*sntl*spn*

Dean dreamed. He walked the blue world, on the edge of the barren red. He didn't envy Jim his mostly safe jungle domain. Dean's job demanded he patrol the intersection of the supernatural plane and the natural plane. They each had their own territories and would provide back-up for the other. He was born for this borderland, as Hawk rather than a mere Sentinel. His griffin appeared before him and impatiently led him to a suffering tiny, griffin cub. The cub stumbled over his own wings and fell hard, injuring itself. It chirped at Dean, needing a rescue.

Dean hurried to its side to assist. He knew more than most that help in the blue dreams translated into help in the real world. He righted the cub on its feet.

And woke up.

Dean sat up in bed. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He hadn't finished helping. Another Sentinel was hurting out there, one recently born in a supernatural event, like him.

Like him.

He couldn't believe it took him this long to figure it out.

"Sam, wake up," he demanded.

Sam jack-knifed in bed, still not secure in the safety of Bobby's house. "What's wrong?" he demanded, reaching for shoes.

"Ben's a Sentinel." Also, Ben was Dean's son. He knew that now, no doubting. "He's a Hawk." Had his senses strengthened during or immediately after the case with the changelings? Or had something else sparked the development? Was a supernatural something stalking Ben and Lisa?

"Ben… Braeden," Sam realized.

"I'll call Lisa. You call Sandburg." They were going to need everyone to make Ben's transition as easy as possible.

"You pack everything that makes your hard days easier," Sam responded. "I'm going to start coffee and let Bobby know."

"We might need to bring Ben back for the rest of summer."

Sam nodded. "I'll tell Bobby." Sam socked him in the shoulder as he passed. "Don't worry. Bobby is not going to say no."

Dean knew the time was 3:00am for Lisa as he dialed her number but Ben was awake and in pain. Lisa would not sleep through that. The call was still shunted to the answering machine as expected. "Lisa, it's Dean," he said. "Ben's in pain. I know what's wrong. He's got a rash he scratches 'til it bleeds, he lost his appetite and everything's too loud and too bright and…"

Finally Lisa picked up. "Dean, what's happening to my son? How do I make it stop?"

"It's genetic, Lisa." Dean didn't begrudge Lisa her lies, but they were a hindrance to Ben's health now. "On my mom's side. We're on our way. For now, strip him, wrap him in your silk sheets and lay him somewhere dark and quiet until we arrive. It can't be near any of those candles that you love."

"How long until you get here?"

"Thirteen hours."

"He hasn't eaten anything in two days. Not even crackers and ginger ale or any kind of juice."

"Cook him rice, the least processed as possible. Don't add anything to it. Don't even use salt in the boiling of it. Give him straight bottled water. It'll taste a bit like plastic, especially if it's old, but that's better than the fluoride of the city water."

Lisa was quiet. Dean couldn't tell if it was in relief that someone had a diagnosis or anger that Dean's heritage was hurting her son. "I'll see you in twelve hours," she said before hanging up.

Dean closed his eyes and breathed. He needed to be in control for this trip so that Ben would have an example. Ben needed to know that he could control his body. Dean had his 'bad day' clothes cleaned and wrapped up in plastic in case he ever needed them. He grabbed both pairs of wraparound sunglasses and all of this soaps from the bathroom, including the still-sealed cleaning solutions and a box of baking soda. Sam always made sure Dean had a back-up supply. The open ones could stay behind. He grabbed his towel at the last minute, because Lisa wouldn't have anything cleaned in a detergent Ben would be able to tolerate. Dean detoured to the laundry room to grab some (baby-safe) detergent so that they could wash Ben's clothes. They'd put Ben in Dean's clothes initially but it was not a long term solution. In the laundry room, Dean spotted the box fan the brothers took apart regularly to prevent dust build up. It would air out any room in Lisa's house without spreading allergens. He grabbed both his and Sam's go-bags. They would need clothes too.

Sight, smell, touch taken care of. Sound, Dean grabbed the very high priced noise cancelling earmuffs. They didn't remove all of the noise for a Sentinel, but they made it manageable.

Now taste.

Sam was already in the kitchen packing, as well as listening to Sandburg on the phone. He took notes with a pen and spiral notebook right next to the food box. He packed the box full of Loretta's canned chicken soup, delicious even when his senses were in order. It would make a dent in Dean's stash but Sam had already been talking about buying the needed ingredients at the farmers' market to can more on their own. They had the recipe and Loretta on speed dial. They could do it. Sam had also packed the canned peaches and some applesauce from Loretta's previous year's work. In the bottom of the cooler, Sam started with butcher packages of their half a cow and bacon they had bought from an organic farmer. Then he added frozen blueberries they had picked at Daniel Talbot's farm and one of Lauren's zucchini breads also frozen. He piled all sorts of portable organic snacking produce on top, carrots and peppers and sugar snap peas. Nothing would give Dean's stomach a hard time but it was all so… healthy.

"We really need to look into smoking our own jerky," Dean murmured. Candy, he had a few replacements for, but jerky was impossible to buy so far.

Behind him, Bobby's heart rate jumped in interesting and telling ways. Dean grinned and hid it. Maybe Bobby would have a smokehouse up and running by the time they returned. If he could make a supernatural panic room in a weekend, a smokehouse would be nothing for him.

Ben would appreciate Dean's candy, so he grabbed a few maple candies out of the freezer and two of the caramel apples Lauren had made last week. She had only used the purest of ingredients to make her caramel.

Dean smelled dust and a tiny bit of mold, which didn't happen in their house much anymore. When he turned, Bobby was carrying down a box of woman's clothes. His wife's. Bobby was cleaning out the storage room that he and his young wife had planned to be the nursery. Before a demon had possessed her and destroyed Bobby's dreams.

"You don't have to," Dean started.

"Don't be an idjit," Bobby muttered. He didn't bother raising his voice to Dean any more. "The boy's going to need a Sentinel safe place. I can do that."

Dean didn't have words to express his feelings. "You need to wash those before you store them elsewhere," he warned the older man.

Bobby detoured into the laundry room and then went back for another trip.

"I'm ready," Sam announced. He closed up his notebook and slid it into the carrying case with his laptop. He'd transcribe everything on the way. "You?"

Dean nodded. "I'll pack the Impala." Sam helped and they were ready to leave within twenty minutes of waking.

Dean slid into the driver's seat, thankful that his rioting emotions weren't sending his senses into a tailspin. He had a feeling that the facts would hit somewhere in the journey and Sam would end up driving the rest of the way. He called Lauren right before putting the key into the ignition. The Impala was rumbling beautifully as she answered.

"It's Dean," he told her as he pulled out of Bobby's driveway. It was early, but she had to be up for work anyway. "We're… SON OF A!"

"Dean!" Lauren chided.

"Sorry. Something ran in front of the car."

"A dog?"

"No," Dean said vehemently. "Not a dog." He exchanged a wide-eyed glance with his brother. Sam had seen it too. The dragon and the griffin had appeared and lifted off right in front of the Winchester car. Now they were hovering in the air, in the direction of Indiana, confused because Dean wasn't moving. He put his foot on the gas. "Sorry. We've got a family emergency. I won't be running by Loretta's place for a little while." Dean was the unofficial daily check-in for the family.

"Thank you for letting me know. Mom will miss you."

"I'll miss her cooking," Dean answered cheerfully. "Hopefully I'll be back in a week. She was expecting the bulk of the tomatoes to ripen then."

Lauren groaned under her breath. "I hate canning tomatoes most of all. You better get back by then because I won't do it and Mom will pout if it spoils on the vine."

Dean laughed. "I'll warn you if something delays us."

"I'll pray that everything goes well," Lauren offered.

The sincere statement still made Dean uncomfortable but he accepted it in the spirit it was given. "Thanks. See you in a week." They exchanged their farewells and hung up.

Dean glanced at his brother… who was still staring at the still visible spirit animals. "Don't you have to call your boss and employer?" Boss was a bit of a misnomer. Don Mainer's responsibilities were closer to owner than boss. He let Sam take care of everything else. Since what had been a failing newspaper under Mainer had become a thriving local news website under Sam, everyone understood.

Sam torn his eyes away from the spirit animals to quickly program his phone alarm to ring in two hours. "Jeff, Deborah and Darlene aren't up yet." That would be the recent journalist graduates who would be in charge of writing the stories in Sam's absence. They would e-mail the articles to Sam to edit. "Megan, Audra, Michael, Mike, Olivia, Patrick and Nick won't have a change in duties." Those were the high school graduates that were visiting businesses, trying to get them to buy advertisements for the website. Dean had nicknamed them the 'ah… M, N, O, P's.' Since then, Sam refused to talk about the kids in alphabetical order.

"I've never seen them before," Sam referred to the spirit animals. "They're really impressive."

"Pain in the ass," Dean complained.

Sam laughed as he remembered. "That's right. Your griffin scared you in your shower and you fell out. Your scream had Bobby and I come running."

"Pain in the ass," Dean complained.

Sam ignored him, still enthralled by the flying animals. "What's Ben's? Do you know?"

"It's a griffin."

"He was never in hell," Sam protested.

"I don't know why," Dean said. "Just is. Born of the supernatural."

Sam immediately put down his notebook and computer and twisted to lean over the seat to dig the weapons out from under the pile of food. They had packed them without thinking about it or discussing it. They hadn't used them since ridding the Vdhoeven family of their multiple malevolent ghosts. The guns weren't in bad condition, but a Winchester always checked.

"Do you ever wonder about Mom's animal?" Sam asked after several minutes of cleaning.

"Yeah," Dean murmured. "I haven't found it in the journals yet, but I've been busy."

Sam nodded, regular life and jobs took so much time. He hadn't found it either, but then he had been focused more learning Gaelic to study the earlier books. It hurt that Dean was already fluent and hadn't taught Sam when he was young. After a week of struggling with Gaelic, something had clicked in Dean's brain and he read the books quickly. Sam wondered if Mary Winchester had buried the language in Dean's head with a scent memory like she had the location for the books themselves, but Dean hadn't hinted. Sam hadn't asked yet.

"I could read Mom's journal out loud as you drive," Sam offered. "It'd pass time and we might learn something useful for Ben."

"I brought grandmother's journal of the time when Mom became a Sentinel," Dean countered. There would be fewer emotional bombshells in there, but a close enough family relation to be interesting and only a little bittersweet.

"Oh, Deanna Campbell," Sam teased lightly. Yes, Dean had been named after Mary's mom. "Good idea. Let's start there."

*sntl*spn*