Title: Family Portrait

Author: BlazeorFade

Rating: T

Summary: Dean, Sam and Jack ruminate on each other. Told in the first person.

Disclaimer: I own Jack, but not the boys but y'all knew that already.

John Winchester

I check in on them occasionally. They don't know it. I watch from a distance as I search for the thing that destroyed our lives. I never stay long and I never approach them, as far as they know I'm somewhere across the country. I only let myself see them every two months like clockwork. I've even watched them on a couple of jobs. They work well together, the three of them.

Dean takes the role of leader always in the front of the fray with Jack and Sam flanking, never behind him, always at his side. He's going to be better than me really soon. I don't know whether that makes me proud or scares the hell out of me. What will he do when the demon the killed Mary is dead? Will he continue hunting? He's never known any other life. I wanted more for him than this and I don't want him going down guns blazing. I want him to have a home and a life that's more than violence and ammunition.

I have to admit though, watching him burn through these things it looks like he was made for this job. He keeps his brother going when its all gone to hell, he kept me going for a long time too. I just wish I had realized it before. Dean's been the anchor of the family, the joker, always saying something or doing something to crack some of the tension of just everyday shit.

Sam is getting stronger as a psychic and a hunter. His instincts have been getting sharper, keener. There are times when I swear he's going to look up and know that I'm there checking in on them in secret. Pretty soon I know he will. He's grown a lot in the past year. Getting hit by a truck will do that I guess. I look at him and I still see my youngest, the baby of the family. Its hard to see the man he's become but I'm damn proud when I do. When I look at Sam I see the life he should have led, with that girl he loved. I'm sorry she died, I'm sorry he had to feel that pain. But I am not sorry to have my son back in my life, scarce as I have to be with them. I will never be sorry about that.

I went to see Sam a few times at Stanford. He never knew it of course. When he and his girlfriend were first moving into their apartment I bluffed my way into the building the week before they were supposed to move in, dressed as a house painter and I laid the strongest runes I could find into the walls and painted over them and no one was the wiser. I had to keep my son safe. We were both too stubborn back then to bend after that last fight. Nothings changed. We're both stubborn bastards still but now I'd like to think I know better, and Sam knows better.

Jack was an anomaly I couldn't make heads or tales of at first. She fit right in with the boys like it was the next logical step and all of us were all too blind to see it, even though we never knew her before she arrived on the steps of our old house. That day I came out on the porch and saw right through the disguise, what regular people would see. A pretty, young woman in neat, tidy clothes, a student most likely. I saw the brand new combat boots, built for endurance and hard hits, the healing scrapes on her knuckles showing she was a brawler and that watchfulness, that stillness that meant she could spring on you in half a heart beat. I knew she was dangerous just like I know my son's are.

She makes them laugh, and vice versa. Dean and her torture poor Sammy like there's no tomorrow. I feel for Sam, two smartasses like that. I might have shot one of them by now. I worried at first about her slowing them down, or not being able to fight alongside them, not because of a lack of skill but because when you fight alone you grow accustomed to it. They work good together though. They fit together.

As I watch right now they're unloading the car at a little motel in a hole in wall town you'd be hard pressed to find unless you were looking for it. Dean is nudging Sam and pointing at the Jack who's walking a little ahead of them. Sam looks for a second and Dean claps his hand over Sam's mouth just he laughs out in surprise. Jack turns around and looks at the boys suspiciously for a second and heads inside her room in a rush to see what Dean's done. I have to fight not to laugh and give myself away when I catch a glimpse of what they were laughing at.

"I'm going to kick your ass!" Jack yells startling a nearby squirrel. She runs out of the room pulling the fruit shaped kitchen magnets off the back of her head.

"It wasn't me." Sam insists backing away from her. He can't pass for squeaky clean while he's gasping and laughing though. Dean isn't even trying to cover his ass he's almost falling over from laughing. They break out in a run as Jack goes tearing after them.

Kids, I think shaking my head.

-Fin