Disclaimer: I have a prodigious collection of stuff...none of which includes Supernatural.

AN: Hokay! So, I, like many authors, have a great many snippets and oddspots of stories that I just had to get down, but then never had the time or the inspiration to finish. So, because I'm attempting to commit to my novel and Starry Skye right now, I thought I'd throw these into the already polluted depth of the internet for our mutual amusement. I may pick up some of them later, but for now, well...you guys know what I'm like.

This one's pre-series; Sam is just reaching the end of his first semester at Stanford, cramming for exams...and about to get a phonecall. I really like this one...

In Which It All Goes Horribly Right

The time difference between Cali and Minnesota is about two hours.

Therefore, while it's a reasonable hour Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, The Sunshine State has yet to see the sun, which means that Sam is still in bed sleeping off an all-nighter and is as yet incapable of forming linear thoughts that don't end in '…various strategies of indirectness by which this can be achieved.'

What the various strategies of indirectness can achieve isn't clear, but what is clear is that the phone is ringing.

Sam reaches out one hand and knocks it off the hook.

The ringing persists.

Not the landline then.

He lifts his face from the pillow, scratches absently at his cheek where the crushed linen has left a print and digs for his cell under the junk littering his bedside table.

Eureka.

He hits 'call' without looking at the number and says, "Wuh."

There's a short pause, and then a woman's voice says cautiously, "Uh, hello?"

"'lo?" Sam says back.

"Um. I think I may have the wrong number…is John there? John Winchester?"

What in the hell…?

He levers himself upright, frowning. "No," he says. "No, John doesn't live here. I'm Sam Winchester; maybe you got the wrong number out of the directory…?"

"No," she says, gently determined. "I don't think so. He gave me his number himself. Are you…are you family of his? Could you pass on a message?"

Sam's jaw clenches. It's been months, but the argument still plays over his eyes and ears in full Dolby surround sound and evil, evil Technicolor.

"You walk out that door, Sam, don't even think of ever coming back through it again!"

"I'm his son," Sam says tightly, because it's not something he'll ever be able to deny, "but I'm sorry, I can't pass on a message. He's away and…and we don't really talk."

"You don't talk often or…" the woman prompts hesitantly.

"Or at all," Sam finishes.

"…oh." There's a pause. "You're his son, you said?"

"Yeah, his youngest."

"Uh-huh," she says, and Sam immediately thinks, 'this woman knows something I don't.'

"Sorry, uh, I didn't catch your name," he says.

"Kate," she answers, "Kate Milligan. I, uh, I met your dad back in nineteen-ninety when he was working here for a while. He and one of the local deputies came into the ER all torn up when I was working the graveyard shift."

"Sounds familiar," Sam mutters almost without meaning to.

"Yeah…" says Kate, and he can hear the faintly sardonic smile in her voice, "kinda got the impression he was a regular. Anyway, I stitched him back up and we started talking, you know, as you do."

Sam does, after all he's seen his fair share of Emergency Rooms, but doesn't interrupt.

"And. Um. Wow, this is awkward."

Sam's burning up with curiosity now and so tries to put her at her ease. Ever the people person.

"If it makes you feel any better, I walking in on my roommate making out with a guy yesterday."

Kate lets out a surprised cough. "You didn't know he was…?"

"No. It was kind of alarming actually. I mean, I have Ethics on Thursdays with his girlfriend."

"Oh, good God." She giggles a bit and Sam smiles. "Oh, dear. Hmmm. Thank you, that does make me feel better actually. I've no idea why." She lets out a sigh. "How can I put this…?"

"You could try blurting?"

"Ah, okay. Well, you said you were John's youngest?"

"Yeah."

"Not any more…"

"I'm sorry?"

Kate takes a deep breath. "Six weeks after John Winchester left Windom, Minnesota in January of nineteen-ninety I discovered that the reason I'd been sick and started craving maple-walnut and jalapeno ice cream was not because of a stomach bug."

Sam's brain leaps into action and makes a few lightning quick connections.

Then it stalls at the obvious conclusion and goes, 'Holy Fuck.'

"Holy fuck," says Sam.

"That's what I said," Kate says dryly. "I really wish I didn't have to tell you this over the phone, but…Adam's twelve now and he's been asking questions about his father… This is the only number for John that I could find that works. Only it apparently doesn't."

"He…Dad can barely work a toaster," Sam tells her, in a kind of cotton-woolly shock. "He probably mucked up a call divert or something. You said…his name's Adam?"

"After my dad, yeah." He can hear how her voice goes soft and a kind of thoughtful warmth seeps in. "They look very alike…but now that Adam's getting older, every so often I'll look at him and see these little glimpses of John." She sighs again. "John, who never said anything about having a family."

"He wouldn't have," Sam says, unable to keep the bitterness from leaking out of him.

Kate's quiet, and Sam's suddenly afraid he's said something to upset her. Then she says something that pretty much blows him out of the water.

"Sam, where are you right now?"

"Uh, college. Stanford, in Palo Alto. So, pretty much the other side of the country."

"Uh-huh," says Kate thoughtfully. "Are you busy this weekend?"

AN: This was going to be a Sam-centric, finding-that-missing-sense-of-family fic (a breed which I so dearly love), but I just got swamped with other stuff and had to let it sit...sigh.