What Is and What Could Have Been
Author: Kadysn (bt-kady)
Word count: 438
Rating: PG13 for one curse word
Warnings: None, really
Summary: Coda to 8.22; Sam lays sleepless, wracked with guilt and anger, and makes a promise he vows to keep…
wWw
Sam lay in bed, the room dark but for the glow coming from the alarm clock on the table beside him, and he couldn't get the image of her lying there, crumpled on the floor next to him, her dark eyes open in death. Sarah. God…Sarah. Guilt, so much a part of him for years now, gripped him and held on tight, not wanting to let him go.
He hadn't thought of her in a long time; too much crap had happened over the years for him to think about her, to wonder where she was and how her life had changed. The few times memories of her had crossed his mind, he'd smiled and thought of her with fondness, and not just once had he wondered What if? What if his life had been different? What could his life been like with her in it?
He rolled over to his side and punched his pillow, and sighing, gave himself a mental beat down. What's the good in thinking like that, huh? Your life is what it is, and there's no place in it for clean, pure souls like hers. You'd have done nothing but destroy her and you know it.
The drive home from her hotel room was a blank. Sam had been lost in thought; if Dean said anything to him, he had no clue what it was. Leaving her body there – Dean's anonymous call to 911 being the most they could do for her at that point – was hard as hell, and he could only imagine the disbelief and horror her husband would be feeling about now. The same horror, he realized, his dad had to have felt all those years ago when Sam was still a baby.
Another baby, Sarah's daughter Bess, would live her life not knowing her mother. Sam hated that he could relate - hated that he'd been a part of it - hated the whole fucking mess of it.
Anger – no, rage – ripped through him and he wanted to scream until his throat was nothing but ragged bits of flesh, but what good would that do, either?
Instead, he buried it all deep inside where all the hurt and rage and fear and everything else this crappy life of his inflicted and he let it simmer and boil and sour inside him until it turned into a hard knot.
He was used to it.
He knew it intimately.
The last thought that made its home in his brain before sleep finally claimed him was I'll make him suffer for it, Sarah, if it's the last thing I do.
I promise.