AN: My first Supernatural OneShot! I had already published this on tumblr and Quotev, but thought I'd put it on here too. Leave a review of what you thought, and maybe I'll write more.

Sam was 33 when Dean died. It wasn't as if it hadn't happened before, but something seemed different this time. They'd gone to Hell and back (literally) to drag Dean kicking and screaming back to humanity, and it had worked. Eventually.

But the things Dean had done before Sam and Cas managed to stop him took a toll on the elder brother - it seemed humanity wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

After the "accident", Sam didn't see Cas for weeks. Truth be told, Sam wasn't sure he wanted to. When Cas finally did turn up on the doorstep of the bunker, he was drunk - something Sam had only truly seen once of twice before - and nearly fell on him when Sam opened the door.

"I found him," Cas had laughed. Sam didn't need to ask who Cas was referring to: the answer was written all over the angel's intoxicated face. Cas was grinning, the kind of grin that you only saw on someone once they snapped, once they shattered into a million pieces and didn't have the heart to care anymore. It was the same smile Sam had seen on his brother's face before he turned and walked into that demon hide-out armed with only the demon killing knife and a recklessness like Sam had never seen before.

"He's in Heaven," Cas had said like he was surprised. Wether it was at the fact Dean had gotten in at all or the fact that Cas had been able to find him, Sam wasn't sure and didn't want to ask.

Sam didn't want to know anymore, but Cas didn't seem to be able to stop talking. "He's with Mary, your mother, and I think he might have visited Ellen and Jo once or twice."

Sam was speechless, but hearing Cas talk about Dean's Heaven stiffened his resolve not to save him again. It hurt like Hell (and Sam would know) but it was kinder to Dean to leave him where he was.

So Sam made a resolution.

Sam was going to retire.

No, he wasn't stupid. He wasn't just going to drop the life all together. No, he wasn't going to do it right away. He was going to be smart about it so that maybe… Maybe this time it would stick.

He gave himself six months. He still had some contacts left. Sam knew he wasn't alone and he knew he couldn't just suddenly go cold turkey like Dean had tried to do. He needed time if he was ever going to get out.

Hunting was like a drug. It fills something inside you: whether it's the burning desire for revenge that gets you hooked, or the superhuman feeling you get when you know you saved someone from a horrible death. Some hunters just like killing things and some… Well, some just did it because that was all they know.

Dean had been one of those ones, but not Sam. Sam had left the life for years when he was younger. Was he eighteen when he left? Nineteen? Sam couldn't really remember anymore. It didn't matter. The point was, Sam had always possessed the ability to be normal. He wasn't going in blind.

He was counting the hunts he went on now, counting down until he could stop. He wasn't sure exactly when that would be, but now, he knew he would get out.

There wasn't really anyone to tell now except Cas. Ellen and Jo were long dead. Bobby too. Now that Dean was gone, Sam had no family either. So Sam kept moving, like he had before they found the Bunker. He packed up his things, made sure he left the door locked firmly behind him and drove away in his brother's '67 Chevy Impala. He drove all over the country, like a farewell tour. He hunted Vampires, ghosts, werewolves, rugaroos and low-level demons. He hunted wendigos and tulpas and tricksters and he did it with an efficiency that he hadn't commanded since he was soulless, but for an entirely different reason. For the first time in a /very/ long time, Sam had hope.

He was hunting a shifter when he met Melody Robinson. She, like Sam, was a hunter and she, like Sam, had been raised into a life she'd never wanted.
Sam was chasing the shifter down and alley when a shot rang out and a body dropped.

"What..?" Sam managed to breathe before the person who'd shot the shifter came into view under a street lamp.
From this distance, he could tell she had olive skin, hazel eyes that flashed blue when the light of the moon hit them in the right way, and hair the colour of milk chocolate. She gave him a weary smile and shrugged.

"Sorry, Tex," she said unapologetically. "I know it's harder to hit a target when you're running." She approached him and held out a hand, the other still holding the pistol. "Melody," she introduced herself and waited for him to reply.

"Oh! Yeah, I'm Sam," Sam laughed nervously. It had been a while since he'd had any sort of conversation with any human being (Cas doesn't count) and he was a little rusty.

"Well, Sam… Sorry bout claiming your hunt. I'd say I'd acted in self defence but the look on your face was too priceless," Melody laughed.

"Oh…"

"Anyway, why don't you help me get rid of this body, huh?"

He didn't know why, but Sam liked hunting with Melody. She was gruff and cocky on a hunt, but in between, she was kind and intelligent and fair.
She was maybe two years younger than him, but she'd been hunting just as long as he had and he found her experience meant it felt like he was hunting with Dean again.

Sam told Melody about his countdown when he only had three months to go.

"Oh, my God, Sam! Are you really getting out?" she'd exclaimed and threw her arms around his neck. "This is amazing. I've never heard of a hunter getting out before. Well… Except that one guy, you know Dean Winchester?"

"Dean? But he's dead," Sam had said without realising. Though he may have been hunting with Melody for a month and a half, he hadn't told her she was hunting with Sam Winchester. He knew he and Dean were notorious, as far as hunters go, and he hadn't been sure revealing the truth was wise until he knew how she'd react: some hunters shook his hand, some pulled out their shotguns. Her posture changed, then: she moved from relaxed to weary, almost imperceptibly.

"How would you know?" she asked, voice laced with suspicion.

"Uh…"

"Sam?" she pressed. Then she grinned. "Hang on! You're his-"

"Brother, yes, I know," Sam confirmed. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner - I've just learned to be cautious when revealing my surname around hunters."

"Well, Sam Winchester," she smiled, holding out her right hand. "Nice to finally meet you." Sam let out an astonished little huff of a laugh and returned the gesture.

"And you, Melody Robinson," he replied before looking at her in mock seriousness. "Unless that's not your real name either."

"No, I was telling he truth," she told him. "Unlike you, I don't have a rather disturbing reputation."

"So, are you really going to get out?" Melody asked, dropping his hand, her voice betraying her jealousy. Sam nodded.

"I hope so," he sighed, flopping down on the lumpy motel couch. "I mean, it's not as if I haven't done it before, but those times Dean always brought me back into this life. Last time…" Sam trailed off, thinking back to the year Dean was in purgatory and he had a dog and a not-so-widowed girlfriend. "Last time I thought… Last time Dean wasn't really dead."

"Aw, Sam…" Melody said, sitting down next to him.

"It's okay. I've gotten used to it now. It's been… Six months and I'd lost him before then, anyway."
Melody studied him for a moment. "I'm not going to ask," she told him. "Not unless you want me to. But I'm super jealous you're getting out." She smiled again. "I've never been able to find the courage."

"Come with me, then," Sam blurted. He wasn't sure why he asked, he just realised he didn't want to be out and alone with no one knowing who he really was, the way he'd done it last time. He wanted it to be permanent, which he knew he wouldn't be able to do without a proper anchor in his new life. Melody was speechless.

"Sam… I…"

"Didn't you just say you wanted out? We could get out of the life, settle down, find houses on the same street. Be kind of normal. Don't you want to know what that's like?"

"But Sam… You don't know that's what it would be like, either," Melody said quietly.

"I ran away when I was nineteen. I went to Stanford, got a full ride. I lived a normal life for nearly three years. Then later, Dean was… gone for a year, I got out again, and lived with a vet for six months. I had a pet dog."

Melody burst out laughing at the last sentence.

"You had a dog!?" She guffawed. "That, I'd pay to see!"

"Maybe I'll get another one when I get out," Sam pouted, crossing his arms defensively.

"Sure."

"Wh-what?"

"Sure, I'll leave with you," she said quickly, like if she took too long on the words, she'd change her mind or lose her nerve.

"Really?"

"Why not?"

After that night, they didn't stop hunting for a long while, they had three months before Sam's deadline and Sam was trying to focus on slowing down. After Melody first agreed to leave the life with him, they hunted for three weeks and then had a week's break. Then, they hunted for two weeks with a week of doing nothing. Then they hunted for one week.

Their last hunt was ironically ordinary. An angry spirit was haunting an old museum and killing anyone who stayed after hours. It took an hour to figure out who the ghost was (an old curator who was taking protecting the museum's artifacts to a new extreme) and another six to find and dig up the grave. Eight hours after they had started the job, they both were walking back to the impala, covered in mud, but alive and well.

Still, underneath Sam's elation, he couldn't help but feel a tiny twinge of sadness at leaving behind the hunter's life, leaving behind his family legacy, leaving behind Dean.

They settled in a small town in California that no one had every heard of. Small enough that their old life was unlikely to catch up to them in the form of the authorities and small enough that they would protect their new home from any supernatural invaders if need be.

In the end, they decided to live together. Between them, they managed to get a small two bedroom house to share. It was a little run down, but neither of them minded and soon the house felt like home.

Sam got a job at the local police station. Faking the right papers had been easy and it wasn't as if he wasn't fit for the job. He passed every test with flying colours and they accepted him with a firm shake of his hand and a wide smile.

Melody got a job waiting tables at the local bar. Sam had suggested she join him at the station, but she'd refused. She liked the job: it was easy to keep an eye on what was going on in the town and it was a job where she could talk to people, serve them a drink and have a chat. Of course there came the not so glamorous aspects, like kicking out the ones who'd had more than enough alcohol or being hit on every half hour, but it wasn't as if she couldn't kick any handsy patron or inebriated bar goer's ass to kingdom come.

The first time Melody woke up in the wrong bed, it took her a few seconds to realise that she was indeed in her own house. Sam was sleeping beside her, snoring slightly, curled up and hugging his pillow loosely.

When Sam had first suggested she leave with him she had wondered how, despite it's many deficits, she'd be able to live without hunting. Now she wondered how she'd been able to live with it for so long. She threw her head back on the pillows and Sam rolled over, his arm draping over her abdomen.
Yes, she smiled. This is the life.

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My first Supernatural oneshot! Also online on Quotev. My account: Night Owl