How to Save a Winchester
I do not own anything you recognize…
Like I said last chapter, the POVs are going… nutter-butters! Lol. Enjoy!
Chapter Two
x Alex POV x
A few hours later, after sending Frank to the guest room to clean up and unpack and talking to Emmett and Ella (who, I think, would make a great addition to the family), dinner was ready. I glanced out the window and saw Sam pull in.
I called everyone for dinner and sat down myself. Sam was always at the head of the table, me to his right. I put Frank next to me and Mary was next to him. Taylor was across from me and Patrick next to her. Emmett was at the end, opposite Sam, and Ella was at his right.
The kids started digging in. Frank and Ella weren't sure what to do until someone offered then something, that's when they began to fit right in.
Sam came in the front door. "I'm home," he called. When the kids were young, they used to run to him for 'hello kisses'. Sam's still getting used to the fact that they've grown up.
He came in the kitchen and looked at the full table. I watched his eyes glance over Taylor to Patrick to Ella and Emmett and finally, Mary. Then he saw Frank.
He looked at me. "Alex, can we talk in the hallway?"
I gave him a smile. "We can talk here." The table went silent. They all knew we were about to fight.
"In the hall, please."
"What do you have to say, Sam," I asked.
"Alex…"
"Go ahead," I encouraged. He glared at me.
"Fine. Why is he here?" Frank looked down to his plate, ashamed.
"Because he needs help and I am going to help him with or without your help."
Sam studied me carefully. "He can't stay here."
"He's already unpacked."
"Send him somewhere else."
"Why," I asked.
"Because he's a drug dealer," he exclaimed, getting irritated.
"And how do you know," I asked. "I didn't see you asking him what happened."
"He's being charged with dealing on school grounds."
"You were charged with…" I stopped. The kids didn't know that Dean had been tried for murder and Sam for assisted murder. And I wasn't about to tell them.
"That's different," Sam stated. "You know it is."
"No, Sam. I don't. I know that he's a kid. Kids mess up. I know that he wants help, he needs help. And I'm going to help him."
"Kids," Sam said, watching my eyes intensely, "go somewhere. I need to talk to your mother."
They started to move from the table, but Frank interrupted them. "I'll leave," he said.
x Frank POV x
I didn't want to cause any trouble. And that seems to be all that I've been doing lately.
"Frank, sit your ass down, right now," Mrs. Winchester scolded. She cursed. This was serious.
I sat.
"Mrs. Winchester," I tried, "I don't want to…"
"If you leave," she told me sternly, "I'll have half the Marines in California looking for you. And I know they'll find you." Well, considering they were my friends, I'm sure they would. But how would she get in touch with them?
I wasn't about to underestimate her though. (A/N: I think Alex strikes fear in Frank's heart. Lol.)
x Emmett POV x
"Mom, Dad," I said, standing up. This was getting to be enough, "go talk. Ella and I will clean up." I glanced between the two, hoping they would listen.
Mom got up from the table and walked toward Dad. Dad grabbed her wrist gently, but she pulled it away.
They went into the other room.
An hour later, everyone had gone to bed except Ella, Frank, and I. And I didn't know about Mom and Dad. But that was alright. I really didn't want to know.
Frank helped clean up the plates and wiped down the table while my girlfriend put the left-overs in Tupperware and in the fridge. I scrapped the plates and put it all in the dishwasher.
We did this in relative silence.
"Should I leave," Frank asked when his job was done.
I looked up from the dishwasher. "Stay in the guest room tonight. But don't try and leave. Mom will skin you alive if you do."
Frank gave a half-smile. "That's Mrs. Winchester."
He went upstairs as Ella and I finished.
She leaned next to me by the counter when we were done.
"Maybe we shouldn't tell them," she commented.
Maybe she was right.
x Mary POV x
I waited until I heard Frank come upstairs and go into the guest room. I gave him ten minutes to change before sneaking in.
I knocked once and pushed open the door, careful not to disturb the hushed whispers from Mom and Dad's room.
"Frank," I whispered, closing the door behind me, "you awake?"
He sat up in the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. "Yeah." He leaned back on his elbows. "What are you doing here?"
I walked over to the bed and sat at the end. "I do live here." The joke fell on deaf ears. That's when I noticed his eyes were red from crying.
Frank? Cry? Nah.
He sniffled. So he was crying.
"Are you okay," I asked, reaching out to brush a stray tear away.
"I'm fine." He pushed my hand away gently. He never did like when people touched him.
"Liar." I scooted up on the bed next to him. "What's wrong?" He didn't look at me. "Frank."
"The Marines won't take me. That's all." That was his biggest goal. The Marines. The few, the proud.
"Yeah they will. Just get this mess straightened away."
"Mary," he sighed, "it's more than a mess. It's like…"
"A disaster zone?"
"Thanks," he said with a laugh.
"No problem," I returned the laugh. "I'm serious though. You'll get it fixed."
"Yeah."
I used my ability – even though I didn't do it often because I felt like I was invading others' privacy – to read his mind.
And the only thought I could think of was to hug him.
So I did.
And to my surprise, he returned the hug.
x Frank POV x
A half an hour later, she was fast asleep.
I don't know how it happened, but it did.
One second she was giving me a hug and the next she was laying down next to me, talking to me about sports and history and schoolwork and family like it was the most natural thing to talk about in bed.
Then she was asleep.
And hell, I wasn't going to pick her up.
So I just covered her up with the blankets, set my alarm really early so that I could wake us up and get her out of here, and tried to get asleep on the opposite side of the bed.
Good luck, Frank.
x Sam POV x
After Alex and I had gone upstairs to fight (which lasted for about three hours), we finally came to a compromise. That was, of course, after Alex told me she had had one of those feelings about Frank's situation.
The compromise was that I would sleep on it and think about his situation.
Then tomorrow, we'd talk again.
So we went to bed. I wrapped my arm around her like normal. And she let me.
So she couldn't be that mad. Either that or she had decided that she was right no matter what. She did that sometimes.
And she normally did turn out right.
Alex fell asleep first.
But I had the vision.
"Frank, wait up!" I was standing in the middle of a school hallway. There was Frank by, what I assume, was his locker. He shut it, holding his books for the next class. Some kid ran up to him. "Are you seeing Turtle next period?"
"Yeah, why," Frank asked, walking with this guy to the next class.
"Can you give him his gym bag? He left it in my locker."
"Sure." Frank took the bag and slung it over his shoulder.
"Thanks, Walker."
Frank nodded and went on his way. He slyly took his cell phone out of his pocket. I looked over his shoulder. He was checking his text messages. There were a lot from Mary.
I'm going to have to talk to that girl.
"Francis Walker, what are you doing?" Frank looked up. There was the principal. He grabbed Frank by the arm. "We're going to have a talk."
The next thing I knew, I was standing in the principal's office. Frank sat across from the principal. The elder man dumped the contents of the gym bag on the table between the two.
He picked up a baggie filled with cocaine and looked at Frank, whose face held puzzlement.
"It's not mine," Frank pleaded. "I swear!"
"Ms. Bent," the principal called out to his secretary, "call the cops."
I woke up the next morning at seven. So it wasn't the kid's fault.
I still don't have to like him.
But it wasn't his fault. And my daughter was friends with him.
So I had to help him.
I climbed out of bed and hit the alarm that had yet to go off. I'd wake Alex up myself.
I threw on some lounge pants and a shirt before heading into the hall. I made my way to Frank's room.
I knocked once before opening the door.
And I saw red.
There was my daughter and Frank wrapped around each other in a bed. The bed I gave him.
Their foreheads were touching and they looked like they were sleeping peacefully. Mary's right arm (she was on the left side of the bed) and Frank's left were hooked, fingers laced. His calf was hooked between hers. The hand that wasn't already busy holding the other's was lying on the bed between their stomachs. Their fingers touched slightly.
I heard someone come up from behind me. "Sam?" It was Alex. She glided her hand over my arm and placed it on my shoulder. "What's," her voice caught her throat when she saw them. "Oh." We were quiet for a second. "You know," she whispered. "The first time I shared a bed with you, we slept that way."
And I thought back. We had.
I think that's what scared me most. Their relationship was similar to Alex's and mine. We were friends first. We fell in love but tried to put it aside, for the hunt. And when we finally admitted to liking the other, it all happened at once: the suddenly sharing beds, the setback with attempting to contact Jessica Moore, the engagement, adopting Tommy, and finally Alex getting pregnant. Our whole relationship moved so fast.
I don't regret it, not one bit, but if I could go back, I would take it slower.
"Let's… let's…" Frank shifted in his sleep and Mary moved to accommodate him.
"Let's let them sleep," Alex said. "He needs comfort and I think she wants to comfort."
I swallowed hard and everything I had screamed to yell at them until my voice went hoarse. But I knew my wife was right.
Parenting was a balance. Right and wrong. Lying and truth. Love and tough love. Reprimanding and praising. Interfering and not.
And this was one of those times not to interfere.
