A/N: Sam's POV. Takes place sometime after chapter 11 (after Michelle and Sam talk about Ruby) but before chapter 13. This has been posted as a one-shot on my Tumblr before (I rewrote this before I got into rewriting the fic) if it seems familiar. Thank you all for checking this out! I hope you like it.

Chapter 8: Sam's POV: Not Fair

"Because what's worse than knowing you want something,
besides knowing you can never have it?"
― James Patterson

It's not fair, he thinks, to be faced with something he's only dreamt about lately and know that it's out of reach. Might always be out of reach. It's not fair, but things in his life have never been fair. Not really.

He's leaning on the impala while Dean tinkers with it, watching her. It's creepy, he knows that but he can't help it. He hasn't been able to stop since she told him she knew everything. If he's honest with himself, he hasn't been able to stop since that moment in the bar where her face lit up as she argued fairy tales with him. All of the fear had disappeared and he was left with the image of the girl she must have been before. Now though? Now he knows that she knows everything and doesn't blame him. Sure, she called him an idiot but she also smiled and hasn't treated him differently. God, he wants that. He just wants it to continue.

"Dude, just go talk to her!"

He looks at his brother, more than a little surprised at getting caught. He tries to play it off. "Talk to who?"

Dean gives him a look like he's stupid. His jaw clenches and he looks away from his brother. His eyes flick to where Michelle is explaining something to Giles.

"It's not that simple."

"Course it is," his brother scoffs. "Just tell her you want her. Biblically," Dean grins and waggles his eyebrows. "Doubt she'd pass up the chance. She's not stupid." No, not stupid, just traumatized and alone and faced with impossible things meant to be a fantasy. She has practically been tortured and he's pretty sure she's not sleeping. (None of them are really sleeping anymore except Kelly. No one was even sure if Jane needed sleep. No one had seen her do so.)

"She doesn't belong here, Dean. She's going home."

"Even better," Dean said. "No expectations!" He gives Dean a look and Dean shrugs. "I'm just saying, you might as well enjoy it before it's gone. Besides, we don't even know if she can go home."

That's true. Becky said the worlds were destroyed. There was no return but he could see the clench of Michelle's jaw, the tilt of her head and the stubborn look in her eyes whenever someone mentions it. (There's also grief, so much grief that he wants to wrap her up and hide her just to protect her but he can't).

He never thought (dreamt, imagined, fantasized sure) that anyone like that would exist. So it would figure that she was trying to get home, back to her world and away from the possibility of whatever could be between them (he's seen her looking, he knows).

He's not sure he could handle having her only for her to leave though. He couldn't handle not keeping her, not with her belief in him. He won't do that to her, to either of them.

(In a small part of the back of his mind, he feels guilty that he found someone so perfect for him at the cost of her entire world and everything she loved. At least he thinks that's why. If he's truly honest, the guilt is because he doesn't feel guilty for having her, for being one of the only things she has to cling to anymore).