Chapter 47.
Sarah started walking the length of the garage again. "Your father was a marine, correct?" she said.
"He was." said Dean, knowing instantly why she had said that.
"When one marine sees another fall, does he leave him to die?"
"People like me don't die. We don't get to die."
"Wanting to die is not a sign you are in good mental health." she said.
"I never said I wanted to die." he said.
"Forgive me, if I misunderstood." she said.
"Have you ever misunderstood anything?" he said.
"Oh, countless times." she said, "But not recently. Not, I think, today."
"No, not today." he admitted.
Music started pouring from the speakers, filling the space with sound. "Well done, Jules!" said Sarah, "That's perfect!" She turned to Dean. "Will you at least dance with me now? I need to test the space properly. It's not for fun. I'm not young and pretty. There's no chance you'll enjoy it. A mere technical rehearsal."
He took her hands and they began to dance. He understood her need to help others. He had it too. The broken mess of his own life was worthwhile if it meant that the never broken and the uncorrupted got to go home and forget their brush with darkness. Her small, frail hands in his felt oddly strong and comforting and for a moment, he felt that must have been how it felt when Castiel pulled him out of Hell, though he had no memory of that moment.
Dancing with her was a lot like dancing with his mother. Both had exuberance and confidence and both looked at him as if they needed to make him smile as much as he had once needed to make his torture victims scream. They were light and he was darkness and it broke his heart that he could not be what they needed him to be, that there was nothing left for them to save.
Tears filled his eyes and, at times in the dance, his movements flung the tears to left or right, where they fell to the floor or onto his clothes and he hoped they fell unseen, but Sarah didn't miss much.
He tried to smile. He had laughed when he had danced with his mother, but dancing with her had awoken the deepest, dearest memories, of the time when he felt loved and safe and wanted. Dancing with Sarah did not feel safe. It felt as if his soul were on display, with all the cracks and stains showing. Her hands still held his and it felt as if she were the only thing keeping him on his feet. He felt a great wave of grief and pain about to break and he suddenly let go of her hands and backed away.
Jules and Maggie were looking at him. The music played on. Sarah came over to him. "Girls, get yourselves some coffee." she said, "You deserve a break."
He stepped back again. He was afraid to speak.
"I know it's hard to go on." she said.
"I can't." he said.
"No, not now. You did well."
"Not from this angle." he said.
"Do you hate me?" she said.
"Is it possible to hate you? I know you're doing this out of love, but this is not good."
"It's bringing up all the things you don't want to feel?" she said.
"Yeah."
"You know you need to face them sometime, don't you?" she said.
"I know they aren't going anywhere." he said.
"Sam and Castiel are terrified of them, of what they could do to you."
"So am I." he said.
"I still want you to dance tomorrow."
"No."
"With everyone around you, you'll keep better control. Don't dance with me, if you don't want to, but dance with someone, just once. Then, at the next party, dance again. You love music. Your sense of rhythm is wonderful. Dancing can help you to heal."
"I don't want to heal." he said.
"Why not?" she said and he had the sense that she already knew and had been waiting for his confession.
"You're not a hunter, so you don't know the first rule. You can't save everyone."
"So you don't try?"
"Some people aren't worth saving." he said.
"You don't believe that." she said.
He glanced to where the car had been parked, before Sam had taken it.
She saw the look. "Would you really run out on me rather than talk about this?"
He didn't answer.
"Dean, I'm not doing this to hurt you."
"No." he said.
"Castiel worships you."
"Castiel once worshipped Chuck and he eats bacon in a borrowed robe."
"I'm sure that sentence makes sense to you. The point is that he believes in you. Does anyone know you better than Castiel and Sam? Has anyone seen more of what you've done? More of what you suffered?"
"I have and I think I deserved it." he said.
"How could anyone deserve any of it?" she said.
"You want a list of the people who are dead because of me? You want a list of the dumb, cruel, worthless things I've done?"
"When he first came to me, Castiel said he had done things that could never be forgiven. He asked me how one could do penance for something for which one could not have absolution."
"He was wrong. He made mistakes. Nothing he did was evil." said Dean.
"If an angel can be wrong, can't you?"
He struggled to appear less insane. "All this," he said, "Just to make me dance?"
"I guess I really want to see you dance." she said. Her voice was gentle, her smile kind.
"It's not a good look for me, being manipulated by an old lady." he said.
"No, I can see that. Maybe, what you could do is dance so enthusiastically that everyone assumes you wanted to dance all along."
"That could work." he said.
"Castiel is worried about you."
"Always." said Dean.
"And it's his birthday tomorrow. Let him enjoy it."
"When we were dancing just now, I was nearly swamped by something very bad. If that happens at the party ... "
"It won't. You'll be able to focus on Castiel and your brother and Jack. It doesn't matter what I see. I'm not that important to you."
"That isn't true." he said.
"No need to spare my feelings. It's because I'm not important that you can talk to me about the things you can never tell them."
"And fall apart?"
"You came close, but you kept control, even with just me there. Dean, dear, you are a lot stronger than you think. That's why it's such hard work to get anywhere with you. All those walls."
"Which you tear down like wet paper." he said.
"What can I say? I'm good."