Disclaimer: Original content and characters are mine, but the Winchesters are not. I write for my own entertainment, not for profit.

We've made it to the end, almost--here's the final chapter. I'm so glad you're here!

-:- -:- -:-

"My God!"

Dean flinched at the unexpected voice, fists ready for a new attack, but Dr. Blaine would be no threat, he knew.

The doctor rushed past him, clattering down the stairs and kneeling beside Carson's broken body. He had his bag with him for some reason, but it was amply obvious that his medical services weren't needed. He turned back to Dean, gaping up at him.

"Where are they keeping my brother?" Dean growled, taking a swipe at the blood oozing from his split lip, using his sleeve to mop the blood at his brow.

With a last look at Carson, the doctor stood and wiped his hands on his trousers. His eyes widened even more as he realized that the young man stood between him and the only way out of the basement. Stood bloodied, outraged, dangerous. Murderous.

"I've tried to help him!" Blaine all but shouted, babbling suddenly. "Mr. Mahoney forbade pain-killers, but I gave him some, anyway! And Carson--Carson didn't want me to reduce the fracture, but I couldn't let your brother suffer that way. I helped him—I did! The leg is set! Not properly, of course, because I couldn't use any of Mr. Mahoney's medical equipment, but—"

"Where is my brother?" Dean asked again, and the doctor blanched at the deadliness of his voice, his expression. His eyes.

"Please, let me go," Blaine squeaked.

Dean started down the steps in a rage. "Tell me where my brother is!" he roared. "I swear to God, I'll kill you all unless I find him!"

The doctor shrieked and leaped over Carson's body, putting it between him and the madman descending the staircase. "He's on the main floor, in the parlor! I tried to make him comfortable!"

Dean reached out and grabbed Blaine by the shirt collar, hauling him back across the body until their noses were millimeters apart. "He'd better be okay, doctor, or you are one very dead man, you understand me?"

Blaine's head bobbled. "Yes, yes—let me show you! You'll see, he's going to be fine. Please, just don't hurt me!"

Without another word, Dean turned and started back up the staircase, one hand still clenched in Blaine's collar, towing him along behind like a cow to the slaughter. When they reached the first floor, Dean shoved the doctor in front of him.

"There anybody else in the house besides Mahoney?" he asked.

"N-no, not if the cook is gone. And Mr. Mahoney is currently, um, indisposed. He's not likely to come back to the main floor this evening," the man said, frantic and frightened and conciliatory. "Your brother is right this way. Mr. Mahoney wouldn't let me give him any pain-killers, but I insisted on setting the leg and pushing the antibiotics. Infection would be very serious. Here, this is it—he's right in here!"

He opened a door and entered the dimly-lit room, flipping on a light-switch as he went, and Dean pushed in behind him anxiously, swearing vehemently with both fear and relief at his first sight of Sam.

His brother was unconscious, sprawled on some sort of slanted couch far too short for his lanky body. His broken leg stretched out in front of him, still splinted, foot resting on an ottoman shoved up against the end of the couch to give it added length. Sam's face was sweat-slicked, contorted in the light from the chandelier overhead, and he tossed his head with a feeble moan.

"Sam!"

Dean started toward his brother, then had the presence of mind to latch onto the doctor again, forcing him into a wingback chair nearby. Blaine sat willingly.

"Sammy?" Dean crouched beside him, placing a shaking hand on his brother's forehead, relieved to find only a little heat there. "Sam, you hear me? Sam."

It had been a huge and horrific risk, not answering Mahoney's calls. Oh, Dean had picked up the first one, just long enough to say "I know the answer" before ending the call abruptly, sending everything that followed directly to voice-mail. Using the bastard's own tactics, making Mahoney stew, keeping him waiting and wondering. So long as Mahoney believed the amulet could work some mojo for him, Dean had to believe that Sam would be spared.

He had listened to the messages, of course, jaw clenched as Mahoney threatened, cursed, cajoled, pleaded and threatened some more. Dean had forced himself to ignore it all.

The ninth message had been most horrifying, almost more than he could take, as Sam's endless scream ripped the breath from him, left Dean on his knees and shaking in abject terror long after the voice-mail had ended. He'd come close to losing it, then, knowing Sam was paying the price for his brother's absence, and Dean vowed to rend Mahoney limb from limb before he was through.

He had staked everything--everything--on Mahoney keeping Sammy alive, using him as a pawn to draw Dean back into the game. However the hell the old man had found out about the amulet, he'd used a lot of brains to do it, to get it, and Dean had counted on those brains. Mahoney would keep all his pieces on the board until he was certain they were no longer of use, and that included both Winchesters.

But, God, Dean had been scared, trying to take care of business single-mindedly ("Keep your eyes on the target, Dean," their father's voice had reminded him, time and again), knowing he could never live with himself if he'd gambled wrong, if Mahoney had been too angry or insane or vindictive, and Sam--

"Sammy?"

His brother's eyes flickered, and then Sam was awake, his gasp of pain making Dean regret instantly that he had roused him.

"What the hell, doc?" Dean shouted as Sam grabbed at his broken leg, keening in agony. The doctor was at their side instantly, fumbling in his bag and withdrawing a vial of clear liquid and a hypodermic syringe. He loaded the syringe with a small amount of the fluid, tapping it with his middle finger to release any air.

"It's morphine sulfate," he said simply. "I told you the bones aren't set properly."

"Dean!" Sam's jaw was clenched tight as he let go of his leg and clutched his brother's shoulder. "Dean, I thought—are you all right? God, it hurts! Dean. Dean! You okay? I thought you were--oh, God!"

"Easy, Sammy, I gotcha. I'm right here," Dean soothed, shooting a desperate look at Blaine as the doctor approached with the syringe. "I gotcha now—pain's gonna be all gone, soon. Easy, Sam, shhh. Come on, doc, get it done! 'Sall right, Sammy—gonna be all right. Shh, shh, shh."

Dean trapped Sam's frantic hands in his own while the doctor lifted the bottom of Sam's shirt, exposing his flat abdomen. It was all muscle, but the doctor was able to pinch enough skin to make the subcutaneous injection quickly. The opiate's effect was virtually instant, and Sam fell back against the couch, breathing heavily, jaw slack, eyes rolling behind lids purple with hurt and exhaustion.

Dean found himself struggling to get sufficient air into his own lungs. "How long's that good for?" he asked, releasing Sam's hands and laying them down gently atop his brother's chest.

Blaine shrugged, more confident now in his own element. "A while. His pain is pretty intense. You need to get him out of here, and to a decent hospital where his leg can be set properly, and they can deal with the threat of infection. He may also need a skin graft where the bones came through his calf."

"Where do we go?" Dean glared balefully at the doctor, who paused before answering.

"Boston might be far enough," he offered finally. "Mr. Mahoney's influence is widespread, but I think Boston is far enough. Or Albany."

Dean nodded. "Here's the deal, then. You set Sam up, help me get him situated in the back of my car and sedated enough to get us the hell out of here and to Boston or Albany. You do that, and I don't hunt you down and kill you."

The doctor blanched again, his mouth making a little 'o' in his face. "That, uh, that's very generous," he stammered. "I can do that."

Dean scrubbed a hand quickly through his hair. Fuck, he didn't want to trust this man! But he was running out of choices.

"I'm going to go get the car," he said. "You do one thing to hurt my brother--one thing!--or allow anyone else to hurt him, and I will break every bone in your body before I put a bullet through your head. Do you understand me?"

He hadn't thought it possible, but the doctor turned even paler. "Completely," he whispered, and Dean believed that he believed.

-:- -:- -:-

It took Dean exactly seven minutes to retrieve the Impala from where he'd hidden it off the main road outside the estate, and Dr. Blaine used the time to prepare Sam for travel by adjusting the splint, giving him another course of antibiotics, and readying a supply of meds for Dean to take with them. He was gathering pillows and blankets when Dean reappeared in the main hallway, dragging behind him something large, heavy and oddly shaped, concealed in a rain-spattered tarp. A horrible aroma wafted from it, making the doctor's eyes water.

Dean left the tarp and its contents at the base of the stairs leading to the second floor, then hustled once more to his brother's side.

"You can't take the ambulance?" the doctor asked, peering out the window at the vintage black Chevrolet, parked close to the front door, sinister and gleaming as the rain on its surfaces reflected the security lights from the house.

"The car's not ideal," Dean grated, "but she'll have to do. Can he take it if I carry him?"

Dr. Blaine oversaw the action as Dean lifted Sam carefully, cradling him against his chest, crooning to him without realizing he was doing so. As they made their way out to the Impala, Sam stirred momentarily, wrapping both arms loosely around his brother's shoulders for support. Then he was out again.

The doctor opened the passenger's side rear door for Dean, then ran to open the other side, leaning in to assist. His nostrils curled as the odor assailed him. "What is that stench?"

"Is it going to bother him?" Dean demanded to know, and Blaine shook his head.

"Not for a while, anyway."

Together, they situated Sam awkwardly in the back seat, angling his lanky body and propping his leg just so. He barely fit, but at last even Dean was satisfied that Sam was safe and secure, and that the situation was as good as it was going to get.

Almost.

Dean cracked the window open, then took the last blanket from the doctor's hands and draped it gently over Sam, tucking it around him with great care. Then he added his jacket again, just for good measure.

"Where's Mahoney?" he asked finally, voice low and cold, face expressionless.

The doctor swallowed. "There's a room," he murmured, knowing what was to come. "The attic, at the top of the second stairs. He's set up something he calls an altar, and he's there now. He's dying, although he refuses to accept it, and I believe he's quite insane."

Blaine saw something dark and horrible stir in the young man's eyes.

"You go now, doc," Dean said. "Mahoney's not going to suffer much longer."

After a moment's hesitation, the doctor nodded. He handed Dean the supply of medicines he had prepared, took a last look at the unconscious boy in the back seat, and fled.

Dean didn't bother to watch him go.

-:- -:- -:-

When Dean had hauled the stinking tarp up to the attic landing, he paused to regain his breath, inhaling deeply and silently through his mouth. Dammit, that smell was never gonna come out of his clothes!

From behind the closed door, he could hear Mahoney's old-man voice, chanting querulously in some weird combination of languages—Dean recognized Latin, for sure, plus smatterings of what might have been Aramaic, Tamil, something Native American and Gullah patois. There was a whole lot that he didn't recognize at all, but every word sounded pained, gasping, desperate.

Faint yellow light flickered beneath the door, and the strong aroma of sandalwood mixed with the stench on the landing.

Gingerly, Dean tested the doorknob, not surprised to find it unlocked. What was it with these guys, he wondered, that they were such idiots about security? Overconfidence, maybe, and he'd take it as a gift.

He opened the door gently, just enough to peer inside. The tiny room was lit by dozens of candles, maybe a hundred or more, tapers and votives guttering in crystal dishes set in cryptic patterns on the floor. In the midst of them, Mahoney sat with his back to the door, enthroned on a large circular ottoman, his shriveled body gaunt and naked. He was facing a long, low table that was clearly an altar.

Sticks of incense burned on it; sigils were engraved in it; piles of herbs and twigs and juju-makings lay scattered across its surface. In the faltering light, aswirl with eddies of sandalwood smoke, Dean could also see a photograph--of a young man, it looked like--and beside it, in the dead center of the altar, his amulet.

Mahoney's wavering voice rose and fell, and if he felt Dean's presence behind him, he did not show it. But he was obviously exhausted, obviously frustrated. Reaching the end of his chant, the old man raised his arms high overhead, waiting for what, Dean wasn't sure. Lightning to strike, maybe. Whatever it was, it didn't happen.

Finally, with a shriek of fury, Mahoney grabbed the photograph and ripped it in half, crumpling the pieces angrily in his gnarled hands.

"No!" he cried, cursing. "It must be done! It should have been done!"

Dean gathered a double-handful of the tarp and hoisted it into his arms, wincing at its weight and smell. He tapped the door open with his boot and stepped into the ritual room, moving forward enough to kick the door closed behind him and dropping his burden onto the floor, no longer making an effort to be silent.

Mahoney wheeled with a start. "Get ou—you!" he spat, his vehemence eliciting a hacking cough from deep in his lungs.

He slowly unfolded from the ottoman, his body withered and white, loose flesh hanging from stick-sharp bones. He stood haughtily, unashamed by his nakedness, as though Dean was nothing, was less than nothing.

"I knew that you wouldn't leave your brother!"

"You're that smart, you should know there's no point in what you're doing," Dean said, his voice low. "Give it up, Mahoney. That amulet isn't gonna do anything for you."

"It could," the old man insisted. "It would have, if one of you had told me the secret! Damn you, boy--nothing I've tried makes it work! Everything is perfectly arranged, but something's not right. I have the incantation, I have the talisman, and it should keep me alive, just as it has done for you. But I can't get it to work!"

He picked the amulet off the altar and dangled it by its cord, eyes glittering as he watched it twirl.

Dean cleared his throat. "Seems like you went to a lot of trouble over all this. You wanted my necklace, you probably could have ordered one from ebay. You wanted us, you could've just said you had a ghost."

"You are a pathetic liar, and New Hampshire is full of ghosts," Mahoney said, waving a dismissive hand. "Besides, the stakes were high, and I rather enjoyed the challenge. As did you, obviously."

Dean's brows drew together as he frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"What's that you brought with you?" Mahoney asked by way of response, indicating the tarp with a jerk of his chin.

Dean nudged the covered heap with a booted foot. "You should recognize your opening move," he said. "You like games, so I brought you a playmate."

The old man laughed. "That's exactly my point. You're here for three reasons, boy--to retrieve your brother, to retrieve the talisman, and just as an added bonus, to seek a little revenge. You have quite a reputation as a skilled hunter, and there are probably any number of ways you could kill me. You have a gun with you, I'm certain, yet it's not even in your hand. Instead, you've brought that thing with you. Why not take care of business yourself?"

Mahoney tapped his cheek in a parody of thought. "Oh, I forgot! You're already wanted for murder, and this"--he indicated the tarp again--"gives you plausible deniability. Assuages your conscience, perhaps, since my death won't exactly be at your hands."

"My conscience doesn't need assuaging," Dean spat. "You're a sick, twisted excuse for a human being, and I'd be happy to wring your neck. Nobody hurts my brother the way you did and gets away with it."

"I might have," Mahoney murmured, eyes again on the amulet in his hand. "But this refused to work for me.So now, I shall die!"

He flung the necklace suddenly at Dean's head, and Dean caught the amulet one-handed.

Mahoney hissed in resentful fury. "Even now, it takes to you!"

Sickened by the man's senseless acrimony and stubbornness, Dean didn't bother to conceal his own contempt. "Mister, nothing was going to save you," he said.. "What you did to Sam? No way I was going to let that pass. As soon as you brought him into the equation, you were a dead man."

"I didn't bring your brother into the equation, you fool," Mahoney replied superciliously. "He is the equation. He is the meaning of your life. How will it feel—" another round of coughing wracked him—"How will it feel to tell him you've killed me? When he is still so terrified of the dark thing he might have become, might yet become, how will it feel for him to know that you already are something far darker?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Dean's voice shook, and thick phlegm bubbled in Mahoney's laugh as he sank back tiredly onto the ottoman.

"Don't you?" the old man wheezed. "Your brother is the yardstick by which you judge your life, by which you take your measure as a man in every waking moment. Without him, you would have strayed from your path long ago. You still have the audacity to think you are the one to save him? Boy, he is the only thing that will save you!"

A pungent odor spread through the ritual room as the tarp at Dean's feet shifted suddenly, crackling. Dean glanced down, then back at Mahoney, grappling with the truth of everything the old man had said.

It was no secret, none of it. Not to Dean, anyway. It was why he'd made the deal at the crossroads back in South Dakota, knowing he wasn't worth anything without Sam, knowing everything had always been about Sam. For his whole life, Sam had been Dean's whole life, and if Dean failed his brother now...

He had never expected to hear it from the mouth of a stranger, but that didn't make it any less true.

It was also very clear that there was no hope for the dying man sitting before him. Maybe the madness came and went, but Mahoney's body was worn and wasted, his soul a shriveled husk of something that had always been warped, twisted. He was at the end of his road, or very close to it. There was really no need to speed things along.

But, God, Dean wanted vengeance, burned for retribution for what this man had done to Sam! His brother would urge mercy, compassion, but that was more than Dean was prepared to give.

The tarp shifted again, something that might have been a whine escaping from beneath it.

Mahoney coughed wetly, then drew a bony arm across lips flecked with spittle.

"Just think," he rasped. "After tonight, what will you have become in your brother's eyes?"

Squaring his jaw stubbornly, Dean tucked the necklace into his back pocket and retrieved the throwaway Glock from the small of his back. He ejected the clip and examined it briefly before holding the gun out to Mahoney, grip first.

"What is this?" Mahoney asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"A fair chance," Dean replied. "There's one bullet in this clip, and you can use it however you want. You know how to load it?"

"Yesss," the old man affirmed, something oddly like admiration in his tone. "Yes, I believe I know exactly how to use this."

Rough nails scraped the floor under the tarp, which began to shudder violently, and Dean backed his way out of the room.

"Then you'd better do it quick," he said, tossing the clip to Mahoney and pulling the door closed as he stepped onto the landing.

No sooner had he done so than he heard a vicious snarl from within the room as the crusker awoke. Dean heard Mahoney cry out in fright, and his breath caught in his throat.

This man was responsible for hurting Sam badly, he reminded himself. Mahoney needed to be put down like the rabid animal he was. This was no time for compassion.

Dean waited to hear the shot, waited for Mahoney to fire at the crusker, knowing that only a precise hit into what passed for the creature's brain would kill it. Waited for the alternative, that Mahoney would put the bullet into his own brain. But the old man continued to wail in fright, and the crusker's rumbling growl waxed and waned in counterpoint.

Dammit!

He couldn't do it.

Dean threw the door open again, ready to charge in and wrestle Mahoney out of the room, save him from the sure death Dean had arranged. What he saw, however, stopped him cold.

The crusker was free of the tarp, snarling, but still attempting to gather its legs beneath it to stand. Mahoney was back on his feet, a mocking grin of triumph on his wrinkled face as he aimed the gun directly at Dean's chest. He wailed one last time, just for show, immensely pleased by his own performance.

"I know you better than you know yourself, boy," he said.

"Come on, Mahoney," Dean ordered. "Get out of here before that thing--"

The gun went off, and for a moment Dean felt nothing. Then there was fire in his arm, blood running down his right bicep from the crease the bullet had left. He blinked in surprise and sudden pain, clapping his left hand over the wound.

"Sonofa--you crazy bastard!" he shouted. "What the hell are you doing?"

The old man laughed. "Again you're a fool, too weak and worthless to have the courage of your own convictions. I knew you wouldn't leave me here to die, no matter how badly you want to do so, no matter that I'm already dying."

The crusker lurched off the floor, falling back on its haunches drunkenly.

"One more chance," Dean grated. "Come out of here, now."

"You've been the death of me, Dean Winchester," Mahoney replied, still smiling. "You've destroyed me, and I'm happy to return the favor. It delights me no end to imagine what your beloved brother will think of you for all of this. All you had to do was tell me the talisman's secret, but now? Now, you go to hell."

Dean sniffed, tightening his grip around his injured arm, the hint of an answering grin tugging at one side of his mouth.

"You first," he said.

He stepped back again onto the landing, Mahoney dropping the now-useless gun and moving forward past the struggling crusker to the doorway. For just a moment, the two men locked eyes filled with hatred and disdain.

"So let me die," Mahoney whispered finally, before he slammed the door in Dean's face.

Dean heard the lock click into place just as a sharp yelp sounded inside, and he knew the crusker had finally fully awoken. There was delight in Mahoney's laugh for just a moment, but the laugh turned quickly into a cry of terror--real, this time--as the crusker's snarl grew more menacing, more vicious.

Dean flinched at the crash and tinkle of shattered glass. Inside, Mahoney was cursing and furniture overturning, breaking. There was a sudden odd lull, and then a whoomp, as something caught fire. Dean pressed a hand flat against the door, feeling the heat rise quickly.

He heard Mahoney shriek, the scream echoed by a ululant cry of savage terror from the crusker as flames snapped and a flickering orange glow spread under the door.

There was still time to change his mind again. It wouldn't even be that hard. All it would take was a heavy boot in just the right place...

The noises inside the burning room became even more horrible. Dean dropped his head to his chest and squeezed his eyes tight for just a moment. Then he turned and made his way down the stairs, Mahoney's mad cries turning to laughter and the crusker's howls following him all the way out to where Sam waited.

-:- -:- -:-

He was near the edge, running on fumes, unable to remember the last time he'd slept. Dean drove straight west, clear to Watertown, before turning south; drove until, hours later, Sam's desperate groans from the back seat told him that his little brother could take no more. Then he found the nearest emergency clinic.

Hours after that, Sam was in the hospital, out of surgery with six temporary steel pins in his leg and an estimated seven weeks of recovery time stretching ahead of him. He'd been very lucky--there was no bone infection, and the surgeon had decided he didn't need a skin graft on his calf. Still, the stitches weren't pretty.

-:- -:- -:-

It was on the evening of the third day that Dean spotted the article in the weekly update, tucked away amongst the regional news.

"Huh."

"What?" With his leg in traction, Sam found it tough to read, tough to watch TV, tough to do anything but stare at the ceiling, and that was just boring. He had spent a lot of time sleeping, and Dean had spent a lot of time simply not talking. Now, Sam cast an inquisitive glance at his brother, seated in the chair nearby.

Dispassionately, Dean read the headline aloud. "Two dead in mansion blaze—locals labeled recluse billionaire 'eccentric'."

Sam looked up sharply. He'd seen the abrasions and fading bruises on his brother's face, the dark smudges beneath his eyes, but hadn't given them much thought--New Hampshire had kinda been a thrill ride, after all. Only now, however, did he realize that the horned amulet again dangled from Dean's neck. Shit, where had his brain been?

"Mahoney?"

"Yeah—looks like his place burned to the ground, and none of the alarms were working. Fire was apparently started by some candles upstairs, Mahoney in the middle of 'em. Dead of smoke inhalation or a heart attack, they're not sure, 'cause the body's extra crispy. But he died with his faithful dog beside him."

"'His faithful dog'?" Sam said. "Mahoney had a dog?"

"Guess so," Dean replied.

"And the second victim?"

"Uh, that would be security consultant Walter Carson, who fell down the basement steps and broke his neck. No other injuries, since no one else was around." Dean turned the page.

"Dean?" Sam's forehead crumpled as he considered how to word his real question. "How exactly did you get me out of there?"

"Brought you in the car, Sammy."

"That's not what I meant. Dean, did you--? A lot of people could've gotten hurt."

Dean met Sam's gaze squarely, chin lifted. "I didn't do it, Sammy. I did not set that fire. Mahoney was alive when I left."

After a moment, Sam nodded. "Okay. And Carson?"

"I didn't set the fire, Sam," Dean repeated firmly, and Sam got the message.

He sank back onto his pillow, mind racing, watching his brother carefully.

Dean leafed casually through the sports section, patently pretending that Sam didn't exist.

-:- -:- -:-

It took Sam a full minute to put the pieces together.

"It wasn't a dog," he said finally. "It was the crusker. Wasn't it, Dean? Somehow you got the crusker—oh my God. How did you even--?"

A faint smile tugged at Dean's mouth. "Cruskers are creatures of habit, Sammy, and not very bright. Say one had found a favorite eating spot, dined there often—you know, a real regular customer. Then, say, somebody stole a shit-load of tranquilizers from a vet's office, mixed 'em with something like that gris-gris we picked up in Meridian last year, and salted a goat carcass with the whole lot. Maybe put the carcass where that crusker had been eating all week. You'd have to wait until it showed up for dinner, but after twenty minutes or so, damn thing would be out cold, and you could probably haul it all over hell-and-gone without it ever waking up. Not for a while, anyway."

Sam gaped in disbelief. "You're insane."

"Maybe. I'm just sorry it took so long."

"What were you thinking?"

Dean shrugged and huffed a laugh. "Two birds? I don't know--seemed appropriate. Guy had brought that thing all the way down from Canada, I figured he should see it up close and personal, I guess."

"Dean, what you did--"

"Don't worry, Sammy. You know I wasn't gonna let that monster live."

"That was..." Sam's voice trailed off as he searched for words, and Dean filled the void, suddenly angry.

"What? Bad, Sam? Twisted? The crusker had to be taken out, anyway, and Mahoney was already dying. After what happened to you, what he did to you, no way I was going to let that sadistic bastard get away with that!"

"So, what, you're suddenly this avenging angel?" Sam snapped back. "Swooping in to deliver justice as you see fit? That's not your job, Dean--that's not your right!"

"Going to hell here, anyway, Sammy," Dean replied, almost nonchalantly, but his mouth was firmly set.

"Maybe you are, Dean, but I don't want you to have earned the trip!"

They glared at each other darkly for a few moments, until Sam took a deep breath.

"What I was going to say," he said with thin patience, "was that hauling that crusker around like that was dangerous. It could have killed you. And what about the fire?"

"What about it?"

Sam wet his lips. Dammit, there was a reason why Dean was making this so hard, and it couldn't be anything good. "You dragged the crusker into the house, and then what happened? What started the fire?"

"I already told you. It wasn't me."

"Dean."

Dean leaned forward abruptly, newspaper crumpling in his grasp as he glowered at his brother. "Sam, I tried to get him out, but he wouldn't come! The sonofabitch shot me!"

Sam's eyes flew to the bandage peeking from Dean's t-shirt sleeve, and Dean nodded, his anger vanishing again as quickly as it had appeared.

"I didn't ask very nice, but I could've gotten him out of there, if he'd wanted." His tone was oddly apologetic, and Sam cocked his head curiously as Dean's glance skittered away. "He just wouldn't come."

"Dean?"

Sam's voice softened, and Dean waited warily for whatever was next.

"Dean, I know that the things you do--well, you do them because you think they're right. But please, Dean. Please." Sam paused until he was certain he had his brother's full attention. "I want a real chance at saving you. I want the full year."

It took a while, but Dean looked away first, and it was his turn to breathe deeply.

"Yeah," he said finally. "Okay."

Sam nodded, relieved.

"Okay, then," he said. "Okay."

-:- -:- -:-

There was silence between them for several more minutes as Sam processed what he had learned and realized he had more questions.

"How'd Mahoney know about the amulet?" he asked finally.

Voice and eyes back under control, Dean looked at his brother over the top of the entertainment section.

"He didn't."

"What? Dean."

Dean dropped the newspaper to the floor, leaning forward again in the chair with a frown-line between his brows.

"Sammy, what I want to know is, how'd Mahoney know so much about us? He'd definitely been in touch with Gordon Walker, but Gordon couldn't have told him everything."

"He knew a lot," Sam agreed, remembering. "He knew about the yellow-eyed demon, about the car crash--even about you being healed back in Nebraska. Yeah, he knew more than anybody, maybe, except for Bobby."

"Nononono." Dean straightened in his chair. "You can't tell me that Bobby would have ratted us out, Sammy. Not Missouri or the Harvelles, either. So, who else could have done it? This whole set-up took a lot of intel, a lot of planning, and a lot of brains."

"I've been wondering about that, too," Sam replied slowly, picking at the blanket beside him. "There used to be someone who could've organized this, Dean, someone who knew us pretty well."

Dean huffed a laugh. "Yeah—Dad."

"No, not Dad. Someone who might've learned from him, though."

"You're losin' me here, Sammy."

"Besides us, who's had access to Dad's records? Saw how Dad put things together, how he made the connections he did? Someone who knew us fairly well, considering."

Dean was perplexed, pondering, but Sam watched his eyes. He saw the answer hit, and saw it get discarded immediately as Dean shook his head.

"Sam, Ash is dead."

"Dean, he could have done it. All of it! It wouldn't even have been malicious on his part—you know he'd have done almost anything, just for a beer!" Sam's voice rose with excitement and something near anger. "Say he heard somewhere that Mahoney was looking for a talisman like yours. Or maybe Mahoney recruited him somehow. Dean, Ash might have told him! Could've told him what we do, what kind of thing would bring us to New Hampshire. Could've figured out how to lure a crusker down from Canada. He sure as hell knew that you--"

Sam stopped abruptly, and Dean shot him a look.

"I what?"

Sam's voice dropped, but he held his brother's gaze. "That you'll do whatever it takes to keep me safe."

There was another pause before Dean shook his head again.

"Sam, Ash is dead," he repeated, and Sam challenged him instantly.

"Yeah, and we know ways of getting around that, don't we?"

Dean caught the corner of his bottom lip between his teeth. "Yeah, I guess we do," he said finally. "But we may never know for certain how Mahoney found out so much about us, Sammy. Man took a lot of secrets with him when he died."

"I guess so. But, Dean—don't you want to find out for sure?"

"Nope."

Sam blinked, not believing what he'd heard. "But you just said you wanted to know how...You're just gonna let this go."

"Looks like." Dean clapped his hands on his thighs, as though that was the end of that. "So, you're tired, and I gotta—well, I don't know what, but I gotta do something so you can rest and so I don't draw too much of the nurses' attention with this handsome face."

He gathered the scattered newspaper from the floor and stood to leave, catching Sam quirking a smile that didn't come anywhere near his eyes.

"Hey, Dean?"

"Gotta go, Sammy. You get some rest, and I'll see you tomorrow, 'kay?"

"Dean."

Oh, God. What else was there?

And then he knew. Dean heaved an exaggerated sigh, folding the newspaper and placing it on the adjustable table beside his brother's bed, just to have something to do with his hands.

"What is it?"

It took Sam a while to phrase the question, his throat working. When he spoke, watching Dean earnestly, Dean saw not the man, the warrior that Sam had become, but the little boy he'd once been, innocent, guileless and pure.

"There's, uh…Dean, there's nothing you're not telling me, right?"

Dean sniffed, keeping his eyes on Sam's face, knowing exactly what he had to do and say to put Sam's mind at ease. This was a game they'd played for years, Sammy asking the tough questions, depending on his big brother to tell him the truth, Dean never wanting to lie.

Long practice had taught him how to win, but Dean had never wanted to lie.

Schooling the emotions on his face carefully, Dean made sure that his voice and his body spoke the same language in a precise mixture—cocky, self-assured, and more than slightly annoyed that Sam could even doubt him. "What the hell? C'mon, Sammy. You know as much as I do about my necklace, man."

"It's not just that, Dean. I was thinking about things we haven't shared with one another in the past"—Dean rolled his eyes, and Sam plunged on, anyway—"but we're not doing that any more, right? Keeping secrets?"

"Sam, we're not schoolgirls."

"Dean, please."

Dean met his brother's unflinching gaze, reading the degree of worry there and on his furrowed brow. Fuck, the kid had just been through so goddamn much!

"No, Sam," he said firmly. "There's nothing I'm not telling you. I don't have time for those kinds of games anymore. Clock's ticking, remember. Why? You got something you need to get off your chest?"

Sam shrugged, suddenly dismissive. "No. It was just on my mind, that's all."

Dean watched him a moment longer, then flicked his eyes away. "Okay, then, that's settled. Neither one of us is keeping secrets from the other, and we can still play Barbies together at recess. Now, you ready to get some shut-eye?"

Sam settled back against his pillow, adjusting the covers at his waist. "Yeah, I guess. G'night, Dean. See you tomorrow."

"I better not come back here and find you chasing any nurses down the hall," Dean warned, and Sam smiled tiredly, closing his eyes.

"I'll leave that to you," he said, voice fading.

"G'night, then. I'll be by after breakfast."

-:- -:- -:-

Sam opened his eyes when he heard the door close softly, telling himself that it didn't count—it couldn't count—that he had kept what he'd seen back in Cold Oak from Dean, hadn't told his brother about the dream or vision or whatever it had been about the nursery of their house in Lawrence. Mom recognizing the yellow-eyed demon. The demon feeding six-month-old Sam with its own blood.

Sam winced at the memory, then tried to brush it away. It was probably just lies, anyway, and it didn't hurt to keep lies to oneself. It couldn't.

The frown was still on his face when Sam drifted into sleep.

-:- -:- -:-

In the hospital corridor, Dean leaned against the wall, brows drawn together, one hand clutched tightly around the amulet on his chest. He'd spent a long time thinking Sam had been too wrapped up in his own drama way back in Toledo to notice that both brothers' eyes had bled with dark secrets in Bloody Mary's presence. Now it seemed certain that Sam believed all the cards were on the table, and that was fine with Dean.

He had no doubts (no doubts!) that the yellow-eyed sonofabitch had surely lied, back in that Wyoming cemetery, fucking with Dean's head about how Sam might have come back from the dead--might have come back different. As for what had happened in New Hampshire, there were some things that little brothers just never needed to know.

The frown still on his face, Dean pushed himself off the wall to head out. It took him a full three seconds to realize he was following a shapely nurse to the elevator as she pushed what looked to be an extremely heavy cart.

"Hey," he said, frown melting into his very best winsome smile when she turned to him. Shapely and pretty in just the right combination, he thought. "Let me help you with that. You going my way?"

In fact, she was.

# -:- # -:- #

Thanks for reading! Comments welcomed. On to Season 3!

-Linnie