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August 18th, 2031 (Sam is 19)
Dean stood when Sam came into the room.
“Dad, I told you, I’ve got it. Relax.” Dean watched Sam’s arms tighten around the stack of boxes. They obscured her view, leaving her to navigate by stubbornness alone.
“Pissy isn’t your best look.”
“Whatever,” Sam grunted, trying to scratch her nose on the side of a box and open the door at the same time. She flapped her hand blindly at the latch, kicked the glass door open with her foot, and shuffled through while it swung closed. It slammed.
Dean went to get some lemonade. He used a whole tray of ice filling the huge matching Cubs 2020 souvenir cups, automatically put it back empty like Sam hated. Felt stupid when he remembered plotting to irritate Sam tomorrow was a waste of time today.
Dean was refilling the tray when Sam came back, wiping her sweaty hands on her cut-offs.
“That was the last of ‘em. Oh, thanks.” Dean raised his cup and Sam followed suit.
The lemonade was the best kind of concentrate, with real flecks of lemon floating at the top. Sharp but not bitter. Sammy had loved frothy drinks; Samantha’s favorite drinks had edges. Dean guessed she’d be a whiskey man, like him. Funny he might never know. Hard liquor wasn’t exactly on the menu at the family gatherings Dean figured for their future.
Dad had drunk Dean under the table twice by the time he was sixteen—once he’d insisted on target practice after. John, steady despite a blood alcohol level of oh hell no had explained: some of the most common spells made you high as a kite, most everything could be slowed by a bullet. Dean translated: Might save Sammy’s life, knowing how to shoot drunk. Dean’d been mostly drunk for the final four years of his brother’s life, and damn if Dean didn’t save his ass twice a week. Point to John.
Dean looked over at Sam, knocking the heel of her right foot to the toe of her left. Her feet were sockless in her knock-off Chucks. Her slim ankles made him nervous. They looked snappable, capped by too-big feet. Dean knew they got the job done; he was gonna have to let his weird shit go.
Sam was quiet but settled, no mopey aura. Time for the speech. “Changed the controller in your stupid car.”
“I saw.” The dimple in Sam’s left cheek flexed with her not-quite smile. “I dated the venison in the freezer. E coli would be a dumb way to go.”
“I can think of worse.”
Sam rotated until their shoulders touched. She was tall enough to rest her head on his shoulder.
Dean said, “The other kids won’t know what hit them.” It was true. Dean would kill a kitten before he’d revive the Terminator nickname for any Winchester, but Sam was scary in a classroom. Dean had seen Sammy in school enough times to know he had been silently competent, unobtrusive by nature, Dad’s orders or both. Dean only saw Samantha’s school-self in reflection over family dinner, but the afterglow was strong enough Dean could imagine how Samantha devoured her teachers and classmates.
“Consider it a promise.”
A slight breeze shifted the kitchen curtains, warm air moving through hot, no relief. Christmas was so far away it seemed imaginary. There’d be no in-between visits. Boston was 900 bucks each way at best, and that was in hybrid-jet lowered prices. Using the Impala wasn’t worth thinking about, gas-wise, even if she were running as smooth as she used to. Sam would be driving out to college alone; a return trip for Dean a sentimental waste.
Dean drank deeply. The cheap plastic flexed in his hand, tears of condensation running down the sides.
--
August 18th 2015 (Sam is 2 ½)
Sunrise was a good daycare. Their snacks were bought in bulk and their books were second-hand but their head teacher had more degrees than a thermometer. Twice a day the kids sat criss-cross-applesauce and sang their hearts out about three little monkeys. Twice a week Sam came home with a new finger-paint masterpiece or toilet-roll-and-toothpick invention.
Sunrise cost a good third of Dean’s take-home pay, slightly more than the rent. Dean worked most nights after Sam went to bed, getting ahead on any paperwork so he could make sales all day uninterrupted. Good thing he liked ramen.
Sunrise was also closed. Motherfucker. Dean shook the doors again, rattling the cheery rainbow sign above them. The little chairs were empty, their primary colors turned shades of gray in the dark room. It made no sense. He was only 15 minutes late. He would have called but the solar panel on his phone was fucked and the Impala didn’t have the right jack.
This was bad. This was a demon possessing someone on Sam’s “safe” list. This was a shapeshifter holding Sam’s hand and smiling while she called it “Dad”. This was a ghoul pretending to be a Sunrise teacher, biding her time until today. This was the day that being a Winchester caught up to Sam.
Shouting would just reveal Dean’s location. If the thing that had his daughter was close, surprise better be on his side. Dean drew his gun.
Dean stalked halfway around the perimeter of the building before he saw them.
I do not like them,
Sam-I-am.
I do not like
green eggs and ham!
"That is excellent, Samantha.” Castiel’s voice was warm despite his stilted cadence. Dean’s gun found its way to his shoulder holster. As far as he knew, Sam had never seen it, and as far as he intended, she never would.
“Daddy!” Sam said, jumping up with a dimple-flanked smile. “I was readin’ to Uncle Cas!” She threw herself forward, arms outstretched, with no obvious plan to arrest her fall. Dean caught her obligingly and swung her up above his head. She was real, dense enough to block out the setting sun. Thirty pounds of bone and muscle and brains. Her shadow shielded Dean’s eyes.
“Well hello,” Dean said.
Sam chortled, then bicycled her legs in midair like Wily Coyote, squirming to get down.
“I think she may have been reciting previously encoded passages by rote. Nonetheless it is advanced for a child of her age.” Castiel stood beside Dean as Sam ran off and pitched herself happily into the sand pit, cackling as she came down on her knees.
“I go boom!”
Dean turned to Castiel. “She must have read it here. We don’t have it at home.” It had been Sammy’s favorite. He cleared his throat. “So, what was it? Did it get away?” Better get it over with. See if the three-way truce Sam had negotiated with Crowley, Cas and the Mother had buckled after all.
“Angel. And no, he did not escape. There are still a few pockets of resistance, even now after Raphael’s fall. There will soon be one fewer.”
Dean thought about what it all meant. For the first time since Lucifer, there was one angel powerful enough to be the hegemon of Heaven. There was nothing to stop Cas from using his weapon arsenal to enslave the entire planet. The fate of the world balanced on a slim fulcrum.
“Think I’ll need to switch daycares?”
“No. An example will be made.” Angels knew how to exact justice—what they lacked in creativity they made up for in persistence. Dean had seen Cas work near the end of the war, his technique was solid.
“Huh.” At least he wouldn’t have to train another staff to always greet him by his full name (Mr. Christonopolos), or break in for more late night supernatural rug-detailing (pentagrams and salt lines).
“There is only one rule in heaven: do not interfere on earth.”
Dean figured “do not challenge Castiel” made two rules, and two and a half years ago Dean would have helped himself to a righteous tirade. Tonight Dean had estimated taxes waiting, and salmon he got on sale that wouldn’t last. Sam needed more omega-3 in her diet. Dean had other fish to fry.
Samantha chucked handfuls of sand into the air, laughed as the grains scattered and glittered in the slanting sun. It was going to be hell to get out of her hair. But Dean had scrubbed graveyard dirt out of Sammy’s hair after the shoulder injury of ’97 and three times since then thanks to broken ribs. Once left side, twice right. Dean’d scrubbed his demon blood, drool and bile off of the panic room floor on two separate occasions. There were different kinds of filthy.
Dean clapped Cas on the back and went to go play.
--
August 18th, 2012 (Samantha is 6 months old, Sam is 29, Dean is 33)
“Oh my God.” Sam sat back in his chair, blank-faced with shock. He looked like he’d taken a bat to the side of his head; completely gobsmacked.
That tone in Sam’s voice pissed Dean off. It was usually followed by some kind of T-1000 revelation. Dean’s fucking favorite. It wasn’t enough that each new bit of RoboSam history they dredged up reconfirmed that Winchester suffering could occur on two planes of existence at once. No. It also had to trigger some serious caring and sharing time. Perfectly understandable that Dean’s initial “what?” was less than agreeable.
“What, Sam?” Dean prompted again. Sam was going to explore every angle even if it dominoed an irreversible brain fart in Sam’s mind. Relentless asshole. The only way Dean could help was to get him talking.
“I…have a daughter.” Sam’s gaze remained fixed on his computer screen, the only source of light in the motel room other than Dean’s pay-per-view.
“What?” OK, so Dean wasn’t helping yet, sue him. That was enough of a bombshell to send his brain offline for a minute.
Sam flipped the computer around, an email open in Sam’s Agent Roark account. “This woman says she met me—“
“RoboSam.” Dean’s response was automatic, still on autoplay.
“Met me last May. She had a baby in February. I’ll wait while you do the math.”
Dean scowled, but counted anyway. It was a welcome distraction from what this was all going to mean.
Sam continued. “She’s married, and she just came clean to her husband. They are still talking it through but she’s pretty sure he’s going to want to give it up. She thought I had a right to know. In case—in case I wanted it. Her, in case I wanted her.”
And there it was. The djinn promise, the succubus ruse, the taunt of every demon. Family: the famed Winchester weak spot.
Dean thought of Lisa, how she’d put up with his crap for so long, only to have him disappear as soon as the hunt called. Of Ben, who thought a rock-salt shotgun was cool and the man who wielded it cooler. Hunting warped people into bloody origami versions of themselves. On the outside they were sharp, precise. But the unnatural contortions required to make the correct hunter shape weakened the fabric—no other form could be achieved.
Hunting was an all or nothing proposition.
“Sam.”
“I know, alright? Best way to help the kid would be to delete the email.”
Dean looked at Sam, sitting in the ashes of any life he might have once wanted. His broad shoulders were thinning out a little, now that Sam had rediscovered salad and matched his workouts to Dean’s. The light from the computer screen was weak. Dean resisted the impulse to turn on the overhead; more light wouldn’t change the fact that Sam had been salted and burned before he’d even died the first time.
“Babies usually go to good homes,” Sam said. He was trying for hopeful, but it was flat, an admission of defeat. Dean hated RoboSam, but some days he envied him. Need never kicked him in the gut like this.
Dean cleared his throat. “We can keep tabs on her.”
“No,” Sam said. He closed the laptop and stood up abruptly. The feeble light from the TV threw half of his face into flickering shadow. His eyes were dull. “It’s best this way.”
And damn but Dean wanted to reverse his position, retreat and regroup. He wanted to declare they were giving it all up; someone else could save the fucking world for a change. Or that they were going to go kick some demigod ass, that they’d have RoboSam’s by-blows rescued by New Year’s. That they’d turn them into the kids they never were and spend the rest of their lives as Dad and Uncle Dean. Christ, when it came down to it, Dean just wanted Sam to friggin’ smile. Surely he’d have to smile at his own daughter.
“I need a drink,” Dean said.
“Yeah, alright.”
Dean kept his hand on Sam’s shoulder on the way to the car. It wasn’t every night that you gained and lost your fatherhood.
The night was cool for August, and with no moon it was inky and deep. When they reached the car Sam paused. He left a small huff in the air, and Dean knew Sam thought that was the end of it. It probably was. Hunting was not a family business.
Finally Sam turned and Dean’s hand slid off. His fingers lost contact one by one, point by point.
--
August 18th, 2029 (Sam is 17)
Samantha slammed through the front door and marched straight up the stairs.
Dean was still for a moment, glass raised in fake nonchalance as he tried to look like he wasn’t waiting for her return. No surprise that Sam had wanted to drive herself to the clinic; frankly Dean was surprised that she’d even told him where she was going. Sam still hadn’t come down an hour later. Dean went up and knocked.
“What.”
“I’m going for a run. Thought you might wanna come.”
“No.”
“OK.”
Dean hadn’t thought it would work. He walked slowly down the hall, his tennis shoes white against the brown carpet. Dean Winchester in athletic shoes. He was an imposter in his own house. Sammy was the one who liked tennis shoes, growing up; he was always on about correct posture or some shit, even when he was like seven. It was totally annoying and Dean always made sure he had ‘em, even if they were third hand.
“Wait.”
“OK.” Dean didn’t turn as she brushed past him into the bathroom. He heard water running, and then she was by his side, face blotchy but dry.
“Let’s do this,” Sam said. She launched herself down the stairs and out the door. Dean followed.
They lived in a relatively new part of town. It wasn’t the nicest part—the houses were cheap and small, built on throwaway land. The commute was hell but the school district was good. They abutted farmland and fields that had never seen anything but native grass and foxes. America was still big enough.
Sam and Dean ran on the shoulder of the highway; they lived too far out for sidewalks or bike paths. They both took easily to the open road, jogging at Dean’s most comfortable pace. Sam could run faster now, but she matched his stride.
About halfway to their usual turning-back point, Sam started to breathe heavy in a way that sounded suspiciously like someone trying not to cry. Dean didn’t think about it, he just reached over and smacked her upside the head.
Her retaliation was immediate. She whirled around, throwing a wide, shaky punch. Dean blocked it and countered with a jab. He couldn’t do any of the fancy stuff anymore, but a few close-in punches weren’t gonna kill him. Sam had found her footing by then, and her eyes narrowed dangerously when he pulled his jab in at the last second. It was on.
They sparred and scuffled, mixing good form with dirty pool in grand Winchester tradition. Samantha usually fought like a girl, which was just like he taught her. Leverage, speed and cunning more than power, although she had plenty of that for her weight. Kicks and dodges, mostly. But today they kept it close. The whole point with Samantha—and Sammy, of course—had always been the dance.
Dean clipped the side of Sam’s face, got a gut punch in return. He staggered back, hamming it up a little for the cameras, playing the old man card. In truth it wasn’t as much of a ruse as it once was, not that Dean would cop to it. Sam fell for it (like always) and dropped her guard long enough for him to execute an elegant headlock-noogie combo.
“Ahhh, Dad! Leggo!” Sam twisted until they were both off balance. The world tilted, sky blue and field green canting together as they fell to the ground. They hit hard on packed dirt only lightly cushioned by grass. Sam and Dean lay side by side, breathing hard. The minutes passed.
The sky was a cloudless, Midwestern blue. The bugs were loud even at midday. Dean thought about taking Samantha’s tae kwon do tournaments, science fairs, driving mishaps, tops-he-made-her-change, and straight-fucking-As up with him when he went. Sammy was gonna love that shit.
“He wasn’t on the pill like he said he was.”
Dean snapped back to the present in time to raise an eyebrow.
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything, Sam.”
“Yeah, but I can hear you thinking from here.”
“First time for everything.”
“What, you thinking?” Sam huffed. “Well, I won’t make you strain yourself. I’ll tell you straight out that you were right about him.”
“Wait. I think my teenager just told me I was right about something. I’m in too much shock to tell for sure, though.”
“Hey, I’m in pain here!” Sam protested. She didn’t sound like she was going to cry. The twinge in his knee and the ache in his back were nothing at all.
“Look, Sam, I know it sucks to find out that your boyfriend is a douchebag—which as I’ve taught you is also another word for ‘male human teenager,’ but. You got the medicine the next morning. No mini-douchebags in your immediate future. Chalk it up to experience.”
“It’s not that.” Sam sat up, curling in on herself. “You just shouldn’t fuck around with this stuff. It’s kind of evil to bring a baby in this world if you don’t want it.”
Dean heard Sam’s like someone did with me as if she’d shouted it. Sam rested her head on her folded knees, arms shielding her ears.
“It was for a few hours, at most, and it probably didn’t even happen that way, Sam.” Dean knew how to use the internet; he’d looked up the morning after pill while Sam was at the clinic.
“Besides.” Dean’s hand found Sam’s arm. She turned, mouth set and eyes downcast. He waited until she finally looked him in the eyes. He needed her to hear him. “You turned out OK. Weird nose, but, you know, OK.”
If Sam’s laugh had a sad edge to it, Dean still counted it as a win.
--
August 18th, 2041 (Sam is 29)
This is Dean. Leave a message.
Hi, Dad! Alright, I know you hate this kind of thing, but suck it up.
Ever since Mary was born I’ve. Look. Noah’s been great—his whole face lights up when he sees the baby. And that’s even after he’s had to change a literal shit-ton of diapers.
And it hit me today, Dad, that’s the way you always looked at me, like I was…I don’t know. The best thing. Even when I was a grade-A teenage bitch. And I F-ed up your car that one –OK, two—times. And I could outshoot you at the range. (Loser.)
So yeah. I never thought much about all the shit you must have gone through, being a single parent. Especially when the money was tight. I’ve been a new parent for—you know—two months and I am already so sleep deprived the only thing keeping me from jumping out the window is that I’m too tired to find it. Do zombies ever get promoted? ‘Cause that’s what I’m gonna be after this.
OK, uh. I know Bobby’s just keeping this charged up at his house for some bizarre reason. Probably because he’s older than dirt. Maybe because you asked him to. Truth is I don’t get you sometimes and now I’m never gonna. I’m never gonna learn more about how it was for you, now that I have something to compare it to.
And that—that makes me sad. And frankly kind of pissed off. But I like to think I knew what was most important about you.
I love you, Dad.