashed inside, but he was happy. He told me, even with all the crap around us, he was happy with his life. That's not something Sam says… ever."

"But his soul. What happened to it?"

Dean drew a deep breath. "Where did Chuck leave off with the books?"

"Swan Song was the last published unpublished story. It ended with you living with Lisa and Sam standing outside the house, kinda watching you."

"Swan Song…" Dean said scathingly. "It fits I guess. Well, the reason Sam was standing outside the house and not banging down the door was because he was soulless. When Cas pulled Sam from the Cage, he didn't get his soul. It wasn't his fault, it was incredible he managed to get even his body out, but Sam's soul was left behind. It took a while for us to work out what was wrong, and longer for us to get the soul out, too, and by the time we did, Sam had been in there a year and a half. His soul was… ruined, basically. Lucifer and Michael had been busting it the whole time he was there, all those years of Hell time, and what Death managed to pull out would have destroyed him had we stuck it back in without some reinforcement."

"What did you do?"

"Death put up a wall between Sam's mind and the memories of the Cage. Sam couldn't remember Hell. It protected him for a while. Then… well, some shit went down, and the wall got busted, and Sam remembered it all." He winced. "It wrecked him. At first we thought he was handling it, he said he was, but he was lying. He was seeing, hallucinating, Lucifer. And he handled even that for a while, but then Lucifer got his claws in and Sam couldn't sleep. I don't mean he couldn't sleep well. I mean he couldn't sleep, period. He ended up in a locked ward, going out of his mind. It almost killed him."

Charlie drew in a shaky breath. "Oh, God. Poor Sam. Poor you."

"Yeah. It was a nightmare for all of us. I got him help though, tracked Cas down, and he took the experience from Sam. I don't understand how it worked exactly, but basically, Castiel went crazy and Sam got sane again. He still remembered Hell, but he didn't feel it the same way. The damage though… the damage to his soul was still there. None of us, not even Death, could fix that."

Charlie burrowed into his side, a warm weight that should have been comforting but wasn't. Despite that, Dean wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close against him.

"And you think the witch was enough to ruin what was left of Sam's soul?" she asked, and Dean heard the tears in her voice.

Dean shook his head. "No. I mean, I don't know. But if it is that or Sam did die, I know which I'm rooting for."

"You want Sam dead?" she asked, peering up at him from beneath wet lashes.

"I never thought I'd say it, but yeah. I am hoping he died. Because that I can fix."

Charlie stiffened at his side. "What are you thinking, Dean?"

Dean didn't answer. He gently extracted his arm from around her and got to his feet. Charlie scrambled up beside him and grabbed his arm. "Dean! What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I need to save my brother," he stated.

He tugged himself out of her hold and strode from the room and back to the library. Ezekiel was standing where they had left him, a look of tension on his familiar, borrowed features. It gave Dean a strange pang to look at his brother's face and not see Sam staring back at him. It felt wrong, jarring. He needed to fix it.

"Dean…" Ezekiel started, but Dean ignored him. He went to the cabinet where he and Sam had stored some of the non-weapon items of the trunk when they moved in. He found what he was looking for at once: a Ouija board. It was the same one Sam had used to communicate with him long years ago when he had been in a coma after they'd been ridden off the road by a demon.

"What are you going to do with that?" Dorothy asked.

Dean placed it on the table and set the planchette down on top. "I am going to find Sam."

"You cannot—" Ezekiel started but Dean held up a finger and he fell silent.

"You say there's two options—Sam is dead or he's gone completely, right?"

Ezekiel nodded. "That is what I believe."

"Then I need to know which it is." It felt wrong that he was hoping for Sam to be dead, but it was the best option. If he was, Dean could get him back. He had the King of Hell in his dungeon after all.

"And if you find him," Ezekiel asked. "If he is dead, what will you do?"

Dean stared him in the eye as he answered. "I'll do whatever it takes." He sat down, making the movement a clear end to the topic.

Dorothy made for the door. "I am sorry for your brother," she said, turning back in the threshold. "But this is a bad idea. You should not interfere with the spirit realm. It does not end well."

"Thanks for the warning," Dean said blithely. "Feel free to help yourself to some breakfast in the kitchen. Zeke?"

Ezekiel hesitated. "I agree. This is a bad idea. The veil…"

"Kitchen. Go." Dean commanded then turned to Charlie. "You?"

She bit her lip and them came and sat at the table beside Dean. "I'm staying." There was no trace of her usual bubbliness in the face of the stress and fear of loss, but she looked determined.

Dean patted her hand. "Thank you, Charlie."

He adjusted the planchette so it was placed over the G and gently rested his fingers on it. "Here goes." He closed his eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath and then said. "My name is Dean Winchester. I am looking for my brother. Sam, are you there?"

He had barely finished his question when the planchette jerked under his fingers. "Charlie, pen and paper!" he commanded.

She flitted over to the shelf and came back with a legal pad and ballpoint pen. She watched, rapt, as the planchette trembled of its own power.

"Sam?" Dean asked. "Are you there?"

The planchette whipped to Yes, and Dean's heart contracted hard in his chest. "Sammy?" he asked quietly. It moved again, this time to No.

"What?" Charlie started but Dean shushed her.

"Am I talking to Sam Winchester?" Dean asked, cursing the uneven quality to his voice.

It trembled again and moved to I. "Write it down!" Dean ordered, then watched in awe as the planchette dragged his hands over the board, pausing on letters for a split second before moving on. He could do nothing to slow it or even pull away. It was like his fingers were glued to the small piece of polished wood.

Charlie muttered beside him as she noted down the letters without spaces. I-R-V-T-R-A-P-S-O-R-R-Y-D-E-A-N-S-A-V-E-U-S-S-A-M-L-O-S-T-T-R-Y-I-N-G-T-O-F-R-E-E. It went on and on. Sweat beaded on Dean's brow and his fingers cramped. He began to shout questions at the ether. "Sam! Are you there? Has anyone seen Sam Winchester? Mom? Dad? Is he there? Ash? Dammit, someone help me!"

He began to pant and his head pounded. His whole body was shaking and he thought he was going to lose his mind from it all. It felt like there were a thousand voices screaming in his head, trying to get through to him, and he couldn't bear it. Suddenly, it stopped. He felt the planchette being ripped out of his hands and he fell against the back his chair, gasping for breath.

"What?" he started, blinking to clear his vision.

"Are you okay?" Charlie asked urgently.

He nodded automatically. "Yeah, I think so. What happened?"

"I don't know. That was crazy. I've seen séances a few times on TV, but they never looked like that before."

"It's never been like that before," Dean said breathlessly. "That was different. Damn."

He heard footsteps and when he looked, he saw Ezekiel striding purposefully towards him across the long room, looking grim.

"I told you it was a bad idea," he said pointedly.

"What was that?" Dean asked. "Why was it…" He shook his head. "Why were there so many?"

He frowned slightly, almost as if he couldn't understand Dean's question. "Because Heaven has been sealed, Dean," he said eventually.

"You're telling me everyone that has died since Metatron did his spell is in the Veil?"

"Unless they were slated for Hell, yes, they are in the Veil."

Charlie gasped. "But that's… millions!"

"Yes," Ezekiel agreed.

Dean bowed his head and groaned. No wonder he felt like his head was going to explode. All those voices reaching for him, and that was just a portion of those there.

Charlie pulled her pad closer and began to strike lines across the text to make words of what she had written. Dean watched, seeing her furrowed brow as she worked.

"Okay," she said eventually. "Here's what we have; at least it's what I think we have. I missed some letters and others didn't make sense. "Irv. Trap. Sorry. Dean. Save us. Sam. Lost. Trying to free. So much. Help. Sam. Mother. Where did I…" She paused. "It's all like that. Just people crying out. There's a few mentions of Sam, but what they're trying to say I don't know."

"He could be there though," Dean said. "If they're saying his name."

"Or they're just repeating what you said back," Ezekiel said. "These souls are losing their minds, trapped as they are. You know how vengeful spirits are born, Dean. All of those souls are crying out as their sanity is being chipped away."

Dean closed his eyes and massaged his temples. His head was throbbing with pain and tension. "Yeah, but…" he trailed off.

"But it could have been Sam," Charlie said, her tone hopeful.

"It could have," Ezekiel agreed doubtfully.

"I need to know," Dean said, getting to his feet.

"How though?" Charlie asked. "The Ouija was like a nuclear séance. We can't do that again."

"Crowley," Dean said. "Demons can perceive the veil. It's kinda how it worked when my deal was coming due. I could see the demons' faces and the hounds. Crowley can, I don't know, look."

"You realize you will have to free him from his shackles to enable him to do that, don't you?" Ezekiel asked.

Dean looked up at him, trying to ignore the pain pounding in his head. "So?"

So… What do you think — was Zeke right or wrong to mislead Dean with those memories? Anyone got any other theories of where Sam could be other than dead or lost? I'd love to hear them.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx