Totally AU, Dean came and went in the pilot, and Sam and Jess stayed home, got hitched, grew normal. Doesn't mean the demon wasn't going to come.
Thanks for the reviews. Hope you continue to enjoy.
Sam had grown up in a world highly charged with fear and adrenaline. Dean, since they were both very small, had drilled into him that if you wanted to stay alive you needed to be able to assess a situation and act in the blink of an eye, because that was all the difference there was between being hit by the lamp the ghost just threw at you, and ducking under it. And Sam had been good at that, or at least, had improved after he realised the import of the skills Dean was always insisting he acquire. It only took two or three hunts, with two or three minor, though painful, injuries, for Sam to teach himself to automatically be able to consider and act, quickly enough for his actions to be effective.
His time at Stanford had dulled these reflexes somewhat, there were no echoes of your own mortality here, but it wasn't something that you ever totally lost, and so there were times, when fast action was needed and he had been able to give it.
This was not one of those times. In fact, when Sam opened his eyes to find Jessica on the roof, screaming and crying, her stomach slashed open, he did the thing that Dean had drilled him for years to never do. He froze, and instead of seeing the cloaked figure in the corner of the room, yellow eyes gleaming in the darkness, all he could think, or hear, or see, was Jessica. Time seemed to slow, what must have only really been a few seconds seemed to stretch indefinitely. He focused on her face, its beauty marred by pain, taking in every single detail he could, locking his eyes with hers, communicating I love you with one blink, and then she burst into flames.
Sam couldn't tear himself away from her, even though he could feel the heat of the flames. The heat seemed only a slight pain compared to what felt like acid seeping through his every vein. It felt like someone had just reached into his body, broken all of his ribs, and pulled out his heart. And then set fire to it.
Sam stayed, lying on his bed, his eyes locked on the fire above, his screams of anguish joining with his wifes as the flames licked at the walls.
Dean vaulted from his car even as it was still moving, for once not caring how much damage he did to his baby, he didn't even pause as he came to the front door, simply breaking it down and keeping on moving, desperate to get upstairs, to where he had seen the fire from the window. He could feel the heat as he got the second floor, there was smoke filling the air, and flames were licking along the walls, not because the fire had been burning a long time, but because the demon wanted this house gone. Dean could hear Sam screaming from the room down the hall, in a voice so broken, so desperate that he knew he could never be forgiven for not being quick enough to save Sammy's family.
As much as he wanted to get to Sam he could also hear a baby's cries, Jamie was wailing his head off, and his room was closer. Dean kicked the door down, flames moving over the walls, and the air becoming harder to breathe. The nursery reminded himself so much of Sam's, and the fire so much of the night he lost his mother that Dean had to catch his breath. But there was no woman pinned to this roof, and he moved over, quickly scooping up the baby and sprinting towards Sam's room.
Sam lay on his bed, the room filled with choking smoke. Dean jumped a burning log, ignoring the stinging of his eyes and the nausea that the smoke (combining with his head injury) was giving him. He knew that she was on the roof, there were drops of blood on the floor, and the fire was burning strongly there, so he couldn't see her. Sam was screaming still, desperate shouts for her not to be gone. But there was no time for grief. They had to be Winchesters, they had to survive.
So without speaking a word he grabbed Sam's arm, pulling him clear from his bed in a one armed movement and not quite knowing where the energy or the strength came from, he dragged his protesting brother from the room. By the time they reached the stairs Sam wasn't shouting, he was crying, tears pouring down his face. They got out of the house, Dean pulling Sam as quickly as he could, just reaching the driveway when an explosion blew out the upper windows, showering them with ash and debris. Smoke leeched its way out of the windows.
Neighbours had begun to come out of their houses, bewildered stares coming from people dressed in dressing gowns soon turned to horrified faces, as realisations were drawn between the sobbing young man, crouched in his driveway with his head buried in another's shoulder, and the burning house they saw before them. They kept their distance though, standing in their own front yards, some holding phones and calling the authorities. Dean saw them all, wondered briefly how he would explain his injuries other than smoke inhalation, checked the baby, who had ceased wailing once they got outside, as though understanding that he needed to be quiet just now, and held onto Sam who was latched onto his arm like it was a life buoy in the middle of a turbulent ocean. Neither spoke for another ten minutes or so, until the sirens could be heard, fire trucks and ambulances speeding towards Sam's suburban street.
Dean gave both of their statements to the fireman that he was Sam's brother, on a visit that he had woken to the smoke alarm going off to find the house engulfed in flames. He submitted to have the paramedic treat the wound on his head, the woman sympathetically buying his falling beam story. He decided not to tell her about the ribs he knew were broken, or the pain he was in after the adrenaline had begun to wear off. Falling beams didn't cause broken ribs that he knew for sure, and he didn't want to try and explain injuries that were inconsistent with a fire at this point in time.
Sam had moved from sobbing to quiet, his eyes glazed with a pain to deep to fathom, and Dean was again transported back more than 20 years. He wondered, as he looked at Sam now, if as much of Sam had died with Jess as his father had died with Mary. The baby was fine, the paramedic said it was a miracle the smoke hadn't affected him, and had then chanced a look at Sam and whispered that it was one well deserved.
Dean had thanked her wearily, and then gotten Sam into the car and driven him to the closest motel, his unresponsiveness beginning to worry his brother. He moved them all inside, borrowing a small, grubby crib from the manager and installing Jamie in it, before sitting Sam down on the bed.
"Sammy? Are you sure you're ok? Because I know the paramedic said you were fine, but if she was wrong we can be at the hospital in ten minutes."
Sam had choked, grief threatening to break through again. Dean assumed it was supposed to be a bitter chuckle.
"Of course I'm not ok." The words had been so venomous that they moved through the air like a knife through the dark. "Are you honestly telling me you think I could be ok?"
"I meant physically Sammy. I was asking about your breathing." Dean had responded tiredly. His ribs were killing him, but he needed to know Sam was ok. He had no idea how to help his brother with what had happened, and knew that the guilt would stay with him forever. If he had just been ten minutes earlier.
"Why are you here Dean?" Sam had stood suddenly, and locked eyes with Dean, the grief momentarily overcome by anger. "I don't see you for three years, and then you turn up the night my wife is murdered by a demon?"
"Sammy, I…, look Sam, it's a long story, and I think we both need to at least try to get some sleep. I'm so sorry Sammy, I'm so, so sorry about Jess, but you need to sit down before you fall down."
"I can't sit down Dean, I can't sleep. I'm having trouble just remembering to breathe. My whole life went up in flames in that house. It was normal Dean, we were normal. And I loved it. I loved it so much" his voice cracked, filled with pain, "I loved her so much. And now, I, she's gone, and I don't know if I can keep going Dean. Maybe I don't want to…"
"Sammy, I know it hurts now, and I know it feels like you'll never be the same again, but things will get better, gradually. You need to get some sleep, please, you need to at least try and look after yourself." Dean hadn't begged for years, but he was worried and he didn't know what else to do. He had seen one man fall apart after an event like this, and he was desperate to save Sammy from the same wretched years his father had spent trying to find meaning in a world without Mary.
"No Dean, what I need you to tell me why the night you appear my wife, the mother of my child, my whole world, dies." Sam was shouting now, grief and anger mixing into a torrent that could only produce bad things. Dean moved again to placate him, worried about the breathlessness with which Sam was speaking, kicking himself for not taking him straight to the hospital when he had inhaled that much smoke. "No Dean, don't tell me to sleep. Give me some answers, NOW. Tell me Dean, was it because you were coming that she's dead? Are you the reason it came here!"
Dean's whole body slumped, defeated. He looked back up at Sam with eyes that were filled with as much pain and loss as Sam's were, unshed tears glistening beneath his badly bruised head. And he nodded his head.
Well, there you have it. Chapter three. Hope you enjoyed it. Answers are coming soon; I'm enjoying asking lots of questions and answering few. Reviews are my drug :d.