Sam didn't elaborate on that and for a while, at least, Buffy wouldn't push. He'd tell her in his own time and not before - the fact still remained that Sam had been dead for a week at least and who knew better than Buffy how damaging that could be?
She had questions - thousands of them. What had happened? How the hell had he died? When? Did he remember anything? And those were the easy ones... After that came the super-painful. What Dean had done, what Sam remembered of where he was for a week...
She was still on that when she realized Sam was pulling away, almost pulled him back until she realized he was closing the door on the rest of the world which suited her fine.
"I was coming anyway," she said softly, "When I heard..." Buffy swallowed, "It was Bobby who called. But I was..." Busy didn't seem to be the right thing to say.
"Otherwise occupied. I sorta killed my town trying to defeat the First. And then I came to help... In a kind of useless, I lost part of myself but I still want to do something kind of way."
Her calm wobbled a little, ghosts whispering in her ear, and Buffy poked a finger into his chest softly. "Sorry. Just... Making sure."
Bobby had mentioned something about Sunnydale, but he hadn't elaborated, only enough to say that Buffy had been alright. And really, at that time, dealing with his own resurrection, knowing that Buffy was fine was all he really cared to know.
He laughed quietly as she poked him in the chest, testing to make sure he wasn't some sort of strange hallucination. And honestly, he had been thinking the same himself for the past two days.
But having her here, touching him and questioning his existence? Made him feel the most present he had felt since coming back.
He gently took hold of her wrist and pulled her into another hug, keeping her close as he dipped his head to inhale the fresh scent of her. "I'm glad you came," he mumbled into her hair.
There was only one person in the world who could understand what he was going through right now, and luckily, she was here with him.
"I'm glad too," she told him, letting herself be pulled close. Those two days she'd spent thinking he was dead had been like living without a limb and now he was back it was kind of overwhelming.
True, they didn't talk every day. They could go weeks without having a proper conversation, indulge in a quick text here and there and that would be it.
But Sam was her safe place. He'd been that since Stanford, the thing that she could rely on when nothing else made sense. When her Mom had been dying, he was the first one she'd called.
When she'd come back--Buffy frowned. It had taken a long time and a lot of mistakes but she was past it and now Sam had to do the same.
"You're not okay, are you?" It wasn't really a question. "You're pretending you are, for Dean and Bobby, but... You're not." She held him just that little bit tighter for a moment. "I'm sorry, Sam." She wouldn't wish this on anybody, least of all him.
If there was one person he could be honest with, it was Buffy.
She had seen him at his best and worst at Stanford, had been there for him when Jess had died, when his dad had died, and now. Outside of his brother, she had always been the one constant in his life.
He continued to hold onto her as they talked, obvious to him that neither one of them wanted to let go anytime soon.
"I've taken three showers today," he admitted, hoping that it didn't sound so crazy out loud as it did in his head. "Three yesterday, too. I can't...shake it, you know?"
He didn't let go. She'd hold onto that and be grateful to him for maybe the rest of her life because at her worst, she'd pushed people away and she'd prayed - in the brief seconds she'd had to process all this - that Sam wouldn't do the same. That she could help, maybe.
Silly, really. Because all the talking in the world wouldn't make a difference.
"You're hoping you can wash it away," she murmured. She was going to kill Dean when she saw him. If she'd ever thought this was his plan, she'd have been on the next plane to stop him, as much as she loved his younger brother because this should never have happened to anyone, especially Sam.
"You feel like... Maybe it's not you in there? Like you came back... Off, somehow?" She remembered that, remembered Spike proving it when he'd been able to bite her.
"Did you--" Buffy blanched at the thought of him clawing his way out of his own grave, prayed that if Dean's plan all along had been to bring him back, that he'd had the common sense to not do that to him, too.
She pulled back a little, took one of his hands in hers and examined it, letting out a breath. Small mercy, but some, nonetheless.
"I'd have stopped him, if I'd known..." she said quietly. "I love you and I'd have missed you like crazy but this..." He didn't deserve this.
She understood. Down to his inner thoughts, she understood. And he didn't know whether that relieved him or made his heart ache for her in a way it hadn't in months.
He watched as she examined his hand, her thumb tracing the lines of his palm. "I didn't have to," he answered to her unanswered question. He couldn't imagine clawing his way out of his own grave, not like she had done. He was damaged enough waking up to know something just wasn't... right.
He closed his hand around hers. "I don't think anything could have stopped Dean," he admitted. "Not after losing dad too. I just...." He frowned a bit, realizing she had touched on something that had been bugging him ever since coming back. "You're right when you say I feel like I'm....off."
Buffy nodded, thankful for that at least. This whole situation was one she'd never wanted to see Sam in - never wanted to see anyone in and she'd made Willow promise that that was it, no more spells.
Turned out she had Dean Winchester to hold to that too, though God only knew how he'd done it, since he had a severe dislike of anything Witchcraft-y.
And she knew the lengths Dean would go to protect his brother - hell, she'd seen it in action - but this?
"I hate being right," she told him as he closed his hand around hers. "Not... Not for me. I'm okay now. But it took a lot to get here and I--I hate that I'm right about you. I felt kind of... Paper-y. Like my skin was stretched thin or something. And there was something trying to get--Oh."
Yeah, oh. Willow's spell had brought something right back with her, something that had hitched a ride and tried to kill both her and her friends. And then, not to put too fine a point on it? It'd brought about the end of the world. Almost.
"How'd he do it?" Buffy asked, trying to keep her voice casual. Not that she could with this, but hey, bonus points for trying. Sam so did not need this right now.
Sam frowned a bit as he slowly pulled himself from her embrace, leading her over to sit on his bed. As she sat down, he tossed her bag onto Dean's unmade bed before going to fish a clean shirt out of his duffel bag.
He could feel his tshirt cling slightly to the scar on his lower back that was still healing miraculously well considering a dagger had plunged deep enough to sever a major artery and cause him to bleed out.
"He didn't use magic," he admitted, knowing that was what she feared after everything that had happened to her. "He summoned a crossroads demon. made a deal to get me back." His frown deepened as he stood beside the bed, still uneasy about sitting and keeping still. "He sold his soul. One year to live for my bright and shiny life."
And that's the part that made it the hardest. Dean didn't just bring him back, but he killed himself in the process. What the hell was Sam supposed to do after his twelve months was up??
God, he wished it could be that simple. Just kill the bastard and set things right, but....
"Crossroad demons are like the lackeys of the mob boss," he tried to explain, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "They just make the deals. They don't hold the contracts so I could summon every damn crossroads demon out there and it would get me nowhere."
He frowned a bit, and he thought about withholding the next bit of information from her. Partly because he didn't want to upset her and partly because he didn't want her to hunt down Dean herself.
But he told her anyway.
"And there's a catch. If he even tries to break the deal, anything at all?" He dropped his gaze, unable to look her in the eye. "I drop dead. All over again."
"I swear to God, give me a vampire over a demon any day of the week..." Buffy murmured. With vampire's, all you had to worry about was the occasional eating of people.
Demons were a whole other concept. And tricky - way tricky.
"So we find the boss," she shrugged, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, "I enlist the help of a bad-ass wicca, grab a few Slayers..." She tailed off at the look on Sam's face.
Of course there was a catch. There was always a damn catch, only Buffy wasn't expecting what Sam said next at all.
"Okay, you are joking, right?" He wouldn't look at her and that, right there, told her everything. "Is he for real? What the hell was he thinking?!"
And all of a sudden, she got Sam's need to stand. In fact, she got the urge to pace. Because after the last two days - after hearing of Sam's death, after fighting down in the Hellmouth and losing people - good people - this was pretty much the most boneheaded, idiotic thing she'd EVER heard and - let's face it - right up Dean's alley because it brought Sam back, older Winchester be damned.
She paced, letting out a litany of curses brought on by a mix of sheer anger and exhaustion, and turned as the door opened.
The familiar greeting of 'hey, Precious' barely left his lips. Buffy crossed the room in three short strides and popped him one, right in the jaw.
"I don't think he was really thinking much," Sam admitted as Buffy got to her feet, pacing a small line across the motel carpet. He stepped over to her, reaching a hand over to take hold of her wrist and stop her, but then the motel door swung open, and he knew that shit was about to hit the fan.
Bobby dropped Dean back off at the motel, telling him to call in the morning before he and Sam decided to get the hell out of dodge. Dean wasn't even sure where they were going in the morning, but they had to get out of this crapass own, away from all the shit that had gone down the past week.
For the sake of his sanity and Sam's.
He pushed open the motel door and he almost expected to see Sam passed out in his bed, or hell, taking another one of his random showers, but instead, he was greeted by a familiar face he hadn't seen in a while.
He grinned naturally at her. "Hey precious," he drawled.
And then she punched him.
And nothing hurt more than getting punched in the face by a girl with super human strength.
"Dammit," he hissed as he fell back into the closed door, a hand against his jaw. "Fine! No more 'precious'!" He moved his jaw to make sure nothing was broken. "Keep a goddamn leash on your Slayer, Sam."
Okay, maybe his brother deserved that, but as someone who had only once been on the receiving end of a Buffy attack, Sam had to grimace a bit as her fist made contact with Dean's face.
He didn't say anything, just carefully took hold of Buffy's arm to pull her out of arm's length of Dean.
Sam didn't elaborate on that and for a while, at least, Buffy wouldn't push. He'd tell her in his own time and not before - the fact still remained that Sam had been dead for a week at least and who knew better than Buffy how damaging that could be?
She had questions - thousands of them. What had happened? How the hell had he died? When? Did he remember anything? And those were the easy ones... After that came the super-painful. What Dean had done, what Sam remembered of where he was for a week...
She was still on that when she realized Sam was pulling away, almost pulled him back until she realized he was closing the door on the rest of the world which suited her fine.
"I was coming anyway," she said softly, "When I heard..." Buffy swallowed, "It was Bobby who called. But I was..." Busy didn't seem to be the right thing to say.
"Otherwise occupied. I sorta killed my town trying to defeat the First. And then I came to help... In a kind of useless, I lost part of myself but I still want to do something kind of way."
Her calm wobbled a little, ghosts whispering in her ear, and Buffy poked a finger into his chest softly. "Sorry. Just... Making sure."
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He laughed quietly as she poked him in the chest, testing to make sure he wasn't some sort of strange hallucination. And honestly, he had been thinking the same himself for the past two days.
But having her here, touching him and questioning his existence? Made him feel the most present he had felt since coming back.
He gently took hold of her wrist and pulled her into another hug, keeping her close as he dipped his head to inhale the fresh scent of her. "I'm glad you came," he mumbled into her hair.
There was only one person in the world who could understand what he was going through right now, and luckily, she was here with him.
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True, they didn't talk every day. They could go weeks without having a proper conversation, indulge in a quick text here and there and that would be it.
But Sam was her safe place. He'd been that since Stanford, the thing that she could rely on when nothing else made sense. When her Mom had been dying, he was the first one she'd called.
When she'd come back--Buffy frowned. It had taken a long time and a lot of mistakes but she was past it and now Sam had to do the same.
"You're not okay, are you?" It wasn't really a question. "You're pretending you are, for Dean and Bobby, but... You're not." She held him just that little bit tighter for a moment. "I'm sorry, Sam." She wouldn't wish this on anybody, least of all him.
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She had seen him at his best and worst at Stanford, had been there for him when Jess had died, when his dad had died, and now. Outside of his brother, she had always been the one constant in his life.
He continued to hold onto her as they talked, obvious to him that neither one of them wanted to let go anytime soon.
"I've taken three showers today," he admitted, hoping that it didn't sound so crazy out loud as it did in his head. "Three yesterday, too. I can't...shake it, you know?"
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Silly, really. Because all the talking in the world wouldn't make a difference.
"You're hoping you can wash it away," she murmured. She was going to kill Dean when she saw him. If she'd ever thought this was his plan, she'd have been on the next plane to stop him, as much as she loved his younger brother because this should never have happened to anyone, especially Sam.
"You feel like... Maybe it's not you in there? Like you came back... Off, somehow?" She remembered that, remembered Spike proving it when he'd been able to bite her.
"Did you--" Buffy blanched at the thought of him clawing his way out of his own grave, prayed that if Dean's plan all along had been to bring him back, that he'd had the common sense to not do that to him, too.
She pulled back a little, took one of his hands in hers and examined it, letting out a breath. Small mercy, but some, nonetheless.
"I'd have stopped him, if I'd known..." she said quietly. "I love you and I'd have missed you like crazy but this..." He didn't deserve this.
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He watched as she examined his hand, her thumb tracing the lines of his palm. "I didn't have to," he answered to her unanswered question. He couldn't imagine clawing his way out of his own grave, not like she had done. He was damaged enough waking up to know something just wasn't... right.
He closed his hand around hers. "I don't think anything could have stopped Dean," he admitted. "Not after losing dad too. I just...." He frowned a bit, realizing she had touched on something that had been bugging him ever since coming back. "You're right when you say I feel like I'm....off."
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Turned out she had Dean Winchester to hold to that too, though God only knew how he'd done it, since he had a severe dislike of anything Witchcraft-y.
And she knew the lengths Dean would go to protect his brother - hell, she'd seen it in action - but this?
"I hate being right," she told him as he closed his hand around hers. "Not... Not for me. I'm okay now. But it took a lot to get here and I--I hate that I'm right about you. I felt kind of... Paper-y. Like my skin was stretched thin or something. And there was something trying to get--Oh."
Yeah, oh. Willow's spell had brought something right back with her, something that had hitched a ride and tried to kill both her and her friends. And then, not to put too fine a point on it? It'd brought about the end of the world. Almost.
"How'd he do it?" Buffy asked, trying to keep her voice casual. Not that she could with this, but hey, bonus points for trying. Sam so did not need this right now.
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He could feel his tshirt cling slightly to the scar on his lower back that was still healing miraculously well considering a dagger had plunged deep enough to sever a major artery and cause him to bleed out.
"He didn't use magic," he admitted, knowing that was what she feared after everything that had happened to her. "He summoned a crossroads demon. made a deal to get me back." His frown deepened as he stood beside the bed, still uneasy about sitting and keeping still. "He sold his soul. One year to live for my bright and shiny life."
And that's the part that made it the hardest. Dean didn't just bring him back, but he killed himself in the process. What the hell was Sam supposed to do after his twelve months was up??
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Dean sold his soul. For Sam. No magic used - just a trade. A fair one? Maybe not, but one he'd done anyway.
A year. A year...
"Jesus, Sam," she breathed out. As if coming back from the dead wasn't enough for the guy... "How could he--Crossroads demon?"
Something she'd never heard of and she'd heard of a lot during her stint as Slayer. "Can't we just, y'know, find the demon? Kill it a little." A lot?
Forget coming back from the dead, if Dean traded his life for Sam's it would kill him anyway.
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"Crossroad demons are like the lackeys of the mob boss," he tried to explain, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "They just make the deals. They don't hold the contracts so I could summon every damn crossroads demon out there and it would get me nowhere."
He frowned a bit, and he thought about withholding the next bit of information from her. Partly because he didn't want to upset her and partly because he didn't want her to hunt down Dean herself.
But he told her anyway.
"And there's a catch. If he even tries to break the deal, anything at all?" He dropped his gaze, unable to look her in the eye. "I drop dead. All over again."
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Demons were a whole other concept. And tricky - way tricky.
"So we find the boss," she shrugged, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, "I enlist the help of a bad-ass wicca, grab a few Slayers..." She tailed off at the look on Sam's face.
Of course there was a catch. There was always a damn catch, only Buffy wasn't expecting what Sam said next at all.
"Okay, you are joking, right?" He wouldn't look at her and that, right there, told her everything. "Is he for real? What the hell was he thinking?!"
And all of a sudden, she got Sam's need to stand. In fact, she got the urge to pace. Because after the last two days - after hearing of Sam's death, after fighting down in the Hellmouth and losing people - good people - this was pretty much the most boneheaded, idiotic thing she'd EVER heard and - let's face it - right up Dean's alley because it brought Sam back, older Winchester be damned.
She paced, letting out a litany of curses brought on by a mix of sheer anger and exhaustion, and turned as the door opened.
The familiar greeting of 'hey, Precious' barely left his lips. Buffy crossed the room in three short strides and popped him one, right in the jaw.
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Bobby dropped Dean back off at the motel, telling him to call in the morning before he and Sam decided to get the hell out of dodge. Dean wasn't even sure where they were going in the morning, but they had to get out of this crapass own, away from all the shit that had gone down the past week.
For the sake of his sanity and Sam's.
He pushed open the motel door and he almost expected to see Sam passed out in his bed, or hell, taking another one of his random showers, but instead, he was greeted by a familiar face he hadn't seen in a while.
He grinned naturally at her. "Hey precious," he drawled.
And then she punched him.
And nothing hurt more than getting punched in the face by a girl with super human strength.
"Dammit," he hissed as he fell back into the closed door, a hand against his jaw. "Fine! No more 'precious'!" He moved his jaw to make sure nothing was broken. "Keep a goddamn leash on your Slayer, Sam."
Okay, maybe his brother deserved that, but as someone who had only once been on the receiving end of a Buffy attack, Sam had to grimace a bit as her fist made contact with Dean's face.
He didn't say anything, just carefully took hold of Buffy's arm to pull her out of arm's length of Dean.
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