Oh hello, I'm back. Just a short note: I've been fairly frustrated with this season at times and with this episode (15x13) in particular (let's count the plot holes!). That being said, I just kinda took the Multi-verse concept and rolled with it in a kind of stream-of-consciousness format. Also I have no idea why the title is the title. So. Without further ado...

Sam thinks. It's kind of what he does. So he'd contemplated the concept of alternate universes before. He'd read Hawking's "The Grand Design" during spring break of his freshman year at Stanford when there had been nothing else to do, and he had pondered the possibility of infinite worlds and infinite Sam Winchesters. But only as an abstract concept; a thing never to be known or unknown.

Sometimes, in his darkest moments, the idea would revisit him. He would wonder at those other Sams scattered across multiple, unseen universes. Had they been presented with the same choices as him? Had they made the better call?

Maybe there was a Sam out there who had been quick enough to escape the blade of Jake Talley's knife before it had been lodged into his spine.

Maybe there was a Sam who had found a way to save his brother from Hell.

Maybe there was a Sam who had never known the taste of a demon's blood.

A Sam who had always had a soul inside his chest.

A Sam who had searched and searched until he'd found his brother in the bowels of Purgatory and pulled him back to the surface, gasping for air.

And maybe somewhere out in all the grand, complex universes, there was a Sam who had never had to make any of those choices. A Sam who knew only the love and safety of a home never torn apart by fire and demon deals and monsters that crawled from the shadows and devoured.

After a while, Sam had begun to envy the Sams he would never meet- the ones who'd had it easier or moved a little quicker or done a little better.

And now he's staring at one.

Another Sam Winchester is sitting in the bunker with his hair tied back and his eyes wrinkled along the edges. He's wearing a ridiculous outfit complete with an ascot and there is a strange lilt to his words and he seems lighter, so much lighter than Sam has felt in years (in decades).

Sam looks at this other Sam and he listens to half-formulated stories about a John Winchester who has spoiled his children and built a Hunting Empire, and he is relieved not to feel envy.

Because it's not him. It's not them.

It is the same as meeting a stranger and knowing you will never be what they are. And Sam is glad he isn't sitting on the opposite side of that table staring back at himself.

He's proud, he realizes. Proud of what they've done and who they are now. There is a path carved out across his and Dean's skin, a littering of scars visible and not that twist and twirl and intersect with one another, digging their shapes deep into his bones and this, this is everything that they are.

Sam glances over at Dean, the real Dean, and he doesn't see jealousy on his brother's face, either. Confusion, sure. Curiosity. But not jealousy. Sam's chest swells with something and he looks away when his big brother feels Sam's eyes and tries to meet them. This is a secret, beautiful relief that Dean will never have to know or think or agonize over the way Sam has since he'd realized that all those versions of who he could've been, all the ways he could've been better, really did exist out there somewhere.

But he is, isn't he? He is better now, after everything.

And he'll be even better tomorrow.

And maybe the day after that they'll have defeated God and saved the world yet again and maybe, maybe they'll finally get some rest. And even if they don't, Sam thinks that might be okay, too. He thinks that maybe he and Dean were given the hardest lives out of all the Sams and Deans in existence, and that it couldn't be any other way. He thinks maybe he and Dean were meant to carry that burden.

Sam knows Chuck has plucked and pulled at the strings of their lives like some vengeful puppeteer, but he also knows that he and Dean have always had the choice of getting up and going again or staying down. And they have always kept going. They're strong because they need to be. Because they will be the ones who win in the end.

"You two are going to be here, pretending to be us," Dean says, jabbing a thumb between Sam and himself.

"And how do we do that?" asks the other Dean.

Sam smiles. He's glad he already knows.

It's a crazy, unprecedented time out there in the real world right now, so I do hope everyone is doing alright and staying safe and sane! Always here for a chat if you need it and if there are any (gen!) stories you'd like to read in the midst of all this social distancing, feel free to send those requests along and maybe it'll re-spark some of my fic motivation (which has been nonexistent lately =)).

Stay strong, everyone! 3