Chapter 46.
Dean smiled at Sarah's happy little figure bouncing along the length of the garage as she paced out a dance. "This is perfect!" she said, "So much space!"
"We can fit in plenty of tables." he said, "And still have all that central space for dancing."
"I love what you're doing with the lights too." she said, "There will be a golden glow."
He went over to her. "Only the best for you, Sarah."
She put her arm around his waist. "Your claim that you can't dance has fallen apart. Your mother says you're very good. You may even be better than Sam."
"Damn right, I'm better than Sam." he said.
She smiled. "Prove it."
"I don't need to prove a thing." he said, "So, you're not above going behind a guy's back and talking to his mom?
"You know me, Dean." she said, "I do whatever it takes."
"To get me dancing? Because believe me, that is not a sight that will in any way repay all this effort."
She let go of his waist and turned to face him. "To make you feel better. Joy is a powerful thing. It can heal some very deep wounds."
"I think I'm a little beyond joy." said Dean.
"I thought so too, when my son died." she said. He saw her eyes glitter with tears, but none fell. She blinked them bravely away. "You think this is a battle of wills, don't you?"
"Yes." he said.
"So all your pride is wrapped up in winning it, even though you want to lose."
"I never want to lose." he said.
"No wonder you're so tired all the time. You can't switch it off. All your strength is going into keeping up this image that was never you."
"You think I'm a fake?"
"No, I think you're real and authentic and sincere. You just pretend to be a fake. We're too alike to fool each other, Dean. When my son died, so did everything else. I'd always loved to dance, but he loved our family parties so much that dancing without him watching felt wrong.I stopped dancing. I stopped listening to music. I sat in my parlour and I deliberately avoided anything that had ever given me a moment's joy."
"Sarah, I never lost people like you did. I was never married, had no children ... not really. Your losses are unimaginable. I just prefer not to dance."
"Why do you hate joy so much?" she said.
"I don't. I just ... "
"Dean, I'm ninety. Don't waste my time."
He smiled, "You will outlive me."
"Over my dead body!"
"Neat trick."
"New question. Why does someone who hates to dance want this party to happen at all?"
He waved an his arm. "This bunker is full of people who have been through Hell, some literally, some metaphorically, but there really isn't that much difference. The birthday boy? He gave millions of years to a cause he never doubted and then, when he needed it most, it ditched him. Most people would have given up on everything, most angels could never have lived with such a dramatic fall. Many didn't survive a smaller fall. Castiel just straightened his coat and found something else to believe in, another cause to fight for: free will."
"Also known as the Winchesters." she said.
"My brother? He said yes to Lucifer so he could say a no so loud the cage would slam shut around him ... around them. My mother made a deal to save Dad and accidentally damned Sam and no matter how many times we tell her we wouldn't exist anyway if Dad had died then, it's still on her mind, all the time, what she did and what it caused. It saved the world, but she only sees that it hurt us. Bobby fought a losing war on a planet lost long ago to evil, feathered and flamed and now he's here, and he's coming to a birthday party for an angel he saved because he noticed that our angel was different. Every person in this bunker needs and deserves something good."
"Except one?"
"Every one." he said.
"What about you?"
He looked into her eyes. She looked back, one of the few people who could look unflinchingly into his eyes when he allowed the darkness, the despair to show there. He wanted to say, "I don't matter." but that would never work with her. He said nothing.
"Why aren't you allowed anything good." she said.
"Could we talk about something else?" he said. His chest felt uncomfortably constricted.
"Why won't you dance?" she said.
"That's not really something else, is it?" he said.
"You tell me."
"You think you already know." he said.
"You also think I already know, or you would correct me."
"Why does this matter so much to you?" said Dean.
"You and Sam saved the world several times. You should matter to everyone."
"Everyone doesn't know we exist."
"I do. I think that makes it my job to care." said Sarah, "Besides, I've been where you are now. Long after Carl died, I found a picture of him smiling at a party and I knew he would want me to dance again. I tried and it was terrible. I hated myself for trying, even for wanting to try. I asked myself, 'What kind of mother dances when her son is dead?' I ended up sitting on a step, sobbing and nobody around me understood."
Dean hugged her. "I understand."
"Yes, you do. "I made myself keep trying and every time, I hated every moment and I hated myself. I didn't cry every time, but I would come home and sit in the dark and tell myself I should never have tried to have any kind of life without my husband and my son."
"They would have wanted you to."
"Yes, and that smiling photo kept me trying. Then, one night, at a cousin's wedding anniversary, I danced and I found myself enjoying it. I even laughed. When I got home, I was angry with myself again, as if it meant I didn't care about Carl, but I looked at his picture and it felt like he was proud of me."
"He would have been."
"After that, I started wearing a tie pin of his to every party and I felt like I was dancing for both of us ... living for both of us and it worked. It was hard, but I made myself dance until I felt the joy again. When it came, it felt so powerful. I felt it healing all my sharp, broken edges. So many years of pain, so much guilt and self-loathing. Dean, I want that for you too. I want you to find healing."
"I know you do and it's sweet that you do, but dancing isn't going to fix a thing for me." he said.
"I have so much more planned for you than dancing," she said, with a look in her eyes that made him nervous, "But the first step has to be yours, a conscious decision to seek joy, to choose life."
"Tomorrow is about Castiel." he said.
"What would make him happier than seeing you enjoying yourself?"
"Don't. Play fair, Sarah. Don't use him against me." he said.
"Could I win a fair fight against you?" she said.
"Why do you need to win this fight?" he said.
"Because I feel you've surrendered. We're not fighting each other. I'm fighting to save you."
"I'm really not worth it." he said, "And if you're honest, is your strategy really better than mine? Aren't you trying to save me to make up for the fact that you had no chance to save your son?"
"I can see why you would think that." she said, "Is it unhealthy that you deal with your pain by hunting?"
"I would not recommend any of my coping mechanisms to you." he said.
"When Carl died, I knew life would never be the same again. I'd always assumed there would have been grandchildren, great grandchildren, my house filling up every Christmas with a vast family, filling the hole in my life left by my husband. One drunk driver later, I'm looking at an old age all alone, nothing to look forward to but death."
"But now you have Castiel. You have us." said Dean. He hated to hear her talk that way.
"Darkness fell on my life and stained every day I had left." she said, "And though I love you and your family with all my heart, I will always be the mother of a dead son, the wife of a dead husband. You promise, 'Til death do us part.' but what they never tell you is that death doesn't end a thing. You don't stop loving someone just because they are snatched away."
"No, you don't." said Dean.
"When you know that your own life will never be free of darkness, you may as well plunge all the way in and drag others out. We both made the same choice. We know the darkness, Dean, we have lived it."
"And we choose to go back into it, so why are you trying to drag me out? It's the civilians we are supposed to be saving."
"Civilians like Castiel?"