hedge: n. a fence or boundary formed by closely growing bushes or shrubs
hedge: v. to protect oneself against loss by making balancing or compensating transactions
oOoOo
Dean arrives in Palo Alto in the middle of the afternoon. Finding Sammy's new address is embarrassingly easy, and by 4:37 Dean is parked with eyes on the front door. But he doesn't step out of the car. Two years is a long time, and Sam probably has late afternoon classes anyway, the overachiever.
He moves the Impala out of sight behind a row of hedges and stands leaning against a tree across the street from the apartment to wait. If Sam happens to notice him on his way home, well, then that'll be that.
Dean waits 30 minutes, then 45, and finally after an hour passes, his big little brother lumbers into sight, casually strolling up the sidewalk with a backpack slung over one shoulder. Dean straightens, an unconscious smile blooming on his face at the sight of his Sammy, healthy and happy and here again after two long years.
It takes him a while to notice the blonde chick glued to Sam's side, but she's all Sam has eyes for. The couple passes by him, never looking his way, and, well, that's that.
Dean decides he's hungry after the long drive and has a nice, slow dinner at a little diner he noticed on his way into town, and then stops to gas up the car since they'll probably be leaving tonight, and then remembers that they're (he's) running low on rock salt for the shotguns so he stops by a small hardware store for some more. They don't have the big bags like he wants, so he has to drive all the way across town to a larger store to find them. Then he buys a local paper and carefully peruses it because there's no sense in running off to take care of another case if there's one right here in town, but Palo Alto is almost depressingly boring.
By this time it's well past dark and all the lights are off in the apartment and Dean could really go for a beer but doesn't want to risk stumbling into some yuppie college student bar. He figures he can just borrow one from Sammy, and if the kid has even an ounce of hunter instinct left, he'll wake up and then they can talk. And if Sam can't slam the door in Dean's face because he's already inside, well, then that'll be that.