Chapter Two

Warmth on his face. A reddish glow behind his eyelids. Birds twittered somewhere off to the right, and the air smelled fresh and sweet, like spring flowers. Sam opened his eyes and squinted into the harsh glare of the low-hanging sun.

He sat up, dazed and disoriented, blinking to clear the sun's afterglow from his vision. Dirt crunched beneath him and the shiny black asphalt of a narrow country road shimmered in the sunlight. Shrubs lined the road, casting long shadows; freshly plowed farm fields stretched as far as the eye could see, showing him square after square after square of brown and red earth, the stark lines only broken by clusters of tall trees. Where the hell was he? It looked like the Midwest; it sure as hell wasn't Montana in March.

With the thought, memories came flooding back. The haunted house. Dean, limp body in an awkward heap, not moving, blood trickling from a cut on his face. Trying to get to his brother. And falling, falling through endless darkness—then nothing, until he woke up here beneath a warm spring sun.

"Dean?" Sam called out without much hope he'd get a reply. And true enough, the only answer he received was the shriek of some bird of prey, high up in the sky, circling on the warm air currents in search of food.

Sam shivered despite the warmth of the afternoon sun and his too-thick winter jacket, and climbed to his feet. Dizziness washed over him and he waited for the world to stop spinning before taking further stock of his surroundings. The blacktop road led away in an ever narrowing straight line until it faded in the haze on the horizon. The sun looked like a huge ball of fire close to the ground, far, far off to the west. A few wispy clouds reflected the light in a smear of pink against a deepening blue sky. It had to be late afternoon, he thought, or perhaps early evening. Depending...

He twisted around to look into the other direction and—

Oh crap.

Sam's breath caught in his throat. Next to the road stood a town sign, not thirty feet from where he found himself, paint flaking off a crimson-and-blue cartoon bird next to stylized black letters.

Welcome to Lawrence, Kansas

Home of the Jayhawks

Stunned, Sam sank back until he was sitting once again on the ground. That answered the question of where he was. But the knowledge just raised more questions. How the hell had he got himself from Montana to Kansas? And when was he? The last time he'd lost a part of his life he'd been... He swallowed, unwilling to follow the thought through. Black spots swam before his eyes and something bitter burned in his throat. He drew up his knees to rest his forehead against the soft cotton of his jeans, and took several deep, slow breaths.

Please, not again.

He fumbled for his phone, almost dropping it because his hands were shaking so bad. The battery was nearly full, the signal strong. He speed-dialed Dean's number; the phone rang, once, twice.

C'mon, Dean, pick up. Pick up, please.

There was a click and then—Oh, thank you, God—Dean's voice on the other end. Sam heaved a sigh, light-headed with relief, so grateful to just hear his brother's voice, to know Dean was alive and well, that he spoke before Dean had fully finished.

"It's me."

Silence on the other end. Then, "Sorry. Who's this?"

Sam sat up straight. "Um, Sam?" Somehow, it came out like a question.

Another few seconds of silence while Sam waited for Dean to start laughing, tell him had you going, didn't I. But Dean didn't say anything. In the background, Sam heard noises. Metal clinking against metal, the hiss of a welding torch, an engine coughing before it turned over reluctantly.

Finally, Dean's words when he had answered the phone filtered through. Sam squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. "Um, Dean?"

"Yes..." Hesitant, uncertain.

"It's Sam, Sam Winchester. Your—" He stopped short of saying brother, some instinct telling him to hold back though he wasn't sure why.

"Oh, you're my cousin?" Dean said. "I remember Dad saying once he had relatives on the west coast."

Sam wanted to say something back, confirmation or denial, he wasn't sure, but his vocal cords refused to function. His own damn brother didn't have a clue who he was, soundedas if he'd never even known him. What crazy weird shit had he landed in?

"That's great. Are you in Lawrence?" Dean continued, oblivious to Sam's despair. He seemed to have already accepted his own conclusion as the truth, like most normal people did when confronted with a sensible-sounding theory—which was so very, very wrong for Dean. Dean was like Dad; neither accepted the easy truths about strange things at face value but doggedly scratched and picked at the surface just to see if there were other, darker truths beneath the veneer of the obvious. "Why don't you come on over? I'd like to meet our Cali cousin. I'm sure Dad'd love to meet you too."

Dad? But Dad was... Sam managed to wring a sound from his throat that vaguely resembled "Yeah."

"We're at the shop," Dean said. "It's at—" He proceeded to give Sam directions, and Sam soon realized Dean was talking about Mike Guenther's garage.

Dad's old place.

"I'll find it," Sam said, discovering his voice had grown a little more firm now that he had a course of action. He told himself he should approach this like any another job: find out what was going on, figure a way to fix it/kill it/banish it, whatever was needed to set things straight, and then do it. He could worry about everything else later.

Sam hung up, stuffed the phone back in his jacket, and set off on foot following the road towards town.

o0o

It was close to three miles from the town limits to the garage, and by the time Sam arrived, he was hot and sweaty. He'd slung his winter jacket over his shoulder, rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, but perspiration had still popped out on his back and trickled down his spine beneath the warmth of the Kansas spring sun.

He stopped at the corner of the street, taking a moment to look at the building. The last time he'd been here, the sign on the wall had read "Guenther's Auto Repair" and the place had been chock-full of tiny Japanese imports that Dean dubbed tin cans for chicks. But now it said "Winchester & Son Auto Repair" and the finest of American vintage cars had replaced the tin cans. Next to the entrance was a gleaming red Ford Mustang convertible with a white top—a '65 or perhaps '69, Sam wasn't sure—with a For Sale-sign in the window. Just inside the double sliding doors, a marine-blue Camaro with a dented fender waited to be serviced right next to a dark green Olds that showed signs of rust and had no wheels. Further into the workshop, someone hunched over the engine of what Sam believed was a Dodge Charger. Car parts were strewn all about, and tools hung in neat rows on the walls. He'd been around Dad and Dean enough to recognize and name several, even if he wasn't always sure what they were for.

Parked outside just around the corner of the building was a shiny, black '67 Chevy Impala, chrome mirrors glinting red in the reflected glow of the setting sun.

Freaky.

Sam shook himself, and walked up the incline where the garage grounds sloped down to meet the road. The floor had been swept free of dirt and dust, although ancient oil spills stained the cement. Dean, wiping his hands on a dirty cloth, ambled over. Sam found himself staring. Dean looked, well, like Dean. Same short-cropped hair, easy grin; torn jeans, faded blue T-shirt streaked with car grease, black smudge on his right cheek.

"Sam?" His voice was the same too.

Sam nodded. Dean gripped his hand and shook it vigorously. "Good to see some family from out west, man."

Sam dipped his head in another nod. He didn't dare speak, afraid of what questions or accusations might come tumbling from his lips if he did.

This isn't Dean.

Close up, he could see the many small ways in which the man wearing Dean's face and Dean's smile differed from the man who'd entered a haunted house in Montana ahead of Sam, shotgun at the ready.

This Dean's hair was better groomed, as if he had the time and money to get proper haircuts instead of having Sam hurriedly snip away beneath the glare of motel bathroom lights. The expression in the green eyes was less guarded; in fact, Dean's entire posture seemed more open, more trusting. But most significantly, he lacked the network of tiny, overlapping scars that marked his real brother's face and hands and forearms; scars Dean had gained over two decades of hunting, of receiving cuts and scrapes and abrasions in battles with pissed-off spirits, hungry wendigos and angry tree-gods. Dean's forehead was smooth, the jagged cut he got when the demon plowed thirty tons of trailer truck into the Impala non-existent. Sam was also quite certain that if he peeled away the faded T-shirt and torn jeans, he'd find none of the white-against-tan-skin lines that betrayed where Dean had suffered deeper lacerations, many of which Sam had stitched up himself with nylon thread in moldy rented rooms, barely able to see what he was doing under the meager light of cheap bulbs.

"Damn, look at you," the man who wasn't his brother said with a laugh. "You look like you could drain Clinton Lake, you look that thirsty."

Sam realized his throat was parched. He hadn't been prepared for a long walk in the heat of an early Kansas spring—he'd not come prepared for anything but trying to stop some evil being from haunting an abandoned hovel.

"Shoulda told me you didn't have a ride," Dean continued. "I could've picked you up. You walk here from the Amtrak station?"

"Um..." Sam shrugged the jacket off his shoulder, then held it awkwardly, not knowing what to do with it.

"Well, let's get you watered before you wilt completely." Dean preceded Sam to a small office cubicle in the back of the garage proper. Battered metal file cabinets hid most of the far wall while invoices, statements and old car manuals with dog-eared pages covered the large desk that occupied the rest of the room. Dean opened a tabletop model fridge in the corner and gathered up a couple of Budweisers. Condensation beaded the cold aluminum surface instantly. He handed one to Sam, put one on the desk, and opened the third.

Sam held the can to his forehead for a moment, relishing the cold against his heated skin. He popped the lid and drank deeply, the cool beer soothing his dry mouth.

Dean grinned. "Better, huh?" He stuck his head out of the office and hollered, "Dad!"

A moment later, a man walked out of the shadows of the workshop and into the fluorescent glare of the office lights, his silhouette so familiar that the mere sight of him sent a stab of fresh pain and longing through Sam. And although he'd been warned he'd get to see his father when Dean first mentioned him, had tried to brace himself against the shock on the long walk to the garage, Sam found that the reality of meeting John in the flesh again was a far cry from what he'd imagined. Seeing his father alive and well took his breath away, made his eyes burn with unshed tears.

He wanted to cry out, Dad! but he swallowed down the word before it could escape.

"Dad, this is Sam Winchester. From Cali."

The man who looked so much like his father stuck out a hand. "Sam, eh? John Winchester." Sam stared for a long beat before it dawned on him that he should take the offered hand. John's eyes bored into him, scouring his soul, just like Dad's always had, eyes that seemed to see all Sam's dirty little secrets, the things he'd tried so hard to hide—from using his father's guns for play when he was seven to losing his virginity to a girl called Peggy during those three months they stayed in Tulsa, back in '98.

"Welcome to Lawrence."

"Thank you, sir." The address came to his tongue naturally, without thinking.

Dean chuckled and took another swallow of his Bud. "So, what brings you here, cousin?"

Sam sipped from his beer. His stomach felt hollow, like he hadn't eaten anything in a long time and he could feel that first long swallow he'd taken going straight for his head. If there ever had been a time he couldn't afford to muddle his brain, it was now. "Just passing through."

It wasn't a lie—or so he hoped. He couldn't keep his eyes off of John, mentally listing the many small ways in which this John Winchester differed from his dad, just like he had with Dean. Aside from the obvious lack of physical marks a life of hunting evil had left, John, like Dean, was less wary, less weary. The streaks of gray in John's beard had barely begun showing and the lines around his eyes were not as deep as Sam remembered. Wherever he was—whenever he was, these Winchesters seemed oblivious to what lurked in the dark, seemed unknowing about that yellow-eyed bastard, or shtrigas that snacked on little children, or swamp monsters, or even the truth about Bigfoot. Hell, for all Sam knew, there was no Bigfoot legend in this world.

They also didn't know anything about him. Though Sam couldn't imagine how, that had to be significant.

He told them lies mixed in with truth. Dad—the real one—had always taught them, If you have to lie, stick as close to the truth as you can. Makes it easier to remember. So Sam said he was a pre-law student at Stanford.

That earned him an admiring look from John. "Stanford, eh? Pretty good school."

Sam shrugged, ignoring the pang that lanced through him at hearing the kind of approval he'd always longed to get from his real father come out of the mouth of this man. "Yeah. I'm taking a break from classes, though. See some of the world."

Dean looked a little envious while John hmm'ed noncommittally, and Sam didn't offer any further explanation. Once they'd drained the last of their beer, Dean collected the empty cans and dropped them in the trash. He turned to Sam, put a hand on his shoulder and looked up.

"Know what? You should come to the house, have dinner with us. I'm sure Mom would love to have you. Ain't that right, Dad?"

John grinned. "You know your mother. She's always cooking as if she's expectin' an entire Marine unit to show up on our doorstep at the last moment."

Sam wasn't even surprised to learn that his mother also lived in this world.

"Yeah." Dean chuckled. "And you can meet my wife and little girl."

Sam nearly choked. Wife? Dean was married? Now, that was unexpected...

He followed Dean and John—it was easier to think of the man as John; it separated him a little from Dad, if not much—out of the garage, and waited until they had closed the doors and locked the place up. They preceded him to the parked Impala—no surprise there—and Dean took the wheel. John offered Sam the passenger seat while he folded himself in back. It struck Sam: Dad'd never do that.

To his father, Sam had always been his youngest son no matter how tall he'd got; he wasn't a distant, all grown-up cousin from California.

Dean switched on the radio before he put the Impala in reverse and backed out onto the road. Pounding rock filled the interior—catch the wind, see us spin, sail away, leave today.

Sam smiled to himself when he recognized the song from the countless times he'd heard it before: Led Zeppelin. At least Dean's musical tastes seemed to run along the same lines here.

He let the noise wash over him while he stared out of the window at the darkening Lawrence streets, trying to mentally prepare for meeting his mother. Sam already knew he'd fail miserably.

TBC