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Sam was used to the constant danger of his life. At this point, fighting beside Dean, sure that they were going to lose but battling it out anyway, he realized that death wasn’t something that frightened him. Danger and the constant looming threat of death were as normal to him as getting fast food on the way to a crime scene. It used to bother him but not anymore, not since he just decided to accept this way of life and value the time that he had to spend with his last remaining family member.
Dean was bloody, unsurprisingly, he couldn’t ever manage to keep himself from getting tossed around like a rag doll. Sometimes Sam wondered how Dean had managed to survive the time between when John had left him and he had dragged Sam back out to hunt with him. Sam figured that Dean spent a lot of time nursing unnecessary wounds.
Sam was hurting too but he ignored the pain of a gash in his side and the sharp grating of broken bones in his wrist when he cocked the shotgun again. There were four ghosts, all of whom had been in the revolutionary war back when they were alive, and all of whom definitely remembered how to use a sword. And no matter how many times Sam and Dean managed to drive them away, they always came back, more angry each time.
He was focused on one of them that was right in front of him, swinging its sword with a leer on its half blown off face when he heard Dean scream for him to watch out. He turned just in time to blow away the ghost that was coming up behind him, and to get a ghostly sword stabbed right through his spine. It didn’t feel real in his skin, more like when you could feel a breeze going between your fingers, but the pain sure as hell felt real. Blood welled up in his mouth and he dropped to his knees as his whole body went cold. He could hear Dean screaming at him between gunshots and just before he closed his eyes he managed to say with the last of his strength, “It’s not your fault, Dean. It’ll be okay.”
One minute he was closing his eyes and falling into blissfully painless darkness, and the next he was opening them to a blue sky littered with puffy white clouds. “What?” he mumbled as he pushed himself up from lying flat on his back.
He was in some kind of meadow, surrounded by a ring of trees so closely packed together that he didn’t have a hope of seeing beyond them. The grass was soft and thick, interspersed with white and pale pink flowers. He sat up all the way.
“I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
He turned around so quickly that he nearly overbalanced and fell flat on his back again. He looked up at the figure standing over him, in cut off jeans and a loose white tshirt with copious amounts of curly blonde hair.
“Jess?”
She sighed and crouched down next to him but there was a smile on her face, the small understanding one that she used whenever he had to beg off going out because he had to study, the smile that always led to fresh baked cookies and milk to “help your brain along.” She ran her hands through his hair like she had always done while they watched tv with his head in her lap. “Hey, Sam,” she said quietly.
“What are you… where am I?” he asked.
“I guess you’d call it heaven,” she answered. “You’re not supposed to be here though.” She frowned slightly and it brought little wrinkles creasing her forehead. He reached out and smoothed a thumb over them like he could make them go away.
“Well I died so I guess that means I’m supposed to be here, unless you mean I’m supposed to be… somewhere else…” he trailed off.
She laughed at that and dragged him to his feet and he let her. “No, I’m not saying that you don’t belong here, Sam. I’m saying you’re not supposed to be here yet. Not for another…” she looked up at the sky and he followed her gaze but didn’t see anything other than the cloud dotted sky. “Not for a while,” she amended with a smile.
“How do you know?” he asked without challenge.
She shrugged and looked up at him with that brilliant smile that he had almost forgotten. “Just do,” she answered vaguely. She put her hands on either side of his face and looked up at him with such compassion that he was struck by how much he had missed her, even years after her death. “You need to get back. Your brother’s waiting for you.”
“You would’ve liked him,” he said.
“I know.” She giggled slightly. “And he would have liked me, I’m sure.”
Sam let himself smile slightly. He took her hands from his face and held them between them. “I don’t… want to go?” he said like a question. Because she was here, wherever here was, but Dean was still back there, wherever there was, alone, and outnumbered.
“You’ve got to, Sam,” she said quietly. “It’s not your time yet. But when it is, I’ll be here.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him softly. “I’ll still be here. And I want you to bring Dean next time, you hear?” she said, tapping his chest with one finger.
“Whatever you want,” he answered softly.
She gave him a smile sweeter than any smile he’d seen since she’d died. “Go back, Sam. Go back to Dean and keep him safe until it’s your time and his time. And then come back to me, okay?”
“Okay,” he said.
“I love you, Sam,” she whispered.
“I love you, Jess,” he answered. She reached up and pressed a hand over his eyes and just before he felt the drop in his stomach and heard the sounds of shotgun fire, he felt her lips brush his.
“I’ll find you, Sam.”