Title: Blackbird
Author: Oldach's Dream
Summary: Someone or Something is trying to trap Sam within his own mind. Alluring him with the promise of the normal life that he's always wanted. Will Dean be able to save his baby brother before he's gone forever?
Disclaimer: Supernatural defiantly isn't my creation.
Rating: M
A/N: Well, I kinda got back into the spirit of it with this chapter. On the bright side, that means that this chapter is long and detailed and probably the best one that I've written in a while. On the downside, this continues to drag out for much longer that I initially expected. I won't even try to give an estimate on how many more chapters there are to go, because It'd probably end up being a lie. But if this is dragging too much, let me know, and I'll try to shorten it up. I continue to write this for the people interested, so just...let me know: )
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning Sam was released from the hospital and allowed to go home with his normal family once again. He hadn't let himself fall asleep the night before, fear of returning to a world where he might indeed be dead crashing down upon him every time he closed his eyes.
He had felt, in a vague sense, that something had changed over the remainder of last night. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what - if anything - he was trying to describe, but after his talk with Dean, something had been different.
Maybe it had something to do with him seeing the creepy, demonic-like image of his big brother the night previous. Although Sam had tried his hardest to convince himself that that had been imagined.
"You okay, son?" John questioned as the whole family made their way back into the safety and comfort of their Kansas home.
"Yeah," Sam shook his head to clear it. "I'm fine."
"Really?" Mary questioned. "'Cause that didn't really look like a 'fine' face."
Sam sighed, he'd come to love his mother's dry sarcasm, and impenetrable stubborn streak.
"Don't argue, dude." Dean said from behind him, knocking his shoulder lightly as he passed. "Mom knows best."
"Hey," John barked a protest. "I thought it was father knows best."
"That too." Dean yelled back, he was already halfway to the kitchen.
Jess approached him next, grabbing onto his shoulders lightly and kissing him chastely. "I'll be upstairs if you need me." She shared some kind of meaningful look with the elder Winchester's before making her way up the stairs as promised.
Sam crinkled his nose in confusion, before turning to follow her.
"Hang on, Sammy." Mary called lightly and Sam turned immediately to face her. "Let's take a seat, shall we?" She gestured towards the living room that his father was already making his way into.
"Uh...sure."
Moments later saw Sam sitting on an armchair across form his parents, who were seated side by side on the sofa. They were both staring at Sam intently and the youngest Winchester didn't know whose eyes to focus on. Something about the moment - him alone with both his parents - it felt surreal.
And he forgot again that he was trapped in a fake world.
"What's up, guys?" He tried to ask lightly, but his concern shone through.
"I had an interesting chat with your brother this morning," Mary started and Sam's eyes immediately darted in the direction of the kitchen. He was going to kill his older brother if he did what Sam thought he did. "Yeah," his mom answered his unasked question. "He told us about Jessica."
"Little..." Sam's mutterings were cut off quickly by his father.
"Don't blame Dean, son. Your mom grilled him pretty hard." He was smirking, and by the time Sam turned back and faced his mom's guilty expression, he was as well.
"Well..." Sam started.
"I know you don't really remember." John said. "But your mom can be pretty tough when she's concerned."
"And your little passing out stunt last night had me pretty damn concerned, tiger." She smiled sweetly. "I might have taken it out on your brother."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." He hated the thought of causing her any sort of unnecessary distress. "I was going to, me and Jess were going to, but everything just happened so fast, and we really didn't have time to talk, and..."
"Breathe kiddo." John smirked lightly. "We understand."
"You do?" Sam asked hopefully, looking only at his mother.
"Yeah," she answered. "Honey, you found out you're going to be a father. That's huge."
"Yeah..." thoughts clouded his mind, but he couldn't pick out just one. He felt only an assortment of nerves and fears eating away at him.
"I'm proud of you, Sammy." His mother's eyes were filled with truth and understanding and Sam gulped, tears forming again. God, he hated feeling like this. He hated knowing that this wasn't real, that he'd have to give it all back. And soon.
"You are?" He had to ask.
She looked conflicted for a moment, before standing and taking a seat next to her youngest son. She put an arm around his shoulders and Sam looked into her eyes. They were real, and shining with adoration.
"I love you, Sammy." She stated firmly and he wondered how she had known that he had wanted to hear that. "This whole family loves you, even if you can't remember it right now."
A brief glance at his father found that he was nodding as well, nothing but truth and love radiating from him. God damn it, why couldn't this be real?
"And we love Jessica too," she continued. "And no matter what happens, that's always going to be true."
"Mom..." he broke off, sounding questioning. Why did it sound like she was saying goodbye?
"We love you Sammy. Your son will love you, too. You'll be a great father. Just like your dad." Her words were still true, but something had changed.
A shift had occurred, and Sam was only vaguely aware of it. It was sort of like a fly buzzing around the room. He knew it was there, could hear and feel its presence, but there was no way to pinpoint exactly where.
Sam's gaze drifted over to his father, and was almost not surprised to see that he was no longer there. Something was starting, and Sam could do nothing but take it in stride. Even if it felt like something inside of him was being torn apart, destroyed painfully.
He looked back to his mom, but he could already feel that the weight and the warmth of her arm around his shoulder was gone. But she wasn't, not completely.
She was standing in front of him now, only it wasn't her anymore. It was her spirit, the same one that he and Dean had faced in the real world.
That image was standing in front of him now.
"I'm sorry." She spoke simply, the same words as before.
He couldn't move. "For what?" He didn't expect a response.
But he got one. "For leaving you. For leaving your brother."
"That wasn't your fault." And it wasn't.
"Sammy," she began again. "Something's been done to you, this world, it isn't yours."
"I know..." this was all happening too fast. Just a moment ago she'd been real, talking of normal things and happy futures, but now she was dead again. A ghost. Not even a ghost; a faded memory.
And Sam just wanted his mom back.
"You're going to have to choose Sam." She warned. "And you can't stay here; you'll die if you do."
"But, you and dad, Dean...Jess." He was stricken, unprepared for letting go again.
"We're not real. This isn't real. It's not an option Sam. You can't stay."
"But I want..."
"Dean will die if you stay here Sam." She spoke firmly. "You have to protect your brother. You have to forgive him."
And Sam was going to ask for what, but he already knew. Whether the knowledge was his own, or had been planted in his mind by some sort of supernatural means he didn't know. And never would. But he wasn't overly concerned with it.
He knew she meant forgiving Dean for leaving. But she didn't understand, he had no right to be angry and hurt, or feel betrayed at that...Sam had done exactly the same thing. Sam had done it first.
"My sons..." his mother's ghost whispered, reaching out a transparent hand. "You have so much to work through, so many problems."
"We'll be okay." Sam found himself assuring her.
"I know." She whispered, and then her image was gone. Disappeared as fast as it materialized.
Sam hated that. The way things could just...cease to exist in this world. But he felt his emotions on the information lacking. He felt his emotions in general lacking, something was happening. Changing.
He got up without thought and headed for the staircase. He was going to see Jessica. Had to, at least one last time.
Dean had broken the law in various ways throughout the course of his lifetime. He'd interfered with many police investigations, tampered with evidence and withheld information. But never, in his twenty-two years of fighting evil and lying about it, had he barged into an ongoing F.B.I. raid.
And only now did he understand why it was considered such a bad idea, and impossible to do. Police in small towns, and even slightly larger ones, were easily fooled and happy to look in the other direction. To just not pay attention.
Even national government security was not known, in Dean's opinion, for their quick thinking, when the situation was not immediately life threatening.
But something about those uniforms, those navy blue windbreakers with F.B.I. printed in large yellow letters, turned the normally dull-witted and easily fooled officials, into defensive, gun-wielding, commanding, authorative jack-asses.
At least, that was Dean's opinion at the moment.
"My brother's in there!" He shouted, again, to the unfeeling bodyguard they had settled in front of the hot-tempered Winchester.
"My orders are to keep all civilians out." He barked, again, and Dean was starting to realize, understand and sympathize, with Sam's hatred of being given orders.
"I'm hardly a civilian." Dean snapped. "I've been killing evil things since before you learned how to wipe your own ass!"
Something like embarrassed anger flashed over his features - this man stood about half a head taller than Sam, and that was saying something - but Dean did not fear him. Dean actually kind of wanted to squash him like a bug, but found that hard to do with absolutely no weapons.
"Do you have any ID?" He asked in the level, mechanic voice.
Dean sighed angrily and stalked away without responding. Heading instead to the group of F.B.I. officials who had greeted him -with much shock - when he had arrived at Grandville about half an hour ago.
He'd showed up with a police escort who, after pulling him over for speeding in the emergency lane, for some reason, did not believe his story when he told him that he had to get to the fake hospital that was holding his brother hostage and threatening to kill him.
That moron had been shocked to find out that Dean's story was true. But who was he to argue with the feds? Dean never did see what happened to that guy, but didn't really care, as he had been preoccupied. Spending the last thirty seven minutes trying his absolute hardest to get into the hospital.
He'd already heard gunshots fired, but no one had emerged, and fear was eating away at Dean. If there was one thing he was not good at, it was waiting.
The group of people he had approached were gathered around the back of a van. A van equipped with more technical equipment than Dean could even pretend to know how to navigate.
Lisa Gibson was the only member of the entire group who was at all willing to speak to Dean, and the only thing she could give him was the information that this was a static situation. Meaning that there was some immediate threat preventing her officers from removing any of the patients.
No one could enter the building until the threat was clear, and there was nothing Dean could do.
"But Sammy," he had pleaded, meeting her bright blue eyes and begging her to understand. "He might be hurt..."
"Your brother will be taken care of by trained paramedics as soon as the situation is cleared of all immediate threats."
"But he's my responsibility."
"I'm sorry sir," she switched back to professional. "But there's nothing we can do right now except wait."
Sam climbed the stairs with dread eating away at the lining of his stomach. His father had disappeared, Mary had turned back into a ghost before disappearing, as far as he could tell, Dean had simply vanished...what was going to happen with Jessica?
He entered his childhood bedroom, and was immediately breathless. Almost knocked out with the force of what he was seeing.
It wasn't his bedroom anymore. Or more accurately, it was his bedroom...again.
A single, half-burned crib sat in the center of the room. Scorch marks marred everything. He could smell the smoke; feel the death in the air.
He couldn't bring himself to look up, but he was standing in the center of the doorway, so his peripheral vision did it for him. There was a mark above his crib as black as could be. Just a solid black hole. Sam thought briefly that it could be nothing. It could suck him away and it wouldn't be surprising.
A sudden noise sounded and he turned his head instinctively in that direction, and he found himself standing directly in front of a little kid. A boy no older than six.
It took Sam only a second to recognize him.
"Dean?" He questioned. This hadn't been what he'd been expecting when he started his trek upstairs, not by a long shot, but somehow he wasn't surprised. Everything was shifting. He was just along for the ride.
Six-year-old Dean raised a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. "Be quiet, or you'll wake up my brother." He said it guardedly, and with protection evident in his tone. "He's finally sleeping."
"Where?" Sam heard himself asking. He was plying a part now; he was part of a dream.
The little version of his older brother just gestured for Sam to follow him, before taking off in the other direction. Sam followed him across the hall, and straight into the other bedroom.
Only when he entered that one, it wasn't Dean's childhood room anymore, it was another tiny bedroom that Sam had never seen before. But it didn't seem to be touched by the fire and Sam thought maybe that it was from a place they had stayed right after their mom had died, all those years ago.
When John was still grieving and the brothers had fended for themselves most of the time. When Dean's protective streak had taken off - because the night of the fire was only the beginning - and Sam had learned to trust Dean like a guardian. A protector.
It would explain why little Dean was now curled up in the tiny bed with another small child - assumedly and three-year-old Sam - hidden beneath the covers.
"Sammy gets scared at night." The small figure of Dean informed him while resting his hand protectively on the smaller child's blonde locks. "I stay with him."
"You're a really good big brother." Sam told him, and remembered suddenly how true it was. "Sammy needs you." And for some reason, he didn't feel odd speaking about himself in the third person. He knew he should...but Sammy was the little child curled up with his big brother.
Sam was the adult forced into remembrance.
"I know he does." Little Dean said factually. "He misses mommy. I miss mommy too, but Sammy cries all night because he misses her so bad. He only doesn't cry when I'm with him. He knows I can take care of him."
The tears couldn't be kept away. His speaking was so factual. This was his big brother. This was how Dean thought as a child. "You protect him." He said. "You always will."
"Even against all the bad things that daddy says are out there? Even against the thing that stole mommy?" Suddenly the small child was insecure. Asking Sam to tell him something. To assure him.
Sam did. "Yeah," he watched the six-year-old scoot closer to Sammy. "You'll protect him. You never stop."
Sam and Dean shared look, a searching, needy, pleading look. In which the young child desperately wanted to believe that what Sam was telling him was the truth. And Sam pleaded silently for the honesty of his words to be genuine. Forever.
Sammy slept on. Oblivious to the world around him. Innocent.
"They're perfect." Jessica's voice sounded from the doorway and when Sam turned to look at her, he could make out the hallway of the Winchester's Kansas house behind her.
He turned back to the little boys, and was still in the different bedroom. Two worlds, coinciding so peacefully.
Little Sam and Dean were now lying down together, the time for talking with that Dean was done now, Sam knew. But he couldn't help but stay mesmerized at how his eyes remained open, seemingly unblinking. Just watching the adults.
Protecting Sammy.
"Our sons will be just like them." Jessica's voice brought Sam back to her again. Only this time, when he turned his head, the whole world changed with it.
He and Jessica were standing now in a different room. This one Sam didn't recognize at all. But when he stopped thinking and tried to feel the emotion behind it - because it was getting easier to do that, and harder and harder to form real thoughts -he got a sense of almost coating the place.
He couldn't think beyond that. Just...almost.
It was a bright sunroom. With multicolored windows on every wall. Sam stared at Jessica, who was simply smiling brightly, before looking around.
There were three little boys in the center of the room. All playing together in harmony, their voices and the sounds of their toys seemed to be muffled, but he didn't think it odd in this scenario. Sam didn't recognize these children as he'd recognized little Dean, but he saw the familiarity there.
As he stepped away from Jessica and moved closer to them, crouching down only a few feet away, he knew immediately who they were. He could feel only slightly glad that they didn't seem able to see him.
The littlest one - quite obviously the youngest - was no older than three. He sat in a protective space between the other two. Sam didn't see him as a whole, not right away. He just saw Jessica's eyes, Dean's nose and his own shaggy hair and long forehead. Together on this child, on his child.
He knew instantly that this little boy's name was Alex. Alex was his youngest son. His two older brothers were Shawn and Brian. Shawn was the oldest, named after Jessica's father.
That boy, who was nine-years-old, sat the tallest. His eyes darted around the room protectively. This son looked the most like Dean. Appropriate, as they shared the same role. He had only one thing of his parents at all, and that was Jessica's light hair color.
The middle son, Brian, Sam could tell just by looking at him that he felt like, and sometimes was, the odd one out. At the mere age of five, he already felt the strain of being the middle child.
Brian looked most like Sam, had almost nothing physical of Jessica, but had a touch of John in his serious disposition.
Sam's vision blurred and he saw it all, he saw their entire futures, knew it without having to ask. It was just there, as simple and as easy to find as his own name. His own memories.
Alex would spend his entire life trying to live up his brothers, trying to fit in with them. But he was gifted with Sam's intelligence, and despite all the teasing he would receive from the two elder boys, he'd spend almost nineteen years in school, studying to be a doctor, and fulfilling his dream of opening a small private practice right outside Lawrence. A family doctor.
Shawn and Alex would have a falling-out at in their late teens and early adulthoods respectively, the details behind which were so insignificant that neither can even remember them, and they won't speak for almost five years. Until one day the older man shows up on Alex's doorstep, half dead, and getting worse, from a drug overdose. A problem that no one had known about.
Alex will not turn Shawn away. He'd inherited a family loyalty from his Uncle so strong, that nothing could have stopped him from helping his brother when he'd asked for it so desperately.
The two brothers would bond together to help one another. Shawn would make a full recovery, and discover, while living with Alex, that the real reason the youngest child had always felt so out of place with his brothers was because he was gay. And had been battling with that since his early teenage years.
Shawn, after some initial shock, would accept Alex for who he is. They'd live comfortably together in Alex's three bedroom house until Shawn's marriage almost four years later, to an incredibly fierce and strong woman he had met in rehab. Living with them, after much argument, would be a recently divorced Brian.
Sam's middle son would have his heart ripped out by his wife, who will cheat on him with one of his best friends. And his Uncle Dean, after hearing this, will say - 'At least it wasn't one of your brothers.' - And Brian will appreciate his Uncle's simple, yet profound outlook on the situation.
Brian will move, with his young daughter, out of California and back to Lawrence, to share a house with Shawn and Alex. He'll hear Alex nervously confess his sexuality and will respond by laughing aloud and declaring, 'I knew it!' And after the initial shock, all the brothers will laugh, because they are together again and everything is okay.
Brian's daughter - Mary, named after her deceased great-grandma - will grow up happy and healthy. If not with a slightly skewed outlook on life. She will, after all, be raised in a house of three men. With many visits from her grandparents and Great Uncle and cousins.
Dean will have two sons of his own and there will be constant jokes about the generation's inability to father any other gender. Dean's sons, because of when they were born, will be closer to Mary's age, and will always be like older brothers to her.
Dean will never marry his life-long girlfriend, but no one really expected him too. Both members of that relationship will hate the idea of marriage, but will stay together forever nonetheless.
Jessica will die at the age of eighty-three, followed, seven months later, by Sam. Dean will die approximately a year before his brother and sister-in-law. But his girlfriend will age just a few years shy of a hundred. No one expected Dean to out live Sam. Everyone knew there would be no way he'd be able to deal with his brother's death.
And Sam followed Jessica much as John had followed his wife. Life spans reaching well into the nineties for both matriarchs of the clan. The Winchester's were a family full of people who loved life, that much was obvious.
"What do you see?" Jessica's voice ripped Sam away from his vision, and made him realize for the first time that that's what it had been. He had envisioned his family's future. His sons...
Were still playing happily on the floor in front of him. Still little children.
"Everything," his whispered breath answered Jess. "I see everything."
"Sam." She spoke solidly, and suddenly Sam's fear was overwhelming. He was torn away from the leftover thoughts and images of his family and was back in the present completely.
He didn't turn to face her, but he stood up. The three little boys vanished as he did so, but he could feel no shock. Just unbearable loss. Indefinable grief. He wanted them back. He wanted to see his sons again.
He knew at the same time, though, that something else was happening. A threat was forming.
"Sam," Jess spoke again, and her voice was detached, eerie. It reminded him of possessed Dean, the monster impersonating his brother. Only now, it was Jessica.
"Turn around." She demanded in that same, cold tone.
Sam didn't want to obey, but he couldn't really stop himself. His whole world had become some bizarre plot line, and he was just a mindless puppet being forced to follow the script. Only he could feel it too.
All he could do was feel the emotions now. He could barely act of his own accord.
And when he turned to face Jessica, his emotions told him to run and scream at what he saw, to act on his fright and horror. But he was trapped, he had the power to do nothing but stare, and wait.
End Chapter.
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