I kept as much of an eye as I could on Room 11 for the rest of the day, but I never saw those boys stir outside their door until I was manning the counter at the diner for our nearly non-existent dinner crowd and in walked Sam Winchester. He didn't have a bandage on his face but the gouges were looking less lethal than they had been before.

"Well, hey there," I greeted him. "It's good to see you up and around. How're you feeling?"

"Better, a lot better. Thanks. I came to get us some dinner."

"Did you run out of food already?"

"No, but Dean can only go so long without red meat," he said with a smile. "And he's more than earned a cheeseburger. And I needed to get out of the room and get some fresh air."

"I'd say the both of you have earned anything you want and then some." I pulled out my order pad and pencil. "What can I get you?"

One cheeseburger with extra onion and fries, one Super Salad, two coffees and pie, I gave the order to Leo back in the kitchen and offered Sam some coffee and conversation while he waited.

"So, now that you're back on your feet, I'm guessing another night's sleep and you boys will be hitting the road?"

"Yeah, Dean's talking about driving to L.A., taking a studio tour or something. Just taking some time off."

"That'll be good for the both of you. Take some time for yourselves."

"Yeah…"

I wasn't sure how to bring it up, but I didn't want to not bring it up.

"I'm sorry about your Daddy; words been going around that he gave all."

Sam looked at his coffee and spun the cup around on the counter top.

"Uh - yeah. Yeah, that was just a few months ago. It's still - it's really hard to believe."

I was about to say that it must've been something pretty nasty to take out John Winchester but then I thought - just a few months since Sam'd lost their Daddy, just a few days since he'd had to kill that poor girl. Talking about it wasn't gonna do anybody any good.

"He was a good man," I said instead. "A hard-ass, but a good man."

Sam laughed at that. "Yeah, he was. He was all that and then some. I think he really liked you."

That sure surprised me. "What makes you say that?"

He gave a half-shake of his head. "I don't know. Just - I don't know."

I took that and put it away to look at later.

"Are you boys gonna be okay?"

"As okay as we ever are, I guess. You know? We still have each other. That's something, anyway."

"That's more than most hunters have. More than most of 'em ever have. I hope you boys know how lucky you are."

I thought maybe that would embarrass him or he'd make a remark about bad luck being all they had, but after thinking about it a second or so, he nodded.

"Yeah, we do. Usually when we're at our unluckiest." He waved his hand to his torn cheek with an amused grin. "That's usually when we realize it most. I'd be dead a few times over if it weren't for Dean."

"And vice versa, I'm sure."

He ducked his head and shrugged, "I don't know, I hope so," and then his food was ready and I packed it up for him to take back to their room.

"You let me know if you need anything else. And say goodbye before you pull out, all right?"

"We will."

And he took his take-out bags and coffee carry-all and headed back to his brother.

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