I hate airplanes.

Seriously.

Sam, of course, thinks it's perfectly normal for a pressurized tin can to be tossed forty thousand feet above the ground- held up by nothing but a draft and some puny engines. Let me be the first to tell you that absolutely nothing about an airplane feels even a little bit safe.

First, there are the people. It may be uncomfortable, but there's nothing like some guy's elbow stuffed into your ribs to remind you that if you die, you're all going down together. Add that to the kid about four rows back that makes you wonder why you aren't a homicidal maniac, or the pair of knees in your seat somehow pushing your spleen into your ribcage, and then-just for kicks-throw in my asshole of a brother, who is trying desperately not to giggle at the fact that we haven't even left the ground yet and I'm already sweating bullets.

"You good?" He manages to keep a straight face- barely.

"Fine." I spit through clenched teeth. I'm friggin' lovely. I have to keep reminding myself that we're doing this for Bobby, and Bobby's soul. If we fail he'll go the same way my Dad did, the same way I did a few years back, loud and messy as hell with a hellhound shredding me in to hamburger meat. It's not a fate I would wish on anyone, let alone Bobby. The memory of it makes the blood run from my face.

"Nervous flier?" The little old lady next to me asks, and I have to gulp down a tiny bit of vomit as the taxiing plane hits a pothole on the runway. The engines behind us start to whine with pressure- I have this sick feeling that they're gonna stop working as soon as we get into the air. Sam is already nose deep into his laptop files, looking up something or other with this completely calm look on his face. I try to distract myself by counting pinhole windows and checking out the flight attendant, but my mind keeps wandering to all the horrendous ways that this plane could go down.

Sixteen hours and counting.

Whoopee.

I can imagine Bobby shaking his head at the fact that I can shoot genocidal ghosts in the face but a spot of turbulence nearly makes me pee myself. It impresses me how he set me and Sam straight the other night. Surprisingly enough, it made me think about all he's actually done for us over the past few years- hell, my entire life, save a couple years way back at the beginning. Even Sam, weird and wired as he's been lately, mellowed out a little after Bobby whaled on us over the phone. The next morning he had tickets to Scotland lined up and ready to go, and he dragged my ass to the airport by guilting me shamelessly. The next thing I know I'm cutting my teeth through the gum that Sam gave me before take-off and the little old lady next to me looks worried that I'm about to puke in her flowered purse.

"I can knock you out." Sam offers.

"Shut up." I grouch. I want to hit him. I settle for playing elbow hockey on the armrest.

"Think of something happy, or I'll drug your Coke." He sounds half serious, but I don't have time to worry about it as the plane shakes and my stomach drops thirty-six thousand feet before landing in some poor bastard's pool.

"I think I'll just throw it back up in your lap." I threaten. He sits back slowly while I try counting the ice crystals on the window to stave off passing out.

Jesus, why are planes so claustrophobic? It's half the reason I prefer driving: Podunk, Nebraska might not have much in the way of scenery (cows and cornstalks usually being the poison of choice) but at least you can breathe without popping a lung on the earrings of the chick next to you. Plus, you know, tin can. Forty thousand feet. I've been in some pretty bad car crashes, but there's a fair chance that you'll come out of those alive- disfigured or paralyzed, but alive. Hit the ground from way up here and there won't be enough of you left to scrape into a Dixie cup. A couple feathers in the engine, and its Bye Bye Birdie.

I take a long swig of soda, but I guess I'm turning an even scarier shade of green because the old lady quietly asks the flight attendant if she can move her seat. I keep counting: window shades, emergency exits, rows to the door, steps to the bathroom, steps back to my seat, fibers in the damn seatbelt.

32 little ice crystals on the window.

15 and a half hours to go.

Doing this for Bobby. The guy who's kept me from going insane these past few years.

If we die, I'm so haunting his ass.

The ice in the window catches the glare suddenly, and I don't know if the panic just sends my brain into overdrive or if I'm so exhausted from worrying about Sam and Bobby and dying that the anxiety knocks me out, but all at once everything goes white and I'm gone.

"Unca Bobby."

"Unca Bobby!"

It took Bobby a second to realize he wasn't dreaming. He cracked open his eyes against the white glare from outside the living room window. At the sight of two big brown eyes inches from his nose, he yelled and nearly fell off the couch in surprise. Sam scrambled backwards into his brother, both of them staring wide eyed as Bobby pulled himself off the sofa to face the pair of them with a glower.

"Can I help you?" He griped at them, and then stopped as he realized both of them were sending excited looks over his shoulder at the window. From the looks on their faces it was like the damn sky was falling, and if they were waking him up at 6:30 in the morning, it had better be the War of the Worlds out there. Shaking off sleep, though, he saw that Sam was looking a tiny bit worried, and Dean looked a little too keyed up for comfort.

"Boys? What's wrong?" They looked at him. Then the window. Then each other.

It was Dean that spoke up first. "It's snowing."

Sam nodded urgently, his shaggy hair flopping up and down for maximum effect of his brother's words. Bobby looked at the pair of them incredulously.

"Of course it's snowing." He scoffed. "We're in South Dakota in the middle of December. What were you expecting, wildflowers?"

Dean marched over to the window and yanked back one side of the curtain. "It's not stopping." He elaborated gleefully with a pointed look at the drift that came up to the bottom pane of the window. Bobby looked out at the piles of snow outside- if you squinted, it did look kinda like the end of the world. Heading to the kitchen, he switched on the old radio. Sam clapped his hands over his ears as a burst of static came through the beat-up old box, the volume rattling the whiskey bottles on the counter in the blue morning light.

"…Schools closed in Lincoln County today- up to 17 inches by noon…"

Dean whooped and grabbed Sam's hands, spinning him around. "No math test!"

Bobby guessed that the end of the world might not be that big of an issue if Dean could skip a class. Sam looked less jazzed about the prospect, his wide eyes clearly stating that if school was closed civilization was collapsing on itself.

Bobby raised his eyebrows. "Don't go telling me you've never seen snow before."

"Not like this." Dean shook his head, the early-morning pouf of his hair sticking up in six different directions. "We're always out of town before a bad storm can hit- Dad worries we'll get stuck. They actually let you out of school?" Dean asked, still hopping about like a crazed jackrabbit. Bobby watched the kid pinball across the room. "This is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life!"

Sam gave another uncertain look towards the window as his brother went streaking laps around the kitchen.

"What in God's name did you two have for breakfast?" Bobby murmured half to himself, hoping the answer wasn't straight sugar or whiskey. The hyperactivity and paranoia was definitely not a normal thing for these two, but then, neither was doomsday.

"Okay." He said, clapping his hands together. Both boys froze. "Get your coats. Let's go."

"But school's canceled!" Dean protested.

"Yeah, and you two kooks need to work off some energy. We've got a driveway to shovel."

With much mumbling, moaning and groaning, the boys were outfitted in six layers of Bobby's old work flannels, raggedy scarves wrapping snugly over both of their noses. Sam's puff of hair stuck out like a halo over his ears, most of his bed head squashed under a knit cap that was about two sizes too large. Dean bounced on his toes, his excitement rubbing off on Sam, who quietly sang to himself about snow and wriggled as Bobby wrapped him in an old jacket. They were almost out the door before Sam had to pee and Dean realized he had forgotten socks, so everything came off and they raced off in separate directions. By the time Bobby got them corralled back into the front hall he had to wrestle Sam (greased octopus that he was) back into his ill-fitting layers while Dean fought to bend over past the coat to tie his shoes.

The pair of them burst out of the house like puppies, Dean hollering and whooping as he sent sprays of snow flying up in every direction. He bounded to the edge of the property and back, Sam waddling after him like an overstuffed penguin in his winter gear. Bobby slogged through the still-piling drifts to the outside garage, digging through the tools to find a shovel before firing up a kerosene heater and setting to clearing the gravel around the shop. The snow spat in stuttering waves as the boys slid over ice-covered cars and sank neck deep into the drifts. Dean pushed Sam around the scrap yard on a rusty trash can lid, and Bobby had to hold back a laugh as Sam tried to do the same for his brother, going red faced and falling nose-first into the snow in a puff of flakes as Dean sat waiting for something to happen. After the driveway had been shoveled into submission (or at least the piles of ice had been moved from one end of the lot to the other) they all trudged back inside, shaking creased snow from boots and gloves and hats and going to thaw on the ragged old couch.

Sam's hair was dripping wet and soaking through Dean's shirt as they huddled together on the sofa, but neither of them seemed to mind. Bobby set about making grilled cheese and hot chocolate in his Kiss the Cook apron while the boys watched a Charlie Brown flick on the old black and white. Bobby swore as his finger hit the edge of the pan square, burning the hell out of it. As he crossed the kitchen to pull a bandage out of the first aid cabinet he heard Sam pipe up to Dean in the other room.

"Do you think he'll come?" The kid's voice was hoarse from all the hooting and hollering earlier, but Bobby leaned forward a little to catch the conversation.

"Who?" Dean said through a stifled yawn, clearly confused.

"Dad. Do you think he'll come for Christmas?"

There was a long silence from Dean. "He'll be here, Sammy. I know it."

"With presents?"

"You bet. He'll be back real soon, right after he finishes up with work out in Kentucky."

Sam slumped a little, hiding a yawn in his fist as he wiggled his shoulders farther into Dean's chest and his eyelids fluttered closed. "Good. That's good."

Bobby had to duck back into the kitchen to stop his eyes watering as Dean swiped his sleeve across his nose and smoothed down a damp lock of Sam's hair with a fierce conviction, even as a tear dripped down his cheek.

John Winchester did not come back for Christmas.

"Dean."

"Dean."

I can't feel my body- I'm just kind of stuck halfway between alive and dead. I'm just alive enough to wonder if I'm actually dead before a hand jolts me back towards consciousness.

"Come on, man, you gotta get up. They're going to kick us off the plane."

The magic word makes me sit bolt upright- or try to, at least. Two faces are swimming in front of me, one Sam and one an older guy I'm not sure if I'm supposed to know or not.

"You all right, lad?" The guy asks in a Scottish accent, and I have to fight to keep my eyes open to look him in the eye.

"Wha' happen?" I manage, and even through the fog I can see Sam trying not to laugh at my slurring state of sort-of drunk. I barely have time to wonder what the hell the flight attendant put in that soda before I'm being dragged to my feet by both the guys in front of me. The Scottish dude makes sure I don't go pitching ass over teakettle across the row of cramped seats in front of me. All empty, I notice- we're the only three people left on this plane.

"We'll get some good solid whiskey in you, that'll get you back on your feet."

For once in my life, I don't want whiskey. I want a damn pillow and for my ass of a brother to stop grinning like it's Mardi Gras. My head feels heavy, sort of like the one time Dad accidentally got me high on painkillers.

Drugs. A synapse fires somewhere in my sluggish brain, and I can pull myself upright enough to glare at Sam as he gathers our bags and we limp off the plane together and towards the taxi lot. For Bobby, I remind myself before slumping against the window of the first cab we find. And for just that minute, I can believe that all of this is worth it.

Even if my brother is an asshole.