Summary: After an unexpected accident at the bunker, Sam, Dean, and Jack go to Montour Falls, New York to investigate a hunt they thought ended years ago. Lots of hurt!Sam, protective!Dean, and awesome!Jack. No slash.

Prompt: I'm putting the prompt in at the end of the story, but it was given to me by AllShallFade777, who always gives me the most lovely prompts! Thanks so much!

Warnings: Only a bit of profanity.

Set: Season 13. Not quite sure when this would canonically fit in, so we'll just go with when Sam, Dean, and Jack are together and Dean trusts Jack.

A/N: I originally wrote this for a one shot for another story but it was too long to fit in there, so that's why it's now a multi-chapter fic. There will probably be 3 – 4 parts.

"No, I was in The Empty… apparently, it's where angels and demons go when they die." - Castiel, 13x06

"Sparring," Jack repeated, watching Dean with slight distrust in his eyes. "Why would you want to fight each other?"

"It's not real fighting," Sam explained. "It's practice. When you're in a real fight against some sort of monster, it's good to have natural reflexes."

Jack still looked a bit wary, so Sam tried again. "What if you were pitted against a ghoul and it tried to attack you? It's better to know how to take a monster down with hand-to-hand combat. Otherwise you could get hurt, or worse," he said.

Dean pulled off his flannel, stretching his arms in preparation clad only in a tee shirt and jeans. "Sam and I will show you," he said seriously. "You can see my techniques for winning. Sammy can never beat me."

Sam started to agree with Dean and then backpedaled. "What? No - last time we sparred, I had you pinned down within a minute!"

"I always win," Dean maintained, giving Jack an easy grin. "Watch and learn, young grasshopper."

Sam wasn't ready for Dean's swift offense toward him. A quick punch to his stomach made him stumble back a bit; obviously, Dean had pulled back in the punch, but it was still a hard hit.

He recovered quickly, dodging Dean's next attack and using a palm-heel attack towards his brother's face.

The palm-heel strike was one that they used for real only in actual fights. It was one of the first moves their father had taught them; a swift punch with the heel of the palm towards the jaw or nose and the opponent could quickly have their bones broken. Sam didn't use the move with that much force, but both he and Dean knew it was a hit they didn't want to receive.

Dean spun slightly to avoid the hit, leaving Sam the opportunity to grab him. He twisted him, pinning his arms and straining to knock him to the floor.

Dean acted nimbly, ripping Sam's fingers away and slamming his head backwards. Sam was forced to move back, ignoring the impulse to clutch his throbbing nose. Dean didn't wait for him to recover and threw his elbow toward his jaw. Sam blocked it with his forearm, simultaneously roundhouse kicking Dean. All he got was a grunt from his brother, who fired back with several punches towards his face.

Sam deflected them and responded with a second kick; this time, he nailed Dean in the groin. His brother jumped backwards quickly before Sam could take advantage of him.

Sam could hear Jack saying something to them, but it sounded slightly concerned and not important enough to risk getting distracted. He was bent on winning; he had been since he was a kid.

Back before he was taller than Dean, Dean always won. Always. It wasn't until Sam was seventeen that he beat his brother for the first time. He could still remember the look of shocked surprise on his brother's face and the expression of amusement on his father's face.

Nearly getting lost in thoughts, Sam missed one of Dean's punches and got nailed in the face. Dean saw his momentary vulnerability and lunged towards him with his arms out.

They both went down, Dean on top.

Sam wasn't willing to lose yet. He kneed his brother in the stomach and rolled to the side. Dean pursued him and mounted himself on top, placing his brother in a quick chokehold.

Sam kicked him again, but in the position he was in the kick was weak without much leverage to aid it. He struggled, his movements becoming less coordinated the more he was cut off from air. Dean was grinning above him, not relenting with the chokehold.

Once Sam admitted to himself that he wouldn't be able to do anything more than flail uselessly, he tapped out, tapping his index finger three times. It was the signal they'd used since childhood, and Dean immediately backed off, a grin still wide on his face.

"I always win," Dean repeated to Jack, holding a hand out to Sam. Sam offered it and made his way to his feet. There was a bit of blood coming out of his nose and he put a tissue to it.

Jack was looking at them with concern. "That was so violent," he said, his eyes wide with genuine fear. "It looked like you wanted to kill each other."

"Not this time," Sam said moodily, irritated at Dean's victory.

Dean laughed. "We have before," he said to Jack, whose eyes widened only more. "Alright. Who do you want to spar?"

Jack's fearful expression was replaced by one of confusion. "What? Me?"

"Yeah. Gotta start sometime, dude."

Sam shook his head at his brother's words. "Jack, you don't have to spar if you don't want to-"

"I'll take you on, Sam," Jack decided.

Sam was caught off guard. "What?"

"Dean looked like he would be harder to beat."

Sam ignored his brother's smug expression at Jack's reasoning. "Alright, then. Bring it on," he said, stooping slightly for a better angle. One glance at Dean told him that his brother was aware of what Sam was about to do. Jack didn't know how to fight; Sam could use the element of surprise to knock him back with a solid punch quickly.

Sure enough, Jack's defenses were low. Sam got him in the stomach, and the nephilim - who was immune to gunshots and practically death itself - caught his breath, winded. Sam wound himself for another punch, planning ahead. He'd take down Jack after this punch. Get him on the floor, put him in a chokehold. It would be easy.

The second punch went towards Jack's stomach again, and as expected, Jack did nothing to defend himself.

To Sam's surprise, even though his punch landed in the place planned, Jack was reaching towards him quickly. It wasn't a punch - it was quite literally a reach.

Jack's fingers met his forehead with a force much more gentle than he expected. Sam felt his eyes roll backwards and the bunker swam into darkness as the sensation of falling accompanied him.

Sam woke up on the couch. He started to sit up and groaned as a nauseous feeling came with the movement. One rub to the back of his head and he found the sizable bump on his head.

"You nailed the floor pretty hard," Dean said, coming into the living room along with Jack. "How you doing?"

"Feels like someone threw a rock at my head," Sam admitted, wincing as his fingers brushed the wound. It was sticky with a bit of dried blood.

Dean sat down on the coffee table across from him. "How many fingers am I holding?" he asked, holding up four.

Sam raised his middle finger. "How many am I holding?" he asked.

"Don't be a bitch," Dean snorted, holding up their penlight. Sam rolled his eyes but obliged to what was Dean's concussion inspection.

"It's not bad," Dean determined, pulling away. "Just a minor concussion at the most."

"I could've told you that much," Sam said, closing his eyes against the raging headache.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Jack said, looking tormented.

"What happened?" Sam thought back to the sparring session, which was now a bit fuzzy in his memory. He remembered Dean beating him, and starting to spar Jack… nothing from there.

Had Jack taken advantage of him? He didn't recall Jack throwing any punches at all.

"We should've established that no powers are allowed," Dean explained. "One touch to your forehead and you were out. You lost two sparring sessions today, bro. You're losing your touch."

"You're such a jerk," Sam retorted, unable to come up with a better comeback what with his pounding head.

"We can try again," Jack offered. "I won't use my powers this time."

Sam met Jack's hopeful eyes. "Sure," he agreed immediately, ready to win at least once.

"No way," Dean interjected. "In a couple of days you can have a rematch."

"It's not a bad concussion, Dean," Sam said, anxious to win at least one session even if it meant fighting with a newly received concussion.

"I don't care. You're staying there," Dean said, pointing at the couch.

Sam sighed with defeat. There wouldn't be any reasoning with his brother. "In a couple of days," he amended to Jack.

Dean was probably right. He was having trouble focusing because of the headache, and opted to lay back down.

"I'm going to go make dinner," Dean said after a moment. The words surprised Sam - Dean hadn't made dinner since their mom had fallen into the Apocalypse World. "You stay there. If I hear you sparring, Sam, I'll kick your concussed ass."

He retreated from the living room, and Sam suppressed a snort of laughter at his brother's protective instincts.

"Are you sure you're okay, Sam?" Jack asked, replacing Dean's spot on the coffee table.
"I'm fine," Sam assured him. "I've had much worse."

But he never heard Jack's response. His headache surged suddenly, and the bunker living room was replaced with a sunny bedroom.

The walls were pastel blue and the sun was shining brightly into the room, casting a large yellow rectangle in the center of the room.

On one wall of the room were double windows, both of which were cracked open. A warm breeze drifted into the room, tickling the curtains and keeping the air from stagnant. Outside was a small, quiet town. In the distance there was a rickety bridge crossing a steep waterfall; it was picturesque. A brick church with a gleaming steeple was in the center of the town and its bells were ringing loudly, striking one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times.

Everything was normal. Everything except for the bed in the bedroom.

On the bed was a woman in her mid-thirties. Her hair was strawberry blonde and spread around her face like a halo. Her face was pale, dazzled with freckles. She was wearing capris and a white blouse.

Beneath her was a pool of blood. It had stained the bed, but the woman must have died recently, because the blood still looked damp. It stained her white shirt horribly, making it stand out all the more.

The bedroom suddenly flickered out of view and Sam found himself vomiting before he even realized he was back in the bunker and no longer in the bright bedroom. Distantly, he heard Jack shouting Dean's name, but his head felt like it was being showered with bricks and he couldn't think about anything except for the pain.

"Sam!" Dean's hands were gripping his shoulders and Sam blindly reached out for his brother, gasping before vomiting again.

"Dean," Sam choked, blinking as the living room came into focus. "Dean, there's a woman-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence because he was plunged downwards again and the bedroom swam back into view.

The dead woman was still lying in a pool of her blood. Her face was peaceful with death; her eyes were shut and she was positioned as though she were sleeping.

The sudden patter of light footsteps neared the bedroom. A little girl of about eight years came into the room.

She saw her mother, and tugged at her sleeve first. Her hand touched the blood and the little girl pulled away, repulsed. She looked at the red on her hand, back to her mother, and gingerly placed a hand on her mother's face.

She felt the cold skin. The girl pulled at her mother's hand, crying out, and when her mother didn't respond, she screamed.

Sam's eyes flew open and he dry-heaved, unable to vomit anymore. His head felt like it had been fried.

"Sam, answer me dammit!"

Sam pressed his hands against his temples. Glass was slicing into his brain; at least, it felt like that, and pressure was reaching a peak behind his eyes. He could still hear Dean in the background, demanding him what was wrong and threatening to call an ambulance, so he made out, "I'm fine, Dean," even though he felt far from it.

Slowly, very slowly, the pain began to subside.

"What the hell-" Dean began to demand but Sam interrupted him.

"Dean - we need to go - someone died, or she's going to die." His head was still aching so terribly that it was difficult to form his sentence into something coherent.

"Slow down, dude," Dean said, crouching by Sam. "What just happened?"

"I think it was a vision," Sam said, feeling fear only then at what had happened.

He hadn't had a vision in over a decade. Why now?

Azazel couldn't be back. He was dead. Unless he'd come through some sort of portal, Sam thought panickedly, thinking of the doors to alternate universes they'd seen as of late. What if Yellow-Eyes had gotten through one?

Dean seemed to be thinking the same thoughts. His face had paled and he was looking at Sam a bit strangely, and finally he said, "What does that mean? Is Yellow-Eyes back?"

"I don't know," Sam said honestly, clutching his head in his hands. He dry-heaved again, and felt Dean's hand on his back.

"You okay?" Dean asked when he was finished.

"I'm fine," Sam reiterated.

"My ass. Your visions ended years ago. What happened?"

Sam winced as another pound in his head clamored at his skull. "I don't know."
Jack was standing against the wall of the living room, looking younger than ever. Dean, sensing Jack's hesitation towards moving towards Sam, whirled around.

"Did something go wrong? When you knocked him out?" Dean asked forcefully, pointing his thumb back at Sam.

Jack looked at Dean fearfully, then at Sam. "I felt something," he admitted after a moment.

Dean waited impatiently. Though his back was turned to Sam, he could practically see the wide-eyed look of accusation on his brother's face.

"Yeah?" Dean prompted finally when Jack didn't continue.

"I felt it. It was like a presence, in the back of Sam's mind. It felt… psychic? When I reached into his mind to put him to sleep-"

"Wait - that's how you do the weird knocking-out-with-an-index-finger thing? You and Cas? How the hell does that work?"

Jack looked confused. "Well, putting my finger on someone's forehead lets me see into their mind, and then all I have to do is ease it into unconsciousness."

"Okay. So what happened?" Dean said, his voice louder than necessary.

"Well, when I put Sam to sleep," Jack said, his voice getting quieter, "I think I might've accidentally woken up the psychic in the back of his mind."

"You what?" Sam and Dean said at the same time; Dean's voice angry and Sam's surprised.

"I'm really sorry," Jack said, wringing his hands. "I'm so stupid. I should've realized that wasn't allowed in sparring. I should've known. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so stupid-"

The kid was beating himself up over it.

"Jack, it wasn't your fault," Sam said gently. "We've dealt with this before. We'll deal with it again."

Dean looked like he wanted to argue but Sam raised his eyebrows at him silently.

"Okay," Dean said finally. "What did you see?"

Sam considered the vision. It'd been so long since he'd had a vision that the headache seemed worse, like his body was rejecting the vision.

"There's a woman. She's going to die," Sam said, and remembered the seven bell rings of the church and the early morning light glowing in the room. "I think she's going to die tonight, or the night after. Her daughter found her the next morning at seven."

Dean scrubbed his chin with his hand. His forehead was creased with worry and he kept glancing back at Sam as though afraid he would have another vision.

Which, Sam realized, wasn't that extreme a prediction.

"What do you mean, you've dealt with this before?" Jack asked tentatively.

Sam was the one to answer. "About eleven years ago, I had visions. They all had something to do with Azazel, the yellow-eyed demon. The visions led to other things."

He didn't specify. His own first death, Dean's deal, his time with Ruby, drinking the demon blood, Lucifer rising, going to Hell, becoming soulless… he could go on for a long time.

"So what now?" Jack asked.

Sam looked to his brother, who still had a petulant, concerned expression stiff on his face.

"We've got to go to Montour Falls, New York," Sam said.

Montour Falls matched his vision exactly. A brick church in the middle of town preceded the straight road that pointed towards the falls. The falls poured over the steep rocks with an arcing bridge above it. They'd stayed in this town many years ago; Sam had been sixteen and Dean twenty. It was a typical ghost hunt, but for some reason that he couldn't remember it had stumped their father and they had stayed in this town for a couple of weeks longer than expected. Sam didn't remember much about the town, but enough to recognize it as the one from his vision.

Dean parked the Impala on the side of the street and Sam leaned over to look out the window.

"It's got to be that house," he said, turning around to look down the street. The view matched the view from the window in his vision nearly perfectly.

"What are we going to do?" Jack asked, leaning forward.

"We'll go inside and talk to the woman. See what we can find out. Improvise. Kill things that need killing," Dean said vaguely, getting out of the car.

They were posing as reporters doing an article on small town homeowners. It was a lame façade, but undoubtedly everyone they fed the lie to in this town would believe them.

The woman who answered the doorbell Sam immediately recognized as the woman in his vision. Her strawberry blonde hair was in a ponytail and her small daughter was behind her, clutching the rail of the stairs.

"Hello, ma'am," Sam said in his most sincere voice, the one that got people to trust them the quickest. "I'm Rob Plant, this is my partner Jim Page, and our protegé John Bonham. We're from a Boston news journal, and we're doing an article on the lifestyles of small town homeowners. Do you mind giving us a couple of quotes to help liven up the content?"

The woman looked a bit anxiously behind her, and then stepped outside onto the porch.

"Sure. Ella, want to come talk to the reporters?" the woman asked, and the little girl came running to grab her mom's hand.

The porch had several seats as well as a rocking bench, and they all sat down. Sam pulled out a small notebook for authenticity.

"I'm Angela," the woman said, shaking their hands.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Dean," Dean said, his eyes instantly preying on her with a flirtatious smirk.

Sam fought the urge to roll his eyes and began to ask their routine questions.

"So, what's your home like?" he asked casually. "Strange smells? Cold spots?"

Dean couldn't figure out anything out of the ordinary about this woman. They'd started by covering the usual bases, to rule out any sort of spirit, even though he doubted that Sam would have a vision about a normal haunting.

Speaking of - why the hell was his little brother having a vision?

Sure, Jack had sort of explained the technicalities of it. But Azazel was long gone. It had been years since any of Sam's shining had manifested.

It was freaking Dean out much more than he was letting on.

"Alright, I think we're done," Dean said pointedly, standing up. "Thank you for your time, Angela."

Angela didn't respond, and it took Dean a moment to realize she was looking at Sam. He whirled around to see his brother pressing hard against his temples.

"What's wrong with him?" Angela asked, wide-eyed.

"He gets migraines," Dean said automatically, and went to his brother's side. "Work through it, Sam. Sammy?"

Sam suddenly inhaled sharply with a gasp, looking upward with a wild expression in his eyes. He gripped Dean, and Dean could see the urgency in Sam's eyes, but he prodded him in the back slightly.

"Thanks," he said again to Angela, who looked mildly concerned, and then ushered Sam outside with Jack trailing behind him.

"What is it?" Dean demanded. "Another vision?"

"Yeah," Sam gritted out. He was pale and beads of perspiration were on his forehead. "But..."

"Does the woman live now?"

Sam looked at Dean with hesitation in his face. "Yeah. But…" he said again tentatively.

"But what?"

"I die," Sam said, looking at his feet.

Dean let out a snort of mirth. "That's it. We're getting out of this town."

Sam laughed dryly. "We can't leave, Dean. If we leave, the woman will die."

"If we stay, you die."

"Not necessarily," Sam said resolutely. "Look, Dean - the vision changed once before, didn't it? We can change it again."

Dean glared at him, feeling a muscle twitching in his jaw. "Where were you? In the vision?"

Sam's answer was a bit slow. "In the woman's bedroom," he said, pointing to the upstairs of Angela's house.

"How'd you die?" Dean pressured.

"I couldn't tell. There was just a pool of blood," Sam said, shrugging nonchalantly. "But Dean, we know what to avoid now. We can still stay here and try to-"

"No," Dean said firmly. "If you're dying, you're not staying here. Jack and I will investigate and stay here tonight. You stay in a motel for the night, a town over."

The belligerent look that passed over Sam's face told Dean that his brother was going to be stubborn. Sure enough, Sam drew himself to his full height, which pissed Dean off a bit.

"I could be the reason that Angela doesn't die. If I leave, she might die," Sam said, his voice annoying reasonable and calm.

"Jack's with me. Jack won't let her die," Dean said rationally. A small smile played on Jack's lips for a moment with the pleasure of Dean's statement.

"But you and Jack weren't in the vision," Sam said, pursing his lips. "Dean, something wasn't right about the vision. It was just me on the floor. No one else is there. I think it has to be me to save her."

"If you stay, you'll die," Dean exploded. "You realize your visions are the damn future? This isn't an option, Sam!" Dean lowered his voice a bit as a passerby turned to look at him. "You're leaving. End of discussion."

"It's not a definite future - just a possibility. And now we know what to avoid," Sam said stiffly.

"How about this - you stay in a motel in town. The second you get another vision, you tell me. But you're not coming into this house again."

Sam opened his mouth to argue and then shut it.

"Fine," he snapped, the corners of his mouth tilting downward in typical Bitchy Sam way. Dean felt a prickle of irritation towards how difficult Sam was - didn't he understand that he would friggin' die if he stayed?

"We might as well get lunch before we're camped out here tonight," Dean said, glancing at his watch. "Jack, you wanna pick?"

Jack looked surprised. "Me?"

"Sure, kid. Where do you want to eat?"
Jack stared across the street to the only two restaurants in town. The first was a greasy pizza place. Inside was a checkered, tiled wall and small tables that were stuffed closely together to conserve space.

The second was a small diner with cramped booths and a small bar. It was emptier than the pizza place and darker.

Jack's gaze flickered between the two for nearly fifteen seconds.

"This is a difficult decision," he said, frowning. "I guess…"

He and Sam waited in the silence.

"The pizza place," Jack decided.

Sam couldn't help but frown at the large pepperoni pizza that was placed in front of them. The cheese was cheap and rubbery - not that he was accustomed to nice cheese, but enough years on the road had helped him grow a strong distaste for it - and hung limply off the edge of the pizza like it'd been scattered on carelessly. Puddles of grease sat on each circle of pepperoni.

Dean didn't seem to care. He ripped a slice off of the pizza and shoved it into his mouth, chewing absentmindedly.

Jack poked at the pizza first before trying it - he hadn't yet eaten pizza - and a look of delight crossed his face.

"This is amazing!" he raved, looking at the pizza with wonder.

Sam regretted not having gotten a salad. In attempt to save money (they hadn't hustled in a long time and the Men of Letters reserve was beginning to get a bit low) he'd agreed to share a pizza with Jack and Dean.

Oh, well, he thought, picking up a slice. It definitely wasn't the first time that he'd have to eat a disgusting pizza.

He finished half of the pizza and lost his appetite, setting the slice down.

"Alright," he said. "So what's the plan?"

Dean swallowed his large bite of pizza with difficulty. "Tonight, Jack and I will wait in the Impala for anything suspicious. You'll be hanging at that motel we passed earlier."

"If you don't text me every half an hour saying that everything's going well, I'm going to come," Sam warned him, picking at the cheese on his pizza. "And I swear, if I get some vision of you and Jack dying…" He couldn't finish the sentence.

Dean shook his head. "This is so weird, talking about visions again," he said. "You haven't… you know, had any of the other psychic stuff going on?"

Sam knew instantly that Dean was referring to his demon powers, and it was an unpleasant thought - even thinking of demon blood made his stomach churn with the memory.

"No," he said quickly. "Just the two visions."

Dean nodded, a small look of relief crossing his face. "How's your head?"

It felt like a explosions were hammering the inside of Sam's head.

"I'm fine," he said as sincerely as possible.

Dean looked at him suspiciously before taking another bite of pizza. "I didn't forget

about the concussion, you know."

Sam had forgotten, and it surprised him a bit. He rubbed his hand against the back of his head. "My concussion's fine. It's minor," he added. The pain in his head was behind his eyes, and it felt identical to the headaches he'd had many years ago with his visions. His concussion ached only slightly on the lower left side of his head, the pain so insignificant that he hardly noticed.

"I'm sorry, Sam. For causing this," Jack said, averting his eyes.

"It was an accident, Jack. You don't need to be sorry," Sam said. "Really. Don't worry

about it."

The waitress came over to their table with the check. She was around Sam's age, with caramel-colored skin and luscious dark hair.

"Thanks," Dean said, smiling at her and then scanning her nametag. "The food was excellent. But not quite as excellent as your service… Trinity."

The woman blushed, and Sam lost interest in watching his brother attempt to flirt with her immediately. He excused himself to the bathroom, noticing with disdain that Dean's lame pickup lines were working on the girl, Trinity.

After relieving himself, he washed his hands in the sink, taking his time to scrub the soap into his hands.

His reflection in the mirror surprised him. His headache was still raging, but it was definitely showing out the outside; his face looked strained and drained. Dark bags were under his eyes and a grotesque red vein in his left eye made him wrinkle his nose in disgust.

Sam was just noticing the blood that was beginning to trickle out of his nose when a surge of throbbing pain nailed him inside of his skull without any warning. The bathroom vanished before his eyes and he was suddenly in the kitchen of a restaurant.

The man lying facedown on the floor was so bloody that it took Sam a moment to realize it was him. His hair was matted, his flannel intact except for a bloody tear near his left shoulder. His leg was at an awkward angle, like he'd landed on it wrong.

But his chest was rising and falling. He was still alive.

The kitchen was very dark; it was the middle of the night.

The girl, Angela's daughter, Ella, was near Sam. She looked terrified, anguish on her face.

The air in the room was quiet except for the low hum of the freezer in the back of the kitchen. No one else was around except for the girl.

That is, until there was shouting from behind the door of the kitchen. It was the sort of door that could swing forwards and backwards, and a small circular window revealed that the door led to the pizza place.

It was the kitchen of the pizza place they were in, except it was night.

The door was being pounded on, except it would not yield. Behind the door was Dean's muffled voice, shouting, "Sam!".

The vision was short, but by the time the pizza place bathroom rushed back into his vision, Sam was already on the floor. The back of his head was pounding in protest at having hit a floor twice in twenty-four hours, and now the pressure behind his eyes felt like it was going to burst out of his skull.

He stood up gingerly, his legs feeling shaky, and clutched the wall for support. A nosebleed was now heavily dripping blood down above his lip, and he wiped it messily, feeling the sticky clots smear across his face. He fought the urge to vomit, opting instead to spit bile in the sink.

The vision had changed again. Last time, he'd been dead, and alone. This time, he was alive, and Ella was with him.

Sam bent at the dirty sink and splashed cold water on his face. The headache screamed in his ears and he gripped the edge of the sink with white knuckles. The creak of the bathroom door escaped his notice entirely, and Jack's appearance in the mirror when he looked up made him jump.

"Sam?" Jack said uncertainly. "Are you okay?"

Sam released his grip on the counter, standing up straighter to exude a false sense of strength.

"I'm fine," he said as seriously as possible.

Jack narrowed his eyes. "You're bleeding," he noticed.

Sam instinctively wiped his nose again, and then dismissively wiped his bloody hand on his jeans. "Just a bit of a nosebleed," he said casually, then added, "It's not uncommon for humans."

Jack didn't look convinced. "Do you want me to get Dean?"

Dean would no doubt go full protective-mode on Sam if he found out his nose was bleeding. And no matter how much his head pounded, Sam was fine. He didn't need his brother hovering.

"It's alright, Jack. I just need a minute to clean up," Sam said. "Just tell Dean I'll be out in a minute."

Jack nodded, and after casting another concerned expression at Sam, he exited the bathroom.

Sam regained his composure before returning to the booth that Jack and Dean were at. He pushed his hair back, hoping it didn't look too sweaty. He rinsed his face again to get the blood off and stuck a tissue up his left nostril to staunch the bleeding.

Vertigo nearly made him fall over when he turned around and he waited for his vision to creep back slowly as the black tunnel faded. Once he felt clear, he exited the bathroom.

Jack apparently had obeyed and not told Dean that Sam was bleeding out of his nose, because Dean was still flirting with the waitress.

And even more surprising was that he was successful. Trinity was sliding him a piece of paper with her number undoubtedly on it.

"I get off at nine," she said, her voice slightly husky. Her hand brushed Dean's as she swept off with their dirty plates, throwing a suggestive look over her shoulder. Dean watched her until she went through the swinging door - the same door Sam had just seen in his vision.

"Okay, so don't freak out," Sam began, already sensing Dean would not be very tolerant of the fact that he'd had three visions within twenty-four hours. "I just had another vision."

Sure enough, Dean's immediate reaction was to sputter out his pizza and demand if Sam was okay.

"I'm fine," Sam insisted. "But it changed. Now… it's in here."

"Your vision? In this pizza place?" Dean asked, pointing downwards to emphasize.

"Yeah. In the kitchen," Sam said, glancing at the door. He was suddenly distracted as the door to the pizza place breezed open, and in walked Angela and Ella. Angela was holding her daughter's hand, and Ellie was bouncing on her toes as they made their way to a booth on the other side of the restaurant.

Dean's sudden reiteration of his name brought Sam out of his stupor.

"What?" he said, tearing his eyes away from Angela and Ella.

"I said, what happened in the vision? Is anyone going to get hurt?"

"Everyone's alive this time," Sam said, purposely withholding the information that he himself was on the floor bloody.

"And is everyone okay?" Dean said, detecting the omission instantly.

Sam sighed. "I get hurt, okay? But I was breathing in the vision, so I think it'll all be okay. But the weird thing was that she was there with me. You were on the other side of the door," Sam said, nodding to Ella.

Dean pushed his pizza away. "I still don't get how this connects to friggin' Yellow Eyes."

Sam frowned. "Maybe it's not connected to him directly."

"Your visions have always been connected to him," Dean snorted. "Unless he had a kid or something-"

"But the visions were also about the other special kids," Sam reminded him. "Maybe one of them survived."

"No one survived that town but Jake, Sam. I mean, I brought you back from the dead. No one else is left," Dean said, but even he didn't look convinced.

"Maybe someone else was brought back from the dead," Jack suggested. "Like Sam was."

Jack's eyes suddenly went wide, seeing past Sam at something behind him. Sam automatically started to twist around, but not before he was sent flying through the air.

The landing was surprisingly slow and soft. He felt Dean next to him, landing with a grunt on the dirty tiled floor. Sam glanced up to see Jack had sprung to his feet, his eyes glowing golden.

A knife was stuck in the wall where Sam's head had been. Only then did Sam realize that it was Jack who had sent Sam and Dean out of the way; that was why the landing had been magically cushioned.

The waitress, Trinity, who Dean had been hitting on, was poised with another knife in her hand. Her hand was covered in blood. Wordlessly, she slapped her hand to a sigil that Sam had never seen in his life - though it resembled the sigil that they used to get rid of angels - and with a blinding flash of light, Jack was gone.

Sam got to his feet with Dean. He only had a small shotgun filled with salt with him, and he pulled it out as Dean simultaneously took out his own gun.

"Put the knife down," Dean said firmly. "Unless you want your head blown off."

He was bluffing, Sam knew. All they had at the moment was rock salt rounds.

"My, you boys have grown up," Trinity said. Her voice was still husky, but it had a different emphasis to it now. "It's been too long."

"Who the hell are you?" Sam demanded, but somehow he already knew.

"I'm the demon that just crawled his way back from The Empty," the waitress said, and her eyes flashed yellow.

TBC

A/N: I was thinking about how Cas said that The Empty is where angels and demons go when they die, and then I was thinking… if Cas woke up the "psychic" in Sam's mind, what if he accidentally woke up Azazel? So, that's where this plot came from - alongside the help of AllShallFade777's superb prompt!

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