I don't own Sam or Dean or John or the Impala or Supernatural…..that's all the CW. So if they would be very kind to let me borrow it all for a bit, I promise to give it back….eventually…..well, maybe. Also, I lack an editor, so any mistakes are mine and please kindly overlook them (or let me know). Thanks.

Sam is 16 and Dean is 20.

-ff-

Once back home, Sam didn't say a word as he got out of the car and went to his room. He didn't want Dean and John to be watching his every move for signs that he was going to die like all the other kids, even though that fear beat in time with his heart. He looked down at the small scrape on his wrist, the mark of his possible death. It wasn't anything, hardly even an injury.

Dean appeared in the doorway. "You okay?"

Sam nodded, but didn't look up to meet his brother's concerned gaze.

He sat down on his bed across from Sam. "Bet you'll be fine."

"Might be a little soon to be making that bet." He looked up then. "Promise me something?"

"Sure." He shrugged.

"Swear you won't be asking if I'm okay every ten seconds." He managed to smirk, just a little.

"Every twenty, then."

"Jerk." He almost smiled.

Dean hated the waiting as much as Sam did, as much as they all did. He hated how nobody knew if Sam would wake up in the morning just fine, or if he would start to show the symptoms that would end up in his death.

John walked past the room. "Get to bed, boys." He turned off the hall light.

Sam and Dean kicked off their shoes and crawled between their blankets. They both lay awake for a long time after the house got quiet.

Dean woke first in the morning and he automatically looked over at Sam. He didn't know what he was expecting, Sam was asleep and that was about as much as Dean could tell. He got up to shower and noticed that John was already up. After a quick shower, Sam was still asleep, so Dean went to the kitchen for coffee. It was hardly light out yet, pretty early for Winchester standards when the case was theoretically over.

"Couldn't sleep?" Dean asked as he poured coffee.

John had his notes open in front of him. "I slept."

He sat down at the table. "Sure."

"How's Sam?"

"Asleep. He did ask me not to check how he is every ten seconds."

John nodded slightly, but he was still absorbed in his notes. Dean only saw him like that in the middle of a case, when he absolutely needed answers.

"Anything?" Dean nodded towards the open notebook.

John looked up at his oldest and saw the glimmer of worry in his eyes. "Nothing yet. Thinking of calling in Jim's help, this seems to be his area of expertise."

"Couldn't hurt, I guess. When are we leaving?"

He paused. "I don't know. We're a good full twenty four of driving away, but if Sam- I want to know he's fit to travel."

Dean knew the unspoken words. If Sam got sick while they were traveling, then there would be even less they could do to help him.

"Leave now and get ahead of whatever happens?" Dean ventured.

John sighed. "It crossed my mind, we'll run it by Sam."

Sam woke alone in the room. The sun was just starting to come through his window. He could hear the muffled voices of his father and brother in the kitchen, just like always. He sat up to see if anything was different. He scoffed a little at himself, he felt fine. Maybe this was all over. The next few days were going to suck then, with John and Dean watching his every move waiting for the Winchester luck to kick in and everything to go to hell. He got up to shower and wasn't surprised to find John and Dean watching him as he came into the kitchen.

"Christ." He muttered and got cereal down from the cupboard. "Can you not stare at me the entire time? I'm not going to spontaneously combust or anything." He turned. "And before you ask, yes, I'm fine and no, I'm not lying. My head doesn't hurt, my stomach feels fine, I don't feel dizzy or feverish or achy. If anything changes, I swear, you'll be the first to know."

There was a muscle working along John's jaw at Sam's tone, but Dean mostly just looked amused.

Sam poured his cereal and sat down at the table. He refused to look up from the bowl as he ate.

"Sam." John said after a few minutes.

He looked up and tried to keep anything that could be viewed as attitude out of his gaze.

"Thinking of heading up to Pastor Jim's. Case is over and I could use his thoughts on some things."

Sam leveled his gaze on John. "You mean that if I turn demon, you want me on hallowed ground." He picked up his bowl and dumped it in the sink. "I heard her too, dad." He left and went back to his room. The door slammed a second later.

John scrubbed his hands over his face. "Christ, that kid is going to be the death of me. Unless I kill him first."

"You're right, I never was that much trouble at his age." Dean smirked. "Want me to talk to him?"

"Let him be, last thing I need is him mad at both of us." He turned back to the notes. "You can clean the weapons and start to pack up what we don't need. Whether we leave today or in a few days, I still want Jim to look him over. She did something to him and I don't trust it."

Sam spent the day in his room reading. Both an act of defiance towards whatever plans his father had and also because he rarely got time to read what he wanted. Every time Dean or John poked their head into the room, Sam would say "Still fine." in a slightly frustrated voice.

Mid afternoon, Sam noticed a faint headache that hung just behind his eyes. He tossed his book aside and closed his eyes for a moment. He was no stranger to headaches, but the prospect of one now scared him. There was a twist of fear in his gut and he really wanted it to just be one of his usual headaches.

He walked out to the living room. "Going to go for a walk, do you want Dean to chaperone?"

John looked up from the books and notes. "You should be fine, be home by dinner."

Dean half stood to follow anyway. He waited until Sam was out the door for a few minutes before he did just that. Dean knew that if he didn't stay out of sight, he'd have to deal with an angry and angsty little brother, something he tried to avoid at all costs.

Sam was hoping the warm summer day would clear his head, maybe the headache was just a result of little sleep and too much reading. He figured Dean was following him, even if he didn't ever see his brother. Too much was at stake for him to go off by himself. He felt a twinge of annoyance, but mostly he knew the real reason behind it. Dean had his back.

He leaned on the railing of the bridge and looked out over the water. It wasn't long before he noticed Dean a few feet away.

"Strange meeting you here." Sam muttered and glanced over.

"Well, you know. Not much to do in a town this size." Dean shrugged. "So, how about that baseball team that's been doing well?"

Sam looked over at Dean. "What?"

"You won't let me ask how you are, so I'll ask you other questions."

He sighed. "I'm fine, kind of a headache, but for me that's nothing new."

When he wanted to, Dean had a damn good poker face. He didn't let the worry bleed through to Sam. "Thanks for telling me. Wanna head home?"

"Sure." He shrugged.

He and Dean walked back home. The streets were still pretty empty, nobody really knew that it was over. They just kept waiting for the next kid to die. Eventually, after a week and then another, with everyone still alive, they'd begin to think that it was done. By then the Winchesters would be long gone and nobody would know. That's how it usually was.

Sam was quiet through dinner, his headache was a little worse and he was afraid of what that meant. It didn't feel any different than his other headaches, but there was a fear he couldn't explain, a vague feeling that this was different somehow. He hoped it was just worried because of all that had happened over the past couple weeks. He hoped he was just paranoid because of what he knew. Needless to say that between the headache and the worry, Sam didn't eat much for dinner. Dean and John didn't force it, their own appetites were a little weak as well.

After dinner Sam and Dean went for their usual three mile run, a little slower than most nights. Sam's head pounded with his heart, he'd trained with headaches before, and Dean told him they didn't have to go as far. Sam wanted to run, to clear his thoughts, to move because he had the fear that everything was going to go downhill pretty damn soon and pretty damn fast. Dean had that suspicion, too. He knew Sammy better than he knew himself, and he knew something was up with the kid.

Sam and Dean got home just after dark. John wouldn't have ever admitted to waiting for them, but that's exactly what he was doing.

"Dad?" Sam took a couple steps into the room.

Dean and John turned to look at him.

"Maybe you should call Pastor Jim after all." Sam's knees buckled and Dean was almost too slow to catch him.

John swore his heart stopped.

Dean held his little brother on the floor. Sam wasn't unconscious, the pain spiked through his head. He held on to fistfuls of Dean's shirt and he trembled.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice was low. "Talk to me."

"Headache." Sam breathed, his eyes were squeezed closed.

Dean looked up at John for an answer, any answer.

"Let's get him to bed." John helped Sam up.

Sam was guided to bed where he sunk into the pillow. John got a bottle of pain pills and an ice pack while Dean sat with his brother.

-ff-

First of all, I want to thank all of you for sticking through the unexpected hiatus. Let me 'splain, no there is too much, let me sum up. The week before Halloween, I was crazy busy sewing my costume, the week of Halloween was crazy busy with Halloween things, the week after I was dying of the cold that turned into the flu because I did all of the Halloween things. Then it was November, and I had the crazy idea to to NaNoWriMo (look it up, if you don't know). I also went to Seattle and had Thanksgiving in November. So needless to say, any of my time to write was spent trying to write 50,000 words (I did, by the way, in about 11 days). But I'm back now, and there should be more regular updates.

Also, sorry about the cliffhanger ending…well, I'm not really. Thank you a million times for reading.