Thank you so much Jenjoremy for your work on this chapter, Gredelina1 for all your help and advice, and you all for reading and reviewing.
Chapter Twenty
Sam hadn't realized how much work went into settling an estate like James'. There were letters to be read, forms to be filled out, papers to be signed, and an endless stream of meetings with lawyers, accountants and advisers
Sam started out trying to do it all alone, but he quickly realized things were going to slip past him if he didn't get help. He didn't have time to read the sheer number of documents that were presented to him, so he called on Zach to help. He was already in Law School at Stanford, and thus, he knew a great deal more about estate law than Sam or Jessica had ever touched upon. He took every paper and letter Sam was supposed to sign or read and checked them over for him, leaving Sam free to meet people and deal with smaller parts of the inheritance, like deciding what to do with the house.
Sam loved the lake house, he always had, but he wasn't sure maintaining it when he wouldn't be living in it for years was sensible. Even after college, neither he nor Jessica saw themselves settling in Klamath Falls for good. Though he could easily afford to keep it, he thought perhaps it was better to let it go.
One thing he was eager to find out about was the fund James had said they possessed for helping the homeless. He hadn't forgotten Rick, living outside the hospital. He wanted to help him and people like him more than ever now.
He was wandering the house during the early hours, a couple weeks after James' funeral, while Jessica and the others slept, when he found himself scaling the steps to the attic. He had an unformed idea in his head that he would explore some of the childhood mementoes that he knew James had stored there.
There were neatly labeled boxes with Sam's name and a date on them. He dragged one to the middle of the room where there was a space and sat down cross-legged to investigate the contents. It was from the late eighties, soon after Sam had been taken in, and he was curious to see what there would be of the time he had no real memory of.
Dust tickled his nose as he took the lid of off the box and set it aside. It had obviously been a long time since James had looked inside. Sam realized as he did, that the last person to touch these things was his father. It made him pause a moment to think. These were things James obviously treasured. Was it a good idea to look at them now knowing what he did?
His hands seemed to make the decision for him. They reached inside and pulled out a small bundle of fabric. Sam spread it out on his lap and saw it was a t-shirt with a cartoon picture of Scooby Doo on the front. It was well worn and Sam guessed it must have been a favorite of his. He refolded it and set it on his knee, not wanting to get it dirty on the floor. The second thing he found was a report card from first grade. Sam read down the list of grades with a small smile and then his eyes fell on the teacher's note at the bottom: Sam is adjusting well. He makes good effort in all classes, but sometimes struggles to form bonds with classmates.
Sam wondered about that. Was it natural shyness that made him reticent or was there a deeper meaning? Was he still struggling without his brother at that age? Did he still remember his other family?
He delved into the box again and found a small photo album. He flipped through it, seeing his young face captured on glossy paper. He recognized some of the pictures as he had seen copies around the house before, but some were new. There was one of him sitting at a piano, his fingers held over the keys and a concentrated look on his face. He remembered the piano lessons as they went on into his teens. He hadn't enjoyed them, but he had persisted, as he'd seen how much joy they brought his father. He had been competent after years of practice, but he had no flair for the instrument. Eventually, James had stopped the lessons and Sam had started playing soccer instead. James had come to every home game, Sam remembered, and had cheered from the stands.
He looked around the vast space, wondering if there were mementoes of his soccer days saved in there, too. He saw a box that would be from the right period, and crawled over to it. His hand was on the box when he spotted something behind it that caught his eye. It was a wooden chest he'd never seen before. It was ornate and quite beautiful, rich mahogany wood with brass hinges and clasp. It was surely James'.
For a moment, he hesitated, not wanting to violate his father's privacy, but curiosity got the better of him. He sat in front of it and opened the lid. It was full of books. There were various sizes and shapes, and each spine was stamped with a year. They were journals. Sam thumbed over the years, his heart racing. There were so many, and when he shifted some, he saw there was another layer beneath. The date of the oldest went back to 1841.
Sam sagged back. It had occurred to him that James was older than he had appeared, because that was the nature of the Shtriga that infected him, but 1841 was over a century and a half ago. If they were James', as Sam suspected, it meant he had died over 150 years old. With numb fingers, Sam pulled out the first journal and felt the weight of the worn leather in his hand.
Something within him shouted not to do it, to put the journal back where it belonged and ignore it, but a greater voice advised that these pages would hold the answers Sam deserved. He turned the first page and saw in neat copperplate script: The Diary of James Hydeker the First. 1841. Sam sucked in a breath. It was James'. He really was that old. Carefully, Sam turned the page and saw the first entry. He started to read.
January 1st, 1841 – London, England.
Today I finally took audience with Charlotte's son, Richard. I had no expectations for the meeting. What draw can a child of only four years offer me, I thought. I was mistaken though. He is an engaging child. He was obviously nervous, primed on the importance of the meeting by his mother, but he was articulate and intelligent, and I found him surprisingly interesting. He played piano for us while we took tea, and I was grudgingly impressed by his talent. Music is a skill I myself do not possess, but I have heard much worse renditions of Mozart played by adults. All in all, I think I could grow to like him. And now I have met her son, Charlotte agrees the wedding can be set for a month from now.
Sam sucked in a shocked breath. His mother had been called Charlotte—the mother James had always told him about at least. When Sam had realized he had belonged to John and Dean first, he had assumed Charlotte was a fabrication, too, like the first four years of his life. But she had been a real woman, James' wife from a century and more ago, a woman he'd loved. At least that part hadn't been a lie. And England. James had told him they had English ancestors, but apparently it was James himself that had lived there. And Richard. Was he James' first son? A child he cared for?
He flipped over a handful of pages and then read more.
February 1st, 1841– London, England.
I write quickly tonight as Charlotte sleeps. The wedding was a society success. Charlotte was thrilled. The Lord and Lady Carnarvon came even. We have solidly taken our place among the great and good of London as a pair now.
Richard was unwell, but he was stalwart through the service before his nanny took him home to rest. I could grow to care for that child.
Sam picked up a new journal and flipped through the pages until something caught his attention.
May 27th, 1843– London, England.
Richard is waning. Consumption, the doctor says. I don't know how to tell Charlotte. She is devoted to that child, as am I myself. It seems so wrong that a child so gifted and with so much to offer the world is being stolen away from us by foul human weakness. Had I but the ability, I would sustain him as I do myself. Richard deserves life more than the nameless, faceless urchins out there on the streets.
The book dropped from Sam's nerveless fingers. James was prepared to kill other children to save Richard. It was galling. Had he decided to take Richard into himself the way he had tried to with Sam, he could maybe have understood, but murdering children… And it wasn't the Shtriga talking there; it was the man. The Shtriga was the one that murdered, not James, wasn't it?
He had to know if he had done it. He picked up the book and read on, flipping through the pages until he came to four lines written in a shaky hand:
June 4th 1843 – London, England.
Richard died today.
I should have acted sooner. Perhaps there would have been a way to exchange a life.
Sam swallowed hard against the nausea. James hadn't killed for Richard, but he regretted it. It was sickening. That wasn't the Shtriga. It was the man that mourned and the man that thought he should have acted sooner. How could that be the same man Sam had loved? It seemed impossible. Yet it was there on paper, proof that James had been willing to kill other children.
He was grieving, a voice whispered to him. He didn't mean it.
"Yes!" Sam whispered, seizing on the excuse. Of course James didn't mean it. He had just lost the child he loved. People say and do strange things in grief. Sam understood as he was still clutched in the agonizing hands of his own loss.
He picked up a diary at random, looking for proof that his father had been better than he seemed in the last entry, and skimmed to the back.
December 23rd 1848 – Edinburgh, Scotland.
Christmas time has come again and my trials are over. Today I completed my education at the great Edinburgh Medical School. I am now a trained physician. Though my decision to study and educate myself was partly a form of diversion as I passed time, I have learned more than I thought possible. Though I have not learned how I could have saved Richard, which was a part of my motivation for choosing medical school, I do know the real name of what killed him now: tuberculosis. A word that doesn't take into account the breadth of the misery it causes. There is no cure, and I doubt there ever will be, even with the powerful advances in medicine I have seen in my long life. Children and adults alike will continue to die from this blight throughout my endless years.
Sam stared at the page. It hadn't made him feel any better, but it hadn't made him feel any worse either. He'd always assumed James became a doctor to save lives, but it seemed it had started as a way to pass time. Sam supposed when you were 'endless' it was hard to pass time without being bored. He reminded himself that, no matter what the reason for it, his education had saved countless lives over the years. But that didn't cancel the debt of the lives the Shtriga had taken.
He thought perhaps he should stop reading, some sense telling him that sooner or later he would read something that would really upset him, but he couldn't until he had read one more. He wanted to know what James had been thinking when he had taken Sam.
July 15th 1987 - Fort Douglas, Wisconsin.
The most amazing thing happened tonight. I found Richard!
I cannot write long, as he could wake again any moment; I only gave him a light sedative. I didn't like to give any at all, but it was necessary to stop the noise. He screamed incessantly for someone called Dean, I assume that is the brother, and his 'dad'. I know it's not his fault that he doesn't remember me, as despite the resemblance and shared soul, he is a new person, but it still galls.
He was being cared for by the Winchester oaf that was hunting me. Though 'cared for' isn't the correct description. He had been left alone in a motel of ill repute, without even the sought for Dean to protect him. He can be no older than four years old and he was left alone! What kind of parent does that?
I had gone in to feed from him, a lesson and distraction for the hunter, but as soon as I saw him I knew I couldn't. He is Richard reborn; every feature is exact, even those mysterious eyes that had entranced me before. I haven't been able to speak to him properly yet, as he is upset, but I know when I do that he will be as eloquent and intelligent as he was before.
He is stirring. I must go.
Sam slumped, his hands dropping to his lap with shock. Richard! He had been taken because he bore resemblance to the child James had loved all those long years ago. His young life had been torn apart because of some twist of fate in how he looked.
And Dean. He was crying for Dean and John, and James had sedated him. That wasn't the man he had known and loved, though he'd never believed the man he'd known and loved would steal Sam from his bed either.
He lifted the book again and began to read the next entry.
July 19th 1987 - DeWitt, Arkansas.
I am sick of hearing the name Dean being cried at me day and night. The journey from Wisconsin was filled with it. It's unending and I cannot stand it. I have tapered off his sedative now because I was worried it would become a problem, but I am close to restarting it. I need to find a way to break that connection in his mind. He needs to understand that I am who matters now. He is mine.
Sam's mouth dropped open. It couldn't be his father that had said those things, except it was. He had claimed Sam. He wanted to wipe John and Dean from his mind.
August 1st 1987 – DeWitt, Arkansas
I have solved the problem, or at least a part of it. I told Sam that Dean and his father have died. His reaction was intense and heartbroken, but the voluble part seems to be over for now. At present he lies curled in his bed, quietly crying.
I was surprised he knew what dead meant straight away. I suppose it is something to do with his mother's absence. He seems to understand that death means never to return.
It's all for the good as far as I am concerned, as I am sure Richard's nature lies beneath the surface. When he has grieved and accepted that I am his lot now, he will settle and become the child I know he really is. When this period of mourning is over, we will be free to build a life together.
Sam felt sick. He had been told they died? No wonder he didn't remember them. They had been erased from his life physically and mentally. What was there to hang onto when he thought they were gone forever? It was cold, cruel, and calculating, and he never would have believed James capable of it.
He felt that he should stop reading, but he couldn't stop himself from picking up the next diary and skipping to the middle of the book. He wanted to know what was happening to him a year after he was taken. He skimmed entries of little interest until he saw a page in which the handwriting was less steady where James had written in excitement.
June 1st 1988 – DeWitt, Arkansas
Sam called me dad today!
It feels like the first great success in our new life together and last piece of John Winchester being laid to rest. He fell from the climbing frame in the park and it was to me he looked when he called, "Dad, help!"
I feel like I have finally achieved something between us. If only I could banish Dean as easily. He doesn't speak about him anymore, I don't think he even truly remembers him in his waking hours, but sometimes he cries his name in sleep.
The name Dad changed something in me, too. Sam became more than a challenge to be faced. He became a child I could one day call my true son the way I had Richard.
I have a feeling great things await us now.
July 21st 1995 – Chicago, Illinois.
I saw John Winchester today. I am in Illinois for a medical conference while Sam is at summer camp, and he walked right past me on the street. I haven't thought of him or Dean in years, not since Sam stopped crying for them in sleep, but I knew him at once.
He is a wreck of a man.
He seemed to have aged decades since I saw him last and his face was hopeless as you only see in the grieving. The idea that all these years later he is still hurting brings me a kind of pleasure. He dared to hunt me, and I dared to take his son from him. The success belongs to me. Sam is my son now in every way but blood. He calls me dad, father, and seems to have no memory of any other life but ours together. Sam is my son now, and I love him more than anything or anyone in the world. He is my everything.
Sam wiped a hand over his face. His father loved him. He had never doubted it in his life until he started to read the journals. He had been loved, but by what kind of man?
James had found pleasure in John's suffering. He had been prepared to kill to save Richard. He had stolen Sam away from his family and told him they'd died. How could a man like that love, too?
He reached for the last journal in the line, but then realized it was the wrong one. The most recent, the one he wanted to read, wasn't there. It must still be in James' room.
He pushed himself to his feet. His knees protested the movement after so long folded, and he rubbed at them idly before moving to the steps and descending them.
The house was still quiet, and the sky outside the windows was barely lightening. Sam crept past his and Jessica's room and went into James' study. He hadn't entered it since his death, and the air felt musty. He left the door open to freshen the room and went straight to the desk.
There were three drawers in the handsome oak desk and Sam tried them each in turn. In the first were papers and charts that looked like hospital business. Sam moved to the next and found more papers. The third was the one he needed. There was a leather-bound journal much like the ones he had found in the attic. He picked it up and then gasped as he saw the framed image beneath. He pulled it out with shaking fingers and set it down on the desk. It was a miniature portrait of a child. It could have been Sam, the faces were so alike. But Sam could tell from the obvious age of the image and the old-fashioned clothing that it must be Richard. He looked around six or seven, and the resemblance to Sam's own face was eerie. They could have been twins.
He dragged his eyes from the portrait and opened the diary. It felt weighty in his hands, as if he knew it carried more than mere words. It held truth too.
June 14th 2005 – Klamath Falls, Oregon.
I am feeding. It was because of Sam that I started again. He was worrying for me as the hunger made its effects known. I cannot bear to worry the son I love, so I crept out and fed.
I forget in the years between how good it feels to be sated. The memory of the lives brimming inside of me and sustaining me fades, and it becomes easier to imagine myself human. But now I am fed, not yet sated; I'm just starting out and getting a taste of them.
The last, a brother to a previous feeding, was sleeping when I entered and didn't wake until it saw me. It was just like Sam: the look of confusion followed by fear. I was carried back through the years to that wondrous night when I found him, them, again. This child had no brother to call for though as he had already been rushed to the hospital and my care the day before, and he lay frozen as I took from him.
Now I feel that new life inside me, brimming over with the potential and possibility that now belongs to me. Life is good.
Sam and Jessica are still here. Sam seems less concerned for me now that I am feeding again, not that he can ever know the true reason why. My son would never understand. I know him well. He loves the man I pretend to be. He would never be able to accept the Shtriga I am. He would leave me, and I couldn't bear that.
There is no reason my beloved son should ever know.
Sam felt his breath coming in rasps. Those words had come from his father's pen, his thoughts and feelings about what he was doing tempered with expression of love.
He began to cry in earnest, gasping sobs that ripped from him.
That was James and the Shtriga, they were one and the same. Sam had been wrong; there was no difference between them. He had loved a monster after all. He was mourning a child killer. How was that possible? How could he have been so blind?
There was movement at the door and Jessica rushed to his side. "Oh, baby," she said, her eyes moving between Sam's tearstained face and the diary on the desk.
Sam raised his wet eyes to her and said, "He was a monster!"
Jessica's mouth twisted into a moue of regret and she nodded slightly. "I'm sorry."
Sam realized then what she had hidden all along—she had known what James was where Sam had been blind. All the time he'd been grieving for a creature that killed and didn't care, she had supported him and loved him, but she had known what he cried for. She had seen where Sam was blind.
He pushed back his chair and she settled on his lap, pulling his face into her neck and soothing him gently with words and caresses as he cried. He wasn't mourning a father now or monster; he was grieving the life he should have had with John and Dean, the one that had been stolen from him by a creature that had never truly loved him in return.
Long hours later, Sam picked up his phone and, with Jessica's hand on his shoulder, squeezing, comforting, he dialed and waited for the call to be picked up on the other end. It was answered after only a few rings and the voice that answered was confused but slightly hopeful.
"Sam?"
"Dean, I need to see you," Sam said quietly. "Both of you."
"Of course," Dean said quickly. "Just tell me where…"
Sam opened his mouth to speak and a sob came out. Jessica plucked the phone from his hand and said, "We're in Oregon still. Can you come?"
Sam didn't hear anymore. Tears had overtaken him again, except these weren't tears of sadness or grief for James, they were tears of grief for himself, Dean and John, and everything they had missed.
So… Sam knows. This is the final version of what started out a very different chapter. Originally, James was a kind of psychopath that cared for Sam only as a possession not son. I realized that was wrong though. James did love Sam as he had loved Richard. He was a child killer and monster, but a father, too.
Until next time…
Clowns or Midgets xxx