Don't You Cry No More

Don't You Cry No More

A Supernatural story by Jennie @DeanIsntFine

The story that started with a (very) random tweet. Thank you, Season 15 Script Bot. Dedicated to Melissa, who never lets us forget that Dean Winchester matters. Here's one imagined ending to his epic journey. -- Jennie

DEAN comes over, he hands DEAN a number of toy soldiers on a bed.

— SEASON 15 SCRIPT (@spn_bot) November 25, 2019

The peace talks were progressing around the bunker's map table. Dean, sidelined like a weary general after a long and brutal campaign, watched the proceedings from a darkened corner of the war room.

Chuck and Jack faced off across a chess board, while the negotiations' true players huddled at the far end of the table. Amara. Rowena. Cas. And Billie, who it turned out had always held all the cards.

The uneasy truce was holding, and crucial details were being hammered out. Chuck and Jack, adversaries for now on the checkered field of the game board, eyed each other warily, but were learning to coexist. Everyone in the room had an important part to play in the new cosmic order.

Everyone except Dean.

He and Sam and Eileen had been at the table when the roles were being roughed out: Jack, back from the Empty and back at full strength, would preside over heaven -- and keep the lights on -- with Cas as his counsel. The few angels left would once again be tasked with helping humanity, fulfilling their original mission.

Billie and the reapers, in consultation with Anubis and his abacus, would continue to guide souls to either heaven or hell, based solely on the deceased's actions and attitudes in life.

Rowena would oversee the redemption of souls in hell. No more torture. No more deals. Souls would be made to understand and answer for their sins, but after that, peace.

With the current state of the world, Dean supposed there'd be plenty enough traffic for both realms.

Monsters, of course, would be monsters. And hunters would hunt them. The natural order. As Dean eyed Death now, he thought that she must like that very much.

Chuck and Amara would... go elsewhere. They could pick any universe, or build a new one, Billie said. It made no difference to her. She just demanded that the world-hopping -- and, at Sam and Eileen’s request, the meddling -- stop.

Jack's only request had been that Cas be restored to full power, wings and all. Chuck, thanks to Billie, had no leverage. Under the disapproving eye of his big sister, he begrudgingly agreed.

Dean recalled now the spectacle of Castiel being reborn before their eyes -- bursting with a blinding light, his wings unfurling in shimmering glory.

It was the same light that Dean had glimpsed through tightly closed eyes amid the noise and confusion of hell, when Dean could feel Cas' burning hand reach out and grip his arm tight, searing him with his mark and pulling him from his prison.

His comrade, his protector, Dean thought now, watching the angel in his seat at the peace table. His savior, more than once.

Maybe once more.

Cas rapped his knuckles on the map table and rose, crossing over to where Dean leaned against a door jamb in the shadows.

“It’s going well,” the angel said of the negotiations. “I think we should be wrapped up here soon, and then…”

“Then you’ll be off to heaven with Jack,” Dean interrupted.

Cas looked stung. “Dean, please… We’ve been over this…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Dean said, resigned. He waved a hand in the air, derisively. “The new cosmic order. Everything back in balance.”

He scrubbed at his jaw and ran a hand through his hair.

“There’s nothing for me to do here, Cas,” he continued. “I’m climbing the walls! Eileen is taking care of Sam, you’re looking out for Jack…”

“Dean…”  Cas shook his head, sadly.

Dean reached out to grip Cas’ arm. “Listen. Did you think any more about what we talked about?”

Cas looked again at the man to whom he’d tied his fate so many times. The angel was back at full strength, so what Dean wanted was possible. But was it wise?

“You know, I didn’t ask for anything!” Dean continued, urgently. “I don’t want anything from them.” He gestured angrily at the power players assembled across the room.

“But I think…” he said, haltingly. “It's crazy, but think I need this, Cas. I’m asking you. Please. I can’t stop thinking about it, about that night. He’s got no one.”

Cas dipped his head, nodding. Dean was still amped up, always battling, always in the fight of his life. He needed reason, purpose. He wasn’t yet ready for rest. But the angel supposed that this… well, this could bring him a kind of healing. A peace of his own.

“OK, Dean,” he said, and met his friend’s desperate, darting gaze. “OK. But watch what you say. Don’t tell him too much. You can't change his course,” Cas warned.

Dean let out a rush of air in relief. He nodded. “I promise.”

The angel reached out and put two fingers on his friend’s forehead.

Dean felt the familiar slip, a swell, then a tilt, like a ship on the ocean.

With a whoosh, he was gone.

----------------------------------

The motel room was dim, lit only by a small bedside lamp, quiet static on the TV, and the glow of an old-style digital flip clock. The darkened window rattled as snow blew by outside in cruel, wind-driven curtains. Dean could imagine the sting.

Just another beautiful Midwest winter, he thought.

To Dean’s left, a dark-haired man was sleeping -- passed out, more like -- on a too-small couch in front of the TV, his burly limbs hanging over its edges at random angles. To Dean's right were two small beds with stained chenille coverlets. One bed had a pile of pillows stacked carefully in a well, concealing -- protecting -- what lay within.

Between the beds, a small, golden-haired boy bent intently over the unoccupied bed, positioning little green army men in the hills and valleys he’d formed out of the bed’s stiff blanket. The boy’s tongue poked out from one corner of his mouth as he arranged snipers, infantry, medics and artillerymen with precision across the tufted battlefield.

Dean noted with approval the little general’s sound tactics, but he was unsurprised.

There was a soft buzz and a whirr from the bedside clock, and Dean looked over just as the numbers flipped from 11:19 to 11:20 PM. The date was displayed there, too, in the same blocky digits: JAN 24 84.

Dean’s fifth birthday.

As Dean inched closer to the boy and the beds, he peered over the edge of the well of pillows. At the center, Sam lay sleeping, cheeks flushed from the warmth of the extra blanket that his big brother had tucked under the baby’s pudgy arms.

The boy, still seemingly unaware of Dean’s presence, made soft popping and whooshing noises as he fought his imaginary battle, cracking plastic army men together soundly and knocking over casualties with a flick of his finger.

Dean crossed over and knelt beside him. “Hey, buddy,” Dean said.

The boy looked up, only mildly startled, and eyed the newcomer briefly, then turned back to the bed to resume his campaign.

“Oh, yeah,” Dean said. “I forgot. We’re still not saying much right now, are we? OK...”

Dean resurrected a fallen gunner from the bedspread, then reached into a crinkly cellophane bag -- freshly opened -- for reinforcements. He began maneuvering men to form a phalanx, charting their futures, their fortunes. The boy studied his moves carefully, then mirrored them on the other side of the battlefield.

“I know we were excited about today,” Dean said, as boy and man played war in parallel. “I know we thought Dad might call up all our little pals from T-ball, maybe take everybody out to Plucky’s for pizza... and pie. Not cake, right? Blech.” Dean smiled as the boy made a sour face in agreement.

“Balloons, presents,” Dean continued, wistfully. Then he cleared his throat, sobered. “I also know Dad forgot. He didn’t remember, right up until the minute he rushed out of here, across the street to the Gas ’n Sip, to buy us this bag of army men. Happy birthday to us, right?”

Dean scoffed, tossing a khaki-colored rifleman out into no-man’s-land, between the two massing forces, where it landed at an odd angle. For a moment, in an illusion born among the felted hills and furrows, it looked broken.

Dean cleared his throat, scrubbed at his jaw, and quickly retrieved the fallen soldier, standing him up at the front of the ranks, ready for the fight.

“Today was the day, buddy,” he said to the boy, turning him gently so they were face to face. The boy’s eyes were wide, yet muted. No spark. No shine. But no fear either.

“Today was the day,” Dean continued, gripping the boy at both shoulders. “We figured it out: There weren’t going to be any more birthdays. No pals. No presents. And when Dad started drinking tonight, and didn’t stop…” He looked over his shoulder at the form sprawled out on the small couch. “Well, we knew that things would get a lot worse before they got any better.”

Dean looked back into the boy’s eyes, his heart squeezing. He reached up to cup the boy’s cheek, smooth a wayward lock of his hair. He couldn't read any emotion in the boy's dulled, sea-green eyes, but he knew all too well the storm that raged beyond them.

When Dean let go of his shoulders, the boy turned back to the bed, preparing for the battle at hand.

Dean sighed, gathered himself, and resumed aligning his forces at the other end of the battlefield. "Anyway, buddy, I'm here because I wanted -- needed -- to tell you something."

He thought about Cas' admonition and was careful not to say too much. "I just wanted you to know…" Dean began, fiddling with another army man, "that it's all gonna work out."

Just then, baby Sam whimpered and stirred in his sleep, like a dog deep in a dream. Boy and man turned as one toward the sound, both instantly on the alert.

When the baby stilled again and resumed his rest, the tension visibly drained from both, relief filling their faces.

As they went back to their battlefield, Dean said, "Things are gonna work out for Sammy, too."

The boy looked up, quietly curious. "Oh, yeah," Dean assured him. "And he's gonna get so big. Bigger than Dad, even."

The boy's brow furrowed in disbelief.

"Seriously!" Dean said, smiling. "You'll see."

The ghost of a grin crossed the boy's lips, and he gave a small shake of his head.

“Listen, buddy,” Dean continued. “Life is gonna be kind of like this war we’ve got going here. You’re going to fall down. You’re gonna feel… empty. Angry. Lost. And there’s going to be times when you’re ready to give up.

“But you’ve got to keep fighting. You’ve got to make it to the finish line. So that we can have the future we deserve. The one we earned.”

The boy looked up at him quizzically, then bent back to his work. Dean sighed, unsure whether his message had gotten through, but satisfied enough that he’d gotten the chance to deliver it.

They played in silence for a while, and memories of the decades between them unspooled in Dean's mind. Chuck's charade. The battles fought, won and lost. He suddenly felt overcome by a deep fatigue, and the boy by his side let out a wide yawn.

"C'mon, buddy," Dean said. "Time to rest."

The boy's green eyes met his, and he gave a subtle nod.

They began putting the army men back in the bag. With his bivouacked forces back safely in their crinkly plastic bunker, the boy crawled under the covers and laid his head on the room's lone remaining pillow.

Dean sat on the edge of the bed, just as their mother always would when she tucked them in for the night.

The boy’s gaze fell on the nightstand, where his prized possession leaned against the lamp: The photo of him with Mary.

Dean picked it up, running his fingers gently over the surface. It was so new, the colors so rich, vibrant, that for a moment it took his breath away. The image fairly buzzed with life, with love.

Sun's splendor streaming. Mother and child beaming.

“Oh, Mom…” Dean began, his voice thick with emotion. He turned to the boy. “Mom’s… she’s OK, too.” There was so much that Dean couldn’t say, things he didn’t even want the boy to know. “She, uh… She made it to a better place. She’s happy. And you will be, too.”

Dean reached out and thumbed away the single tear that was rolling down the boy’s cheek. He tucked the boy in, carefully smoothing out the coverlet, turning battlefield back into blanket. He smiled, and switched off the light.

Dean Winchester, freshly 5 years old, watched as the man in the plaid flannel shirt stood and faded into the gloom. Just as if he’d never been there.

But he could still hear the man’s voice. And he would always remember.