The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost (Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening )

—

1 minute before

It was supposed to be the last job. One last hurrah. It wasn't supposed to go like this. Dean wasn't supposed to be holding Sam together with too few hands, trying to stem the flow of blood. It wasn't going to end this way. It wasn't. It couldn't. Please, no. Blood frothed at the corner of Sam's mouth. He choked on words. Dean pulled him closer, propping his upper body against his knees, his head falling back against Dean's chest.

"Shush, don't try to talk, Sammy. It's gonna be fine," Dean soothed, hoping the tremor in his voice was too slight to notice. "I've got you; you're gonna be just fine. The ambulance will be here in a minute, alright? You just hang in there for me, just for a minute, okay?"

Sam, blinked up at him. His eyes were full and dark in the pale street light.

"You with me, Sammy?"

Sam nodded, his head stuttering as it bobbed.

"Alright, that's good." One of his hands pressed his own balled up shirt against the hemorrhaging hole in Sam's abdomen the other carded through Sam's hair. Sam's face was as pale as the ghost that had shot him, his skin cold under Dean's fingers despite the mild June night. Sam's eyes lost focus, the lids drooping and his shaking hands dropped to his sides.

"Common Sam, stay with me; You have to get back to Tom," Dean pleaded. "Come on, man. Don't do this to me. Do not make me go back alone."

Sam seemed to rally himself, fighting to open his eyes again. His breaths were ragged and choked. His hands weak as they slid on Dean's arms, one grabbing desperately onto his shoulder, twisting in the fabric there. Sam's eyes struggled to focus on him.

"I'm here, Sammy," Dean said, and Sam's eyes sharpened for a moment.

"De —n —Dean —D." The sounds were choked and desperate. Blood trickled out the side of his mouth.

"I'm right here, Sammy. I'm not gonna leave you," Dean said, running his hand through Sam's hair and pressing his palm against his brother's clammy forehead, like he could hold him there, if Sam just let him.

"T — T—om." The word was half a gasp.

Dean nodded. "Alright, little brother. Alright. I will; I promise. Not like you even have to ask." He tried for a wobbly smile; Sam's lips turned up and his eyes softened. There were tears running down Dean's cheeks now, and he blinked them aside impatiently as they blurred his vision.

"Sammy," Dean said. "It's alright.' Sam's chest stuttered with a breath, his eyes shifting, and his heels feebly pushing against the ground.

"It's gonna be alright. I got you. I'm not going anywhere." Dean rocked him a little, and his brother's eyes dropped closed. The hand twisted in the fabric of his shirt went limp and fell. The hitching breath suddenly stopped, and Sam was still in his arms. He had been here before; this was what it was like to watch the world end.

2394 hours before

The boy was swinging his feet, watching them glide through the air, his head bent. The evening sun lit his dark curls, turning them almost auburn. He looked up when he heard the door open, curls bouncing. His hazel eyes were big, and scared, and —Sam. It froze Dean in his tracks. The boy looked up at them, his eyes wide, looking from one to the other. Dean felt Sam tense beside him, his breath catch. They stood there for a moment, and then Dean nudged Sam forward with an elbow. Sam started moving, his giant frame bending down to the boy who met his gaze, curious and a little nervous. Dean moved back watching them from the hallway. Sam's voice was soft and encouraging, the boy replying seriously. Dean couldn't hear the words, just saw some of the tension drain out of his brother's shoulders as the boy grabbed his hand and jumped off the chair. Dean huffed a laugh, remembering the four hour drive and a silent Sam who kept looking out the window rubbing the heel of his hands across his jeans, a tick he still reverted to when he was nervous.

"What if he doesn't…" Sam had blurted out finally as they pulled up.

"Like you?" Dean filled in.

Sam shrugged. "Yeah."

"Dude, he'll like you; everyone likes you."

"I'm serious."

Dean rolled his eyes. "He's four. Take him out for ice cream, and he'll think you rock."

"Thomas, this is my brother, Dean. He's.., uh,... he's your uncle," Sam said.

The boy looked at Dean with solemn brown eyes. Dean squatted down to his level and held out his hand.

"Hi, Thomas."

Slowly, and with a glance up at Sam, the boy extended his hand. Dean shook it with a grin. The boy looked so much like Sam, Dean wondered if Sam could see his mother in him at all. His mother was a one night stand Oregon. Piper, a waitress at the time. Sam had turned red as he stammered out the information, Dean pretending he didn't remember finding the two of them laid out in the back seat of the Impala, until Sam finally realized he was being led on and tossed a fat motel pillow at his head. The call had been a shock. The blood had drained from Sam's face, and he had stuttered his replies. He had had no idea that Piper had had his child, and it looked like it would have stayed that way, if she hadn't been killed in a car accident two days before, leaving a letter in the event of her death with instructions to leave Thomas in the care of his last living relative, Sam. Luckily, the number Sam had casually left with the girl was still working and social services had called to tell him he was the father, and now sole guardian, of Thomas. The next thing Dean knew, they were handing the poltergeist case over to Jody and driving the four hours to Oregon. The idea that Sam had a kid hadn't seemed possible. Crouching in front of Thomas with his tiny hand warm in his grasp, the idea became real. Sam had a kid; and Dean was an uncle.

26 hours after

Jody didn't have to ask. She knew when she saw him come down the stairs, bloody, sheet white and —alone. She pulled him into her arms, squeezing like she could make him feel something, but he didn't hold her back, just stood stiffly, arms at his side . She finally led him, more dead than alive, to his room and then the bathroom and, red-eyed, said something before closing the door, leaving him alone— wait, no— he had always been alone. He would always be alone now. Numb, he threw his bloody clothes in the trash bin. Sam's blood. Sam's blood on his hands, his arms, his face. Mechanically, he turned on the water and let it hammer, hot like a thousand needles, across his skin. Rust red blood ran pink off of him and down the drain.

2394 to 1 hour before

Time moved slower. It seemed, suddenly, like Tom had always been a part of their lives. He quickly clung to Sam like a lifeline in a sea of confusion. He missed his mom, and, most days, his eyes would well full of tears at least once. When he cried, Sam would hold him in his arms and hum Metallica songs to lull him to sleep, the only kind of lullabies Sam remembered.

When he asked where his mom was, and why he couldn't see her, Sam would tell him about heaven, his voice soft and assured.

When he called Sam "Daddy" for the first time, Sam flushed scarlet, and a smile a mile wide spread across his face. Dean couldn't help grinning too.

The kid asked a million questions, and every time he wasn't satisfied with the answer, he would crinkle his forehead the exact same way Sam did when he was researching something he hadn't found the answer to.

At first Dean tried to hover at the edge of their lives, to let Sam have his space with his son, but Sam kept pulling him in, and they became some sort of semi-functional family.

5 minutes after

He had taken Sam, pulled his limp body up in his arms, when he heard the whine of the too-late ambulance. He had tenderly laid him out in the back seat trying not to jostle him, gentle with his head. He had driven, and kept driving, looking back at his brother every few seconds, minutes, hours, he couldn't tell. Sam could have been sleeping, except he wasn't. Sam was always moving, twitching, sighing, rolling over, his eyebrows drawn together in thought, even in sleep; but now, in the back seat, the rays of the rising sun illumined unnatural stillness. The stillness of a grave. The stillness of a blank sky before sunrise. The stillness of death.

He never stopped to think about where he was going. He was just there. The trees were the same on the horizon, the grass the same, swaying in the breeze, but everything looked harsher in the light of day. He dragged the logs to build a pyre, ignoring when the rough branches sliced his forearms and nicked his fingers. The shadows had lengthened, and sweat dripped down his face by the time he stood back and looked at the pyre he had built.

He wrapped Sam up in the thick wool blankets from the trunk, running his hand over his brother's hair one last time.

He stood, lighter in hand, for a long time in front of the pyre. The shadows had stretched and then spread to enclose the world in dusk before his hand was steady enough to light it. He didn't say anything; everything had already been said, and he was afraid to open his mouth and let out the screaming in his mind.

The last time they were here, he and Sam, they hadn't said anything either, just sat on the back of the Impala and looked up at the stars, for hours, just satisfied that they weren't alone.

The flames ate up the best part of him, and he wondered desperately, why not let them have the rest? There was nothing to stop him from burning too, no one there to hold him back, or talk him down. A gun was tucked in his belt. His hands trembled, eager or afraid, but he had promises to keep— and miles to go before he could sleep.

1 week 6 hours before

"I want him to have a normal life, ya know? Not this; not here in a bunker, but really normal."Sam swallowed and looked down at the table like the wood grain was fascinating.

Tom was asleep down the hall. Sam had looked away for a minute, and Tom had wandered, lost in the maze of rooms for nearly forty-five minutes before they had found him quietly playing in a room full of unknown, and likely cursed, objects.

"Then get out," Dean said, breaking the silence; Sam's eyes darted up confusion and uncertainty clouding the hazle. "This is your chance, Sammy. I want that for you, for him."

Sam's eyes dropped again and Dean bent down to meet them.

"Dean…"

"No, Sam. You have a chance to make the right choices here. You have a chance to really get out. I want you to." Dean didn't mention how it cracked his heart to say the words, or how he went back to his room and downed a half bottle of Jack afterwords, but it was the truth: he wanted Sam and Tom to be free of this life of horror, blood, and pain; if that meant leaving Dean behind, then so be it. Cass was gone, Jack was gone, their Mom, and Dad, Bobby- all gone . He would be alone. So be it.

"You could get out too," Sam said, glancing up.

Dean shrugged.

"Nah, someone has to protect the world from monsters." He grinned and hoped it wasn't too tight. He didn't say that he thought it was too late for him, that hunting was in his bones, in his blood, and in his breath, and he no longer knew how to live without it, if he ever had, but Sam knew all the same, without him having to say the words.

27 hours after

Thomas was asleep, a night-light softening the edges of the room and casting his face in a golden glow. Dean sat down quietly on the edge of the bed and reached a hand out to stroke the dark bangs out of his face. So much like Sam it ached. He bent and kissed his bed-warm forehead.

"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere," he said quietly. Then he slid down to the ground, curled into himself, and silently wept.