Carmen slowly turned her head to look directly at Sam. Her furious eyes bored into his. "What?" Her voice shook with rage.

"There are things that I've been keeping from you, but I think it's time you knew the truth." Sam said. Carmen just stared from below her lashes. Anger was bubbling up in the pit of her stomach, and it took all of her self-control not to let it escape her. "Mel's death…it was my fault. Carmen, I think…I think it was The Demon that killed her. And I think the thing did it because we saved her.

"Think about it; think about the people The Demon has killed so far. Mom in my nursery, Jess in our dorm, now Mel, the girl we just rescued! I feel like It's following me, like it's taunting me!"

"Sam, please." She rolled her eyes, keeping the tears from spilling out of them. "Stop being so cynical. You're no more to blame for any of these deaths than I am, and if I'm not allowed to wallow in self-annihilation neither are you."

"Carmen, let me finish." Said Sam. She waited then, but he said nothing. A frustrated sigh escaped him as he rose from his seat and ran his hands roughly through his tresses. It was obvious that he was struggling, but Carmen was not in a sympathetic state of mind.

"I think…Carmen, I think there's something wrong with me." He finally said softly as he stared at the ground. Carmen still thought he was being overdramatic, and it made her nostrils flare dangerously, but she held her tongue. "The nightmares I've been having? I think they're more than just nightmares.

"It started the night I left. I remember it perfectly. I had moved into my dorm, and I didn't really know what to do with myself. Without you and Dean…Anyway, before I knew it, I had fallen asleep. The dream I had was so vivid it was scary. I had dreamt of you, drowning yourself in a bottle. You drank way too much at some bar, and probably would have kept going, but Dean found you. You fought him hand and foot, but he finally got you back to the motel. Then I saw you puking your guts up. I woke up, and I felt nauseous."

Goosebumps erupted down Carmen's spine as she stared fearfully at Sam. "I remember that night…well, I don't, really, but I remember Dean telling me about it. How the hell did you…"

"I had a premonition. And they've been happening ever since. But I didn't know that they were visions at the time, how could I? A lot of them were about you, when you were angry or scared or upset…I guess I was tuned into you. They were so intense, like I was experiencing every emotion but on overdrive."

"So you're, what, a psychic? Is that what you're trying to tell me, Sam?" She pushed herself up from her seat on the rock and got so close to him that they would have been nose-to-nose, had Carmen's nose reached up that high.

"I…" he stammered.

"And you've known this whole time and decided to keep it to yourself? Don't you think this is something you should have told me, something that I would have liked to know?" She bellowed angrily.

"I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid-"

"So you lied to me instead?"

"Carmen, I'm telling you the truth now!" Sam exclaimed at her. He sighed, exasperated. "And there's, uh, there's one more thing." Carmen crossed her arms over her chest and furrowed her brow at Sam, waiting. He turned away from her, gazing out at the setting sun. "Weeks before…before…Jessica. I had dreamt about…I saw her…I," Sam sniffed loudly, and Carmen's anger began ebbing away, to be replaced by sympathy. "Carmen, I saw her die, and I didn't do anything to save her. I could have saved her."

She closed her eyes for a moment. As much as she wanted to be angry with him still, she couldn't. "Sam, no. You didn't know. You didn't know that something like that was really going to happen. How could you?" Sam nodded, allowing Carmen's soothing words to comfort him. He sat down, cross-legged, leaning against the boulder. Carmen slid down to sit next to him. "This is why you've been so distant lately, isn't it? You felt guilty…responsible."

"Of course I did, but it's more than that." Sam pulled his knees up to his chest and took a deep breath. "Carmen, the night that you and Dean came for my help, my whole world flipped upside down. When I saw you standing in the doorway, every feeling I had ever had for you hit me again, like running into a brick wall at top speed. It was as if Jess didn't even exist, like that whole two years of my life didn't exist. But it was also like seeing you for the first time. You were so grown up, so mature, I almost didn't even recognize you.

"I knew the moment I saw you that I couldn't stay with Jess. I didn't even contemplate being with you; I just knew that I couldn't be with anyone else. I was planning on ending it with Jess when I got back…but I never had the opportunity." Sam stared down at the ground.

"No," Carmen whispered. Sam looked quizzically over at her. "I can't hear this, I can't…"

"What?"

"Sam, you can't tell me this now, okay? There's too much for me to handle, too much to take in! First you tell me you're psychic, and that you've been watching me for two years anytime that I was vulnerable. Then you tell me that you were about to leave your girlfriend because of me?" She jumped up and put her head between her hands. "How do you expect me to react to that? What, you think, now that Jess is out of the way, we can just act like everything is normal between us, that everything is the same as before you left-"

"No! I was just telling you-"

"Well I don't want to know!" She yelled, and she stormed away, leaving Sam staring after her, dumbfounded and wounded.

Dean sauntered over to the boulder that Carmen and Sam had disappeared behind. He found Sam looking over at the now dark sky with his arms crossed. Looking at his brother, even from a distance, he could see the distress etched in his features.

"What happened?" He asked. Sam just shook his head and stared at the ground. Dean sighed, letting Sam know he would pry no further. "Where's Carmen?" Sam nodded in the direction Carmen stormed off to. Dean didn't feel like dealing with her crap. It had been a rough night for all of them. "What crawled up her ass this time?"

Sam collapsed into his seat on the boulder and told his brother everything he had just told Carmen, leaving out the parts involving Jess. Dean didn't need to know about that. He spoke in a dry, monotone voice, not having the energy to break it to him lightly after Carmen's rejection.

"A psychic?" Dean sigh. "Alright…alright. Did Dad know?"

"No. I haven't spoken to dad since the night I left."

Dean ran his and over his face. "Sammy, why didn't you tell me about this?"

"I didn't think it was something you would want to hear."

"Come on, Sam. You gotta know me better than that. Even if I didn't want to hear it, I'd want to know it. Help you through it."

"Yeah, well, that's what I thought Carmen would have said, but…"

Dean slapped a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. You know how she is. She hears something she doesn't like, and she bolts. She'll come around. So, what do you think all this freaky vision stuff is about?"

Sam shrugged. "You know Dean, I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with The Demon. I don't know how I know, I just have this feeling he's behind them."

Dean studied his face. "Gotta trust your intuition," he said finally.

"What'd you hear from Bobby?" asked Sam, nodding to the cell phone in Dean's hand.

"He said he doesn't know what killed Mel. Coulda been our Demon, could have been another demon, could have been a person for all we know."

"No, that would have been way too coincidental. Whatever killed her was definitely supernatural."

"I agree. But going back there isn't going to do any good; if it was The Demon, it's long gone by now."

They stared out at the black abyss that was stretched out in front of them. Both Winchesters were silent for a while, breathing deeply the fresh air that surrounded them. Then, without a word, Dean pushed himself up and went to find Carmen.

He found her a little ways away, laying flat on her back on a blanket on the side of the road. Her dark hair fanned out around her head like a crown.

Dean sat next to her and looked up at the same night sky he had just been gazing at with his brother. She barely acknowledged him, except for the fact that Dean could feel her tense up from the discomfort of no longer being completely alone.

"He told me," Dean stated. Carmen continued to stargaze. "He thinks it's The Demon; I think he's right." Still no response.

"Carmen, you know, you put on this tough façade, like you don't care about anything, but I know you better. Underneath this I-don't-give-a-crap attitude, you're scared. You're scared that something bad is going to happen to him, or that he'll leave again, just like last time, so you run. You think maybe it will hurt less that way. But he's a lot more terrified than you right now, and he needs you. So you better go back there."

He wouldn't have even know that she heard him, except, as he got up to leave, he saw her jaw tighten and her lip quiver.

A half hour later, the trio silently reconvened at the Impala. Neither Sam nor Carmen asked where they were headed, or anything else for that matter; it was as if they were having a contest of who could hold out speaking the longest. This left Dean to endure a long, lonely car ride.

They finally arrived at their destination; a familiar beat up house with so much twisted up metal and so many beat up cars in the front of it that it could pass for a junkyard.

"Bobby's?" Sam finally questioned.

"Bobby's." Dean confirmed shortly. He was annoyed at the pair of them for carrying on their silence for so long.

Bobby came out in his signature trucker's hat and beat up old vest, shotgun in hand, looking ready for anything. But when his eyes found the black Impala in the darkness, his face cracked into a smile.

"Took ya long enough," Bobby said to Dean as they all got out. "Long ride?"

"Oh, you have no idea."

"Expecting company Bobby?" Sam asked, nodding to the shotgun in his hand.

"Can't be too careful." Bobby growled as they all headed through his rickety front door. "How ya been kid?" He said aside to Carmen as he held the door for her.

"Been okay," she answered with a half smile. "How've you been? Taking care of that bike?"

"That last crash was a big one, didn't know if she'd survive, but looks like I'll be able to get her back up and running."

"Can't wait." Carmen's twisted smile became wicked at the thought.

"Don't get too excited." Dean chimed in. "That thing's staying in the garage where it belongs this time."

"She belongs out on the road," Carmen retorted.

"It belongs in a friggin' junk yard!"

"Will you two stop bickering like children?" Bobby screeched. Sam smirked, and Bobby turned to walk into the small but cozy kitchen. Dean shoved Carmen behind his back, and Carmen, in turn, punched Dean in the shoulder.

"So, Bobby," Dean said after pulling Carmen's ponytail. "What was this job you were telling me about on the phone?"

"Iowa. Been checking out a little town called Shelby. Weird things have been goin' on all over that town. There've been four different families, all unrelated, that have been torn apart for no apparent reason." Bobby brought over newspaper clippings and printouts containing the pictures of four different weeping teenagers. "Middle of the night, no warning, no robbery. And there's always one member of the family left untouched, to awaken one morning and find their entire family slaughtered."

Sam looked outraged. "That's…that's…"

"Too horrible for words." Carmen finished for him. They locked eyes awkwardly for a brief second. "And definitely supernatural."

"You sure?" Dean asked. "Maybe it's a seriously messed up serial killer. Maybe not our kinda thing."

"Police have no suspects, no leads, and they can't figure out how the killer got in and out of the house without breaking in or triggering the alarms that three of the four families were armed with."

"Oh," was all Dean managed.

"Yeah," Bobby responded. "I actually have a bit more research to do before I can send you kids off to investigate. Just got wind before you got here of a fifth family. Wish I had heard 'bout this sooner. Maybe we coulda done something…" And with that, he headed off upstairs.

They stood in silence for a while, staring down at the pictures of the sobbing adolescents. Carmen picked up a newspaper clipping and looked it over. Four families, maybe even a fifth, completely torn apart. It was sickening. She threw the newspaper down on the table with the others, crossed her arms over her chest, and turned to gaze out the large window.

"Carmen," said Sam, "we can't save everyone." But she didn't want to hear it, especially from him.

Bobby came down an hour later, after Sam and Dean had stolen a meal from his kitchen, and told them about the newest victims. The only member left alive, he said, was a girl of twenty-three. Bobby showed them a picture of a pretty blond with big brown eyes and a sad expression.

"Crash here for the rest of the night," Bobby ordered. "You can hit the road in the morning. Shouldn't take you too long to get there."

"Thanks Bobby." Carmen said with a rare smile. Bobby's house was as close to a permanent home as any of them had ever had. There were three bedrooms: Bobby's, Deans, and Carmen and Sam's. They had always shared a room and a bed together, for as far back as she could remember. Dean and Sam made their way upstairs to their respective rooms, but Carmen hung back. She didn't want to address the issue of where she would be sleeping tonight just yet.

"Carmen!" Bobby whispered slyly. He gave her a wink and nodded to the garage.

When Bobby opened the door, Carmen's jaw dropped. Not only did her bike look ready to ride again, it looked better than before she crashed it. The sleek metal gleamed even in the dim light of the puny garage lamp. The shimmer called to her as she dragged her hand from one end to the other, admiring.

"Bobby, she looks…wow."

He smiled sheepishly. "Didn't want to say anything of front of Dean; I know he has a stick up his ass about this bike, but she's ready to ride. Took the liberty of polishing her up for ya. You can take her tomorrow, if you can get her past Dean, and with her stealthy purr, it shouldn't be too hard."

"He's just jealous because she makes the Impala look like a grandpa. Thank you so much Bobby," she cooed as she threw her arms around him.

Bobby had already gone to bed by time she was done admiring his handy work. She tore herself away from her new toy and stepped back into the now quiet house. Her eyes felt heavy, but she had no desire to sleep. Instead, she decided to research the fifth family that fell victim to whatever evil thing was tearing all these lives apart. She knew they would have to speak to the girl that had survived, but she was not looking forward to it. This case hit too close to home with all three of them. A job where families were being destroyed was always uncomfortable.

But Carmen was distracted from her quest for research when she passed Sam's room and saw a faint light emitting from it. She stood for a moment debating whether or not she should knock…

Sam closed his laptop with a sigh and glanced over at the clock next to the bed. It was already 2 a.m. Even though he was exhausted, he couldn't stand to let his eyes close. He needed to clear his mind; he needed some fresh air. He stood up from his bed and opened the door, only to encounter a pair of big, light brown eyes that looked just as shocked to see him as he was to see them.

"Carmen? What are you still doing up?"

She shrugged. "Sam, can we talk?"

He looked guarded, but nonchalantly said, "Sure. I was just gonna go for a walk."

Carmen nodded and they headed down Bobby's beat up old staircase and outside. It was dark but for the few lanterns Bobby had burning around the yard. The moon and stars were hidden behind bushels of dark clouds overhead. Sam thought he felt a faint drizzle as they circled the boarder of Bobby's dwelling.

Carmen didn't say anything as they made their first round, but Sam was not going to speak first. He waited, and not in vain.

"Sam, earlier tonight," she started. "I didn't mean to make you feel…you know I would never…I was just angry about…" She sighed. "You know?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Why don't you finish some of your sentences, then maybe I'll know."

She sucked in a deep breath. "I'm sorry." She barely mumbled as she crossed her arms and looked at her feet.

"What was that?" Sam asked forcefully.

Carmen stopped walking and stood in front of Sam. "I'm sorry." She said clearly and ingenuously. "And I want you to know…I didn't get angry because of the things you were telling me. I was angry because…I just was, like I always am." Sam looked her in the eyes and nodded in way of forgiveness. "To be honest, I wasn't even shocked."

Sam scoffed. "You weren't shocked? So, you expected me to tell you that I was a freak?"

"You're not a freak, Sam." She said genuinely. "Look, whatever this psychic thing is, whatever it means, wherever it comes from, we'll figure it out." He looked unconvinced as his eyes dropped to the ground and he pouted his lip. "And, whatever's going on with us…we'll figure that out, too."

His green eyes gleamed as he looked at her fondly and nodded. As they took their time walking back to the house, Sam took Carmen's hand and didn't let it go.

"Night, Sam." Carmen said as they reached his room. She dropped his hand.

"Carmen, where are you planning on sleeping tonight?" He asked before she could leave.

"The couch," she replied without hesitation.

Sam rolled his eyes once more. "You take the bed, I'll get the couch."

"Yea, that makes a lot of sense, considering half your body would be hanging off that tiny little thing. I'll be fine, Sam."

"You probably aren't planning on getting any sleep anyway." He mumbled as he turned away. Carmen's jaw clenched at this. He knew how to make her temper flare in an instant, even after they had forgiven each other moments before.

"No, you're right, I'm not planning on it." She spat.

"Carmen, I'm sorry, I don't want to fight." Sam sighed. "But this morning I told you everything. Everything that's been going on with me, everything I've been keeping from you since we all started hunting again. It would be nice if you would…" But he stopped at the look on Carmen's face.

"I have nothing to tell," she said in a low but fierce tone. She turned on her heal and marched down the beat up staircase. She slept for only an hour on the small, lumpy couch that night.