"You know, most people watch Christmassy-type movies after Thanksgiving," Sam says, sprawling across what thin real estate he has on Quinn's twin bed.

She tosses a piece of popcorn into her mouth, eyes trained on her laptop wedged between their stretched-out legs, popcorn bowl, and candy bowls. "Are you gonna complain the whole movie?"

Sam smiles and settles into his corner. "I'm just saying, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre doesn't really put anyone in the Christmas spirit. We could watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, or A Christmas Story...you know, the classics?"

Quinn hums to herself, completely disregarding Sam's opinions. "Well you knew what I was watching before you came over, so you can suck it up with a straw."

"You're so mean to me."

"I am not," she gasps. "This is my dorm, and you didn't have to come over."

"Fine, fine," Sam sighs. "If we watch your silly little slasher movie, can we watch my Christmas skeleton one?"

"Fine," Quinn chirps, and cranks the volume up. Looking so smug. Her eyes flit to Sam's, and at the sight of his soft gaze, she doesn't know what to do. So she tears her eyes from his, and tries like hell to watch the movie.

What a way to ring in December first. Blood, guts, and gore, screaming and foul language and—

"Ew."

Quinn grins. "Are you squeamish?"

"No, but that's just five kinds of disturbing," Sam hums, and tosses a piece of popcorn up into the air and leans to catch it in his mouth.

"I thought you weren't really a holiday kinda person anyway," Quinn lightly inquires. She watches the way his jaw works as he chews.

"Typically I'm not," Sam replies in a sigh, dropping his arm across the pillows. It isn't intended to be a flirtatious thing. He has very large limbs and this is a very small bed. And he's not even touching her.

At least, that's how he justified it in his mind.

"We just moved around so much when I was growing up, you know...didn't really have that holiday thing going." He rolls his head to the side to look at her. Dim, warm lights around her room put a heavenly glow on her soft face. Her whole body is facing him, head resting back on the wall.

He really would like to kiss her.

"What's that thing you said?" Quinn hums, squinting a little as she thinks. "'We're—'"

"'Not exactly the Bradys,'" Sam chuckles. "Aaaand we're not."

"Well," Quinn sucks her teeth and crosses her arms, turning her head to the left to look up at Sam. "If that brother of yours ever shows face, I wanna meet him." Sam scoffs, pairing it with an eye roll. "You met my crazy family. I wanna meet yours."

Sam laughs a little. "Yeah, sure. So are you gonna change the movie or are we gonna watch end credits all night?"

"Ugh, you—" Quinn glowers at him and reaches for her computer. "Gimme the DVD, then, demanding one." They switch disks and she leans back with crossed arms again, settling into the crook of his shoulder juuust a little.

She does find it endearing that he knows every word to the opening sequence. He's humming to This is Halloween like his life depends on it. And What's This? He actually sings that one, though.

"This is my favorite animated movie," Sam informs her, very matter-of-fact.

Quinn grins up at him. "Oh, yeah?"

"Mhm." He looks down at her with his lips pursed, dimples cratering either of his cheeks as he nods. And for a moment, there's something like magnets pulling them. Eyes glinting with the colors of the computer screen and the intimacy of the surrounding them...maybe magnets were too weak. It was like gravity, their own personal fields drawing the other in for a timid kiss.

It wasn't nothing, but it wasn't fireworks, either. It was overactive butterflies and extreme self-consciousness and it was giddiness because holy crap, she's kissing the sweetest guy she's ever met.

She's kissing.

Is it a kiss or a lip-lock?

Regardless, the way he was looking at her when she shrunk back...sweet and soft...it made her smile. And out of embarrassment, Quinn looked away from him and shrunk into his side even more, biting on her lip to keep the grin from splitting her face.

It became a tradition for them. Every December first, they would watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre followed by The Nightmare Before Christmas. Even after Sam vanished from her life without so much as a trace, she watched that movie every December first...because at least she had half of him to do it with.

Quinn stares down at her breakfast. She and Sam both have endless pits in their stomachs, neither of them knowing what to say next, what to ask next, or even where to look. So they look down. Quinn is thinking about their first kiss, her first ever...and how no one, no matter how much she wanted them to, could take away the feeling of kissing him. Of being held by him. Of the memory of loving him and being loved by him.

"Hannah loves The Nightmare Before Christmas," Quinn finally murmurs. Sam looks up at her, green eyes searching her face in hesitation, maybe shock. "Last year, she dressed up as Jack Skellington because she didn't want to be Sally." She smiles sadly. "And she knows every word to What's This?" Quinn's teary hazel eyes finally meet his. They're stinging red, and he regrets every day of the past seven years. Reimagines them with both Quinn and Hannah in them.

How much easier would those hard times have been? How much harder would they have been? How much more dangerous?

All the Christmases Hannah must've had, wondering where her father is...why she doesn't have one...

"Does she..." Sam glances over Quinn's shoulder. "Does she have a father figure?" He whispers.

"No," Quinn murmurs, voice quiet and sullen, on the verge of tears. "No, she doesn't. But she knows your face from pictures, from...when we were kids." A little smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. They really were just kids, huh? "Guess she didn't recognize you 'cause of the hair." Sam manages a little scoffed chuckle, reaching up to wipe his cheeks.

"What did you tell her?" He finally asks.

"That something scary happened," Quinn whispers. "And Daddy had to go away." Sam's mouth twitches, and he has to force himself to look away from her.

Anger. Sadness. Regret. He'd spent seven years trying to forget someone who desperately kept his memory alive for someone else.

"Quinn...I'm so sorry," Sam whispers, and she shakes her head.

"We should eat before everything gets cold," she says, and clears her throat as she turns around to look at Dean and Hannah. "Han, your pancakes, babe."

Dean looks over his shoulder and shakes Hannah a little, resting on his hip. "You ready to eat?"

He sets Hannah in the chair beside Quinn. And it's a very, very awkward breakfast for the adults, but for Hannah, this is the coolest thing ever.

"Um..." Quinn tucks her long ashy hair behind one ear. "I need to take her to school, but I'm going straight to the station after," she says. She's too afraid to look at Sam, so she talks to Dean. "But the three of us need to have a very honest discussion...about..."

"Yeah," Dean clears his throats and nods. "I...think we can all agree on that." Dean's green eyes seem to soften a little. He looks so different now, comparing the first mental image she has of him. Their first interaction. "It's really good to see you, Quinn."

Quinn Anderson the detective hesitates. Quinn Anderson the person, though, feels a lighter. Happier. At ease. "You too, Dean," she murmurs, and her hazel eyes move down to her little girl. "Hannah, let's get you to school, bug."

She waves goodbye to her new friends, none the wiser that after so many years of asking about her father, she'd finally met him.

Sam is distraught in the car. Waiting in the station's parking lot for Quinn to show up and give them the business he knows is coming.

His world was flipped upside down in a matter of an hour because of what was supposed to be an open-and-close case. Hearts are missing from bodies. There's a full moon coming up. It's absolutely a werewolf.

So not only does he have a daughter, but his ex-girlfriend, the love of his life, the mother of his daughter, is head of the San Francisco homicide unit. And he has to tell her what the hell happened all those years ago. He has to bring her into what he wanted so badly to keep her out of. What he left her to protect her from.

She's never going to sleep the same way again. She's never going to tuck Hannah in for bed the same way. She will never look at her job the same way. Her life will be irrevocably changed.

At that panicked monologue, Dean says, "But how many cases do you think they'll be able to go back and look at?" Sam shakes his head. This can't be real. "Cases that went cold because nobody knew everything what we do?"

She's walking up to them now, coat billowing in the wind, whipping her long hair away from her face.

Sometimes, he would have dreams that he would get to see her again. They'd pick up right where they left off. Happy. Completely wrapped up in each other. Comfortable.

It's everything opposite of that.

It's nervous and awkward. But he still feels the same way he did all those years ago. Butterflies when he sees her. His heart skips a beat when she speaks. Her voice, so beautiful and sweet...it was always his favorite thing. He'd come home from a long day at work and class and just lay on her...close his eyes and feel her fingers running through his hair, slow and gentle, as she talked him through her day.

He longs for it. For the days of their youth, before the rug was yanked out from beneath him, and before he took that same rug from underneath her. He left without a trace.

And he'd never forgive himself for it.

Watching her now, walking across the lot and feeling his stomach drop and his heart pick up, reminds him of seeing her walk towards him across the quad that December. He was waiting for her by the planter...

Sam knows Quinn from a mile away. She's a tall girl wearing these ridiculously oversized and seriously soft knit sweaters. And her backpack is obnoxiously bright yellow. It sticks out like a sore thumb against the light blue of the aforementioned sweater.

And then she looks up at him, and he can see the grin on her face from where he's standing. It sends a thrill through him, butterflies in his gut, and maybe his heart stopped...

Wait, no, he felt it beat in his stomach.

Wait—

She skips the last few steps towards him with that huge smile. "I have great news," she proclaims.

"You got the best test score in your psych class," he guesses.

Quinn presses her lips together. "Yes, but—" Sam grins. "I talked to my mom, right?"

"Always a good thing."

"Of course," Quinn nods, and they both turn to start walking towards the dining hall for lunch. "I don't know if you've talked to Dean, but she would love it if you came for Christmas break," Quinn finishes. She's suddenly shy, looking down at her hands that are almost swallowed from the rolled sleeves of her sweater, twiddling her fingers. "And...I would, too. But if Dean's planning on coming, then I totally get it if you wanna spendChristmas—"

"Quinn."

"—withhimbutIknowyoudon'thaveanywheretogo—"

"Quinn," Sam repeats, and she looks up at him with pursed lips and timid hazel eyes. "I would love to spend Christmas with you."

That huge grin is back, relieved and pink-cheeked and shy. "Cool."

It had only been a few days since they kissed. Neither of them knew how to act, but they both felt different. It was the shy, secret smiles and the distant gazes. That juvenile kind of crush where common sense goes out of the window, and all you can think about is that person.

How quickly it had devolved to infatuation. Less than forty-eight hours. Every waking moment was Quinn, Quinn, Quinn! He couldn't stop looking at her. Not even when they were supposed to be studying. He always envied her concentration. He wishes he could look down at this textbook, but—

She pulls her earbud out and looks to Sam with that mock-serious face she always gave him. "Sam," she whispers.

"Yeah?" He returns, equally as soft. They are in a library, after all.

"You are supposed to be studying for your Latin final," Quinn tells him. "I don't have Latin written on my face." He grins. "Quit staring at me and stare at your book."

Maybe that's what he really loved about Quinn Anderson. She kept him on the straight and narrow. She kept him honest.

They once spoke about how they didn't have specific good memories...but the specific good memories Sam can recall now are all Quinn, like her walking towards him to tell him about Christmas, or hearing her name get called at her graduation, or reading the acceptance letter from Harvard Law.

And how she turned down Harvard to stay with him. Everything she did for him, because of him...and he just left.

And he would never, ever forgive himself.