Author's Note: Amy's challenge was to write a story in honor of Sam Winchester's 23rd birthday. I intended to do it fast and keep it short… and yet the story that picked me up and carried me off is going to take a little time. Help! I've been plot-bunny-napped! I know where this is going, so if you like it – never fear, it won't take me long to get you the next piece. Please do read and review - you know I love you when you do!

Disclaimer: Just borrowing.

Glad You Were Born

Chapter One

Sleepy eyes fluttered as John Winchester picked up his four-year-old and tucked a blanket tightly around him, trying to keep him in the same horizontal position he had been sleeping in.

"Daddy?" questioned Dean, trying to focus and then giving in to the warmth of his father's chest and the comforting scent of soap and aftershave that always identified John in the dark.

"It's okay son, just rest." John soothed.

"Where we going now?" the child's voice, muffled by his blanky, shot a surge of love through John and he instinctively held Dean closer.

"We're going to the hospital, sweetie."

"The 'sospital?"

"Yup."

"Why we going to the 'sospital?"

"It's time for your baby to get born." With this the child thrashed so hard to be upright that John, carrying him down the stairs, lost his balance and managed to keep from tumbling only by sitting down hard on the stair. His skin tingled from shock and he braced himself against Dean's sudden movement. "Whoa, boy – take it easy!" John laughed.

Dean was squirming in his father's arms, pounding out his excitement on John's shoulders with little fists. "Yeah, yeah yeah!" he squealed. John smiled at his son, emotion bringing tightness to his eyes.

"John?" Mary's voice came from the front door. Her husband heard the strain, and made the last ten steps in three leaps.

"You alright honey?" John asked as he saw his wife hugging the door jamb, feet planted widely to brace herself. Mary didn't answer immediately, her breathing was loud and Dean unconsciously drew himself to his father as his mother moaned softly.

"Take him to the car John and come back for me." Mary gasped and John, frozen momentarily, stepped past her in an instant and heard her call as he was opening the door - "put him in the front, John!"

"Guess who gets to be a big boy and ride in front today?" John smiled, keeping his voice casual, but moving quickly to settle his son in the front seat of the Impala.

"Is Mama okay?" Dean whispered, and John saw the anxiety on his son's face.

"Yes, son, she's going to be fine. It's hard work getting that baby here… that's all it is, she's just working hard." He saw Dean's face relax and thought (not for the first time) that although he didn't have experience with children other than this one, his son's tenderness and concern for others seemed unusual. He was so young, and yet Dean could see into a soul more clearly that anyone his father had ever met.

John was back to the porch in a flash, putting his arms around Mary, supporting her from behind, and she leaned into him.

"Are you okay Mar?" John asked quietly.

"Harder than Dean." she breathed.

"Can you walk?"

Mary didn't speak and John felt her body tense. She twisted against him, her hands tightening on his so that he had to stifle a wince. Time stretched and then the tension melted from her small frame and a deep sob escaped her throat. John immediately reached down, and then with an arm under her knees, headed for the car. As he got in the front seat Dean's eyes, wide and unsure, confronted him. He pulled away from the curb and put his hand on his son's knee as he drove. "It's alright Dean, Mama's going to be fine." he assured, trying to keep his voice steady and light.

John recognized the clenching in his heart – he'd felt it when Mary went in to labor with Dean, a terror it's hard to explain. His world had expanded that night four years ago and it had been both a painful expansion and a glorious one. On one hand the excitement of new life – of hope and future and a family he'd never had. On the other, the fear of endless variables – of trying to do something without instructions, starting from scratch with no frame of reference and very little control.

And now, here he was again and the feelings flooded him. Another child. A daughter… maybe a second son. A new life. A new dread. He had felt those things on his wedding day. He'd felt those things the first time he held Dean. John Winchester had no one in the universe except for Mary and Dean, and loss had followed like his own shadow until he'd met Mary. She was the first person to tell him she'd never leave him (at least there had been no pretense in his childhood) – and Mary had meant it. He wanted this life – an incredible woman, a perfect child, a true, lasting home. Yet there was still a seed of panic. Could he keep them? Was there such a thing as loving someone too much?

All of this was pretty vague, and in moments of reflection he understood that. It wasn't as though there was some specific threat that concerned him, a particular nightmare that haunted him… it was just a constant layer of apprehension beneath everything he did and felt surrounding his family. A worry he couldn't put his finger on, rational or not, that someday he would be alone again. Now that life with Mary and Dean had mended John's battered heart, accustomed him to mercy and adoration – they had become his heart, and he couldn't survive without them. He didn't want to. And so the fear remained, and he pushed it down, and it crept up and he clung to his wife and held his son and pretended that he really didn't feel it biting in his bones.