Disclaimer: I don't own anything, least of all The WB's Supernatural.

Waking up in a cold sweat was nothing new for him these days, in fact it seemed like that was pretty much the only way he woke anymore. It was always the same, his dreams. It was always her. Jessica. They weren't always the same as the ones he had just before her death, and they weren't always simply a reliving of it either. But they always ended with her on the ceiling, blood on his face. He could taste the deep saltiness of the drops that rolled in his mouth. He could feel the heat of the fire that engulfed her. And every time, every time, he felt the sudden sickness of grief and horror rise up in him like vomit rising in his throat.

So he didn't sleep. That was the best solution, he had decided. He would forgo sleep and concentrate instead on working, on doing what he could to find her killer, whatever it might be. And of course in so doing he needed to find his father, find him and see if he knew anything. He was sure he did. The man had spent the last 22 years trying to figure out what happened to his wife, and there was not a doubt in Sam's mind that he must have, in all that time, discovered something. Besides, could it really have been nothing more than a coincidence that this happened to Jess, happened to him, right when his father decided to disappear? Not likely.

Dean rolled over in his sleep and moaned. He had forgotten about that, about how his brother tended to talk in his sleep. Only it's not really talking, he never uses words, just moans and whimpers, unintelligible sounds. But really that was all anyone needed to hear in order to know what was going on his head. He was worried, tense. He probably felt the same way Sam did about the motives behind their father's disappearance. He too likely thought it was all about this, this…thing, that took the life of their mother. And Jessica. So he was scared, that was what the tossing and turning, that tight little moan, told Sam. Dean was scared, and that scared the hell out of him as well.

He'd gone on hunting trips by himself before, Dean that is. He'd taken care of all sorts of infestations and hauntings on his own. But he was never really on his own. Dad was always just a phone call away. And Tessa was too. Always. Now Dad was missing, no where to be found. He didn't answer his phone, he didn't check email. He was simply gone. And for all intents and purposes Tess was too.

They'd had the same conversation dozens of times over the last couple of months. She and Dad had a fight and she left. Where'd she go? All over. She's out doing re-con. Don't worry, she knows better than to take on anything on her own. She'll call if she needs backup. But where is she? Away. But when was the last time you saw her, talked to her? A while ago. She calls if she finds anything. She lets me know what she's doing, how she is. She's just…away, on her own. But how do you know she's all right? She's a big girl.

That's how it always ended. She's a big girl, Sam. Leave it alone. She's a big girl, she can take of herself. She's a big girl, back off. Sam knew it was true, but with all that was going on he couldn't help but be concerned. And despite Dean's attempts at nonchalance, he knew that he was worried too, could tell by the sound of his voice whenever he did talk to her, the look in his eyes when he read the emails she'd sent Sam. But as is typical of his brother, Dean never brought it up. He asked if she was okay and left it at that, even though he clearly didn't believe her when she answered with fine. Everything was business, that's how it was with this family. Emotions just get in the way. Worry slows you down. Fear makes you useless. Caring dulls your senses. All that mattered was the job, whatever that may be at the time. So that's what they talked about when she called. Some unexplained deaths in Vermont. A bunch of kids acting like vampires in LA. A satanic cult outside of Chicago possibly dealing in human sacrifice, that was the most recent one. She'd email news articles with snippets of possible explanations she'd come up with, and if they thought there might be something to it, they'd head out that way to investigate. Of course if she was ever there, she never stayed long enough to see them.

And so, like their father, she too had left Dean to his own devices. And even though Sam knew he was probably completely capable, he just couldn't leave his brother. Not now. Not when things were this dangerous, this tense. And really, he didn't want to be alone either. It wasn't just that he was upset, grieving and scared. Or that he felt he needed help in finding Jessica's killer, though he knew he did. It was something else. Something was happening to him, something he didn't, couldn't, understand. It was the dreams. The ones after her death were obvious, he was traumatized, of course he'd have trouble forgetting about it. But the ones before, the ones where he saw her die?

"Hey." He turns suddenly, looking up from his laptop and seeing a sleepy-eyed Dean staring at him, his forehead creased with worry. "What time is it?"

"I don't know," he says, returning to the screen. He types in his ID and scrolls through his emails.

"Early or late?" Dean asks as he grabs the digital clock and turns it so he can see. He squints hard to make out the bright red numbers. "Three a.m. Shit."

Sam listens as his brother lays back down, the rustle of the sheets being the only sound in the room. He knows he's not going back to sleep. But he tries to ignore it, tries to ignore the green eyes burning into the back of his skull. Instead he just keeps scrolling, deleting all the junk mail as he goes.

"You should really get some sleep," he mumbles from the bed behind him. Yeah, he thinks, I haven't heard that lately. "Sam – "

"Tessa sent us something," he says, eager to change the subject. Somehow the twin thing has managed to save him again. The girl had perfect timing.

"What?" Dean asks, rolling out of bed to investigate. He looms over Sam's shoulder as he opens the email. "Sleepwalker kills," he reads from the forwarded news article. "St. Louis Post Dispatch."

Sam laughs, remembering the last time they went to St. Louis, just a couple of weeks before. "They're not big fans of yours there."

"Yeah," he says, glaring at his younger brother. When they left Missouri it was with the knowledge that everyone in St. Louis thought Dean Winchester was a serial killer, one whom had been shot dead during another attempt on someone's life. "You can write her back. Tell her no way in hell am I going there."

"Didn't you tell her about what happened?"

"I don't think so. I haven't talked to her in a while. Guess she hasn't found anything very interesting lately."

"You could call her you know."

"Yeah, and you could pop a couple Ambien and give me some peace."

"Just cause I'm awake doesn't mean you have to be. Go back to bed."

"Yeah right. Move," he says, pushing Sam out of the way and sitting in the chair he had been occupying. "Huh," he mutters, scrolling through the article.

Sam leaves his spot behind his brother, no longer caring about the fact that he was just shoved away from his own computer, had his place stolen right out from under him. He was used to stuff like that with Dean anyway. And right now, the full weight of the last sleepless 48 hours were catching up with him. He sits on the foot of his still made bed and leans back as Dean reads aloud from the email.

"According to Schenkel he was asleep when the act occurred and recalls nothing of the gruesome murder itself. All he claims to remember is the dream he was acting out, wherein he believed he was defending a loved one. Mr. Clark, it seems, simply got in the way of the sleepwalker, says Schenkel's attorney. Dr. Steven Sommerset, a clinical psychologist who specializes in sleep disorders says that the accused may be telling the truth. 'It is often possible for people to act out their dreams. This occurs when a certain chemical in the brain that is typically released during REM is for whatever reason depleted. This chemical causes the person to become paralyzed while in the dream state. But for some it does not always take effect and their body's are left to behave as though what is occurring in the dream is actually happening in reality.'"

Dean turns around in his chair and glances at Sam who, while still awake, has shut his eyes for the first time in many hours. "Hey," he says, seemingly unaware of the fact that his brother is actually trying to do what he wanted him to, sleep. "You remember when Tessa used to sleepwalk? Man, what a pain in the ass."

"Yeah," he says, not moving from his relaxed position. "You didn't have to share a room with her though."

"But I did have to grab her before walking out onto the freeway at two in the morning. And I had to double check all the locks in your rooms."

"Which is exactly what woke me up most nights, her fumbling with the damn locks."

"And I had make sure none of the places we stayed had pools or balconies."

That was a legitimate point. When she was 13 and the sleepwalking had reached its peak, a point where she did it at least once a week, things started to get dangerous. One time she wandered outside the motel and down to the pool, where she fell right in. She woke as soon as her skin made contact with the icy water and pulled herself out, returned to their room a dripping mess. Another time she jumped off the balcony of their fifth story room. Well, not jumped really, more prepared to. She climbed over the railing and readied herself to let go just as their father reached out grabbed her arm. That was the scariest one for all of them, especially Tessa who woke dangling above the hotel parking lot. From then on they stayed on the ground floor.

"Yeah," Sam goes on, his voice hushed from fatigue. "A real pain in the ass."

Dean lets out a slight laugh and turns back to the laptop. "Says here this guy thought he heard someone calling him and just started walking to where the voice was coming from. The victim just got in his way, tried to wake him probably. You know what they say about waking a sleepwalker."

"Don't do it."

"But the guy thought he was hurting the woman who was calling him, his dead wife," he says, his voice and eyebrow both rising in interest.

"So he killed him?"

"Guess so. That's weird though, right?"

"Weird."

"I mean his dead wife calls out to him in a dream, he goes to her, and ends up killing some guy."

"Yeah, weird."

"Maybe we should go."

"I thought you didn't want to set foot in St. Louis ever again," he says pulling himself upright so he can look at his brother, or at the back of his head anyhow.

As if on cue, Dean turns to face him. "Could be something though."

"Or it could be some whack job looking to get out of taking responsibility for a murder he obviously committed."

Deans shakes his head admonishingly. "So cynical. Besides, don't you think he would have come up with a better story than that?"

"Okay, fine, he sleepkilled. Whatever. Doesn't make it something we should look into. People have dreams when their grieving, dreams where the dead call out to them. And…does it say how his wife died?"

He looks back at the screen and scrunches his face as he searches the article. "Car jacking, about a month ago."

"See, she was murdered. So of course he's going to be thinking someone's out to hurt her. Someone did hurt her. And now he's playing it all back in his mind, only this time he did what he wished he could have done the first time and he protects her by killing the guy. And it would all just be dream, a simple unimportant dream of a guilty feeling guy who's grieving over his wife, except that, for whatever reason, some chemical wasn't released in his brain and he acted it all out."

"Okay. Excuse me Dr. Freud."

"I'm just saying, it's pretty obvious stuff."

"If you say so."

"Not worth our time."

"Okay then."

"So just forget about it."

"Forgotten."

"Good," he says, letting his body once again collapse onto the bed. This time when his eyes close the rest of him relaxes too, and sleep takes over.

"Hey Sammy."

"Hmmm," he utters, just aware enough to know he's being spoken too but not awake enough to care.

"Just make sure those chemicals are working in your brain, cause the last thing I need is to become some victim in somebody else's nightmare." Sam rolls over without responding and Dean goes back to the computer, intent on finishing the article and deciding for himself whether or not this thing is worth looking into. But all he can think about is how similar this Schenkel guy is to his little brother. How right now not five feet away Sam was probably having a very similar dream all his own. One where the woman he loves calls out for him, hoping he'll save her. One that Sam'll wake from every time realizing he can't. And suddenly other people's problems, no matter how strange and awful, just don't seem to matter as much anymore.