They went back to the house and Dean's mother fed them homemade apple pie and then sent them to bed claiming that since they had been on the road for over 24 hours that they needed to rest so they could go riding the following day.
The sun hadn't come up over the horizon when Dean shook Sam awake. "Come on Sammy. Mom will have breakfast ready in an hour and then we can go riding."
"What?" Sam asked bleary eyed. Dean smiled at the younger man's confusion.
"We get up early around here. Come on, get up, get a shower, and get dressed. I'll be downstairs." Sam nodded and Dean left the room. The rest of the day went quickly, quicker than Sam had ever experienced. Breakfast was huge and it included the ranch hands as well as the family. Dean and his father were obviously the bosses of this particular castle, and the hands seemed happy that Dean was back. After a huge breakfast, Dean's mother shooed them outside to "play" and Dean took him riding for the day.
Sam was introduced to every single tree on the property, every single animal, and every single person who had any connection to the Calhoun ranch. Dean was in his element here and seemed happy, it made Sam wonder why exactly Dean had gone to Stanford in the first place, it seemed like he would have been okay right here tending the ranch with his father.
After taking the horses back to the stable, got his shotguns and took Sam to the back of the property.
"Now, if I'm going to let you anywhere near me with a loaded gun next weekend, even if it is filled with rock salt, I want you to have some sort of clue as to how to use the damn thing. So. Sammy, meet the shot gun. Shot gun meet Sam." Dean handed a shot gun to the younger man and proceeded to show him the basics about gun safety and how to use the particular piece of equipment.
"Now, the recoil will shock you the first time. And it will be louder than you expect." Dean said. He left Sam with the gun and went to the fence where he lined up several cans. "Okay, you aim and then you pull the trigger." Dean demonstrated and shot the first can straight off of the fence. "Be careful that you don't get it too close to your face or you will end up hurting yourself." Dean said and helped Sam line up the gun and Sam fired. The shot went wild, scaring birds out of the tree that was next to the fence.
"Wow. I suck at this." Sam said.
"No. It was just your first shot. First shots are always the most difficult. When my dad took me out for practice the first time, the recoil landed me on my ass. Granted I was like 10 and didn't weigh much, but still I landed flat on my ass and not only did it hurt it was humiliating. Go ahead try again." Dean said patiently. Sam nodded and lined up his shot and pulled the trigger. This time he winged the can. "Better." Dean said appreciatively. "Try for the last one." Sam took a deep breath, concentrated and took another shot. This time he hit the center of the can and knocked it clean off of the fence. "Awesome. I think you could be good at this." Dean smiled and went back and reset the cans. They did this until it was too dark to see the cans. Sam was hitting three out of four cans on every try and Dean was confident that if they ran into any "ghosts" on their trip next weekend that Sam would be able to defend himself if he needed to.
They walked back to the house and Dean smiled. "You know, all I've done this weekend is run my mouth. I've shown you my family, told you stories all sorts of stuff that you probably didn't want or need to know." Both men chuckled "Now it's your turn. What do you and your family do?"
"We like to play board games." Dean's green eyes swiveled to Sam. He laughed at the expression on Dean's face. "We do! Scrabble is awesome." A smile lit Sam's features. "My dad and I like to go to baseball games. That was always the best part of summer, getting ready to go to the game, watching the game, and eating the hotdogs and just enjoying the feel of the crowd and hearing the THWACK of the bat against the ball. My dad and I knew the stats of all of our favorite players. We used to have arguments over who was the better player. I collect baseball cards." He laughed. "Now isn't that juvenile?"
"Hey. I collect coins." Sam laughed.
"You do win the nerd of the year trophy for that."
"Thanks." Dean punched Sam in the shoulder and smiled. "Sounds like you and your dad get along pretty well."
"We do. I have an awesome dad."
"Me too." When they reached the house, neither had the appetite for dessert, nor were they awake enough to sit with Dean's parents and talk. They went straight to bed and promptly fell sound asleep. Sam had never been more exhausted or sore in his entire life.
They got up early the following morning and stayed with Dean's family through lunch. Both boys needed to get back to school at a reasonable time, they had classes on Monday. Dean's mother surprised them with a home cooked meal for the road, kissed her son, wiped away tears, and waved them away. Logan and Anna waved for as long as they could see their son's car.
Anna turned to her husband, tears in her eyes. "I feel like something is going to happen. Something that we should protect them from."
"We talked to Bobby. He said all is clear. He said that Stanford was clean, he checked himself. Said that we shouldn't worry about the boys knowing each other. You heard him."
"I know what he said. I just don't know if my heart believes it."