DISCLAIMER: It's a new year, it's a new decade…but despite that, Supernatural and those wonderful Winchesters have no new owner. It all still belongs to Eric Kripke and company, except for a couple of OCs who are my own…no copyright infringement is intended.
SPOILERS: The action and character history in this story is considerably AU, but spoilers for major events in Seasons 1 and 2, and a specific element of Season 4, are possible throughout.
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Bless the Broken Road
SUMMARY: "If I didn't know you? I'd want to hunt you." If the first half of this statement from Dean to Sam was reality…would the second half be, as well? Largely AU…with a fair amount of canon elements and twists.
Chapter 1
---Lawrence, Kansas, November 1983---
"Mr. Winchester…? Mr. Winchester."
The dazed man on the bed raised his head from where it had been resting in his hands upon being addressed, and Nurse Teresa Nichols decided right then and there that she had never seen such a haunted man in her three years of working at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. Bloodshot, red-rimmed dark eyes met her own blue ones as he rasped out a response, his voice rough from smoke inhalation and tears.
"Please…call me John."
Teresa's voice softened. "Okay, John. You—"
"How is my son?" came the immediate interruption, and the young woman's heart ached for the man.
"Your older son, Dean. Right?" She continued at John's silent nod. "I'm afraid I don't know the specifics on him at the moment, but the last I heard he was still unconscious from his head injury…but you don't need to worry, John, all right? Your son is in very good hands." But the man remained quiet, not even looking at her, and Teresa put her focus back on the reason she had come to see him. "John…are you up for a visitor?"
"No." The young father didn't waste a second in answering, and the nurse injected some levity into her tone.
"Oh, I think you will be up for this one, actually…this little man's been waiting to see you for quite a while now."
Hope flooded the dark eyes for an instant. "Dean…?"
Teresa's brow furrowed in surprise at the remark, a pang briefly flaring in her chest. "No, John…Dean's still in PICU, remember?" She couldn't tell if the man did or not, but for the sake of the baby she'd been helping to care for, she prayed a temporary lapse in memory was all it was. "But I have someone else here with me that I'm sure you've also been worried about."
On cue, another nurse came into the room holding and cooing to a light blue bundle cradled in her arms, which she carefully gave to Teresa after a few more soft words and a brief tickle of a tiny nose. Nodding at the older woman's parting directive to bring him back within the hour, the young nurse gently rested the fragile bundle against her chest and smiled adoringly at the little face peering out from the blanket's folds, huge blue-green eyes wary and weary. "Hey there, sweetheart," she whispered brightly. "I think you've been away from your daddy long enough, don't you? So what you do say we fix that, huh?"
After a slight and somewhat selfish hesitation to let go of the precious young life in her arms, she gingerly placed the infant in the grasp of his father, which instinctively steadied and settled upon the sensation of the warm weight within it. And his voice choked out another name.
"Sammy…?"
Teresa smiled. "Your baby's been missing you, John." She stepped forward to run a soothing hand over the little one's soft brown curls, the fine hairs just starting to cover the tiny head. "He's been an absolute angel for us though, sweet as can be…we girls are really gonna miss him when you get to take him ho—take him…with you."
But John Winchester didn't respond to this…just continued to stare into his youngest child's sleepily blinking eyes with a disturbing blankness in his own. Not even when the baby began to coo and gurgle in apparent excitement to see his father, did the man show any sort of emotion in turn. Teresa made a mental note to come get the baby sooner than planned.
"Well, John, I'll leave you and Sammy alone while I go check and see if there's any further word on Dean for you, okay? I'll bring his doctor with me." Once again, no answer came other than the squeaking of bedsprings as John lay back on his hospital bed, Sammy wrapped in his arms held close against his chest, and Teresa finally left with one last stroke of the infant's head.
Locked deep inside his own thoughts, his own contact with his baby practically on autopilot, John Winchester continued to gaze emptily…at the walls, at the bed covers, at the tiny body nestled below his chin…at the door to his room beyond which was his other son. Anywhere but at the ceiling…where he had seen his beloved wife sliced open at the stomach and burned to death mere hours before.
He had no damn explanation for what had happened. How it had happened…why it had happened. And hours came to pass. Hours, and hours, and hours in which this cold hard fact remained. Hours in which Sammy came and went, courtesy of the nurses, and in which he finally got news of his older son, Dean…but the news had not been good.
The four year-old had taken a nasty fall on the stairs as he'd carried his baby brother out of the house upon John's frantic orders, a fall during which he heroically and miraculously was able to shield the infant from the impact. But unfortunately, that had left no shield for Dean himself…his head had struck the bottom step. John had watched it happen, helpless to stop it…numb from the shock of what had just happened to his precious Mary, and petrified with fear of what was about to happen to his equally precious boys before his eyes. The crack had been sickening, the baby's cries piercing amongst the roar of the flames consuming both his nursery and his mother, and that knowledge alone had spurred John down the stairs at rapid speed, where he had scooped one son into each arm…refusing to let the fire take anymore from him than it had already taken.
Both John and Sam had been lucky, only suffering mild smoke inhalation and a couple of bruises from the fall in Sam's case. But the fall had taken much more of a toll on Dean…John had been informed that his eldest was in a coma, and even though he was thankfully expected to come out of it within the week, memory loss was a serious possibility.
And John couldn't decide whether that would be a curse or a blessing in the end. There were many things he wanted Dean to remember, most of them centering on Mary and the devoted, wonderful mother she had been to him. But there were now things that he most certainly did not want his son to remember as well, especially while he was still just a kid…the horrible night of the fire and the accident chief among them. But there was also one other thing he never wanted Dean to remember…
And it was why – still numb to everything but his grief over Mary's death and Dean's absence – John ultimately convinced the hospital staff to release him for a brief journey a couple of days later. He had no close relatives that he trusted with the job, on either his side or Mary's, and divulging that fact to his caregivers had helped to obtain him permission to take a day's drive up to Nebraska…where the boys' grandparents lived, in order to leave the baby in their loving care until Dean and he were both back on their feet.
Or at least, that's what he had told the hospital staff.
The truth was though, that the only thing in Nebraska of interest to John was a women and children's shelter. True, he was sure there was one somewhere less out of the way in Kansas, but John wanted to get out of the damn state if only for a day…so Nebraska was where he went.
And Nebraska was where – with a heart heavy with shame and guilt but also firm in resolve – he left his six month-old son, his baby Sammy. With a name tag pinned to his light blue blanket, a loud and persistent knocking upon the shelter's door until he heard footsteps approaching from within the building…and not a single look back as he dashed across the street to his waiting Impala, tears profusely falling from his eyes.
He needed to find answers. And two sons were one too many children to be dragging along on that likely long and arduous quest. It would be for the better.
For all three of them.
TBC…
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A/N: Well, I'm back a LOT sooner than it took me to return last time! LOL. This sit-there-idly-except-when-working-out (and I do work out, trust me!) fitness center receptionist job is doing wonders for my fanfic writing, hee… Anyway, that's the start to this one; next chapter will delve into the present day and be much longer, as will all the following chapters. And I'm sorry to any John fans…he had to do what he did for the sake of this story, awful as it was!
I hope this very AU beginning to the saga of Sam and Dean (no angels or Ruby in this one, folks, just the boys and a few other popular canon characters) has caught your all's attention, and that you'll return to see where I take it from here! As with all my stories, the whole thing is already complete, and I'll be posting a new chapter every other day, 15 chapters total. The usual thanks to psiChic for the impeccable beta work…you're made of awesome, LLS! And thanks to all of you for showing enough interest to check this story out…reviews are much appreciated as always! Hope to see y'all back Wednesday for the next chapter! :-D