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Dean didn’t like the talking in his head thing he insisted it gave him a headache though his siblings knew it was just that he felt weird about it. Erin laughed at her big brother as she watched him play with little John out on the back patio. She was tempted to not saying anything aloud but he saw her out of the corner of his eye as she walked up.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey yourself,” he replied as he put the baby on his shoulder.
“You know you are good with the kids, though I’m not surprised Dad said you were always good with Sammy as a youngster,” Erin said as she had a seat near Dean on the back patio in the shade.
Dean only smiled as she sat down. He was still uncomfortable with comments about his parenting skills. He had done what needed to be done with his brother, he only loved him the best he knew how. When Sam was younger that translated in to caring for him when their father was gone and when Sam got older it meant putting Sam’s safety above his own if it was called for. He felt the same about his children; he could only do his best with them and love them by protecting and caring for them with all he had.
“So when are you and Sam heading out?”
Erin bit her lip, she had gotten used to hanging out with her new found family. She and Ari got a long well; she would miss her and Amber.
{Flashback-a few days before}
Sam and Dean had gone to the market with Chet to get supplies and left the ladies at home with the babies. Erin enjoyed playing with the kids and Ari watched from the comfort of the sofa.
“So have you ever thought about getting married to this guy you always talk about, Anthony?”Ari asked.
Erin grinned, “We have only been together for about six months…”
“Yeah Dean and I went a bit fast in our relationship,”Ari said with a chuckle.
“I am a believer that things happen for a reason,” Erin said with a smile.
“I’m sorry what were you saying?”
“Oh Anthony and I are doing great well until I cam here he has been bugging me to come back to Texas.”
Erin explained that he was a bit possessive but not usually in a negative way, he just liked her to be available for him. He traveled a lot as an international executive for a computer company. Ari was impressed, she felt at least on of the Winchester siblings was on the fast track. Though she assumed the way that Erin had been raised put her in the position to have all the things her brothers did not. No one was to blame except maybe their father and the demon that took their mother. She sighed, how different would Dean have been if he had a normal home life as a child? She couldn’t imagine him being any other way then the way he was. The truth was that she loved him that way. Maybe Erin was right, things happened for a reason.
“Well absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?”
They both laughed.
“I believe it does,” Erin said as they heard the boys come in the back door.
{End Flashback}
Erin and Sam had decided to go with Chet on a hunt down South not far from her home. She was going to check in on her boyfriend and make sure she still had her job. The last two weeks had been a well deserved vacation but the coming little jaunt was being done with her boss thinking she was working from home for a while. It was a trip she dearly needed so she could spend time with Sam, though it would have been better if Dean were free to go with them. Dean’s life was more complicated then Erin had expected it to be and by the wild look in Dean’s eyes at times more than he had bargained for.
“We’re leaving tomorrow morning for Texas,” she said as she reached for her nephew.
Dean surrendered the little one to his sister. He watched as she cuddled the baby to her chest. Dean still felt guilty he had forgotten about her over the years. He was the eldest he should have remembered her, he should have been able to rescue her somehow. Erin smiled up over at him.
“It’s not your fault, it was best,” she said to him.
Dean frowned.
“Don’t do that,” he said to her with a look that clearly implied that he didn’t like her in his head.
Even though she hadn’t meant to intrude on his thoughts. She had explained to him it wasn’t something she did all the time; it was his concerned expression on his face that had tempted her to say something. She could only imagine how it felt to be Dean Winchester. She didn’t want to be someone he avoided, she wanted to be close to her brothers but she had found that Dean was more closed to the idea than Sam. Sam had embraced their strange connection while Dean had begrudgingly accepted his fate.
“Give me some time okay,” he said with a more tender look at his only sister.
She nodded as she handed the sleepy baby back to him.
Neither of them noticed Sam and Amber until the door slammed behind them. Sam had Braeden in his arms while Amber dragged the diaper bag behind her with a grin.
“Mommy is sleeping,” the little girl said to them.
“Okay,” Dean said with a smile as she let go of the bag to come into his lap.
Sam sat down to play with Braeden in his lap. The babies both gurgled as they vied for the most attention. Dean laughed. After a minute, Amber dragged Dean out into the yard to play with Sammy Doo while the siblings looked on with smiles.
A little more than an hour later, Sam’s cell rang just as Ari stepped into the outside patio. Ari smiled at Erin as she looked up from the baby she held. Little John wriggled in her arms as she put him on her shoulder.
“Were they good for you?” Ari asked as she sat down beside her sister in law. Erin nodded, “They are little sweethearts,” she said with a returning smile.
“So it’s not just me that thinks so,” Ari laughed, as she tickled John’s little chin while he smiled up at her.
Sam got up to take the call out in the yard. He smiled as Sammy Doo barked around his feet, which led him to have to leave the area.
“Hey,” Sam said into the phone as he walked away from the puppy.
“Sam we have a problem,” Alec said.
“Um hold on,” Sam replied as he walked out the gate to go to the side of the house near the barn and driveway.
“What’s going on?” he asked his cousin who’s voice sounded upset or maybe a bit frustrated he wasn’t certain which.
“It’s my dad, Sam he’s missing.”
“What?”
Alec explained that he had awakened a few hours before to find his father gone though all of his father’s things were still in the cabin.
“That’s not good, okay um, anything strange happen since you been on vacation? Anything you know, supernatural?”
“Not that I recall, we’ve been hunting, camping out, um going into town from time to time to eat…”
Sam asked if they had met anyone suspicious or had any unusual encounters with other hunters. Alec responded with another negative.
“Okay is your father prone to wander off? I mean does he ever go off alone?”
“No, he is perfectly sane,” Alec replied a bit irritable now.
“Okay, Erin and I can change our destination, we were going to Texas tomorrow for a hunt but we will come there instead. Stay calm, let me get your exact location,” Sam said calmly as he walked around to the truck to grab a pencil and paper from the inside.
“I’m sorry,” Alec apologized.
“Don’t worry, just keep thinking of what could have happened. Call me back if you get any ideas. We will see what we can find out from this end.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Alec said as his eyes turned to a greasy black that they had been flickering the entire time he spoke on the phone.
Alec tried to take control of his body but he was no match for the demon
Sam hung up and went to tell his brother what was going on with their relatives.
“Your kidding?” Dean said s he walked with Sam back to sit down. At the sound of his father’s voice Braeden began to cry as he lay in his portable crib. Ari smiled as she picked up the baby before Dean sat down beside her.
“Hey I thought you were resting.”
Braeden gurgled as he tried to join in the conversation.
“I was but I am feeling refreshed after my nap, you know it don’t it doesn’t take much for me,” Ari said as she smiled at Dean while she moved the baby to her shoulder. Dean leaned up to kiss her soft lips gently as he traced her jaw line with his fingers; he smirked when he was done while Ari raised her eyebrow at him.
“Good, I would have hated for you to miss all the fun on this beautiful day.”
Amber grinned as she watched her parents from her vantage point near Dean’s knee. They spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine and one another’s company despite the upcoming trip.
****
“Another Winchester,” the demon possessed Alec said to Ben who was tied up in the corner. Ben only glared at his son. How could the thing have known where to find them? He thought back over their vacation and could only assume it had something to do with their stay at The Hunters Stop, though it made no sense. They had spoken to Sam then used the computer to make more camping reservations. Then they had gone to bed after they decided to wait until the trip back to see Dean, besides that was almost three weeks before.
“Are you listening?”
Ben nodded though he had no idea what Alec had said since he was lost in his own thoughts. He figured maybe he should focus so that when Sam and Erin arrived he could be of help to them.
“Getting your nephew to do our bidding means getting rid of his family, you do know that?”
So they don’t know about Erin and her connection with her siblings, that’s good. I guess John was right when he told him there was a way to get the demon if all else failed, Ben thought.
“What?” Ben said to cover his silence.
“Yeah, he will be easier to control once he is alone in the world. The more family that pops up in his life the more of you we have to get rid of,” he said with an evil laugh.
Sam had explained what happened to John and Ben decided then and there no more deals for their family they would handle their problems together from now on. Ben glared at the thing, there was no way he was going to let any more of his family die, needlessly.
{Flashback – Eighteen years before}
Ben had gone on his second and last hunting trip with John when the boys were younger and lived in Kansas with Missouri to attend school for a while. That had been a time period where John felt the boys needed to at least learn the basics of reading and writing from the professionals. Ben had always thought his brother was past intense but he knew the ghost hunting business like no one else, Ben had admired him more than he ever let on. On this trip they had gone to Galveston, TX to investigate a haunted hotel that John had heard about. They checked in to the very hotel and next door to the room where the hauntings had taken place over the last ten years. Once their room was salted, they stole the maid’s key and salted the surrounding rooms, which were lucky for them, empty.
The room in question did have a guest and Ben was as concerned as John that someone would get hurt. The strangest part of the case was that the occupant was a reporter who chose the room so he could write about the ghost.
“Amateurs,” John had complained as they ate their dinner at the restaurant the first night.
“I agree, ignorance can be the better part of valor,” Ben said.
“I knew their was a reason I chose you as the sibling to tell my secret,” John said with a dimpled grin.
It was the closest they had ever come to being really close.
“Well this is one way to get to stay at a fancy hotel,” John said on their way back to their room. Ben laughed as he inhaled the sweet aroma of burning wood in some of the fireplaces several of the rooms boasted. Real wood burning ones only on the second floor of the two story hotel. They gathered their supplies once they were back in their room after dinner. John went up through the vent to the other room while Ben made ready to go knock on the door next to theirs. Ben gave John fifteen minutes to get in position in the room before he went to do his part.
John had just settled into the closet when he heard a tap on the door as Ben knocked.
“How can I help you?” the young man asked as he opened the door though he didn’t recognize the person he saw through the peephole.
Ben recognized the greasy black eyes of the demon as he looked at the young man but did not let on. Ben caught the man off guard as he pushed the door all the way open and knocked the man off his feet as he closed the door behind him.
“Now,” Ben yelled as a directional for John to jump out of the closet and shoot off the rock salt gun.
Four shots were fired from gun before the black puff of smoke swirled out the man’s body and right into the burning fire place. The young man was dazed as he lay prone on the floor.
“Where am I?” he asked as he looked at Ben and John as they stood over him.
It took a bit of explaining to the management to answer the questions regarding the gunshots but the reporter in his thankfulness went along with the Winchesters and promised to stay away from supernatural activity if at all possible before they left him.
{End Flashback}
Ben laughed to himself as he remembered.
“No funny stuff, if you want to eat,” Alec said as he dragged his father off the floor to his feet.
“Alec can you hear me, son, say something,” Ben pleaded.
All he got for his efforts was a punch in the face as a reply.
“No funny stuff,” Alec repeated with a gravelly voice as he helped Ben off the floor again.
Ben didn’t flinch, he was a true Winchester, not only did they stick together but they were all stubborn as hell. The demons would soon get a reminder of that first hand.
That night Sam, Dean, Erin and Chet spoke in the study while Ari and Amber slept or in Ari’s case waited.
“No all of you go, I’ll take care of everything here,” Dean insisted.
Sam frowned, Erin thought, we should leave Chet.
Dean shook his head, “No.”
Erin rolled her eyes, a classic Sam move, maybe stubborn is Dean’s gift.
Dean laughed as Sam looked from one of them to the other. Sam noticed that the gift of talking in their heads was dependent upon who Erin spoke to or thought about. In the present case he was out of the loop, this was all Dean and Erin’s battle of wills. Dean’s resistance was common knowledge among them but Sam believed when the time came for them to face off with the thing that killed their mother they would be in one accord.
Suddenly, Sam grabbed his head as a vision flowed through his mind.
He saw a cabin not far from a gravel road and inside he could see his uncle with his back to the window as he sat down at a table. At the stove was his cousin Alec. That was all that was in the vision. When Sam opened his eyes, he found he was on the floor and Dean was leaned over him. Erin looked at him worriedly. Sam could feel her fear for him, it was almost tangible.
“Sammy, are you okay?” Dean asked his voice bringing Sam thoughts back to encompasses everyone in the room.
“Um, yeah, I’m fine,” he said as he didn’t want to bring up the vision with Chet around.
The trusted the man but the fewer people that knew of their gifts the better. Dean realized something was wrong so he asked the older man to go get Sam some water.
“What did you see?”
Sam wet his lips, before he told them about the brief vision.
“Oh, that might mean that this disappearance thing is a trap.”
Sam nodded, that was his thought too, if Alec and Ben were together than why had Alec called?
“Well now we know what the situation really is,” Erin said.
“But what and how is a big question, but the biggest is why,” Sam said as he got up slowly before sat on the sofa where he received the water from Chet.
“Thanks.”
Chet sensed that they siblings wanted to be alone so he excused himself to go to bed so he could be up early to leave with the rest.
“What do you know about that guy?” Erin asked.
They explained about Chet’s past and assured Erin they had checked him out also. He was one of them in most respects though they still tried to be careful about what they said around the boarders including him.
“Well since my visions generally have some to do with the demon we have to assume that is what has happened here. But now that we know we can be prepared,” Sam said with a bit of Dean’s fire in his eyes.
Erin smiled at her little brother, she knew he had it in him.
TBC