AN: Just a wee fic exploring Sam's thoughts on choosing Dean over Amelia. Spoilers through Season 8.

No slash.

No Contest

Dean told him to go. That's what did it for Sam. He's so used to Dean pulling him in the opposite direction of "normal," so used to his brother wanting him to follow, that as soon as Dean let him off the hook, Sam didn't want to run anymore. When Dean shoved him away, telling Cas right in front of Sam that they didn't need him, it hurt Sam with a sting he wasn't expecting. The truth is, Sam wants Dean to need him, almost as much as Dean wants Sam to need him. Sam wanted Amelia, wanted Dean just a little more, wanted his brother to quit hunting and join him in the civilian life, wanted to leave hunting behind forever but wanted Dean to need him to stay...

Shit's complicated. What can Sam say?

Dean seems to believe that Sam's choice was a hell of a lot more difficult than it really was. After all these years, Sam still doesn't understand why Dean's so ready to think Sam wants to leave him. Dean was never the thing Sam wanted to leave—not when he was eighteen years old on a bus to Stanford, not in between Jess's death and John's when he felt like reminding his brother every other week he was going back to the normal life as soon as they found their father and the demon, not these last few months when Amelia and Benny and Purgatory hung between the brothers like bruises that don't want to heal.

Sam stopped thinking about the normal life a long time ago. He got comfortable being a hunter, or maybe just too tangled up in the drama of his and Dean's lives to imagine getting out. But then Dean vanished into thin air right in front of him and left Sam without a clue and totally alone in the world. After everything they went through, after losing Bobby, after Sam almost dying of insanity but getting well again. Dean. Gone.

What was Sam supposed to do? He never would've figured out where his brother was, even if he'd tried looking. It hurt too much to hunt by himself—not just without Dean this time but without Bobby and Castiel, without a single hunter or friend in the world to call if he needed something. He didn't know if he would ever see Dean again. He had nothing to bury. All he had was the Impala and what she carried.

So he drifted. Right into Kermit, Texas. Into the motel where Amelia Richardson was holed up with her own broken heart.

And Sam's not stupid. He knows what kind of relationship it was. He knows what brought him and Amelia together was loss. He knows that if Dean had been around, if Sam had known he'd see his brother again, he and Amelia never would've happened. He knows that theirs wasn't a love that long, happy lives are made of. He knows that if he had let Amelia choose him over her husband, they wouldn't have lasted. Her husband coming back from the dead was a sign. Sam's too familiar with signs to ignore them.

He surrendered to Don Richardson without a fight because he knew that he could never be the kind of companion to Amelia that her husband was and would be again. He surrendered because some part of him was jealous of her: jealous for getting a second chance, jealous of her miracle. He surrendered because he knew that whether he ever saw Dean again or not, he didn't belong with Amelia. Not forever. Don coming back was the Universe's way of saying: "Time's up, Sam."

But he did love her. He did care about her. He got attached. And there aren't many people left on Earth to whom the Winchester brothers are attached. So when he thought she needed him, he rushed to her. When she started taking off her clothes in his motel room, he let her. When she gave him two days, he took them, even though he already had his mind made up. Sam is well-versed in burying people; he is not so familiar with simply walking away.

Sam realized pretty damn fast that Dean wasn't someone he could walk away from. He could walk away from hunting. He could do that every day of the week, for someone like Amelia and the life she represents. But he can't abandon Dean. Not when Dean needs him. Not when Dean's out there hunting. Not when Sam's the only full-time love Dean's got access to.

His brother, who knows him in ways nobody else does, who did time in Hell for him, who fought his way out of Purgatory to get back to Sam? Or the woman with a good husband sleeping next to her, who doesn't even know what Sam used to do for a living?

Sam's just too smart to be stupid. Even for romance.

And on the list of sacrifices Sam and Dean have made for each other, this one's pretty small.