"I'll give you a call if I find anything," Sam told Dean as he climbed out of the passenger's seat of the Impala.

Dean nodded and reached across to pull the door closed. Sam paused on the sidewalk in front of the library, watching his brother pull away, the sudden irrational thought that Dean was just going to keep driving, abandon him, crossed his mind.

No, he wouldn't do that, Sam told himself; we're cool now.

Or at least as cool as they could be, with the knowledge that they were Lucifer and Michael's vessels.

Sam turned away as the Impala disappeared into the line of cars on cruising down the street and walked into the library.

W

"We're closing in ten minutes," the librarian whispered to Sam as he stood at one of the copy machines, waiting patiently as it spat out several pieces of paper.

Shocked, Sam glanced at his watch. He'd been at the library for hours, going through stacks of books, making copies and jotting down notes. He hadn't realized it had grown so late. He was surprised Dean wasn't calling him to wonder what he was doing.

Despite the fact that they were together again, their relationship was still tentative. Sam felt as though he had to walk on eggshells around Dean, afraid saying the wrong thing would set him off. Dean was oddly quiet, pensive, and so unlike himself that Sam wondered if they really were okay.

He was actually afraid to ask.

"I'm almost finished," Sam told the woman, "Thank you."

"No problem," she told him and walked back to the front desk.

Once Sam had the copies he wanted, he returned to his table and sat down. He gathered up his papers, stacking them together and wondered whether he had time to put all the books back on the shelves before he left.

Instead, he dug into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his glucometer. He glanced at his watch before putting the glucometer back; he'd check his blood sugar when he got back to the motel room.

Leaving the books where they were, Sam left the library and stepped outside. It wasn't quite dark yet but dusk was quickly falling.

Taking out his phone, Sam called Dean to let him know he was ready to be picked up.

"Be there in about twenty minutes," his brother informed him.

Sam ended the call and stood waiting, zipping up his jacket and shoving his hands in his pockets.

SPN

Dean drove slowly towards the library. It was dark now but he should be able to see his brother easily. As tall as Sam was he wouldn't be hard to miss.

Turning down the music blasting from the speakers, Dean squinted as he approached the library.

Was Sam waiting inside? He'd said the library was closed. The building didn't look inviting. Most of the lights inside had been turned off and there was a 'Sorry, we're closed' sign hanging from the door.

Making a U-Turn, Dean passed the library again, wondering if maybe he just hadn't seen his brother the first time.

No, he was right. Sam wasn't there. Where he said he'd be.

Frowning, Dean pulled up the curb and pulled out his phone, planning on calling his brother to tell him he was waiting outside and to get his ass in the car.

The phone rang and rang and rang until it went to voicemail.

"What the hell, Sam? You said you were ready. Where are you?"

Dean left a message but didn't feel right about it. Something felt off.

Tossing his phone onto the dashboard, Dean decided to cruise further down the street, just in case his brother had gone for a stroll while he was waiting.

He drove so slowly that those stuck behind him honked their horns angrily and swerved ahead of him.

"Yeah, fuck you too!" Dean shouted angrily. The nagging feeling that something wasn't right growing every second he didn't see his brother.

"Screw this," he muttered to himself and again turned around, heading back to the library to find out what had happened to his brother.

SPN

Sam startled awake, the back of his head throbbing, sticky blood coating his neck.

Peeling his eyes open, he blinked a couple of times to focus his vision.

He was in a motel room, but not the one he was sharing with his brother. This one was even more run-down, with yellowed wallpaper peeling from the walls, mismatched sheets on the beds, a dirty carpet and water stains on the ceiling. Someone in a room nearby was listening to very loud country music and another neighbour sounded like he was having an argument with a woman about money.

Sam tried to move, only to find that, although he was sitting on a chair, he was tied to it with duct tape around his wrists and ankles.

"I told you, you hit him too hard," a female voice hissed from behind Sam and he tried to turn his head to see who was speaking only to have pain sear through his skull and down his neck.

"He's awake now, isn't he?" a male voice replied, sounding irritated.

Sam didn't have to wonder long who was speaking. A man and a woman he didn't recognize stepped in front of him. Warning bells went off in his head and his brain frantically sent him memories of running afoul of his fellow hunters who wanted to a) kill him, or b) use his powers.

"Who're you?" Sam asked, his voice thick.

"That's not important!" the woman snapped. She had a thin, hard face, a tight-lipped mouth and dark eyes. Her head was shaved and she wore a black toque pulled down so that her ears stuck out. She wore a plain back t-shirt and green camouflage pants and heavy boots.

Sam didn't fail to notice the gun hanging from her belt.

Her partner was dressed similarly but his face wasn't as cold. In fact, if Sam was right, he actually looked nervous.

"What's with the tape?" Sam asked, tugging his arms, "It's really not necessary."

The woman sneered, "Do we look stupid to you? We've heard all about you, Sam Winchester. We're not taking any chances."

Sam held back the urge to sigh. Instead he swallowed and spoke again.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"No," the woman snapped at the same time her partner said, "Of course."

The woman glared at the man.

"Ingrid, we can at least let him know why he's here."

"Don't say my name! Idiot!" the woman snarled.

The man wasn't perturbed, "What's the big deal, you said we're going to kill him anyway."

Ingrid rolled her eyes, "How did I end up with a moron like you?"

The man looked away from her and muttered, "That's not what you said on our wedding night."

"You might as well make yourself useful in any case," Ingrid told the man, "Check his pockets."

The man nodded and approached Sam, "Don't try anything, okay? I don't want Ingrid to have to hurt you again."

"SHUT UP!" the woman cried.

Sam remained still as the man searched his pockets, pulling out his cell phone and glucometer.

The woman took the phone from her husband and turned it off, tossing into onto one of the beds afterwards. She peered curiously at the glucometer.

"What's this?" the man asked, holding it out for Sam to see.

"It checks blood sugar," Sam told him.

"Put that with the phone," Ingrid told her husband.

Searching Sam's pockets again, the man found Sam's needle and a small vial with a clear liquid inside.

"Drugs?" the man's eyes went wide, "You're on drugs?"

"What is this?" Ingrid asked, taking the items from her husband.

"It's insulin," Sam told them, "Not drugs. I have diabetes."

"But," the man said, "You're not fat."

Sam almost laughed out loud but managed to keep a straight face.

"I have type one," he explained, "Had it ever since I was a kid. My body doesn't make its own insulin so I need to inject it."

The man looked uncertainly at the needle in his wife's hand.

"Is that true?" he asked Ingrid.

The woman nodded, "Seems so. Says right here on the label."

She turned and put the needle and insulin on the bed with Sam's phone and glucometer.

The hunter's gaze went to the alarm clock sitting on the nightstand between the beds. Shit, he would need that insulin soon.

"Listen," Sam said, "I think this is all a big misunderstanding. If you let me go, there won't be any hard feel-"

Ingrid laughed, "You started the Apocalypse didn't you? That's what everyone's saying anyway."

Sam didn't say anything, could not deny it.

"So its true! Tim and Reggie weren't lying!" Ingrid crowed.

Sam closed his eyes. They just had to have been talking to Tim and Reggie.

"It was a mistake," Sam muttered, "An accident."

"Sure," Ingrid commented sarcastically, "And I'm the Queen of England."

"That's not the only thing we heard," the man spoke up, his eyes very bright, "Is it true you have demon blood?"

Again, Sam didn't speak.

Now even Ingrid looked shocked.

"You're a demon," she whispered.

Sam flinched as though she had just struck him.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. He wondered if Dean realized something was wrong and was looking for him. He wondered how Dean was even supposed to find him. He didn't even know where he was.

"If you're going to kill me, why don't you just do it?" Sam asked.

Ingrid smirked, "What's your hurry? You got plans, why are you in such a rush to die?"

Sam shrugged, "Well, you did say you'd kill me so I was just wondering if it was all talk."

The chair rocked with the force of Ingrid's punch. Sam's head snapped back and the man reached out to prevent him from tipping over. Sam spit blood onto the floor from his split lip and stared at Ingrid.

Her eyes blazed angrily, her chest heaving.

"You didn't have to do that!" her husband scolded her, "We don't torture people!"

Ingrid turned to him, "People? He's not a person. Tim and Reggie were right, he's a demon."

The man's gaze fell, "I just thought…"

"I don't keep you around to think," Ingrid snapped.

She pulled the gun from her belt, "You're so eager to die… here you go."

She raised the weapon and pressed the barrel to the side of Sam's head.

The hunter stopped breathing, his heart skipping a beat.

For a second nothing happened and then Ingrid hit Sam in the head with the gun, making bright lights flash before his eyes as pain flashed through his brain.

She walked to the bed and picked up the vial of insulin.

"You're probably due for this soon, right?" she asked Sam.

Sam didn't respond. He was struggling to remain conscious.

"I saw you looking at the clock," Ingrid continued, "You really want to die, by all means, but it won't be quick."

She dropped the vial onto the floor and crushed it against the carpet with her boot.

"No," Sam ground out too late, "Don't."

Ingrid grinned toothily then turned to her husband.

"I'm going to go out," she told him, "You stay here and watch him. Call me if anything interesting happens."

The man nodded and sat down on the end of the bed, looking somewhat lost.

When the door had closed behind his wife, the man leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, "I'm sorry about her, she's normally not so cruel but… something about you just rubbed her the wrong way."

"I tend to do that to a lot of people," Sam muttered, blinking hard when his eyes lost their focus.

"Is all that really true about you? The demon blood and starting the Apocalypse?" the man asked.

Sam didn't answer. Sweat was dripping down his brow and into his eyes, stinging.

"Why did you do it?" the man asked.

"Huh?"

"Start the Apocalypse?" the man explained.

Sam tilted his head back.

"I thought I was a demon?"

There was a faint rustle of movement.

"I don't believe all the rumours," the man told him.

Sam smiled despite himself.

"Could I have some water?" he asked.

"I don't know," the man hesitated, "I don't think Ingrid would like it."

"Please," Sam asked again.

Sam tilted his head upright again and watched the man go to a piece of battered luggage and pull out a half empty bottle of water.

The man unscrewed the cap and brought the bottle to Sam's mouth. He took a cautious sip.

The man pulled the bottle away.

"Thanks," Sam muttered.

"What's going to happen to you?" the man asked.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, blinking the sweat from his eyes.

"If you don't get your medicine?"

Sam didn't respond for a moment.

"I'll get sick," Sam told him, "And if I still don't get it, I'll slip into a coma and then, if I still don't get any insulin, I'll die."

The man stared at him, wide-eyed, like a child.

"How did you get caught up with her?" Sam asked, "You married her?"

The man nodded, "Ingrid wasn't always like that. She's not the woman I married."

"What happened?" Sam asked, absentmindedly tugging at the duct tape binding his arms and wondering where Dean was. Maybe he thought he'd ditched him and was leaving town right now.

"We…" the man glanced down between his feet, "We had a little girl. Her name was Sophie."

Sam nodded, his eyes losing their focus again.

"That's a pretty name," Sam told him.

"Thanks," the man replied.

"What happened to her?" Sam asked.

"Everything was fine," the man told him, "She was a lovely, happy child, making friends with everyone. Then, one day, she changed."

"Ingrid had taken her to the park and when I got home from work, Sophie wasn't Sophie anymore… she… she tried to kill us…"

Sam said nothing.

"She almost killed Ingrid before… before…"

Sam let the man take his time. Sweat was dripping off his chin and down his neck; the hair at the back of his head was soaked.

"I had to do it," the man told him, "It… It couldn't be helped…"

"I'm sorry," Sam muttered. His head fell forward. He was suddenly exhausted. He closed his eyes.

"It was only later that we found out she was…"

The man's voice faded away.

"… Learned everything about hunting from this guy in South Dakota."

Sam forced his head up at the name of the state.

"Bobby?" he asked. He tried to focus on the man but his eyes wouldn't cooperate.

"Yeah," the man replied, sounding surprised, "Bobby Singer, do you know him?"

Sam felt his throat constrict.

"Yeah," he muttered.

He heard the sound of a door open and turned his head to see Ingrid's indistinct form step inside.

"I told you to call me!" she snapped at her husband.

"Nothing happened," he argued.

"Look at him!" she cried, "It won't be long now."

Sam watched as her blurry form moved into the room and sat down on the other motel bed.

Sam closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

There was the distinct click and hiss of a can of beer being opened.

"Really?" the man's voice asked, incredulous.

"What?" Ingrid's voice, innocent.

"This isn't NASCAR!" the man cried, "We're watching someone die!"

A slurping sound was the only response.

With great effort Sam moved his head and forced himself to look into Ingrid's eyes.

A sudden knock at the door made both the man and woman jump.

"Piss off!" Ingrid shouted.

The person knocked again.

Ingrid looked to her husband, "Tell them to go away."

The man stood and walked to the door, Sam turning his head to watch. The man opened the door only a few inches.

"What d-" he began but abruptly reeled back, hands over his face.

"Son of a bitch!" he swore as Dean Winchester pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside, holding out gun.

"The fuck is going on here?" he asked, gaze travelling from the man who now had blood seeping from underneath his hands from a broken nose, to Ingrid who still, for the moment at least, was holding onto her beer dumbly.

Realizing what was happening; she fumbled for her own weapon.

"Touch that and I'll do more than just bust your nose," Dean warned.

"You okay, Sammy?" he called to his brother.

"Sure," Sam muttered, struggling to focus his gaze on his sibling.

"I don't want to hurt either of you," Dean told Ingrid and her husband, "God knows we need hunters more than ever right now. All I want is to take my brother and go."

Ingrid said nothing and Sam was sure she was weighing her options.

"We're sorry!" the man called to Dean, "You can take him."

Dean took a step towards Sam, gaze locked on Ingrid.

"You cool with that?" Dean asked her.

She didn't reply.

Dean reached Sam and with one hand began tearing at the tape binding him to the chair.

"Shit, Sam, you okay?"

Sam shook his head.

A sudden flash of movement startled Sam and the resulting gunshot even more. He groaned in pain, as the loud sound seemed to ricochet around inside his head.

"Ingrid!" the man called and Sam saw the woman collapse onto the bed she had just left, one hand pressed to her abdomen.

"I didn't want to," Dean told them.

"You shot her!" the man exclaimed.

"Don't make me shoot you too," Dean warned.

"Get the fuck out of here," the man growled, then murmured to his wife.

Sam heard Ingrid hiss something to the man but he couldn't hear what she said.

In no time Dean had released him from his bindings and was tugging on him.

"C'mon Sammy," Dean encouraged and pulled one of Sam's arms over his shoulder.

Sam stood, swaying.

"I can't see," he told Dean.

"Okay," Dean muttered, his voice tight with fear, "Let's get you to the car."

The coolness of the evening hit Sam like a wave and he shuddered violently.

"D-Dean, I n-n-need," he began, following his sibling blindly.

"I know, Sammy, I know," his brother muttered, "I have the emergency needle in the car."

Sam smiled even though he felt like shit. Dean opened the door to the passenger's side of the Impala and dropped him as gently as possible into the seat.

"Ah!" Sam cried, the drop sending pain jolting into his head again.

"Sorry, sorry," Dean apologized and opened the glove compartment, pawing the bright orange case from inside and undoing the plastic latches. It wasn't the first time Dean had had to help Sam with a glucagon injection but it had been a long time since he'd had to do this; his brother was usually good at maintaining a blood sugar level that was adequate. When Sam was a kid, it was sometimes hard to keep track of such things when they were on the road.

Dean pulled the vial of glucagon powder from the case, pulled the protective covering from the end of the needle with his teeth- spitting it over his shoulder- and inserted the needle into the vial. Next he injected the saline from the needle into the vial and rolled the vial to mix the powder and liquid. Then, he drew the mixture back into the syringe, holding it at eye-level to make sure there were no air bubbles.

"Almost there, Sammy," Dean told him.

Sam leaned his head back and sighed.

"This'll pinch a little," Dean told him, as he did every time he had to help Sam inject himself.

Sam didn't even react when Dean jammed the needle hard into his outer thigh. Discarding the needle back into its case, Dean reached up and squeezed the back of Sam's neck for a moment.

"Let's go," Dean closed the door, walked around the front of the car and climbed into the driver's seat.

Sam closed his eyes and didn't open them until they stopped at their motel.

He was still shaky, needing Dean's help to get into the room, but felt better now that his brother was with him. A headache that had nothing to do with his injuries began pounding behind his eyes.

As soon as Sam was inside, Dean grabbed a can of Pepsi from the miniature fridge hidden in a cupboard, opened it and handed it to his brother.

"Drink that. I'm gonna clean your head and your lip," Dean told him as he sat him down on the end of the bed.

"Okay," Sam muttered, took a gulp of the sweet liquid before lowered his head, looking at his hands dangling between his knees, his vision slowly sharpening to normal.

"I lost all the research I did," Sam muttered, hissing at the sting of alcohol on the gash at the back of his head.

"Don't worry about it," Dean told him.

"How did you find me?" he asked.

"I went to pick you up and saw you weren't at the library," Dean explained, "I got out and looked around. I saw your research… its probably blowing all over Main Street right now, and called Bobby. I wasn't going to take any chances after you told me about those assholes in Oklahoma trying to make you kill demons for them. I asked Bobby if he knew if any hunters were in town other than us, he said yes and they really weren't too hard to find. I spotted the woman heading back into the motel room from the beer store across the street and thought I'd check and see if they knew where you were."

Sam smiled slightly. He hadn't wanted to tell Dean about what had happened with Tim and Reggie but now he was glad he had.

Dean wiped the blood away from Sam's lip and tossed the gauze away.

"You want something to eat?" he asked.

Sam reached up and gingerly touched his lip, wincing.

"Maybe some soup?"

Dean nodded; digging around in Sam's duffle for the box of Cup-A-Soup he kept as a quick snack. Pulling out one of the white packets, he filled the small, complimentary kettle with water from the bathroom tap and turned it on so it would boil. He tipped the contents of the packet into one of the Styrofoam cups left out for guests to have coffee or tea in the morning and then poured the water into the cup, stirred with a swizzle stick and handed it to his brother.

"Thanks, Dean," Sam told him, gulping down some more Pepsi before gingerly sipping at the hot soup.

"No problem," his brother replied nonchalantly.

"No, really," Sam told him, his throat constricting again and his eyes stinging, this time with tears, "Thank you."

Dean just smiled at him.