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Light shines brightly through a window. The curtains are drawn halfway back to let the sun in, exposing dust drifting through the air and a figure sitting before it cross legged upon the cold wood floor.
It’s a young woman.
She sits with a thick book cradled reverently in her hands, eyes closed and face lifted to the sunshine. The warmth of its light warms her skin, but does nothing for her heart.
How long she’s sat there, she cannot say.
Her eyes open, turning away from the blazing light to gaze at the book. It’s old and frayed, the once chocolate brown leather worn down to a smooth copper. Random slips of paper peek out sporadically from between the pages.
She ran the tips of her fingers over the front of the book, tracing the lines zig zagging across its surface down to the strip of leather holding it shut and slips it free. The book falls open easily, the pages splitting nearly straight down the middle to rest gently in her hands.
She gasped, nearly dropping the book when she saw what the open pages revealed.
A single rose. Dried and perfectly preserved where he had left it nearly two years ago.
He’d been so nervous when he asked her if she’d like to go on a date. She remembered the flush that swept over his cheeks and the wide grin that crinkled his eyes when she’d blurted out yes almost before he finished the question. Of course she’d say yes. They’d been hunting for years, each increasingly aware that they slowly falling for the other.
It’d been one of the happiest days of her life.
A single tear landed on the rose, the moisture splashing against the deep red petal to soak into the pages.
Today marked a year since she lost him.
It still seemed like just moments since she’d run into that abandoned house, frantically calling his name. The smell of sulfur had been heavy in the air, filling her senses.
“Dean!”
She’d gone from room to room, ignoring her thumping heart and gasping lungs to listen for any sign of him until, finally, a weak response reached her ears.
“I’m… here.”
She’d run to him, finding him in the one small room she’d missed. He’d been slouched against a broken table, a hand pressed to his stomach. There had been so much blood, his face deathly pale.
He’d reached for her and she’d taken him gently into her arms, holding his body tightly to hers. His breath had grown more and more shallow by the second and hers with it, her whole chest tightening like a vise while she’d watched him slip away before her very eyes.
He’d tightened his grip around her fingers when he’d felt a warm tear hit his shirt and used what little strength he had left to raise her hand to his lips for a kiss.
“I-I love… you.”
His last words.
She’d clung to his body and screamed to the heavens until she had no voice.
That’s how Castiel had found them hours later. She’d looked up at him with glassy eyes and tear stained cheeks.
“He’s gone, Cas.”
Her voice had sounded as broken as Castiel felt, but he’d held himself together to be strong for her.
“We should take him home.”
The words had been spoken with a calm he did not feel.
The woman had looked back down at Dean and pressed a soft kiss to his lips before loosening her grip on him, letting the angel come near and take him from her arms.
They’d given him a hunter’s funeral days later.
Sam had stood beside her, one arm tightly across her shoulder, unable to hold back the tears from rolling down his face while they watched the flames.
Later that day they’d buried what remained at the mouth of the trees behind the bunker.
As she’d stood there gazing at his name etched into a slab of stone, one hand held protectively over her still flat stomach, she felt a kind of sorrowful relief.
Castiel had told her Dean was safe in his Heaven. He was free, unburdened with the mistakes he never forgave himself for, the mistakes he was afraid he’d make in the future. He was finally at peace.
The little boy that came into the world seven months later was the spitting image of his father, from the beautiful green eyes to the sun kissed freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks.
She’d given him his father’s name and when he’d grown, had proven himself his father’s son in more than looks, but with his courage and sacrifice, his gentleness and compassion.
The son sits beside her now, the sun streaming in through the window giving his brown hair a glowing halo. With her hand encased in both of his, he gazes at her, still beautiful despite the time given wrinkles and silver hair, his eyes filling with tears for he knows she will leave him in moments.
She gives him one last smile and gazes past her son to the picture frame beside her bed.
Sam had taken it, catching Dean while was leaning against his beloved Impala, legs and arms crossed and head turned away. He had that smile on his face, the one that reached his eyes and made him glow, because he saw her coming out to join him.
That was the last thing she saw in this life…
…It was also the first she saw in the next.
He held his hand out to her and she ran across the grass to him, all the years since she’d seen him last stripped away.
Laughter dances through the air as he catches her in his arms, lifting her off her feet, and pulling her down with him onto Baby’s hood to capture her lips in a fiery kiss that doesn’t end until they’re both breathless.
She pulls back to look at him, bracing her hands on the Impala’s warm metal, her eyes ever moving across his face as if she can’t believe this is really happening. "I’ve missed you so much,“ she murmurs.
Dean brushed a lock of dark brown hair away from her face and smiled at her, perfectly content to gaze into her eyes forever. "I’m here now.”
And there they stayed, in each others arms under the warm summer sun.