In the End
Title: In the End
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Jess
Rating: PG13
Warnings: minor character death
Word Count: 1,519
Summary: Last moments in life of Jessica Moore.
It’s funny, so much blood and no pain. Just warmth. Dark room, a tray of cookies on the table, her shower still running. A dark stranger that had become unimportant. No fear. Each moment stretching into years.
What was there to fear? She’d spent the last year and a half afraid, knowing something was coming. Granted, this blood, this warmth spreading over her nightgown, this unexpected turn of events had not been it. But the end result would be the same, wouldn’t it?
Coffee cake. That had been the only reason she’d found herself at Hobee’s at six thirty in the morning. That, and maybe the unpleasantness of the night before, the jerk she’d let walk her back to the room. She’d had to actually slam the door in his face. It had been a bad blind-date night, one she’s had no intention of repeating. A mistake, resulting from general loneliness. The campus had been so overwhelming that first year, vast and uncharted, impressive but slightly terrifying. It made her feel small and insignificant. And alone. So she’d gone out with a guy one of the girls from her classes set her up with, had a few drinks, and it had ended badly. She’d slept poorly afterwards and had rose long before sunrise.
It had been a morning she’d planned on telling her children and grandchildren about. Early June, warm and soft. The world had glowed around her, the sun rays pressing on the back of her neck comforting her, embracing her. She’d always loved early mornings, the endless possibilities of another new day. But this one had been different. This one had meant everything. Because that morning she’d seen him for the first time, books spread out at the corner table, unruly hair hiding his eyes.
She’d gone in for coffee cake. Instead she’d lost her heart and gained something no one would ever understand.
He’d been quicksilver. Mercury. Steady and strong on the outside but changeable and unreachable in his depths. She would tell herself that she didn’t know, in the beginning, that she couldn’t have known. But of course, that was a lie. She’d known the moment their eyes met. The moment she first saw the flash of his teeth. And that smile had put the early May sunshine to shame, it had made the world drab in comparison. No, she’d been very well aware in those first moments. That no other smile would ever do, that no other eyes would ever hold hers like his did. God help her, she’d known she was lost. That very first morning, despite the flush in his cheeks, despite the fact that he’d seemed so shy, so timid around her. She’d felt fear. Because she’d seen the future. She’d seen herself attempting to hold on to something that would never fully belong to her. And yet, she’d been powerless to walk away.
Was this how other people died? This slow-moving film of the most important moments, life changing scenes, helplessly playing through the pictures most dear to the heart? Oh, she could have written a killer paper on this. It would have been dissertation worthy.
How much time had passed? Her shower still running, the cookies on the table, the dark stranger just a shape near the window. Was he even real? Did it matter? The blood was real. Death was real. And the fact that Sam wasn’t here, that was also real.
Sam. Sam with two left feet, the worst dancer in the world. Sam who could memorize not just pages but chapters of books, repeat them back word for word, without making one single mistake. Sam who’d ordered fruit salad when she’d settled across from him with her coffee cake. Who never once got upset with her, never once raised his voice to her or anyone else, who always tried to see the best in people. Who laughed at silly jokes and had racks of classical music, real stuff like Mussorgsky by Denes Varjon, instead of the usual pretentious shit. Sam who preferred Chopin played by Emile Pandolfi over Eugenusz Chudak-Morzuchowski, because Pandolfi ‘played it with more heart.’ Shirts always tightly stretched over his shoulders, sleeves never long enough, his hair always refusing all attempts at control. Petting a stray dog on the side of the road, his comforting hand on the shoulder of a homeless man, dropping his last dollar in a can of some beggar.
Sam who woke up whimpering night after night and always pretended he couldn’t remember his dreams. Sam who had a hidden assortment of weapons she wasn’t supposed to know about. Who knew how to pick locks and could recite bizarre Latin translations no one had ever heard of. Her lamb who could turn into a wolf when threatened.
“Dean, this is my girlfriend. Jessica.”
She would like to think that this was the moment she knew. But that would be a lie too. And when you’re dying, lying to yourself becomes a ridiculous habit that can be discarded without a second though. No, there had been plenty of signs, little things, so small that she was sure Sam had never even noticed. His face, the first time he spoke his brother’s name. A few drinks too many and so much bitterness behind that name, so many things unsaid. She’d wanted to fold him into her arms and make it all better. She hadn’t. Because that part of Sam had never been hers.
There had been good days before that. Days she’d managed to convince herself that everything would be fine in the end. That their plans had been stable, that they could hold up under the burden of Sam’s past, his family, all those things he never talked about. That they would have that little house and two children and a garden filled with sunflowers. That she could hold on to this beautiful boy, make him her own, that she could replace whatever it was that had been missing, that she could heal whatever wounds he refused to show. That she could somehow harness quicksilver, contain this mercury inside herself without damaging her own soul.
She’d felt the pain radiating from those four letters, one name that meant so much to him, more than she ever would.
Still, she couldn’t let go.
Oh, he’d thought he loved her. Every time those words passed his lips they cut and severed another part of her. They’d both wanted to believe it to be true. That was the thing about her Sam. His heart was so large, she’d gotten lost in it, buried. And even though she’d known that it would end in pain, she wouldn’t have traded it for anything in this world. She would have sold heaven and everything in it to stay there, curled in a small corner of his heart, forgotten once Sam’s brother came to town.
And forgotten she’d been. In moments. Her sweet Sam, he’d made a good attempt at staying true.
“No, whatever you want to say, you can say in front of her.”
And Dean, she could barely look at him. Shadows of eyelashes sweeping over his cheekbones, eyes like honey, like forest fire in late autumn. Smile designed to pull a veil over the eyes of unwary, a smattering of freckles dusting a nose so much like Sam’s. She couldn’t look at him. He was beautiful. Summer and winter, facing each other across the room. Different, yet same.
So many lies in that room. So many secrets. She’d shared Sam’s bed and his laughter, his tears and his dreams. And yet, she’d never known him.
In the end, they went outside to speak privately. She’d watched them go. It had been a beginning of the end, in more ways than she’d realized.
She was lightheaded. She could feel the wound now, an unpleasant tugging in her abdomen. The blood pooling around her feet was starting to cool.
“What are you waiting for?” she hissed, “Get it over with.”
A dark chuckle reached her, blending with the sound of running water. She didn’t want to think any more. She didn’t want to keep replaying those last moments, Sam packing his bag, Sam kissing her distractedly on the cheek, saying he’d be back by Monday. Sam getting into his brother’s car.
Yes, she would like to think she’d lost him when he left. But the truth is, she’d never had him. Not even for a moment. He’d always belonged to someone else.
Something pressed against her, pushed into her. Her feet left the floor. She was grinding against the wall, higher and higher, her nightgown getting caught on the uneven surface, tearing.
In those last few moments, when breath was becoming unimportant and every part of her was cold, when she was so tired that her eyes refused to stay open, when the world started to turn black, she saw him return. Heaven or hell, life or death, whatever was coming suddenly lost all meaning.
He came home to her. He called out her name. And her last breath was wasted in trying to say his.
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