Summary: A vignette on Sam's decision to leave.

Warning: Consensual adult sibling incest. Also, always-been-a-girl!Sam, so HET.

Disclaimer: Characters not mine, I'm just borrowing them and plan on returning them just as they were


all your thoughts

Were all your thoughts bent on escaping what you could no longer bear to endure?
You see, even after all these years, I wonder if you really loved me.
- Vanessa and Virginia, Susan Sellars.

Sam stands outside the motel door, arms wrapped around her body, tugging tight on the flannel shirt she stole from Dean's duffel bag. It smells like him, gun powder and old spice, hint of leather. She's just turned eighteen last week and hasn't told Dad, or Dean. Not yet. She still has three months to go before the semester starts.

She wonders if Mom would be proud of her; getting into college, getting a full ride. Or would she be ashamed that her daughter was abandoning the only family there was left? Sometimes she thinks that Mary stands beside her, when she's alone like this, the wind her mother's fingers through her hair.

The door behind her opens and closes, Dean leans against the frame. He yawns, grunts and rubs his eyes. "What are you doin' up?" he asks, squinting into the street light.

She shrugs. "Couldn't sleep." Headaches, nightmares. She won't tell him that either.

He clears his throat and softly takes her by the elbow, trying to turn her back. "Come on."

"Is Dad asleep?"

"Of course," he says, stretching his back. Three shots of Jack at ten o'clock and he was out like lamp. Stored heavy, buried under double layers of sheets and blankets. Dean pulls her elbow again.

"Do you love me?" she asks, her voice almost as weak as the wind.

He snorts. "That's a stupid question, Sammy. Come on." He goes back inside, doesn't wait for an answer. Sam looks at the sky and tries to count the stars, but can only pick out the brightest ones that aren't even really stars, only planets.

She double locks the doors when she comes back in. John rolls over, a troll sleeping under his bridge. She tip toes to the bed, stepping over Dean on the sleeping back on the floor; they'd shared a bed until she was thirteen and started to bleed and John told them since she was a woman, things were different. But when he was going solo or with Bobby she curled against Dean and held him like she'd fall.

Sleeping alone she shivers no matter how many blankets. She dangles her hand down at Dean, waiting for him to graze her fingers with his own, kiss the tips before dozing off again.

She counts the number of days before she has to tell him goodbye.

.

He's her first kiss, her first everything, though he fights her all the way. But they fit together, she belongs in his arms, his lips on her neck.

"Do you ever think-" she starts to ask him one night, her hand stroking lazy circles on his hip. The bed smells of sex and pine.

He stops her. Never lets her ask the question. He just rolls her onto her back, nuzzles down her throat and the smooth space between her breasts, fingers dipping inside of her.

.

She stops fighting with Dad and Dean is concerned. He asks her night after night if she's okay. She smiles, touches his cheek and says "Yes. Geez stop worrying."

But there's a twisting coil of steel in his belly. She's never been happy and suddenly she's smiling all the time.

.

"If you walk out that door," John warned, pointing his finger at her, "don't even think about coming back."

She's crying because she knows it would come to this. He makes her choose, he always makes her choose. He's never let her have both, or what she wanted. She bends to pick up her duffel back; she packed the night before, everything she'd need, everything she owns. "Fine," she says with a 's not going to yell anymore. Her throat all ready hurts, her eyes sting. She glances back at Dean sitting in the corner, his eyes glossy, his bottom lip trembling. "Goodbye Daddy," she says quiet, sweet. And out the door she turns. When the door closes she hears John punch the wall.

The day before she bought the bus ticket, spent hours hustling pool to get the now she walks. If she stops or turns around to look, she'll never leave.

The door opens and slams shut again and she's grabbed, strong hands, hands that know her. "Sammy," Dean says. "You didn't-"

"Let go, Dean." She shrugs.

"Sammy wait."

She shakes her head. His hands drop down her sides, his nails scraping down the soft skin of her arm. She's still crying. He buries his nose in her hair, on the back of her neck. "You don't have to do this."

She sniffles, pulls away. "Yes I do."

On the bus she curls against the window, that old fear of falling back. Like the ground will open beneath her and swallow her whole, taking part of the world with her.

.end