AN: This idea occured to me this afternoon. There could be more to this story if people are interested. If you like it enough and would like more let me know!

The phone dropped from her hands, her hands, trembling, went to her mouth, her mouth and her face crumpled, and as the tears began to fall her knees gave out and she ended up on the floor. She pressed her hands hard against her mouth to keep the sobs soft. Ben didn't need to hear. Ben didn't need to know yet.

She rocked back and forth, trying to keep the sobs silent. He wasn't ever coming back, there wasn't an apology, a card, a conversation, a gift or even a smile that could fix this. And God he ache in her heart, made her wish that wasn't true. The first sound escaped her hands. She couldn't keep it in any more. She had nailed the coffin so to speak. She told him to never come back and she had meant it, it was the truth, but so often the truth hurt.

And the truths that tumbled from her mouth one after another seemingly without control had been painful not only for Dean to hear but for her to say. She loved him. Loved him like none before him, and she let him go, she told him to go, she forced him to go.

For the past year he had asked why, "Why aren't you kicking me out? Why haven't you decided that this is too hard? Why haven't you realized that I'm not a good influence on Ben? Why are you so good to me?" She had given reasons, reasons that showed that she loved him, that she cared about him, thought that he was a man who was someone to be admired not to be shamed. She thought that he was hers to keep, and now she realized that she had been trying to put a leash on a soul, and while it tamed the beast, it's natural instincts were always full tilt, always on the go, always ready to pounce, to run, to go back where it belonged. And while it loved her, it wasn't meant to stay with her.

And she fully understood that when Sam came. Dean had looked so looked torn and lost and worried, and so confused. She saw it, and she loved him so much that she couldn't bear to see the worry wrinkles by his eyes, feel the taught muscles when they lie in bed, and she couldn't stand to hear his silence—silence that said more than any words ever spoken. And she decided that she would test the philosophy of "if you love something let it go" and she did. She let him go with his brother uninhibited. She let the love of her life go, be what he was supposed to be, kept the door open, kept communication open, kept her heart open, just in case he wanted to come back.

Now her heart simply hurt. It hurt so bad she thought that it was ripping into tiny pieces. Another sob escaped her and the tears came down faster and harder. It truly had been the best year of her life. And stupid Sam ruined all of it. He had to come back, he had to come and get Dean, he had to…he had to come back from hell. That thought made another sob escape. She was wishing that a man who had made the ultimate sacrifice hadn't come out of hell because it took Dean away from her. What a selfish thought.

But tonight, tonight, she was allowed to be selfish, she was allowed to cry tears of self pity, of remorse, of pain, of regret. And tonight she could wish Sam Winchester had never come back from Hell and Dean was holding her and telling her it would be okay.