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.
Just watched the Everybody Loves a Clown episode, and felt so bad that no one went up to Dean and hugged him (because he so needed a hug at the end of that episode) that I needed to construct a chapter.
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Sam was sitting on the bed in the motel room. He could feel that his eyes were puffy, and his nose was sniffly and runny. He felt like he was about 7 years old, staying home from school with a cold.
But at the same time he also felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. It had been so hard just remembering to breathe since Jess was taken, everything hurt, from eating (because it reminded him that he would never taste her cooking again) to driving (because the Impala had nothing on the his BMW, that had burned in its garage, right next to Jess's minivan). He knew that Dean was trying to help, was sure that one day, if the fog he was living in ever lifted he would be grateful that Dean had made sure there was a position at his work for him to come back too, and that he had things to remember Jess by, photos and other things from his house. But at the moment all he saw when Dean spoke to him, tried to help him, make him feel better, was a man who had never been in as much pain as he was in. Dean had never wanted to be married, or at least, not the Dean that Sam had grown up with. He knew nothing of love, commitment, just one night stands with pretty girls. And Sam was ok with that, just as long as Dean realised that he couldn't understand what it was like to find the one girl that you realised you were put on the earth for, and then to have her taken away in a fiery flash.
And then Dad was there, and for the first time Sam understood why his father had lived the way he did when they were kids, why they had moved so much, learned to hunt and to fight. Why the need to get that son o' bitch was strong, and why nothing seemed to come before it. Because now he felt that too. Now he could feel the urge, the need that came even before eating and sleeping. The desire to kill the demon that had ruined his life.
And with understanding came a desire to make things right, to let his father know that he hadn't understood the life they lived when he had left an angry 18 year old, slamming the a door on a life he had hated. Now he wanted to tell his father, I know why you did it, I forgive you for making me grow up that way, please forgive me for leaving.
It was a soul turning realisation, a desire for forgiveness and acceptance from his father that took up his whole being. And, this mass of emotion, coupled with the grief in his every pore, meant that Sam, instead of being able to articulate his feelings had burst into tears and sobbed on his fathers shoulder for close to an hour.
And then they had talked, man to man, widower to widower. John had spoken, softly, of a time in his life that Sam had never been told of, the year following Mary's death that had been filled with drink and hang overs and guilt, and a pain that gnawed to the bone. He had told of the rejuvenation that hunting brought, the purpose it gave him, how he had cleaned himself up, become a father again, albeit a gun toting one.
"Sammy, I know what you're going through. And I'm so very proud of you, because of the way you're handling this. And I promise you this son, I will hunt this demon with everything I have, until my last breath if necessary. Because that's what Mary and Jess were worth."
And then they had shared a hug for a long moment, before John, apparently having used up his quota of emotions for the century, grunted something about going to see where Dean had gotten off to with his grandson and left Sam sitting on his bed with a red face and a new purpose. When his father had promised to get the demon, he believed him. And now he could see the light at the end of the tunnel, thinking that maybe, just maybe once the demon was gone, even if it took another 20 years, that he would be able to feel again.
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By the time Dean, John and Jamie arrived back it was getting dark, and there were no more 'emotions', just facts. John laid out his plan for getting the demon, explaining how one would keep the parents busy, while the other two confronted the demon as it moved to take the child, and shot it with the colt.
This plan had to be revised several times though, when they realised that Jamie needed to have someone looking after him and Johns 'we could leave him in the car with the windows down while we kill it' wasn't good enough for Dean or Sam, who, though he was had a new understanding of his father, still wasn't prepared to stoop to leaving his infant unattended in a dangerous neighbourhood.
The thought of getting him a babysitter was rejected on the grounds that if the hunt went wrong they could be stumbling in at some forsaken hour covered in blood and whatever else, and that wouldn't be easy to explain to a 17 year old trying to pay for a car.
In the end, after a good ol' fashioned Winchester family shouting match, it was decided that Dean would stay in the car with the baby, and only if the two in the house were in mortal danger would he leave the child unattended to help them.
This resolution, supported by two thirds of the family unit ended their planning session about 11pm, with Dean storming to bed, Sam slinking off for a shower, and John staying awake to pour over maps and schematics and other information he had compiled, planning for all contingencies.
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Dean was angry as he lay in his bed, ignoring the shuffle of papers and the hissing sound of hot water. It was the kind of anger that makes one want to throw large objects, like tables, in order to let off some steam. It was an intense feeling, one that he felt only rarely, in situations where he felt he had been well and truly screwed over, and wanted to scream and shout at the world until it just fixed itself.
Right now he was fuming because it just wasn't bloody fair. This had been his fight since he was four years old, and his father had sat him down in a way so similar to the way he had the night of the fire that Dean had burst into tears, expecting to be told that now someone else wasn't coming back either, which was too much for the little boy who really missed his mother. After John had carefully calmed down his son he had explained a new concept, different from 'death' which they had discussed about 6 months earlier. He had told Dean all about something called 'revenge' and then talked about monsters and demons and fire, and Dean had had nightmares for weeks.
But he had followed his father, joined the fight, listened to what he was told about demons and the hunt for the thing that had taken away his mother. As he got older he had trained when he had been told, learnt to follow orders without question, thrown out the empty beer bottles that piled up when a hunt when particularly bad, kept Sammy safe even at his own expense and done exactly what his family needed him to do. Support, love and care for.
And now they were blocking him out? Keeping him from the fight that his whole life had been moulded for? He wanted to grab his father and screech at him that the reason he didn't have a wife, the reason they were telling him that he didn't understand what they felt was because he was to busy hunting, to respectful of his fathers orders to get close to a girl, even if he desperately wanted too. He wanted to point out that he had lost too; that the only reason he and Cassie weren't married was because his father had dragged him out of that town, after another lead, another clue, before he had the chance to properly fix things. That when he had had the chance to go back, try and clear things up he had fallen in love all over again, only to have to leave her behind to finish a job his father had texted the coordinates for. Somehow he felt that he wasn't going to get a second chance, her goodbye had been fairly final.
Surely that counted for something? His mother had been pinned to a ceiling, he had left behind the woman he loved for this crusade, and now he was sitting in the car! Sure, he knew that Jamie needed to be looked after, protected but, it left a bitter taste in his mouth that he was the one to be doing the babysitting. He didn't begrudge Sam and John the chance to get their revenge, understood that this need for retribution would eat them alive if they couldn't fulfil it. But he wanted to be there, deserved to be there.
And not only because he was angry at being left out of the fight, but also because he was scared of what might happen if he wasn't there to make sure they didn't put their desires ahead of more important things…
…like their own lives.
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Well, there we go. I was going to have action this chapter, and then, well, I got all caught up in the whole Dean anger thing, and bah, another chapter.
Which, be excited, has already been begun.
Coming up next on 'Shattered Dreams'
"I can bring her back Sammy, I truly can. But I want your son in return."
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