Author Note: I don't own Supernatural. And this is really, really weird and came from nowhere and really doesn't deserve to be the longest one-shot I've ever written.
Measuring Shadows
He outlives his brother by nearly forty years. He didn't expect that. He didn't expect to live out any of them, but he does and it's a miracle. A miracle that anyone in his position could make it that long and that far and not die, and with all his limbs as well. A miracle he doesn't blow his brains out after Bobby bites it too because, really, there is no-one left to miss him. He's not sure he deserves to outlive any of them, or live at all, but there's still the voice in his head saying Stay. He's not sure how much he wants to though.
-
When he's nearly thirty-eight he's investigating a good old haunting in South Dakota. After the Apocalypse came and went and the Winchester brothers were still doing the rounds things slowed down a bit. They went back to salting and burning, and same old, same old. And then when Bobby died he left him the house and he's sick of dragging himself across the country, alone, so he figures why not and settles down. Bobby may have more books than sins but he doesn't have all of them so it's while he's pacing back and forth a Blacks Hills State Library bookshelf thinking damnit, which idiot thought numbers would make finding words easier? that she appears.
She is not his type. She's a good head shorter than him and not in-your-face pretty. And she's a librarian. But she stops him in his searching and asks what he wants. It takes her precisely three seconds to walk past him and slide the book from the shelf. It only takes her another three seconds to ask him why he's reading up on early European settlers and he's so shocked that someone so… normal could be so direct. Gentle eyes cut right through him and he's afraid not to answer so he mumbles something about hobbies and spare time and she asks him how interested he is.
"Very."
"Then you've come to the right place."
She steers him to a table in the library entrance and takes her break twenty minutes early to sit with him and explain, in avid detail, the local theories on how far back their history goes. How does she know this? She's very interested too, she tells him. She took it at college, etc. etc. He nods along for most of it; she'd answered his real question ten minutes into the conversation. Eventually someone comes over and asks her Sophie (apparently; Dean had forgotten to ask her name) to please get her arse back to the desk. She excuses herself and he makes a dash for the door.
"Wait!" He does as he's told, good little soldier. "You forgot your book." And he has, so he let's her issue it to him – he discovered a few years back that if you get a card you don't have to steal the books after all, although the fines are a pain. She reads his name off the computer and hands it over to him.
"It was nice to meet you Dean."
He nods, and leaves.
-
He's not really sure when or how it happened, but before he hits forty he's married to a librarian from South Dakota. It's weird and complicated at first because, however many girls he's seen the back (and more) of, Dean has no idea how to date. When she asks him out for a meal when he returns the pre-history book, unread, he realises he knows nothing about women. She knits; is that normal at thirty-three? She cycles to work even though she knows how to drive and seems to know a thing or two about cars (she loves the Impala). Who is this woman and why does he want to know everything she knows about old books and how she always knows the answers on Jeopardy, even when they're about medicine or geography?
Meeting her parents was worse than taking on a banshee but he survives and lets her lead him through eighteen months of coffee shops and dinners and then when she's about to turn thirty-five she points out that neither one of them is getting any younger, neither one of them has anything to lose. So Dean somehow gets the message and proposes. They have a small wedding, in a church small enough that you don't notice there's no-one on the groom's side of the church but a worn looking man in a trench coat who no-one saw arrive and no-one sees leave. Dean remembers saying I will and seeing Sophie smile like there's no tomorrow. After that it's all a bit of a blur.
The morning after they are wed he comes down to find her cooking breakfast. She's making eggs.
"How do you like yours?" Dean doesn't know. He's not sure he's eaten eggs since Dad was alive. "Fried, poaches, boiled, scrambled-"
"Scrambled." He's not even sure what that'll come out like but it's the only option that doesn't sound like something he's done to something evil and so long as he doesn't have to remember that he's only semi-retired most of the time then mores the better.
-
They're married six months when Sophie gets sick of half-living in her flat and decides that she really doesn't care that her place is nicer. Either they go to his, or they buy a house. So they buy one. Dean's not quite ready to let her see the house that was all but a home for him once or twice a year as a child, and he's not ready to sell Bobby's house (because it still is Bobby's house) yet either so he pulls one last, major credit card scam. He opens a back account and finally cashes the savings Bobby left behind for him and the money he made from selling the salvage yard on.
They pick a house just outside of Lead, not to far from Sophie's job. Well, Sophie picks it; Dean just insists that they pick one with wooden door and window frames. Sophie raises her eyebrows but her husband has always been a little strange and she's come to find that oddness comforting so she says nothing. She even lets him have his "I'm not a Trekkie but…" moment when he finds out they could live on Kirk Road. While she sorts out delivering the furniture he says he'll redo all the panes.
"We could get someone in."
"No, I want to do it."
While she's out one day she sands down all the wood edges until there's at least half a centimetre of give. He's no idea what he's doing but he can't sleep in a house which isn't salted and he's not telling Sophie the truth either so he gives it his best shot. He rubs salty water into all the wood and then coats them in a layer of rock salt before painting it over. He evens stirs a bit of table sodium into the varnish, just to make sure. He's not convinced it'll work but he can't think what else he'll do so that's that. If the door rots off its hinges inside the year so be it, at least he'll be able to get some shut-eye.
-
Dean's mown the lawn all but bear within the first week of them living together. Eventually Sophie asks when he's meant be going back to work and he has to tell her the truth. Or at least some of it.
"You've never had a job."
"Well, not never… I used to…" He rubs a hand over his eyes and through hair that he's grown so it's the same length it was when he was twenty-six, before he lost everyone. "You know all that crap that happened about ten years back?" She nods. "Me and my brother, we were sort of involved in that."
She says nothing for a while and he gets up from the kitchen table where they were sat after dinner and goes to put the dishes in the sink. He quite likes washing up after all these years. Making things clean, making them right again. Tidying up.
"You never told me you had a brother."
Dean turns round, amazed. She must have forgotten.
"Really, I don't remember you ever mentioning one. You just told me your parents were dead and I didn't want to ask anymore."
How could he have spent three years with her and not mentioned Sammy once?
"What's his name?"
"Sam," His voice catches in his throat. "His name was Sam."
She looks at the table top when she notices his use of the past tense.
"Sorry." Sorry I never told you, sorry I never talk about anything, sorry I let my little brother die hunting nothing but a black dog. The irony of surviving the apocalypse only to get mauled to death by an oversized bloodhound reaches indescribable limits. Although he'd lost Sammy long before that.
"He died a few years before I met you. I'm sorry, I just-"
"No, I understand," He seems unconvinced so she goes and stands in front of him. "You don't talk about these things Dean. I don't know if it's because you think that way you won't have to think about it but… if that's the way you want to play it then fine, so be it. Just please don't not talk about it because of me."
He nods and she smiles and kisses him on the nose. She's in the doorway when she speaks again.
"And Dean, if anyone else asks just tell them you were self-employed."
He nods. "Family business?"
"Yeah, something like that."
Maybe she doesn't understand, or maybe she just doesn't want to, but she never asks about his old life again.
-
Credit card scams don't work so well when you can't lie about your name or address so Dean decides maybe he should get a job after all. He always wanted to be a fireman when he was little and he's not quite too old yet so he thinks hell, why not. When he goes to get interviews he says he was in the family business and hints about having military experience but doesn't expand. Spearfish are happy to have him.
He's a year into the job, and no longer the probie, when he finds out that one of the other guys there used to serve with the marines.
"My Dad was in the corps, Echo 2/1."
"No way."
"Yeah."
"He in 'nam?"
"Yeah he was."
"What's he doing now?"
Pushing daisies. "He died a few years back."
"Sorry."
You have no idea. "Yeah." You have no idea.
He quite likes the job though. No, not that job. He comes home stinking of smoke some days, even after he's showered. Sophie doesn't mind though.
"Kind of suits you."
Dean uses this to his advantage. He can come home slightly later, smudged with ashes, and smelling like burning things (bones) and Sophie doesn't ask questions. Who knew employment could be so liberating?
So Dean Winchester is semi-retired, but he keeps up his end of the bargain and doesn't turn a blind eye when the proverbial starts hitting the fan. He gets that stubborn streak from his Dad's side.
-
When he's been with Sophie for eight years he suddenly remembers that he hasn't asked her something. He'd decided after Ellen called him just before the wedding to say she wouldn't be coming, that Jo was dead (and so would she be soon), that he could never bring children into the world. Some world. He never asked Sophie though. He's been selfish on this one for the better part of a decade so he asks her.
"You don't think I've got enough on my hands looking after you?"
She takes about a minute to realise he's serious.
"Oh Dean, it's too late," She smiles sadly. "I'm too old."
He hangs his head because there, right there, is another failure in his long line of failings. Only this time there's no way of undoing the mistake.
"I don't mind."
And she really doesn't seem too. They still wake up in the morning next to each other and she'll stretch beside him in her pyjamas, half-crawl into his chest, happy. Still, Dean isn't convinced he's good enough to be the last Winchester.
-
He's nearing fifty when he's finally sure he's in love with Sophie. He comes in from work, where he's now confined to a desk and only gets to go out to fires to "asses", on a not uncomfortably cold winter evening. Sophie is standing in the kitchen, peeling some sort of vegetable (something healthy), humming along to the radio, wearing green slacks and a loose white blouse over her small frame. Her hair is half-tied back and there are the ghosts of bags under her eyes but he doesn't think angels are more beautiful. Still, it makes no sense. She listens to Depeche Mode for cris'sake. She claims to hate The Great Escape because it makes her cry but she still watches it with him every year, curled up against him on their public service salary priced sofa. She won't read Austen because "it's too happy" but she's read The Forsyte Saga at least twice. He's pretty sure she's mad, but maybe all women are like this when you get to know them. Maybe it's just Sophie. His Sophie. They have barely any money because saving only last so long and Dean's somehow been made an honest man. (Well, almost.) Regardless, Dean thinks he may never have had more because for the first time since he was four years old he has a family. At least, one that doesn't consider target-practice and after-school activity. It's not a simple or soft relationship but he likes it, he loves it. He's going to keep it, and if that means lying when he gets back in at two in the morning when he said he'd be home for dinner, or getting up early so he can dress before it's light to hide the bruises, then he'll take it.
-
Sophie used to hide behind her long hair. Now long hair that was once mousey has aged to a soft and pleasant grey that is not unattractive but does show her years. Dean's hair went shock white almost over night. He was quite glad of the quick transition; it spared age sneaking up on him like it had his sight. He had spent almost a fortnight searching through Bobby's old house for a hex or curse that could have caused the world to blur about him before he realised that the real culprit was age. He let Sophie help him pick out the glasses as he had no idea what suits him - he barely recognises the young man beneath the old-timer he sees in the bathroom mirror. He dresses the same as he always has because he wouldn't know what else to wear.
Dean realises that he'd getting old (is old) when the boiler breaks for the four-hundredth time in their marriage. Only this time, when they can't afford to get someone in, he really feels the chill. Sylvie knits him some fingerless gloves so he can still do the odd things he likes to do around the house – carving out wood-shapes for grand-nephews and nieces that come down from Great Falls twice a year. They put an extra blanket on the bed and Sophie digs out Ralph. Before Dean can get jealous (and where the hell did that emotion come from?) she explains that Ralph is a hot water bottle dog she's had since she was about four. He's in one piece after almost fifty years. Another small miracle in the Winchesters' lives. Or another cruel irony; if you consider that the floppy cover has outlived nearly every Winchester for the last three generations. Still, Dean can't wonder if the cold isn't just the autumn of the year, but the autumn of his life.
-
After thirty years side by side, they sit together in a consultant's room and let the bad news wash over them. Time has caught up with them. Sophie has cancer. Dean gets angry and then gets bitter and then gets adamant that no way is she going anywhere. Some days he comes home and finds her sitting in her room, still not looking sixty-four, with her headphones in just doing nothing. Staring into nothing. She catches him watching her once and shot him a far from fake but not quite sincere smile. He starts to panic.
They're in the hospital, after she's been brought in for blood tests. She sits crossed legged on the hospital bed as he sits sideways before her.
"I'm not having chemo."
And all Dean can think is shit, shit because this is losing Dad all over again, losing Sammy, Mum, Bobby, Jo, and then, the slowest death of them all, Ellen, as she wasted away with grief. He tells her that she's not giving up, that she's going to fight this and they're going to win.
"No Dean, we're not," He wants to cry, and he hasn't done that in a long time and he doesn't really feel like starting again. "I'm not a fighter Dean; you were always the strong one."
But that's not true, he thinks. He'd never have made it this far without her, even if he didn't realise it, if neither of them noticed that they only reason he hadn't wasted into loneliness was that they'd run into each other in a library one day many years back. Coincidence brought them together, and now it's tearing them apart.
In the end Dean can't change her mind. He takes her home for her last few months and starts to realise that there might be worse things than monsters. He'd always thought ghouls, demons to be vicious; he'd never realised a disease could be just as evil. But in the end he's glad they have another ten months to sit side by side in front of Jeopardy, and, for one last time, The Great Escape; if only they had a tunnel of their own.
-
When it gets too much, and they're both in too much pain, Dean drives his wife to the hospital himself. When they tell him she has but days he sits in the corridor and cries and cries because he hasn't loved anyone as much as Sophie since he numbed out the memories of his little brother, and he knows he won't be able to stop feeling this loss.
Once he has a grip on reality again he calls the station to tell them he won't be back in, ever, Sophie's sister in Montana, and then finally Cas. It scares him how much the angel hasn't changed. He's still in his earlier thirties, still looks haunted by heaven and humanity, but at least he could probably still run upstairs.
"I want to go with her."
Dean knows he should stay; they have friends now, not many and none close, but enough that they'll be missed, and Sophie's family won't be best pleased but he hasn't been this selfish in thirty-one years so he thinks he damn well deserves a break.
"Are you sure?"
"There's no-one left Cas, no-one. I was tired of being alone long before I met Sophie – I'm not going back to that."
The angel seems sad; Dean thinks maybe the Messenger doesn't want to see him go, but he doesn't know that Castiel never stopped watching Dean, and he'll miss him if no-one else does.
"Alright."
-
Dean Winchester dies holding his wife wife's hand and wishing life didn't hurt so much. Sophie is out of her mind with morphine and doesn't even notice the strange young man (who isn't really a man) who's seen too much and known too little placing a hand on both their foreheads. They die with Dean whispering into her ear that he's loved her more and more each day they've been together, not that it would seem possible. The woman he wasn't even sure he loved when he married her is the reason he's taking the trip to the other side early. But Dean isn't afraid; he kisses her one last time and holds her frail body close and is almost thankful it's over. He's ready to let her lead him one more time. Ready to see his family again; the one that thought bow-hunting was more important than little league and that ammo was a good birthday present. He's ready to die, and he does. Happy.