Beautifully written and terribly sad.  I usually leave long reviews but this piece has me a bit speechless.  Just know I'm deeply touched.

Author's Response:

Thank you!

I was pretty speechless when I finally posted this one, so I know what you mean. For some reason, this story's come to mean a lot to me, so every review is treasured even more than usual.

Ta!

Cal

Oh my.....!!!! My heart is now broken -- Your writing always packs an emotional punch, but here you outdid yourself - Oh Dean! This was simply beautiful, Cal...

Author's Response:

Mine too, I think, after re-reading this one to post. Thanks hun!

uh... OMG. uh *sniff* where to start? *sniff, sniff*

Shit girl! You reduced me to a weeping chick! Oh my poor boy. My poor boys! Oh gawd. Too hard to process... sonuvabitch! Get a grip, woman! You' re not a baby...

So many wonderful phrases and expressions. And they escaped me ... not escape but shrunk into background noise (like a good song playing while writing, ya know?) as the underlying emotions seeped right through them, flowed into my heart and broke it.

Sweet Jesus, I am absolutely and utterly shattered. Gently and softly written and then again painfully straight forward. Just like the grieving process would be like. Hope alternating with despair, guilt with bitter nostalgia. 

Hunny, I am really at a loss for words. I have read a few parts of it before and they were already very painful. But seeing them in their rightful, artistically woven places makes them even better ? worse? true? painful? OMG... 

Will you do a sequel? Is Sam dead or not? Oh please, either kill Dean (can't believe I just wrote that... Kill Dean? Honestly, see what you did to me?) or have him find Sam alive. Either way, please put him out of his misery. He is so broken. And if he is so am I. I can't bear to see him like that. It's too much...

Dammit I shouldn't have read it. Don't get me wrong. It's a terrrific piece of art. Wouldn't wanna have missed it. But on a day like today I shoulda settled on something else than this. Or maybe it felt even more real like this. I dunno. 

Thanks for sharing the beautiful ficlet with us, Cal. You know you rock, right?

*wipes at eyes*    Ilka

Author's Response:

*thud*

"kill Dean"? WTH?! What have I done? Sorry! (In a not sorry at all, kinda way...)

Thank you for the lovely review hun - so glad this one worked. The one thing I really didn't want it to be (once I'd figured out where it was going) was to be just tragic angst, so the different elements you picked up on - 'Hope alternating with despair, guilt with bitter nostalgia' is exactly what I wanted to hear.

Re: a sequel? Well, at the moment no. As I said in the notes, this was meant to be the start of a multichap, but when I got to the end, I just found I had nothing to continue with. Maybe because it was so draining to write (you know - you were there on yahoo when I kept stopping to sniffle!) and I'm not sure I could take the story forward without destroying this part. See what happens. The 'piglets may strike, and this was truly a 'piglet one! (Evil little SOBs...)

Ta again hun, catch ya later! *offers kittens as suspects there is not a single tissue left in Bonn*

Cal 

Good grief dude... no more sad angsty music for you... this is definately starting out to be one of those lump-in-the-throat stories...

I can see tissue and chocolate in the future to get through this one.... LOL

Author's Response:

haha - yeah, I think that's a good plan! It's always the ones that aren't meant to be all that sad that turn into real tearjerkers.

Have some cookies on me... to get you through.

Thanks hun!

Cal