Back to Stanford

Sam looked over at Dean who was focused on the road ahead. He felt kind of sorry for him, having to try and deal with his emotional outbursts about Jessica... Dean had always been there for him when he needed him the most... and there he was, trying to help him deal. Damn, it would be hard.

He looked back at the road ahead, trying to think of something else to take his mind of things. Motels... where were the motels around there? "Turn left." he said flatly, remembering.

Dean took a sharp left turn were Sam indicated. Hopefully Sam was giving him directions for a motel, though seeing as Sam had given up the whole hunting thing four years ago, Dean had no idea why Sam knew where his towns motels were. Still, Sam knew the area better then him, so it'd probably be a good idea to just go with it.

"Where now?" Dean asked, glancing over at Sam briefly, then turning his eyes back to scan the road for a motel. Hopefully Sam wasn't directing him to somewhere too far away.

Sam's attention turned to some blonde, slim, woman walking down the street with a shopping bag and for a second he paused. "Um..." He blinked, looking back at Dean again. Yes, that was the safer option...

"There's one another left down there." he said, keeping his eyes strictly away from anyone walking down the street, especially blondes.

Dean went in on the turning that Sam pointed at, the motel instantly drawing his attention. It looked. marginally nicer then the one they were staying in last night. Pulling into the parking lot, Dean pulled the keys out, and then grimaced for a fraction a second. Sam still didn't have any clothes, at least beyond the ones that Dean had just leant him. Hopefully there would be a laundrette nearby for them to wash Sam's clothes from the day before, with the fire, though Dean was unsure of whether Sam would wear them even with the smell of smoke worn off.

"This the place you were talking about?" Dean asked, a little redundantly, his hand hovering by the door handle.

Sam glanced at the motel. It looked new... because it was. It wasn't the best... but it would do for now. They'd probably stay there until the funeral was over. Then they would head back out to Forks. Sam thought he should get his laptop running soon so he could continue with the research. Might as well get something done if they were stuck in Stanford for a few days. It would take his mind of Jess for the moment as well.

"Yeah." he said, opening the door.

Dean followed Sam into the building. It seemed alright, nothing special or out of the ordinary, though it was nicer then the other place. It was a shame they didn't come here earlier. He should probably book them in for a few days with Jess's funeral and all probably coming up soon.

Walking over to the desk, Dean booked them in for four days. They probably wouldn't need longer then that, and if they did then he could just book them in for longer. Paying with the fake credit card, Dean turned back to Sam, key in hand. They should probably head back out for food soon after this.

Sam seemed to have zoned out for a long moment, staring at a blank spot on the wall behind the check in desk, though, eyes unfocused. He only just registered the fact that Dean was standing there holding the key and he snapped out of it.

"I'll... go get the stuff." he mumbled, turning around.

When Dean turned to face Sam he seemed out of it. He seemed to snap out of it pretty quickly though, as he told Dean he was heading out to get their stuff from the car.

Dean looked at Sam sceptically for a second, and then nodded. ""Do you want me to come with?" he didn't know whether Sam wanted a hand or not, maybe it would be better if he just waited for him in the check in area of the motel. Then again, was leaving Sam on his own a good idea? Dean wasn't so sure.

Sam laughed. "Don't worry, Dean, I'm not going to cross the street by myself..." he shook his head and walked out the door. Dean was overprotective sometimes, like now, but he at least asked and knew when to back off. They had been apart for so long, he thought it would be awkward or something. How wrong he was...

He grabbed a few bags from the Impala, and carried them as well as his new laptop. He would have to get that set up soon.

Dean let him walk out without argument, sensing that Sam probably wanted him to back off a little. Hell, he hadn't had a chance to be on his own properly since it had happened, so it wasn't really surprising that the kid wanted him to give him some space.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Dean waited for Sam to return. Hopefully he'd be alright, and wouldn't have another panic attack, or whatever it was earlier.

Sam came back in, once again with the permanent lingering dark expression that hadn't seemed to have changed since... well.

He walked towards Dean, feeling the jab of another headache coming on. Perfect.

Dean saw Sam walking towards him. He looked worse then before he went out, and Dean walked over to him, trying to grab some of the bags from his hands. At least they'd be back at the room in a minute, somewhere out of sight from everyone else.

"Are you alright?" Dean asked, frowning ever so slightly in worry.

Sam let one go. He could carry the rest. God. It was barely down the hall. If it wasn't for what had happened, Dean would have let him carry the stupid bags himself. He was starting to treat him different, and it wasn't right.

"I'm fine, goddamnit." Sam muttered, a bit irritated.

Dean rolled his eyes, of course Sam was fine. He took the bag Sam let him take, wondering if letting him out on his own had been a good idea after all. Had he seen another reminder of Jess? It was possible, especially considering they were so close to Stanford.

As they got to the doors room, Dean pushed it open, waiting for Sam to come in.

Walking in without hesitation, Sam proceeded to dump the bags on one of the beds, immediately taking the box with the laptop and placing it on the table, opening it.

It was grey and dull. But like that mattered. He turned it on, flicking through one of the thousand manuals that came with it.

Looked like Sam would be in here for the next few hours, getting to grips with his laptop. Dean could remember when their dad had finally got Sam that macintosh when he was younger, and the kid had spent hours on the thing. It was probably going to be like that all over again. This was going to be boring as hell, but it would keep his mind off Jess, and Dean could probably go out and finish the shopping they still needed to do without needing to worry about Sam too much.

Going in after Sam, Dean deposited the bags that Sam had given him on the floor, and went over to sit on one of the beds.

Sam pushed in the CD to install the laptop. He was more than sure it would take a long time to load, which wasn't good. After typing in some stuff it finally came up with how long it should take to install. Fifty minutes. Oh, wonderful.

He sighed, getting out his phone to check his messages and exactly how many times Emma had called. A lot. Over half of the miss calls were from her... What else? Voice mail. Oh great... this should be fun...

"This is Emma... um... Sam... I- uh..." She cut off. That was the only message she'd left. She must have hung up then. Sam deleted the message.

Dean watched as Sam got out his phone, probably checking through his messages of which there would be a lot. He got out his own phone, to see if there was anything from dad. Nothing. Apart from a missed call from Bobby who he'd probably call back later. He should probably try and call or text their dad as well, if there was any chance that the message would get through to him, then he should tell him about Jess, and the fact that whatever it was that killed their mother was back, and had managed to track down where Sam was studying at college.

When Sam got off the phone he didn't look any happier. In Dean's opinion he'd be better off with a new Sim or something, if he was coming back to hunting. His friends were unlikely to quit trying to contact him, and would continuously remind him of what happened with Jess.

Almost as if he heard Dean's thoughts, Sam thought about ripping the SIM right out of the cell phone. The only problem was that it was one of the couple of ways he could contact anyone he knew... no he'd have to keep it. Although he wouldn't have to return the calls or anything after a while, hopefully, they would stop calling, reverting to email instead.

Sam didn't actually know what he wanted to do now. It would be a while till his laptop was done setting up. Driving? Like Dean would let him do that... especially on his own. Walk? Where to? And they were close to memories... Damn it. Shower? And use up all the hot water so Dean could yell at him later?

There was nothing. Except wait and hopefully the pain will go away.

"I'm going to go get us take out," Dean said, after a few minutes of silence between them. He was getting hungry again and it was a few hours since they had their breakfast. Besides, Sam looked preoccupied with his laptop, so he might as well go out and make himself useful.

Once Dean left, Sam went over to the bed and laid down. He figured he might as well rest his eyes at least, since he'd hardly slept at all, not to mention just coming back from a hunt that was just a load of hassle.

Dean seemed to be longer than he expected though. He hadn't exactly said where he was getting food from. Whatever. Reluctantly, Sam finally fell asleep. It was productive, wasn't it?

Dean opened the room to their motel room, two paper bags of food in hand and a couple of paper cups of coke in hand. Most of the takeaways had been closed, seeing as it was still quite early in the day, so he'd had to go out of the area. Dumping them on the table with Sam's laptop, he turned round to see that Sam had fallen asleep on the bed.

At the sound of Dean coming in Sam jerked awake. He sucked in a breath like he had had another nightmare, though this time it hadn't gone one as long. He blinked hard, wanting to tell himself so badly that it was just a nightmare, it wasn't real. But it had been.

When Sam woke up it was clear to Dean that he had been having another nightmare. He hoped they wouldn't carry on for much longer, they were playing havoc on Sam's sleep pattern and were not showing any signs of stopping. Tossing one of the bags of food over to Sam, he glanced over at the laptop screen with feigned interest.

"Having any luck with that computer?" Dean asked, deciding against bringing the nightmare up. Sam probably wouldn't want to talk about it, or at least he wouldn't if he were in Sam's position. No need to linger on them.

Sam sat up and grabbed the bag of food. It seemed that Dean had actually got him something that was kind of on the healthy side. "Thanks." he muttered.

The computer was taking forever... "Um, yeah I have to wait for it to..." he trailed off, knowing that Dean probably wouldn't be interested anyway so there wasn't really much point explaining it.