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Chapter Seventeen

Flames and thick black smoke rose from the hatch Sam, Dean, and Marley had escaped from only minutes before, and beyond it, the ring of holy oil burned bright without traveling beyond the circle. Sam briefly wondered when and if the demon realized they'd trapped him inside the bunker, but those thoughts were quickly chased away by Dean's voice as he tried to calm Marley down, not an easy thing to do as she was crying and screaming and verging on being hysterical. She was hurt, yes, yet most of her cuts were superficial as Dean had taken the brunt of the vengeful spirits' attack.

With his arms wrapped around Marley, Dean looked over her shoulder at Sam, and Sam knew what he was thinking as it was same thing racing through his mind. They'd saved her, but she would never be the same again. How could she be after being abducted by a serial killer and then witness not one but multiple spirits hellbent on revenge? He supposed it was that way with everyone they'd saved, yet this time it felt different and much, much worse. He wished he could explain to her that the spirits she'd seen in the bunker were not bad people. They were the doctors, nurses, police officers, and caregivers who'd gone out of their way to help others, and their anger was justified. They'd done nothing wrong, and now they were dead, brutally murdered by Charlie. Even if he tried to explain that to her she wouldn't listen. She couldn't because she was too afraid and traumatized to see them as anything other than terrifying creatures.

Sam sat in the back seat of the Impala with Marley as Dean drove them to the hospital, and he did his best to comfort her, not that it did any good. His eyes kept straying to rearview mirror and within a moment Dean would look back at him. He looked exhausted and worn thin, and Sam would give anything and everything he had to never have to see his brother so defeated again. He didn't know how the spell would work to make Dean and Bobby forget about Charlie, but he knew he'd made the right decision.

At the hospital, Dean wasted no time in flashing an FBI badge along with a quick explanation of how Marley had been abducted by a serial killer. He was on auto-pilot, doing the job he'd been trained to do since he was a little kid, and Sam followed his lead, giving clipped responses to any questions asked. They only stayed at the hospital long enough to get their wounds stitched up, and once that was finished and one of the doctors had given Marley a sedative to help her sleep, they headed back to the bunker.

As they sat parked in front of the fiery entrance to the bunker, Sam texted Bobby with a cryptic message the older hunter would understand. Almost immediately the phone started ringing, and with utter relief flooding through him, Sam jabbed the screen to answer the call.

"You okay, Bobby?" he asked before the older hunter could utter a word, and braced himself to hear that either Bobby or Rufus was badly hurt in the hunt.

"Yeah, I'm good and so is Rufus," he said, and Sam envisioned him scrubbing a hand down his face. "We found what I'm assuming were his and his son's remains in a small bunker in the backyard. The guy built a shrine around the bones with pictures of the two of you and your dad." He let out a heavy breath, and continued, "This is the first time I ever burned down a damn house on a hunt…you're sure you boys are okay?"

Sam looked to his older brother who was staring out the front windshield at the fire funneling upward into the sky from the open hatch. "We will be…I'm glad you and Rufus are okay, Bobby." He knew there was more to story of what went down at Charlie's old house, no hunt ever went off without a hitch, but even if he pressed for the details, this was one hunt that the older hunter would keep to himself until he forgot about it entirely. "We'll see you back at the cabin."

"Let me talk to your brother," Bobby said, his gruff tone meant to brook no argument, and Sam handed the phone to Dean.

"Hey, Bobby," Dean whispered hoarsely, his voice rough with sadness and pain.

"How you doin', Dean?" Bobby said after a lengthy pause.

"Not good." He could have lied and said everything was sunshine and happy little puppy dogs, but he was too wrung out to put a good spin on how he was processing everything that was dragging him under. "He killed Ms. Burkitts before we could stop him."

Another long pause. Then Bobby sighed. "I know you wanna take on the blame for what that bastard did, but it's not your fault, Dean. You are one of the best people I know – you care more about the people you save than any other hunter I've ever come across…to most of us it's a job; we get in and get out then move along. Not you though. You carry those people with you every day and think about them often. You're the kind of hunter most of us wanted to be when we took up our guns and knives to fight, and you do it so effortlessly and selflessly that sometimes it's hard to look at you without seeing my own glaring failures as a hunter…in no way, shape or form could Charlie's actions ever be considered your fault, and if it weren't for you and your brother risking everything to stop him a whole helluva lot more people would have died. So I refuse to let you blame yourself for any of this – you are not to blame. Understood?"

Tears blurring his vision, Dean blinked them away, and swallowed hard. "Yeah, I understand," he mumbled, dragging a hand down his face. "We'll see you in a few hours."

The sun was just edging the horizon when they finally drove away from the smoldering remains of the bunker. Unchecked, the fire had burned throughout the night, and although they'd both noticed how every tree in the area had lost all their leaves and now stood as skeletal husks, and the grass had died away as a warning for people to stay away from Charlie's final resting place, neither of them spoke a word to mention it. They picked up Rowena, and seeing that they were both still alive and mostly unscathed, a smug smile lit up her face. Without her help they wouldn't have survived the night, and she knew it.

The three of them rode in near silence to the cabin, and that silence carried on inside the cabin as well. Dean let Sam take the first shower while he silently kept watch over the witch as she prepared the potion that would make them forget about her and likely everything that had happened to them up until her arrival. It was a two dose process she'd explained before they'd left the motel, giving each of them a small vial of green liquid to drink. Dean grudgingly swallowed down the vile tasting liquid first, gagging as he fought to keep it down. Whatever was in the concoction must have caused him to pass out almost immediately because the next thing he knew he was in the driver's seat of the Impala with Sam seated beside him. Other than the bruises littering his brother's face and bandage wrapped around his forehead, Sam looked as well as could be expected under the circumstances, so Dean let it go.

When he exited the bathroom, Sam found his brother on the couch with his eyes closed. He may have appeared to be sleeping, but Sam knew better. He was watching Rowena through veiled lashes, and although he might have looked at ease, resting comfortably with his feet propped up on several pillows, he could spring into action within a moment if the need arose. "The shower's free," he called out, taking a seat at the table opposite of Rowena. Dean did a good portrayal of someone waking up groggy, mumbling at being woken from a sound sleep, and lumbered to the bathroom to get washed up.

"You're certain you want to remember everything, Samuel?" Rowena asked the moment the door shut behind Dean, lifting a perfectly manicured brow. "Well, that is, everything but me?"

For a long moment, Sam considered the idea of not having to remember Charlie and everything he'd done, and nodded. "How long will it take before Dean starts forgetting what happened?"

"It's already started," she said, adding a sprinkle of some sort of aromatic herbs to the potion she was creating. "All the bad memories are being replaced by happy little thoughts of hunting monsters with you."

"How will I know what to say if he brings up any of these so-called hunts that never happened?"

"Oh…just nodded your head if that ever happens, and say something along the lines of 'yeah, that was one mean sonuabitch' or perhaps something along the lines of 'I'm not sure how we made it outta that one, Dean', and he'll never know you have no clue what he's talking about."

"Am I doing the right thing?" he asked, guilt tightening in his chest. "He'd be well beyond pissed if he found out that you gave me nothing but kool-aid to drink instead of the potion."

"I have a spare vial of the potion if you've changed your mind," she said, dangling the option of forgetting the past year of his life, and another stab of guilt nearly stole his breath away.

In truth, he did want to forget every bad thing that had happened since Dean answered Charlie's first phone call. He wanted to move on and not have nightmares about the bunker and the pain he and his brother endured at the serial killer's hands, but someone needed to remember and to be watchful for any signs in the future that Charlie had somehow managed to break free from Hell and was coming after them again.

"No, I haven't changed my mind," he said with a firm shake of his head. He'd already deleted every number Dean had added to the contact list on his phone over the past year while he was out cold from the potion Rowena had given him. "When Bobby and Rufus get here, we'll take the last half of the potion and then you can have your spell book back."

"Free and clear, right?" She looked down her slender nose at Sam. "No strings attached that will lead it back into your hands if you boys get into trouble again?"

"No strings attached." Sam glanced toward the bathroom door, and said a silent prayer of thanks to whoever might be listening that his brother had survived the night. "You kept your word,' he added, refocusing his sights on her. "The spell book is yours, but don't think for moment we won't find you if you ever use it to hurt people. It's what we do – it's who we are."

"I would expect no less from the Winchesters," she said as she poured the potion into three separate vials, and then reached into the pocket of her jacket to hand Sam another vial that looked almost identical to the other three. "This will erase your memory of me, but keep all your other memories intact. I've put a mark in the stopper so you will not get it messed up with the other three – don't get it messed up, Samuel. If you do, your brother's memories will be fragmented and that kind of thing could easily drive a man insane."

"I won't." He took the four vials from her, noting the deep groove in the rubber stopper of the one he would drink, and as he stuffed them into the front pocket of his flannel shirt, the spell book appeared in her hands. "Thank you, Rowena," he said as she slid out of her chair and hugged the spell book to her chest.

"I'm going to go before your brother comes out of the bathroom to awkwardly offer me his thanks and gratitude as well." Her nose wrinkled in distaste over the thought. "I would suggest you take the potion before bed as it will seem more natural when you wake up. Four men waking up on the ground would definitely set off warning bells in your brother's head."

"Gotcha." He lightly patted the vials in his pocket. "I hope this doesn't sound rude, but I hope I don't ever see you again."

Patting his cheek, she headed toward the door, calling back over her shoulder, "The feeling's mutual, dear boy."

XxXxXxX

There was a lot of debate over whether or not to take the potion Rowena had made with Sam urging the three other hunters to keep their word. Dean was firmly rooted in camp 'hell, no' and so was Rufus while Bobby teetered back and forth between keeping his word and not trusting a witch to not try to pull something underhanded. But in the end it was Sam who won out when he reminded each hunter how powerful she was and if she ever found out they'd broken their promise, it would likely be the last promise they ever broke.

Sam made sure to watch Rufus drink down every last drop of the potion then did the same for Bobby when the former of the two passed out cold in his bed. Within a matter of moments bother hunters were sleeping like babies as if they didn't have a care in the world, and Sam wanted that for Dean as well.

"They're out cold," Sam said as he entered the bedroom he was sharing with his brother, and dropped down onto the bed opposite of the one where Dean sat. His brother studied the thick greenish liquid in the vial for several long moments then looked up at Sam. "We'll remember what we need to remember," he promised, and at least for him that would be true. "We have the list of names and Charlie's as well. We won't forget what he did."

"I don't want to forget what he did to you, Sam. I want it burned into my memory to make damn certain it never happens again." The pain in his voice that reflected in his eyes nearly staggered Sam. "I can still see it in my mind – I can see you in the hospital struggling to survive, but it's like I'm looking through smoky lenses, and if I drink this potion it'll be gone."

"If you didn't have those memories would you still want to protect me from harm, Dean?"

"You know I would," he said without hesitation, his green-eyed gaze returning to the vial in his hand. "I want you to be able to forget everything that's happened, I really do and that's the only reason I'm agreeing to this. I saw what he did to you physically and emotionally," he tapped at his temple with the vial, "and the damage he did up here just doesn't go away 'cause you want it to. He took something from you, and in your eyes I can clearly see what you've lost because of that bastard, and it hurts not to be able to be the one make things better for you. I tried my damnedest, but I couldn't do it. So yeah, I'll take this damn potion for no other reason than to just see you really smile again."

"I want the same thing for you," Sam said, glancing down at the mark Rowena made in the stopper before he pulled it out of the vial. "I always have and I always will. You're always going to be a hero, Dean, that's just who you are. In my eyes and everyone else's, you will always be guy who rushes into danger to save people, and drinking this god awful smelling potion won't change that, but if it takes away even the smallest amount of the pain you've been carrying around in your heart for the past year then I'd say it was worth drinking every last horrible drop."

"Bottom's up?" he said with a heavy sigh, lifting the vial into the air, and Sam followed suit.

"Bottom's up." Leaning forward slightly, he clinking his vial against Dean's, and together they downed the liquid that would set Dean's mind at ease.

XxXxXxX

"Time to get up, Sammy," Dean called out cheerfully, tossing his pillow at Sam's head. "Fishing waits for no man, little brother."

"You hate fishing, Dean," Sam grumbled, rubbing at his tired eyes. It took him several moments to remember what happened the night before, and how he'd woken abruptly in the middle of the night with a terrible nightmare. He'd gotten up at the time and took all four vials out to the lake and threw them into the water, and before he went back to bed he made sure he got rid of any evidence related to Charlie. "Last time we went fishing you broke the pole and threw into the water."

"That was before I discovered gummy worms," he chuckled as he pulled the covers off Sam. "Eat 'em use 'em for bait, you decide," he added, rattling an economy sized bag of gummy worms above Sam's head. Sam rolled over in bed, and as he looked up at Dean, his brother's forehead furrowed in concern. "Damn, Sammy. That Wendigo got you good. Next time when I say go left, I mean my left not yours. Got me?" He cupped hold of Sam's jaw and tilted his face from side to side, concern evident in his expression. "Bobby stitched you up good though."

"Yeah, it was a mean sonuvabitch," Sam muttered, slapping Dean's hand away from his face as he used Rowena's lie to cover the fact he had no idea what his brother was talking about. "Is Rufus still here?"

"Naw… he headed back home early this morning. The guy doesn't know how to take a vacation." He grinned and it reached all the way to the depths of his eyes. He hadn't seen a real smile from Dean in what felt like the longest time, and he knew right then and there that he'd made the right decision. "I'd say get washed up, but the last time we went fishing you ended up falling into the pond."

"You pushed me in the pond," Sam grumbled as he sat up and hung his legs over the side of the bed. "Where's Bobby?"

"He's making breakfast." He hitched a thumb over his shoulder, and smiled again. "You have five minutes to get dress and get your ass out to the breakfast table before I start eating your share of the bacon."

"I have to make a phone call," he said, picking up his phone from off the bedside table. "So unless it's turkey bacon, feel free to clog your arteries."

"Bacon from a turkey," he laughed and rolled his eyes. "How are we even related?"

He strolled out of the bedroom, and Sam smiled as he noticed how relaxed his movements were without the weight and burden of Charlie's brutality dragging down his shoulders. Rubbing away the moisture gathering in his eyes, he scrolled through the contacts on his phone and called Jake.

The older man answered on the third ring, and Sam breathed a thankful sigh of relief when he heard Jake's husky voice. "Are you boys alright," he said, the concern evident in his tone. "Me and Margaret have been goin' out of our minds with worry."

"He's gone," Sam whispered into the phone, keeping an eye on the door. "He's never going to hurt anyone ever again." Swallowing hard against the thick knot forming in his throat as the image of Charlie's torturing Jake flashed through his mind. "Are you ok-ay?" His voice hitched. "I'm so sorry we left you alone in the hospital, but if we had stayed –"

"You don't have to explain why ya did what ya did, Sam," Jake cut in. "You boys are like family to us, and we're just happy you're still alive…how's Dean doin'? I'd imagine he's takin' this pretty hard. That boy always has the weight of the world on his shoulders."

"Dean, he's doing –" Sam swallowed hard again, "the thing is…he doesn't remember any of it. A witch helped us get rid of Charlie and the demon," he looked toward the door again, and lowered his voice to just above a whisper, "she altered his memories so he would forget what happened to us."

"He doesn't remember us." Disappointment filling his tone, he sighed. "And you were left to remember all of it on yer own."

"Yeah, someone needed to be the one to remember what Charlie did, and I figured –"

"Boy, if I was there with you right now, I'd throttle ya for takin' on that burden all ta yourself like ya did," he cut in again, and a half-smile pulled at one corner of Sam's lips to hear the fatherly concern in the older man's voice. "I guess that means we won't be seein' you boys again…if ya ever need to talk, Sammy – if ya ever need ta get it all out of yer head…keep my number. If yer callin' me, it probably means yer plannin' on deleting it – I'm askin' ya not to do that. Just give me a call every now and again to let me know yer still alive…can ya do that for me, Sam?"

"Yeah, I can do that as long as you promise to call if you ever need our help." The truth was he hadn't wanted to delete Jake's phone number, but if Jake had wanted him to he would have. "I just wanted to thank you for everything you did for me and Dean. Without you and Margaret, I don't know if we would have made it through the year. You gave Dean a reason to get out of bed every day, and what you did for me –"

"No need ta thank me, just stay safe out there, Sam," he cut in one last time, his voice rough with emotion. "We love you boys, just thought you should know that."

"The feeling's mutual…take care, Jake," he uttered, wiping away the tears running down his cheeks. "I have to get going. Dean thinks we're on vacation, and he wants to go fishing."

"Does that boy even know how ta fish?" Jake chuckled lightly, but Sam could hear the heartache behind it.

"Not really. He's planning on using gummy worms as bait," Sam laughed, but there was no joy in the sound of it. "I'll send you a picture."

"I look forward to it, and send one of yourself, too. Margaret will want to hang photos of you boys on the wall next to our son's."

"I will…."

XxXxXxX

While Dean and Bobby enjoyed their vacation, Sam kept his mind busy searching for the next hunt, and in the days and weeks that followed he kept an eye out for any news on what happened at the bunker. He did find news articles pertaining to Ms. Burkitt's disappearance and theirs as well but from all accounts he and Dean weren't considered suspects due to the fact that anyone questioned about them said nearly the same thing – they were both badly injured from some sort of attack and were still struggling to recover from their injuries. It amazed him how something horrible that had happened to them would now be the one thing that saved them from being hunted down for Ms. Burkitts' disappearance.

It was a stroke of luck, and Sam needed all the luck he could get in trying to keep the secret of Charlie from his brother. He couldn't help the nightmares that hounded him, waking him up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat and screaming for Dean. As far as he knew, he'd never called out Charlie's name during any of his nightmares, and if he did Dean never mentioned it. Nor did he ask why Sam had thrown himself into hunting with a vengeance his father would have been proud of. They'd been given a second chance, and he was bound and determined to make the most of it. And if he was going to be honest, or at least honest with himself, he'd admit that while he was hunting with Dean beside him, it held the memories at bay for a short time.

"Out with it, Sam," Dean said, startling Sam from his thoughts as he reached around him and shut the lid of his laptop. "You haven't been yourself in weeks now, and in truth it feels like I'm hunting with dad most of the time." He shifted around, leaned against the edge of the desk, and folded his arms. "And before you start in with the whole 'I'm blowing things out of proportion' response, I'll tell you I'm not the only one who's noticed. Bobby's noticed a change in you as well. So if Bobby's worried and I'm worried then there's definitely something to worry about."

"I'm just trying to do the job, Dean," Sam said, pushing back his chair to put a little space between them. "Remember your whole speech about saving people and hunting things," he shrugged a shoulder, "well, that's what I've been doing."

"Is it because of the banshee in Wichita?" he said, and from his concerned frown, Sam realized the phony hunt the witch planted in his mind must have gone badly. "If that's what this is all about you can tell me."

"Maybe it is…I'm not sure how we made it outta that one."

"There was no banshee in Wichita," he said, and Sam's stomach coiled in knots, "or a poltergeist in Poughkeepsie. In fact, none of the hunts I've mentioned over the past week ever happened. But what has happened is that for every imaginary hunt I've mentioned, you give one of two responses." He held up one finger. "The first being, 'damn, he was a mean sonuvabitch'." He lifted a second finger. "Or secondly and my personal favorite, 'I'm not sure how we made it outta that one'."

"What do you want me to say, Dean? We've been on so many damn hunts, they're all starting to blur together. So I messed up the details on some hunt we've been on, it's not like we haven't hunted a banshee or a poltergeist before."

"You're right." Lips pursed, he gave a curt nod, and Sam prayed he'd let it go. "Who's Charlie, Sammy?"

"I don't know who you're talking about," he said, and there was only a slight tremor in his voice, and yet his brother still honed in on it.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you do know exactly who he is since you've been having nightmares about him for weeks now."

"He was a serial killer I read about in law school," he said after a lengthy pause, mingling the truth with a lie. "He killed a lot of people using medieval torture devices, and he got off on terrorizing his victims before he killed them."

Dean stood and turned his back on Sam, and with shoulders drooping, he said, "I didn't drink the potion, Sammy. While you were making sure that both Bobby and Rufus drank theirs, I dumped mine into the sink and exchanged it for green tea, food coloring, and coffee grounds."

"You've known this whole time, and you didn't drink –" He bolted out of his chair and circled to face Dean. "The witch said if you didn't drink it your mind would fracture and you'd go insane, Dean."

"When have you ever heard of a witch being all upfront and a shiny beacon of honesty about anything?" He tapped at his temple. "It's all up here still, Sam. It's foggy and dim from the first potion I took, and I can't quite picture everything as it played out. But I do remember Charlie, and you shouldn't have tried to take on that burden alone. I get why you did it, but we're brothers, and that means we face every struggle together no matter what it is."

"I didn't want you to blame yourself for what he did, Dean," Sam admitted, a deep ache settling into his chest. "You've always looked out for me, and just this once I wanted to be the one who took away your pain the way you've always done for me."

"You do that every day just by being here with me. I couldn't do this without you, little brother."

A faint smile ghosted across Sam's features. "So, how do we get through this? How do we move forward and stop letting him have so much control over our lives?"

"Well, we could always get an economy sized bag of M&M's and –"

"And thirteen twelve packs of beer," Sam finished for him.

"I was gonna say twenty-four twelve packs," he said, pulling Sam into a tight embrace. "We did it, Sammy. I didn't think we could, but he's gone for good and we're still standing."

"Yeah, we are." Sam pulled back and looked his brother in the eye, searching for any signs that Dean was angry that he tried to steal away his painful memories, but found fierce determination to get through whatever hardships they faced together as brothers. "Why gummy worms, Dean?" he added in an effort to put some much needed normalcy back into their lives. "You had a tackle box full of tackle and real worms so why use gummy worms?"

Dean cracked a grin. "I had to try, brother, I had to try."

XxXxXxX

Charlie's eyes blinked open at the sound of screaming somewhere off in the distance, and after briefly scanning the torture chamber that looked very similar to his own, he glanced down at the Yellow-Eyed demon grinning at him. It took a moment to register in his mind that his arms were outstretched with stakes pierced through his palms. He lost the wager – Sam and Dean had beaten him. Not only had they beaten him, they'd used his own victims to do it.

"Good, you're awake," the demon said, fingers grazing along the sharpened prongs of the Spanish Tickler in his hand. "You lost, Charlie, which means I lost, and I don't like losing."

"Get me down off this rack and I won't lose again," he uttered, his mind working to come up with a plan to make Sam and Dean suffer even more than they already had. "One more bet – one more wager, and I promise you that Sam will be your willing little bitch forever."

"Yeah, I've decided to go a different route in regards to the Winchesters," and as he spoke a man slipped out of the shadows carrying a whip encrusted with bone and sharps of blackened glass. "I think you remember John, right?" He bobbed his head toward the eldest Winchester, and his grin widened. "I gotta tell ya, there's nothing that pisses off Papa Winchester more than some deranged asshole targeting his boys. He wouldn't have stepped down from his rack and picked up a weapon for anything less than revenge against the man who hurt his boys. So in a way I guess I didn't totally lose. Did I?"

"You can't do this to me!" Charlie shouted, squirming and writhing, trying to break free from the restraints nailed into his flesh. "I broke those boys! I did that and –"

"And in return, I'm going to break you over and over again throughout all of eternity," John said, and at the dangerous glint in his dark eyes, Charlie began to tremble.

"I'll leave you two boys to get reacquainted," the demon chuckled, and vanished as the first crack of the whip hissed through the air.