I Fall Out Of Grace

Chapter 1

Two weeks hadn't dulled the memory of Dean's death. Sam could still hear his brother's flesh tearing and his voice screaming out in agony. It had become the soundtrack of his day-to-day life. When Sam closed his eyes, all he could see was Dean's blood-stained face and vacant eyes printed in the blackness. His dreams were filled with a white-eyed woman. If he didn't know better, he would have thought it was Ruby. Sam did know better. In Sam's mind, that body was no longer Ruby. It was Her.

***

Bobby had eventually made it into the house. Prematurely, he began exclaiming the disappearance of Lilith's "neighbourhood demon watch squad", when he was cut short by what lay ahead.

Dean's shredded body in a pool of blood. Ruby lay beside him, hair splayed beneath her as blood trickled along the floorboard lines and soaked the blonde red. The younger Winchester leant forward, cradling the eldest, his posture broken. His shoulders shook and his hands were unsteady. His crying had silenced, but the tears fell relentlessly, blurring his vision as grief clouded his mind.

Bobby was sure his heart had stopped. His head grew light and he swayed on his feet for a second, before catching his balance and taking two shaky steps forward. Sam's eyes flickered to Bobby's feet; the hands gripping Bobby's head and shoulders twitched. But he couldn't pull away from the last of Dean.

The two were still for even God may not have known how long.. Frozen in time, Sam didn't see as his jeans were saturated, and Dean's bloody shirt soaked through a second time with his tears. The first pull to reality was the sound of footsteps in the house. Sam remembered the family. He even opened his mouth but nothing came out. Bobby was already leaving to investigate, and Sam remained with his brother's flesh.

It had taken five hours for Sam to simply move. Bobby had sent the family away; he had salted and burned Ruby's body before the first rays of sunlight glimpsed over the rooftops. When he came back for Dean, Sam's eyes stopped him in his tracks. The light was gone. The spark that was Sam had diminished. Tears continued to silently slide down his beautiful face, and Bobby didn't have the heart to say what he ought.

We've got to burn him, son.

He couldn't say it. The grief was too near – for both of them. Sam's eyes dropped back to his brother as he walked around and positioned himself at Dean's head. Bobby stood at Dean's feet, and together the two lifted the limp body and carried it out, a dark red trail lining their path and forever tainting the floors.

Sam drove the Impala with Bobby following behind. He tried to ignore the sound of a body thumping against the back of his seat.

Hours passed. By nightfall the next day they were at Bobby's. After Bobby collected a few added supplies with Sam waited stiffly in the driver's seat, they were off on the road again. Bobby kept glancing at Sam, sometimes inconspicuously, sometimes with a completely obvious stare, but Sam never returned the gesture. Bobby also noticed the absence of music, and looked down to see the car stereo turned off. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a flask and tried to drown the searing pain in his own chest. In his heart.

Bobby went for the matches. Sam went for the shovel. Bobby wanted to protest. Sam's face was enough. Bobby set the matches down and grabbed a second shovel, following Sam to the centre of the clearing and beginning to dig. The sun crept across the sky, hiding behind the clouds and dousing the land in semi-darkness. Sam's face became further shadowed, whether by the light or his thoughts, Bobby didn't know. All he knew was he had to try to talk some sense into Sam; he didn't want Dean to return as the very creature he had hunted most.

"Sam." His voice was hoarse from the extended silence. The final Winchester looked up at Bobby with an empty gaze. "This ain't the best-"

"No."

Bobby's heart faltered between beats at the sound of his voice. He hadn't heard Sam speak for almost a day. It was deeper – rougher – than he remembered.

"Dean wouldn't want-"

"No." This time his voice was almost fierce. "He'll need a body… once I save him." The final words were almost silent, but Bobby caught them. Sam turned his gaze back to the hole now four feet deep, and Bobby saw a flicker of something. Rage? Determination. Revenge.

He didn't know why, but at that moment Bobby felt as unsettling sensation fill his stomach. It was a feeling he would become well acquainted with in time.

Sam stood at the foot of the grave, listening to Bobby begin shovelling dirt back into the hole. As the earth smattered his brother's stained face, Sam felt the bile rise up in his throat and the retching sensation that told him he was about to vomit.

***

The clang of metal on metal rang out as Sam rummaged his hand through the toolbox in search of the perfect spanner. Sam admitted to himself that he probably wasn't the best judge of the perfect spanner, but he was working on that.

Sam was at Bobby's place; he had been since…

The last two weeks of Sam's life had been spent out here, underneath the Impala's hood. Of course, that didn't include the time Sam spent reading his way through Bobby's library. In the past year, the Winchesters had read dozens of books, and yet they had not conquered the entire collection. Sam didn't really care; he'd read every book he found for any hint of how to fill the hole that had began to grows two weeks ago.

The sun beat down from above, heating Sam's black shirt, and burning through to his skin. Wiping his brow, Sam seated himself in the shade of the Impala's front seat, swigging from a beer to cool off. Bobby's dusty, portable radio sat beside him playing country. That was all this damn antenna picked up. One glimpse at the car's stereo told him not to complain. At least country music didn't accompany enough baggage to fill the oceans. Sam closed his eyes to shut off that train of thought. His heart throbbed, aching, every time he thought about…

Fingering the amulet he didn't own strung around his neck, Sam felt his ribcage constrict, as if his heart wouldn't fit inside. It burned, and he took another gulp of beer to try and wash the heat away. Sam finally understood why his brother had lifted the Impala's hood everytime he was suffering heartache. He wasn't sure exactly how, but working on the Impala was the only way Sam had found to isolate his mind from the thoughts that plagued him at every moment of his life. And Sam was not only fixing the Impala, but teaching himself how. That required much more attention that doing something familiar.

Looking out across the caryard, something caught Sam's eye. He raised his stare to the edge of the property where he couldn't sworn he saw a flash of blue and brown. But he must have been mistaken. There was nothing but a tree line, waving in the breeze. He was sure he had seen a young… no. Maybe he should replace his beer with a glass of water.