Song Remains the Same

Chapter 149: Full Circle

Song Remains the Same

149 / Full Circle

"A cord of three strands is not easily broken."
— Ecclesiastes 4:12

After Cas left, Dean did not lay back down. Instead he sat like a statue, hands gripping into the cot on either side of himself as he contemplated the doorway out. It wasn't locked or even closed. He was free to go, just as he had been ever since coming back to life. But for nearly an hour after the angel's kind visit, Dean sat there battling himself, believing he was right where he should stay: the room where threats were imprisoned.

The shit he'd subjected his loved ones to careened around his mind endlessly, leaving him feeling incompatible with life and in a stasis of sickened despair. He wanted to disappear into thin air so that he never had to face the people he'd hurt and betrayed. But those same people swirled around in his thoughts, providing every reason to stay and go toe to toe with what he'd done.

Sam, Alex, Bobby... Dad. Jamie. Rose.

His daughter filled his mind more than the rest, leaving him internally crumbled. He had barely come into her life before immediately subjecting her to the Winchester curse: a dead parent, a demon who haunted the periphery. But this time, Dean had been both: the lost parent and the stalking demon. The sound of his own baby's screams when he'd attacked everyone in the library haunted him. Made him doubt himself. Made him think he wasn't meant to be a father. Just a glorified sperm donor. Jamie had been right to lie and keep Rose's existence a secret—and that thought crushed Dean to dust emotionally, making a flood of broken tears come again.

He had become his own worst nightmare. The thing he hunted and worked to wipe off the face of the earth. A fucking goddamn demon. How was he even supposed to process that and everything he'd done? And that wasn't all that he struggled to comprehend: Dad was in the scene again. Alex had given birth to her baby. The bunker was full of people. Everything felt like it had changed in all these unfamiliar ways since he died. He was left disoriented and filled with foggy, demonic memories of hedonism and murder and cold rage the likes of which made him shudder. He relived the moment he'd been killed by Ezekiel a thousand times, aghast at how stupid he'd been. How much of a sitting duck. He kept imagining Jamie not knowing where her boyfriend had suddenly gone. Dean couldn't stop himself from envisioning her trying to figure it out as slow panic set in, their newfound baby daughter in tow. He'd left her alone when she needed him the most.

Dean stayed in this abysmal and self-loathing circle of thought until he couldn't stand it anymore. Then around five in the morning, he finally stood up and took in a deep, apprehensive breath. He couldn't sit here forever, and the longer he did, the harder it would be to peel himself out of this cave. He wasn't a quitting man. He had to try and make things right even if it killed him. And he sure as hell wasn't gonna quit or fall down on the job with Dad around to see it, either.

Feeling like he was doing some sort of walk of shame from Hell itself, Dean slunk out into the deepest and darkest part of the bunker. He made his way up to the main level slowly, second guessing himself the entire time—debating just walking out of this place point blank and never coming back. He knew he couldn't do that. But god he wanted to. The second he was greeted with the familiar hallways of the upper level, Dean had a pang of both homecoming and homesickness. For another long span of time he stood there in limbo, like a stranger might hover in the doorway of a house he wasn't supposed to be in. Dean swallowed, not even sure what he was planning. It was an ungodly hour in the morning, people would be asleep.

But finally, he started moving. Quiet as a mouse, he stole down the maze-like halls, knowing the way by heart—he'd always been good with stuff like that. When Room 11 came into view, his heart leapt to see the door wasn't shut. It had been left wide open with a dim light on. An invitation? Jamie wasn't usually a careless or forgetful person, so it had to have been done on purpose. As soon as Dean thought that, he changed his mind, because maybe she had forgotten—she had an entire child to look after now after all.