AN: Because we all know the end given to these characters made no sense, and I will never get over how completely and abruptly they were just dropped. Been meaning to write this for some time. Tags to a bunch of episodes, as this spans from the end of S6 to mid-S12; feel free to ask if you're not sure what a specific line is referring to.

"What a horrible thing to ask."

Sam remembers first noticing how large Lisa's eyes were. He wasn't prepared for how dark they'd turn with disgust.

Ben has Dean's eyes. His consternation is much more reserved, but just as strong.

"It could help, to sever all connections," Cas explains neutrally, not really sounding like himself.

Lisa shakes her head slowly, her hair brushing noisily against the pillowcase. "It's so messed up that you can even offer that."

"It could keep you and Ben safer," Sam offers gently, not sure if he believes it himself, but knowing that Dean did.

"Safer?" she scoffs. "Safety's an illusion. I've known that ever since my son was saved from that changeling mother—by Dean. We've never been safer than we were in the year he was with us."

"Perhaps," says Cas. "But he's not coming back. This is the next best thing."

"Cas, wait," Sam cuts in, grimacing, and turns his attention towards Lisa. Her back is straight as a ruler, and she now looks almost worked up enough to rise from the hospital bed. It seems she only doesn't because Ben is holding her hand tightly. Sam explains, "We're not here to persuade you. Dean just wanted you to know this was an option. You can take it, or you can leave it. No one's gonna make you do anything."

"No one should even have that kind of power."

Sam doesn't disagree. But Cas replies calmly, "I'm afraid that's not up to you."

"Yeah," she agrees, voice hollow and dry as a dead tree. "It's not the only thing. You know we didn't just keep him locked up in the house, right? He had friends, coworkers, people who knew his name. Practically everyone I regularly interact with knew, and still know, who he was to us. You planning on erasing him from all their minds too so nobody ever asks, 'Hey, heard from Dean lately'?"

"It would be painstaking," Cas concedes. "But it is within my capabilities. So, yes."

"What gives you the goddamn right?" she spits.

Cas's eyes flash. "Who are you to speak to me that way?" he growls dangerously. "I am only trying to—"

"Cas, come on," Sam says, trying to defuse the situation, because he really doesn't feel like he knows Cas anymore, and he doesn't know what he might do if truly spurred to anger. "It's a no. Leave it."

With a flutter of huge, unseen wings, Cas is gone. Ben sags his shoulders, a heaviness lifted from them. But Lisa is still fuming, and she turns her dark eyes on Sam. "Never pegged you for the type, Sam."

He shrugs helplessly. "Dean asked him for the favor, and he agreed, and then Dean asked me to tag along…"

"And then submitted to his memories being erased."

Sam nods. "He's still sleeping it off."

Cas's attitude certainly seems to have been what put her so on edge, because now she is slumping over, and tears tremble on her lashes, and she takes her hand back to rub at both of her eyes shamelessly. "I just—I understand, and it's exactly the sort of thing he'd do, and I always knew this wouldn't last, but—"

"I know," Sam says quietly.

"This little family is what it is because of him," Lisa says, reaching again for Ben's hand. He gives it to her freely, and she goes on, voice now wobbling, "There will always be an empty spot at our table with him gone. And it seems better than nothing to at least remember that he used to sit there."

"We…" starts Ben, and his voice cracks, but he has Sam's undivided attention regardless, because this is the first time he's spoken since Cas made the offer. He starts again: "We can still get updates on him, right? You'll let us know how he's doing?"

Sam wants to be honest about how badly that would probably end. Wants to tell him that it would just be another secret for him to keep from Dean, that he'd eventually get to the bottom of it, and it would all be for nothing. Wants to explain that it would be easiest to sever all ties.

But Ben is watching him like he's waiting on news of his father.

Sam knows too well what it's like to know that your father is off doing dangerous things, and if it doesn't end well, you're not going to get a phone call. You're just going to be alone.

So he says, "Yeah. I'll be in touch."

He tries. He really tries to keep his promise. But between fielding Bobby's concern and the new batch of secrets and freaking Lucifer dogging his steps, it's hardly easy to set aside even a couple minutes a week to make sure they hear what's been going on. And at first, he has no idea what to say. Dean seems pretty normal, and he can't very well tell them, Yeah, your absence from his head doesn't seem to be affecting him.

Normally, when there was something Dean wasn't talking about, Sam would ask.

Obviously, this is not a normal situation.

When Cas erased his memories, he explained that it was easy enough to simply remove the first weekend he spent with Lisa many years ago, and the interactions they'd had since Sam's return. But a year-long gap would give pause, so he filled that time with a relatively unrewarding year spent in Key West—choosing a believable but out-of-the-way location, and not creating any memories worth chasing after.

Sam found it troubling at the time, but he couldn't think of a better alternative, and it was all happening too fast, so he let it go. Now, those reservations are back in full force, as he begins to notice something… missing in Dean. He delivers one-liners less forcefully. He doesn't care as much about the little things. He's even more licentious than before.

Sam asks him once if anything's wrong. Dean just looks at him in confusion, and says, "Not unless there's something you're not telling me."

Takes some doing to talk his way out of that one.

It takes until they're interviewing a family who witnessed a ghost attack after hours through a nearby store window, and Dean stands in the middle of their carefully furnished living room and brushes out the door without lingering for a second on their family photos, for him to figure it out.

Dean used to dream about the normal, apple pie life that he wanted so badly. It was the one thing he reached for constantly despite knowing he couldn't have it.

Now, he thinks he already has—and it wasn't all that great.

A relatively unrewarding year spent in Key West…

Cas put it in there with the purpose of it meaning nothing.

But it means everything.

He thinks about calling Lisa and Ben with the update. Just briefly.

He's been keeping in touch solely by email. Much easier to hide from Dean, and besides, he's not sure he could handle frequent phone conversations with them. They don't really care about hearing his voice, anyway.

He tries to stay on top of it, because whenever he gets an email from Lisa saying, Can we get an update? Haven't heard anything for a while. Hope you're both OK. Thanks, Lisa and Ben, he feels like crap. He can just feel the restraint displayed simply by not asking a boatload of questions. So, whenever he gets requests like that, he sits down and he types a novel. He gives them every detail he can muster up, recounting moments he himself has taken for granted—a stupid joke they laughed over during breakfast, his keen observation on a hunt, how bitterly he'd recently been complaining about his boots chafing. He thinks about what he would want to know if he had to be kept away from Dean, and the answer is everything.

But it's always just an email, and they always return with brief thanks, never requesting anything more.

The exception comes at a time he probably should've expected, and would've, if he didn't have a full plate in the form of the very situation she refers to: Sam, we saw you and Dean on the news, killing people. What's going on? Call me NOW.

He does. He calls, and he explains that it wasn't them, and he says how sorry he is for not letting them know sooner, even though he wouldn't change a thing if he had it to do over. Lisa sniffles on the other end, and Ben goes quiet halfway through the call, likely having withdrawn to an adjacent room to cry privately.

Sam really doesn't know them that well. The explanation is easy, but he fumbles through his attempts at consolation. He owes them that much. After all, his brother loved them.

Maybe choosing to forget them isn't great evidence of that.

Or maybe it's the best evidence anyone could ever ask for.

After he gets into a groove, the updates start pouring from him more smoothly.

Dean broke his finger hunting werewolves today. Should heal in a few weeks. We'll take it easy till then. He's doing okay.

Dean was in a pretty good mood, and sang along to Metallica nonstop all night. Somehow I managed to fall asleep anyway, but now he has a scratchy throat. He's okay.

Dean ate a supernaturally bad sandwich. Hard to explain. There was some R&R needed, but he'll be okay.

He doesn't tell them about the days he's not okay. The days he won't talk except in half-sentences, where he stares at something Sam can't guess at the significance of, like a water pitcher or a red rocking chair, and say faintly, "I thought I…" or "Wasn't that…" and Sam just stands there uselessly. The days he's worn out from a long night of bad dreams and trying to hide it from Sam, only Sam's not fooled for a second, because he talks in his sleep, although even then he never says either of the names he's missing. The days he's eyeing up a girl Sam knows he'd normally go for, and stops himself, and clearly can't figure out why, and spends the rest of the day sulking over it. The days he finally opens up and talks about Cas, but then trails off and seems at a loss for how to fill the silence, and Sam has to sit there and not tell him that Cas isn't the only one he's missing.

It's not fair.

It's not fair of Dean to do this to Lisa and Ben, and it's not fair of him to do this to Sam. Sam's losing his goddamn mind anyway; this is putting too much strain on him. Let alone Dean. It might be keeping those he left behind about ten percent safer, but at what cost? This is exhausting for all of them, and one of these days Sam is going to crack.

But Dean wouldn't crack for him. He knows that.

So, in spite of losing Cas, in spite of what Dean did to Amy, in spite of everything, Sam keeps trucking.

Losing Bobby almost breaks him.

It sure doesn't help that right after it happens Dean ends up bonding with Krissy, the girl whose dad they have to save from a Vetala. It's the first chance he's had to be a dad since Ben. Right after they lost the man who's been like a dad to them for years now.

Dean is dazed and confused when it's all over, clearly trying to cross-examine the experiences with memories he no longer has. "Sam," he says over dinner.

"Yeah?" Sam says, cautiously.

Dean stares down at his microwaved meal, his mouth opening and closing slightly. Sam waits with unyielding patience.

"Nothing," Dean eventually says, not looking at him.

It's probably for the best, because Sam suddenly finds himself blinking back tears.

"I miss him too, Dean," he says quietly, in a desperate bid to give Dean something real to attach his grief to, even if it's misplaced.

Dean doesn't respond in the slightest, so Sam has no idea if it's worked.

Sam knows Emma has to die. He can't even fairly expect Dean to do it. He waits until the very last second to see if he will, though. And he won't. He freezes. And Sam sees that same look in his eyes.

After the fact, he thinks about blowing up. About comparing it to the situation with Amy. Dean's head hasn't been in the game lately, but the thing is, Sam knows exactly why. Because he's off balance. Something's missing, and he has no way to figure out what. It's been long enough that maybe Sam can expect him to start the healing process after losing Cas, but how's he supposed to heal after a loss he can't recall?

So Sam sits in the Impala silently, unresponsive to Dean's pokes and prods. He sits there, and refuses to goad Dean after he's lost yet another child.

Dean's more of a dad than John Winchester ever was.

Even if he doesn't remember.

Cas is back.

Admittedly, for Sam, the day is a massive ball of hallucinations and pain, with sudden clarity tacked on the end. It's not like he can have a conversation with Cas about… well, anything. The moment he's back, Cas is gone.

They leave him. What else can they do?

Dean's steps seem lighter. They're both sober, because of course it's never simple, but a few of the dark clouds constantly orbiting Dean's head have lifted.

"Look, man, I get it. She's not our friend. We don't even have friends. All our friends are dead."

Dean looks unconvinced by his own words. Sam is afraid he knows why.

Everything snowballs after that.

They're finding tablets and weapons and hunting Dick and trying to reason with Castiel when he's fully off his rocker and they are both being run absolutely ragged. Dean still spaces out semi-frequently, clearly struggling to remember, even if he himself doesn't realize that's what he's doing. Sam's guilt mounts every time it happens, but so does his conviction that Dean isn't gonna say a word about it.

He's wrong.

Of course.

"Sam, I feel like there's something missing. I'm… I'm real confused, man. Something's off kilter and it's driving me nuts."

Sam turns in his chair. He pastes on a look that's concerned, that's listening, because he is, and he is. But he's also lying.

Dean is standing by his bed in their crappy motel room, and one hand, to Sam's worry, is pressed against his forehead, his eyes intensely focused on nothing. "I-I don't know what it is. It's like there's something… something I'm forgetting. I can ignore it, but I can't get past it."

Sam's mouth is dry, but he pretends it's not, and manages after a long and heavy silence, "This is really bothering you?"

Dean doesn't nod, nor hide the remorse in his eyes. And he says Sam is the one with the puppy dog face. "It has been for a while. I haven't said anything… I hoped it would go away on its own."

Sam feels swept up in the ridiculousness of Dean apologizing to him for keeping this secret.

But he also finds an intense anger suddenly leaping to life in his heart.

Dean might not remember, but this is his fault.

So maybe the best thing would be just to tell him. Surely Dean didn't foresee it bothering him this much. But for a moment, Sam feels petty, and vindictive, and so he only says, "That's not a lot to go on."

Dean looks at him for an uncomfortably long time, his eyes large, clearly unmindfully so. Eventually he blinks twice, and shakes his head. "Yeah. It's not. Sorry."

Sam's head is full of white noise. He allows Dean to drop it, even though every moment the voice in his head is urging him not to.

He'll tell him when everything settles down.

Dean vanishes before his very eyes, and then Crowley takes Kevin, and Sam is left with absolutely nothing but the smell of Leviathan goo in all his clothes.

He runs. He runs until he can't anymore—and then rests his bleeding feet, and keeps running.

He hits a dog. He finds Amelia. He tries to forget.

Just like Dean did.

It feels like his mind is tough with tension, and it makes it hard to think.

It's about a month before he makes a new, throwaway email account, not intending ever to access his old one again, and types up one last message, titling it "FROM SAM – ABOUT DEAN."

Lisa and Ben,

He's gone. I don't know where. I don't even know if he's alive. I'm sorry.

I can't do this anymore. The world is calm, for now. Dick is dead, and it's because of Dean. Wherever he went, he was willing to give up everything. He's a hero. In case I haven't adequately expressed that before. Not like you didn't know anyway.

But I'm not. And I really, really can't do this anymore.

I'm switching off all my phones, all my emails, all of everything. If you've sent any messages in the last month, I haven't seen them. This is the last time you'll hear from me, maybe ever.

If you ever wonder how he's doing, it's one of the following:

He's the same as he's always been.

Or it's all over.

I'm so sorry

Sam

He sends it, and he spends the evening drinking, and trying to keep his self-pitying weeping to a minimum.

All year, he thinks of Dean. Of how he's sure he's dead. Of how it might even be for the best.

For one year, Dean had Lisa. For one year, he had everything he'd ever wanted.

(Well, except for Sam.)

And look at how that ended.

He constantly finds himself staring in wonder at Amelia, questioning how a guy could ever get into a headspace that would let him justify forgetting someone like her. He thinks how Dean was off in too many ways to number, and how dearly he hopes that now, he's found peace.

He tries not to think of Lisa and Ben, and how muddied the Winchester name must be to them now, now that both of them have abandoned them.

Sam's stress starts to ease. His head starts to clear.

An ache develops in his chest, and never goes away.

There's always a tradeoff.

Dean comes back.

He comes back with the knot in his brow yet more twisted, smelling of sap and carrion.

Of course he does.

Because he wasn't dead. He wasn't reclining at ease with a Jack Daniels in heaven, clinking bottles with Mom and Dad and Bobby and every other goddamn person he's lost in his long and harrowed life.

He was in purgatory.

Sam has no justification for not looking for him—nothing that doesn't sound lame when he, at last, says it out loud. I thought you were dead.

Not thought. Chose to assume.

He had nothing. Nowhere to turn, nowhere to begin.

It's been at least several weeks since he's thought of them, but for some reason, his mind turns towards Lisa and Ben.

They have nothing either, since Sam ditched them, too.

He keeps an eye on Dean. He's different—there's no façade. No smile masking his pain. No pain to mask either. He's all business; no time for things like pain, just paranoia and ruthlessness. He's efficient. Hardened.

He's everything Sam always wished he could be growing up under Dad's reign. But seeing it now on his brother eats him up inside.

When Dean stops whipping around every time someone approaches him from behind, or flinching at the sound of cracking twigs… when he remembers how to live again, and be loose, be safe, and the cracks in his memory resurge and keep him up at night, Sam will give him answers.

That time never comes.

Dean never brings it up again. Sam's lost his touch, and can't quite recall how Dean used to look at families in parks or women in bars. Whatever he does these days… seems normal to Sam. Maybe it shouldn't. Maybe it's wrong. But it is normal, even if it wasn't always.

Cas returns, like they should have known he would. Dean starts smiling again. Eventually seems to remember how to relax.

Sam sometimes tries to make meaningful eye contact with Cas over something Dean ought to remember but doesn't, and Cas never returns the look. Sam strongly suspects that the gesture of clearing away Dean's life in Pontiac meant little to him. Sam can't find it in himself to bring it up, particularly when he's still carrying the guilt of giving Lisa and Ben the cold shoulder.

It's not as if Sam thinks of it all the time. Just in little moments when he finds himself questioning if his brother is the same for having lost them. Sometimes he thinks about bringing up his year off, but there is never an appropriate time to do so, and Dean never gives any indication that it crosses his mind either.

They discover the Men of Letters bunker in Lebanon. They move right in. Sam wonders if the concept of having a home again will give Dean pause. It doesn't.

Dean takes on the Mark of Cain, and it consumes him. Sam wonders if he might remember his last stint as a monster, when he visited home and frightened Ben as a vampire. He doesn't.

Dean is drawn irrevocably and unwillingly to Amara. The way he looks at her is hauntingly similar to the way he used to look at Lisa, and Sam wonders if it'll shake anything loose. It doesn't.

The day a witch's hex costs Dean all his memories, and the cure doesn't have him waking up Sam in the middle of the night with harsh questions about the surrogate family he left behind—an eventuality for which Sam is fully prepared—is the day Sam finally says to himself, That's it, then. It's over.

It's what Dean wanted. What he chose.

And Dean often chooses things which are horrifically self-destructive.

But at this point, something has been built atop the rubble, and Sam is hesitant to disrupt that foundation without cause.

"Well, look, was it nice to drop our baggage? Yeah, maybe. Hell, probably. But it wasn't just the crap that got lost. I mean, it was everything. It was us, it was what we do, you know? All of it. So... that's what being happy looks like? I think I'll pass."

Sam dimly remembers when Lisa made the same call. When her son, who might as well have been Dean's, agreed.

Sam reminds Dean which key is the Impala's.

He doesn't remind him of anything else.