Recruitment: Epilogue

Dean didn't get better overnight. I wasn't a cure-all, nor had Sam, Cas, or myself ever expected me to be. I was another cog in the wheel; another weapon in the arsenal; another hand to pull him out of where he was and place him firmly back where he belonged.

It broke my heart, but it really didn't matter how much we cared about him, it mattered if we could get him to care about himself again. Sam had thought thay maybe, just maybe, the girl who had put some spark into his misery during his Mark of Cain ordeal could breathe some life into it now. And thankfully he was right, but it was agonizingly slow going.

Anyone who knows the Winchester brothers knows they are two of the most damaged human beings on Earth. How they'd managed to bounce back as many times as they had was beyond me, but I'd be damned if we were gonna let this be the time Dean decided to lock himself up and throw away the key. I didn't care what he'd done to get rid of that Mark, or how bad of a person he was perpetually convinced he was. I'd decided on that drive from Iowa to Kansas that whatever I came upon, I was going to try my best. Dark Dean, light Dean; we were going to try until he got better, or it became clear he never would. I hoped the latter wasn't an option.

After the initial shock of my being there, the initial intimacy and days spent in his room getting reacquainted, getting physical, and spending hours just talking with our fingers laced together and his Led Zeppelin records spinning in the background, he continued to refuse to leave the bunker. Or even touch a weapon or think about a hunt. This wasn't the Dean I knew; it wasn't the Dean ANY of us knew.

I finally sat him down for the hard talk. "Dean, you need to stop being a pussy." I sat across from him at the table one day. Sam had gone into town and Dean had refused to go.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Stop… Being… A… Pussy." I looked directly at him. "I get it. You went through some shit. But going with your brother to the grocery store isn't an amazing feat. It's life. You have to do it. You have to get out."

He continued to just look at me.

"I came here for you, Dean. To lend you the support you need. But I don't know how to do that. I'm supposed to be out kicking asses, and frankly, so are you. So you need to get your shit together. And if baby steps are what it takes, thats fine, but you at least have to take those steps. Sam didn't have me come here to become stagnant with you. I came here to move you along with me."

Dean was lost in thought for a long time. His eyes had glazed over, not in violence as before with the Mark, but with despair. "I don't need you all feeling sorry for me." he got up and traipsed back to his room. "And by the way, I'm fine, princess. Everything is fine." I knew he didn't believe that. None of us believed that. I heard the door to his room close. I sighed. I had tried, but he had to do this for himself.

Eventually little bits and pieces of the old Dean started shining through. He had immediately began sleeping better as soon as I arrived, and drinking less soon followed. Although I initially didn't think that our talk had worked, and I was nearing the point of giving up, he soon started to snap out of it. It was a slow crawl, as depression and self-loathing often is. But he started joking more. He began participating in research to help Sam with small cases around the state. He began razzing Castiel about things again. Then one day, out of the blue, he suggested we take a drive in his car. He hadn't been out since the whole deal went down.

He slid behind the wheel, ran his hands over the dash, turned the knobs on the radio, and licked his lips. He turned to me. "Where should we go?"

"Wanna go hunt something?" I asked hopefully.

"No… Not quite yet." He turned the key. His eyes lit up at the engine roared to life. "I'm getting there, though."

"The Mark is gone, Dean. It's not coming back."

He nodded. "I'm getting that now." He sighed, but gave me a weak smile. I noticed the smile actually reached his eyes this time. "I just need a little more time."

I nodded. "We've got your back." I put my hand on his arm. "I know you need to do this at your own pace."

He gave me a devilish grin, leaned over and kissed me. "Let's go howl at the moon."

He was back.

Carry on my wayward son…