A.N. Hi guys! I'm sorry if any of you tried reading this chapter in the past few days, something went wrong, hopefully you'll be abble to read it now! As always, please review, like and follow :) Enjoy!
There was a whooshing sound as the Winchesters and Castiel appeared in the middle of the forest. They could still see the sanctuary over the trees on their right. Cas started to walk purposefully in the opposite direction before he was stopped by Dean grabbing him by the arm.
"Woah, woah, Cas, hey, what the Hell?" he asked with confusion in his eyes.
Cas shook his arm to get rid of Dean's grip. "We need to go, now! We need to put as much distance between us and them before dark."
"What? That's it?" asked Dean.
"I don't understand." Answered Cas, clearly missing out on what the problem was.
"You know what? Blow me Cas!" replied Dean in his deep and angry voice.
"Hey, Dean, come on!" jumped in Sam. He turned to face the Angel. "Where the Hell were you, Cas?" he asked with his usual puppy eyes.
"Yeah, I mean, we've been struggling our asses in there, eating dog food for the past weeks. Where were you, huh?" asked Dean with a daring look.
"Listen, I'm sorry that the conditions weren't Dean Winchester worthy, but if you hadn't realised yet, the world as gone to shit, so excuse me if I had bigger things to take care of before saving your pretty ass, okay? I've been - " Started Cas, almost too angrily, before he resigned himself as he finished his sentence "busy." He finally said as he broke the eye contact and started to walk fast again.
The brothers looked at each other for a brief moment before they started to follow Cas through the forest.
"Busy, right! Because that makes everything so much better" shouted Dean to the trenchcoated angel in front of him.
"Dean, let it go, okay? He got us out, so let's just, I don't know, be grateful." Said Sam.
"Whatever." Simply replied his older brother before stepping up his pace.
Sam sighed heavily, took a quick look around to make sure they weren't followed by any saviors or walker, and followed his brother.
The three men had been walking for a long while and the Winchesters were both wondering why Cas couldn't just zap them back to Alexandria like he had just done to get them out of the Sanctuary instead of walking for miles, but they knew better than to ask him. They all arrived to Alexandria after a couple hours of walking in silence. They came across a few walkers along the way, but Dean was quick to smash their brain, taking out all his anger on them.
As soon as the town gates opened, all its people gathered around to greet the two brothers and their Angel friend. Maggie was the first to run and jump into Sam's arms, throwing her own around his neck.
"Thank God you're back." She said in a sigh.
Sam hugged her back, laying his chin on top of her head.
Dean watched the scene, smirking amusingly at his little brother, who just frowned in response.
"Ahum-" coughed Dean to get Maggie's attention.
She let go of Sam quickly, like she'd just noticed what was happening. "Hum, both of you. I'm glad you're okay."
"Yeah, I bet you are." Dean said with a smile before his eyes caught movement in the crowd around him. He spotted Rick Grimes, slowly making his way through to the gate. Once he joined the three men, Rick gave them a simple nod then said "We need to talk."
The Winchesters nodded back in response.
"Go clean yourselves up and eat something, we'll meet at sunset." Said Rick.
"Alright." Answered Sam before Rick nod again and left the same way he'd come from.
"Come on!" then said Maggie to the brothers.
They started to follow her to her house, before Dean stopped abruptly, turning around.
"Cas! You coming?" he shouted to his trench coated friend.
Castiel simply started at him for a moment and walked away.
"Yeah, well fuck you too…" Dean whispered to himself before heading back to Maggie's place angrily.
Dean arrived in the kitchen a few minutes after Sam and Maggie had already settled in. She was pouring canned soup in a ceramic bowl set in front of Sam.
"Sit down, I'll make you a bowl." Said Maggie, not raising her eyes from her task.
"I could go for at least 15 double cheese burgers at the moment." Answered Dean in a tired and hungry voice.
Maggie chuckled slightly. "Yeah, well, I promise that when we have burgers raining down on us, you'll be the first one I notify, but until then, we have bean soup."
Dean smiled with his mouth, although his eyes were looking sad and exhausted. "Thanks Maggie, but, um, I think I'm going to clean up a little first."
Truth be told, he needed to clear his head. He was boiling from the inside, thinking non-stop about Cas, about Negan, his dad, all of this walker mess, and he needed to take some time to think things through or he would explode.
Sam noticed something was off with his brother and looked at him with concern in his eyes. "Hey, Dean, you okay?"
Dean realised he was starring at nothing in particular, lost in his thoughts for longer than he intended to. "Yeah, I'm just, um… yeah I'm fine."
"Alright, well there's water and towels in the bathroom cabinet. I'll heat up the soup for you when you come back." Maggie said.
"Thank you." Answered Dean before disappearing up the stairs.
He quickly got into the bathroom and gently closed the door behind him. He leaned against it for a moment, closing his eyes, and as much as he tried not to, a tear made its way down his cheek. He wasn't particularly sad, he was just so damn tired. I didn't get enough sleep last night tired, but completely drained out, exhausted physically and mentally from everything.
Dean whipped away his tears as quickly as they had come down, shaking himself up. He knew it wasn't time to give up. That all of it was just the beginning and that people were counting on him. That Sam was counting on him.
The thought of Sam being changed into one of those things was enough for Dean to gain back a hint of energy. He needed to get his tired ass clean, to chug down that damn bean soup, to meet with Rick at sunset and to come up with the best plan that ever existed to end this mess once and for all.
Dean cleaned himself up rapidly with the bucket of water and towels Maggie had left for him and got back down stairs to find Sam asleep in the living room. Maggie was sitting at the kitchen table and got up as soon as she saw Dean walk down the stairs.
"Hey! The towels okay?" she asked.
"Hum, yeah, thanks." Answered Dean, trying to crack up a smile.
"Here," she said, "you should eat something." She poured him some soup and gave him a spoon.
Dean looked at the bowl for a moment. It's gotta be better than dog food, he thought to himself.
He started to carefully dig in and as soon as the hot liquid touched his lips, his eyes lit up like a thousand Suns.
"Maggie," he started, "this has to be the best soup I've ever had in my whole damn life!"
Maggie laughed. "Well, glad you like it, because that' pretty much all we got left until our next supply run!"
Dean didn't answer. He was savouring his soup, lost in his thoughts. In his mind, Dean was 4 years old again, sitting at the kitchen table in their Lawrence house. His mom was making her classic soup, like she did every Sunday before they all went to Church. Little Dean was happy and loved and it felt as if nothing in the world could get to him at that moment, as long as his mother was there and he was slurping his soup. His dad would come home with his baby brother any moment and he'd give Sammy a kiss on the head while his mom and dad would kiss on the mouth, which he hated. His father would laugh and…
Dean frowned. He could clearly remember his dad's laugh, but it seemed that all he could see now was that Demon wearing his dad's meatsuit and swinging his damn baseball bat.
Without even trying, Negan had stolen the few good memories that Dean had left of his dad. Now, when he tried to remember those Sunday evenings, all he could picture was Negan holding Sammy and laughing at Dean. He could picture Negan forcing himself on his mother while she tried to get away.
The thought of it made him sick.
"Hey, Dean, you okay?" asked Maggie, who couldn't help but notice something was off with Dean.
"No… No! No, we need to – I need to kill Negan. I just –" Dean started to say incoherently as he got up from his chair way too fast. His head started to spin, and he felt his vision slip in and out of focus.
"Woah, hey, Dean!" exclaimed Maggie as she rushed to catch him before he was about to faint. "You need to sleep, okay? Regain your strength. Negan ain't going anywhere, okay? Just go to sleep, I'll come and get you and your brother at sunset."
Dean was breathing heavily. "Just… I need to be the one doing it." He said.
"And you will. But until you get some rest, you're no good to fight."
Maggie's eyes were full of concern and Dean couldn't do anything but sigh and let her guide him to the leaving room. He settled slowly on the couch next to his brother, closed his eyes and promised himself to avenge his father.