Bethany doesn't look particularly upset to see them again, and Sam figures that must be a good sign. They meet her for lunch in the cafeteria this time, watching as she collects whatever kind of mystery meat the hospital is serving before following her to an empty table. Dr. Thomson follows after them but keeps his distance, standing off to the side. Sam and Dean sit down across from Bethany, watching curiously as she avoids eye contact and digs into her meal with more enthusiasm than should be possible given the texture of the food in front of her. Finally, she tilts her head, catching Dean's eye for a moment. She smiles.

"Hi again Bethany," Dean says, folding his hands on the table in front of him.

"Hi Dean."

A pause. More silence while Bethany turns her attention to her carton of milk next, fumbling a little with the tabs on either side before she manages to pull it open and take a long swig.

"Bethany, we just uh...we had a question for you," Sam says after a moment.

Bethany nods. "Yes," she says.

Sam purses his lips, trying to think of how best to phrase this particular question. "Last night we...Dean and I...we went into the woods. And we…"

Bethany's plastic fork dangles limply from her hand. She raises her head all the way this time, stares right at Sam.

"Yes," she says again. "The answer to your question is 'yes.'"

Dean blinks at her. "But you don't even know…"

"You're wondering if it's gone," Bethany says without pause. "And it is. I'm not sure how I know. I'm not sure how I know a lot of the things, but I'm sure of this one thing at least: whatever was in those woods, it's gone now."

"You don't know what it was?" Sam asks.

Bethany shakes her head, guides a forkful of brown mush up to her mouth. "I don't think there is a name for it yet, but if there is, I don't want to know it," she says once she's swallowed the bite.

"But you must know something," Sam urges. "Please, Bethany. Anything you can tell us. Anything that can help us kill it. Find it, at least."

"I don't know much. Things like that, they just are. It finds a place, and it sucks the life from it. Slowly. So slow that nobody even realizes. Nobody's even looking." Bethany's lets her fork drop onto her half-finished meal with a dull thunk. Her eyes are far away as she speaks, focused on some distant space behind the brother's heads. "Dark things are drawn there," she continues. "Demons and Devils and monsters. Like a beacon. It's how I got possessed, right after I spent the night in those woods."

Dean nods, and Sam seems as though he's going to ask another question, but Bethany speaks first.

"That demon, the one who possessed me? He showed me the future. He showed me Lucifer. A world that couldn't be saved. But he was wrong." Bethany pauses to take another sip of milk. A droplet of white dribbles down her chin and she flicks at it, but it stays, sticks to a curled end of her hair. Dean aches to brush it away.

"I think that's what gave me the strength to break free all those times," Bethany continues. "The knowledge that he had to be wrong about the two of you. I saw, even in those brief flashes, that the two of you were special. That you wouldn't follow so blindly."

Sam winces in never-forgotten shame, and Dean knows he's thinking about Ruby and demon blood and a million other things that hover inside the walls of who they've become, things they don't talk about anymore. Dean knows, because he's thinking about them too: a muttered lie about grabbing bandages from the Impala's trunk, the crackle of gravel beneath the tires as he'd torn away from his brother in the direction of an archangel.

And screw their stupid list of unspoken rules carved out between them just as clearly as Bethany's. Screw it all, because the list is too long and there's too much that doesn't get said, too much they might never get a chance to forgive each other for if they don't start now. And Dean knows he's already forgiven Sam a million times over, but they've never said it, and maybe that matters too. Maybe that matters most.

"You broke free from the demon's control?" Sam asks, wide-eyed.

"Moments at a time," Bethany nods, smiling in faint victory. "Just long enough to spout out what sounded like crazy talk about the end of the world. Just long enough to land me in here, I suppose. Eventually the demon got angry. It left before I even realized it was gone. Left me here to rot."

"Bethany, you're not rotting," Sam says. It almost sounds like one of Dad's orders. "You're surviving."

The young girl shrugs, stirring absently around what's left of her meal. "The same can be said for you, I think. For all of us. The victims- did they find their way home, too?"

Dean nods. "They're safe. They're all safe."

Bethany's face falls a little. "You have to leave now, right? Just like the thing in the woods. Your purpose has been served, so you move on?"

"Yeah, I guess," says Dean. He swipes a hand down along his jaw, squints a little. "That thing in the woods," he says, "what purpose did it serve?"

Bethany shrugs. "It needed proof. Proof that someone could beat it."

"We beat it?" Sam asks, disbelieving.

Bethany nods. She pushes her tray aside. All that's left is a thick, brown paste and a few grains of white rice.

"How?" Dean wonders aloud. "We didn't kill anything. Hell, we don't even know if we saw anything. Anything that was real anyway."

"You followed the rules," Bethany states simply.

"The…" Sam tries.

But Bethany cuts him off, raises a finger into the air. "Say your name aloud before you enter the woods. Let it rattle around inside your head, and do well to remember it, lest the forest try to make you forget." She pauses. "Do you know your names?"

Sam's forehead scrunches. "Well yeah, but…"

"Those are the rules, but they are perhaps not what you believe them to be," says Bethany. "Yes, you said your names before you went into the woods, but more important: you did not forget who you were. For that is what the forest does. Did. It strips away all the things that you are, makes you lose track of what's important. The voices you follow into sorrow? They are your own. The trees you mar with your ugly knives? It is your own skin. The ten fingers you count and recount? This is your reality, the hard truth of your existence. Do you understand now? It all means something more."

"Not really," says Dean, at the same time Sam says:

"But...we didn't find our way home. The woods themselves, they led us back somehow."

Bethany clasps her hands in front of her, tilts her head like she's a bird listening for the sounds of a predator carried across the wind. "And what is your home? You think it's a place?"

"Well yeah, it's always been the car," Sam says without pause, and he feels Dean relax against him a little, as if that answer pleases him. But it doesn't seem to have the same effect on Bethany, because she's shaking her head at them, a soft smile on her face.

"It has never been the car."

"I don't understand," Sam insists.

"Yes you do," Bethany replies, a little impatient now. She cups her hands in front of her, then spreads them apart until she encompasses both of them within the reach of her arms. "It's you. You're only really home when you're with each other. And the moment you found your way back to each other, that was the moment it was truly over."

Bethany stands then, closing out the conversation with a swift nod of her head.

"Well," she shrugs, as if that says it all.

"Well," Dean echoes. He reaches out a hand to her, waits until she takes it. Gives it one, firm shake. Dr. Thomson watches from across the room. Bethany slips the object Dean hands her deftly into her pocket without looking at it. She brushes her fingers against it, eyebrows raised with an unspoken question.

"Anti-possession charm," Dean mutters by way of explanation. "To keep you safe."

Bethany's jaw clenches and her lip quivers the slightest amount, moisture pooling behind her eyes. "Thank you," she says. Dean nods.

"You're gonna be okay, Bethany. You're gonna be just fine."

Bethany directs a watery smile back at him. "Sure."

"Bethany, if you ever need anything…" Sam starts.

"I know," Bethany nods. "I know."

Dean looks like he wants to say more, do more, but Sam nudges his shoulder a little, gets him moving. They don't say much as they move down the blank-white walls of the hospital and out into the clear air. They make their way towards the Impala and when Sam moves for the driver's side, Dean doesn't stop him, left ankle still shot to hell and needing a reprieve. The engine rumbles to life and the road stretches out in front of them, waiting for them to pick a direction. Dean lets Sam choose this time, lets himself relax into the seat a bit. He's about to turn on the radio when Sam does that stuttered thing where he almost starts to talk, and then stops.

"What?" Dean asks after the third time he's done it.

"What?" Sam echoes.

"I know you have something to say, so just say it."

Sam's grip on the wheel is loose and sure, eyes trained ahead. "I just...I don't know. It's a lot to think about. Whatever was in those woods...we'll probably never understand it. And what if we run into it again? What if people die next time because we don't know enough? It's just...it bothers me. That doesn't bother you?"

Dean wrinkles his nose, thinks about it for a second. "Of course it bothers me," he says finally. "I don't like not knowing just as much as you. But maybe we don't need to know everything. We just need to know how to kill it or send it back to wherever the hell it came from. We beat it this time, right? So we just do it again." A pause and a smirk. "With the power of love, of course."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Dean, be serious."

"I'm sorry, it's just a little corny for my taste. I mean, 'we're not home unless we're together?'" Dean's fingers come up to form air quotes, the sarcasm evident. Sam frowns, changes lanes.

"You don't think that's true?"

"Of course it's true," Dean growls, and Sam feels his chest tighten and loosen, something like relief. Something like sanctuary. "But why'd she have to say it out loud like that? It's just...it's one of those unspoken rules, you know? The sky is blue, the grass is green unless you're in Louisiana in the middle of August, and we've always been better together."

"Is that supposed to be a less corny way of saying it?" Sam teases, the corners of his eyes creased with a smile. He tosses a glance at Dean, watches the way his brother squirms beneath the admission of anything resembling sentimentality, and he feels a warmth in his chest that's been missing for a long time. Maybe for a hundred unremembered years.

"Oh whatever Sam, you know what I mean."

"Yeah," Sam grins, eyes still on his brother. "Yeah, I do."

Because there are rules, you know. Things you must remember if you want to survive in this world. The Winchesters have always known these rules better than most, and one thing has always rung true:

The world is a nasty place, and there are things even uglier than monsters that slink along its corners and infect its inhabitants. But it is all survivable. Every last speck of awfulness is surmountable. You just need someone next to you who can pull you from the depths of it.

You just need your brother.

A/N: So this was the final chapter. I know a few of you were wondering when the other shoe was going to drop, but I figured maybe the boys deserved to have something actually go right for them for once. And of course, there are still some unanswered questions here as to the nature of this evil they faced, but I kinda like it that way.

The Devil's Tramping Ground is a real place in the pinewoods of Chatham County, North Carolina. I'm hoping the same cannot be said for literally any other element of this story. Though it would be nice to know we've got a couple Winchesters out there defending us from monsters, I suppose.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed. Thank you so much for your continued support and comments- they really do mean a lot to me.

Also, a special thank you to gr8read for all of the recent, wonderful reviews!