Author's Note: Takes place during "Mystery Spot"
Wednesday. That was Sam Winchesters new favorite day of the week. After suffering over 100 Tuesdays in which his brother died in a multitude of ways, any Wednesday was a welcome blessing.
Dean hadn't asked for much by way of an explanation to his brother's weird behavior. He was still in favor of going after the trickster and taking him out. How the trickster got away in the first place was still a mystery, he had staked the annoying, self serving, sugar loving bastard. One thing Dean prided himself on was being a good shot, and he had nailed that son of a bitch close up, felt the stake go through his heart, saw the light fade from his eyes. Damn thing was irritating and he more than anything wanted to put that idiot in his place. Sam, however, didn't agree. He was more than adamant about leaving the trickster alone and getting the hell out of doge. So here he was getting his things ready to leave this town as fast as the Impala could take them.
"Dean, help me get my computer stuff to the car?" Hannah asked. He nodded and took the bag that housed her printer scanner combination and she followed him out the door.
"I really think we should take out the trickster." Dean said venting his frustrations.
"Sammy said that the trickster made him live over a hundred Tuesdays. Maybe something really crappy happened and he made a deal with the thing."
"What kind of deal could he make with a trickster? It's not like he's a crossroads demon." Dean said as they reached the car.
"No. But maybe the trickster was making him live through something unlivable."
"What could possibly be so unlivable that Sam wouldn't want to go after the thing?" Dean asked as he opened the trunk.
"Can you imagine having to live through the moment Sammy died 100 times? God knows I couldn't." Dean paused as he lifted the printer bag into the trunk. She had a point. He would have done anything, did do anything, to not have to live through that horror. He sold his soul so he wouldn't have to live with his brother's death. So it would make sense that Sammy would make a deal to leave the trickster alone to let his brother live unharmed. Maybe it had nothing to do with him at all. What if the trickster took Hannah away? Maybe both of them had bargained for their sister's life. Dean decided he would definitely force the issue with Sammy when they had this particular town in their rear view mirror.
"Give me that computer!" A voice from behind demanded. Hannah and Dean both turned around, and Dean pushed Hannah behind him.
"Let's stay calm and talk about his."
"I am calm." The guy said with shaking hands.
"Just give it to him Dean." Hannah whispered. "It's not worth our lives." Dean slid and eye towards his sister and nodded.
"I'm just going to slide the strap off of her shoulder. That's all." He said with his hands up in the surrender position. The guy, still shaking, gave a small nod and Dean reached behind and slowly slid the strap of the computer case over her shoulder. He slowly walked towards the guy with the shaking gun and reached his arm out to hand the computer over and the guy fired, and luckily it caught Dean straight in the chest, Hannah screamed and the guy in a panic shot at her too and caught her straight in the forehead. Dean fell on the cold wet pavement and blood spattered all over the ground beneath him. Hannah's brains splattered all over the inside of the Impala and she slumped over her big brother.
Sam came running down the steps and found his siblings dead on the ground. In all of the Tuesdays he had had, none of them ended with Hannah dying as well. He scooped his brother up in his arms and then grabbed Hannah and tried to pull her into his lap as well. There they were, the two last people that knew him and loved him, one bleeding from the heart, the heart that had loved him unconditionally from birth, and the other's brains splattered all over the car in which she had grown up. Her intelligence and memories lost. There was no one left to remember. No one else left to love.
Sam closed his eyes hoping and praying that this was just one more crewel chapter in the trickster's game. He opened his eyes and his family was still dead weight in his arms. Leaning over he kissed Hannah's cheek and he held Dean closer to his chest. Tears flowed and sobbing ensued.
Someone called the paramedics, Sam assumed because he heard the wailing of the sirens and then he heard low forceful voices pushing at the crowd.
"Sir?" the wearing blue, obviously a paramedic, asked. Sam barely looked up at him. The world had no color now. The world was like a television show on mute. "Sir?" the man repeated again and touched Sam's shoulder. The contact seemed to burn. Sam looked down at the fingers on his shoulder and realized that they belonged the man in front of him.
"Huh?" was the most intelligent thing that passed Sam's lips.
"What happened?" Sam didn't exactly understand what he was saying. Comprehension of speech and sound was beyond him at the second. "Sir, who are these people? Are they your family?" At the word family the sobbing began again.
"…brother…..sister."
Relieved and encouraged that he was able to get something out of the obviously distraught young man, he tried again. "What happened?" Sam shook his head. He didn't know. He hadn't been here. He had heard a shot, but other than that he didn't know anything. All Sam knew was that he had failed his big brother. He had failed his sister. He had failed. He had allowed the two people who had protected him and loved him with everything they had to die a senseless death. The trickster had allowed this to happen. The trickster was responsible.
Sam died a little bit that day. The paramedics took his family in the back of the ambulance, the sirens not needed for the dead. The dead weren't in a hurry. Sam managed to get them released and he buried both his brother and his sister. He died a little bit more that day. He cleaned the Impala, cleaned his sister's brains from the back of it, and he died a little bit more. He sat in the driver's seat, and all that was left of Sam Winchester vanished. The person who had been his heart was gone and the person who had been the voice of reason for so many years was gone as well, and with out them Sam was incomplete and dead inside. All that mattered now was finding the trickster and begging for him to restore his siblings and if he wouldn't comply, he'd just shoot the bastard.
Three months passed. Sam became the soldier that his father always wanted. He did everything with military precision, from making the bed to eating dinner. He had given up speaking; he had given up that piece of him that was soft and loving. He had given up everything that was Sammy.
When he finally came face to face with the trickster, he buckled, he begged and pleaded to be returned to that day, the day in which he had both his brother and sister alive and with him. The trickster mumbled something about a lesson learned, Sam could give a rat's ass about a lesson, he just wanted his brother and sister back, he wanted this hole in him that the darkness had filled to be closed and the darkness expelled. Dean and Hannah alive and well would do that. Their presence would be the exorcism ritual needed to expel the darkness from his soul. Dean's wise cracks and Hannah's silent listening and smiling. Dean's way of making everything seem all right when he knew full well that nothing would ever be all right again. The man who had raised him and the sister who had listened to him and understood, if they were back with him again, everything would be fine.
He awoke to the sounds of Huey Lewis and the News' "Back in Time" and found Dean standing there brushing his teeth. Dean made a comment he didn't hear and ran to his brother and hugged him. There was a knock on the door and then it opened.
"You guys decent?" came Hannah's voice. Sam reached for her and encompassed her in a hug as well. Hers was a little more crushing than Dean's because Hannah only came to the middle of Sam's torso.
"Sammy…can't…breathe…" Sam let her go. She gave Dean a look and he shrugged. Sam felt that hole in his stomach. He felt the darkness. It was being held back. It was caged once more, but this time it wasn't going to stay caged, it had grown way too much in the time that his family had been gone. He had been wrong; his siblings couldn't exorcise the darkness in him—it was there to stay.