AN: Lydecker comes to visit Alec and the Winchesters in Kansas. Moved here from my livejournal.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

In August, a week before Sam left for Stanford and while Alec was still trying to figure out how to tell Mary she could stop thinking up new things to feed him (because the meat and potato noodle thing had just been weird), the doorbell rang.

When he got downstairs, John Winchester and Donald Lydecker were sitting at the kitchen table, having a beer.

He was standing at attention before he even realized it.

"Hi," Lydecker said, "You must be Dean."

"Donald and I were in the same unit," John said. "The last time I saw him he'd just gotten a huge promotion."

Donald gave a rueful grin. "It could have been you, John."

John reached over and grabbed Mary's hand. "I don't know about that. I had other priorities in mind."

Lydecker laughed and looked over to Alec. "So what do you do, Dean?"

"I work on cars," he said. "Just like my old man."

"Interesting," he said. "No stint in the military first though, huh?"

Alec excused himself to help Sam pack.

Sam was fretting about how many of his books to bring. "After all, how much time will I have to read them? They'll be giving me plenty new things to read."

"What about as reference books?"

Sam nodded. "You're right. I need them. I definitely need them," and he reached to grab the contents of entire shelf.

"Wait a minute! Who's going to help you carry all of that? Maybe you should just pick one or two."

Sam sighed and let go of the books. "Who's downstairs with mom and dad?"

"Some guy dad knew in the military."

Sam studied him. "Why is it bugging you?"

"Who said it's bugging me?"

"I can tell."

Alec stared back at Sam for a while, then moved past him towards the bookshelf. "Here, let me help you with those."

John and Alec didn't talk about it. They talked about cars and sports and Sam and sometimes the Pulse. But they didn't talk about Terminal City or transgenics. They talked about hunting and Mary and what's for dinner. But they didn't talk about Alec. They talked about Dean.

Sometimes Sam asked him things. He tried to be honest, but discrete. He wanted Sam to be his little brother, but he hadn't had a little brother before, only fellow soldiers. He tried to think of Sam like Joshua. If Joshua hadn't known about Psy-ops, Alec wouldn't have said anything about Psy-ops. So he didn't tell Sam about Psy-ops. He told Sam about his unit, before they were moved to individual cells. He told Sam about going out on assignment, about exotic locals and beautiful women, but not that they were assignments.

Mary and Alec didn't really talk at all. Sometimes he would watch her when she didn't know it, and imagine her taking him to school on the first day and giving him a big hug, or he would imagine asking her to make cookies for a bake sale or to take him shopping for new shoes. Sam said moms did all those things. All he really saw Mary do was cook.

John took Donald outside to show him the car he had tried to give to Dean. He said, "This is my son's car, now. Isn't she a beauty?"

Don gave the car its due, and then they leaned together against the trunk and looked out at the street. It was a quiet day in Lawrence.

"Why are you here, Lydecker?" he asked.

"Can't an old friend say hi?"

"Sure. How come that old friend doesn't want to know how I got my son back?"

Lydecker said nothing.

"Kind of hard to think you didn't have a part to play in this, Don."

"Think what you want, John, but this is a good will mission, nothing more."

They didn't say anything more about it.

Sam packed three boxes of books, and Alec unpacked two of them while Sam went downstairs to look for more on the bookshelves in the living room.

Back upstairs, Sam set an armful of books on the bed and studied Alec's work.

"I think you're trying to tell me something," he said.

"My back hurts already. No more boxes."

"Your back doesn't hurt."

"You don't need all those books."

Sam shook his head slowly.

Alec fidgeted in his spot on the floor.

"He's still here," Sam said.

"What? Who?"

"Dad's friend. They went outside to talk shop, but he hasn't left yet." Sam started packing books into newly emptied boxes. "Maybe you should go talk to him."

"Why would I do that?"

Sam shrugged while he taped one of the boxes shut this time. "I think you need to. I think you've been nervous and twitchy since he got here. Who is he?"

"A camp counselor," he said.

Sam's eyes got wide and he put the tape down carefully.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Alec didn't know.

Lydecker didn't stay for dinner, even though Mary asked him to. They stood just inside the front door and said their good byes. When he shook Alec's hand, he gripped it hard until Alec stopped avoiding eye contact.

"It was good to meet you, son," he said.

John drew Alec aside after they had seen Lydecker off. "After he told me about the promotion, he also told me about a program that could help Mary and I conceive."

Alec only stared at him.

"Dean, have you met this man before?"

Alec didn't feel like it was a lie when he said no. Dean had never met Donald Lydecker before that day. They didn't talk about Alec.

In the kitchen, he leaned against the counter and watched Mary chop up an onion. She was sniffling a little and when she told him the menu for that night he could only nod in agreement. Anything she wanted to make him would be perfect.

After dinner, Alec said he wanted to run down to the shop quick, to place an order for some parts he had forgotten to do the day before.

Only a block away from the house, he stopped his blur next to the driver's side window of an old Buick and waited for the window to be rolled down.

"If I could find you, don't you think they will, too?"

Alec stared down the road and pictured the car gone.

"Stop calling Terminal City. You're only making it easier for them."

"No."

"If you want to protect your family, you will. And keep the barcode covered. I saw it the second you turned around."

"They're not going to come after me," he said.

"Of course they are," Lydecker said. "You're X5."

Back home, he found Mary sitting in the living room, a book on her lap but unopened.

She looked up at him in the doorway, and he gave her a small smile.

"You don't have to make me anything special," he said. "I mean, I appreciate it, but I don't need it."

She gave him a small smile in return. "I want to," she said. "I want to do things for you."

He nodded like he understood, but he really didn't. "Okay," he said.

That night he dressed in all in black and painted his face and climbed onto the roof. He sat in the shadows by the chimney and kept watch until dawn.