AN: Behold! A missing Clothesline 'verse scene for the episode What Is and What Should Never Be. Falls between Care Packages and Bastille Day. And now, back to the assignments :(
Sight Unseen
The house is still around him. Dean sits in the dark of his home with Carmen, listening to the quiet whir of the appliances in the kitchen, the faint ringing of the muted TV in front of him, the occasional rumble of a passing car out of the residential street…
…and feels like his world is crumbling.
It's not supposed to happen like this, he thinks, it's not supposed to go like this.
On the laptop screen in front of him are a parade of obituaries and tragic news articles.
Cassie Robinson – run down on a snowy back road, believed fleeing from her own home.
Sarah Blake – found with her throat slit after her father brought home a painting he failed to sell.
Lucas Barr, Andrea Barr, Jake Devins – drowned on dry land.
Zach Warren – imprisoned after his girlfriend was found beaten to death. Rebecca Warren – found beaten to death by a believed copy-cat killer who was never caught.
Madison Lewis – not dead, but surrounded by savagely inflicted deaths and with a record of deteriorating mental health.
Jo –
Oh god.
Joanna Beth Harvelle. April 7th 1985 to September 14th 2006. Found bound and gagged in one of the narrow walls of an apartment building in Philadelphia. Death by suffocation. Survived by her mother, Ellen Harvelle.
Only not for long. A robbery gone south left Ellen with a gut full of lead, and with nothing to live for, she died in hospital, two days later. He can't find any record of Ash.
There's one other name…
Dean doesn't want to. He doesn't want to know, but he has to.
He finds a news cast from back in March…but it's not an American one.
"…in the international news tonight, a young Kiwi girl has been killed on a film set in Hollywood.
"Peggy Patcher was an up and coming writer, working as a PA on the set of a horror film in Los Angeles. She was discovered this morning by her co-workers, believed to have drowned in a prop bathtub that had been filled with fake blood.
"As yet there is no indication as to whether Ms Patcher's death is the result of foul play, however suicide has been ruled out. One of her older brothers made a statement today that he would be flying to LA for the investigation and to bring his sister's body home…"
Dean puts his face in his hands and struggles to breathe.
Peggy.
In this world, in this…in this timeline or reality or whatever, Peggy is dead. She's dead, gone, because Sam never pulled her out of that tub of fake blood and breathed life back into her. He and Sam were never in LA and never stopped that asshole Walter from using trapped spirits to kill his writing rivals.
Peggy never stood a chance.
"You're not real. None of it is."
"It doesn't matter. It's still better than anything you had."
"What?"
"It's everything you want. We're a family again. Let's go home."
"I'll die. The Djinn'll… drain the life out of me in a couple of days."
"But in here, with us, it'll feel like years. Like a lifetime. I promise. No more pain. Or fear. Just love and comfort. And safety. Dean, stay with us. Get some rest."
"You don't have to worry about Sam anymore. You get to watch him live a full life."
"We can have a future together. Have our own family. I love you, Dean. Please."
"'Why is it our job to save everyone? Haven't we done enough?' I'm begging you. Give me the knife."
"…I'm sorry."
"…I gotta tell you though, man. You know, you had Jess. Mom was gonna have grandkids," Dean says, leaning back against the dresser, and Sam can't help but see the lines of fatigue in his brother's face, in the way he braces himself.
"But it wasn't real," he insists quietly.
Dean looks back at him, an almost helpless look on his face. There are still shadows showing under his eyes, less pronounced than before but…
"But I still wanted to stay," Dean tells him. A line of cold moves down Sam's spine. Dean won't look at him. "I wanted to, so bad. Ever since Dad… Since then I just keep wondering, y'know? This job's cost us so much and…"
"And it's worth it."
That gets his attention. Sam knew it would, because it's just not what's expected of him. Sam's reluctance in the face of hunting is practically family legend; but these days he has reasons to want it, to chase it. There are days now where he's grateful for the job, things that he credits it with.
Things he cares about.
"Dean, if it was so good there… why didn't you stay?"
Dean shakes his head.
"I'm serious. What made you give it up?"
This time the look Sam gets is a tired version of incredulous. "Really?"
"Really."
Dean snorts, smiling a little, hard and sardonic. "You, dude."
Sam's eyebrows go up. "Me?"
"Well…yeah." Dean scrubs the back of his head the way he always has when he feels oncoming feelings and sighs. "I just… I mean, you were right there, begging me to put down the knife, and all I could think of was actual you back here, finding my body, or whatever and being…"
"Alone."
"Yeah."
Sam sighs too, shoulders slumping in relief. Something in his chest unclenches. "I'm seriously glad you didn't listen to that other me."
"Yeah, well, don't feel too special. Wasn't just you."
Sam's eyebrows climb up his forehead. "What?"
Dean smiles again, looking a little wound up again, tense. Not like he's spoiling for a fight, but…unhappy. Just plain unhappy.
"All those people we saved? All the people Dad saved? All gone, or hurt so bad they would have wished to be gone."
Sam feels something curdling in his gut, a new kind of worry hard on the heels of the one for his brother. "All of them?"
"Yeah. Cassie, Sarah, Andrea and Lucas, remember them? Rebecca was dead, Zach was in jail for real. Jo and Ellen…"
Sam feels it like a blow. "Both of them?"
"Yeah, and…and Peggy."
And that? …that hurts. Sam swallows hard, and can't look up from his clenched hands.
Sam remembers that day with painful clarity. He remembers the panic, the gut-wrenching horror of thinking that he was going to lose her; so close on the heels of Madison, it would have been unbearable.
He remembers getting to the set too late, getting there just in time to see Peggy's hand slip, nerveless and white, from the lip of the tub even as the red fluid filling it began to go still.
He remembers shouting her name as Dean fired at the ghost holding her under, and then rushing to pull her out. He remembers gathering her up, touching her face, seeing the fake blood run into her half-open eyes even as he laid her out and started compressions.
He remembers breathing for her.
He remembers her seizing under his hands, spine bowing like a pulled string and then the sound of her taking those first few wet gasps of life.
He imagines none of that happening; imagines Peggy simply dying there, drowned by a reluctant ghost in some awful tawdry murder scene, far away from home and family and anything familiar, spending her last moments frightened and in pain.
Sam feels sick, and he knows Dean sees it on his face.
"It's worth it, Dean," Sam says, voice low. "It's worth it, all the people we've saved…"
When he looks back at Dean, his brother's face is thoughtful. Gentled. "Yeah."
They get up, get their gear together, prepare to get out of town again, already looking for the next job.
Sam manages to wait until they've hit the road and times it just as Dean is reaching for the Impala's radio.
His brother frowns at him, mouthing, "Who're you calling?"
"Hey, Peggy," Sam says as she picks up.
"Sam!" she says, and it's gratifying to have that ever-cheerful response. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Are interesting things happening in Winchesterland?"
Sam glances at Dean, who looks steadily back.
"Nah," says Sam, "not this week." He smiles, knowing she can hear it in his voice. "Just wanted to check in, see how you're doing."
"Oh, well, better now," she teases, and Sam smiles.
On the other side of the car, Dean is watching the road disappear beneath his baby's hood, and watching his brother smile out of the corner of his eye, and watching the countryside fly past them…
…and his world is rebuilding itself around him.