Stephen knew that Dean was half way over the edge already and the so called doctor in front of them wasn't helping. He knew that his friend was going to do something rash and he also knew that there wasn't going to be much that he could do to stop it; so instead, he decided to do damage control. He had noticed the news crew that had come in to cover the book signing event, and it was very evident that the anchorwoman there just saw her latest story. Keeping in front of the camera was the easy part, but he knew there was no way to muffle Dean's voice as he laid into one of their little bro's tormentors.
"I'm sorry; I don't know what you mean…" Dr. Long said, all the while staring at the picture in shock.
"Excuse me? You don't know what I mean? You publish a book with my little brother plastered all over the inside of it, and you don't know what I mean? Your whole basis is that he was delusional because one person said I didn't exist… WELL, HERE I AM! ARE YOU SATISFIED NOW!?!" Dean saw that she was trying to gather herself for some sort of defense, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction. "You took a twelve year old boy and made him think that he was crazy for believing that he had a big brother who loved him. How long did it take? HOW LONG?" he yelled. He knew that he was in the middle of tunnel vision, but right now she should feel lucky that he wasn't seeing red; close to it, but not quite achieved – thank you very much.
Dr. Long looked at the picture again then up at the man before her. "If what you say is true, then maybe the blame falls on you for allowing a person such as your father to have your brother in his care." She said, hearing the outraged gasps throughout the bookstore. 'Great, my publicist is going to have kittens when he hears about this.' She thought trying to figure out a way out of this mess. She of course remembered the boy, Samuel Winslow and his father John, but how was she supposed to know that it had been some sort of setup… "Oh, I understand now, your one of Tibbon's lackeys. Well you tell him this isn't going to work. I stand by what I said, and until you give me proof of your claim, then we are done here." She told Dean, effectively dismissing him.
Dean couldn't believe what he just heard, the woman had no soul. He'd hunted down and killed creatures with more humanity in them that what she was showing. Unfortunately for her, that threw him from the yellow headlong into the red. Dean jumped over the table and grabbed her by the suit jacket not registering that she wasn't putting up a fight until he had already slammed her against a bookcase. "Lady, you have no idea how long I looked for my family. Four years! I looked for my little brother for four years and always getting information about him in bits and pieces. How can you live with yourself? Do you know what he went through? Do you even care how our father carved into him like a roast duck? How about how he is now? He won't drink from a glass, cup or anything that could have had something put in it. He won't take medicine unless it's from a new bottle or new package. YOU did that to him… YOU!" Seeing what he had done, he was about to release her when he heard her whisper.
"Those were self inflicted, he was doing self harm as a way to act out; he told me himself. You can't blame that on me!"
Looking down at her, he finally asked, "He confessed to self harm. He said that he carved his arms like that? Tell me doctor, was our father in the room at the time, or how about if you were threatening him with more drugs or specialized therapy? Your right, we're done here, but be prepared to lose everything because lady we're taking it all."
It wasn't until he and Stephen were getting into the Suburban that Dean spoke again. "I lost it man, I totally lost it."
Looking over at his friend, he shook his head and answered. "It was justified man, don't sweat it. We'll call the Colonel when we get back, get some big name attorney to take the case and make sure you don't land in jail. The book itself should be evidence enough to show how the strain of knowing what happened to Sammy threw you over the edge."
Dean looked back at Stephen and nodded. God he was so tired. It was days like this that made him look forward to a mission with a good old fashioned firefight thrown in; combat made sense, someone shoots at you, you shoot back - it was dealing with people that drove him crazy.
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Sam, Taylor, Katie and Joseph had been playing cards on the balcony when the sprinkles started to stain the cards and drove them back in the apartment. Both Taylor and Joseph were amazed at how the kid could make a game of poker sound like the greatest thing in the world. Looking at each other they both silently agreed; Dean was right the kid's laugh is contagious.
They had trouble deciding whether to continue the game inside or call it a night and watch one of the movies that the cable channels were running in lieu of football. As the playful arguing continue, in which it looked like another game was going to be played just for the chance that Taylor might win his money back, the front door opened.
"Hey Dean! We were playing poker; you want us to deal you in? Hold on though, I have to get the table from outside." Sam said as he turned to go back out.
"Sammy…" Dean said, knowing that he had to tell his little brother what happened. Knowing that he had to tell all of it, including manhandling a woman; ok, so she was an evil woman, she was still a woman and that's something that he had always taught his little brother, no hitting girls – no matter what!
Sam turned around, he knew that tone. Dean was upset about something and didn't know how to bring it out in the open. He waited a moment, giving Dean an 'ok, I'm listening' look, but still Dean wouldn't look at him.
Taylor and Joseph looked between Dean and Stephen and knew that something happened, and it wasn't good. Katie had been worried about a confrontation just by the way they had left the apartment, and now it looked like her fears were justified. It was obvious that they had seen the bitch, Dean was holding her book in his hand, but what wasn't obvious was what had them so upset.
Dean could barely get the words out. How was he supposed to tell his Sammy that he knew what John and the doctor did to him? How was he supposed to tell him that part of his life was in black and white for the world to see? Clearing his throat he continued, "Sammy… we need to talk." He started, and noticed how Sammy's whole demeanor changed with those few words. "Sammy, I had to go take care of something, and I did something that I'm not very proud of…" he stopped when he saw the fear in his brother's eyes. It took him a moment to realize that Sammy was looking at something in his hand. Looking down, he saw the book with the crazy doctor's face in full color on the front. Looking up he saw Sammy backing away from him and onto the balcony. "Sammy, no… you don't understand!" he said, rushing towards his brother hoping to get to him in time.
Seeing what happened and comprehending it were two totally different things. One moment Dean is trying to explain, the next they all were watching Sammy swing himself over the edge of the balcony into the back yard and disappear over the neighbors fence. Reason finally took hold once again and they all ran after him, trying to figure out where he might go.
Dean didn't know whether to be pissed or proud. He already knew that he was pissed off at himself for having the book out in the open before he talked to Sammy. Then again, he was proud of his brother for his great impersonation of an elk. Damn, he can run! Taylor and Stephen were searching the neighborhood by car, while he and Joseph were hoping to pick up his trail and quickly follow. Katie went back to the apartment in the hopes that he would double back. It was a great plan, until Sammy lost them by rushing inside one of the mega-stores that had popped up recently. After fanning out, they searched extensively for twenty minutes until a security guard walked up and, after finding out what was going on, told them that he had seen Sammy walk out the door with a bunch of people fifteen minutes previous. Growling in frustration, Dean conceded that they needed to regroup and they headed back to the apartment to call the only other people that Sammy knew in town.
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Terrance had been sitting in the living room watching some sort of mushy movie with Jenna when she started sneezing making his heart stop. Normal people wouldn't react that way, but he had found out the hard way that a severe illness can disguise itself in the most mundane ways. Not wanting to take a chance he had sent Jenna upstairs for a hot shower and an early night when the phone in his study started ringing.
"Erickson here." He said trying to be as abrupt as possible to let whoever it was know that he wasn't in the mood for a lengthy conversation.
"Colonel"
"Dean? What wrong? Dean… you still there?"
"I- It's Sammy sir, I did something… and now he's gone. DAMN IT!... Sorry sir…uh, you might be getting a call from the cops, and maybe an attorney, OH! And I think I really screwed up with Sammy…"
"Dean, start from the beginning… what happened?"
After a lengthy explanation, the Colonel made a mental note of the people he would need to call in the morning. Until then he needed to get Dean to calm down before he went out and got himself into some real trouble.
"Ok, you know that Sam was ok when he left your place, that's good. Now, we know that he hasn't met a lot of people, which narrows things down a bit since he's not familiar with the area. Now that we know that, we can hope that he just needs some time to wrap his head around what's going on. You said that he probably thinks that you were going to hand him over to this Dr. Long, correct?" he asked, trying to get a response. After he heard confirmation, he sighed. "Dean, is there any reason why he would think that besides what he saw?"
Dean knew where the Colonel was going with this, but he couldn't allow himself to hope; he'd been burned by that too many times. Stepping out in the rain Dean was suddenly hit by the mental image of Sammy in a pair of thin sweatpants and a tee shirt. "Damn, Colonel, we need to find him; I can't lose him again."
Smiling, the Colonel understood the sentiment. Finally he asked, "Tell me, if you had him in front of him right now, what would you do?"
"You mean after I smacked him upside the head for scaring the crap out of me?" Dean asked letting his mind wander to what he would do when Sammy came home.
"Yeah, that's what I thought." the Colonel smirked, "Don't worry, he might be scared, but he waited too long to find you. He'll come back, if for nothing else than to let you send him back. Think about that, son."
Puzzled, Dean couldn't help but wonder what the Colonel had been smoking, but then decided that it wasn't any of his business. Finally agreeing to let the Colonel know when Sammy came home, he cut the call and looked out into the darkness. 'Where are you Sammy?'
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It had been hours since Sammy took off and everyone had been going in and out of the apartment to meet up and try another section of town. During one of the rendezvous, Dean noticed that Sammy had left his backpack behind.
Walking over to it, he kicked the pack across the room. "More like he'd come back just to get that damn thing. What's so important about it, anyway?" he asked to no one in particular while picking it up. Pausing for only a moment he had started to unzip it when a hand stopped him.
Looking up he saw Stephen watching with sympathetic eyes. "Do you really think this is the way to gain his trust?"
Feeling as if he had been pushed off a cliff, Dean wasn't sure what to do anymore. He knew that whatever Sammy guarded in the pack was important to him, but what if it held a clue to where he would go? Shaking his head he put the pack next to the couch and looked at the others. "Anything?"
There were multiple negatives and one silent answer. Katie was still on the phone but she was starting to get excited. After several 'Thank You so much' and 'yes, yes, we will', she hung up the phone. "A taxi picked up a hitchhiker, he described the person as a 'scrawny assed kid with the worst case of acne scars he'd ever seen and he looked like a drowned rat that had the crappiest day ever.'" Everyone looked at each other before they agreed, then turned to Katie, "Did you get an address?" Dean asked, hoping that maybe something was going right tonight.
Katie's only response was to smile brightly and hand him a piece of paper.
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It had past midnight a half hour ago and he still couldn't get to sleep. After checking on Jenna again, he walked back downstairs to see if he could bore himself to sleep with infomercials. Yawning he was almost to the living room when he heard the doorbell. 'What the…?'
Terrance wasn't known to be irrational, but when someone rang his doorbell in the middle of the night, it was never a good thing. Grabbing his pistol in one hand and prepared to open the door with the other, he looked through the side window to see what he was dealing with. Swinging open the door, he couldn't help but exclaim "What the hell Sam?" he asked, already knowing the answer but not able to find anything else to say.
Ten minutes later Sam was quite a bit warmer, and Terrance was quite a bit calmer. As they both sat in the living room with a fire in the fireplace, Terrance drinking a scotch and Sam drinking a bottled water, the moment of truth came about.
"Dean called, he's worried about you."
Sam nodded, not looking up from his hands. He's been replaying what happened in his head, and he still wasn't able to figure it out. Had he done something wrong? Was it because he was such a freak? What was he supposed to do now? He had a job, but now it was probably gone, no way the Colonel would want his daughter around such a screw up. Not knowing what else to do, he started to look around the room until his gaze found a large picture over the fireplace. He became transfixed and didn't even realize that he was standing in front of it until the Colonel spoke.
"Beautiful isn't she?" Terrance asked, knowing what must be going through Sam's head. "Jenna looks so much like her, both in body and in spirit. We lost her a couple of years ago, my beautiful Jillian, and I have to say that we haven't been the same. Did Jenna tell you how she died?" he asked, looking at the young man standing in front of him. Walking until he stood shoulder to shoulder with Sam, he continued. "My wife and I tried to have children for several years, but for whatever reason we were made to wait. Finding out we were going to finally be parents was one of the happiest moments for us. Everything went smoothly with the pregnancy, which the doctors called amazing. Finally, the day came and we were both ecstatic, and the doctors were sure it would be as easy of a delivery as the pregnancy. It wasn't until the next day that we realized something was wrong, Jenna wasn't coming and Jillian was getting exhausted. Her doctor came to us and told us the news, Jenna was going into distress and they couldn't wait any longer, they were going to have to do an emergency C-section. God, we were terrified, but they assured us everything would be alright. I had to wait in the waiting room, and before long, they brought out my beautiful daughter. Sam, I have never thought about angels, but I did at that moment. It wasn't until later when the doctor came out that I knew something was wrong. Jillian was hemorrhaging, and they were doing everything they could to stop it. I stayed with Jenna in the nursery until they came for me; Jillian was stable and was being transfused. That should have made it better, my wife was alive, my daughter healthy; everything was perfect."
Sam looked at the Colonel and was afraid he knew what happened, but didn't want to intrude on the older man's thoughts. He waited and continued to look at Jenna's mother, seeing how beautiful Jenna would be later in life.
"Jillian came down with the flu when Jenna was a little over six months old, nothing unusual considering how many people she would visit, or committees she was on. She couldn't seem to get rid of though, it was months before the doctors could tell us what was really wrong with her, and that was only because others who had been given blood from the same donor were becoming ill. The screening process for blood donors was a lot different in 1983, the testing not as extensive as it is now. Let me tell you Sam, you really find out who your friends are when you get diagnosed with HIV. That's why she formed the Jenna Foundation, she wanted there to be hope in something so feared and spurned. She knew that she could afford treatments that were considered experimental, while others couldn't even afford some of the basic treatments, so the Foundation helps with the cost and even sponsors a free clinic in L.A." The pain of losing her was still with him, but he needed to make sure how much his daughter meant to not just him, but others as well. "The official cause of death was Pulmonary Embolism, not that it mattered; she's still gone. We are very lucky that we had as much time as we did though, and Jenna feels that her mother is still with us with everyday the Foundation helps someone."
Sam wasn't sure if he was supposed to say anything, but he did understand stereotyping and prejudice, he didn't want either for Jenna or the memory of her mother. "I understand sir." He said hesitantly, not sure if he was still needed, or even wanted, but he had to make sure that the Colonel knew that he wasn't going to judge his wife.
Any other conversation was interrupted by the doorbell, and the Colonel was sure that it was a good thing he was already up and about, otherwise he would have shot someone by now. Motioning Sam to stay there, he went to answer the door, and wasn't too surprised by who he found.
Sam was still enjoying the fire and daydreaming about Jenna when he heard his name from the doorway. Tensing at the sound, he couldn't help but feel comforted at the same time; he'd waited so long to hear it, but now it seemed like it was all falling apart. Taking a deep breathe, he turned to see his brother walking hesitantly towards him.
When Dean saw Sammy standing in front of the fireplace obviously in his own little world, he couldn't help the tendrils of fear that crept up letting him know that his brother could take off again; but losing him again wasn't an option. "Sammy" he choked out, concerned Sammy would run. Not sure if he had been heard, he walked further into the room until his brother turned and looked at him.
"Hey Dddean." Sammy said while trying hard to smile, but failing miserably.
Dean felt awful, he knew that Sammy had to have been freaked, but he didn't realize until now how much. "Sammy, you worried me kiddo… I've been looking for you everywhere."
Nodding, Sam couldn't look at Dean anymore, he wasn't sure what was going to happen, but he knew that he would have at least a few good memories to take with him.
"Sammy, listen to me. I saw that bitch doctor and I … damn it Sammy, I'm sorry… I grabbed her and roughed her up." At Sammy's shocked face, Dean felt awful and rushed on "I know I taught you to…" He was cutoff in mid-sentence when Sammy grabbed him in a hug and wasn't showing any signs of letting go. It wasn't until he felt his neck getting more wet than what it was already that he understood what was going on. "Ah Sammy, no… I wasn't going to give you to her. I wanted to confront her, about… uh, Sammy, look at me." He didn't want to do this here, but he needed his little brother to understand. "She wrote a book, and she used your case in it. Don't worry though, she didn't use your name, but there's enough in there to show that she meant you. I'm sorry buddy; I really am, but… I read what happened."
Sam didn't know what to say, he was still shocked that he wasn't going back. Now Dean was saying that he knew what she did, what dad had done, he didn't know what to say, just looked at his brother and waited.
"I don't blame you, for any of it. I don't blame you for the way you do things. I just wish I had known, that we could have talked about it, but I get that you're not ready. I just need to know, is there anything else that I probably should know… that maybe you're not ready to talk about?" Dean watched as Sammy thought a moment, sighed, and then nodded. "Ok, well…how about this. I won't push, and you don't run off anymore, ok?"
Looking at his brother, Sam saw how worried Dean really had been. Smiling he nodded, "Ok, Dean. No more running off."
The brothers were just about to leave when the Colonel halted them at the door. "Don't forget this boys." He said, handing Dean an official looking envelope. "It's the guardianship papers for Sam. I forgot to give them to you. Now, get going, old men like me need their sleep."
Dean and Sam were both smiling as they got in the Suburban. Dean looked over at Sammy while starting the SUV, "Let's go home little brother."
AN: Well, uh... jeez, you know what to do...