Chapter 5

The endearingly familiar smell of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies embraced Sam as he opened the door to he and Jess's apartment late that night. He was trying to be quiet, assuming that she would already be asleep this late, but as he closed the door, he recognized Jess's silhouette in the light coming from the kitchen. He felt an immense, overwhelming relief at seeing her safe. He knew he'd gotten rid of the demon, but it didn't keep him from worrying, especially after what it had said.

"Well, it's about time!" she said, smiling and putting her hands on her hips dramatically, as if he were in trouble. "Have you really been studying all this time? Must be one hell of a psych test. Even you don't usually study for this long!"

A strange sensation came over Sam in that moment, there in the darkness of the TV room with Jess standing in the pool of light from the kitchen. He was drawn to her with an intensity he'd never felt before, not because of her but because of him. If he had learned anything in his wild, bizarre life, it was to trust his instincts, and he knew that whatever this was wasn't bad, wasn't going to hurt him.

Not that he could have resisted it even if he wanted to. He let his backpack slide off of his shoulder to the floor and left it behind as he went over to where Jess was standing and took her in his arms, breathing in white daisies and the summer sun after the rain, letting her chase away thoughts of ghost and demons and evil creatures lurking in the night.

"Come on, I made cookies," she said, pulling away and giving him a quick kiss before leaving him at the kitchen door to remove the last batch from the oven.

Sam felt the loss of her presence like a physical blow. He wanted to move through the door, enter the kitchen and go help her. But he felt something holding him back, so he leaned sideways on the doorframe instead. He found out what it was when something the demon had said that night rose unbidden in his mind. You can't escape your future, and Jess isn't a part of it.

Sam knew that demons lie. Dean had taught him that. Then, if this demon had lied, Jess had to be a part of his future, because it had said she wasn't.

That's when he decided he would ask her to marry him. Not yet, but soon. He had to find a ring first, maybe let a few more months of them living together go by, make sure everything was still going to work out.

He made a promise to himself, right then and there. He was done with the supernatural, for good. No more. That was it. If he had to, he'd protect himself and Jess from something, but that was it. He swore, right then and there, that he was done hunting.

He shifted his weight away from the doorframe and stepped through the doorway, out of the shadows of the darkened room behind him and into the warm glow of the kitchen towards Jess.

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Three weeks later, he had the nightmare for the first time.

He was in their apartment, in the dream, coming home from something, because there was his packed duffel bag sitting on the floor. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding one of Jess's cookies. He could taste it, the best cookies in the world, because she always put so many chocolate chips in them and the dough was still soft and warm.

He laid back on the bed and closed his eyes, in the dream, and sighed, completely content and happy to be back from wherever he had been. He would have been worried that Jess wasn't already in the bed asleep this late at night, but he could hear the shower running in the bathroom, and he was too tired to open his eyes and get up to go see her. He could see her when she got out.

Suddenly, in the dream, he felt something wet hit his forehead, and a second drop of whatever it was followed suit. Confused, he opened his eyes to see the most horrifying thing he could ever imagine.

There was Jess, pinned to the ceiling above him, her golden hair fanned out around her head. He knew what was on his forehead now—her blood—because he had known that tangy, coppery smell since childhood when Dad and Dean would come back injured from a hunt gone wrong and he could see the red stain seeping through Jess's white nightgown at her stomach. Her beautiful face, her sea-foam-blue eyes, were frozen in an expression of eternal terror and panic and confusion, begging Sam for some sort of explanation as to why this was happening to her.

"No!" his dream-self yelled, and flames erupted around her, roaring and spreading outwards from her body to cover the whole ceiling. Sam felt the heat from the fire reach him, stifle him, tasted ash and smoke on his tongue, and he could do nothing but lay there while the woman he loved burned, burned…

Sam sat up abruptly, awake, his chest heaving. He looked beside him, frantically…and there Jess was, sleeping peacefully beside him. Not on the ceiling, not burning, not dying.

Sam put his head in his hands, trying to will away the headache brought on by the intense nightmare. It had all seemed so real. It had felt real. A tiny voice inside him pointed out the obvious—he had just dreamed of Jess dying the exact same way his Mom had. It was just like Dad had always told him and Dean it had happened. Pinned to the ceiling, blood dripping from the stomach, staring down at you before erupting into flames that spread to consume everything.

But it had just been a nightmare. Right? What the demon had said three weeks ago, that Jess would die because she wasn't part of his future, that hadn't been true. It wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. Could it?

No. Never. Sam wouldn't let it. Besides, it had only been a nightmare. A vivid one, but still just a nightmare, a bad dream. Just a dream.

Just a dream.

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Hope you enjoyed this! Please review and let me know what you're thinking; I like constructive criticism best. :D