Title and summary from Rob Giles's "Broken People."

Disclaimers: Sam and Dean aren't mine, and you'd know if they were. (believe me.)

A/N: I now know (thanks to Comic-Con spoilers) that the next season is going to be a lot happier than this. YAYZ. :D


She won't send him away. If she's honest with herself, she knows she can't. Lisa has always loved puzzles, putting things back in order even if she knows they're not quite right. But she can't fix Dean like she fixed the bowl Ben dropped that cracked down the middle. No amount of Superglue is going to put this shattered mess of a man together again.

She cuts her fingers on the pieces of him, the sharp edges she's not expecting, that she doesn't remember. He wakes up screaming every night without fail, drinks until he's passed out on her couch. Ben plays Led Zeppelin on his iPod speakers once to cheer Dean up, and Dean takes the iPod and speakers and she still doesn't know what happened to them.

Dean doesn't mention his brother except when he wakes up screaming his name and Lisa doesn't ask, but no one can call her stupid. If Dean's not with Sam, if he's not talking about Sam then there is no more Sam. She knows it, and it breaks her heart, but knowing doesn't change the fact that he's broken and she still can't fix him.

It's a cruel and capricious god that snatched up the pieces of Dean and deposited them on her porch. Because Lisa knows that the only person who can put Dean back together is the one person Dean will never see again.