Jamie puts Mark down in his crib, softly singing Kansas to him as she lulls him to sleep. His crib is protected by a devil's trap, sigils, and anti-possession pentagrams and charms that hang from the ceiling. He is also wearing Dean's amulet around his neck. Jamie checks each of these before shutting off the lights and crawling into her own bed. Her handgun is sitting on the nightstand, and there's a shotgun against the wall and a knife and rosary beads within reach. The bottle of cleaning solution next to the handgun is the room's newest feature. The young hunter refuses to take any chances. She tucks her handgun under her pillow before closing her eyes.

The sound of a gun going off startles her from her sleep. She sits up quickly and looks around, but the room is still and undisturbed. Her son is fast asleep. She pulls her gun out from under her pillow and looks at it. For a long moment she stares at the silver barrel until finally sets it on the nightstand and closes her eyes. This time she sees the gun going off. She has a flash of the gun, and then Bobby bleeding. She opens her eyes again and immediately gets out of bed.

Sam is in the back seat of the van with Bobby. Dean is driving. "Bobby? Bobby? Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hold on." He is checking on Bobby.

"Sam, is he dead?" Dean calls back.

"I'm checking." He feels Bobby's neck for a pulse.

"Is he dead?!" Dean yells, his voice demanding an answer.

"Just drive, Dean! Bobby!"

"You gotta talk to me, Sam!"

Sam gets a pulse. "All right, he's breathing. There's a pulse. Ahh!" Sam grabs his head in pain.

Dean glances over his shoulder. "Sammy? Oh god you didn't get shot too did ya?"

"Sam!"

"Jamie?" Sam asks outloud hearing his sister's voice.

"I'm coming, I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Jamie? What is going on, Sam?"

Sam holds his head. "Ahh."

Dean enters numbers on his cell phone. "Sammy, what's happening?"

Sam opens his eyes. "Jamie's coming."

"Good. Keep him upright. Stop the bleeding."

"I'm not an idiot, Dean! I know first aid for a friggin' bullet to the head!"

"I need the nearest trauma center." Dean says into his phone.

"Hold on. Hold on." Sam whispers to Bobby.

"What's the address?!" Dean turns the van around. "All right, Bobby, hang in there." The van skids as Dean accelerates.

"Bobby! Just hold on!"

Jamie races down a darkened highway. Her truck sputters in protest as the needle reaches beyond eighty and continues falling. Only the lightest shades of pink permeate the darkness around her. Though her eyes are on the road, her focus is elsewhere. In her mind Bobby, Dean, and Sam enter an old abandoned house. Bobby removes his cap and touches his head. There is a small amount of blood on his forehead. "Balls."

Sam looks at Bobby, confused and worried. "Y-you want to tell us what's going on?"

Dean turns around and looks at him. "Yeah, what's going on with your head?"

"I got shot in it!"

Dean gives him an unbelieving look. "You what?"

Sam's expression is more concerned. "Bobby, we've been with you all day."

Dean nods. "Yeah, I think we would have noticed if you took a bullet."

"I didn't take one here. I-I took one out there, i-i-in the real world."

Dean turns to Sam. "You lost us."

Bobby throws up his hands in defeat. "Oh where's your damn sister when I need her?"

Dean gets out his cellphone. "Do you need me to call her?"

Jamie blinks and it's only the road again in front of her. The blackened asphalt, her only refuge, is blurry again as her mind forms a new scene. Bobby's house, burnt to nothing several months ago, but in the vision as clear and solid as if it was still standing. Her brothers appear sitting on the couch in front of the tv, a plastic bag and several dvds littering to the coffee table in front of them.

"I don't even know you right now. There's not even a contest." Dean is saying.

"It depends on the criteria."

"Survival is the only criteria, all right?" He twists around, staring at the doorway to the stairs. "Jamie, hurry up and get in here!"

"Yeah how long does it take to get a baby to sleep?" Sam yells.

Jamie's voice echoes from the room above. "Why don't you come up and find out!"

Dean grabs one of the dvds and gets up. He resembles his earlier argument with Sam. "When the crap hits the fan, it's not about who has skill. It's about who's the bigger badass. Bobby, will you please tell Sam that Chuck Norris could kick Jet Li's ass?" Bobby looks around the room and then walks towards the kitchen. "You grab me a beer while you're in there?" Bobby opens the sliding doors to the kitchen.

Jamie rubs her eyes with one hand, with the other she squeezes the steering wheel, cringing under the influence of her sight. The sun rises quickly, and the highway ends in the exit to Hammonton, New Jersey.

As she stops her truck in the parking lot of the trauma center she grabs the wheel and leans forward. She doesn't pray to God. She can't, the God she was taught to believe in isn't the merciful, loving father, but cold and uncaring shell, clothed in a vessel and hidden from the eyes of the world. Michael, the archangel she clung to in desperate need, whose patronage she invoked countless times in the last two decades, was not the hero, the leader, she had believed him to be. Even after she met him in the past, she secretly hoped he was a better man then her brothers though him to be, that he was compassionate, that he cared. She couldn't help it, she was bound to him, bound to serve him. He knew even as she slumbered in her mother's womb that she was the great prophet, the voice crying out in the desert. And she would be his sister, their bond unbreakable, a bond made in blood. He saved her that night and many nights since. But in her heart she knew that in saving her he had sacrificed others in her place without second thought nor remorse, including her own mother, including AJ.

It was AJ she turned to as she rushed through the trauma center doors and looked around frantically. The silver band around her finger grew heavy, it's engraved words written in her mind. "I will fear no evil, for you are with me."

"Can I help you?"

She whirled around. "I'm looking for Robert Sing…"

"Jamie!"

Her brother's voice brings both relief and terror. "Dean!" Jamie runs Dean and wraps her arms around his neck. He holds her tightly. Sam wraps his arms around her from behind. "Sam." Safe in the arms of both brothers the emotion she held back on the long road pours forth and she starts crying. "Tell me he's going to be okay." She sobs into Dean's chest. Behind her the sounds of the doctor and nurses reach their ears.

"Push 30 more of Mannitol over 10. CBC and 'lytes. Bolus him with 500 saline."

"The vitals were stable two minutes ago."

"Well, he's crashing now."

Dean's arms draw her in closer, holding her so tightly his rapid, uneven heartbeat pulsates in her ear. Sam's large hands grip her waist, his head comes down to rest on her own. Against the sounds of her sobs, he sucks his breath in with difficulty.

The doctor opens the curtain and walks over to Dean. It's been several minutes since Jamie's arrival. The siblings have separated, each finding their space to occupy. Sam is leaning on the wall. Jamie is standing a few feet from him, her eyes red and swollen. At the sight of the doctor coming towards Dean, the twins move around to their brother.

"He's, uh, stable for the moment. Just have to see."

Dean looks at Bobby in the trauma room, then turns slowly and looks at Sam and Jamie. The distress in Dean's eyes is copied in Sam's expression, and Jamie's face. For a moment the siblings take each other in, until Sam breaks their silence. "So, there's nothing else we can do?"

"I'm sorry. We just have to wait. We'll see if the swelling goes down."

Jamie's head comes up. Her lower lip trembles slightly as she tries to speak. "How long?"

"It's hard to say in cases like this."

Dean nods. "Well, he's lasted this long. That's something, right?"

"Well, yes. Listen – the bullet didn't shatter. Only one hemisphere of his brain was injured. These are all positive things. But...I don't want to give you false hope here. He's far from out of the woods. Most of the time, cases like this..."

"They die." It's Sam who says it, but Dean and Jamie both know it. The older brother reaches back, his fingers groping the air for his little sister's hand. He needs to feel her flesh against his, needs the confirmation that is really happening. She slides her fingers between his, the sleeve of her black utility jacket brushes against his blue one.

"Right now it comes down to him. I'll keep you updated." As the doctor leaves, Jamie raises her head and notices a man with thick glasses and suit watching them. She jerks Dean's hand, and he turns to meet the stranger.

"Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. Is one of you Robert Singer's next of kin?"

Dean glances from brother to sister, guessing whatever the man wants isn't going to put any of them in a better mood. "I'll take care of this. Sam, you stay with Bobby. Jamie, you're with me."

His fingers are cold as he follows the man down the hall, partially dragging Jamie behind him. Her pace is slower than his impatient stride and so he yanks her along until they finally stop near the entrance doors. The man does his best to appear sympathetic, but the siblings easily see through it. "We know this is a stressful time."

Dean wants none of it. He's angry, and confused, and terrified, and powerless, and the last three make him more angry. "Yeah, okay. No offense – you can skip the garnish. What, did his insurance lapse, or what?"

"We're sorry to ask, but, um, did your uncle ever make his wishes known i-in regards to organ donation? Organs are only viable for a very limited window –"

Jamie's wall, the force she uses to stone herself against the horror and pain of her life, chooses this moment and these words to crumble. "Oh my God."

At the same time her brother can only echo the offending word. "Viable"?

The man continues, as though he cannot see the anger that finally washes over Dean, finally twists him just right, and the terror and pain that breaks Jamie down. "We're just hoping some good can come of this tragic –"

Jamie starts crying, and Dean pulls her into his arms. "Listen to me. I'm gonna say this once. He's not gonna die. It's one bullet. He's gonna be fine because he's always fine." His voice is manic, but still commanding, still unwavering, still so sure and confident. It doesn't mean he actually believes what he's saying, it's for his sister, for his brother, and for the idiot in front of him to get the message that he better shut up and walk away while he still can.

"I apologize."

"Why are you talking to us like he's gonna die, huh? I do my job! My brother does his job. My sister does her job. Do your jobs! Save him!"

"Of course they're doing everything they can." The answer only infuriates him. Jamie pulls away from him far enough that he rears back and punches the glass covering a sign next to the man's head.

"Walk away from me. Now!" Jamie closes her eyes, forcing herself to calm down. When she opens them, the man is hurrying away. Her eyes fall on his bleeding hand, she moves to take it, but he pulls it away. "Leave it." He storms away, through the doors, leaving her standing in the middle of the hallway alone.

She's still standing there when he walks back inside, although he seems considerably less angry. She has of course seen what happened while he was outside, but he doesn't mention it, not yet, and she knows better than to ask. For now he puts his arm around her, and they walk back down the long hall. Dean stops at the coffee machine and feeds in some wadded up dollar bills. Jamie sighs, trying to control her breathing. He turns her to face him and they stare at each other for a long moment, until he gets his coffee from the machine. Sam still leaning on the wall outside Bobby's room. It takes them both a moment to compose themselves as best they can before returning to their brother's side.

"What did that guy want?" Is their brother's reaction.

She shakes her head. "Nothing important."

He agrees. "Yeah. Just some insurance mook." He pauses after, considering whether to go on. Finally he tells them. "Dick Roman was out there."

Sam's eyes come up to meet his brother's. "What? What happened?" Jamie stays quiet, waiting for Dean's explanation.

"Nothing...For now. It was just a friggin' staring contest. That was about it." He doesn't continue. They don't need him too. They know that if it was important he'd tell them. There are no secrets. Not today. Not now. "What's the update?"

Sam takes a deep breath. His eyes shift from brother to sister and back again. "The swelling's down a little. They took him off sedation. Apparently, he – he started fighting his tube. So they pulled them out, and he's breathing on his own." His voice is soft, despite what he's telling them he still appears nervous and concerned.

Jamie reacts on impulse. "Oh God. Thank God." She breathes, jumping into her twin's arms. He hold her for a moment before returning her to her feet.

Dean keeps his composure. "That's good, right? Is that good?"

His brother nods. "Yeah. Well, doctor said best-case scenario."

Dean nods to himself, allowing a little bit of his wall, his lead box, open. A small ray of hope escapes as he looks at his brother. "All right, so when they gonna take the bullet out?"

Jamie hears the answer before Sam says it. His thoughts meld into hers. The answer is not what she had dared hope it would be. If anything it's worse. "No. Sam, No." She shakes her head, stepping away from her twin.

"What?" Dean asks, his expression immediately back to concerned.

Sam takes a breath. He reaches out to his sister, but she brushes him away. He feels a twinge of guilt, like she blames him. She blames him for a lot of things, it's true, but this is purely her shooting the messanger, and that hurts him. When he can finally look at Dean, his voice shakes. "Dean, t-they're not even – they're not even gonna try that, not yet."

"What does that mean?"

Sam almost doesn't want to go on. Doesn't want to face the anger from Dean and the blame from Jamie. But he has to. They have to understand. "The word's "abrading," I think."

"Jesus." Jamie mutters the blasphemy with force and turns around. Her eyes travel to the lights above them.

"English." Dean mutters, perhaps a little more harsh then he intended.

Jamie glances over her shoulder as Sam lets out a short sigh. "Cutting out the dead brain tissue." Their voices mingle together and Dean lets their words sink in.

"I don't know, Alex. I-I don't know."

A man and woman in the middle of a conversation stop near siblings. Sam ignores them, continuing to explain the situation to Dean. "That's if the doctor even thinks it's worth the risk."

His words are almost lost in the thrall of the couple's conversation. "You know, I, uh... You're working..."

"I don't know."

"I'm – I'm..."

Sam realizes that both his siblings are distracted. Maybe it's on purpose, he's not sure. But he isn't about to let the ominous feeling hanging over his head go. Not when he knows Dean. Not when he knows Jamie. "Can I talk to you?" He puts his arm around Jamie and gestures to his brother.

They walk across the hall and stop next to some chairs between the vending machines. "What? Talk about what?" Dean is impatient, and he's slipping back into anger to hide it. It's not lost on Sam that the anger is his way of covering up his fear.

"You know what."

For a moment Jamie and Sam can both see the fear, the terror, in Dean's eyes when he looks from one twin to the other, before shaking his head. "No, we're not gonna have that conversation."

Sam is resolved to not let it go. "Well, we need to."

Dean realizes what Sam is thinking, and he refuses to share in the revelation. He turns to his sister, hoping irrationally that she has a different opinion, but she only shakes her head. "He's right."

The anger inside Dean continues to weld up, but he tries to hold it back, to avoid exploding on his siblings for something that isn't their fault. "He's not gonna die." He seethes, pointedly.

When Sam looks up his face is void of all hope, despair is the only emotion Dean can read in his eyes. "He might."

Dean shakes his head. He can't believe. He doesn't want to believe it. So he gets angry at it instead. "Sam."

Jamie grabs unto her oldest brother and turns him toward her, forcing him to look at her. To see her. "I can't see anything, Dean. I can't see." Her voice breaks.

He still isn't going to believe it. He refuses, trying to rationalize, to find some ray of hope."Maybe you're just too far away. Maybe if you can get in there and do your psychic crap, you can…

"Dean!" She yells, clocking him back into his senses.

Sam steps forward, pushing their sister to the side. "Dean, listen – we need to brace ourselves."

Denial. One last attempt at denial. "Why?"

His answer is short, but it's riddled with the revelation that Sam has given up. "Because it's real."

So when rationalization and denial don't work, he resorts back to anger. Back to bottling up everything. Back to shoot first and ask later. "What do you want to do? You want to hug and – and say we made it through it when Dad died? We've been through enough." With that he turns and walks to the door. He pauses at the door and looks at Sam and Jamie, then leaves.

Jamie starts crying again. She sinks down into a chair and puts her face in her hands. Sam looks over at her and then sits down in a chair and presses on the palm he injured. He has tears in his eyes. He reaches over and puts his hand on his sister's back.

After a minute Jamie gets up and walks away. Sam watches her. "Daddy." She whispers, leaning against the wall. She wipes her eyes, staring at Bobby. "Dad, I know we don't talk much but…oh god…Dad if Bobby dies. Please…Please. Mom, you, Jess, AJ, Dan, Jefferson, Caleb, Ellen, Jo, Adam, Rufus, and Cas. We've lost everyone. Bobby is all we have left. Please. Daddy, please." She looks up through tears. Sam gets up and goes over to her. He pulls her into his arms. She sobs and then pulls away, looking toward Bobby. "Dad, you have to help me. Help me, please." She stares at Bobby's room. Sam puts his hands on her shoulders.

"What do you need me to do?" He whispers.

Jamie swallows. "I'm going to project myself into his head. But I've never done it without physically touching them." She takes a deep breath. "Hold unto me, Sam." Sam squeezes her shoulders. She squeezes her eyes shut.

As Bobby walks through the house, the light goes out in the windows as he passes. He opens a kitchen drawer, which is full of odds and ends. Looking over his shoulder, he sees a younger version of himself talking on the phone in the main room. Jamie flickers in behind him, but he doesn't notice.

"No, we didn't shoot rifles, as a matter of fact. We threw a ball around. He's a kid, John. All three of them are. They're entitled. Yeah, I know I ain't their dad." The younger version of Bobby hangs up and throws the phone down. Jamie flickers back out.

She opens her eyes and gasps outloud. Sam keeps her from falling forward. "Jamie!" He wraps his arms around her, feeling her shake in his grip.

She shakes her head, panting. The strength it takes to do what she had done overwhelms her. "I'm alright. I'm alright, it's just…it's so difficult to hold myself in there."

She closes her eyes again, stubbornly resolved to try again. She flickers in and looks around. She standing in Bobby's study. This time she isn't going to waste a moment taking in the surroundings. "Bobby?" She calls out to him.

"Jamie?" Hearing her, he turns around. His eyes widen in surprise and it takes him a moment before he can rush to her. "Are you?"

She shakes her head, her voice urgent. "I don't know how long I can hold this for. We need to hurry if I'm going to bring you out." She's done it before, with Sam. There is no doubt in her mind that she can do it again. She can bring him back to consciousness. She reaches out to him.

"Jamie, I-" He recoils to dig through his pocket. She sees a piece of paper that he starts to bring out.

"Bobby, what-" Before she can take it she loses her grip. Her mind recoils and instantly she's back in her body. She gasps louder than before, and almost collapses.

"Jamie?" Sam holds her in his tightest embrace.

"No. Not yet. We're so close." She moans in frustration. "I can do this. I can do this. Dad…again. Help me." She begs for John's intercession. For her father's strength, afterall if he could endure a hundred years on Alistair's rack. If he could climb out of hell, she could be strong enough to pull their uncle back from the brink.

"Jamie." Sam's voice echos her name as she finds herself standing in Bobby's kitchen. This time Bobby is a child, and his father is seated at the table, enraged and yelling. "Oh, you deserved it. Believe me. You were nothing but ungrateful."

Jamie turns to see Bobby standing a few feet away, his eyes locked on the memory of his father. "I was a kid! Kids ain't supposed to be grateful! They're supposed to eat your food and break your heart, you selfish dick! You died, and I was still so afraid I'd turn into you I never even had kids of my own."

"Good. You break everything you touch."

Across the room Bobby's mother starts to cry. Jamie finds that she can't move. She can't speak. She can only stare at the man she and her brothers consider their mentor, their uncle, their adaptive father.

"Uh-huh. Well, as fate would have it, I adopted two boys and a little girl, and they grew up great. They grew up heroes. So you can go to hell!"

A tear streams down Jamie's face. "Bobby." She reaches towards him. But just as Bobby turns to look at her, the hold breaks.

The return to her body leaves her physically exhausted. "Goddamnit! No. No!" Tears fall down her cheeks as her body trembles from the effort.

"Damnit you're gonna pass out. You're shaking." Sam tells her. "Stop." He demands, holding her face. "Please."

She relents, knowing he's right. Another attempt would likely render her unconscious or worse, and that would just make her useless. A sense of failure washes over her, and she leans against the wall with Sam at her side, looking utterly depressed.

After a moment two nurses walk past and she lifts her head, catching the tail end of their thoughts. "Sam. Dean!" She grips her brother's shoulder and calls for the other.

Dean walks towards them. "What happen?" She's still shaking, straightening up taking great effort. "What's wrong with you?"

She shakes her head in response, not caring, not having the luxury to care. "Come on." She says instead, gesturing for the room.

The nurses are getting ready to transport Bobby. As the Winchesters enter the room a nurse barks orders. "Keep the head of the bed up for transport. IV can run off the pump. Just run a TKVO. We'll have to wait for respiratory."

Sam steps forward and gets the nurse's attention. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. What's happening?"

"He's showing signs of responsiveness. We're taking him up for surgery. If you want to see him, I'd squeeze in there quick."

Jamie sighs as a feeling of relief washes over her. Finally. Finally good news. The concern that has been written all over Sam's face abates a little, he too allows himself to hope. Only Dean refuses to be optimistic. He is still cold when he grabs his siblings and pushes them towards the bed.

A nurse puts her hand on Sam's shoulder. "Sorry. We need to get moving."

"Right. Yeah." Sam tries to smile. He glances back to his siblings and then forces himself to look at Bobby. Grasping the old man's hand he tries to find the right words. "Hey, um... Bobby, um, hey..." "Just... thanks... for everything." He pats his hand and let's go, stepping back so that his sister can lean forward.

Jamie grabs his hand and tries to avoid the newest stream of tears threatening to fall. "Bobby, I love you. And…you're the closest damn thing we've all had to a father, especially since Dad died." She kisses his hand and lets go.

"All right. Please step back."

Dean nods to nurse. "Yeah." He grabs his siblings again, starting to push them back when suddenly Bobby raises his hand and opens his eyes.

"Bobby." It's Jamie who makes the exclamation. Sam raises his head and then gestures to the nurses.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, stop. His eyes are open."

Dean's eyes widen, as if in disbelief. "Bobby?" He leans in closer.

"Hey." Sam puts a hand on Bobby's shoulder. Bobby removes the respirator covering his mouth and nose. Sam takes Bobby's hands. Jamie touches his arm. Bobby looks at Jamie.

Instantly Jamie feels the strain of her psychic pull. But Bobby's thoughts are masked from her. She doesn't have the strength to read his thoughts. Her gift, her ability, her mind, and her body are all spent, still recovering from her projection attempts. "Bobby… Dean, he's got something to tell us. I-I can't…I'm spent, I can't…" She grabs for her brother, realizing too late that it should be Sam she's grabbing for. Sam at least has a psychic tie to her.

Bobby realizes she can't see it and starts mumbling. Dean leans forward and then away. "What – don't talk. Don't talk. A pen – I –" He grabs the pen and chart at the end of the bed. "Here. Here, here, here." He hands the pen to Sam, who hands it to Bobby. Jamie turns Sam's palm up and holds Bobby's hand so he can write. "What is it?"

"Numbers." Jamie mutters.

Bobby writes "45489" on Sam's hand while breathing heavily with the effort. He smiles slightly at the siblings, who lean closer to him. "Idjits."

He tries to smile. Dean, Sam, and Jamie try to smile back. Bobby's head falls back onto the pillow and his eyes close. The monitor he is attached to starts to beep. "Bobby? Hey!" Dean yells in panic.

"Oh God. No. No…" Dean and Sam hold unto their as the nurses push them out of the room.

The monitor shows flat lines. "Call a code – trauma room."

As medical staff hurry towards the room and attempt to revive Bobby, the siblings stare, mouths pressed into thin lines. Dean and Sam are both red eyed. Jamie is crying and holding unto Dean. Sam grabs unto Jamie and holds her against him, staring at Bobby. Dean turns and wraps his arms around his sister.

Threw her tears an image appears in her mind. Her brothers, Bobby's couch, the Chuck Norris dvd. Bobby walks in with four beers and sets them on the coffee table. She moves from her spot on the arm of the couch, next to Dean, and reaches towards her surrogate uncle. He withdraws his hand, and the image goes black. When she opens her eyes again, she can already smell the burning zest of salt and smoke.