At some point, Sam passes out. When he wakes, it's to the sound of his cellphone blaring, buzzing across the floor by his face.
He stares at the caller ID vaguely for a few seconds, not even registering the name, before he realizes he should press answer.
"Hello?"
"Sam? It's Charlie. Are you home?"
"Yeah," he blinks again, rubbing at his eyes, and sits up slowly.
"I've been knocking for like five minutes."
His brain finally catches up to what's going on, and he pushes himself to his feet.
"Crap! Sorry. I fell asleep. I'll be right up."
Getting up the stairs takes a little more effort than he wants to admit, and when he pulls the door open, Charlie's smile fades immediately.
"Whoa, Sam," she says, "are you okay?"
"Just half-asleep," he says, and tries on an easy smile.
It feels forced, and from the look on her face it's probably pretty clear to her, too. He clears his throat and looks past her, toward her car.
"You have stuff to bring in?"
"Just everything I own," she pauses, looking him over, "I'll bring it down though. You look like you're going to drop."
"I'm fine," Sam frowns, walking past her toward the car, and she sighs, hurrying after him.
Together they carry her bags and boxes back to the bunker, and Sam knows that she is deliberately passing him all the lighter stuff. He knows he should just admit how sick he actually feels, but he knows that if he tells Charlie, she'll tell Dean, and then he'll never hear the end of it.
It doesn't take them too long; but by the time they're making their final trip down the stairs, Sam's sweating so much that he's beginning to think Dean's mother-henning would have been worth it.
He all but collapses into a chair at the table.
Charlie blows at a stray strand of hair as she puts down the last box, and glances over at him.
"So," she says, "I don't really know why we're pretending you're in perfect health right now, but can we not?"
Sam, breathing heavily, leans against the table.
"It's only—" he coughs into his elbow until his eyes water, and eventually catches his breath enough to finish, "—it's temporary. I'll be fine in a few minutes. Promise."
"Okay," she says, "just... if you're as tired as you look, you don't have to stay up on my account. I've got a whole bunch of computer stuff I have to do, so I'll be fine if you need to crash for a while."
"Computer stuff?"
"Yeah. How much did Dean tell you?"
"...about what? You coming to stay with us, or that he knew that I knew?"
Crouching down to open the box, Charlie pulls out a mess of cables, a mouse, and a keyboard.
"I'm going to help you guys find Castiel," she says, dumping them down on the table in front of him, before heading back to the box to take out the CPU, "hopefully."