Kissing Curve, 3/3
PART THREE: EPILOGUE
"Broke it in a fourth place," Sam is telling them drowsily, gesturing at his elevated leg with a pulse-oxed finger.
He looks strange and different, now that he's clean and dry and normal except the cannula under his nose.
Especially since that night is just a wet, muddy blur that keeps getting muddier. It's almost like Jamie's meeting a different person, some stranger in a hospital bed.
Except not.
"Will your brother be okay?" She says.
Sam looks past she and Kevin to the other bed, where Dean is propped up and bluish and sleeping hard.
"Yeah," Sam says after a moment. "Sick as a fucking dog, but he'll live." He looks at Kevin and smiles. "Pneumonia. You were right."
"See?" Kevin says, proudly sticking out his chest. "I wasn't completely useless."
Sam snorts. "Dude. I been doing this my whole life, and I have never heard anyone scream like that. And you fainted."
Kevin bristles. "Motherfucker tried to kill me."
"Tried to kill all of us." Jamie shoves Kevin toward the door in a manner she hopes seems playful. "Get out. I want to talk to Sam alone."
Kevin's lower lip quivers.
"If you ask me for a kiss," Jamie says, "I swear to christ, I'll--"
"--okay," Kevin says, backing out the door. "Alright. I'm leaving."
When he's gone Jamie fixes a serious gaze on Sam. "Will you two really be alright?"
Sam waves a dismissive hand. "He's getting better. At worst I'll end up with a permanent limp."
"I mean, we have a spare bedroom, if you're released before Dean..."
But Sam is already shaking his head. "Don't worry about us. We'll be fine."
She nods, feels like she should say something but can't find the words.
It all seems unbearably tragic, Sam still sniffling and coughing with flu, his leg broken four times over. And Dean. Jesus. In the last week she's had nightmares, over and over, of Dean clinging to his brother like that was enough, like it didn't matter that they were sitting in a foot of mud, that Sam's leg was shattered. That they were almost killed by a ghost.
Dean was right. She wants to tell them they're heroes or something. Thank them. Give them a medal. Make it somehow worth it, to both of them.
"You want to thank us?" Sam says, as if he read her mind. "Go enjoy a happy life with your boyfriend."
Jamie's not sure about the "with your boyfriend" part, but she keeps that to herself.
She smiles and pecks Sam and Dean on the forehead and tells them goodbye.
::::
THE END.
MASTER POST