My phone rang just as I was heading out the door to load my gear into the trunk of the car.

"Hey Bobby -."

"Are you all right?"

He growled that out at me before I'd even finished saying hello. Was I all right? I thought I was. I gave myself a once over anyway, but…

"Yeah. Far as I know. Why are you -?"

"And Sam?"

"Yeah. Sam's fine. Tired. He hasn't been sleeping too well. He's in taking a shower. We should be to your place by -."

"You wanna tell me why then I just got a letter addressed to Sam, in your handwriting?"

Oh. Yeah. About that...

"Um – yeah…" I left the room and shut the door and went to the trunk of the car. "I just - you know – things just haven't been exactly uncomplicated between us lately. I just wanted him to know – you know –."

I opened the trunk and set my gear inside and kept an eye on the motel room door and didn't finish that thought. Bobby I guess figured what I meant.

"And you couldn't just tell him to his face?"

"What? No. What are you – crazy? He'd think I was dying. He's gonna think that anyway, just getting the letter. And anyway -." I could see Sam through the window, out of the shower and dressed, packing up his clothes and computer. " – he probably wouldn't listen long enough to let me say it. Even if I could say it."

I heard grumbling on the other end then a resigned,

"So – you're both still coming to my place today? You're not dumping Sam here and running off for parts unknown and that letter is supposed to explain everything?"

"We'll be there." I even managed a chuckle. Who knew one little letter could cause so much panic between two hardened hunters? "Could you put the letter on Sam's bed maybe? Then he can find it while I'm somewhere else in the house.""Oh sure. No problem." Well, that sounded too cheerful for Bobby, and then I remembered, just as he said, "As soon as I install my elevator."

"Oh right. Sorry. I forgot." Crap. I so did not want to be in the same room when Sam got the letter. "I guess we'll just – um – see what happens. We'll be there by dinner time."

"All right. You boys look out for each other."

"We will. We'll see you soon."

Sam was out the door by then. He caught my eye and motioned to the door, silently asking me if I had everything and was it OK to lock it up? I nodded and he shut the door and I stowed my phone in my pocket.

"Who was that?" He asked as he set his gear into the trunk.

"Bobby. Checking what time we'll be there. He must have big plans for dinner or something."

We got in the car and on the road and the usual silence fell between us. Things had been getting better between us, a little, sort of, slowly. But dealing with that damn trickster again just crapped up everything. Yeah, Gabriel, whatever. Trickster he was, trickster he would always be to me.

So, Sam and I were destined to oppose each other. What brothers weren't? Why were we the lucky combatants and not the Smothers Brothers or the Blues Brothers or the Ludens Cough Drop Brothers? Why us? I was getting tired of everybody and his angel telling me I had to save the world. And I was beyond tired of everybody telling me that to save the world I had to kill Sam. And I was friggin' tired of Sam getting told that too every time we turned around.

Not gonna happen. It's so not gonna happen that – well, it's just not going to happen.

But the weight of it all was still crushing. And that pressure seemed to be pushing us apart. Sam especially wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating, wasn't talking much beyond the necessary. I couldn't remember the last time I heard him laugh. He literally had the weight of the world on his shoulders and I wanted to take some of that weight off of him, so I wrote the letter. Because I wanted him to know how I felt. Because I wanted him to know that I was there so he wouldn't feel so alone. Because I couldn't say it out loud . Because he knew how much I hated writing letters, so he'd know how much more that letter meant because of it.

Because I wanted to feel like we were really back together again.

It was about ten hours to Bobby's place and it didn't take as long as I thought it would. I switched off driving with Sam after lunch and took a little shut eye in the front seat. I didn't fall asleep but I closed my eyes and tried not to see all those people at the convention pretending to be us. I have a hard enough time just being me by myself. I don't need the external visual.

But what that guy said, what's his name pretending to be me. Saving the world and having a brother willing to die for you. Who wouldn't want that?

Both of us, it seemed like, at different points in our recent lives. And not so recent. That's what got me to write that letter to Sam now when I'd never written it to him when he was at Stanford. Oh, I'd written it to him in my head a hundred times back then, I just never once put it down on paper. And the weird thing was – it was just as appropriate then as now and vice versa. I didn't need to change a single word of it.

All I really had to do was make sure he found it when I was somewhere else.

Pulling up to Bobby's house has never not been a relief. The peeling clapboard, drunken shutters, and mossy roof tiles belie what's inside - the closest thing to permanence and real safety that Sam and I had anymore.

Except right now there was a loaded death trap in there for me if I didn't get to that letter before Sam did.

I resisted – barely – the urge to push past him and rush into the house like I used to when we were younger, and getting inside before a five year old was some kind of monumental victory.

Okay, so I did nudge him aside to get to the door before him, but I do that anyway a lot and I even saw a grin threatening to bust out on his face because nothing says brotherly love like a shoulder in your ribcage.

Bobby was in the kitchen when we got inside, busy with a knife and vegetables and a soup pot at the table. A bottle of beer stood near him.

The letter rested on the newel post of the staircase.

Just as I was adjusting my level of panic, wondering how I could get to the letter without Sam noticing, Bobby called,

"I need some help out here, from somebody who's not a midget."

I sighed bravely and announced, "I guess that's me," and Sam rolled his eyes and followed me into the kitchen where I asked Bobby, "Whatcha need?"

He looked me up and down and gave me his own eye roll.

"I need Sam." He said, and Sam actually really smiled that time, because it'd probably been awhile since he'd been told that in any kind of non-Apocalyptic way. I pretended to be hurt and started to slink away to spirit the letter upstairs when Bobby told Sam,

"I need a rolling pin I keep up on the top shelf of that high cupboard there."

Hearing that, I had to stop and turn back to him.

"You own a rolling pin?" I asked. The glare he sent me should've cracked glass.

"Don't make me use it on you."

I held up my hands in surrender and tried to make a nonchalant exit out of the kitchen. I grabbed my duffel and snagged the letter as I went up the stairs, dropped the duffel on my bed and the letter on Sammy's, and was back in the kitchen just as Sam was pulling an old, cobwebby, orange-ish colored metal rolling pin out of the back of a very high cupboard.

"Gee, Bobby. When was the last time you used this?" Sam asked.

"Probably before you were born. I had a nice wooden one I used, but I needed oak ash and had to burn it. Just put it in the sink there. I'll need to wash it before I use it."

"Could you please boil it before you use it?" I asked. He gave me another look.

"Don't you got somewhere you wanna be?" He asked. Code for 'all set?'

"Nope. Nowhere." 'Yep, all set.'

"Good. Then you can wash it for me. So's it's all nice and princess-perfect."

Sam laughed, which was good to hear, and he hauled himself and his backpack up the stairs. He was laughing; I was holding my breath, listening to his footsteps overhead, wondering if I'd know the exact moment he found the letter.

"That thing isn't gonna wash itself." Bobby said.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know." I tossed off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves and got to work. "So what are we having for supper that you need a rolling pin?"

"Chicken and spaetzle."

"Oh? Is it special spaetzle?" I had no idea what spaetzle was, but I liked the way the words went together. I kept one ear open to anything happening overhead while Bobby shook his head and 'humpfed' at me.

"Keep that up and you'll be cleaning the kitchen all by yourself after supper."

"Yeah, I might be doing that anyway…I can cook too you know, if you want. I haven't killed Sammy yet with my food. Just tell me what I need to do."

"I'll cook – you can clean up. If I don't like the way you clean up, I can always do it over again. You don't get much chance to get food right twice."

I overlooked the smear against my cooking skills.

"I'm just saying – if you don't want to cook, you don't have to -."

"You don't need legs to cook chicken and dumplings." Bobby growled.

"I thought it was spaetzle…"I was having such a good time annoying Bobby, that I didn't hear Sam come down the stairs. All of a sudden though, there he was, crossing the kitchen floor to the refrigerator like it was just any other time we were here and nothing out of the ordinary had gone on. Like me pinning my soul to his pillow. He pulled out two beers and handed me one and pulled out a chair across from Bobby.

"If you're looking for something to do, Sam, you might wanna help Dean wash that rolling pin. He's taking his sweet old time about it."

Sam laughed and relaxed a little in his chair. He'd read the letter, I could tell. He was shooting me looks but not making eye contact. He had a couple of fingers tucked into one pocket of his jeans and I knew he had the letter in that pocket. When he went to sleep I was going to lift it and burn it. No way was I letting him keep the evidence.

"How're you doing, Sam?" Bobby asked him.

Sam opened his beer and took a swallow and shrugged.

"Tired. Never seem to not be tired anymore these days."

"You should lay down for awhile. Dean n'me can take care of getting supper on the table."

"No…" Sam looked up at me then, made eye contact, actual look-me-in-the-eye-for-longer-than-a-split-second eye contact . "Think I'll just stay here."

I decided he could keep the letter.

The End