Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just playing. I'll put'em back when I'm done.

Rating: Uhm ... NC-17 for consensual sexual situations. If that's not your thing, read something else. Nothing hardcore, just descriptive. Oh, and some language too. The f-word makes an appearance a few times. :)

Synopsis: A look back at Stanford and Jess.

He wasn't exactly a dork. He was more along the lines of seeming borderline gay and therefore safe. The girls liked to talk to him, to joke with him, draw him into their circle and have fun, the innocent kind of fun, the kind that his brother would never understand. He knew where the gay vibe came from too. He liked to listen. It taught him way more than hitting on and fucking girls left and right ever would. He understood compassion and was good at dishing it out. Hell, he was good at lying too, but not as good as his brother.

The girls in his present class were all friends of his. There wasn't even one of them he felt attracted to in that way. Mandy, however, had a friend he had noticed, but as always when he found a girl attractive in that way, he was just about ready to step on his damned tongue before he could get a word out edgewise. Mandy had noticed and had suggested he just view her as all the other girls. Why not, after all? They all thought he was safe, that he wasn't into girls. Sometimes it made him laugh, sometimes he was embarrassed, sometimes it made him sad.

Class had let out and the dorm room he shared with Greg wasn't the place to be when Greg was with his girlfriend. The guy had less manners than his brother, which was saying something. He would hump his girl anywhere and Sam had no intention of being around when it happened. It embarrassed him, but it also reminded him too much of Dean. So he found a spot in his favorite café, ordered a coffee, black, no sugar, and went over his notes for the day. He didn't know how long he had been there, only realized that the sun falling through the front windows of the café had changed its angle, when the door opened, the bell chiming melodically, and she stepped in. Her hair hung loose today, curly and forming a halo around her face, her eyes too wide. She was upset about something. It wafted off her like too much perfume on some girls.

He watched her, stumped by the worry in her eyes, the concern etched into her pretty face, and for the first time since he'd seen her that first time with Mandy, he didn't get all flustered and stupid.

She scanned the café, searching for someone obviously, and their eyes briefly met. A touch of a smile slipped over her lips – she recognized him, 'oh be still, my foolish heart' – but the worry didn't disappear and he felt the overwhelming need to help, to reach out and let her know he could help, no matter what it might be. He always thought in terms of supernatural worry first, but this girl didn't know what that was. Her gaze slid on and he could see the disappointment in her eyes. Whoever she was looking for wasn't here.

She sighed, glanced in his direction again and grimaced. He was not who she wanted to talk to. She was close enough that he didn't have to strain too much. "Hi," he said, looking up at her while trying to convey interest without coming on too strong. Damn, she turned him on. There was something about her, something he couldn't pinpoint. But now was not the time for that. She was worried and she didn't know him. Why would she talk to him?

"Hi." She sighed again, sent another futile glance around the café. "You haven't seen ..." She stopped short, smiled ruefully. "You probably don't even know her."

"Who?" he asked, making damned sure his voice conveyed nothing more than interest in helping her.

"Tina. My roommate," she said and smiled apologetically.

He ran through the mental list of faces connected with Mandy and settled on the redhead with the flaring temper. "Uh ... no. Sorry," he said and frowned lightly. "Something wrong? You look upset."

She stalled for a second, met his eyes dead on – god, her eyes were the bluest blue he had ever seen with a smidgen of grey in them – a look of surprise overtaking the worry briefly. "Oh ... it's nothing. I don't want to bother you with ..." She trailed off. There was nobody else around to talk to. She had obviously looked elsewhere first.

"It's okay. I don't mind," he assured her and pushed the chair across from him out with one foot. It was smooth sailing right now. He said the right things, did the right things.

She glanced at the chair, made up her mind and sat down. "Hi, I'm Jessica," she said, then smiled sheepishly. "You knew that already, didn't you?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I've seen you around. You're a friend of Mandy's, right?"

She nodded once, glanced toward the counter. "Yeah," she said with a sigh, then focused on the papers he had been going over. "Going over your notes?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "So, what's Tina done to get you this upset?" He didn't want to pry, but he was interested. Anything about her interested him.

She kept eying the papers in front of him for a moment, then briefly glanced up to meet his eyes with a quirky little smile on her lips, before her gaze roamed over the café again. She was trying to determine what to tell him. "It's not so much what she has done," she said, a look of discomfort crossing her face. "She had this ... boyfriend."

Okay, that sounded like a bad thing, which made him wince inwardly. Not interested in boyfriends then. 'How about a casual fling, then?' he thought and could almost see Dean's shit-eating grin. God, even when his brother wasn't around, he was still a pig. Sam almost grinned, but kept it carefully under wraps. This wasn't funny. Jessica was upset about something concerning Tina and her boyfriend. "Had?" he asked. "As in doesn't have any more?"

Jessica nodded. "She dumped him, said he took up too much of her time, wouldn't let her study." She shrugged lightly, smiled vaguely. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. You can't possibly be interested in this."

"No, it's okay. Maybe I can help," he suggested, quick to offer the hand of friendship, to make her feel like she could tell him everything.

She glanced at the counter again. "I'll just get a coffee," she said and rose.

He watched her walk over there, appraising her in a way he normally never appraised girls, and knew that if he didn't put his damned eyes back in his head and found something else to look at, he wouldn't be able to get up and walk out of here any time soon without making a spectacle of himself. How embarrassing would that be? He dropped his gaze to the notes, shuffled through them for a second, then bundled them together into a neat pile and put them into his bag. Then he wrapped his hands around his coffee mug and stared into it, somehow convinced that she would come up with an excuse to leave.

She sat down a moment later and placed a tall glass on the table in front of her. He looked up, inspected the glass for a second – some kind of latte he guessed –  before his gaze skipped from the glass to her breasts, then up to her face. She didn't notice, thank god. She was looking into her glass, the blonde ringlet curls framing her face and making him ache with longing to reach out and touch her. 'Stop it!' he chastised himself. "So ... Tina's boyfriend," he prompted and smiled when she looked up to meet his eyes.

She briefly scratched the bridge of her nose, uncomfortable about it, then took a sip of her coffee. "He didn't take too kindly to being dumped. He's been kind of stalking her since. She just told me last night ..." Again she trailed off, shook her head.

"Told you what?" She obviously needed prompting.

"I wasn't home the night before, was out with a friend," Jessica said and his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. "She's a friend of Mandy's too," she added and he almost sighed with relief. "Seems like Tina's ex dropped by, wanted to patch things up, and he attacked her when she told him to get out. She was pretty freaked out about it yesterday, kept saying it wasn't worth it and she wasn't going to ..."

"He didn't ...?" He left it open for interpretation, added a healthy measure of stunned surprise, bordering on anger.

"I don't know. I don't think so," Jessica admitted. "But she was freaked out. He threatened her. Said he would work his way through all her friends if she didn't get back together with him. I think she's left, gone back home." The next glance around the café translated into more than 'upset'. She was scared.

"Has he gone after you?" He had to ask. The idea made him angry.

"No, but ... if he doesn't know she's gone ..." She shook her head. "I should report it to campus security, but ..." The fear was clear now that he knew what he was looking at. "I'm afraid to go home. How silly is that?" This she said with a little laugh, obviously convinced that he would think she was silly.

"Not silly at all. I don't blame you for being scared," he said and refrained from reaching out to grab her hand. It would be too forward. "You live on campus?"

"Just outside," she corrected. "I was hoping to find her, to talk to her, but ... I honestly think she's gone. I mean ... all her stuff's gone."

He glanced down at his coffee mug for a moment. Greg was going to be at it all day and probably all night long as well. "I know you don't know me and all, but ... if you're afraid to be alone ... I could stick around," he said and looked up to meet her eyes while trying to translate to her that he wasn't to be feared.

She stared at him, her eyes still a little too wide, the fear obvious in them. "I couldn't ask you that," she said, a tiny sliver of hope in her voice that maybe, just maybe she could. He wasn't exactly short and that counted for something. Of course, if she thought he was gay too, she might not put much stock in his reassurance that he could defend himself better than most.

"Sure you could. You'd be doing me a favor. My room mate has his girlfriend over. They'd appreciate the peace and ... well ... I'd appreciate not having to be there," he said and grimaced.

It put a smile on her lips and he relished the sight. "I don't know," she said while eying him almost suspiciously. She wrapped her hands around her glass. "You wouldn't mind?"

Excitement surged through him and he clamped down on it at once. "No, absolutely not. It'd deter him if you weren't alone," he said, not wanting to rub it in her face that he could probably take that guy down ten different ways without even breaking a sweat. She didn't know that and he knew he didn't look like it either.

She nodded. "Yeah, it probably would. But ... what if he takes a swing at you? I mean ... he's pretty ... out there." She sounded worried, about him.

He almost smiled, settled for a prim expression instead that Dean always called his bitch-face. "I can handle myself," he promised.

"Well ... if you don't mind ..." She paused. She had to be desperate, accepting help from a virtual stranger. For all she knew, he was worse than Tina's ex.

"Scout's honor," he said and held up three fingers in a fair imitation of something he'd never been.

She smiled and he melted inside. "Thanks. I really appreciate it."

***

Her apartment was cool. He liked it. It felt ... homey. 'Don't get your shorts in a twist, Winchester,' he thought to himself. This wasn't for him. This had never been for him. That didn't mean he didn't want it, though. This place smelled of normal. A decent home, a steady home. Not a dorm room shared with a horndog who couldn't keep his pants on long enough for it to matter. Or a motel room shared with his brother and father, nondescript, anonymous, outrageous when Dean got to pick the location.

"I can crash on the couch tonight. Just to make sure he doesn't turn up in the middle of the night or something," he suggested.

"Well, Tina's gone, so you might as well take her bed," Jessica said with a smile. "I'm really grateful for this."

He smiled back. "No problem. I'm glad I can help," he said. He didn't actually intend to sleep. He was here to watch over her and he took that seriously. People were dangerous, especially when they'd been snubbed of something they thought they owned.

They watched television together for a while until Jessica declared she was hungry and needed dinner. Sam suggested takeout, she shook her head and disappeared into the kitchen. His first homemade meal in ... well, ever ... and it was the best damned thing he'd ever had. It was healthy, fresh and tasted like heaven and he knew without the shadow of a doubt that he had fallen in love with her. Damn it all to hell. Why did he have to fall for her? How stupid could he get?

And then someone pounded on the door. He had helped her with the dishes, conscientious to the last, and they were talking about nothing in particular, just putting the last of it away, when the sound drummed through the apartment and someone roared 'Tina' outside.

Sam glanced at Jessica and noted the sudden tenseness in her shoulders, which made him square his. He wasn't afraid of a bully. Dean had long ago taught him how to handle them, both diplomatically and not. So Sam took the lead and opened the door.

The guy standing outside looked buzzed and angry and all sorts of annoyed. "Who the fuck are you?" he snapped.

Sam didn't move, remained in the doorway, making it abundantly clear that this jerk wasn't coming inside. "Depends on who's asking," he countered.

"I wanna see Tina," the guy said.

"Tough. She's not here. She went home," Sam said.

The dark eyes flared, turned angrier, and it was an anger Sam recognized. The possessive, obsessed anger he had often seen in his father's eyes. "Bullshit. Get out of my way, beanstalk," the guy snapped and tried to push Sam out of the way.

Sam braced his feet against the floor, grabbed the guy's wrist and in one smooth motion turned the guy around and twisted his arm onto his back, pulling up high enough for it to hurt like hell. At the same time he wrapped an arm around the guy's throat and pulled him tightly against his chest. "Listen to me and listen carefully, okay?" he said quietly. "Tina's gone home. You freaked her out. She's left school. You stay the hell away from Jessica and this apartment or the next time I see you, I'm going to rip your arm off and bludgeon you to death with it. Okay?" His tone was low, friendly, but he knew that the threat carried weight, because what he did, he did effortlessly. It cost him nothing to immobilize this guy and threaten him. The guy wouldn't be able to prove it if he should consider going to the cops and Sam was fairly certain that the cops wouldn't take him seriously if he did. When the guy didn't respond, Sam tightened his hold on his throat. "Okay?" he repeated.

"Okay," the guy rasped out.

Sam released him and pushed him back toward the stairs. "Good. I'm glad we got that squared," he said.

The guy turned around, his left hand covering his throat while he shook out his right hand. Sam could read this guy easily and he was used to throwing the threats and carrying them out. But he was sufficiently put in his place right now. "Who the fuck are you?" he demanded.

"Nobody you need to worry about if you stay away from here," Sam reiterated and smiled pleasantly.

It was convincing enough, because the guy turned and rushed down the stairs and moments later, the front door slammed. Sam stepped back and closed the door again, then turned back to face Jessica, who stood on the other side of the kitchen table, her hands on the back of the chair there, while she stared at him with something in her eyes he didn't recognize. "Wow," she finally said. "I'm impressed."

He blinked. Was she making fun of him? She looked serious enough, but there was a gleam in her eyes that he couldn't really place. "About that?" he asked and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "That was nothing."

"Nothing? Nobody's ever gone up against Ed before. Not like that. That guy's used to getting his way. That he backed down ..." She shook her head in obvious wonder. "Just wow."

And just then she did something that stabbed right through to his core. Her gaze trailed over him, she looked him up and down as if she hadn't even seen him until now, and a slow smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"You wouldn't need a place to stay, would you?" she asked.

With the kitchen table between them, he couldn't very well act on the sudden urge that slapped him in the face like a wet fish and he quickly squashed both thought and look before it could do irreparable damage to his sudden hero-status. "Uh ... I'm not sure I could afford this," he said and sent a glance around the kitchen as if that would help him appraise how much this place actually cost.

She moved before he was aware of it, shifted around to his side of the table and stopped right in front of him. He blinked in slight surprise, but managed to stop the instant need to take a step back. He didn't want to step back from her.

"It's not that expensive," she said, her gaze fixed on a point on his chest. She reached up to place a flat hand on his chest right where her gaze was fixed, then glanced up at him. "Same as a dorm room, actually," she added with a slow smile and smoldering embers in her eyes.

Holy god, she was coming on to him. His breath almost caught in his throat and all intentions to maintain that hero-status were out the window and he was back to being a blithering fool who had no clue how to behave around women. Not the ones he was attracted to, anyway.

"What do you say?" she asked, her tone dropping to a low purr.

And all he could do was stand there like a damned log and not move at all, the only thing running through his mind 'what would Dean do?'. Then he suddenly stopped himself mentally, brought his thought-train to a screeching halt. 'Don't be an ass,' he chastised himself. 'She's hot and she wants you.' It was like hearing Dean saying that and he smirked and slipped his hands onto her hips.

Without the benefit of cooling thoughts and averted gazes, his body responded to her immediately and he hoped and prayed that he hadn't misinterpreted her come-on. Now that would be embarrassing. "Well ... if you have room anyway?" he said and had to clear his throat because his voice had gone all raspy.

Her smile widened a little and before he knew what hit him, they were kissing, her arms around his neck, his arms around her back. And, god, he wanted her so bad, it was painful. And then she was tugging his t-shirt out of his jeans and he got busy with hers, then they shifted and he pulled his shirt and t-shirt off in one go while she pulled her t-shirt over her head. He unclasped her bra, hoisted her up on the kitchen table, but she mumbled 'bed' around a kiss and waved toward the livingroom and beyond, so he picked her up again and she wrapped her legs around his waist and they ended up on the couch instead because he had no clue where her bedroom was.

She worked him out of his jeans, he worked her out of hers, he dug out his wallet to find a rubber, which she snatched away from him before he could unwrap it, and – god almighty, he had to struggle to hold back when she touched him, when she rolled it on, because ... damn ... her fingers were so hot and nimble – and then she wrapped her legs around his waist again and he sank into her, slowly, controlled, when all he really wanted to do was thrust. 'Take your time,' he chastised himself.

She was soft and pliable and hotter than a furnace and she tasted vaguely of caramel. It was a weird thing to notice, he figured, but he liked it, couldn't stop kissing her while she arched up against him, took him in all the way and tightened her legs around his back, stilled his movement. He was breathing hard, fighting the tide, and she seemed to feel that and helped him stay his almost aching need for release until he had it under control again and she released her harsh hold on him.

It became an all-nighter, starting and stopping, pausing, then starting and stopping. He had no concept of time, only of her, of how she tasted, of how she moaned his name, not Sam or Sammy, but Samuel. She wasn't his first and he wasn't hers, but it didn't matter. They were perfectly matched, could read each other without aide, and managed to drag it out until he simply couldn't hold back any more. She had come three times when he finally gave in and she came again in tandem with him.

He had never been this worn out before, but it felt so damned good that he almost couldn't convince himself to move. Eventually they did, though, and ended up in her bed – the second bedroom to the right – where they fell asleep in each others arms.

Ed never bothered her again because Jessica's boyfriend moved in and Ed knew better than to test his luck there, it seemed. And Sam found out what it was like to be someone's boyfriend and it was smooth sailing from thereon in.

He wrapped himself up in normal, lived the life without thought of consequence and his thoughts of his father and brother were random and rare. He missed Dean at times, but most of the time he was happy with Jessica. She called him Sam and he called her Jess, but when they were alone they had other names for each other and there wasn't a damned room in the apartment they hadn't had sex in.

The novelty wore off after a while and half a year into the relationship, it fell into a pattern that felt like old, well-worn slippers. And he wanted it to last forever, because this was good, this was bliss. He didn't have to worry about stocking up on salt or finding a place to buy sage unless it was for dinner. He had weapons hidden away, but he never brought them out. Jess didn't go through his things and he never told her anything worth while. He spoke of his brother, mentioned his father, and Jess could tell he wasn't happy about the latter, so she left it alone.

He thought it could last forever. He was wrong.

The End