PART ONE - SAM

Sam is asleep and drooling over the notes he's taking for his Civil Procedures class when the phone in the kitchen starts ringing. As he sits up, the corner of the notebook page sticks to his cheek, soggy with spit, he hears Jessica's muffled grumbling down the hall. She still manages to reach the phone before he wakes up enough to stand on his half-numb legs.

"'lo?" she asks sleepily, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand before rubbing her eyes. There's a pause as whoever's on the other end of the line speaks and Jessica glances at Sam, then at the clock above the counter next to the refrigerator. "It's two-thirty in the morning. Who is this?" Her eyes widen as her gaze darts back to Sam. "Yeah, okay." She holds out the phone, hopelessly tangled cord making it impossible for her to bring the receiver to him. "It's your dad."

Sam ignores the uncomfortable jolts of almost-pain as he stands, muscles tingling with the pins-and-needles sensation from a lack of circulation, and crosses the room into the kitchen. There's only one reason his father would be calling this late or ever, and it's not good. Sam takes the receiver and settles the age-stained plastic against his ear, gaze focused on the peeling linoleum next to the baseboard beside the fridge. "Is he...?" but Sam can't even ask the words.

"I don't know, Sammy," John Winchester says, voice rough. "He should have met up with me for a job three days ago – was supposed to call when he finished the job he was working down in New Orleans and that was a week ago. I wouldn't be calling you if it wasn't important and I don't expect you to want to help me after the things I said to you the last time we saw each other. But this is Dean."

Sam averts his stare from Jessica's confused and concerned face. "What do you need me to do?"

"Can you – I don't want to ask you to do something you can't do, Sam."

"Dad," Sam says, exasperated. "It's Dean."

"Can you get to New Orleans? See if you can get a bead on him, where he might've gone? I'm in the middle of a case right now and-"

"When?" Sam rubs a hand down the side of his face and tries not to think about how easy he finds it to walk away from Jess and this perfectly normal life he's built for himself with just the mention of Dean's name. But this is the life Dean wanted for him, not the one he wanted for himself, after all. Still, he should feel guilty for so readily volunteering to go.

"As soon as you can. I'll see when the earliest flight is out and I'll call you back. I'll pay for everything."

"Okay."

"And Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Sam hangs up without another word and moves into the bedroom, avoiding Jessica's anxious gaze.

"Sam?" she starts, sitting on the edge of the mattress beside the old duffel Sam's pulled out from the back of their closet. "Where are you going?"

"My, uh– My brother is kind of missing and my dad wants me to go check on him. See if I can find him, you know? I'm sure he's fine, just drops off the radar sometimes, and he-"

"Sam, stop. This is the same brother you haven't seen or heard from since your father kicked you out."

"I know. But he's still my brother." Sam watches Jessica shake her head, face falling, as he shoves a couple days' worth of clothes into the bag. He pulls the zipper closed and moves to stand between Jessica's knees. "Look, Jess. I don't expect you to understand, but I have to go. I'll be back before my interview."

"I just..." Jessica sighs as she looks up at Sam. "I don't know. You're such a good person, Sam. You deserve better than how they treated you."

Sam's not exactly sure how to respond to that but, thankfully, he doesn't have to; the phone rings again, effectively interrupting the conversation. He drops a kiss to Jessica's forehead before going to answer the phone. "Hello?" he answers after the third ring.

"I booked you on a three-forty-five direct to New Orleans from SFO. You can pick up the ticket at the American Airlines desk."

"I have to be back by Wednesday afternoon."

There's a moment of staticky silence before John finally answers. "Okay. When you get to New Orleans, you're looking for a man named Tobias DesLandes." He continues on to give Sam the directions, which Sam scrawls on the magnetic pad of paper on the fridge. "Call me with your flight info when you come back and I'll pick you up. You can tell me then what you find."

"All right."

They hang up without saying goodbye and Sam turns to find Jessica standing behind him, holding his bag. "So," she sighs wearily, tension around her eyes, "where am I taking you?"

"SFO."

The drive to the airport takes a little over half an hour, the highway traffic blessedly light. Jessica doesn't say a word until she pulls up into the drop-off zone in front of the main entrance. "Be careful."

"I will," Sam promises, leaning across the center console to press a chaste kiss to Jessica's lips. He briefly thinks about the engagement ring he was looking at last week and how maybe when he gets back, after he makes sure Dean's okay, he'll man up and buy it. Maybe.

Jessica reaches for his hand and holds it tight. "I love you."

Sam holds her gaze in the weak light of the overhead dome and repeats the words back. They feel like a lie.

Jessica pulls away from the curb before Sam reaches the automatic door and Sam has to wonder if she felt it, too.

Sam manages to nap for the most of the four-plus hours he's in the air; even after four years of being in one place, it's still easier for him to fall asleep while he's in motion. There are hundreds of things that were ingrained into Sam as a kid and quite a few that he seriously doubts he'll ever outgrow. His small stash of well-maintained weapons hidden beneath a loose floorboard under the bed are a testament to that just as much as how easily he can fall asleep in a moving vehicle. And how willingly he is to jump back into a life he'd promised he was done with when it's Dean that's in trouble.

Sam dreams briefly of his last night with Dean, wakes with an almost-forgotten heat low in his belly as the plane starts to descend. He doesn't even try to will away the afterimages like he usually would – Jessica's clear blue gaze is nowhere around to make him feel guilty. He stays in his seat by the window until the plane is mostly empty, watching the sky to the east slowly brighten, mentally planning his day and what he's going to say to his brother when he finally tracks Dean down. It's been over a week since he was last seen, so he could theoretically be anywhere in the country by now.

Grabbing his only bag from the overhead compartment, Sam follows the last of the stragglers off the plane and looks for signs posted that will lead him to the car rental counter. Within fifteen minutes, he finds himself squeezing in behind the wheel of a Ford Focus so compact that it makes him feel like he's driving a sardine can with wheels. It nearly smells like one, too.

He adjusts the seat until it's all the way back, so his knees are more or less straight, and low enough that he only has to duck slightly to not hit his head. Sam keeps the windows up, air conditioning running to keep the humidity and the swamp-smell at bay. It's barely been two months since the hurricane tore through and devastated the area and the place still looks like a disaster zone.

The directions he'd scrawled down lead him north over Lake Pontchartrain, a half-hour long drive over open, murky water littered with debris. Back on solid land, he finds himself crossing into Tangipahoa Parish. He tries the word out on his tongue as he takes a left on highway 22, following the directions to Tobias DesLandes' home. At one time, the house was probably a modest one-story settled high atop a brick foundation, but now the windows are patched up with plywood and a couple bright blue tarps span part of the roof. Just another of the many casualties of Katrina.

The man that greets Sam outside looks only a couple years older than John, a graying, scraggly beard covering most of his chin and jaw except for where a shiny, pink scar curves down from his left cheek and across his throat. Sam climbs from the car, grateful to stretch his legs, and shakes the weathered hand Tobias offers. "Sam Winchester."

"Tobias DesLandes. I'm sure your daddy filled you in on the situation." He gestures towards the house and heads in that direction, prompting Sam to follow.

"He told me he sent Dean down here to take care of a rugaru problem?" Sam says, climbing the newly built stairs and following Tobias through the screen door.

"Yeah, and your brother burnt down nearly half the parish in the process." Tobias stops in the large front room, stooping down to retrieve a familiar faded, army-green duffel from beside a stained and fraying plaid couch. "He left this behind. That, too," he says, gesturing at the news clippings and hand-written notes taped over a map of the area, specific places marked with red X's.

Sam takes the hint and starts removing Dean's info map from the wall. "Did he mention where he was going?"

"No. But, if I'm completely honest with ya, kid, I'm not sure he knew where he was going."

Sam stops what he's doing to look at Tobias. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, your brother was acting like not all his pistons were firin'. Like he wasn't all there, you know?" He points to his head.

Sam turns back to his task and carefully folds all the news clippings into the map before shoving it into Dean's duffel. "Did he say anything about where he'd been?"

"Wasn't really much for chit-chat. He asked me a few questions and that was the end of it. After he tracked down those rugarus and set 'em afire, he was gone. Only time I been grateful for this hurricane mess, otherwise we'd've lost the whole parish. All gonna have to be rebuilt anyway, but still. Your brother wasn't nearly so neat as I'd been expecting."

"I'm really sorry about that, Mr. DesLandes." He shoulders Dean's bag and meets Tobias' steady gaze. "Do you need anything else? While I'm here, I mean."

"No. I think I got all the help I needed from your brother. I'll give your daddy a call if something does come up."

Sam starts for the door before stopping and turning back towards Tobias. "Any idea at all where he might've been headed?"

"Hurricane knocked loose lots of nasty things. You could probably find a hunt anywhere you'd point at on a Louisiana state map. Good luck trackin' him down," Tobias says dismissively.

"Thanks," Sam nods and pushes through the crooked screen door. He tosses Dean's bag ahead of him through the door as he climbs into the car, offering Tobias a half-assed salute as he backs up and does a quick three-point turn to head back for the main road.

Sam can't help but feel like this whole trip is pointless – Dean's already in the wind and Sam doesn't have a chance of finding him if he doesn't have the slightest clue as to where Dean could be headed next. The only thing that might prove to be helpful is Dean's duffel.

When Sam finally comes across a gas station that's open for service, he pulls into a space near the front doors and heads inside in search of an economy-sized cup of coffee and something for breakfast that looks halfway recognizable. He takes his large coffee and a surprisingly fresh-looking breakfast burrito to the front counter, waiting in a short line until the cashier glances up at him tiredly. "That all?" she asks, pushing a limp braid away from her dark eyes.

"Uh, yeah," Sam says, reaching for his wallet. He wants to ask about local motels, but nearly every building he's passed since he left the airport has had boarded-up windows – Sam doesn't really feel like taking his chances out here when he doesn't have much more than his knowledge to protect himself. He can hear the argument now, his dad or Dean berating him for not coming into this prepared, for not even having the basics of rock salt and holy water on hand. He'd been in a hurry – the more time that was wasted, the more distance Dean would be able to put between himself and New Orleans.

Back in the car, Sam unwraps his burrito halfway and rejoins traffic, driving aimlessly as he eats his breakfast in silence and debates whether he should head back towards the airport or go north. A detour on 22 over the Tangipahoa River makes the decision for him, sending Sam back the way he came. Halfway back to Madisonville, he pulls off the highway into a rutted gravel drive and pulls Dean's bag onto his lap.

There's not much in the duffel: a couple of shirts (one short-sleeved, the other a button-down) tattered and bloodstained on the left side, half a roll of gauze marred with bloody fingerprints, the info and map from the wall at Tobias' that Sam had put in there himself, a lone sock, and a couple of crumpled receipts. No, that's not it – something with a little weight is in the zippered pocket inside. Sam recognizes the shape with his fingers before he even gets the zipper undone; it's Dean's old pocketknife. Sam doesn't think he's seen it since he was twelve, had thought it had gotten left behind at Bobby's when his dad returned from that job with another hunter two days late and angrier than Sam could ever remember seeing him. They'd packed up quickly and left, not leaving much more than a note of thanks to Bobby who'd had his own hunt to take care of.

Sam stashes the knife in the front pocket of his hoodie and returns everything to the duffel except the receipts. He smooths them out over the steering wheel and doesn't find anything telling. There's a Wal-Mart receipt for accelerant and a pack of gum; another from a gas station for thirteen gallons of unleaded, a package of Twinkies, and a forty of Bud; the third is a yellow customer copy from a diner with Dean's order of a bacon cheeseburger and fries written in loopy, girlish print, phone number in the same hand on the back. Written beneath that, though, in Dean's all-caps print is the reminder: CALL DAD TUESDAY.

And that's odd for two reasons: Dean was already done and gone by Tuesday, according to Tobias, and the receipt is from Thursday.

Sam's getting the impression that there's something not right going on with his brother.

He calls his dad as he waits to pull back onto the highway and is met with voicemail after the first ring. "Uh, hey, dad. It's me. I'm at a dead-end here, no idea where Dean's gone or where he's been. Tobias said he seemed...off. There's not really much else I can do here, so I'll call you back later with my flight info." Flipping his phone shut, Sam stamps down on the gas pedal with the toe of his sneaker as an old blue pickup weighed down with a heavy load of plywood bungee-corded into the bed passes, and merges into the sparse traffic on the highway.

It's late when Sam's plane lands in San Francisco – the earliest flight back included layovers in Chicago and Denver – but Sam's honestly too tired to complain. The knot that's been forming since he'd first arrived in New Orleans is slowly cinching tighter the more he thinks about Dean. It's strange that he's looking forward to seeing his dad and discussing the possibilities of Dean's whereabouts more than he is about returning home to Jess. The guilt he feels about not loving her enough has become a little easier to ignore in light of his brother's disappearance.

For the first time in what could possibly be ever, John Winchester is on time, if not early, standing outside the airport entrance waiting for Sam. "How was the flight?" he asks, sidling up to Sam's side and offering a hand in lieu of an actual greeting.

"Fine, I guess. Long." Sam takes a moment to look at his father, notes how much he's aged in the past few years, the evidence in the graying hair at his temples. There's a dark purple bruise spanning his whole left brow along with a few long gashes across that same cheek that look more superficial than anything, no doubt souvenirs from whatever hunt he just finished.

John leads him out into the parking lot. "So, what did you find out?"

"I probably don't know much more than you do. I asked DesLandes if he had any idea where Dean might've gone – if he'd mentioned anything – but he said no. That Dean could've found a hunt pretty much anywhere down there. But, without at least a direction, it would've been impossible to track him down."

Nodding slowly, John stops at an older GMC Sierra pickup, fishing the keys out of the pocket of his jeans. "Yeah, that's the same info I've got."

Sam opens his door when his father unlocks it and climbs into the cab, settling his bag on the floor between his feet. "There are a couple of things, though. The first being that DesLandes seemed to think that Dean was acting strange. Like- what did he say?... 'Not all his pistons were firing.' And the other thing, which kind of supports that, is this receipt I found in Dean's bag. His bag which he left at DesLandes'." He pulls the diner receipt from his jacket pocket, unfolds it, and hands it over. "He's reminding himself to call you two days late and he was already done with the job by then."

The expression on John's face is familiar from the crease between his brows to the set of his jaw. He rereads Dean's hand-written reminder and flips it over for the date, month and day, printed in that same girly hand as the numbers on the back. "It doesn't make sense."

"I know. Do you have any idea where he was before? If something maybe happened to him on his last hunt? Like if he had a concussion or something?"

John hands the receipt back to Sam and shakes his head. "I don't know. He checks in every now and then or I'll call him with a lead, but we went our separate ways after you left." He starts the truck and backs out of the space, easily maneuvering through the light, late-night traffic in the city.

They make easy conversation on the way to Palo Alto, Sam fully accepting his father's apology. When they finally pull up in front of Sam's apartment complex, he reaches for his bag but doesn't move to get out. "Call me when you find him or if he calls you."

"I will." He's staring out the windshield when Sam looks up at him.

"And it wouldn't be so bad if you wanted to call and check in on me."

John does look over at that, an odd, fond expression on his face that Sam doesn't recognize. "Yeah? I think I can do that. And, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're happy."

While that's not really a hundred percent true, Sam doesn't say otherwise, just offers a smile, tracing his thumbnail along the edge of Dean's pocketknife through the worn denim of his jeans. "Thanks, Dad." He pushes open his door and climbs out, snapping off a farewell salute as he backs away.

The knot in Sam's belly tenses as he enters his building and heads for the stairs, a sudden flare of anxiety forcing him to take them two at a time. He laughs shakily at himself when he unlocks his door and finds a small plate of cookies with a note from Jess on the table, soft sound of the shower running in the background. Venturing further into the apartment, Sam drops his bag just inside their bedroom doorway and falls onto his back on the mattress. It's nice to be back, he tells himself. It'll be nice to sleep in his own bed, next to Jess, instead of driving all over Hell looking for someone who doesn't want to be found. But he doesn't really mean that.

Sam sighs and opens sleep-heavy eyes he doesn't remember closing and blinks confusedly at the sight of Jessica pinned, bleeding, to the ceiling. His father's hoarse calls don't register at first, barely cutting through the fog in his mind as he watches Jessica's pale mouth form the words help me. Between one stuttering heartbeat and the next, the ceiling and Jess are exploding into flames and Sam's being pulled away from the inferno by strong, rough hands. It's a nightmare – it's a nightmare come true – and the realization sends a terrifying chill down Sam's spine. It's enough to make him stop fighting his father.

Sam remembers it clearly now, that strange dream he'd had sometime before school finished, after his birthday, as the semester was coming to an end. It happened just the one time, but it was so vivid, and he woke with the vague memory of Jess and fire, heart racing with a fear he couldn't place. He knows why, now, and his father confirms it. "Was it the demon?" Sam asks, watching as firefighters battle the blaze across the street.

"I think so. There were omens, but I don't know- Jesus Christ, Sam. I'm so sorry."

So am I, Sam wants to say. This is somehow all his fault. He brought this on Jessica, just being who he is. He should've known better than to think he could escape the life, even if he never really wanted to at all.

PART ONE - DEAN

Dean follows the directions he's written on the post-it notes that cling to the dashboard despite the thin layer of dust and dirt that's settled over the car's interior during the past few months. All he knows is that he has to keep moving because if he stops for too long, he could get lost. And, right now, getting lost could pretty much equal death. So he naps in the car when he's too tired to keep driving, just pulls over at the first rest stop or gas station or overgrown dirt drive he comes across and writes himself a note on the steering wheel as a reminder of which direction he's going. It's a terrifying feeling, the uncertainty of where he is and what he's doing. He knows he should call his dad, should let him know what's happening, but that would involve explaining everything, what's wrong, and Dean can't remember.

But there's someone else he can trust with whatever's happening to him, someone he can trust to keep this all a secret. Bobby Singer was as much a fixture in his childhood as his father and he treated Dean like the family he knew the older man didn't have. Dean still affectionately thinks of him as Uncle Bobby all these years later as he speeds towards South Dakota and clings to the hope that the hunter he's worked with more in the last year than he has with his father in the past three can help him.

Because this is getting out of hand.

It's a strange, unsettling feeling to have – that moment of staring at his reflection in a smudged window at a gas station or in the gleaming black paint of the Impala and not recognizing the man he sees before the familiarity of his eyes, the slope of his nose, the angle of his jaw, and the fullness of his lips become a whole instead of just parts and it dawns on him, oh, that's me.

Those moments have been increasing in frequency since the beginning of May but, thankfully, they only happen during those first hazy moments after he's woken up. They're scary enough without happening randomly in the middle of the day. He knows there's something really wrong – he wouldn't be going to Bobby if he didn't believe that – and momentarily forgetting who he is kind of brings the point home.

If not for the big, wrought iron sign arching over the driveway entrance, Dean's sure he'd have driven right past the gravel lane. As soon as he coasts onto the property, something like relief washes over him. The emotion doubles when an older man clad in denim and flannel steps out onto the snow-covered porch, bill of his baseball cap tipped down to shade his eyes from the glare of the sun.

Dean parks the Impala in front of the house alongside a Chevelle that's badly in need of a paint job. He pulls the keys from the ignition and grabs his dead cell phone from the passenger seat, pocketing both when he climbs out of the car. "Bobby?" He hates the tremor of uncertainty in his voice.

"Yeah. Why don't you grab your bags and come inside."

"Okay." He'd nearly forgotten about his bags and it's yet another reminder of exactly why he's here. Once he's got his duffels in hand, he follows Bobby into the house, knocking the snow off his boots on the rug inside the door as he feels more tension drain away.

"So," Bobby begins, taking Dean's bags to leave them by the staircase before heading down the hall. "Where've you been?"

Dean enters the kitchen behind Bobby and takes a seat at the table. "New Orleans," he answers after a moment of thought.

"Was a rugaru, right?"

"I think so, yeah." The details are hazy. He vaguely remembers the stink and humidity. And fire. Always, somewhere at the back of his mind, is fire.

Bobby pours them each a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter, sets a chipped blue mug in front of Dean then sits across from him. "Where were you before that?"

That information is long gone from Dean's mind, but he knows he can still give an answer. Leaning to the side, he digs his wallet from his back pocket and flips open the worn folds of leather. There are a few sticky notes stuck to the ID window inside: the top one has Bobby's name, number, and address. Below that are the ones with the info about his last hunts, in order. He peels them off and sticks them to the table. New Orleans, rugaru, DesLandes, 10/29, all the way back to Savanna, IL, poltergeist, Hansen, 8/25. It was August when Dean began supplementing his usual journal entries with post-its he could find without really looking for them. And the journalizing started way back when he was fifteen or sixteen, he thinks, because – if he's completely honest with himself – the memory troubles started then, along with the nightmares.

Bobby eyes the small platoon of post-its. "So, your... forgetfulness started in August?"

Shaking his head, Dean sighs and turns his coffee mug around. "No. That's when I started needing the reminders."

With a huff, Bobby squints at Dean. "Well, how long has this been going on, boy?"

"I don't know," Dean laughs shakily. "Not really. Years?"

"Christ. And you never told your daddy?"

"No."

"Sam?"

"Sam?" Dean repeats, brows furrowed, like he's trying to place the name.

"Your brother, Dean," Bobby elaborates, staring at Dean for a long moment as he waits for the confused expression on Dean's face to clear. But it doesn't. "You don't- you don't remember."

What little relief Dean had felt is gone now at the realization that he's not only managed to forget a whole person for who knows how long, but his brother. That's so much more than just a name or what he hunted on his last job, wherever that might've been. It seems to be even more than that fleeting moment when he forgets even himself. It's somebody. His brother. Sam. He meets Bobby's wide-eyed gaze with his own. "There's something really wrong with me, isn't there?" He's thought it plenty of times before, but this is the first time he's admitted it aloud.

Bobby wipes a hand over his brow, nudging up his cap to scratch at his thinning hair. "Whatever it is, we'll figure it out."

"You think- Do you think I can be fixed?"

"I'll do what I can to find out what's going on."

Dean hears the doubt behind the words and nods. "Thanks, Bobby. Really."

"You sure you don't want to call your daddy? Get his help on this?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I've disappointed him enough."

"Dean."

Dean just finishes off his coffee and gathers up his post-its. The clock ticking away on the wall in the quiet kitchen says it's barely four in the afternoon, but Dean can't remember the last time he caught more than an hour or two of sleep in the car's front seat and he's suddenly overcome with a heavy, bone-deep weariness. "Is it okay if I turn in?"

"Of course," Bobby says. "You've been driving for hours. Want me to wake you for dinner?"

"No, but thanks. I think I'll just sleep right on through."

There's a heavy silence as Dean stands and moves to rinse out his mug. "Second room on the left," Bobby says. "That's the room you and Sam have always shared."

Dean nods and excuses himself from the kitchen. He picks up his bags from the bottom of the staircase and hauls them upstairs, easily finding the room he and Sam – God, Sam, how could he forget he has a brother? – shared as kids. There's a squat, dust-covered, dark-wood dresser against the left wall next to a matching desk, but Dean leaves his bags by the door instead. Unpacking doesn't require much work, just digging his toothbrush out of an inside pocket of the duffel that holds his last few articles of clean clothes and the two journals he keeps tucked at the bottom.

After brushing his teeth and returning to the room to shuck his socks and jeans, Dean settles at the edge of the mattress, his daily journal perched on his knees. He opens the notebook to the first blank page and writes the date, November 1, 2005, and where he's at, Sioux Falls, SD – Bobby Singer's house, and taps the tip of his pen against the paper, thinking about what he should write. Usually, he gets right into it, describes his day and whatever he's done, the hunt or the drive. But not tonight. He's got bigger, more important information tonight. Sam. And it makes him hesitate.

If he writes about his brother, he's going to obsess over the fact and hate himself for forgetting, for failing to remember. To have to reread those words again and again...

But if he leaves Sam out entirely- If Dean never gets his memory back – if he stays like this forever – nothing will have changed. Maybe they'll all be better off. It's for the best, he tells himself.

Besides, he and Sam can't be all that close because Sam would've contacted him at some point, right? And Dean would've made note of it and he would remember, but he didn't and he doesn't. So, as he writes about his day, he doesn't mention Sam.

When Dean wakes the following morning, it's to the sputtering cough of a dying engine outside. He's startled to find himself in a narrow bed with soft, clean sheets. The room around him isn't recognizable either, save for his bags inside the doorway. Also familiar is the sight of the pale yellow post-it on the bedside table: I'm at Bobby Singer's house, it says. The words don't mean much before Dean can remember himself, then parts of yesterday filter back into his mind all fuzzy around the edges like they're memories from a decade ago instead of just a day.

After pulling on a hoodie he knows wasn't originally his by the length of the sleeves, Dean feels himself relax a little and heads out into the hall. It takes a couple tries nudging open a few doors that stand ajar before he finds the bathroom. He takes a leak and brushes his teeth, then steels himself for the day ahead. What little hope he has for figuring out this whole memory-loss thing and fixing it relies entirely on Bobby's massive library and stockpile of information. If the answer isn't somewhere downstairs, it's not likely anywhere and Dean will be fated with a life he'll never remember.

Dean shoves his bare feet into the boots he left by the front door before he turned in last night and grabs his coat from a hook on the wall. There's a stronger bite to the clear morning air than Dean is expecting and it makes his breath catch in his chest. He breathes more shallowly as he makes his way around to the back of the house and across the yard to the large metal shed surrounded by a couple dozen near-skeletal car frames.

Bobby is bent over the engine of an older model car that might be a classic if only it had seen better days. The clicking of a ratcheting wrench is followed by a hollow thud and some low cursing as Bobby stands up straight and wipes his hands off on a rag hanging over the grill. He glances over his shoulder as Dean shuffles into the garage. "Morning. How you feeling?"

"Fine. A little fuzzy."

Bobby shoves the wrench and rag into the pocket of his grease-stained coveralls and closes the hood before turning towards Dean and leaning back against the car. "Fuzzy?"

Dean shrugs. It's a feeling he's used to, he guesses. "Fuzzy," he repeats, scratching at the back of his neck as he laughs ruefully, "hazy. Like I'm forgetting something."

"Uh huh." Bobby gestures towards the house. "Well, I think I'm done out here for now. We can head on in and start trying to figure this thing out."

"All right." The trek back up to the house is short, but Dean's nose is already pinking and running from the cold. It's blessedly warm when he enters the kitchen through the back door, stomping snow off his boots on the stairs. There's still some coffee warming in the pot and Dean busies himself pouring a mug while waiting for Bobby. He'd start a fresh pot, but it's not something he's done frequently enough to retain the step-by-step process. Much of the Impala's maintenance has suffered the same fate, it pains Dean to admit, except for how to fill her up with gas.

When Bobby finally comes in some ten or fifteen minutes later, Dean's pacing in the room that's become Bobby's library, hoping the cure to his curse (or whatever the hell this is) is somewhere in one of these many, many books. Bobby pauses in the doorway and points at one of the bookshelves. "Start there, third shelf."

Dean pauses and pivots. "How do I know what I'm looking for?"

"Anything that pertains to memory, that's what we want for now. We'll narrow it down later."

Nodding, Dean crosses the room and grabs a few books from the shelf with his free hand, then situates himself in a chair by the window. Even though the heavy curtains block the brightness from outside, they don't quite meet the wall, the cold seeping through the gaps to send a chill down Dean's spine. He suddenly wishes he were somewhere warmer, like California. He thinks he'd like it there, somewhere along the coast.

Bobby returns shortly after Dean's settled and sets himself up at the cluttered desk, adding a new stack of books to the piles that have already taken up residence there.

The whole day is spent buried in books and dust, Bobby doing most of the work because Dean's forgotten how to read anything but English and Latin – and his Latin's never been that great. When dinner time rolls around, they give the research a rest and settle at the table in the kitchen for a quick, easy meal of beef stew and rice, Dean cleaning his bowl after his second helping with a piece of bread. He's full, content, and ready for sleep.

"Anything you read stick out?" Bobby asks as he gathers their dishes and moves over to the sink.

Dean leans back in his chair and shakes his head. "No, not really. I think I'll start going through my journals tomorrow."

"Journals?"

"Yeah. There are a couple in my bag – one's all about my dreams, the other's about daily stuff. I'm not sure how far back they go, though."

Bobby turns on the water and starts to fill the sink. "What's the dream journal for?" he asks with a glance over his shoulder. "You been having nightmares?"

Pushing his chair back as he stands, Dean shrugs. "Yeah. They've been getting worse. Why?"

"Maybe this memory thing isn't supernatural. Have you seen a doctor about any of this?"

Dean shakes his head again. "I don't think so. But I'll know for sure when I go through my journals."

"Maybe we should make you an appointment anyway." He turns off the water and picks up a sponge frothy with dish soap. "I'll make some calls tomorrow, all right?"

"Yeah," Dean nods, hands on the back of his chair before he pushes it back up to the table. "Thanks, Bobby. For everything."

"You're welcome, kid."

Dean nods again and heads upstairs to his room, the only one other than the bathroom with an open door. The dream journal is on his nightstand next to the lamp and he picks it up as he sits on the edge of the mattress. Most of the dreams detailed in its pages are horrible nightmares filled with death, blood and gore, fire and so much pain. A few, however, are regular old dreams – weapons training, sparring, riding in the Impala, always somebody else there with him but he can never make out a face. But there's a content, happy feeling he associates with the presence. There are other dreams, too. Dreams much rarer than the infrequent good ones which are sometimes his only salvation in sleep compared to the near-nightly occurrence of the hellish nightmares. In these rare dreams, he's with someone whom he only catches fleeting glimpses of – never enough to build up an image in his mind of the face his heart aches to see. The features fade out if he focuses on them too closely, like the light of a star when it's stared at directly.

They're always the same. They start with the tentative touch of hands and a warm, pliant mouth against his own that silently pleads for more until Dean gives in and parts his lips to a questing tongue, those large hands clutching him close. It turns desperate and frantic with need and something like love – he feels so much love for this man he fears he'll burst with it – before their movements slow, become reverent, gentle. This is about more than just sex, so much more; it's an emotional connection manifest physical. And after, when the bittersweet moments of holding each other are colored with despair and sadness, they cling to each other as a kind of finality settles in over them.

Dean knows that's why the dream repeats, why nothing ever changes. It's a one-time thing that can never happen again and it seizes up his heart in his chest to think he'll never know a love like that, that he'll never feel the same happiness outside of his dreams. Sometimes, he thinks he's better off not remembering anything because all he feels is hollow pain.

He swaps out the dream journal for the daily journal beneath it and removes the pen from the spiral binding before flipping to a clean page. On the first line he writes:

November 2, 2005 – Sioux Falls, SD – Bobby Singer's house.
We started research today – I probably skimmed through at least sixty books. My Latin is getting worse, if that's possible.
I told Bobby about the nightmares and he thinks there might be a connection between them and my memory loss like whatever is wrong with me isn't because of a job or the job. He's going to call and make me an appointment to see a doctor. I hope he didn't mean a shrink because there's no way I'm talking to one of those hacks. I'd probably be committed on sight just for talking about the nightmares. God knows they're fucked up enough.
I'm going to start going through my old journals tomorrow to see if there's anything helpful there. I want to figure out what's wrong with me before I forget there's something wrong.

There's a strange tingle creeping up the back of Dean's neck as he sets the notebook aside and stands to shut off the overhead light before climbing back into bed, praying for a dreamless sleep.

He's not so lucky.

Dean finds himself in the midst of a nightmare – one of the bad ones that he keeps having, but there's something different about it. Something real.

The shower is running, low white noise in this apartment that's become increasingly familiar over the summer. He's tired, weary, and trudges through the living room, swiping a cookie from the table as he makes his way back to the bedroom. The atmosphere changes when he crosses the threshold, like the air is charged, making his hair stand on end. It's an easy enough feeling to dismiss, so he collapses onto the bed and waits for the shower to shut off.

Dean watches the scene unfold with detached horror, knowing what comes next. He feels everything the man in his dream feels – the warm blood that drips from the wound across the stomach of the blonde girl pinned to the ceiling. Her mouth moves in a silent, desperate plea before she's engulfed in flames that roil across the ceiling like waves on a stormy sea. The man reaches for her even though he knows it's a futile attempt – she can't be rescued. Then he's pulled away from the quickly spreading fire by an older man with haunted eyes.

Then Dean's waking to darkness, phantom smell of smoke in his nose and the heat of fire along his fevered skin, and Bobby's slightly raised gruff voice. "Look, Rufus- I can't. I'm in the middle- I'm in the middle of something... Yes, it's important... What about Elkins?... Jim Murphy?... Rufus-"

Dean pushes back his blankets and climbs out of bed, forgoing recording this latest recurrence of his nightmare in favor pulling his abandoned hoodie over his head and starting downstairs.

Bobby's just hanging up the phone when Dean enters the kitchen, his tired face pale and drawn in the dim yellow light of the overhead. He glances up, scrubs his palm over his thinning hair with a soft rasp. "Dean."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"If you've got a job-"

"I don't."

"I'll be fine on my own for a couple of days. It sounded like somebody needed your help."

Bobby makes a face. "Just Rufus."

"Well, it sounded important."

"This is important, too, whatever this is that's going on with you."

"I know, Bobby. Believe me, I know. But I'm not going anywhere. I can keep on going through books, go back through my journals, see if I can find something." He shrugs. "A couple of days won't make much difference." Even as he says it, Dean thinks of the most vivid nightmare he's had yet and can't help but feel something bad is going to happen if it hasn't already.

A couple of days makes all the difference. Bobby returns home three days later than expected, banged up and worn out, and is greeted with the business end of his favorite Remington shotgun in his face the moment he steps through the door. Dean's eyes are wide in his pale face as he cocks the gun and levels at the man he suspects of being an intruder.

Bobby raises his hands slowly but doesn't otherwise move. "Dean?"

Dean blinks, vague recognition of his name and that's all. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"I'm Bobby Singer. This is my house. You came to me for help." He takes a small step forward. "What do you remember, Dean?"

Dean lowers the weapon, hands shaking, as his eyes dart around the entryway before settling on Bobby once more. "Nothing."