Chapter title is from song by Green Day.

46

Wake Me Up When September Ends – Green Day

Sam kept an eye on Toby ahead of him, watching as the boy came to a stop where the grassy bank of the creek gave way to rocks and boulders, making the footing ahead treacherous. Toby's shoulders heaved silently.

Sam approached slowly.

"Hey."

Keeping his back to him, Toby stared resolutely up at the sky.

He walked up next to where Toby was standing, and looked down at the rocks. He squatted down and picked up a coin shaped pebble. In the distance he could see Dean and Zee digging a shallow grave to bury what was left of the shapeshifter. On the job, because the job seemed to be following them around.

Toby sniffed once.

"What was that?"

The kid's voice was deceptively even, considering the hiccup at the end.

Sam glanced downstream again.

"Shapeshifter." He looked at Toby's set face. "They can change their face to look like anyone. Silver burns them, and you can kill them with a silver bullet to the heart. Or," he tilted his head back towards where they had been, "A silver dagger works too."

Toby turned and pinned him with a curious look.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Sam glanced down at his hands, and turned the pebble over between his fingers.

"So you'll know, in case you run into one someday." With a flick of his wrist, he launched the pebble into the creek, where it landed with a splash.

Toby sniffed again. Following his motions, the kid picked up a small stone and skipped it into the water. For a moment there was just the swishing of water cascading over the rocks and the breeze ruffling the knee high grass on the other bank.

"She thinks she's not coming back."

Sam paused.

"Why would you think that?"

The look Toby skewed his way was astoundingly clear.

"Because otherwise she'd have said she'd come teach me, when I'm older." The boy paused. "She won't make a promise she can't keep."

Sam's breath jammed, raw in his throat.

He'd heard their whole conversation, and somehow not heard anything at all.

And the damning thing was, the kid had the right of it.

"Dad always said that. Don't make promises you can't keep." Toby bit down hard on another hiccup, one hand going compulsively over the dog tags that rested over his heart. One finger tapped on the oval shape of the amulet next to the dog tags. "He gave me this. He said it'd keep me safe." Blue eyes met his, intense and fierce. "He should have taken it. I don't want to be safe. I want him to come back."

Toby's hand tightened over the tags and the amulet, bunching up his shirt.

"I want her to stay."

Sunlight sparkled on the icy water tripping over the stones in the creek. Sam kept his eyes on the tumble of the water, his throat locked up, because if there were words, he didn't know what they were. It was an impossible situation. The things they were involved in—the angels and Judgment Day—there was just no place for a kid in all of that. He sat down slowly on one of the larger rocks, because the ground beneath his feet felt suddenly wobbly.

He'd done this.

A family.

He'd wanted Dean to have a family. To replace the one he'd lost, to somehow tether his brother's soul to the world, to keep it out of the darkness.

And it was working, wasn't it? These last few days—

The half rasp of breath he took was bitter. He hadn't thought this through, all the potential pitfalls, blithely overridden Dean's instinctive caution that having people around them was a bad, bad idea, hadn't listened, but they could still turn it around. They just needed to do what they were going to do anyway, put a period to Ramiel and Ramiel's plans, and Zee would be free of the target on her back.

They'd faced off worse odds and pulled through. They would try. It all had to work. It had to. It was working—Zee's dagger throw and Dean's not going all black-eyed—

He cleared his throat.

"We'll watch her back. She's important to us too."

Blue eyes the color of the sky searched his face, stripped it bare. Sam kept still and met Toby's gaze head on, his heart in every word he'd said.

Toby's lips twitched fractionally and then he hiccupped, back to being a kid again. But Toby's stare had all of Zee's precision to it when Toby leveled it in his direction with one word.

"Alright."