Disclaimer: Nope, nada belongs to me.

A/N: Just a near future "what if" ficlet. Please R&R

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CULPA

The silence of the motel room was broken only by the sound of Dean's hitching breath. Sam sat at the small corner table, watching his older brother. Dean had started having nightmares—never enough to actually wake him up but enough to disturb his sleep—since their father had died, but they had gotten worse since Dean's roadside confession three weeks ago about what had been behind his increasingly frightening behavior.

Yeah, Sam, the truth will set you free. You knew best, didn't you, you arrogant prick. "Just talk to me, Dean. I can help." Right. In three weeks, you still haven't been able to find the right thing to say. Though, "Dean, I don't blame you for Dad's death" and "Dean, you deserve to live. There are a lot of people who would be dead today if it weren't for you" might be good places to start.

Sam never woke him. His brother would die of embarrassment if he knew that he was crying in his sleep.

Or that Sam knew Dean was hiding something. The muttered words as Dean slept. The "you're wrong, Dad" or "Sam will be okay" or "watch out for Sammy" or "no, Dad, I have to tell him", repeated over and over in distressed tones. Dean had clearly lied when he said that their father had not said anything to him before he died, but Sam did not blame his brother. He put the blame squarely where it belonged.

On John Winchester. Sam had been feeling more in harmony with his father for weeks after John died than he had for years before that. Until this. Until he realized that John had dumped something huge and troubling on Dean's shoulders five minutes before John had traded himself for his older son.

It wasn't enough to leave him that crippling burden of guilt—that caused Dean to cry in front of me, damn it!—no, you also had to leave some deep, dark secret about me, for him to lug around. You could be such a shit, Dad.

Sam wondered if deep down, John Winchester had not come to hate his elder son over the last year. Hell, both his sons. Because of the letter.

Sam had taken John's possessions after John's death; Dean had just walked away without giving them a second glance. Sam understood now why and he knew that one day, when the grief and even more importantly the guilt had subsided, Dean would be very glad that they had not been lost. While going through his dad's duffel, Sam had felt something soft, something that had crackled slightly, beneath the inner lining of the bag. He had realized that his father had ripped open the lining, hidden something in there and then re-sewn the lining over it.

Taking care not to do any damage that could not be repaired, Sam had opened the lining and removed the hidden object, which turned out to be an envelope that contained two letters. Sam had been stunned looking at the outside of the envelope: addressed to a man he did not know but from Mary Winchester.

Sam sat now smoothing out the two letters, one from his mother to her uncle and one from Mary's cousin, her uncle's daughter. He had read them so many times since the discovery he practically had them memorized. His mother's cousin's letter had been fairly short, and it had been addressed to John Winchester.

John, enclosed you will find a letter from Mary to you. I cannot apologize enough for what my father did. Mary sent the letter to him a month or two after Samuel was born; her parents were long gone and he had stepped in for her during her late teen years. You know that my father hated that Mary married you. It was not your fault. Mary had been dating the son of Father's oldest and dearest friend, and Father had wanted nothing so much as to join the two families in marriage. Unreasonably, he blamed you for breaking Mary and Anthony up, refusing to see that Mary had moved away from Tony long before. So, when he got the letter, asking him to give it to you if anything happened to her, he vindictively put it away and never sent it on to you. I only found it last month, when I was going through his things for probate.

I'm so sorry that the letter is 22 years too late; I have not read it, but I hope it gives you some comfort even at this late date.

Yours,

Catherine Morrison

It was dated two weeks before his father had taken off, two-and-one-half weeks before Dean had come to Stanford. No, Aunt Catherine, it had not given his father any comfort; it had, instead, sent him into an ever-increasing spiral of pain and fury that had governed John Winchester's last year on this earth.

Sam's fingers traced a pattern on the second letter, the one from his mother. It was the only thing in his whole life he had seen or touched that had belonged to her, except the photographs they had found in their old home in Lawrence. And, he supposed, the Impala, though he never thought of the car in terms of his mother. Only Dad and Dean had ever left an imprint on its metal soul.

The letter had told him what Dean's secret was—and more. He was positive that John had not told Dean everything, or the guilt that Dean had revealed weeks ago would have been ten times worse. The letter, penned in graceful script by his long-dead mother, had spoken of love and fear and doom and the desperation that had driven a woman to do a terrible thing, and it had confirmed Sam's worst fears.

My dearest John:

If you are reading this letter then the worst has happened and I am no longer here. I feel sure that it will happen, that the price for my action will be not only little Sam but myself as well. As it should be, for it was my choice that brought this to our door.

Last year, when Dean fell sick, it was all my fault. I knew that, though you tried to tell me otherwise. I knew there was illness in Karen's family, but Karen had needed my help on that project for the church and she assured me that it was nothing serious. I don't blame her; she had no idea at the time that her youngest had meningitis.

Before I met you, I had no idea how much I could love someone. And then Dean came along and upped everything. The sun rose and set in his face. He was the most incredible thing in the universe, my amazing boy. And watching the two of you together was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

But we were going to lose him. At three years old, the disease was going to kill him. The doctor tried to be kind, but he told us to be ready to bury our baby. Our little boy, who had always had a smile on his face and a laugh in his voice and who looked at everything with wide-eyed wonder and joy. So sick, in so much pain, and unable to understand what was happening.

And it was killing you, too. I watched as something broke inside you, as you wept sitting beside him, holding his hand—it was always so lost inside yours—and telling him everything was going to be all right.

We both knew otherwise.

I prayed to God for a miracle, but He did not answer. And I grew angrier and angrier with Him for giving us this wonderful gift and then snatching it back so soon. For not caring.

So, I did a terrible thing, John. If God would not help us, then perhaps the other side would. I found someone who would help me—and I made a deal. The evil would save Dean's life—and I would bring a second child into the world that it would leave its mark on. I agreed, for Sam did not yet exist and I felt nothing then for a future child I did not know, while Dean was my joy and losing him would have killed me.

But, of course, I fell in love with Sam as well. He is also my child and I betrayed him and you. And Dean, who already adores his little brother and would never have wanted to be the reason that evil was able to touch Sam. Part of my punishment is knowing that the demon has already been able to already touch my baby and twist his future. Yet, it is not enough payment, and I know in my heart that something more is to come for me. I deserve it.

John, you must protect Sam from himself. And protect Dean, for I fear that the demon will not want that much light anywhere near Sam.

I will understand if you hate me for what I have done. But please, my dearest, do not hate Dean. He has done nothing wrong and is not at fault, and how empty would our lives be if we had lost him a year ago?

I love you, John.

Mary

Sam ran a trembling hand through his hair. He had been the Demon's even before he was born. He wondered if he had a snowball's chance in Hell—so to speak—to avoid falling to the dark. Dean gave another soft hitching breath and Sam looked up, but his brother quieted and continued to sleep.

He wondered if his mother were right, if Dean could somehow keep him from being overwhelmed by the Demon. He wondered, too, what would have happened if his father had received this letter twenty-two years ago. Would he have hated Dean? Treated him worse than he had ended up treating him while building his little army? Would he have hated Sam? Had it been anger that had sent him running from both of his sons a year ago, rather than a desire to protect them?

John Winchester was dead, and Sam knew he would never have the answers.

But he also knew that he would never let Dean know what Mary had done. Not because it would make Dean hate him, Sam, but because it would increase Dean's hatred of himself. Believing himself responsible for his father's death had almost destroyed Dean. Sam could just imagine how his older brother, who already thought himself unworthy of life, would react if he could blame himself for everything: Sam's abilities and his tie with the Demon, Mary's death, their father's lifelong obsession and their tortured childhoods, Jess' death—hell, Dean would probably even put the coming war on the list.

No, this was a secret that would stay with Sam. Dean had protected him all these years; now it was his turn to shield his brother. Sam picked up the letter, studying the signature for a moment, then reached for the lighter on the table. He flicked it open and touched the flame to one corner of the letter, which he dropped into the ashtray and watched as it turned to ashes.

He switched off the light and settled into bed, satisfied that Dean would never know that it had ever existed.

These nightmares Sam could have for the both of them.

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A/N: That's it. Let me know what you think!