A/N: Apologies for the delay - this was supposed to be up with the Prologue, but the website kept crashing on me yesterday so I gave up!

Again, nothing is mine. If I owned Dean and Sam I would be very happy. If I owned Jensen and Jared I would be even happier... And probably Wanted for kidnapping...

Chapter One

Dean stood on tiptoe and looked out of the kitchen window for the hundredth time that morning, twelve-year-old hands splayed across the rusty drainer as he strained for a glimpse of that familiar figure walking through the broken gate and up the overgrown path towards the shabby little apartment that, for this month at least, the Winchesters called 'home'.

The window was dingy, smeared with the grease from a thousand hurriedly-cooked meals and the nicotine from a thousand hurriedly-smoked cigarettes. But Dean could see out okay. If he stood on tiptoe.

He sighed.

Dad hadn't come home.

Since he was eight years old, this had been Dean's single, most paralysingly terrifying recurring nightmare. From that very first time, aged eight, when he had turned wide, frightened eyes up to his Dad as he left him to take care of Sammy while he took off to hunt God-knows-what deadly creature of the night, when he'd asked him that question and waited patiently for an answer that never came, this had been Dean's single, biggest fear:

"What if you don't come back?"

Dad hadn't come home.

It had been three days now, and Dad hadn't come home.

"It's just for tonight, sport," Dad had said, swinging the canvas holdall up onto his shoulder. He called Dean 'sport' these days, the nickname 'kiddo' having been passed on to Sammy like one of Dean's hand-me-down t-shirts. "I'll be back tomorrow. Or the next day at the latest."

But now it was the day after the next day, and Dad still hadn't come home.

Dean fought the wave of nausea threatening to rise up from his stomach and into his throat, fingers clinging to the cool rusty metal of the drainer as phrases like 'Child Services' and 'foster care' battled 'werewolf' and 'skinwalker' in a ruthless attempt to find the words that would scare the kid the most.

When Dean was ten, he and Sammy had been taken into care.

That had only been for the one night, too, as Child Services attempted to ascertain just exactly how he'd ended up in the Emergency Room with a four inch gash to his forehead and a dislocated shoulder.

Somehow, Dad had come up with an explanation that never once included the word 'poltergeist', while simultaneously convincing those do-gooding social workers that he didn't beat the crap out of his kids.

That had been another in the ever-increasing list of Most Terrifying Nights of My Life that Dean could no longer count on his fingers. Sammy had cried until he had no breath left to cry with and no tears left to shed, and had clung on to Dean until his arms hurt and his big brother had six-year-old finger-sized bruises all around his middle.

But Dean hadn't cried. Not once. Dean had been brave and stoic, every bit the reliable, dependable rock of a big brother his Dad kept telling him he was supposed to be.

"They'll let us go home tomorrow, Sammy," he'd reassured the little boy, who buried his face against Dean's chest when the nice foster lady had tried to tempt him with fried chicken.

The other kids in the house had looked at them like they were mental and run off with all the food.

"You'll never see your Dad again," one particularly nasty little monster called Abigail had informed them, twisting a blonde pigtail around her finger as she devoured a chicken leg. "And they'll separate you. Send you off to different foster homes. And you'll never see each other again either."

If Sammy hadn't started sobbing even harder right then, Dean would have shoved the remnants of the chicken leg down sweet little Abigail's throat and chopped off her pigtails with the biggest knife he could lay his hands on.

As it was, he'd settled for glaring at her menacingly, which had only succeeded in encouraging her to sit and stare at him for the next hour, before declaring, "You've got girl's eyes," and proceeding to ask him if he wanted to kiss her.

It was at this point that Dean discovered there were advantages to having a dislocated shoulder and a terrified kid brother who wouldn't let go of your shirt. It would have been very, very bad, as Dad had pointed out afterwards, had Dean actually knocked an eleven-year-old girl's teeth out while his father was struggling to defend himself against accusations of domestic violence.

Didn't stop Dean breaking Abel O'Shaughnessy's arm the next day at recess though.

"Once they put you in a Home," the older boy had said, getting in Dean's face with his implied capital letters and buck teeth, "you're in The System." He seemed very pleased with his use of that term. 'The System'. Like he knew what it actually meant, having heard it on some documentary his sister had made him watch as 'a warning'. "They'll split you up," he'd added, glancing down at Sammy, who had somehow found Dean amidst the throng of excited recess-bound kids within thirty seconds of the bell ringing, like some demented six-year-old homing pigeon. "You and that geeky little brother of yours."

Dean felt Sam's fingers slip into those of his good hand, while the fingers of the kid's other hand found familiar purchase on his big brother's shirt.

While on any other day macho ten-year-old Dean Winchester would have died of embarrassment at his kid brother grabbing hold of him like that in front of everyone, right now Big Brother Dean Winchester was far too busy bristling at O'Shaughnessy's ill-considered words to care a whole hell of a lot.

Of course, it didn't help that these same words had also issued forth from the forked tongue of the hideous Abigail the night before.

Unfortunately, O'Shaughnessy didn't know Dean well enough yet to recognise when to shut the hell up, adding, "Now they know your freaky Dad beats on you and everything," as if it was some juicy piece of schoolyard tittle-tattle that just had to be disseminated.

Dean didn't actually remember shoving Sam behind him, grabbing O'Shaughnessy's wrist and spinning the bigger boy into a half-nelson that ended with the sickening crack of breaking bone.

How the hell had he found out about the foster home?

That was all Dean could think as he calmly took Sam's hand and lead him away from the sobbing, shaking heap that was Abel O'Shaughnessy.

He'd been expelled, of course.

A fact that Mrs. Pritchard, the Principal of their next school, had been only too eager to point out.

Mole Lady.

Dean shuddered. He still had nightmares about the growth on that evil little woman's upper lip.

"Dean, when's Daddy coming home?"

Sam's words jerked Dean back to the present, the older boy tearing his gaze from the greasy window long enough to regard his kid brother wordlessly.

Sam was skinny and awkward and stuck out at funny angles, with unruly hair that always seemed to need cutting, dark brown like Dad's, and those dark chameleonic eyes that changed colour with his mood, hazel green like Dean's when he was happy, but dark and thunderous when he was mad. Just like Dad's.

Sometimes Dean hated it that Sam reminded him of Dad so damned much.

For a second, Dean considered sharing the terror gnawing at his insides with his brother. "A problem shared is a problem halved," he remembered Mom telling him that time he'd hidden in the closet after making baby Sammy cry.

"Tell me what's wrong, love," Mom had said, folding him into her arms and a hug that smelt like cinnamon.

"I took Mushy and made Sammy cry," he had admitted, through hacking sobs and Mom's thick blonde curls. Mushy was Sammy's favourite toy, a beat up sausage dog with no eyes that had once been Dean's, but now could usually be found wedged between Sammy's hardening gums.

Mom had cooed and stroked his hair and told him Sammy would forgive him being mean to him just this once. But he shouldn't be mean to him again. Not if he wanted to be a good big brother.

And Dean really did want to be a good big brother.

Which was why he couldn't bring himself to say those awful words "Dad didn't come home" to Sammy now. Dean couldn't burden him with that kind of worry. Sammy was only eight years old, for Christ's sake.

He was just a kid.

And Dean was supposed to be the man of the house when Dad was gone.

"I don't know, Sammy," Dean had answered his brother truthfully. He would never lie to Sam, but times like these sometimes demanded a slightly skewed version of the truth. "Soon, I guess."

The trouble with skewing the truth, however, as Dean discovered the second his eyes met Sam's, was that oftentimes the person whose truth was being skewed was very much aware of that fact.

This was Sam, after all.

Sam, who picked up on Dean's every expression, every twitch, every movement, every word he didn't say just as much as those he did. Sam, who knew Dean better than anyone else in the whole world and who was a hell of a lot smarter than any eight-year-old had any right to be.

Sam, who just instinctively knew when something was off.

"He should have come home yesterday, right?"

A problem shared is a problem halved…

Dean sighed. Sam always had been able to read him like an open book; an open book in large print with a title lit up in bright orange neon on the front cover that said, 'Hey Sam! There's something I'm not telling you!'

"Yeah," Dean admitted, eyes slightly downcast as he tried to keep that telltale tremor of fear out of his voice. "He should have been home yesterday."

To his credit, Sam didn't crumple even the slightest bit at Dean's honesty. Not like he might have done a couple of years ago. Sam had done a lot of growing up in the last couple of years – it was kind of a family requirement. Gone were the days when the fear of being tossed into a foster home without his big brother had had him screaming in terror in the dead of night, arms locked so tightly around Dean's neck that the older boy could barely breathe.

No, Sam just nodded, silently following Dean's gaze out the smeary window onto the overcast street beyond.

Sometimes, Dean found himself wishing for the return of that terrified six-year-old who wouldn't let go of his shirt. At least when Sammy had been that needy, Dean had had less time to focus on his own fears.

And if the thought of being tossed into a foster home without his brother no longer scared the wits out of Sam, it sure as hell still terrified Dean.

He may not have cried that night they'd been taken into care. But he had the night after, locked away in the bathroom where Sammy couldn't see him, light switched off so he wouldn't have to look at himself in the mirror, head buried on his knees as the shock of the whole thing finally got the better of him.

God, he'd broken that poor kid's arm. What had he been thinking?

"Maybe we should call Pastor Jim?" Sammy suggested, always calm in a crisis.

Those had always been Dad's instructions, after all, Dean found himself thinking. And Sam knew Dad's instructions every bit as well as he did.

Although Dad had never answered Dean's question – "What if you don't come back?" – he had drilled it into his sons enough times that, besides himself and each other, Pastor Jim was the one person on this earth they could truly trust.

Dean glanced at the telephone clinging to the side of the rapidly-emptying food cupboard and considered his options. He'd already checked the level of their provisions that morning: a can of baked beans, half a packet of Oreo's and a box of Froot Loops. The fridge, however, was unfortunately devoid of milk to go with the Froot Loops, and currently contained only a bottle of dried up tomato ketchup and a bulb of garlic. No matter how low their supplies became, Dean could never understand how their fridge always came to harbour a bulb of garlic.

Digging in his pocket, he pulled out two crumpled dollar bills, a quarter, three pennies and a button. He wasn't exactly sure where the button had come from or how it had found its way into the pocket of his jeans, but he was pretty certain that he couldn't exchange it for a pack of M and M's at the local Wal-Mart.

Sam looked at the money in Dean's hand and frowned. "You could always sell a kidney," he offered, expression deadly serious, as Sam's expression generally was. At the blank look on his brother's face, he clarified, "Like that guy on TV."

Dean remembered that show, throwing Sammy a grimace and the snapped retort, "You sell a kidney!"

Sam had smiled at that, relieved to see some of Normal Dean peeking out of Worried Dean's eyes. "Or you could call Pastor Jim."

Although Dean was always acutely aware when Sam was manipulating him, it rarely stopped him caving in to the younger boy's will. "Alright, already!" he conceded, throwing up his hands and reaching for the phone. "I'll call Pastor Jim!"

It was at that exact second that a loud rapping on the front door caused Sam to jump backwards like a startled rabbit, while Dean drew his hand back from the phone as if it was electrified.

The boys' eyes locked in mutual apprehension, until a second, third and finally a succession of knocks followed quickly on the echo of the first: Morse Code for 'Sunday', which, of course, today was.

Dad's signal.

Dean's heart missed a beat, relief for one brief moment flooding over him like a chocolate tidal wave.

"Dad's home?" Sam frowned, and Dean recognised his brother's words as a question rather than a statement of fact. Neither of the boys had seen their father – had seen anyone – approach the apartment, a fact with which, Sam was sure, Dean would no doubt berate himself later, while a quick glance through the kitchen window revealed no sign of Dad's gleaming black Chevy Impala parked on the street outside, either.

The brief feeling of elation quickly turned to a lead weight in Dean's stomach.

He glanced from the door to Sammy and back again, before his eyes came to rest on the loaded shotgun his Dad always left propped by the door whenever he had to leave the boys by themselves.

The mantra, Shoot first, ask questions later, started to pound through Dean's head, where common sense had long been driven out by instinct and exhaustive training. Protect Sammy, Protect Sammy, Protect

"Or we could see who's at the door," Sam broke in on Dean's instinctive 'kill or be killed' response as if he'd read the older boy's thoughts like a teleprompter scrolling across his forehead.

Dean just looked at him.

Open. Freakin'. Book.

Sam smiled at him sweetly, before inching over to the door, standing on tiptoe and peering through the peephole.

"Huh," he said, turning to Dean, who by this time had his fingers on the butt of the shotgun. "Not a demon."

Dean shrugged. "So?" he asked. "What is it?"

Sam took another peek through the spyhole before mirroring Dean's shrug. "Some guy," he replied, relinquishing his spot so that his brother could take a look.

There was something vaguely familiar about the decidedly ordinary-looking man currently waiting patiently on the doorstep, but Dean couldn't quite figure out what. Average height – certainly shorter than Dad, average build – certainly less muscular than Dad. Sandy blond hair. Hazel eyes.

He certainly didn't look like one of Dad's friend.

He was wearing a suit, for starters.

But he did know the signal…

Reluctantly relinquishing his tentative hold on the shotgun, Dean shook his head before deciding that, as usual, his geeky kid brother was probably right.

"Who's there?" he called, trying to make his voice sound deeper, but only succeeding in sounding like a kid trying to make his voice sound deeper.

It was Sam's turn to shake his head. "Lame, dude," he muttered, garnering a grimace and a slap to the back of his head.

The man on the doorstep coughed uncertainly. "I – I'm looking for Dean or Samuel Winchester," he managed tentatively, his right hand fumbling nervously with something in his jacket pocket.

Sam's eyes widened, and Dean briefly reconsidered the shotgun response, before asking, "Who wants them?" just like he'd heard Dad ask a hundred times. The guy looked like a social worker, and Dean had seen his Dad deal with enough of them to know what not to say.

The man laughed a little apprehensively. "Yeah. Right. God, I'm such an idiot!" he laughed again, voice sounding high and strangled. "Your Dad sent me."

Dean and Sam exchanged a worried look.

"He's been – er – held up," the guy continued. "Didn't want you guys left on your own any longer."

Dean frowned suspiciously, not the most trusting boy at the best of times. He guessed he'd just been raised to believe the worst of people.

"Did I get the signal right?" the man asked, sounding ever more nervous. "Because I don't really know Morse Code, and…"

"Who are you?" Dean demanded then, irrationally irritated by the guy's incessant wittering.

The man laughed again, although the tone had changed, almost sounding regretful. "God, you probably don't remember me," he burst out, and Dean could see him run a hand across his creased forehead. "That's Dean, right?" When Dean refused to confirm or deny, the man continued, "Last time I saw you, you were just a little thing – it was just after your Mom…" the guy stopped abruptly, coughing again to cover his embarrassment. "Well," he continued. "Just after. You were four, I think."

"Jeez, enough with my life story, man," Dean muttered under his breath, waiting for the guy to finish.

Sam caught his attention. "But how does he know…?" He let the question hang in the space between them, until the man continued.

"I'm Ian."

Like that was supposed to mean something.

"Your – erm – your Uncle. Remember? Uncle Ian. Your Mom's brother."

The question mark floating between the two brothers exploded into an exclamation point, as Dean shook his head vehemently at Sam, whose eyes had grown to the size of saucers.

"No way," Dean mouthed the words, continuing to shake his head, a more than emphatic negative that Sammy couldn't possibly misinterpret.

He didn't remember an Uncle. He didn't remember an Uncle at all.

When Dean finally found his voice, it was to yell, "My Mom didn't have a brother," which kind of gave away the whole 'Who's asking?' tough guy don't-give-up-your-identity thing.

The man on the doorstep laughed awkwardly. "I told your Dad you'd never remember me," he said. "I told him you wouldn't believe me, with or without his damn signal." His tone had altered ever so slightly, and Dean could hear him cursing to himself through clenched teeth. "Goddamned cloak and dagger ex-Marine crap…"

"Maybe we should open the door?"

Dean recognised the glint in Sammy's eyes, the look of enraptured hope making its way across his features.

Dean knew what Sam was thinking.

Mom's family had finally come to rescue them, to take them away to that fairytale place where little kids went to school and played soccer and didn't have to learn the finer points of bone-burning.

That place called Normal, USA.

"Don't even think it, Sammy," Dean muttered, glancing back at the door just as the guy started jabbering again.

"Your Dad and I, well…" he paused awkwardly. "We had kind of a falling out. Right after your Mom… Well, we haven't really spoken since." Another awkward pause. "For him to call me, to ask me for my help, he must have been in quite a jam, and real worried about you guys. Must have figured, you know, only living relative and all that. Plus, I only live a few towns over – "

"You live near here?" Sammy burst out excitedly, garnering another slap from his big brother. "Ow!" he frowned at Dean, who just shook his head at him.

"You so must have been adopted," the older boy declared, taking another peek through the peephole.

"Sammy?" Ian asked. "Is that you? God, I'm so looking forward to meeting you face to face! You were just a little baby the last time I saw you!"

Sam beamed, eyes shining as he fairly bounced with excitement, despite the dark looks his brother was throwing in his direction.

"Sap," Dean muttered, before turning his attention back to the guy on the doorstep. "Why should we believe you?" he demanded, trying to convince himself that there wasn't a small, Sammy-sized part of him secretly yearning to believe him.

There was a brief pause before Ian's voice returned. "Ask me anything. Anything about your Mom. I'll bet I know the answer."

Dean bit his lip. Even if the guy on the doorstep wasn't Mom's brother, he probably knew more about Mary Winchester than either of her sons did.

"We could talk about this inside…?" the disembodied voice added.

Sam exchanged a pleading look with his big brother. "Please, Dean?" he wheedled. "After all, you're the one with the shotgun. I promise to let you shoot him if he tries anything."

Dean almost smiled, but the direness of the situation quickly brought him back to earth with a crash. "Damn straight I'll shoot him," he agreed, expression every bit as serious as Sam's usually was. "Uncle, human or neither."

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Stupid, stupid, stupid, the little voice in the back of Dean's head was screaming at him as he slowly unbolted the front door and lifted the latch.

God, what was he doing? This guy could be a child molester. Or a demon. Or both.

He almost stopped as he slowly began to open the door, but Sammy had grabbed hold of the handle and wrenched it open before Dean even knew what had happened.

The guy standing on the doorstep beamed down at them, trying to pretend he wasn't even slightly perturbed by the antagonistic scowl on the older boy's face.

"Wow, you guys got big!" he exclaimed, offering his hand to Dean as if to acknowledge his current status as head of the rapidly dwindling Winchester household.

Some of Dad's friends had tried this tactic with Dean too in an often futile attempt to overcome the boy's exceptionally highly-developed ingrained sense of general mistrust.

Pastor Jim. Caleb. Bobby. Dean had only ever lowered his defences for them. And even then, not completely. There were some walls Dean would never let down, not even for Sammy.

Nonetheless, he took the proffered hand and shook it dutifully, the man's skin oddly cool and a hell of a lot softer than any of Dad's friends' hands had ever been.

"It's good to see you again, Dean," Ian said, smiling sadly. "Even if you don't remember my having seen you previously."

Dean didn't reply, resisting the urge to wipe his hand on his t-shirt while Sammy enthusiastically took up the welcome wagon slack.

"Come in, Uncle Ian!" he insisted, catching the man by his sleeve and pulling him over the threshold into the kitchen.

Ian seemed a touch surprised by the little boy's eagerness, but responded to it a hell of a lot better than to Dean's suspicious frown. "God, Sammy," he said, appraising the kid as he simultaneously took in his rather bleak surroundings. "I can't believe how tall you are!"

He put his hands on Sam's shoulders, barely registering Dean's instinctive move towards him at the sudden action, and it took all of Dean's self-control not to scream the words reverberating through his skull out loud, Get your hands the hell off my brother!

Dean bit his lip hard, the blissfully ecstatic smile on Sammy's face like a knife plunged into his chest.

Ian continued to size Sammy up, hands still resting on his shoulders. "What are you," he asked. "Seven? Eight?"

"Eight," Sam confirmed proudly, grinning from ear to ear, and Dean couldn't help thinking how, for the first time, Sam actually looked like a normal eight-year-old kid just then.

Ian nodded, returning the smile. "Eight," he echoed. "Big boy now, huh? You were just a baby last time I saw you."

Dean's scowl intensified. "And when was that again?" he asked.

Ian's smile faltered slightly, Dean's question throwing him off balance. "Er, let me think," he began, just as Sam decided to play host by leading him into the kitchen and indicating for him to sit at the rusty metal table.

At least the little one hadn't grown up completely wild.

"It was – it was some weeks after…" Ian swallowed. "After the fire," he replied, smiling weakly at Sam before returning Dean's accusatory gaze. "You and your Dad were staying with some neighbours across the street."

That much Dean could vaguely remember.

Another sad smile seemed to drift across Ian's face, and he looked down at his hands as they came to rest on the cool tabletop.

Sam had taken one of the chairs opposite, one foot tucked beneath him on the seat as he gazed in rapt wonder at this newfound relative, while Dean stood slightly behind him, the shotgun never too far away from his fingers or his thoughts.

Ian looked up at Dean then, his eyes sparkling with unshed tears as he finally found his voice. "God," he said quietly, meeting the boy's almost hostile stare. "You were such a broken little thing."

Dean shifted uncomfortably, cheeks colouring as Sam cast him the briefest of inquisitive glances before returning his attention to his Uncle.

Ian seemed to shake himself mentally before continuing. "I'm relieved, you know…" he faltered, not exactly encouraged by the unrelenting frostiness in Dean's gaze. "That you started talking again." The concerned smile seemed almost genuine. "I wanted to take you to a therapist, but your Dad wouldn't hear of it." His voice had grown bitter, his eyes averted from Dean's as they returned to their examination of his hands. "Said you'd 'snap out of it' on your own. Just couldn't accept the fact that his son might have needed a little help getting over…" he stopped again, eyes locking with Dean's as the boy's seemingly constant scowl slipped ever-so-slightly. "Well," he said, sensing the need to change the subject. "Just one of the things on which your Dad and I didn't see eye to eye."

"Is that why you didn't keep in touch with us?" Sam asked, sounding almost hopeful. "Is that why you didn't see us any more?"

Ian frowned, and again Dean couldn't help thinking his expression looked kind of genuine. "What – you never got the cards – the presents I sent you?"

Sam's forehead crinkled, accusing eyes flitting straight to Dean, who merely shrugged.

The smile on Ian's face had gone, replaced by an unmistakeable mask of anger. "Birthdays?" he said, not wanting to believe this. "Christmas?"

Sam shook his head silently, flinching slightly as his erstwhile Uncle thumped his fist against the tabletop, causing it to wobble precariously.

"Why'd he bother giving me a damn Post Office Box number to send stuff to if he wasn't going to pass on the stuff I sent to you?"

Sam looked decidedly indignant. "You think Daddy deliberately didn't give us the stuff you sent us?"

Ian covered Sam's hand with his own, causing Dean another involuntary spasm of movement, before meeting the younger boy's devastated gaze. "I'm sure whatever your Dad did, he did for a reason," he said neutrally, and Dean half-wished the guy had berated his Dad just a little, if only to give Dean a rational reason to hate him.

"But that's just mean," Sammy observed, sticking out his bottom lip in the well-practiced Sammy Pout.

Ian shrugged. "When your Dad took off with you guys, it took me six months to track him down and another three to convince him to give me that much – a Post Office Box number." The man shook his head slightly, squeezing Sam's hand. "I don't know," he said, somehow affected by the look of betrayal on the boy's face. "Don't be too hard on your Dad." He pushed one of Sammy's stray curls out of his eyes and Dean actually flinched. "I said some pretty awful things to him before he left Lawrence."

"Like what?" Sam asked, fascinated by this mine of information sitting opposite him, this man who could fill in all the gaps of Sam's early life that his Dad would never talk about.

It had always been left to Dean to tell Sammy about their Mom. Dad never talked about her. Ever. And that annoyed the hell out of Sam, especially as, unlike Dean, he had never seen the old man crying as he gazed at her photograph.

Ian sighed heavily, shifting awkwardly on the uncomfortable metal chair. "The way your Dad started to act after Mary – after your Mom… We all thought it was the stress taking its toll. I mean, none of us thought for a minute he actually believed the crazy he stuff he started to talk about."

"What crazy stuff?" Sam prodded.

Ian looked down at him, forcing a smile onto his face to mask something darker. "Oh, nothing you need to worry about, kiddo," he said reassuringly.

Patronising bastard, Dean found himself thinking, bristling at the guy's use of Sammy's nickname, the nickname only Dad was allowed to use. Like we don't know what 'crazy stuff' you're talking about.

"But – you know – " Ian continued. "Me. Your Dad's friends. Your Mom's friends. We worried. Not just for him, although we were worried as hell about him. No, we worried for you kids. We wanted to make sure you were safe, that was all…"

"Why would we not have been safe with Dad?" Dean put in then, his voice as hard and as cold as ice.

Ian looked at Dean for the first time in a good few minutes, his attention for the most part having been devoted to Sam. "Well," he began, not breaking eye contact with the older boy, clearly measuring each word as it left his mouth. "Some of us started to fear for your Dad's sanity." He inclined his head to one side. "You know what that word means, right?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "We're not stupid," he said, glancing at Dean just to make sure he actually did know what the word meant.

Dean just looked back at him, before replying, more to Sam than to Ian, "You thought Dad was nuts?"

Ian bit his lip and tried to keep the compassionate smile in place. "No," he said, carefully. "Not 'nuts'. Just – just troubled. He'd just lost his wife, after all, and his home; and he'd found himself left with two little boys to take care of by himself. It was perfectly understandable that he should be stressed – "

"We know what that word means, too," Dean put in at the look on his Uncle's face.

Ian smiled again and nodded. "But he'd started talking to some pretty crazy people who were filling his head with a bunch of crazy stuff… And then there was the time he almost killed you…" Ian stopped abruptly, suddenly realising that in his determination to excuse his actions in the face of his oldest nephew's hostility, he may have gone too far.

Both Dean and Sam just stared at him, Sam's mouth hanging open while Dean's had compressed into a thin white line.

Sam, unusually, found his voice first. "Dad nearly killed Dean?" he echoed, disbelief obvious on his sceptical features.

Ian shifted again, awkwardly, unsure whether he should continue. "That was unfair," he stammered. "I shouldn't have said that."

"Yes you should!" Sam burst out. "We need to know this stuff and Dad never tells us anything!"

Ian glanced from Sam to Dean, who was still staring at him with those big accusing eyes of his. He looked back at Sam before continuing. "I honestly don't think he knew what he was doing," he said, trying to explain. "Kept saying he had to make sure Dean wasn't – " he broke off again, glancing back over at the older boy. "We found him holding your head under the water in the bathtub," he managed finally. "And when we tried to pull him off you, he kept screaming that he had to know if 'it' had got you, that if it had, then it would manifest and save you. Whatever the hell that meant." He shook his head and shifted his attention back to Sam. "And I think when he'd done with your brother you were going to be next in the water, Sammy." He ran his hand across his forehead. "God knows what would have happened if we hadn't heard you screaming."

Sam's eyes widened, and he just turned to stare at Dean, whose expression, for the first time in his life, Sam just couldn't read.

I'm so sorry, Dean, I'm so sorry!

Dad's words echoed through Dean's head then as, just for a second, he vaguely remembered his wet, shivering body being clutched so hard to his father's chest that he thought his ribs would break.

I had to know. I had to know.

Dean shuddered involuntarily, the half-memory taking him so completely by surprise that it was all he could do to stay on his feet.

Had that really happened? Or was he remembering wrong? Dad would never hurt him. Never.

"It was after that," Ian was saying, his voice sounding a hundred miles away. "That I threatened to – to fight your Dad for custody. I just wanted to make sure you were safe, that was all. Mary would never have forgiven me if I'd let anything happen to her boys."

"What happened then?" Sammy asked breathlessly.

Ian shrugged. "Next morning, your Dad had taken you and gone. Just upped and left. No forwarding address, no explanation, no clue to where he was going, where he was taking you." Ian touched Sammy's hair again, eyes far away, as if he was remembering something else, something he hadn't given voice to.

Dean took another step forward, more worried by the look on Sammy's face than the look on their Uncle's.

He was losing him.

Goddammit, five minutes with a relative from Planet Normal and Sam was already slipping away.

Dean had expected it to happen sooner, when the kid started school and realised he wasn't really a freak for not wanting to learn how to hold a shotgun, or make silver bullets or hunt the things that lurked in his closet at night. But Dad had moved them around so much that Sammy had only glimpsed that world, never really tasted it.

Until now.

Here it was, laid out in front of him in the shape of a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free-shaped Uncle who they hadn't even known existed.

Ian seemed to come to himself then, the smile returning to his full lips. "So you can imagine how surprised I was when your Dad called me this morning," he said, the forced cheerfulness returning to his voice.

Dean seized on his words. "Is he okay? Where is he? When's he coming back?"

It was the most animated Ian had seen his older nephew, but unfortunately he couldn't really answer any of the boy's questions. "All I know is what he told me," he replied, causing Dean's momentarily hopeful expression to fall. "He said he'd run into a bit of a situation, and he wasn't going to be able to get back to you guys for a few days, and then he asked me if you could come stay with me for a while."

Sammy's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "We're coming to stay with you?" he burst out, barely containing his excitement.

Ian grinned. "Sure!" he confirmed, before glancing briefly at Dean. "If that's alright with you guys."

Dean's stomach did a back flip. He knew the guy didn't need his permission to take them wherever the hell he wanted. And who else was there to object on their behalf?

Involuntarily, he glanced at the phone again, and thought about calling Pastor Jim.

Ian followed his gaze, and, as if reading his thoughts, asked, "Someone you want to call first?"

Dean glanced at Sammy, at the look of completely ecstatic excitement on his face, and slowly shook his head. "Where'd you say you lived?"

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