Mary hears it as she walks past the library, a flat factual statement in her youngest son’s quiet tones. She doesn’t think about it too much, then.
The days go past, another week, two, and there is still no sign of Dean. The tension strung through Sam is evident, though he’s still so outwardly, effortfully calm. More than calm. He’s kind to everyone; looks out for Jack, spends time with Nick. But his beard gets thicker and his hair becomes shaggy, unwashed. The skin under his eyes is papery, translucent like a bruise.
Dean would be raging. Mary knows them well enough to know that. Sam holds everything so closely in.
Then suddenly one morning he’s vivid, alive again. “Got another lead.” He’s already half-up the steps towards the door. “I’ll be a few days. Call you when I’m on the way back.” His face shines with a confidence she hasn’t seen from him in weeks. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” she says.
Three days later, she’s up late and by herself when the door creaks open and a long-legged figure lopes lopsided down the stairs.
“Mom,” he says, and he’s smiling but his voice is shaking, just a hint of it, a waver at the back of his throat. “Got a location on him. Could you be ready to head out tomorrow?”
“Of course,” she says, and, “That’s wonderful, Sam.” And then he reaches the bottom of the stairs and her mind catches for a second on the dissonance as she sees it– or doesn’t see it– sees the stump where Sam’s hand should be. It’s bandaged and the bandages are red, soaked through.
“Sam!” she says, horrified. He’s still talking, trying to tell her where they need to go. But at her exclamation he pauses, blinks, looks down at his arm.
“Oh,” he says apologetically. “Trade off. Information. It’s okay.”
She stares at him, unable to formulate the right response.
“Really,” says Sam. He swings his bag onto the table, winces as he nudges his wound against it. It leaves a streak of blood across the map. He frowns, mops at it with the same wet bandage, makes it worse.
“Sam,” Mary says again, more urgent.
He smiles at her, reassuring. “It’s fine. Mom. I think this could be it. We could find him tomorrow. Tomorrow!”
“That’s great, sweetheart,” Mary says. Her own voice sounds distant. Pieces of the past few weeks rearrange in her head. Sam coping. Sam falling apart.
“I’ll go tell Bobby.”
“Wait!” she says. “Sam, wait. You’re pale.” He is. He’s paper-white. “Take a seat. Take a minute.”
“Sure,” he says, and does. That ready compliance makes everything somehow worse. I’m so reasonable, it seems to say. And yet.
(Mary patches up her son as best she can. The next morning, she’s the one who drives.)
(Sam’s informant was either lying or mistaken. The lead’s a bust. When Sam realises, he starts laughing and he does not stop.)
(it feels a little silly to write an au episode tag after the following episode already aired but i saw another gifset of this moment earlier today and realised that that was the fic i’d wanted to write about this ep; that casual, quiet little statement of sam’s and the possibility inherent within it) (sam copes with things very very well, until he doesn’t)
artherra 