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Dean missed you.
It was that simple. He missed you with every piece of his being. The pain was beginning to fade. It had been over two years now, after all. He was just beginning to be able to look at a daisy - your favorite flower - again without tearing up. He could finally drive down that one open stretch of highway with the music cranked all the way up and be happy about it again. He could look in the eyes of his four year old and see your smile and grin about it proudly himself.
Then that one song came on one day on his way home from a solo hunt. It was the one that you had heard for the first time on Dean’s old cassette and had fallen in love with. It was the same one you had dragged him into the middle of the kitchen of the bunker to slow dance to. It was the very song that you had had your first dance together with on your wedding night. Dean could still feel the cool air of the old, well-decorated barn the reception was in. He could still smell your favorite perfume and see the curls bouncing in your hair.
He hadn’t heard it since you had died.
Silently, Dean pulled Baby over to the side of the road. He didn’t dare touch the stereo as the tears welled in his eyes. He rested his head on the steering wheel before letting the waterworks loose. He knew he should be going home to his daughter and brother right then, but he was paralyzed by sadness.
Dean listened to the lyrics intently, remembering everything he could about you and gripping the memories tight like a lost child. He thought of the good and the bad, the strong and the weak, the best and the worst. He couldn’t help but recall the time before you had gotten married when you had dragged him to the nearest grocery store at 1 am just because you were out of your favorite ice cream. Or the time you had lost your wedding ring down the drain and had forced him to unscrew the pipes and retrieve it. The look of sheer panic on your face and ultimate gratitude when he had pulled it out still made him laugh. Of course, there was your baby reveal, when you had left little clues all around the bunker, leaving a frantic Sam scrambling to you in shock while he watched his big brother look over the hints like they were nothing. It had been quite the shocker when you had finally laid out all the items in front of him and spelled it out. His last memory of you wasn’t as sweet. He saw the bloody handprints on his shirt from where he had held you, watching you bleed out from the nasty werewolf gash. He had made sure to kill the creature and its pack as soon as he could tear himself away, murdering with a mercilessness even fiercer than the Mark of Cain.
The song drifted to a close as Dean still sat there, hands white-knuckling the wheel. And despite this, he didn’t feel the same aching that he did a year ago. There was no doubt, he wanted his partner in crime back beside him more than anything, but it wasn’t the same.
Dean missed you, but he was no longer grieving.