Blood. Blood was everywhere. Crouched in the center of the hard wood floor clutching an inert Dean, was Sam. Dean's legs were at an odd angle and his arms were limp against Sam, and there was so much blood around the older man. Pools of what Bobby could only assume was Dean's blood, were coagulating beneath the bow legs of the oldest Winchester.

"Dean." Sam murmured and rocked back and forth, much as Dean had when Sam had died back at Cold Oak and started this whole mess. Sam looked up and clutched Dean closer to his chest when he heard Bobby's boots come closer. Sam's face was covered in his brother's blood, and the longish hair that always seemed to be in Sam's doe eyes was matted together in clumps, drying blood serving as impromptu hair spray holding the hair in place.

"Sam." Bobby said quietly and crept closer to the young man. Sam sniffled and pulled Dean's corpse that much closer, Bobby watched as blood and gore oozed and dripped from Dean's saturated, tattered shirt, and onto the floor and Sam's legs. "Sam." Bobby tried again more quietly. "You need to get him out of here. You need to let him go. You are getting blood all over yourself." Sam shook his head quickly, and hugged his brother to him and Bobby had a flash of the six year old that would stubbornly sit at his kitchen table and refuse to eat his vegetables. This time, however, there was no Dean to coax him into doing what he needed to do. Sam was alone now or so he thought, Bobby had to convince him that he was there for him, and he was afraid that was going to be no easy task.

"Sam. The police will be here soon. They will take Dean away from you." That seemed to get Sam's attention. He looked down at his brother, and then back at Bobby. "You don't want them to do that son now do you?" Sam looked down at Dean's scared dead eyes and a tear slipped down his nose and dropped onto Dean's cheek. He nodded his head never taking his eyes from Dean's. Bobby thanked God silently for this small bit of sanity inside the broken boy.

"Let me help you get him up."

"No." he said thickly. "I'll get him."

"Ruby?"

"Leave her." Sam said coldly and he stood and helped his brother up into his arms and he carried the limp, rapidly cooling body to the Impala. Bobby heard a distinctive sob as Sam put his brother into the back seat, arranged his legs into a position that didn't look quite as unnatural as they could have, and closed the car door softly. When he turned around Bobby was shocked just at the amount of blood caked all over Sam. The blood didn't' disturb Bobby nearly as much as the bits of organs and flesh that clung to Sam's hands and shirt.

"You need to get cleaned up."

"No."

"Sam."

"No."

"Sam…."

"Fuck no!" Sam screamed and got into the car and drove without telling Bobby where he was going. Bobby muttered a curse and followed the enraged man and found himself immersed in another prayer begging that Sam wouldn't draw attention to himself, covered in blood and gore, and a dead body in the back seat of a muscle car.

For some reason unknown to Bobby Sam suddenly pulled off into a deserted area of Illinois. When the car rolled to a stop Bobby got out and went to the driver's side of the car and opened it. "Why are we here?"

"No more gas. Dean must want to stay here." Bobby sighed inwardly.

"Sam, let me put gas into the car, so you can get to a gas station, and let me fill up the car, we need to get back to my house. Dean wanted to be taken care of there."

Sam looked up and his eyes actually met Bobby's and the weight of sadness in them almost toppled Bobby over. "Dean wanted that? He say that?" he asked in a childish voice.

"Yeah, son, he did." Bobby felt a tinge of guilt in his stomach for lying to the man, but he had to. There was no way in the world that they were going to check into a motel in the middle of the night and clean up a dead body and salt and burn it out here.

Sam made no move, he just looked at his hands on the wheel and just as Bobby was going to head back to his car he heard, "Dean will be mad that I got blood all over the leather. He's constantly telling me to be careful. I should have listened." Bobby sighed and tried to not let the tears, that had been in a free flow while he had been following the Impala, slip down his cheek.

They got the Impala gassed up and between the two cars they had enough gas to fill up the tank. There was one perk to being a hunter; you always had gas and salt.

Sam wouldn't allow Bobby to help get Dean out of the car, or into the house, or up the stairs, or into the bedroom, or onto the bed. Sam laid his brother on the bed and he starred hard at the corpse. He refused to speak to Bobby, he refused to move, he refused to clean up, he refused to take care of himself. He simply sat there and starred at the corpse of the man who raised him and took care of him his entire life.

Bobby was pondering just how much more whisky he was going to need to dull the ach in his heart when Sam came into the kitchen, swaying on his feet. He had not changed out of the blood and gore soaked clothes, nor had he washed his hands and face. Bobby waited patiently for Sam to speak and was rewarded with, "I need hot water and a towel. I need to wash him."

Bobby, thankful that Sam was coming out of his grief induced stupor, nodded. Sam turned and his big feet seemed heavy as he shuffled out of the kitchen and back up stairs to his vigil over his dead brother.

Bobby entered the room of the dead, and handed Sam a basin of hot water, and a towel. "You get him cleaned up and I'll get the pyre ready."

'No." Sam said vehemently. "No."

"Son. He has to be salted and burned."

"No! No." He said and began to strip off his brother's shirts and jacket.

"Sam."

"I want him buried. I want there to be a body for him to return to when I get him out of hell."

"Sam, I don't-"

"Don't you fucking tell me that there isn't' anything I can do!" Sam yelled and looked at Bobby with a gaze that could have sent lesser men to their knees. "I can save him. I can do it. I will do it. I will burry him." Sam's furry oozed out of his words as he focused back on Dean's ravaged chest and leg. He started running the warm cloth over Dean's chest, he rinsed the towel in the basin and red permeated the liquid, swirling like food dye in water vinegar solution, waiting for an Easter egg to dye.

Bobby consistently changed the basin of water, and Sam never seemed to notice. He simply plunged the cloth in the water and softly, gently, reverently, washed away the blood from Dean's face, hands, chest and then gently washed his hair.

"There Dean. You're clean again." Sam sniffed. The tears were burning the backs of his eyes again. Putting the cloth into the water he stood and went to the duffel bag that was on the other bed. At some point, a point in which Sam could not recall, Bobby had brought in both duffels, not knowing which bag belonged to which brother and not brave enough to open them and find out. Sam knew though. Sam opened his brother's and pulled out a pair of jeans that Dean especially liked, a black tee shirt and his favorite green button up. It was a struggle to get his brother's torso wrapped in linen and then dressed, his body had gone rigid and stiff and unwilling to bend to the clothes But Sam was determined and he got his brother dressed and then he ran a hand through Dean's short hair getting to stick up in front just the way he liked it.

Sam pulled the amulet out from underneath the shirt and patted it down on Dean's chest and he starred at it for a moment remembering that Christmas again, and then he remembered the last Christmas that Dean ever had and tears started afresh, and he found himself taking the amulet from around Dean's neck and placing it around his own, the gold of the amulet tarnished by blood, just like the man who now wore it.

"I'll take good care of it." He said. "I'll give it back to you when I get you back." He said to the corpse and he sat there feeling totally and utterly lost, the guiding force in his life had been snuffed out and was suffering in hell for eternity.