Disclaimer for entire story: I do not own Supernatural, only the plot and any new characters. Please don't sue me.

Chapter One:

Message from Dad

The ocean. Sam hadn't seen the ocean for a long time. He used to live in San Francisco, at Stanford, so he used to go to the beach with Jess a lot. When you grew up in Kansas you never really saw the beach, or the sand, or tasted the salty breeze.

Sam watched a pretty girl standing by the ocean waves. The small curls of water lapped at her ankles, soaking the hem of her jeans. The salty breeze was blowing her dark blonde curls across her face. She's quite pretty, not in a mouth dropping, knock 'em dead kind of way—in the mysterious I've-got-a-secret kind of way. Sam can see her eyes. Familiar dark eyes framed by long, black eyelashes. Sam knows her, but he doesn't know how, or why.

"Ella."

He says her name because he knows it. He has no idea how, but the name slips off his tongue, and he knows it's her name. The girl turns around and frowns. Her lips are full and naturally pink making her frown the perfect girly pout. Something glistens behind her eyes, a deep curiosity, but also suspicion. It's a look Sam has seen before, but for a moment he doesn't care why the girl is familiar to him because he cares about making sure she is okay.

Frowning, she asks, "Why are you following me?"

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Sam Winchester's eyes snap open. He groans as the consistent ring of his older brother's cell phone blares through his half-awake ears. Said older brother continues sleeping like he can't hear it, but Sam knows Dean wakes up every time he has a nightmare, so there is no way he could sleep through that annoying racket.

"Dean," Sam calls, which really says answer your phone, you lazy ass.

When there's no response after Sam calls his name two more times, Sam rolls his eyes and fumbles for the ringing cell phone. The caller ID is flashing Unknown and the annoyance of that simply pisses Sam off. He flips open the phone tiredly.

"Hello?" he mumbles, groggily.

The voice, sounding very far away and distant, is crackly. It's terrible reception, but when the voice on the other end speaks, Sam recognizes it immediately. No matter how long it's been since he heard it.

"Dean?" it yells. "Dean, is that you?"

Sam shoots up in his motel bed like a rocket, shock pouring from his very pores and riveting up his spine; sending chills down his bare back.

"Dad?" he gasps, even though he knows it's his father.

"San Diego, California. La Jolla Cove."

What the fuck?

"Dad! Dad, where are you? It's Sam! I'm with Dean! Where—" Sam yelled.

"San Diego, California. La Jolla Cove," John Winchester repeats.

The line went dead with a hollow click.

With a silent roar of rage, Sam pitches the cell phone against the wall. The battery flies out, but Sam knows he can fix it. The satisfyingly loud noise causes Dean to yelp and almost fall out of bed. His dark hazel eyes flicker between a seriously pissed off little brother and the cell phone in a strange position across the room. Dean quickly puts two-and-two together before yanking the comforter off him and moving slowly toward Sam, who's breathing particularly hard through his nostrils. Sam refuses to meet the older one's eyes until he feels a hesitant, but gentle, hand placed on his shoulder.

"Dad call, Sam?" Dean asked quietly.

So Dean really had heard the entire conversation, or lack there of. When Sam managed to nod robotically, Dean sighed and sat down beside his brother taking his warm hand off of Sam's shoulder.

"What did he say to you, Sam?"

Sam feels waves of concern flowing from his older brother and marvels at him. How can Dean, merely hours after Sam had shot him point blank with rock salt, be so concerned with his little brother? Could Dean really have forgiven him that fast? Or was he just avoiding the subject so things could get back to their very small scale of normalcy? Sam was going to have to go with the latter. But, in the meantime Sam decided to humor Dean and answer his questions.

"He just said 'San Diego, California. La Jolla Cove.'"

"That's it?" Even Dean was surprised and he did sound a bit disappointed.

Sam nodded again. Dean frowned.

"Well—did it sound like he wanted us to go there?"

"I don't know!" Sam suddenly exploded. "I was having this stupid dream when he called and I was kind of disoriented for a minute and I tried to get him to talk to me, but he fucking hung up!"

Dean wasn't fazed by Sam's little outburst. When it came to their father, Sammy was the emotional one. In fact, when it came to anything Sam was the emotional one. Dean was accustomed to being the protector…the rock…the solid one…Sam was the Gemini. The one whose emotions went from high to low to pissed to depressed all in the span of two minutes. Dean bit his lip thoughtfully.

"You had a dream?"

Sam's head snapped up. The two brothers met eyes for several moments before Sam cautiously lowered his. Dean took that as a yes. By the way his brother was reacting it wasn't a dream; it was a dream dream. And no matter how much crap Dean gave Sam about his whole "don't ask, don't tell" theory, it scared Dean a little to think of his kid brother getting these creepy feelings sometimes. Dean was supposed to be able to protect Sam from everything, but this was one thing Sam had to suffer through by himself.

"What happened in the dream, Sam?" Dean asked softly.

Sam shrugged and looked down.

"Sammy," Dean growled warningly.

"It's Sam!" he bit back. "And nothing! There was this girl on a beach and I said her name. She asked me why I was following her and then I woke up."

"She was on a beach?" Dean said slowly. "A beach…." He trailed off.

Sam watched him intently, wondering what on earth his brawn like ass of an older brother was thinking about now. Dean rolled his eyes at Sam and looked at him like he was the stupidest person in the world.

"Sam—you said the girl was on a beach, right?" Dean said, exasperated.

"Right…" Sam said slowly, still not following where his older brother was heading with this.

"And what is La Jolla Cove?"

Something slammed into place in Sam's mind and for the first time in his life he agreed with Dean that he had acted like a piece of dumb shit. Dean smirked at him playfully.

"Didn't they teach you problem solving at that school, college boy?" he said, trying hard not to laugh.

"Bite me," snapped Sam, standing up. "Lets just get to San Diego."

Dean reached out to give him a sharp poke in the side. Sam jerked away in a huff.

"Not going to work."

"C'mon, little brother," laughed Dean, "I was just messing with you."

Sam responded by jabbing his own finger in Dean's ribcage. Normally such an action would have caused Dean to tackle him to the ground. Then a fierce, but relatively harmless wrestling match would take place ending with Dean triumphantly—and annoyingly—pinning Sam's arms behind his back and making him yell "Uncle!" until his voice went hoarse.

Sam rather would have dealt with Dean's major ego issues than what happened instead. Dean let out an involuntary gasp of pain. And as quiet as it was, Sam immediately felt terrible. The events at the asylum played over his mind again.

"If you hate me that much…"

God, Sam did not hate his older brother. Ever since he was three and old enough to understand what Daddy did for his job, Dean was the one who took care of him. He stayed with him when Dad left them alone, tucked him in at night, punched the bully on the playground, chased away the pit bull down the street, and saved his life on too many numerous occasions to keep track of.

And what had Sam done to thank his brother for all those things? He shot him. In the chest. Point blank. Dean probably hated him now, and quite frankly, Sam didn't blame him.

"Dean?" Sam asked tentatively.

Dean surveyed his little brother and when he saw the guilt shining through dark brown eyes he tried to put a smile on.

"Yeah?"

Sam sat next to him. Through the dimly lit room he could see a haze of purple and black bruises dotting Dean's bare chest. Dean followed his brother's eyes and tried to wriggle Sam's comforter up on his body, but Sam didn't buy it.

"Dean—I almost killed you," he whispered.

He sounded so heart broken that for a split second Dean wished Sam were a little kid again, so he could justify pulling Sam into his arms and letting the boy cry his pain out. But, they weren't kids anymore. They were men. And Dean was not going to surrender to a chick flick moment at the age of twenty-six.

Instead he grasped Sam's shoulder and looked sternly into his little brother's wide eyes.

"Sammy," he said firmly, "this is not your fault. It wasn't you. You said yourself you didn't mean any of what you said."

"But, what if it had been loaded, Dean? I'd be burying you in the ground right—"

"But, it wasn't," Dean interrupted. It was incredible to hear how much of a little kid Sam could still sound like. "It wasn't. I knew you weren't—you know—yourself. I knew, so I didn't give you a loaded handgun."

"You didn't think I'd try to shoot you either. You must have believed I wouldn't and I…"

Sam let the sentence hang. The last words were obviously and silently spoken. I let you down. I failed you. After everything we've been through together, I let a crazed ghost come between us. Sam felt Dean's hand on his shoulder tighten. And when he looked into his brother's calm hazel stare, he realized nothing was ever going to make Dean hate him for what happened. Nothing was ever going to make him feel that way; no matter how much Sam thought he deserved to be hated.

"I forgive you, Sam," said Dean quietly. "If that's what you want to hear so badly—I forgive you."

He hopped off the bed and turned on a light while he made his way over to the bathroom to take a shower.

"You know," Dean said, grinning and turning around, "I've always wanted to learn how to surf."

Sam snorted. Leave it to Mr. Super Sensitive to spoil a bonding moment because of his fear of showing too much emotion.

"You're such an idiot, Dean."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

"Oohh, that hurts!" Dean pouted. He stuck out his tongue and slammed the bathroom door.

Sam let out a breath he didn't notice he'd been holding in. They were okay. Dean wasn't angry with him. And judging how close they had actually been to having a dreaded "moment", Sam figured Dean was too busy worrying about him to care about some bruises on his chest.

But, what's a big brother for anyway?