Hello, Goodbye for Now
Title: Hello, Goodbye for Now
Summary: Fusion 'verse. Ever wonder what happened to Lisa? So did I.
Characters: Lisa Braeden, Sam, Dean
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 5,612
Disclaimer: You think the producers might let me keep 'em once the show's over if I promise to treat them well?
Warnings: None.
Neurotic Author's Note #1: This is set somewhere between Mock the Midnight Bell and Defying Gravity.
Neurotic Author's Note #2: Poor Lisa kind of got short shrift in this 'verse. I thought I would give her a bit of closure. :)
It's not the first time on this trip that Lisa Braeden wonders just what the hell she thinks she's doing. If she's learned nothing else in her lifetime, she has at least learned that it's sometimes better to let sleeping dogs lie, or to leave well enough alone as her mother was fond of saying back when they were both a lot younger. She should be following her mother's advice now if she had a single lick of common sense, but apparently when it comes to Dean Winchester all her hard-earned common sense goes flying right out the window, which is how she has come to find herself driving along a deserted blacktop in the direction of a town so tiny it barely shows up on any of the maps she's bought.
She left Ben to stay with her sister, much to his disappointment. She knows he loves Dean as much as she does, but she's self-aware enough to know that Dean is part of her past now and needs to stay that way, at least from a romantic perspective. She loves him, of course, and she's pretty sure he loves her back, but Dean has never been in a position to be able to give her what he wants to give her, and she flatters herself she knows him well enough to know that Dean needs to give to others in order to be happy, and there's nothing he has that she really needs. She's been self-sufficient for years, and Dean needs to be needed.
So she wasn't really surprised when, what feels like a lifetime ago, she answered a call from Bobby Singer in her kitchen and knew even before she handed the phone to Dean, that she was about to lose him for the second time. She watched him pace the floor with the phone held to his ear, limping a little from the knee injury he got at work that he never quite seemed to get over entirely, staying mostly silent except for the occasional quiet question. When he hung up, his face had drained of colour, but for the first time in years she saw hope in his eyes, and she felt her heart break a little for him.
"It's Sam," he said simply, and she just nodded.
"When do you want to go?"
It's been nearly a year since then, and she hasn't heard from Dean except for a single phone call to let her know that he'd found Sam, after weeks of chasing after phantom leads. He sounded terrible, voice roughened by exhaustion, but she could hear the unabashed joy in his tone too, and she can't bring herself to begrudge him this one happiness in what sounds to her like a life of unremitting hardship. She'd told him she was happy for him, and it was true, but once he hung up he never called her again.
There's no reason for Lisa to be seeking him out now, except maybe to put her own ghosts to rest. She wants nothing more than the closure of knowing what happened after that last phone call, of knowing that they're both still alive, still okay somehow. She called Bobby Singer when the wondering became stronger than her willingness to leave them to their lives, and wheedled and pried the information out of him. It's not that Bobby doesn't like her, she's quite sure of it, it's just that hunters are a strange, tightly-knit community, jealous of their secrets and the thin security blanket that secrecy affords them. Bobby is Dean's surrogate father, that much she's gleaned from her rare conversations with Dean about the hunting life -the father figure who was able to give him a sense of normalcy where his own father failed, too caught up in his grief and his drive to keep his children safe in a dangerous world-and he was reluctant to risk any more harm coming to the man he viewed as the son he never had, but after a while he let himself be persuaded.
"You go easy on the boy," he'd warned her, and she'd agreed.
"I just need to make sure he's okay. See it with my own eyes. I promise I'll do my very best not to stir anything up."
Pulling up outside the address that she has jotted down on a slip of paper, though, Lisa's beginning to doubt her ability to keep that promise. What the hell am I doing here? she asks herself. Still, she's come all this way, it would be stupid to turn back now. The snow is only just starting to melt on the front lawns of the neat little row of houses on this street even though it's almost April now, the end result of a long winter with an unusually high snowfall, and ice crunches under her boots as she gets out of the car and stretches her legs.
Lisa stares at the tidy little porch, the front door that looks newly-painted, the handrail that looks like it's been recently reinforced, probably to accommodate Dean's new limited mobility. She hesitates one last time, then marshals her resolve and makes herself walk up the stairs and ring the doorbell.
For a couple of minutes nothing happens, and she feels ridiculous. It never occurred to her that they might not be home, for all that the idea of Dean settling down anywhere permanently still seems a little incredible to her, but of course it stands to reason that they can't stay indoors all day long. She sighs, her breath pluming in front of her in the cold air, and is about to turn around and go back the way she came, maybe find a motel room nearby, when there's a soft scraping sound from inside the house. The door opens slowly, and she has to bite back a small gasp of surprise.
"Sam!"
She never would have recognized Sam if she hadn't been expecting to see either him or his brother. He's just as tall as ever, but instead of the healthy, well-muscled boy she remembers she's face to face with a thin, almost emaciated man with hollow cheeks and blue circles under haunted-looking eyes. His hair is longer than he used to wear it, tucked behind his ears and parted neatly in the middle, and his clothes seem a size too big for him, although they're clean and well-maintained. He actually backs up a step at the sound of her voice, glances to one side as though checking on something that she can't see, then looks back at her, his expression uncertain.
"Lisa?"
She breathes a sigh of relief. "I thought you might not remember me." They've only ever met once, although she does remember seeing him briefly right after Dean landed on her doorstep with his cryptic assurances that, no matter what, she and Ben would be cared for. "I'm sorry to have surprised you, I suppose I should have called first, but, honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect," she says a bit sheepishly.
He shakes his head. "No, it's okay. I remember you," he says quietly. "Are you okay? Is Ben okay?"
Of course his first thought would be that something's wrong. "We're fine," she assures him, and sees his posture relax ever so slightly. "I came… well, I came to check on Dean. On both of you, actually. He stopped calling."
"Oh." He glances aside, hands clasped in front of him, and she can see the thumb of his right hand rubbing mechanically at the back of his left. "I, uh… Dean's not here. He's at work. Dean's at work, but, do you want to come in?" he asks a little hesitantly, as though he's not really sure what to do with the strange woman who's just landed on his doorstep.
"Would that be okay?" She doesn't quite know what to make of him, either.
Sam nods, then steps back another couple of paces, holding the door open, and she follows him inside. The house is a lot tidier than she'd expected, and better-furnished. Somehow Lisa always assumed that two men accustomed to living out of their car wouldn't know much about housekeeping, but even Dean made a point of helping with the chores when he was living with her. In retrospect, she thinks that growing up with only enough belongings to fit into the trunk of a car and an ex-Marine for a father probably taught Sam and Dean to be far tidier than the average guy. To this day she's still impressed with Dean's ability to make perfect hospital corners on a bed, something she never quite mastered.
The living room is a cosy affair with a used-looking sofa covered by what's obviously a hand-crocheted throw blanket and a reclining armchair in front of a medium-sized television, a small coffee table that looks like it's been recently re-stained with care. There are no carpets or rugs anywhere, and she's a little surprised by this until it occurs to her that having a slippery rug underfoot would be more dangerous for someone with limited mobility. The room is spotless, though, tidy and entirely free of dust. Sam leads her along the hallway and into a brightly-lit kitchen that's just as clean as the living room at the back of the house, pauses in the middle of the room as though he's not really sure what to do with her now that they're in here.
"Um, would you like some coffee? I can make coffee. Or, um, tea. It's afternoon, so maybe you'd like tea better?" he offers. "Dean's not home, but I can call him if you want. He'll be home in a couple of hours, but I can call. To, um, to tell him you're here, I mean. He'll be happy to see you."
She wonders if that means that Sam isn't happy to see her, but she dismisses the thought as unworthy. Sam looks more like she might turn into a snake and bite him at any moment, more afraid than anything else, and she doesn't like the look on him. The idea of Sam being afraid is alien to her, accustomed as she is to thinking of him as indestructible, the monster-killing giant who features almost as prominently as Dean in Ben's stories.
"I'd love a cup of tea," she tells him instead, and pulls up a chair at the kitchen table. "And you don't need to bother Dean at work, I'm happy to wait until he gets back, as long as I'm not imposing."
He shakes his head. "No, no it's fine. I'm… it's fine." He picks up an electric kettle from the counter and carefully fills it with water in the sink, then sets it back down and plugs it in before switching it on. "Is orange pekoe okay? Dean doesn't like other kinds of tea, so we don't have any. Sorry, I should have thought of that."
"Orange pekoe is just fine. I know Dean's opinion of all other teas," she smiles. "'Fruity, girly shit,' as I recall. And I wasn't allowed to mention 'camomile' in his presence lest I sap the rest of his testosterone."
Sam glances back at her, mouth quirking up into the first smile she's seen on his face since she got here. For a moment his eyes sparkle with merriment, and in that one second she finally recognizes the Sam she met all those years ago, dimples and all. She feels her own smile widen in response, and something of the tension in the air dissipates after that. He busies himself pulling out a set of mismatched mugs and saucers from a cupboard, places them on the table, and produces a Tupperware container with a handful of fruit muffins, which he then empties into a small basket and sets out in front of her as well.
"Look at you, all domestic," she says, and immediately regrets it when he stiffens a bit. Sam nods, though.
"Yeah, I guess."
The kettle comes to a boil and he turns his back to her, fussing with tea bags and mugs.
"Uh, do you… um, milk or sugar?" he asks finally, not looking back.
"Milk, please, if you have it," she says, wondering if it's going to be this awkward the entire time until Dean comes home.
He gives her a small ceramic jug painted a little inexpertly in cheerful greens and yellows, and she finds herself watching the little cloud of milk spread in her mug like a cloud billowing across the sky. She takes a sip, lets her elbows rest on the table even though her mother would probably disown her for her poor manners if she knew, and watches as Sam sits opposite her at the table, carefully stirring a couple of spoonfuls of white sugar into his mug. His wrists are scarred, she notices when his sleeve rides up his arm a bit, and she thinks the scars might not just end at the wrists by the looks of them.
"What happened to you, Sam?"
Sam ducks his head, gives it a small shake, refusing to answer her question. "How's Ben doing?" he asks instead. "He's gotta be, what, twelve now?"
"Eleven."
"Grade five?"
She smiles in spite of herself and lets him change the subject. Whatever happened to him, specifically, it's not her business unless he decides he wants to tell her. "Yeah. He's on the soccer team at school, getting As in Math, English and Science, but he's declared history too boring to pay attention to."
"I played soccer for a little while. Does he like it?" Sam fiddles with his mug, twisting it in his hands on the tabletop.
"Loves it. He'd live on the field if I let him."
It's easy to talk about Ben, and Sam seems genuinely interested, and so she lets herself wax eloquent about Ben's last soccer match, about his friends and the kids on his team, about the school project on volcanoes that ended up with baking soda all over her kitchen, about his relentless onslaught -armed with photos and articles and painstaking research-to convince her that what they really, really need is a dog for the family. Sam listens to it all attentively enough, though occasionally she sees his gaze wander, and sometimes his expression flickers in a way she can't quite identify. He pours her cup after cup of tea until she's sure she's going to be up half the night running for the bathroom, and she thinks they're both a little relieved when they hear the front door open.
"Dean's home," Sam says unnecessarily, and they both push their chairs back, get to their feet.
She lets Sam go ahead of her, suddenly nervous for no reason she can determine. She catches sight of Dean before he sees her, giving his brother a tired-looking smile while shucking his jacket and pulling a coat hanger out of the closet. There's a cane propped up against the wall that wasn't there when she came in earlier.
"Hey, Sammy. I thought you might be coming by the store today. Something happen?"
"No," Sam shakes his head. "I mean, yes. But not -not like that." He holds out his arm so Dean can lean on him a little in order to sit down on a chair by the closet, left leg stretched out to one side, unnaturally straight, so that he can unlace his boots. "I mean, Lisa's here."
Dean's head jerks up at that. "What?"
Lisa steps forward, feeling more than a little sheepish. "Hi, Dean."
She should have called, is all she can think now, looking at the expression of shock mingled with disbelief on his face. The moment is shattered when he struggles to his feet, a smile spreading over his features. Sam puts a hand under his elbow to steady him until he's got his balance, then steps back, seemingly out of a sense of delicacy, and the next thing she knows Dean has both arms around her and is hugging her so hard she thinks her ribs might break.
"Lis, I never thought… are you okay?" he pulls back, hands on her shoulders, anxiety replacing joy within a split second. "Is it Ben?"
"No, I'm fine. Ben's fine, he's with my sister." God, the lives they've lived, that both Sam and Dean's first thought on seeing a friend after a long absence is that something must be terribly wrong. "I just wanted to see how you were."
"Oh. Uh, okay…"
Dean doesn't seem to know what to do with that. He rubs the back of his neck, looks at Sam, then rubs his fingers over his mouth -a gesture she's seen him make so many times now that it feels as familiar as her own mannerisms. It's Sam who clears his throat, though.
"I'll get dinner started. You two should, um, talk," he makes a vague motion toward the living room with both hands, almost as though he's shooing them away, and she has to bite back a smile.
Dean rolls his eyes, but he flashes her a smile and makes a sweeping motion with one arm, elaborately inviting her to precede him into the living room. He's limping badly when he follows her, holding his left leg stiffly even when he eases himself into the reclining armchair and pulls up the footrest. He doesn't look nearly as terrible as his brother, though; he might seem tired, she thinks, but somehow he seems better than when he was living with her, less careworn. It had been like living with a ghost, or a shell with everything inside scooped out. She doesn't remember the last time Dean's smile actually reached his eyes the way it is now.
She realises with a start that she's been staring at him, and feels a blush stain her cheeks when he grins at her. "I don't blame you," he says, "I am very easy on the eyes. Seriously, Lis, I never expected this. I mean… it was really shitty of me not to call," he tells her, expression turning serious. "I just… I didn't know what to tell you, at first, and then, I don't know, the longer I waited…" he shrugs. "I'm sorry, for what it's worth. I should have called."
She nods, clasping her hands in her lap. "I didn't actually come for an apology, but thank you. It's nice to hear that you didn't forget me entirely," she jokes lamely, and instantly feels terrible when he shakes his head vehemently.
"Never."
"So what happened?" she prompts, and he rubs his mouth again.
"God, I don't even know where to start. I… I mean, you knew I found Sam, but -he was in pretty rough shape. So was I, to be honest, but I guess you knew that," he says, glancing toward the kitchen. "Neither one of us was in any kind of shape to just pick up where we left off, and… I guess you found us through Bobby? He's the only person alive who knows us from before and knows where we are now."
She nods, and he keeps going.
"So, I don't know how much Bobby told you, but I fucked up my knee something good the last time -remember when we had that near miss with the forklift? Yeah. Turns out that was the straw that broke the camel's back -or my knee, in this case-and I sort of never came back from that. So, a year and one surgery later, here I am," he pats his leg, an odd twist to his mouth. "It's kind of weird how much it changes your life, hearing that you're never going to walk right again."
"I'm so sorry." She means it, too.
He huffs a laugh. "You know, I'm not really all that sorry. You ever have the feeling that things happen for a reason?" When she doesn't answer he just presses on. "I don't know. I mean, for a long time I thought hunting was all I was ever going to do -maybe all I was good for-and that someday it was just going to end the way all hunters' lives end. And then Sammy -Sammy died," he almost chokes on the word, "and when I got him back, I thought, 'what the hell do I do now?' you know? Because I didn't want to drag him back into that, but it's not like I know anything else."
Lisa carefully bites her tongue and doesn't point out that they could have come to her. In a way, she understands that they really couldn't. This has always been a bit beyond her, even though she does know more about their world than just about everybody else she knows.
"So, you know," Dean finishes, "it kind of worked out that I can't walk now, because it made me rethink things. Figure out something else."
"And… this is what you figured out?" she asks, looking around at the impeccably tidy living room.
"Actually, yeah." He doesn't sound defensive at all.
The evening goes by in a bit of a blur after that. Dean fills her in on most of what she's missed for the last few months -his surgery, the purchase of the house, the way both he and Sam have found something of a rhythm here in this small town. He doesn't say much about Sam himself, but she's able to read between the lines, and between that and her own observations it's not difficult to come to the conclusion that, whatever Sam has been through, it's left him badly scarred, and not just physically. She's almost startled when Sam calls them both into the kitchen for dinner, is even more surprised to find out that not only can the youngest Winchester cook, but that they both can. Dean had, of course, cooked a few meals when he was still living with her, but it turns out that he's more than a fair hand at the stove.
"Do you cook often, then?" she asks, after complimenting Sam on the bottom blade roast he made, complete with mashed potatoes, gravy, and a large helping of broccoli.
Dean shrugs. "Only when Sammy isn't up to it. He likes it better than I do."
Sam doesn't say much during the meal except to prompt his brother to eat more of his vegetables ("You like broccoli, Dean, don't pretend you don't. Besides, you need more vitamins in your diet."), and at the end of the meal he clears away the plates without saying a word, quietly refuses Lisa's offer of help. He shoots a reproachful glare at Dean when his brother pulls out a pack of cigarettes -a habit Lisa never cured him of, and which it looks like he's kept to this day.
"Outside," he says pointedly, and Dean smirks.
"Your kitchen, your rules, Samantha."
Sam rolls his eyes and turns back to the soapy dishwater in the sink, and Dean pulls himself to his feet, using the table as leverage. For a moment Lisa isn't sure if she should stay in the kitchen, but she finds herself trailing after Dean anyway, feeling a little bit lost after everything that's happened this evening.
"How long you staying for?" he asks her once they're outside, his left foot propped up on a small stool.
"I don't know. I thought maybe a day or so, just… I don't know, just long enough to make sure you were okay."
He grins at her. "Aw, Lis, it's nice to know you care."
She smacks his arm, hard. "You're an ass, Dean Winchester. Of course I care!"
He has the grace to look abashed. "Sorry, Lis. I didn't mean it like that."
Lisa sighs. "What am I supposed to do with you, huh?"
He shrugs. "I dunno. You got a place to stay already? If not, you can sleep here. You're always welcome, you know."
"You sure it won't be too much trouble? I mean, there has to be a motel nearby I can crash at overnight."
"Nah, it's no trouble," he assures her. "We'll pull out the sofa, and you can sleep in my room tonight. Don't worry, I slept on the pull-out for a few weeks after my surgery and it's actually really comfortable."
"Don't be ridiculous, I am happy to sleep on the pull-out for a night, especially if it's as comfortable as you say it is. I don't want to disrupt you more than I have to."
Neither of them appear to contemplate the notion of both sleeping in Dean's bed. That's not what they have together anymore, even if the thought makes her a little sad, and Dean too, she thinks. The sadness is fleeting, though, and soon she finds herself chatting with Dean as easily as if this were a year ago and they were sitting out on her own front porch, watching the street as the shadows stretched from twilight into night.
By the time they get back inside it's long past the time any of them usually go to bed anymore, and Dean makes it obvious that she really has no choice but to take the upstairs bedroom unless she wants to put up a fuss about it, which she has no intention of doing. She makes quick work of brushing her teeth and hair, changes into her nightgown and slips quietly between the unfamiliar sheets, and spends longer than usual quieting her thoughts enough to fall asleep.
When she opens her eyes again, she's a little surprised to find that it's still pitch dark in the room. She sits up slowly, ears straining to hear whatever must have woken her. Gradually her eyes accustom themselves to the darkness, and that's when she picks up the sound of quiet shuffling that's subtly different from the rest of the old house's night-time noises. Mommy ears, her mother used to call it -the uncanny ability to pick up on anything that might be amiss in the household even while in the deepest of sleep.
Lisa slips out of bed and goes to stand in the doorway, and is a little surprised to see a light shining through Sam's half-closed door. She hesitates, wondering if she should just leave him his privacy, but eventually worry overrules her reticence, and she pads quietly across the landing to go knock softly on Sam's door, only pausing for a moment before pushing it open.
"Sam?" she keeps her voice gentle. "I saw your light. Are you all right?"
Sam is sitting cross-legged on his bed, hands clasped in his lap in the position with which she's rapidly becoming familiar. He looks up as she comes in, but she's not sure he knows who she is, his gaze frighteningly blank. She moves slowly so as not to startle him, goes to sit on the edge of his bed but doesn't reach out to touch him. The room is almost bare, which surprises her given the care that's been given to the decoration of all the other rooms. Even Dean's bedroom has a few framed pictures, old ones of their family, more recent ones of friends, too, most of whom she'll never meet. Sam's room contains his bed, a chest of drawers, and a night table with a handful of prescription bottles carefully lined up on it, but nothing else. No trace at all that anyone lives here full-time, and she doesn't know quite what to make of it.
"Sam?"
He blinks for a moment, then his eyes clear and focus on her. "Lisa? Did I wake you?"
"No," she lies easily. "No, I was awake and I saw your light was on. What's wrong, sweetie?" she asks, falling back instinctively into the role she knows best, as if Sam was just another kid waking up from a nightmare.
He shrugs. "Sometimes I don't sleep well."
"Bad dreams?" Dean had nightmares almost constantly, when he first came to her. Sam just shrugs again, and won't meet her gaze. "Would you like me to fetch Dean for you?" she suggests, a little at a loss, but he shakes his head.
"No, it's fine. Let him sleep."
There's something off about the way he's behaving toward her, and even though Lisa flatters herself she's not given to thinking the universe revolves around her, she's almost entirely sure that this is, in fact, about her. She edges closer on the bed, stops immediately when Sam tenses.
"Sam… is it something I did? Did I do something to stress you out?" He shakes his head, but she knows a lie when she sees one. "You won't hurt my feelings if you tell me, I promise. Come on, I can't know what I did wrong if you don't tell me, and then we won't be able to fix it."
He shakes his head again. "It's not you. It's stupid."
"Okay, then. Sometimes saying it out loud helps. Putting it out in the open makes us realize just how silly something is, and that makes it easier to deal with. Come on," she wheedles softly, and he hunches further in on himself, hair falling forward to obscure his face.
"I don't want Dean to go," he blurts in a rush, so quietly she almost thinks she might have misunderstood him. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. "Selfish."
"What do you mean, Sam? Where do you think Dean's going?"
He scrubs at one eye with the back of his wrist, and he's never looked more like an overgrown kid in her eyes than he has now. "I shouldn't have come back. Should have let him be. He was happy with you, and he should go back, but I don't want him to go. Selfish. I just… I don't know how to be without him and… fuck, I'm sorry," his voice breaks.
It's a little shocking, hearing the words and the naked, raw fear beneath them. The certainty that with her return, it means that his brother is going to leave him alone again. She can't even begin to imagine how he even arrived at this conclusion.
"You're not thinking straight about this," she starts, but she sees almost immediately that it's the wrong approach.
"No, I... I know I'm not -not right," he tells her. "That's the problem."
Lisa risks putting a hand on his shoulder, and he flinches but doesn't resist. "I had no idea you felt this way, sweetie. I wish you'd said something."
Sam doesn't answer.
"Here's the good news," she moves closer, and can't help but feel it's a small victory when he doesn't try to pull away. "Dean isn't coming with me -he never was. I can see why you might have worried, but you don't have to, okay?"
"But-"
"No buts about it," she nudges his shoulder and smiles reassuringly. "Look, Dean and I -we do love each other, probably always will-but neither of us want to be in a relationship with each other, either. I still care about him, about both of you, and that's why I came. I hadn't heard from him in so long, I was worried. I wanted to make sure you were both okay, you see?"
Sam is silent after that, for so long that she starts to worry again. "I don't want to make him unhappy," he says finally.
"You don't," she says firmly. "Come on, you know your brother better than anyone in the world. You think you wouldn't notice if he was unhappy?"
"He shouldn't have to take care of me. He worries a lot."
"Of course he worries. Don't you worry about him?"
He nods. "Yeah."
"Does it make you unhappy to worry about Dean?"
"… no."
"I rest my case. Seriously, Sam, I can honestly say I have never seen Dean this happy, not even the first time I met him." She pauses, looking for her words. "You know, I'm a little jealous of this thing you two have, whatever it is. It's all tangled up and from the outside it doesn't really look all that healthy, but I'd give a lot to have someone love me the way your brother loves you. Okay," she laughs, "that came out wrong. But you know what I mean."
To her surprise, he grins. "Yeah, I guess I do."
She blows out a sigh of relief. "Okay, then. You think you can get to sleep now?" He glances at his night table, and she follows his gaze to the small collection of orange bottles on the night table. "Which one?" she asks, and hands him the bottle marked 'Ativan' when he points it out in a small voice.
He tilts a pill into his hand, dry-swallows it, and doesn't meet her eyes. She gives him a gentle push until he lies down, curling on his side, then pulls the covers over his shoulders.
"Sweet dreams," she tells him, and hopes it's true.
In the morning after breakfast Dean walks her to her car, gives her another rib-cracking hug and extracts a promise from her to keep in touch before limping back to the house. But it's Sam who stays outside and watches her go, sitting on the front steps with his elbows on his knees, hands dangling between his thighs, smiling a little the whole time.
The last thing she sees before she rounds the corner of the street that will take her back to the highway, glancing over her shoulder one last time, is Sam carefully lifting a hand to wave goodbye.
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Summary: Fusion 'verse. Ever wonder what happened to Lisa? So did I.
Characters: Lisa Braeden, Sam, Dean
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 5,612
Disclaimer: You think the producers might let me keep 'em once the show's over if I promise to treat them well?
Warnings: None.
Neurotic Author's Note #1: This is set somewhere between Mock the Midnight Bell and Defying Gravity.
Neurotic Author's Note #2: Poor Lisa kind of got short shrift in this 'verse. I thought I would give her a bit of closure. :)
It's not the first time on this trip that Lisa Braeden wonders just what the hell she thinks she's doing. If she's learned nothing else in her lifetime, she has at least learned that it's sometimes better to let sleeping dogs lie, or to leave well enough alone as her mother was fond of saying back when they were both a lot younger. She should be following her mother's advice now if she had a single lick of common sense, but apparently when it comes to Dean Winchester all her hard-earned common sense goes flying right out the window, which is how she has come to find herself driving along a deserted blacktop in the direction of a town so tiny it barely shows up on any of the maps she's bought.
She left Ben to stay with her sister, much to his disappointment. She knows he loves Dean as much as she does, but she's self-aware enough to know that Dean is part of her past now and needs to stay that way, at least from a romantic perspective. She loves him, of course, and she's pretty sure he loves her back, but Dean has never been in a position to be able to give her what he wants to give her, and she flatters herself she knows him well enough to know that Dean needs to give to others in order to be happy, and there's nothing he has that she really needs. She's been self-sufficient for years, and Dean needs to be needed.
So she wasn't really surprised when, what feels like a lifetime ago, she answered a call from Bobby Singer in her kitchen and knew even before she handed the phone to Dean, that she was about to lose him for the second time. She watched him pace the floor with the phone held to his ear, limping a little from the knee injury he got at work that he never quite seemed to get over entirely, staying mostly silent except for the occasional quiet question. When he hung up, his face had drained of colour, but for the first time in years she saw hope in his eyes, and she felt her heart break a little for him.
"It's Sam," he said simply, and she just nodded.
"When do you want to go?"
It's been nearly a year since then, and she hasn't heard from Dean except for a single phone call to let her know that he'd found Sam, after weeks of chasing after phantom leads. He sounded terrible, voice roughened by exhaustion, but she could hear the unabashed joy in his tone too, and she can't bring herself to begrudge him this one happiness in what sounds to her like a life of unremitting hardship. She'd told him she was happy for him, and it was true, but once he hung up he never called her again.
There's no reason for Lisa to be seeking him out now, except maybe to put her own ghosts to rest. She wants nothing more than the closure of knowing what happened after that last phone call, of knowing that they're both still alive, still okay somehow. She called Bobby Singer when the wondering became stronger than her willingness to leave them to their lives, and wheedled and pried the information out of him. It's not that Bobby doesn't like her, she's quite sure of it, it's just that hunters are a strange, tightly-knit community, jealous of their secrets and the thin security blanket that secrecy affords them. Bobby is Dean's surrogate father, that much she's gleaned from her rare conversations with Dean about the hunting life -the father figure who was able to give him a sense of normalcy where his own father failed, too caught up in his grief and his drive to keep his children safe in a dangerous world-and he was reluctant to risk any more harm coming to the man he viewed as the son he never had, but after a while he let himself be persuaded.
"You go easy on the boy," he'd warned her, and she'd agreed.
"I just need to make sure he's okay. See it with my own eyes. I promise I'll do my very best not to stir anything up."
Pulling up outside the address that she has jotted down on a slip of paper, though, Lisa's beginning to doubt her ability to keep that promise. What the hell am I doing here? she asks herself. Still, she's come all this way, it would be stupid to turn back now. The snow is only just starting to melt on the front lawns of the neat little row of houses on this street even though it's almost April now, the end result of a long winter with an unusually high snowfall, and ice crunches under her boots as she gets out of the car and stretches her legs.
Lisa stares at the tidy little porch, the front door that looks newly-painted, the handrail that looks like it's been recently reinforced, probably to accommodate Dean's new limited mobility. She hesitates one last time, then marshals her resolve and makes herself walk up the stairs and ring the doorbell.
For a couple of minutes nothing happens, and she feels ridiculous. It never occurred to her that they might not be home, for all that the idea of Dean settling down anywhere permanently still seems a little incredible to her, but of course it stands to reason that they can't stay indoors all day long. She sighs, her breath pluming in front of her in the cold air, and is about to turn around and go back the way she came, maybe find a motel room nearby, when there's a soft scraping sound from inside the house. The door opens slowly, and she has to bite back a small gasp of surprise.
"Sam!"
She never would have recognized Sam if she hadn't been expecting to see either him or his brother. He's just as tall as ever, but instead of the healthy, well-muscled boy she remembers she's face to face with a thin, almost emaciated man with hollow cheeks and blue circles under haunted-looking eyes. His hair is longer than he used to wear it, tucked behind his ears and parted neatly in the middle, and his clothes seem a size too big for him, although they're clean and well-maintained. He actually backs up a step at the sound of her voice, glances to one side as though checking on something that she can't see, then looks back at her, his expression uncertain.
"Lisa?"
She breathes a sigh of relief. "I thought you might not remember me." They've only ever met once, although she does remember seeing him briefly right after Dean landed on her doorstep with his cryptic assurances that, no matter what, she and Ben would be cared for. "I'm sorry to have surprised you, I suppose I should have called first, but, honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect," she says a bit sheepishly.
He shakes his head. "No, it's okay. I remember you," he says quietly. "Are you okay? Is Ben okay?"
Of course his first thought would be that something's wrong. "We're fine," she assures him, and sees his posture relax ever so slightly. "I came… well, I came to check on Dean. On both of you, actually. He stopped calling."
"Oh." He glances aside, hands clasped in front of him, and she can see the thumb of his right hand rubbing mechanically at the back of his left. "I, uh… Dean's not here. He's at work. Dean's at work, but, do you want to come in?" he asks a little hesitantly, as though he's not really sure what to do with the strange woman who's just landed on his doorstep.
"Would that be okay?" She doesn't quite know what to make of him, either.
Sam nods, then steps back another couple of paces, holding the door open, and she follows him inside. The house is a lot tidier than she'd expected, and better-furnished. Somehow Lisa always assumed that two men accustomed to living out of their car wouldn't know much about housekeeping, but even Dean made a point of helping with the chores when he was living with her. In retrospect, she thinks that growing up with only enough belongings to fit into the trunk of a car and an ex-Marine for a father probably taught Sam and Dean to be far tidier than the average guy. To this day she's still impressed with Dean's ability to make perfect hospital corners on a bed, something she never quite mastered.
The living room is a cosy affair with a used-looking sofa covered by what's obviously a hand-crocheted throw blanket and a reclining armchair in front of a medium-sized television, a small coffee table that looks like it's been recently re-stained with care. There are no carpets or rugs anywhere, and she's a little surprised by this until it occurs to her that having a slippery rug underfoot would be more dangerous for someone with limited mobility. The room is spotless, though, tidy and entirely free of dust. Sam leads her along the hallway and into a brightly-lit kitchen that's just as clean as the living room at the back of the house, pauses in the middle of the room as though he's not really sure what to do with her now that they're in here.
"Um, would you like some coffee? I can make coffee. Or, um, tea. It's afternoon, so maybe you'd like tea better?" he offers. "Dean's not home, but I can call him if you want. He'll be home in a couple of hours, but I can call. To, um, to tell him you're here, I mean. He'll be happy to see you."
She wonders if that means that Sam isn't happy to see her, but she dismisses the thought as unworthy. Sam looks more like she might turn into a snake and bite him at any moment, more afraid than anything else, and she doesn't like the look on him. The idea of Sam being afraid is alien to her, accustomed as she is to thinking of him as indestructible, the monster-killing giant who features almost as prominently as Dean in Ben's stories.
"I'd love a cup of tea," she tells him instead, and pulls up a chair at the kitchen table. "And you don't need to bother Dean at work, I'm happy to wait until he gets back, as long as I'm not imposing."
He shakes his head. "No, no it's fine. I'm… it's fine." He picks up an electric kettle from the counter and carefully fills it with water in the sink, then sets it back down and plugs it in before switching it on. "Is orange pekoe okay? Dean doesn't like other kinds of tea, so we don't have any. Sorry, I should have thought of that."
"Orange pekoe is just fine. I know Dean's opinion of all other teas," she smiles. "'Fruity, girly shit,' as I recall. And I wasn't allowed to mention 'camomile' in his presence lest I sap the rest of his testosterone."
Sam glances back at her, mouth quirking up into the first smile she's seen on his face since she got here. For a moment his eyes sparkle with merriment, and in that one second she finally recognizes the Sam she met all those years ago, dimples and all. She feels her own smile widen in response, and something of the tension in the air dissipates after that. He busies himself pulling out a set of mismatched mugs and saucers from a cupboard, places them on the table, and produces a Tupperware container with a handful of fruit muffins, which he then empties into a small basket and sets out in front of her as well.
"Look at you, all domestic," she says, and immediately regrets it when he stiffens a bit. Sam nods, though.
"Yeah, I guess."
The kettle comes to a boil and he turns his back to her, fussing with tea bags and mugs.
"Uh, do you… um, milk or sugar?" he asks finally, not looking back.
"Milk, please, if you have it," she says, wondering if it's going to be this awkward the entire time until Dean comes home.
He gives her a small ceramic jug painted a little inexpertly in cheerful greens and yellows, and she finds herself watching the little cloud of milk spread in her mug like a cloud billowing across the sky. She takes a sip, lets her elbows rest on the table even though her mother would probably disown her for her poor manners if she knew, and watches as Sam sits opposite her at the table, carefully stirring a couple of spoonfuls of white sugar into his mug. His wrists are scarred, she notices when his sleeve rides up his arm a bit, and she thinks the scars might not just end at the wrists by the looks of them.
"What happened to you, Sam?"
Sam ducks his head, gives it a small shake, refusing to answer her question. "How's Ben doing?" he asks instead. "He's gotta be, what, twelve now?"
"Eleven."
"Grade five?"
She smiles in spite of herself and lets him change the subject. Whatever happened to him, specifically, it's not her business unless he decides he wants to tell her. "Yeah. He's on the soccer team at school, getting As in Math, English and Science, but he's declared history too boring to pay attention to."
"I played soccer for a little while. Does he like it?" Sam fiddles with his mug, twisting it in his hands on the tabletop.
"Loves it. He'd live on the field if I let him."
It's easy to talk about Ben, and Sam seems genuinely interested, and so she lets herself wax eloquent about Ben's last soccer match, about his friends and the kids on his team, about the school project on volcanoes that ended up with baking soda all over her kitchen, about his relentless onslaught -armed with photos and articles and painstaking research-to convince her that what they really, really need is a dog for the family. Sam listens to it all attentively enough, though occasionally she sees his gaze wander, and sometimes his expression flickers in a way she can't quite identify. He pours her cup after cup of tea until she's sure she's going to be up half the night running for the bathroom, and she thinks they're both a little relieved when they hear the front door open.
"Dean's home," Sam says unnecessarily, and they both push their chairs back, get to their feet.
She lets Sam go ahead of her, suddenly nervous for no reason she can determine. She catches sight of Dean before he sees her, giving his brother a tired-looking smile while shucking his jacket and pulling a coat hanger out of the closet. There's a cane propped up against the wall that wasn't there when she came in earlier.
"Hey, Sammy. I thought you might be coming by the store today. Something happen?"
"No," Sam shakes his head. "I mean, yes. But not -not like that." He holds out his arm so Dean can lean on him a little in order to sit down on a chair by the closet, left leg stretched out to one side, unnaturally straight, so that he can unlace his boots. "I mean, Lisa's here."
Dean's head jerks up at that. "What?"
Lisa steps forward, feeling more than a little sheepish. "Hi, Dean."
She should have called, is all she can think now, looking at the expression of shock mingled with disbelief on his face. The moment is shattered when he struggles to his feet, a smile spreading over his features. Sam puts a hand under his elbow to steady him until he's got his balance, then steps back, seemingly out of a sense of delicacy, and the next thing she knows Dean has both arms around her and is hugging her so hard she thinks her ribs might break.
"Lis, I never thought… are you okay?" he pulls back, hands on her shoulders, anxiety replacing joy within a split second. "Is it Ben?"
"No, I'm fine. Ben's fine, he's with my sister." God, the lives they've lived, that both Sam and Dean's first thought on seeing a friend after a long absence is that something must be terribly wrong. "I just wanted to see how you were."
"Oh. Uh, okay…"
Dean doesn't seem to know what to do with that. He rubs the back of his neck, looks at Sam, then rubs his fingers over his mouth -a gesture she's seen him make so many times now that it feels as familiar as her own mannerisms. It's Sam who clears his throat, though.
"I'll get dinner started. You two should, um, talk," he makes a vague motion toward the living room with both hands, almost as though he's shooing them away, and she has to bite back a smile.
Dean rolls his eyes, but he flashes her a smile and makes a sweeping motion with one arm, elaborately inviting her to precede him into the living room. He's limping badly when he follows her, holding his left leg stiffly even when he eases himself into the reclining armchair and pulls up the footrest. He doesn't look nearly as terrible as his brother, though; he might seem tired, she thinks, but somehow he seems better than when he was living with her, less careworn. It had been like living with a ghost, or a shell with everything inside scooped out. She doesn't remember the last time Dean's smile actually reached his eyes the way it is now.
She realises with a start that she's been staring at him, and feels a blush stain her cheeks when he grins at her. "I don't blame you," he says, "I am very easy on the eyes. Seriously, Lis, I never expected this. I mean… it was really shitty of me not to call," he tells her, expression turning serious. "I just… I didn't know what to tell you, at first, and then, I don't know, the longer I waited…" he shrugs. "I'm sorry, for what it's worth. I should have called."
She nods, clasping her hands in her lap. "I didn't actually come for an apology, but thank you. It's nice to hear that you didn't forget me entirely," she jokes lamely, and instantly feels terrible when he shakes his head vehemently.
"Never."
"So what happened?" she prompts, and he rubs his mouth again.
"God, I don't even know where to start. I… I mean, you knew I found Sam, but -he was in pretty rough shape. So was I, to be honest, but I guess you knew that," he says, glancing toward the kitchen. "Neither one of us was in any kind of shape to just pick up where we left off, and… I guess you found us through Bobby? He's the only person alive who knows us from before and knows where we are now."
She nods, and he keeps going.
"So, I don't know how much Bobby told you, but I fucked up my knee something good the last time -remember when we had that near miss with the forklift? Yeah. Turns out that was the straw that broke the camel's back -or my knee, in this case-and I sort of never came back from that. So, a year and one surgery later, here I am," he pats his leg, an odd twist to his mouth. "It's kind of weird how much it changes your life, hearing that you're never going to walk right again."
"I'm so sorry." She means it, too.
He huffs a laugh. "You know, I'm not really all that sorry. You ever have the feeling that things happen for a reason?" When she doesn't answer he just presses on. "I don't know. I mean, for a long time I thought hunting was all I was ever going to do -maybe all I was good for-and that someday it was just going to end the way all hunters' lives end. And then Sammy -Sammy died," he almost chokes on the word, "and when I got him back, I thought, 'what the hell do I do now?' you know? Because I didn't want to drag him back into that, but it's not like I know anything else."
Lisa carefully bites her tongue and doesn't point out that they could have come to her. In a way, she understands that they really couldn't. This has always been a bit beyond her, even though she does know more about their world than just about everybody else she knows.
"So, you know," Dean finishes, "it kind of worked out that I can't walk now, because it made me rethink things. Figure out something else."
"And… this is what you figured out?" she asks, looking around at the impeccably tidy living room.
"Actually, yeah." He doesn't sound defensive at all.
The evening goes by in a bit of a blur after that. Dean fills her in on most of what she's missed for the last few months -his surgery, the purchase of the house, the way both he and Sam have found something of a rhythm here in this small town. He doesn't say much about Sam himself, but she's able to read between the lines, and between that and her own observations it's not difficult to come to the conclusion that, whatever Sam has been through, it's left him badly scarred, and not just physically. She's almost startled when Sam calls them both into the kitchen for dinner, is even more surprised to find out that not only can the youngest Winchester cook, but that they both can. Dean had, of course, cooked a few meals when he was still living with her, but it turns out that he's more than a fair hand at the stove.
"Do you cook often, then?" she asks, after complimenting Sam on the bottom blade roast he made, complete with mashed potatoes, gravy, and a large helping of broccoli.
Dean shrugs. "Only when Sammy isn't up to it. He likes it better than I do."
Sam doesn't say much during the meal except to prompt his brother to eat more of his vegetables ("You like broccoli, Dean, don't pretend you don't. Besides, you need more vitamins in your diet."), and at the end of the meal he clears away the plates without saying a word, quietly refuses Lisa's offer of help. He shoots a reproachful glare at Dean when his brother pulls out a pack of cigarettes -a habit Lisa never cured him of, and which it looks like he's kept to this day.
"Outside," he says pointedly, and Dean smirks.
"Your kitchen, your rules, Samantha."
Sam rolls his eyes and turns back to the soapy dishwater in the sink, and Dean pulls himself to his feet, using the table as leverage. For a moment Lisa isn't sure if she should stay in the kitchen, but she finds herself trailing after Dean anyway, feeling a little bit lost after everything that's happened this evening.
"How long you staying for?" he asks her once they're outside, his left foot propped up on a small stool.
"I don't know. I thought maybe a day or so, just… I don't know, just long enough to make sure you were okay."
He grins at her. "Aw, Lis, it's nice to know you care."
She smacks his arm, hard. "You're an ass, Dean Winchester. Of course I care!"
He has the grace to look abashed. "Sorry, Lis. I didn't mean it like that."
Lisa sighs. "What am I supposed to do with you, huh?"
He shrugs. "I dunno. You got a place to stay already? If not, you can sleep here. You're always welcome, you know."
"You sure it won't be too much trouble? I mean, there has to be a motel nearby I can crash at overnight."
"Nah, it's no trouble," he assures her. "We'll pull out the sofa, and you can sleep in my room tonight. Don't worry, I slept on the pull-out for a few weeks after my surgery and it's actually really comfortable."
"Don't be ridiculous, I am happy to sleep on the pull-out for a night, especially if it's as comfortable as you say it is. I don't want to disrupt you more than I have to."
Neither of them appear to contemplate the notion of both sleeping in Dean's bed. That's not what they have together anymore, even if the thought makes her a little sad, and Dean too, she thinks. The sadness is fleeting, though, and soon she finds herself chatting with Dean as easily as if this were a year ago and they were sitting out on her own front porch, watching the street as the shadows stretched from twilight into night.
By the time they get back inside it's long past the time any of them usually go to bed anymore, and Dean makes it obvious that she really has no choice but to take the upstairs bedroom unless she wants to put up a fuss about it, which she has no intention of doing. She makes quick work of brushing her teeth and hair, changes into her nightgown and slips quietly between the unfamiliar sheets, and spends longer than usual quieting her thoughts enough to fall asleep.
When she opens her eyes again, she's a little surprised to find that it's still pitch dark in the room. She sits up slowly, ears straining to hear whatever must have woken her. Gradually her eyes accustom themselves to the darkness, and that's when she picks up the sound of quiet shuffling that's subtly different from the rest of the old house's night-time noises. Mommy ears, her mother used to call it -the uncanny ability to pick up on anything that might be amiss in the household even while in the deepest of sleep.
Lisa slips out of bed and goes to stand in the doorway, and is a little surprised to see a light shining through Sam's half-closed door. She hesitates, wondering if she should just leave him his privacy, but eventually worry overrules her reticence, and she pads quietly across the landing to go knock softly on Sam's door, only pausing for a moment before pushing it open.
"Sam?" she keeps her voice gentle. "I saw your light. Are you all right?"
Sam is sitting cross-legged on his bed, hands clasped in his lap in the position with which she's rapidly becoming familiar. He looks up as she comes in, but she's not sure he knows who she is, his gaze frighteningly blank. She moves slowly so as not to startle him, goes to sit on the edge of his bed but doesn't reach out to touch him. The room is almost bare, which surprises her given the care that's been given to the decoration of all the other rooms. Even Dean's bedroom has a few framed pictures, old ones of their family, more recent ones of friends, too, most of whom she'll never meet. Sam's room contains his bed, a chest of drawers, and a night table with a handful of prescription bottles carefully lined up on it, but nothing else. No trace at all that anyone lives here full-time, and she doesn't know quite what to make of it.
"Sam?"
He blinks for a moment, then his eyes clear and focus on her. "Lisa? Did I wake you?"
"No," she lies easily. "No, I was awake and I saw your light was on. What's wrong, sweetie?" she asks, falling back instinctively into the role she knows best, as if Sam was just another kid waking up from a nightmare.
He shrugs. "Sometimes I don't sleep well."
"Bad dreams?" Dean had nightmares almost constantly, when he first came to her. Sam just shrugs again, and won't meet her gaze. "Would you like me to fetch Dean for you?" she suggests, a little at a loss, but he shakes his head.
"No, it's fine. Let him sleep."
There's something off about the way he's behaving toward her, and even though Lisa flatters herself she's not given to thinking the universe revolves around her, she's almost entirely sure that this is, in fact, about her. She edges closer on the bed, stops immediately when Sam tenses.
"Sam… is it something I did? Did I do something to stress you out?" He shakes his head, but she knows a lie when she sees one. "You won't hurt my feelings if you tell me, I promise. Come on, I can't know what I did wrong if you don't tell me, and then we won't be able to fix it."
He shakes his head again. "It's not you. It's stupid."
"Okay, then. Sometimes saying it out loud helps. Putting it out in the open makes us realize just how silly something is, and that makes it easier to deal with. Come on," she wheedles softly, and he hunches further in on himself, hair falling forward to obscure his face.
"I don't want Dean to go," he blurts in a rush, so quietly she almost thinks she might have misunderstood him. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. "Selfish."
"What do you mean, Sam? Where do you think Dean's going?"
He scrubs at one eye with the back of his wrist, and he's never looked more like an overgrown kid in her eyes than he has now. "I shouldn't have come back. Should have let him be. He was happy with you, and he should go back, but I don't want him to go. Selfish. I just… I don't know how to be without him and… fuck, I'm sorry," his voice breaks.
It's a little shocking, hearing the words and the naked, raw fear beneath them. The certainty that with her return, it means that his brother is going to leave him alone again. She can't even begin to imagine how he even arrived at this conclusion.
"You're not thinking straight about this," she starts, but she sees almost immediately that it's the wrong approach.
"No, I... I know I'm not -not right," he tells her. "That's the problem."
Lisa risks putting a hand on his shoulder, and he flinches but doesn't resist. "I had no idea you felt this way, sweetie. I wish you'd said something."
Sam doesn't answer.
"Here's the good news," she moves closer, and can't help but feel it's a small victory when he doesn't try to pull away. "Dean isn't coming with me -he never was. I can see why you might have worried, but you don't have to, okay?"
"But-"
"No buts about it," she nudges his shoulder and smiles reassuringly. "Look, Dean and I -we do love each other, probably always will-but neither of us want to be in a relationship with each other, either. I still care about him, about both of you, and that's why I came. I hadn't heard from him in so long, I was worried. I wanted to make sure you were both okay, you see?"
Sam is silent after that, for so long that she starts to worry again. "I don't want to make him unhappy," he says finally.
"You don't," she says firmly. "Come on, you know your brother better than anyone in the world. You think you wouldn't notice if he was unhappy?"
"He shouldn't have to take care of me. He worries a lot."
"Of course he worries. Don't you worry about him?"
He nods. "Yeah."
"Does it make you unhappy to worry about Dean?"
"… no."
"I rest my case. Seriously, Sam, I can honestly say I have never seen Dean this happy, not even the first time I met him." She pauses, looking for her words. "You know, I'm a little jealous of this thing you two have, whatever it is. It's all tangled up and from the outside it doesn't really look all that healthy, but I'd give a lot to have someone love me the way your brother loves you. Okay," she laughs, "that came out wrong. But you know what I mean."
To her surprise, he grins. "Yeah, I guess I do."
She blows out a sigh of relief. "Okay, then. You think you can get to sleep now?" He glances at his night table, and she follows his gaze to the small collection of orange bottles on the night table. "Which one?" she asks, and hands him the bottle marked 'Ativan' when he points it out in a small voice.
He tilts a pill into his hand, dry-swallows it, and doesn't meet her eyes. She gives him a gentle push until he lies down, curling on his side, then pulls the covers over his shoulders.
"Sweet dreams," she tells him, and hopes it's true.
In the morning after breakfast Dean walks her to her car, gives her another rib-cracking hug and extracts a promise from her to keep in touch before limping back to the house. But it's Sam who stays outside and watches her go, sitting on the front steps with his elbows on his knees, hands dangling between his thighs, smiling a little the whole time.
The last thing she sees before she rounds the corner of the street that will take her back to the highway, glancing over her shoulder one last time, is Sam carefully lifting a hand to wave goodbye.
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