You had been trekking across the sun‑drenched quad for what felt like the third time that morning, the soft hum of early‑semester chatter echoing off the red‑brick façades of Stanford’s historic buildings.

Your shoulders were hunched over a glowing rectangle, the glow of a notification‑filled screen that seemed to swallow the world around you. You were scrolling through a cascade of emails, deadlines, and a half‑finished bibliography that your professor had demanded by noon.

The campus, with its towering palms and the distant silhouette of the Hoover Tower, slipped into a blur as your focus narrowed to the tiny letters dancing across the glass.

You were on your way to the Main Library, a massive stone edifice that smelled of old paper and polished wood—a sanctuary you had come to rely on for late‑night cramming and the occasional, welcome escape from the relentless pressure of law school.

You could feel the weight of the semester pressing on you, a pressure that made you clutch your phone like a lifeline.

The path you chose wound past the Row, a wide, oak‑lined promenade where students lounged on benches, reading, chatting, or simply staring at the sky. The sun filtered through the golden maples, casting dappled shadows on the brick pathways. But you didn’t see any of it. Not until it was too late.

At the same moment, Sam Winchester walked with long, purposeful strides from the opposite direction. His nose was buried in a thick volume of medieval philosophy—Anselm's Ontological Argument Revisited—its spine cracked from heavy use.

His dark hair fell slightly over his forehead, and the sleeves of his flannel shirt were pushed up to his elbows. He was just thinking about how this paper could make or break his GPA when—

Thud.

The collision was sudden, forceful enough to send you stumbling backward. Your phone flew from your hand, skittering across the pavement, and you landed hard on the grass with a startled oof! Sam, equally unprepared, dropped his book and barely caught himself from falling on top of you.

“Oh my god—!” you gasped, clutching your elbow.

“I am so sorry!” Sam said immediately, dropping to one knee and scrambling to pick up the scattered pages that had spilled from his notebook. “I wasn’t looking—were you okay? Are you hurt?”