~~~~~Chapter 10~~~~~

(Tuesday 1:00PM)

Dean had pulled out his phone and snapped off several pictures of the symbols in the book, both the one Sammy had picked out and another Dean claimed was its inverse or counter symbol. As he'd explained, sometimes simply knowing what you were looking for was enough to nullify a conceal spell, even for someone as steeped in Science as Forensics.

He'd pushed himself to his feet. "Well," he'd said dialing his phone and putting it up to his ear. "Here's where we find out if good ol' Dr. Michales is as X-Files as I think she is."

With Dean off conversing with the ME, a contact he seemed particularly bent on keeping to himself if the way he kept leaving the room to talk to her was any indication, there was little for Jody to do but wait. She grabbed the deck of cards and the small Ziploc bag of pennies and went into the living room.

She didn't have to say a word. Sammy took one look at what she set down on the coffee table and he scurried over to join her settling on the floor between her legs. She arranged the cards in their grid pattern while Sammy aligned his pile of pennies into neat, orderly rows, each one heads up with Abe Lincoln gazing off to the right.

Every so often, he leaned his head against Jody's leg and, in true Pavlovian fashion, her hand went to his hair or to the side of his face every damn time. She knew he was doing it on purpose, like a frisky puppy that repeatedly shoved its nose under your hand so you'd scratch its ears. It was just as effective a ploy for Sammy as it was for the puppy, probably for much the same reason. His happiness was contagious, and so easy to achieve, just a kind touch and a moment of her attention.

They were just four cards into their game when Dean walked in to the room. "Well, now we… What are you playing?"

Sammy looked up from where he'd just placed his penny on the ten of hearts. "Da Matchy Checker game!"

There was so much excitement in his voice, Dean pulled up short. He fingered his cellphone absently, seemingly frozen where he stood. "You…you know that game?"

Sammy giggled. "You teached it to me."

"I know, I just…" A slow smile spread across his face. "You remember that?"

Sammy nodded. "An', I teached it to Dody, so—so we could pway." He dipped his head and looked up at Dean through his hair. "Dat okay?" He sounded worried. Did he really think Dean would be mad?

"Sure, Sammy. Why wouldn't it be?"

One little shoulder went up. "Cuz, it 'post'a be our game, but…"

"Dude, you can play the game with whoever you want."

That picked Sammy's head up. "I can?"

"Sure."

Sammy's head tipped to one side. "I wanna pway wiff you!"

As manipulations went, that one was pretty smooth. So smooth, Jody couldn't even feel hurt that she was being pushed aside. How could she? It was Dean. He would always be Sammy's first choice in everything. That was obvious and inevitable, and getting upset by that was like getting upset by the sun rising or setting. It was a force of nature that could no more be altered than it could be stopped, except by a force a hell of a lot more cosmic than her.

Dean shifted his feet, his gaze flicking to her. "You're already playing with Jody," he said, giving her a shrug that could only be an apology.

Sammy huffed dramatically, rolling his little mop-head. "I wanna pway wiff you, TOO!"

If Dean could say no to that, he was made of sterner stuff than Jody had seen so far. Still, he seemed to balk until she patted the cushion beside her in invitation and said, "Park it!" as though he'd needed the order to make it all right.

She split the deck in her hand in half and slid the pile over to him, while Sammy repositioned himself so he was between them. He looked up at her once, his smile so damn big it nearly took over his whole face, then he looked up at Dean. She had no doubt his smile was even bigger.

Whatever Dean had discussed with Dr. Michales took a back seat. It was probably nothing they wanted to talk about in front of Sammy, anyway. Dean's cell phone went onto the end table, close by but unobtrusive, and he gathered up his stack of cards.

"I can't believe you remember this game," he said as he flipped over the top card for Sammy to see. "You'd just turned three when I taught it to you." He looked at Jody. "We were stuck in this hole-in-the-wall motel during a hurricane or monsoon or… I don't know. One of those storms that drops so much rain so fast the roads all flood. Sammy was bored 'cause we had t'leave all our stuff in the car, but every time Dad tried to go out to get it, Sammy freaked out."

"Him might'a fwowed away," Sammy interjected matter-of-factly, dropping his penny on a six of clubs to match the color of Dean's card.

Dean mussed Sammy's hair. "Luckily, there was this bookshelf in the room with a few old paperbacks, a deck of cards, and a beat up box of random game pieces: coupl'a dice, half dozen checkers, bunch of marbles, and a set of jacks—like I was gonna let Sammy play with those! Dad was beat, so he told me to keep Sammy busy while he caught some Zs."

"So, you came up with this?" Jody asked, impressed. She drew a card from her pile—a king of diamonds—and set it down in front of Sammy.

"Hey, I was seven," he said, defensively, clearly missing her point.

She shook her head. "And pretty damn clever, at that."

"Dee's vewy smart," Sammy agreed as he studied the layout of cards for a place to put his penny. There were only four red cards remaining, but only one was a diamond.

"Sure. You say that now," Dean teased.

Sammy's hand froze over the three of diamonds, and he looked up at Dean. "Do I say dat before?"

Dean's face fell. "What?"

"You say, I say dat now."

There was little change in the inflection in Sammy's voice, more curiosity than building distress, but Jody felt herself grow tense. The last time he'd hesitated like that, he'd thrown his penny across the room and dissolved into a fit of tears that had lasted for the rest of the day. There had been no lead up to it then, just a sudden explosion of emotion. Was he about to break down again?

Dean shook his head. "Whadiya mean, before? Before what?"

Sammy sighed. "Before, when I's…" From where Jody sat, most of Sammy's profile was concealed by his hair. What little she could see without invading Dean's personal space was twisting up into a little pout. "B'fore dat's not now."

Dean leaned forward. Jody felt herself doing the same and had to stop herself. She didn't want to intrude.

"Sammy?" There was that tone to Dean's voice she'd only ever heard him use when addressing his brother, gentle and soft; but it belied the anxious look in his eyes. "What…what do you remember about…about before?"

For a second, Sammy didn't move. Jody held her breath and she could hear Dean do the same. Then, the penny fell from Sammy's hand, or maybe he dropped it. It caught its edge and rolled across several cards until it came to rest against another penny. It drew his attention for only a second, but then he looked back up at Dean.

"Dee, my head hurts," he said softly.

The breath punched out of Dean's throat. He closed his eyes and nodded in disappointment—or was that relief? Jody wasn't really sure. Dropping his cards on the table, Dean opened his arms and took Sammy up into his lap. He cupped his hand to the side of Sammy's face and dropped his cheek to the top of his brother's head.

"That's 'cause you've got a fever."

But Jody wasn't so sure that was the reason. Not anymore, or at least not entirely. She'd seen the signs long before his fever had spiked, the little V of pain that formed between his brows whenever he talked about his past. No. Sam's past.

Sammy was remembering more and more, lately; recalling specific events and details, not just vague concepts that were open for interpretation. He certainly remembered being bigger. There was no denying that, no dismissing it for anything other than cold, hard fact. He'd said it outright, more than once. He remembered being bigger, but was that the same as him remembering being Sam?

Jody had a feeling it was.

Now, she just had to convince Dean.

~~~~~SPN~~~~~SPN~~~~~

"Dean, I think…"

"Sammy remembers being Sam?"

Okay, that wasn't quite the way she'd thought this conversation was going to go.

Within thirty minutes of his last dose of Tylenol, Sammy had finally dropped off to sleep. Dean hadn't wanted to leave him unattended, but Jody had insisted they'd needed to talk, and not where Sammy might overhear. She hadn't really given much thought about what she was going to say once she had him out of the room, half-afraid Dean was going to lash out and call her twelve kinds of crazy. She certainly hadn't expected him to be right there on the same page.

That was a good place to be, though it didn't seem like Dean thought so. "Yeah, I got that," he finished sarcastically. "Though, it would be nice if there was enough of Sam in there to help on this damn case. I mean, he's the one who'd figured out what was going on in the first place."

"Even if he does remember, he's still only a three-year-old." She leaned against the counter watching him pace the kitchen from corner to corner like a caged animal, staying out of his path as much as physically possible in such a small space.

"A three-year-old who knows he was once a thirty-year-old," he retorted, as though that point needed clarification. "God, how'd this case get so fucked up?"

She certainly didn't have the answer to that question. He stopped with his back to her and raked his fingers through his hair, threading them together behind his skull. She could hear him breathing from across the room.

"You know," he said, his voice strained. "All this time, he's never once asked me why I'm an adult."

That was a surprise to her. "Not once?"

He shook his head. "He was unconscious for six hours. Longest friggin'…" He took a deep breath and dropped his hands. He looked at her over his shoulder. "And, when he woke up, first word outta his mouth was, Dean. He just knew."

He chuckled, turning around and leaning his back against the refrigerator. "I thought the spell had just changed his body, y'know? Hell, I almost started laughing. Gigantor stuffed down inside of that little body. "

His smile fell away, not that there had been all that much humor in it. "I was kinda hoping that's all it was, but… But then he asked where our dad was and…uh…and why he wasn't there. Where'd he go? When was he coming back? Did something happen to him? And he kept getting more and more upset. Next thing I knew, he was crying and locked onto me like a leech, and…" He shook his head. "Suddenly, all I could see were those dead kids in the morgue."

He closed his eyes and thumped his head back against the refrigerator. "God, what if he's been remembering this whole time."

He sounded so concerned and she couldn't really blame him. It was a disarming thought, and one she'd had every time Sammy had looked at her with just a little too much worldliness. She may not know what they had experienced in their thirty-plus years of life, what horrors or pain they'd lived through, but she knew it had left scars. There were times she'd seen things flash across Sam's face that had reminded her of war vets and trauma victims. She'd seen his eyes go distant, as if he were seeing things that weren't there, reliving things behind his eyes that no one should have had to live once let alone again and again like a movie set on loop.

For an adult to have such memories was terrible enough. For a child to have them, though… She had first-hand knowledge of how the body could respond to memories best left buried. How much worse could it be to have those memories and not understand why?

"Dean, look," she said, trying to pick her words carefully. "We know that Sammy's been pulling up things from Sam's past for days." When Dean nodded, she continued. "And, yeah, some of them are from Sam's memories of when he was little, like your father and Bobby, which would make sense if the spell turned back time on Sam. Those memories are current to Sammy's timeline. But... Crowley? Me? These are a lot more recent to Sam."

Again, Dean nodded. "Yeah."

"The other day, Sammy told me he had a dog named Bones." Something flashed in Dean's eyes, but he said nothing. "When I asked how old he was, he said it was when he was bigger. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Hell, Owen used to say things like that all the time, things like, 'Once, when I was bigger, I had a race car."

Even as the words were leaving her mouth, she braced herself for the pain that always came at the mere thought of her son or the mention of his name, and she pushed it down. Now was not the time.

"Sam was fifteen," Dean said, confirming what Sammy had indicated with his fingers at the time. He didn't offer anything more than that and Jody didn't press.

Instead, she just shook her head. "That's what he said. I thought he was just making up stories."

"But?"

She sighed. "But right after… He got this look on his face, like he was in pain."

She tapped her forehead, affecting a scowl that pulled her brows down. Recognition lit in Dean's eyes. "Like just now."

"Yeah. The minute I asked him if his head hurt, it went away. He went back to playing like nothing had happened."

Dean pushed himself off the refrigerator and resumed pacing, his long legs eating up the tile in a few strides. He kept his gaze fixed on the floor as he passed her, his expression thoughtful. "The day his fever started," he asked suddenly. "You were pretty certain on the phone that it wasn't related to the spell. And then… The things Sammy said to me…What did he remember then?"

Jody cursed. She should have known she was going to have to tell him about Sammy's nightmare eventually. When Dean hadn't asked about Sammy's little outburst the second he'd walked in the door, she'd thought she'd dodged a bullet. It wasn't as if the information was going to be crucial to the case. All it was going to do was upset Dean, and she really didn't want to do that if it wasn't necessary.

But what if she'd been wrong? What if it had been relevant? What if the nightmare Sammy had had was actually a memory of Sam's? Could it help them?

"Jody?"

She sighed. "The night you didn't call… Sammy had been having a rough day already and…that night he had a terrible nightmare. Woke up screaming and…" Just the memory of that heart-stopping cry yanking her out of a dead sleep had her heart pounding in her chest. She wondered if she'd ever get the image of his terror-filled eyes staring up at the ceiling out of her head.

Dean had stopped mid-step, his back still to her and his fists clenched at his sides. "Did he…did he say what it was about?"

His voice sounded calm, but she suspected it was all an act. Nothing about his rigid posture denoted calm at all. She wished he'd turn around. She didn't like talking to his back from across the room any more than she'd enjoyed talking to the top of Sam's head from across the table, resisting the urge to duck down beneath his hair—or in Dean's case, to take him by the arms and turn him around—just to see his face.

"Something about a fire," Jody said carefully, watching him intently, "and a girl up—"

"Oh, God." He staggered forward a step, his hand slapping out against the edge of the counter as though to catch himself. She took a step toward him, but he threw out his other hand to stop her. "Did he…uhm… Did he say who she was?"

"No." It was all she could do not to go to him. "Just that she was very frightened."

She could hear him draw a deep breath then release it.

"Dean? Do you know who he was talking about?"

A laugh punched out of him, utterly devoid of humor. If anything, it sounded a little manic.

"So, that was another memory." She'd hoped it wasn't, not directly anyway, but Dean's reaction was answer enough. She wanted to ask about it and, at the same time, she knew she didn't want to know the details. It was bad enough that they knew them, that they had experienced something she just knew was worse than what she was imagining. "More recent to Sam than the dog?" she asked instead. It seemed a safe enough question.

Dean's shoulders lifted then fell with his breath, but he finally looked at her over his shoulder. "Probably."

"Probably?"

He sighed. "Most likely." Before she could repeat that equally-as-cryptic response, he said, "Don't. Please." He pushed himself off the counter, turned around, and leaned his weight back against it. He looked a little pale and, maybe, a little haunted, too.

"His fever started a few hours later," she said instead.

"And the stuff he said to me when I did call?" Dean asked. "About me being mad at him?"

Jody shook her head. "He said the same thing right after his nightmare. That he'd 'done bad things', and that you weren't coming back because you were mad at him."

Dean rubbed his face with both hands. He mumbled something into his palms, but Jody couldn't make out any of it. Even the tone was indiscernible. She still couldn't imagine what Sammy had been talking about, if what constituted "bad things" to a three-year-old even came close to the truth that might have been buried in Sam's memories.

Something told her that Dean wasn't so clueless, that he knew exactly what Sammy was remembering.

When he dropped his hands, his game face was back. "It's not important," he said, meeting her eyes resolutely. "We've both fucked up and done things we ain't proud of. And sometimes…" He chuckled. "A lot of times, we've pissed each other off enough to make one of us walk away for a while."

Jody nodded. She knew how they had lived their whole lives in each other's back pocket. Bobby may have held his cards close to the vest about those two, but he'd told her that much. It only made sense that two people so intertwined would occasionally fight. She had a hunch he was downplaying things a bit, but if he said it wasn't important, she had to take his word for it.

"So, these are still just Sam's memories," she said.

He huffed out another one of those humorless laughs. "Just." He shook his head. "Believe me, the shit Sam's got in his head, the stuff he's been through… Sammy can't remember this stuff, Jody. He just can't. He'll never survive it. No kid could. And it's only a matter of time before those memories start seeping in. Doesn't matter how much Sam might have buried them."

"Then, what are we waiting for?"

There was the question she'd wanted to ask him all along, the question she'd pulled him out of the living room and away from Sammy so she could ask him without Sammy hearing. All the other things they'd been discussing, however important they might have been in their own isolated and distinct way, this was the question that mattered.

So, why was Dean shaking his head at her as though she was asking him to dangle Sammy out a third-story window?

"You said it yourself," she barreled on before the resistance she could see building up in Dean's posture could spill out of his mouth. "We may be running out of time with this. Whether Sammy's fever is related to the spell or a product of the stress he's under because of all the terrible memories you say Sam has rattling around in his head, is moot. It's not going down. And it's probably not going to go down unless we can undo this spell."

He opened his mouth to comment and she threw a finger up in front of his face to forestall him. It was testament to his regard—his respect —for her that it actually worked. He snapped his mouth shut, but he was not happy about it. She could see it in that cold, green-eyed stare.

"Sammy saw the symbol that changed him," she continued. "You said there was an inverse to it that could reverse the spell. You need to draw it on my floor to do it? Fine! Draw it on my floor. Hardwood can be sanded. Hell! I'll throw a carpet over it and let the next owners worry about it."

"And then what?" he hissed. "Just ask the three-year-old to walk through the weird-ass symbol on the floor? What the hell do I tell him when he asks me why? 'Cause, you just know he's gonna ask. He's gonna ask a shit ton of questions, and what the hell am I supposed to tell him, Jody? 'Cause, if this works, he's…"

He didn't need to say it. Jody knew. She'd gone to bed the night before with that very thought twisting a fist around her heart. If it worked, then Sammy would be gone. He'd simply cease to exist. Once again, he put his back to her, but not before she saw the anguish in his eyes. It probably mirrored what was in her own.

"And what if he's wrong?" he continued in that same quiet, anguished voice.

"What?"

"What if it isn't the right symbol? Or, if the symbol isn't enough?" He let out a sigh that seemed to draw the strength right out of his shoulders. "I've been telling him his whole life that I won't let anything bad happen to him, and when the time came to prove it, it was a friggin' lie. I don't know that I can just tell him it's gonna be okay when I…when I just don't know that it will."

"That's every parent's worry. You gonna tell me that every time you told him that, you knew, beyond any doubt, that everything was going to be okay? Seriously? You knew that when you told him that on the phone just a few days ago?"

He turned his head to the side, his eyes catching hers for only a second before he dropped his gaze to the floor. "That ain't the same as…as tellin' him it's safe for him to walk across the road when you know there might be a landmine under it."

"And if there's something on his side of the road that you know is going to harm him if he stays there…?"

She let the question dangle, knowing that she didn't really have to spell this out for him. He knew the score. He'd probably had to face this very scenario, in all its many and varied permutations, more times than she could even guess. He must have done something right. They were both still alive and walking, albeit, cracked and glued in places, but still functioning.

"You lie to mitigate the fear," he answered, as if reciting the words from rote. He looked up at her again, and she saw something shift across his face, something bitter. "And then Sam kicks your ass for the next month for not trusting him to make his own decisions."

That something bitter, shifted again, became more resignation than resentment. He grew thoughtful, his gaze drifting back to the floor between them. "You really think Sam is in there?" he asked then. His fists opened and closed at his side. The rest of his body was rigid.

Jody blew out a breath. "I think..." she started, watching him closely. "I think Sammy knows that something isn't right. That he isn't right." His eyes narrowed slightly, a sudden flash of pain that she could only chalk up as one more trigger from their past that she would probably never know. "I think he may understand a lot more of what's going on and what's at stake than either of us are giving him credit for."

~~~~~SPN~~~~~SPN ~~~~~

She followed him back into the living room, hanging back a bit so as not to crowd him too much. He had the look of a man walking to the gallows, jaw clenched and shoulders straight, resigned and determined to maintain what little control over a situation that hadn't been in his control since the start. Sammy slept fitfully on his side, his chubby cheeks flush with fever and his brow pulled low in pain or distress. He clutched the edge of the army blanket in one tight fist as if it were a lifeline. Maybe it was, the only secure piece of a home that was constantly shifting and changing around him.

Or, maybe it just smelled of Dean, she thought, remembering that month when Owen had taken to carrying around one of Sean's sweatshirts everywhere he went.

Dean knelt on the floor in front of the couch and gently brushed Sammy's hair away from eyes. "Hey, buddy. Can you wake up?"

Sammy screwed up his face and burrowed deeper into the blanket. The little stuffed tiger popped out from beneath his cheek where it had been hiding and Dean gave it a playful tug until Sammy's eyes cracked open. He made a little sound of protest, pulling the tiger back into his chest. One arm eked out of the cocoon of the blanket so he could grind at his eyes with his fist.

"We weavin' now?" he asked in a small, distressed voice. It was telling that Sammy always seemed to jump to that conclusion. Even half-awake and feverish, it was the first thing he thought.

Dean shook his head. "Nah, Sammy. I just need to talk to you, is all."

He pushed himself to his feet, carefully scooping Sammy up, blanket and all, and sat down on the couch, positioning Sammy on his lap in such a way that he could see his face. It put them both so Jody couldn't really see their faces without stepping further into the room. As tempting as it was, she didn't want to intrude more than necessary. Dean hadn't asked her to leave, so she wasn't leaving, but she could give him that small bit of privacy, a quiet supportive presence in the wings in case he faltered.

"You sad, Dee?" Sammy asked. He reached out and touched his fingers to Dean's face, offering comfort the way Dean always did for him.

Dean leaned into the touch. "A little." He shifted himself on the couch and brought his face closer to Sammy's level. Once again, Jody was impressed with Dean's seemingly unconscious body language: always so careful not to loom over Sammy despite their obvious size difference. "You see… there was this…this really bad man and he…hurt some people. That's why I had to bring you to stay with Jody. So, I could find him and make him stop."

Sammy tipped his head. "But you catched him, wight?" It wasn't really a question, despite the slight lift in his voice at the end. "Dat why you came back."

"Yeah, Sammy. I did. I stopped him so…so he can't hurt anyone else ever again. But…you see, he…uh…" He looked up and caught Jody's eye for a second. She could only nod her head in weak encouragement. "Some of the things he did…well, they didn't…undo, and people are still…sick."

"Sick?" Sammy repeated the word slowly and Jody could hear the little gears turning. "Wike me?" There was far too much depth to that simple question for a three-year-old. If Jody had had any remaining doubt that Sammy knew what was going on around him, it was gone now.

Dean pulled in a breath, and Jody had to stop herself from stepping into the room. "Yeah," he said. "Sick, like you, only worse. And I…I think I know how to fix it, to make them bet—well, again, but…"

Jody could see Sammy's distress building, his small shoulders beginning to rise and fall beneath the blanket. She could hear the faint whistle as he inhaled and exhaled through the congestion building in his little nose. She didn't need to see his face to know his eyes were filling with tears, and her heart thumped hard in her chest at what the sight had to be doing to Dean.

"You weavin'?" he asked.

"What? No. Sammy, I swear." Dean cupped Sammy's small face in both hands. He leaned so far over, his forehead was a mere inch from Sammy's. "I'm not goin' anywhere. I promise."

Sammy made one sharp shuddery gasp. "Am I weavin'?"

"No, Sam—"

Sammy was shaking his head, the movement so emphatic that Dean had to pull his head back or risk a forehead to the bridge of the nose. "You gonna fix me, an' den I gonna weave! I don't wanna weave! I wike it here!"

It was such a mundane fear, taken at face value. Jody could almost convince herself that there was nothing uncanny about it. They were staying at Jody's because he was sick. Once he was well again, they didn't need to stay. Sammy liked it there. He'd said it so many times, to both of them. That's all it was. Nothing to see here, folks.

Except, that wasn't all this was. And they both knew it.

"God, Sammy," Dean uttered, hugging his brother close. "You do know, don't you? That you're not supposed to be like this?"

"But you wike me wike dis," Sammy said, his voice small and shaky. "You wittwe brodder."

Dean made a small, choked-off sound. He pressed his lips to the crown of Sammy's head and started rocking him. Jody wondered if he even knew he was doing it. "Sammy, you're always gonna be my little brother."

Sammy shook his head. "Not when I's bigger."

"Even when you're bigger than me."

"But you wike me better wike dis," he said quite definitively.

Dean drew back so he could look at Sammy's face. Jody could see the tear tracks on his cheeks before Dean wiped them off with a gentle swipe of his thumb.

"You do!" Sammy said again.

"Sammy, listen to me. I wish you could stay like this forever. I really do. Just be a little kid who can play in the snow and make chocolate chip cookies and…and puzzles and play games and…and just have fun. And it's not because I like you better this way. It's because you're happy, so of course I'm gonna like it. But you being like this… what if this is what's making you sick?"

"'Cuz I 'post'a be bigger?"

"Yeah. You remember the symbol you showed me?"

"In Bobby's stinky book?"

Dean chuckled, and Jody couldn't help but smile at that, too. "Yeah. You said you saw it and then you weren't big anymore." Sammy nodded his head. "Well, I think, maybe, someone else saw it, too. And now he's little."

"Wike me?"

"Just like you," Dean agreed. "And he's sick, too; but like really, really sick."

"Is him gonna get better?" Sammy asked, his breath hitching in sharply.

"I don't know, Sammy. If we can figure out how to reverse what made him little… maybe. I was actually hoping you would be willing to help me with that."

Sammy seemed to think about this, his little face twisting into a contemplative scowl. "I telled you what I saw."

"I know, Sammy," Dean cupped his cheek with one hand. "And that was a big help. Huge, even. You did real good. But I still need your help."

"You gonna make me bigger?"

"I'm sorry, but I have to."

Sammy huffed a little sigh, then leaned back into Dean's chest. Dean's arms tightened around him and he dropped his cheek onto Sammy's head. He resumed the gentle rocking motion. "When we bigger, we won't be sick no more?" Sammy asked softly.

Dean caught Jody's eye over Sammy's head. "I hope so, Sammy."

Another small sniffle, and Sammy said, "'Kay."

Dean closed his eyes and pressed his face into Sammy's curls. "Thank you, Sammy."

~~~~~SPN~~~~~SPN~~~~~

Dean held Sammy tight to his chest for several minutes after, just rocking him gently. They didn't speak, and if Sammy was still sobbing, the sound was lost in the folds of Dean's shirt.

Jody had never felt so much like an intruder in her own home as she did at that moment. Watching Dean and Sammy together, seeing the tenderness Dean showed his little brother and the almost hero-worship-level trust Sammy showed him, Jody didn't dare move from her spot lest she break the tableau before her and shatter the delicate moment. She knew what a rare gift she'd been given to see it, to be brought into their tight, exclusive circle of confidence. She didn't delude herself that she'd have been privy to so much if the situation had been less dire.

When Dean finally looked up at her, she was surprised to see him so unguarded and raw. His brows pinched above his eyes and his jaw clenched. Determination was in every line of his handsome face, but so was pain. She knew that pain. It was grief and anguish and the underlying anger at the unfairness of life that bad shit had to happen no matter how undeserving the victim.

She thought he was going to declare right there and then that, No! They weren't doing this. They were going to find a different way, somehow. Whatever it took. But then he just shook his head and slowly stood.

Sammy didn't stir. He was asleep, his head heavy against Dean's shoulder much like he'd been when they'd first arrived at her doorstep. Once again, she marveled that it had only been a few days.

"Take him," Dean said then.

She stumbled a step forward at the subtle tone of pleading in his voice and took Sammy into her arms. He made a tiny sound of protest, but settled immediately. Dean had already turned away. "I gotta get some things outta the trunk," he said as he grabbed his coat off the rack by the door.

"Dean."

He shook his head. He didn't even bother putting his coat on before he opened the front door. "Just…" With another quick shake of his head, he was out the door.

The cold lingered in the room. Jody wasn't sure it had anything to do with the snow and wind outside. She slowly sank down onto the couch, into the very spot Dean had just vacated, and pulled the old army blanket around Sammy's small body.

~~~~~SPN~~~~~SPN ~~~~~

An hour and a half later, Jody stood in the doorway of Sammy's bedroom. She still held him, snuggled tightly in the army blanket despite the heat radiating from his small body. His head was on her shoulder, but he was awake, watching events unfold around him with wide, sad eyes. He hadn't said a single word, not since he'd agreed to help Dean. He'd napped in Jody's arms while Dean was off doing whatever he needed to do to prepare for the spell and then he'd simply opened his eyes when Dean had returned and said, "It's time."

For all his doubts and concerns, and his claims that these things were Sam's forte, not his, Dean had made quick work of getting everything ready. He'd pushed the unnecessary furniture out of the bedroom and into the hall. Only the mattress remained, pushed up against the wall so it blocked the window. He'd even removed the bulbs from the light fixture in the ceiling, and Jody shuddered at what that precaution suggested.

That, and the row of salt on the floor at the threshold of the door.

Jody couldn't help but cringe at the sight of the three-foot-round arcane symbol adorning her hardwood floor in bright red spray paint. She'd told him to do it, after all, but that didn't mean she was happy to see it.

Dean sat back on his heels where he was putting the finishing touches on the symbol, and he looked up at Sammy. He didn't say anything, though, and Jody realized with a start that he was waiting for Sammy's opinion as if he expected the three-year-old to have some kind of supernatural knowledge about the inverse just because he'd been hit with the original. Sammy merely looked back, working the thumb in his mouth with more gusto then she'd seen previously.

Then he drew in a deep breath and let it out with a quick huff. It was such a Sam thing, even Jody was hard-pressed not to take it as the confirmation Dean sought. Not that it really mattered. The last dose of Tylenol hadn't worked. Sammy's fever seemed the highest it had been so far. They were out of options and out of time to hope for a miracle. They needed to do this. Now.

Dean pushed himself to his feet and tossed the spray paint can into the open duffle bag in the corner of the room. He brushed his hands off on his jeans leaving a smear of red paint across his thigh. Three steps brought him to the threshold.

She expected him to reach for Sammy right away. He had that look in his face she'd seen before, that look of let's-just-get-this-over-with urgency. Instead, he merely balled his hands into fists by his sides.

"I called Dr. Michales," he confessed. As though he should be ashamed that he'd done it, that he'd been so desperate for an eleventh-hour miracle. She could tell by his expression, he hadn't gotten one. "She said her team didn't find anything in the basement, but they're gonna try some different light spectrums or aperture settings on the cameras or whatever. Could be another hour before they can make another stab at it. An hour she don't think Danielson has."

"It was a long shot, right?" Jody asked, but she was only placating him and he knew it. She wasn't surprised when he didn't even acknowledge the attempt.

He reached out one hand and cupped Sammy's cheek. "I'm sorry, Tiger," he told him. "I'd hoped we could wait a little longer, but…"

Sammy's arms tightened around Jody's neck and he pressed his face into her shoulder. "I don't wanna go," he whispered.

Dean snatched his hand back like he'd been scalded and the pain that flashed across his face at the rejection brought tears to Jody's eyes. The lump in her throat was all hers though. She hugged Sammy close and kissed the top of his head. "I don't want you to go, either," she told him. Goddammit, how she didn't want him to go! "But Dean needs you, sweetie."

To her amazement, she felt Sammy nod. He drew back and looked at her, his pretty eyes bright with tears. He sniffed once, then ground his fist across his eyes. His mouth pulled up in that little stubborn line that was all Sam Winchester, and he turned in her arms and reached out for Dean.

Dean seemed as shocked as Jody was, barely getting his hands up in time to grab Sammy out of her arms before the toddler could change his mind. But Sammy seemed quite determined. He wrapped his arms around Dean's neck and his legs around Dean's waist, and all Dean could do was hug him back. Suddenly, it was Jody who was in danger of changing her mind. She had to take a step back before she reached out to snatch him back.

"I scawed," Sammy said into Dean's neck.

"I know, Sammy," Dean told him. "But I'm gonna be right beside you the whole time. Nuthin' bad is gonna happen to you."

He looked up and caught Jody's eye over Sammy's head. She knew there were tears streaming down her face, but she gave him a nod of encouragement. The next thing she knew, she was standing out in her hallway looking at the closed door.

The weight of her empty arms was tangible, and she pulled them into her chest to clutch at the sleeves of her shirt. It was then she noticed the small stuffed tiger in her hand. She'd forgotten that Sammy had been holding it. Had he meant to leave it with her?

A sob broke loose. Then another. She staggered back another step until her back hit the wall behind her. She stood there frozen, that small, soft toy pressed to her throat, as a strange sort of pressure began to build in her ears and chest. God, was she having a heart attack?

Then she heard it. The subtle crackling of static grew louder until she could feel it in her teeth and along her skin. Something had to be going wrong. She started to push herself off the wall when suddenly there was a silent BOOM!

When she came back to her senses, she was sitting on the floor. Her ears were ringing, but she knew there hadn't been any noise. Just a sudden pulse of… energy, for lack of a better word. She tipped her head to the side and tugged on her ear lobe, forcing a yawn until her ears popped. The ringing stopped and she heard only silence.

Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet, steadying herself with a hand on the wall until her balance resumed. Her legs were shaky and she stumbled as she reached out for the door of Sammy's room. As her hand closed on the doorknob, she heard a soft groan come from within the room.

"Sam?"

She froze where she stood, relieved. That was Dean's voice.

She held her breath waiting for the reply; both dread and hope in her heart.

"Dean?"

That wasn't Sammy's voice.

It was Sam's.

~~~~~SPN~~~~~SPN~~~~~