Thank you so much Jenjoremy for beta'ing, encouraging and supporting. Your help is why this story has finally been finished.

Thank you VegasGranny and Ncsupnatfan for all your help and support through pre-reading.

Thank you all for your endless patience and support for this story. I am glad to finally mark it as complete but will miss the process and talking to you all.

Finale V

Sam lost track of time as he kneeled on the ground, trying to work through his pain, but his wounded chest had stopped bleeding and his hands were numb with cold when his thoughts started to make sense again. There were things he needed to do, bodies he needed to deal with.

Somewhere out there, probably at Bobby's place, were what remained of his family, and here there were the bodies of the Demon's victims. He may not have raised his hand to them, but it was because of him that they were dead. Sam needed to lay them all to rest.

He got to his feet and looked around. He didn't have the energy or will to dig graves for them all, and he didn't have the time. He wanted to get to Sioux Falls and lay his own people to rest. He would build them proper pyres and give them hunters' funerals. That would be what they would have wanted. He didn't know what he would do after, but that didn't matter. He didn't need to know yet. He just had to concentrate on the smaller things to keep him moving.

He picked up Hallie's body and carried it back to the saloon where they had made their home for the weeks they'd been there. When he entered, he saw Jake's body lying in a large pool of blood. The deep wound in his neck looked like a smile. His eyes were closed and he looked almost peaceful. Sam didn't want to think of it, but he wondered what his last moments had been like. Had he been ready for the end? It upset Sam that no one would ever know what had happened to him. His family could never bury him. Nor could Hallie's or Bethan's, Andy's or the woman whose name he'd never taken the time to learn. They would be mystery disappearances that would haunt their loved ones who they'd left behind for a long time, maybe forever.

Sam was almost jealous of their quick ends. Had he not been the last survivor of both the conflict and the demon, if he'd not killed the monster that had set this in motion, he would have wished to have the same quick end as Nate's other victims. There was nothing and no one left in the world for him anymore.

He laid Hallie next to Jake and moved Andy so he was with them, too, leaving Harrison bound to the post, then went back for the others. Bethan and the woman he hadn't known the name of were carried in and laid down beside the others. Nate and the Demons' meatsuit were kept apart. He was tempted to leave Nate outside to rot and be picked over by animals, but he knew that was petty revenge. Nate hadn't always been a murderer. He'd probably been a good person before this started. The Demon was the one to blame for what he had become. Whatever he had shown or told Nate had changed him. The Demon's meatsuit deserved to be dealt with because he was at no fault for what had happened. He'd just been a man that the Demon had chosen to possess.

When he was done, he went outside to collect the planks of the fallen barn and carried them inside and laid them over and around the bodies. He wanted the fire to catch and burn fast.

When it was ready, he took the box of matches from his pocket and lit small pieces of kindling and placed them around the pile. The wood was old and dry and it caught quickly. Sam watched from the door for a moment and then whispered an apology and went outside.

He watched as the flames licked through the glassless windows and then caught the walls, the heat forcing him back until he was in the middle of the road, and he tried to prepare himself for what he had to do next.

He was sure the hellhound would be gone now since its master was dead, so he had to escape the town and find a way back to Sioux Falls. A more painful task awaited him there, terrible goodbyes to make, and then he would allow himself to stop and rest.

He watched the fire, trying to make himself turn away and move on, when he heard a sound that convinced him he had finally lost the last piece of himself that he had been clinging to. He had lost his mind.

There was no other explanation for the fact he could hear Dean calling his name.

Dean stumbled as he ran up the dirt road, his feet skidding on the mud. He still felt a little lightheaded from the blow to the head he'd received, but his need to get to Sam overpowered his wish to rest.

It was their own fault. They'd not been careful enough. John and Dean had the Colt out of the safe and John was examining it while Bobby tried to scry for the Demon yet again. There had been shouts of laughter and then the demons had descended.

It had been fast. The traps under the doors had been burned with acid, breaking the lines of paint, and the demons had come in. John had been on his feet first, stepping in front of Dean to protect him, and he'd been the first knocked out. Dean had grabbed for the colt, but the female demon had been faster. She'd grabbed it and Dean's necklace, ripping it from his neck, then ran before Dean could do more than cry out in shock. The demon that had knocked John out had aimed for Dean next, the hilt of a knife poised to collide with his head, and Dean had stepped into the blow in order to defeat it. He'd taken the hit but his forward momentum had caught the demon around the waist and knocked it into the range of the devil's trap Bobby had painted on the ceiling.

Bobby had been on his feet with holy water, driving back the demon that had been targeting him, and it had turned and run. Bobby had turned his attention to John, rousing him, while Dean, satisfied his father was being taken care of, had picked up the bottle of holy water from the desk and gotten to work on the demon.

In the weeks since Sam had been taken, Dean had been searching for him, having Ash track his cards and search hospital admissions, and Dean had been tracking demons to question. John hadn't helped Dean question them about Sam as he was sure he had taken off on his own and felt that they had more pressing issues to deal with, like finding the Demon and using the Colt on it; his questions had been about the location of Yellow-Eyes.

Neither of them had made any progress, and Dean was having trouble dealing with the stress of it. He was sure Sam was out there somewhere, needing him, and he wasn't giving up until he found him.

Now the Colt gone, so he fixed his will on his own mission again, knowing they would deal with the loss of the Colt when Sam was with them to help.

He had questioned the demon for an hour, long after John had woken up and started asking his own questions, before it broke and told them both what they wanted to know.

The Colt would be with the Demon. The Demon was in a place called Cold Oak. The Demon would be with Sam.

Bobby had known the place so they'd piled into the Impala and Dean had sped them there. They'd driven until they'd been forced to stop by a tree that had fallen in the road and then set out on foot.

"You smell that?" Bobby panted, running at Dean's back with John.

"Smoke," John said. "Something's burning."

Dean sped his pace, powering away from his father and Bobby, running along the track and calling for his brother. If there was fire, someone had set it, and Dean had to believe it was set by Sam not by the Demon.

He skidded around a corner and saw the most amazing sight. There was a long street of rickety buildings that looked like they'd been abandoned a century ago, and one of them was burning. Outside of the burning building was a tall man with too long hair.

"Sammy!"

Sam turned and Dean pelted towards him, taking in the sight of his brother. He'd grown a beard and his hair and clothes were filthy. His face was smudged with dirt, but more pressing was the blood on his front.

"Jesus, Sammy, you're hurt!" he said when he reached him, pushing apart Sam's jacket and lifting his shirt to see a long but shallow wound.

Sam stepped back, his eyes wide and stunned, and said, "Dean? You're alive?"

The shock of hearing Sam's voice after so long, speaking words that he could understand, overpowered the confusion of the question, and he grabbed his shoulders and said, "Are you okay? What happened?"

Wide-eyed with shock, Sam touched Dean's cheek with a look of wonder and then grabbed him and yanked him into a hug that knocked the breath out of Dean's lungs.

"He said you were dead," Sam breathed.

Dean heard John and Bobby's footsteps behind him and Sam stiffened and then whispered, "Dad?"

Dean pulled back and Sam stepped around him like a man in a daze, falling against his father and starting to cry. John looked astounded as he soothed Sam with words and a hand on his back, saying, "It's okay, Sam. We've got you. You're going to be okay now."

Sam clung to his father for a long time and then stepped back and said, "How are you alive? He said you were all dead."

"I think a bigger question is how you're talking," Bobby said.

Sam huffed a laugh and wiped at his tear streaked cheeks. "It's been happening a while. It's hard and doesn't always come out right. But it's getting better all the time."

Dean was shocked that he was able to understand enough of the words Sam spoke to take the meaning from them.

John shook his head, his eyes wet, and then he said, "Who told you we were dead?" He stiffened. "Sammy, have you seen the Demon? Was he here?"

Sam reached into the back of his pants and pulled out a familiar antique gun. "He was here," he said with a smile. "I killed him."

John frowned. "You… Was that right? Did you…" He gripped Sam's shoulders and locked eyes with him. "Did you kill him, Sam?"

Sam nodded, his eyes bright with happiness. "He's dead. It's over."

John swayed and steadied himself on Sam and then did something Dean had no memory of him doing since he was a small child. He threw an arm around Sam and dragged Dean over with the other. He hugged them both to him and began to sob. Bobby laid a comforting hand on John's back and then stepped away to give them a moment as a family as he wiped his own eyes.

"It's over," John choked. "He's dead."

"Yeah," Sam said. "He's not the only one. He's responsible for a lot of deaths here and elsewhere, there were a lot of us, but he's finally gone. He can't hurt anyone else."

Dean felt tears burning his own eyes and he buried his face in his father's shoulder.

The Demon was dead. The mission of almost his whole life was over. Mary Winchester had been avenged. And he had his family with him. They'd all survived.

It really was over.

So… There it is. That was The Sound of Silence. I've never let a story sit as long as this one, and I am so sorry for those of you that were reading and waiting for more. You owe your thanks to Jenjoremy who never let me forget it existed and who was the prompt I needed to finally finish it.

Until the next story…

Clowns or Midgets xxx