Righteous

We arrived at Cold Oak just a few hours before dawn. Dean and I split up, approaching from different directions. I took Hendrickson with me. The kid was jumpy as a cat in the middle of a dog pound. Can't say I blamed him. You could feel the evil of this place like ozone moving across your skin. Even without that, the emptiness and desolation of the place with the run down buildings falling apart where they stood would have been creepy as hell. At least I didn't have to worry about a rookie who'd never held a gun before, let alone knew nothing about gun safety. He held his shotgun like he was comfortable with it, swapped out the bullets in his clip for the iron so he could use his own firearm. He was comfortable with it, even through his nervousness. That made me feel a lot better. But not enough to even think about letting him tag along with Dean. We ran into a ghost, looked like a little girl with hollowed out eyes and stringy blonde hair. The little bitch was fast, knocked the shotgun out of my hand, sending the shot I took wide. Another shot rang out shortly, just as she was racking her not so sweet and innocent claws down my arm and she dissipated. I glared at Hendrickson, who looked absolutely godsmacked.

"What the fuck took you," I hissed as I snatched up my fallen shotgun.

"It was a little girl," he said, voice hoarse but otherwise steady. He was breathing like he'd run a marathon but his hands were just as steady as his voice.

I shook my head. "Just looked like one, maybe it even used to be one. But its a monster now. It was probably killin' people when your grandmother was a gleam in your great granddaddy's eye. Sometimes they look innocent. And those are the most dangerous ones. You see somethin' that don't look right, shot first, have your existential musings later. Cause that bitch'lll gut you, you give her half a chance."

He clinched his jaw and nodded. "You okay," he asked as he nodded at the bloody scratches on my arm. Stung like a son of a bitch, but I'd had worse.

"I'll be fine the minute we find my boy."

With that we kept moving. He was with me, not just following blindly but watchful and managing to keep his shit togther. He wasn't gonna fall apart. I found myself hoping he'd live through this. Despite the strangeness of the situation and the hell it had to be playing with his preceptions and understanding of the world around him, he was still solid. He'd make a damn good hunter, and those weren't easy to find. We were making our way as quickly as possible through the town when I heard Dean calling me. Ghosts were tricky bastards, especially the old mean ones. Could be a trick. But it wouldn't be the first time I ignored that possibility when my boys were in trouble. I trotted towards the sound of my oldest son's voice, heard Hendrickson bringing up the rear. Then Dean called me again, and damn if it didn't sound like the boy was panicking. I had to force myself to stay at a trot because while I wasn't above rushing into danger, I wasn't fool enough to actually run into it. If this was a trap, I might need the extra tenth of a second to find some way to avoid it, or maybe just save the idiot behind me. But I did pick it up just a little, because anything that could make Dean sound like that had to be bad. What I saw when I rounded the last building between us and my son stopped me dead in my tracks and it took my brain a while to make sense of what I was seeing. Sam was laying limply with his head cradled in his brother's arms, Dean's fingers at his jugular. Not moving. Still as death. My brain whited out, reset at that thought. I didn't even realize that I wasn't breathing anymore until Dean looked up at me, tears flowing freely and I gasped at the sight of his pain. I knew what he was going to say before he said it and god, I didn't want him to say… would give anything if he just fucking wouldn't say it.

"He's not… I can't find a pulse… Dad, he's…" He let out a low, keening whine and pulled his brother tighter against him.

I was numb watching Dean hold Sammy's body. This wasn't real, couldn't be real. I had spent a lifetime protecting my boys. This couldn't be how it ended. I wiped my face. I wanted to go over there, but I was too much of a coward. Dean was always so much braver then me. I'd never taught him how to be afraid, how to hide from the truth, how to run from a challenge. Dean looked up at me, confusion and pain clear on his face and in his expressive eyes. And through all that was his faith, his belief that somehow I could make this better. I couldn't fall apart. Dean was still here, still needed me. I went to my boys, my legs trembling, and fell to my knees beside them. I reached out and touched Sam's face, barely noticing the trembling in my hand. He was already colder then he should be.

"Dean… let's… let's get him off the ground, okay? Into one of the houses." It just struck me as wrong for him to lay out here in the dirt like this…

Dean was silent, staring down at Sam with a blank expression as he rocked him in his arms and I was just about to repeat myself, afraid he hadn't heard me when he finally nodded. It took us a while to get Sam up and into the nearest house, onto an old mattress just laying in the middle of one of the rooms. Dean and I just sat next to it staring at him, not speaking.

I felt hot tears running down my face and I didn't have the strength to try to stop them. I'd failed again. I couldn't save Mary and now I'd lost Sammy. It was bad enough that he'd never been able to have anything that he'd ever wanted, never been able to chase his own dreams, be his own man. Had lost the woman he loved. Now he didn't even have this fucked up existence that he'd tried so hard to escape. He was dead, gone. Gone. My stubborn, idealistic, argumentative boy. My Sammy. I forced myself to take a deep breath, to pull in air into my aching chest because around the time I realized that my son was dead, breathing had somehow ceased being involuntary. I had to breathe, I had to live, for Dean. I knew what I had to do to make this right for both my boys.

"I need to make some calls, son." I put my hand on the back of his neck.

Dean nodded. I squeezed his neck a little, not wanting to leave him, but knowing I had to. I went out to the front porch and pulled out my cell phone. Oh look at that, I thought bitterly as I saw that I had reception. We hadn't had any when we first arrived. I'd worried that I'd have to actually leave Cold Oak, drive towards the nearest town to find a signal. It wasn't a very strong signal, but it was enough.

"Bobby… I need you out here."

Bobby sounded tired, but he hadn't been asleep. He likely wouldn't have gone to sleep until he'd heard from one of us. "What's happened?"

"It's Sammy."

"Is he hurt?"

I closed my eyes tightly. Much as it always hurt me to see my boys hurt, I wished that was all there was to it. I wished that some stitches and bed rest, or even a damn hospital would fix this. "Just get here quick. Please."

When I got off the phone with Bobby, I found Dean on the back porch dry heaving. When he finished, he sat on the step staring off into the darkness. "Never used to throw up before the rape. Not since I was a little kid. Now all I do…"

"I'm gonna fix it, Dean, I swear."

"He's dead! How the hell are you gonna fix that, Dad? He's… Sammy's…" He curled in on himself, but he didn't cry. He was in shock.

"I'll work somethin' out. Bobby'll be here soon. Then I'm gonna go for a bit. Just an hour or two, and when I get back… we'll work somethin' out together."

He looked up at me and suspicion was clear in his eyes. "Where are you goin'?"

"There's just somethin' I need to check on."

"Dad-"

"It's okay son."

"Oh, god," he whispered as he looked away from me and hugged himself. He knew what I was going to do. I knew he knew. Or at least that I was going to do something that I'd never cop to, not to him or Sammy. He always saw right through me. I sighed and sat beside him. He leaned into me and I wrapped my arm around him, feeling the fine tremors running though his tightly held muscles. He was going to be in pain tomorrow from all the muscle strain, I though than almost laughed at myself for thinking it. The least of his problems was a little physical discomfort. He took a deep hitching breath before speaking again. "I can't go back in there right now. I can't…"

"It's okay, Dean-o." I didn't want to be in the same room with Sammy's body either. It was just a shell. Sam wasn't there anymore, and as big as he was his body seemed so small and empty without him in it. The whole damn world seemed small and empty without him in it.

I'd been completely useless. And yeah, my damn curiosity was satisfied, but Sam Winchester was dead at twenty-five. As if he hadn't sacrificed enough. As if they all hadn't sacrificed enough. I'd left his family to grieve. I couldn't bear to watch them slowly crumbling around Sam's body. I went outside and drew a salt line around myself – what a difference a day and an honest to God ghost town made – and sat huddled with my back to a ramshackle house, gun clutched tightly in my hand, my mind as blank as I could make it. Everything that I'd experienced so far was overwhelming. I'd have to process it all later, once I had some distance. Some prospective. A tow truck pulled up, kicking up dust, before rumbling to a stop. There was a car underneath a tarp on the flat bed. I wondered if that was the Impala and if the older man wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and a hat that got out, moving carefully, was the mythical 'Bobby' the Winchesters kept referring to. I didn't think a ghost would drive up in a truck, but nothing that had happened so far was anything I'd expected when I got out of bed this morning. I kept my gun partially raised as he approached. He glanced at it wearily.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Victor Hendrickson."

"Not… not Special Agent Hendrickson? Of the FBI?"

I smirked. "Once upon a time. Just another fugitive now."

He snorted as he walked past me with a slow shake of his head. "Guess that'll teach you to steer clear of Winchesters, now won't it."

So, not a ghost. Maybe. I looked down to check the salt circle I'd drawn and had to laugh at my own relief to find it intact. Yeah. What a difference a day makes.

"What the fuck happened, John?"

"Dean said he heard Sam. He was laying in some brush. Pulled him out, but he d…" I couldn't say it. I squeezed my eyes shut, felt something cool against my hand. I opened my eyes to see a flask in Bobby's hand. I accepted it gratefully and took a long pull. "It was only a couple seconds, maybe. Kid didn't stand a chance. He was still healing from what that fuck Walker did to him. His muscles still only half healed."

"I'm sorry John. I know how it hurts."

I nodded my head, knowing that Bobby really did know. We'd bonded over my lose of Mary, my fear of losing my boys. Because he'd already lost his wife and kid. "Stay here with Dean, Bobby. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

"What about you John? What stupid thing are you off to do?"

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" I didn't look at him, couldn't look at him. Couldn't stand to see what I'd see in his eyes.

He put his hand on my bicep, squeezed it with surprising strength and shook my arm a little. "This the special somethin' you been savin' your soul up for?"

"Goddamn it Bobby!" I took a deep breath, and lowered my voice so Dean wouldn't hear. "This morning I had two sons! Now one of 'em's… gone and the other one's fallin' apart."

"Of course he's fallin' apart, John! He just lost his brother. He can get past this. Both of you can."

"No… I can't. I can't do that. Dean… We never talked about it, said it out loud, but you know what happened to Dean two years ago. He's been hangin' on the edge by his damn fingernails all this time and this'll push him right over. I'm not strong enough to watch that. And Sammy," my breath hitched. "After Mary, for weeks I woke up expecting her to be right there next to me and had to remember she was gone. Sometimes I still did it months later. It was like losin' her all over again every damn… every damn morning. I can't do that again, not with Sammy." I wiped at the tears that had escaped my eyes.

"Dean ain't stupid. He'll know what you did. You don't think that'll push him over?"

"He already suspects. Boy always could figure me out, even before I could figure myself out sometimes. That's why I need you here. Make sure he stays put."

"Jesus, John," Bobby hissed quietly.

"Hell, Bobby, they'll be damn near forty in ten years. I'll be in my sixties. I probably won't even live that long anyway. Not like I got a low risk occupation."

"Yeah, but then there's that whole eternity in Hell part that comes after."

"It's my boy, Bobby." My voice was hoarse and filled with pain so deep that I couldn't lock it away no matter how hard I tried. "I'll pay that price gladly. For either one of 'em."

"John, I think this was part of the plan all along."

"What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"Azazel's tryin' to raise Lucifer. According to the book he's locked away with sixty six seals and there are a number of things that can break 'em, but the first seal and the last are very specific. I didn't get to the last one, but I know what the first one is. A righteous man must fall in hell. "

I snorted. "You tryin' to imply that I'm a righteous man, Bobby?"

"Much as it pains me t' admit it, but yeah. You are. One of the damn few I ever met."

"I've done a lot of truly bad shit, Bobby. I'm as much of a sinner as you'll ever find."

"But all of it was for the love of your sons, whether I agreed with it or not. If that ain't righteous, I don't know what is."

"Yeah, well if this is part of his plan, Azazel's gonna be deeply disappointed with what he gets with me."

"Dammit, John," Bobby said softly, tears in his eyes. Over twenty years I'd known him and this was the closest I'd ever seen him to crying. "You're a damn fool. All of you Winchesters are damn fools. It's gotta be fuckin' genetic."

"Just… just keep Dean safe for me. Please, Bobby. I'll be back as soon as I can."

I felt bad for knocking Bobby out and it had been dangerous following Dad in the middle of the night, no headlights on, trying to stay far enough behind him that he wouldn't notice the odd void behind him. But it was worth it when I realized where he was stopping… a crossroads. I knew he was about to do something desperate but I hadn't quite allowed myself to believe that it would be this desperate. He never would have left us the way he did if he weren't though… not so soon after Sammy… I ruthlessly stopped myself from completing that thought, pushed the image of Sammy's cooling, stiffening body laying in a salt circle away, slammed the lid on it. This wasn't right. Dad couldn't sell his soul. I understood why he wanted to, but I couldn't let him. I scrambled to kill the Impala's engine before Dad killed his so he wouldn't notice the rumble and picked up the shotgun I'd put in the passenger's seat earlier.

By the time I'd snuck up behind Dad, he was already talking to the demon. Dad was too upset to realize I was coming up behind him, but the demon looked at me over his shoulder and smiled just before sealing the deal. Dad's head jerked around and just as recognition was being chased out of his eyes by alarm, I slammed the butt of my rifle into the side of his head, grief and shock making him too slow to block me, wincing as I did it. I'd never hit my father on purpose before, never outside of sparring, and it felt all kinds of wrong to do it now. To sucker punch him like some kind of bitch.

"Come to save Daddy dearest from selling his soul? Don't you want baby brother back?" The bitch was taunting me.

"I want you to take mine instead."

She smiled, her red eyes seeming to get a little brighter. "Same terms as Daddy dearest. You get one year before the hounds come for you."

I shivered. Dad would have been dead in a year's time if I hadn't gotten here in time. Dead and in Hell. "I have one request, and if you can make it happen, you can take me now." I'd had plenty of time to think about this on the way over here. I wanted to make everything right, not just bringing Sammy back. Everything.

She raised an eyebrow in surprise as she ran a skanky assed finger down my chest. "Oh, so eager. What is it you want?"

"Make them forget me."

She blinked at me, frowning in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," I said as I took a step closer to her, my nose flaring at the faint scent of sulfur. I could almost feel Dad's fingers digging gently into my neck. I can't… I can't lose you Dean. Can't miss what you don't remember, right? "Make them forget I ever existed. Not just Dad and Sam. Everyone. If they ever figured out what I did, they'd never have peace. And they'd… they'd have been better off without me anyway."

"Poor Dean. So broken. So beautiful like this. I can't wait to see what we can make of you in Hell."

I closed my eyes when she touched me and my skin crawled not just from the physical contact, not just because of what she was, but from what she was saying. She was right. I was broken. Too broken to fix and Dad and Sammy deserved to be free of me. Completely free. This was the only way to make sure that Sam lived and that they would both be okay without me dragging them down. My breath hitched and tears burned my eyes. There was one last thing. "The Impala," I said softly, opening my eyes. "Make it Sammy's."

She smirked and rolled her eyes. "Would you like fries and a coke with that too?"

I shook my head. "That's it."

She nodded. "It's gonna take some serious juice to make all those people forget you. Especially since you've screwed about half the single women in the continental United States between the ages of eighteen and forty. But you got a deal."

She lifted herself up on her toes and kissed me. It wasn't bad, if you didn't count the bitter taste of sulfur or the fact that her fingers were digging into my cheeks almost hard enough to crack my jaw. Suddenly I felt something squeezing my heart. It stuttered and I staggered away from her, fell to my knees. The crossroads bitch was gone when I looked up, had probably decided to get out of dodge before Dad could come to. I tried to draw in a breath, tried to speak, call my father, but the pressure on my chest was just too much. My heart stuttered again. How hard had I hit him? Would he wake up before I died? I didn't want to die alone, even if he probably wouldn't know who the hell I was. Hell would probably scare me too if I had enough time to really consider it. I started to topple over but big hands caught me before I hit the ground. I found myself looking up at my father and I could see that he didn't recognize me. If I'd had the breath, I would have laughed at the irony. Son of a bitch was still catching me even when he didn't know who the hell I was. Even when I was dying so he wouldn't have to anymore. I reached out, grabbed his shirt trying to hold on to him even as the world slipped away into darkness. He was trying frantically to figure out what was wrong with me, trying to fix me even though he thought I was some random stranger. But I couldn't be fixed. I never could, no matter how hard he tried. I wanted to tell him I was sorry but it was too late. Just as well anyway. He always hated it when I apologized.

A/N: Okay… before everyone gathers in my front yard with torches and pitchforks, there is a sequel. I've already done an outline and written about a third of it in disjointed pieces as 'scenes' would come to me and the first chapter should be up in about two weeks. Dude! You should all know I wouldn't just leave it there like that. I mean, I know I'm always throwing you curveballs and upping the ante, but I'm not that mean. Usually. This just felt like the end of this story, you know? As always, your comments, constructive criticisms and reviews are always, always welcome. Thank you so much for sticking with me and showing me all the love you have throughout this story and I only hope that you enjoy the sequel as much as you've enjoyed Lost.

Yeah, NongPradu. Poor, poor Dean.

Thanks Medallionable! I'm so glad you enjoyed the last chapter and I hope you enjoy this one as much.

Thank you so much, Yammy! The demon POVs are some of my favorite. He's crazy and evil… but he's one of those characters you love to hate, you know?

Unfortunately for the Winchesters, babyreaper, Azazel's a master chess player. And they've been playing checkers all this time.

Hey, Rog457. I almost wish I could have sacrificed Hendrickson to spare Dean. Man, for someone who claims to love the guy, I've sure been breaking him a lot.

Thanks, grendaypumpkin. Azazel's logic is twisted, but there's that little grain of truth to it that makes it almost plausible.

I'm sorry monkeymuse. I think everybody forgot that Sam just had surgery like a month before and wasn't fit to fight at all. He never even made it to being stabbed in the back. Poor bastard.

I hope your father is doing better, Eeyore08! Family's more important than my story, so no need to be sorry. Hendrickson's gonna be a big part of the sequel. Not promising if or how long he'll live through it though.

Thanks for pointing that out, LuckyMe1. I fixed! Glad you enjoyed the chapter.

-Angie