Title: Legacy
Author: amber1960
Recipient: counteragent
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers up to the latter half of Season 8, though nothing major. Use of the f word.
Author's Notes: Written for the wonderful summergen exchange on Live hopefully covers counteragent's requests for a fic expanding on the Men of Letters [and the Campbell] legacies, plus Dean with a family member (not Sam). Sam does appear here too, and maybe gets a little tiny fix it towards the end. I dunno.
Beta: monicawoe - who imposed discipline on my excessive wordiness, caught some glaring Brit-speak and generally improved this thing immeasurably! Any and all remaining errors are mine own.
Summary: Time travel really is a bitch. When Dean accidentally stumbles through a time portal inside the Bat Cave, he discovers some new information about the Men of Letters legacy and his own family.
Legacy
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. – Lao Tzu
Surprisingly, it was Dean who discovered Henry Winchester's file. Surprising because it was Sam who had been pulling out every dust covered box of papers he could find, who'd been examining every storage hole, every shelf, seeking knowledge, enlightenment, who the fuck knew what. Dean didn't really know or care. He was more interested in figuring out the purpose of the banks of inert controls, in fixing the mechanisms for opening the roof so they could use the massive telescope, or the excitement of finding potential new weapons in the boxes of junk that were piled ceiling high in the dark storage rooms with secret doors.
It was in one of those storage rooms that Dean now found himself confronted with what appeared to be a vast archive about the all individual members of the Men of Letters. The room was narrow but long, lined with floor to ceiling shelves that stretched in a line from the door into a murky darkness that Dean's flashlight couldn't find an end to. Dean knew the Bunker was warded against everything evil but he still scoffed a little at the thought of storing hundreds or maybe even thousands of years worth of data in one place. Bobby hadn't been that stupid with his precious books, had made copies and had safe places scattered round the continental US. Back ups. It made sense, but not the Men of Letters. All their knowledge was here, where a single nuke could take it out.
Dean looked at the boring beige folder with the name Henry John Winchester written in neat cursive script on its cover, and felt more inclined to burn it than to open it, even though he knew Sam would kill him for such sacrilege. The image of Henry's blood on Abaddon's hand was etched indelibly into his brain, as was the impression of Henry's weakening grasp imprinted into his flesh, and he could feel again the despair at the sensation of their grandfather's life slipping through their fingers - and that was a place he never wanted to revisit.
But.
Here was a Men of Letters file about their grandfather. What had this mysterious society known about the Winchesters, or about Heaven's plans for the blood-line? Dean looked at the nondescript cardboard box the file had come from and wondered what else was in there. Had the Men of Letters known the Campbells? Henry had said the Men of Letters worked with hunters, even while they had clearly held the hunting community in contempt. Henry had been so sure of their intellectual superiority, sitting on this vast repository of information that they never deigned to share. Dean thought angrily about all the lives that might have been saved if the Men of fucking Letters had told all hunters about even a fraction of the lore that Sam had dug up so far.
As for the whole apocalyptic mess that characterized the family history of the Winchesters – if this secret society had gotten off their well educated asses and used their extensive sources, Mary Winchester would never have had to make her deal with Azazel and would have lived to see her boys grow up; John Winchester would never have needed to become the embittered, driven hunter that raised his two boys into the hunting life, and Sammy wouldn't have been wasting away from undertaking the damned trials right now.
What had some famous dude said? Knowledge is power, right?
Dean rested the file on top of the box and flipped it open, holding his flashlight in his mouth.
Reading Henry's file didn't take long. It was pitifully thin, a reflection of both the shortness of Henry's life and the subsequent extinction of the Men of Letters. Dean guessed there had been no one left to note their grandfather's disappearance back in 1958, given that Larry Ganem, the sole survivor, had had other things on his mind — like escaping from Abaddon while blind. Dean had a momentary urge to get out his pen and record Henry's ending for posterity, even though only he and Sam were left to read it. Which was all kinds of wrong, but summed up their lives very well.
There was nothing very personal in the file. No mention of Henry's wife, John's mother, and the only reference to Henry's son was a bald statement that Henry had responsibility for a Legacy. Fuck, Dean hated that word. He'd hated it every time Henry had used it and seeing it written down made it even more impersonal and dehumanizing, somehow. He supposed their grandmother hadn't counted because she wasn't part of this exclusive club, and he couldn't help wondering how Henry had handled that. He'd seemed like a decent guy, but the Men of Letters had certainly shoved a big stick up their grandfather's ass. The man had been almost as surreally self-righteous as Cas at times.
Dean considered the file for a long moment before closing it and placing it back into the box. He slid the box back onto the shelf where he'd found it. If Sam discovered it himself during some future excavation of the archives, fine, but Dean wasn't going to open that can of worms right now. It wasn't as if reading it had shed any more light on their grandfather's life, and besides, Henry Winchester had proved himself a better man than any scraps of paper could ever describe. For a scholar and a gentleman, Henry had kicked some demon ass with a display of courage that had made Dean proud.
His stomach gurgled loudly, snapping him out of his memories. He glanced at his watch and grimaced. He'd been here longer than he'd thought, no wonder he was so hungry. Dean strode through the nearest doorway, emerging in the hallway just off the library, where he'd left Sam busy researching. His mind raced ahead to the culinary delights he had stocked up their ancient but huge fridge with, he barely registered the slight tingle of static that ran through his body as he crossed the threshold, and dismissed the momentary sense of vertigo as hunger pangs. He was already talking as he entered the brightly lit open space of the central chamber.
"Hey geek boy! I was thinking burgers - or how about my famous chilli?"
Sam wasn't in his usual p lace at the large mahogany table where Dean had left him. In fact there was no sign of his brother at all. However, the room was not empty as it should have been with Sam not in it. Around the table sat three well-groomed men in fancy suits and ties, all strangers to Dean. His hand flew automatically to the back of his jeans where he usually carried his colt 1911, which of course wasn't there, because they were in the impenetrable, completely safe Batcave where he didn't need a damn gun.
Shit.
"Who the hell are you? How'd you get in here and where's my brother?"
Two of the three stooges just stared at him as if he'd sprouted two heads, while the third, the one closest to Dean, rose slowly to his feet muttering something under his breath. Even standing the guy was a good foot shorter than Dean and didn't look very threatening, but Dean was no fool and didn't underestimate any of them. After all, this place was supposed to be impregnable, and yet here they were. Inside.
So he took a step back when Short Guy advanced on him, but his wariness didn't help any when Short Guy finished his mumbling and made a flicking gesture with his right hand. Something sparkled in the air in front of Dean's face and then everything shut down. All his muscles seized up and the sparks floating in front of his eyes were now inside his head. Then his stomach cramped, his lungs stopped and he could feel his heart-beat stuttering to a halt.
This was not how he'd thought he'd bite it this time, and it pissed him off, especially with Heaven as messed up as it was. He'd been hoping Bobby would have had a bit more time to put the place into some sort of order before he or Sam arrived…
He didn't feel anything at all except aggravation as the floor came up to greet his head.
0x0x0x0
He wasn't expecting to wake up, so he was surprised when he opened his eyes. Closely followed by an all pervasive body ache, accompanied by a crippling nausea that would have had him doubled up had he been able to move. He swallowed convulsively, desperate not to puke all over himself and after a few seconds managed to get the sick feeling under control. Breathing heavily he opened his eyes for the second time and took stock of the situation.
Fact one: he appeared to be alone. However there wasn't much advantage to be had from that due to Fact two: he was strapped to some kind of chair. Metal bands circled chest, neck and forehead, holding him upright. More iron gripped him at wrist and elbow, and from the fact that he couldn't move his legs, it appeared that his ankles were similarly restrained, though he couldn't see past his knees to verify that. Overkill, if you asked him; even Dean Winchester couldn't make use of the paperclip he always had up his sleeve. Rolling his eyes was the only part of his body he could move. Dean could see that the ironwork round his wrist was etched with various symbols, some of which he thought he could recognise, the Men of Letters' Aquarian Star being one of them.
Which brought him to Fact three: he was definitely still inside the Bunker, because he knew this room. Sam and he had discovered it only the other day, and he'd been pathetically excited by the fact that their Batcave had its very own dungeon. He wasn't feeling quite so pleased about that discovery now that someone had him trussed up in it like a potboiler chicken. A chicken that had been doused, presumably with holy water – his face, hair and the front of his t shirt were still wet. He'd been tested with knives, judging by the cuts he could feel, still stinging, on his forearms.
All of which led to a hundred questions, the first and most important being : – where the hell was Sam?
Right on cue, the door, which was behind him, of course, creaked open and Dean heard a single set of footsteps entering. Soft footfalls - but confident, no hesitation in them - that stopped directly behind his immobilised head. Dean swallowed past the tightness caused by the band around his throat.
"Hey, nice of you to drop by. Don't suppose you brought a beer?" he croaked.
The person didn't speak, didn't make a move, so Dean blundered on, hoping for a reaction.
"Or a burger, I'd even kill for a fucking Happy Meal right now. See, I was just gonna go make myself a snack when I bumped into you guys and if you hadn't tied me up we could all be having dinner right now."
He shut up at the cool touch of a hand against his cheek.
"No fever." There was a pause, then - "Nobody warned me that you would talk so much," a soft cultured voice continued, and the owner of the hand finally moved into view. Dean had thought he was past being surprised again, but this delicately boned vision of loveliness was really the last thing he'd expected to see in a dungeon. Albeit a dungeon in the biggest library of the occult that he'd ever known. "Or," the owner of the voice continued, "that half of your allusions would be such crude nonsense."
Dean was reduced to staring, open mouthed. It wasn't that it was a woman pulling up a normal-looking chair and seating herself down that had Dean so discombobulated. It was who this petite brunette resembled that rendered him temporarily speechless. Cat-like hazel eyes gazed at him from above a tip-tilted nose and wide, generous lips – features set in a triangular-shaped face framed by waves of untamed chestnut hair. Her expression was a feminine mirror for Sam's best serious face and Dean was suddenly finding it hard to breathe.
The woman was quick on the uptake and recognised his distress. Her hands worked swiftly, and the metal bands round his head and neck sprang open. Gulping at the air, Dean struggled to calm his racing heart, flushing as much with embarrassment at his display of weakness as from his panic attack. The embarrassment was immediately followed by concern at how weak he felt. It was even hard to hold his head up without the support the restraints had been providing. He leant back and rested against the high back of the chair while he watched the woman. Her movements were efficient and precise as she tended to him and he now had the opportunity to take in her very elegant but old fashioned clothing, which reminded him of an Audrey Hepburn movie. His initial freak out about her resemblance to his brother began to seem a little ridiculous. She showed no sign of recognizing him; clearly she didn't know him from Adam. A phrase that Dean couldn't now use without feeling both irony and guilt.
Of course she couldn't have anything to do with Sam. The Winchesters had been through a ton of weird crap but gender swapping was something even they hadn't yet had to deal with. At least when they had suffered a body swap, there hadn't been any prancing around in women's bodies to contend with.
He hadn't even realized his eyes had slid shut until the woman started speaking again and they flew open. What the hell did they do to him to leave him this fucking weary?
"We know you are not a demon, and you have passed every physical test - but that doesn't alter the fact that you should not be here, and we need an explanation from you. How did you get past all our gates and wards?"
"Lady, I could ask you the same thing. Except you have the advantage over me, as I have no way of testing you while I'm tied up like this. So. Who the hell are you, and how did you get inside our -my Bunker?" This time Dean avoided mentioning his most burning question - where's Sam? - because his brother might be loose somewhere, hiding, biding his time, and Dean was kind of hoping the guys from before wouldn't remember that he had given away the fact that he wasn't here alone.
"We are not demons, if that is your concern." Dean rolled his eyes. Like he was going to take her word for that. The woman moved away and sat herself back down on her chair. She leant forward, staring at him with those disconcertingly familiar eyes. "Your bunker?" she queried.
"Yeah, that's right. I live here, and there's only one key. So how did you and the Three Stooges get in?"
The woman said nothing for a moment, her eyes narrowed, considering. Stalemate, Dean thought.
Her next question seemed to come out of the blue.
"How are you feeling?"
A little taken aback, Dean found himself answering honestly.
"A bit nauseous, tired and my head hurts like a motherf… a lot." He amended hastily. She frowned, but fortunately not in offense at his verbal slip. It seemed that she was actually concerned for his welfare.
"Those symptoms are not a usual side effect of the chamomile powder used to subdue you. It would appear that something else has affected you…" She paused again then seemed to come to some sort of decision.
"I'm Elder Geraldine. What's your name?"
"Dean." He wasn't going to offer more than that, not just yet. Not while she, this Geraldine, was holding out on him, which she definitely was. Not that he necessarily blamed her for being cautious. There was no harm in trying to use a little of the old Dean Winchester charisma though. "You don't look much like an Elder," he said. He flashed her his best charming smile, slipping easily into his most disarming, flirting mode. This he was comfortable with.
"It's a title, not a description," Geraldine said, her stern expression betrayed by the faintest quirk of her lips and the hint of a smile in her eyes.
"Right. So you are a Woman of Letters." Dean left unspoken the qualification – but I thought you were all dead, killed by Abaddon. "That explains how you got in here then. You have a key?"
Geraldine nodded. Two keys? That was unexpected, though not as unexpected as finding there were still some Men of Letters around. Or that one of them was a very attractive young woman. Which brought his aching brain around full circle to the fact that this young woman bore such a strong resemblance to Sam. Really, he didn't feel alert enough to cope with this right now. Which was another concern. Why did he feel so rough, when Geraldine seemed convinced nothing these new Men of Letters had done to him should have left him with any ill effects?
"I know that you are not a Man of Letters, Dean, so you may as well be honest with me. Who are you and why are you here? How do you know about this place and about the existence of the Men of Letters?"
While Geraldine was talking, Dean heard the door open behind him, so he was not surprised when a man's voice interjected.
"And where did you steal a key to this place?"
The aggressive accusation made Dean mad. The rush of anger pushed back the exhaustion that had been creeping over him and made him forget about his aching head.
"We – I didn't steal anything, buddy. I'm a fucking legacy, alright?" It pissed him off to be using the term, but it was the only one that described what happened with Henry. "Now why don't you let me out of this damn chair and stop acting like total douchebags?"
Dean had to admit, the vicious backhand was a bit of a shock. After all, these guys were supposed to be bookworms and geeks, not warriors. The blow rocked his head back and he saw stars in the most clichéd fashion possible. Huh. That did nothing to help his headache.
"Foul mouthed and insolent. Watch your language in front of the lady," the man said. When Dean could focus again, he stared. Was this guy for real? He worried at the new split in his lip with his tongue, tasted the blood. At least all his teeth seemed to be firmly anchored.
"Larry, there is no need to leap to my defence. I can fight my own battles." Geraldine said, irritation in every line of her elegantly coutured figure, but all Dean could hear was the guy's name. Alarm bells were ringing inside his head along with the ringing in his ears left by Larry's blow. He honed in on the man's face, wishing he had more than a photograph of a very old man to go on.
"Wait a minute. Larry?" Dean hesitated to say it, but once the idea had come to mind it was hard to shake… "Not Larry Ganem?"
Both of them stiffened, which was all the answer Dean needed. Well shit. That tingling static charge, the way he was feeling… he didn't know how this could have happened, with no angels, no visible spells, but it was the only explanation that fit. The reason he was in the Bunker with these people, these supposedly defunct Men of Letters, was because Dean was no longer in 2013. Sadly that crazy option seemed more likely than a whole bunch of people time travelling into the future like Henry had done. There was only one way to find out.
"What's the date?"
Both faces turned towards him, frowning—one puzzled, the other suspicious.
"What's your game?" Larry said, at the same time as Geraldine told him "April 5th 1958."
Fuck my life, Dean thought. April '58. Henry still had a month to live. Abaddon had yet to appear. Dad was four years old and just a little kid with no idea that within a few weeks he'd have lost his father and be left with nothing but abandonment issues and bitterness in his place. What was this all about? Was Dean here just so someone or something could mess with his head by showing him yet again that you can't change the past? He flung his head back and glared at the blank ceiling.
"Well thanks a lot. Don't you think I learned that lesson already? Time travel blows! Is this your idea of a cosmic joke?"
The strength of his anger was making him shake, and sweat broke out on his forehead. He gripped the arms of the chair until he thought his fingers would break and he couldn't let go. His body was bucking wildly against the tight iron bands and he couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't…
His eyes rolled back in his head and all his muscles convulsed. He could dimly hear people shouting but the rushing in his ears was drowning everything out. Unconsciousness when it took him was a blessed relief.
0x0x0x0
Voices off, stage left.
…name's Dean… said he was a legacy…
…dangerous, should be restrained…
…interrogate him further…
…knew about the key…
…anti-possession tattoo…
then
Silence.
Dean relaxed, let himself drift. Without opening his eyes, he knew he was still inside the Batcave. He'd never mentioned it to Sam, because it sounded so sappy, but the Bunker smelled like home. When they had first crossed the threshold, Dean had taken it all in and filed it all away in his head, just as Sam had gone on to physically catalogue the place. Because there they were, all the things that meant familiar and safe-haven and yes, even family. There was the paper and parchment, the leather of book bindings, even the dust - but keeping it from smelling only like a library was the faint residue of cordite, metal oil and machinery, all underpinned by the faint hum of engines ticking over, giving the place a living heart. It was an environment Dean could feel totally comfortable with.
But right now he was so damned tired. If he had travelled in time again, there was something different about this trip. He'd never felt this sick before. Well, there had been the whole angel transport digestive problem but that was trivial compared to the way he was feeling now.
"I know you are awake, Dean, so you can stop pretending."
Shit. He was a fucking hunter, he should not have allowed someone to creep up on him like that, however rough he was feeling. His eyes flew open. The woman, Geraldine, was sitting beside him, smiling with Sam's smile – and damn but he was going to have to get to the bottom of that one sooner rather than later. He was no longer in that torture chair, thank God, but lying on something much more comfortable. He lifted his head with an effort and took in his new surroundings.
Dean was right. He was still in the Batcave, but in one of the smaller rooms, very similar to the one he'd commandeered as his bedroom. It could even be the same room, it was impossible to tell. The walls were plain, the ceiling featureless, but there was a bed, a wooden bedside cabinet and a utilitarian-looking cupboard against one wall that could be either for filing or for clothes. Dean let his head drop back onto the pillow, exhausted by the tiny effort of holding it up for half a minute. This was so not good. He nearly swore again out loud, but restrained himself in deference to Geraldine's presence. Larry was right, Geraldine was a lady.
"Geraldine." He said. "What happened?" His voice sounded as rough as he felt. He swallowed but his mouth felt as though it had been stuffed with paper towels for hours. He was pathetically grateful when Geraldine produced a glass of water, and even more so when she propped him up with pillows she seemed to conjure out of thin air and helped him drink. She was no more than 100lbs, and man (woman) -handling him like he was a baby. He was kind of grateful Sam wasn't there to witness this humiliation.
"You are not a very good patient, are you, Dean?"
"Guess not," he said with a grimace. "Don't like not knowing what's wrong with me." He added. Geraldine was as good at looking sympathetic as Sam, and probably just as hard to resist.
"You had a seizure. Has that happened to you before?" She asked.
Dean shook his head, then winced as his head reminded him why he wanted to keep it still, thanks very much.
"You know we can't help you if you aren't willing to tell us how you got here."
Dean sighed. He supposed that was true. If he was indeed in 1958, he would probably need some assistance getting home, even assuming that was possible without Cas or Chronos to work their magic. He knew that blood magic worked, he could recite from memory the words Henry had used and knew he could replicate the symbol used to unlock that time portal or whatever it was that Henry had created, but he was also aware that there was preparation involved that neither he or Sam had acquired the list of ingredients for. That part Henry had already completed by the time Dean had found him, and Abaddon had made sure that there had been no time for conversation after that.
Dean wondered if Geraldine's file had been in that box with Henry's, though he didn't recall seeing any papers labelled with any female names. A thought struck him.
"What's your last name?" Maybe he'd seen her file but not noticed it. He almost didn't register when she answered, deep in thought as he was, so the shock of it hit him on a time delay, thrusting all thoughts of ancient paperwork from his head.
"Winchester."
His shocked reaction made her pause, and she looked at him with suspicion mingled with concern, but he couldn't pull himself together fast enough to cover it up. His chest felt tight again. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself before trusting his voice to sound rational and halfway normal.
"You're Henry's wife?" He asked, though he knew the answer had to be yes. It took him a moment to register that he had grabbed her hand, and was holding on much too tightly, as she nodded her assent. With an effort of will, he let go.
His mind was racing now, feverishly trying to figure out what this could mean. Dad had harboured a fierce resentment of his father for, as he saw it, walking out on him, but John had always given Dean the impression that his mother had already been dead when that had happened. After Henry's disappearance, John had been raised in Lawrence by a cousin of Henry's, a mechanic who had no connections with anything out of the ordinary. Dean knew that Geraldine hadn't been one of the Men of Letters who had been at that fateful initiation in May 1958, when the Knight of Hell had wiped them out, all bar one. So did that mean Geraldine was to die even sooner, in some other way?
There were not enough swear words in Dean's vocabulary, or even in the entire world, to fully describe how fucked up this was. He closed his eyes against the concerned face that looked so much like his little brother, feeling nothing but a terrible kind of despair. How could this be happening again? Was it his fate to witness every member of his family die? He remembered shouting at destiny before, yeah, fuck you in your face, and how it hadn't gotten him a damn thing.
"Dean?" It sounded as though she'd been saying his name for a while. He opened his eyes again reluctantly. Geraldine Winchester, his grandmother, was staring at him with concern mingled with determination.
"How do you know my husband?"
It wasn't a request, and besides, Dean just didn't have it in him to lie. He just wasn't sure how to tell the story right. Because this really was a cosmic joke of epic proportions.
"Henry did a blood spell. Blood calls to blood, he said, and so he found us. Me and my brother, Sam. He was running from a Knight of Hell, the demon called Abaddon, trying to keep the key to this place safe."
"You are related to Henry Winchester?"
Dean sighed. This went so well last time with Samuel…
"Yes. My name is Dean Winchester and I am your grandson."
Geraldine Winchester was nothing like Samuel Campbell. She listened intently, without interrupting, or showing any evidence of disbelief. She was calm, intent and totally focussed on Dean. He was uncomfortable with that level of attention - but it was an uncomfortable story to be telling anyone, so he sucked it up. And he told her everything they knew about the Winchester connection with the Bunker.
He told her about Henry's trip to the future, everything Henry had told them about the Men of Letters, everything he knew about Abaddon. He told her what had happened to David Ackers and Ted Bowen, and how Abaddon had blinded Larry Ganem. How Larry had hidden from the demon for so many years only to die at its hands, thanks to he and Sam leading the Knight of Hell to the old man's doorstep. He didn't know if it was wise, or permissible, or whether it would change anything to give her all this information. He didn't know if, this time, words and knowledge would save anyone, but it felt like the right thing to do.
At least, this way, his grandmother had a chance. An opportunity.
When he finished the tale he was exhausted, but wired at the same time. The back of his neck was prickling as if he was being watched – he half expected Castiel, or one of those dead archangel bastards, or Death himself to suddenly appear and start smiting him for attempting to interfere with the natural order. Again.
He had thought Geraldine might be sceptical but she seemed to accept at face value everything he'd told her, even though it sounded fantastical to him, and he'd lived through it. He braced himself for a barrage of questions that never came. His grandmother chose to be selective, far more so than he would have been able to manage, had their positions been reversed.
"There is a lot more to this story that you haven't told me, isn't there?"
"Shit …sorry. Yeah. But I'm guessing we don't have a few days spare for me to fill you in on all the crap that we've been through over the past eight years or so."
"Maybe not," Geraldine agreed. "But tell me one thing. You've time travelled before, haven't you?" Dean nodded. "More than once," he said, reluctantly, hoping she wasn't going to ask for details. She didn't.
"And in all those times, were you ever able to change the course of events, to change the past?"
Dean didn't answer. He couldn't, but he must be an open book to her, with the answer written all over his face.
"That's what I thought." She said.
Geraldine stood up, her movements decisive.
"We need to send you home, Dean. That's my first priority."
"Are you going to…will you tell Henry? Warn him and the others?"
"Are you seriously asking me if I will try and save my husband's life? Or stop my beautiful baby boy growing up orphaned and alone – or worse, allow him to be slaughtered by a demon? Or attempt to prevent the extinction of the organization I serve, that stands between the people of this world and the darkness?"
Dean swallowed as the diminutive woman rounded on him, full of fiery passion where a minute before she had seemed unmoved by everything she'd heard. He raised his hands in surrender.
"Okay, okay, I get it. You know, I almost feel sorry for Abaddon, knowing that she has you to face now."
He had been trying to get out of the bed while he was talking, but the effort of doing two things at once was too much, so he shut his mouth and concentrated on finding the strength to swing his legs over the edge and get his bare feet onto the floor. Where the hell were his boots anyway? By the time he was in position and was able to look up, he was breathing like he'd just climbed Kilimanjaro without oxygen, and sweat was running down his face. He didn't even have enough breath left to curse.
While he'd been otherwise occupied, Geraldine must have left the room because she was now returning through the door with a wooden bowl and an armful of ingredients that she spread onto the bed-cover, as there wasn't enough room on the bedside cabinet. Dean offered his bare arm up to her knife but Geraldine shook her head.
"We will use my blood, Dean. If you are telling the truth, mine is as good as yours, and you are too weak for bloodletting right now."
Dean wanted to protest but he knew she was right. She moved swiftly through the ritual, grinding the ingredients of the spell together so the air was filled with the fragrance of herbs and the iron tang of blood. Geraldine proved to be as economical and efficient in her spell work as she had been in everything else Dean had witnessed so far, and before he knew it, she had drawn the necessary swirling symbol on the door and was poised, ready to commence the chant that would send him home to Sam.
He was swaying on his feet, but managed to stay upright long enough to make it to her side. He started a little when her small hand grabbed his elbow and turned him to face her. He had the feeling she could have liked to have gripped him by the shoulders but she couldn't reach that high.
"You and your brother, you are my boys now. Never forget that, because I won't." Dean looked down into that intense hazel gaze and nodded. Behind him the symbol on the door was glowing brighter and brighter, reflected in her eyes. "And don't look for me under the name of Winchester. You won't find me. I'll need to cover my tracks."
She was pushing him towards the portal, and he could feel the gravitational pull tugging at him, warping him out of shape. He grimaced and braced himself as he was caught up in the flow, but he heard her voice calling after him.
"Look for Gerry O'Hara!"
That was the name that followed him into the dark.
0x0x0x0
Sam was trying very hard not to panic. But Dean had been unconscious for two days now, not stirring a muscle since Sam had found him collapsed outside one of the Bunker's many small storerooms. Weirdly, Dean's boots and socks had been missing, nowhere to be found – something Dean was going to be mighty pissed about when he woke. He loved those boots.
After Sam failed to rouse Dean, he'd struggled to carry the heavy great lump that was his big brother back to Dean's own room, where he deposited him onto that beloved memory foam mattress. Sam hadn't been running at full strength since starting the trials, and he felt its lack now. He was worn to a frazzle with waiting.
Two days.
In fact, it was forty-nine hours and … Sam glanced at his watch again …fifteen minutes. Not that Sam was counting. But. He wanted his brother back.
Two days ago, Sam had searched the room Dean had been working in from top to bottom, thinking Dean must have touched or opened something he shouldn't have. Maybe even eaten something. He wouldn't put it past him, having watched Dean opening boxes of occult artefacts seemingly unable to stop handling and even sniffing things. It reminded him of Benton Fraser from Due South, a thought that had made him giggle at the time, even while he'd been telling Dean not to be so fucking stupid. But there was nothing in the storeroom in question but a few shelves stacked with boxes of manila folders, containing records of the Men of Letters. One box had been relatively clear of dust, evidence that it had been opened recently, and Sam had that one on the floor next to him now, where he was sitting at Dean's bedside, waiting for Dean to wake up already.
He had already been through every line in every single one of the files in the box, and there was nothing there. Not a single clue as to why his brother had been lying comatose for …forty-nine hours and forty-three minutes… as pale as the sheets he was lying on. When Sam had first seen their grandfather's file was in there, his hopes had soared, but there was nothing of interest in that slender folder, and nothing to indicate that it had anything to do with Dean's mysterious condition. All the other files were equally unforthcoming. He'd even called Kevin once, to see if any sort of relevant revelation had been forthcoming from the tablet research, only to have his ear chewed off by an extremely stressed Prophet, who had evidently been taking the uppers that Dean had stupidly left him and was consequently wired so tight he was practically vibrating at a high C.
Sam had been living with nothing but onlys and ifs and buts for forty-nine hours and fifty minutes and he was tired of it.
It was fortunate that Dean chose that moment to wake up, as Sam was reaching the end of his rope. His brother's first mumbled utterances were predictable, if infuriatingly Dean.
"S'm." Dean's eyes opened a little wider, took in Sam's haggard face. ""R y'okay?"
Sam's reaction was also predictable and probably very Sam. He wavered wildly between wanting to hug Dean until he squeaked, or shake his stupid brother until his teeth fell out. Caught between the two options, he did neither, just sat and glared at Dean, who didn't seem to notice.
"Wha' happened?" Dean asked, as he tried and failed to sit up. He fell back onto his pillow with a loud oof! "Why do I feel like crap?"
Sam turned his glare up a notch.
"I thought you might tell me, Dean. I found you unconscious outside one of the storerooms; not a mark on you, but I couldn't wake you up. That was two days ago, Dean. Two days." Sam's voice was getting a bit shrill, and the memory of those two days made him feel a little out of control, so he shut up abruptly before he embarrassed himself. Dean was staring at him, a patented big-brother concerned expression on his pallid face and that was just too fucking annoying for words. How dare Dean worry about Sam when he was the one who'd been unconscious for days. Freaking days!
"Hey, Sammy, it's okay," Dean was murmuring into his ear and somehow Dean had wrapped sleep-warm arms around Sam, who was shaking with the strength of his emotions and was now worried perhaps he might have just said all of that stupid crap out loud. So Sam shut his mouth tight to keep his words inside, and hugged Dean back until Dean squeaked, which proved that was the option he should have gone with in the first place. He only let go, reluctantly, when Dean beat feebly on his back and said something about suffocation.
"That box…" Dean's brow furrowed as his gaze fell on the cardboard box full of useless files, then a look of recognition flashed across his face. "Gerry O'Hara!" Dean exclaimed, inexplicably, and this time he must have found the strength from somewhere, because he was out of the bed and crossing the room before Sam had a chance to react. Only to land in an untidy heap on the floor halfway to the box when his wobbly legs gave out. An echo of Bobby muttered idjit inside Sam's head.
He helped Dean up patiently while pointing out the obvious fact that Dean had a) been unconscious for two days and b) not eaten or drunk anything for all that time regardless of whatever else might be wrong with him, and that therefore leaping out of bed and rushing about was probably not the wisest course of action. He deposited a pale, grumbling Dean back into the bed and left with a promise that he would dig out the relevant file once Dean had eaten the soup he'd had on the go for the last fifty hours and twenty minutes. Oh and after Dean had showered too, because he stank. Dean sniffed gingerly at one armpit, winced, then pretended he hadn't. He attempted an unconvincing smirk instead.
"What do you mean I stink? Didn't you give me any bed baths while I was out, Sammy? You know I'd have done it for you, little brother…"
Sam smiled as Dean's protests followed him down the corridor to the kitchen.
0x0x0x0
Sam refused to allow Dean to either touch the mysterious O'Hara file, or even to talk about it until he'd downed two bowlfuls of the well-stewed broth, and there was a bit of color back in his freckled cheeks. Finally satisfied, Sam sat back and handed Dean the slim manila folder. There was silence except for the rustle of pages turning and the occasional hum from Dean when he read something particularly interesting. After a few minutes of this, Sam's patience cracked.
"Ok, are you going to tell me what happened? And why are you so interested in this file?"
Dean flashed him a surprised look as if he'd forgotten Sam was there, which was disturbing. Though Sam never articulated it, even to himself, but it was ingrained deeply into his psyche that Dean's attention would always be partly focused on him, so to have his brother so concentrated on something else was a little weird.
Then Dean began to tell him about Gerry O'Hara, and Sam forgot about everything else.
When Dean had told him everything he knew, Sam felt dizzy. Dean had kicked the beehive, and now there were so many thoughts buzzing inside Sam's head it was hard to single out the patterns and see the paths that mattered. But Sam was good at this, he would figure it all out.
"She could still be alive."
Sam didn't know which of them said it, but it was true. Their grandmother, the last surviving member of the Winchester family tree, albeit by marriage, and the last of the Men of Letters could still be alive somewhere. They had no evidence of her death, and some research was definitely in order. Sam smiled. Now this was his forte.
It took Sam a while, and he had to employ some of the hacking skills Charlie had taught him before he finally tracked their grandmother down, but there she was. Still going by the name of O'Hara, so evidently she hadn't married again, 80 year old Geraldine was living near the coast of Maine, in a small town called Harrington, not many miles south of the Canadian border. It looked like she'd been there a long time, maybe ever since she'd talked to Dean, back in April 1958, though Sam couldn't find an actual record of her arrival there.
Dean was still weak from the aftermath of whatever the mystery illness was that had hit him – time travel sickness? – but now above all he was furious, and running off the fumes of that anger he wanted to set out for Maine right away.
"She knew what was going to happen, Sammy. I fucking told her! And all she did with that knowledge was abandon Henry and Dad. She left Henry alone to face Abaddon, and Dad without a Mom. How could she do that?"
"I don't know, dude, we can ask her when we get there. But it's a two day drive, you're swaying on your feet, and I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders myself right now, so you're going to have to be patient."
Dean grumbled and bitched and stomped around like a sulky toddler until he got tired and had to sit down, but Sam knew he was right and wouldn't give way until Dean finally agreed to wait until the following day.
Dean woke Sam at the crack of dawn, but Sam still counted that as a win, especially as his brother looked a million times better after a good night's sleep. And, Sam admitted to himself, he was just as eager to meet Geraldine as Dean was, maybe more so, as she was the only fully initiated member of the Men of Letters he was ever going to have a chance to talk to, now that Larry was well and truly dead.
Sam managed to pry the wheel of the Impala from Dean's hand a couple of times to share the drive east, through weather that was as unsettled as Dean's temper.
Harrington, Maine was one of those towns without a real centre. An oddball assortment of houses and industrial units were interspersed with a Subway, a Seven Eleven and a late 18th century Methodist church. The place felt like it had grown organically along the highway where it meandered around the strangely named Back Bay, Flat Bay and West Carrying Place Cove. It made it almost impossible to get lost, not that Dean was prone to losing his way. Sam would swear his brother had a GPS wired into his brain. One glance at a map and Dean could navigate as if it was on a display etched into the Impala's windshield in front of his face.
The setting sun was shafting watery gold through lowering rain clouds behind them as the Impala rumbled her way to a halt outside the tiny single story clapboard house on Cherryfield Stretch.
It looked exactly as it had done on the satellite street view Sam had called up before they left the Bat Cave. It was the sort of house a kid would draw. The central front door was flanked by pairs of windows with ornamental burnt orange shutters, like eyes round a nose; there was a shingle roof with a tall central chimney, and a small outhouse built onto the side. The fence was made of round logs rather than white pickets, and there was an ancient but well kept motorbike in the front garden under the huge beech tree, but otherwise it was pretty as a picture on a chocolate box.
Dean huffed a bit when Sam pointed out that the Impala was likely to draw a lot of attention parked up on the road, but he followed Sam's directions and reversed into the driveway down the side of the house. Though it didn't stop him mumbling something about holding Sam personally accountable if that damn tree dropped sap or any other crap onto his baby's paintwork.
"I wish you'd let me find out her phone number and call ahead, Dean. She's an old lady, and two big guys turning up out of the blue…"
"And give her a chance to skip town? I don't think so, Sam."
"Dude, she's eighty years old, I very much doubt she'll be skipping anywhere any time soon."
"Yeah well, we'll see."
Dean's knock on the partition door was aggressively loud, making Sam wince. Geraldine didn't keep them waiting long. Sam's first impression was that their grandmother was pretty spry for eighty. She was also tiny, perfectly in proportion with her tiny house. With her white hair and slanted eyes she reminded Sam of a Persian cat.
He didn't know what he was expecting, but having her instantly recognise Dean and literally drag them both inside was not it.
"Dean Winchester. And you must be Sam. My, you are tall. And handsome." She reached up and touched Sam's cheek with a smile before rounding on Dean. "What took you so long, boy?"
Sam was amused to see Dean's carefully nurtured anger melt under their grandmother's scrutiny. Dean deflated like a failed soufflé and began to bluster as she ushered them through to the sitting room. Sam wasn't sure how he felt about this new relative (yet another new relative, how could their family be so freaking good at hiding from each other?), but it was clear that Dean was wound up tight as a drum-skin, so the merest tap had him vibrating. The only question was, where was all that tension going to lead?
Geraldine's place was almost as small as that mobile home the crazy fairy woman had lived in, but thankfully all resemblance ended there. The décor was tastefully plain and there wasn't a lace doily or antimacassar in sight. Even better, Geraldine offered coffee, not tea, and it came in decent-sized mugs that Sam could wrap his hand around without feeling like Gulliver in Lilliput.
Once everyone was settled, Geraldine rounded on Dean.
"So you only returned from 1958 four days ago? That is ridiculous. I've been waiting for over fifty years, and you didn't even bring your father with you. Where is John? Where's my baby boy?"
Dean's face was stricken, so Sam stepped in.
"Dad – John Winchester, your son – died in 2006." Sam threw Dean a glance that said you didn't tell her this fact back then? But Dean's gaze was fixed firmly on his second best boots to avoid seeing how their grandmother paled, and sat back in the armchair as if gravity had suddenly increased to unbearable proportions.
"I'm sorry." Sam added.
Geraldine was silent for a moment and Sam didn't know whether to keep talking or give her a moment. Fortunately, she didn't keep him waiting long. She sighed and leaned forward, that piercing gaze fixed on Dean.
"So John was already dead when we spoke back in '58. Why didn't you tell me?"
Dean's head went up at that, and when he spoke Sam was glad he couldn't see his brother's expression, if it was half as raw as his voice.
"I gave you all the information you needed to save Henry and the Men of Letters from Abaddon. Telling you about Dad, it wouldn't have helped you back then, and it might have distracted you. But then I arrive back to find nothing changed, and you were just as AWOL as you had been before we spoke. We'd thought you were dead. Dad thought you were dead. What happened?"
It appeared at first that Geraldine wasn't going to answer Dean, as she started talking about the Men of Letters in a seemingly general way.
"You have to understand, the Men of Letters were not warriors. There were never very many of us, no more than a handful of initiates and Elders active at any one time, and we were all scholars, not soldiers.
After I sent you back, Dean, I thought about what you had told me for a long time. I sought counsel from David Ackers, as our most senior Elder. He didn't believe me. None of them believed me. Time travel, Knights of Hell, none of it. After the third, the fourth retelling, I started doubting myself. David forbade me from telling Henry. He said that even if it was true, then I couldn't upset the natural balance by trying to change the past, and I had to agree. I remembered what you'd said when I asked you about your own experiences of trying to meddle with past events."
Dean shifted in his chair and looked guilty, but Geraldine continued, ignoring his discomfort.
"Then I did some research of my own and I found Abaddon. Well, not Abaddon itself, not exactly, but evidence that the demon might indeed exist on our plane. I found a trail of suspicious deaths, and eventually I concluded Abaddon was systematically eliminating Men of Letters. Some of them had been tortured before they died, and from what you'd said, Dean, I figured the demon was seeking the key to the Knowledge.
I knew two things: the key had to be protected, and you'd told me my Henry was going to do that. And that meant it was up to me to protect our baby, John. I was consumed with the fear of knowing that Abaddon was coming for all of us, all the Men of Letters, and from what you described, the demon wasn't going to stop until everyone if us was dead. So."
"So, John couldn't become a Man of Letters?" Sam interjected when Geraldine hesitated.
Geraldine looked at him in surprise, as if she had forgotten Sam was there. She nodded in approval, and when she resumed her tale, her attention was directed at both Winchesters.
"That's right. I couldn't allow John to become the Legacy he was born to be, because that would set him up as Abaddon's next target. So I went to Kansas, hoping that I would have enough time to make arrangements before the demon arrived and the events Dean had described came to pass."
"You found a family to foster our Dad." Sam stated. He could see the logic of the abandonment to come; he understood the strategy of hiding from the ones you love the most to protect them from pain. Geraldine nodded.
"They were family, Henry's cousins. Civilians. George Winchester was a car mechanic, Miriam waited tables at the local diner. They didn't know anything about the Knowledge or the legacy."
"Or hunting," Dean said, and Sam could see the anger had returned. "You left him vulnerable, knowing what was out there. How could you do that?"
Geraldine didn't have to answer him though, because Sam could see the pattern now. Sam spoke up before Geraldine could get a word out.
"Because the Campbells were there. A family of hunters, the best in the business. If any town should be safe, it would be Lawrence, Kansas. Right?"
Dean was looking from one to the other of them with a kind of horror on his face. It made Sam uncomfortable, but he couldn't help it. Dean wouldn't see the choice their grandmother had made as a valid option, because to Dean, family was all about sticking together, no matter what. Although his brother was far more astute than he gave himself credit for, this was one area where he was wilfully blind, and Sam understood it. Understood but didn't always agree. So Sam didn't try and stop Dean when he stood up and walked out of the house. He might have briefly entertained the idea of whacking Dean upside the head for being such a stubborn, sensitive ass, but that was only a fleeting thought.
Dean paused at the door on his way out, and his expression was an odd mixture of apology and bewildered anger.
"If you knew what your decision cost; I…I'm sorry, I just can't …" He said, then he was gone.
Geraldine stared after him for a moment, her expression unreadable, before turning back to Sam.
"Shouldn't you go with him, make sure he's all right?"
Sam shook his head. "Dean's fine. He just needs a minute or two to get his head around all this. He'll probably go drive around for a bit, but he'll be back."
Geraldine sighed, then nodded in acquiescence.
"I know what my decision cost me," she said. "Perhaps you can explain what price other people paid for it?"
"I can," Sam said, "But it is a very long story. And I have questions for you too, if you don't mind."
Geraldine nodded and rose to her feet. "Long stories call for coffee and cake, I think."
"Dean prefers pie," Sam said with a grin. After a second, Geraldine's tight expression loosened into a smile that was an echo of Sam's own.
"Pie it is, then."
Once they were settled back down in the living room with ample supplies, Geraldine went first in the sharing of their disparate Winchester histories.
0x0x0x0
After Dean had disappeared back into her future, Geraldine wasted no time.
Her first step was to warn her colleagues about Abaddon. Even though Dean had told her one version of history as he had experienced it, she knew that just because something had apparently happened, didn't mean it was inevitable it would always happen. The events Dean had described were his past, and so fixed for him, but they were still in her future, and the future was fluid. Time paradoxes. Gotta love 'em. If there was a chance the future could be changed, she had to take it.
So she tried to convince them that she wasn't insane, she hadn't been dreaming or somehow contaminated by one of the many dangerous artifacts they studied in the Bunker, or that she hadn't simply been taken for a ride by a handsome, devious stranger. They didn't believe her. At first they were angry that she apparently allowed the mysterious intruder to escape, but after a while, she could see the anger turning to concern mixed with a hint of condescension. She wasn't surprised when eventually David Ackers told her that it was time to go home to Indiana, clearly hoping that Henry would be able to sort his hysterical wife out.
Part of her wanted that so much it hurt. To see Henry again, let him hold her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right. To kiss John goodnight, and sing As Time Goes By to him while he fell asleep, with his dark hair sleep tousled and a rosy glow on his cheeks. To explain why she had to leave them.
It was getting close to the time when Henry would be going through his initiation, and all the Elders would be returning to their base in Normal to perform the ceremony. Geraldine knew Abaddon would be waiting for them there, so her time was running out. But there was one last thing she needed to put in place before she could leave this last stronghold of the Men of Letters.
She didn't want to deceive her colleagues, but neither did she want to risk anyone trying to stop her setting up the mechanisms by which she planned to ensure that Dean would travel back here when the time came. She played the meek woman for them and was somewhat disappointed that they swallowed it. Geraldine had thought her male colleagues were better than that. So she told them it was a long drive, she would leave first thing in the morning, and then she waited for night to fall and the three men to go to their rooms to sleep.
Geraldine waited for the quality of the Bunker's quiet to change to dormant before running back to the bedroom where Dean had lain unconscious, to grab the boots he'd involuntarily left behind.
All the while Dean had been telling her his story, her mind had been racing. Consequences and actions, actions and reactions, Newton's Laws of motion. She was well educated, better than most women of the time, one of the many advantages of being brought up as a Legacy, and she understood what she was doing would not be easy. She thought about John, her baby boy, safely tucked up in bed at home with her husband, soon to become a fully-fledged Man of Letters, and she steeled herself. This would hurt them, and it would nigh on kill her, but it had to be done if any of them was to have a chance of surviving.
She took Dean's (her grandson, her mind still couldn't wrap around that fact) well worn, heavy boots, and with a sharp knife, began to cut the leather into strips. She made sure the parts she chose were the most worn, ones still holding the imprint of her grandson's feet. She painted each piece of leather with her own blood. Then, taking the dismembered boots, she worked at the wooden doorframe to remove the strips of wood in order to carefully conceal the fragments of leather around the doorway. She etched symbols, Enochian and arcane, into the rough undersides of the wood before putting the pieces back in place. It was important to get this done swiftly, quietly and with the greatest care. This contrivance had to last for more than fifty years, so that the spell would still work when Dean walked through this same doorway in these same boots, at some point in the future. The paradox would be triggered, and blood would call to blood.
Geraldine wished she'd had the time to ask Dean so many more questions, including finding out precisely from when it was that he'd travelled back in time to meet her, but it was too late for that now. She would just have to trust that kind of precision was not a requirement to make this spell work, taking Dean's appearance a few hours ago as hopeful evidence of success. Even though she knew that what she was planning to do now could be setting up a new paradox that would mean that Dean would never arrive in the past in the first place. She couldn't think about that, or she would be paralyzed into inaction.
It's only after the spell was all complete and the time trap set – with a double trigger so that Dean would have to walk through twice for it to activate, because Geraldine didn't want this thing to go off by accident – everything hit her like a tidal wave and she had to sit down before her trembling legs folded from underneath her.
The dead of night hush that surrounded the Bunker in the small hours pressed on her so that she bowed under its weight, and her whole body shook. What was she doing? If Dean had been right, she had no guarantee that any of them would survive, let alone that her plan could work. Though her son had survived, hadn't he? And become a hunter and a father, and perhaps that was due to the actions she was putting in place now. She had to hope so, because hope was all she had to go on.
She wasn't sure how long she sat there before she finally managed to pull it together and find the will to move. There was one last task to complete before she could leave the Bunker for good, a few more minutes and she was done. She put the typewriter away and slid the brown manila folder back into the box. She stood for a moment with her hand resting on the black Bakelite of the telephone, thinking about Henry. Then she shook her head.
No. If she told Henry what she was doing, he might do something different when the day of his initiation came, and then Dean may not have the chance to come back and warn her. She couldn't chance it, John's life depended on her leaving now, and never seeing him again. She had to stay away, or risk drawing Abaddon's attention on her family, and on the last legacy of the Men of Letters. The library had to be kept safe, and her boy had to survive.
She drove to Lawrence with tears in her eyes, and resolve wrapped like armor around her heart.
0x0x0x0
Sam was quiet when Geraldine finished her story, taking a minute to absorb the implications of everything she had said and done.
"So Henry's cousins in Lawrence were ready to take Dad in after both of you disappeared. How did you get them to agree to that without explaining where you were going or why it was necessary for them to get involved?"
For the first time, Geraldine was visibly upset. She had held Sam's gaze throughout her tale, but now she looked away, ashamed. She raised a hand to her face as if the gesture could shield her, or maybe him, from the words, and Sam could see she was shaking slightly.
"I told Miriam I was having an affair, and that I was leaving Henry to go live out East with my lover. I had wracked my brains to find an explanation they would understand, and that would most likely keep them from telling John anything near the truth. Those days, people didn't like to talk about infidelity in their family, and the stigma of having a mother who was seen as harlot – the Winchesters in Lawrence were very religious. I – I knew that they would rush to John's rescue, and take care of Henry."
She dropped her hand into her lap and impulsively, Sam reached across and took it in his own. Her fingers were long and elegant, but his large hand engulfed hers. He thought about all the things he and Dean had done, all the lies they had told and all their deceptions, large and small. He was the last person to judge her for the decisions she had made or the way they had panned out, for better or for worse. In the scheme of things, both he and Dean had made far worse choices for worse reasons.
"Hey," Sam said, keeping his voice gentle. Dean called it his guidance counsellor voice. "You did what you had to, what you thought was right. And it worked, didn't it? Abaddon never found you, or our Dad, or the key to the Men of Letter's repository of knowledge. Your actions kept Dad alive and kept the Bunker safe. Being in Lawrence meant that Dad found love with our Mom, and because of that me and Dean owe you our lives too."
"I just wish I could have seen my baby one more time, and that I could have explained to Henry what was going on. I hate thinking that he died believing I had been unfaithful to him… ," Her voice hitched and Sam didn't hesitate. He slid across from his chair onto the sofa and pulled their grandmother's slight figure into his arms. It felt right. Geraldine clung to him, sobbing like a little child, and his heart lurched in his chest.
It was time to tell Geraldine what had happened to the Winchester family after she had left, and after Henry had sacrificed himself in his future. Sam could only hope that she was strong enough to hear it, and that he had the strength to tell it right. He wished Dean would come back, because some of this story wasn't really Sam's to tell, and he was so damned tired.
With an effort, he gathered together the tangled threads of their story and started.
It took a long time to tell. Angels and demons, absent Gods and absent fathers, plots and counter plots, the epic voyages to both Heaven and Hell, the manipulations and the lies and the many, many deaths. As a counterpoint to that, there was the loyalty of their friends, the bonds of family that went beyond blood, the resurrections, and the power of sacrifice to which Geraldine had added her shining thread.
When Sam finally finished, he realized that, though exhaustion was running through his veins in the place of blood, he actually felt lighter. This was probably the first time he'd told any single person their whole story, from start to finish, and he was surprised to find that doing so was quite cathartic.
Geraldine held his gaze with eyes that mirrored his own and shone with unshed tears.
"If I'd known what my actions would put my boys through, all of you… ," She began, her voice shaking a little, but Sam couldn't allow her to start thinking of what ifs. He understood all too well the darkness and pain that lay down that path of bitter regret. He didn't see any irony in trying to stop his grandmother from doing what he did every day – wishing he'd been stronger, cleverer, braver, had made better decisions. Wishing he hadn't hurt and failed his brother so many times.
"You can't think like that, Geraldine." He said, his voice low but with an authority that was reinforced by his 200 year sojourn in Lucifer's cage. "I think this is why we humans can't know the future. That kind of knowledge would paralyze us. Even angels mess it up, so how could we be expected to know the right thing to do and the right time to do it?"
"Maybe." Geraldine was silent for a moment, considering, absorbing. "I have been waiting for so many years, half of me hoping that Dean would find me while the other half dreaded the same thing. I had almost given up, but now you are finally here and I find that you have been struggling through such terrible things all alone. I just wish I could have been there for you both when you needed someone."
Sam didn't know what to say to that, too large a part of him had longed for so many years for someone in his life who could have filled that hole, it would be hard to sound convincing if he were to lie and say it wouldn't have helped had Geraldine been there for him, or for Dean, or for Dad. He was saved from thinking of a response when his body decided this was the moment to have one of his coughing fits. Doubled over, he hacked up blood into his handkerchief and this galvanized Geraldine into action like nothing else.
Before Sam knew what was happening, she had him curled up on the big sofa, his head cushioned in her lap. Her hands were gloriously cool and soothing on his forehead, and he closed his eyes for a moment, luxuriating in the overwhelming sense of comfort her attentions gave him. He was so relaxed, he actually missed the moment he fell asleep.
0x0x0x0
Dean couldn't hold onto his anger for longer than it took him to drive to a mile down the road. He'd never been able to hold onto his rage the way Sam could, even when he believed he had every reason to, and now? He wasn't even really sure that he had any reason to be angry with Geraldine at all. After all, she had left her family behind in order to protect them, and if that hadn't worked out exactly as she had intended, Dean knew better than most that this was not necessarily a consequence of Geraldine's actions. Angels and demons had been fucking with the Winchesters and the Campbells for years, and Dean had every reason to suspect their interference with the course of every single life in their family. It was highly likely that Geraldine's decision to set up a refuge for John Winchester in Lawrence was not a coincidence, as that was exactly where the angels would have wanted him to be.
He parked the Impala and sat staring blindly out at the dark rain-blurred seascape, gripped by indecision. Part of him wanted to go back to the small cottage and apologize, while another part of him longed for the simplicity of Purgatory, where his whole existence had been survival and killing, combined with the reassurance of knowing that every creature he killed deserved it. He wouldn't have grown old there, because no human was meant to live in that place, but he could have died knowing a kind of serenity. Here, everything was complicated. Messy. Painful.
He wasn't sure hold long he sat there, but it must have been a while because the rain had stopped and the moon was peeking out from behind the scudding clouds when he finally restarted the Impala's engine, taking comfort as he always did in her deep vibrating purr.
When he pulled back into the gravel and earth drive next to Geraldine's house and made his way slowly to the door, he was still struggling to find the words to make an appropriate apology. He was fully expecting to be greeted with a classic reproachful Sam-look when he re-entered their grandmother's living room, and though he wasn't ready to deal with it he was fully braced for the inevitability of it. Instead, all coherent thought fled from his head when he took in the unfamiliarly domestic tableau playing out in front of him.
Sam was curled up on the sofa with Geraldine, his head resting on her thigh. His eyes were closed and Geraldine was gently carding her fingers through his too-long hair. His face was still too thin, the cheekbones were too sharp, his eye sockets were shadowed and his skin pallid, but he looked very young like this. At peace.
Dean swallowed hard, blinked a few times and couldn't stop staring. He thought he should make a noise to tell them he was there, but he couldn't move, couldn't think of a single thing to say that would be heard over the loud ache in his heart. Because it hurt how badly Dean wanted this for his little brother. This wasn't Mom, or even Mom's ghost, but Geraldine was family, and she'd said, hadn't she, way back in 1958 when she'd found out about her grandsons, that they were always going to be her boys. And Dean believed her. He had believed her then and he could see it now; and the pain of understanding she'd lived all those years knowing her boys were out there yet never tried to find them? That hollowed Dean's heart out and made him ache so bad he didn't know what to do.
Geraldine looked up then, caught Dean staring. He opened his mouth, feeling compelled to say something, anything, but she smiled slightly and put a finger to her lips, and his jaw snapped shut with an audible click.
"He's sleeping," she whispered, and Dean didn't even think thank you Captain Obvious, because then she looked back down at Sam with an expression of such fondness Dean's heart gave another dizzying lurch. She beckoned Dean over, and he went, obedient as a dog, to perch awkwardly on the edge of the sofa. He dangled his hands between his knees, not knowing what else to do with them without a gun to clean, or a knife to sharpen, or a meal to prepare.
At some point it had started raining again, he could hear its steady pattering as the wind blew it against the windows, and somehow it sounded different here than it did when they were in a no-tell motel somewhere out in mid America. It reminded him of the way it sounded when they were in the Impala. He realized that he had missed the sound of rain like this in the Bunker, insulated as it was from everything - the elements as well as elementals. Funny how it had taken all these months to notice that lack.
Geraldine's low voice, pitched just right so as not to wake Sam, brought him back to himself.
"Sam told me everything that has happened to you; about my John, and Hell, and the Apocalypse that didn't happen because of what you two boys did. He told me what you are trying to do now, about the Gates of Hell and all. I'm so proud of you both."
That kindness seeped through all the minute cracks in Dean's façade like frost shattering rock. Love was always the thing that broke him.
"Don't. Please, just don't... ," he mumbled, keeping his gaze fixed on his battered boots – not his favourite pair, because he'd left those behind in the past... . He was shocked into looking up when Geraldine laughed, a soft joyous sound.
"Sam also told me you weren't very good at accepting praise, I guess he wasn't exaggerating."
She wriggled around a bit under Sam's sleepy head and grimaced slightly. Dean could sympathize, Sam was a heavy great lump at the best of times, and Geraldine was probably a third of his weight.
"Here," Dean offered. "Let me wake him up. It's late and we should be going. Find ourselves a motel."
"Absolutely not, I wouldn't hear of it. You and Sleeping Beauty here can share my bed. It's king-size and plenty big enough, even for two strapping boys like you. I can sleep here, on the sofa. I'll just need to sort out some bedding."
She railroaded over Dean's half-hearted protests, and to be honest, he was grateful. Sam was always exhausted these days - fucking trials - and Dean was pretty damn beat too. The thought of driving around Harrington looking for somewhere to stay was very unappealing. Dammit, having his own memory foam mattress was making him soft.
Between them they managed to rouse Sam into a vague semblance of wakefulness. Sam teetered on his feet, one arm slung around Dean's shoulder. Dean grunted as Sam leaned into him.
"Come on, Sasquatch, time for beddie byes," Dean sang, gaining him a mumbled 'jerk!' from Sam.
Who stayed on his feet just long enough for Dean to manhandle him into Geraldine's surprisingly Spartan bedroom, where he promptly toppled like a giant redwood onto the big bed. Geraldine left Dean to wrestle his comatose little brother out of his button-down, boots and jeans while she dug out her spare bedding to make herself a nest on the sofa. By the time Dean had settled Sam down under the pristine white comforter he was just about ready to dive into that cocoon himself, but he thought he'd better be polite and say good night to their grandmother before turning in.
He was a little taken aback to find Geraldine seated in the kitchen with two large tumblers of what looked like the good stuff and didn't disappoint. It was the real thing, a 30 year old malt, no less, that slipped down like smooth fire to warm his belly. And not only had she provided the finest of whiskeys that even Rufus would have been impressed by, but there was the most delicious smelling apple pie on a big china plate in the middle of the table. If Dean hadn't loved the woman already, he'd have fallen head over heels for her in that moment. Not that he'd admit even to himself that love was what it was all about – he'd cite family ties and duty and obligation and any number of words that skirted around the central core truth before he'd acknowledge that this woman he'd met only twice was important to him. Geraldine O'Hara Winchester mattered.
This fact, after his third shot of golden whiskey and second huge slice of pie, was terrifying. Even more scary than the fact that this tiny octogenarian seemed ready and able to drink him under the table.
"I suppose Sam told you the Apocalypse was all his fault?" Dean sighed heavily when Geraldine nodded. "You'd think that kid had been brought up Catholic the way he shoulders guilt."
Geraldine chuckled. "That seems to be a family trait you share, from what I've seen."
Dean bristled at that, but couldn't maintain his sense of affront in the face of those knowing, familiar eyes and the golden whiskey glow.
"Did he tell you that I broke the first seal? Dad held out for a hundred years under that torture and never broke, but I wasn't even strong enough to hold out past thirty…and the things I did then…well, sometimes it's hard to forgive yourself when you can't forget what you have done. Sometimes I think I could live seven lifetimes and never save enough people to make up for those ten years wielding the knife in Hell."
0x0x0x0
Sam opened the door to the bunker and noticed Dean taking a deep inhale as they crossed the threshold as if the scent of the place was some kind of intoxicating perfume. He didn't comment out loud, but the eternal little brother in him made a note for future teasing. He would be careful how he used it though – because the sentiment behind that breathing in of Dean's was something he shared. The Bunker had become something they'd never had before in their long lives on the road - a place that belonged solely to them that they could call home – and Sam would never mock that.
Leaving their grandmother behind in Maine had been surprisingly hard. Geraldine had made a deep impression in such a short time, and it made Sam even more regretful that his first encounters with the Campbell side of their family had been whilst he was lacking his soul. Perhaps he could have made a better connection with Samuel over the months they had worked together, if he'd been able to feel even a fraction of the empathy that had flowed between Geraldine and himself in the few hours they'd spent in her company.
She had seen them off only after eliciting a promise that they would keep in touch. "Don't be strangers, boys," she'd said, and Sam had been amused to see Dean duck his head and blush like a ten year old. Whatever animosity Dean had been nurturing seemed to have dissipated while Sam had been sleeping, possibly over pie and coffee, if the crumbs and dirty cups on the kitchen table had been anything to go by.
0x0x0x0
As time went by following their return home, Sam refrained from commenting on how often Dean found a reason to 'just swing by' Harrington. Suddenly, there were cases to be found on the east coast that required the personal intervention of the Winchester brothers – from a possible tooth fairy gone bad in Bangor to a completely harmless death echo in Portland, and Sam was secretly both amused and happy to find that Garth had so obviously been instructed to send anything even vaguely suspicious their way if it originated in the vicinity of Maine.
It felt good, it filled a gaping hole in both their lives that Sam knew would be hard to bear when the old lady eventually passed away, but he was determined they should take the risk of forming the attachment regardless. Although they never discussed it, clearly Dean felt the same. It was family business, after all.
The end