Bobby Singer had been working in the salvage yard trying to arrange a pick up for several parts off of an old Pontiac, the buyer was an ass hole and was trying to get less than value out of the part and Bobby had half a notion to club him to death with a baseball bat. In his frustration he didn't hear Dean come up behind him.

"Mr. Singer here doesn't keep these old cars around for giggles dude." Dean started. "Mr. Singer is trying to make a profit same as you. So I suggest you take his offer. It is the best your are going to find. If you don't' like it get out of here and leave him alone, he has other people that are willing to pay for his product." The guy gave Dean a look that could have boiled the flesh from a lesser man's body, Dean, however, just gave the guy his best smile. The buyer looked Bobby in the eye and sighed.

"I'll take it." Bobby always marveled at how Dean handled people who thought they were superior. While saying nothing threatening or harsh, he had managed to get the ass to do exactly what he wanted to do. Dean's demeanor always said no nonsense and his voice left no room for argument. Bobby had missed that when Dean had quit working for him when Sammy went to college.

Bobby went and took care of the paperwork and when he went back inside his house he saw no signs of Dean anywhere, the Impala was parked out front where he usually parked it when he was there, but there was absolutely no sign of its owner. Bobby sincerely considered for a minute asking the car where Dean was.

He found Dean, underneath a car in the salvage yard. The car he was working on was the one that was giving one of his best mechanics a fit and a half.

"Dean?" Bobby asked and kicked the sole of Dean's boot.

"What Bobby?" he asked not moving from underneath the car.

"You okay son?"

"Fine."

"Why are you here?"

Dean's hands stilled. Bobby didn't want him here. It was one thing to talk on the phone, to check in and make sure he was still breathing, but it was another thing entirely to have him here under his roof. He should have known better, especially after Sam had been here for Thanksgiving. Dean rolled himself from underneath the car. He looked down at the tool in his hand and said, "I'll leave."

"Stop it. I don't want you to leave; I want to know why you are here?"

Dean stood and shook his head. There were so many reasons he was here. He needed someone to spend a couple of hours with, share a meal with, talk to him, something. His father had left him a couple of weeks ago for a hunt that was going to take a while and Dean was lonely. It didn't help that he had gone to Stanford, hoping that he could just talk to his brother for a while and ended up leaving without talking to him. "I was just hoping I could stay for a day or so. I could work on some cars to earn my keep—"

"Stop right there Dean. You can stay here as long as you like you know that. You're like family." Dean fidgeted with the tool in his hand.

"Thanks Bobby." Bobby sighed and watched as the young man lay back down and got underneath the car he was working on. Something was wrong. Dean didn't just show up here anymore. He pretty much viewed Bobby's house as off limits. Even said once that it was Sam's domain, he didn't belong there anymore. Understanding Dean Winchester usually took a fair amount of effort, but now a days, without Sam there to temper him and to give him direction in his life, he was impossible to understand.

Word in the hunter community said that Dean was the only one who didn't hunt out of revenge, sure he pretended that it was all about his momma, but the reality of the matter was that he did it because he never wanted to see another person loose someone they love because some random evil couldn't keep its paws off of their loved ones. Dean didn't hang around to get a thank you from those he had saved, but he always made sure they were able to get back home and tucked away with loved ones before he got into his muscle car and drove away, destination unknown.

Ever since that year that the boys had spent with him, acted as a family, Dean hadn't come around. Granted he spent quite some time not speaking to Bobby, but after he did, he didn't come around. This was the first time he visited since Sam left for school. It made Bobby a little suspicious. Something was definitely up with the young hunter.

Dean spoke very little the whole day. He spent the majority of it underneath a car. Bobby hadn't expected Dean to be a bucketful of conversation today, but he did expect him to at least say something. Bobby had made dinner and Dean sat and ate with very little interest, which was beyond unusual for the eldest Winchester child, and the only noise in the kitchen was their forks clattering against dishes.

"Son," he started when Dean was almost finished with his meatloaf. Dean looked up and for the briefest of moments his eyes registered sadness.

"Yeah Bobby?"

"Why are you really here?"

"If it is that much of a problem—"

"Stop that. What is the problem?" Dean shrugged and picked at his mashed potatoes, he put his fork down, and took a long swig from his beer bottle, all the while never looking at Bobby. Bobby knew the oldest Winchester well enough to know that all he had to do was be silent and wait him out. And, as always, it worked.

"I went to Stanford a couple of days ago." Bobby nodded, careful to keep the surprise off of his face. Dean cleared his throat. "I went with the idea that I would go talk to him, you know just shoot the breeze with him for the afternoon, make sure he was okay, and then well…I don't know what I expected after that….I just needed to see and talk to him." Dean shrugged, picked up his fork again and began stabbing at the peas that Bobby insisted that he eat. The silence was thick and Bobby was most certainly not going to be the one to break it.

"I got there. I saw him. I saw him with his friends. His friends with their nice clothes, Sammy in his nice clothes, the most beautiful woman on the face of the planet on his arm, and he was smiling. Smiling bigger than I have ever seen him smile. I watched him get into this kid's new Escalade and he was comfortable doing so. He looked like he belonged with them." Dean looked up and his eyes were sad.

"What's got you down then? Don't you want him to fit in?"

"Yeah of course I want him to fit in there." Dean said eyes intense and sincere.

"Then what is the problem?" Dean shrugged and picked up his fork again.

"Don't give me a shoulder shrug boy. There is something that is bothering you. Spill it."

"I don't fit." He said softly.

"What? Speak up."

"I don't fit. I don't have nice clothes, hell I'm just lucky if they aren't blood stained. One of the guys there, he was wearing a tank top, perfect skin, mine is so riddled with scars that it sort of looks like a road map. I can never fit in there. I just suddenly had this thought….this idea of what he would say if I walked up to him with his friends there, and said 'Hey Sammy. Wanna spend the day with me?' I would have embarrassed him. I would have scared his friends. I would have been that weird guy they would have talked about for the rest of their college years. I think Sam would have pretended not to know me."

"Dean…"

"I followed him to some of his classes too. You know he is taking some sort of advanced Trigonometry. What the hell does he need that for? No reason. He just wants to take it." Dean sighed and closed his eyes. "He's so smart Bobby. So talented. Who am I to interrupt that?" He took his hands off of the table and put them into his lap, starred at the calloused hands and sighed.

"Dean. He misses you."

"I wouldn't miss me." He stood and took his plate to the dog dish, scraped his food into it, and then washed his plate and dried it. He starred out of the window watching the sun fall below the horizon causing the sky to bruise purple and pink.

"Dean."

"I came because I needed someone just to sit with. I haven't spoken to another living soul in three weeks."

"Your daddy…"

"Has been gone for three weeks on a hunt somewhere. Said that it was safer for me to stay behind. Like I was some novice. Like I wasn't any good to hunt with." He bent his head and took a deep breath. "Maybe I'm not. Maybe I am just a liability."

"Son you are a good hunter."

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Look I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'll be gone before you get up tomorrow." He said softly.

"No. You are going to stay here for a while. I was gonna call you today; get your help fixing that car. I need your expertise."

"Look, Bobby, you don't have to…"

"I ain't doin' any of this for you. You'd be doing this for me." Dean searched the man's eyes decided that he was telling the truth and nodded.

"Okay. I'll fix the car for you."

"Thanks. Now get to bed. I can't have one of my best mechanics tired." Dean gave a ghost of a smile, nodded and headed out of the kitchen. Bobby's heart hurt for the young man. Abandoned at such a young age had to hurt. Bobby had half a mind to clobber John Winchester and then go after Sam for good measure.