A/N: Written for the Supernatural AU Festival on tumblr.
M14Mouse made some gorgeous graphics to go with it, which you can see if you look it up on AO3 or tumblr.
Thanks a bunch to my beta, Liron_aria.
The title is from the song "Flaws" by Bastille.
The first part of this chapter is the scene from "Citizen Fang" where Amelia walks in on Sam packing. After that is where the canon divergence begins, although there are a few lines from other points in season 8 scattered throughout.
Amelia isn't home when Sam returns from the bar. He doesn't know whether to hope that she'll come back before he finishes packing. He doesn't know whether he'll be brave enough to stay and say goodbye in person if she doesn't. He feels the tears gathering in his eyes, but he doesn't let them spill, in case she comes in.
She does. "What are you doing?"
Just remember, this is what's best for her. When you love someone, you do what's best for them. "I'm—" he can hear the tears in his voice, so she probably can too. He clears his throat, tries again. "I'm leaving."
"What?" He sees understanding dawn on her face. "Don found you at the bar."
He can see her working herself up, already pissed. He wishes he could be pissed at Don: it would make all this so much easier, so much clearer. He tries to derail her before she really takes off. "Amelia—"
"He threatened you."
It's a statement, not a question. Why would she assume . . . no, don't think about that. It's grasping at straws. "Amelia," he can't stop saying her name, "no, he didn't threaten me. I—look, I'm just trying to do the right thing here." He knows it's the wrong thing to say as soon as it's out of his mouth.
"The right thing? This morning, you and I were the right thing, remember?"
He's going to have to say it. Or at least, a version of it. Enough for her to understand what he's trying to give her. "I know that you and Don deserve a chance, OK? And I think you know that, too. Just give him a chance. Like you gave me. I mean," Sam can feel the tears threatening to spill over, and maybe he shouldn't say this, but he can't help it, he has to tell her, make her understand how much she means to him, which is exactly why he has to leave. "Amelia, you saved me."
She folds her arms, hurt written across her face. She's clearly not planning to let this go, to let him go, without a fight.
"So, what, now I should give up what I want so I can save Don?"
"No, of course not. I just meant—"
"Newsflash, Sam, Don had his chance."
That pulls him up short.
"What do you mean? Did he say something to you? I—I didn't think you'd talked yet."
"We haven't, and besides, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how I was with the guy for years, how he was the only real relationship I ever had, and then he decides, without talking to me about it at all, that he's going to join the army, going to leave knowing full well that he might not come back. I mean, who does that? What does that say about the state our relationship was in? He left me. Neither one of us knew that's what he was doing at the time, but that's what it was. He left me, Sam, and I've been picking up the pieces ever since, and I don't think I could've glued nearly as many of them back together without you. I didn't save you, Sam. We crashed into each other and somehow made one almost-manageable mess out of two completely disastrous messes. I'm not your angel of mercy, Sam, I'm just a person. A person who wants you in my life. You, not Don."
God, she's making this so much harder than it already was, just by standing there, being her: being blunt and honest and letting it be other people's problem if they can't handle it. And before he can stop himself, because one of the beautiful things about her sandpaper personality is that it gives him permission to be just as blunt, to not filter, he says "Trust me, the last thing I would ever think of you as is angelic." OK, that may not be entirely true, but the ways in which she does, occasionally, resemble actual angels would require the kinds of explanations he can't afford to give.
"So what then? Why say what you just said? Spell it out for me."
"I just . . . Look. This would be so much easier if I could hate Don, believe me. But how can I claim to care about you while hating someone you loved? Someone at least a part of you still loves? And what he said, in the bar . . . he understands that it's your choice. That you're the only one who can choose what's right for you. And please, please believe me when I say that, even after everything he's done and everything he's been through, he is much less of a mess than I am. And you deserve that, Amelia. You deserve someone who has a hope of not being a mess someday. I want that for you. So please, just . . . just let me do this. Let me do this for you. Let me help you glue this one last piece in place."
"No."
"Amelia—"
"No, Sam, listen to me, for God's sake! Maybe . . . maybe you clearing off for a few days isn't the worst thing in the world. I said I needed to clear my head, and I gotta admit, I probably can't do that if we're both in the same place. But don't leave. Just . . . just go to the motel. Just go there, and I'll call you. Please. Please don't . . . please don't let this decision be anything but mine. Unless . . . unless you've changed your mind since this morning? About what you want?"
It hits him, then, what he almost did: the same thing Don did, the thing he's had to fight against so often in his own life. He almost took her choice away because he assumed he knew best. The realization only serves to further convince him that, as awful as it will be, she should choose Don. If he has to stay in town a few extra days so she can figure that out, well, OK. He can at least do that. But at the same time . . .
"No. I haven't changed my mind. And I'm sorry. You're right. I'll go to the motel," he tells her, reaching for his bag.
"Can you wait?" she asks. "Can you please just stay a little longer? Just . . . " she leaves the thought unfinished, but Sam hears all the things she didn't say. Just in case this is it. One last evening. Does she know what she's asking?
"Of course. I'll, uh . . . are you hungry?"
She smiles wanly. "Not for your cooking. That tub of ice cream in the freezer, on the other hand . . . "
"Sounds good. Law and Order?"
"Sounds good."
Sam stays until Amelia is in bed for the night. He knows she isn't asleep yet, but it somehow seems better, more right, that she should get to see him leave. He is too busy trying not to feel like his world is imploding on him all over again to notice the man standing across the street from the house, watching.
Two days go by, and it is almost like back when he'd first arrived in town. Only not at all: no injured Riot to care for, he has a job, and friends there who know something is wrong and always seem like they want to say something, but have no idea what the right thing to say is.
She calls on the morning of the third day. He's sure this is it. He feels bad leaving Everett and his dad in the lurch, but they were doing OK without him, so he's sure they'll manage until they can find someone else.
What Amelia actually says doesn't register at first. "Come home, Sam."
"W-what?"
"Come home. It's like you said: I'm not ready to give this up. Besides, Riot misses you."
"I—Amelia, are you sure?"
"I've done nothing but think about it for two days, Sam. Two days on my own, thinking about what it's like with you, what it used to be like with Don. I'm damn sure."
Against all odds, against all logic, against almost everything he believes to be true about himself, Sam is grinning into the phone. Home. Come home, Sam.
"OK. I'll see you after work."
"You'd better."
He hesitates in front of the door. Should he knock? Come home, Sam. No. This is their house. He opens the door and steps inside. Riot launches himself at Sam from where he was laying on the couch. Sam sets his bag down and crouches to return the greeting, rubbing Riot's ears and back. "Hey, buddy," he murmurs. "I missed you, too." He hears the radio playing in the kitchen, so he stands up and follows the music.
Amelia is slicing hot dogs into strips and laying them on top of a huge bowl of spaghetti. Sam leans against the door frame, watching her. She looks up with a smile. "Hey, stranger."
He smiles back. "Hey. So, uh, what's with the gourmet?"
She grabs a spoon and flicks a few noodles at him. They fall short, and Riot darts in to lap them off the floor. "It's symbolic," she tells him.
"Of?"
"Of, we're doing this. You and me, this place, this house. It's not just because of circumstances anymore. We're choosing this. This is first night food, this is the first night of us having other options and choosing each other anyway."
"You know it's kind of disgusting, right?" he says, stepping towards her.
"Bite your tongue!"
"Nah. I like it better when you do that," he says, and leans down to kiss her.
By the time they get up off the kitchen floor and put their clothes back on, even Amelia has to admit the now-cold spaghetti and hot dogs are a lost cause; she scrapes them into the trash while Sam orders pizza.
"So," he begins hesitantly, "did you, uh—"
"Talk to Don?" she finishes for him.
"Yeah."
"Yep. He's not happy, but he'll deal. I mean, it sucks, and talking to him sucked, but he said he'd leave, and now you and me can get on with our lives."
"OK. Do you . . . want to—"
"Talk about the conversation with Don?" she finishes for him again, raising her eyebrows to check that she's guessed correctly. He nods. "I don't know, maybe. It's . . . I just want to get past it, you know?"
"Yeah, I do. But sometimes talking is the only way to do that."
"Yeah, I know." She walks over and leans against his chest, and he puts his arms around her.
"Just not tonight, OK?"
"OK," he says, leaning his cheek against the top of her head. "But . . . I have to ask-"
"You want to know why you," Amelia says, stepping back to look up at him.
Sam nods, forcing himself to meet her eyes. She reaches up and puts her hand on his face.
"I just . . . the thought of not . . . I just couldn't." She pauses, takes a deep breath, drops her hand from his face and grabs one of his hands to tow him to the couch. Once she's sitting in his lap, she continues. "You saw me at my worst and somehow still saw me. I can tell you all the crazy shit that goes through my head and it's not just that you don't judge me, it's that you get it. You're as screwed up as I am, but you're solid, too. You're something I can ram up against and I know it won't break you. You eat my crappy cooking and watch crappy TV with me and you do it with that soft little smile and I just can't lose you, OK? I can't lose you because you're good and smart and you listen and you understand and you like walks in the park and-"
She stops, reaches out, and brushes away the tears about to fall from Sam's eyes. She rests her forehead against his, her arms around his neck and his around her waist, and they sit like that until the pizza arrives.
They spend the next few weeks getting the rest of the house unpacked and organized, taking care of the yard, and quietly being in each other's space as much as they can. Sam doesn't know where Amelia and Don's wedding album disappears to, and he doesn't ask.
It's Amelia who suggests they have a barbeque for the neighbors, and that's when Sam finally accepts that this is his life, his home. He is with Amelia Richardson, this house is their home, and they're going to make friends with their neighbors. He hadn't known he'd been holding back from accepting this reality, so strange to him by virtue of its normality, but he's all in now. They're all in.
The barbeque is great: Lazero and Yesenia next door are getting a puppy soon, and could they have some playdates with Riot to help socialize her? Yes, they'd love to help Sam work on his Spanish in exchange! Luanne from across the street has a seventeen-year-old daughter who's working on college applications, do they have any advice? The Ortega's kids are delightfully underfoot.
It's so normal, so much of what he dreamed for himself so many lifetimes ago, Sam is nearly overwhelmed. But Amelia is there, and Riot is there, and by the end of the party the neighbors have become much more than just the people living in the nearby houses. It's a good feeling.
A few days later, Everett comes to find Sam where he's fixing a leaky faucet in one of the rooms. "There's a guy here to see you. Says his name's Dean?"
Sam freezes. No. Not possible. Except, of course, that it is.
"Sam?"
He must have let the silence drag on too long while he tried to figure out how to react. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, that's . . . yeah. I just need to finish up here."
Everett is staring at him. "Listen, Everett, is it OK if I take the rest of the day off? I . . . if it's who I think it is, we have a lot of catching up to do."
"Yeah, sure, man. Whatever you need."
"Thanks."
"So . . . I'll tell him you'll be out in a minute?"
"Yeah, that'd be good."
"OK."
Sam concentrates on taking deep, steadying breaths as he makes the final adjustments and packs up his tools. He puts them away, washes his hands, and heads for the office.
But he doesn't have to go that far, because Dean is in the parking lot, leaning against the Impala. Sam surreptitiously grabs his left hand with his right and squeezes the old scar, but Dean is still there, still solidly, really there.
Sam approaches. "Dean?"
"Heya, Sammy," he says, and flings holy water and borax all over Sam.
"Geez, Dean, what—" he is cut off when Dean grabs him, slams him against the car, and cuts his arm with a silver knife. "Ow! C'mon, man, I'm me!"
Dean steps back. "I know that now. Here, do me," and he holds out the bottles and the knife.
"No. You already splashed yourself, and the handle on that knife is silver, too. Besides, I don't think anyone but you could've found me here—I covered my tracks."
"Dammit, Sammy!" and Dean splashes and cuts himself anyway. Sam takes the opportunity to take in his brother, here, but . . . there's something different, something about the way Dean stands, about the stark lines of his face. Wherever he's been, Sam doesn't think it was nice. But . . . oh, please, God - or whoever - no.
"Well, now that that's settled," Dean says, setting down the bottles and putting away the knife, "let's do this."
"Do wha—" Sam starts to ask, but then Dean grabs him and pulls him into a hug and there is no mistaking that leather and whiskey smell: Dean is really here. Sam hugs back, a smile breaking over his face. And if Dean doesn't hug as tight as he once did, and if the lines of his body feel harder, tauter with muscle than they used to be, well, it's been a year of who-knows-what for him; Dean will tell Sam when he's ready. For now, all that matters is he's here. After a moment Sam steps back so he can see Dean's face, keeping a hand on Dean's shoulder until Dean gives it the stink-eye.
"You're alive. Dean, how the hell are you alive?" And what kind of hell will there be to pay for it this time?, a part of him can't help but wonder.
"Well, I wasn't dead, Sammy." There is something in Dean's voice. Something dangerous.
"Well, uh, can I take you out to lunch and you can tell me about it? It's a nice day, we could go to the park . . . " He trails off, because Amelia's car is pulling into the lot. Oh boy.
"Hey," she calls, getting out. "Who's your friend?"
"Uh, this is Dean. Dean, this is Amelia. My girlfriend."
"Wait, Dean as in Dean?" she asks, eyebrows raised, while Dean's eyes narrow.
"Yeah."
"Some month we're having," she says, and holds out her hand to shake Dean's.
"Hi," is all Dean says, shaking hands as briefly as possible.
Amelia turns back to Sam. "Well, I will leave you two to catch up, then. I assume you'll be bringing him home for dinner?"
Sam turns to Dean, eyebrows raised in hopeful query.
"Sounds great," Dean says, and Sam tenses at his tone of voice.
"Great," Amelia says, smiling in a way that tells Sam she's picked up on the strain between the brothers. "I'll pick up some steaks and fire up the grill."
"Sounds amazing," Sam reassures her, and leans down to kiss her goodbye.
"There's a place you'll like in walking distance," Sam tells Dean as Amelia returns to her car, looking over her shoulder at them in concern.
"Fine," Dean says. "Lead the way."
They set out, and once they're clear of the parking lot Sam asks, "So if you weren't dead, where were you?"
"Purgatory."
Shit. "And Cas? Was he with you?"
"He was there, but he wasn't exactly with me for most of it."
"What does that mean?"
"I think it's my turn to ask some questions, actually."
Here it comes. "OK, shoot."
"What the fucking hell happened to you this last year, Sam? I come back, and you don't answer your phones, so I assume the worst. Why else would they all be at Rufus' cabin with a bunch of messages from Kevin asking for help?" Sam flinches. "I mean, did you even try to find me after killing Dick zapped my ass to God's armpit, or did you just decide that now you were free of me, it was a good time to get lucky?" Dean's voice drips venom and rage, and Sam wonders if there's anything true he can say that will appease him even a little.
"No, Dean, it wasn't like that at all! You and Cas just vanished, I thought you were dead, I thought I'd lost you for good this time. And you know we agreed, we agreed we had to let each other be if that happened, we had to try to move on. So I got the Impala fixed up, dropped most of my stuff off at Rufus' cabin, and I drove. And, uh," he pauses. If anything, Dean will be even less thrilled about Riot than he is about Amelia. Fortunately, "There's the restaurant. Want to sit inside or out?"
Dean glares at him, recognizing a stalling tactic when he sees it. "Outside."
They sit. Sam pretends to peruse the menu so he can avoid Dean's glare.
"So?" Dean spits, once they order.
"So, what?"
"So, you rolled into this town and it was, what, love at first sight?"
"What? No." Sam chuckles, remembering those first conversations with Amelia. "She actually thought I was a creepy drifter, possibly a serial killer. Which, technically—"
"Why'd you stay, then?"
Sam sighs. "I hit a dog."
"And?"
"He was a stray. Amelia's a vet, she was on duty at the clinic I took him to. I was just going to leave him once I found out he would pull through, but she kinda bullied me into agreeing to take him. So then I was just going to stay until he healed up, find him a home, and move on. But then Everett's dad was sick, so I ended up working at the motel, and then Amelia and I talked more, and, I don't know, everything just sort of happened. I found us a place—we actually only just finished getting moved in a few weeks ago; it took a while to get her stuff, what with both of us working."
"So, you quit."
"Quit what?"
"Hunting. The family business. The thing that makes us who we are."
"Yeah, 'cause nothings says family quite like the whole family being dead. And, I don't know, maybe hunting makes you who you are, and that's fine, but I've always wanted to be more than that. Hunting was something I did, and yeah, it has a lot to do with who I am, but not everything. I never wanted that."
"So you did decide to take advantage of me being gone."
"No! And Dean, as far as I knew, you weren't 'gone' you were dead. So I honored our agreement. What is so wrong with that?"
"I don't know, maybe that I wasn't dead!" Dean snarls, slamming his hand on the table. "Maybe that we've ignored that in the past because we can't bear to be without each other! Maybe that I spent a fucking year fighting for my life while you played house!"
Dean has to bite back the rest of his tirade, because the waitress arrives with their food.
"And what about Kevin?" he hisses once she leaves. "He was our responsibility, and you couldn't even answer the damn phone." Dean picks up his burger and tears into it.
Guilt washes through Sam. Maybe he should have kept the phones. "So have you seen him?" he asks after he swallows his mouthful of salad.
"Who?" Dean says around the half-chewed bite of burger in his mouth.
"Kevin."
Dean swallows. "Yeah, I've seen him."
Sam waits, but Dean just squirts a huge pile of ketchup onto his plate and starts on his french fries. "And?" Sam finally asks, growing annoyed.
"And, Crowley held him in a warehouse and had him translate a different Word of God tablet, one about demons, but it told him how to make demon bombs so he escaped after a couple of months, then tried to call you but you weren't answering so he was just on his own. I managed to track him down after I listened to his voicemails, we went to see his mom, the demon tablet got stolen, some mooks tried to sell it at an auction, shit happened, Crowley got the tablet. And now Kevin and his mom are in the wind because they don't know what's good for them. Oh, right, I almost forgot: Kevin says the demon tablet had instructions on closing the gates of Hell forever."
Sam can feel his guilt mounting. Maybe if he'd taken Kevin's calls . . . He thinks back to the weeks after he hit Riot, when the haze of grief began to lift and he'd started to wonder if he should hunt again. He remembers getting as far as finding a case, then realizing the long drive would be bad for the injured dog, and choosing the responsibility in front of him over the pseudo-obligation of hunting. The world didn't end when he was at Stanford; the only reason it got so close was because he got back in. No, there was no way of knowing what would have happened if he'd tried to help Kevin.
"OK, so Crowley has the tablet but no way to read it. Kevin would clearly rather take care of himself, and that's his choice to make. I'm sorry I underestimated him and wasn't there to help him out, but the truth is, you're wrong about him being our responsibility. His life got bulldozed by the supernatural, and we know what that's like, and God knows I'm all for helping other people through that if we can, but none of what happened to him before we took down the Leviathans was actually our fault."
"Except for the Leviathans being in this world in the first place."
"That was Cas, not us. We tried to stop him, remember?" Sam isn't entirely sure where his arguments are coming from: he's certainly never sat down and hashed it out to himself. But they ring true, and for some reason he thinks of Amelia saying "I can't lose you" on the night they chose each other over . . . what? Old habits?
"What are you saying?"
That there's a woman who says she can't lose me, and my responsibility to not put her through that if I can help it is the most important one I have right now, because I love her. "I'm saying that what happened to Kevin sucks, but it was never our responsibility, and neither was what happened to him after Sucrocorp. I was alone, Dean. I was completely alone, and I ran from everything because I had to. If I ever see Kevin again I will apologize to him on bended knee for not getting his messages, but . . . what I did wasn't wrong. It just . . . was."
"Are you listening to yourself?" Dean asks in disbelief. "How is running away from everything, letting people die, letting Kevin be on his own, not wrong?"
"Dean, people die every day for all kinds of reasons. Is it my fault that people die of cancer because I'm not working in a lab trying to find a cure? Is it my fault that people die from starvation or waterborne diseases in other countries because I'm not working in development? Is it my fault—"
"It's not the same and you know it!"
"Yes, Dean, it is the same. I don't owe it to the world to hunt. There have always been monsters, just like there's always been disease and hunger and all the other things that kill people what seems like before their time. I've hunted for most of my life, first with you and Dad when I didn't have a choice as a kid, then with you after they killed Jess. And now I'm done. I have a normal life, and I'm not giving it up." I can't do that to Amelia, won't do that to her. Not after everything.
Dean stares in disbelief. "You selfish bastard." He throws down his napkin and stands up.
"Where are you going?" Sam asks, dreading the answer.
"To do my job!" Dean hurls over his shoulder as he storms off.
Sam quickly throws some cash on the table and hurries after Dean.
"Dean, wait!" Dean doesn't stop, so Sam jogs a little and quickly catches up. "Dean," he tries, matching his brother's strides, but Dean doesn't even look at him. "Do you want to take the Impala?" he ventures.
That gets him a look, at least. "Oh, you mean my car? Wow, how generous of you, to offer to return my car to me."
Sam stops. "You know what, fuck you, Dean."
That finally pulls Dean up short. "Come again?"
"You heard me. The Impala isn't yours, it's ours. Just because you fetishize it doesn't make it more yours than mine. I've taken good care of it, and it's helped with the grief, having something I know you love. I don't have to give it back to you, especially since it would be more of an inconvenience to me than to you if I do. I was really happy to see you, to find out you're alive, and you've done nothing but yell at me and insult me and question my decisions for the past forty-five minutes. I mean, I'm getting that Purgatory was awful, and I'm sorry for that. So be pissed, be whatever, but just . . . just try to see it from my perspective for like two seconds."
"Hmm, let's see, Sammy's point of view. OK: hunting sucks, I care more about chasing tail than saving people's lives, screw my brother and screw the world. How'd I do?"
Dean reducing Amelia to "tail" is the last straw. "Yeah, like I said, fuck you, Dean," Sam snaps, then lengthens his stride and storms past Dean. When he reaches the Impala, he begins pulling out everything of his and Amelia's. When he's done, he turns to find Dean watching him in confusion. He pulls the keys off his keyring and throws them to Dean. "Don't say I never did anything for you. Can I have the keys to whatever you came here in?"
Dean unlocks an old Saturn parked a few cars over and pulls out his bag, tossing Sam the keys as he storms past him without a word.
"Dean, wait," Sam says, pulling out a his notebook and pen. Dean stops but doesn't turn. Sam quickly scribbles down some information, then rips out the page and walks over to hand it to Dean. "It's my address and phone number. You're always welcome if you need a place to crash, or if you want to call and talk."
Dean crumples the paper and stuffs it in his pocket.
"Don't go like this, Dean," Sam says softly. He can't help it: Dean is his brother, and he missed him so much, and he doesn't want things to be this way. Besides, whether he's willing to admit it or not, Dean clearly needs help figuring out how to deal with what happened to him in Purgatory.
"This is your choice, not mine," Dean snaps, climbs into the Impala, and drives away.
Sam goes home, gets Riot, and takes him to the park to try to clear his head. He feels shaky and faintly nauseous, and realizes he's having an adrenaline crash. Riot picks up on his mood and is more interested in petting and snuggles than chasing the frisbee, so Sam gives up and cuddles him back, getting out his phone to call Amelia. He gets her voicemail. "Hey, uh, Dean's not coming to dinner. I'm in the park with Riot, and if you're able to maybe get away early, that would be . . . you know. Either way, I'll see you later. Love you."
He isn't sure how long he sits there, trying to sort through what he feels, before Amelia turns up and sits down next to him.
"Hey. I hope you didn't leave anything important."
"Slow day. But I would've come anyway: you sounded pretty messed up on the phone. Roberta will call me if there's an emergency. You wanna tell me what happened?"
"I . . . he just. I mean I thought I was over the rose-colored glasses thing, especially after that night where we got drunk and yelled all the things about Dean and Don that pissed us off at the stars."
She smiles, remembering.
"But I didn't expect . . . and he's been through some serious crap this past year, so it's not like he needs to be put together or anything, but . . . "
"Sam," she interrupts his rambling. "What happened?"
"I think he hates me," Sam says softly. "Except that's not right; I think it would be easier if he did, but Dean could never be that pissed off at someone he hates. But he thinks I let him down, thinks I abandoned him. He thinks I'm doing the wrong thing, staying here instead of going back on the road with him. And when I wouldn't just give in and say he was right, he left. I let him take the Impala, told him he was always welcome to come crash, because I miss him so damn much and I don't want things to be like this. He didn't care."
Amelia presses herself against his side, leans her head on his shoulder, and rubs his back in slow, soothing circles. He rests his head against hers. "Well, Dean's wrong, and being a jackass on top of it. If he can't understand why you have just as much of a right to live your life as he does to live his, I don't know, maybe you're better off apart."
"But I miss him," Sam says, voice breaking. Amelia reaches over and wraps her arms around his waist, and he wraps his around her, and they sit like that, holding each other.
"Want to hear about my talk with Don now?" she asks after a while.
Sam smiles into her hair, knowing she's distracting him. "Sure." This is what they do: if one of them is spiraling, the other finds a way to pull them out of their head. If they're both spiraling, they drink and yell at the stars together.
She pulls away from him a little, grabs the frisbee, and throws it for Riot, gathering her thoughts. It's a terrible throw, and the frisbee wobbles through the air a short distance before bouncing to the ground, but Riot dutifully trots after it anyway. However, when he gets back, he very deliberately drops it in Sam's lap.
"Traitor," Amelia says, ruffling Riot's ears. Sam takes the frisbee and throws it: it flies fast and smooth, and Riot sprints after it, leaping up to catch it in midair. Sam throws it again when Riot brings it back.
"I asked Don to meet me at Weston's for breakfast on that third morning. I'd made up my mind by then, but I wanted to have everything, I don't know, settled I guess before I told you. I think he expected . . . I mean, I believe what you told me about what he said in the bar, but I don't think it really occurred to him that I would choose you," she tells him.
Sam grunts noncommittally, throws the frisbee for Riot.
"He was watching the house," Amelia says softly, eyes forward. Sam turns sharply to stare at her. "Or at least, it sounded like he was. He knew you left and hadn't been back, and it's not like I was really talking about it, and I figured you would've mentioned it if you saw him around the motel. So he was watching the house."
Sam suddenly feels very capable of hating Don. Well, maybe not hate, but definitely something a lot less rosy than what he felt before.
"What?" Amelia asks.
"What do you mean, what?" Sam obliges Riot, who has been patiently waiting for him to throw the frisbee again.
"You're giving off . . . vibes," she says, staring him down.
"Oh. I just . . . watching the house kinda sounds like something an entitled asshole would do, is all," he admits.
She smiles grimly. "My thoughts exactly."
"So Dean's not the only one to . . ."
"Fail to live up to the way he was remembered? Not so much."
Sam tightens his arm around her. "What a mess."
She leans against his shoulder. "Good thing that's our specialty."
That night Sam gets on his computer and sees whether he can find anything about the Trans; he knows Dean is looking, and has a few tricks they learned from Charlie up his sleeve, but Sam has always been better with computers, so there's a chance he'll find something Dean missed.
"Oh, no," he says aloud, when he finds the ad on Craigslist. "Oh, Mrs. Tran, you didn't."
"What?" Amelia calls from the living room.
"Nothing," he answers, "just an acquaintance doing something they shouldn't."
He responds to the ad: "This is Sam Winchester. You don't have to contact me or tell me where you are or anything, but please do not get in bed with witches. There are a few good ones out there, yes, but I don't think those are the kind you're likely to find on Craigslist. But if you do want to contact me, I might be able to find you both a more comfortable place to hide. And Kevin, for what it's worth, I'm sorry I wasn't able to get your messages. If you're interested in help, but not from me, I know a guy." He supplies Garth's contact information as well as his own and hopes for the best.