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The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.
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A Wandering Boy
Chapter 3
Daddy Dearest?
Sam stood in the shade of the ancient oak with his mouth open. Fine, he'd just met an Angel. OK, Angels were real so an adjustment to his world view was necessary. However, an Angel with a cell phone? That went beyond a mere adjustment; he was into a full paradigm shift now.
Questions buzzed through his brain. Angels knew about cell phones? There were Angelic political factions in Heaven? The trench coat guy, Castiel, was hiding out from a celestial lynch mob? Why would nerdy Angel find it necessary to check Sam for demon blood? Freaking demon blood!
He was getting a headache. Glancing back at the car Sam remembered the kid. All this crap was just too much. Maybe Bobby could help sort it out.
Sam headed back to the Impala and pulled opened the driver's door.
"Scoot over, Carson." Sam said. "I need to get to Bobby." Getting behind the wheel gave Sam back a sense of being in control. At least he knew how to handle the Impala. No surprises there, it started right up. All the buzzing in his head began to recede, like water going down a drain.
The tall man pulled back on to the driveway. Just as he felt things settling down a chattering voice from the back seat interrupted thoughts. "What did nerdy guy want? What did he say? Did he tell you who I am? Where did I come from?" Dean was bouncing around sounding like Alvin the Chipmunk, talking too fast and way too high.
Sam glanced in the rear view mirror and got a face full of green eyes and freckles.
"You settle down," he grumbled. "Sit on your butt and be quiet. If you tear up my upholstery you're going to regret it."
Dean sat down and folded his arms. With a sniff and a huff he clearly expressed his opinion of Sam's orders and pointedly turned his head and stared out the side window.
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Moments later they pulled up at the bottom of Bobby's steps. The grizzled Hunter stood on the porch, as usual, shotgun in his arms and Rottweiler at his side. The Impala was close enough to recognize but Bobby's mantra was always, 'better safe than sorry."
He waited for Sam and Carson to get out, just as he expected but when the back door opened and a tousled head full of blonde curls just cleared the edge of the window Bobby was surprised.
Sam walked around the back of the car and captured the little boy who was about to make a break for the steps.
"Whoa," Sam said. "Introductions first."
The little boy leaned his head back and looked all the way up into Sam's hazel eyes. "You're holding my hand too tight, Jolly Green." The kid tried to shake Sam's hand off his arm. "Loosen up or I'm going to start hollering for a rescue."
Sam snorted. "Good luck with that, kid."
"Child abuse, child abuse!" Dean started howling. He glanced up to see if the guy on the porch was going for it.
Bobby laughed out loud. "Who's your little hellion, Sam?" he called down to the Hunter. Sam jerked is chin up and Bobby turned and disappeared into the house. Dean was still making noise and Sam leaned down, picked the kid up and threw him over a shoulder. Sam had one captured hand and held on to both ankles with his other giant mitt to prevent Dean from kicking him in the chest.
That left Dean with only one arm free and his delicate ass in a vulnerable position. "I'm telling you, Dean." Sam muttered. "Settle down and stop embarrassing me or you won't be able to sit down for the rest of the day."
"You wouldn't dare!" Dean squawked.
"Don't test me kid." Sam answered. "Remember, the Angel gave you to me. You'll do what I say or be prepared to pay."
Sam took the steps two at a time and Carson followed behind. At the top Sam put Dean on his feet again and bent down to give Rumsfeld a good scratch behind his ear. Dean extended a hand and carefully gave the big dog a scratch at the base of his spine. Rumsfeld went to doggie heaven and Dean was his new best friend.
Two men, a boy and a happy Rottweiler all made their way through the open screen door into Bobby's house. Following the smell of freshly brewed coffee the parade ended at Bobby's kitchen table. Sam pulled out a chair for Dean and then sat down himself. He passed his hand over the scarred wooden table top as memories of days long gone paraded through his head.
He had sat at this table with his father and argued. Most of his memories about the man were of major arguments. Poor Bobby had been caught in the stormy fights, sometime throwing them both out of his house to preserve the peace. Sam looked over at a chipped wall tile where John's coffee cup had hit the night Sam told the man he was leaving for California.
Bobby had acted as the family buffer up until he had threatened to fill both of them with buckshot if they ever showed up together again. Sam often wondered if Mary and the baby had survived the fire maybe he and his father might have learned to tolerate each other. Sam vaguely remembered his mother as a quiet, peaceful presence. It was so much better when she was alive; of course he had been five at the time. She could have been a spitfire away from him.
Now both his parents were gone. Sam had seen his mother's ashes put in an urn mixed with those of his baby brother and placed on his grandparent's tombstone. He had built and lit his father's Hunter's pyre himself. He was the last of the Winchesters and he expected the name to die with him.
Digging his way out of the trance created by his contemplation of Bobby's kitchen table he laughed at himself. If Bobby ever found out he'd most likely take the table out back and burn it.
"Well, how did the hunt go? Manitous all cleaned out?" Bobby asked all business.
Carson answered. "It was great. Sam showed me all the chants and told me about the Lakota rituals. We cleared the Black Hills first then moved on the Badlands. I learned so much. Sam was great."
Bobby smiled at the young Hunter. "That's why I sent you with him. You need to know more about the Supernatural than just what kind of ammo to use. It should not be all point and shoot,"
"Right," Carson enthused. "My Dad never told me about any of this stuff. He showed me how to pack the salt cartridges and how to clean weapons. He showed me how to burn bones and how to sharpen knives but he never mentioned anything about why things had become what they were."
Carson turned to Sam. "Thanks Sam, I'll never forget this trip and I'd like to maybe go with you again sometime. Think of me when you need someone."
"It was good having you along, Carson. I only wish we could have seen more. You're headed back to Minnesota now, aren't you?" Sam played with his coffee cup then took a sip.
"Steve Nelson in Green Bay is expecting him," Bobby said. "Speaking of expecting someone, Sam. who's your extra baggage?"
"Hey," Dean spoke up. "I'm not just baggage. I'm Dean and the nerdy guy said that Gigantor here was supposed to protect me from demons and other stuff." The kid stood up and went for the coffee pot where he filled a mug. "You got any milk, Mr. Bobby?" He stuck his head in Bobby's refrigerator.
"Sad when they're all shy like that," Bobby said staring at Sam. "What's the story and since he belongs to you do you let him drink coffee?"
Sam sighed. "Bobby, what do you know about Angels?"
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It took a good solid half hour to go through the whole story again. Carson and Dean had not been able to hear what the Angel Castiel had said to Sam; they had only seen the Angel's wings etched against the trees and scrub bushes along the road. Their excited commentaries slowed the story a bit.
Bobby had momentarily wondered if Sam had hit his head sometime during the hunt but with three witnesses be found it hard to dispute the fact that something strange, which had claimed to be an Angel, had appeared to Sam on the road at the bottom of the driveway.
Bobby stood up after everyone had run down and had them follow him into his library
"Sam," he said as he started to pull books off the shelves. "As hard as it is for me to believe that you're a modern Saul of Tarsus, I think you might have met an Angel on the road. If he wasn't trying to convert you then I think we should simply listen to what the Angel had to say. Most of what this supposed Angel had to say was about our little friend here."
Bobby peered over the desk at Dean who was quietly sitting on the floor with the dog, staying out of the line of fire. Dean scratched the dog's back and wondered if there was another dog waiting for him to come home somewhere.
"Hey," Dean answered Bobby's look, not his words. "I don't know anything about it. I don't remember my name or anything else. The first thing I remember is nerdy guy telling me to go over to Jolly Green here and ask him if he was Sam Winchester. That's all I know."
San was sitting on the other side of Bobby's desk holding a book open in his lap. "Dean," he said. "My name is Sam. Try to hold that thought; Sam, not Gigantor or Jolly Green or anything else but Sam."
Dean was rubbing Rumsfeld's belly and the dog was pounding the floor with one excited leg. "You didn't ask me when you gave me your Grandma's name. Why can't I call you anything I want, just like you did?"
Sam looked at Bobby who was hiding a smile behind his book. "I'm the adult here. " Sam said through thinned lips. "The Angel gave you to me and I call the shots. If you don't behave I'll send you off to bed right now. Got it?"
Dean looked back at his friend, the dog. "Fine then I am baggage. Are you going to get that license for me? Then I can sleep with the dog."
"That reminds me," Bobby spoke up. "We have a little legal problem here."
"What's that?" Sam asked.
"School's in session right now. If you go driving around with a kid in the car sooner or later questions are going to get asked. The nosey old biddy down the road watches this place like a hawk. I think she believes we're all devil worshippers. " Bobby shook his head. "It might have something to do with the class of customers I have coming through here all hours of the day and night. Neighbors are like relatives, you just have to live with what you get, you can't pick 'em to suit yourself."
"What can we do about it?" Sam asked and Dean's ears picked up. Somehow he just knew he wasn't going to like what came next.
"Well we're going to have to get him some papers; a birth certificate, at least and a Social Security card. He's going to need school transcripts to register for school and we need to get him an immunization record."
"Good God, Bobby," Sam exclaimed. "All that just for a kid? It sounds like you've done this before."
Bobby removed his ball cap and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "Once or twice, maybe; I've had to come up with new identities for people before. I know a guy in Sioux Falls who can fix us up. It should actually be easier for a kid. No driver's license or credit cards."
Bobby put his hat back on. "You'll have to owe me for this. Frank's not cheap. His paperwork is good, it'll stand up to anything. I just need a couple of questions answered that I know Frank will ask. First he'll want the kid's full name, age and any identifying marks.
Sam looked down at Dean on the floor. "Any ideas, Dean? Who would you like to be?"
Dean shrugged. "I don't remember anything. I don't know what my name was before so anything you like, I guess."
"No, you go on and pick, Dean." Sam answered softly. "I got to pick your first name why don't you pick the middle one? If you want to use Winchester or even Bobby's name, Singer, for your last name go ahead; pick whatever you want."
"If you want it, my last name is Wyne," Carson said. "You can use it if you want to. I won't mind."
Tears prickled at the corners of Dean's eyes. He reached up quickly and rubbed them away with his sleeve. He didn't know his own name but these men were offering to share theirs with him. It helped a little bit. "Dean Michael Winchester." He said. "I'll be Dean Michael Winchester until I remember my real name. I'm ten years old, that I know. About the marks stuff, I don't remember. I guess I could look." He pulled up his T-shirt and looked at his stomach.
"Whoa, kid." Bobby laughed. "I'll tell you what. Down the hall is a bathroom. Why don't you go take a shower and look then? Who knows, maybe looking at yourself will help you remember something." Bobby then turned to Sam. "Sam go up to your room. In the closet there are some boxes of stuff you left here when you were a kid. I never got around to throwing the stuff out. Why don't you go look and see if there's a T-shirt or something that Dean can put on. The stuff was all clean when I put it in the boxes."
Sam found a T-shirt, boxers and socks for Dean in the closet. He wondered just why Bobby had saved all these things. Maybe the Hunter just wanted to be ready if a naked kid wandered by the junkyard. Sam snickered to himself and brought the clothes to Dean's bathroom door.
In fifteen minutes or so Dean was back in the living room, shiny clean with his damp hair curling even more. "I got a red mark on my butt that looks like a map of Texas." He said. "I kinda remember someone telling me that once. It looks like a map of Texas. That's all."
Bobby held his laugh in. "That's good kid. That's what's known as a distinguishing mark. Now we have only one more thing that Frank's going to want to know; parents. Sam, how old are you?"
A shocked Sam looked up from his book. "I'm twenty four." He said. "Shouldn't you be his Daddy, Bobby?"
"My name's not Winchester, thank Heaven and I'm not the one who's going to be driving around with him in my car. It's just possible for you to be his Daddy. If you started young, say 13, you would have been 14 when he was born. It's physically possible." Bobby looked satisfied. Sam looked stunned.
"I even know somebody who could be his Mom." Bobby said. "Remember Annie?"
"Oh for God's sake, Bobby," Sam exclaimed. "She was twice my age."
Bobby laughed. "Annie really got around and she liked them young. She would have gone after you like a dog after a steak. And she's dead. That makes it perfect." Bobby made more notes. "Well I think that's it. I'll go call Frank."
Dean finally abandoned Rumsfeld and stood up. He came over and leaned against Sam's side. "Ok, so my Mom is someone named Annie who got around and you're my Dad. Am I getting this right?"
Sam looked at the little boy. "Yes."
"OK," Dean fluttered his eyelashes. "Daddy, what's my allowance?"