Field of Deans – chpt 5.
by: sifi.
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"Ray? What's wrong? What happened?" Missy nearly shoved her husband off the edge of Justin's bed, dressed in her long white nightgown she took his place and sat beside the boy who lay back, fevered once more, his head thrashing side to side.
"He's definitely remembering... I think Sam mighta been that baby o'his... but he's remembering us to!" Ray smiled sadly, wondering how much this little boy could take before he'd once again retreat into a world of forgetfulness. "I think he passed out..."
The voices of Ray and Missy Marshall drifted gently away from Dean's awareness as did his sense that someone's gentle hand was on his head, trying to give him comfort. Knowledge of their presence and their care slid away, to be replaced with pain and confusion, and something else that began to feel more than just a little angry.
Darkness pressed in on him from all sides and for a moment fear took hold of his heart, slapping it into motion, then the sound of voices came to him and he dashed forward, the familiar feel of the wheat stalks stroking him, petting him as he passed by. A mewling to his right caught his attention, pulling him toward IT rather than the voices he could make out ahead.
"Hello?" he called softly, "Who's there?" 'Sammy zat you?' he wondered.
A tiny grunt with a keen that made his heart hurt was the response. Slowly he pushed aside the wheat, the pulsing light of emergency vehicles lit pieces of his path until he came to a small clearing where a small lump lay curled with smoke rising all around it. Slowly he reached out, "Hey now... t'sokay, s'okay..." he assured gently while watching his hand tremble, feeling the heat radiating into him. Sweat beaded down his face, tickling his neck before being absorbed by his shirt. It dawned on him slowly that this lump of mewling something was a kid.
The boy on the ground mewled again, something crispy crackling as he turned his blackened and blood covered head, one eye visible simply for the white around it pleaded with Dean, the cracked lips of his mouth opened and the eldest Winchester heard the faintest whisper, 'help... need...'. Dean felt his head nod, "Okay... there's people over there... stay here... I'll get help... just stay here..." he rose to dash toward where he knew people were, where he'd heard them but hot hard fingers clutched his wrist and the mouth spoke again, 'non't leave... please...' Dean swallowed but nodded, trying to pat the hand, but unable to make himself touch that poor charred extremity, "Okay, okay... but I really should get some help..."
--
Ray and Mike stood side by side over the desk pouring over the police reports, photos, and the emergency crew's casualty list, death certificates and lastly newspaper clippings of the previous year's accident that left the boy Ray was allowed to rename Justin David Marshall almost completely alone in the world.
"Well there were four children accounted for, not including your Justin, but no infants, in fact I think your boy might have been the youngest, yeah... maybe..." Mike started as Ray looked up, his eyes shining with hope.
"Maybe the baby wasn't with them!"
"It's possible..." the sheriff scratched his chin.
Ray cocked his eyebrow, "...possible but what?"
Mike shook his head, "... if there's a brother that someone else was watching, then how come..." he shook his head again.
Ray nodded, "Why hasn't anyone come to claim Justin? You think it's cause what happened to him don't you Mike?"
"Ray... we know him... if this Sam is a brother, or a family member at all... if there IS any other family... Maybe they did come and see him... maybe they figured..." he stalled, turning his eyes down, unable to face the angry gaze from his friend.
"What? You think someone would just leave their child in someone else's hands just cause... cause of how he LOOKS?" Ray nearly shouted in the small office, "None'o that's the boys' fault!"
"I know and you're right... I'm just saying there's a lot of folks that aren't as sensible about these kinds of things... you didn't know him before the accident... so you and Missy, you both love him no matter what... all I'm saying is that sometimes it's hard for blood kin to see past what's just on the surface..."
"That's just wrong Mike!" Ray grunted angrily, "He's a great kid! He's smart as a whip! He's kind hearted and gentle! A child is a blessing!"
Mike lifted his eyes back to meet the soft gray ones of his longtime friend, "Then sounds t'me like he's with exactly the right folks..."
The wheat farmer nodded, "...and by the time he's all grown up, Doc Johnson says the scarring will be so faint, it won't make much of a difference at all."
--
"How're you feeling honey?" Missy stroked the boy's silky hair as she moved to refill his juice glass.
"Better. Where'd pa go?" he asked.
"He had a meeting with the Sheriff this morning..." she wondered just how much to tell him, then decided that honesty was the best policy, "... they went to look at the records from the accident."
"Hmmm," he nodded staring down into his eggs and sausages, "I'm sorry I blew it for us going to the carnival yesterday... I'll do better today..."
"Oh honey!" she sighed sitting beside him, turning each of their chairs so they were able to look into each others' eyes. "It's not your fault! You didn't do anything wrong..."
"I hate being sick! ... I hate making you 'n pa worry all the time... sometimes I think maybe..." he sighed his chest and shoulders filling high then slumping down quickly.
"Justin David Marshall... you clean that look off your face right now young man! Your pa and I are two of the luckiest people in the whole world I think! No one could ask for a better son! So whatever you're thinking... you just remember this... we LOVE you, there's NOTHING we wouldn't do for you!"
She watched sadness and hope wrestle across his face. His eyes shone bright with even the whispered promise of something she knew he couldn't quite name, and in all the little ways he struggled for whatever it really was, to somehow find belief in himself, in their love, in all the things most children take for granted, left her heart just slightly more fractured than it had been before.
Justin pushed himself from the table, a smile that seemed just a little too tight across the shiny patch of stitched together tissue that ran from what would eventually become the top of a sideburn, down to the base of the jawbone, told her he was troubled.
"You haven't finished your breakfast young man, you're not going anywhere until that plate is clean!" she reprimanded with a gentle smile and a stroke over his buzz cut hair.
His smile broadened until both of his eyes shined instead of just the one good one then turned out of his chair wrapping his arms around her neck and his lips to her cheek, "I got chores t'do if we're goin' to the carnival tonight... I'm gonna get a good start on 'em so pa's gonna have less to do when he gets home," he grinned falling into the love in her eyes.
"You're a good boy..." she smiled tussling his hair, "You're gonna make your pa proud."
"Thanks ma..." he kissed her cheek once more then broke gently free from her embrace, "...Love you..." he dashed out the kitchen door toward the coop scooping up the feed bucket from the porch as he flew across the yard.
--
"Say something John..." Shep urged softly, wondering if the road up to Buck's place had been as full of potholes and pocks as the road down was. Same road... feels different... oh hell, he cast a glance at John, pull it together man... you'll never survive this game if you can't put the dad aside, you can't hobble the hunter, it'll get you and your boys killed.
He felt his tongue flick out to moisten his too parched lips, How did they keep it a secret? How could they DO that? How could he have done something like that? '1958... it was 1958, things were a lot less... a LOT different back then,' a small voice inside him argued, yeah but still...
"...sometimes tragedy will scar a place..." he mumbled feeling his head about to explode with the horrible truth. It was the same thing Missouri had told him when after bringing her to the house, ...sorta... scars, festering wounds, kind of a psychic gangrene... yeah, same difference...
"Listen... we'll get him John... we'll find him before..."
"Sunday morning, that cuts eleven hours out of my hands... twenty nine hours to..." to do the impossible, he breathed deep, please... if there's anything out there... his mind froze, stalling on the mental bottlenecking of all the possibilities, please... he left hanging in the hopes that whatever may exist to counter the evils that had been brought into his life, would know what he needed and grant him just a little more time with his children. "Dean..." he choked softly then turned his head to study the profile of the man beside him, "I can't lose my son McGregor..."
"We won't," the elder hunter nodded, impressed by how well his passenger was holding together. He thought about Tommy in Dean's place at that age and felt his heart rate kick up a couple more notches. He may not be my son but he's as damned close as I'm going to get to having any kids, hewas suddenly almost certain he couldn't have stay glued together in John's place.
"Have you found anything in there yet?" he asked with a glance at the time-warped tome in the new hunter's hands.
Slowly the eldest Winchester nodded, returning his focus and flashlight beam to the brittle pages open in his palms, "Maybe..." he nodded swallowing hard, "If Buck is right about the arrival of the carnival kinda starting it all... he's only six years old... I have to get to him... I have to find a way Shep, he's my boy... I can't bury my own son... I can't let him die, not like that..." the distraught father shook his head, his expression proclaiming his shock to the man beside him.
"Don't you worry Winchester, we'll find him, nothing's gonna happen to that boy on my watch even if I gotta call in every favor ever owed alright... no one's gonna let your son get hurt..." this new ally swore vehemently.
"Listen," John spoke into the book in his hands, "S'a guy in South Dakota named Bobby Singer... we were in the service together... if anything happens to me promise you'll get my boys to him... he's like us...he'll keep them safe..." John asked remembering the first time he'd found himself pulling into Bobby's auto graveyard after leaving Lawrence behind, and the numb dismay that passed through his core, a spectre in and of itself when his old friend, after hearing the horror of his tale, nodded sagely and while handing him rock glass full of whiskey muttered without a second thought, '...mmm sounds like a demon if y'ask me...'.
"Would you listen to me? Nothing's gonna..." Shep started to argue knowing that again, if the situation was his own, he'd be ready to lay down his life for Tom.
"Just promise you'll take them to him! Then maybe I'll be able to focus..." he growled.
Shep nodded, "Yeah alright I promise... you got an address for him or something?"
"S'in my journal..." John patted his jacket.
Shep nodded, "Better leave it in the truck... just in case," No one gets left behind Winchester, you're a Marine, you know better than that.
--
'Hmmm? Big... soft... move...' his chubby hands grasped at the tall yellow grass waving all around him. Sometimes they bent down and tickled his face making him giggle. 'I walking good!' he thought feeling his feet moving surely between the stalks, 'Dean gonna be happy... gotta find daddy and Dean... where?' he wondered then heard daddy and the police man in his head, "blah blah blah muffle mumble argue? mumble mumble some more big words he didn't know... took him?"
He turned feeling John's anger behind his ear, hot words caressed his neck and blew his hair back, "He's SIX YEARS OLD!" and even though he knew there was supposed to be more 'blah blah blah' that daddy said, just off to his side he heard a 'kid' sound, something that made sense even if it wasn't words.
"Dean!" he felt his cheeks pull wide in a huge smile! 'Dean's home! Dean's home! Dean's home! Home with me! Mine, my Dean!' warm cuddly filled him from his tummy all the way up as he pushed the yellow grass out of his way, following the sound of something that was starting to make his lips press hard together. 'can't see... need Dean... where? go 'way big soft... go 'way, need my Dean...' he pushed again and again and finally felt his toe catch in one of stalk bases. He fell down into a pile of soft dark earth, 'ooompf...' then pushed himself up again, his eyes looking into a big red ball that had a face painted on it.
"Sssa... mmy?" the ball spoke in a sound that was more like a balloon deflating than an actual word.
He felt his mouth turn down noting now that the ball had hair that was red and wet and sticky, 'that bad... Dee?' he thought still trying to make sense of what he was seeing. His hand moved reflexively to his mouth, water came to his eyes, 'Dean go bye bye?' he wondered squatting down, peering closely into the milky green eyes that made him squeal with happy, the ones that saw the world first and showed it to him little by little, and the ones that read the words under or over the pictures in the books that took him to colorful places.
"Dean?" he asked patting the sticky red hair down.
"Sssam..." the mouth gurgled again.
"Me Sam," he tapped his chest, "Dean?... come home? Come home 'kay?...please?" he felt his breath hitch and his throat close as giants ran over the ground making it shake and growl under them, making the yellow stalks around them dance in place while the sound of daddy's voice came back to him, flitting into his ear somehow beneath and twining around the growling earth sound.
"Daddy! Daddy! Dean got uh oh!" he cried patting the red stickiness of his brothers' face before dashing toward the sound of daddy's voice.
--
"Dean!" Sam cried, tears springing from his eyes as he sat up against Tommy, his eyes wide and searching the room. They locked on John, standing at the table sifting through his 'daddy bag' as he turned to see what had made his littlest boy cry out. Sam pushed free of Tommy's gentle embrace, climbed down to the floor and pistoned his little legs across the room into John's waiting arms.
"What'sa matter Sammy? You have a bad dream?" John asked smoothing the boy's hair and pressing his lips to his temple. Aaahh Johnsons baby shampoo... he thought fleetingly feeling Sam's head nod against his mouth.
Tears glossed his blue-greens, and his chin wobbled looking deep into John's coffee colored eyes, "Dean got uh oh..." Sam sniffed around his thumb.
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tbc. Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up... Hope you like.
Please R&R
thanks.
sifi.