𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐍

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄

Do it for Sam. Do it for Sam.

It's the only thing that kept her from unraveling. Hold it together for Sam. Sam just lost his brother. He should be allowed to grieve freely. She can hold it together long enough.

Numbness overtook her body as she pushed herself up from that floor, stared at Dean's lifeless, shredded body. She'd seen a lot...but this is going to reign as the night terror for the rest of her life.

Bobby wept with Sam all night. Sam may have cried himself to sleep...Katherine doesn't remember. All she can see is...

A dog barks, and she jumps awake. 

Sam is sitting beside her on the sofa in their motel room. "It's just a dog," he whispers, shaking his head. "I, uh...I already looked into it." Katherine puts her face in her hands. He watches her chest shake, and his eyes well with tears. "I'm so sorry, Kat." She sobs, and he moves to hold her. She cries right into his shoulder. 

Sam didn't know he could cry so much. His eyes were so sore, but that didn't stop anything. He had a brief numb period after his first bout of tears, when he somehow thought of everything but his brother...Katherine seemed to hang out in the shock of it all longer than he did.

She was allowed this much. He cried in the car as she drove with Dean's body in the trunk...Bobby come around mid morning and said he spent all night building a pyre. His hands were blistered from the axe. Sam may have spiraled into a fit of rage and insisted on burying him...he'd had a bit to drink already. So they buried him. And as Sam drunkenly wept, Katherine held it all together. Held him together.

He cried in the car, in the shower, on the sofa. Katherine was with him there, at least, sharing in his grief in this moment. He'd never cried with someone before. But here she is, the only other person in the world that can understand this, gripping his arm like a vice.

And there's her phone ringing. They ignore it.

And then Sam's started ringing.

"It's Charlie," he croaks. She doesn't reply, and he looks over his shoulder at her. She looks entirely removed; vacant eyes, pale face splotched with pink, legs crossed, hands resting on her lower belly. Sam answers his phone. "Hey," he croaks.

"Geez," Charlie breathes. "Oh, God. I called Kit, I called Dean—neither of them answered and then when you didn't—"

"Dean's dead, Charlie," Sam says. His voice doesn't sound like his own. It doesn't...feel real. Like this is all just a bad dream. It has to be.

"What?"

"Dean's dead."

Five whole seconds of silence. "Fuck." Charlie sniffs on the other end. "It's—I thought it was..."

"Last night. This morning. I don't know." Sam looks to the woman on the sofa. "Katherine's asleep right now, but I can wake her up."

"No." He can see Charlie shaking his head. "No, let her sleep. Let her sleep." Another silence. "Sam, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Me too, Charlie."

"I'm gonna come to you guys. Where are you?"

"Don't bother," Sam murmurs. "I, uh...we're getting on the road in a little while. I'm bringing her home."

✕

Katherine stares at the ceiling, eyelids heavy like iron. Charlie left the lamp on in the corner of the room again. She never said anything to him about the dark, so...maybe he just figured.