Letting It Go

By NC Girl

Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, just the story written below.

Note: A short missing scene from Croatoan. Thank you, SilverSkyBlade for catching so many of my errors and for your suggestions!

"What about him?" Dean asked Dr. Lee, nodding in my direction but not looking at me.

"He's going to be fine. No signs of infection." She offered a pleasant smile and turned to go back into the clinic before my brother could ask her more questions as he searched for the answers she does not know.

Dean turned and faced me as if I could offer some insight to the whole situation.

"Hey man, don't look at me," I said with a wide-eyed shake of my head and shrug of my shoulders. I was just as much in the dark about this whole thing as my brother. "I've got no clue."

I could tell Dean was frustrated.

"I swear, I'm gonna lose sleep over this one. I mean, why here? Why now? And where the hell did everybody go? It's not like they freakin' melted."

I had no answers for Dean. I had nothing to offer him in the way of theories. I was just as confused. Just as frustrated. Just as curious. And to make it worse, I had another question to add to the mix.

"And why was I immune?" I asked quietly, almost hoping that Dean wouldn't hear me; almost more afraid that he just might have had an answer. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my brother whip around to face me.

"Yeah. That's a good question."

He sounded angry but I knew it was pure frustration. He didn't have the answers; he didn't even have a clue. This was all as new to him as it was to me and perhaps for the first time in his life, he didn't know what to do. I glanced at him over my shoulder and recognized another emotion, one that Dean rarely lets rise to the surface. I saw a glimpse of pure fear in his eyes and I must admit it shook me quite a bit. Dean was usually the calm in the storm, handling stressful situations with a cocky confidence and sense of inappropriate humor that put me at ease. But not this time- and that scared me.

After a moment, I heard him take a breath and change the subject.

"You know, I'm already starting to feel like this is the one that got away."

It was a definitive statement, an angry exclamation point to a bizarre day. Dean opened the driver's door to the Impala and got in. I pushed myself away from the hood where I had been leaning and walked to the other side as my brother started the engine. As soon as I closed the door, Dean pulled onto the deserted road and accelerated quickly, seemingly eager to put as much distance between us and River Grove as possible in the shortest amount of time.

We rode in silence. Dean was lost in his thoughts and I was lost in mine as we covered miles and miles of dark highway. My mind was wandering all over the place, taking inventory of the events of the past couple of days and the questions that they raised. The fact that I could not come up with any answers only made me frustrated and tired. It was all too much to process and I longed for something else to focus on for a while.

A deep sigh from my brother brought me out of my trance-like state and back into my current surroundings. I glanced over at Dean. He took another deep breath and closed his eyes momentarily during the exhale as if he were trying to calm himself.

"Dean, are you ok, man? Do you want me to drive for a while?"

The lights from the dashboard were enough to dimly illuminate his features and I saw the muscle in his jaw tighten. He didn't look at me but instead gave me a slight shake of his head. After a moment, I heard a hoarse and quiet, "I'm okay."

I watched him for a split-second longer before I turned to face the empty road before us, but my attention was still on Dean. I suspected that he had been thinking about Dad. I had been, too. Without Dad, Dean and I were on our own to figure out what to do next. And we just encountered something that was so foreign, so completely new that it left both of us in a bit of a tailspin. There were too many unanswered questions about this virus that lead to more unanswered questions about my abnormalities, for lack of a better word.

As I added to my list of things to worry about, I suddenly realized that when I get scared, I turn to Dean. Who does Dean turn to when he gets scared? Especially now that Dad is gone.

I was lost in thought, and a little bit of guilt, when I suddenly heard the crunching sound of gravel under the tires and the less-than-smooth surface of the highway's shoulder as Dean abruptly pulled the car over to the side of the road. I threw my right arm out to brace against the door as the Impala came to an abrupt stop. Before I could say anything, Dean shoved the gearshift into park and opened the door.

"Dean?" I asked as I leaned across the seat, craning my neck in an attempt to see his face.

I got no reply before he slammed his door closed. Instead, I watched as Dean walked briskly around to the front of the car. The headlights illuminated his torso and the hands he held in clenched fists at his side as he passed. I opened my door and stepped onto the shoulder of the road.

"Hey. You okay?" I asked as I shut the door and took a step toward my quickly approaching brother. It was then that I noticed how pale he was. "What's going on, man?" I was getting worried now.

The words barely left my mouth before I found myself roughly engulfed in the arms of my older brother. I was caught completely off guard. I think I let off a faint gasp before I raised my own arms and gently encircled Dean's back, quietly returning the embrace. I didn't move; I barely breathed. I just listened to- and felt- Dean's deep inhales and shaky exhales as we stood chest to chest.

Suddenly, I knew what this was all about. For the second time in a couple of months, Dean had faced losing another member of his family- now the only member of his family. He faced his deepest and darkest fear of being alone. I remembered the look on his face back at the clinic when I told him that he didn't have to die, that he could go on fighting. "Who says that I want to?" was his reply but the words held a deeper meaning- one that I didn't pick up on until just this moment.

I found myself increasing the pressure of my embrace and I turned my face slightly into the crook of his neck, hopefully signaling to him that I got it. That I understood what he was trying to tell me back at the clinic. And that I wasn't going anywhere; I wasn't leaving.

After a moment, I felt a hand on the back of my head followed by a slight increase of pressure on my back and then Dean pulled away. He simply let go, took a step back, and turned to walk around to the driver's side of the car again.

I stood still, a bit shocked at the uncharacteristic display of affection, until Dean opened the door and slid into the car. I took my cue from his actions and silently followed suit. The moment he shut his door, Dean shifted the car into "drive" and pulled back onto the deserted stretch of highway that would take us to our next destination, to our next motel, and to our next hunt.

3/16/07