DISCLAIMER: DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL
A/N: I figured there just wasn't enough Sam/Impala lovin' so this came up.
To him the Impala was more than just a car. He'd never admit it out loud, and especially not to Dean (he'd never heard the end of it), but he'd always known the Impala was something more.
See, a car is metal and machine and leather seats and a dirty steering wheel, but the Impala...well that was something else entirely. Because she wasn't just a bunch of parts mixed into some run-down plain-and-simple vehicle, she was family. She was just as much of family as Dean and Dad were, except maybe even more. She'd been there for them when no one else was. She was there when a fire burned down the first home they'd ever know, turning herself into her own shelter for the young Winchesters. She was there every time they moved to a new town, every time they needed a fast getaway, every time him and Dad had ever fought and made up and fought again. She was there when he fell asleep in Dean's arms in the backseat, was there when him and Dean sat in seperate corners, arms crossed and lips pursed on faces studiously glaring out the window, and she was there when he'd played with a little army guy in the ash tray. She was there for every happy memory he'd ever had of his family, because she was more than just a car. She was more than just the only house he'd ever know. She was even more than family; she was everything. All the above. She could drive anywhere for days on end without a single groan, she was -more than once- the only thing seperating them from bitter cold snowflakes or harsh rains or the chill night air, she was everything to him. To them.
She was there when Dean picked him up from Stanford, their arsonal safely tucked away in her trunk where she didn't complain once about the brutal weapons, and she'd been there when he'd left Stanford for good, despair overwhelming his entire being, yet somehow she still managed to purr him into the sleep he needed but didn't want. Like she'd known. And then she was there for Dean when he wasn't, when he couldn't be, dead with a stab wound in his back. And when Dean was gone, his deal finely due, and he was alone, the only person actually worth living for ripped from his life, suffering in Hell, he still had the Impala. She was still there, even if she could never be the same without Dean driving behind her wheel. It was his the worst thing in his life, driving without Dean, but for the longest time, he couldn't get himself to leave her safety, he'd just wallow in the backseat, curled up tight, remembering him and Dean growing up in that exact spot.
And when the Devil was riding his skin, and Dean was bloody and bruised under his very hands, all it took was one glance at that same army guy, the very same one he'd stuffed in there when he was young (and later he'd tell Dean to never stop rebuilding her the same way he'd always done, it was a pointless comment, he knew Dean would keep making her the exact same way with every nook and cranny she'd ever had), and every flash of every memory he'd ever had of that beautiful, life saving car, was all it took to win back his body and save him from himself.
The next time he'd seen Dean after his swan dive, he'd been filled with an almost overwhelming sense of joy and then he'd seen Bobby, alive and well and his neck not snapped by Lucifer, and he almost lost it right there; it was when he caught sight of the Impala, though, shining in all her glory beneathe the hot sun, that he was inches from losing it. It took all he had not to crumble at her tires.
She was a car, a home, family, and most importantly...she was his savior.
Yeah, she was definitely more than just scrap metal on tires.