Disclaimer: The only thing I own are the ridiculous situations in which I've placed these boys.

"What the hell do I have to do with all of this?" Sam asks, his tone somewhere between defensiveness and genuine intrigue as he half-heartedly pushes his wilted salad around his plate.

The brothers had quickly packed up their materials and high-tailed it away from the scene of Dean's accident, planning to retrace their steps back to Bobby's, stopping at a roadside diner to regroup only after crossing back over the Colorado state line.

And while neither of them has eaten anything since mid-morning, their appetites remain AWOL, Dean's stomach still protesting the actual ordeal of reliving his accident and the demon's words while Sam's too busy trying to make sense of his role in this FUBAR situation to shove anything down his throat.

"And who is this 'we'? And why didn't she just kill you?" Sam asks, the questions pouring out of his mouth now that he's gotten over his initial shock. "What? It's a fair question," he adds with an apologetic shrug at Dean's incredulous look. "I mean, she had you pinned. Why not just finish the job?"

"Maybe I'm just not that important," Dean replies dully, using his French fry to paint a rather abstract ketchup scene on his placemat.

"Well, you were important enough to want to stop," Sam says, forehead still furrowed in deep thought.

"Yeah, but stop me from doing what?" Dean asks, his frustration levels rising as he feels that same niggling sensation that there's something lurking just out of his grasp.

"Maybe to stop you from coming out to find me?" Sam says, his tone more a question than a statement as he tries to make some sense of it all. "Maybe to stop you from telling me something?" he continues, head tilted to the side, staring off into middle distance as he tries to allow his brain free reign to make any applicable connections.

The boys sit in silence for a few moments before Sam breaks it with a monosyllabic "Huh", an accompanying downturn of his mouth evident when Dean glances back up at his face.

"What?" Dean asks, scrutinizing his little brother's face for any possible clues as to what the hell his geek brain is thinking.

"So, if this is all my fault," Sam begins, gesturing towards Dean's left arm, his words cut off by his brother.

"Sam," Dean growls, the warning in his tone of voice making it clear that the younger Winchester should drop that particular line of thinking like a hot potato.

"No, Dean. Just hear me out. What if the demon was trying to stop you from hunting? Like maybe if it injured you enough you'd be sidelined. And what if the demon killing Jess was an attempt to do the opposite to me? Draw me back into hunting. Cause I was already out of the life. Hadn't given it a second thought until after she died. Well, really, until I rescued you."

"You did not rescue me," Dean quickly interjects, the indignation contained in his tone of voice mirrored by the look his face.

"Damsel in distress," Sam says pointing at Dean, a smug smirk on his face. "Cavalry," he says pointing at himself. "Deal with it."

"Shaddup," Dean drawls, his eyebrows furrowed tightly at the truth behind Sam's statement. Because yeah, his little brother did kind of have to save the day. Son of a bitch.

"You think maybe dad knows anything about this?" Sam asks, the smirk gradually fading away as his brain cells continue to work overtime. "Where is dad, anyway?" he continues, airing out one of the questions that's been nagging him for some time now.

"How the hell should I know?" Dean replies with a shrug.

"Well, aren't you practically his Mini Me?"

"Shut up," Dean mutters again, failing to come up with a better retort for his brother's comment. "It's dad. Could be in the middle of a hunt somewhere. Could be holed up sleeping off a bender. Man's a mystery."

While the words are technically true, Dean doesn't believe them any more than Sam does. Because given what the boys now know, there's more than a fighting chance that their father has somehow gotten wind of the same intel and has been working his own angles.

The brothers sit in silence for a few more minutes, each one stewing in his own juices before Dean makes the executive decision to call it a night and find a nearby motel to rest their overstimulated brains.

"Come on," he says, fishing some bills out of his wallet, "let's go find somewhere for the night. Get some shut eye."

Sam eyes his brother suspiciously, more than a little surprised that he doesn't want to just power on through and get back to Bobby's as fast as possible while putting additional distance between himself and the scene of his accident.

When he puts those same thoughts into words, Dean gives a shrug, mumbling something about needing to figure out what their next step is going to be.

In truth, he's not all that excited to return to Bobby's just yet, not all that thrilled to let the older hunter in on the demon's words. He'd texted Bobby to let him know that at least they were still alive after their little experiment, but had said nothing else about his revelations. Not because he doesn't want the older hunter to know what happened, but more because he doesn't know quite exactly what to say yet.

He trusts Bobby; would trust him with his life – has, in fact, on several occasions. It's just that this is big. Really big. Or might be, depending on what the demon had actually meant.

And if it tried to get him out of the way, who else might it go after?

So he thinks it safer for all parties involved if he and Sam just lay low for right now, try to figure out some more pieces to this clusterfuck of a puzzle.

He just hopes he's not making the wrong decision.

o()o()o()o(O)o()o()o()o

"I have to warn Sam!"

Sam awakens with a start, his tenuous grasp on sleep broken by the repetitive mumblings of his older brother. He lies still for a few moments, then clearly hears Dean's words again, the desperation evident in his voice and the urgency of his words mirrored by the restless motions of his limbs as he tosses and turns in his bed.

"Nonononono!"

Sam wrestles with himself for a few additional moments, torn between wanting to see how this plays out and wanting to rescue his older brother from wherever his dreaming mind has taken him, finally deciding on the latter once he switches on the light and catches the mixture of fear and anguish on his brother's sleeping face.

"Dean! Hey!" Sam calls out softly. When his words fail to bring Dean back to the waking world, he climbs out of bed and pads over to his brother's side, gently shaking his shoulder.

And regrets it an instant later when Dean lands a glancing blow to his jaw, Sam having forgotten about his brother's inherent self-defense setting while in the throes of slumber.

"Dean!" he says with more force, this time being sure to stand clear of his brother's swinging radius.

"Wha?" Dean mumbles, blinking confusedly as he comes back to consciousness. "You okay?" he asks, sleepily rubbing his eyes while his brain kicks in, not failing to notice Sam's continued rubbing of his jaw.

"Yeah," Sam says, huffing out a laugh, "just forgot about your right hook."

"Oh, sorry," Dean mumbles, looking slightly chagrined. "At least I didn't have my knife," he adds with a wry twist of his lips, grateful that his beloved knife is still tucked in his duffel bag instead of under his pillow.

"Uh huh," Sam grunts in noncommittal agreement, more interested in trying to figure out what had gotten his brother so worked up in the first place. Assuming, of course, that it's more than what they'd learned a few short hours ago.

"What's up?" Dean asks, squinting against the bright light in the room, brains cells still scrambling to come to attention.

"You," Sam says, taking a seat on his bed, leaning his forearms on his thighs in order to get a look at Dean on the bed across from him. "You were saying some stuff. Looked pretty intense."

"It didn't have anything to do with the Doublemint Twins, did it?" Dean asks, eyebrow raised in a show of mock seriousness. "Cause if so, I will be very disappointed that you woke me up."

Sam rolls his eyes and gives a half-hearted snort, shaking his head to the negative. "No. Nothing like that."

"Spill it, Sammy," Dean says when Sam just sits there and looks at him for a few moments, his little brother's puppy dog eyes searching his face so intensely that he feels it necessary to squirm.

"You, uh, you kept saying, 'I have to warn Sam'. And then you were tossing and turning, calling out 'No' over and over."

Sam follows his brother's face as it expresses a quick succession of emotions – the initial confusion as he contemplates his own words sliding into a brief moment of recognition before he's able to school his features once again.

If it were anyone else, they might have missed that brief flash before Dean had been able to get his expression back under control, but Sam's had a lifetime of studying Dean. It's practically been his major.

"What?" Dean asks defensively, shrinking slightly under Sam's intense narrow-eyed gaze.

"What do you mean 'What'?" Sam fires back.

"What do you mean 'What do I mean'?"

Sam rolls his eyes at Dean's attempt at evasive maneuvers, huffing out a breath that clears his bangs from his face. "I know you, man. I know you know something. I saw it on your face."

"It was probably just gas," Dean says, eyes skittering away from Sam. Damn it, but his little brother is perceptive. If it weren't him that Sam were trying to analyze, Dean might even be impressed.

As it is, however, the older Winchester is loath to divulge the meaning behind his dreamscape mumblings. He's not quite sure yet what it was that he was supposed to warn Sam about, but he has no doubt that it's linked with the demon and his trek out to California.

What he does recall, however, is the meaning behind his mumbled "No's" and his restless sleep.

Even now, just thinking about thinking about it, his chest tightens, his breathing coming shallower as a cold sweat breaks out along his hairline.

Because he'd been reliving his time in the hospital, the previous hazy memories now in sharp focus, granting him full awareness of his hellish experience.

Recalling the surgeons talking to him about how badly damaged his arm really was and how sorry they were that there wasn't more they could do to save it.

Recalling waking up after surgery, thinking his arm was still there because of the continued pain, only to realize it wasn't when his right hand's groping finds nothing but empty air and a heavily bandaged stump.

Recalling the moments of panic when he realizes that his life has been irrevocably altered.

And then recalling the subsequent days in the hospital. Trying to figure out how to live his life with one arm. How he'd be able to tie his shoes and button his shirt, let alone continue his life's work of saving people and hunting things.

How he'd be able to protect Sam.

Because besides being a hunter, the only other job he's taken pride in is keeping Sammy safe.

And if the demon is to be believed, his job is nowhere near finished.

End of Part 1

To Be Continued… (following a brief hiatus)