Sam spent the next three days hiding his research from Dean. Meanwhile Dean was examining newspapers for another case, but he didn't seem too eager to move on. (The bartender was very pretty.) Sam didn't mind; it meant he could continue doing as he pleased.

But he could not find anything. As he had suspected, anyone who came into contact with this thing forgot it too quickly to share information. It was up to him. Sam created a hasty website with the picture he'd taken and the name of the town. It was of poor quality, and the site was hardly the best he could do, but time was of the essence. Who knew what this thing could be up to while he had lost track of it?

Within hours his website had a reply. i know this thing, wrote an anonymous user. i saw it and then i forgot? do you know why?

Sam hit reply and paused. What could he say that didn't sound crazy? Meet me at the library, he wrote finally. 5 pm. I'll explain there.

He closed the laptop and then frowned. What had he just been doing? Whatever it was couldn't have been too important, though, or he wouldn't have forgotten it, right? He pushed it out of his mind. For some reason, he had an urge to go to the library at 5 pm. Maybe something was going to happen? Sam had learned to trust his intuition, and so he followed this feeling.

By five o'clock, he was waiting by the library with his bag, watching each person who walked by, trying to guess what had brought him here. Most people just eyed him strangely. To these he gave an awkward half-wave. Others steered clear of him. He couldn't blame them; a tall stranger loitering outside a library was a little odd. Only one person headed straight for him.

"Do you know… I mean, I kind of have this feeling that… I just needed to be here, now? Are you waiting for me?" asked a teenage boy. He scowled at Sam, but it was for show; Sam knew his type, the boys who would put up a front of toughness as a defense mechanism. He'd grown up alongside one of them, after all.

"I had the same feeling," Sam said, turning to open the door. "Maybe I am waiting for you. I'm Sam. Let's go inside and find a table, and we'll see what's going on."

"Evan," said the kid. "Since you didn't ask."

Sam glanced over his shoulder at Evan. "I figured you might want to remain anonymous, stranger danger and all… But it's nice to meet you, Evan."

Evan half-smiled, half-shrugged. Sam had a moment of suddenly recalling of being a teenager himself. Before he turned seventeen, before he left for college, before he'd fallen out with John and lost touch with Dean. Just a normal kid hunting monsters and saving lives and, like every kid, desperate to get away.

Then Evan pushed past him to get into the library and the moment passed. Sam rolled his eyes and muttered, "Kids these days." He laughed at himself briefly-did he really just say that? how old was he, sixty-three?-and then followed, catching up to Evan with his longer strides.

"This is the best spot to get a table," Evan informed him, "where there's no one around and you can hear yourself think. Just turn up the music in your headphones and…"

"Everything else disappears. Just you and the sound." Sam nodded. He'd done the same more times than he could count, especially during his first semester of college, when he had so badly needed to escape his problems and worries and hurts. He imagined every teenager did something similar. Evan was no exception.

Evan looked up at him. "Yeah." And there was the first real smile he'd given Sam.

"Well, take a seat. I don't know why we're here. Let's see if we can't figure it out." Sam pulled his laptop out of his bag and opened it, typing in his password with a rapidity born of muscle memory. The screen he'd closed it on reappeared and everything made sense all at once.

Evan gasped. "That! That thing! I saw it, and I wrote that message, the reply, and then you said to come, and-"

"And here we are," Sam said. "We'd forgotten it. Again. But somehow the instructions we were given remained implanted in our subconscious, and we followed them unthinkingly. That's… interesting."

Sam became aware that Evan was staring at him. "Interesting. Seriously."

Sam shrugged. "Look, I get that it's unusual, but my life has seen plenty of weirdness already. This isn't that far out of the ordinary."

If Evan's eyes widened any more, they would fall out of his head. "You've seen stuff like this before? No way! Like what?!"

Sam sighed. "Sorry. I can't tell you too much. My brother would kill me."

"Yeah, I get that," Evan said, scowling again. "My brother's like that too."

Sam offered Evan a sympathetic smile. "If it helps," he said, "your brother probably isn't years older but inches shorter than you."

Evan tipped his head, confused. "Why would that be worse?"

"The jealousy fuels his wrath," Sam said, whispering to give the information a sense of confidentiality. "He's constantly annoyed, and that makes him much worse."

The laugh Evan gave in response was cut off as a shadow fell over the table. "Sammy," Dean said, in a low voice. "What are you doing here? I thought we agreed you were done with this whole research business?"

"Dean, this is Evan. Evan, Dean. My brother."

"You didn't answer my question." Dean folded his arms. Evan pulled away, retreating into the corner of the space, but Sam laughed.

"You're not scary, Dean." Then to Evan: "He's all bluster. Don't let him fool you with that attitude of his."

"I'm waiting." Dean wouldn't back down.

"Have a seat, Dean, come blow off some steam. You need to chill. What happened, the girl from the bar find someone better?"

From the dirty look that got him, his guess was a little too close. Evan snickered.

Dean harrumphed and walked off in a huff. Sam shrugged. "Well, now that he's gone…" They turned back to the screen.

"What do we do?" Evan asked, in a hushed voice. "You said you've dealt with stuff like this before, right? What do we do?"

Sam thought quickly. "Alright, here's the plan. We've got to lure this thing out. It seemed to be following me before, maybe it will again. I can't take too much from the trunk or Dean will notice, but I can probably sneak a knife and maybe a gun. Can you shoot?"

Evan smirked. "Can I shoot? I'm a teenage guy in the midwest. Of course I can shoot. What kind of gun?"

"I don't know yet. We don't even know if bullets can hurt this thing, if they need to be silver or iron or salt or what... We'll start with iron, always a safe bet. So if you're taking the gun that means I'll take the knife."

"Wait, why am I getting the gun if you'll be left with just a knife? You're the one with the gun, you must know how to use it better than me, why don't you take it?"

Sam shook his head. "I appreciate it, but no. The gun's better protection. I know I can handle myself. I'm not putting a kid up against whatever that thing is with nothing but a knife."

Evan argued for a little longer but eventually conceded. They continued forming the plan, all the while looking at the Silence's photo. Sam hoped what they were saying would stay with them, even if the details and reasons would blur.

"So I'll meet you at the… what did you call it?"

"The official name is the Henry S. Morgenfeld Building, but that's not important, it's just one of those big empty buildings at the edge of town. No one knows why they're still there. I think they were supposed to be knocked down? I don't think anyone is sure why they weren't. Anyway, no one's ever there except the squatters, so it should be perfect for a monster hunt!"

Evan was excited in a way that Sam could barely remember feeling. Surely there had been a time when he was that enthusiastic for hunting? But all he could remember was resentment and abandonment.

"Great. See you then." He tried to smile and he tried to hope and he tried to ignore the sense of uneasiness he could feel growing behind his sternum. None of them really worked, but he could pretend. That's what he always did, after all. Smiled and faked it and moved on to the next disaster. He could only wish this wouldn't turn out the same way.