AN: Well Dean's certainly having a rough time, but not to worry, we're coming up to the end of this story - only 2 more chapters to go after this (14 in total.) Thanks for scootersmom, Shazz19, iwokeuponthewrongsideoflife and Colby's Girl for thier supportive reviews. I deeply appreciate it.

Moving On

In the past, Dean had been shot, stabbed, and burned. He'd been beaten within an inch of his life by both angels and demons and suffered the lacerations and broken bones that came from that. He'd been tortured before too, but except for his time on Alastair's rack, Dean couldn't remember ever experiencing agony like this before. It had now been over twelve hours since Sam had administered his magic touch cure and it was all Dean could do to see or think past the firestorm of pain that threatened to swamp him. With a silent apology to Baby, he brought the car to a jerky stop across from the house. Daisy Street looked much like it had earlier today, although the rain that was currently falling had driven the people indoors. Across the park, the glare of the neighbor's television flickered creepy shadows on their curtains.

"Are you good to do this?" Jane asked. He didn't have the spare energy to answer. Instead, he opened the door with a familiar creak and stepped into the wet night. The woman's very presence in the passenger seat was a reminder of why he needed to keep it together, to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Dean was white-knuckling it, but he had to save Sam.

Jane tossed a hi-vis safety vest at him over the shiny roof of the car before tugging one over her jacket. Dean put on his vest, the retroreflective strips sparkled in the light from the nearby streetlamp. They had liberated the vests, some hardhats, and a few construction drums from a building site they'd passed on the way here. Normally when Dean had some clandestine digging to do, he did it well after midnight when folks were generally asleep. But he couldn't wait that long. And if he couldn't be stealthy, the next best thing was to be so obvious that people saw what they wanted to see. Slipping the hard hat on top of his wet hair, he carried the safety cones into the back yard. Jane trailed behind awkwardly carrying a shovel, flashlight, and a bag of rock salt in her arms.

In minutes, his boots were soaked from the grass, moisture leaking into his socks as he loosely set the traffic barrels to define their fake worksite at the back of the yard. The small wall of stacked stone separated the grass from the playground. It was only about four feet high, made of rocks both large and small, some flat, some more rounded, but all of them worn by the elements and scattered with lichen and moss. From where they were, only the closest neighbor could see them if they chose to look out their darkened windows, and the play area was empty. A pulsar of pain ripped through Dean's gut, almost driving him to his knees, but once it passed, he gamely clicked on his flashlight and examined the low barrier.

There was nothing much to see. The rocks were well fitted together, with only enough room for some rotting leaves and loose trash to be jammed between them, most likely by the wind. Dean wasn't even sure what he was looking for, but every bone in his body told him Sam was close by. Rain pounded against his back, clattering against the plastic safety vest as he ran wet fingers across the clammy stones. Another fireball of agony raced through him and this time Dean half fell to the soggy grass, catching himself against the rocks. It was lucky he did because the small mesh grate was almost invisible among the stones, especially in the dark. It was the texture of rusty metal under his fingertips that alerted him.

"Sam?" he called into the mouth of the pipe. Straining against the sound of the rain and the racing thump of his heart, Dean waited desperately for a response that didn't come. Still, this was as good a place as any to start digging.

"Give me the shovel," he ordered and Jane shoved it into his waiting hand. Passing her the flashlight, Dean stabbed the tip of the tool into the dirt. The jolt caused a flare of misery between his shoulder blades.

"How do you know they're here?" Jane asked. Dean spared her a glance. She clumsily wiped the rain off her face with her cast which was wrapped in a plastic shopping bag.

"I don't. But I have a hunch. Have the salt ready in case the ghost shows."

Forcing himself to ignore the throbbing in his head, Dean thrust the shovel into the damp earth again. This should be no big deal. He'd been digging graves since he was a teenager, but he was tired before he'd barely begun and wistfully thought of the heavy excavating equipment from the construction site. Resolutely he tossed another chunk of dirt and grass to one side and tried to ignore the pain shooting through his arms and back as he dug.

xxxxxx

Sam laid with his face in the dirt, his head pounding worse than his heart. If his life story was a box of orderly images, Charity's ghost had just tossed them into a tornado. Flashes of his experiences both good and bad fluttered by, including some he'd hoped to never think of again. Slowly they settled, until the bits of who he was lay scattered across his brain like confetti after a parade. Sam struggled to center himself; to figure out the here and now amongst the chaotic mess of memories from his past. It was as close to insanity as he'd come in a long time.

Nearby he could hear Bryce breathing heavily, so his fellow captive was at least still alive. Pushing to his hands and knees, Sam slid his hands across the earthen floor. Somewhere in the attack, he had lost both his phone and his only weapon. Chilled fingers finally touched the smooth screen of his cell and he thankfully swiped it back to life. The low power message blinked a warning. A knot of fear settled in Sam's stomach. Scanning the room, he found Bryce. The guy looked rough. Based on how weak he was, Sam guessed each spectral assault sucked some life force from the other man. Still, Bryce flipped Sam a thumbs up.

"I tossed the iron at her and she let you go, but I didn't see where it landed," Bryce confessed. Sam glanced around, but the rust laden rods were impossible to spot against the dark floor. There wasn't enough light. Picking up the doorknob, he handed it to Bryce.

"Thanks for the save." Sam said. There was no point in admitting the other weapons were lost. Bryce was a hunter, he knew how screwed they were with little ability to keep Charity at bay.

"Well, since we're probably going to die here, I figured your company was better than none." Bryce chuckled lightly until it broke off into a cough.

"Don't worry, my brother is coming. He'll get us out of here." Sam's faith in Dean was bedrock. If it was possible to be saved, his brother would find a way, assuming of course that the curse didn't take Dean out before he found them.

"If even half the stories about you two are true, maybe he will." Bryce closed his eyes and tipped his head against the wall at his back. "But he'd better get here soon."

Reluctantly, Sam clicked the phone off, pitching them back into darkness. He needed to conserve the battery. Together they sat in the pitch black. Sam rubbed his thumb firmly over the raised scar on his left palm in an effort to stay calm. He was trapped in the cold and dark with terrible memories from his past fresh in his brain. It would be too easy to succumb to fear, to let himself be overwhelmed by anxiety and regret. He sat with eyes wide open staring at nothing.

With the absence of light, it was impossible to know how much time had passed. It could have been minutes or hours. Sam had taken to silently reciting the world capitals in alphabetical order to avoid thinking about his time in the Cage or any of the other disturbing things Charity had stirred up and exposed. He was stuck on Kazakhstan when he noticed the temperature dropping from chilly to frigid. Quickly he thumbed open his phone and cast the light around. The grey fog was forming again.

"Hey, Bryce!" he called. The other captive had been resting, or maybe asleep, but he quickly roused and gripped their only pathetic weapon. Sam could see the puffs of Bryce's rapid breathing as they nervously waited for the ghost to make her move.

The cloudy apparition grew more solid, and with a rough gesture forced Bryce to fling the doorknob away into the gloom. An arm shot out and plunged into the hunter's chest and he whimpered as his eyes rolled back. Sam couldn't sit there and watch her drain Bryce to death.

"Stop! Charity, stop, don't do this!" He shouted. The fog shifted, turning his direction before withdrawing from Bryce. She drifted his way, leaving her victim moaning. Rather than a sense of malevolence, Sam got the impression she was curious or surprised. Now that he had her attention, he wasn't sure what to do but he knew he had to think of something fast.

"Charity," he began. With a shimmer, the ghostly mist grew more substantial, looking less like a cloud and more like a young woman. Her dress was from the turn of the last century and the suggestion of her face had a puzzled look. In a flash of inspiration, Sam realized that it was her name that had drawn her attention. No one had probably spoken it aloud in over 100 years. She was lonely and stole her victims for company, unwittingly killing them trying to communicate.

"Charity," he said again more firmly, as she glided closer. "I know you don't want to hurt anyone." Based on her memories, she was actually an innocent girl, so he hoped his words were true. "What your father did was wrong, but it's time for you to move on. You can see your family again." Her ghost became a little more corporeal and she looked at him sadly.

"How," she sighed. He wasn't sure if she actually spoke or if he simply read the word her lips formed.

"Just let go. You don't belong here any more Charity, and you deserve to be free of this place that has caused you so much suffering." Sam had to believe Jack was a more compassionate God than Chuck had been and would grant this poor young woman some peace in the afterlife.

She stared at him, as if considering his words, then with another flicker, she transformed from a nebulous mist into a full, albeit translucent figure. She looked around at her crumbling prison with a growing awareness. He watched her eyes change from sadness to hopeful.

"Charity, let go of this place," Sam begged softly.

An ethereal light began to form, shining through her ghost so brightly that Sam had to shield his eyes and look away. With a flash, the room crashed back into darkness with a lingering scent of ozone and lavender. The biting cold lifted along with the sense of heaviness that had been pressing down on him.

"Is she gone?" asked Bryce, in a pinched voice.

"I think so." Sam huffed a sigh of relief and satisfaction. Wherever Charity ended up, he hoped she was finally at peace.

Leaning back against the wall, Sam gave himself a minute to catch his breath. He was exhausted. One problem may be solved, but he was well aware they were still trapped and in danger. There was no way to communicate with anyone. Dean was out there, but by now he might be in no condition to rescue them. He needed to figure out a plan before it was too late for his brother.

A clump of dirt dropped onto his head. The light from the phone was tinged with red from the low battery indicator. Pointing his screen at the ceiling he could see fine cracks had formed. A soft crack caught his attention and the decrepit door frame that led into the other room tumbled into a pile of splinters. The wall behind him gave a hushed sigh and fragments of old wood and more dirt fell onto his shoulders.

"What's happening?" Bryce was brushing chunks of earth from his arm, having scuttled away from the wall. Sam joined him in the center of the room. With muffled popping noises more of the wooden wall buckled and dark soil started to slide into the room.

"I think she was holding this place together." It was a guess, but considering Charity's inherent psychic abilities, it was a possibility. The how didn't matter right now. Whatever gave this room structural integrity was slowly giving way. It was only a matter of time before the roof caved in and they were buried alive. More dirt fell and Sam scanned the room with his dying light.

"The concrete! It should stand even if the rest of the walls collapse." Together the two men crawled over to where the rectangle of concrete bulged out of the sealed doorway. The air tube was right above them, so Sam hoped that even if more soil and earth fell into the room, they would still have an air pocket. Without warning, his phone winked out, the battery finally depleted.

xxxxxx

Dean's efforts had uncovered the shaft of a tube embedded into the stone wall and he was doggedly following it deeper and deeper into the ground. Hands so numb it was hard to hold the wet wooden tool, he panted his brother's name each time he jabbed the shovel into the dirt and heaved a blade full of heavy, damp earth over his aching shoulder. But now Dean had to pause to catch his breath between each thrust. His lungs were twisting like a snake trying to eat its way out of his chest. The burning under his skin had spread, becoming a raging wildfire through his guts. The throbbing, pulsing, pressure in his head threatened to pop it right off his shoulders. Dean barely remembered who he was, much less why he was digging. All he knew was he couldn't stop, he had to get to Sam. A supernova of agony exploded in his head and he staggered, falling face-first into the muddy hole he'd created. Another flare had him arching backwards. He dropped the shovel, clutching at his head with both hands and writhed in the dirt.

"Dean!" came Jane's alarmed voice from somewhere above him, but the pain was too intense to do anything but let the black promise of blissful oblivion wash over him.

AN: The capital of Kazakhstan is Astana.