A/N: One shot. Sam struggles to remember all that his brother was after the event in NRFTW and before Lazarus Rising. I came across these lines from Wordsworth, and couldn't get this out of my head.
Disclaimer: Nope, no ownership at all.
Thro' love, thro' hope, and faith's transcendent dower, we feel that we are greater than we know – William Wordsworth
"Keep fighting…remember what Dad taught you. Remember what I taught you"
If a person is gone, does it means that all the love, all the devotion, all the affection he ever gives, ever hold is gone?
He always thought that his brother should have been better remembered than he was. What he had done, who he was, the life he had so fully lived. If how much a person is remembered is base on loyalty, devotion, courage and most of all love; his brother should have been remembered by so many more people. He deserved to be.
But, he find himself sinking deeper and deeper into darkness and despair, as he seem to remember less each day. He wasn't afraid of anything he had to face along the way. Nothing terrifies him now, except one thing: forgetting. The emptiness is still there, getting bigger each day, as he struggles to hold his last pieces of remembrances to him.
His smiles, his eyes, his way of looking at him; million of expressions flicking across his face; changing every single minute. The look in his eyes of pure love and regrets when he said those words to him, the look he wants to remember forever. And his voice; what he said that day more than a year ago in Wyoming:
"Don't get mad at me. Don't you do that. I had to. I had to look out for you. That's my job"
That intense imploring look in his eyes when he told him what he did for him, that look which tears his heart, and disarms him so that he couldn't get mad; and ask why? Even after all that he had done and given for him, what his brother fear most is that he will be mad with him. How could he even begin to feel mad? Even though it is the stupidest thing his idiot brother had ever done? Even though he had no choice but to go on living, with nothing but brokenness and this great big void in him.
Thro' love, thro' hope, and faith's transcendent dower, we feel that we are greater than we know
His brother thought of their dad as a hero. He never knew that he was a hero himself. He just did what he saw need to be done, and did it. No one understands the cost of it as well as he did, having had to sacrifice the same thing himself. But his brother never even thought of it as a sacrifice, it wasn't reluctantly given, unlike him. It was just given, with his heart, with everything he's ever got. Who said a person is measure by greatness of achievement, it is by love.
And in that, his brother had abundance. Remembered or not.