What Remains -- Part 1/4
Officer Nelson Fuller is sitting in his squad car along Route 4. It's almost midnight; no one's going to drive through the speed trap at this hour, but he goes where the sheriff sends him. He's been here a few hours already and the only car to pass by belonged to his cousin Vic, who knows not to speed through this particular stretch. Only thirty minutes left sitting out here and he's contemplating polishing off the half dozen donuts Carol sent along with him when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye, at the edge of the woods. There's a full moon tonight and it reflects off a white night gown, muted reds and blues and pinks surrounding it.
There are figures on the edge of the woods, moving closer to the road. Small forms he doesn’t even recognize at first, thinks he’s seeing things until he realizes he recognizes them: the kids, all the town’s kids.
They’d disappeared a month ago, all of them, all at once, during the town meeting. Nelson doesn’t have any kids (that he’s aware of) but he remembers that night. He remembers the Caseys getting home first, they only lived a block over from the town square, and Mrs. Casey’s screams echoing down the streets. He remembers the answering cries as each family went home to find their children’s beds empty. Way Nelson’s mama tells it, it’s exactly like thirty years ago, before Nelson was born and his mama went in to kiss her daughter goodnight and found nothing but an empty bed. And her mama before that, her aunt and uncle grave and silent at every family gathering, the five kids they’d had before her birth a gaping hole in the landscape of family portraits.
They've never come back before. No one's ever seen the kids who disappeared again but here these kids are. Sarah Casey is first. She’s dirty and rumpled, still in her nightgown, with scabs on her knees that look new. She’s holding the Miller baby, who looks to be crying its head off. The Hammond twins, Mike and Jamie, follow her. Slowly, some alone and some in pairs or groups, they’re all there, by the side of the road, shivering and holding on to each other.
A guy comes stumbling after, bloody and mangled enough that it turns Nelson's stomach, makes him aware of the knot of sugar and dough churning. It’s a small town and sure, they’ve had more than their share of weird, but blood? Not in greater than average quantities. Average being accidents with scissors and kitchen knives and the like. Nothing like this. This guy’s been torn to shreds. He’s clutching the Parker’s youngest, turned three the day before he vanished. The guy sets the kid- Nelson thinks his name is Josh- gently on the ground before he collapses to his knees.
Nelson’s out of the car then, gun cocked and ready and trained on the guy. He can count on one hand the number of times he's had to pull his weapon and point it at a person. It's not something he has to do much and he's always been pretty thankful for that. The kids are in a circle around the guy, a protective little clump and when Nelson calls Sarah’s name she doesn’t say anything. None of them do, they don’t respond to anything Nelson says, but they don’t look hurt and there’s still a bloody guy on the ground. His leg’s crumpled at an unnatural angle beneath him and Nelson can't look at it; it makes him want to vomit. Nelson crouches down next to him. He sees the guy’s lips moving, breath stirring the dust. He leans over the guy, ear turned toward his mouth. "Sam," the guy is saying. Over and over and over again. "Sam. Sam. Sam."
He recognizes the guy now, showed up in town a couple of days ago, alone and in a sweet black Impala. He introduced himself around as Roger Daltry, not that anyone believed him. They were backwater but they weren’t that backwater.
"What happened?" Nelson asks. "What happened to you?" His hands hover over the guy and he’s had first aid training but he doesn’t trust himself with much more than a paper cut. The guy is non-responsive, Nelson remembers that phrase well enough from watching ER with his mama.
Sarah’s at his side, looking down at the guy. "He wouldn’t leave without Josh," she says, her voice distant, emotionless.
Nelson looks at her, crouched down over the guy. Nelson's right at level with her eyes and he turns to her, touches her arm but she still won’t look at him. "Where were you?" he asks, but she doesn’t answer.
The guy’s still breathing, still muttering the name Sam and Nelson wonders if that’s his real name. Maybe he thinks this is it and he wants Nelson to know who he is, like last rites or something. Nelson isn't Catholic. "Sam," he says, loudly, right in the guy’s ear. "I’m going to radio for an ambulance, hang in there."
---
Sam snuffles into yet another tissue and throws the phone on the opposite bed. Busy signal again, electronic voice telling him, "This phone is outside of its service area." He hasn’t gotten through to Dean since yesterday. He sneezes twice, his entire body seizing each time, and curses the bionic cold he caught from little Timmy (who was not trapped in a well, but had problems with the ghost of his dead baby sister). What a great fucking thank you for saving my life, here have my germs. There’s crap all on television, soaps and infomercials about Chuck Norris’s latest exercise machine. Maybe the fever's making him delusional, but he's pretty sure he could take Chuck Norris without using his crappy machine. He’s tired of wiping snot and spit off the monitor of the laptop every time he uses it and squinting at the screen makes his head ache worse.
"Simple job, my ass," he mutters. Two days, Dean told him. He won't be overdue until after tomorrow. He called yesterday to whine bitterly about being sick and just hearing Dean made him feel better for a little while. Now that it's finally over, he knows he'll always have Dean there with him. But that was yesterday, and Dean hasn't answered since.
Dean had promised it was just a research trip, just a look into what was going on; he’d even said where he was going but Sam can’t remember now, can’t think past the headache gnawing at his brain. Makes him more irritable and unreasonable and it’s on that he blames the small knot of worry in his gut.
He picks up the phone and tries again.
---
The guy had screamed and passed out when they stuck him on the gurney, must've jostled his leg too much. Nelson watched the kids the whole time, thinking they'd be scared. They didn't even flinch.
Nelson's following the ambulance now, he’s got six of the kids in the car with him, the sheriff sent the wagon down with the ambulance to transport the rest to the hospital. Nelson hasn’t clocked a lot of time with kids but he knows just from seeing them around town they're normally a little more alive than this. He eyes Brody Jenkins in the rear view. Just last month he had to have a talk with Mrs. Jenkins about Brody putting dye in the fountain in the square. Now he's just sitting there, staring out the window, like he's waiting for someone to flip his "on" switch.
He leaves them with Amy, the nurse at the front desk, and heads back to x-ray. The guy’s awake, but he isn’t much more responsive than the kids are. He answers any direct question with something akin to confusion, and still the only word he says is "Sam." Nelson watches the doc set the guy’s (Sam’s?) broken wrist. Turns out his femur’s broken, which accounts for the stumbling and the unnatural angles his leg makes with his body. They’re going to have to put him under for that, put a pin in or something, and Nelson isn’t going to stick around for that. Those surgery shows on the Discovery Channel make him queasy.
He steps in, prints the guy’s left hand (his right is the one in the big yellow cast). He tucks the ten sheet in his pocket and turns to head out, but the guy’s hand clamps on his arm. "Sam," he says, again, urgently this time, like it’s slipping away from him, like if he doesn’t hold on he won’t have it anymore.
"Right, Sam," Nelson says. He puts his hand on top of the guy’s, pulls at his clenching fingers a bit. "We’ll figure it out, buddy."
He seems content with that, lets go and lays back. Nelson stops at the door, turns back but the guy’s not watching him anymore. His eyes are on the window, the pale sky at sunrise. "Sam," he says.
---
Sam coughs into the phone, great big hacking cough that does nothing to relieve the tightness in his chest. Two days now and the worry isn’t small anymore and it’s getting close to panic. They haven't spent two days apart since Sam reached down and dragged Dean out of Hell. Sam doesn't want to think about that, ever again: the certain knowledge that his brother was dead, nothing Sam could do about it, no way to save him. He doesn't want to think of what he had to do, what he had to become, to save Dean. The experience left them changed, different, more dependent on each other, more wrapped up in each other than before. It's two days now and it feels like he's lost an appendage, his arm, something that should be firmly attached.
Sam has trouble remembering life without the low level of Dean's activity around him: cleaning guns, tinkering with car parts, cleaning and recleaning the armory, working his "charm" on women. The room is too quiet, too big. Dean should be climbing up the walls, all manic energy and stir crazy, begging Sam for a job, something to hunt and kill. Instead it's Sam crawling out of his skin with worry.
Bobby had been there when Sam saved Dean, had thrown them both in the car afterwards and taken them back to his place to rest. Of the few people he knows to call, Bobby’s least likely to make fun of him for the low-grade panic. He knows what they're like now; he's seen."I’m not exactly worried," Sam says, "but he hasn’t answered his phone since the day before yesterday."
"Well, kid. Maybe he just gets crappy coverage."
"What if it's not that."
Bobby tsks into the phone. "Don't go borrowing trouble just yet. It seems to follow you boys enough on its own."
"You think I'm overreacting?" Would have figured Bobby'd say that, and Sam's not entirely unwilling to rule that possibility out.
"I think you're both not rational about each other anymore. Listen, he's done plenty of solo hunts. He’s fine. Quit calling me, you woman. And take some Nyquil."
"Thanks, Bobby," he says, into the dead air.
---
Two days later, they've moved the guy into another hospital room and Nelson's outside looking in. Outside Dean Winchester’s hospital room. Dean Winchester had been a wanted criminal, suspected of murder, bank robbery, attempted murder, maybe a couple of other things he’s forgotten already. Had been until a couple of years ago when he died in a helicopter explosion, of all things. In FBI custody and everything, taking him off to maximum security for the rest of his life. Extremely dangerous, the old rap sheet had warned, but Nelson can’t get the picture of Dean cradling Josh Parker out of his head. Gentle hands setting him carefully on the ground before collapsing himself.
"He doesn’t remember anything?" Nelson asks the doc.
"Nothing," the doctor says, facing the others huddled in the hallway. Nelson’s got company on his room-side vigil. Mike Anderson, the town’s lawyer, nothing but grown kids and no grandkids and no personal stake and very little sympathy. (Nelson could picture Anderson's mother, the saintly elder Mrs. Anderson, carefully planning around the disappearances without telling anyone she was planning around the disappearances. Nelson wonders why more people didn't do that, why there are ever any kids at all when the thirty-year mark comes around. He guesses no one wants to believe it in it, so they don't.) Mr. Casey's there too because he’s the mayor and owns half the town, and the sheriff (whose name is Mayberry, if you can believe it).
And Nelson, because he found the guy, he supposes. "Guess he's not dead," Nelson says. Nobody laughs.
"So what exactly do the kids remember?" Anderson asks.
Casey tells them what Sarah told him. "At first," he says, "they didn't remember anything, not even their names. Then this guy comes." He points at Dean. "Starts fighting the thing. She couldn't remember what he was fighting, just that he was. And she watched, they all watched. The longer he fought, the more she remembered and the more confused this guy became. She said he'd stop sometimes, like he didn't remember he was supposed to be fighting. Now it's just the month she's missing, all of them are missing."
"And he ended up with nothing," the doc says, nodding towards the window. Dean's flicking through the channels on the television. Nelson can tell he’s got one eye on them and their whispered conference.
For a minute they don't say anything, any of them, like talking about what happened in the woods, how it couldn't, shouldn't be possible will make it any more or less of a reality.
Sheriff Mayberry leans forward finally and tells them, in whispered stops and starts (depending on the traffic of the hallway) the story of Dean Winchester, about who he'd been and what he'd done. He'd been on the phone for days, Nelson helped him track down phone numbers and such. He called Deputy Hudak in Minnesota and Detective Ballard in Maryland and more besides and while he can’t credit some of the stories they told, he knows the police file on Dean isn't the whole story. Entire histories spin out between the accusing lines of official reports all telling the same story: that Dean Winchester had been some kind of hero, some kind of savior, a ghostbuster and Zelda Rubenstein rolled up in one, before his end.
"Then the feds showed up," Mayberry says. Two FBI agents chased the story into town, following the hit on the national database when Dean’s prints came back. They want to know how this tiny town ended up with the prints of a dead man and they don't take kindly to stalling. Mayberry's been keeping them holed up in the motel. "They won't be put off much longer. What do I tell them?"
"Nothing for now," Casey says. "We need to think about this."
"He isn’t worth the trouble he’s bringing down on us, that he’ll bring down on us," Anderson starts. He opens his mouth like he wants to say more but Casey cuts him off.
"Not worth the trouble?" is all he says, but it’s quiet and angry, a glare from red-rimmed eyes. Nelson can tell there’s still a lot of heartbreak underneath it, still a lot of questions about where Sarah’s been for a month, what’s been done to her.
Anderson doesn’t have the grace to look ashamed but he drops it anyway.
"He saved our kids," Nelson says, looking between Anderson and Casey. Casey nods. "He's dead anyway, the feds think so. I say we leave his file like it is. Give him a new name, a new life."
"For how long?" Anderson asks.
"As long as he needs it," Casey says.
"What if it's forever?"
"Then it's forever."
Anderson’s small beady eyes are calculating. "At the cost of the town? We'll all go down if he's found out. Harboring a fugitive, and a deceased one at that."
Mayberry steps in, calm and gentle hand hard on Anderson’s shoulder. "We owe him, as long as he needs."
"What are you going to tell the FBI?" Casey asks.
Mayberry shrugs. "I’ll think of something."
"I can't hear this," Anderson says. Nelson pictures him putting his fingers in his ears and humming. It makes him want to laugh. "I'm washing my hands of it right now. Casey, as your lawyer, I advise you do the same." He stalks off.
Casey shakes his head. "Anything he needs," he says to the sheriff. "I'll cover it. Physical therapy, an apartment, hell, groceries. I've got it covered."
The sheriff nods and Casey shakes his hand before he walks away.
Nelson and Mayberry are left alone. "He kept saying 'Sam'," Nelson says. "Any word on who that is?"
"His brother," Mayberry says. He steps a bit closer to the glass, like Dean is an animal he’s watching at the zoo. "Also presumed dead, same explosion. No notion of whether he's alive or not, but the way Hudak and Ballard tell it, you never see one without the other. Dean came here alone, could be the brother actually died."
"Guess we'll keep an eye out," Nelson says. He's not sure why he fought so hard for the guy-for Dean, why he stood up to Casey and Anderson. There's something about Dean, something that Nelson trusts without questioning. He just hopes it never bites him in the ass.
---
Five days and Sam hacks the cell tower to track Dean's phone. He tries to quell the sick, panicky feeling, the part that immediately conjures up the worst possible scenario and paints it, Technicolor, in his mind. The phone doesn't show up and he tries to tell himself it doesn't mean much, that there are a million reasons it wouldn't work. He's just not sure he listens.
He calls Mike, their new techno-geek. They'd saved Mike's ass from a "ghost in the machine" type situation a couple of months ago in Utah. Sam finds it both funny and annoying that ghosts and spirits are also catching up to the technological age, and this particular one had been a new breed of awesome. It had earned them Mike's eternal gratitude, which mostly meant they got slightly snarky answers to whatever computer questions arose that Sam couldn't handle on his own. Mike's no Ash, but he's handy to keep around and Dean's never been one to turn down someone who feels they owe him favors.
Sam doesn't want to tell Mike how long Dean's been gone. They haven't known Mike that long, he's not sure Mike would understand. "So, what can I do?" Mike asks him.
"I just need to find him."
"How'd you misplace him? I thought you guys were, like, Siamese twins or something. Attached at the hip."
"Long story."
"All right, all right. You try GPS on his phone?"
"The cell tower didn't kick anything back."
"Could be underground, underwater. Smashed to bits."
"Right, considered those, thank you."
"Well, sunshine. Let me see what I can do for you." Sam can hear clicking in the background. "I can write a program, search news bulletins and arrest records. It's not much, but at least if he gets picked up, you'll know. I'd think someone coming back from the dead would be big news."
"Yeah," Sam says. "That's good. You think of anything else, come up with anything, just call me."
"Will do."
---
Dean still answers to Sam. They'd talked about telling him who he really was; Sheriff Mayberry says if he remembers being Dean at any point, that’s fine, but better not to jog his memory. They don't want to make him feel like he's got to run, got to be on the move before he's healed properly. The town can treat him better than the road will. Better to give him a quiet place to rest, recuperate, get through the physical therapy the broken femur requires. Nelson had been the one to tell him the carefully concocted lie: that he’d been in a car accident, that none of them knew him or where he came from, that his ID burned up in the explosion that totaled his car. (The car, and it had pained Nelson to have any part in this, the car they sold for parts, because it stood to reason the FBI knew what kind of car Dean drove, and you can’t hide a ’67 Impala forever.)
The sheriff asks Nelson to keep an eye on Dean. Nothing like daily visits, but that's what they turn into. The first time he stopped by, Dean had been so grateful to be interrupted in the middle of One Life to Live Nelson only know what it's called because he's got a mother who spends a lot of time home during the day. Dean had known far too much about the interweaving story lines for his own mental health and Nelson figured any distraction was a good distraction.
Once a week turns into two, three times. Soon it's every day. He swings by before his shifts sometimes, brings Dean coffee from the outside, better than anything he can find in the hospital. He’ll come by on his lunch break, or on the way back to the station from a call. He’ll stop on his way home, sneak in a burger and some fries from the diner down the street.
Nelson greets him the same way every time. "Sam," he’ll ask, "what do you remember today?" For the longest time, the answer is always nothing.
---
Whatever Sam was sick with has finally worked its way through him, leaving him on the far side of sick feeling a little fragile and a little empty, and he’s pretty sure he dropped at least ten pounds. With the sickness gone there’s room for more fear, more worry mixed up in his gut so he still can’t keep food down. He doesn’t want to think about what he’d trade for just the certain knowledge that Dean is okay somewhere, perfectly fine and just not calling. He’d kill him, sure as anything, but at least he’d know.
It hurts, sharp pain in his chest to think that Dean would do that, that Dean could do that after all they've been through. Say a quick "thank you" for pulling him out of hell, for securing his soul, before running off to parts unknown. He tells himself the only way Dean would do that was if Dean had convinced himself it was best for Sam, to give Sam that shot at a normal life Dean is so convinced he wants. It's not right, it's not fair, it makes Sam sick to his stomach to think about, that he's so easy to leave behind. He wonders if this is how Dean felt dropping Sam off at the bus station, headed for California. Leaving Dean with Dad to deal with all the supernatural shit, the ghosts and demons while Sam tried to live a normal life. At least Sam said goodbye first. He knows he wouldn't do that now, couldn't do that now. Too much has happened, too much has drawn them together, woven them so inextricably up in each other, and that's what makes Sam think this is more than Dean not calling, than Dean leaving him behind.
He bullies Bobby (and honestly, it doesn’t take much) into driving his truck down to Texas to pick him up and let him borrow a car. Bobby knows a guy in a yard in Texas who lets them have a battered old GTO for cheap. "I can use it later," Bobby says. "When you've found him and we get the Impala back together."
"Yeah." It's all Sam can say.
"You need help?" Bobby asks him, and Sam jumps on it, says yes. He almost didn't because part of him (hopes) he’ll find Dean holed up with a girl, cell phone dead because he lost the charger. He’ll never hear the end of it if he pulls out all the stops. But honestly, he'd give anything to have Dean make fun of him, because at least Dean would be here, talking to him.
He sends Bobby west while he heads east. Still can't remember the name of the tiny town, but he works in an ever widening circle from the motel Dean left him in. Couple of towns, some cow country, not much else and nothing comes up. No Jim Rockford checked into any of the hotels in any of the towns. Though if Dean were really running away, he wouldn't be using that name.
Eventually Sam gives up on that area, broadens the search, keeps looking in every town he stops in. He sends Bobby into New Mexico, up into Colorado. It doesn’t matter anymore if it’s close to where Dean was supposed to be or if it’s even in the same part of the country. There’s not much to go on (and not like they can put Dean's face on a milk carton) and after a few months Bobby drifts back home. "Dean would never," Bobby starts, and Sam won’t let him finish.
Sam never stops. He follows cases around, things reported and he thinks (hopes) some day he’ll run into Dean on one of these hunts, and Dean will have some reason for never coming back to that hotel room. He hates hunting alone. It reminds him of those three months, chasing the Trickster around the country. The Trickster said he'd been preparing Sam, giving him a George Bailey glimpse of what life would be like without Dean. Like he'd been doing Sam some huge fucking favor when all it did was make Sam more determined to keep Dean alive. Turned out nothing could have prepared him for that month after Dean really died, that short month that seemed to last forever. Nothing could have prepared him for watching Dean die, ripped to pieces by the hounds. No glimpse, no vision, no warning.
Afterwards, he hadn't let Bobby burn Dean's body because he knew he'd get Dean back, that Dean would need it. He had to think every day when he woke up, when he showered, when he ate breakfast, that Dean was in Hell, suffering for saving Sam's life. He never wants to feel that again, that crushing guilt, that overwhelming hurt. It makes him crazy to not know where Dean is, to wonder if it's happened again. The hope and the dread war inside him, tear him apart. Dean gave up his soul for Sam and even though Sam dragged him back out, saved him too, he'll never stop repaying Dean. He'll never stop trying to measure up to Dean's sacrifice. He's been afraid to let Dean out of his sight since then, like Dean can't even go to the bathroom without help anymore, and maybe that's what made Dean stir crazy enough to leave Sam in the hotel room, chase after ghosts on his own.
Sam knows, he's always known, that the only way he'd end up living this life alone would be if Dean were dead. He never wanted to do this, not by himself. Up until Jess he hadn't wanted it at all. He used to be able to picture that life, the lawyer, the wife, the kids, the white picket fence. He hasn't thought about it in years, it feels like. It doesn't matter that he never wanted this; it all comes back to the beginning. Dad needed him then, Dean needs him now. He can't stop hunting, to stop looking for signs and clues.
Months later and he stops into tiny towns in Idaho and still he stares after every guy around six feet tall that he sees.
Sam calls Ellen. The new bar isn't the Roadhouse, isn't even called Harvelle's (but Sam can't remember its new name, it'll always be the Roadhouse), but it's still something of a haven for wayward hunters and he knows she still has a kind of network going. She spreads the word with what hunters she trusts and promises she'll keep in touch, but nothing comes of her inquiries, nothing comes of anything. Sam calls almost every day and he'll give this to her, she keeps answering. Lately he can tell she doesn't want to hurt him and she doesn't know how to tell him to stop.
---
It shouldn’t really surprise Nelson that Dean fits in as well as he does. Given what he knows of Dean’s history, he figures Dean’s the adaptable sort, full of charm and bullshit, but still likeable for all that. Mr. Casey sets Dean up in an apartment, and some of the other parents donate furniture, and the Hammond’s bookstore won’t take his money, and he hasn’t paid for a meal in the diner since that night. People greet him on the street by name and the kids follow him everywhere he goes. He's seen Billy Evans, all of four years old, sitting silently across from Dean in the diner. Just sitting there, eyes on each other while Dean chews his burger and Billy sips on a root beer float.
Nelson calls him up now, instead of stopping by. One thing to stop by an impersonal hospital room, another thing to visit an apartment and Nelson hasn't been invited. "Hey, Sam, what do you remember today?" he asks.
"That your official question?" Dean asks the first time. "You the designated guy to check on the amnesia patient?"
"Uh."
"I'll know if you lie."
Dean's smiling and Nelson knows Dean's just giving him shit, that he's bored and wants someone to talk to. So he keeps asking.
It’s nothing for the longest while, and Nelson can tell that frustrates Dean, that he's lived a life he doesn't remember. Then it’s some things, little things like a blue toothbrush, little plastic wrapped cups, worn linoleum, a hunting knife. He describes the inner workings of a car engine one day, how the belts and the chains and the pistons all work together to make the car actually move. Nelson feels bad all over again about the Impala. He hopes if Dean ever gets his memory back that he’ll be the forgiving sort.
He tells Sheriff Mayberry about the car, the sheriff tells Casey, and after that Dean’s got a job at the local garage, greasy blue cover-all with the name "Sam" on a patch on the front. He can't do much at first, still hobbling around a bit. He refuses to use the cane the doctor gives him, would stand up and walk around more than he does but Joey, the manager, makes sure he doesn't move much. They get him doing simple jobs until he can get around better. Sarah Casey stops by every day on her way home from school, just to say hello.
---
"Listen," Bobby says, dragging the words out like he doesn’t want to say them. "There’s Impala parts, just parts, mind you, that’re coming through the yard. It’s not enough to really know, but they’re from a ’67, and the side panels I got today are black."
The phone bites into Sam’s hand as he clenches his fist. He never wanted to give up hope, he thinks he never did, riding the roller coaster from angry to scared to angry to depressed. It's been so long, it's been months, months he's spent all alone, when he's never been alone in his life. Only this time there's no direction for his anger and pain, nothing to hunt down to oblivion, nothing to live for. Dean isn't dead, Dean can't be dead. Sam dragged Dean out of hell himself, it's not fair, it's so not fair if it was all for nothing.
He opens his mouth to respond to Bobby but for a moment he isn’t sure he trusts himself to speak. The Impala’s sold, sold for parts, and as much as he wants to believe Dean’s still out there, still alive, he’s pretty sure it can only mean one thing.
"Hold onto them," he says finally. He isn’t sure why, why he needs to look at them, what he hopes to glean from them. He isn’t sure he could identify the car from its parts the way he knows Dean could. (Can, he tries to tell himself.)
"Will do," Bobby says thickly. He knows what this means as well as Sam does. "I’m trying to track their sales history, see where they came from."
"Let me know if you find it."
"You’ll be the first. Sam-"
He doesn’t know what Bobby will say. I'm sorry? Sam doesn't want to hear it, doesn't want the sympathy, doesn't want to commiserate, doesn't want to unite in grief. He isn't giving up. "Don’t, Bobby. I’ll be there."
---
Every day Nelson calls him up, and every day Dean tells Nelson the new things he remembers. "I stayed in a hotel once? I think it was once. It had the ugliest orange wall paper." "I have this leather jacket." "I hate pickles." "I had this football," he says one day. "I don’t remember throwing it, really. Just that I had one."
So Nelson asks him about the game last night. Turns out Dean knows terminology like "fourth and ten" and "false start" and loves to watch all the games on the huge sports cable package Casey set him up with. On the huge flat screen that Casey set him up with. Not that Nelson's envious at all.
The daily phone call becomes a conversation and then one day, after an invitation and some wheedling from Dean, Nelson brings a six pack and a bag of pretzels to Dean’s apartment and they watch the Giants kill the Patriots. Dean, who can’t decide who his team used to be and who it should be now, gets so mad at a blown call that he chokes on a pretzel and Nelson laughs so hard he cries. He pounds Dean on the back till he’s red in the face.
It surprises Nelson, after the Monday nights become a regular thing and Dean decides that he’s been a die-hard Cowboys fan since birth (which means it’s okay for them to continue watching games together), it surprises Nelson when he realizes that they’re friends.
---
Sam wants to feel something when he sees the parts. Wants to pretend that they’re his, that he’d know them from any other part littered across the yard. All the way to Bobby's he'd pictured the car in his head, listened for it, remembered its smells, leather and sweat and the coppery scent of blood. He thought he would, thought he'd know somehow. He knows Dean would've. The car's been home to him all his life, the only home he's known. The sound of the road lulled him to sleep as a child. The smell of the leather seats, tacky against his thighs and Dean sprawled across the seat next to him, both of them sweating in the hot summer sun while Dean explains once again why they can't join the little league team like all the other kids. The creak of the door as they fall into the front seat, the sound that means they survived one more round. Those mean something to him, even if he can't recognize their disparate parts. But not being able to is just another disappointment, feels like another dead end.
"I just don't know," he tells Bobby. "I can't-"
Bobby's hand comes down on his shoulder, warm and heavy. "I know, kid. No reason you should, really. I've been under the hood of that car almost as much as Dean has and I have no idea either. I'll keep collecting the parts. Maybe he can rebuild it."
Sam closes his eyes against that, against that hope and the parts of home scattered around him. Closes his eyes against everything. "Yeah," he says finally.
It doesn’t really matter whether he knows those parts are theirs or not, he’ll check it out anyway. He's been on this trail for months as it's gotten colder and colder. This at least is a direction, something concrete, a paper trail. More than he's been following since the beginning.
"Sale originated in a place is called Jefferson," Bobby tells him. "I've looked it up. Town's not much bigger than a postage stamp, only got about 500 residents."
Bobby’s voice is muffled over the pounding rhythm of Sam's heart, the rushing sound in his ears. "But I stopped there, they said they hadn’t seen him." He remembers the cop he talked to, young and green and more innocent than anyone they’ve run across in years. Name was Fuller or something. Sam hadn’t given his name, no reason to think they knew Dean's. He'd played it off like a big city cop, hoping to impress information out of a small towner.
"Well, they saw his car, that’s where the sale originated. Did you tell them what he’d been driving?"
"I had to’ve." He spreads his hands against the side panel. Hot bite against his hands, it's been sitting in the sun. His fingers leave smudges against the smooth black.
---
Often Nelson runs into Annie, the woman Casey pays to run errands for Dean, who still has trouble getting around on his leg. He's known her most of his life, hard not to in this town, but she was four years behind him in school, just on the edge of anyone he'd notice. Shocked the hell out of him when she starting stopping by; she was much shorter and ganglier once upon a time. She’s pretty now, Nelson figures, if you go for the curvy, knock-out brunette types, and Nelson definitely does.
Annie ends up hanging around the apartment more often than not, doing the dishes after Dean makes lunch or dinner for them, because while he's handy at the stove he hates the clean up. She joins them for football night occasionally but doesn't quite match the level of devotion (or passion) that Nelson and Dean have for the game. She plays a mean hand of poker and has arranged game nights three Saturdays running. Nelson likes that she gives as good as she gets and refuses to take any of Dean’s crap on the bad days. The pain, sometimes the lack of mobility make Dean cranky, a reaction Nelson definitely understands. Dean tries to do too much for himself, resists Annie's help a lot. It hadn't occurred to any of them that Dean would be so resistant to hand outs, but he is.
He can tell it’s a good day today, he hears them laughing as he knocks on Dean’s door. Annie opens it, fresh faced, eyes sparkling as she giggles. "Great," she says, pushing open the door so Nelson can pass through. She leans down quickly to grab the cat (the stray the kids found and gave to Dean. Dean named him Colt) as he tries to dart past. "Now you can tell Sam he’s full of crap. There’s no way that Richard Bartel was a better rookie QB pick than Caleb Haney."
Dean grimaces. He’s sitting at the table, pushing the remnants of dinner around on the plate with his fork. "Yes there is!" Dean says, stabbing his fork in Annie's direction. "Haney plays for the freaking Bears! C’mon, where’s your Texas pride?"
"It chased that fine ass north, my friend. Right, Nel?" She nudges him with her elbow.
Nelson flushes and nods and tries to ignore Dean's mocking look of betrayal. "The lowest circle of hell," Dean mutters, "is reserved for betrayers."
Annie gapes at him. "How do you even know that?"
Dean laughs. "Special on the History Channel."
Nelson's tongue feels glued to the roof of his mouth, a typical response to almost any pretty woman, and lately to Annie in particular. Annie and Dean start laughing again and Nelson gives a weak smile.
"I’m on my way out," Annie tells Nelson. "I’ve got class at four." She grabs her bag off the counter, cards her fingers through Dean's hair- longer now since they found him- as she passes. She presses a quick kiss to the top of his head.
Dean shoos her away, still chuckling. She stops in front of Nelson on her way to the door and his heart pumps a little faster; he can feel the beginning of another blush. She leans up and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek that he feels everywhere, all over his body. He doesn’t (can’t) say anything as she slips out the door.
He looks up when Dean coughs a little pointedly and Dean gives him a bright smile. "You’ve got it bad," Dean says. Nelson nods. He never wonders if Dean resents his crush on Annie, maybe wants her for himself. Dean never seems to notice the women that circle around him, caught in his orbit. And they do circle. Nelson's secure enough in his manhood, he can admit Dean's pretty hot. The women of the town seem to agree with him, but it's like Dean can't even see them. Not at the hospital, not at the garage, not at the diner. Like some part of Dean is waiting for something else, even if Dean doesn't know it.
---
It takes Sam two days hard driving to get from Bobby's down to Texas. The GTO he's been borrowing from Bobby isn't the Impala, doesn't have the same sense of familiarity, but he still catches himself walking up to the passenger door more often than not.
He doesn't stop much. Dean called him a princess about eating at the best of times and now the thought of food makes him want to hurl. He's too wound up to sleep, might as well keep going so he does. Over and over, the endless miles, he runs through all the things it could be, all the scenarios that could have played out. Dean dead, Dean held hostage. He once told himself that Dean left him, dropped him in that hotel room and left because maybe if Dean weren't there, Sam would go back to that real life Dean expects for him. If anyone knows how to run and not be found, it's a Winchester. It made him angry and sad and he can't, won't, believe that of Dean.
It's the Impala that hurts the most, gives him the most pause. They'd been running from the cops and the feds for years and they'd never dumped the car before. Even if Dean were hiding from Sam, he'd never get rid of it. And so all the scenarios Sam has dreamed up that end with Dean still being alive and whole at the end are just that: dreams.
And that? Is everything Sam's been denying for the year since he saved Dean, for forever. If there's a problem he will fix it, he'll solve it, and he will get Dean back. There isn't another option.
He crosses the Red River into Texas at dawn on the third day, only an hour after that into Jefferson. It's a small town, quaint, not entirely unlike any other town they've spent more than a few days in. The police station isn't hard to find, located at the corner of the town square, couple of squad cars parked outside.
He's had two days to think of how to play this, what to say, and he steps inside the glass doors and it's that kid, that kid from before behind the counter and he forgets his carefully prepared story, forgets everything. This guy, this guy knew, knew even back then where Dean was, what had happened and for a minute Sam's so angry, so bitter and pissed off he can't even speak. The cop's staring at him and he shakes it off, walks up to the counter, presses his hands carefully against it. "I'm Sam Winchester," he says. "You sold my brother's car."
It's almost a cliché, how wide the cop's eyes get at that, and Sam would laugh under any other circumstances. "How'd you," the guy starts, but seems to catch himself. "I remember you," he says instead. "You said you were a cop from Dallas."
"I lied. So did you. Where is he? What happened?" he asks. He wants to ask more, wants to elaborate, wants to tell the kid exactly what he wants to know, but he can't push the words out of his throat anymore.
"He's here," the cop says, and Sam's legs can't hold him anymore.
---
Of all the fucking ways this could have played out, Nelson's pretty sure he'd have picked this one dead last. Something that would keep everything more at a distance, like a letter or an email, a series of scribbled post-its, even. Sam's got his head in his hands and he's gasping so hard Nelson's sure he'll fall apart any minute now. It's too close, too much, and it makes Nelson feel guilty as hell that he's been here, making friends with Dean, laughing and sharing jokes and watching football games while Sam's been racing around the country trying to find him, obviously thinking he was dead.
It doesn't even look like Sam anymore, not like the guy in the suit that showed up two weeks after that night, right before they sold the Impala. That guy had been huge, had stood tall and proud, arrogant but only in the way that meant he knew his place in the world and felt comfortable in it. But this guy? This Sam? He's still tall but he's dropped weight and muscle. He seems smaller somehow, not just physically. Lost, bowed under by the weight of the world. Nelson's seen his mama talk about his sister, pain and anguish like it'd just happened last night but hidden, locked up because she didn't want to scare Nelson. Sam looks like that. Like just breathing is effort enough.
Nelson moves slowly around the counter, cautious like Sam's a wild dog and Nelson figures he's probably about as dangerous. Especially now. "He's fine," Nelson says. "Dean's fine. I mean, he's got no memory, but he's fine." He's close enough now that he rests a hand on Sam's shoulder, just to see if Sam would let him. He drops it quickly enough when Sam flinches away, hands dropping down to clench into fists at his side.
"What happened?" Sam asks again, teeth clenched and menacing, like he'd bite Nelson if he didn't have the right answer.
"We don't know for sure," Nelson says, hands held in front of him, palms out. "We just. We guessed."
"What did you guess?"
Instead of answering, Nelson calls over his shoulder for Collins to watch the front. "I'm taking my break," he says, guiding Sam out the door. He looks around for a quiet place to sit once they're outside. It's early still for people to be out walking, no one to overhear so he leads them to a picnic table at the corner of the square. Sam doesn't sit, even when Nelson does, even when Nelson spreads his hands out and starts to talk. It all comes tumbling out, their pied piper theory, the night Nelson watched Dean walk out of the woods, selling the Impala, everything. By the end, Sam has moved closer to the table, sits down at the edge of the bench. "We didn't know how to contact you," he finishes with. "We didn't even know if you were alive. That helicopter explosion. I mean, you're both supposed to be dead."
Sam's hunched forward over the table, back lit by the weak morning sun. "He doesn't remember anything?" he asks quietly.
"Not much. And, well. One thing," Nelson says. It hurts a little to say this part. "He held onto a name, coming out of the woods. It was the only thing he said for days. Your name," Nelson says. Sam's eyes well up at that, the anger falling away till only the pain remains. Nelson looks away for a bit, watches the trees in the square swaying in the breeze. "It's what we call him now," he adds. "We thought, in the beginning, that it might have been his. He didn't have any real ID on him, just a bunch of fake credit cards, box of counterfeit stuff in the glove box. I printed him and we found out who he was, but it just seemed easier to keep calling him that."
"I want to see him."
Nelson nods, checks his watch and stands. "Yes, yes of course."
---
Sam follows the cop across the square, into the tiny diner he'd grabbed lunch in all those months ago. He hadn't taken much notice of it, hadn't thought about it at all, but now he looks around, pictures Dean in the booth by the window, sitting on a stool at the counter. Flirting with the waitress as she refills his coffee. He catches his breath at the image.
"Two coffees, Shelly," the cop says, falling into the booth near the window. He sits so Sam can see outside, and he watches Sam like he's waiting for something, expecting something. Sam stirs sugar into the coffee Shelly brings him. He wants to speak again, ask the cop where Dean is, when he's going to see him, but if he opens his mouth now he's not sure what will spill out. He feels like he's choking down a cry, a scream, a horrible lump at the back of his throat. He swallows coffee past it and waits.
More people out and about now and Sam watches their faces, their hair blowing in the breeze as they pass by the diner's big picture window. It's the habit of months, nearly a year, to watch for men, men of a certain height, a certain build and Sam's so used to them not being who he's looking for that it takes him a while, until he's already passed out of sight again, before he realizes that it finally is. Dean.
He can hear the cop scrambling out of the booth behind him, he doesn't remember getting from the booth to the door, to the street. He almost calls out, he's about to yell, "Dean," as loud as he possibly can, but the cop beats him to it. "Sam," the cop says, and Dean turns.
The sun is behind Dean and for a minute he's a dark shape outlined in light until he's closer, shaking the cop's hand and his features take shape and form. A part of Sam never stopped believing, hoping and he's been thinking about this, about what he'd say and how he'd yell at Dean for leaving, for getting lost, for keeping Sam up at night worrying. It's all he can do to keep standing, it's all he can do to not scream, shout, dance around. His heart pounds in his chest, his fingers itch to reach out, drag Dean close, beg Dean to never leave again. But Dean's eyes flick over him and there's no hint, no spark of recognition, and part of that excitement dies. Sam was prepared for it, thinks he was prepared for it, but it hurts more than he ever would have guessed, a sharp knife in his gut.
Dean and the cop are still talking, just small talk, ribbing about a game. Dean looks at Sam again. "Nelson, who's your friend?" Dean asks the cop.
"Uhh," Nelson looks at Sam. They hadn't talked about what they were going to do, say.
Introducing himself to his brother. God. Sam reaches out a hand. "Sam..." and he catches himself, "son. Jack Samson." Dean's hand is warm around his, calluses where they've always been. Sam holds onto his hand a little too long, it's past awkward when Dean has to pull his hand away.
"We were just getting breakfast," Nelson says to Dean. "Want to join us?"
"Sure." They go back inside, Dean sitting next to Nelson across from Sam and Sam can't stop staring at him, can't stop watching the way he moves, the way he talks. There's something different about him, and for a while, for a long while Sam can't put his finger on it, can't figure out what it is until Nelson says something, until Dean laughs. It's not a laugh Sam has ever heard before. There's no bitterness or self-deprecation. It's just a laugh. The smile that goes with it is so open and happy it makes Sam's belly hurt.
There are actual physical differences too, his hair is longer than it's ever been and Sam had no idea it would be slightly wavy. It's obvious that Dean's getting a lot of sun by the cluster of freckles across his nose and cheeks and he's got a shiny pink scar fading under his right eye but it's mostly the things that he's not. Not shuttered and sarcastic and he's having a conversation with Nelson about his day and he seems interested in what the cop has to say in response. He actually blushes when the pretty blond waitress brings him a slice of homemade pie ("Pie for breakfast?" she says, in mock disapproval), he only smiles his thanks and doesn't look down her top or comment lewdly on her legs. Other customers greet him by name, Sam's name, and Sam wonders if this is who Dean could have been, would have been, if not for their father, if not for Sam. It makes Sam want to cry.
He watches Dean's hands, Dean's mouth as he chews, the way Dean rests his elbows on the table or leans back against the seat, cataloging all the differences, all the similarities. Sam was sure he knew all there was to know about Dean, Dean's moods, Dean's habits, Dean's quirks, the way Dean would sprawl across a surface, claim it as his own. But sitting here now, watching Dean move in this space, he finds he can't remember if Dean had ever arched his eyebrow like that before, if the questioning tilt to his head was the same angle it'd always been. Dean locks his fingers together, rests them against the pie plate. Sam feels like his memory is the one that's lost. So many things he'd taken for granted, hadn't even thought to memorize. He watches them now, memorizes them now, tries not to tell himself it's already too late.
Dean glances over at him every now and then and Sam's always looking right back. He can tell it's making Dean uncomfortable but he can't seem to stop.
Dean looks over his shoulder as a woman comes in, young and blonde and Sam waits for the leer, for the comment, but there's nothing. There's a kid on her heels, too young for school, hair pulled into tight pigtails and a pink shirt on. She makes a beeline for Dean soon as she clears the door and Dean, without even pausing, like he expected this to happen at any moment, holds his arm out, lets her slip under it. Her mother turns to look for her and smiles when she sees Dean, turns back to ordering her breakfast at the counter. Dean pulls the girl up onto his lap, never breaking stride in the rant on some football player and why he should get traded next season. She settles in, rests her head in the crook of Dean's shoulder and sits quietly, tiny hand fisted in Dean's shirt, brown eyes carefully fixed on Sam.
Dean turns to Sam finally, conversation with Nelson played out, finds him watching the little girl. "This is Jenny," he says, looking down at her. Jenny smiles up at Dean, oddly quiet for a little girl, but Sam doesn't have a lot of empirical experience with them. "So, what're you doing in town, Jack?" he asks. It feels almost like a confrontation, but he looks Sam in the eye, for all the world like he's intensely interested in Sam's answer.
"Research," Sam says. Nelson nods quickly.
"Research on what?" Dean asks.
"Small towns. It's for my sociology thesis. For my masters."
"Towns don't come much smaller than this," Dean says. He's not open and friendly with Sam the way he's been with Nelson. It makes Sam angry, resentful that he has to prove himself to Dean again.
He remembers a den of vampires in Indiana, town had 36 (live) people left in it by the time the Winchesters rolled in following the myths and the newspaper reports. Dean had taken twelve of them out by himself, so intensely proud he wouldn't shut up about it for weeks after, but he wouldn't remember that now. "You'd be surprised," is all Sam says.
"Maybe." Dean shrugs. "Anyway, I've got to get to work." He sets Jenny on the floor, whispers something in her ear that has her giggling and running across the diner, throwing herself at her mother's legs. It's slow getting up from the table for him and it isn't until Sam's watching him cross the diner himself that he notices Dean's favoring his right leg. Dean turns at the door, waves at Nelson, says, "See you around, Jack," and then he's gone.
---
Sam looks ill, pale and quiet after Dean leaves. Nelson hadn't figured what it would be like, witnessing that first reunion, and he wishes now that he hadn't. The look on Sam's face, that whole time, Nelson's not generally the crying sort, but it'd been a close thing, watching Sam. He doesn't know if Dean could tell, he's generally sort of oblivious to that kind of thing. Watching Sam watch Dean, track his movements, the shape of Dean's hands as he gestured, mimicking a particularly amazing tackle they'd seen Monday night. It made him uncomfortable in ways he can't really describe; it made him want to go home and hug his mother.
Nelson folds his hands, rubs his thumbs together. He's not exactly sure where to go from here, what to suggest, and it's Sam dropping his head to his hands, like the only thing keeping him up is all the coffee he'd poured down his throat at breakfast, that makes him decide. "Hey," he says. "We can get you a room. You can get some sleep, take a shower."
Sam's amenable (he nods at least, though he doesn't say anything) and Nelson gets him set up in the Greers' bed and breakfast a few blocks off the square. It's pretty close to Dean's apartment, which will hopefully be a useful feature. Nelson's sure he can get Casey to cover the room for Sam and if he can't he'll talk to the sheriff, maybe get the station to cover it. He doesn't want Sam to have to worry about it. It's the least they can do.
Sam looks empty, drained when Nelson hands him the key, like standing there, staying upright is taking all of his concentration. Nelson takes the key back, leads Sam to the room, just to get him situated, he thinks. Settled in.
He stands in the doorway, hat in his hands as Sam steps inside. It's an embarrassingly kitschy room, knick-knacks carefully arranged and a ten point rack mounted on the wall. Nelson's never really been one for Texas flag quilts or Texas shaped ashtrays. Sam doesn't seem to notice, just drops his duffel bag near the bed, stands facing the corner, back to Nelson.
"I, uh." Nelson waits for Sam to turn around, but when he doesn't he continues. "We've got some of your brother's things, personal effects. We gave his necklace back after he got out of the hospital, couldn't see much harm in it."
Sam nods, but he still doesn't turn around.
"The rest are back at the station." Nelson gestures with the hat, even though Sam's not watching. Gives him something to do with his hands. "Maybe a dozen ID cards, some clothes."
"I want them," Sam says, so quietly Nelson steps forward a bit, just to see if he'll say more.
"Sure thing," he says. "There was also quite the arsenal in the trunk. It's all back at the station in lock up. We didn't really want to sell it along with the car."
Sam laughs but it isn't happy, it's a broken, wet sound and Nelson realizes with some horror that Sam's crying, shoulders shaking, folding in on himself. Nelson's hands clench around his hat. He's been here, watched naked emotion before. Can't be a cop (even in a small town) and not see this. He thinks he should be comfortable with it, but he's not. He thinks he should be used to it, but he's not. He wants to step inside, cross the room, put his hand on Sam's shoulder. He wants to tell Sam he understands. He wants to apologize.
Nelson looks down at the hat, brim bent and twisted in his fists. He reaches for the door handle, pulls the door slowly closed. "I'll just, uh," he says, but he shuts the door without finishing. He doesn't know what he'd say anyway.
He stands in the hallway, back to the door. Just for a minute, five. He carefully releases the fists he's made around his hat, straightens out the brim. He wipes carefully at his own eyes before he steps outside.
He calls Dean later, wonders if seeing Sam, talking to him, might have triggered anything. "Anything new today?" he asks, but Dean says no.
part two