Lawrence, Kansas 1997

It's September and Sam Winchester sits on his bed with his AP History notebook propped up against his knees. He should be studying for the test tomorrow but all he can think about right now is the dream. Well nightmare to be more exact…was it a nightmare? It had to have been. Any dream involving monsters constitutes as a nightmare. Still, that word doesn't seem to fit. Sam shifts in bed uneasily, tapping his pen against his notebook, toes wiggling about through the hole in his sock.

That monster. That Thing. Huge and looming, dominating the entire expanse of the room. The way it's mouth opened, unhinging its jaw and roaring towards him like it was about to suck the life from his body and swallow him whole. He woke in the night in a cold sweat, heart hammering. The dream, The Thing, still bright in his mind. He felt dizzy and disoriented and it took a moment to remember where he was. In his room. In Kansas. He had never had a dream like that before; one which followed him into the waking world. When he flipped on his bedroom light he found himself checking the closet, under the bed, behind his desk and under his covers before being satisfied that The Thing truly hadn't followed him into reality. He had a difficult time getting back to sleep.

"Sam?"

There's a rapping of knuckles on his bedroom door before she appears in the doorway; blonde hair swept up in a bun. Her smile is both beautiful and kind. "Sammy? Didn't you hear me calling?" Mary asks.

Sam blinks, forcing the memory of the dream back into the shadows if his mind. "What? No, sorry I've been studying."

Mary crosses the room, looking down at her son's history notes. In the corner of the page is a large scribbled mess of a drawing. It's hard to decipher exactly what it is but in the clutter of swirls and lines she makes out a mouth with large dripping fangs. "Studying, huh? Looks more like an art project." She says.

Sam rubs his forehead. Has this drawing always been there? He doesn't remember doing it. "Yeah, um…I guess I got a little distracted."

"Distracted? That's not like you." Mary frowns and holds the back of her palm to Sam's forehead. "You feeling alright? You do look a little pale."

Sam doesn't know why exactly but the warmth of his mother's touch nearly puts him to sleep. He wants to grab her hand and hold it there forever. Stay right here, just as they are. He can't explain why this feeling comes over him so suddenly, his mother has done this countless times before, he's sure of it. But for some odd reason when he looks up at her he feels like he's seeing her for the first time in years. "I…I'm okay." He clears his throat and tries to shake this feeling from his bones. "I just didn't sleep very good last night."

"I think I heard you talking in your sleep last night. Must have been some dream."

"Yeah, it was."

"Well dinner is ready. Come on down, your father is waiting for us."

"Dad's downstairs?"

Mary furrows her brow. "Yes, Sweetie, why wouldn't he be?"

"I dunno…" Why did he ask that? "I guess I just figured he was at work."

"No, silly. He's here. He's waiting for us."

Sam swings his gangly legs over the bed. Dinner does sound like a wonderful idea right about now. He hadn't noticed before but he's starving. He sets his notebook aside. The drawing lingers there in the corner, the frantic scribbling…that large fanged jaw…

He shuts the notebook and follows his mother down to dinner.

Mary hums as she clears the table after dinner. Sam finds the soft, melodic quality of her voice hypnotic in some way. Why is he just noticing this now? He gets up and goes to help wash the dishes in the sink.

"Oh my, you really must not be feeling well," says Mary.

Sam looks at her uncomprehendingly and she laughs. "You're helping with the dishes and I didn't even ask? Is it my birthday?" She plants a kiss on top of his head and tussles his hair.

"I just figured I should help out."

John snorts from the other end of the kitchen table. He's spooning leftovers into a container. "Does that mean you'll be helping me change the oil in the car tomorrow?" His father's face is warm and cheerful and unburdened, his hair neat, eyes clear. It's as if Sam is seeing his father in high definition the way he is noticing these small details he hadn't thought were there before. He is happy that his father looks this way. "Sure," he says with a shrug. "I'll help."

John gets up, he places a small but meaningful kiss on his wife's cheek as she bustles past him. "Who is this kid, Mary? Can't be one of ours." John smiles and winks at Sam. "Speaking of, I should call Dean. He was taking one of those sorority girls out on a date last week and I better make sure we won't be getting flagged down for child support payments."

"John!" Mary shouts, hitting him with the dishtowel.

He chuckles as he reaches for the phone and starts to dial.

"Oh, ask him how he made out with his first American Lit Essay," Mary whispers to John as he dials, "Last time I talked to him he hadn't written a damn thing and it was due the next day."

John nods absently.

That's right, Sam thinks, Dean is at College. Why does he feel as thought this information is new to him? It doesn't matter, because Sam finds himself smiling. His parents are so happy, so very perfect. He wants to hug them both right now but he knows they'll definitely think he's lost it if he does. So he settles for scrubbing the dishes clean; the dishes from a dinner they ate as a family, from a meal that was cooked by his mother. And for some odd reason he thinks to himself, Nothing will ever be better than this.

When Sam makes it through the night without reoccurrence of the nightmare, he thinks the whole thing must have just been a fluke. He chalks yesterday up to just being his brain's reaction to a lack of sleep. He feels better today. Clearer. He breezes through his history test and eagerly awaits his dad to get home so they can work on the car together. Mary has left a note on the counter that she went out to run errands and that she made a sandwich for him in the fridge. She ended the note with a dainty little, XOXO, Mom. Her handwriting is whispy and light and reminds him of an old fashioned greeting card. In the fridge he peels the foil from the sandwich; baloney and cheese, his favorite.

He chews as he examines the refrigerator door. Among other things there is a napkin with a scrawled phone number, a birthday card John had given to Mary, and a whole hodgepodge of magnets from various places. A moose shaped magnet from a diner in Maine, a pink square magnet depicting a cartoonish sunset from a rest stop in Nevada and several more from motel gift stores all across the country. Have we really been to all these places? Sam thinks. Right now he can't remember having gone to a single one. Above a postcard from Colorado the word BOOBS is spelled out in magnetic letters. Sam smiles; Dean's handiwork no doubt. There are many photographs, some of Dean, some of himself, some of all of them together. He catches sight of picture of himself as a baby, no more than a few months old, sitting in his crib. He takes the photo from the fridge and examines it closer. There is a black smudge in the upper corner of the photograph. It's strange because the photo is crinkled here, almost as if it had been burned.

The front door opens and John's boots are heavy as they cross the foyer.

"Hey, Kiddo. How was school?"

Sam swallows the last of the sandwich. "Good," he says cheerfully, "Real good actually."

"Yeah? Glad to hear it." He hangs up his keys and shakes his arms free from his denim jacket which he rests on the back of a chair.

"We still going to work on the car?"

John raises an eyebrow reaching into the fridge for a beer. "You were serious?"

"Yeah. I want to help. I feel like I should probably learn these things."

"Well this is a change of character for you, kiddo, but I say it's a welcomed one. Let me get some things set up and we'll get started."

When he closes the fridge Sam notices that the picture of himself as a baby has changed. The photo is whole now and unburned. He cranes his neck. That can't be…

"Hello? Earth to Sammy?" John waves a hand in front of Sam's face and Sam blinks at him.

"Huh? What?"

"I said go get changed and I'll meet you in the garage."

"Yeah I'll uh, I'll meet you out there in a minute."

When Sam opens the door to the garage, things aren't as he expects. There's a blue SUV with the hood popped up, his father bent over the contents. The garage smells musty and damp. Sam approaches the car. It's dusty and the paint is chipped in places. There's an old ACDC bumper sticker that is faded almost to nothing. Sam frowns. "Did you get a different car?"

John's head pops up. "What?"

"Is this…have you always had this car?"

"Since you and your brother were in diapers. Why? Does she look different?"

Sam contemplates this. Why did he think his father's car was black? "Yeah, it does look a little different today for some reason."

"That's cause I just waxed her," John says proudly. He wipes his hand on a grease rag and smacks the side of the car. "Gotta keep my Baby shining!"

Sam feels a twinge go down his spine….Baby…

"Come around here, I wanna show you something."

John proceeds to try and impose his wisdom and knowledge of proper car care onto Sam, but his words are lost on Sam who is finding it difficult to focus now. He can't seem to shake the feeling that something isn't right. That's when he hears it. The low growl.

John is telling him something about transmission fluid.

"Did you hear that?" Sam asks.

"Hear what?"

Sam looks around the side of the car. The growl comes low and deep. "That!" Sam jumps back, startled. It's under the car. The Thing. How did it get here? How did it find him?

John is looking at him now and Sam's eyes scan the room wildly. He backs up until he's pressed against the garage door. A great Woooosh erupts and a black mass shoots out from under the car and crashes into the wall, falling behind Dean's bed. Sam ducks from the flying debris.

"Sam! Down!" Dean shouts. He cocks his gun and fires. Sam covers his head as rock salt rockets past him at the black mass. The Thing roars with anger, mouth gaping open, showing all of its hideous fangs. A tongue, or what Sam can only assume is some sort of tongue, whips around like a rope. It appears to have some sort of gripping apparatus on the end, like a suction cup.

"Sam!? Sammy what's wrong?" His father is bent over him, shaking his shoulders.

"Stay down!" Dean is shouting. He leaps forward and fires at the Thing again, hitting it squarely in the mouth. It withers in pain and bursts out the motel room window and disappears into the night.

"Sammy? Sam you okay? Talk to me!" John and Dean's faces merge into one before Sam's eyes until it is just his father looking back at him. He's breathing hard, he feels like his heart might explode out of his chest.

"Did—Did Dean get it?"

John looks confused. "The monster. Did Dean shoot it?"

"What on Earth are you talking about? Dean's away at school. You know that."

Sam gulps and tries to steady himself. "It was right there behind Dean's bed. In the motel." He's pointing at the garbage cans in the corner of the garage.

John takes Sam's face in both of his hands. "Sammy, you're scaring me. Look at me. We're in the garage. We're at home. You know that, right?"

Sam absorbs his father's words but he can't find his footing in them because in truth he doesn't know that. At home…is the garage…is that where he is right now?

He just isn't certain anymore.