Chapter 19.
Dean had always loved his food and the home-cooked meal at the farmhouse was full of flavour and soothing to the soul. Throughout the meal, they talked about Sam, moving on from the pranks they had played on each other to the brilliant ideas Sam came up with and his gift for understanding people and knowing what to say.
At the back of his mind, Dean knew that every word he said was being remembered and analysed and he was aware that she would miss nothing that he let slip. His natural caution and unnatural paranoia urged him to say as little as possible, but somebody else was talking too, quietly but insistently and saying something surprising, "Trust her. Let her help you." and he knew that it was his own voice.
"You seem lost in thought." she said.
"Yeah." he said, not sure what else to say.
"Something I can help with?" she said.
"I feel like there's an argument going on in my head and I don't know which side I'm on." he said.
"It might help to talk it out."
"I don't think so. It's mostly about whether I should be talking at all." he said, "Sorry. I know that's not something you want me to say."
"It's good news, as far as I can see." she said.
"What do you mean?"
"At least now, there's an argument. For a long time, you were sure you shouldn't. You never see how much progress you're making, but I'm often impressed."
"It doesn't feel like progress." said Dean.
"Just telling me about it is major progress." she said.
"Maybe I'm just too tired to hide it." he said.
"Well, I can work with that too." she said with a smile.
"You'd do that, wouldn't you? You'd use my vulnerability against me?"
"I'd rather use your strength and courage. You're never vulnerable for long."
He sat in silence, looking around the cosy kitchen. It felt like the safest place on Earth at that moment, but also, paradoxically, the most dangerous.
Small flashes of memory came to him of the days before disaster, when he had gone to the kitchen to find his mother and tell her every thought in a stream of chatter, knowing she would listen to them all as if they were all that mattered.
She was back with him, still willing to listen, but he was often unwilling and unable to speak to her. He couldn't tell her everything anymore. There were things he could not say and things he would not and some of it was about protecting her and some was the terrible fear of showing her his weakness and his fear. He had once been able to ask for her help with both.
Sarah had experience with the darkness of others. He had no need to protect her from the dark thoughts in his head, the memories of unspeakable pain and shame and loss. She did not judge him and she would not and he could right now, in the warm, safe kitchen, tell her anything he needed to say. Yet he found himself afraid to speak.
She put her hand on his, on the right hand that had wielded a knife so skilfully in Hell, on the hand that had punched his brother so many times, so often with no better excuse than that he was afraid. He was surprised she didn't flinch from contact with his hand as his angel friend, who loved him, had flinched from the touch of his unclean thoughts.
"What is it, Dean?" she said, the question of a mother who had lost her own child and now adopted every lost and broken soul she could find. Her love was unconditional. She didn't just forgive his sins, she understood them and told him he had no reason to leave himself unforgiven. She looked at him and saw the man he had always wanted to be and all his father's anger and disappointment seemed, to her, his father's confusion, fear and regret and no fault of Dean's.
She would never be disappointed in him. He could speak freely and without fear, so why was he so afraid to say anything? Deeper than the fear of disappointing the others, there was something else.
Lurching from apocalypse to apocalypse, always on the edge of oblivion, pushing down all the crap he didn't have time to deal with, had a certain simplicity to it. Whether or not people bought the myth of the cold, confident Dean Winchester, who would face death with a wisecrack and a smile, holding up that mask worked well for him. Even Sam, who knew it was a mask, would waste time arguing with it and give him time to slink away from too much honesty, to cover his deeper wounds. The real Dean was still there, somewhere and only Dean could see how small and scared and hurt he really was.
Sarah brushed past all his masks as if they didn't exist. In all his protestations and excuses, she heard only, "Help me!" and she let him lie and bluster as much as he needed to, but then she would smile and translate his BS back to him with loving, brutal honesty.
From somewhere behind all the barricades and bravado, out of either immense courage or the complete failure of it, a voice most unlike his own said, "I'm afraid and the things I'm afraid of make no sense at all."
"What things?" she said.
"Well, for example, that you may actually be able to help me and I ... Well, like I said, it makes no sense."
"You may have to engage with life again?"
"Yeah." he admitted, "And I'm not sure I ever really did."
"You did. You still do. At Castiel's party, for a time, you were truly yourself and truly alive. Fear is natural. If you weren't a little afraid, it would mean you are detached from reality."
"I'm a lot afraid. What does that mean?"
"That you're aware of what needs to be done and the way it will change your life. Remember, I gave up for seven years. I know how hard it is to come back from that." She squeezed his hand. "I'll be with you, Dean, every step of the way."
"I shouldn't need a ninety year old woman to be my strength." he said.
"Why not? What's wrong with ninety year old women?"
"Nothing. I didn't mean it like that. I mean I shouldn't lean on you. I should be your support. You shouldn't have to be mine."
"Has anyone ever been allowed to support you?" she said.
"Some, here and there." he said.
"Not many, not for long."
"Sam, Cas." he said.
"Well, add me to the list. You should go to bed early tonight. Get some rest." she said.
"Let me wash the dishes first." he said.
"You don't have to do that." she said.
"I want to." he said.
She smiled. "Fine, if you want to, but you owe me nothing."
"We'll agree to disagree on that." he said.