Chapter 2: Fire and Salt

In my time of dying,
Want nobody to mourn.
All I want for you to do
Is take my body home.
-Led Zeppelin

For the second time that day, Sam watched a team of doctors fight for his brother's heartbeat. He waited for the rhythm to start again like it did before, but seconds stretched into minutes and then someone was calling a time of death.

It felt like one of those nightmares where a memory gets distorted, where something that turned out okay goes terribly wrong. He waited to wake up, to break the spell of sleep and find out that he was just having a bad dream about the time his brother almost died. He waited to find out that what he'd just seen never happened, that it was just his mind's projection of its fears.

But it wasn't a dream and he couldn't wake up. It was reality. And reality just didn't make sense anymore.

The funny thing was that he didn't see Dean as he was, too-still and already cooling. And he didn't see Dean as he had been a few moments ago, painfully vulnerable, but still vibrantly alive. He didn't even see him as he'd been on their last hunt, full of strength and vitality.

All he could see was his brother's bloodied face in the rearview mirror, his silent, empty, uncomplaining eyes.

"No, sir. Not before everything."

John Winchester couldn't breathe.

A passing nurse started to approach him, but blanched when he got a good look at his face. Whatever he saw in those dark eyes made him decide that the haggard, frightening-looking man leaning against the wall was Someone Else's Problem.

John Winchester didn't notice.

There was time, between the hospital staff leading Sammy back to the waiting area and the orderlies coming in to take the body - to take Dean - down to the morgue. There was time for John to be alone with his oldest son.

He'd known in the basement. The knowledge had weighted his steps, made a journey of five floors take a lifetime. He felt like he'd known all his life that Dean was dead, so why was is so hard to see him there, so still and pale that he didn't look like himself? Each second seemed like a year, but it didn't make it any easier to bear.

The tenuous sanity he'd crawled to after Mary's death eluded him now. His world had been built on his boys, on preparing them, making them strong. Dean had been so strong. Stronger than John himself, maybe.

It's okay, Dad.

For John Winchester, the world ended the night his son died. He fled the hospital and didn't look back.

Sam tried to be angry when he found his dad's room empty, but he didn't have the strength for it. He no longer cared where John Winchester's priorities were. He just wanted him there. He wanted his father to stand with him, to grieve with him. He wanted someone to share the burden of burning - god - of burning Dean's body. He wanted to not be alone. He would have taken back every angry word if it could have brought his father to him.

As time passed and the room remained empty, Sam shook with the pain of it, but he didn't leave. When faint shafts of light began sifting through the blinds and he knew that John wasn't coming back, he stayed where he was, curled on top of the tousled sheets that were the only traces of his father's fading presence. Finally, mercifully, sleep claimed him before the aching loneliness could.

They're driving. Always driving. The Impala is roaring, a mixture of diesel growl and headbanging bass. Dean has the music turned up again, but he isn't saying anything for once. He just moves with the beat of the song, his eyes on the vanishing highway. Sam doesn't feel much like talking either, but it bothers him that he can't remember where they're going or why. He's not going to do this forever, he reminds himself, and is bothered that he needs reminding. When did the interstate start looking like home?

Dean is turning to him like he wants to say something, but there are no words. Just the sadness dimming the fire in his green eyes. Sam wants to tell him that it's okay, except he's not sure what's wrong. Why is Dean looking at him like that?

Sam's behind the wheel and the scenery on either side has halted. Dean is standing by the side of the road, boots digging into the gravel of the berm. He has a sawed-off shotgun in one hand. His amulet shines dully with the light of the setting sun. He's smiling, and it's a smile filled with music and passion and hunting, but there's sorrow too, and grief and guilt.

Sam is asking with his eyes, searching his brother's face for an answer. The Impala is idling impatiently, but he won't leave without Dean. He won't.

Dean shakes his head and looks like there's so much he wants to say. A faint whisper is all that reaches Sam, as if the single lane of asphalt is a yawning canyon of empty distance. Faint, but clear.

"Don't burn my bones, Sam."