A/n: SPOILER ALERT for season 11 finale!

This one shot takes place during the season 11 finale. So like many people, there was a lot I was trying make sense of. One of which being why Sam seemed kind of blank after his brother "died." This piece takes place after the world was saved while Sam was driving back to the Bunker (unseen in the show).

Thank you to anyone who reads, reviews and/or favorites.

Finding the Way

The car ride back to the Bunker is silent. Because there's nothing else for it to be. It isn't his fun loving older brother sitting in the driver's seat, with the radio on at a deafening level while he sang along to whatever classic rock song happened to be blaring from the car radio. If you can call it singing. It didn't matter what song it was or what band, it was from a cassette tape, which meant Dean knew every single word to every single one. Including the instrumentals which made Sam cringe even worse than the lyrics his sibling belted out.

"You know the song is kickass when you imitate the guitar solos Sammy!" He had shouted over The Scorpions "Rock You Like A Hurricane" one day what seemed like decades ago to Sam.

"You mean slaughter the guitar solo!" He had shouted back. The older brother had only smiled and laughed. Something about it was almost alien to him now, though he could remember it as clearly as if it had happened only seconds ago and not years.

It was Sam who sat behind the steering wheel of the beloved black beast that his brother had affectionately addressed as "Baby." Because despite the angel, who was sitting shotgun and silent, insisting it be in his best interest to let him drive; Sam had refused. Because that was how it had to be. Because that was part of "the drill." Because it's the only thing the younger sibling could do for his big brother now. Live and take care of "Baby." This isn't the first time she has fallen into his care. It isn't the first time her keys have been transported from Dean, whether it was by him directly or indirectly, to the Winchester who knows what he has to to get by with cars. What his brother has taught him. And this isn't the first time that someone has offered to drive her back home so that Sam could sit and mourn in the passenger seat. It doesn't matter who it is that extends a hand to help him, he doesn't want it. Because nothing they can offer him is what he wants. What he needs.

He stares ahead out the front window with a vacant expression. He should be happy. He should be celebrating. The world was saved...again. But how could he even allow himself to feel any kind of gratitude or relief, when he knows what the cost of this had been? The warmth of the sun should feel rejuvenating after the Earth was almost plunged into literal darkness soon to be nothingness. But to Sam, it's a constant slap in the face. And as they pass up buildings, homes, people going about their daily lives, it only fuels his anger.

To see them talking and laughing with one another as though nothing has happened, to see them living their lives brings on a fire in his belly. If they only knew. Not that they would care. They didn't know Dean Winchester. They didn't know of his countless sacrifices that he has made over the course of time. They didn't know that the reason they all were still sucking air, was because a man, his big brother, had made it possible by in turn giving up his own ability to do so. So that his little brother could.

That same little brother who had spat words out like venom to that same older brother roughly a couple years ago.

"If the situation were reversed and I was dying, you'd do the same thing." Dean's hopeful words.

"No, Dean, I wouldn't. Same circumstances, I wouldn't." Sam's own.

They run stale through his mind as he sits staring out. He's not even sure at first why they've come back to haunt him. Didn't he eat them the moment he saw Metatron sink that Angel blade into his brother as though he were merely a tender piece of meat? Didn't he wish he could take back every word he had said? Hadn't he proved himself wrong by doing everything in his power to save Dean from the Mark of Cain?

So why had he allowed it? Why had he let Dean throw his life away after he had saved him? For the greater good? Because in the long run, that's why his brother is gone now. Because he had stuck to those words that hung around him like old thick cobwebs that couldn't be completely torn down. Because they had freed Dean of the Mark in exchange for bringing on the apocalypse. Which in turn caused them to agree that they needed to stop saving each other, and start saving the world again. That was something they had promised not quite a year ago, and what he had meant to point out that night years back when those words had been fresh and spiteful. And that's why Sam hadn't stopped him, they had promised each other from here on out things would be different. But as much as the younger brother wants that to be true, he knows it's not. Those words may have come out of his mouth, but they never did from Dean's. And even as his mind tries to justify and convince him that he had, in his heart, he knows that his sibling couldn't.

He knows that if this situation was reversed, and Sam had been the one dying, Dean wouldn't have done the same. Not if he could help it. Because despite the fights and disagreements between the two and no matter how many times he would tell his brother to let him go, he knew he couldn't. Because asking Dean to allow Sam to die, for the greater good or otherwise, was like asking a fish not to swim. Because Dean's greater good and his own greater good, were not the same. He'd sooner give up his own life for his little brother, than permit Sam to sacrifice himself. And he did. Numerous times.

But this time was different. This time there wasn't a body for Sam to mourn over, to cradle, to carry back to the Bunker and lay gently down on Dean's bed. There wasn't a body for him to make a deal to bring back to life. His brother had been a bomb full of souls. The moment he activated it, he'd been in pieces, or maybe simply nothing. Just gone. Forever.

Dean had given up his life to save the world and Sam hadn't done anything to stop it, hell, he hadn't even been there. Because ultimately if he had, maybe the world would have ended. Though one way or another, Dean would have died anyways. Along with everyone and everything else including the planet itself. So maybe Dean hadn't said the words Sam had, but he had listened to them. And although deep down the younger Winchester knew it wasn't solely the world his brother intended on saving, at least he wasn't the only thing that did get saved this time. The world was going to keep on turning and for once since the moment Sam had freed Lucifer from his cage years ago, there were no strings attached. No bigger badder monster. No apocalypse. No terminal supernatural illness brought on to one of the Winchesters or by them.

It should be such a small price to pay, one man's life for literally all the world. But then, that one life was the life that mattered the most. The very one this world needed most in it. That he needed most. And since when was he ok with life not being fair? Since when was he ok without his brother to fight along side him? That had been clear after he had allowed bitter revenge and power to control him along with Ruby as his conscience and dealer. And that other time that Dean had vanished, turns out to Purgatory, after killing Dick Roman; While Sam had hit a dog and turned to a normal life. But that was all in the past. That was Then Sam, this is Now Sam. And Now Sam couldn't just sit by and live while Dean didn't.

He feels his grip on the steering wheel tighten and becomes aware of the pair of blue eyes that are watching him closely. As though they're afraid he'll do something they deem stupid or reckless, or both. So the Winchester loosens up his hold again and continues to stare at the road. There's no sense in worrying the angel who is no doubt following an order given to him by his brother at some point when he hadn't been within earshot. Because even after all this time, the angel still doesn't know the first thing about being subtle. More importantly, Sam knows his brother. He knows Dean had entrusted the life he cared about most to the one person he could trust to watch over and out for him the same as he would himself. Or close to it anyways. The angel who had saved his brother when Sam couldn't.

So maybe there wasn't a body for Sam to breath life into, but as Pauline Kael once said; "when there's a will, there's a way. If there's a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open." When he got to the Bunker, he wasn't going to rest until he found that way and pried open that door.

-The End-

A/n: Thank you for reading!