Dean opened his eyes to the sound of rain. He parted his parched and bloody lips to catch the water falling down from the black night sky. The rain tasted bitter and unlike anything Dean had ever drunk before. Almost as if the rain was drenched in sulphur. Dean closed his eyes again, and he let the rain cool his face.

Every inch of his body hurt, felt like it'd been ripped apart and then put back together again the wrong way. His skin was burning, his lungs screaming, his mouth dry as if he'd been dead for years. His head felt sore as if all the hair had been pulled out, but when Dean very carefully and very slowly brought his bleeding fingertips to the back of his head, he found the hair was still there. Parts of his body that Dean didn't even know existed pulsated with pain. His ears were ringing with screams so unearthly that Dean couldn't have described them to anyone had he tried.

Dean didn't move for a while; he was oblivious to the rain that kept pouring down on him. He kept very still, afraid to stir, and took in the smell of tar and dirt, a scent that he was fairly sure had been familiar to him once upon a time.

The ground beneath him was hard, his back straightened out on it. With his hands resting at his sides, he curled his fingers into the ground, testing it, feeling it. With the flex of muscles, the ability to move them, he noticed there were no more shackles of fire around his wrists. had left behind burns that still sent white flashes of agony through his body. With the shackles gone, Dean decided to open his eyes one more time.

He was lying on a black stream, under a black sky, with black creatures reaching for the skies. Dean blinked and frowned, wondering what part of Hell he had gotten himself into. He'd been to so many areas that after endless months and years, after burning fires and seas of acid, of months of flogging and more months of being torn into pieces, he had lost count of all the corners of Hell. He never was quite sure whether he'd already been to the place or not.
This though was unlike anything Dean had seen in Hell. Lifting his head from the cool ground, Dean looked up to examine the place. A breeze caressed his cheek, but like the rain it too carried the smell of sulphur. Dean narrowed his eyes. What kind of torture was this supposed to be? Where had they sent him this time?

As the screams in his ears slowly ebbed away, he noticed the quiet. Apart from the soft whispers of the wind, nothing stirred in the dark. Dean lowered his cheek back to the ground again. It was cool and wet, it felt vaguely familiar.

Dean waited for the torture to begin.

But no torture ever came.

There was wind. There was rain, and there was darkness.

After a while, Dean opened his eyes once more. The sky had adapted a very deep grey instead of the complete black, and it was now lined with shapes that looked like clouds. The black stream was still there, leading into the vast distance. As Dean squinted, he realised the stream was a road. He was lying on a road. And the creatures he had seen earlier reaching into the sky were actually leafless trees.

Dean's heart leaped; he didn’t know his heart could still do that. What was going on? What sort of agony was this going to bring? Eventually, Dean rolled over and onto his knees. He bit his lip hard to suppress a cry as the pain shot through him like a thunderbolt. Tiny stones pierced into Dean's sore palms. He pushed himself up, surprised that his aching legs supported his weight. For a moment, he stood unsteadily, allowing himself to regain his sense of balance and feeling the cool tar under his bare feet.

Dean turned around. There was nothing here. Just barren wasteland. A road was covered in deep, fringed holes. There were cracks everywhere. Cracks in the road. Cracks in the earth around him. In the distance, Dean spotted the ruins of what once might have been a small town. The sky was dark as in early dawn.

No bird broke the silence. No rumbling of a car’s engine in the distance. Not a sound was to be heard. The world looked as if it'd been wrecked by a war.

Shivering, Dean pulled the remains of his shirt closer. His torso screamed as the rough fabric touched the sore skin. Dean ignored it. With pain such as this, so small and insignificant in comparison to everything else he had suffered, he had learned to ignore it. Ignore and endure.
Biting his lip again, Dean put one foot before the other to test the road. To test his feet. To test whether he was bound to the spot or whether he could leave it. He could. Dean took another step and another, until he found himself walking in unsteady, stiff steps. He passed street signs fallen over and ripped from the earth. He saw remains of rotting cattle. Cars had been abandoned by the side of the road. Exposed to the weather, they were rusting and coming undone. Houses with empty windows examined Dean as he walked past.

Not once did he encounter a single living thing, or a sign that not everything in this world was dead yet.

After a few minutes, his knees began to buckle. Dean caught himself and pushed himself back up, but his legs were trembling, losing strength rapidly. His chest seemed to explode under the drumming of his heart. Black dots began to dance in front of his eyes.

His body formed one beaten and aching entity. The throbbing behind his forehead resounded in the stillness around him. Dean held his head, wincing as the sudden movement caused another wave of sharp pain to flare up.

He was alone. He wouldn't find anybody. There was nothing here. In that moment, Dean understood why the demons, why Lilith, had sent him to this place. They must have saved the worst part of Hell for him for last. He wondered briefly if they'd send him somewhere else after this, but he had a feeling he'd reached his final destination. Alone in a burned, dead wasteland. Dean's mouth formed a bitter smile.

Then something caught his attention. In the distance, in between the creature-shaped trees, Dean thought he saw some lights. As if coming from a house, or some inhibited place at least, there were a few of them, sending a beacon out into the dark.

Dean mustered up his last strength, and dragged himself forward.

He managed to get near enough to have a better look at the place that was sending out the lights. Like a fortress of stone, the front of what once must have been a big cathedral rose up into the sky. From its windows, a warm golden light shone out into the dark. Planks were covering the spot that once must have been a colourful glass window above the entrance.
Dean frowned. His breath came in laboured rasps now, as his heart was asking for more air than he could give. He sunk to his knees, his hands crawling in the soil beneath him. A foul smell rose up to him. Dean grimaced but didn't have the strength to get back on his feet. The reek floated into his nostrils. An all too familiar smell. His stomach cramped, but there was nothing in it that Dean could have thrown up.

He glanced up to the lights once more. They promised warmth and rest. Maybe, Dean thought before he closed his eyes and collapsed to the muddy ground, this part of Hell was exactly about that. Never reaching the safe harbour. Always being doomed to reach but never touch.
The rain and mud had drenched what remained of his clothes. He began to shiver with cold. He thought of the lights, and the darkness took him.



“Bobby,” the boy said, crossing his arms before his chest.

Bobby glanced up from the rifles he'd taken apart to clean. He still thought of him as a boy, Bobby realised, even though Michael was quite past that by now. Like all children who'd come to see these times, Michael had had to grow up into a young man fast. The hair that had once reached to his chin was cut short. A scar drew itself over his chin. He had a rifle shouldered, and he was looking at Bobby expectantly.

“Yeah?” Bobby said.

“One of the guards thought they saw something. I offered to check it out. You gonna come?”
Bobby sighed and rubbed his temple. The expression on Michael's face was too hard, too old for his age. He looked like everybody in camp did: worn and tired of war. Bobby glanced at him and tried to find the cheeky boy Dean had told him about once upon a time, but the boy inside was gone. He’d been gone for a long time now.

“Sure.” Bobby put his tools aside, grabbed his shotgun and rose.

They squeezed through the narrow aisle, moved around boxes with blankets and tools, greeted three men that were sitting around an open fire melting silver into bullets, and stepped outside.

A soft wind was blowing, stirring up the smell of decay and death. Gazing up to the sky, Bobby thought that for one brief moment, he saw a star shining through the thick storm clouds. He smiled. At least the stars were still there, even though they rarely saw them all the way down here. Somehow, that was a comforting thought, knowing that the stars hadn’t died alongside everything else.

They made their way through the camp and crossed the small bridge. When they'd reached the other side, Bobby stopped and turned to Michael.

“Where did the guard see it?”

Michael frowned and gestured to a group of dead trees a little distance away. “Over there.”
“Right. Let's go then. Be on your guard.”

The way would have taken them only a few minutes, but since they had to be on the lookout for an ambush and place their steps with care, they reached the trees in nearly triple the normal amount of time. A few yards from the trees they halted and listened for crackling, suspicious rustling or the weird metal sound that arose these days every time a demon neared. When everything kept perfectly quiet, Bobby narrowed his eyes and scanned the area around the trees. They hadn't carried leaves or even seeds in a very long time, and their trunks were ashen.
Bobby looked, but he couldn't spot any movement. Beside him, Michael made a step forward. He squinted his eyes.

“Do you see that?” He waved his hand, gesturing, and stretched his neck.

“What?” Bobby asked. All he could see was dark soil and dark trees. Nothing that would have suggested that someone or something was hiding in the dark.

“I don't know exactly,” Michael replied. He made another careful step and brought his hand to his forehead to see better. “But I definitely think there is something.”

Bobby caught up to him and looked again. Long. Focused. Then he saw it too. There was a figure curled up on the ground. Not much more than a shadow caught in a shadow. But it was there.

“Another refugee, you think?” Michael asked. The tone in his voice, the lack of compassion, made Bobby wince. The war had taken its toll on all of them. And some of them had seen it all even before they were old enough to hold a rifle.

“Can't say,” Bobby replied. “Could be a trap too. We must be careful.”

As they approached, the figure took the shape of a human lying on the ground. It was a man, Bobby noticed, with all his clothes torn to shreds and splattered in blood. There were nasty red and blue bruises, cuts and rashes on every bit of skin that Bobby could see.

He didn't look much different than most of the refugees Bobby had seen in his time. The guy must have come a long way, Bobby guessed. Maybe he'd heard of the camp, and his strength had expired just before he could reach safety.

Bobby nodded to Michael and took a deep breath. As he knelt down beside the man to check for life signs, Michael lifted his rifle and moved his index finger to the trigger. In the dark, his face was all lines and the deep shadows.

Bobby brought his hand to the man's shoulder and turned him onto his back. The man’s face became visible in the twilight, and Bobby gasped, flinched and lost his balance. He landed on his back, just to be on his knees a heartbeat later. Despite all the training, Michael lowered his rifle and stared. Disbelief painted his eyes.

“Oh no,” he whispered. “It can’t be.”

Bobby just shook his head, blinking. It was impossible.

Dean Winchester lay by his knees. Beaten, bloody, wounded and clothed in rags, but Bobby would have recognised the boy's face in whatever state. His heart jumped against his chest.
A trap. It had to be a trap.

“It's not him...is it?” For the first time in a very long time, Michael sounded his age. Just another confused and scared boy in this big, wide world.

Bobby pulled up his shoulders. “I don't know, kid.”

“It's gotta be a trap,” Michael continued. “I mean, it has to be.”

With a nod, Bobby pulled a bottle of Holy Water from the pocket of his jacket. He poured some of it in his hand and sprinkled it over Dean's face and torso. Every muscle in his body was tense, every heartbeat expecting for Dean to open black, lifeless eyes. He'd long ago stopped wondering at the sick kind of tricks that demons loved to play on them. He wouldn't walk into this one blindly. After all, they'd buried Dean Winchester four years ago.

When Dean didn't stir at the touch of the Holy Water, Bobby spoke some incantations that commanded demons to reveal themselves. Again nothing happened. Bobby's heart leapt again--this time into his mouth. His hand trembled as he grabbed the silver knife and cut Dean's arm—an arm covered in scars and rashes and burns—half expecting to find Dean's fingers around his throat the next moment.

But Dean showed no reaction. A frown ghosted over his face, indicating for just a moment that there was still life in him. But it wasn't a demonic response to the silver; it was just a natural reaction to pain.

The knife still in his hand, Bobby stared. Tried to grab one of the thoughts swirling in his mind and hold it tight. He couldn't. There were a million things going through his mind at the same time. And still his head felt void of any words.

It made no sense. It couldn't be.

“What does that mean?” Michael's voice cut through the fog of thoughts.

“I think,” Bobby replied slowly, “this might be really Dean.”

Bobby lifted Dean's limp body to his shoulder to carry him to the camp. Michael, eyes flickering nervously in the dark, kept his finger on the trigger of his gun. He walked behind Bobby, who wouldn't be able to reach for a weapon in the case of an attack. They were exposed and vulnerable, as they were three men of which only one could react quickly if demons should come over them. Michael's face showed no emotion, just tension. They hastened back as quickly as the additional weight on Bobby's shoulders would allow him.

Bobby could feel the hair in his neck standing up. He heard a rustle, and Michael, hearing it too, whipped around. He gazed into the darkness for a moment, as if he could see through it by sheer force of will. He shook his head briefly when he couldn't detect any danger, and the men moved on. Still, Bobby couldn't shake the feeling they were being watched.

They only slowed down after they'd crossed the bridge. Dozens of curious eyes examined them, focused on the unconscious man over Bobby's broad shoulders. No one asked, and neither Bobby nor Michael stopped to explain.

As they stepped into the church, Bobby released a deep sigh, before he gestured to Michael with a nod to follow him to Sam's quarters.

The small room—if one could call it room without a roof and a curtain as a substitute door—was empty as they entered. Sam was out, doing a patrol with other hunters. His bed was unmade, an empty plate still on the nightstand that also functioned as a table. Clothes, ripped and mended as everyone's clothes were, hung over the only chair. The trunk by the end of the bed held Sam's possessions, which were a few clothes and memorabilia he'd managed to save.

Bobby lowered Dean onto the bed. Dean didn't wake.

Michael brought a candle for some light. In the flickering shadows, Dean's face was nothing but sharp lines and angles. It looked like it was patched up of blue and black bruises, and red cuts that formed a ghastly spider-web across his cheeks. Bobby swallowed hard. He didn't even have to look at the rest of Dean's body to know that the healing process would take long. He didn't even want to think about what kind of endless tortures the broken body before him must have endured.

When his stomach cramped and turned over, Bobby muttered something about getting the medicine kit and ordered Michael to stay with Dean.

Michael eased down on the chair, lips tight and eyes on Dean. He shook his head as if he couldn't believe that this was the same guy who had once saved his brother.



There was a heavy lock on the door to the storage room, and only very few people—including Bobby--had a key. Medicine had quickly become the currency to get around. More than once they'd bought information from travellers and moles for a few painkillers. More than once refugees had bought passage over the bridge even though the safe part of camp was already too crowded.

Sam had ordered that medication was only to be used in an absolute emergency a while ago. They were running short on the stuff, especially on painkillers and antibiotics, and they needed it to patch up the hunters and, in bad cases, new refugees. Bobby decided that Dean's state qualified as an emergency. He needed morphine, fast, and something for the fever.

Food would probably be helpful as well. But they'd take care of that later. Water would have to do for now.

The storage room had once been the room where the priest would get dressed for mass. It was one of the few rooms that could be locked, and it functioned simultaneously as the storage room for medication and the storage room for weapons. The food was kept in the former crypt beneath the ground, where it was cool and the air smelled less rotten.

Bobby and the others had painted the walls with devil's traps and symbols, and filled up the windows with bricks and concrete. Iron pipes ran along the skirting. This room was not quite as safe as the panic room in Bobby's old house, but it came close. Boxes and boxes filled the shelves and sat on the ground in piles reaching to the ceiling. So far their supplies looked good, but the factories didn't produce any more pills and tinctures, and so the stocks in this room formed all the medicine they would have on hand in the years to come. Bobby reached for a bottle and shook out some antibiotic pills in his palm. Then he grabbed a syringe with morphine. He locked the door and shook the doorknob to make sure no one could get in.

When he returned, a small group of spectators had assembled around Sam’s quarters. To his relief, Bobby found that the red curtain was drawn close, making looking inside impossible. He heard their muttered words and whispers as they tried to give educated guesses and passed on rumours of what was going on. Of course Bobby and Michael's find had raised suspicion. It wasn’t that they'd brought in another wounded survivor. It was that they'd brought him into Sam's room. Bobby doubted though that any of them suspected the refugee to be Dean Winchester. They probably thought it was friend of Sam's, a hunter or an important spy returning from a mission gone badly.

The people stopped talking and turned to Bobby as he moved through the group.

“Who is it?” a woman asked. Bobby glanced up into her scarred face and shrugged.

“Nobody of importance.”

“Then why did you bring him in here?” said a man with just one leg and leaning on a crutch.
Bobby did not reply. Sam should find out first. Then they'd decide how to deal with the situation.

He spotted a blonde woman with her hair cut short standing by the entrance of the church. Watching the group of people closely, she ran a hand through her hair, and upon seeing Bobby she greeted him with a small nod.

Bobby gestured for her to come over. There was a limp in her walk as she approached.

“Layla,” Bobby said. “I'll need your help.”

Layla smiled. Bobby didn't know how, after all she'd been through, she still managed to put on a warm smile like that.

“Sure,” she replied. They lifted the curtain up just enough to slide through, before Bobby let it go and tied it back to the iron ring in the stone tiles. The group behind Bobby moved like one big, living being as they tried to catch a glimpse of what was going on behind closed curtains. A disappointed mutter went through the crowd when Bobby blocked their sight just long enough until the curtain was drawn back safe.

He turned around and saw Layla standing in front of the bed, hands folded and her face a mixture of pity and disbelief.

“Layla,” Bobby began, fumbling for words.

She looked at him, frowning. “Is this...?”

Bobby glanced past her at Michael, who was still sitting on the chair with the rifle resting against his leg. “We don't know. It might be. We've run all the tests, but none of them said it was a demon. From all we know, it's...him.”

Layla, who had never lost her faith in miracles, nodded. She sunk to her knees, sliding closer until she could reach Dean's hand. Gently, she took his bruised hand into her own. “What did they do to you?” she asked. Her voice was void of surprise at the extent of Dean's injuries. Then, addressing Bobby and suddenly sounding quite different, she asked, “What can I do?”

Layla had quickly adapted the role of the nurse in camp—she'd never been trained to do it, nor officially been appointed the job. But she was always there when there was need of a helping hand, of kind words or gentle comfort. Her mother hadn't survived the first year of war, and it sometimes felt like Layla was trying to fill her loneliness and mend the pain by easing that of others.

“Help me give him the medicine and make him drink some water. Michael--” Michael, apparently lost in thought, whipped his head around. “Michael, make sure nobody gets in here, all right?”

With a nod, Michael rose to his feet and shuffled over to the curtain. Leaning against the planks and slabs that built the wooden wall, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
Dean fought the pills like they were poison, and who knew, Bobby thought, what he'd been through at that unspeakable place. Maybe it'd been a lesson well-learned. When Bobby got the syringe ready and pricked the needle into Dean's arm, Dean's eyes fluttered open. His gaze flickered from the ceiling to the walls to Layla until it finally fixed on Bobby. Recognition surfaced through Dean's clouded eyes. A frown furrowed his brows. Bobby smiled, but Dean just stared, hair damp and skin clammy with cold sweat, before he sunk into oblivion.

Layla grabbed a blanket from Sam's trunk and tucked Dean in. He looked horrible. Bandaging all the wounds would take a while. It would also require a lot of antiseptic and bandages.

“Is Angela around?” Bobby asked.

“She went on patrol with Sam,” Layla replied, shaking her head.

Angela was Sam's second in command. Shortly after they’d found the church, she'd shown up on the doorstep one day, a blonde girl barely seventeen or eighteen years of age. She’d been bleeding, dirt on her face and her hair wild, a blanket around her shoulders. She'd never talked about her past, but she'd learned fast how to handle weapons, how to interrogate moles, how to run a camp. She was as tough as Michael was, with little compassion to share and revenge and thirst for blood in her heart.

“No one must know Dean's here,” Bobby said, looking from Layla to Michael.

They both nodded.



The hunters returned to the church in one piece, so as far as Sam was concerned, the patrol had been a successful one. Georgia was limping, but it was an old injury and something she would keep for the rest of her life. She'd escaped a werewolf's fangs two years ago by jumping off a rooftop and into a stinking river, and she had wrecked her knee that day. Hunters had patched her up as best as they could, and she'd been very lucky to keep the leg at all.

“Get some rest, all of you,” Sam said as the group passed him by. Susannah, Jones, Rick, and Georgia. They all looked equally beaten, the rifles too big in their hands. None of them had been a hunter before the war; only Susannah, a former police officer, had known how to use a weapon. Sam saw a few nods. They moved on, each to their quarters.

An assortment of all shapes and sizes of tents spread around the church like a little village. Back to back, the tents pressed together, filling out almost every free inch of ground within the safe zone. The little paths between the tents were barely wide enough for a grown man to sneak through.

Just as Sam reached the entrance to the church, Angela caught up with him. Her hair was bound in a tight pony tail. A necklace with a devil's trap hung from her neck. She wore a man's jacket that was two sizes too big for her. As always, dirt covered her cheeks.

“Things have been quiet,” she said, not waiting for a greeting.

Sam wiped his forehead with his arm. “Yeah.”

“It's like they're waiting for something. Like the quiet before the storm.”

Sam didn't know whether to agree or not. All Angela ever talked about was the war, the next battle, about attacks and traps and demons. There wasn't much to life besides that these days, but the way she embraced her life as a soldier sometimes left him uneasy. Maybe because it reminded him of Dean.

Sam didn't always want to talk about these things. He hated how everybody looked at him as if he had the answers to each and every peril. He looked around and all that he saw was misery, blood and death. When he saw it. Mostly though, he didn't even anymore.

He was tired, though, of all of this. He wanted to go somewhere; he wanted to leave all this behind and have a moment for himself. But there was nowhere to go. The world beyond the walls offered nothing but ashes and death. This here, this sanctuary, was one of the few places left where a person could feel relatively safe, close their eyes for a moment and not fear that they'd be skinned alive by a demon the next second.

Suck it up, Winchester, Sam told himself. This is not the place or time to be a sissy. You should be thankful that you’re still alive.

Angela waited for an answer, as if whatever Sam would have to say on the matter would decide its true colour. Sam rubbed his temple and shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

To be honest he did think that the quiet was suspicious, but for once he just wanted to keep that idea to himself. As soon as he said something out loud, the news spread, turned to rumours and whispers, and even more, it forced him to act on the matter. Everybody expected him to do something, even when Sam had no idea what needed to be done.

“You think we should send out more patrols? Reinforce our defences?” She sounded so fucking eager.

Her voice sent little waves of pain through his forehead. His legs seemed leaden, and his back was aching. He needed a round of sleep. Maybe things would look less grim then. That was it. He just needed a nap.

“Let's talk about this later, Angela.”

The lines in her face formed an expression of disappointment. She opened her mouth as if to protest, before she accepted Sam's words with a nod. She brushed past him with a smirk and wandered off to her quarters.

She'd been one of the first refugees to join the camp, back when they'd been a group of no more than six or seven hunters. As a result, her quarters were inside the church. She shared it with another refugee, a woman her age named Kim who only had one eye.

Sam watched Angela vanish in between makeshift walls of planks and boards, trunks and people who stood in the narrow aisles to have a conversation. They were talking in muttered voices. Every now and then, one would notice Sam standing by the entrance. A moment later, heads would turn and glances would be exchanged before they brought their heads together again.

Sam sighed and felt the throbbing behind his eyes worsening. Break. He needed a break, just for a few hours. Chances were someone would wake him in less than two hours anyway for a report of dead bodies that had been found, for an inspection, or to settle a minor quarrel between the refugees.

He wondered what Dean would have had to say if he'd seen his little brother like this. The leader of a resistance, ordering patrols and troops as if he himself was a goddamn soldier. But he was, wasn't he? Nothing else was left of him. Every other piece of humanity stripped away.
Christ, Winchester, stop the crap. He shook his head as if to lose the thoughts that were spinning in his head, and he made for his quarters. He barely managed to lift his feet off the ground. His bones felt like they were rotting away under his skin.

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. Enough. Sleep.

His quarters were the first on the left side, right behind that free space where they kept trunks of spare blankets and spare clothing. He didn't have to share his quarters with anybody, and at least that was something. Not that he ever spent much time in here anyway.

He pulled the curtain aside. Rather, he tried to pull it aside. It was tied to the wall from the inside, which meant that someone was in his quarters. Rolling his eyes and with anger boiling up his insides, Sam lifted the curtain—only to find that it was tied to the ground as well—and squeezed past it. Damn these fucking morons, couldn't they ever respect his privacy—
He rose to full height and saw that it was Michael inside his room. Michael was sitting by the bedside, rifle leaning against his leg as if he was keeping watch. He looked dumbfounded to see Sam entering. Faintly, Sam heard Bobby call his name.

Then he saw the person on the bed, and his stomach flopped upside down.

It was Dean. A beaten to Hell, broken and feverish version of Dean. No, it couldn't be Dean, Sam quickly ordered himself to reason. Dean was dead. Had been for four years. Dean was burning in Hell. This wasn't Dean.

His surprise turned into rage within the blink of an eye. Suddenly, a white flash of mindless hatred flared up in his body, piercing every last fibre of his being. He curled his fists to knuckles, until his fingernails left bleeding cuts in his palms. Blood pounded in his head. The only thought left in his head yelled at him, how could he let that creature live pretending to be his brother? How did it dare to come here looking like Dean?

Sam never quite remembered what happened after he'd finished that thought. One moment he was staring at the thing, the next he found himself placing his hands around its throat and squeezing.

He heard himself yelling, “Traitor! Liar! How dare you?” He heard someone call his name. Bobby? Bobby sounded frightened. Sam squeezed harder, and the creature's eyes widened in shock, green eyes just like Dean's. It was croaking and choking, making pathetic sounds that only made Sam tighten his grip more. The thing's hand yanked up to touch Sam's wrist, but Sam just smiled, and then barked again, “You son of a bitch! I'm going to kill you!”

Tears welling up and heat rushing through his body, Sam shouted and squeezed. He felt the creature’s pulse hammering against his palms and its breathing becoming fainter. He'd kill it. He'd show it how to suffer. He'd fucking kill the bastard.

Suddenly, strong arms wrapped around his chest and pulled him away. His hands slipped from the creature's throat, and it sunk back into the pillow, gasping for air.

Sam struggled against the grip, yelled to get the fuck off him, and saw Michael rushing to the creature's side to check on it.

“Kill it!” Sam screamed. “Kill it!”

Then a fist crashed against his chin. Sam tumbled backwards, and the voices in his head fell silent for a moment. Instead, he heard Bobby's voice.

“Sam!”

Bobby must have been talking to him for quite a while, but Sam hadn't heard it. It was Bobby's arms that had pulled him off, Bobby's voice that called him to calm down.

“What are you doing?” Sam breathed. He stopped trying to wriggle himself out of the grip, and the hold loosened a little even if Bobby didn't withdraw his arms completely.

“What the fuck are you doing? Why did you bring that thing in?” Sam yelled.

His voice sounded different. So different that for a moment Sam thought somebody else was talking.

“Sam,” Bobby said in that quiet tone of his. Michael’s eyes were now fixed on Sam; the kid was chewing his lip nervously. As if he was waiting for a bomb to drop.

“Sam, we think it might be really Dean. That's why we brought him here.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Sam replied, catching his breath. He avoided looking at the thing in his bed. He couldn't bear seeing his brother's face on a goddamn shapeshifter. He wanted to burst out of Bobby's grip and finish the son of a bitch off for good.

“Sam--”

“Dean's dead,” Sam snarled. “You know it. You were there.”

“Yes.” Bobby's voice had gone very soft, and instantly Sam felt sorry for bringing that memory up. He remembered Bobby cradling Dean in his arms, crying as if he'd lost a son.

It was one of the last memories Sam had kept from before Hell had broken loose.

“Yes,” Bobby repeated, with more emphasis this time. “But Michael and I have run every possible test that we could think off. And what it comes down to is this—either that's your brother, or all our incantations and protective spells don't work. Personally, I'd risk giving version one a shot.”

Slowly, Sam lifted his eyes from the ground to look at the person lying in his bed. He saw an emaciated body, seemingly made of bruises and rashes. A leg that seemed to have been broken and not fixed right. A gaunt, pale face glistening with sweat. Scared and glassy eyes glancing at him. Faint freckles splattered across his face. Hair covered in so much dirt it had turned black.

Wounds everywhere. But underneath that...

Sam’s legs turned into a wobbly mass as the realisation settled in that maybe, just perhaps, it really was Dean he was seeing before him. His big brother who'd died and gone to Hell four years prior to this day.

“It can't be,” Sam whispered.

Bobby placed his hand on Sam's back, between the shoulder blades.

“I guess it can,” Bobby said.

“But...” Sam was lost for words. He wanted to ask questions, to bring up reasons why it couldn't be Dean, wanted to argue his way out of the situation, but he couldn't. He felt like he was strung up in the air, with words swirling around him that he just couldn't reach, let alone hold on to.

The world began to keel over. Sam tripped, but Bobby's hands—one still on his back, the other now gripping Sam's arm--kept him on his feet.

Sam shook his head. “It makes no sense. Even if his soul could escape Hell, he'd have no body.”
“I know,” Bobby nodded.

“Only a demon can do that.”

“I know that too.”

Sam glanced at—was it really Dean? Could it be? His heart skipped a beat.

“So where does that leave us?” Sam asked, voice low. It was one of the few times in a long while that he felt he was able to ask a question without receiving an odd glance from someone. He figured that it was because Bobby never expected Sam to know the answers to everything.

Bobby was the only one left who knew that Sam was not a saviour, not a born leader. Bobby was the only person in the entire wasted world who had watched Sam grow up, who remembered him as the geeky little kid with no intention of ever becoming a hunter. But Bobby too was getting older, his reflexes slower and his health worse. The other winter, he'd caught the flu and the cough had never really gone away. When Bobby died, Sam once realised, there'd be no one from his life before.

Except perhaps Dean. If it really was Dean.

“I have no idea, kid,” Bobby replied.

Somehow, that felt reassuring.



He'd heard bits and pieces of the whispered conversation through the thick brick wall and three rows of tents.

Dean Winchester was alive, they'd said.

Only a demon could have brought his rotten body back, they'd said. That was true. Lilith had made sure that none of the souls in her keep could make it out of the Gates, even though they now stood wide open.

He shifted on the mattress and pretended to be asleep. He didn't need sleep, but he couldn't risk anyone finding out. Least of all the two men he was sharing the tent with.

The question wasn't whether Dean Winchester was back, but why.



The floor was hard and cold, but Sam had learned to endure it. The big stone squares didn't save any warmth, not even in summer. Not that there'd been much of a summer for the past four years.

Sam stretched, leaning his back against the wooden frame of his bed. The frame poked in between his shoulder blades, but Sam barely noticed it. His arms crossed before his chest and his legs stretched out so that they almost touched the wooden wall, Sam waited. Listened.

Dean had fallen back asleep quickly after Sam had almost choked him to death. Sam still refused to think of the person as his brother, but for lack of a better word he referred to him as Dean for now. Whatever the case, Dean was sleeping, his low breath rattling in the relative stillness of the camp. Sam closed his eyes, and his chin sunk to his chest.

It couldn't be Dean, Sam told himself. Because Dean didn't exist in this newfound world that Sam had come to see. A world in which demons formed armies, werewolves founded settlements in villages and vampires took entire districts, packs of hellhounds howled in the night and Lilith was their queen, reigning over them all. A world shaped by a war so horrible that God had sent his army, too, angels and archangels. But their side had lost, and it'd been a loss with bloodbaths among the humans and angels alike.

The reign of the demons had wiped out most of the population within a few months. Sam had heard of more refugee camps than this one, and he'd also heard stories about how demons and werewolves had ambushed them at night. No seals and symbols could hold them off.

All that Sam could hope was that their defence would hold, once it came down to it. And an ambush would happen. They all knew it. Every survivor had seen what the war had done, as most of them had suffered at the demons' hands.

The angels too were gone. Lilith's army had slaughtered them, and they set a price on the last few remaining angels that might have made it out alive. The demons hated the angels more than they hated the humans.

Sam stretched his legs a bit more, and the joints crackled. Dean couldn't be back. It was all just a question of finding out what was going on, and then doing something about it.

The pattern in Dean's breathing changed, quickened. Sheets rustled. Sam's eyes snapped open, and he turned his head to find Dean awake and looking at him. A frown drew lines across his pale face. He seemed just as confused as Sam.

Sam swallowed a lump in his throat.

“Hello,” he said. He didn't know what else to say, and he didn't know whether to be friendly with this man that looked like Dean or not. Because what if it was Dean after all? But it wasn't. It couldn't be.

Dean's frown deepened. His hand made a movement as if it was reaching for something instinctively, maybe a weapon, but all it gripped was thin air. When Dean realised this, his hand sunk back on the blanket. He looked so beaten, so weak that the lump in Sam's throat returned regardless of whether this was or wasn't his brother. No one deserved to go through whatever this man had been through.

It seemed as if there wasn't an inch of the man's body that wasn't injured somehow. Violet bruises stood out against black scabs and red rashes. Some of the wounds were infected, some of them barely healed. Sam understood that Bobby had given Dean painkillers, but he marvelled at how the man did not scream and howl in pain. The pills probably didn't do much besides taking the edge off the pain, and the agony that remained had to be agony beyond everything Sam could imagine. But Dean didn't whimper, didn't groan or scream. He remained silent, biting his lip, as if he didn't even notice his body was aching anymore.

He looked at Sam with his hands in fists and his knuckles white. He seemed terrified. Absolutely terrified.

Deciding that silence wouldn't get them anywhere, Sam cleared his throat. “You, uh—need anything?”

Fuck, this was weird. Just when he’d thought the world couldn't possibly get any freakier.
Dean stared, face frozen. Sam rolled his shoulders and straightened his back. “Are you in pain? Sorry about that but I really can't give you more painkillers, they're rationed and...”

More confusion. Sam's voice trailed off, and he cleared his throat again. Underneath his shirt, Dean's old amulet suddenly felt heavy around his neck. The string cutting into his flesh, Sam unconsciously grabbed the cord to ease the pain. When he glanced back at Dean, there was a curious expression in Dean's eyes. Sam let go of the amulet. He damn sure wasn't giving his most treasured possession to this man, whoever he was.

Dean's features immediately shifted back to the blank expression from before.
Shit, he looked like he shouldn't even be alive anymore.

Sam opened his mouth to add that Dean should get some more sleep, when Michael popped his head in.

“Sam?”

Sam's head whipped around.

“There's been another attack. They slaughtered one of our patrols.”

Michael averted his eyes from Sam and glanced at Dean. His eyes narrowed just enough to suggest that he wasn't fully convinced this was Dean either.

Sam nodded towards Dean. “Right. Can you get Layla?” Sam nodded towards Dean. “We can't leave him alone.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Michael's head disappeared behind the curtain again. Sam turned to Dean with an apologetic shrug. “Sorry buddy, work calls.”

Sam could have sworn that if Dean's eyes asked what the fuck was going on. His brows in a deep frown, his teeth clenched, he seemed to be preparing himself to jump the fence. He reminded Sam of a cornered animal. Shit.

He didn't have time for this.

As Layla entered his quarters, Sam rose and tried to straighten his t-shirt a bit. Not that it really mattered. All Sam's clothes were old, had been torn and patched back together multiple times. Old blood splatters decorated the area around his neck. His jeans had been hastily stitched back together again so much that they looked like a creature from Frankenstein's lab.
Sam ran a hand through his hair, his fingertips gently rubbing over the fresh scar. He'd fallen, hard, a couple of months ago. The head wound hadn't been too extensive, and Sam faintly remembered Bobby filling him up with liquor while Layla performed the surgery. The injury was healing fine.

He didn't look back as he left his quarters. He'd learned to never look back.



Sam was late, but they couldn't start a meeting without him. A tent near the entrance of the church served as the headquarters as well as the conference room. The wind had picked up, and a breeze shot over Sam's head as he stepped outside the church. The green fabric of the headquarters tent sighed under the upcoming storm. Everywhere, refugees were trying to tighten the ropes of their tents and gather their belongings to bring them inside. Mothers called for their children to come home and join them in the relative safety of the tent. Sam rubbed his chin and glanced up to the sky. Sometimes he could tell if it was going to be a bad storm; he could smell it. Today, he couldn't.

He entered the tent and tied the flap of a door closed behind him. The inside was dark but for the old oil-lamp drowning the tent in sickly, yellow light. Bobby, Angela and Monica were only shapes and shadows. Ghost faces in the dark.

Sam shoved his hands into his pockets. Angela and Monica looked at him expectantly.

“So...” Sam started off, since nobody was going to do it for him. “Michael tells me that demons attacked another patrol?”

At least one patrol was always out there. After all, dozens or even hundreds of survivors, hurt and frightened, still wandered across these wastelands, hiding in abandoned towns. Sam wanted them all to be found, if they were near at least. By now, most survivors only travelled to reach one of the refugee camps. When they reached the nearby ghost towns, after thousands of miles of walking, they usually broke down of starvation and thirst to rest there. Some of them never found the strength again to move on, and they let death take them.

The patrol’s main task was to find these potential new refugees before it was too late. Sometimes nobody came for months, and then it was a dozen of people within two weeks. The patrol's second task was to check for any change, any possible sign that an attack was to be expected. Task number three was checking the traps.

Monica, a woman a bit younger than Bobby with her red curls cut short, nodded. “Yes. They were ambushed by a bunch of vampires two miles west of here.”

“Survivors?”

“Three. They've been taken to the infirmary and are closely monitored for signs of transformation.”

“Looks like the quiet has ended.” Angela shot Sam a meaningful glance, but Sam ignored it.

“How many vampires?”

“Twenty at least.”

Fuck. Those hordes were getting bigger and bigger too.

“Did our people kill any?”

“Only three or four.”

“What do you suppose that means?” Angela squared her shoulders. In the dim light, the features on her face seemed harder than ever.

“Could be nothing.” Sam crossed his arms over his chest, stroking his chin with his left hand.
“But if it was something?” Angela asked.

Sometimes Sam wondered whether it could be arranged for Angela to be stripped of her weapons and duties for a while. Her attitude couldn't be healthy, that eagerness for war and strategy and the need to hear all the answers coming from Sam's mouth. At times, it felt like she didn't really have a mind of her own. He couldn't imagine what she must have been like before the war. He tried to picture her as a college student and failed.

“They've been so very quiet,” Angela prompted. “I don't think those vampires just attacked for the heck of it. Something must have happened. Maybe the quiet is over.”

Sam and Bobby exchanged a quick glance. It didn't go by unnoticed.

Monica's gaze went from Sam to Bobby.

“What?”

A muscle in Sam's cheek twitched. It brought Angela on track.

“It's about that mystery person in your quarters, right?”

Sam said nothing. He didn't want to say, not until he knew what was going on. But he couldn't not tell his best people, since they deserved to know exactly as much as Sam did if they wanted to keep the camp safe together.

“It's my brother Dean. The guy they brought to my quarters.”

They stared at him, speechless and eyes wide. Only Bobby was not lost to the shock, as he gave Sam a look as if he wasn't sure telling Angela and Monica was a good idea. When Sam returned the look, Bobby averted his eyes and brought his fist to his chin, as if lost in thought.
Monica's jaw dropped an inch. She glanced at Angela, who raised her chin and placed her hands on her hip.

“I thought your brother was dead?”

“He is.” Sam scratched the back of his head, trying to catch a glimpse at Bobby's face for support. But Bobby avoided his look. “I don't know what's going on. I expect you two to keep this a secret until we know more. There are enough rumours going around as it is.” He paused and unconsciously lowered his voice a little. “Michael and Bobby found him just outside of camp.”

“How convenient.” There was a challenge in Angela's voice.

Sam squared his shoulders. “You got something to say, Angela?”

She seemed to shrink in size under Sam's tone, and she shrugged. “Just, it’s obviously not your brother.”

“I'm aware of that.”

Bobby looked up, his brows furrowed, but he said nothing.

“Then why are you helping him?”

Sam ran a hand over his face. The fatigue had returned—or was it ever gone?--and he longed to be in his bed, to be asleep.

“To find out, Angela.” He sighed.

Angela pursed her lips. She didn't look entirely convinced, but she was smart enough to remain silent. Silence draped a cloak of awkwardness over them. Bobby shuffled his feet, moving closer to the entrance of the tent. Outside the storm was getting stronger, howling around the corners of the tents and the church. Planks creaked under the force of the wind.

The camp was in for a hard night. All they could do now was hope that the storm wouldn't rage too much and that all damages would be repairable. Collecting wood that could be used to build walls and roof was getting more difficult by the day. Most of what could be used they'd already gathered from the surrounding villages, while the rest was either broken or rotting away.
Chopping the ashen trees would only gain some firewood, not supply them with material to secure the camp.

“What if it is your brother?” Monica's words, though very quiet, cut into the stillness like thunder. Sam couldn't help but wince.

Bobby lifted his gaze.

“He's not,” Sam said.

“Yeah, but what if--”

“I said he's not,” Sam repeated, almost barked. His voice lingered in the air for a second, before it ebbed away. Angela looked shocked.

Monica stared at him for a moment, before she nodded slowly.

Heat rushed up Sam's spine and into his cheeks, and he averted his eyes. “Sorry, Monica. It's been a long day.” He cleared his throat and added, “Keep an eye on the victims in the infirmary. As soon as they show signs of transformation, bring them to the cells. We'll keep them there until the storm's quieted, before we execute them. Give order for everyone to stay inside tonight and barricade themselves as best as they can.”

Both Angela and Monica nodded.

“Right.” Sam twitched the corner of his mouth. After all this time he still felt uncomfortable during these meetings. Maybe because he could always feel himself turning into John Winchester. He adapted the tone and posture, and he marvelled at how easy giving orders came to him.
He almost said, “Dismissed” but caught himself just in time. Instead he muttered something about a good night and seeing them tomorrow, before he stepped outside again. The wind, now cold and sharp like the blade of a knife, rushed past his ears and into the gap between his shirt and neck. Sam shivered and stopped. A sudden lump blocked his throat, and Sam swallowed eagerly to lose it.

Meeting was over; everybody was going to lock themselves in for the night, including Sam. He'd have to head back to his quarters now, where a perfect copy of his big brother was occupying the bed. A copy so perfect that he even looked like he'd just pulled himself out of Hell. Of all the tricks that demons had ever played at Sam, including apparitions of Dad and dreams in which his mother spoke to him, this was by far the cruellest.

He turned around when he heard Bobby's heavy steps behind him.

Bobby's hair was white like the eyes of Lilith and quickly receding. The war had made him age fast. But then, the war had done that to everybody. Michael was talking war, handling guns and acting like he was twice his age.

Michael had been a boy before the war, and he might have been a boy still. But, Asher was dead. The demons had hunted him to death only two months after Lilith had broken all Devil's Gates. Michael was never the same after that. He held onto his weapons as if he had nothing else to hold onto. He seemed desperate to keep everyone in the camp safe.

“Sam,” Bobby said, adjusting his baseball cap. Sam had found that particular one on a scavenger hunt a few months ago, and Bobby wore it daily.

“Storm's going to be a son of a bitch,” Sam said. When Bobby was caught up, Sam started walking again. The paths were mostly empty now, except for the people who were still trying to prepare their tents for the storm. A few people respectfully greeted Sam with a nod as he passed them by. Others whispered. No doubt they'd heard about the mystery man in Sam's quarters.

“Sam, it could be Dean, you know.”

Sam shook his head. The knuckles on his hand went white.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Sam replied, shoving a strand of hair out of his face, “If it was Dean, then that means he must be in on it with the demons and Lilith. She's secured Hell; not even Dean could escape it. If the guy you found really was Dean, that would mean he struck a deal with Lilith. So...” Sam rubbed his temples and sighed. “It can't be Dean. Dean's dead.”



Angela and Monica hadn’t told a soul, but the camp had ears and eyes everywhere. The rumour of Dean's return spread so fast that by evening, everyone Bobby encountered was asking about Sam Winchester's brother. For many, the stories about Dean Winchester had turned into some sort of myth, mostly because they had never seen or known him. All they knew was that Dean had gone to Hell to save Sam's, their leader's, life.

“Is it true?” they kept asking when Bobby went out to fetch some food from the storage room below. Bobby didn't reply. It only fuelled the rumours, but confirming them would be Sam's call.



The thunder woke him. Dean's eyes whipped open, and he stared into darkness. Black Hell, he thought. They've put me back into Black Hell.

It was the part of Hell so deep down that no glimmer of light ever made it down there, and torches died out as soon as they were brought into Black Hell. A darkness so complete that it sucked out the light of everything. Dean had spent an eternity down there, surrounded by thunder and deafening screams, and bound to a pole with stakes through his wrists and sharp teeth of creatures he couldn't see biting into his flesh.

Christ, he was back. Dean closed his eyes, and he waited for the teeth to come and torture him.
Tears welled up beneath his eyelids, and he bit his lip until he tasted copper. His hands reached out, found cloth beneath him. Dean grabbed it, even though the fabric rubbed against his sore palms. He choked down a scream and tried to brace himself for what was to come.

Then Dean heard the voices. Faintly at first, then growing louder as their sound pulled him from the edge of sleep. Muttered words, mumbled conversations poured down on him. Dean opened his eyes again slowly. As he gave them more time to adjust, he saw that there was light. Not much, but enough light that the world around him turned into a place of blue shadows. He saw walls, the blanket tucked around him, and above him, arches of a ceiling. The ceiling of a church.

And Dean remembered. Bits and pieces of memories fluttered by his mind. Church. He'd seen a church. As if in a blur, he thought he'd remembered Sam being there, Bobby, and other familiar faces he couldn't quite place.

Pain. Pain had been there, but pain was always there, like a steady companion that never left Dean's side. He didn’t know what would happen if the pain ever went away. The agony was all that let him believe he wasn't quite gone yet. Without the pain, he would have been stripped naked. Defenceless in the dark. The pain was everything that he had kept for himself in Hell.
Dean turned his head a little and blinked.

A shoulder appeared in his vision, and Dean lowered his gaze to the floor. His throat dried up.
Sam. It was Sam. Using a bundle of clothes as a pillow, he was spread out on a blanket. Another blanket was pulled up to his chest. He was asleep, his forehead in a frown even now. He looked much, much older than Dean remembered him.

For a while, he couldn't take his gaze off. He watched Sam sleep, drawing in deep breaths, and he thought of all the times that the demons had told him that Sam was dead. Had died in a war that Dean hadn't given a damn about since Sam was dead. He shouldn't have believed them but...

No, this was probably a trick. Sam was dead, and this was just another part of Hell in which Sam was alive. And soon enough, they'd tear Dean away from it and laugh at him because for one stupid moment he'd believed that there was still some good in the world. That he had, somehow, magically escaped his fate.

They'd be coming for him soon. As soon as he believed this part of Hell to be real.
Dean pressed his lips together hard so they wouldn't see him cry.

This wasn't real, but Dean didn't care. At least he'd had a chance to see Sammy again. It was more than he had ever dared to hope for. He opened his eyes.

Sam was looking at him. Maybe the rustling of the sheets had woken him, or the hiss of agony that had flown from Dean's lips when he'd shifted his position.

Sam looked at him with a blank expression, and Dean looked back not knowing what to say. Not knowing if he wanted to say something at all. If someone would have offered it to him, Dean would gladly have spent the rest of his life—or his time in Hell—here in the dark, while Sam was sleeping next to him on the floor. Shit, he would have taken the floor. But it seemed so right, him and his brother sharing a room again, like in old times, that every fibre of Dean's tormented body screamed, “This isn't real.”

He studied Sam's face, expecting it to transform into a demonic grimace with nine-inch fangs and bear-like claws. Nothing happened.

After a while, Sam said, “Get back to sleep.”

His voice was low and gruff. Dean shivered.

He didn't want to sleep. He wanted to keep his eyes open for as long as he could. Who knew how long this would last. Chances were that if he closed his eyes, he would wake up in a different part of Hell where there was no Sam. It was bound to happen, and Dean wasn't going to waste any of his time here in the realm of sleep.

His heart beating against his chest violently, Dean stared back.

Out of nowhere, the sound of a cannonball exploded right next to him. The room suddenly lit up in bright white, turning Sam's face into nothing but white and dark lines. Wailing, unearthly howling of demons took him. Dean jerked and brought his hands to his ears. Flashes of images squeezed through his shut eyes: burned skin and blood, machetes and fangs, torture and laughter. Prisons made of flesh and bone.

He was back. He was back. God, he was back. He was back...

He tried to breathe. He couldn't. He was back. She'd taken him back. He wanted to suck in air. His lungs refused. He was back. He clung to the fabric under his fingers, and bit his lip until his teeth reached the flesh. His head screamed. His stomach revolted against the water he’d drunk earlier. He was back, he was back...

Sam's voice reached out to him, loud and demanding. Dean couldn't make out single words. As he opened his eyes he saw Sam's lips moving, as if in slow-motion, but the words were too faint under the rushing of blood in his ears. Sam's hand was on Dean's shoulder. He felt the pressure. He felt the pain too, but pain was always there. Sam. Sam was here. Lilith hadn't taken Dean back yet.

The rushing grew quieter, and Sam's words finally made it through to Dean.

“Just a storm...,” Sam said. He sounded half bewildered, half scared. His eyes stared into Dean's, willing Dean to look back and not pass out. It was like an anchor Dean could hold onto. “Just a storm. You're safe.”

Dean didn't really care about the words. He wasn't back. Sam was still here.

Another cannonball and Dean screamed. It was a weak and rough sound. Hell. Hell was coming.

“Did you hear me?” Sam asked.

Dean struggled for air. His lungs demanded more, but he couldn't breathe quickly enough.

“Dean.”

And that drowned everything else out, all explosions and fires. The world around him slowed down. Suddenly, breathing became easier.

Sam nodded at him. “Just a storm, okay?”

Just a storm. The words settled in, filled with meaning. Thunder. Thunder wouldn't hurt him. Cannonballs did.

With a final, light squeeze of Dean's shoulder, Sam slid back an inch. He looked so wrong. There was a small scar over his left brow that Dean only noticed now. His eyes were hollow. Like demon eyes.

Dean didn't mean to fall asleep. But when his lids dragged down like solid lead, Dean decided to rest them just for a moment. Sleep took him instantly.

Part II