I came to a stop outside of the motel room, my fingertips lingering for a moment on the door handle. I didn't want to step inside the room, I didn't want to face my brother or my father, to have to tell them what had happened in there just a few hours earlier. I didn't think that I had it in myself to do that. It was too much to handle, way too much.

It felt as though my entire world had come crashing down around me, like everything that I had known had suddenly been ripped out from beneath me and flipped upside down. I didn't know what to do, I was just lost. I didn't even know where I could start. A part of me wanted to stand outside in the cold because I didn't think that I could face my brother at that point. I couldn't handle seeing the broken look I knew I was about to see when I had to break the horrid news of what had happened. Sam would want answers, he'd want to know what had happened, and I was going to have to explain it. I was going to have to describe what I had seen when I had walked into that motel room, and I still wasn't able to comprehend it myself.

I would have to tell him how I had walked in there expecting to find nothing but my sister sitting there, probably reading a book or listening to music through her headphones, the usual. But it hadn't worked out like that, things had been different this time.

Five Hours Earlier

I opened the door to the motel room and tossed the key down to the table at the side of the room. I looked around slowly, expecting that my sister would be there. Dad was on a hunt, I knew that, and Sam was at the library, but Holly was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't like her to just walk out without telling one of us that she was leaving. My eyes fell to the table where her phone was lying, untouched. That brought a frown to my face, because that really wasn't like her.

"Holly?" I called out, giving another quick scan of the room. "You here, kid?"

There was no answer from within the room, and that's when my eyes fell to the bathroom door. A small groan escaped me as I crossed the room, I wasn't in the mood to take another fight with her and her teenage attitude. I knocked, almost impatiently, on the door with the side of my fist. "Holly? You in there?" I called through the wood. "If you don't answer me then I'm coming in." I waited a few more seconds without hearing an answer and tried the handle, finding that it had been locked from the other side. "Holly?" I tugged at it harder. "I swear to god, I'll kick it down!"

I didn't know what it was, but somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice told me that something was wrong. Why else would someone be locked in the bathroom and refuse to answer when their name was called. I felt a little sick.

With that thought in mind, I shouldered the thin door open and barged into the bathroom. The scene before me was something that I could never have prepared myself for, it physically knocked the air right out of my lungs, I felt as though I really could be sick. Holly lay in the middle of the small room, her eyes closed and lips slightly parted. I noticed a few pills lying beside her left hand, rested next to an empty bottle. It sent a feeling of dread straight to the pit of my stomach. There was blood in the sink and splattered over the white tiled floor, dripping into a small pool beside my sister's bleeding wrists.

"Holly," I whispered, darting into the room I dropped to my knees beside her. "Holly?!" I yelled, grabbing her face between my hands, but her skin was cold to touch, in a way that told me deep down inside what had happened there. But I couldn't believe that. "Holly? Please, open your eyes for me. Please." Tears built up in my eyes as I shook her motionless body, practically begging her to wake up. "Please, baby, I can't do this without you, please." I pleaded with her. "Wake up, sis. Come on, I need you."

My head dropped slightly as the tears finally split over and fell down my cheeks. She wasn't waking up, she was never going to open those bright green eyes again. I wasn't ever going to see her smile or hear her laugh again. I was never going to have my baby sister by my side. She was really gone.

"Holly," my voice cracked as I tried to talk to her, as if I could in some way will her back to me. "Holly, please. Don't do this." I took a hold of one of her hands, closing my eyes in a small grimace at the feeling of the blood at my fingertips. "Why would you do this?" I whispered, completely at a loss. "What happened to you?"

I fell back to sit on the floor, not able to do anything but stare down at her in horror. She was dead. My only sister, the kid I had always promised to protect from anything, she had taken her own life, and this time I really could be sick. I lunged forwards just in time to hit the toilet and throw up the contents of my stomach into the bowl.

There was nothing that I could do, it was clear what she had done to herself. I didn't know what else I could make of it. My little sister was dead. It hadn't been anything supernatural, it hadn't been the kind of evil that had taken our mom. This had been all her. She had ended her own life and I didn't understand why, I hadn't even had an idea that she would try something like that. I couldn't take it in.

But then my eyes fell to the book lying open beside the sink. I recognised her writing immediately, hesitating in reaching for it. Maybe it had the answers to what had happened, maybe I could make some sense of what was going on, because right there I was so confused. But I couldn't, I couldn't bring myself to read it, because I couldn't tear my eyes away from her pale face. I had never realised it before, but she didn't look the way that she used to. There wasn't the same glow in her skin that had once been there, she was thinner, much thinner, she looked weak, tired. There were deep circles beneath her eyes, much more than a few days lost sleep. I had to wonder how long she had been in so much pain without letting on.

Slowly, I moved towards her and took her into my arms, holding her close to me. I pulled her into my lap and wrapped my arms around her, resting my forehead to the top of hers as the tears once again broke out from me. I couldn't hold back the sobs, I couldn't keep it inside.

"I'm so sorry, Holly." I whispered to her, knowing that there was no way she could hear me. "I'm so, so sorry."

I was broken. And, something I hadn't even realised, she had been, too. And I hadn't lifted a finger to make it better.

Present

Convinced that I couldn't hide outside of the motel room forever, knowing that it wasn't fair to Sam, who was probably pacing the floor wondering where me and Holly had gone, I turned the door handle. I took a short breath and pushed open the door slowly, no matter how much I didn't want to, I had to tell them, because they deserved to know. I wanted to turn and leave the second that I had stepped inside, unsure that I had it in me to do it, but before I could even get a straight thought out, Sam came out of his bedroom. There was an urgency on his face, as though he was already scanning me from answers.

"Dean." he looked me up and down slowly as he approached, as though he could tell that there was something wrong. "There you are, where the hell have you been all night?" he asked, watching as I pulled off my jacket slowly and dropped it over the back of a chair. "Dad's out looking for you. He's really pissed."

But the words didn't even register with me, in fact, I think that Sam could tell I hadn't heard a word since I had walked through the door. I was completely vacant to everything, refusing to allow myself to feel anything anymore, it was the only way that I could get through this. I knew he would be able to tell that I'd been crying, but my mind was anywhere but what Sam was saying to me.

"Sammy," I swallowed hard, trying to compose myself enough to tell him, but Sam noticed. A deeper frown pushed itself to his features, showing the concern and worry in his young face. "I need you to sit down."

That only seemed to confuse Sam further, as if it had been the last thing he had expected to hear. "What's going on?" he pressed warily, but my expression didn't change at all. I was now working hard to keep myself stoic, letting nothing slip through the tough stance that I had put up.

"Sammy, please," my voice softened a little, almost pleading with him to do what I said, I had no energy or will left in me to argue. "Just do what I'm telling you."

Sam nodded and slowly moved to sit down on the couch, his eyes never leaving me as he did. I knew he could tell that something was going on, I was wrecked, both physically and emotionally. Sam could aways read the pain in my eyes, there was a loss in them that was never going away. How was I supposed to hide the fact that I had just completely broken down and shattered apart on the inside.

I took a short breath, as if it could in some way prepare me for the news that I was about to give, and moved to sit down on the edge of the table in front of the couch, directly facing my brother. "Sammy," I paused, there wasn't an easy way to say something like that, there was no way to make it easier, I just had to come out and tell him. "Sammy, it's Holly."

Sam's face immediately dropped, a look of fear now lacing his features. "What about her?" he asked, he looked almost unsure that he wanted to know what had happened, because the look on my face obviously promised that it wasn't going to be anything good. There were only so many things that could make me look the way I knew I did there, and Sam knew something had seriously broken in me.

"Sam, she's gone." I whispered, my voice cracked a little at the words. "She's dead."

Hazel eyes went wide, as thought I had just slapped him around the face. It didn't feel real. I just looked at him, unable to even comprehend myself what I was telling him. The girl that he and I had adored our whole lives, who we had trusted with everything, the girl who had looked up to us and would have done anything for us, the same way we would have with her, she was gone. And she was never coming back. It was something neither of us could quite process.

Sam opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, unable to get a straight thought out. I reached out and rested a hand to my brother's shoulder in a firm grip, as if it was some kind of a reminder that I was still with him, that he wasn't shouldering the pain alone. That even though she was gone, I was still there. He shook his head slowly, refusing to accept it. "No, no way." he mumbled, shaking his head a little more forcefully, his voice unsteady. "What happened?"

I wet my lips and took a small breath. "She killed herself, Sammy." I answered, my voice little more than a broken whisper.

If it were possible, the pain in Sam's eyes intensified, he looked as if he could break down and cry right there. His eyes shone with unshed tears, there was a wavering in his bottom lip as he fought to remain strong, but it was an act that the I could see right through. But Sam refused to take the comfort, because that was like admitting that it had really happened. He pushed himself up from the couch and turned his back to me, he couldn't face me, I understood that. He couldn't look at the sheer devastation in my eyes any longer. It just made it all seem more real.

There was nothing I could say to him, there was nothing I could even think to say, there weren't words. I took a step forwards and pulled my younger brother around to face me, fixing my eyes on the hazel ones before me. They mirrored the broken and shattered look in my own green ones, and suddenly we didn't need words. I pulled my brother towards me and wrapped my arms around his shoulders tightly, holding him against me. Sam's arms slowly raised to grip the back of my shirt as his forehead dropped down to my shoulder. Each of us shook slightly as the small sobs escaped, silent and devastated, but as hidden as well as they could be in our attempt at staying strong in the face of pain.

"Come on," I held him a little stronger, letting out a deep, shaky breath. "I've got you little brother," I whispered, needing to get through to him that he still had someone. "I've got you."

And I knew, right there, that was what I should have been doing with Holly. I should have been there when Holly was that broken. I should have been there to hold her while she cried, I should have been there to make it better and tell her that, no matter what, everything was going to be alright. But it was too late for that. I couldn't go back, I couldn't fix it, and all of that was on me.

Sam pushed himself back from me and pulled a hand down his face, wiping the tears from his cheeks that had escaped through his walls. "Why would she do something like that, Dean?" he asked, his voice small. There was no strength at all left in him. "How could she do that?" The way that he asked, it almost reminded me of when he had been a child.

I shook my head, I still didn't understand. I thought about showing him her journal to let him read the same thing I had read over and over again, but that had only made me feel worse. It had left me confused and without answers, knowing how much pain she had truly been in over the past few months. And a part of that had made it seem even more horrific, because she hadn't deserved any of it. I didn't want to put Sam through that, I couldn't, not yet. He had too much to take in already, without knowing the details.

"I don't know, Sammy." I replied softly. "I don't know."

Because, truthfully, I didn't. I still didn't understand it. I didn't think that I ever could understand what she had done to herself. I wasn't sure that I really wanted to understand the true amount of pain that she was in, I didn't think that I could take it.

Sam dropped down on the couch again and heaved a sigh, holding his head in his hands. I slowly moved to sit beside him and rested an arm around his shoulders, giving him a small squeeze. Sam hesitated for a moment, his body stiff. I knew my brother, and there was something in him that just wanted to be alone, not to have to talk to anyone, not to have to think or feel anything, but there was a bigger part that needed someone; needed me.

It hurt too much for either of us to try and talk about it, we didn't really want to. There wasn't much that we could say, nothing was going to bring her back, nothing was going to make it okay again, nothing was going to give us the answers we so desperately craved, because they were lost with her.

Within a couple of minutes, the initial shock seemed to fade away from Sam. He gradually moved so that his face was buried in my shoulder, while my other arm moved around him. I rested my cheek to the top of Sam's head, holding him a little tighter. I could feel his body shaking slightly as the tears slowly soaked through my t-shirt. I could see how hard he was trying to keep it all inside and hide it away, but it was no use. There was no hiding the true amount of pain that either of us felt.

I hadn't seen my brother cry in a long, long time. Not for years. But even now, at the age of seventeen, Sam needed me, because I was all that he had left. It had always been the three of us, and in the past couple of years it had seemed more and more that she was drifting away, and neither of us had done anything to stop that, and that was something that was going to haunt both of us for a long time.

I know, right? Weird thing to update. But I've had a few reviews lately asking for a second chapter to this fic, which was initially going to be just a oneshot. But if that's what you guys want then that's what you get, I'm always happy to write you another chapter if you're liking it! I'm going to do another one or two for this, since it had been forever since I'd even looked at this story I've recently reread it before I could do the second chapter and it gave me more of an idea of what I could add to it. Hope you enjoyed this fic, thank you for reading! You guys are amazing, thanks so much for the support! :)