A strange dream wakes me up, a dream about Dad, of course. A strange dream, but a good dream. A dream that I need to think about for a minute before I try to go back to sleep. A dream that feels like a memory that makes me want to check on Sam.
His bedroom door is open, his bed is empty, and I find him in the doorway of the kitchen, staring at the table where we sat with Dad just the night before and unraveled the last twelve years of our lives to him. His eyes are still teary and his nose is still red and he's still my little brother, so I ask him, "You okay?"
"Yeah, you know – I – yeah." He sounds like he's surprised by his own answer. "I mean that was just – Dad was just – that was incredible."
"Yes, it was."
"He was just – so happy, and so – you know, he was happy, Mom was happy, we were happy. It's like 'your heart's desire' wasn't just to have Dad back, but to – to give us – to give all of us – 'us'."
He gives me that smile, that 'can't say thank you enough out loud' smile and I let myself feel it longer than I usually do before I tap his arm and head for the refrigerator. "C'mon, you want some leftover Winchester Surprise?"
He laughs a sudden laugh, "appropriate name, given the circumstances," then nods. "Yeah, that'd be great." He gets the plates and forks and beer while I heat up the food and dish it out and we've only eaten a few bites of it when I decide to tell him.
"So, I had this really strange dream tonight. A good dream, but – like it wasn't a dream as much as a memory I never remembered before."
Sam gives me his furrowed brow puzzled look which is more than my statement requires. "What was it?" he asks.
"It was back when you were in school, it was October of your second year. Remember when The Terminator," I do my best Arnold voice, "was elected governor of California?" I expect him to laugh, I remember him laughing when it happened in real time, but he only gives me his puzzled look again.
"Anyway, I dreamed that me and Dad were at a motel in Iowa and Dad was on his way back from somewhere, God knows where, and he – remember how he'd call when he was gone by himself and say he was stopping for a rest and wanted us to give him a call in a few hours to wake him up? I called him and he said he'd had a dream and when he got back to the motel he said he'd dreamed we were all together, you, me, him and Mom, that it was in some kind of weird library with no windows and we were 'all grown up' and -"
Sam's giving me his 'really puzzled bordering on seriously freaked' look.
"What?" I have to ask.
"I had a dream last night that felt like a memory, too. It was Dad, it was my first semester of sophomore year and it was mid-terms and I was rushing to get to the library to study -"
"Of course you were," I say but it doesn't slow him down.
"I wasn't paying attention, I was trying to get across campus, and I just – out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dad. He just – he was just standing there and he waved at me and I waved back and kept walking, then I realized and looked back but he was gone." He shakes his head. "Do you think? Dean? Do you think –?"
"That Dad remembered coming here, even if he thought it was just a dream, and the timeline rippled?" It should be too much to hope for, still… "It sure seems like, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, yeah it does," Sam agrees with that crooked smile he gets when something is really strange but really good. He lifts his beer bottle and I lift mine and we silently toast Dad and Mom and Us.
The End.