Stanford College, California: Haven't seen you in a while

Dean eyes followed Sam when he got up to walk across the room, from where he was sitting at the edge of his bed. Sam had his cell in his hand and was frantically trying to make a call, probably to his girlfriend back in Stanford. Dean glanced over to the worn plastic clock above the door of the bathroom. It had passed five in the morning,

Sam appeared to be having no luck, he looked frustrated, perhaps a little scared. Dean frowned, wondering if this was related to the nightmare, chances are it probably was.

"It's five in the morning, Sam, she's probably still asleep," Dean said carefully, keeping his voice neutral.

"What if she's not, Dean?" Sam rounded on him, desperation in his eyes. "What if something came into the room - what if it hurt her... or... in my nightmare... it was so real - she was pinned to the ceiling, just like Mom was. And the fire..." Sam gripped at Dean's shoulders. "I left her there... all alone."

Sam couldn't believe what he had done - he had left Jess all alone in the middle of the night to go and find their dad who they might not even find for a long while. Maybe that stuff didn't even happen - but what if something had snuck in?

It appeared as if Sam had been more disturbed by this dream then he had expected. The desperation and fear written all over his face, lingering in his words, was started to worry Dean. The paranoia in itself was worrying, though he could see why Sam was freaked by the parallels in his dream to his mom's death, and he could understand how that would be scary. The problem was, it just was not real. Sam's subconscious was probably doing this to warn him off going back to his previous life of hunting, by giving him nightmares to try and get him to leave for Stanford.

"It was just a nightmare," Dean said placatingly, gingerly putting a hand on Sam's shoulder, and giving it a squeeze, looking him in the eye, "She's probably back at Stanford, safe and trying to get some sleep. Which you should be doing as well."

As Dean spoke, Sam realised that he was just being paranoid about the whole thing. He was sleep deprived - of course he would be having nightmares - not to mention, he was going back to his old life with Dean to find their dad.

Sam slowly nodded, letting his breathing slow back to normal and swallow back the sharp lump in his throat. "You're right... you're right." He stepped around, back to the bed and placed the cell phone back on the beside table. He would be able to call Jess in a few hours and then she would probably just be fine. Who would hear their phone at 5 in the morning anyway? "Sorry, Dean." he muttered, sitting back down on the lumpy mattress.

It was a relief when Sam seemed to come down from his idea that his girlfriend was dead, sparked by nothing more then a nightmare. Still, it must have been a pretty bad one, and Dean was thankful that Sam seemed to have calmed down from it.

"It's no problem, man," said Dean, giving him a small smile as he moved back to sit on his own bed, though he was still watching Sam with a critical eye, "Seriously though, don't worry about it, it was only a nightmare, don't get worked up over it."

He couldn't help but worry over his little brother's reaction to the nightmare, even now that the side effects of it seemed to have been subdued. He moved so that he was lying down on his side, facing towards Sam, keeping his eyes focused on him, in case he had another one of those nightmares, if he did in fact get any sleep.

Sam got back into bed and faced, uncomfortably, the other way. He figured out what Dean was trying to do, and it wasn't exactly going to help him get back to sleep with Dean staring at him. Although it wouldn't take long for Dean to realise Sam wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep now. Not with that nightmare on his mind.

He didn't even understand it himself - he'd never had that kind of a reaction to a nightmare before - but he'd never had that kind of vivid appearance in any of the one's he'd experienced. It was almost like he was actually there, looking up at her terrified face... on the ceiling.

Sam couldn't help but glance up there. It was just badly painted ceiling - that was all. But it wasn't this one that she had been on. He tried to close his eyes again, but grimaced slightly, being greeted with that instead of darkness.

Would Dean go back to sleep now? Maybe he would because of the driving in the dark for a couple of hours, although he might have already made up for them now. Maybe he had been driving for a long time to get to Stanford. They hadn't really talked about anything that had happened between when Sam had left to have a normal life, and now. It had just been get out, go, and stay there. And of course, Dean couldn't say where they were. Perhaps a few phone calls over the years, but they slowed down to a standstill. Sam was trying to forget the old life... and Dean was living exactly that - so what was there to talk about?

Dean watched as Sam turned over to face the other way, obviously feeling a little uncomfortable. What could he have dreamed of that left him so shell shocked? He was tempted to ask, but it was unlikely that Sam would want to tell, and there would be no point in badgering him about it.

"We might as well get back on the road," Dean said after a few minutes, after it seemed clear that neither of them would be getting any more sleep tonight, so there was no point staying here, "Got a long drive ahead of us."

"Yeah..." Sam mumbled in reply. He got out of bed and felt something sharp in his pocket. He pulled out the Sharpie.

He chuckled. "Let's call a truce." said Sam, dropping the pen in the trash.

"Yeah, alright," said Dean, yawning briefly as he got up from his bed. It was unsurprising that Sam had found the sharpie, and it seemed pretty typical of Sam to not want this to esculate, especially after last night. It probably had been a bit soon to start on his brother with the whole prank thing they used to do, especially as Sam had been so used to not having to put up with that kind of thing at Stanford.

"You ready to go?" he asked, making his way towards the doorway.

Sam picked up his back. "Let's get out of here." he said simply, taking once last glance at the ceiling and shoving his cell into his pocket.

Dean nodded, and followed Sam out of the door. It was still early in the morning, probably about six now. He was definitely going to have a long sleep when they got to Forks.

It was chilly when they got to the Impala, frost was lining her windows, white ice obscuring the wind screen. "Damnit, we're going to have to scrape this off," Dean frowned, hands in his pocket.

Sam didn't reply. He just wanted to get to Forks and get this over and done with as quickly as possible. Get in, find dad, go back to school. He kept glancing at his cell phone every now and then, which he had stopped putting back in his pocket and then taking it out again. It was nearly seven and she still hadn't got up, which was strange because usually she got up around that time. He tried to resist calling her, waiting for her to see he was gone, and then to see she had a miss call at about five in the morning - yeah he was going to have fun explaining that one.

Sam ignored him, and just carried on checking his phone, still looking ill at ease and tense. Obviously still feeling a bit off since the nightmare.

Sighing, Dean opened the door, and got in. He turned the heating on, hoping that would cause most of the ice to melt. Digging into his pocket, he got his wallet out, and took one of his credit cards out. Best get t get on with this so we can get back on the road sooner.

Getting out of the car he glanced over at Sam, who was still checking his phone. Dean was tempted to grab it out of his hands to stop him continually staring at it, seeing as it was doing him no good and was not going to make the time pass any quicker. He resisted though, seeing as a pissed off Sam was not going to make things any better. "Do you want to try and get some sleep in the back-seat?" he asked finally, concern marring his features. It was probably the safest thing to ask.

Sam looked up, tearing his eyes away from his cell at the sound of the scraping of ice off the windsheild, though not really seeing exactly what was going on. When Dean spoke to him he came out of the distance. "No. No, I'm okay." said Sam. "Just so long as we stop for coffee."

He realised what he was doing for the first time, and tried to actually speak to his brother. "So, what leads have you got on dad's disappearance?" he asked.

Dean frowned as Sam rejected his offer. It was unsurprising, but still, he needed the sleep and staring at the phone was not very productive.

"Not many," Dean admitted, as he continued gradually scraping away at the ice, the heat that the car was now emitting was making it melt slightly, making it easier to scrape at, falling into the easy flow of conversation about their hunt, "I've only really got what me and dad had to go on initially. There's been an abnormally high number of animal killings in the area - stag, mountain lion, you name it. It's really weird man, something's definitely up. We were thinking werewolf or something, seeing as there had been a fair few large animal sightings as well."

Dean tilted his head to the side, and looked at Sam. He was probably evading the topic. "You really should get some sleep, man, you don't look good. You won't be any good if you're tired when we get there. You can call her later."

"Or..." replied Sam, rummaging through his bag for his laptop. "I could try and find out what's going on."

Sam spent a while browsing through the internet for any information on 'Forks' and stumbled upon some news site. "Hey, Dean, I got something." he said less than five minutes later. "Seven bodies in the last few days - all drained from blood with teeth marks in their necks."

He glanced up at Dean, who would probably be thinking the same thing as him.

Dean was leaning against the hood of the car, the windscreen was now relatively free from ice, and clear enough to see through. He shook his head, his features creased in a frown. "This doesn't make any sense," he said, "We thought it might have been a werewolf or something. It can't be a vampire - there were no reported missing people, or people who died under those sorts of circumstances. Might be Loogaroo or a demon."

He sighed, shaking his head, "None of this makes any sense. We should probably head off now." Dean leaned over to grab the phone out of Sam's hand, waving it at him, "You can have this back when you've had some sleep. Back of the car for you, Sammy."

Sam scrolled down some more. "There are missing people." he continued. "Some longer than others. It's been going on for about a month now."

As Dean quickly grabbed his cell, Sam shut the laptop forcibly and tried to snatch it back but failing miserably. "Dean." he said sternly. "I want my cell phone back. Right now."

Sam's annoyed face was always pretty hilarious, his attempts to get his cell back no less amusing.

"Then you better get some shut eye, cause you ain't getting this back for another few hours at least," Dean answered, holding the phone at arms length away from Sam, smirking at him, "Look, I'll wake you up when your girlfriend rings. It's going to be a long drive, so you might as well take advantage of it."

"Dean." said Sam again. "I'm not gunna ask again. Give me my cell phone back." He was fed up with this - with Dean trying to think that he can get his own way. He wasn't the one who had that nightmare - Dean was going to get it.

"Seriously, Dean."

Dean raised his eyebrows, "What? You're not getting it back. I'll take your laptop too if your not careful."

Dean turned around, and moved to get into the drivers seat, putting the phone in the pocket of his jeans as he did so. Sam was not going to win this argument, of that he was sure of.

Sam considered for a moment, actually leaning over and trying to snatch his phone back from Dean's pocket, but he didn't have to. It started going off.

He knew it would have to be Jess - no one else would be calling him this early, and he felt relief start to come, although he wasn't fully happy yet - not until he heard her voice on the line.

Dean felt the phone vibrating in his pocket, and rolled his eyes. "Fine, you can have the phone," he muttered, as he reached into his pocket to get the phone, and looked at the caller ID. It was Jess - presumably Sam's girlfriend.

"It's Jess," Dean said, a little redundantly, as he handed over the phone.

Sam quickly answered, so relieved she was calling him back. "Jess." he breathed.

"Sam?" she asked worriedly, wondering why he seemed so anxious. "Where are you?"

Sam cleared his throat, trying to act cool and not like he thought she had just died or anything. "Jess, I'm so sorry - my brother showed up - our dad's missing, and we've gotta find him."

"What are you talking about? Can't you just call the authorities?"

Dean tuned out as Sam twittered on to his girlfriend, quickly losing interest in his conversation. At this rate they were never going to get to Forks. He sighed, and opened the door with more force then was probably necessary.

"Are you getting in?" he asked, as Sam looked up at him briefly, and continued on the phone, "Sam... we need to get going. Dad- remember?"