Bringing his hands to his head, Sam blinked hard. God, what's going on? This whole thing felt like a bad acid trip. Was this Heaven? Reliving one's memories? But if that were true, shouldn't they be happy memories?
He shut the door behind him and walked slowly around the dark room. The radio was on, white noise nearly blocking out the garbled words coming through. The voice sounded familiar. It sounded like Dean. Nearly tripping over a cluttered coffee table, Sam hurried to the radio and knelt in front of it, adjusting the dial and attempting to get a better signal.
". . . Sam. Sam! Hey! Come here . . . Let me look at you . . ."
"Dean?" Sam called. "Can you hear me?" He wasn't sure if it worked both ways, but it was worth a shot. "Dean, are you there?"
"It's not even that bad . . . even that bad, alright? Sammy? . . . patch you up, okay? . . . You're gonna be . . . good as new. Take care of you . . . gonna take care of you. I've got you . . . My job, right? Look after . . ."
The words sounded vaguely familiar. He had heard them as he was dying, he was sure of it. Sam ran his hand along the top of the radio. That's probably all it was, memories bleeding into one another. It wasn't actually Dean trying to contact him, which meant that he couldn't use this as a way to contact Dean.
"Sam? . . . Sam! . . . Sammy!"
"Sammy!"
Sam jumped and turned around to see Dean standing in the doorway of the apartment. Sam thought for a second that perhaps the radio had worked and he had been able to summon his brother, but then he realized that this Dean was substantially younger. He looked to be about twenty.
"Sammy, thank God. You're alive." Dean crossed the room as Sam stood up, and grabbed him in a hard hug before throwing him backwards onto the couch. "What the hell were you thinking, dude? You ran away on my watch! I thought you were dead! Or worse. Dad and I scoured every back road all the way from Indiana. Man, every time we passed a ditch I expected you to be lying in it."
"Look, Dean, I'm sorry, but I've really got to get going . . ."
"Why're you here? Why'd you bail?"
"It's difficult to explain," Sam said uncomfortably. He had just noticed Dean's puffy eye and the cut along his cheekbone that had scabbed over. Dad had apparently not been happy to learn that Dean had let Sam slip through his fingers and disappear. "I'm trying to save your life."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Damn it, Sam. Just . . . damn it. What would I have done if you'd been in real trouble?"
"Dean, just calm down. I'm fine." Apart from being dead, Sam thought wryly. He stood up and edged toward the door. "Sit down. Have a Funyun or something." Before Dean could do more than start forward, Sam fell back through the door, leaving Flagstaff and a bemused brother behind him.
He was knocked over instantly by something huge and heavy, scuffing his chin and palms on frigid asphalt.