SN Fic: Since They've Been Gone (1/4)

[thatgirlsix]

Supernatural Fic: Since They've Been Gone

Summary: John Winchester wasn't the only soldier they lost that week. Sometimes being a good son and doing your duty really sucks.

Disclaimer:  Maybe when the student loan sharks have stopped calling me forty years from now, there might be something left in my pockets besides lint to buy myself the copyright. Until then, this is just for fun, folks!

Author's Note: This piece is too long to post in one entry, so it's getting four (silly word limits). /  The writing in this story is a little more experimental for me than usual. Hopefully it worked out. / As always, this is a MarySue-free zone. If you are less than mad at Al by the end of this, I didn't do it right.  / Rated PG13 for implied violence and language (because I've been married to the military too long not to have a mouth).

This story takes place between "No Exit" and "The Usual Suspects".

Thanks for reading, kiddos!


Since They've Been Gone
by That Girl Six

Love lost, such a cost,
Give me things that don't get lost.

Dean stared after Jo as she stalked off, wanting so badly to go after her. 'Friends don't let friends sulk alone', Sam had told him once while dragging him out of a bar. He'd thought it stupid at the time, but, by God, if the kid wasn't right this time. He tried to ignore how much it stunned him to have her look at him so hatefully and concentrate on her instead. He could figure out what exactly Ellen had told her later. That look on Jo's face was what mattered right now. If anyone would understand how wounds like the ones left behind by losing a parent could turn on you out of nowhere, it was him. Losing a parent isn't something you just get over, not by a long shot, no Siree. He didn't have a clue what it was that he wanted to do for her at the moment, but he knew he had to do something to erase that look from her eyes. Maybe it was a little selfish on his part (he had to know why), but he still wanted to at least try. He wasn't a guy who had many friends. He didn't stay in one place long enough. So when he did have friends, he didn't know what to do when they walked out on him. He couldn't let her just walk out on him, not like that. But that look . . .

Over his shoulder, Sam was softly calling him. "Dean? We should probably go."

"We can't, not yet."

"I think the message was pretty clear."

"Well then, it's a good thing I have that selective hearing thing Dad always accused you of having, huh?"

Fine. If he couldn't get through to Jo, if she wanted to be that way-he couldn't even see her down the way now anyway-he would at least let Ellen have a piece of his mind. Walking with a purpose, Dean turned on his heel and made his way back toward the front door of the rickety old roadhouse. He selectively ignored his brother's call to come back knowing the kid wasn't going anywhere anyway. He had the keys. The door creaked on him as he pushed it open and carefully looked for the barrel of a shotgun as he crossed the threshold. He wasn't entirely surprised when he didn't find one. The back turned to him was more what he expected. It was what he wanted.

Huskily he croaked, "Ellen?"

The answer was pretty much what he'd expected as well. The beer bottle that narrowly missed his head didn't even make him flinch. He simply stared back at the woman, watching her pant in tearful frustration and wishing like hell that he could stop feeling like he had somehow caused those tears, and waited. When she didn't say anything and only looked at him with eyes that would have probably otherwise killed him, he took one step back and held his hands up in surrender.

Deciding that gentle apparently wasn't the way to go (he should have known better anyway), he straightened and put a little more force into his voice. He started his piece, fully intending to get it out quickly and be done with it. "We're not staying. I'm not that stupid. I just wanted to say-Look, I don't know what happened with my dad. I wasn't lying when I said that we had never heard of you. So whatever my father was to you and yours, I can't fix that for you. I'd like to know what happened some day when you're of the mind to tell me, but that's not . . . Lately I'm coming to the realization that I really don't know as much about my dad as I thought I did. I've spent my whole life with only one rule to get me through: what would Dad do if it were him instead of me? But now I don't know what that means anymore."

To her credit, Ellen didn't throw anything else at him, which was about as good a sign as he was going to get. She had turned her back to him once again, but she didn't walk away either. Her shoulders heaved even though he couldn't hear her crying. He knew the tears had to be there. Of course they were. He was probably making them worse, too, but he wasn't done. But maybe when he was she would at least be able to look at him again.

Dean's voice became more demanding of her attention as he tried to do for her what he wished like hell someone had been able to do for his family so long ago now. It probably would have fallen on deaf ears then, but Ellen was sensible and not a godforsaken stubborn Winchester. This would pass and she'd listen. Or she'd regret it later on. Measuring his words to keep them kind instead of ordering, he said, "I'm not entirely clueless, though. I knew a lot more about the guy than most anybody else in the world. And right now, I can see him and Sam standing right here in this room the way you and Jo were just awhile ago. I know what Dad would do in this situation because I saw him do it. I know I'm probably the last person in the world you want advice from, but you're going to get it anyway. I'm going to tell you the same thing that I bet he would want you to know right now-don't. That's it. Don't, because you can't take any of it back. Don't blame yourself. Don't blame Jo. Get angry and get hurt and then let it go. Don't let it fester the way he did. Right now, my brother is sitting out in that car most likely thinking about the same thing I am. He stopped thinking about you and Jo fighting as soon as she walked away and has moved on to guilting himself to death out there. He's thinking about all of the things he said the night he walked out on us like she did you. He's thinking about all of the things Dad said that night. And right now he's trying to figure out how any of that was important enough that they gave up four damned years of each other's lives-the last four years. Sam can't get those back any more than my father can. So don't. Don't let that happen to you two the way it happened to them. Just don't."

Still there was nothing but silence to greet him, so he took one more step away from the first friend he'd had in a really, really long time. "I'll get out of your hair. I-I'm sorry we didn't know about you sooner. It would have been nice to know you more than for a couple of weeks. I hope you guys end up okay. I really do."

The door creaked so loud that Dean didn't hear Ellen whispering his name. He didn't hear her again when his boots clomped on the wooden step in front of the door, the echo blocking her voice out. He almost didn't hear her even when his feet dragged through the gravel of the parking area until he heard her hand bang on the doorjamb to get his attention. His hand stayed frozen on the roof of the car as he turned just his head back in her direction, waiting.

"Give me time to cool off," the woman said softly. With a pointed look at the shadow already trying to be as invisible as possible in the cabin of the car, she said, "You boys stick together and be careful."

Even though his mind screamed that it was a bad, bad idea to push any harder, Dean took that as a sign that she still cared at least a little bit about his brother and asked her evenly, "It's probably early to ask, but I need to know: are we still safe here? Is my brother safe here?"

Their eyes met for a moment, and Ellen knew exactly what it was that Dean was asking. He knew that things between them weren't going to be right for a long time, but he still needed someplace that was going to be safe for his kid brother. Above all else, he needed to know that Sam would still have a place to go if things went to pot. By way of answering, Ellen requested, "You'll call me when you get to where you're going? So I know you both got there okay?"

Dean bit the inside of his cheek to keep the triumphant, sweet smile from invading his face. He tapped the roof of his baby twice, ready to load up. With a nod at her, he gave her an opening and said, "I'll let the phone ring twice and hang up so you'll know it's us and that we're okay. You have my number if you want to do anything about it."

"Do you know where you're going?"

"Got something to take care of. I've been putting it off, but this seems like as good a time as any." He put all the heart he had to give to someone who wasn't his brother into his voice and said, "We'll be seeing you."

Ellen nodded but didn't say anything back. She watched the Impala as it spun gravel and fishtailed from trying to pull out too hard too fast. When the Winchester boys were nothing more than taillights, she finally let herself go back inside to her suddenly very cold, very lonely home. That belt of José was going to feel damned good at the back of her throat, no doubt.

*

Later that night once he'd settled them both in a fairly nice room for their standards, Dean sat heavily on the bed. He stared at the hotel phone trying to decide if he really wanted to call Ellen or not. He knew he'd promised, and it would probably go a long way to smooth things over with her about lying to her a few days before, but he didn't know. He had the twitchy feeling that if he did call, she would definitely call back and want to talk things out some more. Chicks did that, no matter how old they were. Even Ellen couldn't fight biology. He could call her on the hotel phone, leaving the call to be charged to the card later on, which would leave her with no real way of calling him back if he turned the cell off. But that wouldn't work either. She'd just call Sam. So back at Square One, he wondered again if calling her was a good idea at all.

And yet, he'd promised, or as close to a promise as he made in this world.

Ultimately thinking it would be a good idea to get this over and done with before Sam was out of the shower, he picked up his cell phone, ready to eat the minutes if he had to. Maybe she wouldn't call him back. She needed time to cool off, she'd said. He scrolled through the phone book-he really needed to clean that thing out again-found the number for the roadhouse, and hit the 'call' button before he could talk himself any further out of it. He listened for the second ring then hung up as promised.

Dean waited.

His lack of patience was quickly rewarded not thirty seconds later when his screen lit up announcing that Ellen was calling him back. His stomach lurched as his thumb reached for the button to answer her, telling him not to, but he did it anyway. Fool. He didn't say anything, but he could hear the bar noises in the distant background letting him know that she was out back in the office, away from prying eyes and ears.

"Where are you?" she asked quietly, motherly.

"Minnesota."

"What's up there?"

"A long overdue family thing," said Dean a little huskily. He had yet to explain to Sam what they were doing there. The last thing he wanted was to have his kid brother walk in on the middle of the conversation and find out that way. It was best to be vague as possible. "Dad wasn't the only soldier we lost that week."

Ellen didn't say anything at first, making Dean wonder exactly what was going on on her end. He didn't hear anything change in the background. He could still hear her breathing. If she was waiting for him to say something else, she wasn't going to get it at the moment, so what she was doing was a little beyond him. When her voice came back, it sounded a little thick as she said, "You're a good son, Dean. You're doing right by him." There was a beat as if she was recovering when she damned near snapped, "You two be careful or I'll wipe the sawdust off this floor with your scrawny asses the second you step through this door, you hear me?" Again another beat before she said, "Don't let it be too long before I hear from you." With that, Ellen and the sounds of shore-leaved hunters cut off, leaving Dean to marvel at the weirdness of the conversation and women altogether.

Steam rolled out of the bathroom when Sam finally came out to find his brother sitting on the bed staring at his cell phone. He didn't know how he knew, but he had the feeling that Dean had been sitting like that for quite a while. Carefully he asked, "Everything okay?"

"Women," said Dean both ruefully and thoughtfully.

"Ellen?"

"Women," Dean groaned.

"Moving on then," agreed Sam, knowing he would get nothing further. He hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the door. "I need food. Philly's should still be serving if we get over there in the next two hours. Get your ass in the shower so we can go."

"Dude, Philly's hasn't been 'Philly's' in five years."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. It's a Mexican place now, and the way it sounds, we'd be confined to our beds for a week if we even thought about eating there."

"Okay, how about that Chinese place across from the library?"

"Gone even longer."

Sam rubbed at the back of his neck, wracking his brain to try to think of any place he could remember being in this town. "God, where did it all go? Where was I?"

"Town's dying," shrugged Dean, choosing to ignore the second question. If he gave his brother long enough, Sam would come up with the answer to that little obviosity all on his own. "Has been for a while, ever since that godawful-smelling packing plant went up in flames. I'm not that hungry anyway. Just call for a pizza or something. Godfather's will probably deliver if it isn't flooded out again."

Digging the rather slim phone book from the night stand drawer, Sam lamented to himself the loss of some of the best mushrooms he'd ever had, "The whole damned world is going to Hell in a handbasket."

"Tell me about it," said Dean, allowing himself to flop back onto his bed and hopefully catch a quick nap before the pizza came. As an afterthought he added, "No olives."

Two hours and two devoured pizzas later, they each lay sprawled on their own beds, Dean flipping through channels without really noticing what it was that he was flipping by in the first place. He finally gave up, turning the cable off without even a glance in his brother's direction. If Sam wanted to watch something that badly, he could pick the remote up himself.

For whatever reason, though, Sam didn't say anything. Dean knew he was awake. He knew his brother's breathing enough to know the difference, especially after sharing either rooms or beds with him for twenty plus years. He also knew that Sam didn't just lie there either. He had always been an antsy little shit. Yet there he was, lying flat on his back. Dean couldn't tell if his brother's eyes were open or closed, but at that point, it didn't matter that much. What mattered was that Sam was obviously thinking. With the way things had been going lately, that wasn't a good thing.

"Stop thinking," Dean ordered him.

"I'm not."

"Stop thinking, damn it."

"I'm not."

"Bullshit."

"Dean-"

"Sammy," Dean drawled, heavy on the sarcasm. You'd think he was trying to pull a tooth or something. He was used to this little dance, though. He wished like hell he didn't have to go through it every goddamned time. His patience had limits, especially when whatever his kid brother was thinking about obviously wasn't a matter of life or death. The fastest way was usually the rough way with Sam, so he inwardly cringed as he barked out, "I'm not in the mood, so start talking or stop moping. Either one is fine with me."

After a predicted hitched sigh, Sam did, in fact, start talking. "I'm worried about Jo. I should have gone after her when you were in there with Ellen. I shouldn't have let her leave like that."

"They'll work it out."

Sam's voice was deathly quiet as he said, "Will they? We didn't. I don't want them to end up like us. You and me, me and Dad, neither one. I don't want that for them . . . You say things, you know, that you don't mean. You fight and you fight until you don't remember what you're fighting about. I remember why it started, but I don't know why it started. I can't remember why it was that we started becoming people who couldn't just talk to each other. I can't remember when I stopped talking to him. I can't remember when he stopped listening. I can't remember when I started being okay with that. The first night that Jess and I were in our apartment, we got into this fight. It was that night I called you, you remember?"

Sam stopped then as if too many things were coming together for him in one big ball of pain. First their friends, then their father, then his girl. Everything always seemed to go in that direction. Dean didn't want it to end there, though, not when he needed to know what Sam was thinking just as much as Sam needed to say it. Too many things were always being left unsaid. Besides, if he didn't, Sam would keep moping and it would come up again anyway. Better to get it over and done with, rip off the Band-Aid in one fell swoop. He urged his brother on, saying quietly, "I remember."

"She was so mad at me that night, but it was different. I'd never had a fight like that before. It was the only real fight we ever had, but she never raised her voice once. I could tell she was mad, and I was scared that it was going to be too much, but she never yelled at me. And I was sitting there, telling her about you for the first time, trying to make her understand that it was my fault. You and Dad weren't there because of me, and I didn't want her to be mad at you for that. I never wanted her to hate either of you. I was okay with you not being there because I still missed you. I knew it was all still okay because I missed you. It was the day that I stopped missing you that I was worried about. That was the only reason I was able to call you. I still missed you and him and I was still too damned stubborn to say it. I had so many chances and I blew each and every one of them."

Sam waited for the sarcasm. He knew he'd probably crossed that line into the kind of thing that Dean didn't do very well at all. It was rare that Dean did any kind of real talking. He would turn it into something. Always did. Unless this was going to be one of those times when he secretly didn't mind being told something. Even Dean's ego needed petting now and then when it came to their tiny, broken family. So he waited for that punchline, that joke that would tell him it was okay to stop. When it didn't come, he decided this must be one of those times when Dean needed to hear something that made him feel needed. Dean would never admit to it, but Sam knew his brother better than he thought he did.

"If I had that last night to do over again, I wouldn't have left the way I did. I wouldn't have said some of the things I said to you or Dad. I still would have gone to school-I wouldn't have had Jess at all if I didn't-but I wouldn't have done it like that. I should . . . I should have told Jo that. I should have told her . . . When she figures this all out enough to regret it, I don't want her to be like me and not be able to apologize. I don't want her too afraid to go home. I-I never got to tell him I was sorry."

Dean rolled onto his side, propping his head up on one hand. He stared at his brother, waiting for Sam to follow suit. He knew if he kept quiet long enough, the kid would. He always did. It was scary how predictable Sam could be sometimes. When the kid finally did as expected, Dean gave him half a smile, mostly because he knew Sam needed it. He didn't exactly feel like smiling otherwise. "Dad knew. Okay? It sucks that neither one of you bothered to say anything, and I should have locked you two in a room together until you either fixed it or only one of you stubborn fucking idiots came out of it alive, but he knew."

He didn't expect the biting tone he got back from his brother and actually blinked when he heard Sam saying caustically, "The hell he did. Did you know I missed you? Did you have even a clue that I hated that I couldn't pick up the phone to just call you when I wanted to? Do you have any idea how much I hated it that night you came to get me and you asked if I would have picked up the phone if you'd called? I've hated myself for a lot of things over the last few years, but I haven't hated myself quite so much as I did right then to know that I made you think that I wouldn't give a damn if you were in a ditch somewhere. If I could make you think that, I can just imagine what Dad thought I thought about him. He died thinking I hated him, Dean, and if it weren't for the last year of trying to find him, you would have thought the same thing."

"We all did the best we could with a shitty situation," said Dean as if that explanation could make it all go away, excuse all of it. Sure, it had killed him that his brother didn't want him in his life anymore. It absolutely killed him not to have Sam there. But like they'd forced each other to say that night in Chicago, sometimes you just have to let someone you love go. It had to be okay because thinking about it any other way was something he couldn't do right now.

The room grew quiet again, heavy with Sam's breathing. Dean could tell he was struggling with something. He knew that silence. The thing was he didn't know if he wanted to know what this one was about. They were already in territory that he didn't want to be in. He'd expected it after the Ellen/Jo blowout, but that didn't mean that he wanted to be here. Dad hurt too much yet. And talking about him was going to be hard enough over the next few days. Sam didn't know that yet, but still. He was prepared for doing it then, not now.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to say something you're not going to like or want to hear, but I'm going to say it. After that, I don't want to talk about it any more than you're going to want to talk about it. I'm going to change the subject when I'm done and you're just going to have to live with it. End of story." Sam took a quick breath to steel himself but didn't give Dean long enough to argue. "That night in the cabin with The Demon, none of what it said was true. Dad didn’t play favorites, and we do need you. I need you. I wouldn't have survived losing Jess without you. I wouldn't have survived a lot of things without you. You are not expendable. That demon can go fuck himself for even thinking that either of us thinks that about you. And if I ever get the impression that you listened to a word that sonofabitch had to say, I will kick your ass so hard you'll just plain be dead."

"You're going to kick my ass? In what bizarro alternate universe?"

Sam ignored his brother's retort so that he could say ever so quietly, "It occurs to me that I never told you that I'm sorry for leaving you. I know that's not how I think of it, but I know that's how you think of it, and I'm sorry for that. I never wanted you to think that I could handle you not being in my life. For that part, I'm sorry." Then as promised, Sam changed the subject by taking the pillow out from under his head and whipping it at his brother. With a cough to clear any sign of emotion out of his throat at all, Sam said, "So tell me what we're doing here, because I can't help but notice that we don't have a job to work, and we're more than just a little close to a certain safehouse that we haven't been to in a really long time now."

Dean sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed so that he could get a better look at his brother. Part of this trip hinged on their ability to be able to talk about a few things that they had done a fairly good job of avoiding. He needed to be able to actually see that Sam was ready to deal with this, especially since he didn't think himself entirely ready. That Sam, the one who did the whole talking, get-in-touch-with-your-inner-child thing (Jessica's fault, he was sure), was quick to change the subject wasn't exactly a good sign. At the same time, one of them had to have a decent amount of control on this one. Somehow, he had a feeling it wasn't going to be him. He thrust the pillow right back down on his brother's middle and said simply, "Yeah."

"We're going?"

"It's what Dad would have wanted us to do," said Dean, hating that he was throwing those words in his brother's face still far too soon after having snapped at him for using them. "Are you going to be okay with that?"

"Are we going down to Lincoln after or just to Pastor Jim's?"

"Pastor Jim's tomorrow, and depending on whether or not Kay holds us hostage, down to Caleb's either tomorrow or the day after." Sam was quiet for a moment. Dean could practically see the wheels in that geek brain of his turning, figuring out twenty different things at once. After awhile he asked again, needing an honest assessment, "Are you going to be okay with this?"

"Are you?"

Again Sam was quiet, knowing that they both knew the answer to the other's question. Of course it wasn't going to be okay, but that didn't mean that they didn't still have a responsibility. He didn't look at his brother as he asked, "That bar still open, or has that place gone the way of the dodo, too?"

"I'm driving."


Follow the White Rabbit to Part Two