Warning: This chapter's a little dark.

Chapter 6

Dean was not a dancer. Sure he did silly little dances around the house to make his girls smile, but this was completely different. This was serious dancing, and they had an audience. He didn't want to get up and dance in front of everyone, but he did it because Meredith had asked him to, and it wasn't long before everything else melted away and it was just the two of them.

At some point Kit joined them, and by the time the song ended he had both of his girls in his arms and he was pretty sure no one had ever been happier than he was right now. He kissed his wife and then his daughter, and found that he was sad when the song was over. He didn't care much for dancing, but he could dance forever with Meredith.

After their first dance Sam and Kim made sweet speeches that didn't embarrass their siblings too much and dinner was served. At least half of the guests didn't need to eat, but everyone sat down and enjoyed a plate of rosemary pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes, all prepared by the bride and groom. Not because they were trying to save money, because Gabriel and Cas could have easily taken care of the food, but simply because they enjoyed cooking for their family.

After dinner, while everyone was munching on treats from the buffet, dancing, chatting, and having fun, Dean and Meredith decided to go ahead and get the awkward parent interactions out of the way. Dean reminded Meredith to play nice with her mother, and she promised once more that she would before walking over to the table where Kim, Jake, and Dylan were chatting with Jason and Lucy Jackson. She reached out and ruffled Dylan's hair, smiling when he groaned in annoyance and swatted her hand away.

"Mama!"

"Who are you trying to impress?" Meredith teased her nephew.

"He was checking out Krissy earlier." Kim said.

"I was not." the seventeen year old argued.

Meredith grinned. "Going for the older girls now? What would Ali say?"

Dylan rolled his eyes at the mention of Ali Miller, the mayor's granddaughter. She was a sweet girl, and everyone in town knew she had a huge crush on Dylan. Everyone also knew that her mother, Krista, who had a bad habit of being overly saccharine to hide her desire to gather whatever gossip she could, also had a bad habit of flirting with Dean.

Meredith and Krista had never been friends, and she really wished the other woman would stop hitting on her husband for two reasons. First of all, Krista was married. She now had two children with Shawn Miller, whom Meredith had always been friends with. She couldn't quite understand what Shawn saw in Krista, but it was obvious that Ali's sweet nature had come from her father. She hoped their new baby, Tracy (who everyone in town was now going to have to pretend not to call Trixie) took after Shawn as well.

The second reason Meredith wished Krista would leave Dean alone was because she was only embarrassing herself. Everyone was aware of her flirting, including her husband, but she didn't seem to be aware that she was so obvious. She also seemed to be oblivious to the fact that she didn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell. Even if she and Shawn ever got divorced Dean wasn't going anywhere. There was no way he was ever going to leave Meredith or cheat on her, and he had told her more than once that Krista Miller was the most annoying woman he'd ever met.

"Why would you bring Ali into this?" Dylan asked, dragging Meredith's thoughts away from Ali's mother.

"Ali Miller?" Lucy asked curiously.

"Dylan's fangirl." Kim said.

Dylan groaned. "She's so annoying!"

"She's sweet." Meredith corrected. "And it's not like she's stalking you. She just gives you more attention than the other boys because she likes you."

"She's in love with him." Jake teased.

Dylan shot his father a deadly look.

"Is she related to Shawn?" Jason asked.

"His daughter." Meredith confirmed.

"His and Krista's." Kim added.

Jason's eyes almost bugged out of his head. "Shawn and Krista?"

Meredith, Kim, and Jake all nodded.

"She must've changed."

"Not one bit." Jake said. "They only got married because she got pregnant."

"And because Shawn's the mayor's son." Kim added. "Krista always was a gold-digger. I honestly think that's why she got pregnant. So he'd have to marry her."

"So, why's she after my husband?" Meredith asked. "The only gold Dean has is in dagger form."

"Because your husband's hot." Kim said, looking up at her sister.

"Hey." Jake protested.

"And so is mine." she said, patting his leg. "Don't worry, Jake. I won't fall in love with anymore of my sister's husbands."

"Good." Meredith and Jake said in unison.

Clair ran over and dragged Dylan out of his chair.

"Ow!" he protested as her nails dug into his arm. "You need to trim your nails."

"These aren't nails." Claire said. "Their weapons. Come on."

Dylan looked back at his grandmother, not wanting to leave her.

"Just for a little while." Claire said. "Just come dance with us for a few songs and you can come right back."

"Go on." Lucy said, waving him away. "Go play."

Claire dragged Dylan away and the adults watched them go.

"She seems like a sweet girl." Lucy said, smiling.

"Claire's great." Meredith confirmed. "Troubled, but great."

"She reminds me of you, Mary Kate."

Meredith smiled at the woman that had stepped in when her mother had abandoned her. Lucy was the only one that called her Mary Kate, and it had been a long time since she had heard the nickname.

"That's because Claire is a younger, blonde version of Meredith." Jake said.

Meredith didn't argue because it was true. Instead she leaned down to hug her sister and kissed her cheek. "Ready to go talk to our mother?"

Kim sighed heavily. "As I'll ever be. Help me up."

Kim was about seven months pregnant, and Meredith and Jason both helped haul her out of her chair so they could go talk to their parents even though none of them were really looking forward to spending time with their mother.

%%%

Meredith thought it should feel weird being older than her brother. Jason had only been eighteen when he died. Dylan was almost the same age. Her father had only been twenty-eight, her mother thirty-three. It should feel weird suddenly being the oldest person in her family, older than her older brother, older than her parents. Her parents were grandparents now, had been for fifteen years, and yet they weren't much older than their oldest grandchild. It should be weird, but it wasn't. Maybe because they looked exactly as they had the last time she'd seen them alive, and she had no idea what they would look like now if they had been allowed to age. Maybe because she was so used to supernatural things by now.

As they approached the table their parents were sitting at, waiting for them, she realized she hadn't been entirely correct. Yes, Dan and Jason looked the same as they had years ago, but not her mother.

In the last five years of her life Meredith remembered her mother looking vacant and lifeless, depressed, broken. Drunk. There was none of that now. She looked healthy, happy, beautiful. Her brown hair was fixed nicely, her face didn't look dead as it had at the end of her life even though she actually was dead now, and her pale blue eyes were clear and bright. She was smiling, happy to see her children, but she also looked a little apprehensive. She was nervous, afraid they wouldn't forgive her, didn't love her anymore. Meredith wasn't sure she could ease those fears any, but she was willing to try if only she could get some answers.

Be nice to your mother, Mere. Dean's words echoed in her head as Elvis sang "Jailhouse Rock". You don't know the whole story.

He had sounded so certain that she was missing information. She didn't know how he knew, but she wanted to know what he knew. She wanted to know what could make a mother abandon her children.

Dan had already hugged his daughters and talked to them some, and now it was Sharon's turn. She stood up to greet them, her nervous smile still in place, and moved toward Meredith first. "You look so beautiful."

Meredith stiffened instinctively as her mother's arms came around her, but managed to relax and return the hug. It was awkward, but Sharon seemed to appreciate the effort. "So do you." she said honestly. "You look a hell of a lot better than you did the last time I saw you."

"Not my finest hour." Sharon said, attempting humor. She turned to Kim, wanting to hug her as well, but stopped when she realized that her younger daughter wasn't interested. "Hello, Kimmie."

"Hi Mama." Kim said, her green eyes glistening with tears.

When she didn't get anything else out of Kim Sharon turned to Jason. He allowed the hug, but didn't say anything more than hello. It seemed Meredith was going to be the one asking all the questions and playing nice. She wished Dean was with her, but he was dealing with his own parents right now, and she was certainly strong enough to handle pulling the truth out of her mother. At least, she hoped she was.

"How far along are you, Kimmie?" Sharon asked once they were all seated, stalling.

"Seven months." Kim replied, cold anger simmering just under the surface. "It's a boy. His name is Liam. I'm sorry you won't get to meet him."

Kim wasn't sorry. She was angry and hurt, and Meredith was surprised that she hadn't said that she was glad their mother wouldn't have a chance to meet Liam.

Sharon didn't respond. Her daughter might not be saying exactly what she was thinking, but she wasn't doing anything to hide the way she felt.

"Mama," Meredith said, knowing that this wasn't the time or place to have this conversation. But it was the only chance they had. "What happened? You abandoned us, and we deserve to know why."

"Losing your father—"

"No." Meredith snapped, cutting her off. She didn't feel like playing nice. She wanted the truth. "At this point in my life I can't imagine anything worse than losing Dean, and I very easily could lose him. But even if I did I could never do to Kit what you did to us. There's more to the story, and I...we...we need to know what happened. All of it."

"Don't take that tone with me, Meredith Katharine." Sharon said, slipping into mom mode out of habit.

"Shari." Dan cautioned.

Meredith was on the verge of losing her self-control. She was just as angry and hurt as her siblings, and she was about to start shouting at her mother when she felt a familiar hand on her shoulder.

She knew without looking up that it was her husband, and instantly felt calmer. Still hurt and angry, but no longer explosive. She took a breath and said what she had been about to say, but used a slightly gentler tone. "You don't get to be my mother right now. You quit being my mother a long time ago. So don't Meredith Katharine me. Just tell us the truth. Please."

Dean pulled up a chair and sat down, wanting to hear what Sharon had to say just as much as the others. He had said hello to his parents, given his father enough time to tell him that he was proud of him, managed to stop reeling from the shock of the unexpected compliment, and excused himself to be with Meredith. He knew there was a lot more that he and Sam needed to discuss with their parents in the short amount of time they had, but right now Meredith needed him more.

Sharon understood exactly why her children were angry, and Meredith had every right to speak her mind. Instead of making things worse by continuing to play the mother when she had very truthfully stepped out of that role a long time ago, she simply continued what she had been saying. If Meredith hadn't cut her off she would have realized that she was getting exactly what she wanted.

"Losing your father was the last straw for me." she explained. "That's what broke me. I don't expect any of you to believe me, but I am sorry for the way things turned out. I didn't mean for any of it to happen. I just couldn't fight any longer."

"Fight what?" Kim asked, demanding an answer.

"Depression." Sharon replied. "I struggled with it for most of my life, and losing your father was more than I could handle after everything else I'd been through. I hate that I left you to fend for yourselves, and I did try to be there. I just didn't have the strength to do it anymore. I thought I could eventually pull myself out of it, because I knew you needed me, but..."

"It didn't work out the way you hoped." Kim said coldly.

"Kim." Meredith hissed. "Chill. This isn't easy for any of us."

Kim covered her face with her hands for a moment, frustrated with the situation and herself. "I know. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so ugly. It's just...I'm pissed and pregnant. I thought I could handle this better."

Sharon gave her a sympathetic smile. "I know you're angry at me, Kimmie, and I don't blame you. You have every right to be. I screwed up, but you need to understand it wasn't entirely my fault."

"You were depressed." Jason said. "We get that, but you said you couldn't handle losing Dad after everything else. What else happened?"

"You're forgetting the twins." Meredith reminded her brother softly.

Dean knew it couldn't be easy for her to think about her lost siblings when she had just found out she was pregnant with twins too. Especially after her first two pregnancies. He reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She smiled and squeezed back.

"What twins?" Kim asked.

"I've told you about them." Meredith said. "You were only two when they...when it happened."

"What happened?" Kim asked, vaguely remembering hearing something about twins, but she didn't know any details. Apparently that was one of the things her sister didn't like to talk about.

"They died." Jason said.

"That was a lie." Sharon said.

Everyone at the table except for Dan stared at her in shock.

"Why would you tell us they died if they didn't?" Meredith asked. "What did you do with them?"

"They were adopted." Dan explained.

"I couldn't keep them." Sharon added. "I was raped. I got pregnant, and my rapist went to prison, but I couldn't keep the babies. So we found them a family."

"So, we've got other siblings out there somewhere?" Meredith asked, leaning against Dean because she was too stunned to sit up on her own right now. Is this how he had felt when he had found out about Adam?

Sharon nodded. "Three actually."

Dean groaned quietly. He wasn't sure he liked the number three very much anymore.

"Three?" Kim echoed. "You had three babies we didn't know about?"

Sharon nodded. "If I had been able to fight my depression and the alcoholism I would've told you eventually, but you were all so young, and I couldn't bear to even think about them."

"So..." Meredith said, knowing the others were wondering the same thing. "How did we end up with three siblings that we never knew about?"

"I was only seventeen when I had Miranda." Sharon explained. "You're father and I broke up over some fight. I don't even remember what it was about. I was upset and I agreed to go on a date with Michael Roberts. He was kind of the school bad boy. Sort of a Fonzie type."

Meredith looked at Dean.

"What're you lookin' at me for?" he asked. "Do I look like the Fonz to you?"

"She didn't say he looked like Fonzie." Meredith reminded him. "She said he was the Fonzie type, and you, my dear husband, definitely qualify. Except you drive an Impala instead of a motorcycle."

"How would you know?"

"Chuck."

He had forgotten that she had read the books. "No more reading for you, Pinky Tuscadero."

Meredith only smiled. "That's Pinky Winchester now."

"You realize that's your new nickname now, right?" Kim said. "Are you sure you want to be called Pinky?"

Meredith shrugged. "Enough Happy Days. I want to hear more about our big sister."

Sharon realized she was slowly beginning to win back her older daughter's trust, and smiled. "I went out with Mike once, and I didn't find out I was pregnant until after your father and I got back together a couple of weeks later. Michael wasn't interested in being a father."

"I was ready to get married and adopt the baby, but your mother wasn't ready to be a mother yet." Dan continued. "So she decided to put the baby up for adoption."

"I named her Miranda, but I don't know if she ever got adopted." Sharon said sadly.

"And the twins were adopted too?" Meredith prompted.

Sharon nodded. "Yes. We personally picked out a family for them."

"What are their names?" Kim asked.

"Rebecca and Connor Donovan."

"Rebecca and Connor Donovan?" Meredith repeated, latching on to the names. "You're sure?"

"Yes. Why?" Sharon asked, curious about her daughter's suddenly alert reaction.

"I know them."

Kim's head snapped around to stare at her sister. "What?"

"I think." Meredith said. "One of the foster homes I was in, the first one. There was a girl there that was about four years younger than me. Her name was Rebecca Donovan, and she had a twin brother named Connor, but they'd been separated just like we were."

"Well, how did they end up in a foster home if they were adopted?" Dean asked.

Meredith shook her head. "I'm not sure. We were friends, but she never told me what happened to her parents. I was in that house for about three months before their foster license expired, and I had to move to a new home. Rebecca left about a month before that. I'm not sure why. I think her social worker had managed to get her and Connor placed together. I never heard from her after she left."

"I can't believe you knew our sister." Kim said. "You lived with her."

"I shared a room with her." Meredith corrected, her eyes filling with tears.

Dean put his arm around her. "Maybe we can track her down. Maybe we can track all of them down."

Meredith and Kim both nodded in agreement.

"I'm sorry I never told you about them." Sharon said. "When the twins were adopted you were all too young to really understand what had happened, so we told you they had died, and Jason was only thirteen when..."

"I could've understood at thirteen." Jason said. "Meredith and Kim probably could've understood then too."

"I'm sure you could've, but I couldn't talk about it then." Sharon said. "Any of it. I couldn't even think about it. If things had worked out differently I would've told all of you eventually. But I made bad decisions. I gave up when I should've fought harder. After your father died I should've called John."

"Why didn't you?" Kim asked. "If you had..."

"I might still be alive." Jason finished.

"I was afraid." Sharon admitted. "Your death is as much my fault as it is the ghost that killed you. Maybe even more so because I could've done something to stop it. But I didn't know what John did, and after everything that had happened I was afraid to call him. I was afraid to find out that something else had happened, that it hadn't been suicide. I think part of me knew it was something unexplainable, but I didn't want to believe it. If I had called John I would've had no choice but to believe it. I'm sorry."

They all wanted to tell her that it wasn't her fault, but they couldn't because they all knew it was. If she had only called John then maybe Jason would still be alive. Maybe Sharon wouldn't have drank herself to death. Maybe the accident that killed her and Melissa Talmadge wouldn't have happened. Maybe they wouldn't have ended up in foster care. Maybe Meredith wouldn't have spiraled out of control. Maybe Kim wouldn't have developed an eating disorder.

"Maybe all the bad things wouldn't have happened, but maybe none of the good things would've happened either." Meredith said, looking up at her mother. "I'm not saying it's not your fault, because it is. At least partly, but I understand what happened now. And why it happened. And as much as I hate the fact that Jason died, and all the bad things that happened in our lives...good things came out of it too. If you had called John after Hanna killed Daddy she never would've come after me, and Dean may not have come back into my life." She looked at her husband. "You were still just a kid then. He wouldn't have brought you on that hunt, would he?"

"I don't know." Dean said. "He left us on our own a lot back then so we wouldn't get hurt or get in the way. He might have brought us along because of the whole family friend thing, but I doubt it."

"You guys are soulmates." Kim argued. "You would've found each other eventually."

"But we don't know when we were shot." Meredith reminded her. "It might've been when we were kids in Lawrence, or it might've been when he and Sam showed up after I called John. Or it might've been when he turned my world upside down last Spring. I hate that Jason died, and I miss him every single day. I hate that we had to deal with the crap that we had to deal with, Kim, but I will never say I'm not happy I met Dean. And if things had worked out differently there's a good chance neither of us would've married Jake. There's also a chance you wouldn't have Rowan."

"You can't unsink the Titanic." Dean said, agreeing with his wife. "Fate's a bitch, but she knows what she's doing."

Jason nodded. "They're right, Kimmie. I'm not happy I was murdered by a ghost, but I am happy that my sisters get to be happy."

"I understand." Kim said. "And I'm sorry you had to go through all that, Mama, but it just sucks."

"I know, sweetheart." Sharon said, reaching out for Kim's hand and smiling when she was allowed to take it. "But you've done so well with the lemons life had handed you. You've got a beautiful family, a job that you love, and you're happy. That's all any of us ever wanted for you, for both of you. I'm sorry that you had to get here the way you did, but you did good. You both did so good."

Kim and Meredith were both crying now, and Dean wasn't surprised. He hadn't seen a lot of tears from Kim, but she was Meredith's sister and they were a lot alike. Somehow, Dean Winchester, the man that had been taught to internalize everything until it all came out in bouts of rage and alcoholism, had found himself in the middle of a family that was pretty open about their emotions. He couldn't help but wonder if he would be more open with his emotions too if he had grown up in a world without monsters. Or in a world with a mother.

Poor Shari! Too bad the AKF campaign wasn't around back in 1992. Then again, maybe Meredith's right. If Sharon had lived everything might be different. And, of course, my writer's brain is constantly thinking about how things might be different. And since we've got angels and djinn running around Bristol Ridge there's a possibility we might just find out at some point. But for now, let's just focus on what is. Like the fact that I can't seem to stop adding family members. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with all of them, but I do have plans to bring Miranda, Rebecca, and Connor in at some point. Actually, I'd like to be able to introduce Miranda in the next story, which is going to take a little while because I'm still trying to figure out the actual plot for the awesome idea I've come up with. And there's only nine chapters in this story, so y'all are gonna have to be patient with me again. But you seem to be pretty good at that for the most part, so I won't worry about finding an angry mob outside my house any time soon. Anyway, I hope y'all have been enjoying the story so far, and you know I love it when you leave reviews and comments. It just brightens up my day so much! Love y'all! ~SG