I own Chris, but that doesn't really make up for not owning Dean or Sam.

o0o

Sam tried to jerk out of Chris' grasp as Chris pushed him through the motel room door yet again. His indignant curses were a fine tribute to his brother's teaching skills, but were mostly lost as yet another living room took shape around them. This one looked vaguely familiar but Sam couldn't quite place it. It was small and sparsely furnished. It was tidy except for the Fisher-Price multi-level play parking garage with six or seven different cars on and around it, and a large yellow Tonka dump truck filled with brightly coloured Duplo pieces and some Hot-Wheels cars. It was not very luxurious, but it was cheerful and homey and thoroughly lived in. Sam didn't recall it as one of their many temporary homes.

Sam could hear a woman's voice singing "You Are My Sunshine" and a young boy's voice chiming in on when prompted with the word "sunshine" and the correct end word of each of the lines of the song. It sounded like a much-practiced routine between mother and son. Unless Dean had a kid and never told Sam – and after learning about Cassie, not many things would surprise Sam any more – then this had to be…

"No! I don't want to see it!"

Chris froze the memory around them, as Sam rounded on him angrily.

"Isn't it bad enough I had to watch Jessica die – watch Jess die before it happened, as it happened and every night after it happened? Isn't it enough that I saw the woman I loved and wanted to marry die above me, writhing in agony on the ceiling? Isn't it enough that I've had to deal with this moment every day of my life? Do I have to see it too? Damnit Chris, I…"

"SHUT UP!" Chris uncharacteristically roared at Sam. "And get over yourself! Not everything is about you." Chris paused to collect himself. "And give me some bloody credit would you? No, I am not going to make you see that moment! I am not a monster. I know you don't need to see it. And I know what you've gone through with Jessica and I would never subject you to needless, gratuitous pain just to prove a point."

Chris glared at Sammy whose body was literally shaking with anger. Sam had had it with the know-it-all interfering spirit and just wanted this over with. He started to speak again, but Chris cut him off.

"Listen! For once in your life, shut up and listen! I realize that your life went to Hell that day. I know that that one day in November 1983 has tainted everything in your life that followed. But you know what? Both yours and Dean's life started before that moment in November. You don't remember any of it, but that doesn't negate the short time that you did have a happy family! And I should think that you would welcome to opportunity to see your mother, and to see your father and brother when your mother was alive."

Chris watched as Sam's stance relaxed as he tried to absorb Chris' words.

"Sam, yes, I've shown you that it hasn't been easy for anyone in your family, and I've tried to show you that your father and brother would do anything for you. What I want you to see is that being 'normal' doesn't guarantee happiness, and that what's the most important thing to Dean, before hunting, before finding your mom's demon – and before his precious car – is his family. And not just protecting his family and keeping them safe, but having a family and being able to be with his family and enjoying the moments you have together, because the very first major life lesson your brother learned is that life is short and that fair has nothing to do with it.

"What I wanted to show you was not your mother's death, but the moments she was alive."

Sam looked stunned. He hadn't really thought about it. His mother wasn't a real person to him, sadly, because all he knew of her was her death. He had asked Dean about her, and Dean had tried to give Sammy a sense of a woman he himself had barely known, but Sam only had a few pictures and one all-too-brief encounter with his mother in this self-same house from less than a year ago to build an image of who his mother had been.

He wasn't sure he was ready to see this, but Chris was right, this was a rare opportunity. He could finally meet his mother as a person, and maybe see more of where he and Dean came from, not just genetically but personality-wise.

Plus it would likely give him more ammunition to tease Dean with when this was over.

He knew that seeing his mother could only be bittersweet, but he'd never have a chance like this again.

He took a deep breath in and exhaled much of his anger and tension and nodded to Chris to continue.

Two jubilant voices were holding the last note of the song as the memory resumed. Two figures emerged from the stairs from the basement. Mary was looking tired but content, with her shoulder-length blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail; she was wearing jeans and a Black Sabbath tour t-shirt. She looked startlingly ordinary, and much less of a tragic icon and way more of a real person. She was bracing a full load of clean laundry against one hip. And was holding a lit cigarette in her other hand. His mother smoked? It was so far removed from his picture of his mother that it jarred Sam. He had expected a gentle, loving woman in a flowing dress, perhaps, not a tired, un-made up woman in grubby jeans and a t-shirt, smoking cigarettes. It was very disconcerting

Following his mother, pretending to be a racing car, was three-and-a-half-year old Dean, looking very adorable with his startlingly blond hair and delighted, unguarded smile.

"Mama is the baby gonna be yur 'Sunsine' too, cause I don' wan' him ta be." Young Dean had parked himself under the coffee table and was looking over at his mother expectantly. Mary was smiling fondly at her only child as she began to fold the laundry at the dining room table.

"No, Sunny-Bear, the baby will be my Twinkle Winkle Little Star instead, how about that?" Mary offered instead the name of another song whose title Dean hadn't quite mastered and which while it was in his small lexicon of music, wasn't his current favourite.

Almost four-year old Dean gave that some serious contemplation – all of two seconds – and decided that was okay. "Okay, mama." And he went back to zooming the truck he'd found under the table around its legs.

"But sweetie, we don't know if it's going to be a little brother or a little sister yet. It could be a little girl."

Dean scrunched up his little button nose and pronounced: "But I wan' a boy. Girls are yucky."

Mary just smiled at her son and saved the debate about Dean's soon to be sibling for another day. Dean was adamant that he was getting a brother. Her son was already showing signs of the Winchester stubbornness: in fact if Mary was being honest that bull-headedness ran on both sides of the family. Mary resumed folding the laundry and began humming under her breath.

"She's humming Judas Priest! My mother is humming heavy metal songs. And smoking a cigarette." It hit Sam then that he didn't really know the woman he was watching, he didn't know what her favourite song was, what she liked to do for fun, or really anything much about what made her tick. The information he had was all second hand and all mostly from Dean, who had been too young himself to be able to answer any of Sam's questions for him.

Mary swore out loud as she knocked cigarette ashes on a clean white t-shirt. Both the past and current sons focused on their mother.

"Yur not s'possed ta say that Mama. That's a bad word. Like 'fuck'." Dean had come into the dining room to admonish his mother. He was looking up at her earnestly.

Mary looked at Dean regretfully. "You're right, sunshine. Mama's not supposed to say those words and you shouldn't either, okay?

"Okay, Mama." And Dean resumed his cross-country road race under the dining room table, unperturbed.

"See? Your mother swore too. I can show you her drinking beer, her terrible driving skills and her quick temper. And Sammy you definitely got your ability to brood from her. And your love of reading. She was a keenly intelligent woman yet she could never remember the words to songs; she didn't let that stop her from singing though, she just made up words instead – it drove your father nuts – he was always a stickler for things being precise.

"I know you don't know this woman, I know she's never been a real person to you, but what I'm trying to show you is that she was a real person to Dean, a real person who was ripped away from him without warning."

Sam was silent for several moments, watching the easy, untarnished love between mother and son. It was touching, it was sweet, and he so didn't want to see it. Watching Dean interact with a woman he really didn't know meant very little to him, other than to make him jealous of the time he'd never had with his mom. He didn't want to see this. What he wanted to see…

He turned pleading eyes to Chris.

"Could you… can I see… could you show me me and mom? Please?"

Chris looked at Sam in surprise. The brothers were certainly nothing alike. Life had taught Dean to rely on himself so he never seemed to expect much from people, such that he rarely asked for anything from people unless it pertained to a hunt or to his family. Dean had had his own experience with the ghostly trio's powers and had seen what they'd chosen to show him, but hadn't asked for more – it hadn't occurred to him. Sam had gown up trusting that there would always be someone there for him, knowing that John or Dean would take care of him, would protect him and would have the answers to his questions. Sam had been asking questions since he could talk, always wanting to know more and had always had someone to answer them, or someone to take him to the library so he could look it up. While college hadn't provided all of the answers, it had taught him that it was okay to ask for things, it wasn't a weakness to rely on others and that you could have expectations of and could trust in people other than yourself. Whereas Dean was almost utterly incapable of asking, Sam was virtually fearless.

And Chris thought that maybe he could accommodate Sammy, after one more moment that Sam would definitely not want to see. He was after all, trying to make a point.

"I have to show you one last memory of Dean, one last chapter of Dean 101, no matter how much you don't want to see it – and no it's not your mother's death. But it is your mother's funeral."

Sammy started shaking his head in denial.

Chris persisted. "I think it's important that you see it, and see what it did to that bright young boy. I think it will be the final piece to the puzzle that is Dean William Winchester. And then, yes, I can show you your mother – your smoking, cussing and swearing mother who loved her sons."

Sam was still shaking his head and had his hands over his eyes in a vain attempt to try to block out what he knew was coming.

He didn't think he was ready for this. He didn't think he'd ever be ready for this.

o0o

TBC

The next chapter should finally see some resolution. Should be due out on Monday.