AN: Just a little quickie that came to me at work, and I had to get it out. Not great, but it itched to get out. Am working on another multi chapter fic, but life is busy and it's slow going.
I I I I I I I I I
Dear Mr. Singer
You don't know me, but I've heard a lot about you over the past few weeks. My name is Cassandra. Dean and I were close- very close- friends.
I'm not sure how to do this, so let me start at the beginning.
When Dean Winchester walked out of my life, for the second time, years ago, I was sure I would never see him again. He had his cause, his mission, and even his love for me wasn't enough to make him stay. I wanted to keep him, but he wasn't mine. Never had been, never would be. His family had laid a claim on him I'd never be able to break, even if I wanted to.
So, imagine my surprise when he shows up on my door, looking like he'd been through hell and back (you can picture my shock when I found out he actually had). For the first few days he wouldn't talk to me. All he could say was, 'Sammy said yes'.
When he did begin to talk, it was like he couldn't stop. He told me everything, absolutely everything. Angels, vessels, demons, end of the world. It was my turn to be shocked, but he didn't stop. It was like he had to get it out, had to let someone know. Someone he could trust wouldn't get themselves killed trying to take up his sword.
He said he had nowhere else to go. He loved you like a second father, but this was different. Someone who wasn't a Hunter had to know. Had to pray for the survival of the human race. He said it had to be me. I guess, maybe, that though his family had claimed and broken his soul, his heart had always been mine. In his own way, Dean had come home.
I tried, truly, to get him to eat, to live. But he was dead inside. There was nothing left for him to fight for, I don't think. His beloved Impala sat in the driveway, untouched, for weeks. I paraded around practically naked and didn't get so much as a leer. No, the man I had known and loved was gone. Crushed beneath layers of guilt, denial and loneliness. He said he'd failed. Everyone. The world would end and he couldn't bring himself to care. That he deserved to go back to Hell.
The only thing he never told me was what his brother had said yes to. Whatever it was, it sucked the life, the joy, the laughter and the courage right out of him.
He asked me who he was, if not his brother's keeper?
I had always suspected the cost of his unyielding loyalty to his family. When you put someone that high up on a pedestal, there's nowhere left to go but down. But when I saw them together, I let them go, thinking that maybe, just maybe, Dean finally had someone to look out for him.
But he didn't, did he? He walked his path alone, despite walking next to his brother, and other Hunters. Even you.
I doubt you ever got to see him as I did. With me, for a while, he was simply Dean. Not Sam's brother, not John's son, not even the Hunter, he was simply loved and accepted as Dean. Can any of you claim the same? Can you claim that you've seen him suddenly burst out laughing for no other reason than he felt like it?
Can you tell me that he was loved and cherished? That he loved to smile, yell at referees, and talk to the coffee maker in the morning? Did you ever hear him whistle as he walked about a house?
No. None of you did. Not even his brother. Because he had a role to play, a job to do. So he shut himself up once again and got back onto the path that would lead to his destruction.
He knew, you know. He knew it would always come to this. That when he got too tired to play soldier anymore, he would lay down alone.
He never spoke of the sacrifices. He spoke of choices, of duty and obligations. Expectations.
For all that he shied away from any tenderness, I never realized how much he needed it, craved it. He thought he had to be stronger than the rest of you, so he could carry you when you needed it. That first time, I didn't know him like I do now. I thought he wasn't capable of those emotions, that he had simply erected walls for his own protection.
I never realized just how many those walls protected.
Why am I telling you all this?
Three days ago, Dean asked me to do something. He asked me to mail a letter. He left it unsealed, knowing me for the nosy reporter that I am, beside an addressed envelope with your name on it. I read the letter you're about to.
He said he was tired, was going to go to bed. I didn't think anything of it. He hadn't been well for weeks.
I should have known better. When I curled up next to him, I heard him utter one last word, and then that was it. Dean Winchester didn't wake again.
Bobby, I don't know why he came to me, in the end. When I first saw in him standing in my doorway, I thought he had come to heal. I never suspected he had come to die.
Remember him. He deserves to be remembered. By all of us.
Cassie.
"Damnit, Boy," Bobby growled, his voice shaking with grief. "Why didn't you come to me?"
With trembling hands, he unfolded the second letter in the envelope, already suspecting what it was going to say.
Dear Bobby.
Let the damn world burn. I've said 'Yes'.
Dean.