Supernatural, all audiences, future-fic.

Secondary character death.

The characters and situations portrayed here are not mine, they belong to the WB. This is a fan authored work and no profit is being made. Please do not link to this story without appropriate warnings. Please do not archive this story without my permission.

(1,493 words)

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§And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Present it now unto thy governor: will he be pleased with thee? or will he accept thy person?§ Malachi 1:8

"I've made my peace, honey. Hell, I've earned it. And I know you want to save me if you can, but…"

"I understand. Just…take care, Missouri," Sam says.

"It's her choice, man," Dean says and rubs Sam's shoulders. "Come on. I say we go out to eat."

Six weeks later, Dean wakes up in the middle of the night and doesn't know why. He's tense and nervous and he hears noises downstairs.

The gun is still familiar in his hand, he doesn’t turn on any lights.

He listens and then checks Sam's room only to see the bed is empty.

He relaxes fractionally.

"Sam…?" he says from the top of the stairs.

"Yeah. I'm just getting…"

Dean hears a glass break and he rushes down the stairs to the kitchen. "Don't move," he says, turning on the light. There's a broken glass and milk all over the floor. Sam's barefoot in pajama bottoms. Dean eases the safety back on the gun and leaves it on the kitchen table. "You hurt? Cut?" he asked looking for any blood.

"I don’t think so…"

"Just don't move. Let me get the glass up."

Sam grips the counter but doesn't move, despite the milk soaking his pajamas.

"Okay, now," Dean grips his arm and Sam grips his elbow until he's clear of the wet floor. "I'll get a towel, dry pants."

Sam nods and sits down when Dean pulls out a chair and guides him to it.

Dean finds a clean towel in the laundry room and a pair of sweat pants.

"Take those off and put these on," Dean says and finds the mop as well.

He hears his cell phone ringing upstairs.

"It's two o'clock in the morning -- who would…" After the second ring, it stops.

A moment later it rings again. Once.

"That's Dad."

"Yeah," Sam says. He pulls off the soaking clothes and pulls on the sweats.

"Sam…"

"You should call him back."

There's a phone in the kitchen.

"Dad? Dean. That was you--?"

Sam sits back down, arms on the table, sketching out something with a fingertip that Dean can't make out.

"…it was actually a couple of hours ago. She'd gone to the movies with some friends. No one saw anything. A guy walking his dog found her. Purse gone…a mugging is what the police are calling it."

"Any reason to think it wasn't?

"…not that I know, so far. I was going to head out there tomorrow. They called Jim. He was on her list. He called me." John hesitated and cleared his throat. "Dean, did Sam…"

"I don't know, Dad, He hasn't said anything, hang on." Dean tucks the phone under his chin and grips Sam's shoulder. "Sam…Missouri's--"

"Dead. I know." Sam looks up at him eyes dry, but face pale. "A week ago. I saw it a week ago."

Dean squeezed his shoulder. "Yeah. He saw it. She told us--"

"Not to call. I know. She told me. Dean…something else. Up to you if you tell Sam. The cop that called Jim says when Missouri got there, for the movie, she somehow set her car alarm off. Made a huge ruckus. Couple of feller's from a diner right there by the movie theatre came out to help her. They got it turned off and she went to the movie."

"Yeah? And…"

"They smelled gas outside. Cleared the restaurant, called the gas company. Found a leaky line. Had to shut the place down. They don't know if someone would have…I don't know. Cigarette, Cigar…car backfiring."

"Nothing though?"

"No. There were about twenty people in the diner that had to be cleared out. Just…so you know.

"Thanks. I'll…uhm. Let us know, okay? Arrangements and all that. Yeah. I'll call you tomorrow."

He hangs up the phone and puts both hands on Sam's shoulders. "Dad will let us know about the funeral arrangements," he says. Sam's tense under his hands. He can't quite get his head around this. Missouri dead. A Diner that didn't blow up or burn or whatever the hell could have happened.

Sam pretty obviously didn't get up just because he had a sudden desire for a glass of milk. "You didn't say anything…"

Sam shrugs. "Nothing you could have done. Forty-three versus twenty-three. Final score. Missouri loses," he said and pushes up, gets to his feet.

"What are you talking about?"

"There's nothing wrong with my hearing, Dean. Twenty people in the diner. I'd have told her not to go to the movies," Sam says and heads back through the living room, to the stairs.

Dean doesn't know what to say to that. It's a riddle with no answer. Missouri stays home, no car alarm goes off, no one smells the gas until it's too late…

They've talked about it, theorized, and still they can't be sure, even now, that the body count goes up exponentially when Sam manages to stop something. Leave it to Missouri to be the one to actually put the theory to the test, when she is the only one who has even the vaguest idea of what goes on in Sam's head.

It took Sam almost two years to tell them what the demon had said to him, shown him, done to him.

Dean gets the mop and then remembers to add milk to the list of groceries. He finishes cleaning up, throws Sam's milk-soaked pajamas into the washer and goes to turn off the light but he's got a feeling….

His gun is gone from the table.

He doesn't even call for Sam, he just runs.

Sam is sitting on his bed, feet on the floor, head down, elbows on his knees and hands hanging loosely between them. The gun is on the bed next to him. The safety is still on.

Dean hits the lights, picks up the gun, and sits beside him.

"Are you going to make me regret keeping a loaded gun in the house? Because if you are, I'm switching to a water pistol loaded with holy water. Try killing yourself with that."

"I…" Sam rakes a hand through his hair. "I'd pretty much hit the stupid and selfish bit by the time I started upstairs," he says.

"Sam, we don't know the gas leak would have…We don't know."

"I didn't see them, or the diner, or even the guy that killed her - not his face. Just that he was there, that he was kind of strung out…jumpy." He takes a deep breath lets it out slowly, shakily.

Dean can't help it. It's not even that Sam's grieving, not yet. Dean can't either. Too sudden, too surreal. It hasn't sunk in yet. But Sam's shaking under his hand, trembling from gripping the edge of the bed so hard his knuckles are pale. "I just saw her. She was surprised. She'd already given him her purse…she didn't die immediately, Dean. She bled to death."

Dean pulls Sam's head down, arm around his shoulder. Kisses the sweaty hair. "It was her choice. You didn't kill her. You didn't kill or save those people. You just …see it. It's not you, Sammy."

"She was cold…and she knew she was dying, and she…she thought the movie sucked…waste of her time and money. That she'd forgotten her nephew's birthday…"

Sam is not a small man, but Dean's no weakling and he's always been strong enough to hold his brother when he needs it.

It takes a while for Sam to calm down. He's kind of twisted on the bed and so is Dean. Cramps and the fact that Sam's still shaking finally makes him move, coax Sam into lying down and Dean sits with his back to the headboard, rubbing his brother's back like he's seven instead of twenty-seven. "Is that what woke you up? You knew when she died?" he asks. That's a new one…of course, it would be. Sam's managed to avert the deaths of eight people over the last few years, Dean's included.

More than once.

Sam doesn't answer and Dean glances down. Sam's eyes are closed.

He takes a deep breath and thumps his head lightly against the wall.

He's ready to ease himself away from Sam when it strikes him that Sam's never described anyone dying before. Dead, yes. How it happens. But not as it happens, how they feel, what they think. Even before the psychic shit all shifted around after he'd lost his sight, Sam had seen deaths, which was bad enough. But not felt them as far as Dean knew.

He doesn't move. Waits.

Isn't at all reassured by the fact that he's right.

It's been awhile since Sam's had a nightmare like this. Dean hasn't forgotten what they were like.

There's a reason for that. Things this bad, tend to stay with you forever.

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4/25/2006

Every One Shall Be Salted With Fire