Part 7

Dean ran his fingers over the picture. He had protested because it was cheesy but ultimately he was grateful to have it. Two generations of Winchesters. Sammy, Sarah, Sammy Too and Maddy in their pressed clothes and gelled hair, standing next to Dean and Alice in wrinkled clothes and windblown hair.

--

Alice sprawled on her stomach in front of the TV, Sarah had propped her head up on a pillow, the bowl of popcorn sat between them. "I dated Mike for a few years. He was nice and sweet but we went to college and I never saw him anymore and then I saw him making out with this girl from his study group and I just… let him go."

"I'm sorry."

"Then I dated this guy because he had a leather jacket and he wasn't into school and he wasn't from my home town. He got tired of me after about two weeks and just took off on me." Alice sighed heavily. "I wasn't too broken up about it. That's when I met Gabriel."

"Well, if the sound of your voice is any indication, I think we really like Gabriel." Sarah teased.

"I do. We're on a break and I think that maybe it might be over but… I really like him."

"Is that why you're here?" Sarah whispered low so that the men couldn't hear.

"Maybe. I mean, I really want to spend time with Dean. He's good company so far and he saved my life. I kind of feel like I owe him a chance." She fiddled with the edge of a pillow. "I leave a bunch of angry messages on his phone when the rest of my life isn't going so great."

"How's that working for you?"

"Dean thinks I hate him a lot of the time… and I don't but… I guess I felt a little betrayed when I found out." She watched Sarah fiddle with her braid over her shoulder for a long minute. "And he wasn't the only one who betrayed me but he was the one who wasn't there and so… I had to deal with my mom every day. I had to find a way to get along with her so… I yelled at Dean."

"We all yell at Dean. He's used to it." Sarah winked at her.

"Ain't that the truth." Dean muttered from the couch where he was pretending to watch the movie on the TV.

Sarah winked again. "The kids think he's one of them and most of the time he is. One great big kid."

"How… I mean… with the life…" Alice pursed her mouth.

"Sam and I only saw each other for about a week between months and months of distance. We knew that we connected. I'm pretty busy and it was a bit of a relief that I didn't need to cater to a male ego as well as take over my father's business." She nodded knowingly to the expression on the younger woman's face. "I met a man who was my intellectual equal, who was aesthetically pleasing to me, who required only loyalty and me. If I was busy when he came through, his visit would be longer or he would catch me the next time through if I couldn't rearrange. No pressure."

"No pressure?" Alice grinned.

"Well, eventually, a woman's clock starts ticking and I put on the pressure." She gestured to the house. "I have simple tastes but I am a very well-off woman. All I needed was a man that I loved to give me his children."

"And a housekeeper to feed your brother-in-law?" Alice snickered.

"Yes. That too." Sarah's eyes burned through the girl for a long moment. "How are you doing?"

"Okay. I guess. There are some things that take getting used to but… It's not like I jumped in ignorant. I've spent the last few years getting to know him."

"Lucky girl. I'll bet you know all his dirty little secrets. He only shares it if he knows we don't want to hear it." Sarah threw a handful of popcorn at him. "Selfish bastard."

"Just because I don't feel the need to let my inner child out to play with your inner child doesn't make me selfish. My inner child was grounded for life when it was 16." Dean sent them a wry smile.

"What did your inner child do?" Sarah sat up to deflect the popcorn he flicked back at her.

"Shall I make you a list? It was a busy year for me." He sat up and cleared his throat. "I put Nair in my baby brother's shampoo. I deflowered a Sheriff's daughter before a hunt was over. I got piss drunk and I pissed in the car. I vomited on my dad's tools. I got expelled from three schools in four weeks."

"Okay. We get it. Your inner child is a bad ass." Alice shook her head at him.

"That I am."

"I, for one, don't believe your inner child ever grew up." Sarah brushed off her clothes then picked up the stray kernels to throw away. "I think that you are forever 16 years old."

"There are therapists who might concur with you, babe." Sam spoke up from the doorway. "Like a drug addict. I think that from the moment he accepted this life, he ceased to age emotionally."

"Okay. Freud and… chick-Freud. Stop psychoanalyzing me. I'm never gonna pay that bill." Dean pointed to each in turn. Then he nodded that Alice had turned her eyes away. He wasn't sure until her hand swiped across her face. "Anyway, I'm living in the time honored tradition of following in my father's footsteps."

"Yeah." Sam frowned suddenly. Alice turned her head to watch her uncle.

"Oh God. You are such a girl." Dean groaned and shoved himself to his feet.

"I miss Dad. Okay?" Sam protested. "I wish he was still with us. I wish he had met his grandchildren. It's perfectly natural."

"If he was here… you two would be duking it out every night. The…" Dean fell silent. His eyes fell on his daughter. "Well, there's no reason to waste time on shit that never happened."

--

"He misses Dad." Sam said by way of interruption while Alice and Sarah were following a recipe for dessert. Bonding away from the men.

"Yeah." Alice nodded.

"I talk more about the man but Dean misses him more. Took it really hard when he died." Sam tried to explain. "Bobby once told me that… they were best friends."

"Your dad. Best friends with his kid?" Sarah snorted.

"Not how… Maddy's friend's mom is with her oldest." Sam shook his head at her. "I'm talking about… Dean rising up to be Dad's best friend. Not Dad coddling Dean by being Dean's best friend."

"That's messed up." Alice scoffed.

"Yeah, it was." Sam cleared his throat. "I just wanted you to know… that as much as we rib him for being immature… there's a reason we put up with it. When little Sam was born, it was Dean who showed us how to change a diaper and how to hold a bottle and when to start letting him cry himself to sleep. Dean kind of… got robbed as a kid."

"Yeah. I guess I can see that." Alice nodded. She looked up and saw the shadow in the hallway, then cleared her throat. "Okay, if you're gonna hang out in here, you have to help."

"What exactly are you making?" Sam straightened, eyes sliding to the corner of his eye but he didn't turn his head.

"It's a ladyfinger trifle." Sarah pointed to the hallway. "It's for after dinner and if I find you sticking your fingers in it, so help me."

"You're gonna what?" Dean stepped into the kitchen, beer in hand. "Glare at me? Nice try, Medusa."

--

Dean rose from the cheap bedspread when his phone rang. He shut off the ringer just as his date emerged from the bathroom wearing a good deal less than she had going in. He let his southern brain do all the work. Then it was over and she was asleep and he had nothing to occupy himself with.

It had become rote when he was a younger man with a stronger libido. Smooth soft bellies against his thigh, pushing out air through sour whisky breath, breasts against his ribs and a mass of color treated hair on his shoulder. Manicured nails on his belly. Dried sweat everywhere.

He must have managed to doze off because he jumped awake when the knock on the door came. It was still dark out so it couldn't be housekeeping. His date had paid for the room so there wasn't supposed to be a call on the credit card. He eased out of bed to look for his shorts and just hoped to whoever listening that his date didn't have an irate boyfriend or husband on the other side of that door.

Swinging the door open, he suddenly wished he'd found more of his clothes. Glancing over his shoulder, he stepped up to fill the doorway with his body and crossed his arms over his chest. "Alice? What are you doing here?"

"You just… kind of took off and…" Alice sniffed and shoved her hands into her pockets. "Sorry… I'll just… see you later." She spun and headed for what looked like Sarah's car.

"Alice." Dean called after her. Rubbing his arms and cursing the cold, he ran after her. "Alice."

"I was worried, okay!" She spun on him. "You just mumbled something about getting a drink and that was like 8 hours ago." She stared up at him. "What was I supposed to think when you didn't come back? You brought me up here. You left me alone at Uncle Sam's. You've gone for drinks before but you've always been back by one and I…" She shook her head at him. "I'll just see you tomorrow or something."

Dean wanted to follow her. He'd left his wallet and all his clothes in the room. She was pissed anyway. It was probably better to give her time to cool off. He heard the car drive off just as he got back to the room. He sank onto the edge of the bed and wished he'd had more to drink.

"Did I get in the middle of something?" His date asked softly.

"Just my kid. She tracked me down." Dean shrugged.

"You needed somewhere?"

"No… I think she's just trying to tell me I'm too old for this shit." He snagged his pants off the floor. "Need a ride home?"

--

Sarah waved to him around her coffee cup when he ambled in after dawn. "Morning, stranger."

"She bring you back your car?" Dean poured himself a cup.

"Yeah." Sarah nodded. "She was upset." Her brown eyes bored through him. "I thought we were pretty straight with her but I guess we made too many jokes for her to believe any of it." She took another gulp of coffee. "She got used to knowing where you were all the time. She didn't understand why we weren't worried."

"How long was she out looking?"

"Not long. I gave her two starting points and about three end points." She poured herself another cup and doctored it a bit. "It happens to every girl. Eventually we all find out that Dad is just another word for Man. She not used to you and all your ways, Dean. You spoiled her."

"How did I do that?"

"You saved her life. You took her on a road trip and you introduced her to a family she didn't know she had and you held her hand the whole way and then you dropped her cold to go chase some tail." She held up a hand against his protest. "I'm just saying. Sam and I are perfectly used to getting dropped so you can go prowl. The kids know that some nights their Uncle Dean doesn't come home until dawn or at all for weeks at a time. She's your daughter and she still doesn't know you."

"Well. I can… hardly… I mean… I never lied to her. I always told her the truth."

"I know. She's romanticized you, Dean. She has this memory of a man who made her smile in a park when she was four. Then she meets him again at her high school graduation, then finds out that this strange and mysterious man is in fact her biological father. She spends the next three years reading letters that you wrote her as she grew up. You showed her a side of you that you never showed us." Sarah put her hand on his shoulders. "You painted her a picture of someone who was willing to be open and forthcoming and then you showed up, guns blazing to save the day. It just took her a while to realize that your flaws aren't something that translate to paper."

"I was never cut out to be a father, Sarah." Dean admitted aloud. "I was bred to be a hunter. I don't know how to do anything else. It's too late in the game to change how I live my life."

"No one's asking you to." She hugged him and was glad that he let her. "She's just disappointed. It happens. We know you. She's still got this idea of who you are and she's having trouble matching it to the man she's still getting to know."

"You speaking from experience?"

"You think you're the first man to get busted on a bootie call by his grown daughter?"

TBC