A/N: Hello all! I had this story up previously, but I didn't like what I'd written. So this is a fresh start. I'll be re-writing and re-uploading everything I've written so far over the next week. And to those of you who are new: welcome! I hope you enjoy the story and characters, and I love getting reviews! As usual, I don't own anything you recognize, and as usual, if you want to change that by delivering Dean and Sam to be with nice big red ribbons on them, I'd be more than pleased to take them. Enjoy! -M
Prologue~ The Land Of Make Believe
(November 30, 1985)
It was the middle of the night, but something had brought Maggie Gallagher out of her comfortable slumber. She furrowed her brows as she rolled over in bed, but then she heard a floorboard creak somewhere near the front of the house. Though her body was tired and half asleep, it had been trained from the time she could stand to be a weapon. She slid from her bed in silence, moved over the floor of her room, and reached the open door.
Maggie carefully slid around the corner and crept around to the opening of the kitchen. Sure enough, a shadow moved within. As she crept through the hall, she took stock of everything she could use in her kitchen against an attacker. She ducked behind the counter and slid into the kitchen, grabbing the rifle off of the wall and raising it all in one smooth motion.
"Evening Maggie," the shadow in her kitchen said calmly.
Maggie lowered the gun and flipped on the light in the kitchen, looking at the man at her kitchen table with wide eyes and furrowed brows.
"John?" she asked in disbelief. His face was a mask of bruises, his shoulder was in a sling, and he was stitching his own side closed.
"Sorry to barge in," he said casually. Sadly, it was not a strange occurrence for Maggie to find John Winchester at her kitchen table at all hours of the night, nursing wounds. It was only surprising this time around since it had been so long since his last visit.
Maggie crossed the room and sat across from John at the table, taking the needle from him and setting about stitching his wound closed. That had been what John was hoping would happen, as Maggie's stitches were always small, even, and held up nicely.
"What was the job?" she asked, seamlessly knitting flesh back together. Maggie knew most women her age weren't up this late to stitch family friends back together at their kitchen tables; most were up this late with lovers and girlfriends, dancing in clubs and drinking in bars. She'd never been a very social girl to begin with, intimidating most of the girls her age at school. She had grown up a hunter, raised by hunters, and always toted around meeting new hunters. And she'd be the first to tell you, hunters weren't what you would call the social norm.
"Shifter," John winced. "Nasty son of a bitch this one; threw me down a flight of stairs." Maggie shot John a withering glance as she snipped the end of the thread. She moved to the counter and grabbed a bottle of whiskey, which she then passed to John. He took a swig and swallowed a would-be curse while Maggie cleaned her work with rubbing alcohol before putting a bandage over the sutures.
"Where are the boys?"
"Jim's lookin' after them," John said, pulling his bloody shirt off. Maggie stood and pushed John back in his chair before starting to clean his bloodied face. "I checked in, don't get after me." Maggie huffed as she carefully cleaned his wounds, but said no more of John's often-abandoned sons.
"How long are you staying?" she asked, smoothing a butterfly bandage over his busted cheek.
"Thanks," John said. He knew there was an open door policy between the two of them, even though he hadn't used it in quite a while.
"Few days should—"
John was cut off mid-sentence when a cry rent the air, coming from a room towards the back of the house. Maggie tensed for a second, then moved away from John, padding quickly towards the noise.
"Maggie…what is that?" John asked as he followed on her heels, though he knew full well what was making that noise. He'd gotten up late with two babies, and though Dean was six now, Sam was only two and still woke in the middle of the night sometimes. A parent didn't soon forget the sound of a newborn's cry though.
"Took me a while to realize it, and by the time I peed on the stick, you'd dumped your phone again. I figured you'd swing through eventually though," Maggie sighed.
She pushed open the door to what used to be a small guest room. The room now contained a wooden crib and rocking chair that both looked like they'd seen better days. A cross hung on the wall along with a framed picture of Maggie in a hospital gown holding a fresh, new baby. Where fold-down blinds used to hang now hung a delicate yellow curtain and valence.
Maggie went to the crib and lifted the small, crying baby out. She cooed gently to the baby and gently moved it to her breast. John looked on in shock, not from the breastfeeding—Mary had nursed both the boys—but from the fact that he'd been gone long enough not to even have realized Maggie had been pregnant and had a baby. The infant couldn't have been more than a week old.
John's eyes went to Maggie's and she caught his gaze.
"February. The djinn. Bobby, Rufus, and me came through…" he trailed off, trying to remember what, if anything, had happened all those months ago. "Am I…I mean…Is this—"
"Are you thinking this is your daughter, John Winchester?" Maggie hissed.
"Well I can't remember!"
"Oh for Christ—she's not yours! So you can wipe that terrified look off of your face!" she hiss-whispered, shifting from one foot to the other, rocking the baby girl as she nursed.
John clenched his jaw for a minute, but then exhaled with a sigh. He extended his arms slowly and Maggie carefully handed him the baby. Her eyes were open and she looked sleepily up at John, curling her wrinkly, newborn fingers around his shirt as he held her closely.
"She'll need a better crib than that wreck," he said softly, looking down at the baby as though he was addressing her. Maggie hid her smile carefully. "And rocking chair. Mary had a big one, for feeding the boys at night, a comfy one you can sleep in. Gotta think about baby-proofing everything too. I've done that before though, it won't take too long." he was listing things off as they occurred to him, and that's when he realized he didn't even know the baby's name.
"What do you call her?" he asked, holding the tiny girl in one arm and letting her gum his pinky finger.
"Theresa," Maggie said. "For my mother. Theresa Jane."
"Theresa's an old lady's name," John said as he cradled her like a football as he had once held his own sons. "She's a Reese."
(May 20, 1994)
Reese opened her eyes to the rays of a bright, morning sun shining through her curtains to dance on her bedspread. She stretched her long limbs and slowly extracted herself from the tangled white blankets. She heard the sounds of a tin whistle filtering in through the hallway and knew her mother must be up making breakfast, so she swung her legs over the side of the bed and marched into the kitchen.
"Morning mama," Reese yawned, seating herself at the counter and taking a swig of the juice that had already been poured for her.
"How'd you sleep, mavourneen?"
"Fine mama." Reese's mother had been calling her mavourneen since she could remember. It was a simplified form of mo mhuirnín, the Irish phrase for 'my dear'.
Maggie Gallagher was a beautiful woman with long copper hair that spiraled down to her shoulders in thick coils, and eyes the color bluebells. She had been born in Ireland, but her father and brothers had moved her to the states after her mother died. Patrick Gallagher and his sons, Aiden and Declan, had quickly made a name for themselves in the states, and as soon as Maggie got her G.E.D, she started making one for herself as well.
"How are you this morning?" Reese asked tentatively, eyeing the back of her mother's head. Maggie had been confined to a wheelchair for the past two years, after a hunt went wrong and a bullet severed her spinal cord. Reese had almost lost her completely, but after a long month in the hospital, Maggie was back up and running—so to speak. The wheelchair had taken a lot of getting used to, by Reese and Maggie both, but now it was just one more thing in their lives.
"Fine, a ghrá," Maggie answered, rolling her chair around and placing a plate on the table. "Steak and eggs?"
Reese's head shot up and she looked from her mother's face to the plate of fried eggs and steak strips. Steak and eggs meant something special. Steak and eggs meant that they had a visitor. Reese looked over to the boots by the door and her face lit up with a giant grin.
"He's here?" she squealed, the mile-wide smile that stretched across her face threatening to make her freckles explode off.
"Woke me up at two this morning with that ungodly engine rattling—" Before her mother could finish explaining though, Reese had bolted off her stool and was running for the guest room. "Wake him up, serves him right, the bundún!" Maggie called after her daughter, who ignored the curse and peeled down the hallway at break-neck speed. She reached the guest room but instead of bursting inside, she stopped and slowly pushed the door open.
One hazel-green eye peeked inside and landed on a mass of disheveled, black hair poking out from under the comforter. The man in the bed was clearly too long for it; his socked-feet were sticking out from the bottom of the comforter. Reese slid into the room quietly and crept over to the side of the bed. She carefully slid to the bed, and was reaching over to tickle the man's ear when an arm reached out and grabbed her.
With a growl, the man pulled her into the bed and under the covers and began to tickle her mercilessly. Reese shrieked with laughter, flailing around as her ribcage and underarms were assailed with unforgiving tickles.
"I give up! I give up!" she managed to get out, gasping for breath as the man finally ceased his attack with a chuckle.
"I thought I taught you better, Sassafras," he said, ruffling her red curls as he threw the comforter off of their heads. Finally able to move, Reese launched herself at the man with black hair and hugged him as tight as she could.
"Whoa, calm down kiddo, I've got some bumps and bruises this time around." he winced, but hugged her back.
"I missed you!" Reese's voice was muffled, her face buried in John's chest, but he understood her. He sighed and ruffled her hair again, then kissed the top of her head.
"Sorry I stayed gone so long this time, kid. I had to check in on the boys and—"
"Did you wish Sam a happy birthday?" Reese interrupted John, who looked surprised at the question. His eyebrows knitted together, but then he smirked.
"I…yes, I did."
"Did you get him a present?" John sighed, nodding.
"Yes, Reese, I got him a present. I got him a very nice new knife."
"A knife? You got him a knife for his birthday?" Reese said, crossing her arms over her chest and raising a red brow in a near-perfect imitation of her mother. John realized it had been a long time since he saw her last, and she was becoming a girl in his absence. "Well, for my birthday, maybe you should just put your name on whatever mama gets me," she said seriously. John scoffed, picked her up off the bed, and swung her over his shoulder to carry her into the kitchen.
"You've been turning my tom-boy into a girl while I've been away, Maggie Gallagher!" John bellowed as he dumped Reese into a chair at the kitchen table. Maggie wheeled herself over to the table with a big plate of pancakes which she placed next to the steak strips and fried eggs. Reese giggled as she forked an egg and moved it to her plate.
"Your tom-boy is growing up whether you're here or not, John Winchester; and before you sit down at my table, you better put on a shirt. And if I find any blood on my sheets, I'll string you up with them." Maggie placed a cup of coffee by John's plate as he muttered something and walked back to his room to pull on a shirt.
"Happy?" he asked, pulling on a clean t-shirt as he sat down at his place at the table. Maggie 'humph'd and reached for both John and Reese's hands. John, as always, groaned. Maggie glared over at him and more forcefully reached for his hand.
"John Winchester, we say grace in this household. You know that. If you eat at my table, you follow my rules."
Reese reached for John's other hand and he sighed, unable to resist the smarmy look on her face. He placed his hand over her smaller one and gave Maggie his other hand.
"May the blessing of the five loaves and the two fishes which God shared out among the five thousand be ours. May the King who did the sharing bless our sharing and our co-sharing. Amen." Reese and Maggie spoke together, Reese peeking an eye open to watch as John sat silently. After the prayer was finished, both Maggie and Reese made the sign of the cross.
John quickly scooped a pile of eggs onto his plate, then topped it with a slab of steak strips. Reese giggled at Maggie's look of disbelief. It was good to have her strange little family whole again.
After all of the steak, eggs, and pancakes had been devoured and the kitchen had been cleaned up, Maggie retired to her study. John had filled her in on this last hunt he'd slumped in from and she wanted to record some things before they slipped her mind. John set about checking the house over as he did on every visit, making sure everything was in working order and that nothing needed replacing. Reese donned her overalls and Chuck Taylor's and followed him to the laundry room.
"You're getting taller, Freckles." John noted aloud, handing her a screw to hold as he replaced the filter on the air-vent in the laundry room. Reese smiled up at him and nodded proudly as she held the screws.
"I've grown four inches since last month. Mama says she'll have to rob a bank to keep me in clothes soon." John smirked and shook his head. The life of a hunter was the life of a bank robber. They got by on credit card scams most of the time. Maggie's dad had left her a chunk of money when he passed, but it had been eaten up by hospital bills to get Maggie back up and running again after the hunting accident two years back.
"Your hair's longer," John noted, accepting the screws back after putting in a clean, new filter. "Darker too."
"The kids at school call me Chucky," Reese huffed, handing him a screwdriver before he even asked for it.
"Idiots, every one of them." John replied, smiling and taking the screwdriver. For the next few hours the two journeyed around the house, fixing things as they went, swapping stories of what had happened in the time since they'd seen each other last.
Reese told him about the science project she did on acid etching knives, though she left out the part where the principal had called Maggie in to speak about how a nine year old shouldn't have access to knives, let alone know how to etch one with acid. She told him about the baby bird that had fallen out of a tree by her window, and how she'd gotten in trouble for climbing the tree to return it to its nest. She told him about the fight she'd gotten into at school with one of the boys in her class who'd called her a name she still didn't know the meaning of—she was fairly sure by John's reaction that it was one to tuck away for later use. She'd punched him just like John had taught her, thumb outside the fist so as not to break it, throw all your weight into it, and punch through the target. She'd laid him out flat and gotten suspended—which she left out as well.
After a while, the pair ended up lying on the dock down by the pond on the property. It wasn't really a pond, but it wasn't really a lake either, but it was where Reese liked to sit and think the most. She turned to John and he could see thoughts buzzing around in her head, but she was chewing on her lip like she did when she didn't know how to ask a certain question. Too damn grown up for a nine year old, he thought giving a shake of his head. He put his hand on her shoulder and gave a little squeeze.
"What's up, Sassafras?"
"I found a book of mama's…a journal. It said…a lot of weird things."
"I see," John sighed, rubbing his stubbled chin. "And did you talk to Maggie about it?"
"No. I…wanted to ask you."
"I see. Well, what did you want to ask?"
"Does garlic work on vampires or is that just in the movies?" John's mouth hung open in shock for a moment, then he closed it and shook his head, blinking a few times.
"That's not…what I was expecting, but okay. No, no it doesn't work. You can only kill a vampire by cutting its head off."
"And what about werewolves? Do silver bullets really work?"
"Silver bullets, silver knives, silver tipped arrows. They hate the stuff, same for shifters."
"Shifters? They're the ones that can change into another person right?"
"You read the whole journal didn't you?"
"What I could make out." Reese answered truthfully. John sighed, shaking his head.
"You are nine years old," he said, exasperated. "You aren't supposed to be so smart. I might have to knock some of that sense out of you." He gave her a noogie for good measure. Reese smiled, but looked up at John with those thousand-year-old eyes of hers.
"That's why you're hurt every time you visit, isn't it? Because you fight the monsters like mama used to?"
"Well I ain't hurt every time I visit…"
Reese raised a brow and John sighed.
"Yeah. That's why I'm hurt all the time."
"Do Sam and Dean know?" she asked quickly. John sighed. She was forever wanting to know about the boys, and he was forever telling her everything the possibly could. He bragged about them, told stories about them, anything to cover the gaping hole left by abandoning them so often.
"Yes. They do. Dean's known for a while now, for a long while, and Sammy…found out a year ago."
"Mama wrote about…your wife…how she died." John squeezed his eyes shut and swore to give Maggie a damned long tongue lashing for leaving that things lying around. "I'm sorry."
John looked up and met Reese's hazel eyes.
"I'm sorry you lost her like that."
He was quiet for a long while, hands clasped together in front of his knees. Dean had known probably since the night Mary died that there were things in the world that needed killing. Sam just found out the year before that he'd been lied to about Mary's death, that she'd been killed by a monster and not a drunk driver. They'd both been dragged into this life by John and his constant search for the thing that killed his wife. Reese didn't have to be.
"You don't have to be like me, Reese, you know that right? There's nothing and no one making you become a hunter." he said finally.
"I know."
"And you know we, your mama and I, want you to go to school. We want you to go to college and live a normal life."
"I know."
"Good. Good." he said, patting her knee.
"John?"
"Yeah, kid?"
"Will you stop lying to me now when I ask why you're beat up?"
He stifled a chuckle and nodded. Damn but she's smart.
"Yes, Sassafras. I'll stop lying about being beat up."
"Okay."
"Come on, let's go see if Maggie'll let us fix some lunch."
He stood and let his hand drop to Reese's thin shoulder as they traipsed back up to the house.
(June 9, 1999)
John Winchester had pulled into the Gallagher driveway upwards of three hundred times before, but when he pulled up this time around, there was a car sitting in the yard that he'd never seen before. The '69 Chevelle was up on cinderblocks and there was a pair of long legs outfitted in grease-covered jeans sticking out from underneath it. CCR was playing on the radio and a familiar toolbox was open and in reach of the mechanic.
"Be careful with those tools, they're mine." he said by way of greeting. He folded his arms over his chest as the mechanic jumped, cursing, and slid out from beneath the car. Then John's jaw slackened and his eyes almost fell out of his head.
"Beanpole?" he asked in shock, taking in the sight of the fourteen year old with wide, unbelieving eyes.
"Been a while, old man!" Reese smirked, walking into his arms as though not a day had passed. Many days had passed though, and with them, Reese had grown into a young woman. She'd apparently, John noted with a fierce amount of paternal protectiveness, been one of those early-bloomers. Gone was the lanky figure he'd last seen and in its place were new, foreign curves. She'd let her hair grow out much longer than he'd ever seen it and it now fell to her elbows in a thick, red braid. The braces she'd despised for so long were now gone, replaced with a perfect smile. The freckles he'd once teased her about were still sprayed across the bridge of her nose, though they'd diminished somewhat in their brilliance. She had lived up to her nickname, shooting up another handful of inches since the last time he'd seen her. She wore what had once been one of his black t-shirts, but had been cut into a loose tank top, and John decided everything about her was perfect.
"Hell's bells kid, you've gone and grown up."
He was still trying to convince himself that the last time he'd seen her she'd been a foot shorter and in pigtails when she threw her arm around his waist and pulled him towards the Chevelle.
"What do you think?" she asked proudly.
"Think? This…this is yours? How in the hell—"
"Was that John Winchester I heard pull up, Theresa Jane?" Maggie's voice lashed out from the porch like a whip. John and Reese both winced at it. John looked over at Reese and his eyebrows rose even as the token Winchester grin spread over his face.
"I take it Maggie didn't know you were buying it."
"She's not too happy about it either."
"I can tell."
"She swore to shoot you next time she saw you when I towed it here."
"Me?" he gawked.
"Something about 'bad influences' and such. Look at her! Ain't she a beauty?" Reese asked proudly. John had to chuckle, folding his arms over his chest with a grin.
"At least I taught you well,"
"You might not want to mention that to mama…" Reese said, patting him on the arm. She looked at him, the length of his curling hair, the length of his stubble, and she smiled leaning in to give him another short hug. "I've missed you, old man."
"And I've missed you, Sassafras." he said, giving her a light noogie before pulling her to him again and kissing the top of her head.
"Theresa Jane!" Maggie bellowed again from the porch.
"Uh-oh…prepare for the lashing." Reese muttered, elbowing John in the ribs.
"I heard that, you stubborn girl! Bring him inside so I can yell at him to his face!" Maggie shouted. John and Reese chuckled together and walked up to the porch. He'd done it again. He'd stayed gone for too long and he'd missed her growing up some more.
When he wasn't missing milestones in Reese's life, he was missing them in Sam and Dean's. Dean had long since dropped out of high school, though he'd gotten his G.E.D, while Sam was winning history awards one week and going off on small hunts of his own the next; and now Reese had a car. He was always waiting for it to get easier, being a parent, but he was beginning to realize maybe it was him, maybe he wasn't cut out for the job. Maybe it was time to stop living in a land of make believe.
Monsters were real, whether they were ghosts and ghouls or teenaged girls with cars.