14.20 Coda: It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

The zombies (reanimated corpses, Sam insists on calling them) are dispatched easily enough. A swing of the iron fencepost turns them to dust. Even Sam, hobbled by his injury, can hold his own. And then they're all gone and you're standing there, surrounded by zombie dust, and Sam and Cas are looking at you like you're in charge, waiting for you to tell them what comes next. It's tempting to look right back and say "What do we do now, Chief?" but everyone who called Sam Chief is dead, and you're shitty but you're not that shitty. So instead you say "Okay, let's get Jack back to the bunker."

The kid weighs almost nothing but you let Cas help, because it seems important to him and because carrying the lightweight body on your own feels too much like carrying Mom. (It wasn't Mom. It was a shell incapable of holding life.) You put him in the back seat of Cas's truck and you cover him with a blanket from the Impala, and you briefly wonder if that same blanket has ever covered your own dead face, because Sam's carried your corpse at least twice that you can remember. Sam puts the iron posts in the back seat of the Impala, where you can easily reach them if needed. He's only using one arm now.

"How's your God-hole?" you ask.

He starts to shrug, then stops with a pained wince. "It's okay," he lies. "Not bleeding. What about you? You all right?"

"Peachy," you lie right back. Well. You're not bleeding either, so you must be okay.

You drive.

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