Disclaimer: The characters of Supernatural do not belong to me.
A/N: Okay, y'all. There's a whole heck of a lot to this story.
So, my first warning is this. If you have not seen the Supernatural series finale, do not. read. this. story.
I repeat. Do not. continue. with this. story.
My third and final warning. If you have not watched the Supernatural series finale, DO NOT READ THIS STORY.
I'll put some space here now so that you can back out if you choose to.
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Okay. You've stuck around for this. Now, for my take on the finale.
Holy crap! That finale was the closest thing to perfect, I've ever seen in my entire life! Y'all, that was amazing! As someone in my reviews to the last chapter of Sky Blue Winchester, it was a rough road getting there, but in my opinion, it simply could not have ended any better.
That's my take on it. You're perfectly free to agree or disagree, but please, be nice.
Now, finally, about the story. There was no way when I saw (one last chance for anyone who's reading this that hasn't seen the finale to back out, SPOILER AHEAD) that BABY DEAN IS OFFICIALLY CANON! was I not going to write this story. It was destiny. Anyway, this story is basically me filling in the gaps in that montage in the finale. As most of you who are my regular readers know, though, I do not believe in perfect happy endings for anyone. Life isn't perfect. No one has that picture perfect life where nothing ever goes wrong. Something bad does happen to Sam in this story.
I think everyone's been given fair warnings for everything that needed warnings here. I will be going back to working on Sky Blue Winchester after this.
I hope everyone is doing well. Stay safe and stay healthy, guys.
2022
Sam Winchester was not the same man he'd been two years earlier.
The car slowed to a stop, and as Sam turned the key, he wondered exactly what he'd been thinking when he thought he could do this.
Nine-month-old Dean cooed in the backseat, and Sam turned around to face him. He'd thought the baby had still been asleep, but wasn't surprised to find Dean wide awake and looking at him. The plush duck that Dean often drooled on was planted firmly in his mouth. Sam reached back to pretend to take the duck, and Dean pulled it away from him with a giggle. That giggle brought a smile to Sam's face, a smile that was becoming more and more common as time went on.
"Daddy'll be right back, okay?"
"Dada!"
Sam smiled. Dean had started talking in gibberish from the time he was a month and a half. He would make noises to his dad, wait patiently and sometimes impatiently for his dad to respond, and then would continue his conversation, even if the only one left to talk to was his stuffed duck or his toes. But Dada was, so far, Sam's favorite word. The front door to Jody's house opened. Jody stepped out, waving exuberantly and motioning for Sam to come inside. Sam assured Dean one more time.
"I'm just stepping outside. I'll get you in a second."
Sam stepped out, and Jody nearly knocked him down. Before he shut the driver's side door, Jody had cleared the yard and was embracing him in a hug so tight she cut off some of his circulation. Jody let him go and took a step back, only to stand on her toes and slap Sam with medium force on the back of his head.
"Ow! What was that for?" Sam asked.
"That's for not calling me for close to two years, Samuel Winchester."
Sam nodded and smiled. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry about that."
"I know you said you were coming with a surprise, but I've got one for you too."
"Sam!"
"Donna?" Sam asked as Donna gave him her own bone crushing hug. "Hey! What are you doing here?"
"Well, Jody called and said you were coming to visit, and I just couldn't pass you up? How you been?"
Sam frowned but tried to hide it from the two of them. "That's, um, actually what I came to talk to you two about."
"Sam? What's wrong?" Jody asked.
"We can talk about that inside. First, I got something for you guys. Hang on."
Sam reached into the backseat of the car and pulled Dean out of his car seat. Sam tried to leave the duck in the backseat, but Dean protested.
"Fine. Take it." Sam said, deciding it wasn't worth the fight. He turned and faced Jody and Donna, both of whom had mouths wide open in shock.
"Well, who is this mighty handsome fella?" Donna asked.
Sam swallowed. "Donna, Jody, this is my son. Dean."
"May I?" Donna asked, extending her arms requesting to hold the baby.
"Sure."
Sam handed him over and closed the back door to the car. Donna, too busy cooing over the baby, didn't notice what Jody did. Though she hadn't seen Sam in two years, he looked to be ten years older. And it was more than just the hardships of being a first time parent. Something had happened. Something terrible that had aged Sam beyond his years.
"Sam, where's Dean?"
Sam swallowed against the lump in his throat that still formed when Dean was mentioned. "Can we go inside? I've been driving for a long time now."
"Sure. Come on, I'll make you some coffee."
"Jeepers." Donna said at the news. "I'm so sorry, Sam."
"Thanks." Sam said.
He looked to baby Dean, who was still nestled contentedly in Donna's arm. He'd shared his duck with her, and now looked close to falling asleep. Jody was staring into the distance, her mind far away.
"I'm sorry I didn't call you guys when it happened."
"Why didn't you?" Jody asked.
"I just…drifted. For a few weeks. Just sat around the bunker moping with Metallica…"
"You were listening to Metallica?" Jody chuckled.
Sam smiled. "No. Um, Metallica was Dean's dog."
"His what now? What exactly happened to you two?"
That drew the first genuine laugh out of Sam that he'd felt when talking about Dean ever since the funeral. "It's a long story."
"So, what now?" Donna asked. "What are you planning to do?"
Sam sighed. This was so much harder than he'd anticipated. "I'm done, guys. With everything."
"Good." Jody said, surprising Sam.
"Good?"
"Yes. Good. Sam, you and Dean saved everyone. More than once. You gave up everything for all of us, and it's time you focused on yourself. And this little one here." Jody said.
"What about hunting? There's so many that need help…"
"And we will help them." Donna answered, earning a nod from Jody. "Sam you've done enough. Go enjoy your life. You've more than earned it."
"Trust me." Jody said, her eyes on Dean as she talked. "It goes too fast to let anything else take priority."
Sam exhaled, grateful the two of them understood so well. He hadn't really been afraid they wouldn't, but there was still a lingering part of him that felt selfish for giving up hunting. Dean pushed himself off Donna's lap and grabbed Jody's coffee table, stealing a look at his father.
"It's okay, buddy." Sam said approvingly. "He wants to practice walking."
"Well, he can just go right on and do that while I make you both dinner." Jody said.
"Jody, come on, we don't want to put you out…"
"You talk like that again and I'll put you out. Catch my drift?"
Sam smiled. "Yes, ma'am."
Donna was laughing at Dean's failed attempts to make it around the coffee table. "Where's your mommy, little dude?"
"She wanted to take a weekend with some friends. I told her I'd take the baby to come see you guys and she could get some rest."
"Well, that settles it. You're staying the night." Sam started to protest, which Jody quickly quelled with a, "And if you protest, I'll put you to work and feed the baby sugar for your journey back home."
Sam laughed. "Yes, ma'am."
2028
Sam Winchester was the best at taking out bad dreams.
"Daddy?"
Sam stirred in bed but didn't wake completely up.
"Daddy, come on. Get awake, please."
"Mmmm. Dean?"
"Yeah. Wake up, please."
Sam sighed and pushed himself up on his elbow. Eileen woke up with Sam's motion and sat up in the bed. "What's the matter, buddy?"
"Bad dream." Dean said and signed at the same time.
Sam smiled. Dean had been taught sign language his entire life, but Sam was working with him on speaking and signing at the same time. Eileen was a master at reading lips, but Sam felt the sign language was a skill that could be useful throughout his life.
"Oh, sweetheart. You want to sleep with me and Dad?"
Dean didn't need to be told twice. He climbed in the bed next to his Mommy and Daddy and relished the comfort it gave him. Soon enough, after a hug from Mommy and one from Daddy, he was just about to drift off to sleep.
"Daddy?"
"Yeah, bud?"
"Tell me a story?" Dean begged. "About Dean the Great?"
Sam smiled. "Sure, buddy. Any favorites?"
"The one where he killed the guy that wanted to take over the world. That one's cool!"
Sam chuckled and reached over to turn on the light. "Okay. The day Dean the Great killed Hitler."
"And he never let you forget it." Eileen smiled.
"And he never let me forget it."
2030
Sam Winchester threw one heck of a kid's party.
"Happy birthday to you…"
The party had been fantastic. Dean was eight years old, tall and wiry and as smart like his father, sweet and compassionate like his mother. But there were other things about Dean, Sam noted, that didn't come from either parent.
He ate pie like there was a worldwide shortage of it. He loved classic rock and refused to listen to anything else, especially the "baby music" that his friends listened to at school. He would allow his mother to kiss his cheek or hug him occasionally, but any prolonged affection was shoved away. Dean had to do everything on his own, and any unsolicited help was not appreciated.
Sam was aware of the irony of Dean's birthday. He sometimes wondered if Dean's namesake had arranged it himself. Eileen had been forty-one weeks and six days pregnant on November 19, 2022-two years to the day that Dean had died. As Eileen left Dean's room and Sam went to tuck the newly minted eight-year-old in, Sam felt a renewed appreciation for his brother.
Dean had been dead for an entire decade now, and somehow the ache was still there. The persistent need to hear his brother's voice, the desire to hear him call out bitch again, even the need to hug his normally chick-flick moment adverse brother. Sam wondered if that need would ever go away. If he even wanted it to go away.
"Good night, buddy. Dad loves you."
Sam stepped into the hall, his heart surprisingly light for the day that it was. Usually, by the time Dean went to bed on his birthdays, Sam was doing everything he could to escape and just get to the next day so he could think as little about his brother as possible. Tonight, he didn't want that.
"Hey."
Sam turned. Eileen stood there with a cup in her hand. "Hey."
"Here."
"Tea?"
"Yep." Eileen answered. "You okay?"
Sam took a sip of the tea and nodded solemnly. "Yeah. I think I'm actually okay."
"Really?"
"Really." Sam said. "Promise."
"He had a good time today."
"Yeah. I know he did. We did good."
"What do you say we go have a good time?" Eileen asked with a grin.
"I say that sounds great."
2033
Sam Winchester was a stupid man.
He was stupid because he'd felt, for years, that he had finally found peace. That he finally had the life he'd dreamed of for so many years. The one he thought for so long had slipped away from him. Now, not only had he secured that life he wanted, it had been taken from him. Permanently. By the same thing that had taken his brother, his parents, Bobby, and so many others.
Sam's life had started to fall apart three days earlier. It had taken Sam completely by surprise. Ever since Dean's birth, every two the three months, Eileen would take a weekend off. It wasn't a big deal for Sam. Eileen worked hard as a stay-at-home mom, and Sam had no problem keeping Dean by himself for a couple of days. Eileen had offered to do the same for him any time he wanted it, but Sam rarely took her up on the offer.
On this particular weekend, though, Sam had noticed that something was off. Eileen wouldn't look him in the eye, which made it impossible for him to have any kind of conversation with her. As Eileen packed her bag, Sam had finally grabbed Eileen's shoulder and signed to her talk to me. What's going on?
Nothing. I'm just packing.
Please tell me. What's wrong?
Nothing. I'll be right back.
Eileen had left the room to go out and find something. Sam, still bothered by her lack of response, was starting to wonder if he should press her or just let it go. And that's when he saw it, buried in the bottom of Eileen's bag. A machete.
That night began the worst fight that Sam had ever had with anyone. It was nothing compared to the fights he'd had with his brother or his father. Eileen eventually revealed that all her weekend 'mommy time' trips were actually hunts. She'd never stopped. Sam had never felt so betrayed. He begged Eileen to stop, and when she refused, asking him to wait until she got back to talk about it. Sam, desperate to get Eileen to listen to him, had done what he'd regret for the rest of his life. As Eileen had walked out the door, incensed that Sam couldn't understand her need to continue hunting and saving lives, Sam had grabbed her arm and said, clearly and distinctly,
"If you walk out that door and do this, you don't come back."
A shocked Eileen had said nothing for nearly five seconds, until she pulled herself away from him and asked, hurt, "You'd do that?"
"I love you. I love you so damn much. But I won't let little Dean go through what I did. I won't let him have to mourn his mom because some stupid supernatural thing killed her. I will take him first. I will pack our bags and I will leave before I let him go through that. I don't want to do that. It would kill me. But I will do it for our son."
An angry Eileen pursed her lips and headed for the door. "Dean's bus just pulled up. I'll give you the weekend to think about what you just said to me."
Now Sam had more than the weekend. He had the rest of his life to think about it.
Eileen's 'friend' Emily, who had spent the night with them more than a few times, had called from a hospital in Rhode Island. Sam hadn't answered the phone, still fuming from the argument, but Emily was persistent. When she called back for the sixth time, Sam had snatched the phone up and gotten the shotgun blast that was Emily's news.
Eileen was gone.
Now, Sam had the rest of his life to reflect. The essence of the last words he said to the woman he loved were if you don't do what I want, I'll take your baby and you'll never see us again. He could never, no matter how much he wanted to, take those awful, vicious words back.
"Dad?"
Sam nearly jumped to the ceiling. It had been eleven pm when he answered Emily's call, and it was now closing in on one in the morning. Dean had been asleep for hours when Sam accepted the call, so he'd decided to wait until the morning to break the bad news to him. Sam put on his best fake smile and beckoned the eleven-year-old over.
"Hey, bud. What are you doing up?"
"I went to the bathroom and I heard you in here. Are you okay? You look upset."
Better to swallow the pill now and get it over with, Sam decided. "Um, no. Sit down, son. We need to talk about something."
"Is it about Mom?" Dean asked when he took his seat.
"Yeah." Sam said. He swallowed and took a shuddering breath. He'd given this speech to grieving family members before, but always prayed that he'd never have to make this one. "Buddy, Mom got hurt on her trip this weekend."
"What? Is she okay?"
The tears that Sam had been too afraid to shed over the last two hours now sprang unbidden to his eyes. "No."
"You're scaring me, Dad. When is Mom coming back?"
"She's not, Dean." Sam said, his voice cracking. "Your mom died a few hours ago."
Sam braced himself for the anger he thought would be coming. Dean had started puberty not long earlier, and like his uncle before him, would get rationally and irrationally angry at things at the drop of a hat. But that didn't happen. The anger might have been easier for Sam to deal with. Instead, Dean did something he hadn't done in years. He leapt out of his chair and onto his father's lap, throwing his arms around Sam's shoulders and weeping. Sam walked with him to the recliner in the living room and sat down, pulling the tall, lanky preteen up with him. For the rest of the night, and well into the next morning, the two of them sat that way, taking turns crying and grabbing whatever sleep they could.
2040
Sam Winchester was a lonely man.
The auditorium was milling about with families, but Sam Winchester was all alone. Dean was graduating high school and starting college in the fall. It hardly seemed to be possible. It felt like just a week ago, he and Eileen were bringing home the tiny six pound infant home in the car seat that they'd nearly had to return because Sam feared it was too big for him. So much had happened since then, but Sam chose to focus on the moment in front of him.
Dean was valedictorian. Sam smiled all throughout Dean's speech, said hi to Dean's girlfriend Lori Black and her family, then reluctantly went out to dinner with them. After Dean went out to celebrate with his friends, Sam found himself all alone in the house again.
On the living room wall was a photo that Sam had finally learned to pass by without stopping to stare at it. The picture was of his mother, father, brother, and himself, and it occupied a central position in the room. Though he missed everyone in the photo dearly, it reminded him of how far he'd come since the photo was taken. Underneath that one was a picture of himself and Eileen.
Sam still blamed himself for everyone in his life being gone. He regretted listening to his brother that day in the barn and not leaving to call for help. He regretted fighting with his father before he died. He regretted not keeping Jack under a tighter leash and preventing him from killing Mary. And worst of all, he regretted telling Eileen not to come home. Right now, though, Sam had his wife and brother on his mind the most.
"I miss you both so much. You'd have been proud of him today." Sam choked out the word, feeling that if he didn't get them off his chest and off his heart, he'd explode. "I just hope you're both at least a little proud of me too."
Before he could say anything else, a car pulled up and Dean was getting out.
2050
Sam Winchester was a sick man.
Every breath he took was labored. He was constantly in pain, and it took effort just to lift his head up to talk. Not that he bothered to do much of that. Dean was the only one who came to visit him now. Donna and Jody had been long dead, though in most of Sam's moments where he didn't quite remember things the way he was supposed to, he swore they were alive. Not only were Donna and Jody alive, there were moments that his father, mother, and brother were alive too.
Dean came as often as he could, but he was busy. He ran his own business, and Sam was immensely proud of him. When he could remember what Dean's job was, he proudly told people about his mechanic son who had saved up money for years from working as a mechanic until he was able to make a down payment on his own garage. Not only that, Dean told people. Sam had grandchildren and a daughter-in-law he adored. Lori had given him a granddaughter, named Eileen after her grandmother, and a grandson, named Duke for some reason or other that Dean had explained to Sam but which Sam could no longer remember.
Dean, sensing that his father's time on earth was drawing to a rapid close, had brought the children by for a quick visit the day before. Now, when Dean walked in, there was a finality to it that Sam couldn't miss, even in the hazy fog that was now his brain. Dean took the seat he normally took on the edge of his dad's bed. But this time, there was no conversation. There was no telling Sam about what the kids had been up to, no telling him about what was going on at the garage, none of that. Dean simply took a deep breath, grabbed Sam's hand, and got his attention.
"Dad. It's okay. You can go now."
Sam smiled. He was tired. So tired. He'd hung on for months because of his son. He knew what it felt like for family members to leave you in death, and the thought of doing that to Dean hurt worse than the illness that was currently taking him. But he'd longed to see his brother for thirty years. When he saw that Dean meant it, that he really would be okay, a powerful relief gripped Sam. He squeezed Dean's hand, smiled at him, and finally, after a long and turbulent life, Sam Winchester could lay his head to rest.