AN: OMG, OMG, I can see comments/reviews again! *dramatically clutches chest* So, there are a LOT of comments to respond to…bear with me.
Blondie 20000: hey, chica! I'm glad you liked chapter 15…I'm not always sure that I convey my ideas well. And I'm thrilled to hear you also like Gadreel; I will find the Alliance fic you mentioned. And the bear exploding was one of my favorite things to write.
Kathy: Funny coming soon! The next two chapters are written (or mostly), but then I'll throw my best funny / fluffy in there, I promise!
This chapter tags to an ep I could watch over and over again, season 11, episode 8, Just My Imagination.
CHAPTER 18: Leaving
The first day Dean went to kindergarten, Sam smooshed his nose against the window of Bobby's living room until the Impala was out of sight. He didn't like that Dean had left – they were rarely ever apart. But he settled uneasily, allowing Bobby to distract him. But he kept a close eye out all morning, refusing to go into a room that didn't have a window to the front. He was on the porch before the Impala had stopped moving, and hugging his brother before Dean was totally out of the car.
But the second day of kindergarten, when the bus came for the first time, and Sammy made the connection that Dean would be leaving him every day, he wailed. The third day he clung to Dean like a barnacle and Bobby had to peel him off. That night, he got up and hid Dean's backpack. Bobby's scolding and John's anger couldn't convince him to give up where he'd stashed it. Even Dean couldn't convince him to give it up, and Dean went to school without it. A sniffling Sammy gave it up when Dean came home, since it hadn't worked anyway.
John headed off on a hunt and Bobby and Dean were left to deal with the fallout. John had been certain that Sam was winding down and would be good with it soon, but Bobby wasn't sure. And Dean had known better. For more than two months, Sam cried every morning, and hardly let Dean out of his sight when he was around. It was a miserable time for all involved.
As he got older, Sam still hated seeing Dean leave, and it got a thousand times worse once he knew what John and Dean were doing. It wasn't that he was afraid to stay home or unable to care for himself. But he was truly terrified that Dean wouldn't come back to him. Sometimes the fear would simply overwhelm Sam and he'd huddle in a corner. It was during one of these times that Sully first showed up. It took a long time for him to win Sam's trust, but eventually, he became a friend, a confidant.
Sully loved Sam with every fiber of his being. But he'd done the job long enough to know that he wasn't Sam's first choice. The times Sam needed him most were when he had to watch Dean leave. That's why part of him wasn't surprised when one phone call sent Sam running away from him and toward Dean…because that's what he was doing, not away from Sully. As hard as it was, the Zanna knew that.
Sam never knew it, but Sully peeked in on him a few times. He was there when 14-year-old Sam got in John's face and screamed at him that he wished he'd never been born, and that he hated hunting. And he saw the expression Sam wore when John sent Dean four states over on a solo hunt half an hour later. Dean didn't look back when he left, and they all pretended the reason was because he didn't know he was being sent away to punish Sam. But Sully saw the look on Dean's face too.
Sully was the only one who saw the tears in Sam's eyes when Dean walked away from the airport gate after dropping Sam off so he could head to Stanford. Of course, he was also the only one who saw the matching tears in Dean's eyes. He saw other partings too, though fewer and fewer through the years as he got busier with his management role. But he knew better than most just how much Sam hated watching Dean walk away and vice versa. He couldn't imagine the fear both felt at the thought of Lucifer's cage and the threat of being separated…again…possibly forever.