Supernatural, Sam and Dean are not mine. I only own my grateful OC's
"So, what do you think? Ghoul or what?", Dean asked, leaning against the car, while his brother tapped its roof with his cell phone.
"I'm not sure", said Sam, unblocking the phone to see the pictures of the crime scene again.
"Oh, my God, yes. It's him", exclaimed a woman's voice nearby.
Sam turned around to see a woman on her late thirties, walking down the street with a bag in one hand, and a baby in the other.
"Mom? Who is he?", asked the girl that accompanied her. She must have been 12 or 13 years old.
"He is Sam Winchester, the man who saved me when I got possessed", the woman whispered, staring at the younger Winchester for a while, before turning to look at her daughter. "When you were little, remember? It's been five… six years. Do you remember me?", she added, looking at Sam again.
"Yeah, I think so", he mumbled with a smile. "Mmm… Martha, right?"
"You do remember me!", said the woman, her emotions starting to take a toll on her.
Dean got closer to them, clearing his throat.
"Oh! This is my brother, Dean" introduced Sam, while the woman handed her blabbing baby boy to her daughter.
"Oh, you weren't with him back then", said Martha with a smile, after she nodded to Dean. "You were working with this gorgeous brunette… what was her name? …Ruby?", she completed after an awkward silence from Sam.
Dean eyed his brother, as unease quickly faded his smile. Sam nodded, still with a little grin, though he seemed uncomfortable.
"What happened to her?", the woman asked.
Sam's smile disappeared with an awkward expression, leaving the shadow of a very old pain in his eyes.
"Oh, God… I see", she muttered, covering her mouth with her hand. "I'm so sorry."
"Yeah, you shouldn't be", mumbled Dean, looking away, but meeting Sam's eyes as he gave him the silent shut up look.
After a little moment of confusion, Martha took a deep breath before looking deep into Sam's eyes.
"I thought I would never see you again", she asserted.
"I must not be a good memory for you", he chuckled softly, looking away, as he leaned against the trunk of the Impala.
"Why are you saying that?", she asked with a look of confusion, before putting the bag in the ground and taking a step towards Sam. "You saved me. You helped me, when no one could. I got possessed by a demon, and no one could stop me… well, stop him… but you were just… fearless. You stopped me, and you used those amazing powers of yours to exorcize me. It seemed so painful for you, your nose was bleeding, but you didn't give up until I was free."
"Man, she's got a memory", whispered Dean to himself, rolling his eyes. "Well, it has been nice to meet you, but we got to go…" he added out loud, with some kind of a forced smile, prompting Sam to go with him.
But Sam didn't move. Martha reached his hand, and was looking at him with watered eyes.
"I know you must be short on time, cause you're still doing this, right? Saving people?", she said, full of a mix of hope and something mysterious for the Winchesters: admiration.
Sam nodded and, according to Dean, he was giving her his famous puppy eyes. Dean rolled his again. He had such a sensitive… sister.
"Listen…", Martha whispered, trying to contain her tears, and taking Sam's huge hand between hers that where little and chubby. "Whatever you've lost, I want you to know that I owe you everything I have. This… this is my Laura", she added, prompting her daughter to get closer. "She was the only thing I could talk about when you were taking me to the hospital, remember? She was seven years old, when I got lost and I was gone for months. My husband, my mother, my sisters were losing their hopes to find me, but you saved me, and in that ride to the hospital you never stopped saying 'it's ok now, everything is gonna be fine, you are safe'… You were just so… kind, so warm hearted, that I believed your every word. That was the first time I felt safe in months, but I was unable to thank you. Can I do it now? Can I… give you a hug?"
The woman didn't waited for Sam's response. She wrapped her arms around him, and muffled a few sobs against his plaid shirt, with an endless lethany: "thank you, God bless you". Awkwardly, Sam responded the gesture, seeing how Laura's eyes were filled with tears. He put a hand in Martha's head, landed a kiss on her hair, and closed his eyes, first softly, and then tightly, trying to control whatever was happening to him. Has this ever happened before? Has he ever felt this way before? That weird thing in his chest and in his throat, because he was called "fearless" and "warm hearted". How do you react when something good is said about you? How do you react when others express gratitude to you? Admiration? Was it normal to want to scream, and cry his chest out, and squeeze the hell out of that beautiful lady, mother of two?
Dean gave up on doing anything to rush his brother, and just leaned against the Impala's trunk, arms crossed, processing the scene as well.
The baby made a big noise on his sister's arms, causing his mother to finally let Sam go.
"Oh, this… this is Jamie", she said, sniffing, as her daughter handed her the baby. "He's six months old", she added, showing him to Sam.
"Hi, Jamie", said Sam with a teary smile, as he watched the little guy grinned to him.
"His middle name is Samuel", assured Martha, tightening her lips to avoid more sobs. "Look, it hasn't been all rainbows and flowers. I had a miscarriage before the possession, and just after all of these years I felt safe enough to get pregnant. But it was worth it, and we're happy".
She reached Sam's hand again, and squeezed it.
"Although my husband thinks it's an awful combination of names, my James Samuel wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. You are on our prayers every day, and we'll keep praying for Ruby to be in a better place… And we'll pray for your brother as well, cause the world is a safer place because of you. How I wish I could… give you something, and…"
She interrupted the words that were crushing Sam under tons of unknown feelings, to pick the bag from the ground and offer it to him.
"Here", she said, as he received it. "They're just apples, but I don't have anything else, and we will miss the bus, so…"
"Here", said Laura, stepping in. She untied a knitted bracelet from her wrist, and extended it to Sam with a trembling hand. "I made it. Please keep it. Thank you for saving my mom".
"You don't need to…" whispered Sam, all confused.
"Please!" exclaimed mother and daughter in a chorus.
Sam slowly extended his hand and received the present, still warm.
"Thank you", he said with cracked voice, as he closed his hand, unable to hold back a wayward tear that just escaped. "This… means a lot".
"God bless you", said Martha. "God bless you", she repeated, getting to her tiptoes.
Sam understood and leaned over, to receive the kiss of a grateful mother on his forehead.
"Take care. Both of you", she said, starting to walk away.
"You too", said Sam, and Dean just waved goodbye.
There was a silence between the brothers, as they watched Martha and her children walk. They looked back a couple of times, until they took the corner and disappeared.
"Well", Dean said, after letting go nearly all the air in his lungs. "You got a bag of apples and a pink knitted bracelet. I use to get sex as a thank you".
But Sam didn't pay attention to his brother's attempts to humor away what just happened. He could feel the weight of the apples and the texture of the bracelet. He could feel what gratitude felt like.