Her life was riddled with endings.

But that was to be expected. Beginnings would lose their luster if endings were extinct, just as diamonds would be vacant of value if they were mixed in among the rocks in streams and in children's backyards.

It was an ironic thought, and not one that begot humor. How could the cards she held in her hands, the ones that had been gifted to her at her very birth, the ones that boasted pictures of death and loss, share the same treasured attribute as a rare jewel? They couldn't.

Bellona was growing to hate metaphors.

She brushed the tear off of the scrap of paper she held, but it was too late. The salt-ridden solvent had already soaked into the wrinkled page, bonded forever as a reminder of the aches it was born from.

She'd been gripping the lined page so tightly that it had a tear in it, as well. In her consuming bitterness, she almost wanted to scoff at the scrap. It was pathetic. It had been torn from Sam's notebook, from the only resting place it had ever known, only to be stained and torn and transformed into nothing more than a product of anguish. Much like her. She'd been torn from Sam too. Only she'd done it herself. She wondered if that made her even more pathetic.

The paper was lying on her desk when she'd arrived shortly after lunch. She could tell it had been hastily ripped from a notebook, due to the tell-tale blue lines across its surface and the row of holes on its side.

Only, it hadn't been alone. It was with Emma.

Bellona felt something in her chest yank against the strings that held her heart there. Emma by Jane Austen. It was the book Bellona had hidden a note in all those months ago, the first time she'd asked Sam on a date, and now here was Sam's note, hidden between those same pages of that same book that now sat in front of her computer keyboard.

Even then, her heart didn't immediately sink. It had taken a moment, a first glimpse at what was written on the folded paper's insides, before the beating of her chest found a new home in the pit of her stomach.

The first line read 'Bell', and the first tear swelled in her left eye. She swiped at it, but she could still feel a slight chill on the crest of her reddened cheek where the tear had left a streak of residual water. Just as she figured she would still feel this aching in her chest for months to come.

She slumped into her chair, and as she stared at the handwritten note, she immediately recognized the jagged lines of the consonants and occasional bulging curves of vowels as belonging to Sam. This was when the tears had started falling faster, staining her cheeks and her paper and the divots of her eyes where they were created.

Bellona didn't want to read it. But her actions had generated this consequence. Each move she made, each word she didn't speak, each phone call she declined - it had all been a sequence she dialed into a simulator. Now, her simulation had come to fruition, and it only felt right that she should read the lines that marked this ending.

Bell,

I'm sorry for leaving so many messages. I should've realized after the first two weeks of chatting with your voicemail box that you didn't want to talk to me anymore. I can take a hint though, I swear. I'll give you your space now.

If this is because I didn't go to that last doctor's appointment...I really am sorry. My family needed me. I had to be there.

I had a great time with you. If you ever change your mind, I'll be here. If you ever need me for anything, and I mean anything, then I'll be here.

Thanks for everything,

Sam.

'And I mean anything.'

Bellona knew what that meant. There were specks in the space between the letters, blood splatters from the pricks in Sam's mind where his thoughts had flown through his arm, into his finger and onto the page, only so he could try to cover them up with polite subtleties. A forensics degree could not have made the meaning behind this crime scene any more obvious.

'And I mean anything,' meant: 'And I mean if your cancer gets worse or if something happens to your mom and you need someone to carry that burden, I'll be here.'

And something was happening to her mom. And her cancer was getting worse. But Sam wouldn't be there. She wouldn't let him. She'd decided weeks ago, mere days after Susie had questioned her dating ethics, that she would leave before she let Sam pick so much as a pebble from her shoulders to place on his own.

The first crack was when he left to see his sister in the hospital. Their bond didn't fissure because she was upset, or because she donned any rancor at the fact that he'd chosen Millie over her. She'd wanted him to choose Millie. It simply had been easier for her to begin pulling away when he wasn't around to convince her not to.

His eyes alone would have convinced her not to, if he'd been there. All it would have taken was one look. He would have looked at her and seen her, seen the fragments of her past and her present that had been glued together to make a misshapen Bellona Wesson. He would have seen her jagged edges and warped center and he would have actually liked it.

The elementary act of standing near him made her feel known. And who, when faced with being known, would find the strength amidst their mosaic insides to leave it?

Not to mention, she didn't just have her own health to be concerned with. Her mother was getting worse. Much worse. The doctors had begun to share hints with Bellona about things like wills and funeral plans, while still funneling what medicine they could into Agnes. It didn't matter if every known medicine in the world was squeezed into her veins, though. She had a mere few weeks left, and the doctors still were not able to give her a diagnosis.

Bellona was starting to wonder if her mother's condition did have supernatural origins, after all.

By the time the third nurse asked Bellona if she had access to any after-life plans Agnes might have written, she'd already withdrawn from the upcoming Stanford Law semester. She was heading into her third year - the toughest, by far - and time with her mother was slipping through her fingers faster than she could grasp at it. She wouldn't spend another semester here when she wasn't sure if her mother would even be able to see it through alongside her. If she would even be able to finish it herself.

She'd never told Sam that. The reasons for her to leave were piling up - her mother, stacks of hospital bills, and increased testing on Bellona to see if they could chance a cure - and she couldn't justify staying for him.

It was too late to change her mind, anyway, despite the fact that he'd written in his note that she could. Today was her last day at Stanford.

"Bellona, sweetie."

It was Mrs. Darrow. There was a hand on her shoulder, age wrinkled in the creases of its fingers, and then a voice in her ear, saying, "Are you all packed up now?"

Bellona nodded. It was all she could do. She didn't want to cry until she got to her car, where she could be by herself.

She hastily shoved the note into the yellowed tote bag that hung on her shoulder, and then lifted a cardboard box from her desk and into her arms. It only rested there a moment before Mrs. Darrow took it from her.

"Let me walk you out," she said, though her demanding words sounded more like a plea when paired with the woman's gentle, ghostly tone.

"Okay," Bellona said. "Thank you."

The pair walked side by side, eyes aimed at the exit until Bellona saw quick movement somewhere to her left. Naturally, she looked to see what had caused the diversion, and her shoulders slumped when she realized. Her pace slowed, eyes widened. The speed at which her chest rose slowed, and slowed, and slowed...

It was Sam.

Sam, leaning against a table. Sam, wearing the baggy sweater she loved, cuffs torn and blue color fading to gray.

Sam Winchester, not looking over at the two women heading for the doors. Not seeing her. Never seeing her again because she had chosen to leave.

Sam Winchester. Sam. Shaking hands with a new girl, one Bellona had never met before, one who stood next to an older man wearing a lanyard patterned with the school's logo. A tour guide, perhaps?

Everything that made her heart beat was in shreds on the floor. Bellona had been Sam's tour guide the first time they'd met.

"Hey, I'm Sam."

The corners of Bellona's mouth were starting to reach towards the floor, as if each inch of her was desperate for connection since she'd walked away from their favorite one. Her hands were quivering, screaming at her in anger, crying for her to go to him so that he could introduce himself to her instead.

She could start over, if that's what it took. A second chance, like Sam said. That would be okay.

Then she saw the look in the other girl's eyes, and an air of erudition settled over her shoulders, swirling around her shoulders until this knowledge was all she understood: this girl would fall in love with him. It was too late for Bellona, because this girl had the same flare in her eyes as she'd had when she'd met him. She supposed any girl would nurture that same spark when discovering that there was a Sam Winchester in the world.

"I'm Jessica," the other girl answered, white teeth blinding in their exaltation as she reached to shake Sam's hand.

Sam's voice sounded like a hum. "Well, it's very nice to meet you, Jessica."

Sam glanced at Bellona. It was offhand and unintentional. She knew by the shock that quickly registered in his features.

Bellona blinked rapidly, willing any prospective tears to stay back for just one more minute. She shrugged her bag further up her shoulder, turned around, and walked through the exit doors, where Mrs. Darrow was waiting with pity splattered in a multitude of colors on her face.

If there was ever a moment, a moment to know, a moment to grieve, this was theirs. Bellona's and Sam's. She knew that was the last chapter in their book, and she knew that he knew it, too. He'd already opened the page to the sequel that had been written for him.

Bellona didn't think she ever would, as she wasn't convinced there was a sequel written for her. Instead, she'd written the first novel and bound it after only twenty pages, shutting it tight to prevent any future pages from being crafted.

Her heart had many vacancies, and it wasn't by choice. She used to advertise the empty spaces there with every breath she took, flashing a 'vacant' sign with every smile and playing a commercial in every conversation. Eventually, Summer had listened to her advertisements. Sam followed behind her, both individuals entering to see that only one woman, Agnes, had been there before them.

But Bellona was so used to the empty space, to the borderline bankruptcy, that she never gave any of them a hotel key. She sometimes pretended she would, but she never did.

So now, Sam was trying to leave. He'd cleared out a room in his heart - Bellona's old room, perhaps - for a new guest to enter. Bellona didn't know how to tell him that he was still trapped in a room in hers, and she'd lost the key the moment he said hello.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Aaand that's the end of act 1, everybody!

Literally everything goes downhill from here lol(except not lol bc this story was relatively fluffy in the beginning...but I mean...it's written by me & is set in the 'Supernatural' universe so did you really expect it to stay happy?).

I have SO many big plans for Bellona coming up so stay tuned!! The pacing gets so much quicker in act 2 and does not stop for the rest of the book, because if you can remember, act 2 is where the plot of the show shifts to Sam, and Bellona becomes greatly involved in that. Also coming up in act 2, Bell finally meets Mara, Dean and Millie!