Lisa heard the doorbell and paused her work in the kitchen to go answer it. She opened the door to see her old friend, Susan, holding a plate of cookies.
"Susan," Lisa exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. "Come on in. You know, you really didn't have to drive all the way up here."
"Of course I did!" Susan objected. "You just got out of the hospital, I had to come see you!"
Lisa smiled, "Well, thank you." she said, taking a seat on the couch.
Susan joined her, setting the cookies on the coffee table. "It sounds like it was quite a crash."
Lisa nodded in agreement. It did sound like quite a crash, the thing was, she didn't really seem to remember it. She didn't even remember where she had been driving to when they crashed. Maybe that was normal though, her brains felt all scattered anyway. "Luckily I made it out with just a few bumps and scratches."
Susan nodded. "Too bad we can't say the same about Matthew. That's just tragic." she said sympathetically. "He sounded like a great guy."
Matthew, right. Lisa's boyfriend. Man, she wished she could keep her head on straight. His neck had snapped. That must've happened in the crash. Of course. How else would it have happened?
"Yeah, he was great." She said softly. "But, he's in a better place now."
They sat in awkward silence for a moment, Lisa remembering her relatively brief time with Matthew. He'd been wonderful, but she had the oddest feeling of - what was it, regret? - When she thought about him. No, not regret, more like guilt. What in the world did she have to feel guilty about? She hadn't done anything wrong. True, Ben hadn't liked Matthew very much but, now that she thought about it she couldn't remember why -
Susan interrupted her thoughts. "I'm sorry, I know I couldn't have picked a more inappropriate time to ask this but... have you heard form Dean recently?"
"Sorry, who?" Lisa asked.
"Dean," Susan repeated, getting only a blank stare in response. "The guy you were living with for a while, the reason you moved out here," She prompted, "the one who 'wouldn't stay but wouldn't stay gone'."
Lisa stared at her friend. Was she making some kind of joke? "I'm sorry, I have no idea who you're talking about. I've never known a Dean."
Susan looked at her like she'd gone insane, then laughed. "Oh, I see what you're doing. You want to forget him, so you're pretending you have. Very clever. Good for you, that man was nothing but trouble and if he's out of your life for good, then good."
Lisa laughed slightly, pretending she knew what Susan was talking about. Maybe she was getting Lisa confused with someone else, and that someone else had a problem with this 'Dean' guy. Oh well, she wouldn't point it out, it would just make Susan embarrassed.
"Anyway," Susan said, standing, "I've got a long drive ahead of me. I should get going."
"Thanks so much for coming to see me." Lisa said, hugging her friend. "It was great to see you."
"Take care, and drive carefully! I don't want to hear about any more crashes," Susan admonished.
Lisa laughed, "I will, I promise. Same to you."
Later at dinner, Lisa sat across the table from Ben, deep in thought. She'd laughed off what Susan had said earlier but it had been bugging at her all day. Just the name "Dean." It kept repeating and repeating in her head, accompanied by tiny pinpricks of what could be memories but seemed more like forgotten dreams.
"Mom, are you OK?" Ben asked, bringing her back to reality. "You haven't touched a bite"
"What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just a bit preoccupied." She scooped up a forkful of food and stuffed it in her mouth, giving Ben a quick smile to show that nothing was wrong. She swallowed. "Ben, have we even known a Dean?"
"No," Ben said, then hesitated, "at least, I don't think so." He furrowed his brow, looking troubled. "Why do you ask?"
"No reason, never mind." She said, brushing the topic aside. "How was school?
Ben grimaced "Apparently being in a car crash doesn't exempt you from homework." he said, and he began to tell her all the tedious details of his day, but it was obvious that both of them were only half concentrating on the conversation.
After school the next day Ben walked toward the bike rack with his friend Zack. "Zack," Ben started, "this is weird but... did I ever know a guy named Dean?"
Zack stopped and looked at Ben, eyebrows raised. "You're kidding right?" Ben shook his head. Zack was looking at him like he was crazy. "Dude, Dean? Dean Winchester? He was like, your dad for a while. That's what you told me anyway. You basically worshiped the man, talked about him a ton, said he was some kind of hero." Zack smirked. "You were practically in love with him. Well, more than your mom turned out to be anyway."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ben asked.
Zack sighed, "Just that, Dean left, your mom started dating other people and you weren't too happy."
"Why'd he leave?"
"Dude, I don't know. You wouldn't tell me like, anything specific about the guy." He started toward his bike again, giving Ben a side long glance. "What is this about anyway? Do you seriously not remember this stuff?"
"I don't," Ben said, pulling his bike off the rack. "Neither does my mom. She asked me last night and seemed just as confused as I felt. But ever since she brought I can't stop thinking about it."
"Man, that's weird," Zack said, "Maybe you've got like, selective amnesia or something, you know, from the crash." He suggested, mounting his bike. "We'll talk about his later. Gotta go!" He put his feet on the pedals and biked off.
"Both of us have selective amnesia about the same person? Not likely," Ben muttered.
Ben got home and pulled up Google search, typing in "Dean Winchester." There weren't many results but what there were was a bit disturbing. Articles about murders and bank robberies and other crimes, all committed by this Dean Winchester. This couldn't be the same Dean. What was really odd was, there were multiple accounts of this guy's death. Different states, different dates, different causes, all for the same guy. Either this guy could come back to life, or he was really good at faking his own death. And if all those other deaths were fake, who was to say the most recent one was legitimate? Who was this guy?
Lisa came home and fond Ben on the computer, scrolling through pages and comparing different tabs, completely concentrated. It seemed like he was searching for something.
"Whatcha doing?" she asked.
"Ah, mom!" Ben jumped, reflexively hitting the close button as he turned to face Lisa. "Um, hi. You startled me. I was just going some research stuff, for school. I'm done now, anyway, got all the info I need. And now I'm going upstairs. See ya!" he got up and hurried off to his room.
Lisa stared after him for a minute, then sat down at the computer and pulled up the internet history. The Google search seemed to be where all the other sites branched off of, so she clicked on it.
Dean Winchester.
Winchester. Dean Winchester. That sounded right. She vaguely remembered wondering what it would be like to be Lisa Winchester. Not that she was really the marrying type but, if he had asked...
She looked at the search results and the more she looked the more confused she felt. The criminal the articles described couldn't be him. He couldn't be the source of the happy, comfortable memories peeking at the edges of her mind. But she also came across pieces of information that just fit. Like Sam, the brother that he would never be separated from.
She decided to take the search in a different direction. She typed in "Sam and Dean."
The results were not at all what she expected. Links to fan sites of a book series titled "Supernatural" covered the page. Lisa clicked a few and gathered that it was a series about two brothers who hunted monsters. It was obviously fiction, but some of it seemed to ring true. It was a ridiculously long shot, but she found and ordered a copy of the first book on e-bay.