A/N: This is the final installment in the series. This one wrote itself and, I'm not ashamed to admit, there were some tears as I finished it. It is set after Swan Song so Spoiler Alert! This story has been difficult to write at times but I am proud and happy to have completed it and I thank each of you that came along for the ride.

Disclaimers: I love the boys but they don't belong to me. I just borrow them from time to time to make them dance…or cry…as the case may be…

He had been at Lisa's house for a week now. Everything still felt so unreal. Each morning he woke up and expected to find himself in some run down motel room. Instead he found himself face to face with this amazing woman who took him in regardless of how broken he was.

He was trying to settle into this new life. He had no real idea how to live like a "normal" person. He did anything he could to keep his mind off of why he was here. He couldn't think about what had happened, not yet… it was too soon… So instead, he spent as much time with Lisa and Ben as he could, hoping to drown out the voices in his head that kept telling him to go back…find a way… get him out…

Today Lisa had gone back to work. He knew that she couldn't stay with him twenty-four hours a day forever. He knew that, at some point, he was going to have to get through on his own. What he hadn't known was just how hard it would be to do that. With nothing here to distract him…no one to talk to…no job and no place to go… He thought he might go crazy sitting alone in the silence.

To keep his mind occupied he decided to do the one thing he had been putting off since he came here. He slowly walked out to the Impala and opened the trunk. There, under the false bottom of the trunk, was the thing he had been avoiding…Sam's pack. Just looking at the worn material of the bag dragged at his heart.

He knew it was time. It was time to go through Sam's things and, at least, box them up and put them away. He knew he couldn't get rid of them but he could at least make sure they were neatly stored…Sam always liked his things to be kept neat and would have been fuming if he'd seen the way Dean had shoved things into the bag as he had packed that day. He took the bag from the trunk and searched the garage for a suitable box. Having found one that he felt would hold all of the items in the pack he walked back into the house to sort through his last pieces of his brother.

There wasn't much there… it was sad really, when he stopped to think about it. Other than his laptop there wasn't much that Sam had felt compelled to hold onto. A few shirts, a couple pairs of jeans, the usual odds and ends… He realized that he was crying when the tears fell on the t-shirt on his lap, leaving wet splotches on the material. All he wanted was to find one thing that was just…Sam… one thing that he could keep…one thing that would always be with him, a piece of his brother…but there was nothing here but socks and razors… until…

In the bottom of the bag he found two items that stopped him cold. The first dragged a broken sob from him as he lifted it from the bag and turned it over and over in his hands. It was his amulet. The same one that Sammy had given him for Christmas so long ago. He should have known when he threw it away that Sam would retrieve it and hold onto it. He probably was waiting for just the right time to give it back, that would be so like Sam…

He slipped the amulet over his head and felt the familiar weight of it against his chest. Something in that weight was comforting. This was something that tied him to his brother more than any other possession in the world possibly could have. He couldn't believe that he had been angry enough to throw it away. He wiped the tears from his eyes as a quiet smile played upon his lips at the thought of Sammy bending down to retrieve it and stash it away in his bag before running out to catch up to him that day.

The second item was a bit more perplexing. It appeared to be a hard cover bound journal. It was the type that he always imagined when young girls talked about writing in their diary. He couldn't for the life of him imagine what his brother would be doing with one. After all, Sam was "high tech geek boy". He didn't need pencil and paper; he had a keyboard and a word processor. He couldn't imagine his brother sitting around writing, actually writing, in a journal. He was slightly hesitant to open it. Would it be a breach of his brother's privacy to read it now?

While he debated whether or not it would be right to read the journal he flipped the pages back and forth. As he did so something caught his eye. At the top of each page, in his brother's neat handwriting, was his name. Curious he opened to a random page and took a closer look. He couldn't believe it when he realized that these were letters…to him… Why would Sammy be writing him letters? It made no sense; he was never more than three feet away from him so what could he possibly have had to say that he would need to write a letter instead of just turning around and telling him? He flipped back to the beginning of the book and began to read.

Day 1

Dear Dean,

Wow…I just realized how stupid that sounds, "Dear Dean". It's not as if I'm off at camp or something sending home letters to the family. I wish our lives were as mundane as that. Damn…now that I'm sitting here, staring at this blank paper, I'm not really sure where to start…how to start. There was a time in my life when I thought that I had been through the worst pain I could ever suffer. Today proved me wrong.

As he read through the first letter understanding dawned upon him. These were letters his brother had written to him while he was serving his time in Hell. At first he couldn't believe it but, then, as he read further, it all began to make sense. Of course he would write letters like this…what else would he have expected of his little brother? He was sure that Sam wouldn't mind him reading them now…after all, they were written to him…

He wasn't sure how long he sat reading them. He could hear his brother's voice in his head as he read. Each new letter was a window into the person he had left behind…the person who had never given up hope of getting him back… He knew about Ruby. He knew about the demon blood but reading about how it had happened…what it had felt like…the way Sam had suffered, terrified that he was disappointing him…

He realized after reading the final letter that everything that had happened with Lucifer… everything Sam had done…was his way of trying to make it up to him. He understood now why Sammy felt that he had to do it. He knew his brother's sense of right and justice and finally understood why it was so important that he be the one to make this sacrifice. He understood why Sammy had forced him to make this promise…forced him to stop hunting…to try to live the life he had always wanted them to have.

He went back to the beginning and read the letters again. This was a piece of Sam that he had never known and having the opportunity to find this part of him now was a gift. He didn't even care that, somewhere along the line, the tears had started again. He only noticed when an errant drop landed on the page he was reading and started to blur the words. He quickly dried the spot and wiped the tears away. He knew now how he was going to get through this. He knew what to do to keep from going crazy, to keep his promise…

After the last letter he turned the page. He stared at the fresh blank piece of paper for a long time. It wasn't his style, it was so much more Sam than him but, somehow it just felt…right. Unconsciously, he rubbed the amulet that was still lying against his chest. Then, he grabbed the ink pen from the coffee table and began to write…

Dear Sammy,

It's been one week since you took that bastard back to Hell and… I miss you…