A/N: 5x22. This is my Swan Song piece. Wrote this during our breaks during drivers ed. There are notes in between paragraphs and in the margains. Anyway, I blame the not-goodness of this piece on the fact that this was written while I was thinking about cars, sitting on an air-conditioning vent.

Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

Very Much Not

I don't know Dean Winchester well. I spent a weekend with him about ten, twelve years ago, he dropped by over three years ago, and told me he'd be proud to be Ben's father, and then he dropped off the map for almost two years.

I called once, during that time, and I got Sam instead of Dean. Sam told me Dean wasn't available, and I shouldn't expect to hear from him ever again.

Then, he showed up on our doorstep, not even a month ago and outright told me he was going to die.

And now, he's here. Very much not dead, in his car, without Sam.

Without Sam.

I've met Sam twice, and, not counting the time during the summer of 2008, I've had one conversation with him, asking me where Dean went and what did he say, but if there was one thing I knew about Dean Winchester by the end of that first weekend, it was his the-size-of-a-moose-little-brother, back when Sam wasn't the size of a moose, was the most important thing in his entire life.

Here he is, on my front step, very much not dead, but very much without Sam. Sam hasn't been with him any of the times he's knocked on my door, but this time is different. It's like Sam doesn't even exist in his world anymore. Dean is very much without his ironically called little brother.

I didn't see it when I opened the door, because Dean was alive, or very much not dead, and that was the last thing I was expecting. To see Dean again at all, dead or not dead.

He smiled at me, which was more than last time, but not like the other two times I'd seen Dean before that. Not the blindingly cocky smile that made Dean perfect. This smile was not Dean. It was tired and shaky, and whiled Dean was very much not Dean, he was obviously very much not alive. Not without Sam.

Dean cleared his throat, and tried that smile again, and it looked like he was using all of his energy to stand there and smile a smile that looked like it was causing him pain. "Hey, Lisa," he said, and that was a new side of Dean too. The choked, subdued sound of his new deep and scratchy voice. Last time, he was hopeless, this time, he's all but dead. "If it's not too late," he said, and the way he said it betrayed that it was too late, no matter what I said, "I'd like to take you up on that beer." The words were right, the tone was not. I could hear the pleading in his voice, both begging that it is and it isn't too late. That I've moved on, but let him in please. Just for tonight.

"Yeah, of course," I said. "Come in." But I didn't back up, and next thing I know, Dean Winchester, best-night-of-my-life-Dean, was in my arms, and he laid his head on my shoulder.

He didn't make a sound and the door was still open behind him. He didn't cry, but he was shaking like if he wasn't so empty, he would be. It was frightening how quiet and still this rather large and generally loud man had become.

I didn't ask. I didn't have to. I didn't know what Dean had been through those past few years, but it seemed like he had finally broken, that this was the worst. This was the end for him.

I didn't mention Sam that night, or the next night, or ever. I never asked about Sam, or what happened that night, but I never had to.

Dean never mentioned Sam to me or Ben. Dean never told us where Sam was or what happened that drove him to us. Dean was able to.

In all the time Dean was with us, no one mentioned Sam once, because we knew. Dean didn't have to tell me.

Sam was gone, and what happened to him was worse than dying.

So I held a not-crying Dean Winchester in my doorway, and I couldn't even feel anything but grateful that he was alive.

Or, at the very least, not dead.

A/N: So...I could continue with the Swan Song pieces of someone wants...? Let me know.