One Week After Dean Winchester's Death

Bobby didn't know what to do. He stood at Piper's door, unsure. She hadn't spoken since they had gotten back. She had just gone straight up to her room and shut the door behind her. He hadn't seen her since.

He knew she was leaving the room every night to take long showers. Hours long showers. The water must have been freezing by the time she got out. But she never woke him during those times, just walked back to her room and locked herself in again. She didn't eat, he didn't know if she even slept. She just stayed in there.

Sam was just as bad. He had disappeared right after they had gotten back, and now he wasn't answering Bobby's calls.

He lost one of his kids, and now the other two were falling apart.

xxxxx

Piper lay on her bed on her back, blankets piled around her. She stared up at the ceiling, tears leaking slowly from her eyes. She felt emptied, a husk of a human being.

She had cried heavily for the first day, but she was probably dehydrated, so it had slowed to a trickle. Her whole body ached, but she had barely moved. She was so tired, but she couldn't sleep.

Dean was dead. She winced as she thought of it. If she thought about it for too long, she would give herself a panic attack. Dean was dead, and in hell, enduring God knew what, and Piper didn't understand how she was supposed to just live with that forever.

xxxxx

A long time later (or a short time, she really wasn't keeping track), Piper's phone buzzed. She left it.

It buzzed again, and she left it.

When it buzzed a third time, Piper was annoyed. It was the first emotion that she let herself feel since Dean had died.

She flipped it open and placed it against her ear, silent.

"Piper. Leave your room so Bobby will stop calling me."

She frowned at the anger in Sam's voice. "Where are you?" she rasped.

"Just leave your room, Piper." He disconnected.

She threw her phone back onto the ground and stared up at the ceiling some more, letting her feelings and her thoughts drain away.

xxxxx

She must have fallen asleep, because when she woke up, she was in a familiar white room, in a familiar white nightgown, with a familiar man dozing in the chair next to her bed.

"What the hell am I doing back here?" she rasped angrily, trying to clear her throat.

The man jumped, then looked at her. "Oh, you're awake, good, good." He yawned. "I was starting to get worried."

She surveyed his resting form. "Clearly."

He sat up and seemed to be unsure. "Piper, how are you?"

"What a spectacularly stupid question."

He winced at the bite in her voice. "Yeah, fair. Look, I'm just trying to… Help."

"By kidnapping me?"

He rolled his eyes. "Don't flatter yourself, precious. You haven't been kidnapped, this is just the safest place for us to talk."

She raised an eyebrow. "Safe?"

A rakish smile crossed his face. "Being a trickster means that not everyone I meet is enthralled with my fabulous personality."

"Ugh. What do you want?" she snapped, laying back down onto the pillows. Even if she couldn't stare at her ceiling, she could stare at a ceiling.

She heard him shift uncomfortably. "Piper, you need to get out of the house."

"Why would you care about what I do with my grief?" she asked, tears starting to pool in her eyes.

"I don't, usually. I don't particularly like humans. But like I said before, I like you, and I want to help."

Piper sighed. "Look, if I don't listen to Bobby, or to Sam, why would I listen to you?"

He frowned and stood up, irritated. "Fine." Before she could react, he put two fingers to her forehead, and darkness engulfed her.

xxxxx

She woke up gradually, in her own bed. Her heart still ached, but her body didn't hurt anymore. She sat up slowly, and realized that she was hungry. For the first time in over a week, she was hungry.

She slowly made her way to the kitchen, realizing that it was early morning. She started to gather what she needed for waffles, moving silently.

She sensed when Bobby entered the kitchen. Without turning around, she asked, "Do you want coffee, Bobby?"

She wasn't surprised in the least when she felt her arm pulled so she faced him, and when he pulled her into a hug. She felt her tears start flowing again, and clung to him. "Bobby, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," he said gruffly, and Piper heard the undercurrent of emotions in the words. "Don't be."

xxxxx

Two Weeks After Dean Winchester's Death

"Jesus, Sam, you smell like a brewery."

Sam had finally given in and told Piper where he was. She had been actually living at Bobby's for the last few days, getting up and cooking and tentatively beginning to find cases. She called other hunters to work them, but hey, work was work.

She had been periodically been trying to get Sam to talk to her, and he had finally told her where he was.

"Shut up, Pipe, and come inside."

She stepped inside and surveyed the motel room while he shut the door behind her.

"Gross, Sam," she said mildly. The place was pretty messy, but luckily the only thing that smelled bad was him.

"Drink?" he asked slowly, moving to stand next to her.

She wrinkled her nose. "Shouldn't you take a cold shower, Sam?"

He hmphed. "Shut up, Piper. You're not my mother."

She put a hand on her hip and pointed. "Go. Now, Winchester."

He glared at her for a minute, but seemed to realize that she wasn't backing down. He got some stuff from his bag and walked into the bathroom.

A short time later, he came back out to find her sitting at the table with the bottle of tequila he had with him on the table. She had cleaned quickly while he was in the shower, moving the dirty laundry to a pile near the door, straightening the bed.

She smiled. "Shot?"

xxxxx

Piper was definitely tipsy. They drank in silence that was alternately very comfortable and totally deafening until he spoke.

"I tried to make a deal."

Piper's eyes widened. "You what?"

"I tried to make a deal to save Dean."

"Before or after he…"

He chuckled. "Both, honestly."

She shook her head and leaned across the table at him. "Sam, I get it, I do, but they're not going to deal with us. They're all too afraid of Lilith."

He nodded. "Yeah, that's what the demon told me."

She took his hand between hers. "Sam…" She didn't have the words. It had been happening a lot since Dean had died. She seemed to have run out of them. "I miss him, too," she whispered, tears filling her eyes.

They lapsed back into silence until Piper dropped her head onto her folded arms and shut her eyes. She had been sleeping much more often this last week, and while she was slowly dialing it back, these few hours had been the longest time she had been awake in a while.

"Pipe, go ahead and take the bed. I'll sleep on the floor."

She raised her head and frowned. "No, Sam, it's okay, I'll just wait the alcohol out and head home."

He shook his head, stood, and guided her to her feet with his hands on her shoulders. "No, Pipe, come on, you're too tired to drive all the way home."

He guided her to the bed, where she gave in. She slipped out of her shoes and her jacket and curled up on top of the covers. "Just a couple of hours, then I'm out," she mumbled into the pillow.

xxxxx

Piper woke up groggy with a headache. She groaned and sat up, head to her hand, trying to keep her brain in her skull. She looked over and paused. At some point, Sam had crawled into bed next to her. It reminded her of when they were kids, so she smiled as she gingerly got out of bed to go to the bathroom.

Once her face was washed and her hair finger-combed, she came out of the bathroom to find Sam sitting up and looking at her strangely. "Hey, Sam, I'm gonna head home, okay?" she said gently, approaching him slowly.

He stood and came toward her, and Piper suppressed the urge to take a step back. He needed comfort, and she did, too. "Sam?"

He moved quickly then, wrapping a hand around the back of her head and pressing his lips to hers. For one awful moment, Piper thought about kissing him back. It was Sam, and she was lonely, and this was comfort… But Dean was barely two weeks in the ground, and this was a betrayal.

Instead, she went cold with anger and ripped her face away from his. "Sam, what the hell?"

He looked at her in that way again, and when he raised his hand to touch her again, she punched him in the face. She had to go up on tiptoe to get the most force out of it, but she was satisfied.

He clutched his jaw and looked at her, horrified. "Pipe, Jesus, I'm so sorry."

She made sure her keys were in her jacket as she walked to the door. "Yeah."

She slammed the door behind her.

xxxxx

When she got home, she sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, thinking, until Bobby found her there.

"How's Sam?"

"Drunk."

"Uh-huh." Bobby was looking at her with anger starting to form in his eyes. "Did he-"

She shook her head. "He tried to kiss me, but I punched him in the face and he backed off."

Bobby nodded. "All right, then, good." He looked at her nervously. "What's next?"

She met his eyes. "I need a case."

xxxxx

A/N: Hi, everyone! Here's my notes:

I own only Piper Finley, the original character. I don't own Supernatural, or the characters (heartbroken).

Reviews and comments give me the warm fuzzies and keep me going.

If there are any mistakes in continuity, canon, or geography, blame me.