Faith hung up the receiver. She took a deep breath running her fingers through her hair. Angel wanted her to summon the cross roads demon again, call Cordelia. This time though it would be in Los Angeles. She understood his request. There was no way she could deny him allowing him to suffer, but it wasn�t that simple. Dean would be upset. He wouldn�t allow her to do it without a fight.  There would be a conflict of interest. It opens a new can of worms once he knows that Sammy made a deal with it. He would want to confront it himself.

She headed back over to the table turning a chair around straddling it. �Angel needs my help with something he wants me to come to L.A.,� she glanced over at Sam. He probably would be putting some of the pieces of the puzzle together. The demon had told her to speak to the brooding vampire. From the expressions on the brother�s faces they had continued with the conversation while she was gone. Dean knew that Sam had given up his life for his brothers. She sat up right her eyes lids fluttering speechless gathering her thoughts. It was scary not knowing his reaction of feelings. It was easier facing a nest of vampires or a demon than this. �He told you?�

Faith�s departure to take a call left Sam alone with his brother.  Dean watched Faith go, then turned his gaze on Sam.  Faith had already said she went down to the crossroads, so Dean would know just how it happened, how he got out, but not the details of the deal.  Hints of accusation were already clouding over Dean�s increasingly piercing gaze.

Sam crossed his arms over his chest.  �I tried to talk her out of it, Dean.  I knew what you would think and feel about making a bargain with a crossroads demon.�  Sam glanced up at Faith, who was at the bar talking into the receiver of the phone. �We weren�t going to give up on you, bro.  There are other ways to bust someone out of hell.  I�d been talking with Cas.  And then we could have leaned on Crowley, maybe.  But all that was going to take time, and none of it came with any certainty.  Dean, Faith was hurting bad.  The girl really loves you.�

�She couldn�t wait for all the deliberation and research.  So she made a decision on her own to summon a crossroads demon.  Like I say, I did everything I could to stop her.  But, and you know this better than I, when she puts her mind to something, nothing�s going to get in her way.�  He paused, because this is where the story ran off the tracks a little.  �So when she called on the demon, I stepped up and made the bargain.  It�s my life on the line now.  Two years, Dean.�  That�s what Sam had demanded of the demon, but she hadn�t really responded.  So did he have two years or one?  Only time would tell.  �I couldn�t let Faith do it, and I knew what you�d think if I let her give her life away.  I saved her, for you.�

Faith put down the cotton balls taking Dean�s hand in hers. This question was coming sooner than expected, but she would have never been ready to answer it.  �Dean I�..,� she wanted to tell him how bad things had been without him. Everyone was so very lost without him. She couldn�t manage. There was nothing left for her except for being the loner she had always been. She didn�t want to go there again. She brought her had up rubbing her eye. It all sounded like a lame excuse. Dean was never going to forgive her when he knew the truth. It was her fault his brother only had a year to live. �I just needed you back,� a look of pain in her eyes that could say volumes. All those things she wasn�t putting into words. �It was supposed to be me. I went to the crossroads,� she was hoping Sam would chime in. She didn�t even notice the phone was ringing. The bartender motion for her to come over and pick up the line. Damn it,  the timing couldn�t be worse. She patted Dean�s hand then got up to get the phone.

It didn�t rain in hell, and there wasn�t lightning, parking lots full of pickup trucks, or Harvelle�s Roadhouse.  Or was this just another aspect of hell?  Something the sadistic bastards had dreamed up for Dean Winchester, some new form of torture?  They�d make him think he�d escaped, or been rescued, then when he was sure everything was going to be ok, Faith, Sam, and Jo would dissolve right in front of his eyes, into bloody, messy piles of hair, internal organs, teeth, and dead glazed-over eyes.  If that�s what it was, he wouldn�t be able to do anything about, except to steel himself, insulate his emotions from that eventuality.  On the other hand, what if all of this was real?  What if he had gotten out of that place somehow?

He couldn�t allow himself to believe that he was really out, because if he wasn�t, the disappointment would be intolerable.  So Dean let himself be led to the Roadhouse and inside, where it was warm and dry.  Jo went about the place, talking to people, some of whom Dean recognized � hunters, most of them friends.  They were staring at him.  But soon they were headed for the door.  Then Faith was tending to his wounds, gently and with loving care.  Was it real, or just an hellacious ruse?  He didn�t know.

Dean glanced at Sam.  It looked like his brother, it really did, down to the long hair that always irked Dean, and the worry lines that had become a permanent fixture on his forehead in recent years.  And Faith � she was as real as he would let himself believe. But there was something that needed to be asked, something that would perhaps tell him whether this was real or an illusion.  �So how did you get me out?�

Faith followed Sam�s lead helping Dean to his feet and slipping an arm under his. They helped Dean walk back towards the bar with his brother on one side and her on the other. Jo walked beside them none of them discussing the event with the demon in newly revived hunter�s presence.  �You wouldn�t be able to clear the bar out?� she looked over at Jo. Dean didn�t need a bunch of strange people staring at him.  At the road house they assisted Dean over to sit at one of the tables. �First aid kit?� Jo motioned to the bar. She looked over to Sam, �I�ll be right back.� Dean still had cuts and scratches from his experience. It was the mental distress that Faith was worried about.  She headed over to the bar asking the bartender for the supplies. She walked back behind the bar gathering them.  Thinking about Cordelia she paused grabbing the phone to call Angel. The current number she had for him wasn�t a direct line. Instead she got his bubble headed secretary and had to leave a message.  Pouring her self a cup of coffee while she spoke to her, she was eager to finish sobering up.

She gathered her kit and drink.  Then she headed back over placing the cup down on the opposite end of the table to keep it from getting spilt. The kit was placed next to Dean. It was homemade assembly full of bandages, peroxide, cotton balls, and antiseptic. She grabbed a cotton and a bottle dabbing the liquid on it. Gingerly she tended to his wounds taking his hand in hers with more gentleness than usually displayed by the slayer mindful of his condition.

Putting a hand on his brother�s shoulder while Faith comforted him, Sam spoke reassuringly, �Dean, bro, you�re out of that place.  We rescued you.  Everything�s going to be ok, now.  You�re safe.  Whatever they were doing to you over there, in that hell, it will never, never happen again.� 

In actuality, everything wasn�t alright, but this wasn�t the time to tell Dean that.  And there was no way Sam would guarantee that it would never, never happen to his brother again.  In this business, never say never, whether you�re referring to bad stuff or good stuff.  Nothing was off the table in the world they muddled through every day.  But Sam had to say it anyway, just because it was Dean, and his brother needed to hear something good for a change.  God knows what he endured in hell.

 Sammy had shoved her aside taking her place, her reflexes to slow to stop him and her mind to addled to contemplate the repercussions. Cordelia had one thing right. As soon as the alcohol completely wore off she would be notifying Angel of their encounter with the former cheerleader minus the details of her almost lip lock. Although she was still a bit wobbly, she was already on her way to sobering up. Still trying to gather her bearings as the final exchange went down.  She was glaring daggers in Cordelia�s direction until she heard the coughing coming from behind her. The sound reverberated through her.   She felt shaky as she turned around to see Dean tears welling up in her eyes. It was hard to believe he was really there. She reached out grabbing Sam�s arm. What had he done? He wasn�t make the deal with the demon. It was suppose to be her.

The three of them stood there staring at the man on the ground gasping for air in shock. There was a feral look in Dean�s eyes. He didn�t seem to grasp the concept he was home.  Faith rushed over falling to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, �baby it�s alright. It�s me. No one is coming.�  She holding on to him for dear life she kept reassuring him repeatedly between frantic sobs.

Hell wasn�t what most people imagined. Or not only what people imagined.  Sure, there was probably a place where bodies danced and writhed in perpetual agony, forever consumed by fire, but never given the relief of unconsciousness or death.  But hell takes many forms in a lot of different dimensions, many of them custom-made to exploit an individual�s deepest fears.  For Dean Winchester, it was all about family.  In his own customized hell, Dean didn�t burn, he wasn�t tortured or flayed, wasn�t run through with hot pokers.  He was tied to a post with his eyes taped open as each one of his friends and family was brought before him and slowly dismembered, raped, and tortured.  Those inflicting the pain were extremely skilled and could keep a person alive for weeks while slowly killing them physically and mentally.  In fact, their victims never died from their physical wounds.  They only succumbed when their minds, the spirit and soul, had finally given up all hope and essentially yearned the body into death.  Watching this form of torture inflicted on Sam, Faith, John, Rachel, Jo, and everyone Dean had ever loved was Dean�s own personalized hell.

Dean might be Faith�s lover, but he was Sam�s brother.  Sure, he wanted Dean back as much, maybe more than Faith.  Sam felt like half of himself.  He�d been floundering ever since he�d lost Dean.  He used to be so confident, so sure of who he is and what he�s destined to be.  But in the sucking black hole of Dean�s absence, he�d realized he was like a ship adrift at sea.  He was slipping away from who he had been � the hunter � the concept of starting over and trying to make a normal life for himself had begun to play amidst his thoughts, even if that life would be mundane and boring, in comparison.   

Dean had always been the strong one, sure and steadfast.  If anything, Sam brought him down, always questioning his methods, leading them down blind alleys.  Sam had the analytical mind and periodic psychic abilities that Dean lacked, but his brother operated on pure hunter skill and intuition. Sam was like Dana Scully, constantly analyzing and questioning, but Dean was the Fox Mulder of the operation, always on the path, which was for him straight and narrow. 

Sam wasn�t going to be able to stop Faith from making this deal, and a big part of him didn�t want to, because he wanted Dean back, too.   When Dean returned, he�d be royally pissed once he found out how this deal went down, that Sam had just stood here like a feckless moron while Faith signed her life away.  There was only one thing he could do.  Sam stepped forward.

�Here�s how its going to be, bitch.  Two years, and if you even think about screwing with us � if Dean doesn�t come back just the way he left us, or you renege somehow on this deal, we�ll hunt you down and send you back to Crowley in bloody shreds, regardless of the cost to us.�  The Winchesters kept their deals, and by reputation, this demon had to know that if someone crossed them, Sam and Dean would methodically and relentlessly do what it takes to settle a score.  

�The deal is with me, not Faith.� He slipped a hand through the Crossroad demon�s thick, lovely dark tresses to the back of her neck, then his lips met hers in what would be a deeply cold, dark, and fateful kiss.   

If she was looking for crossroads, Faith didn�t have far to go.  Even when Sam lost sight of her � she runs not like a girl, but like a superhero, he knew where she was going � to the intersection of old Highway 77 and the road from Ashby to Whitman that everyone just called the Whitman Road.  Neither road got much traffic after they built the interstate bypass. The crossroads was only like a third of a mile from Harvelle�s Roadhouse, but Sammy had drank a couple of beers and hadn�t exactly been keeping up with his exercise regimen, so he felt like he was going to puke.

As the sound of his sucking wind subsided, Sam began to hear the crickets in the cornfields all around them and a Great Horned Owl down in the hollow to the south.  The spring night was unusually warm, the harvest moon was almost full, and he was sweating.  But all that was taking a majorly big back seat to what Faith had just done.  She�d summoned a Crossroads Demon. 

Having caught his breath, Sam took his hands off his knees, stretched back up to his full and impressive height and looked the demon in the eyes.  This was no ordinary demon.  She was like supermodel cute.  A halo of dark curls, a dazzling if somewhat evil smile, and my, oh my, what a body.  But he had to rein in his hormones.  This was a demon, and a really bad one at that.

He grabbed hold of Faith�s arm with one hand and directed the palm of his other hand toward the demon, trying to ward her off, �Look, this is all a big mistake.  There�s not going to be any deal.  You can just go back into your genie�s bottle or whatever.  We don�t need you.  Come on, Faith, lets get out of here now.�  He tugged on her arm, but he might as well have been tugging on a freeway bridge abutment.