FIVE

Crazy Circles, Going Round And Round

.

.

Dean felt shivers of fear go through him. He had never heard his mother more perfectly angry. He squeezed his eyes ever tighter, feeling his head start to shake in fear. His whispering grew to a worried whimper as he picked up his breath, shook it out, and began repeating his words of comfort over and over.

"Everything's gonna be ok. I got you, Sammy. Everything's gonna be ok."

The baby in his hold waved little arms, one of them catching at Dean's chin. Sam's pudgy limb paused but then repeated the manoeuvre, this time encountering Dean's pyjamas. It held fast to the material in a way that forced his elder brother to think that baby Sam knew exactly what level of fear had taken the room.

Without opening his eyes, Dean reached for the soft wool over his baby brother's heart. He clutched it tightly, his fist resting gently on the baby's heartbeat, knowing wee Sam had a good hold over his, too. And that's how they held onto each other, fearing the next sound in the room.

It was another greasy laugh. And then the man's voice.

"It's your husband or that attractive, charming baby Sammy of yours. What do you say?"

An almighty report, a crack, ripped through the house. Dean stiffened in shock as he recognised the sound of a gun, just like from the movies. He heard the sound of two large, soft things hitting the wooden floor.

Silence. Dean felt his breath stop.

Finally:

"Jesus!" John blurted.

"John - are you ok?" His mother's voice was worried as it crossed the room.

"Yeah - I… I think so," came his father's voice. "But that man… You shot him--"

"That wasn't a man."

There was silence for what felt like a very long time.

"The boys," Mary said at last.

Dean heard the voices, heard the sounds. But he couldn't make any part of him obey the slightest command.

A hand touched gently at his shoulder.

"Dean?" came his mother's voice. He shook his head blindly, refusing to open his eyes. "Deanie, it's Mommy. You can come out now."

He waited for the strange voice, the other him, to tell him it was ok. But it was gone; something told him it wasn't coming back, as if it couldn't. He realised in that second he had done something; someone had done something big. He just had no idea what it was.

But he did know his mother's worried voice when he heard it, and he knew when it was including him, not directed at him.

He opened his eyes and looked up into the face of his mother. Her tired eyes smiled at his look of relief.

"You did it, you protected Sammy for me," she whispered, sitting on the bed and hauling him up to sit in her lap. She wrapped her arms round both sons, feeling Dean's wet face press into her nightdress.

"Mommy!" he trembled, and she let her own tears fall at last. She put her hand to her eldest son's head, keeping his face tight to her in relief.

"Oh sweetheart, you were so brave," she managed, the sound of tears marring her soft tone.

"Mary--" John began.

His voice stopped. Instead Dean felt the bed move, knew his father had sat and simply enveloped his family. He squeezed and Dean smelt very keenly the familiar, welcome scent of his parents so close to him.

Mary controlled her tears, steadied her breathing. She lifted her head and leaned it against her husband's shoulder. "John, I need you to do something for me…"

"Anything."

Dean simply melted into his mother's warmth, the simple act of letting her comfort him breaking every single instinct he had just developed during the past nightmare. But something gnawed at him to let it go, let her be his mother, let everything settle into the way it always should have done. Was it the remnant of the voice, the other him? Whatever it was, it sounded happy beyond imagining. Little Dean wasn't sure if he would ever remember or explain that to anyone else. But it was all he needed to know that he was and had been in the right place at the right time.

Finally… I made it right...

The thought wisped and was gone, barely heard and understood even less. Little Dean let the sounds of the here and now just wash over him: of his mother talking softly over his head, of his father starting to protest but then acquiescing at her patient, knowing tone.

Baby Sammy shifted and sniffled. Dean opened his eyes, aware that the two worlds the four of them shared, the private little arenas of parents versus brothers, would one day cross. But it would not be today. Today, his mother had his father and they had their adult world; but baby Sam and bigger Dean would always have their private understanding, their own world of brotherly shenanigans and sibling rivalry yet to come.

Dean looked down at the fretting brother and suddenly he saw a purpose, a reason to be older, angrier, louder, faster, stronger. It was in the tiny face searching for his, in the way the little expressions changed predictably for their parents but slyly mercurially for his older brother; it was just Sammy.

Dean grinned his first - had anyone but Sam seen it - heart-stopping grin. He nodded once. "Everything's gonna be ok. I got you, Sammy. Everything's gonna be ok," he whispered, with wisdom beyond his years.

He pushed the blanket up around the baby slowly, closing his eyes and leaning more against the protective warmth of his mother. He heard the talking above his head cease, heard his father's footsteps retreat.

He looked up at Mary with burning innocence.

"Where's Daddy?" he dared.

"He's taking out some trash," she whispered, and for a moment, Dean was sure he saw a smile. But then she kissed his forehead firmly, pulling him against her in a warm hug that melted his fears.

They stayed that way until they heard John creaking along the landing. He poked his head in the open door.

"It's done," he nodded. "Just like you said to."

"Thanks," she breathed. She gestured with her head and he walked in slowly, still in his US Marines shirt and pyjama bottoms.

"What do we do with the Colt now?"

"Later," she sighed, "we'll think about that later."

John huffed but he sat on the bed, wrapping his arms around them all.

"We'll talk about it all later," Mary managed, sounding troubled. "Right now… I want to enjoy this moment. It's been ten years of worry and heart-sickness. It's about time I finally enjoyed what we have."

It was silent for a long minute, the four of them lost in individual thoughts. Finally, John cleared his throat.

"But… how did you know?" he asked gruffly. "How did you… you had that big old gun under the windowsill since we moved in here. How did you know?"

Mary took a deep breath wearily, lifting her head from his shoulder and stroking her hand down her eldest son's shaggy hair.

"I still can't believe it; I still can't believe he was right," she muttered.

"Who? Who was right?" John pressed. He waited impatiently as his wife eyed the two children in her arms.

"I could tell you a crazy story about some young man warning me about this night," she mused, watching her hand trace through Dean's hair. "I could remind you of what happened before we got married - and explain why I kept the gun." She sighed, leaning down and kissing the top of Dean's grateful head. "But instead I'll just say… I think this was always how it was meant to go."

"How whut was meant to go?" John asked, completely baffled. "How will I ever understand everything that just happened - what he said to you, what he said he had to do to Sammy--"

"Do you believe me? That it was him or us?" she asked firmly.

John considered her for a long moment but then indecision made him look away. His eyes caught, not for the first time, the small circles and pentacles carved into the wood around the bed, old and worn but one she had always resisted replacing.

And then it came to him: something bigger than he could comprehend had finally been settled. I don't understand it, and I don't want to understand it. All I want is my wife and kids, safe. And they are. Because of her. So what does it matter? Does it matter what I think about what happened tonight?

He looked back at her with a confident lift to his chin. "I believe you," he allowed. "But… just tell me… how did you know?"

Mary simply lifted her head again, smiling at him tiredly. "How will I ever find that young man and thank him for warning me that that yellow-eyed man would come back for us? And how did he know in the first place?" she countered, her hand still unconsciously tousling her son's fair head. "We all have questions that we really, really don't want the answers to."

John just looked at her for a long moment. At last he blew out a long sigh, shaking his head and wrapping both arms round her.

"I'll never get the whole story, will I?" he realised. Tell the truth, I don't think I really want it anyway.

"Not when I don't know it myself," she admitted. "If these two hadn't started hollering, and I hadn't thought back to that flickering light and what that boy had told me… Who knows what would have happened?"

"Yeah," John realised, a cold hand of fear clutching at his heart as he felt, all too clearly, the woman and two small boys in his protective embrace. "Who knows?"

.

.

FIN

.

References episode 4x03 'In The Beginning'.

.

Author's Notes:

Again, I can and will place blame directly with the Stolichnaya. And then there's the cheese Taquitos… Maybe I should NOT eat them within three hours of going to bed…

And I know I promised I would never kill the boys again after my AU effort, 'Means To An End', but technically I didn't kill them at all this time round - cos it never happened! And neither did the four (soon to be five) seasons on TV! So Dean warned his younger self to stop it all from happening, so he was never there to go through 'In The Beginning' and warn his mam, never became a hunter, and therefore was never there to make his younger self remember in the first place - or (this time) warn people of the YED…

But wait, if it never happened, how did Dean remember it? And how did he warn his younger self…? Paging Dr Beckett! Dr Sam Beckett, I need some help figuring out this wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey fourth-dimensional stuff, please…