There is now an audio version of this fic which you can find on the YouTube channel Supernatural Storytime! The video is entitled 'Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert'. Many thanks to Chris for recording it!

Title from All the King's Horses by Karmina

Sam wonders when it all started. He knows Jack hasn't been evil since the beginning - and he hesitates to even use that word, evil. It has so much weight to it, sounds so definitive, and he just doesn't want to put the kid in the same category as Lucifer. It would feel too much like giving up, when he had tried so hard to persuade Dean that Jack wasn't evil in the first place. Besides, Sam has seen true evil, has felt its touch, and Jack is not that. He couldn't be.

He tries to dig up the soulless version of him he has tried so hard to bury and imagine how Jack must be feeling, but it does no good. He knows that emptiness that comes without a soul, but they don't even know if Jack's soul is completely gone. More than likely, there is still some left, because he had looked so human, so soulful when they'd found him and Mom's body. He had regretted what he had done, Sam is sure of that, and soulless people don't regret.

Cas had told them that Mom had died peacefully, painlessly. Sam is glad for that; it's the best anyone could ask for, let alone a hunter. He should be happy for her, because she is happy, but he can't help but wish she were here anyway. They'd only just started to get to know each other, after all.

The thought crosses his mind that maybe they had bought his life with Mom's. It's not a new thought; he's had it a few times since they found out, and he knows Dean has too, although Sam knows that Dean would just tell him to shut up if he ever voiced it. Sam supposes it would make some sort of cruel irony - Mary had once unknowingly traded his future away, and now they have done the same to her. In any case, Sam has cheated death more than too many times now; surely, Mom should have been allowed to do it just once. More than that, he is weary. The Empty sounds appealing now that they know what it is like; Sam thinks he would like to rest at last.

Perhaps, if Sam had died like he was supposed to, Mom wouldn't have had to. Perhaps, if Jack hadn't come and save Sam, they would have gone home, and been safe. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

But. These are all pointless thoughts, now. Mom is dead and Jack is gone and they have to somehow deal with both of those things. He knows Dean and Bobby want blood for what Jack did - for killing one of their own. But Jack was one of their own too, once, and Sam can't bring himself to forget that fact. He refuses to, just as he refuses to believe he is evil. None of this is the kid's fault; if anything, it's Sam's for using that damn spell to bring him back. Jack was probably at peace in Heaven, and Sam went and pulled him back down, down, down.

He doesn't want to kill Jack. Or worse, lock him in the coffin Dean built and throw him to the bottom of the sea to live out eternity alone.

Sam doesn't think he could bring himself to even if he did.