Chapter Text
They didn't find their father.
But they put a Woman in White down before leaving Jericho.
The return was not what they expected.
Sam exited the Impala while Dean remained seated with the engine running. He had a new set of coordinates to plug in and head for. Seemed like John was leaving work in his absence. At least it was a sign that he was alive. Finding the hunter's journal had made Dean feel sick, until they saw the numbers with the eldest boy's name.
Dean wasn't coming in. He didn't feel like socializing after the events with Constance Welsh. Falling off a bridge hadn't exactly done him any favors. He was going to take a rest at a motel for the night and then head on to keep up the search for their dad.
Sam looked at him. "Sure you won't come in?" He asked.
"Nah, got to keep looking." Dean replied eyes on something to his brother's left and flashing in mild worry.
"When you find Dad kick his ass for me?" Sam asked. That last rueful fight still wormed at Sam's gut.
"After I take my licks, sure thing Sammy." Dean forced a smile and sighed. "I'll talk to you later." He shifted gears and pulled away.
Sam watched his brother go and then headed inside the house.
Though something felt off, and an unfamiliar scent wavered on the air in their bedroom briefly, he jotted it as tired from hunting while obviously out of practice. He flopped onto the bed with closed eyes and a peaceful look. He was home, he'd helped Dean without getting severely injured or pulled away from his new college life.
Sure Dean thought of it ominously, but he often felt out of touch with normal things. That was to be expected, his inability to accept normal American life stemmed from both his upbringing as a hunter and his Asperger's. Normal didn't have any business bothering Dean Winchester. He was beyond normal and ttoo flighty to let it catch him like it had Sam.
Except something bigger was just beginning to sink it's claws in Sam Winchester. Fate, destiny, call it what you will, but it was snarling the youngest Winchester before he could realize the trap he'd stumbled into. The trap that had faked him a normal life.
The falsehood that was a million moments of seemingly normal interaction over his childhood. How could he know he'd been kept under protective eyes?
How could he know he was about to have his semblance of perfect stripped away? Maybe he should have told Dean about the nightmares of Jess burning. But that seemed silly. Dean had finally explained what had happened to their mother after years of Sam's begging. The vision of the woman from a few worn out photos burning on a ceiling coupled with his desire to obtain both his normal life and Jess as more than a romantic venture had been the cocktail that created his dreams. Because he wasn't psychic or anything right? Right.
Except when he opened his eyes to moisture he screamed. There was Jess....on the ceiling blood pooling from her abdomen and then as soon as he saw his nightmare turned reality the world blazed into bright scorching flames.
"Jess! NO!" Sam screamed.
But it was too late.
Dean had turned around when he caught Sam's knife, the one he'd taken to college with him, sitting on the bench beside him. Forgetfulness certainly wasn't good for a future lawyer. He got to the house in time to see flames from the second story.
For a moment his brain stalled. This, this was the scene from twenty two years back. When dear sweet Mary had been taken from her family. He bolted in to find Sam choking on smoke and clawing at the floor to escape. Dean grimly looked up at the quickly disintegrating form of one poor helpless woman.
Once outside Dean made a face taking in deep breaths of fresh air. The scent of smoke and burning flesh was a pungent odor and it didn't sit well with him. Sam coughed on the ground beside him as firetrucks screamed in the distance. Dean managed to get hold of himself by breathing in the deep scent of the leather jacket he wore. It was a familiar smell associated with their father.
He sat next to Sam while neighbors came running out. Firemen rushed in from seemingly nowhere. Sam watched silently, he'd shut his mind off when Dean pulled him out. At the moment he was staring at a burning home. Fire was a strange thing, it had ruined their lives before and yet they relied on it to kill ghosts.
Dean wrapped an arm around Sam and explained everything. The younger brother knew Dean hated having to talk to strangers so much but he couldn't make his brain function again yet. Because as soon as he came back online it would be to mourn. It would be inconsolable grief.
It had happened again.
This time it was Dean who didn't understand the emotions of Sam. Dean and John both remembered Mary. Sam however did not, so he never quite got the grudge part of hunting things, he also didn't understand how Dean could do it and view it as he did. Dean saw the work of heroes, battle torn and hardened in experience. But always the ones to shoulder burdens others could not, to take arms against grand mythical evils and restore peace and happiness. Sam saw it as a screwed up shitty excuse of a life, sure it helped others but at what cost to the hunters? And Sam didn't have a memory to get angry over, to fuel his hatred for anything not human. Except now he did. Now he had his reason to avenge those lost to monsterkind.
The funeral was beautiful. The ceremony simple but elegant. Just the way Jess would have wanted it. Luckily the Moores weren't the kind of people to point a finger just so they could have someone to blame. After all the oven had been on when Sam arrived home. Apparently Jess had been baking cookies, though Sam and Dean knew it was the cover up to keep from being suspects for arson.
Dean didn't go. Said it wasn't his place and Sam probably needed the space. Seemed the older brother knew what he was talking about. Sam was glad to not have Dean there to make fun of his crying. Though he doubted his brother would have done such a thing.
Now that Jess was gone what did Sam have? An interview he missed, another lonely few years till his BAR exam and then what? Go on living like the world was ok? Because now it wasn't.
When Sam threw his duffle in after Dean's he was grimly determined to finish what the bastard they'd never even met had started.
Dean only raised an eyebrow and smiled. He was glad to have Sam back, though the reason for his return well and truly sucked. "I'm coming. I want to find what killed Jess, killed Mom. And for that we need to find Dad."
Dean nodded in agreement. They would head for the coordinates. That was after all their only clue to finding their father.