Fic: Full Wolf Moon (Sam/Dean NC-17) Part 1 of 2
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Knock knock knock. A giggle? Knock knock knock.
Bobby grumbles into his whisky glass at the interruption and then sets it down on the crowded desktop among all his research papers. He peers out the spy hole and sees that it’s Sam, holding a very young girl in his arms.
The door is open and Sam still hasn’t crossed the threshold. Bobby stares at him, taking in the changes since he’d last set eyes on his adopted son. It hasn’t been that long, he’d seen him a little more than two years ago at Sam’s graduation from Stanford. But Sam looks like an entirely different person, drawn and terribly thin. Sam seems to be right back in that sadness that had engulfed him after Dean had left.
“Where’s Jess?” Bobby finally asks, specifically not asking about the little girl grinning at him from her perch in Sam’s arms.
Sam’s face crumples at the mention of his wife’s name, tears forming in his eyes. Bobby notices how he holds onto the girl a little tighter.
“Ow, Daddy,” the girl protests.
“So who’s this lovely young lady?” Bobby asks, looking the girl over with a welcoming smile. She definitely has Jess’ curly blond hair, and a pair of intense green eyes that remind him of another person missing from this conversation and family.
“This is Tracy. Our daughter,” Sam manages to say before letting loose a few tears.
“Get in here, boy. C’mon in,” Bobby says, folding Sam into his arms, Tracy turning to rub her cheek against his. “Hi Tracy, I’m Bobby.”
“Bob-bee?” she asks.
“Yeah, baby, that’s your grandpa Bobby,” Sam says, wiping at his wet face with the back of one hand.
Tracy pats Bobby’s cheek with one pudgy toddler hand. “Nice Bob-bee.”
“Yeah, he’s nice,” Sam says, leaning heavily on Bobby. So obviously relieved to see the man who had been more of a father than his own ever had.
“We’ve got some catchin’ up to do, boy. Make yourselves at home. You know where everything is, hasn’t changed a lick since you were last here,” Bobby said, letting go of Sam once he was sure he could stand on his own.
Sam nods towards the stairs. “I’m going to put her down for a nap. Is my old room still…”
“Yeah, Sam, it’s still your room, haven’t moved a thing. Linens might not be the cleanest, but should be okay,” Bobby says with half of a smile. He has always hoped that Sam would come back, someday, but not like this. Sad and broken and worn down to nothing.
Sam disappears with his daughter up the stairs, Bobby’s eyes following Tracy’s as she peers at him over Sam’s shoulder. “Bye-bye, Bob-bee.”
Bobby returns her little wave with one of his own. Once they’re gone he sets about making Sam some of the tea that has always calmed him down and a few sandwiches to go with it. He isn’t hungry, but Sam sure looks like he needs something.
When Sam returns, he plops down on the couch and puts his head in his hands, letting out a long, heavy sigh. He finally looks up at Bobby, across in his favorite chair. “It’s so damn good to see you, Bobby.”
“Me too, Sam. Drink up and tell me what’s going on.”
Sam makes his usual long, drawn-out affair of fixing his tea, eats one sandwich and half of another before beginning to speak. “So, after you were out for my graduation, we found out Jess was pregnant. She had Tracy about five months later, and I’m sorry, god, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. But the way we left it at graduation, I wasn’t sure you would want to know.”
“Damn it, boy! That wasn’t what I meant, and if you weren’t so pig-head stubborn like your father was, you’d-a known it,” Bobby finishes his rant and sits back in his chair, watching to see if Sam understood him.
“I…uh, I do know. And like I said, I’m sorry, Bobby. You should have been my first phone call to let you know. I mean, Tracy’s pretty much your grand-daughter.”
“So where’s Jess then?”
Sam sighs, heavy with pain and sadness. “She’s dead. There was a fire, six months after Tracy was born. And I tried…I tried to keep up with law school for a semester, but I just couldn’t. Not after everything…it all reminded me of her. So I left school, and we’ve been on the road for a while, went up the West coast, hung out in the Canadian Rockies. And now we’re here.”
“Well, I’m glad that you are. That both of you are. And I’m sorry, Sam, so sorry about Jess. I know you loved her.”
“Yeah, but you warned me didn’t you? And you were right. I never should have tried to have a normal life. And she died because…all because of me.”
“But you said it was a fire, Sam.”
“It was a fire just like how my mother died, Bobby. On the ceiling,”
“Was she in Tracy’s nursery, six months to the day after Tracy was born?”
“Yeah, how could you possibly know that?” Sam asks.
“That’s what your dad said happened,” Bobby answers, “that’s how we figured out it was a demon.”
“I never knew…uh…the details. He and Dean never said much about it. So does this mean the demon is back?”
“Or never left, who knows with those damn things. More unpredictable than people if you ask me.”
“I shouldn’t have come here, now you’ll be in danger too.”
“No, Sam. You’re not goin’ anywhere, that’s what family is supposed to do. Stick together, protect each other. We’ll figure this out. Better to have both of us to fight this thing if it does come back.”
“I wish Dean was here.”
“Me too, boy, me too,” Bobby says, taking his hat off his head and turning it in his hands.
“He ever contact you?” Sam asks.
Bobby looks away and hopes Sam won’t notice his evasion. “No, he never has.”
They are interrupted by a cry from upstairs. Sam jumps up to head upstairs and quickly brings Tracy back with him. He cuddles her close on the couch until she settles down. “She’s a little fussy in the afternoons sometimes.”
“I’m not a fussy, Daddy. I’m a hungry,” Tracy says.
Bobby laughs and hands her the plate of sandwiches. She takes one in her small hands and looks at Bobby with big eyes. “Fank you.”
“You’re welcome, Tracy,” Bobby says with a smile that he knows probably looks pretty damn foolish. But hell, this girl is adorable. He’s already wrapped around her little finger and he’s only known her a few minutes.
“I haven’t been here since I was what, eighteen? Place looks exactly the same. You still hunting?” Sam asks.
“Yeah, sometimes when Rufus needs a backup. Mostly I work the phones, do research for people.”
“Daddy, wanna go outside,” Tracy said, squirming in Sam’s lap. She put the bread crusts on the sandwich plate and stood up.
“Okay, baby, let me get your jacket, we’ll go for a walk. I’ll show you where I used to hang out in the woods.”
“I’ll make us some dinner while you’re gone. Don’t be too long, it’s already pretty late,” Bobby says, grinning at the two of them leaving out the back kitchen door.
As he walks out of the back of the salvage yard along the familiar trail, Sam can’t help reminiscing about all the years he’d spent here out here as a teenager. Bobby had finished raising him through those tough and lonely teenage years. He’d ended up here because John and Sam hadn’t gotten along well after Dean was gone. Mostly because John would never tell Sam where his brother went or why.
Dean. It always came back to Dean, Sam thinks to himself for the thousandth time. Going away to California for college, as far away from hunting and the memories of his broken family as he could manage, hoping to somehow find an escape. He had tried to tell himself that Jess was his way out. She would never have to know any of it. But under it all was that giant chasm of missing his brother. The abruptness of their separation wasn’t something he’d ever been able to get over. All Sam knew was that it happened a few days after he’d finally gotten up the nerve to kiss his beautiful older brother. It has always seemed most likely to him that Dean had run away from his messed-up, perverted little brother. His own father had never bothered to forgive Sam, he was just a burden that hindered his obsessive hunting. So it had been far better for Sam to live at Bobby’s.
At least there are still the familiar woods, they haven’t changed. The path they are walking along is pretty well beaten-down. He wonders if Bobby walks out here now, because he never had before. He holds Tracy’s hand as she toddles along, stopping to look at the late-fall wildflowers growing in the forest scrub, picking up random rocks and handing them to him. His pockets are always weighed down after a walk with his daughter. He notices that it’s either later than he thought, or maybe he’s lost track of how long they’ve been walking. The forest gets thicker and darker until they come out into a clearing, where a giant full-moon is just above the trees throwing everything into sharp relief. Sam turns them around to go back the way they came and is shocked to see a gigantic wolf standing at the edge of the clearing.
It’s blocking the pathway back to Bobby’s. Has it been following them? Sam readies himself to fight to the death to protect his little girl as the wolf slowly pads towards them. It’s acting more like a trained dog and lowers itself down on its belly in front of them. Holding Tracy close, Sam extends one hand towards the wolf. He scents Sam’s hand and then gently licks at it. The wolf’s tongue is rough and before Sam knows it, Tracy is copying him and the wolf licks Tracy’s outstretched hand just as gently.
Sam feels like time had stopped and he isn’t aware of anything but this beautiful creature in front of them. It rubs its head against Sam’s knees several times, and then even allows Tracy to pet his head. It rumbles something that sounds appreciative of the contact. Tracy leans forward out of Sam’s hold and buries her little face in his deep ruff. The wolf opens its huge jaws and its long pink tongue slowly licks the side of her face. Tracy giggles and clenches her fists in the wolf’s beautiful fur. He pants and looks up at Sam with curiously familiar green eyes.
“Nice doggy,” Tracy says, patting at the wolf’s head.
“Yeah, Tracy, this is a nice doggy,” Sam says, “Wonder if Grandpa Bobby knows there’s a wolf out here in his woods?”
The wolf cocks its head and seems to grin. The teeth exposed are huge and sharp, glistening in the moon-light. Sam stands up abruptly, scared into remembering he is in front of an unpredictable predator. The wolf steps back a few times and looks at him with such a human expression of longing and sadness that Sam has this intense urge to try and comfort him somehow. Then he turns abruptly and runs off into the deeper part of the forest.
“Bye-bye doggy?” Tracy asked.
“Yeah, Tracy. We said good-bye to the doggy,” Sam says. He scoops her up into his arms and hurries back along the path, holding his daughter close, heart pounding faster now that he realizes the danger they’d both been in. But the wolf had been so mesmerizing, so gentle and tame. It had seemed to know them, which was the weirdest thing of all.
He bursts back into Bobby’s steamy kitchen that now smells like delicious homemade spaghetti and meatballs. “Bobby, you could have told us there was a gigantic wolf out there!”
“Oh you met Fridolf, huh? Sorry, should have warned you.”
“He seemed friendly enough, but what’s the story with him? Is he someone’s pet?”
Bobby laughs. “Naw, he’s nobody’s but his own.”
Almost a month goes by, Sam settles in and sets about recuperating, slowly finding his footing. Bobby and Tracy bond over cookies and art projects. Sam had no idea Bobby would be such a perfect grandfather. When he hears Tracy call him Grandpa Bob-bee, he finally feels a weight lift off of his heart. The mistake of not telling Bobby what was happening with Jess is something he didn’t think he could get over, but thanks to Tracy and Bobby, he’s almost there.
Sam and Tracy keep taking walks before dinner in the woods, almost every night. They see the wolf, Fridolf, a few more times, but it’s not a regular thing. He does always feel something watching them, and he hopes it’s just the wolf. One evening, Sam finds a little cabin in the woods that he’d never noticed before; it looks well-kept, and maybe lived in, which seems strange way out there.
Sam decides when he gets back to Bobby’s that he needs to ask him about it, just in case there’s some unhinged survivalist gun nut living out in the woods. “I found a weird little cabin out there, in your woods. Looks like someone’s living there,” Sam says.
“I had no idea. Guess Rumsfeld isn’t doin’ his job. Great job, ya big dummy!” Bobby yells at the enormous dog asleep under the kitchen table.
“Has Rumsfeld ever met the wolf before?” Sam asks.
“Nah, I didn’t think that was a good idea for either of ‘em,” Bobby says.
“Yeah, Fridolf is better behaved than Rumsfeld,” Sam says with a laugh. He notices that Bobby doesn’t laugh, his mouth is a tight line like he’s holding back from saying something.
Bobby putters off into the kitchen and starts banging the dishes around so Sam gets the message he doesn’t want to be asked anything more. But Bobby answering like that makes Sam suspicious that there’s something else, something big that Bobby is leaving out.
The next evening after dinner, Sam takes a walk through the salvage yard after Tracy goes down for the night. He’s just walking, not thinking about anything in particular, which is a really nice change. It’s good to feel safe and a little more settled, it’s been too long since his life has made any sort of sense. That’s of course when his eagle eye happens to spot Bobby and another man talking at the edge of the woods. The man is far away, but something about the way he’s standing reminds Sam of his brother. He knows he’s probably just seeing what he wants to, not what’s really there. So to be sure, he creeps a little closer, and that’s when it hits him. That really is Dean. His long-lost brother is right there, standing not twenty feet away.
Bobby turns and walks back through the yard and into the house. And Dean stands there, looking straight at the clump of trees Sam is standing behind. He sniffs deeply a few times and smiles so widely Sam can see his teeth clearly. Before he can say anything, announce his presence, make contact, whatever, Dean’s turned and has disappeared back into the forest.
So that’s what Bobby’s been hiding, that’s who’s probably living in that cabin. But why? Sam stands there, frozen in the trees, as he realizes that his brother has been living that close, but hasn’t ever come to see him. It makes it all a million times worse. It brings all that heartache back up to the surface for Sam in a sudden flood that overwhelms him and tears him apart. He’s right back there at fifteen feeling the pain of losing Dean so abruptly right after he’d put his heart on the line. It’s overwhelming and it all suddenly turns to anger, before he realizes what he’s doing, he finds himself storming out to the cabin to confront Dean.
Dean’s standing there, like he’s waiting, just outside the cabin, torchlight inside the open door wavering behind him.
Sam stops a few feet away. “Is it really you?”
Dean smiles widely and nods. “Yeah, Sammy.”
Sam lurches forward, falling into his brother’s arms. Dean holds him, hugging him so tightly like he’s trying to make up for all the years he’s missed.
“You asshole!” Sam yells, swatting at Dean’s back as he breaks apart from the hug that’s made him feel whole again for the first time in more than ten years. “Why?” Sam feels like that one word says all of it: Why did you leave me? Why did you stay away? Why are you here and hiding from me?
“I didn’t want to screw up your life, Sam. Not back then, and not now.”
“Dean, it’s been screwed up since you left when I was fifteen. The only good thing at this point is my daughter.”
“I’m sorry,” Dean says, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“For what? Leaving me back then?” Sam asks.
“I didn’t…I didn’t leave you. That wasn’t my choice. You gotta believe me, Sam. That was all dad.”
“Oh sure. It didn’t have anything to do with what happened the night of my birthday. The week before you left,” Sam says, full of sarcasm he can’t manage to hide.
“Sam, I swear, that was absolutely not part of it. There was a reason that had nothing to do with you, or anything between you and me.”
“Well obviously there wasn’t anything between us, Dean. Otherwise, how could you have just left me like that? Without a word or anything.”
“You’d have to ask Dad about that. He didn’t let me stick around long enough to talk to you.”
“Dad’s dead, Dean. So I can’t ask him. I’m asking you,” Sam says, crossing his arms to protect himself from the non-answer he knows is coming.
Dean looks up at the treetops, avoiding Sam’s eyes. “Yeah, I know that, Sam. Who do you think helped Bobby burn him?”
“So? Are you going to answer me, or am I supposed to just give you a pass for avoiding me for the last ten years?”
“I will. I just need to work up to it. I want to tell you everything, Sammy, I do. Can you give me like a week?” Dean asks.
“Fine, sure, whatever, Dean. I’m not gonna hold my breath,” Sam says, turning to walk back through the woods to Bobby’s.
“Wait, Sammy. Can you come out here tomorrow with Tracy? I’d like to meet her if that’s okay with you.”
“How do you know about her?” Sam asks, suspicious that Dean knows his daughter’s name.
“Bobby, he uh…he told me about her. He’s been bragging about her all the time lately like he’s a grandpa or something.”
“Well, he kind of is. Yeah, sure, I’ll bring her out here tomorrow after lunch before her nap.”
“Bye, Sam.”
“See you tomorrow,” Sam says, walking off through the scrubby forest, shaking his head at his stupid reaction to finally seeing his brother. Stupid heart still wanting what it can’t have. He should have learned better by now. No matter what it is that Dean’s going to tell him in a week, it’s not going to change the facts.
As soon as Sam disappears from view, Dean wants to bang his head into the nearest tree. Why did he promise to tell Sam everything? He can’t, he promised Dad. But Dad’s gone, and Sam seems to need this. Not that he needs Dean, just the reason for all of it.
Dean swallows down the sudden fear of being this honest with the brother he’s missed more than breathing for these ten long years. Sam might as well be a stranger, but the older brother in him hasn’t shut up since he’d first seen Tracy or for that matter, Sam. It’s something more than a pull towards family, it’s that feeling of mine that Dean hasn’t felt this strongly since he first held Sam as a baby.
The next afternoon Sam brings Tracy out to meet her uncle Dean. She goes over to him without protest, even eager which is strange. She and Dean seem to know each other already, as Dean holds her hoisted up high on his hip, Tracy’s hand never leaves the back of Dean’s neck and she keeps petting him and scratching behind his ears like he’s a dog or something. Sam tries to get her to stop but Dean puts him off, saying it’s okay. They seem to have one of those instantaneous, deep connections that is mysterious to the child’s parents. There’s just something about how they look at each other that moves Sam very deeply. He can’t remember ever seeing his brother this happy.
“She’s a great kid, Sammy. Really awesome…uh thanks, for letting her meet me,” Dean says. He sits down on the rustic wooden bench in front of the cabin, and scoots over enough so that Sam can sit too. Tracy is all over Dean, like she’s learning him with her hands and Dean looks like he wants to purr or wag a non-existent tail.
“Of course I’d let her meet you, Dean. I wish you’d been in her life since day one. She doesn’t have much family, you know?”
“I wish I’d been there, Sam. Especially when-Je…uh…her mother passed,” Dean says haltingly.
Sam can tell that Dean nearly said Jessica. “Bobby told you about Jessica too, huh? Do you know she burned on the ceiling, just like mom? Yeah, it would have been nice if you’d been there. I could have used you. I went a little crazy after that,” Sam admits.
“Anyone would have, Sammy. And believe me, if I could have been there for you, I would have,” Dean says.
“The more things like that you say, the less I think I want to hear this story you have to tell me,” Sam says.
“Well, if you don’t want to hear it, I ain’t tellin’ you,” Dean says, anger written all over his face. He almost looks like the hardened hunter he had been turning into when Sam last knew him.
“No, I’ll listen, I need to hear it. I just don’t know if it’ll be enough,” Sam says.
“Enough for what?” Dean asks.
“Enough of a reason to forgive you. And I want that, Dean. I want to be able to forgive you, so we can move past this, separation or whatever it was. So you can be in Tracy’s life…and uh…mine too,” Sam says.
Dean’s eyes sparkle when Sam says this. “I want that too, Sam.”
Before Sam can say anything else, Dean almost drops eye contact, but Sam can see his brother’s stubbornness makes him maintain that eye contact. The strength of the emotion in Dean’s eyes holds Sam there in front of him, holds him there so Dean can make sure Sam understands how much he means it.
Sam can feel his own eyes go all soft around the edges, and he smiles widely.
“Good,” Dean says, like it’s the best thing he’s heard in ages.
It’s almost Tracy’s nap time and she’s starting to get cranky, squirming and uncomfortable in Dean’s arms. Sam takes her from his brother and settles her on his hip. Dean hugs himself tightly as if he’s not sure what to do with his suddenly empty arms.
“I can walk back with you, maybe carry Tracy if you want?” Dean offers with a small, hopeful looking smile.
“No, but thanks. I think I need a little time alone with my thoughts after all this,” Sam says. “See you around, okay?” Sam hoists Tracy up a little higher on his hip and heads out the cabin door.
Dean gives him a little wave and steps back into his cabin, leaning against the doorframe to watch them walk away.
As he’s walking back to Bobby’s house, the weight of Tracy’s now sleeping body comforting and familiar, he feels a strange shiver of want pass through him at recalling how it felt to see Dean holding her. He wants that again, forever, all three of them together, like a real family. He shakes his head at himself, stupid heart wanting what it can’t have all over again.
Part 2
Knock knock knock. A giggle? Knock knock knock.
Bobby grumbles into his whisky glass at the interruption and then sets it down on the crowded desktop among all his research papers. He peers out the spy hole and sees that it’s Sam, holding a very young girl in his arms.
The door is open and Sam still hasn’t crossed the threshold. Bobby stares at him, taking in the changes since he’d last set eyes on his adopted son. It hasn’t been that long, he’d seen him a little more than two years ago at Sam’s graduation from Stanford. But Sam looks like an entirely different person, drawn and terribly thin. Sam seems to be right back in that sadness that had engulfed him after Dean had left.
“Where’s Jess?” Bobby finally asks, specifically not asking about the little girl grinning at him from her perch in Sam’s arms.
Sam’s face crumples at the mention of his wife’s name, tears forming in his eyes. Bobby notices how he holds onto the girl a little tighter.
“Ow, Daddy,” the girl protests.
“So who’s this lovely young lady?” Bobby asks, looking the girl over with a welcoming smile. She definitely has Jess’ curly blond hair, and a pair of intense green eyes that remind him of another person missing from this conversation and family.
“This is Tracy. Our daughter,” Sam manages to say before letting loose a few tears.
“Get in here, boy. C’mon in,” Bobby says, folding Sam into his arms, Tracy turning to rub her cheek against his. “Hi Tracy, I’m Bobby.”
“Bob-bee?” she asks.
“Yeah, baby, that’s your grandpa Bobby,” Sam says, wiping at his wet face with the back of one hand.
Tracy pats Bobby’s cheek with one pudgy toddler hand. “Nice Bob-bee.”
“Yeah, he’s nice,” Sam says, leaning heavily on Bobby. So obviously relieved to see the man who had been more of a father than his own ever had.
“We’ve got some catchin’ up to do, boy. Make yourselves at home. You know where everything is, hasn’t changed a lick since you were last here,” Bobby said, letting go of Sam once he was sure he could stand on his own.
Sam nods towards the stairs. “I’m going to put her down for a nap. Is my old room still…”
“Yeah, Sam, it’s still your room, haven’t moved a thing. Linens might not be the cleanest, but should be okay,” Bobby says with half of a smile. He has always hoped that Sam would come back, someday, but not like this. Sad and broken and worn down to nothing.
Sam disappears with his daughter up the stairs, Bobby’s eyes following Tracy’s as she peers at him over Sam’s shoulder. “Bye-bye, Bob-bee.”
Bobby returns her little wave with one of his own. Once they’re gone he sets about making Sam some of the tea that has always calmed him down and a few sandwiches to go with it. He isn’t hungry, but Sam sure looks like he needs something.
When Sam returns, he plops down on the couch and puts his head in his hands, letting out a long, heavy sigh. He finally looks up at Bobby, across in his favorite chair. “It’s so damn good to see you, Bobby.”
“Me too, Sam. Drink up and tell me what’s going on.”
Sam makes his usual long, drawn-out affair of fixing his tea, eats one sandwich and half of another before beginning to speak. “So, after you were out for my graduation, we found out Jess was pregnant. She had Tracy about five months later, and I’m sorry, god, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. But the way we left it at graduation, I wasn’t sure you would want to know.”
“Damn it, boy! That wasn’t what I meant, and if you weren’t so pig-head stubborn like your father was, you’d-a known it,” Bobby finishes his rant and sits back in his chair, watching to see if Sam understood him.
“I…uh, I do know. And like I said, I’m sorry, Bobby. You should have been my first phone call to let you know. I mean, Tracy’s pretty much your grand-daughter.”
“So where’s Jess then?”
Sam sighs, heavy with pain and sadness. “She’s dead. There was a fire, six months after Tracy was born. And I tried…I tried to keep up with law school for a semester, but I just couldn’t. Not after everything…it all reminded me of her. So I left school, and we’ve been on the road for a while, went up the West coast, hung out in the Canadian Rockies. And now we’re here.”
“Well, I’m glad that you are. That both of you are. And I’m sorry, Sam, so sorry about Jess. I know you loved her.”
“Yeah, but you warned me didn’t you? And you were right. I never should have tried to have a normal life. And she died because…all because of me.”
“But you said it was a fire, Sam.”
“It was a fire just like how my mother died, Bobby. On the ceiling,”
“Was she in Tracy’s nursery, six months to the day after Tracy was born?”
“Yeah, how could you possibly know that?” Sam asks.
“That’s what your dad said happened,” Bobby answers, “that’s how we figured out it was a demon.”
“I never knew…uh…the details. He and Dean never said much about it. So does this mean the demon is back?”
“Or never left, who knows with those damn things. More unpredictable than people if you ask me.”
“I shouldn’t have come here, now you’ll be in danger too.”
“No, Sam. You’re not goin’ anywhere, that’s what family is supposed to do. Stick together, protect each other. We’ll figure this out. Better to have both of us to fight this thing if it does come back.”
“I wish Dean was here.”
“Me too, boy, me too,” Bobby says, taking his hat off his head and turning it in his hands.
“He ever contact you?” Sam asks.
Bobby looks away and hopes Sam won’t notice his evasion. “No, he never has.”
They are interrupted by a cry from upstairs. Sam jumps up to head upstairs and quickly brings Tracy back with him. He cuddles her close on the couch until she settles down. “She’s a little fussy in the afternoons sometimes.”
“I’m not a fussy, Daddy. I’m a hungry,” Tracy says.
Bobby laughs and hands her the plate of sandwiches. She takes one in her small hands and looks at Bobby with big eyes. “Fank you.”
“You’re welcome, Tracy,” Bobby says with a smile that he knows probably looks pretty damn foolish. But hell, this girl is adorable. He’s already wrapped around her little finger and he’s only known her a few minutes.
“I haven’t been here since I was what, eighteen? Place looks exactly the same. You still hunting?” Sam asks.
“Yeah, sometimes when Rufus needs a backup. Mostly I work the phones, do research for people.”
“Daddy, wanna go outside,” Tracy said, squirming in Sam’s lap. She put the bread crusts on the sandwich plate and stood up.
“Okay, baby, let me get your jacket, we’ll go for a walk. I’ll show you where I used to hang out in the woods.”
“I’ll make us some dinner while you’re gone. Don’t be too long, it’s already pretty late,” Bobby says, grinning at the two of them leaving out the back kitchen door.
As he walks out of the back of the salvage yard along the familiar trail, Sam can’t help reminiscing about all the years he’d spent here out here as a teenager. Bobby had finished raising him through those tough and lonely teenage years. He’d ended up here because John and Sam hadn’t gotten along well after Dean was gone. Mostly because John would never tell Sam where his brother went or why.
Dean. It always came back to Dean, Sam thinks to himself for the thousandth time. Going away to California for college, as far away from hunting and the memories of his broken family as he could manage, hoping to somehow find an escape. He had tried to tell himself that Jess was his way out. She would never have to know any of it. But under it all was that giant chasm of missing his brother. The abruptness of their separation wasn’t something he’d ever been able to get over. All Sam knew was that it happened a few days after he’d finally gotten up the nerve to kiss his beautiful older brother. It has always seemed most likely to him that Dean had run away from his messed-up, perverted little brother. His own father had never bothered to forgive Sam, he was just a burden that hindered his obsessive hunting. So it had been far better for Sam to live at Bobby’s.
At least there are still the familiar woods, they haven’t changed. The path they are walking along is pretty well beaten-down. He wonders if Bobby walks out here now, because he never had before. He holds Tracy’s hand as she toddles along, stopping to look at the late-fall wildflowers growing in the forest scrub, picking up random rocks and handing them to him. His pockets are always weighed down after a walk with his daughter. He notices that it’s either later than he thought, or maybe he’s lost track of how long they’ve been walking. The forest gets thicker and darker until they come out into a clearing, where a giant full-moon is just above the trees throwing everything into sharp relief. Sam turns them around to go back the way they came and is shocked to see a gigantic wolf standing at the edge of the clearing.
It’s blocking the pathway back to Bobby’s. Has it been following them? Sam readies himself to fight to the death to protect his little girl as the wolf slowly pads towards them. It’s acting more like a trained dog and lowers itself down on its belly in front of them. Holding Tracy close, Sam extends one hand towards the wolf. He scents Sam’s hand and then gently licks at it. The wolf’s tongue is rough and before Sam knows it, Tracy is copying him and the wolf licks Tracy’s outstretched hand just as gently.
Sam feels like time had stopped and he isn’t aware of anything but this beautiful creature in front of them. It rubs its head against Sam’s knees several times, and then even allows Tracy to pet his head. It rumbles something that sounds appreciative of the contact. Tracy leans forward out of Sam’s hold and buries her little face in his deep ruff. The wolf opens its huge jaws and its long pink tongue slowly licks the side of her face. Tracy giggles and clenches her fists in the wolf’s beautiful fur. He pants and looks up at Sam with curiously familiar green eyes.
“Nice doggy,” Tracy says, patting at the wolf’s head.
“Yeah, Tracy, this is a nice doggy,” Sam says, “Wonder if Grandpa Bobby knows there’s a wolf out here in his woods?”
The wolf cocks its head and seems to grin. The teeth exposed are huge and sharp, glistening in the moon-light. Sam stands up abruptly, scared into remembering he is in front of an unpredictable predator. The wolf steps back a few times and looks at him with such a human expression of longing and sadness that Sam has this intense urge to try and comfort him somehow. Then he turns abruptly and runs off into the deeper part of the forest.
“Bye-bye doggy?” Tracy asked.
“Yeah, Tracy. We said good-bye to the doggy,” Sam says. He scoops her up into his arms and hurries back along the path, holding his daughter close, heart pounding faster now that he realizes the danger they’d both been in. But the wolf had been so mesmerizing, so gentle and tame. It had seemed to know them, which was the weirdest thing of all.
He bursts back into Bobby’s steamy kitchen that now smells like delicious homemade spaghetti and meatballs. “Bobby, you could have told us there was a gigantic wolf out there!”
“Oh you met Fridolf, huh? Sorry, should have warned you.”
“He seemed friendly enough, but what’s the story with him? Is he someone’s pet?”
Bobby laughs. “Naw, he’s nobody’s but his own.”
Almost a month goes by, Sam settles in and sets about recuperating, slowly finding his footing. Bobby and Tracy bond over cookies and art projects. Sam had no idea Bobby would be such a perfect grandfather. When he hears Tracy call him Grandpa Bob-bee, he finally feels a weight lift off of his heart. The mistake of not telling Bobby what was happening with Jess is something he didn’t think he could get over, but thanks to Tracy and Bobby, he’s almost there.
Sam and Tracy keep taking walks before dinner in the woods, almost every night. They see the wolf, Fridolf, a few more times, but it’s not a regular thing. He does always feel something watching them, and he hopes it’s just the wolf. One evening, Sam finds a little cabin in the woods that he’d never noticed before; it looks well-kept, and maybe lived in, which seems strange way out there.
Sam decides when he gets back to Bobby’s that he needs to ask him about it, just in case there’s some unhinged survivalist gun nut living out in the woods. “I found a weird little cabin out there, in your woods. Looks like someone’s living there,” Sam says.
“I had no idea. Guess Rumsfeld isn’t doin’ his job. Great job, ya big dummy!” Bobby yells at the enormous dog asleep under the kitchen table.
“Has Rumsfeld ever met the wolf before?” Sam asks.
“Nah, I didn’t think that was a good idea for either of ‘em,” Bobby says.
“Yeah, Fridolf is better behaved than Rumsfeld,” Sam says with a laugh. He notices that Bobby doesn’t laugh, his mouth is a tight line like he’s holding back from saying something.
Bobby putters off into the kitchen and starts banging the dishes around so Sam gets the message he doesn’t want to be asked anything more. But Bobby answering like that makes Sam suspicious that there’s something else, something big that Bobby is leaving out.
The next evening after dinner, Sam takes a walk through the salvage yard after Tracy goes down for the night. He’s just walking, not thinking about anything in particular, which is a really nice change. It’s good to feel safe and a little more settled, it’s been too long since his life has made any sort of sense. That’s of course when his eagle eye happens to spot Bobby and another man talking at the edge of the woods. The man is far away, but something about the way he’s standing reminds Sam of his brother. He knows he’s probably just seeing what he wants to, not what’s really there. So to be sure, he creeps a little closer, and that’s when it hits him. That really is Dean. His long-lost brother is right there, standing not twenty feet away.
Bobby turns and walks back through the yard and into the house. And Dean stands there, looking straight at the clump of trees Sam is standing behind. He sniffs deeply a few times and smiles so widely Sam can see his teeth clearly. Before he can say anything, announce his presence, make contact, whatever, Dean’s turned and has disappeared back into the forest.
So that’s what Bobby’s been hiding, that’s who’s probably living in that cabin. But why? Sam stands there, frozen in the trees, as he realizes that his brother has been living that close, but hasn’t ever come to see him. It makes it all a million times worse. It brings all that heartache back up to the surface for Sam in a sudden flood that overwhelms him and tears him apart. He’s right back there at fifteen feeling the pain of losing Dean so abruptly right after he’d put his heart on the line. It’s overwhelming and it all suddenly turns to anger, before he realizes what he’s doing, he finds himself storming out to the cabin to confront Dean.
Dean’s standing there, like he’s waiting, just outside the cabin, torchlight inside the open door wavering behind him.
Sam stops a few feet away. “Is it really you?”
Dean smiles widely and nods. “Yeah, Sammy.”
Sam lurches forward, falling into his brother’s arms. Dean holds him, hugging him so tightly like he’s trying to make up for all the years he’s missed.
“You asshole!” Sam yells, swatting at Dean’s back as he breaks apart from the hug that’s made him feel whole again for the first time in more than ten years. “Why?” Sam feels like that one word says all of it: Why did you leave me? Why did you stay away? Why are you here and hiding from me?
“I didn’t want to screw up your life, Sam. Not back then, and not now.”
“Dean, it’s been screwed up since you left when I was fifteen. The only good thing at this point is my daughter.”
“I’m sorry,” Dean says, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“For what? Leaving me back then?” Sam asks.
“I didn’t…I didn’t leave you. That wasn’t my choice. You gotta believe me, Sam. That was all dad.”
“Oh sure. It didn’t have anything to do with what happened the night of my birthday. The week before you left,” Sam says, full of sarcasm he can’t manage to hide.
“Sam, I swear, that was absolutely not part of it. There was a reason that had nothing to do with you, or anything between you and me.”
“Well obviously there wasn’t anything between us, Dean. Otherwise, how could you have just left me like that? Without a word or anything.”
“You’d have to ask Dad about that. He didn’t let me stick around long enough to talk to you.”
“Dad’s dead, Dean. So I can’t ask him. I’m asking you,” Sam says, crossing his arms to protect himself from the non-answer he knows is coming.
Dean looks up at the treetops, avoiding Sam’s eyes. “Yeah, I know that, Sam. Who do you think helped Bobby burn him?”
“So? Are you going to answer me, or am I supposed to just give you a pass for avoiding me for the last ten years?”
“I will. I just need to work up to it. I want to tell you everything, Sammy, I do. Can you give me like a week?” Dean asks.
“Fine, sure, whatever, Dean. I’m not gonna hold my breath,” Sam says, turning to walk back through the woods to Bobby’s.
“Wait, Sammy. Can you come out here tomorrow with Tracy? I’d like to meet her if that’s okay with you.”
“How do you know about her?” Sam asks, suspicious that Dean knows his daughter’s name.
“Bobby, he uh…he told me about her. He’s been bragging about her all the time lately like he’s a grandpa or something.”
“Well, he kind of is. Yeah, sure, I’ll bring her out here tomorrow after lunch before her nap.”
“Bye, Sam.”
“See you tomorrow,” Sam says, walking off through the scrubby forest, shaking his head at his stupid reaction to finally seeing his brother. Stupid heart still wanting what it can’t have. He should have learned better by now. No matter what it is that Dean’s going to tell him in a week, it’s not going to change the facts.
As soon as Sam disappears from view, Dean wants to bang his head into the nearest tree. Why did he promise to tell Sam everything? He can’t, he promised Dad. But Dad’s gone, and Sam seems to need this. Not that he needs Dean, just the reason for all of it.
Dean swallows down the sudden fear of being this honest with the brother he’s missed more than breathing for these ten long years. Sam might as well be a stranger, but the older brother in him hasn’t shut up since he’d first seen Tracy or for that matter, Sam. It’s something more than a pull towards family, it’s that feeling of mine that Dean hasn’t felt this strongly since he first held Sam as a baby.
The next afternoon Sam brings Tracy out to meet her uncle Dean. She goes over to him without protest, even eager which is strange. She and Dean seem to know each other already, as Dean holds her hoisted up high on his hip, Tracy’s hand never leaves the back of Dean’s neck and she keeps petting him and scratching behind his ears like he’s a dog or something. Sam tries to get her to stop but Dean puts him off, saying it’s okay. They seem to have one of those instantaneous, deep connections that is mysterious to the child’s parents. There’s just something about how they look at each other that moves Sam very deeply. He can’t remember ever seeing his brother this happy.
“She’s a great kid, Sammy. Really awesome…uh thanks, for letting her meet me,” Dean says. He sits down on the rustic wooden bench in front of the cabin, and scoots over enough so that Sam can sit too. Tracy is all over Dean, like she’s learning him with her hands and Dean looks like he wants to purr or wag a non-existent tail.
“Of course I’d let her meet you, Dean. I wish you’d been in her life since day one. She doesn’t have much family, you know?”
“I wish I’d been there, Sam. Especially when-Je…uh…her mother passed,” Dean says haltingly.
Sam can tell that Dean nearly said Jessica. “Bobby told you about Jessica too, huh? Do you know she burned on the ceiling, just like mom? Yeah, it would have been nice if you’d been there. I could have used you. I went a little crazy after that,” Sam admits.
“Anyone would have, Sammy. And believe me, if I could have been there for you, I would have,” Dean says.
“The more things like that you say, the less I think I want to hear this story you have to tell me,” Sam says.
“Well, if you don’t want to hear it, I ain’t tellin’ you,” Dean says, anger written all over his face. He almost looks like the hardened hunter he had been turning into when Sam last knew him.
“No, I’ll listen, I need to hear it. I just don’t know if it’ll be enough,” Sam says.
“Enough for what?” Dean asks.
“Enough of a reason to forgive you. And I want that, Dean. I want to be able to forgive you, so we can move past this, separation or whatever it was. So you can be in Tracy’s life…and uh…mine too,” Sam says.
Dean’s eyes sparkle when Sam says this. “I want that too, Sam.”
Before Sam can say anything else, Dean almost drops eye contact, but Sam can see his brother’s stubbornness makes him maintain that eye contact. The strength of the emotion in Dean’s eyes holds Sam there in front of him, holds him there so Dean can make sure Sam understands how much he means it.
Sam can feel his own eyes go all soft around the edges, and he smiles widely.
“Good,” Dean says, like it’s the best thing he’s heard in ages.
It’s almost Tracy’s nap time and she’s starting to get cranky, squirming and uncomfortable in Dean’s arms. Sam takes her from his brother and settles her on his hip. Dean hugs himself tightly as if he’s not sure what to do with his suddenly empty arms.
“I can walk back with you, maybe carry Tracy if you want?” Dean offers with a small, hopeful looking smile.
“No, but thanks. I think I need a little time alone with my thoughts after all this,” Sam says. “See you around, okay?” Sam hoists Tracy up a little higher on his hip and heads out the cabin door.
Dean gives him a little wave and steps back into his cabin, leaning against the doorframe to watch them walk away.
As he’s walking back to Bobby’s house, the weight of Tracy’s now sleeping body comforting and familiar, he feels a strange shiver of want pass through him at recalling how it felt to see Dean holding her. He wants that again, forever, all three of them together, like a real family. He shakes his head at himself, stupid heart wanting what it can’t have all over again.
Part 2