"Hey, Sammy," Dean said, clapping him on the back.

Sam turned away from the window to see his brother. Dean was both the best and the worst part of this place. He came almost everyday to see him, but he played the nurse, not the brother. It was the same as the time he'd had the chicken pox. Dean stayed by his side, making sure he was okay, but was always worrying about him, trying to make him better.

Dean was the same as then and Sam missed his brother.

"Dean," he said in greeting before staring back out of the window. It hurt to see the concerned look on Dean's face so he didn't look most of the time.

"Are you okay? Have you eaten? You look a little pale."

"I'm fine," Sam said, same as always. "Eggs this morning. Couldn't sleep last night. I had another one."

Sam knew by Dean's silence that he was waiting for him to continue. Sam sighed. Even now, he didn't want to disappoint his brother.

"It was a woman." The women were always worse. This one especially because she looked so similar to Jess. "There was this thing there, these little girls, but they weren't girls. They had these nails and this –this face. Teeth. She was torn apart."

Dean didn't say anything and Sam was grateful. He hadn't had enough time to mourn for the woman yet and her death had been remarkably gruesome.

"Karrie Parker," Sam whispered to himself.

Dean picked up on it. "What?" he asked.

"Her name was Karrie Parker," Sam repeated a bit louder for Dean to hear. "With a K," he added.

"Karrie with a K," Dean murmured. He did it without any hint of cynicism or patronization, only a deep rooted sadness. Sam knew that the sadness was more for him than it was for her, but it made things better that Dean was here to mourn with him. Karrie deserved for people to feel sad at her passing.

They stood like that for a while, but Dean was never one to be still for long. Eventually, he roped Sam into conversation, pulling him from his thoughts for an hour and a half before things went south.

Sam could always tell now when another vision would come to him. He'd learned to recognize the signs—the slight tremor in his hands, his vision blurring every few minutes, the sudden restfulness—and prepare for them. There was a time when the visions would bring him to his knees. Once, they'd made him fall flat on his face and he wound up with six stitches and a new medication that made his mouth dry. Now, though, he knew how to make the transition just a bit easier.

He may not have liked the visions, but he'd learned to live with them.

Right on time came the sudden, if expected, overwhelming pressure in his head. Just as it was starting to feel as if his head would explode, he pulled the images forward and was thrust once again into another vision. He didn't fight them anymore and with every second, the pressure dimmed until it was gone completely. This one was long compared to the others, but the pain was easier to handle and, like always, those yellow eyes were there at the end.

Sam clutched his head in his hands and tried to keep his moans as low as possible while he returned to himself. It was always disorienting, but the last thing he wanted was to summon the nurses. They meant well, he knew, but they didn't understand what was happening to him, that the visions were warnings, especially this one. If they saw, they would restrain him and medicate him and Dean would have to leave like he always did after an 'episode.' So he tried to keep quiet.

It took longer to recover from the attack, but when he came to, he saw that he'd failed. Sam had the attention of the entire room now, including three orderlies, two nurses, just over a dozen residents, and his brother who looked at him with such guilt that it left an imprint on Sam's mind. Dean should never have had to look at him that way. This wasn't any of his fault, but Dean would always feel guilty, if not for his nonexistent part in Sam's delusions, then in being the one to put him here in the first place. And the weight Dean carried on his shoulders would only be added to after tonight.

A nurse kneeled down next to him and it took a moment for him to realize that she'd been speaking to him. His visions always made it harder to concentrate. Coupled with the medications that worked to keep him complacent, the visions pulled all of the energy out of him, even the small amount he reserved for simple thinking and motor skills.

"'M fine," he mumbled once he could find the muscles that controlled his speech. "Gimme a minute." Sam waited until his breathing was under control and his sight returned to normal. The minute pain had dulled to a low throb in his head that was uncomfortable, but manageable. It took more than a minute for him to get his bearings, but by the time he was able to stand on his own, Dean was ready to say goodbye and Dr. Marks was on her way to help him to an emergency session.

Sam didn't really care about much that was going on around him, but the one thing he knew was that he couldn't let Dean leave without a proper goodbye.

"Dean," he tried to call, but it sounded muffled even to him.

"I'm here, Sammy," he said, reaching out to steady Sam's swaying shoulders.

Sam ignored the light contact and pulled him into a long hug, much to the Dean's surprise. They'd never been a real hands-off kind of family, but hugs and the like were usually reserved for special occasions and funerals. It was weird, Sam knew, but he couldn't let Dean go without telling him something.

"You're a great brother," he said. "And it's not your fault."

"What are—?"

"Love you, Dean." Sam cut him off.

Dean looked at him skeptically. He didn't know what had prompted the sudden change in Sam. Another sudden change, he reminded himself. There had been so many in the last year. "Yeah, Sammy," he said instead. "Love you, too. You know that."

"Bye," Sam said.

It was a dismissal if Dean ever heard one.

Sam turned away from his brother, knowing that if he kept watching as Dean left, he wouldn't be able to keep from crying. That was a big no-no here. It would be seen as him slipping into hysteria and only more drugs would await him. His next session with Dr. Marks would be postponed. That couldn't be allowed to happen. This was probably the only session that mattered to him. He needed to talk to her as soon as possible. There wasn't much time.

"Sam?"

When Sam looked up, he was shocked to see the doctor in question watching him in concern.

"Are you ready for your session?"

It wasn't a rhetorical question. Sam knew that, if he told her no, he wasn't ready, she would give him the time he needed.

Sam nodded though and followed her through the short maze of halls to her office. She didn't speak again until they were both sitting comfortably in their chairs.

"You're still getting the headaches?" she asked, trying to hide her disappointment.

Sam hesitated, but then nodded sheepishly. He'd been keeping his visions a secret ever since he'd told her about the gauntlet. The last time he mentioned it, they'd put him on some meds that made everything fuzzy. They hadn't made the visions disappear, but they had made it so hard to concentrate during them that he couldn't remember much of what happened. He needed to remember. The people in his visions deserved that from him. Luckily, some side effects started rearing their ugly heads and Dr. Marks took him off of them, switching them to some less-effective—not that she knew that—meds.

"Why did you feel the need to keep them a secret?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

When he spoke, it was with nothing more than a whisper. "They didn't stop," he said. "It just made everything… blurry."

"What did, Sam?"

"The pills. The blue ones—I don't remember the name—they took my head and made everything smoosh together. I forgot them," he admitted ashamedly. "I don't want to forget them."

"Forget who?"

"Sarah Kedrick, James Roberts, Cynthia Saint-Claire, Arthur Heaver, Linda Patrick, Fa Chu, Emily Rossen, Terry Harrisburg, Dwaine Cooper, Samantha Tate…" Sam repeated all of the names he remembered, the faces of the fallen flashing before his eyes. Tears poured down his face in torrents, but his voice was steady. All were present, but for the few he'd seen during the heavy medication stint. "…Karrie Parker, Sammy Winchester."

There was a pregnant pause before Dr. Marks spoke. "Winchester?" she asked.

It wasn't the question Sam was expecting. He'd been prepared to answer who these people were, why he'd spoken their names, how they'd died, why his own name was on the list. He never even considered the surname that came easily to his lips.

Sam nodded. "It's me," he said.

"Why that name, Sam?" she asked.

Sam's smile was small, but present and the doctor took that as a good sign. "It's my real name. Dean can tell you. He probably still remembers it. I was only a baby, but Dean was six—old enough that he would remember his real name. I wasn't a Clark until I was two."

"So why did you use it? Why this name?"

"It's what he calls me," Sam said. "'Little Sammy Winchester.' He's always the one who tells me the names, before then they're just faces."

"Who, Sam?"

"The man with the yellow eyes. He's the one who puts us in the gauntlet."

Dr. Marks remembered the session when Sam mentioned the gauntlet in… Cold Oak? Something like that. She had the notes in another file. She planned to compare them later.

"You're in a gauntlet?" she questioned.

Sam rolled his eyes and scoffed softly at her tone. He wiped the tears off of his face and sniffled to clear his nose. He hated crying. "No, not now."

The doctor made a note that Sam was definitely more engaged in this conversation. He was still slightly withdrawn, but nowhere near where he'd been even a month ago.

"I think it's happening tonight," Sam said slowly, trying to piece the vision together again. "Yeah, it's tonight." When it looked like she was waiting for him to continue, he did. "I need you to promise me that you'll do something," Sam said. "It's not something you shouldn't do," he hastened to inform her.

Dr. Marks thought about it and nodded. "Tell me what you want and I'll promise if I can, alright?"

"Okay." Sam took a breath to steel himself. This would take away any chance of rescue, he knew. This would bring his death. There would be no one there to help him if he did this. "You have to promise that you won't tell Dean where he's taking me."

"We won't let you go anywhere, Sam. You're safe here. You know that, don't you?"

Sam smiled genuinely at her, but it was still a hopeless smile and more than a little chiding for her innocence. "I know. Humor me, though. I won't go willingly, but if I can't fight him off, don't tell Dean about the gauntlet. He can't know. Please," he pleaded.

"Alright," she said. "I have a new deal for you. Promise me that you will stay here tonight and I won't tell Dean about the gauntlet."

"I can't," Sam told her sadly. "But please don't tell him."

She already couldn't tell the brother anything about their sessions so that was an easy enough promise to keep. The only thing that worried her, however, was this man with yellow eyes that Sam had been seeing. There had never been hints before of Sam wanting to run. If anything, she knew that he liked having the outside world shut out. He'd definitely developed a good case of agoraphobia while he'd been here. Even his time in the garden was spent as close to the walls as possible. Why he would leave, she didn't know. She would press for information, though. For it to have been such a recent development meant that something in his environment had changed. Perhaps it was one of the orderlies or nurses who had done something. If so, she would find out what.

Dean didn't know how to feel.

Death could see the emotions surrounding his soul in a whirlwind. Anger, worry, doubt, guilt, anxiety, depression. It left his soul shining brilliantly, beckoning to any creature within a five mile radius. Luckily for the boy, there was nothing near. Azazel had who he wanted—the youngest Winchester boy. Dean was not on the list yet. Despite the brilliance of his soul, to Azazel he was just that: a soul. Death knew that Dean would play a much bigger role in the coming storm. For now, though, Death was content to watch Dean pace the length of the garage, worrying over Samuel's disappearance.

Another familiar soul drove up to the garage, so similar to Dean's, but too dim to be mistaken for his. Time had been rewritten for this man. One thousand four hundred forty-two people had been reaped before their times because of his decision. The world was a much darker place. The night was ruling quickly instead of being culled by the Winchesters. Now, there was only John to keep the night at bay and the night did not take the hunter seriously. It would be a mistake for many, but for most, it was their opportunity to take the world.

But there was still time, yet. Still decisions to be made. Death watched and waited.

Hey, Fearless Readers! Unfortunately, school starts again next week which means less time for me to write. I'll try to average 1-2 posts every week until I'm finished with this fic, but no promises. What I can promise, though, is that the next chapter will be up Monday. What do you think? Leave me a comment and let me know :) Read on!