Title: Meeting
Summary: "No problem," the boy replied with a dismissive shrug, almost as if he came to the rescue of bullied girls all the time. "My name's Sam."
Spoilers: "Hunted"
Rating/Warning: G. Much cuteness abounds.
Disclaimer: Sam Winchester and Ava Wilson sadly do not belong to me, even in their wee!states as in this story. Eric Kripke's one lucky man, I tell you.
Author's Note: Yes, I really did get this cheesy. ;) Ava is, honest to God, my favorite guest character in any show ever, and while watching the DVDs, I had a random plotbunny: what if Sam and Ava had met before? Very rough, written in about an hour. Feedback is my anti-drug!
The group of third-grade boys that had been taunting the little girl all week was already assembled at the bicycle rack, waiting for the first-grade walker students to be let out of the building for the day. The little girl froze in her tracks at the double doors, staring at the boys through the small glass windows. Unconsciously, her arm tightened around the plush Love-A-Lot Bear she had been carrying around since school had started two weeks before.
Mrs. Maxwell, her teacher, normally didn't allow the children to bring toys to school, but she had made an exception for Ava. The six-year-old was having an extremely difficult time adjusting to the rigors of a full day at school and being separated from her mother for so long. The stuffed animal stayed in her desk while in the classroom, but on the walk to and from school, she carried it in her arms, hugging it to her chest. Though the teddy bear did help ease some of her discomfort, it had also drawn the attention of four older boys who took special delight in teasing and taunting her.
A sound in the hallway startled her and she turned to look over her shoulder. The second-grade students had begun filtering from their classrooms. Setting her shoulders, she took a deep breath and wedged herself into the middle of the throng of children. Perhaps if she hid among the other students, the boys wouldn't be able to find her.
Unfortunately, despite her best efforts to hide, the boys did indeed spot her. The biggest of the boys nudged his buddy's arm and straightened, a sneer settling on his face. "Oh, look, it's the little baby."
"Leave me alone," she mumbled, quickening her pace. Refusing to make eye contact with any of them, she hurried past the bike rack.
"Or what? Are you going to go home crying to Mommy?" The boy--she'd learned that his name was Jason--ran ahead and stood directly in front of her, blocking her path. She stopped short and raised her eyes to meet his, squeezing the bear to her chest. "Little baby still needs a teddy bear to make everything better."
He was still for a moment and then in one quick motion, he reached out and yanked the bear from her arms. "Give it back!" she cried, lunging towards him.
"Aww, baby wants her teddy bear back," Jason taunted, holding the bear above his head. She jumped for it a couple of times, but Jason was a bit taller than she was and he was holding it just out of her reach. He shot her a malicious grin before tossing the bear to one of his buddies. Soon, she found herself in a cruel game of Monkey in the Middle; the boys had encircled her and were tossing the toy from one to the other while she was forced to run from boy to boy, trying to snatch back the bear.
"Care Bears are stupid," one of the boys said before throwing the toy to Jason.
"They are not stupid and I want it back!" Getting angry now, she charged at the third-grader and pulled down on his arm, trying anything to get him to release the stuffed animal.
"They are stupid," Jason teased. He wrenched out of her grasp and once again held the bear above his head, an inch away from her hands. "They're stupid and you're stupid for liking them."
"I am not!" Tears were welling her eyes, but she refused to cry. Crying would only prove Jason right and she absolutely refused to give him another reason to tease her.
All of a sudden, a boy Ava had only seen on the playground at recess broke the circle of third-graders and snatched the teddy bear out of Jason's hands. "Leave her alone!"
The new boy didn't look much older than Ava herself, but he had disrupted the teasing enough to kill Jason's enjoyment of the proceedings. He looked the boy over and scoffed. "Come on, guys. Let's let the two babies play with their stupid toys."
With one final glare at the two children, the third-graders hopped on their bicycles and took off down the sidewalk. The new boy waited until the four older boys were out of sight before facing Ava and handing her bear back to her. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she replied, grinning shyly. She accepted the bear and once again hugged it to her chest. "Thank you."
"No problem," the boy replied with a dismissive shrug, almost as if he came to the rescue of bullied girls all the time. "My name's Sam."
"Mine's Ava. Are you in first grade, too? You're not in my class, but I've seen you at recess."
"Yeah," he answered with a slight nod. "I've seen you at recess, too."
Ava smiled at him. "Well, that's cool. Can you stay and play for a while?"
The boy looked past her before answering, though what he was looking for, she had no idea. "Yeah, I can stay. Want to go on the see-saw?"
"Sure," Ava answered with a polite shrug. As the children hurried to the playground at the back of the building, Ava tucked the Care Bear into her backpack, which she then dropped at the metal post providing the fulcrum for the see-saw. Sam held the slab of wood level as Ava climbed onto it, then climbed onto it himself.
The two children played together for close to half an hour. After a few minutes, Sam was even able to talk her into doing bumps, something she ordinarily hated. Her friends were always very rough when they slammed their side of the see-saw into the ground, but Sam was able to hit the dirt without jostling her to the point where she was afraid she was going to fall.
Their fun was cut short when a deep male voice called, "Sammy!" at the same time that a woman's voice frantically called for Ava.
Ava cringed when she realized that she had worried her mother by not coming home directly after school and was so distracted that she bumped Sam harder than she had intended. "Sorry!" she cried. "It's just that that's my mom."
"And that's my dad," Sam replied, chuckling.
"Then I guess we both have to go," Ava said with a giggle. Sam eased the see-saw down so that it was parallel to the ground. He allowed Ava to climb off first before getting off himself. As she shrugged on her backpack and untucked the locks of her hair that had become caught under the straps, she turned to Sam. "Will you be in school tomorrow?"
"I should be," the boy answered.
"Well, thank you again," Ava said softly. "No one's ever stood up for me like that before."
"It was nothing," Sam stated modestly. The children ran to the front of the school but separated afterwards, Sam running off to the left and Ava heading towards her mother's car on the right.
But the next day, to Ava's disappointment, Sam was not in school. The next time she would see him would be seventeen years later, and she would not make the connection between the twenty-three-year-old man she had seen die in her nightmare and the six-year-old boy who had protected her from schoolyard bullies.