Do Over

A Supernatural/Dark Angel Fanfic

Disclaimer: Eric Kirpke and James Cameron own Supernatural, and Dark Angel, respectively.

Part One of Six: Bobby

If he was feeling nostalgic he would have described the place he would have described the place he found Dean's spawn as a sleepy little town on the Wyoming and South Dakota border. He was too old and too jaded for nostalgia and so Bobby called the place Bumfuck, Nowheresville. He nearly had a heart attack when he saw the boy, spitting image of the man he once knew only younger and in gray camouflage BDU's, facing off against the forest troll he'd been tracking for two weeks. Even after ten years watching the kid move, squash fear down and strike with inhuman strength, the old hunter felt his heart skip as he lined up his sights.

The troll roared and threw the kid, ironically allowing Bobby to take his shot. He pulled the trigger on his rifle as the tiny solider hit a tree, and the hunter squeezed off three more shots before moving from his position, running as feast as he could for his age, and drawing a blessed iron knife as he did so. The kid was still but moaning and the troll was already regenerating; struggling to stand. Bobby shot its head before kneeling down to sever it from the rest of the body, then proceeded to cut out the heart.

When he looked up the boy was staring at him with wide eyes. His daddy's eyes. Winchester eyes.

Bobby swallowed as he sheathed his knife. The last time he saw those eyes they'd been drowning in sorrow. Those eyes had watched their brother get ripped to shreds and his soul dragged to hell.

The hunter approached the boy like he would a spooked horse, hands up and open. He quickly checked the troll, already falling apart into so much mulch, and held out his empty arms. "There now, son. Everything's going to be just fine." The kid's clothes were covered in dirt and sweat. There was blood and mud caked around his fingernails. Above all he was Dean; down to the last freckle. A dirty, wary, and exhausted Dean that seemed to have regressed to a child but a Dean nonetheless. It had to be Dean's son. During that last year Dean had been the king of debauchery; the age fit. "Easy. Easy. Probably cracked a rib when that thing threw ya."

The boy was a bundle of nerves when Bobby picked him up. He was light; malnourished. He had probably been wandering around the god-forsaken wilderness for weeks. "What's your name, son?"

The kid needed a hospital. He needed fluids and proper medical treatment. Bobby had no doubt that if the small boy wasn't so exhausted and scared, who wouldn't be after a run-in with a forest troll, he'd be fighting the old hunter tooth and nail.

Just like any other Winchester.

"I don't have a name, sir." The boy whispered as if ashamed. "No one ever gave us names."

And just like that Bobby decided the little brat didn't really need a hospital. This kid was obviously a solider; Winchesters were always fighting and picking wars with something, but Bobby doubted it was the usual. Part of him, the hunter part, wanted him to put the boy down with a bullet buried in his brain. No human should be able to take on a troll as well as the boy had, and barehanded. But another part of him cried out against it.

"Then what did they call you?" He'd patch up the kid at the old hunters lodge he'd spent the last three days squatting in. He was tired of losing people. He was old, dammit, he wasn't supposed to outlive his children.

Those eyes turned up, boring into him, and whirled into a confused green. "X8-493."

Bobby had to stop to rest. He was too old for trekking through brush carrying a rifle and a kid. He was too old for raising one.

But damned if he wasn't going to try. "That's kind of conspicuous." The boy looked away as his emotional gates shut down one by one. So much like Dean... "How's Dean sound?"... just what had Sam done?

End.