By: Oldach's Dream
Disclaimer: Really, really, not mine.
Summary: Takes place after my story 'Time and Time Again' although reading that isn't necessary to get this. Set five years after the demon is gone. What's become of the brothers? Final Cut.
A/N: This is a very long one-shot. I was going to post it in chapters originally, but decided against it. Time and Time Again is basically a springboard for this story, but all you really need to know is that they killed the demon and Dean fell in love. The rest is explained. I started writing this a long time ago, way before Time and Time Again was even half-complete. I was just waiting for the inspiration to finish that one before I could post this.
And since the Season 2 finale has aired, I guess I should mention that this story also has no direct link to that, either. I know I mentioned the Wyoming Demon trap thing in Time and Time Again, but there was no opening of the massive Hell Gate and no Sammy dying so no death-deal for Dean. That clear everything up?
This isn't based very deeply in the hunting world at all - focuses much more on the life the Winchester's have now. Not exactly fluffy, but not overridden with angst, either. You'll have to read on to understand entirely.
I've gotten many reviews in the past for some of my other stories that told me I should have added this in the beginning of my fics, so here it is; Warning: I consider it a bonus if I can make you cry.
There, you've been warned. Tearjerker in many places.
Time Is On Our Side
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"For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
--Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
---------------
"Mr. Winchester?" The man's voice sounded far away. Too far away to break through the screams reverberating around his mind.
"Mr. Winchester?" It was a little closer now, and Sam realized that he was supposed to respond. But for the life of him, he couldn't figure out who this man was or why it was he was supposed to respond.
The screaming was more persistent. It was kneading into the back of his skull and made him want to claw at his ears, his scalp. He couldn't stand it. The screaming, the buzzing, the persistent chatter of a thousand and one different what if's and could have been's.
"Sam?" This man wouldn't give up. Dean never gave up. He wished Dean were here.
"I think he's in shock," the voice got far away again. Medical terms were tossed around in the background. Big words with too many syllables sparking an undeniable detail to life.
He was in a hospital.
He was still in a hospital.
"Doctor," his voice was rough and scratchy. Barely a voice at all; just a minute sound used to alert one of consciousness and understanding.
The screams and echoes in his head dulled a little. Enough.
"Sam." The man was almost as tall as he was, yet he ducked his head, giving the impression of being taller and purposely making himself appear shorter. Sam would do that often when speaking to strangers.
Especially when tragic themes arose.
"Yes." He was incapable of focusing clearly, couldn't make heads or tails of any details surrounding his current location. He could hear again, though, process words and their meanings. He considered that an accomplishment on his behalf.
He'd been plunged into the depths of something cold that was now frozen all around him, and he lacked the strength to fight through it. His eyes stayed glazed over and hazy. He was trying.
"I know how difficult this must be for you." His voice was rushed, and that scared Sam. "But something went wrong with the C-section."
"Wrong?" He echoed blankly.
"It's complicated and involves a lot of medical terminology, but bottom line? Your wife is-"
"She's not my wife," Sam interrupted blankly. "We met in a bar. Her name's Cathy."
"Cathy." The doctor wasn't put-off at all by this information, just continued speaking in that rushed tone. "She's bleeding. A lot. Internally. If it doesn't stop, it's incredibly likely she'll die before the operation's over. There's a procedure we can do that will get the bleeding under control and save her life-"
"Do it." Sam said at once, protective hunter flaring up instinctively. After so many years, it had morphed into one hell of a fallback.
"It's not that easy." The man stepped closer and Sam's vision un-blurred enough for him to notice that he had bright blue eyes, dancing with emotion the tall young man lacked the energy to put a name to. "The procedure, it's very unlikely that the baby would survive it."
Sam's mouth opened, closed and opened again. He couldn't breathe. He swallowed. A sound came out. He couldn't completely identify it, but figured the doctor must have interpreted it as, "What?" Or some variation thereof.
"There's another operation, that involves-" He moved, shuffled around, rotated his hands. "There's another operation that would almost fully guarantee the safe birth of your child, but it's highly unlikely that your-" he caught himself. "That Cathy would survive it."
"What-"
"We need you to decide which operation we perform." The doctor said bluntly. "And we need you to decide very fast, or both may die."
---------------
"When pain of the past meets fear of the future, that's when most fighters give up." --Judging Amy
---------------
"Where's Dean?"
In every tragedy he'd ever faced in his life, every hard decision or unimaginable grief; his brother had been by his side. Dean was his hero, his rock, and although he hadn't felt this need for him in many, many years, he also hadn't been separated from his big brother for more than a week or two in just as many years.
The blue-eyed doctor's confused, "What?" slipped into his overcrowded head.
"My brother." He explained. "The other guy, doctor, said he'd call him."
"He did, there was no answer." The man's voice got less sympathetic and more frantic as he grabbed one of Sam's arms in a tight, urgent grip. "Look, sir, Mr. Winchester. Sam." The taller man's eyes landed on his pleading face. "We need you to make a decision. I know this isn't right, or fair, but this is what's happening."
Then there was a pause. A short one, given the direness of the situation, but it felt longer to Sam.
Much, much longer.
The youngest Winchester thought this sort of thing was behind him. This clenching of his gut, the ice-cold trickles of fear crawling up and down his spine; he was so sure that these days were over.
The days where he had to make decisions that would get someone killed or save someone's life. The cases where one wrong move, a bad footing, a poorly maintained gun or a branch protruding from the ground, could get both him and his brother killed.
He thought he'd left all that behind when the Demon went up in flames, thought Dean's retirement and his own light caseload would alleviate this bone-chilling, heart-pounding, reality-disassociating sort of situation from his life.
See, before this had all played out, Sam had only spent four years and six months of his combined lifetime away from the hunt. And those first six months he obviously couldn't recall one bit of. And his four years at Stanford, while pure in theory, were tainted by the simple knowledge that he was using that sane world as an outlet, to run away from something undeniable.
College had been his adult version of a little kid playing make-believe - while compelling, due to his fierce longing and thus corrupted mindset - it didn't exist outside his fantasy world. The devastating reality of which ruptured back to life the night Jessica went up in flames.
The hunt was all Sam had ever known, was all he could compare anything to; and it was in that moment, that time-stopping moment, standing in a bleak hospital hallway in Greenberg, South Dakota, sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he tried furiously to hide his uncontrollable shaking, that he finally realized how much that had stunted him.
He'd never had to make a real decision not based on something supernatural in nature. Not like Dean. No, his big brother had decided to leave the hunt. To have a child. He chose Kim over hunting and told his little brother constantly that it was the best decision he'd ever made.
He had no regrets.
Sam needed his big brother. He needed Dean now. This was life as he had never faced it before, and he didn't know if he could do it. Didn't know if he was strong enough.
All this raced through his mind in lightening quick bursts, and no more than a few seconds had been lost when the doctor started pleading with him again.
"Sam, please. You have to make this choice."
Realizing how inept he was at making real world decisions, how much he doubted his own ability to do so, didn't change the fact that he had to make this one. Now.
Cathy or his kid. His child, or the first woman he'd felt truly connected to since Jessica died. Dean's niece or nephew - Kim and Dean's niece or nephew -or this woman he'd met ten and a half months ago. His future. Or his future.
A final persuading shot by the man in the flowing white lab coat, "Before it's too late for both of them."
Sam looked up and realized he wasn't dreaming this. He wouldn't wake up in a motel bed with his brother four feet away, sunlight cascading through their window, the promise of coffee, bickering, the low growl of the Impala as she purred to life and the freedom of the open road ahead of them.
Dean's days as a hunter were over.
Taking a deep breath, filled thoroughly with regret, loss and the hope for redemption, Sam admitted finally; so were his.
"Save my baby."
---------------
One Hour, Seventeen Minutes and Thirty-Six Seconds Before
"Sam." Cathy's weak voice shouldn't have been audible over the fierce wail of the ambulance sirens, but the youngest Winchester had learned long ago how to tune into things that would otherwise go unheard.
"I'm here." He squeezed her hand tightly, needing this to be real. Needing to be in the moment entirely, because if he escaped this he would regret it always.
"My-" She stopped, mouth gaping in a silent scream of agony. Sam looked at the medic who was seated in front of her gurney.
He looked back with a pained look of his own. "We're almost there." Then turned his head towards the front of the emergency vehicle. "Hurry up, Henry."
The ambulance went faster.
"She's eight months pregnant?" The paramedic confirmed.
Sam nodded absently, not paying much attention to the wispy man.
"They'll need to perform an emergency C-section. The rupture was severe."
"What-"
Sam's inquires were cut off, and Cathy - for all her faults and past crimes - took precedence now.
"My father's name - was Michael." She got about between gasps.
"Okay," Sam felt tears pushing to free themselves from behind his eyes, but remained steady, in control. That took so much effort, though, that he didn't fully comprehend the meaning of her words.
"I want that to be our baby's name." She gasped, clenched a tight fist with one hand and Sam's hand in the other.
The hunched, broken man who felt in many ways like he'd been to hell and back in the last ten months, ignored entirely the meaning behind the words. Their overlying message that Cathy believed she wouldn't be around to name their baby herself.
He said instead, "We don't know if it's a girl or a boy yet."
"It's a boy." She choked, smiling a smile that more closely resembled a grimace. "Michael."
Her still clenched hand set on her stomach protectively before her eyes closed and her body went limp.
Sam tried to comprehend what the doctors and nurses said to him once they got to the hospital, followed behind the gurney as long as they would allow it and fought so hard to grasp at the straws of his rapidly fading concentration.
It was so difficult though, and he got lost.
--------------
Two Hours, Three Minutes and Twenty-Nine Seconds Later
"You have a healthy baby boy." The doctor didn't deliver this with a smile, congratulations and a firm handshake.
Sam knew all too well what that meant. "And Cathy?"
It was the same doctor who'd been pleading with him before, those blue eyes caught his now and shined with something akin to solidarity.
"Her time of death was recorded at two-thirty-seven this morning."
---------------
Sam thought about the spell.
How could he not?
The time-loop spell that had ended the Demon's reign of terror, Dean's career as a hunter and given him back the love of his life. The spell that had changed everything, that Sam himself had helped forge.
The only hard copy he knew of was safe in the hands of Ash and Ellen. Only a limited number of people had access to it. Just as few were aware of its existence.
He'd memorized it himself all those years ago and knew without doubt that he could retrieve it from the depths of his internal memory with ease.
"Would you like to see your son?" The doctor with the blue eyes and heartbreaking expression was no doubt offering up the only condolence he could think of.
Sam nodded without consent from his brain and was following this man through twisting hallways donned with white walls and an air of bleakness moments later.
The trip to the pediatric ICU didn't take long. It was in the same wing as the regular ICU.
Sam wouldn't be able to look back and recall the journey. Would never be able to tell Dean if the doctor had said anything or told him anything in that short expanse of time.
Time, as a general concept, had taken on a deeper meaning since their entrapment in El Groton. They'd become astoundingly more aware and weary of it. Now however, Sam felt like he was back in that innocent past of life, when time could be left un-thought about. Ignored.
They stopped in front of a plate glass window. It was like every hospital set he'd ever seen on TV - only more brutal - with louder machines beeping out harsher sounds.
The doctor pointed out his son and Sam knew in that instant that he would do nothing to compromise his safety. The idea of casting the time-loop spell to get Cathy back exited his mind like it had never been there at all as Sam stared, transfixed by the sight of the tiny baby.
"He's healthy." The doctor assured. "We just want to do some tests, to make sure he's gonna stay that way." They were silent for a long while. "Your son's a fighter."
He comes from a long line of them.
"Michael." Sam whispered.
He almost believed, in that moment, that everything he'd been through had been worth it.
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"A burnt child dreads fire." --English Proverb
---------------
Before
"I just don't get why being in love and ditching me have to go hand in hand for the kid." Dean rebuffed his wife's defenses for his brother's actions as they unloaded groceries from the trunk of the Impala.
"What kid?" Their four-year-old daughter had raced away from the watchful eye of her babysitter and jumped unceremoniously into her mother's arms.
The early fall weather was warm enough that Dean didn't even think of reprimanding her for being outside with no shoes on, and her voice was laced with so much childlike curiosity that he answered the question without thought.
"Your Uncle Sam."
"Uncle Sam's not a kid." She giggled and Kim laughed as well.
"The lady has a point."
"He's as old as you, daddy."
"He's four years younger." The eldest Winchester grumbled.
"But he is an adult." Kim reiterated her original point. "He can make his own choices."
"Yeah." Dean gripped. "He can choose to take off in the middle of the night with no warning and stay MIA for five and a half months."
"He calls almost every night." Kim shifted the clinging child into a one arm hold so she could pick through the grocery bags with the other and lift a few into her hand.
"To talk to Mary and give me absolutely no details about anything." Dean's mood had been steadily souring ever since his little brother's impromptu disappearance related to this Cathy woman he'd never met, and that fact wasn't lost on his other family members one bit.
Instead of trying to cheer him, or question the adult concepts as she normally did at this junction of the conversation, his daughter interrupted them now with, "Are we gonna go see Uncle Sam?"
"I don't think your Uncle wants us to go see him." Dean tried to keep the bitterness out of his tone, but it was hard.
"That's not what the man on the phone said."
Dean stopped everything he was doing to stare at his daughter. "What?"
"Dean." Their regular babysitter, a seventeen-year-old from down the block, who bore an odd resemblance to his ex, Cassie, came from the front porch to greet the family assembled around the classic car.
"What's she talking about?" The brother in question was close to panicking, and he wasn't entirely sure why. "What are you talking about, Mare?"
The mature teen answered before the child had a chance.
"A hospital in South Dakota called about Sam." Dean saw Kim grip their daughter more tightly and noticed Mary's light brown eyes - identical to her mother's - get large and frightful, sensing the change in emotion surrounding the grown-ups.
"Is Sam alright?" The words were spoken harshly, but Dean couldn't help it. He couldn't keep up his mellow, laid-back, at peace with the world, attitude flowing when the words 'Sam' and 'hospital' came out in the same sentence.
"I don't know." The skinny girl shrugged, looking regretful. "The message just said to come as soon as possible."
Dean didn't hear anything more as he moved around the three females and made his way, on unsteady legs, to the inside of his home.
He bypassed their over-stuffed coach and short stairway, didn't note as he normally did, how Mary had left her coloring book and crayons in front of the TV again, ignored completely the dirty dishes from breakfast this morning sitting on the kitchen table.
The phone and answering machine were perched on the ledge of the half-wall setting between the living room and the kitchen, and the blinking red light was all he could focus on.
He didn't even notice Kim and Mary following behind him seconds later, could scarcely feel his daughter clinging to his arm and his wife standing close behind him as he reached out unsteadily and pressed the play button.
Beep. "This message is for Dean Winchester. My name is Dr. Bova from Central State Hospital in Greenberg, South Dakota, and I'm calling in regards to your brother, Sam Winchester and his wife. Something has happened, although hospital policy dictates I can't leave specific details on an answering machine, I can say that the matter is urgent and I suggest you come here immediately. Sam requested I call you." Beep.
His heart was pounding.
"Uncle Sam's not married." Mary's voice quivered and Kim coddled her comfortingly, having lead her away from her father's shaking, wavering form.
"They mean the woman he's been seeing." Kim explained absently.
Blood rushed to his head and made his ears ring.
Sam. Hospital. Urgent.
"Dean." Kim nudged him gently. "It's a ten hour drive to South Dakota."
"Are we gonna go see Uncle Sam?" Mary asked again. "Angie told me that's what the doctor meant."
Nice way to phrase it. Dean praised the girl's brightness absently.
"I'll go." Dean said to Kim who was already nodding. "You guys catch a flight out in the morning."
He kissed his wife and his daughter and left, thinking abstractly about how he had been so sure that these days were behind him.
--------------
"The fire is the Devil's only friend." --Jimmy Buffet, Bye-Bye Miss American Pie
--------------
After
Sam had sunk down against the nearest wall he could find. The doctor that had been with him every step of the way so far had finally left his side, responding to an urgent page of some sort.
Nodding absently, Sam had told him to go, that he would be fine.
It had been hours since Cathy had been pronounced dead. Hours since he'd seen his son for the first time.
The sun was just beginning to tinge the sky a myriad of brilliant orange's and fiery reds. It was a perfect sunrise, one of thousands that Sam had seen over the course of his life.
The one that marked his first day as a single father.
---------------
Nine Hours, Eleven Minutes and Fifty-Six Seconds Later
"Is my brother alright?" Dean had driven nonstop all afternoon and all night, arrived at the hospital in a burst of angry shouting and threatening demands. He'd been bounced around from four incompetent nurses, two orderlies, and three doctors thus far.
This blue-eyed man, Dr. Reynolds, was the first one who seemed to know his brother at all.
"Sam's fine." He said, gently guiding him away from the main stream of the hospital traffic. "Physically."
"Then what-"
"Were you aware that his-" He caught himself before, Dean assumed, he was going to say wife, only to look momentarily at a loss. "That Cathy," The eldest Winchester nodded after the pause to indicate that he knew to whom he was referring, "That Cathy was pregnant?"
And for the second time in twenty-four hours, Dean Winchester felt like he'd been sucker punched in the balls.
"I'll take that as a no." Dr. Reynolds sighed and scrubbed at his face with his hands. "Cathy was eight months pregnant and was admitted to the hospital last night because of a severe abdominal bleed."
"Doctor," Dean didn't want details right now.
"They had to perform an emergency operation to deliver the baby." He said factually. "Sam's downstairs with his son. Cathy didn't make it."
---------------
"Hey, kiddo." Dean came up behind Sam in the NICU unit, the taller man was wearing light green scrubs over whatever he had on underneath, and Dean had a brief thought that maybe a nurse should have given him some of those as well, but he didn't dwell on that.
He spoke softly, not wanting to startle his baby brother, who was so thoroughly engrossed in the little person making bubbly baby noises in front of him.
Sam didn't turn around, but Dean heard him suck in a quick breath.
"I remember when Mary was this small." His voice was raspy, like he'd been quiet for a long time.
"Yeah," Dean echoed the sentiment, not knowing how to respond. "Sammy?" He took a step closer. "Why didn't you tell me? About Cathy? The pregnancy?"
Sam's broad shoulders went up and down in one pained movement.
"I coulda helped out." He pressed. "Maybe been there for this."
"I know." His voice was still rough, and Dean thought maybe it was from more than lack of use.
He took another step. "It's a boy?"
"Michael." Sam nodded.
Dean too bobbed his head, well aware that Sam couldn't see him. Michael made a gurgling sound, almost as of he were about to cry, then sensed that his father couldn't bear to handle that.
"Sammy." Dean took a final step, fully engrossing on his brother's personal space now.
Like he was waiting for the warmth of Dean's presence behind him, Sam chose that moment to turn around, facing the elder man finally.
"Oh, Sammy," His brother looked a wreck. His eyes were loaded with so much grief, deep bags standing out harshly on pale skin.
Marriage and Fatherhood had made Dean much more open and accepting of the emotional needs of other people, and when Sam faced him, looking so utterly broken and beaten, he knew it wouldn't matter where they were or what had become of their lives; the need to comfort took over all others.
He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder and instinctively used it to draw the taller man to him.
Sam didn't resist the embrace, not even a little. He was clinging to Dean like he was the only thing keeping him afloat, and, not for the first time, he probably was.
---------------
"We're not alone in this anymore, Sammy." The brothers sat outside one of the back entrances of the hospital, passing a flask back and forth. Well, mostly Sam was hogging the flask, but Dean figured that was to be expected. It was how they were taught to deal, and it was well practiced.
The younger man humph'ed and took another long swig, Dean thought surly that there couldn't be that much alcohol left to consume.
"We're not." He insisted. "You have me. You'll always have me, but it's not just us anymore. Kim, Mary, Lyn, they're a part of our family now."
Sam didn't respond, just stared intently at the silver flask and fought back emotions. Dean waited. For too long he waited for his brother to respond - with tears, anger, hysterical laughter - anything that would signal life and understanding.
It never came.
---------------
One Week, Four Days, Twelve Hours and Fifteen Minutes Later
"Hey, buddy," Sam scooped Michael up and out of his crib instinctively, only half- awake and not overly aware of what was going on around him. He knew his son needed him, though, and that was enough for him to cradle the tiny baby into the crook of his neck.
Michael made an infant like sound that could have easily meant feed me, change me, hold me or give me back my mommy.
"Well, I fed you an hour ago." Sam said to the crying bundle. "And Aunt Kim says you eat every three hours, so that ain't it." Taking a peek in his diaper, Sam let out a breath of relief. "Well, you're good there. And I'm already holding you."
Michael kept up the waterworks.
"So, either I suck at this father thing more than anyone could have guessed and you already hate me," Michael clenched a fist as much as his one and a half week old motor functions would allow, still balling. "Or you just want your mommy."
The crying persisted.
"Yeah, kid." The lost young man shifted his son to his left shoulder and sighed sadly. "Me too."
--------------
One Month, Two Weeks, Three Days, Seven Hours and Fifty-Six Minutes Later
Sam was perched on the couch-like swing set up on his brother's back porch early one morning, his son was cradled in his arms delicately, not sleeping, but not crying either.
"Hey, there." Dean greeted, walking out onto the wooden beams, bearing two cups of coffee and squinting at the bright light of the rising sun.
"Hey." Sam accepted the coffee cup easily with his one free hand as his brother sat down next to him, rocking the swing gently as he did. "Thanks."
"Yup." Dean nodded, looking ahead and drinking his own beverage. "Heard the crying stop last night. Thought you finally tried that old whiskey trick."
"You're only supposed to do that when they're teething." Sam mumbled, breathing through his mouth as the coffee scalded him.
"Huh," Dean shrugged. "Never hurt Mary."
"I bet," Sam grumbled lightly, then, deciding to change the topic, "She still sleeping?"
"For another couple hours." Dean confirmed. "I don't get why she gets up so early. We never did."
"That's 'cause we were usually up all night hunting, or training." There was a lack or resentment there that could either be explained by a true acceptance of their past and a forgiveness of their father, or an extreme lack of sleep.
"It's actually normal," Sam went on, "For kids to get up early."
Dean's face screwed up, and in an attempt at light banter demanded, "How would you know?"
A small, slightly sad, smile broke out over Sam's face and Michael's cooing noises made a steady background hum. "Jess had an older sister who had twins."
Dean, who hadn't heard a word about Jessica from his brother for years now, was more than a little thrown at this discovery. His lack of response made that apparently obvious to the younger man.
"I met her a couple times, when I went up there for Christmas."
"Huh." Dean acknowledged.
"I always figured that be us, ya know?" He patted Michael's back. "Me and Jess, a family."
Silence stretched long and hard between the brothers, even Michael's baby noises seemed less palpable under this slew of new information.
"Remember the night of the accident, Dean?" Sam wouldn't look at the elder man, but stared steadily ahead at the lush green grass soaked thoroughly with morning dew. "When the demon was in dad?"
"Of course I do, Sammy."
"It wasn't lying." Sam took a deep breath. "When it said I'd been planning a life with Jessica. That I'd gone to look at rings. It was reading my mind."
"Sam-"
"It was stupid." The younger brother interrupted quickly. "I knew I was living a fantasy. That I thought I could get married to Jess, start a family with her, make things right with you and dad. Quit hunting. It was all so stupid."
Michael squealed and Sam drank the last of his coffee, placing the empty mug on the porch railing.
"Sam." Dean started, and he sounded very serious, professional. "About hunting. You're not..."
"I'm done." He answered the unasked question. "I realized that at the hospital when-" but he stopped himself, and ignored Dean's inquiring look. "Hunting's not important anymore." And his gaze locked on his son. "And the demon's gone."
"Yeah," Dean let out a deep breath of his own and nursed his mug, looking intently at his nephew. "Thank God for that."
"Thank Lyn." Sam amended.
"All of us." Dean finalized, and Sam nodded his agreement.
"Are you ever gonna tell Mary about our life? The hunting?" Sam asked, large palm resting on Michael's head of wispy blonde baby hair.
"I've thought about it." Dean got the words out like an admission. "You?"
"Probably." And if Dean was shocked at all by that, he hid it well. "I don't wanna hide things from him like dad did with us. That need-to-know-basis thing. I hated that."
"Yeah, I know you did." It sounded almost like his brother shared his feelings, but Sam knew he would never say that aloud. Dean had worshiped their father when he was alive, and after his death, the man had become something of a legend to them both.
Only where Sam could still pick out his faults, his human weaknesses, Dean always turned a blind eye. And always would. To him, their father was a mythical hero.
"You know he did it for our own good, though." His attitude truly would never alter, but Sam was well beyond the point of picking fights over it.
"Yeah." He acknowledged Dean's firm belief. "But I'm not going to lie to my son."
"What if he decides he wants to take over the family business?" He said it mostly with humor, but the idea struck a chord deep within Sam.
"I don't know." He said honestly. "I don't want to think about that."
His big brother superpowers must have been informing him that Sam wasn't up for a battle about it now, because instead of making a logical argument for it, Dean just sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "When's the last time you slept, dude?"
Sam snorted. "I'm starting to think this kid has a sleeping deficiency." He nodded down at his son. "I remember Mary's first couple of months, she actually slept every once in a while."
"Yeah," Dean chuckled, albeit a little sadly. "But you were the same way, man. 'Cept louder. You're lucky Michael can't do this inhuman wailing thing you were so good at."
Sam made a noise like he knew there should have been a word there, but couldn't think of one. "What got me to sleep?"
"Me, mostly," Dean answered quickly, before he could logic his way out of it, then shrugged. "Dad was-"
"Drunk?"
"Grieving." He corrected swiftly, then promptly let it go, moving on. "I'd crawl into your crib every night." He shrugged again.
Sam let out a deep breath and focused his attention again on his baby. There was no speaking for a few minutes and, like it always did when he wasn't thoroughly distracted, the thought of Cathy and his decision came unbidden to his mind.
He hadn't told Dean of the choice he'd made that night. Had told Dean next to nothing, in fact, about anything regarding Michael's birth and Cathy's pregnancy. And in a way, had been glad for his son's constant insomnia; it gave him something solid and real to focus his attention on. Lest he gave into the depression and guilt waiting for him every time silence dawned.
"It was so long ago," Sam had to fill in that vacuum of dense, would-be calm. "But our past is still dictating everything we do and how we do it."
"That's not just us, Sam." Dean's tone adapted that father-like wisdom quality that it'd always been capable of but had come out unwaveringly at every turn since Mary had been born. "That's the way everyone is. People either try to re-create their childhood, or they fight like hell to make a different one. Either way, childhood is kind of a springboard for everyone."
"I guess." And then he snorted, realizing the absolute truth in the statement.
---------------
Four Months, Three Weeks, Six Days, Seventeen Hours and Thirty-Seven Minutes Later
He sat in front of the television, watching some lifetime movie about a woman who...cried a lot. He wasn't paying any particular attention to the plot; he just wanted the constant hum of noise. He was nursing a half-empty beer, and several - more than several - empty bottles lined the table next to him.
"Michael asleep?" Dean approached, worried tone carrying over a dramatic angst scene on the TV-movie he was trying so hard to focus on.
"Yup," Sam said, then burped, pointing at the flickering screen. "Look, chick flick moment." He giggled.
Which was when his brother chose to switch off the idiot box and make Sam's attention shift to him completely. The younger man thought of protesting, but figured his brother would act as a distraction just as well as the movie had - probably more so.
"Dude-" he started, but Sam was not in the mood.
"Yeah, I know," he cut off. "I'm being self-destructive. I suck. Michael deserves better," he ticked off facts without meeting Dean's gaze. "I don't think I was cut out for this dad thing. I suck." He snorted. "I said that already. What's another word for suck?"
"You went to college." Dean's tone implied so many things, and fury was leaking through unchecked.
"That's such an old fight," And God he was tired. "Can we fast-forward to something a little more recent?"
"Fine," and now he sounded truly, unrelentingly angry. "How about how this isn't just about you anymore?" Dean stepped in his direct line of vision and disallowed him to hide under long bangs and shadowed eyes.
"You have a son." He pointed out unnecessarily. "And a niece. How about thinking about them?"
Sam looked purposely confused, probably a little pained, too.
"This isn't just you and me in a motel room in some random hick city anymore. There's more at stake." Dean rubbed his face roughly; Sam noted an increasing amount of stubble growing there. "What you do affects Michael. And Mary. And me and Kim."
"So, what?" Sam's voice got that deep, hold-nothing-back fullness to it, that could only occur when he was drunk or angry. Now, as it happened, he was both. "You want us to move out?"
"What?" Dean snapped, aghast. "No. I'm just saying-"
"It sounds like you're issuing some kind of, of - ultimatum." He sat up straighter, and thought about standing, but didn't. "In fact, you sound a lot like dad."
"Talk about bringing up old issues." Dean barked. "That's not what this is about."
"Then what is this?" Sam demanded. "Dad grieved for years over mom."
"Dad and mom-" But he stopped himself short, obviously not wanting to, and not meaning to, go there.
But Sam was already there and waiting. "Mom and dad were what?" He bit. "Married? Together forever? In love?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?" Sam did stand then, unsteadily, pushing his brother's hand away when it reached out automatically to steady him.
"You think I didn't love Cathy?"
"Did you?"
Sam stopped and stared, amazed with the level tone at which the question had been thrown out. It was the first time such an issue had been raised, and well... It raised a lot of issues.
"Did I?"
"Man," Dean stepped back a little, less invasive but no less intimidating. "I didn't even know about her. You never said a word. Just went on that hunting trip and didn't come back for months. I thought- you didn't call. Nothing."
"I was-"
"And then you did come back, all quiet and moody for a few months and left again the second she called."
"She was pregnant!"
"You didn't tell me that," Dean shouted back. "You just took off!"
"She was gonna get an abortion!" He hadn't meant for that to come out, and by the way Dean reeled back, he obviously hadn't been expecting it.
"What?"
"When she called me that night," Sam knew better than to drink excessively, he could never keep straight what he wanted to say and what he knew he ought to keep to himself. He should have known. And perhaps deep down he did. "She was drunk and crying and saying that she couldn't be a mother, that everything was fucked up and she just wanted it to- to end."
Dean stayed incredibly still, and Sam almost forgot he was there. Just kept reliving that night like he'd never allowed himself to before.
"I thought she was going- going to kill herself, or something." Sam confessed his fears that, despite being in the past, still felt fresh and real. Knowing how close he'd come that night to losing Michael. "Throw herself down a flight of stairs or drink until-"
His voice got choked and he didn't want to go on.
"Sammy-"
Only he had to. "I took off that night because I didn't know what else to do. I wanted to tell you, Dean. God, man, you have no idea how much I-" He rubbed at his forehead and took a wobbly step forward. "But I was stupid. And scared."
Dean nodded, Sam felt sick and shaky. Incredibly unsteady on his long, strong legs.
"I... I got there the next morning and- and she was passed out in a parking lot. I thought she was dead." He remembered her body, limp and pale, the slight bump of her stomach was mind-boggling. "I got her to the hospital, the doctor said it was a miracle the baby- we didn't even know if he'd be alright, Dean. All her drinking... They didn't know what it'd do-"
"Sam," Dean placed a hand on his shoulder that he could barely feel. "You never told me."
"I had to stay with her, Dean." He had tears welling in his eyes, but was way too far into it now to back down. The conversation they were having had affectively killed his buzz, but the alcohol he'd consumed still left it's traces in his muddled mind and wavering thoughts. "If I hadn't..."
"Okay." And just like that, he let it go. Let go of all the betrayal he'd felt at Sam's disappearance, the fear, the disappointment, and whatever else he might have been hanging onto since that night all those months ago. It was gone and they were okay again. "I understand."
"No- you don't. You can't." A deep breath that came out like a sob and a vicious chuckle all rolled into one. "I had to choose, Dean. I had to choose."
"What?" He gasped desperately, and Sam knew he was bouncing around from scene to scene, event to event; but that's how this story had laid itself out in his mind and he was too drunkenly tired to try to fight that.
"The drinking," he gasped. "It led to complications."
"What kind of-"
"Michael was delivered a month early. It was a miracle he didn't-"
"Sammy,"
"He almost died that night, Dean." He gasped again, but was so far gone, back in that darkness so intensely that he wondered vaguely if he wasn't having an out-of-body experience. A vision, even. He hadn't had a vision since they'd destroyed the yellow-eyed demon, but somehow, now, it seemed like it might be happening again.
"Sam?" Dean sounded too like he might cry. He looked desperately, pleadingly, for answers, eyes shining bright and full of sorrow; and Sam knew it was finally time to confess.
"I made a decision the night Michael was born." Suddenly his voice was calm and steady, like the doctor's, like Dean's, like Pastor Jim's. Like their father, even. "Cathy had internal bleeding; a doctor came out and told me she wouldn't make it, unless they did an operation. Said it would stop the bleeding and save her life." The vision of that hospital hallway, the doctor with the bright blue eyes, was clearer now than it had been five months ago, when it was actually happening. "Only the baby-the baby probably wouldn't survive it."
"Oh, God, Sammy." Dean knew where this was going, Sam could tell already. But this had gone way beyond his brother's need to know the truth. No, now this was all about Sam telling it.
"Then he told me there was another. Another procedure that would... Save Michael but-but Cathy wouldn't..." He shook his head jerkily, as if possessed. "And they told me I had to choose, Dean. I had to choose which operation. I had to decide who to save."
He couldn't let the silence in, not again. "And Cathy told me, in the ambulance, that-that her father's name had been Michael, and that's what she wanted our son's name to be," he shook his head yet again and rubbed at his running nose. "And it was so strange, because the entire time I was with her, she refused to even admit she was pregnant. We didn't know if it was a girl or a boy. Hell, I had to fight with her every damn night not to go out and get plastered. I stopped sleeping, I stopped eating, it was all about her. Making sure she didn't kill our kid."
On he went, spewing his guts like he was sure he'd be spewing his dinner in a few hours. "Only it wasn't always like that, either. When she wasn't being... I don't know, crazy...destructive... She was just... So full of life. It was amazing. She was two entirely different people. And I loved at least one of them. But when the doctor came out that night and said I had to choose... God, Dean, what would you have done?"
Dean didn't respond. He just stood there, looking floored. Like he'd just been run over by a semi-truck. But hey, at least he wasn't in a coma this time.
Sam chuckled drunkenly at that little bit, not being able to help himself.
"Dean," he sighed, finally feeling as though he'd reached an end. "With Jessica, I always felt responsible. Because I had the nightmares and I did nothing. But... Who knows? Even if I hadn't seen it, the demon still probably would have gotten her. And you were always right there, telling me it wasn't my fault."
"It wasn't." Sam barely heard it, and Dean probably barely realized he'd said it.
"But this was. This was my fault. No debate." He looked his brother in the eye and was almost brought down by the amount of grief there. "I let Cathy die. I killed my son's mother."
---------------
It was a death he hadn't been ready to accept, a tragedy he hadn't been prepared to claim, a road of life he hadn't wanted to travel. Like so many other fate and destiny centered heartbreaks, though, he knew there was ultimately nothing he could do to change what now was.
Lying down that night - his son sleeping peacefully in his crib a few feet away and his big brother perched silently at the foot of his bed - he had a fleeting thought that perhaps Dean was right. The comfort of his family, the unconditional love of those around him - maybe those things would be enough to get him through this night.
Maybe even the ones following it.
The hope dissipated almost as quickly as it had been acknowledged, and then Sam Winchester went willingly into a drunken slumber that made all thoughts of death and hope irrelevant.
He slept, he woke up, and he did it again and again.
Eventually he started to believe that maybe he might have enough time to make things alright again.
Maybe.
---------------
Two Months, Two Weeks, Four Days, Twenty-Three Hours and Seven Minutes Later
"Uncle Sam?" Mary whispered the words and the brother in question turned to face his niece, who was standing in the doorway of his room.
Mary had long, flowing blonde hair that had the potential to grow darker with age, as most children's did, or stay that constant reminder of her grandmother. She had Kim's eyes and his brother's lips, and while he'd been told he and his niece shared a nose, he had yet to see that.
Sam loved the four-year-old as much as much as it was possible for an Uncle to love his niece and then some. Any lingering resentful feelings he'd had for Kim had disappeared completely the day she gave birth to this angel.
"Yeah, kiddo?" He whispered back, trying to calm Michael's fussing all the while. "What are you doing up so late?"
She stepped all the way into the room and shut the door behind her, long blue pajama pants dragging on the floor as she walked towards him cautiously.
"Daddy said I shouldn't talk to you about it," she started, keeping her eyes fixed on the squirming blue bundle in his arms, "But can I ask you a question?"
"Sure, Mare." Sam bent down, getting as close to eye-level with the girl as he could.
"Where's Michael's mommy?"
Tears sprung up in Sam's eyes unbidden at the sheer innocence with witch Mary spoke those words.
"Uncle Sam?" She sounded almost afraid now, seeing and sensing his reaction. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to make you sad. Do you want me to go get daddy?"
She was halfway turned around before Sam swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and called her back. "It's alright." He told her reassuringly. "I'm okay."
He considered her question as she hesitantly turned to face him again. "Didn't your mom or dad tell you-" he looked down and, buying some time, shifted Michael again. He gave up on squatting altogether - as it was uncomfortable and hard to balance his own weight along with his son's - and plopped down cross-legged in front of the crib, leaning against it. "-about Cathy?"
The young child shook her head back and forth slowly, taking a step closer to Sam and falling down on her knees in front of him, resting a tiny hand on her cousin's head.
"No. They'd talk about her sometimes, when they thought I couldn't hear. But not since Michael came. Mommy and daddy just said you were sad."
And there were so many grown-up things in her voice; it was beyond obvious that she was Dean's child.
"I am sad." He admitted, though he said it factually, with just a trace of lightheartedness to put her at ease. "I'm sad because I cared about Cathy a lot. I'm sad because she died."
Mary's deeply inquisitive eyes studied his for long moments after that. Sam wondered if it'd been a mistake to tell such a young child such a tragic thing, but he was bound and determined to not outright lie.
Of course, that didn't stop him from keeping a few details to himself. Mary was so innocent, and he would not be the one to change that. Not tonight. Not ever, if he could help it. And he hoped to God he could.
Finally, the child responded to his words. "Who will watch Michael when you're not here, if he doesn't have a mommy?" She asked, incorporating her world into Sam's and his son's, not realizing that everything wasn't that black and white yet.
Sam smiled at the innocence of it, of her, yet again. "Well, your mommy'll watch Michael. And your daddy. And I don't have a job, so I'll be here a lot."
"And me?" She perked. "Can I watch Michael too?"
Her eyes, shining with adoration, bore into his, and it was then that Sam realized Mary had never held her cousin.
She was the same age Dean had been when Sam had been born and they had pictures of the elder brother holding his infant form dating back to before their mother had died.
He felt selfish now, depriving his niece of that.
"Come'ere." He said suddenly, patting his lap and holding Michael to one side so Mary could climb onto him, leaning back against his broad chest. "Here."
He placed the baby gently into her arms. "Support his head, so it doesn't flop around." He instructed gently, his large hand over hers as a guide. "And cradle his back like this." Again, he mimicked the moves with her.
Soon they were sitting peacefully together. Michael in Mary's lap, Mary cradled against Sam and Sam's long, strong arms entwined around them both.
And they were safe.
"I think he's going to sleep." Mary whispered some time later.
Miraculously, when Sam's heavy lidded eyes glanced down and took in his son, that statement seemed accurate.
"Well, I'll be damned." He whispered happily, letting the swear word slip out despite himself.
"Is that good?" The four-year-old questioned in a soft tone, turning her head to glance at his face in the shadows cast off of the nightlight.
"Absolutely." He answered with a soft smile, yawning and leaning back.
Sam Winchester found peace that night, if only briefly, and rejoiced in it silently. He'd learned long ago to grab onto peace when it presented itself and hold on tight for as long as it remained.
Peace, like happiness and love, was hard to find, salvage or create. He knew that all too well.
His son and his niece brought all three, and he would never let himself forget that.
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Epilogue
It would be in the best interest of happy endings to state now that life went on for the Winchester clan smoothly and without disruption, that the brothers and the interlocking web of people they'd brought into their lives existed after this tragedy in an array of silver linings and hope.
This, unfortunately, is not the way life happens.
When Mary was fourteen and Michael was nine, Bobby showed up at their home, broken, bleeding, and begging for assistance in a hunt gone wrong. While Sam and Dean argued back and forth that night, Kim used the medical training she'd racked up from her time in the Peace Corp to aid the older man in a way that was familiar to almost all present.
"You're too old to still be doing this shit!" Dean had hollered, and all parties within hearing range could make out the guilt in his voice.
Kim was examining a gash in his right shoulder as he shouted back, "Well, someone's gotta do it!"
Michael quivered slightly from his place on the top of the staircase and Mary automatically placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay," she whispered. She had her mother's eyes and her father's tone. Her Aunt's impulsiveness and her Uncle's logic.
"What are they talking about?" The young boy asked quietly, demonstrating the complete faith he had in his older cousin, being so sure she would know the answer and speak the truth.
"I'm not sure." Was all she could say. Because she wasn't, though she had her theories.
You couldn't grow up in a house with two Winchester men and not have a few ideas about the past they'd had. Late night conversations she sometimes overheard, the rifle her Uncle had stowed under his bed, the way her dad had insisted she learn how to shoot a gun, their subtle quips when watching movies like Poltergeist, The Exorcist, Amityville Horror and The Shining, even the massive amount of salt that always seemed to be stocked in the kitchen.
Oh, yes, she had her theories.
But she had no conclusive answers. And theories without conclusive evidence were useless until you found a way to prove them. It was one of the first things her Uncle Sam had taught her, and it rang true in nearly every aspect of her life.
That night Bobby showed up on their doorstep, that was the night she got her conclusive proof. It was the night her mom, dad and Uncle Sam sat her and Michael down and very slowly, patiently, explained to them the Winchester legacy.
It was the night their lives changed.
---------------
A year later Dean and Sam declared their respective children old enough to join them on a trip to the Road House. Kim was out of town visiting her sister, though Dean swore he'd told her about the trip.
They went during the day, while the sun was still shining bright outside, because there was no way in hell either brother would risk bringing a fifteen or ten-year-old to the bar at prime hunter gathering time.
Ellen was friendly and accepting of the children - she'd met them both years ago, though they were too young to remember her - but it was Michael especially who seemed taken with her. It didn't exactly require a Psych degree to figure out that he was using her as a stand-in mother figure.
Sam had explained his mother's death to him when he'd been very young, but hadn't yet decided on the proper amount of details to offer up on who exactly Cathy had been. The boy hadn't asked very many questions yet, though, so he was content to leave it alone for now.
Michael was accepting of the world around him, ready to take everything at face value and examine it from there, not too eager to jump-start change. Mary was the exact opposite, needing, for as long as any of the grown-ups could remember, to know the what's and whys behind absolutely everything.
They weren't identical to Sam and Dean, but the parallels were remarkable.
"The new and improved me and you." Dean would joke, and Sam would laugh. Because it was true.
So, so true.
---------------
It wouldn't be fair to sum up their lives in simple terms following the events of that night. Winchester's had a history of hard and complicated lives and even after their retirement from the hunting world, that did not change.
Sam married again when Michael was twelve, but was divorced within a year. All that remained from the bombsite that relationship had caused was a small house a few miles from Dean and Kim's and a constant struggle to regain his son's trust.
It was a slow, uphill battle, but Sam was used to those, and eventually he proved successful.
Kim got pregnant again when Mary was just about ready to graduate from High School. The family rejoiced at the news, and their glee was level only with the grief they felt when the miscarriage happened two months later.
It became a world of silence, stand-offs and anti-depressants for a long while after that. Mary stayed with Sam and Michael for weeks on end the first few months after that tragedy, and eventually Dean did too. Kim kicked him out despite the support and comfort he'd been offering. Only Sam's desperate call to Lyn - who'd been living in Seattle since their experience in El Groton - and her subsequent two-month visit with her little sister, had their lives back to any semblance of normal.
Sam and Michael moved back in with Kim at the same time Dean did. None of them even bothered with false reasoning, they all knew it was because they were scared. Of losing each other in some way or another.
Mary went to college the next year - having put it off after her mother's miscarriage - and only went then at her family's insistence. Despite her hesitancy in leaving, she didn't seem to mind going impossibly far away. A college called McGill in Canada, where she studied long and hard for hours; eventually deciding on premed as a major.
Michael was fifteen by then, and his cousin's departure did something to him that no one, least of all his father, could have possibly predicted.
---------------
"I want to hunt." He walked into the dining room one night. His father was pouring over a large book of some sort and his Aunt and Uncle were out together, rekindling their relationship.
Sam looked up and met his son's bright blue eyes. Those eyes were the only physical characterization he'd received from his mother. Everything else was pure Winchester. He had his father's height, nose and intense stare, his Uncle's smirk and eyebrows, on occasion; he could even perfectly imitate his grandfather's genuine smile. He had his grandmother's light blonde hair, too. That hair they all thought would darken with age just as Mary's had, never did.
"You what?" Sam asked in a monotone, words echoing through his mind like swirling bits of mismatched uncertainty.
"I want to hunt. I want to do what you and Uncle Dean used to do." His son's voice was level, calm, and logical; but his eyes danced subtly with fear.
"You want to hunt." He was a broken record tonight.
The staring continued, uninterrupted, for several taffy-seconds. Sam valued logic above all else, he always had, and ever since succumbing to the responsibilities of single-fatherhood, he'd learned to reign in his temper as much as humanly possible.
The way he saw this situation, he had two options; he could sit down and discuss this with his son logically, maturely, and go on from there. Or he could be John Winchester.
"Sit down," he decided easily, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Let's talk."
---------------
The Winchester's had their fair share of tragedies; in this life just as they'd had in their last. They saw death, heartache and pain up close and without blinders. It was enough to make most reconsider the world, fate, God and spirituality all together.
They, however, were stronger than most. Michael and Mary grew up saying their prayers every night before bed.
"Angels are watching over you." Sam and Dean would mimic their mother's long ago words, and that made the pain dull sometimes. Enough.
God wasn't a practically enforced belief in their home. They didn't say grace at meals or go to church on Sundays. They just wanted something for their children to believe in, something that would bring them comfort.
The comfort of knowing something more powerful than any imaginable being was looking out for you, the comfort of family, bloodlines that would never fade, of friends like Ellen, Bobby and Ash and the other hunters that helped guide them all along the way. The comfort of being able to let people in.
It were these comforts that differentiated the generations of Winchesters from one another. These subtle, monumental, things that allowed Sam and Dean to sleep easily at night, knowing their children would be better off than they ever had been.
Their lives weren't perfect, sometimes they weren't even alright, but they always managed. Because, for now at least, they had time.
Time was everything.
Time was finally on their side.
Time, as it turned out, was what gave them a shot at that happy ending after all.
Fin