The list of things that Dean did not like was a mile long and getting longer every single day. Item number 5281 - waking up while the sun had barely inched over the horizon to find Sammy sitting up at the edge of his bed, looking like he'd been sitting there awhile, hunched, pale, and lost.

"Sam? What is it?" Dean asked, pushing himself up on one elbow and trying to scrub the sleep out of his eyes.

"I remember."

That shot Dean upright, sitting on the edge of his own bed, all thoughts of sleep gone and forgotten.

"Remember what?"

"I remember Death coming to get me out of the Cage."

He said it so seriously, so sadly, that Dean asked, instantly and automatically,

"Did he hurt you?"

And Sam managed a tired smile.

"I don't think so, but I probably wouldn't have noticed if he did."

That wasn't much comfort to Dean, but he let it pass.

"Sammy, maybe you shouldn't be thinking about that. It's still way too early. How long have you been up, anyway? How much sleep did you get?"

"Enough. I guess. I don't know." Sam shrugged. "I couldn't sleep. I just kept thinking about it. About Death coming to get me."

"Okay, that's it." Dean decided. "You're taking something and you're going back to sleep. You don't need to be thinking about anything. Especially not that." He stood up, intending to get Sam's sleepy-time pills and a glass of water. But Sam put out a hand to stop him.

"No, Dean - really. It's a good thing, a good memory. Really. It is. That's why I've been thinking about it. I'm not thinking about the Cage; I'm thinking about what Death said."

"Okay, I'll bite." Dean sat down on his bed again. "What did he say?"

"He said - he said - I remember all of a sudden he was there, standing between me and everything else and he said - he told me - 'I've come to take you to your brother'." Sam looked at Dean and held his gaze. "Other than when Bobby told me it was really you in Pontiac, there's been nothing in my life I've wanted to hear more than that. That's what I've been thinking about that. I don't want to sleep - I want to remember what it felt like to hear him say that. What it felt like to know he was bringing me back to you. I want to always remember that."

Dean ducked his head and smiled. The list of things he hated shrunk, and his so-much-shorter list of things he always wanted to remember grew by one.


A/N: I haven't had internet connection at home for days and days and DAYS (VERIZON - are you listening?) While they work on it, and I work on my backlog of other much much longer stories, I needed a little feel-good story to get me through my internet withdrawal. I wrote this story today, fast. (AKA: whenever the Boss was out of the office.) CB