Going home had been strange. Isabel was silent the entire way back, every so often catching Dean and Sam look her way through the rear view mirror of the Impala. She mostly kept her eyes on the side of the road as the scenery blurred by, wondering to herself just how exactly this was all going to work.

She had hardly spoken to her cousins about what happened in that mine, and she was somewhat relieved to discover that after her intensive sedation both by Stillwell and her doctors, she still didn't remember much of it. She knew what had happened from the police reports and statements, from what the doctors had told her and from the evidence still visible on her body, but the whole ordeal felt fuzzy and faint, almost like it had been a dream, or a nightmare, rather.

She was thankful for this amnesia of sorts; she figured if she truly remembered every detail of it, she would have gone as mad as the other girls. She just hoped the continuous memory loss wasn't a side effect of the medication she was on, and would probably still be on for a while yet. They made her feel numb making it easy for her to block everything out, and she preferred this to the full-blown hysteria that would have otherwise ensued.

Once home and settled again, she occasionally looked at her cousins briefly. They were still walking on eggshells around her. The most evident change was Dean's attitude towards her. She was sure he had never been this nice to anyone, ever. Then again, the way she was sedated, it was almost impossible to provoke him.

She was still blown away that they had decided to stay with her. Even though she had accepted this initially, she refused to get her hopes up too high, knowing that they would probably tire of looking after her soon and she'd end up alone again. After eight years of living alone, she suddenly realised that she feared this more than anything.

They waited on her hand and foot and she took it gracefully for the first few hours.

"Stop treating me like an invalid guys" She said finally after being asked for the sixth time in as many hours if she would like another cup of tea.

"Is there anything you want to do?" Dean asked sitting next to her on the couch.

They spent the rest of the day watching movies. Specifically, chick flicks, and she could tell from Dean's posture and the frozen grimace on his face that he would have rather spent the day watching paint dry.

"I'm tired" She said at around nine pm "I want to go to sleep"

Sam grabbed her medication and brought over a glass of water for her to take her pills "Here, take these"

She took them silently then excused herself to go to bed. She'd done nothing all day but still felt exhausted. She wondered if it was due to everything that had happened of part of the medication. Probably a bit of both, she decided.

"What do you think?" Sam asked Dean later that night after Isabel had gone to bed.

"I think she's doing better already" Dean said.

"She still won't talk about it"

"You heard what the doctors said" Dean warned his brother "When she wants to talk she will, and when she does we listen. We can't push her"

Dr Gilman had been very explicit about it. Isabel would most likely repress all memory of her ordeal, content in not remembering the gruesome details. If, and when, she was ready to talk about it, either to him or to Sam or Dean, they should be there to listen without interrogation. The main point he had driven to the brothers was not to push her into talking about something she wasn't yet ready to.

Dean could tell instantly that Sam was not overly enthused with this idea. Sam felt that talking about it would help Isabel deal with it quickly and efficiently. The doctor warned about pushing too far, throwing words like "breakdown" and "episodes" around. Dean didn't know much about psychology, but he was sure those words were not good.

"Do you think we're doing the right thing? Keeping her with us? Maybe she needs full time professional care" Sam asked, and at Dean's darkening look he continued to explain himself "I mean, are we doing this because we really think it'll help her or because we feel guilty about what happened last time?"

"It doesn't matter" Dean said, his tone steady and determined "It's like you said Sam, she's not going to go through this alone"

It wouldn't be the last time they'd question their decision to keep Isabel with them and later that night, as Sam watched Isabel cling to him desperately as he lay on the bed with her, he wondered again if she wouldn't need more than what he and Dean could offer her. He had been sleeping peacefully on the living room floor earlier that night when he was suddenly startled awake.

He remembered looking at his watch. It had been 3am. Dean was on the couch snoring peacefully, but that's not what had wakened him. He listened again until another scream came from Isabel's room. He stood up quickly and rushed to her bedroom, finding her thrashing and crying on the bed. It took him only a moment to realise she was deep in the middle of a bad dream.

The doctor had mentioned possible nightmares. The brain subconsciously consolidating memories the only way it could when they were repressed during wakefulness. He also warned them not to shake her awake, but rather, to gently comfort her until the worst of it subsided. With this in mind, he sat on the bed next to her and gently ran a hand down her arm. She jerked away violently and screamed for him to not touch her. He looked around the room, unsure how to proceed. His eyes stopped at the door. Dean was standing there, looking from Sam to Isabel in concern. The way he felt was mirrored in Dean's face, Sam noticed. Dean couldn't bear their cousin's torment anymore than he could.

"Talk to her" Dean whispered.

Sam turned to Isabel again "Shh, shh, Isabel, it's OK. It's just me, Sam" He said soothingly. He tried placing his hand on her bare shoulder again and this time she didn't flinch or pull away "You're having a bad dream"

Her arm flayed about until it struck Sam's chest and her hand fumbled, blindly grabbing at his t-shirt and pulling it towards her. He didn't resist and placed his own arm around her as she finally stopped shaking and thrashing. Only light tremors were running through her body now.

"Don't leave me" She mumbled in her sleep.

"It's OK Bel" He repeated over and over as he lay next to her. She curled up and Sam grabbed the covers and repositioned them over her. She finally settled into a deep and calmer sleep, her arm still curled around Sam's own one, as if all she needed was the knowledge that she was not alone to settle her down.

He started to drift off himself, wondering if it was in any way wrong to lay like this with her, before deciding that he would rather share the bed with her than have to hear her crying and screaming in anguish. He faintly heard Dean sigh from the doorway, and then his soft footsteps recede, before falling asleep.

Sam woke up the next morning in the same position he'd fallen asleep in. He looked down at Isabel's sleeping form. She too, was still in the same curled up fetal position she'd fallen asleep in. He gently disentangled himself and walked groggily to the kitchen, stretching his cramped muscles. To his surprise Dean was already awake, and to his even greater surprise, he had made coffee.

He poured himself a cup and sat next to his brother at the kitchen table where Dean had been reading the morning paper.

"How is she?" Dean asked.

"Still sleeping" Sam answered, taking a sip of his coffee "That was…frightening"

"That's not the last nightmare she'll be having either" Dean said "Still think she'd be better off at the nuthouse?"

Sam looked at his brother tiredly "I'm just not sure that we're ready for this. Do you really think we can handle it?"

Dean set his coffee down and looked at his brother fiercely.

"It's not about what we can handle or what we are ready for, Sam. It's about what she needs to get better. As much as I know it's going to irritate me, I will get up every time she has a bad dream and calm her down" He said pointing towards Isabel's room "As much as I know I'm going to hate it, I'm going to sit through every damn tear she'll cry. And even though it will absolutely kill me to, I will listen to everything she has to say when she's ready to talk to us about his, down to the last damn detail"

Dean hardly ever showed his true feelings, even though Sam knew very well they ran deep. He had seen this side of Dean occasionally and because it wasn't often, when he did, it always helped to put things in perspective for him. To be honest, Sam hadn't actually seriously considered leaving Isabel, but he had wanted to make sure that Dean knew it wasn't going to be easy.

Sam nodded "I just hope we can help her Dean"