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Smoke burned in Jack’s nostrils. He turned his head away from the fire. Buried his nose in his jacket sleeve and breathed in deep.
No good. His jacket smelled like campfire smoke too.
It shouldn’t surprise him. After months in apocalypse-world with no change of clothes, Jack carried around bits of places he’d been with him. Smoke from the camps, grease from his dinner last night, sand from the last foraging mission he’d been on. Even some rust, from all the way back in the other world, from that old boat they’d been on, before everything went wrong.
Even some blood from their last angel encounter.
Whenever he and the humans went up against angels, there were casualties. Two dead and ten more wounded, just this week. Mary was working in the hospital tent tonight, taking out stitches and battling infected wounds. One man had already lost his leg to infection—his screams still rang in Jack’s ears.
Maybe that was why the little girl next to him was so quiet tonight. Emma was her name—she didn’t have parents anymore; she floated around the camp while the adults took turns caring for her. Normally she was soft-spoken but lively. She enjoyed Jack’s hand puppet shows, scooting as close to the pictures as she could.
Tonight, though, she was huddled in a tight little ball, staring fixedly into the fire. Her dirty stocking cap slipped down over her forehead. (It was always cold here at night. Daytime here was scorching, but when the sun went down, the coats came on and the fires were lit.)
Jack turned his whole body, still cross-legged, to face Emma. “Are…are you okay?”
She sniffled, staring up at him with big, hollowed eyes. One grubby hand came up to wipe at her cheek.
There was no light for a show tonight—all the high-powered lanterns were being used in the medical tents—but Jack had an idea to cheer her up.
After all, it had worked on him once.
He held his hands out toward her, palms facing upward. “Want to play a game?”
Emma looked at his hands uncertainly. “I don’t know how to play,” she whispered.
“It’s okay,” Jack said, channeling the most patient person he knew. “I’ll show you. Hold out your hands.”
As Jack continued, he could almost hear another voice, explaining the same game to him on the bed of a dingy motel room.
“Just put your hands on top of mine. No, no—palms down. Our palms should be touching. Good. Yeah, just hold it there. Okay, now I’m going to move my hands—you keep yours still—and I’m gonna try to get my hands on top of yours. Your job is to move out of the way. So when I move my hands, you try to pull yours back. Don’t let me get my hands on top of yours. Ready? Let’s try.”
Sam’s hands moved fast, without warning. Like lightning, Jack’s mom would’ve said.
“Oh, I got you that time. Let’s try again. You have to be fast.”
“Like lightning,” Jack murmured.
“Yeah.” Sam smiled, a gentle expression that crinkled the corners of his eyes and took away a bit of the crease between his eyebrows.
Jack glowed inside at having achieved that.
On the second try Jack could anticipate Sam’s movement a little more easily. He yanked his hands away, but still felt the telltale tap on the tips of his fingers.
“Closer. I bet you’ll win the next one.”
Jack hunched over their hands, furrowing his brow in concentration. Games were supposed to be fun, but there was an intensity to playing. An itch to win, to achieve something. To prove himself.
Wait for it… wait for it…
“Whoa! I think you won that one. Good job, Jack.”
Jack flushed with pride, ducking his head.
He’d done something right.
“Can…” Jack hesitated. “Can we keep playing?”
“‘Course. We can even switch it up, so I have to get out of your way.”
By the time Dean returned with burgers and beer, Jack was winning nearly every round. Even Dean’s distrustful scowl couldn’t extinguish the glow inside Jack’s chest.
It felt good to win something.
“Jack’s pretty good at this,” Sam told his brother.
The way he watched Dean, hoping and waiting for approval, felt very much the same way Jack felt when he looked to Sam.
“Sure,” Dean grumbled. “You’re taking it easy on him, aren’t you? Letting him win?”
Sam leaned close to Jack, whispering in his ear—although Jack was pretty sure it was still loud enough for Dean to hear. “He never went easy on me. And I still beat him. He’s just sore.”
Dean plunked himself on the couch, still every bit the man who’d immediately shot at Jack.
Yet there was a softness in his eyes when he looked at Sam. Heard Sam’s loud whisper.
If anyone could soften Dean, it was Sam. Jack could see that already.
“Hungry?” Sam asked Jack. “C’mon, let’s go eat.”
Emma was laughing. She’d picked up the game quick, and she thoroughly enjoyed tapping Jack’s knuckles, signaling yet another defeat.
Jack could feel everything from her hands. Her breaths, the way she tensed before moving. He could anticipate her moves before she made them—he could easily move out of the way fast enough.
But he didn’t. He let her win, over and over and over again. She giggled every time, her cheeks flushing with excitement. “Again, again!” she’d say, just like she did at Jack’s puppet show.
Even though he was losing, playing the game felt good to Jack. It felt good, because it made Emma smile. It made her happy.
And it reminded Jack of a simpler time. When he was younger, when someone was around to take care of him .
Just days after he was born…
Jack’s brow furrowed in thought. He turned away from Emma to the old, bearded man hunched over the fire next to him. “Gregor.”
“What is it, son?”
“Do you know what day it is?”
Too frail to help defend the camp, Gregor made himself useful with the calendar he’d held onto from before the end of the world. Full of scratched out dates and years, he kept the closest record of what day it was.
“Somewhere around May 16th. Give or take a few days.”
“May 16th,” Jack repeated in wonder. He couldn’t believe it.
“That day mean somethin’ to you?”
“My…” Jack felt his lips part in a smile for the first time in what felt like forever. “My birthday is May 18th. It’s almost my birthday.”
Gregor scratched his beard. “How old will you be?”
“One. One year.”
Gregor’s hand froze.
Emma’s wide eyes got impossibly wider.
Sometimes the humans seemed to forget who— what —Jack was. (He supposed he should be thankful for that.)
One year. A whole year since he’d been born. Since he’d felt the warmth of his mother’s hand, the whisper of her voice. He’d been trapped in apocalypse-world for half that time. Half a year away from Sam. From Dean. Castiel.
He missed them.
He wondered if they missed him. If they thought about him at all.
Would they remember his birthday?
Sam Winchester yawned and powered down another coffee. He’d been researching the spell to open apocalypse-world for hours—days, really—and he was still stuck on a few symbols.
He glanced at his watch—midnight-thirty. It was now May 18th.
Oh.
May 18th.
Sam couldn’t believe it had been a year. A year since Jack was born, since Kelly died, since they lost Mom to that portal.
Now they’d lost Jack to it, too.
There was so much Sam had missed. So many things he’d wanted to tell Jack, to teach him.
I’ll get to tell him, he vowed. I will.
Just have to figure out this spell first.
Happy birthday, Jack.
We’re coming.