The house smelled like coffee and old wood. Morning light pooled against the curtains, quiet and golden, dust dancing in slow spirals. Upstairs, Dean blinked awake in a bed too soft, sheets too clean. The mattress dipped beside him where she’d been, still warm.

He sat up slowly. The silence wasn’t like motel silence—it meant something here. No creaking ice. No wingbeats or teeth snapping in the dark. Just her dog breathing. Her parents making breakfast and talking quietly.

He ran a hand down his face, breath catching on ghosts. It hadn’t been long since Purgatory. Maybe weeks. Maybe years. Time down there didn’t move right. Survival did.

She’d found him. Against the odds, she’d looked. He still didn’t know how. Just that one night he’d opened his eyes and there she was, shaking, furious, clinging to him like he was something worth dragging out of the fire.

Dean swung his legs over the side of the bed, feet touching the rug. He followed the smell of coffee, the low murmur of her voice.

She was in the next room, phone pressed to her ear. Her back was to him. He stopped in the hallway.

“No... yeah, Bobby’s place is off the grid. We’re at my parents’. I—he needed rest. Sam? No. He didn’t... he said they promised not to look if it ever happened again. Said he respected it. Let it go.”

A pause. Her voice dropped. “But I looked anyway. I couldn’t not.”

Dean froze.

The mug in his hand tilted, coffee sloshing over his knuckles. He didn’t feel the heat.

He turned around. Walked back to the bedroom like the walls were watching him.

Back in bed, everything felt different. Cold, even with the sun coming in.

He sat on the edge again, hands clasped tight, breath heavy. He’d called for Sam down there. Screamed himself raw. Trusted that bond—the one thing that had never failed.

But Sam hadn’t even tried.

Dean stared at the floor, jaw tight, voice low and shaking as the truth settled in.

“He let me go.”