Now we're into series territory, so I'm putting the name of the episode in parentheses like a subtitle. Some future chapters will cover more than one ep, some only one. (Heh, people are actually reading this. Who knew?? LOL)

Chapter 3: Meeting Sammy

(Pilot)

"Dean, right?" Sammy asked, glaring. "I really don't see where any of this is your business."

"Look," Dean was starting to lose his patience, "I told you, your dad has been missing for three weeks. You don't care? Fine. I'll find him myself." He turned his back.

"He's probably just holed up with a few bottles. He'll stumble out in a few days."

Dean spun around, furious. "No," he snapped, "not this time. There's something wrong, I can feel it. And I'm going after him, with or without you. I…I just…" He what? "I can't do it alone."

"Sure you can," Sam replied instantly, but doubt crossed the young man's face. "You can, right?"

Dean shrugged. "Maybe. But I don't want to."

Sam let out a soft sigh. "What was he hunting?"

Dean suppressed a grin. Being a Winchester was just amazing.

Dean dropped Sam off at his place. As he drove away, he felt insanely guilty for reasons he could not identify or understand. With a loud sigh that filled the Impala, Dean turned around. He parked out front again, trying to figure out what made his insides clench like this. Then he heard Sam's scream.

He was through the front door and up the stairs before he realized what he was doing. In the bedroom he saw a woman pinned to the ceiling, surrounded by flames. Sam moved toward her, though it was clearly a lost cause. Dean practically had to carry him outside while Sam screamed for his girlfriend. As they looked back at the house, Dean caught a look at Sam's face. Sometimes, being a Winchester sucked, just a little bit. He cringed at the look of loss there and resolved not to let Sam go at it alone.

"Come on," he led Sam back to the car.

"I have to find Dad," Sam insisted, opening the trunk.

"We'll find him," Dean promised.

When Sam finished checking over the weapons, like he didn't trust Dean to keep them in good condition, he threw the shotgun back into the trunk. "We have work to do," he declared as he slammed the trunk shut.

The next couple of days were filled with Sam not sleeping, Sam not eating, and a long cross country drive to the map coordinates in Dad's journal.

"What I don't get," Sam said for the ten-thousandth time, "is why he put your name on the coordinates."

Dean tried not to roll his eyes. "Didn't we cover this already? Dad and I have been on the road together since you left for school."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam start. Dean whipped his head to the side, but he did not see anything out of the ordinary. "What? What's wrong?"

Sam stared at him for a moment. "I'm not sure yet," Sam finally said, lapsing into a silence that lasted until nightfall and the yellow and white stripes in the road looked just a little too curvy for comfort.

"If you see a good place to stay the night, holler," Dean said, straining his eyes in the dark.

"Next exit," Sam replied, as though he innately knew where every motel on the road was. Well, the kid had smarts, Dean would give him that, maybe he did know where they all were. Dean exited to find several roadside motels. He picked the one with the most working neon letters.

"Work for you?" he asked, parking the car.

"Sure."

Unlike the last couple of times they stopped, Sam followed him inside. "My brother and I need a room," Dean said, whipping out one of the credit cards Dad acquired for him. He noticed Sam watching him like a hawk, but maybe it was because the kid hadn't had a decent night's sleep in days.

Sam watched Dean carefully, memorizing how he moved, talked, smiled. There was something weird going on here, and he was in no mood for weird. Dad? That was what Dean called his dad. Didn't the guy have a father of his own? Well, Sam reflected, he didn't have a mother so what room did he have to talk like that?

Dean handed over what had to be a bogus credit card. Sam's suspicions were confirmed when the clerk called him 'Mr. Knight.' He followed the slightly older man to their room, where two lumpy mattresses awaited them. Exhausted but not sleepy, Sam sunk down on the first bed.

"Move it," Dean said, motioning to the far bed. "That's my spot."

Sam gave him a withering look before retreating to the far bed. What was with this guy? He was now determined to find out. He waited for Dean to hit the shower before moving off the bed. Dean's wallet lay on the bedside table, next to his car keys and loose change. With a glance at the bathroom door, Sam picked up the wallet and opened it. The driver's license said Dean Winchester and had their old Lawrence address. What the hell?

Sam slipped the license out, studied it in the light. When he saw the state crest he nearly laughed out load. An elaborate JW was worked into it, his father's trademark. So, Dad made this for Dean, huh? This just got weirder and weirder. Sam put the license back and proceeded to root through the rest of the wallet. Nothing. Nada. He even tried those little folds most people ignored or kept their mad money in. Zip.

Sam set it back where he found it. The water in the shower was still running and Dean's duffel was open, so Sam stuck his hand in. Dean was a slob, nothing was folded, just stuffed inside. That actually made it easier to search, because Sam didn't have to be careful about how he moved things. He rooted around until his hand hit something hard. It felt like another wallet. Sam pulled it out. This one was nylon, not leather like the first one. He opened it to the exact same picture on the driver's license, but with a totally different name: Jerry Whitehead. The address was for a podunk town in Ohio. Sam pulled this license out and slipped it into his pocket. The sound of water running ceased as he thrust the second wallet back into the duffel bag.

He pulled his laptop out of its carrying case to boot up. When Dean, or rather Jerry, came out of the bathroom towel-drying his hair, Sam was searching for wireless networks.

"Aw, come on, Sammy," Dean complained, "aren't you at least gonna to try sleeping?"

"It's Sam." Sam quirked an eyebrow at him. One thing was for sure, there was no way he could sleep tonight, not sharing a room with this Jerry guy. His father disappeared, his girlfriend was murdered, and this guy just happened to show up to help him? Right. It sounded like something in a Lifetime movie. Not that he watched anything like that, of course. "No point."

Dean shrugged, climbed under the covers. "You're starting to look like crap, you know." He frowned at Sam. "Kinda making me look bad."

"How's that?" Sam asked, his skin crawling. A new idea just occurred to him that would explain not only the driver's license but also Dean's drive to find Dad. He tried to push that idea to the back of his mind.

Dean shook his head. "Like I'm not letting you sleep or something." He sighed. "Well, just give it shot, okay? I'm wiped." With that, Dean fell instantly into a deep sleep.

The fact Dean could just drop off like that amazed Sam and added one more thing to his list of weird where Dean was concerned. He connected to a wireless network. Sam would get to the bottom of this and if that guy had anything to do with his father's disappearance, well, 'Dean' hadn't seen nuthin' yet.

First he searched public records for Jerry Whitehead. He found one birth twenty-six years ago. Looked like he had a winner. Emboldened by his success, Sam tried searching local papers for any news related story. He found one five years later, where the Whitehead family had been attacked by a bear. The bear was blamed for mauling and killing ten people that week, the five year old Jerry being the only survivor. Well, that might explain why Dad looked this guy up in the first place. The attack had all the markings of a Wendigo.

Swallowing hard, Sam let his eyes drift over to sleeping Dean. Or rather, Jerry. When Dean stirred in his sleep, Sam dropped his gaze back to the article. It went on to say that a couple found young Jerry four miles from the campsite walking along the road, covered in blood. He had been mauled. Sam swallowed again. Maybe he had been riding Dean too hard? Then again, that sounded like the classic background for a serial killer. With a sigh, Sam decided to hack into the state's child welfare system to check up on Jerry Whitehead, to see if he had a history of violence.

A couple of hours later Sam hit paydirt. Jerry Whitehead's entire juvenile history in the state of Ohio was available to him now. He sneaked another covert glance, but Dean was still fast asleep. Sam wished he had some coffee to drink while he read, but he did not want to risk waking the possible serial killer in bed a few feet away. Jerry's story was fairly typical of an unwanted kid with severe psychological trauma. After spending six months in hospitals and rehab for the severe mauling, Sam frowned over that one, Jerry went straight into foster care. He had no relatives willing to take him in. Jerry bounced through foster homes until he was fifteen. The last home he ran away from four times, each time going to the police to report child abuse. The next police report detailed that Jerry was in the hospital for three weeks thanks to his foster mother's boyfriend showing up drunk and beating him unconscious. Sam shuddered. Still, there was something wrong here. He kept reading.

When police arrived at the hospital, Jerry refused to talk to them or press charges. However, he did talk to a court-appointed child advocate. They petitioned for and won Jerry's emancipation, allowing him to get a job and live on his own. The child services reports ended there. With a little more hacking, Sam searched for any arrests, juvenile or adult, on Jerry Whitehead. One speeding ticket. Okay, so maybe the guy wasn't psycho-violent, despite the crazy way he distracted that woman in white. Dad made that Winchester license for him, maybe even came up with the name.

Sam's heart pounded in his chest. He never saw his Dad date a woman in his whole life. He always thought it was because Mom was the only person Dad ever loved. Well, maybe Mom was just the only woman Dad ever loved? Sam ran a hand through his hair. Screw this, he needed coffee. Lots of coffee.

Sam waited impatiently for the small motel coffeemaker to finish. This was just crazy, insane. Why this guy? Why a guy, for that matter? What was it about Dean, er – Jerry, that had Dad calling him a Winchester? He wondered if there were enough years left in his life to discuss everything he thought he needed to with Dad, especially now.

Since Dad was not around to ask, Sam decided that he would stick with Jerry for a while, see if he could see what Dad saw. Well, maybe not exactly what Dad saw in him. Dean, he would stick with Dean. He couldn't slip up like that, or Jerry would know Sam was on to him.

"Dude," Dean mumbled as Sam downed his second cup, "you're never gonna get any sleep drinking that stuff."

"Maybe I don't want to," Sam snapped.

Dean groaned, rolling over. "So much for staying sharp to watch my back," he said into his pillow.

Sam felt a twinge of guilt. Just a twinge. It was nothing.