Chapter title is from song by Down Like Silver.

82

To the River – Down Like Silver

From the porch of the weathered yellow Victorian, Xavier watched them with hooded eyes as they pulled up the long gravel drive. Just the Impala. No Durango behind them.

Sam looked at him worriedly as Sam pulled the car to a stop and put on the parking brake. "Dean, are you sure about this?"

Dean nodded stiffly. His hand was frozen on his knee, curled around the amulet protectively like he would never let go. He couldn't do this. He wanted Sam to pile on the gas, hightail it out of there in a plume of dust, run to the ends of the earth rather than do what came next.

His hand clenched tighter. He couldn't. He just couldn't.

Somehow he found himself standing on the porch, staring at the screen door. A hand shot out and blocked his way. He looked into cold gray eyes that flicked up and down over him before locking on the bit of leather trailing from his fist. Xavier's expression didn't shift, didn't flicker, like he had been expecting this.

And that was the most damning thing of all.

He heard Sam come up the porch steps behind him, the wood creaking slightly under Sam's weight.

"Xavier." Sam said quietly, a soft sigh in the word.

Xavier's gaze moved to Sam impassively. He held still for a second before nodding.

"Sam."

He looked back at Dean, his face still expressionless. Dean's left hand clenched. He shouldn't have come. He was not up to this. Emotions ran too close to the surface, raw on his face. There hadn't been enough time for things to scab over, make a tough outer layer he could show to the world.

Xavier's hand fell away from the door. The older man's voice was dead even as he took one step back, allowing Dean access to the front door.

"Go on. He's waiting for you."

The interior of the house was the riot of color that he remembered. He stepped on the rug just inside the door, trying to keep the memories that pummeled him at bay. He moved into the living room only when Sam bumped up against him from behind, forced to make way for him in the crowded entryway.

Kim stood at the far opposite doorway, one hand on Toby's shoulder. Toby's face lit up when he saw him, and Sam behind him, and looked expectantly behind Sam again, his welcoming smile aborted as the mood in the room drifted to him. Quick as a flash, Toby gave him the once over, taking in the hard set of his jaw, then fixed on what was hanging from his right fist.

The kid stepped back and bumped into Kim. Toby's lower lip quivered before the kid inhaled sharply. In a gesture as familiar as breath, Dean watched as emotion peeled off Toby's face until nothing was left. Toby straightened away from Kim, all three and a half feet of him, and walked towards the center of the room, still with that expressionless calm. Dean's feet moved him forward to the halfway point, looking down at the halo of blond hair, and Toby's rigid shoulders.

He knelt down on one knee, so he could bring himself level.

"Did you kill her?" Toby asked him directly, his baby blue eyes and their blond lashes pinning him as surely as if he'd taken out knives and tacked him to the wall. He felt Sam behind him flinch at the blunt question. Kim started forward and stopped, caught, because she both needed to know and didn't want to know his answer. He looked at the kid, looked at his own calloused hand, holding the amulet out halfway between them, palm up. Offering or pleading, he was not sure. His eyes flicked up to meet the accusatory blue ones again.

"Yeah. I suppose so." He'd said it out loud. His voice sounded raspy to his own ears. He tuned out Sam and Kim and all the explanations and excuses that were going to start flying out of their mouths in a minute, and just looked at Toby, waiting.

The kid's mouth quirked in a humorless expression that was far too old for his years.

"She said you would say that." Toby held his gaze mercilessly. "She said I was not to kill you. Not even later, when I can."

Toby reached out and took the amulet from him, small hands looking tiny against his own. Dean felt his fingers want to close around it, to resist, to snag the bit of metal back, but he willed himself to let go.

Toby looped the cord around his neck, letting the small metal bit dangle halfway down his torso.

"I'll keep this safe."

Dean swallowed down hard on the knot in his throat.

He reached out, then pulled his hand back to himself. What could he say? At his half aborted gesture, Toby bit down on his lower lip to keep it still. Blue eyes held his sternly for another second, before Toby spun away. The kid stopped, the slope of his shoulders quivering, before Toby drew a deep breath and turned around again.

"Thank you for bringing this back to me."

Toby's hand darted out and touched his cheek, brushing away the tear that he did not know had formed and started to fall. In the next second Toby bolted towards the stairwell, past Kim's outstretched arms, past Xavier and up the stairs like hellhounds were chasing him. Kim's look said she was going to follow, when he croaked out the words that were too rough in his throat.

"No. Just let him go."

He half expected Xavier to stop him at any moment. His boots kicked up dust as he strode across the yard, not listening to the murmur of Sam's voice behind him, saying all the things that needed to be said to Kim.

"Dean Winchester! You stop right there."

He stopped. Whatever she needed to heap on his head, he deserved it. Instead, there was a piece of paper being pressed into his hand. He looked up from the dirt he had been staring at in surprise.

"Our number." Kim closed his motionless fingers gently around the folded slip, as if he might startle and flee. But underneath the sunny bubble there was steel, when she wrapped his hand up in both of hers. "Call. Give Xavier a month or two to cool off, but you call. You talk to him at least once a month. And you come check on him, end of summer."

His mouth gaped open, glancing involuntarily back up at the porch where Xavier had been, because a month or two didn't seem long enough. Ten or twenty years were probably not long enough.

"He'll need you now. I'll deal with Xavier." Kim said, without even batting an eye. "So you'll call. Do you understand me?"

He nodded, mutely, because he was afraid to say no.

"Okay then." She cupped his wet face gently with her hands. "Okay."