Wow! What an ep!! This season just keeps on getting better and better! Poor Sam! Jared did such a great job with the pout! And Dean with the multiple gun porn! I was in heaven!! Hope you guys enjoyed it too!

Sad to say this is the end of this fic, i hope you've enjoyed reading as much as i enjoyed writing x

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Dean leant back against an old red mustang and turned his face toward the sky, breathing in deep and savouring the silence that surrounded him. Bobby's junk yard was big enough to easily find a secluded spot and disappear for a while. When they were younger, the brothers were always getting lost, leaving Bobby and John to find the wayward boys before they began to panic and cry. As they grew older, the brothers learned that the junk yard had a pattern. There was organisation amongst the chaos. Once you knew the paths, you knew how to get lost yet always manage to find your way back.

Dean took a deep breath and tried to drown out Sam's words from the previous night. He tried to ignore the nagging feeling that Sam was right. Something as big and as nasty as the demon didn't work alone. There would be others; generals and lieutenants, leaders and soldiers. All working for the same cause. Just because you cut off the head, doesn't mean the body can't fight.

So what if Sam wasn't Sam? So what if his brother had another freaky shining power that they could use as a weapon against all the evil sons-of-bitches out there in the world that needed killing?

So friggin what?

Dean wasn't scared, he wasn't ready to knock his brother out and run to the furthest point of the world to hide. Even if that did mean getting on a damn plane. Nope, not scared. Not him.

So what that Sam couldn't live without him? That Sam was going to have to hold his brothers lifeless body close to his own as the body fell lax and the skin turned cold. So what that Sam was going to experience the ultimate loss of the one person who was his constant.

Dean closed his eyes as he remembered the absolute shocking devastation of the realisation that Sam was dead. His body sagged under the weight of the memory and he slowly lowered himself to the ground.

He swore to protect Sam from anything and everything that could hurt him. Yet Dean was going to put him through the worse pain imaginable. It was still the right choice to make. Out of every eventuality he could imagine and all the pain he could endure, Dean knew that losing Sam was the worst of a heap of bad situations and the one that there was no way he could go through again. There was no way. His heart cried out as the pain of the memory slammed into his chest with each broken beat. Yes, he was going to put Sam through the same pain. There was no way around it. He was sorry, he was ashamed of the weakness, but there was no way he could watch his brother die and carry on with his life.

Tears of frustration, anger and fear welled within the green depths as Dean roughly brushed aside the wetness that escaped to run down his cheeks.

He was terrified of going to hell, there was no denying that. But the alternative? So much worse than anything he would ever be able to endure.

Sam had to live.

He was gonna kill him, though, if those approaching footsteps belonged to the sasquatch he called brother.

Dean brushed the tears from his eyes in a futile attempt to remove all evidence of his little freak out. If the hunter had known about the red puffy rings around his eyes and the fact his face had lost all colour, he would have turned away from Sam as the younger man rounded the corner and looked down at him with concern.

"You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Dean…"

"Nothing to talk about, Sam."

Sam turned away, trying to gather his thoughts and formulate the words to say what he needed his brother to hear. He smiled as he realised the spot Dean had chosen to hide away from him.

"Hey, do you realise where we are?"

Dean looked up curiously before allowing his eyes to take in his surroundings. He smiled, glancing up at Sam as he tried to shield his eyes from the sun shining behind his brother.

"Huh…I didn't realise it until just now."

"You remember that night?" Sam moved to sit down next to Dean, their backs against the front of the old mustang.

"Remember it? We were lost for the whole night. Dad and Bobby never thought we'd make it this far out into the yard so they were checking closer to the house."

" I was what? Seven? Eight?"

"Eight and a half."

Sam turned his face to smile down at Dean.

"How'd you remember this stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"The age I was when certain things happened."

"Dunno, just do."

"It's a good thing."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

The brothers sat in amiable silence, enjoying the slow track of the sun across the bright blue sky. The only sound a distant call of birds as they flew to a new destination for the change in seasons. A new world for them to grow and raise a family in the safety and warmth of a destination they would arrive at unharmed, unhindered and without question. Their hopes fulfilled the moment the new land came into focus from high above the ground. Amongst friends and family the birds would land, to begin a new life. The cycle never ending and passed down through the generations that would carry on their lives.

They lived forever through the gift of new life. They didn't have to cut corners and make deals just to fulfil one hope, one dream.

"Dean, we gotta talk."

"No we don't, Sam" came the tired reply.

"Fine, I'll talk. You listen."

When there was no reply, Sam took a deep breath and continued.

"With what happened with Jake and Samantha…Dean, I need you to keep an eye on me. Keep looking out for me just like you always have. For longer than a year man. I need you to carry on your job. You don't get to quit .You don't get to give up."

"Jake deserved killing. He made a deal with that yellow eyed son-of-a-bitch. Samantha though? I'm not so sure what happened is what you think happened."

"What do you mean?"

"That lawyer guy they found died from a head injury. Could be he had a seizure and that's what killed him. I think the spirit leaving the body caused that reaction. When Samantha found out that Jack was gone for good I think she left to be with him. Nothing you did Sam, just the way it is."

"Maybe." said Sam, unconvinced but willing to allow his brother the safety of the alternative.

"Or, if you did kill her." Dean paused for dramatic effect, regarding his brother with a serious frown. "It means we have ourselves a very own ghost trap, Dr Spengler."

"Means we can charge for services."

"We'd have to get you patented."

"Oh really?!" laughed Sam, relaxing further against the car and his brother's shoulder.

"Listen Sam, I don't want you trying to find a way out of this deal. You need to leave it alone."

"Why are you so against being saved?"

"I'm not against being saved, Sam. There's more to it than that."

"What then? What is it, man? You've been keeping something from me the whole time and now is the time to spill it. Please. I'm begging you."

Dean looked down at the dirt and tried to will himself away from the conversation. He was barely aware of the words leaving his lips.

"If I try to get out of this deal, you die."

Sam did a double take, turning slightly in the dirt to face his brother.

"Say again."

"If I try to get out of the deal, you die. It was one of the conditions. I get one year, but if I worm or weasel my way out, then you die. Again."

Sam sat in silence while Dean held his breath against the tirade he was sure was coming. Held his breath against the anger and venom that would be directed his way.

"Doesn't matter" Sam said matter-of-factly as he turned back in the dirt to his original position, against the car, shoulder to shoulder with his brother. His family.

"What?" Dean's voice cracked on the word as he held the relief to his brother's reaction at bay.

"Doesn't matter, Dean. It actually works out better. We find a way out, or we die. We do it together."

"Not we, Sam. You."

"We're in this together, Dean. You proved that already. We both live, or we both die. End of story."

"You can't do that, Sam. You gotta live, you gotta go back to school and make a life for yourself. Be safe and well and don't hunt anymore. Its not worth it."

"No, Dean. I'm gonna save you or we'll both die. Its that simple. You can't protect me from the demon or the deal or you dying. Its our mess man. Ours to deal with together."

"You don't know what its like to lose a brother, Sam."

"I don't? What about when you were electrocuted?"

"That wasn't the same."

"Wasn't far off. Your heart stopped. You died outside that house. Then to have you brought back by the EMT's only to be told you had a month, tops, to live. How do you think I felt? I went to every length possible to save you. And you know what? Even if I had known what Roy Le Grange wasn't aware of, even if I had known what his wife was doing, I'd have still taken you there, man."

"Sam…"

"No, Dean. Listen. I will do anything for you. Just because you made a promise when you were four doesn't mean you get to be the only one who protects. You are my responsibility as much as I am yours. We're in this together. Until the end. No matter what end meets us."

"All I ever wanted was for you to have a normal life, Sam. I still want that."

"You're an idiot."

"What?"

"You're an idiot. Normal, to me, is being by your side. I know that now. That's what family is; what normal is. You're stuck with me and I'm stuck with you."

Sam gazed into Dean's green depths and tried to will his eyes to not tear up the way his older brother's were.

Dean smacked his shoulder and turned away.

"What was that for?"

"You're such a girl, Sam."

"So you'll let me help, you'll work with us on this?"

"Only if it keeps you from wearing pink dresses and having a sex change."

"I'm not a girl, Dean."

"I think if you had your way you would be, but Sam? The credit cards won't cover an operation like that."

"So, that's a yes then?"

"To the sex change?"

"To working together."

"It's a yes."

"Good."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you have to write that on my leg?"

Sam looked down at the cast on his brother's leg and couldn't help but giggle at the pink and purple writing against the stark white plaster.

"Seemed appropriate."

"You know I'm gonna kick your ass for that, right?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Friggin 'Child of Flower Power'! Of all the things to write, Sam."

"You like the flower though, right?"

"Yeah, gotta admit you draw a good flower, dude."

Both brothers jumped as Bobby rounded the corner and approached them with the look of a very hungry and pissed off grizzly.

"So there the bloody hell you are! I've been looking for you two knuckleheads for over an hour now."

"Well, we've been here the whole time" smiled Dean at his old friend.

"Oh yeah, been here in your little hiding hole like the children you are!"

"Bobby, you mad at us?" asked Sam.

"No." The older hunter turned away and tried to hide his relief . "Ellen's here, she has some information you guys need to hear."

"About what?" Dean asked as Sam helped him up from the ground.

"Your deal," Bobby said carefully. While keeping an eye on Dean's reaction, he nodded to Sam, the younger man smiled back , a smile so full of hope and promise that it made Bobby's heart swell.

"What did you find?" Dean asked in a small voice.

"Ellen found a guy, not far from here. He'd made a deal with a demon to bring someone back from the dead."

"So? What's so special about that?" asked Sam as he helped Dean navigate the debris littering the yard. It was a wonder his brother had made it all the way out there without falling. He just hoped Dean put as much determination into finding a way out of the deal as he did to getting away from those who loved him.

"This guy made his deal a while ago and he's still alive."

"Maybe he got more time than everyone else" said Dean.

"Ten years."

"Like I said, he got more time."

Bobby ignored the snark. Instead he turned to fully face both brother's.

"He made the deal fifteen years ago."

Neither man moved. Neither spoke. Neither dared breathe for fear of waking up from the dream they were sure they were stuck in.

"What?" whispered Sam.

"Fifteen years ago, Emmet Carlson made a deal to bring his sister back from the dead. Fifteen years later they are both still very much alive."

"You're sure?"

Bobby looked at the men before him and let a smile spread slowly across his rugged features.

"You wanna go meet them?"

The brothers nodded in unison and continued the walk back to the house, back to Ellen, and back to hope that brought with it the realisation that not everything was cut and dry. Black and white. There were colours and light amongst the dark and the pain. There was hope amongst the loss.

And there might just be a way through to the other side.

There's a crack in the clouds, but only for a moment now

Like an owl looking out, the blue sky spies the roads we will go down.

I wonder what they hope for us? I hold my family to my breast,

I feel the worst and hope the best will come to see us blessed.

- Chris Cornell

Fin.

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I want to thank you all once again for all your amazing reviews and support. I see many names reappear but with every fic there's always a few new ones and i love that you all seek out these journeys to join me on. To everyone who reads only, i hope you drop me a line to let me know what you think. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this xxx It means so much.

Fo those heading to Chicago i'll see you there!

Until next time...take care.