Title: Aftermath

Rating: T

Summary: Sam deals with the aftermath of Madison's death. Dean helps in his own way.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters.

Author's note: I know this is slightly random timing. I actually starting writing this the night the episode aired, and didn't feel inspired again until a few weeks ago. It's kind of nice to go back to SN drama that doesn't include one Winchester going evil and the other spending an eternity in Hell. Happy reading! Oh, and a big thanks to mirandler43 for being a wonderful beta!

Aftermath

Her eyes were scared.

When Sam walked back into the room with the gun gripped tightly in his hand, he expected her to be terrified. But her only reaction was a cheerless, devastating smile and a spark of relief in her eyes. She was glad he was the one doing this, he knew. She was probably worried that Sam would let Dean take over, that Sam would lose all of his courage and take the easier route.

But it wouldn't have been easier for Madison. She needed Sam. She needed someone who had some personal attachment to her. And he had felt attached, despite how brief their time had been together. She needed someone who would mourn her when she was gone.

But as he held the gun up, tears still pouring from his eyes and lips clenched tightly to stop the sobs from escaping, her eyes changed. They weren't relieved anymore. Human instinct kicked in, and unadulterated terror flashed in her eyes. In that small moment, Sam saw everything. She wanted to live. She wanted to find another way out of this mess, just like him. But there wasn't any other way, and they'd both known that.

He blinked rapidly to clear his vision; he didn't want to end up missing the mark and causing her agonizing pain instead of instant death. She just stared at him with wide, unseeing eyes, clearly petrified.

And then he pulled the trigger. His aim was true, and he jumped forward to catch her just as she slumped to the ground. He watched as the life faded from her eyes, turning them glassy and empty. And then she was gone forever. There was no reversing this. There was no bringing her back. She was dead, and he'd been the one to pull the trigger.

"Oh, God," Sam moaned, burying his face in her neck. She still smelled the same – flowery and light. She looked the same, too, as if she was merely sleeping. But the dark red stain spreading on her chest didn't lie.

"Sammy." His brother's voice whispered through the room, and Sam knew that Dean was aching inside. Dean had wanted so desperately to take away this burden, to protect Sam the way he'd done since Sam had been six months old.

But there were things that even Dean couldn't stop. And there were things he could never save Sam from, no matter how hard he tried.

"Sammy," his brother's voice was hoarse, but strong—a demand. "Sam, you have to move. Someone had to have heard that shot, and we haven't got long." He hesitated, and then added gruffly, "let go of her—we can't leave any evidence."

And so Sam set her body down, with so much care that she could have been made of glass. There was no point; she was an empty shell, completely devoid of anything that made her Madison. But he hadn't been able to toss her away like she was nothing.

No one was ever nothing.

"Sam!"

Sam blinked and came back to himself. Slowly the image of her dead body and the blood staining his hands faded; gradually the interior of the Impala shimmered into view, and he was back in the present with Dean, driving down a long stretch of road that looked exactly like every other road they'd ever driven.

"You okay, pal?"

Dean was concerned, Sam knew. With a person like his brother, who never revealed anything and who was frighteningly good at hiding everything, each word and phrase was important. Dean only used nicknames and monikers—pal, bro, buddy—when he was worried that Sam had gotten caught up in agonizing thoughts.

"Yeah," Sam mumbled, but his voice fell flat and he knew his brother would catch it. Dean caught everything.

"Really? 'Cause you haven't moved in four hours—I don't think you've even blinked."

"I blink all the time, Dean," Sam said sullenly, and he did realize how ridiculous that sounded; he just couldn't think of anything better.

"Uhuh," Dean said, hands shifting restlessly on the wheel—another sign of worry. There were always signs.

"I'm just tired," Sam said, and that, at least, was true.

"Sam…" Dean drifted off, and Sam knew he wouldn't broach the topic. He would give Sam the chance to work it out, because when it came down to it, Dean always took that road before initiating any sort of emotional discussion. "Not that your company hasn't been riveting, but you can sleep if you want."

Sam sighed deeply. He didn't want to sleep now. In fact, he never wanted to sleep again. Because he knew what he would see, and he knew that he was on a very narrow, very steep precipice—one wrong step, and he'd tumble down into the abyss.

"Okay," Dean said quietly, responding to something that Sam hadn't even said. But Dean knew. Dean always knew.

"Sam, eat."

"What?" Sam asked, blinking.

"Eat." When Sam didn't react, Dean made an annoyed sound and shoved Sam's plate closer towards him. "I already had to order for you, don't make me cut your meat too. Just eat, bro."

"I'm not hungry," Sam replied, frowning when he realized that he didn't remember Dean ordering for him. In fact, he didn't even remember entering this dive of a diner.

"Do you know where we are?"

"No," Sam said honestly, because there was no point in lying. Dean always knew.

"Springfield, Colorado."

Sam blinked again, surprised. But after a few seconds of thought, he understood. "We're driving all the way across, aren't we?"

"Wasn't going to stop 'till we hit the East Coast," Dean replied, voice carefully casual.

"No," Sam shook his head vigorously now—the first passionate thing he'd done since San Francisco. Since Madison.

"What?" Dean asked, looking stunned by Sam's fervent response. Then his look turned careful, guarded. "What do you mean, Sammy?"

"Stop talking to me like I'm an invalid," Sam snapped, and then regretted it when he saw the flash of hurt that stretched across Dean's face before his brother strangled it into nonexistence. Sam softened his voice a little but stayed adamant. "I want to go back."

"No," Dean said, immediately strong, authoritative. It was the voice he'd heard growing up, the one that had told him the things that he couldn't do because they'd hurt him. It was this voice, as unbending as Dad's but still somehow softer, that he'd always responded to. That he'd never felt an intense urge to rebel against.

Until now.

"Yes. I want to go back to California."

"Sam…" Dean's eyes had softened, a rare occurrence, and his chin was tilted ever so slightly in Sam's direction—both signs. There were always signs. "I won't let you do that to yourself."

"I have to go back. I have to." Sam's voice wasn't emotionless anymore—suddenly it was desperate, beseeching. "Please, Dean. Please."

Dean stared at him for a long time, but Sam knew he'd already won. Sam was asking, and when Sam asked, Dean never refused.

"Okay," Dean said. "But you have to eat."

"This is the stupid, Sam. This is so freakin' stupid!" Dean repeated a variation of these words over and over, language becoming more and more colorful the farther they climbed. By the time they reached her floor, Dean was letting loose a long line a curses, one right after the other.

Sam saw it from all the way down the hall—the police tape was still there. Yellow and garish, it stuck out like a sore thumb against the soft white walls of the hallway. Sam walked forward,and realized only once he'd reached her door that Dean was holding onto him, hand gripping Sam's elbow.

All he had to do was turn the handle and push the door open, and he'd see it. He'd see the room where he had watched over her that first night, when they'd thought her ex-boyfriend had been the culprit. He would see the chair he'd tied her to, the window he'd looked out of to mark the sunrise, the bed they'd used after that. He would see the blood staining the floor, soaking so deeply into the carpet that it would never come out again. He'd see the outline of her body.

He turned around, and Dean followed effortlessly, never loosening his grip.

"I want to go now," Sam said. Dean nodded and moved in front of Sam, leading the way.

"We have to talk about this."

Had Sam not felt so hollow and empty, he would have snorted. "You hate talking."

"Well, yeah," Dean said, but his voice didn't waver with embarrassment or hesitation. "I hate when you try to talk about my emotions, or about Dad, or about Mom, or about the work we do. In fact, I pretty much hate talking to you, period."

The last part was said with a teasing lilt that would have had Sam smiling if he hadn't felt so empty and hollow.

"But you're not dealing with this, man. And I really need you to start dealing with it."

This time Sam did snort, and it was a harsh, bitter sound. "So is that how it works? I can't try to talk you through your problems, but I have to spill my guts to you every time I'm feeling shitty?"

"Yes," Dean said, without a trace of discomfort or shame. "That's exactly how it works. You emote—it's just what you do."

"I'm not laughing, Dean," Sam said, voice low, eyes narrowed in a glare.

"No, but you're angry, and that already makes you better than the zombie I've been driving around with for the past week," Dean said, and now his voice wasn't so calm. "Snap out of it, Sam."

Sam didn't reply, hardly blinked, and the tension in the room increased along with Dean's frustration. Sam kept his eyes downcast, but he could hear Dean grinding his teeth together. The taut silence continued.

Finally, Dean shifted—Sam heard the rustling cloth—and said, "I mean it, Sam, you need to let it go. She was a monster."

It took the words a second to reach through Sam's haze. When they did, his head snapped up and his mouth fell open. "What're you—no she wasn't!" Sam denied fiercely, voice coated with incredulous horror. Without conscience thought, reacting to the anger that suddenly simmered through his veins, Sam lurched to his feet and began to pace.

"Why not? She killed people. She deserved to die."

"No she—no she didn't!" Sam roared, breath coming out in short, harried gasps. Suddenly the pacing wasn't enough to relieve his frenzied rage, and he halted dead, turning to face Dean. He wasn't still, though. He couldn't be; tremors shook through his body and his hands quaked as he ran them through his long, shaggy hair.

Dean stood up, and anger sparked like a match in his eyes. "I can't believe you're doing this. Freaking out like this over one of them. She was a werewolf, Sam! A killer, a murderer—a monster."

"No she wasn't!" Sam denied again, but he couldn't seem to muster up a defense for Madison. He reached forward and latched onto Dean's collar, large hands bunching up the fabric and yanking Dean closer. "She wasn't—not all the time! Just at night during a full moon—we could have stopped it! There had to have been a way… there had to have been some way!"

"There wasn't, Sam," Dean replied, not lifting a finger to defend himself, his eyes still lit with emotion.

"There was! She was just a girl, Dean—she didn't ask to be that way!" He shook Dean again, wanting so badly to make him see, to make him understand that this world wasn't always black and white, and that this case had been one of those times. "She was innocent, she couldn't control it—it wasn't her fault! She wasn't like the things we hunt, she wasn't a monster!"

He had more to say, but his garbled words were overpowered by a sob that ripped through his chest. He tightened his whitened knuckles around Dean's shirt as he tried to rein in the response, face twisting with the effort it took to hold everything inside.

"I know, Sam," Dean said, his voice soft now, no trace of the corrosive anger that he'd let loose just seconds before. "I know. It wasn't her fault. But it wasn't yours, either. She asked you to—she wanted you to do it."

"No she didn't," Sam said, but his voice had similarly lost the white-hot fury from before. "I saw it in her eyes—she didn't want to die…"

"Nobody ever wants to die," Dean said, now wrapping his hands around Sam's wrists and trying gently to remove his grip. Sam twisted his finger around the fabric again, and after a few seconds of tugging, Dean gave up. "But she didn't want to live her life that way, either, and in the end you did the right thing. You saved her."

"No I—,"

"You remember what you keep asking me to do?" Dean asked, eyes narrowing now and voice becoming sharper. "You remember what you made me promise?"

"To—to kill me, if I ever…" He couldn't say it; his throat railed against the words.

"Turn evil. That's what you want, isn't it? You'd rather die than become one of the things we hunt."

Sam saw where this was going, and he shook his head vigorously. "It's not the same. She didn't know—it's not—,"

"No, Sam, it is. If you can ask that of me, you can ask that of yourself. You were not wrong. You did what you had to do, and this was not your fault. Blame Glen, blame Madison, blame God—hell, blame me! But don't blame yourself."

Dean's words shocked Sam enough that he finally released his death-hold on Dean's shirt. His hands fell limply at his sides. "Why…why would I blame you?"

Dean paused for a second, clearly thrown by the question. Then he shook his head. "I don't know. But you can if it helps."

"Nothing will help. She's gone...dead. And I did that…I killed her…."

"I know," Dean said again, and then he yanked Sam into a fierce hug. Sam felt the tears well dangerously in his eyes again, but he refused to let them fall—for once Dean wasn't the only one who wanted to keep his emotions to himself. Dean let go of him quickly, a sign that he wasn't used to or completely comfortable with physical contact. There were always signs.

Sam nodded once, a few stray tears trickling traitorously out of his eyes. Dean studied Sam's face, scrutinized every inch, and then he returned the nod. Sam strode into the bathroom, slammed the door, and turned on the shower. As the water heated and sent swirls of moisture billowing into the air, Sam sobbed, falling to his knees on the cold, hard tile.

The running water masked the noise, but Dean would know. Dean always knew.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Those things you said last night…" Sam began hesitantly, and he noticed the way Dean's spine went rigid. It was funny; even when the emotional conversation was about Sam, Dean still didn't like discussing it afterward. "You didn't mean them, did you?"

Dean glanced at him as he threw his bag into the backseat. He followed it by Sam's, and then slammed the door shut. "No."

"You said them because you knew how I'd react."

"Yes." Now Dean was opening the driver-side door, about to get in the car.

Sam ran his fingers through his hair, and then shoved his hands into his pockets. The numbness had lessoned marginally, and so had the hollowness. The pain was still there, but it wasn't as strong and overwhelming as it had been last night. In fact, the way Sam felt right now was like the tail-end of a hurricane—past the beginning and the eye, left with wisps of rain clouds and some violent winds. He'd even been able to sleep, and, more surprisingly, he hadn't dreamed of her.

"You believe it then, right? That she didn't deserve what happened to her?"

"Yeah, Sam," Dean said, exhaling deeply, voice quiet. "I know it wasn't her fault."

"Good." Sam said, but he realized that he shouldn't have been surprised. Dean always knew.

They both got into the car, and silence settled around them as Dean pulled out of the motel parking lot. Sam wanted to let the quiet sink in and grab hold of them—he was still upset, still sad, still angry. But wasn't sure he wanted to be silent anymore. He didn't like bottling things up—had never been one to do that kind of thing. As Dean had said, he emoted. It really was what he did.

"Where are we going?" Sam asked finally, a fair compromise between brooding silently and opening up more discussion about San Francisco. About Madison.

Dean's eyes tilted towards him and his fingers thrummed along to the music on the radio. Both signs. "I read something about a haunted set in Hollywood—feel like heading towards L.A?"

Sam stayed quiet for a few seconds, contemplating. Dean still wanted the hell out of California, Sam could tell. But Los Angeles seemed far enough away from it, from Madison, and Sam wouldn't mind lingering here a little while longer. He wanted to make sure he didn't let himself let go too quickly.

"Sounds good," Sam replied, and a genuine smile graced his lips—the expression felt foreign and stiff after a week's worth of scowling.

"Good," Dean said, grinning in return. It reached his eyes in a way that smiles rarely did, and the tension left the rest of his face for a moment, so that he just looked happy.

And Sam knew that Dean was happy. Dean caught everything, which meant that Dean must have realized that Sam had stepped away from that edge, that dangerous precipice. Sam also knew that Dean would never say anything about it, never mention his relief that Sam was finally thawing into a person again. But there were always signs.

End

Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are lovely.