Celebrating chapter 15 with the longest chapter so far, hope you guys enjoy! I hope that everyone had a good holiday season and that your New Year's will be great as well. Thanks to freetobescary and Guest for reviewing the previous chapter! To the guest, I'm going to say no about Chuck's manuscripts. While that is a good idea, it would make things a bit too easy, and it's never been hinted at that they have the physical books with them in the bunker. With that, here's the new chapter!

Still don't own Supernatural.

The drive back to the motel was spent in relative silence, save for the heaters and the rattling that came along with them. Sam and Cas spent the rest of the afternoon with laptops open, trying to find anything they could on amnesia, brain injures, and recovery (as if they hadn't already scoured every single website in their few weeks there). Eventually, Sam announced that he needed to get out of the motel room for a little while and was grabbing something to eat.

"Are you sure? Dean specifically said to be careful about you driving, that it shouldn't be happening in the first place," the angel argued from his spot by the table.

Sam just shook his head and motioned for the keys. "It's been almost a month, Cas, I'm good, promise. Just need to get out for a little while is all."

He could see the angel thinking it over in his head, as if weighing the pros and cons of the options set before him on the table. "You're sure?" he checked again, regarding the hunter with slightly squinted eyes.

"I'm sure," Sam repeated, "haven't been doing much anyways to hinder the healing process, and I've driven further with much worse." He'd driven half dead to the clinic with a bullet wound in his gut, but he wasn't exactly keen on recanting that story given their current situation.

Cas eventually sighed and passed over the keys. "Just…be careful, call if you need anything."

Sam nodded again, happy to have the familiar keys back in his hand, and pulled his jacket from the back of the chair, one hand also holding his laptop. "I'll be back in an hour or so," he added before he went out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Sam had been in the Impala numerous times since everything that had happened, but he still sat in the driver's seat, as if catching his breath for a moment. It was still odd to be driving the car, especially under the current circumstances. His chest still pulled a bit when he turned around to check for traffic before he backed out of the spot, but it was more just uncomfortable than painful. It was a reminder that he had almost been dead a month ago, and then Dean was in the exact same scenario.

It wasn't snowing, which was nice, and when it did snow it wasn't a lot. Depending on how long Dean's recovery took, they could get into some pretty heavy snow later in the month. So Sam was keeping his fingers crossed for multiple reasons that Dean would get better soon. Still, it was cold enough outside that Sam pulled his jacket around him a bit tighter as he made his way out of the now parked car, laptop in hand.

The warm cafe he stepped into was a nice change from the outside, and he smiled politely at the waitress before picking a seat that was out of the way as she grabbed a menu. It was during the off hours for people to be eating, so the place was relatively quiet. The waitress poured coffee with a smile before he could refuse, simply stating, "you look like you could need it," in the gentlest way she could.

Sam thanked her, ordered a sandwich, and opened up his laptop as soon as it had been placed. And then…he stared at the screen. He had lost count of how many tabs and windows he had open and how many bookmarks he still had to file into their correct folders. The words seemed to mock him in different sizes, shapes, and ways of saying 'you can't help your brother. You're helpless to help him.'

He cocked his head a bit, as if the words themselves could take it as a threat to shut up, and opened up a word document. The blank page, while daunting, was much better than a cluttered website filled with repetitive information from four other sources.

A word document, now that he could work with. He already had notes on pretty much everything saved in other various documents that resided on his desktop. No, notes he was tired of. He needed to do something else, he needed to find something to help Dean if what they were dealing with really turned out to be amnesia.

Sam wrote down three little words: May 13, 2010.

Every anniversary of that day in the years since then, he and Dean had stepped lightly around each other. There was more bantering and less bickering, and if they weren't on a hunt (and sometimes even if they were), they didn't let each other out of their sights. Because Sam had gone to hell on that day, and Dean had thought he'd never see him again.

There wasn't an explanation needed for that day, Dean remembered it fine from what Sam could tell, and by the time he was done staring at the date, his sandwich had appeared next to him and his coffee had been refilled. He smiled a bit to himself, and took a break to eat before he went back to his list.

He added the date when he got his soul back, and filled in as many specifics as he could, though he glossed over some of what he had done while soulless. He remembered it perfectly, there was no reason why he had to remind Dean of it too when he could just remember it on his own someday.

The dates began to pile up, some much more specific than others, and after an hour passed, he texted Cas to let him know he'd be a bit later, that he was fine, and that he was just working. Every so often, he'd delete a date and shake his head, or spend too long staring at the words on the screen.

September 2011: I cut my hand and you turned it into a reminder that you're my stone number one that I can build on.

May 2013: You convinced me to not board up hell at the expense of my own life. You got me stuck with an angel without my permission, but you meant well.

December 2013: We lost Kevin.

January 2014: You got saddled with the Mark.

There was no further explanation for that needed. If Dean wanted it, he could ask Sam directly, but he didn't need to put it in writing…he couldn't put it in writing, not everything they'd both done over the course of that year. He'd never get the words on the page. That was, if Dean ever saw the page to begin with. Why exactly Sam was writing it, he wasn't quite sure, he just…needed to, to remind himself, and his brother if it came down to that.

May 2015: I spread some pictures on the floor, got punched, and eventually you killed Death. You made him Mexican food as a peace offering beforehand.

Sam smiled a bit as he wrote it, just a bit. Speaking of peace offerings with Death was much easier than saying Dean almost caused Sam's that very same day.

May 2016: You found the amulet I rescued from the trash years ago. We also found God, which turned out to be…surprising.

October 2017: You weren't dead, and you found me, like you always do.

The list went on and on like that, with dates peppered in-between other ones, and estimations in place when he didn't remember the exact date.

As the sun began to set, he thanked the kind waitress and left the cafe, closed laptop in hand. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do with the list, not yet at least. But he had an outline of sorts of what had happened since Dean lost his memory, which should help with any questions Dean brought up. Lisa and Ben were of course on the list, and Sam knew more than anything else that the topic would be coming up sooner rather than later.

When he made it back to the motel room, Cas greeted him as usual and they went on pretending like everything was at least half normal and their worlds weren't crashing down around them. Sam went to bed earlier that night, knowing he was likely to not sleep much, given what the next day was likely to hold.

December 4, 11:37am

"We went ahead with a few more scans and some verbalized testing for dates and information you provided us with, along with other well-known world events," Dr. Monroe continued.

Sam and Cas had sat down in his office about ten minutes ago and the door had closed behind them. Dr. Monroe was a well spoken man in his mid fifties that wore glasses, but only when reading, Sam had noted. They had been going over what sorts of tests Dean had been administered before they got to the results.

"From all of that, combined with the brain scans and the damage to the hippocampus, we can conclude that your brother is suffering from a form of retrograde amnesia," he didn't give it a moment to set in before he asked, "has he suffered many concussions in the past?"

Sam nodded numbly, his brain still trying to process his worst fear in the ordeal. "Yeah, we, uh, we work odd jobs all over the country, some of them aren't so safe," he said vaguely.

Dr. Monroe nodded, expecting as much. "That could have been a contributing factor, when coupled with the head trauma from the crash and the coma he was in. From what we can tell, he remembers nothing of the past seven or so years, including the crash that caused this injury."

The room following that statement was utterly silent.

"Is there any hope that he can eventually regain these memories?" Cas asked a moment later, breaking the silence. His gaze, however, was on Sam, who had taken an intense interest on the scar on his palm.

Dr. Monroe sighed and leaned forward against his desk, arms on top of it. "Some of them, maybe. As of right now, there are no proven methods to remember everything. Trigger words, repeating what happened, those are more effective in the movies," he shook his head. "Realistically, some may come back in bits and pieces. Something from three years ago could come back first, or something from two months ago. The brain…it is very unpredictable. But it is highly unlikely that he will remember everything in the detail that he was once able to, I am sorry."

Sam was hearing him, but he wasn't hearing him. Dean was his memory keeper, as much as Sam was his. Everything they had been through…

"What can we do to possibly help?" he asked in a voice much too small for his stature, and raised his eyes to the doctor.

"Don't overwhelm him," Monroe put it simply. "He needs time to heal and accept what has happened most of all. Dumping everything on him and begging him to remember will not help the situation, though I understand that it can be hard to not do so. If you care about his wellbeing-"

"-which we do," Cas cut him off shortly.

"Let him take it at his own pace," he finished. "Some reminders never hurt every once and a while, to try and bring something up. Maybe he'll see something and an image will pop into his head that you can then describe. It's very different for every patient."

Sam nodded again. For all the research he had been doing on his own, and Cas too, it sounded like what they had been reading. No true cure all, just hopes that fragments would eventually come back. And in their lives, fragments without backstory could be hard to swallow.

"And…physically, how is he?" Sam asked eventually, to which Cas nodded, as he had too been thinking about the question.

"Physically, he is getting better," Dr. Monroe answered with a bit of a smile. "His physical therapy is progressing well, his muscle use is good. He's very stubborn to get back on his feet it seems."

"Yeah, he's as stubborn as they come," Sam let out a breathy laugh and shook his head.

"Stubbornness is good when healing, but in small doses. Not pushing too hard goes for himself as well," the doctor reminded. "But physically, he is almost back to normal. He is more tired than normal, and the head trauma, but that is normal for someone of his circumstance."

"Can we be expected to be able to take him home any time soon?" Cas asked, leaning forward a little in his own chair. It had been almost a month, and they were getting more eager to get back to the bunker, which Dean didn't even know existed, and sort this out in privacy where they could help in their own ways.

Sam watched as Monroe checked a few things in Dean's file and scrunched his eyes together. "Again, no rushing, but…we'll see how the next week progresses. If he continues to improve like this, we can have him transferred to a location closer to your home."

A week? They could be headed home in a week? That immediately brought a smile to Sam's face. "We can drive him back and get set up and everything, just let us know when," he nodded again.

"We will be sure to keep you in the loop. Until then," Monroe stood up and extended his hand to both men, and they exchanged handshakes, "don't be pushing yourselves too hard either."

"We won't," Sam assured.

"Thank you, Dr. Monroe," Cas added, a smile on his face as well. With that, the doctor nodded and sat back down, leaving Sam and Cas to head out of the room and back to Dean's.

Dean had been sitting in a chair looking out the window for…he wasn't sure how long, exactly. Time was hard with the clouds in the sky, his aching head, and the drugs still going through his system. But he had convinced the nurses to let him walk around his room in his off time from physical therapy sit in a real chair today, so that was his win. It was small, but it made him feel more normal and he could watch the snow flurry outside of his own accord.

New York…just like that. He had woken up in a hospital bed in New York with an old Sam and old Cas looking at him, who, after looking in a mirror, was obviously older too. He wasn't with Lisa and Ben, and they weren't here, and he hadn't gotten up the courage to ask why they weren't.

It probably had something to do with the fact that he was missing seven freaking years of his life. Seven. Years. In hunter years, that was like twenty. How many world saving events had he missed? He was guessing Lisa and Ben were part of it somehow, and he had just…lost it all.

Any time he tried to force his brain to go back to remember something new, he couldn't. It just hurt, like a hot spike. Or sometimes, there was just nothing, like someone had replaced the images in his head with a literal blank slate. Cas hadn't healed him yet either, which Dean didn't doubt he would do, so something bad had happened there…right? Probably. Maybe. Dean actually had no idea. It was like trying to piece together a puzzle where 98 out of the 100 pieces were invisible and the two he had didn't fit together.

He had more scars than before too, so that was…something. Not exactly unexpected, just…strange. Sure, he'd never be a clear skinned baby again, but waking up and getting undressed only to find even more scars on his body was definitely a wakeup call.

And then there was Sammy. Gosh, Sam, where did he even begin? The obvious scar on his hand that he had rubbed a few times with a faraway look in his eyes. His eyes, just, in general. They healed a heaviness that Dean hadn't even seen in the time he remembered with the apocalypse. Sam had seen some things, done some things, and Dean was left to wonder how many he caused, how many he was a part of, and how much he could have prevented.

His younger brother just looked older, all around, and not exactly in a bad way, it was just…strange. Sam was physically older than Dean felt, but Dean was still physically older than him. Dean was what, early thirties last he remembered, and suddenly he was approaching forty. What the hell?

He was sinking, and he couldn't find a life raft. Which was funny because apparently his plane had gone down, in the ocean. First off, his plane. Since when did he ride in planes? So again, something was off there.

There was just something off with literally everything, and he didn't know how to fix it. Some of it, he doubted even Sam knew how to.

The sound of the door opening caused Dean to break away from his thoughts and shift his body towards the door. He smiled a bit as Sam and Cas came in, and they too smiled back. Wherever they'd been for the morning, hopefully it would at least yield good news.

"Snowing outside," he commented, unsure of how else to break the ice that seemed to encase every one of their conversations. They were all walking on eggshells around each other, not wanting to break anything fragile should they say the wrong thing.

"Yeah, it gets pretty cold at night. And during the day too, sometimes, just depends," Sam replied easily enough. Dean knew just by looking at his brother's much older face that the light in his eyes was due to the happiness that Dean was awake, but the heaviness on his shoulders were the circumstances that meant Dean was awake.

Both he and Cas pulled up chairs around Dean, who shuffled his a bit so they could all sit comfortably and look at each other.

"How are you, Dean?" Cas asked, getting right down to what they all wanted to know. Hell, even Dean himself wanted to know.

He wanted to say that his head ached something awful even with the drugs, he couldn't figure anything out, he didn't remember anything, he was missing a huge part of their lives, and apparently it was now December and he was in New York after a plane crash. But…he didn't say any of that. Sam and Cas already had enough on their plates for him to be adding more to it, and stuff they couldn't do anything about.

Though he didn't doubt Sam's ability to see through the lie, Dean gave it a halfhearted attempt. "Aces," he said with a slight shrug, still sticking to slightly smaller phrases as he got used to everything again. "Bit of a headache, but to be expected, right?"

"Right," Sam nodded, with an obviously forced smile as he looked to Cas and then back to Dean. His hair fell in front of his face and he had to brush it back, which made Dean smirk. Seven freaking years and Sam still wasn't cutting his hair.

"So…about ready to bust out of here?" Sam's next question had Dean looking at him quizzically. "Dr. Monroe said you're doing well, and if you keep it up in about a week we should be able to take you back home."

Dean couldn't hide the smile on his face, but it slowly faded at the mention of a home. Like Sam had said before, a bunker. So…the motel hopping, was that still a thing? In the time he didn't remember, they had actually found a place to call home?

Sam must have immediately picked up on Dean's quizzical look, for he went right into an explanation. "It's in Lebanon, Kansas. It's this old…let's say supernatural war bunker. I can fill you in more later," he tried.

"You have a memory foam mattress that you're quite fond of," Cas also chimed in, a bit of a smirk tugging at his lips. Oh, so Dean must mention that a lot, that was noted.

"How long have we been there for?" Dean asked slowly, lips pursed after the fact.

Sam's answer came just as slowly. "About three, four years."

They had a home for three or four years, okay, that was going to take some processing…a lot of processing. "But it's great. As soon as you get out of here, we'll get you back in Baby and give you the grand tour, sound good?" Sam's attempt at levity almost fell flat, but there was a saving grace.

Dean immediately perked up at the mention of his Baby. Last he remembered, really, anything, she had been sitting in Lisa's garage. At least she hadn't been there all that time, that was a relief. "You better be taking care of her," Dean said, mildly threatening, knowing that Sam would get it.

Sam did get it, for he let out a low laugh and shook his head, obviously glad to hear his brother speak like that again.

"She is in good condition, Dean, you have nothing to worry about," Cas affirmed for Sam.

After a moment, it occurred to Dean that the Impala was maybe in the best condition out of the four of them, but he didn't voice that opinion.

December 10

In the morning almost a week later, true to Monroe's hopes, Dean was able to sign himself out and be released from the hospital. They had, of course, sent him with some mandatory medications, pamphlets, and doctors to look at in the area around the bunker.

Dean was a bit slower than normal while walking out of the hospital, but he immediately sped up a bit when he saw the Impala sitting in the lot. Cas watched and Sam rolled his eyes as Dean got up to the car and greeted her. After seeing that she was indeed in good condition, Dean got into the passenger seat, Sam in the front, and Cas in the back.

With a final look back at the hospital and a slight weight lifted off their shoulders, Sam drove the Impala out of the lot and down the road, more than happy to finally have a permanent change of scenery.

Not going to lie, I've been looking forward to getting Dean out of the hospital so we can get the story moving! The scars will play a part in the next chapter, so stay tuned for some good brotherly angst ;) If you've got a moment, reviews are always a pleasure to read and reply to!