I really can't take credit for this idea. I saw a meme about it on Pinterest and it's been lurking in the musty corners of my fangirl brain for far to long now. So now that thought has crept out onto the page, and I hope it's as good as I think it is right now.
Writing this just sort of soothed me and I felt like it was a good way for Sam to get a dash of peace over the loss of Jess.
I have no earthly idea when this takes place, except that they're in the bunker and Cas still has his angel powers. Other than that, use your imagination.
These guys aren't mine.
I don't think there's really any cursing but I'm rating it T just in case.
Bitch. Damn. Hell.
There. Gotta make it count.
Sam is ok.
He looks at his favorite picture of Jess for awhile the night before. There's a t-shirt tucked away at the bottom of his dresser drawer. It's cardinal red, has the 'Stanford University' logo printed across the chest, and is soft and worn-thin from a decade of washings. It's faded out quite a bit, too so he doesn't wear it often anymore. Never on hunts or when there's a possibility that it could get damaged.
Sam takes one look at it and remembers. And remembering is painful.
A few dates in and he could already tell that this girl was something special.
They had an easy, back and forth flow to their conversations, she was interesting and funny and made him feel like he was too. She was so smart and so beautiful and kept up with him intellectually and she never once pried into his past. He could tell she was curious, and, every now and then when he'd mention something about his big brother or his dad and just sort of drift off with that look like he was far away, she'd be waiting. She wouldn't pry, she wouldn't judge, she'd just sort of wait to see if he'd keep going. He never did. He regrets it to this day.
The lucidity of the shirt-memory never really fades.
One day after class, a few weeks after they'd started dating, they'd wandered around campus for awhile and eventually strayed into the college bookstore.
She teased him that he needed a shirt that didn't look like it came directly off the rack of a thrift store and Sam shrugged and admitted that's exactly where all of his clothes came from. He said he didn't mind. Fancy clothes weren't that important.
She made this face at him like she could see through him and immediately started picking out different shirts and holding them up to him while he shifted uncomfortably and protested weakly.
She found this one at the back of the rack and she started saying things like the color is the perfect for his complexion and how hot it will make him look. "Her sexy Stanford guy" and he's blushing because he's just not used to this kind of attention.
And she took him back to his dorm and made him try it on and then they watched a movie on the couch and she fell asleep on his chest, her long blonde hair splayed out against him, a soft tumble of gold that smelled like her strawberry shampoo.
He can still remember the soft sound of her breathing, feel the way she felt warm, and small, and helpless, curled up against him.
Sam is ok.
He's up all night, but when his alarm clock rings at 6 am, he goes out for his morning run and then comes back to the bunker and showers, like he has every morning for awhile now.
When he gets out of the shower he changes for the day and stands in his towel for a minute and holds that soft t-shirt to his face and breathes in.
It was his shirt, but she loved it so much because it was a memory of one of their first dates. She said it made her think of him-made her feel safe and she wore it as a nightshirt all the time since it was practically a dress on her slight form.
He remembers her wearing it when they'd stay up late studying or throwing it on after they'd made love together, lying around in it afterwards, peaceful and comfortable, just content to sit quietly in each other's presence. He remembers how it slipped off her shoulder on one side and how it drifted around her long legs, hugging the curve of her body and standing out against her creamy skin.
He can still smell her if he tries, a whisper of strawberry layered down deep in the fibers of that shirt.
He slips it over his head and wears it that day, like invisible armor under his layers.
Sam is ok.
He tells himself it's just a date, just another day on the calendar, and he goes about his business.
In the evening, Dean sees Sam drinking a bit more and Sam can tell he's concerned but Dean doesn't comment. He doesn't need to say anything, he doesn't ask, he just waits for Sam to tell him. And when Sam declines his silent offer to speak up, he only sits with him and drinks a beer. It's a simple fact that sometimes, Sam just wants to drink and commiserate without using words.
Sam is ok.
He's sitting up on his laptop long after midnight, after the clock has switched past Jess' birthday.
This all supposed to magically disappear now, pushed back down into the pile of 'things we don't speak of'. His heart, like his favorite, Jess shirt, should be tucked away in a drawer somewhere-worn only on two days of the year, her birthday and her death day, and even then, it should be kept under layers.
He knows the drill.
He's ok.
Or maybe he's not...
He's clicking through pictures he's had saved for a long time in a special file named "Stanford" that he faithfully transfers to each new computer that he gets. Like his bookmarks for the best lore sites, and his faithfully compiled digital hunting journal-it's sacred.
There's pictures stored in there that he flips through when he's really low, or really lonely, or just missing her more than usual.
She had this big, embarrassing camera that she carted around with her everywhere. She was an excellent photographer and was always taking pictures of things that he didn't understand completely and going on about perspective and lighting and mood and just trying for that perfect shot.
But she took a lot of pics of the two of them together.
She told Sam that the camera loved him, and that made him blush, but she was forever taking snaps of him when he was least expecting it.
There's one of them at the beach, her hair blowing in her face as she laughs. Sam had snatched the camera out of her hands and she'd been trying to get it back, but he just kept taking photos of her. There's various shots of her, flustered and chasing him down and then, finally a blurry one of sand or something when she managed to get it back and accidentally took a picture in the process.
There's one of her sleeping on the couch in their apartment, cheeks flushed and mouth slightly agape but looking beautiful as ever.
Sam pages through them, so lost in memory that he doesn't notice Cas standing in the doorway of his bedroom until the angel cracks the door open slightly, and says "Sam?"
Sam jerks slightly as he's pulled out of his memories "Everything ok, Cas?"
"Everything is ok with me, Sam." Cas nods and then comes into the room, uninvited. "How are you?"
"I'm fine...?" Sam says it questioningly and as convincingly as he can but Sam's guard isn't fully up and running at the moment. His heart not yet buried under enough layers.
"Do you mind if I sit?" Cas asks, as he sits on the bed beside Sam without even waiting for an answer.
"Um..no, I guess not" Sam laughs at his socially awkward friend.
"Dean told me what today is."
Sam's head shoots up and he looks angry at his brother's breach of trust.
"Don't be mad at Dean, Sam." Cas says in his gravelly voice, "I asked him what was wrong with you and he couldn't lie."
"Oh." Sam runs a hand down his face and sighs. "It's ok, Cas. I mean it's sweet, you coming to talk to me, or whatever, but I'll be fine tomorrow."
"Technically it's after midnight, so tomorrow has become today. And you don't look alright to me, Sam."
"I'm not, I guess." Sam admits suddenly, "but I will be after awhile."
"Sam." Cas says and his tone is suddenly very heavy and quiet. He shifts his body slightly and angles towards Sam a bit, the posture giving the effect that he's about to say something very serious.
"You know that Jess is happy, right?"
Sam looks up at Cas, his eyes narrowing in confusion. "What?"
"Jess." Cas levels Sam with that serious look he wears all the time, but it's even more intense now "She's happy. I can see into her heaven and she's there, living out her best moments." He pauses for a bit. "Most of them include you, Sam."
Cas doesn't say anything else. He sits for a moment and then gets up and leaves the room.
After Cas is gone, Sam lets out a breath he didn't even know he'd been holding. It's a long, slow, exhalation that deflates him from head to toe. Then he presses his palms to his eyes and let his mind replay all his favorite memories of Jessica.
There's a lot of ground to cover, they had lived a lot in the short time they were together, and he pages through his thoughts of her, slowly and steadily.
He sees for the first time, standing in front of him in the "Holy Grounds" coffee shop, holding a stack of books and arguing with her friend about why the Oxford comma was necessary and should always be used.
He remembers their first date, how nervous he was getting ready and how instantly she put him at ease with her natural conversational skills and ability to talk to him about almost anything he could think of.
He remembers the first time they kissed, suddenly and intensely outside his dorm after that very same first date.
He remembers telling her he loved her for the first time as they walked down the beach together after dark. How she slipped her hand into his and fit her body into his side and whispered it back to him in her soft, high voice.
He remembers asking her to get an apartment with him, saying he knew they hadn't been together long but he was already feeling more for her than he'd ever felt for any girl he'd been with.
He sees little things too, like her making him breakfast in the morning before an early test; comforting him in the middle of the night when he had one of his horrible nightmares, the time they went to the pound and looked at strays and talked about the dog they were gonna get when they finally had a house someday.
He sees so many beautiful, painful moments that he'd blocked out over the years.
Only, for right now, they aren't painful, they're just beautiful, and for this little bit of time he feels like he's in heaven right beside her.
After awhile, he gets up, goes to his dresser drawer, and gets his Stanford shirt back out. He immediately changes into it, and when he lays back down it's a peaceful sleep that he falls into, an otherworldly peace that he hasn't known since Stanford, when a beautiful girl named Jessica slept by his side.
And for the first time since he lost her, Sam is ok.
~end.
Well, it's 2:45 am and I'm not sure about all the grammar in this but...oh well. I'm now going to drift into a sleep that I hope is at least halfway as peaceful as Sam's.
Thanks for reading!
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If you are a guest reviewer, (particularly if your name is Kathy:) and you've been reading and reviewing my fics faithfully, then I really have to say, thank you so so much! I wish I could reply to you all personally, but I guess this will have to do.