"Ain't much, but we call it home," Bobby said as he showed me and Sam into one of his outbuildings turned into a bunkhouse. "You'll be able to get a couple hours' shut-eye anyway while we close up shop here and get everybody ready to head over."

"All right, Bobby. Thanks."

I looked over the assortment of cots as Bobby left us on our own. They probably weren't the worst places to sleep we'd ever had but Sam seemed to think so. He was looking at them with a pinched expression like he had no intention at all of laying down on any one of them.

"C'mon, Sam. Two hours isn't much, but it's something. I'm not gonna turn it down."

"We should be getting ready to head back, too."

"Getting some rest is getting ready. We've already been awake over thirty hours."

He hesitated. He raised a shoulder in a half shrug or an unconscious defense. "I got some rest."

"Being dead is not rest."

He gave me a look, still that pinched look, not his bitch-face like I was expecting. "What?"

He looked over his shoulder to the bunkhouse door then back to the cots then he sighed. "I just think we should be – you know, we can sleep when we get home, when – when –"

Okay, he probably wanted to spend more time with Jack and with Mom, I could understand that. I could really understand that. I wanted to spend every waking minute stuck right next to Sam and I'd only been separated from him for a few hours on this trip (and okay, that was because of him dying, but still...)

Before this trip, we hadn't seen Jack in months and Mom in twice as long, with no idea what was happening other than that they were in serious trouble. So, I could understand Sam wanting to spend every second of these next two hours with them, especially considering –

I followed Sam's look toward the door.

Considering who else was out there.

Evil.

I was here, Mom was here, Cas, Jack, Gabriel, Bobby, Ketch, Charlie, and that bad-ass alpha-warrior known as Sam Winchester, was here.

But Sam didn't want to close his eyes because he didn't feel safe here.

He'd sleep when we got home. When he felt safe again. When evil was left behind.

Okay. He'd gone longer without sleep. We both had. And sometimes getting too little sleep was worse than not getting any sleep at all.

Then I remembered the sick look on Sam's face when he walked into camp with evil on his heels, how close he stood to Mom and how far away from that evil until Cas slapped the cuffs on and dragged evil away.

That piece of crap had taken everything and more from Sam, he wasn't going to take another minute of sleep from him. I wasn't having that.

"All right, Sammy. Pick a cot. I doubt any of 'em are long enough for you, but better than nothing."

"No, I don't want –I'll just – there's probably a lot that needs to be done before we leave."

"I'm pretty sure Bobby and Mom have got it covered."

"Yeah, no, it's not – I'm not…" Sam closed his eyes a few seconds and opened them to stare down at the palm of his left hand. "I just want it to be over," he said and he wasn't talking about this trip. He was talking about the last eight going on nine going on thirty-five years that evil had taken up so much of our lives. So much of his life. He scrubbed his hand on his jacket then pushed it into his pocket. "I want to never have to think about it – any of it – ever again."

Any of it. All of it. It.

I didn't want to bring the fear up to Sam, I didn't want to bring up the fear or anguish or memory of every foul thing done to him that maybe, hopefully, he'd been able to push aside until this trip ripped it all open again.

But it was twenty yards away and still close enough to breathe down Sam's neck and as much as I wanted to tell Sam he didn't have to worry because I'd protect him, my track record of protecting him was crappy at best.

"You need to sleep, Sammy. I get that you don't want to, why you don't want to, I do. But nobody's letting him get in here. You know that, right? You're safe here. We're safe here."

He nodded. Finally. He nodded and sniffed and ran his hand over his face and looked at me.

"Yeah. I know. I know I'm safe."

"Good. Good. So, forget everything going on beyond that door and get some sleep. Okay? It's just for a couple of hours then we're on our way home."

Sam muttered "Yeah," and gave another look over the cots in all of their 'homeless shelter chic'. "There?" he asked me and gestured to two cots about halfway down the line of cots.

Two cots, close together, situated so that the first cot blocked easy access to the second. So that the person in the second cot was protected from all comers by the person in the first.

"Looks good."

Sam took the cot closest to the wall. It wasn't long enough, nothing was, and his heels hung over the end when he stretched out on top of the blanket. But he stretched out and crossed his hands over himself and closed his eyes.

After a second he opened his eyes again and looked over, "Dean?"

"Right behind you, Sammy," I told him and stretched myself out on the cot next to him.

One last time Sam looked over at the door to the outside, then he looked at me, then closed his eyes again.

"I know I'm safe."

.