It's Not the Fall That Kill You

It's getting late but he's fixing to pour another drink, has long since lost the count of them but not yet had enough to lose the unbearable feeling of FEELING, in all places other than his worthless leg. So he pours another, a full three fingers. Bobby curses his uselessness as he glances at the clock on the wall in the kitchen and confirms the pit he'd felt drop in his gut a few moments earlier – the plan's been put into motion by now. Jo's plan, according to Dean.

He should have been there. Should have been able to do more for them than flip the pages of another old book and lend whatever assistance and strength he could through the handset of a dusty radio. It wasn't much, but maybe it was enough. Because as Dean breaks, so do they all.

Wasn't enough to save Jo, in any case. Bobby wraps his fingers around the glass and brings it to his lips. "Rest in peace, girl," he mumbles sadly. Means it too much to merely think the words, has to say them aloud. A beautiful child, full of fight and spunk. Aw, hell, Ellen. That woman's already lost more than her fair share. They all have.

Before Bobby pulls in the mouthful of warm whiskey he hears a faint flutter of angel's wings from the study, the thump of bodies landing on hardwood. He returns the drink to the counter with such a jolt some of the whiskey sloshes over the rim onto his fingers, drips into his lap. He grips the wheel with his slippery hand and spins in his chair, nearly tipping out of the damned thing in his haste to count the losses, to see what family he's been deemed lucky enough to hang onto for another day or so.

He finds his boys in a muddy, huddled mass of sharp angles and tense limbs on the dusty floor, Dean white-faced and held up by an elbow and a hell of a lot of mind over matter, from the look of it. His jacket is splattered with dried blood, his left temple's split and bleeding and he's got the glassy eyes that usually betray some degree of concussion. Sam looks to be in one piece, at least, though breathless and upset. More than upset, angry, and maybe even more so than usual. The both of them, grief-stricken. S'no wonder, being just the two of them that made it back, and yet the angel makes three, dark hair mussed and the very bottom of his trench coat singed. To come back like this, on the red eye, without a call and without the car…something's gone sideways in an unanticipated way.

Bobby frantically sets the wheels of his wretched confinement spinning across the room, squeaking to a jerky stop next to Dean's outstretched legs. The looks on their fallen faces say he needn't ask, but he can't help himself, clinging to the very last smattering of hope he's got in his old bones. "Ellen?"

Dean doesn't speak, or maybe won't speak, just averts his eyes and shakily scoots away. He pushes himself to his feet with a grimace, with his left elbow jammed into his side in a way that screams of something fractured underneath, and crosses the room with the heavy steps of the perpetually guilt-ridden. Inherited from his father, the morose son of a bitch. He moves no more than a few steps before he sticks an arm out and falls against his hand on the wall. Drops his head like it weighs a damn ton, and keeps his back to them.

Face drawn into an even deeper scowl than usual, Castiel moves away to pace fitfully on the edge to the room, his long coat billowing behind him like a cape. Sam straightens, Cas pauses, and they both watch Dean for a moment, like they're waiting for an explosion to go off. What anger there was on Sam's face gradually falls away as he stares at the back of his brother's head. Concern mixes with sorrow and the both of them are painted with a wide brush over his features, bleeding into all corners.

Bobby sees him swallow around the difficulty and truth of bad news and that final shred of hope releases and departs in a hurry. He decides in the extended pause that he doesn't want to hear Sam say it. Even more so, he doesn't want to make Sam say it.

But the kid doesn't pick up on Bobby's silent plea, goes ahead and says it anyway. "She, uh…she didn't make it." Sam looks down to meets his eyes, brows coming together, and he feels the need to add, "I'm sorry, Bobby."

Dean smacks his palm against the wall, rattling an old framed picture and causing them all to jump. But still, he doesn't blow.

Hearing Ellen's fate, it cuts into Bobby like a knife. Like a big, serrated, hurtin' like a son of a bitch knife, and in a place he'd thought was years removed and well beyond feeling such pain. His hands fall away from the wheels at his sides, and he gapes speechless for a moment before he can ask, "How'd it happen?"

"She stayed behind," Sam says quietly, eyes cutting an anxious, directionless path around the room. "With Jo. She couldn't…"

Aw, damn it, Ellen. Bobby's fingers twitch for a drink to grip, and his digits ache from the emptiness found between them instead. He moistens his lower lip. "That wasn't part of the plan I heard."

"Well, it was a bad plan!" Dean explodes, finally, almost like he heard an accusation in Bobby's words. Winchesters, the lot of 'em, always with the guilt.

He comes off of the wall, spinning on his heel so fast he loses whatever balance he had left and almost goes right back to the floor where Bobby found him. Dean straightens, eyes bright and wet and a muscle in his jaw is jumping as he fumbles for words like a fish out of water, gasping its dying breath. "We never should've…" He swallows and looks away at a high, nondescript point in the room, releases a long breath and shakes his head. "We never should've left them there like that."

Sam's hands find his hips as he rotates his body toward his brother, but his dark eyes stay pointed downward. It breaks Bobby's heart the way these two boys can only seem to find honesty when they aren't eye-to-eye with each other. It wasn't always this way, but they've been too tainted by death and destruction lately, and no interaction is easy anymore.

"Dean," Sam says. Quietly, gently, and not meant to mean anything, just whatever reassurance he can muster at that moment. Which ain't very damn much.

"What, Sam? What? We failed, and they just died for nothing. Ellen and Jo, they just…" Dean falters, fails to find the words he wants, or finds them but doesn't want them out there in the room for Bobby and his brother to hear. He thumps his hands against his chest. "Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me…" He loses his steam again, sets his eyes searching for anything in the room to lock onto that can't stare back at him. The pain there isn't exclusively emotional, and Dean squints around what looks to be one hell of a headache. The trail of blood has followed the curve of his cheek and heads for his earlobe, but he hasn't made a move to swipe it away.

There's not a damn thing any one of them can say to make any other feel better. Bobby draws his hands into his lap, envious of the way the two youngun's can move about and stomp out their frustrations or put themselves in a different room if they need it, and not be tethered to something like he's stuck to this damn chair to wallow. His heart thuds hard enough to damn near rattle the round he keeps in his breast pocket. Thuds so hard he feels a brief need to bring a hand up to steady and conceal it, but the motion would do just the opposite, would draw attention to his weakness so he makes a fist instead. These boys need him to be strong, especially now. He can't give up now.

Dean drags a heavy hand down his face, and his eyes catch the brownish stains of blood there on his sleeve. He doesn't say anything else, just shakes his head and stalks steadily enough toward the kitchen, probably to help himself to that drink Bobby'd intended to have warming the chill of dread in his belly right now.

Bobby passes his eyes over Castiel, still silent and brooding in a dark corner, and settles his attention back on Sam. Grief is beckoning him from where it lingers on the edge, and there's no doubt it will soon enough come for him full force, but right now it's those that're still living that have him concerned. "Sam, what happened?"

"The Colt didn't work."

"What d'you mean, it didn't work?"

Sam sighs, brings his hand up, and extends his thumb and index finger to demonstrate. "Dean shot 'im, point blank, Bobby. In the head. And he just…got up."

"Come again?"

Sam nods. "Said there are five things in creation that gun can't kill." He lifts a shoulder. "Lucifer's one of 'em."

Bobby's eyes widen. "S'news to me."

Sam laughs without humor. His eyes dart toward the kitchen. "Yeah, tell me about it. Dean's right, Bobby. The whole thing, Jo and Ellen…it was pointless."

Bobby can't stand to think that way, can't allow these boys to do so, either. He has to keep their worry in the present, the future, and follows the path of Sam's look. He lowers his voice, taps the side of his head. "And Dean? S'he okay?"

Sam immediately nods, tightly, his lips pressed in a line. He's gotten so damned used to lying for his brother it's become almost second nature, and it never does either of them any good. "Devil packs a wallop, though."

It's either comically or cruelly timed, the crash and thud that come from the kitchen at that exact moment.

Sam takes off so quickly it's almost like he was expecting the fall. By the time Bobby wheels his useless self to the threshold, he almost has his brother coaxed back, a gentle but frantic hand on Dean's shoulder where he lies on the floor, groggily shifting limbs without any intention behind his movements, just a body bobbing in the waves of ebbing consciousness. The glass Bobby'd left on the counter is in jagged pieces around him and the half-shot bottle has dropped to its side on the counter, glug-glugging good whiskey like a dark waterfall into a puddle on the linoleum next to Dean's splayed hand.

"Devil packs a wallop, huh?" Bobby feels in the way and unable to help, and the manner in which the stick-in-the-mud angel suddenly pushes past him into the room doesn't do much for setting his mind at ease in this regard. He frowns. "Your brother's taken so many hits to the head his brain should be mush by now."

Castiel's eyebrows come together in way that would be amusing if the circumstances weren't so damned depressing. "I'm not sure I'm familiar with that condition."

Sam's wide eyes meet Bobby's for a brief moment then land on Castiel. His hand tightens around a fistful of Dean's jacket, and he swallows. "Cas, you think you could maybe…"

The angel makes a fist and brings his arm up, studies his hand. He takes a deliberate step away. "I can't."

"What?"

"In Carthage, I tried to kill the demon you call Meg."

"What do you mean you tried?" Bobby speaks up. He grips the wheels and rolls farther into the room. He'd be cutting off the path to escape for anyone other than an angel.

Dean groans and moves to push himself upright, granting the son of a bitch a getaway pass. Which Castiel takes, disappearing in a flash and leaving behind no answer or evidence of his presence, aside from the two Winchesters, alive and well. Or, alive, anyway. Sam gives Dean an assist, grips him under the arm and gets him halfway there, propped up against the cabinets.

"I'm fine, Sam," Dean grits, throwing away his brother's help as though it offends him. "Get offa me."

Even when the flash of hurt crosses Sam's features, Bobby knows better, knows Dean just gets pissy with pain, and knows even more he doesn't feel like he deserves any of this. Not the attention, and especially not the help. If these boys are good at anything, it's shouldering blame, whether it's deserved or not. He drags a clean kitchen towel from the counter and holds it out. "Here."

"What about it?" Dean blinks heavily, so his attitude isn't at all as convincing as he'd like it to be.

"What do you mean 'what about it'?" Bobby snaps, gesturing towards the stubborn ass's freely bleeding cut. "You fixin' to tell us you tripped?"

Sam leans across Dean to take the towel and transfers the offering into his brother's limp hand as he sits back. "Your head, Dean."

Dean rolls his eyes. He hisses as he presses the blue-checked linen to his brow, and lets the back of his head thunk against the cabinet. He swallows, and his eyes fall closed. "What did Cas do?" he asks in hushed voice but aloud, nonetheless, probably because thinking hurts him too damn much at the moment. "He should have left us there. He shouldn't have…" He exhales roughly. "He should've left us."

Bobby'd throttle him if he didn't already look like shit run over. "How can you say that, boy?"

Sam's right on his heels, not giving Dean a chance to respond. Not wanting him to. "Lucifer wants me, Dean. He would have killed you. Hell, for a minute, I thought he had." His eyes dart to Bobby, widen in apology.

Dean opens his eyes and doesn't speak but still manages to communicate his feelings on the matter to both of them: He should have.

He doesn't have to say the words; they're painfully, obviously written across his face. After everything he's done and everyone he's saved, that's still what this dumbass thinks he deserves.

Bobby sits back in his chair and thinks on a conversation overheard just the night before, though it may well have been a lifetime ago, all that's transpired in the last twenty-four hours. A night of laughter and comraderie and other things they won't experience again for a good long while. He's the only one of them who knew he'd still be breathing this morning.

"Look, I go against Satan and screw the pooch, okay. We lose a game piece. That we can take."

Dean, whose sole strategy is self-sacrifice. So callous and carefree about his own life and wellbeing. A game piece? Goddamn idjit doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. HE'S not the one who's supposed to go on living without his stupid ass when he's gone.

They aren't his blood but Sam and Dean are his sons, all the same. It hurts something fierce, but he supposes he understands why Ellen did what she did. Hell, the very reason he's in this damned contraption – aside from the fact he was thickheaded enough to get his anti-possession charm stolen – is he turned that bitch's knife on himself. Couldn't bear hurtin' that boy. Can hardly bear seeing him hurt at all, like he is now.

Dean draws the towel away from his forehead and studies the smear of blood left on the fabric. The bruises coming to color on that side of his face are of a spectacular variety of hues, like the stray clumps of wildflowers that grow along the edges of the gravel lot outside, though immensely more difficult to look at. Bobby would think he'd been struck upside the head with a brick.

Devil packs a wallop.

"Need to clean that up proper," Bobby offers gently. The room's been silent long enough, his quiet words are more than enough to startle both boys.

Sam nods and hops back on his heels, hands outstretched and close enough to spot his brother. "You need any – "

"I got it, Sam." Dean shoves him away with the towel, leaving the bloody, tangled cloth in Sam's hands as he pulls himself to his feet using the edge of the counter, grunting as he does so. Bobby knows there's no use asking around what other injuries he might be hiding from them. Whatever's there will take 'im to the ground and they'll deal with it then, or he'll push on through and they'll never know. Same old song and dance.

Bobby backs the chair up to allow him to pass, but Dean refuses to meet his eyes as he stomps out of the kitchen. He knows better than let his feelings be hurt. "How about you, kid?"

Sam turns to him with wide eyes. "What? No, I'm fine, Bobby. I'm the one Lucifer needs alive," he says with a snort.

"All the same." Bobby jerks his head and orders Sam, "Go on. Get cleaned up and we'll…we'll talk about what happened. Come up with a new plan."

"There is no new plan, Bobby." Sam shakes his head. "The only thing left to do is…" He shrugs helplessly. Hopelessly. "I don't know what there is to do." His eyes survey the mess in the room, the glass and liquor all over the floor.

"Sam." Bobby's stern tone forces the boy to meet his eyes. He nods toward Sam's grubby hands and jacket. "Go on and get cleaned up."

Sam looks down, seems to see for the first time the rusty red stains on his fingers and the backs of his hands, a large swipe near the elbow of his coat. Old, dried blood.

Jo's blood, Bobby can't help but think, and the grief grips his hand tight, pulls.

"Yeah, Bobby. Thanks." Almost as an afterthought. Sam moves stiffly past his wheelchair, granting him the tight smile Dean had withheld.

Bobby waits for him to ascend the stairs before leaning his head back against the stiff seat of his chair, and releases the breath he's been holding. He wonders if they haven't quite had enough time to count all of their losses yet. He drops the already soiled towel to the puddle of spent whiskey and straightens the now-empty bottle. He's not convinced he can lean to pick up the shards of glass without going all the way to the floor, himself, so he leaves it for now.

Bobby spins the wheels and sets a course back into the study. He flicks on the television in the corner as he passes it and maneuvers around to his desk, puts the warmth of the roaring fireplace at his back. His eyes catch the black and white he'd taken lying atop a stack of thick books.

"And after the break, we'll take you out to Missouri, where we're expecting a statement from Governor Nixon regarding the recent severe weather affecting several counties."

The weather's not your problem, you poor sons of bitches. Bobby snatches the photograph into his lap and rotates the chair to face the flames, staring down at the unsure, frightened faces of heaven's newest inhabitants. It's not the moment he'd been looking to capture when he set the timer on that old camera, and now that the game's played out, it's not a moment he wants to have to look back on. It's been burned well enough into his memory.

"Bobby's right. Tomorrow we hunt the devil. This is our last night on Earth."

He wasn't trying to be right. He didn't want to be right.

Bobby's not sure how long he sits there, but it's long enough, and he senses the boys coming up behind him more than he hears them. His fingers tighten around the edge of the photo, and he doesn't turn to look at them. "Ellen deserves a hunter's fire. Jo, too."

"Just received an update that the governor has declared a state of emergency for Paulding County, including the towns of Marion, Fetterville, and Carthage. The storm system has reportedly touched off a number of tornadoes in the area."

The television drones on in the background, and he might as well be burning what's left of the fight in them along with the photo. Feels himself sag, and knows the boys are hurting and drooping behind him as well, as he tosses the picture into the flames.

"Death tolls have yet to be estimated, but state officials expect the loss of life and property to be staggering."

They don't know the half of it.

It's not just Bobby's thoughts that are racing; the both of those boys are thinking so goddamned loud behind him, the static of it near drowns out the dismal reporting on the screen. "Well," Bobby says slowly, staring into the fire. "Spit it out."

"They deserve…" It catches in Dean's throat, and he takes a moment to work through it. "They deserved a lot better. This was a fight we started, and we shouldn't have ever brought them into this."

Bobby nods, throws his own survivor's guilt into the mix for good measure. "I shoulda been there."

"Not your fault, Bobby," Sam says needlessly, out of a rote obligation of his personality, always disagreeing.

"Just sayin' it shouldn't've been them." He's had enough tragedy for the day, enough for a damn lifetime, and reaches out a finger to flip off the TV. Bobby spins to regard Dean and Sam, still pale and sullen but changed into fresh clothes and scrubbed of the bloodstains they'd been carrying for an unknown number of hours.

Dean is toting a full palette of bruises on his face, from hairline to jawline, ear to eyebrow. He's not as steady as he should be and is likely concussed and Bobby knows exactly how long it's been since he's slept, but he doesn't dare push the issue. Kid's got a dangerous look on his face as he chews his lip a moment, then falls back a step to regard his brother with narrowed eyes and crossed arms. "What'd he say to you?"

"Hmm? When?" For a damned genius who's tried his hand at acting a time or two, Sam seems to forget there are a handful of people who won't shovel his shit, and two of them are in this very room.

"When do you think, Sam?" For a moment Bobby thinks Dean might actually slug his little brother. "When I was taking my catnap. What'd Lucifer say to you?"

Sam sighs and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans, sparing a wide-eyes glance Bobby's way. "Nothing much. Standard villain monologuing only."

It's a good thing he took that jump to the other side of the stage curtains junior year, because Sam's a horrible liar, and while Bobby finds himself mildly irritated the kid's even giving it a go, Dean jerks away from his brother as though slapped. He rubs the back of his head. "I need to get some air."

"Dean…"

"I just need – " Dean suddenly whirls in the study, makes a face but remains steady. Bouncing back like a champ. Like a Winchester. His eyes dart in confusion to the open window, the darkness outside. "Wh - where's the car?"

"Dean," Sam says again, louder this time, desperate to find a way to right this listing ship, to no avail.

"Damn it," Dean breathes through clenched teeth, like he's just now remembering the manner in which they landed here. "Cas!" he shouts at the ceiling. "You'd better get your ass back here right now, or so help me…"

The angel rustles papers from the desktop as he reappears, eyes narrowed in irritation. Bobby knows the boys are branded from angel radar, and Castiel likely did little more than guess right that they'd still be here. That tone of Dean's can get results.

"Where's my fucking car?" Dean all but shouts as he advances, not giving Castiel a chance to say anything.

Bobby's never before seen the angel shrink back from Dean. "I didn't want to risk it," he explains in his rough, low tone. "Brought you straight back here."

This outburst could be exactly what keels Dean over but he's shaking from anger and frustration, not weakness. He raises his eyebrows. "Great. Now you get to beam me right the hell back to Carthage so I can get my damn car."

"I don't think – "

"I didn't ask what you think, Cas. Do it."

Castiel sighs. "I'll scout ahead, make sure Lucifer has moved on."

Dean levels an angry glare. "Trust me. He's moved on."

"How do you – "

"You not hearing what we're hearing, Cas?" Dean throws an arm toward the now-dark television. "Devil's had his fun. He's moved on by now."

Castiel exhales and nods in solemn acquiescence.

Dean grabs his jacket from where he'd thrown it over a chair, but his eyes find the brown splatters of blood there and what color was left drains from his face. He lets the coat fall back to the seat of the chair. "Back in about eight hours." He doesn't even bother to look up at them.

"Dean," Sam starts, already in a tone that betrays how useless he knows his words will be. Kid's got a better chance in moving a mountain than changing his brother's mind right now. "You're not…let me go with you."

Dean pats down the coat's pockets for the Impala's keys, drags the ring into his hand and sniffs. "I got it."

"Dean."

Dean ignores his brother but finally turns to Bobby with pleading, apologetic eyes. He's sorry Bobby is in the chair but is begging the man to let him go, to make Sam let him go.

Bobby sighs. "Don't you go doin' somethin' stupid. You hear?"

Sam shoots him a look but doesn't argue.

Dean jerks his head in agreement. "Try not to start anymore apocalypses while I'm gone." He turns to Cas and as always, finds it in himself to make a joke during a somber time. "Beam me up, Scotty."

The angel rolls his eyes but grips Dean's shoulder. And they're gone, leaving Bobby in an all-too-familiar position. Damage control. He rotates his chair and studies Sam's fallen face. "Sam, he didn't mean – "

"Yeah, he did."

Castiel is back in less than a minute. Makes an excuse and flutters away again, in the blink of an eye. Bobby figures it's a rough gig to be around so much emotion when you don't feel much, yourself. His eyes wander to the window. I mean it, kid. Don't go doin' anything stupid.

Maybe today's the day. Bobby's studying the pistol and bullet laid out on the desktop. His fingers twitch in that direction, just as his ears perk to the growl of the Chevy ripping through the gravel outside. Fast and angry. But here.

Bobby checks the clock: he's back in seven hours, which means the only stupid thing Dean had time to do was disobey every damn traffic law across at least four states.

His lips twist into something that feels neither entirely a smile nor a grimace as he hastily stuff both gun and round into a drawer. Boy saves lives even when he's not tryin' to.

Dean throws open the door and stops on the threshold with a start, like he didn't expect to find Bobby there. It's enough of a jerk for Bobby to wonder if they shouldn't count themselves damn lucky the kid came back to them at all. He drops his gaze to the metal key ring in his hand, and Bobby decides they should have pinned Dean down and sewn a stitch or two into that cut over his swollen, purple eyebrow. "Need to use a few things out in the shop, if it's okay."

"Of course." Bobby nods. "Mind if I ask why?"

Dean shoots a backwards glance over his shoulder, out toward the car. "We left her there, and they, uh…I'm guessing it was the demons. Meg, or some other asshole we didn't see."

Bobby pushes the chair forward, puts the black car in his eye line and squints through the streaked window. Hell, Dean. Dammit. The Chevy's been just about the last untainted thing that boy had left. And here she sits in front of his house, headlights and taillights smashed, some blunt instrument introduced with anger into the wide windshield, leaving a fist-sized hole and a spider-web of cracks. "Dean…"

His eyes whip up and lock on Bobby's, and his thoughts do an abrupt one-eighty. Wouldn't be the first time the kid took a crowbar to his own girl. He can't bear to ask, and Dean's won't ever tell them otherwise. Bobby bobs his head with a sigh. "Whatever you need, Dean. S'yours."

Dean wipes a hand across his face, wincing as his fingertips brush bruises. "Thanks, Bobby." He turns and pulls open the screened door, pauses once more on the threshold, like the thought's just now occurring to him. "Let Sam know I'm back, will ya?"

"A'course." He listens to the heavy thumps of Dean's boots down the porch steps. Drove all night, and doesn't even want to catch a handful of zzz's before getting right to work. S'not healthy, but then again, there isn't much in their life that is.

Not quite as quickly as if he'd been summoned, Sam comes sprinting down the staircase behind Bobby, grabs hold of the banister and whirls into the foyer. "Dean?"

Bobby nods and worries he'll need to physically hold Sam back from going outside after his brother, and there's a slight height discrepancy between them. "Sam…let him be. Just for today."

Sam nods with the clenched jaw that means he wants to do anything except what he's agreeing to. He doesn't like it, but he'll show restraint. Not much and not for long, but it only needs to be long enough.

Dean spends the better part of the next week repairing the damage to the car or finally catching a couple of hours of shuteye on the couch, and doesn't do much talking to them in between. His eyes clear up after a couple of days, and he stops wincing every time he sits, stands, or bends a couple more after that. The news reports grow more dire, and they haven't heard from Castiel, and Bobby's finding himself more and more hanging on solely because he promised that damned kid he would.

Sometimes when his brother goes mute like this Sam tries to compensate, nattering on at such speed and randomness you'd think he was on something, giving voice to his thoughts the very moment they come to form in his giant head. Bobby'd damn near had his ear talked off in the week after John passed. The weight of what they've attempted and failed and lost is such that this time, Sam stays quiet, too.

Bobby's cleaning up from another picked-over breakfast, keeping his hands busy and drying them on a dishtowel when he hears Sam come clomping down the stairs again. Another succession of heavy boot falls sounds from the other room in a haphazard pattern, as he presumably paces in the foyer. Working himself up or talking himself down. Bobby's been able to run interference and get Dean the peace he's needed for a few days, and if he's honest with himself, he knows Sam deserves a damn medal for the restraint he's shown in not running out there to confront him in the shop until now.

He tosses the towel over his shoulder and steers his chair out of the kitchen, meets Sam's eyes as he starts down the hall. "What's up, kid?"

"I just got a call, and...a job, maybe. I think." He stops pacing, turns to face Bobby. The anger from that first day after Carthage has lingered, a pinprick of fire burning in his eyes that hasn't completely gone out. "But I don't know if I should…I don't know if it's something that would…help, or hurt, or…" He sighs, runs both hands through his hair. "I don't know what to do, Bobby. Jesus. I mean, we can't just sit here and wait for the world to end."

Bobby squints, can nearly feel the anger radiating off of him like waves of heat. "Well, Sam, why don't you start with who it was called you?"

"Martin Creaser. An old friend of Dad's. Called from me from a freakin' mental ward, if you can believe it."

Bobby nods. "I know Martin. And, yeah, I can believe it. Way I heard it, that was a damn rough gig he and John got into in Albuquerque."

Sam nods, lips pursed. "He wants us to come check something out. Says there's a monster in there, killing people in the ward, and he's not, I dunno, with it enough to take care of it himself."

"Okay," Bobby says, drawing out the word. "Huntin' monsters is right in your wheelhouse, Sam. And you just said you can't just sit here any longer. What's the problem?"

"If I'm gonna hunt this thing, I need Dean. Or, he needs this."

"What, a mental ward?"

"No, Bobby, a job. A hunt. It's what he needs. This is how he gets his head back in the game."

"What makes you say his head's not in the game?"

Sam crosses his arms and leans to look out the window, suddenly paranoid of his brother's inevitable barge into the house. "You saw how he acted, after Ellen and Jo…and now he barely talks to us at all."

Bobby shakes his head, drags the towel from his shoulder because his hands are twitching with a need to do something. "S'not for you, or me, to decide how he should handle this, Sam."

"Yeah, I know, but – "

"Do you?"

Sam shifts his weight, stamps a foot. "Yes."

"Okay." Bobby rolls his chair backwards, executes an awkward three-point turn in the hallway and points himself towards back toward the kitchen. "Then I say float the idea past 'im, but don't push it. I'm sure he'll be more'n happy to help the man that saved John's bacon once or twice, but I mean it, Sam. Don't push it."

Sam clenches his jaw, nods once. Bobby knows his mind is already outside, well on its way to where Dean's working in the yard. "Okay."

Bobby waits for the smack of the screened door as it falls back into place against the frame. The sudden silence in the house invites the grief to return, and he continues his slow circuit through the house, coming to a final stop where his desk chair used to sit.

He draws open the top drawer of the desk, withdraws the pistol there and sets it out. Then his digs the bullet from his pocket, rolls it between his fingers a long moment before placing it next to the gun.

Bobby sits back, props an elbow on the arm his chair and lays his chin in his palm. He stares at the objects on the desktop.

Maybe today's the day.

"It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end." - Douglas Adams