Eyes in shades of blue, green, and hazel stared down at a slightly bulky letter sitting on a hotel room table. It was addressed, in blue ink, to "Dean and Sam Winchester, and Castiel, Riverside Motel, Room 357, Riverside, Illinois." The hotel manager had delivered it directly to their door, insisting that they would not believe the bombshell that dropped it off, and that no, he didn't catch a name but that he would like to get her number if they could figure out who she was.
Instead, they had stood in silence for several minutes, staring at the letter as if it was a bomb. They had tried to use Castiel's angel sense to look through the letter to determine what exactly was in the packaging, but for whatever reason, it wasn't possible. Finally, after several long minutes, Dean reached out hesitantly and picked up the envelope, pausing to see if it would blow. When nothing happened, he slipped a fingertip under the lip of the envelope and ripped it open, tipping it so the contents would fall into his waiting palm.
It was a post office box key. No letter, no tag on the key other than "Post Office Box, 580", and no explanation. A silent look was exchanged between the three, and without another word, Team Free Will piled into the impala, too nervous to talk freely.
As they stepped in the cool lobby, thousands of metal boxes stood before them. Moving hesitantly, single file, they searched for the number, all frowning when they noted that it was the largest post office box of the three. Dean passed the key to Sam, who was standing closest to the box, and waited as Sam turned the lock and pulled out a large brown box. The top, in a simple font, said simply, "Dean, Sam, and Cas". There was no return address here either, and no post mark information. With all the hesitancy of a professional bomb squad, they moved slowly to the impala, unlocking the trunk and placing it carefully in the back.
"Should we…Open it here?" Sam asked, his eyes trained on the box.
Dean spun to stare at Cas, "Can you see through it?"
"No," the angel replied, his brow furrowed over his blue eyes. "I don't understand."
"Then hell no," Dean snapped, slamming the trunk and rolling his eyes. "Get in, bitch."
"Jerk."
A short few minutes later, they pulled in the parking lot of the hotel and filed out of the car, Dean stopping to grab the box. He placed it carefully on the kitchen table while Sam double checked that the door was locked tightly behind him. Dean flicked his green eyes from the box to Cas, frowning. "You can't see through it?"
"No, Dean. I already told you that."
Sighing heavily, Dean pulled the box towards him, digging his pocket knife out of his jeans and mumbling, "I swear to God, if there's a head in here, I'm fucking done."
Sliding the blade carefully across the tape holding the box shut, Dean moved with the upmost care, hesitant in all his actions. Placing the knife on the table top, he opened the box slowly, revealing that it was filled to the top with packing peanuts. With a heavy sigh, Dean closed his eyes and plunged his hand slowly into the unknown, feeling around in silence for a few moments. Then his face switched to confusion as he opened his eyes, pulling his hand out quickly. There was an odd collection of items in his hand. A battered copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a medium sized blue plastic dinosaur with yellow spots down its spine, and a set of silver cufflinks.
Each man gasped and dove for his item.
Sam flipped through the pages of Sherlock Holmes, trying desperately to find page 52. Dean flipped the dinosaur over on its back and inspected the stomach, and Castiel held the cufflinks up to his eyes, his face flushing. Silence permeated the room.
Dean spoke first, his words slipping past the lump in his throat. "I got a set of these for my third birthday. They all burned in the fire except this one, and even he had some scarring on his stomach. I left him in the house in Lawrence when Dad decided to take us on the road. When we went back for that haunting a few years ago, I looked for it, but it was gone and the woman living there hadn't seen it at all."
Sam, held the book open to page 52, his hands shaking slightly. "I bought this at a thrift store in Wisconsin after my first big fight with Dad. He was driving me insane, and you were on one of your first solo hunts, and I just needed to escape. And this book was all I had. So when I got to page 52, I wrote my promise to myself."
He flipped the book around so Dean and Castiel could read it, and there, in the young teen handwriting of Sam Winchester, it said "Only five more years."
Dean frowned slightly, his jaw tightening. But instead of speaking his mind, he said softly, "Why page 52?"
"My birthday," Sam replied softly. "May 2nd. 5/2. I left this at Mom's grave that summer."
Both Winchesters turned to Cas who was busy fastening the cufflinks with care. "They weren't mine. But they were my vessel's. Amelia gave them to Jimmy for their 5th anniversary. I remember, at one point, him looking for them, but I couldn't find them anywhere. When we rescued Amelia, I asked her if she knew where they were. She said Jimmy had lost them on vacation once."
As a pleasant silence descended over the room, it took a moment for the overlying question to break through. Who the hell found these things and delivered them?
Sam flipped through his book for a letter while Dean dug through the box looking for some sign. But there was nothing. It was as if a piece of each man's missing past had been delivered simply to fill a missing hole in their lives. There was something beautifully simplistic in the gifts. It meant something monumental to each of the receivers, but would appear like junk to a passerby.
"Who do you think sent this?" Dean asked when he came up empty.
"Well it has to be someone that knows us. Who else would know that you wanted a blue dinosaur with yellow spots and a melted stomach? Or that I needed this book, with my note to myself on page 52? Or that Cas was looking for Jimmy's anniversary cufflinks? Only someone who knows us as well as we know ourselves."
At Sam's last words, there was a movement at the window, and through the tiniest slit in the curtain, Dean saw a flip of blonde waves as the Peeping Tom took off. Running to the door, his hand fumbling over the locks, he threw the door open, his heart pounding in his chest. It couldn't be her. Could it?
He spilled into the open, empty parking lot to see only his impala. There was no woman. Not even a man with long hair. There was nothing outside at all. But in the breeze, he could just barely catch the scent of his mother's perfume. Or did he?