A/N: Hello all! I decided, based partially on your response and partially on my own feelings, that Disorientation really needed an epilogue to complete it, so here it is! I had intended to get this out earlier, but life--and NaNoWriMo--caught up with me. I tried to tie up any loose ends, gave the requested Sam/John reunion, and just tried to showcase the impact that the situation had on their lives. It's a little bit fragmented, partly because it's supposed to just be random moments, and partly because most of it was written in my notebook during my Environmental Issues class (lol). So, here you go!

Epilogue

Moments in Time

"What do you mean, you didn't tell him?" He hissed.

Dean grimaced and placed a finger against his lips, in a silent shush motion. Sam glared and his brother sighed. "Do you remember how I told you he was sleeping?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah…." His eyes widened suddenly and he looked at his brother with an open mouth. "You drugged him?" He whisper-shouted. Green eyes narrowed at him.

"Yes." Dean hissed back. "Do you honestly think that he would sleep of his own free will? So yes, I slipped a couple of sleeping pills in his water."

"He's gonna kill you, Dean."

The older teenager gave him a triumphant grin. "Not when I show him who I brought home with me."

"I can't believe you're using me to get yourself out of trouble." He grumbled. Dean flashed him another grin and fit the motel key into the lock, turning the handle. He pushed the door open, to reveal one of a string of countless, unremarkable, seedy motel rooms. This one was no different than any other, but it felt different.

The television was on, the sound low, the picture fuzzy. One of the lights was on, and in the dim lighting Sam saw the figure sitting in the far chair.

His father's head lifted, and he could see, even from across the room, that there were lines on his face that had not been there before. "Dean—," John Winchester's voice abruptly cut off and he froze, staring across the room at his youngest son.

Sam stepped forwards, around his brother, and smiled a little. "Hey Dad."

"Sammy."

Before he could blink Sam found himself being pulled into a tight grip. Dean leaned against the wall, silent, smile on his face. The light hit John's eyes, lighting up the tears that collected there.

Sam held onto his father, laid his head on his chest, and smiled.

Sometimes Sam remembered the grip his father held him in on the night he came 'home'. He remembered the tears in his father's eyes, and the way that John just held him close to his heart.

But the world had irrevocably changed—he had changed, where Dean and his father had not—and now things were falling apart. He chafed at the obey-or-die commands his father issued, at the brusque, army-general tone of voice that his father used. He chafed at being squashed into the back-seat of a car for hours upon end, driving to destroy some faceless enemy. He thought longingly of school—ignoring how much he had first hated the steadiness—and practically dreamed of a house, of staying in one place. He couldn't shake from his mind the thought of a white house with four children and two parents and a world that he didn't, couldn't belong to.

It wasn't long before the tediousness of driving, of fighting, of washing blood off his hands and stitching up his own wounds, began to wear on him. John treated their life as a mission, intense and focused on a single goal: revenge. Dean treated it as an adventure; he thrived on fighting and destroying evil things, addicted to the rush of adrenaline and the long line of girls.

And Sam—or maybe it was the small part of himself that still went by the name of Alex Carson—just wanted to stop. He wanted his family, wanted to be with his father and his brother, but he wanted the world of normality too.

Sometimes—and he didn't admit it, not even to himself, because it was so fundamentally wrong—he wished that Dean had never showed upon his doorstep, and that he had never remembered that his name was Sam Winchester rather than Alex Carson.

Sam Winchester was living in two worlds. One was the world of his current existence. The other was a world that he had resigned to memory. Yet he was living in the same scene, one foot in each world, struck by the differences.

"Got the shotgun?"

"Got your backpack?" Ann's voice said.

"Yes."

"Salt?"

"Homework?"

"Yeah.

"Matches?"

"Lunch money?"

"Yes."

"Brain?" Dean threw him a trademark smirk.

"Brain?" Ann stood by the doorway, smile on her face.

He jerked, the memory coursing through him.

"Dean, I've got it." He said, sharper than he intended. The smirk froze on his brother's face; Dean met his gaze and then looked away.

Things were different.

Things weren't right in the Wright household.

Alex Carson wasn't the first foster-kid to enter the household and depart just as quickly. He wasn't even the first to take his leave in the middle of the night through a window. The household, the make-shift family, had always adjusted. First embracing the new person, bringing them into the fold, and readjusting once that person was gone, retreating to the way life had been before. But, for the first time ever, there was a gap. The hole left by Alex's departure didn't magically fill itself; the world didn't rebound to the way it had been before.

They missed him.

The days right after he left had been a whirlwind of cops and social workers, of people in suits asking questions. What was the man's name again? And Alex, what did he say his name was? Did you notice what kind of car they were driving? And are you sure that he left of his own free will? Did Alex seem…afraid? Anxious, worried? And the ultimate question, the one they all dreaded. Did you know he was going to leave? Did he tell you? Did you have any idea?

Of course they had known. Brandon had helped him out the window; Lydia had said her tearful goodbyes. Cooper had sat back and said goodbye in his quiet kind of way. Ann had picked up the signals subconsciously, had known on some level and prepared herself mentally for the sight of an empty bed. Even Drew had picked up on the signs. Only Lizzie had been blissfully ignorant, but had she been only a few years older she would have known just as much as the rest of them. They had all known, and they all vehemently denied that knowledge when questioned by the authorities.

Eventually the whirlwind of questions died down, and Alex Carson was accepted as lost.

The world went on.

But Lydia moped around, hiding her tears, and Brandon went through a brief violent fit, picking fights with whoever he could. Lizzie wandered around the house, calling his name, asking when he was going to come back. Cooper retreated into his room, quiet and withdrawn. Ann sat at the dining table, eyes fixed unflinchingly on the wall, neither seeing nor crying.

Time trickled on, and foster-kids came and went.

But there was always a little hole in the family, a little place that Alex Carson would have slid right into. The other kids were temporary; Alex was—could have been—permanent. And things just weren't right without him.

"Sam." There was a quiet force in Dean's voice that made him look up. Dean stood in the doorway, an envelope in his hands. Sam's eyes locked on the envelope. "What the hell is this?"

He rose, his back straight, his muscles tense, and strode across the space between them, snatching the envelope out of his brother's hands. He cast a quick look at the envelope—Lydia Santiago—and glared at his brother. For a moment he was startled by the fact that their eyes were almost level.

"Going through my stuff, Dean?" He said in a tight voice.

"What. Is. This?" Dean ground out, waving a hand at the envelope.

"Stay the hell out of my stuff." He said, turning his back. He walked away and felt his brother right behind him.

"What are you going to do, Sam, be pen pals? Going to tell her how sorry you are about skipping out in the middle of the night? Going to tell her all about your hobbies, your 'extracurricular activities' while she prattles on about soccer or gymnastics or whatever the hell she does? Going to explain to her why your address always changes?" Dean leaned close. "What are you doing, Sammy?"

He jerked his chin up, met his brother's eyes. "It's Sam." Something flashed in Dean's eyes—he could have sworn, for a moment, that it was hurt, but decided that it was anger instead. "It's one letter, Dean." He was tempted to break the gaze, but stood firm. "I made a promise, and I intend to keep it."

Dean stared at him, closed his eyes, shook his head, and walked away.

In the back of his mind Dean pinpointed the event that had changed everything. The damn Black Dog case in California, followed by six months of hell.

He shuddered, just thinking about those six months.

He had woken up in a hospital bed, after being in a three-day coma. The realization that he had almost died—it had been that bad—had set in quickly, especially when he sat up and realized two more things. The first was that his father still hadn't woken up, and the doctors were worried about brain damage. Brain Damage. The second realization had come right after he wrapped his mind around the first. Sam—Sammy, the little brother he would die to protect—was missing. Completely vanished off the face of the earth.

And he had been confined to a hospital bed, unable to move, unable to walk, unable to even find out where the hell his brother was.

The rest of that week, until the moment when his father woke up, was like living in a nightmare. The following three months—three months of tests, checkups, doctors, nurses, physical therapy, psychologists and psychiatrists, meds, hospitals, and above all, not knowing a damn thing about his brother—were some of the worst of his life. And when they were finally released they faced the three month task of finding Sam. Of tracking down where he was taken, talking to people, finding out that he didn't remember a damn thing about them—that was the part that really hurt the most. That Sam didn't remember them at all, that he'd completely lost his identity as Sam Winchester and become some stranger named Alex, while they were sitting there in absolute agony, thinking about him every moment—and infiltrating the foster care system, cutting through the red tape, hunting down the elusive, vital information.

Those six months, he firmly believed, where the worst months of his life. Worse even than the months right after his mother's death. Because Sam was alive, alive and safe and without a clue of who they were, while they were half-dead, half-crazy, out of their minds, and unable to find him.

After they'd found him, everything had been different. Sam had changed. Not necessarily in bad ways, but sometimes there was longing in his eyes, and he was distant. His heart wasn't in hunting anymore. His heart wasn't with them anymore. They'd lost a part of him, and it had changed everything.

Dean tried to block the sound of yelling out.

He wanted his little brother back.

He held the envelope—the envelope that contained his future, it was right in his hands and he could feel it, like a living, breathing force—in his hands. It was heavy and thick, too thick to contain rejection. He already knew what it was, but he couldn't bring himself to open it. Not yet.

"What's in the envelope?"

He jumped, his head jerking up as his brother strolled through the door. He hastened to hide the envelope away. "Nothing."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Really?" He reached over and snatched it.

"Dean!" He shouted, rising from his chair. Dean backed up a pace, holding out his arm to keep him away.

"Samuel Winchester, yada yada." He said, looking at the envelope. His gaze fell on the corner and he stopped. He looked up, and Sam froze. "Stanford." Dean stared at him. "Stanford?"

"Give it back, Dean." He said, in a low voice. Dean handed it over, still staring.

"Sammy, what is that?"

"Sam." He corrected, not answering the other question.

"Fine, Sam. What is that?"

"Haven't opened it yet." He said. Green eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Sam."

"My acceptance letter."

"To Stanford."

He nodded, not looking at his brother.

Dean sat down. "Sam, what the hell are you doing?"

Sam met his gaze and it was Dean's turn to look away. He put his head in hands and tried to understand how violently his world had changed in the span of a few minutes. He tried to pretend that he hadn't seen it coming, ever since those six months in the "real" world.

They sat in silence for a long few minutes, before Dean lifted his head. "Why Stanford?"

Sam looked away.

"Hey Alex, where do you want to go to college?"

He looked aside at Lydia and shrugged. "Dunno. I haven't thought about it recently." He left unsaid that fact that he couldn't remember anything before recently. "Why? Do you know where you want to go?"

She looked at him, with stars in her eyes, seeing the future.

"Stanford. I want to go Stanford."

Dean watched him, saw the look in his eyes, and understood. He stood, without saying a word, and for the second time in his life he walked away from a Sam who gripped an envelope as though it were his life.

John Winchester's eyes were dangerous. Looking into them right now was like watching the clock on a nuclear bomb slowly ticking down, ready to explode and destroy everything.

Sam's eyes were deadly calm. Like the eye of a hurricane, deceptively calm and quiet, just waiting for the right moment to tear everything apart.

Dean didn't want to be there. He didn't want to hear his father rant and rave, didn't want to see Sam's patience wear thin, didn't want to watch them scream at each other, equally destructive forces battling for domination. He wanted to be anywhere else, wanted to be at a bar, flirting with cute waitress, winning money in a game of pool. But if he left he very well might come back to nothing at all.

"Absolutely not." John said, his voice loud and angry and determined. It was an order, a command, a statement that was absolutely steadfast and would not change. "You are not going."

Sam's chin jerked up and his body was tense. Dean might jump to obey their father's orders, but he would not. "Yes, I am." He stared into his father's eyes, unafraid. "I'm going."

John's face went red and his fists clenched.

"Well then." He said, in a dark voice. "If you're gonna go you'd better stay gone. If you turn your back on this family, you don't come back."

Dean stepped forward, his mouth dropping open. Things had just gone too far.

It was too late. Sam's eyes flashed. "Fine." He spat. "Then I'm gone."

He stormed out of the motel, door slamming behind him.

John stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door closed.

Dean stood in the empty room, ears echoing with the sound of slamming doors, the sound of his family breaking apart. As he stood there he was sent reeling back to another time when it had been just him and his dad, to another time when Sam had been gone. They had lost him once.

And now they had driven him away.

Maybe we should have left him, his mind whispered, the poisonous thoughts unable to be contained. He would have been happier. He would have been normal.

And what about me and Dad? We couldn't live without him, he argued against that little voice.

What about now? Are you going to drag him back, force him back? Are you going to make him miserable again?

He violently blocked out the little voice, collapsing on his bed.

But his answer drifted to the forefront of his consciousness anyway.

No.

I'm going to let him go.

She had forgotten. She held the letter, with its well-worn creases, in her hands. It was a letter she had read hundreds of times, and yet, forgotten.

Dear Lydia,

I had a million things that I wanted to say to you, but sitting here, I can't remember any of them. How are you? How is everyone else? Not that you can write me back anyway….

I can't tell you where I am. Not because I don't trust you, but because it could…complicate things. Let's go with that. And I'm not entirely sure. I slept through most of the ride here. I couldn't tell you what state I'm in for the life of me.

I hope that you and everyone else are okay. I wish…I wish that I could talk to you instead of sending you a letter. (Not that there's anything wrong with letters, but it's not the same, is it?) I'm doing fine; Dean and Dad are glad to have me back, and I can't tell you how great it is to be able to remember who I am.

I guess you might be wondering what this pointless letter is about? I wanted…there are a couple of things I didn't get to say, and I was wondering if you could help? Could you tell Ann that I'm sorry? Tell her that I'm sorry for the way things turned out, and that she is an awesome mom. Can you say the same thing to Drew? I'm sorry and that he's an awesome dad. And could you tell Cooper thanks for everything?

You know, if you were sitting next to me you would tell me to just get to the point. I really would like you to say those things, but what I really want to say is thank you. To you. You are the best friend I've ever had, Lyd, and I'm sorry that I had to leave. I promised that I would see you again, and I keep my promises. I'll promise again, Lydia. I will see you again.

I don't really have anything else to say, so…goodbye.

Love,

Alex

(Sam)

"Lydia, are you ready yet?"

She looked up from the letter. She folded it and tucked it into the back of a photo album, then put the photo album into a cardboard box, closing the flaps and sealing it with tape. She stood. "Yeah, Ann. I'm ready."

"What was that?" Her foster-mother asked.

She smiled, shaking her head. "Just a memory."

A/N 2: And...that's it! Thanks to all of my awesome reviewers (and lurkers) for sticking around until the end! I hope you've enjoyed the trip!

On another note...keep an eye out for the sequel! It's tenatively titled The Stars Align and is set third season. It should involve an actual supernatural plot, Sam and Dean goodness, Lydia, Lizzie, and maybe a guest appearence by Brandon and/or Cooper! It probably won't be out until the end of the month/beginning of December (because NaNoWriMo is kicking my ass right now) but it will be out!

See you around!