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Dean thinks that he has to abandon it all. All the connections that he made, all the important memories with those people mean nothing. Sam’s a soldier and his friends are civilians and as long as Sam’s around them, he’ s putting them in the line of fire - and maybe he’s right about that.
Jessica died because of her connection to him.
Still, Becky wraps her arms around him, holds on to him tightly, carefully avoiding the bruising on his neck and holds him just for a moment . He tries not to sink into it, not to get lost in the simple gesture because Dean is waiting by the car , a map spread out on the roof, Sam’ s got a gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans, a monster to kill and a father to find.
It’s jarring, as they pull away, how much he misses her. How much he misses Zach, Louis, Brady - Brady .
He misses their Friday night movie nights, the oppressive amounts of popcorn and how Louis would always put too much butter on them, and Zach would bitch about it every single time.
He misses the all-nighters with Brady as they critique his dad’s movie collection like they actually have a clue about the niche old school action movies beyond what Mr. Brady forced them to sit through for the sake of it's a classic, boys, you need to see it . He misses Brady, what they had, what they lost, that Sam couldn’t help him, that he fell through the cracks.
He misses the random weekend outs with Becky and Zach, just the three of them , when they’d camp out at their parents place when they were out, sleeping bags and pillows and blankets an d way too much pizza for all of them to ever actually eat .
He can't just forget that. He can’t just move on. That part of Sam’s life is just as much Sam as this Sam. Maybe he is a hunter, and maybe that’s a part of himself he can’t ever truly run from, but so is Stanford. He’s a hunter, and he’s a student. He’s a Winchester, but he’s also Sam, and he won’t abandon his friends.
It won’t be the same, not after all of this , after he plugs the monster that murdered Jessica . He won’t be able to just show back up to Stanford where he had a whole life ahead of him and build it from scratch , pretend that he’ s okay.
But Becky knows what Sam does now, and maybe, if something ha ppened, at least they know who to call.
Becky looks up at him, that bone-deep exhaustion nestled tightly within her now. She knows what’s out there now .
“Just let me know that you’re okay. Just a text or something every now and then,” she says.
“I will,” Sam says, it tastes bitter on his tongue.
He doesn't say anything to Dean once he’s in the car , just falls into the seat like the strings holding him up have been cut . The rumble of the engine underneath him rattles him like a punch in the face.
This is a chapter closed . He doesn't think it’s for the better.