Chapter One: Out of the Shadows
Dean Winchester stared at the orange flames roaring to life behind his father, inside his baby brother's nursery, as though mesmerized by their lively crackle and cheering light before his father shoved Sammy into his arms.
"Take your brother outside as fast as you can," Dean's Daddy yelled over the sound of the fire, "Don't look back. Now, Dean! Go!"
The urgency in his father's voice triggered something in the four-year old and he turned as quickly as he could and dashed down the hall, his baby brother wailing in fright.
Dean raced down the stairs- nearly falling down them in his haste- and towards the front door, his heart pounding harder than it ever had before.
He ran towards the front door. His feet slipped on the rug in the entryway and again he almost fell; Sammy screaming with fear in his arms, but the four-year old managed to stay standing. Shifting his baby brother into an one-armed hold, Dean reached out and grabbed the doorknob, twisting it but the door wouldn't open. For a moment panic welled up within the young boy before he saw that the thumb-turn below the doorknob was sitting in the 'LOCKED' position.
Taking a deep breath, Dean twisted the thumb-turn and unlocked the door. Grabbing the handle again and threw the door open, stumbling onto the cement porch and then onto the front lawn, the grass cold and wet beneath his bare feet.
Breathing heavily, with the sound of his infant brother crying in his ear, Dean turned around to face the house, his eyes going wide at the sight of bright orange flames flaring from the window of his sibling's nursery.
The four-year old's eyes dropped to the open front door, expecting to see his father running out of the fiery blaze any moment.
"Daddy!" Dean called, "Daddy!"
The boy took a step forward and he was suddenly scooped up in a pair of strong arms. Unfortunately those arms did not belong to John Winchester. An older police officer who was only weeks from retirement, with a beard of steel-grey whiskers and a head of thinning white hair beneath his cap, picked up the Winchester brothers and began carrying them towards the safety of the road.
"Daddy!" Dean cried, his calls becoming more frantic, "Daddy! Daddy, please!"
The four-year old as a two firefighters approached the house and ran inside, heading up the stairs to where the fire was.
The police officer sat the boys down on the seat of his cruiser and crouched down beside them.
"What's your name, son?" the officer asked in a kindly voice.
"Dean," the four-year old answered, "Dean Winchester, sir. And this is Sammy."
The older officer nodded and smiled, "I'm Officer Hooper. But you can call me Bill."
"Are the firefighters gonna get my Daddy?" Dean asked. Now that his older brother wasn't running and scaring him, Sam was starting to quiet, his cries now turning to whimpers.
"They're going to do their best to get your Mommy and Daddy out, okay?" Officer Hooper told Dean.
The little boy nodded and peered down at his baby brother, lowering his head to speak quietly to the infant.
"Don't worry, Sammy," he murmured, "The firefighters are getting Mommy and Daddy."
Officer Hooper looked up and saw that the street was beginning to fill up with concerned neighbours and looky-loos. Catching sight of a young officer, Bill Hooper, motioned to him. The rookie officer walked over to his superior.
"Keep these people back, would ya?" Hooper asked and the younger cop nodded, turning around and calling out to the growing crowd of people to move across the street.
Returning his attention back to the Winchester children, Bill crouched down again and started asking the older brother what kind of sports he liked to play, if he was in school yet, etc. Just to get the kid's mind off what was happening. The baby was asleep in his sibling's arms.
SPN
Bill Hooper grabbed a blanket from the trunk of his cruiser and went around to the open passenger's side without closing the lid. Gently, thinking of his granddaughter as he did so, the officer laid the blanket over the sleeping Winchesters; Dean curled protectively around his baby brother.
Forty-five minutes had gone by since Dean had carried his sibling outside and the house was now creaking and smoking, no sign of the orange flames that had roared out of the second floor not so long ago. Sadly, there was no sign of the boys' mother or father either.
Leaving the brothers to sleep in the back of his cruiser, Bill approached one of the firefighters who had gone into the house.
"What does it look like happened?" he asked.
The firefighter, a young man not much older than the rookie cop Bill had order to keep the rubber-neckers back, shook his head, "I'd say some sort of electrical fire. The wires in the nursery walls all lit up like Christmas."
"The homeowners?" Bill asked.
"Shit," the firefighter muttered, "There was nothing left of the woman and her husband… I guess he got the kids out before going back for his wife. By the time we got there it was too late for him, the smoke got to him before we did."
"Shit," Bill agreed and left the firefighter.
He knew from experience that if no relatives were contacted tonight, the Winchester brothers would spend the night in a foster home.
"Hey! Sanchez! Have you been able to contact any family?" Bill asked a middle-aged, Latina officer who had been given the job of contacting the Winchesters' relatives to let them know what had happened.
The officer shook her head, "Still searching, Bill."
Walking over to Officer Reynolds, who was in charge, Bill told the man that he was going to talk to some of the neighbours and see if he could get any information from them.
Reynolds, only a few years younger than Hooper, chuckled, "Knock yourself out, Bill. But if those boys have family, Sanchez would have found them by now."
Deciding to ignore the remark, Bill wandered over to where the rookie cop was keeping order.
"Were John and Mary inside? Are they dead? Are their boys all right? How did the fire start?" a myriad of questions was thrown at Officer Hooper as soon as he approached.
In order to quiet down the crowd, he lifted his hands in a 'calm down' gesture before he spoke "The boys are all right. Right now we are trying to get into contact with any family John and Mary may have had so that they can take the boys for the night. Do any of you know if either Mary or John had any siblings or parents living nearby that we could get in touch with?"
A tall, thin man with a Friar's bald head and ring of hair around his head, stepped forward, along with a woman equally as tall and thin as him, though her hair was long and almost colourless.
"I'm Stan Kowalski and this is my wife, Wanda," he said in a surprisingly strong, loud, if heavily accented voice.
"We live just there," the man pointed and Officer Hooper saw he was indicating a dark brown house right beside the Winchester residence.
"You are next door neighbours," Bill said and Mr. Kowalski nodded.
"Mary, she had parents that live across town," Wanda Kowalski told Bill in a voice as equally loud as her husband's, though not as heavily accented.
"Do you know their names?" Bill asked.
Wanda frowned, clearly trying to recall if Mary had ever mentioned her mother and father's names to her.
"Their boys are named after Mary's parents," Wanda muttered, speaking mostly to herself.
Bill frowned, wondering if he should just contact CPS and have the brothers sent to a foster home for the night.
"Deanna! Deanna and Samuel Campbell!" Mrs. Kowalski exclaimed suddenly, startling Officer Hooper.
"You're sure?" he asked and Wanda nodded.
"Thank you," Bill said earnestly and went to find Sanchez and tell her the good news.
SPN
Deanna Campbell pressed a Kleenex to her face as her husband drove across town to where their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren lived.
Lived, Deanna thought grimly, and began to cry in earnest.
Samuel, though he hadn't yet shed a tear, tightened his grip on the steering wheel so that his knuckles turned white.
The Campbells said nothing to one another as they drove closer and closer to their daughter and son-in-law's house. Despite the loss they had suffered, both Deanna and Samuel were grateful for the lives of their grandchildren.
W
The crowd of onlookers parted like the Red Sea for Moses as Samuel inched towards the still-smoldering house. There were less police cruisers now but a bright red fire engine still remained parked on the front lawn of the house like a hulking crimson sentinel.
Pulling up to the curb, Samuel parked the car but didn't turn off the engine. He and Deanna stared for a long moment at the dark house, billows of smoke still puffing out from the broken second story window every so often as the breeze sucked it out of the room.
The policewoman that had spoken to them on the phone- an Officer Sanchez- had told them that there had been a fire and that both Mary and John had been lost but their sons had made it out, hadn't the time to describe the damage to the house or the exact reason why their daughter and son-in-law never made it out.
"Oh Samuel," Deanna whispered and reached out to grab her husband's hand.
The old hunter picked up his wife's hand, kissed it, then opened the car door. As soon as he stepped out, he could smell the smoke and ash, hear the house groaning as though in pain, and he felt tears sting his eyes. Feeling as though he needed to remain strong for his wife, Samuel fought back the moisture in his eyes and started walking towards an older police office who was approaching him from across the lawn.
"Samuel Campbell?" the officer asked and the hunter nodded, shaking the man's hand as he introduced himself as Bill Hooper.
"Can you tell me what happened here?" Samuel asked, one hand waving in the direction of the house.
Bill nodded and sighed, "The initial report is that there was some sort of electrical issue in the nursery. The wires were faulty or something like that and caught the room on fire. Your daughter was in the room at the time the fire started and couldn't get out for one reason or another. Your son-in-law went into the room to get their son and had Dean carry him out of the house while he went back to try and get Mary. Unfortunately, the smoke was too thick and John succumbed to it. By the time the firefighters got to the nursery, it was already too late to save either of them."
Samuel nodded stiffly, feeling the threatening prick of tears again. Behind him, he heard Deanna- who had followed him out of the car- give a muffled cry, her sob likely stifled by a Kleenex.
"And my grandsons?" Samuel asked.
"They were both completely unharmed," Bill told him, "I can take you to them now if you like."
Deanna, heartened by the thought of seeing her grandchildren, slipped past Samuel to take the lead as the Officer led them to his cruiser where the boys still lay sleeping.
Deanna, peering down at the sleeping boys, smiled wetly, and reached out to stroke Dean's hair back from his forehead.
"Does he know about Mary and John?" she asked Bill without looking away from the children.
"I don't think so," he answered, "He expected his father to come out the door right behind him but… no, I don't think he realizes his mother and father are gone."
Deanna nodded and leaned down, whispering to the child.
"Dean," she cooed, "Dean, wake up, Honey."
The boy's green eyes fluttered and he groaned, jostling his baby brother who began to whimper.
"M-Mommy?" Dean asked and peered up, his expression confused for a moment before he smiled a bit, "Grandma!"
Deanna smiled and reached out to take Sam in one arm, now crying weakly, hazel eyes squeezed tight, and Dean in the other, planting a kiss on top of the four-year old's head.
"You and Sam are going to be staying with us tonight," she told her grandsons.
"Then tomorrow come back here for Mommy and Daddy?" Dean asked, turning his head towards the house, "Where's Mommy and Daddy?"
Samuel grimaced and reached out to take Dean and put him on his shoulders, "Let's race your Grandma and brother to the car? What do you say?"
"Yay!" Dean cried and Samuel trotted off towards the vehicle, snorting and neighing like a horse.
Deanna watched them for a moment before turning her attention to her younger grandson.
"It's okay, baby," she murmured and reached out her index finger; Sam instantly grabbed the digit and his crying began to soften.
"Hm, what's this?" Deanna muttered and peered at the infant's blue onsie.
Beside her, Bill frowned and looked at the child as well.
A single dark spot marred the front of the child's pajamas.
"Did Mommy feed you blueberries in your PJs again?" Deanna asked and hugged the infant to her before heading towards the car.
Author's Note:
Fanfic title comes from a Black Sabbath song of the same name.
Chapter title comes from an Iron Maiden song of the same name.
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