I'm finally ready to start writing the conclusion to this story.
I've read and re-read through all the comments and feel assured that most people would like my original idea continued, although I am aware that I didn't explain Dean's transformation very well – I've tried to make his state of mind a bit clearer and hope it comes across as more believable.
To those who DIDN'T like this ending to the story, I apologise. But I'm sure that you're all capable of simply stopping reading a story that you don't like, in the same way that you can simply close a book or turn a television off, so please feel to do so – I won't be insulted if you don't bother to continue the tale.
This doesn't follow the series at all with the exception of the boys now living in the Bunker (for which I will always mourn the preceding loss of Bobby in the season). But I have always loved Jodie as well, and I have always felt that Dean and Claire should become good friends.
I will try and get this done as soon as I can, although I know from experience that it takes me longer than I expect to get my chapters the way I want them to read.
I hope those who do bear with me enjoy.
And, as always, I do welcome comments… seriously, I do. (Seriously! :0)
God bless you all and keep you safe.
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Sam drew the Impala up into yet another motel parking lot in yet another small town, ran his hands through his long hair and increasingly longer and scruffier beard, and sighed.
Seventeen weeks.
Well… nearly seventeen weeks. Sixteen weeks, five days, seventeen hours and fifty-seven minutes… not that Sam had been counting…
Sixteen weeks, five days, seventeen hours and fifty-seven minutes weeks since he had last seen his big brother.
Sixteen weeks, five days… to hell with it: it didn't matter! The only thing that mattered was that Dean had walked out of the Bunker: walked out of Sam's life… and somehow completely vanished from the face of the Earth.
Not even Castiel had been able to find him, although the angel had tried repeatedly to do so: searching every inch of the entire world personally over and over again, regretting the Enochian warding he himself had once placed on Dean to keep him safe because it now hid his best friend from his own angelic eye.
Castiel had searched nearly as desperately as Sam himself had.
As Sam always would. For the rest of his life if necessary.
He would never give up looking for his brother.
Never.
With yet another sigh Sam checked his cell phone. No messages. Again.
Not that he had expected to hear anything really.
But he always hoped...
Sam had put the word out around the Hunting community that Dean was missing - taken by something unknown for reasons yet to be uncovered. He might have been possessed: he might be seriously hurt, possibly amnesiac. Whichever, whatever; the younger Winchester had issued strict instructions that if anyone thought they had caught even a possible glimpse of his brother then they were to call Sam immediately.
Nobody else was to approach Dean at all…
Nobody.
Because if they did approach Dean, then they might find out about the other time line that Sam was worried about.
The really important one that made him all the more anxious to find Dean with every passing day. And for nobody else to.
And Sam was all the more terrified every day he didn't.
Because this particular time line would only last approximately six months.
About twenty six weeks.
And Dean had already been gone for nearly seventeen of them. And Sam had no way of knowing how many weeks… it… had happened before them.
Because Dean simply hadn't stayed around long enough to tell him: whether from shame, or embarrassment, or just plain and simple shock and trauma from being trapped in that strange and frightening parallel world that his gentle and timid look-alike counterpart had been so terrified of, just when whatever had happened that had resulted in his big brother now being pregnant.
Dean was pregnant.
Sam just couldn't really get his head around it: his brother was pregnant. Somehow, somehow, Dean had returned… 'different'. Slightly less human and slightly more… whatever the other Dean had been… an omega, he had called himself…
… but… that didn't matter.
Sam's big brother was lost somewhere and pregnant and needed help… and that was all that concerned the younger Winchester.
To find Dean, and bring him safely home to the Bunker and help him with whatever he was going through…
… because his big brother was the only thing that had ever really mattered to Sam. Period.
If only Sam could just find him.
It could only have been a matter of minutes that Dean had managed to slip past them and… Sam hesitated to use the word 'escaped'… left the Bunker.
Sam had just returned from a grocery run and Castiel swore that he had only just checked on his brother, but… Dean had gone.
And he and the angel had looked everywhere.
But there had been no trace of Dean. No trace at all.
It was with another sigh that Sam reached into the rear seat of the Impala for his travel bag, out from which he had just about lived out for the past nearly seventeen weeks. The young man couldn't remember the last time he had slept in his own bed… or even the last time he had walked through the Bunker's solid outer door…
It just wasn't home without his brother.
He had picked this motel only because of the diner across the street: as much as he didn't want to not be searching for his brother for a minute… a minute that might provide that one vital clue as to Dean's whereabouts… he still needed to eat. He still needed to sleep, if only for a couple of hours.
He needed to shower, have a shave and wash some clothes… to hell with it: that could wait. Finding Dean was more important. He'd just grab a meal and try to have a powernap…
Well, perhaps he'd just grab a quick shower.
His cell phone buzzed with a text even as Sam exhaustedly began to plod across to the reception.
It also bleeped with a picture message.
The young man fumbled in his pocket for the small device and glanced at the new image tiredly: why the hell had someone sent him that?
It was an image of a two cars: the first a smart black Mercedes, and behind it was some old sedan that looked like there was probably more rust beneath the paintwork than metal. The picture had been taken from slightly to the side and from the front of the Merc, as if a red light camera had caught it, and showed its driver clearly: a young blonde woman wearing far too vivid lipstick.
The figures in the vehicle at the back were more obscure: some elderly, grey-haired man in the driver's seat and someone sitting behind him in the rear of the car.
Sam frowned. And read the text: "Check the passenger at the back."
His brows furrowed, Sam looked at the photo again, using his fingers to enlarge the image on the small screen as much as he could…
And then his bag was being discarded without a second thought to just drop to the dusty clinging dirt and Sam was calling the sender in a sudden rush of nervous anticipation: "Jody? Jody! Where is this? Where was this taken? When was it taken…?"
"D'ya think it might be him?" The sheriff had been biting her nails from the instant she had sent the photo. "I've been telling a few half-truths, Sam: I put out the word that Dean is a vulnerable adult who has disappeared after possibly witnessing a violent crime, possibly abducted by the perp so it's vital that he not be approached in case he's in danger, and instead any info however slight was to be sent immediately to my department marked for my attention only. It works sorta like a Silver Alert but not in the public domain…"
Sam was already examining the picture again even while she was talking: "It's not quite clear enough… Jody? Can you send it to my laptop so I can enlarge it…?"
"I already have, boy. Here's as big as I can get it…"
And Sam's cell phone was binging with another picture message. The young man hurried to open it… and felt moisture pricking at the corners of his eyes…
For the distortion caused to the pixels in the enlargement focusing on just the passenger in the rear of the second vehicle may have made the image appear slightly grainy…
… but it was definitely Dean sitting in the car, staring idly out of the rear window as it had been driven along.
He looked thinner in the face than he had done previously, which the younger man was instantly concerned about. And he looked sad: the green eyes, although their natural vividness was hidden by the distortion of the expansion, held a deep sorrow. And a slight anxiety: his eyebrows were pulled together enough to form a deep furrow between them…
Sam hated seeing that anxiousness on his brother's face. He hated it even more that he wasn't there by Dean's side to help him take at least half the strain…
Fuck it all: he should be by his brother's side, period.
Dean needed help. He needed help like he never had done before… and Sam should have been right there by his side.
He had to find him.
"Sam? You okay? It is him, isn't it?" The sheriff's concerned voice cut through his anguished thoughts.
The younger Winchester recovered himself immediately: "Yes, Jody. Yes! Where is this? Is this today…?"
There was a hesitant pause from the other end of the line…
"Jody? How long ago was this…? Please tell me it's recent…"
"It was certainly fairly recent, Sam," she hastened to assure him. "Y'all would never believe how many sightings, both reported and images like these from traffic cameras etc from around the country I've had to sift through every day for weeks. I've been inundated…
I just wanted to be sure before I got your hopes up, ya know…?"
Sam's heart swelled with even more love for the brunette: she was probably the closest thing he would ever have to a mother… besides his brother of course… "Thanks Jody."
The sheriff blinked back a tear at the emotional sincerity in her boy's… er… the young man's voice. "According to the date stamp this was taken four days ago, and it's come in from the County's department in Tulsa…"
"Tulsa? Tulsa, Oklahoma? What the hell is he doing there? How the hell did he even get there…? I…"
"We'll find him, Sam." The younger Winchester could have cried at the calm confidence in the sheriff's voice. "It's Dean, and we now know where he was just a few days ago…
You just gotta hold on, because we're gonna find him, boy. Ain't no doubt about that.
Now. You git yourself over to meet me in Tulsa and we'll organise a plan."
.