It took Dean a few moments to recognise the clean halls and fluorescent lighting as belonging to a hospital. After the soft lighting of the Panic Room, the long bulbs were painfully bright. Mary stood beside him, one hand on his shoulder.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Lawrence Memorial Hospital."

"Why?"

"Just wait and see," she said with a smile, squeezing his shoulder.

At that moment, John Winchester strode around the far corner, holding the hand of a small boy with bright blond hair.

"That's me!" Dean exclaimed, staring at himself. Having only one faded photograph of himself at this age – he guessed about three or four – it was weird to be able to see himself so clearly.

"Of course. This is your memory, Dean."

"It is? What –"

He stopped himself to catch John's words.

"Are you excited, Dean?"

"Yeah!" the young boy cheered. It was obviously an understatement: he was more skipping than walking down the hall. It looked like John's firm grip was the only thing stopping him from taking off.

Dean looked at his father's hand holding his younger self's. He couldn't remember that. What had that felt like?

"Are you sure?" John teased. "'Cause we could always come back tomo –"

"No, no, I wanna meet him! You said today!"

John laughed. "Then today it is. Come on, kiddo, they're just in here."

John led the toddler Dean into a room to their left and, not needing the encouraging nudge from his mother, Dean followed.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, Dean remembered. He hadn't thought of this in so long he hadn't realised he still held the memory inside his head.

Mary was lying on the bed, a tiny wriggling bundle held securely in her arms.

Dean stared as his younger self bounced up onto the bed, unable to contain his excitement. When Mary shushed him, he instantly calmed, peaking curiously into the swaddled blankets. Dean stepped forward and stood on the opposite side of the bed and looked down into the tiny wrinkled face of his baby brother.

Sam's eyes were closed and he was yawning. Dean gaped at him. His tiny fist was pushing gently against the folds of the blanket that separated him from his mother. Dean blinked. There was no way this tiny little yawner grew into the mammoth of a man he'd seen kill a vampire with his bare hands. No way.

"That's Sammy?" he whispered to his mother.

"Mm-hmm," she answered proudly, and he could hear her tight-lipped smile.

"Is that my brother?" the young Dean asked, looking comically from his mother's face to his brother's, his hair swirling around his head with the speed of his turning.

"Yes, Dean," the memory Mary said, beaming. "This" – she pushed the blanket down a bit to give Dean a clearer view of the little face – "is Sammy."

The child Dean's face mirrored that of his older self: mouth hanging open, eyes alight, he leant forward to peer into the blankets just as little Sammy opened his bleary eyes.

"Hi, Sammy," both Deans whispered together.

The baby gurgled quietly and Dean smiled. His memory self grinned too, revealing a missing bottom tooth.

"I'm Dean Winshestur," the boy whispered as his parents shared a smile over his head. "I'm your big brother, Sammy." Struck by a thought, he looked up to his mother. "Can I be the one to take care of him sometimes?"

Mary beamed and glanced to John, whose eyes were uncharacteristically moist. "Of course you can, Dean. We're gonna need your help taking care of this little fella."

Dean's grin looked too big for his face as he returned his attention to the baby who was looking curiously from one face to the next. "I'm gonna take care o' you, Sammy. We gonna have a lotta aventures. You can play with my racetrack if you want."

John chuckled. "I think he might be a bit young for the racetrack, kiddo."

"Oh." The young boy was momentarily stumped. "Well then he can have Mikey for naps," he announced.

As Dean looked from happy face to happy face, he thought of Sam. He looked more closely at his parent's beaming faces, at how there were definitely tears forming in his father's eyes. He had to remember to tell Sam about this.

He felt a gentle tug on his shoulder and looked around.

"Come on, sweetheart," his mother said softly. "Time to move on."

O*O*O*O

Mary brought him to a motel room he half-recognised. The twin beds backed onto a wall adorned with a stuffed stag's head, complete with three-tined antlers. An old shirt Dean recognised covered the deer's staring eyes, and he remembered throwing the shirt over them because Sammy was getting freaked out that it was watching him.

Dean looked around for Sammy then, and found him curled into a ball on one of the beds, only the top of his shaggy head visible above the covers. A ten-year-old Dean sat at the tiny dinner table playing with a cling-filmed plate of mac and cheese.

He walked over to the young boy and sat down on the empty lawn chair wannabe opposite him. The young Dean's eyes flicked periodically from the cold plate of food to the resolutely closed door and back. Though Dean didn't remember the night, he remembered this: staying up until Dad came home, food and liquor at the ready. Usually he'd be sent to bed within minutes of his father's arrival, but at least he'd go to bed knowing John was safe, unlike Sam.

Glancing around, Dean spied a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels waiting by the sink beside an inexpertly cleaned tumbler glass. The corner of Dean's mouth quirked in a smile. Tiny fingerprints dotted the outside of the glass, and Dean remembered the revolutionary night he realised those would disappear if he washed the outside too, making the glass look as good as new.

Mary had wandered over to the far bed and was kneeling down beside Sam, watching him as he slept. Dean smiled at that. Looking back to his younger self, the smile faded. Boy, he was scrawny. Sure, he was probably more muscled than the average ten-year-old, but his elbows and wrists were more prominent than looked healthy. Dean frowned. He didn't remember being so thin. He remembered being hungry, though, he supposed, and always wondering how much food he should save for tomorrow in case there wasn't anything new. He just never realised that had shown physically, but he was definitely underweight. Dad had never mentioned it.

Dean studied the small, thin face opposite him. Though he knew he shouldn't be, he was surprised to see sadness as well as worry in the tight features. Why was he sad? Sam was sleeping soundly and Dad was due home any minute, judging by the plate of food standing ready.

As if on cue, a key scraped in the lock. The ten-year-old Dean sprang to his feet as though he'd been electrocuted and sprinted to the door to undo the deadbolt and let the weary hunter lumber in. Dean rose to his feet, too, withdrawing slightly to lean against the tacky wallpaper.

John Winchester looked haggard. He dumped his duffle bag beside the door with a metallic clunk and trudged over to the table, taking the seat Dean had just vacated. He settled into the hard chair with a sigh, not even bothering to shrug off his coat. He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. Dean watched his younger self hesitate halfway between door and table, studying his father minutely. After a moment, he moved forward, grabbed the plate of food, unwrapped it, and placed it in the microwave. The machine's droning hum filled the room.

The young Dean waited by the microwave, casting sidelong looks at his father every few seconds. John stayed silent, looking almost as though he were praying. Dean watched his younger self glance from the microwave to the bottle of Jack Daniels to his father, clearly wondering which was needed first: food or drink.

The microwave made the decision for him. Noticing just in time it was about to ding to a halt, Dean yanked the door open before it beeped, casting a relieved glance at Sam's undisturbed form. He set the steaming plate of mac and cheese and a fork in front of John and took his seat opposite.

"Dad?" Dean ventured after another long, silent moment. "You hungry?"

John was a long time in answering. "Not so much, kiddo. Get me some Jack, will you?"

Dean obliged. The chink of glass and rich gurgle of the liquor being poured filled the quiet motel room. John took the tumbler without a word and threw back half its contents in one well-practiced gulp.

When he had taken his first sip from the second glassful, Dean carefully broke the silence. "How was the hunt, Dad?"

John answered the liquor. "Rough. Wolf's dead, though. Got another two before I could drop him." Another swig of bronze followed his words.

"But you killed him. He's not gonna hurt anyone else, right?"

John glanced at his son before answering, managing a small smile. "Yeah. S'pose you're right."

"You want some food, Dad?"

John glanced wearily from Dean to the plate of cheesy pasta. With a slight smile, he pulled the plate closer and dug in. Dean smiled triumphantly.

"How was Sammy?" John asked around a mouthful of macaroni.

"Fine," Dean replied with the air of someone giving a long-since boring daily report. "He did his homework, practiced cleaning the Magnum, read his book for a while, watched TV and was in bed at eight-twenty."

John nodded his approval. "Did you practice field-stripping the .45?"

"Yep."

"Time?"

"Two minutes eight seconds."

John grunted disapprovingly. "We need that under one minute, Dean. You gotta put the time in, really work hard at it."

"Okay, Dad."

John, looking down at his plate, didn't see his son's brow bunch briefly in shame at the reprimand.

Silence fell between them again as John finished his meal. When the fork clattered to the plate for the last time, John stood up. He left the plate in the sink and went to sit on the age-sagged couch, unstrapping his boots and pulling off his jacket. Dean remained at the table, clearly wrestling with something. In the end, his desire to speak won.

"Dad?"

"Ten minutes to bed, Dean."

"You know what day it is, Dad?"

"Wednesday. No, Thursday, now. Why?" John didn't look up. "I miss something in school?"

"No, it's ..." Dean's hands were wrestling each other on the table, his nails digging into his knuckles and he struggled to say the words. He looked horribly uncomfortable.

"Well what, Dean?" John asked exasperatedly, finally freeing his foot from his boot and looking up wearily at his eldest.

"It's the twenty-fourth and you said we could go out for dinner as a family," Dean said in a rush. "Could we maybe do it tomorrow?"

For a moment, John stared at Dean in confusion. Dean carefully avoided his eye, looking at his interlocked fingers. At last, John connected the dots.

"Damn," he sighed angrily. "Dean, I'm sorry. Your birthday. I completely forgot. This werewolf case just took all my focus and, I mean, people were dying and I had to –"

"It's okay, Dad," Dean said quickly, still studying his knuckles. "I know. Just ... just wanted to know if we could do dinner tomorrow, that's all. If we have the money and you don't have a hunt. Didn't mean to make you feel bad. Just wondering."

John smiled sadly at his son. He stood up and went to kneel beside him, putting one hand on the thin shoulder. Dean glanced to his father then back to his hands.

"I promise, kiddo. Tomorrow, you, me, and Sammy'll go down to that seaside shack we saw coming in the other day. The one with the big burger sign in the window? We'll all have dinner, as a family, and maybe after we can check out the beach. How's that sound?"

John rocked Dean's shoulder persuasively. It worked. Dean's lips curved into a smile, revealing a missing tooth. He gave his father a swift hug.

"Thanks, Dad."

John wrapped his beefy arms around his son's thin frame, holding him close for a moment before releasing him. "Anytime, son."

Mary had moved to Dean's side without him noticing, focused as he was on the memory. He started when she whispered, "C'mon, sweetheart. There's more you need to see."

Dean felt a gentle pressure on his shoulder and the scene before him dissolved into blackness.