Please Don't Stand There and Watch Me Fall

A/N: Just a couple of quick things:

1. This is the final chapter of this story, and I want to thank everyone who's been keeping up with my alternate version of Sam and Dean. Whether you reviewed, added it to a favorites list, or just kept checking back in to take the journey with the boys, I appreciate it. It's been a long time since I enjoyed writing something this much, and to know that people are checking it out means a lot to me.

2. The title of the story comes from a P!nk song called 'I Don't Believe You.' The entire 'Funhouse' album was kind of the inspiration, or at least the driving force, behind this story, but that song in particular - with lines like, 'It's like you're the swing set, and I'm the kid that falls' and 'I won't believe you when you say you don't need me anymore' - screamed the theme of the story to me, from both brothers' perspectives. Each of the characters in this story - Dean, Sam, Jess, Nikka, and Simon - have their own theme songs from that album. So if you have it, you're super bored, and you wanna try to figure out who goes with what song, give it a go. Hours of fun for the whole family, I tell ya.

Anyway - that's it for me, and again, thanks for reading. I'm working on a truly AU story right now that will probably never see the light of day, but I've got another idea brewing and that one might just get posted. We'll see. For now, enjoy the conclusion of Please Don't Stand There and Watch Me Fall.

The both knew the lack of flashing lights in front of Sam's apartment complex didn't really mean anything. Cops could have already been there, for all they knew.

Forcing down the possibility that maybe he was too late, Sam fished for a way to convince his girlfriend to leave their home on a whim. Jess was going to be pissed at him for so many things, but he didn't really care. He didn't have time to apologize for all of them tonight. But by the time they settled into that cabin in Colorado, he would think of some way to make amends. Just like he always did.

He would have to come up with a way to tell Dean that he wasn't just leaving his girl in Colorado, too. That there was no way he was getting back into the damned hunt that had driven him away in the first place. This whole escape route was a means to an end, but he really didn't fucking care if he ever picked up another shot gun or an EMF meter as long as he lived. He could convince Dean that he'd give the whole 'clean and sober' thing a run, but he wasn't about to traipse around the country again. He just couldn't. If this entire night had taught him anything, it was that he didn't want to live without Jessica. And he wasn't going to, even for Dean.

When his brother killed the engine, Sam shot a look across the seat. "Stay here, okay?" he requested.

Dean's eyebrow shot up. Stay there? Was Sam crazy? If he honestly thought that Dean was letting him out of his sight again, ever, he was delusional. "Dude, I can be very convincing when I wanna be," he reminded, as though his intention was to help his brother get Jess into the car.

In reality, Dean kind of hoped that Sam failed in talking Jessica into leaving with them. It would be a hell of a lot easier than trying to explain to her why she had to live in some secluded cabin while they ran off to find their father. He'd known from talking to her the night before that Jessica wasn't stupid. She hadn't gotten into Stanford by accident, after all. She was going to know something was up, and she wasn't going to just stay put because Sam asked her trust him.

"Nikka has eyes and ears everywhere, Dean," Sam sighed, his eyes darting around the parking lot for signs of a vehicle he recognized. "Probably has a few of 'em watchin' the place, in case I tip Jess off," he added. "Just keep the engine running, and if I'm not back in ten," he shook his shaggy locks, "or fifteen, bring Bree," he nodded toward the pearl-handled gun Dean had affectionately named after a girl he'd been 'dating' when Dad gave it to him back in eleventh grade.

Dean stared through the windshield as Sam loped through the parking lot. The ease with which he stopped at the door and shook hands with a couple of the shifty characters Dean had seen on his first visit bothered him somehow, but he tried to push it down. It didn't matter anymore. Sam was coming with him. His brother was leaving California, of his own choosing, and hitting the road with him once again.

Granted, the circumstances weren't the best. It wasn't like Sam wanted to get clean, or really wanted to help him find Dad. Hell, for all Dean knew, Sam had no intention of even helping him at all. But he couldn't worry about that for now. Dad had taught him at a young age that he could only attack one scary hell bitch at a time, and the first was getting Sam across the state line. He'd worry about the next one when he saw the mountains of Colorado.

Sam shook hands with the guys at the door one last time and disappeared into the building. Listening for the tell-tale signs of anything slightly off in the upstairs apartment, he approached his home and opened the door with his shoulder. He was fairly certain that she wouldn't just take off for the Delta party on her own - she hated the Deltas more than any other group on campus. The fact that she'd ever agreed to hit that party with him in the first place was a miracle in itself.

"Jess!" he called out, fighting to keep his voice even. He didn't want to scare her until it was absolutely necessary. And he was pretty sure that she wouldn't believe him if he looked freaked out, or remotely paranoid. "You home?" He had to be relaxed or she would assume that he was just high again. "JESSICA!"

The apartment wasn't that big, and when Sam couldn't find his girlfriend in the living room or the bathroom, he felt his heart beat just a little bit faster. Stepping into the bedroom, he found the bed made and undisturbed. There was no note on the pillow, telling him that she had to run out for something and that she'd be right back. Or even telling him that she was pissed as all hell that he'd disappeared for more than seven hours and that she never wanted to speak to him again. She just wasn't there.

Shit. Jessica didn't leave a room without turning out a light, let alone leave the apartment with all of them burning brightly. The fear that Nikka had already made her move slammed into his chest again as he crumpled to the bed and wiped his hands over his face. Reaching into his pocket to withdraw his cell phone, he laid back on the bed and whispered a silent prayer that she had just gone on a cigarette run or something.

But as he pressed the speed dial and lifted the phone to his ear, his eyes drifted toward the ceiling, causing everything else in the entire world to stop cold.

Like the dreams he'd been having for weeks, Jessica was staring back at him, her face a mask of terror and confusion. Drops of scarlet blood dripped from the gaping wound in her stomach onto Sam's forehead, and before he could even open his mouth to scream, a brilliant flame rippled behind the waves of her golden curls, quickly swelling around her petite body and engulfing it in easy swallow.

The deafening roar of ignition sounded around him, and the heat licked at Sam's skin, but he couldn't drag his eyes from the charring body. Just like his dreams. Just like his mom. RUN! The word screamed through his skull, but Sam couldn't respond. Or he just didn't want to.

Maybe he deserved this. After everything he'd done, every fucked up decision he'd made. After everything he'd done to push it all away. After everything he'd said to her in the face of her unwavering commitment and unconditional love. She sure as hell deserved to have him stick by her side now, as she had his for so long. He owed her that much.

Before he could surrender to the flames, Sam heard the front door being kicked open. It wasn't humanly possible for Dean to move through the apartment as quickly as he did, but he reached his brother before Sam even had time to realize he was no longer alone amidst the fire. Someone was screaming 'no' from somewhere far away, but Sam didn't realize until he'd been dragged into the hallway that the someone was him.

Dean had been intent on waiting for his brother and watching the door for the quick escape. But when he'd seen Sam cross in front of the living room window, his shoulders tense, he knew that he couldn't just sit by. When had Sammy ever known that he needed his big brother's help, after all? He'd talked one of the guys out front into letting him in and bounded up the stairs, words already in mind for charming Jess into the back of the car.

Instead, he'd heard the sound that had haunted his dreams for the last twenty-two years. The 'whoosh' that indicated the sweep of a blazing inferno. The sight of Jessica burning on the ceiling nearly made him throw up, but he couldn't stay to watch it. Just like he hadn't been able to watch Mom burn that night back in Lawrence. Dad's voice sounded in his ears once again, just like they had back then.

Take your brother outside as fast as you can. Don't look back. Now, Dean. Go!

Sam wasn't as light as he'd been at six months, and running down the stairs with his enormous little brother in his arms had caused more than one stumble and near fall, but when he'd managed to dump Sam against the hood of the Impala, he hugged his brother's sagging form to his body and stroked his hair. It all felt far too much like a horrible rerun as he whispered, "It's okay, Sammy," against the skin of his baby brother's temple.

But unlike that night, Sam jerked upright and punched Dean in the jaw. It was a reflex, but Sam didn't want to be coddled. Nothing was okay. Nothing would ever be okay again.

He grabbed the keys from Dean's pocket and made his way to the back of the car, flinching when the flames from his apartment began shooting out of the windows, spreading throughout the top floor of the entire building. There weren't a lot of savory characters that lived around him, but not one of them deserved the hell that Sam Winchester had brought upon them. In fact, the way he saw it, he was the only one that truly deserved to burn in that fire, and he was the only one who'd been dragged out like he was worth saving.

Reaching for the shotgun in the trunk, he allowed himself to remember the sight of Jessica, a thousand times more terrifying than any of the dreams he'd been having as of late. He allowed himself to take a deep breath and, though he coughed slightly around the smoke in his lungs, he let himself smell the burning flesh of the woman he loved.

For the first time in months, he didn't consider popping a sedative, or shooting a narcotic, or snorting powdered anything. He was an addict, a junkie, and his need for a fix wasn't just going to go away. But he was also a hunter, and a Winchester. And that meant that his hunger for the rage, hatred, and vengeance of whatever bastard dared to take his mother and the woman he loved from him could be easily quenched. And until it was, he could blow the hell out of a hundred other ugly things in lieu his personal demons.

Dean waited at the front of the car for a moment, massaging the dull ache in his cheek, before moving to Sam's side at the trunk of the car. The set of his jaw, and the deliberate way in which he loaded the shotgun in his hands, was a little scarier than any look Dean had seen since he'd found his little brother. Sam was ready to explode, maybe literally, definitely more so than he had been in years. Worse, Dean's eyes grew wide as he realized, than he'd ever even seen their father.

But before he could open his mouth to speak, Sam tossed the gun into the trunk and turned cold, bitter eyes toward Dean, speaking in a low, smoke-garbled tone that seemed to cut clean through the wails of sirens and screams of residence fleeing their ashen homes.

"We've got work to do."