A/N: One more chapter after this one!
Twenty-One Years Old
A year to the day earlier, Evy had been sitting in a motel room, talking to Sam, Dean, and Bobby about a long lost friendship. She'd been frustrated with herself for leaving that friendship to stay with Sam and Dean.
Now she'd do anything to have the three of them back.
Bobby was dead. He'd died less than a week after that conversation in the motel room. She'd told Bobby about her college plans, and, as usual, he'd been supportive. Evy wasn't sure, but when she told Bobby where she was planning to attend, she had a feeling that Bobby had somehow pulled strings and gotten her the full scholarship she'd been awarded less than a week later. She'd thought about putting those plans on hold when Bobby died, but she didn't. And so, life had taken its twists and turns and she ended up here.
But it wasn't nearly as fulfilling as she'd thought it would be.
Evy already had some college credit, so she'd started in the summer semester as a sophomore. At the conclusion of her first semester, Sam had surprised her with a visit. He'd made it clear to Evy before she left that if she was starting school, he wanted her to focus on school and not be involved in hunting. He and Dean would send her money for groceries or anything else she might need, but school was it.
Evy had figured that Sam and Dean were on a hunt in the area, and that they were just stopping in to leave her some cash and see what her life at school was like.
She couldn't have been more wrong.
It had taken weeks for Evy to wrap her brain around what Sam told her. Dean was missing, presumed dead. She wanted to leave school and help look for him, but Sam wouldn't allow it. No, he said. We're done. You stay at school, I'll call you when I find a place to stay, and that was it. She hadn't heard anything from him for nearly a week after that, and by a month later, Evy was completely on her own. Sam would call every couple of days, but the conversations were short and to the point. Do you need anything? No? Okay? Love you, Cricket. Bye.
No Missed Calls
Evy felt her heart drop in disappointment. It had been three days since she'd heard from Sam, the longest they'd gone without talking in a long time. She set her backpack down, thankful that her roommate wasn't home. Sam had been in the back of her mind all day. She knew that he was in Texas somewhere, but he wouldn't be specific with her.
"I don't know where I'll end up, Cricket." he had said. "I'll call you in a few days."
The call had ended without Sam saying "I love you", the first time she remembered that ever happening. He'd texted it to her that night and every night since, but she missed hearing him say it. Just as she sat down on her bed, an alarm went off on her phone.
Call Dean and say Happy Birthday
Evy felt her heart break. Dean had been missing now for weeks. Sam had decided not to look for him, and after thinking it over, she had decided not to either. But it was killing her. Losing Dean seemed to mean losing Sam too. And with Bobby and John gone, she felt more alone now than ever. Evy stared at the message for a couple minutes, tears welling up in her eyes as she thought about Dean. A knock at the door broke her out of her thoughts.
"One second!" she said, wiping her face before answering it. At the door was Jackson Kenley, another student in her freshmen English class. "Oh, hey, Jack." Evy answered, sniffing slightly.
"What's up?"
"Are you okay?" he asked immediately. "You look like you've been crying."
"No, I'm fine." Evy said. "Did you need something?"
"Um, yeah." Jack said. "My laptop died in class today. Could I copy your notes?"
"Sure." Evy said, walking over and pulling her laptop out of her backpack. "Come on in. I'll email them to you."
"Thanks." Jack said, walking in. He looked around and noticed that she was alone. "Where's your roommate?"
"Off at the library, I think." Evy answered simply.
"Who's Dean?" Jack asked suddenly.
Evy stopped what she was doing and immediately turned to Jack. "What?"
"Sorry. Your phone's blinking." Jack explained, pointing to Evy's phone which was still on the table.
"Oh." Evy said, turning back to her laptop. She swallowed hard and answered, "Dean's my brother."
"Older or younger?" Jack asked.
Though Evy knew Jack was just trying to be polite and make small talk, she bit back a sharp response of mind your own business. She didn't feel like talking about Dean or Sam right then. She needed to focus on her schoolwork. But being reminded about it made the tears start flowing again. Jack heard her stop typing and glanced at her, alarmed to see that she'd started crying.
"Are you okay?" Jack asked, taking a tissue from Evy's roommate's desk and handing it to her.
"Yeah." Evy said, dabbing at her eyes again. "Sorry."
"It's okay." Jack said. "Look, I know you don't know me real well, but you can talk to me."
Evy smiled and brushed her hair back behind her ear. She had a bit of a crush on Jack, and was nervous talking to him. But he seemed really sweet, and she did need to talk about what was going on in her life. She knew she couldn't tell him everything, but it might help to open up a little. She turned to Jack and explained,
"Dean's my older brother. He went missing a few weeks ago."
"Missing?" Jack asked. "What happened?"
"My, um, other brother, Sammy called. He said that Dean was gone and he didn't know where he was." Evy said. "We haven't seen him since."
"So you've got two older brothers?" Jack asked. Evy nodded and pointed at a picture on her desk of the two of them. "Where's Sammy?"
"He's kind of….drifting right now. I'm not sure exactly where he is." Evy said.
"What about your parents?" Jack asked. "What do they think of all this?"
"My mom died when I was born. My dad died when I was fourteen. Sam and Dean pretty much raised me."
The next thing she knew, they were talking about anything and everything. Jack soon had her laughing so hard she was crying all over again. They went out for coffee, and came back to the dorm, still talking. Evy checked her phone when she realized someone was trying to get ahold of her. It was a text from her roommate.
Are you okay? You never came back last night.
Evy, alarmed, checked the clock on her phone. It was 6:15am. "Oh, my God." She said, laughing.
"What?" Jack asked.
"Look." Evy said, showing him her phone. "We've been talking for fourteen hours."
"What?" Jack said. "Really?"
"Yeah. You came to get your notes at four o'clock yesterday."
"I guess you're right." Jack said. "Well, that answers a question for me."
"What question?" Evy asked curiously.
"Whether or not I can do this."
Jack suddenly put a hand behind Evy's head and gently pulled her towards him. He kissed her slowly, and pulled away, laughing at Evy's dazed expression.
"Was I right?" he asked.
After a long moment, Evy asked, "Right about what?"
Jack laughed again. "Whether I could do that."
"Why don't you try it again and we'll see?" Evy said.
"Okay." Jack said, laughing all over again.
Suddenly her problems with Sam and Dean seemed far away. Her heartache of a few hours earlier was now down to just a dull ache, and as she locked hands with Jack, she couldn't keep the smile off her face. When Jack had to leave for a class, he asked hopefully,
"See you tonight?"
"You bet." Evy said, giving him one last kiss on the cheek.
Maybe things will be okay.
Twenty-two Years Old
"Enough!" Evy shouted.
Sam and Dean both stopped and stared at Evy. Dean had insisted on coming to see Evy in person when he'd gotten back from purgatory the day before. The meeting had gone great at first, but Sam and Dean had devolved into another argument over Sam not searching for Dean while he was gone. Before either of them could say anything, Evy continued.
"Dean, you're upset he didn't look for you. I get that. But I'm glad he didn't. Sam's been happier this year than I've seen him since we were with Jess. If you can't understand that, tough. But I'm not gonna let you give Sam a hard time about this. The three of us did agree not to look for each other."
Dean was startled, but still tried to defend himself. "But, we always looked for each other…"
"Like you went looking for Sam when he was in hell?" Evy asked.
"That was different…." Dean answered.
"No. It really wasn't, Dean. Sam made you promise not to look for him in hell, and you didn't." Evy said.
"I was taking care of you!" Dean said.
"That's a lame excuse and you know it." Evy said. "It was nearly a month after Sam was in hell before I got sick. You had plenty of time to start looking for him. No, you went straight to Lisa's and stayed there." Dean finally stopped trying to defend himself and looked down. Evy walked over and wrapped her arms around him. "Enough fighting. I missed you, Deanie."
Dean returned her hug, thinking to himself God, I missed you too, baby. "I missed you too, kiddo." He patted Evy's back and told her, "Now come on. Tell me what you've been up to."
Evy took them over to her favorite coffee house, telling them about her life at school. She went into details about the classes she was taking and what she was learning in them. Sam was fascinated, but Dean's eyes began to glaze over. Evy decided to leave out telling them about Jack, who was away visiting his parents. She didn't want to deal with them asking a million questions about him, especially with Dean still being somewhat shaken from his experience in purgatory. When Sam and Dean left early the next morning, Evy grabbed Dean around the neck for what seemed like the fiftieth time since he'd shown up.
"I'm so glad you're okay." Evy whispered in his ear.
"And I'm proud of you, kiddo." Dean said. "You need anything, call us, okay?"
"Okay." Evy said. It had been a long year without Dean, and she didn't want to let him go. "I love you, Deanie."
"Love you too, kiddo."
Twenty-three Years Old
As Sam and Dean sat in the kitchen eating their breakfast, they were both shocked when they heard singing coming from down the hall.
"If I just breathe, let it fill the space between, I'll know, everything is all right." Evy came into the kitchen and headed to the coffeepot, still singing at the top of her lungs, ear to ear grin on her face. "Breathe, every little piece of me, you'll see, everything is all right, if I just breathe." She stopped singing as she turned to face Dean and Sam. "Morning, guys."
Sam chuckled. "You're in a good mood."
"Yep." She said as she finished filling her thermos. She kissed Sam and Dean both on the cheek.
"Care to share?" Dean asked. "You've never exactly been a morning person."
"Sure, why not?" Evy said. "Jack got here early. I'm going to meet him in a minute. We're gonna spend the day together before we all meet up tonight."
Dean started to object, but Evy was already heading out the door. Sam wished her a good day, and Evy headed out towards town. Her heart felt lighter than it had in years. Jack was here, her family was back together, and her life was finally in place. Everything really was, as her favorite song said, all right.
Unfortunately, that feeling didn't last long. Evy pulled up to the café Jack had asked her to meet him at, and walked inside. She spotted Jack over in the corner, and started to run to him, until she saw that he wasn't alone. A familiar looking brunette woman sat with him, laughing at something he was saying. When Evy headed towards them, it suddenly dawned on her who the woman was.
"Casey?" she said.
The woman turned around, her identity confirmed. "Hey, girl. Surprise!" she said, getting up to hug her.
"Hi, what are you doing here?" Evy asked, hugging her back.
"Hey, sweetie." Jack said quietly, offering her a hug and kiss, which Evy returned as well. "We need to talk to you."
Evy's heart suddenly lodged in her throat. She didn't like Jack's tone, and Casey was suddenly looking guilty too. Evy quietly took a chair on the other side of the table, and a waitress came over to ask Evy if she wanted anything. Evy requested a glass of ice water. Once the waitress had scampered off, Evy turned back to the two people in front of her. Casey had been her roommate for the last year and a half, and had turned into her best friend. Evy waited for an explanation. There was an awkward silence, and Jack started to talk.
"Sweetheart, I need to tell you something. We need to tell you something." Jack said.
"Okay. You two are scaring me. What's going on?" Evy said, though she had a sick feeling she knew what it was already.
Jack took a breath and finally told her. "Casey and I are together."
I cannot have heard that right. Evy thought. "What do you mean, you two are together?"
Casey took over from there. "We're together. We're a couple. We have been for a few months now."
Evy's brain seemed to stall. She just could not process what the two of them were telling her. No one said anything, and once the shock wore off, the famous Winchester temper started to take over. The waitress came over, and Evy thanked her with gritted teeth. She didn't drink the water though; she just sat there stirring it with the straw.
"Why?" she finally asked quietly, not looking at either of them.
"Sweetie…" Jack started.
"Don't call me that." Evy responded bitterly, finally looking at him with a hateful glare.
"Evy, we're sorry. We didn't want to hurt you." Casey said.
"You didn't want to hurt me?" Evy said, voice getting noticeably louder with every word. "My best friend and my boyfriend are sleeping together, and the two of you didn't want to hurt me? How long has this been…" Before Evy could finish her question, the answer hit her. "Oh, my God. You two started this when my brother was in the coma, didn't you?"
Both looked at each other, guilt clearly etched on their faces.
"Wow. I am so stupid." Evy said, burying her face in her hands. "I actually felt guilty for not spending enough time with you." she said to Jack.
"It started before your brother was in the coma." Jack confessed.
"What? When?" Evy demanded.
"It started when you went to see your brother in Texas." he said.
Evy's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. "That was almost two years ago. We've only been together for two and a half." She turned to Casey. "You've been sleeping with him the entire time we've been friends."
It wasn't a question, so Casey just nodded.
"Wow." Evy laughed humorlessly. She got up and started to head out the door, her water having not been touched. "You guys sure came a long way just to humiliate me."
"We didn't come to humiliate you." Jack said. "We came because we just got tired of lying to you."
"Wait." Evy noticed something on Casey's hand. "Why did you come all the way here? Why not wait until I got back to school?"
If possible, Casey looked even more guilty.
"We're on the way to see my family." Jack explained. "I asked Casey to marry me last night. We're engaged."
"Wow." Evy breathed out, blinking back tears as she gripped the table to steady herself. The first tear slipped down her cheek. "Wow."
"Evy, I'm sorry…" Jack started to say.
Evy chose to ignore him, getting up and starting to walk to the door. But, unknown to him, Jack got stupid and grabbed her shoulder. Evy, who was normally the calmest and most collected of her siblings, suddenly did something that would have astounded both her brothers had they been there. When she felt Jack's hand on her shoulder, she turned around and punched him in the nose as hard as she could. Casey jumped up, shocked, and went to check on him. Jack was sitting up with a bloody nose. The waitress came back over to the table, offering to call the police.
"No." Jack said, to everyone's surprise. "No, let her go. I deserved it."
Evy didn't waste time; she turned on her heel and ran to her car. She sped back towards the bunker, wiping tears away as she drove. She reached the bunker in a blur, flung open the door and ran down the stairs. Sam was in the front room, presumably researching cases. When she came in the door, he checked his watch to be sure that he and Dean weren't late.
"Hey, you're home early…" he started to comment, and stopped when he saw her face. "Cricket, what's wrong?"
Evy said nothing, just started sobbing, and Sam immediately got up and swept her in his arms. She cried inconsolably for several minutes, until she was finally calm enough Sam led her to a chair and sat her down. Sam knelt down in front of her. Though her sobbing had stopped, she was still crying, and Sam reached up and wiped tears away with his thumb, just like he'd done when she was little.
"Cricket, please tell me what's going on." he asked gently. "Talk to me."
The story came out in pieces, amidst broken sobs and even more tears. When she had finally gotten the whole story out, Sam sat in a stunned silence for a minute before murmuring "Wow." Her tears had finally stopped, at least for the moment, but she still appeared miserable. Sam wrapped her in another hug, unsure of how to help her this time. Until he got an idea.
"Come on." he said, pulling her arm and leading her down the hall.
Evy had no clue where he was leading her to, but she complied; he led her down the hallway and into his room, where he sat her up on the bed. He started Netflix on his TV and handed her the remote. She smiled, picked out a movie that she'd never seen, a comedy, and settled back while Sam went into the kitchen. He came back several minutes later with two heaping bowls of chocolate ice cream. He handed her one, and she couldn't help the smile that crossed her face. They finished the first movie and were about to start the second when Dean walked in.
"Hey, I thought we were all going…" he stopped talking immediately when he saw Evy, who was cuddled next to Sammy, with her red rimmed bleary eyes. "What the hell happened?" he asked.
Evy gave him the abridged version, pushing herself up to a sitting position. "Jack dumped me."
she said, wiping her eyes again.
Sam reached over and rubbed her back gently, but Dean's temper flared up. "What? Why?"
"He's been sleeping with my best friend." Evy said, and her voice broke a little.
Dean had to stop himself from shouting. "That son of a bitch." The sight of Evy in pain, so clearly heartbroken, activated every big brother instinct he had. "I'm gonna lay his ass flat on the ground."
Realizing that she had left that part of the story out when talking to Sammy about it, she smiled. "I, um, kinda already did that."
"You what?" Sam and Dean asked at the same time.
"Yeah. I punched him right before I left the café." she said.
Sam was too stunned to speak, but Dean was clearly proud. "Did you put your weight behind it?"
Evy nodded. "I bloodied his nose."
"That's my girl." Dean said proudly, walking over to give her a hug.
Twenty-four Years Old
"I know you're in there somewhere. Please, Cricket, hear me. Fight this. Fight it hard, please. I know you're hurting, and I know it feels like it'll be easier to let it go. But I can't do this without you. Fighting the bad guys, fighting the monsters, it doesn't mean anything without you there. You're my heart. My reason for getting up in the morning. I'll keep my promise to you, I swear. Just please promise me you'll fight."
Sam waited almost a whole half minute before moving. He didn't believe in miracles anymore, not really, so he didn't know what he was expecting. When she still said nothing, Sam started to stand up and take the water bottle back to the kitchen. When he let go of Evy's hand, he jumped when he felt her take his hand back. When he turned around, she was looking at him and not the wall.
"Cricket?" he asked. Was she getting better?
Evy moved her lips a little, but nothing came out. She shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and spoke very slowly. The hand that wasn't holding his pointed towards herself.
"Baby."
"What?" Sam asked.
Evy pointed towards herself again, then back at him. "B…baby."
"Yes." Sam laughed with relief. It was the first word she had said in nearly two days. "Yes. Yes, you're my baby. You always will be."
Lighting Sam's heart again, Evy smiled. "Baby."
Sam grabbed Evy into a hard hug again. "You have no idea how happy you've made me right now."
Twenty-five Years Old
"Thank you." Evy's eyes were welling up with tears. She glanced at the clock. Twelve more minutes to go. "Guys, I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what, Cricket?" Sam said, genuinely confused. What could she possibly have to be sorry about?
Evy's lip trembled and her voice broke as she answered. She sounded like a sad, brokenhearted child. "Leaving you. I don't want to, but…"
"Hey." Sam said, pulling her back to him in another hug. "You have nothing, nothing, to be sorry for. Do you understand me?"
Evy nodded, but for the first time since waking up, she was sobbing openly. "I love you guys." she said brokenly.
"We love you too, baby girl." Dean said. He was holding Evy's hand tightly, and finally had his own tears streaming down his face.
"Love you, Cricket." Sam said.
For the millionth time in her life, he found himself cuddling her close, but this time was different. Sam knew it would be the last time, and that thought made his breath catch in his chest. He couldn't breathe, and he felt sure that when Evy took her last breath, he would too. The clock continued to tick, and they continued to sit there, Sam holding Evy close to him, Dean holding her hand, and Cass just standing by looking helpless. When the clock hit the two minute mark, Evy spoke again.
"Sammy?"
Sam swallowed, his voice barely audible. "Yeah, Cricket?"
"Sing to me?"
Sam nodded, and began the lullaby he'd sung to her as a baby. Tears trickled down all three men's faces and Evy's. Evy closed her eyes slowly, her ear leaning on Sam's chest, the sound of his voice and the steady thump of his heartbeat putting her to sleep. Ninety seconds later, as Sam continued to sing and hold her, Evelyn Abigail Winchester took her last breath of life.