Sam Winchester picks up the shell casings. Dean and Dad salt and burn the body in the woods. They meet back at the motel to check out. An hour later Sam is stretched out in the back seat of the Impala reading The Pelican Brief. They are on their way to the next job.
Dad thinks demons are behind the killings in Palo Alto, California. But Dad always starts out thinking demons. Sam figures the real culprit is a clan shape-shifters. He thinks Dean agrees with him, but he can't be sure, because Dean is a Good Little Soldier. He never argues with Dad like Sam does.
They drive two days to get to Palo Alto. They stop on the side of the road when Dad gets tired. Dean and Sam both have legal (and several illegal) driver's licenses, but Dad still won't give them the keys to the Impala.
The motel in Palo Alto is old and rundown like every motel they've ever stayed at. Dad orders Dean to start asking questions around town while he and Sam check in.
Dad pours salt along the edges of the room and across the window sills. "We could be here a while," he says. He keeps his gaze on the dingy carpet, careful not to leave any gaps in the salt. "A week, at least. You gonna' enroll at the school?"
Sam thinks about the college applications, carefully saved report cards, and graded essays tucked into the lining of his gun case. He thinks about living in one place and making friends and having a life that doesn't involve demons or spirits or his father's bitterness and unspoken grief. "Yeah, I think so. I have enough credits to graduate in June if I keep up with classes." He glances at the news clippings spread out on the bed. "I can still help out with the hunt, too, if you want."
Dad nods. "Good."
After a week, they are certain of two things: they are hunting shape-shifters, and the shape-shifters are smart. Several more people have died and they still haven't found the lair.
Sam goes to classes at Palo Alto High School while Dad and Dean track the shifters. He doesn't make any friends. Some of his classmates are resentful of his intelligence. A few think the protective amulet he wears means he worships the Devil. The rest are mistrustful of 'drifters' and 'migrants' like Sam. He doesn't tell them that he lived in a house once, in Lawrence, Kansas before the Yellow-Eyed Demon killed his mother and burned the house to the ground.
Sam sends his applications from the school mailbox and uses the school as his return address. He delivers his Stanford application in person. The day of his interview, he tells Dad he's checking the archives at the library for any clues about the shape-shifters. He wears the suit and tie Dad got him for investigating at funerals.
It takes them a whole month to find the shifters' lair, but only two days to kill them. When Sam goes back to Palo Alto High School for the last time, his right arm is in a sling and his face is bruised. He's showered three or four times in the last two days, but he's sure he still smells like sewer gunk and decay.
The letter from Stanford is waiting for him in the front office. His hands tremble as he opens the envelope. He reads the letter and smiles. His breath catches in his throat. A full scholarship. Tuition, room and board, everything.
Sam doesn't say anything. He still can't find his voice. But he takes a pen from the front desk, reads the fine print, and signs the paperwork. He meets with the admissions councilor at Stanford after school. When he leaves the campus, Sam Winchester is officially college-bound.
The Winchesters pack their bags that night and set out for Utah, once more on the trail of the Yellow-Eyed Demon.
In August, Sam tells Dad and Dean he is going to college. He's never seen his father so angry before.
"If you leave," he shouts, "don't try to come back."
"Fine. I won't." Sam slams the door of the motel room on his way out. He doesn't look back. An hour later he is on a bus bound for Palo Alto and a normal life.
Four and a half years later, Sam is living in an apartment off-campus with his girlfriend Jess. He has aced his LSATS and applied to Stanford's law school. The weekend before his interview, Sam comes home from his first – and last, if he has any say in it – hunt since leaving his father to find a plate of cookies waiting for him on the counter and Jess dead on the ceiling of their bedroom. He lies still, numb, on their bed as her blood drips onto his forehead. Jess bursts into flames. Dean breaks down the door and pulls him from the inferno.
He stands by the Impala and watches his normal life burn with his apartment and his girlfriend. For the first time in his life, Sam Winchester understands his father. He turns to Dean and says, "We've got work to do." He's grown up to be a hunter after all.