Wow. I'm not sure where this one came from. I had no intentions of writing a tag to 5x04 "The End". Blame it on an extremely slow bus ride into work this morning. It felt like we were moving at a crawl and I grew bored, letting my mind wander. And voila, this story—my take on what happens just after Sam and Dean reunite—popped into my head almost in its entirety.

Hope everyone enjoys.

Vanessa

I Call a Great Big Fat Do-Over

By: Vanessa Sgroi

"So what should we do with that monstrosity you drove up in?" The corner of Dean's mouth tilted in a quarter smirk.

Sam shrugged, his gaze roaming the deserted area. "Leave it here, I guess." He looked back at Dean, eyes still harboring traces of trepidation. "Lemme…lemme just get my stuff."

Dean nodded, turned, and strode back to the Impala, slipping into the driver's seat with a sigh. Despite everything—the Apocalypse, Lucifer, Zachariah—in spite of all the crap rolling down the mountain, it felt right that Sam would be riding shotgun once more.

The passenger door opened, and Dean watched as Sam eased in slowly, almost fearfully, as if expecting to be rejected and tossed out on his ass. A frisson of remorse spiraled up the older Winchester's spine.

Sam settled in his seat, squirmed a little, sighed, and closed his eyes.

Dean chuckled. He understood exactly what Sam was doing—knew exactly what was going through his mind.

The soft sound of mirth drew Sam's attention, and he opened his eyes. "What?"

"Nothing. You wanna stow your duffel or keep hugging it like a teddy bear?"

Sam marveled at the gentle tone of teasing in his brother's voice. It had been missing for a long, long time. "I'll…I'll just put it back here." Sam arched the bag over the back of the bench seat and dropped it unceremoniously in the foot-well. He took far more care with the lap top case.

When Sam settled once again, Dean immediately noticed he had Ruby's—no, not the bitch's anymore—he had the demon-killing knife—their demon-killing knife—in his lap. He was gripping it by the handle and running the pad of his thumb rhythmically—hypnotically—over the shiny blade. Dean started the car, slid it into gear, and hit the gas. "Hey, Sam?"

His brother didn't look up, just kept caressing the blade. "Yeah?"

Dean cleared his throat. "When I…when I pulled the knife out back there—you flinched away—like you were afraid of me. How come? I mean, I know I've kinda been a bastard lately but…I dunno…are you literally afraid of me?"

Sam was so quiet for a minute that Dean didn't think he was going to answer. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough around the edges. "I thought you might finally be fulfilling the promise you left on my voice mail."

"Huh?" Dean's brow crinkled with confusion. "What promise? What voice mail? What the hell are you talking about?"

"The voice mail you left me when I was at the convent. I-I listened to it right before I went into the building. I s-saw it was you and I thought maybe you still…even after everything I did…but then I listened…and then I-I just…I didn't have anything left to live for except…except to finish it…her."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa—slow your roll, Sammy. I don't understand. I called to say I'm sorry and let you know I'm still your brother…that we're still family and that makes you say you had nothing left to live for?"

Startled, Sam looked up from the knife that so had him mesmerized. "What? NO! No, that's…that's not what you said. You said I was a monster and…and that you were going to kill me. To be honest, I've been kinda wondering why you hadn't done it yet. Thought maybe you just needed time to…I dunno…pick the right moment or something."

Dean gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles bleached white. "Do you still have the message on your phone?"

"Yeah." Sam's voice was no more than a whisper. "I—I listen to it sometimes—as a r-reminder, you know." He fished his cell phone from his pocket and played back the offending message.

The sound of Dean's fist cracking against the window echoed through the car. "Sonuvabitch! That's not the message I left. Gimme your phone."

Sam handed his older brother the phone and watched silently as Dean decisively erased the voice mail message, a look of grim satisfaction on his face. He caught the cell when Dean tossed it back. "I don't understand."

"Somebody—Ruby, that asshole Zach, or hell, for all I know, Cas—messed with it. Changed it. I called you from Heaven's green room to say I was sorry. Not to tell you that you were a monster and that I was going to kill you." Dean rubbed a hand down his face, fierce anger making it tremble. "Sonofabitch."

"So—So I can quit wondering?"

"Yeah, Sammy, you can quit wondering."

After a few moments of silence, Sam's body convulsed with a tiny shudder. He raised the knife and slid it carefully into an inside pocket of his jacket.

"So, am I going to get details on what changed your mind about us being together again?"

"Yeah. But later. I…uh…I really don't want to get into it right now."

Sam nodded once in acquiescence.

"You hungry?"

"Nah, not really."

The older hunter rubbed a hand over his belly. "Yeah, you know what—me neither."

Dean drove somewhat aimlessly, heading in a westerly direction, for about two hours before finally surrendering to exhaustion. He was beyond tired. He'd been exhausted even before his trip to the future which had wreaked additional havoc on him physically as well as emotionally. Periodic glances at his younger brother over the last couple of hours showed that he looked equally beat.

He pulled into the parking lot of the ironically drab-looking Rainbow Motel and cut the engine. "I'll grab us a room." He was in and out of the motel office quickly. "Room 15." Dean tossed Sam the key card, extracted the Impala's keys from the ignition, and trudged to the trunk. Grabbing his duffel and the weapons bag, he followed his brother into the room then dropped them both next to one of the beds. Dean dropped down on the edge of the bed and bent over to unlace his boots. That done, he paused to rub his stomach again; this time grimacing as he did so. He toed off his boots.

"You okay, Dean?"

"Huh?"

"You okay? You keep rubbing your stomach like something's wrong."

"Oh." Dean grunted. "Nah, I'm fine. Just a case of reverse Montezuma's Revenge courtesy of that bastard, Zachariah."

Sam frowned. "Reverse Montezuma's Revenge?" His brow cleared as he figured out what Dean meant. "Oh."

"Yeah, it's your turn on the angel express next time, dude. You can experience this utter joy. It'll take me at least a week to get back to normal." He scowled when Sam chuckled. "So not funny." Dean stretched out on the bed and picked up the TV remote. "Damn. I feel like I could sleep for a week. And you look worse than I feel." He watched through heavy-lidded eyes as Sam rooted around in his duffel bag for a second before extracting a bottle of pills.

"Headache?" he asked, even though the bottle didn't look like a typical ibuprofen bottle.

"Um…no."

There was a certain inflection to Sam's answer that told Dean he wasn't going to be happy with the more honest response.

"Sam?"

"It's NoDoz. I need to stay awake."

"Why?"

Sam shook out four pills into the palm of his hand. "I don't wanna sleep, Dean. I told you, he—L-Lucifer—he somehow found me in my dreams. I don't want it to h-happen again."

"Wait. So you're telling me you haven't really slept since that night."

"Not much."

"That was more than a week ago, Sam. God, no wonder you look like you're ready to keel over."

"I can't possibly look any worse than you," mumbled the younger man.

Dean rose and stilled Sam's hand before he could pop the pills into his mouth. "Sam, lie down and go to sleep."

"But…"

"I mean it. If we're going to fight this fight, you need to sleep. We both need to sleep. You can't live on NoDoz. I seem to remember you telling me that one time."

"But L-Lucifer…"

"Right now, I don't give a rat's ass about Lucifer. I'm here now. You can sleep. If he 'finds' you again, I'll wake you up. Metaphorically kick his ass."

"Metaphorically, huh?"

"Hey, I know big words. Sam, listen, I'm not gonna let him have you. We've both screwed up, okay? We've both done some seriously crappy-assed things that we regret. But we're gonna start over. I say this is a 're-beginning'."

"A re-beginning?" Sam snorted. "I don't think that's a word, Dean."

"Fine. I call a great big fat do-over then. This is a great big do-over."

Sam dropped the pills back in the bottle and threw it back in his duffel. He couldn't help but smile. "A do-over, huh? What're you—ten?"

"Hey, if that's what it takes. I know none of—this—is going to be easy. But we're going to fight this fight—together." He lightly punched his kid brother in one of his massive arms. "You with me?"

Sam punched him back, maybe with just a little more force than necessary before sinking down on the bed like a deflated balloon. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you, Dean." He stretched out with a moan. The scratchy, rock-hard pillow suddenly felt downy soft beneath his cheek.

Fin