Title: Grief

Author: Wil Scott

Disclaimer: Nope, nothing belongs to me except my muse and her wicked senses.

A/N: This started out as a random stream of consciousness spurned by Thursday's episode. I don't know the who, why, or what of it, just that Dean had something to say and needed me to say. Enjoy.

A/N/N: Sorry so short.

No one said grief was to be the ultimate enemy. That it consumes you, swallows you, and traps all the reasons of right and wrong inside of you. That it makes you a victim over and over again until you refuse to overcome it.

I've become the victim of my own making.

I still see his eyes, hear his voice, and feel his anger toward me. Not because of what I didn't do, but of what I had done. I had become the killer. The avenger, the superhero, the defender of our lives. I had become what he made me.

It angered him, but I was the victim of his own creation. Now, my grief over him has foreshadowed and blanketed the anger, creating something worse. I kill to protect what is mine. I kill to save those who can't save themselves, but I'm in need of saving.

Grief is my enemy.

Save me Sammy.

Anyway you can.

For I am the killer, the demon of destruction and I don't know how to overcome.

Sam finally got what he wanted. He finally heard me say the words. I'm responsible. I'm the reason dad is gone and there's no turning back now. I once asked myself if I could kill anything other than the supernatural and I got my answer.

It wasn't with my hands he died, but I was responsible. It was me that killed him and now I can't think of anything other than killing.

Anything, everything.

I watch Sam out of the corner of my eye as we travel away from the last hunt. A zombie of all things and in a place where there was too much grief already. Mom's grave was just as I remembered it.

A tombstone, nothing more, nothing less.

Sam wanted me to feel something or say something, but I couldn't. Her memory was nothing more than her death. The fire illuminating the window of Sam's nursery overshadows any true memory I have of her.

Sure, when we returned to Lawrence and saw her spirit, I had flashes of scents and feelings, but she was no longer our mom that day. She was the epitome of what we had become. Ghosts in our own lives.

I felt sure it had been the father that made his daughter into that monster. Only a family's love can borne such cruelty. Our family should know. Our dad invented the art of expectation to the point of exasperation.

Sam took dad's expectation of him and turned his back on it. He shunned the hunter's world and tried to live in another. He pushed aside what was the past and went toward a future. I hated him for that. For doing something I couldn't, overcoming dad's expectation.

It's funny how a compulsion of dad's magnitude flowed into us. I got the most, granted I am the oldest, but there are some things I wish Sam and I shared equally. Dad's overwhelming desire for eliminating anything not of this world was one of them.

I was hoping Sam could have given me the magical word to heal the hole and ease the grief, but he didn't. I knew he couldn't. Hell, he can't even overcome his own, but at least he's trying.

I'm trying too, sort of, but for a different reason. I see something on the horizon, waiting to take another shot at the Winchester family. Something that is growing with each passing second. And no matter the people, places, or things we have with us, the fight will come down to Sam and me against them.

The way it's been since we were born. Sam is going to need me more than ever now and maybe this killer inside me can be put to use. Sam is not the killer in this family, I am.

I've become the expectation and now it's time to surpass it. It's time to do what I am: avenger of the wrong, savior of the right, and protector of our lives. Family is the only thing we have and will ever have that makes sense.

Grief is my champion.

I'll save you, Sammy.

Any way I can.

Now it's time to grieve for what lays before me and protect the man beside me.

The End

October 2006