”You can’t make me go.”
He can’t. Jess knows, logically, that he could just get up and leave her here. Hit the road with Dean. But she won’t let him, she can’t let him because she’s not going and he’s not leaving her.
How could he-.
“After all of this, you’re asking me to-.” Her breath hitches and her fist thumps hard against his chest once, twice. “You’re all I have, Sam.”
Her home is gone. Her father’s been MIA for years, her Grandfather dead for longer. She can’t go back to school, not with this thing running around after them and she’s lost her child. Sam is it and yes, okay, he wants her safe but…
“It’s already been made glaringly fucking obvious that we’re not safer apart.” Or was him not being there the whole point of the attack? It was a window of opportunity for Brody and her leaving Sam only opens up another one.
Tucking her arms into the curve of his, she pushes out with her elbows, trying to move back until she can get out of the hold of his arms and push the covers down over her legs, kicking them away. “This is my fight too, Sam. He took my baby, you can’t just ask me to-.”
“I’m not leaving.” But she is getting out of this bed because fuck you, Winchester.
❝ jess. ❞
he recoils at the tone of her voice, indignant and h u r t, and sam doesn’t want to hurt her, he doesn’t, he just wants to save her. he jolts, releasing her reflexively and grabbing at her wrists, keeping her from landing more punches on his smarting chest.
❝ ow, jess, stop it! ❞
this isn’t going how he’d hoped. sam knew that telling jess to wait on the sidelines like a damsel in distress would end in angry words and stinging arguments, but he’d hoped that she would see reason. although that wasn’t jess, now, was it? the sweet, kind girl who could take someone out with her bare hands —- that wasn’t the little spitfire he’d fallen in love with.
❝ you don’t get it. they’re coming after you because of me. i’m the reason you’re in danger in the first place! ❞
sam sighs, running his hands through his hair. the bed shifts when she gets up, reminding him just what a f a n t a s t i c job he’s doing thoroughly fucking everything up.
❝ please. we’ll bring you somewhere safe, somewhere away from all this. and then, after we get that bastard, we can be together again. safe. ❞
He’s pulling her close, hugging her like he used to when he’d mumble about chemistry and basic law in his sleep and she’d pinch his nose shut to quiet him, back in their little Palo Alto apartment. She doesn’t remember the last time either of them laughed like that, sleepy and genuine at 2 in the morning.
Dean tries, bless his heart. He makes jokes and faces and ridiculous noises, ruffles Jess’ hair and shoots playful punches at Sam across the seat of the impala, trying to soothe things over the way big brothers know how.
She’s already against the warmth of his chest, base of her spine twitching with interest because he hasn’t really touched her in weeks and her body can’t help it, doesn’t realize that things aren’t like they used to be and her brain isn’t awake enough to remind it.
But she does pick up on what he’s saying, finally and she pushes against his chest, a bitter laugh working up out of her throat.
”No way. No. Screw you, Sam, you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to make this about you.”
It is, in a way. She knows whatever tore their lives apart is after him, she’d been told as much when Brady razed their apartment.
But it’s also not.
Her things were there too. The only pictures she had of her father and the little stuffed elephant her Grandfather bought her on that first night after her mother abandoned her.
Hell, technically? Her baby is there too. Might as well be.
“I’m not going anywhere. You can’t make me leave, you can’t-. I can take care of myself and you can’t honestly expect me to just let this bastard go free after what he did.”
sam has never really had a home. he c a r v e d out his childhood in the backseat of the impala, weaved in and out of schools like the obstacle courses his father made him run. his friends were his books and his mother was his brother, and that was fine. but a kid could only scrape by for so long, could only miss so much before he knows that something’s wrong, that there shouldn’t be this emptiness in his stomach, this longing in his chest.
with jess, he’d found it. in a tiny apartment in Palo Alto, in one of thousands of universities, sam had found h o m e . and he never really realized how much it hurt to lose a home until it happened, until he found himself back on the road without his friends and without his child. and dean doesn’t understand —- can’t understand. he’s wired differently, assembled perfectly for this life. but sam isn’t, and he w a n t s .
jess doesn’t understand either, not really. not in the way that dean doesn’t understand, but she doesn’t get that sam has already lost everything. he’s known this feeling before, though it was attached to a nameless woman and a wisp of a memory. but he can't —- he just c a n ’ t —- and if he could trade himself for her safety, he’d do it in a heartbeat.
❝ no - jess - no —- just listen to me! ❞
sam clutches her tighter, fingertips digging into the soft fabric of her shirt. he’s grabbing at a i r , and he knows this, but he can’t bring her to her death and he needs to make her understand.
❝ i know, jess, but we’ll get him. i swear, dean and i —- we won’t stop until the son of a bitch is six feet under. but you’re hurt already. you’ve already gone through so much. we can do it, i know we can. i just need to know you’re s a f e . ❞
It’s one in the morning.
It’s one in the morning and she still smells soot if she breathes too deep and sometimes she just aches, no matter how many pain pills she takes and Dean flushed them all down the toilet 3 days ago because he said she’d been looking at them funny and the doctor at the free clinic said she shouldn’t be hurting anymore anyway. It was a complete miscarriage and she should be healed by now.
But he’s overworked and they waited 5 hours to be seen so what does some doctor on his 2nd rotation in as many hours of sleep know anyway?
It’s been 3 weeks since their past - Sam’s past, hers, it doesn’t matter, they both lied and that’s the long and short of it - reared it’s ugly head and really, Jessica could care less about their dumpy little apartment.
She just wants her baby. That’s all.
But sleep is good too. Until Sam wakes her and her eyes are already burning when she blinks away. All she wants is to sleep. Being awake, without a demon to salt or a werewolf to slice up, it’s all too much to deal with.
“…What?” Dean’s somewhere, Jess doesn’t know where, doesn’t really care but she does care that it’s 1am.
“Sam, what are you talking about?”
sam is used to pain. trouble follows the winchesters
around like a lost puppy, resting its head on its paws and
waiting for the right moment to pounce. but although he
is not a stranger to pain, he still feels it like any other.
it hurts the worst at times like these, when he’s alone with
his grief and his bed and he doesn’t have to be strong
because jess has her pretty little head pillowed on her arm,
eyes slipped close in sleep.
she’s so pretty when she wakes, shaking off sleep’s greedy
fingers, and sam is hit with desire burning deep in his belly.
that’s not fair, he thinks, because she will hate him for what he
has to say and she is scared and hurting and now, of all times, his
body decides to betray him.
❝ it’s not —- it’s just not safe here, jess. dean and i have to
find whatever did this and stop it from doing it again. i can’t lose
you, jess, i just can’t, okay? ❞
he feels his throat burn and he looks away, picturing jess
in flames like his mother was, imagining coming back here to
an empty home. sam swallows hard against the thoughts,
forcing them back down into the pit of his stomach, and
gathers jess in his arms.
❝ p l e a s e. ❞
jess. it is all his mind can really focus on at the moment. jess j e s s jess j e s s. sam buries his nose in her soft curls, inhaling the subtle scent of her shampoo and closing his eyes against the sudden onslaught of emotions the simple act brings. if he’d only been there to protect her, if he’d only acted on the dream.
if only, if only. that is the winchester curse, isn’t it? if only. if only i was stronger, if only i was there, if only god helped me. sam’s if only weighs down on his chest like an iron ball, crushing his chest slowly in toward his heart.
he hates dean for bringing this upon him and hates himself for not seeing it. sam hates his father for raising them into this business and hates whatever the hell murdered the child in jessica’s stomach, hates them all with an intensity and a fear that he cannot shake.
❝ —- jess. ❞
he says, simple and low, pushing stray blonde locks back off her forehead. overcome with desire and relief and pain, sam presses his mouth to hers, soft as he can manage with the churning in his stomach. she’s so s o f t , so delicate, and sam can’t lose her, he just can’t. not after all they’ve been through. he’d been lost for so long, carted around across america on a whim, and in jessica sam had finally found his home. this is the life he wants, plain and simple, and he won’t relinquish it even if satan himself tries to wrench it from his fingertips.
❝ jess, you can’t stay here. you have to go home —- to wisconsin. ❞