Always Thought That I'd See You Again (Part 1)

[gluisa88.livejournal.com]

Author: gluisa88

Title: Always Thought That I'd See You Again (Part 1)
Summary: Sam is at Stanford when he gets the call that he's been dreading his entire life. Dean is dead... or is he? Pre-series.
Rating: T
Word Count: 880
Characters/Pairings: Dean and Sam, Gen
Warnings: Language
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
A/N: This story is only going to be about three chapters long and I should have it all posted fairly quickly.

---

He'd thought about changing his number.

Just to avoid this call.

He had nightmares about this. He thought that maybe if he couldn't hear about it, it couldn't happened.

If a tree falls in the forest...

"Sam Winchester?"

And even though everything was screaming at him to Hang the damn phone up, you don't want to hear this! He said, "Yes? This is Sam..."

It was only three hours later and he felt numb.

He needed to claim the body. It had only been one year since he had last seen his brother but he wondered if he would be able to recognize him. He wondered how much he had changed, if at all. Wondered if there would be new scars that he didn't know the story behind.

He thought about the last thing he ever said to him which was nothing at all. He thought about how he walked out the door, neither one of them making eye contact. Both feeling too much anger, hurt and betrayal to acknowledge the other.

And now it hurt too much for words. Did he know? When he was dying, did he know how much it would tear Sam up? Or did he die wondering if Sam would even care?

"Why did you call me?" Sam had asked the officer.

"You were the last person he dialed."

"What about our dad?"

"Couldn't reach him."

He boarded the plane and hoped that maybe when the plane lifted off, his pain would be left behind on the tarmac.

...

It was a four hour flight and he tried to fake it when the little old lady sitting next to him wanted him to smile, "You're far to pretty to be frowning, young man!" She told him.

He tensed up when she put her hand on his knee because right now he didn't want to be touched by anyone.

He just wanted to be in his own safe little bubble where nothing could hurt him.

He dosed up on Dramamine and if he took one too many he didn't really care. It made him dozy and for that he was grateful. He knew there was no other way he would be getting through this flight.

For all the years that he'd been preparing for this day, it really shouldn't hurt this bad. But it did because the guy had been his entire world. For the first eighteen years of his life, he had been his father, his mother, his brother and his best friend, all rolled into one.

And for all the scars that he wore on his skin, he knew that none of them went as deep or hurt as much as this. This would never heal.

He didn't think he wanted it to heal.

...

Sam clung to the idea that maybe it wasn't Dean. Maybe it was all a mistake. Please don't ask him why this body happened to be wearing Dean's phone. He wouldn't have an answer for that.

He half expected to get there, take one look at the body and say, "This isn't my brother! Take him away!"

He'd go back to Stanford and get on with his life like nothing had happened. Maybe he would call Dean just to say hi.

And maybe tell him that he'd missed him like hell and "Hey, are you ever in the area cause maybe we should grab some beers."

The room was too brightly lit and too cold.

The man opened the drawer and pulled out the body.

Sam held his breath and stared at the scars on the man's neck, unwilling to look any further.

The man nudged him, "We need a positive ID... He had no identification on him."

He blinked a couple of times, took a deep breath and oh God help him, it was Dean. It was his brother Dean.

He didn't remember much about what happened after that. He thought he signed some papers, he may or may not have called his dad, and then he signed some more papers so that Dean's belongings could be released into his possession.

...

He found the name of motel Dean was staying in off the key card which was part of the box of Dean's belongings that had been released to him.

The grief was overwhelming. He opened the door to the motel room and he was struck by just how much the whole room screamed 'Dean' and he wished so hard that he could have seen Dean just one last time.

To fix whatever had gone wrong between them.

A few hamburger wrappers littered the floor.

He sat at the edge of the unmade bed and went through Dean's belongings.

There was his clothing: his black t-shirt, his blue jacket, his jeans.

His favorite boots.

The ring that he always wears... wore on the fourth finger of his right hand.

Twenty-seven dollars in cash, the phone number of some chick named Bri, the key to his motel room and the key to his Chevy.

His wallet sat on the bedside table beside a Gideon's Bible.

It wasn't until the third time that Sam went through Dean's things that he noticed that Dean's amulet was not among them. And it was not with any of his other things either.

He wondered when Dean stopped wearing it. He buried his head in his hands and cried.

TBC