I said "Ok, I won't embarrass you in front of your fellow students" Dean looked at the clock and turned to Sam and said "Sam, we need to get going we both have to be away early in the morning. I've got class and you've got the last week of work." With that the boys left for the night, promising that they would be back at the weekend as usual and fill us in on their week.
The week seemed to drag but finally it was Sunday, Will and I were upstairs getting Aidan and Cole ready for a trip out to the farm. Sam phoned last night and asked if we could come out to the farm instead of them coming into the city. He needed to prepare things for his start at GWU the following day and Dean was up to his eyes in course work. I said "No problem, we'll see around 12 tomorrow", I was excited as I hadn't seen what they had done to the farm in 2 months. Will and I had taken Aidan and Cole out when Dean and Sam where thinking of buying the farm and I was looking forward to seeing the changes that they had made since then. Will took Aidan and I took Cole and we put the boys into the SVU and headed for the farm. Travelling with two small boys is never an easy task, but Dean and Sam had made it a little bit easier for Will and me by setting up one of the rooms at the farm as a nursery for the boys. We arrived at the farm an hour later. Aidan and Cole had drifted off to sleep during the drive so Will decided against honking the horn to alert them that we were there. As we pulled up Dean appeared from the garage with a huge smile on his face and he was beside the car as it stopped. He walked up to the back of the car and as he approached Aidan and then Cole woke up, it still amazed me how well tuned into the Winchesters both of my boys were. Dean slid the rear door open and leant into the car unstrapped Aidan and lifted him out of his chair while Dean was taking Aidan out of the car, Will was at the other door taking Cole out of his seat. Will passed Cole to me collected the twin's belongings and the five of us walked into the house.
As we were walking in Dean turned to us and said "Thanks for agreeing to come and do lunch here, it's been a really hectic week and I needed the time to catch up." I turned to him and said "Like I said to Sam, it's really no problem. I'm excited to see what you've done with the place since the last time I saw it. Will and I both understand how stressful the first week at university is and that you need the time to work on your course work." Dean smiled and said "It has been an adjustment and it is something growing up I never thought I would do. Dad was so against Sam or me leaving as he didn't think he could protect us if he wasn't around." A sad look came over Dean's face as he was saying this and I could tell this was bringing up memories of John and the time that Sam left to go to Stanford. I came up beside Dean took my free hand rubbed his shoulder and said "Mary and John would be so proud of you Dean. As a parent myself I know that all we want is for our children to be happy and feel fulfilled in their lives. I know that John would be incredibly proud of you and would be telling all his friends how well his son is doing, from what you've told me that is how he was with Sam when he left." Dean said "Sam is setting up dinner on the patio, and that's one of the weirdest things I've ever said."
We all headed out to the patio where Sam was finishing off the table, at the corner of the patio the BBQ was heating up. Dean said "We decided to go healthy, Sam picked up some great Tuna steaks last night and we thought that we would have those with salsa verde and new potatoes salad." Will and I turned to him at the same time and said "That's sound great, is there anything I can do." We then looked at each and said "great minds think alike." Sam said "No everything is under control and it's nice to take care of you for a change after everything you've done for us in the past." I walked up to him pecked him on the check and said "It's not a problem after all it's what family does for each other. I wouldn't have it any other way after all I've got so much more out of this."
Sam and Dean looked at each other and smiled, Cole started to squirm in my arms and his face started to scrunch up. I turned to Will and said "I think someone is trying to tell me its lunchtime." Will said "I was about to say that Aidan is ready for his lunch", Dean looked at us and said "how do you know that, he's perfectly quiet, he's been busy watching everything going on very closely." Will turned back to Dean and said "Aidan is never vocal about his feed, if I'm around then it's a feeling I get that he's hungry. As Toni is around both boys all the time it's harder for her tell unless Cole starts crying. Cole and Aidan haven't quite synched together yet so she has learnt to tune them out otherwise she would be living with constant empathic attacks." Both Sam and Dean looked at me and Sam said "I knew that you were training again but I didn't realise that you had managed to get it under control yet." I smiled back at him and said "I know I only managed to really get it under control this past week, up to then Will was coming home to a stressed out harridan. Dealing with the boys all day both their subliminal and conscious emotions was tiring and so before my aneurysm blew I needed to work out how to tune out the subliminal emotions." Will turned back to Dean and said "Can you show me where we can make up the bottles for the boys so that we can feed them and lay them down before we eat." Dean said "No problem, right this way" and walked into the kitchen with Aidan in his arms. Will walked up to me and took Cole and said "I'll feed them, change them lay them down for their nap and then we'll be back for lunch." I leant up kissed him and said "that's great, if you need any help then just give me a shout." Since Dean and Sam moved out, and Will returned to work, he had taken to feeding the boys on the weekend and any chance he got as this was his bonding time with his boys.
Half an hour later Will and Dean were back, the boys were down for a nap and lunch was about to be served. We all sat down for lunch, and started talking about the last week. Dean started with his first week of classes "It's been a hectic but really great week. After getting back into the swing of things the week went quickly. My first class was Chemistry 101 – it was split into 2 sections, the lecture and then the tutorial (the practical assessment of what we learnt in the lecture). Initially the lecture was tough but then all the things I learnt in school came flooding back and it all made sense. I had thought that I would be the oldest person in the class but there were a couple of other students close to my age in the class as well. Both of them had decided on a career change and moving into Forensic Science. One of them is Roger Bullock, he's a couple of years older than me, and he was working for South Carolina PD as a homicide detective. He's married with a 6 month old daughter named Elizabeth; he recently lost a partner and decided that he needed a career change so that he wasn't in the field any more. The other older student is Erica Gibbs, she is the same age as Sam and was working as an administrator for the Police Department in Scranton Pennsylvania." I turned to Dean and said "all that worrying you did last week, and you weren't the only mature student in the class." Dean smiled answering through a mouthful of tuna and salsa and said "I know and it was all for nought. Erica and Roger are really great and we have already decided that as the oldest students in the group we are going to help each other through the next 4 years."
This news made me really happy, I had to admit that this week had gone past so slowly following our last meeting I was really concerned. I was sure that Dean would find out that he was the oldest student in the class and go back to his life on the road and I would lose one of my nephews. Now the concern was transferring from him to Sam; I could feel 2 sets of eyes on me at the same time and turned around to find Will and Sam staring at me. Sam said "Toni, you really don't need to worry, I'm going to be fine. I know that it's going to be weird for the first couple of days but I've been to college before so at least I know what to expect." I looked back at him and said "I'm sorry I know I shouldn't worry but it's what family does. Ask Will I'm a natural born worrier from way back. I think it goes back to receiving my visions at such an early age and not understanding what they meant."
After we finished the meal, Dean took me on a tour of the farm. The barn had been fully converted into a library and medical centre with 4 apartments for hunters. As he was showing me around Dean had a huge smile on his face and he was radiating happiness, I didn't need my empathic powers to be on to tell me he was content. I congratulated him on the work that had been done on the barn. Dean beamed back at me and said "Sam and I discussed it and we are going to build a training centre next to the barn. It would be part gym, part rehab centre and part shooting range. The shooting range would have gun lanes, archery lanes and lanes where they could throw knives." We arrived back at the house and found Will and Sam in the pool, taking advantage of the exceptionally warm weather. When Dean and Sam brought the property they knew that there was a pool and had child proofed it but had also brought seats for the boys so that they could go into the pool safely. Will asked if I wanted to join them in the pool, I said "No, it's alright. I'll stay here and watch." Shortly after Dean appeared and joined Sam, Will, Cole and Aidan in the pool. As I sat watching the men in my life I was filled with a huge sense of love, pride and fulfilment. I couldn't believe it had only been 7 months since Dean and Sam came back into my life and 5 months since Aidan and Cole were born. Two hours later and Will, Aidan, Cole and I were heading back home leaving Dean to his chemistry homework and Sam preparing for his first day at GWU. We agreed that they would come to us Friday night instead of Sunday as Dean didn't have class on Friday's and it would easy for him to meet Sam in the city and come over to us for dinner in the evening. This then left them the weekend for catching up on the course work that they had to do before the next week.
