Disclaimer: I do not own anything Supernatural, it is all property of the CW11 Network, and whatnot, so don't sue me, please.
Chapter 13
A black 1967 Chevy Impala roared down the open highway.
It was headed towards Lawrence, Kansas and the residence of a woman named Missouri Mosely.
Inside were two occupants, two men who were weary and heartbroken.
John Winchester let out a small sigh from where he sat in the driver's seat. He turned his gaze from the road to his oldest son, Dean, who was riding shotgun.
The car was uncharacteristically quiet, no smiling voices or AC/DC blaring from radio.
Just the dull hum of the engine as the car speed across the smooth asphault road.
Dean sat with his gaze turned to the car window, at the rapidly passing scenery which was beautiful in it's naturalness. But it was all lost to him, he may have been staring out the window, but the only thing he saw was a tall, lanky young man with a deep dimpled grin, a shaggy mop of chocolate brown hair that was refused to be cut, and moss-green eyes filled with light and laughter.
A young man, who was gone, for all eternity, taken by the flames of evil, ripped from life, ripped from Dean himself.
Unconsciously, Dean ran his left hand over the back of his right, over the dried stain that still graced it.
The drop of Sammy's blood.
He still hadn't washed it off.
He couldn't bring himself to do it.
Both John and Dean looked as haggard and worn as the night they'd dragged themselves to Bobby Singer's house, maybe a little more so.
Dean sat with a few days worth of stubble covering his jaw and cheeks, there were dark circles under his eyes, his clothes were wrinkled, he looked decades older than he really was.
John Winchester was no better, the beard that graced his face was more salt and peppered. He had more lines across his face and his eyes were dull with grief.
Both men had dreaded riding in the Impala and it took all of their will not to stare at the backseat.
Bobby had graciously covered the backseat with a ratty old blanket, covering the deep crimson stains that had dried over the leather interior.
More of Sam's blood, from when they'd rushed him to the hospital after he'd faced off against the Demon.
The stains, a silver laptop, a duffle back filled with clean clothes, a plastic bag with Sam's bloody clothes from the hospital, and memories were all that was left of Sam Winchester, their Sammy, their baby.
Blood stains, two bags of clothes, and a computer were all that was left of the person Dean and John Winchester loved with all their hearts.
Now, all they had left of their family was each other, just the two of them.
" Hey Dean, you wanna drive for a little while?" Asked John as he turned his gaze fully to his right where his son sat.
Dean jumped as though he'd been startled out of dream, in a way he had been dreaming, with his eyes open and glazed as they'd been staring out the window.
He turned to his dad and stared at him with hollow eyes that made something inside John die a little more.
" Sure. Okay." Said Dean, his voice mechanical, sounding as empty as his gaze. John pulled over to the side of the road and they switched places.
The car pulled back onto the road with Dean keeping his gaze firmly on the road, not daring to look at the rear-view mirror. If he did, he'd see the old green blanket that covered the back seat, he'd remember what was hidden behind it.
If he looked back and remembered the horrors that blanket hid, he most likely drive the Impala, his baby as he liked to call it, off the road.
But, a part of him didn't really care.
He'd lost a far more important baby, far more important than a stupid car ever would be to him.
John watched as Dean's grip on the steering wheel grew tighter, until the young man's knuckles were white.
John was beginning to think letting Dean drive was a bad idea when he watched the deathgrip on the steering wheel slowly ease.
A look of pure sorrow etched itself into Dean's face, who kept his gaze firmly on the road, eyes no longer blank but filled with a sadness that could only be cured by one thing, one person.
That person was gone, gutted and burned alive.
Gone forever.
They could barely wrap their heads around it, that it had actually been a days since they'd lost their Sam.
And so, father and oldest son drove in silence, watching the scenery and empty road pass them by before a sign greeted them in the distance, it read...
" Welcome to Lawrence, Kansas."
They were here...
They were in what was once home...
Before a Yellow Eyed Demon destroyed all semblance of normalcy in their lives.
John let out a sigh as Dean drove them back to this place, that held so much of everything.
Mary...
The Demon...
Sam...
A terrible night when innocence had been forever lost...
The birth of a terrible vengence...
The destruction and rebirth of the Winchesters, from a happy family, to a trio of hunters...
Dean weaved the Impala through the quaint, suburban streets until a familiar house came into few.
Missouri Mosely was sitting at her kitchen table, drinking a cup of mint tea when she felt something resonate within her.
Someone she knew was close by, and they were in pain, a terrible, all consuming pain.
She realized that her boys had finally arrived.
The tea was instantly forgotten as Missouri all but bolted from her seat and dashed to the door, she could already feel the tears welling in her eyes as she opened the front door and stepped outside, just as a Chevy Impala pulled up infront of her house.
Missouri watched as John and Dean Winchester, both haggard and worn out, disembarked from the car and began walking up the path to her front door.
Missouri nearly flew down the front steps and down the cement path to greet them.
She stopped an arms length from the two Winchesters.
The three people stood in silence and simply stared at eachother for what seemed an innumerable amount of time.
" Oh John." Whispered Missouri tears spilling from her eyes, breaking the silence as she threw her arms around the Winchester patriarch.
A small sob escaped John as he returned Missouri's embrace with a tight hug of his own.
They stayed that way for a long while before John pulled away, desperately trying to compose himself, scrubbing at the tracks of salt that stained his face.
Missouri turned her attention to Dean, and felt her heart completely shatter when her eyes fell on the oldest Winchester boy, the only Winchester boy left.
Dean stood with tears silently streaming from his eyes while his face was set in stone. His gaze was to the floor and his hands were jammed into his jacket pockets.
Misery seemed to eminate from his very being from where he stood beside his father.
Wordlessly, Missouri took a step closer to the very distressed young man before her and reached out slowly with her hand.
She watched sadly as Dean minutely flinched away from the incoming touch, but after a moment, he relented and let the woman gently cup his stubble covered cheek. Dean let out a shaky breath and blinked rapidly, trying to steam the tears that were flowing in torrents from his eyes.
The next thing Dean knew, Missouri had all but yanked him into a bone-crushing hug.
" Oh Dean, Sweetie." Whispered the tearful woman as she proceeded to all but squeeze the life out of the younger Winchester.
Normally, Dean Winchester would've been mortified to find himself in this particular position, with a plump, mind-reading, forty-somthing woman trying to crush his ribcage.
These weren't normal circumstances.
They were the farthest thing possibile from normal.
With a shaky breath as he barely suppressed a sob of his own, Dean returned Missouri's embrace, albeit half heartedly.
Dean Winchester's heart was a malestrom of emotions.
A part of him welcomed the warmth and comfort Missouri was bestowing on him.
Another part wanted to push the woman away, to start running down the road and keep going till his legs fell off.
Yet another part wanted to just sink into the ground, to disappear and drown in his all consuming misery.
But all of him wanted something he could never have, ever again.
Sammy.
His baby brother Sam.
The person he was supposed to protect with all he had, with everything he could give.
The person he should've protected.
The person he should've been able to save, blazing inferno be damned.
The person he loved unconditionally.
The person he'd lost.
Forever.
Missouri felt a fresh wave of tears stream from her eyes as her mind was assaulted by the chaos that was all but bleeding from from young man she was embracing, it was as though his very soul was bleeding.
In a way, it probably was.
After a couple more minutes Missouri forced herself to release her vice-grip around Dean and take a step back.
A grief filled silence followed, raw misery charging the air, thick, almost cuttable with a knife in it's density.
John was the one to break the silence.
" Missouri, Dean, the two of you should get in the house, I'm gonna put the car in the garage. It's best if no one saw it right now."
Missouri was about to ask why when John sent her a warning look.
Missouri and Dean both nodded mutely, Dean handing his father the keys to the Impala with a slightly trembling hand.
Missouri lay a comforting hand on Dean's shoulder as the two of them turned and headed back up the path to the house.
John watched them disappear into the house before he let out a shaky breath and turned to the Impala.
Vaguely, he caught the sound of the automated garage door opening in the distance, ready and waiting for him.
But mostly, all he heard was a low, dull roaring in his ears, combined with the echoes of past conversations.
Conversations.
John felt a humorless smirk spread across his lips at the inaccuracy.
Conversation?
These conversations had been screaming matches in actuality.
The echoes of his youngest son's voice, filled with anger and frustration taunted him without mercy.
The smirk vanished from John's face as a fresh wave of tears incinerated his eyeballs to the point of numbness.
There was so much he'd wanted to say to his now forever lost son.
So much was left unsaid.
He'd never told Sam that deep down, he'd been very proud of him for getting into Stanford.
He'd never told Sam that he was sorry for all the things he'd said in his anger.
He'd never told Sam that... Despite how rocky their relationship had been, he'd always loved him with all his heart.
He'd never to Sam that he and Dean where the only things he had left of their mother, his angel sent by God himself, his beloved, his Mary. That everything he did was because he wanted them strong and able to defend themselves. That everything he did was to protect them.
So much was still left unsaid.
So much that would stay unsaid.
Because Sam was dead.
His baby boy Sammy was dead.
With a gruff cough and a broken heart, John climbed into the Impala, his eyes momentarily glancing at the tattered green blanket covering the back seat. He quickly turned, not wanting to think about what was hidden underneath this old blanket.
With his teeth grinding together and his jaw set in steel, John put the key in the ignition and with a low grumble the Impala was urged out of dormancy.
The car rumbled up the driveway and into the empty space in Missouri's garage.
However, instead of getting out of the car, John just sat there in his desolation, hands white-knuckled as they gripped the steeringwheel.
He sat like Dean had back when they were on the road driving.
With a hitched breath, John's composure shattered once again as he broke down into a fit of viscious sobs, bowing down till his head hit the steeringwheel.
John sat there with only his own harsh sobs and long dried bloodstains hidden by a blanket as company as he broke down.
Dean sat in the livingroom, his head bowed as he too sobbed in anguish, with the arms of a motherly woman wrapped tightly around him as he broke down.
Elsewhere, in a place just out of reach...
Sam sat curled up in a tiny little ball a top the large boulder he'd decided to climb onto as he'd been walking by the bank of the vast, mirror-like lake that was a part of his home for the next twelve moths.
Tears streamed from his eyes and small sobs wracked through his body as he sat in his solitude.
He cried for the father and older brother he wanted so badly to be with at this moment, with every fiber of his being, the family that was just out of his reach, the family he'd had to leave in order to keep his soul, the family that thought he was dead.
He sat on the boulder, with the quiet serenity of the lake surrounding him, and also, unbenounced to him, he sat with the pale, ever vigilant, milky blue eyes of Alkaya watching him sadly from her perch atop the high branches of a tree, watching him as he broke down.