So...just what the ef is going on? Oh, you'll find out...

This chapter begins a series of flashbacks. One series takes place in April/May 1993 When Sam is nearly 10-years old. The others are what I call "Present Day flashbacks" though really they start at almost the beginning of Season 1 and work their way through most of what would be Season 2. They work together. Don't worry, it's less complicated than it sounds, trust me.

Just...just do yourself a favor and check your closet before you go to bed tonight because you never know...

Again, so SO much love and thanks to Agelade, my partner in crime, for being an excellent sounding board, mentor, friend, editor, and inspiration. Without you, this thing never would have gotten started! :'D

P.S. People of Wisconsin, especially Osseo, I love you. Sorry for anything about your town I don't get right. I can't even remember why I picked your little 2 mile city for this epic adventure, but I did, and you are all pretty close to my heart now. A lot of life-changing events happen there in my own litle SPN world.

-Caladrius

Chapter 2: "In the Evening" / "In the Light"

April 29, 1993

9-years-old Sam

14-year-old Dean

It could have been a trick of the light.

The room was dark, but some illumination always found a way to creep in from a shade not quite pulled or from the space at the top of the cheap fixture over a motel window. Sometimes the glow was from a TV left on, his father and Dean passed out in front of it. Of course, the truth was that he hated when they left the TV on. Sam couldn't sleep with that kind of noise, and if the channel happened to air the National Anthem at 3am and then go to static...well, images of one of Dean's favorite movies, The Poltergeist, would come and haunt him with thoughts of a little girl being swept into the realm of the dead and damned. ("You know, that could happen, Sammy. So don't talk to the TV.") And Dean, in all of his budding adolescent glory, would snicker and leave the younger boy wondering how truthful he was being.

The TV wasn't on tonight, and the light from the window was predictable. Nevertheless, two hours earlier Sam had heard the click and seen...something...from the tiny coat closet near the bathroom door. The opening was a straight shot of about eight feet from his cot which had been rolled out of said closet two days earlier when they had checked into this random Midwest town.

The cracked door was a sliver of darkness watching him. Again. Though Sam desperately wanted to believe it was just a trick of the light, the cold fear seizing his heart whispered that it was actually the shine on a pair of eyes. It had to be eyes. It couldn't have been a button, or the mini vacuum cleaner, or anything like that because after the first sleepless night Sam had thoroughly inspected it when the sun was safely up.

Despite his precautions and against all reason, here it was again, all glossy and just a little reflective.

Sam bit the inside of his cheek to stay awake and watched it all night, and as far as he could tell, it watched him back.

Impossibly, it didn't blink, and it didn't move, and when Dean stumbled out of his bed to hit the head somewhere around 5am, it was still there and showed no signs of disappearing. Sam wanted to say something, do something, maybe, like cough loudly, attract his brother's attention...and then what? Say, "Hey, Dean, I think there's a monster in my closet"?

Hell no.

If Sam was just imagining things, and there was a good chance he was, Dean would never let him hear the end of it. A Winchester should know the difference between imagined creatures and reality, right? Monsters were the family business, after all. It's why Dad wasn't even here tonight, or last night, and probably wouldn't be around tomorrow. Dean was the only one Sam could even really connect with until recently. It wasn't that Dean was a total prick, but lately his personality had become unpredictable and moody. Insufferably superior. So when Dean stumbled back into bed after a thirty-second solid stream of Coca-Cola runoff, Sam said nothing. What was there to say?

Being a member of this family was fantastic.

April 30, 1993

The next morning

Sam was dressed and ready for school by 6:30am because there was nothing else to do when the sun came up except check the closet, again. Of course, while it seemed the most logical time of day to search a closet in which one suspected a monster was dwelling, Sam had to face the fact that it was also the time of day he was least likely to find anything supernatural.

Dammit.

Of course, It was only at night, in the darkness, in the complete stillness that he saw the eyes, felt the stare. As soon as sunlight squeezed through the blinds in horizontal stripes, it evaporated as did much of the fear. This whole mystery was infuriating.

His fear of it was infuriating.

Instead of dwelling on his lack of manliness, he turned his attention to the other infuriating creature in the room.

Sam perched on a chair and watched his brother in the twin bed sleep like a hibernating bear cub, complete with intermittent growls. There was a kind of chaotic purity in it: arms sprawled, half under a cover, half not, hair in a crazy nest-some of it plastered to the side of his face, the string of drool at the corner of his mouth.

At 7:15 Sam slid off his seat and approached Dean's bed, shaking his shoulder.

"Get up, Dean. We'll be late."

His brother's response was a wet horse snort. So nice to be able to sleep so...unconcerned.

"Unng..." He buried his face in the pillow and mumbled something.

"What?"

Dean turned his head, "I said, Fuck school."

Sam gave him a withering look. Dad didn't like that language (at least not from his sons' mouths). If this was the extent of the famous "teenage rebellion," then Dean was kind of pathetic.

"Bravo. Dad's not here and you said a bad word." Sam was underwhelmed and tired. He turned around and went to collect his things.

"I'm awake two damn seconds and you are already a little bitch." Dean yawned. "Why don't you give it a try, Sammy. Just say it. Say 'fuck' one time. You know you want to. It'll wipe that bitchlook right off your face."

Sam sighed. He was too tired to play the game this morning. Ignoring his brother completely, he opened the tiny fridge unit and pulled out his brown lunch bag.

Dean sat up, a pillow and half a blanket becoming dislodged from the entire bed in the process.

"Hey."

Dean was staring at the carefully made cot, and then their eyes met. There was a question mark embedded there, and Sam had to tread lightly. His brother sometimes seemed like a hormonal idiot, but there were a few things he still excelled at. One of them was being a Nosy Big Brother.

As if to confirm Sam's fears, Dean peered at him searchingly and said, "What's wrong with you? What time'd you get up?"

Sam said nothing. It was patently impossible for Dean to have figured everything out from that short exchange, and he wanted to keep it that way. He stuffed a giant history textbook into the the rucksack his father once carried in Vietnam. Sam supposed he was the one to inherit it because he actually carried books in it. Otherwise, Dean would have claimed it on principle.

"Hey, I'm talkin' to you."

"Get up, Dean."

"Don't tell me what to do. I'm not going today. We're just gonna watch cartoons until our brains bleed out. I'll tell Dad you weren't feeling good."

Sam took a deep breath and exhaled. "Some of us don't hate school, okay?"

Dean grunted. "Man, I already hate that school. More than others. What the hell is with those big doors? Like, putting the 8th grade in a whole other wing makes the day drag. Watching the high school girls across the parking lot do gym is a perk-nice, by the way. Have I mentioned that?-but I can't bump into you babies ever."

"And that's a bad thin?-oof"

Dean whipped his pillow at Sam unexpectedly. On any other day he could have caught it or avoided it; he had been training at least for that much. Not this morning. While it slapped harmlessly into his gut, it had enough mass to make him stagger back. Ugh, dammit Dean! Is exposing all of my weaknesses your job?

"See? Look at that. That's what I'm talking about." Dean pointed at him. "What if some kid starts giving you trouble? I won't even hear about it until it's too late."

Sam wanted to throw the pillow back at him, but he wasn't up to speed and that would mean risking some jab about his girlish form or something. Instead, he tossed it to the side even though throwing a pillow on the floor made him cringe inwardly.

"Dean, I don't need you to know what happens to me every second of every day," he huffed. "I can take care of myself."

"I'll be the judge of that. You know, Dad said this was gonna be a real short job." Dean looked momentarily disappointed and Sam's heart sank. "Bet he would've taken us if it'd been the weekend. I'm itchin' to hunt something, to get out, man. This place makes me twitchy." His eyes glittered with the thought of imagined adventures with Dad, no doubt, and then he seemed to remember Sam was in the room. "But he didn't, and we'll probably be gone by Sunday, so let's just sleep."

"Dean..."

"It's not worth it, Sam. The more you talk, the harder it'll be to get back to this dream. Shut yer cake hole and turn on the TV." So saying, Dean flipped himself in one motion to land face down, case closed. Still. Silent.

Sam took another deep breath and stared at the ceiling. To be able to sleep would be amazing right now. He could nap, maybe, if it was light out but only if it was light out. The problem was that Sam really wanted to go to school today. He wanted the structure. He wanted...he wanted out too. Unfortunately, there were rules.

"Dean, please. You know I can't go without you."

Submission.

The silence continued for a few more seconds and then his brother sat up. Dean ran a hand through his wrinkled hair, purposefully causing it to stand on end cartoonsihly. He turned to his brother and grinned like a moron, squeezing a half smile out of Sam. Morning comedy was still one of Dean's merits.

"School is stupid."

"Look in a mirror. You'll fit right in."

"Ooooooo smartass Sammy. Good one. Spoken like a kid who needs to smell my armpit." He pantomimed some kind of wrestling move with his arms.

"Seriously, Dean." Sam finally gave him the eye. "Can we go?"

Dean flopped back onto the bed with a huff. "Waaaaaaste of my time. Give me one good reason why I should."

"There are high school girls on the bus."

One comedic beat later and Dean jumped out of bed. "Oh man, those girls..." he raced into the bathroom for the paradoxical "washing up" that involved more mess than cleaning. After wiping the back of his mouth on his hands, Dean shimmied into a pair of jeans lying in a puddle at the side of his bed and ran his hand through his hair again.

Was it sad that Sam had already prepared motivation that involved Dean's current greatest weakness? No. It was survival. Somehow Dean knew something was wrong, and he'd make him stay home and accompany him watching Cartoon Express, and then Sam wouldn't be able to turn in the assignment he had worked on for hours yesterday. He had taken pride in it because, hey, his teachers could actually be pleased.

Thankfully, Dean asked no further questions, made no more fuss about what was "wrong," and the ride to school was blissfully uneventful.

Osseo, Wisconsin Elementary School. Fourth grade. The entire population of this town was under 1500 people, so everyone knew everyone in a place like this except Sam Winchester. He kept his head down and a tight hold onto the strap of his father's rucksack which stood out because it wasn't new or trendy. He made up for the difference of it by trying to blend in, stay in the background, not cause any scenes or draw too much attention to himself because kids were kids wherever they went. And school was school. And Sam was good at it, but two nights of no sleep and anxiety was enough to make any 9-year-old a wreck, even if he was a quiet wreck. He was on his way to lunch to sit at a corner of a table no one noticed.

"It's Sam, right?"

Startled, Sam stopped walking. Mrs. Appleton was a round, thirty-somethinging woman with glasses and a mass of wavy hair pulled up behind her head. Remembering his name after only two days was a feat, but not one he'd cheer for. He felt under a microscope, edgy. "Yes, ma'am."

"Sam, I just wanted to compliment you on that essay you wrote about the importance of the judicial system. Honestly, since you only just arrived I told you I would give you an extension, but you got the whole thing done on time with the rest of the class. And it was very well-expressed. What school district did you come from?"

Sam's heart pounded with a confused mixture of pleasure and fear. To be praised...that made his face redden slightly. To be asked the question...his toes went cold.

"Petoskey. Petoskey, Michigan," he replied woodenly. It's true, that's where they had been last (for three weeks), and there was no point in lying. After only a couple days here he already had a suspicion she was one of "those" teachers-one who paid attention to details. Students usually detested them because they had a habit of making phone calls home.

A phone call home would be...disastrous.

"Well," Mrs. Appleton smiled, "I hope you are adjusting to life here all right." She turned her head and leaned down a little, a non subtle gesture that she was hatching a conspiracy or about to ask him something personal. "Did I see correctly that you have a birthday coming up in a couple of days? The big one zero?"

Crap. Was it almost May already?

She waited with a smile while Sam felt the blood slide from his face. That clinched it. Mrs. Appleton wasn't just one of "those" teachers, she was a "good one"-a teacher who wanted to get to know him, who might easily check up on him. Build a rapport with him. Ninety-nine percent of the time those kinds of teachers were the best for quiet, troubled kids, but not for Sam and he knew it. He was already fully aware that he was having...an unusual childhood, one that became increasingly complicated the more questions teachers asked.

"Yeah. May second."

The rest of the conversation was a blur full of one-sided smiles. It was cruel, really, to have teachers like her. Cruel for them. There would only ever be two people in his whole world who could ever really know him...and that was only if they ever wanted to.

Vaguely, Sam wondered how his brother was doing. Would he even live to make it to high school at this rate? Sam had only known what their father was doing "for a living" for a couple of years, but by the time Dean told him, his brother was already counting down the days until he could routinely go out with with their father to hunt and kill monsters and possibly get killed himself. Sam knew he was an interruption to Dean's plan of getting on with his hunting life with his idol; it didn't take a genius to see that.

He was tired and everything felt hopeless.

Mrs. Appleton's hand on his shoulder startled him out of his unpleasant meanderings, but her smile was genuine, even if her interest was worrying. Her praise had been very nice and he focussed on that, on the sound of her voice, which had a kind of cheerful quality to it. She thought he was exceptional. She thought he was someone who had "potential," who wasn't just a permanent stumbling block to a reckless career path.

Yeah, well...she was the only one.

Flash Forward

November 15, 2005

22-year-old Sam

26-year-old Dean

Dean was late from the beer run, but getting into a rhythm of living and moving with Sammy and without Dad (at least for the moment) was still a hit or miss thing. As in, Sammy liked rhythms and Dean was much more go-with-the-flow. He had never actually timed a beer run before, and how was he supposed to know that the place carried back issues of Busty Asian Beauties? It was his American Male Duty to appreciate one or two...or three magazines...before settling on the one worth his hard-earned credit card fraud.

As soon as he opened the door, however, he knew he had been gone too long. Sam was sitting at the motel table, hunched over Dad's journal, flipping pages with a certain unhappy look his brother had come to recognize as thinking too damn much about things.

Dean shut the door and tilted his head. He paused expectantly.

Sam didn't move and he didn't look up.

"Hey."

"Hey." Mumbled.

Dean walked further into the room, set the case of beer on his bed, threw the bag with the magazine onto his pillow (See you lovely ladies later-Big Brother time now) and peeled off his outer coat while watching Sam's back.

"What's going on. Did you find something? You figure out where Dad is going next?" Dean carefully approached and looked over his brother's shoulder.

Sam shook his head.

"No, nothing on that front...but," He flipped pages one at a time, as if hoping something would magically fall out.

"But?"

"But, Dean, I don't get it. There's...something missing from Dad's journal. Are you sure this is everything? Maybe there's another one?" Sam was troubled.

"Missing?" Dean looked down at the worn, leather-bound book and half shook his head. "This is what he left. The rest was just, you know, what's in the Impala."

Sam stopped his relentless page-turning and pursed his lips, his eyes on some distant fixed point.

"Maybe he hid something in there I didn't see." Sam stood up (jeez, getting tall there, Sammy? A couple weeks into their reunion and Dean was still getting used to it.)

"Keys?" his "little" brother held up his hand as if he was somehow owed it. Yeah, right. Dean was quickly getting irritated with the mystery.

"Okay wait, rewind for me here. What do you think is missing?"

Sam tilted his head and gave him an annoyingly baffled look as if his older brother should have already guessed it.

"Come on, Sam, I don't read minds. Just spill it." Dean couldn't help the spike in his tone.

Sam took a breath and put his hands on his hips the way he did when he was "settling in." He glanced at the door and pressed his lips together before answering.

"Osseo, Wisconsin."

Dean blinked.

Oh. Oh shit. Shit.

That.

Dean backed off and soberly nodded, irritation giving way to the flash of a bad memory. Of course the first long alone time Sam would have with Dad's journal that would be what he looked for. Should have come right back from the beer run. Damn those beautiful Asian women and their busts.

"Yeah. It's not in there," he said quietly.

Sam swallowed and sighed. He looked oddly relieved that he hadn't been alone in this search.

"So, you looked too?"

"Yeah, dude. And there's nothing in the Impala I don't know about. Trust me on that."

Dammit, Sammy. Don't go there. Don't go back there.

Sam threw his arms into the air in exasperation. "Everything else. Literally. Like a Wikipedia run-down of every case, every monster Dad fought is in there but that one. Why? I mean, didn't he care?"

"I don't know, why don't you ask him when we catch up to him?" Dean grimaced. Yeah, that would go so well. Great idea, Big Brother.

Sam laughed, and it was depressed and so very drenched with hopelessness.

"Thanks but no thanks. I just wanted to..." Sam shut down, and whatever he was going to say was related in an offhand gesture towards the journal.

"Hey, if it's not there, it's not there. Let's have a brew and watch something plotless on the tube." Dean said it over his shoulder as he crossed to his bed and ripped open the top of the cardboard case with much more force than was really necessary.

"Even if it's not in the journal, the thing, is still out there, Dean. Still..." he had a hard time saying it, "...feeding."

Dean looked up. Sam was facing away from him, his hand at the level of his eyes and the big brother remembered. He remembered Osseo, Wisconsin. He remembered Sam so broken that he didn't-couldn't- speak to anyone for two weeks when he turned ten.

Fuck. They couldn't go back to that, not now, not after they had just gotten back together. It had been two whole years since they had even talked before Dad took off without a word. The fact was that Dean had missed this kid, and he wasn't going to just let him just disappear again without a fight.

"Hey, hey." Dean pulled Sam's shoulder. He cracked a beer and put it into his brother's hand. He took that long, lanky arm and made him sit down on the couch. "There's time to figure it out, Sammy. But not tonight." Dean sat down next to him, knee to knee, and grabbed the remote. He hazarded a glance at Sam's lost face, and even at 22, hardened by their lives, changed, all Dean saw was little Sammy-innocent, injured, confused. Nothing he could do about that.

Goddamn it, Dad!

(to be continued...)