A/N - Nothing for too long and then two chapters back to back! I'm on a roll! Well, it's because I was really looking forward to this one, I love it when the brothers have their little moments. Thanks so much to all of you that have read this so far, especially those that have reviewed and are following. Feedback is very appreciated!

"What's wrong with him?" Sadie asked in concern.

Dean wasn't about to open that can of worms with her right now. "Don't worry about it. Is there anyone else we need to deal with?" he asked her curtly, eyes still firmly on his brother. He knew it was probably rude to shut her off like that, but he didn't particularly care at the moment.

"No, that was it, but we need to clear out in case more are coming. I think that was just a little test, a teaser. He wouldn't care about losing them, he has plenty in his army. They were probably newly turned," Sadie answered.

That caught Dean's attention. "That's the second time you've mentioned an army. We're going to need to have a chat about what that means. Right now, I need to take care of my brother."

Sam was still staring at him, trembling and looking shocky. Dean didn't like it one little bit and he needed to get him safe. If more of those bitches came for them while he was like this, Sam wouldn't be able to defend himself. He dragged Sam's unresisting form over to the car, helping his large frame into the passenger seat. Once inside, Sam folded in on himself, his head falling into his hands, sobs tearing out of his throat.

"Come on Sammy, don't do this, okay?" Dean heard his own voice break, felt his own torment at seeing his little brother so distraught. It was breaking, that damn wall, piece by piece. Maybe this was his punishment for not completing Death's challenge. He got the wall, but it was inferior craftsmanship. It was made to hold up just long enough to make them think it was going to work, to only start breaking apart under the slight pressure of their sigh of relief. "Whatever you saw, it wasn't your fault. Just breathe for me, all right? I'm going to get our stuff and we're going to get out of here. Just sit tight," Dean soothed, placing a hand on top of Sam's head. Sam didn't respond to the words or the touch, just tried to make himself smaller in the seat.

Sam wanted to reach out to Dean, wanted to pull him close, feel his warm skin, his heart beating, all signs that he was alive, but he couldn't. He didn't deserve Dean's concern, he didn't deserve his love. What he had done…how could Dean even be in the same room as him, even speak his name? How could he have been so far gone that he could have done that to his own brother, the most important person in the world to him?

When he'd seen the blood on Dean's mouth, he had been hit with an image so strong that he didn't even need to relive the memory like he had the first one. It was just there, like a door that was suddenly flung open in his head. His brother, held against a dumpster by a vampire, barely conscious. His own hesitation in wanting to see how it would play out. The satisfaction of seeing a perfect opportunity present itself when the vamp bled into Dean's mouth, smearing its blood over his lips. The complete and utter lack of concern about what that meant for his brother. Yes, he'd been aware of a cure, but trying to get a new vampire to not feed in time to administer it wasn't easy. Dean was strong, though, he had reasoned in purely logical thought, if anyone could beat it he could. And if not? Well then, he would deal with it.

Pulling away from Dean's hand at his head, he tried to disappear, tried to just curl up into himself so he would cease to be. How was he ever going to fix what he'd done? And a more horrifying thought occurred to him; was there worse to come?

Dean felt Sam cringe away and he frowned in helpless despair at his brother's condition. The best thing he could do now was get moving. He swung around and strode into their room, his calm but determined face hiding the turmoil churning in his head. He didn't notice that Sadie had followed him until she spoke.

"Is there anything I can do?" she asked quietly.

Shaking his head, he started to throw their belongings into their duffel bags. "No. Sam's dealing with some stuff right now and it can hit him pretty hard. I just need to get him somewhere he can rest and he'll be good as new." A complete lie, but he was hoping that saying it might make it true.

Sadie watched him for a moment, her eyes filled with concern and indecision. Dean disappeared into the bathroom to grab their toiletries and when he came out, she looked like she still hadn't decided if she was going to spit out what she was obviously chewing on. Dean was running out of patience. What was happening with Sam wasn't her fault, and he didn't want to bite her head off, so he stopped for a moment and looked at her expectantly.

"He'll keep coming after you," she blurted. "He knows you exist now. He's powerful, has eyes all over the world. More than that, he's bored. He'll be excited when he hears how easily the two of you snuffed out his welcoming party and it'll just get harder from here."

"So what are saying? That we'll have succubi on our asses until the end of time?" Dean grated out, returning to packing the duffel bags.

"Possibly. Probably. He doesn't have anything better to do," she answered sadly.

"Well then he just bought himself a ticket on the Winchester Death Train, but I have to deal with Sam first," Dean said, giving the room once last once over before he zipped up the duffels and took them up in his hands.

"It won't be easy," she called after him as he headed back out of the room.

"Nothing ever is," Dean muttered wearily.

Sam was still in the passenger seat, Dean noted with relief, and he wasn't curled up in a ball anymore, but the devastation in his fixed, staring eyes wasn't an improvement. Those eyes flicked to Dean for a moment, then skipped away, but not before Dean saw the guilt and shame in that shell shocked gaze. Yeah, he knew exactly what had come back to Sam and it was one memory that he had been hoping Sam would never get back.

Dean popped open the trunk and set the bags inside, shutting it with a harder slam that necessary. He didn't like taking his tension out on his girl, but he needed to do something. He really didn't want to have the conversation that he knew was waiting for him as soon as he got in the car, not for himself, but because he knew how much this one was tearing Sam up. If their roles had been reversed, Dean knew he would never forgive himself, soulless or not. He just had to convince Sam to let it go, if it was even possible.

"You coming with us?" Dean asked Sadie, who had followed him out to the car. He had accepted that she was going to be in their lives until they sorted this out, but he really wanted some time alone with Sam to help talk his little brother off the ledge.

"Not right away. I need to recharge, so to speak. I'll take care of the mess here and meet back up with you later so we can come up with a plan of attack, assuming you'll still want to go after him once I let you know exactly what you're up against," she warned.

"Oh, I'll want to go after him, I promise you that." Dean pulled out his phone. "What's your number?" As Sadie relayed the digits, Dean programmed it in.

"Okay, we'll get a few hours away then I'll give you a call so you can come meet us," he said. A part of him doubted that she gave him the right number or that she would actually meet up with them again, but a bigger part knew that she would. She had a thing about keeping them safe and knowing that they were in her sire's eyes, she wouldn't abandon them now.

"Sounds good. Be careful, Dean, watch your back," Sadie cautioned.

"Always do," he responded with a sad, watered down version of his usual cocky smile. It was the best he could manage at the moment.

Dean got into the car, slamming the door shut and starting the ignition in one smooth motion. A glance at his brother revealed that Sam was calmer now, his breathing mostly back to normal, only marred by the occasional hitch on a repressed sob. His color was better, but the skin around his eyes was still puffy and red from the tears. He still wouldn't look at Dean. Dean headed them out to the road, pointing towards the freeway. He had no destination in mind, just away from here.

"You want to tell me what that was about?" Dean asked softly. He knew treading lightly was the only way to proceed with his fragile brother.

Sam wasn't sure how to begin. He still couldn't believe Dean was even here, beside him, after what had happened. "I uh..I remembered…" His voice sputtered out, the hot burn of tears starting to flood his eyes again. He felt the urge to fling open the car door and leap out onto the road, let the asphalt shred him up, rip away the layers of flesh so that maybe he could rip out the memories too. Leave the logical, practical side of him that had caused so much pain and trouble broken and bleeding on the shoulder.

"Come on, Sammy, it's all right. I'm not going to jump down your throat for having a memory, at least not right away, okay?" Dean said, trying to keep his tone light.

Watching the scenery fly by out the window as Dean hit the highway and accelerated, Sam couldn't help but see his reflection and he focused in on it, glaring at the eyes glaring back at his. "I let you get turned by that vampire, Dean," he whispered huskily, the words cutting into him like white hot knives.

Dean sighed deeply, nodding as Sam confirmed what he had thought. "It wasn't your fault, Sam. Wasn't you," he said in response.

Sam's head swung around to face him, twisted and contorted with grief and inner rage. "How can you say that, Dean? Of course it was me, it's in my head, it's my memory!" he cried out.

"Because it wasn't you, Sam," Dean said firmly. He was sure Robo-Sam had done some bad shit. He saw some if it first hand and that told him that Sam had spent a year with someone only slightly less sociopathic than himself doing the same awful crap and probably worse. But Dean knew without a doubt, that Sammy, the part that was split from his body, would never have done those things and he refused to let his brother carry that blame if he could help it.

"Yes it was, Dean! I stood there and watched, I was happy about it. God, I was thinking what a good move it was on your part, I wished that I had thought of it sooner," Sam choked out, covering himself with his arms like he was cold, starting to rock slightly in the seat, turning back to the window.

"No, it was half of you and not the better half," Dean insisted, looking over at his broken brother with pained eyes. His fingers tightened on the wheel until the knuckles were white. "You weren't there, Sam, all the stuff that makes you my pain in the ass, care about everyone and everything little brother was still the rope in a tug of war game between Lucifer and Michael. What was up here was just your logic, calculation, and base needs; basically a machine. He had all your memories, but they were just pictures to him. He didn't get the emotion behind it, didn't understand it. Hell, he flat out said he didn't care about me and if there's one thing I know, Sammy, it's that you care about me. So he wasn't you, no way," Dean finished, smiling over at Sam's profile.

Sam's eyes turned back to Dean then, seeing that smile that spoke of love and acceptance, and feeling it on his cold skin like the sun peeking out of the clouds. Dean forgave him, through and through, that was obvious, but Sam didn't think he could forgive himself. Dean had spoken about his soulless self like it was another person, but it wasn't really. It had been him. He could ponder all day the philosophical questions this raised about the soul and its place in making a person who they were, but at the end of the day, it was still him. If it had been someone else, he wouldn't have it in his head, he wouldn't remember his own inner voice reasoning it out. Just like when he'd killed that boy in the bathroom. It was expedient to do it. Just like letting Dean get turned was.

"I'm so sorry, Dean, please know that. I'm so sorry," he whispered brokenly.

"Oh, Sammy," Dean sighed. "This is exactly why I didn't want you poking around. You can't blame yourself for what that dick did. If there's a mess he made and we find out about it, then all right, we'll try and clean it up, but you can't hold yourself accountable. Had you been whole, raised out of hell properly, these things wouldn't have happened, because your soul, your heart, wouldn't let them happen. You had no control over what was going on up here, Sam, and quite frankly, it could have been a lot worse. So, even though I know you aren't going to listen to me, try to let it go, man. If these memories are just going to keep coming, then we're going to have to deal with that, but you have to start with understanding that it wasn't truly you."

He wanted to. He really did. It would hurt so much less if he could take Dean's words and turn them into truth inside his own head, but he couldn't let it go. Not yet. He had done some terrible things over the course of his life, things that he was sure would make Dean turn on him for good, but Dean always stuck with him. Turning him into a vampire for information had to be pretty close to the top of the list, though still below choosing Ruby over him. He hoped he never topped that, because it would be it for them. He was terrified that there was something still buried inside his head that was going to be that breaking point if and when Dean found out about it.

"Did I do anything else to you?" Sam asked in a small voice, hoping against hope that the answer was no. "And please tell me the truth," he begged in an afterthought. "If you say no and I remember something else, then….I'll think there's just more out there, Dean, and I'll keep digging."

Dean could feel Sam compelling him to look over at him, but Dean couldn't face him yet. He was still trying to work out if there was anything else Sam would tear himself up over. There was the fairy thing, but Sam did try to find him out of a sense of duty, it just wasn't done with any urgency or actual worry for Dean. So yeah, that would bother Sam, but Dean didn't see it as nearly on par as the vampire issue. At least he hadn't asked about if he'd done anything to anyone else. He wasn't looking forward to Sam remembering trying to kill Bobby. That was now his new nightmare scenario. He finally looked over at his brother, infusing sincerity into every line of his face.

"That's really it, Sam. I mean, having to be the emotional one in our little duo was strange and uncomfortable, but I figure it was my turn. I needed some practice," he threw out towards Sam with a crooked grin.

What filled Sam wasn't exactly relief, but it was a close cousin. Dean could be lying to him to protect him, but he didn't think so. Dean knew he couldn't handle it if he came across something else and found out that Dean had lied. Right now, he needed to trust him implicitly. He wanted to broaden his question, ask if Dean knew about anything else he'd done, but he just couldn't, not know, because there was a tight feeling inside him that that there was something.

Sam was a mess and he knew that it was just going to get worse, but he knew one thing for certain. He had his brother at his side and he wasn't going anywhere. That was really all he needed at the moment to pull himself together and continue on.

TBC...