So last chapter of this story in the series. Thanks for reading...please let me know if anyone's interested in me continuing on with this series. I love writing it, but without any feedback, I'm worried that I'm spending a lot of time on something that only I'm enjoying. bambers...

Chapter Eighteen

Dean wasn't certain how Seth determined the right time of Sam's death in 1835 accounting for lack of Time Zones and Daylight Savings Time, not that it mattered since he'd chosen 11:04 as the correct time. If he was wrong, which Dean prayed he wasn't, they could technically try again two more times if Jax's healing abilities weren't completely depleted. After his conversation with Seth the day before, doubts crept into his mind as to whether Jax's power would be enough to save Sam, and leaving nothing to chance, he enlisted Joshua's help to add to Jax's healing power. It had to be enough…it had to be. Michael wouldn't help Sam, and Dean refused to consider the option of making anymore deals with demons.

However as the time fast approached to put Rowan's plan into action, he started to reconsider his adamant refusal of a demon's help, and Jax nervously pacing back and forth did little to quell his fears. After hours of excitedly chattering away about helping to save Sam, Joshua finally settled down to watch Spongebob with Bobby. Not that the older hunter was paying any attention to the cartoon. Like Dean, Bobby's soulful eyes kept gravitating to Sam. He didn't need to say a word for Dean to know they were thinking the same thing – they couldn't lose Sam. Not again, not after everything Dean had done to save him. Rowan would have told them both that there were far worse things than dying – he hadn't bothered to show up. The whole plan was his idea, and yet when it came time to see it through to the end, he decided he had better things to do with his time than waste it in a hospital room.

"It's eleven o'clock," Bobby said, muting the sound on the television. Looking decidedly ill, Jax glanced up at the clock on the wall then clamping a hand over his mouth, he rushed into the bathroom to throw up. "Are you certain he's gonna be able to do this?" he added above the sound of Jax heaving into the toilet.

"He's all we've got, Bobby," Dean uttered, stomach churning as the clock ticked to 11:01. "I have to believe he can bring Sam back…I have to."

"M'gonna help, too, Chipmunk," Joshua said, and bounding off the couch, he jumped into Dean's arms, hugging him tightly around the neck. Kissing the side of Dean's cheek, he whispered, "I'll save Sammy for ya. So don't be sad, 'kay?"

"I know you will, Jay," Dean rasped, blinking away the tears stinging his eyes. "Jax, get your ass out here. You can throw up later when Sam's life isn't hanging in the balance."

The toilet flushed, and Dean heard the water running for a second or two before Jax lumbered back into the room and headed to the hospital bed. "If this doesn't work –"

"It's gonna work," Dean cut in, swallowing down the acrid bile rising swiftly in his throat. Only two minutes left, not enough time come up with another plan…not enough time to find a demon and make a deal. "Sam's counting on you, Jax. He wouldn't give up on you so don't you dare give up on him!"

The color drained from Jax's boyish face making the light freckles across the bridge of his nose stand out in stark contrast. Bobby came up behind the young hunter, and rested a hand on his shoulder. "It's gonna be alright, Jax. Just take deep breaths and whatever ya do, don't pass out."

"Not helpful, old man," Jax grumbled, gently placing his hand on Sam's forehead.

"Put me down, Chipmunk," Joshua said, and Dean set him down on the chair. The little boy placed his hand over Jax's, and both of their hands began to glow with warm blue light.

"It's not going to work," came a familiar voice from behind Dean. He swung on his heel to find Luke grinning at him. With a snap of his fingers, every piece of medical equipment keeping Sam alive vanished. His blue-green eyes slid to Bobby, and he winked. "You don't have the kind of power it would take," his eyes returned to Dean, "to bring Sam back. You need me, Dean."

"Dean?" Jax uttered, uncertainty filling his tone.

"Don't listen to him, Jax," Dean growled, placing himself between Luke and the two healers. "I'm not making any deals."

"Oh, I wouldn't make a deal with you. You have nothing I want," he chuckled lightly, "lucky for you the price for Sam's life was already paid in full. And I gotta tell ya, I am in such a good mood, I'm willing to throw in extras for free if there's anything you'd like. Money, women, you name it and it's yours." Cocking his head to the side, he looked beyond Dean to Sam. "So what do you say, Dean? Do you really want to risk Sammy's life on the pathetic odds that Jax and the little boy wonder can save him?"

Dean glanced up at the clock, noted that they were out of time, and gave a quick nod. "Help them save my brother."

"I thought you'd see it my way." Pushing Dean aside, Luke lightly touched his fingers to Sam's chest, and his brother's body contorted and arched upward off the bed as if he'd been shocked with a thousand of volts of electricity. "All right, Jax," he glanced at Joshua, "and you, too, little man. Let's push Lucifer out and bring Sam home."

Jax stood a little straighter, squared his shoulders, and focused all his energy on Sam. Before Luke stepped in to help them the younger hunter's own doubts and fears of being able to save Sam crippled him. It wasn't that he didn't have the power to save Sam all on his own, Dean realized as he watched the warm blue light spread outward to encapsulated the four of them, it was that he didn't believe in himself the way Joshua or Luke did. Rowan understood Jax's lack of faith in himself, and that was why he had made the deal with Luke.

"I got him!" Jax shouted, sweat dripping down his face. "I got him, Dean!"

"Don't let go of him," Dean uttered, staring helplessly as Sam body arched upward again, his face contorting in pain as another surge of Luke's power flooded through his body. Unlike Jax or Dean, Joshua remained calm, his eyes closed as he concentrated on healing Sam's body from weeks of damage done by the shutting down of his organs. Not knowing what else to do, Dean grasped hold of Sam's hand, holding on tightly as his brother began thrashing around in bed.

"Lucifer's fighting me," Luke informed Dean with an unsettling cocksure grin that set Dean on edge. The demon didn't care about Sam or if the fight they carried out inside his brother's body would tear him apart – he wanted to win, and winning to him didn't necessarily mean Sam needed to survive the battle. Bobby sensed the same thing, and made a move to break the connection between the demon and Sam. Luke splayed an arm out, and Bobby flew backward into the wall, pinned there by the demon's power. "You're not that powerful, old man," he chuckled, eyeing Dean as if daring him to try to stop him. "Do you want your brother back without strings attached? Or would you prefer me to return him to his body with Lucifer's meat hooks still firmly embedded in his soul? I don't care one way or another, but if you chose the former rather than the latter, it's going to be excruciatingly painful for your brother."

"Keep going," Dean gritted out, casting a glance in Bobby's direction. "Don't let him slip away, Jax," he added, noting how Jax and Joshua both trembled with the effort it took to keep Sam's life tethered to his body.

"I thought you'd see it my way." Lowering his arm, Bobby dropped to the ground in a heap. Another powerful jolt lifted Sam up off the bed, blood trickling from his nose and mouth as the war between the two demons waged on.

A deep, jagged gash tore through Luke's face, blood spattering the blankets. Within a matter of moments the long vertical gash healed over. As they continued to fight for Sam's soul, more wounds littered Luke's body only to heal instantaneously. Those same wounds appeared on Sam's body, blood soaking into the blankets before they were healed by Joshua. Dean grabbed hold of the little boy's free hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze, and felt calmness wash over him. Physically exhausted and drained from continuously healing Sam's body, Joshua sagged sideways into Dean. It was too much for the little boy, and yet he kept going, kept fighting to keep Sam alive.

The windows shattered, blowing glass inward, jagged shards slamming into the blue healing light and dropping to the ground at Jax and Luke's feet. Again and again, Sam's body jerked upward, arms and legs writhing, the blankets tangling around his long frame. For all Luke's confidence in his own power, it didn't appear as if he was winning the fight against Lucifer. How much more could Sam take with his body being ravaged by the two powerful demons? They're killing him. I need to stop this!

He opened his mouth to yell at Luke to stop, but the demon cut him off. "Take the boy and get out of here, Dean! They're coming for you!"

"I'm not leaving my brother!" Dean shouted, tears spilling unchecked down his cheeks. "I won't let you kill him!"

"Don't you hear them?" Luke said, tapping at his ear with a smirking grin. "Hellhounds are coming for you…I won as if there was ever any doubt."

"Go, Dean!" Bobby ordered, and it was then that Dean heard the vicious barking and growling of the demonic beasts Lucifer had sent to rip him to shreds.

For as terrifying as the Hellhounds had once been, they were now the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard. They wouldn't have been released to hunt him down if Sam wasn't close to waking up from his coma. Not wasting another second, he snatched Joshua up from the chair, and raced toward the door. Heart hammering in his chest, he yanked open the door and darted out of the room just as Sam groaned and mumbled his name. With the Hellhounds still chasing after him, he ducked into the stairwell, and raced down them as fast as he could, hugging Joshua tightly to his chest. He didn't stop running until he reached his car and the sound barking faded away.

Sam hadn't seen him, a thought that gave him hope and broke his heart at the same time. Only three more months, Sammy. For now though he needed to concentrate on the little boy who'd helped make it possible for him to have a brother to return to when his time as a Guardian ended. Once again he was forced to acknowledge he hadn't been a very good Guardian, putting his own wants and needs above Joshua's. In that regard he was very much like his father. He thought nothing of pawning Joshua off on other people to watch much in the same way as his father dropped him and Sam off with Bobby or other hunters in their small knit community whenever something more important came up. And much like him, Joshua never complained, accepting what little of himself Dean chose to share with him.

"I'm gonna do better, Jay," he promised, tussling his fingers through the little boy's dishevel brown hair. "I loved my dad…he taught me how to hunt and protect people. He taught me so many things, and that's probably the reason why I'm still alive today, but the one thing he failed to teach me was how to be a father." He glanced up at the broken window of Sam's hospital room, and sighed. "With Sam it was easy. From the moment our mom died, I became his protector – that was my job and my life. I didn't have to think about it, I just did it automatically. And I guess in a way that made me his father, more so than our own father had been to us. The thing is that I never learned how a real father was supposed to be with his kids, and I've been screwing up since day one with you…I need to do better. You deserve better than a father that runs off and leaves you behind whenever he gets the chance."

"Can we get ice cream, Chipmunk?" Joshua said, blue eyes pleading with him. There wasn't a hint of anger or resentment in his tone at being pushed aside time and time again. For Joshua it was enough that he was there now and everything that came before this moment didn't matter. Even a bad parent was better than no parent at all, and a child's love was unconditional.

"Yeah, we can get ice cream," he said, opening the back door of the Impala and setting Joshua on the backseat. "With sprinkles and whipped cream, and then we'll go home and have a cartoon marathon. How does that sound to you?" Joshua nodded enthusiastically, and catching hold of Dean around the neck in a hug, he puffed out his cheeks he blew a raspberry against Dean's cheek. "Not bad. Not bad at all. Much better than Sam did at your age." Joshua beamed at the compliment as Dean motioned to the seatbelt for Joshua to buckle into place before they headed home. "I love ya, Jay."

"Love ya, too, Chipmunk…."

XxXxXxX

Jax couldn't recall ever feeling so drain and sore in his entire life. Healing Sam over and over again while Luke and Lucifer internally ravaged his body had taken a heavy toll on Jax's body. Everything hurt and he could scarcely keep his eyes open. It worked and that was what mattered. Sam was awake and alert, and Bobby and Seth were busy conspiring on how to get the living miracle out of the hospital without causing a spectacle that would draw unwanted attention to the supernatural world they lived in. Since every doctor and nurse believed he wouldn't recover from being classified as brain dead, it didn't take much to figure that they would claim they pulled the plug and Sam died shortly thereafter. Seth would personally bring his body to the morgue where it would conveniently disappear before an autopsy could be performed to determine cause of death. As far as plans went, it was pretty straight forward, no need for Jax to add to the conversation.

In truth he was far more interested in how quiet Sam was, letting the two other men make all the arrangements without interfering in the slightest. Sam had only spoken briefly after being revived, and it didn't take a doctor's medical assessment to determine that Sam wasn't okay. He struggled to find the words that normally would have come easy for him, and his hand/eye coordination was severely off. He didn't try to get out of bed which likely was a good thing as he would have likely fallen flat on his face. Seth claimed it was normal after being in a coma for so long to have to relearn some things, and while that might have been true, Sam hadn't once asked about Dean in all the hours he'd been awake. That worried Jax far more than things that could be relearned with practice.

Sam didn't utter a word as Seth covered him with a sheet and told him to remain as still as possible, not an easy thing to do with the tremors and twitches that coursed through his body at irregular intervals, and yet somehow they'd made it to the elevator without anyone noticing that the man under the sheet was most definitely alive and moving. Instead of going straight to the morgue as originally planned, Seth took them up three floors in the elevator, had Jax find a wheelchair while he held open the doors, and once he'd returned with it, they transferred Sam to the chair. One floor down, he opened the doors again, and shoved the hospital bed up against the wall in the hallway, leaving it there for someone else to find and take care of. The rest was easy; they wheeled Sam out of the hospital, helped him into the car, and drove away, leaving Seth to take care of any problems arising from a missing body.

Over the next two days Bobby hovered, Sam hardly spoke a word, and Jax tried to stay out of the way. He called Rowan numerous times to voice his growing concerns over Sam's condition, only to be told his problems would right themselves in time. Rowan had spoken to Luke who assured him Sam would be fine eventually, and apparently the demon's word on the matter was good enough for the vampire. If Dean had known about Sam's supernatural medical issues, he wouldn't have accepted 'he'll be better at some point' as an answer to the problems at hand. He would've tracked down the demon, and forced him to fix his brother. Jax couldn't tell him, pretending instead that everything was fine whenever Dean called to check up on them.

On the third day of being cooped up in a motel room, Sam told Bobby to go home. It was painful to listen to as he searched for the words needed to convey that he didn't want to be coddled by the older hunter. Bobby argued and lost, and after packing up his meager belongings, he bobbed his head toward the door for Jax to follow him outside. He waited until he reached his truck to say what Jax already expected to hear.

"He can't protect himself, Jax, and that means yer gonna have to step up yer game," he said, tossing his duffle bag onto the passenger's seat. "Lay low and don't even think of huntin'. If ya run into trouble give me a call. Is that clear?"

"I'm not stupid, Bobby," Jax said, folding his arms across his chest. "Once Rowan and Dean have left for Florida, I'll move Sam to the cabin. It's well protected with wards, and there are bedrooms on the first floor so he won't have to go up the stairs."

"I don't like the idea of keeping this from Dean." Pulling off his trucker cap, he scrubbed a hand down his face then replaced the hat. "Make sure you move anything he might trip over out of the way. And he doesn't like it when you interrupt him with the words he's having trouble recalling. So don't do that."

"I know what I need to do." Jax rolled his eyes. "I've been here every day with you. I know what makes him angry and frustrated…I can handle it." He couldn't handle it, not even close. "When we get to Rowan's place, I'll rearrange everything to be as minimal as possible, and we'll go from there to determine what he needs."

"If anything happens to him…."

"I'm not gonna let anything happen to him." Jax hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "I should get back inside to keep an eye on him."

"I'll call ya later to see how he's doing."

"Alright. Drive safe, Bobby," Jax said, turning to head back inside the motel room.

Thankfully Sam hadn't moved from his seat in front of the television, not that he could see the movie, but he liked listening to whatever show was on. His body twitched and jerked, and he grimaced as his muscles spasmed violently. Jax rushed over to take a seat beside him to massage away the painful Charlie horses in his legs.

"The spasms are getting further and further apart," he said as he worked to relieve the pain of the tightly contracted muscles. It was a lie, but Sam didn't call him out on it. "In a few days they'll be gone, and you'll be able to walk around without any pain."

"I-I…" he scrunched his eyes closed as he searched for the right word, "tried."

"What'd ya try?"

He shook his head. Jaw clenching, the nerve in his right cheek twitched. "T-tired."

"You're tired. Okay." On his feet, he helped Sam up off the couch. "Remember, it is ten steps from the couch to the bed."

Shirking free of Jax's hold on him, Sam stretched out his arm in front of himself, and waved it back and forth as he slowly made his way to his bed. Bumping into the corner of the mattress, he bent down and trailed his fingers to the middle of the bed before taking a seat. "Brink," he uttered breathlessly, body trembling from the effort it took to make it a few feet across the room.

"You wanna drink," he said, emphasizing the word Sam had misspoken. "Water or soda?" he added, heading to the mini fridge to get him a drink.

"Water," he mumbled, grimacing as he rubbed the contracting muscles in his thighs.

Pulling out a bottle of water, he headed to the bed, grasped hold of Sam's hand, and directed it to the bottle. "This is only temporary, Sammy," he reminded him yet again. "The doctor said you'll get your eyesight back, and the pain and memory glitches will fade away in time. I know it's a pain in the ass knowing what you want to say and having it come out wrong, but it will go away. I promise you it will."

"I-I'm…." a low, frustrated growl rumbled in his throat. "I'm sc-scared."

"It's alright to be afraid, Sam," Jax said, wishing Dean was there to help his brother. He would know the right words to say to make Sam believe everything would be okay. "But you have to believe me when I say we're gonna get through this. You're gonna get your eyesight back, and we're gonna hunt again. For now though, we're just gonna take it day by day."

"Sow…sow tong?"

"How long?" When Sam nodded, Jax raked a hand through his disheveled hair. "I don't know, Sam. You were in a coma for weeks, and were considered brain dead. So my guess is that it's gonna take some time for your mind to unscramble itself." Sam's shoulders sagged. It wasn't what he wanted to hear, but there was no point lying to him. "You're alive and that's what's important. Everything else will work itself out if we give it time." Sam opened his mouth to say something, shook his head, and snapped it shut. He hated making mistakes when speaking, and even more so when someone corrected him to try to cement the right word into his mind. "I get that you're frustrated, but it's only been three days. And look on the bright side at least I'm not puttin' ya through the same hell ya put me through when you were training me how to hunt." He chuckled weakly as Sam glared at him with sightless eyes. "You're angry – say it." He said the word again, drawing it out for Sam to hear how the letters sounded as they rolled off his lips. "A-n-g-r-y."

"Ang-ry," Sam uttered through gritted teeth. "I-I'm angry."

"It's okay to be pissed off, Sam. What those demons did to your mind and body should make you angry." He reached over and unscrewed the cap on the water bottle for Sam. Sam took a sip, water dribbling down his chin to soak into his t-shirt. "That being said, I'm the very last person you need to worry about being perfect around. So you need help right now, it doesn't change who you are, and the truth is that everyone needs help sometimes…even Winchesters. Hell, I mess up at least a hundred times a day. I'm clumsy. I break things that most people would think are unbreakable. I'm not smart by any stretch of the imagination while you're freakishly intelligent. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even if I'm the biggest screw up the world has ever seen, I don't give up or feel sorry for myself. I get knocked down and I get my ass back up and start swingin' again. You're down right now, and together we're gonna get ya back up on your feet fightin' stronger than ya ever did before." Sam didn't respond, not that he expected him to. Pushing up off the mattress, he went to get the bottle of pain medicine Seth had prescribed for Sam, and handed him two pills. "Get some rest, Sam. I'll be here when you wake up."

XxXxXxX

Surprisingly, Rowan had kept true to his word. He hadn't brought up leaving again nor had he tried to sneak out of the cabin once since Dean returned from the hospital. Of course that didn't stop him from ignoring Dean's presence or inviting strangers over for late night parties. Several times Dean had to remind him that there was a little boy living in the house, and some things were just not appropriate for Joshua to hear or see. Not that he listened. It almost felt like he was watching two kids instead of one, and Rowan was playing the part of the rebellious teenager in the need of a good ass kicking.

His current behavior made it very hard for Dean to feel grateful for all he had done to save Sam. He'd planned on thanking him the moment he got home from the hospital, had rehearsed it over and over again inside his head while Joshua ate lunch and had ice cream, and yet three days later and the words still hadn't left his mouth. If he'd asked about Sam once in all that time, if he'd helped out in the slightest with Joshua instead of leaving everything for Dean to take care of, he would have gladly told him how much he appreciated him. Instead the vampire stumbled out of bed late in the afternoon every day, took longer than necessary showers with whichever woman caught his eye the night before, and then there were the long goodbyes at the door that grated on Dean's last nerve. Definitely the rebellious teenager, but if he hoped Dean would tell him to get the hell out and not to come back, he'd be waiting to hear it until Hell froze over.

However, the loud late night parties left Joshua exhausted, and Dean needed to put a stop to it. Three nights in a row of being kept awake well past his bedtime by blaring music and drunken guests left the little boy sluggish and falling asleep at the kitchen table during every meal, and made it extremely difficult for him to keep focused on the home schooling Dean had set up for him. It wasn't easy to teach someone how to read, write, and learn math and science along with every other subject Dean felt were necessary for a boy his age, made far more complicated by an inconsiderate vampire hellbent on petty revenge.

The only thing that kept him from losing control of his tightly leashed anger was the brief conversations he'd had with Jax about Sam. Although the younger hunter grumbled and complained about the aches and pains of training to hunt once again with Sam, it helped remind Dean that his brother was alive and well because of the deal Rowan had made. The deal had cost him greatly, and if he was angry about it, the very least Dean could do was ride out that anger without getting into a fight with him. So every day he plastered a smile on his face as he was greeted with silence and grunted responses to every conversation he tried to start with the vampire, and prayed that the change of scenery in Florida would be the thing they needed to get back on track.

Hours before they boarded the jet to head to Florida, Dean decided he'd waited long enough to thank Rowan, and hoped the gift he'd dwelled on for days would go a long way in mending their friendship. At Dean's request, Bobby had stopped by to give it to him before he'd left, and leaving Joshua in the older hunter's care for a short while, he returned to the cabin with what he'd hoped would be the perfect present to show how much Rowan's sacrifice meant to him.

He waited until after they'd boarded the jet and Joshua was settled in for a nap before he broached the subject of the deal. Rowan had other ideas on how to spend the flight, pulling out his phone the moment the jet took off to make business calls that could have waited until they landed in Florida. Drumming his fingers on the leather armrest, he waited impatiently for the first call to end only to have Rowan immediately call someone else. By the fifth call, he'd had enough. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he snatched the gift off the seat, and got to his feet. He'd taken the time to wrap it – he didn't wrap gifts. For Christmas and birthdays, he put them in a paper bag and handed them to Sam. It looked terrible with tape wound round and round the wrapping paper, but in his defense it wasn't the easiest gift to wrap.

"Here," he dropped the present onto Rowan's lap, "I wanted to wait until the right time to thank you for what you did for Sam, but I was beginning to wonder if that time would ever come so I got you a gift."

Rowan looked from him to the poorly wrapped gift on his lap and back to him again. With a heavy sigh, he told whoever he was on the phone with that he'd call them back, hung up, and pocketed his phone. "You bought me a gift?"

"Well, I didn't exactly buy you a gift." He bobbed his head at the package. "Open it."

Another heavy sigh. "I don't need a gift, Dean."

"Would ya open the damn present, Rowan," he gritted out, suddenly feeling stupid for trying to do something nice for the vampire. As Rowan tore into the paper, complaining about all the tape, Dean explained, "I've had it since I was a kid…my dad gave it to me, and I figured…well, it's hard to buy something for a person who has everything."

Once unwrapped with the paper falling unnoticed to the ground, Rowan lifted the knife to study it. "You're giving me a used knife?"

"I had your name engraved into the handle." Rowan flipped over the knife, and ran his fingers along the engrave letters of his name. "No matter where Sam and I traveled, I always put that knife under my pillow to have it close by to keep him safe at night. It means a helluva lot to me, and I wanted you to have it for what you did for Sam."

"I don't want your knife," he said, holding out his hand for Dean to take the knife back.

"Keep the damn knife, Rowan. It's a gift and it's not as if I'm gonna walk around with a knife with your name engraved into it…I'm trying to say thank you for saving Sam, and you're ruining it by being stubborn."

"Alright, I'll keep the knife it if means so much to you." He reluctantly opened his briefcase, set the knife inside it alongside his paperwork, and snapped the case shut. "Since you brought up Sam," his green eyes met and held Dean's, "I wouldn't necessarily say he's fine."

"What do you mean by not necessarily fine? I've talked to Jax every day and he –"

"Lied to you," Rowan finished for him, and knees going weak, Dean's heartbeat sped up. "Your brother can't see and there are other – complications."

"He can't…no, Jax would've told me if something was wrong with him. He wouldn't have –"

"You have a job to do, Dean," he said without a hint of compassion in his tone. "It sucks that your brother can't see, but for better or worse, you are Joshua's Guardian. No more time off – no more chasing after your little brother. For the next three months, you are going to be the best damn Guardian that little boy ever had. Maybe you don't care about your own life, but I'm going to warn you anyways that Michael is done waiting for you to put Joshua's needs first. If you fail to stay away from him again, you'll be dragging me right down with you, and for however bad Hell will be for you, it'll be a million times worse for me. By helping you save him, you've made my only hope of dying a lasting death impossible. So you're gonna sit down, shut up, and let someone else take care of Sam for a change. Understand me?"

Dean's jaw clenched. The nerve in his cheek twitched as he glared at the vampire. "Yeah, I understand. Sam's blind and on his own for the next three months."

"Look on the bright side, Dean," he chuckled mirthlessly, "at least he doesn't remember who you are. So you can be thankful he's not both blind and missing you at the same time…."