Disclaimer: This is just playtime…hobby…uh…recreation. Other people choose to knit, and most of them don't make money from that either ;).

Rating: K+

Spoilers: Yes, though not for the current season.

Story and characterizations are set in Season Two. It's somewhat speculative, and as such could be considered subtly AU, but not yet in any way that couldn't fit into what the series has shown us so far. It assumes you are familiar with the show and characters. This was written before we knew what we knew about Mary. At first, I thought that kripke'd it, but, now I kind of like the implications.

No, I haven't abandoned Spiral. This story was actually written before that story. A few weeks back, I began digging things out of my computer (including the final chapters of Spiral). I rediscovered this, sent it to a friend for a read-over, and realized it was just about finished.

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All Our Mothers (or Devil in the House of the Rising Son)

©2008kso

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"No, no, he was bigger than that!" Epper jigged a fast circle, arms held wide, up and out, like he was about to hug a fat man. "Bigger than the door," he insisted, tongue waggling through the toothless gap at the front of his mouth. His hands melded together above his head. Laying index fingers flat against each other, he gun-pointed at Sam. "Bigger than him even."

Dean's lips twitched. He laced his own fingers, leaning elbows on knees, grasped hands hanging down. "Wow," he said seriously. He kept his eyes on the boy, Sam in his peripheral. "That must have been really scary."

Sam's foot slid over the shag, pressing down hard on Dean's toe.

Dean smiled over his grimace.

Epper's mother smiled also. A fine-boned, weary hand settled gently on her son's head. "Sweetie, let your brother speak."

Epper harrowed up a put-upon sigh. "Tell them, Caleb."

The other boy moved minutely, a precise shift from one foot to the other, large green eyes wary and evaluating. He had freckles on his nose and a self-denied lonely air about him. It made Dean's collar feel too tight. "He was big," the boy confirmed, voice low, but clear and resonant. Shadowed eyes flashed furtively at Sam then back to Dean. "And tall. He was tall."

Dean's eyes tipped towards his brother, showing his amusement.

Sam pointedly didn't notice.

Caleb faltered forward another inch. "He had curly hair…and wide shoulders."

"Reeaaally wide," interjected Epper, another grand gesture spinning out his hands. "And glowy. Wide and glowy!"

Janine reached forward, arms smoothly circling her younger son's body, pulling him quietly into her chest. "Sorry." She handed Dean a tired look. "He's always had an active imagination. Top it off, his class has been getting ready for the first grade Halloween skit and he's heard one too many stories about ghosts." She patted Epper's short buzzed hair, palm running over it, smoothing him against her. "Go on, Caleb. Tell the officers what you saw."

Caleb examined his toes. "He was kind of glowing," he whispered. It rang without effort, filling the hollow room.

Janine looked stricken. "Caleb, honey."

Sam lifted a hand. "It's alright," he said. "Active imagination or not, we just need it in his own words. Anything he says could give us a clue to your intruder's identity, or help us know how he's getting inside."

The woman nodded and swallowed, a brittle slide of her throat. She stretched an apologetic hand to Caleb's shoulder, but spoke distinctly to Sam. Her eyes were watery. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm just so glad someone's finally taking this seriously. The other officers treated us…me ... they treated me like I was some sort of strung-out…" Her lips thinned together, smile tight and gracious.

Lightning flashed quiet in Caleb's eyes.

Dean felt his stomach harden. He felt the subtle, involuntary pull of back muscles on his spine, heat in his shoulders. He could imagine how they might have treated her. Sympathetic the first time, annoyed the second. Degrading the third.

His knuckles ached.

Janine shook her head. She cleared the emotion from her throat. "And after that write up in the newspaper…no one would even come out. They'd hang up on me or even…swear at me over the phone." Her fingers worried over Caleb's shoulder. "So, the last thing I want you to think is that this is some sort of…prank, or that we're wasting your time."

Sam's knee bumped softly into Dean's.

Dean blinked and remembered to breathe in. He glanced at Sam's face. There were two lines between his eyebrows, a questioning pinch in his eyes and mouth.

Dean looked away, back to Janine, to the gouges in the off-white wall behind her, the clash of the wall against the murky yellow in her plaid couch. He eased his clenched hands, popped his thumb knuckles and forced a breath out, consciously loosening his shoulders.

The itch of Sam's gaze lingered on his face, but when Sam spoke, it was to the mother. "We understand," he said, soft voice and expression leaning towards her.

Worry lines unzipped on her forehead. "This whole thing has just been so…" She stopped, abrupt, like her voice had been filed off, scattered shavings of it loose on the carpet about their feet. She ran two fingers under her eye. "Sheriff Williams said he'd take me in if I called again, and…my kids. I can't risk… I've tried to do everything. I put extra locks on the windows and doors, and he still got in. Lately, I've even thought of moving, but, my job, I don't…I wouldn't know where to go."

"It's okay," Sam reiterated, bending forward, hands folding between his knees mirroring the clench of Dean's fingers.

"I'm actually surprised he assigned you two the case."

"We're state investigators, ma'am," Sam explained. "We don't answer to Sheriff Williams. Your case was reassigned to us because it'd been unsolved. We're here to help you. We believe you, and we're going to get to the bottom of this. Okay?" Sam's eyes were earnest. Dean could tell without looking. The earnest eyes were laid out starkly in the sound of his voice.

Janine smiled, weak and watery. She nodded again.

Dean focused back on the eight-year-old. "Caleb," he said. "When the man came in, did he say anything to you?"

Caleb's eyes checked his mother, then traveled out from under his lashes and the tucked down angle of his chin, straightening on Dean. "He didn't say anything," he said, clear, low, and distinct. Soft as it was, he had a commanding voice, one that would never be ignored if he ever dared to use it, but it was his eyes that kept Dean's attention. His eyes said something different than his voice. His eyes shouted around the lie. And they shouted for Dean to see it.

"Okay," allowed Dean, easy and solemn. He unclenched his fingers and stretched a hand out, waiting.

Caleb held his gaze. After a moment, he flexed his fingers and reached back, cool-dry palm setting solidly in Dean's.

They shook firmly.

"Okay."

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"So, what was that about?" Sam asked, stepping off the curb into the empty street, watching Dean dig keys from his pocket.

"What was what about?"

"That handshake with Caleb."

Dean shrugged. He scuffed a piece of gravel across the road. The line of his shoulders stayed casual.

Sam waited.

"Nothing, really," Dean answered. "He's just…I think he's feeling us out. He has something more he wants to tell us but he's not sure if he should. And he doesn't want his mom around when he does."

Sam peered back at the house. Caleb was standing in the window, face stolid. He dropped the curtain when Sam caught his eye.

"Man, poor Epper," muttered Dean, stopping near the driver's door. "Can you imagine going through life with a name like that?"

"Janine said it was a family name, short for Epperson."

"I heard what she said. Family name or not, I'll bet you fifty bucks I know exactly what the kids are calling him at school."

"I don't know," mused Sam, rounding the front fender. "He seems pretty outgoing—probably makes friends easy enough. Caleb though…"

Dean didn't say anything, but his eyes tightened as he reached for the handle on his door. Sam closed his mouth and swallowed back the will to push. "So, what do you think?" he asked casually. "Stake out the house tonight?"

Dean scrubbed at his hair, leaving his elbow on the Impala's roof and his hand on his forehead, like maybe he had a headache. "Yeah." He screwed his lips briefly to the side then opened his mouth. "I think we should ask Janine if we can hook an EMF in the boys' room then see if she'll let us monitor it from inside the house."

"From the kitchen," Sam said, stepping back to swing his door open. "They've also seen him in the kitchen."

"Should be easy enough," Dean mused. "We'll just tell her it's a special, high-tech, police alarm system."

"Right," Sam snorted. "A high-tech alarm system made of old walkman parts. Very twenty-first century."

Dean frowned. His hand dropped to his heart. "That hurts, Sammy. That really really hurts."

Sam laughed through his nose, and shook his head. He gestured toward the road. "Fine. Let's go, check the research, see if the kids' description can help us figure out who's haunting them."

"Forget who," Dean sniped, closing his door in unison with Sam's. "I just want to figure out what this fugly's pattern is, because so far? Random."

Sam nodded. He hooked his elbow on the back of the seat, staring again toward the house. Caleb was back in the window. And Epper. Caleb and Epper. Sam and Dean. Their names didn't flow the same, but who knew what sounded like it fit together until you'd sent it through your head enough times. The two brothers didn't drop the curtain this time, and when Sam lifted his hand, Epper waved enthusiastically.

The rumble of the engine rolled up Sam's spine, growling smoothly as Dean pulled away from the curb. Janine appeared briefly, a gentle shadow behind her boys, drawing them away from the window.

"Do you ever think about it?" Sam mumbled absently, left peering at a droopy curtain, a forlorn porch, a distancing blue house with chipped paint. One of dozens the Winchesters could have lived in.

"About what?"

"What Mom would have done with us if…" Sam started to trail off, some part of his brain realizing the morbidity of the tumbling question. But it was there, half out, half in, teetering in a handstand on his lower lip. He shrugged, already apologetic. "…if it had been Dad instead of Mom?"

The lightness left Dean's face, muscles in his shoulders repositioning, like they had in the house when Janine had talked about the sheriff and being sworn at. "No," he said dully.

Sam watched him. The purposely smooth plane of his brow. His flat mouth. The deliberate ignorance of Sam's scrutiny.

A tiny, familiar ache walked into Sam's chest, sat between his lungs and got comfortable. Damn it. "Dean, I didn't mean that how it sounded." And who knew how it sounded to Dean? Demons and deals and secrets and who knew how it sounded to Dean? "We were lucky to have Dad. I'm…glad we did. I know he did the best he could. Okay? Just, sometimes, I wonder…"

"Wonder what?" Dean was staring straight ahead, same dull, monotone voice. Easy, unaffected, but Sam heard the underlying back off and don't touch this cementing it together. Cementing him away.

He took his arm off the back of the seat, dropped his hand in his lap and faced forward. "Forget it," he said.

It was a stupid question to ask, anyway.

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tbc