Title: Map of Scars

The sun rises over the sparkling grass and Dean leans against the Impala's sleek darkness. The air is cold and he can see his breath puffing out in white clouds. It seems heavy, the air, as though he needs to swim through it, part the molecules with his hands before he takes a step.

A door slams and he turns, sees the rays of the sun wash across Sam's shoulders, the flash of his eyes as he squints into the light. Sam tosses the convenience store bag into the seat and pauses, takes a deep breath and sighs it out, leans his elbows on the roof of the car. It's the first time Dean's really taken a good look at Sam since he came back and something's off.

Sam looks preoccupied, guarded in a way he never seemed before and Dean breaks a little. Sam hasn't been innocent since he was eight, but something else has been stripped from him in these last few months. Dean knows how long and hard the hours can scrape by when you're alone in the world. But he doesn't know what piece of his brother is suddenly missing and an uncharacteristic thought startles him: Wish I had the time to find out.

Time. There's never time to stop and consider. And usually Dean counts that as more of a favor than anything. Dean's quick to understand a lot of things. He can decide in half a heartbeat which way to move, to shoot or not to shoot, to duck and cover or charge in with gun blazing. But inside Sam's head is undiscovered country, still, after all these years.

Out of the fire and back into the frying pan.

That's exactly where he's landed and he'll have to keep fighting and running and moving. No time to think. And maybe hell has changed him, because he's starting to feel like letting things lie isn't the way to go anymore, like maybe he needs to see what's going on with his brother. What he's hiding. And oh, yeah—Sam knows something Dean doesn't and whatever it is has to be so far from good.

Dean needs time. And maybe for once he'll get it.