Sam found his way out to the really secluded end of the motel parking lot. There weren't any windows on this end of the building. No other buildings close by. Just dumpsters, junked cars, and garbage. It was dark, and private, and Sam chose it as the place for his final prayer.

He looked up at the starry night sky.

"Hey. Hi. I just - I wanted to tell you I'm sorry. I mean - I know you know everything, so you know if I'm sorry, you know if I'm sorry enough. Better even than I know. But - but I wanted to say it to you. I wanted you to hear it from me. I mean, if you're even listening to me."

Sam sighed and looked around and didn't see anybody and addressed the sky again. The air was hot and hard to breathe and smelled of old garbage.

"Even if you are listening to me, even if I am sorry, I can't be sorry enough, can I? I know people tell you all the time that if they could take something back, they would, and you know I would. I also know it doesn't matter whether I would or not because it's too late. It's been too late - for a long time."

He looked around again, a huge cat was hunting rats around the dumpsters, pushing aside cardboard boxes filled with trash and digging into mountains of newspapers still in their orange plastic wrappers. Other than that, the parking lot was quiet, this whole corner of desolation was quiet, even the lone bar just visible down the road was quiet.

"If anything happens to me, I guess I won't be seeing you. I guess only Bobby is on my side now." His breath caught like he'd swallowed wrong, but that's not what it was. "No, I know, it's not about who's on my side, but whose side I'm on. I know that. You know I thought I was doing what you - no, I thought I was doing the right thing, whether or not it was your thing. I made myself believe I was doing what you wanted."

A car horn blared somewhere out in the night's shadows, and it made Sam flinch. He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and stared down at his feet.

"Dean - he can't stand to be around me. He goes off without me as much as he can. Which - really - I know I don't deserve anything else. He's over at that bar now." He gestured with his head. "At least I guess he is. He's not in the room. He's not with me." He took a swipe across his eyes with his hand.

"Look, I'm sorry I bothered you all those times. All those times I prayed to you." He laughed, it sounded like he was mocking himself. "Something else I thought was a good idea when I was doing it and it just turned out to be one more stupid thing, hunh? Not that - at least praying to you didn't do much other than annoy you. It never doomed the world." He took a sharp breath that was more than it sounded like.

"I doomed the world, didn't I? I can't - I can't -." Another laugh, scary this time. "You must've hated hearing the sound of my voice. Every time I started to pray, started to talk to you, you must've wanted to turn your radio up louder or something. Just to not hear me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He turned and maybe was headed back to the room, but then turned back.

"Do I bother you? Do you want me not talking to you? Because - I don't have anybody else to talk to. I mean - I could call Bobby, but he's got a lot going on now too, you know?" He tipped his head side to side. "I know - you know. I just - you've always just been real easy to talk to.

"Maybe I wasn't doing it right. Maybe that's why it was easy, 'cause I was doing it wrong. I guess that shouldn't surprise me, hunh? What was the last thing I did right? Lately I'm not even sure I sleep right. I'm so -." He cleared his throat, but he was buying himself time, giving himself a chance to start over. "I'm afraid of doing something or saying something that's gonna - make Dean - even more - unhappy. I want - I just want - to know -

"I can't ask Dean. I can't ask anymore of him than I already am. Than I already have. You know - I know you know - how much he's done for me all my whole life. With no complaint. Well, without much complaint. Without needing to be asked nearly most of the time. He just - did it. Like breathing. Like - like I was worth it."

He stopped talking, praying, for a minute or two then, staring at the pocked pavement, his fists still shoved into his pockets, shoulders curled down like he always did when he wasn't sure, or when he was sure, of something he didn't want to be sure of. The nighttime hovered over him, like it was waiting for something more out of him.

"Am I junk?" He asked, first to the ground, and then to the sky. "People say you don't make junk but - I'm junk. Right? I mean - am I? When Mom and Dad made me, was I junk? Was I ever - worth - anything? Will I ever be worth anything? Can I ever be?"

He waited, face turned up to the sky, but nothing happened. Nothing moved. Even the cat was done hunting for the moment. Not even a breeze moved through the space.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He scrubbed his bangs off his forehead and out of his eyes. "I told you I'd stop bothering you and here I am still yammering at you. I'm sorry. I'm gonna go to bed and I won't bother you anymore."

And then it seemed like he was finally leaving permanently. And then he turned back again.

"Um - just - you know - thanks, still, for bringing Dean back. I mean, I know things are terrible between us now, and I haven't don much at all since he's been back to let him know - to tell him - to just be grateful that I have - had - him back. But thank you. Whatever else happens, ever, that's just worth everything. And I know I can never thank you enough for that."

Then he turned and clumped away and when he was gone, totally gone, around the corner of the building, and not coming back, then I stepped out of black shadow that had hid me from my brother while he scraped his soul across the pavement.

I came out here to - to - well, sure not to breathe because ugh, but I came out to think, to walk and to think and to yeah do them both away from Sam. I sure didn't expect - or want - to eavesdrop on his final conversation with God and I couldn't help tossing a glance of my own up to the stars and Sam's invisible audience.

"You plan this?" I had to ask.

I walked the long way, slowly, around the motel and let myself into the room. Sam's eyes got wide like they seemed to do a lot these days when he looked at me for that brief second before he looked away.

How can the guy who is so happy to have me back be so unhappy to have me around?

I love my brother, I do. I know he loves me. I know he's dying inside and I know one right word from me would make everything OK for him again.

I just can't think of that word right now.

So we each got ready for bed in absolute silence, staying as far away from each other as possible, only we nearly collided when I came out of the bathroom and he was at the foot of his bed and he dropped his backpack and I automatically picked it up for him and he said thanks and I didn't say anything but as I walked past him I slapped my hand backward against his arm.

When I snuck a look back at him, he was looking at me and his eyes weren't wide.

The End