A Car's Tires on a Road

As long as I'm here as I am, so are you

Grief can make a person less than they should be. I got that now. Even when Sam didn't entirely get what I was going through, didn't really understand what this did to me, he was right about one thing: Cas wouldn't give up. I'd allowed myself to drown in that hopelessness, to stop caring about myself, had allowed that the crater Cas had left inside me sucked me in enough to stop seeing a light at the end of this tunnel.

How good I'd gotten at the proud Winchester tradition of Ignore It Till It Goes Away. I'd ignored that there was work to do, that Cas counted on me. For a long time, I'd just waited here, waited for a miracle to happen, waited, for some reason, for that familiar flutter of wings, an angel in a trench coat appearing out of nowhere, even though I knew that wouldn't happen. Because neither could Cas still fly, even with his grace intact, nor did he still have that trench coat. It was stored in the Impala's trunk, just like back when he'd swallowed all those Leviathans. Now the earth seemed to have swallowed him, but I would still keep that stupid trench coat, because I had that same stupid hope in me that he'd come back.

I'd just been going through the motions, got up and put some caffein in my system to have enough strength to drag myself to the library, then opened some book and started reading without really comprehending the words. I stared at them without getting a grip on it, without being able to follow the sentences, my mind black and empty and still somehow occupied with picturing Cas' death. Sometimes you just want to go where it's dark.

I was still desperate, still thought that if we could just take out this latest brand of evil, just get our world back on track one last time, we'd get that happy ending. But in all the books that had no answer, in all the leads we didn't have, I just hadn't seen a way.

But there was something new inside me now, a new kind of hope that had nothing to do with myself and everything to do with Sam. He'd somehow dragged me out of this crater, pulled me out of the deadness, he'd reached me in a way I couldn't even reach myself. Sometimes my smiles even managed to go a little deeper than my lips now. I could feel it again, I could hope again. I even ate again.

This morning, I'd gotten up and I'd somehow known this day would be different. I was standing in the kitchen now, dressed not in my bathrobe and joggers that I'd worn for weeks without washing them but in clean clothes and freshly showered. I was cooking myself a burger. It was only a small win, but not any less important. And I just couldn't stand all that grass eater crap Sam had made me anymore.

I was just smiling to myself by the scent of grilling meat rising into my nostrils, as Sam walked into the kitchen. I could feel him staring at my back, probably with some kind of wonder in his face.

"You're cooking," he stated the obvious.

"You have irises, right?" I gave back, my back still to him. "And pupils and optic nerves? One might even say you have a pair of eyes."

I turned my head and caught his frown. "Yeah, I'm cooking," I said, tone annoyed but my half smile gave it away that I wasn't really.

Sam went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. He leaned against the counter and studied me, probably trying to figure me out again. "You finally cleaned up your room, too," he said, apparently Captain Obvious today.

"What were you doing in my room?"

"Nothing," he claimed innocently. "I just went in because I thought you were there. I see you showered, too."

I turned to him. "Alright, I get it. You're a true mystery solver today. Quit analyzing me, Sam. I showered, I cleaned up, I cook. Don't get your panties in a bunch, Sherlock."

He threw me a bitch face. "You still didn't shave."

"Oh, you're good," I jeered.

"You know," he said, "if it was me, I'd never hear the end of it from you."