One advantage of insomnia: more writing time. This is possibly not my only take on this episode. I absolutely loved the premiere. 12x02...not so much.

Sam's dreamed this before, more than a few times, but it's not a dream this time. He's hugging his mother—is hugged by his mother—and this is real.

This is real.

He says good night and his mother says good night, and Sam steps back and closes her door, carefully, turning the knob so it shuts with barely a click. Like a click would actually disturb her, when earlier today she'd smashed a gun butt into a woman's face. But she felt so small in his arms, for all she squeezed tightly.

Part of him is still struggling to believe any of this. Cas's healing erased the throbbing and aches as effectively as the blood and bruises; without the physical reminders, and as exhausted as he is, the last few days almost seem like a bad dream themselves, a nightmare he's finally awoken from.

If still more believable than his mother smiling up at him, saying his name.

Once the door is closed, once he's standing alone in the bunker corridor, then it feels more like reality. Familiar lights overhead; familiar concrete under his shoes, as he walks back down the hall, counting his paces, one, two, three, four.

The library is deserted, the lamps off, the remains of dinner cleared away. Sam pokes his head into the kitchen long enough to check that no one's sitting at the table.

The counter is empty. Dean must have done the dishes, thrown out the trash, put away the rest of the six pack.

Or else there had never been any dinner tonight, unless he had only imagined that; and Sam spins on his heel, detours down the hall.

Dean's bedroom door is closed. Sam lifts his hand to knock on it. Stops himself. Dean's just gone to bed, obviously, with or without the rest of the beer. It's barely past nine, but he needs the sleep; Cas's angelic restoration only gets you so far. Sam had dozed in the car for most of the ride home, but he'd been awake enough to note Dean's posture behind the wheel, spine rigid, fists clenched at ten and two; like he got when he was driving long-distance on an hour of sleep and hourly cups of coffee.

That wasn't his imagination; Sam had gotten from Missouri back to the bunker somehow, after all, and he hadn't driven himself.

Dean is behind this door, sound asleep. Alive.

Sam's fist, poised over the door, is trembling a little. He forces it back down to his side, takes a deep breath. Feels the tug of skin across his chest, below his collarbone, but that's just phantom twinges; there aren't any scars. It doesn't hurt, even in his memory; he can remember the slide of the knife going in, but not really the pain that came with it.

He can remember knowing Dean was dead. Saying it aloud. Hearing it said to him, echoed in Dean's illusory voice. But he doesn't remember feeling it. Didn't get the chance to feel it, between the bullet wound and the hypothermia and the hallucinations and...

He walks back to his room. Hesitates before he sits down on the bed, but the mattress sinking and squeaking under him is just his bed; it doesn't spark anything, doesn't bring into focus any of those hazy figments. She'd called it a hallucination, but having the full technicolor satanic experience to compare to, it had really been more of a lucid dream. Vivid in the moment, but quick to fade in the face of contradictory reality.

But then, do any of the past hours, the past day, feel any more convincing?

Of course they do. Sam looks up at the rotating fan, thinking back to the salty crisp of cheap fried chicken, the rumble of the Impala's engine from the backseat. The bulk of Dad's journal pressed under his elbow, the heat of the teacup in his hands. His mother's arms wrapped around him.

It feels different. All of it does. His eyes can pick out every detail on the fan, the turning blades, the art deco curves of the hub. He can count every rotation, until he blinks and misses one. He doesn't blink in dreams, not that he's ever noticed. And numbers are difficult for the subconscious mind to hold; to have the focus to grasp them, he must be awake.

"It's bolted on; it's not going anywhere."

The voice is quiet, but unexpected enough to make Sam start, jerk upright on the bed, arms coming up in defensive fists.

"Whoops," Dean says from the doorway, putting up his own hands, open, palms out in a gesture of surrender. "Didn't mean to freak you out. You were just staring at that fan like you were trying to figure out why your copter wasn't taking off." The words sound lightly mocking, but his voice is too soft to hold that edge.

"Dean," Sam says, as his hammering heart slows. "I—I thought you'd gone to bed."

"Just on my way," Dean says. "Was finishing cleaning up the kitchen."

"No, you weren't," Sam says, "I checked, you weren't—" and he sounds ridiculous, accusing, when there's nothing to accuse; no blame to apportion, when there's nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing. He shuts his mouth, forces the rest of his breath out through his nose.

He'd expect a frown, at least a puzzled look at the outburst; but Dean's expression doesn't really change, calm and gentle as his voice. "Sorry," he says, "guess I didn't hear you. I thought you were either asleep or. You know. Talking with Mom."

You know. Like that's something Sam is supposed to know; something normal or expected in their life. "I gave her Dad's journal," Sam says.

That does change Dean's face, for a moment, shadows it. "Oh," he says. "Right—I should have thought of that. She—she deserves to see it. Have it. It's kind of hers, right?"

"It's ours? Dad left it to us—to her, too, probably, if she'd been around..."

"But they were married," Dean says. "No will, so his stuff is hers, legally, right...?"

Sam frowns, now the one confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing." Dean shakes his head, drags a hand through his hair. "It's late; you should get some sleep, if you can."

"Not that late," Sam starts to say, but when he checks his watch it's past midnight. Except he'd sat down on the bed at nine and he hadn't dozed off; he could remember every sweep of the fan blades, had counted off a hundred or two or more, spinning round and round—

"Sam," Dean says, and the tunneling room suddenly snaps back into focus, details in sharp relief. The blanket wrinkling under his clenched fingers, thick cotton flannel, not dreamy satin; solid incandescent light, not flickering candles.

The mattress springs creak, a quiet clamor of authenticity, as Dean sits down on the edge of the bed, watching Sam. "Those bitches really did a number on you, didn't they."

"I'm—" Sam starts to say automatically, then stops when he sees the flicker of disappointment darkening Dean's green eyes.

It's not that they don't lie anymore, don't still need to pretend sometimes. But not like they used to. "Yeah, I do," Dean had said, in the cemetery, before he went to face Amara; though that was so small and safe, and this isn't.

But if the last few days were real, then now should be as well, and Sam swallows, admits, "It...wasn't a great time."

"Yeah," Dean says. His back is tense like he's on the highway, taking them home; but he doesn't say more, just waits.

"But it's over," Sam says. "You got me out, and it's over."

Dean sighs, lets his shoulders fall. Not bracing to ask questions but letting go, for now, anyway, and Sam is grateful, because it's later than he thought and he's starting to realize how tired he really is. He feels weighted, head and body heavy, dragged down by gravity, and that physical fatigue isn't something from any dream, either.

"I'm sorry it took so long," Dean says, then puts up his hand before Sam can respond, continues, "It's not...that's not an apology; you don't have to say you forgive me or anything. Just, I—we—Mom, and Cas—well, you know, we tried, everything we could, but. I wish we could have found you sooner."

"Me, too," Sam says; agreement, not accusation, and one corner of Dean's mouth quirks up. Sam breathes out, trying to loosen the tightness in his chest. "But you came, you saved me, and—you're here, you're alive, that's—"

"I know," Dean says, "it's...it's so awesome, that Mom is actually here—"

"That's not..." Sam shakes his head. "—I mean, yeah, that's incredible, I don't even...but..." He looks back up at the fan, counts the blades sweeping past his line of sight. One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four... "When they took me, what they did to me—none of it, nothing they could do, hurt as bad as... But you came, you came back, you're not dead—"

"Hey," Dean says, "Hey, Sammy," and Sam doesn't get why Dean's arm wraps around his shoulder, reels him in. Not until his face is pushed into the crook of Dean's shoulder and he feels the damp patches spreading into the flannel pressed to his squeezed-shut eyes.

It takes a couple more breaths for Sam to stop the shuddering catch in his lungs, for him to pull back, with an extra little push before Dean lets go, releasing the tight grip around Sam's shoulders to let him sit up. Sam wipes his sleeve across his eyes, says again, "But it's over. You got me out."

Dean's face twists, and then clears. Changes with a resolve that doesn't harden his features so much as hones them, makes him look all the more like himself, real and alive and present. "Yeah," he says. "We got you out, Sammy."

He doesn't add, and I always will; he doesn't swear, Nothing bad is going to happen to you.

He doesn't say anything but the truth, and Sam doesn't glance upwards, doesn't try to count the whispering draft through his hair, yet still believes him.