Sorry for the delay! I've been sitting on these next few chapters because I wanted to flesh them out some, smooth out the rough spots. But I realized I'm such a procrastinator that if I did that, I'd never post them. So I'm going ahead with them, with the idea I'll revise them later (ha, right!).

Zach and Rebecca invited him along with them to visit their parents over the holidays, but he declined. He didn't feel comfortable spending Christmas as an outsider, and he had no desire to leave his sanctuary of familiar comfortto go to St. Louis.

More importantly, though, he had a new mission, one that he kept from the Warrens, one that already occupied all of his thoughts and all of his free time.

He was going to look for his family.

Suddenly he had a reason to look forward to the holidays - it gave him a month's worth of free time, and he planned on devoting all of it on his newfound pursuit. Once again, the library had become a haven for him. Because of the holidays, hours were shorter, but the library was also less crowded. Every day he went, hunting for a free computer tucked away in a corner where he could find the most privacy. There he tackled their online newspaper database, typing and clicking through search after search.

The work kept him busy, kept him from dwelling too much. But more than that, it gave him hope.

He knew he shouldn't put too much on that glimpse of hope. In the dull moments while he waited for web pages to load, he thought about the missing family who hadn't contacted him. Not since he woke up, and as far as he knew, not since he'd come to Stanford. He could remember all the holidays, remembered which ones he spent on campus and which ones with Jessica's family. There wasn't a single holiday missing from his memory from those three years. He hadn't even gone home for the summer.

But still, he had that hope. Hope that there was a good explanation. Hope they were still out there. Hope they would offer him something he was missing.

And that hope forced his guilt away.

And so he searched, even though he knew he was setting himself up for disappointment. Every hit from the search engine offered him a piece of hope, even though he knew few of them – if any – related to him in any way.

Unfortunately, Winchester was a common name that produced near a million results, and he didn't have a starting point to whittle them down. Or maybe that was fortunate – at least it would take a while before his hope would be extinguished.

He didn't even know where he was from. According to his student profile, the address he had put on his application was an apartment in Brisbane, Missouri. But when a search for Winchesters in Brisbane and the surrounding area pulled up nothing, he could only hope that had only been a temporary homeand thathis family and that they would show up elsewhere.

So he waded through article after article of every Winchester who had ever made the papers, unsure whether any one of them held a connection to him or not. After a while, he decided to start with his own name, hoping that would narrow the results.

It did, but the results still numbered high in thousands. To make matter worse, Sam couldn't use his name as an exact phrase because that would exclude entries such as "John and Mary Winchester gave birth to a baby boy, Sam." And that was exactly the kind of entry he was hoping to find - knowing his parents' names would be a great start. But performing such a search meant Sam had to wade through numerous articles in which "Sam" and "Winchester" were both mentioned, many times unconnected. That was in addition to all the ones about Sam Winchesters who weren't him.

Sam would spend hours at the library and still would go home each day no closer to finding his family than he had been. And he would be back the very next day, picking up where he left off.

ooOOoo

The holidays quicklypassed andclasses started again. Sam knew he didn't need to focus as hard on schoolwork, now that the end was in sight. But he did anyway. He was afraid of what would happen to his mind if he didn't. He continued scoring high grades, and he soaked up everything the professors threw at him until his mind had little room for anything else.

A few weeks into the semester, he received his acceptance into Stanford Law,where hewas awarded a full scholarship. He put it aside, slipping it into his desk drawer.

The occasional nights out with Rebecca's friends continued, and he grew to know them as well as he had anyone other than Jessica and the Warrens. Yet Samkept referring tothem, even Oliver, as Rebecca's friends. He figured that was a good indication he wasn't adjusting all that well to life without Jessica, but he didn't mind. He had good times with them,but he was happy with the distance he kept from them. For him, it was the perfect balance.

Matilda eventually started to hit on him. As far as group dynamics went, it was almost inevitable. But she backed off when it became clear she wasn't make any progress.

Over the semester, he saw the strange man two more times, once at the grocery store again, buying beer and snacks, and another in a parking lot downtown. The sightings were only two days apart, after eight or nine weeks of nothing. After those two times, he didn't see him again in the weeks that followed. The coincidence struck him as a little strange, but only in passing.

He had more important things to think about.

Even with classes and his job, Sam still found time to continue his search for his family. In fact, he squeezed as much time as he could, stopping in even when he only had a short break between classes. He was at the library so often, the librarians had taken to calling him by name.

One had even tried to flirt with him. But, like Matilda, she soon gave up.

Every day, Sam weeded through article after article. His eyes ached from the strain, but he never grew tired of looking. Each article he looked at, he wondered if he were reading about a relative of his. He told himself, somewhat wryly, that by the time he finished, he could write an entire book on the Winchesters of America.

That, of course, lead to the frightening thought that he might be from another country. But he wasn't even going to worry about that possibility yet.

Then, at the end of February, he found a twenty-three-year-old article from Kansas.

It wasn't a birth announcement, like he had counted on. In fact, this one gave him more information than a birth announcement ever would. He wished he had found the announcement instead.

House Fire Claims Life of Wife, Mother.

Sam read the story with a growing sickening feeling in his stomach. There was a strange sort of detachment too, as if he were reading about strangers, even though he knew this time he wasn't. That detachment made him even more ill.

On November 2, 1983, Mary Winchester, 30, lost her life in a fire. Investigators were unable to determine the cause of the blaze, which quickly destroyed the bedroom where it started, killing Mary almost instantly. She left behind her husband John, and their two kids, Dean, 4, and Sam, 6 months.

Sam sat back in his chair, letting out a long breath. His mother was killed in a fire. The thought made him nauseas, and the date sent a cold shudder through him.

Just like Jessica.

Was that why he lost it?

Another, more frustrating side to his discovery was that Sam had hoped that, once he found his family's names, it would open a floodgate of memories. Yet that part of his mind remained closed off to him.

Sam tried not to think about his discovery. He briefly wondered if this was the reason the Warrens tried to discourage his search.

He didn't even know if this was the right family. His family. But the coincidences were too great. It was all he had to go on.

ooOOoo

Sam went to bed that night dwelling on a fire that happened twenty-three years ago. When he woke up the next morning, he was sweating from thoughts of another fire.

He found Rebecca on the couch, reading a textbook. She looked up at his entrance and smiled. "G'morning, Sam," she told him cheerfully.

"Morning," he returned with a smile. "Hey, uh..." He debated telling her about his latest nightmare, especially since it had been so long since his last non-Jessica one, but once again, he felt a strong urge to share it with someone.

Fortunately, she seemed to read his mind. "Another nightmare?" she asked, suddenly straightening. He nodded, and she immediately grabbed a pad and paper and led him to the table.

"Well, give it to me," she told him as they took a seat, and he could tell she was trying to keep her voice bright for his sake.

"Okay. Well." He cleared his throat, which still had a little bit of morning phlegm. "This one was like that werewolf one, at least in that I wasn't actually there. But this time it was a ghost."

"A ghost?" Rebecca repeated, writing on her pad.

"Heh, yeah, I know. It was the ghost of a teenaged girl. She was on a bridge just outside of Boston – I could see the skyline of the city in the background." He briefly wondered if he had even been to Boston. Somehow he had recognized the skyline, but he wasn't sure if he had seen it personally, or in photographs. "It must have been St. Patrick's Day, because there was this small group of people all dressed in green. One of the girls had a shamrock headband and a guy had a 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' shirt on." As he related his nightmare, Rebecca wrote furiously, listing all the details he gave her.

Sam tried to detach himself from his words as he continued. "The ghost just...appears in front of them suddenly. The people, four of them, stop in their tracks, and this, this ghost raises her arm at them." Sam demonstrated with his own arm. "And she points. And in the next instant, the four of them burst into flames."

Rebecca, her face now pale, continued to record the information. "Did...did they die?" she asked.

Sam nodded. Even now, he could see their faces screaming with pain, could see how their skin blistered and melted. He refused to say that out loud.

Rebecca quickly composed herself. "All right, so we have the ghost of a teenaged girl, a Boston bridge, St. Patrick's Day, a group of four partiers, including a girl with a shamrock headband and a guy with a 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' shirt, and um, fire."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"What did the bridge look like? Was it a footbridge?"

"No, it had both cars and a pedestrian walk. I think it was kinda old. Not one of those modern-looking ones, at least." Rebecca nodded as she made a note. "So, see anything at can help me?" he asked her. "Anything that explains why my mind is so screwed up and twisted?"

Rebecca looked up at him sharply. "You're not screwed up," she told him seriously.

Sam snorted. "Whatever."

"You're not," she insisted, her eyes going wide. "There's a reason your mind is giving you these dreams."

Sam almost mentioned that he had been thinking of fire the entire day before...but hewasn't ready forRebecca to confirm that the family in that article really was his. Not yet.

"Look, we just need to interpret what your mind is trying to tell you."

"Yeah, it's telling me I have a fetish for the supernatural," he snorted derisively.

She gave him a long, silent look that made him shift in his seat. "Maybe you do."

Sam drew his eyebrows together. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." Then a sigh. "I don't know."

Sam had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that. Finally, he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. "Any idea why I'm dreaming about strangers?" Rebecca shook her head in reply. "They say you only dream of people you've seen before. I wonder if these are people I met while...I was gone," he mused out loud.

"Maybe," Rebecca said, although it sounded as if she didn't think so. They sat in silence for a few moments before she stood up, clearing her throat. "Well, I better get ready. Don't want to be late."

Sam looked up at her, surprised. "I thought you didn't have class until 11."

"Right, but I gotta run some errands first," she replied just as she ducked out of the kitchen.

Sam stared after her as she made her retreat. After being so compelled to tell her his dream, he couldn't help but feel lost. Images of people bursting into flames still haunted him.

ooOOoo

Fifteen minutes later, Rebecca emerged from the bathroom. She rushed past Sam, who had migrated to the couch in effort to kill time before his own classes started. "Need anything from the store?" she asked over her shoulder as she headed for the door.

"No thanks," he called back. Working five days a week at a grocery story meant his supplies were pretty well stocked.

As soon as she was out the door, his stomach growled, and he decided to grab a bowl of cereal. He was just about to pour when he saw Rebecca's purse sitting on the counter. He didn't know if she needed it, but if he hurried, he should be able to catch her just in case she did.

He slipped out the door, the purse clutched in his hand. To his surprise, Rebecca hadn't gone very far at all. In fact, she was leaning against the side of the apartment building, her back turned to him at an angle. A cell phone was pressed against her ear.

Sam debated whether he should interrupt or wait. Rebecca's stance was a little tense, and he felt he should give her privacy. But at the same time, he couldn't stand there and not eavesdrop, and he might miss her if he went back inside.

He had just decided to tap her on the shoulder when his ears caught the tail end of her sentence.

"...Shamrock headband."

Sam froze in place, stunned, as a coldness washed over him. Then a flash of white caught his attention. His eyes drifted down, following the movement of her arm as she lowered it, and he saw that she was holding the list they had just made.

Suddenly he felt rage well inside him, and this time he didn't hesitate to tap her on the shoulder. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded.

"Sam!" Rebecca exclaimed, spinning around. She quickly snapped her cell phone closed.

"Who were you talking to?"

He had obviously put her off-balance. "Jim," she said after a reluctant pause. "Just Jim."

"Jim? But--" His eyes widened as he was struck witha sudden thought. "Wait, am I some sort of class project for him? Has he been analyzing my dreams like some Freud wannabe?"

"No! Well..." She paused to consider her answer. "Kinda. Yeah," she finally admitted, cringing.

Her sheepishness did nothing to mollify Sam. "Why are you two sneaking behind my back? Why didn't you just tell me?" he angrily demanded.

She bit her lip worriedly. "I thought...I didn't want you to take it the wrong way."

"You mean, you didn't want to tell me that I'm crazy?" Sam interjected. "A nutjob?"

Her eyes widened and a stricken look came to her face. "No! Sam--!" she started, reaching out to him.

He lifted a hand, pushing her arm aside. "No, Rebecca, stop it," he told her bitterly. "I don't want to hear it." With that, he spun around and stormed back inside, letting the door slam behind him.

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