Okay, so this is horribly short, and I am sorry. Really, truly. I know a lot of you guys have been waiting for an update, and I told you I would update soon, and then I didn't because I am a horrible person, etc. etc. But know that I'm trying to find the inspiration to write for Supernatural right now - and the reason I'm even trying is because of you guys.

Things are kind of hectic right now. This is unedited, so—well, it's unedited. This one actually... kind of has a plot? Hell, I don't even know. I actually wrote the fourth part at the last minute while I was checking the document for typos, so... Make of it what you will.

I.

Sarah's mother always told her to marry a nice boy.

Sam Winchester is a nice boy, she reasons, hopes. He is sweet and funny and kind and dangerous, and she loves him. Or she thought she loved him. Sarah doesn't know anymore, can't separate what she remembers about Sam to what she wishes she remembered about Sam.

It has been three years since he kissed her and left, three years since the boy with the nice smile and the wry, self-deprecating sense of humor (as if he was almost a little uncomfortable in his own skin, as if maybe she could relate to him, could talk to him, and he wouldn't reject her because he knew) came into her life and then roared away with his brother and his fast car. She remembers Sam the way the sun is imprinted on the backs of your eyelids when you stare at the sky for too long—in painful, burning intensity, like the leftover light from a supernova. When she met him he looked as though it was his brother who usually shined, but Sarah did not see Dean Winchester, did not see anyone else from the moment he stepped into the room, whether she liked to admit it or not.

She loved Sam Winchester, or maybe she didn't. Sarah didn't know, but she wore his shirt for the longest time.

II.

His name is Eric. He is talking about his dog and his job and his house. He does not ask about her, but even if he did, Sarah would not tell him—she would not mention the handsome, sad-eyed boy, the one with the beautiful, broken smile and the sheepish laugh and the quiet compassion of someone who is not used to being gentle.

She does not tell him, and he does not ask, but she kisses him anyway because her mother always wanted her to marry a sweet, nice boy—the kind of boy who turns into a good man, the kind of boy who is a doctor or an accountant or a lawyer and goes to soccer games and watches football on Sundays and never kills spirits with a gun loaded with rock salt, never burns the bones of corpses in the dead of night. The kind of boy whose eyes are not haunted by the ghosts of his past.

Sam Winchester is not that boy, but Sarah has never been that girl.

III.

He left his number with her when he drove away. Sarah had not planned to call him that night, but it was late and she'd had too much to drink and it seemed like a good idea at the time. The phone rang and rang and finally beeped, his voice—she had forgotten how smooth his voice was—saying in short, clipped tones: This is Sam. Leave a message.

She stood there for the longest time, the skeletons of words she could never say piling up in the back of her throat and making it hard to breathe. After a while she hung up, but sometimes, on her darkest nights, Sarah wonders if Sam ever got her message. If he could tell it was her just by her breathing, the way she had heard his low, quiet breaths in the dark of the crypt that night so many months ago and known, instinctively, that it was him.

But Sarah does not read romance novels. She reads textbooks and history books and biographies of people who are long-dead, and she does not daydream, and she does not pine (except every so often, except every once in a while over the sad-eyed, smiling boy). She dates Eric and waits for an excuse to dump him and then puts up with the pointed looks and long-suffering sighs, until the next boy comes along and she can wait for a chance to dump him, too.

Sarah is not a romantic, and she does not love Sam—but she does not lie, and it would be a lie to say that she loves anyone but Sam.

IV.

The day he comes back he is broken.

She doesn't know what it is, but she doesn't ask because Sam-that-was never liked to share, and she doesn't think Sam-that-is has changed. She is wrong, but that doesn't matter. He comes to her door broken and bloodshot, half-drowned in a bottle of beer, and his brother is not with him.

He died, she learned. He is dead. Sam doesn't tell her what happened, but she knows it wasn't natural causes. She knows it was supernatural.

She takes him in, lets him sleep on her couch, makes him food despite his protests and never asks why he came back. He doesn't tell, but Sarah doesn't really mind. It is enough just to be in his presence, enough just to close her eyes and not have to see his face burned into them like a fiery reminder. She tells him about her dog and her house and her job, because it's the sort of thing people talk about and anyway Sam doesn't really want to talk. She can tell, just like she can tell that he's taller and that's he's lost weight but gained muscle and that his face is haggard and tired and pained. She can tell by looking.

A few days later he leaves. He does not tell her where he's going, and he does not tell her why, just kisses her on the porch and then drives away with his fast car. Sarah watches him go without blinking until the tears dry, and then goes inside and calls his voicemail, letting it ring and ring and ring.

It's funny, Sarah thinks (except it isn't really funny at all). Twice she has kissed Sam Winchester, and both times she felt like she was burning.