Dean walked down a familiar street. The neighbors greeted him as he passed by. Everyone knew everyone here, and everyone was friendly towards one another. It sometimes made Dean feel sick, but he had to admit this friendliness was infectious, especially given the circumstances.

Dean was going home.

It was a small house, right in the middle of the city. Right in the middle of the street, in a neighborhood where the houses were terraced, placed into neat rows with no space between the houses. Each home had the same basic structure, inside and out, and only the creativity of the people who lived there could give each house a personal touch.

Dean reached his home and rang the doorbell – it was a mistake to leave his key when he'd left. Luckily, he didn't have to wait long before the door was opened.

It was Sam. He looked so carefree, as if the weight of the world wasn't lying on this shoulder. It was so good to see him again after all this time. Dean did not even know why this thought had crept into his mind. He'd only been gone for a weekend and even then, not that far. Still, it felt like an eternity had passed since Dean left.

"Hiya, Sammy," he said. It was good to say that.

Dean couldn't stop himself – he stepped forward and grabbed his brother, holding him in a tight hug. Sam gladly reciprocated.

"It's good to see you, Dean, Sam said before they let go of one another and looked at each other. Damn, Dean had seriously missed Sam – it really had not been so long! He never knew he would ever be able to miss someone so deeply.

"There you are," a third voice chimed in. Dean and Sam turned their heads to their mother. Her blonde hair reached her chest and her smile was wide and beautiful. She had aged phenomenally, looking as young as she had been when Dean was a little boy.

"Hi, Mom," Dean said weakly, staring at her, almost unable to believe his eyes. Was this really the moment he would reflect on everything that came before, the moment realized he was happy with the life he was leading and wouldn't want it any other way? Quite random.

"Come on," she said. "Dinner's ready."

Their conversation continued in the dining room. Mary had prepared their dinner and Dean had timed his return perfectly with the dinner being served. The table had been made, the pots and plates placed on the table. The only thing Dean needed to do was to sit down and eat what would definitely be another delicious meal.

"So," Mary began once everyone was seated. She looked at Dean expectantly. "How was the hunting trip?"

Dean nodded. What was there to say? "It was good. My friends caught a lot. I couldn't even catch a duck."

"Really?" Sam said in a teasing tone. He couldn't believe that's why Dean came home empty-handed, yet it was completely credible and plausible. A grin broke on Sam's face – that was where Dean drew the line.

"Don't you laugh," Dean said. "You wouldn't catch anything, too, if they kept shouting in your ear and scaring everything away." Whenever Dean almost caught something, his friends thought it'd be funny to scare it, to make loud noises and wildly move. In the end, Dean managed to catch one fish. Though only because Dean caught it when he was alone, at the lake, in the middle of the night when the others were asleep. It gave him the validation he needed, especially since every other opportunity was taken away from him.

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Sounds like fun." He then focused on his food, so that Mary may continue the conversation.

"What were their names again?" she asked, a serious look on her face. Dean turned his head to her and shot her a confused look.

"You know their names." Hadn't he told her already? She should know these things. He vaguely remembered telling her who they were and, more specifically, their names.

"Didn't you go with your new friends?"

"Yeah?" So? He had been gone for only a weekend. He was certain he had told Sam and Mary who he had gone with, just in case something were to happen. No, Dean was certain she should be able to remember his friends' names, if only some of them.

"It's nothing serious," Mary said. A smile appeared on her face. "I just want to know who they are."

"Dean." Sam joined the conversation again. "What are their names?"

Dean frowned. Something was not right here. Sam should know those names. Why ask if he could say it himself? His words, as well as his tone and demeanor, did not suggest support for his mother – it suggested he, too, wanted to know the names and wanted Dean to tell him. Two people who should know wanted to know. Dean leaned back in his chair. This was not right.

"Dean, are you okay?" Mary asked. She placed her hand on his shoulder and softly squeezed it.

This touch did not feel right, either. It did not make sense. Dean watched her smile and realized that she truly had not aged at all. She wore the same clothes that she wore when Dean had last seen her, before the fire consumed her and their home. And Sam couldn't be here, too. He was in the hospital, receiving help for his issues.

If Mary was here and Sam was, then Dean could not be here. This was not the world he grew up in. This was a picture-perfect scene that only existed in his mind, one he had pondered about sometimes.

"This ain't real."

The transition was abrupt and painful. Throbbing pain from wounds inflicted by Zachariah returned immediately and hurt immensely. The chains on his wrists cut and strained him, his arms screamed from the muscle aches. The tips of his toes barely provided relief. Sweat dripped off of his head and clung to his forehead. But this was all worth it – Zachariah watched him with a confused expression on his face. Dean had not given him what he wanted. Dean wasn't going to give up these names willingly, not even to his mother. The triumph and Zachariah's confusion brought a weak smile to Dean's face.

"You need to come up with something better than that," Dean said with a croaky voice. Zachariah's options were running out. Straight up torturing did not help at all, and trapping Dean in his mind was equally bad. It hurt and was mentally hard, but Zachariah could not hunt down the people who survived the attack on the bunker.

"I don't understand," Zachariah said. He shook his head. "You used to tell your mother everything."

"When I was a kid," Dean responded. "You should find better scenarios to put me in." Zachariah frowned when the smile on Dean's face grew wider.

"Is this a joke to you?" Zachariah came closer and clenched his fist.

"So long as you keep blundering through my torture, yes," he responded. The smile had now left his face. This was still a serious situation, a place where he may lose his life defending resistance secrets.

"I will get what I want," Zachariah reminded him. "One way or the other."

Dean nodded. "Of course you will." He would not deny they could break him. With the right method, there was a real chance he may give up. "Maybe after a couple of months."

Zachariah could not appreciate the comment and his face darkened. Dean could almost see the gears in his head turning, trying to find the right buttons to push and the right words with which he could accomplish this.

"I've seen you around many times," Zachariah said. "I've studied your actions. I know how you work, and I know what you will try to get out of here. I can see myself in you. In the end, we are not that different."

"We're nothing alike."

"Shut up, Winchester."

Zachariah was not supposed to know this name. It was known only to Dean, Bobby, and Sam.

Dean recalled an early encounter at Bobby's. It was the first time he had seen Bobby pull a gun on someone. He, little Sammy and his father had come to Bobby's house after their own burned down. They had left their mother behind. Dean could not fall asleep in the spare bedroom, while baby Sam slept peacefully in his crib. Dean did not want to go to sleep, so he exited the room to go downstairs, where Bobby and his father would be.

They were still downstairs, in the kitchen. While the hallway was dark, light shone in the kitchen, a light that spilled into the hallways through a crack, created by the door standing slightly ajar. He wanted to be comforted, to be told everything was okay, but the conversation on the other side of the door stopped him.

"I didn't think you could do that! How could you?" Bobby raised his voice, but he did not yell as loudly as he could so as not to disturb Sam and Dean. He was not aware Dean crept to the door to listen and peak through.

"I didn't, either," Dean's father said. He stood just out of frame and his voice was soft, calm. Too calm.

"You son of a bitch." Bobby nearly spat. Everything in his demeanor betrayed fury. "Are you aware of the consequences? What about the kids?"

"That's why I came here," his father said. He took a step closer to Bobby; he was still not visible. "They'll be good here. I know you'll do them right."

"I never asked for this."

"Neither have I."

Bobby shrugged out of despair. "So that's it. You're just going to leave them behind."

"I have to leave. I will either go to the angels or I don't." A pause came. Dean could not see what his father was doing, but Bobby glanced at the rifle on the table. "It can end here and now. You want to do it, I can see it in your eyes. I'm giving you one chance. Your only chance. Make it count."

Bobby, without taking his eyes off of John Winchester, took the rifle from the table and took aim. Dean was frozen, unable to make any noise or to try to stop Bobby. For a while, it looked like Bobby was actually going to shoot. But he lowered the gun and shook his head. Dean breathed in relief.

"I guess I'll leave now," John said. "I hoped you would do it."

That was the last time Dean had seen or heard his father. Bobby later explained everything without sugarcoating the truth. For their own protection, they moved around a lot and were given new names each time. Their original last name, Winchester, was only a vague memory, something that existed within their minds. Dean always had treated his names as something trivial, something to discard when danger arose, as if it wasn't important, to keep himself from getting attached to a certain name, like Winchester.

Zachariah knew the name. he couldn't have extracted that from his mind.

Dean's eyes widened in shock – this couldn't be.

"You…" He couldn't say anything else. He felt like the four-year-old who thought he was about to lose his father. He wanted not to believe it, but now the thought and truth were planted in his head, it was hard to discard.

And Zachariah grinned. The crack in Dean's defense, brought about by accident, helped by the earlier slip of the tongue. He had successfully gotten some information out of his oldest son.

"Now we're getting somewhere."