Sam has sucumbed to the darkness and leads the demon horde. Dean is heading to their final bitter confrontation as Bobby looks on.

This is much darker than my other pieces so if you don't want to go there thendon't press the button!

Mea Culpa to all SammyGirls and to Kirsty, grateful thanks for the wonderful beta. To my other friends who helped my thanks too and to Jane, a huge hug for all your thoughtful and creative input.

Finally to Kripke - okay they're yours not mine...damn!

Darkness

Chapter One

Bobby sighed as he pulled his old truck to a gentle stop before the partially refurbished warehouse and leaned tiredly forward to turn off the engine. Even that small movement gave him pain, his many unhealed wounds biting and snapping at over worked pain receptors.

The last few months had been a salutary lesson in fucking hard and would have been physically draining for a much younger man, let alone an old campaigner of Bobby's advancing years.

But he could have endured it. None of it would have mattered one iota. Not if they'd...won.

Not if they had somehow found a way to reclaim Sam, to win this interminable battle of evil versus good. If they had found a way to bring him back from the seething darkness that consumed him.

The old hunter would have willingly endured another lifetime of this torment if they could have achieved that. If it could mean that he didn't find himself here, at the bitter end of a final, desperate road, with the last vestiges of hope long gone from his shattered, grieving heart.

wWw

Sam's transition to the dark had been a gradual one and, at first, Bobby had denied it as vehemently as Dean. With time, though, his blinded gaze had been quicker to recover and see the heartbreakingly, sorrowful reality that the vulnerable older Winchester still sought to shy away from.

He still couldn't pin point the exact moment that Sam had finally turned from the light, and for Bobby it had long since ceased to be important. He had accepted what he knew to be the truth and he knew in his heart that Sam was finally, irrevocably lost to them.

And yet, it did matter what had turned him.

Maybe knowing what the trigger had been would help Dean? Might bring some miniscule element of peace to the elder brother's tormented soul. Ease the grief that threatened to tear him asunder? For that small concession alone, Bobby would have traded every single thing he possessed.

And so, as Dean had raged savage and unmerciful war against the all consuming evil that rejoiced in the corruption of his beloved brother, Bobby had quietly sought understanding for Sam's betrayal of them. And the means to destroy the boy he had crooned to sleep when 'his Sam' had feared the very monsters he now held dominion over.

It had taken months of dead ends and wasted research to realise that the probable answer lay, all the time, within his grasp. And so it was finally, one evening as he stood yet another silent vigil over Dean's battered body, he had turned in despair to John's journal and there within the random scribbles and notes, found the very answer they sought.

The ritual, John's malignant legacy to them, spelled out that which might just be the salvation of mankind. It would come at a terrible price but it was all they had.

Once realised, Bobby had worked unstintingly to find those who could help him prepare for its enactment, and in all that time, Dean had clung resolutely to the slenderest of hopes that he could save his brother. The young hunter had never wavered from his belief that there could be redemption. That he could reclaim Sam.

The older eyes saw a different truth, however, and Bobby had been forced to watch as each new atrocity that Sam joyfully perpetrated, destroyed another of the few remaining fragile tatters of Dean's tortured soul.

wWw

The mottled grey of the concrete was cool in the warm evening air, and the formidable, slab like construction of the walls was solid and imposing. Bobby tried to use the substantial reality of the building to draw him back from the precarious edge of the emotional abyss he teetered on, but the maelstrom of fear and grief and anger raging within him would not be calmed.

The flickering lights from the old industrial building cast an eerie glow into the cab of the truck, sending demented shadows coursing and Bobby was forced to accept that there was now no further distraction onto which he could cling. There was nothing more he could do that might prevent this, his worst nightmare, from becoming a crushing reality.

The tension emanating from the old hunter was palpable, his horror at his own impotence written on his worn and defeated face, and he reluctantly turned to his passenger with eyes red rimmed from exhaustion and terminal despair.

He studied his companion, this man that he'd known for virtually all of his young life, and he felt his breaking heart shudder in time with Dean's grieving soul. He raised a trembling hand to his brimming eyes, the forbidden words escaping his lips before he could call them back.

"Please. Don't do this, Dean."

Bobby had pleaded this argument so many times over the last few weeks, and in so many ways, but he knew that this would be the last time he would ever try and he had no brave front left to waste on this last attempt. His voice cracked on the brittle, pain-filled words; and he swallowed, willing the tears that were inevitably to fall, to hold back for a few moments more.

"We'll find another way, Dean. There must be another way, something we haven't found yet. I'll just start the truck and ..."

He stopped then as the younger hunter's chin lifted slowly from his chest and the eyes that he knew would be his undoing came to rest on his own.

"Don't, Bobby."

Dean's voice was a ghost of a whisper; the rawness of every atrocity he'd witnessed, of every wrong done to him, of every wound he'd endured, oozing from him, and the gentle words paralysed the grizzled old hunter with their intensity. Bobby looked into eyes so devastated that he wondered how this man could keep from curling into himself and surrendering to the wretchedness meted out by the vicious gods that let him be so cruelly treated.

wWw

Dean looked at the man before him and knew that if there was one warm, safe, soft memory that he could have still found within him, it would most likely have involved this man.

He was eternally grateful that he was here with him, at what was, in one way or another, to be the end of this. And yet Dean was also bitterly sorry that the agony he knew Bobby would see in his every movement and breath should be inflicted on the man who had been a second father to him.

He raised his hand to his pale face and brushed at the frightening gossamer of despair that clung about him but he couldn't shift it. Only the bitter confrontation that awaited him in the seemingly innocent, though wholly malevolent edifice before him might do that, and yet he doubted it, preferring to err on the side of reality and prepare for death.

After the months of constant, brutal war and fierce fighting that they had endured, he marvelled that now, at the climax of this vicious purgatory, there was quiet and calm. But then he knew that now only Sam would be there waiting for him, and he abhorred the thought of that one on one confrontation more than he feared any dark, dread army that he might be called to face. He drew in a shuddering breath, knowing that this one encounter held the significance of all the myriad deaths that preceded it and the despair of eternity threatened to crush him.

He stepped quietly from the cab and the familiar, ceaseless pain he was now so used to invaded his bones. He stood in the soft, grey moonlight, feeling the temperate rush of the cooling earth drift around his trembling body. His jaw clenched shut against the scream of primal fear that begged to lose itself from his lips. Insanity pulled at him and he longed to walk that path, to find sweet oblivion and to deny the road before him that was his despised destiny.

But there was no release for him now.

wWw

Bobby slipped stiffly from the cab and walked reluctantly around to stand before the man who was a son to him. Even now, when the battles of the past months had repeatedly broken and damaged his fragile flesh, Bobby still saw the tall, strong body of a hunter before him, with its lithe and graceful energy. He took in the powerful hands that could coax and discipline the most recalcitrant of weapons to his bidding as if they were designed extensions of his limbs.

But it was the eyes that mesmerised him. Pools of the palest jade drew him in from beneath lashes that curled and cloaked the grief that swam so plainly in those shimmering surfaces. He felt his breath catch in his parched throat as the litany of loss this man had endured, still endured, rippled in the shadowed depths, and he longed, even as he knew there were none, to find the words that would ease his suffering.

"Give it to me. Bobby."

The old man started at the quiet words, weakened as they were by the realisation of utter despair. He raised his trembling hand and relinquished the dark blade of the Sgian Dubh reluctantly into the hunter's unsteady grasp.

Dean's hand quivered as he took the tempered steel of the ancient black knife into his palm, feeling the curve of the ornate handle nestle knowingly against his cool skin. It was as if the exquisite blade had been crafted for him, and in any other circumstance he would have felt a shiver of delight in the oneness he had with this undeniably beautiful instrument of subjugation and death. Now though, when it heralded the oblivion of all that was meaningful to him; was the instrument of final destruction, he felt its warm weight as if it were a reaper's mordant kiss.

He raised his wild eyes from the delicately blued metal and Bobby watched as he drew in a long, shuddering breath as he contemplated the weapon's destiny.

"Lemme go with you, Dean."

The young man's handsome face smiled brokenly, his small, desperate exhalation of air sounding for all the world like laughter. He tipped his head to one side and looked into his surrogate father's gaze, his own eyes brimming with a lifetime of unshed tears.

"You know you can't, Bobby. The ritual...I have to go alone. It has to be just the two of us, at the end, just Sam and me."

The old man nodded silently; having no words that had meaning any more. Knowing there was no more he could do and no further comfort he could offer. The motion rolled the waiting tears from his eyes as long denied grief finally threatened to overwhelm him.

wWw

Dean raised his hand to his throat and slipped off the bronze amulet that was the symbol of his role as protector. The absence of the tiny figure's weight was at once devastating and also surprisingly liberating as it symbolised the nearness of the end to his crushing responsibilities. And yet, as its cord lifted from his neck, he was suddenly, utterly bereft because, through all they had endured, this role had been his anchor to sanity and reason, his purpose in a life otherwise adrift.

Protect Sam.

His one eternal thought had always been to guard, protect and save Sam, whatever the cost, whatever the consequence. He had shouldered the responsibility willingly and had never once asked to be released from it and so now, at the very end, it tore at his fragile and troubled soul to relinquish the symbol that had defined his purpose.

Dean held out the amulet to Bobby, his soft words tearing into the old man's flesh like jagged claws.

"For the next one who..."

"Stop it, Dean! Don't you say those words; I won't hear it from you, boy...can't hear it..."

Dean flinched at the severity of the rebuke, pulling his hand back as if stung, and Bobby spoke on with a voice that begged his words to become reality. He stepped forward grasping at Dean's broad shoulders.

"You will survive this. I'll wait for you here and you will come back. D'ya hear me, boy?"

The words were both angry command and desperate entreaty.

"Sam's lost to us I know, Dean... but I can't...I won't... lose you too..."

Desperately he drew the young hunter into his tight grasp and Dean felt the devastation that was burning within his friend flow like a crackle of electricity into his weary body. He leaned gratefully into the embrace, allowing himself one brief moment, before he went to face what he most dreaded, to seek some shred of comfort for his numbing grief.

Yet even now, he would not allow himself to linger, lest his resolve to finish this fail him. He gently pushed away from his old friend and purposefully curled the old man's gnarled fingers around the amulet.

"I know, Bobby and I'll try, I swear... but if I don't come back, you'll need this for whoever follows."

There was strength in his words, strength that he didn't know he still had, and Dean watched as the older man tightened his hand convulsively about the tiny bronze figure.

"But what if it can help you now, protect you from..."

Desperate dove grey eyes locked onto soft, deep green, searching for hope.

Dean fought to find something to offer, desperate to ease the pain of this man who was a second father to him.

"We can't let it fall into their hands, Bobby, and if I do get out of this..."

He stopped then, finding the urgent need to swallow down the nauseating fear that was stealing his words.

"If I get out of this, well... then you can give it back to me."

Seconds passed in unspoken farewell, all the words neither could find flowing directly from heart to breaking heart.

The old hunter simply nodded once and thrust the necklace roughly into his top pocket. His anger at his own powerlessness palpable and the desire to match this broken man's undeniable strength pricked at his conscience.

They stood then; neither knowing how to make the move that would herald their final goodbye and it was left to the older man to find the courage to speak. He swept off his tattered cap and brushed at his pale, grizzled face, his eyes never leaving those of his companion.

"Dammit, Dean. How did we come to this, boy?"

The younger man laughed softly then, shared bitterness darkening the irony of his statement, as eyes luminescent with fragility and loss held Bobby in a final embrace.

"Winchester luck, I guess."

The moment stalled for a brief eternity, neither willing to break away. Finally, Dean lowered his eyes to the ground and swallowed thickly before turning his gaze back to the building.

The hunter's destiny was calling. It was a keening, clarion call of morbid triumph and there was nothing for the old man to do but watch as Dean squared his shoulders, turned and walked away.

Chapter ends

If ya have time a review would be cool!