Song Remains the Same

Chapter 70: Tabula Rasa

"Hey, brother, there's an endless road to rediscover."
- Avicii

Three Days Later

Like she had for the past few days, Alex woke up early without an alarm. Similar to a kid on Christmas she stole downstairs quickly and quietly as to not wake anyone. She was eager to see what she knew she'd find in Bobby's study: Sam asleep on the couch, peaceful and quiet, himself.

Seeing him there again—him—was indescribable and surreal.

Just a few days ago he'd been an apathetic and brusque Sam-shaped person who bore no resemblance to the real Sam Winchester. He'd been a flesh-and-blood ghost of who he'd been before. Now he was alive again in every sense of the word and when Alex peeked around the corner of the hallway into the study and saw him on the couch snoring, she smiled as her heart warmed all over again. Everything about him being back almost too good to be true. But it wasn't. It was really Sam.

How surreal the first couple hours had been when he first woke up. When Sam realized he'd been gone a full year and said he remembered nothing after the cemetery, Dean had quickly taken control of the conversation and told Sam he had just gotten back. Instead of telling Sam he'd been alive for a year without his soul, Dean swept it under the rug and gave Bobby and Alex looks that said not to contradict him.

Since then he'd taken both Bobby and Alex aside and insisted they say nothing to Sam of the year that had passed. He said if they jogged his memory or told him the truth, they risked breaking the wall Death had put into Sam's mind, the wall that protected him from the Hell memories and possible insanity therein. Not telling Sam what had happened was difficult especially for Bobby, who was very wary around Sam after the crowbar incident and the almost-killing-Alex incident. Maybe Alex should have been a little weirded out too being around the same guy who'd been about to slice her throat open a few days ago. But she was fine about Sam because one look into his eyes when she'd first seen him again told her irrefutably that was Sam. That saying, eyes are the windows to the soul? She believed that a hundred percent now.

It was hard to say if Sam was 'over' being soulless or not—and it was hard to say if the wall Death had put in his mind would hold or not. The middle Winchester was definitely a little worse for the wear. He was sleeping excessively (sixteen to eighteen hours a day by Alex's best guess) and eating Bobby out of house and home. Last night Alex had made him the spinach and artichoke dip she'd tried making before (hadn't screwed it up much this time, either). Sam ate it all voraciously with some crackers and then complimented her up and down about it in the midst of his astounded elation that she had made something from scratch. "What'd you do with my kitchen klutz sister?" he'd joked. She'd felt proud of herself and very pleased with his reaction. Dean had smiled from where he was paging through a book in the study. Sam had then quizzed her about the process of making the dish and asked about when she'd picked up cooking, complimenting her several times more. The last time she'd tried to do something for him, he couldn't have cared less... the difference was night and day. What a difference a soul made, huh?

Things were looking up for the Winchesters. Alex thought that if Sam's mind-wall could hold and if Castiel could win the war upstairs, things would finally be good... not just passable and not just acceptable but good. Golden. Perfect, even. The painful days and long waiting and sacrifices would all be worth it. Hope was filling her at painfully huge levels as she started to truly believe that the darker days were done in her life and the lives of those she loved. The light at the end of the tunnel was getting brighter and brighter... and as a result happiness was returning to her life, she was actually excited for the future and what it would bring.