Notes and Memories

By PaBurke

Summary: A side story to the Hunters and Prey storyline. Sam Centric (I know, I know, coming from me?)

Spoilers: Season Three of Criminal Minds, only a minor part of the story. Ignoring most of Season 4 of Supernatural, it's still long into the future.

A/N: I've been thinking about Jess a lot lately and trying to get into Sam's head. I don't find him a sympathetic character on a normal basis.

The first several times that Sam had played the instrument, it was to flirt with Jess. Sitting so near to each other, heads tilted to the other and whispering back and forth, Sam had a lot of good memories of sitting on a piano bench in an empty music hall. Jess had had four years of piano lessons; her mom had insisted. That was before Jess had found basketball. She hadn't applied herself to studying music, but she had picked up the basics and knew how to read music. She had taught Sam both. She had envied him his large hands; octaves and rolling chords were nothing to him. He had the discipline that she lacked and Dean had always said that he had more emotions than a girl. In two years, he had surpassed Jess's knowledge and abilities.

Jess hadn't minded. She wasn't that kind of girl, part of the reason that he had loved her. She had merely brought back her keyboard from home on the next break. Sam later learned that Jess's mom's opinion of him had skyrocketed with that gesture. Sam had used the piano as he had once used sharpening a knife, or cleaning a gun. It settled his mind. The melody, the motions, the beauty had helped him focus at whatever task at hand. He had used it as a catharsis for dealing with his family until Jess had asked if Dean had texted him after three days of Bach.

Sam didn't like being that easy to read. He didn't like his emotions concerning his family spilling out all over the piano keyboard and into Jess's world. He had quit playing for two weeks before Jess had dragged him over to the keyboard and the two kitchen chairs she had set side-by-side.

Jess had grinned at him. "Play with me. It's been a while."

They had played and laughed for hours, hands overlapping into each other's territory. It had been fun. He had planned on proposing in front of a baby grand in an empty concert hall. He had even picked out the music he would use. After she said yes, he figured that they would play chopsticks together.

Jess was dead a week after they played together and four weeks before he could propose.

He hadn't touched a piano since.

After Dean had gotten hurt and Bobby had been diagnosed, Sam had fallen into the position of unwanted caretaker. Both Dean and Bobby pushed him away, leaning on each other instead. Sam had tried to be insistent and had been outmaneuvered. Between the two, Sam had suddenly found himself a TA at the local university, fast-tracked for his PhD. Then Dean (and everyone else) had discovered his artistic talent. Everyone but Dean knew how good the work was. Sam had called up Missouri, asking if she could help get Dean's stuff into a gallery. The following weeks had been a whirlwind of activity.

Sam had found it awfully convenient that both Bobby and Dean had a medical relapse the day before the showing opening. Ben flatly refused to show up at the gallery. He understood why they needed to use his name to sell the works, but he would not stand around and verbally take credit for the art. And he really didn't want to answer the 'and how were you feeling as your create this?' questions.

So Sam had attended alone, basking in his brother's glory. He had been wearing a wire, so that Dean would get to hear all the compliments and conversations that Sam had eavesdropped on. He couldn't wait to tell Dean that some hunters were taking pictures of the monsters for their own notebooks so that they could recognize them when hunting. Others snidely remarked on Dean's trophy gallery and Sam cheerfully recorded those remarks as well.

The two Women in White statues had sold even before the opening. The gallery owner had known of people who would be interested in that kind of art and had, in true entrepreneurial fashion, created a three-way bidding war. The winner of which was Dean –and the gallery owner. In the end, both of the statues had a new owner and the third bidder had 'settled' for the pile of demon-possessed faces. When Sam had asked why his face hadn't been added to the pile, he hadn't expected his comment to become the piece's title.

When Sam had gushed over the phone the amount of money that was now in the 'art' account, Dean had merely grunted.

When Sam had returned home with the glowing notes and the recording of all the compliments Dean's had received, no one was home.

But the living room of Bobby's house had been completely rearranged to make room for a baby grand piano in the corner.

Sam blinked.

There were a stack of piano books right next to it and atop sheet music from classical composers like Bach and Beethoven was a collection of classic rock songs.

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