Sorry for dragging this fic out - I think I had too much fun writing it, and I don't seem to know the meaning of "edit." Thanks for sticking with this anyway!

Sam wished he paid more attention to his graduation. He knew, sitting in that folding chair, that this marked a very important milestone in his life. A proud moment, a lifelong memory. But still he drifted out during the speeches, still he shared only half-hearted grins with his classmates, still he bounced his leg, wishing it would just end.

No one was up there in the stands, trying to pick his head out from the crowd. No one was there just for him.

Fortunately, when they started handing out the individual diplomas, 90 percent of the audience did as they were advised and held their applause until the end of the ceremony. Because of that, no one would know he didn't have anyone there to cheer for him, and even he could pretend. He'd never been so grateful for a procedural guidelines before.

Strangely, when his name was called, he thought he heard someone clapping, a hard, furious burst of solo applause. Then again, they went through the names so fast it could have been for the girl announced before him.

Afterwards, Sam went outside to wait for Rebecca and her family, who were at her college's graduation held in a separate building. When he finally met up with them again on the college green, Rebecca raced up to him and hugged him, and he warmly hugged her back. Then Zach shook his hand, but that also quickly turned into an strong embrace as he thumped him on the back. Standing back, Mr. and Mrs. Warren gave him their own congratulations, complete with wide, easy smiles. Sam thanked them and agreed to photograph their family with the camera they handed him. Then Mrs. Warren snapped his picture with Rebecca and Zach and promised him a copy.

They spent an hour hugging and shaking the hands of classmates and friends and relatives, and Sam was surrounded by laughter and happiness and noise. His face hurt after smiling so much and his shoulders hurt after holding them tense for an entire hour.

Afterwards, he left with the Warrens, climbing into the backseat of their car beside Rebecca, and they headed towards a local park, where Rebecca's parents had rented a pavilion for her graduation party. Rebecca, with Zach's help and against Sam's objections, had persuaded them into making it a dual party for her and Sam.

Their cook-out became a central gathering for many of her friends who stopped by with their families from out-of-town. It wasn't a fancy party by any means, held on picnic tables with plenty of cold beer and grilled hot dogs. The older Warrens could have afford more, and in fact had suggested just that - but Rebecca wanted to keep it simple.

A few people gathered in loose groups on the lawn, but most of them sat at the tables inside the open shelter. Sam, with a beer in his hand, stood at the edge where the concrete ground met grass.

He wasn't alone though. A steady stream of friends and acquaintances came up to him and exchanged congratulations and other pleasantries. In the past year, Sam had become a master of small talk, and he wasn't short on friendly conversation. And then there were those sisters and friends of friends who wanted a chance to talk with the deceptively-eligible, single guy. Sam smiled and nodded with them, toeing the line of flirting but never crossing over.

Mr. Warren had just left Sam after promising him a list of lawyer contacts when a figure caught the corner of his eye. Sam turned his head and saw a man standing at the edge of a grove of trees.

He stood there alone, unmoving. He seemed to be watching them.

Sam tore his gaze away and stared intensely at the ground in front of him. It was that guy again, the stranger from the grocery store, the one he kept seeing around town. And now he was there, watching their party from his position far away. Almost spying on them. Sam didn't know why he would be there, didn't know who he was watching.

So far he wasn't doing anything, and Sam tried to ignore him. Still, as Oliver came up to him to chat, Sam kept the figure in the corner of his eye, making sure he never lost sight of the stranger.

But the man never moved.

Sam wondered why he had considered him to be a stocky, sturdy-looking man, because now he looked less than solid. Thinner than Sam remembered. A deep cut along his temple made him look vulnerable.

But even so, there was a dangerous edge to his stance, power underneath his jacket. Even from the distance, Sam could see the hard eyes, striking against the dark rings that lined them. They seemed to penetrate him, and Sam couldn't shake that feeling, even though he couldn't tell which person the man was focusing that intense gaze on.

The man had been standing there for five minutes when Sam happened to glance at Rebecca. She was standing in a small group surrounded by several other chattering people, but she was largely ignoring the conversation going on around her. Instead, to Sam's surprise, her head was turned slightly, her gaze directed out to the trees where the stranger stood.

But when she caught Sam watching her, she ducked her head and refused to meet his gaze.

Sam frowned, his questions doubling. He wanted to go over and ask her about it, but he waited until she stepped away from her group before he cornered her.

"Do you know that guy?" he asked her, coming up behind her when she grabbed another beer from the cooler.

"What guy?" she asked. Sam just stared at her and waited, refusing to play along.

She straightened up, and her gaze shifted from Sam to the man by the trees and back again.

"Yeah," she finally admitted. "I do."

Sam's eyes widened. "You do?" he asked. "Who is he? What's he doing here?"

"He's just...this guy. A friend."

Sam tried to bite back his frustration. "Well, why doesn't he come over here?"

"I—I don't think that would be a good idea," she replied.

"Why not?" Sam pressed. "Who is he?"

She looked away, and Sam suddenly thought of all the times he had encountered the man outside their apartment and around campus. "Wait, Becky--has he been giving you trouble?" he demanded, grabbing her arm.

"What? No!" she replied. "What makes you think that?"

"He's been following us." She gave him a strange look and he hastened to explain. "No, really, I've been seeing him hanging around! Becky, is he stalking you?" he asked dangerously. "If he is—"

She quickly interrupted him. "No, Sam, he's not. Just...forget about him, okay?"

"But-"

"Hey, guys, what's going on?" Startled, Sam and Rebecca turned towards Zach who had stepped between them. He twisted the cap off of his beer and took a quick sip. "Is something wrong?" he went on, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes," Sam jumped in,desperate for support. "Some guy's been stalking Rebecca."

"What?" Zach exclaimed with alarm, and Rebecca shot an exasperated look at Sam. "Becky, who?" her brother demanded, instantly slipping into the protector mode Sam had counted on.

Rebecca smirked at her older brother, crossing her arms over her chest. "That guy over there," she said, indicating him with a dip of her head.

His eyes instantly darkening, Zach spun to look at him. But as soon as he caught sight of the young man, his eyebrows shot up and he let out a noisy breath. "Oh," he said, his head rolling back slightly. "Oh, boy..."

"What? What is it?" Sam demanded. "You know him too?"

"Kinda, yeah."

Sam shot him an exasperated look, but Zach just shrugged. "Well? Don't you think he's acting a little creepy?" The two Warrens refused to answer, so Sam went on desperately. "I'm telling you, he's been tracking us."

"No, Sam, it's not like that," Rebecca replied, her eyebrows twisted with emotion. "I think he's just been...looking out for us."

"You think?" Sam echoed, incredulously. He held up his hands. "Hey, all I'm saying is that we should talk to him. See what he's up to. He looks like he could be dangerous."

Zach looked away. "Sam, just forget about him," he ground out. "Okay?"

Sam shook his head in exasperation. "Why do you guys keep saying that? Look, I seriously think there's something going on here, and unless you know what that is, and tell me--"

He snapped his mouth shut when Rebecca turned to him, and he was stunned to see tears in her eyes. "Rebecca..." he whispered.

Rebecca pressed her lips together and her face hardened. "No, Sam, you're right. I can't stand this anymore."

"Becky...?" Zach asked.

"This isn't right," she said. Her brother shook his head but didn't say anything.

"What the hell is going on here?" Sam cut in. He had put up with their secrets for way too long, and he was exhausted.

Rebecca turned to him, but refused to look him in the eye. "I can't tell you."

Sam threw up his arms. With all of these maddening non-answers,he wondered if he would have another meltdown. "I'm going over there," he warned.

"It's too late," Rebecca said with a shake of her head, not moving her gaze from his chest. "He's gone by now." The corner of her jaw twitched.

Sam spun around. To his surprise, he saw she was right. He looked around the entire park, doing a complete turn, but the stranger had disappeared.

"But Sam, next time you see him," she added, her voice taking on a steel edge. "Confront him."

Sam stared at her for a long moment, stunned by the sudden change but still frustrated by her vague statements. "With what?" he exclaimed, jutting his head forward. "Who is he?"

Rebecca turned her gaze out towards the trees again, even though the man was no longer there. She set her jaw and then answered. "He's the guy who helped save my life."

ooOOoo

Since that day, wherever Sam went, he looked for the strange man. He'd sweep his eyes along both sides of the street, he'd constantly check the lanes at the supermarket, he'd even stare out his bedroom window. But the man never appeared again.

Rebecca and Zach refused to give him the stranger's name. "He goes by so many," Rebecca said in explanation. It was a rather poor one, Sam thought irritably. He figured they held back because they didn't want him to track the man down. Maybe they wanted him to wait until he saw him again, figuring a public confrontation would be better, or at least safer. Either that, or Rebecca was already backtracking, regretting that she ever told Sam to confront him.

Their reluctance made sense though. The risk of Sam finding out about his brother would be too great if he were to ever speak with this guy, and they didn't know how Sam would react if he came face-to-face with his brother's killer.

The killer of his estranged, homicidal brother who he didn't even remember. Sam didn't know how he would react either.

Especially when said man had followed the Warrens all the way from St. Louis and now seemed to be spying on them. It disturbed him, and made him angry. Just because Rebecca owed her life to him didn't mean she should let him get away with stalking her. Sam tried to tell her that once, but she refused to admit he was doing anything wrong. He didn't believe her, especially since she had already told him to confront him. This isn't right, she had admitted.

Sam thought about telling them he knew about his brother, but he kept putting it off. Maybe someday he would come up with an adequate apology, one that would make up for all the horrors his brother put them through. But until he did, he wouldn't--couldn't--bring up the subject.

The atmosphere in the apartment was tense, although no one would admit it. Sam couldn't have a conversation with either of the Warrens without wanting to press them for more answers, answers they refused to give. Even once he gave up asking, it was all he could think about. And he could tell both Zach and Rebecca were avoiding conversations with him, afraid of where it would inevitably lead to.

He hated it. He wanted things to be normal again.

He finally decided to say yes to his acceptance into law school. Without the Warrens as an anchor, the loss of classes had thrown him off balance and left him drifting. Graduate school would at least fix that, give him something to hold on to, something else to focus on. If nothing else, it would give him four years to find a way to fix himself before he had to enter the real world. Maybe he would even find that piece that was missing.

But law school was still an entire summer away.

Neither did he have the library, which no longer held the appeal it used to. Without school, there was nothing there for him.

Sam did visit once, briefly. He sat at his regular computer, pulled up the newspaper archives, and searched the St. Louis newspaper for the days and weeks following the death of Zach's girlfriend. He even searched websites devoted to true crime, filled with information not published in the papers. But there was very little mention of the man who killed Dean Winchester. In fact, no one seemed to be aware of his name, or of the chain of events that led to the wanted man's death.

But Sam did find a picture of his brother's gravestone. It was a cheap, government issued one, and he only stumbled across it because one of the web sites had a morbid fascination with such things.

After that, Sam found no reason to set foot inside the library again.

The daze that had followed him ever since the summer before came into sharp focus, becoming a thick gray blanket that obscured his mind, and the only thing that could penetrate were thoughts of the man with the piercing gaze. The only man who could give him answers. A man so dangerous he's killed before.

Sam wondered when his life had turned into a movie. "My name is Samuel Winchester. You killed my brother. Prepare to die."

That was how surreal his life had become. Sam snorted derisively. He was supposed to be a mild-mannered law student, not some hunter or fighter searching for revenge. Besides, he didn't feel any anger towards the stranger. He didn't feel anything at all, really.

He just wanted some answers.

Hell, he should be grateful towards the bounty hunter who kept a psychopath from killing again andsaved the lives of Sam's closest two friends (and wasn't that a sentence he never thought he would say?). He just wished he knew what was going on.

But as hard and as often as he looked, the man never showed up.

Maybe they scared him off. Sam knew that had to be for the better. He didn't know the man's motives, and he couldn't imagine his presence causing anything but trouble. It was just creepy.

But deep inside his chest, he couldn't shake the feeling of disappointment and - though he shied away from thinking about it; he didn't like considering this guy as his last connection to his brother – a sense of heavy sadness.

Just forget him, just forget him, just forget him.

The more he started agreeing with the Warrens' advice, the harder it became to forget him. Or maybe it was the opposite: the more he thought about him, themore he realized it would be better if he could forget him.

But Sam figured he had already forgotten too much of his life already.

Two weeks after graduation, Sam was jerked awake at three in the morning. The light fixture on his ceiling had exploded, showering a hundred shards of glass onto Sam's bed.

Next one's coming soon. Would love to hear for you!