Six Things Sam Never Wanted to Do and One He Does
1.
Sam never wanted to be the last Winchester. It had been his worst nightmare at Stanford, and he'd called Pastor Jim every few months, asking if the older man had spoken to John or Dean, if he knew they were still alive. And every time the minister had confirmed it, Sam had felt the strain leave his shoulders and the tears come into his eyes.
Well, it wasn't as if he'd get a call if something happened... his family wouldn't have given his contact information. Aside from the fact that they never used their real names, he didn't think his father and brother had his contact information anymore.
Of course, he'd been wrong about that. It isn't until now, when Sam finally gets to read Dean's journal, that he knows how wrong he's been. His father and brother not only knew every place he lived in for four years, but they had kept his number with them, written on a scrap of paper tucked in their shoes, where no one outside of a CSI would check.
But even knowing that they cared doesn't quite make up for the fact that they're gone. Sam hates that. He doesn't know how to handle the guilt of surviving, of knowing that Dean's soul is the price of his life, of being so important to a demon that everyone in his life has suffered standing in between them. And he wonders what makes him so worthy of being the last Winchester. Yeah, he's done a lot for innocent people, saved a lot of lives, but at the end of the day, a lot of hunters have done the same and not been so lucky.
But he's not going to be stupid and throw it away, or drink a single moment into oblivion. He knows, now, that the cost of each moment is too valuable for him to make meaningless. It's Dean's smile, John's big hands holding him tight and his mother's heart. It's the children Dean will never have, the peace John will never know and the gray hair Mary will never grow. Sam can't waste time.
Mourning people, remembering them, doesn't come under the category of time better spent doing other things, so Sam does it without regrets. He indulges in tears and rituals from visiting Lawrence to returning to the spot on the highway where a big rig rammed the Impala two years ago. It was the last time the three Winchester men had been together in body and spirit, and even though Dean was in a lot of pain and barely conscious, Sam remembers it fondly because he can still feel the hope he'd had for a future. A future that held all three of them.
He stays with Bobby for a while, until the urge to put a bullet in his head disappears. As little as his life seems his own, as important as each moment seems, when he wakes up and realizes he has no family and when he lies down in bed and misses the sound of Dean's snoring, he thinks it would be easier to be dead. But Winchesters rarely take the easy path, so Sam struggles to live and takes solace in Bobby's bracing presence until he's ready to strike out on his own.
It's ironic in more ways than one when he leaves Bobby's and pulls over at an intersection after a few minutes to think about where he wants to go. First, it's apt because he's at a metaphorical crossroads in his life too, trying to see which path he should follow. Secondly- he's now in a place he might be able to summon a demon the way Dean did, which led to this situation of his being alone, and he's helpless. The last promise Dean had extracted from him had been not to make a deal with the dark side, and he won't break it. Especially not since it'll be putting his powers in the hands of those who've been trying to bring about an apocalypse with his assistance. So while he can't do anything to save his brother, he's strong enough to laugh at the irony, pick a direction, and drive there.
2
Sam never wanted to be sad.
Dean had been sad sometimes when they were kids, especially in May the week after Sam's birthday when all the kids made cards for their mothers and stores decorated shelves with maternal themes. He and John also went silent around the first week of November, and while it had taken Sam a while to understand they were mourning more than the death of summer, he identified with them all to well after Jess.
But throughout his admittedly moody adolescence, Sam had kept his core happy-go-lucky kid alive. He'd believed in a better life, and that faith had given him a reason to smile first thing in the morning and last thing before he went to sleep. He'd been helped in that by Dean- his older brother had been able to see the humor in every situation and shared it with the world. Even when Sam had winced and said Dean! in that oh-so-proper, shocked tone of voice, he'd had a smile on his face and a laugh on the inside.
So yeah, Sam wanted to be happy. And when he got to Stanford and become a normal person, and then met the woman of his dreams who had actually loved him as much as he loved her, he'd been happy. He'd been so happy he became careless and stopped salting doors and windows to keep bad things away. And then all those reasons to be happy had gone away, but he'd still had this brother. He'd still had the hope of finding happiness.
And the first day he woke up as the only surviving member of his family, Sam wondered when the last time he'd been happy had been. And if he'd ever be happy again.
3.
Sam hated hunting. Unlike Dean, he'd never told his father he wanted to be just like him, and he'd certainly never espoused a great desire to be a hunter.
As a kid, he'd fantasized about his future. For the first few years, it hadn't been that difficult. Dean, and yes even their father, had tried to keep the reality of their lives hidden from the youngest Winchester. He'd had dreams, big, fantastic dreams, but eventually all little boys must grow up, and the dreams children dream turn to dust.
Sam was like Peter Pan. He tried to hold on to parts of his childhood, especially his dreams, to the point of shutting out the truth when it challenged his rose-colored glasses. While he decided not to be a fireman around the time he found out the truth about his mother's death, he kept the image of himself as an adult doing something other than hunting, and being good at it. When he realized it wouldn't be easy, he worked that much harder at school and tore his heart out and walked out on his family at the right time. It hadn't been that difficult to leave John- anger was a wonderful anesthetic. But Dean had been mother, father, older brother, bodyguard, best friend and companion and something indefinable but necessary, and living without him had been almost impossible that first year at Stanford.
Which was probably why it had been so easy to get used to being with Dean on the road again. And why losing him for that last time, permanently, was killing Sam.
And it seemed somewhat ironic that in death Dean had tied him to hunting in a way John had never been able to, because how could Sam walk away from the life his brother had considered a calling? So even when he became the lawyer his father would never have wanted him to be, he took off and joined Bobby on hunts over long weekends for years, until Bobby joined John and Dean and Mary on the list of people who'd left Sam to face life alone.
Even then, Sam kept on hunting. He just found other people to hunt with. When his body aged and his family begged him to stop, he used his mind to be a resource for hunters all over America and the world. He published books on the work his family had accomplished. The first one was little more than a cleaned-up version of John Winchester's journal, and how Sam had laughed when he'd seen it shelved in the fiction section.
The day Sam Winchester realized he was truly a hunter was the day he stood back and watched his daughter take off the head of a vampire. He'd not only spent a lifetime killing the supernatural, he'd actually passed the legacy on.
And God, if there'd been one thing Sam had wanted less than to be a hunter; it was to teach his children to be hunters.
4
Sam had never wanted to raise Dean's kid.
It had been his nightmare from around the time Dean turned sixteen and fucked anything that moved. While Dean had maintained a certain respect for women, and never touched one in anger unless she was possessed, he had a certain fondness for those who didn't know how to say no.
John had never given them the talk. He'd left Dean to figure that out for himself; much the way he'd tackled every other milestone in Dean's life with the exception of his older son's 18th birthday- when he'd handed him the keys to the Impala and told him to treat her like the lady she was. Dean had made sure Sam knew the details of safe sex long before Sam was tempted to try out any of his brother's suggestions, which was the beginning of Sam's deep obsessive fear that his brother would impregnate some girl and then be promptly murdered by her father or brother. Leaving Dean junior to be raised by Sam because God knew John Winchester was incapable of raising children.
It doesn't happen that way. Instead, Sam got a phone call from Cassie one morning telling him she was in the maternity ward of a hospital not too far away, and had just given birth to his niece. Sam doesn't remember getting up and dressing, but he must have because his brother's ex-girlfriend didn't laugh when she saw him. She didn't cry either, but she looked like she wanted to.
Cassie eventually gets married, but from the beginning Sam is the foremost male influence in the child's life. He was there when the kid took her first steps, took her camping and watched her plays.
And because he isn't John, Sam leaves hunts to be there at important times. When he does that, he likes to think he's making up for all the times no one gave up anything for Dean.
Four weeks before her thirteenth birthday, Sam supplements the talk Cassie already gave her with a lecture on the many reasons men were not to be trusted. And when he does, he wishes Dean was there to do it, but he can't help marveling at the proverbial circle of life Elton John sung about.
5.
Sam never wanted to get married without his family there. He had thought his marriage to Jess would have been like that, and for one shining second when Dean had shown up at his house and spirited him away, he'd hoped things would be different.
They weren't. When Sam married, he was the only living member of his immediate family left. One of the last things Dean had done was contact some of their mother's relatives and ensure that Sam had them to turn to if he wanted. It had taken some time, but eventually Sam had reached out and developed relationships with cousins. They had been there at the wedding, and he'd been grateful, but they were kin, not family. They hadn't been there at his birth, held him when he was sick or taught him to burp the alphabet.
So even though he was crazy in love with the woman he was marrying, even though he would actually find happiness and faith in love and life with her, have children with her, he missed their presence more than he had thought he would. He had left a couple of seats empty in the front row where he liked to imagine his parents would have been and at some points in the ceremony he could almost see his mother crying and his father beaming that slightly shy and proud smile of his.
He didn't have a best man, despite his adherence to traditions. His fiancée had tried to convince him to use one of her brothers, but he'd been unable to bear the thought of anyone else standing beside him at the altar. And, ironically enough, while he always felt Dean by his side, he'd never felt his absence more than he had on that day.
6
Sam had never wanted to be alone when he died.
He'd never thought anyone should be alone when they died. There had always been power in the knowledge that his mother and Jess had died looking down on him, that he'd been looking up at them when they took their last breaths.
John may not have known it, but Sam and Dean were there when he died too. They'd stood in the doorway of his hospital room, watched doctors working on his, and willed him to live. Even more importantly, when John's spirit caught up with his body and finally found its rest, Sam and Dean had been there to watch and cry and send all the love they had to the man who had raised them, for better or worse. There were many regrets that Sam had about his relationship with his father, but he was glad that he'd been there when it was most important.
He'd tried to be there for Dean too. He'd tried so hard that Dean had to knock him out or there would have been two bodies lying there the next day. And, he thinks, for all Dean's vulnerabilities, he'd been the strongest man alive to face such a fate without someone there to hold his hand.
But Sam, Sam's alone in a hospital bed. His wife has long gone to join Jess, Mom, Dad and even Dean, whose soul managed to get out of hell with minimal help from his little brother. Sam has a feeling the demons down there got sick of him, but he wishes they hadn't felt the need to endure Dean for three years. That time was painful for Sam, whose imagination allowed him to see all too clearly his brother's suffering.
Sam's kids are on their way, but he knows they won't make it. He can feel death, and he's not angry at his fate. He's seen the end of one century and more than half of another, watched his children and grandchildren grow up and even watched a great-grandchild ride his bike for the first time. But he's spent so much time fighting the undead that he wishes he weren't facing this journey alone, that his family was there.
It isn't until the end that Sam realizes his family may not be there for the beginning of this journey, but they'll be there to welcome him home.
7.
Sam's always wanted to believe.
Watching X Files in dingy hotel rooms, Sam had marveled at the juxtaposition between belief and faith in the show. It was ironic that religion was a huge part of the skeptic's life and not so much the believer's. Of course, that wasn't as disturbing as Dean's out of control crush on Scully, but it was interesting. It was as if belief in the supernatural presupposed a distance from creationism.
Sam never got that. Okay, he understood and kind of agreed with Darwinism. But God, whether you were Muslim, Jewish or Christian, or a follower of any other kind of higher being, did not mean you couldn't hunt the supernatural. After all, many of those faiths had incorporated rituals that hunters used on a daily basis, but those same staunch men and women who held crosses and used water blessed by priests or imams couldn't trust in angels and good power.
For some time, Sam wondered if that visibility meant that evil was more powerful.
Then he grew older, and came to see the value of choice, and wholeheartedly embraced a path that left good and evil up to him. He'd begun to go to church with Jess for reasons other than taking holy water or seeking refuge, and enjoyed it. When that too was taken away from him, he'd found solace in solitary prayer, but kept it from Dean for some time. The younger sibling in him didn't want to have his faith shaken by the scorn of the one person who had the power to challenge everything Sam found sacred.
And despite all he saw and experienced, all he suffered over his parents' deaths, Sam wanted to believe so strongly he embraced the few opportunities he had to do so. And for the one year he fought for Dean's soul, he prayed so hard for his brother that he knew God couldn't ignore him.
And when nothing happened, when his miracle didn't appear, his faith died with his brother. He still fought for good, but he did it without the trust that that some all-powerful being was at his side.
Later, when he had children, he went through the motions of believing because he wanted his kids to have the faith he could no longer muster. Because he knows it got him through some difficult times, he gives them the opportunity he never had. Because the thing is- Sam's always wanted to believe, but he's not sure he's ever truly been able to.