Being Broken (ON HOLD)

Chapter Two: Control

Chapter Two: Control

Dean's POV:

Nine days, fourteen hours and thirteen minutes.

My stomach tightens as I realize she's been there for over a week. Memories of my time in hell flash in front of my eyes and I push them away as best as possible. I know just how horrible it is down there and I know just how far it can push you. I nearly lost who I was when I was there. I don't want Addie to have the same fate as I did.

I haven't slept much, the thought of her keeping me up. You can't really sleep down there, but when you get the chance, it's difficult. There are always people screaming and crying and it can drive a man insane. I wonder if she's having nightmares again. They seemed to stop after we got together, but I don't think they stopped together. She was afraid of being alone and now that's exactly what she is.

This is the first time I've been out of the house since it happened. I should be glad to be out in the sunshine and the fresh air. And I would be if it weren't for the sinking pit in my stomach and the aching in my chest. The weather seems to drastically contradict my emotions, the bright blue sky making me wince simply because it's so radiant. I have to keep my eyes on my shoes so I don't hurl or cry or worse. I want nothing more than to feel as radiant as the sky above me, but I'll never be able to achieve that without Addie. I need her more than the air I breathe and I'm suffocating without her.

"Dean..." Sam draws me out of my head, making me look up from my mud-covered shoes. I watch from a distance as Sam crawls out of the six-foot grave and picks up the shovel. "I'm sorry."

"I know," I say sharply, stepping forward and scooping up the other shovel. Sam gives me a look as I walk toward him, the handle gripped tightly in my sweaty palms. I'm about to reach the edge of the grave, but my feet stop moving. They are no longer able to carry me to where I think I want to go.

"Dean, you don't have to... I mean... I can do it," Sam says, stepping in front of me. I didn't even realize I was staring at the edge of the dirt until I look up at Sam. The look on his face is one full of worry. He must think I'm one second away from losing it. Ignoring him, I try to shove past him but he puts a firm hand on my chest to stop me from moving forward.

"Sammy, no, I need to—"

"Dean, you don't have to see this. You can walk away," he says, the intensity in his voice trying to convince me to back off. But how can I? The love of my life is lying in that pit. I can't just let Sam bury her like she was just another casualty in this war.

He's been trying to get me to do this for days. After Cas left, we couldn't do anything. He told us to just sit tight until he came back with more information, but that's getting harder and harder to do. Sam tried to distract with me everything he could get his hands on—research, magazines, new weapons. He stopped after a while, realizing that it wasn't doing much good. I would just sit in that chair and stare at her as if nothing else mattered because nothing else did.

Then he tells me that it's time. That it's time to give her a proper funeral even if we are going to bring her back. He wanted to give her a proper hunter funeral, burning and all. But Addie's gonna need a body to come back to. So here we are, in the middle of nowhere, burying her broken body in a feeble pine box.

"Sam," I say sadly, slowly looking up at him. His expression quickly shifts from worried to scared. "You need to move." Taking a deep breath, Sam backs off and leaves the path to the edge of the grave clear. I close the distance, my eyes on the ground until it drops away. Then they're on Addie, her hair in a tangled mess around her and her pale hands clasped over her chest. Even in death she looks so beautiful. But death has a firm hold on her body, only showing its face on her eyelids and lips. There used to be a permanent bush in her cheeks, the life inside of her peeking through the skin just enough to make them slightly pink at all times of the day. But now her cheeks are so white they look like stone. The silver ring on her finger glitters in the sunlight, sending reflections of light all over the inside of the coffin. Groaning, I turn away slightly and run my free hand over my face.