Here is the second chapter for the post/prequel to I chose family. Thank you to those who said that they were interested in reading this story. I hope that you will not be dissapointed.

Dean pulled himself from the grasps of slumber, slowly allowing himself to take account of his surroundings without even cracking his eyes open. His head was resting against a damp cool surface. He must be currently prompt against the window of the Impala, which would explain the muscle in his neck that was complaining from tension.

Pushing his attention farther out, he tried to see if he could sense any immediate danger. He could hear nothing but the wind sneaking through the edge of the doors, no other sound came to his ears not even the sound of Samantha's soft breathing.

His eyes snapped open as this thought registered. Dean shot up in his seat cranking around to peer into the backseat where his daughter had fallen asleep hours before. The lonely leather was all that met his wide eyes.

His heart fell into his stomach as he stared around feeling panic rising. Dean paused and allowed himself a sigh of sheer relief. Sitting outside in the sun with her back to the car was Samantha.

Leaning back against the familiar leather and closing his eyes, Dean tried to calm his nerves. He had been on edge like this since Ben had run into traffic 25 years ago, always waiting for the next person to be taken away from him. He could remember the day like it was yesterday.

Lisa, Ben and Dean had been spending some time together in a local park. Dean and Ben had been throwing around a football. He had finally started to enjoy this new apple pie life and Ben's smile seemed to make the colours that day become brighter.

All that had been lost by one careless throw that had gone too far. Dean's happiness that until then had only been scotch taped together broke apart as Ben chased the football as it bounced into the street.

Dean forced his eyes open, so that the images of Ben broken body lying on the cold pavement were the car had hit him would fade away. He could not let himself remember how Lisa had looked as her whole world was slammed into the pavement by a distracted driver. Neither Dean nor Lisa had had the strength to comfort the other, in the end that is what broke them apart.

Climbing out of his precious car, Dean focused his attention on the only person how could now give him strength. Samantha was the only person in the world that Dean had left; everyone else had died or left him, but never her. When she had been small he had held onto her with an iron will, determined to protect her from anyone who would take her away from him. Now Dean knew that his daughter had an iron will of her own and nothing would break up her family if she had anything to say about it.

When Samantha had been six, her mother having been dead for three years already, a demon had broken into their house. Dean had only just been able to get his little girl safely out of the building, and escape into the blackness.

Sometimes it felt like they had never really stopped running.

As if she had felt someone watching her or known that she was needed, Samantha turned around sending a smile to her father.

"It's about time that you woke up, Rip Van Winkle." Samantha's genuine smile slipping into a playful grin. "When you said we were going to stop for a couple of hours so you could get some sleep, I didn't realize that I would have to go straight back to school after you were done."

"You still have three months of vacation, and when did you become such a drama queen?" Dean asked the familiar banter allowing the painful memories to drift to the back of his mind.

Samantha stood up, reaching her hands above her head and stretching her back. She moved towards the impala rolling her shoulders. "Well let's get on the road then!"

With that she jumped into the impala. "Don't slam the door!" Dean began to say but was cut off by the sharp slam of the door.

Dean climbed into the car, sending a glare to his daughter who was looking at him with eyes that were doing a perfect impression of Sam's puppy dog plea. Dean rolled his eyes; of all the things she could have inherited from Sam it had to be that.

It had been 26 years since Sam had saved the world, for that's how Dean always thought about the day in Stull cemetery. Even after all this time he could not think of Sam as gone, for he had left a space in Dean that he had never been able to truly patch up.

"Finally!" Samantha called out suddenly looking up from her Blackberry, shooting her arm out in exasperation startling Dean from his focus on the road. The impala swerved to the left a little, Dean quickly pulling it back straight.

"What the Hell Samantha?" Dean asked as he tried to make sure that the impala remained between the yellow lines on the road. Dean's voice sounded so sharp but Samantha knew him well enough to see that he was worried about their safety to be offended.

"Sorry." Samantha said in a voice filled with apology. "It's just, I've been worried about my friend Broderick, he was supposed to email me and I thought something may have happened to him." She paused turning her attention back to the small screen. "He's ok though, I just received an email from him."

Dean glanced over at Samantha head that was bowed over her phone. Sometimes she was such a geek to be excited over a simple email, something else she got from her uncle, Dean wryly thought. "Well, what does he have to say that was so important that you tried to drive us off the road?" Dean asked.

"I'm pulling it up right now"

The air in the impala changed in that moment, Dean could have sworn that the temperature plunged. Something was wrong. Samantha was staring at the screen with a look of pure horror over her face.

Manoeuvring the impala quickly to the side of the road, Dean turned to the study Samantha's stricken look. All colour had dropped away from her face, and she didn't move an inch as the moments ticked by. Dean felt the sharp edge of fear begin as he pulled the phone from her loose grip.

Samantha snapped awake as the plastic brushed away from her fingers. "Dad! Wait, don't look."

Her warning came too late, all his blood turned to ice as he looked at the email, which consisted only of a photograph.

The photograph was of an old rustic room with a busted light fixture. In the centre of the room was a tall man strapped down to a chair. His tall lean frame was bent in a way that could not possibly be comfortable. His button up shirt seemed to have been ripped open, a road map of ruby cuts traced a pattern across his chest.

The captive was clenching his jaw in a mixture of determination and pain. Dean could not move, though the man had definitely changed over the years his identity was unmistakable. His form showed that he was at the mercy of his captors but he looked at the camera with a stubborn defiance that Dean had come to think of as a family trait.

Staring at the hazel eyes that had haunted his nightmares and some of his happiest memories, Dean could hear nothing but a rushing sound in his ears. Suddenly Samantha's reaction made sense. In that moment, all the years of hidden pain and loneliness came crashing down upon him, leaving him breathless.

Dean breathed the name of the man, his voice sounding raspy even to his own ears.

"Sammy."