I am so sorry this is so, so late! I don't want to wait even longer until tomorrow morning because who knows if I'll be able to post- one of my very best friends in the world is in town, and our days have been ridiculously full since she's gotten here. This is the first free moment I've had, and again, I do apologize for the tardiness! I hope you enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHAPTER 18

Dean and Lisa wake together, and Dean opens his eyes slowly, none of the usual panic or terror throwing him violently back into consciousness. Lisa shifts against him, her long hair tangled and wild. Neither of them moves for several minutes, just feeling each other breathe. Dean almost runs a hand through Lisa's hair the way he used to sometimes in the mornings, but his fingers fall away when he remembers when they are. His left thumb aches painfully, the joint having stiffened up overnight. Icing it had been the furthest thing from his mind.

"Breakfast?" Lisa says, finally, her voice still thick with sleep and heartache.

"Okay," Dean agrees.

Lisa nods against his chest. "And then you need to leave," she says, not looking at him.

Dean huffs a breath against her ear, almost lands a soft kiss in her hair and stops. "Lisa…" he starts, not sure where he wants to end. He doesn't want to leave, and yet he does. This push and pull, it's always been the same for them. She is the possibility he could only ever have fleeting glances of. Stay too long, and the illusion shatters. The reality of what they are has always had a way of seeping into the life they try to build together. Dean doesn't belong in her world, and she doesn't belong in his.

"I need to put myself back together somehow now. Start rebuilding all over again. I can't do that with you here," Lisa says, like she's reading his mind. "You can't be part of whatever structure I'm going to make for myself."

Dean takes a long time to answer. He thinks of a million things he could say, and none of them make a difference in what happens next. So he picks the easy way out.

"Not your best metaphor. You've always been shit with tools."

Lisa's snort is a little delayed, her playful slap just a little too hard against his forearm. She unwinds him from her, pulls him up from the couch, fingers still touching as she leads him into the kitchen. It's just cereal today, and they eat in silence save for the crunching and slurping of milk. Dean half expects Sam to make his way into the kitchen at some point, but he never does.

Instead, Sam listens to the almost-silence from the hallway. He's looking forward to leaving, to no longer feeling like he's living on the fringes of everybody else's lives. He feels guilty about feeling that way, but it's the truth, and he's promised he wouldn't lie to himself anymore. He'll try his best not to lie to his brother, either, but there are some things Dean doesn't need to know. After another moment, he yells in from the hallway that he'll meet Dean at the car.

The goodbye is nothing spectacular.

Dean and Lisa know for a fact this is the last time they'll see each other, but it's simply that: a fact. He hugs her, and she hugs him back and then lets go just as easily.

"Take care of yourself, Dean," she says, a whisper only meant for him, though Sam isn't within hearing distance.

"You too, Lis. You ever need anything…" Dean stops and cracks a small, sad smile, and Lisa echoes the expression. She'll never call him no matter what the situation, and they both know that.

Sam is waiting for him by the car across the street, arms resting on the hood with his fingers clasped together and head slightly bent, almost like he's praying. Dean reaches the driver's side. Behind him, he can distantly hear Lisa's front door finally begin to close. He doesn't turn around to watch her disappear one last time. Instead, he's looking at Sam. Sam stares back at him, sliding an ice pack over the hood of the car to him. He takes it gratefully, resting it against his ruined thumb.

"Hey man, are you…?" his little brother starts to say, and then shakes his head morosely. "You know what, never mind. Not gonna ask."

"I'm fine, Sam," Dean says, his tone even.

Sam shakes his head again. "No you're not, man."

Dean rolls his eyes. He could really do without the psychoanalysis at the moment. It feels as though he's been under a microscope ever since he popped up in Maine's wilderness: every decision and bad dream and goddamn facial expression closely monitored and filed away for further examination. He rolls his shoulders back and presses the ice pack a little harder against his thumb, staring up at the sky. The day is overcast, a sheet of gray doing its best to swallow the little bit of sunlight that's managed to seep through. It could be almost any time of day. It could be almost any place. It could be Purgatory, even. All that's missing is the stench of it.

"Yeah, well. It's not like there's any way to fix it. So…" Dean shrugs, leaves the sentence unfinished.

"So you ignore it?" Sam finishes for him.

Dean shrugs again. "Usually works."

Sam grimaces, untangling his hands and placing them facedown on top of the car. "You did a good thing here," he says, gesturing to the house behind Dean with a tilt of his head. Dean has no idea what to do besides laugh, so he does.

"You gotta be kidding me," he sputters. "I mean you can't be fucking…. fuck." Dean stops laughing, abruptly. He runs his good hand down his face, trying to resist the urge to leap over the car and throttle his brother.

"Ben's at peace," Sam reasons, and Dean blinks in disbelief, still not sure if Sam is just screwing around with him.

"He shouldn't even be dead, Sam," Dean practically yells. "The only reason he is is because he knew me. Because I set him on this stupid path. I never should've gone to them."

"I'm the one who told you to go to them," Sam says, breathing out a sad sigh. "I'm sorry I asked you to."

"You should be," Dean growls, and he's surprised by how much he means it. He wants to turn away from Sam, but that means facing Lisa's house and Dean doesn't ever want to look at that front door again. Instead, he leaves the ice pack on the hood and runs his injured hand over his face this time, leaving it there to block out the ugly, gray day and the expression on his brother's face.

"Dean?" Sam says after a moment. Dean doesn't move an inch.

"What?"

"I feel like you might not have made it without them."

Dean lifts his head. "What the hell are you talking about, Sam?"

"I just…" Sam pauses, lifts his hands from the car and moves a few steps closer to the front tire. He kicks at it softly, barely making contact. "I don't want to lie to you, and I think I just did," he says. Puzzled now, Dean waits, tracking the nervous way Sam shifts. "I don't think I'm sorry. At least, not sorry enough that I wouldn't ask you to do it all over again."

Dean doesn't know what to say. He stays rooted to the ground, but an angry pit of disgust grows inside his gut, filling him up. Sam watches Dean's face warily, licking his lips in frustration.

"Listen, I'm just...I'm saying this all wrong," he stammers.

"And what the hell are you trying to say?" Dean counters, though he thinks he already knows. Because it's the same story as it's always been, no matter how badly they try to deny it. They'll save strangers from the ghosts that haunt them, from the monsters that stalk the darkness and steal them away. They'll save the world, sure. No hesitation. But there's always a catch. A hit they won't take, a sacrifice that's so far from plausible it's practically a goddamn unicorn.

Sam throws his hands up in frustration. "I guess I'm just saying that I'm glad you're here," he persists. "I'm glad you got through that year without me, despite all that's happened."

"Jesus," Dean hisses. It's everything he didn't want to hear. It's everything he did want to hear. It's so wrong and it's so brutal, that swell of warmth he feels in his chest at the confirmation of what he wasn't sure was still there, filling up the air between them always. "Jesus that's so fucked up. Sam that's…"

"I know."

"What am I supposed to do with that?" Dean asks, because he really doesn't know. Sam shrugs- he doesn't know either. They never have. That's always been the place where all their problems begin, the place where they end. If I just have you, I'll make it. If you're here, I can deal with whoever's not.

"I want to go," Dean says, suddenly needing it more than anything. The road ahead of them, the excuse not to stare each other in the eyes anymore. He's desperate for it, and it slips into his tone, colors his words with a plea. "Can we go?"

Sam nods his understanding, opens his door without a fight. "Yeah, Dean. We can go."

The ice pack leaves a tiny puddle behind when Dean snatches it from the roof of the car. He throws it back into the green cooler where Sam got it from, slamming the lid a little harder than necessary.

It's miles and miles later. They're almost to the next state, driving nowhere except away. The music is on, a little softer than usual. The silence wafts between every drumbeat and strum of a guitar, and they haven't looked at each other or spoken since getting in the car.

"I think I was waiting for you," Dean says suddenly, like they're in the middle of a conversation. He feels Sam start a little in surprise, senses the confused stare, but he doesn't turn to look at him yet. "That whole year with Lisa and Ben," he continues. "It's like I was just waiting for you to come back, you know? I never really let myself love them the way I might've, because I knew it had to be temporary. You had to come back. I needed to find a way or something had to just…" Dean rolls his tongue over his teeth, picks up again. "Because you're right," he admits. "I wouldn't have made it. I know that. And this past year for you. I know that was…" Dean stops again, frustrated. "So I guess...you said it in the worst way I can imagine, but I guess I know what you mean."

Sam clears his throat and takes a long time to answer. "This last year. Even having Amelia. If you hadn't come back…I just..." Dean can hear Sam shake his head; can almost imagine the expression on his face. "Just. Me too, Dean."

Dean nods a little. "Okay."

"Dean?" Sam asks, timid. Dean inclines his head, waits. Sam's pause is too long again, and Dean can pinpoint the exact breath within which his little brother decides not to say whatever he was about to say.

"Let me know when you want me to drive," Sam says, finally.

Dean smiles slightly, eyes finally leaving the road for a moment to drift in Sam's direction. Sam smiles sheepishly back at him, a bit of old sadness filling out the lines around his mouth and seeping into the darkness of his eyes. Still, the smile is real.

Dean wonders at the unspoken words beneath Sam's tongue. He wonders at the road they're traveling, if it's the same as all the others they've walked: doomed to end in tragedy. He scratches absently at a crooked scar on his neck, brought back with him from the Land of Monsters.

"I'll wake you in a little while," he says.

Sam nodes and settles his shoulder against the Impala's window. He sleeps.

Dean lets the road take them.

Obviously this story deviated from season 8 in quite a few ways, and I guess a lot of that was just me wishing the brothers had talked about some of these things sooner than they did (or, you know, at ALL). Anyway, if you've stuck around this long, I want to thank you. This became quite the beast of a story without me planning it that way (started as a one-shot, if you can believe it), but such is the nature of writing sometimes. Again, thank you all so much for your words and your interest. See you next time!