Only a Year

More Than I Care to Admit

"Let's see how you like being shot in the chest, mate." Klaus mocks before pulling the trigger. The world came to a standstill as I watched Dean crumple to the floor.

"Dean!"

Dean's body hit the ground with a sickening thud; everything was going in slow motion. I ran and fell to my knees beside him, lifting his head to place on my lap. I lowered my head to his chest to listen for a heartbeat. He's still alive.

"Stefan! Damon! Now!" I scream out at the top of my lungs.

"Oh the Salvatore brothers are here. I'm quaking in my very expensive boots." Klaus mocked.

As his sentence came to an end, a crossbow bolt pierced through the air and into his chest. Klaus cursed out in rage and pain - flipping around to see who had shot him.

Jeremy stood in the middle of Stefan and Damon, crossbow in hand still poised to fire. "Dick."

"Are you all that determined to be slaughtered?" Klaus growled before he ripped the bolt from his chest and took a large step toward them, "Because that is where you are headed."

Damon brings into view the hand that was hidden behind his back, wielding the White Oak Stake. Klaus' eyes grew wide, "You wouldn't dare!"

"Oh, but we would." Damon chuckles, twirling the stake in his hand.

Jeremy fires another bolt at Klaus but he catches it, breaking it in two. Stefan pulls out a gun and pops off a few rounds into Klaus' chest taking a few steps toward him. I see Dean's gun in front of me and grab it. Taking what Dean had taught me, I fire a few rounds as well. Klaus drops to his knees trying desperately to shake it off.

With both Stefan and I firing shots, Damon takes this opportunity to lunge at Klaus, driving the White Oak Stake right into his heart. We all freeze, Damon stumbles backward leaving the stake in the hybrid's chest.

Klaus looked down, his facial expression clouded with fear - his skin begins to grey, veins growing up his face, and before we can blink he bursts into flames. Stefan and Damon jump back from the flames, Klaus' screams of agony ring in our ears before he falls to the floor – dead.

We're silent; the only sound invading our senses is the fire dying out. I hear a moan coming from Sam's direction; I look down at Dean and speak with my eyes still locked on him, "He's not going to last much longer, he needs help."

The room is quiet; the sound of the flames dancing across the fire wood is the only thing keeping me focused. I rip my gaze away from the fire and focus on Dean who is on a make shift hospital style bed in the living room of the Salvatore boarding house. I never noticed until now how much time I have spent over the last few weeks studying his face. His features soft, angelic, highlighted by the light of the fire, the tiny scar on his cheek, the darkness of the circles under his eyes and the wrinkles that were starting to form on the sides of them. All of those things, although not considered beautiful in the eyes of many, made him all the more so.

-------------------

We all gathered around my kitchen table laying out the plan to kill Klaus; Damon had retrieved the White Oak Stake from the boarding house.

"Sam and I will distract him and get him focused on us so Stefan, Damon, and Jeremy can take him out." Dean stated to the group.

"Dean - he is the Original Hybrid, you and Sam are human. He could take you out in a millisecond." I protest to no obvious avail.

"We can give you vervain laced wooden bullets. They won't kill him but it will sure as hell slow him down." Stefan says handing Sam a plastic bag filled with bullets.