Chapter Text
NOVEMBER 2000
“So, what’s your name, stranger?” The bartender grins at the barely-legal-looking kid, wiping a glass dry. His ID tells her he’s twenty-two, but she isn’t entirely sure if she believes it. She doesn’t press the issue. “I’m Cynthia.”
“Dean,” he mumbles, his voice surprisingly deep and choked-off sounding, as though he’s about to cry or had been crying. He glares at her and tosses back his whiskey. “I’ll have another?” It comes out more question than statement and she has the inexplicable urge to take him home, much as one would to an abandoned puppy.
She doesn’t, though, and pours him another shot, slides it toward him. His fifth. She knows she should cut him off — he’s clearly drunk enough — but something painful and raw-edged in his eyes stop her and she allows him to drown his sorrows.
MAY 2005
He climbs the stairs cautiously, every sense alert and hyperaware of his surroundings. He finds purchase on the third floor landing. He keeps his gun extended before him, bracing his arm against his other. He casts the magalite beam about and never sees the chest of drawers slam into him, the force of impact, sending him flying through the window, shards of glass exploding around him.
He never feels the crash.
NOVEMBER 2000
His hands are clamped around her shoulders desperately, his lips ravishing hers. She wraps her arms around his neck, shoving down his flannel shirt as he fumbles at her jeans, their movements uncoordinated and rough. They somehow manage to untangle and divest themselves of layers while stumbling in the general vicinity of her bed. Together, they collapse on the covers and burn.
MAY 2005
“Dean,” Dad’s voice is all wrong — too gentle with soft whispers and a horrible begging quality to it — and Dean can barely feel the strong grip Dad’s got on his hand. He knows it has to be bruising but it feels insubstantial. “Don’t let go. Not yet.” Rain spatters on his face. He wants so badly to make it better, to tell Dad he’s not going anywhere. That he doesn’t have any plans to go anywhere. But he can’t seem to find his voice and he’s cold and so so so tired.
He forces his eyes open but his vision keeps blurring and his eyelids feel heavy.
There’s no pain and it feels kind of like he’s floating, detached, on the outside looking in. And there’s a sad-eyed girl with chin-length black hair. He opens his mouth to call out to her but nothing comes out. Then there’s the sound of wailing sirens but it sounds muffled and far away.
“It’s not your time yet,” the girl says and pain explodes around him. He screams once before he’s plunged into nothingness.
NOVEMBER 2000
She wakes up alone and naked, the sheets tangled around her legs. There is no sign of Dean and she somehow knows he’s long gone and she’s never going to see him again. Oddly, she isn’t as upset as she probably should be. She places her hand on her abdomen and reaches with the other for her cell phone. Her fingers brush against a piece of paper and she picks it up.
In blocky, careful, print is the name Dean Winchester Singer and beneath it is a number. She recognizes the area code as a South Dakota one.
She doesn’t call.
MAY 2005
He swims and swims and swims through the murky gray-brown-green, struggling to the surface. And every time he gets close, catching the sound of beeping or the smell of disinfectant, he spirals back under.
JULY 2001
She’s straddled on a gynecology chair, her legs spread wide, feet freezing in the stirrups, screaming at the unbearable, unimaginable pressure deep within her groin.
There’s a reprieve in which she’s allowed a few scant moments to breathe. A nurse crouches between her legs while another dabs at her forehead with a damp cloth.
Then there’s another contraction and, with it, the unrelenting, incredible urge to push.
JUNE 2005
Finally, finally, ages later, he comes around. There’s the sharp smell of antiseptic and the feel of scratchy sheets. He pries open his eyelids and there’s too much white, too much brightness. He blinks — agonizingly, excruciatingly slow — and nothing changes. His head is clearer than it’s been in a long time.
“Welcome back, sleeping beauty,” a gruff voice says to his left.
He rotates his head toward the sound and sees a familiar face underneath the trucker hat. He loses his footing and struggles to fit together all the clues, coming up with three or five every time he adds two and two.
“Wha’ppen’d?” his voice comes out muffled and slurred, as though it’s been packed in cotton along with his brain. “Wh’r…”
Luckily Trucker-Hat — Bobby his brain belatedly, helpfully, supplies — seems to get it and leans forwards in his seat, smoothing out the plastic tubing that tapers into a needle taped to the back of his hand. “You’re at Sioux Falls General,” he says softly. “Hospital,” he amends and Dean nods slightly, talking suddenly seeming like too much work. “It was touch-and-go there for a while. You busted up your leg pretty good…” another pause. “I’m sorry, son. Welcome to retirement.”
Dean swallows. “Dad…?”
Bobby’s gaze darkens. “Got a lead. Took off a week and a half ago. Haven’t heard from him since. Get some sleep. This is only your second day out of ICU.”
“H’w’ng?”
Bobby looks at him, confused.
“L’ng?” Dean manages.
“You were in ICU for going on near two weeks. Not sure how long you’ll be in here… might be a while.”
Dean nods and for some inexplicable reason he feels like crying. He stares up at the ceiling tiles, refusing to let the burning tears fall. When a rogue droplet slips free and rushes into his ear, he closes his eyes and turns his face away from the older man, burying it into the pillow. He feels more than hears a sob rip from somewhere deep in his chest, raw and aching.
“It’s gonna be okay, kid. I gotcha.”
JULY 2001
She’s in a hospital bed, clad in a fresh jonny, all pain forgotten. She is still slightly sore, her stomach still a bit puffy, but none of that matters. Her whole world tunneled down to the infant in her arms. She raises a finger and brushes the child’s bald temple, lowering it to caress the tiny clenched fist.
She doesn’t look up at the nurse with the forms. “Her name is Alexis. Alexis McGruen,” she says, finally answering the question. “And, no, there is no father.”