Hello, all! I know posting here has been difficult for the past few weeks. It irks me, but it's also keeping me in line because as much as I love this story, I'm always tempted and sidetracked by new plot bunnies. So at least this giant website malfunction is keeping me on the straight and narrow!

I did say that the next chapter would be the last for this tory, but if I put everything needed into one chapter would be ridiculously long. Thus, I'm giving y'all one more chapter of Raising Winchester before the end! It is a little short, but the end will not be.

Thanks again to everyone who has alerted, reviewed and read this story. I love y'all for hanging in!

Please let me know what you think!

Chapter Seven

At fifteen, Dean Winchester had been shot—a through and through to the thigh—and endured treatment in a grimy cabin where a doctor with cataract-gray eyes stitched him up.

At sixteen, he had killed a werewolf with one bullet left and perfect aim.

At seventeen, he had been lowered headfirst into a dank cave believed to be the lair of a chupacabra, because no one else would fit.

At eighteen, Dean had been trapped in the woods with three blood-thirsty vampires and had beheaded them all.

At nineteen, squinting in the headlights of the enormous truck, he faced a new kind of fear, one that pulsed in the very marrow of his bones, because all those times, his father had backed him up (and Sammy had been tucked out of harm's way) and Dean had been so naïvely sure that nothing truly bad would come to him as long as John Winchester was on point.

Nevertheless, Dean stood strong while a figured cloaked in foreboding darkness approached with the crunch of gravel and a loping gait. Cold beads of sweat licked down his back as the hairs on the back of his neck stood erect, charged with an electric trepidation, a concentrated, intense terror that Dean had never felt before. It left him feeling dumb and paralyzed with fear, toes curling in his boots, rooted in the spot a few feet away from the Charger, where Sam remained hidden.

The knowledge of his brother's proximity spurred him on, because while his fear was all-encompassing and pervasive, Sam's was worse—rocketing up the traumas of Doozies. He took two tentative steps forward, and watched as the light gave life to a face, pale, pock-mocked skin, stubbly beard and flannel shirt, just as Ingrid had described.

But she hadn't mentioned the grizzly beard or the trucker cap and the distinct lack of leather. It was Bobby Singer, not John Winchester.

Relief was a delightful surge of release as Dean's whole body deflated and ropes of taut muscle went lax. His guard was still on red alert as he watched the old family friend's face for any vestige of deceit or ill-will, knowing full well that Bobby's pokerface rivaled a statue's.

"State your business," Dean said with a cold-edge to his voice that was all bluster.

Bobby stopped in mid-stride, the indifferent mask sliding off to reveal the fatherly figure beneath. "I just wanted to see you, boy." Bobby said honestly. "It's been too long."

Dean refused to back up, but bristled hotly to stop Bobby's approach. He could hear the springs of the Charger squeaking lightly as Sam moved inside the car.

"I know you're a touch skittish, but I'm not gonna haul you back to your daddy."

"What do you want then?" Dean hissed, low and deadly. "We're not your concern anymore."

There. He discovered the chink in the hunter's impressive armor. Bobby's eyes flashed with a paternal pain that blindsided Dean.

He bumped up the brim of his cap and rubbed at his forehead with a bit of distress. "I know Sam got the stank-end of the dog in all this, but I swear, Dean, on the soul of my sweet Karen, that I had nothing to do with what John pulled."

The headlights still cut through the black of the night, and Dean could see, with clear-eyed scrutiny, that Bobby was telling the truth. He didn't look like the menacing threat he had before, but the man who was always a touch kinder, more patient and more loving than John Winchester. The man who'd given them a home and an obstacle course of old cars to play with during the summers. The man who could reign in their father when he climbed too far in the bottle and fell too far into the chasm of grief.

"Sam is my priority right now. I'm not going back until he's ready, and even then I don't know," Dean replied, offering honesty of his own. "He wasn't the only one who got betrayed."

"I understand that, kid. You're driving the bus here. I'm just askin' to be let on." Bobby assured him. "We need to talk. And I'd like to see Sam. It's been too long."

Dean glanced back to the car. Sam was hunched in the seat, watching the exchange intensely. "It's up to him."

Dean headed over to the car and knocked on the window of the door he knew was locked. Sam rolled the window down a crack. "It's just Bobby. And he swore up and down that he knew nothing about what happened. He's just checkin' in. You have veto power here, Sammy. I'm not forcing you to do anything."

Sam looked skittish and skeptical. He tore at his thumbnail with his teeth. Dean could almost hear his intelligent little brother thinking and analyzing, trying to sort out the logic from the fear. It took a few minutes, but Sam shook his head, eyes shining. "I…can't."

He nodded in immediate support, even though the boulder in the pit of his stomach grew. Seeing Bobby again, and knowing that he was still the same wry, shrewd hunter who loved them as if they were his own, made Dean ache for him to stay and take the wheel for awhile. Dean was frazzled and exhausted and he just needed a minute to catch his breath. But Sam was calling the shots on anything related to his attack, and Dean had to respect his wishes. He ushered Sam out of the car and pushed him towards the house, where Ingrid was waiting inside with her mace.

Bobby didn't move, but the second Sam chanced a glance at the older man, he nodded curtly, eyes fixed on him. "Good to see you healthy, Sam."

He pressed closer to Dean, but looked at him fully. His feet skidded and slowed on the loose gravel before Sam abruptly broke away and ran to Bobby. He launched himself at the older man so hard he knocked the trucker cap off his head. Surprise on Bobby's face morphed into love that softened his lined faced. "I missed you, too, kid."

Dean smiled and headed towards the two. "You wanna come inside? It's a long drive from South Dakota."

Bobby nodded, arm still slung around Sam's shoulders. "Definitely. We need to catch up and clarify some things."

They started for the house. "Clarify what?" Sam asked curiously.

Bobby clapped him on the shoulder and followed him up the creaky stairs. "Well, Sam, your daddy's in jail."

-7-

And that was how Sam, Dean and Bobby had ended up sitting around Ingrid's faux-wood coffee table, drinking sweating glasses of ice tea. Bobby, God love him, explained without bring prompted.

"Your daddy scorched the earth tryin' to find you boys. I guess he taught you pretty well about living off-grid. Good job with those phone calls to Pastor Jim, Caleb and me," Bobby chuckled. "He'd driven more than a thousand miles before he realized you were shinin' him. Serves him right. Anyway, he'd pulled himself off the hunt to find you boys. The longer y'all stayed gone, the more desperate he got. And when men like your daddy get desperate, they get sloppy. He got popped on credit card fraud, resisting arrest and a few other things, and was sent up the river in Pennsylvania." Bobby cracked his knuckles. "The prison's minimum security, it's freakin' Hawaii compared the hell he was living in and he'll be out in a six to nine months. He screwed up, boys, and he knows it."

Sam was pale-faced and quiet and Dean felt as he'd been pile-driven by a linebacker. He was winded and his chest ached.

Dean was trying to remember what words were, and the proper order they went in, when Sam spoke up. His voice was thready, his eyes wide with shock. "How'd you find us?"

"Those emergency credit cards John gave you boys are tied to my legit account. I didn't want you two carrying stolen cards and neither did John. I've known where y'all were from the get-go, thanks to a concerned lady at Visa."

Bobby was always five steps ahead of even the best hunters, Dean was used to that, but anger flashed within him, strong, bright, yet fleeting, at the notion that Bobby had known where they were the entire time. He wondered how many times the old man had swung by just to check up on them. "'Good to see you healthy,'" Dean quoted Bobby's earlier greeting.

Bobby didn't even blink. "I've tailed Sam a few times after I shook your daddy. When I'd heard about what they did to you, Sam, I had to see it with my own eyes. I'm so sorry, kid. If I had known…it never would have happened."

Sam waved him off. "I'd never really thought that you knew…we just knew that we'd be found if we went to you." He was nibbling on his thumbnail again and this time, his knees were shaking in time to Dean's racing heart. "So…Dad's in jail?" He grimaced in Dean's direction.

He was nauseous at the thought of his dad behind bars, locked in a cage. It seemed like an impossibility for a larger-than-life man like John Winchester to be herded by guards and steel. Although Dean still hadn't been able to reconcile the heroic image of his father with the twisted, crazed stranger he'd left in a hotel room in Iowa, so Dean figured this would take some time.

"Don't worry about him. He'll be all right. He needs the time to dry out, and pay for his crimes. Sometimes blessings come in pretty ugly packaging."

Ingrid tiptoed in the room, wearing the flip-flops she wore off-stage, red sequined bikini, fishnets and rhinestoned devil ears. She pulled a trenchcoat on over her costume and ventured over to Dean. She kissed him gently and wiping the smudge of her candy apple red lipstick from his top lip. Sam got a gently embrace and a big red lips on his forehead. "Stop by the club before you do anything, Samuel. I wanna make sure you're okay." He assured her he would. She sashayed into the kitchen to bring out the carafe of tea and a platter of sandwiches she'd packed for Dean and Sam's trip. She winked at Bobby before slipping out the door.

It was a rarity to see Bobby Singer smitten, but his cheeks darkened with crimson as Ingrid's perfume lingered in the air, and then he smiled like a Chesire cat. "I see y'all are doing just fine on your own."