AN: Here's a quick update. Review please. :) Beta by the fabulous SylvanniaWinchester :)
Jake and Sam were in what used to be a jail; Sam was working up a sweat trying to break off one of the rusty, iron bars. Jake, however, grabbed a hold of one and, with minimal effort, pulled it loose. Sam stared at him, stunned.
"I'm not Superman or anything," Jake said, embarrassed. "It's no big deal."
Sam nodded. "You were in Afghanistan when this all started?"
"Yeah, I started getting headaches. And then there was this…incident. A bomb went off and flipped a jeep, pinning a guy underneath. I lifted it off of him like it was nothing." He shrugged. "Everybody said it was a fluke adrenaline thing."
"But then you did it again, right?"
"Bench-pressed eight hundred pounds stone-cold calm. I never told anybody of course. It was just too crazy."
"Yeah." Sam actually grinned. "Crazy's relative."
Jake grinned back. "I'm starting to get that."
"By the way," Jake said more seriously, "I appreciate what you're doing here."
Sam's nose wrinkled a little in confusion. "What am I doing?"
"Keeping calm. Keeping them calm. Especially considering how freaked to hell you really are." Jake's hand crept unconsciously toward where his sidearm should have been holstered. "I've been in some deep crap before myself. I know the look."
"Oh." Sam tugged on the iron bar again, hard, for a long moment. "You wanna know the truth? I've this brother right? My big brother. And he's always telling me and our baby sister how he's gonna watch out for us, how everything's gonna be okay. I tell Rose the same thing when he isn't around. And, now, I'm, you know, kinda telling them the same thing too."
"Yeah?"
"I don't know if I believe it this time. I mean," he ran his hands through his hair, "the size of what's coming—it's bigger than anyone has ever seen. I mean, it's gonna get bad. And I don't know if—"
"If we're gonna make it," Jake finished. "It doesn't matter if we believe it. Only matters that they do." Sam nodded slowly, grateful that there was at least one person in whom he could confide.
Hours later, Sam and Ava were fortifying one of the houses, lining the doors and windows with salt. "My horoscope said I shouldn't have gotten out of bed," Ava half-joked. "How are you doing, Sam? Holding up?"
"I'm okay," he lied. "What about you?"
"Not so okay. Why us, Sam? What did we do to deserve this?"
"Just lucky I guess."
"If it wasn't for bad luck, we'd have no luck at all. I just can't wait for all of this to be over so I can just pretend it never happened." She smiled softly. "I just wanna curl up with Brady and watch bad TV." She glanced over at Sam, saw him shift uncomfortably, a guilty look on his face. "What is it? Sam…do you know something I don't?"
"Look, Ava…." Sam took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "I'm sorry. I wish I didn't have to tell you this."
"Tell me what?" Ava asked nervously.
"When the demon broke into your home to take you…your fiancé didn't make it. I'm so sorry."
She stared at him in shock. "No, that's…no!"
She collapsed onto Sam, sobbing. He rubbed her back and told her, "Everything's gonna by okay."
