Sam/Bela - Time Makes You Bolder
Fandom: Supernatural
Title: Time Makes You Bolder
Author: iluvroadrunner6
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sam Winchester/Bela Talbot
Content Warning: N/A
Summary: Bela Talbot had a year to live.
Author’s Note: Written for ozmissage for spn_hetexchange. An AU of Season 3.
Disclaimer: I don’t own. They belong to Kripke. I’m just borrowing and I’ll put them back where I found them.
Bela Talbot had a year to live.
It wasn’t a fun feeling. She was dying and there was no last ditch cure for it, no hail mary pass. She was officially out of options. In a year, she was going to die. She was only twenty-four years-old. That wasn’t a life. She had never had a life. She wasn’t sure for sure what it entailed, but she knew for a fact that this wasn’t one. This was running. She was so tired of running, but there wasn’t anything else for her to do.
Except for now.
Now, she was standing in the middle of her apartment, listening to the ramblings of a man possessed. Not by a demon, mind you, but by desperation. Sam was just standing there, begging her to hear him out, and she wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to do other than let him in the door. Once he was inside, however, he seemed to lose his nerve, and took to standing in the middle of her living room and apparently not knowing what to say.
“Well,” she sighed, crossing her arms in front of her chest and waiting. “Out with it then.”
He was quiet for a moment, licking his lips before: “Dean’s dying.”
There was a pause. A careful one, as she tried to find a response. “And this should be a concern of mine because … ?”
“He sold his soul. And I know you probably have whatever opinions you have on the subject, but he has a year to live and I can’t just let him die. Not when he’s in this mess because of me in the first place.”
Bela wasn’t going to bring up the fact that she was in a strikingly similar situation. Or the fact that she knew what he was going to ask before he even said it. Instead, she just took a breath and tried to keep her face as aloof and detached as possible.
“Again. This is my problem, why?”
“Look, I know I don’t have much to offer in the way of money. But you have resources that I don’t. You can get to places that I can’t. Whatever you want in exchange, I’ll get it for you but-you’re probably the best shot he has at getting out of this. I need your help.”
He wanted to get her into the same race she was already running, and she wasn’t sure what to tell him. Whether she should just be a bitch and kick him out, or explain that she knew there was no hope. All she could really do was shake her head, and try to get home off the subject. “Sam, there isn’t anything.”
“There has to be something.”
“If there were something, people would know about it. It would be easy to find.”
“How do you know?” Sam replied. “Sometimes, the best stuff is where no one is supposed to find it. Who says the answer isn’t out there somewhere-”
“Because I’ve looked,” she said, cutting him off before he dug himself in deeper. “I’ve been looking for nine years, Sam. If there were something, I would have found it by now.”
There’s a long moment where Sam just stared at her, trying to fit the pieces together. Sam was a smart boy, but it still took him a minute before he realized. “You too.” His eyes narrowed. “You must have been a kid.”
“Demons don’t discriminate,” she sighed. “They’ll take the souls of children just as easily as they’ll take the souls of the elderly.”
Sam turned his back on her, and started to pace, just moving through the apartment as the wheels in his head were turning. She wanted to explain more, to try and get him off this foolish train of false hope before he got himself hurt, but he cut her off before she could.
“I can save you both.”
“Sam-”
“Just … hear me out.” Sam was pleading with her. It was all over his face. “You have the money and resources to get us what we need. I’ve got a head for research. I’ll help.”
“Sam, you can’t break a deal with a demon. There are too many loopholes.”
“No-it can be done. My brother and I have done it, I just need help.”
She didn’t need this. She didn’t need this person coming in and shoving this hope in her face where there wasn’t any. She shook her head and took another step back. “I-I can’t.”
“I’ll give you whatever you need. You can take me on jobs, use me as a pansy, I don’t really care. Just help me, Bela. I can fix this-I know I can. But I can’t if you don’t let me.”
He sounded so sure. There was so much conviction and a part of her that wanted to believe in that conviction. There was a much larger part saying that this was a waste of time, and that there were better partnerships to forge than with a hapless hunter named Sam Winchester. But she had a year to live, and she didn’t want to die, false hope or not. She stayed quiet for a moment, before straightening a little more, and trying to look more confident than she felt.
“Where would you like to start?”
***
“Okay, when I said anything? This wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Bela glanced over at him with a smirk, before reaching for one of the champagne flutes that were passing by. His tux was itchy and uncomfortable, and he never did well with events like this. Yeah, true, he would admit that Bela’s way of doing business had perks like not actually having to break into anywhere, but the clothing choices could use some work. She, however, fit in like a glove, and he wasn’t sure how she did it. He figured that she happened to be raised in it, but even that he couldn’t be sure of for certain.
“Just relax,” she sighed. “At least you don’t have to escort a frisky older woman this time around.”
Thanks. He was trying to forget that one.
He sighed before reaching for a glass of his own, before giving the room an appraising look as he spoke. “So. What are we looking for again?”
“A necklace,” she sighed. “Whalebone. Said to be a very powerful luck charm.”
“And this is going to help us how?”
Bela flashed him another bemused expression, and he knew that he wasn’t going to like the answer. That this item they were looking for was unrelated and just another way for Bela to make money. He knew he had agreed to whatever she needed, but he was starting to think that she wasn’t nearly as invested in this whole saving her life thing as he thought she was. He got enough of that from Dean. He didn’t need it from her too.
“It’s going to fund the purchase of that volume you were looking for,” she sighed, finishing off the rest of her champagne. “Don’t worry. This wasn’t a complete waste of your time.”
Sam would have protested that that wasn’t what he was thinking, but he didn’t think it would make of a difference. He knew she was mostly kidding. And to be honest, it was what he was thinking. He was starting to learn that Bela Talbot was much more astute at reading people that she tended to let on.
“Alright. Let’s grab this necklace. Where is it?”
“Wired case upstairs. We have to wait for the band to start.”
Sam didn’t do so well with waiting. He was antsy through the entire speech, to the point where Bela had to elbow him in the side to get him to stand still. He knew that he was making himself obvious, but he was impatient. He didn’t have a lot of time. Dean didn’t have a lot of time. So he stood there, waiting for the moment where he felt Bela’s hand on his arm, guiding him away from the rest of the room and upstairs where the necklace was kept.
The lift was easy enough, it was getting out that was the problem. Bela had the necklace in her purse and out of sight from the rest of the world, but the guests weren’t supposed to be upstairs. They were on their way back down when security decided to do their rounds. They made it just over the velvet rope of the stairs, when Sam, thinking on his feet the best he could, cornered Bela and pushed her back into one of the nearby walls.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, starting to fight him a bit, but he just leaned in closer, dropping his head closer to hers.
“Just trust me.”
And with that, he kissed her.
It wasn’t anything special. In fact, it was barely even a real kiss. But she was surprisingly good at it, even if it was fake, and went with things a lot faster than he had expected her to. The steps of the guard faltered, and he cleared his throat, but Sam let the kiss linger for a moment, before turning back to the guard awkwardly. “Is there something wrong?”
“This is a restricted area,” he sighed. “If you two wouldn’t mind getting back to the gallery.”
Sam nodded as he pulled Bela away from the wall, leading her in front of him as they went back to the gallery. Bela waited until they were out of earshot, before tipping her head back to look at him with a smirk.
“Now I know who has got all the brains in the family.”
Sam sighed, shaking his head. “Just keep walking.”
***
The first time Sam really kissed her, in a way that wasn’t a ruse or a distraction, she didn’t even see it coming.
They were pouring over some more older volumes that she had collected, looking for the answers they needed, when she flopped back against the couch rubbing at her eyes. She was exhausted. They had been reading since early afternoon, and as far as she was concerned, the words were starting to run together.
“I think it’s time to take a break.”
He glanced back at her with a smirk, before shifting to lean back a bit himself. “Tired?”
She nodded. “I think I’ve read the same page five times without even realizing it.”
He nodded as well, relaxing next to her more as he let the side of his face rest against the back of her couch. “Me too. I should probably get back to Dean anyway.”
Right. His brother. The person he was really looking to save. She didn’t pull back though. She was comfortable with having Sam in her personal space, and if anything he had started to become a bit of a fixture in her life. For once, she had a real friend. It was an odd feeling, but it was a good one. It was one that she was actually starting to value.
“Well,” she sighed. “Don’t let me keep you.”
He didn’t say anything. He was just watching her, like she was something he was trying to figure out, but it wasn’t to the point where it was unsettling-not yet, anyway. She continued to watch him back, letting her head rest on her arm as she waited for him to get to agree with her and say his goodbyes, but he didn’t. Instead he inched forward, closing the gap between them with a soft, gentle kiss.
She knew the instance that it happened that it was different from when he kissed her in the museum. There was something more tender about it, not a simple distraction. It meant something. Bela wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with something like that. She hadn’t had a lot of those in her short life, and it was likely that she wouldn’t again. She did the only thing she could think to do.
She kissed him back.
It was slow and sensual, and surprisingly good. When she didn’t pull back right away, one large hand came up to brush against the side of her face, cradling her chin as he kept her close. She didn’t really need the encouragement, but she took it anyway. She inched closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and just keeping him close. Eventually they had to break the kiss to breathe, but when they did, he didn’t let her go far, just laced his arms around her waist and letting his forehead rest against hers.
“Or I could just stick around for a while,” he said softly, just before the silence started to get uncomfortable.
“Yes,” she breathed slowly. “I think that’d be a good idea.”
***
“I think I’ve got something.”
Bela was stretched out in bed next to him, and she shifted to prop her head up on her elbow when he spoke. He knew that working while he was in bed with her probably wasn’t what she wanted to be doing right then. It wasn’t what he wanted to be doing right then. But they were running out of time, so someone needed to be doing the heavy lifting. He turned to glance at her, and she was giving him a look that meant he was working too hard, but this was important.
“What is it now?” she sighed, waiting for him to explain.
He turned the book in his hand on its side to face her, before turning to face her. “It says that this crystal can cleanse souls of any imperfections or blemishes-including any contracts that may be on the soul.”
He knew she was going to shoot him down. This thing might not even exist in the first place, and he’s not getting his hopes up, but it was also the most progress that they had made in all those months. Bela looked up at him after a moment, before closing the book to hand back to him. “It’s a myth, Sam. I think you can see that much.”
“We could still look anyway?” he said, giving her a pleading look. “I know we don’t have a lot of time … ” He was getting more and more desperate with each passing week, and he knew that she could see it. She sighed softly, before nodding and leaning in closer.
“I’ll check into it. In the morning.”
“But … ”
She cut him off with a slow kiss, her fingers sliding into his hair, and that shut him up for the moment. She eventually broke the kiss with a sigh, before murmuring against his lips. “Sam … take a little direction.”
He smirked a bit, before leaning in to kiss her again. “Okay,” he murmured back. “I can do that.”
***
Problem was, it wasn’t a myth.
Bela found that out three days before she died. A scruffy looking man who talked in riddles most of the time arrived on her doorstep, holding the box in his hand and saying that he had found what she was looking for. She didn’t know who he was, or how he had found it, or more to the point, why he had given it to her, but he did.
“How did you find this?”
“I know things,” he replied. “A lot more than I should. And I’m screwing with a pretty important timeline here-it’s why I’m giving it to you.”
She frowned, unsure of what that was supposed to mean. “I don’t understand.”
“Bela Talbot, this is your life-or rather, the end of it.” He reached forward and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You are being given one last chance to do the right thing. Don’t fuck it up.”
With that, he strode away from her car. She still didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, but she was now standing with the thing she had been searching for in her hands. She had done it. She won.
Then again, there was a small quiet part of her that knew she wasn’t even close.
***
The package arrived at Bobby’s two days after Bela died.
Sam was a wreck, far more than anyone actually expected him to be, and he blamed it on the fact that there was a week left before Dean met the same fate. He denied the fact that it was yet another woman in his life he couldn’t keep, but that was more to himself than anything else. He was the only one who knew that Bela had been more than just a source of information, and it was probably best that secret died with him. Maybe, if she lived, there might have been a chance for more than that, but now it was just best that he did his best to forget.
Mysterious packages from beyond the grave didn’t help that fact.
There was no denying it was from her, though. The overnight address label was filled out in her clear, precise handwriting, as was the note inside, tucked away next to the small white crystal that had been carefully packaged inside. The note wasn’t long, or much to go on at all, but it was enough for him to figure out what had happened:
You only get one shot at this. Don’t blow it. - B
Sometimes, Sam Winchester was, in fact, capable of taking direction.
Title: Time Makes You Bolder
Author: iluvroadrunner6
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sam Winchester/Bela Talbot
Content Warning: N/A
Summary: Bela Talbot had a year to live.
Author’s Note: Written for ozmissage for spn_hetexchange. An AU of Season 3.
Disclaimer: I don’t own. They belong to Kripke. I’m just borrowing and I’ll put them back where I found them.
Bela Talbot had a year to live.
It wasn’t a fun feeling. She was dying and there was no last ditch cure for it, no hail mary pass. She was officially out of options. In a year, she was going to die. She was only twenty-four years-old. That wasn’t a life. She had never had a life. She wasn’t sure for sure what it entailed, but she knew for a fact that this wasn’t one. This was running. She was so tired of running, but there wasn’t anything else for her to do.
Except for now.
Now, she was standing in the middle of her apartment, listening to the ramblings of a man possessed. Not by a demon, mind you, but by desperation. Sam was just standing there, begging her to hear him out, and she wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to do other than let him in the door. Once he was inside, however, he seemed to lose his nerve, and took to standing in the middle of her living room and apparently not knowing what to say.
“Well,” she sighed, crossing her arms in front of her chest and waiting. “Out with it then.”
He was quiet for a moment, licking his lips before: “Dean’s dying.”
There was a pause. A careful one, as she tried to find a response. “And this should be a concern of mine because … ?”
“He sold his soul. And I know you probably have whatever opinions you have on the subject, but he has a year to live and I can’t just let him die. Not when he’s in this mess because of me in the first place.”
Bela wasn’t going to bring up the fact that she was in a strikingly similar situation. Or the fact that she knew what he was going to ask before he even said it. Instead, she just took a breath and tried to keep her face as aloof and detached as possible.
“Again. This is my problem, why?”
“Look, I know I don’t have much to offer in the way of money. But you have resources that I don’t. You can get to places that I can’t. Whatever you want in exchange, I’ll get it for you but-you’re probably the best shot he has at getting out of this. I need your help.”
He wanted to get her into the same race she was already running, and she wasn’t sure what to tell him. Whether she should just be a bitch and kick him out, or explain that she knew there was no hope. All she could really do was shake her head, and try to get home off the subject. “Sam, there isn’t anything.”
“There has to be something.”
“If there were something, people would know about it. It would be easy to find.”
“How do you know?” Sam replied. “Sometimes, the best stuff is where no one is supposed to find it. Who says the answer isn’t out there somewhere-”
“Because I’ve looked,” she said, cutting him off before he dug himself in deeper. “I’ve been looking for nine years, Sam. If there were something, I would have found it by now.”
There’s a long moment where Sam just stared at her, trying to fit the pieces together. Sam was a smart boy, but it still took him a minute before he realized. “You too.” His eyes narrowed. “You must have been a kid.”
“Demons don’t discriminate,” she sighed. “They’ll take the souls of children just as easily as they’ll take the souls of the elderly.”
Sam turned his back on her, and started to pace, just moving through the apartment as the wheels in his head were turning. She wanted to explain more, to try and get him off this foolish train of false hope before he got himself hurt, but he cut her off before she could.
“I can save you both.”
“Sam-”
“Just … hear me out.” Sam was pleading with her. It was all over his face. “You have the money and resources to get us what we need. I’ve got a head for research. I’ll help.”
“Sam, you can’t break a deal with a demon. There are too many loopholes.”
“No-it can be done. My brother and I have done it, I just need help.”
She didn’t need this. She didn’t need this person coming in and shoving this hope in her face where there wasn’t any. She shook her head and took another step back. “I-I can’t.”
“I’ll give you whatever you need. You can take me on jobs, use me as a pansy, I don’t really care. Just help me, Bela. I can fix this-I know I can. But I can’t if you don’t let me.”
He sounded so sure. There was so much conviction and a part of her that wanted to believe in that conviction. There was a much larger part saying that this was a waste of time, and that there were better partnerships to forge than with a hapless hunter named Sam Winchester. But she had a year to live, and she didn’t want to die, false hope or not. She stayed quiet for a moment, before straightening a little more, and trying to look more confident than she felt.
“Where would you like to start?”
***
“Okay, when I said anything? This wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Bela glanced over at him with a smirk, before reaching for one of the champagne flutes that were passing by. His tux was itchy and uncomfortable, and he never did well with events like this. Yeah, true, he would admit that Bela’s way of doing business had perks like not actually having to break into anywhere, but the clothing choices could use some work. She, however, fit in like a glove, and he wasn’t sure how she did it. He figured that she happened to be raised in it, but even that he couldn’t be sure of for certain.
“Just relax,” she sighed. “At least you don’t have to escort a frisky older woman this time around.”
Thanks. He was trying to forget that one.
He sighed before reaching for a glass of his own, before giving the room an appraising look as he spoke. “So. What are we looking for again?”
“A necklace,” she sighed. “Whalebone. Said to be a very powerful luck charm.”
“And this is going to help us how?”
Bela flashed him another bemused expression, and he knew that he wasn’t going to like the answer. That this item they were looking for was unrelated and just another way for Bela to make money. He knew he had agreed to whatever she needed, but he was starting to think that she wasn’t nearly as invested in this whole saving her life thing as he thought she was. He got enough of that from Dean. He didn’t need it from her too.
“It’s going to fund the purchase of that volume you were looking for,” she sighed, finishing off the rest of her champagne. “Don’t worry. This wasn’t a complete waste of your time.”
Sam would have protested that that wasn’t what he was thinking, but he didn’t think it would make of a difference. He knew she was mostly kidding. And to be honest, it was what he was thinking. He was starting to learn that Bela Talbot was much more astute at reading people that she tended to let on.
“Alright. Let’s grab this necklace. Where is it?”
“Wired case upstairs. We have to wait for the band to start.”
Sam didn’t do so well with waiting. He was antsy through the entire speech, to the point where Bela had to elbow him in the side to get him to stand still. He knew that he was making himself obvious, but he was impatient. He didn’t have a lot of time. Dean didn’t have a lot of time. So he stood there, waiting for the moment where he felt Bela’s hand on his arm, guiding him away from the rest of the room and upstairs where the necklace was kept.
The lift was easy enough, it was getting out that was the problem. Bela had the necklace in her purse and out of sight from the rest of the world, but the guests weren’t supposed to be upstairs. They were on their way back down when security decided to do their rounds. They made it just over the velvet rope of the stairs, when Sam, thinking on his feet the best he could, cornered Bela and pushed her back into one of the nearby walls.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, starting to fight him a bit, but he just leaned in closer, dropping his head closer to hers.
“Just trust me.”
And with that, he kissed her.
It wasn’t anything special. In fact, it was barely even a real kiss. But she was surprisingly good at it, even if it was fake, and went with things a lot faster than he had expected her to. The steps of the guard faltered, and he cleared his throat, but Sam let the kiss linger for a moment, before turning back to the guard awkwardly. “Is there something wrong?”
“This is a restricted area,” he sighed. “If you two wouldn’t mind getting back to the gallery.”
Sam nodded as he pulled Bela away from the wall, leading her in front of him as they went back to the gallery. Bela waited until they were out of earshot, before tipping her head back to look at him with a smirk.
“Now I know who has got all the brains in the family.”
Sam sighed, shaking his head. “Just keep walking.”
***
The first time Sam really kissed her, in a way that wasn’t a ruse or a distraction, she didn’t even see it coming.
They were pouring over some more older volumes that she had collected, looking for the answers they needed, when she flopped back against the couch rubbing at her eyes. She was exhausted. They had been reading since early afternoon, and as far as she was concerned, the words were starting to run together.
“I think it’s time to take a break.”
He glanced back at her with a smirk, before shifting to lean back a bit himself. “Tired?”
She nodded. “I think I’ve read the same page five times without even realizing it.”
He nodded as well, relaxing next to her more as he let the side of his face rest against the back of her couch. “Me too. I should probably get back to Dean anyway.”
Right. His brother. The person he was really looking to save. She didn’t pull back though. She was comfortable with having Sam in her personal space, and if anything he had started to become a bit of a fixture in her life. For once, she had a real friend. It was an odd feeling, but it was a good one. It was one that she was actually starting to value.
“Well,” she sighed. “Don’t let me keep you.”
He didn’t say anything. He was just watching her, like she was something he was trying to figure out, but it wasn’t to the point where it was unsettling-not yet, anyway. She continued to watch him back, letting her head rest on her arm as she waited for him to get to agree with her and say his goodbyes, but he didn’t. Instead he inched forward, closing the gap between them with a soft, gentle kiss.
She knew the instance that it happened that it was different from when he kissed her in the museum. There was something more tender about it, not a simple distraction. It meant something. Bela wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with something like that. She hadn’t had a lot of those in her short life, and it was likely that she wouldn’t again. She did the only thing she could think to do.
She kissed him back.
It was slow and sensual, and surprisingly good. When she didn’t pull back right away, one large hand came up to brush against the side of her face, cradling her chin as he kept her close. She didn’t really need the encouragement, but she took it anyway. She inched closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and just keeping him close. Eventually they had to break the kiss to breathe, but when they did, he didn’t let her go far, just laced his arms around her waist and letting his forehead rest against hers.
“Or I could just stick around for a while,” he said softly, just before the silence started to get uncomfortable.
“Yes,” she breathed slowly. “I think that’d be a good idea.”
***
“I think I’ve got something.”
Bela was stretched out in bed next to him, and she shifted to prop her head up on her elbow when he spoke. He knew that working while he was in bed with her probably wasn’t what she wanted to be doing right then. It wasn’t what he wanted to be doing right then. But they were running out of time, so someone needed to be doing the heavy lifting. He turned to glance at her, and she was giving him a look that meant he was working too hard, but this was important.
“What is it now?” she sighed, waiting for him to explain.
He turned the book in his hand on its side to face her, before turning to face her. “It says that this crystal can cleanse souls of any imperfections or blemishes-including any contracts that may be on the soul.”
He knew she was going to shoot him down. This thing might not even exist in the first place, and he’s not getting his hopes up, but it was also the most progress that they had made in all those months. Bela looked up at him after a moment, before closing the book to hand back to him. “It’s a myth, Sam. I think you can see that much.”
“We could still look anyway?” he said, giving her a pleading look. “I know we don’t have a lot of time … ” He was getting more and more desperate with each passing week, and he knew that she could see it. She sighed softly, before nodding and leaning in closer.
“I’ll check into it. In the morning.”
“But … ”
She cut him off with a slow kiss, her fingers sliding into his hair, and that shut him up for the moment. She eventually broke the kiss with a sigh, before murmuring against his lips. “Sam … take a little direction.”
He smirked a bit, before leaning in to kiss her again. “Okay,” he murmured back. “I can do that.”
***
Problem was, it wasn’t a myth.
Bela found that out three days before she died. A scruffy looking man who talked in riddles most of the time arrived on her doorstep, holding the box in his hand and saying that he had found what she was looking for. She didn’t know who he was, or how he had found it, or more to the point, why he had given it to her, but he did.
“How did you find this?”
“I know things,” he replied. “A lot more than I should. And I’m screwing with a pretty important timeline here-it’s why I’m giving it to you.”
She frowned, unsure of what that was supposed to mean. “I don’t understand.”
“Bela Talbot, this is your life-or rather, the end of it.” He reached forward and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You are being given one last chance to do the right thing. Don’t fuck it up.”
With that, he strode away from her car. She still didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, but she was now standing with the thing she had been searching for in her hands. She had done it. She won.
Then again, there was a small quiet part of her that knew she wasn’t even close.
***
The package arrived at Bobby’s two days after Bela died.
Sam was a wreck, far more than anyone actually expected him to be, and he blamed it on the fact that there was a week left before Dean met the same fate. He denied the fact that it was yet another woman in his life he couldn’t keep, but that was more to himself than anything else. He was the only one who knew that Bela had been more than just a source of information, and it was probably best that secret died with him. Maybe, if she lived, there might have been a chance for more than that, but now it was just best that he did his best to forget.
Mysterious packages from beyond the grave didn’t help that fact.
There was no denying it was from her, though. The overnight address label was filled out in her clear, precise handwriting, as was the note inside, tucked away next to the small white crystal that had been carefully packaged inside. The note wasn’t long, or much to go on at all, but it was enough for him to figure out what had happened:
You only get one shot at this. Don’t blow it. - B
Sometimes, Sam Winchester was, in fact, capable of taking direction.