It took six hours of sitting awkwardly, nursing a beer, and watching Dean drink with the new Deputies, and joke around with the older ones. Hours of hearing kids yell out Dee, and laughter from everyone. Being very confused when the two young parents, at their wit's end because their baby was grumpy and on the verge of a break down, yelled for Dean and then giving him the baby and bribed him with 'whatever, just to get Pavel to sleep'. Saw the fond looks on all the adults' faces as Dean a half hour later had a sleeping baby in his arms and was quietly singing John Fogerty. Sam and Jess moved about the house awkwardly, and out of place. Until finally people started leaving, and that was bizarre as well, Dean making plans with deputies, hugging all the people that left, then it was just the Hales, who all helped clean up, they were all so at ease in his uncles house, Dean leading the Children around and getting them to help as well, and soon the place was spotless. Then the Hales all sat down, it was like a silent conversation was going on. It was a tense silence for about half a minute, before Talia broke the silence.
"Sheriff, do you want Stiles home tonight, or at our house."
"No, I think I want him home tonight, besides you have a full house."
"Alright, were going to head out then, Dean hunny, call me okay." Talia walked over and hugged Dean, and she ran her fingers through his hair making him grin. "I'll send Peter to come get you."
"Thanks, I will, but I probably won't need a ride until tomorrow morning though, we can steal Stiles then, so he can play with Jack and Cor" Dean kissed her cheek, he did the same for all the Hales.
Sam had to look away when Peter and Dean had a silent conversation, with their foreheads pushed together, just holding each other whispering. Sam peaked and saw Peter kiss Dean. Sam looked at his uncle to see his response, but all he saw was a fond wistful expression on his uncle face, and tears in his eyes, as he got up to wave goodbye to the Hales.
"Hey, Uncle Noah, I think I will get Stiles ready for bed, and can Sam and I borrow your backyard, we have a lot to discuss."
"Of course, I hate to ask, I know you have to talk to Sam, but could you give him a bath, or get him to shower."
"Umm, yeah sure, but maybe tomorrow would be better, I am taking him to the Hales, and we are going to be hiking and running around in the woods anyway, it just makes more sense to get him to wash up after that."
"That will work, Thank-you, it will get easier to bath him again soon enough, but I am only able once a week, now."
"That's still better than before. "Dean pat Noah on the shoulder as he walked by the man.
Sam and Jess looked even more confused, but they didn't mention this odd request, nor the allowing a kid to decide to not bathe for weeks. They didn't want another incident after the Baby with the Dog toy.
Dean took the steps two at a time, and picked up Stiles who was eavesdropping at the top of the stairs.
"Thanks Dee." Stiles clung to Dean as he carried Stiles to the bathroom. "I try, but then I get scared and can't breathe, and then I feel like I am drownding all over again, I know it scares Daddy, but I can't control it."
"I know buddy," Dean held Stiles a little tighter "we will just get rid of all your sugar bugs tonight, and maybe wash your face and hands."
"I'm not three anymore, I don't believe in sugar bugs, but I will brush my teeth."
"Okay, well let's go be boring and just brush our teeth, and not rage war on Sugar bugs." Stiles giggled at that, and laughed as Dean dramatically fought sugar bugs anyway. They quickly washed up, and Dean got Stiles dressed for bed and tucked in. Dean sat down on the bed.
"What's a matter Dean?"
"I have to talk to Sammy, tonight about your momma." Dean looked down at his hands.
"Will he tell Daddy?" Stiles grabbed Dean's shirt.
"I don't know" Dean held Stiles' hand, both of them lost in thought. "But I got to. You know how in all the pictures everyone just sees your momma."
"Yeah, its angel dad's magic right."
"Well, for some reason your angel dad's magic didn't fully work on Sam, he sees your momma, but he still remembers what Aunt Claudia looks like." Dean started playing with Stiles' hand, "if I don't tell him then he might hurt your dad by making him remember." Dean sighed and let go of Stiles' hand. "I don't know how he will react, but I think I can stall him telling your dad."
"You mean until my Birthday, right, next week. Daddy always almost remembers then."
Dean looked at stiles sadly, "yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Are you ready for that? What do you want to do, we could run away tonight or anytime really, Peter is down the street in a car and always willing to kidnap us."
Stiles laughed. "No, I think I want as much time with my dad as I can, I love him, even though he won't love me anymore, when he remembers." Dean moved Stiles over and laid down in the bed with him. And hugged him.
"I will make everything okay again, because I know that your dad will be hurt, and scared, and that will make him angry, and mean." Dean stopped when Stiles' breathing sped up, and he cursed himself. "But, I will be here, and so will the Hales, and we will let your dad be angry, and mad for a little while, and I will beat him up if I have to. But I know that he loves you. And he will love you after he calms down, I promise you." Dean kissed Stiles on top of his head.
"I wish Sam never showed up at all."
"I used to think I would love Sam being here, and knowing you, but you wanna know a secret." Dean whispered the last bit.
"What?" Stiles whispered back.
"I wish Sam never showed up either."
"Do you think I can stay with you if Dad hates me after he finds out, I will go travel if I have to, I never left California before?"
"Yeah, we can do that." Dean promised. "Okay now, I am sorry we had to talk about sad things before bedtime, but I will be here in the morning, I am sleeping over in my room tonight. Okay."
"Okay Dean."
"Night, night." Dean kissed Stiles on the head one last time before getting up and tucking him in. "you know I love you right?" Dean rubbed his face, "you know that I wouldn't do this to you on purpose."
"Yeah, I know, I love you too." Stiles rolled over, and Dean quietly turned on the Spiderman night light, and turned off the ceiling light before leaving the room.
Dean snuck downstairs and heard his uncle telling stories of him and Sam when they were younger. Upon reaching the living room Dean saw it was only Jess in there listening to the stories. "Hey, where's Sam?"
"He's out back waiting for you." Noah answered.
"Thanks" Dean walked to the backdoor, and took a big breath before stepping out.
"Dean, what the hell is going on here?" at least Sam waited for the door to close.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this" Sam shoved a picture at Dean, it was a picture of his aunt with them when Sammy was about 3 "who is that woman? Who the hell did we just bury, you said Aunt Claudia died"
"That is Aunt Claudia." Dean pointed to the picture of them, "and she did die."
"Sam growled, then who is this?" Sam tossed a picture of Cloudia and Stiles at him, it was taken on Stiles' first day of school, Dean knows because he was the one to take it. "Because I sure as hell know that two people with Blonde hair don't have a kid that looks like Stiles, because my aunt Claudia was Blonde haired and blue eyed"
"Green." Dean corrected, still looking at the picture in his hands, he tapped the photo and showed Sam the pic, even though he knew Sam couldn't see Claudia.
"What?"
Dean sighed, "Aunties eyes are green."
"Oh so you do know that this isn't Aunt Claudia." Sam gestured to the picture of Stiles and his mom.
"Of course I know, you idiot. "Dean grabbed the picture Sam was waving around and sat down. He stared at the two pictures, "this one is a picture of us when we were dropped off at Auntie Claudia and Uncle Noah's house for an entire summer. And this photo," Dean tapped the picture, and he examined Stiles' beaming face. "This is a picture of Cloudia, and Stiles."
"What the hell Dean, you knew that thing was parading around as Aunt Claudia, and you decided to name it instead of killing it, what even is it? What the hell is Stiles? How come you didn't kill them both?" Dean tried to answer, but Sam cut him off. "What big bad hunter actually grew a heart and couldn't kill off the woman and baby who murdered our pregnant Aunt?" Sam was pacing, "Or did this thing kill Aunt Claudia, and our real cousin? If that's the case how come you didn't prevent that?"
"Sam Fuck you!" Dean " if you just sit down, I will explain this, like I wanted to all those years ago, when I learned you moved to California, I tried over and over again to tell you. You were out of dad's grasp, and I knew you could keep this secret, but you never answered your god damn phone."
"Wait you knew before I left?'
"I knew since we moved out of Beacon Hills." Dean placed the photos on the table that sat between the two deck chairs. "Now sit down."
Sam reluctantly sat across from Dean, and glared at him.
"I will start with what was up with dad that year. As you know he was possessed by an angel, what I didn't tell you was that the angel possessing him was keeping a pregnant demon in an abandoned warehouse." Dean held up a hand, when Sam showed signs of interrupting. "That Angels name was Michael, we don't know anything about the woman being possessed, there are no records of her at all, what we do know about her came from homeless people, and no one knew her name, or where she came from, just that she showed up out of nowhere, she was also heavy into drugs before a Michael possessed dad showed up. Those people are Stiles' parents." Dean sighed and looked up. "Aunt Claudia, I thought for the longest time that Michael killed her so that his kid would have a place to live, then a week later my friends died, they were on the way to the hospital, and were attacked and killed, I searched the crash site, and found ectoplasm. So I did what I always did, researched and hunted the thing down, found out that Aunt Claudia died the same way, and that the Angel just covered it up."
"Stiles is a Demon/angel hybrid… a, a monster, is he a threat, and you didn't kill him he may look innocent now, but he could probably kill everyone, you " sam pointed at Dean accusingly " taught me that a monster is always a monster." Sam was anngry, years of hunting ingrained in him making him pissed off at Dean's failure.
"Yes, a monster is always a monster, but the supernatural are made up of their choices." Dean shook his head. "You always forgot the second part of that."
"Well, answer me what is stiles, a supernatural being or a monster?"
"He's my brother" Dean slammed his fist on the chair of the arm. "I held him in my arms just after he was born, do you think that Demon was motherly at all, hell no, and that angel knew nothing about humans. So I was the first to hold that tiny helpless being in my arms, and I knew, then and there that I would protect my brother, just as I have protected you." Dean started crying and he didn't even know it, "If that meant keeping Aunt Claudia's identity and death a secret then I would, I bet you don't remember Grandma Lottie do you?" Sam looked confused "it took me a while to remember gran as well, but she died that day too, with Aunt Claudia and her baby, and I kept it a secret. Face it Sammy, as much as I was dad's little soldier, you were never able to keep a secret from him. That would have destroyed not only his mind, but Uncle Noah's as well. So I made plans to tell you, I helped you get away, I stashed the pamphlets of the Jaqueline Backer society where I knew you would find them. With the help of the Hales I got you scholarships, did you know that the Hales are sponsoring you to go the Stanford?" Sam sat there stunned. "I was going to tell you all about Little Star, and about all the help I could give you, but as soon as you got out from under Dad's thumb, you ran away as far as you could, but I never expected you to run from me too." Dean stood up and started pacing "so if you want to tell Noah about this, get that out of your head now and just leave Sam, do what you do best and run away from this family. " Sam looked like he was slapped. "Don't you dare ruin my brother's life, and if you do sneak back here tomorrow and tell Uncle Noah, I will find out, and you will be sorry." Dean stopped pacing and Growled at Sam as another outcome came to mind. "Don't even think of hurting Little Star either, I may not be willing to kill you myself, but if you try anything to hurt Stile's mentally or physically, I definitely won't stop someone else doing it for me." Dean watched as the blood drained out of Sam's face, Dean coldly looked at Sam then turned and walked into the house without a glance back, Dean started to wash his face in the kitchen sink, as he slowly broke down.
Noah, heard the back door open and close and came to see how the talk went. What he found was Dean on the verge of collapsing, Dean was shaking, and hyperventilating, not to mention crying, Noah shook his head, he grabbed a towel and wiped Dean's face. "Come on Dean go to bed, come on kiddo, it will be okay, I got you" Noah slowly led Dean upstairs into his room and sat him on the bed, "alright Dean," the Sheriff hugged Dean to him, until His breathing evened out, and dean hugged back. "I know this has been a long time coming Dean, it took longer to get there than I thought, but it's all out there now, and now you can heal whatever it was that pushed you two apart." The Sheriff rolled his eyes at Sam and Jess trying to sneak out quietly, and as quiet as they were, years of the Hales taught the Sheriff to be a better listener.
"God they are like a herd of elephants" dean mumbled into the Noah's shirt.
Noah snorted. "You're making jokes, now I know in time it will be okay."
"I don't know, maybe "Dean let go of his uncle. " I hope so"
"Alright, I think it's been too long of a day everyone, and you still have to phone Talia." Noah backed away trying to get a better look at Dean's face "are you okay?"
"Yeah I am," Dean grabbed his phone out of his pocket "I am so sorry, Aunt Claudia died, and here I am crying all over you, shouldn't it be the other way round?"
Noah just smiled, "I am just not crying now, I think I ran out of tears like half way through the day."
Dean nodded in understanding "I am going to miss her"
"me too, thank you dean for all your help today, have a good night" Noah gave Dean a little wave and left the room after that, Dean phoned Talia, and told her what happened, Talia promised to have someone watching Sam all the time. Dean fell asleep peacefully knowing Sam may find out that Werewolves are in Beacon Hills, but he won't be able to hurt Noah or Stiles. Dean prayed to make things right, and lay all their souls to rest.