Bright Days • Sam Winchester

chapter 1: sam sort of asks me out on a sort of date

"Do you believe in miracles?"

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"If you see a shooting star, wish for a miracle," Abby insisted, jerking on my shirt sleeve for the billionth time that evening. I looked down at her small, crumbling frame, unable to find the strength to be annoyed. I'd given up on her. Abby made me promise her I'd wish for a miracle every single day, and no amount of wishing had done her any good. She was going to die.

That was the part that sucked about being a pediatrician. Abby was my five year old leukemia patient. She deserved everything the world had to offer; every school, every healthy life, and every ice cream flavor should have been in her debt, but she wound never experience those things. She was suppose to die at any moment. I wasn't sure if she'd make it through the night a week ago. Now, every time I saw her felt like the last. The girl was growing weaker and weaker, her skin sinking down deeper, and her bald head and face growing paler. It was no way for anyone, especially a well-aware child like Abby, to live.

"I will," I assured the girl, gently patting her scrawny, weak arm. "I'll wish for one if I see the clock at 11:11, and if I find a penny heads-up on the street. That'll triple your chances. Sound good?"

Abby smiled, and assurance shone from her young face. The expression looked unnatural with her pale, sunken skin. This girl really believed she would see the other side of this mess, that she would live long enough to be normal again, and it broke my heart. "We're gonna get a miracle!"

"See you tomorrow, Abby," I replied, even though I wasn't sure I would ever speak to her again. I tried not to let my hopelessness for her situation show. For good measure, I tilted the little digital clock on her bedside table towards her. "Remember, 11:11. We're getting that miracle." I sounded like I believed my words, even though I was lying through my teeth.

For the sake of the kids I worked with, I believed in miracles. I'd seen things happen that I couldn't explain, like a lumps of breast cancer dissolving overnight, and stage three malignant tumors diminishing in a week. Those things were nearly unheard of, but they sometimes happened. They were my miracles. The kids believed they could get the miracles if they wished hard enough, and most of the time, it was the one and only thing that kept them going. So, I had to let Abby believe she would get a miracle. If she didn't believe, she would have nothing else to hold on to.

I told them all the same things. Those little superstitious good luck charms. I'd plant pennies heads-up under their pillows and on their bedside tables, and I'd come into their rooms before 11:11 just so I could remind them to look at the clock, and I'd open their blinds so they could watch for shooting stars when the night was clear. It made them believe, and it made me believe.

Maybe it was cruel to plant so much false hope in such young people, but it was crueler not to.

The late afternoon sun warmed my pale, vitamin D - deprived skin as I stepped outside, still dressed in lavender scrubs. The hospital loomed over me as I paused on the sidewalk to search for my keys. Once again, I'd misplaced them in my purse, and on top of that, I didn't have the slightest idea of where I'd parked my car. Maybe the world was pitted against me today.

"Amelia?"

My head turned on instinct. That voice was one I'd heard a thousand times. "Sam! What are you doing here?" I forgot about my keys as I gazed up at my old friend. Sam and I were friends since he spent a month at my high school, and we'd kept in touch long after that. It had been three years since I'd heard from him.