He drove all night and well into the morning.
As the sun reached its peak in the sky, Dean pulled into the Singer Scrap Yard. Metal skeletons in imperious stacks encircled the old house.
Dean let the engine idle as he prepared himself for this reunion. It wasn't that he wasn't happy to see Bobby, but rather what had caused this meeting that preyed on his sense of calm.
He pulled the key from the ignition and stepped out of the car. He marched up the creaking wood steps and knocked on the peeling paint of the front door. He couldn't remember the last he had knocked to get into Bobby's house.
It didn't take long before Dean heard the deliberate, heavy footfalls of Bobby Singer as he made his way to answer the door.
The door swung open with a groan. Bobby, with his relaxed attire and perpetual scruff, stood with a scowl on his face, a shotgun clenched his fist.
At first sight of Dean, Bobby's expression softened.
Dean eyed the gun skeptically, "Well, you were always good at warm welcomes."
Bobby abandoned the gun and pulled Dean into a suffocating embrace.
"Boy, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"I'm happy to see you, too, Bobby," he said, recalling his characteristic sarcasm.
"Get in here," Bobby released Dean from his embrace, pulling him into the house.
"How've you been, boy?" Bobby asked, clapping Dean on the shoulder, "Can I get you anythin'? A beer?"
"Isn't it a little early for beer?"
Bobby gave him a funny look, "Like that's ever stopped you before."
Dean shrugged, "I'll have a beer, then."
Bobby went to the fridge and pulled a cold beer from inside. He popped the top off and handed it to Dean.
"You're a regular Martha Stewart, Bobby," Dean said with a smile.
"Shut up," he countered, "Can't I be happy to see you?"
Dean took a swig of his beer and sighed.
"I wish I could say I was happy to see you, too, Bobby."
"What's the matter, son?" Bobby said, adopting a more serious tone, as he took a seat behind his desk.
"I don't know. Everything was fine. Everything is fine, except . . ." Dean paused, not sure how to continue.
"Except what? You said on the phone somethin' about a . . . a creature being after you."
"That's just it, Bobby. I don't know. Maybe I'm rusty, but I've never seen anything like this before," Dean explained helplessly.
"What's goin' on?"
"I keep having dreams, Bobby. These dreams where . . . ," he stopped again.
"Where what?"
"I think I see I Sam, Bobby."
Bobby's eyes were no longer looking at Dean. Their focus fell behind him. Dean followed the path of his gaze and almost fell out of his chair for what he saw.
"Hey, Dean."
"Sam?"
Dean turned back to Bobby, unable to wipe the blatantly stunned expression off his face.
"Am I dreaming again?" Dean asked helplessly.
"No, son."
Sam took a step forward from his place in the doorframe and Dean shot out of his chair. He desperately wished he had a gun on him at that moment.
"You are not my brother," Dean spat out, unwilling to believe what was he saw standing before him.
"Dean, listen," Sam tried to reason with Dean, but his efforts were fruitless.
"This is a dream," Dean responded, his eyes looking around desperately, for a way out of this nightmare, "I never woke up. None of this is real."
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
"You're not dreamin', son," Bobby said, doing his best to calm Dean.
"This is all real," he assured him, then looked over to Sam, "He's real."
"Then he's a walking corpse," Dean rambled, gazing at his brother in disgusted incredulity, "Or, or a demon, or-."
He stopped in midsentence.
"What are you doing?"
Sam had picked up a knife, the silver blade glittering in the sun that shone through the window.
"Anything I have to," Sam rolled up the sleeves of his plaid shirt, "To prove to you that I am your brother."
Dean watched, wincing, as Sam carefully sliced the flesh of his arm with the blade, painstakingly accurate in his execution. Blood trickled from the fresh wound, crimson and fluid.
Sam gave Dean an expectant look, but he still wasn't convinced.
Sam then walked over to a large canteen of water.
"This been blessed, Bobby?" he asked as he pointed at the container.
"Yeah," Bobby replied with a nod of his head, not entirely sure what Sam was about to do.
Sam grabbed some salt and poured it into the canteen. He shook the salted holy water and raised it to his lips, chugging the briny, blessed concoction for a good five seconds.
"Oh, nasty," he said, choking down the last gulp.
Wiping his mouth with the back of sleeve, Sam looked to Dean pleadingly.
"Dean, it's me. I swear."
Dean looked at Sam, shaking his head, unwilling to admit to anything. Without a word, he stalked out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
Bobby looked to Sam who watched as Dean stormed out, unable to hide the dejection in his face. Sam looked to Bobby for comfort, but he didn't find any from him.
"Well, that went well."
"Thanks a lot, Bobby," Sam replied cynically, binding the slice on his arm with gauze.
"You remember how you felt when Dean came back from that pit? You can't just spring yourself on him like that."
Sam threw his arms up helplessly, "I'm sorry. Is there a more tactful way to say 'I know you thought I was dead and trapped in hell, but here I am?'"
"Don't you sass me, boy," Bobby barked back.
Suddenly, Dean burst in through the door. Grabbing the gun that Bobby had left by the door, Dean stood before his brother, clutching the weapon in his hands. He eyed Sam suspiciously, remaining unfaltering as he pointed his finger in the face of this man who seemed to be his brother.
"If you are really my brother, answer this question:" Dean cocked the gun in his hands, "what was the first movie we ever saw in a movie theater?"
Sam looked at Dean seriously for a long moment. Dean was poised, ready to fire if this creature claiming to be his brother answered wrong.
Sam answered.
"Back to the Future: Part III. I didn't get it because I hadn't seen the other two."
"What did I think of it?"
"You thought Mary Steenburgen was hot."
Dean stared at Sam. He dropped the gun on the desk. Any hostile thought he had been harboring vanished into thin air. He pulled his younger brother into an embrace.
"Sammy?" he whispered hoarsely.
Sam smiled, patting his brother on the back comfortingly.
Dean pulled away, gripping Sam's shoulders and staring back up his brother's face in disbelief. He seemed invigorated, rejuvenated. He no longer carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"How'd you-?" Dean began, unable to form the words.
"Get out of the box?" Sam finished for him, like no time at all had passed.
"But—," he started, "but that doesn't make any sense. Was it Cas?"
His hands dropped from Sam's shoulders.
"Was it God?"
Sam only shrugged. "I've been trying to figure it out since I got back. All I remember is being in Hell one minute, and then being in that field the next."
"The field?" Dean asked, "What field?"
"The cemetery. In Lawrence," Sam was starting to sense he was in trouble.
"And…you've been hunting?"
"Yeah," answered Sam hesitantly, "with Bobby."
Dean couldn't believe what he was hearing. He shook his head as if to jostle all this new information into some semblance of sense, "How long have you been back?"
Sam sighed, gritting his teeth as he answered, "About six months."
Silence. Then fury.
"Six mon-?-Six MONTHS?" Dean exploded, "You've been back for six months and didn't think once to stop by and say hello?"
He began to pace, rubbing his hands across his face, through his hair, shaking out his arms, rage coursing through his veins.
"Dean, I couldn't just come back!" Sam protested, "As far you were concerned, I was dead. Did you really want to go through this in front of Lisa and Ben?"
"That's no excuse," Dean snapped back, "You want to know what I went through? Thinking you were dead? I had dreams—."
Dean suddenly stopped his ranting and looked to Bobby.
"What dreams?" Sam asked.
"That's why I came here," Dean replied harshly, "You were just the toy in the Happy Meal."
"Dean, I am sorry," Sam insisted, but Dean silenced him with a pointed look.
"I'll deal with you later," he said, adopting his authoritative-older brother tone.
Dean looked back to Bobby.
"What's this about, Dean?" Bobby asked, his focus of concern shifting to the initial purpose of Dean's visit.
Still incensed, it took a moment for Dean to collect himself. The three gathered around Bobby's book burdened desk.
Bobby and Sam looked to Dean, waiting for him to recount his dreams. Dean was reluctant to speak. He looked at them dubiously. He was never one to share feelings, let alone share dreams.
"Well?" Bobby urged; these boys were beginning to try his patience.
Dean looked to them both and shrugged.
"Dean, we can't help you if you don't tell us what has been going on," Sam pressed, genuinely worried.
Dean shot Sam a look, "I know that. It's just . . ."
"What?"
"I'm not comfortable sharing my dreams with you two."
Bobby rolled his eyes, "This isn't an episode of Oprah, Dean. And Sam is right. Tell us what has been happening."
Dean shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
"Um…," he began, "I'm kind of reliving my . . . our past," he confessed sheepishly.
He looked at both Sam and Bobby, both clearly confused.
"Well?" Bobby prodded, "Is there more?"
"Well, they are always in places like the cemetery, our house.
"How many dreams have you had?" Sam inquired, as if on a job, "Like, just one or two?"
"Nah, man," Dean said, shaking his head, "At least twenty-five or thirty. It's like I'm reliving our greatest hits or something. But the thing is . . ."
Dean looked at his brother, "Sometimes I thought I saw you, but you were never really there. But there was always a voice."
At this, Sam seemed incredibly interested, "A voice?"
"I thought it was you," Dean said.
Sam pointed to himself, "I've been having the same dreams, dude."