They left Andrea and Lucas waving in their rearview mirror. Dean never looked back, never waved, he just kept his eyes forward and drove. Sam watched his brother, and realized that the man who was sitting next to him was not the same man who he had left four years ago. This hunt had proven it to Sam. It had proven that there was more to his brother than cocky self assuredness, snark, and charm. There was a real person under the persona, the leather and the shine of the car.
"Where are we going?" Sam asked. Dean shrugged. "We just driving aimlessly?" he asked. Dean shrugged again. "Are you going to answer me?"
"When I have an answer I'll give you one."
"Dean." Sam said in a huff. Dean simply turned the music louder and pressed a little harder on the accelerator. This was the Dean he remembered from four years ago, stubborn and unwilling to listen to anyone and most certainly not open to speaking about his feelings no matter what the cost.
But he had opened up to Lucas. Sam was there. Sam saw it. Sam heard it. All of it. How could his brother be so willing to open up to a complete stranger but so completely adverse to even the idea of talking to him, his brother, about something as simple as how he feels about the weather.
Watching Dean with Lucas, startled Sam, made him wonder what his brother could have been if it hadn't been for their drill sergeant father and hunting. Was there even a chance somewhere buried deep inside his fearless older brother that he wanted to be a father, wanted to come home every single day from work to a wife and kids? Could that even be possible?
Was there something Dean would rather do? Sam always assumed that Dean's life was complete with hunting. Then when he said the other week that what made their life worth the trouble was saving innocent lives, Sam had been convinced that there was nothing in the world that Dean Winchester would rather do than hunt. But when he knelt down in front of Lucas and told him about how he was brave for his mom, and how he still thought about it, really shook something deep inside of Sam. The way his brother clutched Lucas to his chest when he broke the surface of the water was closer to a way a father would hold a child rather than a man rescuing a child he barely knew. Dean had performed CPR and Sam had called the squad and when Lucas started breathing and calling for his mother, Dean finally fell back and allowed Andrea to have her son back, and if Sam hadn't been watching him he would have missed the look of sadness that flicked through his brother's eyes, would have missed the longing that tensed his muscles.
Sam turned to the elder hunter when he realized they were slowing down. "What are you doing?"
"I thought we'd pull over and have at those sandwiches the kid made for us. I'm hungry."
"Me too." Sam lied. They pulled into a park and parked in the shade of a big tree. Sam reached behind them and grabbed the plate of sandwiches and fruit and followed his brother to a picnic table. The two men sat and Dean pulled back the plastic wrap from the food, and each took a sandwich. Dean laughed as he got jelly all over his hands.
"I haven't had this messy of a sandwich since you made me that one for my birthday when you were seven or eight. I wore more of it than I actually ate."
"I don't remember that." Sam said and took a bite out of the banana.
"You don't? Well you were so proud of yourself. I couldn't not eat it. But man it was nasty. It was peanut butter, jelly, and something crunchy. First I thought it was the peanut butter, but I looked." Dean started to laugh. "But dude, I still don't know what it was but it wasn't the nuts." Sam laughed.
"You ate it anyway?"
"Of course. That was my birthday gift. It was a great one too."
"Even though it tasted bad?"
"Yeah." Dean took another bite. "There is just something about having something made specifically for you that makes even the worst tasting thing taste good." Sam looked at the sandwich in his hand and was reminded of all of the meals that Jessica had prepared for him and he had to admit his brother was right. He looked up and watched his brother chow down, and thought about that memory he had shared. His mind kept wandering back to the time Dean had spent with Lucas, and Sam decided that it was now or never, because Dean in a sharing mood didn't come often.
"You ever want kids of your own?" Dean shrugged.
"I would never put a kid in the kind of danger that we face all of the time."
"That didn't answer my question."
"Sam, you're the one who wants the whole white picket fence thing. That isn't my gig."
"The way you and Lucas…"
"It's no big deal."
"Dean…."
"Sam, there is no point in wishing for something you can't have. So drop it. Come on. Let's hit the next city and get a newspaper and see if we can find anything." Dean shoved the last bite of the sandwich in his mouth and threw the empty paper plate and plastic wrap in the nearest trash can and headed to the Impala. Sam sighed. Maybe Dean wouldn't wish for things for himself, but that wouldn't stop Sam from wishing for his brother.