A/N

Thanks for the reviews, mckydstarlight, sammygirl1963, Guest, beckini and Christine!

Sam got onto Dean's hand, followed by Jacob's light weight. Dean brought them in front of his face for a brief moment. "It'll all be over soon," he reassured them. Jacob would have his family back, then Dean would be able to see if Sam wanted to stick around a little longer. He'd bring Sam back to the motel if he had to… but everything in him was desperate for that second chance with his brother. He didn't want to let it slip between his fingers like he had so many years ago.

This time when he opened his pocket, Dean lowered that hand down and stuck two fingers into the pocket, testing out a different way of getting them into it by letting them take the reins. Sam was the first, carefully climbing down the fingers, then dropping into the depths of the pocket and vanishing.

Jacob followed Sam's lead, finding it a lot easier to get his balance in the bottom of the pocket this way. He settled down quickly, sitting in a corner opposite Sam to make sure they had plenty of room, and pulled his satchel onto his lap. Huddled in a pocket again, only this time when a door opened once more he was on his way home. Jacob's stomach did flips as the loud metallic creak reached his ears, and he gripped the fabric of the pocket as Dean stepped out of the Impala. Jacob flinched with the sound of the car door slamming behind them.

Only a few sauntering steps had rattled through them before Jacob gave in to temptation. He shifted carefully, and pulled himself to a cautious stand in the swaying pocket. It took a lot of focus not to fall right back down. Every step Dean took bounced the pocket.

He got his hands on the edge of the pocket, but refrained from pushing the flap out of the way. Instead, Jacob could tilt his head at just the right angle and see through the slit on the pocket flap meant for the button. He had a view of Dean's walk towards the house. The place where Jacob had come home to reunite with his family. Another thrill of giddy excitement fluttered in his heart.

Jacob couldn't help but imagine a reunion like Sam and Dean's. Disbelief, and then a desperate embrace (or as close as Dean could manage with someone that fit in his hand). Almost tearing up with the raw emotion of seeing someone he thought dead for thirteen years.

The chime of the doorbell echoed distantly in the house, and Jacob took a deep breath. There was a seasonal wreath of colorful purple and blue flowers hanging on the door, and it filled his vision through the narrow view. There were footsteps approaching; one thing he'd never be able to miss was the casual gait of a human walking around, even from a distance.

There was a click of a lock and the door pulled away, and she was right there. A petite woman, Mariana Andris couldn't stand more than 5'5", leaving her well below Dean's height. She was somewhat plump, with a round face that had the faintest traces of a confused but polite smile on it. Jacob hadn't inherited her body type, but he'd inherited her smile for sure. It felt too good to see it again and he let out a quiet breath of air as if someone had hit him in the gut.

Mariana had thick brown curls framing her face, which she tried to push behind her ears to face the stranger at the door a little better. In a small town like Carlisle, it was hard to find a neighbor one didn't recognize, at least in passing, and it was clear in Mariana's eyes that she was trying to figure out if she knew Dean from somewhere. "Well, ah, hello, sir," she greeted, fingertips drumming absently on the edge of the door as she offered up a friendly smile. "Can I help you?"

Dean gave her an equally friendly smile back, turning on the charm that got him inside the door at many different houses during his cases. Or got him an easy time at the bar. "Afternoon, ma'am. My name is Lars Ulrich." He fished inside his jacket, pulling out one of his many ID's. Dean held it up to her. "I'm with the Weekly World News. I've actually been working on an article about the disappearance of Jacob Andris some years back."

Tucking the the ID back into his jacket, Dean straightened slightly. "There's been some new information come to light in the last few months and I'm here to fact check with you." He paused for effect. "You are Mariana Andris, yes?"

Mariana's expression shifted in a quick but subtle way. While the polite smile mostly remained, it faltered and her eyes changed. The mere mention of her son's name made her swallow tightly as if suddenly parched.

"N-new evidence ...?" she echoed, her voice wavering somewhere between hope and incredulity. Jacob felt an ache in his heart to see the way she stiffened, no doubt with memories rushing to the fore of her mind at the reminder. He could see in her eyes that she still paused to cry once in a while and wanted so much to peek out of the pocket right then and there, tell her he had comehome.

"Uhm, yes, I'm Mariana Andris," she recovered with a tight voice, stepping back and opening the door a little wider to admit the would-be reporter. Her mouth opened to ask something, but a voice from the side hall interrupted.

"Who is it, babe?" preceded the owner of the voice as a man with darker skin joined them in the entry way. He had broader shoulders than Dean but he wasn't quite as tall. Even at his new size and after three years, Jacob recognized the man right away.

No fucking way, Jacob thought, so surprised that he dropped back to the bottom of the pocket. It was an old friend of the family that Jacob met not long after his dad died. And, apparently, Mike had married Jacob's mother sometime after his disappearance. It was jarring, to say the least.

He glanced over at Sam in surprise and mouthed My mom married a cop, more than a little concern entering his eyes over the fact.

After all, Dean's face was that of a supposed killer.

He tilted his head to listen in on the conversation outside the pocket. His mother spoke again. "Mike, this is Mr. Ulrich, h-he's a reporter and he says they have new evidence in Jacob's case."

The man who would be Jacob's stepfather inclined his head and offered Dean a hand to shake. "Mike Ellison," he greeted. "Not to jump the gun here, but why haven't the Kansas police contacted Mariana about this?"

Dean ignored the movement in his pocket. He couldn't blame Jacob for being excited to be there, after all. With them sitting directly against his chest, every movement was obvious.

Dean shook the man's hand amicably. "Lars. Pleasure to meet you."

He straightened after that, focusing on the question. "In fact, jumping the gun is just what they were trying to avoid. The new evidence is… delicate. To say the least."

An image of Jacob, trapped and squirming in Dean's own hand, jumped to his mind. Every struggle meaningless. Hell, Dean had barely noticed most of the struggles, let alone been affected by them. "I've been working on this for some time, and thought it was time to bring you in on what we found."

Dean glanced around the room. "Is there a table we can have this talk at? It might make things easier on you. I understand this is a… painful subject. I lost my brother in a similar case back when we were young, so I've always been drawn to cases like this. Just trying to find any clues I can to help out other families, maybe help them through hard times."

Mike's brow pinched with some faint skepticism, wondering how a reporter could get ahold of something like this first. By contrast, Mariana's face became sympathetic, so he didn't say anything. If there was a chance at finding out more about what happened to Jacob, they'd take it. "Sure, sure, Lars. Right in here," he said, and led the way into the house.

Mariana walked a little slower, her eyes shining with tears that wouldn't flow just yet. In the hall, she brushed a hand over a framed photo of a young boy, who couldn't be more than six, laughing on the shoulders of a tall man. Next her fingertips found the frame of a more recent photo of Jacob, the same one from the article Dean had found.

"I'm so sorry about your brother, Lars," she said quietly, in a voice conveying empathy for the same pain he'd been through, before they made it to a living room.

"I've had time to come to terms with what happened to Sammy," Dean answered softly, his hand absently going to the amulet around his neck. There was a slight movement from inside the pocket, but no way to know what they were doing. For all he knew, he'd startled them with his automatic reflex, brushing lightly against the pocket that currently held Sam, safe and sound and alive.

Along with her Jacob.

They continued into the next room. Two sofas faced a coffee table, which held a few magazines that Mike was already tidying up and stacking to one side to make things more presentable. The room had a cozy, lived-in air about it, and the windows were cracked open to let in a breeze. The atmosphere hardly seemed to notice the heavy news that Dean had brought into the home.

Mike gestured to one of the sofas while Mariana, fidgeting with her hands, sank into the other. She seemed shaken, like a gentle tap might knock her right over. Mike let her squeeze one of his hands in her much smaller one before glancing over at Dean. "D'you want anything to drink? Water, tea?"

Dean shook his head and said "No, but thank you. Very much."

"It's been over thirteen years since I lost Sam," Dean said as he sat down on the sofa, doing his best to move slow for his small passengers. He sat as far forward as he could, folding his hands over his knees. Normally, he'd never bring up the painful past, or anything that was related to Sam, but this here was a special case. This woman had gone through the same pain in her life.

"But we're here for Jacob right now," Dean continued. "Tell me, what do you know about the case all those years ago?" If he found out what they knew, he might find a way to approach the fact that Jacob wasn't dead.

Or maybe Jacob would get bored and just decide to come out. Whatever worked. This was his ballgame as much as it was Dean's.

"Oh," Mariana breathed, her voice tight with emotion. She clasped her hands in front of her mouth and closed her eyes, calling up some of her most painful memories and trying to compose herself at the same time. She hardly seemed to notice when Mike sat down beside her, a supportive hand on her back. There was only the faintest dip in the tension in her shoulders.

She sniffled and then took a deep, slow breath, finally opening her eyes and lowering her hands. "We ... Jacob and I, were taking a little trip, just the two of us, to Colorado. We stopped in Haven because I didn't want to drive at night on roads I didn't know ... That's not safe, y'know? A-anyway, we'd only been checked in an hour or two, and I left to get some takeout. When I came back ... Jacob was just gone. All of his things were still there." Mariana had to pause to clear her throat.

Coming back to that room and finding her son gone had been eerie. As the time ticked by with no trace of him ... nothing could adequately describe a mother's fear.

"The um. The security footage didn't show anything suspicious, and the desk clerk didn't see anybody coming or going ... Th-the police didn't find any signs of a struggle and their search parties didn't find anything." Her mouth curved into a frown, and she blinked a few times to hold back tears. "They never found anything of my son and after a year the only news I got was that they had presumed him dead. No one could find who took him or why ... No ransom notes ever came. And Jacob was not the kind to run away. He just wasn't."

Dean took a deep breath. "No, he wasn't," he agreed. His own chest was tight, remembering how it had felt to see Sam vanish right before his very eyes… and thinking he was about to follow. There had been times when he'd thought life would be easier if he'd gone with his brother. He wouldn't have to try and live without Sam.

For Mariana, that living hell would end after three years, versus Dean's thirteen. In the end, all that mattered was that Jacob and Sam were still alive. Not that they were small enough to be held in a hand.

Dean's lips tightened. "This might be hard to hear," he started. "I was recently in Haven, checking around the area to see what I could find. Jacob… He never died. And he never ran away. He just didn't have a way to get a message to you, but trust me, he wanted to, more than anything."

Dean reached up, hesitantly pushing the flap of his pocket up and dipping two fingers into the pocket. He waited to feel Jacob climb on to the fingers, knowing it was time to show Mariana her son.

Jacob's limbs were jelly, but he was ready. He pulled himself up, almost slipping back into the pocket in his sheer nervousness. He sent a nervous smile to Sam before hoisting himself onto Dean's hand. A deep, shaky breath accompanied the feeling of the huge hand lifting him the rest of the way out.

He was crouched on Dean's palm, one hand clutching the strap of his satchel as had become his nervous habit. Across the table, his mother had a wide eyed look of shock in her eyes and a hand over her mouth. Mike sported a confused frown. He was sitting up straight with his eyes fixed on the tiny figure that Dean lowered carefully to the table.

Mariana sniffled and blinked rapidly at what she saw. Jacob stepped off Dean's hand and looked up at her, searching for recognition. He could see it there, in the way her eyes flickered over him taking in the details of his miniscule form. "Is ... that ... ?" She glanced up and Dean must have nodded, because she looked back at Jacob again.

"Then ... I left him?" she said, her voice hollow and wound tightly with grief and guilt. Jacob didn't say a word. His own voice was locked up in his throat to see her this way.

She stared for a long time, not moving. Her husband sat next to her, his critical eyes fixed on Jacob. His intent gaze unsettled Jacob, but his focus was all reserved for his mother.

Mariana wanted to believe, Jacob could tell. She wanted to believe that it was really her son standing there at less than four inches tall. He had no idea if she'd ever thought magic and curses and stuff like that was real. But he could tell that right now, she wanted so desperately to believe it. He waited for her to believe it, too. She had to.

Jacob clenched his jaw. His mother's hand approached slowly, her fingertips knitting the air with faint, nervous twitches. Jacob stood his ground, and watched as she reached for him. He couldn't run away from his own mom. Not after coming so far just to find her.

An instinct told him to run, to keep her hand from getting to him. Humans are dangerous, his fear warned. Once they have you they won't let you go and you can't make them. He knew that truth intimately well.

The other humans in the room seemed to disappear. Dean, keeping silent sentinel behind. Mike, technically Jacob's stepfather, squinting in disbelief and glancing between Jacob and Mariana thoughtfully. Jacob hardly registered them because he was so focused on the teary look in his mother's eyes above. Jacob chanced a tense smile, and her lips parted in a quiet gasp that became a sob.

Jacob suppressed a shudder when the hand finally got to him. He caught the scent of apple-fragranced hand lotion as long fingers slipped behind him. The index fingertip bumped his shoulder. Jacob couldn't help but think about how he was already much taller than his mom when he saw her last. Now, a single fingertip would be enough to knock him over. Doesn't matter. She's still my mom.

"Oh my God," she whispered, barely more than a breath. Furrows formed in her brow. Jacob found himself surrounded by a shaking hand. Her fingers curled loosely around him and her thumb braced against his chest. Jacob couldn't help but become tense when his boots left the table behind. He swallowed his nerves over how insecurely he was held. The faint tilt of her grasp left him leaning back against a net of fingers while her thumb still held him in place from the front. Despite the discomfort, he let a faint smile flicker onto his face.

Jacob was a few inches in the air when her hand stopped. His own brow pinched with confusion as he watched her expression. It slowly shifted. Incredulous, hopeful awe slowly paled away to be replaced by a deep grief that forced the tears in her eyes down her cheeks at last.

Jacob flinched when her fingers twitched and her hand started to shake a little more. He tried to keep his hopes up, but something in Jacob's heart fluttered with a growing worry.

Something was wrong.

No sooner had he thought this than Jacob's stomach leapt to his throat as he suddenly dropped. His mother set him down rapidly and her hand retreated as if burned. His feet hit the table so hard that he staggered and fell backwards. His wrists twinged to match his ankles when he caught himself on his hands.

Mariana had her hand over her mouth as she stared down at him. "No, Mom, don't cry," Jacob said, speaking to her again for the first time since he was fourteen years old. "It's really me-"

"Stop it," she spat suddenly, making Jacob shut his mouth and flinch. A hard look flashed in her eyes and she looked across the table at Dean. "I don't know what you're doing with your sick little puppet act here, but just stop. Did you expect me to believe something like this could happen?"

"What?! No!" Jacob spoke up, getting hastily to his feet and stumbling towards his mother. He had one hand held up towards her as if to push back the upset cynicism forming there. "Mom, it's me! I'm just smaller!" he insisted. Jacob felt like he was trying to catch broken glass from a shattered window before it hit the ground.

He could never catch all of it, and what he did manage to get only cut him to ribbons.

His hopes, built up so high over the last 24 hours, were burning down before his eyes.

A look of disgust flashed across her mournful face. Before Jacob knew it she'd reached down and shoo'd him backwards, shoving him with the back of her fingers. He stumbled several steps before falling over again. Jacob's heart pounded frantically in his chest as he propped himself up again and stared in horror up at his mother.

She was rejecting him.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go!

"Mom ..." His voice was shaky and weak.

Tears streamed freely from her eyes now. "Stop it! Stop it now! Why did you have to come here, put this thing in front of me and imply that I ... that my son got shrunk and that I abandoned my only child?! Why would you do that?! You're sick!" Her eyes flickered between Dean and Jacob, blurred by all the tears that filled them.

And then, her blurry glare settled on where Jacob had fallen. "Take your tricks and your mind games and get the hell out."

She lifted her hand. She was preparing to backhand Jacob right off the table to get him away from her, out of her sight. Ice filled Jacob's veins. He'd never be able to avoid that strike. It'd be like getting hit by a semi. Jacob would be broken before he ever hit the floor.

He twitched backwards in a panic before desperately putting his arms over his head and curling up to wait for the impact.

A/N

***The story ends 10/23! Visit the tumblr to cast your vote for the next story!***

Next: Coming October 20th, 2016 at 9pm est.

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