ten thousand miles [spn][epilogue]
Epilogue
That was four years ago.
It's funny how much can change in four years, and then, how little.
Bobby can still be found at his salvage yard. Stand outside on any given Saturday, and you’ll hear the sounds of him tinkering with something or the other, be it engines or guns. Sometimes there’ll be voices, but more often it’ll just be the birds and the sounds of metal on metal, and the soft step of boots on dirt. There are more cars in the yard now, but the fix-up’s faster too. Times are bad. Hunters stop from all over for a drink of water and a talk, and those who are so inclined take the comfort of disappearing into a car engine for an hour and a half, not worrying about who’s dying where and how.
Bobby’s still hunting, living like he’s never going to leave his prime. Walks with a slight limp in his left leg, all credit due to the ghost of Hugo Davenport, but it has never slowed him down and never will. He’s got a picture in his pocket and another in a drawer in the kitchen and a third tucked behind the phone, ready to pull out and show to anyone he trusts. You ever see this kid, you give me a call, he says, softly; it’s almost only a ritual now, and maybe an excuse to take out that photo and look at it for a moment and think of lost souls, but that hasn’t stopped him yet.
Ellen’s got the Roadhouse back to top-notch condition. It’s running better than ever, now, when hunters need to gather and feel the warmth of understanding and camaraderie around them. Jo swings by every now and then, when she’s not on a hunt, or when she’s seen too much death and isn’t feeling too old to need a mother. They talk and bicker to the sounds of hunters’ gossip and beer bottles being set on wood. If someone’s been busy at the game console, Jo will head over after a cup of coffee and have her name listed on every high score slot in under an hour.
One of them will always ask, Any news?
The other will always answer with a shrug, and a small, No.
No matter how many times they get the same answer, the questions don’t stop. Not unless a hardened hunter in a leather jacket walks in, entering slightly to the right and holding the door open a moment too long, as if there’s still supposed to be someone coming in behind him.
-
On September 8th, 2008, four months and six days after his death, Dean returns from Hell. Only a handful of people truly know why or how; for the rest, there are rumors. The grapevine is thick with them, stories of angels and demons and the Apocalypse. Stories about 66 Seals and four horsemen and a Biblical ending that has yet to come. They surround Dean like a cloak, until he himself is a rumor; some say that his time in Hell has turned him into a demon, others call him an angel. Yet others say he is still human, but that our fate rests in his hands.
No one knows what to believe.
-
When he comes back, Dean doesn’t ask about Sam. He doesn’t call Peter Mendel.
He is afraid of asking Castiel for a long time, not sure if he wants to know the answer, but Castiel eventually tells him on his own, saying he cannot sense Sam, but that doesn’t mean he is not alive.
Sam is not their concern.
It doesn’t make Dean feel any different than before.
-
He buys a house in Bridgewater, ignoring the surprised looks of the townsfolk who were sure he’d dropped off the face of the earth. He doesn’t stay there, still hunts, still lives in his car. But the house is there, in the last town Sam was known to have existed in, and it’s in a name Sam knows.
In case he ever finds his way back.
-
He gets a call from Bobby one day, while loading the washer at the Laundromat he’s stopped at. He’s been back from Hell for six months.
Got a call from Mendel, says Bobby. The detective who was working Sam’s case.
As if Dean needs reminding. What did he say? he asks, the phone pressed between his shoulder and ear as he pushes quarters into their slots on the machine.
Wants to meet you. I guess those folks who saw you in town spread the news.
I bought the house ages ago.
Do you want to see him? He gave his number.
Dean sets the empty laundry basket on a table. It lands with a small clatter, as he gets the phone into his hand again. Did he say anything about… you know.
No, says Bobby. Nothing.
Dean chews on the inside of his cheek and then sighs. What’s the number?
-
Mendel just wants a cup of coffee. Wants to catch up. Nothing special, nothing important. Dean doesn’t know why he agrees. Peter Mendel is part of a life Dean no longer lives, a life before Hell and years of torture. A past life, one that matters only because that’s the life Sam was a part of, one that Dean is trying to forget.
But go he does, some small, living part of him sparking, attempting to start hope smoldering once more.
Peter’s waiting at Denise’s diner, and when Dean walks in he wants to close his eyes. He doesn’t. Eyes closed, eyes opened - it’s going to be a nightmare either way.
Peter’s sitting on a barstool at the counter, poking at a piece of cherry pie. There’s no one close by. It’s early morning, just before the usual breakfast crowd marches in. It’s an odd time for a meeting; or maybe it’s not. Dean can’t be sure.
Dean walks up to him and says, Hey. His voice is uncomfortable; he doesn’t remember how to do this anymore, hasn’t talked to many people in the last six months aside from Bobby. Angels don’t count. Castiel can barely start a conversation without giving Dean the urge to throttle him.
Peter looks up, and smiles.
Dean Winchester, he says.
Dean freezes in the process of sitting down and says, Christo.
A look of confusion flits over Peter’s face, but nothing more, and Dean lowers himself onto the cushioned seat.
Nice to see you in the land of the living, continues Peter. Wasn’t sure what happened to you.
There’s a moment of silence, and then Dean says, This an ambush?
Peter grins. No, no ambush.
What gave me away?
DNA sample, says Peter. You gave it for-
The jacket, says Dean, shaking his head. You ran it through the database? Isn’t that against the law?
Peter looks uncomfortable, but only slightly. Well.
Dean snorts.
Let’s just call it unethical, shall we?
Sure thing, Mr. Unethical, says Dean. He pulls a paper-wrapped toothpick from a plastic box on the counter and rips away the paper.
That was a long time ago, months before I left. Why didn’t you put me in cuffs? asks Dean. I mean, aside from your obvious moral ambiguities - Peter makes a disgruntled noise - there wasn’t really anything stopping you, was there?
You didn’t really strike me as the criminal type- and you’d managed to fake your death twice. That’s a little startling. So I decided to do a little homework before calling up the SWAT teams. Which, by the way, I was at complete liberty to do. I could have just said that I had Dean Winchester in town and the FBI would have come skipping over.
Uh-huh, says Dean, smirking slightly, toothpick in mouth. And what did your research find?
A body in St. Louis, and a brother and sister who swore you saved their lives. A handful of similar cases scattered across the country, a dump truck full of people who’d swear on their mothers’ graves that you’re not a criminal, but wouldn’t tell me exactly how you’d saved them - or from what.
Yeah? Must’ve been rough, says Dean, a little sarcasm seeping into his voice. A waitress comes over and asks for Dean’s order, pulling a pencil out from behind her ear. Dean asks for the special, not even bothering to check what it is first.
There was an FBI agent I met who didn’t seem to like you much. But I thought it was a little strange that an allegedly dead serial killer was spending all his time in a tiny town waiting for his brother to turn up instead of going around and… killing. Serially.
I would too.
So that’s why you’re sitting here today, says Peter, sipping his coffee.
Great, says Dean. He waits for Peter to ask him who he really is, but either the man has very little natural curiosity, or he’s already found out from sources unknown. Peter doesn’t say anything and Dean doesn’t make the mistake of bringing it up.
The conversation eventually segues into other areas. Peter’s wife finally filed for the long awaited divorce, and got it. He moved out a few months ago. He says he’s happy, and Dean takes his word for it as he picks at his eggs. Divorce has never really made sense to him.
Where did you go? Peter asks abruptly, his eyebrows colliding with curiosity.
Dean shakes his head. Things to do, he mutters.
Things like making towns disappear? says Peter, completely casual, not even looking at Dean.
Dean gazes at him for a moment, then says, Yeah, I heard about that. They ever figure out what did it?
Peter’s eyes are narrowed slightly, but he eventually shrugs. No, they never did.
Dean musters his courage, spits out the words before hesitation can make him rethink and before he can hope too much, before he can make up all the things Peter might and might never say. You ever find anything more about Sam?
No, says Peter and he stares at the pie on his plate.
I never did.
-
A year and a half after Dean comes back from Hell, he’s at a Kwik-E-Mart outside of Denver stocking up on the essentials.
He dumps an armload of assorted delicacies on the counter: three bags of M&Ms, two packages of candy corn, box full of little Funyuns bags and a bag of Hershey’s Kisses.
The cashier smirks, watches as he grabs a bottle of beer from the cold case and adds it to the pile.
Dean catches her look and says, Not for me. Halloween. You know.
His car is never getting egged again, Dean's making sure of that. This time, he definitely won’t eat it all himself.
Right, says the girl, jaw working on her gum, as she begins ringing the stuff up.
She tells him the total and Dean pulls out his wallet. Daniel Wombosi’s credit card snags on something and when Dean extricates it, a small, passport sized photo of Sam tumbles out too. It’s the one Dean used to show around town, in the early months of Sam’s disappearance. Bobby had miraculously kept his wallet and car keys after Dean had died, but tossed all his clothes.
Dean has always found this inexplicable, and Bobby’s never offered any explanations.
Dean’s about to slide the photo off the counter when the cashier cracks her gum, leans forward interestedly, and says, Hey, I’ve seen this guy.
Dean stares at her. What?
Yeah. People’s photos are always dropping out of their wallets and purses, but I’ve never seen one I recognize. What a weird coincidence.
She hands Dean’s credit card back to him, and Dean must take it because he finds it in his wallet days later, but he doesn’t remember it, can’t feel anything.
You sure it was this guy? he says, his own voice sounding distant and muffled. He holds the picture up.
Pretty sure, says the girl. He looked older, yeah. And messed up, like I don’t know - I thought he was crazy, probably been in a hell of a fight too. I thought about calling the cops. I mean, if he’s your family - no offense or anything. But yeah, he was here. Didn’t say a word.
When? When did you see him?
Everything is racing - Dean’s heart, his mind, shivers up his spine. He feels like his teeth might start chattering at any moment or like his brain will implode.
The girl chews her lip for a moment and then says, About a week ago. Can’t be more than that.
She puts together the handles of the plastic bag with his purchases in, smiles at him and says, Have a nice day. She motions at the picture in Dean’s hand with her chin. Tell your friend to get some rest. And a therapist. Looked like he needed it.
-
Dean calls Bobby. He calls Ellen. He calls Jo. He almost calls for Castiel, but thinks better of it at the last moment.
How long’s it been? asks Jo.
Dunno, says Dean, handing her a picture of Sam. Show these around the place, he says. Ask everyone for any details. Anything, I don’t give a shit what it is - what Sam’s wearing, what he looked like, which way he was going. Anything.
They search, and search and search. They shove the photo in people’s faces. Dean pulls out his fake FBI badge when he thinks he might need it. They go from dollar store to dollar store, visit every tourist trap in the area, stop people on the sidewalk.
They search all day.
At sunset Ellen suggests calling it a day. Dean shakes his head.
Just a little farther. A few more people, he says. He can’t stop. Not now. Not yet.
Ellen gets a look on her face and glances at Bobby, but Dean turns away and doesn’t think about what they’re reading into his actions, and asks a teenager wearing ear buds and clutching an iPod if she’s ever see the man in his photo.
They search for five more hours, until the streets are empty and the shops shut down and find nothing.
A handful of people recognize Sam. None of them know where he was headed. None of them know where he came from. The only reason they remember him is because he looked like he needed help. But when they asked, he said nothing.
Dean has no idea what the fuck he should make of it.
Later, lying in the backseat of the Impala and watching the stars from the window, he decides it was a stupid idea to look, anyway.
Sam’s dead, he tells himself. Sam’s dead and you realized that almost two years ago. Sam’s dead. Sam’s gone.
And if Sam’s not dead? If those fifteen people who claim to have seen him aren’t lying or seeing things or simply stark raving crazy? It doesn’t matter.
It’s too late for them anyway. It’s too late for SamandDean and too late for DeanandSam, too late for any of that. Even if he finds Sam now, nothing will ever be the same. There’ll be too many questions and not enough answers and the answers he will get won’t ever, can never, be good.
Because either Sam left on his own, or something happened to him. If it’s the former, Dean can never forgive Sam. If it’s the latter, Dean can never forgive himself. There is nothing that will be able to bridge the chasm between them if Sam comes back now.
If Dean’s phone was to ring at this very moment, and Sam was on the line, Dean would recognize his voice immediately. If he saw him in a crowd, even at a distance, he would know it was Sam. But looks are one thing. After two years, the Sam Dean will find will not be the Sam Dean lost. He’ll be a different man, a changed man, either hardened by his actions or broken beyond repair.
And even if, by some miraculous accident, Sam is still Sam, it won’t matter in the least. Because Dean is no longer Dean. Because Dean lost himself a long, long time ago and there is no healing and no going back. He was stripped of life long before the angels and the Apocalypse and Hell. He was stripped of life on December 28th, 2007, the day Sam walked out of their motel room for a cup of coffee and never came back.
So Dean lies there, watching the stars twinkle and then dim, telling himself why it’s just better that they didn’t find Sam today, why it’s good that they might never find Sam. He tells himself that this is just one more scab, one more scar and if he keeps picking at it, how is it every going to heal? Maybe now he’ll be able to stop fanning every minuscule spark of hope he comes across. Maybe now things will get better.
He tells himself truths and tells himself lies, till the sun climbs high enough in the sky to send a blinding glare through the window, and pretends that every fiber of him isn’t still wishing that today had been the day his brother came back.
-
After a long day, after a strenuous hunt and a botched attempt to save a seal and a fucking endless conversation with Castiel, Dean stumbles into his bed without taking his sleeping pills.
The dream comes back like it never left, for the first time in years. It’s just as Dean remembers it. The ominous black mountains, the unearthly trees, the rancid river.
Sam, standing there, looking as young as he did the day he vanished.
Dean walks up to him, feels hollow and lost and alone. I thought you’d have crossed by now, he says. I thought the ferryman would have come.
Sam smiles. Not yet. Soon. Maybe.
Dean swallows, and nods and tries not to look too closely at his brother, tries not to look too deeply into his eyes. He doesn’t want to know what lies there.
The wind rustles the dying grass and the golden leaves of the trees, wailing as it passes.
It isn’t like Hell. It’s nothing like Hell. But then, it isn’t Heaven either.
It’s just a crossing. Just limbo.
Sam opens his mouth, then, and Dean knows what he’s going to say. And he also knows, instantly, without a shred of doubt, that this is the last time Sam will ask him this question. That this is the last time Dean will have this dream. That this is the last time he will ever see his brother embody some semblance of the living, the last time he will hear his voice, the last time he will see him move and breath and gaze back at him.
There’s something you need to know, says Sam.
Like Dean knows all those things, he also know what he wants to ask, with more surety than he’s ever possessed, Dean knows what he’s supposed to ask. It’s not a question, really, more of a wish, a prayer. Last rites. Maybe not Sam’s, maybe his own. Maybe for the search. Maybe for the hope.
I just want to know that you’re happy, Sam, he says, and something appears in Sam’s eyes at that, something that makes him think that maybe these questions aren’t for the answers, but for something else. God, I - I wish I knew you were - I just want to know that you’re safe. I miss you every day, Sammy. Every goddamn day. I can’t ever stop missing you.
Dean thinks he’s crying, but he’s not sure, can’t lift his hands to check because at that moment, Sam walks forward and wraps his arms around Dean.
And for the first time in days, months, years, Dean feels safe and protected. He feels understood and loved. He feels less alone. Sam’s embrace is warm.
It’s the only place in the world Dean wants to be; it’s the only place he will never be again.
And he wonders, for a moment, what he would say if Sam were to ask him to stay, here, where things come to die. They would be lonely ghosts, not anywhere but with each other, waiting for an end that might never come, waking into a passageway filled with foreboding. Dean wonders if he would stay, just to be with Sam, or this shadow of him, almost peaceful in his brokenness.
Sam steps back and Dean looks up into his brother’s face, and sees no answers there. He wants to say, Please - give me something to hold on to, but the words lodge in his throat.
Sam is smiling, soft and gentle, but his eyes are dim and sad. He swallows, looks out toward the river and then the sky, before saying, whispering, You need to turn around, Dean.
Dean’s shaking his head before the words are out, a lifelong habit, the answer to every order to leave Sam always being no, no, no.
Sam’s looking at him again, and a hand rises from his side to Dean’s shoulder, falls again before making contact, and he says, Yes. You have to turn around. You have to walk away, and it looks like it’s costing him everything to say those words, one of the strongest emotions Dean has ever seen on this Sam’s face and that’s what tells him that Sam’s serious.
This is really the end of this story, of his life with Sam, of family.
I can’t, says Dean, choking, the very thought of doing what Sam is saying ridiculous, unbelievable - Dean doesn’t walk away. Not like this.
I can’t, he says again.
But Sam lifts a hand again and sets it on Dean’s shoulder this time and turns him around. Walk away, he breathes. Don’t look back. It’ll be okay.
How can it? Dean wants to say, shout, scream. How can this be okay?
Trust me, Sam says, as if he’s heard Dean’s thoughts. Go.
Dean’s still shaking his head, lips pressed tightly together, as he takes one long, final look over his shoulder, drinking in every nuance of Sam, praying that his memory lasts, that when he wakes he can see his brother’s face in his mind without having to look at pictures.
Sam’s eyes seem to be tracing his face. For the first time, Dean realizes that this is an ending, not just for him, but for Sam as well. Somewhere, perhaps, Sam is letting go of Dean and the hope of being saved and the wish of life.
And Dean can’t think about that, not now, not anymore, so he stops.
Thinks, instead, that there’s a proper way to do this. He wants to say goodbye, but isn’t sure how.
Maybe it’s already been said, without his knowing.
So he turns away and sees a path leading away from the river, into thick gray mist, and what then, Dean doesn’t know. It feels safe, though, the tug of it stronger by far than the tug of the rushing water behind him. It feels right. It feels okay.
Don’t look back, says Sam again, and fingers lace through Dean’s for a fluttering moment from behind, a ghosting, whispered, wordless vow, before they’re gone.
Dean closes his eyes and gathers his will and takes a breath.
One step, then two, and he can hardly believe he has the strength, but he does, he is, he’s stepping down that lonesome road, not sure where it’s taking him or why, but sure that it’s where he’s supposed to be. He’s forgotten what home means, but he knows there is no home down the road because there is no definition of the word that applies to him any longer, his one connection to that dream being burned away as he breathes the cool air around him. But maybe that’s okay; some dreams, you never get. Some dreams you get, and lose. Some things just happen.
Moving on, it’s what Dean’s been about, ever since November 2nd, 1983 and it’s always applied to everything. Another house, another motel, another school or girl, another set of warm summer memories, gleaming at him through the rearview mirror. If you couldn’t let go, you couldn’t stay sane, not with this life. There’s only one thing he’d always vowed to hold onto. But the fact that he would someday lose Sam was inevitable; the supernatural could only take you so far, and even if it got you to Neverland, there were high prices to pay. And it hurts so much that he can’t even imagine it, can’t put words to feelings, but it’s there, so goddamn heavy; to think that he’s got to just let go now, as if there’s nothing stronger than string holding them together.
There are things you don’t want to do, would never and could never do, if there was any other choice. But sometimes, the choice is taken away from you. And then all you can do is follow the road you’ve been tossed on.
There’s something for Dean out there, somewhere. It might take a long time to find, and it might not be as rewarding as what he’s losing here, but it’s there. It exists. A job, a purpose. His story’s not over yet, and it might not be over for a long time, and he’s got to keep on going, because of that. He’s got to keep waking and breathing and speaking.
It’s what he does.
There’s a shimmering silver light hiding behind the fog on the horizon and wakefulness is caressing Dean’s consciousness. It hurts physically to stop himself from turning back. He wonders if Sam would be there if he did, or if he would be gone.
He wonders if he’ll ever find out what really happened.
He wonders if it would make any difference, either way.
Keep walking, whispers the wind.
Dean does.
-
Oh come ye back
My own true love
And stay a while with me
If I had a friend
All on this earth
You’ve been a friend to me.
~ 10,000 Miles, Mary Chapin Carpenter
End
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Author's Notes