The scent of blood was overwhelming, the sharp, metallic odor filling the air of the room. There was so much of it...

Sam was oblivious to the smell, oblivious to the way the blood soaked into his shirt as he lifted Dean's body from the floor. Blood had pooled in the hollow of his chest, and now ran down to drip into the sticky mess already covering the floor. Sam winced. There was so much blood...too much.

"Dean..."

There was no response. He hadn't expected one. Dean's eyes were open wide, still reflecting the terror and pain of his last moment of consciousness, but the light had gone out in them. Tiny droplets of blood clung to his lashes like crimson tears. His own, very real tears fell upon Dean's face, leaving streaks through the blood smeared across his cheeks.

He heard a noise behind him, then his name. A hand touched his shoulder and Bobby was there kneeling beside him. "Oh, God. Sam..."

Sam could only shake his head. Everything he had to say was moot. It was over. He'd failed, and this time he'd failed big time. He hadn't even been able to go out himself, follow Dean into oblivion, and why that was he could not fathom. Lilith's last blast should have killed him.

Reaching out with trembling, bloody fingers, Sam closed his brother's eyes. He put a hand to Dean's chest and bowed his head. It had been a long time since he'd prayed but he prayed now, fervently hoping to provide Dean's soul with some sort of protection from the fires of Hell. A sob caught in his throat. He shuddered as he felt blood running down over his hand.

Blood.

His eyes snapped open. He withdrew his hand. The blood that stained it had not come from what had already been spilled. Instead it oozed from the claw marks gouged deep into Dean's shoulder.

Bobby made the same realization at the same time. His hand found Dean's throat. He looked up at Sam in shock. "It's faint," he whispered, stunned. "But there's a pulse!"

Sam immediately stripped off his coat, wrapping it closely around his brother's body, applying pressure to the wounds. Bobby was already dialing 911.

"God, Dean. Hang on, please, hang on!"

Neither one of them noticed when Lilith's other victim disappeared. It wasn't until after they arrived at the hospital that Sam thought of Ruby.

"You're wasting your time, you know."

Sam flinched, tearing his gaze away from his blood-stained hands to the slim figure standing beside the vending machines. He'd tried to wash off as much blood as he could, but had been unsuccessful. It still stained his hands, clotting beneath his nails. The stench still permeated his clothing. Where it had spilled across his shirt and jeans it was stuck to his skin, and as it dried it darkened to black. They'd told him it was a miracle that his brother survived so much blood loss. They told him it would be another miracle if he lived through surgery. Several hours had already passed. No one had come to give him any news save for a nurse who confirmed Dean was still on the table. Sam had no choice but to sit in the visitors lounge and wait.

Exhaustion made him slow, lethargic. He wearily made his reply. "Ruby, thank God."

She snorted. "God had nothing to do with it, and I'm floored by your obvious relief. I didn't think you cared, Sam."

He shrugged. "You showed up, you helped - for what it was worth."

"I came back for my knife and to make sure your idiot brother didn't wind up killing you both – which he almost did."

Ruby pushed away from the vending machines. Her borrowed body looked none the worse for wear. He found it interesting that she'd reclaimed it instead of simply taking another. It was a little bruised, a little battered, but still exactly the same.

"Lilith said she sent you away."

"She did, but there are things about me she doesn't know too." The she-demon planted her feet and crossed her arms as she came to stand in front of him. "You should be dead, Sam."

"I know," he whispered.

"She's scared and she's pissed. Once she regroups she'll be back with a vengeance. This time you need to be prepared."

"I don't want to talk about this right now, Ruby." Sam looked up at her, tears burning in his eyes, tears he thought he'd run out of earlier. "All right."

"Oh, sure. Yeah. Which leads us back to what I said earlier. You're wasting your time. You can patch Dean's shell back together all you want, but he's not in it, and you're not getting him back."

"He's alive..."

"He's gone, Sam, get over it."

Sam lunged out of his chair, taking her by surprise as he slammed her back into the vending machines with a crash. "Get over it? Get over it?! You listen to me, dammit. As long as there is there is a chance, even just the slightest chance, of bringing him back, I'm not going to give up on him. Do you understand?" He gave her a shake, smashing her into the machine again. "Do you?"

Ruby smiled slowly. "Oh, you're more than ready for Lilith. Can't you feel it, Sam? The power you wield? Got a taste of it last night didn't you? You survived what should have killed an ordinary man, but then...you're not ordinary are you?"

Abruptly he let her go, stepping away and sinking slowly back down into a chair. "I just want my brother back."

"You don't need him. He said it himself, he's your weakness."

"I don't care."

"Let him go."

"No!"

Their eyes met, and Ruby turned hers away first.

"Fine," she said.

Sam squeezed his eyes tightly shut. "Ruby, you don't understand," he breathed. "I have to save him." He opened his eyes and stared at her, feeling no shame in his tears. "I have to. I can still hear him screaming. Ever since...I can hear him calling me, begging me to help him. I can't leave him in that place, Ruby, not like that. I can't."

It might have been his imagination, but for a moment she seemed – human – and in her voice he thought he heard just a shred of compassion.

"Fine," she repeated softly. "We'll give it a try."

"We?"

With a snort, Ruby tossed her head and walked away. "You don't have the connections I do."

There was some little bitty place inside his head that was still in control. While the rest of him was screaming, it was very calmly and quietly assessing the situation. Its obvious conclusion was the understatement of the century:

Well. Doesn't this suck ass.

The tricky part was going to be getting the sane part of his head to override the completely hysterical part of his head because hysterics were a) not going to get him anywhere and b) exactly what they (whoever they were at this point) wanted. Unfortunately the human mind tended to freak out just a little bit when confronted with things it couldn't quite comprehend. What pissed Dean off was that he should know better because he'd been confronted with incomprehensible things since he was four years old.

Hell should have been no different...but it was.

Part of the reason it was different was because it freakin' hurt. The damn hounds had been a walk in the park in comparison to being strung up like a fish on a hook, and the hook analogy was quite literal. One pierced his right shoulder, another his left side, stretching him out between them. Wrists and ankles were shackled tight. Lightning flashed throughout a spiderweb of similar chains and when a lightning bolt happened to strike one of the chains it shot through his body like a million tiny spears.

It was hard engage one's rational thoughts under such circumstances.

Eventually he was able to tone the screams down to whimpers, aided in part by the blood rising up in his throat to choke him. He spat it out into the waves of heat rising up from somewhere far below him. So he wasn't in the Pit, he was simply being barbecued somewhere above it. Nice. Slow roasted, basted in his own piss.

He turned his head, wincing at the pain, and wiped the blood, sweat and tears from his face upon his sleeve. Lightning struck one of the chains far above him and raced along the steel links, working its way downward until it slammed into his body, making him jerk against the chains, driving the hooks deeper into his flesh.

Whimpers once again became screams. Rational thought retreated to its one tiny corner and hid there, weeping.

Sam jerked awake, the sound of his brother's voice still echoing around in his head. Even asleep he couldn't escape it entirely, and the nightmares were endless. Over and over and over again he saw Dean torn apart, bleeding his life out onto the floor of that poor family's dining room.

It had been three days. It might as well have been three years.

He swung his legs off the couch and sat up. No one else occupied the ICU lounge, no one else had since he'd arrived. Bobby had a room in a nearby hotel. Sam had showered and changed out of his bloody clothes, but other than that...

The restroom was nearby. He made use of it before going down the hall to Dean's room. Bobby was there, sitting in a chair beside the bed. His head was bowed, his hat clutched tightly in his hands while tears dampened his face. When he heard Sam at the door he looked up and wiped them away.

"Sam...you get some rest?"

"Some," Sam said gruffly. He'd finally taken the nurses up on their offer of a sedative. It had drowned out some of the noise in his head but not all of it. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm..." Bobby shook his head. "You'd think I'd get used to this – loss – you know. It's part of the job."

"He's not gone yet, Bobby."

Bobby hesitated. "Sam," he said softly.

It was all he had to say. Sam knew what he was thinking. The doctor had been blunt. Dean had lost too much blood, suffered too many complications in surgery. His body was too badly damaged to recover. He was brain dead. There was no point in keeping him on life support.

Bobby had been just as blunt. How fair would it be to bring Dean back, only to condemn him to a life inside a body that didn't work? How long would he survive, how much would he suffer?

"It would still be better than where he is," Sam had replied. "Let's just worry about one thing at a time."

Sam made his way over to the bed, and Bobby quietly relinquished the chair, murmuring something about coffee. With a nod, Sam sat down, heard Bobby leave a moment later.

It was easy to pretend Dean was only sleeping. Unlike the previous time he'd been on life support there was nothing obscuring his face. They'd given him a tracheotomy, inserting the breathing tube directly into his throat. They planned on feeding him through a tube in his stomach. It was clear they believed his current state would be long term.

His face had been untouched by the hounds. The wounds they had made upon his body were sewn up and bandaged, tucked out of sight beneath crisp white sheets. The only thing marring Dean's face was a bruise left by his fight with Ruby and likewise a small cut on his lip. This perfectly serene facade masked so much of the truth Sam could easily picture him opening his eyes and making a smart-ass comment about his little brother carrying on like a girl.

Sam waited. Dean's eyes remained closed.

"Dean," he moaned. "What do I do now?"

It was Ruby who spoke in response. "I have to admit," she said quietly. "You're right."

Her comings and goings were becoming old hat. Sam hardly flinched. He did not turn, but instead kept his gaze on Dean's face, hoping, praying for some sign of life.

"Right about what?"

"You can't leave him there." She came into the room and stood on the opposite side of the bed. "But to get him out, you need someone on the inside."

Sam looked up at her and saw, to his amazement, the Colt in her outstretched hand. "How did you get that?" he breathed.

"I have my ways," she said. "It wouldn't have saved him, by the way, so don't get your panties in a wad that I didn't go get it sooner. And I don't mean for us to shoot our way in after your brother either." She flipped her blond bangs out of her eyes with a casual turn of her head and waved the gun at him. "Only one person on Earth has the ability to open the lock this key opens, and that's you." With a long-suffering sigh she turned her gaze away from his and looked down at Dean. "I don't know why I'm doing this but..."

"But what?" Standing, Sam gently took the Colt from her hand. "What do we have to do, Ruby?"

She looked him in the eye. "You have to send me back to Hell."

They finally came. They came in all their forms. Some arrived as viscous black smoke that wound themselves around his helpless body and slashed at him with unseen claws. Some arrived as the twisted, leprous creatures he'd seen them as just before the hounds came to play. They crawled down the chains to pluck at his wounds with claw-like fingers. They leered in his face, mocking him, imitating his cries when they hurt him.

All the while the air around him grew hotter. He could feel it on his back, hear the sizzling sound every time a drop of blood fell from his body into the flames. His nose and throat burned with the acrid reek of sulfur fumes. His lips dried and cracked, spilling fresh blood onto what had already dried there. He could barely see anymore. His tears had long ago evaporated.

Lightning flashed. He screamed, hoarse and barely audible now, but he couldn't stop himself.

A black, swirling mass followed close behind the lightning. It engulfed him. Razor sharp claws sliced through skin and flesh, striking bone.

"Please..."

Teeth sunk into his throat, and his pleas were silenced in blood.

He had tried not to hurt her, but in the end it was unavoidable. She'd screamed, writhing in agony as her soul was ripped from her body. Sam's ritualistic words thrust her back down into the fiery pit and locked the gate behind her. Ruby's voice sang in counter-point to the one still screaming in his head. That voice remained after hers fell silent. It never went away.

"Pity about the body," she'd said. "I really like this one."

Bobby laid it down in a pit and set it on fire. Sam turned away, unable to watch. His fist tightened around the keys in his hand. The sharp edges bit into his palm, drawing blood, but he didn't care. Dean's car deserved a taste of his blood, his restitution. He felt uncomfortable behind the wheel, as if she were aware of his presence and hated him for it.

"I don't like this, Sam. You don't know what else might come crawling up out of that Gate if you open it again. You don't even know if Dean can get out, and if he does..."

"Bobby please, just...just take care of getting him to Wyoming for me, and start the ritual, that's all I ask."

"It goes against the grain for me to do this." Bobby said quietly. "You know that don't you? Any other Hunter would put a bullet in you right now. You don't muck around with demons! You don't try to play God!"

Sam gave him a wry smile. "But you're not any other Hunter. Family doesn't end with blood, you said it yourself."

"Don't be throwin' my words back at me, boy! I know what I said." With a saddened expression, the older man shook his head and grabbed him into a firm embrace. "Sam..."

"I'll get him back, Bobby. I swear it." He pulled away before emotion got the better of him, escaping into the car. "I'll get him back," he repeated.

"Just be careful, watch your back. That Lilith is still out there."

Sam's expression hardened. His voice went down a full octave as he reached out and pulled the Impala's door shut. "I can handle Lilith."

"You'll forget," she'd said, and he hadn't believed her.

He'd never forget, never become one of them.

Grit your teeth and take it, scream until your throat is raw and your lungs are burning, but don't break, don't ever break.

It didn't matter what they did, they could never touch the heart of him. Never.

A plume of darkness wove its way through the chains, flitting among the lightning like a moth around a candle. His eyes were filled with blood. He blinked to clear them, and still watched from behind a veil of crimson. The demon moved closer and closer. He disguised fear behind rage.

"Come on! Come on you bastard! COME ON!"

The challenge would have held more weight had his voice not betrayed him. It was nothing but a whisper, hoarse and weak. Involuntarily he flinched as the demon swooped in close to him. Steel clawed its way deeper into his flesh. He bit down on a scream, swallowed it into a whimper.

Its claws were sheathed. Its touch upon his fevered skin was cool. It flowed up and around the chains securing his ankles, and suddenly, with no warning, his body lurched hard against the hooks. This time the scream was a scream. He closed his eyes, expecting more. The demon swirled around his body and eased the hook from his side. It pried the other from his shoulder. He now swung free save for his wrists. His own weight hurt his shoulders, made him groan.

In his mind he felt the brush of a thought not his own.

"Climb," it said.

He barely had presence of mind to grab the chains when the shackles fell free from his wrists. His blood slicked hands slipped and he almost fell. Weak and wounded he curled his fingers into the links and hung there, unable to pull himself up the chain, but stubbornly refusing to be fuel for the flames below.

"Climb!" the demon urged. "Hurry!"

"I c...cah...can't."

"Dean! Climb, it's your only chance!"

Turning his head he looked at the swirling black vapor, and then looked again. He recognized her. He'd seen her before. "Ruby?"

"NOW!" She screamed in his mind. "GO!"

She shot away then, climbing quickly toward the top of the abyss where a small rectangle of light penetrated the darkness. He watched her progress and groaned, for once almost wishing he were a demon simply for the ability to fly. In the space between him and the light were what seemed to be miles of crisscrossing chains and putrid yellow clouds spurting electricity all around. There was no other choice but to climb.

"I'm not freakin' Tarzan," Dean whispered wearily. "Ruby...help me. Please."

There was no response. She was long gone, and below him he could hear the cries of those who had also sensed the open door. If he didn't hurry he'd have to fight once he got there.

"Dammit...no, wait, don't. No damning anything. There's been enough damning around here to last a while."

Gathering every ounce of strength he had left, Dean grabbed the nearest chain with both hands and painfully dragged his body up ward, beginning his slow, arduous climb toward the light. To keep his mind occupied he muttered to himself, plotting just how he was going to kick Ruby's ass for making him do this alone.

Crouched behind a gravestone, Sam craned his neck over the top to look at the Hell Gate. The doors stood wide open, waves of heat rolling through along with the shadowy figures of the demons and spirits who managed to claw their way to freedom. He could also hear Hell – the roaring flames, the agonized screams.

He checked his watch. They all had to coordinate this perfectly – Bobby at the hospital, Ruby in the Pit, Sam here at the gate.

"Five minutes, Sam," Ruby had said. "No more, no less. It can't stand open any longer. Do you understand me?"

Sam had nodded then, now he was unsure. Could Dean make it out in the alloted amount of time? As the minutes ticked by he whispered silently to himself.

"Come on, Dean, come on!"

One and counting. Sixty seconds, twenty-five seconds, ten, nine, eight...

Where were they? Sam rose up from, behind the gravestone. All the demons appeared the same. He saw no spirit he recognized. Nor did he recognize the young girl who now ran past him toward the Gate, shouting at him to follow, cursing him when he hesitated.

"SHUT THE GATE! SHUT THE GATE!"

It was Ruby, possessing another girl, another victim. She stood with her back braced against one door, her long blond hair whipping around her new, unfamiliar face. "Sam!"

"Did he get out?" Sam's voice was nearly drowned by the cacophony of sound coming from within the Gate. He had to scream to make himself heard as he commandeered the second of the double doors. "Ruby! Did he get out?"

"I don't know, and I don't care. Help me!"

Together they pushed, struggling inch by inch to reseal the doors. Demons and spirits continued to burst from the Gate through the ever narrowing opening. Sam watched every one, desperately seeking some familiarity among them. He saw nothing, no sign of his brother, and as the heavy doors slammed shut, his cry of despair joined those from the other side, the cries of those who had been too slow to find their freedom.

Sam dropped to his knees, panting. Ruby sagged heavily against the doors. She'd picked another pretty girl, this one with large blue eyes and hair that curled. Instead of her usual jeans and leather jacket, this body wore a short denim skirt and a blouse. The hormonal young male at the back of Sam's mind noted that she had bigger boobs.

Ruby looked down at herself and made a face. "Yeah, I know. Jacked up isn't it? All the bodies to choose from and I grab Barbie." Her scowl deepened. "And don't you dare lecture me about the sanctity of human life. I did this for you and that asshole brother of yours. Her life is on your karmic scorecard, not mine."

"Yeah, I know," Sam sighed as he slowly regained his feet. "Let's just hope it wasn't for nothing."

He reached down into his pocket and pulled out his phone, preparing to dial Bobby and tell him to begin the ritual that would summon Dean's spirit back to his body. He stopped as Ruby reached out and put a hand to his arm, drawing his attention to a solitary tree near the edge of the cemetery; a tree that marked the spot where he and Dean had given their silent good-byes to their father's spirit.

At that moment he also realized the screaming that had been going on inside his head for nearly a week had subsided. Now he heard only a gentle whisper.

Sammy...

He stumbled toward the tree, his call momentarily forgotten. The spirit standing before him was torn and bloody, his face streaked with dirt, sweat and tears, but he gave Sam a weary smile. It was Dean. He'd made it out of the gate after all.

Sam's thumb hovered over the phone dial. His brother's salvation was just the press of a button away...

Salvation.

Sam hesitated. It was at that moment he was struck not by Dean's disheveled appearance – or simply his very appearance - but his expression, and the relaxed set of his shoulders. His brother had never looked so much at peace during his lifetime - ever - even when he was completely sauced. It was as if every worry, every bit of pain, every burden Dean ever carried had all been taken away. Right here, right now he was free from Hell, free from life – simply free from it all.

What would Sam be bringing him back to if he succeeded with their plan? More pain, more sacrifice, more battles in a war they had little hope of surviving, let alone actually winning? Dean would never stop worrying about Sam, trying to protect him at his own expense; he'd always be in danger. And all this assuming his physical body would fully recover once his soul was put back into it.

He no longer heard Dean's screams, but did hear his voice, speaking words Sam had heard once before.

I'm tired, Sam. Tired, of this job, of this life...

An overwhelming sense of longing struck him, made him sway on his feet. It was not his own, but Dean's. Life had rung him out, Hell exhausted him. All he craved now was rest.

"Where do they go?" San breathed. "If not here, if not Hell?"

He glanced back over his shoulder at Ruby, and in the split second before she changed it, he saw the stricken look on her face. She had felt it too.

"I don't know," she said. "I just...don't know."

Sam glanced down at the phone in his hand, and then back up at his brother through eyes rapidly filling with tears. "Dean...

He couldn't say what he felt he should say, what he needed to say. It was all a big jumbled up mess inside his head. He wanted to let Dean know it was okay, that he knew the danger he was in, and could handle it. He'd be fine. No worries.

Ultimately all he managed was: "I won't stop fighting, I promise."

The spirit had already sensed his decision, and drew him into one last firm embrace. In that split second Dean was as solid as if he were truly there. Sam could feel his body, his breath, hear his heart beating, and smell the all-too-familiar cologne that had also been their father's. In an instant he saw a myriad of little scenes from their childhood, their adulthood, their last days together. He heard Dean bellowing Bon Jovi, and himself laughing at the absurdity of it as he joined in at the chorus.

Then it was done, over. Sam held nothing, and saw only the faintest impression of his brother before him.

Dean sighed, gave him one last wry grin, and then...was gone.

Sam slumped against the tree, burying his face in his hands, unable to hold back everything that had been building inside him for days. After a moment he felt arms around his shoulders and a warm body pressed close to his. He felt Ruby's awkward attempt at comfort - a hesitant squeeze - but heard certainty in her voice.

"It'll be a better place," she whispered.

There was a disturbance in the Force.

Dean lifted his shades and peered out at the waves gently sliding up and back upon the sand, searching for what he didn't know. There was nothing there but sunshine and surf. Something though, something out there had set off a little blip on his radar. What had it been?

A hand falling on his shoulder distracted him. His thoughts returned to the moment at hand, and they were much happier thoughts. Letting his sunglasses fall back down onto his nose, he cocked a brow and accepted the cold beer his new girl handed him. Yeah, he could learn to enjoy it here.

"Something wrong sweetie?"

Dean grinned, and pulled her down into his lap, making her laugh and very nearly spilling his beer. Her eyes were merry, full of promises, just what he liked.

"Nope, nuthin'," he said softly, and moved in to steal a kiss.