Chapter Text
“Grief is not linear.
It is not healed by time;
it is a festering wound that is continually being ripped open
by the echo of a presence that is no more…
You don’t forget. You can only accept that which cannot be changed…
We return, not for nostalgia, not for closure,
but to rip open the wound of apathy and take what we are owed.”
Everything is fine.
Really, it is.
The Big Bad has been defeated. The good guys have saved the day. End of story. Credits roll. Time for the epilogue and all that jazz. Gettin’ back to the simple hunts, y’know: the rugarus, a vamp here and there, some salt ‘n’ burns, the easy stuff.
They’re on their way back to the bunker now, having ganked a poltergeist in Kewanee two days ago and making a pitstop for a surprise double-feature of cases in Des Moines when Donna had gotten word that they were passing through. She’d just swung into town herself and said she could use a hand cleanin’ up a couple nests tryin’ to make a battleground of the local neighborhoods, and they were more than happy to help where they could– Dean especially keen on a problem that was tangible, one better solved with a fight rather than getting chucked around by an incorporeal jackass until the right body was burned.
They’d stayed overnight and caught breakfast with Donna the next morning, catching up on things and how Jody and the girls were doing, how they were doing, how it felt saving the world again– All in a day’s work, they’d said, and the three of them laughed together easily. It was nice.
It was lunchtime before they’d finally headed out of town and back on the road, but Dean would be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping that either she or Sam had gotten wind of something else needing their attention before they could reach the point of no return. Three hours into the drive so far, though, and no such luck. It’s fine, really. Dean just wants something to do with his hands, besides twisting the steering wheel in his grip– not that driving isn’t nice, but there’s construction and it’s pissing him off and things are a little too quiet for what he’s used to and he just doesn’t–
He hasn’t really had a ton of time to sit alone with his thoughts for a while, and that may or may not be by design.
It doesn’t help that Sam isn’t a particularly riveting conversationalist at the moment, either.
Dean’s eyes flick over toward the passenger seat, and he can tell that Sam is probably texting Eileen. He hasn’t looked up from his phone for over an hour, and he’d long since given up suppressing the smile pulling at the corner of his mouth that Dean can see. It’s good, really good, seeing his little brother happy. It’s nice not having to think about how the worry lines were starting to become permanently etched into Sammy’s giant forehead. It’s great that he has someone to talk to, to look forward to spending time with, that he has a life outside of– this, a life that he can talk about with someone else.
Dean’s happy that he gets to be behind the wheel of his baby next to his brother, that he gets to breathe again without the pressure of something worse around the corner, something even bigger and badder than the previous apocalypse or the one before that. Another point in the column for Saving the World, and finally it’s a victory they can actually enjoy.
Freedom.
He tries not to, he really does, but he can’t stop his eyes from glancing into the rearview mirror to check the backseat.
Empty.
No one is there looking back at him, and that’s okay.
Suddenly, Sam huffs a laugh, coughs in a poor attempt to conceal it and shifts around like a teenage boy pretending he’s super chill and not at all a dweeb about the girl he’s crushing on. He looks up and over at Dean to see if he caught it and if he’s gearing up to give him shit over it, but Dean takes pity on him, eyes still fixed on the road, preoccupied with failing his own battle to ignore the void in the back of the car.
Everything is fine.