Supernatural 1. Chapter 1

**Perfectly Normal**

**1.**

The first thing that attracted Jessica to Sam (no, let's be honest here – the first thing that attracted her to Sam was his shoulders, but this came up a close second) was just how Normal he was.

It struck her the very first time she saw him (well, after the line his shoulders made under his slightly too-tight shirt); how Normal he looked. It was in the way he had been scrutinizing the textbook, his notes open next to him, the little line furrowed between his brows showing just how hard he was _concentrating_. She stopped and just stared for a moment, half hidden by the stacks and her heart in her mouth, and found herself actually thanking her mother for sending her on the job that had made her miss the last two lectures of her art history course before the midterm. It took her almost a full minute of staring before she remembered that, one, she was here to talk to him about his lecture notes, and two, she only knew about his impressive note-taking ability because he was her friend Melissa's brand-new boyfriend.

"Talk to Sam," Melissa had told her when she'd complained about missing the lectures (which would lead to Jessica failing the course and an incredibly awkward conversation with her mother, which she would just as soon avoid). "He takes the most thorough notes I've ever seen." When Jessica had blanked on who just Sam was (hey, Melissa had only been with him, like, a week, and Jessica had been gone for the last three days of it), Melissa had laughed and said, "You mean you haven't noticed him? He's like, fifteen feet tall. And he always sits up front." Jessica had just shrugged, and Melissa had shaken her head and remarked, "I can't believe you of all people didn't notice, little miss observant."

"Some of us are trying to pass this class, not use it as a dating service," Jessica had grumbled, even though she knew Melissa probably had a solid 100 in this course. Melissa was like that, which was why she was useless to go to for notes; she kept it all in her head.

Melissa had given her a sympathetic pat on the head (only possible because Jessica was still sitting down) and directed her to the library, telling her that Sam was always, without fail, at the far back right hand table the three evenings before a test, from 8pm to 11pm, and so she should try then. Jessica had resisted asking how Melissa knew her new boy toy so well (after only a week!), but instead had just thanked her and gone back to her dorm to pass out until it was 8pm.

Sam was muttering to himself too, she noticed as she forced herself to creep out from behind the stacks to approach him. And, wow, Melissa wasn't kidding, if the legs she caught a glimpse of under the table were any indication of his height. She spent a few fleeting seconds wishing she had actually changed out of her pajamas or brushed her hair after stumbling out of bed and going to the library (but it didn't matter; she'd needed the sleep and he was _Melissa's boyfriend)_, but then she squared her shoulders and marched up to him.

"Hi," she declared, interrupting his mumblings to himself about the symbolism of the flattened edge on the drinking cup as it pertained to Buddhist precepts. (Oh god, he even _talked to himself_ while studying!)

He looked up at her through too-long bangs and raised his eyebrows. "Hi," he said back, obviously a little wary of her, not that she blamed him.

"I'm Jessica," she told him, sitting down with a flourish and trying to give him her best smile, as if that would somehow negate her tangled mass of hair or her Snoopy pajamas. Why hadn't Melissa mentioned how adorable he was, anyway? Then again, she probably hadn't been expecting Jessica to develop an immediate (and useless) crush on her boyfriend. "Sorry to interrupt your lecture," Jessica added, and to her surprise he flushed. So he hadn't realized he was talking out loud, she thought, and hid her smile.

"I'm Sam," he said back, cheeks still pink. "Do I know you?"

"I'm in your art history class." His expression eased a bit at that, and she couldn't resist grinning at him. "Melissa – she's my friend – told me to talk to you about the notes for the last two lectures. I was—" she pondered her lies, and finally went with the simplest, "sick, and so I missed it." Sick was a good one, she thought; now he would think she was still recovering from some debilitating illness and not just completely lazy. She carefully adjusted her pajama shirt.

At that, though, his expression cleared entirely. "Oh, sure, go right ahead," he said, indicating a thick pile of papers. "They're all right there. Do you want to make copies?"

She considered that. She could copy his notes and go home to study in peace, or she could stay at the library and stare at (_Melissa's boyfriend_) Sam while attempting to study. Either way, she would be in her pajamas, so at least she would be comfortable. But she also did want to pass this test, so unfortunately, it was starting look like option one was her best bet. (Alas!)

"You're okay with that?" she finally said, raising her eyebrows at him. "Just letting some random girl copy your notes?"

"Melissa's your friend, right?" he said, and at her nod continued, "And I don't want you to end up with a bad grade on the test just because you were sick." His expression got so concerned there that she nearly melted (_Melissa's boyfriend_) at the sweetness of it. He really is Normal, she thought, smiling foolishly at him. Only someone Normal would get that worked up over someone else's grade on one little test, probably because grades were the biggest concern in his life. He smiled back at her, and it was so cute that she wanted to hug him (after pushing his hair out of his eyes). But she resisted the urge because one, she hadn't brushed her hair, two, she kind of was starting to doubt her breath was that great, and three, _Melissa's boyfriend_.

So instead she thanked him, took the pile of notes, spent the new few minutes fighting with the copier, and gave the originals back to him with another profession of thanks. Then, with another adjustment of her pajama shirt, she was off.

"Let me know how you do!" he called after her as she disappeared through the library doors, and she no longer had to fight the goofy smile. It was really too bad, she pondered to herself as she made her way home, eyes roving perfunctorily through the shadows, always alert even as a part of her mind was positively sighing over how cute Sam-Melissa's-boyfriend was. She wished now that she had been paying attention to more than the professor in class. Maybe she'd have noticed him first, before—

But then again, she thought as she sank back down onto her bed, his notes clutched to her chest, once he had gotten to know her, would someone that Normal even like someone like her?

**o**

But, strangely enough, Sam Winchester did seem to like her, even though it was just as a friend. He came up to her right after the midterm (to which she had worn actual clothing, thank you) and, with a big goofy grin, asked her how it had gone. She smiled up at him (tall, yes, but hardly fifteen feet, _Melissa, _he was only maybe half a foot taller than Jessica herself) and said, "I totally nailed that essay on drinking cup symbolism thanks to you."

He laughed at that, and then he held out his hand and properly introduced himself, which was how she knew he was Sam Winchester and not just Sam-Melissa's-boyfriend-damn-my-luck-anyway. "Jessica Moore," she replied, shaking his hand back, hoping her name (along with her properly brushed hair and cute jeans) would override his no doubt mental assignment of her as Jessica-Melissa's-crazy-friend-who-has-no-concept-of-what-a-brush-does. "And thank you again, Sam."

He told her it was no problem and then fell into step with her, asking her all the questions everyone did in college, mostly about her major and where was she from and what dorm did she live in and just what was she going to do with her life, anyway? She told him (though not all of it, of course, especially not the last question) and asked back, and found out he was a history major (which explained this particular art history class, as it counted for a history credit as well) but that he was thinking of going to law school, that he had been born in Kansas but had moved around "a bit", and that he lived in the same dorm she did, just in the left wing and about three floors down.

"Awesome," she declared. "Now I can just go steal your notes without leaving the building!"

"Borrow," he corrected with a dimpled smile, and Jessica tried not to melt again. It turned out to be remarkably easy, because Melissa caught up to them then, throwing her arms around Sam and attempting to kiss him hello, except that Melissa was, at best, five foot four, and so her lips were roughly on a par with his chest and there was no way she was going to land a kiss on his mouth unless she either jumped, flew, or dragged him down to her level. Sam laughed and more or less picked her up and kissed her, and Jessica tried not to think about how she herself was nearly six feet tall (a freaking Amazon, she often grumbled to her sister, who was a far more reasonable five foot nine) and wouldn't have had that problem had she any license to be kissing Sam Winchester. Though she wasn't entirely certain she wouldn't have enjoyed him picking her up, she had to admit.

At that thought she gracefully bowed out of the conversation (not that either of them minded), thanked Sam again, and ran all the way back to her dorm room, where she called her mother. She was only a few hours early for their daily phone call anyway.

"But he's your friend's boyfriend?" her mother said when Jessica had finished spilling everything.

"Yes," Jessica sighed. "I know, off-limits."

Her mother tried to be philosophical about it, pointing out, "You've met him exactly twice, honey, you can't like him that much."

Jessica responded that she knew that, but it felt like longer, and anyway she had just wanted to vent. "But I hope we can be friends," she added.

Her mother was quiet for a moment. Then, "Have you looked into his background at all? Made sure he is who he says he is?"

"Mom!" Jessica yelped. "He's Normal!" But even as she said it she was sliding into the chair in front of her computer and waking it up. A few keystrokes later and she had Samuel Winchester's name entered.

"Never assume," her mother said stridently. "Remember what happened with your first boyfriend."

Her mother was going to hold that against her forever. Jessica resisted the urge to complain that she had been sixteen at the time, which was over three years ago now, and instead told her mother that Sam checked out, she'd found the record of his birth certificate and it was issued in the same place he'd said he was born, so _there_. Her mother sounded slightly mollified then and changed the subject, and they talked about Esme's latest job until Jessica said that she had to get some studying done for another midterm and hung up.

She stared at the phone in her hand a minute, biting her lower lip and wishing, just for a second— But no, she told herself. She wasn't ever going to wish away part of who she was just so she could get a Normal boy to like her, even if he suddenly became a single Normal boy. That wasn't what she wanted at all.

What she really wished, she decided, was that one, Sam Winchester was single (and maybe that Melissa had some other boyfriend so Jessica wouldn't feel guilty for taking away this one), and two, that he would believe her if she told him the truth.

But she knew she wouldn't.

**o**

Sam invited her over to his room to study the week after the art history midterm, and to her surprise Melissa wasn't there. More accurately, no one else was there but Jessica. "Mel doesn't need to study," Sam said to her, rolling his eyes just the slightest bit, and she broke into a smile.

"It's disgusting, isn't it?" she asked, and cracked open the book.

They studied together every few days after that, and Melissa never did show up for the study sessions. It made Jessica both happy and guilty; happy because she got to be alone with Sam, and guilty because it was obvious Melissa trusted her if she was fine with Jessica hanging out in his room alone with him. She tried to just be happy about it, because after all guilt was hardly productive. Besides, she hadn't actually made a move at all so Melissa's trust _wasn't_ misplaced, and Jessica would make sure it would never be.

But even as she was still nursing her (useless) crush on Sam, she was also starting to like him for him. They were becoming real friends, and that was worth even more than all the time she got staring at his shoulders while studying. He had a way of making her feel like she was just as Normal as he was, like they were two college kids just hanging out and having fun and making sure they didn't completely fail a class, and even if she didn't want to be entirely Normal she still wanted to feel that way sometimes. And it was so easy with him. He was sweet and fun but turned out to have a biting sense of humor she adored, and they would trade barbs over their textbooks until they were both breathless with laughter and not exactly studying anymore.

She learned more about him then, not much, but some, when they got bored with reciting facts and starting talking. At first he wouldn't even talk about his family at all, so she told him about hers (well, what she could safely tell a Normal person). She was the baby of the family; her brother Kevin was the oldest, six years older than she, and studying to be a doctor, which was easy to talk about. It was harder to tell him about Esme, who was four years older, but she managed to make it sound like Esme was a traveling photographer without actually lying (Esme_ did_ travel, and she did have a camera, even if most of what Esme took pictures of would never _ever_ appear in a magazine). Her father still worked as a business consultant, so she told him about that. Most of what she told him about her mother was about her (like her obsession with bird feeders and her adoration of non-wrinkle fabrics) and not about her job, but she knew she had to say _something_, and so after some mental debate she ended up telling him her mother was a dispatcher. (It was kind of true, after all.)

At their fifth study session he finally opened up (well, a little, anyway). She found out that his mother had died when he was a baby (he didn't specify how, and she was too unsure of how to react to such a question to ask) and that he had grown up with his father and brother. He clammed up when she asked about them, especially when his father was mentioned. There was some tension there, she could tell, though he wouldn't elaborate. But she could extrapolate from what he did say that his father was gruff, demanding, and apparently uncaring over what Sam wanted out of life, so she could understand not wanting to talk about it, at least not to a study partner.

But she could never quite tell how he felt about his brother. He talked a little more about him than about his father, but obliquely, so much that she had no idea what his brother's name even was. Sometimes Sam seemed even angrier with him than he was with his father, and sometimes, when they were trading favorite stories, he would start one about his brother, and a smile would start and his eyes would just light up before he would catch himself. She did manage to get out of him that his brother was four years older but had been around more than their father while Sam was growing up, and also that he was a bit of what Esme would term a manwhore, and so she thought that maybe Sam still felt some hero-worship for the guy but had also had the painful realization that he wasn't perfect. But Sam usually cut himself off before he told her too much.

It frustrated the hell out of her, even if she knew that (sadly) most Normal families today existed in a state of dysfunction. Still, she didn't check on any of the rest of the things Sam told her about himself (even if she desperately wanted to look up at least his brother's _name_), mostly because she knew for a fact that Normal people didn't enter their new friend's names into informational databases to make sure they really existed as stated. She didn't even check his high school records, even though Esme told her to – Esme was too paranoid, for one, and for another every time Sam smiled at her it was like she just lit up inside, and she didn't want to go sneaking around his back like he was some sort of monster.

One time she tried to see if Melissa knew anything more than she did. "You sure you don't want to study with us?" Jessica asked her after one of their art history lectures. Finals were fast approaching, after all. (Sam had gone on ahead, so now was the perfect time to corner his girlfriend.) "Even _you_ must need to study before the final."

Melissa just shook her head and adjusted her glasses. "No, it's fine. I don't really need to study much for this class. I need to get working on organic chemistry, because that final is going to flay me. Just make sure you and Sam have a moment of silence for me or something." She hitched up her absolutely bursting book bag and gave Jessica a rueful smile.

"It doesn't bother you?" Jessica asked, falling into step next to her.

Melissa smiled. "What, you two studying together all the time? No, not really. I trust you both."

Jessica managed to smile back (obviously, Melissa couldn't read thoughts or she wouldn't be talking about trusting Jessica – even if she could, really). "Trusting me I get. I've known you since last year. But you just started dating him right before midterms, so you've known him, like, two months."

Melissa raised her eyebrows. "Does that mean he's done something I should know about?"

Jessica shook her head emphatically. "No!" (Unfortunately, her traitorous mind bemoaned. She told herself to shut up already.) "It's just – you must know him awfully well already if you trust him."

Melissa grinned. "He talks a lot right after – you know." She winked.

Jessica nodded and tried to swallow and hoped her face wasn't turning red. "Yeah, I wouldn't know anything about that." She paused, then said in a rush, "Has he told you anything about his family?"

Melissa considered. "Not really. He said something about a brother, once. I didn't ask." She shrugged. "Mostly we talk about studying. And what we want to do with our lives. Random trivia. The books we've been reading. That kind of thing."

Jessica's heart gave a jump, and she couldn't stop the stupid grin from spreading over her face. (She wanted to start singing, but managed to quell the impulse. For now.) Fortunately, Melissa decided that Jessica's grin meant she was about to insult them for being overly geeky and protested, "Don't even say it."

"Say what?" Jessica asked, innocently.

Melissa huffed. "You were going to make fun of me for talking about books after sex, I know it."

Jessica let her keep thinking that.

**o**

She met Sam's friends (other than Melissa) the week before finals, in a let's-go-out-and-pretend-we're-not-a-mass-of-finals-induced-nerves outing. They were: Sam's roommate (last year and this year), Zach, reasonably attractive but kind of bland, though sweet; Zach's sister, freshman Rebecca (or Little Becky, as Sam introduced her with a grin, which caused her to roll her eyes and hit him on the shoulder), short and blonde and made Jessica think of the word 'spitfire'; and Preeti, Rebecca's roommate, who had masses of dark curly hair and tended to talk so fast she had to be reminded to slow down.

Zach told her all sorts of interesting stories about Sam as a freshman, running the gamut from their first day meeting to Sam's utter embarrassment in the cafeteria one fateful day when they had served lime jello. Sam turned brighter and brighter red until all Jessica wanted to do was lay her hands on his face. She introduced Sam to her friend Adrian instead. (Jessica had only brought Adrian to this meet-and-greet, as her only other good friend was Melissa, which figured. Sometimes she thought it might have been nice to have had a roommate.)

Adrian (who was already two shots short of plastered) looked Sam up and down and winked at Jessica, who made slashing throat motions at him while gesturing frantically to Melissa, who was _right there_. Sam didn't seem to notice and just shook Adrian's hand while looping his other arm over Melissa's shoulders in an obvious gesture. Melissa grinned and nuzzled at his shirt, and Jessica _ached_.

"Too bad," Adrian whispered to Jessica.

"For me or you?" she shot back.

Adrian just grinned.

The first time Sam invited her over without the excuse of it being a study session, it was at the beginning of their second quarter. (She had gone home to McLean for the vacation, where she had spend the entire time being pumped for information about her new friend Sam first from her mother and then from Esme, capped off by her father dragging her out into the woods and forcing her through some obstacle course he had apparently spent weeks designing to "keep her fit" as she hadn't actually gone on a job since before meeting Sam and that had been nearly four months ago. Only her brother Kevin hadn't spent the whole time grilling her or chasing her with paint guns, a fact for which she was eternally grateful.) She had just walked into her (blessedly quiet) dorm room and started plugging everything back in when the phone rang. "You're back!" Sam's voice said in response to her tired, "Hello?" She came instantly awake, however, as his next words were, "Can you come over?"

She practically ran to his room, where he enveloped her in a (far too short) hug and asked her which classes she was in this quarter. They compared schedules, and then vacations (he had spent his in a co-op on campus, apparently, though he wouldn't really say why), and after about an hour of non-stop talking she ended up sprawled across Zach's bed making fun of him for not knowing that Sleeping Beauty had pricked herself on a spindle. When he protested, red-cheeked, that he just hadn't heard the whole story before, Jessica grabbed him by the arm and forcibly dragged him all the way across the dorm and up three flights of stairs to her room, where she sat him down and forced him to watch the classic Disney movie. (Well, not forced, exactly, seeing as how he seemed engrossed the minute it started.)

They sat side by side on her bed, Sam leaning back against the wall with his legs stretched out in front of him, and Jessica with her arms wrapped around her like she was cold, because it was just that hard not to touch him. She ended up watching him more than the movie (well, not during any part Maleficent was onscreen, because Maleficent was too good to miss).

It turned out Sam's knowledge in fairy tales was sorely lacking (just what had his family read to him, anyway?), so she lent him her research copy of _Household Stories from the Brothers Grimm. _When he was done (and had bought his own copy, she noted), they went through almost her entire Disney oeuvre, except for two, as he'd seen both _Aladdin_ and _The Lion King_ before. "But _The Lion King_ isn't based on a fairy tale, is it?" he asked her, sprawled across her bed on his stomach, looking up at her perched primly in her computer chair.

She snorted and replied, "No, it's based on _Kimba the White Lion_." Which had then led them to spending the weekend watching the entire series, in Japanese with subtitles, because Sam agreed with her that it was the only way to go. They made it through twelve episodes Friday night, and he joined her at breakfast Saturday morning and followed her back up to her room for more. He ended up falling asleep on her floor that night after episode forty-five, and she covered him with her extra comforter and tried to go to sleep in her own bed, but the sound of his breathing distracted her.

She closed her eyes and let herself have a little fantasy of crawling down onto the floor with him and wrapping herself around him, head on his chest, and listening to his heart beat against her ear. Then she berated herself for having such low-grade fantasies and added a little making out to it, and by the time she was trying to decide if she would straddle him or yank him over on top of her, she was asleep.

Melissa woke them both up Sunday morning by calling Sam's cell. Jessica started awake and was already reaching for the knife under her pillow when she heard his low mumbled, "'Lo?" and remembered. He listened for a minute, then said, "At Jess's." She couldn't keep a thrill from running through her (he'd called her by a nickname!) and grinned up at the ceiling. Sam yawned, then said, "We don't have many left. I could meet you for dinner maybe." He listened a minute, then said, "See you later," and snapped the phone shut.

"There's only seven left," Jessica said, rolling over so she was peeking over the edge of the bed at him.

He yawned again and peered up at her. "Let's get breakfast first," he said. "And let me stop by my room for a minute so I can change."

They finished watching the show after breakfast and he went back to his room for good, and Jessica tackled all the homework she'd been putting off. She finished before it was too late and considered going out (Adrian was always up for bar-crawling, even on Sunday nights, which Jessica thought a bit excessive but then Adrian himself was a bit excessive), but instead curled up in bed with a book and her stereo going softly. She had almost fallen asleep when she heard footsteps outside her door and came instantly awake.

She had the knife in her hand and was just approaching the door when someone knocked on it. "Jess?" Sam's voice said, and she relaxed and almost opened the door before remembering the six-inch blade in her hand. She shoved it in the desk drawer and then ran back to the door and opened it.

"Hey, Sam," she started, but then she got a good look at his face. "What happened?" she asked instead, opening the door wider and ushering him in.

"It's not that big a deal," he muttered, but he came in, arms wrapped around himself. He sat down on the floor and leaned back against her bed, staring at his drawn-up knees. Jessica stood by the door and wondered what she was supposed to do. She opted for sitting on the floor next to him and touching one of his hands. "It's Melissa," he said in a rush before she could ask again. "She broke up with me."

Jessica winced. "Ouch." She touched his hand again and said gently, "Did she say why?" Even though she had known Melissa for almost a year, she still didn't quite understand how the girl operated. Jessica had no idea if it was because Melissa was Normal or if it was because she wasn't.

Sam laughed, though it didn't sound like it usually did when he laughed. This one didn't make her smile almost involuntarily when she heard it. This one made her pick up one of his huge hands and lace her fingers with his, barely even aware of how hard her heart was pounding. "Yeah, she did," Sam admitted. "She said it wasn't working. Something about how we don't see each other much and that when we do it's like we're just friends, not dating." He laughed again, and Jessica squeezed his hand. "Apparently she doesn't 'feel desired' when she's with me."

"'Feel desired'?" she echoed, wondering just what magazine Melissa had gotten _that_ out of. (She could _hear_ the quotation marks around that phrase.)

He ran his free hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes (which was a losing battle on his part, she had to note). "Yeah, that's what she said. Like I don't—" He stopped, and she turned her head to see he was blushing.

"What, you don't throw her down and ravish her enough?" Jessica asked.

His blush deepened, but he nodded. "Something like that," he mumbled, and Jessica nearly burst trying to contain the urge to simultaneously kiss him and jump up and start doing a victory dance. She was being a sensitive friend now, she reminded herself. Victory dances could come later, when (she was alone) Sam didn't need her.

But she couldn't stop herself from asking, "Just how often did you, anyway?"

For a second he didn't say anything, and she was about to retract her spectacularly insensitive question when he muttered, "At first like every day, but recently more like – once a week?" He heaved a sigh. "Maybe she's got a point."

Jessica took another deep breath (no victory dances yet) and turned to face him. If it would help him I can do it, she thought, and asked. "Do you want me to talk to her?"

He hesitated a moment, but then he turned to look at her, and oh god, his face. She wanted to hug him again. "No," he said after a minute. "I think maybe she's right." He dropped his head again. "God, this sucks."

She let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding and poked him in the shoulder. "Come on," she said, tugging on his hand. "I'm taking you out."

"Out?" he asked, but he let her heave him to his feet. "Where?"

She turned and grinned up at him. "We're doing what everyone does after a breakup," she declared. "We're going out for ice cream."

**o**

About a week later Jessica was out with Sam and Adrian and Zach and Rebecca and Preeti. By mutual agreement, they had dragged Sam out so he would stop moping around about Melissa (of course, Sam had tried to invite her along, saying 'But we decided to stay friends!' but fortunately Rebecca had put a stop to that by stealing Sam's cell). They had all had dinner and then found a bar that also had pool tables, because Sam was surprisingly good at pool, even if he got a faraway look in his eyes when asked where he had learned.

The other five were at the tables while Jessica perched on a barstool drinking Coke and watched Adrian flirt unabashedly with Sam, who blushed on the average of once every 24.6 seconds (god, he was adorable) while Zach steadfastly ignored Adrian's antics and Preeti and Rebecca traded amused smirks at the other pool table. She drained her glass and was just about to shout some encouragement to them (something that would, hopefully, get Sam to bend over again) when she caught sight of the woman staring at Sam.

The music playing over the speakers seem to fade, and it was almost like everything around her slowed to a crawl. The woman stood just beyond Sam, in the shadows near the back of the bar, half her face obscured but the other half lit up red by the exit sign to her left. She looked human, at first glance, what Jessica could see of her: dark hair, smooth skin, full lips, dark heavy-lidded eyes that traced Sam's every movement. But the look on the woman's face wasn't right; it wasn't a look of desire, or admiration, or even lust. It was, Jessica thought, _hunger_.

Carefully, she eased her purse open and retrieved her compact. With a practiced twist of her wrist she flipped it open. Casually, she tapped the brush on her nose while, ever so slowly, turning the compact slightly to her left with each tap. The edge of the pool table came into view first, so she tilted it up. Sam appeared, blushing (of course). Jessica held her breath and moved it again, just a little.

In the mirror, the woman's face, strangely, was still beautiful, but her skin was utter white now; her eyes glowed in a way human eyes never did, and her lips had vanished, replaced by something that looked almost beaklike. Wings jutted from the woman's shoulders, white and ragged, folded tightly to keep them close to her body as possible.

Harpy, Jessica thought, and snapped the compact shut.

She slid off the bar chair and edged her way towards the back emergency exit, doing her best to act like the figure standing not four feet from the door was nothing but a woman and therefore not worthy of her attention. Harpies didn't go after women, after all, unless the woman posed a threat. But apparently it didn't perceive Jessica that way, because nothing she was doing caught the harpy's attention. That was all on Sam.

Jessica reached out and pressed the bar on the exit door. It clicked, and the door swung open a little under her hands, but nothing sounded. No alarm, no shouts from the bar, and nothing from the harpy barely over an arm's length away. No one had noticed her, exactly as intended, and Jessica let out a breath.

"Hey, guys," she said, strolling away from the door and up to the table just as Adrian was slapping Sam's ass for what was probably the sixteenth time.

"Jess," Sam bleated, turning around and pressing back firmly into the table. "Tell him to stop."

"But you look like you're enjoying it," she returned (banter as usual), but her eyes were on the shadowy form still standing just behind him, eyes on him. She bent, picked up her bag where she had left it by Rebecca's, and slung it over her shoulder. "I'm heading out, okay?"

"What?" Sam cried. "Why?" He batted at Adrian's sneaking hand with the pool cue. "You can't leave me alone."

"Study group," Jessica breezed. "I totally forgot it was tonight. I'll see you tomorrow, okay? And don't give me that look, Zach and Preeti and Little Becky are still here." Sam pouted at her anyway, and she nearly lost her resolve, but then she saw the harpy rustle its shoulders and shift, ever so slightly, and she gripped her bag's strap and shook her head at him. "You can survive one night with Adrian," she told him. "He won't bite unless you ask. God, stop being such a – a straight boy."

Sam's eyebrows went up at that, and another blush stole over his face. Jessica didn't bother to think about the implications of that (no, really, she wasn't at all) and just shook her head at him again. "I'll see you tomorrow," she repeated, and slowly, deliberately, gave him a hug, fisting her hands in his shirt on his back and pressing her cheek to his.

Over his shoulder, the harpy was snarling at _her_ now.

"Later, Jessie girl," Adrian said to her, ruffling her hair, and the others all chimed in with good-byes. Jessica nodded at them, then melted into the shadows. Her friends weren't watching her anymore, she determined after a moment, but the harpy was following her with its eyes now. She straightened her shoulders, gathered her hair in both hands, and twisted it into a tight bun she fastened with the elastic band still around her wrist from the morning's ponytail. Then she slipped the hand on the side away from the harpy into her bag and grasped the hilt of the hidden knife. She didn't look at the creature (she was not nervous; her heart was not pounding so loud she could hear it; she was fine) as she crept to the exit door and pushed it open, all the way this time, and stepped out into a deserted alley.

Barely a second later the harpy was on her, shrieking. Jessica kicked the door shut (she couldn't let anyone hear or see this) and drew her silver knife. The harpy hissed and backed away a step, its eyes flashing at her, its hands curled into claws, though it still just looked like a beautiful woman to her (albeit a beautiful woman with bloodlust distorting her features). "Yeah, I know what you are," Jessica said, taking a deliberate step towards it. "And I'm not letting you have him."

The harpy screeched at her, clacking its beak together, and lunged. Jessica jumped backwards, ducking as its claws swiped at the air over her head. She could see its true form now, its tattered white wings outstretched, the skin on them so thin the light from the bulb over the door seemed to shine through it. Its eyes burned blue in the dim light. "He's mine," the harpy hissed.

"Too late for that," Jessica countered, and thrust upwards with the knife.

The harpy screeched and twisted, and instead of going through its abdomen the blade went through its wing. Hot blood splattered Jessica's face, and she staggered, distracted long enough for the harpy to claw her across the right shoulder. "He's mine!" the harpy screeched again, one clawed hand clutching its injured wing, the other ready to strike Jessica again.

Jessica swung into a crouch and kicked its legs out from under it. It hit the concrete with a thud, and Jessica leapt back to her feet. She strode forward, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, and switched the blade to her left hand. The harpy seemed to be stunned, as only its uninjured wing was twitching, so quick as flash Jessica slashed the knife through its throat, then stabbed it through the heart before it could even make a choking noise. It went still.

"He's his," Jessica whispered, rocking back on her heels. She carefully set the bloodied knife down and pawed through her bag (which she had dropped by the door) for bandages. The wounds weren't too deep, she noted, but she would probably need to hit health services for stitches to be safe. (No way could she stitch up her own shoulder, she knew from experience.) She doused them with holy water, taped them shut for now, and pulled out her salt and a lighter.

While the harpy burned she got out the rag she used to clean the knife and buffed it back to a silver shine. Then she cleaned her face best she could. After that was done she stood waiting, her bag awkwardly slung over her left shoulder (she usually used her right), until the harpy was just ashes. She stomped on them until she was sure the fire was out (never leave a spark, her father always cautioned) and then kicked them under a dumpster. "Done," she said aloud.

Her phone rang.

Jessica nearly dropped her bag in surprise. Then she fumbled for her cell, pulling it out of its pocket and flipping it open. What if it's Sam? she worried for a second, but then she saw the ID. "Hi, Mom," she said.

"Jessica," her mother said. Jessica knew that tone. "Are you alone?"

She could feel the irony about to hit. "Yes," she said.

Her mother continued, "Good. We found a job for you, right in Palo Alto. Several young men have disappeared from a local bar—"

"Named Ricky's," Jessica finished. "It's a harpy, Mom. And it's dead. Update the hunters' network, would you?"

"You killed it already?" her mother said, sounding surprised. "But how did you know it was there?"

"It tried to get Sam," Jessica said simply, and shut the phone.


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

The morning after the harpy Jessica hurt too much to bother getting out of bed, so (after a careful mental review of what was happening that day, which was nothing important) she didn't. Instead she watched old reruns on television and contemplated the merits of getting food verses not moving until noon, when her phone rang.

She started to reach with her right, cursed, and grabbed it with her left hand. "Hello?" she rasped, then coughed and tried again. "Hello?"

"Are you sick?" Sam demanded, and Jessica blinked.

"Yes," she said after a second of deliberation, mentally crossing her fingers. (She really hoped all this lying about being sick to cover up after hunting wouldn't lead to some sort of massive karmic payback involving projectile vomiting. She _hated_ vomiting.)

"I'll be right over," Sam said, and hung up.

Jessica struggled out of bed and shoved her duffel under it, then attempted to brush her hair. It stubbornly resisted her attempts to make it resemble something other than a massive bird's nest, and only using one hand wasn't helping much. (Her shoulder wasn't all _that_ bad, but pulling stitches didn't exactly make the healing go any faster.) After a minute she tossed the brush down again and reasoned that she wasn't any worse looking than she had been the day she met Sam. (Hadn't she been wearing these exact pajamas then too? At least this time she was actually in bed and not out wandering around in public.) Besides, it wasn't like they were dating (yet) anyway.

So she unlocked the door and crawled back into bed to wait.

Sam appeared and let himself in about ten minutes later, a paper bag swinging from one huge hand and a stack of DVDs in the other. "I brought you food," he said softly, setting the bag down on her desk, "and entertainment." He held up the DVDs, which appeared to be two box sets, so they were probably seasons of some TV show—

Jessica sat up, wincing when the stitches in her shoulder pulled, and shoved her hair out of her eyes. "You did not just bring me _Gargoyles_, did you?"

He went a little pale. "Is it okay? They were on sale, and you have all that anime and all the Disney movies, and this was Disney too, so I thought—"

"_I love you_," Jessica said fervently, and grabbed at the boxes with her left hand. "My god, I haven't seen this show since I was, like, eight," she informed him after staring reverently at the covers for a few minutes and then hugging them to her chest. Eight, she thought, just a little wistful. Eight was right before Esme got possessed, back when their family didn't know what was out there, when they were actually Normal and all Jessica had done was go to school and watch cartoons and play outside and not go through training every day. She could barely remember it, now.

She looked up at Sam, who was watching her with an odd expression on his face, half amusement and half bemusement. For a second she wanted to throw herself into his arms, wrap herself up in him and maybe pull covers over their heads so it would just be the two of them, at least for awhile. Instead she took a deep breath and stopped hugging the box sets so she could hold them out to him. "Have you ever seen it?" she asked him, and didn't her voice sound remarkably steady?

"No," Sam said, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth, "but obviously you thought it was good."

She laughed and declared, "We are watching every single episode of this today."

They didn't make it through the whole series, though. After they ate (Sam had brought her chicken noodle soup and a hunk of sourdough bread, which she devoured), Jessica wrapped up in her extra blanket (for cushioning) and sat on the bed with Sam to her left, so that she didn't jump every time he poked her to either make fun of her for being so fascinated or (after a few episodes) with excitement every time something awesome happened. Unlike last weekend when she had spent a whole day watching an entire cartoon show with him, this time they ended up touching, leaning against each other with their heads together, and not even the pure nostalgia of the show or the lingering pain in her shoulder could distract her from the feel of him against her. Even through the blanket he was warm, and the ends of his hair kept brushing her cheek when he would shift next to her. She wanted to close her eyes, savor it, but she also wanted to watch, and so she compromised by turning the TV off the moment season one had ended (it was only thirteen episodes, fortunately) and letting her eyes drift shut.

"You want me to leave?" Sam whispered after a few minutes, interrupting her listening to his breathing.

"No," she murmured back, shifting a little, and then her cheek was pressed flush to his and she could smell his shampoo and feel his breath against her skin and it was wonderful. He shifted a little back and then his arm was around her, and it was so nice that she didn't even bother telling him to move because he had one of his (huge) hands planted right over her stitches. She just sighed and settled against him, and didn't wake up until he gently shook her and told her it was dinnertime, and did she feel up to going down to the cafeteria?

She yawned and muttered something about not wanting to move and besides, her hair was an absolute mess. Then Sam carefully detached himself from around her and picked up her brush.

"Is it all right?" he asked her, eyes watching her. She tried to answer but her voice wouldn't work, so instead she just nodded and turned so her back was to him, and tried to ignore the pounding of her heart.

She went still when his fingers touched her hair, carefully threading through it to unsnarl the worst of the tangles. It was like the sound on the world had been turned down, like all she could hear and sense was him, little movements as his hands worked, the feel of his legs crossed on her bed behind her and his fingers brushing against her scalp. She jumped a little when he pulled her hair, but not because it had hurt; he had murmured, "Sorry," and broken the silence, startling her. But at the same time she loved the sound of his voice, and she could feel the brush stroking cleanly through her hair now, feel the curls bouncing freely after each pass, and still he was brushing through it. She let her head drop forward, closed her eyes, and didn't move when he lay the brush down.

He cleared his throat, shifted, and she heard his feet touch the floor again. Then his hand touched her on the shoulder (the good one, but even if he had grabbed the right she doubted she'd have been able to feel the pain). "We should go," he whispered, and she opened her eyes and looked up at him. He had both hands out now, obviously waiting for her to take them so he could pull her to her feet.

Jessica thought about saying something then, breaking the tension she could feel humming through her and (she thought) through him. She thought about teasing him about trying to be a gentleman, or asserting that she was a modern girl who didn't need his help just to get up. But she knew he didn't mean it like that, and part of her didn't want the tension to break. She knew what she wanted; what she didn't know was what he wanted.

So she took his hands.

After she was on her feet he let go of her. "You okay?" he asked, and she nodded and tried to remember that Melissa had only dumped him a week ago, after all. "You want to get dressed first?" He gestured to her.

She looked down at her beloved Snoopy pajamas and shook her head. "Why bother?" she shrugged. "I go to the library in this, why not the cafeteria?" He laughed, the smile lighting up his eyes, and she grinned back, and maybe it was okay if they stayed like this for awhile.

They went down to the cafeteria, and Sam laughed again when she ate two plates full of food in less time than it took him to eat one. She made a face at him for that and made a point of getting a dessert too.

When he followed her back upstairs to her room she contemplated kicking him out. She needed to shower at some point, and she wanted to call her mother, and she could hardly give in to the urge to analyze their relationship with him sitting right there. "Aren't you going to sleep in your own bed?" she asked him before opening her door.

He gave her a look of wide-eyed innocence. "Aren't you sick?" he queried, also innocently. "Don't you need someone there to make sure you're okay?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not _that_ sick and you know it," she countered.

He countered back with puppy-dog eyes. "I should stay. What if you get up in the middle of the night and fall or something?"

She raised one eyebrow. "You mean fall over the enormous guy sleeping on my floor?"

His lips twitched a little at that, but he turned up the intensity of the puppy eyes and pressed, "I just want to make sure you're okay, Jess."

"You just want to watch the first part of season two with me tomorrow, don't you?" she accused, and he grinned shamelessly.

"Please?" He held out his hands in supplication, palms up, and gave her his most winning smile. She debated with herself for about two seconds, then reasoned that she could do all of those things tomorrow (what else were Sundays for? Surely not _homework_) and let him in the room with her.

Sam spent the night on her floor, wrapped up in her extra blanket with his head pillowed on his arms while she curled up on her left side and watched him. Her heart ached as she listened to him breathe and watched his chest rise and fall, slow and rhythmic. She wondered if maybe she had been imagining it earlier, when his hands had been on her hair. Maybe she was just his new best friend and she was silly to think he might want something else (more?) from her. Or maybe it hadn't been long enough yet; maybe Melissa was still stamped on him and needed to flake off more before he could even think about Jessica like that. But either way, it was all right. She wanted Sam-the-friend just as much as she wanted Sam-the-boyfriend, and she had the first.

She could wait for the second.

**o**

Jessica woke up to the sound of Sam's voice. "Not like that," he was saying, and she cracked one eye open to see that he was huddled against the door, still wrapped in her blanket, his phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear. He went silent for a moment, then made a noise like he was trying to hold back laughter and murmured, "Why, what would you do?"

She stirred and was about to ask him whom was talking to when he exclaimed, "Dean!" in a scandalized tone, and the words froze in her throat. _Dean_, she thought, heart thrumming. She hadn't heard that name from him before, and she knew all his friends at college (or at least the ones he knew well enough to be talking on the phone with at eight in the morning). So that meant Dean was someone not from Stanford, someone he knew well, whose name she didn't know.

His brother, she thought, and held her breath.

It turned out not to matter, because then Sam said something about Dean being a jerk (though he sounded amused) and "she's going to wake up" and snapped the phone shut. Jessica let out her breath and wondered if all Normal guys were this mysterious about their dysfunctional families. Maybe they are, she reasoned; her other example, Adrian (who, despite evidence to the contrary, was at least partly Normal), clearly had a lot of issues concerning his family, but he didn't talk about them either. (Not sober, anyway. But Adrian would talk about pretty much _anything_ when drunk, so she didn't think it counted.)

Perhaps, she started, but closed down that line of thinking. She might burn with curiosity about him, but she wasn't going to get Sam plastered just to make him talk about his family. But there wasn't anything wrong with just _asking_, was there? And it wasn't like she wanted to know every secret about his family ever, just a confirmation that Dean was, in fact, his brother. (Well, just that to start. She was fully intending to completely unravel the mystery of Sam Winchester one day, but she could be patient, no matter what Esme said about the matter.)

She watched Sam carefully make his way across her floor to lie down next to her bed again. He had settled down again and had just closed his eyes when she said out loud, "Was that your brother?"

Sam jumped and let out a swear, and she couldn't resist laughing a little at the look on his face. "Jess!" he gasped, trying to look dignified despite his hair sticking in every direction (she wouldn't pet him, she told herself sternly, no matter how adorable his hair was). "You're awake!"

"I know that," she lobbed back, rolling onto her stomach. "_Was_ that your brother?"

Several expressions flashed across his face at once – confusion, anxiety, even a little amusement, and something she couldn't identify it was gone so fast – before settling on evasion. "Yeah," he admitted, but she could already tell by his tone that he wasn't going to say much more.

She pressed on anyway. Fine, she got it, Normal guys obviously didn't like to talk about their families, but really, was she asking for _that_ much? She had practically told him everything she possibly could about her siblings, and _she_ had to worry about spilling the whole killing-monsters-for-a-hobby (or in Esme's case, a living) thing. Even if (though) he was hiding something too, couldn't he tell her pointless things like favorite television shows or colors or _something_?"So his name is Dean?"

He blinked, but nodded, that faraway look in his eyes again for just a second. Then he shook his head a little (she _would not_ pet him) and asked, "You hungry?"

"You sounded happy," she answered, figuring if he was going to ignore her questions, she could ignore his.

"I hadn't heard from him in awhile," he admitted, and she peeked at his face again. Relieved, she realized. He was a million things about this conversation with his brother, but one of them was relieved. She knew relieved; it reminded of her of how she felt every time Esme called, and just the sound of Esme's voice would flood her with relief because then Jessica knew her sister was still okay, still alive (and still irritating, but that was a given).

It made her wonder, just for a moment – but there were a thousand other reasons Sam could be relieved to hear from his brother, starting with the fact that she was pretty sure he and Sam had had some sort of fight before he left for college. The fact that they were talking again was probably a relief, especially considering how much Sam kept mentioning him even if he officially Didn't Talk About His Family (and stop asking, please). Maybe now that they weren't fighting (she was pretty sure they weren't now, despite the 'jerk') he would actually open up and tell her everything and she could (pet his hair) listen.

"Everything's okay then?" she asked, carefully.

He shrugged. "Seems to be." His stomach rumbled then, and he looked up and met her eyes. There was a beat, and then, "Can we _please_ go get food now?" he begged, giving her his best puppy dog eyes and clasping his hands under his chin to boot. She laughed, and he grinned, and she couldn't resist anymore. Reaching out, she mussed his hair (what kind of shampoo did he use, anyway, to get it that soft?). He ducked away from her hands, laughing and crying, "Mercy!" and she managed not to throw herself at him by reminding herself that 1. she had morning breath, and 2. it had still only been a week, dammit. So instead she threw the covers off and sat up.

To her surprise her hair snaked down around her shoulders in tousled but tangle-free curls. "Wow," she commented, touching it, and when she looked back down at Sam he was looking back at her, and there was another beat before he suddenly shook himself and got to his feet and held out his hands to her, again. She took them.

But he still let go after she was on her feet.

They finished watching the show after breakfast ("WHY isn't the second half of season 2 on DVD?" Jessica moaned piteously afterwards, prompting Sam to snicker and throw a pillow at her head, which had resulted in an all-out pillow war) and then Jessica, regretfully, kicked Sam out, though he made her promise to meet him for lunch tomorrow first.

"That is, if you're feeling okay," he added, and she made a face at him and shut the door on his grin before she ended up with her hands in his hair again.

**o**

She finished her homework in record time and then called her mother, who (after gently admonishing her for not calling at all yesterday and then catching her up on all the Family News) advised her to wait on the Sam Issue just a little longer, and to perhaps clear it with Melissa first. "Even if she's the one who did the dumping," her mother added in the wise tone she employed when giving Life Advice, meaning Jessica wasn't supposed to argue in the face of her superior wisdom. Jessica rolled her eyes and neglected to point out that, knowing Melissa, she probably had a new boy toy by now and therefore why should Jessica worry about her opinion then, mostly because it actually wasn't bad advice.

She _should_ talk to Melissa.

Melissa had been Jessica's first friend at Stanford (they had been roommates during orientation – the only time Jessica had ever had a roommate, even if it had only been for a few days), and even if she had dumped Sam first Jessica didn't want to risk hurting Melissa if she suddenly (only a week later) picked up with him. For one thing, it would be a shitty thing to do, and Jessica tried her best not to do shitty things to the few friends she had.

For another, the only other good friends she had made at Stanford were Adrian and Sam (Little Becky, Preeti, and Zach were getting there, but they were still mostly Sam's friends and therefore didn't count on the list of friends-Jessica-actually-made-by-her-damn-self), and though she loved both of them dearly (though differently), neither of them was a girl. Jessica had grown up with her mother and Esme as her best friends and there were just some things you didn't talk about with boys, no matter how close you were to them otherwise. She and Melissa weren't as close as she and Adrian, or even she and Sam now, but Melissa had always been there for Jessica when she needed her. She owed it to Melissa to talk to her first.

Come to think of it, Jessica realized, she hadn't called Melissa once since the breakup. They'd seen each other briefly between classes but hadn't had time for more than a quick wave and a 'Hey!' before Melissa had disappeared into the crowds again and Jessica had gone back to obsessing about Melissa's ex-boyfriend. She'd been too caught up in Sam and his moping to remember that she was friends with Melissa too, she thought, a bit guiltily, and grabbed her phone.

"Hi, Jess," Melissa answered, sounding distracted. "What's up?"

"When are you not busy?" Jessica demanded.

Melissa laughed, and Jessica heard her flipping through pages of the meticulous planner she always had on her. "Tuesday," she said after a minute. "After four. The paper that is eating my soul is due at three."

Jessica twisted a curl around one finger. "My last class ends at two, so that works."

"Great," Melissa said. "I've been meaning to talk to you for awhile, anyway. You know about me and Sam, right?"

Jessica told herself that there was no reason to be feeling guilty and answered, "He told me a little bit about it."

"I thought he might," Melissa replied, a note of something Jessica couldn't quite identify in her voice. "We'll talk more on Tuesday, okay? I really need to get back to work on this."

Jessica ignored the plummeting feeling in her stomach and nodded. "Sure. Is it organic chem again?"

"I'm crazy for taking this class," Melissa moaned. "Wasn't one quarter enough? Why do I torture myself like this?"

"Because you're brilliant," Jessica answered promptly. Melissa laughed and said goodbye, then cut their connection. Jessica sat on her bed, cross-legged, and stared at her cell phone for nearly half an hour before dragging herself to her feet to take a shower and get ready for bed.`

She and Melissa agreed via texting to meet at their favorite café on Tuesday. Jessica snagged a table in the corner, perfect for private conversations, and was nursing a steaming cup of cappuccino and trying not to fidget too noticeably when Melissa appeared, dark hair tied sloppily back and looking exhausted but happy. "It's done," she announced dramatically, throwing herself down into the free chair and grabbing Jessica's cup. She took a long swallow and then handed it back to Jessica with a tired smile. "Thanks, Jess."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "I'll order you one of your own," she said, and nearly ran over to the counter to do so.

When she got back, Melissa was tossing back the last of the first cappuccino. "I figured we can share the next one too," she said, grinning impishly at Jessica over the rim of the mug, and Jessica was struck with how glad she was that she hadn't actually done anything preemptively. She was almost sure Melissa would give her blessing to Jessica – Melissa was a little fickle when it came to boys, and Jessica doubted she'd dated Sam long enough to have any especial attachment to him – but what if she didn't? After all, Jessica hadn't known him as long as Melissa had and she was getting all swoony over the way his hair looked messy and practically had to restrain herself from jumping him at least five times per interaction. She really, really didn't want to have to choose between them.

"So," she said, as Melissa appeared to be content with not talking and just sitting there staring at each other, "what's up?"

Melissa tipped her head to the side. "What's up with me?" she asked, all knowingly. "Or what's up with me and Sam?" Jessica flushed (she couldn't help it) and made a show of checking to see if their cappuccino was ready, but she could feel a tiny spark of hope flaring up somewhere in her stomach. Melissa was being _coy_, which meant she knew something that would make Jessica happy, and if she was talking about Sam—

Melissa reached out and touched her hand. "It's okay, Jess, I know," she said, and Jessica looked back at her. Melissa looked inordinately pleased with herself, Jessica decided, and let the tiny spark of hope flutter into full-blown life. Melissa nodded with satisfaction and sat back and didn't say anything else, just smiled secretively and watched Jessica with sparkling eyes and _why wasn't she elaborating, dammit?_

"Know what?" Jessica asked after letting her be silent for roughly two seconds. Melissa had to _say_ it, after all, not just imply it and sit there looking all pleased with herself.

Melissa's lips curved up even more. "Please. You're not subtle, Jess. I've seen the way you eye his shoulders."

Jessica flushed again, and Melissa squeezed her hand. "But I also know you didn't do anything while we were dating, and I love you for that. Both of you, really."

She found her voice then to ask, "Then why—"

"Because," Melissa interrupted her, "Sam is a great guy, but we didn't click that way. He's like my intellectual soul mate, but he's not my one true love, trust me. It was fun while it lasted, but it's definitely over. Besides," she added, looking right at Jessica with that knowing look, "he was always talking about you."

Jessica made herself breathe again. "He was?"

Melissa grinned. "Oh yeah. He's totally into you, ever since he met you. I mean, really, I'd try to invite him over and he'd blow me off to go watch cartoons with you."

Jessica grinned back. "They're _awesome_ cartoons, though."

"Whatever you say, darling," Melissa said with an infuriately indulgent tone. Jessica almost – _almost_ – let it devolve into their usual argument about the validity of animation as entertainment for adults, but she refused to be derailed now. Melissa still hadn't actually _said_ it.

"So it's okay?" she asked, clasping Melissa's fingers. "If I go out with him?"

Melissa snorted. "It's inevitable, Jess."

"But it's okay?" Jessica persisted.

"It's fine!" Melissa exclaimed. Jessica let out a huge sigh and threw one arm over her eyes. Melissa giggled a little and added, "You don't need my permission, anyway."

"But I wanted to make sure," she said, lowering her arm. "Just in case. You're my friend, you know."

They called their cappuccino then, and Melissa went to get it. When she came back she handed the mug to Jessica and sat down, and they were off. They spent the next several hours talking nonstop, changing locations several times before finally ending in Melissa's dorm room, trading stories about Melissa's hot new chem study partner (how Melissa found new boy toys so fast never ceased to amaze her), Adrian's latest antics, and, more interestingly, about Sam and what he looked like naked. ("He's in proportion," Melissa said with a wink. "Make sure you have lube.") When Jessica expressed her worry that Sam wasn't into her That Way, Melissa burst into giggles and then spent the next twenty minutes enumerating all the times she had caught Sam staring at Jessica when Jessica wasn't looking. She and Melissa then plotted several ways for Jessica to get Sam into bed, starting reasonably enough but getting wilder and wilder the later it got. She wasn't going to do any of them (not even the one involving spilling chocolate syrup on him and conveniently not having any clean napkins or towels around, even if it did sound like a tasty way to get someone naked), but it didn't matter. Talking about it with Melissa wasn't really about her and Sam; it was about her and Melissa, and she wouldn't trade it for anything.

Jessica ended up spending the night, crammed into Melissa's bed with her since Melissa barely took up any space at all. After they had both gotten ready for Wednesday classes Melissa asked her, "When do you think you'll make a move?"

Jessica considered. Two weeks was probably long enough, and to hear Melissa talk Jessica hadn't been imagining Sam's feelings for her; he was just too shy to act on them. (God, he was so _adorable_.) She knew he had a project due Friday (not to mention the paper _she_ had due Thursday she hadn't even started), but after that—

"This weekend," she replied, and hoped Melissa couldn't hear the pounding of her heart.

**o**

Naturally, Jessica's mother called her right after classes Friday with another job, this time hunting down what appeared to be a draugr. "A draugr?" Jessica yelped, momentarily distracted from her rapidly crumbling plans to seduce Sam that weekend. "Mom, they're _strong—_"

"Esme is going to join you on this one," her mother said in a tone that brooked no argument (not that Jessica was planning to argue – she knew that going after a draugr alone was, at best, idiotic). Jessica was to pick her sister up at the airport and then proceed to the tiny seaside town where the deaths had occurred.

"How long do you think this will take?" Jessica asked, trying to keep the whine out of her voice. It figures, she thought, it just figures that Mom would call this weekend of all weekends.

"Esme is bringing all the pertinent information," her mother replied. "You should be able to do it over the weekend; the research is complete already, so you won't be doing any of that, just finding and killing the actual draugr. Be careful and report back when it's over."

They hung up without saying anything else; when her mother called with a job, it was different than when they called each other (every day) to chat. It was to the point, no messing around, strictly professional. She knew it was how her mother reconciled sending her baby after dangerous things: treat her like all the other hunters she sent after dangerous things. It was How It Was, ever since Jessica had announced that she was both going to Stanford and not giving up hunting.

So Jessica spent the next few hours packing and then calling Sam to cancel their plans. They had planned a group outing to the movies and then to a bar, because they always seemed to end up in bars. (Jessica suspected that was Adrian's influence; the boy did like his shots, after all.) She had planned to let Sam get a little drunk and then whisk him off alone, but obviously that plan would have to be put on hold as well.

He didn't ask her why but she told him half the truth, that her sister was coming to visit and they were going to go visit the ocean. "It's too cold to swim," Sam commented, and Jessica agreed but said that they were just going to look and (remembering the cover story she had once told him about her sister) take pictures. "I'll miss you," Sam said, playfully, and Jessica couldn't help smiling.

"You just want me around to distract Adrian," she said, and he laughed, a little guiltily. "I knew it. You'll just have to watch how many shots you let him drink. I am not responsible for what he does if you let him get completely plastered."

"You introduced him to me, so—"

"_Sam_."

His laugh washed over her, and for a moment she felt warm again. "I will, I will," he promised. "I still wish you were coming, though. Everything's more fun with you there."

She smiled at the air. "I'll see you Monday, okay? Lunch?" She could work with Monday lunch instead of Friday night, she thought. They both had all their classes in the mornings on Monday.

"Sure," he agreed, "Have fun with your sister," and they hung up.

Jessica called Adrian on her way to the airport and apologized for skipping out. Adrian snorted and told her, "Hey, I'll miss you, Jessie girl, but not having you around to keep a leash on us could result in some wonderful things."

"Yeah, because Preeti and Little Becky are such a loose cannons," Jessica muttered.

Adrian went on like he hadn't heard a thing. "Wonderful things, Jessie girl. Like Sam Winchester and body shots. Me_-ow_."

Jessica hung up on him.

**o**

She waited by the arrivals line for Esme for about twenty minutes, which gave her a lot of time to think about several things, most of them revolving around Sam and (doing body shots off of his chest, damn but Adrian was a bastard) what she could do at their Monday lunch to give him the hint that she was both interested and available. That led her to thoughts about what Melissa had told her about him in bed, all of which kept her mind very firmly off the fact that her mother was sending her up against frigging draugr.

Esme appeared before she ran out of things-about-Sam to think about instead (she was currently on what his shoulders would look like without a shirt stretched over them but _not_ what they would look like drenched in alcohol and salted, thankyouverymuch) and got in the car. "It's killed eight people," Esme said without preamble, fishing in her duffel and then throwing a dossier at Jessica. "Including a freelancer who tried to take it on by himself."

Jessica looked up at that. "Another hunter?"

"Hal Binns," Esme confirmed. "He's a fucking moron. Or was a fucking moron. I'm surprised it took him this long to get topped, honestly."

Jessica sighed and threw the dossier back at Esme, possibly harder than necessary. "Great. I can't believe Mom is risking sending us both up against this thing."

Esme looked over at her. "Hey," she said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. "Don't worry. Dad and I took out one of these in Virginia Beach a couple years ago, remember? I know what to do."

"Yeah, and Dad had to get forty stitches and use crutches for a month afterwards," Jessica countered.

Esme grinned. "But _I_ was fine. I'm the—"

"—best hunter ever, I know," Jessica finished, throwing the car into gear and nosing her way back into the flow of traffic. (Unfortunately, airports weren't places you could gun the engine in frustration.) Esme just laughed, a silvery little peal that sounded like it should belong to a fashion queen and not to a woman who killed monsters for a living.

"Well, it's true," Esme said, sounding amused. "That's why Mom is sending us up against it. You don't suck too much," she punched Jessica's arm, lightly (Jessica refrained from responding verbally and just stuck her tongue out), "and I'm the best," Esme concluded with a wink.

Esme was a little too confident (as usual), Jessica thought as she made her way around the terminal back to the interstate. Sure, Esme _was_ good and had good reason to be confident (not that Jessica would ever tell her that), but Esme's bragging always made Jessica feel like she was judging her for choosing to go to college instead of being Esme's hunting partner full-time. Esme always denied this, of course ("It's your life, Jessie!"), but then she would go on and on about how hunters operated best in pairs, and wasn't it too bad that Dad was too old to go full-time with her anymore?

Jessica was already braced for the lecture when Esme spoke again.

"Come on, Jessie," Esme said, reaching out and laying a hand on her arm. "It's just a draugr. You'll be fine. You've been up against nasty things before." Esme's hand tightened, giving her a reassuring squeeze, and Jessica was about to thank her sister for her (unusual) understanding when Esme added, devilishly, "Like Owen!"

Jessica growled. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

"Nope," Esme said cheerfully.

"It was over three years ago! And it's not like I _knew_ he was a werewolf!"

"No, but you _knew_ you should have looked more closely into his background before you started making out with him all over town." Jessica growled again, and Esme laughed. "You're too sensitive, you know that?" she asked, poking Jessica's ribs.

"Hands off while I'm driving, bitch," Jessica snapped.

"You're just mad because you know I'm right." Esme hummed a little, and Jessica resisted the urge to let go of the wheel and throttle her sister (not an unusual response to being in Esme's presence). They drove in silence for awhile, and then Esme said, "Hey, Jessie. Tell me Sam's last name."

"No," Jessica groused.

"Come on," Esme wheedled. "Didn't Owen teach you anything?"

"I checked up on him," Jessica said, her knuckles turning white on the wheel. "Just drop it, okay? Trust me on this. He's Normal."

"I do trust you, but what about him?" Esme countered. "Mom has better resources than you, Jess—"

"_Drop it, Esme_."

Esme made an annoyed sound (she was blowing her hair off her forehead, Jessica knew without looking) and said, "Fine." Jessica heard the rustle of the folder as Esme opened it again, and then Esme was reading her the information they had in her 'professional' voice. "It started when this whole slew of squirrels living in a cemetery went batshit," Esme told her. "Then – do you want to know this part? It's pretty gruesome."

"Hit me," Jessica said. So Esme told her every gruesome detail in the folder (possibly a bit too gleefully). Some of the victims had been crushed, presumably by the draugr's bulk, all of them had had bits eaten off (some more than others), and the fallen freelancer had had his neck treated like a drinking fountain. "The thing just stood above Binns and drank the arterial spray," Esme concluded. "Witness who saw it won't leave her room at the facility now. Can't say I blame her."

"Lovely," Jessica grumbled.

Their mother had done painstaking research, though, and the folder had the name of the person the draugr had been before it became an undead marauding monster ('John Berenson'), and more importantly the location of his grave, which would be serving now as the draugr's home base. Esme enumerated all the steps they would have to go through to make sure it had been defeated: corner it in its own grave, cut off its head, burn the body, then scatter the ashes in the sea. It seemed like overkill, but Jessica knew enough about draugar to know that if any of it was skipped or they left part of the draugr unburnt, it could return.

They had to make a stop on the way to pick up additional incendiary devices, as Jessica's stash in the car "wasn't strong enough" to take care of a draugr. (She admittedly only had a small hand-held blowtorch and matches and kerosene, as most of what she had hidden were bladed weapons. She liked bladed weapons.) Esme directed her to a hunter-friendly supplier only about fifty miles out of their way. Jessica's mother had called ahead so they had no problem picking up the flame gun along with (surprisingly) a homemade dinner made by the supplier's chef husband. By the time they actually made it to their little motel, it was approaching twilight.

"It only comes out at night, so I figure we can waste it once the sun comes up tomorrow," Esme said, throwing her bag onto the bed closest to the door.

"What happens if it attacks someone tonight? Shouldn't we go after it now?" Jessica asked.

Esme sighed and threw herself after her bag. "Sure, and give it two more hunters to add to its tally. It's stupid to go after them at night, Jessie. They're much stronger at night, for one thing. For another, they have to be killed in their grave. During the day they're already there, but at night we'd have to fight it back there. So we wait. Unless you _want_ to end up as a drinking fountain, of course."

She sounded irritated, and Jessica knew it killed her to wait. But Esme was nothing if not pragmatic, and so Jessica grabbed the dossier from her and set about being pragmatic too, which meant spending the rest of the evening studying the maps of the town and the cemetery (which was about a quarter mile from their motel) and memorizing the location of the grave in case she had to help get it back there. Esme, however, spent the evening raiding the trunk of Jessica's car and sharpening all of her knives while lecturing her about proper bladed weapon care, which Jessica tuned out as she had (literally, she was pretty sure) heard it a hundred times before.

Sometime after midnight Esme ordered her to bed, and after a brief fight (during which Jessica proclaimed that she was an adult and could put her own damn self to bed, prompting Esme to tickle her until she begged for mercy) they both curled up in their respective beds and listened to each other breathe for several long minutes.

"Do you really like him?" Esme whispered. She didn't have to say who she meant.

"Yes," Jessica whispered back.

She sensed rather than saw Esme nodding. "You'll have to tell him the truth, Jessie."

"I know," Jessica mouthed, closing her eyes again. Esme made it sound so easy, but she knew what Normal people could be like when confronted with the abnormal. Not everyone reacted the way her family had. But she would tell Sam. (Eventually.)

"And you'll have to tell him that if he hurts you, I've got better aim than a police sniper," Esme added, the smirk back in her voice, and Jessica laughed weakly and told her sister to shut up, but she knew acceptance (if not approval) when she heard it, and after that they both finally fell asleep.

Jessica woke up after only a few hours, but as Esme was still asleep she just crept into the bathroom and, after brushing her teeth and doing other morning routines, spent a few minutes braiding her hair back and around her head until there were no loose ends or pieces an enterprising monster could grab. She admired it for a few moments (it looked a bit like she was wearing a helmet made of blonde braids) and then slipped back into the room. Esme still slept, but a pale gray light suffused the room. Sunup, Jessica thought, and considered waking Esme. But the alarm wasn't supposed to go off for another hour, and Jessica figured she could let Esme sleep. One of them could get a good night's rest, at least.

She grabbed a knife (almost ten inches, bigger than the one she usually had on her) and, carefully, eased the door open and stepped outside onto the little porch in front of their room. It was a little cold out, and she could smell the salt on the air from the nearby ocean. Dawn had barely lit the sky, but she could just make out the edge of the sun on the horizon, through a bank of trees she remembered bordered the cemetery. She watched the leaves on the trees move gently with the wind, breathing deeply, both trying not to think about the upcoming battle and trying to reassure herself that it was Just Another Job and everything would be fine. The beauty of the place helped, she thought, turning her gaze from the trees to see the ocean. It was strange to think that something so nasty could lurk on the edges of such beauty, but Jessica knew better than most people that appearances meant almost nothing.

She stepped off the porch onto the grass, still wet with morning dew, and took a few steps away from the little motel, towards the ocean. The same breeze that was shivering the leaves brushed her skin. She started to hug herself for warmth, but then, out of the corner of her eye, she registered movement. She turned just in time to see a huge, white, dripping hand reaching for her throat.

With a shout she dropped herself to the ground and rolled, but the draugr was on her before she could get back up. Its waxy fingers grabbed at her shoulder and scrabbled at her throat, and she kicked as hard as she could. Her bare feet connected but it kept coming. She brought the hand holding the knife up and stabbed. The blade sank into the thing's side but it barely even seemed to notice. It just leered at her with its bloated lips and pinned both her arms to the ground before slowly starting to drag its bulk on top of her. The smell of rot, and seaweed, filled her nostrils, and she fought not to gag. It was unbelievably heavy; it was pressing all the air out of her lungs, and Jessica's mind flashed to the reports of victims crushed to death. Or possibly suffocated and then crushed, she thought wildly, and with her last breath she screamed, "_Esme_!"

But Esme was already there, loose hair flying as she jumped on the thing's back and pointed their new flame gun directly at the back of its head. "Get ready!" she shouted, and then flames were roaring out of it, lighting the draugr's sodden hair up like a bonfire. It reared back, throwing Esme to the ground, and Jessica scrambled out from under it, panting for air. She could see it properly now, and couldn't repress a shudder. It looked like a drowned corpse, bloated to larger than human, with slick death-white skin and a gaping dark hole for a mouth. Its dripping hands beat at its flaming hair, which was already starting to spit and smoke as the flames died. Her knife was still stuck fast in its side, she noted, and whirled to make for their room.

"Get away!" Esme yelled from the ground.

"I need a weapon!" she shouted back, and tore into their room through the open door. Esme had left her collection on the little table by the window, and Jessica grabbed the largest blade there (a machete) and dashed back outside, already prepared to swing it as hard as she could.

But it wasn't there. Jessica's eyes raked the area, and she saw that Esme was on her feet again, but she was running, streaking towards the trees with the draugr shuffling after her much faster than it looked like it should be able to, its head still smoldering but no longer flaming. For a split second Jessica didn't understand why Esme was running – Esme _never_ ran from a fight – but then she remembered: "_You have to kill it in its own grave_." Esme was leading it, and even as she watched Esme sent a gout of flame over one shoulder, and the draugr swiped at her.

Jessica took off after them, her bare feet squelching through the grass as she ran, paying no attention to the sharp stabs of pain whenever she stepped on a rock or a branch. The grave, she thought, where is the grave?

It was in the back, near the treeline, and Esme was running straight for it. She had to approach differently, she thought, not distract the draugr from Esme too early, but get there first. She had to get there first so she could be ready to cut off its head. Veering left, Jessica ran all out, clutching the machete and making her own approach a sweeping arc that took her away from Esme and the draugr but headed her towards the grave all the same. It was longer than Esme's path, but she was taller and therefore a faster runner, and she was weaving her way between tombstones before (as a quick panicked glance over her shoulder told her) Esme and the draugr had even reached the boundary of the cemetery.

Second row from the back, third grave from the end. She skidded to a stop and planted both feet next to the upturned earth. She raised the machete and braced herself, remembering all the times she had beheaded practice dummies with her father watching. She could do this. She _would_ do this.

Esme appeared then, gun in one hand, leading the draugr on with an expression that suggested she was merely concentrating on solving a problem and not running for her life. She darted between two tombstones and signaled Jessica with the hand holding the gun. Jessica nodded back and lifted the machete higher and waited for Esme to make her move.

The draugr lumbered up then, making a horrible hissing noise, and the smell washed over her again. But this time she was ready for it, and she just breathed through her mouth and tried not to recoil at the fact that she could taste the foul odor on her tongue.

Esme trampled through the sodden earth to Jessica's side, then suddenly stopped, whirled around, and raised the flame gun again, still one-handed. She blasted it again, and then dropped to the ground and rolled behind Jessica as the draugr roared with fury and tried to grab her, except she wasn't there.

Jessica was.

Jessica swung. The machete connected exactly where she'd planned, at the juncture between neck and shoulder, and bit into the waterlogged flesh with a horrific squelching noise that nearly made her jump back in disgust. But she kept pushing, straining to get the machete to cut its entire head off, and when it stuck about a third of the way through she snarled and wrenched it free and got ready to swing again, even as the draugr's fingers grasped her shoulder (right where she had just had the stitches out, of course). She shrieked, and it pushed her back a step, driving its fingers into her flesh, and then Esme came out of nowhere and hit it on the forearm with the gun. Its hand dropped away from her just as Jessica swung the machete and slammed it into its neck again, and this time it went through and its head tumbled from its shoulders and splatted on the ground.

Esme jumped back. Jessica tried but the body hit her anyway, knocking her onto her ass in the dirt and spewing dark slimy liquid all over her from the stump between its shoulders. It came to rest half on her lap, its fingers still twitching spasmodically.

"My pajamas," she said, stupidly.

"Holy shit, Jessie," Esme said, kneeling down next to her and shoving one-handed at the draugr's headless body. Slowly (not nearly goddamn fast enough) she rolled it off. "Help me," she grunted. "We need to move it right over the grave before torching it. Move it, Jessica!" she added when Jessica failed to do anything other than stare down at the copious amounts of sticky corpse blood currently plastering her favoritest pajamas in the world to her torso.

Esme's tone finally motivated her though (that, and the kick Esme delivered to her miraculously clean shin), and she stirred and helped Esme move the even heavier ('dead weight' Jessica thought, trying not to start laughing hysterically) body so it was lined up on top of the grave, its head at its feet. ("You don't put the head by the neck or it'll just come back before you've even set it on fire," Esme explained.) Then she stood up, wiping her hand on the (clean) back of Jessica's pajama shirt. Her other, Jessica noted, was being held close to her abdomen.

"What's wrong with your hand?" Jessica asked her.

"I think my wrist is broken," Esme replied, tone blasé. "Happened when it threw me off while I was saving your ass from getting crushed. Hurts like a bitch, too."

"I thought you were the best hunter ever," Jessica couldn't resist saying.

Esme flipped her off with her good hand. "I am so going to hit you with my cast when we're done." Jessica grinned, a little shakily, and Esme rolled her eyes and said, "Now strip."

Jessica blinked. "What?"

"Strip," Esme repeated. "We have to burn the entire body and then scatter the ashes in the ocean, or this bitch could come back. And since most of its blood is currently on your pajamas," she gestured, "we need to burn them too."

"But – Snoopy—" Jessica protested dumbly. She could feel tears pricking at her eyelids and seriously, was she about to start crying over pajamas? Esme rolled her eyes and poked her with the butt of the flame gun until she (extremely carefully) divested herself of them, which unfortunately included the pants and her underwear too, as both had blood on them as well. The entire bundle of clothing absolutely reeked with draugr-smell, and she had to agree that burning them was starting to seem like an excellent idea. "But what do I wear?" she asked Esme, already shivering.

"You could just stay naked," Esme told her, one eyebrow quirking.

Jessica hit her.

Esme laughed, and Jessica found herself laughing too, so hard it was beginning to approach sobbing. Esme touched her on the shoulder, briefly, then told her to clean the machete off with the clean back of her pajama pants. Then she handed Jessica the flame gun and, one handed, wiped Jessica clean as well.

"Okay," she said, tossing the bundle of clothing on the draugr's chest. "Let's light this asshole up."

"What about accelerant?" Jessica asked, wrapping her arms around herself. At least no one other than Esme was around to get an eyeful, but it was damn cold. It was so cold she barely noticed the fact that her feet hurt. (Not that that was a surprise, considering she hadn't had shoes on when the draugr had attacked. She hated Esme and her hastily put on sneakers.)

"It's drying out now that you've made it bleed out," Esme pointed out. "It'll go up like dry leaves now. Light it." Jessica trained the flame gun on it and proceeded to prove Esme's point; the draugr caught immediately and flared up, as did Jessica's pajamas. (Goodbye, Snoopy pajamas, she thought wistfully, but she definitely did _not_ say it out loud.) After a minute Esme carefully took the gun from her and finished one-handed. The flames lit up the faint smile on her sister's face as Jessica shivered and crept as close as she dared to the lovely, lovely heat.

Jessica waited until Esme was finishing indulging her bent for pyromania and the draugr was ashes before asking, "I thought they stayed in their graves during the day. What the hell was that thing doing over by the motel at this hour?"

Esme lowered the gun. "They do," she said thoughtfully. "I guess early dawn doesn't count as day in draugr-world, though."

"I wouldn't have gone outside if I'd known that," Jessica grumbled. "Damn it, I loved those pajamas. Not to mention that I'm probably going to get arrested for indecent exposure."

Esme, who was wearing a loose pair of gray sweats, handed Jessica the gun again and carefully pulled off her own shirt (she was wearing a sports bra underneath). "Better than nothing," she said, almost apologetically, and then clambered out her pants and held them out too. They barely fit Jessica (who was a good four inches taller than Esme), but they at least covered her up enough to make the trek back to the hotel not bring cops down on her.

As she walked back through the grass, barefoot, wearing her sister's too-small pajamas, and carrying a machete, while on her way to (get clothes) pick up bags so they could transport a undead corpse's ashes to the ocean, it suddenly struck her that her original plans for early Saturday morning had (she had hoped) involved sleeping in the same bed as Sam Winchester and waking up in his arms. The disparity between her hopes and her reality was so vast she started to laugh again.

If Sam could see her now, she thought, wondering if he would even recognize Jessica-the-college-girl in Jessica-the-hunter. Esme was right; she had to tell him the truth, she thought. She couldn't expect to keep the two personas separate when what she wanted was for him to know just Jessica.

But how could she ever get him to believe her?


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

The rest of Jessica's weekend went by in a flash, even though most of Saturday involved sitting around in a hospital waiting for Esme's wrist to get set. By the time that was finished it was too late to make the trek back to Palo Alto, so she and Esme stayed another night at their little motel. (Surprisingly, no one had actually witnessed her and Esme running around half unclothed at dawn, so no one batted an eye when they finally returned. Jessica supposed she should be thankful for small favors.)

She then spent about an hour crammed in the small tub (adding hot water whenever it started to get cold), luxuriating in the glorious heat and refusing to get out whenever Esme hinted that she would like to wrap a trash bag around her new cast and take a shower herself. "You're not the one who was naked earlier," Jessica pointed out. "I'm still warming up."

"Why the hell is it so cold here, anyway? Isn't this the sunshine state?" Esme groused, causing Jessica to roll her eyes and remind Esme that one, not all of California was hot and sunny all the time and it was _March_; two, the sunshine state was Florida; and three, shouldn't someone as worldly as Esme know both things already? Esme ignored her (quite reasonable) points in favor of filling a cup with ice water and dumping it over her head. In the end, Jessica graciously let Esme have the shower and took the opportunity to steal her blankets.

Esme spent a little while on her phone with both the airline and their mother and got a flight out scheduled for Sunday afternoon, so they set out mid-morning Sunday and drove straight to the Palo Alto airport. "Where are you going from here?" Jessica asked Esme as they approached.

"Connection to SFO, then I'm headed out to Maine," Esme answered. "Looks like some sort of haunting at Bowdoin College. Call Mom if you want the details." She looked down at her cast, then back at Jessica, eyes uncharacteristically soft. "We did good, Jessie," she said, the corners of her mouth twitching up into a proud smile. She leaned over and gave Jessica a one-armed hug, holding her close for a heartbeat. Jessica hugged her back, closing her eyes and relaxing into her sister's arms.

Then Esme tickled her.

Jessica shrieked. Esme laughed uproariously and jumped out of the car. "I am so going to kill you next time I see you," Jessica yelled at her.

"Love you too, bitch," Esme called back cheerfully and grabbed her bag. Then, with a wink, she was gone.

Jessica spent the rest of Sunday curled up in her bed wearing sweats that actually fit her and doing all her homework. (The end of the quarter was looming, and she really needed to buckle down and actually pay attention to her studies for awhile.) Her phone didn't ring, and she didn't call anyone, partly because all of her friends thought she would be gone until late, but also because she felt like she needed to recharge, put on the college-girl outfit again and give it a few stretches until it fit her comfortably again.

Homework was a good (albeit mind-numbing) way to do that, and she let herself stop thinking about anything other than differential equations and abnormal psychology until she crawled under the covers, mourning the demise of her Snoopy pajamas as she tried to get comfortable wearing a nightgown. (Her mother had bought her the thing, all white lace and sheer fabric that twisted around her thighs like a vise whenever she tried to move. Jessica hated it, but her mother had packed it with her Stanford things, and of course it was the only clean thing she had.)

Her phone finally rang a few minutes after she had snapped off the light. She checked the display (Adrian), but didn't answer. She would see everyone tomorrow, Melissa for breakfast, Adrian in her first class, and Sam at lunch.

At the thought of Sam she felt heat flood her, her heart beating a crazy tattoo in her ears, and she laughed out loud at her own reaction. The thought of eating lunch with Sam should not cause a similar reaction to fighting for her life, she thought, but that didn't stop the crazy swooping feeling she got in her chest the longer she thought about what she might say to him. She couldn't tell him the whole truth about her, not yet, but she could tell him the honest truth about how she felt about him. She could give him that much.

She crossed her fingers in the dark and hoped he would want to hear it.

**o**

The next morning Jessica told Melissa over coffee that today was the day she would talk to Sam. Melissa smiled sleepily and gave her a tired 'you go, girl' and then nearly face-planted into her eggs. They spent the rest of their breakfast date discussing why organic chemistry was clearly the devil's work while Melissa did espresso shots in between forkfuls.

She got to calculus before Adrian, so she staked out their usual table in the back (chosen because the professor couldn't overhear whatever raunchy story Adrian was whispering to her) and waited impatiently for about five minutes before Adrian slid into the seat next to her and slung an arm around her shoulders. "You missed one hell of a night Friday," he purred into her ear.

She shrugged him off. "Good morning to you too," she said as calmly as she could manage. She wanted to grab him and shake him until he told her what had happened while she was gone (_why_ had it been _this_ weekend?), but she also didn't want him to get all coy with the details, which he would if he thought she cared. So she asked, all cool, "Hey, did you get problem eighteen on the homework?"

Adrian leaned back in his seat and laced his fingers behind his head. "A hell of a night, Jessie girl," he repeated, darting little glances at her out of the corner of his eye and not incidentally totally ignoring her (admittedly bullshit) question. He gave a satisfied sigh and tried to act nonchalant, like he wasn't dying to tell her everything and going to crack and spill every little detail any second now. Jessica bit her lips and acted like she didn't notice, even going so far as to fake a little yawn. Neither of them moved for a moment.

"What happened?" she blurted at the same time he dropped his hands and exclaimed, "_Body shots_, Jessie girl!"

She grabbed his shoulders and yanked his head down so he could whisper every salacious detail to her while they waited for their professor to put in an appearance. To her surprise Adrian was mostly excited about convincing Preeti to do body shots off of him, but then he told her about getting Sam to bare his shoulders (after several other shots) and letting him lick salt off them. Jessica was going to murder Adrian for not thinking to take pictures of this. (She really, _really_ hoped that thought had crossed Rebecca's mind at least.)

But Adrian kept going back to Preeti and her 'big brown eyes' and 'cute little tongue' and 'adorable smile' so Jessica was left to imagine Sam's bared shoulders by herself. (Not that Preeti wasn't cute, of course, but Jessica wasn't interested in her _that_ way. She was kind of surprised to learn that Adrian was, but then again Adrian's qualifications for a potential partner didn't seem to extend beyond 'breathing', which Preeti certainly was, so she supposed she shouldn't be _too_ shocked.)

The rest of her morning was spent in a thrum of anticipation of her lunch date with Sam. She mentally rehearsed about eighteen different ways she could tell him, rejecting each as too stupid, or too lame, or liable to cause Sam to fall into a diabetic coma. She was still frantically trying to figure out how to put it when she arrived at the café.

Sam was already there, sitting hunched over a table in the back, and just from the set of his shoulders she could tell that he had a metaphorical thundercloud over his head. Disappointment hummed through her, but it was quickly replaced by concern, and she went over to him and slid into the chair next to him, not the one opposite, and touched his hand. "Hi, Sam," she said softly.

Sam jerked, raising red-rimmed eyes to hers, but when he saw it was Jessica his shoulders relaxed a fraction, and he dropped his head again. "Hi, Jess," he said to the tabletop.

She leaned over and wrapped an arm around him. "Hey," she said softly. "You okay?" He didn't answer, so she tried again. "C'mon, Sam, tell me what the table did to you. I'll kick its ass for you." She was rewarded with a choked-off laugh and a shift in her arms until he was leaning his head on her shoulder.

His hair was _right there_.

She debated with herself (really, she did, if only for about a nanosecond) and then slid one hand up to his head, running her fingers gently through the messy strands. He sighed a little and wrapped his arms around her waist. She moved her other hand up, stroked his hair with both hands (oh god it was _so soft_) and whispered, "What happened?"

"It's nothing," he murmured. "Just a fight with my brother. He showed up this weekend, for the first time since I left, and—" He cut himself off. "It's stupid."

"Dean was here?" she asked, miffed that Sam's mysterious brother had chosen this particular weekend to show up (yet more proof that this job had had the _worst timing ever_). But she was also a little relieved that this was Sam's problem. She might not know that much about Normal, but she knew a lot about fighting with bullheaded older siblings. "Is he still around? I can kick his ass too, if you want. He's not taller than you, is he? Not that it matters, I'll kick his ass anyway."

Sam snorted and pushed away from her, and she had to stop herself from lunging for his hair again. Instead she reached out and grabbed his both of his huge hands in hers and squeezed them until he looked at her again. He looked like shit, she decided, circles under his eyes like he hadn't slept and face a kind of sickly pale under the usual slight tan and his hands were clammy and trembling, and yet she still wanted to kiss him. "Seriously, what happened?" she asked instead.

He sighed. "I don't want to talk about it. Let's just eat, okay?"

This was a little more difficult. Jessica usually didn't have a problem getting people to tell her what was wrong (actually, it was usually more the opposite – Esme was always only too happy to tell Jessica exactly why she was angry/irritated/unhappy/etc., and all she had to do was feed Adrian a couple shots and he would sing like a canary) so she felt a little out of her depth, now. But she couldn't let Sam stay miserable like this either. "You can tell me," she hedged. "I've got an older brother too, and an older sister who is a total bitch, so I know the score. Little siblings unite, right?"

Sam leaned forward until his forehead touched hers. "Look, Jess," he said quietly. "I really appreciate what you're trying, but I – I just can't explain what it was about, okay? It's," he swallowed, "private family stuff." He squeezed her hands. "You understand, right?"

No, she thought, but she forced herself to nod a little and squeeze back. Sam smiled a little then, finally, and they disentangled themselves and went up to the counter to order lunch. As she waited for her food and watched Sam's hands shake as he waited for his, she came to two conclusions.

One, she _did_ understand why he didn't want to talk about it; she couldn't even imagine being able to explain her last huge fight with Esme to anyone else, and it wasn't just because she wasn't Normal. There were just some things too close, with too much history behind them, to be able to explain to anyone outside of it properly.

Two, she was pretty sure Sam hadn't eaten since his brother left.

They talked about nothing much over their food, classes and books and anime and the merits of various different law schools. Jessica ate fast, watching every bite Sam took. He started slow, small bites spaced out, but the longer they talked the more relaxed he got, and soon he had finished everything on his plate. He didn't even argue when she (perhaps not terribly subtly) suggested he go back for another helping (she went back too – for solidarity, of course). He also stole part of her dessert (which she generously allowed, though she did have to draw the line after he ate more than half of the brownie).

By the time they were done, his color had improved, and he was even genuinely laughing again. But now wasn't the time to leap on him and declare her (lust) love, so instead she looked pointedly at his jeans (which were about two inches too short) and told him they were hitting Goodwill.

"Why?" Sam asked as he followed her to her car like a faithful puppy. "It's not that close, is it?"

She grabbed his hand and swung it. "It's only, like, two or three miles, and because I need new pajamas and you need new jeans, and we're both too broke to go to real stores," she replied (which wasn't actually true, as Jessica _could_ afford it, but she knew Sam couldn't, and she suspected he wouldn't like it if she dragged him to a high-end clothing store and tried to buy him pants).

"But these jeans are okay," he protested.

In response she kicked him on the (bare) ankle, and he stopped protesting after that. Instead he spent the short car ride there asking her why she needed new pajamas. She answered something about them getting ruined over the weekend, and when he tried to press her further, she took a risk and replied, "Sam, look. It's private family stuff, okay?" To her relief, he smiled at that, even if he also got his faraway look at the same time.

At the store, Jessica went off to paw through all the potential pajama replacements while Sam browsed the selection of jeans. After about twenty minutes (during which she found nothing that even came close to the perfection of her Snoopy pajamas), he slouched over to her and complained that none of the jeans in his size had long enough legs. "Maybe you should try ones with longer inseams," she said, holding up a shirt with Rainbow Brite on it and frowning at it.

"Don't get that," Sam opined.

"Wasn't going to," she said, tossing it back and picking up something else. "Seriously, though. How tall are you, anyway?"

"Six two, maybe six three?" Sam replied, causing her to drop the pink frilly nightgown she had been making faces at.

"You're kidding me, right?" she demanded.

He gave her a wide-eyed look of confusion. "What?"

Jessica grabbed his hand and dragged him over to one of the employees. "This idiot thinks he's only six two," she informed the girl, who gaped at her in surprise. Behind her, Sam made some sort of protesting noise, but she ignored it. "Do you have a measuring tape by any chance?"

The girl nodded and dug one out, handing it over with a shy smile as she looked Sam up and down. Jessica resisted the urge to give her the '_back off, bitch, he's mine_!' look (she was far too nice for such things) and instead said to Sam, "Look, I don't usually admit this, but I'm over six feet tall, Sam."

He blinked. "You are?"

"Half an inch over," she confirmed. "I usually say just under six feet, but it's the other way around. And Sam, let me tell you something. You are _not_ only an inch or two taller than I am." She quickly snapped the measuring tape taut and held it up to him. "Six six," she said, triumphant, and then (heart pounding) she measured his legs and showed him the result, hoping furiously that she wasn't blushing (oh god she had just run her hands over his _legs_).

Sam flushed, and she _almost_ touched his cheek. "I'll go look again," he mumbled and dashed off in the direction of the pants.

With a sigh she handed the measuring tape back to the employee, who gave her a half-jealous, half-admiring look and whispered conspiratorially, "You and your boyfriend are so cute."

Jessica thought about correcting her, but dammit, they _were_ cute, even if it wasn't official (yet), and besides, she didn't want to give the girl any ideas about Sam being a free agent. So she just said, "Thanks!" with a bright smile and then returned to the pajama section.

After another ten minutes of searching she spotted the perfect replacement set. She tried them on and looked at herself in the mirror for a minute, then stripped them off, ran to the front, and bought them before she could talk herself out of it on the basis that the shirt was technically too small for her. (Well, so were the pants, but pajama pants hitting her mid-calf was an acceptable length, and they did fit around her waist.) So the shirt would show off her midriff, she thought. So it didn't have Snoopy on it. She _loved_ them. Maybe not as much as her Snoopy pajamas (may they rest in peace), but they were soft and comfortable (despite being too short), and the shirt had _Smurfs_ on it.

Sam met her at the front, holding a bag. "I found a pair," he told her, looking excited, and she smiled at him and showed him the Smurfs top. He approved.

They drove back to campus and spent the rest of the afternoon together in Sam's room, talking for awhile (he still wouldn't talk about his brother's visit, though she tentatively tried to bring up the subject a couple times) and then beating each other up, video-game style, on Zach's console. (Sam at one point mentioned that, given that the quarter was ending on Friday, maybe they should do some work, but that suggestion was quickly forgotten in a flurry of digital violence.)

Zach showed up around dinnertime, so all three of them went to the cafeteria for dinner, where they met up with Rebecca and Preeti. (Jessica asked both of them if either had taken pictures of Adrian and Sam doing body shots, but Preeti blushed and said she hadn't even noticed it had happened, and Rebecca swore and said she wished she had thought of it, if only for the blackmail material. She then spent several minutes whispering descriptions of Sam's shoulders, so Jessica was almost mollified. She made a mental note to start bringing her camera with her everywhere, though.)

After dinner, they separated so Sam could finish a paper due Tuesday morning. Jessica hugged him extra tight before going back to her room, where she called first her mother to give her the Daily Report ("Still no progress with Sam then, honey?"), and then Melissa to tell her that things hadn't worked out for today, but she had high hopes for this weekend. "Why not tomorrow?" Melissa asked, but Jessica had her own end-of-quarter work to do (one of which was a huge paper she hadn't technically started yet). She told Melissa this, who immediately agreed that academia came before attempted seduction.

"Besides," Melissa said, "once finals are over, you'll both have some time off. You can afford to wait on things with Sam until you can make it perfect."

**o**

It was a good thing Jessica could afford to wait on the Sam Issue, as her every waking moment the next week not spent in class, eating, or sleeping had to be devoted to her twin travails of psych paper and calculus test. Her only contact with any of her friends (except Adrian, who was studying with her when he could and therefore didn't count) after Monday was via brief emails and one short phone call from Sam on Wednesday night that ended when Jessica started reciting calculus formulas at him until he promised not to call again and hung up.

She let out a sigh of relief (she did _not_ have time to let herself get distracted with thoughts of Sam and her still-pending confession to him) and dropped her calculus notes in favor of working on her paper instead. She could finish the paper tonight, she reasoned, edit it tomorrow, and then turn it in Friday. All the rest of her time she would devote to studying for calculus. "Let's do it!" she said out loud (rah rah!), and started typing.

Only the conclusion was left when her phone rang. Jessica shook the kinks out of her wrists and grabbed the phone, all set to deliver a veritable tongue-lashing to Sam for calling her again, when she noticed the display blinking 'Dad'.

"Hey, Dad. What's up?" she answered.

"Muffin!" her father's voice boomed over the line. "It's good to hear your voice! Esme told me all about your last hunt. You really beheaded a draugr?"

"I really did," she confirmed, glancing at her computer screen. "Dad, I—"

"All that practice paid off then, eh?"

"Yes, Dad, all the summers you spent making me behead practice dummies really paid off." She leaned back and closed her eyes. "Look, Dad—"

"Beheading is a lot harder than it looks, you know," her father said sagely (she did know already, thanks). "I'm proud of you, muffin. So you're keeping up with your training then?"

"Best I can," she replied, then said in a rush, "Dad, I'm working on a paper due soon. If I promise to call you back this weekend, can I go now? We can talk all about beheading then, I promise."

"Well, that's the thing," he replied, an edge of seriousness bleeding into his voice. "I'm calling for your mother."

Jessica's heart sank. "For Mom?" Her mother knew how much work she had (Jessica had told her on Monday) and had let her off the hook for mother/daughter phone calls until Friday. So she wouldn't be calling her (or, more accurately, making Jessica's father call her) unless—

"It's a vengeful spirit," her father confirmed. "Not too far from you. Your mother made a few calls, figured out who it was and where the body's buried. You just have to salt and burn the body." His tone turned cajoling. "Esme says you have a flame gun now, so you can use that instead of matches. That'll be fun, right, muffin?"

"Just salt and burn it?" Jessica repeated incredulously. "Dad, do you know how long it takes to dig up a grave by myself? I'm still not finished with this paper, and it's the last week of classes. Does it have to be me who—"

"Yes, it does," her father interrupted, tone all business now. "Your mother spent most of the day trying to find a freelancer close enough to get there by tonight, but the closest one is over a day away, and this spirit has attacked every night this week right at 1 am. It's killed four people already, Jessica."

He was using her actual name. She let out a breath, glanced again at her almost-finished paper on the screen, and then hit save and closed the file.

"Where's the grave?" she asked.

The grave turned out to be almost an hour outside of Palo Alto. Jessica drove there as fast as she dared, checking the clock and doing mental calculations as she weaved in and out of traffic. She should get there just before ten, so she'd have a little more than three hours before the spirit attacked again. It would be tight, and she'd be aching afterwards, but she could do it.

Her mother called about halfway through the drive. Jessica let her get through some of the more pertinent details about where she was going (such as which exit she needed to take to get there), but as soon as she got directions she cut her mother off to demand, "Is there a burial liner? Because last time I had to dig up a grave by myself, you neglected to mention the burial liner, and I don't exactly have the time to smash my way through concrete again."

"I talked to the cousin who had to bury him, and no, there isn't one," her mother assured her. "They buried him as cheaply as they could, considering what had happened."

"Just what did this guy do to get killed?"

"Nothing good," her mother said grimly. "It's not important, Jessica. Stopping him before 1 am is. The coffin is the cheapest one they could find, so it's not sealed either. You should be able to smash it open."

"Good," Jessica said fervently. "What else?"

Her mother launched into a description of the cemetery and its security vis-à-vis the location of the grave. "Be careful, as it's not completely out of the way," her mother warned. "But you won't be right on the road, and you shouldn't have too many problems if you're quiet. Call me once you're done, _from the car_," she added, as if Jessica were a moron who would linger around and talk next to the grave she'd just desecrated.

Jessica rolled her eyes at the rearview mirror and restricted herself to a, "Yes, Mom," before hanging up and following her mother's directions to the cemetery.

Once she'd parked the car in as unobtrusive a location as she could find, she opened the trunk and took out the shovel. Then she pulled up the flap that ostensibly covered just the spare tire, but in reality covered the spare tire (a smaller version than the car had come with) and her collection of weapons. She stowed the flame gun, the salt, her gloves, and (after a moment's deliberation) the lighter fluid in her bag, then hunted through her weapons until she found one of the iron-bladed knives and added that to the collection. Then she gently shut the trunk and turned to the fence surrounding the cemetery.

Her mother had determined that the only security was one night watchman and nothing electronic, so she pitched the shovel over first (careful that it would land on nothing but grass) and followed it with her bag. Then she scaled the fence with ease (she had also spent summers climbing every type of fence her father could find until she could be up and over all of them in less than ten seconds) and dropped quietly to the ground on the other side. Nothing happened; no guard yelling and waving a flashlight appeared, so she gathered up her equipment and stole through the cemetery until she found the right grave.

It was behind a gentle hill topped with a few trees, offering her some screening from the road and (she hoped) from the guard's eyes as well. Moving quickly (it was nearly 9:30 now), she laid out the salt, lighter fluid, and gun far enough from the grave that she wouldn't cover them with dirt. She took a minute to twist her hair into a tight bun, then stuck the knife through her belt and donned the gloves. (Her mother had required gardening gloves for digging after the first time her father had dug up a grave and come back with oozing blisters all over his hands. It made her hands sweat like a bitch, but she wore them because one, it did help keep them from bleeding all over the shovel handle, which made digging easier, and two, they kept her from having to invent reasons why her hands were blistered later.)

As the grave been dug recently (the dates on the plaque showed the guy had only been dead a little over a week), she started by peeling off the strips of sod with the shovel. It took a little work but they came up fairly easily, and she had barely broken a sweat by the time she was done. She laid them out of the way by the other supplies, cocked one ear for the sound of approaching footsteps, and got down to work.

Her sweatpants and hoodie (both dark brown and kept specifically for the purpose of digging up graves) were utterly soaked with sweat and liberally smudged with dirt by the time she uncovered the coffin. Panting, she (carefully) wiped the sweat out of her eyes and leaned on the shovel handle for a moment. Then she checked her watch.

She had about ten minutes before one, so (much as she would have loved collapsing for a minute first) she sucked in a deep breath, raised the shovel over her head, and brought it down as hard as she could on the coffin. (She hated this part, more than the hours of digging, but at least concrete wasn't involved this time.) It hit the lid with a resounding crack, and she winced. But when no one appeared, she smashed it again and mentally crossed her fingers that the guard was on the other side of the cemetery (or possibly hard of hearing).

It took several blows before the lid splintered, but once it had she hauled herself out of the hole, jammed the shovel into the crack, and wrenched it. With a groan the lid broke lengthwise.

The smell hit her then, and she gagged. Should have brought peppermint oil, she thought faintly. (Esme advocated smearing peppermint oil under one's nose whenever dealing with fresher corpses. She had apparently gotten the idea from a coroner.) However, that obviously wasn't an option now (as Jessica had never actually bought peppermint oil out of spite), so instead she opted for burning the damn thing as soon as possible. Preferably before she lost her dinner.

To that end, she started mouth-breathing and batting the strips of wood out of the way until she could actually see the body. The sight of it was almost as awful as the smell; the body had swelled, and the skin was green and black and starting to slough off. It could be worse, she told herself, and knocked another splintered board out of her way.

Now she had a clear shot at the body.

"Time to get down to business," she whispered. She laid the shovel down by the grave and stripped the gloves off, then went for the salt and the lighter fluid. She had just finished salting and dousing and was going back for the flame gun when the spirit attacked.

Its hands scrabbled at her face as she bit off a scream of shock and dropped to the ground. The spirit followed her, its eyes nothing but pits of shadow but its mouth open in a snarl as it tried, again, to grab her face. It's going for my eyes, she realized, and threw herself forward, scrabbling for the flame gun. Her hands closed on the handle.

The spirit suddenly shifted to in front of her and went for her again. Suppressing another shriek, she yanked the gun up to block it, but the spirit didn't seem too phased by it, if the way its hands went through the gun was any indication. No iron, she thought, and threw herself backwards to avoid the clawed fingers reaching again for her eyes. Her back grazed across the corner of the plaque and she nearly swore, but she ignored the pain in favor of scooting forward a few inches. (She _did_ _not_ want to fall in the open grave and land on this bastard's body.)

The spirit was (for the moment) still a few feet away, so she seized the opportunity to carefully lay the gun down (throwing a flame gun was pretty close to the top of the list of Stupid Things to Do With Your Weapon) and then go for the knife still stuck through her belt.

The spirit flickered out of a sight for an instant, then reappeared right in front of her. Up close she could see that its eyes weren't just shadows; they were bloodied pits, like they'd been stabbed, and in the back of her mind she noted that that was probably why it was going for eyes now. But she didn't stop to contemplate it too thoroughly; instead she grabbed the iron knife and swung it through the spirit's outstretched arms.

Its form dissolved into a mist, and she fell back again, panting. Then she dropped the knife, grabbed the flame gun, and rolled until she was facing the open grave. Taking a deep breath, she scrambled up onto her knees and carefully aimed, then pulled the trigger.

The corpse went up in a blaze of fire. Behind her, she heard a wail, and she twisted around to see the spirit writhing in spectral flames. It was clawing at its own eyes, she noted, watching as its form was consumed. When it was gone, she sat back on her heels and tried not to hyperventilate. Then she checked her watch again.

1:03 am.

She put out the still-raging fire (note to self, she thought, don't use too much lighter fluid when using a flame gun) by shoveling dirt back over it. Working as quickly as she could, she refilled the grave, patted it down best she could with the flat of the shovel, and then replaced the sod strips. It didn't look as neat as it had before she broke in, but it wouldn't be immediately obvious (from a distance, anyway) either, so she called it a night, gathered up her stuff, and got the hell out of there.

No one stopped her the second time over the fence either, even when the shovel banged a little on the curb when she threw it. The sheet she used to protect her seats after these excursions was already in place, so she stowed all her gear in the trunk and gratefully climbed into the driver's seat. She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and breathed for a moment, then fished out her phone and called her mother to report that it was done.

"It's after one," her mother said worriedly. "It might have had time—"

"It didn't kill anyone," Jessica reassured her. "I know because it came after me. And yes, Mom, I'm fine."

The drive back didn't seem to take nearly as long, but then there was hardly any traffic anymore. She would park the car, get back to her dorm, take a shower (or possibly a hot bath; she was getting pretty stiff), and then work on her paper until the adrenaline wore off, she decided. She might miss a few hours of sleep, but for the most part this whole experience hadn't screwed her up too much.

Then plan went perfectly up until the part where she was walking back to her dorm after parking the car. She was almost there when she heard footsteps off to one side, and then someone called her name.

She turned. "Rebecca?"

"Jessica! It _is_ you!" Rebecca exclaimed, emerging from the shadows and into the light thrown by a nearby streetlamp. "What are you doing out this late? And—" she squinted. "Oh my god, are you okay?"

"What are _you_ doing out this late?" Jessica threw back, already mentally trying to figure out how to explain why she was covered in dirt and sweat and moving like she'd just been through boot camp. (God, she _ached_.)

Rebecca blushed, which made Jessica also notice that her hair was mussed and her shirt wasn't buttoned properly. She plastered a teasing smile on her face and exclaimed, "Why, Little Becky! Booty calls at this hour? Our little girl's finally growing up!"

"Shut up, it's exam stress," Rebecca muttered, but she grinned. "I'll introduce you to him sometime." She took another step forward, and her eyes raked over Jessica again. "Seriously, are you okay? Did you get attacked or something?"

Jessica looked down at herself. "Yes," she heard herself saying. "I got attacked by a pissed-off ghost while I was digging up its grave."

Rebecca stared at her.

Jessica stared back.

Then Rebecca burst into nervous laughter. "Okay, fine, don't tell me," she said, shaking her head. "Just – are you sure you're okay?"

Jessica sighed. "Yeah, Becca, I'm fine. And it's nothing. I was at the library studying and I tripped and fell on the way home." (One of the libraries had a study room open 24 hours, which Jessica had actually studied in until 3am once, so she thought this story was entirely plausible. She just hoped Rebecca thought so too.)

Rebecca's face cleared at that. "Is that all?" she asked with relief. "God, I was thinking you'd been mugged or something."

"Yeah, because my calculus notes are worth so much," Jessica joked back. Her shoulders relaxed, and she smiled at Rebecca. "Hey, let's get together after exams are over, okay? I need to hear all about this guy who can convince you to come over until 2 am during the last week of classes."

Rebecca laughed. "I'm going back to St. Louis for the break, but I'll get back the day before classes start again, so how about then? We can also talk about you and Saaa-aam," she added in a sing-song.

"Am I that obvious?" Jessica sighed.

Rebecca giggled. "No, he is."

A thrill went through her at that, despite her aching body, and she gave Rebecca a dazzling smile. "Call me when you get back then, okay?"

"Sure," Rebecca agreed, and made as if to hug her. Jessica stepped back and shook her head, grinning, and Rebecca stopped mid-hug and grinned back. Instead she gave Jessica a little wave and disappeared in the direction of her dorm.

Jessica heaved a sigh and then continued the painful walk back to hers. Of course Rebecca didn't believe her, she mused, but then, Normal people never did without incontrovertible evidence. When she (finally) told Sam, she would make sure she could prove it so he wouldn't decide she was a raving lunatic and go screaming into the night.

But she would worry about telling him later (preferably after they were at least dating), she thought wearily as she ran a bath. First, she had to get through the rest of this week.

**o**

True to his word, Sam didn't try calling her again until Saturday morning, when her phone woke her up from her thank-god-it's-all-over-until-Monday-when-exams-start-oh-god stupor. Jessica blearily grabbed it. "Hello?" she yawned.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Sam said, sounding far too awake for her taste. "We missed you last night. There was no one to challenge me after I kicked Zach's ass at Soul Caliber."

"Tragic," she mumbled. "You know yesterday was the day from hell for me. I got home, ate dinner, and crashed. You just woke up me, actually." She squinted at the clock. "Sam, why are you calling me at nine am on Saturday?"

"I thought maybe we could do breakfast. I haven't even seen you since Monday, and exams don't start till day after tomorrow. We could go out, maybe get omelets or something. Hey, I'll wear the jeans."

"You should wear them anyway, seeing as they're the only pair you have that fits," she said absently, fishing out her knife from under her pillow and quickly stowing it in the drawer. "Sure, come over in like ten minutes? I need to get dressed."

"What, you're not going to just go out in your Smurfs? I thought they were going to continue the Snoopy legacy," he teased.

She wished he were there so she could stick her tongue out at him. "Like anything could truly continue the Snoopy legacy. See you in ten minutes." They hung up and she dragged herself out of her nice, warm bed, grabbed her morning caddy (complete with toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, and makeup), and stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. About seven minutes later, she was just opening the door to her room when Sam rounded the corner of her hall.

She stopped mid-turn, her breath catching in her throat, her hand frozen on the doorknob. Sam was indeed wearing his new jeans, and if she hadn't realized how gorgeous his legs were when she had been feeling him up with a measuring tape, this pair of jeans drove it home. (Oh, they fit him, all right.) To top it off he was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt instead of his usual (rather shapeless) hoodie, and oh god his _shoulders._

"Jess?" he said, and she snapped out of it.

"That was not ten minutes," she complained, a little breathily (down girl, she told herself, you haven't even had breakfast yet). "Give me a minute and I'll get presentable."

He swallowed, and her eyes traced the movement of his throat. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes a little wider than usual, and she wanted to jump on him he was so beautiful. "You're presentable," he said faintly.

She looked down at herself. "You can see my bellybutton," she said, also faintly, and when she looked up again Sam had moved and was standing right in front of her. Her eyes met his, and for a moment they just stared at each other. His eyes were nice, she thought, warm and hazel, and his hair was practically in them but it was so adorable she loved it anyway. Letting go of the doorknob, she reached up with trembling fingers and touched his cheek.

"Jess," he whispered, both of his hands coming up to cup her face, and then he kissed her.

It was a blitzkrieg kiss, sudden and striking, and she dropped her caddy so she could fist both hands in his hair and kiss back. He made a little noise and pressed her against the door to her room, kissing her breathless until she had to pull away several seconds later just to get some air. Undeterred, he pressed his lips against the corner of her mouth and kissed his way down to her neck. She closed her eyes and tried to remember how to breathe, especially after he added his teeth into the equation, which prompted her to drop her head so she could capture his lips with hers again. His arms went around her then, pulling her forward just a bit, and she melted into the warmth, the press of him against her, the feel of his tongue sliding against hers.

Then her foot kicked her abandoned caddy and her eyes flew open again. "Sam!" she tried to say, but he was too busy sucking on her lower lip to notice. She considered breaking the kiss so she could relocate them properly, but quickly abandoned that option when he gently nipped at her lip and she nearly forgot how to stand.

Then it occurred to her that she was pressed up against her door.

So (after a brief fight with herself) she untangled one hand from his hair, grasped the doorknob, and twisted. The door banged open and they nearly fell through (and probably would have had she not one, been expecting it, and two, had as much training as she did).

Sam pulled back with a surprised 'mmph!' and blinked at her in dazed surprise.

"We were in the hallway," Jessica whispered. "I have a PDA rule."

The corners of Sam's mouth curved up. "So do I. Usually," he admitted, almost sheepishly, and she surged forward and kissed both his dimples and then his lips. He laughed, breathlessly, and she pulled back long enough to grin at him before she gave into temptation and bit his shoulder right through his t-shirt's thin fabric.

Sam jumped a little and she backed off and met his heavy-lidded gaze. "What about—" he started, but Jessica (who had been waiting _months_ for this, and if she wasn't letting the fact that she hadn't had breakfast deter her, nothing he could say other than 'stop' would do it) just grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and yanked it off over his head before he could finish whatever he was about to say. Then she tossed him onto her bed and pounced.

It wasn't the heartfelt confession she had been rehearsing, or the romantic scene she had half-expected after listening to what Normal girls talked about, with candlelight and flowers and soft kisses and declarations of love and possibly silk sheets. It was unexpected and sudden. It was neither of them having even eaten breakfast and nearly fainting with hunger by the time they surfaced, and Jessica completely forgetting her toiletries were all scattered all over the hallway until a confused freshman knocked on the door and nearly got an eyeful of naked Sam before Jessica snatched the caddy and slammed the door laughing, and Sam ending up smashing his head against the wall at one point, and them both missing breakfast entirely and going out for lunch after cleaning each other up while giggling madly and kissing every few seconds. It wasn't what she had planned at all.

But it was perfect anyway.


End file.
