Hey, look...another post-season-5 fic!

SPOILER ALERT!

A/N: There are s6 pictures in which Sam drives a 2010 Dodge Charger. Check out ontd_spnparty on Livejournal if you don't believe me.


The first thing Sam does when he comes back is walk to the nearest gas station and wait. He waits until some kid in a shiny new car drives up and leaves his keys in the ignition to get Funyuns and Coke, and then Sam gets in the car and drives away. That's my boy, the voice in his head says, the one that sounds like Dean.

Sam lives out of the Charger for a week trying to decide what to do next. She stops looking so shiny-new, gets smudges on the safety glass and wrappers on the floor, old Burger King cups jammed into the cupholders. One day Sam comes back and swears for an instant he's looking into the Impala after two weeks of staking out some weird little town with a ghost problem and no motels. In that moment Sam decides to start hunting again.

He builds his arsenal in the trunk, forges IDs with the help of a computer he stole out of a Walmart, applies for a credit card under the name of Leroy Butcher. If he wanted he could go to Bobby's, but he doesn't. The box of IDs go in the glove compartment, the credit card goes in his wallet, the shotgun goes under the seat, and Sam hits the road.

The Charger is not the Impala. She doesn't smell like years of old grease, like leather cleaner and salt and iron and blood. Dean's not riding in the passenger seat, asleep or whining that Sam isn't treating his baby right.

This isn't the Impala-this isn't home, this isn't Dean's car on loan. The Charger is Sam's new life on wheels, his stolen prize, the present the world gave him as an apology for screwing him over his entire life.

For once Sam has something he can call his own, and it's the greatest feeling in the world.