It was all his fault.

Just a hunt. Vampires—nothing more. Something simple, something they’d faced a hundred times over, something they could handle in their sleep. And yet all it took was a single breath—one blink too long—and she was gone from his sight.

Now she lay still beneath the pale, humming light of the hospital room. Her body, stitched like a broken thing hastily mended, was painted in bruises the color of stormclouds and bite marks he couldn’t explain to the doctors through the haze of panic. She looked almost serene, as though the pain—and the weight she always carried in silence—had finally lifted. But it was no peace. It was the stillness of unconsciousness, and nothing more.

They’d lost people before—too many. Blood, brothers, friends. But never had Sam seen Dean like this.

His face was a battleground of emotion. Fury clashed with grief, guilt wrestled with fear, and beneath it all, a fierce, aching tenderness bled through. He never left her side. Not for food, not for rest. He sat vigil beside her bed through endless days and longer nights, speaking in a voice too low for the world, a litany of broken promises and whispered confessions meant only for her ears.

Sometimes, when exhaustion forced its hand, he’d lower his head to the mattress beside her hand and steal an hour of sleep, always keeping his fingers close to hers—just in case. In case she stirred in the dark and needed to find him. In case her touch could drag him back from the edge.

He wouldn’t leave her. Couldn’t. As if his very presence might be the fragile thread that tethered her to this world. When nurses came in, he watched with the sharp stillness of a predator, eyes narrowed, tracking every motion, every touch. Not because he didn’t trust them—but because pain was the last thing his girl deserved. And he couldn’t bear to let the world harm her again.

When he thought no one was watching, he would slip a flask from his pocket with trembling fingers, the burn of whiskey chasing away the hollow in his chest, if only for a moment. Just long enough to hold himself together.

He didn’t speak to anyone else. Not even Sam. The only voice he had left belonged to her.

And so, when the sun climbed its slow arc across another nameless sky, and he sat with her hand caught gently in both of his, pressing kisses to her skin between prayers, not knowing whether he was whispering her name or begging some distant god— she moved. Just slightly. Just enough.

Her fingers stirred beneath his.

And in that moment, Dean Winchester, who had seen the world end and come back, felt something ignite in his chest.

As if he’d been pulled from the wreckage.

As if, for the first time in days— he could breathe.