Title: Ghosts
Author: confetticas
Rating: PG
Genre and/or Pairing: Alwaysagirl!Sam/Gabriel, sort of in the background though. Part of my trickster!Sam verse, future (waaaaaay future) fic.
Spoilers: Up to season five, kinda sorta maybe possibly? It's very au, so it's hard to tell. It won't make much sense if you don't read If You Wanna Get To Heaven first, I think.
Warnings: Alwaysagirl!Sam, angst like crazy - for existing in a verse than began as complete and utter crack, it's ridiculously sad. I apologize? It begged to be written and I couldn't refuse it. Girl!Sam's puppy dog eyes are a weapon of mass destruction, in my defense.
Word Count: 1,092
Summary: Sometimes, when everything is too much, she comes here and sits with their ghosts to just remember better days.Ghosts
Her Grace has ensured this place remains untouched by time and man. It's almost a bubble reality, but not quite - to remove it completely from Earth would destroy the point of protecting it. The junkers remain, taking up space and never changing, except on the rare occasion that Sam gets a hankering to mess with them and make them work. These days, humans would be appalled by the 'primitive technology', but Sam doesn't mind so much. Staying far behind the times can work to her advantage rather frequently. Humans never expect things they consider beneath them to be their downfall.
Out of the corner of her eye, a shade of Dean, young and broken and desperate already with no idea of how bad it will really become, tinkers on a shade of the Impala, desperately trying to bring his baby back to life. Sam watches, and wonders, and misses him so badly it feels as though her Grace is splitting in half.
No tears water in her eyes as she watches, they would come if she willed them to do so, but she doesn't, so they don't.
Mostly, she doesn't regret the choices she made so long ago. She enjoys her existence, has grown to love Gabriel in a multitude of ways. On the whole, Sam knows, she wouldn't change a thing.
But sometimes... sometimes it's not enough. Maybe it's too much. Sam's not sure, she's not the best with putting her emotions into words these days. Really, she's never been completely whole without Dean by her side, and Dean... Dean lives in paradise with a fake Sam who never fights with him or tries to break away from him and that's good, really. It means that he's happy, that she isn't hurting him anymore. He has a shade of Sam, and Sam, she has multiple shades of him.
Another shade of Dean stands in the workshop with a beer in hand, a shade of Bobby next to him, and they discuss things like letting go and making sacrifices, right and wrong and the end of the world. Sam, honestly, she tries not to pay too much attention to that shade - it hurts too much. There's pain, and then there's pain, and the things she did to her brother are the latter kind of pain. The kind that's too much, not enough, agonizing and blinding in it's depth. No, Sam ignores this shade with all of her considerable might.
One of her favorites is the shade that stands in the doorway of the rickety old house that Sam once called her home away from home. This shade wears her brother's most affectionate smile, the one he only ever wore for her, as he sits on the porch beside a shade of her, human and alive and content to sit beside her brother and talk about nothing in particular whilst drinking beer that tastes more like water than real beer. It's strange, the conversation these shades have seems to change every time she visits Singer Salvage and its ghosts. It's nice, seeing a different memory every time.
Still, she can't focus all of her attention on her favorites. A shade of herself, nine-years-old and terrified, huddles in one of the junkers not too far into the maze of broken down cars, and every three hours or so, a shade of Dean, thirteen-years-old and protective, determined and scared, finds her and hugs her and whispers reassuring promises to her. A shade of Bobby lingers near the side of the house, a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue in hand with the occasional tear running down his face. He doesn't speak, but he doesn't need to, his grief spills out around him and is impossible to miss.
Amongst all the shades that linger on the property, only one of them is John Winchester, sulking in the library staring into a bottle that he doesn't drink from despite the temptation. Once in awhile, a shade of a young Dean or Sam herself will venture down the stairs and talk to him, always provoking a smile and a laugh and a rare family moment.
The only place Sam never visits is the panic room, but she doesn't have to venture down there to hear and feel the waves of pain, from shades of her past self, from shades of her brother - and once in a great while, from shades of Castiel. Sometimes, if she stands in just the right spot of the front yard, a shade of Dean will flicker in beside her, tears running down his face, a desperate prayer on his lips, and then you can hear her screams from miles away. Sam tries very, very hard to never stand in that particular spot. Once was enough. She doesn't come here to mourn and be miserable, she comes here to bask in the sense of family that in all her years has never evaporated from this place, to remember what it was like when she had Dean at her side unconditionally.
Sam closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, letting the warmth of Dean's undying love and Bobby's gruff affection wash over her. She has made her choices, all on her own, and on the whole, she doesn't regret them. All she wishes is that she could have what she has now, with Dean and Bobby added in for good measure. It isn't to be, and she knows it. That's why Gabriel calls her saving this place an effort doomed to make her miserable, but she can't help herself - it's all she has left of them. Finally, she opens her eyes, and smiles slightly. Coming here, even for just one minute once a decade, it leaves her feeling renewed, whole, vibrant, ready to face an ever changing world and the archangel she loves with a brave face.
Dean smiles sadly from the doorway and mouths, "You can do this. I believe in you."
Sam smiles back at what is nothing more than a memory, and then she closes her eyes and returns to the apartment she shares with Gabriel, ready to pretend it doesn't hurt, that the pain isn't eating her alive, and that she's happy with what she has. And when she needs another dose of encouragement and love, the ghosts of Bobby and Dean and Dad and all the love in the world will be waiting for her back at Singer Salvage. For now, it's she and Gabriel against the world, and that's just the way she likes it.