The fire crackled softly in the hearth, its glow casting long shadows across the bunker floor. You sat curled in an old chair wrapped in one of Bobby’s worn out blankets, staring into the flames like they might answer the ache you couldn’t name. Outside, wind pushed against the bunker, trees creaking with the weight of late autumn. Inside, it was still. Too still. Sam hadn’t spoken much since the burning. You’d gone through the motions together. Salt. Gasoline. Flame. Dean’s body had turned to ash as the pyre roared up to the sky. You hadn’t cried then. Not until later, when it was quiet. When his flannel still smelled like him and your hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Now Sam sat across from you, slumped on the edge of the couch in the “Dean Cave,” elbows to knees, head in his hands. You’d grown used to the silence between you: not the cold kind, just the kind that came with too much pain and not enough words. Then something broke. You heard it in the smallest sound. A choked breath. A swallow that didn’t make it past his chest. When you looked up, Sam was shaking.

You didn’t speak. Just stood and crossed the room, your blanket dragging behind you like a ghost. You knelt beside him, close enough to feel the weight rolling off his shoulders in waves. His face was wet, eyes red. You rested a hand gently on his back, and he leaned into it like a child, lost in the aftermath of a war you’d all barely survived. It took a long time before either of you moved. Grief had its own kind of clock.

Eventually, you reached into your jacket pocket. The fabric crinkled softly: something small held carefully for weeks now, never spoken of. You pressed it into Sam’s hand without a word. His breath caught when he looked down.

The amulet gleamed in the firelight, old and worn, the edges dulled by years. Sam stared at it like it might vanish if he blinked. “W-where did you…?”

“Chuck. Few months ago.” Was all you said. Dean had given it to you. Quietly. Just slipped it into your palm one night while you were cleaning weapons in the bunker. His fingers had lingered a second too long, his eyes holding something unspoken. “Keep it safe,” he’d said. “I might lose it again.”

You had. But now, it was time. “He’d want you to have it.” You closed Sam’s fingers around the amulet. He looked like he wanted to argue, like he couldn’t accept it, like it wasn’t his anymore. But you didn’t let him speak. You just gave him a small, aching smile. You already had pieces of Dean. Enough to last lifetimes.

“Dean asked me to give it to you, should this happen… I have my own remembrance.” You say as you showed him the ring that Dean had proposed to you the night before with. Sam’s eyes dropped to it, and his expression shifted from confusion to something that cracked wide open with realization. “We were gonna tell you when we finished the…” Your voice trailed off. He says your name sadly, apologetic. “It’s okay… it will be okay.” You say softly. “It wasn’t gonna be anything crazy, just you, me and him in Vegas. Eileen if you wanted her to come.” You smile softly. “And someone else…” you say as your hand rubs your stomach softly. Then his gaze flicked down. There was no hiding it now. The softness already starting to form where life had begun, impossibly, inside of death.

Sam drew in a sharp breath. His voice, when it finally came, was just a whisper. “You’re…?”

You nodded. “Y-you’re an uncle, Sammy…” you choked softly, eyes wet. He looked away like he couldn’t bear it, one hand pressed to his mouth. Then, slowly, he reached out, not to you, but to the space between you. His palm hovered near your stomach before settling gently there, careful, reverent. “It’s okay.”

He didn’t say anything more. Didn’t need to. You stayed like that, the two of you, tethered by loss, bound by blood and memory and this small flicker of something new. The amulet hung between you in Sam’s grip, its weight heavier than ever, and yet somehow, a little easier to bear. “Wow… I’m gonna be an uncle…”