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Part 3

"Dean, did you sleep at all these past few days?," Sam asked after his brother had gone silent for several minutes. It didn't matter when he woke up – Dean was always there, sitting on a chair next to his bed or standing at the window, lost in his thoughts and barely responsive.

"Sure," Dean returned with a telltale yawn.

"You are free to pretend with everybody else, but don't waste your efforts on me. I see through you," Sam replied and turn his head a bit, until he was able to see Dean's face. Deep, dark circles were craved in around his eyes and he looked pale.

Sam waited in vain for a retort. "Come on! We are in some town – go, get a room in a motel and get some eye-shut. I'll be okay."

"The last time you said that, I had to call an ambulance afterwards, Sam, because they had to pump out your stomach."

Sam swallowed down hard. Not a nice memory – not to mention that it made him sick. "I won't run away," he reassured Dean to defuse the situation somewhat.

"Not to mention that this attempt would quickly bring you back to a rather harsh reality, Mr. Win- … Mr. Sanderson," some voice interjected from the door and saved Dean from having to reply.

Dean wished he could shake the feeling that Sam now was regarding him with barely concealed curiosity, if not suspicion. He didn't want him to be dazed, but it wasn't a good time to talk. A change of surroundings would make things easier.

There was just one way out of this.

Sam already had opened his mouth to ask, when Dean rose and briefly squeazed his shoulder. "I'll be back in a couple of hours, Sammy."

And though he kept the look he gave Dr. Connor inconspicuous, Sam noticed it.

-S-S-S-

Wednesday, January 16th 2001

"How does one come by a house like that at your age?," Dean asked with some surprise when he saw the whitewashed family home. The front looked invitingly and friendly under the light of the streetlamp; weeds and scrubs were growing merrily in the front yard.

"I inherited it from my grandma. When she became a nursing case, she had to move into a nursing home," Rachel explained matter-of-factly and locked the car.

"What about your parents?"

"My father, I never knew – and my mother died of an overdose. Long ago."

For a second, Dean saw her flinch as if she only noticed then how harsh the words were that she had chosen.

Dean slapped himself inwardly and made a mental note to try and avoid those foot-mouth situations that he seem to run into every time he tried to have a normal conversation. "I'm sorry," he added to amend, but this time, Rachel dismissed it with a gesture.

"My grandma took both me and my sister in. It was better than at home – at least in my eyes. But Abigail never had as close a relationship with grandma as I had. They always fought because Abigail wanted to go back to mom. When mom started on drugs, she had been too young to understand. She projected her hatred on our grandmother."

"How much younger is she?"

"Six years."

"Ever thought of getting her back?"

Rachel unlocked the front door and allowed Dean to enter. Inwardly, he cursed himself. Why did they even talk? It only would create some awkward moments after tonight.

"She doesn't want to leave Philadelphia and I don't want to leave here. That was the situation last time we discussed things. What about you? Siblings, family?"

Putting his foot in obviously wasn't enough. Now, he even had managed to tangle his neck in the noose. Only thing that was missing was someone to pull it tight.

"My little bro's at the college," he answered vaguely and shrugged off his jacket, before dropping onto the couch. It was large, huge – and wonderfully comfortable. Just about right for … Dean interrupted that trail of thought as fast as it had popped up.

Within seconds, Rachel had managed to make coffee, put two pizzas into the oven and grab some cooled beer from the fridge. All of that without ever loosing the calm that she just had regained.

"What's he studying?" Rachel picked up the conversation again and Dean could have kissed her on the spot for not going into details about the rest of his family.

"Prelaw – in Stanford."

"You've got to be proud of him."

The memories of Sam brought an unintentional smile to his face and he lowered his head to conceal it. "Yeah."

His reaction made her laugh, an honest laugh. Not the loud, annoying sort of laughter, but in a strange way a melodic laugh that made its way into his heart.

Rachel put an arm on the back of the couch as she turned to Dean and propped her head against her hand, palm on her cheek. Just the spot where those dimples appeared, and her eyes sparkled a little bit more than before.

Without a reason, Dean joined in with the laughter. The situation was absurd. There they sat on the couch, both expecting a night of a different kind – and talked about their siblings.

-S-S-S-

With a quite sight, Dean rolled around in bed and boxed the pillow with some frustration.

He had managed to get a few hours of sleep, but without Sam being in the same room, he couldn't find any real rest. He glanced over to the clock on the nightstand, pulled the blanket over his head with a groan and squeezed his eyes shut.

The earliest time at which he could show up at the hospital was 5:30 am, unless he wanted to wait outside in the cold for another two hours. Cold, that could help to clear his thoughts. Whether he wanted that was another question.

The older Winchester rolled around onto his back again and starred up at the wooden ceiling above him.

Actually, he knew that considering the situation, Sam was doing fine at the moment. Nevertheless he wanted to be with him and not move away an inch, whether the doctors, nurses or Sam wanted or not. And on the other hand, every minute spent at the hospital was torture to him.

Unsure what to do, he switched on the lamp on the nightstand and swung his legs out of the bed. He still could decide while taking a shower.

-S-S-S-

"...'ean?," Sam mumbled barely audible as he saw the figure in the dark that moved across the room. It had to be at dead of night.

"Go back to sleep," the older one whisper, dropped onto the chair and leaned forward onto the side of the bed. Crossing his arms and burying his head into them, he abused them as pillow.

"... whayd'nere...?" It took Dean a moment to translate the sentence into a 'What are you doing here?'.

"Get some sleep," he explained and realized by Sam's reaction that he probably wouldn't remember this conversation at all the next morning. Under all other – more lucid – circumstances, Sam would have protested.

Gently shaking his head, he stared into the now familiar darkness. At some point, he had stopped to count the days that he spend lying awake in this place.

-S-S-S

Thursday, January 17th 2002

He should have been long gone to spare both of them the moment of Rachel waking up.

And while his head adamantly kept repeating that instruction, the rest of his body practiced passive resistance.

It's been long since the sun had made it to the point where its rays could filter into the room to tease them. Way too late.

They still were in the living room. Empty plates, cups and bottles littered the table in front of them and Dean remembered the past hours.

Intentions had been clear. Both hers and his. And up to now, there never had been a case like this in which all intentions suddenly lost relevance. The thought to stay and see what would happen never had occurred to him.

Until now.

Dean ran his fingers through his tousled hair and moved Rachel's head off his tight, but instead of sleeping on, she blinked and pushed herself up on her arms.

She stayed silent, just cocked her head, her eyebrows knitted together in a question, that remained hovering between them unvoiced.