Dean surveyed the field. Summer breeze blew across the half grown green stalks. Another dead end. Another day gone. Another cold trail. He closed his eyes and spoke into the phone. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here. Just get on it, okay? We gotta find him." He hung up, stuck his phone into his pocket. Cas was at his elbow, frowning.

"Dean-"

"I know, Cas. Let's just check out the next sighting." Dean lingered though, just another moment, staring at the burnt out circle in the field, the ragged edges where demon embers had glowed and gone out. Dammit, Sam.

Sam focused through the haze, the sour-tang, felt it unfurl inside him, touch that knot of power inside him. He pressed it outward, seeking, lingering, until he found it, the black sulfur smoke of a demon, and he closed his eyes. Felt the smoke shudder and resist, felt the person inside the meatsuit come awake and her confusion helped him, pressed the demon to the edges where Sam grabbed it and pulled it to the ground, made it submit to him, and then it was gone. Sam smiled, blood teeth.

Episode Seven
"Sanguis Sanctus"
Chapter One

Ten Days Earlier

"Emily Hopkins," Sam read from the laptop screen in the war room of the bunker. "Seventeen years old, straight A student. Found... missing her heart, liver, and lungs..." He skimmed the rest of the article.

Dean watched him, how he seemed alert. No signs of hearing voices. The doc was due in a week for Sam's first actual monthly appointment to put Jack back in the box, but Sam seemed like he was doing pretty well. Still. No sense pushing it.

"Aw come on, man," he said, setting an opened beer down next to Sam at the conference table. "It's only been like a week since that whole back to nature crapfest." Dean nodded at Sam's re-slung shoulder in evidence. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. I'm good. Listen, Dean." Him and the stupid eyebrows again. "This is gonna take time to heal up. Cas' angel friend did as much as she could with her injured grace, but-"

"So we wait. Until you're healed up."

"While another innocent victim gets killed? No, Dean. You gotta stop getting all mama bear when something happens. It's gonna keep happening. This is the job, you know? I just wanna work. Can we just work?"

Dean frowned.

"Unless you don't wanna work. How's your leg?"

"Oh I'm fine," Dean said. In fact, his leg itched like crazy where it was healing up, but the goatman's herbal remedy had kept it clean and Sam's stitching had done the rest of the job.

"So then we work."

Dean rolled his eyes, kicked back in a chair of his own, pulled on his beer. "Fine. Whatever. So Emily Hopkins."

"Yeah. Right. Sorry, I'm just-"

Dean waited for him to continue. Sam blinked at his screen like he could have used another week of sleep. "Listen, maybe you're just not seeing straight quite yet. This last job kinda knocked you on your ass. Literally."

"You're the one who got adopted by a monster in the woods."

Dean watched Sam scroll. Faint smile there, but it didn't reach his eyes - he'd always known the kid's little ticks, but the intensity with which Dean was starting to catalog Sam's every facial expression would definitely have once made him uncomfortable. Still, Sam had tried to kill himself in a church, in a motel room in Boston, and just now, avoiding no-bro-homo moments wasn't the top of Dean's list. He'd watch every little twitch if it could provide some insight into his brother's head. And all he could think was that he didn't know what worried him more about how their last case went down: the way Sam froze like he wasn't sure what was real, or the way he gave Dean the useful supplies and basically set himself up for failure out in a forest in Wisconsin little more than a week before.

"So, this case," Dean prompted.

"Yeah, here's the thing. The local PD is baffled. No suspects, no motive. Nothing."

"There's never nothing," Dean said. "And why don't we think this is a run of the mill serial killer?"

Sam scoffed. "'Run of the mill serial killer.' Wow, our lives are messed up."

"Well?"

"Because," Sam said, "there were 'strange symbols carved into her flesh.' Pretty sure it's our kinda thing."

"Could still just be a serial killer."

"There's been a rash of killings in the area in the past two months-"

"All missing heart, liver, and lungs? Like, say, a serial killer?"

"There's an early report of a similar murder but with different organs removed."

"So it's a copy-cat."

Sam shook his head. "Maybe. I know it's flimsy, but it's the only thing on the wire. And it's weird. We should check it out just in case."

Dean smiled, or attempted to anyway. Another hunt, and Sam wouldn't be swayed. Dean had been trying to get him to slow down, and it just made the kid feel worse when, as they always did, things went to shit, because it would always be that Sam had pushed them into a hunt Dean was trying to hold them back from. So, okay. Whatever huge clusterfuck this one ended up being? Dean'd take the hit on it. He tried to look eager. "Well you had me at 'strange symbols.' Looks like we're hitting the road." He frowned then. "Where we goin' again?"

"Uh... Lincoln, Pennsylvania." Sam looked up from the laptop. "About twenty hours drive, middle of nowhere."

Dean sucked on his teeth. "Great. Just great. Pack your banjo, Sammy."

Sam made a face. "That's the - not - nevermind."

The motel room was done up mostly tastefully in dark reds and browns, a nice watercolor over each queen bed, dust-free drapes that promised to block out all light. Dean sat on his bed and immediately checked for cable television.

"Sammy look, cartoons."

Sam didn't bite. He smiled briefly and plopped down at the little table, opened up his laptop. This place had wifi for a mere $20 a night, but it was the only motel in town, so whatever. At least Sam would be happy. He pulled out his tablet and starting scrolling through the info they had, making notes along the way.

"So, Emily Hopkins was... a student at Lincoln East High School. She was a cheerleader-"

"Oooh!" Dean said.

"Competitively," Sam finished.

Dean looked to heaven. "Oh, I bet."

"Dean. Gross. Can you get serious?"

"Nope."

Sam sat back from his laptop and stared at it, lips pressed into a judgey little line.

"Oh come on," Dean said, conciliatory. "Fine, tell me about this girl, the organ donor."

"Emily," Sam corrected, then sighed and relaxed forward again to consult the article. "Was a - cheerleader, right. Active in drama, volleyball, and... had an afterschool job."

"Any relation to the other vics?"

"Not as far as I can tell from what little there is here. I'm guessing the cops have more. Time to suit up?"

"You know it," Dean said.

Twenty minutes later, hair properly in place, suits de-wrinkled, IDs re-edged where the laminate had started to come unstuck, Sam and Dean kicked back in the impala, heading out to the police station with grand intentions of impersonating FBI agents and getting elbow deep in at least one cadaver.

"Listen Sammy, you might be right," Dean said, tapping on the steering wheel along with the music. He glanced over at Sam, frowning at his tablet.

"About what?"

"About workin'. Be nice to actually have a straight up monster to kill, right? Instead of some witch or-"

"Yeah. I guess."

Dean frowned. Probably shouldn't have brought up the witch who'd sucked out some of Sam's brains. Course Sam was probably more bent out of shape because he'd had to kill her, some woman who was grieving her family. And there was the ghost they had decidedly not ganked because he could help them decode an ancient "How Not to Apocalypse" handbook. And thank God Sam didn't know about the goatman's fate, or he'd probably never speak to Dean again. And Dean'd deserve it. Yeah, they could really use a straight up monster.

But Sam had wanted to do this. He'd seemed okay. And he didn't even know half of what he should have been pissed about. He gestured at Sam helplessly.

"Come on, Sam. This was your idea. What's with this sourpuss act?"

Sam looked up at Dean. "What sourpuss act?"

"This, this mopey..." He mimicked what he thought looked like Sam, moping - hunched shoulders, gopher teeth.

Sam made a face. "I don't do that." He looked out the window. "And I'm not being a sourpuss. I just..."

"Just what?"

"I'm waiting... for the other shoe to drop."

Dean stared at the road. And there it was. But they were pretty much always waiting for the other shoe to drop, all the time, so it was kind of a toss-up what Sam was referring to, specifically. Dean's instinct was to change the subject, but um.

"What other shoe?" he said. The whole "talking it out" thing had been doing them pretty good.

Sam looked at him, brows up, the picture of surprised-puppy. "Uh, nothing, nevermind." He turned back to the window.

"We're not going down this road again, Sammy," Dean said then, voice low.

Sam blew out a breath on a little laugh. "I'm not hiding anything from you Dean, except stuff I don't want to talk about. Okay? I'm allowed to just not want to talk about stuff."

"Yeah, you're allowed," Dean said, shaking his head. "And normally I'd be the one driving that train, you know that, but lately-" Dean blew out a breath and watched the road. Why was it always a fight with this kid. He tapped the steering wheel. "Listen, forget I said it like that. I didn't mean - I'm just saying - I'm saying-"

"What, Dean. What are you saying?"

Dean gritted his teeth. He was leaving the possible demon blood thing alone, remember? He was letting Sam keep his secrets, but that didn't mean he couldn't just be encouraging, like, let Sam feel like he could tell him whatever. Tell him about the weather, whatever, just as long as he didn't try to off himself in a motel room in Boston again, and hey, if he brought up the demon blood thing himself? Bonus. "I'm saying, you can talk to me. You know, about whatever. Nothing has to be wrong, you know like - our kind of wrong. You can just... talk to me."

"Yeah, right." Sam laughed. "Dean Winchester, sensitive listener."

"Yuck it up, moonbright," Dean growled. "We're here, let's just get this done."

The police station was small, but it buzzed with activity. They flashed their badges with fake names on their lips, but were ushered into an office to wait before even breathing the word "Agent." Dean blinked at Sam. Sam shrugged, hands spread in complete wtf-mode. He tried to flag down a passing officer. She ignored him. He gave up and sidled over to Dean to watch the passers-by and said, "What do you make of this?"

"Busy little bees, aren't they? Who knew a town this small could have so many cops?" They watched for another moment, then Dean went out to try his luck. He stepped right into an officer's path, so she couldn't just ignore him, and held up his badge, caught her eye, smiled that slightly threatening fuck you smile, and she reluctantly turned toward him and Sam and stepped into the office.

"Can I help you?"

"Busy today," Dean said.

"Agents Carter and Bernson," Sam said, flashing his badge briefly. "We're here about a seventeen year old vic, missing some-" He gestured at his own torso, and Dean supplied:

"Innards." He grinned.

"Emily Hopkins," Sam continued, sparing Dean a warning look. Dean made a face back.

The officer looked them both up and down, then shook her head and said, "Follow me."

The morgue wasn't buzzing like the rest of the station, but only because one man does not a buzzing population make. The place was scrubbed clean, dazzling and prim. The coroner was brisk. "She's already autopsied. My report, and if you have any questions-"

Sam and Dean shared a look. "Actually," Dean said. "We do."

"-You can make an appointment," the coroner finished, then frowned.

"Just a couple of quick ones," Sam put in hastily, bodily stepping in front of the man to block his exit. "What can you tell us about the organs that were left in the body? Anything... unusual about them?"

The coroner rolled his eyes. "No. Nothing unusual."

Sam looked up. "And the missing organs - the heart, lungs, liver - they weren't recovered? Even partially?"

"Nope. Now if you'll excuse me."

"Just one more question," Dean said. "What can you tell us about the other five victims in the past seven weeks?"

"Other victims?" the coroner asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, stepping away to look at things mounted on the walls, conveniently giving Dean the freedom to stare the guy down. The guy frowned at Dean, watched Sam as he strolled around the lab, touching things. He scowled, made an aborted attempt to move toward Sam, get him to stop, which Dean stepped in front of. Dean grinned as Sam rattled off the names. "Adam Lawson. Gabrielle Sanders. Chris Faulk-"

The coroner cut him off. "Do you think they're related?"

"Maybe," Sam said. He spun from his stroll to smile at the man, brows up, picture of innocence. "Missing organs-"

"All different ones, though."

"Strange symbols carved into their flesh-"

"Again, all different symbols. Our guy says there's no way they were killed by the same person. He says best guess, whoever killed the first kid, Adam Lawson, is done or moved on, and Sanders, Faulk, Avery, and the rest - they're copycats, different copycats who don't know enough of the facts of the case to do it the way the first guy did. We've been keeping the details out of the press. Obviously. The copycats don't know what symbols to use or what organs to take."

"That's not exactly true, is it?" Sam said, voice light. "Adam Lawson wasn't the first victim. That was Bernard Hale. The article on him does list the organs. And now two months later, the report on Emily Hopkins lists hers, not an organ in common."

"That Bernard Hale incident was dealt with internally. A hole that's been plugged. Anyway, it's an IA matter. Look, I don't know. I'm not the expert, but our guy-"

"-says copycats. Got it. Well, we'd just like to explore every possibility," Dean said.

"You know how it is," Sam agreed, still with that smile.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know how it is," the coroner said. He skirted around Dean, and went to his file drawers. "Why don't I just make you some copies of their files as well, then."

"Yeah, why don't you do that," Sam said, nodding. He tilted his head and raised his brows, and Dean had to keep himself from shaking his head in disbelief that Sam could pull that innocent puppy thing out without missing a beat, after everything they had done and been through. Good show, kid. "We'll be right here."

The coroner left maybe a little too quickly. Dean watched him go, then shook his head. "Good doin, Sammy. I think he about pissed himself. 'We'll be right here.' Lookit you. All smooth and cool."

"I am pretty awesome," Sam said, still with that playful, calm smile.

He frowned at it. "How can you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Man, it's creepy. Stop it."

Sam grinned wider. "Stop what?"

"Smiling, like you mean it."

Sam shrugged. "I do mean it."

"Yeah, because you're just made of sunshine."

"Yeah, I kinda am."

It was light, an airy kind of joke. Sam smiled again, and Dean watched him, looking close. Little things, again, because it was odd and troubling. And it had to be faked, had to be, because just twenty minutes before, in the car, he was so bothered, and Sam wasn't Sam if he wasn't in agony over something.

Dean shook his head and stepped into Sam's space. "Yeah. Right. This? This is a conversation."

Sam shrugged, closed his eyes and the smile faded into a resigned line. He exhaled and his whole body drooped. He was putting in so much effort, Dean felt exhausted by it. Sam looked off. "No it isn't."

"Yes, it is-" But the coroner came back just then with six photocopied files for them, and Dean barely thanked him in his haste to get Sam out of there and into the car.

They sat in the parking lot of some no-name fast food joint, Dean with his burger and coke and fries and Sam maybe half-way through a cardboard-bar. If he hadn't seemed so kind of... cheerful, Dean might have suggested they get out and sit; Sam could rarely sit in the same room with cooked meat of any kind these days, let alone shut up in a car. But there he sat, afternoon light outlining his face like nothing had happened, like he wasn't on painkillers or had his arm in a sling, wasn't downing some mystery substance to just keep himself on his feet-

"Case, Dean," Sam said without looking up from the file he was studying.

"What?"

"Stop spacing out. We got a case."

"I'm not spacing out," Dean said, petulant. "You're... spacing out."

"Nice comeback," he pitched back, that dumb smile at the corners of his mouth again.

"Shut it." Dean looked out of the driver's side window to give himself anywhere else to look other than the strangely serene dude sitting in the passenger seat, silently shuffling through crime scene photos graphic enough to give a horror movie make-up artist the shakes. Every few moments, between bites of bland protein bar, Sam made notes in the tablet Charlie had given him with a stylus, occasionally flipping through a virtual photolog of monster types.

Sam cleared his throat. "What."

"What, what."

Sam sighed, a whole body sigh, and he turned to Dean, all stupid eyebrows and dumb mouth. "You keep looking at me." He gestured at Dean's lap. "And you still have half a cheeseburger."

"I'm not looking at you."

"Dean." Sam blew out a breath again and stared at the dash in front of him. "I'm fine. Everything's fine. I'm... here. Okay? I'm working, I'm dealing. I'm fine. Are you fine?"

"Oh I'm fine!"

"Good."

"I know it's good."

"Well, that's... great." Sam watched him another moment, then shook his head and turned back to the file folder in his lap.

"I know it's great," Dean muttered, bringing his soda to his mouth and hunting for the straw as he tried to look casually out the window.

Back at the motel, Dean tested the cable for porn while Sam poured over the photos, mumbling over the information each file presented. He bounced ideas off Dean for hours, but no one monster fit the pattern, no one cult fit the dozens of symbols spread across six bodies. No one theory accounted for everything. Sam apparently hadn't noticed Dean shift to one syllable grunt responses, and Dean took the opportunity to watch for signs of something dark in his brother, waiting to jump out of the other shoe when it hit the ground. Something to account for his recently suicidal brother's shift into more or less easy cheerfulness.

But all he saw was Sam, Sammy, hunting down stupid dead-end trail after stupid dead-end trail, matching up symbols to his screen, pen in his mouth, notebook propped up and held open at a page by another file folder.

Just... Sammy.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when Sam said, that peculiar tone of discovery in his voice: "Hang on. Okay, so there's no connection between these victims at all."

Dean frowned and nodded. "Not exactly a breakthrough, Sam." He got up from his bed where he'd been flipping through the fuzzy cable between eyeballing "sunshine" boy, and came over, stopping on the way to pull a fresh beer from the cooler for Sam.

"There's no connection between them," Sam continued rolling his eyes, "until they're dead. Then-" He flipped through the files just to confirm. "Every one of their cases is handled by the same detective."

Dean smiled with half his mouth. After a moment of Sam looking at him with his brows up, like don't you get it, Dean said, "Okay. I'm trying here, Sam, but-"

"The same investigator is on all six cases the coroner was convinced weren't related. He's the one calling them copycat murders, he's the one preventing the real FBI from getting involved."

Dean nodded along. "They'd come in if it were actually a serial killer case." Dean laughed. "Imagine his face when the coroner tells him we showed up anyway!"

Sam was frowning. "Yeah..."

"So, this..." Dean stood behind Sam to peer over Sam's shoulder at the name. "Detective Warner doesn't want the Feds involved. Do we think he's actually doing the killing? Or just instructing whoever is to put in the wrong details, so he can say copycat. Great. A smart one. I guess that means the symbols we've been researching are useless too."

"Not necessarily." Sam scrolled through the notes on his tablet screen. "I mean, why carve symbols at all if they didn't mean something."

Dean watched Sam nod at his tablet thoughtfully. "So I guess we talk to this Detective Warner, huh?"

Sam nodded, distracted. Then he lifted his head. "What? No, one of us has to research the symbols."

Dean grinned. "I'll be back by midnight, library boy."

"Dean, I can't. I've been staring at them for hours. Let me go out, talk to this guy. You can overwork your brain for once."

"No can do, buddy-"

"Stop it, Dean. You've been itchy since we started this case. The sighing and watching out of the corner of your eye and asking me stupid questions about smiling? I know it's me. I know you think something is up with me, but you gotta let it go. I get that you're worried about whatever, but I'm tired of it. I can do this, but not with you hovering. I'm just..." He looked up at Dean with the puppy face. "I'm tired, man."

Dean shook his head, trying to come up with something to stem the flow of utter horseshit - uh, true, almost psychically accurate horseshit, but still - coming from his brother's general mouth vicinity, but Sam was already standing up and putting his tablet and notebook into his bag.

Dean found his voice at the sight of Sam actually prepping to go out. "You get that I'm worried? Really? What clued you in? Was it your arm in a sling? Or maybe it's how every other day you're coughing up blood. I mean come on, Sam-" Dean advanced. "You were the one saying he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know? Maybe I just trust your gut and your gut is telling you-"

"It's not my gut, Dean." Sam pulled off the sling and threw it on the bed, flexed his arm. Rolled his shoulders and didn't so much as wince. He snagged the keys to the impala from the table by the door. "It's you."

Dean's stomach flipped, but there was nothing accusatory in Sam's tone or face, just disappointment. Not quite reassuring, but not damning either. When Dean didn't respond, Sam went on.

"I saved you, in the woods. What more do I have to do, Dean? To prove to you that I can do this. I can do an interview."

"Sam, that's not-" Dean stopped, tried again. "I'm just-" He closed his mouth.

Sam sighed with his whole body and looked like he might change his mind or apologize or at least suggest Dean come with him. But instead, he tilted his head toward the glowing laptop screen and said, "I should be back in an hour or so. I hope you have better luck than I did." He turned to the door, and without looking back, said, "We can't live like this, Dean. It's not sustainable. You gotta just trust me that everything's fine. We have to live like everything's fine. Until it's not." He looked up at Dean. "Okay?"

Dean nodded. "Okay."

He should have told Dean to come with him. He should have suggested they table it til morning, really. There was no guarantee Detective Warner would even be at the station at - Sam checked his watch. Eight-thirty in the evening. Stupid.

Sam tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel, stopped at a red light. He just needed to get out from under Dean's attention. He just needed some quiet. He shouldn't even have been driving. His shoulder, the seizures of just a few weeks before. But he couldn't bring himself to get worried.

The town was small: one motel, a handful of traffic lights along one main drag, surrounded by farmland. If he went off the road, he'd end up in a shallow ditch down a gentle slope, the easiest car accident ever, and he'd call Dean. Tiny town, Dean could just walk to him probably. Sam was managing, dammit.

Still. The odds of catching Warner were slim, and Dean's stupid sadface when he left, and weren't things generally good with them lately? Maybe explaining to Dean what was going on, explain to Dean that he was dealing, that he was doing what he could, what he had to do to be a reliable hunting partner - what happened in the woods in Wisconsin that almost got Dean killed could never happen again, and Dean would understand that Sam needed to manage however he could. Right? Maybe just talking to Dean would do more good than aimlessly following leads that couldn't, probably, be followed until morning anyway.

Fine. He'd turn around. He'd go back. He always went back.

The light changed and Sam pressed the gas.

And almost hit a woman in red.

He stood up on the brake pedal. She was illuminated in his headlights, hands up and out to stop him, and when he did stop inches from her knees, she put her hands on the hood of the impala and looked off to the right like someone was chasing her.

Sam slammed the car into park and tumbled out toward her, his own hands up in a show of safety, of non-violence.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," he soothed. She reached a hand out to him; she was crying and her lip was split. She clung onto his coat. He patted her back and pulled her away from the front of the car, toward the driver's side because she kept looking to the right, and he set her there leaning against the door and he kept a hand outstretched to her while he stepped back toward the front, to stave off whatever monster had been chasing her.

"It's - it's my boyfriend," she sobbed.

Not a monster, then. Just a monster. Sam peered into the darkness. "Get in the car," he said, just before a shape barreled out of the shadow into him. They both went down. Sam strained to look up and check on the woman; she was frozen by fear. "Get in the car!" For his lack of attention, he took a meaty hook that shook his jaw. A bloom of something on his jawline. The close-up view of this man's hand shaking out the sting of having punched someone full force, the silver of rings flashing in the distant streetlight.

Serves you right. Shut up, Satan.

Sam recovered quickly, grabbed at the man's arm as he was levering himself up away from Sam, toward the woman. He obviously thought he'd taken Sam out of the fight, but he didn't know Sam, and Sam latched onto his retreating arm and climbed up it, dragging the man back downward and gathering momentum and over they went again, but Sam had the advantage of surprise and of height and he shovelled that momentum into his fist and clocked the guy upside the head.

The man lay still.

Sam sat on his legs and heaved breaths, one hand over his aching shoulder, but he watched for movement, because he wasn't going to make the same mistake this guy made. After a moment, he got himself together and stood. She was still standing at the car door, staring, shaking, holding her arms around her middle.

Sam went to her, put a hand to her shoulder. "It's okay now. What's your name?"

"Natalie, I'm Natalie."

"Okay, Natalie. I'm Sam. I'm gonna you to the hospital-"

"I'm fine. I just." She stared at the man on the ground, and she frowned, and Sam turned back.

The man stirred, but he didn't attack. He got himself together, snarled something unintelligible to the woman, then glared at Sam. He cradled his hand and ran off down the street. Sam let out a breath he hadn't been intentionally holding.

"Okay, hospital."

"No." She smoothed her dress and dabbed at her mouth. The bleeding had stopped, but her bottom lip was fat and red. She looked up at Sam with steel. "I'd like to go to the police station and make a report."

Sam furrowed his brow. "Are you sure?"

She nodded, then she brushed past him to circle around to the passenger side door, all dignity.

"I'm sorry," she said once they were en route. The black road beneath them gave way from the smooth blacktop of the highway that led out of town to the pebbly surface road of a small town, it sped toward them in the headlights, disappeared under them. "I must have seemed like a hysterical woman."

"No," Sam soothed. "You were attacked, and frightened. But you did the right thing. Looked for help, saw a car and - it worked out."

She seemed to accept that answer, and he detected in her what he sometimes thought he saw in Dean - nothing is alright, but if it's possible to behave as though everything's fine, trust me to find a way.

"That guy's your boyfriend, huh?"

She spared him a look. "Was, I guess."

"What set him off?"

She shrugged, fatigue in the gesture, a sign that said this is a repeat performance. "Who knows. His favorite spoon wasn't clean?" She gave him a half-smile. "I don't really want to-"

"No, no of course," Sam said. "I shouldn't have asked. You don't have to talk about it."

She took a deep, settling breath, patting her lap. Sam saw that her hands were shaking. She was holding it together pretty well, but she was on the edge. It struck him how normal people suffered terrible things, complicated, human things, while he and Dean struggled with what were really black and white issues. Demons are bad, kill them. Monsters are bad, kill them. Occasionally Madison's face would swim before him as he took the kill shot, or Amy's teeth would tear at him in a dream, but they were exceptions.

Meanwhile, a woman lives in a house with a man who could snap and kill her at any moment, but there's love and history there, there's sweetness and shared pain there, and one of them is a monster, and the other shouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger and leave, but they're both just human, they're both just trying to survive. Because she should run, but she knows his past, and she can't leave him when deep down he's just a scared little boy trying to resist but ultimately failing to deny abuses he himself suffered, grasping for any kind of control over his life, and when things don't go according to his plan-

It does sound familiar, doesn't it? Don't you live with an alcoholic that would rather see you die than become something he doesn't like?

Sam blew out a breath, blinked. He resisted looking in the rearview mirror; he knew what was in the backseat. That's the best you got?

Which one of you is the monster? Which one of you is grasping for control?

"Everything's going to be okay," he murmured, to himself or to her.

The woman looked at him seriously then, and from the corner of his eye he saw her expression change into concern. She reached toward his face, where the boyfriend had caught him with the silver ring. It was bleeding freely down his jawline. And he cursed when he tested the extent of the mess - here he was about to bloody up his dress shirt.

"Just great," he said.

"I'm so sorry. Here, let me-" She pulled a napkin out of her purse and dabbed at his throat. She slicked up toward his jaw, toward the cut, smearing red into his skin but saving his shirt, and he caught her hand with the napkin in it and he placed it back into her lap.

"Thanks."

She looked taken aback, a little disappointed. Maybe his gentle voice had betrayed her; she thought he was going to let her mother him, care for him in exchange for him rescuing her, but he had had enough of getting close to people, and the delicate way he treated her was a lie if what it said was let's care for each other, as strangers who meet in blood and grief might, briefly but sincerely.

That wasn't an option anymore.

She turned to face front, subdued. "Will you come in with me?"

Sam nodded as he pulled into the station parking lot. "Of course. They'll want my statement anyway." And here he was at the station after all, after intending to turn around and go back.

Free will is a lie, Sammy.

Sam closed his eyes and did not reach for the scar on his hand.

NOW

Sam rested his head back as the girl, Constance, washed his hands with care. The water was scented with something, something floral, green and growing, marigolds on the side of the road, field flowers. She cared for him, he thought, she hummed as she brushed the scented water over each finger, and because she thought he was asleep, she brought his palms to her lips and kissed them, each one, reverent.

Perhaps she could be allowed to live, he thought.