Sam sat on one of the benches outside the library, legs stretched out before him, reading in the sunshine. It was just cool enough to maybe need one of his old flannel shirts. Like the very first chill of an approaching NY autumn. Except that this chill was more like winter for Palo Alto.

Rebecca slid in beside him and he looked up from his heavy Pre-Law book. "Hey."

She nudged him playfully. "Hey."

She gave him her beautiful smile and Sam found himself reluctantly smiling back.

"Soooo," She began. "We're having a party for Zach tonight."

Sam winced. "I forgot."

"Well, its his birthday so you better show up. It's down at Roger's."

Roger's was a college hangout down the street from their apartment. Sam knew it well.

He hesitated. "You know I hate parties. I won't know anyone there."

"Well I'm there. Duh. And Zach and Brady."

Sam sighed and Rebecca snuggled into his side a little. He let her. He still wasn't quite used to people so openly demonstrative with their affections, but part of him really liked it. He put his arm around her.

"You're going to make me, aren't you?" He asked with a note of resignation in his voice.

"Of course I am."

Sam gave her a warm smile. "Of course you are."


Despite his almost terminal shyness, Sam Winchester had always done well with women. He discovered early on that women liked to talk and they liked to talk about themselves. And since Sam neither liked to talk much, nor talk about himself, it was a comfortable balance.

So it was no surprise that even though Sam came to the party late and plunked himself down in an empty corner alone, the thin brunette that Zach had introduced him to settled in across from him and didn't leave his side.

Sam listened politely to her, asked the right questions at the right times and feigned interest in her topics of conversation.

Three beers in and she was starting to get physically demonstrative and even more loquacious. He wasn't looking to go back to his dorm with anyone tonight. Had never been into casual sex the way that his older brother was.

He was wondering when he could disentangle himself from her when Brady placed an heavy hand on his shoulder and gave the brunette a charming smile. "Tracey...hey. hope you don't mind. I need to borrow Sam here for a moment."

He slapped Sam roughly on the shoulders and ushered him to his feet.

Sam stood up with a muttered apology.

Brady gave Tracey an appreciative glance before slinging his arm around Sam and moving them across the crowded room, his expensive loafers treading alongside Sam's scuffed old blue tennis trainers. "So my friend Jessica needs some help moving her stuff to a new dorm this weekend. She really needs someone to help with the heavy lifting."

Sam snorted. "And lemme guess. I'm the heavy lifter."

"Well you know, I may or may not have volunteered your services," Brady said with a slick smile. "I know this sap named Sam who can't resist helping someone in need."

Brady expertly weaved his way through the crowd, somehow avoiding colliding with elbows and red mugs of beer. He guided Sam along next to him like an inexperienced dance partner, pulling him and changing his trajectory to snake his way through the throng without missing step.

"It's a weird time to be changing dorm rooms, isn't it? I mean mid year like this." Sam asked above the din.

"Yeah, well here's the issue. The water pipes in her dorm room burst or some damn thing." Brady explained, leaning toward Sam's ear. "They need to totally gut the place to clean it up. The walls, the floor. So they're relocating her to a dorm room down the hall."

"Wow." Sam said. "I wonder what caused that?"

Brady shrugged. "Old buildings, ancient plumbing. You know how they are."

"Yeah," Sam replied with a soft huff, his eyes a little distant, filled with something unreadably somber. "Sure do."

He winced as they moved closer toward the DJ and the music grew a bit louder.

Brady walked him up to a high top table where Zach and Rebecca and a long haired blonde were sitting huddled together. Sam gave them a nod. Happy birthday." He said to Zach. He settled onto a vacant stool next to Becky and Brady slung his arm over his friend's shoulders again in slightly tipsy camaraderie. He caught the blonde's attention and she looked up. "Hey Jess. This is my buddy Sam Winchester."

Jess looked up into Sam's eyes with a radiant smile that took his breath. A waterfall of golden hair tumbled around her shoulders. Her blue eyes were alight with humor, with some innocent effervescence that drew Sam's somber nature to it like like a moth to an open flame. They were the eyes of someone who hadn't seen a thousand unspeakable horrors. Who didn't know what that bump in the night might be. Who didn't know anything about mothers burning in their nurseries.

"Sam," Brady said. "This is Jessica Moore."

Sam ducked his head shyly, and his bangs fell over his forehead. "Nice to meet you." He said with his dimpled smile. He jerked his chin toward his friend. "Brady says you're in need of some help moving."

"Yes." She replied, leaning her forearms on the table and angling her head toward Sam so she could be heard through the din. "The pipes exploded in my dorm room. The whole floor is warped and the walls look like the Titanic after it hit the iceberg." She took a sip of her Margarita. "Crazy, right?"

Sam briefly wondered if she was old enough to be drinking. "Yeah." He replied.

Both Zach and Rebecca had turned their attention toward them, either interested in the subject matter or captured by Sam's interest in her.

Brady shoved a beer in Sam's hand and Sam looked up at him in silent appreciation.

"So, long story short," Brady said, casually sitting down next to Sam, looking for all the world like a real life Ken doll. "Sam is helping you move Saturday."

Sam looked over at him. "I am?" He looked back at Jess and saw those beautiful dimples as her eyes slid from his face to Brady's and back to his. "I guess I am."

Sam took a sip of Yeungling.

Jessica Moore was beautiful. He tried to keep his attention off of her cleavage as she leaned over the table to talk to them. "It happened all of a sudden a few nights ago. I was in bed and you could hear the pipes creak and then all of the sudden water was spurting out of the walls."

Rebecca grabbed her brother's beer and took a sip before she slid it back over to him. "Didn't something like that happen with you one time, Sam?"

Sam sat for a moment, a look of concentration on his face as he tried to sort through what tale he might have told Becky. "Well, we lived in this old place with steam radiators once." His eyes grew a little distant for a second. "...and they made this terrible rattling noise in the walls. We were sleeping and the little valve on the end blew off the radiator and shot across the room. Scared the crap outta my brother. Don't know if that compares though."

Jess gave him another smile. "Yay for steam heat?"

He snorted. "Yeah. Takes forever to warm the space too."

Rebecca frowned. "I'm sure there was something else you told me." She looked like she was trying to remember but gave up and shrugged.

"So where are you from, Sam?" Jessica asked, toying with the umbrella in her drink.

Sam took a moment to answer. "Kinda all over. I was born in Kansas but we moved a lot."

She looked him up and down. "Army brat?"

"Kinda." Sam didn't elaborate.

"Don't you know that Sam has no past?" Zach said, beetle black eyes locked on his friend before he gave a wink.

"Sam was raised by wolves." Brady interjected. "He won't talk about himself so we all take turns making up backstories for him."

Sam took the ribbing good-naturedly, with his usual placid nature.

"Didn't Zach come up with the one where he was the love child of Barbara Streisand and Tom Selleck."

Sam's dimples showed and Jess laughed.

"Oh, the one where he was raised in the circus," Rebecca snapped her fingers. "His parents were killed by clowns."

"Hey," Sam deadpanned. "Clowns are evil."

Jessica rolled her eyes with a smile. "Come on. What did he really do? Was I right, military?"

Sam weighed what he should say before he said it and gave his pat answer. "Dad was an ex-marine but he took on a traveling sales job when we were older."

"What did he sell?"

Sam shrugged. "Whatever. Vacuums and stuff."

"That sounds kind of..." she took the umbrella tooth pick out of her drink and opened and closed it with her fingers as she talked. "Bleak." She laughed.

Sam shrugged. "It wasn't ideal...how about you?"

"Oh, I'm from California. A little up the coast."

Brady listened with interest. He could see immediately that he'd chosen the match well. Sam Winchester was lit up in a way he'd seldom seen from him. He was genuinely attentive. His eyes just drinking her in, all that long legged American Beauty.

He hadn't frozen like a deer in headlights when presented with a girl that interested him. That was a nice turn of events. For some reason Brady had expected that perpetual shyness to take over, but it hadn't won out.

A half smile curved Brady's lips as he observed them. The conversation had a nice comfortable flow to it, but what really impressed him was Sam's utterly adept way of dodging personal questions. Deflecting his answers back onto her so that she fed him so much about her and he revealed so little about himself. Yet he still seemed an open book. The life he'd led had crafted Sam Winchester into a consummate liar. It came so naturally to him that he probably didn't even know he was doing it.

If Sam was not the person he was, the gentle good-hearted man he was determined to be, well he'd actually be... dangerous. All that charm and looks and verbal acuity. All that effortless dodging and deflection and secretive nature. Cult leaders were made of what Sam had naturally.

Once again, Brady found himself impressed with Azazel's choice for his second in command. For a moment, he even wondered if it was even a wise plan to turn Sam at all.

Azazel would have to watch his back from his own lieutenant. But then again, demons were used to doing that. And the yellow-eyed demon in particular had done just that for centuries.

Jess, for her part, was falling under Sam Winchester's spell immediately. Honestly, what woman wouldn't? Except, he supposed, for one of those stupidly self-destructive chicks drawn to men with tattoos and leather jackets that held the intriguing promise of shredding their lives.

Jessica Moore wasn't that kind of girl. She was drawn to the light. She'd be drawn to the light in Sam and equally drawn to healing the shadows she saw in his smile. The fatal flaw of women every where. -The instinctive need to nurture twisted into trying to help the psyche of a broken man.

Brady could see how much Sam wanted this. How much he wanted a real human connection underneath all his reserve.

Poor Sam.

Sam cocked his head, listening to Jess talk with something akin to fascination. Brady could spot the almost imperceptible drifting of his attention to her cleavage now and again. So Sam was alive. Hallelujah.

He had fallen under her spell already and Brady hadn't even had to push. Didn't even have to nudge really. He'd merely opened up the door to the trap and Sam had voluntarily wandered in.

"So," Jess said, volleying the subject back to Sam. "Where did you go to high school? What were your aspirations? How'd you end up here with these losers?" She nudged Zach playfully.

Zach's dark brows knitted together. "Losers? Excuse me? Who needed to borrow my car for a week because she drove into a tree?"

"Hey!" Jess nudged him again then looked at Sam. "I swerved to avoid a dog."

"Yeah that's what she tells people."

Sam watched the exchange with silent amusement.

"Worst Chem Lab partner ever," Zach continued.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "You ever take a class with this guy?"

"Actually, yes." Sam replied. "Intermediate Latin."

"How do you say jerk in Latin?" She asked.

Sam paused, wrinkled his brow. "I think...malum."

"Seriously?" Rebecca asked. "You actually know the Latin word for jerk?" She looked over to Jessica. "He knows everything. It's almost annoying."

Sam flushed a bit and dropped his gaze. "Not really. I'm just good at Latin."

Brady knew why. "Sam is a repository of weird knowledge." He said.

Jess smirked and looked at Sam again. "Why is that?"

Sam shrugged, his confidence slipping just slightly. "I'm... I guess I just like weird subjects."

Brady stage whispered. "He is a weird subject."

Jessica was decidedly amused. "Hey Sam," she said. "Don't worry. I know Brady is the weirdest subject of them all." Her eyes searched the room. "Wanna go outside for some air? I'm gonna grab another drink."

Brady opened his mouth to say something and she pointed at him. "No. You...mouth shut."

"Careful, Sam," he said, slapping the young man on the back. "This one is bossy."

Jess stood up, giving them both a nice view of that jean clad backside as she moved through the crowd. Nope. Sam did not stand a chance. Not one chance.

Brady took a sip of his beer and smiled.