Chapter 1 'Family Matters'
Dean woke up to the clatter of water on bathroom tiles and Sam humming a song.
He thought it was Bad Company's 'Crazy Circles', but honestly, he didn't give a fucking shit right now. He turned his head towards the clock to see how early it was. They had returned from a hunt hours earlier and Dean hadn't even been able to sober up, let alone sleep through his hangover with Sam being a musical star.
"Goddamn it Sam! It's like eight in the morning!" He groaned, burying his face in his pillow.
"You have a text message, it woke me up!" Sam shouted back. He shut the shower off and Dean saw a hand fumble for a towel.
Dean turned around and unlocked his cell phone. He shot up: "Sam? It's dad!"
"What does it say?" Sam sounded muffled.
"Coordinates. And text."
"Text? What does he say?" Sam walked out of the shower, his hair all ruffled and damp.
"He says: 'Call me when you arrive, no earlier.' and 'come quick.'" Dean toyed with the flip-phone.
Sam buttoned up his shirt: "Well, let's check out the coordinates and get going." He opened his laptop and started typing wildly while Dean quickly got dressed and stuffed the rest of their stuff in the bags. When he was done 'packing', he flung the duffle bag over his shoulder.
"Got it?" Dean said, quickly eating the last piece of pizza. That would show Sam, for waking him up this early.
"Got it." Sam shut the laptop off, looked a little bit disappointed at the empty pizza box, but didn't make a comment.
"Let's go," Dean held the door open for Sam.
Sam passed through, threw his laptop on the back seat and plumped down on the passenger's seat.
Dean sat down next to him, on the driver's side of the car. "Be careful will you? You could crush my car with your 190 lbs."
Sam huffed, but Dean ignored his not-so-silent protest: "Where are we going?"
"Leakesville, Mississippi." Sam tapped on his notebook with a pen.
"We should be able to get there in about seven hours," Dean said, hitting the cassette recorder with his fist to get it to work.
"-EED LIMITS! NOBODY'S GONNA SLOW US DOWN!"
"Don't we want to check out?" Sam shouted over the radio.
"Don't we want to find dad?" Dean mumbled.
Sam shrugged and fastened his seat belt: "Well, it's going to be a long ride to Mississippi. I'm going to catch some sleep. Wake me up when you need me."
"Why would I need you?" Dean huffed.
"You could get lost."
"I never get lost." He smiled and turned the radio down a little.
But only a little.
"Hey, Sam, Sammy, wake up," Sam felt a sturdy jab on his shoulder.
"What? Are we there yet?" Sam asked, rubbing his eyes.
"Can you take the wheel from here?" Dean stopped the car in the emergency lane.
"Why?" Sam yawned and stretched, for as far as that was possible.
"Because I got lost." Dean growled disgruntled.
Sam laughed: "You're kidding,"
Dean got out of the car: "Yes, I am. We've just entered Mississippi, just follow the signs to Leakesville."
Sam slid over to the driver's seat and took the wheel.
"Why do you want me to drive?" He asked.
"Ah, Sam, you know I can't drive a car with a hangover and an empty stomach." Dean grinned and pulled a brown bag out from under the chair.
"When did you get that?" Sam frowned.
"Bought it, while you were asleep." He pulled a sandwich out of it and started eating. "Want one?"
"No thanks," Sam pulled up his nose at the watery tuna sandwich.
About half an hour later they pulled up in front of a church.
"Why don't you call dad?" Dean said with his mouth full.
"Yeah."
The two sandwiches that Dean had bought for Sam had been eaten by Dean too, since he had decided Sam was fat enough.
"Hey, it's Sam. –Yeah we got there, -No, -No, Dean is eating, -Yeah, -At the church, -No, we'll wait, -That's okay, I'll tell him. -See you in a minute, bye."
"What do you need to tell me?" Dean asked.
"That you are not allowed to speak with your mouth full." Sam smiled, he got out of the car and locked it. "That we are to wait in the church."
"In the church?" Dean raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know why." Sam shrugged.
They silently entered the church and sat down on one of the hard, wooden benches.
"Churches always creep the hell out of me," Dean whispered to his brother.
"We hunt things in the dark and churches creep you out?" Sam grinned.
"They're just so cold and hollow," Dean shrugged, "I'd rather have a cosy family home haunted by a poltergeist or the departed eldest son."
Sam started laughing and an old woman in the corner shushed them: "People are trying to pray in here. Have your meetings outside."
The church door opened: "Sam, Dean!"
Dean jumped up: "Dad!"
John just waved and pointed outside.
The boys followed them and sat next to him on a cold metal bench in the afternoon sun.
"Why did you want us to wait in the church?" Sam asked.
John smiled. "Just to be sure. But it's good to see you boys."
"Why did you call us?" Dean asked.
"I have a problem." John said.
Dean frowned. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I am now." John sighed, "Yesterday I was hunting something. I didn't really know what it was, so I was prepared for anything. Almost anything. The, thing, got scared and created a shadow-form of your sixteen year old mother, to distract me. But she wasn't really a shadow though, she was too real to be a shadow. I could touch her and talk to her. I got distracted, so the thing got a chance to stab me in the side and,"
"Whoa dad, he stabbed you?" Dean interrupted his father, "Are you okay? Did it hit any organs?"
"I'm fine, really, just, just hear me out." John pushed his son back down on the bench. "I reacted quickly and shot the thing with rock salt. I knew it couldn't kill it, but it was confused or wounded enough to run. I wanted to pack up and leave, but I heard someone sobbing. Mary was sitting in the corner, crying. She couldn't remember anything of what happened and she was so confused. This has to mean something big boys, I think we're closing in on the thing that killed your mother!" John said enthusiastic.
"But what about the girl?" Sam asked.
"I took her to the motel I am staying and we talked. She is in my car now." John said it like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"You can't just drag her into your war dad!" Sam protested.
"Listen," John said, raising his hand to calm his son down, "This morning, after I came back from buying her a reasonable set of clothes, she saw the slash in my side. I had bled through my bandages and shirt. The girl asked me if she could see it and started panicking when I lifted my shirt. She told me it was poisoned and that I was going to die."
"Hell, I'd panic when you raise your shirt." Dean smiled.
John nodded, discarding Deans joke. "She placed her hands on my side and healed it. She pulled the venom out like it was nothing, it was so weird."
"Is she even human?" Sam asked.
"I exposed her to anything lethal to all supernatural creatures I know, iron, gold, silver, holy water, everything that I could think of and could kill a demon, poltergeist or other dark spirit."
"Maybe she's holy." Dean speculated.
"What? An Angel?" Sam shook his head.
"Can we see her?" Dean asked.
John nodded. "Yes, but be prepared. The kid is the spitting image of your mom and she panics quite easily. One twitch and she's gone."
Dean smiled. "I think we are big enough to handle it."
"Let's get it over with, we need to help the poor girl," Sam agreed.
John got up: "Wait here."
He walked back to his pick-up and opened the passenger door: "Jenny?"
She was still there, smiling. Her hair in a long braid on her back and her hands playing with the string of the sweater John had bought for her.
"C'mon," John smiled, "Do you still want to meet my boys?"
She nodded and climbed out of the car. John wanted to walk away, but she grabbed his hand.
"If you're getting nervous or anything, just squeeze," he assured her.
She nodded.
From a distance, Sam and Dean watched John open the door of his car and pull a small girl in jeans and a hoodie out.
"Dean?" Sam asked.
"What?"
"I'm nervous." He felt like he was six again and this was the first day of school, feeling a little sick to the stomach.
"Don't be ridiculous Sam," Dean answered, he felt the same as Sam, but he had no idea whether he was nervous too or if it was just the hangover. He shouldn't drink that much on late night hunts. "She's just a girl, dad probably exaggerated a bit."
"Dad?" Sam asked. "Exaggerating?"
They saw the two approaching, hand in hand.
"When was the last time you saw dad showing affection like this?" Dean asked.
"I don't know man." Sam swallowed.
The girl was staring at her feet, but Dean vaguely recognized her.
"This is Jennifer," John said.
"Hi," Sam greeted her, staring.
"I'm Dean and this is my brother Sam," Dean properly introduced them. Jennifer looked up, immediately catching Dean's eye.
Dean was quiet for a moment. Mostly, he knew his mother from pictures. But this girl, it was scary. She was his mother. The same blue eyes, the same blonde hair.
"I know you," she said, reaching out to touch him.
Dean allowed her warm hand to touch his cold cheek. When she broke contact, he scraped his throat: "What do we do?"
"I don't think I have any other choice that taking her with me." John said.
"You can't just drag her into danger like that!" Sam protested again.
"Then what?" Dean asked, "Dad is right, Sam. We can't tie her to a tree and drive of. She's not a dog."
"We need to take her with us," John said again. "What else?"
Sam shrugged: "Give her some money, a chance on a safe life. A life of her own."
"Just leave her?" John said. "She was practically born yesterday. We can't just dump her on the side of the road with one hundred dollars."
Dean turned to Jennifer: "It's more important what you want."
"I… just…" she stuttered. She didn't know. Stressed, she clenched John's hand.
John smiled reassuring: "How about we get some lunch. We can think and talk over some coffee."
"We just had lunch," Sam said.
"No we didn't," Dean smiled, "I'll drive after you, dad."
The two boys turned around and walked away, softly bickering. John and Jennifer returned to the pick-up truck.
"You have sweet boys," she said.
John fastened his seat belt and started up the engine: "They are." He said, "If it weren't for them I'd be dead by now."
She smiled, calming down a bit. It wasn't that she didn't trust anyone, it was just that other people made her feel uncomfortable and scared. She couldn't see behind their masks.
"What would you like to eat?" John asked.
Jennifer shrugged: "I don't know. You pick."
"We'll go to a diner, you can choose from the menu."
Jennifer nodded.
He parked at the first diner they passed, checking the rear view mirror to see if the boys were following him.
"This is officially, the most unbelievable thing I have ever seen." Sam stared at a picture of his mother that Dean always kept in the glove compartment. "I don't trust it."
"Don't call her 'it'. Sam, if dad says she checks out, I'm sure he took everything into account."
"But according to dad she was created by a Demon. A Demon, Dean! How can that 'check out'?"
"I don't know Sam! All I know is that I trust dad and that I have seen weirder things. So for one time, please, just trust him." Dean gripped the wheel tightly, with two hands instead of one.
"It's not that I don't trust dad, but he told us he is weaker with us around. And all of a sudden he meets a random girl who looks just like mom. I think it's a trap, Dean." Sam stored the picture away in the folder and shut the glove compartment.
"Then how would you like to solve this?" Dean asked, parking the car.
"I was thinking that, maybe, to protect dad and the girl, we…"
"Oh, no way," Dean cut him off.
"No way what?"
"We are not taking her with us!"
Sam sighed: "There is no other solution! Dad works best alone, we work best as a team, Until we find a suitable home for the kid, we could take care of her just fine."
Dean said nothing. He got out of the car and slammed the door shut.
"Damn it Dean!" Sam sighed before he got out too and followed his brother into the restaurant.