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"So don't you worry, you'll be my resolution."

~Mathew Corby "Resolution"

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It was 6 am when Dean creaked Sam's bedroom door open to a full darkness created by no windows. He stepped over the concrete and approached the bed where Sam was lying flung on his side white shirt sleeves, blanket up over half of his body.

Dean manipulated Sam's arm and checked the white pressure bandage that was wrapped around the twenty field sutures it had taken to close the gashes Sam had inflicted on himself. Satisfied with the no blood leakage, he lowered Sam's arm back down onto the mattress. Sam hadn't roused the entire time he did this, but his breath was even and steady. Dean set a hand flat against the back of his brother's head for a moment to check for any fever indicating infection. Sam's hair was damp, but not hot. He backed his hand away, rubbing at his eyes for a moment, sleep pulling at him, but ones that he fought down he and Sam had long ego established the 5 Hour Rule when it came to serious injury. Whoever wasn't down would keep an eye on the other who was every hour for the first five hours to make sure that they remained alive. They made it back to Kansas in at 1 am, so this check marked the last hour, five hours and Sam was still alive.

Dean moved over to the chair Sam had in a corner of his room that he used to watch TV, but that Sam used mostly for reading. He set the white covered Codex on top of the chair's seat cushion before turning back to look at his brother's silhouette turned away from him.

"You earned this damn thing Sammy-you'll keep it safe better than me man," he watched Sam breathe in and out in his sleep for a long moment before walking out the door and closing it behind him, turning the bedroom back into full darkness.

Dean's footfalls echoed down the hallway to his own room.

Sam lay on his bed not moving, eyes opened, listening for 10 minutes before he heard no other sound then pulled out of his bed in his shirt sleeves, jeans on his legs. He climbed up off the bed and threw on a shirt from his closet. His jacket hung over the heater condenser by his bed and he reached into his pocket, pulling out his cellphone.

One new message displayed from an unknown number:

"This better be about what we discussed. I'm waiting."

Sam deleted the message and slid into his jacket with a wince, reaching for a piece of scrap paper and a pencil that sat in a little caddy on the dresser. He scribbled a quick note and picked up his boots and walked out of room with them gripped by the laces in his hand. He closed the door and walked down the hallway in bare feet, looking in on Dean's room which had the door opened partly, Sam suspected, to be able to hear him. Dean was flopped on his stomach asleep in the same clothes he had worn all day yesterday.

He crouched down and slid the paper in his hand under Dean's door, baring a note that said:

Going out for supply run, I'm good.

Sam drew back up to his full height, taking one last glance at Dean, seeing the peaking of the Mark visible through the rolled up section of his shirt sleeves, watching his brother for a long moment before backing away.

He continued to walk down the black bricked hallway until it ended at doorway with a set of winding steel stairs. He laced up his boots and followed them down a level, opening the metal door of the garage, moving past a long line of cars including the Impala, until he came to a maroon Chevy Chevelle. He climbed inside the car, smelling a musty leather smell. A small sachet of molded potpourri hung above the rearview mirror. He reached down and pulled apart the wires on the ignition console and wired the car to start. The Chevelle's motor took a minute to turn over, coughing as it did so, but then came on and stayed that way.

Sam back the car out and drove it down the center of concrete down to the left until he came to an opened space with a curved winding path of concrete. He followed it down until he came to a gated exit that came out behind the Bunker. He punched a code into a key pad above the gate and it opened and he drove the Chevelle out onto the street, the gate shutting automatically behind him.

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Sam was recessed in shadows, leant up against the stone bricked when the metal door was thrown open with a squeak of its hinges that were half frozen in rust. A slim figure in a dark traveler's cloak glided down the steps with almost no sound.

"Well hello, Car Boy," Rowena moved past Sam to the bottom level of the abandoned building who's broken windows Sam had spray painted in Demon and Enchocian warding symbols. He waited until Rowena moved a few paces in front of him, the skirts of her dress held up in her hands, before he followed her at a slower pace, arms held behind his back.

The witch gasped at what she saw. "You got it!" She moved at a quicker pace, with an audible click of her heeled shoes on the floor, moving over to the long dusty table to where Sam had laid the Codex, flinging off her cloak and tossing it into a chair that sat next to the table.

He watched Rowena bend over the book, touching its cover and flipping through its pages with noises of reverence.

"Is it enough?" Sam approached her with heavy steps of his boots, stopping barely a foot away from her.

Rowena made a noise of clucked annoyance. "To what?" She glanced at him with a flip of her burning red curls like he was fly that had flown in her face.

Sam stopped walking, watching the witch fiddling with the pages. "To translate the book, find a cure for the Mark."

"Oh ay," Rowena said with a rippled amused laugh laced in her Scottish accent, like Sam was stupid for asking her such a thing, never taking her eyes off the pages of the Codex.

"Good." Sam removed his hands from behind his back and locked an iron manacle around her wrist before she even had the chance to right herself. Rowena whirled up from the pages of Codex and Sam used her stunned movement to take ahold of her other arm and lock it with the remaining manacle.

Rowena stared down shocked bafflement at the iron manacles etched in lines of spell work, the same ones had been used on her son- Crowley in the Men of Letters Bunker. She stared up at Sam in a growl: "What in the hell is this?!"

"Insurance." Sam raised both her hands up in his, letting the iron chain that held the manacles together deliberately rattle audibly so that Rowena could hear them. "Comfortable?" the driest of smiles crossed his face before he let her hands drop like sacks of unwanted flour, and walked away from her to a wooden support beam in the center of the room where a long iron chain was wrapped around its base.

"We had an agreement, giant!" Rowena spat in hatred from behind him.

"The agreement stands," Sam picked up the end of the chain in his hand and turned back around to Rowena letting all of his 6'4" height show, pointing his finger at her like a loaded gun. "You will decrypt the Book of the Damned, and find me a cure for my brother, and that is all you will get from the book." He stared down Rowena for what she was, a tool. "I'll burn the book-" He looped the chain around a connection in one of the manacles. "And I'll kill Crowley," he looped the chain through the remaining manacle, loose enough for Rowena to spread her hands wide enough to turn pages, but nothing else. "But until then-" He closed the gap between the iron chains and locked them with a small padlock, also etched in spell work.

"I'm your slave?" Rowena mocked in a sing-song tone, her face half smug.

Sam bit her with a hard edged smile and held up the padlock's tiny key in her face before turning and walking away with it towards the steps.

"You can't!-" the long chain clanked and rattled. "You can't just leave me here!" Rowena mewled in indignation.

Sam stopped walking, swallowing down something dangerous that wanted to just kill her. "You want out." He turned slightly, but didn't not face her fully, only letting her see him in silhouette, hands in his pockets, his gashed arm burning as he pocketed the manacle key, but not flinching this time from the pain. "Hurry up," he lowered his hands. "Get to work," he boomed his footsteps up the stairs and out the door.

Rowena's cursed screams traveled after him, but the noise stopped at the door due to the collection of spell work symbols at the right most window of the building, one that he had found in the Archives that blocked off any sound from where it was drawn. Sam did not turn around once walked out of the building into the early morning sunlight and climbed back into the Chevelle.

He took out his phone and saw two missed calls from Dean.

He dialed Dean's number, the call connected almost instantly. "Hey-"

"Hey nothing man!" Dean's voice growled at him through the phone. "You can't just slip half an index card note at me when you're only one night Post-Magnus Crazy Acid Trip, I was two seconds away from GPS'ing your ass!-"

"Dude I'm sorry," Sam apologized, "Like you said, post Magnus crazy acid trip. I won't do it again."

"You okay?" There was no 'damn right you won't' no 'sorry is shit Sam' from Dean, only this in its place, the sense that something was wrong.

Sam moved his eyes up to the rearview mirror of the Chevelle. The abandoned building he had locked Rowena in glanced back at him.

"Sammy?-"

"Yeah, I'm good," Sam blinked and the image of the warehouse vanished and was replaced by sense of hearing Dean's voice. "I'm on my way back." He hung up the phone and drove back down the dirt path that led up the warehouse and back down to the street heading back.

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R/R Please