A/N: This follows from the revised chapter ten. Next chapter will be longer, I promise.

If I owned Supernatural, I'd have more than $2.87 in the bank.

o0o

It was a lot to take in. Chris let the memory of his siblings fade, and he and Sam were once again standing on the outside of the motel room door looking out at the parking lot where the afternoon sun had not changed position in the sky even though it felt like an eternity had passed for Sam.

Sam was still trying to process. He'd known that his brother wasn't stupid, but having it confirmed for him in empirical terms that he intrinsically understood had surprised him. And he knew better than anyone that the person Dean showed the rest of the world, was not the person he really was. But Sam saw the annoying, cocky, dumb jerk so often, that it was easy to forget that it was an act, that the person underneath that was smart, a whiz at many things mechanical and could put seemingly random pieces of a puzzle together – pieces that most people wouldn't even realize were meaningful or connected in any way – and name and identify what they were up against. Or name and identify what was up with either Sam or their dad, which was sometimes trickier.

And Sam knew that Dean needed them: he'd said so. Dean, who loathed all things touchy-feely, had actually said that he didn't want Sam to leave, said that he'd gone to get Sam because while he could hunt alone, he didn't want to. Dean didn't see hunting as a means to an end; whereas Sam would be happy to hang up his rock-salt gun when they'd sent the demon that killed their mom and Jess back to Hell, Dean would keep going, alone, because it needed to be done, and he was good at it. But he'd never really seen Dean's need to keep hunting as anything other than Dean selling himself short; he'd always been so sure that no one could look at their upbringing and be thankful for it.

He shook his head – it still didn't compute.

Chris sighed beside him. Maybe it was the century and a half of watching people's remembered histories and being forced to observe so many pivotal moments in people's convoluted lives; maybe he was just good at reading people from wading through all the denial and illusions people clung to as security blankets over the years; maybe because he did know Dean, so maybe Sammy was easier to read. But for whatever reason Chris could tell that Sam wasn't yet adding two and two to get four.

Sheesh – and he was supposed to be the smart one in the family.

Part of the problem was that none of the Winchesters liked to examine how their family functioned too closely. Sure, Dean was the one with the well-publicized aversion to 'chick flick' moments, and Sam did like talking their arguments and issues out, but there were a lot of things that the Winchesters didn't discuss or share or acknowledge. Case in point, while Sam badgered Dean to not shut him out, he hadn't been very forthcoming about his visions and dreams, not until he'd had to, to convince Dean to go back to Lawrence. And neither Sam nor John ever thanked Dean for all the things he did to keep them together and stable; and it wasn't ingratitude on their part as much as it was just how it was: they sky is blue, ghosts get salted and burned, and Dean was just there. And you didn't say please and thank you when issuing orders or fighting off pissed off witches or angry trolls. So while the whole family could rapidly process, identify and nullify any possible threat, very little of that focused concentration was ever aimed at their family dynamic.

And it wasn't just Dean that wasn't appreciated: John was too often painted with a negative brush; both his sons, in watching their father interact with their brother, tended to only see the lapses, the errors, the enforced training. But there were moments when John had taken time out to just be with his boys; and most of the absences were times that John was working late to support them, or hunting alone to protect them; and the all the training was so they could take care of themselves. John would never win father of the year, and in their single-parent, mission-focused childhoods he had relied on his steady older son because he could, but John, in his own way had done his best by them. And had turned out two capable, adaptable hunters even if only one of them truly fit the mold.

And yes it was likely that Sam too was overlooked for being the less naturally gifted hunter, was taken for granted in his incredibly thorough researching abilities and was dismissed for being too young even though he wasn't a kid any more and would likely always despair of being Sammy to his family. None of the three was perfect, but today's lesson was Dean 101, and Chris' student was in danger of a failing grade.

Chris looked at Sam, assessing his receptivity to one last memory. There were so many moments he could choose from: he could show Sam any one of the ordinary everyday sacrifices that Dean had made on his behalf, all the times Dean tried to downplay or gloss over all the things they couldn't have or do. He could show Sammy the hours of sleep Dean had lost, the opportunities he never got to pursue or the skills he never got to develop as they didn't pertain to hunting or tracking down paranormal pests. And in his quest to show Sam how normal a family they were in spite of their relentless pursuit of Mary's killer Chris had avoided any memories of fighting or killing monsters, but there were an endless supply of 'do whatever it takes to keep my family safe' moments from both Dean and John, and eventually from Sam too.

But Sammy was starting to get that his family worked, and that they looked out for each other. What he didn't get was why it didn't bother Dean more. Why Dean was content in his role and how come he didn't feel intrinsically gypped by life in general and their father in particular.

Well, there was one memory that might just be the catalyst Chris needed. It had been the catalyst for everything in their lives that followed. Maybe it was time for Sammy, who less than four months ago had yelled at Dean for not understanding what it was that he was going through with the death of Jess, maybe it was time for Sammy to see what Dean had lost.

Yes, it was time.

It was time to take Sammy home to mama.

o0o

TBC