Time_

"The time's up now, Sam. It's for you to decide. Stay or go…" Death slowly walked toward Sam. Sam stood up, wiping his hands on his knees.

"Please...Please come back… Come back!" Dean is begging. Dean never begs. Sam feels the tears rolling in his throat, threatening to crush it like a soda can.

"What should I do?" Sam looks at Death in desperation. Death shakes his head.

"I'm afraid I can't advise. This is your choice, Sam."

Sam swallowed. All of his life flashing before his eyes. All of the good parts, with people that were long gone. His life as a baby with his mother. His life as a little child. Life with Dad_the life that could have been that is. His future with Jessica that never was but could be in heaven. Even Jo and Ellen and people he'd known not so well. They danced around him calling out to him like the sea calls out to the shore.

Sam's ears are filled with their voices. The celebration_The heroes welcome that awaits him on the other side. But his eyes are filled with Dean.

And suddenly, all his life...The only life that really counts. With the only person that could talk him back…

An Impala floating over every American highway. Gun slinging, blood flying. The burs of metal and terror and war and grief. Demons around every corner. Running from the law. Gunning for the quota…

A pair of green eyes that burned like Infinity.

Sam can see the others now in the hallway, but they pass like shadows_like figures from a dream. Cas is on the ground, legs crossed, head between his knees, clenching his scalp in absolute despair. Charlie and Kevin_who don't even really know each other_are clinging to each other now. He loves all of them, but they are like beloved characters out of fiction. Characters that led him here. To the edge, to the place where his story ends. The color of them fades away. They are swept up in the white out of Eternity rolling.

The stress is too much. Sam stands up straighter when he feels it. His body gives up. The machine flat lines. The doctors are floating in.

"Please come back...Please...Dammit, Sammy!... Hold on, I need you. There ain't no me if there ain't no you." Dean's hands knot in Sam's hospital gown.

The doctors unplug the machines. Sam sees them pull the tube out of him. They unhook all the machines. Dean doesn't let go. No one has the heart just yet to make him. Sam sees Dean slap his face. He beats his fists into his chest. Sam can't feel a thing. He only sees the doctors all look at each other, mouths moving as they fight over who is going to pull Dean off his dead little brother.

"Now or never, my boy. What will you do?" Death's gaze meets Sam's. He holds him with his eyes, his inviting eyes. Heaven is waiting. Sam would never need to feel pain again.

But he'd be lost without that pain. Without that pain that slit his wrists on those grass burning green eyes that meant life on earth. Life. This maybe was his choice. It wasn't easy. It gutted him and blazed across him like a fever but_

Sam felt burning pain.

"Gah!" His body was gargling. Grass blades like knives. Grass of the earth's envelope sliding open. He was being forced back into the atmosphere against the sheer clutching fist of nature.

He was back. Alive. Fierce hands had pulled him through the white to the other side. His eyes opened on that green. On teary green eyes that looked back in complete wonder. Shocked by the bolt out of the blue that had sat Sam up.

"What the HELL?!" The head doctor smashing into the EKG as he took his chest in his shaking hands.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice shaky, high pitched like the first cries of a newborn eagle.

Feet tramping the floor as Charlie, Kevin, Cas all stumble over each other to the doorway. Crowding in to see him…

"Ain't no...Ain't no me if there...ain't no you." Sam gasped, eyes rolling in his head at the shock of his own voice. His hands got their strength back as they clutched Dean's face. Dean's jaw had dropped open.

"And...I need you too...Not that life...That life I never got. You always...You were always...the one…" Sam swallows and starts to cough.

"Okay, hey, don't talk! We need to check up on you!" The doctors try to come at him. Sam waves them off.

"Please...Please...I need to...I need to tell him. All of them. I'm not...I'm not ready to give you up either. To be selfish. I'm not ready to let go of you guys either...It would be too easy…" Sam looks to his left. Charlie is there now at his side. Kevin behind her smiling. Cas is patting his shoulder_shaking as humanity gives way to relief.

"Sam?!" Dean takes Sam's face. And once again, Sam's eyes that are swimming with terror and frustration at these hovering medics focus again. On the green lanterns that are his brother's eyes. That basically just raised him from the dead. That are running over with joy tears now.

"I'm not ready to let go of you...Not ready...Please? Can we...Can we do this again? Start over?" Sam's whole body is shaking.

Dean wraps his arms around his brother fiercely, holding him through racking coughs. Everyone else steps back. It's impossible to say how the dead brother has just sat up. How any of this had happened. But Sam is alive and if he's alive then that means there's a chance.

"Shh...Okay, Sammy. Okay...We're gonna do better this time." Dean closed his eyes.

Hey...God? It's me...Dean Winchester...I guess I owe you a second chance too now.