A/N: Guess who's back?! Jane and I hope we're still welcome. We've missed you.
I'm so angry at him. I'm so damn mad and hurt and disappointed that I can't say a word to him, can't respond to anything he asks. But I can't breathe without him, either, so I sit as close as I can get, I hold his hand, I make sure our thighs touch on the same couch cushion, I sit curled under his always protective arm even as the anger bubbles red under my skin.
He tried to leave me. Again. He made a plan to remove himself from my life, and that is a thing for which I am having a hard time finding forgiveness. Love? Oh, yes, in great big heaping doses. Forgiveness? No, not yet. Not even close.
He wants to say yes to Michael. The fact that he's trying to save the world means exactly shit to me. I'm still pissed.
Sammy and I found him standing in a boring motel room, packing his most precious possessions into a cardboard box. His dad's leather jacket, Baby's keys, his gun. All extensions of himself, emblems of who he is. There's a letter to me in that box, too, that I will never read. He was drinking what I can only guess he believed to be his last whiskey when Sam walked through the door.
Dean was cruel to him in the same way young boys in movies try to set wild animals free. Be mean and he'll go away, let you leave. He threw out Sam's habit of running away, he brought up past mistakes, but it didn't work.
"You know I have to stop you," Sam told him.
His brother answered with the weapon he'd been saving for a desperate last blow. "Yeah, well, you can try. Just remember you're not all hopped up on demon blood this time."
I think Sam knew that was coming, and he had a good answer. "Yeah, I know. But I brought help," was his calm reply.
I don't know why Dean thought I wouldn't be there. I don't know what made him think I wouldn't tear down the highway searching for him. I'd just helped him silence the False Prophet, we'd stood up to archangels together, I'd followed him into the afterlife, I'd remained hot for him when he was turned into a horny old geezer, I was willing to stand by his side to face down the devil, and he somehow let himself be convinced that I would not walk through that door.
"If you wanted to break up, all you had to do was say so."
"Jane, you shouldn't be here." He wouldn't even look at me.
"Where else should I be? At Bobby's, grieving for you again? You think I'd survive that this time?"
He glanced up at that, maybe seeing in my face the memory of utter devastation. I collapsed, imploded, disappeared when he had been dragged to hell not so very long ago. I died in all but body and only the sound of his voice brought me back. How dare he do that to me again. I hope he saw it. I hope it hurt him. But I don't know what he felt; I haven't talked to him to ask.
"I have to do this. I have no choice," he continued, convincing no one but himself.
"Neither do we," I whisper, then nod behind me to Cas. Our pissed off angel appeared next to Dean, touched his forehead, and we brought our unconscious rebel back home.
And here I sit, next to the reason my heart beats, so angry at him that I cannot speak. Gripping his hand tighter, I feel him return the pressure, holding on to me even as he tries to convince us all that the only future we face is one without him. He's so stupid. He's so selfish, and selfless, and fucked up. But I won't let go.
A/N: So... Any good?
