The Principle looked at the rough appearing man and the teenager, seeing an obvious resemblance. He perused the paperwork again, genuinely curious as to the circumstances of having the two nervous seeming people in his office. There was no doubt an interesting story here but it did not mean he would give the youngster a place just to find out.

"I see that, Samuel," glancing at the form again, "has missed a fair amount of school?"

"Sam," the teenager corrected him but the principle was used to teenage belligerence. He continued to address the adult present. "And the reason for this?" He looked up assured that it was his business no matter the scowl from the teenager.

"He's my nephew," said as if that excused John from any culpability in the missing education. "Had some…problems," spoken in an aside to the man as if it was a conspiracy, "my brother has fallen onto hard times and is finding life…difficult. So, Sam has come to live with us for a while. He's missed a year or so but you'll find him smart and I can assure you he will work hard." He turned to look at the silent teenager as if this was a continuation of a previous argument.

The principle considered then put down his pen. "It's May now, nearly June and close to the end of the school year. I would advise that you wait until the start of the next year to enrol him and he stay back a grade." He turned a pleasant face to the teenager to gage the reaction.

The lad shrank into himself. If the kid would prove to be trouble, he would have expected an outburst by now, a denial that he should be put with the younger kids but this one just looked resigned and actually a little eager. This young man wanted to be here. That was refreshing. Again he wondered what his story was.

"That's why we came now. I'm anxious for the boy, for my nephew, to start as soon as possible and catch up. Maybe if he were to be enrolled now he could attend summer school? As I say, he is smart and I'm sure with hard work he could get caught up by the beginning of the next school year."

If John manage do this for Sam, persuade the man to let him start now, it would be something good he could do for the kid, for his son. He knew the boy wanted this, knew the boy desperately wanted to resume High School but was doing a damn good job of hiding it.

Picking up his pen again and tapping it against his lips, Principle McGowan considered. He came to a decision. "We will set up a couple of test papers which Sam will sit next week. Depending on his scores, we shall decide if it is to be summer school or next year. Agreed?" he looked to both adult and teen.

John turned to look at Sam and could see the excitement in his eyes. That was another trait he did not share with his brother. Dean had not had much interest in High School. Who was he kidding, the boy had only turned up to work his way through the female population. It had been both a surprise and a moment of pride when he had actually graduated.

Sam nodded and John turned back to the Principle showing his consent.

"Okay then. Just a few blanks to fill in. So you are now the legal guardian, Mr Winchester?"

John just nodded thinking his voice would become thick if he spoke.

"And date of birth?"

"November third, nineteen eighty..." Sam answered, astonished as John spoke over him.

"May second, nineteen eighty three," he said with finality, carefully watching the shocked look on the youngster's face.

Mr McGowan looked from one to the other and, in true adult style, took the word of the other grown up in the room. Yes, he decided, he would definitely be rooting out the history to this family.

Standing, he reached over a hand to John as he took the hint to stand. Shaking the highly calloused hand, he confirmed, "Then we shall see Sam next week." And he turned to shake the young man's hand noticing the reluctance but eventually the boy acquiesced.

Leaving the office and walking back to the Impala, Sam rubbed his hand on his jeans. It was not that there appeared to be anything wrong with the man but he was not used to touching men other than as prelude to sex. He could not even remember the last time it had happened.

He studied John from the corner of his eye. He just could not understand the man. What was that about his birthday? They had decided, before entering the school, that he was to become a cousin so that he would have the Winchester name, matching the ID Dean had gotten for him.

Dean had given him Halloween for a birthday as all he would tell him was 'it was months ago'. He had looked up at him as he handed the cards over and read the name. The look on Dean's face had been wonderful, full of pride and mischief. "You can tell people we're married" he had laughed and so had Sam. He had had a thought to call him Mrs Winchester but Dean had beaten him to it by saying, "And I don't need to tell you who the man of the house is here," making a dramatic show of pulling up his pants. That had made Sam truly laugh.

But somehow, looking at the card, the fake ID that made Sam eighteen, it had just sounded right. He could not explain it, along with so many other thoughts and feelings when it came to Dean. But it was, 'right'.

He had been doing some research of his own. He had looked into finding out the source of his dreams, reading all there was on visions and dreams and that in turn had led him onto repressed memories, which he had found interesting but irrelevant. Much as his reading on those repressed memories had then led him into the field of amazing adoption stories and how people had reunited after years of separation, being drawn to each other without knowing why, without knowing that they were indeed related.

He had carried on reading about the subject, Genetic Attraction it was called, as he had been trying desperately to explain these 'connected' feelings he had for Dean. But it had just been idle curiosity in the end. He knew who he was, knew exactly where he had come from.

There was just him and his sister now. Damn, it had been good to see her. He had felt awkward, thinking she would not remember him, or worse, would hate him for leaving her behind. They had looked at each other and Sam had sank to his knees. Shyly, his sister had moved to him and then whispered into his ear, "Are we safe now?" He had held onto her, kneeling on the floor of her foster home, for so long.

Sliding onto the bench seat next to John, he said softly and meaning it, "Thankyou."

John sat back, taking his hand from the keys in the ignition. He had wanted to tell the boy the truth for what felt like months but he had only discovered it himself on that first trip to Lawrence, three weeks ago. "That's okay, Son."

Sam looked up at him sharply. That was not the first time he had called him that this last week and it was freaking him out. The man hated him and had not been slow in showing it until that trip to Kansas last week. Since, in fact, he had appeared in the kitchen and called him by his real name. The man had then avoided him until he had taken him, and Dean of course, to see Ginny. Since then his attitude had altered.

For some reason, he did not look at him in disgust anymore, if he looked at him at all. He seemed actually to be nervous around him and on the verge of saying something. Sam had tried not to dwell on it but he was always so conscious of his presence and his attitude towards him. He had to be. He had learnt his lesson.

But now he had to know. The curiosity would just burn him up and he could not ask Dean, could not cause him that hurt. "Why did you alter my birthday?"

John stared at his hands in his lap. He had dreaded this moment but had to tell the kid the truth. He owed it to him. He had not known how to broach the subject, not with their history and every time that he had gone over it in his head, he ended up sounding like something from that Star Wars movie that he had taken Dean to see not long before, before...

"I didn't," and could not bring himself to say more.

Sam continued to study the man, a look of ridicule on his own face at the absurdity but he saw the bowed head and John looked so much older than his years. "My birthday is in November."

"No, no, its not. That was just the date you were… taken from us."

Sam flopped back in the seat making a noise to show how ridiculous the man was being. And cruel. What if Dean ever heard any of this crap?

"Your uncle… Lukas. He told me everything. The night he died. The night he tried to sell me your sister." He heard the gasp from the boy beside him. There, he had said it. Well, some of it. He did not know the kid well enough to come out and say for a fact that he had killed the man, he did not know what his reaction would be. He knew that the relationship between abused and abuser was never clear cut. He did not know if Sam would praise or turn him in to the authorities for his actions.

But as the large man had sat there, beer in hand and had told him in great detail just how sweet his nephew had been, how young and pliant with those big hazel eyes staring up at him and that he just knew the sister would be as good for John, he had been overcome with such a vehemence as he had never encountered before. He had been angry many a time, hell, the boy bedside him had suffered from such a rage and that was no doubt what made it all the worse. The man he had been plying with alcohol was not so different for himself. They were both bastards. And this poor boy had suffered at both their hands.

He had not meant to do it, to kill the man, but one more punch and the sodden blond had fallen from the road into the ditch. John had walked away letting the drunken bastard sleep it off in the gully. Instead he had drowned.

"I'm sorry, Son. But Jennifer is not your sister, she.."

"Yes, she is." Sam had never been so adamant about anything in his life.

"No Sammy, you…"

"Don't you ever call me that. 'Sammie' was a poor kid who had to sell his ass on the street to survive. I'm Sam now, Sam Winchester, because that's who Dean wants me to be and he's the only one that gets to call me Sammy, and I don't want to know anything else you have to say." Finished he turned his head away and watched the wind lightly ruffle the flag outside of the entrance to the school.

"But you have to know. You have to realise who you really are. I have to tell you…"

"No. It's lies," anger finally entering his voice where there had been coldness before. "Its just another attempt to get me to leave. You're gonna tell me things that you think will make me run. But I won't."

"No. Damn it, boy! I'm telling you the truth." He grabbed hold of the lad's arm as he opened the door to leave. "Please, Sam. Please, just listen to me."

Sam sank back once more. He did not believe a word but guessed he might as well get it over with. The man did not look set to quit until he had had his say and, he had done him a favour today. Two if he counted his uncle. That had been a shock and Sam still did not know what he should feel about it. If nothing else, he owed this man for helping Ginny. The couple she was with now seemed nice and he had overheard John 'talking' to them. They would keep her safe and untouched.

He ripped his arm from the encircling hand and sat with his arms crossed, staring off out of the window, looking for all the world like any other teenager that had just left the principles office with an angry parent.

So John told him, told him all he had learnt about the night that he had lost Mary, how he had seen her burn on the ceiling of Sam's nursery. How Sam had been taken from Dean's arms into the ambulance and they had not seen him alive again. How that pathetic body, he had been told was his son, was not but was the body of the baby born to Maddie and Jonas Wilson, born the same night in the hospital in Lawrence, Kansas.

The real Daniel had died only a couple of hours into his life and Jonas and his brother, Lukas, had come up with the idea of swapping the dead baby with another one. Jonas had beaten his wife causing her to go into labour on the night that Lawrence had suffered, not only a house fire, but also a gas explosion in a supermarket warehouse and a multi vehicle pile up on the near by freeway.

With all the causalities in the hospital and the ensuing chaos and shortness of staff, it had been easy for the brothers to sneak into the nursery area and swap the baby boys. They knew their mother would never let them hear the end of it if the kid had died. All she had talked about was having grandkids and carrying on the family name.

Sam felt sick at the thought of how things had turned out, at the hatred he had listened to everyday from that woman once she got going on the subject of 'ungrateful brats'. And it was all a crime, had all been meant for child that had mercifully died and not had to suffer as he had. For a brief moment, Sam hated that dead child. But there was more to it than that. Something much more important.

"So it's true then?"

"Yes, Son."

"I'm Dean's brother?

"Yes." Head down, John closed his eyes. What the hell was he going to say to him? 'Oh by the way, Dean, you know that boy you've been...'

"The dreams, they aren't psychic visions?" Sam asked laughing without humour at his preposterous ideas, "They're memories?" He thought he would go insane if he could not stop the laughter that was bubbling up inside of him now. The whole thing was just so...farcical.

"What dreams?"

"Fire. A woman's sad face. What you said...Yellow eyes staring at me." He shuddered violently at this, the first time he had spoken of the images out loud.

John had not mentioned anything about the figure he had seen, the spectre with the glowing golden eyes. If he had harboured any doubts, that would have quelled them but the paternity test had been damn conclusive. He remembered hearing the shout from the bathroom asking Dean if he had seen Sam's toothbrush. "How long have you had these...dreams?"

"Not long," not really wanting to talk to this man about it, but who else could he tell? Not Dean. "The first time was when I held that baby blanket Dean keeps hidden."

'He must do', John thought, as he knew nothing about it. Now he could tell that Sam believed him, he moved on to what he really wanted him to know. "I'm so sorry, Son. If I'd known you were my son, I would never have...treated you that way, would never have..."

Sam swung around on the seat to fix him with a stare that froze John down to his core. "John," he stated clearly, "I was always somebody's son."

John could not hold his gaze and looked off through the windscreen. The other thing he had been worrying over came to his tongue. "What about Dean? We have to tell him."

"No!" fear and outrage all together. "He must never know. He loves me. It would kill him if he found out."

"But he blames himself for your death!"

"And what do you think he'll blame himself for if he finds out he's been fucking his younger brother?" There was no room for softening the subject.

"You need to stop. Now you know the truth, you must make it stop."

"No."

"But he's your brother!" pleading entering his voice.

"And I was your son!"

"Its not the same and you know it."

"Yes, yes I do. Dean loves me. Dean is in love with me. You? You just punished me."

"Damn it!" hitting the steering wheel. "I am so sorry." And John Winchester hid his head in his hands as he rocked forwards, grief, anger and guilt causing tears to leave his eyes.

Sam just placidly looked off again, this time watching as kids, laughing and joshing, poured out from the doors of the High School he was soon to attend.

==000==

TBC...