Four.

There's a car in the field now in a column of flame
With two doors to choose but only one bears your name
You've been drinking my blood well I've been licking your wounds
I'll shave off the pitch now in the scope of your tune.

"Space Lord," Monster Magnet

She knew that he was there.

The doctors kept telling her that he was in a deep coma, that he couldn't hear her, that he wasn't aware. That was bullshit. He was there, with her, not trapped in the injured shell of his body. Somehow he'd gotten ripped loose and he was wandering around the hospital with her, his breath on the back of her neck, his voice whispering in her ear. She knew it. She knew it. Every time she reached out, the little Dean-spot in her brain lit up like a Christmas tree. He was standing right next to her, just like he always was, only this time she only had herself to get them both out of this mess.

All she had to do was what she did best: find the solution. That was her job. She was the answers girl. She was the brains, the sudden leap of unlikely genius, and Dean was the brawn, the anchor that kept her ideas from getting a little too wild. Good thing that she mostly needed brains for this, or she'd be shit out of luck. Good thing that he was still here to yell at her if she went too far, 'cause she was so frantic to get him back that her brain was whirring in little circles, trying and trying and trying to find an answer, and she was afraid that the one she latched on to wouldn't be anything close to right.

"I know you're there," she told his empty room. "I'm gonna get this fixed. All you have to do is hold on till I can figure out how."

Something ruffled her hair. She glared at the empty space in front of her- it was just like him, to stand there and give her a spectral noogie like a giant dork just because he knew that she couldn't get him back.

"Do not go gentle in that good night, you hear me? If you do, I will go after you and drag your sorry ass back, and trust me, you will not enjoy the experience. Are we clear?"

Crystal, he almost-said. And she couldn't be sure, but she thought that the musical not-sound that swept through the room was probably the sound of Dean laughing.

She'd pretty much taken up permanent residence in the chair next to Dean's bed for the last two days. She'd been sitting so much that her ass was going to go flat, and she had about three different paper cuts from paging through the journal so many times, but she didn't know what else to do. She wasn't finding any answers. She was starting to think that there weren't any answers to be found.

No. She refused to believe that. The way to save Dean was here somewhere. She just had to look in the right place.

Her Dad stuck his head into the room, an unusually hesitant look on his face. "Any news?"

She shook her head. "He coded out a few hours ago, but they managed to shock him back. Nothing's happened since." She set the journal down on the edge of Dean's bed. "What's the word from Bobby?"

Her Dad came a little ways into the room, holding a big paper grocery bag full of something. "He says the Impala's dead in the water. Might as well sell it for scrap."

Sam clenched her fingers around the long sleeves of Dean's jacket and fought the urge to punch her father in the face. "No way. No way, Dad. Dean would kill us. He's gonna want to fix it when he's better."

Her Dad sighed. "I'm not sure there's anything to fix, Sam. It's almost past salvage."

"If there's even one working part, that's good enough for me and it'll damn well be good enough for Dean," Sam said hotly. "I'm not just gonna give up on-" She stopped. "You know what I mean."

Her Dad looked really sad for a minute, almost worse that she'd ever seen him. "I know, Sam. I told Bobby to go ahead and tow it. We can make our decisions later."

She deflated, all of her anger spent. She just didn't have that much left, anyway. All her energy was focused on trying to figure out how to save Dean. "Okay. Thanks."

He cleared his throat. "Sam, there a reason you're wearing your brother's coat?"

She looked down at her lap for a minute. The urge to give him an honest answer was almost overwhelming. For a split second, she wanted him to hurt almost as much as his crusade had hurt Dean. She wanted to make him bleed on the inside.

But the urge passed, and she was able to look up and meet his eyes. "It's cold in the hospital."

He held her gaze for a long, long time, like he was trying to dig around in her brain. She'd let him, if he wanted, though she didn't think that kind of thing ran in the family. She just didn't care if he knew, not anymore.

"What's in the bag?"

John shifted the bag to his other arm. "Oh, just a few things for protection. In case the demon comes looking for us."

"What sort of things? I didn't see any spells like that in the journal."

"Bobby looked it up for me," her Dad said. "Nothing too heavy. Acacia, Oil of Abramelin, crossroad dirt- just a few of the basics."

He looked her right in the eye and she knew he was lying. It was practically written across his forehead, what he meant to do. She closed her eyes.

The Colt wasn't going to be enough. The demon was going to want something more. The demon was going to make John sweeten the deal.

Dean was going to die.

"You let me know if you need any help with that spell," she said steadily.

His fingers tightened on the bag. "Yeah, I will." He started to turn around, then stopped while he was still in the doorway, his back to her. "Sammy?"

He hadn't called her that since she was fourteen years old. Same time she stopped calling him- "Daddy?"

"Take care of your brother." He paused, looked at her extra-hard. "Any way you know how."

How long had he known, she wondered? Since two minutes ago? Since she put on Dean's coat? Since they got to the hospital, or met up again on the road? Or had he known all the way back when she was just a kid and he'd never said anything? Was it because he loved her, loved Dean, or because he just didn't care?

She wasn't going to ask. She probably wouldn't ever know. "I will. I promise."

"That's a good girl," he said distantly, and walked away. He didn't shut the door; she could hear his footsteps, heavy and ponderous, fading away down the hall. Eventually they disappeared under the beep of Dean's heart monitor.

Tears burning in her eyes, she leaned down and pressed her ear to Dean's chest and just listened to the reassuringly steady beat of his heart. He wasn't going anywhere. He wasn't going to leave her, not now.

Her Daddy was gonna save the day.

She stared dry-eyed at the pyre as the flames licked higher and higher, like they were going to reach right up into the sky and burn out every single one of the stars. It seemed like a fitting end.

"Did he say anything to you?" she asked. "Before he…" She couldn't finish the sentence. Her throat closed up at even the thought of trying.

Dean didn't look away from the pyre. "He told me that he loved me. That he was sorry because he wasn't there for us." His jaw worked. "He said he was proud of me."

Sam could no more have stayed where she was than she could have halted the movement of the tides. She went straight to him, burrowing into his chest when he automatically opened his arms to let her in. "You moron. Of course he was."

She felt Dean swallow hard. "Yeah, well."

She shouldn't ask, she knew she shouldn't, but- "He say anything else?" She had to know.

Dean was silent for a minute. "He told me to look after you."

It was her turn to swallow nervously. "Yeah. About that. Dean, I think he… knew. I mean. About us."

"You told him?" Dean's voice was very aggressively neutral.

She looked up, biting her lip. Dean didn't exactly look mad… "No! Uh, not exactly. And he didn't say anything either, but I definitely got the sense that he'd figured it out. Maybe a while ago, I don't know."

"Huh."

His expression didn't change any, and the suspense was going to fucking kill her if she didn't get a reaction out of him soon. "Dean? Are you okay?"

"Well, Dad's dead," Dean said conversationally. "I almost died. We don't have the Colt. The demon got away. And Dad knew that we're sleeping together, possible for years. Am I okay?" He took a deep breath. "Can I get back to you on that?"

She muffled her giggle against his neck. "I think that's pretty reasonable, considering."

"Yeah." One hand was stroking slowly up and down her back, almost absently. She arched her back a little, trying to feel it better through the thick leather, and his strokes firmed.

"You ever going to give me back my coat?"

Dean had been wearing denim for the last few days, looking off-balance without the dark brown leather covering his frame. It was silly for her to keep it- it was huge on her, she was practically drowning in it, it made her look like a five-year-old playing dress up. She should just give it up and go back to wearing her own stuff. She had her own coats, nice ones, ones Dean had bought for her, even, that were way more practical.

"No," she said. "I'm keeping it. Get a new one."

He chuckled, the vibrations transferring over into her own frame. She loved the way it buzzed through his throat and rumbled down into his chest. "Maybe we can work out a time-share," he said. "What with it actually being mine, and all."

"Not anymore," she said. "I've laid claim. It's mine now."

They both knew she wasn't talking about the coat. "Whatever you say," he said fondly, and kissed the top of her head. "Let's get back to Bobby's before he comes looking for us."

"Yeah, okay." She reluctantly detangled herself from his arms and stepped away, looking one last time at the flames before she turned away. "You're sure he didn't say anything else?"

Dean looked somewhere over her shoulder, not meeting her eyes. "I'm sure. That was it."

He wasn't even trying to be subtle about the fact that he was lying. She could read him like a book, even without her little extras. There was definitely something else that he wasn't telling her.

She didn't press the matter. She was keeping a few things from him, too, after all.

"Okay," she said, and fished the keys to Dad's truck out of his pocket. "Let's get out of here."

Sam came back to the bar with the twenty in her hand, riding high on a wave of smug victory and the warmth in Dean's eyes. She'd seen Ellen whispering something to Dean, caught the angry, disapproving looks in the woman's eyes. She didn't like Sam. She didn't like Sam hunting, didn't like her playing pool, didn't like having her in her bar.

Sam really felt that smile she sent towards Ellen's carefully blank face. Fuck you too, lady, she thought. I don't care what you think of me.

Dean was smiling fondly when she slid onto the barstool next to him. "Smoked him, didn't you?"

She laughed. "Not like it was much of a challenge. I've had better competition in a freaking college bar."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, from girls who weren't so busy trying to get a look-see down your shirt they couldn't hit the ball."

"Told you I had the natural advantage," Sam tossed back. Then it occurred to her that they were flirting, and she should probably tone it down a little before their audience caught on. She'd gotten used to spending all of her time alone with him or the strangers they met on a case, people who'd have no reason to know they were siblings. They'd been playing it safe at Bobby's, but that just meant they'd cut loose a little once they hit the road in the soccer-mom van. Careless not to cut it out earlier. "Did Dean tell you why we came?"

"He said that you're trying to track the demon off your dad's work, yeah," Ellen replied. "I'm not real sure I can help you there. There's not many who could track like your daddy."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Sam said. She'd been going through that folder for the last week, and she was just about cross-eyed from trying to make sense of it. "Anything you've got, though, would be a huge help. We need all we can get, at this point."

"Well, like I said, I can't make heads or tails of it, but I know someone who can."

Jo nodded. "Yeah. He's a certified genius."

Dean leaned a little further over the bar, casually flirtatious. Sam automatically checked his smile- it was just above friendly, enough to tell her that he thought Jo was cute but was flirting pretty much on autopilot. He probably wouldn't have done it at all if Jo hadn't been eyeing him up like a piece of steak. "Oh yeah? Where can we find him?"

The younger Harvelle smirked, matching Dean's pose. Sam snickered internally. Oh, honey. Don't even bother. "Not far," Jo grinned. She let out a shrill whistle. "Ash! Get your butt over here!"

One of the guys who'd been hanging around the pool table detached himself from the crowd and wandered over, a can of PBR in his hand. "You rang?"

Dean's eyebrows were going to disappear into his hairline if he raised them any higher. "You gotta be kidding me. This guy's no genius, he's a Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie."

The kid with the mullet laughed. "I like you, man. Gimme the stuff."

"Give him a chance," Jo said.

Sam had her doubts too, but she passed over the folder. "Dad had kind of a weird way of tracking, and I'll be damned if I can make sense of it."

Ash paused with one hand on the folder, giving her a nice, slow up-and-down look. "Well, no offense, sweetheart, but it probably isn't your area of spec-i-al-ity."

Sam gritted her teeth. "Well, you know, it's not like I wasn't raised hunting, and had a 3.9 GPA in Stanford, or anything. I'm pretty sure I can sound out all the big words."

A slow smile spread across the kid's face. "Well, aren't you something. I dig the smart chick thing."

Dean laughed out loud. "Oh, man. Keep it up and you're going to be saying goodbye to your balls."

Sam smiled. "He's not wrong."

Ash held up his hands. "Okay, okay, chill out. It's not like I meant anything by it." Practically dripping wounded dignity, he opened up the folder and started paging through. "Man, you weren't kidding. I would have said that you couldn't track a demon like this, but apparently your dad could." He was silent for another minute, still flipping. "You've got nonparametic statistical overviews, cross-spectrum correlations… Shit, these are omens. Well, I'm impressed."

"Well, can you track it or not?" Sam demanded. They didn't have time to stand around playing verbal footsie with this horndog. She was tired of fucking around doing nothing; she wanted to get out there, actually make some damn progress against this demon for a change.

Dean's hand twitched toward hers, remembering himself at the last minute and not reaching out for her. She got the message, though, loud and clear: Calm down.

"Yeah, I can do it," Ash said. "But it's going to take me a little time. Uh, give me…" He made a quick mental calculation. "Fifty-one hours. That should do it."

"Awesome." Dean clapped him on the back. "Hey, dude."

Ash turned to look at him, already heading away with the folder in hand. "Yeah?"

"I like the haircut."

Ash grinned and tossed his head, aiming a wink in Sam's direction. "All business up front, party in the back."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Somebody should put a leash on that kid."

Dean bumped her shoulder with his. "Think that's what he was trying to get you to do, hot stuff. He was practically salivating."

"Don't even fucking start." She sighed and turned back to Jo and Ellen, who were watching the exchange with raised brows. "Don't suppose you've got something we can do in the meantime? I'm gonna go stir-crazy if I have to spend one more minute watching Dean work on that car."

"Well, I was saving this for a friend of mine, but…" Ellen grabbed another folder from behind the bar and passed it over to Sam. "See what you make of this."

Dean crowded behind her as she opened it up and started paging through. "The hell is it?"

"Looks like clowns, Sammy," Dean said, an unholy grin starting to spread over his face. "Killer clowns."

"You've got to be kidding me." She twisted around to stare at Dean in disbelief. "Please tell me you're kidding."

Dean grinned at Ellen. "We'll take the case."

"There's something you're not telling me."

There was a long pause, and then Dean slid out from under the Impala. "Now? You seriously want to talk about this now? I can't even finish what I'm working on first?"

Sam crossed her arms over her chest. Damned if she was going to let him get away with this, a-fucking-gain. He'd been doing this ever since they got back from the clown case, and she was tired of it. "No. Because after you're done with this, you'll find something else. And then something else after that, and so on and so forth."

Dean sat up and put his back against the front grill, probably because even she could loom when someone was flat on their back. Dean was getting into defensive position, ready to withstand the siege. "My baby needs a lot of work."

"And that's why I've been sitting around boning up on exorcisms and protective spells while you're working. But I'm pretty sure you can talk and work at the same time, Dean. In fact, if memory serves it's usually pretty difficult to get you to shut up."

Dean scowled. "That was different. I was trying to get you to learn your way around an engine, not that that ever took. At all." He shook his head sadly. "For a while there after that little lesson, I was sure you had to be adopted."

No way was she letting Dean distract her into an argument over the car. The car wasn't what was important here. "Look, you know what? We all keep secrets. It's kind of the healthy way to live, and whoever says that total honesty in a relationship is important doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. But I can tell you're keeping something from me, something pretty fucking big, judging from the way you've practically been screaming it at me since we took that case."

Dean shifted nervously. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, it's not like I can hear what you're thinking, but you've been broadcasting, 'I have an extremely important secret that I'm not happy about! Ask me how!'" Sam sighed. "You're kind of giving me a headache, to be honest."

A muscle twitched in Dean's jaw. "You've been going in my head, Sammy?"

Did he really just ask- "What? No! Like I said, you've been broadcasting. I've been trying to tune you out, but whatever it is you're chewing over, it's bothering you enough that I can't. Okay? I haven't been going in your head."

"Good," Dean said. "See that you don't start."

Sam threw up her hands. "And yet, still not the issue! Dean, seriously, what's wrong? What's so bad that you can't tell me?"

Dean's body was pretty much one long line of tension by this point. "It's nothing."

Screw the high ground. She needed to be up close and personal for this. She crouched down till she was looking Dean in the eye and said, "It's pretty clearly not nothing, or it wouldn't be bothering you this bad. What is it? Maybe we can fix it together."

"I'm not sure it's something that can be fixed, Sammy," he said. "Just… let it alone."

"Is it something that Dad said to you?"

"Samantha, please," he said, and she wasn't sure if it was the use of her full name or the honest-to-God begging she heard in his voice, but she stopped. Everything about him was telling her that he was just about ripping himself in two trying to deal with this on his own. It had to be something Dad had said, probably told him to keep it to himself, too. Which meant that it was something to do with her, and Dean was driving himself crazy with the need to tell her, because Dean had always told her everything.

She nodded, biting her lip. "Okay, Dean," she said slowly, "Okay, I'm not going to push anymore." Relief made him sag, and she added, "Right now, anyway. I'm going to get an answer out of you eventually."

He gave her a lame attempt at his usual grin. "That's what I'm afraid of," he joked weakly. Or maybe just pretended to joke. What the hell was going on in that head of his?

He'd tell her, sooner or later. He wouldn't be able to help himself. Either whatever it was would resolve itself enough for him to spill the beans, or the pressure would cause him to break and turn to her, but either way, he'd tell her. He always did.

She twisted around and settled in next to him, her back pressed against the hot metal of the car. His arm came up almost automatically to wrap around her shoulders, and she nestled in against his side, resting her head on his shoulder. He smelled like sweat and motor oil and steel, and the lump under his t-shirt that was the pendant she'd given him was about three inches away, right over his breastbone. She could see the throb of his pulse in the curve of his throat, and as they sat there in silence, her breathing slowed to match his own.

"So," she said conversationally. "How's the car?"

Dean was dead quiet after they left Gordon, all the way back to the motel. He dropped the weapons bag on the floor next to the bed and went into the bathroom, shedding clothes as he went. She heard the shower turn on, and his thin hiss of pain as he climbed in underneath the hot water.

Sam just started packing up their stuff in preparation for checkout the next morning. Dean would talk when he was ready, and hopefully the hot shower would improve his mood a little. In the meantime, she might as well do something constructive.

Dean came out eventually, probably after the hot water ran out, and silently pulled on boxers and a t-shirt before crawling into bed. Sam watched him for a long minute, wondering if he was going to talk to her- but no, to all appearances he'd fallen instantly asleep.

Hmm.

She went and took her own shower, making it fast since it was fucking cold, then shaved her legs afterward on the edge of the tub and quickly plaited her wet hair into a braid before wrapping herself in a towel and going back into the room, shoving her shower kit into her duffel. There was a lot of extra room in there, and their laundry bag was getting kind of out of control. They'd have to find a Laundromat tomorrow when they stopped for lunch. In the meantime, she still had one clean pair of jeans left for tomorrow, and snagged Dean's Metallica t-shirt to wear to bed. He always did like to see her wearing his stuff.

Then she crawled in next to Dean and turned out the light. She did a careful sweep under their pillows to make sure the knives were there, checked the nightstand to make sure Dean had left the pistol taped underneath, and only then did she settle in and pull the covers up to her chin. It'd been a long fucking night, and it was only a couple of hours till dawn. They needed all the sleep they could get.

"You ever think about how much Dad didn't tell us?"

Sam twitched, halfway to sleep and jerked back to wakefulness by Dean's voice. So, not really that asleep, after all. "You're talking about this now? What was wrong with the drive back to the motel?"

Dean ignored her and kept expounding. "He never told us about the other hunters. Didn't tell us about Ellen, or the Roadhouse, didn't even bother to tell us when he had something on the demon, just took off and left us- left me- to handle things on my own."

Sam rolled over to face him, and found that he was staring up at the ceiling, his face expressionless. "Yeah, but he's always been kind of like that, right? He always taught us what he thought we needed to know and kept his own counsel about the rest. That's just Dad."

"Yeah, I guess." Dean paused. "But did you ever think about what else he didn't tell us?"

Sam blinked, trying to figure out where he was going with this. "Yeah, I guess," she said cautiously. "But then, me and Dad, we were like cats and dogs most of the time. That was just one of things we fought about."

"He raised us to hate the things we hunt, and I mean, I hate 'em. I really do. I didn't even think about it when I killed that vampire back at the mill. Hell, I even enjoyed it."

"You didn't kill Lenore," Sam said, raising up on one elbow to get a better look at his face. "You saw she wasn't evil and you didn't kill her. Hell, you saw Gordon for what he was and you stopped him from killing her. There's no bad there, Dean. Even that one back at the mill, you didn't know. You saw him trying to kill Gordon and you saved his life. There's nothing wrong with that kind of instinct."

"Yeah, it's just…" Dean sighed. "Man, I wish we never took this case. It's just jacked everything up. I dunno what the hell makes sense anymore."

"Me," Sam said, and grinned at him. "That's what partners are for, right?"

Dean still looked troubled. "That's just the thing, Sammy," he said. "I don't know-" And then he stopped.

She waited, and when he didn't seem inclined to finish his sentence, she asked carefully, "Does this have anything to do with what you wouldn't tell me before?"

Dean let out an explosive breath. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, it does, and Dad made me promise I wouldn't tell you but- fuck, I almost spilled the beans to fucking Gordon back at the bar, am I supposed to be able to tell some psycho but not you?" He sat up suddenly, and looked at her fiercely. "Fuck what Dad told me. I don't believe him anyway."

Sam laid one hand on his chest and looked up into his face. "Dean, what did he tell you?"

Dean looked at her, his eyes wild in the light of the neon sign, coming in through the window. "He told me I had to save you."

"What?" Sam leaned away from him. "Save me from what? The demon? Why'd he tell you that? I mean, we already know the demon has plans for me, so obviously we're already on the lookout."

"It gets worse," Dean said. He already looked like he wished he hadn't started talking about it, Sam didn't want to know how it got worse.

"Worse how?"

"He told me that if I couldn't save you, I'd have to kill you."

"What the fuck?" Sam recoiled away so hard that she almost fell out of bed, and stayed where she was, teetering on the edge of the mattress, staring at Dean and trying to tamp down on the feeling of betrayal that was trying to rise up her throat. "Kill me? Is that what he meant by the demon's plans? He thinks I'm going to go evil?"

"Well he's fucking wrong," Dean growled. He didn't reach for her, which told her more than anything else how freaked-out she must look right now. "You're not going to go evil, Sam. I don't believe it, and you better not either."

"But- God, Dean, he must have had a reason to say it. Dad wouldn't just say something like that if he didn't absolutely believe it was true."

"Dad's been wrong before," Dean said. "And he's wrong now. Seriously, Sam, how could you believe he might be right about this? You're about the least likely person to go dark-side out of anybody I know. You feel guilty when bugs fly into the windshield, for Chrissake."

Sam wasn't so sure. Hadn't she let Dad sell his soul, knowing that it would bring Dean back? And she'd had visions of Jess's death for weeks before it actually happened, and she'd gone with Dean anyway, even knowing what might happen. She'd choose Dean over anything. What if it came down to Dean or saving the world? Which would she choose?

Dean grabbed the back of her neck and hauled her back over the expanse of the mattress until she was flush up against him, till he could grab her by the shoulders and look her right in the eye and say, "I don't give a damn what anyone else says. You're Sam, and you're a good person, and that's all that matters. Ever."

She let him hug her tight, like he was trying to smother the doubts out of her with the weight of his body, but she knew it wouldn't work. Their Dad, her Daddy had believed she might need to be killed, to be put down like a rabid dog. How could she possibly not have doubts?

"I love you," Dean whispered, ragged and soft, right into her ear. "I know you better than anyone else on this Earth or off of it, and that includes Dad, and I love you. You're not evil. You don't have it in you."

She choked on her tears and buried her face in Dean's neck. He'd never- oh, he'd told her, one way or another, he'd always let her know, but he'd never just come out and said, not just-

"I love you too," she said. Because of course she did. She always had. But she didn't know how to say it any better than Dean did, sometimes. And if he had that kind of courage, if he could believe in her even after what Dad said, then paying back in the same coin was the very least she could do for him.

"Now we're going to get through this," he said. "You're going to practice with your powers, and we're going to keep hunting, and we will by God figure this out. You hear me?"

"Well yeah, I'm not deaf, Dean," she said, and he chuckled and tugged the end of her braid till she looked up at him.

"Good," he said, and kissed her. And just like every other time, she kissed him back. She couldn't ever help but respond to him. He was Dean.

Later, tucked into bed with the covers up to her chin and most of Dean's limbs wrapped around her like some kind of human octopus, she fell asleep listening to the steady, reassuring beat of his heart. For tonight, at least, all of her doubts were gone.

"Now that," Dean said, when they'd finished filling in the grave and were packing their things into the trunk, "is what I call a happy ending to this case."

Sam just leaned tiredly against the passenger door and cradled her aching hand. "Dean, a zombie just killed three people, including the dumbass boy who brought her back; I've got a headache worse than any of my visions; and oh yeah, I might have broken my hand. How is that a happy ending?"

"Well, a) we're not dead; b) nobody else died, and we did our best for the budding necromancer, it's not my fault he's a shitty actor; and c) you managed to knock that girl back into her grave and pound that stake through her chest just by thinking about it, which is pretty fucking cool. And if you'll stop whining and get over here, I'll dig out the first aid kit and we can take care of your war wounds, Princess."

"Well, she pissed me off," Sam grumbled, complying, "What with the whole, you know, breaking my hand thing she did."

"It's not just your emotions," Dean said, examining her hand. "You've been practicing a lot harder. Don't think I haven't noticed."

"Yeah, well, since Dad apparently thought I'm going to turn evil, I thought I might as well- ow!" she said, as Dean's probing fingers hit a tender spot. "That would be the spot that hurts."

"Yeah, I noticed," he said, his hands becoming even more gentle. She bit her lip as he poked carefully. "Well, it's not broken, but it did get twisted up pretty bad. We'll strap it up for a while, see if it'll heal on its own." He glanced up and smiled. "Good thing you shoot left-handed."

"Gee, that just makes me feel so much better," she said, at her very driest. Dean's smile turned into a grin, and without letting go of her hand, he rummaged through the first-aid kit.

"Here's some pills for your head and hand," he said, carefully pouring out two from the really heavy-duty bottle into the palm of her good hand. She raised an eyebrow at him- they were some of the precious leftovers from their various hospital stays, with no real way to get more since pharmacies were a little harder to break into than your average home or cemetery- but he ignored her, concentrating on getting the brace strapped on without hurting her further.

Oh, well. It wasn't like she ever did any of the driving, anyway. She shrugged and dry-swallowed the pills, making a face at the bitter taste.

"There, good as new," Dean said, finally done with his fiddling. "Or, well, good enough, anyway."

She cautiously wiggled her fingers, and when her hand didn't do more than send up a dull throb in response, grinned at Dean. "Good enough for me."

"Awesome." He packed the kit back up and slid it into his duffel, closing the trunk once he was sure everything was properly packed away. "Hey, you want to grab some dinner or something? Celebrate not being dead?"

His voice was casual. Too casual, and he wasn't looking at her, almost like he had something to hide, and- "Are you asking me on a date?"

He ducked his chin and scowled at her, like that was going to distract her from the dark stain of a blush that was spreading along his cheekbones. "What? No."

"You are, you totally are!" she crowed. "Seriously, Dean, me? You're asking me on a date?"

"Maybe," he grumbled defensively. "What's wrong with that, anyway?"

She leaned hipshot against the trunk of the Impala, giving a disbelieving huff of breath. "Well, it's not like you've got to talk me into bed, you know. I think history has proven that I'm still going to sleep with you even if you don't bribe me with beer and steak."

"Give me a little credit, Sammy, there'd be something chocolate in there too." He settled in next to her, his warmth leaching through the denim and leather of their respective sleeves. "What's so wrong with the idea? We grab dinner together all the time."

"We do everything together all the time." His hand came up to toy with the end of her braid, and she realized after a moment that she'd gotten so used to it that she almost hadn't noticed. "A date is something completely different. A date is what you do when you're just getting to know someone. You take them to dinner and buy them drinks and be on your best behavior because you're trying to cram a lifetime of familiarity into a couple hours just so you can talk them into sleeping with you." She sighed and leaned more heavily against him, laying her head against his shoulder. "We've had a lifetime already. We know each other better than anyone ever could."

"Doesn't mean you don't deserve something better once in a while."

She shook her head. "No, don't you get it? There is nothing better. We've already got the real thing."

There was a long pause, and then Dean pressed his cheek against the top of her head. She could feel his smile as he said, "Well, when you put it that way."

She grinned. "Doesn't mean you're not buying me steak."

"Yeah, don't hold your breath."

"What I don't get is the motive. I mean, the doctor was squeaky-clean. Why would Andy waste him?"

Dean scrunched up the burger wrapper in his hand, giving it a disgusted look. "If it was Andy. You know, one day, I'd love to just sit down and eat something that I didn't have to microwave in a mini-mart."

Sam slowly swiveled her head to stare at him. He stared back, his eyes going wide as he caught her death glare. "What? What'd I say?"

"Dude, enough. Seriously."

"You're the one who's always on my case about eating healthier!"

"I was talking about Andy, you jackass. What do you mean, 'if it was Andy?' That doctor was mind-controlled in front of a bus. Andy Gallagher just happens to have the power of mind control. You do the freakin' math."

"I just don't think the guy's got it in him, is all."

"Oh, for god's sake, Dean." She was abruptly and completely fed up. It had been a long fucking week, a long fucking month, hell, year, and she'd been staying up nights trying to get a handle on the telekinesis, not that she seemed to be getting much better, and she was tired, damn it. And on top of everything, she'd had to stand there while Ash was hitting on her completely bare-ass naked. Seriously. She'd faced down demons, ghouls, ghosts, zombies, vampires, and pretty much any other creature of myth and legend that went bump in the night, and that was the worst thing she'd ever done. Hands down. "How the hell would you know? Why are you bending over backwards to defend him, anyway?"

Dean was glaring back at her, now. "Listen, any dude who drives around in a van with a barbarian princess riding a goddamn polar bear isn't too menacing to begin with. And everything we've heard about this guy just makes him sound more harmless. So basically, you're saying he's a killer because he's like you."

"That's not what-" Sam protested, but Dean kept talking like she hadn't even opened her mouth.

"And that's the biggest pile of bullshit I've ever heard. So yeah, I'm defending him. Someone has to, because you are dead wrong about this one."

She bit her lip. "You're the one that told me Dad thought you might have to kill me. Tell me what I'm supposed to think about this guy, Dean. Tell me I'm supposed to believe he's innocent when I know damn well that the demon's got plans for all of us."

"You don't dare throw that back in my face," Dean snapped. "And, by the way? The only person less likely than you to commit cold-blooded murder is that guy. If someone held him up at gunpoint he'd probably offer them a hit of that huge bong of his."

"We kill things all the time, Dean," Sam said. "That's pretty much our entire life."

"Yeah, and when you start kicking puppies and torturing cats for fun, you just met know," Dean said. "You want to go on a guilt trip about what we do, you might as well call cops and soldiers vicious murders, since we're not far off-"

"Andy," Sam said.

"Yeah, we were talking about Andy, and how there's not way in hell he's-"

"No, I meant, Andy," she said, and then the man himself came up to Dean's open window.

"Shit," Dean said.

It all went downhill from there.

Sam had driven away from a hundred cases in a hundred small towns in all 48 states of the continental US. She'd left in all sorts of moods- angry, elated, worn, content, depressed, triumphant, ambivalent. She'd been starting to think that she'd been through it all.

She'd never really felt this particular variety of blind panic before, though.

"Stop freaking out over there," Dean said, without looking away from the road. When she glared at him- she was the psychic one in this family, damn it- he gave her a sideways glance and the corner of his mouth curled up in a smug half-smile. "I can practically smell the smoke coming out of your ears."

She crossed her arms over her chest, worry transmuting to annoyance through the special alchemy of being a pain in the ass that Dean had perfected when he about ten. "I don't see why you're so calm about it, anyway."

"Because I was right, and Andy's not a bad guy." His hands on the steering wheel were relaxed. "We're keeping each other's secrets now. It's fine."

"Yeah, right. We know he has mind-control. He knows we're sleeping together an that I have freaky demon powers. I'm not really seeing the even trade, here."

Dean gave her a second glance, this one chiding. "Yeah, and we also know that his twin bother stalked him, killed two people, and tried to kill his girlfriend. And we stood there and watched as Andy shot him in the head."

Sam made a face at him. "You think I'm overreacting, don't you?"

"While I would never be so stupid as to say that to any angry woman, even you, yeah, I think you're maybe freaking out a little more than you should be."

"And it doesn't bother you." To Sam's surprise, she realized her question was genuine. She really wanted to know why Dean was so damn calm about this, when normally freaky demon stuff got him as jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. "He went into your head, stole your car, made you tell him secrets. Our secrets. And you're cool with that."

Dean tapped his fingers restlessly on the steering wheel. "I'm pissed off that he took advantage, sure. But he stopped as soon as he knew us. I'd never try and con another hunter, right? And up until he knew what was going on, we were just a couple of marks to him."

That made sense, she guessed. Explained why Dean got so annoyed at even the thought of her accidentally reading him, but Andy got a free pass for completely fucking with his mind. And taking the Impala for a joyride.

"But the 'tell me the truth' bit. Where you just up and blabbed all about how you were fucking your-" She stopped.

"My what?" Dean asked. He sounded pissed off for the first time, which was less than comforting for Sam. "My sister? That's your hang-up, babe, not mine."

She pursed her lips. "You haven't called me that in years."

Derailed, he blinked at her. "What?"

"'Babe.' You haven't called me that since I left for college."

"Yeah, well. You were gone." He hunched his shoulders uncomfortably, then forced them back down again. "And you hated being called Sammy, so." He spread one hand in a helpless gesture. "I stopped."

"I like it," she said. He shot her a confused smile.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I do." It made her feel like a girlfriend, or more like his partner. Which was, and always would be, just like she'd always be his little sister.

Hey, she dealt with her hang-ups better than he gave her credit for.

"You know, there is a bright side to this case," Dean said after another silent mile rolled out underneath of them, comfortably this time.

She thought about it for a moment. "I got to use my telekinesis to save somebody, that was pretty cool."

Dean grinned. "Yeah, okay, no arguments from me on that one. You pulled that girl off the bride just as sweet as can be, from, what, twenty feet away? Nice going on that one, by the way."

"I thought so." She propped her elbow on the door and then rested her cheek on her hand. "But that wasn't what you were going to say."

"You're not going to turn evil."

She gave him the Eyebrow. "How'd you get that out of this case?"

"Gallagher has what's got to be the most tempting power known to man, and al he was doing with it was getting laid and chasing off some creditors. He shot his only hope for a family to save my life. Maybe that makes him a killer, but hell, it also makes him a damn good man, in my book, anyway."

"Yeah, okay. I get the point, Dean." She slouched a little lower in her seat, looked out the window at all the endless green flashing past. "Sorry, I couldn't be there to save you. Watching your back is pretty much my job."

He reached out blindly and managed to catch the end of her braid on the first try. "You saved Tracey," he said, giving his captured prize a slight tug. "You saved the innocent. That's your first job, always. I can watch my own back."

Her hand came up to cover his and squeezed. "Yeah, but you shouldn't have to."

"I know."