Watching Every Moment

John remembered that Dean had been small when he had been born. A tiny, screaming, red baby, held in his hands and squirming madly and John had looked at his tired, smiling wife and had blinked down at his new born son and marvelled at how small he was.

He had thought tiny originally, though Dean had been barely below average he had still stared at the baby and thought tiny. But Sam, when they had set Sam in his hands, red, not moving but mewling weakly, when Sam had been placed in his hands he had really known tiny.

In fact he viewed Sam as fragile. In his hands, and the hands of the midwife, the baby had looked fragile. They had hands that were too big and too clumsy, and he could practically hold his second born in one hand, needed very little of his second hand to support that tiny, fragile head, and he had persistent nightmares of someone accidently crushing the child's head like an eggshell, of someone holding him too roughly and the babe's arms and legs snapping like twigs, his ribs shattering under rough fingers.

He only trusted the baby with Mary. Although even in Mary's hands he looked fragile. But Mary was gentle, her hands sure and careful, the baby was safe in Mary's hands, he would not break there.

And he had worried, when Sam had been allowed home, still tiny and fragile but bigger than when he had been born at least. He had been panicky in fact, though he wouldn't admit it, because Dean had hollered at the appearance of his mother, and hugged her tightly around the knees before going back to his game of destruction with his cars.

He almost had a heart attack when Mary asked Dean if he wanted to hold his new baby brother. He had been alright with the baby, and whilst Dean's hands were small, they were unsure, he pictured tiny fragile Sam slipping from his brothers hold, of Dean accidently pressing too hard on the tiny, thin, fragile bones.

Dean had abandoned his cars at Mary's words and ran over to the couch where his mother sat with his new baby brother and for a moment just stared with interest at his baby brother cocooned in blankets. And then he had scrambled up beside his mother, Mary smiling at him and telling him what to do and then the tiny fragile babe was passed from mother to son.

John tensed, but Dean didn't drop his brother, didn't press to hard. He just sat, seemingly barely daring to breath, just staring down at his baby brother held in his arms. The boy not looking too big or too clumsy, looking perfect, sat there with his brother cocooned in the safety of his arms and his blankets. And when one tiny hand snaked out of the covers, Mary helped Dean to shift his brother in his arms so that he could take that tiny hand in his, hands engulfing the baby's like a giants over a mans, but the four year old had grinned, looked up at his father and proclaimed

"My Sammy,"

Sammy stayed small. It was a constant worry for John. As Dean grew and grew and Sam stayed tiny and fragile. Sam didn't speak for an age, and John watched the faces of mothers twist into sympathy as they realised his baby boy couldn't speak yet, the looks that said clearly that they believed his boy was slow, and they pitied him, at the same time that they were so grateful that it wasn't their child.

John didn't think it was that Sam was slow. He had never given thought into it. Sam was perfectly happy and normal, given the circumstances he felt that the baby had no other choice. After Mary had died Dean had stopped speaking, and John rarely opened his mouth himself. The family continued in silence, and Sam didn't break it. John would not admit that when Sam finally said his first word, and Dean had beamed enthusiastically, he himself had stepped into the bathroom and cried.

Sam being small had continued through school. As did the conception of his son being slow. John remembered the first school that had suggested that to him. How he had been called into the principal's office one day when picking up the boys and the man had looked from father to tiny son and suggested that Sam be placed in a system that could aid him better. John had pulled them not only from the school but the state that evening, had driven until they arrived at Pastor Jim's and then locked himself in the man's bathroom and cried again. He still didn't given in to the idea that Sam was slow. Again, he knew the blame lay with him. The boy's went through schools faster than Dean could get through clothes, and he didn't really have time to sit down with the boys and help them when he was trying to catch up with the thing that had killed Mary. Dean himself had responded by helping Sam, and Jim and the other hunters helped when the Winchesters turned up on their doorsteps.

It gave John no end of satisfaction when they had returned to that school five years later to do a hunt, and he had registered the boys into the school he had so quickly pulled them out before, and the entrance exams had shown Sam to be exceptionally bright. His boys weren't slow. His boys were damn special.