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Chapter Seven
Dean could hear the yelling all the way down the hall but couldn't make out the words. He glanced at Kate as he hurried to Sam and Jack's door, Kate right behind him. Busting into the room, Dean slid to a halt at the sight before him.
Jack was in the midst of throwing a pillow at Sam's head as he yelled, "There's no way man! David Padgett could so kick Tim Young's butt all the way up and down the court!"
Sam was grinning from ear to ear, hands already up to defend himself from the pillow blow. "Oh yeah, resorting to violence. That's a great defense! Almost as good as Louisville's lame defensive plays!"
"Are you sure, they didn't do a brain transplant instead of a liver?" Jack challenged with a smile on his face.
"Am I going to have to separate you two?" Kate asked in a mock severe tone, hands planted on her hips.
"No," both boys answered in unison, trying to hide their smiles. "Ass." Jack muttered. "Jerk." Sam said back with a side-glance and snicker.
"Boys!" Kate said as she stepped towards Jack's bed and reaching to run her hand through his hair.
Ducking under her hand, Jack rolled his eyes, "Come on mom! Personal space."
Dean felt like he had entered the twilight zone. Kinda like he was watching an alternate version of his own life that he wasn't actually participating in. Regaining his equilibrium, he headed to Sam's bedside.
"Hey Sasquach. You must be feeling better."
Sam smiled at Dean and Dean was struck by the genuine feeling behind it. It had been a while since he had seen Sammy that happy – or relaxed. "Yeah," Sam replied. "Other than being woke up but this annoying whining sound way too early, I feel lots better."
It was Jack's turn to roll his eyes. "Look who's whining now" he replied. Looking at Dean as if seeing him for the first time, Jack's eyes narrowed as if he were trying to remember something.
"You okay?" Sam asked, noticing immediately.
Shaking his head a little, as if dismissing an idea, Jack answered, "Yeah, I'm fine. Hey, if he's Sam, does that make you Frodo?"
Sam snickered again and said, "While the resemblance to a hobbit is unmistakable, this is actually my brother, Dean."
Kate interrupted before the conversation could get any sillier. "Well, it looks like you two have been getting to know each other. That's good." Kate cast Dean a meaningful look.
Dean caught the look and said, "Yeah, good. Hey, Sammy, you feel like going out for breakfast? The doc says you need to get up and walk if you want to get out of here and I hear the breakfast in the cafeteria is killer."
Sam looked at Dean for a moment and Jack watched as the two seem to communicate without any words. When the moment had passed, Sam nodded and said, "Let's hope it's just a figure of speech." Slowly getting to his feet, Sam headed out the door behind Dean, leaving Kate and Jack alone.
Kate was leaning against Jack and Sam's door, eyes closed, when Dean and Sam got back an hour later.
"Hey," Sam said touching her arm sympathetically. "How did it go?"
Kate opened her eyes and looked at the two brothers. "I'm not sure. I mean I told him about your dad and how we met and all that hoping that it would be easier to tell him about y'all but he just got really quiet. I asked if he was okay and he said he was but he sounded, I don't know, far away, I guess. He asked me if I could go to his dorm room and get his laptop but I think he just wanted me to leave." Kate shut her eyes again as a tear made its way down her cheek.
"It'll be okay. I'm sure he's just in shock," Sam said quietly.
"I hope so," Kate answered. Taking a deep breath and straightening her shoulders, she impatiently wiped the tears from her face and said, "I'm going to head over to campus and get his computer and then I'll be back. Maybe you could . . ." Kate looked at Sam and then Dean with hope.
"Yeah, we'll talk to him," Sam reassured.
Kate smiled her thank you and headed off down the hallway.
Once she had turned the corner, Sam and Dean looked at each other.
"Sammy, I don't know what to say to this kid," Dean said rubbing his eyes.
"Maybe we won't have to say anything. Maybe he will want to talk or, you know, has questions?" Sam answered.
Opening the door, the brothers went into the room slowly, looking for Jack. He was sitting up in his bed, staring out the window and didn't turn as Sam and Dean made their way into the room.
Dean cast a meaningful look at Sam. Sam moved towards Jack's bed but stopped at the end. "You okay, man?"
"I'm fine," the automatic reply came from Jack's mouth. Sam grimace. Sometimes, Jack sounded so much like Dean it was scary. The silence stretched out for a half minute before Jack spoke again. "Did you know?" he asked trying to hide the choke in his voice.
"About you?" Sam replied. "No, we didn't know until we got a message on our dad's cell phone from your mom about five days ago."
Jack silently nodded. Another minute went by before Jack trusted his voice enough to speak again. Turning so he faced the brothers, he asked, "So, he's dead?"
Dean's jaw involuntarily clenched and he looked down, studying his boots and refusing to answer. Sam immediately glanced at Dean, seeing the look of naked pain flash across his face before it was expertly masked. "Uh yeah, he died about five months ago." Sam answered quietly.
Jack nodded again as if confirming what his mother had told him. "And y'all were all ghost hunters or something . . ."
Sam grimaced. "Not exactly. It's kinda hard to explain." Sam looked at Dean hoping for some help but Dean looked like he wanted to be anywhere else than here.
"Mom said that basically all the monsters we were always told were our imagination are really real and it was his job to kill them. She said that's what y'all do too." Jack waited patiently, his face a complete mask.
Finally Dean spoke. "Okay, I guess it's not so hard to explain. Yeah, we know how it sounds but basically it's true. There are some bad things out there and it's our job to take them out. . ."
"Because one of them killed your mom . . ." Jack cut in softly.
Both Sam and Dean were stunned into silence at that. They had no idea that Kate had known about the yellow-eyed demon. She sure hadn't let on that their dad had told her about THE family secret and its origin. After all, the number one rule was "We do what we do and we shut up about it."
Jack didn't need the brothers, "his brothers," he thought, to answer. He could tell by the shocked look on their face that he had hit a nerve. He didn't mean to be callous – he was just trying to understand everything that his mom had told him.
"Okay." Jack said quietly, nodding.
"Look," Sam started again, "I know it's kinda hard to believe . . ."
"Not really," Jack answered. "I've always been pretty open-minded. I had a friend who lived in a haunted house. We saw the ghost a couple of times but it never tried to hurt us or anything." Jack paused before continuing. "The hard-to-believe part is that I have two brothers – half brothers – that I never knew about, one who just donated part of his liver to save my life." Jack took another deep breath. "Yeah, it freaks me out a little now that I've said it out loud."
"I'm right there with you," Dean said. Sam shot him a look of irritation, to which Dean said, "What?"
Jack smiled a little at that. "Look, it's not that I don't appreciate what you've done – I mean, I'd be dead if it weren't for you. I'm just, I don't know, trying to absorb it all."
"It'll take some time," Sam said understanding what the young man was going through. "We've had a little more time to soak it in but . . .it's not a bad thing – at least I don't think it is."
Jack smiled at that. "No," he said, "I guess it could be a lot worse."
