He woke up feeling sick to his stomach. He rolled over and saw his brother asleep in the bed next to his. Then he took a look at the clock. 3:17 am. No wonder he's still asleep.

Feeling nauseous, Sam slid out of bed and rushed to the bathroom. He was glad his bed was the closest to it. He collapsed in front of the toilet and promptly lost what little he had to eat last night. He leaned heavily on the toilet, a mixture of weakness and a gnawing feeling that he wasn't at all finished forcing him to stay. Sure enough, he vomited again.

After a long while, when he was certain he couldn't have anything left in his stomach, he slowly lifted himself to his feet. He splashed some water on his face, rinsed his mouth out and sighed. In the mirror he could see that he looked about as bad as he felt. He also noted that he was now shivering like crazy. He could tell he had a fever, which pissed him off. How the hell did he let himself get sick?

Thinking about it, Sam knew exactly why he was sick. This sort of thing used to happen a lot when he was younger. He had a bad habit of putting his studies before his health.

Lately he'd been working non-stop to find a way out of Dean's deal. He followed every lead, read every book he could find, and exhausted all of his contacts. This didn't leave much time for sleep, as he had to do most of this when Dean was either asleep or not around. Even though his brother was no longer against breaking the deal, he still insisted that hunting came first. Besides, if Sam had to do something drastic to break the deal, he didn't want Dean to find out and try to stop him.

He rememebered the last time he was sick like this. It was when he was still at Stanford. He thought if he didn't study hard enough he'd lose his scholarship and be forced to drop out of college. If that happened he would have nowhere to go since his father had essentially kicked him out of the family. So he studied constantly, barely eating or sleeping, to make sure that didn't happen.

It wasn't long before he got sick. Lucky for him, he had Jess. She had spent all her free time taking care of him. She even skipped class just to make sure he was okay. She was such a caring person.

His chest tightened as all the memories of his dead girlfriend he had struggled to suppress filled his mind: when they first met, staying out late together, their first kiss, sharing a room together, her face, her smile… He also remembered the nightmares, or rather the visions. In them he couldn't do anything but watch as fire engulfed her and spread across the ceiling.

Ugh. It hurt to remember that night. The heat of the flames, her blood dripping on his face, it was all so wrong. And he could have prevented it. That was by far the worst part.

All those times he woke from a nightmare in a cold sweat he assured her nothing was wrong, and she believed him. If he hadn't been so bent on forgetting his past life and ignored his dreams then he could have warned her. He could have saved her. It's not fair. She didn't deserve it. She didn't even know. She didn't know how dangerous it was to be close to me.

Everyone who was close to him, everyone he cared about died. Jess. His mother. Dad. And now Dean.

Dean. His grip tightened on the edge of the sink. The pain he felt when he thought about life without Dean was almost too much to bear. His brother was going to hell because of him. No, no I won't let him. I didn't go to law school for nothing. If there's a way out of that deal, I'll find it.

He promised he'd get Dean out of this. He thought things would be easier now that Dean admitted he didn't want to die. But if anything they were worse. His brother was depending on him and Sam was terrified of letting him down. The deadline was fast approaching and he was running out of options. He wasn't even sure if Ruby could help him anymore.

All these thoughts left his head pounding and his body practically screaming for rest. He decided to comply, only because it would be rather embarrassing to pass out in the bathroom. He sighed again and headed for bed, being careful not to wake Dean. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.