I think Dean caught me crying.

I'm trying to keep my voice even and force the tears back and not think about anything that just happened, or anything that's happened in the last four days, or ever really. I'm trying not to think of anything but the fact that my girlfriend burned up on the ceiling the same way my mom did. I'm trying not to think about anything but that, letting it consume me the way the flames consumed Jess.

I scrub a hand across my face and duck my head, but Dean is side-eyeing me and I think he caught me crying. I haven't cried in front of my brother since I was eight, and I don't want to start again after fourteen years. I haven't cried in front of anyone except Jess in fourteen years, and I feel so vulnerable without her here right now.

Dean definitely caught me crying this time, and so did a couple of other people. They're buzzing and flitting around me, reaching out to take my hand when they realize who the one "body" they found belonged to, or when I'm crying so loud the firemen are looking over at us and my shoulders are shaking and heaving and sobs are racking my body, even though all I feel is numb.

There's a hand on the small of my back and one on my arm keeping me upright and leading me to the car. Dean's face comes swimming into focus, kneeling awkwardly in front of me, one hand on my knee.

"When I said I wanted you to come with me, this isn't what I meant," he jokes lamely.

I huff a strangled laugh that turns into a strangled cough, and Dean smiles a little. Dean's itching to get out of here, I can tell, and so am I. I want to get as far away from my apartment and the ashes of my girlfriend, who wanted to be cremated anyway, as soon possible, and just go to sleep, but I can't because Dean is still squatting beside me, complaining about civilians and occasionally narrating the progress of the emergency workers. Only good news comes from Dean's mouth, all with a sad little smile and a hand on my knee. They don't think anyone else is hurt... The fire is almost out, Sam... They're sending spectators back home... We can leave after we give a statement, okay, Sammy? ... They said that we can come back whenever you're ready to see if there's anything worth salvaging. They said that there probably is. That's good news, isn't it, Sammy?

Finally, after decades of waiting with Dean at my feet, he gets into the car and drives away from a smoldering building and my last hope of a normal life.

I jolt awake, not even realizing I had fallen asleep. In my dream, the same dream I'd been having for weeks, Jessica had been pinned to the ceiling above me and gradually her arms and legs and hair ignite until finally her whole body and the walls and ceiling erupt in flames. Only in this dream, she kept yelling my name long after she was dead and Dean had come to rescue me at the last minute, and then…

"Oh shit," I moan into my hands, scrubbing ferociously at my forehead where two tiny, precious drops of Jessica's blood had dripped onto my head.

"Yeah, me too," sighs Dean. We're still in his car, parked outside a motel. He looks almost as tired as I feel. "Ready?" he asks tentatively, looking at me like I might burst into flames too. God, I feel like I might.

I shrug and get out of the car. I still don't feel much of anything, but something thick in my throat keeps threatening to claw itself out of me, leaving me raw and bloody, and I think if I sleep, it won't ever get the chance, I won't ever have to mourn for Jessica.

I'm following Dean, who's just got his bag in his one hand and a room key in the other, when it hits me. We're a step or two from the door when I just stop because I realize Jessica isn't coming back this time. I'm not going to wake up in the morning to find out it was just the same horrific nightmare. I'm just going to wake up to find and a cracked and water stained ceiling, and itchy sheets, and it sucks.

It feels like I've got the wind knocked out of me. I stop to try and catch my stops too and looks back. "Sammy?" he asks. "You doing okay?"

I take a deep breath and stare at him like he asked me if I suddenly decided to quit law school to become a ballerina, which wouldn't be too far from the truth right now, and shove past him roughly. "No," I grunt, all but kicking down the door.

Dean sighs loudly and tosses his stuff onto a bed. I lay down on the other one, but Dean ushers me off of it, and I don't know if it's from grief or exhaustion, but I let him herd me to the bathroom, tutting like a concerned mother, declaring that I can't sleep until I shower and get all the ash and whatever the hell else off of me.

"No," I complain tiredly. Everything inside of me weighs a ton, and I just want to lie down, but I know I've lost because Dean is threatening to give me the shower and he's already in the bathroom with me. "Fine," I grumble. "I'm not helpless." I slam the door on Dean's nose, and even though I come very close to catching his fingers in the hinges, he's smiling, and dammit that's irritating.

I turn the water on as hot as I can get it, and the way it burns and scalds as it runs down my shoulders shocks me into reality, but as soon as I close my eyes to focus on the feeling of water burning away at my skin, I see Jessica again, eyes staring coldly at me, hair in flaming ribbons around her head like a halo from hell, and this time, Dean doesn't come, and I'm burning up below her, calling her name right up until I can't talk anymore because the fire took my tongue away too.

"No!" I cry suddenly, slamming both my fists against the shower wall so hard the showerhead comes loose and crashes down on top of me. It doesn't come down all the way, bangs my head and just sort of hangs there, suspended by nothing more than a thin cord, still spewing water pathetically because it's the only thing it can do.

"Sammy?" Dean calls. "You…hurt?" he asks, changing his question from "okay" to something much more specific at the last minute.

I want to tell him that I am hurt so he'll come rushing in here to my rescue, but most of me knows that's stupid and a lot of me doesn't know if he will come. I don't think I could take anymore heartbreak tonight, so I shut off the water with enough force to make the showerhead come down another inch or two and call back, "I'm fine," even though there's a water streaks on my face that have nothing to do with the shower and my voice is hoarse with anguish.

"Okay," says Dean, poking his head into the bathroom through the door. He makes a face at the steam, but not a comment, and walks back out to wait for me.

I come out to see that Dean's laid clothes out for me with a hesitant smile a simple, "Yours are dirty," and moves to the bathroom, presumably to take a shower.

"Dean," I say suddenly, wanting him to stay within ten feet of me now that it's really well and truly sunk in that Jess is gone. My lip is trembling and I have to bite my tongue hard to stop from asking if he can bring Jess back from the dead. If that were possible, I probably wouldn't even know Jess. "I broke the shower," I say instead.

Dean gives me a strange look like he's trying to figure out exactly how I'm feeling, but he takes a deep breath and just says, "Don't sweat it. Get some sleep."

"Okay," I say dumbly, and sit on the edge of the bed and watch Dean take off his shirt through the open bathroom door.

"Hey," Dean warns mockingly, pretty ironic for someone who threatened to give his twenty-two year old brother a bath. He doesn't say anything else before he gets in the shower.

The thrum of the water against the tile is hypnotizing and it's edging me towards sleep, but I can't close my eyes because that's where Jessica is. That's where she's alive one minute and screaming the next, where I saw her die weeks ago in increasing vividness, where I'm terrified I'll wake up and forget that this time it wasn't a nightmare and really, really real and have to relive this nightmare of pain again. I can't keep my eyes open, but I can't go to sleep. I need Dean to get out of the shower so we can get the hell out of here and find Dad or Jessica's killer, preferably sooner than later so I can go the hell to sleep!

"Dean!" I call instinctually, despite myself. I heard a sputtering string of curses and the showerhead collapsing all the way and the water shutting off so abruptly I didn't even think it was possible.

Dean is out and dressed, pulling on a shirt, in thirty seconds flat. He stares at me for a couple seconds before asking carefully, "Do you need something?"

I look at him desperately, trying to keep this one last thing to myself. "I don't think I can do it without her," I admit, even though I wish I could stop, like I wish I could stop the tears from welling up in my eyes, making Dean's image swim before me. My head is spinning and I'm too tired to even think, but I'm still afraid to close my eyes, and I just really wish Jess was here more than anything else in the whole world.

Dean comes over and kneels in front of me like he did earlier. He presses a callused thumb across my cheeks, wiping away my tears like I'm five years old. Dean screws up his face and sits next to me on the bed, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, folding me until I'm squeezed against his chest so I can feel his heart beating steady and calm just like I remember from when I was five. I feel so small and vulnerable wrapped up in his arms like this, and so I cry. I let it sink in that I've got no home, no girlfriend, no leads on how to find the thing that killed her. The more I cry the further I bury myself into Dean's shoulder. I keep my eyes open to stop from seeing the fire, but it's there too, against the green fabric of Dean's shirt that's wet in spots where I laid my head against it. I think that Dean thinks I might just cry myself to sleep before he says, "Don't tell anybody, but sometimes I still feel that way about Mom."

I wipe my nose on the back of my hand and sit up, tears still running steadily down my face, looking at Dean. "And I tell myself that it's ridiculous, because I hardly remember her," Dean continues, rubbing my back like it's the only thing he can do if he wants to keep going with this train of thought. "But that's not what gets me through those days, you know?" I don't know, and I wish I did because I don't think I'm going to be able to get through the night, let alone the rest of my life. "But I remember Dad telling me that Mom would want us to live our lives and be happy," says Dean, his throat sticking a little. "So whenever I think about how I don't want to live without Mom, I think how Mom would want me to, understand?" I shake my head because it doesn't help the shattered pieces of my heart glue themselves back together, doesn't help me stop missing Jess, doesn't stop me from not really know what to do without her.

Dean purses his lips and thinks about it for a little. "Then, I guess…" he says. "Whenever you miss Jess, think about all you've got right now, about what you've got ahead of you."

"What's that?" I ask miserably. I had law school and a family ahead of me, and now what? I don't have anything now.

"Well, right now, you've got me," he says with a doleful smile. "And I don't suck." He wraps his arms around me and this time when I listen to the sound of his heart and feel the rise and fall of his chest, I don't feel exposed. I feel safe. I can close my eyes and the picture of Jess is dulled by Dean's breathing. When he thinks I'm asleep he brushes his lips against my temple, squeezes me closer, and tells me that it's going to be okay. And I believe him.