Rebecca approached Sam with a warm smile. He turned his head reflexively to hide the mottled bruise and busted lip he'd sustained from his fight over the weekend.

She read the strange body language and cocked her head with a puzzled air. Her smile faltered. "Sam. What happened?"

He shrugged, gave her an apologetic grin. "I fell down the steps?" He said plaintively. Humor to deflect and ask her not to pry. Now Zach may have taken the cue. Dean certainly would have. Becky was a girl. There was no way she was going to let that derail her.

"Yeah, cute." She put her hand, delicate and elegant on his shoulder.

Sam ignored her touch and sat watching the other people shuffle out as the class ended.

"You look really banged up. What happened?"

"I got in a fight." Sam dropped his gaze to the floor. He worried his bottom lip with his tongue for a moment. The scabbed over split burned and threatened to bleed every time he moved his mouth.

"Why?" Rebecca's gaze was warm and sympathetic and puzzled. "You're not the fighting type."

He shrugged. "Couple of guys at a party." His soft tenor barely registered over the other voices.

She snorted. "Do you want to run that by me again?"

Sam edged out stiffly from behind the desk of the lecture hall. He was sore as hell. He took his head in his hands and sucked in a breath as his vision swam for a moment.

Rebecca's eyes were on him. "What's wrong?"

Sam's breath went out from the pain. He winced and shook his head fractionally. "I'm okay." He whispered. "Headache."

"Sam." Her hands were on his arm. "Do you want me take you to the nurse's office?"

"No. I'm fine. I really am."

"Come back to our place. You can crash with Zach and I."

Sam finally manned up enough to stand up properly and reach to scoop his books under his arm. He eyed his book bag sitting next to his desk warily. Ducking down to get that was going to be a challenge.

Rebecca seemed to anticipate his train of thought, so she reached to grab it, lifted it to the desk top. "Here."

Sam flushed. "Thanks."

"So you're fighting with guys at parties now. Is Tyson's new leaf rubbing off on you?"

He gave her a half smile. "I hope not."

"Sam, please come with me."

"Becky, I'm fine." He told her gently, unsure of what to do with the attention. Is this what civilian life was? Were people concerned over some bumps and bruises? Over a mild concussion?

She wasn't taking no for an answer. She tugged him after her by the shirt sleeve as easily as grabbing an errant puppy by the collar. Sam let her drag him, wincing as he stepped.

"My dorm is closer. I'd rather go back to my dorm room and lay down." He didn't tell her he had Vicodin stashed in his desk and he could really use one.

Becky tilted her head up, jaw set. "Tell me what you were fighting about. Come on, stop being annoyingly vague."

Her beauty really struck Sam sometimes. He knew Dean would have been on her faster than she could blink, but Sam didn't work that way.

Somewhere along the line he'd fallen into the friend zone and he was fine with that. But she smelled really good to him as he trailed behind her.


Rebecca won the debate of where to go by plying Sam with promises of pizza topped with everything and cold beer. Her diplomacy coaxed him back to the apartment she shared with her older brother, Zach.

Sam sometimes wondered if one of them were adopted because they looked nothing alike. Zach was dark and stocky, a compact man with beetle black hair and dark eyes.

Rebecca was like every California blonde in every movie ever. Thin and willowy, straight flaxen hair and perfect teeth.

Sam pried off the cap on his beer and slouched into their comfortable overstuffed tan couch. His shoulders relaxed into the softness and he took a swallow of beer. It crawled pleasantly down his throat. He'd gotten used to craft beers in his stay at Stanford, even though he and his brother had always just grabbed whatever they could pick up at a Gas and Sip.

His thoughts turned to Dean. Where was he? Was he okay?

Becky leaned over and pressed a cool cloth to Sam's forehead and he jumped a little at the unexpected sensation.

"Geez." She said. "Just a damp cloth."

"Sorry." Sam replied, a little embarrassed.

She left the cloth on him and settled into the loveseat across from him, folding her pretty bare feet under her in the pose petite women tended to use.

"So then you're a hero." She told him, having finally pulled the truth of his encounter out of him.

He shrugged. "I guess."

"You guess?" She scoffed. "Sam."

"I'm not exactly a white knight."

"Well." She cocked her head. "You look just like one to me."

He tried to hide his smile behind the bottle of Sierra Nevada as he took a swig. "Your white knights have black eyes and split lips?"

"Of course," she replied. "A knight with no dents in the armor is one who never fought."

That made him think of Dean for some reason. He quashed it down. Dean was like the chorus of a song over-played on the radio. There every time Sam turned it on. Anytime he had a free second or a minute to associate anything.

"Sam are you worried about Tyson?" Her brows knitted together.

"Yeah." Sam responded, removing the cool cloth. "Hasn't been himself in months."

"I see it too. Zach thinks I'm worrying needlessly."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Zach would. I've lived with the guy. He's been pretty heavy into the party scene and a little scary with the recreational drug use." He paused, took another sip. "I hate to watch him go down because he's gonna tank hard and fast."

Rebecca looked sad. "Such a good guy too."

"Yeah he was."

"Ever known an addict?" She asked.

Sam grew quiet for a moment and shook his head. "No, but my Dad drank a lot."

Her interest was suddenly keen, no doubt baited by the tiny bit of info Sam had just given her about his past. The very past he kept such a tight lid on.

"Alcoholic?" She asked.

He let a slow huff of breath out of his nose and then appraised the statement. He nodded. "Yeah. I guess. I guess he was." His fingers toyed absently with the label on his bottle. The glass was slick with perspiration. "He was really independent. Completely functional... so it's hard to think of him in those terms but he was always half in the bag it seems."

"You ever miss him?"

Sam's heart sped and skipped before it settled down. He didn't know what to make of it.

"Not really." He lied.

Part of it was true. He didn't miss the fights, the altercations, the clashing of wills.

He went quiet for a moment. "But I do miss my brother."

"I can't imagine life without mine."

The statement almost made Sam tear up. He hid it behind a swig of beer.

"Sam we're throwing a party in a few weeks. Come."

"We'll see." He replied absently. Fully not intending to.

"I won't take no for an answer."

She never did. Rebecca had mastered the velvet steamroller routine. Gently bullying you into whatever she wanted. Sam envied the gift.

His ribs throbbed. His head hurt again. The Everything Pizza hadn't settled in his gut as well as he'd hoped.

"Sam, are you okay?"

"Just have a really bad headache." He pressed a few fingers against the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly. An image of his writing desk popped into his head randomly. He really wanted the pain pill he had stashed in there.

"Wow. Are you sure we shouldn't we take you to the nurse?"

"I'm sure," Sam replied, his response bitten off.

The pain eased a little and an image of the girl he'd saved the other night popped into his mind.

Sam was no stranger to random thoughts and flights of fancy but something about this felt oddly foreign to him. "Rebecca, I'm gonna go walk back to campus. I think I need to lie down."

"Are you safe to walk there by yourself? Maybe I should take you back?"

"No I'm fine. I'm gonna leave my books here I just...I really want to get into my own bed."

"Your shitty dorm bed that's too small for you versus our sprawling couch or Zach's memory foam mattress?"

The woman truly needed to be a sales representative.

"Why are you trying to take me hostage?"

"Because I've barely seen you in weeks. You are terrible about keeping in touch."

Sam looked away shyly.

"You have friends that care about you and then when something like this happens you don't even tell us." She had a way of putting something that might seem like a lecture coming from someone else in such a sweet way, you didn't mind.

"Okay." He said, recognizing the truth in her statement. "I'm sorry. I'll...I'll be better about it."

There was a knock on the door and Rebecca got up to answer it. "I forgot Shelley was supposed to drop by."

Sam groaned. He so wasn't up for meeting new people. Socializing took it out of him on the best of days, but on days like today, he just couldn't bring himself to engage in small talk. He stood up to use the interruption as an excuse to leave.

Rebecca opened the door and there stood the woman Sam had saved the night before.