I love you guys! You all have such wonderful ideas...and not a single one of you wants Sam to have the Apple Pie Life.

Again, sorry for the delay, but this has been one of the hardest things I have ever written. Not in content, just 'gah'-ness. I'm trying so damn hard to avoid the clichés…and I'm probably failing. I was going to make you wait even longer, but Rowan and Mac forbade me from re-writing for a sixth time. Like they have any room to talk. Rowan, if you don't update Devil's Own Luck NOW, I will steal Missouri's spoon and beat.you.with.it.

So part four. I was going to name this chapter 'The one in which everything is revealed' but I figured that might be false advertising...

It was close to four thirty in the morning, but the freshly painted door swung open only a heartbeat after Sam rang the doorbell. Or rather Dean rang the doorbell. He knew his brother. Given half the chance, Dean would hotwire the car and drive it out of the state, whether he could see over the wheel or not. Now little Sammy was with his big brother, Sam knew Dean's protective instincts would step up a notch. They had, and Sam felt supremely awkward with a squirming Dean tucked carefully under one arm, and a baby cooing in the other. Dean had rung the doorbell after extracting a faithful promise from Sam to return his little brother. So it was with a sudden compassion for every Disney villain out there that Sam stood on Missouri Mosley's doorstep, any ground he had gained with Dean lost once his mini-self arrived on the scene.

As the door swung open, Sam was stuck dumb for a moment. He really hadn't gotten anymore used to this back to the future crap. He'd been expecting the kindly faced, round, middle-aged Missouri he had Dean had met a year ago. The woman who stood before Sam was the age Dean was when they first met her, lean, and dressed in the most hideous green and blue dressing gown Sam had ever seen.

Missouri took one look at the strange family, sighed, and waved them into the hall. "Honey, you had better let me break out the brandy. I think we're going to need it."

True to his word, Sam set Dean down onto one of the flower-covered couches and pressed the baby into his lap, mindful of the healing injuries hidden by Sam's jacket. A small white and grey kitten scrambled over the back of the chair. Baby Sammy reached for it with a giggle and Dean alternated between allowing the two to play, and making sure no claws got within an inch of Sammy's delicate skin.

Suddenly more exhausted than he had been in a long time, Sam dropped into the chair across the room and accepted the large brandy offered with a shaky smile of thanks.

"I'm sorry for bothering you so late."

"Early" Missouri corrected with a dry smile.

Sam nodded. "Early. I just didn't know where else to go. Hell, you've never even met me before, well you have, and I- Oh, Christ." Sam broke off and downed the amber liquid in one. He coughed as it burned his throat, a far better spirit than the crap he was used to drinking with his brother. "Sorry."

"Alright, now you just hold it right there, boy." Obviously her ability to make him feel seven was a god given talent, and not something she had learned over the years. "Why don't you start somewhere I can follow you? Hmm? The beginning, perhaps?"

"Can't you just read my mind?" Sam said meekly, a small smile touching his lips.

Hands on hips, "You can read my mind, but it ain't gonna be PG rated." Now that was the Missouri he remembered. The only woman in history to not only put Dean in his place, but threaten him with a spoon in the process. Apparently she had an in-built psychic-detector.

Okay. He could do that. "Dean, my brother, and I were hunting a shape shifter in Laramie, Wyoming. The thing had been working its way across country, breaking into museums and vaults, stealing antiques and selling them on to private collectors." Dean had actually been impressed with the mechanics behind the gig, and it took a lot to impresses the Ethan Hunt of the demon-hunting world. "We cornered him on the outskirts of the city, just after he'd finished his latest job. Then, then I don't remember what happened next. One minute I'm in Wyoming in 2007, the next, I'm in Kansas and it's twenty two years ago."

Missouri nodded slowly. "And those two boys?"

Sam swallowed. "Dean and I. We-they, they lost their mom a few weeks ago in supernatural fire.

"Yes," Missouri said quietly, her gaze lighting on the two boys. "So hard for you. To loose someone you love, twice. And to go through that all again…" She trailed off, letting Sam know she was clued up, at least as much as he was.

"What's happening to me?" He had only known Missouri for a short period of time, but she had always struck him as someone who could help.

The piercing gaze that had pinned him melted to something more compassionate. "I think you know, honey." She said gently. "You just don't want to admit it."

Sam nodded. Maybe he did know, deep down. Maybe he didn't. Everything was too fuzzy to order. It felt like waking after a long sleep, the cobwebs still clinging to his mind.

"Can I ever go back?" he asked, voice smaller and softer than he'd intended it to be.

Missouri shrugged artlessly. "Maybe. Can't say. Do you want to go back?"

"What?" he looked up, startled. What kind of question was that? "Of course I want to go back! I don't belong here."

"Here isn't real, Sam. Not to you. Just as there isn't real to me. You are in between. What road you take is your decision."

Then Sam asked the question that had been burning him ever since he discovered it was Dean he held in his arms. "What if I make things worse? What if I'm messing with the natural order of things?"

Missouri scoffed and sat opposite in a large armchair. "Boy, there is no natural order. But you can't change your past. It's impossible. Anything that happens here, now, won't change that. Our future may take a different shape, but your past can never be undone."

Certain events from said past made themselves known in painful and uncomfortable waves. "That's not exactly reassuring."

Missouri's eyebrow rose in disdain. "Reassuring? Do I look like a fortune cookie?"

Sam shook his head, quickly and meekly. "No ma'am."

She nodded sharply.

"Sam, you have a choice. You can go to Wyoming, look for answers to a question you don't even know. You can do all that, but I don't think you want to."

"He's my father. Dean and I had him, we had each other, he had no one. He had to teach himself or rely on strangers. I just want to help him." Sam didn't know how to put it more sincerely. He'd spent most of his life fighting with John Winchester. Now the man was gone, once he'd been faced with the inescapable evidence of just how much he loved his sons, there had been so many conversations Sam wished he could have gone back and changed.

"And ease your guilt." She added with a compassionate smile, reading his mind, or the emotions that were plain on his face.

Sam looked up sharp. "Excuse me?" It had been so long since anyone had been able to know him the way Dean could. It was strange coming from a woman he barely knew.

"You blame yourself for the way he died. You wish things had ended differently between you two." He'd forgotten how weird it was to have someone read his thoughts the way she could.

Honest and open, he nodded.

"Then it seems like you already made your choice."

"What about Dean?" His Dean. The Dean that was probably tearing Wyoming apart as he spoke.

"You don't think your brother can manage without you?"

Dean swam in his mind, a million and one expressions flashing across the familiar face before it settled on the way he had looked that day at the lakeside, and John's final secret had surfaced from the depths.

"No." Throughout his childhood, and up until only recently, Sam had always believed that Dean could manage without him. He'd done so, hadn't he? Lived for four years without Sam. Except he hadn't, not really. He'd existed, and Sam had simply failed to see beyond the glass surface of the mirror to the cracks below, even when presented with the evidence. His second Christmas after leaving, when Dean had been spread so thin by everything he dealt with that Sam had never been more afraid of him vanishing altogether. It had been the first and only time he had seen his brother in the four years of his time away, and even then he'd blamed Dean's weariness on the hunt, on the lifestyle his father had forced on them. That had been part of the problem. Sam had been the rest of it.

Sam's fears had shifted over the last few months. Now he wasn't so worried about Dean coping if he left-in whatever manner. Now he was more preoccupied with Dean staying alive long enough to cope.

Missouri picked up on the stray thoughts that seeped through his fledgling shields. Her dark eyes sought out the two small children ensconced in the corner. Little Dean still cradled his little brother reverently, dangling a red ribbon for Sam to reach for, and the tiny kitten had curled up in the gap between his shoulder and the cushion.

"Then it's a good thing he won't have to."

Baby Sammy wriggled in his big brother's arms. The ribbons Dean was dangling in his face twisted and twirled, and it astounded Dean that the baby was so easy to please. Sam had been nothing but difficult since the fire, crying all hours of the night, not settling, driving John around the bend. Dean couldn't help but love him for it. Whilst Sam demanded his attention, Dean could almost pretend that he didn't still feel the heat against his skin. He and his mom had played with Sammy like this for as long as Dean could remember.

The baby's small fingers caught the twirling end of the ribbon and promptly attempted to chew his way through it. Mary had tried to explain to her eldest son that Sammy was teething, a concept that Dean, at the grand old age of four, had been unable to wrap his head around. Having always had his teeth, he half expected his brother's to simply be there one morning. All the fussing and crying and dribbling was not supposed to be part of the baby brother bargain.

They had spoons at Kate's house that their father kept in the fridge. As Sammy grew more and more frustrated with his latest chew toy, Dean wished his daddy was around to give him one. A restless Sammy was a noisy Sammy.

A large hand, one Dean could tell instantly didn't belong to his father, came to rest on the arm of the chair in which Dean sat, and the little boy jumped in fright. Sammy gurgled at the tall man. Dean's eyes grew wide and his lip trembled. He pulled his brother closer.

Kind grey-green eyes met his and Dean shuffled back, not liking being the centre of anyone's attention, least of all the strange man from the hospital.

"Hey." The man's voice was like mommy's was when he fell over and cut his knee. No one had spoken to him like that since she left him, not even his daddy, who was so sad that even his gentle voice made Dean long for his mother. Fingers reached up to touch the cuts on his cheek, but when he flinched away they diverted to brush his hair from his eyes. "How you feeling? Do you hurt?"

Dean though about lying. He wasn't supposed to talk to strangers. He wasn't supposed to lie, either. A small nod told the man all he needed to know.

"You remember me though, right? From the hospital? My name's Sam, I'm a friend of your father."

"Sammy." Dean whispered, looking down at his baby brother. The older man's face twisted for a moment before morphing into a smile.

"Your little brother, huh?"

Dean nodded again.

"Bet you're the best big brother ever."

Little Sammy's fingers found Sam's hovering hand and began to gnaw messily on a knuckle. The man chuckled.

"When's daddy coming back? I want to go home." He tried not to whine, but he did hurt and wanted to sleep.

"I know you do, kiddo. I'm going to go get your daddy now, alright, so you hang on tight and Missouri will take good care of you." Sam looked funny again, but he smoothed Dean's hair before leaving the room.

A few minutes later and the lady, Missouri perhaps, entered with an armful of blankets, one of which she wound around dean's shoulders, fussing sweetly as she went. The warmth settled the boys into a cocoon. Sam was out within minutes, but Dean stayed awake, watching the door. Waiting.

To say John had been pissed when Sam had picked him up from the station would have been a massive understatement. Sentences had been reduced to words, and he'd been fucked off as hell to see the Impala parked outside.

"It's complicated." Sam hedged, directing John towards Missouri's.

John gave him a look that made it obvious that he didn't care.

"Look, there's someone I want you to see, alright? Talk to her, and I swear I'll answer your questions then."

John nodded slowly, grudgingly.

"I need to see my sons."

"You will."

The door closed behind John with a soft click instead of the resounding explosion Sam thought it should have. Another door opened somewhere in the darkness, a door that lead to places Sam had already seen and would visit again. The small family was granted a tiny respite from the cold, and Sam stood on the outside. It was the strangest feeling in the world, being so close to people whom he loved, and who loved him back, but feeling so alone.

Leaving his family for the second time, Sam hitched a ride into town, hung around for the morning rush, and stole three wallets in an hour. He'd always held a little disgust for the more illegal supplements to their income. Dean hadn't seemed to care either way, and so he had taken the brunt of the action. With the stolen wallets burning a hole in his pockets, Sam realised that it wasn't so much indifference that made it easy for Dean to steal, it was responsibility. John had been the same. Neither had shown much care because the alternative was to go hungry. That responsibility settled heavily on Sam's shoulders. His father and brother might not realise it, but Sam was responsible for them now.

When he used one of the stolen cards to buy a gun to replace the one he had lost, and when the car he had stolen hit ninety on the freeway heading west, Sam didn't feel a twinge of guilt. It was an eight-hour drive to Manning, Colorado. Sam was preparing for war, and this time, Dean wouldn't be around to save him.

TBC

Okay, long winded notes here, feel free to skip. For those of you who might feel as though I am copping out when I say that Sam can't change his past, the only real explanation I can give you is that I really don't want to go down the Back to the Future photo fade road. Nor do I believe events could just magically fade from Sam's memory. This story does deal with what happens when events change for the better or worse, but if Sam did something different and lost his memory of how it happened in the first place, then he wouldn't know he had done anything wrong, leading us down weird and wonderful metaphysical roads that I am nowhere near tipsy enough to navigate. You lot have some very awesome ideas, so keep em coming. I think you're even meaner to the boys than I plan to be!

Happy St Paddy's day to you all, the one day of the year where everyone is Irish!