Gibs: Many many thanks to the amazing brain sister of my Val for betaing and giving me confidence in this piece. This piece makes reference to my story Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep but it can be viewed as a sequel or a stand-alone.

For the prompt of Phantom on the Supernatural25 livejournal community

Spoilers: Vague for Monster at the End of the Book

All his life ghosts had been a bad thing, something to be wary of and destroyed as soon as possible with whatever means necessary. They'd never seemed beautiful. Before tonight.

Sam looked up through the windshield, watching the specters dance. He couldn't make out clear forms like normal, these were more like impressions. Like ripples in the air. It was beautiful. The cracks across the glass could not destroy that, nor could the crimson staining it.

Some part of his brain was worried about the excess of red around him, but the rest of his brain disagreed. The blood looked normal, so it wasn't his. He was sure that if he bled that much some of it would look different. Because his blood wasn't right.

It never had been.

The specters weren't dancing anymore. Darkness slithered on the windshield over his head. Like a snake without a form. The specters pulled away from it.

"Don't go," he thought. What he said sounded more like a moan. He wanted to reach to them, to do something, to push away the darkness that was starting to seep through the round holes in the Impala's window. He wanted to, but his arm didn't.

The spirits were gone. Abandoning him. Sam felt more alone than he ever had in his life. His head fell down against the seat. He felt the buckle strain under his weight. It wasn't meant for this much weight…maybe he wasn't either.

The car shook and he was suddenly looking up at tennis shoes and trench coat. The phantom's seemed to hang off the man like wings.

Wings.

"Castiel?" The name slurred on his tongue but if the angel heard he didn't react. Castiel reached out to the darkness and it pulled away from him. Sam closed his eyes as the light burned them. He felt them water under his eyelids. Then there was the horrible sound of metal being ripped apart. Sam pried open his eyes and saw Castiel pulling the crunched door away from the Impala. The angel climbed in, stepping on the back of the seat, and crouched beside Sam. "Cas…?"

"Not yet Sam," the angel said, pulling loose the buckle and grabbing Sam by the hoodie. The young Winchester felt himself being hauled free of the car. The shift sent cold pain shooting through every part of him. It occurred to Sam that the blood might just be his as his head fell limply against the angel's shoulder.

_-_-_

Dean's eyes couldn't have got wider. His heart couldn't possibly pound harder. Bits of his soul couldn't possibly hurt more. He had been searching all night since Sam had gone to fill up the tank and not returned.

There was the Impala, on its back end down an embankment. The window was shattered, the door ripped off. All of this he noted passively, because only one thing had his eye. The front seat was covered in blood.

"Sam!" he screamed, running around the side of his car. He nearly face planted at what he saw.

Sam lay there on the ground, as if laid instead of throw from a crashing car. All the grass was black and dead, except the grass right around him. Sam looked peaceful, save for the blood pooling on his shirt.

Dean dropped to his knees beside his fallen brother, pulling at the folds of his once white shirt. The cuts were deep and ugly, but Sam was breathing. Sam was breathing.

_-_-_

Phantoms floated behind his eyelids. Memories of the light that had embraced him after the wreck. Sam forced open his eyelids—taking in the crimson colored IV, white featureless room and cold atmosphere in one glance. His eyes landed on the figure beside his bed.

"Cas?"

The angel gave a look at the nickname, meeting Sam's eyes in the same unreadable way he always did.

"You saved my life," Sam remembered the Snow witch and sighed, "Again." The angel nodded.

"You make a habit of nearly dying."

Sam blinked. He couldn't tell if he was being teased or not, with Dean it was not something he often had to wonder about. "Thanks."

The angel nodded. He was gone. There was no flickering out, no sudden beam of light, nothing of that nature at all. He was just there ands then he wasn't. Sam laid his head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling.