So Mikey drop-kicked me back to 2010. I landed hard and fell back, but a bed caught my fall and nothing got damaged but my dignity. I already so did not like that guy.
As promised, Sam was already there, on the edge of his bed, sitting up, folded over. As soon as I could manage it, I was on my feet, crouching in front of him to make sure Mikey had put him all back together, exactly the way he should have. No blood, no holes, not even a scratch. Thank God.
"For crying out loud, Sam. Would you please stop getting yourself killed? I'm running out of people I can pummel into putting you back together."
It was supposed to be funny. It was supposed to be Winchester code for 'thank God you're all right, that scared the crap out of me.' But Sam only sighed and gave me a sad look.
"I was hoping that would be the end of it. That Anna would kill me and it would all be over and you'd be safe."
"Don't you talk like that." I told him. Yelled at him. "You dying solves nothing but the problem of finding decent boots big enough for your feet. We'll get this done. Together. " In case he didn't quite get it, I repeated myself:: "You don't talk like that."
He didn't answer me. He looked down at himself, he held his hands out and turned them over as though he didn't quite recognize them.
"Who sent me back?"
Wasn't that a loaded question. I took a seat next to him on the bed.
"You ready for this? Michael."
"Michael? The Michael?" Sam sounded astounded, or excited. I almost thought maybe he was sorry he'd missed meeting the guy. "What happened? What'd he say?"
"Oh - the usual we hear from these dicks. 'Whine, whine, whine. Blah, blah, blah. Me, me, me.' You know what - I'll say this for demons, none of them ever whined."
Sam was giving me a puzzled, distressed look. I think he was still actually holding onto some hope that the angels we got to deal with would turn out to be his ideal. I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"What about Anna? She's gonna keep trying."
"Not anymore." I stood up and went to my duffel. I needed a drink.
"Why? What happened to her?"
"Mikey took care of her. A real blaze of glory."
"He burned her?" Sam asked. I could only shrug. "So - maybe she did have the right idea. If Heaven killed her to stop her."
"Nobody has the right idea, but us. You got that? We'll find a way to end this, together. All right? Cas'll find God or we'll find some way. But we do this, our way."
He looked at me, and I knew that look. He was going to get belligerent or change the subject.
"What happened to Mom and Dad?"
Door Number Two.
I really hated to have to tell him. I knew how he'd take it.
"They're OK, they were OK when I got sent back. Michael said he'd erase their memories from what happened."
"Oh…so Mom forgot about - us."
Yep, that's exactly how I knew he'd take it. For a few charged minutes, Mom knew grown up Sam as her son, and grown up Sam knew that she knew. Now, he'd lost her again.
"No, Sammy. Deep down, Mom would never forget about us. Either of us."
He sighed and pushed off the bed to go to the far side of the room, farther away from me.
"You should've let Anna kill me. You'd be safe."
"I'm not worried about me." I told him.
"Then the world would be safe. You're worried about them, aren't you?"
He sounded angry, but I knew that he was frustrated, aggravated, desperate to save the world even at the expense of himself, only he couldn't find any way to do it.
"Sammy - you dying isn't going to save me, because it isn't going to change anything. Lucifer is still burning his way through contestant number one and Heaven is jonesing for me to let Michael suit up and stop him. You can't tell me that all this time spent planning this whole gig that he doesn't have some back-up plan in mind in case a bus ever fell on you before he could do anything about it." I didn't know if that was true or not, but it sounded good. "So - you dying might delay things, but it won't stop things. So it's off the table."
Sam didn't answer. He sank down into a chair.
"Y'think Cas is OK? Think he'll get his juice back and get back to us?"
Door Number Two again.
I had to be honest. "I don't know. I hope so."
He nodded. That kind of resigned, 'add that to the to-do list anyway' nod.
"So - um - Dad, hunh?" He asked. "Dad before he was Dad."
"Ha. He had a lot of Dad in him already." I sat on the edge of the table next to Sam, the whiskey forgotten for now. "That 'shut up or I stop the car now' line? Classic Dad."
"Yeah. Ha. And I was beginning to think he didn't get tough until after - after - he lost Mom."
"I'm thinking he had to be tough just to keep up with Mom." I said. "I bet even The Great John Winchester had nothing on her."
Sam nodded and picked at the seam on his jeans.
"He was nice." He said all at once, like he'd been wanting to say it for a while. "He didn't even know us, just that we were family, Mom's family even, not even his family, and he was happy to have us there. He had to be able to tell that Mom didn't want us there and still he just - just -"
"Just what?" I prompted when Sam trailed off.
"He cared." Sam said, again like it was something he'd been trying to figure out how to say. "I told him how we got into hunting, how - how - our Dad brought us into it when we were kids, and he - Dad - he got so upset, saying how could anybody do that to kids. He said - he said - I told him that I loved him."
Well, that came out of nowhere.
"You did?"
"Not - not - John. I told John that I loved my Dad and that I forgave him and - and -"
He took in a deep breath and shook his head like he thought what he was about to say was ridiculous.
"He cared."
But I knew that what Sam thought was ridiculous was that he wanted to think Dad cared about him. And any hope he had that Dad might've carried the memory of Sam offering him love and forgiveness was burned up as surely as Anna was.
"He always cared, Sammy. The more he cared, the angrier and more exasperated - and exasperating - he got. But he cared. He more than cared - he loved us. He loved you."
It took a few long moments. Sam slumped forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
The weight of the world on his shoulders.
"Yeah, I know. I just wish -."
He didn't finish the thought but he didn't have to. I knew there was a lifetime, four lifetimes - six billion lifetimes - in that wish. His, mine, Mom's and Dad's. The world's. The wish that somehow everyone's lives could've just been better.
I put my arm across those shoulders and hoped it made the weight a little lighter. Time for that whiskey.
"Yeah, me too."
The End.