I live! I'm sorry that I've been gone for so long! I promise I won't ever do that again!

A/N: I do not own anything except my OCs and their corresponding children.

Chapter Ten

Ashley paced back and forth in front of the train station, biting her lip as she scanned the crowd around her. Her sharp green eyes searched for anyone that had been following her for too long or too close. Her mind was still reeling at her sister's revelation that both Sam and her child were still living and all that mattered to her right then was to be able to hold both of them.

No matter how hard she tried, she could never remember the baby she had given birth to, couldn't remember ever holding it. She shook her head in frustration not only at not being able to remember her baby, but not knowing her name. She had felt all along that Ruby and Lilith were lying to her when they insisted that she had killed those she loved most. As her mind wandered to Lilith, she remembered her sister's son. The boy had been abandoned and placed with a family that took surprisingly good care of him, but Ashley knew what he would grow up to be, what he would grow up to do. She needed to find him, needed to keep him close so that maybe she could change the future.

With this thought, she pushed herself off the bench and to her feet, walking quickly to the ticket office. "One ticket to Trenton," she said, pulling her wallet out of her bag.

The woman behind the glass nodded, spouting back an amount. Ashley paid and took the ticket before walking to the payphone and dialing Tara. "Taralynn?"

"Yeah? Ashlynn?" came the garbled response.

"I can't get a train ticket directly to Richmond; it's too expensive so I'm taking one to Trenton, then catching a train from there, okay? It might take me a while so when I get my ticket to Richmond, I'll call again," without waiting for a response, Ashley hung up the phone and walked to the platform. They boy was important, more important than telling her sister the whole truth.

On the train to Trenton, a woman with a baby sat across from Ashley, looking exhausted. "I can hold her for you," Ashley offered. "I miss my own baby and it would be a good chance for you to rest."

The harried mother looked up and smiled in thanks to Ashley as she handed over the little girl. "You traveling to get back home to your little one?" the mother asked.

"Yes...it's been so long since I got to see her," Ashley murmured, looking at the baby in her arms.

"It feels like that with the first, huh? I'm Bridgette, by the way," the woman said, smiling.

"Yeah and I'm Ashlynn. Your daughter is beautiful; what's her name?"

"Faith."

"A beautiful name to match a beautiful little girl," Ashley whispered, stroking the baby's cheek gently with one finger.

"What's your daughter's name?"

Ashley had known the question would come the moment she offered to hold the baby and had been scrambling to find the right name to give the daughter she couldn't remember, but now, the name came back to her as easily as though she had been saying the name everyday. "Brooklynn...it runs in our family to give the girls 'Lynn' at the end of the name," Ashley murmured, watching Faith's eyes slowly close as the baby drifted off to sleep.

"It's a great tradition...I wish sometimes that my family or my husband's family had something like that," Bridgette said, smiling.

Ashley chuckled, nodding. "I keep worrying that we'll run out of names and have to recycle eventually."

"What about the boys? Do they have a special tradition?"

"No, boys are named by the fathers in our family...usually there is a tradition in place there."

Bridgette smiled, her eyelids slowly falling. The rest of the train ride was silent save for Bridgette's soft snores and Faith whimpering if Ashley stopped rocking her. It felt so right to be holding this baby and, suddenly, Ashley couldn't wait to be able to hold her own daughter, to rock her like she rocked this stranger's baby.

When the train came to a stop, Ashley gently shook Bridgette awake and gave her Faith back before making her way off the platform and out of the train station. She had never been to this house before and didn't know the address, but somehow she just knew where it was and walked to it. It struck Ashley as odd that the house was so near to the train station, that anyone would live so near such a loud place.

She walked up to the two-story red brick house and knocked on the white wooden door. This house was so cookie cutter to the "American Dream" that Ashley almost couldn't believe it was real. Again, the question of who would ever want to live in such a perfect house near such a loud place formed itself in her head.

A woman who's brown hair must have once been lustrous and beautiful, but was now dull and graying answered the door, a quizzical look on her face. "Yes? May I help you?"

"You don't know me, but you adopted my sister's son five years ago?" Ashley asked, suddenly afraid she had been wrong.

"You're Ashlynn? Taralynn said that you would come to get John one day, but I thought my husband and I would have a little more time with him," the woman sighed sadly. "Come in; John and my husband, Terrell will be home soon."

"I am sorry to interrupt your life in this way, Mrs.?"

"Oh! Briggs, Lorraine Briggs. I'll go pack a few of John's things before they get here," Mrs. Briggs said, going upstairs and leaving Ashley to roam around in the living room, inspecting the family photos.

There were only a few pictures of the Briggs before they adopted John and all of the pictures from after his birth were full of smiles and happy memories. Ashley looked up when she heard Lorraine coming back down the stairs. "Do you think he'd like pictures of you and your husband? You are the only parents he's known, after all," Ashley said, straightening and attempting to hide her surprise. Despite her sister's claim that she had never known any Winchester before the day in South Dakota, this little boy, Tara's son, was the spitting image of Dean.

"You are very kind to ask...I'll let him decide when he gets back," Lorraine said, walking over to the pictures.

"Does he know...that...umm..."

"That he's adopted? Yes, we've always been very honest with him because we knew you would come for him one day and we didn't want it to be a shock," she whispered back, picking up a picture of her husband and son each holding up a small fish.

Ashley started to speak again when the front door opened. "Lorraine? We're home!" a man called as he walked through the door, a baseball glove still on his hand. A little boy with large green eyes followed him, a smile on his face. "Lorrai-...oh...oh, you must be Taralynn's sister."

Ashley was pained at the man's sad expression. "Yes...I'm...I'm so sorry," she said, stepping forward.

"You're the lady that's gonna take me to meet my other mama?" John asked, walking over to Ashley.

Ashley crouched so that she was on eye level with the boy. "Yes, I am, but before we can leave, you need to pick out a few pictures of your mommy and daddy to take with you. Can you do that while I talk to them?" John nodded, walking past Ashley to the pictures.

Ashley stood and walked over to the Briggs. "I am very sorry that I have to do this. I know what it's like to have the child you love taken from you with no satisfying explanation."

"We knew this day would come...and we know that asking for an explanation is dangerous to both us and John...we just wish had had more time with him," Terrell said, watching John pick out a few of the pictures.

"I'm ready," he said, turning back to the adults. Lorraine smiled and helped him put the pictures carefully in the bag she had packed for him then hugged him tightly. He turned to Terrell and they did an ornate handshake before finally hugging each other. "Bye Mommy, bye Daddy."

Ashley gently took his hand and led him toward the train station. "It's easier if you don't look back," she murmured.

John nodded, then looked up at her. "What's your name, Miss?" he asked.

"My name is Ashlynn, but you can call me Aunt Ashley."

"Can I call you Auntie? That's what my friend calls his Aunt."

Ashley smiled. "Of course you can call me Auntie."

They walked up to the ticket window and Ashley bought two tickets to Richmond. "C'mon, let's go make a call, real quick before the train gets here."

"Hello?"

"Taralynn, I'm going to be in Richmond in about six hours, see you then," Ashley said, then hung up.

"Why didn't you say 'bye' to 'em?" John asked. "Mommy always says 'bye.'"

"That's our secret code that everything is okay," Ashley said, smiling at the little boy. "Now, let's go get on that train so you can meet your other mama." And your other daddy, she silently added.

Well, I'm back!