Lessons Learned, Part 4, Supernatural, Keeper!Verse,

[phantisma]

Fandom: Supernatural, Keeper!Verse
Title: Lessons Learned, Part 4 (All Keeper Verse Here)
Rating: PG-13 (for this partl)
Word Count: 19,000 (total)
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean (long term established wincest), John, Dana (Dean's daughter), Scott (OMC), OCs
Summary: Dean's nightmares come to a head, and Sam finally finds out why. Sam and Scott have a talk. Dana finds life difficult to maneuver.

A/Ns & Warnings: This story pics up shortly after Finally Home. There are five parts, complete. I will be posting the last two parts in a somewhat scattered pattern over the next few days. There is some angst and some schloomp and Dana learning a few lessons, and a little bit of sex and a whole lot of schloomp at the end. As ever in Keeper!verse, thanks go to shotofjack for the beta of awesome and for keeping me sane. *loves*



His first indication that something was wrong was the whimper that came out of Dana’s mouth. Scott sat forward, leaning until he could see her face. It was contorted like she was in pain. He checked the clock. She had another hour before she could take more pills.

He brushed a stray hair off her forehead and her whole body stiffened. Her scream split the air, only it sounded a lot less like Dana and a whole hell of a lot like Dean. Then he heard Dean, muffled by the walls and closed doors.

Remmy’s voice joined the chorus, from the hallway, whining and scratching at the door. Scott left Dana tossing fretfully and slipped down the hall, stepping over and then around the frantic puppy and opening Dean’s door.

He was drenched in sweat, the blankets and sheets tossed aside, his body twisted in an awkward position as he screamed Sam’s name. Remmy jumped up on the bed, whining and licking now. He looked up at Scott as if expecting him to do something.

Dean whimpered Sam’s name and Scott fumbled for his phone. He didn’t even need to say hello, Dean’s screaming greeted Sam as he answered. “We’re on our way back now.” Sam said.

“I think Dana…I don’t know, but she’s got a problem too.” Scott said.

“Go sit with Dana. Keep her calm.”

“Right. Hurry.” Scott left Remmy trying to calm Dean and went back to Dana. She had kicked the sheets down around her ankles and sweat slicked her forehead as she whimpered. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, so he sat on the bed and held her hand, listening for any sign of Sam.

He heard the SUV, and the house seemed to still, as if Sam’s presence was enough to ease Dean out of whatever nightmare was eating at him. Dana stilled, then rolled a little to one side before she opened her eyes. “Scott?”

He smiled softly. “Still here.”

“That was…” They both looked up as Sam filled the doorway. “I was in Dad’s dream.” There was a tremble in her voice.

”I gathered that when Scott called.” Sam said, moving into the room. “How do you feel now?”

“Same as before.” She closed her eyes and was quiet for a minute. Then she sighed in frustration. “Nothing. Damn it.”

“It was probably more on his end than yours. I’ve been helping him with the dreams, he was probably unconsciously looking for me…and found you. Like I said, your gifts are all there, just…not active.”

Dana nodded miserably.

Sam’s eyes turned to Scott. “Thanks. I need to go have a talk with Dean and get him back to sleep, but if you’re up for it, we should have that talk.”

Scott nodded. “Not going anywhere.”

“Good.” Sam kissed Dana’s forehead. “You should sleep too.”

Sam eased back into the bedroom as Dean came out of the bathroom, his upper body wet, his lower body hidden by a towel.

“This has to stop.” Sam said.

Dean made a face and crossed to the dresser to pull out clean boxers. “If I could just flip a switch and make it stop, I would have. Weeks ago.”

“Dana was stuck inside your dream, like you used to get stuck in mine.” Sam said softly, watching Dean react to that.

He stiffened, turned his back on Sam, then slowly pulled his boxers on. “That means she’s getting her power back, doesn’t it?”

“You’re changing the subject.” Sam said, crossing to take Dean in his arms. “I’ve given you time and space, but now it’s time. We need to talk it out. Get to the bottom of it.”

He set up a psychic wall between them and Dana and kissed over the back of Dean’s neck, licking at the water dripping from his hair. He pulled Dean up against him and opened their connection full bore. I love you…let me help you.

Dean resisted, then just stopped. His body sagged against Sam’s. An image formed. The living room floor. Dean holding Sam’s lifeless body. His voice was soft, dripping with agony.

“Baby, I hope you hear me. I’m pretty sure you can, not sure why, but really pretty sure. Never wanted to have to say good-bye to you. Ever. You’re my whole world, have been since that crazy day at the bar. Not going to ask you to fight Sam. Know that you can’t. Gonna ask something of you though. It’s time you go over Sam. Go to Mom. I know she’ll be so…”

A huge wracking cry of misery shook the image, echoed in Dean’s physical body in Sam’s arms. “Mom, she deserves to have you after all this time. She’ll be happy. Most important, you get to be with Michael. I always hated that we weren’t able to save Michael. Now, you go and father him. Make sure you tell him how much we all love him.”

The image shifted, Dean was laying down, pulling Sam into his arms, kissing his head.

“We all love you Sam. And you’ve paid your debts, all of them. Don’t cling to…us, to this world babe. Don’t want that for you. Go over and be with Mom and Michael. They love you and need you. I promise that everyone here will be fine.”

There was such a sense of finality to it. The feeling that it was over.

In the silence the image wavered, shivering in time to the sobbing quaking through them both. I let go.

Sam tightened his arms around Dean, then carefully switched the image around so that Dean could see that exact moment from Sam’s point of view. Gonna hurt. he warned, letting them drop back into the memory.

His body was wracked with pain, cold. Except where Dean’s hands and legs touched him. There he burned. Excruciating. There was no conscious thought. There was only pain and fire and ice and the fight to hold on. The fight to stay, because he’d promised Dean he’d never leave again.

It was a fight he was losing.

In his arms, Dean was shaking, the emotion and the physical memory of the pain rapidly becoming too much. Sam drew them away from it. You gave me what I needed…you always do.

Dana didn’t give up. I didn’t even try.

Sam took a deep breath and pulled back a little more. “Dana was wrong.” He hadn’t said it before. “If I’d had enough left to know what she was doing, I would have told her no.”

Dean shivered and wrapped his arms around his stomach. “What? She saved your life.”

Sam nodded. “At what cost?” He sighed. “I know about the dark stuff she’s been messing with. I know what she had to do to save me…and even then, it shouldn’t have worked. If I was anyone else, anyone who didn’t have the healing power, I’d have been a vegetable until I died anyway.”

“That isn’t the point.” Dean said, stalking away now. “You do have that healing power, which is why she knew she could save you. She knew, and I just let you go.”

“She didn’t know anything. She guessed. She assumed. The same way she always has.” Sam sighed. This was not how he’d imagined this conversation would go. “The point is that you were right Dean. I was fighting to hold on. Causing myself more pain. You let me go, gave me your blessing. It was what I needed. You gave me the grace to go over in peace. Don’t ever blame yourself for that.”

“You needed me.” Dean said, turning to look at him. “And I told you to leave.”

Obviously this wasn’t going to be solved in one night. It explained the clinginess though, the way Dean reacted to Sam’s leaving for the retreat, the reason Dean came to California. He went to Dean, kissing him lightly.

And then I did leave you…for months and months…you must have been very lonely.

Dean rubbed at his eyes but muttered, “Chick flick,” under his breath. Sam chuckled.

“And then you made me an honest man.” Sam lifted Dean’s hand with the ring he’d given him all those years before. He kissed the skin-warm metal. “Invited me to stay.” He lifted his own hand with his ring and pressed the rings together. “Forever. Yours.”

”Getting married turned you into a girl.” Dean wiped over his face, rubbing his eyes.

Sam could feel him letting go of the anger a little. He rubbed against him with a warm thought...a brief touch filled with all the ways Sam wasn’t a girl, ending with an image of Dean bent over naked, his ass filled with Sam’s cock. Just as Dean was showing signs of arousal, Sam let the image drop. “I should check on Dana. And Scott.”

“Tease.”

Sam paused to kiss him, lips lingering as they shared breath. “I’ll be back soon.”

Dana was sleeping. Sam stood in the doorway listening to her soft, even breathing. On the surface, she was peaceful. Just under the surface though…he pulled back. She’d been violated enough for now. He’d save the rest of his analysis for when she could participate.

Which left him with Scott. He was downstairs. Sam inhaled and headed down to find him. He was in the kitchen, holding a soda and staring blankly at the tile. “Hey.”

Scott blinked and looked up. “Hey. Everything settled upstairs?”

Sam shrugged. “For now, I guess. How are you doing?”

“Honestly?” Scott blew out and put the soda on the counter. “I’m exhausted. Confused. Anxious. Worried. Probably more, but those are the highlights.”

“Well, if you’d told me you were fine, I wouldn’t have believed you anyway.” Sam said. He got a bottle of water out of the fridge and cracked it open. “I can help with exhausted. You can crash here tonight. Let’s take confused next.”

Scott made a face. “Dana. I mean, I really meant it when I told her I just wanted to be friends for now. But…” Again with the face.

“You love her.” Sam prodded.

He drank from his soda before nodding. “In spite of everything. But there’s a part of me that worries that I’m just trying to justify the idea of you giving me to her.”

Sam nodded. That was the crux of his need to check in with the kid. It had been months and they hadn’t talked about Stanford and the claiming. “I don’t have to, you know that.”

Scott shook his head. “What happens to me when you die?” He looked up suddenly. “Not that I think you’re going to…any time soon anyway…I just…” He sighed heavily. “I don’t want to be with her just because I’m scared of the alternative.”

“Have you told her what happened?”

Scott’s face scrunched up in an expression Sam assumed meant no. “I told her there was a girl. That’s all.”

“What did she say?”

Another heavy sigh. “That it doesn’t matter, that we can work through it. That love can overcome anything. And she’s the one who doesn’t do romance.” Sam felt Scott’s eyes and looked up. Scott looked away quickly.

“What?”

“No, I’m not supposed to ask.” Scott said, draining his soda. “It’s against the Almighty Rule.”

Sam shook his head. “Ask. You’re not allowed to ask Dana about me. You can ask me anything.”

“Anything?”

Sam nodded.

“Cause, I have questions. Tons of them.”

“I’m sure you do.” He gestured at Scott to continue. “Well, she said you and Dean…that you went through stuff worse than…well this whole demons at Stanford thing…and that you managed to stay together.”

Sam nodded. “Demons at Stanford thing were already over and done with for me…well, just about, when Dean and I met. I was…pretty fucked up. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of.”

“See, here’s the thing. Everyone says stuff like that…how bad it was for them, you know…but when it comes right down to it, and they spill the details, it wasn’t all that bad, but they build it up emotionally.” Scott said.

“I didn’t exaggerate about Stanford.” Sam responded quietly and Scott blanched white.

“Okay, point taken.” He put his soda can on the counter. “So it was bad? Between you and Dean?”

Sam scanned the kid, trying to determine what and how much to tell him. “Yeah, it was bad. I used a hex to control him. Manipulated him. Made him want me.” Sam shook his head, remembering the desperation.

Scott stared at him, open mouthed. “You…and he…just…forgave you?”

Sam smiled. “He loved me, Scott. Despite the hex. Despite everything. He loved me, and that changed me.”

Scott looked away, processing the information. It was a few minutes before he looked up. “So…these gifts of yours. They’ve always been there? Like Dana?”

Sam drew in a deep breath. This was trickier territory. “Not always. They were repressed for a long time, at first by the demons I…worked for, and then by my own conscience. It took the attack, and the recovery, to really open them up. But, yes, I’ve had some measure of psychic ability my whole life.”

Scott yawned, tried to hide it and only yawned bigger. “And my very psychic self is telling me you need to go to sleep.” Sam held the kitchen door and Scott shuffled through it. “You know where the bed is.”

Sam watched him go, then shut off the lights and made the rounds to check the doors and windows. Aristotle was waiting for him by the stairs. Remmy was probably in bed with Dean, taking up Sam’s side of the bed. Damn dog had no discipline. Sam trudged up the stairs with Ari at his heels. Remmy looked up at them when they came into the room, sighed and moved to the end of the bed. Sam smiled and pulled off his jeans before sliding in next to Dean. Aristotle settled onto her bed under the window.

It was quiet. Peaceful. For the moment.

Sam slid a hand on to Dean’s stomach and closed his eyes. Sleep pulled at him and he didn’t resist, slipping into the dark with a soft sigh.

Dana sat in bed with her books, but she wasn’t reading. She was hiding. She’d gone as far as the front door before she withdrew again, into the sanctuary of her bedroom. Alone.

Because alone she didn’t dwell as much on who out there was reading her mind, and if they were staring. Well, except that she did. Almost constantly.

She’d found her balance with the physical stuff. She could walk without running into things and she’d adjusted to the way she saw things with just her normal eyes. She could function.

The rest though wasn’t nearly as easy. She knew Sam, trusted him with her life, yet whenever he was in the room, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was reading her, if he was inside her…and worse, she knew he knew it, because he kept finding reasons to not be there.

She knew something was going on with her father, but all she got from him was the same macho Winchester front she got from her Papa. And then there was Scott. She wasn’t really sure what was going on there. He’d gone to her dorm room and brought her the piles of books surrounding her.

He was off at class now, after arranging note takers for her to get her through until she could get back to campus. Which, truthfully, shouldn’t take long. She wasn’t bed-ridden, she just looked like she got punched in the face and once the ankle was strong enough to walk on, she’d be fine.

She looked down at her broken wrist. Okay, so she’d need the note takers even after she could go to classes. But she healed fast. Always had.

There was a knock on the door and she looked up. “Come in.”

Dana was a little surprised to see Missouri there when the door opened. “Oh, girl, look at you. Sam wasn’t lying.”

Dana shook her head. “I’m fine. Little beat up. But I’ve had worse.”

Missouri raised an eyebrow before bustling into the room. She came to stand beside the bed, and Dana watched the second eyebrow join the first. “Hmmm.” Missouri sat on the end of the bed. “Can’t feel me at all, can you?”

Dana felt a blush creep over her cheeks. “No. Nothing.”

Missouri nodded, then reached for Dana’s good hand. “I’m going to have a poke around, okay?”

She wanted to say no, wanted to pull away…but this was Missouri. Dana nodded tightly. She closed her eyes and tried to center, despite the fear hammering through her.

After a few minutes, Missouri clucked and her hand left Dana’s. “That’s a right strange thing.”

Dana forced herself to exhale the breath she was holding. “Is it…will it get better?”

“Hard to say. Sam said you got wrapped up in your Daddy’s dreams?”

She nodded. “Yeah…I couldn’t get out…”

“Not surprising.” Missouri stood. “Just be patient, Dana. We’ll get it all figured out.”

Patience. Like she had any of that at all.

“Maybe it’s time you learned some.” Missouri responded as if Dana had said the thought out loud.

Dana shivered and looked at her. “I didn’t say that.”

“Course not, but you thought it at me. Loudly.”

“You…that’s…” Dana hugged herself.

Missouri’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t like that feeling, do you? The notion someone’s poking around in your head and you don’t know it?”

Dana shook her head miserably.

“Something to think about while we wait to see if those gifts of yours are going to make a comeback.” Missouri headed for the door. “Always said you were too casual with it, you know.”

Dana watched her leave, then limped to the window to stare out at the cold. There was supposed to be snow, but it hadn’t started yet. It had always been so easy, to skim the surface, to know what people around her were feeling. She’d never realized how selfish it was. How violating it would be. She thought about Professor Jacobs and how he’d reacted with anger. It wasn’t just him he wouldn’t let her read, it was the rest of the class too.

Like she was taking something from them.

And now she could see why.

Missouri sighed as she lowered herself into the arm chair. Sam handed her a cup of tea and waited. She sipped at it, but didn’t look up at him.

“It’s going to get bad.”

Sam nodded. That had been his assessment too. “Like a complete reset.”

Missouri sighed. “When they start coming back she won’t have much control, and there’s no telling what will come back first.” She finally looked up at him. “She’s not going to like it, but you’re going to have to keep her on a short leash.”

He knew that. Already he’d had to tamp down her projection. She hadn’t even been aware of doing it, but she’d woken him with her very active dream life. He’d ended up walling off her room, so that she wasn’t disturbing the rest of the house.

“She ain’t the only handful you got.”

Sam smiled. She always had been observant. “No, Dean’s been having nightmares. Bad ones. I think we finally got to the bottom of it though. Things should get better.”

“Boy should have nightmares, for all he’s seen and done. Your daddy too.” She drank her tea. “Now, what about this man who hurt our Dana?”

He sighed and sat back on the couch. “He’s using some version of an ancient spell. I couldn’t track it very far from where he hit Dana, and judging from the residuals I picked up, he’s not very skilled. Probably totally untrained. The spell is meant to dull the senses, sound, sight, etc…it was used in ancient cultures during initiatory rites.”

“I know the kind. Never seen one used though.”

“Takes strength, especially knowing he took Dana down. “

“Untrained, but strong. Not a good combination.”

“No.” He and John had searched for more than a few hours, expecting that the killer had to be prowling for a new victim, since he’d lost Dana. They’d come up with nothing.

“He’ll hit again soon.” Missouri said.

“Unfortunately, that may be the only way we have to catch him.”

Three days passed before Dana let Sam cajole her out of her sanctuary, and then it was just to take lunch to her father at the garage. He’d said she needed to get out of the house, to interact with people, now that she was walking on her ankle.

She lifted a hand in greeting as her Papa stepped out of the garage, wiping greasy hands on his coveralls. “Hey Papa,” she said when he got close enough.

“Nice to see your ass out of bed.” He said, his smile bright.

“Sam made me.” She pouted. The wind was cold and she bundled her coat around her.

“You look good.”

She rolled her eyes. “I look like a punching bag.” She heard the screech of metal twisting and tearing and whipped around, staring in the direction it had come, but there was nothing.

“Dana?”

She frowned and shook her head. “Heard something.” She tried to concentrate, identify it. Her father’s voice called her name and she saw it, in a flash of images a car, brakes burning. She looked for Sam, yelled his name.

The screech of metal twisting and tearing apart filled the air as a mini-van careened through the stop light on the corner. It slammed into the sign for the garage and the sign came crashing down, landing where her father had been.

Dana dragged air into her lungs, her good hand gripped around her Papa’s wrist. Her stomach churned and her head was filled with voices…people yelling, the woman in the minivan crying, her father on the phone with 911.

She let go of her Papa and covered her ears, but it did nothing to dim the cacophony in her head. She was screaming as they tore into her. She couldn’t breathe for all the voices filling up her head.

There were fingers on her hands, a soft blanket wrapping around her mentally. It muffled the voices, muted them until she was finally alone again. She was panting when she looked up. Sam was huddled over her protectively, both physically and mentally.

”Go slow.”

She nodded. She tried to respond mentally, but couldn’t make the connection work both ways. Eventually she gave up. “I’m fine,” she said out loud. “Just, don’t let go.”

Sam kissed her forehead. “Not a chance.”

“I saw it coming. I knew.” Dana let out a slow breath. “Is everyone okay?”

“The driver’s a little shaken, and she’s got a good knot on her head. But other than that, everyone is fine.”

“Dad?”

“Right here.” He was behind her, his hand coming to rest on her back.

“Let’s get you up.” Sam said, and her father’s hands were on her waist, helping her to stand. She hadn’t even realized she fallen to her knees. They guided her to the car and she sat, still shaking a little. She couldn’t feel Sam at all now. She sighed.

“I think…whatever that was, it’s over.” Dana said softly.

“How do you feel?” Sam asked.

“Tired. Can we just go home?”

Sam nodded and helped her pull her feet in. She watched him kiss her father goodbye, then closed her eyes. She didn’t want to talk about it. She wasn’t sure she even wanted it to come back. The pain and terror and overwhelming sense of everyone and everything around her…it would make her crazy.

“What happened to the front window?” Dean asked when Sam met him at the front door.

“Same thing that happened to the bathroom mirror, the kitchen table and half the plates.” Sam replied, crossing his arms to lean on the door.

“And she still doesn’t realize she’s doing it?”

Sam shook his head. Dana had looked surprised each time. “It’s like her conscious mind has no control.”

“She’s going to owe us a new house at this point.” Dean said dryly. “She okay?”

Sam shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. She spent an hour or so crying and breaking things in her room the old fashioned way. She’s been quiet ever since.”

“I hate to admit this Sammy, but maybe we need help here.”

Sam nodded. He’d already thought of that. It had only been a couple of days since the gifts had started to manifest in fits and spurts, and Dana had been trying so hard at first. Now she couldn’t tell the difference between a psychic dream and the regular kind.

She’d been convinced the killer was going to strike twice, sending Sam on a wild goose chase. She had no filter in place, so when her gifts were sparking, they filled up the whole house with whatever was going on in her head. She’d started a fire, that fortunately, Sam caught before it got out of the trash can. She’d floated both dogs and half the living room furniture.

Sam had gotten a good head full of Dana’s dream life too. He had new appreciation for her teenage horror when his sex dreams leaked out. “I called someone.” Sam said finally. “She’ll be here tonight.”

“She won’t like it.”

Sam nodded. “I don’t think she has a choice. If we can’t get her past this and get her some control, we may have to repress the whole thing. I don’t want that for her.”

“Me either.”

They were quiet for a minute, then Sam sighed. “I promised her I’d get her through it.”

“You will.” Dean responded, moving to go past him. “Is she still convinced that professor of hers is the bad guy?”

“No, I think I convinced her he’s clean. Now she has a list of other people.”

Sam followed him into the kitchen. “She’s also convinced his next target is her roommate, Becca.”

Dean opened a beer, took a swig and frowned at him. “Not exactly his type, is she?”

Sam shook his head. “No, she’s more computer geek than athlete, though she’s in good shape.”

“Did she say why?”

Sam made a face. “Dream.”

“Not her most reliable gift right now.” Dean drank down half the beer.

“Still, I asked Scott to kind of watch out for her.” Sam sighed and leaned against the counter.

“Asking a lot of the kid lately.” Dean observed, draining his beer.

“He can handle it.”