Robin Singer

After the Back Road

*So this season is taking longer than I was hoping. Honestly, my other fan fiction has been the major hold up and I keep going back and restarting that one. That said I have four chapters ready to roll with Robin and two more waiting for editing. Not where I want it yet though. This is where I would typically start posting again, about a month after the finale, but as I explained, I want this season half loaded before we're there and I'm about to go edit episode four. So instead, I decided today would be a suitable time to share one of the other side of the story chapters. So this one is the aftermath of the first chapter in season 12, when they meet Juliette. Just a little something from the cutting room floor. Hope this helps with the wait. *

Where were you? Her words cut through him like no blade ever could. He wanted to tell her, in Hell. Fuck, he would have taken Hell, at least there he'd seen her face from time to time. After their encounter with Billy, they returned to the bunker.

Her words rolled over in his mind on repeat. Then Chuck's entered in, you may not like what you find.

He never expected this. For her to look right through him, like he was nothing. And before that, fear. She was afraid of him. As though the last year and a half hadn't twisted him up enough. She was alive, he knew where she was and who she was with.

He b lined it to his room when they arrived in the bunker. He slammed the door closed in a rage. His whole body shook with hurt and anger. He grabbed the foot of his bed and threw it up into the wall. He spun and cleared the contents of his desk. He looked at the mirror of his dresser and his fist shattered into his reflection. He pulled out one of his drawers and threw it into the door on his side of the closet, snapping it and giving him a view of its contents. More specifically Robin's side of the closet.

He stood motionless and felt the bile slosh in his stomach. His eyes swelled holding back the tears.

How could she forget him?

There was a knock at his door. He was reluctant but opened it and saw his mother, Cas and Sam standing there looking at him with sympathetic eyes.

"What do you want" he growled?

"I think you need some fresh air," Sam told him.

"I'm fine" he told them.

"Dean you're not fine" Castiel argued.

"I'm not interested" he rebutted.

"Dean" Mary looked at him painfully. "Please."

That was it. Aside from Robin, right now the only woman in existence who could have gotten through to him.

"Fine" he huffed walking past them. He ascended the bunker steps and set foot out into the night. It was pitch black only a brief time before dawn.

He wasn't sure how fresh air would help, even if he was struggling to breathe.

He heard the bunker door close behind him. He knew who it was that would join him at this moment. He knew the interaction would have hurt him too. Maybe not the way that it hurt Dean, but it would have hurt.

"She's alive" Sam nodded putting his hands in his pockets.

"Told ya" Dean grunted.

"You were right," Sam nodded with a somber smile.

"Lucky me" Dean grumbled sarcastically.

There was a long pause and finally Sam said, "Chuck warned us."

"No" Dean shook his head. "He didn't warn us about this. He told us we'd find Robin. We found Juliette, a prissy little princess who is terrified of us."

"You said any capacity" Sam replied.

"She doesn't want me Sam. She doesn't want us" he snapped. "She's with Mick now. She's with the Men of Letters."

"So what" Sam asked? "Now you just give up?"

"I'm not giving up" he warned his brother with his tone. He let out a sigh and he softened. "I'm letting her go."

"Wha--"

"I can't be the one she's afraid of Sam" he explained, his tone dripping with defeat. "She's got a new life. She doesn't want me in it."

"That sounds like giving up to me" Sam accused.

"I can't hurt her Sammy" he shook his head. He then reached into his jacket and produced the ring. The ring he had bought so long ago.

When the Mark of Cain first took him, the only one who could bring him back was Robin. Always Robin. This wasn't lost on him. He hated the way he was to her at that time. It hurt him then and hurt him now. Back then it hurt because he had this ring and wanted more than anything to make her his, his in every viable way he could think of. But he also couldn't chain her to him, not when he was the way he was.

He questioned the choices now. He looked at the box in his palm.

"Dean what are you going to do with that" Sam asked him? His tone made it clear he was aware and concerned about a rash decision his brother might make. "What if we get her back?"

"She's not coming back Sammy" Dean said painfully. "This was done to her by God's sister...and me."

"This isn't on you Dean" Sam shook his head.

"Like hell it's not" he replied. "It would have been an impossible choice, but...when I chose to kill Death instead of you, I didn't know my choice would hurt her."

"Yeah you didn't know" Sam pushed.

"If I knew or not, I hurt her Sam" he sighed. "I don't deserve her back." With that Dean hurled the ring box into the woods.

Sam's eyes desperately watched the arch of the box. He saw the defeat in his brother and knew in their search he had never given up hope of finding Robin. He watched the hope glide through the air now.

That said seeing her that night, a spark of hope reignited in Sam. Even if he had to be the one to carry Dean in this. Robin had done the heavy lifting for them in the past, he couldn't let this go. Not when they were so close.

Now he just had to find a way to get closer to her. Even if it meant working with the Men of Letters, Robin was coming home.