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Dean sat where Angua had deposited him, staring after Angua's back as she went to rummage for pie ingredients. Sam was still at the bar, still hunched over his glass, shoulders tight and too long hair falling over his ears and into his eyes.

It made him look younger than he was, younger then the new lines around his eyes and mouth betrayed, and Dean's heart twisted a little tighter in his chest.

Sam would be okay here. Somehow, Dean could make that happen, and if not Dean than Jess or Dad or Twerp or any combination of people left on the island that loved him. The only person in the way of that was Sam himself, but Dean would find a way around that, too.

He just had to find a way around whatever it was that stood between them, first.

Sam had arrived on the island spitting words like apocalypse and Lucifer from his mouth, and those scared Dean, but not nearly as much as the look in Sam's eyes when he said them.

Dean sighed, tucking himself further into the booth, watching with an anxiousness barely contained while those around Sam came and went. Occasionally he looked away, out into the jungle beyond the Winchester, to his hands and the small but growing marks on his palms his own fingernails had left behind, but always Dean's focus shifted back to Sam at the bar.

"Fuck," he murmured, twitching helplessly as the long line of uncertain questions restarted themselves in his head. What the hell happened to us?

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As soon as I can get away, when everybody has their drinks and everybody's preoccupied with questions and worries and excitement and all that shit, I slip away, bottle and two glasses in hand. I slide into the booth across from him, wordlessly pouring him a drink whether he wants it or not.

I'm quiet for a long time, then I ask, "You okay?" It just might be the stupidest question ever.

As a general rule, I didn't spend that much time at the Winchester. It was a great place, don't get me wrong: Neil had done a wonderful job with it. I just didn't drink much, didn't find much time to sit around randomly shooting the shit, and didn't have anybody to take me to dinner. Still, I popped in from time to time, usually to see if Dean or Jess were around, or just to be friendly; that day, I thought maybe I'd talk to Neil about his cake, try to get a better idea of what he wanted.

I spotted Dean before I'd even walked in the door, and could tell immediately that something wasn't right. Even from a distance I could tell he had that vaguely pinched look to his face he got when something was genuinely worrying him, and I was already frowning by the time I crossed the threshold into the bar.

It wasn't the first time they'd sat grim faced across from one another, drinks on the table between them. Knowing the island and the particular set of miseries it had to offer, it probably wouldn't be the last time, but Dean still wished they were here under different, lighter circumstances. It seemed like forever ago that he'd sat at the bar and listened to Neil give him shit about Angua and their freaking sex toys.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I'm okay. It's just..." He shook his head. "Not how I thought it'd be."

It wasn't bad. Having Sam back would never be bad, but Dean had thought it'd be easier. Happier. It went against every second of their family's history, but it still hadn't occurred to Dean that their reunion would be anything but a joy and a relief.

Dean's gaze had slid to her when she walked in, tracking the movement before he registered who it was that'd just come into the bar.

Jesus.

Dean was out of the booth before he'd really even made the decision to move. Everything had happened so quickly since Sam's arrival, Dean's focus on him so complete that it hadn't yet occurred to him that he should be easing those closest to Sam into his return.

"Shari," he said, loud enough to be sure that her attention was only on him and not the bar. He took her arm, trusting her to trust him, and walked her out the door. "Hold on a sec."

I know that feeling. I know it so fucking well, in a lot of ways it never leaves. I think about it, about her, about how I hoped and wished and dreamed for over a year, and then when Wendy Peterson finally showed up, we just weren't the same anymore. She's not my sister, but she was as close to that as I've ever had. Closer. We were soulmates. Were being the operative word here. She came here, took one look at me and just knew I wasn't the same person she loved.

I don't say as much, though. None of that shit's what he needs to hear.

"He looks different," I murmur, and it's true, but it's not really what I mean. There's something inherently different about him, even I can see it. "How much time you think there was? Between you two gettin' here, I mean."

Something that O-Ren remembered from her time with Dr. Sweets was that it was better to stare at people from inside where they could see you do it than say, up in a tree where they couldn't. Apparently, it was less creepy in the long run. She didn't really understand it, but when trying to make an impression, she was as willing to take advice on her social skills as her sword skills.

She finally moved from the doorway to where she saw Dean sitting, to talk to him instead. There was a nervous, skittish feeling in her stomach that she hated. She slid into the other side of the booth.

"Fuck what?"

Dean couldn't give it to Neil in months, but he could name some pretty significant landmarks. "I had three months left when I showed up here." He put his lips to the glass, watching Sam over the top of it as he spoke. "Long enough for him to watch those run out. Long to enough to keep going without me, and for Cas to bring me back. After that I don't know."

Dean took a long drink and let the glass fall back to the table with a dull thunk. "Long enough for the world to go to shit."

Dean's mouth twitched, as much a result of being stuck too long in the same grim line as for O-Ren's literalism. "My luck, I guess," he said, feeling stupid even as he said it. At least he had Sam back at all.

"You gonna say hi to him?"

Well, if I hadn't been worried before, I sure was now. There wasn't any reason for me to resist, so I allowed Dean to lead me back outside, but my mouth was open as soon as we were out of the doorway.

"Tell me what is wrong right now," I insisted, tone broaching no argument. I knew him: He might try to waffle, depending upon what it was, and my mind was racing. Surely nothing had happened to Angua or John or Bobby; Dean wouldn't have been brooding in a bar were that the case.

"Doesn't take all that long for that to happen," I murmur, pouring a glass for myself, just to have something to do. The idea of him going to hell, even if it wasn't permanent, isn't something I like thinking about too often.

"You talk to Jess?"

"I have to figure out how to do that," O-Ren said. "It's important. You only get one first impression, unless you're here, where you might get two, but that's not a good thing." She rubbed her hands on her skirt. They were getting clammy.

He'd been expecting that, enough so that Dean was just glad they'd made it out the door before she went off.

"It's not...wrong," he said, holding up both hands to show her he was getting there. "It's Sam. He's back."

Dean nodded. "First one I went to. Didn't talk long though, she wanted to see Sam, and I left them to it."

He wondered what they'd talked about, if they'd be able to forget about the uneven set of years they'd each spent apart and find a way back together again.

He wondered why Sam was alone at the bar.

"He was pretty shaken up."

"Don't overthink it," said Dean, even though he knew she would anyway. "I already told him about you, and you're a good kid." He smiled at her over the table. "Don't worry about the rest. He's had the same hard life as me, he'll get it."

For a few seconds there at first, I had the totally irrational thought that Jimmy had disappeared. It was stupid: Why would Dean know that before I did? But my fingers had already begun to tremble by the time he spit it out.

I faltered, mouth open. "What?" I exhaled.

She tried putting her hands on the table, hoping they wouldn't leave any sweat there. It was ridiculous. She couldn't remember sweating when she'd offed Bill, so why should this be any different? There wasn't even the added pressure of making a kill.

"Nobody trained me for this," she sighed. "And he didn't like me before."

"He's right inside." Dean stepped closer, not liking the sudden pallor in her cheeks. He almost wished he'd gotten her sat down first, but there just hadn't been time. "Got here a few hours ago."

"He was an idiot before." Dean never blamed Sam being nervous over the stab wound, but he ought to have figured out O-Ren hadn't been in her right mind once he got to know her.

Besides, if there was one thing he could say for sure, Sam was different now. "Just be yourself."

He was serious. Not that I would expect Dean to joke about something like that, but I hadn't expected him to tell me Sam was back, either. Feeling suddenly overwhelmed, I clamped a hand over Dean's closest bicep and took a deep breath.

"Is he okay?" I asked. "I want to see him, Dean, I want to see him right n- Oh my God." I blinked several times and pressed my free hand over my mouth, because it wasn't until right then that it occurred to me that Sam would know Dean, and Sam would know Jess, would know John and Bobby... but he wouldn't know me at all.

Dean took her elbow and sat her down whether she wanted it or not, right there on the steps of the Winchester. "He's okay, but he's - fuck." Dean forgot everything for a moment, lost what little he'd managed to scrape together for a game face, pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and concentrated on breathing through it.

"He's from a long time after I got here. He's been through a lot." What he didn't say was that as foreign as Shari might seem to Sam, Dean couldn't help but think Sam saw him in the same, muddled light.

"Yeah, I'll bet," I murmur. I can't help but wonder why she's not here with him now, but it's not like they can pick up right where they left off, seein' as how they left off in two different places.

"I guess it's been a while for him, huh?" Years since she died, if I'm doin' the math right.

Edited 2009-10-25 04:03 (UTC)

A memory surfaced then, of sitting beside Jimmy in his car as he bent over his steering wheel and cried; of being so close and yet so completely far away from him and utterly helpless. I wasn't used to Jimmy breaking down like that, and I certainly wasn't used to Dean showing any weakness. I think that actually hit me harder than the news about Sam.

"Shit," I sighed, wrapping my arm around his and pressing my face in against his shoulder. "Is it the anti-Christ stuff?"

"If you think so," O-Ren said, relaxing only by a fraction. "Is he from the same time?" Her brow tightened as she tried to frame it correctly. "You know, how things get." She was a perfect example of it.

"Four years at least," said Dean. "Have to ask Cas to be sure." He'd have to ask Cas to be sure about a lot of things, and right now Dean wasn't anxious to learn the true depth of things. Just skimming the surface was bad enough.

"He looked at her like she was a ghost."

"I don't know," said Dean, even if he had a hell of an inkling. It wasn't a comfort to learn that despite their father's instructions, he hadn't killed Sam to prevent him ending the world, how could it be? "Maybe. I don't know all of it yet, but things are real bad back home."

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