A/N: I am very sleep deprived whilst writing this so sorry if it doesn't make sense. Hope you enjoy anyway!

Sam's not the praying type. Not anymore, anyway. It's been so long since he prayed that he's forgotten when he stopped, when he lost that faith that had kept him going in the days after Jess, after Dad. He's forgotten how to pray, too. Every time he's tried, the words just stuck in his throat, because now he knows that no one's listening, and no one cares.

But, whilst prayer might have become foreign to him, Sam does understand love, and he understands how terrible it can be to have the thing you care for above all others taken away from you. To only have a sliver of hope for getting it back, or to have none at all.

He's looked up to Dean, loved him, since they were children, too young to truly understand the things their father hunted. Sometimes, that love was the only thing Sam could claim to have; when everything else was gone, he always had Dean.

And then Dean died and Sam lost him, too. Sam tried to get him back; after the Mystery Spot, he tried, and after the hellhounds, Metatron, the Mark, he tried, always trying (never succeeding).

(He tried until he couldn't, until Dean disappeared in a black explosion and he didn't want to try anymore)

(Sam learnt to try again, after that)

Dean always comes back, eventually, although it's a rare occasion indeed when it's Sam's trying that gets him back. Not that that really matters. It's enough, Sam thinks, to have him back. He doesn't need to be the one who did it, as long as Dean's back.

He loved Jessica, too, more than he's loved anyone in that way. She was kind, and sweet, and funny, and so, so beautiful. Even as she died, she seemed just as beautiful as the day they'd met - more, even - although he cannot be sure that that is not just his imagination idealising her now she's gone. Jess was someone that Sam had never thought he'd be able to have, because, even without Dad and Dean, he hadn't imagined that someone as golden as her would want him too.

He'd loved her so much (too much), and her death broke something inside of him, pushed him to do things he'd later almost hate Dean for doing. When dreams about her drove him to sleepless nights, he'd take himself to the nearest crossroads, and he'd beg for her to be brought back. He didn't even care if she'd hate him for lying to her, for getting her killed - just knowing that she was alive would be enough.

None of them would deal though. They'd tell him that he was protected, that any demon who made a deal with Sam Winchester wouldn't live to close it. Sam kept trying, night after night, until Dean caught him, and threatened to handcuff him to the bed and knock him out unless he stopped whatever was going on.

(Sam remembers how desperate Dean had sounded that night.

"It'll kill you, Sammy," he'd said, and Sam had wanted to scream back that he didn't care, that maybe that's what he wanted.)

(He didn't, though, and he did stop trying after that night.)

(Or perhaps he started trying, for Dean, and for himself. That's what he'll have Dean think, anyway.)

There are others too, too many others, whom Sam has loved, and lost. Dad, Bobby, Madison, Eileen, Cas; on and on the list goes. Sam tried to save them (not hard enough) but they all went, slipping through his fingers like sand.

No more, his brain wants to scream. No more.

But Sam learnt a long time ago that it is not he who chooses whether the people he loves live or die. He cannot control his losses, but he can try to help others control theirs.

"What would you do?" the priest asks.

"Try to get it back," Sam replies.

And, this time, he will.

A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading! Please leave a review if you have a moment!